#but god being lowkey jealous that klaus got to be five's sibling before she did gets to stay

[in-tua-deep]

OKAY here’s the weird dream inspired au where five was never supposed to exist and was more of,, a late addition by the Universe to the fun mystery birth line-up

Once upon a time forty-three women gave birth around the world. A fact made only odd because none of these women were pregnant when the day began. Forty-three women gave birth to forty-three children. An eccentric billionaire traveled in an attempt to obtain as many of these odd children as he could.

He got six.

But that’s not quite how the story goes.

Once upon a time, the universe was born. She is beyond human conception, and she left nebulae in her wake and lit up all the stars. Beautiful and wonderful and lonely, and so she had a daughter. A daughter who would grow fond of a particular planet in her mother’s playground.

A daughter who, one day, would meet a man named Klaus Hargreeves and tell him that she didn’t like him.

A daughter who, for the most part, was inordinately fond of the human race. A daughter who was displeased when a group of humans who figured out time travel decreed that the apocalypse must occur and safeguarded it. 

She did her best to fix it. But every time she tried, the group stepped up. No matter what factors she managed to tweak, as she could only interfere indirectly, no matter what changed, the apocalypse was always guaranteed by outside interference.

For all the millennia the Universe’s daughter had been alive, she was still a child. So she did what all children do when they encounter a problem too big to take on alone. She went to her mother.

Neither could interfere directly, and indirect measures were doing nothing. The universe was too vast to take a mortal avatar, and her daughter had barred herself from direct interference long ago to establish free will. There was a group whose free will just continued to get in the way. And so the universe had an idea, and she asked her daughter a simple question: if she wanted a little sibling.

For you see, neither the Universe nor her daughter could interfere directly, but the Universe could create someone who could.

So it goes more like this - once upon a time forty-three women gave birth around the world. A fact made only odd because none of these women were pregnant when the day began. Forty-three women gave birth to forty-four children. 

It was easy, to slip her child in next to another who was also not quite supposed to exist. To choose a mother of a child who was already known to the Universe’s daughter to be adopted by the man who would unknowingly cause the apocalypse.

An eccentric billionaire traveled in an attempt to obtain as many of these odd children as he could.

He got seven.

Little Number Five, as he was dubbed upon arrival at the lavish mansion which was to become his home for the next thirteen years, opened his eyes and saw fractals of light. He brought his little hands up to caress the paths and choices that existed just beyond the fabric of the universe, a language only spoken by now three individuals.

And he grew up with a gentle crooning voice in his ear - the voice of his mother. The voice that taught him how to part the veil and fall into the timeless space between worlds and out the other side. One that was constantly with him.

He grew up knowing he had a mission.

“You are here to prevent the apocalypse!” Reginald Hargreeves told his children severely as they rolled their eyes and scoffed. It was a sentiment he echoed often enough that it had lost all meaning to them. 

Do you love you siblings? The Universe asked her child with unparalleled gentleness.

Yes, Five projected back, because he did. He was aware that he wasn’t quite the same as the others, but he loved them regardless with a kind of fierceness that should be scary but mostly just made him feel warm.

Then prove it. The Universe challenged her child, and so he did. He pulled impossible stunts and stole food and spoke back to his father. He directed all of the attention on himself to spare those he could. 

“Why can’t I kill him?” Five asked the Universe one night when he was eight-years-old and sitting on his bed, inspecting the bruises that were still forming on his skin. “I need to protect them - killing him would solve things, right?”

It wouldn’t stop what is to come, the Universe crooned to her child in sorrow, There is much to be done. What is to come is safeguarded - those that guard it must die, first.

“But, you haven’t told me who causes the apocalypse anyway.” Five complained, a frown upon his face.

No matter what changes, the apocalypse comes. They make sure of it. One person does not cause the apocalypse - it is the symptom of a rot. It must be burned out entirely for the planet to survive.

“For my siblings to survive.” Five said, ever so softly. 

More years passed, until Five turned thirteen years old and the Universe whispered in his ear again and taught him how to part the veil and fall into the timeless place between world and travel in it.

Time travel.

I’m going to ask you to go through a trial. The Universe told her son, In order to save the world, you will have to sacrifice so much. You are so young, I wish I did not have to ask this of you - but it is important.

“It’s okay.” Five soothed his mother, ignorant of what was to come and oh so arrogant in his youth. “I can handle anything you throw at me. I’ll save them - I’ll save them all.”

He does not have quite the same attitude when he jabs at his father with words and runs out the door, fully intending to go back in a few hours before the Universe prods at him and tells him now. 

