The Fox Familiar Excuse you, Hye uses herbal tea because of her diabetes.
jaeldaiker Thank you. And yeah, I didn't know if writing this would work – thought I would find it too hard and complicated, especially in third person, but Quinn is so much fun to write.
Madison had been yelling at Nick for the worst part of thirty minutes now. "Do you hear me? Are you out of your mind, Nick?" And somehow he's been saying, "Sorry," for even longer than that.
"I swear if you do that again, I will leave you in the goddamn ocean, I shit you not!"
"I thought I heard something."
"What? What could you hear?"
"I don't know. Something bumping the hull."
"Yeah, well, you almost got yourself killed. You almost got Travis killed."
"We're still trying to help people, aren't we?"
"Yes. People that we can see."
"Maddy," Travis interjected. "Nick found a logbook to that boat."
Quinn knew the one he was talking about. Earlier they'd seen Nick looking at it. They'd said, "What's that?" and Nick said back, "I found it out there. It's a Yacht Log." And Quinn said, "Oh, cool. Can I read it?" And Nick did this odd thing with his eyebrows and said, "I don't know. It's kinda boring. Not really for kids."
Nick annoyed Quinn. But in a strange way. In a way that Quinn couldn't really tell they appreciated or loathed. It was the way he called them kid even though they were almost the same age, and how he used to call Newt Newty. And sure, it was all very irritating, but Quinn was aware of how distracting it was, too. How relieving it was to find this trivial crap annoying instead of worrying about if they or the people they cared about were going to die soon. So, they had to admit, it was a relief to have him here.
"We got a problem," Travis said, cracking the relief down the middle.
All the grown-ups disappeared upstairs. Even Nick was left out of this one. But they all huddled around the lowest staircase; Quinn, Chris, Alicia and Nick, doing their best to hear the worried voices from two stories above in the bridge.
"San Diego's dead," said one voice.
"How bad?" another.
"It's gone."
"What?"
"Wait, wait, wait."
"What do you mean gone?"
"It's burned. The military burned it down. According to this, the Leigh Anne just came from the south right there."
"Wait a minute, I thought you said San Diego was safe."
"I wouldn't take this as gospel."
"Did they even try to dock?"
"Did they go ashore?"
"How do they know?"
"The logs are clear. The last entry was yesterday. What is there to doubt?"
"If we're going to San Diego, we need to know what's there."
"Right now, I'm trying to focus on what's about to be here. And what kind of weapon would you suppose would be big enough to sink that boat? Fifty caliber machine gun. Military grade. The kind of weapon that could only be mounted on a larger vessel."
Then Strand kept talking about how the Abigail was still getting followed, stalked, and about how they don't talk to strangers and how much faster than them all the, said, strangers were, and so it was decided that the Abigail was going to hide.
Quinn left for the spare room Chris had taken to. He was curled up in bed picking at the sheets, and as miserable as he was, at least he wasn't alone while Quinn went about using a pen to doodle under the desk. It felt good to draw again. They laid back on cushions and reached up to do it. Still, their stomach was turning and they knew it was time for another pill. They were expecting it. So, before Hye walked in to find what they were doing, they were fast enough to sit up and act casual.
Hye held out a pill.
"Chew then swallow," she said to them, smooth, for once. She became suspicious when she noticed the pen in Quinn's hand, then crouched and saw. She just smirked—perhaps she didn't particularly like Strand either.
Quinn grinned.
Hye jerked the pill in front of their nose.
"Why are you so chill today?" Quinn asked while they chewed. Hye explained everything; about the wildlife refuge the Abigail was headed for now, how there was meant to be a ranger station there, probably abandoned, and about how it would have a radio and supplies, according to Travis. Somewhere to get information about this whole crazy mess their world had become.
"Where is it?" Chris asked eventually.
"Catrina Island," she answered.
The sun was setting.
Hye was inside the bathroom taking her insulin.
