#⓶ ∥⤷: MORE HEART THAN ALL OF US --------- [ Klaus Hargreeves ]

[i-like-writing-stuff]

never changing; part two [ five hargreeves x reader ]

a/n: y’all this ain’t much i’m still trying to reacommodate myself back into writing but i will share a final part 3 to this imagine eventually!!!

again this is just fluff and banter i love keeping things light hearted

and i’m trying to heal myself with what could’ve been 😔

summary: you and the hargreeves siblings start your rescue mission

“Well, you all certainly look shittier than the other,” You crossed your arms awkwardly, watching the seven Hargreeves siblings as they were all clutching onto their bodies, sprawled across what used to be the fancy mansion that they grew up in.

Now it was just looking as beat down as your family.

“You’re fucked up in the head,” Ben groaned, making you roll your eyes.

“Coming from the dipshit who roofied his siblings with space juice… that’s a big statement,” Diego mumbled, as the others nodded in agreement.

After Gracie’s birthday party, you intended to go back to the office and catch up on some paperwork. The current case you were working on was truly a pain in the ass. Ever since you started working on it a couple of months ago, you didn’t think that anything else was more important than trying to win it. Boy, were you wrong.

You intended to leave the party a bit earlier, so that’s exactly what you did. Even if you felt like you couldn’t get enough of bantering with the family, playing with Gracie and most specially, talking to Five, you eventually dragged yourself back to the car and drove back to work. You needed that gathering, you truly did- in spite of the inevitably awkward moments.

That’s why when Five called you to inform to that Viktor got kidnapped, you didn’t hesitate to drive back to the mansion and regroup with the siblings to rescue their brother. One thing led to another, you managed to save him and even celebrate after that, but it wouldn’t be a Hargreeves mission without something going sideways.

“We have to get going, asshats,” Five reminded you all, stroking his hair.

You wanted to comfort him, as your heart sunk watching the dark circles around his eyes. His skin was as pale as a ghost, and he was groaning lightly through heavy breaths. His long fingers were running through his messy hair, as his other hand was holding the marigold jar loosely.

You always thought how stupid it was that you could just look at him for hours, just because he was so pretty. He could be doing nothing, you still couldn’t get enough of him.

This is so embarrassing, it’s been six years, you thought to yourself, looking away exactly as he caught a glimpse of your stare, Besides, he looks like he is dying. Handsomely, but dying, nonetheless.

The same man who kidnapped Viktor last night entrusted you with a rescue mission to bring his daughter back home. You decided not to pursue it, eventually, and before you went your separate ways, you all had a shot of Sake, ushered by Ben.

The rest is history.

Point is, everyone seemed to have their powers back.

“Shotgun,” You raised a hand, as the seven siblings started cussing at you on your way to Diego and Lila’s van.

You felt very nostalgic, since so many years passed without being with everyone. It was bittersweet, but you tried to promise to yourself to not get too attached. You liked your current life, and as lovely as it was spending time with Five, that led to nowhere. It was just a stupid little crush, anyway.

The family van was parked in front of the building, right in front of your car, so Diego started moving some thing into your car trunk to make room for everyone. Allison and Klaus were talking to Claire on the phone, as Ben, Luther and Lila were bickering about the sconces and Viktor was still trying to calm his nerves.

“You okay?” You placed your hand on Five’s shoulder, feigning a confident smile.

You were honestly so concerned for them, all of them.

“Just the most annoying hangover in my life,” Five placed his hand on yours absentmindedly.

Maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal, he appreciated your concern, he always did. When he got hurt in missions you were always scolding him and he acted annoyed with your protectiveness, but this was the first time he actually showed gratitude for it.

“But you don’t gotta get all up in my ass,” He added with a smirk, taking your hand off his shoulder.

There it was.

He still held onto it, proudly, as you rolled your eyes, not even noticing how naturally your hands locked together.

“Oh please, you’d love me to get all up on you,” You scoffed, making him chuckle.

“Since when are you so arrogant?” He wondered.

“I may have picked up a thing or two from you over the years,” You shrugged your shoulders lightly.

“Should’ve picked up the phone more often,” Five said, causing you to wave a hand in front of your face bored of how many times you’ve been told that;

“The phone that…”

“Works both ways,” He interrupted you, “Yeah, yeah.”

“Then you don’t really have a leg to stand on,” You declared with a smile.

“Is that right?” He took a step closer, eyeing you curiously.

If you were to ask him where did that come from, he really had no idea what to say. Five always was unpredictable, but this was something new. But then again, it’s not like your relationship was that cold- it wasn’t. However, he was playing with fire a tad too much.

It all felt so ridiculous. How could he still make your heart thump heavily just with a simple look? You felt so little compared to him, as hard as you tried to seem confident. With the help of your platform boots you were still almost reaching his chin, and that was to show you just how young you both still were, even if your mental ages begged to differ.

“You still look like shit,” You broke the ice, still trying to keep up a tough exterior.

“Bullshit,” Five grinned, obviously feeling a lot better.

Little did you know how much your simple presence helped his mental well-being.

Surprisingly, he thought to himself.

“Are you two gonna suck faces or can we move along?” Ben suddenly walked up to you and his brother, as the rest of the family was watching everything unfold as if it was a soap opera.

“Why’d you wanna watch your brother kiss someone?” You wondered, letting go of Five’s hand to climb into the car along the others.

“That’s not okay,” Klaus agreed.

“You’re getting weirder by the second,” Allison told Ben, as he tried to argue.

“What the fuck?” Diego turned to watch his brother disgusted, as Viktor was just silently side-eyeing the tentacle man.

“I fucking hate you all,” Ben said defeated, looking around the car.

“At least they don’t wanna watch their fresh 19 year old brother eat tongue,” You couldn’t help the banter.

“Don’t say fresh 19,” Luther chimed in as well, as the siblings turned to you now.

“He is 64, nothing about him is fresh,” Klaus pointed out.

“Shut the fuck up, fuckface,” Five only rolled his eyes.

And thus the road-trip begun.

[inkspiredwriting]

The Defense of the Hargreeves

Five Hargreeves x reader

A/N: Sir Reginald Hargreeves is an asshole. I just had to write a little story about it.

Warnings: None

Y/N had always heard stories about Sir Reginald Hargreeves, but she had never met the man. Today, however, fate had different plans. She found herself standing in the grandiose living room of the mansion, face to face with the infamous patriarch of the Hargreeves family.

Reginald's cold eyes assessed her with the same indifference he likely showed everyone. "You must be Y/N," he said, his tone devoid of warmth. "I've heard about you."

"Yes, sir," Y/N replied, trying to remain polite despite the chill in his demeanor. "It's nice to meet you."

Reginald ignored her attempt at pleasantries and launched into a critical monologue about his children. "You must understand, my 'children'—if one can even call them that—are highly flawed individuals. They lack discipline, focus, and a clear understanding of their purpose. Especially Number Five. A brilliant mind, wasted on trivial pursuits."

Y/N felt her blood begin to boil. "Excuse me, but I think you’re wrong," she interjected, her voice steady but firm.

Reginald's eyebrow arched slightly, the only indication that he was taken aback by her boldness. "Oh? And what insight do you believe you have that I, their father, do not?"

Y/N took a deep breath, determined to stand her ground. "Five and his siblings are wonderful people. They’ve faced more challenges and endured more pain than most people could imagine, all because of you. Despite everything, they’ve grown into strong, resilient, and compassionate individuals. They might have their flaws, but they are good people."

Reginald remained silent, his expression unreadable, as Y/N continued.

"Five is incredibly smart and resourceful. He’s saved the world more times than you probably know. Luther is strong and has a heart of gold. Diego is passionate and fiercely protective. Allison is kind and uses her powers to help others. Klaus is empathetic and more powerful than you realize. And Viktor, he’s brave and incredibly talented. They all stick together, no matter what. That’s something you should be proud of."

Her voice trembled slightly with emotion. "They are so much more than the sum of their powers or their mistakes. They are your children, and they deserve your pride and love, not your disdain."

Unbeknownst to Y/N, Five and his siblings had entered the room, drawn by the sound of her impassioned speech. They stood just outside the doorway, listening intently, their hearts swelling with gratitude and emotion.

Reginald’s face remained a mask of cold detachment, but something flickered in his eyes. "You seem quite convinced of their worth," he said slowly.

"I am," Y/N replied without hesitation. "Because I see the good in them every day. They are extraordinary, not just because of their abilities, but because of who they are as people. And if you can’t see that, then you’re the one who’s flawed."

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, Reginald nodded curtly. "I see. Well, you’re entitled to your opinion."

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Y/N standing there, her heart pounding in her chest.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Five and his siblings rushed into the room, their expressions a mix of surprise and admiration.

"Y/N," Diego said, his voice soft with emotion, "that was... incredible."

"Yeah, you really told him," Klaus added, his usual cheeky demeanor giving way to genuine appreciation.

Luther placed a hand on Y/N’s shoulder. "Thank you. For standing up for us."

Y/N smiled, tears of relief and happiness in her eyes. "You all deserve to be seen for who you really are. I’m just glad I could help."

Viktor nodded, his eyes shining. "We’re lucky to have you with us, Y/N."

Five pulled Y/N into a tight embrace, his voice filled with gratitude. "I love you, Y/N. Thank you for defending us."

Y/N hugged him back, feeling the warmth and love of the family around her. "I love you too, Five. Always."

In that moment, surrounded by the people she had come to love and cherish, Y/N knew that they would always have each other. And that was something truly worth fighting for.

[lowkeyrobin]

DIEGO HARGREEVES ; the house

summary ; yours and diegos last look at the house you were raised in

warnings ; language

disclaimers ; platonic, set in a no-doomsday au where the house was sold after reggies death in 2024, also Reggie wasn't as abusive and the kids had special normal kid core memories cause I want them to have some sort of peace damnit, y/i = your initial

track ; the house that built me, miranda lambert

word count ; 1.1k

masterlist

Colorful Christmas lights hung around the home, just the way Mom would always hang them up. But this year, they weren't hung up by Mom. They were hung up by someone else's mom, someone else's protector, someone else's safe space.

You and Diego stand close together, solemnly walking up the front steps.

The umbrella logo had been removed from the glass front doors, leaving two red, wooden doors in their place. In some of the front windows, you could see fake battery-powered candles and snowflake decals.

Diego knocks on the door, looking in the little window above. A warm light illuminates the front space.

A woman opens the door, unknowing of who you were.

"Hi, can I help you? Are you a friend of Adam?"

"Uh, no" Diego replies. "We used to live here. Uhm..." He looks to you for reassurance.

You turn to the woman. "Can we walk around for just a moment? We never got to say goodbye after our parents passed. I promise we won't take anything other than our memories. Just to feel it, relive it one last time... I just wanna find myself again. This house built us. Our parents died unexpectedly, we couldn't come to even go to the funeral."

The woman's face softens. "Oh, of course" She steps back, allowing you entrance to the home.

The old black and white checkered floor was no more, replaced with some sort of white wood, contrasting against the dark oak accents. The light was warm, different than from what you remembered. This front room was always so cold.

"Take your time," She speaks. "I'll be in the kitchen. Would you like some hot chocolate? It's cold out there"

"No, ma'am," Diego answers, tapping the snow off of his boots on the welcome mat.

She nods, retreating to the other room.

You and Diego look at each other, quickly rushing to the stairs in front of you. On the side, in black paint, rests all of your handprints.

The first was Luther, always number one. He wrote his name like he was creating text to head the newspaper. Then there was Allison, her name painted underneath in cursive. Next was Five, his a little blotchy as he had to do his twice. He wrote his name in his palm, covering up his legal name, which Grace tried to get him to use, Max.

Then there was Klaus and Ben, theirs overlapping each other. Klaus had a mini paint fight with Ben, who'd disapproved immensely. Klaus' name was barely legible, Ben's neat and tidy. Next was Viktor, his hand perfectly placed on the side of the staircase. His name was written underneath in italics, slightly messy since he was in a rush to give the paint to you and Diego.

Speaking of you and Diego, your handprints rested on the end. You'd created a little heart, kind of, out of your hands. You took the left, he took the right. In the middle rested Mom's hand in dark pink paint. He'd begged and pleaded for her to join in for a good ten minutes. He was always a mama's boy.

Little eight-year-old Diego couldn't have been happier in that moment.

Your name was messily scribbled beside your hand, Diego's just the same. Grace wrote Mom with a little heart in cursive in her palm.

Your hands caress your little hands, remembering the cold paint on your hands, the mess it created on the floor.

"You think our height board is beside the hallway closet?" Diego asks softly.

"Wanna find out?" You ask

He smiles, leading you across the house. Beside the white door that led into a cleaning closet rests the height chart on the side board. L, D, A, K, F, B, V, and Y/I. Color coded, too.

Diego chuckles, seeing the height that represented him at ten. "God, I was so short. Allison was so tall"

"She still is" you reply, looking up at your final height checks. Luther's was at twenty-one. 6'3. "Wow. I never realized we all left at different times like that"

Diego nods, looking over Ben's final height at sixteen. He felt his heart trying to fix itself in that moment.

"I thought Klaus left at eighteen?" You comment, looking at the last number he had, being seventeen as he'd run away.

Diego shakes his head. "Seventeen. We left at nineteen, we got a little help from Mom, remember?"

"Oh, yeah"

You're both silent for a moment before you silently agree to go up to your rooms, wanting one last touch of Five, Ben, and yourselves.

You separate ways as you enter your rooms, sitting on the floor. You could remember where every last poster and item had gone like it was yesterday. From the bed placement to which one of Luther's records you were borrowing that day, it all stuck in your head.

The memories kept in the floorboards spoke to you.

Diego used to sneak into your room when he had nightmares up til the age of fifteen. He was mortified of the dark.

Viktor used to read with you on days off from training, all day long.

Luther sat in your room to listen to music with you while you tidied your room.

Klaus would often smoke in your room at because you were the only one with a table fan to wash the smell away out the window. Turning the lights on, even with a closed door, would've got you in trouble. Reggie was a night stalker.

Ben would trade posters with you everytime he wanted to reorganize his room.

Five would make you puke in your room by teleporting you around a kajillion times.

Allison would come to your room so you could style her hair.

You close the door as you leave, moving to Ben's. You can't enter, like the wound was torn into your skin just an hour ago. You look over the blank walls, your eyes set on where his old bookshelf sat.

In Five's room, newspapers were always plastered on the walls, much to Reginald's dismay. The foot of his bed usually housed a row of uniform shoes. There used to be a trunk under his bed where he kept his stuffed animals, which he'd outgrown before he disappeared. He couldn't bring himself to let go of them.

Diego approaches from behind, resting a light hand on your shoulder.

"You remember when Allison made a journal full of homes from magazines that she'd want to live in?"

You chuckle. "Yeah"

You're both quiet for a moment before he speaks again.

"Weird being here again"

You nod. "Hard to say goodbye to what raised you"

He nods. "I miss Mom"

"Me too"

[justherefortua]

finished the young blood book! Though it’s definitely YA rather than as mature, it gave me a lot of nostalgia for the post-S1 fics where people thought they were goin gto be ported to childhood, and I thought the little details and the way the characters were characterized was actually really good! I loved how many parallels there were to canon and the further elaboration on the day to day life of the Umbrella Academy (and Viktor)

I wouldn’t take the book as a 100% canon source, but here are some disconnected small details that I enjoyed: SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

- Twice trying to wrangle the hargreeves is referred to as “herding cats”, which is very accurate

- Grace custom sews their outfits and adjusts them for each member 🥺🥺🥺🥺 Luther gets a new one every time he grows, Diego has secret compartments for his knives, Ben has tentacle openings, Viktor’s looks a little too big on him

- I could definitely see how this Luther turns into S1 Luther but also he’s such a good guy. He just wants to help people and receive hugs

- Diego;;; my goodness. He loves his mom and also very much has a black and white view of justice. This is when he figures out he likes all black utility gear rather than the uniform

- Allison )::: allison )::: It’s so weird to see her feel out of place among other girls considering she grows up to be a famous actress but I think it was a good moment, as well as foreshadowing for her whole issues with the rumors

- Klaus is so vibrant here. He learned how to hotwire a car (They call Hargreeves’ car Hermes) at 12 from a ghost, regularly sneaks out of the house through the sewage system (the siblings refuse to do this) and is the life of the party

- Five was mentioned and acknowledged a couple times and every time it made me go ): The revelation that Ben had a daily check-in with Klaus asking about whether he could see Five or not and always believed Five was out there somewhere destroyed me. My crumbs ): oh ):

- Ben is my favorite character so I’m so glad he gets a POV here and an actual voice! He definitely has a good heart but also definitely doesn’t fall into the solely “shy and totally passive” stereotype <3 also im just happy for content of umbrella ben i miss him

- Viktor!!! He isn’t sure if Mom claps for his violin because of if he’s actually good or. He’s very lonely but the kids do include him a little bit which is lovely. Definitely some parallels to S1 canon. Also! Some Viktor trans moments where he ruminates on that for a little bit without knowing the actual cause, the mirror line has relevance here. I thought it was handled nicely but obviously I can’t speak on experiences that aren’t my own.

