Parker woke up before Quinn. Her arms were wrapped around him tightly, protectively almost. She was fast asleep.
"Good." He thinks, slowly moving out of her arms and making it so she's hugging his pillow instead. "She needs the sleep."
He leans against the wall and pulls out his journal, smiling as he marks down the date. His birthday. He wrote his daily entry before leaving his journal there to go get some water from the bottles in the kitchen.
While he's in the kitchen he hears Quinn moving under the blankets.
"Parker?" Her tired, hoarse morning voice calls softly from the living room.
"I'm in the kitchen. Don't worry."
"Oh...'kay." He hears her set the blanket aside and then her heavy footsteps coming towards the kitchen.
Quinn walks over to him, setting his journal down next to him. "Happy birthday." She mumbles.
"How did you-"
"Saw the first line of the entry. I didn't read anything more, I promise."
"Oh...Well- thank you." Parker smiles.
"How old are you now?"
"20."
"Ah, we're the same age now."
Parker's eyebrows raise, "Really?"
"Mhm." Quinn nods, leaning against the counter.
They don't talk again after that. Parker couldn't help but feel comfortable in the silence, not feeling awkward like he would with anyone else. He realized how close he'd gotten to Quinn over the past few weeks.
"I'm going out. Make sure the Screamer didn't bring anymore infected around." She says, turning away from Parker to walk back into the living room.
"Wait- Quinn you've been overworking yourself lately. Can you at least check your shoulder before you go?" Parker asks, a worried look on his face. "You took a bad fall yesterday and I want to make sure you didn't injure anything more in your shoulder."
Quinn nods. She pulls her arm out of its sleeve and lifts up her shirt over her shoulder. She moves the strap of her bra and under shirt so Parker can see the full bruise.
"Hm...Doesn't look too bad but it's pretty badly bruised, Be careful with your shoulder okay?" Quinn nods in response, fixing her shirt again.
"I'll be back in an hour or two, I'm just patrolling the grounds."
"Okay, I'll be here waiting. I might look around the house."
"Be careful." She says, putting her boots on.
"There's nothing bad-"
"Still be careful." She grabs her bag and her gun. Parker smiles and nods. Quinn didn't show nearly as much affection towards him as he showed towards her but how protective and worried she was made him know she cared.
Quinn grabbed her stuff and made sure the house was protected before she pushed the shelf away from the door and walked out, closing the door behind her. Parker pushed the shelf back in place and sat on the ground in the living room. He hummed quietly to himself as he started writing in his journal.
