|Doppelgänger| Five Hargreeves

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗𝟐

(Warning! This chapter contains suggestive and explicit sexual content. It is not relevant to the main story, you may skip it if it's not a theme you'd like to read. There will be one more warning and reminder further in the chapter.)

Third Person POV

Five couldn't wait a single second more once he stepped foot on that train station. He knew they were home, that they were finally back. That you were there, waiting for him. Or maybe he was the one truly waiting for you, to finally touch you, hear you, feel you in his arms again, make that aching pain in his heart go away by drowning in your scent.

The boy didn't say another word before he bolted up that station, starting to run on the deserted streets of that farm, the exact same place he had left from four years ago. Lila would understand. She could figure out how to go back on her own. Five's concern was now one girl, and that girl only. His wife. His hope.

He couldn't get there fast enough for himself just by running. He couldn't lose precious minutes taking a bus or "borrowing" a car. No. He had to see you in the next couple of minutes at max, or he felt like his breathing would come to a halt. So he blinked. He blinked multiple times until he was finally in the neighborhood where the two of you lived. His powers were dormant, he never fully grew used to using them while lost between timelines, scared that he would stray himself even further. But now? It was a need. A crave so strong he learned how to use his abilities like he never even lost them in the first place.

His lungs were at the brief of giving out once he entered your coffee shop. The door was unlocked and the bell above it rang a tune that, annoying as it was, meant that he was home. The scent of coffee, your habit of leaving the door unlocked that he insisted was absurdly unsafe, an apron lazily thrown on top of the counter. It all told him he was home.

You were his home.

Anxiety started to fill his core once his legs started to move him up the stairs. The questions he tried to avoid started to fill his head against his wish. Lila sounded delirious when she showed her own doubts, yet now, Five himself was starting to question if things were really going to be the same as he left.

Logically, of course they would. It had been less than 24 hours for you. It wasn't enough for any feelings to change, not enough for true paranoia to set inside your brain. Everything was fine, most likely. But he hadn't seen you, the true you, not just a hallucination, for four damn years.

And how would you react if he told you? Would you be angry? Would you yell at him for failing? Would you be disappointed? Had he changed so much that you wouldn't be able to accept him now? Would you cry? He didn't think his mind could take that hit.

He reached a hand to touch the handle of the entrance door. The metal was freezing. It was winter after all. He turned his hand, the door opening so painfully slow that he could swear the sound of his pulse was louder than the creaking. He stepped inside.

_"Five? Is that you?"-Your voice echoed through the living room piercing the boy's eardrums as he froze on the spot. Was he hallucinating? He couldn't be. That should be gone by now.

But it was when you stepped outside from the corridor and into his view that he knew it was all real. You were right there, shining under the sunset lights that entered through the windows. Exactly as he remembered. The source of all his dreams for four years. Mindlessly putting on earrings while looking at him with calm eyes, getting ready for dinner at your brother's house.

And then you smiled. And his heart felt like it was about to come out his chest. Perfection was all that his mind yelled. Pure gold in front of his eyes. You could still smile at him. His worries washed off. But his craving did not.