#Adult Number Five

[ariaachillesaphrodisia]

Did Somebody Say Just Eat?

Character: Five Hargreeves

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy

Rating: Mature

Content Warnings: Food Issues, Food Trauma, Past Trauma, PTSD, Eating Disorder, Starvation, Eating Urine/Excrement, Discussion of Murder, Discussion of Corpses, Rotting Food, Bugs and Insects, Discussion of Death, and Loss of Loved Ones

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His breathing is unsteady. Heartbeat racing to match. His mouth is so dry that he doesn’t have any saliva to wash down the already-rising bile. He tries to hide his rage, but the shaking of his hands and burning anger within his eyes betray him. He curses his body for this. Curses himself for this. He asks himself how he got here. How he let himself get here.

But he knows exactly how he got here.

Given the nature of his job and of the place he worked, one would likely have assumed that Five’s life was filled with chaos and uncertainty. This would not be an unreasonable assumption by any means; however, it would be an incorrect one, nevertheless. Partly incorrect, at least. When Five had started at The Commission, things had indeed been rather hectic. He did not know where anything was; where the various departments were located; or how The Commission functioned. In truth, he did not know anything about this new place he found himself in and employed at. But the man had always been a quick study (after all, it was not as though Reginald would have accepted anything less) and so within a month of working there, he had already become one of the most effective “employees” at The Commission.

It perhaps should have been alarming to Five how quickly he mastered the “skills of the trade”. Things such as how to track someone, or how to kill someone and utilize his powers to do it. How to manipulate a target, or how to terrify them. Which weapons were best to use in which circumstances, depending on if you were hoping to end it quickly and without drawing attention to yourself, or whether the goal was to draw out the target’s suffering.

Death wasn’t something that was unknown to Five before his time at The Commission. Death was something he knew very well thanks to the apocalypse, but his relationship with it had begun before even that. During his time as part of the Umbrella Academy, there have been instances where missions would go south, or where the team would require some “extra force” AKA Ben’s powers. But those instances were the exception and not the norm. This was the rule set in place by Reginald, who surely understood that people were more likely to support a group of Batman-esque teenage vigilantes who occasionally had to get their hands dirty than a group of murderous teenage vigilantes whose missions always ended with some sort of bloodshed and death toll. So, Reginald’s general rule had been “no killing unless it was absolutely necessary… or would be accepted by the news outlets and the general public”.

Therefore, it was The Commission where Five was actually able to take full advantage not only of the lethal training that he and his siblings had received but also of the many ways his powers could be useful for his new line of work. And yes, sometimes Five did wonder whether he should be more concerned about the fact that he took to killing like a duck to water, but like he did with many things in his life, Five chose to archive this as something he would process at a later time. When things were less… well… something.

The important thing was that since Five did take to killing and to his new job terrifyingly well, it meant that he was very quickly able to adjust to his new life. He settled into his new routine and got used to the ins and outs of The Commission. His days were pretty much the same repetition of only a handful of activities: drink coffee; eat; do his job; drink coffee; read the case briefs for the new cases; drink coffee;  complete his new “orders”; file reports; drink coffee; practice using his powers to try and get home; sleep (or try to); repeat. And while this might have caused some people to grow restless or agitated, or while some might hate the repetition and the seemingly endless nature of such a life, Five found it oddly comforting. It gave him a sense of control over things, and this was not at all unwelcomed for reasons that Five would (just like with his fast adjustment to becoming a professional assassin), certainly visit at a later date.

Yes, this sense of control was something that Five valued quite highly, and so too did he value and admire anything which added to it. And fittingly so, conversely did he dislike that which deviated from it. that which was outside of his predictable and malleable world. That which was out of his control… or worst of all… that which exerted control over him. Yes, he disliked the former very much, and frankly, he despised the latter.

Thus the reason (well, one of the many reasons, actually) The Handler was the bane of Five’s existence.

There were some days when Five thought he might actually hate The Handler more than he hated the apocalypse itself. At least with the apocalypse, you knew where you stood: either you were alive, or you weren’t. At least with the apocalypse, you didn’t have to deal with it veiling its dangers underneath smiles, false promises, and threats laced with sugar-sweet tones. At least the apocalypse didn’t drop in on you sporadically and expect you to drop everything you are doing and humor it with whatever new plan it had concocted for no other reason than being bored and getting a kick out of the torment of others. The apocalypse hit you suddenly and ended it all there and then, and if you did survive, then you had to deal with the end of the world. And that sucked. Five knew this all too well, but at least you go used to the dangers you were facing. With The Handler though, there was no such certainty. The only thing predictable about the dangers surrounding her was that they were most certainly there, that they were unpredictable in the way she would carry them out, and that she took unspeakable delight in the dread and terror she instilled in others.  

Five wasn’t quite sure what exactly it had been that had sparked the power struggle between himself and The Handler. When she’d first approached him, he sensed none of that, although admittedly, his mind had been elsewhere, focused on assessing the new arrival’s threat level and then later, considering her offer. And for the first little while during his time at The Commission, this had remained the same. He had either not sensed it, or, he supposed, he’d been trying to learn the ropes. But after that point, when he began to get the hang of things… then it had begun. Had it been because she had felt threatened by him? Because he was excelling at his job? Had she feared that he would take her position? Was that it? Or perhaps it had been that she had simply enjoyed holding power over the new recruit, and then, when he was starting to learn to walk on his own two feet, she’d decided to take a new approach to holding her power over him – through subtle threats, isolation, and emotional manipulation. Either, Five thought, was possible. It was also possible that this was just something she did with everyone. That she just got a rise out of doing little things to show other people who was in charge. Perhaps it was simply a part of her nature even – she fancied herself a scorpion, and everyone else a frog.

Whatever the reason was, and whenever specifically it had begun, the thing which mattered was that the power struggle existed, and it caused Five an endless amount of grief. At best, The Handler was a nuisance, and at worst, an enemy. And there was no telling which it would be on any given day. whether he’d be subjected to simply some passive-aggressive comments regarding his work, or whether she would decide to do something to really cross a line. He did his best to prepare for either but there was only so much he could do. As much as he despised her, at the end of the day, she was one of the higher-ups. And he… he was just another cog in the machine. He had to do as she said, lest he be branded as a traitor to The Commission and either be executed or suffer a fate worse than death – and when it came to traitors against The Commission, it was normally the latter. And if he was dead, then who would be there to save his family?

So, as much as Five dreaded any sort of interaction with The Handler, he forced himself through it. Forced himself to play along so that one day, he might be able to go back and stop the apocalypse from ever happening. That is what he told himself every time and though it never really made things easier, it was at least a nice thought, so he kept up this habit.

It was what he’d told himself today too, when The Handler had approached him with her latest “offer”.

The day had started off so well. He had completed a number of jobs, had filed all his paperwork, and had made it to 10 minutes to lunch without any sign of The Handler. This was a new record, he believed. He had chalked it up to her being off base – likely hunting down new recruits or something – and was prepared to steal away to his usual lunch spot (an abandoned corner of one of the less frequently used rooms) when he heard a familiar clacking of heels on the file floor. He let out a groan when the footsteps stopped outside the tiny space he called an office, and the imposing outline of The Handler filled the glass of the door.

“Knock knock,” she practically sang, and Five fought the urge to gag. Without even waiting for his response, The Handler flung the door open. She was dressed in a 50’s style teal dress and donned red heels that Five could not imagine were any sort of comfortable when one was on their feet as much as a job – even a management one – at The Commission required them to be. Her hair was poofy and curled, and resting atop it was an extravagantly large hat which matched in color to her dress. Five always did wonder how it was she got away with her wardrobe, considering how blatantly it went against company policy, but he supposed the other higher-ups likely thought it was not worth the effort to attempt to force her to adhere to the dress code. Personally, Five thought it set a bad example, and an even worse precedent.

“Ah, Handler, pleasure to see you,” he greeted, his voice laced with obvious sarcasm, “what can I do for you?”

“Well, a little birdie told me that you were just flying through your cases today. Said you nearly finished your entire to-do list before mid-day! Impressive as always, Five!” she grinned, and Five faked a smile, mentally promising to find out who this “little birdie” was and avoid them as much as possible.

“Yes, it’s been a considerably productive day today,” responded Five.

“And I would like it to stay that way, so if you could just exit right back the way you came from, that’d be great. Oh, and don’t forget the door,” he wanted to add but didn’t.

“That’s what we like to see here!” exclaimed The Handler with a clap of her hands. “Anywho, I was just about to have lunch when that tidbit of information crossed my way, and I thought to myself ‘Look at him – working hard, putting in the hours and the effort. Going above and beyond. A real go-getter, that one!’ and then I had a grand idea, if I do say so myself. See, I know you normally like to take your lunch breaks on your own. Well, spend all your time on your own, really. Regular old Batman over here with your Mr. Dark, Brooding, ‘I don’t need anyone’ thing you have going there,” she teased. Five couldn’t help but grimace at this. Batman?! Him?! If anyone in his family was Batman, he thought, it’d be Diego. Diego is always… was… always…

“…sometimes we all do, but I just thought that, after all the consistent hard work you’ve been doing, and the determination, well, I thought that it was hardly right to let that all go unrecognized!” she said, and Five blinked a few times. He had missed part of what she had said, and supposed he must have tuned her out for a moment. Not that he was too bothered by this. If Five had had his way, he’d tune her out every single time she spoke to him. “So, I arranged a special little lunch for you!” she told him, and then came the bit he knew was going to follow, yet hoped it wouldn’t all the same, “well, us, technically, but don’t get it mixed up, Five! This is really all for you! I’m just sitting in for company! Little wine and dine between colleagues!

“No! Absolutely not! In no way. If I need something to kill my appetite, then sure, I’d agree to have you watch me like a hawk as I eat, but I’m not really feeling it today. So, thanks, but hard pass,” a less calculated or a more emotionally driven person might have cried out. But Five was nothing if not calculated and composed, and so instead he gave the biggest fake smile he could muster.

“Sounds great. I’ll just go grab my lunch and…” he began, but she swiftly cut him off.

“No, no, no! You don’t have to bring anything but yourself! I’ve got the rest covered, so all you need to do is follow me,” she informed him, though despite the airiness of her voice, he already knew it was a command, not an invitation.

The Handler left the room without another word, only pausing until she heard Five’s footsteps following after her, then continuing on. It occurred to Five while they walked that he had no idea where their little “celebratory” lunch was being held. He also did not know what was being served. He hoped it was something simple like sandwiches or pizza. Something he could quickly scoff down, chase with a coffee or something stronger, and then excuse himself back to work. He voiced his aloud to The Handler – the question as to the lunch, not his exit strategy – and she merely turned her head to face back at him – down at him – and smiled.

“All in good time, Five. All in good time,” was all the response he got before she began humming away to herself.

It was only when they turned the final corner before their destination that Five realized their lunch spot was The Handler’s very own office. He was thankful that his training with The Commission, along with at The Umbrella Academy, had taught him how to mask his feelings, because he was sure his disgust otherwise would have been very evident. However, a chuckle from The Handler indicated that he still hadn’t quite mastered the art of fooling her. She opened the door and stepped to the side, holding it for him.

“Make yourself at home,” she invited, and Five was reminded of that childhood story about the spider inviting the fly into his parlor. And like the doomed fly in that tale… Five found himself walking right in, aware of the danger facing him, yet entering that damned place all the same.