Other misc details:

- Ben gets calmer under high pressure situations and therefore becomes pretty good at pool despite never having played

- Klaus likes to jump from roofs for the fun of it and just thinks his body is extremely resilient to head trauma. Klaus. Klaus no. 😭

- Diego uses “Boy Scout” as a insult for Luther, who doesn’t mind because Boy Scouts are supposed to be dependable

- Diego has always been pretty good at dancing

- The Umbrella Academy never stick around to clean up after themselves on missions

- Ben and Viktor can fit together in the passenger seat

- Favorite meals: Ben likes PB+J and potato chips, Klaus likes bubblegum ice cream, Diego likes roast beef, Luther hamburger and fries, and a hot dog for Allison (though according to her it hasn’t been her fav food in years, and also she forgot Five’s favorite and Viktor’s favorite)

- Klaus listens to heavy metal (to drown out the ghosts), Allison likes pop music

- Viktor learned how to drive one year before this book, taught by Pogo. He has his license! Klaus knows how to drive too but he drives much more recklessly lol

- Allison once had a solo magazine cover and she can’t remember whether she rumored for it or not (foreshadowing)

- Ben has never told anyone that the tentacles hurt when they come out ())):) [BODY HORROR TW] They are also literally slithering under his ski, he can feel em with his organs, and the skin is tender where they come out

- Allison knows CPR. and uses it after one of the siblings has a near death experience 👍

[emelinexxxxx]

Just another silly little fan fiction

- five x reader

- fluff/two friends and idiots in love but their too oblivious and idiotic to admit it

- reader is five's friend and Grace's tutor

Your phone rings and you slide it across the table towards you to see who's calling - Five. Again. You pick up the phone, smiling as you put it on speaker phone.

"No." you say, before he can even talk.

"You don't even know what I was going to say!" he protests as you roll your eyes.

"Stop rolling your eyes!" he says

"You don't know I was rolling my eyes! Also yes I do. You were going to beg me to go to Grace's birthday party, again."

"You were rolling your eyes, as usual, and actually, I was going to ask how you are."

"Mhm, and then?"

"Then I was going to ask if you would please go to Grace's party." he says sheepishly, then adds, "it would mean a lot to Lila."

And it would mean Five would actually have someone to talk to, rather than standing alone in the corner, drinking coffee and being anti social.

You hesitate, eventually giving in, "fine."

"I knew I could persuade you to come."

"Bare in mind that I'm only going to shut you up." you say, laughing a little.

"I can accept that."

"Alright." you smile, "See you tomorrow."

Lila greets you as you walk into the heavily decorated room. Balloons fill the room, confetti covers the floor and Diego crosses the room, a large pinata in his hands.

"You said you weren't coming!"

"I wanted to surprise Grace! I hope that's okay?"

She laughs and a wide grin spreads across your face.

"Of course. The more the merrier and all." Lila smirks slightly, "That's the only reason you came? Not to see a certain Mr Hargreeves?"

"That would depend which Mr Hargreeves you're talking about."

Five crosses the room to greet you and Lila raises an eyebrow.

"That Mr Hargreeves."

"Perhaps." you reply, a small smile playing on your lips.

"What?" Five interrupts, looking confused.

Lila and you share a look, as if communicating without speaking.

Stop pretending, she seems to say, everyone knows the two of you like each other.

"Nothing." you say, still looking at Lila. For some reason you smile, the look she's giving you and five tugs at your heart a little and you feel a blush creeping to your cheeks as you watch Five's puzzled face.

Don't go there, you reply, we're just friends.

Five takes your hand and the two of you break eye contact as he pulls you away.

Five hands you a takeaway coffee as you stand near the pinata, watching as kids try their hardest to break into it.

"A cappuccino for the lady." he says.

Thank God for caffeine, the party was great but you had been asked enough times "why a pretty young thing like you didn't have a boyfriend" or "why you're wasting your golden years playing hard to get with the boys".

In fact there were no boys, other than a few school friends, and Five of course, you kept to yourself.

"You are an absolute angel."

A small smile plays on Five's lips, "I aim to please."

"And you succeed, I am very pleased."

"So it was worth coming?"

You nod, "At the very least it spared you being awkward and alone for the majority of the party."

You both laugh, "That it did."

"So, um, how's work?" you ask, truthfully just wanting to continue talking to Five.

He raises an eyebrow, knowing well that you don't care about what he's doing for work, knowing well that you're just making small talk. "The usual. Top secret and all."

"Ah yes, as it always is with Mr Five Hargreeves."

You look at each other for a moment, before you both turn awkwardly, your gaze going to the floor.

"What was that about? With Lila?"

You shift awkwardly, wondering what excuse to use now, when another man interrupts the conversation.

"Five, good to see you, who's your friend?"

You smile at the man, named Klaus you quickly learn from five's reply, "I'm Grace's tutor and Five's friend."

Klaus' eyes widen, "ohh, your that friend."

You look at Five, puzzled, and find him glaring at his brother as Claire drags Klaus away again, "it was to finally meet you!" he shouts.

Finally? That friend? What on earth was Klaus on about? An awkward laugh tumbles out of your mouth and Five blushes, the two of you smiling softly like fools.

To say what happened next was a disaster would be an understatement. It was pure chaos, pieces of cake covering the guests, everyone's faces either laughing at the ridiculousness that just occurred or horrified, frowning and scowling as they pulled cake off their clothes and out of their hair.

Five and you stood at the side, laughing at each others cake covered faces and embarrassed expressions. Five pulled a few larger pieces of cake from your hair and you smiled in appreciation, everyone else in the room dabbing themselves clean with napkins Lila was frantically passing around. She handed you one and you took it gratefully, laughing as you used it to dab at the frosting smeared across Five's cheeks.

"Hold still!" you say, laughing as you cradle his face, attempting to clean the cake from his face.

He smiles, watching you try to clean up the mess of frosting and tiny bits of obliterated cake.

"What?" you ask, awkward as he watches you, smiling slightly.

"Nothing. Just enjoying you."

You raise an eyebrow, "Enjoying me trying to get the cake off you when you won't hold still and how ridiculous I look covered in bits of cake and frosting and confetti?"

"Mhm" he nods, yet again ignoring the fact you told him to hold still.

His arm falls around your waist and the rest of the world seems to fall away until all that left is Five, his arm hugging your waist and you, your hands cradling his face. The two of you covered in cake and confetti as your faces seems to get closer and closer until you are just inches apart.

Klaus watches from a distance, Claire lingering at his side though she's not quite sure what he's looking at; Diego yelling at Luther in Spanish, the remaining half of the pinata that dangles in the air, or the two people at the side of the room that look like they're about to kiss.

[air--so--sweet]

Okay I already made one post about Klaus's rehab 'accessories' sold as part of a TUA prop auction and there's a lot of cool stuff but I can't post about everything, as much as I would like to, but there's one more thing I thought was worth singling out, Reginald Hargreeve's journal from season 2.

Transcription:

I have finally arrived at my destination. The journey was lengthy and arduous, far more taxing than any of my expeditions back home. Few of my fellows were prepared for the physical and emotional demands of the trip. The close quarters, the strict rations, the seemingly nonexistent passage of time. One could easily succumb to insanity or death in such a fate. I carry Abigail in my heart, her tenacious spirit and altruistic nature. She would not allow me to stay behind and perish with her, and in turn I will not allow her to die with me.

It took a ludicrously short span of time to determine my new home is a filthy, foolish and depraved place. I find it hardly worthy of saving, despite my commitment to doing so. Why should I have abandoned my Abigail for the sake of countless souls, not one of which could even hope to match her selfless grace? But I know she would admonish me for these thoughts, and tell me to recognise the value in all who reside in this despondent place.

It will take decades to see my plan to fruition. I enacted the very first step prior to embarking on my journey and now I can do little more than await the date of its engenderment. In the meantime I will commence building an identity, empire and legacy in my own right. My singular priority in the years to come is to ensure access to the resources (both material and intangible) to successfully implement the final phase. I am resolved to make Abigail proud.

There's so much interesting stuff in here. Firstly the implication that Reginald Hargreeves is not the only one from his planet on Earth. I don't think we'll learn anything about or see the other aliens, but I do wonder what they were getting up to while Reggie was doing his thing. Honestly I think it wpuld be funny for a throwaway allusion to some of them being certain public figures.

He knew before he came to Earth it needed saving. It's unclear from phrasing if he chose to do this or was tasked with it. And why him and seemingly only him if he was not the only one to travel to Earth? Or was the plan always save the world and then use hotel oblivion and the 7 bells to remake it with Abigail by his side? In season 1, having failed, did he choose to kill himself to reunite the academy to at least complete one part of his plan, having failed at the rest? A last ditch attempt to honour Abigail's memory? Hotel Oblivion was more or less off the table as soon as Ben died (which in a way makes ut funnier Klaus frequented Hotel Obsidian when he was on the streets, it literally just became a hotel and nothing more 😂).

That brings me onto the next thing - his love for Abigail. This is the most affection we've ever seen from Hargreeves I think (and the least creepy since the closest example I can think of was him creating a robot mother in his ex-girlfriend's likeness). Though saying he doesn't see why he should abandon her to save all life on earth is a tiny bit concerning. His description of Abigail as altruistic and saying that she would admonish him for not seeing the value in the lives of humans is definitely interesting (also I cant help but feel the choice of saying 'selfless grace' over 'selfness nature' or similar was intentional, not that it means anything, just a fun play on words). I saw a theory forever ago (I believe on reddit but I'm not sure, if I find it I'll edit and add credit) that in season 4 Abigail will leave Reginald when she learns what he did to bring her back and the way he describes her here it doesn't sound like she would be okay with the cruel and abusive treatment of his children followed by him sucking them of their powers and seemingly life force to revive her (though the fact Luther is alive it's possible he planned to reincarnate all of them in the new universe but y'know, maybe make Allison aware so she doesn't chop your head in half before you fully finish building your new universe). The Reginald who wrote this journal entry bears hallmarks of the one we knew, but he seems to have been somewhat tempered by Abigail. Did the decades without her cause a hardening that led to the cold, cruel and abusive man he became? A man Abigail will no longer recognise as the man she fell in love with? Based on this it doesn't seem unlikely but, as far as I recall, these entries are never seen on screen so I don't think we can really count them as canon, especially not knowing who wrote them (I suspect it was someone on the writing staff but we don't know that for certain). However, I vaguely remember seeing a few claims of a new big bad several places, I think people may have sourced this from an interview with Steve Blackman (I intentionally avoid interviews with him because he gives far too much away) which, if the main villain of the piece is not in fact Hargreeves, Abigail, the love of his life and his whole reason for his lifes work leaving him, feels like a pretty good catalyst for him to give up, and possibly even yield to anything the Umbrellas ask of him or maybe even help them?

And lastly, when writing this I couldn't help but think how Reginald's loss of Abigail mirrors several of the Umbrella's own losses. His deal with Allison involved getting Ray and her daughter back and there's been a lot of people wondering if Dave, Sissy, Harlan or even Patch could be alive in this new universe. Allison's words to Viktor before pressing the button, 'Trust me,' and the fact we didn't see her make the deal with Reginald (beyond the handshake Five saw through the doorway) has made me wonder if it didn't just involve her getting to be reunited with her lost loved ones but her siblings too (though my housemate suggested the alternative idea that she made a deal for herself and Viktor only, as he is the only other Umbrella to lose a romantic partner and child, a loss Allison is partially responsible for, having killed adult Harlan, and he's also the sibling Allison was cruelest to in season 3). Would Hargreeves have agreed to the terms of any deal if it meant getting his way? Yeah probably, but I also feel like he might have been more willing to agree to Allison's terms if they involved reuniting her and her siblings with the people they loved who they had to leave for reasons outside of their control (Ray, Sissy and Harlan) or they lost to death (Dave, Harlan (again) and Patch, and in a sense Claire). I feel like I'm giving Hargreeves too much credit but at the same time there's moments in the show that could be interpreted as him caring for the Umbrellas and I do believe he cared for human Grace and Pogo too so it's not impossible that he's capable of empathy, at least at times where it wouldn't negatively impact him or stop him from doing what he believes is right (though just to be clear - any care or love he felt does not in any way absolve him of the cruelty and abuse he subjected his children to or the fact he subjected Pogo to a life of servitude either).

It's just occurred to me that there's the whole additional layer in regards the apocalypse that Reginald was aware of it and wanted to avert it yet he was the cause of it as without his interference the Umbrellas (and other super powered children) would never have been born, never mind his treatment of them, especially Viktor, leading to them growing into the adults they were that led to their actions causing the apocalypse. I've already spent several hours and a tonne of hyperfocus writing this though when I have other real world stuff to do so I'm going to leave it here.

[stephsageek]

A Preview of the upcoming chapter of my Five x Lila fic, "Much Longer Than Six Years, Five Months, and Two Days."

“—Klaus?” Five interrupted, trying to get his brother’s full attention.

This was important.

“Yeah?” Klaus’s eyes dragged back towards his brother’s. Five waited a beat until he saw focus in his brother’s green eyes.

“Old dogs like me and him—never change,” Five intoned.

Five’s mouth twitched unhappily. He took no joy in telling Klaus that trusting Dad—no matter what version of him it might be—was a terrible idea.

He didn’t want to burst Klaus’s bubble; he’d always had a soft spot for him.

But this had to be done. It was better to try to tell him than for him to find out the hard way.

Five had seen the usefulness of their father in the past—even admitted to himself that he and the old man were more alike than not—but that only cemented his distrust and dislike of the Hargreeves patriarch.

“He has never had our best interests at heart,” Five finished, as gently as he could manage. His tone was cold even to his own ears.

No wonder everyone avoids me, he frowned. Can't even give someone advice without sounding like an asshole. He mentally shook his head. Old dogs, indeed.

Five’s mind drifted back as it often did to their childhood.

Back to when Klaus would return from spending a night in the mausoleum—looking pale and drawn. The nights he’d crawl into Five’s bed, when they were very young, shivering from nightmares, weeping, and mumbling about ghosts.

Five clenched his jaw, sudden rage spoiling his mood.

I need a God damn drink.

He squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, he had managed to reign in his fit of emotion.

Klaus’s mouth twitched, begrudgingly acknowledging his older brother’s words. Deep down, he likely knew their wisdom firsthand.

Five recognized that Klaus generally didn’t heed advice from his siblings very often, but he hoped that Klaus would listen this time.

He hated seeing any of them get hurt.

All he ever seemed to be able to do was pick up the pieces.

Five frowned feeling awkward. Should he do something? Reach out reassuringly?

Only Klaus would receive such affection from Number Five.

Five honestly didn’t care for any form of affection—hadn’t liked being so much as touched, as far back as he could remember.

For Five, touch was no small thing. It was not straightforward in his mind.

To Number Five, it meant the loss of control. It meant risk. Risk of harm, risk of intrusion, risk of invasion, risk of vulnerability; But more than that, Five feared how it might lead to ruin, to being compromised and clouding his judgment.

It was likely a conditioned response to being experimented on as children—like rhesus monkeys clinging to a steel mother wrapped in tattered fabric.

It felt like an uncharitable thought considering Grace—but she and Pogo had always felt more like parents to Five than Dad ever had.

To the Hargreeves children being touched by Dad meant being given shots, having blood drawn, having tests run, and needing to fight, and defend. Even being spoken to meant harsh words, criticism, and orders.

God, what a fucked-up family, he mentally sighed, reaching out to Chet as he passed and snagging a flute of champagne.

Five watched Klaus sit across from him, only feeling the barest twinge of guilt as he took in his defeated posture.

Five twisted, dropping a shot glass full of whiskey into his beer with a plop.

“So, my only plan for tonight is to get fucked up beyond all recognition.” Five took hold of his boiler maker, affectionately patting his brother on the shoulder. He squeezed him once, for good measure.

Suddenly Klaus perked up and began scanning the other tables.

He's just gonna go try and convince somebody else. He never gives up, does he?

He found himself smiling.

Klaus always seemed to bounce back. Five might pretend to get annoyed with their wayward brother but the truth was he envied his ability to remain resilient and positive despite things frequently going wrong in all their lives.

None of the others saw how strong Klaus really was but Five knew.

Klaus was a survivor, like him.

Whenever things went wrong, Klaus would be the first to rally himself. Always with an easy smile, covering up his pain.

Klaus had always been the most stubborn when it came to showing him affection. The rest had taken the way he flinched from every casual brush of their fingers, shoved away all attempts at a hug, and ignored every high-five, as a clear sign that Number Five Hargreeves was the last person they should be touchy-feely with.

But Klaus, even as children, had doggedly come back for second, third, and even fourth attempts.

Five could think of only two people alive whose touch he was not on some level immediately repulsed by or suspicious of.

Five's eyes strayed ever so slightly over his brother’s velvet-covered shoulder to a black-clad figure talking animatedly with their father, her blond tresses catching the light. His eyes drawn to the sway of inviting hips and a blinding smile.

He swallowed, eyes snapping back before they could linger.

Maybe I've already had enough?

[conduitandconjurer]

🙌

Send 🙌 to put your hands around my muse's neck.

Klaus is no stranger to roughhousing; he has five male siblings with varying degrees of trauma, after all, and Allison is a bruiser in her own right. The Hargreeves family itself is really one big bruise, sometimes from the proverbial tumble off the bike, and sometimes from things darker and more dire.

So, when a sibling lays hands on him, he's hasty to tolerate, even oblige. And despite his pretense of machismo, Diego is, always has been, among Klaus's safer brothers.