Quinn had been playing I spy with Chris, but when none of them could spy more than boat and sea and tense ass people everywhere, the two gave up. Plus, Chris wasn't in any kind of mood for games, so Quinn took the hint and left him alone on the stern to his thoughts, and instead went and doodled under the desk down in the hull again. They hadn't really thought about the consequences of this until they were finally satisfied with their handy work and laid back to look.
Oh no, they thought, I hope Stand doesn't decide to check under desks very often.
Quinn placed the chair under the desk strategically, then stepped away. Chris still came in and had a look a few minutes later anyway. He frowned up at it, his back laid on the floor. Quinn joined him.
The drawing was another one of those Quinn drawings where none of it really made sense. It made sense to Quinn though, the rolling hills and the nice farm house and the big creepy barn and the boarded fences all the way around and the array of tents and trucks in the driveway. In Quinn's head, a whole load of strangers were camped there, on the farm, living with the family who already owned the place, and they were all hiding away from the dead that hadn't found them there yet. Quinn liked telling storied with their drawings.
Once last grade, in a school cubicle, they drew a face on the back of the door. Just a simple circle, dot eyes, tilted line for a mouth and a small bump nose. Quinn hadn't actually come out of the closet yet, and, in a moment of lazy impulse, had decided to use the bathroom they weren't supposed to use because it was a hallway closer and nobody was around to catch them if they were fast. It would have worked had somebody not walked in while they were doing their business. The kid went into the cubicle next door, and Quinn, panicked and miserable and embarrassed, sat on the toilet and drew on the wall and waited to be alone, and when they were, Quinn waited twenty seconds and ran for it. But that's not the important part of the story. The important part was a few days later. Quinn returned to the same cubicle, attracted there on the same weekday after the same third period class, because they were still lazy and impulsive and not as fast as they thought they were, and again, they were hiding away from a few kids who had walked in mid-business. They took the extra time to look at their drawing. But by now, the face had been drawn around by other students. One had given the face a top hat. Another had given it freckles and eyelashes. Another had given it a big bushy mono-brow.
"It's cool," Chris said quietly.
Quinn was too awkward to thank him, so instead said, "We'll get there soon, huh?" Chris sighed and looked out of the high up circular window. The sky was turning dark blue and most of the orange was gone.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Get away from what's out there, catch our breath, or, that's what Dad thinks, unless he's just saying it to comfort me – comfort himself."
Quinn watched him and waited for a long time until Chris looked back to them. They smiled and whispered, "Whatever happens, we'll stick together. Like always. Cool?"
Chris just looked at them, and then, suddenly, he stepped over and hugged them. Quinn staggered a little bit before they hugged him back. It was rare that Quinn and Chris hugged, despite the events of late with all the forehead kissing and the hand holding. Hugging was serious and only ever happened on the occasion it was of utmost importance.
This time, it felt important. Quinn shut their eyes and buried their nose into his neck and tightened their fists into his shoulder blades and hood. Chris' hug was just as intense. His ribcage was set firm and solid inside of Quinn's arms and when he finally let his breath out, Quinn felt him deflate like a balloon.
Soon they knew it was time to pull away before the tears came. Crying into each other was still unexplored territory for both of them; Chris had cried in front of Quinn, much like Quinn had cried in front of Chris, but neither had ever cried into each other before. That was crossing a line.
"Come on," Quinn said, punching his shoulder. "It's getting dark."
Madison saw a light. It came on in the big lonely house on this side of Catrina Island. When the Abigail docked, right at the end of the bay, everybody was meant to go and investigate except Strand: "I'll stay," he said, "make sure our radar friend moves past us. When he's gone, we're gone." And because leaving Strand alone on the Abigail gave them all anxiety, Daniel, always the sceptic, said, "Ofelia and I will keep you company."
