𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 ━ five hargreeves³

4│GO ON A ROAD TRIP, THEY SAID. . .

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❛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘ. ᴘᴀɴ ᴇғғᴇᴄᴛ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ɢᴏ ᴏɴ ᴀ
ʀᴏᴀᴅ ᴛʀɪᴘ, ᴛʜᴇʏ sᴀɪᴅ. . . ꒱


❝ REMIND ME TO MURDER HIM
A LITTLE ONCE WE GET BACK ❞

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Five Hargreeves had always been an early riser. When he'd been training in the Academy, Reginald had never let any of them sleep past six a.m.. Then he'd been stuck in the apocalypse, chained to the rise and fall of the sun as his only light. His time in the Temps Commission had been his only opportunity to sleep in but by then, the practice was too ingrained to break. While it might be cliché or even whimsical, the only time that he ever got a good nights' rest was when he didn't sleep alone.

He'd been alone for most of his life, so perhaps he correlated waking up early to that state of being. But, in the rare times he'd been able to share a bed with Alexa, he'd always managed to sleep through the night without disturbances. They hadn't done it much when they were kids in fear of their father discovering the habit but when they had, that's when he'd always feel the most rested. A part of him knew it was a psychological thing— safety in numbers, et cetera— but as he'd gotten older, he'd dropped the more scientific view in favor of what he called "Alexa's opinion." (Which was really just anything that was fanciful and overly romantic.) This explained why he was still asleep when the sun had been up for almost an hour.

Surprisingly, Alexa was the first to wake between the two of them. Her alertness came to her slowly as she blinked her eyes open. The room was quieter than when she'd first come to during the night— Luther's snores were noticeably absent— and it was brighter as morning rays streamed through the windows. With the weight of the apocalypse off of her shoulders, she didn't feel the need to tumble out of bed and start solving the world's problems. So, she shifted in Five's grasp to get more comfortable on top of his resting form.

She tilted her head up slightly to admire his relaxed features. (Not in a creepy way, really! It was just that he was so rarely peaceful that she didn't get much time to take in how pretty he really was.) The blonde's lips formed into a soft smile as she lifted her hand to brush her fingers against his face. She kept her fingertips inches from actually touching him because she knew that the slightest movement could wake him and he deserved all the sleep that he could get.

Alexa ran her fingers in the air above his nose to trace the sharp outlines that she knew so well. They paused over his lips as she contemplating the risk of waking him up when she froze. Her breath hitched in her throat as she feared that even those gentle movements had woken him— she could've sworn that his eyes had fluttered open mere seconds ago! After a moments' study of his face, she came to the conclusion that he was still asleep. A relieved sigh escaped her lips and— just to err on the side of safety— she dropped her hand and curled up against him.

If she'd looked a moment longer, she might have noticed the faint upturn of the boy's lips as he fought the urge to tease her for her wake-up call. The only sign that showed his status had changed was the tightening of his arms around her waist. They lay in silence for several minutes longer until the familiar itch to get up and move became too strong for him to ignore. With a reluctant breath, Five finally broke the silence of the mostly-quiet room. "Lexa?"

Her heart skipped a beat at the gravelly quality of his voice and she purposefully kept her head pressed against the crook of his neck to keep him from noticing her fluster. "Hmm?"

"I think it's time to get up."

She heaved a sigh as if the task were the most burdensome thing in the world. "Really?"