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“Hey, hey,” Lila roughly shoved her brother-in-law awake. “Hey! Wake up.”
His eyes squinted from the brightness of the moving train as a familiar glare made its way onto his face.
“I need you to cut my hair off. Like all of it off, now.”
Suddenly, the glare turned more into confusion. Though, the anger was still there. He mostly looked half-asleep still. “What?”
Lila snapped her fingers in his face. “Wake up! I need you to cut my hair. I’m tired of it,” Her hands reached up to itch it for the 127th time that day as if to accentuate her point. “It’s so goddamn itchy all the time, and I want it all gone.”
Five rubbed his eyes and sat up. “Couldn’t you tell me later, when I wasn’t sleeping?”
She did feel a little guilty, he had been tossing and turning all night, but this was more important right now. “I want you to do it now, you know we have all the stuff for it.”
He bit his lip, looking hesitant. “Are you sure? Why don’t you just brush it out, or something?”
“Five. I want it off,” She emphasized every word.
It was their 2nd year, 7th month, and 16th day there. Or, so she thinks. Either way it’s been far too long. Lila didn’t care about how she looked anymore, she wanted to stop being itchy and gross.
She didn’t dare think about how long she had gone without washing it, she already knew it was far too long. It wasn’t often they got the opportunity to shower, and they rarely ever wanted to waste their precious source of water on anything but drinking. Even when they found timelines that seemed relatively intact, there weren’t many places they could go to wash off. Maybe a gym would take pity on them, assuming they were a homeless mother and son trying to get by and let them use their showers. Five, in all his 65-year-old glory, had almost mastered the innocent starved teenager face. 'Oh please, Ma’am. Me and my mom were kicked out by her deadbeat husband… and we just need some help… anything would do. She’s been working so hard for me, and I just want to help her. She’s a sweet woman.’ It was an absolutely humiliating routine for him, which made it all the more fun to watch for her.
This however, didn’t work all of the time. That was even banking on the fact they were on a timeline with other people on it to begin with, so most of the time they just had to deal with their dirty and disheveled appearances. The greasy strands of her hair would fall into her face if they didn’t fall directly onto the floor every time she scratched at her head. It was more often than not completely tangled to all hell. She had found a pretty intact hairbrush and had been trying to brush her hair semi-regularly, but there was only so much she could do. Every time she brushed it most of the strands would break anyway due to her less-than-ideal diet. It had gotten so much longer, even after she had trimmed it a little. Trimming wasn’t as necessary, more of a preference thing. She was tired of finding too long hairs in her clothes everywhere, but even after cutting it they still showed up everywhere.
It was one of those things that really hurt about the whole situation. She used to really care about her appearance. Lila loved dressing up, and doing her hair. She loved doing her makeup and going shopping with Klaus or Viktor and having fashion shows with them. She missed dressing up her daughters, relenting when they begged her to do their makeup, or laughing when they instead begged their father to put makeup on him.
Now-a-days, she would be lucky if they even found a store that had clothes that weren’t burnt to a crisp. Or already dusty and uncomfortable to wear. Any kind of makeup was expired, and even if she did find any it would be useless to bring along. They didn’t carry around mirrors and there wasn’t really any reason to use it anyway. It would just be a deadweight in her backpack. Probably unsanitary to put makeup on her unwashed face anyway.
Either way, Five wasn’t the most fun shopping-buddy. Honestly, he was probably the worst one you could come across. His “taste” in clothing was strictly utilitarian, even before this whole situation, and it hurt her to think she was becoming just like him in that regard. Ripped leggings or short pleated skirts or tank tops just weren’t cutting it anymore. It was all cargo pants or big jackets and scarves now. Lila was sure she looked like some sort of street urchin at this point, and she couldn’t find it in her to care anymore.
Five shrugged and kicked his legs up on the seat in front of him. “I’ll cut it when we get off, I’m not doing it on a moving train. I’d rather not kill you.”
“That’s a first,” Lila snorted, but she agreed. “Anyway, I doubt you’d kill me, maybe just seriously maim me,” She flopped down next to him, kicking her feet up as well. God, this train better be fast. Their arms brushed up against each other, and Lila reveled in the warmth that came from the proximity.
