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mozart-in-a-gokart · 6 months ago

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My Thoughts On How Five Could Have Had A Romance In Season 4 That Doesn’t Involve His Siblings Or Lila

You guys voted for it so…

Here it is! So far it’s been an overwhelming majority telling me to share so here you go! There’s only two ways IMO that the introduction and execution of giving Five a love interest could have been done well.

I’ve never taken a screen writing class and this all may sound very fanfictiony. For that I am sorry. This is the first time I’ve actually posted a full rundown of a character that I’ve created online for people to read about, consider, and discuss with me! Also This post is so VERY long. I MEAN IT. I will not make you scroll through it if you aren’t interested! More below!

You can scroll down if you don’t wanna read any of the introductory info. It makes more sense if you do though. Your life though man! I’ll have it separated from the actual story bits!

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!Start of Introductory Information!

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Basic Character Information

I have given both love interests neutral names and tried to be as gender neutral with how I’m writing this as possible.

I am fully FOR the idea of Five being an Ace or Aroace icon. I adore his character and fully embrace all variations of him. (That being said I wish I had the ability to shove the home wrecker version of him we received in season 4 underwater and hold him there until I see the bubbles stop.)

Both of these options for love interests can and are intended to be open to being ace or non-ace regardless. These are just ideas that can be tweaked!

Also If you all like these I am debating writing either of the options into a few one shots? However, If you all hate them I won’t. (If you like anything you read in here I fully encourage you to use bits of it if you like the ideas. I love seeing people write stories and come up with their own versions. You all inspire me and helped inspire these characters!)

Both these versions of love interests would have bits of common background.

Both of these variants would start off as someone that he is established to work with at the CIA. (These organizations do not just let people do whatever they want whenever and with whomever they want.) They could have written it similar to season one with Diegos relationships. How Diego had this established life in an organization that he left. Diego established ties and interpersonal relationships with his coworkers which is not out of the norm. Acquaintances, Friends, rivals. All normal things that could develop between Five and a coworker similar in age to his physical body over the course of a SIX YEAR PERIOD.

Both of them will always take Five at his word. Neither variant of love interest would distrust him. Both know he’s not one to beat around the bush. If he says something he means it. Five is a blunt character regardless of how tired of all the work he’s doing all the time. This is an established character trait of his. The love interest would be USED to how BLUNT he is.

To Establish Age And Timeline: Five is stated to be in a 13 year old body in season 1 and that ends in April. Seasons 2 and 3 happen over the course of a few weeks for him. Then season 4 happens and he’s about 19 physically. I’m pushing season 4 so it’s more like a 7 or 8 year time-skip instead. Having Five be in a relationship like this ace or not at physically 19 is just odd for me. It feels wrong. So in order to make a romance work in this situation you’d need to push it further down the timeline. Make Fives physical age 20 or 21. It makes the audience feel better about seeing him involved with someone, Ace Or No Ace, and it allows for more wiggle room when they explain he’s now working for a government agency. People would be more inclined to believe he’s allowed to work for the government because he’s at the very least physically an adult man now. (Aiden Gallagher is 20 years old so him actually playing a 20-21 year old Five is not out of reach) — With that in mind both love interests would be the same physical age as Five and were recruited to the CIA because they were prodigies in their respective fields, but they went through training and recruitment with Five during the 7-8 year period we don’t get to see during the start of season 4.

This bullet is just so you understand some of the choices I make later in my run downs: Five has always just kind of done what he wants and gone where he wants so I think there’s a great opportunity for a running gag or even just a fun plot point about how in order to keep tabs on Five both love interests have their own special way of tracking him. (Explanations further below)

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!End Of Introductory Information!

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The Actual Characters

1—: Optimistic Opposite Partner : his handler researcher he always calls, personable, soft, NEEDS approval, and a prodigy

For this post let’s refer to Optimistic Opposite Partner as, Ash

2— Pragmatic Mirror Partner : his work partner, stubborn, practical , dry, Hot headed, and always left out

For this post we’ll refer to Pragmatic Mirror Partner as, Morgan

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Both Ash and Morgan would highlight different aspects of Five’s character in, at least from my point of view, very delightful ways. I think characters like these would be a great addition to the story if we got more episodes to insert them and add more interactions with All of The Umbrellas. For now however I will only be inserting them into the story that we got so there’s less interaction with the whole Hargreeves family. I will however do what we all know is right and disregard the cannon ending. I will be writing this under the assumption that the show would end how I detailed in my previous post where I detailed how I thought season 4 should have ended. That post can be found HERE.

Another Note: I’m not writing fully fleshed stories just bulleted versions of arcs and scenes I believe would have been better than what we got. Specifically and mostly following the “lost in the subways among the timelines” bit.

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Main Key Ash:

Five - Blue Text

Ash - White Text

Diego — Green Text

Lila — Pink Text

Luther — Orange Text

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THIS IS WHERE THE ACTUAL STORY BITS START

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Ash

They are the cute and fun character that eventually gets pushed a little too far.

They are the person Five is calling at the CIA every time he needs background research done. And I mean every single time.

When you think of this dynamic think Varric and Zhu Li From LOK mixed with a dash of Garcia and Morgan from criminal minds. Ladybug And Maria from Bullet Train.

The first time we see them is when he gets out of the meeting with his boss in that first episode. Maybe Give goes to his office and there they are set up across from him with a quirked eye brow.

“So how’d it go? Wait let me guess? Not well?”

“I really don’t need this from you right now Ash.”

“Too bad.”

“You know what I really need is—“ he stops as the camera focuses on a to go cup of coffee steaming on his desk already.

“Why did you—“

Ash gets up “I figured you’d need it. You got a party to get to. Lots of screaming kids.” They wave as they walk out the door. “If I were you I’d chug it! Have a good night!”

We see five irritated beyond belief silently indicate that Ash has a point, pick up the cup and drink from it with no hesitation. In one scene we establish that at the very least Ash knows Five very well and Five seems to trust Ash because he without hesitation accepts the coffee and takes the advice to chug it.

Ash Tracks him through his phone. He has a government issued one. It needs to be used like this because as we saw in the show in other seasons, Five just goes where he wants. He did that when he had powers. He does it now. As his research assistant THATS EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. A scene that could happen is

“I can’t believe you’re in ‘New Grumpson right now.”

“I told you to stop tracking me.”

“How else am I supposed keep tabs on you Five? You never tell me where you’re going. What am I gonna do when you need back up? Just throw a dart at a map and hope I’m right?”

“Look can you just send me the file I need”

“I can’t just fax it anywhere it’s classified.”

“It’ll be fine just—“

“Too late I’m already here.”

Five gritting his teeth and looking up to see them getting out of a car waving the file at him. His siblings are there and it’s amazing for them and us as the audience to watch Fove unravel in front of us. We feel like an older sibling watching him be pushed around by someone he can’t retaliate against. Five shakes his head and just takes the file from them. If done right this interaction could be something that feels like it happens every single mission he goes on at some point.

It’s obvious to everyone else that this person cares about Five deeply already, but Five just kind of takes them for granted. He doesn’t not care about them. He just doesn’t realize how much he relies on them. This is communicated nonverbally through the show in the CIA building. (Ex. Like when he’s in the office and in the middle of explaining something and walking Ash is anticipating and handing him things to help him make his point before he realizes he’s going to need them. They’re his bubbly little shadow at the office. There could even be a scene showing this if it wasn’t 6 episodes and 10 instead. At some point Five is at the office and he reaches to his side or in front of him and he doesn’t even realize there’s nobody there with him. Like there’s a shot of their usual desk in the corner exactly as it was the previous scene when Ash left it. They aren’t here today and they are always here. It throws him off. We get to see him be a little taken aback by it.

Ash gets pulled into the Cleanse mess because they bring him a file in the Christmas town and get caught up in the gun fight.

Five tries to blink them out of the fight and they both end up in the subway.

Personally I like the idea of Five getting on the train and the door closing before Ash can get on. The train leaves and Ash tries to run after the train but is too cautious to try following the tracks. They don’t know how to leave the station and they don’t wanna abandon Five, so they’re just kind of stuck there. They walk around the platform for a few minutes and end up sitting on the bench and just as they do the train rolls back into the station. Five walks off the train having done what he does in cannon, albeit a little more unnerved. In the other timeline he gets off the train at the next station and leaves the platform. He discovers it’s an alternate timeline. He gets back on the train and goes back and gets off the train in front of Ash. He’s been gone for ten minutes almost but it was only 5 minutes or so For Ash. Ash sprints at him. Five is surprised to be hugged by Ash and hugs them back for a second before they quickly lets go and hold each other at arms length purposefully. Five doesn’t even let them speak. He just cuts in before Ash can and tells them how its alternate timelines. At this point there’s no use in hiding it from Ash and they’re here in the subway with him so they ought to know.

Ash is more spiritual and fate oriented as a character. They take Fives abilities to blink specifically to the subway as a sign of it being important. Lila still convinces Five to check out the subway again and they do. He encounters himself. They both come back, and Ash is the one whose been looking into The Jennifer Incident File for Five. He meets them at the office and they fill him in on the file.

Ash is the one who gets him to really think about Ben before he goes to Reginald’s mansion. They comment on the file explaining

“This is a somewhat biased account, I’ll give you that. It’s the guys you were fighting against so there’s always gonna be an amount of “he said she said”. But the guy who wrote this seems to be blunt as hell. Very factual presentation of everything. No punches pulled about how badly he fought or how his team failed to achieve goals.”

“What are you saying?”

“What I’m saying is… History is written by the winners Five. I don’t know your dad well. Hell I don’t know him at all, but I gotta ask… Is he the kinda man who would lie about this stuff? Is he the kind of man you could trust to tell you how you actually won? What do you remember?”

Five squints at them. “Nothing… I wasn’t there… but it’s an interesting thought.” He gets up and walks around to Ash’s desk.

“I try.” Five starts to leave and ash calls out after him “I’ll let you know if anything develops on this end.”

Five waves the copy of the File at them in aknowledgement and disappears out of the office door

Ash comes out with them to the Alpaca farm when they get the call about it. They’re standing with Five And Lila when she tries to convince Five to go back to the subway again. Five agrees he’ll go and take a look but not with her. This irritates Lila. Ash tries to level with Lila and this annoys her. She snaps that it’s none of Ash’s business and to stay out of it. Lila snapping at Ash is Five’s cut off. He tells Lila she isn’t coming with him to the subway because of her attitude right now. She’s acting way too impulsively right now and he’s not going to risk that. She needs to take a breath go regroup with Diego and Luther. Keep tabs on them. Lila is irritated by this and storms away. (This may be out of character for her but I truly have never understood Lila as well as other characters. I’m so sorry.)

Ash asks if they can come with. Five is about to ask them if they’re serious? He just denied Lila why would he bring Ash? Ash says that they’re just curious about this all honestly. Plus it’s always better to bring someone to watch your back. Five reluctantly agrees because Ash is right. Plus they’ve kept a very level head through all this. If something happens he can just bring them home. It’ll be fine.

So he brings Ash with on that second run to investigate and everything with the sparrow academy timeline happens.

Then as we know they both end up getting stuck.

They roll past their stop.

“Five? Wasn’t that our—“

“Stop? Yes. Yes it was.”

The montage of what happens down there wouldn’t really be a montage it would be an entire episode or at the very least half of an episode dedicated to following them over the course of these six years. (If it was a montage though, the song I feel like that would be amazing in vibe and fit would be “You’re Dead” By Norma Tanega)

We would get a lot more scenes above the subway when they’re looking for supplies and gathering information. Fighting things that are on the surface in these other timelines.

This version of Five is one who is coming at the fact he’s stuck in a never ending nightmare universe like this again as if it’s a personal slight against him. Like of course, of fucking course it happens to him again. OF COURSE. When his family needs him this happens AGAIN. (It’s a very self centered way of looking at it. The fact Ash is there and also dealing with this is not even on his radar at first. Ash's feelings about this don’t even register to him until later because as a defense mechanism he’s automatically slipped back into ‘survival apocalypse’ mode. ‘One problem at a time’ mode. ‘This physical problem in front of my face is what I’m focusing on’ mode. we can tell when he finally picks up on Ash's feelings about being stuck here but he doesn’t say anything to them about it. His character has never been good at approaching people gently and while they’re in survival mode gently isn’t really an option.

Ash is obviously so scared about the fact that they’re trapped there and don’t know how to get home. They just don’t want to show it. They put on a brave face the whole time and we watch it crack.

Ash can seem to sense Five’s irritation and just slips into doing what they do best. Following Fives lead.

So Five makes a plan. They are both agents for the CIA so they both should be able to survive out here. They both spend months staring at the map terminal and physical map, trying to decode it and it gets more and more frustrating for five. But Ash is trying their best to stay optimistic on purpose. You can tell it’s somewhat forced but still somewhat genuine.

Ash is also doing what they do best. Assisting Five. But at the beginning it seems like it’s much more difficult. Apocalypses and time travel aren’t anything they trained for. Plus their survival training was minimal since they joined the CIA as an analyst not a field agent. They aren’t sure what Five needs. There are moments we see Five hold out his hand out of habit and Ash just stares. They don’t know what he needs and it’s unsettling for both of them. Five realizes he has to reach Ash what they need to do out here and you can tell it’s irritating to him.

A full year passes and Ash's optimism seems to fade but they’re getting better at knowing what needs to be done to survive in the subway. They get better at anticipating things that are needed. When they talk Ash's smile doesn’t seem to reach their eyes as much. Five doesn’t notice this still. Five always seems slightly annoyed that Ash is always so upbeat.

Year two you can tell the smile isn’t barely real at all but Ash still pokes fun at five along the way. Ash is the one trying to keep them both feeling human. They have to force Five to do things like wash clothes, eat, sleep, comb his hair. Five is visibly irritated by it. He doesn’t want to be dragged away from the problem but he always begrudgingly acknowledges that Ash is right.

It’s around the middle of year 3 that they both break. Ash offers to help five shave (similar to how Lila does in the show) because he’s doing a god awful job of it. He hasn’t had to do upkeep like this since the first apocalypse and even then he just let his beard grow out then. We see Ash in the “mirror” Five is using to shave and even he can tell the smile is so forced it hurts to look at. Five glares at them and breaks his silence. He snaps at the about how shaving isn’t fucking important. Getting back home is important. At least when he was alone before he didn’t have to worry about some chipper chipmunk of a person following him around like a lost puppy. He berates them about the fact that they’re so chipper all the time and how irritating it is when all he needs to do is work. He Berates them for trying so hard at it. Why won’t they just admit that this all sucks. It’s awful. He wants Ash to get mad. He wants Ash to blame him. Ash needs to blame him. He implies that Ash doesn’t seem to care at all about the fact that they’re stuck here and that’s when Ash snaps back.

Ash isn’t smiling anymore. They go off at five about how much they care and how selfish Five has been. They know this isn’t a game. They understand the stakes. Theyre trying so fucking hard he has no idea. They’re just trying to keep it together because of they don’t they’re gonna go insane. (Essentially they lose it at him and tell him how much of a selfish prick he’s being.)

The two end up screaming back and forth at each other all sorts of things that devolve into nothing insults about little things that have annoyed them about each other (we as an audience get an insight into how well these two really know each other with how insanely specific some of the stuff is)

“At least I don’t gag when I skin a rabbit!”

“Oh I’m sorry apocalypse boy? Does my lack of enthusiasm towards skinning small animals upset you? I’m so so sorry you dad never let you have a pet rabbit! But some of us still—“

“Yeah, yeah, I remember your pet bunny. You’ve only mentioned sir pumpernickel 300 times. Im sorry you used to love one 👏🏻but 👏🏻we 👏🏻have 👏🏻to 👏🏻eat👏🏻this 👏🏻one 👏🏻to 👏🏻live👏🏻 so stop gagging and get it done.”

Ash then says something along the lines of “ You know? You talk about your ‘dad’ and you pretend you’re nothing like him, but you act exactly the same. Pompous and arrogant. So wrapped up in your need to stop the apocalypse and ‘save your family’ that you don’t give a shit who you hurt to do it!”

With that Ash storms off out of the station to whatever world they’ve stopped in.

Five is stunned by what they’ve said and lets them go still half shaven.

He turns back and tries to keep shaving and after a few minutes he realizes what he’s said to Ash.

He stops shaving and washes his face off. He goes up after them. He finds them washing clothes in the river he sits next to them.

Five helps them finish washing clothes. It’s silent the whole time. They bring clothes back to the station he offers Ash the barber knife. It’s an olive branch. Ash takes it.

We then get the shaving scene but it’s Ash and Five. The scene is silent save for the scraping of blade against skin. Then Five speaks.

“I’m sorry.” A pause. “For saying all of that and for treating you like—.”

“It’s okay. Stop talking, or I’ll end up cutting you.” More quiet scraping.

Five waits til Ash is finished shaving him and wiping off the knife before he speaks again. He says he’ll do better.

“Yes, yes you will.” There’s another pause “or else I’ll only shave half your face next time.”

This is the first time Five cracks a genuine smile in YEARS. Ash smiles back. There’s a renewed sense of understanding. A silent deal is struck essentially. Be kinder to each other in this.

The next two years we get scenes that are more gentle between the two very similar to the ones we get in the actual show. Five is more open to teaching Ash things about the worse parts of hardcore survival. Which in turn helps Ash feel more useful and lightens the load on Five. He can trust them to handle themselves more.

We watch them Slowly moving closer too each other over the course of the train rides. Falling asleep with heads on shoulders. Cooking for one another. Interspersed with scenes of them just entertaining themselves with the other. Reading from books they find in these universes. Playing chess together, cutting hair, sewing up cuts. Light Play fighting in the rivers they wash clothes in eventually leading to the sixth year five months two days conversation.

It happens just after a scene where we watch Ash set Fives Broken leg.

That’s RIGHT the reason they end up in the green house is a legitimate reason in this one.

Five loses his footing hunting in a previous scene and falls down a hill. He blinks and lands haphazardly on rubble in the subway startling Ash who has to immediately jump into action and help.

Ash after setting and wrapping Fives leg tells him that he needs to rest. They have to settle somewhere and let his leg heal. Five doesn’t want to stop but has to concede that Ash is right. Ash starts packing up the camp and they brainstorm where would be the safest place to rest. Five brings up the greenhouse.

“The one with strawberries and that fun little office room?”

Five nods. “It was pretty clean and there was a desk there. I can still work on figuring out this subway while I’m bedridden…”

Ash rolls their eyes at him. “Like you’ll actually stay in bed once I make you a set of crutches.”

Five glares at them as they finish packing things up.

“Don’t be such a baby. It’ll only be for a few months till you can put weight on it. We aren’t giving up.”

And here’s the big change from cannon. THEY DONT GIVE UP.

They do rest there. Five recuperates there. He’s the one messing rolling about in a chair scribbling things down in a notebook while he messes the strawberries in the greenhouse. Ash goes Hunting instead.

They do have their cute little cottage core moments but they don’t give up. And it’s not in the green house that the strawberry throwing happens. It’s a basket of clothes that Ash brings in while five is WRITING IN THE JOURNAL trying to decipher the glyphs from the subway.

Ash throws socks at five instead of food. That conversation about winter happens and Ash DOES FALL but it’s into the handmade wheelchair that Five has been using while healing.

Five is always holding a notebook in his hands. I cannot emphasize enough HE IS STILL WORKING TO FIND HIS FAMILY.

THATS when the kiss moment happens.

“Was that not okay? I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the time—“

Five cuts them off with a kiss again and that’s answer enough.

They don’t ask if it’s weird because ITS NOT. They are two people with and established back and forth coming together in this moment.

Five finds the journal on one of his first trips out since his leg has healed enough to walk freely. The dinner is an anniversary dinner but more so to celebrate his leg healing. He shows it to Ash IMMEDIATELY. There is no fear of returning and losing them to someone because Ash is not married to his brother. 👀

Ash and Five end up staying in that greenhouse together while they make sure the journal is legit and figure it out together for a few days.

They finally figure out how to get home using it.

They wait a week to gather supplies to help them to continue on in case the journal screws them over and they got it wrong

Before they leave green house they have one last candle lit dinner and say good bye to it. They leave it all set up and all their things strewn about. Because the things don’t matter they’re going home together and there’s no question of will this last after they’re home because they don’t need to question it. Of course they are. It’s the same as Diego and Lila in season 2 and 3. There’s no questioning it.

They will stay together.

We get a fun scene at Lila and Diego’s house with the whole family talking about everything but Klaus is staring at Five and Ash. He is looking them up and down because they aren’t wearing suit jackets and pants anymore. They’re both in casual. Five is wearing his sweater vest and Ash is wearing jeans and a flannel. Diego calls it out.

“What is this then? No offense to, Ash, right? But why’re you here?”

“I vaguely recall asking you the same question about lila back in 63.”

“Lila’s different”

Lila has picked up on what five has indicated and his body language

“Not sure how different the situation is Di.”

This is when everyone on the couch picks up on it. Allison and Klaus immediately react silently. Klaus open mouthed impress and shock Allison bewildered looking at Ash for confirmation. Ash maybe makes eye contact with Allison and looks away a little embarrassed.

Diego looks at Lila confused “what do you— wait— You’re!” Diego accusatorially pointing a finger at Five. “Since when?!”

“My love life isn’t important right now Diego”

Only when Five says this does Luther pick up on it. He’s got a look of bewildered awe on his face and He looks right at Ash and addresses them.

“Wait, you two are dating?”

Klaus and Allison gag on their water like we got in cannon.

Ash looks like they truly have no idea what to say and five holds the bridge of his nose.

“Really not important right now. Can we get back to what’s important? Like the apocalypse? namely Stopping it?”

They continue their regular conversation about stopping the apocalypse

All of them leave and pretty much everything that happens leading up to my version of the “Cleanse” happens

These next bullets happen in the universe where my version of the ending is cannon once again you can read it here.

They have a meaningful moment on the subway after they’re all speeding away we get him asking them if they regret knowing him. Knowing what was gonna happen. Ash looks at him funny then says they could never.

“Besides. If we do get to live whole new lives… that means you still owe me all the years that we would’ve gotten in this one. Also a pet rabbit. You owe me a pet rabbit too.”

Five laughs “Of course.”

Five is holding them closely when the train hits the reset point.

The next we see them both is when the I detailed as his wife in the polkadot blouse comes walking into the classroom. Now Fives spouse in the true timeline, full name Asher Delores Murphy (Male/Female/ Or Nonbinary) Also PHD is wearing dress pants and a polkadot button up shirt

Maybe in the scene where they’re gathered around a tv in the physics building we see a rabbit cage in the corner. Five got them their rabbit that he owed them.

That’s Ash character arc. Five never stops looking and he falls in love with a character who is always willing and able to meet him where he’s at. Match his energy. Understand him without having to say anything to him. Someone we get to watch learn and teach Five to not shoulder a burden alone. Someone who carries the weight of the world alongside him, while simultaneously bringing out the human side of him that we as the audience rarely get from him.

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Morgan is Different. Morgan is more one sided rivalry to realization that it was actually just tension all along. Fighting with him and being on his side and willing to go down with him in the end.

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Main Key Morgan:

Five — Blue Text

Morgan — White Text

Lila — Pink Text

Klaus — Purple Text

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Morgan

They’re one of the CIA’s newest recruits and very similar to Five from season one. Also a prodigy.

Desperate to prove themselves

They don’t understand why Five keeps getting sent out into the field and they’re being denied the opportunity

“We’re the same age! We have the same experience! We’re technically partners! Let ME try for once!”

Five almost seems to pity them at first which absolutely infuriates Morgan

The first time we as an audience are introduced to them, is when they’re the one who comments on Fives lateness instead of the blond bespectacled operative we aren’t even properly introduced to in season 4

Five doesn’t need to have his suit handed to him he already has remembered it and is wearing it walking in the building.

Morgan is leaning against one of the pillars and they are quick to fall in step with five on his way.

“You’re late.”

“I am aware.”

“If you were aware, you wouldn’t have been late. Do you even know how to read a clock?”

“If anyone is gonna lecture anyone about time it’s me. I’m certain I know quite a bit more about how time works than you do Morgan.”

“Oh really? That’s interesting because last I checked, when you decide on a time to meet and a person gets there after that arranged meeting time, it means they’re late. That’s how time works.”

Five just sighs his defeated sigh and ignores them

He used to deal with worse from his siblings when they were younger. He’s completely fine with this. it’s almost welcomed by five it’s nostalgic for him in a way(the fact he’s never completely phased by the jabs you can tell is infuriating to Morgan)

At the last minute Morgan stops Five before he opens the office door and makes five look at them

Five has been wearing that gross mustache the whole time they’ve been talking

Morgan rips the mustache off Fives face and Five recoils

Morgan makes a quip about the mustache before pushing open the door and five walks in with them scowling

There could be a small bit where Morgan could also be suspicious of Five not checking in when his brother is kidnapped

Morgan is also in the room when Five blinks for the first time in eight years in their shared office.

We can tell what Morgan’s space and what’s fives space. Five’s is overly organized with books of mathematics strewn about and a chalk board covered in equations. Morgan’s side is covered in puzzle books. Sudoku, word scramble, decryption puzzle books, anagram puzzle books, books on linguistics, cryptograms. Notebooks with sticky notes just sticking out of every page. Morgan is obviously clever. Curious, a puzzle solver. Needs a challenge.

They just turn around and Fives just gone. They are fucking baffled. They think he walked out in the middle of a conversation. Rude!

Morgan leaves to get something and they come back and Five is falling into the chair bewildered and starts to keel forward.

Morgan is once again baffled. Then their face pass through a few emotions. Starting with irritation then suspicion And finally landing on concern

“I thought you’d left. In the middle of a— Are you alright?”

“No. I don’t think I am…” Five gets up and grabs his jacket and says he’s taking a sick day.

Morgan is absolutely taken aback. “A— You’re? Okay?”

Five ends up doing his thing and driving with his siblings up to New Grumpson

He calls Morgan from the pay phone and has them look into Sy Grossman and Jennifer Grossman

We watch it play out in a vertical split screen.

Morgan gives him the information but you can hear them just before Five hangs up

“There’s no one listed living in New Grumpson under those names Five. Are you gonna—“

“Thanks Morgan. Gotta go”

“Wait! Five! I’m your partner! you can’t just—“

Click.

The audience sees Morgan is slamming the receiver into the dock of the phone over and over again. This happens while the screen transitions Morgan off screen and focus back on Five

Everything that happens in New Grumpson still happens

Five ends up in the subway and comes back

They escape in the van and get into an accident

Five calls again and we get another vertical split screen. This is the call about running the Chrysler and Morgan is sick of this after Five hangs up this time. Instead of lingering on Five we linger on Morgan.

They’ve run the address and they message it to Five but instead of just leaving him to it that first time they meet him and his family at Gene and Jeans apartment.

Five is irritated but Lila doesn’t seem to care and Diego is trying to be cool for Morgan because they’re also from the CIA

Diego leaves and while Morgan is investigating something on the other side of the room Lila asks the blink question and they have that conversation with Morgan in the room.

Morgan doesn’t know what blinking is but it’s something they latch onto because Five can’t do it.

“What is it five? What do you mean by blink? You have to let me in! I can help!”

they’re poking him when Lila says to get back on the horse and grabs Five.

“Don’t!”

All three of them end up in the subway

Morgan is absolutely horrified and nearly throws up

“Oh my god! What did you do?! What is this?! Am I in hell? Is this 9-5 commuter hell?!”

Morgan is visible my freaking out in the background while Five and Lila argue about what she’s just done

Lila doesn’t care she’s just kinda whatever she doesn’t fully work for the CIA like Five does, she’s just doing it to feel alive again , same as Diego wants too. (look at that they’re Diego and Lila are husband and wife and they want the same thing? Who’da thought it?)

They are straight up just going to leave Morgan on the platform as when the tarain pulls into the platform (Morgan is not part of the family yet they are tagging along at this point.)

Morgan doesn’t wanna be left alone so they jump the train with the other two.

“Where you going to leave me there?!”

Simultaneously “You’d’ve been fine.” “Yes.”

“We’d have come back for you…”

“At some point”

“Probably”

Morgan glares at them both and is silent pretty much the whole rest of the trip. Lila cracks a joke at them about their crack about ‘commuter hell’ but Morgan scowls and ignores her

Five comments on how Morgan is taking this remarkably well. Morgan’s response is very curt and the only real response they give for a while

“I work for the CIA. Secrets are what we do. I will ask you more questions about those secrets when I’m no longer trapped in a weird freaky subway with you.”

EXTREME FORESHADOWING.

“You aren’t trapped. Trust me. You’d know it if we were trapped here.”

Everything happens like it did before with the breadcrumbs commentary and being shot at by OG timeline Five

Morgan and Five deal with being shot at like pros and Lila is as she was in the show not the best at it and they all get on the subway. Lila is last this time.

They come back to apartment they blinked out of and learn about the file. from here on out Morgan refuses to leave Five alone.

Morgan comes with to Reginald’s house. They’re there for the conversation about Ben’s death and the mind control.

Five has obviously filled in some details on the way and Morgan is able to deduce details themselves and provide an outside perspective

All of the siblings are a little weirded out by the fact Morgan is there. They ask who Morgan is and Five tells them that Morgan is his partner. (This could be the fun start of a joke where Five NEVER elaborates on that word and all of the siblings are like what does he mean by Partner? But all of them refuse to ask because they know he’d never tell them.)

Reginald, Diego, and Allison I think wouldn’t appreciate Morgan being there but Five would actually stand up for them.

I don’t know how he would or what would be said but it feels like it would be a weird kind of turning point for the trust between the two

Then finally they get to memory machines and I’m not sure if he would let Reginald restore his memory or not. (If he did I think he’d tell Morgan to shoot Reginald if this looks like it’s going bad. And Morgan would respectfully agree to.)

Everything happens like normal and they get called out to the Alpaca Farm Massacre site where Ben murdered all those people

The conversations are the same including Lila convincing Five to use the subway except this time Morgan is present for it

Morgan Volunteers to go with instead of Lila

“I have the training. I think It would make more sense for me to go.”

This is when Lila snaps. She, like Diego, wants to be important to the mission but it’s more subtle than Diego. She doesn’t just wanna be a mom but also a bad ass and this subway stuff is scratching her itch and filling her need of getting out of the house and away from Diego for a bit. Morgan is threatening that.

“How on earth does it make more sense for you to go? I was raised an assassin and what are you some CIA puppy? New recruit Wanna prove yourself so badly? Think you’re tagging along on a fun adventure? It’s not fun. It’s life or death. I have way more experience with that than you’ll ever have.”

Five is staring at Lila a little taken aback at the outburst but Morgan is impassive and gentle in their response.

“i recall how dangerous it was Lila, but unlike you, I don’t have any family. I am, for lack of a better word expendable. If something happens Five can leave me behind and come back to let you all know that route is bust. It makes more sense for ME to go with him.”

We can focus on five and Lila’s reactions to this response. Lila seems embarrassed and agrees respectfully that

“yeah um yeah sorry no you make a good point. I gotta report in anyway.”

(I’m so sorry every time I try to write for Lila I feel like I’ve written garbage for her. I’m so sorry. She deserves better than me.)

Five doesn’t say anything to Morgan about that but you can tell it’s struck a cord with him. He doesn’t like the idea of that. Of Morgan thinking they’re expendable.

Diego walks over to Lila and they converse same as before while Morgan and Five walk over to their CIA boss they have the same conversation about babysitting Diego and Luthor maybe this time also Lila.

Morgan maybe mentions talking to Lila and Diego seriously about joining the CIA.

Five is once again taken aback by how considerate Morgan is being.

Everything happens leading up too Morgan and Five walking into the subway and just before they do five asks if Morgan is sure about this. Morgan agrees that yes they are.

“Field work like this is why I joined the CIA. I wanted to do big things and i don’t think it hets much bigger than trying to work out how to use an inter dimensional subway station to save the world from devastation.”

Five nods his head in a conceding motion and he blinks them into the subway.

When they get there Morgan pulls out a little book from their pocket and starts writing down more of the symbols from the walls and train.

We get a conversation about this where Five asks Morgan about it, and says he recalls them doing the same thing when they were on the subway earlier.

Morgan shrugs and explains that they’ve always enjoyed word puzzles.

“I’ve always thought that Decryption was just a more fancy way of saying puzzle, and you know how great I am at those.”

Five makes a sound of concession once again and we get our first real grin from Morgan. Morgan isnt being hostile this time and it’s shocking.

“Besides! It’d be good to figure out how to read what’s written on the walls. Could be helpful and it may be the key to understanding this place and why it’s here.”

