Chapter Text
Quentin laid back on his bed, staring at the splotchy adhesive that remained after his attempts to remove the glow-in-the-dark stars he had put up as a kid. Sparing a glance at Kris, he saw her sitting at his desk, spinning the chair to and from every so often. She looked content enough with what she was doing, so he returned his gaze and continued to stare up.
This was only one of many, many late-night hangs that Kris and Quentin had. Kris was one of the few people Quentin truly felt comfortable around, alongside Jesse. They were safety to him, some pillars of stability even as his life continued to constantly change. That’s why he went out of his way to spend time with them, even if it didn’t always work out for their busy schedules. Tonight was a rare night that Kris wasn’t studying and Quentin didn’t have swim practice, so they both took advantage of it.
“You know,” said Kris pensively, breaking the mellowing silence that had blanketed the room, “I used to think it might be, uhm, better to die when you're still young. Just to… to get out before you have a chance to really screw it up.”
“Yeah?” Quentin ceased his internal reflections to listen to Kris’s.
A sudden shift in conversation wasn’t unusual–they’d had their fair share of random philosophical quandaries that kept them up until they talked it out with the other–but Quentin was still a bit surprised by this particular one. The future, in all its dreadful glory, wasn’t a topic he and Kris discussed very often. It was uncomfortable to face head-on, especially with how it crept ever closer as the days went by. Quentin couldn’t lie–he wasn’t sure what he wanted from his future. There were ideas and guidelines, sure, but life was so fickle. All his plans could change in a heartbeat, and there could be nothing he could do about it.
His slight pause seemed to go unnoticed by Kris, who started drumming her fingers along the cluttered desk, putting soft, rhythmic taps into the silent space.
“Yeah. But now… It feels different now,” she continued, drumming her fingers on the desk, “I wanna have a long life. Accomplish shit. Make a difference for people.”
“Where’d all this come from?”
Kris laughed with a gentleness Quentin had never known anyone else to possess. “Dunno. Just thinking.”
“Well, save some deep thoughts for th’rest of us, Socrates,” he lightly retorted. His voice softened as he followed up, “But I get it. It’s like things are starting to matter now, y’know? Like we actually have an impact on the world.”
Quentin looked over to Kris, gauging her reaction. Staring forward, almost as if she was lost in thought, Kris nodded. “Yeah,” she almost whispered, a sort of hazy quality to her voice. “We do, don’t we?”
“...Are y’worried?”
The drumming ceased as Kris leaned back in the chair. Of course she was worried, and Quentin knew that, but he also knew better than to push her to talk about things. She was stubborn, that was for sure. Not that he could say much with his history, but that meant he could identify it all the better.
“Sure,” she righted herself before turning to Quentin. “Isn’t everyone?”
Quentin didn’t quite think he was a good reference for if “everyone” felt something, but Kris knew that just as well as he.
It felt nice, to be known. Plenty of people knew him, sure, but not the way Kris knew him. Not even Jesse, who knew more about Quentin than he had any right knowing. Something about Kris had always just been different, and he was fairly sure she felt the same way about him. She was like a sister to him, even though he supposed he didn’t know what having a sister or sibling in general really felt like.
“Pro’lly, yeah,” he conceded, but faced towards her and gave an amused look. “Not s’much as you, though. Most teenagers haven’t been preppin’ for law school since they were eleven. Dunno how y'haven't felt ready to kick ass for another sixty years with how much ya' have been doin' to get ready for it.”
Kris laughed again, for real this time. With presence. “You have a point, Quen.”
“Don’t I always?”
She rolled her eyes at that, but her unsuccessful attempt at stifling a smile gave her away. “Yeah,” she replied, the sarcasm in her tone barely covering the truth behind it.
A few moments passed.
“We’re gonna make a difference, y’know that?”
Kris smiled then, making no attempt to hide it. “Yeah. We are.”