Welcome to Gaia! ::

Q watched on, mostly eying the boy. He glanced toward Isiah again, before stating a bland "You should go back to sleep, I'll take care of it."

With that he turned, motioning the boy to follow him. "Come on, I'll show you how to find food here, kid. How long have you been in this area?"
When he talked with Isiah, his voice was normally bland- lacking too much emotion. He know Isiah didn't like him. With Tsurai, there was a sort of a forced compassion.

But this kid, Q was simply making empty conversation and his voice- anyone could tell he was actually interested, actually cared. Hope, even. Though it wasn't clear for what, exactly.

Tsurai quirked a brow, frowning as he turned to Isiah. "....What just happened? What's going on?"

Meanwhile, Q walked with Josh in the direction Isiah and Tsurai had been heading before they stopped. "How old are you?" he asked softly, wondering for more reasons than one. "You should know not to steal."

"Q? That's his name? Q? What kind of name is that?" Tsurai made a confused face, but then laid back down on his stomach with a sigh. "You would've killed that guy?" Tsurai questioned, referring to the boy who'd taken the duffelbag.

"Fifteen." Q repeated the word, as if that represented some good part of conversation. He stuffed his hands in his pockets with a sigh, his head scanning for restaurants or hints of aluminum cans.
After an awkward silence, similar to the silence before some long father-son speech, Q continued. "Do you think it is better to work together with other people in a group or think the way you do and live alone? ...Hm?"
He looked to the teen, awaiting an answer, as he had stopped walking at this point.

Tsurai propped his chin up on his forearms, which were folded beneath his head in a makeshift pillow.
"Why not just share?" He asked quietly, almost a whine, not truly understanding this eat or be eaten world or why it worked in such a way.

Q sighed heavily through his nose. That wasn't the answer he was really looking for, but now that it was said, Q tended to agree. He pointed his chin over to his left. "There's a can over there, see if it's trash or food."

The frenchman waited, taking his hands from his pockets and folding his arms over the maroon torso of his dress shirt as he watched the boy.
"How long have you been out here by yourself?"

"I guess you're right," Tsurai sighed. "Sorry," he said quietly, closing his eyes and trying to get back to sleep.

Q sighed again. He hadn't eaten today, yet. He hadn't seen much on the way here, either. Nothing hopeful anyway.
"My name's Q," he said, uncrossing his arms and walking forward to catch up with Joshua, and pass him in search for more cans.

Despite Q's clothes not being lightened by the sun, his skin was dark and tanned, not that a normal person could tell in the darkness, unless this kid had extremely sensitive eyes.
"A few days," Q answered.
A nice name? Q thought this boy was the first to say something like that. Nice. Such a vague word. Usually it was interesting or cool, or more often, strange, sometimes even 'no, what's your real name?' to which Q would answer "something you can't pronounce correctly."

Q didn't weigh the comment too heavily, however. He wanted to overlook what made this boy suspicious and instead focus on what was interesting about him which, unfortunately, was mainly his body. Q wasn't particularly trying to hide it, either-- he knew people normally didn't have good night vision, so he didn't think it necessary.

"A few days," he finally answered. "But I travel at night and try to sleep off the sun."

Q spotted another shimmer in the moonlight, and went over to pick up, finding that once again, it was just trash. He groaned inwardly. It may be worth it just to travel ahead of Isiah and Tsurai rather than calling it a night early, like he had yesterday.
"So you were in high school before the bomb hit?" Q asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
He didn't want there to be too much silence. It'd be awkward, and in silence Q was left to his own imaginative devices.

Q wasn't entirely naked. He had a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, his wallet, and the can opener. Though, they all fit comfortably in his pockets so wouldn't stick out enough to be noticed, especially not with the tails of his shirt covering the front of his pants pockets.

"You're too impatient," Q responded, continuing on. "Perhaps if you actually looked for yourself rather than picking on others you would realize this is not too difficult."
Q had an enormous amount of patience when it came to food. He was used to hunting and enjoyed making all his meals himself. He didn't get to do it often because of his job, but when he did have time, he'd spend days waiting for the perfect boar and skinning it, roasting it, or frying it, or making stew, or just packing it for the freezer-- it was the simple things he likes. Survival skills were the favorite part of his upstanding education at the military academy. Though it was long behind him now.

He had wanted to be a sniper... Obviously, life never worked out the way one would have liked.

"If you were any good at reading people, kid, you'd realize that even though that man is sick and half-asleep, he could still beat your a**."
Yeah, Q could tell Isiah wasn't well. He didn't know quite why, but he could tell from the way Isiah breathed and held himself. He'd been watching the man long enough-- both in the vault and out-- to know Isiah's body language wasn't that weak.

"The kid could probably beat you too." That much was an afterthought, however.

Q stopped in his tracks, staring at the boy with bright green eyes. Kill someone? That was a warning sign.
Was this just some teen angst or was there actually something to what the kid had said? Had Q gone in too deep, this time?

Q wasn't quite sure how he wanted to handle this. Play it off, or take the warning seriously?
"I wasn't assuming anything like that," he finally said. "But I know they wouldn't let you have that bag or anything in it without a fight."

Q decided this was too risky. In his current condition-tired, hungry, alone- he didn't know if he could fight this kid, mentally or physically. Despite Isiah and he not getting along, Q still felt stronger when that man was there. A sort of mutual respect they could each feed off, almost.

He put the toe of his right boot behind him and did a military about face, turning himself around and walking back to the 'camp'.

"I think we're done here," he stated firmly.
Let's see what happens now, he thought to himself.

Q may have been lusting for this kid, but he wasn't dumb. The kid had brought up killing all by himself, meaning he had planned it from the start or had mental issues. Risk management still applied, even if the smaller of his heads argued otherwise.