The rest went to check the cul-de-sac out. Only it wasn't really a cul-de-sac. There was only one home. Just, the area around it had several different parts. The home was big and comfortable-looking. Another part looked like a big shack, like the sort you'd have camp in, with a big cafeteria place to eat meals or host meetings. Another part was the outside wash-room, Quinn was pretty sure. Another was a garage. It was too dark to see much else.
Flash lights shone in front as everybody followed the long narrow staircase up onto the main driveway from the dock. It turned around a big lighthouse that none of them had been able to see until they were close to land since its light was dead.
"Someone's home," Travis said.
"They're not throwing their doors open," Madison replied.
"No, they're scared. We'd be scared, too."
Chris' elbow bumped Quinn's chest and they exchanged a nervous glance. Chris looked tired. Quinn probably did, too. Both of their hair was greasy and untidy, and bags sat under their eyes. Quinn's throat was still sore after all the puking, and their body felt worn and exhausted.
"You see anything?" Madison whispered. Her flash light shone up to the window she'd seen a light in before, but there was nothing inside. It was dead.
"Hello?!"
Quinn startled.
"Travis," Madison warned.
"Hello!?"
"What are you doing?"
"We know you're in there! We know you're scared! We are, too!"
Somewhere nearby, wood clattered and Quinn's heart shrivelled up to their throat. Hye gripped their arm and muttered something.
"We just need information," Travis pleaded. "We're not a threat! We're not sick. We're just – we need help!"
The side door to the house creaked open, and they all anticipated the flood of infected to pour outside. But it was a little boy. He stood before them all. His hair was bowl-cut and blond, his skin pale and freckly under torch light, and his eyes were big and curious and quiet. In his hand, he held a sling shot. Puzzled was not the word everybody felt. Astounded, might be it. Or whatthefuck?! It didn't matter anyway because nobody said a thing. Not until—
"Harry! Harry! Get back here."
A grown man stood in the doorway behind the boy. He was tall and had grey hair and a groomed beard, and wore pyjamas under the hoodie he'd thrown on. He wore glasses, too; thin and silver, and his face was pursed and tight and pensive.
"Sorry," he said, "he's excited to see people. It's been a while."
Another woman stepped out of the house with her hands atop another little girl's shoulders. She looked similar to the little boy (siblings, it was obvious) only her hair was longer and darker. The woman was tall, and her hair was blond and starting to grey. She looked remarkably nervous for somebody who had a whole island.
"We just saw your light come on," Madison said. "We were on the water."
"That was an accident," the man said, exchanging a glance with his wife.
"Travis," was the first introduction. "Travis Manawa."
"George Geary," he replied after a few tense moments, shaking hands. "What can I do for you, Travis Manawa?"
"We had to drop anchor. It's no safer on sea than on land."
"What makes you think here is safe?"
"We just need to get our bearings and we will be going. You have nothing to fear from us."
The Geary family were welcoming, once everybody else had introduced themselves. Their home inside was warm and cosy and the furniture was mostly the embroided kind you get in old-timey houses back when people used cheques instead of bank cards. Then again, Quinn was fairly sure neither bank cards or cheques were a thing at all anymore. George liked books, the kind like survival 101's and maps and encyclopedias, and his wife, Melissa, liked to cook and talk about plants—or, at least, Quinn was pretty sure she did, though it was a little hard to tell because she was so tense all the time. She spent the first half hour talking to Madison and Hye about old work. The Geary children, Harry and Willa, were, quite bluntly, brilliant. Quinn had never really spent much time thinking about how sweet kids were, but right now, holding Willa's hand and dancing in a circle mumbling the Ring-a-Ring o' Roses song, Quinn felt happier than they had in a long time. Hye kept peeking in at them, half-heartedly listening to Melissa but mostly just trying not to grin too much.
"Ring-a-ring o' roses,
a pocket full of posies.
Ashes, ashes.
We all fall down."
Quinn collapsed with Willa, and they both giggled ridiculously.