Morgan is trying to be fun and interesting because they’re excited. They’re is excited that they’re finally in the field. That’s all they’ve been asking for. They just wanted to be allowed to try.

As the two board the train we hear Morgan comment out loud about how alien the symbols look. They aren’t typical symbols like other symbolic languages. They maybe comment on certain similarities to other ancient languages that are dead that scientists haven’t been able to place but that they’re still different. Gosh they wish they had their textbooks to study this better. That’s fine though. This note book will help when they get home.

After that the same things happen that Five did with Lila in the other timelines on this excursion with Morgan. (I.E. Traveling back in time in the sparrow timeline and all that with Five exasperatedly saying they aren’t going to wing this and it was a terrible idea. He’s immediately calling the mission and saying it’s a bust.)

Morgan runs into the train with him and tries to convince him that it’s fine! They can’t quit after only one attempt.

They’re having a back and forth about this still on the train when the train passes their stop.

Five notices and has to quiet Morgan

“That was our stop.”

“What?”

“We just passed our station.”

“What do you mean what’s—“

The PA comes on and we hear garbled reversed speech and then “express”

Simultaneously “Shit.” “Shit!”

Instead of just a shot of the tunnel flashing green we get a shot of them inside the train looking at one another and both look shaken

“Five?”

A flash of green and we move on

Then it’s same thing as before we get a montage of the two losing their shit at one another over the fact that they’re lost. Which similarly to the other love interest before eventually the becomes mutual respect, care and love for each other.

It’s different from the previous love interest because they’re both “trained” as field agents. Both would have survival skills except one of them is also trying to solve an insane decryption issue at the same time.

While we watch this version of Five trapped in the Subway with Morgan it becomes clear to us as the audience that we are essentially watching the same thing we did in season 1, where Five was trapped alone, but with two people instead. In this case too we realize Morgan is taking on Five’s role from the original timeline. They are the one who seems to feel this intense drive to understand this particular problem. Five having done this all before becomes the Delores of the two. A support system. Always Helping and trying to keep Morgan sane. He recognizes and feels like he’s watching the same thing happen to Morgan that happened to him in season 1. However this time the key to understanding this isn’t something he can solve with mathematics. It’s words and he’s never been great with those. Sure, he can speak plenty of languages, but he’s never had to translate an entirely new language from scratch before. Morgan is the only one of them that has experience with that. Morgan is the key this time.

We get to see the years progress through Morgan’s “Notes” and it’s a montage set to “Dear God — Remastered” by XTC

The Notes are along the outer edges of the screen and the scenes we watch are super imposed on top of the “notebook” itself like we’re watching it on the books

The first year it’s just a bunch of wild scribbles Morgan isn’t writing anything down in it slowly. They’re frantic because they wanna get home. We see five and them arguing the same as we watched him and Lila do in the original

The second year they’re both in survival mode. Cooking food and making fires collecting supplies.

The notes are more organized. There are some sketches of the platforms. The symbols are better sketched at the top with more care. Morgan seems to be trying to visually keep track of stations

Year three is when the notes start to get more and more clear but still no words or even letters are decoded. There are notes about how time feels like it’s passing but “is it really?” Time is resetting every stop they make. Is the subway taking them back in time of freezing time everyone they’re in it? There’s a scene of Morgan scribbling angrily on the book and throwing it down the train car and falling down on the bench.

We watch Five get up like he’s done this a million times before (we get the sense he definitely has) and pick it up. He walks back over, slides it into Morgan’s pack and sits down next to them. Morgan leans into Five’s shoulder looking somewhat defeated. Five seems surprised by this but doesn’t push them away.

We get the chess scenes and in this variation they find a deck of cards so we get a billion scenes of them playing card games.

Year four the notes in the margins are sharp. Morgan is getting better at sketching the same things over and over. We start to see questions pop up about repeating letters and why doesn’t there seem to be any? Sketches of the PA system. Sketches of the train car’s interiors.

This is the year where there’s more laughter and intimacy in the interactions between them. There’s the visions of them caring for one another. In various ways Morgan bandaging Fives hand. Five fixing a dislocated shoulder for Morgan. Morgan shaving Five and Five cutting Morgan’s hair.

Year five is when interesting questions start popping up in the margins of the screen. We see sketches of the door mechanisms form in the train. Questions like is it possible to drive? WHO is driving? What is driving? Do we want to know? Can we get in there? A sketch of the drivers car through the window of the train but it’s impossible to see through a blacked out window in the sketch. A caption of “drivers car impossible to reach. new plan is the old plan?”

This is the year becomes clear there’s real feelings forming between the two but they are also looking really tired. Morgan starts falling asleep tucked next to Five.

Morgan just keeps staring at the book and you see scenes of five taking it from them and pointing to the sleeping cot or handing them food. They reluctantly take it and sit right next to Five and eat with their head on his shoulder

Year six is when the margins start fading from the screen and we pan up away from the book

A string of symbols on a page and the word “Station” circled. A double sided arrow connects the two as we pan away from this we see it’s written on the pages of the book that is in Morgan’s hand. They’re clutching it in one of their hands as they sleep and l are in the same position we saw Five a Lila in under the umbrellas.

The six year montage ends not with despair but with a kind of hope

So the next time we see them their conversation isn’t about giving up. It’s about really sitting down and cracking into this. Morgan really thinks they can solve this. But it’s just so hard to focus like this. It’s off hand in reference to moving around on the subway

“Morgan, what do you need to solve this. Anything you need we’ll figure it out. You need to tell me what it is though.”

“If I could just.. I don’t know… sleep. Like really sleep. In a bed… bathe? Shower, if I can? I know I could get this… WE could get this… We’re so close…”

Five agrees and they have a conversation about instead of staying in the subway going somewhere to work in peace where they don’t have to scrounge. Just for a while until they’ve fully cracked this.

They debate and land on that greenhouse so they GO THERE to sit and decode it

We get a scene of them setting up shop. Just after they’ve cleaned up. And it’s a nice scene like you get in any romance show or movie where the characters are seeing each other for the first time in a new light for real. (like a wow look at you I never realized just how nice this person is to look at?)

And we get a few scenes throughout the episode of them slowly but surely solving it. More letters going up in a bulletin board connected to symbols with twine and other things salvaged. Interspersed with moments of them eating dinner and playing cards. Playful throws of paper. Morgan excitedly running in with a record player and putting it on. They drag Five away from the bulletin board and start dancing. Five argues they should keep working but Morgan says that if they don’t take breaks they’re gonna go crazy staring at the symbols so please just dance. Do something for himself you know?

Five kinda has a moment that you see where he recalls that’s exactly what happened with him originally. He NEVER stopped and he went insane on the OG timeline.

So he takes a real minute not like the games before. Just a real minute to dance.

The two laugh Morgan trips Five catches them

Five’s holding them close

They look in one another’s eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Something for myself.”

He kisses Morgan and Morgan reciprocates.

AND BY GOSH BY GOLLY WE HAVE A WELL BUILT RELATIONSHIP THATS KiNdA ONE SIDED RIVAL TO LOVER

The last scene we have of them in the greenhouse obviously more time has passed

Five does the same thing he did for Lila. He makes Morgan something. I think Five fixes them up a Rubix cube or even whittles them a cool wooden hand held puzzle. Like one of those puzzle balls or even a puzzle box that has something else in it? Idk. I just feel like a ring or any type of jewelry is too cheesy and fast to be in the box So maybe it’s just the box. Morgan loves it and gives Five something in return. They’re like it’s not as crazy as a hand carved gift but they took some time between solving the decryption to go and find him something special. It’s a mug that used to say “Life Is About More Than Coffee.” but coffee is crossed out with red paint and in big red letters it says Apocalypses so it now reads “Life Is About More Than Apocalypses”.

Five can’t stop laughing when he looks at it. It’s stupid. It’s a dumb joke that’s really insensitive to him the more you focus on it. He’s told Morgan all of stories about all 3 of the apocalypses he’s experienced in his life during these six years trapped here with them, but for some reason the fact they took time out of their day to repair this cracked mug and personalize a stupid word play joke at his expense makes him lose it. This also happens the same day they completely decode the alphabet. THEY CAN GO HOME BECAUSE THEY ARE ABLE TO READ THE MAP NOW. (I can’t begin to tell you how mad I am that that alien language was never talked about once. Or the fact that they never considered trying to decode it at any point? They’re stuck in this subway… LEARN TO READ THE SIGNS)

They’re excited but you can tell after the hype dies down it’s a little sad. They kind of liked this existence here. It was simple. Five could sit and do old man things and just keep them alive. He wasn’t the one the solution hinged on so he gets to rest a while. Morgan was spending their all of their time solving a HUGE puzzle. It was kind of heaven for both of them.

They pack up everything that’s needed and leave the deck of cards and a half solved crossword puzzle book they found previously on the table. Something for whomever comes across this place to find.

They have a conversation just outside the greenhouse about what they’re gonna do about what they’ve become when they return

Morgan responds by taking Five’s hand

“One problem at a time right? We’ve decoded the subway. Next is stopping the apocalypse. Then, after that’s done and we know for a fact that we can still stand the sight of one another while other people are present, we’ll worry about filling out the relationship paperwork at the agency.”

Laughing. “There’s paperwork for that?”

“Yes. Lots of boxes to check and forms to fill.”

“If it makes you happy.”

“It does actually. Soothes me.”

Five picks up their bags. “Once more into commuter Hell?”

“I said that one time!!”

There’s a flash of blue and the camera holds on the playing cards and their initials carved into the table (childish maybe Fanfictiony? Probably? I’m not a screen writer!)

I think we also deserve a pleasant little scene to replace when they get back and there’s the whole Lila/Five dramatic cheating reveal on Christmas at her families house 👀👀👀

It would be them all regrouping at Lila and Diego’s house because they get back and it makes sense to regroup there

They walk in holding hands. Five helps Morgan in and refuses to let go of them the whole time they regroup.

The funny stuff comes from everyone on the couch, while explaining their info, trying to figure out what is going on with Five and Morgan.

Five is sitting on the arm of the chair Morgan is in, his arm is around them and finally Klaus is the one to break tension and be like

“Obviously the elephant in the room though… what is THIS!?”

And just motions to five and Morgan and five and Morgan get to explain how the subway was a bust and they got trapped there for almost 7 years

Lila tries to push to use the subway again and they all get in an argument about using it

She argues that Morgan decoded it so they can read the map now.

Five argues back that they decoded how to get back here, it would take weeks to figure out which specific world would be the one they needed to do all of what they wanted

Lila is angry that they didn’t map that while they were stuck

Morgan jumps in with the are you kidding we were stuck there seven years because that’s how long it took to figure out how to read the map all while trying to survive. Sorry that wasn’t enough for them all.

Essentially we get that argument but then the same things cascade like before. Things fall apart and we end up at the end of the world again. Once again my version of the cleanse occurs. (Because I refuse to acknowledge the real ending and think all of them deserve happiness and to live. Sue me.)

These next bullets happen in the universe where my version of the ending is cannon once again you can read it here.

Morgan and Five’s moment of the subway train is not exactly the same as Ash’s but kind of similar. Five asks apologizes for the fact Morgan’s first ever field mission was ending like this. He asks if they regret getting involved with him now that they know what’s happening.

“Are you kidding me? This is the kind of mission kids get told stories about and then join the CIA because of. I got to decode an alien language, time travel, possibly save the world, and fall in love with a super hero… I almost hope this resets because…”

They put a hand on Fives cheek. “I’d love to do this all again… I only got to complete one mission with you as my partner so, please find me? Even if you forget me? Find me. So we can do more big things together.”

“Of course…”

Five is seated with them on the train bench. He’s holding them with one arm and holding his family with the other when the train hits the reset point.

Again the next we see them both, is when the person I called his wife in the polkadot blouse comes walking into the classroom. Now Five’s spouse in the true timeline, full name Morgan Delores Murphy (Male/Female/ Or Nonbinary) Also PHD is wearing dress pants and a polkadot button up shirt is handed a puzzle box when they sit on Five’s desk in the final montage.

In the scene where they’re gathered around a tv in the physics building we five holding a mug aloft. Five drinks from it. It’s personalized to say “Life Is About More Than Rocket Science.” They’re still the same couple who make the same jokes and give the same gifts. No matter what timeline.

That is Morgan’s Arc. Someone who desperately wanted to be Fives equal and prove themselves. Someone who Five saw himself in and refused to let become him. Someone who is helped through the speedrun version of what happened to Five and comes out the other side fulfilled, safe and supported not wired up, scared, and paranoid. Morgan’s character is essentially meant to be a mirror to reflect all of what Five has been doing to others back at him. So Morgan becomes Fives equal by literally experiencing a smaller scale version of what Five went through and being allowed to process it all along side Five in real time.

Thank you so much if you’re still here! I appreciate you taking the time to read this. You’re amazing. If you liked this or have thoughts on it, I would love to discuss these things more with you! Message me! I want your feedback! If you hated this don’t message me. I’m terrified of your feedback! I’m so sorry, and if I could erase it from your memory, I would. Please forgive me.

Thank you so much for reading this far if you have!

Have a wonderful day!

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Extras if you want:

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These are other things I think would be great but have no clue where they could go In the timeline or where they’d be appropriate:

A scene where five asks Morgan about how they were enjoying field work and Morgan says to remind them to tell the boss they never want to go into the field EVER again.

A bit with Ash where it’s established that they always pick up ( I cannot emphasize enough that no matter WHAT TIME. THEY ALWAYS PICK UP) and this is mentioned at some point in the story. maybe they get kidnapped by Gene and Jean. (This is if it’s a 10 episode season and there’s time for this)They don’t pick up. And this is something that Five is immediately shaken by.

I didn’t explain how Morgan would track Five in their outline but it would be kind of a gag I think. Morgan pops up in places where Five asks how they found him. Morgan always replies with

“I put a tracker in your ____”

it’s always a different piece of clothing. His socks. His Tie. His jacket. His hat. His Shirt. and the next time five pops up he’s either removed that piece of clothing or replaced it. The reality? It’s in his shoes. The tracker is in his shoes. And when this is finally revealed to Five in the subway he can’t stop laughing. Of course. He only has like three pairs and one pair is exclusively for work of course that where Morgan would have planted trackers. God he’s an idiot. Morgan is very proud of themselves for this.

An interaction as follows when they’re in the subway or maybe when Viktor says Five’s name:

“Max huh?”

“Yes, it’s short for Maximillian and I hate it. Please don’t start.”

Laughing then “Don’t sweat it. I understand. I’m not a huge fan of my name either.”

Five gives them a curious look.

A Sigh “My Full Name is (Morrigan/Asher) Delores Wilcox.”

We get a shot of Five’s whole demeanor shifting, like he’s been punched in the gut. He’s short circuiting. He’s blank. No fucking way. No FUCKING way. No fucking WAY. That is NOT their middle name. (If he had a nickel for every time he’d been stranded somewhere in time for a great many years with only someone named Delores for company, he’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s insane it’s happened twice)

Love interest takes this as a sign he hates it too.

“Yeah see?! Even you think it’s awful. God damn it! Please don’t—“

“It’s wonderful.”

“What?”

“I love it. It’s perfect for you.”

“Really? You don’t think it’s too fancy?”

“I think it suits you…”

“Oh, well… thank you.”

There’s silence while they go about doing things. Five breaks it suddenly

“Weird question but… how do you feel about sequins?”

“I love them?”

“I fucking knew it.”

“What?”

57 notes · View notes

hedonistpoet06 · 5 months ago

Text

What If The Storm Ends? - Part 1 Five Hargreeves x Female OC

'What if Five's time during that first apocalypse was slightly different, what if he wasn't alone for all those years?'

Synopsis: On April 1st 2019, the world ended. Icarus had indeed flown too close to the sun when Five Hargreeves pushed the limits of his power. The boy desperately yearned to use his powers to time travel and when he succeeded, he found himself trapped in the future apocalypse. Octavia Maddenfield had spent her whole life hiding her ability to shield and protect, only for it to save her when an asteroid collided into the earth, effectively wiping out all of humanity. The two teenagers are ecstatic to find that they are no longer alone in the apocalypse, however they must learn to navigate their newfound dynamic as Five tries to time travel back to the past and stop the end of the world from ever happening. Octavia is intrigued by the boy's sarcastic demeanour but also incredibly frustrated by his secretive nature, especially towards his past. And Five despises how easy Octavia can make him vulnerable, he tells himself that he cannot become invested in their obvious connection but something about her is so undeniably captivating.

Authors Note: This work is also available on my Wattpad under the users 'hedonistpoet04' and AO3 'heartofthehedonistpoet06' if you wish to read it there!

Word Count: 5099

☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°☆

𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐈 - 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐫̶𝐨̶𝐦̶𝐜̶𝐨̶𝐦̶ 𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐩𝐬𝐞

i. 𝐁𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐬, 𝐑𝐮𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Octavia Maddenfield met Five Hargreeves during the second spring of the apocalypse.

The young girl had surprised herself with how long she had kept herself alive during the end of the world before she found him. During those first two years Octavia tried to tally the days but it was often difficult to keep track of the passing of time.

It was just before midday and Octavia had left the safety of her base to scavenge the city for anything resourceful, mostly food since that was of the utmost importance for her survival. She climbed the endless wreckage of concrete, metal and broken glass for what felt like hours. Octavia had explored most of the outskirts of the city but this was the deepest she had ever searched into it. She hoisted herself up onto a particularly large piece of concrete until her movement was suddenly paused by the foreign sound of something moving, something alive.

Octavia immediately froze at the reverberation of the sound throughout the otherwise lifeless landscape. She then quickly hid behind a particularly large piece of debrief, shielding her silhouette before turning her head to pinpoint the source of the noise. Her heart thudded painfully in the cavern of her chest, she could practically hear its pounding resonance deep within her eardrums. Octavia found herself polarised by the sudden prospect of seeing another person, another human being who was alive and made of flesh and bone. Her heart's incessant beating stopped abruptly when she identified the clear figure of a boy who had to be no older than herself. His back was turned and his face was hidden but she was able to extract some of his key features.

The boy had dark brown hair which looked somewhat overgrown and a slender physique, both were probably attributed to the apocalypse. Octavia felt slightly at ease by the knowledge that the first human she had seen in two whole years was most likely around her own age, however, she was also terrified. She stiffened when she saw the large hunting rifle he had strapped to his back as he continued to burrow through the wreckage like a hungry marsupial.

Octavia couldn't help but grow jealous at how fortunate this stranger must have been to have come across a gun in this desolate wasteland, as she was forced to make do with the few knives she could find that weren't completely rusted.

He was muttering to himself whilst digging through the debris, as if he was intently looking for something. Octavia peeked her head out a bit further out to try and hear what he was saying only for the attempt to be futile. She felt an overwhelming surge of curiosity and adrenaline coursing through her body, encouraging the girl to get closer and decipher what exactly this boy was doing. Careful to not disrupt him, she slowly started to crawl on all fours until she reached a fallen pillar. Octavia decided that this was close enough and inched her head out to get a clearer look. The boy in question was still oblivious to her presence, he continued to mumble to himself and she noticed his demeanour grew irritable. He swore under his breath before throwing a chunk of rubble into the distance, as if that was going to alleviate his frustration.

Octavia flinched at his sudden action and instinctively sought refuge behind the pillar. Unfortunately the sound of her quick movement had caught his attention. She froze and clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle the small surprised gasp that was about to leave her lips. It was too late, the boy knew that she was here or he was at least aware that somebody was watching him. Octavia was painfully aware of the large, lethal rifle strapped to his back as she heard him load and cock it, preparing to shoot.

She was stuck in a rather complicated situation, she couldn't run in case he decided to shoot her and if she tried to jump out and defend her honour he'd probably also shoot her. She was trapped with nowhere to go, so Octavia did what she told herself was a last and final resort. She used her powers on him.

She swiftly emerged from her hiding spot behind the pillar and met the eyes of the boy in front of her. Although he was still a good few strides away from her, Octavia could see the bewilderment in his eyes at her appearance. However, the barrel of the gun was still pointed in her direction and this made her panic. Octavia quickly outstretched her hands and focused all of her energy on manifesting her powers. She drew all of her focus into conjuring a forcefield big enough to encase the boy in front of her. Soon, the familiar lilac light of Octavia's ability had erupted around him, encasing him in a small but sturdy forcefield. She watched as he lowered the gun and darted his head to examine the newly formed forcefield, obviously taken aback by the abrupt manifestation of her power.

"Don't you dare move!" Octavia called out. She tried her hardest not to sound intimidating, after all she did have the upper hand in this situation. Although, the girl's voice slightly faltered, intimidation bleeding through her attempt at assertion. The boy took a step back in his new confinement, as if he was analysing the sphere around him. His eyes then darted from the forcefield to her.

"I wasn't going to attack you!" He snapped back, although the pitch and the youth present in his voice made it sound rather half hearted.

A complicated pang resonated in Octavia's chest at the realisation that this was the first person she had seen in two entire years. She wasn't exactly sure how to respond to the situation at hand, should she laugh? Cry? Or maybe just focus on making it out of here alive without a bullet between her eyes.

"You were pointing a gun at me!" Octavia retorted, gesturing to the rifle.

"You snuck up on me!" He bickered back and she quickly became aware of just how young they both sounded, like true teenagers quarrelling with each other.

"You have a gun!" She reiterated.

"You trapped me in a bubble!" The boy exclaimed before he demanded to be let go "get me out of this thing!"

"It's not a bubble!" Octavia countered, slightly offended at his belittling choice of words, "Besides, how do I know you're not going to hurt me?" she interrogated him further, eyeing the rifle in his hands.

"Okay, no gun. See? I'm not going to shoot you." He quickly shuffled the weapon to its original spot on his back and put his hands up as if he were surrendering.

"Not now you certainly aren't." She said, clearly referring to the forcefield around him. "Struggling is pointless by the way." Octavia tried her hardest to sound cocky.

The boy's eyes shot Octavia a withering glare, he saw straight through the facade of her confidence. "Yeah, obviously," he muttered back, trying to tug against the force field only to no avail.

He gives one more useless tug before he stops, scoffing. "Can you get this thing off of me?" The boy huffed, his irritation only growing.

Octavia had actually considered letting him out, a part of her youthful naivety believed that he was harmless enough but she was brought back to reality by the weapon that he carried and the fact that he was a total stranger.

"Only if you can promise me two things." She finally said, lowering her hands slightly but kept the forcefield maintained. She watched as the boy raised a brow at the bargain, clearly somewhat puzzled. He looks her up and down again, still eyeing her warily and Octavia suddenly felt extremely self conscious, like he was trying to dissect her with his eyes, which he was.

Five was still slightly disorientated by the purple light which surrounded him. A small part of him was impressed at the supernatural ability this girl obtained, the other part of him was pissed that he couldn't use his own to spatial jump out of her stupid bubble.

"And what exactly is that?" His voice was filled with dry amusement as she noticed him slowly but smugly cross his arms behind the lilac force field.

"Firstly, you'll tell me who you are..." Octavia started to speak as she looked him up and down again, examining to see if he had any other hidden weapons on him "and secondly, you have to promise not to kill me." Her cheeks slightly flush in annoyance as she sees him let out a chuckle at the girl's request, as if he found it humorous.

"Five," He announced matter of factly. "My name's Five," he glanced up at the force field again. "And I promise not to kill you," he responded with a bit of a scoff, in disbelief at the absurdity of his own words.

"Like the number?" Octavia raised her brow in surprise as she was genuinely taken aback by the absurdity of his name. The numerical nature of the boy's name was certainly not what she was expecting.

The boy, now renowned as Five exhaled a frustrated breath before pinching the skin between his brows. "Yes, like the number," he responds with a monotonous voice, like he's answered that question one too many times before.

"You only promised me two questions for my freedom, so let me out!" He said, growing increasingly more infuriated. Although Octavia had an abundance of questions regarding the peculiar name she subdued her curiosity into the back of her mind as she remembered their bargain.

"Right, sorry." She quickly muttered an apology and focused her energy on levitating the boy through the forcefield, hovering him just above the ground and moving him closer to where she stood. A perk of Octavia's unique ability was being able to control the contents inside her forcefields, including making them float. She watched in amusement as Five looked absolutely perplexed at his sudden levitation, his eyes flickered between his feet and back up at Octavia.

"What the hell—" he muttered, startled at the lack of ground underneath him. Octavia closed her eyes and focused her effort into deactivating the force field, slowly but surely the lilac light began to melt away. She watched as Five fell to the ground in a not so graceful manner, his sense of balance obviously disrupted by the sudden air trip.

"Crap! Sorry-" Octavia grimaced at the sound and started to move towards him to help him back to his feet but she held herself back. He's stunned, trying to re-ground himself for a moment before shooting an annoyed look up at her and she can't help but feel slightly guilty.

"Could've tried to make that a bit more graceful." Five huffed out, somewhat breathless from the abrupt descent to the ground.

Octavia watched as he stood up and dusted off his oversized black jacket. Five was now only a few feet away from her and this granted Octavia the opportunity to get a good look at his appearance. As much as Octavia was reluctant to admit it to herself, he was undoubtedly the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. Even when all things at the end of the world were considered, he was most certainly not that unfortunate looking. Five was definitely not in the cleanest state, neither was Octavia as their personal appearances were the last of their concerns when it came to their respective survival.

Octavia never considered boys her age to be cute or even somewhat appealing, her only understanding of what made a boy attractive were the boy band posters on the wall of her childhood bedroom. But something about Five was so endearing to her, from his slender cheekbones, to his green eyes or the way his messy, outgrown hair slightly covered his eyes. Maybe it was the fact that he was the first boy she had seen in two years or perhaps it was just the subconscious desperation from being alone for so long. As Five stood a few steps away from Octavia she was able to discern that he was hardly taller than herself, maybe a few inches give or take.

Five had never taken a particular interest in girls, especially before the events of the apocalypse. He respected them of course, he had two sisters after all, Allison and Vanya. Despite the fact that they could often get on his nerves, he admired his sisters, although not to the same degree as Luther who habitually made heart eyes at Allison across the dinner table. Five didn't understand the appeal of them as he watched Luther practically drool like a puppy over his adopted sister. Perhaps the boy's mind was too preoccupied with other more important things such as mastering his ability to time travel through his spatial jumps.

But when Five's eyes first laid themselves on Octavia up close he felt an unfamiliar sense of intrigue consume him. The boy was quick to disregard it as natural curiosity in response to seeing another human being after the considerable amount of time he spent alone.

Octavia didn't look like any girl Five had known before. She looked like what you'd expect from someone who had survived the apocalypse this long. Her skin and clothes were dirtied. A slightly beaten, oversized green cargo jacket covered most of her young yet malnourished physique. Her ashy blonde hair was pulled back into two braids that hung next to her neck and effectively kept it out of her face.

What surprised Five the most about her however, was the way her lips had suddenly curled into a laugh, a bubbly girlish laugh which was unlike anything Five had ever heard before.

"I really am sorry!" She spoke between a gentle laugh which made Five's ears flush under the aviator helmet he wore.

"I haven't exactly mastered the whole 'levitating your captors' trick yet." She continued.

"Yeah, I'd say you don't quite have it down yet," Five responds with a scoff, raising a brow as he looks at her hands which she was unknowingly flexing and contracting. This was a common mannerism of Octavia's which occurred after she manifested her powers, it was a way to release the built up energy that resided in her palms once she conjured a forcefield.

"How did you do that...?" Five asked, his voice more docile now. There was no residue of impertinence, his question was sincere.

"The 'bubble' thing?" Octavia replied playfully, recycling his little insult from earlier.

"Yeah." He said dryly.

"I've always been able to do it, ever since I can remember." She replied honestly.

"When's your birthday?" Five asked suddenly, the question puzzled Octavia immensely as she tried to determine the relevance of his question. Five however was stunned by the occurrence of finding someone else with a supernatural ability outside of his siblings. As the boy eyed her appearance he realised that she had to be no older that himself, unless she had coincidentally time travelled to the future, which he highly doubted, this girl must have been born years after October 1st, 1989. "Why? Do you want to know my star sign?" Octavia teased, she tried to find the humour in his abrupt and seemingly random question.

"Answer me damn it, when were you born?!" His voice was stern and Octavia was even more confused by his bizarre infatuation with her birthday.

"Jesus fine! It's June 20th 2007." She caved just to shut him up.

"Shit..." Five muttered to himself, almost in disbelief. There was no conceivable way that Octavia could have been one of the forty three supernatural children which Five himself was a part of. She was technically born eighteen years before him, so the chance of meeting someone who also had supernatural abilities was next to impossible, or so he believed.

"So you were... you were young when this all happened, huh?" He spoke up, trying to swiftly redirect the conversation.

"Yeah. I was twelve." Octavia confirmed and Five is painfully quiet, his eyes still examining her with an intense precision like that of a scientist, "What about you?" she asked softly.

"Thirteen." He admitted.

"Only a year older, huh?" Octavia concluded, and Five mentally winced at the complicated situation. Hypothetically yes, he was only one year older than the girl in front of him, however, he was also born almost two decades before her. This was such a mind fuck for Five.

"I guess you could say that." Five shrugged, trying to deflect the possibility of this conversation going any further.

"So you're fifteen?" Clearly his attempt didn't work.

"Correct. Which makes you fourteen now?" Five indulged her.

"Also correct." Octavia shot back and Five had to bite back a small smirk at her sharpness.

"You know, you interrogated me about my name so I think it's only fair that I ask yours." Five figured that he might as-well be polite and ask the name of the bubble conjuring girl who both mildly irritated and intrigued him.

"Octavia." She declared and Five felt his stomach tighten at each syllable that left her mouth. It was an uncommon name, Five certainly couldn't talk when it cam to abstract names but something about Octavia sounded so eloquent, almost old fashioned even. Although he didn't see much of the future as he jumped forward in time he assumed that it was defiantly not a common baby name for someone born in 2007.

"I would say it's a pleasure to meet you Octavia, but these aren't exactly the most pleasurable of circumstances." He said, the formality and authenticity of his voice made Octavia avert her gaze from his own, almost shyly.

"It certainly isn't..." She agreed.

There was a prominent silence between them until Octavia spoke up.

"Sorry for trapping you by the way. I should have known you weren't a fan of bubbles." Five was caught off guard by her genuine apology.

He then replayed the past few minutes in an attempt to put it into perspective, and in all fairness, he was the one with the hunting rifle strapped to him.

However, as Five thought to himself a mischievous idea weaved its way into his mind. He was ready to even the playing field between them.

"It's fine, those were just your flight or fight instincts. Like how mine would be something like this if you didn't trap me first..." Before Octavia could even respond to Five's cryptic response, he suddenly erupted into blue light before her.

He shifts in a split second. Instead of being several feet in front of her he was now only mere inches away. Five looked rather satisfied with himself, a cheshire grin dripping from his face as he watched Octavia's face morph from shock to that of confusion.

"Holy shit!" The girl jumped back in sudden surprise at his sudden manifestation. She stumbled backwards onto her rear, she hit the rubble covered ground and watched as Five let out a small but genuine laugh at her reaction. The boy had missed the dramatic reactions of surprise which he gained from people whenever he used his power. He took a small step closer as he stands over her, looking down with a dry smirk.

"Not feeling so intimidating now, are you?" Octavia watched in disbelief as he extended a hand out to help her up off of her ass. She takes it gratefully although she should have been mad at his little prank, she was fascinated by his own supernatural ability. Five lifted her back to her feet and was slightly stunned at the feeling of another humans skin gracing his own.

Although Five wore a battered pair of fingerless gloves he could feel Octavia's skin against his own, she was warm to his touch. He noticed the way her fingers clasped around his as he helped her to her feet. He admired the callouses which she had evidently earned from surviving this long by herself.

"So you're like me?" She asked and Five retracted his hand, the lingering feeling of her skin on his was plaguing him still despite the loss of contact.

"More or less." He said bluntly, not wishing to elaborate more.

"Wow, sorry." Octavia said shakily, still trying to process everything. "I'm just a little shocked, my whole life my parents told me that I wasn't like other kids and that nobody could know about my ability. But here you are..."

"Alive and breathing," Five said smugly.

"Wait. if you can teleport... Why didn't you just teleport out of my force field?" She asked, smirking slightly as she watched Five roll his eyes.

"You didn't think I tried that, smart ass? It seems you have complete control of the energy in your little bubble, including that of your captors, meaning I was rendered powerless." he retorted "and I don't teleport, that's such an amateur word for something so technical! I prefer to call it spatial jumps, it's the precise manipulation and calculation of spatiotemporal boundaries which I can manoeuvre to get from point A to B-"

"Wow. Nerd alert." Octavia can't help but scoff in amusement at his scientific explanation of his powers. She then proceeded to laugh even harder at the way his eyes squinted in irritation at her reaction.

