Chapter Two: Some Fresh Air
One second Quin was sitting down next to Kaelen, dropping his bag under the desk and booting up the dusty old PC, and the next, hours had passed, killfeeds scrolled off endlessly, and half a case of off-brand soda had vanished between them both, promptly draining the stores.meagre supply. Their banter had long since been abandoned in favour of clicking keyboards and the occasional victory shout from somewhere across the café
They didn't talk about much, at least, not to each other. Just comps, counterpicks, trashtalking, or the delicate art of talking to a plushie and pretending it was a tactical necessity.
Kaelen had long since stopped reacting to Quin's commentary beyond the occasional eye-roll, too busy trying to claw his way out of gold with his Lucio, he might've had the most deaths, but god did he annoy the enemy Widow. Meanwhile, Quin had quietly spiraled through a series of build failures that could only be described as historic. One moment he was confident in a Zed carry, and the next he was desperately slapping random items onto a Viego like duct tape on a broken engine.
Somehow, by what could only be divine pity, he still placed third.
"A win's a win," he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair as the post-match screen flashed triumphantly in front of him. "Third place by pure skill, obviously."
Kaelen leaned over just enough to squint at the screen. "You pulled that out of your ass, and you know it."
"Nuhuh, I improvised."
"You put a HOJ on him and called it a day"
"And it worked, didn't it?"
Kaelen popped a chip into his mouth. "You're like a cockroach, somehow just enduring all the bullshit."
Quin raised his soda in mock salute. "I'll take that as a compliment."
The sky outside had shifted while they weren't paying attention, first gold, then gray, and now something between a dark blue and black, lit only by the halo of streetlamps flickering to life. The warmth inside the café suddenly felt a little more insulated, like static electricity sealed away from whatever the world was doing out there.
For a moment, Quin stared past his monitor, watching the reflection of the lights in the window glass.
He needed air.
"Alright," he said, standing with a groan and a stretch. "Snacks run."
"Get me trail mix, or I'm downloading 7 gigs of Cocomelom on your phone," Kaelen called without turning around.
"You wouldn't dare."
Kaelen didn't answer, just snaked a hand over to the phone before Quin snatched it away..
Quin stuffed it into his hoodie pocket as he wandered toward the counter. He picked up a few bags at random, a variety of chips, trail mix, a bottle of water, something that looked suspiciously like it had expired last week, before paying for it all with a tap of his card. The café was quiet now, most of the regulars gone, only a few holdouts still hunched over glowing monitors, eyes bloodshot and fingers twitching with caffeine and tunnel vision.
He stepped toward the door, letting it swing open into the night. The air hit him instantly, cool, damp, honest. The kind of evening chill that tucked itself beneath your sleeves before you had time to notice.
He stood there a second, letting it wash over him, the quiet pressing in soft around the edges. There was no stress, no constant yelling at teammates. Just the hum of distant traffic and the rustle of a breeze through the trees lining the sidewalk.
Then he blinked, cursed under his breath, turned on his heel, and jogged back inside.
Kaelen didn't even look up as Quin returned, snatched something off his desk, tossed the bag of trail mix at him, and walked back out, this time, with Mordred tucked firmly under one arm.
Only as the door swung shut behind him did Kaelen glance over and mutter, "Godspeed, you dramatic bastard."
Quin didn't hear it. He was already halfway down the block, the cold air catching on his breath and the faint crinkle of plastic snack wrappers echoing in the quiet.
Sometimes, you just needed to breathe.
Sometimes, the world gives you a moment to.
The night pressed in gently, not cold, but cool enough to make Quin wish he hadn't left his jacket half-zipped. He lingered a moment, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, the other clutching his oh-so-beloved snacks and supporting his plush
Mordred peeked out, one felt eye turned towards the street. He glanced back at her with a crooked smile.
"Yeah, yeah… you didn't remind me," he murmured. "Could've left you back there, y'know."
She didn't answer, obviously… now that would be insane.
With a sigh, Quin turned on his heel and started walking wherever the night took him, he'd find his way back eventually…
Probably.
The sidewalk was mostly empty now, just the occasional car passing by, casting momentary golden halos on the road before vanishing again. The quiet was nice. Too nice.
It wasn't long before he arrived at a place of interest.
A gas station, the low buzz of a flickering sign overhead and the hum of an icebox sitting outside those dusty windows. The yellow-orange glow from the lamps above cast everything in a slightly greasy light, the pavement stained and cracked.
Quin made his way to the curb just beside the parking lot, the kind of spot he and his siblings used to sit at during road trips while their parents argued over which exit they'd missed. The concrete was still warm from the day, radiating a low, lazy heat against his jeans as he lowered himself down with a quiet grunt.
He peeled open the bag of chips and wedged it snugly between his legs, creating a makeshift barrier with his thighs like a dragon protecting its hoard.
"Don't even try it," he muttered under his breath to no one in particular- and especially not to the small flock of birds he'd long decided were out to get him ever since that one incident with a sandwich in 5th grade
He popped a chip into his mouth and leaned back, resting on his palms as the night rolled slow around him. The sky above was darker here- less light pollution, more stars. He let his head tilt up to see them, crunching idly, content to be still for a moment.
No cars. No Kaelen. No noise but the wind and the occasional gust shaking the bushes near the old trash bins.
It was peaceful in that strange, temporary kind of way.
He crunched another chip and muttered, "They'd never dare… right? I mean I'm much bigger now."