George and Travis' voices muffled through the door in the study. The men were talking about time and Los Angeles and Portland and Seattle, Vancouver. San Diego, the border, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. They were talking about how all of those places, half the country, pretty much, were already burned, dead...
Quinn ignored the voices, instead got up and pulled Willa up with them, and they both sang.
"Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes, ashes.
We all fall down."
Again, Willa and Quinn collapsed to the floor dramatically. Quinn laughed up at the ceiling, only, a second later there were footsteps descending the staircase and Quinn saw a boy crossing the room. When he noticed them, and everyone else, he looked furious. He had a rifle on his shoulder. Quinn staggered to their feet and felt their cheeks burn, straightening their cardigan.
"Uh, sorry."
He glared. Quinn stuttered. Alicia, who was sitting on the couch, watched—she also had a half drank glass of wine in her hand. Chris was quiet in the corner of the room on the chair and didn't even look up from the rug. Nick smiled, and he was about to get up from his slumped position on the other couch to introduce himself but the boy ignored him and marched into the kitchen.
"Mom?"
"This is my eldest, Seth," Melissa said to Madison and Hye. "Seth, this is Madison and Hye."
"Hi," Madison said. Hye kept quiet, just waved and smiled.
He ignored them both anyway. "You good, Mom?"
"Yeah. We're just having a chat. So nice to have a visitor."
"How are you?" Quinn thought Seth said—he was talking too quietly to be sure.
"Good," Melissa said just as softly.
"Where's Dad?"
"He's in the study, with Madison's husband."
Seth pulled up his rifle a little and said, "Alright. I'll be back in a little while." He took a flash light from on top of the fridge and left out the back door with a glare and a slam.
Madison smiled politely. "Do you have any more of that wine?"
At Hye's blessing, Quinn got a glass, too—it was meant to be their mother's but diabetes reminded her that she should just stick to herbal tea.
Quinn sat on the window ledge between Alicia and Chris and they all sipped on their drinks. Chris had already finished his, and when Quinn mumbled that they hated white wine, it was bitter and dry and gross, Chris didn't hesitate to reach back and take the glass from them to drink it himself. Quinn wasn't sure if this was a good idea but kept their mouth shut anyway, exchanging a weary look with Alicia.
Her eyes looked especially soft this evening, watching the kids. Children must've had the same effect on her as they did to Quinn, only, instead of getting up and dancing with them, Alicia was more content watching.
"Aim and shoot," Harry tutored.
"Alright," Nick said, frowning in concentration at the PS3. Already, after asking permission first, Quinn was charging their Gameboy, and they'd been given an extra few batteries for their MP3 Player, too.
"You're doing it wrong," the little boy explained. "You have to go like this to jump and then that to roll—"
"Alright, okay, okay, okay," Nick groaned in focus. Kids also had a strange effect on him, too, it seemed. He turned to mush around them; let them play with his hair and sit on his shoulders. It made Quinn chuckle.
"Pocket full of posies." Willa was singing again, dancing with her dolls this time. "Ashes, ashes, and we all fall down."
When she fell to the floor her toys clattered.
"What are posies?" she asked.
Quinn didn't actually know. They both looked to Alicia, because out of everybody here Alicia was definitely the person with answers. She noticed she was being addressed, blinking a few times before remembering the question.
"Posies are flowers," she answered.
"Why do you put them in your pockets?"
"Um, well." Alicia sat forward. Quinn didn't miss the catch in her voice. "A long time ago, across the ocean in Europe, there was a virus that made a lot of people really sick. And they didn't have the medicine we do now, so they gave them flowers to make them healthy."
"Did it work?"
Alicia's eyes drifted away to another dimension.
Very softly, she said, "No."
Chris got up and stepped across the living room. Quinn watched him, wondering where he was going, but they knew not to ask.
"Nick, you want to come see our room?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, let's do it," he said, and saw Chris leaving too. "Hey, man, you want to come check out Harry's room?"
