Miguel tried ignoring the shrill beeps when they first pierced his ears, wakening him from his deep sleep. Just Hawk's bathroom alarm, his groggy brain recalled through his fatigue. He'd been woken up by it a few times during their trip, usually before Hawk could reach over and turn it off, but it never lasted for very long.

Until now.

When the alarm continued to blare uninterrupted, Miguel turned over with a whine, reaching out with his hand to shake his bedmate awake. "Hawk, your alarm…."

He stopped when his hand touched the bedding beside him to find it empty. Opening his eyes to darkness, he first squinted at the vacant bed, then to the bathroom to see that the light was off.

"Hawk?" Miguel sat up and reached over to grab Eli's cell off the nightstand to turn off the alarm. It was still plugged in where it had been the previous evening, not having shifted from its spot.

Hawk still wasn't back yet?

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, as well as the brightness when he looked down at Hawk's phone to see it was past 3 AM, Miguel furrowed his brows, wracking his brain to remember when he had even fallen back into his depression-induced asleep. Seven or eight, maybe? Surely Eli couldn't have still been sour from being snapped at earlier, could he? Miguel had only wanted some space for a few hours. Hawk couldn't have imagined he meant for him to stay out the whole night.

Shifting to sit at the edge of the bed, setting his feet down on the cold floor, Miguel shivered when he saw Hawk's bag in its normal place. Well, that meant his friend hadn't just decided to blow him off and go home without him. Of course he wouldn't have. Would he have run away, though? Hadn't that low-key been a reason Hawk came all the way down here? No, he wouldn't have run away without his backpack and phone. Would he?

The chill crept from Miguel's feet, all the way up his spine, wakening him fully. What if Hawk had gotten lost without his phone? Or worse…?

Miguel sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. No. He was being stupid. He just needed to be patient.

Attempts to distract himself while he waited for Hawk to return didn't last longer than an hour before Miguel began pacing back and forth in his room, running his fingers through his hair over and over. He tried forcing himself to calm down. Hawk wasn't missing. He hadn't even been gone for twenty-four hours. For all he knew, Hawk was out at some club partying. Or he'd gone for another really long walk.

The fact of the matter was, Miguel had no clue where his friend currently was at the moment. And how was he supposed to find Hawk without being able to reach him on his phone? He could've been anywhere in Tecolutla, or shit, anywhere in all Veracruz at this point.

Miguel's shoulders were rising and falling from his rapid breathing at the thought of that.

"Don't panic," he whispered to himself. Hawk could walk back into the room at any minute. But what was he supposed to do in the meantime except stare down at his phone and watch each individual minute tick by?

His heart thundered in his ribcage. The blood pumping in his ears was masked only by how shaky his breaths were coming out now. And his palms wouldn't stop sweating, no matter how often he wiped them off on his shorts.

Don't panic. Don't panic.

The training Miguel had received from Sensei Lawrence had him itching to get out there and do something. But now wasn't the time to act, was it? It was still pitch black outside, there was nothing he could do until the sun rose up. Until then, perhaps he needed to take a page out of Mr. LaRusso's book instead.

Sitting down cross-legged on Hawk's bed, Miguel rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes. He took deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. In and out, over and over, thinking calm thoughts to settle his anxious mind.

Things were going to be fine. It hadn't been a full day since they'd separated. And if Hawk could track him down all the way to Mexico, even when he'd been blocked like everyone else on his phone, there was no reason Miguel couldn't find him here. What, was he going to let Hawk upstage him?

The longer he continued his breathing exercises, the more things didn't seem quite as overwhelming as they were before. After all, Tecolutla was a far, far cry from the metropolis of Mexico City. He could find Hawk in a small town of only twenty-four thousand people, no problem at all. It didn't sound so bad when he thought of it that way.

Alright. He'd done enough waiting-and-seeing. Hawk hadn't returned. Now it was time to be like an Eagle and make the first move. Miguel needed to go out and find him.

So as soon as the sun peaked over the horizon, Miguel ventured off, leaving Hawk's phone behind with a message to text him in case Eli returned to the room.

First, he checked with the hosteler to see whether or not she had seen Eli come in that night. She had not.

Next, Miguel hit the places up the blocks near the hostel, any place they had visited before - the tamale truck, a couple of local cafes - asking the owners if they had seen Hawk. Miguel imagined it would've been much easier if Eli still had his mohawk, his friend would've stood out much more conspicuous in a crowd and it would've made it simpler to try and jog people's memories with than, "He's white, has a crew cut, and a scar on his upper lip."

But nobody around the immediate area had anything to say, and Miguel spotted no trace of him anywhere close by. A quick check of his phone revealed no text from him, either, so Miguel decided it was time to set out farther.

He tried the beach after that. Neither the food vendors nor the lifeguards knew who he was talking about nor had they seen anyone matching his descriptions: there were a few white guys roaming the beach, even some with crew cuts, but none with a giant bird tattooed on his back.

Miguel walked the coastline, ignoring the rumbling in his stomach that announced it had been over a day since he'd last eaten anything. Each footstep into the shallow surf had his insides twisting more and more as he began to lose that focus and peace of mind his meditation had granted him, especially once he reached the rocky end of the shore and had to turn back and retrace his steps.

Anything could have happened to Hawk out on his own. Maybe he went for a swim and drowned. Maybe he'd done something crazy and gotten arrested. Maybe he'd been mugged and was bleeding out somewhere.

Miguel groaned, slapping his forehead in frustration. No, the last one was ridiculous. Hawk knew karate, he knew how to defend himself. Chances were higher that he'd either been eaten by a shark or was sitting in a jail cell at the local police station.

