𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 ━ five hargreeves

2│ALL IN THE FAMILY

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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐎 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴀʟʟ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ ꒱


❝ WHAT IF I JUST CALLED
YOU. . . GUITAR MAN? ❞

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"So it's easier to stare at a portrait of me than at my actual face?" Five asked teasingly, causing Dolores to glare at him as her face turned pink.

"Shut up," she mumbled, glancing back up at the portrait above the fire place.

He came to stand beside her and placed his hands in his pockets as he looked up at the painting. "You like it?"

The girl was quiet for a moment before she announced decisively: "no."

He turned to her with surprise. "No? That's literally me."

The brunette shook her head. She faced the boy next to her to look between the subject and the finished product before she answered firmly, "the eyes are wrong."

"Wrong?" Five repeated incredulously, "they can't be wrong. My father would've commissioned the best painter he could find—"

"Not like that," she cut across him, "it's, well, in the painting, they're rather. . . flat, I guess. Flat and lifeless and dull." She turned, glancing briefly to meet the boy's real-life eyes before she focused her gaze on his nose again. "Your eyes don't look like that at all."

"Oh," the boy said, not knowing how else to answer. He thought the eyes were just fine, but at Dolores' description, the familiar, pleasant warmth filled his chest and his face flushed against his will. He was glad that his father preferred dim lighting. Taking a hand out of his pocket, he caught the girl's with his own and tangled their fingers together. Almost immediately, he received three squeezes in response, causing his face to grow warmer.

Trying to change the subject, he started, "your hands—"

A quiet sound made them turn and a brunette woman stood awkwardly in the doorway. Five glanced up at his portrait again as his tone became more formal. "It's nice to know that dad didn't forget about me."

Five Hargreeves suffered from the same selfish streak that all of the seven children experienced. Instead of time, or things, or other intangible items, his selfishness came in the form of a person: Dolores. She was the only thing— person— that was truly his in the world. The apocalypse had made material things inconsequential and time was already his power, so the one thing he could truly claim as his own was his wife. She'd been the only one to live with him for those would-be terrible years in the apocalypse. She'd always been there when he needed her and she offered her support and loyalty unconditionally.

Now, they weren't the only two people in the world. Dolores' time would become divided with his other siblings and anyone else they came across and Five wasn't sure if he was ready to have her shared attention. A part of him wanted to hide her away in his room as something— someone— nice to return to after a successful day of saving the world. He didn't want to share her with his bumbling family or to have them influence her way of thinking. On the other hand, he felt a certain loyalty to the family he hardly knew— he was, after all, hellbent on saving the world for them— and he knew he couldn't keep his two worlds separate forever.

He also knew that when this inevitable collision happened, he would never be able to tear them apart again. Dolores would be in his family's lives permanently and his family's lives would be in hers. He was sure that her influence would change them for the better as it was just her way, but the variable in this equation was how his family would change Dolores. The unknowns had always left him feeling rather. . . worried.