#the hargreeves still have the same powers as before just their lives are switched

[hestiviea]

someone needs to write this

This is my very first post, so I hope I do good! Please give me some feedback, I would love to hear it.

The Umbrella Academy Life Swap:

The Hargreaves switch lives instead of powers.

• Ben ran away at the age of 13 and got lost in the dimension inside his stomach, the Handler eventually finds him and recruits him to the Commission. He works as a super powered agent that saves his victims from his sadistic partners, Hazel and Cha-Cha. Ben doesn’t come back in a 13 year old body like Five, he’s the same age as his siblings, and Ben does know about the apocalypse and has the eye. And unlike Five, Ben actually tells his siblings about the apocalypse and how he was a super powered assassin that acted as the kidnapper and lookout. When the Hargreaves were 13, Ben had tried to talk to Five out of time traveling because logically, he may not know where he would end up, but Five wouldn’t listen to him and started arguing with him. The fighting got so loud that Vanya and Klaus eventually got pulled into the argument as well and it turned into a fistfight with all 4 of them. All of them ended up with scratches and bruises on their faces, a few chunks of their hair missing, and cleaning the mansion floors and ceilings from top to bottom and every single room without using their powers as a punishment for fighting by Reginald. At 2 am, Ben woke up after a nightmare and felt bad about getting Vanya and Klaus into trouble when they didn’t even started the fight in the first place and tried to go to their rooms to apologize, but he never did because the Horror became restless and angry that it didn’t get anything to eat and wanted to make Ben feel how trapped they felt when Reginald always had them kill people, so Ben’s tentacles grabbed him and opened the portal to their world, which was the apocalypse, and trapped him there for 10 years until the Handler came and recruited him and was never seen after that day again. Because of Ben’s disappearance, Vanya and Klaus blamed Five and his ambition for time travel since it was him who argued with Ben in the first place and Five had never forgotten it. Ben hopes that Klaus and Vanya would forgive Five in time. Ben read Klaus’s book about what happened to his family when he disappeared, he read about Luther running away to Dallas to forget about the Umbrella Academy, about Diego staying at the Academy to keep fighting crime, about Allison’s death and how she’s now mute, how Klaus is trying to get sober and stabling himself, how Five became a professor at a prestigious university and a vigilante, and how Vanya took a dark path into alcoholism.

• Five became a lowly-paid physics professor at community college after he was fired for punching a colleague at prestigious university and he’s also a vigilante, but his fiancé Delores doesn’t like it though. Five met Delores at a professor’s conference in Canada where she was presenting her findings on the science of gems and geodes since she’s a mineralogy professor (someone who teaches the study of rocks and crystals) and where he was discussing the possibility of time travel. Those two immediately hit it off and are now engaged, Five proposed to her by using different types of gems to spell it out. Five uses his powers of teleportation to be a mysterious assassin and hero.

• Klaus is a dancer at a local theater and he has somewhat control over his powers, but if the ghosts get too loud, he smokes cigarettes instead of weed so he wouldn’t be high at a recital. He became friends with Leonard Peabody aka Harold Jenkins when Klaus was 23 after his family abandoned him for writing an auto-biography about him having a power that traumatizes him and what the Umbrella Academy was really like behind the scenes, it’s called “The Ghosts Inside the Umbrella Academy: the life of Klaus Hargreaves”. Harold makes him more isolated by threatening to kill himself and haunting Klaus for the rest of his life if Klaus tries to leave him. Since Klaus never had someone ,besides Ben, care for him and give him a home and food since he was living at a homeless shelter when he met Leonard, Klaus thinks that this type of friendship is normal and doesn’t think twice about it. In his book, Klaus portrays his remaining siblings as people who knew about his drug abuse, but didn’t do anything about it; he portrayed Luther as a hotheaded daddy’s boy who was treated like the Golden child, Diego as a momma’s boy with daddy issues always trying to compete with Luther for everything, Allison as his favorite sister who was taken too soon, who’s death was the final straw that tore apart their family, and who acts as a silent ghost mother since she’s mute (no one believes him that he can see her though), he portrays Five as the cause of Ben’s disappearance and as a heartless gremlin who doesn’t care about his siblings enough to see that his siblings are hurting and have real problems of their own, he portrays Ben as his kind-hearted and favorite brother who was the glue that hold their family together and who’s disappearance drove a wedge between the family, and he portrays Vanya as his ordinary violin playing sister that desperately wanted to belong with their family in any way she could, but turned to alcohol when she learned that her dream of being in the Umbrella Academy was crushed by Reginald and who had the easy life of not being exploited by their father for her powers like he was. Vanya actually confronted him about her portrayal in the book and they said some things that they shouldn’t have, but they eventually forgave each other and Vanya moved in with him and Leonard a month later. Klaus didn’t mind that Vanya and Leonard were dating, but saw a striking difference between Vanya and Leonard’s relationship and Vanya and Sissy’s relationship when Vanya came back from the 60s. With Leonard, Vanya was walking on eggshells and isolated from her brothers and couldn’t be herself around him, but with Sissy, Klaus saw that Vanya was happier and could be herself around Sissy and loves Harlan like her own son. Klaus was the one to kill Leonard with his powers by having Allison choke him to death when he badly hurt Harlan with a gun and tried to drown Sissy.

• Allison dies at the age of 17 when her throat was slit by a serial killer on a mission and now acts like Klaus’s mother by always keeping him sober enough to conjure her and giving him healthy advice, but ultimately going along with almost every crazy idea Klaus has. Since she has a slit throat she can’t talk, but she does sign language instead and like Ben, she ages like Klaus, but still wears the same outfit she was buried in: a yellow and green striped dress with a blue flora printed jacket with red heels and a pair of black leggings. She HATES Leonard Peabody because he’s manipulating Klaus into isolation from their family and she tries to get Klaus out of their toxic friendship, but Klaus always denies Leonard’s abuse. She misses her siblings so much that she’s deeply hurt that she had ignored their problems for so long.

• Diego stayed at the Umbrella Academy because he didn’t know how to be anything else but a hero, he also didn’t want to Mom behind, so he began reading and writing code to free Grace from her restrictive rules that Reginald put on her, but after his accident that had him have scars all over his body and face to the point where he lost his left eye and his face is almost beyond recognition, Diego left the Academy when he realized that there was no point in staying and became a recluse in his good friend, Eudora’s house. Unlike Luther, Diego doesn’t have the monkey body because I just couldn’t see that type of body build on David Castaneda. Diego met Eudora at a local boxing gym, Eudora was impressed Diego’s fight skilled and was shocked to know that he was Diego “The Kraken” Hargreaves because Reginald told the whole world including their city and Luther, Klaus, Five, and Vanya that Diego died in an explosion a year ago when he had his accident. Diego ,of course, was pissed that his own father told everyone and his siblings that he was dead instead of saying that he survived the mission and was just scarred for the rest of his life, but he wasn’t surprised that Reginald did that to keep up his reputation. Him and Eudora immediately became fast friends and roommates at her house since Diego had nowhere to go when he left the Academy 6 months ago and was living at an run-down and moldy apartment. They actually tried dating at one point, but because of their conflicted personalities, they decided to just stay friends and roommates.

• 3 months after Allison’s funeral, Luther ran away to escape his father’s tight gripped and cold stare and the house that reminded him of his lovely yet dead Allison when he was 18 years old. He ended up in Dallas, Texas where he became a famous boxer named King Kong since he’s so huge and muscular, met and married a successful TV salesman named Elliott Gussman, and they adopted an African American baby girl who they named Claire Allison Gussman. Luther decided to take Elliott’s last name ,even though it was Luther who proposed to him, to cut his ties off from the Umbrella Academy and the man who turned 6 children into soldiers and who blamed the death of an innocent 17 year old girl that happened to be his adopted daughter on his 4 sons and 1 daughter instead of the person who killed her in the first place. Luther and Elliott had a happy marriage for 3 years until Klaus’s book came out that exposed the secrets of Luther’s past and made him into a hotheaded bully with daddy issues who followed Reginald around like a eager puppy trying to get a reward and a coward ran away from his problems instead of facing them. Elliott was furious at Luther because when Luther came to Dallas he lied about being from a mob family that did all types of shady businesses and that he ran away because his “family” couldn’t understand and accept him being bisexual instead of telling him truth about his abusive father who raised them to be child soldiers, how his brother Diego would always tried to be better than him to their father’s approval, how his brother Five was too smart for his own good, how he loved his sister Allison more than he should, how he tried to forget about Ben’s disappearance, how he ignored Klaus’s drug abuse, and how he denied Vanya’s problem with alcohol for so long. When Elliott read Klaus’s book about what Luther did and who he was, Elliott immediately started arguing with him about his true identity. Luther tried to deny it, but couldn’t because he loves Elliott too much to even hurt him in a way. Elliott actually threatened to separate from Luther when their arguments gotten too much, but he didn’t and instead drove Luther and him to see a marriage counselor so that they could actually talk to each other instead of just arguing. Luther and Elliott eventually made up, but because of the book, Luther is the one that’s more pissed about it and at Klaus for almost making Elliott lose his marriage to him. Btw, Claire is 6 years old in 2019 and was adopted as a baby in 2013 by the Gussman family when Luther was 24 and Elliott was 30, a year after Klaus’s book was published.

• Vanya was introduced to alcohol at 13 years old when Five and Klaus were drinking 2 cases of beer that Five stole, Klaus persuaded her to take a sip of his beer and she hasn’t stop drinking since. Besides the violin and her pills, alcohol was the thing that defined Vanya and her personality. Vanya thought that no one would care about what happened to her since she was so ordinary and isolated that she dumped all of her pills in the garbage disposal and drinks her problems away. With her new coping mechanism, Vanya’s personality changed from quiet and meek to sarcastic and drunk. Five and Vanya left the Academy for college together, but ended up separated by the time they were 20 because Vanya kept drinking her tutition away. By the age of 22, Vanya ended up being homeless because she got kicked out of her apartment for not paying her rent with the money she used to buy alcohol. She still plays her violin, but only for cash instead of at The Icarus Theatre. She also read Klaus’s book and was upset about her portrayal as his alcoholic sister who had an easy life of being ordinary and never going on missions because she doesn’t have a power that can’t be turned off willingly or that can kill somebody; she cried and drank her misery away for 3 weeks until she confronted Klaus about the book, they both admittedly said things that they regretted, but ended up apologizing to each other in the end. She also meets and dates Leonard like in the show and instead of Allison finding the truth about Leonard, it’s Five and Delores who both tried to convince Klaus and Vanya that Leonard is a snake, but they both denied it. Vanya ends up living with Klaus and Leonard when her and Klaus made up when she’s 23. In my first draft I made it Five and Delores that Vanya ended up rooming with, but I wanted to make Vanya and Klaus isolated further by Leonard manipulating both of them. When the house is attacked by Hazel and Cha-Cha, Vanya is the one that’s kidnapped and tortured by them for 2 days and is rescued by Eudora who arrives with back up this time, but is injured in the spine by Cha-Cha. Vanya takes the briefcase and time travels to October 12, 1963 where she ends up falling in love with a woman named Sissy Cooper, a widowed housewife who accidentally ran Vanya over with her car, and becoming a nanny/second mother to Sissy’s 5 year old autistic son named Harlan. Vanya stayed with them until 1966 when a neighbor reported their “unholy” relationship to the police, so to keep them safe Vanya used the briefcase to go back to 2019 with Sissy and Harlan.

—When Vanya gets back to 2019 with Sissy and Harlan, no one believes her story except for Klaus, who promises to her relationship with Sissy a secret from Leonard, and Ben, who was the only one that was worried about her whereabouts in the first place besides Klaus. Vanya tries to become sober for the sake of Harlan not being afraid of her when she gets drunk and for Sissy and her’s relationship since her late husband was an abusive alcoholic, instead of conjuring the one she loves’s ghost like Klaus did in the show. When Vanya was dating Leonard, he would constantly have her and Klaus practice their music and dance at 12am-6am to train them more and if one of them mess up, he’ll have them locked up in a dark and tiny closet with only one dimly lit lightbulb and they would have to balance on a stool on one leg for the duration of their training. Leonard would also take his anger out on Klaus and Vanya if he had a bad day at his shop, which would leave Klaus with bruises on his arms and a black eye and Vanya with scratches on her back and bruises on her neck. (Trigger Warning for those who can’t handle stories with domestic violence) When the 3 of them were 27, Leonard gotten pissed at how independent and successful Klaus and Vanya were getting in their lives by Klaus getting paid more from his dance recitals and Vanya going to AA meetings more to the point of being sober for 3 weeks that he took his frustrations about losing his control out on them by punching and slapping Klaus and choking and scratching Vanya, but thankfully a neighbor called the police after hearing their screams and Klaus and Vanya were taken to the hospital and Leonard was arrested, but unfortunately Klaus and Vanya bailed Leonard out due to dropping charges against him as an apologize.

Here are the things that I changed

• Klaus and Vanya both cause the apocalypse by combining their powers at Klaus’s dance recital with Vanya’s violin because Leonard isolated them from everyone, manipulated them to the point of denying the abuse he put them through, and because of him trying to kill Sissy and Harlan for taking Vanya away from him.

• Five and Delores tries to explain to Vanya and Klaus that Leonard only liked them to get revenge on the Umbrella Academy and it was him that kidnapped Sissy and Harlan to get them to come back to him, but Five gets stabbed in the stomach by Klaus’s new found telekinesis and Vanya makes Five and Delores’s apartment collapsed after knocking Delores out. When the apartment collapses, Allison , who’s coperal at the moment, immediately grabs both a bleeding Five and an unconscious Delores and saves them from death and takes them to the Academy to be treated by Grace. Delores unfortunately loses her right arm to a huge piece of shrapnel lodged into it that’s cutting the circulation.

• When Ben goes to the apocalypse for the first time, he finds Luther with the eye clutched in his hand, Diego wrapped in black bandages holding a woman with a long black ponytail (Eudora), Five in an Armani suit with his eyes opened, and a red headed woman in a polka dotted blouse and a black skirt holding one of Five’s hand (Delores). All of them are dead and Ben finds out that they’re his brothers by the faded black umbrella tattoo on Luther’s wrist when Ben was inspecting the bodies. The bodies that Ben couldn’t find were Allison, Vanya, and Klaus’s, but after learning about Allison’s death from Klaus’s book, Ben kept looking for Vanya and Klaus.

• Vanya gets her burst of powers when Harlan almost drown in the summer of ‘64 in the lake 10 miles away from the farm. Harlan was playing with a beach ball when it got away from him and he tried to get it while Vanya and Sissy were cuddling in the sand and a wave pulled him under the water. Sissy started crying and panicking when Vanya couldn’t get Harlan to the surface, but after a minute of silence she was shocked and relieved to see Vanya holding Harlan in her arms while she’s floating in the lake with glowing white eyes. As soon as they get to shore, Vanya gives Harlan cpr which transfers her newly found powers to him like in the canon.

• Diego doesn’t show himself to his siblings until episode 3 when Hazel and Cha-Cha attack the house because everyone thinks he’s dead and he’s a recluse. He finds out about the attack from Grace (mom) when she calls him from her bedroom phone since they talk every day so that he can know what’s going on and because of these calls, Diego knows about Ben being back, how the funeral went, and how much each of his siblings changed over the years.

• In episode 1, since the siblings’ lives are switched around, the way they found out that Reginald died is slightly different from canon. Luther finds out from the press badgering him after he won a fight, Diego finds out from Eudora when she comes home after work and turns on the Tv in a flash, Klaus finds out during rehearsal on the radio that him and his group are listening to to practice the recital while Allison is dancing in the shadows behind him when the news suddenly comes on, Five finds out from his phone on social media when one of his students sent him the news link after Five teleports to his apartment after saving a 12 year old boy from being abducted by a creep and almost killing said creep by beating him senseless, and Vanya finds out from a bar Tv when she and Leonard are on a date. She immediately calls Klaus who was immediately going to call her to tell her the same thing when he was done rehearsals.

• Just to clarify, since Vanya spent 3 years with Sissy and Harlan in Dallas from 1963-1966, she is 33 years old and Harlan is 8 years old because he was 5 when he and his mom met Vanya. Even though Vanya spent 3 years in the ‘60s, she was only gone for 2 days with Klaus, Five, Delores, Ben, and Leonard searching for her.

• When the Hargreeves all come back for the funeral, the introduction of them to each other are very different. Diego doesn’t show up to the funeral to keep up the reputation of him being dead. Vanya and Klaus show up together, but immediately split up when Vanya goes straight to the bar making drinks for her and her brothers (mostly for her though) and Klaus goes to his old room to reminisce about his past. Five checks their father’s room and office for evidence of something other than a heart attack, he is the one that thinks that Reginald was murdered by someone, and he also greets Vanya and Klaus with Delores who went with him to meet his family. Luther is trying to get through the funeral as possible by almost avoiding his siblings, but that backfires when Five calls a family meeting to talk about their father’s death and Luther sees a tipsy Vanya holding a mix of vodka and rum, Klaus talking to Delores who is laughing at a funny story Klaus is telling, and Five lecturing the remaining siblings on how their father might’ve been murdered.

• Eudora is more present in the show since she survives the gunshot wound in her spine by Cha-Cha, but she ends up being paralyzed from the waist down in a wheelchair. She helps Five with discovering how Reginald actually died and Diego with stepping out into the world and seeing his family for the first time in years. Like in canon, she is the first one to find Vanya at the motel after finding the message that Hazel and Cha-Cha left on the van when they burned down the prosthetic factory after they got drunk off of Vanya’s “special lemonade” which is just lemonade mixed with wine and vodka. Unlike in the show, Delores and Ben go with Eudora as back up in case something goes wrong and it does end up going wrong with Cha-Cha and Eudora having a shoot out with each other in the parking lot that ultimately ends up Eudora becoming paralyzed by Cha-Cha’s bullet ricocheting off a lamppost and lodging into Eudora’s spine with her laser gunand Ben wrestling with his former partner Hazel in the motel room while Vanya is escaping through the vent with the briefcase in her arms and Delores in tow.

Ben breaks Hazel’s wrist and almost beats him to a bloody pulp for kidnapping Vanya, but he stops when he hears Eudora’s screams from outside and sees her on the ground behind her car and he immediately drives her to the hospital while Hazel and Cha-Cha get away before the police show up. Delores and Vanya get on a nearby bus to escape the chaos and they talk about what’s going on in their lives and Delores talks about how Leonard treats Klaus when they’re alone, but Vanya denies any abuse and opens the briefcase. The last thing Vanya hears is Delores screaming.

• The episode “The Day that Wasn’t” doesn’t exist in my AU and is instead replaced with an episode called “Welcome to the 60’s” where Five interrogates Sissy and Harlan about the past while working on the beat up briefcase to learn more about how to time travel. Eudora and Diego talk about how their long time friendship has become into a sibling relationship and about how Diego can reconnect with his siblings again. Luther and Delores discuss how they both want a normal and ordinary life with their husband and fiancé respectively, but fail to see that things can never go back to way they were. Ben goes off on his own to find the truth about Leonard Peabody, but finds himself at Griddy’s where he sees Hazel kissing Agnes and talks to them about his problems. Agnes gives Ben advice about how he can reconcile with his family by actually giving them time to process him being a time traveling assassin and him telling Five to not feel guilty about causing a rift between him and Vanya and Klaus because it wasn’t Five’s fault that Ben “ran away”.

I’ll continue the rest of the story when I have the time. Right now I just want to post this.

[justallamaimaginingthings]

Running In Circles {Klaus Hargreeves x Reader}

Request: "I'd like to request an angsty smut of Klaus x reader. 71, 1 from the angst/fluff prompt list. Also the way I got excited when I saw your requests are open, the T H I R S T do be real lol Anyway, I REALLY love your writings and thanks for doing this ❤️✨" by @pythonstarlet 

Prompts: 1:"I love you, please don’t go", 71:"You've been drinking tonight, haven't you?"

