ZERO! the umbrella academy

sept

DON'T STOP ME NOW

"WELL, THIS IS NOT good," Five mused, leaning over me to pick out the shards of glass imbedded in my skin with a pair of tweezers. I was sitting in front of him on the edge of the bathtub in my motel room, biting back sobs. "There is someone out there who is going to lose an eye in the next seven days, and they're gonna bring about the end of life on this Earth as we know it."

"Ooh, I love that song." He looked down at me and furrowed his brow. "You know," I started to sing, "'it's the end of the world as we know it.'"

He shook his head at my antics. "Hold still." He took my chin in his hand and lowered the tweezers to the side of my head, plucking out the last piece of glass. He tossed it into the trashcan. "Alright, I think that's all of them." He ditched the tweezers and grabbed a rag already stained with my blood, pressing it to the injured part of my face. "Lucky for you, I don't think there'll be any scarring."

I took the rag from him and held it firm. "Thanks," I murmured.

"I should be the one thanking you." He shoved his hands in his pockets.

I looked up at him. "Why?"

"Because of what you did for me back there." He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "I know all this end of the world shit is hard to believe, but you trust me anyway."

"It has nothing to do with you, Five," I spat. "I only trust you because I had to beat up four men with guns in order to save your life."

His thick brows creased. "I could've taken them on my own, and you know that."

I set down the rag. "Except you would've killed them."

"Who says they didn't deserve to die?"

"Nobody deserves to die," I stood up, "and you're not exactly one to talk, Mr. Hitman."

"And you're not either," he fired back. "It's not okay to kill people, but it's okay to rob them blind, right?" My blood froze in my veins, and he seared me with his piercing, green eyes. "Come on, did you really think I didn't know about that?"

"Well, it's none of your business." I stormed out of the bathroom. "Hasn't been for seventeen years."

He chased after me. "I was trying to say thank you. What do you want from me, Lee?" he yelled at the back of my head. "What can I say to make you not mad at me anymore? 'I'm sorry for time-traveling to the future?' Because I was sorry every goddamn day I was fucking stuck there!"

I looked at him over my shoulder, my brown eyes filled with sorrow. "I'm not mad that you were gone, I'm mad that you even left in the first place." I sat down on the bed, facing away from him.

I heard him sigh, and the mattress dipped under his weight behind me. "How did things go so wrong?" He hesitantly placed his hand on my shoulder. "What can I do to make it better? To fix things between us?"