"Hurk--okay. Okay okay okay, asshole."

He squeaks a laugh, a shared laugh with his brother.

But today, in the space of a few seconds, something hits different.

He looks down at his brother's black-gloved hand, bangs in his eyes, tawnier than usual, a half shade lighter than the deep chestnut of his mother and generations of family he suspects he'll never know. Something about the futility of that, of so many things he's suffered through with little gain and even less understanding, burns like a lit flare cracked alight, in his gut. Not belonging is hard, especially when it's pervasive. When you're stuck between states, straddling selves and even whole dimensions. He cherishes the immortality; he also hates it. And everyone thinks he's "overcome" all that, because of one night in a cemetary with his monster of a father. No one checked in on Klaus; no one challenged his poor judgment with the Reginald of the kugelblitz; they used to try, but many years ago. Maybe his addictions were in some way a welcome exemption from accountability, for his sister and brothers, his many friends and rehab counselors, his countless (living) lovers, his parents (all three of them): 'Klaus is still Klaus; what can you do, he'll never step up; not unless we threaten him or gorge him with guilt.

Just more trouble than you're worth.

Klaus squirms. "O-kay," he cajoles, a little louder, as these thoughts pour out in a steady leak from some sealed jar shoved far back in his mind.

Patting Diego's hand, "Okay, Deeg, Jesus--!"

He's just shitting around with you; it's just Diego; calm down, stop being trouble--

He's an image in an old slide projector, jammed in the middle of transition. At home neither with the living nor the dead, ears pricked (against his will) to the unquiet of spirits similarly stuck, alienated deeply by knowing no one can hear the same thing, and even if they believe you, they look on you with exasperation or worse, concern. Every so often Klaus tries to shed a skin, or molt, or whatever the analogy may be, in the hope that peeling back who he has tried to be for two or three or ten years will finally reveal the version of himself who is completely at peace.

Or at least someone better. Someone people don't feel free to lay their hands on. People. Siblings.

I need to get a haircut. Yeah.

Every so often, Klaus runs.

And yet--

"You're HURTING ME!!"

The volume with which he snarls this--and the bile--is impressive. One blink-and-you'll-miss-it gesture, and he's loose, arms up, hands blazing teal, eyes, chest--the entire room floods with ghosts as that leak in his mind becomes a broken levee.

The expression on his face is terrifying, uncanny like an AI filter or poor drawing. Klaus isn't meant to look that fearful, animal, and angry. But he does.

"Fuckin HELL, man! JESUS! Could you take it EASY?"

The room is still ashy blue-green, heavy with a fog of spirits. His heart is screaming in his chest. So loud, shut up.

[hidelias]

A bend in space-time Season 2 - [Chapter 17: Chapter 19: οἴκαδε]

[Chapter 17: Chapter 19: οἴκαδε] Links : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN

Summary: After the incident between Klaus and Lloyd, Rin takes refuge in the alleyway where she had arrived in 1961. There, Five finds her and talks to her about… "going home"

(…) I don't say anything, I keep my head in my arms, but that young, slightly nasal voice is easy to recognize. I'm not even surprised to find him here. How many times have I hoped to see him or the other Hargreeves in this brick-walled alley? This time, I don't tell myself that Five is a dream. I can feel the golden particles of his power, even with my eyelids closed. (…)

"I'm so lost, Five… I just… want to go back to where we belong".

These are words straight from my heart. I once told Allison that I'd always feel at home if I could collapse on the same couch as Klaus again. Tonight, I don't even feel like I can do that anymore. I hear Five sigh, then keep silent for a moment. And finally, as if he needed to recite those lines over and over again, he utters into the night:

"Tell me about a complicated man, muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost". I look up a little, my red eyes above my crossed arms. He speaks a few more words, which I can't properly hear, and then : "Where he went, who he met, and the pain he suffered in the storms at sea… and how he worked to save his life and bring his men back home."

I don't know why, but his words instantly soothe me, as I identify them as coming from Homer's Odyssey. One of the few books I remember from my short time in high school. All of a sudden, my heart seems to calm down. Maybe it's because I feel a kind of parallel with our wanderings through space-time. Maybe because I believe that Five bears more responsibility than any of us, as if at the helm of the ship. And maybe… because there's this muted hope that - like Ulysses and despite all the ups and downs - one day we'll finally be able to go home for good.

(…)

↝↝↝↝ Read 'A bend in space-time' ↜↜↜↜ Full chapter : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN Season 1 complete : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN Season 2 in progress : AO3 - Wattpad - FFN

I chose to insert an OC - Rin - into the plot of The Umbrella Academy, appearing almost only in deleted scenes. This fic is not a self-insert nor a OC-centric fic : Rin exists to flesh out the canon characters, and the fic is mostly focusing on Klaus. Please read the introduction for more details ♡

Any comment will make my day! ♡

[mannanoo]

Masks and Facades

No Warnings Apply Teen and Up Audiences Klaus Hargreeves and Number Five The Umbrella Academy Word Count: 6,794 Completed.

Klaus is sober and Five is capable of feeling emotions.

That being said, just because Five does have a heart, doesn't mean he knows how to actually use it to bond with his brother

Or maybe he does because it's just so easy to talk to Klaus.

Sober Klaus was… different. Unexpected. An outlier.

Not to say that it was unexpected that Klaus would ever be able to get sober, no. But his behaviour was definitely unexpected.

For one, while sober, Klaus couldn’t cook anything. Toast was a struggle. Compared to when he was high as possible when he seemed to become a 4-star chef.

While sober, Klaus was definitely more distracted by the ghosts around him. Sure, he’d learned to deal with them better than when Sir was ‘training’ them, but they were definitely more distracting. But while high, the only ghost he seemed to see was Ben. Five was sure that was because of stubbornness, however he couldn’t figure out whether it was stubbornness on Ben’s part to try and stop Klaus’ destructive behaviours or whether it was Klaus subconsciously needed some sort of support, especially the kind of support that could be easily ignored or couldn’t physically stop him.

Five supposed, the reason he was so caught up on how Klaus had changed was because it was the more noticeable change between his siblings. After Five had managed to make his way back from being stuck in the future and then under The Commissions thumb, his siblings hadn’t changed all that much, bar the change in Ben’s mortality. But he had already grieved Ben, along with his other siblings in the future. He knew how Ben died, granted he didn’t know the details. He suspected the only people who would know how Ben had died would be those who were present. Vanya wouldn’t know, and despite everything else she had written in her book, he doubted very much that she would write the details of their brother’s death in her book.

But, back to the subject.

In the week that followed his return, Five noticed in the back of his mind every time Klaus changed. Whether it was for better or worse. Klaus was always more… flexible. More mouldable. He wore masks, whether he realised it or not, Klaus had masks for each person he spoke to. His default though, seemed to be the junkie who could see ghosts. That was the mask Klaus had started to carefully construct when they were younger, before Five has disappeared. It was the mask he wore when he was faced with more than just one of his siblings. It was the mask he had defaulted to when Five returned.

Which had, stung. More than he’d like to admit. Five knew that mask well. It was the mask Klaus used when he didn’t know who he was talking to. It had definitely stung that Klaus used the mask with Five, but he knew the reason. For them, he had been gone for 16 years. Even though it had been longer for him, he knew he wasn’t the same person as when he was 13. He wasn’t the same person, but Klaus being able to see that immediately through the haze of pills and alcohol that was a constant in his system now stung.

But he took it with stride. He knew how Klaus ticked, and it made him feel warmer inside when Klaus had acted the same way Five knew when they were younger. The idiot with poor impulse control but who could always get them out of trouble with a new mask for a new person. Although his lip had stung and he was sure that his brother’s forehead was stinging through his fogged-up mind, he smiled when he saw that Klaus had once again got them out of trouble.

That moment, that small, seemingly insignificant moment was the exact point when the default mask had started cracking and slipping from his face as he turned to Five and asked for his twenty dollars after the front doors to the lab shut behind them. With that job taken care of, Five decided his efforts were better spent on averting the apocalypse. If he needed his siblings, he would tell them, would take Luther’s place as leader. But until then, he needed Klaus to see him as his brother again but he needed, more than anything to know they were all safe. If they weren’t involved, then they wouldn’t die and then he would have at least changed something and they wouldn’t be alone. But until then, until he knew whether he had succeeded in averting the apocalypse, he needed to keep one eye on his siblings and one eye on finding Dolores. And the fake eye on averting the apocalypse.

Finding Dolores had been a priority since he came back. But when Hazel and Cha-Cha found him with Dolores, both eyes had been on getting out alive with Dolores. He had kept running until he got back to the Academy. He had stitched himself up, his only thoughts on keeping Dolores safe and fixing the apocalypse. Surely his siblings would be fine while he altered his calculations. They had grown up the same as him after all.

They would all be fine.

Until they weren’t.

After he had come back to the Academy, dragged there by Diego who didn’t want him in his disgusting boiler room anymore. He had found the trail of wet, bloody footprints coming from the small bathroom directly to Klaus’ room. He had been shocked and curious by the trail of diluted blood. He had been prepared for some blood in the mansion, after Diego and Luther mentioning Hazel and Cha-Cha’s uninvited visit. He hadn’t been prepared for his brother.

In the few days it had been since Five had seen his ghostly brother, he had not expected such drastic changes. The new tattoos and the new-old dog tags around his neck didn’t shock him as much as the air surrounding him.

Klaus had always been a cold person physically. He had used it to torture his sibling’s countless times when they were children, had even used his freezing hands to try and throw them off when they were all forced to spar with each other by Sir’s insistence. They all knew it was due to his powers. And they all knew that the more ghosts clinging to him, the colder he was. Since Five had returned, Klaus seemed to have been at a constant temperature, kept consistent by the only ghost clinging to him being Ben. But the shift in temperature as Five stepped through the doorway to his brother’s room shocked him. It was like walking into a freezer. It was like something in the room was sucking out all heat, but Five knew that it wasn’t on purpose. He could also see how dirty-clean Klaus was. Physically, he was still quite dirty and rough looking. There were still spots of dirt on his skin that seemed like they were tattooed there more than just smeared there. His hair seemed more tamed than usually, but on Klaus it just seemed wrong. Off. No matter how clean it would look on anyone else, on his brother, it still seemed dirty and unkept.

But his eyes were the biggest change.

Five could still tell his brothers head was foggy. His mind was still hazy and his eyes were still glossy, but it was different this time. It was a cleaner, more pure fog that graced his brothers mind. There was no other way to describe it, but despite how high Klaus might have looked to the untrained eye, Five knew. He knew the symptoms. He knew that his brother had travelled in time and come back the same age, give or take however long he had been gone. His mind was already firing up questions and calculations, answering questions to himself that he hadn’t asked already. His feelings for his brother and how he might have felt were filed away for the moment. He knew when he went for a more analytical view of life that Dolores hated it, hated seeing him shed all sense of person, but in that moment, that brief moment of amazement that his brother had managed to get Hazel and Cha-Cha’s briefcase and use it, he couldn’t remember why it was so bad. Why it was so wrong to see the bigger, clearer image.

His moment of elation was quickly shut down when Klaus wouldn’t (couldn’t, his brain later supplied, when he was thinking with his heart and head in equal balance) answer his questions. When he had told his younger-older brother that he had broken the briefcase, that he had left it on that street corner to explode and burn when he had the chance. He wasn’t thinking about his brother. He needed that briefcase. He needed that briefcase to blackmail Hazel and Cha-Cha. Anything else was irrelevant. If he had that briefcase, he could stop the apocalypse from happening. He could save his siblings from dying. He wouldn’t have to bury them a second time.

(He knew in the back of his mind, that the worst thing the Commission could do to him if he failed to stop the apocalypse would be to save him. Save him and let his siblings die and make him grieve them all over again. And let him repeat the cycle of trying to save his family and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing and-)

The door swinging back against the wall knocked him out of his thoughts as Klaus left. He hadn’t seen his face, but he knew, he just knew that Klaus had a different mask for him now. It would be a completely new one and there was no way that Five would know what it could be. He had just thrown all of Klaus and his new changes to the side in favour or plotting (of trying to save his family. Feelings didn’t matter now if he couldn’t save them later) but he knew that Klaus wouldn’t-couldn’t give him the junkie mask.

Five had already seen that Klaus was clean. Even if he didn’t know exactly why, he knew there was a reason for being clean and Five knew that Klaus knew that he knew that. Which meant Klaus couldn’t put forward the junkie mask again.

Not any time soon at least.

(There’s no time for feelings. Hazel and Cha-Cha don’t know the briefcase is broken. They can still be used. We can still fix the world and then fix our family)

He wasn’t sure when he had started referring to himself as we. Maybe when he saw the Academy destroyed. Maybe when he buried his siblings. Maybe when he couldn’t find Vanya. Maybe when he found Dolores. Maybe when he lost Dolores. Maybe when he gone back to his 13-year-old body but was still older than all his siblings who were all born on the exact same day or the exact same year as him.

Maybe when he realised that Sir Reginald was right and that he wasn’t ready for time travel. Maybe when he realised that he hadn’t come out of the ice properly.

Maybe he had come out of the ice properly and the travel had changed everyone else.

He wasn’t sure anymore, and he wasn’t sure the other part of his brain that referred to him as ‘we’ knew either.

Dolores would know, but he wasn’t sure-they- weren’t sure they-he- wanted to admit he was wrong this soon. Especially not about hurting his brother by pushing his heart aside and thinking with his head.

The days that followed, he saw Klaus much less. It was his own fault, but he couldn’t dwell on that. Not after he had filed away Klaus’ feelings for his own gain and effectively broken that mask that Klaus had spent time creating and perfecting for him. His mask with Diego was more open, more vulnerable. With Luther it was the same as it had always been, just crazy enough to keep Luther away from him but just friendly enough that he wasn’t a threat. But it kept shifting with Five now. For a moment it would be the junkie mask, the next moment it would be the mask he had spent years on, the next it would be a combination of all the masks Klaus used on his siblings separately.

It stung Five to know he had shattered the mask Klaus wore with him. It stung to know that once it was complete, he would most likely get the same new default mask. The mask he’d be able to wear with all his siblings together that wasn’t the old ‘junkie-who-can-see-ghosts’ mask.

It stung to know he had become a stranger to his brother again when all Five could think was he didn’t want to bury his brother again.

The sting of his failure to recognise his brother’s emotions didn’t leave him. Especially when he was designated the lookout like nothing had changed when everything had actually changed. It stung when he saw that confident, smug look on his brothers face after he manifested Ben and used their dead brother’s powers. The smile that Five had carefully crafted all those years ago, because it was the one thing he had over Sir Reginald. That he was better at controlling his powers than his siblings and he knew it but Sir Reginald couldn’t do shit about it because they both knew he wasn’t wrong.

It stung to know his brother didn’t have a mask for him any more but that he had been carefully crafting Five’s smug smile, even after he had disappeared. Because Five knew, that no matter how hard he had tried when they were younger, Klaus could never get the perfect balance between overconfidence and justified confidence that had come naturally to Five.

A few months after they had averted the apocalypse, and a few days after Five was absolutely sure that they were all safe from The Commission, he had decided it was time to come face to face with his brother again. He knew that whatever mask Klaus had made for him would sting, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid it forever. Not when all of his siblings were insistent on having ‘family-bonding-time’ to try and stop any chance of another apocalypse happening. He knew that Klaus had been practising with his powers along with Vanya so they could both learn at their own pace. He knew that they had bonded over Sir Reginald’s ‘training’ induced claustrophobia. Neither of them wanted to chance of being locked away to deal with their powers again and had elected to train each other outside in the garden, by Ben’s new memorial. One that had been made after Klaus had manifested Ben one day, who had then made a comment about how much he had hated the statue and was glad when Luther had knocked it down at their dad’s funeral.

The new memorial was much better, in all of their opinions. Instead of a statue with the vaguest influence of their brother, they had all chosen to take care and help grow a large evergreen tree. It had taken a while to get it to the right size, but since they had all been thrown into the past to help Vanya anyway, by the time they had caught up to themselves in the timeline, the tree towered over the garden and was perfect for climbing. It had become one of Klaus’ favourite spots in the grounds of the Academy and there was almost a guarantee that no one would interrupt them when Five had made up his mind (it was his own now. He had stopped referring to his body and mind as we. He wasn’t sure when, but it had happened and he wasn’t going to question himself).

He had planned out the encounter perfectly. He’d wait until early evening, when Klaus and Vanya had finished training with each other, when Diego had gone to do some PI work (he still justified it as being a vigilante but they all knew he had stopped being ‘Batman’ nowadays), when Luther and Allison were off, either working on their weird relationship or helping Allison get Claire back (they were all becoming quite anxious to meet their niece every time Allison talked about her so there was no chance Allison or Luther would be willing to interrupt his encounter with Klaus). He knew that Klaus and Ben had an agreement that early in the evening, Ben would go off to do whatever ghost things he did and Klaus would enjoy the setting sun (it had quickly become his favourite past time during his times at rehab and had made getting sober easier on him every day when he was ‘trapped’ in rehab. (He hadn’t said it, but they all knew it was because of Mom and Pogo reminding him on particularly bad days that there couldn’t only be ghosts in the world because then there would only be darkness and a sunset couldn’t exist in an everlasting darkness. He didn’t need to say it.))