A year or two back, Five would have never let her sit this close. It was undeniable that the two of them had gotten closer, and Lila couldn’t tell if she appreciated that fact or absolutely despised it. The two of them always had a slightly complicated relationship. What with the whole Five killing her parents and Lila trying to kill his whole family in return… complicated. They had semi-worked towards a sort of impasse at this point, accepting that the two of them would never be able to take back what they did.
She wasn’t sure if the newfound kinship, or whatever you could call this, was purely out of survival. She had heard a lot about Five’s little thing with the mannequin, complete isolation did crazy things to the mind, and sometimes you had to do… or talk to anything just to not go completely mad. She hoped he didn’t see any of that in her. Gross.
Maybe it was some sort of traumatic bond, a shared acceptance that this is a horrible situation the two of them were going through, and that no one other than each other would understand. It was comforting, in a way. Even if the two of them already had enough traumatic situations to bond over for a lifetime.
Five sighed, in the way a big sad dog would, and she turned to him. He had closed his eyes again, a peaceful expression on his face, he did always look so insufferably darling when he slept. She wanted to blame it on the youth that still stubbornly stuck to his face, but he was nearing a physical 21 years old at this point. Should they celebrate? She is sure he would absolutely hate it, which makes her think they absolutely should celebrate.
The mop that he called his hair was getting longer than she ever assumed he would like it, down past his shoulders at this point, and it made her wonder. He had grown his hair out in the years they had been dropped onto this new timeline, but it could just barely be called ‘long.’ It certainly was nowhere near the shaggy mess he sported right now. She knew he had grown his hair out far longer than this before, but that wasn’t really out of enjoyment. But neither was this, she supposed.
“Do you like your hair like this? You’ve gotta want to cut it soon.”
Five’s eyes fluttered open again and looked up to her from his slumped position. “Whuh?”
“Brother,” she snorted. “We need to get some caffeine in you.”
She reached a hand up and ruffled his hair, which made it stick up in a million different directions. He smacked her hand away but huffed good-naturedly, reaching his own hand up to fix the mess she made. He mulled over the question as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes.
“I don’t care about how my hair looks. Shorter is easier to deal with, but the length was nice during the winter. It also was good protection against the sun,” He wrung his hands together, looking self-conscious suddenly. “Well, at the time, at least.”
“Yeah, and what about outside of an apocalypse scenario. Would you ever grow your hair out this long?” She curled one of his long strands of hair around her finger, which he shockingly allowed her to do.
“Hm,” He bit the inside of his mouth, unsure of what to say. “I mean, I don’t know. As kids we had scheduled hair-cuts from Grace that made sure they never went anywhere below our ears. We weren’t ever allowed to grow our hair out, our dad liked to keep us looking professional. Long hair on little boys wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.”
Lila twitched her lip to one side. He was avoiding the question. “But did you want to?”
The loud, rushing sound of the train filled the silence for a moment or two. She thought Five might have fallen asleep again before he scratched at his head.
“I don’t know. Does it matter?”
It sounded like it did matter, but he didn’t know how to verbalize it. Lila decided she wasn’t going to push it. Five was enigmatic on a good day, and she knew he wasn’t one to really think about his own wants above his needs. Ever the pragmatist, she guessed.
“Well, as uh… problematic as my mum was, she let me do whatever I wanted with my hair, or my clothing. She was as fashionable as she was… well terrible. I guess.”
Five nodded towards her in agreement. “I’m pretty sure she had a different outfit tailored for every single day or her life. I never saw her in the same outfit twice.”
She smiled, she missed her mom.
The train suddenly screeched out, and slowed to a stop. The two of them startled at the noise and sat up, gathering their stuff to leave. Lila tried to reach her hand out to help him up but he swatted it away. God forbid she ever tries to be nice, maybe she had imagined that new-found intimacy?
Lila instantly shivered at the cold air of the station when she stepped out of the train. She heard rain pattering from afar, just before seeing Five speed-walk away from her up to the stairs.
“Oi! I thought we were cutting my hair?”
“I’m getting some of that rain water!” He shouted over his shoulder, picking up speed as he ran up the staircase and disappeared from her view.
