THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 017 ] kiki trash talks a cop in victorian-era french

XVII.

k i k i t r a s h t a l k s
a c o p i n v i c t o r i a n -
e r a f r e n c h

—AFTER SO LONG, Five had sort of forgotten how to hug.

It was a good thing Zara was an excellent hugger, because he really had no idea what to do.

The hug was stiff at first; a formal, perfunctory gesture. Exactly as cold and abrupt as Five had expected it to be.

But then he tried hugging her back.

All of a sudden, Five felt a barrage of strange "emotions" that came up from nowhere and scared the crap out of him.

He was all warm and fuzzy on the inside (a terrifying realization), and it was almost like the world had stopped spinning on its axis for that tiny, fragmented blip in time.

His "emotions"—pesky little things—started getting him self-conscious, and Five wondered whether he was doing the whole hugging thing right.

Where was he supposed to put his arms? How close was it socially acceptable to lean in? What the heck was he supposed to look at?

At first, Five figured he should just make constant, direct eye contact. That option was taken from him pretty quickly, because with every passing second that Zara hugged him for, Five felt an odd watery feeling building in eyes—like they were leaking.

His eyelids fluttered shut, and he let himself cling to her just a little bit tighter.

Maybe he should have let Zara check him for retinoblastomas after all.

That wasn't even the strangest part. Five seemed to have a swarm of butterflies in his stomach, and he couldn't tell whether that was because of Zara or because of the very large scorpion that had emerged from the collar of her shirt and was creeping over to investigate him.

Probably the latter.

No, definitely the latter. He didn't think of Zara as anything more than his totally platonic acquaintance/sidekick on their quest to save the world.

Right?

Five didn't know who he was trying to convince. Being the inherently skeptical little bastard he was, it was nearly impossible to convince himself of anything at all.

There came a knocking sound at the passenger door window. Zara pulled away all too quickly, making the temperature in the van seem to drop a few degrees.

Five pouted. It was surprisingly nice to be hugged, and he didn't know whether he could muster the humility to ask for a second one any time in the near future.

Watching them suspiciously through the window near Zara was Luther. She sighed and shuffled to the back seat, taking Kiki with her.

Five was glad. He liked Kiki — he really did — but seeing as she had taken it upon herself to repeatedly whisper "use protection!" in his ear while Zara hugged him, he wasn't really a big fan of the bird at the moment.

Cool air filtered into the van as Luther opened the door and made multiple attempts to shove his grotesquely-sized body inside. Zara had her eyes fixed intently on the man, and Five could practically see the cogs turning in her head.

"You okay?" asked Luther, when he had finally gotten in and shut the door behind him.

Five frowned at his brother, "You shouldn't be—" he paused to think, "—how did you find us?"