Five had gone to sleep the day before, after going over his plan in his head for the fifth time and to Dolores for the third time. He had planned it perfectly, even down to the time he would need to wake up the next day (it wasn’t any different than normal but if he woke up later then the plan would have to wait for another day (“Yes it does matter Dolores. No, I’m not procrastinating. It matters. It always matters.”))

He was going to sleep for 9 hours, and wake up at exactly 8am. (“Even if I’m a minute late waking up then it waits another day, Dolores. I already told you, it always matters.”)

His plan was perfect and timed and there was no way it would go wrong.

Until he was woken up to the smell of coffee, the noise of a mug being plonked on his bedside table, his curtains being thrown open to let the sun shine directly onto his face and a body sinking onto the bed right by his head. He sat up sharply, reflexively reaching beside him (his gun was gone. He couldn’t protect himself- there was nothing to protect himself from. He was safe. He is safe. He didn’t-doesn’t- need the gun anymore. He didn’t before but he definitely doesn’t now.) He turned his head to the side to look at his alarm before even attempting to figure out who had woken him at-

28 minutes past 4. In the morning. 4:28 AM.

His plan was ruined. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

He turned to face the person who had woken him up and ruined his plan, ready to lash out at Luther or Diego or Allison. Vanya wouldn’t have woken him at this time of morning. (Allison probably wouldn’t have either, but it was still her preferred method of waking him up. Annoying him awake with light and sound before making him compliant with coffee.)

His words died on his tongue when he came face to face with Klaus.

Klaus, smiling at him.

Klaus smiling at him.

Klaus smiling at him.

He wasn’t sure what shocked him the most. The fact that Klaus, the brother he had been very obviously ignoring for the past few… however long it had been (time travel would always be a bitch) or that fact that it was Klaus who had come to him first.

Klaus wasn’t a patient person. All of their siblings knew that. They all also knew that Klaus would easily annoy other people but wouldn’t get annoyed easily. But when he was annoyed, or hurt mentally, he knew how to hold a grudge. Five expected Klaus to try and get away from him as soon as he put his plan into action, which is why he had chosen to try and corner him on his perch of some of the taller branches of Ben’s tree (Klaus may still have destructive tendencies, but they had lessened significantly since he had become sober (since he came back from Vietnam after watching someone he loved die) it was one of the changes Five found fascinating about his brother. That he could be so destructive for years of their lives, even after seeing their little brother (Ben would always be the little brother despite being the same age as the rest of them and not being the smallest. He had tended to try and take up the least amount of room possible and became the little brother while Vanya had become their little sister) die. He had kept up his destructive tendencies even after he had died and overdosed so many times (“He overdosed 9 times before he figured out the limit and died 6 other times while high, once while sober” Ben’s voice echoed in his head.) and it was only when it was someone who had loved him back and loved him fully through his misgivings and until his death, that Klaus had decided it wasn’t worth the risk to destroy himself to piss of Sir Reginald (Sir Reginald who still didn’t care what Klaus did, just that he had been a disappointment to him).

Five was still processing and sorting through all his early morning intrusive thoughts when Klaus smile brightly at him (it was Five’s mask. The same one as before. Somewhere deep inside him a coil of tension unfurled and soothed. Maybe he hadn’t broken everything) before grabbing the mug of coffee and pushing under Five’s nose.

“I got that coffee you were banging on about. Figured you might have noticed it already, but looks like you haven’t.” He had noticed it. He knew that someone had bought it for him. He knew that it had probably been Klaus. But he hadn’t been ready to face his brother and therefore wasn’t ready (deserving) to have a decent cup of coffee so had suffered. He blinked slowly, still trying to get rid of the grogginess before slowly lifting his hands to take the mug out of Klaus’ hand and away from his face. (The mug was close to overflowing and he was sure Klaus had already spilled a few drops on his nightstand and bed already, and he could tell the coffee had been brewing too long but he would still drink it (no one had gone through this much trouble for him since… since forever. He wasn’t used to this but he thought he might be able to) because Klaus had made it).

“No. Smiling this early in the morning is unnatural and disgusting. Do you even realise what time it is?” He knew his words were sharper than he wanted them to be, but he still couldn’t get past the fact that his plan to confront Klaus had been ruined by Klaus confronting him.

“It’s half past four in the morning and you have been ignoring me and the coffee I bought you. Don’t complain.” The smile left Klaus’ face, but eh amusement in his eyes didn’t leave and the mask didn’t change. Silence fell between them, but it was comfortable as Five lifted the mug up to his face and managed to take a small sip of too bitter (burnt) coffee without wincing. A few moments passed before Klaus opened his mouth to say something, but Five beat him to it.

“I’m sorry.” Klaus froze. Five didn’t look at him-couldn’t look at him. He knew he had been wrong to push Klaus aside before (later? He still wasn’t sure when it was). He had known even as he asked about the briefcase instead of what happened to his brother, when he got angry about the briefcase being destroyed and his brother messed with the dog tags (Dave’s dog tags. The only person outside the family Klaus had loved and who had loved him back equally. He needed to start using his name. He was worth that in the very least). He knew when instead of running after his brother he had sat down to scribble a note to meet with Hazel and Cha-Cha (the ones who had tortured his brother for information he didn’t have and who couldn’t keep hold of their briefcase long enough to keep it out of Klaus’ sticky fingers (it was their fault Klaus had been tortured in that motel and then with a love he couldn’t keep (but then it was also Five’s fault and he knew that))).

Klaus’ jaw was still hanging open and amazement had replaced amusement in his eyes. In all their years (he still wasn’t sure but without Dolores he knew his calculations would definitely be wrong) Five had never apologised. Not when they were children, not when he came back, not when they went back and not when they had finally been able to live their lives and start acting like a family. (He still needed to apologise to Vanya for saying she wasn’t important during the apocalypse (she was, she always had been important, regardless of her part in the apocalypse (but he needed to finish apologising to Klaus first.)))

“Dolores always hated when I stopped thinking properly but I just couldn’t stop and I wanted to be your brother again but then I didn’t want to bury you again and if I had the briefcase then I could stop Hazel and Cha-Cha without killing them because Luther really doesn’t like the idea of me murdering people and I didn’t want to-I don’t want to, but there wasn’t much choice because I didn’t want to bury you all again because it would be my fault if you all died because it would mean I’d failed and it’d be all on me and all my fault. I’m sorry I didn’t ask about what happened, or where you went, or when you went, or who you lost but I couldn’t stop thinking about how I could save you all because I didn’t want to lose all of you all over again.” His words spilled out of his mouth like bitter coffee. They stung, and burnt his throat, and numbed his lips and cheeks and tongue and he didn’t even realise he was crying until he felt the burning coffee mug (it wasn’t hot enough to burn his throat so why- oh yeah, the tears) being pried from his death grip (he hadn’t realised he was gripping it so tight-that must have been why his fingers were burning) and when he felt his brother’s cold (they were always so cold) hand reach up to wipe away his tears with one hand while he set the mug down on the coffee table again (carefully this time-Klaus must have noticed the few drops he’d spilt before). The trails of salt on his cheeks that were making his way into his mouth through his open lips (that must have been the sting. The salt from his tears). He didn’t even realise how much he was crying until his brother’s voice slowly started to echo in his ears past the ringing and slight pain at his temples.

“… two, three, four. Breathe out, one, two, three, four.” He felt his breathing slow, and opened his eyes (when did he close them (better question: when did he lift his hands up to press his fingers into his temples?)). He looked into his brother’s face and saw him smile shakily with wet eyes. (Five was the one who had been crying, there was no need for Klaus to have tears in his eyes (He realised later, when he was more awake and more… steady that Klaus was close to crying because his brother was crying-he didn’t know when he would get used to seeing his family care about him again (they couldn’t care if they were just corpses he was burying))) “Just breathe for a minute Five.” Klaus paused in his words as he helped Five bring his hands to warm themselves around the mug of coffee again, and wiped the remainders of the tears from his little (no matter how much Five wanted to disagree, he had always been the smallest of them all (only just in comparison to Ben or Vanya, but smaller nonetheless)) brother’s face.

“There’s a lot to unpack there Five.” (He knows there’s a lot to unpack, it was his fault for all of it anyway (maybe not the actual apocalypse but his definitely still played his part in that.) “But you know I don’t blame you right? Like, none of this was your fault. Especially none of the stuff with Dave or Hazel and Cha-Cha. You didn’t make them  kidnap me, or torture me, and you weren’t the one who set that briefcase to the fucking Vietnam War. I mean, you didn’t even send them after you or any of us in the first place. The only person I blame is that Handler lady and dad but that’s just because I blame him for everything.” He paused again, taking a breath to look straight into Five’s eyes (he did that a lot-now he was sober. It was one of the bigger but more subtle changes Five had noticed now Klaus was sober. He could look people in the eye now). He wiped off the remainder of Five’s tears from the corners of his eyes before leaning back slightly. His head tilted slightly (Ben) as he stayed silent before he continued speaking, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. “It was extremely shitty, being tortured and then escaping only to end up in Vietnam in the middle of a war in only a towel and my coat, but if the situation came up again, you know the only thing I’d do different?” Five shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak, he couldn’t predict what Klaus was about to say. His head was turned too far away from him. Klaus looked at him from the corner of his eyes and Five shook his head again. “I’d save Dave. I wouldn’t wait for him to be killed, or follow him to the front lines. I’d keep him alive til the end of the war, I’d make sure he could go home and see his mom and his sister. Then I’d sweep him off his feet and bring him here, try and make a life with him here so we wouldn’t have to hide anything. That’s all I’d do. Just change it so he could live his life.” Five couldn’t speak.

How could his brother, who had arguably been screwed over physically more than any of them, not only not blame him for what had happened, but also not want to change it? Would willingly go back into a warzone for someone he’d only known for ten months?

He studied Klaus’ profile in silence as he tried to figure out what to respond with. He watched Klaus smile wistfully up at the ceiling. Watched as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes (probably both but Five could only see one of them (he wished he could see both. Just to make sure it wasn’t his brothers eye he’d carried around for years)). He watched as his brother (his big brother. It was starting to grow on him-that he didn’t have to be the strongest or oldest or smartest one anymore) tilted his head to the side again (always tilted it to the left (they all knew that Ben preferred to stay on his right-if only to screw with their father’s number order (they were children. They shouldn’t have been numbered; they should’ve had names))). He realised as he watched his brother just how much he had loved Dave (he was getting there-using his name. Even if he hadn’t said it out loud). There was nothing he could say that would even be close to right in response to that kind of statement (he knew what it implied. He’d sacrificed himself for the only person who had truly loved him and seen past everything (Dave had probably seen him through withdrawals and relapse and the nightmares during that time he spent in the past (he didn’t dwell on how Dave had probably seen Klaus worse than any of their siblings, especially him (he should’ve been there))).

He’d sacrifice himself for the only person he thought loved him without obligation.

He needed to change the subject. He needed to change the subject before he started crying again.

He lifted the mug to his lips to drink the coffee (it was still bitter and burnt but with the added effect of now being too cold (it was still better than anything else because Klaus had tried to make a perfect drink with his favourite coffee (he bought it specifically for him, he’d be damned if he wasted a single drop))).

After he choked down most of the liquid, he put the mug down on his bedside table again (it had to be in the exact same place or else everything would change again). He turned back to look at his (big) brother who was still probably swept up in his memories of Dave.

“It doesn’t absolve me of guilt Klaus.” His voice startled his brother, who snapped his head back to face him in confusion. Before he could retaliate, Five held up his hand and Klaus stopped. His brows furrowed further but quietened down nevertheless. “Just because all that wasn’t my fault, doesn’t mean I should’ve ignored you and your feelings. I should’ve asked about where you were, I should’ve noticed you were even gone. I should’ve asked what happened and not tried to reason my way out of it. Hell, I could’ve mentioned it to Diego or even Luther. I took him with me to try and blackmail Hazel and Cha-Cha with a broken briefcase and I could’ve told him then but I didn’t. And unless you’ve told any of them, then they don’t know either and they should know-we all should know because we’re your siblings and we should care more than we already do.” They both stayed quiet for the next few moments, both trying to absorb all the conversation. Five swallowed the rest of the burnt coffee, resolutely looking down at his bedsheets (still covering his legs, doing nothing to hide the nervous shaking). Once his mug was empty, he stared down at the bottom of it, staring at the coffee grounds that hadn’t been filtered out properly, as if they would give him answers or an idea of what to say (they wouldn’t. he’d tried too many times during the apocalypse to find answers of how to fix everything. He still wasn’t sure they’d done the right thing or that they’d averted the apocalypse completely, but there was no way of telling now the Commission was gone and there were no more briefcases left to travel with.)

“Alright then. It wasn’t your fault and you still feel guilty about being a prick. Is that what you wanted me to say?” Klaus’ serious tone shocked Five more than any part of this conversation. His head snapped up to stare at his (big) brother who was staring up at the ceiling, his head tilted back and his brows furrowed. Five had never seen his brother look as angry as he did now, he wasn’t entirely sure it was possible (Lies. Five had seen Klaus this angry before, the first time all of them, including Vanya, had tried to get Klaus sober. They’d taken all his drugs and half empty bottles from his room and Five had been the one to disappear with them while Luther pinned Klaus down. They’d all ignored his protests and his excuses. They’d all thought he was being dramatic. They’d thought he was being childish. Fuck, they should’ve just listened to him, tried to help. Christ, they were all so messed up.)

“Do you want me to say you’re a prick? That I think you’re a shit brother because you had so much on your mind that you weren’t worried about your druggie brother? Because honestly Five, I don’t blame you for anything, except pissing off in the first place. I don’t blame you for wanting to time travel, I don’t blame you for doing it just because dear old Reggie said you couldn’t, I don’t blame you for getting stuck in the fucking apocalypse, I don’t blame you for being more focused on the entirety of the human race dying than your own siblings, and I definitely don’t blame you for not asking me about my feewings while you were trying to stop us all from dying horribly.” The words were spat out of Klaus’ mouth like venom, as if the topic of emotion was too much, too close, too familial.

That stinging feeling was starting to come back in his chest.

It stung knowing that Klaus didn’t think he was worth feeling guilty for. That he thought he wasn’t worth anything Five was trying to say.

“Do you understand Five? I don’t blame you for anything that happened because I wasn’t your fault and there’s no reason to blame you. The only person I blame for any of this, the only person I will never forgive, is Reginald fucking Hargreeves. He turned us into soldiers and was directly responsible for at least one out of the seven of us becoming a druggie. He’s the reason that Vanya thought she was ordinary, he’s the reason Allison used her powers on us all the time, he’s the reason you disappeared and got stuck in the future, he’s the reason Diego has that scar, that Luther died and was brought back as a science experiment, the reason Ben died, the reason I became a junkie, and the reason why you had to see us all dead along with the rest of the world. There is literally no reason to blame you for ignoring my feelings when you were trying to fix all of his mistakes from when you were thirteen. The only thing he did right was die and not come bitching at me every hour.”

He did. He did understand. It didn’t get rid of the guilt completely, but it definitely lessened.

He didn’t understand how Klaus could feel so… worthless.

He didn’t understand how Klaus, who had been speaking to their dead brother this entire time, who had been sober for this long, had fought in the Vietnam War, had been able to manifest Ben to help keep them alive when they were being shot at, had been able to talk Vanya down after they averted the apocalypse, had essential fixed everything, could feel so worthless.

So undeserving.

Before he even realised, Five was reaching his arms up to pull at Klaus’ arm, tugging him down lightly.

The shock of his touch must have done most of the work, because Klaus was immediately half laying on top of Five’s small body, with Five’s small arms wrapping around his shoulders and his face buried in the nook between Klaus’ neck and shoulder.

The two of them stayed silent as Klaus slowly and carefully wrapped his arms around Five’s waist and they both relaxed into place.

Eventually, Five broke the silence, his murmured words only just making their way into Klaus’ ear.

“Tell anyone about this and you’re dead.” Klaus’ body started shaking as laughter took over his body and he fell out of Five’s grip, clutching his stomach, falling on his back across Five’s covered legs (that were no longer shaking. He wasn’t sure when they’d stopped, but thank Ben that Klaus either hadn’t noticed or jut hadn’t said anything.) Five struggled upwards, pulling his legs out from underneath Klaus’ lithe form to kneel over him. “I mean it Klaus! If you tell anyone I swear you’re dead!”

“Big Bad Assassin Five has emotions! Thank the Lord! It’s a miracle!” Klaus blurted out, and by now, Five was sure he had awoken Diego at the very least, maybe even Vanya (now she had her powers back, she was way too sensitive to any sounds. It had made it hard to try and surprise her now but also meant she was a much lighter sleeper than they’d all remembered her as.)

“Klaus shut up! It’s too early for you to wake up everyone with this shit!” Five shouted back, ignoring the fact that he was probably being even louder than his (big) brother. His statement, however, was contradicted by the fact he was smiling, a much bigger and truer smile than he had ever before (it seemed more like childish glee in this body, however, he couldn’t bring himself to care. They were finally starting to act like siblings. It had only taken some failed time travel, Reginald dying and averting the apocalypse.)