She rolled her eyes and started to set up camp. It was freezing here, but not any worse than any of the other stations usually were. At the very least, this was one of the less dirty ones they had been to, other than the vines and leaves growing along the walls. It was overgrown with plenty of lush greenery, something they hadn’t seen much of. She just thanked god she had found a big sweater and a big coat from a fairly intact department store a couple months ago, to replace her old clothing. It made the cold not so absolutely unbearable, though it was a low bar to cross. She prayed that Five could start a semi-decent fire tonight.
In its own separate compartment of her bag she had a pair of scissors, and a dull razor wrapped up in a cloth. She pulled out the razor and her utility knife to sharpen it as she waited for Five to take his sweet time getting back. Her heart started to beat irregularly as she felt herself getting antsy. She wasn’t getting cold feet, was she? What would Diego or her family think when she came back? Maybe she should hold off, just for a couple months. She could probably do that, right?
As her head itched for the millionth time, she thought no. She could literally scrape the grease out of her scalp and cook with it at this point. This shit needs to go. No more half measures.
Her head snapped up as she heard a yelp and something, or probably some idiot slipping and falling from where she couldn’t see. A couple seconds later he emerged, dripping wet and shivering. But by the way he struggled with the two containers he held, she assumed he was successful in his mission.
“You should come here,” He stood by the stairs, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. He huffed like he was out of breath.
“What is it?”
“Just come here!” An impatient look crossed his face, as he dropped his stuff on the floor and started back up the stairs without her.
“Hey!” Lila called after him. “Are we gonna cut my hair or not?”
When it became evident he wasn’t budging on this, she groaned and dropped her stuff, finally chasing after him. “This better be worth it!” She called ahead.
The closer she got to the top of the steps the colder it became, she pulled her coat tighter around herself and shivered at the rainy cold air. When she got to the top step she saw him standing at the top, looking out at what was revealed to be an incredibly large and vast forest.
Lila’s eyes widened uncontrollably. The trees were so tall she could barely see the tops of them, there was a thick layer of clouds and fog covering the roof of the forest, a drizzle of rain falling from it. It was quiet and loud in that unique nature-y way. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. They had never come across something like this in their whole time here. It was rare they ever came across a timeline that wasn’t some sort of apocalyptic wasteland, but if they were lucky they’d find some sort of town or city that was still intact. What the hell was a train station entrance doing in a place like this?
It was about as unnatural as a train station that brought you to different timelines, she excused.
She took a step forward, spinning to take a big look at her surroundings. It looked like the trees stretched on for miles, the fog covering most of what she tried to see in the distance. Wet leaves and mud stuck to her boots and made her thankful they had found a sturdier pair of shoes for her. Taking a deep breath actually rewarded her with cold and clean air filling her lungs, it felt amazing.
“What…” she mumbled, oh so eloquently.
Five was smirking at her, looking very vindicated by his find. “Well? Was this worth it?”
“It’s definitely something,” She marvels at the sights and sounds around her. Unable to remember the last time she had ever seen something like this.
“I haven’t seen a forest in…god knows how long. In person, at least,” Five mentioned, almost reading her mind, a saccharine look on his face. “Never went out far enough to find any in the apocalypse, but they were probably wiped out anyway. We used to go on trips to the woods as kids, but they were always for training. I never got to camp or hike for fun, or anything like that.”
Lila stared up at the sky, letting the rain hit her face and wash off the days worth of build up of grime stuck to her cheeks. She almost opened her mouth and drank some, but Five had already scolded her about the risk of bacteria.
“Maybe we could convince the family to take a camping trip when we get back?”
Five let out a sharp laugh. “Hell no. You and I have done enough camping for one lifetime. Do you want to be the one to try and convince Klaus to sleep outside the house anyway?"
The two of them stood around in silence, taking in the wonders of this new place. It was the most peaceful Lila had felt since she had gotten to this place. All of her time here has been all stress all the time. The two of them rarely got a moment of rest here. She found herself missing all the menial things she complained about before she got here, cooking for her family, doing the laundry, taking the kids to school. The kind of things she dreaded doing every day felt like nothing compared to this, she would gladly take back every boring chore she was forced to do if it meant she could get out of here. She hadn’t even realized how good she had it.