Words: 3.500ish  II  TUA Masterlist

A/n: Okay, Klaus is the switch of the century, Y’all fight me on this. Thanks for requesting and I really hope this lives up to your expectaions!!Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and/or request anything else that’s on your mind ❤️

  “We're always running in circles

Forever chasing a dream

As if everything that we long for

Is not as far as it seems”

-Asking Alexandria

The night had been as peaceful as it could get and Y/n could not be happier to finally have a chance to rest after an exhausting day at work. Having been too preoccupied by your favorite TV series playing, you hadn’t even realized it was near 3 am until a persistent knock on the door snapped you back to reality. You got up, slowly making your way towards the door as a nagging feeling of worry settled on you.

If you wanted to be honest, you'd admit that you were half expecting to face a badly injured Diego, asking you to patch him up after one of his vigilante jobs gone wrong. However, the sight you came face to face with the moment the door opened was completely different. Klaus was leaning on the wall, barely able to hold himself up as he held onto the doorframe in a failed attempt to keep his balance. It took him a moment, but when he finally looked up, you could see his eyes were bloodshot red and there was a bleeding cut on his cheek.

"Can I crash here for the night?" He slurred, leaning forward as the smell of alcohol hit you. There were countless thoughts running through your mind, countless questions that needed to be asked. However it was evident that Klaus was in no state to answer any of them.

Without a word, you helped him to the couch as he put a hand on your shoulder in order to stabilize himself. Only then did you realize his whole body was trembling. Placing a hand on his forehead, you felt him burning up as if he had a fever and a worried sigh left your lips. He sank on the couch and you sat down next to him, trying to get him to look at you. Pushing aside the immerse panic caused by the thought he might have OD'ed again, you tried to check his pulse when his hand came to your wrist, halting your movement.

"I'm fine" He said, trying to brush off the concerned look you gave him.

"Clearly you're not. You've been drinking tonight, haven't you?" You asked in what you hoped to be a steady tone. To say that seeing him in that state pained you would be an understatement. It might have been far from the first time something similar had happened but that only seemed to make it worse.

"Just a little. Or a lot" He answered and burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. The laugh was short lived, fading away the moment his eyes met yours. No matter how hard you tried, there was no way you could hide your emotions, fear and disappointment evident in your expression.

"I thought you were actually going to try this time, you promised you were going to try this time. What happened?" You asked. It had only been two days since you had picked him up from the rehabilitation center, two days since he had looked at you and promised that time was going to be different.

"What always happens" He replied simply. The past weeks spent in rehab had been filled by nothing but crushing self doubt and horrifying visions and there was only so much he could handle. Knowing how those conversations usually went, he wanted nothing more than to leave things as they were and fall sleep, but he couldn't. If anything he owned you some explanation. "I thought I could do this, but I can't. I needed to get them out of my head"

"And why didn't you call? You were supposed to call when it got bad and I was supposed to help" You reminded him softly, allowing the familiar blue glimmer of your powers to shine in your palms. A year after you had moved in the Academy, your powers had significantly grown and you had found out that you were actually able to relieve others of any physical pain, or more accurately absorb it, even if it came with the cost.

"We both know what that thing does to you, and I'm done hurting you" He replied, turning to look at you with intensity you had never seen in his eyes before.

"And what the fuck do you think standing by and watching you slowly killing yourself does to me?" You snapped at him, voice more harsh than you intended as you stood up from the couch. Feeling frustration threatening to consume you, you paced around trying to calm down as much as possible. Lashing out at him was only going to make things harder than they already were.

"Oh don't be so dramatic. Besides, sobriety is so overrated, it's not even worth it" I'm not worth it. He tried to sound careless, but it came out strained and he cringed at the cracking of his voice. Turning around, you crouched in front of him so that your eyes were on the same level. You let out a deep breath before taking his hands in yours and squeezing gently in an effort to make him focus on what you were going to say.

"For the first time in your life I need you to actually listen to me. I know you, Klaus Hargreeves. I know that despite the selfish act you play, deep down you're kind and caring. I know you're a stubborn prick that can achieve anything you put your mind on. And I know you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. So don’t doubt for a second that I'd do anything to help you. All I need is for you to let me do this, okay?" By the time you were done talking, tears had gathered on the corners of his eyes, and all he could do was nod, not trusting his voice. There were so many things he wanted to say, but even the thought of them terrified him. You shot him a sad smile before the bruise on his face caught your attention one more.

Watching you getting up, he buried his head in the pillows, regretting the moment he decided to ask for your help. If it was one thing he despised more than the ghosts in his head that was seeing you disappointed and even worse hurt, especially when he knew he was the one that had caused it. Still, after being let down time after time, you hadn't turn your back at him. You were still there after all the pain he had caused you and he hated himself for that. He knew he should either get his shit together and become the person you believed him to be or let you go and spare you the misery his life was, but he was too weak.

The truth Klaus had come to realize was that he couldn’t live without you. The only moments of happiness he could remember had been spent with you. From the beginning you had been his anchor, helping him through the hell his powers had put him through. You were the only person who could push the voices away, and he could never forget the nights he had fallen asleep next to you. As if that wasn't enough he was in love with you, had been for as long as he could remember knowing you, and the thought that he wasn't good enough for you was killing him.

When you came back, you sat back down on the couch and started gently pressing the towel on his cut, getting the blood away. Without noticing, you placed a hand on his other cheek to keep him steady, sending an electrifying chill to course through him. Your touch always had the same effect on him, sending him on a high unlike any other he had witnessed.

"This may sting a little" You warned, pouring some disinfectant on the towel.

"Right now you could punch me and I wouldn't feel a damn thing" He replied. And I'd deserve it.

While you worked on the cut your eyes wondered to his, remembering how they used to spark with mischief and joy when the two of you playfully messed around. You could spend hours drowning in his emerald eyes, feeling almost hypnotized by the variety of emotions hidden in them. No matter how much he had changed, hiding his true self behind pills and booze, his eyes remained the same reminding you of the Klaus you used to know, the Klaus you had fallen in love with years ago and never had the guts to say it.

When you were done cleaning the wound, you let your fingers dance up to his face while blue sparks erupted from them. Your thumb traced his cheekbone and he leaned into your touch as he felt the familiar tingle of your powers above his cheek, until there was nothing left from the once bleeding cut. For a moment the veins on your arm turned black, a clear sign that the wound had successfully healed. You were about to pull your hand away when he wrapped his fingers around your wrist. He left a couple soft kisses against your palm, surprising the both of you.

"Klaus…" His name falls from your lips in a small whisper that's both a warning and a plea. You're warning him to stop this before it's too late and at the same time begging him to keep going because you know that whatever is going on between the two of you is real and you've never felt that way before in your life. The two of you have danced around the lines of friendship so many times, whether it was drunken one night stands or falling asleep curled into each other, that you simply can’t go back to being friends but at the same time can't find the strength to surrender to your feelings.

He doesn’t know if it’s the alcohol or the shock from your words that still linger on his mind, but something inside him is begging him to kiss you and he gives in. He leans in, capturing your lips as his hand makes its way to the back of your neck, guiding you closer to him. The blissful feeling of finally being able to touch him sends a shiver down your spine. Using his grip on your wrist, he pulls you closer and following his lead you straddle his waist ending up sitting on his lap. Your hands roam around his chest, marveling at the way his lean muscles tense under your touch and you couldn’t be more thankful for the v-neck of the shirt he's wearing.

The need for oxygen becomes too much and you break apart, panting, foreheads pressed together and eyes still fluttered close. A meaningful silence befalls the two of you his hands refuse to loosen their grip on your waist, even when you slightly leans back to look at him. This is all you've ever wanted but still there's something wrong about it. His warm breath is hitting your face and you can smell the alcohol there. That's when it hits you. The realization feels like the bittersweet sense of déjà vu that crushes you when you visit a placed you used to call home. You've been through this too many times before and you know how this ends. You will spend the night in the heat of passion and for a while you'll believe there's a chance that this means more to him than just sex, only for you to wake up alone again.

"What are we doing?" You ask, cursing your traitorous body for the breathlessness of your tone. He tilts his head slightly, shooting you a confused look. "Klaus, we're just running in circles. It's the same story, repeating itself and it only ends up hurting both of us" It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do, but you force yourself to follow through, as you slowly untangle yourself from him.

"No, not this time" He rushes to explain causing a humorless chuckle from you.

"How is tonight any different?" You ask, but the question is met with nothing but silence. The way he's looking at you is practically begging you to stay. He knows it's a hopeless attempt, he's screwed this up so many times he doubts there's any way it can be fixed, but he has to try, he owns it to the both of you. There is only one way to make it right and it scares him to death, but his choices are running out. He takes a deep breath, trying to remain collected as he prepares for what is to follow. You have gotten up and halfway to your bedroom when you hear him talk.

"Because tonight I'm telling the truth. Look, Y/n I-" He struggles to find the right words and the way you're watching him, taking in his every movement makes it even harder. His mind is still a little fuzzy from the alcohol, and even though the high is wearing off, the fact that just moments ago he was kissing you makes it almost impossible to think straight. "The nights I've spend with you have been great, but so is every moment by your side. I don't know how you put up with me even after I fucked up again and again, but that's just another proof of how beautiful a person you are. I'm a mess, but you make me want to be better. For this and for so much more, I love you. I've loved you for longer than I can remember and I-I need you here. Please don't go…"

You can barely precede the words that come out of his mouth, having wished for them so many times you can't believe it is actually happening. There's a hint of desperation lacing his voice and it's enough to make you realize he's telling the truth.

"And why did you run?" It's nothing more than a whisper, but he hears it. He pushes himself off the couch and walks up to you.

"Because I'm a fucking coward. The way you make me feel, it scared me more than I can explain. I was afraid I would end up hurting you or losing you. I know I don’t deserve you, but I'm ready to try, if you'll have me"

You cup the side of his face with your hand, softly caressing his cheek and he almost stops breathing when you leave a tender kiss on the corner of his lips. He's looking at you so lovingly it causes your heart to skip a bit. "I love you. I've always loved you and always will"

And then he's kissing you and it feels like heaven. It's different from any other kiss you've had, slower and more sensual, but just as hungry. He wraps his arms around you, pulling you flush against his chest and the gasp you make is all the invitation he needs to deepen the kiss. While your tongues fight for dominance you tangle your fingers in his hair, tugging slightly which elicits a throaty groan from his lips. The grip on your waist becomes even tighter, sure to leave a bruise, but the only thing that matters to you is the way his lips move against yours in a fervent way that makes your whole body tingle.

The two of you stumble backwards to the bedroom, not once breaking contact, as clothes start flying off. You've already managed to unbutton the rest of his shirt and he shrugs it off, throwing it on the floor. Kicking the bedroom door open, he backs you up until your knees hit the bed. Only then does the kiss break and he makes a quick work of disposing your tank top and pants, leaving you on nothing but a flimsy set of black underwear. Your hand fumbles with the buckle of his belt until it finally gives out with a small click.

Next thing you know, you're being pushed back into the bed and his lips return to your neck, kissing and sucking his way down your chest and you can't hold back a moan of pleasure when he gently bites on your sweet spot. Your hips involuntary lift from the mattress to grind against his, granting the both of you some much desired friction and delighting in the sharp gasp that escapes him. Taking the chance, you use his distraction to flip him on his back as you straddle his waist.

You lean in for another kiss full of urgency and burning passion, and you allow yourself to get lost in his touch. Klaus lets his hand get tangled in your hair, guiding the movement of your lips and he can feel his erection straining against the unforgiving leather of his pants. Finally the two of you break apart and he chases your lips as you slowly inch away so that you can have a better look at him. The way he's splayed out on the bed, hair already a mess and lips swollen, makes him look positively ravishing and you can’t help the shiver that runs down your spine when you notice his lust fueled gaze flick to your lips.

By that time, your heart is beating like crazy and your skin feels like it was on fire. You want him then and there, but the desperation in his eyes prompts you to put on a show you'll both enjoy. Grabbing his wrist, you place both of his hand above his head, holding them there as you give him a mischievous smirk.

"Daring, aren't we?" He muses breathlessly but the next words are caught on his throat as you start leaving open mouthed kisses down the column of his neck. Reaching his collarbone, you focus your attention there, sucking and biting on the sensitive skin, sure to leave a mark, but judging from the sinful sounds that fall from his lips this is the last thing on his mind. You continue your journey down his chest, making sure not to leave an inch of skin unattended to, feeling the way his muscles tense under your touch.

Your feather light touch reaches slide over his stomach, only to ghost over the tent in his pants causing him to let out a pleading whimper. Finally giving in, you get rid of his leather pants and underwear as he eagerly lifts his hips to help. You waste no time, before your tongue swirls around his tip, tasting the salty precum that's gathered there. His eyes shut close and he throws his head back in pleasure as you wrap your lips around his throbbing dick.

The moan that he lets out sends waves of desire through your body and he grips the headboard so tight his knuckles turn white. You bobble your head up and down his shaft, careful to keep your movements tantalizingly slow, sending a shudder to run through his entire body. He thrusts deeper into your mouth, getting increasingly desperate and you use a hand to hold his hips down before leaning back to look at him.

"We have all night, why the rush?" You whisper smirking, even though you can't deny the fact that you're also growing impatient.

"Don't tease me, love" He says huskily right before flipping you over so that he's straddling you. He crashes his lips on yours and by the intensity of the kiss you know the teasing is done.

The night that follows is filled by nothing but sinful pleasure and burning passion and by the time the two of you fall back into the mattress, you're completely spent. You snuggle up against his chest, allowing the rhythmic beating of his heart to lull you to sleep. Klaus stays awake for a while longer, arms wrapped around you tightly as he softly traces patterns on your back. He leaves a small kiss on your forehead and in a half asleep response your move closer to him, making his heart flood with warmth. He still finds it unbelievable that you reciprocate his feelings and neither of you know how this is going to end up, but for the first time in his life the thought of something steady doesn't scare him. That's the last thing that goes through his mind before he finally dozes off, holding you close and determined never to let you go again.

BONUS: THE GIF THAT STARTED IT ALL AND WILL PROBABLY GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK (you won’t see me complaining tho, if that’s how I go, that’s how I go)

[anythingbutmar]

Mistake

Diego Hargreeves x reader

Summary: After you turned 18, Diego and you pretty much distanced from the other members of the academy, so when you all meet for Reginald’s funeral you have some explaining to do.

A/N: I kinda love this concept but I changed a few details of this request so the reader is not raised as a sibling and her relationship with the others is in no way familial. I missed writing, specially for Diego, so thanks anon! This is quite long too, so sorry about that. I had a lot of fun too, so let me know if you’d like me to make this into a series, cause I might do it.

Warnings: cursing, mentions of homelessness, but overall just fluff and a bit of angst.

You liked to say that the life you made by yourself happened because of a simple mistake, because you had come across the Umbrella Academy on a very particular way.

You could say you had a decent upbringing, your mother wasn’t abusive but she was pretty much the definition of overprotective, and as a child you were never told that it was because a man had literally tried to buy you on the day you were born, in fact, you didn’t know anything about him or the children he managed to adopt because your mother and grandparents wouldn’t let you get anywhere near any piece of information of whatever existed outside your little hometown.

They told you they were doing it because your father had left you when you were just a baby and they wanted to protect you from the dangers of foreign men, of course you thought that you were born from a normal pregnancy, and you believed everything, that and the fact that you could control any element to your will, which they said was wrong and kept hidden. You were homeschooled, and you could only socialize with the kids from your neighborhood which was good, but it wasn’t enough, and we all now overprotectiveness can really mess with someone’s mind.

And so, even though you went along with it for many years, when one of your only friends suggested you both snuck out for a party on the big city for your sixteenth birthday you couldn’t say no, and that was the mistake, if it is possible to call it like that.

On the best Rapunzel style you went out your bedroom window, got on a bus and drank so much alcohol you completely passed out on a strangers lap and woke up on an unknown bed with a beautiful woman smiling down at you. Well, maybe that wasn’t Rapunzel’s style, but it sure felt like it at first.

The next series of events happened so fast it almost felt like a dream. You met a handful of strange children, one of which you later remembered had brought you there while being just as drunk as you were, his name was Klaus, and he later became the best friend you ever had; then you had the most overwhelming conversation of your life, in which an incredibly mean old man explained how you were actually born and made you understand just how different and important you were, but not in the wholesome way.

About an hour later your mother stormed through the academy looking for you, but one of the girls whispered something in her ear on her dad’s command which changed your mom’s entire attitude, with her allowing you to stay as if it was a boarding school, or so she told you, but she only visited once every few months and she didn’t seem as caring as before. According to Allison, that was in no way her fault, and you believed her, because at the end of the day you trusted your newfound friends much more than the woman that lied to you your entire life.

And so, you learnt to control your ability like never before, while also enduring Reginald’s cruel treatment, but it didn’t matter at all, because in the midst of everything you found Diego, and with him came all the things you never experienced before. He brought you happiness, love, trust and overall, lust for life.

Two years later you were living your best teenage secret romance. You snuck out at nights to visit all the parts from the city that he wanted you to meet, and you shared tiny kisses whenever Reginald and the kids weren’t watching. But Diego left, just like he had planned since he was a kid, and you weren’t brave enough to follow him. It wasn’t until his other siblings started leaving too that you realized that no matter how hard it was to be outside on your own, holding on to life with him was better than anything else. It was actually thanks to Allison, the smart girl had noticed you two holding hands under the table and knew just how heartbroken you were without him. “Chase him, Y/N, you won’t have this opportunity ever again.” She said right before she left, and she was absolutely right.

It took you less than a week to find him on a motel, bruised as ever and with barely enough money to pay for another night, and in between hugs, kisses and forbidden touches you promised him that you’d both get out of there. He told you he had been on that place for three weeks and a half, but the first few days after leaving the academy he had to sleep on a park bench until he gathered enough money by playing with his knifes to amuse people on the street. It had been hard, but now that you were together everything was so much better.

After many years living in the back room of a rusty gym, both of you taking turns in wiping it’s floors while also trying to study and save people at nights, because the one thing you learned from Reginald was that you loved helping people, and Diego’s vigilantism was just as appealing to you as it was to him. Diego was accepted into the police force and you finished your studies on a cheap school, which allowed you both to get a job you liked, and when you were finally able to buy a house for yourselves Diego proposed.

“Y/N, before you arrived my life was a nightmare, and all I ever wanted was to stay as far away from that place as it was possible, and everything that reminded me of it I planned on cutting from my life, but you arrived with your sweet smile, your shy eyes and those damn legs, and you completely switched my view of the world because I knew right there that I would love you forever, and I do. I love to see you in your weird ass robe, making potions-”

“I’m a chemist babe, not a witch.” You corrected him laughing.

“Let me finish Y/N!” He laughed with you. “I love how you treated me and my siblings, and I love how you helped mom, and god! I love how you used to beat bad guys with fucking wind on our nights out! I love everything about you sweetheart, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” By then you were both crying, and of course you said yes, how could you not?

Cut to ten years later and the day you had silently both dreaded and hoped for came. Reginald Hargreeves was dead, and you couldn’t even tell if you were sad about it, after all, the man had saved you from Mother Gothel, as Diego and you started calling her after watching Tangled with your daughters, but he saved you at what cost? You now had quite a few burn scars in your body from his dangerous training, you loved each one of them because they reminded you just how powerful you were, but still, no teenager should have to go through that.

And you couldn’t even get started on Diego. You wondered how and when he would take the news. He was out on his monthly vigilante night, which was kind of a gift you gave to each other, you were allowed to leave for the night once every month on different days because now that you had kids you could no longer risk your life everyday like you used to before. The kids, oh boy, what were you gonna do with your beloved girls? You weren’t sure if taking them to the funeral with you was the right decision, you wanted to shelter them from death and all the evil things in the world, but then again, you weren’t your mother, and you had no one to leave them with.

Just as you were thinking about maybe even staying, your husband entered your home, and he looked destroyed. It was one in the morning and you had been waiting for him while thinking of Reginald, and clearly he had been thinking about the same thing. You quickly stood up and wrapped your arms around him, hugging him tightly.

“He’s d-dead.” He stuttered on your shoulder. He didn’t even sound sad, he just seemed shocked.

“Shh, I know baby, I know.” You stood there for a while, just comforting each other in the middle of your kitchen before going to bed, you needed to rest for the next day because you knew it would be anything but ordinary.