"You little shit..." He replied at her display of immaturity.

"So, Five, how have you made it this far?" Octavia felt his anger brewing and quickly changed the topic of conversation and gestured to him, referring to his well equipped getup.

He crossed his arms over his chest and gave a small shrug, turning his gaze back to her.

"I just... did," He responds, unbothered with providing anything more.

"I just did." Octavia mocked his ambiguous response, changing the pitch of her voice to sound more serious and stoic, like Five. She felt his eyes glare daggers at hers in response to the childlike mimicry.

He stepped forward now, looking even more annoyed than before. Nobody had tested Five like this, not since his youth when his siblings were still around.

"Watch it." He warned in his typical dry tone which Octavia was starting to grow acquainted with the more he spoke.

As Five stepped forward Octavia quickly manifested her power again, a rectangular shield emerged just in front of the boy as he began to walk towards her.

"Or what?" She said as he walked straight into the shield. The scene before her had reminded Octavia of those embarrassing moments when you would accidentally walk straight into a glass sliding door.

"Oof-" Five grunted as he walked face-first into the force field, nearly toppling backward at the unexpected collision. He stumbled backwards several steps, rubbing the centre of his face where he just collided right into her shield. He looked back at Octavia, a somewhat annoyed but less menacing glare was painted in his green eyes.

"That wasn't funny." He mumbled through gritted teeth.

"Oh come on, that was pretty funny to me." Octavia deactivated the forcefield and she held her stomach as a deep genuine laugh left her lips. It was probably the hardest Octavia had ever laughed during her whole two years of being stuck in the apocalypse alone.

She didn't notice it then but Five's expression had softened for a fraction of a second as she laughed, the reverberation of her voice had filled the otherwise barren space.

And there it was again, that disgustingly unrecognisable feeling that consumed the deepest pits of Five's stomach.

Her laughter had stood out the most to Five, stunning him slightly although he would never admit it in that moment. Octavia's voice was bright and melodic, it didn't irritate him in the same way that Klaus's laughter had when he stole from Allisons wardrobe and proceeded to be chased by her through the mansion, taunting Allison with her favourite skirt. But now, the apocalypse for himself had been characterised by the sound of despair, from the burning debris to the deafening silence.

Octavia's laughter juxtaposed everything else desolate and decrepit which he had become accustomed to hearing after all this time. It was so full of life.

Five then understood why people often referred to others' laughs as being infectious. Octavia's laughter had ignited something, this unfamiliar warmth and queasiness started in his abdomen and soon expanded out into his bones and through to his skin. He felt it everywhere and he hated it. Was this just a symptom of the adrenaline? it had to be.

Five quickly broke away from his thoughts and returned to his traditional, irritated demeanor.

"Oh, you think this is funny?" He asked, taking another step towards her again. A small part of him knew he'd probably walk into another force field again, but he was a little too mad to care right now.

"Hey, give me a break. You're the first person I've seen in how long... like what... two years?" Octavia asked, her laughter subsiding and Five finally felt like he could somewhat relax.

"Have you been by yourself for two years?" Five was curious at her revelation, eager to know if she too had spent the last two years in solitude.

"Yeah. Since day one." Octavia explained. Five noticed a distant look which painted her eyes as if she was recalling the first day she had realised she was alone in this concrete hells-cape.

"And you've made it this far?" Five asked softly and he mentally cringed at how patronising he sounded, he didn't mean for his question to sound that why. The truth was Five was incredibly impressed that she had endured two whole years by herself, finding enough food, water, shelter and even fighting off sickness.

Surviving an apocalypse was no easy feat, Five knew that all too well.

"What? Do you not think that me and my bubbles could have lasted this long?" Five was silent for a moment. Of course he didn't think that, in actuality her power would be incredibly resourceful for the conditions the both of them found themselves in. Five struggled to articulate a defensive statement to her teasing but Octavia spoke up again before he could formulate anything worth saying.

"Do you have a group or something?" She asked and Five subconsciously thanked her for changing the topic.

"No. I'm alone." He admitted.

"Well, I guess that makes two of us." Octavia crossed her arms over her chest before she spoke again, "Your powers.. Are they the reason you survived the initial impact too?"

"Yes." Five looked down at the ground as he answered. He wasn't technically lying, he had survived the destructive impact of whatever ended the world because he had spatial jumped too far into the future. That could theoretically be interpreted as him using his powers to survive the mass extinction of all of humanity, right?

He just simply twisted the truth, that's all. Besides, there was no way Octavia would know if he was lying or not.

"You're a boy of few words, Cinco." She retorted and Five shot his gaze back up towards her.

"God- please don't call me that." Five groaned. The nickname not only irritated him but it was the very title his brother, Diego used to call him and hearing it fall from Octavia's lips was painfully nostalgic.

"Can you blame me?" Octavia shrugged and Five clicked his tongue.

"So... what were you doing out here?" She asked, gesturing to the mountain of concrete behind him.

"Looking for food, what else?" Five explained, his voice straightforward and apathetic.

"Fair enough, we all have to eat. Although I don't think you're gonna find much in that pile of concrete." Octavia wasn't judging the boy for his attempt at searching for resources, more so where he was looking. The landscape before them was nothing but grey desolate rubble.

"Well, I can't exactly afford to be picky, can I?" Five rationalised.

"Touché." She said in an approving tone.

Five didn't exactly know how he should continue the conversation as an elongated silence is exchanged between the two of them. Octavia tried to look anywhere but Five's piercing green gaze as the absence of noise consumed them. Although Octavia had been weary to the boy as a potential threat, she couldn't find it in herself to depart from him so quickly. As for Five, he couldn't extract or define the unknown inquisitiveness that overwhelmed his thoughts. He was standing before another living, breathing human and he couldn't quite believe it, these weren't the rotting bodies he had found buried under the remnants of the city.

Five did not want to depart from her presence so quickly, and he hated it.

"Hey.. I have some baked beans I found not too long ago, you're more than welcome to have some. If you want, that is?" Octavia offered and Five had to replay her voice in his head to ensure what he was hearing was correct.

"You're seriously willing to share your food with me during the apocalypse?" He pointed to himself, his head tilted in disbelief. Was this girl actually offering her own food to him despite trapping him in a bubble only mere moments ago?

"Look, do you want food or not?" Five panicked at her question, like she was threatening to take away the prospect of food so quickly.

"Yes." He said sharply, not caring how desperate he sounded in that second. However, Five felt his face begin to grow warm again when Octavia let out a small giggle at his eagerness.

He despised how easily she could get under his skin.

"Okay, just promise not to murder me on our walk back to mine?" She began to adjust the backpack she had resting on her shoulders and Five took that as the cue that they were leaving.

"If I wanted you to, you would be dead already." Five said proudly. Although his words were grim they carried a weight of truth to them, he probably could have killed Octavia instantly once she freed him from her bubble, but why would he want to do that? Not when he had been alone for so long already.

Even if Octavia was incredibly infuriating there was something about her wit and charm that Five found slightly familiar, somewhat comforting even.

"That's reassuring." She said sarcastically.

"I promise I won't try anything. Cross my heart" Five said, sounding so sincere that it was almost jarring to Octavia.

"Hope to die?" She asked warningly. Five raised a brow at her childish question that he believed to only exist on the school yard.

"You're hilarious. But yeah, cross my heart, I won't kill you. I promise." He shoved his hands in his pockets as they began to walk with Octavia leading the way.

"Watch out, I might just have to bubble you again if you try anything." Octavia held out her hands playfully mimicking how she would manifest her powers. Five rolled his eyes and subdued a small smirk that formed on his face.

"Hey, I always keep my word!" He was almost offended at her skepticism, however he didn't blame her, they were still strangers.

"I'm holding you to it, Five." She replied, looking back to face Five, throwing him a small smile.

#number five #the umbrella academy #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x oc #five hargreeves x reader #fanfic #fanfiction #tua #five hargreeves fluff #number five x reader #five x oc #tua five #romance

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cloverfeildsinbloom · 5 months ago

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Strawberry Field pt.1

~What if Lila and Five stayed at the greenhouse when they first found it? What if there was someone still living there?

{ fuck the writers of season 4 because what was that bullshit?? So this is my way of giving Five the love story he deserves}

[I am also using the theory that Fives given name is Max, like the diner just because I think it’s cool, it’s only briefly mentioned though!]

It had been three years, four months, and four days since they’d gotten in the stupid subway. The pair had explored every stop in hopes of something, anything of home, but there was nothing. Getting tired of scavenging, Five proposed to stay and rest at the next hospitable place, hoping to find somewhere to think and map his thoughts out. That’s when they came upon the greenhouse full of strawberries.

Lila’s eyes widened at the sight of the hundreds of plants around the room, most containing strawberries, but also containing berries and a few vegetables. Quickly, she pulled the man inside behind her and moved to pull off a strawberry, “holy shit these look delicious.” Five let out a laugh as he began to look around. He noticed there was a seating area in the room as well, most importantly he noticed the glass on the table, “uh, Lila, I don’t think we should get too comfortable just yet.” Looking at the boy in confusion as held up a berry, “what do you-“

*Click* *Click* “I’d advise you to step the fuck back,” a voice called from behind them. The sound of a gun made both of them immediately raise their hands, Five turning around faster than the woman behind him. His eyes met the narrowing green ones peaking over the gun, and he felt his heart race. She felt so familiar to him, yet he didn’t recognize her in any way. When their eyes hers immediately widened and her stance faltered, “Max?”

Lila looked between them with confusion, “Max?” The man shook his head, “I don’t know who that is.” Glaring, she straightened her hold and looked between the two, “who are you and why are you in my house?” The raven haired woman spoke up first, “we’re so sorry to barge in, we weren’t expecting anyone to actually live here. We don’t mean any harm.” The look of uncertainty crossed the brunettes face as she looked back to the man standing next to her, “when are you from? How did you find me?”

Five’s brow raised, “when? You asked when we’re from? So you know about the -“ “The subway, yes, now answer the question,” the strange woman rushed, narrowing her eyes, the look of conflict in her face. Stepping forward, Five raised his hands a little higher, “how about we put away the gun and just discuss this normally?” Her green eyes bounced from him to the nerve wrecked woman beside him before sighing and un-cocking the gun

The three of them sat around a small glass table inside the house as the mysterious woman fixed strawberry lemonade for all of them, “how long have y’all been, uh, traveling?” Five’s eyes stayed on her, the feeling of familiarity not going away. Lila eyed him as she answered, “about three and a half years, we’ve been trying to find our timeline.” The freckle faced woman let out a laugh that made the raven haired man’s heart skip a beat, “that’ll be a miracle. Trying to figure that damn system out takes a mad man,” her eyes met Five’s before she looked down to her glass.

Leaning forward Lila questioned, “who’s Max?” The woman visibly froze for a moment before she fixed her posture, “he was my husband, from our timeline,” her finger fiddled with the simple metal ring on her finger, “we found this place together.” Five’s brows furrowed, “what happened?” She shrugged and looked at him, “he had a family to save, just like every last one of you that comes in here.” That caught his attention, “one of me?” Nodding she stood up and grabbed something out of her satchel, as she got closer it appeared to be a picture that looked like it had seen better days. As she handed to him, his face dropped in realization, “Max is me? What happened to him? Is he here?”

Sighing she shakes her head, “no, he uh, he got tired of staying here. I was tired of searching for the inevitable end of our time, and he wasn’t satisfied enough to stay so he left one morning before I woke up. No note, nothing.” Scoffing Five handed her back the photo, “he sounds like an ass hole.” The silent woman next to him looked at her, “do you mind me asking what’s your name?” She gave Lila a smile, “not at all, I’m Lori, short for Delores.” That’s when it clicked for Five, his Delores.

Part 2⬇️⬇️

#five hargreeves #tua s4 #number five #aiden gallagher #five deserved a better love story #hargreeves #tua five #fivehargreeves #five hargreaves x you #five Hargreaves x Oc #five hargreaves #hargreaves

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palindrome17 · 6 months ago

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HELP ME RE-WRITE THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY SEASON 4!!

Hey guys! If you could, please boot this however you can cause this would help me greatly.

I’m currently re-writing season 4 and I was wondering how to make it better!

What things would you like to see or have explained better and give some ideas. I’d love to incorporate as much as I can! Please comment and I’d love to workshop things.

I do have a general gist of what to include but would love to have an audience feedback.

I do want to give this re-write justice :)

Thank you ❤️

#the umbrella academy season 4 #tua season 4 #tua season 4 spoilers #the umbrella academy spoilers #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #ben hargreeves #number five #five hargreeves #oc x five #klaus hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #writing ideas #rewrite #tua s4 #tua rewrite #please boost

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highkeylokied · 6 months ago

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Umbrella Academy (TV), The Umbrella Academy (Comics) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/You, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Original Character(s), Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s), Diego Hargreeves & Original Female Character(s), Diego Hargreeves & You Characters: Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Lila Pitts, Diego Hargreeves, Original Hargreeves Character(s) (Umbrella Academy) Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Angst and Feels, Cheating, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Protective Diego Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Good Sibling Diego Hargreeves, Hurt Diego Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves Deserves Better, The Umbrella Academy (TV) Season 4 Summary:

Elora, the sweet one, the gentle one—she wasn’t someone you thought of as dangerous. But now, looking at her, Diego realized that kindness wasn’t a weakness; it was a choice. And right now, Elora was choosing to be angry, to let the pain turn into something sharp and unyielding.

- An AU taking place in Season 4 Episode 5 with my OC Elora Alcott-Hargreeves thrown into the mix.

#number five #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #five hargreaves x reader #five hargreeves x oc #tua s4 #tua season 4 #tua #the umbrella academy

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tiredemzz · 6 months ago

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S4! FIONA C. AT SOME CHILDRENS BDAY BE LIKE <3

a/n: so how’s yall doing?.. I’m tired af cus I’m not a morning person lmao.

disclaimer: this is basically a rewrite of that tua s4 episode with the children birthday party with lila and diego but my oc is in this season! there will be oc x cannon involved since im shipping five x flame- not five x lila b/c it doesn’t exist on my acc. if you don’t like oc x cannon, then this acc isn’t for you sadly. also i will be adding the deleted scene with five and klaus b/c idk why they didn’t add that scene.. like why? also five & fiora r in there 20s cus its s4 & five isn’t apart of the cia b/c my boi needs a break. also dave is alive b/c klaus needs his bf <3

warnings: fiora breaking the 4th wall, gets a little spicy between five & fiora but they get c0ckblocked by klaus & dave lmao, fluff (ofc), fiora hanging with kids (she can’t stand them sadly but doesn’t mind them.), cussing (ofc), mentioning of fish head (aj aka her adopted father)

a/n: this is my first time writing for these characters, so my bad if they seem ooc. Especially five lmao. (my boy was written worse- fuck you steve.)

We see Fiona herself, smoking a cigarette outside of the birthday party place. She sighed softly in relief, taking a few puffs after a long day of singing in clubs, bars for men/women alike because the girl herself thinks that everybody deserves love in there time.

Except bad people, she really hated bad people and her adopted father, who basically forced her to do evil things and run errands for him but since he’s dead.. Fiona felt relieved and a bit of guilt flowing in her body due to her and adopted father’s relationship with each other but she chose to ignore it, putting out her cigarette and heading back inside to see Grace running towards her with her arms out, hugging Fiona’s waist, making her a bit shook but she looks down at Grace and saids “hey sweetheart, how is my favorite niece doing?” Grace looks up at Fiona and saids “I’m good Auntie Flame! Have you talked with Uncle Five yet?” Grace asks while Fiona blushed a bit by Grace mentioning Five towards her, it’s been a while since those two have talked really- Fiona heard that Five is taking a break to himself but she shrugged and said “I have not sadly. Been busy with my singing and doing alot of painting- so I haven’t really talked with anyone in a while.” Grace pouted a bit and asked “why Auntie?” Fiona sighed softly and said “ever since everything has gone back for normal, I been going to therapy to talk about the past and who I really am inside. Except I still have my powers because I want to have them forever, I don’t want them to go away. I enjoy having them. Been taking time for myself to focus on my mental health and yeah.” Fiona smiled softly at Grace while Grace understood Fiona and smiled back at her.

“Now your Auntie Flame is gonna have fun, okay?” Fiona said, going down on one knee and kissed Grace on the forehead, making Grace giggle and said “ok but make sure you join me in the ball pit later, ok?” Grace asks her while Fiona laughed a bit and saids “alright alright, I promise I will but right now.. let me go have fun. Bye bubbles.” Grace giggles, waving at Fiona and going to have fun. Leaving a smiling Fiona on one knee and slowly getting up, standing on her feet.

Fiona began to walk around the place, seeing parents having fun with there children and slowly not smiling anymore since she never found her real parents but she decided not to give two fucks about it.

She noticed the bubbles, making her smile and popping one. While she popped one bubble, she felt someone watching her from afar and she noticed that a smiling Five was watching her while holding beer in his hand, making Fiona walk slowly towards him while smiling a bit and said “Five Hargreeves, my long time frenemy and the man who killed the fish head aka my adopted father. How are you old man?” Five deep chuckled a bit and said “Fiona aka the demon gal who hated me cus I killed her horrible adopted father and had to do it for my family. I’m doing well Flame, how about you?” Five said with a bit of a sarcastic tone in his voice and taking a few sips of his beer.

“Well, I been doing great. You mind giving me beer?” Fiona said with a bit of a soft tone in her voice, Five hummed a bit, giving her a beer bottle as well.

“Thanks Romeo, appreciate it.” Fiona said while smiling softly, opening the beer bottle, taking a few sips of it and just smiling softly at the children running around the place while Five smiled softly, just staring at her and asked “you thinking about something?” Fiona sighed a bit, looking at Five and answered this “yeah, just watching the children run around the place like they own it- reminds me of myself as a child. Good times good times really.” Five hummed softly at her answer and decided to hold out his hand, he asked “you uh wanna hold my hand love?” Fiona nodded yes and began to hold his hand while taking that hand back and deciding to grab on his tie with a bit of a smirk and asked “so you uh got any plans pretty boy? I’m loving the new look of the new you. Suits your pretty self.” Five smiled a bit, looking down at Flame and said “no, I don’t have any plans really.. didn’t expect you to be confident. Why’s that?” Fiona let go of his tie, answered with “I been using my charm- I call it the demon flirt charm. It’s uh something but eh. I don’t really like to be confident in myself.”

Five sighed softly, wrapping an arm around Flame’s shoulders and said “Listen to me sweetheart, you always feel confident in yourself. Be proud of that, be proud in your heart that you can still do the things that you love. You still kick ass Flame, still do and you can’t forgot that on how many times you managed to beat me at arm wrestling.. and sometimes Smash Bros when we were back in season two.” Flame started to laugh softly, feeling happy and said “yeah, those were good times- I mostly blame my author sometimes for stupid shit.” Five chuckled a bit at the last part on what Flame said. Suddenly Klaus, alongside his boyfriend Dave started to walk towards Five and Fiona.. Klaus said “Fiona! Five!” Fiona started to run towards Klaus, giving him a hug while smiling softly, still holding her beer while looking up at him and said “Klaus! I missed you buddy. How are ya? Also who’s the boy next to you?” Klaus chuckled softly, messing with Fiona’s hair a little bit and said “Fiona, homie- this is my boyfriend Dave. Dave, this is my homie Fiona.” Fiona waved softly at Dave while Dave waved back at her and said “It’s nice to meet you Fiona, heard so much stuff about you. Coming from Klaus ofc.” Fiona laughed a bit and started to stand next to Five while smiling softly.

Five started to ask “So, how long have you been sober Klaus?” Klaus responded with “Oh, uh, coming up on three years on January 15th, but who’s counting right?” Five said “that’s amazing” while Fiona gave Klaus a thumbs up, she was proud of her bestie becoming sober for three years and Fiona said “Really, good for you buddy. Proud of ya.” Klaus smiled softly at the two and said “thanks guys, really appreciate it.” Dave started to have an arm around Klaus while feeling proud of his boyfriend while Klaus, Five and Fiona did a toast with there beer bottles.

Feeling proud of themselfs for surviving.

Flame started to check her watch, sighing softly and said “I was supposed to join Grace at the ball pit- fuck. Gonna need somebody to go with me.” Five decided to go with her while the two waved goodbye at Klaus and Dave.

While the two were walking, Five said “I don’t really have a choice on joining, do I?” Flame said “nope, you don’t. You’re her uncle ofc.” As soon as they got to the ball pit, Five pushed Flame into it, laughing a bit at Flame while Flame got a little annoyed at him but soon she saw Grace, Grace was giggling and laughing at the duo while Flame rolled her eyes playfully. Soon enough, Five got in as well- he didn’t like it but eh. You win some, you lose some.

•

a/n: well- how’s that yall? good? good. hope yall enjoyed this little oneshot/drabble of s4 flame and everybody else. Yes- I added Dave b/c he and Klaus were fucking cute! Anyway, hope I wrote Five better then *cough* Steve *cough* did. I do appreciate freedback- so if you got any freedback on this.. let me know!

anyway, have a great rest of your weekend, day, night or wherever you live. Stay safe and take care of yourself ^v^

-author anon !

disclaimer, you are not allowed to copy and paste my work on to wattpad, a03 or deviantart or tumblr. that’s stealing and plagiarizing. And I will not allow that. >:(

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mangoshorthand · 2 months ago

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The final chapter of A Hargreeves Christmas Carol is at last written, by the skin of my teeth!

I'll post it tomorrow (Christmas Eve) but before 10am GMT to give you guys plenty of time to read it given the day is so busy for most. (Hopefully for most of you that means it should be there for when you wake up or not long after.)

Expect two reformed Scrooges, shades of angst, and a final briefcase encounter! 🎄

#five hargreeves fanfic #five hargreeves #number five #Five hargreeves/oc #five hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy imagine #five hargreeves x you

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bryyceon · 5 months ago

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new brush new me, anyways my first posted time drawing a kiss :3 i luuuuv self insert x canon, als ignore the wings ive only ver had the time to draw at nite when im tired as FUCKKK so i dont feel like drawing detailed wings so boom, fluffy blobs. (also tried to draw s4 fives hairstyle and i dont think it looks like him :( but whatever its cute ig)

#the umbrella academy #tua #the umbrella academy fanart #self insert #tua self insert #five hargreeves #number five #oc art #self insert x canon #the umbrella academy oc #this is kind of cringe wait urgh

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badkitty3000 · 2 months ago

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It's A Wonderful Life, Five Hargreeves

So, I got two asks today about Christmas stories:

**are you going to put your other Christmas story on here? Not trying to be pushy it's just easier to read them on here and I saw you linked others. I love your stories btw :⁠-⁠**

and

*I loved your Santa Five story. Would you be willing to do another like it? Something for the season? 🙏🙏🙏*

So, first of all, thank you so much to both of you! Wow! I was assuming the first ask was about this story? This is a multi-chapter one I wrote a year ago on AO3. It's a cross between It's A Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol, with Five getting a visit from his guardian angel after he's not doing well without his powers in Reggie's new world, post-season 3 (written before season 4 came out). I will post it below.

In regards to the other ask, I won't be writing any new ones most likely this season, but I do have a couple other one-shots that were part of a series and that @kaybreezy3000, who is the co-author on them, and I are currently working on to make them into reader-inserts for tumblr. Those should be posted soon.

Thank you again and I hope you enjoy this sexy, sad, but sweet with a happy ending Five story! Have a wonderful holiday everyone! Cheers!

A Five x Female OC, 22k words, multi-chapter, cross-posted on AO3 from 2023

Warnings: Explicit sex, rough/angry sex, but also sweet sex, little bit of daddy kink

Chapter One: Candy

Number Five does not believe in God, or Heaven, or Religion as a whole. He knows what Klaus has told him, about the Void, and he knows he’s not lying. It’s just that Five is a man of science and logic, and he operates on proven theories and facts. He figures whenever he dies someday, if there is something to see, then and only then will he develop a belief system. He doesn’t really see the point in speculating about something that is inevitable anyway.

So, if someone were to tell him that guardian angels really existed, he’d laugh in their face. He’d ask for proof; solid evidence on which they could base this claim. And when they couldn’t produce any, he’d smirk in that knowing way, basking in the glow of always being right.

There was just one tiny flaw with not believing in the existence of angels, however, and that was the very real presence of the one currently lying naked in his bed.

🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️

The seedy bar was mostly empty, occupied by only a few sad and lonely patrons that had nowhere better to go. The lone bartender looked about as despondent as his customers as he mindlessly poured the cheap whiskey and beer that they asked for. A few strands of red and white lights hung over the bar, casting a reddish glow over the dirty countertop, and someone had set up a sparsely decorated tree in the corner. Somehow, those small attempts at cheeriness just made the place feel more depressing. The jukebox playing “Blue Christmas” for the third time in a row wasn’t helping, either.

Five sat in a booth near the back wall, the table in front of him wobbling periodically on its mismatched legs. He was on his fourth drink. Or maybe it was five. He had lost count and frankly didn’t care either way. He sat staring wistfully across the table, lost in his own dark thoughts.

Along with the number of drinks that he had consumed, somewhere along the line Five had also lost count of the number of years he’d been on the planet. He thought he was around 63, but then once you factor in all of the time travel, who knows exactly. Well, actually, he should know. He was the genius, or so he had thought. Calculating his age shouldn’t exactly be a brain buster. Whatever it was, he was still younger than he felt, which was about a million years old.

Not that it mattered, really. He was here now, in this timeline, with no powers and nothing much to show for all of the effort he’d put into trying to save the world. The world was still standing, he supposed, but how much of that was him and how much of it was Reginald?

Five years had passed since he and his siblings had been dumped into this fucked up, dystopian world created by his former adopted father. He refused to think of him as anything other than an alien in human skin that used them all as living batteries and abandoned them without powers. What a giant dick.

Having no idea where to go or what to do was bad enough, but to be suddenly without the power that had coursed through his body his entire life was a real fucking drag. It took Five at least six months before he stopped trying to blink away from things or teleport as a mode of transportation.

He’d narrowly missed getting run over by cars several times, and got his face beaten in more than once for running his mouth to the wrong people and then not having an exit strategy. He could still fight, but it was a lot harder without time and space manipulation on your side. Even now, every so often, he found himself staring down at his clenched fists in surprise when his body automatically tried to jump and nothing happened.

Not surprisingly, Five had found it difficult to adapt to normal life. Part of this was the years spent in isolation and not really having a good foundation for living a normal life in the first place. He had been told, on several occasions, that he lacked “basic social skills”, and was “surly” and “borderline psychotic”, whatever that meant. If people couldn’t deal with his attitude, so what? He wasn’t exactly dying to make new friends, thank you very much.

He and his brothers had managed to stick together, despite a rocky start. And as much as he hated to admit it, he did love them, even if they were astonishingly infantile and annoying. He no longer had a sister, or at least one that he acknowledged. Allison was off living her best life, probably laughing at all of them. But the rest of them, they were ok. And they were all Five had.

All things considered, the past five years had been decent to his siblings. They still struggled with having their powers stripped, just like Five did, but overall, they were doing much better than he was. Diego and Lila had started a new life together, and now had an almost five-year old daughter. The fact that the two dimmest people on the planet were responsible for another human life was astounding, but despite all odds his niece was actually a delight to be around and insanely smart. Luther had found Sloane, although it did take a couple of years. He never gave up hope, and eventually he found her, convinced her to fall in love with him again, and they were now married for a second time.

Viktor probably had the most successful turn-around out of all of them and had moved a few miles outside of the city where he had opened his own music school exclusively for trans kids. Five didn’t see him that much anymore, but they talked about once a week on the phone. As time went on, though, Five found they had less and less to talk about.

Klaus was still Klaus, albeit much happier. With no more ghosts tormenting him, he had found he had no reason to go back to hard drugs anymore. He still liked to grab an occasional drink with Five, but overall, he was sober and doing well. At least, Five assumed he was doing well. He actually had no idea what the hell he did for money, but he always seemed happy and well cared for. Maybe he had a sugar daddy or an old lady somewhere that took care of him. Five never asked and Klaus never volunteered.

Ben (the asshat version) was still around, but he kept his distance most of the time. He had tried to go crawling back to their dad at the over-the-top skyscraper that bore his name, but was quickly dismissed by security staff, saying that Reginald Hargreeves had no children. Ben had been obviously hurt and embarrassed, but since he never really considered himself part of the Umbrella family, he went off by himself. Occasionally he would check up on Sloane, though.

So, that left Five. There were only two things from his father that Five could say he was thankful for. One was that, on top of giving him his arm back, he had also added on a few years to his body when the universe was reset, so that Five had been 18 when they emerged into Oblivion Park. The other was that all of the siblings had found a bank card in their pockets, giving them access to individual bank accounts with a few thousand dollars in them, allowing them a chance to start a new life.

Five still lived in the small, crappy apartment he had found and rented back then. He could afford a better place now, but he didn’t see the point in moving. It was just himself there and anything with a roof over his head and simple furnishings still felt like a luxury. He didn’t have a job like the rest of his brothers, but he did have a steady income. Right from the start, he took half the money from Reginald and made investments that paid off nicely. The thought of working some dead-end office job at his age made him cringe, so he was perfectly happy to play the stock market from the comfort of his living room.

With no need for a car in the city, and no interest in a fancy apartment or house, Five had plenty of disposable income. Most of it was spent on his family, particularly his niece, who he liked to spoil as often as he could. He loved watching her face light up when he brought her a present and she was about the only person he would tolerate and enjoy hugs from. It made him happy to see her happy, with the added bonus of pissing Lila off by being her daughter’s favorite uncle.

The rest of his money went to his wardrobe. Afterall, what was the point in having a trim, young body again if you didn’t put in an effort to showcase it? Between his school boy Academy uniform, scrounging for clothes in the Apocalypse, and the drab Commission-issued suits he’d had to wear throughout his life, he was finally getting a choice in his style. And while that was a small victory in the scheme of things, his finely tailored and expensive suit collection was one of his only pleasures in life.

Five had tried to fix things, in the beginning. He had tried to figure out what Reginald’s end game was and how to take him down once and for all. Luther and Diego even got the taste for revenge, and for a while they were a small team. But after that first year, they determined it was fruitless. There was no way to get to Reggie, up there in his tower. He owned the city, literally. And without their powers, his forgotten children were no threat. Five never really gave up, though. He knew there had to be a way; he just couldn’t figure it out. Even now, it’s always there in the back of his mind.

With his family off living their lives as best they could, Five was alone. Which you would think he would have been used to by now, but this time seemed different. Five had gotten used to having his siblings around again. Even if they were obnoxious and had the collective IQ of a fruit fly. He had liked talking to them, and fighting alongside them again. He had even liked fighting with them again. After all, everything he had ever done was for them.

Five knew that he needed to open himself up more. It’s not like they didn’t try to have a closer relationship with him. But he remained closed off for the most part, often alone. He knew the reason, too. He was angry. Angry at Reginald for landing them there, angry at the Handler and The Commission, who had really screwed him over. Or maybe he screwed himself over, he still wasn’t sure how that worked. But most of all, he was angry with himself. And that anger was so big and so raw, that it was always threatening to burst out at any moment. So, it was just better that he kept to himself.

The same went for relationships outside of his family. They were constantly bothering him about dating or finding someone to settle down with. While they were all a little fucked up in the head, and maybe had some major daddy issues, Five knew he was different. He wasn’t blind to women, despite what his brothers thought. He’d even tried to date a few. But there was too much baggage, too many secrets. And that was not even including the mind/body age difference, which was a whole other complication to add to the mix.

Because of the constant turmoil inside, Five hadn’t let himself get close to anyone. The last few “relationships” he’d had were nothing but one-night stands that he’d barely remembered the next day. And even those left him feeling guilty and even worse than he had before. Because what would Dolores say if she knew?

He had worked so fucking hard for everything, and for what? One time when he was drunk, he had asked Klaus that same question. Klaus had told him that he had saved them; that he had technically achieved what he had wanted, just maybe not in the way he had envisioned. But Five had just laughed and poured another drink. They didn’t get it.

So, there he sat, alone on Christmas Eve, at a shit bar, drinking shit booze, and wondering what the fucking point was. He just couldn’t find a purpose anymore.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he groaned when he saw the caller ID, but he answered.

“Hi, Diego.”

“Hey, where are you? I thought you were going to come over for dinner tonight. Everyone is going to be here.”

