Chaotic Good | the umbrella academy

TWO

CHAPTER TWO
' YOU NAMED YOUR
BATHROOM ELLIOT? '

Eddie sighed, dropping her head against the car seat and pulling the fedora to sit over her face. Diego and Five sat in the front seats, the latter gripping the steering wheel with a vice-like grip. Diego glared out of the window.

"Do you mind being a little quieter?" she groaned, voice muffled by the hat.

Five scoffed, shooting a glare through the rearview mirror, which she couldn't see. "No, Eddie! I can't!" Five seethed.

"Look, I get you're angry-"

"-Oh, I am way past angry! You, above anyone else, should realise the rules of travel! If you can't follow simple rules, how the fuck is anyone else? You could have screwed up the timeline-"

"-You're the one who screwed up and got us here in the first place!" she suddenly shouted, ripping the fedora from over her face to reveal her eyes glowing mildly. "It's alright for you to just turn up without dealing with the fallout, but the rest of us had to survive!" Eddie sighed and looked out of the window. The car was silent before she continued, voice softer this time. "You can yell at me all you want in the morning, but just give me some peace right now. I've had a long day."

Five didn't reply but continued to glare at her, brewing obviously.

Eddie replaced the fedora over her face to shield it from the sharp light worsening her migraine. She felt the car speed up but focused on keeping her nausea at bay.

When they pulled up next to an alleyway, Eddie didn't move immediately but begrudgingly pushed her hat to sit on her head and stood from the car. She walked with her sick behind Diego and Five, pace slow and slightly wobbly.

They entered a building and climbed a series of stairs. Eddie tugged down the fedora to cover her face further. Upon arrival at a flat, the redhead's breathing was deep and heavy, which she tried to hide. The siblings entered a living room, and Eddie raised an eyebrow at a man who hovered awkwardly.

Sighing heavily, she threw her hat and cane onto a table before unbuttoning her blazer and falling sideways onto a sofa. "Hello."

He recoiled, his eyes flashing with confusion at the man speaking with a feminine voice lying in his living room.

"She ain't a guy," Diego called. He then paused and looked over at her. "Wait, are you?"

She peered at him over her arm slung over her head. "Am I what?"

"A guy?"

"Does it matter what I am?"

He was silent briefly. "No, I guess not."

"Correct answer." A quiet sigh escaped her again. "It's that effective? It's surprising what a binder and a wig can do." She felt her stomach turn, and she clenched her jaw. Slowly, she pushed herself to sit up to massage her stomach before looking at the man. "Do you have a bathroom..."

"Elliot," the man replied after realising she was talking to him.

Eddie blinked blankly. "You named your bathroom Elliot?"

"No, it's... it's my name? But, uhm, yes! It's-" he paused, turning to look around him as if he forgot where it was. "-down the hall."

Pursing her lips, she rose and followed his directions. She closed the door behind her and rested against it with a sigh, letting the cold surface try and calm the raging migraine and nausea ploughing through her. Shifting, she pulled a syringe out of her pocket and put the toilet seat down, half-sitting, half-falling on it. As she undid the button of her sleeve and rolled it up, she released a breath to prepare herself, then pulled out the see-through packet of liquid and laid it on the sink. She uncapped the needle and inserted it into her arm with a wince before waiting a moment to inject the substance into her arm.

Just as she let her head fall back, someone threw the door open, and she screamed, eyes automatically glowing green until she saw who it was.

"Fuck, Five!"

"Keep your voice down.," he scolded, slipping in and locking the door behind him. He blinked, his eyes flickering between the syringe and the packet. "Are you-"

"-No." Eddie sighed, leaning against the toilet as she closed her eyes briefly. Silence filled the enclosed space before Five broke it.

"You're still sick."

"In fact, it's quite worse. So I'm trying to do something about it." She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw. "I managed to stumble across the basic chemicals after I broke into Dad's factory. I have no idea why he has them there, but I wasn't in a position to ask questions." Eddie forced herself to relax. "It seems like my power makes the effects worse. I mean... it makes sense, right? When there's no viable output, and all this energy is coursing through my veins, what else can my body do with it?"

Five nodded with a sigh. "So your cells burn up faster... divide quicker-"

"And mutate," she finished when he wouldn't.

"But then, why aren't you ageing faster? All this mitosis, your telomeres-"

"Yeah, surely my chromosomes should be fucked. However, telomerase is super easy to make - well, it was back home with all my stuff. A little bit of GM to apply it to all my cells, and... look at me. The secret to staying young, my friend, is not all this time-traveling shit, but rather simple biology."

"Simple?" Five repeated.

"Sure."

He shook his head before looking at her for a moment. "How long have you been here?"

"The sixties? I got here in January of sixty. Look, as much as I appreciate this little science conference, we are in the toilet right now."

"Well, hurry up. I need to bounce some ideas from you."