The Handler’s office was an expectedly grand place. There was a huge gold and burgundy desk and chairs which matched perfectly. The walls were a shade of red that reminded Five of blood. There were pillars of silver and fold that sparkled when the light from the oval window on the far side of the room struck them. The room, like its owner, stood out in stark contrast to the bland grey of the rest of The Commission.

“It is quite an office, isn’t it?” The Handler whispered into Five’s ear, and despite himself, he shuddered. She stepped back, and though her expression was one of nothing other than pride for her workspace, he could feel the smirk boring into him. “It has served me well for a long time. Lots of great memories in this room,” she continued on, “but, management is moving me to a new office space soon. Something about turning this into another storage room or something. Politics, you know? Anyhow, they promised me the other office will be even better, and I’m holding them to it,” she said with a wink, and he was certain that she would. Was certain that she wouldn’t hesitate to resort to some of the same tactics he used while interrogating Commission marks in order to get that office.

“Fascinating,” murmured Five, and if The Handler realized the sarcasm lacing his voice, she gave no indication. He watched as she took a seat behind the lavish desk, and when she motioned for him to take a seat across from her, he did so.

An awkward silence filled the room then, and Five shifted impatiently in his seat. He’d been hoping the food would already be in the room so that they could just get it over with quick as possible, but either the food was late, or The Handler had purposely ordered for it to come after they’d arrived at the office. Judging by the look of satisfaction on her face, Five suspected it was the latter. The silence filling the room was making Five more and more restless – and frankly quite frustrated – and he was very sure she was finding that absolutely delightful. This silence, he knew, was a crafted and calculated one. Five wasn’t one for small talk, and this was a fact that was well-known throughout The Commission. But something else that was equally well known was The Handler’s great adoration for the sound of her own voice. She’d fill a room with it whenever she got the chance, directing as many eyes toward herself as possible in the process. The exception to this, of course, was when she had some scheme in mind which required silence.

Normally she did it when she wanted to see if anyone in the room dared speak with her present before being addressed to do so. She’d stand or sit in a room for the better part of an hour sometimes, just to see if anyone broke this unspoken rule. She wouldn’t do anything, per se, if they did, but that look she’d give… well… that did the trick all on its own. She didn’t do it to test obedience or loyalty, Five knew. No… the only reasons she did it was to show everyone the power she demanded just with her presence alone and to revel in their fear. And though the tactic she was using now was slightly different, Five suspected its intentions were very much the same.

“So, busy week so far?” Five questioned loudly, his voice a harsh sound in comparison to the rested silence. For a moment, which lasted no more than half a second, Five saw a look of surprise cross The Handler’s face. It looked to Five how a child’s face might look when their favorite toy had failed to function as it should. As though this look had vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, Five delighted in that glorious half-second.

“Oh Five! You know The Commission. When isn’t it a busy week?” she laughed, the mask now perfectly back on. “But that’s what keeps it exciting, isn’t it?” she added, and just as Five was about to speak, the doors of the office were flung open.

If Five had had any remaining hopes that this meal would go by quickly, or that he would be lucky enough to have the lunch be just a sandwich or some other type of finger food, those hopes were crushed upon viewing the sight which greeted him when those magnificent doors opened.

There were four individuals wheeling in carts filled with fancy serving containers. Thankfully for Five, each cart only held what looked to be four dishes on the toy lawyer of the cart, with the second being empty save for the final cart. On this one, the second lawyer contained a vast assortment of drinks: juices, smoothies, lemonade, and other extremely sweet drinks. Five noticed after a quick inspection that both coffee and any sort of alcoholic beverages were suspiciously absent from this bevy of beverages.

The figures who had delivered these carts did not look familiar to Five. He thought that they must be Commission personnel – after all, they didn’t usually allow people from within the normal timeline to just wander about the building – yet they did not don the usual Commission outfits. They were all dressed in the same deep purple suits, with hats of a matching color that reminded Five of something you’d see in an old ice cream parlor. Their movements were… too in-sync, Five thought. Too robotic. Their eyes were empty and hollow. Were they under some sort of mind control? Or hypnosis perhaps?

“I wasn’t aware The Commission had its own catering company,” Five spoke, hoping to glean some information about the situation. The Handler grinned.

“Oh, they certainly do,” she said, and Five raised an eyebrow at this.

“But they aren’t it?” he questioned, and she nodded.

“Sharp as ever, Five. No, these darling folks here are not from The Commission’s usual catering group. They are some not-so-clever people who had been traitors to The Commission. They were given to me so that I could… decide on a fitting punishment. And after a long time of working with each individual, I decided to keep them around for a bit. Have them help out a bit with some odd things here and there… at least until I feel they’ve paid off their debts to The Commission. Then, well, I can terminate their contracts,” she explained, and Five blinked a few times. She was just… keeping them around as her errand people or toys, ready to dispose of them the minute they either cease to be useful, or she finds another pet project that she wished to devote her attention to.

He thought back to the looks and movements of the figures and suddenly understood the vacant expressions and robotic movements. It wasn’t mind control, hypnosis, or any other mental persuasion. It wasn’t “magic” or powers.

It was hopelessness. 

It was a look he was familiar with. The look that his targets sometimes gave right before he… finished a job. Five was the kind of man who took pride in a job well done, and in accomplishing his goals. The sort of man who didn’t give 50% or 75%, but 200% when it came to the things he did. And he was, he knew, good at his job. But when that job was over… and the rush of it gone too… he saw that look when he closed his eyes, and it stuck with him. There was no hope in that look that he might let them live. No pleading for mercy. Not even the last little blip of desperation for a miracle. It was just complete and utter despair. And even after he’d walked away from a job… that look wasn’t something he could just walk away from. Yet…

Yet he knew just from the proudness in her voice and that Cheshire cat grin she’d given him that she felt none of that. She’d see that downhearted look on their faces… and he knew she’d feel nothing but pride at how effectively she’d broken them.

The loud echoing of shutting doors snapped Five back to the present moment. He turned and noticed that all of the figures had left the room. Not only this, but all of the carts that they had wheeled in had been pushed to the left of the desk he and The Handler were sitting at. He hadn’t noticed them moving the carts so close, nor had he noticed them all moving to leave – it only being brought to his attention when the doors had shut. He gritted his teeth, cursing The Handler in his mind. He was more vigilant than this. he knew he was. Any other time it would have been second nature for him to notice such things but her… her trouble presence and existence (not to mention the disturbing information he had just learned about her… latest project) was throwing him off his guard, and he hated her for it.

“Well, feel free to dig in! I’m not sure about you, but I am absolutely famished!” The Handler exclaimed, yet despite this statement, she made no effort to remove any of the lids from the serving dishes. Already knowing where this game would lead, and not wanting to spend any more time humoring her than was necessary, Five reached for the dish closest to him and pulled off the lid. Upon seeing what was inside, Five froze.

Tuna Salad.

Five’s stomach immediately flipped when he saw the dish, and when the smell of the fish hit his nostrils, he had to fight back the urge to vomit. He tried to hide this from his face and swiftly moved to open the next dish…

Spam and potato soup.

He placed the lid of this one down, the same horrid feelings washing over him. He moved on to the next dish.

A stew with baked beans and corned beef.

The lid went back on, and off came the lid of the next dish…

Vegetable soup with corn, green beans, carrots, and tomato broth.

On and on the cycle went, with Five ripping off a lid, seeing the dish, feeling as though he was about to pass out or be violently sick or kill someone, putting the lid on the ground, and moving to the next dish. By the time he’d moved onto the third cart, he felt as though he wanted to throw the tray lids as hard as he could right at The Handler’s face.

Because this… what lay in front of him on those carts… it was Hell. It was torture. It was a special kind of cruelty that only she was capable of…

Sixteen dishes.

Sixteen different dishes.

Some breakfast. Some lunch. Some dinner, and a few dessert ones. All with one thing in common…

Each and every dish in front of him contained some ingredient he had eaten while trapped in the apocalypse…

Canned items such as tuna, spam, potatoes, baked beans, corned beef, tomato broth, an assortment of canned vegetables, etc.

But that wasn’t the worst part of it… no… no, the worst part was…

That every single dish contained something which, during Five’s time in the apocalypse, had made Five greatly ill.

Five remember each incident as though it happened yesterday… or, as the feeling of nausea grew within him, as though it were happening now.

At the start of the apocalypse, the incidents happened out of naivety. He had thought that surely if something was in a can, it must still be good. After all, it had only been a few months since he had run out of the packaged goods that he had managed to find – well, those that weren’t destroyed or damaged, and those that hadn’t had any clear signs of rot or mold – and so surely the canned items he was stumbling across here and there should still be good. And most were, in his defense… but not all. Canned fish had been the first which Five had learned the hard way did not survive well in high temperatures or regular exposure to sunlight and the elements. No matter what the expiry date was.

Canned meats had lasted him a little while longer, but not much. He had tried to gather and consume as much of the canned fish and meats he’d come across, mixing them with the canned vegetables as much as he could. At the early part of his first year, this only resulted in him feeling ill or nauseous, with some instances of him actually vomiting a little bit. However, by the end of his first year in the apocalypse, any canned seafood or meats were deemed practically inedible… after much trial and much, much, much more error. Still, he found himself collecting any undamaged canned fish or meat items… just in case there came a time when he was desperate enough to need to eat them.

Five stock-piled the canned goods which he would come across in the wreckage of houses or buildings, and occasionally he hit the jackpot by coming across a grocery store or bunker that had a bountiful supply of canned goods. He brought as many as he could carry with him, and if he was somewhere that had a decent supply, he’d eat his fill there so there was less to carry. However, as the years went on, it became rare to find canned goods. Five tried to ration his supplies, only eating a little each day. This lack of nutrients along with the heat he often trekked in made him feel weak and light-headed, but it was that or starve to death, and so Five pushed through the pain.

In regular situations, low-acid canned foods have a shelf life of two to five years. Some have a shelf life of two to three years after the expiry date, and others can last a bit longer. Which meant that, in a normal situation, the canned goods that Five had saved up should have lasted him two years on the lower end, and five years on the higher. But those guidelines were for normal circumstances… and the apocalypse was the furthest thing Five could think of from normal.

Firstly, there was the issue of damage. Any damaged canned, even if they were just a little dented, were immediately riskier because they were more likely to be impacted by the elements and the heat. Not to mention bacteria that got in through small holes or cracks. In pre-apocalypse days, if you grabbed a dented or damaged can, you could just put it back on the shelf and grab a new, undamaged one. But when your food supply was rapidly dwindling, that wasn’t an option – you had to grab whatever you had access to, no matter how risky that food was to eat. And because of… well, the end of the world, most of the canned Five came across were damaged, meaning that most of the time, especially during his fourth and fifth year in the apocalypse, the food was very risky. He tried to only eat from the undamaged ones, telling himself that he was only taking the damaged ones in case of emergency. In hindsight, it would likely have been smarter for Five to have eaten from the damaged ones first, so that any bacteria in there didn’t proceed to grow and he could limit the amount he ingested… but after the first few times that Five had become so ill that he had thrown up everything in his stomach… he didn’t exactly love the idea of re-living that unless he absolutely had to.

