↳ ❝ 𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖗: 𝖜𝖊 𝖆𝖑𝖑 𝖉𝖎𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖊𝖓𝖉. ❞
☂ 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙥𝙤𝙫.
"I survived on scraps. Canned food, cockroaches. Anything I could find."
I visibly gagged when he mentioned cockroaches. I get having to survive, but insects? No matter how hungry I was, you'd never catch me eating one of those things. Five seemed to find it funny though.
"You know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life? It's total bullshit." I had no idea what a 'Twinkie' was. I assumed it was a sort of food. I never got to know much about actual life outside the Commission headquarters, so any kind of modern culture was foreign to me.
"I can't even imagine" Vanya listened to every word intently. She seemed like a good sister. Something I never got. Lila barely talked to me after the incident happened. She pretended I didn't exist just like everyone else.
"You do whatever it takes to survive. Or, you die." This conversation was depressing. For someone who's lived at the Commission my whole life, I never really knew much hardships. Of course, I had trauma from being neglected but it was no where near what Five has been through. I felt bad for being so spoiled, for hating my life at the Commission even though I was perfectly justified.
"So we adapted. Whatever the world threw at us we found a way to overcome it." who else was he with? I was told it was just him in the apocalypse.
"We?" It seemed Vanya was thinking the same as me.
"You got anything stronger?" Five ignored her question, probably too painful to talk about. I understood that, so I didn't pry and neither did Vanya.
She went to get something for Five to drink, and we followed her. The awkward silence returned, the only sound coming from Vanya pouring his beverage. He took it and drank almost all of it before speaking again. "You think I'm crazy." Five scoffed, annoyed no one would believe him.
"No, no. It's just- it's- it's a lot to take in." Vanya stuttered, not wanting to upset him. She was right. I mean, for the average person it was at least. I already knew all of this.
"Exactly what don't you understand?" He started growing impatient with Vanya, while I just stood off to the side, not wanting to meddle.
"Why didn't you just time travel back?" I almost let out a laugh again, but held back. It was a stupid question but she probably didn't know much about time travelling.
"Gee, wish I'd thought of that! Time travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed." Acorn-ed? The fuck does that mean? I decided it would be better not to ask. "You think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?" I felt bad for him, apparently he'd spent over 45 years in that apocalypse before The Handler found him. I wished I could've helped him sooner.
"If you grew old, y'know in the apocalypse... how come you still look like a kid?" at least she was asking half decent questions now.
"I told you already" Five scoffed and went to the counter, placing his glass down a bit agressively. "I must've got the equations wrong"
"You know, dad always used to say that time travel could mess up the mind. Maybe, that's what's happening?"
He seemed to have reached his patience limit for the day, sighing. "This was a mistake. You're too young" Five grabbed me, dragging me with him to the door. I just went along with it, not really caring now. "Too naive to understand!"
"No, no Five. Wait!" Vanya tried getting him to reason with her. She sighed, Five actually stopping to listen. "I haven't seen you in a long time, and I don't want to lose you again. That's all. You know, I have lessons early in the morning. It's late, I need to sleep. I'm sure you both do too. Here." She started making the couch up, for us to sleep on probably. Vanya turned to Five, "We'll talk again in the morning. Okay? Promise." She went to the door, opening it. "Goodnight."
"Night." The door closed, and Five sighed sitting down on the couch again. He pulled out a glass eye, a prosthetic. I sat down on the floor, letting out a yawn.
He turned his gaze towards me for what seemed like the first time since we got here. That whole conversation made me exhausted even if I wasn't really part of it. "You seem tired. You should rest, y/n."
"I could say the same for you, y'know. This whole apocalypse thing seems very exhausting. I think you need it most." I slurred out. It was true. I was tired, but I wasn't gonna just leave him to go out there alone, he needed the sleep as much as I did.
Five scoffed, not responding. He laid down, staring at the glass eye again. After a moment he responded. "Fine. Let's get some rest, but in an hour if you're not awake I'm leaving you here." he closed his eyes, yawning.
"Er- am I sleeping on the floor?" I awkwardly sat there, not knowing where I should lay down.
"You can take the couch." He simply stated.
"No, that's rude. I'll take the floor." I did want the couch but I wasn't gonna let someone sleep on the floor. I had manners.
"I'm taking the floor."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
We ended up just sharing the couch. It wasn't the most comfortable situation, but it worked. We fell asleep pretty quick, ending up laying on top of each other.
§
Three hours later, I got woken up by the movement of my comfy cushion beneath me. That comfy cushion happened to be Five. Oops. I rolled over, landing on the floor with a thud. "Fuck! That's the second time in 24 hours" I hissed, grabbing my back in pain.
"Y/n, what time is it?" Five croaked out and I checked the time on the clock that was on the wall. Shit. We've been asleep for three hours.
"Uhm, 3 am?" I chuckled nervously, preparing my ears for shouting.
"Shit. We slept in." He cursed, dragging me out of the apartment quickly after getting up. I was still half asleep so I almost fell multiple times.