“I can’t. I have plans,” Five answered dryly, his glass raised halfway to his mouth.

“Bullshit. You don’t have any plans, you just don’t want to come.”

“If you know that, then why did you ask?”

Diego sighed heavily on the other end and Five took another drink. Then he heard some shuffling and a small voice screamed into the phone, making Five wince and pull it away from his ear.

“Hi, Uncle Five! Are you coming over? Are you bringing me a present?”

“Grace!” Diego scolded. “Stop screaming into the phone, and also that’s not polite.”

The girl ignored her father and continued talking loudly with her mouth way too close to the phone.

“My mom said you’re being a grumpy twat. What’s a twat?”

Five couldn’t help smiling. “It means a really cool person.”

“Ohhh! Ok. Well, I hope you’re coming for dinner and I hope you’re going to come over and watch me open presents tomorrow morning, too. It’s Christmas tomorrow!”

“I know, Gracie, and I did get you a very nice present. I just don’t know if I’ll be able to be there tomorrow morning.”

“Why?”

“Because I might be doing something else.”

“Why?”

“Because I just am.”

“But why?”

Five ran a frustrated hand down his face. “Can you put your dad back on please?”

“Ok. DAD!”

Five pulled the phone away again before he went permanently deaf in that ear.

“Ok, here’s my dad. Hey dad, you’re a twat!”

Five laughed loudly, unlike his brother.

“What the fuck, Five? If we get a call from the school saying she’s calling the other kids twats I’m giving them your number.”

“Lila started it.”

“Jesus, you two. Anyway, are you coming over or not?”

“Not.”

“You’re kind of being an asshole.”

“This is not new information to you, Diego.”

“Fine. Well, Merry Christmas or whatever. Have fun drinking alone.”

“Thanks.”

They hung up and Five set his phone down, lifting his glass back up. He shook his head. “Fuck, I really am an asshole,” he muttered to himself.

As Five sat there, contemplating when he had become such a jerk, a waitress came over. He hadn’t noticed any waitress before, just the bartender. But she sidled up next to his table and he looked up.

“Can I get you something, handsome?”

Five blinked at her a few times. She was extremely pretty, with long, thick black hair, dark eyelashes and full, red lips. But that wasn’t the only thing that caught Five’s eye. She was dressed head to toe in what he could only describe as a slutty elf outfit. An extremely short, flared green skirt with red trim, and a tight red shirt that buttoned up the front. The neckline was so low and her tits were pushed up so high that Five was honestly perplexed at how she was keeping them from just spilling out altogether. The red headband in her hair was adorned with tiny bells that jingled anytime she moved her head. A brief vision of that headband jingling loudly as it banged against his headboard passed through his mind, but he was in no mood for company tonight. Not to mention, she was probably half his age.

The waitress smiled down at Five and spoke again after she received no response. “Did you want anything?”

Five looked back down at his half-full glass. “No, I’m all set.”

“Are you sure? There’s nothing you want that I can get for you?”

Five sighed, annoyed with her persistence, and flashed her his best fake smile. “Nope. All good.”

She pursed her lips and put a hand on her hip. “What are you doing here on Christmas Eve? You seem way too classy to be hanging out in this dump. Don’t you have a family to go home to?”

Five looked up at her, his eyebrows drawn together in irritation. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I don’t have a family. I’m here to drink and be left alone.”

She nodded thoughtfully, then looked around the bar again. “It’s pretty slow tonight. Mind if I join you?”

“What part of alone did you not understand?”

Pretending like she either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, the girl shrugged her shoulders and plunked herself down in the chair across from Five, her headband jingling. He gritted his teeth together.

“If you don’t have a family, then who were you talking to just now?” she pried.

“Are you always this annoying to everyone, or am I just special?”

She shrugged again, unaffected by his insult. “I just overheard you talking and saying you didn’t want to go somewhere. Was that your family? Did they want you to come over for Christmas?”

Five slammed his glass down. “Jesus! Look, I don’t know what your angle is here, sweetheart, but I just want to be left alone. Go bother someone else.”

“I don’t have an angle. And my name’s not sweetheart. It’s Candy.” She extended her hand out to Five, which he promptly ignored.

“Candy?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “That’s a little cliché, isn’t it? Even for made up names.”

“It’s not made up! That’s my real name. Candy.”

“So, what’s your last name, Cane?”

She laughed, moving her head so the bells jingled. It wasn’t a funny joke and Five wasn’t being nice to her, so he had no idea why the hell she was still sitting there with him and laughing, of all things. He looked down at his glass, which was now empty from when he sloshed it all over the table.

‘No, silly. We don’t have last names where I’m from,” she answered with a giggle.

Five chose not to address that odd statement. “Well, then, Candy , looks like I could use another drink after all. And since you apparently have no other customers at the moment, would you mind grabbing that for me?” Five picked up the empty glass, waving it in the air to demonstrate the emptiness as he smirked at the waitress.

She frowned. “Are you sure you need another drink?”

Five rolled his eyes. “You just asked me ten seconds ago if I wanted anything!”

“Maybe I wasn’t talking about a drink,” she smiled, leaning forward so that her ample cleavage was even more on display.

As aggravated as Five was by her, his eyes were still drawn to her chest. Because of the buzz he had going, too, his look wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. She noticed and ran her hand across her collarbone, drawing attention to the delicious looking divot between her clavicle and neck as she brushed her hair off her shoulder. He tried not to think about what it would be like to run his tongue across that very spot.

Five leaned back against the booth, his arm slung across the back of it. “Thanks, but no thanks. Not interested.”

Candy pulled back in shock, even though she was still smiling. “I find that a little hard to believe, but that’s ok. My feelings aren’t hurt. As much as I would love to get inside those tight pants of yours, I can take a hint.”

Five leaned in again, speaking through clenched teeth. “Then if you aren’t getting in my pants, and you aren’t going to bring me a drink, I think our little conversation here is done.”

For the first time since she’d wandered over, Candy looked a little bit at a loss of what to do. Then she smiled again and stood up. “Ok, one more drink, I’ll be right back.”

When she turned to walk away, she glanced down at the black suede ankle boots she had on. One of the laces had come undone and she bent over, directly in front of Five, not even trying to hide what she was doing. Underneath the miniscule skirt, were an even smaller pair of red and white panties, striped like a candy cane. They were cut in a way that showed off a good portion of her ass and Five found himself staring yet again. He was also very glad she was not looking at him right then, because as he was caught in the tractor beam that was her tight little rear end, he licked his lips and let out a puff of air.

“Damn,” he murmured, hopefully quietly enough that she didn’t pick up on it.

She righted herself and looked over her shoulder with a grin before she set off to get his drink. Just as Five was imagining a hypothetical scenario involving those panties and his teeth, she appeared in front of him again, fresh drink in hand. When she handed it over to him, Five paused.

“Where did you..how did you get over here so fast?”

She shrugged again, and Five found that just that small action of her shrugging was really starting to get on his nerves. In her hand was her own drink of some sort and she took a generous sip.

“I’m a really good waitress, I guess.”

“Huh.” Five eyed her curiously as he lifted the glass to his lips.

Without any invitation, Candy dropped herself onto Five’s lap, her legs swinging to the side. Five gave her what he intended to be a very murderous glare, but considering her perky round tits were right under his face, it didn’t have the same effect that it normally did. He kept his hands at his sides, not touching her in any way, but he also didn’t push her off. Because her skirt was so short, he knew that the only thing between her and his lap were those little striped panties. He could feel the warmth of her thighs seeping through onto his. She may have been annoying as fuck, but he still had a brain and a dick, and sometimes those two things got very confused about which one was in charge.

“So, if you’re not spending time with your family tonight, what are your plans?”

“To finish this drink, stagger home, and pass out in my bed. If I’m lucky, maybe I won’t wake up until Christmas is over,” he answered.

“Well, that sounds terrible. Why would you want that? Don’t you like Christmas?”

Five shifted in his seat, the irritating jingling of bells now closer to his ears. “I used to.”

Candy nodded with a small frown. Then she placed a hand on his chest. “Maybe I can help you like it again.”

Five lifted his eyes to hers, raising one eyebrow.

“I’ll let you roast your chestnuts over my open fire,” she purred with a grin.

He rolled his eyes. “Subtle. But, even after that cute show you put on for me a minute ago, and this little stunt you’re pulling right now, I’ll be going home alone this evening.”

She stuck out her bottom lip, shiny and wet with lip gloss and her drink. She traced one finger down the side of his neck and over the buttons of his white dress shirt. “That’s a shame. I was really hoping you’d have a special package for me to unwrap later.”

One side of Five’s mouth curled up and his jaw twitched as he took another drink, trying to decide how drunk he was and how much of a hassle it would be to get rid of this girl in the morning. He leaned in closer, placing a hand lightly on the small of her back.

“Sweetheart, I would shove my package down your chimney so hard and so deep, you’d still be feeling it by New Year’s. But that’s not going to happen tonight, I’m afraid.”

She laughed and then nodded, like she hadn’t expected him to say anything less. “I just thought maybe I could remind you how wonderful Christmas is. And maybe how to enjoy yourself a little more and stop closing yourself off to everyone.”

With narrowed eyes, Five lowered his glass that had been midway to his mouth. “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know a lot about you, Number Five. And I know that your family loves you and they wish you could have a full and happy life.”

Five’s hand flew up and he grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward and squeezing it hard.

“How do you know my name?” he hissed in her face.

The girl only smiled again. “I’m your guardian angel, Five.”

He clamped down harder onto her wrist and roughly jerked her towards him again. “Cut the shit. Who are you? What do you want? Do you work for Reginald Hargreeves?”

She had the audacity to laugh, those fucking bells ringing again. “Of course I don’t work for your father. Like I told you, my name is Candy and I’m your guardian angel. And I’ve been sent here to make sure you know what a wonderful life you could have here, Five. If only you could let yourself.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, or what you want with me, but you have seriously underestimated what I could do to you right now.”

“Oooh, I would love to find out all the things you could do to me,” she said, still not trying to pull her arm away or move off his lap. “I bet you could really put me on the naughty list.”

“How about this? If you don’t get away from me right this second, I snap that pretty little neck of yours?” he growled, digging his fingers into her wrist.

Candy sighed, rolling her eyes skyward and talking out loud to the empty air above her, gesturing to Five with her hand that held her drink. “I know, I know…you warned me. This is going to be a tough one, like you said, but I still think he’s hot, though.”

Five shoved her roughly off his lap and stood up, pushing the table back with a loud screech. “Since you know all about me, then you should know what I’m capable of. So, keep that in mind; because if I ever see your face again, you’ll get to witness it firsthand. Now get out of my way.”

He shouldered past her, out of the bar, and into the cold night air. All around him, just like every other day and night for the past five years, he saw the glowing signs bearing his last name. He paused and took in the giant Hargreeves Enterprises building that loomed over the whole city. The first few snowflakes of the night had started to fall, landing in his hair and onto his eyelashes. With another look back at the bar, he hurried off down the sidewalk. His apartment wasn’t that close, and he had forgotten his coat inside the bar, but he didn’t care. He needed to walk and clear his head and try to figure out what the hell just happened back there.

Five knew the girl had to have been sent by someone. But who? And why? Maybe she was sent from another timeline, here to stop him from doing something that will affect the future. But she didn’t say that. She said she wanted to help him, which made no fucking sense. Then, to matters more fucked up, how the fuck did she know how he felt about things?

After a few more blocks, Five came to a bridge that spanned over a large river. He stopped halfway across, nearing the icy rail and peering down at the roiling and freezing water below. It was windy on the bridge, and he bent his head against the falling snow. He remembered how a year ago, he’d stood in that very same spot, looking down. He had been drunk and in a dark place, just like he was now. He hadn’t gone through with it then, and he wasn’t going to do it now, either. After everything he’d been through and survived, it seemed like a pretty stupid way to end things.

Five huffed out a short laugh, speaking into the empty dark night. “Guardian angel my ass. If that were true, where the fuck were you when I was wasting away in the Apocalypse? At least then I could have had something else to fuck besides my hand.”

“I was there with you, Five, but you didn’t need me then. You do now, though, and you’re much too hot to just be flinging that body of yours over the side of a bridge.”

Five pulled the gun he was carrying out from his waistband, spun around, and pressed the barrel into the side of the girl’s head, clicking off the safety. She gasped a little, but otherwise didn’t seem afraid. She had thrown on a red, faux fur coat over her skimpy outfit, but it remained open, blowing in the wind.

“Why are you following me?” he yelled, a little more frantically than he had intended.

“I don’t know how many times I can tell you, Five. I’m your guardian angel.”

“Forgetting for a moment that angels don’t exist; if they did, I highly doubt they would look like you.”

She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. “Why? What’s an angel supposed to look like?”

Five couldn’t believe he was actually having this conversation. “I have no idea, but not someone that’s dressed like they just came from working the pole at Santa’s workshop.”

Candy actually laughed, despite the very loaded gun pointed directly at her head and the blatant insult he had just hurled at her. “Santa’s strip club? That’s good! Oh! I bet it would be called ‘The South Pole’.” Her eyes flitted down to where Five had pulled out his gun. “And I wouldn’t mind getting my tongue frozen to your pole.”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! God, you are annoying!”

“Yeah, I get that a lot. But I’m very delightful once you get to know me.”

“I highly doubt that. I’m also not going to find out. Because, even though I could blow your brains out and throw your body into the river very easily right now, I’m not going to do that. So, I highly recommend that you walk away from me before I change my mind.”

“Oh, Five,” she said with a smile, running her hand down his arm. “You’re not going to hurt me. That’s not you.”

Five blanched at her words, lowering the gun. Even though he had liked the feeling of her warm hand on his arm, he shook her off and got in her face.

“I have killed more people than you could ever know,” he snarled.

“263.”

Five’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “What?”

“I do know how many and it’s 263.” She pointed up to the sky and shrugged her shoulders. “We keep track.”

Five didn’t know what to say to that. His heart began to race and his hand trembled as he shoved the gun back into his pants, trying to process the craziest thing this woman had said to him yet. She was right; he had kept track, too.

Chapter Two: Christmas Past

“Fuck.”

When Five shivered against the cold, Candy opened up her coat, pulling it around his back as she stepped in closer to his side. “Here, let me warm you up.” She leaned in even closer and whispered next to his ear, her lips ghosting over his cheek. “You’re an amazing person, Number Five, and I want to show you that.”

“How?” Five’s voice came out soft, and he realized he was quickly losing his control of the situation.

Candy pressed her body into him, her arms circling his waist. When she kissed him, he didn’t try to pull away. Instead, he felt himself giving in to her and the heat of her hand as she touched the side of his face with her palm. The snow was still falling and landing over them both, but Five was no longer cold. The heat radiating off of her body was more than enough to warm them both. His eyes fell closed as he felt her pull away just slightly, her voice sounding both far away, and directly inside his head.

“Just relax, Five. Let me remind you.”

“Remind me of what?” he whispered, although he wasn’t sure he’d spoken out loud.

“When you were happy.”

Five’s vision started to fade; the snowy landscape around them shimmering like water. For a split second he thought he had his powers back. The sensation was the same. The same surge of energy through his veins, the pull of time and space on every molecule in his body. His heart raced with the possibility that his old self was back. But instead of appearing out of a portal, it was as if he stood still and his surroundings shifted into something new.

One second Five had been standing on a freezing bridge with Candy’s body pressed to his; and the next they were standing in the warm living room of the Hargreeves’ mansion. He was inside of his childhood home and Candy was holding his hand loosely in hers. None of this made sense and he looked to her for an answer. Instead of an actual explanation, she smiled cheerfully, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, and squeezed his hand.

“Just watch,” she chirped.

Five really had no other choice but to wait and watch, considering he had no idea what the fuck was going on. The main room of the mansion had been decorated for Christmas, with wreaths on every window, garland on the mantle above the fireplace, and a tastefully decorated tree in the corner. Looking up, he noticed that some of the trophy heads his father had collected had lights strung across their antlers and necks and he smiled. He actually remembered helping Ben string those up, with both of them wondering if they would get in trouble when Reginald saw. By some miracle, their father either didn’t care or didn’t notice, and the rest of their siblings had laughed and clapped when the oryx and wildebeest were suddenly illuminated with twinkling lights.

Five’s smile turned back into a frown when he realized how old that memory was. They had been around 8 years old then. How the hell was he seeing this now? Before he could question Candy, he heard the stampeding sound of multiple feet running down the hallway towards them, accompanied by loud shrieks of laughter. He watched in disbelief as the 8-year-old version of himself, along with the rest of his brothers and sister, came clamoring into the room.

Five immediately ran his hands over his face and down his arms, fully expecting his body to start sweating and itching like crazy. But he felt fine, and he didn’t feel the normal paranoia creeping in. Maybe it was the denial, though. He looked back at Candy, who was watching him, and she shook her head with a smile.

“Don’t worry. There’s no psychosis here. It’s more of a flashback or like watching a home movie. They’re real but they can’t see us.”

Five rolled his eyes. “So, we’re doing the Christmas Carol thing? How original,” he muttered.

Despite his suspicions of all of this, he went back to watching the scene in front of him. He remembered that exact Christmas Eve because it had always been his favorite. They were still too young to have officially formed the Umbrella Academy, and so life was a little freer than it would be in the coming years. Even though they fought sometimes, and formed alliances behind each other’s backs, that was all forgotten at Christmas time. Everyone was happy and getting along. Their mother brought in a tray of seven mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows and each kid excitedly grabbed one.

Five watched his younger self double over with laughter when Diego stuck a marshmallow up his nose and shot it into Luther’s mug. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that, and seeing it was both heartbreaking and uplifting. He smiled, wishing so badly he could step out of whatever bubble Candy had put them in and warn his little innocent self not to ruin his life on a whim just to prove a point.

“I remember this Christmas,” Five said to Candy, not taking his eyes off of his family. “Klaus and Allison had written a stupid play called ‘The Unhappy Christmas Tree’ and forced us all to be in it. We performed it for our mother and Pogo on Christmas morning.”

His supposed guardian angel laughed. “And what part did you play?”

“I’ll give you one guess.”

“The unhappy Christmas tree?”

Five nodded and chuckled. “I had absolutely refused to speak any lines or sing their dumb song, so they made me stand there covered in garland with a star on my head while the rest of them performed around me.”

“I bet you were an adorable little tree.”

“I don’t know about adorable. I was a pretty pissed off little tree, anyway.” Five sighed and shook his head. “Of course, you would have thought it was worthy of a Tony award based on our mother’s reaction. Not that that was real in any way, but it made Allison and Klaus feel good.”

“Did your father enjoy it?”

Five snorted with derision. “Fuck no. He never would have lowered himself to actually spend time with his children. No, I’m sure he was either out with his high-society crowd, or up in his office planning our eventual demise.”

They watched in silence for a few more minutes as his young family laughed and played. They really were a real family once upon a time, all seven of them together. Here was the proof. Ben was alive and Five hadn’t even thought of time travel yet. They even included Viktor in everything back then. Five’s chest tightened with the emotion of a lost childhood and he turned to Candy.

“Make it stop,” he told her, his voice cracking.

“But there’s more to see, don’t you want to—”

“Now,” he demanded harshly. “Stop doing whatever you’re doing.”

She looked sad, the smile that she always seemed to wear fading and she nodded her head slowly. The time travel sensation was back and gone just as quickly, and they were back on the bridge with the wind and snow whipping around them.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” Five yelled at her, yanking his hand away.

“I brought you back to a happy moment in your life. So you could remember what it used to feel like.”

Five wiped aggressively at his face, telling himself that it was wet from the snow, and stumbled backwards away from her. “Stay away from me, whoever or whatever you are!”

Candy raised her arms up and let them drop back down to her sides in frustration. “Five, please! I’m trying to help you.”

“Stay the fuck away from me! Understand? If I see you again, I will kill you!” he yelled into the wind.

He took a few more steps backwards, to make sure she wasn’t going to follow him, but she stayed where she was. Then he turned around and headed towards his apartment as fast as he could without breaking into a sprint.

Head down, Five pressed on for the few remaining blocks, not daring to look behind him. He didn’t know what had happened back there, or who that woman was, but he wanted no part of it. She probably drugged his drink at the bar and everything he had seen was a hallucination. That was the only logical explanation. Logic aside, it had still scared the shit out of him, and Five did not like being the scared one in any situation. He liked to be in control, and back there he had let himself lose control. All because she had pressed her body against his and kissed him.

So what if she was insanely hot, and had a nice ass and her tits were perfect? And so what if she was actually nice to him, even though he was being a dick to her? She was clearly insane. Even attractive people with amazing boobs could be insane, he reminded himself.

When he finally reached his apartment, Five hurried inside and shut and locked the door behind him. He stood shivering with his back against the door, breathing hard and flexing his frozen fingers to try and warm them up. He was still a little tipsy from the bar, but after what he’d just been through, he needed another drink. Striding over to his small, drab kitchen, he pulled out a glass, pouring a generous amount of bourbon, and tipping it back to swallow it in one gulp.

“Fuck,” he said out loud to no one, grimacing from the burn of the alcohol.

Before he could think what to do next, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, startling him back to reality. With a glance at the screen, he sighed heavily, but was actually grateful for someone else to talk to. If only to make sure he wasn’t completely losing his mind.

“Hello?”

“Heyyy, Cinco! We miss you buddy, where are you?”

Klaus was just about as loud as his niece had been, and Five found himself pulling the phone away again.

“I’m at home,” he answered flatly.

“Well, what the hell are you doing there? It’s Christmas Eve, Fivey!”

“I’m aware of the day.”

“Then why would you want to be alone? Come hang out with us. We miss you!”

Five’s heart tightened just a little on hearing that. He missed them, too. A little, anyway. But he stayed silent.

“You’re not still mad at me for spilling guacamole on your suit jacket that one time, are you? Because it really was an accident.”

Five pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers and closed his eyes. “No, Klaus, I am not mad about that. I just don’t want to come, ok?”

There was a pause. In the background, Five could hear the rest of his family being loud and obnoxious as always, with Lila’s voice carrying over all of them. “Klaus, don’t waste your time with that crabby old fart. Let him be miserable and alone. That’s clearly what he wants.”

“We’d really like you to be here,” Klaus said apologetically.

“Yeah, sounds like it.”

“Fivey, come on—”

“Really, Klaus, I’m fine. But as Lila said, don’t waste your time on me, because I’m not coming.”

“Can you at least tell me why?”

Five huffed angrily and raised his voice. “Because maybe I just don’t want to spend Christmas with you people, ok?”

There was silence on the other end and Five immediately felt like shit. Klaus didn’t deserve that. None of them did. Why did he have to be such a stubborn asshole all of the time?

“Yeah, ok. Ten-four, big bro. Have a nice life.”

Five watched as the call went dead and he slammed his phone on the counter.

“Fuck,” he said quietly. But as usual, no one was around to hear it.

He was still wet and shivering from the snow, so after a quick check out the window and a glance at his locked door, he went into his bedroom to change. He just needed to go to bed and go to sleep, that was all. Whatever drug that girl put in his drink would wear off by tomorrow, and maybe then he could think straight. Then maybe he would go over to Diego’s in the morning and apologize; if he wasn’t too hung over, that is.

After pulling off his soaked shoes and socks and peeling off his shirt, Five was in the process of unbuckling his belt and unzipping his fly when he heard it. Those fucking bells. He paused, his hands on his waistband as he listened with his heart pounding loudly in his ears. There was no fucking way he had actually heard that. He must be going crazy. But then he heard it again, and he gritted his teeth together.

When he stormed out of his bedroom, there she was. Standing in his kitchen, helping herself to his bourbon, and looking like she had every right to be there. Her red coat had been discarded in the living room, thrown onto a chair. Five also noticed she had thrown her boots off by the door. When she saw him, she smiled happily and raised her glass.

“This is good! I see why you like it.”

Five wanted to scream or yell or do something. Something other than what he did do, which was to stammer incoherently and run his hands so hard through his hair a few strands were pulled out.

“What the…how did you…god damn it! How the fuck are you here?”

He looked over at his door, which was still dead bolted from the inside. If he had been freaked out before, that was nothing to how he was feeling now. Candy, however, only tilted her head like she had no idea what he was talking about and took another sip of her drink.

“Angels don’t need to use doors, Five. I thought that was common knowledge.”

She shrugged her shoulders, drawing his attention to the smooth skin of her collarbone again. He really wished he could stop thinking about running his lips over that skin and wondering how it would taste. He did not want this girl here. He wanted her to leave him the fuck alone. He’d been very clear about that.

“Get. The fuck. Out,” he spit out between clenched teeth.

Candy ignored him and hoisted herself up onto the kitchen countertop, wiggling her sparkly red painted toes. Her skirt was riding up far enough that Five was able to get another glimpse at those red and white striped underwear of hers. She made no attempt to try and hide them and she looked Five up and down, only just then realizing he was standing there shirtless with his pants halfway undone. She raised her eyebrows.

“Damn, Five” she exhaled quietly. “You can deck my halls anytime.”

Five’s eyes darkened and he strode over to her, muscles dangerously flexed, and he grabbed her around the neck. Only inches from her face, he hissed menacingly as he pressed his fingers in harder.

“I told you I would kill you if I saw you again, didn’t I?”

Candy clasped onto his wrist, but she didn’t seem panicked at all. In fact, it looked like she was trying to smile.

“You’re not going to kill me, Five.”

He tightened his grip again and he heard a small gurgle in her throat.

“What makes you think I won’t?” he snarled.

“Because I think you’d rather do something else to me,” she breathed out.

Five’s chest was heaving and his teeth were bared as he stared her down, his fingers not loosening from around her slender neck. Up close like that, he could see down her shirt and he realized he was standing between her legs, with the inside of her thighs brushing against his hips.

“Is that really what you want?” he growled as he leaned in even closer. “You want to get fucked by some stranger on Christmas Eve? Right here, in this shit hole apartment?”

He saw a small twitch at the corner of her mouth and she inhaled as best she could while he was choking her. Five could feel the intense heat pulsing off her body again, just like when they were out in the snow. She looked him directly in the eyes and nodded.

The one ounce of resolve he had left in him to not let his lust for this woman take over in any way dissolved immediately with that nod.

“Shit,” he cursed to himself in between his heavy panting.

Her head was slammed back into the cupboards behind her as Five moved his hand to the back of her neck and kissed her brutally, his other hand sliding roughly up her skirt and onto her hip, where his fingers dug into her skin.

Five leaned down and sucked a dark bruise on to the delicious looking indentation next to her collarbone. He heard her hissing inhale from his teeth scraping against her and he let up, grabbing a handful of her hair.

“I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into here, honey. Because I’m not the nice guy you think I am.” He kissed her roughly before pulling away again. One hand was still in her hair while his other traveled around the font of her skirt and he pressed his entire hand between her legs, pushing his palm hard against her until he heard her let out a little moan. “You are going to get fucked hard and rough, and I’m going to come inside of you because I don’t really give a shit about anything anymore.”

It hadn’t been a question; his drunk self just blurted it out there. He waited for her to tell him to drop dead, or to finally realize who she was dealing with and leave him alone for good. Instead, she reached down and pressed his hand in harder and smirked.

“It’s not nice to tease.”

With a vicious smile that was more like a snarl, Five pressed his body into hers so that she could feel his hard on grinding into her thigh. He left more bruises over her neck as he eagerly bit and sucked at her skin.

“Get these fucking panties off.”

With one hand he yanked the tiny red and white striped underpants down, letting them fall to the floor while he started fingering her under her skirt. He watched with satisfaction as her eyelids fell closed and she tipped her head back with a low groan.

He wasn’t gentle with her, but she seemed to like it, and even in his inebriated state he knew what he was doing. Five pushed his groin into her again, rubbing himself against her while he stroked the soft, wet folds between her legs. She was starting to roll her hips into his hand, urging him on with the way she was panting, her chest heaving and her breasts pushed up against his chest.

When Five began finger fucking her, hard with two fingers, her moans came out louder and she thrust her hips into him.

“Ohhh…yes,” she whined, her hands clutching the edge of the countertop.

With another growling noise, Five pulled his hand away, leaving her gasping for air. He ripped open the front of her shirt, the buttons pulling apart and exposing her breasts. The bra she had on was striped just like her underwear. He pushed the shirt the rest of the way down her arms and let it fall off of her.

“Let’s see those tits you’ve been shoving in my face.”

Five reached around and unhooked her bra, throwing it on the ground. The sight of her perfectly round breasts displayed before him was too much and he let out a pathetic noise from deep down in his throat. He couldn’t wait any longer, he needed to fuck this girl and he needed to fuck her now. Candy watched, breathing hard, as he unzipped his pants the rest of the way.

“Fuck, Five…I knew you would have a big package to load into my sleigh.”

He was filled with nothing but rage and lust when he pulled her forcibly by her hips, shoving her skirt up around her waist. With one hand he began stroking his straining cock while the other grabbed her hair again, pulling her head back so she was forced to look at him. Her mouth gaped open and her rapid breaths were loud and rasping.

“Tell me you want this,” he demanded through clenched teeth.

She nodded as best she could with his fist in her hair. He shook her slightly and her head hit the cupboard again, the bells on her headband jingling.

“You haven’t shut up all fucking night, so don’t stop now, sweetheart. Tell me you want me to fuck you.”

“I want you to fuck me,” she whimpered quietly as one side of her mouth turned up in a half smile.

Five let go of her hair and positioned himself carefully, using his hand to slip the head of his cock inside of her. She sucked in a sharp gasp at the same time that Five sneered in her face.

“I am going to ruin you.”

The first hard thrust all of the way inside pushed her back and she cried out while grabbing onto his shoulders for support. Five had her hips and ass held tight in his hands as he began to pound into her hot, wet core. Candy’s headband continued to jangle pleasantly each time the back of her head hit the cupboard behind her.

“Fuuuck,” Five groaned out.

“Oh my god you’re good at this,” she moaned. “Keep fucking me like I’m your ho ho ho,” she added with a smile as her head bounced off the cupboard in time with each ‘ho’; those god damn bells ringing.

“Shut. Up.” Five panted. Then he reached up and grabbed her headband, flinging it across the room, the bells making one final, sad tinkling sound as they hit the linoleum. “Jesus, I hate that thing.”

Candy’s laugh was quickly cut off by another desperate moan as Five banged into her over and over again and she clutched at his shoulders. In contrast to his apparent anger and viciousness towards her, he couldn’t help pulling her closer. He liked her impossibly warm skin and the weight of her body on his. He began to kiss her mouth, hard and hungry, sucking at her lips and tasting her tongue on his. She was delicious, like her name, and he kept going back for more until he was clutching her against him and feeling the soft skin of her cheek under his palm and her firm tits pressed against his bare chest.

“Whatever you’re doing to me, stop it,” he begged her as his lips grazed over the corner of her mouth.

“It’s not me, this time. This is all you, daddy.”

“Oh, fuck…I like that,” he groaned into her neck.

“I know you do,” she smirked.

He was still drilling into her hard and fast, and Five could tell that he was doing something she liked because she finally shut the fuck up. The only sounds he heard were the slamming of his body into hers and her whines and cries that were getting louder and more pleading. Her fingers were digging into his skin and her head was thrown back.

“Yes…please,” she gasped in between more of his voracious kisses.

He felt her release against him as she clung to his body with her legs wrapped around his waist and her hands on his back. Her body seemed to give off a shimmering glow as she climaxed and she felt even warmer to the touch, her hot walls pulsing around his dick.

Five picked up his pace, slamming even more violently into her as he chased his own high. He felt like he wanted to break her, to crack her open with each thrust of his hips. He wasn’t even angry at her anymore, but she was the outlet for his chronic rage and he poured every ounce of it into her. It was unrelenting as he shamelessly used her as a way to get his rocks off and maybe a little relief from the constant ache of resentment he felt every day.

The aggression and ferocity kept building until finally Five couldn’t take it. He was barely aware of her existence anymore, just mindlessly penetrating her over and over again. His own orgasm came hard, and he did exactly what he said he was going to, coming inside of her with no warning. Sweating, shuddering, and with a final long, low grunt, he finished unloading into her and fell limply against her body.

“Damn it,” Five groaned sadly under his breath as he rested his forehead against his shitty cabinet door, her hair brushing against his cheek.

He was still breathing heavily, but he wasn’t pent up with rage anymore. He felt the inevitable shame washing over him like a thick, creeping fog. He had let his anger and fear get the best of him, and he had taken it out on her. When he felt Candy’s fingers threading lightly through his hair at the back of his neck, he flinched and drew back, pulling out of her and stepping away.

