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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ɢᴀᴍᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ꒱


❝ WHAT'S THE MOST
COMPLICATED WORD
YOU KNOW? ❞

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"Let's play a game," Lola said conversationally one evening.

As expected, the boy rolled his eyes. "No thanks."

"You didn't even hear what the game was!"

"I'm sure it's pointless and not worth my time," he responded without looking up.

Ignoring him, the girl said, "it's called what's the most complicated word you know? I played it with my family all the time on road trips." Some of the enthusiasm left her voice as the memories returned.

"That's a terrible name for a game," Five commented, "it's much too long."

"It's complicated," she corrected him, "hence the point of the game. The title reflects the idea. Let's play— you can go first." Her tone was forcefully cheerful as she tried to lighten the mood.

Five gave a long, drawn-out sigh, "pulchritudinous."

She grinned more genuinely. "You also have to define it since there's no point in knowing big words unless you know how to use them."

The boy gave another roll of his eyes. "It's an adjective. It means beautiful."

"There you go," Lola encouraged him, "now ask me."

He shot her a glare this time but she looked at him expectantly, unphased. Reluctantly, he asked: "what's the longest word you know?"

"Most complicated," came the immediate correction, "and it's antidisestablishmentarianism. It's one of the longest words in the English language and means a position that advocates that a state Church should continue to receive government patronage. It's got twenty-eight letters," she added proudly, "I counted them."

"I'm sure you did," came the boy's dry reply, "we've gone two rounds are we done now?"

Her eyes narrowed at him. "You're no fun."

"Glad you caught on to that early. I'm working."

"You're always working."

"I told you not to sabotage my equations and preventing me from working is sabotaging them."

"It wouldn't kill you to take a break. In fact, it might help sharpen your brain since you're focusing on something other than math. Math makes you insane, whereas words make you sane."

"I'm not insane," he huffed, "fine, one more round. Ask me."

Lola couldn't help but feel pleased. "What's the most complicated word you know?"

"Chutzpah," Five correctly pronounced the word, "noun, extreme self-confidence and audacity."

The brunette let out one of the first laughs since they arrived in the apocalypse, causing the boy to look at her curiously. "Of course you'd know that word," she giggled slightly, "it describes you exactly!"

He shot her an irritated look. "I don't have to play this dumb game you know. I could go back to work."

She tried to quell her remaining giggles but she felt better than she'd had in months. Maybe playing old family games was a good, not-sad way to remember the lost times. Shaking off her thought, she nodded. "Alright, ask me."

"Aren't you going to apologize?"

"Nope!"

"Whatever. What's the most complicated word you know?" he dragged out the question dramatically.

Lola frowned thoughtfully. "Orphic. Adjective, mysterious and entrancing, beyond ordinary understanding. It's a six-letter word."

She startled slightly when the boy looked up from his book. "Of course you'd know that word," he remarked.

"Why?"

"'Cause it describes you exactly," he said nonchalantly as he turned back to his work without another thought now that the game was complete.

The girl's eyes didn't leave him, however. He thought she was mysterious and entrancing? Hidden by her mask, a small smile curved on her lips.

✧✧✧

The sun was just starting to set on the day that marked their sixth-month mark in the apocalypse. Lola was sitting cross-legged on the ground while she looked up at Five who was sitting on a cinder block. In an unfamiliar switch of their positions the renewed-purpose notebook was sitting in the girl's lap and her head was bent as she scanned the boy's numbers for their winter jump.

"Five?"

"What?"

She rolled her eyes at his tone, used to it by now. "Before you left, did your father ever say anything about time travel?"

He shrugged, "not much. Just some dumb riddle that made no sense."

She perked up and her head lifted to look at the boy. "A riddle? What was it?"

"Some metaphor for time travelling that's useless."

"Can you at least tell me so I can figure it out?"

He scoffed, "why would you be able to figure it out when I couldn't?"

"'Cause I like riddles and you don't."

"How d'you know that?"

"'Cause you told me, idiot. I can remember things too, you know. You don't have to be a genius to recall important stuff," her gaze had landed back on the paper, determined to catch an error to rub it in the boy's face.

She thought him not liking riddles was important? He scoffed slightly, not agreeing with what she classified as important. Time-travel theories were important; dumb things like that weren't.

"Fine. He said: 'a spacial jump is trivial compared to the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn.' I can't make any sense of it so don't feel bad if you can't either" his tone was deceptively kind.

