illicit | five hargreeves - EDITING

thirty one

chapter thirty one: it's nice to have a friend

Anthony watched intently as he sat at the end of the kitchentable, his eyes fixed on Peggy, who was just walking around normally like she always did. It was surreal, being able to actually watch her walk, talk and just live in general, because she was no longer a distant memory in his mind; she was there, right there in front of him all the time now. He watched as she kissed her husband on the cheek right before he left for work, and then she turned back around and focused on what she had been already cooking on the stove. Anthony spent a lot of his time just looking at her whenever he was around her, because he honestly still didn't believe that she was actually there.

Peggy was five months pregnant at this point in time, with presumably Anthony's mother, which was a whole other thing that was fucking with his mind right now. Antoine wanted a boy and he wanted to call his unborn son Anthony, of course the English translation of his, because he said that it 'would be nice to keep the name in the family' since Antoine's father was also called Antoine, but they thought it would be best to Americanize it in a way, since they were currently living in Texas and were planing to move to New York in the near future.

It was kind of funny, because the actual Anthony Baudelaire knew full and well that their son was actually not a son at all. He did wonder what they would say if he had turned around one day and was like "Hey guys! You know that fetus in your stomach? Yeah, that's my mom! Cool, right?"

Anthony smiled to himself as he watched his grandmother, before he focused back on his friends that were sitting at the table with him. Dorothea was talking with Peggy, and Inez was flicking aimlessly through the newspaper for the day. Joey sat closest to Anthony, his gaze going between the conversation in the kitchen, and then he would glance at Anthony for a moment every couple of seconds. Bobby wasn't there, because Dorothea explained that he had gotten banned from the Baudelaire house after making some sort of racist comment; that didn't surprise Anthony in the slightest.

Anthony had grown quite fond of his three friends through the past week and he felt rather attached to them already; something he had told himself at the start that he wasn't going to do. He got attached to people easily, which always just made the separation that much harder. Because it was almost inevitable that Anthony wouldn't be there forever, eventually Number Five would come back, he would hug and kiss him softly for a moment before taking him back to 2019 where they belong so that they can live their life they had always wanted together. The thought alone of Five should've made him happy or relived, but it surprisingly didn't.

Dorothea was his best friend. She loved hugging him
at random times of the day just because she 'thought he needed it'. She loved music and dancing, her favorite band was the Beatles and she also loved the Beach Boys. Her favorite subject in school was English and she could always be found with some sort of book in her hand. She didn't want to get married because she didn't believe in love, simply that it was a weakness and nothing else.

When Anthony really thought about it for a while, he supposed that she was probably right in a way. He loved love, and he loved being in love, but he would be lying if he said that it didn't make him do stupid things. Anthony knew full and well that he would do absolutely anything for his husband, and he guessed that that would technically classify as a weakness in certain situations.

Inez was the total opposite of her older sister, she was a total hopeless romantic who just couldn't wait to be in love with a man someday. She loves flowers and the color pink, her favorite thing to do was sit in the sun and braid her sister's hair. Her favorite movie was Breakfast at Tiffany's, but she would watch Casablanca sometimes if she wanted to make herself cry when she needed it. Her favorite book was Little Women and she would tell Anthony of how she related to Amy, because she too felt so overshadowed by her older sister. Inez loved school and wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, but she didn't know if it would be possible for her since she was a woman.