The second issue was that the longer the items sat in the heat, the higher the likelihood that they would make Five sick. And… again, because of the apocalypse, most items were left to the mercy of the sun. Five found very few bunkers that were intact enough to provide shade for the food, and any grocery stores he stumbled upon were so destroyed there was nothing at all to protect the canned goods. Sometimes, when he popped open a can, he could already smell the rot or mold. A lot of times he would open a can to see green or white spots on it, and as time went on, this became a more and more common occurrence. During the early days, Five would have discarded these items immediately, but by his second and third year… he hardly had the resources to afford to do that. So, he would eat around those parts, leaving the molding bits for whatever crawling creatures would follow him.

Then… by year four… he began eating these parts too.

Rots and mold became regular parts of Five’s diet because it became increasingly rare not only to find canned items, but to find anything that wasn’t decaying. Five was honestly surprised that it had taken up to that point, having suspected at the start that this would happen within the first year. But any gratefulness of how long things had managed to last was quickly diminished by the reality of his situation. What began as a slow, constant hunger due to only eating a little bit every day became an unbearable, devasting sinking feeling that nagged at him as he would go several days in a row without eating. Years four and five were when Five began to realize that he likely wasn’t going to be able to find more canned items – at least not on a regular basis. It felt like a miracle any time he saw the shimmer of a tin can, and by years seven to ten, Five honestly did not care about the state of the food within it, just grateful that it was something to eat.

Illness became a routine part of Five’s life. He would eat something, whether it was a little bit of food from a can he had managed to find or one of the ones he had been saving, either of which would be covered in fuzzy white mold that tickled his tongue when he ate it. He swore he could feel things squirming around when he ate it too, though whether this was actually happening or whether it was a trick of his mind he did not know. After eating it, he would try to keep the food down as long as he could, only to vomit the majority of it up later on. He raided pharmacies when he could find them, looking for anti-nausea pills or anything else which would help him keep the substance down so his body could at least retain some nutrients, but pharmacies were even rarer than grocery stores, and most people who had built bunkers had stored food, not medical supplies. This made matters even worse when Five caught an infection because this meant that keeping food down was even more difficult. During these times, Five took to hibernating. He wouldn’t eat for nearly a week, drinking what little liquids he had. He pushed food from his mind during these bouts, knowing that an empty stomach didn’t help matter but feeling too tired and weak to deal with the vomiting he knew would come if he ate the spoiled foods he had gathered. He’d build himself a little shelter and stay there until he felt better, or until he decided that he wasn’t going to feel better unless he managed to find either more food or medication. Then he’d push forward, stomach complaining all the way through.

Somewhere along the line (time stopped mattering as much to Five after the tenth year), Five had pretty much all but given up on finding anything that resembled food. He’d take it where he would find it, but he stopped looking for it. Before when he walked, he would be doing it in search of new stores or bunkers that had managed to survive the end of the world. He’d allowed himself a glimmer of hope that as he went into new territory, he’d be able to find things that had survived. But that was before he’d left the major cities… and after that… well, there really was nothing out there. Farmlands didn’t have much in the way of food. Most animal corpses were non-existent, and the few that were there were reduced to skeletons. Five figured that they must have decayed pretty quickly after the initial event. He wondered at times if he should have headed straight for the farmlands and country areas, eating the corpses first before going for the canned goods. He had seen quite a few corpses along his travels, and while the states of them were questionable, they weren’t much more questionable than the canned goods. Still… what was done was done, and there was no point dwelling on what could have been.

Now when Five walked… it was only because he could think of nothing else to do. He was thankful when he did manage to find something that he could consume, but the gnawing hunger was just something he’d gotten so used to at this point. His diet now consisted of pretty much only the occasional scraps he had left in his cans (though Five wondered how much of what he ate he was hallucinating, and how much was real), as well as the occasional cockroach. When he returned to the cityscapes, he began finding more and more roaches, and these became his primary food source. They made him sick as they squirmed in his mouth, wriggling about on his tongue. He felt their little legs as they kicked around the sides of his mouth, and because he hated how they burst when he bit into them, he often swallowed them whole, leaving them to struggle about as they passed through his throat. He tried not to think about what it was those roaches had been feasting upon, especially those that were plumper and juicier. Still… they were preferable to the maggots that he had occasionally eaten. The ones he sometimes found within the canned goods… yellowish or silver things which crunched when he would bite them… and which he swore he could still feel wriggling about his stomach after he had finished eating.

He wished the maggots and roaches had been the worst things he had been subjected to eating. Someday he even wishes it had been something such as corpses. But no… no, because when Five reached areas where the roaches had become scarce or undiscoverable… Five did something he never thought he would have to do in his life… he sustained himself on his own urine and excrement.

He had a pot. He had found it during the early days and used to use it to make soups or stews when he still had the resources to do so. At times he used it to cook the roaches when he wasn’t so starved that he would just eat them raw. But during those dark times… he would use it to make meals out of his own waste. Often his meals consisted of the few roaches he could find mixed with his excrement and urine. He told himself at first that he was heating it so that he could try and make it any sort of less likely to make him ill… but he soon abandoned his line. He was doing it, in reality, to try and trick himself into thinking it was anything other than what it really was.

Five had tried to eat his own vomit. He was sick enough that he thought that it was a waste not to try it. When he knew he was going to be sick, he would bring out the pot and vomit into it, cooking it later when he had the resources to make a fire. He would add water to it from whatever water source was closest (something he did with all his “meals” when he had water nearby that was drinkable), and he tried to eat it. He quickly learned that he could not sustain himself on this. Acids, he would learn later. That was what did it. The high acid content would cause his mouth to decay, the teeth slowly eroding and the gums becoming so diseased that he was sure his teeth would drop out one by one… or that he would look to find those horrible writhing maggots worming their way between his teeth. So… whatever he vomited was lost, he reasoned. And with this in mind… he began forcing the sick back down his throat whenever he felt it coming up.

When the vegetation began to grow back, he started eating this and slowly, bit by bit, he began to regain some of his strength. The more vegetation there was, the more bugs there were, and he moved steadily from his lowest dietary point to one that consisted of bugs and plants. He never thought that he would cherish a diet of beetles, roaches, and crickets, but after surviving off his own waste for so long, he was just grateful to eat something that hadn’t come from inside himself.

But even as he pushed forward… even as he began to return to a steadier diet, and later, even something that resembled a healthy one… even as the meat returned to his bones, the strength to his muscles, life to his body… he’d find himself having nightmares of the dark days. He never quite got the scent of the “meals” he had to eat out of his mind. The image of those concoctions in that pot… and taste of it… it had never left. Every time he put food into his mouth after that… for just a second… he swore that that was what he tasted. No matter what it was… no matter how flavoury or distinct the taste of the meal was… he still tasted for just a second the flavor of his urine and excrement.

Five’s body was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. His lips were quivering and his vision blurring, and despite himself, he wanted so badly to cry. He could feel himself swaying back and forth. He could feel a stabbing pain in his mouth as his teeth cut into his tongue. Could taste the metallic tang of his own blood. But despite all this, he felt miles away from his own body. Felt miles away from the room he was standing in. Miles away from everything. He just stared at the trays of food in front of him, unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to stop himself from shaking. Unable to do anything.

“Oh dear!” broke The Handler’s voice through the stillness. Five made no effort to turn to face her – he couldn’t even if he had wanted to. “You know what? I just remembered I have a pressing engagement today! I really am sorry, Five, but unfortunately, I am going to have to cut out little lunch short. And we didn’t even get to eat!” she continued on. He heard her stand up and then a few seconds later, felt it as she placed a hand on his shoulder. Still, he made no effort to move. “But don’t let my leaving early ruin your lunch, alright? Feel free to stay here and eat, or you can take some of it to go. Whatever strikes your fancy,” she purred into his ear. She then patted his head like he was a puppy and walked off. “Bon appetite~” she called before shutting the door and leaving Five alone in the office, surrounded by the antagonizing food trays.

The realization struck Five as he watched her leave that this had been her plan all along. She’d never intended to make him eat the food. He thought that was her plan… was dreading that that was her plan… but this was almost worse… because it showed that she knew the depth of the impact the food’s simple existence had on Five… and knew the power she held over him with that and that alone. She didn’t need to force him to eat it. Just by having it there… just by having him see it… she not only told him that she’d been keeping a very close, personal eye on him throughout his entire time in the apocalypse but also cemented quite clearly who was in charge in this situation.

The second Five heard the door shut, his legs gave way and he crashed to the floor. He hugged his knees close to himself and began rocking forwards and backward uncontrollably. He shut his eyes, trying to block out the smells and images of the food in the office, but then the images of those dark days in the apocalypse… the images he had tried for so, so long to block from his mind… they came back to him as they so often did during his sleeping hours, and his eyes flew open. He stared at the carpet instead. He could hear his own breathing, but like before, it sounded so far away. He felt so far away from himself. He tried to will himself back into control over his body, but it was no use. He tried to force himself to be rid of those pesky memories that were pushing their way back into his mind, but it was no use. The smell of the food in the room was so pungent and overwhelming that it was inescapable. Five abandoned the notion of trying to force the horrid memories away and instead tried to focus on thinking of something else. Something pleasant. Something that could take away the horrible things.

He tried to think of The Umbrella Academy… but then thought that there really weren’t many memories of that place that he could think fondly of.

He tried to think of his family… but then saw their mangled corpses and felt unspeakable grief consume him.

Then it came to him…

Dolores.

Dolores was someone who had good memories associated with her. Not only that, but she understood. She’d been there during those dark days, and she understood. How many times he had spoken with her about those times? How many times had he confided in her about them? Even during those times… she’d been his rock. She’d gotten him through it. When he screamed that he couldn’t do it anymore, she’d sat him down and told him he was strong enough to do it. That he not only had to do it to survive, but that he could do it.

“You have survived so much, Five. Been so strong in the face of things that others would have immediately caved at. You know you can pull through this. I know you can pull through this. We just have to be strong, as we’ve been throughout all this time,” she would tell him. Five could almost hear her voice now, speaking to him in the present. “You just have to be strong and fight through this. It is going to be alright. We just have to fight through for tomorrow. Just keep thinking about tomorrow, and we will get through this.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it. It won’t… it doesn’t go away…” he whispered.

“You are strong, Five. You can survive those memories. You’ve gotten through so much. Beaten the odds more times than you can count. Survived so much more than anyone could have expected one man to survive. You can get through this too,” she replied, and this time, when Five shut his eyes, he could see only her. She was sitting across from him on the other side of the room, donning the camo shirt and lace undershirt that she’d been wearing when he last saw her. A smile appeared on Five’s face, and he felt a tear slide down his cheek.

“You always know just what to say,” he told her, and he heard her chuckle.

“Well, I’ve known you for a very long time, so that does help,” she responded, and this time it was Five’s turn to chuckle.

“Just as spirited as always, Dolores,” he teased, and she rolled her eyes.

“Could you really see us being partners for so long if I couldn’t at least match you in wit and spirit?” she retorted, and he gave a shrug of agreeance. Then there was silence between them as neither was sure what to say or do. Finally, Five spoke.

“It won’t go away,” he repeated, and she gave him a sympathetic expression.

“I know. But you have to believe me when I tell you that you are strong, Five. I know it is hard. Especially in moments like this. I know it can feel like there is no coming out of this. Like you are right back in those dark days, and you can’t escape them. Like you are drowning in tar and no matter how hard you fight to get out, it only seems to drag you further down. But you are a fighter, Five. You always have been. You fought to make a name for yourself during your time with The Umbrella Academy. You fought against the expectations of your father and of the world. And when things went… well, really south, you fought your way through the apocalypse. You survived the end of the world, Five. Then, when you got a ticket out of there, you fought your way to the top of your new workplace. Despite starting out with no clue how things worked there, you fought to show them that you weren’t someone who just rolled over or played nice. No, you were a force to be reckoned with, and you fought like mad to show them that. And even though that… that witch tries to break you down, you fight against her. She takes shots at you, and she hits hard, but you stand your ground. You get through it. And you can get through this too. I know you can, Five. Because I know you. I do. Perhaps even better than you know yourself,” she softly spoke.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves there,” he replied, but there was a thankful smile on his face, and he knew Dolores would understand his unspoken gratitude.