She snorted, "of course you remember it word-for-word. And don't worry, I've never met a riddle I couldn't figure out. I just need a few days."

"My concerns over you finding the answer have been assuaged," he said sarcastically, "I'm so glad you relieved me of them."

Lola looked up and shot him a grin that he couldn't see. "Happy to help!" she said with faux-cheerfulness before she turned back to the equations.

✧✧✧

"Have you ever thought about time travel?" the girl asked awhile later.

Five shot her an 'are you stupid' look. "Do I even need to answer that question?"

She flushed, and was glad he couldn't see her face because of the mask. "I didn't mean it like that. I meant more in theory than in practice since people have all sorts of different ideas about time travel."

He shrugged, "nothing in particular since I can do more than theorize about it."

"Well, d'you think it's linear or cyclical?"

"Linear, of course. My spacial jumps are linear so why shouldn't time be?"

"Maybe that's your problem then. You're thinking about it all wrong. It's obviously cyclical."

He scoffed, "and what gives you that idea?"

"Well, think of the seasons— they go around and around. Think of life cycles— you're born, you live, you die. It's the circle of life."

"But your life is linear— you don't get to live another cycle once you die. The seasons can be linear, too, if you think about it as fall-winter-spring-summer."

"Okay, fine," Lola said, "maybe it can be both. I mean, look at the acorn from the riddle. It can keep reproducing in a cycle that's not linear."

"But it's called a continuum for a reason," Five pointed out, "that in itself shows that the relationship is linear."

"But maybe time isn't a continuum. Maybe it's a random repetition of moments!" she argued, "I mean, take us for example. I lived a normal life until the apocalypse, then it came and now we live like this. That's obviously linear. But then you can turn it into a repetition. Say you time travel to some time before 2019. I live my same life, the apocalypse happens— barring you don't stop it— and we're right back where we started. That's a repetition of moments."

"But it's not exactly random," the boy said, "it's a linear timeline— there's a clear start and end point."

"It's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg," she decided, "which could both be cyclical or linear."

"You're the one arguing with a time-traveler."

"Not a very good one, clearly, so I arguably have as much knowledge about time as you do."

"That's not how it works," the boy shot back. "You don't know the first thing about the practical part."

"I'm learning," the brunette said as she pointed to the notebook. "I already know more than when I started."

He snorted. "Hardly. Looking for patterns in numbers isn't the same as actually understanding the equations and how they work."

"Oh, so like you do?"

Five glared at her. "Are you ever gonna let me live that down?"

"As long as you're an arrogant asshole about it? Nope!"

✧✧✧

Five sighed for what felt like the hundredth time as Lola shuffled her cards.

"I'm sure they're well and truly mixed," he said with irritation as he glanced up briefly from his book to glare at the girl.

She gave him an almost apologetic look that was lost in the shadows of the fire. "Sorry. It's a nervous habit."

"Nervous? What, you're not nervous about the dark, are you? You know it can't hurt you."

Lola didn't answer and slid the cards together again while she avoided his gaze. He exhaled forcefully again and put down his book, unable to concentrate with the constant ruffle of paper. "Have you ever played poker?"

"No?" the answer came out as more of a question.

A smile flickered across his face which was hidden by his mask. "I used to play with my siblings," came the surprising response. "Klaus was best to play with but he cheated. Ben was good too and he followed the rules. Allison usually threw a fit when she lost."

The girl stared at him with wide, blue eyes, admittedly shocked at his sudden openness. "What about Luther, Vanya and Diego?" she asked tentatively, not wanting him to shut her down immediately.

He shrugged, "Luther never played and usually ratted us out to dad. Vanya wasn't really included but liked to watch. Diego was pretty good but he got bored easily," he explained, "it was one of the only forms of entertainment that could be easily hidden from our father— you know how quickly you can hide cards in your pocket."

"Did you guys bet on anything?" Lola asked, curiosity getting the better of her. Five was usually so closed off that any shred of information about him— besides his powers— was almost as rare as a nugget of gold.

"We didn't have much to bet on," the boy admitted, "but there were little things— and Klaus was always trying to get us to play strip poker," there was a hint of amusement in his voice when he said that, "but usually we just had lost pennies or played for nothing."

"I've never played poker," the girl said. "My mom would never let me though I'm sure my uncle would've if I'd asked." She hesitated. "Do you want to play now? You'd have to teach me but I'm pretty good at learning since cards have to do with numbers."