If the water that dripped down her face felt warmer and tasted saltier than the rain, she wouldn’t acknowledge it.
She looked over to Five, who was sporting a completely unreadable expression. Tilting his head to the side as he stared at everything around him. He was trembling from the cold and his soaking wet clothing, but he made no moves to go back into the safety of the station. Lila felt the side of her mouth quirk up ever so slightly.
“Hey,” Lila piped up, her voice quieter than it had ever been.
Five turned to her, his eyes looked glassy.
“I’m uh… glad you’re here with me,” She squeezed her hands together. “You drive me bonkers everyday, and you completely suck all the time. But I don’t think I would be here without you. So um… thanks.”
That unreadable expression never left his face, but he nodded.
Lila thought maybe that had been it, she hadn’t really expected a sentimental response…or really any response at all, until Five extended an open hand towards her. She stared at it for a moment, a confused expression etched into her face. She looked back up at him, his face conveniently aimed away so she couldn’t see it. Her lips pursed and she accepted his hand. He squeezed back so hard she thought he might cut off her circulation, but she appreciated the comforting touch.
They stood like that for what must have been forever. Saying nothing to each other, but their hands stayed held together. Lila wasn’t ever the most cuddly person, especially with people outside of her own family or Diego, but she missed feeling another human being’s touch more than anything. This feeling was strange and unnatural, it burned her skin in a good way. It was warm and stood out against the cold of the forest around them.
A gust of wind blew by, sending their hair flying in it. A deep chill seeped into her bones, but she didn’t want to leave. She bit her lip to ward off the lump making its way in her throat.
But, like all good things, it had to end. Five pulled his hand back and scrubbed at his face, trying to clean the dirt off of it, she supplies for the sake of his pride. He turned back to the stairs and held a hand out.
“You ready?”
Lila turned to stare into the distance for the last time, letting out a deep sigh that was lodged in her chest, before nodding. She carefully made her way down the steps, careful not to slip like a certain someone had. She was sure she saw a light bruise forming on his forehead… moron.
On her way back, she traced the growing vines along the walls with her hands. It made sense now that she knew what was above them. The moisture on the leaves stuck to her hands and felt amazing against the dirt caked on them.
They made their way back to the camp Lila had haphazardly set up, Five immediately working on starting a fire. He stripped off his sopping wet coat and laid it along one of the benches, closest to the fire. Lila almost laughed out loud at the way he shook his hair around like a dog trying to dry itself off.
She picked back up her razor and started sharpening it again, wringing the item around in her hand anxiously.
“You sure you know how to do this?”
Five shrugged. “It’s a haircut. It can’t be rocket science.”
“You aren’t gonna make me look psycho, are you?”
“Who’s gonna see it if I do?”
Well, he was right, but she tried to pretend it didn’t hurt to think about.
Once the fire was going, he set up the rainwater he had collected on top to boil it. He knew all the safety methods, she usually just let him do his thing. But he left a little bit of water off to the side next to him as he pulled out a ratty towel and a can of shaving cream.
“You want it down to the skin?”
Lila grimaced. “I don’t want to look like a cancer patient.”
He scrunched his nose and put the shaving cream back in the bag.
Once the razor was relatively done sharpening, she handed it off to him along with her scissors and hairbrush and stood aimlessly, waiting for some kind of instructions.
“You sure about this?”
She nodded for the last time, no going back now.
“Alright. Uh,” He sat on the edge of the bench and pointed at the empty spot on the floor in front of his legs awkwardly. “You sit here.”
She complied, taking off her big coat and placing it on the floor underneath her to sit on. She crossed her legs and backed up enough where her shoulders brushed against his legs. He placed the towel around her shoulders to cover her shirt and started brushing her hair out. It was a little easier now that the rain had gotten it all wet, but it was still fairly tangled and it hurt like hell.
“Ow. Ow! Fuck, be gentle!” She yelped for the 4th time.
“I am being gentle,” He hissed, getting impatient. “Your hair is matted.”
“It is not matted, it’s just a little tangled.”
She didn’t have to see his face to know his eyes were rolling.
After a bit of time, he had gotten most of the tangles out and switched to the scissors. “This is it.” He prefaced, before grabbing a small chunk off the back and cutting it clean off.