“The point is… you will get through this. We will get through this. We’ve gotten through so much, Five. Faced bigger threats than her, and we won. Just like we will win here. As long as we are together, we can get through anything. It’s like we’ve always said. Together…” she began.

“Forever,” he finished like clockwork, and a few more tears fell. Tears of relief and hope and appreciation and emotions Five could not even begin to put a name to. The panic and horror that had been surging within him had begun to fade at her words. No… not only that. Her presence alone. She was just like that though, he knew. She needn’t say anything, and already he would feel as though things might just look up. All she had to do was look at him with that beautiful expression that he adored, and all which plagued his heart and mind would begin to dissipate. She really did always know what to say. What to do. How to make him feel as though it might be alright. He took a few deep breaths and then smiled over at her.

“I… you are right. We can get through this. I… I think we will be ok,” he told her in a hushed voice, and she nodded in agreement. “Together… yes… we can get through this together. Just like all those times in the apocalypse. You and me against the world. Together forever,” he rambled, “we can do it, can’t we? As long as we stick together, we can get through anything. I know we can, as long as we have each other,” he reiterated, and he saw her smile grow at this. She said nothing, and he knew it was because she knew she needn’t say anything more than what she’d already said. She was there for him, and he knew she knew he needed nothing more than that.

His heart rate was much lower now. The shaking of his hands had nearly stopped. He felt himself returning to himself. He focused on keeping his breathing slow and steady, and bit by bit, he regained control of his body. Was back in that moment. The tears had stopped flowing, but he knew that even if they hadn’t… it was ok. He could let them fall if it was with her because she would understand. Because she knew him. Because she wanted to know him.

It would be ok. She’d be his rock, and he’d be hers. They’d help each other through it as they had helped each other through so many other things. He didn’t have to do it alone. He’d thought… he’d thought he’d have to do it alone. But now she was here, and he had someone he could confide in. Someone he could turn to. It would be alright. Even in the darkness… when he had times when he struggled to find his way back to the light… she would be his guide, and she’d helped him find the way. She’d help him find his inner strength until the times when he saw it again, and it would be ok. As long as they had each other… they would find a way to be ok.

It would be ok.

“Dolores… thank you. For… everything. I’m so happy that you are here…” he had started to say, moving towards her so that he could hold her and she him. But then his hand bumped into something hard and relatively sharp, and he jumped. As he did so, his eyes flew open…

He had been huddled by The Handler’s desk, the corner of which was what his hand had made contact with. He saw the food trays and the carts. Saw the extravagant décor. And…

Saw that he was alone.

Dolores wasn’t there. She’d never been there. He’d had to leave her behind when he joined The Commission, he remembered now. She was gone…

She was gone and he was alone…

The reality of this hit Five like a freight truck and he sunk back down. He wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t trembling. He wasn’t rocking or swaying like before. He just sat there as loneliness filled him and as he felt the hope which had previously built within him being torn out of him. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of one of the tray lids that he had flung to the floor and could have let out a sad laugh if he had had the strength to.

That look… the same one he had seen on those figures who had delivered those damned carts and trays… the same one he had seen on the faces of those whose lives he had ended… it was now reflected back at him.

He wasn’t scared.

He wasn’t angry.

He wasn’t upset.

What he was…

Was completely, utterly, and entirely in all-consuming despair.

He was lost…

He was empty…

He was tired…

He was hopeless…

He was alone…

And it would not be ok.

[laurrelise]

still not done talking about the fact that aidan gallagher got cast to play one of the most plot-important characters in an adult superhero show among a cast of grown, professional actors at the age of 13, fresh off of a nickelodeon children’s show and managed to deliver one of the most layered, memorable performances and become the favorite of most people who watched it

[necrotic-nephilim]

@sasheneskywalker i love when you enable me to ramble about things because oh my god do i have thoughts.

so recently, i made a post discussing the phenomena of DC x DP and DC x MLB crossovers and why they exist and part of that post was discussing how largely speaking, at least half, if not more of the Batfamily fandom doesn't read the comics. if they interact with canon DC material, it's adaptations that are their own sequestered universes and oftentimes not remotely comic accurate or seeking to be. the most obvious example is the Young Justice cartoon. i'm adding a cut to this post because it just got so long i'm so sorry.

a lot of times, when people are discussing the "why" of this oversaturation of fanon-only fandom, they blame Wayne Family Adventures. and i think, to a point, i agree WFA is responsible for a boom in this fandom. but as someone who's been in the fandom long before we had WFA, to me it's the other way around. WFA was DC's way of meeting the demand for this easy-to-get-into, easy-to-consume content about the Batfamily that predicates itself on the comics just enough to be vaguely the same characters, but has a more sitcom, slice-of-life sort of vibe so DC could profit off of this section of the fanbase that otherwise wasn't consuming its primary material. and well, it's definitely worked. not only that, but i have a weird theory that the decline in the MCU also led to the rise in the Batfamily fandom. when you consider the fan content that made the MCU popular within fandom, it's that 2012 "they all live in Avengers Tower and Thor is eating poptarts and Clint is in the vents and there are movie nights every Friday" sort of vibe. those were the fics that were a hallmark of the fandom. and as the MCU has strayed from well... quality content in general, but specifically well-thought-out crossover content where characters can have their own arcs but also exist in a wider story where they clearly care about each other, that fandom was sort of homeless. so where do you go, if you like a superhero found family where you can have villains for angst but also stick them all in one big family-like home for silly crack and have a plethora of options for gay ships? well. you go to the Batfamily. if you write a crack/fluff Batfamily genfic with silly vibes and low stakes instead of say, a fic about a very specific comic issue even if it's a popular comic, you're *going* to get more traction for the former. because the fanbase largely just isn't reading the comics.

and i feel... complicated about this. because on one hand, Don't Like Don't Read has been a tenet of my fandom experience. i'm very pro-fandom and that includes fandom content i don't like. and to an extent, i do think this sort of should apply to Batfamily fanon. i enjoy having my moments with other comic purists, giggling over exceptionally painful OOC headcanons or even facepalming in pain over some content but it is on me to not interact with that content. you don't make fandom a better place by being hostile to fans who engage with canon in ways you don't approve of. and frankly? we as comic readers are not going to get non-comic fans to read the comics by being asshats to them. no one is going to want to pick up any comic if we get a superiority complex about it. and also, i feel like we're all lying to ourselves a little bit insisting comics are so, so easy to get into. they're not. we can just all agree, they're really not. i've been single-handedly helping my sister get into comics, specifically Wonder Woman and no matter how simple i make it, i watch her get frustrated trying to understand what pre-Crisis and post-Crisis and New-52 and Flashpoint and all these things mean and what a retcon vs a reboot is and what a Crisis Event is and what the hell Diana's current backstory even *is*. sure, you can give someone a beginner list of comics to start with and slowly dip their toes in the water but sooner or later, *something* is going to confuse them. comics as a medium straight up aren't going to be everyone's cup of tea. and if someone *just* wants to read silly fluffy fanfiction about the Batfamily, i can't entirely begrudge them for not wanting to take the hours and hours out of their day to understand this medium. it's not an accessible medium to get into. "read this and this, but this run is out of print and this run wasn't collected in trades at all but also make sure you read that event in order and this is a good comic but the backstory in it is retconned and you *have* to read this it's so important but it's also really bad because the author kind of sucks" sounds. ridiculous for someone who like. just wants to read some stuff about Nightwing. sometimes, we all make reading comics sort of sound like a chore, not a hobby.

so my point is, i do extend some grace to Batfamily fanon for existing. i think my biggest gripe is, as i said in my other post, misuse of tags (if you're not creating content about comics, maybe you don't need the comics fandom tag on Ao3, just the all media types umbrella tag) and my far bigger gripe: when panels are taken out of context to support fanon only headcanons. if i could impart *anything* onto the Batfamily fandom as a comic fan it'd be this: if you haven't *read* the comic, don't spread the panel. if you don't even know what comic it's *from*, don't spread the panel. it's fine to use comic panels to discuss your headcanons, but so often i see someone spreading a comic panel from a comic they haven't read, and when asked where it's from, they can't source it. a silly example that comes to mind is a post going around, taking a panel where Dick, in his internal monologue goes "here comes the sun. do do do do." and the post is claiming it's from him getting buried alive. when that panel comes from Nightwing (1996) #140, and he gets buried alive in Nightwing (1996) #127, two completely different moments frankensteined together. if you're going to not read the comics, that's completely fine, but unless you're sure of the source and the context, panels shouldn't be spread around. i'm sick of this specifically happening to Red Robin (2009), with ppl claiming Tim has totally killed people because he blew up some of Ra's' bases, when those panels within context, make it clear he gave everyone time to escape. and in a later arc in that very comic, Tim grapples with the idea of murdering Captain Boomerang, and *specifically chooses not to*, because he doesn't agree with murder, even against the person who has hurt him the most. if you'd like to write fanfiction where Tim is pro-murder and has done some sketch things, i'm totally on board and would probably like to read it. but there's no need to pretend it's canon from a few panels you saw out of context.

beyond that, i think it's not *entirely* correct to say that fanon is harmless. whenever i see very WFA-positive posts, they often default to the argument that WFA is fun and silly, and comic fans are killjoys for not liking it. which. i think is complicated because the issue is, WFA and fanon don't exist in a vacuum. if you like WFA power to you, i don't think it's the worst thing ever, but i do think it's degrading to these characters because honestly? they feel incompetent in the webtoon. it's one thing if WFA was solely a slice-of-life sort of deal, just having silly episodes where Bruce is taking on a PTA mom or they're all fighting for the last cookie. but when WFA attempts to take on more serious plots with these characters, it *fundamentally* falls flat in understanding them. i get it, Bruce comforting Jason having a panic attack because a noise reminded him of the crowbar felt cute in a microcosm, but i'm so serious when i say that storyline destroyed how like. half of this fandom understands Jason Todd's relationship to his trauma. it doesn't understand how he reacts when he's triggered, what coping mechanisms he seeks out, and how he would handle Bruce comforting him. even if i can believe for a brief moment Jason *would* be triggered by something like that, him running and trying to hide and then getting a hug from Bruce to make it okay is just. painful. WFA needs everything to be wrapped up in a nice, neat little bow. so even when it starts to tackle interesting concepts, it makes them fall flat with its need to be soft, low stakes, hurt/comfort. there was a two-parter episode that dealt with the complicated mutual hatred/jealousy between Tim and Damian that *almost* really interested me because for once, it felt like the webtoon wanted to explore canon messy dynamics. but of course, it had to be fixed with one conversation and a hug. you don't mend the *years* of issues these characters have like that. WFA isn't in character because these characters are hyperbole cartoonified versions of themselves to fit within the medium and be a cute happy family.