And in the blink of an eye you were ringing the bell of the academy, each of your girls holding their father’s hand, the three of them standing behind you in your small, useless effort to protect them.

Grace opened up, and you couldn’t be happier to see her. You gave her a small hug and then gave Diego some space so he could properly say hi to his beloved mother. He introduced Luna and Amber and she was delighted to see Diego in a stable, loving family, she just seemed a bit off, but you’d talk to Diego about that later.

And then... Lord help you, you entered the livingroom and ran headfirst into Klaus who instantly hugged you, twirling you around and making you laugh as you both landed on the floor.

“Y/N, love! How have you been?” He sat up, looking at the doorframe, as he seemed to notice the two pair of eyes that stared in curiosity. “Oh I see you’ve gotten busy! Hello my little munchkins, I’m your uncle Klaus!”

“Wait Y/N/N, you’re with Diego now?” Luther asked from the other side of the room. Despite his rivalry with your now husband, you were quite close to him during your small time on the academy.

“Honestly Luther, I love you, but you can be quite oblivious sometimes.” You stood up with his help and hugged him tightly, getting a comforting feeling from his embrace.

“I’m here too, you know, your brother, Diego?” He finally entered, still holding your daughters’s hands and analizing the scene.

“It’s not our fault that you can’t say hi to anybody.” Allison came from behind him, scaring him, which made the girls laughing.

“Hi Allison.” He mumbled, rolling his eyes at his sister.

“I always knew you liked keeping your secrets but this two are way too big to hide” Se kneeled down to pinch Luna’s cheek, who smiled bashfully at her aunt.

Amber, your youngest, ran towards you and pulled your hand. You kneeled to her height as she whispered in your ear. “Mommy, I want to meet uncle Spaceboy.” You smiled softly at her sweetness, carrying her towards him. She instantly jumped in his arms, which took both Luther and you by surprise, she wasn’t the most sociable girl after all, but you kinda understood, his big frame and natural akwardness made him look quite huggable.

“Damn bro, you’ve gotten big.” Diego joined you, leaving Allison to play with Luna, who was now excited to know that she had a cousin her age, and you left before the two started bickering, but much to your surprise, the presence of your daughter seemed to retain them from fighting like they used to. Maybe bringing them was a good idea after all.

“Well, this is is quite the frame” Pogo entered the room with Vanya right behind him. You all waved at them, tired already of all the hugs already.

“Hi everyone.” Vanya entered uncomfortably, allowing Allison to hug her and having a small talk.

You turned to Diego and looked at him, a warning in your eyes. You knew your husband all to well, and you could see how much the book had hurted him, but you weren’t going to let him start a fight in the middle of a family meeting.

But of course, he wouldn’t listen to you.

“Why did you do it?” He started walking towards her as you mentally facepalmed. This wasn’t going to end well.

“Really, Diego? This isn’t the right time.” Allison scolded him, standing between him and her only sister.

“Then when is it, Allison? The next time we see each other? Should we wait another twelve years?” Allison just scoffed and stormed out of the room, Luther following after her, Vanya left silently, looking hurt, and Klaus snuck out in the heat of the moment, probably looking for money.

You sat on the biggest couch in the middle of your daughters, surrounding them with your arms. “That went well.” You stared at Diego, who pocked his tongue at you.

And it was about to get worse.

After having a tiny dance party, thanks to Luther’s incredibly loud turntable, you heard a thunderlike sound and watched as a bright blue light appeared outside. You looked at Diego, knowing what to do from all the years of practice that you had together. Each of you grabbed one of the kids, running outside to meet the others, who surrounded you in a protective manner, protecting their newly met nieces.

There was a portal in front of you, which Klaus tried to close with a fire extinguisher, but you could tell it wouldn’t work, because that wasn’t made of fire, or any other element that you were familiar with, for that matter, and you were an element bending chemist, for christ’s sake.

“What the hell is that babe?” Diego yelled, trying to understand.

“I have no idea, but there’s something coming out of it!” You yelled back, and everyone turned to look at what appeared to be an old man coming out of the portal. And in a flash of blue, a small boy landed at your feet, he looked incredibly similar to the portrait of the lost sibling that hung on top of the fireplace.

“Does anyone else see little number five?” They all nodded at Klaus, who clearly wasn’t sober enough for this, or maybe the poor thing thought that was the ghost of him, and you knew he already had enough with one dead brother following him around.

“What on earth is wrong with this family?” You said, looking at the odd teenager.

                                                             --

Minutes passed as you all stared at Five, who was preparing a goddamned sandwich, in the middle of one of the most confusing moments of your life.

“You’re new.” He simply stated, looking at you.

“Umm yeah, we haven’t had the chance to meet before, I’m Y/N.” You extended your hand, which he didn’t take, the tiny bastard.

“Oh we’ve met. You were the one with the girls, holding his hand.” He pointed at Diego, sandwich in hand.

“I don’t understand, you weren-”

“Look kid, I’m sorry, but I can’t trust you, you need to leave.” Diego was ready to jump at him, but Luther stopped him and you grabbed his arm softly.

“It’s ok honey, I get it.” You whispered and left to look for Grace who was taking care of the girls.

You let out a sigh as you walked by your old room. You had been wanting to scream ever since you got there, but this was your first alone moment in the whole day, and a sigh was just as effective as a scream, it helped.

                                                            --

Then came the funeral, and it was hard. Luther scattered the ashes and you manipulated the wind so they wouldn’t look like a pile of grey shit, which actually, was an accurate depiction of Reginald, but you did it for him and Pogo, it was the right thing to do.

And after a few out of place comments, Diego and Luther started fighting right in front of your daughters, so much for the agreement. Luna and Amber started crying, hiding behind Five, who, much to your surprise, covered them with his body as he slowly took them inside. It was infuriating to see the men fighting in front of you, but you couldn’t help but smile looking at Five.

It was that moment that truly made you feel home, like you really were in family, and it warmed your heart.

-End of maybe part one?-

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

What a Time to be Alive - Diego Hargreeves x reader Season I

Chapter 8- I Heard A Rumor

Summary: Five’s healing from his shrapnel wound, Diego’s been arrested, now it’s up to you and Allison to find Vanya.

Masterlist - where all the other chapters are⚔️

Tagged: @sambucky8 @white-wolf-buckaroo @2cuteforyourlies @la-vie-en-amour1 @fandomoverlord221 @thatfandombitcch @alonewolfsblog @starrrybarnes @winterboobear11

The drive to Jenkins grandmothers house is long and silent, the two of you settling into a nervous quiet. Allison worried for Vanya, while you’re worried for what’s happening with Diego. Of all the times for him to get arrested and it’s right when you guys get a lead. Perfect. You cross your arms as you lean yourself against the door, closing your eyes tight and taking a deep breath as you open them once again. Looking out the window at the scenery, it’s dark out and raining heavily as Allison drives. Deciding now is as good as ever, you close your eyes and lay your head against your arm, trying to catch up on some sleep, hoping the ride goes faster.

When you open them again it’s early morning, the sun is still hiding behind the clouds leaving the world in dull blues, pinks, and oranges. You shift your gaze over to Allison who looks like she’s about to fall asleep at the wheel.

 “I don’t think you’d survive a car crash...so in other words, I’ll drive the rest of the way there. Deal.” You tell her with a bit of tired humor in your voice, she gives you a weary nod, slowing the vehicle down and steering it off the side of the highway.

 You both get out, switching positions, as you start the car up beginning to take down the road again. You glance over at Allison who’s already passed out on the window, “Good talk.” You mutter to yourself, content with the comfortable silence.

You get off the highway, making a couple turns here and there until you reach a gravel backroad. This is it. You cautiously make your way down the drive, past trees, ferns, and other greenery. You’d honestly be enjoying the surroundings of nature more, if this trip wasn’t about finding Vanya and her crazy boyfriend. 

“Allison wake up, we’re here.” You whisper, reaching out to nudge her shoulder as you park at the bottom of the small gravel driveway. She startles awake, looking at her surroundings, relaxing once she sees how calm you are.

“That seemed fast. Thanks for driving us the rest of the way...I was seriously about to pass out at the wheel.” She explains with a yawn, you let out an amused puff of air.

“I’ve been in a car wreck before....I know surprising right...it’s not what I would consider, a fun experience.” She lets out a small chuckle at your early morning bluntness, it still amazes her how unfazed you’ve become to traumatic events that have happened to you. You’re guessing it all stems from the rapid healing and whatnot, you’re body doesn’t exactly give you a proper second to contemplate your injuries. Already deciding to heal everything quickly and get on with the next problem.

The both of you get out, slowly walking up towards the cabin, deciding to find a side entrance instead of barging in through the front. It’s best to be subtle, unlike some specific individual who you will not name. You slyly stalk your way to a low window, Allison right behind you.

 “See anything?” She whispers as you peer carefully through the glass, not catching sight of anything of any real importance.

That is, until your eyes land on a black violin case, “Vanya’s violin case...but that’s it, I don’t hear any movement.” You whisper back, moving away from the window to face her, “Let’s get out of here, they can’t be that far.” You add glancing around the old cabin, she agrees and the two of you turn to leave.

——

“Someone better have fucking died, why are we stuck in goddamn traffic...in the countryside...literally nowhere. We’re not even in the city, what the hell?” You angrily ramble as Allison sits at the wheel listening to you go off. It takes another ten minutes to finally make it to some restaurant type business plaza area where something out of the norm has defiantly occured. Traffic is at a standstill once again as you look out the passenger side window at the various policemen wandering about in the nearby parking lot. She suddenly gets out of the car, noticing police cars surrounding some fenced off area with police tape all around it. You grumble, opening up your own door, flipping up your hood and hastily following her. She grabs a scarf that was hanging from off of a sign, walking over to the police tape and lifting it up to make her way into the off limits zone.

 “Allison what the fu..” You start to tell her as a police officer gets to her first. 

“Hey! Pardon me. Hey! I gotta ask you to stay behind the lines. We had an accident here last night.” He explains, halting her from walking any further. You make it to the yellow caution tape, standing on the outside like a civilized person.

 “What happened here then?” You wonder, not unnoticing of the narly blood stain smeared on a nearby wall. Shit maybe someone did die.

“Ma’am. The line, please.” He adds, still wanting Allison to get behind it.

 “Okay. Yes. Sorry.” She says, lifting up the yellow caution tape and standing next to you.

“Got a lot of stuff on the ground, okay? To be wary of.”

“What happened?” You ask again, really curious as to what’s holding up traffic. 

The officer sighs while putting his hands on his hips, “We’re trying to figure that out. As soon as we do, you’ll be able to read it in the newspaper with everybody else. So have a nice day.” The officer says turning to walk away. Allison takes off her sunglasses, “Look officer, is there any way we..” He snaps back around his eyes shooting wide in surprise, “Holy shit! You’re Allison Hargreeves. I saw you on tv like two nights ago in that Sandra Bullock movie about underpaid teachers that rob a bank.” He excitedly rambles on. Rolling your eyes you flip your hood back, not caring if he recognizes you since Allison has taken it upon herself to blow cover. Your hair falls around your face as you blow a puff of wind to get a piece out of your eyes, this overly enthusiastic police officer’s mouth drops open once again. His face contorting from confusion to shock to realization. Ah, shit..he does indeed recognize you to your great surprise. He points to you excitedly, “No freakin way, you....you’re.....you’re...Y/N. This is crazy, you’re the Olympian! Of the frickin’ Umbrella Academy.” He gushes passionately, you purse your lips together, internally cringing a bit at hearing your old superhero name. The name you were given due to your likeness in powers and obvious immortality, to that likeness of the Greek gods and goddesses of mythical lore. You truly haven’t heard that name in many, many years, apparently you still have some old time fans.

 “Yep, That’s us.” You fake smile at him, Allison doing the same, enjoying the recognition way more then you are.

“Oh! Wow. Hey. Never in a million years could I have thought I’d be in the presence of Allison Hargreeves and the Olympian. How bout’ that. What a day, huh.” He says, at a loss for words and what he could say next to his two idols, you and Allison just stand in an awkward silence. “Copy, Cheddar?” Speaks a woman’s voice from his cop radio. He quickly goes to answer, “Yeah, what do you got, Fred?”

“Hospital called. Perp from last night just regained consciousness.” She replies back. “Copy. I’ll be right over.” He says back, his face morphing back to that of an excited child’s, “Wow. Allison freakin Hargreeves and Y/N...the Olympian! Wow. My wife’s not gonna believe it.” He gushes yet again, you’d love to bitchslap that smile right off of his stupid face along with his dumb stereotypical small-town cop mustache. Allison just chuckles, as you cross your arms, “Anyway, I...I..I..I gotta go. Work stuff....Yeah.” He says almost sadly. “Yeah, of course. Sorry.” Allison answer with, as Officer Cheddar walks past you two, headed for his police car. “Actually, that’s...why I’m here. I’m... I’m researching a role. A law enforcement role.. with Y/N.” She explains giving you a quick side eye, you turn your head away from them, trying to hold in laughter. No fucking way is this cop gonna believe that load of bullshit. “In Jackpine Cove? We haven’t had a murder here in years.” He tells her. “Oh, uh...it’s about, um...a small-town cop who takes down a drug cartel. In fact, maybe I could tag along while you conduct some official police business? I promise...I won’t get in the way. I just...I think you could really, um...help develop my character, if I could live a day in the life, you know.” She tells him, hoping her little fib will do the trick. He nods carefully thinking it over, “Day in the life, huh? Eh..Come on. Follow me.” You’re eyes widen as your mouth drops open, how in the fuck? And she didn’t even have to rumor him, Allison you sly dog. She gives you a hopeful glance as the two of them start walking towards his car leaving you in the dust.

“It’s fine, I’ll just trail along...gotta get the car....that you’re leaving in traffic.” You grumble as they shut their doors, you walk over to your own vehicle. Opening up the door and getting inside.

——

When you finally made it to the hospital, Officer Cheddar wouldn’t allow you near the wounded victim, calling it official police business or some shit. Allison gave you an apologetic look as you walked out the sliding glass doors without another word. 

Leaning against your car, you watch cars come and go, birds going about their day, and listen to the sweet sound of leaves rustling in the breeze. Ever grateful for the lack of car horns honking every ten seconds. As well as the usual nasty smells radiating from parts of the city and coming from god knows where else. You close your eyes, letting your mind wander.

What was happening with Diego? Is Five’s injury healed yet? Was Klaus okay? And where the hell was Vanya? So many questions and concerns throwing themselves at you, and oh right. There’s an apocalypse happening within the week. Things just are not going tremendously well this week, well that’s not entirely true. Considering you’ve had some pretty stellar times with Diego here and there, all very nice times indeed. Ah, but of course, Allison would get to have a fun little detective adventure with the local idiot. And she didn’t even have to rumor him! Even now she always gets what she wants, she always has, no..stop..you can’t think like that. You stopped giving a shit about who got the most attention long ago, you’re not about to start feeling resentment now. But your mind can’t help itself as it starts to saunter into darker grounds.

———

“Number Eight, if you weren’t so focused on the safety of Number Two, this mission would have been an utter success. But due to your lack of consistency when engaging in combat, you deliberately discontinued the annihilation of those four crime bosses. Jeopardizing the lives of their hostages, and all so Number Two wouldn’t get shot.....wounds heal.” Snaps Sir Reginald Hargreeves, as the whole of the Umbrella Academy plus yourself, sit around the dinner table. He’s verbally beating you down for saving Diego’s life on the Umbrella Academy’s latest mission. Where all of you surprise attacked a crime boss and his minions in his own mansion. You freed multiple people that where there due to human trafficking and other depraved things concerning illegal drugs and whatnot. It was successful to say the least, but a maid got shot in the arm when you decided to save Diego’s life instead. A mistake that Sir Reginald would not miss, nor would he ignore.

You glare up at him from across the table, “That maid survived. What? Would you rather have Diego die, or have a normal civilian live with some small injuries?” You ask him, as calmly as you can muster. He puts his fork down, sitting back, “You are part of the Umbrella Academy. Act like it. I will have no further arguments out of you for the rest of this meal, is that understood?” He replies sternly, cutting you off from further arguing, he takes a bite from his fork while watching your every move. You clench your jaw in frustration, no matter what you say he won’t care, “I understand.” You mutter through clenched teeth, turning away to focus sourly on your meal that you could care less about enjoying at the moment. The rest of dinner is held in an awkward silence.

As you’re returning to your room, Luther comes walking around the corner, headed for his own one. “Why do you always try and talk back to him? I mean, he is kinda right. You should have helped that woman, that’s what we’re there for.” Explains Luther as the two of you walk down the hallway.

“Of course you’d agree with him, why do I even bother.” You growl at him, rolling your eyes.

 Suddenly Allison walks out of her room, joining the two of you stopped in the hallway.

“If you’re here to tell me I was wrong for talking back I’ll shove my foot up your ass.” You deadpan, her face grimacing in disgust.

“That’s lovely. But a little advice, Y/N, if you want to stay on his good side, just shut your mouth and try to be less of an asshole.” She tells you like a scolding mother, you shake your head at them, “All you two have to do is exist and follow everything daddy tells you. While the rest of us get kicked under the rug. He likes you two the best, you know. But I don’t even need to tell you...I’m positive you both are capable of already understanding that.” You whisper yell at them, sick of all their high and mighty comments, just don’t talk and let Reginald boss you around. No way. “Whatever.” Mumbles Allison. “You just don’t know how to be normal, or how to not be a smartass.” Sasses Luther rudely.

“What? We are literally the closest thing from normal for fucks sake.” You snap at him giving him a what-the-hell-are-you-serious face, he crosses his arms in annoyance.

“Don’t swear. You know we can’t say stuff like that. Dad or Pogo might hear. And Y/N, stop trying to start stuff. You wonder why Dad makes sure you’re last for everything, he doesn’t exactly like you as much....then again neither do I.” You look at him with a poker face, trying your hardest not to bitchslap him right now. It’s honestly incredibly tempting.

“I’m really feeling the family love, Luther. And by the way.....all of you suck.” You add bluntly, flipping them off as you turn on your heel and walk angrily into your room, slamming the door in their faces. 

You sat in the middle of your floor for a good hour just fuming with quiet rage, until everything started to simmer down. They all get on your nerves to no end, and the only ones you can stand for longer then two hours are Vanya and Ben. Klaus is fun for awhile, that is on most occasions, until he starts trying to get you to see how long you can hold your hand over a flame before it hurts to much. Oddly fascinated with your ability to rapidly heal yourself, oddly enough you’ll usually do it, but you can only take Klaus in small doses. Then there’s Diego, who you’ve formed a solid love/hate relationship with. He’s just so weird, one minute he’s acting super cute and funny and trying to impress you or show off his knife skills so incredibly hard. Then a second later. Luther, Allison, or Reginald walks into the room and he’s being a jerk. Pretending like you don’t exist, and acting like such a hard-ass, it’s stupid. Klaus swears he’s got the fattest crush on you, but sometimes you’re not so sure, that kid gives you hella mixed signals.

Suddenly you hear a knock at the door, “If it’s you Luther, I’ll shank you with a paintbrush.” You tell this mystery person, crossing your arms as you look up at the door. You hear a soft chuckle from the other side, “No need. It’s just Diego....uh...could I come in? Please?” He whispers from the other side, your heart swells and you quickly get up to open it. “What’s up loser, I hope you’re not here to crush all my hopes and dreams.” You quip opening up the door wider so he can walk in, you closing it once again. He walks over to your carpet, sitting down by a bunch of random pillows. You soon follow, sitting across from him. “So, whatcha doin here?” You awkwardly ask him, confused as to why he’s in your room, not that you mind, but still. He fiddles with one of his daggers, looking down at his hands, “Uh, I wanted to say thanks for saving my ass yesterday. Sorry you took the fall for it, that was pretty badass of you to stand up to Dad.” He tells you still avoiding eye contact, you smile at him, “Well, I’d rather not have my favorite frisbee partner kick the bucket.” He smiles at that, finally looking up at you. “Yeah, we make a pretty good team, huh.” He glances down again at his dagger, nervously twisting it in his hands, “So, uh, Y/N. I..uh...have something to um...tell you.” He looks up at you, you can hear the thumping of his heartbeat quicken as a light blush dusts his cheeks, he continues, “Please don’t think I’m weird...but I really...like..yo..” Before he can finish his declaration of how he truly feels for you, the door bursts open. Revealing Luther and an angry Reginald, “Number Two. Number Eight. You were strictly told to go to your rooms and not come out until morning. I will have none of this, Number Two, out!” He snaps.

