Free Falling | [THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY]

welcome home

Jinx sighed, rearranging his tie, and giving himself one last look in the mirror. He felt overdressed, despite this being something anyone would wear to a funeral. He never liked suits, they made him feel stiff and trapped.

"Should I change?" he asked his best friend.

Winter Lowery was one of the forty-three who got away from Reginald Hargreeves. But her and Jinx's paths had still crossed paths a couple of years ago.

She scrunched up her nose, drawing her perfectly-drawn eyebrows together. "It's a perfectly fine suit for a funeral. Why would you change?"

He sighed again, getting more frustrated by the second, starting to pull at his tie. "No one else is gonna dress like this. We all hated dad and who could blame us?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Winter rushed over, grabbing his hands, stopping him from completely undressing ten minutes before they were meant to leave. "You look fine. And the others won't care. Your father is dead, they have other things to worry about."

Jinx released his death grip on the tie and let Winter fix it. She carefully rearranged it, just like Jeffrey had taught her. The thought of her ex-husband made her recoil. Jinx shot her a worried glance. She put her smile back on, knowing she had to be supportive to him today and not the other way around.

"There you go. Fixed it," she said, lightly tapping his chest.

"Thanks, Winnie."

"You're welcome. Now let's go and get your sister," she said, walking over to the key rack that was affixed next to the door.

She let her eyes wander over it for a second, narrowing them as she looked for her keys. Then she smiled, seeing the other pair of car keys hanging next to her old house keys. She grabbed them, turning to wiggle them at Jinx, a mischievous smile gracing her face now.

"Let's take the Royce. Show your siblings how far you made it."

"Except it isn't mine."

"It's technically not mine either," she reminded him. Jeffreys Rolls Royce was the one thing Winter took with her when she took off from the house. He hadn't made much of a fuss about it afterward. It wasn't like he couldn't afford ten other luxury vehicles in its wake.

She continued to smirk at Jinx until he gave in and smirked back. He laughed. "Fine," he said, grabbing the keys from her. "Might as well show off. It's not like we're all gonna start hanging out again regularly."

"Exactly. Today you'll be the suavest and most interesting man your siblings have ever seen."

—-------

Jill turned around to inspect her outfit once more. She didn't much care about how she looked, putting on a black, knee-length leather skirt and a ruffled blouse which she normally saved for job interviews. This get-up was way out of her comfort zone and she wouldn't care about dressing appropriately for her father's funeral, but her siblings would be there, and she could not let them know that she hadn't made it nearly as far as she wanted in her life.

She pulled out the same tube of dark red matte lipstick that she had been using for months on end, unscrewing the cap to put one last finishing coat on her lips before Jinx and Winter came to get her.

She wasn't allowed to take the car from Tony's Pizza home after work and couldn't afford one of her own, so she was relying heavily on public transport and Jinx or Joy whenever they found the time to cart her around. It wasn't like she could rely on Diego to take her anywhere. He was nice enough to let her crash in the back room of the gym with him, but past that he was rarely ever home.