[angelyuji]

I don’t have a tik tok, sorry 😅

Right!!?? They KILLED the characters development! Especially Five!! I know everyone deserves love but Five with Lila??? (I’m not gonna talk about the actors age cause even tho it’s a big gap, they are a c t i n g, I think people should remember that, there wasn’t even a sex scene between them)

Going back, it was Five the one that made Lila realize she was in love with Diego + he spend 45 years in that apocalypse missing his family every second, are the writers really gonna say to us that THAT SAME FIVE would fall in love with Lila??? I know they spend 7 years trapped in that reality, but come on! AND what Diego said to Five in the van? That Lila told him that “you can’t get pregnant while breastfeeding”? That rubs off in soooo many ways for me… I kinda liked Lila in S3 but not anymore

Plus, the “jokes” about Diego being fat when in reality he’s really fit? I mean, we saw him in the fight with the CIA

Luther got dumber and dumber this season and I hate it! Isn’t he supposed to be an astronaut? Astronauts are smart, right? Plus, they only mention Sloan ONCE! He was so in love with her in the past season (so much that he even forgot Allison) and now he doesn’t even TRIES to find her??? What type of bullshit is that??

Allison… was there… and mad… Well, she and Claire rescued Klaus but… what happened with Ray anyway? They did got divorced? Why? They seemed so in love. But then she was jealous of Sloane… but she didn’t wanted a relationship with Luther either… I mean, she didn’t even tried to talk/flirt with him anymore…

Ben… he was never a part of the Hargreeves, at least for what I felt. Even after saving Viktor. The sudden relationship with Jennifer was SO rushed, even when they explained it. I mean, if Reginald wanted to kill her, why didn’t he did it right away? She was a kid who was found inside of that calamari (English is not my first language, I don’t remember if that’s the correct word, sorry 😅) ANYONE would suspect of her death anyway

Then, the writers “saved” Klaus only to make him a drug addict AND a sex slave again??? What happened to his development??? He WAS at peace with his powers and could even fully control them for what??? I would preferred it if they made him a cult leader again, ugh

I KNOW this is gonna be controversial (like the thing I wrote in the beginning) buuuuuut I liked Vanya WAY MORE than Viktor

I’m not a transphobe I swear! It’s just that I could empathize more with Vanya while with Viktor... I know he was trying to save Ben and Jennifer and that was the right thing for a brother to do(? But like I said, I could empathize more with Vanya

Which leads me to a more controversial take 😅

I think Vanya and Five should have to be the couple that got together and were happy

lol i have an account on basically every social media platform to exist lolol

the whole five x lila thing was sooo weird like ughhhhhhhhh lila and diego were so cute and the whole "i thought you didn't like bracelets???" when he DID give her bracelet when they were in the hospital together??? alsoo five would NEVER betray his brother like that. thats crazy (lets not even talk abt how awk it must have been to film this when lila's actress has known aiden g since he was a minor like)

also diego ripping his shirt off and he's ripped and im like ???? wheres the dad bod??????

yeah allison never even fully used her new powers. i liked allison and klaus's relationship tho like every scene with them made my heart hurt. it did piss me off that they made klaus fall back to drugs and be used as a slave like ugh.

the jennifer stuff was soooo stupid like god idgaf abt this girl at all. also like why didn't reginald kill her???? weak ass bitch reginald and his weirdo wife

i love viktor, sorry, he's so fine i need him. i also prefer viktor becuz vanya was annoying lowkey lmao

also im sorry again but no to vanya x five, i hated luther x allison so much. i liked sissy and also viktor being a man-whore is sooo :)))) need him!!

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Sing Me Your Heart: Fish in a Birdcage

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: They had always been closest to each other, but it was different when they also had the others around. Five and Viktor don't usually fight but when they do it's messier than anything else they've ever done. Warnings: Mentions of Underage Sex, mentions of eating disorders, pseudo-incest, and canon-typical child abuse Word Count: 4,964 Ship(s): Viktor Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves/Allison Hargreeves/Diego Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves/Ben Hargreeves

Archive link!

A/N: So my brother suggested that I write a fiktor fic to this song and I couldn't, for the life of me, come up with something for it. I've written a lot of fiktor and I don't want to repeat myself, haha. I thought that it would fit well in this series, especially since I've been wanting to revisit it for some time! It's not imperative to have read the previous fics in this story for things to make sense, but it would definitely help. Thank you all for reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone &lt;3

Sing Me Your Heart:

Fish in a Birdcage

An Umbrella Academy Fanfiction

A Luther Hargreeves/Diego Hargreeves/Allison Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves/Ben Hargreeves/Viktor Hargreeves Fanfiction

By Sissytobitch10seconds

They’ve been in a bad mood since the last mission that they went on. It was something that always happened since when they had to work together in that extent it often brought up bad memories from when they were in the previous universe. 

Luther and Diego were able to work together far better than they had been back when they did this the first time, they spent far less time arguing and more time actually working out a plan. Allison had lost the arrogance that she once had and used her power a lot less flippantly. Five was able to control his powers more than he had been the last time that he was seventeen and starving. Klaus had learned how to control both his drug habit and his powers so that he was more than the tag-along or the lookout. Ben had also made friends with the Horror and was able to control it without it hurting him. The biggest change was likely that Viktor was with them, which was something that none of them would have ever been able to dream of in their last timeline.

By all accounts their mission had actually gone well. It was something small this time, unlike the world-saving missions that they had been forced through the last couple of months. They were still tired and rather banged up, which made them all pretty irritable.

Klaus staggered off to his room after seeing his newly broken arm was given the attention that it needed from their mother. Diego and Luther were forced to go with their father so that they could debrief him on everything that had happened. Allison and Ben walked towards the bedrooms with their fingers intertwined, sharing secrets that they didn’t want anyone else to know. That meant that it was only Five and Viktor standing out in the hallway.

Five felt jumpy and restless. The mission that they were in involved a lot of talking and very careful moves, which meant that he couldn’t burn off the extra energy that adrenaline always gave him. He already felt like he was bouncing off the walls and he hadn’t even tried to lay down so that he could go to sleep yet.

He started down the hall so that he could get to his room and burn off some brain power with the litany of math problems that he had been working on. He also likely needed to work on his music before his producer started coming after him because they didn’t have enough filler tracks for the album that he was meant to be putting out during the next month.

Before he even made it past the foyer, he felt a hand slip into his, “Hey, do you want to go back to my room?”

He wasn’t able to make any words surface in his mind. Too much was happening and yet not enough. He had to be somewhere else, do something else, to distract himself from the thoughts of what had been forced to do to get back to his family all those years ago. So instead of replying to his boyfriend with kindness and compassion like he knew he should have, he activated his power. With a pop and the strong scent of ozone, he appeared in the center of his bedroom. 

He jumped off of the little box that he had landed on, which was technically an old training method that his father had used when he had first unlocked his powers. He didn’t need it anymore, since he had both used his powers extensively in his first universe and then again when he had come back. He was able to get his location down to a tiny point even if he wasn’t able to see it before he jumped. He still liked having the dedicated landing port in his room so that if someone had moved something then he wouldn’t ruin whatever that was by landing on top of it.

The chalk that he had been working with before the mission bell went off was still sitting on his desk. He picked it up and began to press it against the wall so that he was prepared to pick up where he had left off as soon as his brain was back into the mode that it needed to be in. He was feeling frazzled and out of sorts because what he had expected from the mission hadn’t actually turned out to be the case. 

There was a knock on the door and then it opened to reveal the very boyfriend that he had left downstairs. Viktor’s chest was heaving, which showed that he had run up all of the stairs to get to the attic room that his boyfriend had taken as his own when they all decided that they needed to spread out in their manor. His face contorted in anger and he shouted, “Five Hargreeves!”

Five jumped and nearly dropped his chalk. Anger reared up inside of him as well, he was frustrated and wanted to sort himself out by focusing on his math problems. “Viktor! Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

“You don’t get to be busy when you can’t even be bothered to use your words with me,” he shouted. “We had this conversation a week ago when you did this to me the first time. Were you not listening or do you just not care?”

If he hadn’t felt the way that he did, he would have been able to recognize that Viktor was feeling scared and hurt. That was the main reason that they got in fights after they went on missions, because Viktor was always terrified that his place on the team was going to be revoked and he would be forced back into his medication. He wasn’t in the right mind to be logical, only scared and feral, so he snapped, “I was listening.”

“Then you just don’t care, which isn’t much better!” Viktor shouted, exasperated and obviously getting more upset. The space above his cheeks and onto his nose were beginning to turn red. The lines around his mouth crinkled as he tried his best not to cry.

Five, logically, knew that Viktor didn’t do well with arguments because of what had happened the last time that they had all done this. The morning before he had gotten in his head that he had to try time-travel, they had gotten into an argument about whether or not Viktor needed to hear the reports of how the missions went when they all came back. Then Five had disappeared and Viktor had been left without his best friend and defender in a house full of people that had been taught to hate him the entire time they were growing up.

His brain wasn’t acting logically, which was causing quite the struggle between them both. The part of him that existed in that deep, dark void in the back of his consciousness was screaming at him to stop what he was doing, tell Viktor that he was in the wrong, and make up with the boy that he loved more than the world itself. He wasn’t used to listening to that voice despite having been back in the careful arms of their partners for quite some time, so he acted out instead.

“Not everything has to be about you! We did all of this shit to try and stop you from blowing up the fucking world but you should have known not to do that anyway,” Five snarled. “We forced ourselves to relive our trauma and be exploited and abused by a man that wants nothing more than a social status boost because you made us. You’re the reason that we’re all back here and usually miserable!”

That struck a nerve that Five had forgotten even existed. When they had all first come back, they had discussed it with each other and agreed that they had all made mistakes but their father was the most at fault. If any of them were unknowingly drugged and as powerful as Viktor was, then there was a high chance that they would have responded much worse than how he did. Still, Five was angry and scared and trying not to let the memories of his dead partners flash into his mind like they were trying to.

Viktor opened his mouth to say something but the only thing that came out was a sob. He placed his hand over his mouth and turned his head to the side so that it was harder for the other man to see the streaks of tears that were making their way down his cheeks. When he finally did manage to say something, he said it so quietly that Five wasn’t sure that he had said anything at all, “If you hate it so much then why don’t you just leave again?”

“I… I don’t hate it here,” he admitted. Seeing his lover that vulnerable, crying and shaking in his room, reminded him too much of the way that he had screamed at them to let him out of the basement. It brought back memories that still haunted him, both when he was awake and asleep.

Five set the chalk down on his desk and then began to rub his fingers together so he had some kind of stimulus to distract himself. He walked over to his bed and sat down heavily, refusing to look up and meet the gaze of the man he had fought tooth and nail to get back to. “I promise I didn’t mean that I said. I was just… I get like this sometimes after missions, which is why I come up here to try and burn off the energy.”

“You don’t burn enough energy when we’re running around trying to stop robbers?” Viktor asked. He was slowly untucking from himself and crossing the space between them so that they could sit beside each other.

Once the bed dipped with the weight of another body, Five tentatively reached out and threaded their fingers together. He could see the red color of his chalk stick now sticking to the alabaster skin on the back of his lover’s skin. He shuddered as he got the image of Viktor in that crisp white suit, bleeding from a bullet wound in the center of his chest, stuck in the forefront of his mind.

The question that the other teen had asked was a valid one. Five didn’t quite understand how his powers worked either and there was no way that they were going to get Reginald to explain it. He knew that all of his partners were under the assumption that using his powers wore him out similarly to the way that someone would get tired from running that distance. It was different than that, more like a muscle in his brain had gotten tired to the point where he was so sleepy that he could barely function. They had been around him when he was first being trained, along with the rest of them, so all they had seen was him passing out.

“I feel like a bird trapped in a cage,” he whispered. He leaned over so that his forehead was resting on Viktor’s shoulder. A long time ago, in the first timeline and before Dolores, he wouldn’t have been able to have that kind of vulnerability to someone. Touching was always off-limits for them because Reginald was under the assumption that it would make them grow too close to each other. He was right, of course. As soon as they had started not listening to him and doing things that they wanted, they had all realized just how in love they were.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Viktor asked. Five could almost feel the way that his brows were furrowing and his beautiful lips were tilting down into a frown.

“I… I know that it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I used to have free reign to go anywhere that I wanted to, even if I couldn’t use my powers. I liked having that kind of freedom because I had never had it before I left,” he tilted his head down towards his hands. He wanted to be able to look into the eyes of the man that he loved, to admit all of the things that were brewing inside of him, but he was unable to. At the end of the day, underneath all of his bravado and arrogance, he was a coward. “When I first arrived in the apocalypse, I actually just wrecked everything that I could find. I ate so much chocolate and candy that I puked, I destroyed a building, I lit fire to something that I wanted later on. Of course it got a lot less fun when I realized what had happened and the excitement of knowing how to time travel was ruined by not being able to go backwards yet.”

When he stopped speaking, the room was so heavily covered in silence that he felt it almost as a physical force pushing down on him. “I was hoping that when I came back to the timeline but didn’t time travel that I would have the same kind of freedom, but I don’t.”

Viktor threaded his fingers together with Five’s so that their palms were pressed flush together. He leaned over so that their heads were resting against each other, but he kept his eyes closed so that Five didn’t feel as overwhelmed with the oppressive force of him. It gave him the strength and reassurance to know that while they had a stupid fight every now and again, it wasn’t going to result in them breaking up like he always feared.

He took a deep breath as he steadied his resolve to keep going, “We have to stay here and pretend that we don’t know what’s really going on when we do. We know what Dad is planning for us when we’ve gotten old enough to handle it and our powers are at a certain level but we can’t let him know and that leaves us trapped in this stupid house. I… I had thought that I would be able to go where I liked and do what I wanted but I’m still trapped here.”

“Do you think that you’re trapped when you have us?” Viktor asked, his voice soft and compassionate.

He thought about it for a minute, getting his thoughts in the line that he had tried to achieve when he was looking at the math scrawled on his walls. “I was using the metaphor earlier for a reason, Viktor,” he chuckled.

“Just explain it to me then, you ass,” he laughed. He pulled away enough that they were looking at each other. Five lurched forward so that he could pretend to bite at the tip of his nose, which resulted in Viktor wrapping his arms tightly around him so that they were both forced to flop back onto his bed.

They growled at each other, both of them now pretending to nip and bite before they burst into laughter. It released the rest of the tension that had been built up during their fight so that they were settled back into the comfort and adoration that always hung over them when they were together.

Five let out a little sigh and turned his head up towards the ceiling. “I don’t think that I’m totally trapped when I have you all, nothing like what it must have been like when you were growing up here without me. It’s just… I’m a bird trapped in a cage. I have all the food, water, and cleaning supplies that I need to live but I’m not free to do as I wish. I can’t fly or soar or air out my wings in the sunshine. I have companions but they’re also trapped.”

The silence that hung over them again was still oppressive but also far lighter than it had been moments prior. Viktor let out a little sigh and then tucked his head against Five’s neck so that his nose was pressed into his boyfriend’s collarbone. “If you’re a bird inside a cage than I’m a fish.”

---

Their partners had come to check on them a little while after their fight, which was the last time that they were all in Five’s room. They tried not to gather in one place over and over again because it was more likely that their parents were going to find out about what they were doing. It had been enough time, almost six months, since they had that fight and the idea that followed afterwards, that they were safe moving back to that place.

Viktor was fussing around the space in a way that made Five want to explode. He was desperately looking forward to when they turned eighteen and their father was forced to hand over the money that they had made when they were underage. The laws that protected minors working in Hollywood and similar careers had been cracked down as soon as the Academy debuted, which meant that not even the great Reginald Hargreeves could get around them. As soon as they had their money, they were going to buy a grand place to live and have the domestic bliss that they had dreamed of for a collective of almost fifty years.

He had finished setting up the projector and the sheet that they were going to be putting it on an hour ago. The sheet was pressed before it was put away because Grace never did anything halfway, but they had steamed out the wrinkles that were left after it was folded in the drawer so that it would give a better viewing. They had also moved the mattress off of Five’s bed and onto the ground with all of the pillows and blankets they could hold.

They had opted to keep the sheets on it instead of taking them off like when they were doing less-than-savory activities, especially since that would make it easier for them to clean everything up. They had laid out the pillows so that they all had somewhere to lay even if someone had to be on the ground because they weren’t all going to fit onto the mattress. They had also collected quite a few snacks from the last time that they were allowed to make a public appearance, but they were partially hidden underneath the bed still.

There was a knock on the door and they both jumped. It was easier for Viktor to hear when people were coming than it was for Five given his super hearing, but he had been so distracted while trying to get everything in exactly the right place that he had decided it had to be in that he hadn’t realized their lovers were that close either. 

Five jumped off of the bed and then pressed a quick kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek. They had been spending a lot more time just the two of them, especially since it was father-sanctioned, which meant that he felt more comfortable with being intimate than he was usually. He rushed to the door so that he could invite in the rest of their polycule.

“Five, what is going on?” Allison asked as the door was opened.

“If you would come inside instead of asking questions then you could find out faster,” he rolled his eyes. He moved to the side and everyone piled in. 

Before anyone could say anything about their confusion or surprise about what was happening, Viktor started, “I want everyone to find a place to sit and then get comfy! We have a lot of surprises and I want to get this all started so that we can fit it in before have to go down to training.”