“I’m already in my room.”

He gives you a deadly warning glare as Diego gives you a sad look before bolting out the door. Reginald following as Luther gives you a snide smile, practically silently laughing at you. Fuck off, Diego was about to tell me something important you pricks. You would have liked to say, but thought otherwise, a wonderful moment utterly ruined.

———

Oh the fun childhood memories that stay with you to this day, intrusively barging their way back into your brain when you’re alone. Damn they all were little pricks back in the day, huh. All you tried to do was stand up for others and keep them safe, but all that the others wanted was to desperately please Reginald at any given opportunity. And that was the first time Diego truly opened up to you, it was short lived, but it was the start of something amazing.

“Y/N! Y/N! Hey!” Shouts Allison who’s running to you, your head snaps up at the sudden noise.

“What? I can hear you, calm down.” You tell her, pushing yourself off the car door.

“Vanya and Leonard Peabody were just here this morning. They were here, when we were at the cabin, they must have come back. We gotta go.” She hurriedly rambles, taking the keys out of your hand and opening up the drivers side. 

“Well shit.” You run around to the passengers seat, hoping in quickly, as Allison takes off towards the cabin.

The drive is thankfully short, but by now the suns beginning to set as a new darkness starts to engulf the land. It’s beautiful and calming to feel the night air and listen to the wind sway the pines back and forth. But you have no time to fully enjoy it, to worried and on guard for what you and Allison might run into.

“What the hell. Why’s it so windy all of a sudden.” You say aloud, shutting the car door and turning to walk up the gravel driveway. “Yeah, this is definitely odd.” Mutters Allison, equally as puzzled.

As you both reach the porch, the sound of Vanya’s violin wafts its way out and into the quiet night air. It’s beautiful, with the exception of all the lights and other porch furniture that’s swaying to the wind, er music. You’re not completely sure what’s going on. “Vanya? Is that you?” Shouts Allison as she looks into a window, quickly walking up to the door and opening it. No regard for safety, come on Allison we talked about this, you think to yourself as you follow her into the windy cabin. “Vanya, there you are. What is going on?” Allison half yells, bringing Vanya’s attention to the two of you. “Hey V.” You wave at her awkwardly, as she stops playing her violin.

“What are you two doing here?” She questions, trying to figure out how you would have found her, and most importantly why?

“We came to find you. Are you okay?” Allison worries. “Yeah.” Vanya says with a small but confused smile.

“Vans, you wouldn’t happen to know what’s causing all the spooky ghost wind? Now would you?” You question her, giving the room a short look around.

“Me.”

Allison walks in closer, “What do you mean, me?” She asks, confusion clear on her features. You furrow your brows, puzzled as well. “I mean....I made those things happen. With my powers. Turns out I’ve had them all this time. It’s weird, huh?” Vanya tells the both of you, her voice holding a tinge of resentment.

“It’s in..it’s incredible.” Allison gasps, shocked and amazed at this new information.

Vanya’s face falls, “But?”

“Can we just leave now. We’ll all have a nice lovely conversation about it in the car.” You rush, feeling the tension in the room starting to increase, as you attempt to get things rolling.

“Why?” Wonders Vanya. Allison glances down for a moment, sighing softly, “You’re not gonna want to hear it.” She warns, oh right, we gotta tell Vanya about her psychotic boyfriend. That’s gonna go well.

“Well, that’s never stopped you before.” She adds dryly, ouch. But well deserved.

“Leonard Peabody? His real name is Harold Jenkins.” Allison pauses for a moment, letting the information sink into Vanya, “Remember when I couldn’t find anything in the library on Leonard? It’s because Leonard Peabody doesn’t exist. Harold Jenkins does.” She explains, Vanya listens in silence, not sure what to believe anymore.

“She’s right. He was in prison for 12 years. The sick fuck murdered his father when he was 13...his pops might have had it coming..but still.” You tell her, further backing up Allison’s facts.

“This is...insane. His dad was an engineer at the..” Allison cuts her off, “I have the police report in the car, Vanya. I can show you.”

“I don’t...I don’t understand.” Vanya says shaking her head, not believing in these obscene facts. You walk closer to Allison, who’s standing a couple feet away from Vanya. “Leonard, Harold, Yeah man. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it sounds crazy. But we were in his house, this wack-job has pictures of us with our eyes gouged out.” You urge, trying to help her understand. Her brows furrow in agitated bewilderment, “Wh..What?” She starts as Allison quickly interrupts her, “I promise I will tell you everything in the car, but it is not safe.” Rushes Allison worriedly as she grabs Vanya’s arm, pulling her a couple feet towards the door. “No, stop.” Objects Vanya, sitting down in a rocking chair, Allison falling to her knees in front of her. “Look, um...I can’t imagine how hard it is for you to hear this...how you feel right now, but I..I love you, and I just...I wanna be here for you, as your sister.” Pleads Allison, desperately trying to get Vanya moving and away from this place. You stand back, folding your arms in concern, you can feel a heavy uneasiness crawling over the room.

“There’s just no way. I love him. This just doesn’t make any sense. And this power...I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what to do.” Mutters Vanya, her face washing over in troubled distress, overwhelmed by everything that’s happening.

“Now I understand.” Whispers Allison, apparently remembering a long forgotten memory, “When we were four. Dad told us you were sick. You had to be isolated. We were so young. None of us knew to question it. But then he asked me to do something I never understood...until now. He made me an accomplice.” Explains Allison shamefully, bowing her head down in disgust for what she did. You watch Vanya’s shocked face, you had no idea any of this happened. And clearly neither did she.

 “You did this to me?” Whispers Vanya.

“I...I didn’t realize.”

“You knew this whole time? That I had powers!” Shouts Vanya, getting up off the rocking chair in a fury. “No, no! I didn’t understand until we came today, until I saw it.” Pleads Allison standing up as well. You just stand back and continue to watch the shit-show, damn, this family continues to surprise you to no end.

“Well, now it all makes sense. This is why you never wanted me around.” She cries, anger and sadness fueling her.

 “What? No!”

“You couldn’t risk me threatening your place in the house, your...your dominance.” Vanya continues, her temper rising by the minute. “That is not true.” Adds Allison, Vanya screaming back, “You couldn’t handle the fact that Dad might find me special.”

“You are special, with or without powers.” Snaps Allison desperately. 

“Don’t...Don’t say that!” Screams Vanya, her face a mask of hurt and anger. “We have a chance to start over.” Allison tells her calmly, Vanya not buying into anything, “You destroyed my life!” She yells. You throw your hands up to your hypersensitive ears, not being able to stand the shouting anymore.

“Oh, come on Vanya. Everything is out in the open. We can move on.” Begs Allison getting frustrated. Vanya shakes her head, “Oh, I’m moving on. But not with you, or Y/N, with Leonard.” She snaps, you interject for the first time, “With Harold, the crazy bastard remember.” She ignores you, screaming back, “With Leonard! The only person who has ever loved me for me!” Allison stands back, lightly chuckling at the ridiculous thought of this random psychopath loving anyone. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not threatened now.” Says Vanya calmly, you look around you as the wind begins to pick up in the cabin once again, shit.

“I don’t wanna argue with you.” Begins Allison, Vanya vocalizing her rage, “Then go! I don’t want your help!” She wails, you cover your sensitive ears tighter.

“Vanya, I love you!” Allison cries, begging her to listen.

“Stop saying that!” Screams Vanya, even louder then before. Allison’s face scrunches up in confusion as she looks around the windy room, “Are you okay?”

“I said go!” A second later the lights above Allison shatter, raining down glass into your hair and hers. “Please don’t make me do this.” Begs Allison, at her whits end, and out of ideas on what to do about Vanya’s growing outrage. You take a step back, your legs hitting the front of the couch, afraid of what she’s about to do next, “I heard a rumor..” Allison begrudgingly starts, without warning Vanya reacts with lighting speed, you watch on in horror as Vanya whips her violin string across Allison’s vulnerable throat. Slitting it in one clean motion, your eyes shoot over to a shocked Allison, then deep red blood begins pooling out of her neck. Her eyes go wide as she raises her hands to stop the bleeding, you and Vanya race over to her as she begins to fall to the carpeted floor. “Allison!” Screams Vanya, terrified at what she had just done. “I didn’t mean to...I didn’t....I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She cries, glancing at you then back to Allison as hot tears begin streaming down her face. You listen to the strained gasps coming from Allison, as you rip off the bottom of your shirt and place it firmly where the injury is, doing your best to stop the bleeding. While Vanya’s hyperventilating next to you, you can hear Leonard urging her to get up and follow him out the door. He rushes over, grabbing her arm roughly and pulling her away, you snap out of your trance of saving Allison’s life.

Racing after them, Leonard shoves a hysterical Vanya out the door, before he whips around to face you, who’s staring daggers at him from the doorway.

“The Olympian. It’s an honor to finally meet you.” He says with an agitating grin as you sneer at him.

“Well, I wouldn’t stay to excited about it for much longer.” You snap, he chuckles at that while taking a step back.

In an instant you lunge at him, pushing him ferociously into the porch railing, the boards snap as they catch his weight. He staggers to his feet, wiping a smear of blood from his mouth and letting out a ragged cough while giving you a sly smile as he goes to picks up Vanya, “You won’t be able to move for quit awhile. And that’s all we need.” He tells you mysteriously, turning away and hastily limping down the steps, hand in hand with Vanya. You snap out of your daze, going to take a step to finish the job when your stomach has the most intensely jarring sharp pain, practically screaming at you to stop. You look down, this fucker stabbed you with a Swiss Army knife. “Goddammit.” You groan, grabbing its hilt and pulling it painfully out of you. Some blood squirts out and drips onto the wooden floor. You grimace, lifting the bloody blade up to your nose, you take a small sniff. “Oh fuck.” You deadpan, he coated the blade with some type of poison. You’re not sure what from, but you can tell its been tampered with, this dick knew what the fuck he was about, damn he must really hate the Umbrella Academy.

Knowing you probably only have a couple minutes left before the toxins fully reach into your system. You drop the knife, stumbling over to a barely conscious Allison. You fall to the floor, grabbing the arm of the couch with your left hand. Your whole body feels sick and you start to sweat heavily, you’re not sure if you’re about to vomit or not. Luckily it passes, replaced by an intense agonizing pain stabbing at your stomach, at least you can still breath. You crawl to Allison’s legs, leaning yourself against the couch, fighting to keep yourself awake, you have to stay awake, you have to fight through the poison that’s desperately trying to kill you. But everything feels so fuzzy and you can hear your own heartbeat pounding in your ears. It’s deafening. Nonetheless you crawl forward, reaching your right hand up to press gently onto her bleeding wound. 

You don’t know how long you’ve been slumped on the floor in agony, straining to keep your eyes open as bloody drool seeps out from the side of your mouth. But you could have swore you just heard the sound of car doors slamming shut. A moment later the screen door bursts open, Luther entering first, followed by Klaus, Five, and Diego. Luther races over to Allison’s left side, since your slowly dying on her right. Klaus kneels down in front of you, lifting your head up, it’s so hard to move, your body feels like it’s on fire and tied down by a thousand ship anchors.

“Y/N, what happened? What’s wrong with you?” Pleads Klaus breathlessly, terrified that you’re not healing right away. It’s how poison works, it won’t kill you, but damn will it keep you awake in a half dying state until the affects wear off.

Diego suddenly materializes from up above you, your vision is so blurry, you could barely tell it’s him. You can’t clearly make out a single comprehensible word from either of them. But a minute later you can feel yourself being lifted, and carefully carried out the door and down the steps. Where you’re then put into a car, your head and shoulder is leaning against something soft and warm. Presumably Diego or Klaus but you can’t tell anymore. Then the vehicle begins to move, the dull rumbling of the engine, forcing you into a half-conscious state. You don’t remember the ride home.

[paradox-psyc-hoe-sis]

Your Energy

Klaus hargreeves x reader, Diego hargreeves x reader (platonic)

Description: You and diego have been friends for a while now, and he finally agrees to you meeting his family. Klaus, in particular, takes a liking to you - but how will they react when they find out you have powers?

Word count: 1.9k

(There's no warnings other than swearing and this tiny tiny tiny moment in the second part that is NOTHING like smut, but I guess it could be implied? Idk, you'll know what I'm on about when you read it)

• Okay.

• You are one of the 43, but Reginald couldn't get you.

• Your power was being able control energy, and that included spiritual energy.

• This meant that you could see people's souls and auras, dead or alive.

• You and Klaus met quite strangely, to say the least. You were one of Diego's close friends, and after years of knowing each other, he finally let you meet his family.

• It was a warm summer's afternoon when you and Diego arrived at the Umbrella Academy. Just as Diego was about to open the main doors, you both heard bellowing screams coming from inside.

• Silently, you both shared a confused glance before proceeding to walk through the doors.

• Standing before you in the main hall was a very large man, who seemed to have somebody on his shoulders. They were seemingly fighting, the larger of the men trying to get the other off his shoulders.

• "Uhh, Diego, does this happen all the time?"

• Before he could answer, the broad shouldered man threw his opponent from his shoulders and directly into you, sending you flying backwards.

• In this case, you'd be able to stop yourself from falling and float in mid air, controlling your gravitational energy. However, this came as such a surprise that you didn't have time to save yourself.

• You were sent back through the open doors, and onto the empty street. The person who had been launched into you laid half on top of you, half next to you.

• Not a second went by before you used your powers to lift the man up in the air. Getting up from the cold pavement, you dusted yourself off.

• "What the fuck is going on?" He asked, in quite a calm tone.

• Diego jogged through the doors, running over to you.

• "I could ask you the same thing." He scolded, standing in front of you. Placing a hand on your shoulder, he asked if you were okay.

• "I'm fine," you responded, "just hurt my back a bit." You looked up at him with a small smile. Carefully, you lowered Diego's brother down until he was back on his two feet.

• You only just realised that your summer dress had ridden up slightly, and you blushed as both Diego and his brother watched you pull it down.

• "Y/n, this is Klaus." Diego muttered under his breath. Smiling, you turned to him and stuck out your hand.

• "It's wonderful to meet you, Klaus. My name's y/n, but you can just call me y/n/n!"

• Instead of shaking your hand, he bent down slightly and placed a chaste kiss on one of your knuckles.

• "It's my pleasure." He replied, a small smirk on his face. Only then did you notice somebody standing behind Klaus; he wore a black hoodie and had his arms crossed, yet wore a bemused expression.

• Instead of introducing yourself to him, you shot a small smile his way. You wanted to wait until you got into the mansion to properly get to know everyone.

• When he saw you smiled at him, he seemed confused, and looked behind him as if to see if anyone else was stood near him. Contently, you turned back to Diego.

• "Can we go inside?" You politely asked, and Diego stuck out his arm for you to hold. "Be my guest."

• Once you, Diego, Klaus and the mysterious man got back into the house, Diego called for everyone to come to the living room.

• Slowly, everyone trickled into the common area, the last being a 13 year old boy. Once Diego noticed the last of his siblings enter the room, he closed the door behind him.

• "Everyone, this is y/n." You smiled, looking at everyone in the room, hearing them all say hello. One by one, they all went around and introduced themselves, until you got back to Klaus.

• "Y/n/n and I have already met." Klaus proudly admitted to group. Next to him, the man wearing the black hoodie spoke. "God, Klaus. Don't act so love sick."

• He looked both irritated yet amused, which made Klaus turn to him and roll his eyes. Laughing, you stuck out your hand.

• "I don't believe I've introduced myself," you replied, "it's lovely to meet you."

• You felt everyone's eyes on you, burning into your skin. The boy in the black hoodie didn't shake your hand, but merely looked at you, a stunned expression plastering his face. Meekly, you took your hand back and fiddled with the hem of your skirt.

• "Who are you talking to?" Allison asked, not really understanding what was happening.

• "Ben." Klaus answered for you, wearing the same shocked expression as everyone else in the room. The only person who wasn't surprised was Diego.

• He perched on the end of a sofa. "Y/n's one of us, but our prick of a father couldn't adopt her." He looked almost proud and nodded towards you, as if to let you carry on.

• "Oh, right." You added. You were talking directly to Allison, but everyone listened intently.

• "Yeah, I can control energy. It's more complex than it seems, really. I can control all main types of energy like light, sound, gravity, the like. But I can also control spiritual and emotional energy. So if I really wanted to, I could change any of your emotions."

• "Spiritual energy..." five repeated. "That makes more sense."

• Now you were the confused one, furrowing your brows. "What do you mean?" You asked five, sitting down on the chair next to you.

• "What I mean," he started, "is that Ben's dead."

• The air lay thick among you all, as you turned to Klaus and Ben.

• "I'm...so sorry." You quietly spoke, avoiding eye contact.

• "Hey, don't worry about it." Ben said at last, smiling at you. "I've grown bored of only being able to talk to this moron."

• "Hey!" Klaus exclaimed as you laughed. Everyone else was silent as you, Klaus and Ben had your own conversation.

• "This is so weird." Luther whispered to Allison, who nodded in agreement.

• "Why don't we all go and get some lunch?" Diego offered, ending the awkwardness between you all.

• "Sounds good to me!" You replied, grabbing your bag. And with that, all of you were making your way out of the living room, off to Dennys.

☆☆☆☆☆

• All 8 of you were sat in a large booth, you sandwiched directly between Klaus and Ben. The waitress came around and took everyone's orders, and once she left, Diego hopped out of his seat at the end of the booth.

• "I'm going to the bathroom, if the food comes before I'm back and any of you even think about eating me fries, I'll cut you." You were very much used to his knife threats, so didn't dare going near his food. As soon as Diego was out of earshot, everyone bombarded you with questions.

• "Are you and Diego dating?" Allison asked, eyes wide. "How did you two meet?" Added Luther. "Where do you live?" Five questioned, kind of creepily. "Are you single?" Inquisioned Klaus, quiet enough that only you heard him.

• "Jesus christ, guys. I live a few blocks away from Diego, which is how we met. I was at target, and was about to get the last bag of doritos, when we both reached for them. Finally, no, Diego and I aren't dating. However we do have lots of sleepovers."

• Happy with how you answered the questions, everyone turned to each other to star their own conversations. You leaned in to klaus, and very quietly whispered in his ear.

• "And yes, I'm single."

• You weren't going to skip around the fact that you found Klaus attractive; his messy hair, dark eyes and cheekbones chiseled by the Gods did something to you.

• Diego returned, sitting back on the end of the booth, just as two waitresses walked over with arms full of plates and cups.

• You only started eating once everyone had gotten their food; you ordered a bowl of fries and a strawberry milkshake, your favourite. The restaurant hummed with chatter as the people around you laughed and quietly spoke to each other.

• "So Vanya, Diego told me you play the violin, right?" She nodded, taking a sip of her cola.

• "Yeah, I play in an orchestra." She added.

• "That's really cool! I played the flute when I was a kid, but now I-"

• As you spoke, you felt a warm hand on your thigh. Klaus's hand was soft, his slender fingers slowly inching their way up your leg, sliding underneath the skirt of your dress.

• "Now I play the drums." You finished, taking a sip of your milkshake. Before you could swallow, you felt Klaus's fingers get dangerously close to your underwear. You choked on your drink, coughing like it would save your life.

• Klaus removed his hand as Luther passed you a red napkin. "Thank you." You uttered, still trying not to cough up your strawberry milkshake.

• "You better get used to this, there's no escape now you've met him." Ben advised, a smug grin lining his face.

• "You can say that again."

☆☆☆☆☆

• Roughly a week had passed since you met Diego's family, and you couldn't stop thinking about it.

• After you all went to dennys, Allison suggested that a game of bowling would be fun. Spoiler alert: Luther broke the mechanism at the back of the bowling alley by bowling the ball too hard.

