Work Text:
Something about the way Cal works fascinates Nikko. The way his entire focus can be on the computer screen, but not. He talks, he mutters, he answers the random questions Nikko drops his way, but his eyes never leave that monitor. It's scary in a way. All that attention, all that focus, and he still has the spare brain cells to carry on a conversation.
Sure, he'd be easy to trip up now. Nikko's pretty certain that if he really needed the answer to a question Cal wasn't going to tell him, he could trick Cal into answering while he's working like this. Nikko's not actually fool enough to do that, though. Right now there's nothing he needs to know badly enough, and the work Cal's doing will keep him alive.
People kept telling Nikko that focus was important. You have to focus on what you want, his teachers would tell him, or you'll never get it. Nikko never got it. Then again, he had no idea what he wanted, except maybe for his father's attention, so that was probably for the best. Vincent had come closest to showing him with that stupid kung fu stones trick of his, but even that had only made Nikko appreciate that there was something to be got.
Watching Cal, Nikko gets it. Focus is control. Cal has the problem pinned under his gaze, and Nikko knows that it is going to be solved come what may. Cal bitches endlessly about not getting that last digit, but even as he complains his fingers are launching another attack, and another, and another. He isn't letting up, and he isn't going to let up either until it's all solved.
In a bizarre way that he promises himself he isn't going to think about, Nikko is jealous of the computer. To be the focus of all that attention, well, who wouldn't want it?
The counsellors that his various schools foisted on him would have had a field day with that thought. Nikko has read up enough on pop psychology to stay ahead of them, he knows they think all his exploits were just attention seeking, a cry for help. That he was having fun too seems to have completely escaped them. They'd all be expecting him to go sit in front of the monitor or something, anything that would put himself back into the limelight.
Maybe even just a few weeks ago he would have done something like that. A few weeks ago his life seemed like it had just turned into the best video game ever. Travelling from continent to continent, digging into ancient ruins, snatching priceless treasures from under the noses of the bad guys, it was a dream come true as far as he was concerned.
Then he came this close to losing one of his friends — not that he is ever going to tell Cal that he thought of him as a friend back then — and suddenly all the warnings and cautions that he'd been given became that bit more clear. He really could get people killed, he wasn't trained, and this wasn't all being laid on for his personal amusement.
So Nikko isn't going to disturb Cal right now. Maybe later, when he's just being an obsessive asshole, but right now Cal is focused on the things that will keep them all safe. Nikko can't help but admire that, even if he can't understand how Cal does it.
It's gone time he learned, Nikko thinks. There are things that he should be focusing on for all their sakes. Things that he's noticed, that he's not sure he believes, that he can't tell the others about yet because they won't believe him. Things that could kill them if he's right, or tear them apart if he's wrong and just blurts it out.
Yes, it's time to focus all right. His way.
"So what's the deal with Vincent?"