Five stood from his seat on the piece of fallen building and moved closer to the girl to sit down about an arm's length away from her. The fire illuminated the empty space in front of them as Lola transferred her deck over to the boy. A few hours later after several rounds of instruction and game play, Five threw the cards down in frustration.

"I can't believe you've won again!"

Lola grinned at him. "I told you I'm a counter."

"It's got to be beginner's luck," he grumbled as he folded the cards together.

She laughed slightly. "I thought you wouldn't believe in luck seeing as how it's very unscientific. Unless, of course, you're just a sore loser like your sister."

"I'm the one who usually wins," he huffed. "There's no other explanation for why you haven't lost a round."

The girl rolled her eyes despite him not being able to see it. "I literally just said why. I've never lost a game of Go Fish with my uncle— a game that's mostly luck unless you can count and estimate how many cards are in the deck or have been played."

"But that's probability!" the boy protested. "Surely you should be better at math than you are if you've got those types of skills."

She shrugged. "It's just like how some people are good at geometry but terrible at algebra and some are the other way around. Most people can't be good at everything," she added, knowing that Five would immediately shoot back that he was.

✧✧✧
[2012]

The car was silent except for the '60s-'80s radio station that was currently playing a Beetles hit. Edmund sat in the driver's seat with his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel as he tapped them to the beat of the music. Lola sat in the back on the same side with her feet tucked up onto the seat as she looked out the window. The two were driving to meet the girl's parents at a lake house they'd rented for Thanksgiving break. While it would be too cold to swim they were planning several hikes and sightseeing outings.

"You bored yet, Sequins?" her uncle asked.

"Nope."

He sighed dramatically. "I am. I don't understand how you can't be. We've been driving for hours!"

"We've been driving for 187 minutes."

"Hours, see?"

She rolled her eyes. "You've got zero patience."

"You stole all of mine when you were born," he teased her. "Now I've got none left."

"That's not how genes work Uncle Ed."

"'Course not, I'm still wearing mine," the older man looked up into the mirror to flash the girl a smile. In response, she gave a long-suffering sigh.

"You wanna play a car game?"

"What kind?" she asked, immediately perking up.

"A word game. I know you love those."

"Okay," Lola agreed enthusiastically. Her uncle came up with the best forms of entertainment (not that she'd been bored, but still.) "What is it?"

"It's called what's the most complicated word you know?"

"That's a terribly long title," she commented.

"Hence the name of the game. Now, the point is obviously already stated but you've also got to know how to use the word since just knowing it exists isn't enough. Also, when you're done with your turn, you have to ask 'what's the most complicated word you know?'"

"Okay. Since it's your idea do you want to go first?"

He flashed her another smile in the mirror. "Alright, let's see. Since you wanna be a writer, you've got an unfair advantage. It'll also help when we play Scrabble with your mom and dad."

"You haven't said a word yet," the girl helpfully pointed out.

"I'm still thinking and I'm trying to distract my opponent since you probably know more words than I do," he joked. "Fine, here's one: forelsket."

"Is that even English?"

"No one said you were restricted to one language. I could do the longest German word I know if I wanted to. It's a noun, by the way. It means the euphoria one feels when first falling in love. What's the most complicated word you know?"

The girl frowned thoughtfully; she didn't want to make her uncle feel bad in knowing longer words than he did. "Hope."

"That's only a four-letter word, Sequins. You can do better than that. Besides, it's hardly complicated."

She huffed slightly, "fine, how about supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?"

Her uncle burst out laughing at that and the sound died away into chuckles. "You got me there, Sequins. Made-up words can work too. How many letters does that one have?" he asked, knowing his niece.

She grinned, "fifteen."

"Only fifteen?" he asked in mock-disappointment, "I know longer ones than that."

"You never said they had to be long, just complicated."

"Alright, alright. Ask me, now."

"What's the most complicated word you know?"

"Antidisestablishmentarianism. It's one of the longest words in the English language."

"How many letters does it have?" Lola asked curiously.

"Heck if I know. Don't even try to make me spell it."

She giggled slightly and pulled her new notebook towards her. On the first page in the wide, white space before the first line, she carefully spelled out the word, then counted the letters. "It's got twenty-eight if I spelled it right."

"Told you I knew ones with more than fifteen. Hey— I let you off easy with that Mary Poppins word. You didn't even have to define it."

"Oh, I know what it means. It's an adjective meaning extraordinarily good or wonderful," she said with a grin. "What about antidisestablishmentarianism?"

"It's a noun. I read it in the paper once— something to do with the church and state. Remind me to look up the full definition when we get to the lake."