There was a jumbled response from their partners, but they all did as they were told despite their usual reluctance. Luther sat down in the center of the mattress since it was almost impossible for anyone to have him on the outside of a cuddle pile, especially when the entire house felt as chilly as it did in that moment. Diego sat down next to him and they shyly held hands, even though they had been together since they were fourteen. Klaus cuddled up into Diego’s side with Ben in between his legs. Allison sat down on the other side of Luther and then motioned for them to come and join her. Five did as he was asked, tucking himself underneath a blanket while also leaving enough space for Viktor if that was where he wanted to sit.

Viktor darted back to the bed and then grabbed the shopping bag that they had hidden. He distributed the favorite sodas of each of their partners and then the candies as well. He set the bag of popcorn that they had purchased down within reaching distance of Luther without giving it to anyone specific. Instead of sitting down next to Five where they had expected him to, he sat down on top of Luther’s lap.

It ended up working out better than any of them had been expecting it to because of their height difference, it also allowed him to feel warm and safe. “Vik, you really shouldn’t have,” Klaus crooned as he opened the box and began to shove the M&Ms into his mouth.

“We really should have, we’re about to subject you to my and Five’s embarrassment for about an hour,” he chuckled.

“Does this have anything to do with where you’ve been sneaking off to every third Thursday for the last six months?” Allison asked, turning her head down to Five. She then pressed a kiss to his forehead so that he didn’t think that she was mad. It was an issue that they had early in their relationship but not for very long afterwards, especially since they were all a lot more willing to communicate than they had been before.

“This is exciting,” Klaus cackled as he cuddled further into the nest that they had made amongst each other.

Five turned his head to the side so that he could watch for any nerves that might be shining through Viktor. Once upon a time, when he had come out to them as trans and then again when had admitted about his eating disorder, he had been almost so nervous that he was going to start using his powers without meaning to. Now he looked like they were simply going to watch a movie together.

He picked up the remote from behind Luther on the bed and then used it to traverse the menus. He clicked on the file that they had saved to a particular DVD the day before when they had received it. The screen came to life and the beginning credits of the music video, along with the sound of Viktor’s violin playing began to overwhelm the room. All of the other sounds had completely died down so that the only thing that was playing was the music.

I'm a fish inside a birdcage

My brother always sings me songs

With his beak, he tries to soothe me

He makes me feel that I belong

Unlike the one that Viktor had shown in the showcase all those years ago when he had first come out, the music video was animated. It showed a swirl of orange ink spreading through the blackness that the credits had been on top of. There was a brief flash of a fish that turned into a bird before it morphed into two figures standing near the window. One of them had long hair and their legs tucked up into their chest, obviously a representation of what Viktor had looked like when he was a child. The one stand to the side of him had short hair and was very obviously Five.

He has a wild imagination

And tells me things that must be true

Like there's a world where I can take flight

Where I can freely move

The two figures leaned in like they were whispering together. Their tiny hands met up so that they were clasped together. It was intimate in a way that all childish relationship were, unknown to adults who couldn’t remember that time any longer. The there was another black swirl and the image was gone.

So carry me from these walls

Brother of mine

Show me the world outside

It has to be true

I'm counting on you

To be my wings and my eyes

The image turned into a black bird in the same of a raven, the fan tail elegantly stretched out next to wings in flight. In the claws of the great bird was a fish, hanging in a way that looked uncomfortable but cradled so that it was obvious the animal wasn’t dead. Together they moved past a building that looked like the Academy and then into the greater streets of The City. It was unclear where they were moving because the camera would pan around the figures so that buildings were visible but then they were cradled against the clouds a moment later.

As I breathe into our silеnce

There's a voicе that comforts me

It's a voice of understanding

It's the voice of empathy

The black inkyness returned so that the image changed again. This time it was shrowding the two figures in blue and black instead of orange. They were older now, but the one closer to the window still had long hair. They turned towards the other figure and said something that made one with short hair lurch forward so that he was holding onto the one that spoke. They held onto each other, shaking slightly, until the image changed again.

Wings of feathers, tails, and fin tips

We feel each rock so differently

You gave me more than I could ask for

Indistinguishability

The image shifted so that they were standing out in the garden, though it was a space that only other Umbrellas were going to be familiar with. They were both smiling, sharing something that made the one with short hair laugh. The one with long hair’s smile dipped as they stepped onto a rock and then fell into the black screen that transitioned them into the next screen.

So carry me from these walls

Brother of mine

Show me the world outside

It has to be true

I'm counting on you

To be my wings and my eyes

The image of the bird holding the fish returned again. They continued to soar over the city, but then they burst out into the world. They were moving fast enough that lines formed around them. The ocean transitioned into the desert, and then a forest, and then a grasslands. 

So carry from these walls

Brother of mine

Show me the world outside

It has to be true

I'm counting on you

To be my wings and my eyes

As the second chorus started, the black and the blue transitioned into a purple replacement for the last color. It swirled together into a tight ball before it exploded into another tender scene. The two characters were laying on a bed, one of them tilted towards the headboard and the other towards the baseboard. Their hands were woven together but the other was resting over their eyes, like they were having some kind of transcendent experience that only they were privy to.

Once the song had ended, the nervous energy that Five had been anticipating erupted in his boyfriend. He leaned over Allison so that he could grab Viktor’s hands to reassure him that everything was going to be okay.

“This was what you guys had been working on?” Klaus asked. He moved away from Diego so that he was propped up and could look at his partners better.

Viktor flushed a dark red color that made Five wanted to grab his face and kiss him like mad. He resisted when his boyfriend spoke again, “Yeah, what did you think?”

“I think that it was amazing,” Allison gushed as a grin spread out over her face. “Did you play all of the instrumentals in that piece?”

“I did,” Viktor said proudly. It had been Five’s voice that was singing, a sound that was deeper and growlier instead of the higher, clearer tone that he sung in. 

“You sounded wonderful, sweetie,” Luther directed his attention towards Five instead of praising Viktor. It made the smaller teenager’s heart sing. He loved watching his boyfriend’s reaction to being praised, but he wanted people to pay attention to him as well. He grinned and wiggled around Allison so that he could steal a kiss.

When he settled back down, he broke through the conversation that Ben was having about who they had gotten to do their animation for the video. “We have a whole album coming out with songs about our feelings towards each other and what it was like for us to live in the Academy.”

“Believe it or not, it was actually something that we came up with when we were fighting the other day,” Viktor laughed.

“That’s actually easier to believe than you think,” Ben replied with one of his sassy smirks. Viktor rolled his eyes and then leaned in to steal a kiss so that the teasing was unable to continue.

When he pulled back, he met Five’s eyes and the two of them had a silent conversation, pushing the love that they had for one another back and forth until they were sated. They would always be beside each other, even if that had to be in spirit alone.

[inkspiredwriting]

A Hargreeves Welcome

Five Hargreeves x Fem!reader

Warnings: none

Y/N stood outside the grand, imposing structure of the Umbrella Academy, her heart racing with a mix of excitement and nerves. She had heard so much about Five’s siblings, each one a unique force of nature, and now it was finally time to meet them. Five stood beside her, looking uncharacteristically anxious.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked, his voice tinged with uncertainty.

Y/N smiled, squeezing his hand. “As ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s go.”

They walked up to the front door, and Five pushed it open. The hallways of the Academy were just as she had imagined—grand, a bit dusty, and filled with an air of mystery. As they entered the living room, they were greeted by the sight of the Hargreeves siblings in various states of relaxation.

Klaus was sprawled on the couch, flipping through a fashion magazine, Diego was cleaning his knives at the dining table, Allison was reading a script, Luther was lifting weights, and Viktor was playing his violin softly in the corner.

“Hey, everyone,” Five announced, his voice a little louder than usual. “This is Y/N, my girlfriend.”

All eyes turned towards them, and Y/N felt the weight of their scrutiny. She put on her best smile and waved. “Hi, everyone. It’s great to finally meet you.”

Klaus was the first to react, springing up from the couch with a wide grin. “Five, you didn’t tell us you were bringing home such a hottie!” He enveloped Y/N in a dramatic hug, twirling her around.

“Klaus, put her down,” Five said, rolling his eyes but smiling nonetheless.

Klaus set Y/N down gently, giving her an exaggerated wink. “Welcome to the madhouse, darling. You must have the patience of a saint to deal with our dear brother here.”

Diego smirked from his spot at the table. “So, how many timelines did he mess up to win you over?”

Y/N laughed, feeling some of her nerves dissipate. “Just the one, I think. Or maybe two. It’s hard to keep track.”

Allison stood up, crossing the room to give Y/N a warm hug. “It’s so nice to meet you, Y/N. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Y/N hugged her back, grateful for the genuine warmth. “All good things, I hope.”

“All good things,” Allison confirmed with a smile.

Luther put down his weights and approached, towering over Y/N with his imposing frame. “I’m Luther. If Five gives you any trouble, let me know, and I’ll straighten him out.”

Y/N laughed, glancing at Five. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Viktor set his violin down and walked over, offering a shy smile. “Hi, Y/N. I’m Viktor. It’s really nice to meet you.”

“You too, Viktor,” Y/N replied, appreciating the sincerity in his eyes.

As they all settled into the living room, Klaus couldn’t resist continuing his teasing. “So, Y/N, did Five tell you about his first love?”

“Klaus...” Five warned, but there was no stopping him.

“You mean Dolores?” Y/N said with a grin. “Oh, he’s told me all about her. I’m just glad I don’t have to compete with a mannequin.”

The room erupted in laughter, and Five groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Why did I bring you here again?”

Y/N patted his back, laughing along with the rest of them. “Because you love me, and you wanted me to meet your family.”

Klaus draped an arm around Five’s shoulders, grinning mischievously. “Yeah, Five. It’s all out of love. Just like how we’re going to tell Y/N all the embarrassing stories about you.”

“Oh, please do,” Y/N said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “I’m all ears.”

Five sighed, knowing he was in for a long night of merciless teasing. But as he looked around at his family and saw Y/N fitting in so effortlessly, he couldn’t help but smile. Despite the embarrassment and the chaos, this was exactly where he wanted to be.

As the evening wore on, stories were shared, laughter echoed through the halls, and Y/N felt more and more at home with each passing minute. The Hargreeves were a handful, but they were Five’s family. And now, they were hers too.

In the end, it was Klaus who raised a toast, his voice uncharacteristically serious for a moment. “To family, old and new. And to Y/N, for putting up with our dear Five. Welcome to the madness.”

“To the madness,” Y/N echoed, clinking her glass with the others. She looked at Five, her heart full. This was the beginning of a new chapter, and she couldn’t be happier.

[eemoo1o-animoo]

Oh my god!! The art!! Okay so here’s some more, I think:

Demon-Os gets an intern either in season two or right at the start of season one (though I can imagine he’s added to ‘spice things up’ or something like how some sitcoms or shows do with adding new characters), which would be Snake. He usually keeps to himself and is really quiet, which makes it kind of easy for him to end up hanging around the triplets a lot.

I think there could be a scene a bit like with Kevin and the baggers from Mohican from F is for Family where they are in like the triplets’ secret space that they chose to show him and that’s where they are for the rest of the episode, and Sebastian could be cursing them because where the fuck are they?!

Eventually in the same scene Snake shows them pictures of his snakes and one of them (the gruff one — Canterbury… he’ll always be Timber in our hearts though) says “Bit creepy, innit?” — (Timber, the soft one) “I think they’re cute.” — (Thompson, the middle one) “I think they’re pretty decent.” And I think Snake likes them a bit more because he realises that they remind him of his snakes a bit.

The main child actors for the Funtom company / Demon-Os are O!Ciel and R!Ciel (and Lizzie), and their maternal cousins are Jim and Luka Macken (Angelina adopted them).

Mey-Rin, Bard, and Finny are also actors for the commercials, but only recurring ones.

Lau and Ran-Mao are executives, but also keep trying to push their all-new “Seaweed Crunchies” into the limelight.

It’s actually R!Ciel who doesn’t like Sebastian straight away, as he’s the main diva, main actor too, and O!Ciel is just his stunt double most of the time (like when the lights give him fatigue or whatever).

Eventually somewhere down the line like the middle-end of season one or somewhere around season two, R!Ciel gets badly injured (but comedically, if this is like a Dramedy) which forces him to step away from acting and, initially, spend all his scarce scenes during the rest of the season’s episodes in bed, typically venting to Tanaka or telling O!Ciel, a bit vehemently (but mostly out of passion to preserve his image) to be “The best Ciel he can be”, and as such O!Ciel takes on the stage name “Ciel” and no one really checked the credits for stunt doubles anyway so who cares where the other one went?

By the way, Diedrich is their manager/agent (moreso seen with the Mackens, though) and before R!Ciel’s injury the twins sometimes offhandedly mention “their daddy and agent [sometimes] wrestling” and, once, “their daddy kissing Santa Claus”.

In the latter instance Claude turns to Sebastian and says, “Are you sure that wasn’t you, Michaelis?” either to suggest that Sebastian has also done this before (kiss a ‘Santa’) or that Sebastian and Vincent have also been together — it’s up to viewer interpretation. Alternatively it would be a call back to a season or just a few episodes prior, or calling to a flashback, where something comedic happens with Sebastian kissing a Santa.

It’s also suggested that throughout the series, Sebastian and Claude have a secret (and genuinely secret in the sense of what they do and when they do it, but from a tension standpoint it’s not-so-subtle) in- and out-of-workplace relationship. Though it’s never shown on screen.

Sebastian also has the love life and libido of Klaus Hargreeves. Anything and everything is at risk.

As for the Mackens, their stage names are “Alois Trancy” and “Cort Trancy”, both German names (starting with 9 letters before their first initial) that Diedrich had actually picked out. Additionally, they keep pitching this idea of “Trancy Bran” behind the scenes and off set that only Ronald will pay them any mind over.

Alois and R!Ciel also get along like a house on fire and it’s scary. (He brings out the Alois in Alois a bit but when with Luka, he is still just Jim.)

They’re at first used for extras in the Demon-Os commercials (though Alois moreso than Luka Cort because of the whole ‘blond hair blue eyes’ thing).

They don’t get cast in Grim Loops commercials until this one episode of hijinks* where Grelle (who is suggested to dating Red at the time, which this is around season four or five where gay stuff was starting to gradually be green lit, and because F/F is easier to get past censors) had volunteered to babysit them (to appease Ann, this is made abundantly clear), and ‘realising’ that the they’re also child actors (Grelle told him), Will decides to book a day on set to make couple of commercials. This is also where ‘Trancy Bran’ is first mentioned.

* This episode would be a parallel to an episode just a few seasons before where the Demon-Os crew had to babysit the twins. Though, additionally, I can see an episode where the Mackens visit the Demon-Os (Ann is taking forever to pick them up, and it cuts to a scene where she’s out with Grelle or someone occasionally where she’s like “Oh I wouldn’t worry about it, they’re in safe enough hands for now.”), and Alois imprints in Claude but Hannah, who wants to prove herself to kids, is trying super hard to get him and Luka to like her too. Alois is far harder to win around than Luka. This also highlights the competitive and ‘frenemy’ nature of Claude and Hannah’s relationship, as Claude only finds interest in hanging around the kids to anger Hannah. Maybe there’s also a scene where they take Luka out to a toy shop or something while Alois is with the twins, and there’s a reference to that one episode in Friends where Claude and Hannah get off the bus bickering but then realise that Luka is still there sleeping and chase after it. Neither of them are actually that good with kids, they realise.

Eventually, in the same episode, I can see the triplets ending up with Luka (they at first stare down at him blankly) and either it substitutes the bus scene where Luka instead goes missing during one of Claude and Hannah’s arguments (they were tasked with looking after him for Alois) and they have to find him before Alois comes back (Hannah is particularly frightened because she wants Alois to like her — there’s a moment towards the end of this B-plot where Claude decides to finally comfort her and tell her that they will find him). After coming clean to Alois when he returns, they then hear him giggling and find the triplets’ secret spot* wherein they’re with him playing and doing silly cute things (like eating cereal from the box). (I think I like this one more.)

* Now that everyone from Kuro II knows (making me think that maybe Snake comes a season or so later), either Luka or Alois call it “the Trancy Manor” (it’s a storage unit-thing made up of a cereal box fort with pillows. Claude is always huffing because he can’t actually fit that well.) (Maybe there’s a few episodes / B-plots in “the Manor” and the boys all come to treat Hannah like Dee is in It’s Always Sunny.)

Concerning dynamics, Alois also asks, offhandedly, for Claude to marry their mother (Ann). Luka asks if Claude and Hannah are married (feeding the fraction of the Cereal Heads (the viewers of the show) that ship their frenemy dynamic).

The fact that Alois gets most of the spotlight as the main Grim Loops actor later down the line also brings more of the Alois out in him.

O!Ciel gradually gets more and more like the O!Ciel we know in canon because he takes the “be the best Ciel you can be” to heart, like a mantra.

‘Again’ as a reference to Friends, with Ross and that cookie scout girl, something happens accidentally (though, comically) between Sebastian and O!Ciel that causes O!Ciel to lose or injure his eye. Sebastian feels guilty even when he and O!Ciel argue over O!Ciel giving him a hard time.

In Grim Loops, the first season is filled with their failed scripts because who trusted the dyslexic one (Ronald) on the typewriter?!