"I'm good."
"Look, you don't have to talk or anything, but it is better to be with people."
"It's okay."
"Okay," Nick shrugged. "Hey, kiddo, wanna come with?" Quinn nodded, got up, and Nick turned to Harry quickly and clapped his hands. "Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go!"
Harry and Willa's bedroom was in the attic, where Madison saw the lights. The room was big and wooden; like the step ladder and the walls and the beds and the tables and drawers. Homemade. Half the room was Willa's and the other half Harry's, clear by the distinct difference in styles one half to the other. Willa's things were all purple and pale blue and flowery and sweet, and Harry's side was red and green with toy cars and soldiers and guns. Quinn realised they were stood right in the middle, and found it funny.
"Whoa, cool!" Nick gasped in feigned awe—in truth, it could quite actually have been genuine, for all Quinn knew. "This is your room?!"
"Yeah," Harry said.
"Wow!"
Quinn snorted, but still found it cool too.
"And who are these guys?" Nick rushed to the step ladder and knelt eagerly in front of the toy soldiers.
"These are campers," Harry introduced the plastic men, "Neighbours. The Colbys. And Uncle Kyle." They all had red dots on their foreheads.
"What happened to them? What's this?" Nick asked.
"It's what has to happen now when people get sick," Harry said without missing a heartbeat. Quinn shuddered. They thought of Eliza, and stepped back to pick up a toy pony because it was the first thing their hand found. Nick watched them take a seat on the floor next to the ladder, then looked back to Harry and smiled.
"Yeah," he said. "Hey, that won't happen to you."
"I know, because I have..." Harry's arms came up to flex as much as he could. "Power pills!"
"Yeah!" Nick growled, flexing small-ly too. He faltered. "I don't know what that is!"
"It's like a vitamin," Harry explained. "If I take it, my family stays together."
Quinn had let go of the toy pony, and Nick took a second to pat them on the shoulder. He looked at the floor across from them. There were a few drawings the kids had made. Drawings of the beach, mostly, only, there were strange grey blobs bobbing in the water and crawling up onto the shore. Nick's hand slid away from Quinn's shoulder and they forced them-self to look away.
"So which one is your favourite?" Nick asked the little boy.
"The general!" Harry said excitedly. "He has a gun, too. You just have to put it on him."
Nick and Quinn watched Harry demonstrate.
"Right," Nick croaked.
When Quinn went downstairs, leaving Nick and Harry upstairs, they ran into Travis and George as they were both leaving the study. Travis looked a little overwhelmed, and he went to Madison and listened to her, Hye and Melissa talk together. Quinn couldn't see Chris in the living room and made to leave and find him—he was probably down on the Abigail. But George grabbed Quinn's shoulder and smiled.
"You're Quinn, right?"
"Oh, um, yeah. Hi."
George shook their shoulder. Quinn's knee jutted outward to keep their balance. They wanted to push him off but knew it would be rude, so they smiled back, or, they made their mouth move into the closest of a smile they could muster, at least.
"Was just talking to Travis. Told me you and your mother are from Korea?"
"Oh," Quinn said. "No. No, we're from LA. Well, Mom and I moved there from Kentucky when I was three, I mean. She was born in Korea but moved to America before her first birthday."
"Dol."
He'd said it like it was a key to the city.
"Huh?" Quinn squinted.
"Dol," George repeated. "That's what you call a Korean child's first birthday."
"It is?"
George's eyebrows knitted together.
"Sorry." Quinn shrugged. "I – I don't know a lot about it. My grandparents sort of left everything behind when they came here, I guess."
"Oh, well, that's very sad," he said, and looked like he really meant it.
"George," Melissa whispered from the kitchen. "Don't you think you're being rather forward?"
