MEGALOMANIAC. five hargreeves [2]

two. please don't call me that

EDITED SEPTEMBER 5, 2021

Eight tried to not look at him.

As tempting as it was, she didn't look at him. Not even a single glance. Not even a little peek at those eyes that kept looking her way. She'd known Five for the longest time, and she knew what those glances from him meant, but damn it, she wasn't going to look at him.

When they were back in the Apocalypse, the two of them fought. They fought a lot (of course they did, they were starving, hungry, and cold) but somehow, this was even worse. At this point, she would prefer if they would just scream at each other; be angry. Not this. Anything but this.

She was hurt; Eight knew that it wasn't his fault. That he was just a victim of Reginald's morbid experiments on them, but fuck, it hurt.

As she set the water down on the kitchen top thinking about that everything that had just happened, there was suddenly a burning pressure in her chest, making it so tight to the point that it was a little hard to breathe. It felt like someone grabbed her heart and squeezed it tight, and not in a poetic way, but in the I-can't-fucking-breathe-properly way. Eight held her chest. taking in deep breaths as she leaned on the countertop. Don't be a baby. Don't be a fucking baby.

As she took in deep breaths, there it was again. There came those eyes again.

Finally caving in, Eight snapped her head at the boy who was looking at her. I'm fine, Five. she sent the message through her head, hoping that her newfound skills worked. Don't look at me like that. I'm fine.

She wasn't fine, but that wasn't their biggest problem at the moment.

Five knew better than to ask questions. Besides Diego, Eight was one of the most stubborn people he knew.

Although a bit reluctant to keep his eyes off her, Five looked around to see newspapers plastered all over his walls, mostly about what he had assumed was the vortexes he had made since they were all explaining the same thing. He paused for a moment, before walking around the small area with the coffee cup in his hand. "You ever uh... Heard of Area 51? Roswell?"

The man suddenly scoffed and a bright smile was now on his face." Hot damn! Whoo! See, I always knew we weren't the only ones. See, Eleanor thought my head wasn't screwed on tight, but its all true, yeah?" he looked towards Eight. "UFO's, crop circles.."

"Well, the truth is somewhere out there." Eight put on a fake smile, but the man shook his head. She was never good at pushing away her problems, but she would at least try a bit.

"No, no, no, no, no. The... The truth, it's... Right here, in front of us." he started walking towards Five, who was near the papers.

Eight raised her eyebrow and flung the older man away from Five.

"Move away, dumbass. Step any closer and I'll fly you out of the goddamn window." Eight stated. Sure, her head was still in all these different places, and maybe she was still reluctant around Five, she wouldn't let anything happen to him.

The man quickly nodded, moving away. "They need a little space. Yes. I'll be over here."

"Those contraptions on the roof.. you built those, right?" Five questioned, moving towards one of the tables while Eight sat on a chair that was a few steps away from the kitchen.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, sure did. Yeah, I've been tracking anomalies in the atmosphere. Just waiting."

Eight slouched up. "Waiting for what?"

"For you." he faced Eight. "For all of you."

The girl furrowed her eyebrows together. Deep down inside, she was a bit grateful that this man was a bit confusing since it seemed to ease the pain in her chest, but it was still really weird.

"It all started in 1960, the year the Silvertone Omega was released. I was in the middle of a sale when something very... strange happened. So for the past three years, I've witnessed five energy surges in that alleyway outback. Same thing every time."

Portal. It must've been the rest of them. The numbers were too much of a coincidence.

Eight started blanking out, the man's voice suddenly becoming silent. After a few seconds, eventually, she couldn't hear anything at all. She looked up, confused, and saw that the man was still taking.

She looked behind her, spotting a dark shadow that was hovering around a mirror. Her confusion got to her as she started making her way towards the small area, looking at the shadow until it suddenly went inside her mouth, her eyes, and her ears.

Eight fell to the ground, choking as she did so. Five heard the thump that came from the mirror and whispered a quick "shit." Ran towards her, and tried to push away the black smoke, but whatever he did, there was no budge. A high pitched scream suddenly came from Eight while Elliot was watching the whole thing unfold with wide eyes.

The fog suddenly disappeared after it entered her whole body. Five quickly scanned her, kneeling down beside her. "Are you okay? Shit, Eight." he mumbled, hugging her tight. Elliot looked at him, confused. He didn't seem the type of person who hugged people.

"Five, move."  Eight pushed him away, breathing heavily as she did so. She could see a flash of hurt in those eyes, but the idea of being hugged while she couldn't breathe wasn't that appealing to her.

Eight stayed in that position, still not hearing anything but her breathing. Suddenly, a giggle erupted in her head. "You really thought you could get rid of me, did you?"

"Fucking bitch." Eight whispered to herself. She looked up to see Five with a baffled expression on his face as she said this. "No! Not you. Don't worry." she said quickly, standing up from the floor and dusting away the dirt that made it into her uniform.

"Anyway, did you find something?" she questioned, ignoring what had just happened to her a few seconds ago. Five was confused, he really needed to ask her what the hell happened while they were gonna wait for Diego. "Yeah, uh.." he took the paper out of his pocket. "I found Diego."

Again, her problems weren't important. They were in the fucking sixties and the rest of their family was missing. Possession wasn't the most life-threatening thing at the moment.

"Alright." Eight mumbled, holding his shoulder since she knew that Five was probably gonna go somewhere.

Five frowned. She didn't hold his hand like she usually did.

With his head hung low, Five thanked the man before he zapped away, bringing Eight with him.

-

Five and Eight walked along the alleyway to the mental institution in complete utter silence, still in shock of what had happened just a few hours ago. This was bad. This was very bad.

The boy looked right beside him, frowning when he notices that Eight was really taking a bunch of space between the two of them. Literally. She was standing six feet away, and to a bunch of bystanders, it would look like they didn't even know each other.

Five noticed her silence and made his way beside her. "Hey.. what happened back there?" he asked, genuinely concerned for her. Eight let out a dry laugh, kicking a pebble she saw on the ground. "What else? The bitch is back."

"Oh shit." Five mumbled. "We can go to the library if you want? I'm gonna try to find something-"

"Five, no." Eight stopped in her tracks. "We only have a few days left until the world ends. That's way more important than my situation right now. Maybe after this, okay? But not right now. We have a way bigger problem in our hands and the whole world depends on it."

Five hesitated for a moment. "Alright, love." He mumbled quietly. Eight tensed up at what Five called her. She didn't know why, but now that she heard it, it didn't feel right anymore. "We're here." he looked up at the mental institution.

"Hold on." Eight stopped him from walking. When Eight finally grabbed his hand, he felt this huge sense of joy wash through him. In fact, he was extremely close to breaking out into a grin, until those words came out of her mouth.

"Please, Five." she croaked out, her voice cracking at the mention of his name. "Please, don't call me that."