because that right there, is the crux of it. the Batfamily fanon seeks to simplify the Batfamily and force them into a nuclear family. there are so many fantastic posts on here discussing how the nuclear family-ification of the Batfam is eroding decades worth of complex histories so i won't go too far into that. but what i will say is that there's this need, in the Batfamily fandom, for the Batfamily to exist as a unit. they are a *family*. (honestly i think calling it the Batfamily is a misnomer and has been for years but we're in too deep now.) they exist to each other first, and any teams or friends they have come secondary to this family unit. you can *specifically* see this demonstrated in what headcanons are becoming popular these days. i have an entire lengthy meta in my drafts about how i *loathe* the "the Batfamily meets the Justice League" genre of fanfic because it makes no *sense*. in order to have this genre of fic exist, you must operate under the assumption that no one in the League, or adjacent to the League, knows the Batfamily exists and are thus utterly shocked to discover Batman has kids. and to make *that* work, you have to strip *every single Batfamily member* of such important dynamics and friendships so you can lock them all in Gotham for their whole lives. Dick can't have the Titans, Tim can't have Young Justice, Duke & Cass can't have the Outsiders, Jason can't have the Outlaws, Damian can't have the Supersons, Babs can't have the Birds of Prey, and so on. because if they had these relationships, they would be known to the League. the Batfamily fandom doesn't care about this, it's just "silly fanfiction", it's not trying to be serious. but how can you say you like Dick Grayson as a character if you don't understand the Titans *are* his family? at some points of his life, moreso than the Batfamily even is. it is constantly repeated to us in most comics with Dick how much the Titans mean to him. he *needs* them to be who he is. the same extends to every other Batfamily member, most of which have been full League members at this point. but in fanon, that doesn't matter. the Batfamily are a sequestered unit first, and all of those side relationships are secondary and easy to toss away, if it makes your fanfic work better.

and because they have to be a unit first, you have these forced relationships that dump years of actual canon material for the sake of making them get along. the Batfamily fandom has its favorites and well. it's no secret it's usually the boys. Jason and Tim by *far* stand out as fandom faves so, their dynamic is a heavily explored one. it does matter that in canon they don't tend to get along and especially don't see each other as family. what matters is that you can push dynamics onto them. and so fanon gets all twisted up about which Robin Tim actually idolized as a kid (Dick) and what member of the Batfamily is pro-murder but still an older sibling figure to him and looks out for him (Helena, or if you want the dynamic of once tried to harm Tim but they've reconciled, Jean-Paul) in favor of who's the most popular. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian are always going to be the standouts for popularity, but it's specifically Jason and Tim who are getting fanonized the most. and that's because really, we don't have much canon content of Tim that *isn't* the comics. for Dick you've got Young Justice (tv), for Damian you've got the DCAMU, for Jason you've sort of got the Under The Red Hood movie, but Tim sort of lingers in this limbo. (yes, he's in Young Justce (tv) and Titans (live action) but in neither is he the main character nor given much depth) so, he gets a *lot* projected onto him and has become fanonized. and even with Jason's animated movies, you don't see him interact with Tim, so people build it from the ground up how they want to see it, disregarding of canon comics. i think it's what makes him so popular in the first place- he's malleable into whatever you want or need him to be.

and of course, the fanon ignores other characters in the Batfamily it doesn't know about. i feel like you could create a tier list of Batfamily characters by their popularity, going from the fandom main characters: Tim, Jason, Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Damian. to the underrated: Steph, Duke, Babs, Cass. to the forgotten about unless they're convenient for a story: Kate, the Foxes, Helena Wayne, Carrie, Selina, Harper Row, Maps, Minhkhoa Khan. to the absolutely unknown: Helena Bertinelli, Jean-Paul Valley, Onyx Adams, the Clovers, Julia Pennyworth. it's not lost on me that the ignored characters tend to be women and people of color. which is both a canon and fanon problem, DC will continue adding interesting characters to the Batfamily, play with them for a few years, then drop them to default to the "Batboys" again. and it's a vicious cycle of the fandom only caring about the "Batboys", and thus people entering the fandom via fanon osmosis won't have content about the other characters, therefore, they won't be interested in those characters enough to create it, and it's just this ouroboros consuming itself, no matter how much canon content we have of these other characters. and it's ridiculous just how large the Batfamily is becoming because of this, which is why i'm a pre-Flashpoint fan, because then the Batfamily was contained enough to actually feel like a family with every character having nuances relationships with each other, but i digress because those thoughts could be their own post.

and the thing about fanon is it doesn't exist in a vacuum. DC has started turning the comics to accommodate for what fans are asking for, because fans will beg and beg for content they're not going to consume. Tim Drake: Robin had Tim as a coffee drinker because that's the fanon accepted headcanon. and the resolution of the recent Gotham War arc was for Bruce to buy this new manor for everyone to move in and call him. nevermind that most of these characters have their own homes and have zero reason to be moving in with Bruce. Tim had his marina in Tim Drake: Robin, Dick has Bludhaven, Cass and Steph have their little side of town in Batgirls (2022), and so on. these characters are being forced together as a unit, as one big happy family living together, to appease what non-comic fans want and it's damaging comic relationships. Robin: Knight Terrors saw Jason and Tim team up and working together, which i've seen varying opinions on but i personally despised. their interactions made zero sense for any of their canon history, but it appeases them being this close sibling relationship that fanon acts like they are. also the fears they faced in their respective knight terrors didn't make sense for either character and *only* worked as a moment of bringing them together so they could reassure each other and have this weird dreamscape bonding moment. the canon is bending itself to the will of fanon rather than building on the pre-existing complex relationships. Tim barely even gets along with his most important team in Dark Crisis: Young Justice because it seems the only important relationships the Batfamily can have is with each other. and when we do see them outside of the Batfamily, it only seems to be to relive the glory days like with World's Finest: Teen Titans, instead of developing them as they currently exist. this isn't recent in the comics, it feels like you can trace it back to the New-52, but it does feel a *lot* worse over the recent years. WFA is fine when it exists in its own bubble, but the simple truth is, DC content never exists on its own. the adaptations will reflect back onto the comics. (the damage the Young Justice cartoon has done to some characters should honestly be studied) and so it does frustrate me a bit when fanon-only or adaptation-only fans act like we're being nothing but killjoys for being frustrated with this. since they don't read the comics, they don't see how the comics are suffering as a result of this.

people argue about what's out of character for the comics they don't even read. i'm sorry, but "bad dad Bruce" is consistently canon. that man is just kind of shitty. when you take someone who has the drive he has, who has this need for the Mission first, who needs a teenager in spandex next to him to keep him off the ledge, that guy is sort of going to be a shitty father figure. he just is. not on purpose or with malice, but when you compare him to any other dad in a big DC family, he sure takes the cake. it's why characters like Oliver Queen tend to *really* fucking hate Bruce for how he treats his kids. Bruce loves fiercely, but he doesn't do well with putting that love first. and his love is a controlling one, he is very particular about controlling how others in the Batfamily are "allowed" to operate. it's what drives the wedge between him and Dick, it's why Steph is never a true daughter to him. (besides the reason of her needing to be a love interest to Tim first, anyway-) i've never understood the massive outcry of people reacting to Bruce kinda being shitty in comics they're not reading. there are some moments that get ridiculously OOC with how cartoonishly evil he is (the whole Gotham War arc and that... complicated mess with Jason) but largely if you want sitcom loving nuclear father Bruce, you have to accept that is a fanon thing, not a canon one. the Batfamily being a nuclear family in *general* is fanon. most of the "Batkids" don't actually see Bruce in a particularly fatherly light and begging for moments where he calls them his kids or they call him dad outside of incredibly specific circumstances is just OOC.

it's getting harder and harder to exist peacefully in this fandom it feels like, if you don't comply to the standard fanon has set. i'm happy people are having fun with their blorbos, even if in ways i dislike, but that "harmless fandom fun" does ripple it's way back to canon, eventually. so i end up pretty tangled with my feelings because are fans at fault for DC making these poor decisions? probably not, but it certainly feels like an unfortunate cause-and-effect situation whether at the end of the day, nobody is happy. and of course, i know some fanon-only fans are striving to be more canon accurate and care about canon dynamics more than others, but for them it's always going to be an uphill battle with the above-mentioned out-of-context panels thrown around and ever-pervasive fanon overtaking anything that's truly seeking to be canon compliant. so really, it sometimes feels like we're all losing.

[badkitty3000]

While I realize this is in reference to a 5 year old child, it’s 100% Five Hargreeves. He tries so hard to make an intricately carved masterpiece, with carefully drawn out plans and blueprints, but it’s actually a lot harder than he thought and he keeps getting more and more mad until he just snaps, punches the pumpkin with his fist, tells it to “Go fuck yourself” and stomps off in a rage. His pumpkin still gets displayed in a row with the rest of his siblings’ and they can’t stop laughing at it every time they see it

[le-panda-chocovore]

Alright we gave a lot of shit to Luther for his "DAd sEnD mE ON thE MOON" whiny discourse but I think we don't talk enough of Five's "You think I had it easy ? I was ALONE for 45 YEARS!!" whenever someone talk about how awful growing up with Reginald was. Like. Dude, okay you're a grown ass man in the body of a 12yo boy and you're mad about it, that's fair. But it's not your siblings fault, so stop yelling at them because all of you had it rough. Besides, you CHOOSE to not listen to your fucking dad while they were FORCED to obey him.

[littleaxoltotlisabouttokill]

Is anyone gonna talk about the fact Aidan was 19 when they filmed...and Ritu was 34

barf....

[akkivee]

ALL THE ADULTS IN ICHIROS LIFE ARE A BUNCH OF BUM FCKS THERE I SAID IT I NEED EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ADULT TO GET AWAY FROM HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMM

[chron0ph0bia]

no because tell me why when I was 13 i read about my favourite character who didn't trust authority figures innately like the other kids,

tell me why I read about him being bullied by the whole cast and the authors and be prayed upon by even more adults, the reason he didn't implicitly trust authority in the first place. tell me why I read about him being put in a fucking straight jacket and just left there in solitary confinement, played straight by the whole cast and authors. Tell me why I had to read about him truly get put through the worst shit the writers could think of, in a mean way! an uncharitable one. Tell me why I read about him trying to commit suicide and the book pointed at it being like look at that guy! he's so pathetic! Tell me why I saw him get disfigured as a punishment and called ugly fat and spit on by the whole cast and book. Tell me why the "different people" get sent to fucking refugee camps in Alaska and its played straight. Tell me why the only child who exhibited critical thinking about his surroundings got thrown to the dirt again and again and again, for the audience to laugh at him.

[kaybreezy3000]

The Anti Hero's Pitfall of Arrogance

Five Hargreeves / Female OC

What happens when you disarm an exceptionally arrogant person, one that is a self-absorbed, teleporting, teenaged superhero? The answer is not great things.

(Chapter One and Two Post)

- This AU starts off when the Hargreeves are 16 and but is based off the show. It's going to give you a look inside Five's mind at that time of his life and not all of it is good, but I promise it's not all bad. I always make sure to give our boy his day to shine.

Warnings and Tags: sexually explicit content, flashbacks, teen bad behavior, survival horror, bad decisions, regret, POV Five, aggression issues, suffering, humor and angst and fluff, redemption, sweet Five and mean Five in same story, Dolores is a factor, hurt Number Five, Five makes fun and dirty check lists in this one, Young Five is really something, Starts as him in his teens then the rest he is 21, Plot twists and many tags left off to avoid spoiling the story, shocker ending

-this first post will be 2 chapters, the story is 44,600 words, 7 chapters total, posts will be every 5-6 days till done.