"Yes," he said, realising it. Everyone in the kitchen had heard the conversation. Hye looked like she couldn't decide if she found it more funny or embarrassing or guilty. "Excuse me. I'm an amateur anthropologist. It gets the better of me at the best of times..." George went on talking, and mis-gendered Quinn a few times, and although Quinn didn't say anything about it they still felt their cheeks heat up. It wasn't quite embarrassment, and neither was it a feeling like they'd been caught out or anything like that. It was just tiring, like they'd just ran a whole marathon, swam a whole ocean, to get here, to get called this, again, for the millionth time.
Time on the Abigail had made passing a fairly difficult feat for Quinn. They had tried, for a little bit, looking and presenting in the ways that made them feel less up-side down, but after a while, with the lack of privacy and that one time they'd wondered across the landing in their underwear and a tank top and gotten caught by Madison, they knew that their biology wasn't exactly the most incognito thing in the universe. The thing was, it wasn't bad, because still nobody drew attention to them for it. Everybody was still calling them 'Quinn' and because of this, for some reason, Quinn thought that after this whole mess with the world ending, getting called the wrong thing maybe wouldn't feel quite so achy and out of place anymore, like, maybe with all the fear and the hell they'd seen and gone through, all the distractions, it might just not matter to them anymore.
But Quinn was still Quinn. In their skull and their skin and their hair and their toes. A jumble of all and neither.
Quinn knew they weren't needed for anything, so they left the house to find Chris, ignoring that hair pulled out with no warning feeling. Nick joined them. The two walked across the driveway and down the stairs to the dock without a word. Quinn knew Nick was thinking about what Harry had said, about the sick and infected and what he'd already seen happen to them all.
It wasn't until the Abigail was in sight on the edge of the docking bay that Quinn said, "What do you think we're getting out of this?"
"Out of what?" Nick asked them, balancing on a wobbly rock with one foot, the other swayed out, like he was alternative-style surfing.
"Out of, I don't know, the end of the world," Quinn elaborated. "I mean, I'm just curious. Why it all happened."
Nick shrugged. "Maybe the world is trying to put everything right again."
"By bringing back the dead?" Quinn didn't like that feeling in their gut like the world was trying to get rid of them.
Again, Nick shrugged, but then he looked up and saw the wan on Quinn's face. He set both feet on the rock and looked them up and down.
"Maybe it's not about getting something out of it all," he told them, thinking hard. "Maybe there isn't an answer to anything. Maybe we just have to... I don't know, find ourselves. Come into our own."
"Come into our own?" Quinn smirked.
Nick rolled his eyes. "Yeah, maybe I should start wearing dresses, too, huh?"
Quinn laughed—it choked inside their throat. "How did you know about that?"
"I have a little sister," he answered. "We talk to each other."
"Okay, okay."
They put their toe on Nick's rock and made it sway so he had to jut his arms out.
"I think we've been coming into our own," Quinn said then. "I mean, like, how your mom's been kicking ass lately. Like my mom has, too, at the hospital, helping all those people. Like, Travis. He looks scared a lot now, which I didn't even think was possible before, but even though he is scared he's still keeping us safe, too, you know? And, I don't know, we could do something really cool if we wanted."
"Cool?"
"Yeah," Quinn said. They'd never let them-self think about this so much. They couldn't tell if it was frightening them more or exciting them. "Maybe you can be a leader?"
"A leader," Nick repeated. He grimaced, talking to Quinn like he had been talking to Harry. Again, Quinn wasn't sure if it was more to entertain them or just because the guy really meant the enthusiasm. "Leader like Martin Luther King and Sherlock Holmes and... Darth Vadar?"
Quinn laughed.
"Huh, I like the sound of that." Nick trailed then. "But, maybe I'll get over the whole addict thing first, huh."
"Hm," Quinn agreed, a little soft. "I don't think it's something you'll want on your resume."
