[ What he's seeing in her eyes — it seems almost like she's gone too far away for him to reach her, it looks like the feeling that's breathing at the back of his neck, this thing that's heavy and sharp and hot, that he doesn't recognize, that brings up feelings he'd buried long ago. This place has dug something up and that feeling of unease, almost dread, isn't normal for him, he doesn't know what to do with it, except even as she seems like she might not come back, she's keeping him steady. He doesn't know why, doesn't understand it.
It's not because her hands are on him, too. It's not the physical tether between them at all. It's something else that he can't explain, doesn't even want to think about long and hard right now (can't really, they don't have time). It's the way she's living through something, something awful, and he's witnessing it and it doesn't belong to him, but it does. In a different way. She's experiencing it in a different way, too, but it doesn't mean it isn't there for him.
To Amos, sticking close to her right now doesn't make him at all like the kind of person who actually does good things and just doesn't know it about themselves. He isn't good, he's nothing like anyone righteous or decent out there. Best he can do, best he'll ever manage, he figures, is sticking close to the good people, the right people, the ones worth following and protecting. Like a damn code to the door they need to open, like the road that's gonna take them away from here soon, he has coordinates and maps and numbers and figures, and from that, he can carve a path of righteousness that isn't natural, that isn't his, that's all built from everything and everyone settled in his memories.
And that's fine by him. He's sharp edges and that feeling inside that's just a night that doesn't end, that absence of fear, the way everything that lives inside of people like Holden and Naomi, and maybe even her — this woman he doesn't know — and they can feel everything all at once, but for him it's all far away, it's gone. He does what he think they would do.
For him, the instinct to survive is always loudest. Whatever will keep him safe, alive, not caged in. If they weren't trapped together, he would have thought of himself first, would have made an attempt to leave. Keeping him from going too far would have been...them. The people he carries.
The thing about him, though, is once he's decided this — that him getting out of here means she gets out of here — he won't stray from that. ]
Whatever that was — [ He doesn't need to know, won't ask. ] you feel like you're gonna go sideways or anything...comes at you again, say something.
[ Anything comes at you is — what he can't put words to right now. But she was there, and he felt it, too. There's an equal determination in him, an ease with which he shrugs off those things trying to pull him under, like nothing really broke through. He doesn't linger in that, though, he lets go, pulls back, starts to search. Some part of him can't help thinking when they find this code, it won't be a simple escape. Not if it's already done some weird shit. It's just a building, but it feels like...something else. ]
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It's not because her hands are on him, too. It's not the physical tether between them at all. It's something else that he can't explain, doesn't even want to think about long and hard right now (can't really, they don't have time). It's the way she's living through something, something awful, and he's witnessing it and it doesn't belong to him, but it does. In a different way. She's experiencing it in a different way, too, but it doesn't mean it isn't there for him.
To Amos, sticking close to her right now doesn't make him at all like the kind of person who actually does good things and just doesn't know it about themselves. He isn't good, he's nothing like anyone righteous or decent out there. Best he can do, best he'll ever manage, he figures, is sticking close to the good people, the right people, the ones worth following and protecting. Like a damn code to the door they need to open, like the road that's gonna take them away from here soon, he has coordinates and maps and numbers and figures, and from that, he can carve a path of righteousness that isn't natural, that isn't his, that's all built from everything and everyone settled in his memories.
And that's fine by him. He's sharp edges and that feeling inside that's just a night that doesn't end, that absence of fear, the way everything that lives inside of people like Holden and Naomi, and maybe even her — this woman he doesn't know — and they can feel everything all at once, but for him it's all far away, it's gone. He does what he think they would do.
For him, the instinct to survive is always loudest. Whatever will keep him safe, alive, not caged in. If they weren't trapped together, he would have thought of himself first, would have made an attempt to leave. Keeping him from going too far would have been...them. The people he carries.
The thing about him, though, is once he's decided this — that him getting out of here means she gets out of here — he won't stray from that. ]
Whatever that was — [ He doesn't need to know, won't ask. ] you feel like you're gonna go sideways or anything...comes at you again, say something.
[ Anything comes at you is — what he can't put words to right now. But she was there, and he felt it, too. There's an equal determination in him, an ease with which he shrugs off those things trying to pull him under, like nothing really broke through. He doesn't linger in that, though, he lets go, pulls back, starts to search. Some part of him can't help thinking when they find this code, it won't be a simple escape. Not if it's already done some weird shit. It's just a building, but it feels like...something else. ]