⚠️-this has some sexually explicit parts but also a real story and not really about all that stuff as much as the rest. If you want to avoid that particular type of explicit material, click my AO3 link at the end of this post and read the version on there instead. It has warnings for start and stop points to read the story without the mature content.

Chapter One: Fateful Days

I was always anxious after our missions, but not because of what we had just done. It was because I knew that we’d be thrown in front of the cameras, expected to perform another kind of show for the public. As we sat in our line of chairs waiting for reporters to call on us, instead of making my nerves easily seen, I carefully controlled my facial expressions and tried to hide my bouncing knees by discreetly pressing them down under my sweaty palms.

My answers to their questions always came out smoothly, not even the slightest waver in my voice. Years of practice learning to hide any sign of fear paid off in those moments. I was a perfectionist in all things, but in gaining fans, I failed because I know that I came off as the most arrogant and aloof of any of my siblings, but it was better than looking weak.

Number Five Hargreeves was not the most likable of the superpowered members of the infamous Umbrella Academy, but I pretended not to care about that and so many other things.

Our life at the academy was extremely private and exceptionally challenging, but it was while placed in the spotlight that I struggled the most. Those were the times I found it hardest to hide how young and inexperienced I really was when it came to anything that really mattered in the real world.  

My indifference towards everyone was part of a façade, but also not. My behavior at home wasn’t much different than my public persona. I always knew the answers; I was always better than everyone at everything. This kind of thing, the missions, being the heroes, it was what we were made for; or that’s at least what dad always said. And I was damn sure going to be the best at it, and everyone was going to see that, including my family.

Not all of us had so much pride when it came to our powers or public appearance. Some of my siblings felt the exact opposite about all this, but me being me, I didn’t see anyone else’s suffering as relevant when it came to my flawed view of the big scheme of things.

I should have.

Constantly edging out my family because of my dickhead aspiration to best them was just as prevalent when we were all sixteen as it was when we were very young. Only then, I no longer would bat an eye over their private tears and their personal sorrows. Before that, sometimes I would make myself available to them. I would every so often try to comfort Klaus by reading to him to drown out the ghosts as he tried to fall asleep, or I would sit with Vanya just so she didn’t feel so alone. Ben and I often shared the same interests academically and he was the only one I considered anywhere near my equal in all things intellectual. But by the time we hit our teens, even he and I rarely spoke unless necessary.

At only thirteen years old, the cutthroat mantra we were brought up on was backfiring. Instead of being the team dad wanted, we were pulling away from each other.

As my own way of dealing with all the mental manipulations and general bullshit of our home life, the older I got, the colder and more closed off I became. I wasn’t the only one doing this. We all lacked when it came to handling anything emotional, but I was the biggest offender.

That was probably why, that fateful day, I wouldn’t let anyone else snag the fan letter that was tossed out over the loud line of spectators. I had to win.

It happened while we were doing our final photo shots for the press on the stairs of the courthouse. With my eyes gazing out at our admirers through my mask, I saw the girl that threw it, and next to me, I knew Luther and Diego did too. The girl was the type that caught everyone’s eye.

Even someone as self-absorbed as me could see that she was very attractive.

Based on what I could tell, she was the same age or near it. Based on her clothing, I quickly determined that she attended one of the city's prestigious private schools that was focused on the arts. It was one that was specifically for those that were musicians or dancers and destined to make their careers in that area. The dark blazer and matching pleated skirt weren’t that much different to ours, but the crest near her lapel showed that she wasn’t just an obsessed fan trying to dress like us, though the crowd was full of those too.

She was different. She was special; we all knew it. Her long strawberry blonde hair was slung over her shoulder in a tight braid, and when her big blue eyes met mine, she smiled in the most curious way.

My self-assured smirk faltered in an instant.

Being I was neither tall or strong, or funny or even charmingly ridiculous like Klaus, none of the fangirls or guys usually paid me any attention. Her looking at me in a flirtatious sort of way was entirely new territory for me and I didn’t know how to react to it.

The small white envelope with red lip prints pressed along its seal perfectly matched the girl’s lips that threw it. My plan to piss off my brothers in any way possible was still in place when it landed at my impeccably polished dress shoes. I stomped on it, then bent over and snatched it up before either could pry it out from under my foot.

If I remember correctly, Luther said nothing, but he did roll his eyes at me before he went back to waving at everyone like he was a princess on a float at Disney World-not that I had ever seen one of those, but I had seen pictures.

Diego elbowed me in the ribs as discreetly as possible, then angrily complained, “Stop trying to steal the show. You did enough of that in there with your cocky little stapler stunt and all your flashy-flashy teleporting crap. You are such an asshole, Five. That was meant for me!”

I would have nailed him back, but my death glare would have to do, because dad was watching our immature exchange, a scowl making his usual displeased face even more unpleasant.

It was not that I craved the attention of our female fans the same way that they did. No, that wasn’t it. For me, it was all about the satisfaction to beat them at anything and everything. What I did inside the bank to one of the would-be robbers was merely me doing my job. Fuck Diego and his stupid knifes. If he doesn’t like that I’m better at taking people out with nothing but office supplies than that’s his problem not mine.

I clenched the letter, determinedly keeping it from their greedy hands because I knew all too well that my brothers weren't much better than a pack of wild dogs fighting over a bone when it came to attention and if I let my guard down, the letter would be gone. Pivoting to my left to block Diego's next attempt at getting the letter, I also did my best to search for the girl who threw it, but to my disappointment, she was gone.

Looking back on it now, as I stare down at my feet trudging along with the worn heels of my boots scraping across the broken and burning hot pavement, I wish for nothing more than the chance to go back to that day, or even to the next day, so I could do just about everything differently. I wish that I would have not shut my family out in thinking I was doing something good for myself.

I wish I hadn't done what I did to that girl.

I wish I had the guts to walk away from all of that like she said I should do.

I walked away alright, just not the way she meant.

Now, all I want is to get back to fix this.

Now, my whole focus is surviving long enough to find a way home, which also reminds me that I wish I hadn’t stepped on that shard of glass that sliced through the side of my boot, causing a deep gash in my right foot.

The dried blood from three days ago is crusted to the torn leather, and the color of it reminds me of her lips and that deep crimson red on that letter.

I can almost feel them. They were the first and last real lips I ever...

Anyway ...  Now is not the time to dwell on all that. I will always wonder who she really was and why she did what she did. But, right now, it’s looking like I’ll never know the answers to those questions.

Right now, things aren’t looking too hot.

Actually, they are, that’s the problem.

It’s very fucking hot.

The unforgiving sun is burning my back through my clothes, but I can’t take them off because they are the only thing protecting my skin from the sun’s scorching rays. Wandering in the heat of mid-day this time of year is not the best idea, but when we woke this morning, we had to go. If we hadn’t, we would have been sitting ducks, waiting the entire day out in the open, frying on the pavement, and that wasn’t smart either.

My breaths are becoming shallower despite my physical struggle to keep pulling Dolores and our meager belongings behind me in my cart. The strap around my waist that’s attached to the wagon is digging into the protruding bones at my hips. I can feel my skin rubbing clean off me because it’s already chafed from days of endless walking. I keep tripping more and more over the last hour or so, and I’m finding that my eyes keep closing for minutes at a time.

I stopped sweating a long time ago.

I am out of water.

I am not stupid. I know this isn’t good, and neither is the fact that I can’t feel my right foot anymore, but I refuse to stop to rewrap it or to stop and eat the contents of one of my unlabeled, beaten and bent canned goods. I rationed what we have with us, and I can’t eat for another ten hours.

Being dehydrated is nothing new and even turning back now, it’s still two days’ time to the last place that may or may not still have drinkable water.

As for my foot…

I will be okay. It will heal.

I will find water. That’s the biggest problem at the moment. I just wasn’t planning on this oppressive heat or that there would be no rain in the last two weeks. As I lay with Dolores last night, staring up at the stars, we could hear thunder to the west, coming from the direction we’ve been heading, but again the rain never came to us. Everything is drying up. The earth is cracking, and the roads are buckling in the heat wave that’s making it feel like we are in a furnace even at night.

For the last two days there has been nothing but windswept open areas. We haven’t found shelter because there’s nothing other than collapsed structures that at one time had been someone’s home, but now are nothing more than scattered rubble.

It’s like something blew everything around here clear off their foundations. There have been no abandoned cars along the crumbling road.

Seeing the very decomposed or skeletal remains of the passengers as I trudge by them would be a welcome site at this point.

As far as I can see, there’s nothing but minimal indications of long ago burnt vegetation. That may mean this had been cleared farmland. This being a rural area could explain why there is nothing out here, but it could also mean that I am nearing something horrible.

I am leaning on something horrible because this looks like another planet. One that looks like it never had the ability to maintain life.

I clearly went the wrong way. I like to pretend I’m smart, but that’s just one of my many issues. I lie to myself all the time and I always have.

Smart people don’t propel themselves blindly, teleporting forward twelve years in time to escape a life that can never be escaped, only to go so far that they end up at the end of the world, too pathetically weak to function and with no fucking clue how to get themselves back.

Yup. Stupid.

Maybe I am getting better with this whole lying to myself thing if I am openly admitting that.

“What do you think, Dolores, am I getting better owning up to my vast supply of shortcomings?” My voice comes out hardly a whisper on my cracked lips. I don’t even turn to look at her. I don’t have the energy.

‘I think we are in trouble. We need to turn around before it’s too late.’

Dolores ignores my ill-timed attempt at humor. She sounds scared, and she is right about turning around.

She never lies.

This was not where I meant to end up in a world where I’m the last living creature among the other few scurrying insects, and not to wherever the hell I am at, which is maybe still somewhere in bumfuck Pennsylvania.

Arrogance as my perpetual guide, and despite her warning, I keep on walking, dragging her along.

Depending on how you look at our codependent situation, she has to follow me. I like to pretend it’s willingly, but even as convoluted as I can make things in my brain, even I know the truth about that , but like usual, I am good at ignoring the truth. No wonder Dolores didn’t find that funny.

No wonder she is scared.

Since day one, Dolores has been unwavering in her vow to stay by my side, and to be whatever I need her to be. But now, as her partner and her only friend, and because we share much more than a platonic love at this point, it’s not fair of me to cause her so much distress. As I slowly pull her along, I can feel her worried eyes looking at my back and I hate that in doing this to myself, I’m doing it to her too.

“I’ll go just a little further, up over this next high ridge.” My torn fingers slipping out from under my waist strap, I point to what I mean, which isn’t more than another quarter mile.

My arm flops at my side after only having lifted it for the briefest moment. I don’t even bother to push down on the handles again or to slip it back under the strap before lurching along again.

“If I don’t see anything promising at that point, then I’ll turn back,” I reassure as my eyes scan the horizon ahead and the heat ripples off the ground cause the image in front of me to blur.

I know I took a wrong turn somewhere days ago, but that’s just it, in the apocalypse, every turn is wrong. It’s only by luck that I ever find anything helpful, like food, or any other supplies that might keep me alive. Even looking in obvious places, like in ruins of what was once a grocery store, or a pharmacy, can turn up next to nothing. It all depends on how damaged the area is. As we are finding, since we left the city and moved away from the devastated coastline, destruction seems to be everywhere, but this area is the worst I have ever seen.

It figures that when I finally venture out beyond the usual 100-mile radius I’ve been scavenging for the last five years that I’d go in the one direction that led me to this.