He held the chunk of hair in front of her the way a man holds up a fish he caught and grinned down at her. Lila snorted and smacked it out of his hands.
This went on for a while, she could hear him cutting off chunk after chunk, but couldn’t see what he was doing. She felt the cold air starting to hit the back of her head in some spots, and every now and then she would see some of her hair fall off her shoulders and onto the floor around her. She resisted the urge to reach up and feel it while he was working.
“Looking good so far?” Her voice wavered slightly.
He hesitated. “It’s uh… looking.”
The cold metal of the scissors touched her bare scalp and sent a shiver down her spine as they cut off another piece of her hair.
“It’ll look better when I’m done,” He continued. “Probably.”
She felt that familiar burning feeling as his cold, thin fingers brushed against her skin, pulling at her hair less gently than she would’ve appreciated.
“You want me to cut yours next?”
There was no answer to that for a while, but she felt him stop for just a moment to think.
“No,” He answered finally. Took him that long to say no.
She smirked. “You like it, don't you?”
He huffed and pulled at her hair harder than before.
“Ow! Jesus, asshole! Just a question. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“A question I’ve answered before.”
“An answer that I doubt!”
There was a sigh as he shook his head. “Your doubt is unnecessary.”
“I’m a very curious person.”
He groaned. “That is definitely true.”
“Why don’t you grow it out when we get back? Maybe when we have better access to actual hairdressers or showers,” It wasn’t a completely farfetched suggestion she had thought.
By the way he paused, it seemed he might be genuinely thinking about it. He let out a weak scoff. “It’s not the most professional.”
“So what! It doesn’t look completely awful on you.”
Five shrugged, unsure. It was like talking to a brick wall.
“Turn this way,” He gripped her shoulders and pushed her to face the left. She ever so unhelpfully did not move, making him turn her all the way himself.
He continued working on that side of her hair, she strained her eyes as hard as she could to see his face, he looked incredibly focused. His tongue almost sticking out of his mouth.
The fire had finally started doing its magic, the area getting considerably warmer than it had been before. The warm feeling from the fire and the hands messing with her hair sent her back to a far, far memory she didn’t even know she remembered. Her heavy eyelids fluttered shut and she hummed contentedly.
“My mum used to cut my hair like this.”
He glanced down at her but didn’t stop cutting. “Which one?”
“The Handler.”
He nodded, but she didn’t miss the way his jaw set.
“She would sit me down in front of her and ask how I wanted it, and she would cut my hair and tell me stories about The Commission. Of course, when I was around 7 or 8 I would insist I could do it myself,” She snorted. “It looked like shit, but she let me do it anyway. Got me some good practice, cause I cut my own hair from then on.”
Five looked unsure how to respond to that, so he nodded again.
“Anyway, this just reminded me of that,” She finished awkwardly
The silence that followed was tense, she wasn’t sure how to follow it up. Five suddenly grabbed her shoulders again and pushed her to face the other way.
“My mom would do the same, kind of. She would sit us in front of the bathroom mirror and cut our hair. We would stand in a line outside the room and wait our turns every month or so. We didn’t really get a choice how we liked it, but it was nice anyway.”
His eyes squinted. “Although, I’m not really sure how they did it when they got older, of course. I don’t even really know what they looked like at that age. I only saw some pictures.”
Lila hummed. “I suppose you got some experience cutting your own hair then, huh?”
“You’d think,” he snorted. “I barely ever cut my hair in the apocalypse, and if I did it was a complete hack job. I was usually never able to see my reflection anyway, so it didn’t matter.”
He paused for a moment, thinking for a moment. His hand stilled with a chunk of hair in his grasp. “And you know The Commission had their own on-site hairdressers, they cut off all my hair and shaved off my beard when I got picked up. Made me a little more presentable. Never really had to do anything myself.”
“Aww,” Lila crooned. “Daddy never taught you to shave.”
He glared and smacked the back of her head. Lila giggled mischievously.
“Shut up, turn around.”
He turned her to face him as he started to work around her bangs. Her instinct won over finally and she reached a hand up to the back of her head, rubbing the uneven hairs all over her scalp.
“How much longer? I’m hungry.”