He immediately zipped his pants back up and pushed his hair off his face. He was having a hard time looking her in the eyes, but he watched as she hopped casually down from the counter to retrieve her bra and panties that had been thoughtlessly discarded on the floor. Once she had them back on again, she stepped closer to Five. He had no choice but to look at her.

“Wow,” she breathed out with a satisfied smile. Her eyebrows creased together when she saw his expression. “What’s wrong?”

Five wasn’t sure how to answer that question, considering it seemed pretty fucking obvious to him. He looked away from her again, turning back to the bottle of bourbon on the counter. With a shaky hand, he poured more into his empty glass. Then he felt her hand on his arm and he turned back around.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Five. I asked for something and you gave it to me. I know you were mad, but that’s ok. That’s what I’m here for. To make you feel better.”

“That’s what you’re here for? Jesus, what kind of fucked up thing is that to say?”

She sighed. “See, this is exactly why I needed to come down here. You think you’re this cold-hearted, uncaring person, but I’ve seen the real you. And you have so much love inside you, Five. You just need to figure out how to let people see it.”

Five turned his back on her, bracing his hands on the counter so that the muscles in his back tensed and flexed and he let out a short, sarcastic laugh.

“How can you even say that, after…” His voice trailed off, too ashamed to finish the sentence.

She placed a hand on his back. “Can I show you more?”

“More what?” he asked miserably.

“Well, even though one of my objectives tonight was to take a ride on your Polar Express, that wasn’t my main one.”

Five rolled his eyes at her stupid innuendo, but he also had to fight down the smile he felt creeping up. He turned to face her again, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And now I suppose this is the point where you show me another vision or whatever it is and I come to some conclusion that life is just one big fucking ray of sunshine?”

Candy shrugged her bare shoulders, standing there in just her skirt and peppermint striped push-up bra. If Five had been in more of a romantic mood, he would have thought she looked adorable. Instead, he just rolled his eyes again, thankful that at least that fucking headband was gone.

She took another step towards him, prying one of his hands away and taking it in hers.

“Don’t you trust me?”

He shook his head slowly. “Not even a little.”

Chapter 3: I'll Stuff Your Stocking

With another soft smile, Candy placed her hand on the side of his face, just like she had done on the bridge. She leaned in to kiss him, so softly and sweetly that Five couldn’t stand how much he loved that feeling. Just like he had gotten lost in the sensation of kissing her while he roughly fucked her, he was losing himself again. He didn’t care about whatever it was she wanted to show him. He wanted to keep kissing her while her warm body was against his. There was something comforting about it and he let himself relax into her.

When he opened his eyes, he and Candy were fully dressed again, standing in another warmly lit home, with her hand clasped in his. He shook off the strangely familiar feeling of teleportation and glanced around. He knew exactly where they were and he let out a disappointed groan.

“Here?” he asked, turning to Candy with a pointedly annoyed look. “Ok, I get it. I’m a big jerk that everyone hates. Can we go now?”

Candy shook her head with a smile, and Five noticed the fucking bells were back on her head.

“Sorry, that’s not how it works.” When she saw his unamused face, she laughed. “Hey, I don’t make the rules, I just carry them out.”

Five reluctantly turned back to the scene before him. It was happening in real time, on that same night, and he watched his entire family as they gathered around Diego and Lila’s small but cozy living room.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath and he felt Candy squeeze his hand.

“So, why isn’t Uncle Five here again?” Grace asked, as they all took seats and she sat on the floor surrounded by presents.

“He is just very busy, sweetie, that’s all,” Luther lied.

Diego and Lila exchanged eye rolls behind their daughter’s back.

"I’m sure you’ll see him soon. Now, why don’t you go ahead and open up the presents everyone brought for you?” Diego said.

Distracted by the presents from her other uncles, Grace started tearing into the paper while everyone watched. Five felt a stabbing sensation in his chest, knowing she was asking about him and he hadn’t even had the decency to show up.

He and Candy watched as the little girl opened each gift, and each time she held one up to show everyone, Five would scoff, growing increasingly agitated.

“Barbies? Please. She doesn’t even like dolls!”

“She already has Candy Land! I know because I bought it for her two years ago. She cheats, by the way.”

“Pink fuzzy bunny slippers. Ok, Klaus, you’re supposed to pick out things for her, not you. Gracie hates pink. She likes purple.”

Five was getting more and more worked up as Grace continued to open her ill-thought-out gifts. He was gesturing wildly to the scene in front of them and looking over to Candy in disbelief.

“Oh for fucks sa—are you seeing this? Dr. Seuss books? Her reading level is much too advanced for those.”

Candy stood silently next to Five, watching his reactions with her usual smile. Grace finished opening her presents and thanked and hugged everyone politely. But Five could see she was secretly disappointed.

Candy finally piped up. “Too bad you aren’t there to give her your gift. You seem to know her the best.”

Five huffed. “Well, it’s not that hard to figure out what a kid likes. All you have to do is pay attention once in a while. Dumbasses.”

“What did you get her again?”

Five hesitated. “A telescope. I told her how I used to look at the stars every night when it was just me and Dolores and she said she wanted me to show her. I was going to take her outside of the city so we could see them better.”

Candy nodded. “When were you planning on doing that? Before or after your very busy plans of getting black-out drunk all by yourself?”

Five’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. What could he possibly say? She was right. He had no excuse as to why he wasn’t there with his family and doting on his niece like he loved to do. Only that he was a selfish asshole.

“Alright, so are we done here?”

Candy shrugged, and Five noticed the bruises he had left on her neck and chest were gone. “That’s up to you. Have you seen enough?”

Five turned back to his family. Grace had already slipped away from the group of adults, leaving her new gifts on the floor untouched. He was about to tell Candy that he had seen enough, when he realized his siblings were talking about him.

“…couldn’t take ten minutes out of his busy schedule of tossing off to mannequin catalogs to hang out with his family?”

Five flipped Lila off, even though he knew she couldn’t see him.

“I don’t know, I feel bad for him. He’s been through a lot.”

Surprisingly, Luther was defending him. Then Klaus spoke up.

“I know, but haven’t we all? And we’ve somehow managed to get on with life.”

“Yeah, but we have each other. He doesn’t have anyone,” Diego added.

Lila snorted. “Well, he could have if he tried even a little bit. It’s like he loves being a miserable little shit.”

“I do want him to be happy, though,” said Viktor.

Klaus sighed and nodded. “Yeah, me too. It’s just too bad he can’t let himself. I’m not sure the old man even knows how anymore.”

After that, the subject switched to something else and Five was left standing there with a dull ache throbbing in his chest.

“That’s enough,” he said quietly to Candy.

She nodded and took his hand again. The room started to shimmer and then disappear altogether. In a second, they were back in Five’s apartment. Candy was back to wearing nothing but her skirt and bra, her red headband lying on the floor where Five had so rudely flung it. Five was wearing just his pants, which only brought back the shame he had been feeling earlier. Shame heaped on top of shame.

“I thought you said you were supposed to make me feel better.”

“I am!”

“Well, then you’re terrible at your job because I feel shittier than before. Maybe you need to go back and take a guardian angel refresher course.”

Candy laughed. Because of course she would. “I’m sorry, Five, really. But can’t you see how your family just wants you to be happy? And little Grace…she loves you so much.”

Five nodded and leaned against his kitchen counter, hands braced behind him. “Yeah, I heard. And that’s great. But I just don’t know –” his voice trailed off and he looked away from her.

“What?”

“I don’t know how.”

“To be happy?”

Five nodded.

“Five, everyone has the ability to be happy. Some people just have to work for it a little bit more than others. But I have no doubt in my mind that you could be if you just tried.”

Five flung his hands up in frustration. “You keep saying that! How can I try to be happy? That makes no sense. You either are or you aren’t. It’s not like I can wake up in the morning and say ‘Gee, I think I’ll be happy today!’”

“Actually, that’s exactly what you can do.”

Five sighed angrily, but stayed quiet. She obviously didn’t know what she was talking about, and was the world’s worst guardian angel. Amazing body; terrible angel.

“What do you think Dolores would say?”

Eyes flashing and jaw set, he glared at Candy. “Don’t talk about Dolores,” he warned.

“I’m just saying, maybe if you listened to her –”

“STOP! RIGHT NOW!” he shouted, his voice loud enough to make ripples in the bottle of bourbon next to him.

Candy put her hands on her hips, tipping her head back and exhaling loudly. A piece of her dark hair floated upwards from her exasperated breath. With her head back like that, Five could see the love bites he’d left on her neck, renewing his guilt.

“Wow, you are making my job difficult,” she spoke out loud, to him and to whoever else was listening above.

When she looked back at him, her normal smile returned and she let her arms relax at her sides.

“Ok, how about this? You take some time to reflect on things, while I go take a much needed nap in your bed.”

“A nap? Now?”

“Yes. You are very exhausting,” she huffed. Then she smiled and winked at him, reaching out to run a hand down his arm. “In more ways than one.”

As she sauntered past him, towards his bedroom, Five continued to stand in one spot, thoroughly confused. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she’d trip him up again. He had shouted at her, insulted her, and angrily banged her into his yellow, Formica countertop. And what had she done? Nothing. Nothing but continue to be sweet, and encouraging, and sexy. Damn, she was sexy. But why was she still here? He just didn’t understand.

After a few minutes, Five wandered over to his bedroom doorway. Candy was under the covers, lying on her stomach with her head on his pillow, on the side of the bed he normally reserved for himself. He tried not to let that little fact irritate him, though. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing soft and rhythmically.

"Why are you here?” Five asked out loud.

Candy opened her eyes slowly and smiled when she saw him standing there.

“What do you mean? You know why I’m here.”

“I mean, why are you still here? I’ve been awful to you. I threatened to kill you, I screamed at you. Nothing I’ve done has been nice. And you’re still here. Why?”

She propped her head up on one hand. “Those things don’t bother me.”

Five took a few steps into his room, closer to the bed. “They don’t bother you? How?”

“Because I told you, Five. I know you. The real you. And I know you don’t mean any of those things. I’m not scared of you.”

As he was mulling that over, he came and sat on the opposite side of the bed. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“I know.”

He looked at her, lying there in his bed, looking serene and peaceful despite everything that had happened. “Really, Candy, I am sorry. I’ve treated you like crap and you don’t deserve that. Even if I still think you’re a lunatic.”

She laughed and nodded her head. “It’s ok.”

With another, longer look at her, the sheet hanging loosely over her, he realized something. “Are you naked?”

Candy giggled and nodded. “All guardian angels sleep naked. We generate a lot of heat, so it’s much more comfortable that way.”

Five blinked a few times and swallowed. Apparently being sorry for treating someone like shit did not deter instant boners when that someone was a beautiful woman lying naked in your bed. He shifted, pulling at the crotch of his pants.

"I guess it’s a good thing that I got you as my angel instead of a 300lb hairy man.”

“Ah, that would be Todd. I actually fought him for this job. So, you’re welcome.”

Five wasn’t entirely sure if she was kidding or not, but then she laughed at his confused face, which made him smile in return. He still sat there on the edge of the bed.

“So, are you going to keep me company under these covers, or do you want to just sit there in your uncomfortably tight pants?”

“Only if that’s what you want.”

She nodded.

With a grin, Five stood up and shed his pants while Candy looked him over with an approving smile. He slid into bed, close to her so that he could run a hand gently down her back and over her tight butt. She was still lying on her stomach and she wriggled under his touch.

“What, no clever Christmas-themed sexual innuendo, this time?” he teased.

“I can’t think of any good ones right now.”

“Hmmm…” Five leaned in close, his hand resting on the small of her back. “How about I stuff your stocking and give you some of my special eggnog?”

Candy burst out laughing, burying her face in the pillow, before looking back at his smirking face. “I knew you were funny! See, you just need to loosen up a little.”

He looked thoughtful as he continued to trace soft lines down her shoulders and back with his fingertips. When he pushed her long hair off to the side, he saw what he hadn’t been able to before. Two angel wing tattoos, intricately drawn on each of her shoulder blades. He let out a soft laugh as he touched each one lightly.

“So, what did you have to do to earn these?”

“Nothing. Standard issue.”

“I thought guardian angels were supposed to do something special to earn their wings. You know, like every time a bell rings…”

She shook her head with a smile. “Nope. That’s just in the movies. We all have them. This is just my Earth version. My real wings would look a little too obvious down here.”

He looked at her dubiously, with one eyebrow raised. “Then what do you get if you successfully turn me into a believer?”

“I get to stay.”

“Stay where?”

“Here. On Earth.”

He let out a loud, short laugh. “Why in the hell would you want to stay here?”

She shrugged. “I like it here. You have the ocean, and the sun. Rain, trees, snow, buildings, cars, people. Oh! And the food! It’s all so wonderful!”

Now Five really thought she was bat-shit crazy, but he didn’t comment. She continued.

“It’s an incredibly difficult wish to have granted, though. That’s why they gave me you. Or rather, I chose you.”

“And why is that? What’s so special about me?”

Candy smiled coyly, shifting her body over so that she was pressing Five back into the mattress by his shoulders. She climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs and letting the covers fall off of her.

“Because you, Five Hargreeves…” she rocked her hips into him and he groaned. “…are a very hard man to please.” She rubbed herself against him again, sliding her wet heat over his cock.

Five grabbed her hips and she straightened herself, allowing him to see her fully naked body on top of him. He let out a stuttering breath.

“Well, I’m pretty fucking pleased right now. Does this count?”

She shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid not. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun in the meantime.”

After reaching up to cup each breast, rubbing his thumb over her stiff nipples and watching her throw her head back, Five ran his hands slowly down her sides. He loved the softness of her skin and the curves of her body; the intense heat that got stronger with her arousal. He desperately wanted to feel himself inside of her again, but without all of the anger and malice that he had projected onto her the last time.

“If you kiss me, will you make me see things again?”

“No. Not this time.”

Five nodded. “Then kiss me,” he whispered. "Please."

When she leaned over him, she paused for just a moment, an inch from his mouth, and then her lips met his as he closed his eyes. His hand caressed the side of her face and his fingers found their way into her long hair. This time there was no anger or violence; no screaming urge to drive her away or control her. He just wanted to keep kissing her, to touch her hot skin, and feel the weight of her body on top of his. He hadn’t realized it before, but it felt so good with her naked body pressed to his. There was something comforting about it. And he was so rarely comforted.

Five wasn’t sure when she had adjusted herself so that his cock was sliding inside of her again, but her hips were moving in a steady rhythm against his, her sex so hot and wet that he was positive he’d never felt anything so amazing in his entire life.

She moved her mouth to the side of his neck, still slowly riding him, as he breathed loudly into the sweet scent of her hair.

“Five,” she whined, drawing his name out as her lips brushed across his skin.

“Oh, fuck…” He knew he had a tendency for arrogance, but he never realized just how much he loved hearing his name moaned next to his ear while he was being fucked. But he could say for absolute certainty now that he would not get tired of hearing it.

His hands were on her hips again, urging her to ride him faster and harder, all while her chest remained flush with his. Their soft kisses had turned into hungry ones, and Five latched onto the creamy skin next to her collarbone again, sucking another purple mark onto it.

“I want to give you what you want. Just tell me,” he panted, his breath hot on her already flaming skin.

“I need you in deeper, Five. I want more of you.”

“Sit up.”

Candy took the direction, pulling herself away from Five’s mouth and neck, and sat up, sinking deeper down onto his cock. Five’s strong hands pushed her down further, harder, and he thrust his hips up to meet hers.

“Oh fuck yes !” she yelled, letting him roughly guide her body.

Grasping hands; fingers digging into hot, damp skin; the sound of the bed slamming into the wall, and her desperate moans and cries were mixing together into one erotic symphony as Five drove into her again and again. It was the most blissful experience he’d ever had. He couldn’t even remember why he was so angry towards her earlier. Oh right, she claimed to be a celestial being, wouldn’t shut up, and broke into his apartment. Well, right now he didn’t care about any of that. Right now, he watched her amazingly tight body rock back and forth on top of him, his dick buried deep inside her.

“You feel so goddamn good right now. Maybe you’re my guardian angel after all.”

She let out a breathy laugh and bit her bottom lip as she continued to ride him.

“That’s another reason I want to stay here…fuuck…the sex here is…oh god, yes, do more of that…amazing…ah shit, Five!”

With a long wail of pleasure, Candy tipped her head back, mouth open, as she came undone. Five watched her face, lost in ecstasy; took in her body that was writhing and shuddering on top of his; felt her tight cunt pulsing around him. The arrogant, asshole part of him that lived inside his brain was practically gloating over the fact that he was the one responsible for all of it, too. And, fuck, if that wasn’t the final push he needed to be filling her up with his cum again, groaning through a clenched jaw as he pressed his fingers further into her flesh.

Afterwards, they laid there in silence, Candy’s head next to his on the pillow as she smiled over at him and let out a contented sigh, stretching her body out long like a cat warming itself in a sunbeam. Five laid on his back, staring at the ceiling, a million thoughts running through his head. That old feeling of guilt was creeping back in again.

“I really am sorry,” he said quietly. “For earlier.”

“And I already said it’s ok.”

He tapped his fingers on his bare chest, as one of the many nagging thoughts in his brain surfaced again. “Candy, how old are you?”

She let out a giggle that she quickly suppressed. “Are you worried that you’ve taken advantage of an impressionable, young woman that’s half your age?”

Five looked over in surprise, and then remembered that she seemed to know everything about him. Even things no one should know. So, of course, she would know his true age.

“That’s a bit of a concern of mine, yes.”

“Well, if anyone is taking advantage of anyone in this scenario it’s me with you.”

“How so?”

“We don’t really have years like they do down here, but if I were to guess, I’d probably be around 390.”

Five raised his eyebrows at her and let out a disbelieving laugh. “390 years old.”

Candy stretched out languidly again, showing off her body that could not have been more than 22 years old by the looks of it. After a yawn, she nodded. “Yep. I’m the ultimate cougar, aren’t I?” She laughed at her own joke.

With a shake of his head, Five let out a soft sigh. He was not even sure why he bothered. Every time she answered one of his questions, it only created more. In the matter of a few hours, he had gone through about every emotion in his inventory, and he still didn’t understand what was going on. Just a couple of hours earlier, he had threatened to kill this woman. He had held a loaded gun to her head. And now, here she was, lying naked next to him in his bed, as comfortable as could be. The even weirder part was that Five felt comfortable, too. He had no panicky urge to kick her out with some lame excuse; no sudden need to get up and shower, remaining aloof until she left on her own.

He liked her. He thought. Or maybe she drugged him again, who the fuck knows? Whatever was going on was strange, to say the least. He looked back over at her, and she had fallen asleep. If this little game of visions they were playing was going to continue, then that meant there would be one more. The future, he supposed. He laughed quietly to himself. Jesus, what was wrong with him?

He laid there for a while, thinking, and watching her sleep. He wasn’t tired, though, so eventually, after covering her gently with a blanket, he slipped out of bed. In the bathroom, he washed his face and looked in the mirror. He thought about what Candy had said. “What would Dolores say?” Well, he thought, what would she say? If he wanted to depress himself even more, he’d realize he could literally ask her right then. She was there, staring him in the face as he looked at his reflection. He wasn’t stupid. He knew the love of his life had been just a branch of his subconscious. Created for the sole purpose of not going completely insane. Five wasn’t sure that had worked entirely, though. Just look at him now.

“She’d say you’re being an asshole.” He spoke out loud to the mirror. “She’d tell you to stop being a whiny cry baby all the time and try to be grateful for once.” Five ran a hand down his face. “She’d tell you to stop drinking so much. And maybe be nice to people. Even if they are idiots. And to stop closing yourself off to your family.”

He sighed. Then he looked down at the chipped porcelain sink and smiled to himself.

“As usual, my darling, you are right about everything.”

As Candy slept, Five sat in the dark of his apartment, in his underwear, and thought. He had poured himself another bourbon, more out of habit than anything else, but then thought better of it and dumped it down the sink. He’d had more than enough to drink that night. So, he’d chosen water instead, and sat in the worn armchair in his living room, staring out at the skyline.

He normally hated looking out that window. When he had moved in, he had asked if they had anything on the ground floor, but the only availability was on the sixth. So, every day he had to stare out into the world that he supposed he was partially responsible for creating. In the very far distance, he could make out the obnoxious search lights that circled the night sky from the roof of his father’s skyscraper. He would listen to the sounds of the police sirens wailing continually, the constant roar of choppers overhead as they completed their nightly rounds. Each one of the vehicles were emblazoned with his father’s HE logo, since he owned the law, too. Most nights he would slam the blinds down so he wouldn’t have to look at it.

But Five was tired of being angry and resentful. He was tired of being a miserable, crabby old fart, as Lila had said. He was exhausted, actually. So, maybe it was time to take Candy and Dolores’ advice and move on. Be grateful for the things he did have. Be happy for once.

Chapter 4: White Christmas

Five was still sitting there an hour later when Candy came strolling in from the bedroom. She had thrown on one of Five’s white t-shirts, with it barely covering the striped panties she had put back on. She hadn’t bothered with a bra, and Five could make out the faint outline of her nipples through the material. When she walked over to him, she smiled and sat down in his lap, putting an arm around his shoulder.

“What are you doing out here all alone?”

“Just thinking,” he mused, while looking her delicious looking body up and down.

“Good, you need to think. Thanks for letting me sleep, though.”

Five’s hand immediately began stroking her bare legs and not-so-subtly trying to grind up onto her tight little butt.

“I guess that means you have more energy now?” His hand crept up higher, onto her hip. “Why don't you let me do something about that.”

He gave her a playful nip to her neck and she giggled. He was starting to like that sound. Better than the bells, anyway.

“That is very tempting, and I can tell, or rather feel , that you are ready for another round of ‘Hide the Yule Log’, but we can’t do that just yet.”

Five frowned. “You can’t expect me to behave when you come in wearing nothing but my t-shirt and drop into my lap like this.”

She laughed. “I know, I’m rotten. I do like seeing you squirm, though.”

Five would rather be squirming into her underpants, but considering his earlier transgressions, he decided to behave. That didn’t mean he had to stop running his hand up and down her smooth thigh, though.

“You’re going to make me see things again, aren’t you?”

Candy nodded. “It’s time.”

“Please don’t make me do this again.”

His voice had come out soft and the words caught in his throat. He looked away out of embarrassment.

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re going to show me the future, I’d rather not see it.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m scared,” he croaked out. “I don’t exactly have a good track record with seeing future events. Or future versions of myself, for that matter.”

She smiled sadly, but nodded, tracing her fingers lightly over his lips. “I know, but it’s ok. You need to see it.”

“I don’t need to. I get it. I’m an old, ungrateful bastard that needs to let people in more and live a happier life. See? I don’t need this part. I figured it out already.”

“That’s not really how this works,” Candy argued.

Five let out a frustrated groan. “Who cares? I learned my lesson, end of story. Now, why don’t you give me my shirt back and we can do something much more fun.”

He leaned in to kiss her and she held him back with a hand on his chest, shaking her head.

“Later. Right now, I need to show you.”

Five inhaled a deep breath and swallowed hard, giving her a small nod of assent. “Ok.”

Another soft kiss, another pulling sensation over his body. When Five looked up, they were back in Diego and Lila’s living room. It was the same house, but things were different. Different furniture, wall paint, and light fixtures. He was about to ask Candy if she screwed up, but then there were voices and his brother and Lila entered the room.

They had aged, that much was clear. By how many years Five wasn’t sure, but there were deep wrinkles in their foreheads and around their eyes. Diego’s hair had streaks of gray running through it.

“We don’t have to invite him, you know. It’s not required.”

Diego sighed and put his hands on his hips, addressing Lila. “He’s my brother. We kind of do.”

“Well, by that logic, do you want to send off an invitation to good old Reggie, too? Just because he’s your adopted brother, doesn’t mean you owe him anything. Besides, do you even know if the little shit stain is still alive? We haven’t seen him in like, what? At least three years.”

Five balked at that. They hadn’t seen him in three years? How was that possible?

There was another long sigh from Diego and he shook his head. “I guess I just assume he is. The old bastard is hard to kill.”

Lila crossed her arms and looked at him in the pointed way that hadn’t changed in so many years. “And do you really want another incident like Grace’s college graduation?”

“No, of course not. But maybe he’s changed; maybe he’s better now.”

“Diego!” Lila threw her arms up and looked at him in disbelief. “The man showed up hammered drunk, interrupted the commencement speaker to yell at them about how wrong they were, and then proceeded to upchuck in the parking lot in front of all of Grace's friends! I highly doubt he’s just miraculously better now.”

Diego nodded in agreement.

“And it’s not like that’s the only time. Remember that Thanksgiving when she was in high school? He drank all the wine and passed out on the floor in the living room? All in front of her boyfriend? She was so embarrassed.” Lila’s voice softened and she put a hand on Diego’s arm. “You tried your best. We all did. But you can’t change someone that doesn’t want to be changed.”

“You’re right. It’s probably for the best that we don't invite him. I wouldn’t want anything horrible like that to happen at her wedding. Besides, I don’t think she will want him there, either.”

Five’s insides were churning and the tightening sensation in his chest was making it hard to breathe. He looked over at Candy, who was watching him with a pitying look on her face.

“This can’t be real. I would never do those things. Ever! Especially not to Grace.”

Candy shook her head sadly. “I know you don’t think you would. But it’s a slippery slope from where you are now.”

Five shook his head, refusing to believe it. There was no way he’d ever let himself stoop so low. Would he? And they weren’t even going to invite him to Grace’s wedding? He clutched at his stomach.

“No. There’s no way. This did not happen.”

“But it has happened. This is the future. Unless you do something to change it.”

Five was silent for a moment, taking that in. “Lila said they weren’t sure I was still alive.” He turned to Candy again. “Am I?”

“Well, see for yourself.”

There was more shimmering around them, the living room fading away as it was replaced with a different scene. As it came into view, Five could see that it was his apartment. Or, at least a version of his apartment. It looked like many years had gone by and it had fallen into disrepair. The paint was peeling on the walls, the window looked like it had been broken at one point and was now half-hidden behind some plastic held up with duct tape. The kitchen was falling apart, with cabinet doors hanging crooked on their hinges, and the faucet dripping continually into the old, stainless-steel sink.

The television was on, tuned to some news station. The anchor was talking about the upcoming New Year’s Eve gala that was held every year inside Reginald Hargreeves’ tower. Only the very elite of the city were invited, of course, but that’s not what Five was focusing on. It was the date. He was looking twenty years into the future.

If that were true, that meant he’d been living in the same shit hole for two decades? And it really was a shit hole now. The place looked like it should be condemned.

Just as Five was about to question Candy, there was a groaning sound coming from the beat up couch in front of the tv. A figure slowly hoisted themselves up and ran a hand through their graying hair. He couldn’t see his face, but Five was pretty sure he knew who it was.

“Shut the fuck up! Fucking Hargreeves bullshit.”

Five watched as his older self grumbled out loud at the tv, standing up to turn in their direction. His heart sank. How many times was he going to have to face his future self? Of all the versions so far, however, this one might have been the worst. He should have only been in his early forties, but he looked about eighty. Even his 100-year-old self had looked marginally better.

With thinning hair and a prematurely aged face that looked like it hadn’t been shaved in several days, the older version stumbled into the kitchen, scrounging in the cupboards. Five noticed that his clothes were wrinkled and stained, like he’d been wearing them for days at a time. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t showered in about that long, too. His expensive clothes that he was normally proud of were now thread bare; his dress shirt looking more yellow than white.

Once he finally found the bottle of cheap whiskey he had been searching for, his older self poured a large glass and then wandered back to the couch again.

Five looked to Candy, his face horror-struck. “This can’t be…how could I live like this?”

“It’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”

Five nodded guiltily. The other version was mumbling out loud to himself and Five listened to his own voice croaking out of the pile of detritus that was his older body.

“Yes, I know what you said, but this is the last one for the night, I swear.” There was a pause. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. This is only my second one.” Another pause and a heavy sigh. “Alright, Dolores. Whatever you say.”

Holy shit. He was back to talking to Dolores? And he didn’t even have a solid, mannequin version of her to at least give some realness to it. He was just mumbling to himself; like a crazy person.

Five closed his eyes and shook his head like he was trying to erase this vision from his memory, but of course that didn’t work, and he turned to Candy, his eyes wide with fright.

“Stop it. Please, I can’t stand this. This can’t be me. Change it back,” he pleaded.

“I can’t do that, Five. Only you can change it.”

“Fine. I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry for all the ways I’ve fucked up over the years, and all of the horrible things I’ve done. I’m sorry!”

She shook her head, the bells on her headband jangling sadly. “I know you’re sorry. But that’s not enough to change things.”

“Well then what the fuck! I…I can’t let this happen. It’s such a…”

“What, Five?”

Five’s eyes filled with tears and his voice broke. “A fucking waste of a life! After everything I have done. I did not spend 45 years in a fucking wasteland to save my family and the world, just to end up as a sad, old drunk all alone. I worked too hard for it to end like this. Why didn’t I appreciate what I had? Why did I pull away from my family?” He shook his head. “No, this is not going to happen. I refuse to go out like this. I have to make it right. Starting now, I’m going to make this right.”

Candy smiled warmly and pulled him in close. She kissed his cheek and put her arms around his shoulders. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

When they were back in Five’s apartment, even though it looked the same as usual and in better shape than the future version, he still couldn’t help but cringe. He needed to find a new place, and soon, that was for certain.

Candy was not on his lap anymore, but sitting across from him in another chair. She was still wearing his t-shirt and nothing else, but Five wasn’t really focused on that at the moment. She leaned forward, her forearms resting on her legs.

“Please tell me we’re done. That was horrible and I never want to see that again,” Five begged.

“You won’t have to. As long as you change and don’t let yourself become that version.”

He nodded and exhaled a long and shaky breath. “I won’t. I’m going to stop being such a prick and start living my life.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to forget everything he’d seen, and then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was still the middle of the night. Too early, or late, to really do anything now. But first thing in the morning, Christmas morning, he was going to start making things right. Five looked back to Candy.

“Even though I hated all of that, you helped me see what I really needed to see. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Does this mean you believe in guardian angels now?”

Five narrowed his eyes, a smile quirking up the corner of his mouth. “I guess I have to, don’t I? I have no other explanation.”

Candy laughed and clapped her hands together, then pumped her fists in the air. “Yes! Ha! I knew I could make you believe!”

Five laughed along with her, that horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach starting to fade away. Then he quieted again and looked at her thoughtfully.

“So, does this mean you’re leaving now? Now that your job is done?”

She shrugged, and Five found he didn’t find that little mannerism nearly as annoying as he used to. “Yes, eventually. But I don’t have to leave this very minute.” She smiled and spread her legs just enough so that Five could get a glimpse of the red and white stripes between them. “Why? Have something in mind?”

“Well, I figured I have a few more hours before I have to start being a better person. Might as well make the most of it.”

Candy stood up and crossed over, plopping herself in his lap again, making sure to wiggle her butt over just the right spot to get him hard again.

“And just what naughty thing were you thinking?”

Five smiled slyly. “It is after midnight; technically Christmas.” He leaned in to kiss her neck, not hard like before, but gently; trailing his lips over her hot skin, teasing, until he heard her make a little sighing noise and she shifted in his lap, rubbing against the growing tent in his boxers. His hand crept back up her leg and onto her hip, where he slipped one finger into the waistband of her underwear. “And since you’re sitting here on my lap, grinding your cute little ass into my crotch, why don’t you go ahead and tell Daddy what you want?”

Her breath hitching in her throat, Candy closed her eyes for a moment, teeth digging into her bottom lip before looking back at him, her breasts rising and falling with each labored breath. She grazed a finger down his neck and over his chest.

“Will you give me anything I want?” she purred with a smile.

“Anything.”

“Then I want you to bend me over…” she kissed his lips softly, “…grab my hips…” another kiss, “…spread me open…” one bite under his jaw, “…and give me a White Christmas, Daddy .” With the last word she pressed into him harder.

“Jesus Chri—” he started to moan, but he was cut off.

She was kissing him. Slow and deep, lacing her fingers through his hair while he swallowed each whimper and moan she breathed into his mouth. Five couldn’t stop his hands roaming over her body, her skin like hot silk under his fingers. Every part of her was a piece of heaven, maybe even literally, and he wanted to commit every curve to memory. She was still kissing him when he stood, picking her up with him, and carried her into his bedroom. When he placed her on his bed, she immediately yanked his stolen t-shirt over her head, propping herself on her elbows and displaying her flawless breasts.