“But I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Five protested, thinking of Vanya’s face as he left the table. But there was something exhilarating about falling through and riding the wave of time twisting like a snake under the fabric of reality and emerging in the future and he figured he could always return after whatever the Universe needed him to see in the future anyway.

Again, the Universe whispered.

He fell again.

Again, the Universe whispered.

Again, he rode the wave of time, except this time when he emerged it was different. The sky was filled with ash. All around him was rubble. There was a moment where his emotions were almost in freefall, before the ground caught up to him. Without his permission, his feet were already taking him back - back to the only home he’d ever known. Names tearing from his lips as he called for his siblings.

He found them. He recognized them by the tattoos on their wrists, putting names to faces, seeing the people he knew in the bodies that were left behind. 

He turned, frantic, hands rising to part the fabric of the universe again - 

STOP, the Universe commanded her son. If you go back, you cannot save them. And you will save them. This will not be the hand fate deals them. But I need you here, it is important.

“For how long?” Five rasped.

Do not worry. The Universe soothed, Time is a drop in the bucket for us. I will change you, as is needed to be done to make sure that the bait is taken and that you will be in position. I will restore you, have no fear. You will survive this, for you are my son. I will make sure of this.

And he did survive. He survived for years, growing up at the end of the world. He grew taller. His skin changed under the sun. He ate what he could find. He grew a beard. His hair turned grey. And that’s when they finally came for him.

A woman came, with white blond hair perfectly in place and makeup pristine against the chaos of the apocalypse. She smiled at him and offered him a job - and he took it.

“Can I go back now?” Five whispered, staring down the barrel of a gun waiting for his target - someone who he didn’t want to kill at all.

Not yet. The Universe sounded apologetic, Soon.

It was a question he asked with some frequency. Until one day he was staring down a gun at a road and a president and a car, and the Universe said - Now.

He dropped everything he was doing, and with a grin on his face pressed again the fabric of the universe and pushed. Pushed and pushed, and felt himself falling falling falling and changing changing changing and suddenly he was on the ground. He looked up at his family for the first time in so long and felt his heart swell.

And then he staggered to his feet and realized exactly what the Universe had meant when she said that he would have to sacrifice. Because the siblings that were in front of him were not the ones he left. Not even close.

They were the faces that haunted him, the ones he had found in the rubble. His siblings were thirteen and painfully young and old all at the same time, aged by the horrors that they faced together. These siblings were all wrong and right all at the same time. They weren’t right. He didn’t know them. 

And he tried to stop the apocalypse, he ran around trying to keep his siblings close and push them as far away as possible at the same time. He wanted them next to him right up until they reminded him of how much he missed.

(Klaus spoke about a man and osso bucco, and Five couldn’t bear to stick around. Couldn’t bear to look at a brother he didn’t even know anymore.)

“I need help.” Five howled to the Universe, “Give me a clue, a hint! Anything!”

Make a deal. The Universe told her son, Face the Handler. Accept the job. You need to get into position.

And so he did. He took Luther with him and set up a deal and watched as Klaus and Diego rode in on an ice cream truck blasting music and couldn’t help but feel insanely fond of his idiot siblings. When the Handler showed up and offered him a deal, he didn’t hesitate in taking it.

He had to save them, he had to save them all.

This child went to the Commission with a calm certainty, because his mission was not just to figure out who caused the apocalypse. Because he could part the veil of time itself - his mission was to make sure that those with the same power who wanted to ensure the world died took its place. 

This is a Five who didn’t go snooping into the messaging room with its many tubes, instead he kindly appropriated weapons and set them in strategic places around the Headquarters that he finally, finally had access to.

(The Commission were arrogant - they existed in a place outside the timestream where only those with briefcases and invites could go. Temporal assassins weren’t high enough on the food chain. They had only the one base, because if only they could get there then however could they ever be destroyed?

The Handler should have been more careful when deciding to play a game of cat and mouse with a creature that was neither.)

So he smiles at the Handler who holds a gun trained on him, he holds the grenade that will set off a chain reaction and winks. He doesn’t need the suitcase to get back to his own time, not when he is a child of the Universe. He sets it off and pushed through and feels the Universe ripple with approval around him as the Commission is eradicated off the face of the planet.

Oh, there’s still more to do technically. There are suitcases in the hands of temporal assassins who will never again receive an order. There are ground agents left to take care of. But Five cut off the head of the snake, and the body would be soon to follow.

Five jumps back. 

Klaus mentions seeing their father and mentions dying and Five leans forward eagerly to ask if he met God. Klaus blinks in surprise but nods, mentioning that the little girl hated him.