The rustle of wind through the hedges didn't answer, but he narrowed his eyes at a plastic bag caught on the fence, flapping like a warning flag.
"Exactly," he added, as if affirming his own authority. "King of this curb, it's my own personal castle."
A moth dive-bombed the lamplight above, drawing his eyes upward again. The stars were still there- scattered and quiet -but the longer he stared, the smaller he felt beneath them. Like the world was just a little too wide, the night a little too still.
He sighed, flicked a chip crumb off his hoodie, and leaned forward to grab another handful, the rustling bag nestled tightly between his legs.
"You ever think," he said softly, mostly to the chip bag and maybe a little to the sky, "that one day everything's gonna change, and you won't even notice until it already did?"
A passing car broke the silence, headlights briefly sweeping across the lot before disappearing down the road.
Quin sat there, still and small under the streetlamp glow, and didn't reach for another chip.
"Wow… that was depressing," he said with a chuckle, brushing a crumb off his hoodie and glancing sideways at Mordred, the plushie half-fallen from his arm and dangling by a leg off.
The toy stared back with stitched eyes and a crooked smile, lopsided as ever.
Quin tilted his head at it. "You could've interrupted me, you know?"
Mordred just wanted to let him get it all out… before asking for help.
She totally wasn't caught up on the moth from earlier
CLICK
headlights.
Bright, sudden, and entirely too close.
Quin flinched, his hand flying up to shield his eyes as a familiar engine growled its way into the parking lot. A horn gave a polite little honk, far too chipper for how much it startled him, and a familiar voice followed it up, slightly muffled from behind the windshield.
"MIJO!"
He blinked, squinting toward the car now idling in the lot. A familiar beige sedan, the front bumper slightly askew from an incident involving a family of raccoons and a late night munchies run last winter. Behind the wheel, his mother leaned across the passenger seat, window rolled halfway down.
"I've been calling you for ages! Why weren't you picking up?"
Quin groaned softly, digging into his hoodie pocket and tugging out his phone. He tapped the screen, and there it was.
Eight missed calls. Two texts. One voicemail.
He stared at it, dumbfounded for a moment. "Huh… wonder why that- oh… right."
In the top corner of the screen, the little moon icon practically glared at him.
Do Not Disturb.
"…I silenced my phone," he admitted, sheepish.
His mom didn't look impressed.
"Well, I figured that out."
He shoved the last chip in his mouth and stood, brushing crumbs off his jeans. "I got distracted, was getting snacks, I thought I had more time."
"It's almost midnight."
"It's 11:38."
"Don't sass me," she said, without heat, but with that feisty tone that already had him tensed up.
Quin sighed and shuffled toward the car. Mordred dangled from one arm like a ragged purse. He opened the passenger door and slid in, snacks balanced precariously in his lap.
His mom gave the plush a side-eye. "You're still carrying that thing around?"
"She's tactical," Quin muttered, buckling his seatbelt.
"Uh-huh."
She didn't push it. Just reached over, ruffled his already-messy hair, and pulled the car into gear. The headlights stretched out in long beams ahead of them, guiding them back toward the suburbs, the quiet roads lit only by a scattering of streetlamps and stars.
Quin leaned against the window, phone in one hand, Mordred squished under his arm, and the faintest smile tugging at the edge of his mouth.
Maybe Kaelen was right, maybe he was like a cockroach, awkward, hard to kill, and always showing up where he shouldn't be.
But cockroaches survived.
And tomorrow? He'd keep surviving, he'd keep playing, he'd keep building toward something.
Even if he didn't know what yet.
The car rumbled along, streetlights sliding across the windshield in slow intervals. Quin toyed with the torn corner of a snack bag, the silence between them filled only by the hum of the engine and the faint static of the radio not quite tuned to anything.
His mom finally broke the silence.
"So…" she said, one hand on the wheel, the other adjusting the heater… was getting a bit too chilly for her liking. "How was your day?"
Quin blinked. He glanced over at her, surprised by the question… she normally didn't ask very much.
"…Fine?"
"That sounded confident," she teased, a smile gracing her lips.
He shrugged. "Uneventful. Kaelen was being Kaelen, I think I bombed math, skipped lunch, lost and even won a few games, and now I'm getting driven home by my mother, pretty standard really."
She gave a soft chuckle. "Well, good news. You're skipping school tomorrow."
He straightened slightly. "Wait, what? Why?"
"Something came up," she said, eyes still on the road. "We're meeting your grandparents."
Quin turned to her fully now. "They're in town?!"
His mom nodded like it was no big deal. "Just for the day."
"But, you didn't say anything about this!" Quin flailed a little, nearly knocking a bag of cookies into the footwell. "Since when do they visit?! They haven't been here since… like… since what happened to those raccoons."
"They didn't plan on it, they're driving through on the way back from the city, wanted to meet us for lunch."
"I have so many questions."
"Too bad," she said, patting his knee with a grin. "You'll ask them in person. I already told the school you'll be out."
Quin slumped back in the seat, arms folded. "You're evil."
"You'll survive."
He grunted. "That's what the raccoons thought as well."
She laughed again, and for a moment, the mood softened. Quin let his head lean against the window, watching the houses blur past, one by one. Grandparents. Tomorrow. Great. Just what he needed on top of everything else.
Still…
Something about the way the night air felt against the glass left him uneasy.
He frowned.
Maybe it was just the thought of explaining Mordred to them, they weren't exactly the most supportive of his allusions.
Whatever, he'll get to it when he gets there.
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