Undertaker is also there (and flirts with Grelle a bit, sometimes), though like The Office’s Creed, most of the time. But he’ll sometimes, without fail, have these moments of seriousness where he explains why Holy Charms or Demon-Os will do what they do (sometimes with a “Classic” or “Oldest trick in the book” or even “Haven’t seen that one used in a while”), and why they’d do it, because he’s been around for ages so he’s seen all the tricks in the book.

Towards the end of R!Ciel’s arc in bed, he’s started to see his brother rise to fame with now one being able to tell the difference (he even wins an award in R!Ciel’s name — his father even gives him the family ring for a job well done). Once he is no longer bed-ridden, the twins’ (at first) one-sided bitter rivalry is first made apparent. R!Ciel also walks with a cane, now, too.

A branch of Grim Loops shut down leading to new workers, Eric Slingby and Alan Humphries to be working at the main dispatch, but a season later they’re gone.

Ash and Angela are also and brother and sister, but in the sense that Stranz and Fairchild are brother and sister in Blades of Glory. If you know you unfortunately know. (And in the sense of how the two are petty villains, also.)

There’s also this recurring theme of Demon-Os and later Holy Charms trying to invade the health inspector aka Abberline. (Whom Hannah is also dating. It’s all very convoluted.)

Also, in the penultimate season of the show the two hire the Double Charles, and the two duos do not get along that great in the sense of aggressively staring at one another in silence (smug silence, in Grey’s case).

Eventually, a fair bit after the twins’ rivalry is made mutual, it’s revealed that Undertaker has been getting Demon-Os personnel from R!Ciel and then feeds the information from both companies to Holy Charms, exclusively because he wants to watch all the drama (and his pension would be very good if everything went to hell and he decided to retire to avoid all the wreckage).

Towards the end of season seven or eight, the penultimate season, Holy Charms are finally shut down as the Double Charles were undercover cops. (There’d been and arc of Ash and Angela being suspicious of them but the big reveal doesn’t come until the very end of the season.)

Towards the end of the show, say like the third-to-last season, I thought that Claude would have a big build up to coming out as gay now that the show is officially more woke, but I think such a reveal would be better suited towards William for what I’ve decided for the last two seasons.

Now that William is out as gay, it’s made more apparent immediately in the next season how his rivalry with Sebastian is far more homoerotic than initially thought (also validating the Sebiam Cereal Heads) and slowly how Sebastian could also reciprocate. At the end of the penultimate season they end up getting together.

Now that the two are together, this (smaller than usual) season consists of them trying to merge the two companies into “Demon Loops” where they’d sell both brands as well as a combined brand and many reduced sugar options that kids all across the world will absolutely love, as well as plan for their wedding. After many bumps and struggles they manage to merge just an episode or two before the show’s finale: their wedding, and the speeches are all very cereal related and the vows aren’t without several cereal analogies apiece.

Modern Drama AU where the grim reapers are the CEOs of a cereal company whose mascot is a reaper. And the demons’ (and Ash/Angela I guess) are CEOs of another cereal company whose mascot is a demon. They unfortunately booked conferences for the same resort. They’re enemies. Oh no :)

[mstinteresting]

𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐆𝐎 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐋𝐀𝐔𝐒

𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 :

Diego’s relationship with Klaus is....special. Diego often finds himself viewing Klaus more as a baby brother which makes him extra protective of him. He values the relationship with Klaus more than he might ever be able to express. Klaus has had his back more than any of his other siblings (that he can remember) and Diego makes it a point to return that to Klaus. They don’t always see eye to eye and he constantly worries about him but....if there’s anyone he truly trusts? It’s Klaus. Klaus is his best friend and will always be. 

𝟎-𝟒 

The first years of Diego’s life are marked heavily by his lack of speech and his gentle nature that was slowly being redirected to something more aggressive. Before the age of four, Diego spent much of his time with either Klaus or Vanya. While his other siblings probably didn’t mean to ignore him or leave him out, it seemed to happen more often than not with Diego being easy to forget when so quiet. Klaus, however, tended to try and incorporate Diego in activities which set the foundation for the relationship they’d develop as they got older. Diego doesn’t remember much of this time (due to a hc I have around Allison having to rumor them so they’d all forget Vanya’s powers)

𝟓-𝟏𝟑 

The next few years are probably the most ‘normal’ years in Diego’s life. With the addition of Grace to the family, Diego is finally able to work on moving past his stutter and finally showing off his persoanlity. Stubborn, opinionated and defiant. Something that doesn’t go over well with his father or most of his siblings. Save for Klaus. He seems to be most tolerant and amused by Diego and he appreciates that. Klaus seems to understand where Diego is coming from. Around the age of ten is the first time he considers Klaus his best friend. Of course , Diego knows the sentiment isn’t mutual. Diego is no one’s best friend. No matter how much he may want to be...he’s learned quickly and early that no one wants to be his. Still, he trusts Klaus in a way that he doesn’t trust the others. He knows that Klaus is someone he can rely on in a disagreement or training gone askew. Even if they’re on the same page for different reasons....Klaus is there and he can sway the others when needed. It’s....much appreciated. 

𝟏𝟒-𝟏𝟕

The teen years change so much in their lives but also seems to cement relationships. Five disappears first and it’s....a nightmare. No one knows how to handle it, their father doubles down on seemingly everything and there’s more than puberty on the horizon. As they get older, Diego’s relationship with Luther and Allison seems to constantly be on the verge of breaking. He finds himself relying more and more on Klaus and Ben and in some ways...they’ve formed their own half of a team. Klaus and Ben make Diego feel confident. Something their dad tries very hard to squash in their teens. 

For some reason, they seem to trust him with his ideas and plans and he’s thankful. They are his people. His responsibility. And maybe that’s not a role he’s supposed to assume but....the more Klaus spirals, the more he does until Ben is gone too and Klaus is the only one Diego has left. He’s failed Ben. He’s failed the others. He can’t fail Klaus. He also can’t stay at the academy much longer. But he doesn’t want to just leave his brother behind. Not after Klaus has saved his life. Not after seeing the path Klaus was on but...that time had to come. Ilt’s a regret that Diego carries, not asking Klaus to leave with him. Not dragging his brother out of the house right alongside him. But..who’s to say Klaus would have come? What would he want to do with Diego? Why would he want to go? 

Diego also becomes quite depressed during these years (for obvious and not so obvious reasons). He starts to wonder if he’s made up the relationships he has and, after losing Ben, comes to believe that Klaus can’t stand him/blames him for what happened. He doesn’t blame Klaus for thinking that. He feels as if he deserves that blame and begins to slightly pull away from Klaus thinking that’s what the other wants. (That’s also part of why he didn’t ask Klaus to leave with him)

𝟏𝟖-𝟐𝟗 

The next years are....hard. Diego spends the first year rather alone and he misses his brother more than he might ever admit. It takes time for Diego to get on his feet and start to make something out of his life but once he does, he knows he has to keep an eye out for his family. Specifically, Klaus. For Diego, his little brother is in trouble and he’s going to do what he can to look out for him. His home becomes an open door for Klaus (even if he gets annoyed at times). There’s a bit of an obsession with needing to save Klaus in some way. In needing to show his brother that things can be okay. It’s also during this time that his new friends start to point out that his relationships aren’t good. He can’t and he shouldn’t keep giving Klaus a pass. He can’t cave every time he calls. But they don’t understand. they don’t get it. Hell, he’s sure not even Klaus would get it but Diego owes him. Diego feels like he owes Klaus for all the comfort and friendship he gave Diego when the others wouldn’t. For every coloring sheet they finished together and every prank they managed to pull. If Diego can save that kid then....isn’t he obligated to do so? Klaus is the only person he knows might actually care about him and.....it’s selfish but he doesn’t want to lose that. Ever. 

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭

Now, there’s so much to figure out and learn. Their relationships have all been brought front and center with the need to reevaluate their family. He still feels incredibly responsible for Klaus but now...now he feels like the worst person to take that on. Why did he ever think he was capable of that job? Why did he ever think that he was the person who should? Klaus deserves better than a brother like him. They all do. 

tags @ghostconjured​ for reasons (also help me remember anything I might have forgotten to add) (personals do not reblog)

[kiwihrt]

Time Repeats Itself

MASTERLIST

⌁ the umbrella academy x gn!teen!reader (platonic)

⌁ instead of that horrible room being empty all those years, reginald hargreeves locked you in it. what happens when you’re found by your siblings on the day of reginald’s funeral? // angst, hurt/comfort

⌁ 5.6k words

! : abuse/child abuse, confinement, isolation, the room viktor was locked in in season 1, pre-transition viktor (takes place s1e1/canon compliant), reggie hargreeves

Klaus

Klaus Hargreeves was rather known for his curious nature. The way he was constantly talking, lazily observing at all times. Small observations in his adolescence blossomed into somewhat of a sharp eye in his adult years, which he used for finding money for drugs. Anything to keep the spirits at bay.

His hand dragged along the wall of his childhood home as he scoured the halls, but he only saw it as a prison. The building that took up an entire square block, once constantly surrounded by fans and paparazzi, and now nothing more than any other old boring building on the street. Klaus laughed under his breath. Good riddance. If anyone deserved to fail so horribly it was that asshole of a father, Reginald Hargreeves himself.

Klaus began to whistle a tune lightly; something random and off the top of his head. His eyes flickered over books and knickknacks. Nothing so far looked worth selling. Nothing of enough value. His father was rich for fucks sake, there’s gotta be something good around this damned mansion.

He sighed, and Ben pouted mockingly. “Oh, Dad’s funeral isn’t as exhilarating as you’d hoped?”

Klaus waved him off. “No, no. Funeral hasn’t happened yet. We still have time for fun.” He joked lamely.

The living man and the ghost turned a corner. The hall was quite empty, and Klaus did a 180° dramatically at the sight, groaning into the palms of his hands. Where’s the good stuff?

”Klaus.” Ben sounded . . . shocked? Confused? Curious?

”What do you want, Benerino?” Klaus turned again with a huff. Ben was pointing ahead of him with furrowed brows. Klaus’ eyes flickered to his brothers line of sight, and he tilted his head. There was an elevator at the end of the hallway, standing proud with a menacing feel to it. “Oh, that’s odd.”

”Yeah, no kidding.”

Klaus jumped to the opportunity, skipping down the hall to the mystery elevator. “Think there’s something worth selling in wherever this leads?”

Ben scoffed, following him hastily. “No, Klaus— an elevator that Dad never told us about? It’s probably something more than something worth selling.” Ben’s arms were crossed over his chest as Klaus clicked the button for the elevator.

”Something more? So what you’re saying is I could be rich? Besides, Dad didn’t tell us a lot of things. Also, this house is huge, makes total sense that we missed it.” Klaus hummed to himself.

Klaus made some points, but Ben was hesitant. “No, I’m saying that maybe—“

”Ah! Here we go.” The elevator opened slowly, and Klaus strode in, Ben right behind him. There were two buttons in the elevator, Klaus clicked the bottom one which was labeled ’B’.

”Really, Klaus?”

”Mm-hmm.”

Ben sighed. “You should just be more careful sometimes.”

Klaus nodded, eyes distant. He wasn’t paying attention at all.

The elevator dinged, and Klaus silently cheered, stepping out. His smile fell in an instant. The room was almost completely empty, apart from one thing.

At the end of the room was a large, prison like metal door. There was a small window to see the inside, and he crept forward, careful and slow. Whatever this was, it made him feel uneasy.

He peered through the thick glass, and he could’ve swore his heart stopped beating in his chest. Inside, there was someone young occupying the room. They wore loose, baggy clothing. Nothing much, just the colour of simple grey. They sat on a bed in the centre of the cell, which only had white bedsheets and a white pillow to match. There was a small bedside table to the left of the bed, and on it was just one single book. The room itself was padded spikey walls and dim lights—it was no place for a teenager. And, God, how long have they been in here?

Klaus’ heart clenched because no, no, no. This was too familiar to him. Flashes of being locked in a mausoleum for hours and hours on end poured over him and clouded his vision and he couldn’t hear anything but the beating of his own heart. They can’t be in there, they can’t—

They slowly looked up, made eye contact with Klaus, and with a start they backed up until their back hit the back of the bed frame. They looked confused, but then realization hit them like a freight train, and they sat in place, body tense.

”Oh, my God . . .” Ben broke the heavy silence.

”What do I . . .” Klaus cut himself short. His mind was swarmed with thoughts and emotions, he didn’t know what to do— because what the fuck? He knew his dad was bad, but this is just insane.

You

Mom was always caring; kind. You didn’t mind that she was a robot, she treated you like a parent should. As if she were human and you were made from her blood and cells. A child of her own, though she was made. You knew it was all in her programming, but it filled you with joy nonetheless. She’d bring you new books for your reading time, with all sorts of topics and plots. She’d bring you your snacks and cook you meals, and she’d take care of you. You knew Mom—you liked her.

Pogo always had this hurting look in his eyes when your eyes met his. You never understood it, but it made your senses tingle and you always felt a pull of energy, a headache forming between your eyes. You always knew your powers were trying to reach out and uncover the secret, but you weren’t strong enough. Besides, it wasn’t in your power to read minds. You still sensed something, however. But you knew Pogo too, and you liked him.

You didn’t know many things about family dynamics, and you never had the chance to fully understand social cues as your closest friend had always been silence, but you knew that Reginald treated you how a father shouldn’t. He claimed to care about you, but you saw how in the few times that he’s admitted that, he had a calculating look in his eye. He treated you like an experiment, not his child. You hardly left the padded box. You only left for training, and using the bathroom. All the rooms were in the basement, which according to Mom, it’s not how things used to be at the academy. You knew Dad, you . . . didn’t like him. But his words had stained your bones, he raised you, he took care of you, he was your father. You wouldn’t admit that you didn’t like him.

The man standing in front of you however, you didn’t know at all. His familiarity led you to believe you had seen him in a vision, but you didn’t know him.

Why is he here, why is he here—

The funeral is today.

With that thought in mind, you were frozen in place. All of your siblings who you had never met before would all be coming today—that, you knew. You dreamt about it while in your deepest stage of sleep. It was hazy and cloudy, but you saw it. The thought of them coming home left you excited and overly nervous, but now that one of your siblings was standing in front of you, you were frozen still.

He had a shaggy appearance, yet he didn’t look awful. His clothing style seemed very out there—extravagant, and joyful. It was everything his expression wasn’t. He looked shocked, scared, confused, hurt.

His lips were moving but you couldn’t hear a thing courtesy of the thick metal box you were placed in. The expression he wore looked almost unnatural for a face like his—he had very prominent smile lines, but now his lips were tugged downward and his brows were drawn together.

He began reaching to the large wheel attached to the door. He’s letting me out? Why is he letting me out? Where are we going?

He began twisting the large wheel, face pinching together in frustration. The metal groaned and creaked from the age of the room and the lack of use of the handle. Ever since Reginald’s death, you left the box less often. It hurt you deeply, knowing Pogo and Mom were still roaming the halls. They checked in rather often, but you didn’t leave to train anymore. It pained you to know that Mom and Pogo still lived trapped in Reginald’s power and rules. Even after death had taken him, your father was still hurting you.

The door opened with a hiss, and you clutched the bedsheets so tight your knuckles changed colour. The man—Klaus, you had the sudden knowledge that that was his name—stepped in hesitantly.

”Uhm . . .” It was clear he didn’t know how to approach the situation. You didn’t either, and your mouth remained clamped shut. “Who are you?” He looked unsure if that was the right thing to ask.

Your response was nothing but heavy breaths and tensed up muscles.

He nodded slowly, an emotion akin to sadness flickering in his green eyes. “Well, I’m Klaus.” You were tempted to tell him you already knew that, but you didn’t.

He glanced to his left nervously, opened his mouth to speak, but ended up saying nothing. He turned back to you. “Are you o— why are you in here?”

You know exactly why you’re in here. You heard Reginald talk about it in a flashback—you don’t get them often but when you do they’re immensely painful, sometimes ending with nosebleeds.

You’ve had two about Reginald. The first time you had one, Reginald sat alone in his office. It was a flashback from years ago, just before you were born. His children were growing older, the academy was falling apart. You had the urge to think he looked somber, but no. He looked thoughtful.

He opened a compartment in his office closet, typed in a code, and pulled out something that baffled you. It was glowing, bright as ever. Small orbs floating around in a glass jar. He observed it for a moment, went over to the window, and set the orbs free, floating off into the night.

You didn’t know what that flashback meant, but the next one was painfully clear. You remembered the anger on his face, his quick steps.

‘I don’t think this is a good idea, Sir.’ Pogo had said, distressed.

’No, I will not change my mind. The academy is already falling apart as it is. I need complete control this time. This is the only option.’ Reginald had replied fiercely. That was how you knew that you’d be stuck in the box forever.

Your lips parted to speak, but this was all new to you. The fear that encased you was thicker than the metal surrounding you.

”Okay, okay . . .” Klaus nodded, talking more to himself. “I . . . will be right back. Uh, don’t go anywhere.” He started into a quick walk out the door, stopping to make sure it was all the way open. You frowned as he walked away, confusion settling in your stomach. Why did he leave it open?

You thought about leaving, as the opportunity was given to you.

You didn’t.

With the open door, you could hear things again. There were multiple footsteps coming from above, and you curled further in on yourself. Your siblings were all here.

Footsteps came closer and closer, more than one pair. Not too many, maybe two.

