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There are many things that Amir, like your usual human being, does not understand. For example, why does everyone insist on everything being doom and gloom when life, despite all the setbacks, is still just as beautiful.
Yeah, sure, there’s Scaldra on their asses and Techrot under their noses, blah blah blah. But they have their small fort, hidden away from the world, and it feels almost intimate now that there are just six of them against the world.
And yeah, they have their tensions. Sort of. There’s Lettie trying to bite off Eleanor’s head sometimes, there’s Arthur and Eleanor having the sibling bickering thing (Amir is not sure how much of that is normal, which is kind of worrying).
Aoi is nice to him, though. Sometimes they patrol together, or she joins him when it’s his watch because she knows just how hard it is to sit still—
(stop squirming and sit still, Beckett)
(are you even listening to what I’m saying!)
(repeat what I just-)
—anyway, Aoi is sweet, and Eleanor too, he supposes, although to call her that would be pretty much a stretch in every possible direction, sort of how flying squirrels do when they’re trying to do their flying thing.
Aaaand then there’s Quincy looking like he’s going to chop them all into pieces if he has to endure even one more day with all of them.
Sometimes he’s somewhat cordial with Lettie, so it means they both still probably have a heart, which is nice.
With him and Arthur the situation is… oh-ho, no, he would not want to get in the middle of that because when it comes to them, you can pretty much cut the tension with… a blade, probably, which would be a very funny joke on the doctor’s part if Arthur wasn’t so sour about it.
He’s wary of Eleanor and seems mostly content to let Aoi just coexist with her music.
(Very cool music, by the way, they listen to it together sometimes, and there’s this song that makes her eyes gleam in this very sad way, but they don’t talk about that either, because Aoi doesn’t want to talk and Amir doesn’t want to torture her even more.)
Amir himself, though, oh it’s completely another thing because Quincy watches him like a panther trying to determine if he should jump now or a couple of seconds later, but never does. He’s very aware of it sometimes, and then not at all, and even if it keeps happening, Amir sort of has no idea. Which is okay, he supposes, because Quincy doesn’t bring any of it up either.
They visit each other from time to time to coexist in one space, which feels… not bad, actually. Quincy’s shooting is rhythmical, soothing if you close your eyes and put on your headphones — or if you want to close your eyes and get lost in the music of life, or something along the lines.
Sometimes he visits him on his breaks, which Amir sometimes becomes aware of only because the gaze stops boring into his back when Quincy leaves.
Sometimes Amir wonders why, in fact, is Quincy watching. Probably not because the games are interesting to him, which is entirely his loss because they are and should be! Yeah.
Sometimes he forgets in a few seconds, because something else opens up before him, bright and wonderful, taking all of his attention away like the rat-catcher of Hamelin.
Hah. A rat-catcher would be immediately caught and displayed in the main hall by Lettie, though, and Quincy is still here.
Quincy is always there when Amir needs it most.
It’s oddly comforting, about as much as it is unnerving. Especially when he looks at him in this strange way sometimes. Like he himself doesn’t understand if he wants to strangle him on the spot, or… or something else entirely? Which is, yeah, definitely not something that can actually be happening at any point in the past-present-or-future, he’s just—
(don’t look at me like that, Amir, it’s gross and I’ll tell the teacher)
—lonely, he supposes, would be the word? It’s still okay, because he has all the company he needs, colorful and vivid, and predictable which is oddly comforting too.
(loser!)
Sometimes his mind wanders into these strange dusty and cobweb-y corners in which Quincy would be warm and solid and occupying pretty much all the space around him, but they are nothing more than about half-lucid thoughts on the very thin edge between sleep and wakefulness, which is okay too.
He’s used to stuff like this happening to him.
He’s just not used to the green eyes boring into him from behind the scope.
He’s just not used to the bullets hitting the very Techrot that would for sure have gotten him bad.
He’s just not used to it being Quincy.
One day he’ll ask. Maybe. Perhaps. If a day comes when he stops valuing his life altogether.
Not yet, though.
For now, one more round.