The ocean spluttered under the dock and Quinn looked at the Abigail, making out the small shape of Alicia shuffling across the deck wrapped in a sleeping bag. Quinn was pretty sure that Alicia didn't tell her brother the other thing that happened the day Quinn wore the dress, but they sure as hell knew they weren't going to ask. When the girl disappeared inside, Quinn looked back to Nick...
"You can be a leader," they said. "Like Harry's General: maybe you just gotta put on your gun."
Nick groaned, but he was smiling. He led the way to the Abigail and collapsed to his back along the deck seats. Quinn was aware of the churn in their gut that just standing on the dock gave them, and so when they walked across the deck they thought really hard about how big the Abigail was and how she was hardly even moving at all. They found the pills their mom had been giving them and took one, and said hi to Alicia while they passed her on their way downstairs.
Chris was in the spare bedroom. He was laid on his back staring up at the ceiling. At first, Quinn thought he might've been asleep, but when he looked down at them, he said, "Hey."
"Hey, man."
Chris looked back to the ceiling.
"You wanna come out onto the deck with me?" Quinn asked. "We could go on the front, nobody's there right now."
"I'm good."
Quinn dipped their head and nodded. "'Kay. Night."
"Night, Quinn."
They went upstairs alone and laid down on their back along the decking floor beside Nick, who was still on the couch. Quinn put a cushion they'd found inside under their head, their cap to the side, and sighed. It wasn't too cold tonight, and there was no breeze, so they only wanted one blanket around their legs and stomach. The Milky Way was on full show. Quinn could see the whole galaxy, stars and planets littering every corner of it. Out here in the middle of nowhere, even with a few of the Abigail's spot lights overhead, the stars were showing so brightly Quinn wanted to squint.
Alicia came out. Her head was tipped up to the sky, too.
"Hey, you want to know what the most underrated perk of the apocalypse is?" Nick asked her.
"Yeah," Alicia answered, stepping over in her sleeping bag cocoon. She looked rather dazed and disinterested. When she stopped in front of her brother, Quinn hadn't notice they'd reached out to her until they had almost poked her sock, but stopped them-self in time, pretending it hadn't happened.
"No planes," Nick explained. "No noise pollution. No smog. Just stars."
"Yep, well, we definitely stopped the climate crisis," Alicia said. "Awesome." She didn't mean it. Only, she kind of did too. "Why are you both up?"
"Why are you up?" Nick asked back.
Alicia sighed. "I drank too much wine. My mind's racing. Come on, what's your excuse?"
Quinn shrugged. In truth, all they wanted to do was sleep. Forget today and every other day for just a few hours. But they were up because they were anxious and they knew everybody else was, too. It seemed to be how it worked when you were around a lot of people you'd grown to care about. Even Strand, a little. They were all like some strange family, almost, sort of, kind of, though it was all probably in Quinn's head. Quinn, sometimes, could be kind of a hopeless romantic.
"It's these kids, man," Nick complained. "They've seen more than their share, you know? Like, what they're living in now and what they're gonna live in, like, it's – I don't know. Things are never just gonna be normal for them, you know? It's not fair."
"I mean, at least they're prepared."
"Yeah, they're prepared like it's the end times."
"Isn't it?"
"No, Alicia, it's not the Rapture," he croaked.
She looked back to the sky and Quinn watched her pensiveness, how she bit her bottom lip and let her eyebrows arch in thought. Quinn looked at the sky, too, and for the millionth time tried not to think about Eliza.
"Something is off here," Nick said.
"Everything's off," Alicia said. "Everywhere."
Notes
It seems more realistic to me that Quinn won't be able to pass as genderqueer a lot in the apocalypse, but I don't think anybody in the group would treat them any different for it, and I don't think I'll go down the route of an awful lot of people having a problem with them, so I'm not going to draw much attention to it right now, and if I ever do I don't think I'll do it a lot. Idk, there's more to Quinn than their gender, so, I'll just try not to make the story shit for now.
As always,
Happy reading.