”Klaus, what the hell is this?” A man with a prominent scar on the right side of his head—Diego—said lowly. His eyes were wide, he looked startled. He looked frightened.

”I don’t know, I— I found the elevator, came to see what there was, and . . .” Klaus’ voice broke off. He fiddled with his fingers. Again, he glanced over to the side.

The two stepped into the box, and Diego spoke. ”Who are you?” He almost sounded mad, and you would’ve thought he was if not for the way he looked at you. “Kid, what’s your name?”

You felt your nerves spike, his body was covered with an array of knives. “Eight.”

Diego gave a heavy sigh. Klaus looked sad.

”Why are you here?” He asked. It seemed to be a frequently asked question today. “How long have you been here?”

You were rendered speechless again. Diego sighed again, and pointed at Klaus. “You, you stay here. I’m getting the others.” Diego walked away hurriedly. You weren’t sure you were ready to see the others, but he had so many knives. You shouldn’t argue.

Klaus looked at the way you were near trembling. ”Are you okay?”

You looked at him, he seemed kind. You relaxed your muscles a bit. You nodded at his question, even though your answer was a lie.

He looked to his right, a questioning look on his face. He seemed to look at nothing like that a lot. It confused you. “You like to read?” You got the feeling he was trying to calm you, but you weren’t sure if it was working. It didn’t make you feel worse, however.

He was looking down at the book on your desk. The Giver by Lois Lowry. “Yes.” You said. You liked this book a lot. It was your favourite.

The world Jonas lived in felt familiar to you, in some way, if you twisted the plot a little. The way each day was the same, the way there were so many rules. You saw a bit of yourself in the The Giver himself, too. The way he passed on memories to Jonas reminded you of how you’d get visions sometimes with human contact, or even by touching an object.

You hoped that one day you’d get to break free from your own world of sameness, and see the world how it really was. You wanted to leave this box.

“That’s cool,” you didn’t think that Klaus himself was a reader, his voice sounded a bit flat when he spoke. It was how Reginald spoke when he said he cared about you. “I know someone who likes to read.”

”Who is it?”

He nodded to himself, breathing in deeply. “My brother.” He laughed nervously. “Our brother, I guess.”

Footsteps grew louder and closer, and you tensed up again. Multiple people came into your line of vision. It was unsettling, this was all so new to you. You had never been around so many people. As much as you had wished to be around others, it was much more frightening than you’d expected.

The first person to enter was Diego. The next person was tall, he looked stern. It made your stomach churn— he was so so tall, and the box was so small. You felt unsafe in a way. You felt trapped. More trapped than you ever had in the box. He didn’t look as comforting as Klaus. The next person was a beautiful woman, her bleached blonde curly hair standing out on her skin, and she was dressed semi-casual. She seemed very kind, and the way she was gazing at you with her hurt and confusion filled eyes felt motherly. The last person stood awkwardly, but her expression was nothing but. An emotion peeked through the emotionless face she had, it was clear as day. It was anger.

”Diego, what the hell is going on?” The woman with bleach blonde hair asked—Allison. Her name was Allison.

”I don’t—“ Diego turned to you again, then took a step closer. “Why are you here?” He’d asked the question again. You looked around the room, body rigid. The way everyone was looking at you made you uncomfortable. It was so much attention, it was too much.

“Diego, give them some space.” The awkward one—Vanya, your brain supplied—said. Diego looked upset, but he listened, backing away. “Are you seeing this? Look at what that asshole did while we were gone.”

You pushed yourself up to your bed frame further, arms beginning to shake for how long you’ve held yourself in that tense position.

”You know what? Luther,” the tall man looked shocked that Diego was addressing him, “why didn’t you say anything? You were here when they were. You never even moved out, Space Boy.”

Luther’s frowned deepened, and he towered over Diego. The tension in the room was building, your heart racing. “Watch it. I didn’t even know they were here.”

”Okay, guys,” Allison held up a hand, stepping in between the two, “you’re stressing them out.”

The sound of the clacking of heels eased you, and you felt more at home again. If you focused on the sound, breathing in and out slowly, maybe you could forget the world around you, and fall into the comforting arms of your mother. “Oh, Hello, dears.” Mom’s smile was wide, and she looked around, her head turning robotically. “I see you’ve met your sibling.” She clasped her hands in front of her.

”Mom, what’s going on?” Diego stepped toward her, eyes softening at her. You realized that Diego loved Mom as much as you did.

”What do you mean, Diego?”

”I— they’re—“

Mom placed a gentle hand on Diego’s shoulder. “Picture the word in your head, dear.”

”No, that’s not what I—“

”Mom, why are they in the basement?” Allison cut in, giving you worried glances.

”Your father doesn’t like when I talk about this.” This was the first time you had seen Mom look something other than joyful. The ends of her brows pulled down, and her smile fell.

“Mom,” Diego started softly, “Dad’s dead.”

Moms shoulders sagged. “Oh, that’s right,” She smiled again, standing completely upright, “I suppose you’ll just have to ask Pogo, hmm?” You’d noticed that Mom had been acting stranger lately; she had been ever since Dad died. She was never human, but lately that’s been more clear then ever.

Mom turned and left, going back to the elevator. If she had been human, you imagined she’d walk with a bounce in her step to fit her peppy personality. Her smile would look less artificial, too.

Your siblings all looked back at you. There were varying expressions: awkwardness, confusion, nervousness, upset.

Allison was the one to move first. “Do you get out of the house often?”

You merely shook your head. I don’t get out at all.

“Do you leave this . . . box often?”

You shook your head again.

Vanya seemed to tense up at that. You wondered why. The reason was just barely in your grasp, nothing but flashes of a time long ago. It was all hazy and you couldn’t quite tell what any of it meant. You felt a headache forming at the straining.

Allison walked forward slowly, reaching for your shoulder. You didn’t move, so she gently rested her hand down. She was as gentle as a mother should be—she was as gentle as Mom was. You wouldn’t be surprised if she had a child of her own. “How about we go upstairs, all right?” She smiled kindly at you.

You were left speechless. You couldn’t even remember ever stepping in the elevator, let alone going on another floor. The idea of it made you feel nervous, yet eager. You slowly nodded.

Allison smiled kindly, but she kept glancing at the others. She helped you stand, and your hand immediately reached for hers. It was muscle memory; you always held Mom’s hand when you went to train. Your heart lurched when you realized you were holding a strangers hand, but she didn’t seem to mind.

You stepped out of the box, and this was the first time you felt apprehensive while doing so. You weren’t going to train—you were going upstairs. You walked slower, and you couldn’t bring yourself to look up. It took everything in you not to squeeze Allison’s hand too tight—and everything in you not to let go. It was strange, really. You didn’t know her, but she was being so nice.

You stepped into the rickety elevator, and you soon felt even more nervous when everyone else stepped in as well. So many people trying not to look at you, but you still caught their glances. It was so crowded, you didn’t have enough space to breathe. It was too much, it’s too much—

Allison began to rub her thumb over the back of your hand. You didn’t realize you were shaking until that moment, as the world was blurry around you and the only thing you could focus on was this room was too small.

There was a scraping sound, indicating the elevators age. The doors slowly opened, the others filed out hurriedly. You took in a breath of air, feeling it rush into your lungs. Your heart was beating fast, hitting your sternum with every beat. You felt unfit to walk all of a sudden, like your legs would give out at any moment.

Allison began to walk, and you eventually moved your legs to go with her, your shaking hand still in hers. You kept looking down. You didn’t like how many people were looking at you. It was too much.

“How about we get you in some nicer clothes?” Allison said. You looked down at what you were wearing—your regular clothes, just grey. The fabric was semi-comfortable, a little bit itchy, but you had grown used to it over time. All of your clothes had been that way. What else were you supposed to wear? ”What . . . do you mean?”

Allison looked at Vanya for a second. “Well, do you have anything else? Don’t you think it’d be nice to change?”

You shrugged. You didn’t have anything else.

Allison insisted you wore something better anyway. You went to her room, and immediately decided you didn’t like her old clothes. They fit just fine, but they were so colourful in contrast to your bland attire. You didn’t like how it made you stand out. You ended up taking some of Vanya’s old clothes instead, it was quite similar to what she wore now, and you liked that. It had some of the softest fabric you had ever felt, but the colours were still dull, like you were used to.

After a few more twists and turns in the extremely confusing layout of the house, you found Mom. You stood awkwardly in the doorway. You had never been in the kitchen before.

”Oh, there they are!” Klaus said semi loudly. You didn’t even realize everyone was in here until now. Klaus still looked nervous and upset—which was the opposite of how he sounded—and the others looked tense.

Mom turned around from the counter and smiled. “Oh, well isn’t it nice to see you all together again.” It felt odd to be included, you realized.

Mom began putting plates onto the table, one for each sibling, and then she put a tray in the centre of the table. There were fruits and cheese and crackers, one of your favourite snacks. Mom would bring it down to you often. “Eat up!” She grinned.

Vanya put a hesitant hand on your back, guiding you to the table. She seemed to understand that the amount of people was making you uncomfortable, so she led you to the chair at the end of the table.

When her hand came in contact with your back, you gasped, freezing in place. Your eyes glazed over, a white film covering them as you were thrown into a vision—no, a flashback.

You saw padded walls and dim lights, a small window at the end of the room. The box. You didn’t see much, just flashes, but you still got the picture.

Vanya had been in the box before.

“Eight?” Vanya lifted a finger, tapping your back lightly. “Are you all right?”

Everyone was still looking at you, and the idea of them being there while you had a vision made you nervous. You only nodded.

Vanya seemed unsure, as she most definitely saw the change in colour of your eyes, but she continued to lead you to your chair, and then took the one next to you. You waited for the others to grab their food first, but they didn’t. Instead, Vanya slid the tray near your plate and smiled gently at you, giving you a nod. You tried to ignore the way they were still looking at you, and you grabbed some apple slices, along with some cheese and crackers.

Your fingers shook lightly, and Vanya saw it, then spoke. “What do we do?” You hoped she was okay. You didn’t like the box, yourself; she must not of liked it either.

”Well, isn’t it simple, Vanya?” Klaus took a sip from a bottle of alcohol, and Vanya just furrowed her brows, “we don’t give Dad a funeral, he doesn’t deserve it.”

Diego and Allison just shrugged, while Luther looked outraged, but he took one glance at you and hesitated.

You weren’t sure what to think about Dad having a funeral or not. He was your Dad, the only one you ever had, but he didn’t quite raise you, and he certainly didn’t care for you. Not on a parent-child level anyway. He only cared for you in the name of science.

Diego leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think he deserved a funeral anyway.”

That caused Luther to snap. “Diego!”

Diego opened his mouth to argue, but Allison held up a hand. “Guys,” she frowned in a disappointed manner, “enough.”

You’d spent so long wanting to leave the basement, but now that you were out and free, you felt so strange and out of place. You weren’t as prepared as you wished you were, even with the amount of books you had read. All sorts of genres, too, and you still felt lost. It was like when Klaus had found you, the world went on a standstill and all the attention was on you, which was something you were not ready for.

Not only that, but not even hundreds of books could have prepared you for the amount of items that belonged to a home, or just to people themselves. You’d passed many knickknacks on your way here, and the walls were far from empty with the paintings covering every inch of them. You had the urge to go inspect everything—it was extremely different from the box.

There was a sigh to your left, and you turned. It was Pogo. “I see you’ve found your sibling.” You didn’t like the way he said found instead of met. You weren’t a thing to be found, discovered, and figured out. You were a person with feelings, still figuring things out—and frankly, you were still figuring feelings out as well, no matter how much you’ve learned on your own.

”Found?” Vanya's soft voice was on the verge of incredulous.

“My apologies,” Pogo said, head hanging in shame at his choice of words. He wasn’t bad, not like Reginald was, but no one could deny the mistakes he’s made. “I suppose it’s time for your fathers secret to be revealed.”

Luther held his head high Pogos words. You didn’t like how much respect Luther showed your father.

Pogo gripped his cane harder between his fingers for a moment, sighing while looking down at the floor. “Your father had always been so set in his ways that no matter what I did, it was hardly possible to convince him to change anything,”

”That doesn’t make this any better, Pogo.” Allison frowned.

Pogo nodded slightly. “Yes, that’s true. I did try my best to stop this from happening—“

”What exactly is this? Why the hell were they down there?” Diego was tense, and you had to continually convince yourself that he wasn’t angry at you.

”When Eight was born, it was very much the same as you. It was just as strange and sudden, and your father wasted almost no time in getting them. They were raised downstairs their entire life for a reason I never knew, but trust me I tried to stop it.”

”Should’ve tried harder.” Klaus’ lips were pursed together in a tense frown and he was gripping his bottle tightly.

“While I was trying,” Pogo started solemnly, “Grace and I would bring them books, and sometimes Grace would teach them if your father let her. We wanted to prepare them as best as we could for the day they’d finally leave.”

It wasn’t enough, and you knew that. You were already so overwhelmed it was almost unbearable.

All of your siblings began talking at once, their voices gradually growing in volume to the point where the amount of sound you were hearing all at once became deafening. Your hands shot up to your ears, desperation swallowing you whole. You had never heard so much sound—the box was always so, so quiet.

The voices slowly grew quiet, and you opened your eyes to find everyone staring at you apologetically. You removed your hands from your ears and placed them at your side. You were no longer hungry, as discomfort settled in your stomach. You didn’t like the attention.

”Children,” Pogo began, “if you’d like to know more, feel free to ask. I will answer what I can but perhaps it’d be better to talk privately.” Pogo turned to leave the room, and no one followed. You had an inkling that they would rather talk later.

”I need to think.” Luther stood up abruptly, leaving the room. The siblings began filing out the room after that, each of them sending you hurt and sad glances. Eventually it was just you, Vanya, Klaus and Mom. Vanya stood to leave the room, but she looked at Klaus hesitantly. Her eyes eventually landed on Mom and her shoulders relaxed, and she left the room, too.

You felt more comfortable now. The room was almost empty, and Mom was here. If you thought hard enough maybe you could pretend Klaus wasn’t there, and it was just you and Mom, in the box.

But with a deep breath, you knew that wasn’t true. Klaus’ personality, however, did put you at ease. You were glad that it was him that stayed rather than Luther.

You tapped the table lightly, focusing on that and Mom’s humming.

“Wasn’t it so nice meeting your siblings, dear?” Mom said, turning around with a grin. Her joyful personality made you feel at home again.

You only shrugged in reply, and saw Klaus’ shoulders sag.

”We are quite the group, aren’t we?” He said lightly. You didn’t respond.

Klaus nodded to himself, setting his bottle down on a nearby chair. He was sitting on top of the table, fiddling with his necklace.

Klaus may have started talking, or maybe he didn’t, you didn’t know. You were stuck in your own head, a vision hitting you in flashes.

A blue flash; flickering faces; a boy in baggy clothes.

A sound began playing loud enough to be heard in the kitchen. It was a song you didn’t know the lyrics to—to be fair, you didn’t know many songs.

Klaus reacted first. He began dancing without a care in the world, and you felt the tension in your shoulders fade away. The song was relaxing, as was Klaus’ obnoxious personality. Klaus swayed around the kitchen gleefully, his eyes closed with a wistful expression on his face. The corner of your mouth twitched.

You began tapping your finger on the table lightly. It didn’t take you long to find the beat.

You didn’t jump around the room like Klaus was doing, but you were feeling a hint of joy all the same.

Then there was a noise—a blue flash. It was loud and terrifying. Knives and forks and kitchen utensils flew across the room, one missing your ear only slightly before it impaled the wall. You flinched backwards, your chair knocking over as you reached for the counter.

Klaus looked startled as well, freezing in place and turning to you. “Uh, stay here.” He grabbed a fire extinguisher, and he ran off.

The feeling of being alone was suddenly unwanted again, like how you felt this morning before you’d met any of your siblings. You were frightened and alone, and you didn’t know what to do.

Except, before you were trapped, in a completely sealed and closed off room. Now, you were out in the open, you had access to whatever you wanted, and yet you couldn’t move. Or rather, you wouldn’t. Walls were what held you back before, but now you had nothing but your own fear in your way. Fear thick as the box walls.

You had the faintest idea of what was happening outside—flickering faces—and the idea of facing it firsthand made your stomach churn. Being in the kitchen for the first time was one thing, standing in front of a glowing blue ball was something else entirely.

Something you weren’t prepared for, however, was a blue light flashing in the middle of the kitchen. It was much smaller, quieter, and quicker, but it was shocking all the same. Someone was now standing in front of you—a boy in baggy clothes.

His face scrunched up at the sight of you, who was still gripping the counter with fear-filled eyes. “Who are you?”

You didn’t reply.

He tilted his head, his confusion clearly growing stronger.

Klaus then ran into the kitchen breathlessly, stopping to put his hands on his knees, taking in deep breaths. Diego shoved him, entering the room as well, your other siblings soon following. Klaus eventually stood next to you with a sigh, keeping about 2 feet of distance. Assumingly for your own comfort.

”Who’s this?” The boy looked to them. His name was Five, you thought.

”Our sibling.” Klaus nods, painting a gleeful expression on his face. You couldn’t tell if the joy he was showing was real or not.

Five pauses, eyes flickering to you. “Our what?”

“Yeah, a lot’s been going on today.”

“Our sibling,” Five says again, more to himself, “okay, we don’t have time for this. What’s the date? The exact date.”