This is for Five's character week! I wrote a fic about Five discovering that he can see the ghost of Eight.
Life and Death
It's on a Thursday afternoon around a week after he committed the worst act of his life that Five realised if he were to die there and then, pacing his room in some Mogadorian base in some underground facility, no one would care. No one would cry. No one would miss him.
That thought hurt.
He doesn't want to fight, doesn't want to take a side in this godforsaken war he never asked to be part of, doesn't want to be part of some grand plan some elders or whatever came up with years ago, doesn't want to be branded a traitor to his species.
He just wants to live.
Is that really too much to ask for?
But then again, a voice whispers in the back of his mind, so did Eight. He never asked to die, did he? But you killed him, you're the one who drove the blade through his flesh. You're the one responsible for that scar on your leg.
Five punched the wall above his head in frustration, again and again, his skin adopting the grey concrete complexion. He just wanted to live. He never asked for this life, but here he was and every person he'd met, every person he'd considered a friend, they'd lied to him, and he'd lied to them, too.
He hated lies, hated them, but they were what kept him alive.
He doesn't know what truth is anymore.
His entire life is one intricate lie, woven together with names and actions and responsibilities.
"You know if you do that too much you'll make the wall collapse," A voice comments from his left, and it stops him cold. "On second thoughts, please continue, I don't really care much for Mogadorian architecture. Never been my thing, architecture. You know I knocked down Stonehenge once, you should have seen the look on the security guards face, it was priceless..."
He knows that voice, it can't be, it can't - he turns his head, fists still raised and it is.
Standing before him is Number Eight.
He turns his body to get a full picture of Eight, and let's his skin return to normal. His arms, shaking, fall to his sides. Not taking his eyes away from the scene, he backs away from the apparition of the dead Garde, until his back hits the frame of his bed and he stops dead.
Five isn't the only one shocked by this turn of events, either. "Sweet Lorien, can you see me?!" Eight's eyes widen.
There's a pause, awkward and tense, when Five somehow manages to move his head in a nod, and then he opens his mouth, closes it again. What can he say? He must have gone insane. There was no other explanation for it.
Eight throws his hands up in the air. The ceiling lights shatter and he looks up at them in surprise. "Well that's new," He says, and slumps against the wall opposite Five.
Eight looked over at him, his expression scalding and sad, and so un-Eight like from what Five has seen of him and it makes his heart sink. "Of all people who could have been able to see me, did it have to be you?" His tone is soft yet accusatory and it hit's Five like a ton of bricks.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't, I just... I'm sorry." It comes out without him realising, little more than a whisper, and Five wonders if he's ever been so honest in his life. Probably not, he thinks.
There's more silence longer this time, carries on for a few minutes as Eight tries to come with a response to Five's words and Five tries to ignore Eight's presence. He fails.
Five is snapped out of his blank state when Eight asks a question, just one simple question.
"Why?"
Five looks at him, eyes hollow, and struggles to come up with an answer when Eight flickers out of existence.