After removing his own underwear, Five climbed onto the bed, kneeling between her legs. Leaning over her, his hands on either side of her and holding himself up, she was forced onto her back.

“I’m going to give you what you asked for, sweetheart, don’t worry. But first, I need to get a taste of this stunning body of yours. See if you live up to your name.”

He leaned in, like he was going to kiss her, stopping just before their lips met, and then he pulled away again. Flashing an overly-confident smirk, he moved south, massaging each breast and taking turns with each side; licking and sucking at each perfect nipple. Five could have spent an entire day just worshiping those soft mounds of flesh. He’d always considered himself a titty man. Tits and ass; that was his thing. As long as a woman had a nice rack and a tight ass, Five didn’t really care what else was going on with them. And fuck, did Candy have a nice one of each.

After a particularly hard bite onto her sensitive nipple, Candy gave a small shriek, but that only spurred Five on further. His bites got harder and he sucked at her skin until he left more marks all over her chest. With each one, though, her back would arch off the bed and she’d push her hips up into him.

“Five…” she pleaded softly.

“I know, sweetheart, I’ll get there. But these gorgeous tits are just too good to ignore.”

She threaded her fingers through his hair as he continued to blissfully torture her. “Please, just…I want your partridge in my pear tree!”

Five rolled his eyes and ignored her remark.

Candy hissed sharply as his teeth dragged across an already bruising mark. “Load up my one-horse open sleigh.”

He resisted the urge to laugh, and instead gave her a hard pinch on her already abused nipple.

“Ah!” she cried, digging her nails into his scalp. “But I need you! Stuff my Christmas turkey, frost my gingerbread house, eat my fruitcake, mmmph!”

Five clapped a hand over her mouth and raised himself up so he could look down on her face, his lips pressed into a thin line of annoyance. He could feel her smiling beneath his palm.

“Candy?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.”

After she nodded, he released his hand, and thankfully she did shut up for once. He knelt in front of her again, frowning as he started pulling her panties down her hips.

“And don’t ever wear these again. They just create more work for me.”

He shoved them the rest of the way off and flung them over his shoulder with a scowl as she laughed. Five took a moment to appreciate the fact that this amazingly stunning woman was stretched out before him, completely naked, and waiting for him to fuck her. She was dying for it, too. Chest heaving and hips twitching, it was a small miracle that Five wasn’t shoving his dick into her already. But he really did want to know what the rest of her tasted like.

When he ran his tongue up her wet slit, she thrusted up so hard that he had to forcefully hold her hips down so he wouldn’t get bucked off.

“Oh shit!” she cried out, her hands clutching the sheets underneath her as her head flung back. “Five, oh my god, that’s –”

She was cut off by her own high-pitched whine as Five sucked at her folds and her clit, using his tongue to penetrate her and hungrily lap up the slick wetness that was running out of her. He didn’t have much experience in eating anyone out, since most of his one-night stands got right down to the fucking with not much time for foreplay. Even though he was making it up as he went along, it seemed to be working in his favor, judging by the sounds she was making and the strength it took for him to hold her writhing body down.

When he felt her getting close; when she was panting loudly and moaning his name, he started drawing it out longer. He slowed down his pace, no longer devouring her, but licking languidly at her hole and pausing to kiss her inner thighs. He smiled when he heard the disappointed groan.

“Five…”

He stopped altogether and raised his head to look at her, one eyebrow raised and a crooked smile on his wet and shiny lips.

“Yeah?”

She exhaled loudly and tried to buck up into him again, but he was still holding her down. “Damn it…don’t stop now!”

“Why? Did you like that?”

“Fuck…Five, please.” Her desperate whine was on the verge of turning into an all out sob.

“Well, since you asked nicely.”

It didn’t take long after he was back on her before her moans turned into loud screams and her back was arching off the bed again. Five worked her into more and more of a frenzy as he felt her pulsing against him, coming against his mouth and soaking the sheets underneath them. He had started grinding himself into the mattress as his own arousal peaked, and Five was very afraid of blowing his load with his dick not even touching her.

He sat up and looked at her lying there with her hair in a mess around her, her chest flushed pink and littered with his bites and bruises, gasping for air from the intense orgasm that he gave her. Holy fuck, he needed to come.

Five moved up, straddling her waist as he clutched his straining dick in his hands.

“I want to fuck your tits,” he breathed out desperately.

Candy nodded eagerly and Five positioned himself so that his cock nestled in the valley of her cleavage and she pushed her breasts together, sheathing him in her warm skin.

“Oh fuck, yes,” he groaned out.

Straddling her chest, Five started thrusting hard and fast, all while he looked down so he didn’t miss out on the pornographic visual. His dick was so hard that the leaked pre-cum that was dripping steadily out smeared over his shaft and between her tits. Candy was massaging and squeezing them around him, running her thumbs over her nipples as he rutted into her. She was so soft and tight at the same time, and the feeling was so fucking good. So much better than when he used to try and use Dolores in the same manner. Back then, he’d had to envision a real live woman beneath him, but now it was very real and he was going to lose it in about ten seconds.

Not wanting to risk it by coming in her face, Five backed off, slipping out of her. Still kneeling over her, he grasped his rock-hard dick and jerked himself vigorously. He tipped his head back with a groan while he worked his fist over himself faster and faster until he was just on the precipice.

“Fuck, I’m going to come on you,” he groaned, as if that wasn’t already obvious.

He gave her the White Christmas she had asked for, painting her perfect tits with ropes of cum, covering her until it was sliding down her sides and onto the bed. Five continued to work himself over, each spasm seeming to create another spurt of semen that was strewn across her chest. When he was finally spent, he let go of himself and climbed off of her, flopping on his back in post-orgasmic bliss.

“Holy shit,” he murmured between ragged breaths.

After a minute, he looked over at Candy, who had propped herself up on her elbows and was watching him. The sight of her covered in his dripping load was quite possibly the hottest thing he’d ever seen, and if he had a few more minutes, he could probably use that image to get hard again. But that wouldn’t be very nice to leave her like that, and even he wasn’t that much of a selfish asshole.

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

When he returned with a washcloth, Five helped to clean her up.

“Sorry. I guess I didn’t really ask if that was ok.”

“No, you didn’t, but that’s ok. I like when you take charge.”

Five gave her a sexy smirk, but then it faltered with the realization that she was probably going to leave him soon.

“Do you have to go now?”

Candy hesitated, but then she shook her head. “Not quite yet. I can stay for a little longer…if that’s what you want.”

Five nodded, then pulled her into him, trapping her in his arms, her back flush with his chest as they laid side by side. Candy wiggled in closer and pressed her ass against him.

“Stay as long as you can, ok?” he whispered.

She squeezed his hand and placed it on her stomach. “Ok.”

With his free hand, he traced his fingers down her side and over her hip and thigh. She let out a soft sigh and relaxed into his chest. Five kissed her neck and her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“You already thanked me.”

“This time I mean for everything. Thank you for making me see what I couldn’t before. But also, thank you for just being here. I didn’t realize how lonely I had become.”

“You’re welcome. And…I wish I could stay.”

He gave her another kiss to her neck and she closed her eyes. “Why can’t you?”

“There are rules. And I have to go back.”

“Will you ever come back?”

“If everything goes the way I want, then yes.”

Five pushed his groin that was already starting to harden again, into her firm backside. Candy let out a tiny moan and pushed back.

“Then I hope you find me,” he said softly against her skin.

“I think it would be very hard to stay away from you.”

He could feel her skin getting warmer again, and he moved so that his cock slid between her legs, brushing against her folds that were already wet for him.

His mouth sucked another mark onto the nape of her neck as he lowered his voice and his hand slid down to squeeze the inside of her thigh. “Do you want me again?”

“Yes,” she whimpered. She pressed backwards, slick running down her inner thighs and wetting his dick as he rubbed between them.

“God, I could keep fucking you all day,” he groaned.

“Just fuck me for as long as we have.”

With a deep growl, Five pulled her hard against him, as she lifted her leg and rested it on top of his. He inhaled sharply when she reached back and grabbed his cock, guiding it into her dripping cunt and thrusting backwards so that his full length was completely inside of her.

“Five,” she moaned sweetly as he rocked into her.

He kept up the slow pace, pulling at her hip and kissing any area of exposed skin that he could reach. He had wanted to hold himself back; to draw it out as long as possible. He had wanted to drink in the scent of her hair and trail his mouth over her soft skin. But then she moaned his name again.

Digging his fingers into her hip, he hissed next to her ear.

“Be a good girl and let Daddy fuck you hard, ok sweetheart?”

With the shamelessly loud groan that she released as her back arched against him, he really didn’t need an answer, but he waited for one anyway.

“Fuck yes. Give it to me.”

Five pulled out and roughly flipped her over so that she was on her stomach and he positioned himself behind her. Grabbing her hips and jerking them backwards, he lined up with her entrance again and shoved himself inside of her. With teeth clenched and jaw set, he got to work. Banging into her ferociously, his hips slapping against her as he railed into her as hard as he could. He didn’t need to feel guilty. She wanted it like this, and he wasn’t doing it out of rage. Anger wasn’t driving him this time, just pure animalistic lust and feral instinct.

He continued pounding into her and they were both lost in their own highs. Candy was moaning loudly, begging for more and clutching at the sheets underneath her. Five was grunting through gritted teeth with the effort he was putting in to fucking her; fueled even more by the hypnotic visual of her angel wing tattoos flexing and twisting as she braced herself against his powerful thrusts. After a few minutes, it was clear that neither one of them were going to be able to take much more.

With another long whine, Candy reached down to rub her clit while Five slammed into her. He could feel her hand every time he thrust forward and his balls slapped against it.

“Five…I can’t…I’m going to come!”

“Go ahead, baby. Come on my dick while you touch yourself.”

“Oh fuuuck, Five!”

When he heard her scream, he came with a loud growl, holding her flush to his body as he pumped one more load inside of her. He could feel her contracting around him as his hips stuttered against her backside. Candy’s legs were shaking and Five pulled out so she could lie down flat, her hair covering her face as she sucked air into her lungs. He sat back on his knees and gave her a playful slap on the ass before lying down next to her.

As they both laid there, trying to steady their breathing, a few minutes passed in silence. Then Five heard her giggle under her curtain of hair. When he pushed it out of the way, she was grinning up at him

“When I think about you, I touch my elf. ”

Five shook his head with a smile. “Have I told you how annoying you are?”

“You may have mentioned it once or twice.”

He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he flipped her hair over her face so she was hidden again. “There. Much better.”

Chapter 5: It's A Wonderful Life

In the early morning hours, Five finally drifted off, warm and content, with his arm flung across Candy’s stomach. She never let him know before she left, but in the morning when he woke, there was no sign of her. He didn’t know why he was surprised; he knew she wasn’t going to stay for much longer. But when he walked into the living room of his apartment, there was no red coat. No black boots by the door. And, most notably, no red headband. All evidence of her existence was gone. All except for the lingering scent of her hair on his pillow and one tiny bell that he found on the kitchen floor and slipped into his dresser drawer.

He was sad she was gone, but not in a way that felt permanent or oppressive. She had shown him there was a lot more to live for, and it needed to start with himself. He didn’t need her with him to make the changes he needed to.

It was still early, but he knew Grace would have woken up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, so he was sure Diego and Lila were up. The rest of his family would probably sleep in a little but then they would be over at their house again, too.

After a shower, Five changed and grabbed the wrapped present he had for Grace on the way out. He stopped by a bakery that happened to be open that morning, and then caught a cab to Diego’s. When he knocked on the door at 7am, he tried not to laugh when his brother opened the door. Diego was still in his bathrobe, looking disheveled and sleep deprived, a cup of coffee in his hands. But the look on his face when he saw Five standing there was priceless. He actually poked his head out of the door and looked around him, as if there might be some kind of prank being played on him and there were cameras around to film his reaction.

“Five, what are you doing here? Are you still drunk from last night?”

“No! I’m here to watch Grace open her presents. And to hang out with you guys, too, if you’ll let me.”

Diego frowned like he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was hearing. He looked Five up and down, taking in his clean-cut appearance, and coming to the conclusion that he must not have come directly from a bar.

“So, can I come in, or do you want me to stand out here all day freezing my nuts off?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah…sure, come on in. Grace and Lila are in the living room.”

He stepped aside to let Five in, still not completely believing what he was seeing. After a moment though, he smiled and clapped Five on the back.

“I’m glad you’re here. We missed you yesterday.”

Five nodded. “I’m sorry about that. I won’t miss any more family things from now on.”

Five handed off the box of pastries he had picked up and headed into the room where Lila and Grace were gathered around the Christmas tree. When Grace saw her uncle, she let out a little screech and ran over to him, throwing her arms around his waist in a big hug.

“Uncle Five! I knew you would come! My mom said you weren’t going to, but I knew you would!”

Five laughed, then he looked at Lila who was staring at him with the same expression Diego had given him.

“Merry Christmas, Lila,” Five said with as much of a smile as he could manage, and only a hint of snark. He could learn to be nice, but he still had his limits.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas to you, too,” she said slowly, her eyebrows creased together in confusion.

Five didn’t even respond when he heard her add “wanker” under her breath.

“Is that my present?” Grace asked when she eyed the large box that Five was holding.

“It is. Do you want to open it? I think you’ll like it.”

She nodded and sat on the floor as Five handed it to her and then joined Diego on the couch. They watched as the little girl ripped open the paper and gasped.

“A real telescope?!”

Five nodded, smiling. “Yep. Now we can go look at the stars together.”

Grace looked up at him with her little chubby face and wide, dark eyes. Then she jumped up from the floor and ran to Five, throwing her arms around his neck in a hug.

“Thank you thank you thank you! I love it so much!” As Five hugged her back, Grace pecked his cheek with a kiss. “This is my favorite present and you’re my favorite person.”

Five grinned and gave her a kiss on the top of her head “You’re my favorite person, too, Gracie.”

As she returned to the telescope and busied herself with getting it out of the box, Five heard Diego sniffing next to him. Lila groaned.

“Oh my god, are you crying , Diego?”

“No! I’m not crying. It’s just…dry in here…and I have allergies…and I’m probably getting a cold.”

“Uh-huh. Ok, babe. Sure.” She rolled her eyes, but she was obviously just as happy as he was.

Diego turned to Five. “So, what happened? You just suddenly changed your mind, got your shit together, and decided to be a decent human being? Overnight?”

Five shrugged, reminding himself of Candy’s annoying habit. “Without going into the boring details, yes, that’s what happened. And I apologize for not being around more. But that’s going to change. I’m going to change.”

Diego raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “Wow. I don’t know where this is coming from, but I’m happy. Like, really happy.” He grinned widely at Five. “I’ve missed you, buddy. We all have.”

“Speak for yourself!” Lila exclaimed from across the room.

Five turned towards her. “You know, Lila, you should really think about letting go of some of your anger. Try to be a little bit happier, sometimes.” As she looked at him like he was deranged, he mouthed “Fuck you” to her over Grace’s head. Lila just shook her head and smiled, glad to see that it wasn’t the end of the world after all.

Five stayed at the house for the rest of the morning. His other siblings trickled in, as well, and it eventually turned into another official Hargreeves’ family party. Seeing that their notoriously high-strung and unhinged brother was suddenly acting like a mostly sane person, they were obviously concerned. But after they realized he wasn’t going to suddenly snap or turn into a pod person, they all loosened up a little.

Klaus sidled up to him at one point, offering him a freshly made glass of Lila’s famously strong Christmas punch. Five waved him off, though.

“No, thanks. I’m not drinking today.”

“Uh, ex-squeeze me? Did you just turn down a drink? You know it has alcohol in it, right?”

Five laughed, a little embarrassed, and put his hands in his pockets. “I know. Just trying to turn over a new leaf.”

“Ohh…I get it. You met a girl, didn’t you?”

Five looked up at him in surprise. “Why would you say that?”

Klaus took a drink from his glass and grimaced at the strong mixture. “You hanging out with us, not drinking, being nice …it reeks of new girlfriend.”

“Huh. Well, in a way, yes. I mean, not a girlfriend, but there was a girl.”

“You should have brought her! I’d love to see what kind of woman managed to snag my darling, murderous brother.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible at the moment. But maybe someday. Stranger things have happened.”

🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽❤️🪽

“Gracie, honey, we’ve been here for thirty minutes. Pick a book, already.”

The little girl sighed and looked down at her pile on the children’s table where she and Five were seated. One of them comfortably so, the other scrunched up with his knees to his chest.

“But I can’t decide.”

“I told you, pick as many as you want.”

“Yes, but I want to make sure they’re the right ones. What if I get home and I change my mind?”

Five rolled his eyes and shifted in the tiny plastic chair. “Then I’ll return them. Or you can throw them out, I don’t care. My ass is falling asleep.”

Grace gave her uncle a disapproving look. “That’s a bad word.”

“Yes, it is. But if you don’t pick your books in the next five minutes, I’m going to say a lot of bad words.”

She sighed again, as if this was the most difficult decision in the world.

Five and Grace had spent the day together, just like they had once a month for the past six months. It was now July. July 3rd, to be exact, and they had opted for indoor activities to escape the oppressive heat of the city. Earlier, they had gone to the movie theater where Five sat through one of those horrible movies where they take real animals and CGI them into playing sports like soccer or basketball. Oh, and the animals talked, too. Completely asinine. It was ninety minutes of torture and Five wanted to stab his eyeballs out with Grace’s lemonade straw, but she giggled through the whole thing so he deemed it worth it in the end. Now they were at the bookstore next to the theater, where Five told her he would buy her some new books.

As he sat there with his expensive pants jammed into a chair in the children’s section, he decided he was going to give her about two more minutes before they were leaving. Books or no books. Who was he kidding…he’d probably sit there all day if it made her happy.

His young niece was about to say something to him, when Five snapped to attention and held his hand out for her to be quiet. He thought he had heard something. Something very familiar. But he was probably just going crazy.

“I think—”

“Shhh!” he hushed her again.

Grace sat back in her chair, arms folded across her chest with a pout. She did not like being quieted.

Five concentrated, listening for the sound he thought he had heard. There was nothing, though, which made a lot more sense, and his body relaxed again. He turned to Grace to apologize, but then he heard it again.

Those fucking bells.

It could have been anything, of course. The bells over the store door, or a baby’s toy. Maybe someone had their dog with them and its chain was jangling. But he would know that sound anywhere. He heard it in his sleep sometimes.

The sound seemed to be coming from a few aisles away. Five sprang out of his chair, his body stiff from being folded up like a pretzel for so long, and the chair tipped over behind him. Grace looked up at him, confused.

“Are we going? I haven’t made my decision yet.”

“Yes, come on. Just…grab all of them, let’s go.”

“But…”

Five groaned with his head back, wishing he could say what he really wanted to which was “Get the fuck up now.” Instead, he looked hastily around him at all the books on the shelves and on the table.

“Here.” He began scooping up piles of them, not even looking at the covers. He was grabbing four or five at a time off the shelves and balancing them in his arms. He shoved a couple at Grace, too. “We’ll just get all of them.”

Grace’s eyes widened. “All of them?”

“Yeah, sure. Come on, let’s go.”

With one arm full of random kid’s books, he held out his other hand for her to take. He all but pulled her arm out of the socket as he yanked her out of her chair.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, Gracie,” he mumbled, still dragging her behind him as she tried to keep up.

Five hurried through the store, looking frantically down each aisle. He couldn’t hear the bells anymore, and he was afraid maybe he was too late. But as they rounded a corner into the “Religion” section, he stopped. And stared.

There she was, just like he remembered her. She wasn’t wearing the slutty elf outfit, but her body was still as sexy as ever in a pair of small cut-off shorts and a tight, red tank top. Her long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was looking over the back cover of a book in her hand, and Five could see she was smiling. Of course she was smiling.

Five walked slowly towards her, Grace still in tow. When she looked up, her smile grew bigger.

“I thought I told you to stop following me,” Five said with a smirk.

“Who says I’m following you? Don’t you believe in coincidences?”

Five shook his head. “Not really.”

Candy actually looked flustered and she chewed at her bottom lip. “It’s good to see you again.”

Five let out a sigh of relief. “It’s really good to see you.”

Candy looked down at Grace, who was staring up at her in curiosity, and then back at Five.

Five cleared his throat. “Oh, this is my niece. Grace. But you already know that, I guess.” He looked down at his niece. “This is a…friend of mine. Candy.”

Grace smiled shyly. Then she stuck out her hand and pointed at Candy’s wrist. “I like your bracelet.”

Five’s eyes were drawn to the jewelry at the same time Candy smiled down at Grace in return. “Thank you. It’s one of my favorites.”

Then she moved her wrist to show off the gold bracelet made up of tiny, jingling bells. The source of the bells Five had heard. He laughed, shaking his head and looking at the floor.

“I really hate that sound.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

There was an awkward pause, and Five glanced over at the book Candy had in her hand. The title was The Path To Enlightenment: Discovering Your Guardian Angel .

“Brushing up on things?” he asked, gesturing to the book.

“This? Oh no, this is what I read when I need a laugh. This whole section should be titled “Humor”. I mean, you should read some of the things they try and pass off as fact.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Candy looked to the books Five was holding and pointed a finger at the top one on the stack. “I hear that’s a good one.”

Five looked down, seeing that one of the random books he’d pulled out was I Pooped on the Potty, And You Can Too! , complete with a drawing of a cartoon elephant sitting on a toilet. Five blushed, but then he laughed.

“Well, better late than never.”

Candy nodded. “Definitely.”

Five felt a tug on his hand and he looked at Grace, who was motioning with her index finger for him to lean in closer. He crouched down so he was at eye level, and she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Although, being a kid, the whole damn book store could have heard her whisper.

“She’s pretty.”

Five feigned surprised, then looked back up at Candy, then back at Grace. “You think so?”

Grace nodded. “You should take her on a date,” she whispered loudly and Five heard Candy giggle.

“What do you know about dates?”

“I know that girls like them because my mom always gets happy after my dad takes her somewhere to eat.”

Five nodded like he was mulling this over. “I see. So, I should ask her now?”

Grace nodded, her face serious. “If you want her to like you.”

When Five stood up, Candy was covering her mouth, trying not to laugh. Then she waited expectantly for whatever Five was going to say to her.

“My tiny wingman here has informed me that I should ask you on a date. Would you like that?”

Candy nodded. “I think I would, yes.”

“Would you like to come over to my brother’s house tomorrow? He’s having a family barbecue for the 4th. It will probably be a giant shit show, but I said I’d be there.”

“How could I pass that up? I would love to.”

When Five looked back down at Grace, she gave him a thumbs up. Then she sat on the floor to look at her books since her job as matchmaker was now done. He set his own books down and took a step closer to Candy, reaching out to touch her hand lightly, brushing his fingers over the back of her hand. He wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that, but seeing as how they were in a bookstore and his niece was present, he held himself back.

“I really missed you.”

“I missed you too, Five.”

“So, you’re here now? Permanently?”

She nodded. “I am. Thanks to you.”

“Why did it take so long? Where have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been around. You needed some time to get things sorted out by yourself. But I’ve been keeping tabs on you.” She looked down at Grace. “Seems like you’ve got things figured out now.”

“Yeah, I think I do. Thank you.”

“Just part of the job.”

Five laughed and then reached up to gently tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I really want to kiss you again.”

“I would love that,” she breathed out.

He was about to lean in, when he stopped himself. “Wait. You’re not going to make me see anything weird again, are you?”

She shook her head. “No. I promise.”

“Good. Because I’ve had enough of that shit to last a lifetime.”

In a second, he was kissing her, softly and deeply, while he pulled her body in closer with an arm around her waist. He let out a sigh when he felt her fingers trace down the back of his neck. She felt and tasted just like he remembered and it was taking everything inside himself not to pull her down to the floor right there in the Religion section.

“Ew! Gross!”

Five pulled away, the disgusted sound of his niece snapping him out of his trance. Candy laughed and Five looked down at Grace, perturbed that she had abruptly turned from adorable wingman to major cock blocker. But he supposed this wasn’t the most appropriate place for a steamy make-out session anyway.

Five cleared his throat. “Well, I guess we should get going. I have to get her home.”

“Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

Five nodded, gathering up his books again. “Oh, wait. I’m not very good at this dating thing, but don’t you need my phone number?”

Candy shook her head. “No, that’s ok. I know how to find you.”

Then, with a sly smile, she added “Oh, and Five? Keeping in the spirit of the holiday tomorrow…you can declare my independence anytime you want. Give me your John Han cock . If you’re up for it.”

With a slightly evil smile of his own, Five stepped in closer to her again, close enough to lean in next to her ear.

“Baby, the British won’t be the only ones that are coming. Not when you red, white, and blow me.”

Candy laughed loudly, her entire body shaking and her stupid bracelet jingling. Five just smirked and turned to walk away, holding his niece’s hand and feeling undeniably happy.

#five hargreeves x oc #number five x oc #five x oc #number five smut #five hargreeves smut #tua smut #five hargreeves #number five #reader insert #smut requests #number five imagine #requests open #badkittywrites #christmas smut #cross posted on ao3 #multi chapter

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kaybreezy3000 · 1 year ago

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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.

Get ready for a taste of Five like you've never had before...

(Chapters Three and Four 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, Plot twists and many tags left off to avoid spoiling the story.

Link to Full Summary and Chapter One and Chapter Two

Chapter Three: House On Fire

I followed her.

I felt like I had no choice.

Or maybe I did it because of her very nice-looking butt that was within my hands reach. She wasn’t even trying to cover it, so how could me looking at it be my fault?

Well…maybe she was covering it, but that towel wasn’t doing a great job. It was way too small, and I could see her flawlessly rounded ass cheeks just fine, not that I hadn’t already seen everything else too, but this was all still blowing my mind and I was hardly thinking with my entire brain.

Even in the very dim light as she was showering, just seeing those perky tits nearly did me in.

My conduct was normally never so rudimentary. I knew that I was acting out of character and that I was better than this.

In my fucked-up brain, I believed that I was better than her, but it was easier to blame my ill-thought-out decision to come in there on anything but myself.

Just the fact that I met up with a girl, all so I could possibly fool around with her was wrong. Me thinking she went to a respected private school somehow made it easier for me to reconcile, but even as dense as I was, I knew that it was something entirely different if the girl was homeless and not at all who she originally appeared to be.

The second she realized I was following her, she let go of my arm and I could have left, but I still didn’t retreat.

That would have been even worse than the first time I blinked away, so I rationalized that was a good enough reason for blindly following her like I was a lost puppy.

What I should have done right then was apologize for showing up like I'd just done after openly blowing her off on the street, and then I also shouldn’t have gaped at her after that, but no, apologizing for either of those things was far from what I did.

It might have been guilt that made me finally pull my eyes off her cute ass, but it was probably just my training kicking in. I glanced around us making sure it was safe. Again, all I saw was the old, deserted workspace where her things were laid out. It was cold, damp, and dark and it didn’t seem right at all, but there appeared to be no immediate danger here.

I nearly ran into her when she stopped and turned my way, and I could tell she thought that was funny because her eyes crinkled at the corners, and she held a hand over her mouth for a second or two in an effort to hide that she was cracking up over my inability to walk.

“Gosh... I can’t believe you are here. I didn’t really think you would come, and then I saw you-" She paused, her smile getting bigger as she carefully hoisted up her bath towel, which showed me less of her chest but offered a better view of her legs. “I am so excited. I am a huge fan of the Umbrella Academy, but mostly that’s because of you.” Even in the dim light I could see her blushing from saying that and I was eating up. “I mean… Oh, my God, that sounds so dumb, I am sorry.”

She looked so worked up over seeing me; it was helping me feel less uncomfortable, but only a little.

“I know this looks bad,” she said, gesturing around her, “but I can explain. This situation is temporary. I swear I’m not a weirdo or anything.” She laughed again ad this time her laugh came out much more openly and I found that I liked the sound of it. It was delicate and feminine, just like her voice and everything about her. “Not that people living on the streets are weirdos or anything, it’s just that something bad happened and well…” She didn’t finish and I didn’t press her about it, because truthfully, I didn't care about anything other than watching her.

Being a little less of an ass, I cleared my throat while looking around aimlessly to try and keep my eyes off areas of her that I shouldn’t be looking at, like the drops of water dripping from her hair that then slipped down in-between her breasts.

“Ah, yeah," I mumbled, acting totally unaware of what she was talking about. "Sorry about that. At first, I didn’t realize that was you on the corner.” My eyes continued to dart anywhere but at her as I anxiously rubbed the back of my neck and continued lying. “I mean, I didn't recognize you without that school uniform on,” I clarified, before I stupidity rambled on. “I read your note. It sounded like you had something important you needed to see me about. Being available to help people is sort of what we do. I am here, so...”

She said nothing, so I raised a brow at her, indicating that she needed to lead this.

Going with the ‘Superhero, here at your service’ thing was such a dumb thing to say, because helping your normal average people on the street was not at all what Reginal Hargreeves was about or what we normally did at The Umbrella Academy, but seeing as most my blood wasn’t pumping to my brain, that was all I had.

Her eyes widened with what I assumed was recognition, and her hands tightened around her towel as I did my best to level a hard stare at her again.

“Uhm, wah-w-would you just give me a second,” she stuttered. “I just… I am sorry, I’m so nervous. I still can’t believe it’s really you, like the real live Five Hargreeves, with me, here.”

She bit her lower lip with her upper teeth as her eyes trailed up and down, taking me in like I was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen.

“Ah… I just need to-”

She quickly bent down, frantically digging through a plastic bag with what appeared to be clothing in it.

“I can’t imagine what you think of me,” she said as she waved her hand at all her things, “of all this, and-" She looked up from her crouched position. “You know, with this place and my whole improvised shower thing. Since I thought you changed your mind about meeting me, and it started to rain, I figured I may as well enjoy a rinse, but you are probably thinking all sorts of things about me doing that,” she added, snatching a shirt out of her pile.

“I don’t think anything, and I didn’t see anything," I replied, way too quickly, but I'd already lied once, and she didn’t call me out on it, so I figured that I may as well lie again because she obviously was too rattled to call me out on it.

“Oh... Okay.” Her lips pulled to the side like something was bothering her. “I only wore that uniform because I wanted to look less…” she looked down at her hands, “-less me, I guess. It's just, when I heard about the press conference today, I jumped at the chance to go and I wanted to look nice, so that’s why I wore that.” Her head very slowly shook side to side, then she looked back up. “I did go to that school, but I don’t anymore.”

“Sure,” I indifferently retorted as I tucked both my hands in my pockets rather that anxiously fiddle with my blazer's lapels.

With a puff of air to blow my hair out of my eyes, I tipped back on the balls of my feet in an effort to look as cool and calm as possible.

“That’s…ah, fine," I added. "I wasn’t trying to make it seem like it matters or anything So, yeah... I am going to just look over this way so you can-” I pulled my hand out of my pocket, gesturing the other way, then I turned, giving her a moment to make herself decent.

Behind me, I could hear more rustling, then a few seconds later, the area we were standing in lit up with a warm glow of light. It totally took me off guard, and despite the fact that the girl was trying to get dressed, I immediately turned back her way.

My mouth gaped as I breathed, “What the-"

Her big blue eyes looked startled as I felt.

“It was so dark in here. Isn’t this better?” she worriedly asked, interrupting me from asking how in the hell she managed to light so many candles that fast.

I nodded an affirmative yes, as I thickly swallowed.

My mouth felt dry, and my hands felt so unbelievably hot.

I could see her much better now. She wasn’t fully naked or in her little towel anymore, but she was only wearing a long white t-shirt and it didn’t appear to be her size because it was falling off one of her shoulders, exposing her slender upper arm and the delicate curve of her collar bone. Behind her, I could see that along the ledge of dirty windows that faced out to the factory floor, she had dozens of candles that I hadn’t noticed before, and each one and many of the others that were strewn about were all lit. There were at least thirty or more, but I never heard a strike of a match or the flick of a lighter.

“How’d you-"

She raised a hand, stopping me because when she did, I got a glimpse of her lacey little red panties. Then I turned red, and she giggled at my gawking wide-eyed reaction to that.

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” she taunted.

“No.”

I knew my fast answer was as unconvincing as all my others, but I couldn’t help it.

The girl inched closer.

“Hey, I promise I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to,” she purred. “I meant it when I said that you are my favorite member of the Umbrella Academy. I really did want to meet you and that was in part because I figured you would be the only one willing to listen to me, but I really like you too, Five.”

She was right in front of me now. I held my ground. Something felt off, but when she reached out and took my wrist, pulling my hand out of my pocket, I didn’t pull away. Instead, I let her pull me closer.