Five sneered down at her. “I’ve been working on it for like, 10 minutes.”
“Well?”
A deep sigh escaped him. “Maybe another 10 more minutes. I’m just gonna trim it down once I’m done with this. So it won't be so messy.”
“How thoughtful.”
“Shut up.”
As his hands worked their way around her head, she thought about how it had ever come to this. It felt like just weeks ago she was trying to kill the little piece of shit. Just weeks ago she had gotten the order from her mother to track him down and insert herself into their little lives. (Now she successfully had, just not at all in the way her mother had planned.) Just weeks ago the two of them had to swallow down nausea at the thought of working together to save the world.
When she noticeably did not flinch at the glint of the razor being pulled out she wondered when she stopped thinking of him as a threat and when he became a family member to her. A regular family member doing his sister-in-law a favor.
The two of them had always been at each other’s necks, even in the face of complete domesticity. It was hard to believe the man cutting her hair right now used to be the little boy (technically…) that she had hated all those years ago. They had just been holding hands a little while ago.
She wondered what her mother would think of her now. Married into the family she hated the absolute most, stuck working together with the person she hated even more. It was much easier said than done to just say ‘Well, fuck her’ for everything she had done. Even now, when she had her original family back and a new one that accepted her more than her mother ever had.
Lila wondered how it was so easy for Five and his family to hate their father after his death, or both of his deaths, although she supposed it was a bit of an unfair comparison. Reginald was more akin to The Devil himself. She had heard more than enough stories about their childhood to understand that.
Reginald was barely a father to them, and barely pretended to be one. At least her mother had the decency to pretend she loved her.
She wanted to believe that her mother had actually loved her, but the whole killing her in cold blood thing was a bit hard to ignore. It was hard to look back on all the things her mother had ever done for her after now knowing what she had done to her. Lila felt less like a daughter and more like a pawn. The Handler buttered her up her whole life and groomed her into becoming a weapon for her. And what hurt Lila the most was that it worked for most of her life, she just allowed that to happen to her. She had done so much of what her mother asked just because she thought she loved her, and Lila loved her back.
It was a stupid corny thing Diego had said, back in the barn, about loving dangerous people. ‘The difference is, they love me back.’ His words echoed in her mind bitterly. He didn't know her mother, but she did, and even she wasn’t sure if he had been right or not.
Easy for him to say, while his father very openly did not show any love towards them, he had his siblings. Though, from what she’s heard about their lives before she crashed into it (even after…), she wonders if that even is a fair point at all. They were notoriously hard to rally together when it mattered. Still, he had them and they loved each other undeniably. They would do anything for each other, even if they hated saying it out loud. It was an indisputable fact of their relationships with each other that didn’t need saying.
She wanted to be resentful about it. She tried so hard to hate that family, it made her so jealous of the way they loved each other so easily after what they had been through, but she couldn’t. Those were her siblings too now, and they loved her the same way they loved each other. It was a warm feeling of acceptance she hadn’t felt in a very long time, or maybe ever. She had done horrible things to this family and they still welcomed her with open arms. Though she suspected they knew how it felt to be on her side of things, they weren’t exactly gold standard individuals.
And even still, she loved them to death, and god she missed them so much. She missed going on runs with Luther every now and then, she missed gossiping with Allison about their children’s friend’s mothers, she missed going to the movies with Viktor, she missed it all so much.
Suddenly, she felt the towel being lifted off her shoulders and rubbed against her head. He must have wet it beforehand judging by how cold it was. Piles and piles of dark hair falling to the floor around her.
“Done?”
“Done.”
She hopped up from her position and brushed the hair off her legs and everything, most of it falling right onto Five’s lap. He flashed her a look.
Her hands rubbed against her prickly scalp. It felt good. Definitely less itchy than before. “Do we have a mirror, or anything?”
“Nope.”
“What? So, I just have to trust you did a fine job?”
“Yep.”
Lila folded her arms up and sighed. Well, it didn’t itch as much anymore, and that was really all that mattered. The light feeling of moving her head without the extra pounds of tangled and dirty hair felt orgasmic. She twisted her head from side to side, reveling in the feeling.
“Feel better?”
“Much better.”