Road signs are sometimes still there, sometimes not, and even with maps for navigating it is hard, and that’s because almost nothing looks the same.  'Welcome to this town' signs are a huge help, but they are also a cruel reminder of the amount of life lost in each empty civilization I come across. Many signs are simply gone like everything else.

One big empty world, and to make things worse, now I think I’m lost in the wasteland.

I am in the middle of nowhere of Nowheresville and I don’t know what else to do besides keep walking.

I’ll certainly die if I stop.

“I know you’re scared, sweetheart. I will be okay; I promise I won’t leave you.” This time, my attempt to make Dolores feel better about my deteriorating condition is only in my head, and this time my reply isn’t just to her.

My mind is only half here on this desolate stretch of nothing. At least I’m aware of it, so that must mean I’m not fully hallucinating, which is great news. I do that frequently, and it’s for various reasons, like accidental high level food poisoning, fevers, being offensively drunk, general craziness, you name it.

When I say that I’m not leaving them, I mean my siblings too.

I never stop seeing the faces of the people I love but regarded with so much indifference.

Their blank and bloodied expressions, some crushed almost beyond recognition, some charred almost black, they all stare up at me from the remains of our burning home as I scramble to dig them free.

I never stop trying to tell them that I’m sorry, but they never reply.

They can’t because they are all dead and so is everyone else.

I’ll admit, I am not just dehydrated. I have an infection from that damn gash. The antibiotic I’m taking must not be good anymore.

The worms spill out of Allison’s broken skull as I pull her along to bury her with the rest of my family, but even that doesn’t make sense. They weren’t rotting when I found them. The rot came later.

Somehow even though it’s been years since this smell filled the air, I am hit with surges of smokey burning flesh, the scent coating my tongue, making my stomach instantaneously roar with sickening nausea but also ravenous hunger.

Nearly falling this time, I trip causing my injured foot to twist in an unnatural way. As I try to swallow my body’s attempts at forcing a dry heave, it’s with no saliva to help it along and the desert in my throat nearly chokes me. I cough on the upthrust of bile, the pitiful sounds of my gags are as weak as I feel.

I painfully stumble over my own feet, but manage to stay upright, swaying as I force my eyes off the quivering ground. I try focusing them instead on an area of broken road a few feet in front of me. One foot in front of the other, I keep moving, eyes ahead this time so I don’t fall over another large crack in the road.

My mind screams at me. ‘They aren’t here. You buried them years ago! Focus or you are never going to make it. You have to make it back; that’s all that matters.’

Dizzy, and confused, I try to remember again why Dolores and I are here. My plan was to search outside the city for anything to make our life easier. Something like a more forgiving weather pattern for example. Surviving the first several years in a suffocating nuclear winter and then the actual winters after that with only a handmade shelter and a sea of broken concrete around me has been working, but there must be places that were left in better, more livable conditions.

I can’t get physically strong enough to get back if I am starving all the time. I can’t get back if I freeze in the next few months when winter hits us again. I can run my numbers and figures, calculating the ways I can get back to them from anywhere. Being a few blocks from my childhood home, so close to the red waters of the toxic ocean while living in the ruins of the city library isn’t getting me any closer to them.

Dolores and I have been walking for forty-six days, seven hours, and thirty-six minutes, and my plan had been going fairly well until a week ago. Getting us away from the densely populated coast proved an okay move until I found myself in a very rural area, lost, and in the middle of a major weather change that I had no way of predicting.

After hardly surviving our last brutal winter, I thought there was nothing worse than the bitter cold, but right now, with my body literally cooking and no way to get out of the heat, I am finding that it may have been a major miscalculation to come so far into the unknown.

The valuable liquid remaining in my body is abandoning me in sheets of sweat again and that is just another not good sign.

Neither is the unexpected view of what appears to be a gigantic hole in the Earth. It covers the landscape as far and wide as my eyes can see. As I slowly make my way towards it, the road ends. There’s no more blacktop. It’s just dirt.

I can just make out the edge of the crater. The bottom of the abyss is empty as the rest of my world.

Just one massive hell.

“Dol-or-es… I messed-up ag-ah-in. Um-so- I shoo-d ha..ve listen-”

Just before the ground slants at an impossible angle, an angle that looks like it’s coming way too close to my face, that’s the thought that I can’t articulate that takes me away into the darkness.

I should have listened to her, only I don’t mean Dolores.

Chapter Two: Rain

After that weird exchange with that girl on the street, an unfamiliar excitement filled me. I wanted to read the note, but I couldn’t because we were still supposed to be smiling for the cameras. Then after our final group picture for the press, we were loaded into our waiting cars.

Klaus flopped himself down on the back seat next to me, causing me to have to move in the middle, which I knew was coming.

Not a second later, Diego took the remaining space to my right, glaring at me resentfully. “I mean it, man. That hot chick wasn’t trying to throw that letter to you. Just give it over. Why do you even want it? It’s not like you like girls or anyone else for that matter.”

I stared straight forward, my lips smugly pulled to the side. “I think that girl most certainly intended for me to get her little love letter and just like always, you are jealous of me.”

“Fivey you like girls, don’t you?” The way Klaus asked it and looked at me, it’s like he really thought that’s what this was about.

It wasn't.

Diego snorted out an obnoxious laugh as he pushed his knees into the back of Luther’s seat in front of him, while also taking up even more of my room in the middle.

“Five, doesn’t feel anything for anyone and if he did happen to swing the direction of the ladies, he wouldn’t have a clue what to do with one, especially not a total fox like that. Did you see those legs in that outfit, dude?”

Luther piped in his two cents worth next. “I did.” He turned back with his big muscular arm on the console so he could face us. “And Five, yeah, really? Diego’s surprisingly right for a change. What’s the deal with that letter? You could care less about our fangirls or guys, not that I’m saying it matters if you like guys or girls or whatever,” he blabbered.

Klaus laughed, interrupting Luther’s attempt to belittle me or support me or whatever that was supposed to be. “Oh...buddy, I saw them too, and though I don’t usually get a boner over the more delicate of the stems dancing around in this garden of life, I’ll admit, that girl was something, and I’d make an exception to stick it in her any day.”

At this point, I noticed our hired driver looking back at me through the rearview mirror with a look of disgust in his eyes. I supposed that this was not what he was expecting from the world's infamous superheroes. Turns out, the joke was on him and everyone else because we were way more immature and even more emotionally stunted than your average teens.

“Dude, stop kidding yourself. You’d fuck anything with legs.”

“True,” Klaus agreed to which Luther mumbled something apologetically to the driver.

Fuck me, I wished I was in the other car even though that meant I’d be with dad. My jaw twitched as I tried to ignore all the idiocy. The car pulled out, and rather than acknowledge the two morons or answer Klaus’s question, I looked out, hoping to see the girl again.

My hand wrapped tighter around the letter in my pocket, my smile returning as I thought about how she looked at me, and how mad they all were about it.

After sitting for a debriefing with The Monocle, one that was filled with ridicule even though we completed the bank mission successfully, we all sat for our usual mostly silent dinner, and then finally after hours of waiting to be alone, we were released and allowed to go to our rooms for the night.

I didn’t hesitate. In a flash, I was in my bedroom located in the third-floor attic space. Rushing out of my portal, moving a few steps to my desk, I pulled the chain on my lamp, filling the small room with warm yellow light.

My shaky fingers carefully worked open the letter as I sat down in front of my piles of notes and books. The kiss imprint was placed over the seal, but I did my best not to ruin it.

For as little as I thought or cared about girls, right then, you’d hardly believe it. I felt so unlike myself. My heart was racing as I unfolded the piece of paper inside.

Reading the first line, my heart felt like it stopped altogether.

Holy shit. She did write it for me. I was just being a jerk about all that, but…

What in the…

What is that supposed to mean?

My mind raced with the implications of the words, ‘I promise I will make it worth your while.’

I flipped the envelope, looking down at the red kiss she left me.

Did she like me? Like, like, like me?

I felt stupid even thinking about that question, but I couldn’t help it. It was like I was pissing brain cells and turning into Diego.

Our fans were known to pick favorites and collect our little plastic figurines and buy our posters, but I never thought I was one of those coveted idols, or that I was anything like my brothers when it came to irrelevant things like girls and who they ‘liked.’

The idea of this girl having pictures of me in her dorm room made my face feel hot.

She couldn’t get me out of her head…

Meticulously showering every part of my body and fighting for room in our shared sink area to finish my nightly routine didn’t help calm me down. Lying in bed trying to forget the letter and the girl was getting me nothing but more antsy.

It’s not like I never thought about girls. Diego was wrong about that. I was a teenager with rampant hormones running through me that caused intense feelings that occasionally couldn't be denied. When that was the case, I quickly took care of matters and moved on, nothing more.

I knew it was normal bodily function for someone my age to be stimulated with the simplest of things and end up with a hard on, or to experience the wonders of morning wood or mid-night wood accompanied by arousing dreams that seemingly come out of nowhere. I wasn't embarrassed by my need to pleasure myself. Like everything else, I approached it practically and efficiently, taking things into my own hands (or literally into my own hand as it were), and then after letting go of some of my millions of thoughts and a little bodily fluid I didn’t need, I was free of all that again.

Not everyone in this household was as discreet about their masturbation sessions. I had walked in on Klaus too many times to count while he was in the showers going at it. He may be a lot of things, completely uninhibited being one of them, but at least he cared enough to know that I was attracted to women not men. The shower thing with him and I and my blasé reaction to him jerking himself in there very frequently while I was in there too was probably part of that, but clearly my other siblings weren’t sure which way I ‘swung’ as they put it.

I couldn’t really blame them for their jokes. I never joined Klaus when he snuck out to meet our groupies for whatever they did together, but I had heard him and Diego going on and on about their various supposed exploits that they each have made when it came to those types of things that were intimate in nature. As much as I hated to admit it, if I had tried to talk to them about it, I am not sure what I would have said. They were right, I didn’t know anything about girls other than the basics that we learned in anatomy and physiology. And I was not intimate about anything unless you counted getting smacked in the face or getting choked out as intimate.

I hated not knowing things.

Fuck Diego and his teasing, and screw Luther and his perfect ‘I’m better looking than you’ thing he was born with. The more I lay there, the more I felt like I had to go meet the girl. I was curious what it was all about, but to be fully honest, I wanted to go because I thought that I knew what this was about and simply meeting me wasn't all she wanted.

This was my first chance to be around a girl alone that wasn’t one of my sisters. Who knew what could happen. Maybe something good?

At eleven fifty-five. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had looked at my window about a million times thinking about those red lips and that picture perfect smile. Just the letter afforded me major bragging rights but meeting her and the rest of it that could happen, yeah.

I had to go or I'd drive myself crazy wondering what I'd missed. 

Springing from my bed, inelegantly tripping over my own feet while on my way to my wardrobe, I tore off my cotton sleep pants and t-shirt.

Flinging the doors open revealed what I knew all too well. I had nothing other than academy uniforms to call my own. With a cursed fuck it, I mechanically dressed as I always do, my practiced hands neatly pushing up the knot on my tie before pulling my vest down over the top of my stupid shorts. Knee socks and shined black shoes on, I was the picture of… Well… Myself, I guess.

Looking in the mirror, I threaded my fingers through my hair making sure it was lying flipped to the side like I preferred.

Glancing at my clock showed that I had exactly four minutes.