• You were sat in bed in your apartment, mindlessly scrolling through your phone. Realising it was just past midnight, you turned your light off, switched off your phone, and laid down.

• After a few minutes of trying to get to sleep, you heard the window open behind you, and the sound of someone crawling through it. Not in the mood to deal with an intruder, you used your powers to slam them against your bedroom wall. With your other hand, you turned on your light switch and found Klaus pressed up against your wall.

• "For shits sake, what are you doing?" You asked, letting him go. Ben stood next to him, leaning again the wall.

• "Go on, Klaus. Tell y/n why you've broken into her home at midnight, despite me warning you not to."

• Klaus was silent for a second, his tired eyes staring in to yours. He wore the same outfit from last week, looking like he came straight from the mansion.

• "Uh, y/n, would you like to go out with me?"

• He actually seemed pretty nervous, despite how he had been acting at Denny's.

• "...now?" You asked, looking at the clock.

• "Not now, but maybe tomorrow? Diego told me you have a day off and I was thinking maybe we could..." he took a deep breath, and looked down at the floor. "Maybe this was a bad idea."

• He made his way back to the window, but you managed to convince him to stay.

• "Klaus, of course I'd like to go out with you."

• You spoke in a gently tone, not wanting to startle him.

• "Plus, if you want to, you could sleep over here?" You knew it was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

• "I'll only stay if you give me a makeover!"

• "Deal."

• That night was filled with a lot of sad movies, you painting Klaus's nails bright pink, and Ben rolling his eyes about 400 times.

[number5theboy]

Favorite song montages/music scenes?

Oooohhhhh, love this. Because I’m on a roll, I made this another list, a top ten one, just so I don’t go overboard. I really looked at this as the scenes as a whole, rather than me liking the song or the scene individually. There are songs from the soundtrack that I love way more than some on this list, but didn’t think that they worked as well with the scene they’re in as the ones that did make the list. Without further ado:

10. I’m a Man (S2E2) - Diego & Reginald Fight

I just like how the aesthetics of this fight and the vibes of the song play perfectly together. It’s a more laid-back song than most fight scenes we get, and the line ‘I’m a man, yes I am, and I can’t help but love you so’ played over Reginald, who is demonstrably not a man and definitely doesn’t love Diego gives it such an almost sarcastic tone, like Reginald is toying with Diego.

9. Exit Music (For a Film) (S1E7) / All Die Young (S1E9) / Hello (S2E5) - Group Montages of Sadness and Change

I couldn’t decide between these three, because they all basically fulfill the same function in the narrative, showcasing different characters at low or turning points, and the mood of each song just hits perfectly. The way ‘Exit Music’ ramps up to Vanya’s guilt over killing and the confirmation that Leonard is Harold Jenkins. How ‘All Die Young’ is upbeat yet melancholic as nobody but Vanya truly is at their lowest at that moment, but you feel the arrow being drawn to the inevitable conclusion to this whole mess. And ‘Hello’ hit so much harder than it had any right to, it have the Swedes some dimension, but also the interplay of music with the funeral and the siblings’ big decisions, Vanya trying to confess to Sissy, Klaus going back to his cult, Allison telling Ray the truth, Diego and Luther burying the hatchet. It’s the perfect mood for it all, and the idea to use a Swedish cover is absolutely brilliant by the music department.

8. Soul Kitchen (S1E6) - Klaus & Dave in Vietnam

The Doors and Vietnam of course perfectly fits, but using the Doors to soundtrack a gay Vietnam romance??? Awesome. I’m usually someone with an ear for lyrics rather than the music, because I just know more about it, so I like it when the lyrics match up, but in this case, I don’t know any of the lyrics. I just like the mood the music creates. It’s a club in Vietnam and they’re not dancing to a club song. I like the rift between image and sound, and the sound still creates such a charged yet comfortable atmosphere.

7. In the Heat of the Moment (S1E5) - Five’s life in the apocalypse through the years 

The fact that Noel Gallagher’s snooty singing and borderline meaningless lyrics fit this scene so perfectly is a minor miracle, but they do. The na na na nas coming in with the image after the counting in before the song quiets down just to soar again over Five’s struggles. And it’s also not a song that sounds strong, that is technically perfect, it never quite reaches grandeur, and I don’t know why the atmosphere it creates goes so hand in hand with decades in an apocalyptic wasteland. And the irony of a song about having someone by your side over excruciating loneliness. Also the lyric ‘you better learn to fly ‘cause they’re gonna point you up at sky’ objectively goes harder than Noel Gallagher lyrics should.

6. Stormy Weather (S1E8) - Allison drives through the rain to find Vanya, haunted by her past actions and flashes back to when she rumoured her daughter

It’s just the perfect soundtrack to Allison’s backstory with her powers, and the fact that it’s sung by Emmy Raver-Lampman herself adds a dimension to it. The entire scene is centered around her voice, you hear her past rumours, you see her tell a story to Claire, then rumour her, and she is singing in the background. It intertwines scene and soundtrack on another level, and I love it. The combination of the sad lyrics but the more upbeat instrumentation, and how they carry into her memory........so good.

5. Shingaling (S1E4) / Pepper (S2E8) - Drug Trip Scenes

TUA has two scenes where people are tripping on drugs, and I cannot choose which one I like more. The mood for weed chocolate vs the consciousness-warping FBI drugs is so drastically different but the song choices are so perfect for both. Hazel and Cha-Cha dancing high off their asses to Shingaling, which is a chill but fun song as they commit arson, coupled with that green colouring and fun shot set-ups. Truly exquisite. Vanya getting nightmare visions in the FBI building, with the weird, disconcerting energy and lyrics of Pepper blasting, and the second-best use of scene switch at the drop that this show has pulled off this far. Stupendous.

4. Run Boy Run (S1E2) / Never Tear Us Apart (S1E2) - Five pushes his powers and lands himself in the apocalypse, where he finds his siblings’ bodies

These scenes are SO good. So good, and it’s because the music is the driving force of the emotion in that moment. Run Boy Run has exuberant energy to underline Five’s excitement as he’s testing out his powers, but it’s also somber and dark and swells at the chorus, which leads to the best scene-switch at a song’s drop in the show. The moment where Five lands in the apocalypse as the chorus becomes grand and he looks around, panicked, and when he runs frantically back to the Academy with the claps and percussion in the background? I get chills every time, and the lyrics make it, I think, the definite Five song as it pertains to his character, his characterisation, his arc, as running, in many different interpretations, is one of the key themes to Five for the entire show. The relatively short scenes really hammers in the tragedy of Five being ripped from his home at such a young age, and it gets underlined with Never Tear Us Apart. I put it with Run Boy Run because they fit together, but Never Tear Us Apart is heart-wrenching in itself. Just the imagine of Five searching through the rubble for his siblings, his small frame stumbling through the ruins, with Paloma Faith giving it her all in the soundtrack, and this heavy bass really banging us over the head with the heaviness of the situation. It’s great and sad and both scenes are carried as much by the soundtrack as they are though Aidan Gallagher’s acting.

3. The Phantom of the Opera Medley (S1E1) / I Think We’re Alone Now (S1E1) / Sister of Pearl (S2E7) - Character-establishing Montages

I am a sucker for this trope, of characters being characterised through a song playing, and TUA pulls it off so well. Phantom of the Opera shows you what the siblings do and where they are at in their lives perfectly, telling you so much with so little. It’s a great introduction and using the Phantom of the Opera, with the idea of Vanya being the phantom, the mysterious musician constantly belittled and underestimated (this is generalised, very much so, but it fits) that lashes out at some point because of the abuse they suffered, is genius also because it combines different themes that you can set the Hargreeves to. I Think We’re Alone Now is about personalities, of who these siblings are if nobody’s watching. I don’t think I need to sing its praises, the scene has become iconic for a reason, it’s memorable and creative. And the music choice, a pop song that they could have listened in their youth, with lyrics that are eerily prophetic, is so good. And Sister of Pearl is the long-awaited addition that introduces Ben’s character, and the music is sweet and fun and him messing around in the world, all giddy and a little goofy, fits with the whole theme of dancing like no one is watching. All three are so amazing at characterising the different Hargreeves.

2. Istanbul (Not Constantinople) (S1E1) - Five fights the Commission agents at Griddy’s

Okay, but what is better than a musical sequence that characterises a sibling? A musical sequence that characterises a sibling that’s also a fight scene! I’m not going to be long about this one, because I wrote 500 words on why I think Istanbul (Not Constantinople) is a brilliant scene just yesterday, you can find it here if you scroll for a bit. It hits so many sweet spots. It re-contextualises Five and adds several dimensions to him. The fight scene is brutal but the music is happy and fun. The song is thematically relevant to the scene and the character and what this scene is trying to accomplish, namely making clear that this kid, who looks like he did at age 13, is not the same as he was, and never will be. Again, go to that other post, I couldn’t stop gushing about how excellent this sequence is, because I really love it, but Season 2 brought along another that I love even more.

1. The Order of Death (S2E6) - Five arrives at the address Reginald sent them, and watches on as his siblings slowly join him one after one

I genuinely don’t know why this one resonated with me so much. I just like the cold but melodic 80s synth together with the cinematography. Every single shot is so good, Five looking up at the looming skyscraper, him climbing the stairs, pushing the button with the use of negative space to show his loneliness, until he gets into the elevator where his siblings come to him. And the music is so fitting, for the scene, but also for Five as a character, it’s a song that works well for him. The rhythmic thumping of ‘this is what you want, this is what you get, this is what you want, this is what you get’ is so dark at second viewing, because this is what Five wants: to talk to Reginald, with the support of his siblings. And what is it he gets? What is the consequence of his actions? His existence gets wiped from history. The music is tense, in anticipation of what comes next, and fits perfectly over these wide establishing shots and their harsh lighting. I can’t pinpoint why I like The Order of Death more than any other musical sequence in the show, but I do. It is such a small, yet perfectly executed scene, and it hits some emotion within me, even though I can’t really articulate which one it is. Intrigue, probably, mixed with dread and a hint of sadness because now I know how this enterprise ends, and it’s not well.

[captainficspace]

Included- Ben’s Day

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy 

Characters: The Hargreeves Bros

A/N: There’s not enough fics with the guys being bros. And Ben is a ray of sunshine and deserves the world.  

     Because the 60s had no internet, Klaus and Ben were determined to make up for lost time the best way they knew how. They set aside a lazy Saturday morning for  watching hours-long Vine compilations, even though they still knew just about every one by heart. They took the task upon them this time to assign every clip to one of their siblings, which only made the videos even funnier.

“Diego is the toddler running with the knife and mom is the one going ‘NO!’” Klaus said. Ben snickered. He was pretty sure there were moments in the house that were damn near identical to that clip.

“Absolutely.”

“The girl with the awful glitter eyeshadow is Allison.”

“That’s you.”

“Hurtful.” Klaus couldn’t exactly tell him he was wrong, exactly.

Just as they were going to debate whether or not a clip of a Chihuahua trying and failing to run up the stairs truly matched Five’s energy, a scream interrupted their trains of thought.

 “Again?” Diego and Five were locked in some battle that had been going on-and-off all week, starting when Five deciding to launch a near-lethal tickle attack on Number Two.  There were several sets of footsteps now clattering around upstairs, each getting closer to landing until one stopped altogether.

“Five must have gotten away.”  Klaus mused.

Another stopped.

 “Incoming in three, two…” Diego dropped from over the edge of the bannister, sticking the landing on the living room floor.

“You could have just used the stairs.” Ben said, before realizing Diego couldn’t hear him. It would have taken all of three seconds, but his dramatic entrance didn’t mean a thing because whoever he was pursuing was nowhere to be found.

“Five’s not here?”

“Nope. What’s the occasion?” Klaus asked, as if he was unaware that the two of them had been acting like complete children for the past four days.

“He knows what he did.”

Five materialized at the top of the stairs, staring down at the TV. He watched for a second, a faint smile crossing his face.

“The one with the guys yelling at the duck reminds me of you and Ben.” And he was off down the hall once more, Diego tearing up the stairs after him.

It took about thirty more seconds before shrieks were heard. The screeching went from muffled threats of violence, to jagged streams of profanity, to high-pitched cackling, occasionally broken up with screams. Everyone could depend on the stages of Five’s laughter like clockwork.

“It sounds like he’s getting him good.” Klaus went to turn up the volume, but realized Ben was listening closely, a wistful grin on his face.

“It hasn’t changed.”

“You miss it, don’t you?” He gently poked Ben in the side and he squirmed, biting back a smile. They had all been ruthless with him as kids. He was too fun not to. All of the siblings would pile on him or hold him down and tickle him silly until his laughter went silent, only letting out squeaks mixed with hiccups.

“You literally torture me every spare second you have.”

“Liar.”  More screeching came from upstairs. Diego must have found that sweet spot on the back of Five’s knees.

“We could go watch. Get some blackmail material.”

“…you want in, don’t you?” Ben refused to meet his eyes, trying to act invested in the Vines again and not the fun going on in the other room.

“Oh, look it’s the ‘Welcome to Chili’s’ guy. If that’s not you, I don’t know what is.”

“Do you want a visitation?” They hadn’t done it much at all since they had gotten back. Getting trust back was hard enough and it was such an awkward time of wordless apologies that even talking about possession again seemed much too soon for the longest time. But when Ben was having one of his down days, a few hours in a tangible, living body seemed like the least Klaus could give. Being able to walk in the rain or visit the farmer’s market or hug his brothers and sisters was such a gift.

“Won’t it be weird to jump in like that?”

“I let you take over at movie night that one time and you picked out- without me, for your information-“ Any claims got caught off by a new surge of hysterics coming from upstairs. Klaus noticed how Ben’s eyes lit up at the sound.

 “Just go. Have fun.” He hopped up and got into the proper stance for Ben to take over, giving him a wink.  Nine times out of ten, Klaus would be doing the same, eager to finally make some better memories.  Ben got up as well, Klaus not having to tell him twice as he took a few steps back to get a running start and threw himself into Klaus’ body.

The body shuddered as Ben took over, and he caught his footing with a lurch. Back inside. Everything came as a shock at first. It did every time, feeling a little like coming out of a dream. The dream was real enough, of course, but not as real as being truly present. Except unlike previous “visitations” where Klaus would let him take over in the garden or on the street, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

He felt downright giddy racing up the stairs, following the laughter down the hall and around the corner where Diego had Five pinned to floor of his room, holding him down with one hand and digging into his ribs with the other. The smaller brother cackled and writhed, kicking uselessly as his cheeks grew red.

Ben wished he knew how to announce himself, for all they knew, it was Klaus standing in the doorway in such an awkward, uncharacteristic manner.

“Klaus! Help!” Five gasped out, desperate enough to call for backup, but not yet desperate enough to beg Diego for mercy.

“Oh, I’ll help. But Klaus isn’t home at the moment…”  Diego slowed his assault, still firmly holding Five to the floor. His eyes lit up and Ben felt his chest grow warm seeing the excitement clearly written across his face.

 “Ben?”  He nodded, so happy he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“By all means-“ Diego gestured towards their squirming brother still pinned to the floor. As fun as that sounded, Ben had a promise to keep to Five. He lunged for Diego instead, taking him from his kneeling position to flat on his back.

“You traitor!” Before Ben could launch his attack, Diego grabbed him by the shoulders and reversed their positions. As kids, they were an equal match for each other, down to their deathly ticklish tummies. They could go wrestle for what seemed like hours, arms locked, until they both went for the risky move of attacking the other’s worst spots at the same time and would end up screaming with laughter. Now, not so much. Damn Klaus and his noodle limbs. Ben was now finding himself in the exact same way he had walked in on Five, now the two were staring over him, an especially devious smirk on Diego’s face.

 “You think it’s gonna be that easy huh?” Ben was already giggling. He never could pull it together when he knew he had gotten himself backed into a corner. He blamed the anticipation; he hadn’t been tickled in this body yet. Who knew what that would even feel like?

 Five, who had been trying to scowl at Diego as he caught his breath, suddenly grinned. “That’s not how Klaus laughs at all.” Even when Ben was reaching his absolute limits, his laugh stayed bubbly and sweet. Klaus cackled like a witch and would wind up hoarse after a tickle fight or a good story. Hearing Ben’s breathless, squeaky laugh coming from Klaus’ voice and body was jarring, but strangely adorable and endearing.

“You’re right. Good lord, it really is you, huh?” Ben tried to answer, but Diego started to squeeze at his sides and he couldn’t even begin to hold his laughter in.

“I think you should prove it again.” Five said, smugness dripping from his voice.

“I-I got youhou out of this mess and-“ He yelped, trying to get his arms out of Diego’s grip so he could cover his face. The feeling was nearly driving him out of his skin. He could feel everything. There was the feeling of being pinned down by hands he couldn’t phase through and the feeling of the carpet beneath him as he squirmed and the awful, awful feeling of Diego skitter his fingertips across the surface of his belly. Klaus had been wearing a crop top when Ben took over and that made everything so much worse.  

  “So if you laugh like Ben, I bet you’re…sensitive in all the places he is too.” He giggled all the more at the fact Diego still couldn’t say the word, even when he was in the rare place of power for once.

“What’s happening?”  Luther appeared in the doorway, no doubt intrigued by the latest battle in Diego and Five’s ongoing saga. Apparently Klaus was involved in things now? Maybe they had settled their differences and picked a mutual foe. Five wasn’t above joining in a one-sided tickle fight, content to poke away at Ben’s ribs.

“Ben’s visiting for a bit and already got himself into trouble.” Diego announced. Luther took it as an invitation to join them, switching places with Diego to properly hold Ben’s arms down so there were four hands on him. .

“Good to see you again.” Ben couldn’t even get a response out, only able to shake his head and squeeze his eyes shut as tears pricked at his eyes. Somehow, his tickle spots had made the journey with him into Klaus’ body, and his brothers exactly remembered just how to attack his ribs and belly.

 He was gasping for breath now? When was the last time he had felt breathless? Klaus tickled him all the time and even though he used “I can’t breathe” as a reason for him to stop, it was more because he was reaching his limit that anything else. He couldn’t even pay attention to the ways his siblings were teasing him or how way his laughter was ringing in his ears. He couldn’t begin to get past feeling. There were so many other parts of these interactions he forgot about. Blushing was one because for the first time everyone could see him. The ways his sides were beginning to ache was another. The way it felt to be manhandled in all its playful roughness and to laugh with complete abandon. It was something that felt so alien, but also like coming home.

“Do you remember the claw monster?” Five asked, flexing his fingers and vibrating them into Ben’s ribs.

“He remembers being a squeaky toy, that’s for sure.” Diego added, prodding up and down his sides, just to prove his point. Ben’s laugh was full of little squeals and squeaks; and to everyone’s delight, he hadn’t outgrown it.

“And that spot right around his portal. He screamed so loud that one time.” Luther said, thinking back to when they were younger and would “inspect” the port “just in case” and tickle around and around the edges until he cried laughing.

“If I recall, there was something that used to drive him wild.” Diego said, circling back to Ben’s exposed belly, leaning in close and taking a deep breath before blowing hard.

“NO!��

And it was too much.

He didn’t mean to leave Klaus’ body, but there was something about Diego’s scruff making contact with his stomach that had launched him out of the physical plane.

The others didn’t see Ben leave, but they saw how Klaus’ body shuddered and they all pulled back at once.

“Did…did he just?” Luther asked, biting back his own laughter.

“What-what happened?” Klaus was back in control but still trying to put back the pieces of how he got there. How did he end up on the floor? Why was his heart racing? He felt like he just did 20 sets of sit-ups while holding his breath.  When he looked over to Ben for an answer, he refused to say a word, hiding his face in his hands.

 “Apparently he’s still just as ticklish as we remember.”

“His soul actually left your body.” Five said, giggling.

 “You fucking tickle-exorcised Ben. I don’t believe it.” He tipped his head back and let out a wheeze of laughter. In the corner of his eye, Ben flipped him off, cheeks darkening. Klaus didn’t tell the others, but he was still giggling. He didn’t need a body to feel safe and appreciated, exhausted and content. The visitation had helped, but when Klaus’ hands glowed blue and everyone could see him for a second as he squeaked and hiccupped, all he could see was fondness on his brothers’ faces. They hadn’t forgotten how to make him feel included and happy. Ben hadn’t forgotten he was loved.