“Good,” He huffed. “Now I don’t have to hear you complain anymore.”
She rolled her eyes as she set up her makeshift sleeping bag for the night. A while back they had stumbled upon a timeline with a vacant but open laundromat and stolen someone’s blankets and clothes right from the dryer. They needed them more, so what? It meant that they finally had some nice blankets, ones that weren’t basically just threads at that point. They had obviously gotten dirtier in the 2 months or so that they used them, but at least they didn’t have holes in them anymore. Five had insisted he would sew them back up when he got access to a sewing kit, but they were apparently hard to come by. Less work for him to just steal it anyway.
Something sliding across the floor caught her attention, and when she looked at the floor near her feet she saw a can of peaches waiting for her. She looked over to Five who was rifling through his bag for his stuff, sat on top of his own blankets pulling out his notepad and the map of the train.
Lila picked up the can and hacked it open with her knife, drinking the juice right out of it. It tasted mostly stale and flat, but the peaches were newer enough that they were still sweet. She stabbed a peach with her knife and flopped down onto her blankets, enjoying the warmth of the fire up close.
She tilted her head at Five from across the fire, watching as he clicked his pen a couple times, chewing on it as he studied the map he laid out in front of him.
“You think we’re getting close?”
Five looked up at her with his eyes, but didn’t move his head. He pursed his lips and thought for a while. Lila assumed he didn’t want to give her the real answer he thought of immediately.
“We’re getting there.”
“Close?”
“Just there,” He let out a deep exhale.
Well, she supposes that would have to do for now. She knew better than to push it with Five, he was working on it and they’d get there. Maybe they’d get there even fast with two people working on it.
“You need any help?” She leaned over as far as she could across the floor to see what he was doing.
He grimaced. “No, thank you.”
“Well,” She shrugged and leaned back. “I tried.”
Not like she expected Five to accept her help. If he wanted help he would ask for it, he was rarely the type to take it if he didn’t think he absolutely needed it. She appreciated that in a way, it was nice being with someone who didn’t do things like hidden meanings or anything of the sort. Five was usually quite direct with what he said, which was easier for her. His only detriment was that he completely abused the words ‘I’m fine,’ Despite it almost 90% of the time never being true. Always head-strong to a detrimental fault. Too many times to count where they had been in deathly situations where he had lied for her sake. It would be endearing if not incredibly annoying and dangerous.
Lila reached her hand up again and rubbed her scalp again, nearly forgetting it had been chopped off if it weren’t for the unfamiliar breezy feeling around it. Her knife loudly clattered around the peach can, which was nearly empty at that point. She poured the last of its contents in her mouth and threw the empty can over the fire and at the unsuspecting Five, knocking him right in the head.
The can rolled far away from the two of them, too far away where he would be able to grab it and maybe throw it right back at her. He scowled and flipped her off, she gave him a sweet smile in return, shrugging innocently.
Her back snapped in several places as she stretched. She felt surprisingly exhausted, sleep wasn’t something that came too easy to her here. She yawned as she laid down on the floor, her head propped up against her bag. It wasn’t comfortable, not at all in fact, but she had more than gotten used to it at this point. Besides, she feels like she could fall asleep sitting straight up right now. If Five wasn’t gonna have her do anything, she might as well turn in.
“I’m going to bed.” She announced.
No response. She wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard her, or if he was just ignoring her. Both options seemed plausible for him.
“Night!” She called over to him.
“Mmh.”
Okay, just ignoring her.
She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Goodnight!” She yelled louder.
“Goodnight!” He yelled back, not looking up.
“Don’t stay up all night, I’m not dragging your ass to the next timeline because you’re too exhausted. Or for the love of god eat something, you’re seriously gonna waste away if you keep this up. Jesus”
“Go to bed, go to bed, shut up. Leave me alone.” He wrenched his eyes shut and clenched his fists.
She threw her hands up in the air. “I tried!”
Her heavy eyelids slipped shut as soon as she curled up underneath the blanket. Today was a good day, a better day than usual. Those were becoming harder and harder to come by. She learned to take wins when they presented themselves. Today could be a win. The faint sound of rain from the world above them drifted down into the station, clearing her now light and absent head and lulling her to sleep easily for the first time in years.