Don't Leave Me Here (boyxboy)

Chapter 8 Part 2

"dad?" Ellie asked, snapping Samuel out of his trance.

"Come on Ellie, let's go home" Samuel led himself and his daughter back to their car.

He had buckled her in without a word. The initial shock didn't fully pass until he sat down in the driver seat. There were no other daycares around. The nearest one was a 20 minute drive. If Samuel couldn't manage with the one only a few minutes away then there's no way he could send Ellie that far off. They had no family in the area that could watch Ellie and he already stressed enough about getting her a babysitter for just the afternoon.

"Are we going home?" Ellie asked after Samuel sat still in the car for multiple minutes.

"Of course. I'm sorry" Samuel finally pulled out of the parking lot, not leaving his thoughts the whole way home.

When they finally got back to the house Ellie rushed back to her room, presumably to play with her toys. Samuel pondered what he was going to do about Ellie now that she had no daycare.

He made his way to the living room and almost fell to the floor upon seeing Matias on his couch. He was so stressed he had forgotten Matias was even there.

The sight of Matias sitting on the edge of his couch, asleep, calmed Samuels nerves. He forgot about everything else for a moment and was absorbed into the sight before him.

Matias was still sitting upright rather than laying down. His knees were pulled up to his chest and he had one arm lazily wrapped around them. His other arm leaned onto the armrest of the couch and came up to support his head.

Samuel reached out to brush a bit of hair out or Matias's face. His hair was messy and beginning to grow greasy after the last few days allowed little time to take care of it. But Samuel still found himself lingering with his hand on Matias's hair.

He soon realized what he was doing and pulled back his hand. He walked over and gently sat on the other end of the couch, grabbing the tv remote on the way. He switched on the news, making sure he kept the volume low so he wouldn't awake the sleeping man beside him.

The screen displayed a news reporter standing in the middle of the police station with a police officer by his side. Samuel tensed in fear. Had something happened while he wasn't there? Did he let people get hurt?

His thoughts here pushed away as he listened to them talk

"Regarding the recent disappearance of the hero, our local police station says they received an odd message from him the day before he stopped showing up"

Samuel mentally face palmed. Usually he would make multiple public appearances as 'the hero' multiple times a day, but it had now been more than a day since anyone had seen him.

The police officer finally began talking.

"Yesterday morning we received a call from a public phone claiming to be the hero. The voice sounds the same but we are still concerned"

Samuel scoffed

"The call stated that something urgent had come up and he wouldn't be able to come in that day. He never said how long he would be gone, but said it could be at least a week. He explained that if anything urgent happened he would do his best to help out, but would not be taking regular calls"

He cringed as they twisted his words just a bit. The screen cut to a news reporter in the news building with a bigger than necessary microphone.

"There have been no sightings of the hero since almost two days ago and people are starting to grow worried. People have noticed than we have also not seen the villain since around the same time. Is the hero in danger? Are we in danger?"