𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 ━ five hargreeves

6│IT'S NOT LIVING ( IF IT'S NOT WITH YOU )

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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐒𝐈𝐗 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ɪᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ
( ɪғ ɪᴛ's ɴᴏᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ )꒱


❝ ALL I DO IS SIT AND DRINK
WITHOUT YOU / IF I
CHOOSE, THEN I'LL LOSE
/ DISTRACT MY BRAIN FROM
THE TERRIBLE NEWS ❞

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Five had never been one for luxury. The circumstance of his life had never afforded him the chance to know any differently, not even in a house with forty-two bedrooms and nineteen bathrooms (that had been more akin to army barracks than a true mansion.) The apartment he lived in was no less shitty than when he'd first moved in six years ago. Cracking paint, floors so dusty that they could never be fully cleaned, walls that surely shouldn't have passed inspection and suspicious black patches in the bathroom that he swore had gradually increased in size. But, he tried to tell himself that it was still better than anything the apocalypse had had to offer (bar the one, glaring difference.)

He wouldn't call the place home. It was a place to live, a place to be out of the streets, a place to store his growing collection of guns and ammo, but that was it. There was nothing that would put it on the front cover of an Architectural Digest magazine; he'd only gotten the essentials: a bed, cutlery, and the means of completing a job. No, home was the one person he'd loved with his entire being and who had left. (Not of her own volition— he didn't blame her— but without her by his side, nothing in his new life mattered.)

Her absence had become made more obvious over the years. Whenever he went places— a bar, a conference, a hotel— the daily movements and sounds of other people filled the space. When he returned home from a job to his empty apartment, the silence was deafening. There was no warm smile that greeted him as soon as he opened the door. He slept in his bed alone for the first time in years. No sounds of laughter or banter filled the apartment, just his quiet breaths, even softer footsteps and the occasional clatter of chalk on the walls. (He'd once pilfered a radio from a dumpster, fixed it up with the intent to banish the silence, but the damn thing only played two songs: Dolores, by Frank Sinatra and Now I'm Here by Queen. He'd soon figured out why its previous owners had disposed of it.)

There were other things to get used to in this new life: bills. He'd never had to have a constant source of money before. He'd never needed to make monthly payments to some overbearing corporation for the basic needs to survive. He often went without water, electricity and heat simply because that was what he was used to (and what self-respecting employer would give a nine-to-five to a fifteen-year-old who had no parents or school to speak of? (Despite the fact that he was fifty-nine, damn it.)) That was what had driven him to find work that used the skills he'd already acquired. That, and the constant undercurrent of rage that they got to live while she couldn't.

He wasn't an assassin— not really; mercenary was a better description. Either way, the work was certainly more of a hassle without his powers. That had been something to get used to, especially in the first few months; he'd accidentally walked into walls and tripped over his feet whenever he'd intended to spatial jump. Over the years it had gotten easier; he managed to break the habit of jerking his body in the direction of the would-be portal, though he occasionally still forgot, leading him to be pierced with more stray bullets than he normally would've been. Five imagined the colossal scolding she would've given him, had she been there to patch him up. (He tried not to think like this; the what-ifs only made his chest ache and drove him to the bar earlier than usual.)