“Why am I your favorite?” I quietly asked.

She smiled. “Because you are extremely smart. You always seem to be a million steps ahead of the rest.”

In the glowing candlelight I could see her cheeks light up from saying that, but it only made her look more beautiful.

“You are my favorite because you are, well… Because you are so-” She looked down, eyeing my neck or maybe my tie, I wasn't sure. “I feel so silly saying this to you, because you are you, and you are famous, and so incredible and everything, but you are my favorite because you are so charmingly mannered and serious all the time and because you are so uniquely handsome."

With each thing she said, I felt like my brain could not compute. “You think I am handsome?” I asked, sounding like a complete buffoon.

“Yes, I do. I have a huge crush on you. I think you are so hot,” she breathed as her fingers ran across the inside of my palm. She twisted one foot around her opposite ankle and her knee bumped into my leg, brushing against my nerdy knee sock.

She was so close. All I wanted to do was touch her.

Again, my eyes felt drawn to her body, especially to her chest because I could see plain as day that she was chilled from the night air coming in from outside.

When I looked back up, she quirked a brow, confidently holding my hungry stare. Her long lashes fluttered as she leaned in expectantly and one of her hands fell against my chest with a teasing softness.

“It’s pretty clear that you like what you see too,” she said, followed by another giggle. “I don’t mind if you do. I am glad you find me attractive. I may have been dangling an intentional carrot when I promised to make this worth your while. But that's only because I really wanted you to come tonight. I did ask you to meet me because I needed to talk to you about something important, but we can definitely do more than talk if you want that. I really, really like you, Five, like a lot."

Her toes bumped my shoes and my eyes moved down to see there was no space left between us.

“It looks like you want to touch me. Do you?”

“Yes," I said as my voice shook.

My answer was so pathetically soft, but I felt at a loss for words, so I was lucky anything came out. This girl was all I could think about, and she was knocking me off my game big time.

Her smile looked so sincere. “I’m all yours then."

Holy shit. This was it.

This is what I came for, so…

Leaning in, I tilted my head down like I assumed you should do if you’re going to try and kiss someone slightly shorter than you. She silently reciprocated my small overture, clearing the distance between us.

My eyes automatically shut.

Then, as if I was having an outer body experience, I felt my mouth pressing against hers.

Wow.

Her lips were smooth as silk. I could smell her even better now; the flowery scent and heat of her body were pulling my mind out of that dank factory and taking away all my usual anxieties and racing thoughts.

All I felt was her.

Right then, I understand why people did this.

I was finally getting what all the fuss was about and why my brothers were constantly going on and on about it.

Who knew that something as simple as kissing was so awesome?

I am sure that I grazed her mouth too hard at first, but I didn’t know how to do it. That was the point in coming there. I didn’t know how to do any of this, but I found that I was desperately wanting to know, and lucky me, I was getting exactly what I came for.

Thoughts of me being better than her, and her being a homeless teenager, one that obviously wasn’t in the best situation, faded far into the recesses of my mind. Everything that normally bogged me down became just more background noise like the steady thrum coming from the rain.

Feeling the warm pressure of her lips against mine sent a rousing prickling sensation up and down my spine. I felt like every one of my nerve endings ignited, and I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her, but instead, I let up because I didn’t want to scare her off. I didn’t want to pull away from this feeling yet, but thankfully she didn’t want it to end either. As soon as I stopped kissing her, she advanced, pushing her mouth to mine again.

She still had one of my hands in hers and my other hand felt like it needed to be somewhere other than dangling uselessly at my side, so the next thing I knew, it was resting on her slender waist. The cotton fabric of her shirt slid under my hand as my fingers dug into her hip, latching on. She wasn’t trying to get away, but something in me, something that I didn’t quite understand, wanted her as close as possible and needed to make sure she didn't leave me just yet.

Her lips parted against mine and feeling that, I let my tongue dip inside her mouth like I'd heard you should do. She allowed it and even massaged my tongue back with hers.

It felt unreal and I felt very, very erotically wet and hot.

First time seeing a real naked chick (other than in one of Diego’s Playboys that he kept under the floorboard under his bed): Check

First kiss: Check.

First ‘French’ kiss: Check

This one experience was such a great idea. I would have no shortage of things to lord over my moronic brothers if they were making fun of me and I felt the need to shut them down.

A few minutes later, after more soft tongue twisting, I risked moving my arm around her so that my hand was laying across her lower back and, in doing so, the sexiest sound came out of her. Then to even further prove that she was enjoying this as much as me, she pushed her curvy little body flush with mine, her hip falling even more perfectly between my legs.

My first reaction was to move myself back to a safer distance because I was sure that she could feel my dick and that’s because I sure as hell could feel it. I’d been fighting a hard-on since I first saw her buck naked and I was steadily losing that fight the longer I was in her presence.

Oh, but fuck she felt so good. God help me...

Instead of shying away from my body’s response to her, it seemed that she was loving it. She rubbed her body against my pelvic region and that sealed it. There was no slowing down that not so little physiological reaction I was having.

I could feel my dick getting full hard. Before this, when my hands were in my pockets, I had tried to conceal how turned on I was by tucking it up under the waistband of my briefs in the trusty hide your boner method, but now that was doing little to nothing in hiding the fact that I was very turned on.

When our lips finally parted, I was noticeably breathless, but so was she as she asked, “Do you want me to touch you?”

I didn’t know what she meant. I was touching her, and she was already touching me. As I kissed her, she moved her hands up around my shoulders. Her fingers had been gently moving through the hair at the nap of my neck the entire time and it felt so God damn amazing.

When I didn’t answer her question, she lowered one of her hands, taking one of mine under hers. She took it off her hip, placing it back on her ass in an assertive way that caused a smacking sound on impact. It made me startle at first, but I also couldn't begin to hold in my growing smile over how much I liked that.

She giggled as my fingers splayed across the thin lacy fabric covering her. Trying to make her smile even more, I dipped a finger under the fabric over one of her cheeks as I held my breath in a failed attempt to contain my elation over her letting me do this.

“You can touch me, Five. I want you to,” she assured even though it was already apparent that she was fine with this.

After that open invitation to do more, my other hand joined in the fun, groping her butt cheeks. They were firm yet jiggly and so unbelievably exciting to play with. I cupped them possessively, just enough to lift her off the floor a tiny bit. She seemed to like it and I did too and not just because that caused the weight of her to press into me in the most pleasurable way. She was so easy to lift; it made me feel so powerful and that was not a feeling I was used to. I won nearly every match between me and my siblings during training, but that was not because I was big and strong. My only sibling smaller than me was Vanya, and she and I only had interactions that were in conversation, not combat.

With a smile, I dove back in, kissing her even more confidently. It was sloppy and fucking fantastic, and her reaction to it was great.

There was no mistaking her wiggly hips trying to drive me even more nuts as they rolled against my erection.

This was crazy. I knew that. But I didn’t want to stop.

She felt so perfect. She tasted so damn delicious; like she’d been eating fruity flavored candy. I loved the way her mouth felt as it moved with mine. I loved how her body felt under my hands as I let them explore just a little more freely. Moving up the back of her shirt, my palm slid along her velvety skin, edging upwards.

The girl clearly meant that she liked me and that I could touch her as I wished because when I went for it, tickling my fingers across the side of her breast, she made another one of those amazing little noises.

I broke our heated kiss. “Is this okay?” I asked, wanting to be sure before I did anything else.

“Yes. What you are doing feels so good, Five. Touch me however you want,” she breathlessly assured, her swollen lips parting in a soft gasp as I let my fingers trail over her chest. I let her nipples catch between my fingers, relishing in how hard they were, but I was still too jumpy to stay and play with them more than that even though I was all but salivating as I thought about diving under her shirt and taking her with my mouth.

Feeling up a girl’s warm and so soft and tantalizingly squishy boobs: Big Boner Check!

Her head tipped back, and her eyes closed as I continued to let my fingers explore and I carefully studied her responses.

“Are you cold?” My question came out slightly cocky, but I couldn’t help it. Her tits were so hard! I knew she liked this.

Her eyes slowly opened as a cute smirk pulled her lips to the side. “No. I am far from cold. In fact, I don’t usually get cold like normal people do.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s my magical superpower and it makes it much easier when taking a shower in the rain or when you’re trying to stay warm on particularly cold nights when you are forced to sleep outside. But even with my talents, I am not planning on staying around here for winter,” she replied as I pressed her up against me just a little tighter, letting her hips dance against the bulge in my pants that was dying for as much attention as it could get.

“Where are you going?” I mindlessly asked because I was only a tiny bit focused on our conversation.

The girl’s hand moved under my blazer. I could feel her trying to work up the bottom of my knitted vest as she answered. “I’m not sure yet, but somewhere warmer. After everything, I think that I need a fresh start.”

When she was done running her warm hand under my shirt and over my abs, she pulled it free then dropped it down over the stretched wool fabric of my shorts, and there was no preventing the groan like noise that followed.

“Oh my God, that feels so good. Please don't stop," I breathed as she worked her hand over me.

Getting my boner felt up by a hot chick: Check!

My hair fell over my closed eyes as my body leaned into her touch. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn't help rutting into her hand to increase the sensation.

“Like I said, Five, I really like you,” she whispered alongside my ear, further sending electrifying tingles across my overheated skin.

With each hard pass of her hand over the fabric of my shorts, I felt myself winding tighter. The reality that she could make me come in my pants by simply groping my dick through my clothes was becoming a very real prospect with each second that passed, but to only further add to my inability to back away and my dismay, she started to lower herself.

“What are you doing?” I frantically asked.

I seriously didn’t know, and I urgently felt the need to pull her back up so I could bury my face against her neck and she could continue to touch me like that.

As I gazed down at her in question, her fingers quickly popped the button holding my waistband closed, and no sooner had she done that, then she was examining my fly. As her fingers pulled down the tiny piece of metal holding my zip up, both my hands flung downwards to prevent my dick from springing out in her face, but she smiled up at me with those beautiful sparkling ocean eyes of hers, looking like she was not at all concerned about that happening.

“I want you to like me too, Five. I want to do this for you and for me. I want to make you feel good,” she said.

I didn’t know what to say to that. My mind was spiraling and coming up with zero.

When her hand came up, moving my hands aside, I didn't fight it.

“Oh fuck!” I moaned as she leaned in and pressed her hot lips over the thin fabric cover of my cotton boxers.

Her warm hand pushed aside my pants as she began placing the softest kisses up my entire length.

“Has anyone ever done this for you before?” she asked, letting her words vibrate my aching tip.

The fabric of my underwear was wet from my pre-cum and when she licked at it and then happily smiled up at me afterwards, I croaked out a very embarrassing, “No, never.”

She beamed even more over my answer, then she began working my shorts and my briefs down my trembling legs.

“I’m surprised to hear that,” she mused as her warm hand tenderly ran back up my left leg and then reached over to tug where my pants got stuck on my other thigh.

Her eyes flit up to mine as I watched her shuffling my clothing down as far as she could. Once she had my uniform shorts and underwear down to my knees, I widened my stance in anticipation of her jerking me off because that’s what I figured was going to happen because she was already stroking me.

It felt odd but also so empowering as I stood over her, watching her seemingly taking pleasure in pleasuring me. I was having all sorts of dirty thoughts about doing more to her, but I kept them to myself as I focused on her hand moving where only mine had ever been before.

“Five Hargreeves, you aren’t what I expected.” When our eyes met, her grin told me that she meant that as somewhat of a joke, but in what way exactly, I didn’t understand, and at the moment, I didn’t care. “I figured by how eager and wonderful you are at kissing, that someone with your sexy skills and fame, would have had plenty of opportunities to get sucked off.”

Just hearing her say that made my cock twitch and more liquid slowly drip out of me, but the moment her lips molded around my swollen bulb of flesh, that’s what made me lose it.

I helplessly swayed backwards. The sudden shuffling of my feet and the scuffing sounds of my shoes as I miraculously stopped myself from falling, all mixed with my uncontained squeak of a moan, and it made it sound like something bad was happening to me and I was trying to get away, but that was far from it.

“You really want to do this?” I asked even though she was already sucking on my dick as the words came sputtering out of my mouth.

Her tongue swirled around before she popped her mouth off and she grinned at me with those cherry red lips.

“Yes, I do, but I have only done this two other times and that was with the same guy. I have only been with one person Five, and from what I understand of it, everyone likes it differently, so don’t be scared to help me make this better for you.”

Well, that little piece of information definitely helped ease my worries about STDs, and it also helped ease the lingering thought that maybe she was not only homeless, but maybe that she was also the type to try and earn money by hanging out on dark street corners picking up drunk strangers on their way home from bars.

I nodded that I understood what she meant by helping her even though I didn’t, then she placed her mouth on me again and began really working me over.

On her knees, her face was at the perfect height for this as she bobbed her head, letting her mouth wet my length, inch by inch. Gazing down at her as she performed this act on me, I very gently placed my hand on her head, feeling her damp hair slip under my fingers before I gently tucked it back behind her ears so I could see what she was doing better.

Getting my dick sucked: Ch-Check yeah!

This was turning into way more than I could have ever imagined. I was knocking off sexual millstones at an alarming rate, but I was normally fast and good at everything I did, so excelling at this wasn’t really anything that shocking, and in that glorious moment, I found myself feeling pretty damn pleased with myself about it.

The sight of my dick moving in and out of her mouth was enough to make me feel like I could do anything. My hips very slowly began to push towards her mouth each time she took me in. This got her making tiny moaning noises of her own and I also found that she was taking me deeper with each thrust, so it had to be okay.

“You are so good at this,” I encouraged because saying that seemed like the right thing to do, and that smart move got me rewarded with her free hand falling over mine where it was still gently resting on her head, her fingers lacing with my own.

I was confused at first, but when she applied pressure to the back of my hand, essentially forcing my dick deeper in her mouth, I got it.

“Are you sure?” I breathed as my feet shifted, causing a deep squeaking sound followed by a sharp squeak as one of my shoes slipped on the water that must have dripped from her hair on to the floor. The old floorboards creaked again as I dug in, looking for any kind of traction as I started to pump my hips a little harder even though she hadn't replied yet.

She made a sound that had to mean yes, and that was it. My entire body felt like it was already quivering in anticipation of my release, but that didn’t stop me from taking her by the back of the head like she had shown me so I could fuck her mouth at the very brutal pace I was used to jerking myself.

All at once, the hand she had been using to assist in blowing me was down at my tensely flexed thigh, and it was joined by her other hand on my other leg shortly after my throbbing dick started to slam down what her throat.

I could see and feel her gagging a few times, but she contained that reaction very quickly. Her short nails dug into my skin, but other than that, it didn’t seem like she wanted me to stop, so I didn’t.

The familiar tension was building in my balls, and I knew the inevitable was coming. Breathing in quick shallow puffs of air as I took a few final marvelous feeling diggers at her wonderful mouth, I finally let up on her hair, letting go of her completely.

The pulsing heat was on its way.

I tried to step back, shifting my weight on one foot to back away and pull out, but she held me tight, even moving one of her hands up to cling to the bottom of my academy jacket so I couldn't escape.

My entire body shuddered as her mouth continued to glide over me. She swallowed my waves of pleasure as they tore out of me, and her other hand made sure to help drain every last quivering ounce of seed I was spurting as she milked my shaft.

I could hardly see straight. My eyes kept falling shut as I shook all over. Feeling beyond dizzy, I’d have to force them open again as I held on to her shoulders because I honestly needed the support her small frame was giving me.

It probably took me a full minute to focus my vision. When I did, I saw that she was still on her knees, but I already knew that her mouth wasn’t on me anymore. The girl’s cheeks were very red, and her eyes looked watery. She was even sniffling a little.

As the euphoria faded, my feelings of deep remorse began creeping in. I was way too rough. I forced myself down her throat, gagging her and cutting off her ability to breathe and for some reason she let me do it, but still, I shouldn't have.

Even as she wiped at her eyes and started to stand up, she tried to smile, clearly making an effort to ease my worries.

Her trembling lips looked so beautiful. I didn't understand it, or her, especially her attraction to me. I had just defiled her and treated her like my own personal cum dump, yet she looked like she was in love with me.

Her soft laugh that came out sounding so genuine as she peered up at me and it helped shake off most of the guilt I was struggling very hard to suppress.

“Again, Five Hargreeves, meeting you had been full of surprises, but also not.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I fumbled with my underwear and my shorts, pulling them up and fastening them as best I could because I was still somewhat hard and again had to adjust myself northwards in accordance with that.

“I mean that you know what you want, and you know how to get it. I like that, so please don’t take it as a bad thing. And for the other thing, about not being surprising... Well, yeah. All guys like their dicks sucked," she said with another laugh that I think wasn't to make fun of me, but I wasn't really sure.

As was the norm in my brief conversation with the girl, I didn’t know how to reply to that.

“That was truly an unforgettable experience. You were so good at-" I started to say, but then stopped because the right words to thank her for blowing me wouldn’t form in my mouth.

“Thank you for the compliment.” She chuckled at my ineloquence as she straightened her baggy shirt, but a second later it slid down her slender shoulder again.

She crossed her arms over her chest as she continued to smile. It was as if she was waiting for something else. She probably had a right to be expecting something else from me after what she just did.

I didn't know what exactly that would be or what I should do. Hardly thinking, but at least realizing that I should say something other than a few muttered words, I began rambling again.

“Phoebe, was it?”

She smirked as she shifted her weight just a little, lifting one of her bare feet so her toes were rubbing over the top of one of my dusty black shoes. Her bare foot left a clean streak on top of the hard leather as it whipped away some of the dirt that had gotten kicked up on me from the filthy floor.

“Yes. It’s Phoebe. But you can call me Fee.” She appeared to be laughing off my only now recalling her name. “Everyone who knows me does.”

I didn't know her, but I said, “Okay, Fee.” I ran my hand back over my hair as I glanced around, feeling like a total idiot. “So, ah…you said that you don’t live here?”

“No. This place is temporary. I used to live on campus with my mom. Like I said," she laughed at me again, "I used to go there. My mom was employed by them as an instructor under a work visa, so I was lucky enough to get a chance to apply on a student visa and I got in.”

“Where’s your mom?”

I realized this was all something she mentioned before, and I also realized it was rude of me not to have asked more about her or her situation earlier, but I didn’t mention that or that I had actually thought she probably stole the uniform or that I thought she was probably making it up that she attended such a prestigious school.

“My mom passed away three months ago. They diagnosed her with stage four cancer and things happened very fast after that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but why are you here in a place like this, hanging out on the streets at night?”

For the first time, the girl looked slightly offended. She pulled her foot back from where she had left it next to mine.

She let out a tired sounding sigh. Her eyes looked unfocused as she looked off at a pile of books on the floor next to her bedding. “The reason I am here in this dump is because I had nowhere else to go. Homeless shelters aren’t great or safe, and right now they aren’t an option for me anyway.”

“Don’t you have family?”

“All we had was each other. Mom was an only child and her parents wanted nothing to do with her after she decided to keep me.”

“Why would they do that?”

She shrugged. “Because she was so young. She was doing her own thing, traveling around the world at the time. They weren’t happy about her choice to delay going to university and then when she came home with a baby and wouldn’t tell them anything about how it happened, that was it. They were stuck up, heartless assholes who cared more about their precious reputation than their own child, so they disowned her.”

“Where are your grandparents now?”

She was giving me a look like she didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting this. “For one, those people who left my mom and I to rot are not my grandparents, and two, the last I knew, they are still in France, living just outside of Paris. When my mom was dying, social services and the kind people from U.S. immigration were ready to ship me off to go live with them but I wasn’t having that. I want nothing to do with them and I know the feeling is mutual. They were only taking me in because the law said that they had to.”

“But how are you going to live here?” I stopped and shook my head back at her in disbelief. “I don’t mean here, but like here, in the states. You can’t be much different in age than me, so you can’t live on the streets. If you were on a student visa that would mean you aren't a citizen, right?”

She all out laughed at that and rolled her eyes. “I am almost seventeen, just like you, and my citizenship in the U.S. is a temporary issue, just like my housing situation. I was born in Albania, so technically I guess that means I could claim citizenship there or in France since my mom was French, but I'm not going to do that. I am no child and I'll figure it out. Just like my mom, I am very resourceful.”

“Okay,” I replied sharply, still not understanding what this was all about. “What did you say you wanted to talk to me about? You did say that didn’t you?”

The girl named Fee unfolded arm arms, looking up at me with so much emotion in her expression that I didn’t understand.

“I wanted to tell you that there are others like you out there.”

“What? What do you mean, others like me?”

She licked her lips as her eyes pulled away from mine, looking across the room at the rusty old desk pushed up against the farthest wall. The candles she had grouped together on top of it suddenly flickered. It must have been a gust of wind that blew in from the hole in the roof on the other side of the wall, but to me, it felt like it was getting hotter in there, not colder as the storm outside got stronger and the rain pelted down harder on the roof.

A sad looking smile appeared in place of her other mysterious expression as she looked back up at me.

“I mean that you and your adoptive siblings aren’t the only ones that were born with special powers.”

Taking a step back, I cocked my chin to the side as I narrowed my eyes at her.

“How would you know that? What is this really about? Why do I get the feeling that you are full of shit and that you are trying to get something out of me with all this?”

I shot off that rapid fire of questions and none of them came out very nice, but I couldn't help myself. I was getting very defensive and anxious all of a sudden.

The heat in the room vanished and I could see my breath and hers.

Something felt very wrong.

There was a small puff of air out of her nose and that pretty smile disappeared. “I want a lot of things, but I don’t like what you are implying. I didn’t ask you to meet me so I could get something from you. And I know that there are others like you because I met one of them.”

“Okay, so you say you’ve met one of these other super powered people out there and I’m just supposed to take your word for it? I don’t even know you, so I have no reason to trust a word you say, and what difference does it make if there are other kids like me and my family out there. Why should I care?”

“You should care because Sir Reginal Hargreeves isn’t telling you guys everything he knows and he is clearly using you, and you are right, you don’t know me, but you did just blow your wad in my mouth, so I think that makes us somewhat friendly, wouldn’t you say? You trusted me enough to do that, so why are you being like this to me now?"

My jaw dropped as I clenched my fists at my sides.

“What, you think that you can shower me with compliments and flirt with me and then give me a blow job and then what, I’m going to ask you to come back to the Academy with me and we are going to live happily ever after or some other crazy delusional shit like that?”

Her laughter would have sounded beautiful if it wasn’t coming out to mock me. “Wow! No, that is not what this was about. I told you that I liked you because I do, or I did. Now I feel very stupid for letting myself feel that way about you.”

The girl’s eyes glossed over as she poked a finger at my chest, pushing me back with it, proving that even though she was smaller than me, she was not scared of me, and I didn't like that one bit.

“I actually looked up to you. Fuck!" she furiously yelled as she threw her hands up. "Stupid me because I even idolized you out of all of them! I thought you were different and that you would care to know that you were being lied to.”

“I don’t get it!” I yelled back. “Nothing you just said matters even if it were true. I already know that my dad is using us! There is nothing to idolize about my life, so you were wrong in thinking anything like that involving me. You don’t know what it’s like to be one of us!”

“Yeah, I don’t. You are right about that, but I didn’t idolize you because of your life. I just thought you were something you weren’t. I do know people and when I saw all your fake smiles, I knew that you weren't happy and that you aren’t being given a choice in how you live. I just wanted to let you know that you have one if you are willing to take it. If anything, I wasn’t trying to shack up with you and all the cool kids at the super powered snob academy. I was actually foolishly thinking you might want to leave that place. You don’t owe that horrible man anything for taking you in. You’d be fine if you left him.”

“And how do you know that, huh? You seem to think you know a lot of things, but I really doubt that. I'm also doubting that anything that comes out of your mouth is true.”

If looks could kill, I would have been dead.

“God damn, Five, you are mean when all the walls come crashing down around you," she spat back hatefully. "I never would have guessed you would have been like this.” She laughed away her tears and straightened her back as she stared me down. “You are right. I don’t know everything, but now I can see that you aren't who I thought. You are a total prick who lashes out at anyone that threatens the bogus reality you built around yourself."

“Oh yeah! And what bogus reality are you referring to?”

“The one where you are so terrified of being rejected that you do everything in your power to make it seem like being loved or accepted doesn’t matter to you. You are scared of making yourself vulnerable but it's the only way you will ever get the thing you really want which is acknowledgement. Even big arrogant assholes like you want to be liked. Actually, people like you want it more than anything and I'm pretty sure that’s part of your problem. I know that you and your family aren’t in that place because you want to be. I just thought that maybe knowing that you weren’t alone with your powers out here in this messed up real world would help you see that you could walk away from all that crap, and it would be okay. Like I said, I really liked you, Five. I was wrong to care, but I did.”

My mind was a torrent of thoughts about what she said. It felt like she was deliberately trying to hurt me, and it made me so fucking mad that she was talking about majorly private things like she could see right through me. It was like she knew just how to push my buttons.

I couldn't let her get the better of me.

I had never felt so weak and exposed, not even when I was younger and dad verbally tore me apart, or when he would leave me broken and sick with blood oozing out of my nose and ears from over exertion after one of our lovely private training sessions. He didn’t care about me at all even though I desperately wanted him to. To make that all even worse, it was Grace that would have to scoop my limp body off the floor. My traitorous tears would stain her cheerfully patterned dresses as she did her best to sooth me in her motherly yet robotically programmed way. It was just another hit, another insult among so many others that slowly closed off my heart to the world around me.

“I am not scared of anything, and you don’t know anything about me!" I screamed. "You are a dirty, homeless, Umbrella Academy obsessed slut that is just disappointed that I am not falling for your manipulative bullshit. You have no fucking clue what you are talking about, not about my family, or about what I want!”

I watched her confidence crumble with each cruel word I said.

I smiled.

The candles flickered again, this time the room became fully dark before the flames calmed and it slowly illuminated again. During that confusing and rage-filled moment, she must have swiftly stepped back away from me because now her back was up against the wall, and she was standing on sparkling shards of glass from one of the broken windows. She looked terrified and it was clear that getting away from me was more important than preventing foot lacerations.

My mind was a mess. Her hands were in front of her, held up in a defensive way. She actually thought I was going to try to hurt her and that and seeing her bleeding feet made me even more mad.

“Sure, whatever, just calm down," she said. Her body was visibly shaking, and her voice quivered in fear even though all I had done was yell sort of crazily at her. “I am sorry I wasted my time telling you that stuff. I thought maybe you would have already started to piece all that stuff together and that it was possible you already knew that you guys weren’t the only ones born this way. If you didn’t know, I thought you’d care and maybe you'd at least want to meet my friend, but I see now that you don’t and that this was a big misconception on my part.”

There was a moment of silence and in it, I thought about telling her that I thought she was a lying piece of trash, but something in me knew that was going too far and that it wasn’t fair to do to her after everything that I had already just said and after everything that had just happened between us.

I had no right to call her a dirty slut. If she was one, then I was worse.

None of this was right or fair, not my life or hers, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the truth of that or the things she said, and I unleashed my hatred and resentment on her with no filter.

“Please just leave,” she whispered as her tear-filled eyes fell to her injured feet.

