Raincoats | The Umbrella Academy

Library Liberties

The next morning Charlotte woke up with her head resting against the window of the stolen van. She was curled up against the door with one of her jackets laid across her chest. Either the air or her own breath smelt like vodka, but she couldn't tell which one it was. 

Below her, Five was draped across his own seat and the middle console of the front seat. His hands cradled his own head as he slept. He looked peaceful like that, as cliché as that sounds. His guard was down and he looked more fitting in his fifteen year old body. Five looked a lot less stoic like that and a lot more relaxed.

"Do you always stare at people when they sleep?"

She stopped and watched Five open his eyes and sit up. "Not normally," Charlotte replied with a red face.

"I wouldn't make a habit of it, if I were you." He stretched his arms above his head with a grimace as the stitches in his shoulder pulled tight. 

The sleep did wonders for their exhaustion, but the vodka wasn't as helpful in the long run. Both teens were sporting splitting headaches and rumbling stomachs. Their bodies didn't have the same tolerance as their minds did.

"I make no promises."

An empty candy bag crinkled at her feet. It looked like they would be eating beef jerky and Sweet Tarts for breakfast. Charlotte frowned as she shifted. There was a gummy worm in her bra. What a great way to start the day. 

Five rubbed at his face. "We should get going. Lance could be leaving any minute now."

Racking her foggy brain for the name, Charlotte clicked her fingers. "That's the- the doctor, right?"

He nodded. "Hand me some of those snacks."

There was only one bag of candy left, seeing as they had eaten most of it in a drunken stupor the night before, but most of the jerky and the cookies were accounted for. God, the day before was a nightmare. Charlotte's muscles ached and she couldn't imagine how Five must've felt.

They ate cookies on the way over to wherever Five was taking them. Charlotte still needed to hold up her end of the deal after all. 

Denis was safe, or at least out of the harm that she had put him in. But the connection they had though, their ties, had been cut. Charlotte didn't think that it would be that heart wrenching to do. Even thinking about it, remembering the look on his face when she told him to stay away, it hurt. It hurt more than she was willing to admit.

Despite all that, she felt free. Maybe a little lost with what to do without, but free in a twisted way.

The van jerked to a stop. Five put it in park on the side of the street. He searched for a familiar face leaving an apartment complex. Lance had a dog, so it was safe to safe that he'd be walking him some time soon.

Once Charlotte noticed that there was nothing to do right away, she opened her door. "I'm going to go use the bathroom."

A few moments later she found herself standing in the restroom of a butcher shop, staring at herself in the scratched mirror. Her hair was knotted and frizzy, smashed flat on the right side from sleeping oddly. The mascara she put on the day before had been thoroughly rubbed off and smudged around her eyes, everywhere but her actual lashes. The shallow cut on her cheek had split back open at some point and spilt now dried blood down her jaw. Her sweater was wrinkled and smelt like Smirnoff.

She sighed and washed her face in the sink. Charlotte was going to have to get used to doing that again; she was homeless after all. She ran her fingers through her hair and put some water in it to force it back down. There were still some faint black smudges under her eyes, but it looked small enough to pass off as regular makeup.