[jjdoggies-fanfics]

Day 6: Endings/Beginnings

Link to Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429154/chapters/67049683

@fivevanya

Title: Written On These Walls Are The Stories That I Can’t Explain

Chapter 1 of 4, the rest will be posted on Ao3

Klaus watched Allison do some final touches on the very natural makeup onto Vanya’s face, having it that had been approved by their sister roughly a month prior. He could see the nerves on who he’d always considered to be his little sister’s face; evidently the reminders from the few other people that had been flittering in and out of the room that Five and Vanya’s wedding was set to start in less than an hour wasn’t helping.

As Allison took a small step back, examining her perfectionist work, Klaus joined his older sister’s side, looking over his own work on Vanya’s perfectly pinned and twisted hair, paired with the flowered headband and white veil pinned to the back, if he  does  say so himself. Five had given him, in mostly secret, meaning Vanya didn’t know about it but the rest of them did, that he wanted Vanya’s hair to be pinned back and out of her face, as she had no reason to hide behind it at her own wedding. And Klaus and Allison, the unofficial hair and makeup team, heavily agreed, as did their other siblings.

For the most part, the siblings had unanimously agreed that their assigned numerical order basically implicated them as Luther being the oldest, although now that title belonged to Five, and Vanya as the youngest with Klaus being the  true  middle child. And because of this unspoken notion that Vanya was the youngest, each of the siblings felt varying degrees of protectiveness towards each of their siblings, but Vanya in particular. In part due to the first nearly thirty years of their lives believing that she was born without powers, which was a lie,  obviously .

In this new timeline though, within a month of Reginald Hargreeves, once again, killing himself in hopes of ‘reuniting the Umbrella Academy’ not knowing that they had never broken up in this timeline, only separating themselves from him, Five and Vanya were engaged and had roped Allison, Klaus, and Ben into helping plan the event.

Back to the issue at hand, despite basically  everyone  around them knowing that Five and Vanya had practically been made for each other, Klaus could practically see his sister shaking with nerves, a previous lifetime of a lack of self-confidence rising to the surface. He carefully reached a hand out and took a hold of one of Vanya’s hands, rubbing little circles into her hand in reassurance. “What’s got you so stressed Vanny?” he asked, “Is it Allison? Because we can kick her out, we don’t need her anyway.” 

He’d pretended to whisper the last bit, not lowering his voice at all, if anything getting louder, but the giggle that Vanya gave him was worth the soft glare Allison gave him for it. Klaus could see the slightest bit of tension ease from Vanya’s shoulders, as well as the small tremors nearly ceasing. “No, no, no.” Vanya said, “Nothing like that, it’s more, I just, I’m a. I’m just feeling a little, I don’t know-”

“Scared?” Allison guessed, “because it’s perfectly normal to be a little scared  right  before your wedding. That’s how I felt before I married Raymond.”

“Not Patrick?” Klaus teased.

Allison laughed shortly, ending it with a sigh before explaining that, “My marriage to Patrick was very different from my marriage to Raymond. Patrick and I’s wedding was very big, and extravagant, and public, and I knew like none of the people there. And the ones that I did were self-centered assholes. While Raymond and I’s wedding was small and private, I still didn’t know that many people there all that well, but I'd rather talk to them than those at Patrick and I’s wedding.”

“So being Mrs. Chestnut was  better , than being the A-List Mrs. Wilson?” Klaus asked, “How is that possible?”

“I didn’t say it was better!” Allison hissed, albeit the bite in it was lost by the barely contained laughter behind her grin, “I just said they were different.”

Klaus muttered to Vanya, “Different, different she says. You believe that?” Once again getting Vanya, and Allison, to laugh a bit, before he asked Vanya, much more seriously, “What about marrying Five, the little bastard that he is, is causing you to feel scared?”

“Um, well, it’s not so much that I’m like, scared.” Vanya said, “It’s more that, it’s more like, I’m just, I don’t know, nervous I guess. Because like, what if we’re making a huge mistake and once we’re married then we get into an argument or something and then we want to get a divorce, and we wouldn’t be able to be in the same room as each other, and our divorce leads to you guys all having to pick between me and Five, and then my half of the family wouldn’t talk to Five’s half of the family and that this wedding is what caused the entire family to be split in half all because Five and I got into some stupid argument.”

Allison and Klaus exchanged quick glances while Vanya worked herself up, again, before Allison took the lead in calming their sister down, again. “Vanya, not that any of us think that you and Five would get into any kind of argument that would lead to you guys getting a divorce, but even if you did, something insignificant like a divorce would not cause our weird, dysfunctional family to be broken up.”

Some of what Allison had said had gotten to Vanya, but not quite enough for her to completely be reassured that her wedding wasn’t going to ruin their family. Klaus added, “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen two people more made for each other than you and Five, Vanya.” He paused, reveling in the odd looks Vanya and Allison, more so Vanya as Allison was annoyed he’d used a line from her speech later, before laughing, continuing with, “God that was cheesy. Anyway, the point is Vanya, that couples and people argue. That’s normal. But, at least to me, and most of our siblings, as far as I know, it seems that you and Five are  destined to be together, as siblings, best friends, or married. Hell, he’s learned how to time travel to get back to you.”

“He came back for all of us Klaus,” Vanya said, “not just me.” 

Rather than point out to her that Five had quickly switched from killing whoever caused the apocalypse to just stopping them and helping them when he found out it was Vanya, Klaus did however, take note that she didn’t disagree with the rest of what he’d said.

Before anyone of them could say another word, there was,  thankfully  , a knock at the door of the makeshift dressing room momentarily paused any more talking. Klaus helped Vanya not trip over her dress, wearing white flats and  not  the short heels Allison and Klaus had tried talking her into wearing, while Allison answered whoever was knocking, pulling open the door to find Ben, crisply dressed in his grey top tux with black pants that matched Allison’s rose gold, with silver detailing, dress.

“Ben,” Allison started, glazing back at Klaus and Vanya before continuing, “we weren’t expecting you so soon.”

Their brother let out a short laugh, telling them that, “As much as I would love to be able to give you guys a few more minutes, Allison and Klaus are needed for line up.”

“Already?” Klaus asked, there was no way it was already-

“Yes, already.” Ben answered, “It’s quarter ‘til nine, and  I  am not going to be the cause of any delays and face the wrath of Five. So, if I were you, I’d go get lined up before Diego has to come look for you.”

“Diego?” Allison questioned, “Not Five?”

Ben shook his head, a small smirk on his face, as he told them, “Five is  oddly superstitious about not seeing His Bride until it’s ‘time’ and Diego has more time than Luther does, so Diego.” 

Without anymore convincing needed, Allison and Klaus both quickly left, giving their sister a few more quick, encouraging words before slipping out of the room, leaving Vanya with Ben. As they left, Klaus muttered something quickly to Ben as he passed.

As much as Vanya wanted to finick with her hair as she looked in the mirror, if only in an effort to avoid facing her thoughts (and Ben), the hair spray and Klaus’s previous reminders to ‘stop messing with your hair Vanya, or it’ll  never  be done in time’ kept her from doing so. And instead, she tried to tuck the little curls, that her brother and sister had gotten her up at 6am to burn into her hair, behind her ears, but they kept falling back out from behind them. She was still trying to avoid talking to, or even looking at, Ben, knowing she’d have to face the music.

God, she’s acting like she did something wrong.

Inevitably, Vanya turned from the mirror to face her brother, who was giving her a rather knowing look. “Vanya,” Ben started, “it’s okay if your a  bit stressed. It’s-”

“Normal?” Vanya guessed.

“I was going to say reasonable. But normal works too.” Ben replied. He placed a gentle hand on Vanya’s arm, “Are you ready? Or do you need another minute or two?” Before Vanya replied, he pulled her towards the door, saying that he needed to show her something.

They walked the opposite direction of where the ceremony was going to be taking place in roughly ten minutes at that point, and instead Ben lead her towards the reception area. “Ben? What are we doing?”

Her brother said nothing, just kept leading her towards the reception area, which was still getting the final details set up. There was a pair of wooden doors in front of them, the only thing separating Vanya and Ben from the reception area. 

Ben pushed open the doors, and pulled Vanya into the semi-lit room. As she walked into the room, Vanya nearly immediately noticed the many, many, many pictures covering the walls, filling various frames, and littering the spaces left on the tables, most of which she didn’t remember being taken. There were an array of pictures, all of which had her and Five, most featuring their siblings, and several others featuring their friends and tolerable coworkers.

Vanya looked through a small portion of the pictures, being transported back to the memory attached to them as she did, for several minutes, not noticing that nearly all the nervousness that she’d felt before had disappeared. And when Ben asked her, one last time, “Are you ready?”

She simply replied, with a soft smile “Yes.”

[plotting-against-you]

Sibling Bonding

The Umbrella Academy

Characters: Diego Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves

Warnings: Very slight reference to thoughts of suicide, but nothing shown or shown.

SPOILERS FOR 2X10****

Swallowing down the water Sissy had offered them, Diego stared out the window overlooking the farm. The bodies of all the dead or unconscious Commission assassins were still strewn about the vast field, and it made him feel at least a little bit better knowing they were, at least for a little while, on good terms with them now.

Looking down at the empty glass in his hand, his thoughts switched to Lila. He’d fallen for her way before he even knew he could, but of course, life had to ruin everything again. He wasn’t sure how he felt knowing there were more than just the seven of them out there, especially as he had slept with her. Did this make her his sister? She was gone before he could really find out, and his heart hurt more than he’d like to admit when thinking about it.

The thoughts made his head hurt slightly, so he pushed them away. As he moved his hair out of his face, a silhouette sitting on the front porch caught his attention.

Vanya.

He knew they’d all had a rough day, even a rough few years for some of them, but he felt guilty when he thought of everything she’d been through. Setting the glass on the counter, he slowly pushed the door open and walked onto the porch. She paused as he sat down next to her, but a moment later, she laid her head on his shoulder.

Looking down at her, he sighed and laid his head on top of hers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He could feel her body trembling.

“They’re not coming with us.”

Though he had figured that was the case, he still felt bad for her. She’d finally found people who actually loved her back in the way she deserved—even knowing Peabody was dead, he still wanted to make him suffer—and now she was losing them.

“I’m sorry.” He said sincerely. “Are you okay?”

She was silent, which wasn’t weird for her, but he unnerved him all the same. He let her sit quietly for a few minutes before trying again.

“Vanya.” His voice was firm, but concerned.

“No.” Her voice was small. “None of this is okay.”

“You’re right. It’s not.”

Lifting her head, Vanya’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

He was confused. “Why is that a surprise?”

“Because you hate me.” She reminded him.

That’s right—she remembered everything now. They’d all spent most of the last decade ignoring or hating each other, and now that they were all back together again, he regretted all of that lost time.

“I don’t.” He paused. “Not anymore.”

Her eyes softened, and she sent him a small smile that quickly turned into a wince.

His brow furrowed. “You okay?”

She shrugged. “Just some pain. It’s nothing.”

His eyes narrowed. “What kind of pain?”

She studied him for a minute. “Headache. Muscle aches.”

“You sick or something?” He questioned, just realizing how she looked slightly more pale than her usual pallor.

“I mean, I am sort of nauseous.” She shook her head. “I think it’s just the after-effects of the electroshock treatment I got from the FBI.”

Diego’s blood ran cold. He’d seen her come out of the interrogation room, asking if they were okay and telling them about Ben saving her before sacrificing himself. She hadn’t given them any details, and they hadn’t asked, though the hours since then had been filled with a lot of fighting and hiding from the feds.

“They tortured you?” His voice sounded more strained than he’d intended it to, but he didn’t care.

“It’s how I got my memories back.” She said, not wanting to touch that word. “They wanted answers I couldn’t give them.”

“No wonder your powers went crazy.” He was trying to stay aloof on the outside, but inside he was pissed.

They had tortured his sister, and all he’d been focused on was saving the president. He should have found her faster or protected her in the first place.

Looking down, Vanya played with the edge of her sleeve. “Yeah…I’m just glad I didn’t cause the apocalypse again.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t know; maybe I deserved it all.”

“What?” Diego was shocked. “That’s bullshit, Vanya, and you know it.”

“Why, Diego?” Her voice was stronger now. “I destroyed the world! I killed Mom and Pogo! I…” She trailed off.

“What is it?”

“I told Ben that I don’t deserve to live.” She said quickly. “I’m still not sure.”

“Vanya…” Turning to face her, he grabbed her hand. “please don’t ever say or think that again. You’re our sister, and we love you. We’ve already lost Ben…I can’t lose you too.”

“Thanks, Diego.” Vanya sighed. “God, this day has sucked.”

He nodded. “Seriously.”

Then he looked down at her again. “You gonna be okay?”

Smiling up at him, he could tell she was finally starting to feel better. “You know what? I think so.”

“Then come on,” he stood and reached for her hand, pulling her to a standing position. “I think it’s time we got back to 2019 and find out what we left behind.”

“Yeah.” She agreed. “Let’s go home.”

[five-hxrgreeves]

I Won’t Back Down - Five Hargreeves x OC

Word Count: 3,244

You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won't back down I'm gonna stand my ground Won't be turned around And I'll keep this world from dragging me down

 1  | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

Pt. 4- Waking up to Ash and Dust

Lola didn’t know what woke her but she groaned and opened her eyes, lifting her head from where her cheek stuck to the page she’d been writing on before she’d fallen asleep. The basement was pitch-black, her candles having been burned out while she’d been resting. Unbothered, the brunette stood, stretched, and made her way to the wall where she knew the light switch was. After patting the guessed area, her hand hit on the dimmer and flicked it up. Nothing happened.

She moved it up and down several more times and the room remained completely dark. Frowning in confusion, Lola guessed that they’d lost power during the night for some reason. With no windows in the basement, it was impossible to tell what time it was or if a weather event had happened. Shrugging, she stepped twice to the right and placed her hand on the banister to guide her steps up the stairs. Only- she hit her head even halfway up.

”Ouch!” the girl yelped, rubbing the sore spot on her head. What the hell? The ceiling was never this low before! There were fifteen steps from the door to the bottom of the basement. Lola had only gone up ten.

She pushed on the supposed ceiling tentatively. No movement, “hey, guys? Mom? Dad?” she called, hoping someone would hear.

There was no way the ceiling was caved in, right? How would that even be possible? Maybe her uncle was pulling a prank on her and had stuffed obstacles down the stairs so she couldn’t come up.

“Uncle Ed? You’re really very funny! Haha!” she tried, hoping it would convince him to help move the stuff.

Then, something shifted and movement by her feet made her jump, causing her to yelp. There’s no mice down here, idiot. Her mother would never allow that, so what had fallen by her foot?

Still in pitch-blackness, Lola made her way back down the stairs until the was on the last one. Gripping the banister carefully, she moved her foot into the empty space below the final step until she hit what had fallen. Bending over, she was surprised by the weight of the item.

Lola moved the object between her hands, feeling the roughness and shape of it. It wasn’t any sort of object used for a prank, she determined. It felt like a part of her house. But how could that be right?

Stay calm, Lola, she told herself, there’s a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe mom decided to renovate the upstairs, started this morning, and forgot you were down here? That seemed a little far-fetched. What about school? Her mother always checked the basement if Lola wasn’t in her room and it had to be around the time she had to get ready.

Dropping the loose object, the girl made her way back up until her head brushed the blockage again, “MOM? DAD?” she yelled again, straining her ears for an answer.

What the hell happened last night? Or early this morning, she supposed. She called for her parents several more times, all of which went without response. Turning, she sat down on the seventh step and buried her face in her hands, the sudden coverage of her eyes making no difference with the black of the room.

Okay, she thought, you know the basement. What could you use to help you?

There were drills and electrical cords so she could drill herself out but she’d never used the tools before, her mom would go nuts and there seemed to be no power. She had candles, so she could burn her way through but if it was mostly cement on top of her that wouldn’t help. Paint was useless and so were light bulbs. She doubted there was something useful in the holiday section. Did they have a pick axe? Those couldn’t be so hard to use. Or maybe an anvil and a hammer.

That would take longer but didn’t require electricity and her mom might be more okay with that.

What if it caves in on you, though? she considered, biting her lip as she tried to puzzle around it, what did people use to prevent cave-ins? Some type of support, she supposed. Did they store plywood in the basement? Was that even strong enough?

Stay calm, Lola, you can do this. And besides, she was jumping ahead of herself. Surely her parents would notice and dig her out? Maybe there wasn’t even that much blockage and it just seemed like a lot. It probably just was a rotten prank her Uncle Ed had cooked up but she couldn’t see her mother being okay with her being late for school because of it. Still, she didn’t want to jump to conclusions so she stood and made her way back up the stairs, calling as loudly as she could, “MOM? DAD? UNCLE ED?”

--

There was no telling how much time had passed but no answer came as Lola’s voice tired out. After her 839th call, she gave a final cough, turned, and sat down, bending her head slightly to accommodate the small space. What now?

Surely it was past school’s starting time. Her uncle and father would be at the store and her mother would be at the library starting her shift. Lola sighed and strained her eyes into the blackness, hoping it would reveal an answer of what happened. It didn’t, of course, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. Maybe her voice wasn’t loud enough? The thought suddenly occurred to her and part of her favorite, well-memorized story came back to her: Liesel hit the lid of a paint can. Maybe her paint cans weren’t as useless as she thought.

After sliding down the stairs feet first and lowering herself carefully by her hands, she stood and made her first step to the left. Suddenly, she was very glad she was a counter. There were exactly twenty-seven and a half steps to the paint section of the shelves from the bottom of the stairs. Carefully counting them out, she arrived in the correct place and took the top paint can after feeling around for the handle. Then, with another fifteen steps, she made her way to the hand-held tools and felt along the second shelf for a hammer, pleased when her hand grasped the worn, wooden handle.

Turning, Lola counted the total forty-two and a half steps back to the stairs and went up again to the blockage. Placing the paint can on the last available step, she swung the hammer down, hard, on the lid. It let out a resounding clang which was loud in the dark stillness and made her flinch in surprise. Shaking off her prickle of fear, she repeated the action several more times.

--

The girl jumped when something slightly wet splashed on her and she gingerly felt the spot where it landed on her shirt. Oops.

The lid had dented after so many hits and now it had finally given, the most recent contact had splashed the sent the wet paint flying. She swallowed nervously. How many paint cans did they have? How long would she be stuck here? Clearly, no one was coming to help. Lola supposed she should have waited until her parents would actually be home but the thought hadn’t occurred to her until now. Besides, who knew how long it had been?

The thought made her shudder slightly, the idea of days passing without being released not sitting well with her. She loved the basement but even she didn’t want to live out the rest of her days here. I need light, Lola thought, slightly frantically.

She shook herself and took a deep breath. As well as she knew the space, losing count of the steps wouldn’t help her. She descended the stairs again and stepped left, this time counting out eleven steps. Her hands found the candles and matches blindly, relieved when she felt that there were twenty-five in all. She would still conserve the light, though. Just in case.

Lola repeated her path in reverse and sat on the third step, carefully holding one slim, long candle between her legs as she prepared the lighter. There was a spark and the match caught, causing her to quickly set it to the wick and shake it out, relieved to keep some of the darkness at bay. Holding the light aloft, the brunette stood from the stairs and in twenty-one steps she reached the far wall where a wine cellar of sorts stood embedded into the cement. The space was tiny and hand-dug, extremely cold in the winter and less so in the summer but was an additional food storage area for long-term items. They didn’t usually keep it very full but there were several packages of canned drinks, two tubs of ice cream, some frozen dinners and a case of water.

The girl now took stock of the items, checking that each one she thought was in there actually was and was reassured that she would be able to survive down here for some time, if it came to that. She hoped not. Lola had zero practiced survival skills and what she knew only came from books like Hatchet which wouldn’t truly help her here.

She wasn’t an idiot; rationing her food should start immediately and she needed to go as long as possible without eating or drinking to make it last longer. Going to the bathroom would be a challenge, but she’d dedicate a spot and hope for the best.