Blinking myself down to the street was nothing. If I really wanted to, I could blink blocks away or even further, but to do that, first I would need to know the coordinates of where I’m trying to land, or I would at least need to be able to see it or have been there before. I had never been to the corner of 25th and Park, but I knew approximately where it was, and if I wanted to get there in time, teleporting was the only way.

That was not super brilliant if I was shooting for blending in since I was dressed in my well-known Umbrella Academy uniform and I was going to have to use my power, but I had no other option. That blunder alone proved how little I was ready for the real world and how different I was to normal people.

By that late hour, the streets were thankfully mostly free of pedestrians near the Academy, but I knew that wouldn’t be the case closer to downtown.

Making sure to land out of sight, I blinked a block at a time, heading towards my destination. Each spatial jump left me feeling energized, with not even a hint of fatigue. Dad would be proud of me for that if not for the fact that I'd just snuck out of his house.

It took me nine blinks to get there, but even then, I wasn’t unsteady when my feet hit the pavement of the alley a block down from where the girl was supposed to be waiting for me.

It’s then that I noticed a storm was coming. The faint flashes of light followed by the sound of rumbling thunder were letting me know that our little rendezvous couldn't be outside unless it was very short.

Again, the reality of her waiting for me hit home. All of a sudden, I was not so sure of myself. I had no idea who she was or what this was really about. Even if this resulted in me finally having some experience with the opposite sex, this wasn't a good enough reason to do this. It’s not like I’d brag to my dumbass brothers about it if something did happen with the girl. I also could just lie and pretend I met up with her. I was no storyteller but I was sure I could come up with something that would make my brothers just a little less full of themselves when it came to me and my lack of knowledge as it pertained to girls.

What I was doing was so stupid and I knew it, but I couldn't help myself.

Glancing down the street, I didn't see her, but I did see other people. This area wasn't nearly as upscale as the block and surrounding properties of the upper east side where I lived. Here, there were cheap bars and clubs on each block, and the homeless were front and center nearly everywhere you looked.

Why would she ask me to meet her here?

As a man with a grizzly beard and a cart pushed past me from down the alley, he asked me for some change. I told him I didn't have any money, which was sadly true.

As he cussed me out and moved on, I found that I was really starting to regret my hasty decision to come, but that's when I saw her. I didn’t know how I missed her at first. It might have been because she was sitting on the sidewalk with her back against the darkened window of the corner store.

With a black baseball cap pulled down low as she played the guitar sitting in her lap, I just thought she was one of the many street people sitting out panhandling.

Ignoring the next guy asking me for change and the strange looks of a couple that staggered past me, I stepped out of the shadowed side street to get a better look at the red haired girl. 

Sure enough, it was her. I could see that long braid, same as before, slung over her shoulder. She was dressed totally differently, not that I expected her to be wearing that short schoolgirl skirt, but I also didn’t imagine faded cargo pants, combat boots, and the baggy sweatshirt.

I could just make out the sound of strings being strum and the faintest sound of a female voice as I watched her.

Curiously, I felt drawn to her despite my new reservations. That was until a man stopped and dropped a few bills into the guitar case at her feet. She looked up, her smile of thanks as bright and warm as the one she'd given me earlier that day.

I stopped advancing, and my jaw dropped.

Tucked in tightly at her side was a duffle bag. The same kind that all the people out there seemed to have on them.

It dawned on me that she was homeless.

Why else would she be out here that time of night playing for money? I had so many questions, only one being, why wouldn’t her parents care where she was?

I couldn’t take my eyes off her as I back pedaled. Due to my inattention, my back ran right into a guy that looked like he could stomp me into the ground if he wasn’t so drunk, or if I couldn’t just as easily drop him in less than a second flat thanks to Reginald and his constant training. 

I was in a daze as he shoved me aside and yelled, "Get the fuck out of the way kid!”

As I staggered, I heard her soft voice.

“Five?”

My neck snapped back her way.

Oh shit.

Righting myself, I stopped mid step in my retreat, but even as she stared at me, like a coward, I blinked away.

This time when I landed, it was with much less grace. I fell out of my portal, back on my ass, catching myself before my head slammed into the air conditioning unit behind me. Panting from shock and the jump to the rooftop across the street, I edged myself to the ledge of the building to look down at her.

She was standing there with her guitar in hand, motionless as she looked at the spot I had been standing in.

She raised a hand, rubbing her cheek as she frowned.

I felt like a first-class piece of shit.

I didn’t even talk to her but I thought I was more than willing to do other things with her that did not involve talking. Who does that? What was wrong with me?

I felt disgusted but I quickly swallowed it down. 

Even sitting there knowing what I just did looked bad for so many reasons, I remained frozen as I watched her slowly turn around and begin to pack up her things. She crouched, taking the bills and change out of the case, stuffing her loot in the front pocket of her hoodie. Then, snapping closed the hard leather case, she didn’t so much as look back in the direction I had been before she took off down the street.

The first of the raindrops were beginning to hit the ground, pelting my hair and my shoulders. Instinctually, I pulled my academy jacket tighter around my middle even though it wasn't that cold.

The area we were in was nowhere near that private school whose uniform she was wearing, and she wasn't heading in the direction of where there was any housing that I was aware of.

I followed her.

I needed to know if I was right. A part of me, one that I didn’t want to admit was there but very much drove me in everything, needed to prove that she was not someone I should be associating with. I knew that sounded bad, but it was the truth I had been raised to believe. People like me didn’t talk with people like her.

Making sure to stay back so she couldn't see me, I went after her. She led me a few blocks away to an even more dilapidated and industrial looking area of the city that was not far from the docks. That was where I saw her enter what looked like an abandoned building. I knew it was not in use because it was boarded up. The only reason the girl got inside was because she knew that one of the boards was only being held on by one nail so she could swing it aside and disappear in the darkness.

I was right.

Why I didn’t stop there, I still don’t know.

Waiting just a few minutes to make sure she didn’t come back out, I entered the building the same way she did. It was nearly pitch black inside at first. My eyes had not adjusted to the dark because the boards were blocking most of the streetlights from shining inside the entire ground floor. When I could see, all around me was garbage and what looked like old moldy couch cushions and things that people must have used at one time or another while they squatted in there. But other than the obvious drug paraphernalia that showed at one time others had been using the place, the floor was quiet, and the girl was nowhere to be seen.

I knew she came in, and I didn’t see her come out, so I kept on looking. It wasn’t until I reached the top floor, by way of taking the stairs and blinking myself along when things didn’t look safe, that I heard her and the sound of water trickling as it made its way in through hidden parts of the building. Even with that and the sound of the hard rain falling on the roof, I could tell that she was singing again.

She had a very nice voice.

This floor of the building was like the others, only it wasn’t as dirty and it looked like no one ever ventured this far inside. From what I'd seen, the building should be and probably was condemned, and nobody should be there, but yet she was.

Unable to drop it even though I knew I was right; curiosity drove me closer to the sound of her voice softly echoing through the large mostly open floor.

The closer I got to her, the more I could hear the rain. It sounded like it was pouring down, splashing against something.

As I crept closer, my shoes ever so quiet on the gritty floor, I saw what appeared to be a small office enclosure off to the side of what was probably at one time a busy workspace full of factory workers.

Peering inside the glass windows, I could see her bag and her guitar case, but she was not there. I moved around the barrier into what appeared to be her makeshift home. I noticed mats laid out on the floor, made up like a bed and the blankets wrapped in plastic to keep them semi-clean. There were personal items, dozens of candles, and small stacks of books, the titles I couldn’t make out in the darkness.

It was bizarre, all of it was but her voice felt like it drew me to her. The beauty of the vaguely familiar French lyrics, ones of love, happiness and the beauty of life, rather than sadness and being utterly alone in a dirty warehouse in the murky darkness, were creating a strange sort of paradox of contradictions. 

♫ Quand il me prend dans ses bras (Hold me close and hold me fast)

Qu'il me parle tout bas (The magic spell you cast)

Je vois la vie en rose (To see life in pink...) ♫

I knew that I could escape again in less than a second, and I knew that she was just around the other wall of windows. I could see her now, but it was clear that she couldn’t see me.

Her body was outlined by the ever-present city lights coming in from outside.

It looked like she was…

I couldn’t tell.

Brave or stupid, I came closer, moving around the farther side of the office enclosure.

Like a statue frozen in place, my eyes felt glued to the scene before me.

The rain was cascading down from a hole in the ceiling, one that wasn’t much bigger than a few feet but had clearly been there long enough to cause the roof to bend down near it due to rot.

The girl named Phoebe, was under the sparkling spray and she was completely naked.

Her arms were up over her head, drawing her hair back from her face as she angled it up, reveling in the chilly stream as bubbles slipped over the mounds of her breasts, down her flat stomach, and between her legs where they chose a path down either of her milky white legs.

I could smell the faint scent of the soap she held in her hand, the feminine rosy scent of it a stark contrast to the musty building around us.

Her calf muscles balled up as she rose on her toes as if she might just fly away. She looked like some kind of otherworldly angel that was above all the decay around her.

Her eyes were closed, and she didn’t open them as her hands slid down her body, rubbing the sudsy bar slowly over her chest with one hand while the other slid down between her legs.

I was in a trance as I watched this, fully aware that the sight was causing things to stir in me in places they shouldn’t, but I was unable to stop myself from looking. I didn’t even realize I had made an embarrassingly throaty sound until her eyes flew open, their piercing aim falling directly on me.

After the initial shock of seeing that she was being ogled by a perverted voyeur, those lupine eyes narrowed and that seductive looking smile of hers thankfully appeared.

“Five! You came back!”

She actually looked happy about that fact, and not at all bothered that I was still staring at her.

When I said nothing, the girl reached up to her towel that was hanging on nail sticking out of a pillar, not even fully wrapping it around her as she rushed my way.

“I thought you changed your mind. I am so happy you didn't," she chirped.

Now that she was standing right in front of me, dripping wet, with those eyes peering up at me and her towel dangling in front of her, I could see something else going on in her expression, but I didn't understand it. I just couldn’t put a finger on it. But she did put a finger on me. 

I watched it happen as if in slow motion. She reached out and touched my arm, gently pulling me with her back towards the crude area where she slept.

"Come on," she whispered, and her touch and the sound of her voice sent waves of heat over my already burning skin. 

Even if I had wanted to blink away from her at that point, my body wouldn’t let me. 

~~~~~~

Link to chapters Three and Four

Broken Boy

Thanks for joining me for another one of my Five-centric stories.

Link to visit me on AO3

Link to my other story and art posts on Tumblr

Link to my Master Post

[daughterofhecata]

Something something "the first million words are practice"? (Though I'm pretty sure I've reached *that* milestone years ago considering the amount of notebooks I filled as a kid/teen.)

[imtheiliad]

we should not be revering the children that have taken up the mantle of the protest. we should admit the wrongdoing and give unmitigated support. we should be joining them. protecting them.

[em-dashes]

there’s a lot that’s currently bothering me about aphelion now that i’m back to working on it, and so far the only change i’ve implemented is aging up cay and bee, and somehow that feels like a step in the right direction

[laurrelise]

was watching spongebob like the very mature grown woman adult i am and this line sounded familiar

[hawkeyefrommash]

oh just realized i might get to sleep in my old bedroom at camp again :((((

[its-elvie-innit]

tumblrs not letting me reblogs smaragdine boyfriend post right now because it knows that if I do I will say some RANK shit

[poseiben]

AAAAAAA