With a sudden flash of blue and an instinctive blink, I did go, but I couldn’t let go but I couldn't let it go.

~~~~~~~

Then the next evening at dinner with my family, I made an even bigger mistake. After agonizing all day over what happened, I found the silence of my siblings ignoring each other, as dad ignored all of us, too much to take. Not even Vanya’s worried looks were enough to thwart my immense anger.

I hated all of this.

I hated my life.

After starting a useless argument about my abilities with dad and getting his usual nonsense that I wasn’t good enough to time travel, with the smile of a mad man pulling on my lips, I took off out of the dining room as he called out begging me to come back.

For the first time ever, Reginald sounded scared.

And he should have been. I was about to ruin my life.

I was about to walk away from it all and leave them and all my pain behind.

Riding high on adrenaline and defiance, at first, I thought I’d done it.

As I propelled my body forward in time, the atoms crackling and snapping as they repeatedly broke apart and pieced back together, I sent myself years ahead of them. I appeared out of my burst of blue swirling light while sprinting down the block away from our home.

I felt free for the first time ever.

I couldn’t control it, but I foolishly thought I could. I kept pushing forward, thrusting my power out like never before and I felt so fucking superior compared to the world around me while doing it.

They were wrong!

That girl was wrong!

Dad was wrong!

I knew that I was better than them and this proved it.

Then, I stopped in my tracks, looking around me, my mind muddled in sudden confusion.

My entire world was on fire.

Panicking, I tried to go back but my power failed me, again and again.

I ran down the block, dodging burning debris as I raced back to my family.

Stopping at the crumbling gates of what was once my home, I watched with tears streaming down my face as the flames and black smoke rose out of the piles of rubble.

Everything was gone.

They were all dead, and it was just me on what was left of our burning planet, stuck twelve years in the future.

For the first time, I had no one left to blame but myself.

-----------------------------------------

Chapter Four: Train Wreck Fucking Dumpster Fire

The funny thing about passing out is you don't remember doing it, but as I come to, it's pretty obvious I fainted.

I am extremely disoriented, and my face feels like it slammed straight into the ground. Consequently, I have several loose teeth. I can still taste the coppery taste of blood in my gummy mouth, and I can feel a disgusting layer of dried spittle on my chin.

I roll over on my back with a low, very pained sounding groan crawling out of me.

I am hardly functioning well enough to take stock of my situation, but I know that I need to. It’s still light out and the ruthless heat hasn’t let up. With an even sicker feeling sinking in, I realize I might be paralyzed from the waist down, because when I try to move my legs, I can’t. After a few more tries, I find that I can move them but it’s extremely minimal.

“Dolores?” I weakly cry.

I can see her. She’s trapped in our cart, watching me splayed out on my back, sizzling like I am laying in a huge frying pan.

My heart feels like it’s trying to jump right out of my chest, and that’s because my body is fighting to maintain its required oxygen levels. I am no doctor, but I am aware that I’m dangerously overheating.

I fall over and over and over as I ineffectively try to get up.

I helplessly cry out again.

This pattern goes on for an undetermined amount of time and that’s because I black out several more times. Each attempt only pushes me further past my limit, causing my blood pressure to drop even lower.

It’s not until waking in the darkness that I am able to stay awake long enough to pull the wagon closer.

I know that I am going to die here and it’s from my own foolish mistakes.

I never should have left the city where I at least knew my surroundings and had some idea of what to expect. Again, my inability to question my own flawed reasoning is what has placed me in the hands of yet another cruel and torturous fate.

As I tug the strap that’s still hooked around me, the tires of my cart slowly roll up next to my side. From there I can wrench myself up enough to reach inside and pull out our bag with filled with the minimal food rations we have left.

I have no actual water, but I am literally dying for even the smallest amount of it. If I don’t get some moisture in me, my organs will start to shut down. My blood is already full of toxic levels of sludge.

‘You have to get up, Five. I’m getting really scared.’

“I know. I am sorry. I'm trying,” I say in panting gasps for breath.

My head is pounding, and I can hardly bring myself to say that, even though Dolores deserves so much more from me after all I have put her through.

Struggling to open the tin can with my corroded opener takes every bit of focus and strength I have left. After shakily wolfing down the mystery contents, I drop the rest of the way back down to the ground, falling against the sun hardened soil hard enough to give myself whiplash.

I black out again and I don’t wake until the next day when the sun’s rays are beating down on us all over again. Upon first opening my eyes, I am greeted with the evidence of my dinner on the ground next to my bruised face. I only vaguely remember vomiting.

I still can’t move my legs enough to get myself up and stay up, but I do manage to pull my injured foot within reach, and with extreme difficulty, I eventually get my boot off and roll up my pant leg to examine the damage.

I am greeted with the tell-tale signs of advanced inflammation, rash, and intense red lines streaming from the soiled bandages. The markings move all the way up what I can see of my leg, and I know this is very bad news and it’s the reason I am in such bad shape.

Infection is a big mean bitch and she’s clearly out to get me with vengeance because I am a supreme asshole.

I cleaned the laceration as best I could when it happened, and I covered it and taped over the hole in my boot. I took the antibiotics I had with me in my medical kit, but that evidently wasn’t enough. Some kind of nasty bacteria must have gotten inside the wound anyway. The drugs were expired but I had thought they were still good and not rendered useless by the extreme temperatures they have been exposed to, but like so many other things, I was wrong in thinking that. I was also very stupid to wander after dark in what was left of that house that I came past because that’s when the knife-like shard of glass sliced right through my weathered leather boot and dug deeper in when I tripped and fell further on to it.

Ironically, I am going to die next to a gigantic crater made by what I presume had to have been something from outer space and was also probably the same thing that is responsible for killing everyone else. The size of the hole indicates that the piece of space rock that collided here was big enough to end all life on Earth, so that at least explains what happened. For all I know, this may not be the only place of impact. Based on what seems to be complete ecosystem failure in every direction I have gone, I am betting it isn’t.

Up until now, I could only guess it was the fucking moon or a meter or something like that smashing into Earth that ended it all, because the newspapers I found didn’t have any talk of looming nuclear war and he moon was missing. I had found it very suspicious that my childhood home was destroyed right before the rest of the world was left in ruins, but perhaps the two things had nothing to do with each other. The eyeball Luther was holding likely means nothing world saving and has nothing to do with the lack of lunar activity in my sky, but I’ll never know.

The thought of laying here, again all day, slow cooking until I am gone, with the pain I am already in… I just can’t.

As I start to lose it and hot tears distort my vision, I feel a manic smile pulling at my cracked lips.

“Dolores, this is it,” I hoarsely laugh, crazed over the fact that after suffering over these years here, this is how I go. “If I could just get back, I might be able to save them somehow, but I failed them and everyone else.” One single tear tries to escape the corner of my eye, but it doesn’t make it far. The arid air sucks it away, just like it’s going to soon devour me.

Feeling a final burst of panic and desperation mixed with sheer terror that I am clearly having a problem suppressing, I throw everything I have left into sitting up one more time. Reaching for the wagon, I tip the whole thing on its side, dumping our belongings and my beloved onto the ground next to me.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp over and over as I tow Dolores across the dirt into my arms. My body shudders as I fold myself around her rigid frame, looking for the comfort that she is always willing to give. Even she feels like she’s on fire, but I won’t let her go.

At least we can lay here together, burning.

‘I love you so much,’ she whispers in her unconditional, beautifully compassionate way.

“I know. I love you too, sweetheart. I am so fucking sorry.”

Not at all thinking straight, when I open my eyes again, looking over her shoulder, I see the shiny black revolver laying there. My labored breath catches, and I instantaneously reach for it.

‘Don’t,’ Dolores frantically begs.

She knows the real reason I carry this gun with us, and it isn’t for protection or hunting. There is nothing to hunt and no one we need protection from other than me.

My throat makes a thick, sticky sound when I try to swallow. I can feel my hand shaking as I clamp my eyes shut. The barrel of the gun is painfully hot as I drive it inside my mouth.

‘Please, Five. No!’

God damn it!

Yanking the gun back, I scream as I pull the fucking trigger over and over, sending a deafening round after round out into the nothing around us.

Rage and defeat and pain, that’s all there is left as my hand flops down and I drop the weapon so I can hold her. Again, I tell the only person that ever loved me that I am sorry I failed them as I shut my eyes and wait for the hurt to end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sometime later, I’m pulled from unconsciousness by something other than the dead silence of our wasteland of death.

Other than the sound of rain, wind, or things that are storm related, there is usually no other background noise in my world. Sometimes the eerie sound of a building collapsing, or even the explosions that were very frequent in those beginning months, could make me look up from whatever pile of rubble I was digging around in, but that is very infrequent these days. There is no reason to look up now.

I stopped hoping to hear real voices a long time ago. This strange sound in the distance isn’t a voice, but it is another human made sound I am familiar with.

The low, echoing bang, bang, bang fills the crater in the vast open space around me, causing the sound to circle back in an impressive refraction of sound.

My breaths are coming so shallow at this point, I know I am not going to make it to nightfall. I feel like I can’t even open my eyes, but my mind is processing this.

Bang, bang, bang....

It happens again in a steady pattern that seems intentional.

I know that sound. I can’t tell what direction it’s coming from, but I know what it is.

It's a powerful gun, one like a rifle and the way sounds when you fire it.

Guns need people to fire them...

But I’m alone. This doesn’t make sense.

Just as I’m drifting off again, it happens again. Three times.

Bang, bang, BANG!

Even though I am hardly thinking, it dawns on me that this is similar to the pattern for Morse code. It’s like someone is sending out a distress signal.

I begin forcing my filmy eyes open, peering out as they burn and blur. Of course, I see nothing other than the heat waves swimming across the ground, creating a mirage effect that makes it look like I’m lying in a river of water, dying by drowning rather than baking like a pathetically skeletal and unsatisfying piece of meat.

Sliding my hand a few inches from where it’s been feebly pressed against Dolores's back, I bump into the revolver.

My stiff fingers wrap around the scorching grip. I am unable to raise my arm, but I twist my wrist enough to fire the weapon out at a small angle from the ground.

The popping sound reverberates in the otherwise motionless air. The sound repeats over and over until it fades away.

I wait because I have nothing else that I can do.

Nothing. Just silence.

I start to think I imagined hearing anything at all.

I shut my eyes again.

I only had one shot left. I left one in the chamber on purpose. That small piece of lead had been my last chance to end my suffering quicker. I had decided I couldn’t do it, but that doesn’t mean that knowing the option was still there wasn't something that was giving me some fucked-up form of solace if I couldn’t take this anymore.

The hope that someone is out there is what circles around and around in what is left of my mind as I drift off into the fiery nothing that makes my parched body rack in waves of fevered chills until even that subsides again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

My mind is gone, lost to the insanity of my thirst. I know this because I swear, I just heard a braaaping, rumbling like sound moving across the landscape somewhere not that far away.

Hearing things that don’t make sense, that’s how the mind of a once admired genius is going out. Figures.

The idea that it might be thunder hits me and that idea isn’t that nuts, but it’s too late anyway. Even if it did rain, I have no way of collecting it in this condition and I still have a raging infection taking hold of me at an alarmingly fast rate, and that’s no doubt because it’s being fueled by extreme dehydration.

In my confused state, it does eventually occur to me that thunder doesn’t sound like this. It stops, then there’s intermittent random intervals between the growls.

This isn’t stopping and it’s getting closer, but I still don’t understand what it is.

Sudden thoughts of getting eaten by a monstrous creature from my childhood nightmares terrorize my mind even though that’s so far out there and doesn’t make any damn sense.

The only thing that gets me to open my eyes at this point is my crazed level of dread over what I perceive to be a very frightening sound. I am sure that a terrifying beast is bounding across the dirt and is about to dig its jagged teeth into me, ripping my body to shreds any second.

Squinting, I don’t understand what I’m seeing even though I am seeing it.

A cloud of dust is blooming out from what looks like a very fast-moving metallic object. My fingernails dig into the hard clay as I try to push up so I can look at it as it shoots past, but I can’t raise my head enough and I lose sight of it.

Holy Shit!

It’s not a huge, green scaly monster!

Panic rips through me when I finally realize that someone or something just drove past me.

Help.

I try to scream but I can’t even do that anymore.

“Help!” My voice cracks. The word comes out so weak, the sound of it feels like it’s sucked up in a vacuum. The effort of my sobs and the thundering vibration sends pain buzzing through my head.

My brain feels like it’s going to rattle out of my skull. If I could cover my ears I would, but my arms are near useless at this point as they remain tangled around Dolores.

The piercing sound abruptly stops but the ringing in my ears doesn’t.

I swear I hear the garbled sounds of a voice behind me. Then all of a sudden, I see legs! I can’t focus my vision enough to see anything other than what has to be a person's shoes.

It’s a real fucking person!

This time when I try to speak, my plea for help comes out as an unintelligible and pathetically pained moan.

“Shit, shit, shit,” the voice curses repeatedly as their figure looms over me.

I feel the strange sense of something touching my neck, pulling down my scarf as what must be cool fingers press just under my jaw, up against my windpipe. Then I hear more cursing and the same fingers traveling along my exposed leg all the way down to my bare foot.

Again, I moan, and I moan even more when Dolores suddenly gets removed from my limp arms.

“No,” I breathe in protest to the blurry face in front of mine.

The sun is setting, I can tell that much. The pink rays from it are reflecting off this person’s reflective goggles.

Even though they are very cautious about it, when they lift just my head up off the ground, it leaves me feeling like I am a piece of petrified gum being pried off the bottom of a table at a greasy dinner.

God…I miss Griddys. I would die for a donut and a coffee.

Not happening, and you ARE dying, you crazy dipshit!

I whimper as my body protests the movement and my head sickly swims as it lays in what I assume is this person's lap.

A distinctly female sounding voice coming from above tenderly hushes my cries. “Hang in there. I am going to help you.”

Her hand brushes across my grimy forehead, sliding back the wrap of my scarf from my head. Then, though it’s impossible, the person’s hand stops in place over my throbbing brain, and both my skin and her hand seem to get remarkably colder. It feels heavenly and I don’t care at all when the icy fingers gently slip over my eyes too.

A divine liquid begins to tickle my split and bloodied lips, making me instantaneously respond by opening them further to accept the glacially cold water being offered.

“There, that’s it,” she encourages, to which I sputter and cough violently on the first swallow. The water stops so I can catch my breath, then I feel the bottle press against my mouth again. “Try to go slow.”

It doesn’t matter that I can see nothing and I’m totally at their mercy. I’d do anything this angel said.

The hand shielding my eyes and making my aching head feel so much better, moves away, only to be replaced a moment later, cooler again. It feels like actual ice, not the palm of someone’s hand.

I can’t help but marvel over the glorious feel of it. It reminds me of when I was just a little boy and I had the flu so bad that Grace had to stay with me all night, repeatedly doing anything and everything she could to ease my pain, including placing dozens of cold clothes against my burning brow.

The water stops when I start coughing again, and the icy feeling moves to my neck again, trying to unfurrow the tight wrapping even more.

“There, that’s better.” It feels like chilly kisses are covering my skin as she touches me. My body shivers. “You are really burning up. You are lucky I had a flat tire moment where I did, because that's the only reason I heard you trying to signal for help. If I'd found you sooner..." She pauses to wipe my face with something. I have no idea what with, but it feels so much better after some of the filth is removed. "I have been looking for you all day. But there’s nothing out here. That’s why I didn’t come out this far until now. When I heard that last shot, I knew you were due west of me, so I knew you had to be somewhere near the crater, which also explains why I was able to hear the shots from that far away. There’s nothing out here to absorb the sound.”

It seems like she's trying to apologize. At first, I don’t know what she’s talking about with the signal thing, but after a minute or so of slowly drinking this stranger’s extremely valuable water, I remember.

Those first shots she’s talking about weren’t a signal for help, at least not in the way she thinks.

The hand on my head moves away and I hear her rummaging through my things. Thanks to having some liberation from the oppressive heat, I am able to find the strength to open my eyes so I can find Dolores. I have to know if she’s okay.

I quickly see that she is, but she’s been discarded in the pile of my other things. I want to reach out to her, but I’m not sure if I can. She tells me it’s okay and to keep drinking, so I do as she says.

I see the woman’s hand snatching up the bottle of antibiotics that I had tried to use. She holds it up above me so she can read it.

“They didn’t work,” I whisper as water runs down my chin.

She seems startled by me talking. “Clearly not,” she mutters before going back to propping my head more so I can drink easier. She tosses the pills aside and presses her cold hand to my head again. “By the looks of things, you are going to need something that does work as soon as possible, and I don’t have anything with me, or a way to get you back with me to where I do unless you can get up and hold on to me as we ride.”

She says it all so fast, and with the way my brain is working, I don’t get that I’m supposed to respond. All I can think about is how great this feels and how awesome it would have been to have had a working vehicle of any kind over the last two weeks. My mechanical abilities are far from anything even remotely helpful and though at times I have had vehicles started and used them, keeping them working is another story and getting them around in this disaster is a whole different challenge that makes walking much more logical.

But then again, this magical woman did it, so maybe I should have tried harder.

“Well, do you think you can? Hold on to me, I mean?” she asks, interrupting my ridiculously scattered thoughts.

She pulls back the water and after swallowing my thick saliva a few times, and forcing my brain to work somewhat more rationally, I reply very quietly. “I can’t get up.”

The woman sighs but it doesn’t sound like she's mad about my predicament and what she says next proves that she's not.

“That’s okay. I can go back and get medicine. I will come back for you.”

“No,” I moan like a big baby.

“It’s okay, I promise I’ll come back. Driving around out here is not easy on everyday tires but I have an off-road jeep that can make the journey if I am very careful. It’s going to take maybe two hours or more depending on a few factors, but I don’t know how else to do it. If I try to pull you in this wagon, for one you won't fit, and two, I am not sure you’ll make it. It’s too far and it’s going to take too long,” she explains, already shifting my head off her lap.

I have no ability to stop her from leaving. I can only impotently let her position my head on the jacket she just took off and rolled up into a makeshift pillow for me.

As I lay on my side watching her scrambling around, I can see her some better. As I already gathered, my rescuer is a female. Since she took off her protective outer layer, sacrificing it to me, I can see that she’s wearing a rainbow colored, tie-dyed sleeveless top that’s cropped at the bottom. It reminds me of something Klaus would try to get away with wearing under his uniform jacket whenever dad wasn’t around. In my moment of delusion, I find that old memory of him, defiantly strutting around the academy until he got caught and severely punished, very funny for some reason.

The muscles in my face try to pull my mouth in a look to reflect that sentimental yet sad thought but I am not sure I am actually smiling.

Her pants look almost identical to mine in their utilitarian, multi pocket, militaristic style, but hers are forest green, not grunge covered gray. Her arms and her midriff are tanned unlike mine. I almost always stay covered out of necessity. I am like a ghost.

She looks healthy. Contrasting my dreadful condition, she isn’t skin and bones, but she is very thin and couldn’t be more than a hundred pounds, standing at about five-three in her laced-up riding boots. Even from my spot laying on the ground looking up, I can tell she’s petite.

When she pulls my cart over, I can see her muscles straining. She places it behind me where the sun’s setting rays are burning my back. I feel the instant relief from the small shade it provides.

After doing that, she comes around in front of me, looking for a few more things as her lengthy braid swings across her back. Her hair looks reddish or maybe it’s just the light from the setting sun. I can’t tell.

This time when she comes to me, I can see her face because her goggles are pushed up and her own scarf is pulled down, revealing rosy cheek bones and vibrant blue eyes. She is all color and glowing life compared to the muted harsh tones of this barren landscape, but it’s the kind looking and startlingly familiar smile that makes me suddenly stop breathing. It looks so much like the one that’s been haunting me since I saw it over five years ago.

This smile is a shade different. It’s slightly more mature, along with the face wearing it, but…

Holy Hell.

Phoebe?

Quickly running the math in my mind, I conclude that she’d be thirty-three years old now, not twenty-one like I am, and that is because for her, it would have been twelve years before the world abruptly ended and then five years since. For me, my world crashed and burned just one day after I met her.

This couldn’t be her. That’s crazy.

My heart feels like it could stop even though it’s dangerously racing as my body aggressively refuses to give up in its fight to stay in the world of the living-the world that I just found out I am not the only living member of.

The woman gets down next to me again, her hand coming up to my face to turn my chin to her bottle the way she did before. Her impossibly icy hand presses against my chapped cheek and I lean into it.

“Come on. Let’s get the rest of this in you. I will leave you with more water and if you feel better from drinking that one, maybe you could eat something?” She waves her hand at my last three cans of food that I only now see that she placed within reach. “Don’t worry, I have more.” I can tell that she’s concerned about my hollow looking appearance as her eyes slowly move over my face. She purses her pink lips unhappily. “I won’t take long. Now that I finally found someone, there’s no way in hell I’m going to let them die,” she declares with a breathy chuckle. "The real problem seems to be that you are about as dried out as someone can get before becoming one with the dirt. I don’t think this infection is that bad yet, but I’m sure it feels that way with everything else you have going on. I have strong meds and I know they will work. You are going to make it, I promise.”

Even if I wasn't drinking and I could reply, I wouldn’t know what to say. A thank you would be a start but there’s so much more than that running through my mixed-up head.

Of all the people that could finally find me, it’s her. I know it is. It’s her voice too. I recognize it now. It’s impossible, just like her velvety cold touch in this heat, but it’s her.

After assuring me that I’m going to live, she patiently stays with me utill I finish all her water. And just like she said, she brings back another and it’s equally cold. I can even see the condensation on the outside of the metal canteen.

Crouching down, she reaches for my left wrist, removing my clenched fingers from the ground so she can make me take the bottle from her. My filthy shirt sleeve pulls up from the motion.

“Do you-" Her words abruptly cut off as her eyes land on my tattoo. “No way…” Her lips part and her brows furrow as she stares at the black umbrella branding that I was adorned with as a child. “You can’t be…” She leans in closer, her eyes wide as they look into mine.

All I can do is lay there and stare back, feeling some better but still very much like death and feel equally as floored as she is that this is happening. After a minute of us looking at each other, in utter shock and disbelief, I finally speak up, confirming what I'm sure she's figuring out.

“I am sorry, Fee,” I breathe.

The line between her brow grows deeper.

“Five?”

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head back and forth as she unscrews the cap and pushes the next bottle closer to my mouth.

“Thank you,” I feebly offer, because I can’t think of anything else to say and I feel like I might throw up the precious water I just guzzled, so I focus on keeping that down and just breathing instead.

My eyes followed her hand as she reaches out and brushes back some of my long hair that’s stuck to various areas of my gritty face. Her amazing fever reducing fingers run along my jawline as she inspects me. I clench the bottle tighter to my chest as I force a few deep breaths in place of my extremely shallow ones.

I know what she is seeing and I’m sure it doesn’t look good. The look of malnourishment mixing with the scruffy, dark, almost black hair growing on my weather-beaten skin, are probably making it very hard to tell that I am the stuck-up jerk that she had so badly wanted to meet when she was just young girl who wanted so desperately to believe that someone like me was actually going to care about someone like her.

“How is this possible?” she asks, her voice coming out in beautifully hushed sounding wonder. “I mean, how did you end up here? They said you disappeared. It was the day right after that night. You look so…”

She doesn’t finish her thought, so I can only guess what she was going to say. Perhaps it's that I look terrible or maybe even that I look weirdly childish. Both would be right because I am basically a heap of useless garbage, and in spite of the way I look, I am a real grown-up like she is, but I am sure I look much younger still because of all the intermittent rounds of starvation I've been through, this moment being one of them.

Also, am not as old at her even though at one time, we were the same age.

I physically changed in the last five years, but definitely not for the better.

I shut my eyes for a second or two before reopening to the slightest traces of tears trying to form anyway. Rather than looking angry that the last man on Earth is probably the last person she’d want it to be, she looks so incredibly troubled.

“Have you been here the entire time?”

I can feel my lips trembling, but I can’t help it. I feel so awful, and that, and the memories of all that has happened since I last saw her, are merging with my current state of mind and it isn’t putting me in a very good place to act better.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to talk.” She leans in, anxiously adjusting her jacket under my head. Then she tries to move my legs in a more comfortable way for me. Everything hurts and I know she can tell because she moves a blanket from my pack, placing it between my knees so my bones don’t rub together so badly.

More tears threaten to spill over that simple, kind act, but what Phoebe does next for me is nothing but extraordinary.

Folding her hands together as if she’s trying to crush something between her cupped palms, she shuts her eyes tightly. Her whole body seems to tremble from the effort of what she's doing. A moment later, she opens her hands, and at the same time, she reveals what looks like small ice chunks. Reaching up and taking her yellow bandana from around her neck, she dumps the sparkling crystals in the fabric and then props the cold pack against my forehead.

Totally thrown by this, I look over at Dolores.

"It’s her, the one you told me about and she’s special, like you. You’re going to make it, Five!’

Even though there’s tears in Dolores’s eyes, she sounds so happy.

“Can you make it till I get back?” Phoebe’s worried eyes run over me again and it reminds me of exactly how Dolores looks at me when she's distressed over something dumb that I'm doing or have already done despite her warnings.

Jeezus. I am such a dickhead.

“Yes,” I croak.

She nods, then pushes herself up.

“It’s going to be dark soon, but don’t worry, I am coming back no matter what, so don’t die on me or I am going to be super pissed, Hargreeves.” The corner of her mouth quirks up just a bit. “And I don’t mean pissed like I was the last time I saw your stupidly handsome face.”

Even though she’s rightly concerned about leaving, she is trying to ease my worries by teasing me and it makes my chest hurt even more. The foreign sound of her unrestrained laughter is so nice to hear. Like years ago, when I first heard it, I love how it sounds and makes me feel.

It’s nuts considering how close I am to death, but my chest is moving up and down as air swiftly moves in and out of my lungs and I could almost laugh over that threatening, and insulting, and sort of flattering comment she just gave me.

She had once told me she thought I was so smart and handsome, and hearing her praise made my head even bigger than it already was. I was so pathetically starved for attention; she was right about that and so many other things she said about me. But we both know she was wrong in both those two assessments.

Something in my expression must amuse her even more because she smiles at me in that full way that I remember her doing that one fateful night.

I still don’t understand it.

She begins to move behind me where I presume her motorbike is, but all of a sudden, she stops. Swiftly bending down, she takes Dolores by the crook of her arm, hoisting her up.

Placing Dolores down next to me, Fee smiles again, but this time it’s at her, not me.

“Please make sure that he drinks that and doesn’t kick the bucket before I get back.”

Fee is talking as if Dolores can understand her, which of course she can, but it’s still throwing me to see her talking to her the same way I do.

Even weirder, Dolores replies that she will, and I'm so confused, I am only halfway certain Fee didn't hear it. Either way, seeming satisfied with how she’s leaving me, my savior moves to go, swiftly heading out of my sight as I drowsily close my eyes.

“I don’t deserve this, Phoebe.”

There were so many things I didn’t see that one night we were together. I was just a stupid teenaged boy that couldn't concern myself with looking at other people and their suffering. She tried to tell me who she was, and what she could do, but I ignored it. I used her and then I viciously put her down for daring to point out the truth that I was too stubborn and arrogant to see. I have had many lonely years to think about that night and I have never forgiven myself for it or for so many other horrible things I did.

Phoebe comes back. She bends down in front of me. Again, she pushes the bottle towards my mouth. “Yes, you do. You deserve what happened to you. Now don’t die.”

Her lips spread in the most curious looking smirk, then she gets up, and this time I know she’s leaving when I hear the loud roar of the two-stroke engine revving a few times before she tears off over the empty landscape.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fee does come back, but I have no idea how long she was gone because after slowly finishing the next canteen, I drifted off in a fit of intense shivers.

Waking to the sight of hazy headlights beaming across the open field couldn’t be a better feeling even though my fever is so much worse again. I’m shaking even more, but it’s not from cold.

I peer out from under my blanket. The wind picked up at some point and it’s whipping across the landscape, covering me in suffocating dust. I can just make her out as she rushes my way from the driver side of the vehicle.

“You still in there, Five?” she anxiously questions the moment she’s on her knees in front of me.

Dolores gets moved back again. A cold hand covers my heated brow.

“Yes,” I cough out, proving that I’m alive.

“Come on,” she says as she starts uncovering me, “we need to get you away from this enormous shit hole you decided to take a dirt nap by.”

My body isn’t working, and I can hardly find the strength to cling to her as she lifts me, but she manages to roll me into a sitting position.

“Alrighty, on three. I am going to pick you up, just hang on. I will try to take as much of your weight as I can, okay?”

“Okay.”

“One, two, thrrr…eeEE! Shhhh- shhh -IT!”

She gets me up alright, but right after that, my weight proves too much for her when my body limply tumbles into hers. I nearly knock us both back down to the ground. Stumbling backwards, Fee’s knees swiftly lock and the heels of her boots skit and skirt in the dirt before plowing down to prevent our fall.

“I was not expecting you to be so heavy,” she gasps.

She is clearly struggling, and I feel awful about that and just plain awful, especially when I start to dry heave on her. Thankfully nothing comes out or she'd have puke running down her back.

“I am sorry,” I wheeze, holding her as tight as I can. I try to put weight on my good foot and the other but the lightning like jolts of pain shooting up from my feet are making my legs about as useful as mush.

“It’s okay,” she grates out through what sounds like very clenched teeth.

My feet all but drag as she trudges the few yards to the jeep where she smartly left one of the back doors open. I tumble into the back seat, then Fee has to pull me the rest of the way in from the other side.

I feel so sick, more heaves have me hanging my head down to the floor as I start to weakly cry. “Dolores!” I sob just as Fee slams the door shut.

There is no way to explain how relieved I feel when the door opens again and Phoebe has her. The backseat area is cramped but Fee throws the passenger seat forward and places Dolores on the floor in the back behind it so she's easily within my reach.

If Fee sees me crying, she doesn’t let on. As soon as she saves Dolores, she's off again and all I can do is lay here. My head feels like it’s spinning as I listen to the back hatch open and things banging around. I realize that she must be loading my things, and even maybe my treasured cart, but I can’t help her.

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes before she’s done and back with me. Opening the back door, opposite from where my head is, Phoebe gets back in. The dome light is dim when she flicks it on, but I can see that her bright clothing is now covered in the same silt that I am bathed in. Not stopping, she reaches in front and grabs a bag. Taking things out, she immediately starts cleaning her hands with sanitizing wipes and what smells like rubbing alcohol.

“I know you feel horrible, and this ride isn’t going to help that, but I am going to try to make it as tolerable as I can.”

I silently lay there, watching as she discards her soiled materials on the floor at her feet, and then starts in, working the button on my cuff so she can get my sleeve up on my left arm.

“It's been a long time, but I have done this many times back when my mom was sick, so don’t be scared, I sort of know what I am doing.” She laughs but it sounds nervous despite her assurances and shot at humor over what has to be a very sad and tragic memory.

The chill of the alcohol as she cleans my skin sends a new wave of shudders through my burning body. I shut my eyes as I feel the syringe prick me, then I hear the ripping of tape before she seals the needle down on my arm so it can’t slip out.

“Okay. That part was easier than I thought. Your veins are very easy to see.”

She breathes a sigh of relief as she scrambles around. Peering up at her again, I see her pulling out a clear bag of fluid and more medicines and supplies all in sterile wrappings.

“I found all this stuff at a clinic that was miraculously still mostly standing. The drugs should be good,” she explains as she hangs the bag on the clothing hook above my head and extends the clear plastic tubing down, attaching it to one of the two ports sticking out of my arm. “We are going to pump you full of nutrients and I will inject the Ceftriaxone all one go. It’s great for treating infections that other antibiotics might not be able to fight, so I'm sure it will do the trick.”

With a determined look in her eyes, she lays her fingers against my arm to steady them so she can slowly inject the drug into the other port that isn’t attached to the bag over my head.

“There, two things out of the way.” Fee appears apologetic for leaning on me as she adjusts herself a little, moving her weight off my pelvis, but I hadn’t even noticed her backside was pressed up on me. “I need to watch you for a little while, just to make sure you aren’t having any bad reactions to the meds. Then, if this part goes well, I have something I can give you to help you get through the trip back to where I have safe shelter,” she explained.

Her hand falls on my upper thigh, rubbing softly and I don’t think she realizes that she’s doing it until my eyes move from hers to her hand. She stops, and starts to take it away, but I sluggishly move my arm with the IV in it over enough to place my trembling hand on top of hers to stop her retreat.

“Thank you for saving me.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome.” The wind outside blows hard enough that the jeep gets rocked from one of the harder gusts. She scrunches her mouth in a funny way. “This weather sucks, huh?”

“Ah-huh.”

Fee lets out a pretty little laugh over my lame answer.

“Yeah,” she says, still giggling, “it usually does out here and pretty much everywhere else I've been, but playing with the extremes of hot and cold are my areas of specialty, so I can tolerate most of this crap climate we have found ourselves in. But, when these nasty winds come with all the sand, I can’t do shit to make it better.”

I want to laugh over that, but I can’t. Instead, I gulp down a sob and look at Dolores again.

“I am sorry for what I did to you.” My words come out broken by the incredible emotion behind them.

She says nothing, so I hesitantly look back at her. Her smile falters for a moment before the quick easy kindness returns to brighten her stunning features.

“I know, Five. It’s okay," she quietly replies as she gently squeezes my leg.

Confused and on the verge of losing it again, I shut my eyes to block the tears.

I feel her moving her hand away again and I reactively increase my hold on it, and she stops again.

“Hey...it's okay," she quickly assures. "That was a long time ago. I may have been very naïve, but even back then I understood enough to realize that you were acting like that and saying that stuff because you were very messed up. We both were. I was young and so romantically inexperienced.”

She chuckles at herself over that, then bends down and starts picking up the trash as she further took the blame from me.

“I was crushing on you big time and I thought maybe I could make you like me too, and you'd happily want to run away with me if I could show that we were the same. That was crazy and I didn’t tell you everything, and I didn't act right either. I was wrong for not being totally honest about my intentions, and you called me out on it, and you were right to be mad, because I was up to something very misguided, but even so, you were an impressively douchey top shelf dick weed.”

Her mouth pulls to the side in a grin that looks exactly the way I remembered it when she was flirting with me, only now, it's even more beautiful.

“True,” I agree, "But I still want you to know how sorry I am for everything."

The hand she has resting on my thigh pulls away and I have to fight the urge not to reach for it again.

“Five, I forgave you a long time ago, but I accept your apology if you accept mine.”

There’s no hiding my tears from her now, so I don’t even try.

Another strong wind blows the side of the jeep making her look out anxiously into the shadows behind the dark glass. “I need to get us out of here before the tires get buried in this shitstorm. As you found out, when you are out this far, things can get very bad, very fast. Why were you here of all places, what happened to you?”

I don’t say anything, so she looks away again and finishes cleaning up, then she starts trying to adjust my legs for me, even reaching in back to grab a clean looking pillow for my head and a blanket to tuck between my legs again. “Never mind. You don’t have to talk. I think it’s safe to say you’re okay with the meds at this point, so just rest. I’ll get us out of here.”

Fee leans over and starts to brush my hair back out of my face again by tucking it behind my ear. A breathy sound of contentment escapes from my parted lips.

Seeing as I can't even begin to hide how nice this feels to me, she babied me even more, running her cold fingers over my temples over and over and the light pressure feels like it's helping push all the pain away.

My throat clenches and my eyes burn as I start to speak. “I thought there might be somewhere better. That’s why I did this.”

Phoebe’s hand stops and she pulls it back even though I wish she wouldn't. “What happened?” she asks.

Again, I feel like she’s asking me about the ‘big what happened,’ not just about why I wandered into a desert of nothingness to die. It’s easier to look at Dolores again, so I roll my head to the side, burying my dirty face in the clean smelling pillow.

“I made a big mistake. Instead of just leaving my life behind like you said I should do if I wasn't happy with it, I ran from it, only I didn’t think it through. When I took off the day after we met, I didn’t mean to jump so far, or to this.”

“You have been here since then, all alone?”

“Yes."

The sound of the sandstorm fills the void as she appears to think about that.

"I couldn’t get back. I tried and tried. I still try. This whole time, I thought I was the only one left. I did this to myself, and I hurt so many people. I know I deserve this, but it’s been so hard,” I whisper as I bite down and swallow the cannon ball sized lump in my throat.

Phoebe shuffles the things in her hands, and I see that she has another vile and syringe at the ready.

“No, you don’t deserve this. No one does. And I didn’t find anyone either, not until you. I never wanted anything bad to happen to you and I am so sorry that it did.”

She sticks the needle in the bottle, pulling the plunger back to fill it. She spurts out some of the liquid to clear the needle before she sticks it in my arm.

“The only reason I survived is because I didn’t burn or get buried when the shock waves hit," she added. "And then the only reason I have persisted after the world fell into a seemingly endless atomic winter for the first two years is because I can regulate my temperature and even the temperatures of other things. I don’t know how you made it this long in these conditions.”

She looks so sad again and I don’t know what to say.

“You can make ice,” I breathe as I verbalize just one of the zillion things running through my head.

She smiles and then looks down at her hands. “I can manipulate water to either very hot or very cold extremes. I can also somewhat control or create fire. Turns out those two things come in very handy in the apocalypse, especially when that includes being able to pull water molecules from the atmosphere, even when it seems there are none, as you saw with the ice thing.”

It’s as I am thinking about that, linking it back to the thousands and thousands of charred bodies I have seen, and the cold feel of her hands, and her dozens of magical candles around us that one night, amazing yet horrible night that I suddenly realize I don’t feel any pain.

“Wha-dd-you-" I start to groggily ask.

“Just sleep, Five. We can talk all you want when you’re better.”

Thinking of the past, my mind and body slip away into a numb bliss, but I know I am not alone anymore.

Link to chapters 5, 6, and 7 to complete the story and also find and extended scene link.

Thanks for reading. If you are enjoying it, let me know. 😘

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