Stop it, idiot, Lola thought suddenly, you’re acting like you’re stuck down here. You probably aren’t.

Still, she couldn’t help but think what if she was? At least the couch could act as her bed and the rest of the time would be spent trying to free herself.

She sighed and exited the food storeroom, at least you don’t have to worry about homework right now. Your teachers will understand if you miss because you’re trapped in a basement. Hopefully.

Okay, she thought, if worst comes to worst, you’re pretty well off. There’s definitely no need to panic. Nope, none at all. Think: what would Liesel do? WWLD? She wouldn’t panic- well, she did at the sight of her dead-

STOP. Don’t think like that. The point is, she didn’t panic when she was trapped in her basement. People came to help. The same will happen for you. You’ve always wanted to be like her, remember? Now’s your chance.

“At least this will make for an interesting section in my autobiography,” Lola commented aloud and instantly shook her head, stop it, talking to yourself is a sure sign of insanity. It had only been a few hours at most, probably eight.

The uncertainty of exactly how many made her shudder slightly.

--

The next day- or what she assumed was the next day- she tried the same routine, calling her parents’ and uncle’s names for as long as she could before her voice gave and then resorting to banging on a paint can until it, too, gave. Lola used some of her light to count exactly how many paint cans she had, which were fifteen. A little over two weeks and she’d used two already.

They could help her keep track of the estimated days. To keep herself busy, she also partitioned out her food into servings so she wouldn’t eat a lot at once, even if she was really hungry. Her stomach was already starting to growl but she pushed through knowing it could get worse.

Another obstacle she realized she had was that there was no running water, not that the basement had a sink. There was no way to keep her hands clean or wash herself and she cringed at the thought of becoming disgustingly dirty.

--

The next guessed day came and Lola was entertaining the idea that something had gone very, very wrong outside. She’d sat for several hours next to the cave-in and heard nothing. She allowed that the pile on top of her was too thick to let sound through but it seemed that she’d hear police sirens or something as they swarmed over the collapsed house.

The thought made her heart twist in her chest. What about her parents? Were they hurt? The only explanation that there could be was the house collapsed, but surely they hadn’t been inside when it happened? They were probably worried out of their minds right now about her. Lola wished she could send them a message that she was okay.

An idea had crossed her mind that she could tap out an SOS out on her paint can lid but she didn’t know Morse code and had tossed the idea aside. The brunette was glad that she had rather weak olfactory senses and couldn’t easily smell herself but she was sure that after three days of not showering, she must stink.

You stink to high heaven! her mother would say. Lola had never missed her as much as she did right now and she wished she could have been more understanding about her mother’s reasoning for things. The next time she gives me chores or scolds me, I won’t ever complain again.

--

Two more days passed without much change. Lola still lived in darkness most of the time, worried about running out of light. It was surprisingly easy to stick to food rations. She’d never been a big eater but she wasn’t a small eater either. She chalked it up to the fact that she could count each serving.

Her first time going to the bathroom without a toilet had been awkward and messy but luckily they did store toilet paper and trash bags on the lower part of one of the shelves so at least she could clean up. The couch was a fine sleeping place and only creaked a little when she shifted around.

After spending her obligatory hours trying to get help, Lola would then shuffle, shuffle, shuffle her cards, over and over again to keep the panic at bay, the action familiar and comforting. In the dark, she would try magic tricks which proved to be difficult as she couldn’t see the result. Then, she returned to counting all fifty-two of the cards, reassuring herself that they were all there. Her writing fell by the wayside as she focused on keeping herself calm and definitely not panicking.

--

After approximately one week, Lola was starting to feel the affects of being stuck in the dark for so long. Sleep had become more difficult and she instead lay awake for hours, staring into nothing as she lay on her side on the couch, the cushions pressed against her back. It was easier to operate without light now, too. She still counted her steps whenever she moved around but her ears seemed sharper- the ringing of the paint can lid proved that- her touch seemed more sensitive and it seemed like her smell had improved, too, because she was definitely stinking.

Lola wished she had a change of clothes at least, but she was out of luck. The only possibility of new cloth was Christmas tree skirts and that wouldn’t help her since she didn’t have needle and thread- not that she was even a fashion designer, but she could have figured something out.

Sometimes, when she stared at nothing for long periods of time, bright spots would enter her vision or strange, geometric shapes would pop up. Then, she would blink and they would disappear. The thought of seeing things terrified her and Lola made an effort to keep her eyes physically closed instead of just peering into the darkness.

--

By the beginning of the second week, sleep had suddenly come back. Lola thought she was just closing her eyes in short spurts but in reality, they were closed for many hours. The paint cans helped keep her from misjudging how many days she’d spent in isolation and the food rations did too, slightly.

The panic that had threatened to overwhelm her had ebbed, only poking at the back of her mind every so often. Lola could feel that her body had become weaker, too, even though she spent many hours pacing the edge of the space, counting out all 900 steps. It was clear that no one was coming to help her but she couldn’t bring herself to stop hoping. Even as she lost everything else, something told her to press forward and keep believing someone would come.

She’d been speaking to herself more and more too, to cover up the awful silence that persisted in the darkness. She’d often just recite parts of her autobiography, sang song lyrics she'd memorized or she’d spend several hours reciting The Book Thief as a way to help calm her as her panic increased. One time, in her rotations, she’d turned on the third corner and had stopped for a moment, eyes wide, as what looked like a monkey on a unicycle juggled in front of her, complete with flashing circus lights and music.

Lola’s mouth had dropped open and she’d let out a crazy, slightly maniacal laugh before she rubbed at her eyes furiously in disbelief. The darkness had promptly returned, leaving her to shiver fearfully on the spot.

--

On the twelfth day, according to her paint cans- not that she actually knew for sure anymore- something changed. Lola hadn’t been expecting it, of course, and had gone on with her usual routine. Then, in one of her circuits of the basement, she heard something, out of the ordinary from the sounds she was used to- not that there were many. Her pulse picked up. Was someone trying to kill her?

“No, stupid,” she said aloud, her voice raw and hoarse from the hours she spent yelling, “you’re dumb. There’s no one alive. I think we’re alone now.”

The words didn’t make sense but then nothing much did these days. When had she started speaking in plural? Still, the shifting continued.

Creeping slowly up the staircase, the brunette paused next to her already set-up paint can. It certainly sounded like someone was out there. The girl looked down the dark staircase, thinking about her remaining food and liquid supply which was now rapidly dwindling, her shrinking amount of candles, paint cans and matches, her wrinkled, used deck of cards and came to a decision.

At first, her banging went unnoticed on the surface until the shifting stilled above her.

“Hello?” the sound was faint and muffled, clearly she was hearing things.

Lola continued her banging, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t.

The shifting resumed but it seemed more purposeful now. The sound came again, “hello? Is anyone there?”

Bang, bang, bang came the answer, the brunette continuously hitting the lid. A chink of brilliant light appeared above her head, making her shut her eyes in pain.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” it was definitely a voice, a young one, too.

Then, the hole opened wider, wider, and wider until bright light came pouring into the dark space. Turning up her face but closing her eyes, Lola tried to look up at who had come for her. Maybe she was dead and the light was from heaven.

The answer was the exact opposite as the voice spoke again, this time disbelief clear in the tone, “what the hell?”  

[tomeandflickcorner]

Umbrella Academy Rewatch 1x03

1x01 1x02

Right then.  So the hunt is on for determining the identity of the glass eye’s owner, which is imperative to stop the approaching apocalypse.  And what exactly did Allison see in the security footage?

Well, this episode really starts off with dumping on Vanya.  First by showing the point in time when she wrote her autobiography about how she was always ostracized by the family for being ordinary and not having any specially powers.  Not to mention how, after Ben’s death, the family started to drift apart, to the point when they were little more than people simply living under the same roof.  We also see each of her siblings reading her book.  But it doesn’t seem like Reginald read it himself and simply placed it up on his bookshelf.  After that flashback, we see her arrive late to her orchestra rehearsal.  After the rehearsal, Vanya complements one of her fellow violin players, Helen Cho, who holds the violin first chair.  Which, I guess, is the highest position in the violin section.  Helen, however, decides to remind Vanya that she has been placed in third chair for quite a while now.  She states that it doesn’t really matter how hard Vanya practices the violin, as she doesn’t seem to have the necessary skill to go far.  Helen goes on to suggest that Vanya think about finding something else that she can be passionate about.  While it could be argued that Helen was being unnecessary harsh to Vanya, I also kinda feel that perhaps Helen was trying to be helpful here.  Considering we saw that Young Vanya was often left to practice the violin, is playing the violin something she actually wants to do in her heart of hearts, or is she just doing it because this is something Reginald had her do?

Back at the Hargreeves household, Luther and Allison review the security footage that Allison uncovered.  It shows Grace, their robot mother, seemingly giving Reginald poisoned tea, as he appeared to have died moments after she walked away from his bedside.  This is clearly confusing to them, as they did not believe Grace was capable of doing something like this.  When they question her about it, she doesn’t seem to have any memory of anything, simply making them a breakfast of eggs and bacon and continuing to act like a Stepford Wife.  Although, she seems to be on the verge of saying something for a moment before she stops herself and seems to forget about whatever it was she was going to say.

Elsewhere, Detective Patch is investigating the crime scene at the department store where Hazel and Cha-Cha attempted to shoot Number 5.  Despite his previous warning, Diego is also there.  Together, they determine the bullets that had been fired were a style of bullets that hadn’t been manufactured since 1963, which is most peculiar.  Detective Patch mentions she found similar casings when she found the body of the tow truck driver.  Clearly, Hazel and Cha-Cha are not just ordinary hit men.

Speaking of Hazel and Cha-Cha, they’ve returned to their motel room.  Somehow, they receive a message from their employer from a pneumatic chute that appears in the wall almost magically. The message informs them that, since they failed to kill Number 5, they’re facing a 7% pay decrease, with further decreases for every day they fail to complete their job.  As you might expect, Hazel is not very happy with this news.  Although, there’s still no clear indication why they’ve been sent to kill Number 5.

At the present time, Number 5, after patching up the wounds he’d received from last episode’s shoot-out, heads off to continue his quest to discover the identity of the glass eye’s owner.  As he heads out, he has a brief interaction with Klaus, who is currently rooting through the dumpster trying to locate the papers and journal he threw out, so he can return them to Reginald's office.  (Although Ben’s ghost, who appears to have attached himself to Klaus’ side on account of the fact that Klaus is the only one who can actually see him, is clearly getting bored and suggests seeing a movie instead.)  Number 5 starts staking out the prosthetic limb company, knowing that it’s only a matter of time before the glass eye in his possession gets made in the present day.  And when it does, he’ll be one step closer in determine who might be responsible for the approaching end of the world.  As he sits and watches from a plumber's van he acquired somehow, Number 5 pulls Deloris out from a duffel bag, allowing his mannequin girlfriend to keep him company as he watches.

Back with Luther and Allison, they discuss the matter of Grace and her possible connection to Reginald’s death.  Luther believes that she might be hiding something, but Allison disagrees, stating that this is their mother they’re talking about, and she was clearly confused.  She goes on to say that Grace can’t be blamed for losing it a bit, since they all moved out of the house and left her alone,to spend the past 13 years in the mansion without any of her kids.  Right away, Luther picks up on the fact that Allison is clearly projecting her own feelings about herself and her daughter, Claire.  He asks her what exactly happened between Allison and her family.  Allison says she’d rather not discuss it, but admits that things went sour between her and her ex-husband, Patrick, and now she has to take some court-mandated therapy sessions before she’s allowed visitation rights to Claire.  She also confesses she used her power on Claire, who had a few ‘epic meltdowns’ at the age of three.

Elsewhere, Vanya ends up stopping by the shop where Leonard said he worked.  It turns out he works at an antique store.  They talk for a bit, and Leonard ends up giving her a carving he made for her.  He proceeds to ask her out to dinner, and Vanya ends up accepting the invite, as she’s developing a liking for him.  Their conversation is then interrupted when Allison happens to shows up. It turns out that they’re having a family meeting back at the mansion.  Vanya is a bit taken aback by the fact that she’s being included in the meeting, and Leonard, taking the hint, heads off, stating that they’ll have to rain check their dinner date.  After Leonard leaves, Allison apologizes to Vanya for the things she said yesterday, saying she shouldn’t have taken her frustrations over Patrick out on her sister.

Number 5′s stakeout likewise ends up being interrupted by the sudden appearance of Luther and Klaus.  They also came around to get Number 5 to join the family meeting, but Number 5 refuses, insisting that what he’s doing is far more important than whatever it is they’re discussing.  Although, he refuses to explain his mission to Luther.  Luther criticizes him for his attitude, accusing Number 5 of believing that he’s better than the rest of them.  Number 5 refutes this by stating he IS better then his siblings.  In the end, Number 5 refuses to return to the mansion with his brothers.  And Klaus ends up getting chased by a security guard for stealing food from a convenience store, which exasperates Luther and Number 5.

We then cut back to Griddy’s Donuts, where Hazel ends up striking up a conversation with Agnes.  They seemingly begin to bond over their shared love of doughnuts.  Unfortunately, the cute moment is brought to a halt when Cha-Cha returns from the bathroom and Hazel has to get back into business mode.  They question Agnes about Number 5, and Agnes lets slip that she noticed the umbrella tattoo on Number 5′s wrist, which is something all the Harvrgreees Siblings had been given on Reginald's orders, as a way to identify themselves.

Back at the Umbrella Academy, the Hargreeves Siblings, minus Number 5, watch the security footage of Grace and Reginald.  Diego points out that it would have shown up on the autopsy report if Reginald had been poisoned.  He then explains that they’re not looking at the footage close enough.  What the footage is actually showing is that Grace was taking Reginald’s monocle from him in order to clean it, which is why it was missing. Diego goes on to explain that he knew all of this because he took the monocle from Grace after the funeral and proceeded to throw it out.  He did this because he knew that Luther would go ballistic if he’d found the monocle in Grace’s possession.  Which, yeah, does make sense.  But at the same time, come on, Diego!  You couldn’t have mentioned something about it earlier?

Thankfully, Vanya steps in before another fist fight could break out.  However, Luther still suggests that they switch Grace off, since the fact that she didn’t do anything upon seeing Reginald dying could mean her programming has become faulty.  Allison agrees with Luther, but Diego votes against this, since Grace is their mother and not just a vacuum cleaner they can shove in a closet.  Vanya votes in favor of Diego, and so does Klaus, though this is mostly due to the fact that he’s still mad at Luther for unceremoniously kicking him out of the van while they were talking with Number 5.  (Klaus also insists that Ben would agree with him if he were there, but Ben’s ghost contradicts this, leading to an amusing response from Klaus.)  So it looks like it’s three against two in favor or not shutting Grace down.  But Allison points out that Number 5 isn’t there to vote.  And until he can do so, the final decision cannot be made.  And so the Hargreeves Siblings depart.  Except for Diego and Vanya, who continue to discuss Grace.  Grace wonders how much of Grace was actually Reginald, since he was the one who programmed her to be their mother.  Diego insists that might have been true at first, but he believes Grace evolved past her programming, since Reginald only loved himself.  Unbeknownst to them, Pogo has been watching the whole thing from the upper floor.

We then get a brief flashback of a moment when the Hargreeves Siblings were heading out on another mission, as Grace moved through the halls to check up on each of them in turn, and help them out when needed.  Such as helping Young Ben with his uniform’s zipper and bringing Young Allison her mask.  As well as give us one of the only acceptable uses of the phase ‘boys will be boys’ when we see Young Klaus has seemingly started a fire in his bedroom.  During this sequence, we learn that Diego used to have a stuttering problem that Grace would help him overcome.

Later on that evening, Diego approaches Grace to ask her why she did all that stuff for them as kids.  It seems that, despite his earlier confidence to the contrary, Vanya’s words have sank in, and he’s wondering if perhaps the things she said really was just a result of Reginald’s programming.  To test this, I guess, he asks her if she ever hated the man, considering he treated her worse than any of them, to the point where she wasn’t even given a room to sleep in.  (Though that begs the question as to whether or not a robot needed to sleep in the first place, but I guess that’s neither here nor there.)  Grace remains ever blissful, saying that Reginald was a wonderful and brilliant man who brought a lot of good to the world.  However, this just ends up angering Diego. He demands that Grace stop trying to defend Reginald, stating that the man only viewed the Hargreeves Siblings as test subjects in an experiment.  In spite of his angry words, Grace’s tune doesn’t change in the slightest.

Meanwhile, Number 5 is still at his stakeout.  As such, he observes Mr. Biggs approaching a car parked out in the lot and seemingly passing the occupants a suitcase in exchange for brown envelope.  But there’s no current explanation for that.

Back at the mansion, Hazel and Cha-Cha have tracked Number 5 down to the old house and they break in.  They proceed to search the premises, walking right past the bathroom where Klaus is taking a bath while listening to his headphones in an attempt to block out the anguished wails of the dead.  However, they are discovered by Diego, and a fight breaks out, with Hazel and Cha-Cha firing their guns at him.  Luther and Allison, who were upstairs discussing the time Luther spent on the moon, hear the commotion and come down to investigate.  And matters become more complected when Vanya shows up, walking right into Hazel.  Thankfully, she isn't harmed too badly, as Luther comes to her rescue.  While Luther takes care of him, Diego and Allison take on Cha-Cha.  Cue a prolonged fight scene as Sinnerman by Nina Simone plays over the scene.  (And those are some REALLY impressive headphones Klaus is using, as he cannot hear any of the gunshots, or even Ben’s ghost calling for his attention.)

In the end, Hazel and Cha-Cha are driven off, but a chandelier ends up falling onto Luther.  This results in the reveal that Luther’s body has been mutated to that of a large ape.  Which explains why he was so much taller and burlier than his siblings remembered him.  With his secret revealed, Luther retreats upstairs, no doubt ashamed of his appearance.

In the aftermath of the battle, Diego notices Grace is sitting calmly upstairs, sewing away on her needlework.  He goes up to check up on her, to make sure she wasn’t harmed by any of the flying bullets.  In doing so, he discovers Grace didn’t even notice the commotion.  What’s more, she doesn’t even seem to realize she’s sewing right through her own hand.  This causes him to accept the fact that Grace is indeed malfunctioning.  And so, he reluctantly switches her off.  When the deed is done, he lashes out at Vanya for being there, insisting she’s a liability and she could have gotten them killed.  Vanya, understandably, is hurt by this and leaves.  She ends up going to Leonard’s place, seeking comfort, and he lets her inside.

As the episode wraps up, Cha-Cha returns to the motel to see Hazel had already made it back there and had proceeded to kick back and relax.  She berates him for disappearing on her, only for him to casually state he figured they were just going to regroup back there, anyway.   She then bemoans that the evening was a total loss.  But Hazel disagrees with that statement.  And the episode ends with him revealing that, amidst the confusion back at the Umbrella Academy, he’d successfully abducted Klaus, who is bound and gagged in the trunk of their car.

Closing observations/questions:

Looks like Diego has mommy issues to go with Luther’s daddy issues.

What exactly was Grace about to say before she stopped herself at the start of the episode?

The Hargreeves Siblings need to stop venting their anger out on each other and remember that they’re a family.

What caused Luther to become a literal ape man?

Who exactly are Hazel and Cha-Cha?  And why are they after Number 5?

[fiveisnumber1]

Timeless - Five Hargreeves x Reader

Word Count: 2860

Warnings: I’m sorry.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

_________________________

Pt 10 - Time Moves On (With Or Without You)

In the Hargreeves household, the day started out like any other one, with breakfast. With the ring of a bell, the uniformed children all filed in one line into the dining room and made their way to their seats. Quietly standing behind their chairs with their hands behind their backs they waited in silence for their father to arrive. Once he entered the room he stood behind his seat before commanding,

"Sit."