"Sorry I should've realized." I yawned mid sentence, covering my mouth with my hand. I felt bad for Vanya, she probably wouldn't know why we left.
"It's not your fault. I shouldn't have slept at all," He kept dragging me until we reached outside again. That's when he noticed the blood on my sleeve. It had finally soaked through my hoodie. Shit.
"Y/n. What's that?" Five pointed at my bleeding arm, that was now very obvious. I faked my confusion, pretending not to know what happened.
"What's what?" I checked my arm, looking at the blood. "Awh. I ruined my favorite hoodie."
"You idiot." He cursed teleporting back inside the apartment, leaving me outside for a moment before coming back with the first aid kit. "Take the sweater off"
"Damn I didn't know you were a perv" He made a disgusted face. "Calm down I was kidding" I took the hoodie off, revealing a deep wound on my arm where the bullet grazed. I winced at how bad it looked. I didn't realize it was that bad.
He started cleaning it before stitching it up, while I tried not to move. It was very painful, but I was used to strong pain so my tolerance was higher than your average citizen. "Jesus why didn't you tell me"
"It's not that important, I dunno." I shrugged. I received a death glare from him, and quickly put my hands up. "What? It's not that bad." More glares. Why did I think that was so ho- stop it. Stop thinking like that. You're supposed to be helping him, not falling in love here.
After that whole mess was finished, we ended up on the city sidewalk, walking to who knows where. "Five." he hummed, signaling for me to ask my question. "Where are we even going right now?"
"To find the owner of this." He pulled the eye out again. "It has a serial number on the back. I found it in the apocalypse. It has to be a clue to who caused it."
I let out an "ohh" and kept walking. "Should we get a taxi...?" We both ended up agreeing it would be faster.
I slept some more in the taxi, since it was quite a drive to get there. I was exhausted even with the three extra hours of sleep.
§
By morning, we finally arrived at our destination. We had got caught in traffic due to a bad accident so it took longer.
Getting shaken awake, I yawned. I opened my eyes to see someone's face above me. It was Five. I was sleeping on him. "Shit! I'm so sorry" I got off quickly. He only shrugged.
"Seems to be a new habit of yours." he seemed smug about it, and I shook my head in embarrassment.
"No, it won't happen again... ugh." I got out of the car, hearing the driver laugh at our antics.
"For teenagers, you two seem like a married couple" The driver looked back at Five, smirking. "Have a nice day, lovebirds"
That only made the embarrassment worse. I hid my face in my hand as we walked into the lobby of the building. Five still seemed happy with himself, though I don't know why.
"What's wrong?" He asked, noticing my odd behavior. I was trying to cover the redness of my face but it wasn't working out. I sighed, taking my hand down and looking the opposite direction.
"Nothing, nothing at all." I mumbled, waiting for the elevator. Five didn't buy it but he didn't pry.
Once we got to the floor we needed to be on, we got out, walking up to a man who was working at his desk. He looked up, noticing me and Five standing there. "Uhh, can I help you?" the man seemed confused as to why two teens were at a place like this.
"I need to know who this belongs to." Five pulled out the prosthetic again, showing it to the guy.
"Where did you get that?" The man questioned, suspicious of our intentions.
"What do you care?" I stood by Five, waiting for anything to happen. The man didn't respond, waiting for an answer to his question. Five glanced at me. "I found it. At a playground, actually. With my girlfriend here. Must've just..." he made a popping sound with his mouth. "Popped out. I wanna return it to it's rightful owner" Girlfriend? I knew he was just trying to wing a fake cover up, but still. It made my stomach feel weird, being called that. He didn't seem to acknowledge it much though.
The woman at the desk next to us chimed in, "Awh, what a thoughtful young man and lady." Oh, that's it. Young lady? Really? I am almost 30 years old!
"Yeah look up the name for me, will ya?" Five asked, the innocent facade not fading yet.
"Er- I'm sorry. Patient files are strictly confidential. That means I can't tell yo-" The man got cut off mid sentence.
"Yeah I know what it means." And, here we go again.
"But, I'll tell you what I can do. I'll take the eye off your hands, and return it to it's rightful owner. I'm sure he or she will be very grateful so if you could jus-" poor guy kept getting interrupted. I didn't actually feel bad for him though.
"Yeah, you're not touching this eye." Yep, we're gonna get arrested. Goodbye, world. It was nice knowing you for a day.
"Now, you listen here young man-"
Five grabbed the employee by his shirt leaning in threateningly. Again, no sense of personal space. "No! You listen to me, asshole. I've come a long way for this, through some shit your pea brain couldn't even comprehend. So just give me the information I need, and we'll be on our merry way. And if you call me young man one more time, I'm gonna put your head through that damn wall!" I snorted, trying to hold a laugh in again.
"Oh dear..." the woman seemed a bit nervous, watching the whole scene.
"Call security!"
Five shoved the guy off, dragging me back with him. Guess we have to call it quits for now.
"We need an adult. One who looks the part at least. Someone who could get the information easier." Five sighed trying to think of someone.
"Klaus." who's Klaus?