Five frowns at the thought, but the Universe sends amusement his way. It is not Klaus’s fault he got to be your brother. The Universe tells him fondly, It is simply a matter that he got to be so before she did. She has never been very good at coming in second, your sister.

The mansion is destroyed while Five is gone, and he finds a newspaper and freezes.

“I thought the apocalypse was off?” Five asks loudly, making his siblings look at him oddly. But Five has been in the habit of talking to ‘himself’ for years now.

You killed the guards. You can stop the apocalypse where before it was an impossible task. But you must stop this one first. The Universe tells him gently.

So they go to a bowling alley, and Five is not distracted by a cryptic message inside of a fortune cookie. They go to Vanya’s concert and aren’t interrupted by goons with guns. Allison stands proudly at the front with a smile, and Five is right there alongside her. Together they are a force to be reckoned with, and they bully Luther into standing down. At least for now.

It’s after the concert, when Vanya snaps out of it and they crowd around one another and they think about the ruins of the academy as Vanya cries fury and pain over years of terror and neglect.

They’ve lost so much in this week. Diego lost Eudora Patch. Allison lost her voice. Vanya became a murderer. Klaus lost the love of his life.

So Five holds his hands out to them, “I can take us back.” He tells them all, “I can take us back to the beginning of the week. We can undo the deaths. We can be prepared and handle it better. We can fix it.”

Because the Commission were fools. They existed outside of the timestream, which meant that no matter where Five jumped they simply no longer existed. Time was a funny little thing, and it was already healing from the scars that had been left.

So they take him up on it. They hold hands and Five hauls them through the timestream and they show up the day of their father’s funeral. Five sitting on the ground where he fell out of a portal and the rest spilled out into the courtyard to see the phenomenon.

And they heal from there, but that’s not all Five has to do.

Five watches his siblings find purpose and happiness and figures he has one favor he can call on - even if it’s from family he’s never met.

He slips between the fabric of the world, and ends up in front of a little girl on a bike.

“Brother.” She greets him, tilting her head up at him.

“Sister.” He responds easily, jamming his hands into his pockets.

“I suppose you want something.” She observes with no real judgement, “I’ve heard little brothers were supposed to be demanding little brats.”

“And I heard big sisters were supposed to be protective.” Five teases gently back, shrugging to indicate all the pain and hardship he had gone through at her request for her little pet world to remain intact. Not that Five can fault her for it, he loves the world just as much as she does. Or maybe not, he just loves a select and small group of people who live upon it.

She rolls her eyes, “Yeah, I guess I owe you one. Name your price.”

“There’s a man that you have.” Five says, voice measured and careful like he’s rehearsed this in his head a dozen times. “His name is Dave Katz and he died during the Vietnam war. I was wondering if we could have him back.”

“I’d need your help.” The little girl who isn’t really a little girl at all tells him very seriously. “I can put him back in a body and heal it, I have a few miracles in me. But I need a body to do so. Retrieve it from the way, after your brother has left, and I will do this for you.”

“And - Ben?” Five hesitates. He should have asked for it first, but he’d wanted to make sure it was possible. Which, given the nature of Ben’s death and God’s explanation for Dave’s return very well might not be. 

She sighs deeply. “It could take some time. His body was somewhat scattered among dimensions. In return for the legwork, however, I expect frequent visits.”

After all, Five did deserve some reward for doing exactly what she had wished for him to do.

“Family dinners with God,” Five grins back, already calculating exactly where and when he has to be to succeed at his given tasks, “I think I can just about manage that.”

It’s not exactly all sunshine and roses after that. Apparently producing your brother’s dead time-traveled lover alongside your usually very dead brother and explaining clearly that you ‘made a deal with God’ didn’t exactly cut it as far as excuses went. They all needed therapy. Vanya still had trouble self-regulating her emotions.

And then of course, a few years in, Five had to figure out how to explain the fact that he wasn’t aging.

(He was lucky he managed to convince his mother to let him keep his thirteen-year-old form for now - which considering God looked younger when she’d been alive for billions of years was very generous thank you. But he couldn’t artificially age on his own, and the Universe refused to put him through it a second time so - yeah he was a little bit stuck.)

Five was born with a mission, and it’s one he still had. He had Monday dinners with God, who bestowed upon him the location and time period where he would find yet another surviving briefcase from an agent to track down and destroy. 

But his biggest mission is to make sure his family is happy and healthy and cared for until the end of their days. It’s a mission he takes very seriously.

(And hey, it’s not like he won’t be able to see them again on the other side. Sometimes it pays to have God as a big sister, after all.)

Once upon a time forty-four children were born on a seemingly normal October day. One of them wasn’t supposed to be there.

But aren’t we all glad he was.