How To Kill Time | Five Hargreeves X Y/N

🪓3: Sleepless

You fell asleep on your couch. You were awakened by a rather gentle tap on your shoulder.

"Hey, miss. You can get your room back."

You looked up to see the stranger towering over you, wearing your clothes which fitted him loosely. He looked quite comfortable and it seemed that he also washed his hair. It was wet but nicely slicked back.

You rubbed your eyes and frantically fixed your hair and wrinkled clothes as you sat up. He sat beside you, staring and the floor.

"I can take the couch so you can be comfortable on your bed. You don't have to keep me that long anyway. I'll leave soon."

The air drafts allowed you to get a whiff of his scent and right now, he smelled like you. You couldn't help but feel warmed up inside. 

"God, you guys are such boomers. I've never ever heard of young couples nowadays not sleeping in one room together like normal teens in a cute relationship. Unless-" 

"Unless what?" The stranger asked.

"You're playing with my sister. And YOU! Y/n... You're letting garbage boys treat you like shit again. I swear, y/n. You cannot do this to your brother. Tell me. Are you lying to me?" Felix questioned, pointing at you so accusingly. 

"W-wh-what are y-you.."  You fumbled between your words. I could not seem to get out the right words I wanted to say. My mind wanted to explain but my mouth forbids me to. It's like it purposely does not want to cooperate.

"No, I'm not playing. Okay then, if you want me to sleep with my girlfriend, I will." My pupils grew wide. The shock almost made my eyes get thrown up by my skull out of my sockets. My mouth was left ajar.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Felix triumphantly spat.

The stranger took me by the hand and angrily brought me along with him as he marched up my bedroom. He immediately locked the door and switched of the lights. I fell scared. He might have sensed how uncomfortable I felt so he switched on my desk lamp. 

It glowed a hazy warm yellow light which set up a much comforting mood than 5 minutes ago.

"Just play along. Don't worry, I'm not an animal." He says, pulling out a stool from under my desk and sat down after gesturing me to go sit down on my bed.

"S-sorry about my brother."

"No. Don't be. He should be, not you. I've dealt with assholes worse than him. Don't worry about it." He calmly assured.

You propped yourself down, sitting on the right most side of the bed. Just enough to give the stranger a big space to share the bed with you. You didn't feel like sleeping anyway. Now that Felix vaguely mentioned about your shit ex-boyfriend again and how he makes it like your fault that you were treated like shit when all you did was love the man.

"Hey... You can- uh... sleep if you want. I bet you're tired. You can have the bed, really. I can stay elsewhere."

"It's Five Hargreeves. And no, miss. I really insist. You can give me scratch papers and I can stay up all night working important equations so I can leave right before you wake up in the morning. I won't hassle you, I promise."

"The name's Y/N. So now that we know each other... As the owner of this bed, I insist you take it. Can't sleep anyway."

"Why? What's the matter?"

"Nothing. It's just I thing my body does. When someone wakes me in the middle of deep sleep, I find it hard to go back to sleep again."

"Oh. Sorry. That would be my fault. How do you rest, then?" 

"Stare at the ceiling, I guess. Let my thoughts tire me out."

"I don't think we're doing that today. How 'bout we do something else?"

"No. I'm not sleeping with you if that's what you're suggesting."

"No. I thought of--- that," Five says, pointing at an old guitar lying around the corner of your bedroom.

"You play?"  He asks, taking the guitar in his hands. He strummed the strings and it was all badly out of tune.

"Clearly not." You silently chuckled to yourself as you observed him tuning it.

"Why have this then?" he inquires, finding a comfortable way to rest the grooves of the guitar on his lap after crossing his legs.

"Was my dad's. Let's not just talk about him. Maybe some other time. Come on up, Five. It would be much comfortable to play that if you were up here. Play me a song to sleep to. Make up for waking me up."

"O-kay, then. Sounds like plan." He comes up, walks towards you, and sits on your bed. He looks at you and starts gently playing "Million Years Ago by Adele."

You watched as he passionately sang, pouring out his emotions out with every word as he plucked the strings in a such a skillful fashion. You watched as your night lamp's faint glow illuminated one side of his face. You couldn't help but stare into his eyes as though they were windows to yours. He seemed helpless. Somber. Lonesome.

Not very different from you. 

As the song ended, he rested your dad's guitar on the stand beside your bed. He pulled up his knees to his chest, sinking into the bed defeated by the overwhelming feelings inside him as he stared blankly ahead.

"Y/n, you just don't know it."

"Don't know what?"

"I was stuck there in the rubbles of everything that ended in the apocalypse. I saw them... Mom. The old man," his voice cracked, slowly becoming hysterical. He was starting to hyperventilate as tears flowed like streams from his eyes.

"My brothers. My sisters. Dolores. Everyone. Dead. For years, I was alone. I couldn't find water. I starved. I desperately looked for help but I had no one to turn to." The tone of his voice kept rising as he went on. 

"Shh. Shh... Shh.. Five, you're here now. You're alright. You're safe. I'm here." You grew soft and felt so sorry you didn't know that Five had to go through all of that.  You pulled his head gently towards you and rested his chin on your shoulders as you locked him in for a long, deep, warm embrace. One that you never knew he needed so much.

 "You don't understand it. But if it wasn't for you, I'd be stuck there all my life." You rubbed gentle circles on his back, gave gentle pats to comfort him so he could finally relax. 

As soon as you felt him ease up and his sobs die down, you rested him down on the bed and fixed the pillows under his tired head. He fell asleep quickly right after he broke down. You wiped off the tears from his face and tucked the loose stray strands of his hair at the side of his face. You placed the covers over him and played with his hair as you whispered,

"Then I'm glad I took your hand."