Ares had not made the journey nearly as quickly as he thought he would. Having a very young baby in the car was a huge distraction, even though he did sleep a lot, and Nikkos gave the child his undivided attention. Eat, sleep, shit, eat, sleep, shit- it chopped up the journey into bite-sized pieces that had Ares grinding his teeth by the end of the first day. And then, running on so little sleep in his dogged pursuit on the previous night, and the baby waking every hour or two-
Melpomene wants the infant in one piece, he told himself as he stood outside the motel room door at 3am and tried not to hear the screams, or he would going to be tossing that baby like a football into the next field. Sparta looked up at him with a rare whine, as if agreeing with his master's sentiments.
But, dawn follows night like clockwork, and Ares was on the road again, anxious to stop having to endure fatherhood. Driving all the way to New York like this would have him going spare.
He let out a grunt of relief when he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel Melpomene had booked, and he got out, his back crunching as he stretched. "Alright, time to get back to your mama," he said, opening the back door. Telos looked up at him, awake and watchful, and Ares unbuckled him carefully, as Nikkos watched, his tail thumping against the seat. Cradling the back of the baby's head with one meaty hand, Ares decided to come back for the baby shit, and whistled to the dogs to follow.