While he kept walking, kept searching, a small voice in Miguel's head reminded him that all the agitation and anxiety coursing through his body, flaying his nerves, making him want to punch the ocean in exasperation when he couldn't find Hawk anywhere on the long stretch of beach, none of it held a candle to what his mother must have been feeling now for weeks.

With that heavy thought weighing down on him, Miguel kept searching until well past noon, until he made a complete round of all the places he and Hawk had visited at least once since they'd arrived. But still, his attempts were futile.

Hawk was lost.

Miguel's insides lurched so hard he had to take a couple deep gulps of air to swallow his queasiness. He was going to have to call the cops and report a missing person, wasn't he? How was he going to tell everyone back home? Was that the first thing he was going to have to tell his mother after weeks of radio silence? And how in the world was he going to explain this to the Moskowitzes?

Those were the questions he couldn't escape all the way back to the hostel. After a quick check inside his room to verify Hawk hadn't returned in his absence, Miguel went to the lobby to ask the hosteler about him again.

"You're sure you haven't seen Hawk at all?" asked Miguel in Spanish, gripping the edge of the tabletop so hard it tensed all the muscles in his body.

The elderly woman shook her head. "Not since you asked this morning. People have been coming and going all day, but I haven't seen your friend."

"Okay," mumbled Miguel. "Thank you."

He would just have to go back out later and try again after he finally got some food in him, this time with a clearer head. He'd hit the areas he and Hawk hadn't been to yet. And if he couldn't find him, if Hawk didn't show up by that night….

"Yo, you're looking for Hawk?"

Eyes widening, Miguel whipped abruptly around to see the man standing behind him in line. The two other guys he'd been speaking to stood close by, all carrying backpacks, all looking to be in their mid-twenties.

"You're Miguel, right?" asked the man when Miguel merely blinked at him blankly for a second.

Furrowing his brows, Miguel nodded. "Uh, yeah." His eyes drifted down to the man's bare arms, the right one of which had an ornate depiction of Santa Muerte inked on it. And like a lightbulb going off in his head, Miguel remembered the day Hawk had bought some weed off their neighbors. This must've been Jorge. "You've seen Hawk?"

"Sure, he partied with us last night," answered Jorge.

"Partied?" The crease between Miguel's brows deepened in confusion, but he nevertheless found himself letting out a sigh of relief as his insides started to uncoil at this bit of news. The best news he'd had all day.

Jorge motioned to his friends. "Yeah, we were having one last celebration before we head home to Guanajuato today. We were down at Teco's, Hawk ran into Eduardo and Rafael at the bar when they were grabbing the drinks."

"He offered to pay for the first round if he could join us for a while," added Eduardo. "Said his friend Miguel wasn't feeling too good and he wanted some company. Heh, with him paying, I wasn't gonna turn that offer down."

Jorge laughed. "Yeah, he was fun, so we kept him around. You guys must have some wild parties at university, considering the way he can pour back the Corona."

"Hey, Miguel," interjected Rafael, "your friend's Spanish is a little rough, and my English comprehension might not have been that much better when I asked him to explain it that way, so I gotta ask: is it true you guys were involved in some sort of karate gang war back in the States?"

Assessing Hawk must have lied about their ages to cover his underage drinking but that he also must've spilled some truth about some of the stuff back home, Miguel could only mutter back, "Uh, yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Holy shit!" exclaimed Rafael with a laugh of disbelief. "I thought he was just drinking his sorrows and making shit up to cover for troubles with a chick or something, but you mean Hawk really did break some guy's arm?"

Eduardo whistled low, elbowing Rafael. "Man, I told you, fuckin' shit's crazy in America."

Jorge nodded back at Miguel. "Anyway, we all came back here pretty late last night. We passed around a blunt for a bit and crashed after that. Hawk was out of it by that point, so we just let him bunk with us. If you're looking for him, he might still be passed out in our room."

That was all Miguel needed to hear. Hawk was here. He'd been here the whole time.

Miguel took off down the hallway, calling out behind him, "Thanks a lot, guys!"

He rushed past their room to the one next to it and flung open the door. And there was Hawk, not lying asleep, but instead simply sitting on the edge of one of the beds, his jacket thrown over one of the bedposts. And his eyes darted up to Miguel when he entered the room, looking like he'd been startled out of deep thought.

Miguel swallowed hard, staring down at him. "Hey."

Hawk gave a small nod back. "Hey."

Letting out a shaky breath, which he wished he could blame on the way he'd darted down there, Miguel said, "Listen, about what I said—"

"Don't worry about it," said Eli, cutting him off, glancing down at where his fingers were fidgeting on his lap.

"No," Miguel insisted. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, for making things so…."

So weird between them.

Things between them had been changing and had gotten awkward the past few days, despite the fact awkwardness and change were what Miguel had wanted to avoid altogether. But no matter what happened between them going forward, whatever this shaped into, Hawk was still his best friend.

Sitting down tentatively beside him, encouraged when Hawk didn't shift away, Miguel wondered how he could even begin to explain how he'd been feeling all day, going around everywhere trying to track Eli down. Could Hawk even begin to comprehend how worried he was, how much it tore him up not knowing where to find him?

One look in his eyes and Miguel knew that of course he could. Because Hawk had tracked him all the way here first.

Miguel reached his hand behind Hawk, resting it between his shoulder blades; he could feel the muscles there relax under his touch. When Eli gave him a little smile, signaling things between them were cool, Miguel's hand traveled slowly up to gently cup the back of his neck.

Hawk gasped as Miguel pulled him close, enveloping his other arm around him to squeeze him in a deep hug. And when Miguel buried his face against Hawk's collarbone, he felt his friend melt into his embrace and hug him back.