With that word the children pulled out their seats and sat at the table to eat, each of them quietly doing their own things. Luther and Allison exchanged small smiles to each other across the table, Diego secretly scratched a knife into the armrest of his chair, Klaus fiddled with some special paper under the table, Ben read a book by Anton Chekov and Vanya quietly ate her meal. There was one child who was having trouble keeping quiet on this day and that was Five. Although he had already done so much with his powers during missions and practice sessions he wanted to do more. He knew he could do more. Five wanted to time travel and it ate him up inside that his father wouldn't allow him. Instead of eating he stared down his father from the opposite end of the table. Anger and frustration building up inside him. When his anger boiled over he grabbed his knife and stabbed it into the table. The loud sound caused everyone to look at him.

"Number Five?" Reginald questioned

"I have a question." Five stated with contempt in his voice

The other children looked at their brother with concern and shock in their eyes.

"Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during meal times, you are interrupting Herr Carlson." Reginald replies

Unhappy with his father's response Five forcefully pushes his plate forward before saying,

"I want to time travel."

"No," Reginald says

"But I'm ready!" Five explains sitting up from his chair "I've been practicing my spacial jumps just like you said."

Five then jumps from his spot at the table to right next to his father's seat.

"See?" Five comments aggressively

"A spacial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn." Reginald explains

With his hands balled up in his pockets, he cocked his head to the side and angrily said,

"No, I don't get it,"

"Hence the reason you're not ready," Reginald replies

From down the table, Five can see Vanya shake her head no as if to tell him to stop pushing the issue.

"I'm not afraid." Five retorts to his father

"Fear isn't the issue. The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind are far too unpredictable. Now I forbid you to talk about this anymore." Reginald commands

Five couldn't believe what his father was saying. Ridiculous how he didn't believe that Five could do it. Five was going to time travel and was going to prove that old angry man wrong. Turning on his heel he runs away from the table leaving his father, Grace, and his siblings behind.

"Number Five. You can't leave the table you haven't been excused! Come back here!" Reginald yells

Five didn't care what the old man had to say though. All he cared about was proving he was ready to time travel. He ran out the front door and through the gates of the house in which he lived. Angrily walking down the street he was determined to jump through time. The one thing he didn't expect was you latching on to him. You had seen Five leave his house from out your living room window. You quickly called out to your mom telling her you were heading out before teleporting your molecules over to your friend and grabbing on to him. With a flash of blue, he had jumped through time and brought you along with him. You didn't notice though because you were too busy trying to get him attention.

"Five!" You called out as he walked for a little bit taking in the surroundings

"Not ready my ass." Five mumbles to himself

With another time jump, the two of you were in a winter scene.

"Five!" You called again

Five had heard you this time and stopped. Turning around he saw you holding onto him. You let go and took a step back.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Five yells

"I saw you leave your house from my window and you looked upset so I wanted to make sure you were okay." You reply 

"I'm fine." Five states

"You don't seem fine is there anything I can do?" You question concern evident in your tone

"You can go home." He answers

"But Five-" You start but are cut off

"You wouldn't fucking get it (Y/N)! Just leave me the hell alone!" Five yells

Before you can say anything he turns on his heel and jumps again leaving you standing there alone.

"Well screw you too I guess!" You yell at the spot where he just was

Turning around you make your way back to your house. Looking around you see the snow around you. You could've sworn there was no snow when you left and even if you just didn't notice it you wondered how you couldn't with the amount of snow on the ground. Shaking your head you make the walk back home wondering what could've gotten into your best friend. When you make it back to your house the door is locked. You were confused, your mom never leaves the door locked when you tell her you're going out. You start to knock on the door but when you get no response you start to bang on it and yell out,

"Mom? I'm home!"

When  you get no response you try again banging and calling louder,

"MOM! I'M HOME! IT'S COLD OUTSIDE LET ME IN!"

You were about to call again when you hear a voice behind you say,

"Whacha doing kid?"

When you turn around you see a garbage man putting trash in the back of the garbage truck for the houses around yours.

"I'm calling for my mom to let me in. My family lives here," you explain

"Yeah don't we all wish our family could live in that house." He replies with a scoff

"What? No, I do live here." You reply

"Yeah, and I'm the king of England. Nobody has lived in that house for eight years." The man replies

"What do you mean eight years, it's 2002." You state

"We're you banging on that door with your head? It's 2013." The man states "The family that lived there's kid went missing 11 years ago. They stayed in the house for three years but just up and left when they couldn't deal with the grief. Rumor has it they went off the grid and can't be found."

You look at him confused and he says,

"Whatever. It's not my business." 

He then gets on the back of the truck and you can faintly hear him say,

"Weird kid."

You turn back around to look at the door. That man had to be crazy, you had only left a few minutes ago, there was no way it was 2013. Phasing inside the door the room is dark but you call out to your parents again,

"Mom! Dad! I'm back home." 

You get no response. You make your way over to the light switch to try and get some light in the but they don't work. Maybe there's a power outage from the snow? You then open the living room curtains but when the light from outside shows in there's nothing there. The TV, the couches, the coffee table, nothing. The room was empty. 

"Mom? Where did the furniture go?" You call out again

All you heard was silence. You made the way around the rest of your house. Emptiness was everywhere. Running upstairs you went into your bedroom. Everything was there like it was when you had left that day. Bed, toys, clothes, everything still in its place. Maybe your parents were just redoing the whole house. You made your way to your parent's bedroom you started yelling,

"Mom! Dad! Please tell me you're in there!"

You were about to bang on the door with your fists but with one hit the door slowly swung open. There was nothing here. Their bed was gone, their clothes were gone, your parents were gone.

"No, this can't be real..."

Your heart started to race a little faster. Where could they have gone? You only left a few minutes ago. You needed answers and if there was anyone who could explain what was going on it was one of the Hargreeves. They had to know what had happened. Without even a second thought you transported yourself from your parent's bedroom to the foyer of the Hargreeves house. In a panic, you started shouting the names of the Hargreeves kids,

"Ben! Diego! Allison! Vanya! Klaus! Luther! Five! Anyone?"

Frantically you looked around the empty house when you heard a voice behind you say,

"Excuse me, can I help you."

You recognized that sweet soft voice. Turning around you saw Grace standing there. She looked shocked.

"(Y/N)? Is that you?" She asks

"Of course it's me! Who else would I be?" You question

Grace slowly makes her way over to you. Gently cupping your face she looks at you and says in awe,

"You look the exact same as when I last saw you."

"Well of course! You only saw me yesterday. This last hour has been so crazy. First I chased after Five and he told me to leave him alone, and then I went home and no one answered and some garbage man told me how nobody lives in my house and my house is empty and according to the garbage man, it's 2013. Ridiculous right? Where are the kids I need to ask them some questions."

"Oh no, sweetie..." She says with a sympathetic look in her eyes

Grace doesn't say anything else she just looks at you sadly. Your heart dropped. This couldn't be real.

"Grace please where are the kids?" You pleaded tears starting to form in your eyes

"Well- they uh- they're not here anymore." She replies softly

"No! That can't be true! None of this can be true!" You shout before running off

"(Y/N)!" Grace calls but it's too late because you had already run off

There was no way that they weren't here. You ran to the library, typically Ben or Vanya would be there but when you got there you found nothing. Diego to Klaus was usually in the kitchen but nobody was there either. Running towards the bedrooms you opened every door looking for your friends. You checked in the courtyard, the dining room, everywhere. Tears leaving a path of where you had been. Each one of them was empty, abandoned as if no one had lived there. You ran back downstairs to check the parlor but when you got in there it was empty as well. All that was there was a painting of your best friend hanging above the fireplace. You turned your head and saw Grace standing there silently.

"I'm so sorry (Y/N)" she whispered

Your heart raced faster. You couldn't believe it. You didn't want to believe it. You turned your head back to look at the painting of your friend. The realization of your situation had started to set in and your body started to shake. You collapsed to your knees unable to support the weight of your body anymore. It felt as if you had just been punched in the gut and all of your breath was taken away. The tears started to fall faster from your eyes as you screamed,

"NO!"

Your voice was filled with grief as you let out painful cries of immense sorrow. You wrapped your arms around yourself to stop your shaking but it was no use. You were barely able to breathe as you screamed your pain into the empty silence of the house. There was no other sound except for you and at that moment you knew that you were alone. Your family was gone, your friends were gone, the person who mattered most to you was gone. The pieces of your life had fallen apart and you didn't know how to get them back.

At the same moment when you were coming to the realization of your new existence so was Five. After he had told you to leave him alone he had jumped once more through time. He looked around him and saw nothing but fire and destruction. With fear coursing through his veins he turned back around and ran as fast as he could towards the Umbrella Academy. When he arrived at the destroyed remnants of the building he called out into the rubble,

"Vanya! Ben! Dad!"

He received no response from inside the building so he turned around and shouted,

"Anyone!"

All that he could hear was the crackling of flames around him. This wasn't where he was supposed to be, he needed to get home. Five immediately tried using his powers to go back in time. 

"C'mon" he begged of his power

But there was nothing he could do. Realizing it was too late and he was stuck he turned back to look at the remains of what was once him home. Collapsing to his knees the feeling of sadness overwhelmed him. There was nothing left. Slowly he regained his strength to stand and made his way around the house. Finding an area that wasn't consumed by flames, he carefully started to explore. Out of the rubble, he saw a hand sticking out holding an eye. Curiously he walks over to the hand and takes the eye out of it. He examines the eye before moving to see the person there. It was a man. He then looks to his left and looks out amongst the rubble of the building. Running over to another man he spotted he roughly tries to shake them but it is useless as they don't move. He then passes a female person before heading over to another man. He stares at the figure and sees the marking on his wrist, an umbrella in a circle. These weren't just people, these were his siblings. He could feel himself getting choked up as he stood there amongst their lifeless bodies. They were his family and they were all gone. Before he could fully acknowledge the sight he heard a faint gasping coming from further back. Running towards it he sees another figure impaled on some metal rebar. He makes his way over but when he sees who it truly is his heart sinks.

"(Y/N)!" He calls out rushing to your side

Five kneels next to you and takes in the sight of you. You were older but not as old as his siblings. It must've been because you took those jumps through time with him. 

"(Y/N)" He says softly

Slowly you turn your head to him. You couldn't tell if you were imagining things but there was  Five, your best friend, right in front of you. His blue eyes were full of sorrow.

"Five? Are you my angel here to take me to the light?"

"No, I'm here I'm real." He says tears forming in his eyes

He looks at the metal going through you. He had to get you out of here. He needed to.

"(Y/N) it's gonna be okay I'm going to get you out of here. You're going to be alright!" He says choking up

Five frantically starts looking for anything to stop your bleeding and help keep you alive.

"Five." You lightly call out

"Yes." He says turning his attention back to you

"The book." You say looking towards your hand caught under some rubble

Quickly Five removes the rubble and grabs what you were asking for. It was the diary you had gotten for your 13th birthday. Surprisingly it was undamaged compared to the world around him. Gently he brings to book to you.

"Here." He says

"Keep it." You reply weakly pushing it back towards him

Five places the book in the ground and turns back to you. Using what last bits of your strength you have, you lift your hand to the small boy's face and place your hand on his cheek. Five uses one of his hands to hold yours against his face. You can feel some of the tears that had fallen from his eyes on your hand.

"Are you still mad at me?" You ask faintly

"No, never. I could never stay mad at you." He replies his voice choking up more

"Good..." you answer quietly

You wrap your hand around your locket and then lay your head back and close your eyes. The smallest of smiles on your face as you let out a breath. Five watches waiting for your chest to rise and fall again but it doesn't. Grabbing your shoulders he starts to shake you.

"(Y/N)! (Y/N) wake up! Please I needed you here! I need you with me! Please!" Five cries out

It was too late, you were gone. Holding what he could of your lifeless body he lets all the tears flow from his eyes. His painful cries of sorrow echoing throughout the empty landscape. He had lost you and was completely alone. And so in the same exact place, in two different times, you and five dealt with the same harsh truth. Everything you loved was gone and life would never be the same.

Taglist: @xplrreylo @joebob15274 @insatiable-ivy @fruitsaladtree @angelpeachamber @academy-umbrella @lizziel1410 @ir3neeee @faith-quake @aliens-with-colas @eddiomyspaghettio @lady-celeste25 @im-dead-and-hurting @nerdypinupcrystal @cherry-ki-d @anapocalypseinmymind @vicassa @2cuteforyourlies @taylorsmakingfuckingmacandcheese @n1ghtsh4d3-67

[astarryon]

Better Off Chapter Two

Pairing: Klaus Hargreeves x Reader

Warnings: language, mention of addiction, gunfire

Word count: 6k

A/N: This one feels sooo long lmfao. A lot of stuff goes down in this one, and you get to see what Diego thinks of all this! Thanks for all the love, and I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way!

Chapter One

It wasn’t something he’d been prepared for.

Seeing you again... it came with a lot of complicated feelings. Anger was first, as well as most prominent, but that could only be expected, all things considered. It would probably be more concerning if he wasn’t at least a little bit pissed. Probably the most fucked up thing was that he felt hurt more than anything else. He didn’t much care that you had done what you had, it just bothered him that he hadn’t been enough of what you wanted for you to not.

Was that pathetic? Maybe. And it certainly didn’t change anything, either.

But then there was the other part of him — bigger than he thought it should be and surprisingly eager given the circumstances — absolutely buzzing with delight at the sight of you, if only because he could see it all. In your eyes, he found the warmth and kindness you used to wrap around him like a blanket. In your smile, there was that mischievous little quirk to your mouth as you told him not to worry so much about things he couldn’t control as he expressed concern over whether his father would catch the two of you together. In the way your hips unintentionally swayed as you walked toward him, he could see the first time you’d ever allowed him to run his hands over your bare skin, sweet and clumsy and shy.

As much as Klaus had tried to forget, it had been in vain. The sheepish beginning, the heartbreaking end, all of it was just... there.

That was why it hurt so bad, he was pretty sure. You’d been his first taste of desire — or, rather, wanting to be desired. Klaus had never known what it was to be wanted before you came along and insisted he allow you to be his best friend. He meant little to his siblings, even less to his father, and he had few delusions about those facts. And then you just appeared one day, far too happy to spend your nights in a mausoleum or use your power to walk up to his bedroom window if it meant you got to claim him. Why you had wanted a silly thing like that, Klaus was never sure, but he’d gotten used to it all too quickly.

“You’re staring.”

The words snapped him out of his reverie, and Klaus blinked hard. As his focus cleared and his sight came back, memories rushing away like some awful breeze, he found that his gaze had been trained on the bare patch of skin at the center of your collarbone. That had certainly thrown him for a loop back at the nightclub; years might have passed, but your image was still so clearly ingrained in his mind. The absence of that familiar silver shimmer had left an odd sort of ache in his chest.

But then, that ache had nothing on what it felt like to finally be able to touch you again.

“You look different,” he muttered by way of explanation. The last word came out wrong — like it was some kind of insult to be thrown at you. Klaus hadn’t meant it that way, but between the adrenaline from seeing you and his ecstasy high beginning to fade, he could hardly be held responsible. “I don’t... I don’t know. You just changed.”

He had to physically stop himself from adding without me to the end of that one. Between making you think he was hallucinating you and tricking you into that kiss, Klaus was pretty sure he’d used up his allotted guilt trips for the evening. Or, morning. Hard to keep track with his head spinning like it was.

Your eyes flicked over to his, momentarily holding his gaze before flashing back to the road. That distraction wouldn’t last long; there were only a few streets left until the two of you hit Diego’s.

“I didn’t change, Klaus,” you sighed. He liked the shape your mouth gave to his name, the slight annoyance overshadowed by hesitant fondness. That, at least, was the same as when you were children — one of the few things he could take comfort in. “I’m still the same, I just... I just grew up.”

And this time, against his better judgement, he didn’t bother to put himself in check.

“Yes, you most certainly did, bird.” Klaus reached over to run the pad of his index finger along the bare strip of your wrist; he didn’t miss the shiver you gave in response, or the little hitch in your breath at his touch. “You grew up and lived your life and you did it all without me. Just like you wanted, right?”

The GPS chimed to alert that the two of you had made it to your destination, but with as much tension as was filling the car, it may as well have stayed silent.

Klaus watched you open your mouth, then close it again. Words were at the tip of your tongue, just begging to tumble out of you like he remembered them doing before you’d gotten so careful, but after a moment you seemed to swallow them and move on. In spite of all that, Klaus noticed the whitening of your knuckles as you gripped the steering wheel tighter. Was it terrible that he could find delight in the fact you still had your temper.

Klaus watched you swing a hard left, neatly parking the car just off the curb. There was something there, in the set of your jaw, something that told him he was lucky you had been driving when he’d chosen to pick this fight. The initial shock of your reunion had gotten him out of the consequences for lying about the hallucination, and it was probably guilt that won him leniency with that earlier kiss. Distantly, he wondered how much more it would take to get you to slap him.

You leaned closer to him, jaw clenched and anger just barely contained. A shadow of your former self — volatile, defensive, and all too certain — was suddenly making an appearance. “Let’s get one thing straight,” you snapped, unflinchingly looking him in the eye. “You know fuck all about what I want.”

And then you were out of the car, slamming the door shut behind you as you stomped your way toward the entrance to the gym, not even giving Klaus so much as a chance to respond before you were gone.

Funny how some things never seemed to change.

—

It took you three tries to pick the lock before you successfully gained access to the boxing gym. Normally you wouldn’t hesitate to own up to that — it wasn’t your best skill, and never had been, but tonight? Oh, no. Tonight you had about as good an excuse as you ever came across.

Christ, Klaus was aggravating. More than, actually; that didn’t quite do it justice. The guy was mind numbingly infuriating. Did you feel bad for what had happened in the past? Obviously. Would you do anything you could to make that up to him? Of course. Did that mean you were willing to just lie down and freely take his abuse?

Fuck. No.

Klaus leaned down, chin just a few centimeters shy of resting on your shoulder. Part of you jumped at the sudden proximity, yearning for the familiar warmth of his skin. The other part was resisting the urge to elbow him in the stomach to get him to back off. Touch was fine, something he had needed since he was young, but he’d been abusing it tonight and had lost his privileges with you. “Want me to do that?” he slurred, hot breath fanning over your ear.

You grit your teeth, working the lock pick harder. “I want you to back up,” you muttered, trying to lean away. It was no use; your options were to press up against the door or lean back into Klaus. Son of a bitch had you trapped. “Do you mind?”

“You’re angling that wrong. It’s never gonna work that way.”

“Klaus,” you warned.

“Well, I’m just saying—“

The lock sprung, and you were on your feet and moving in, not bothering to wait for Klaus as he trailed in behind you. Tears of frustration were threatening to spring to your eyes, but you forced yourself to push them down. There wasn’t any time for weakness, especially not if you were about to throw yourself in front of Diego Hargreeves and simultaneously beg for mercy and assistance.

Besides... did you really have a right to be upset with Klaus? He was only speaking the truth, horrible as it was to hear. 

“Where’s your necklace?”

You kept walking, falling back to let Klaus guide you in the right direction; you could see a lot of well used equipment and a boxing ring, but no sign of the knife wielding terror you were meant to seek out. Briefly, you wondered if Klaus was lying about his brother staying here, but you put that out of your mind quickly. This was Klaus, your Klaus. Even pissed out of his mind and bitter beyond belief, he would never steer you wrong.

“I don’t think now’s the time,” you mumbled, crossing your arms to fight your impulse. All you really wanted to do was hold his face in your hands and cry, but his behavior told you that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Not that you blamed him. “Why don’t we talk about that later?”

“No offense,” he drawled, pausing to whirl around to you. The sheer weight of his gaze was crushing, and you found yourself unable to step away. “But how can I be sure there’s even going to be a later?”

Fair enough.

“Klaus,” you sighed, staring up at him. It was all you could do not to reach out and grab his face, just to really drive home how serious you were. You would probably get away with it — Klaus himself had done much more than cradle your cheeks in the last hour. But, then, it was better not to tempt yourself. Wouldn’t have been fair to either of you anyway. “I’m not... you’ve gotta know I’m not abandoning you again, right?”

But he was already turning away, averting his gaze and closing himself off again. Jesus; with how quickly Klaus switched between hot and cold, whiplash seemed almost inevitable. “Well, you know what they say,” he called back to you, disappearing down a narrow hallway. “Fool me once and all of that.”

You followed in his direction, clenching your fists down at your sides. Was it wrong of you to be angry right now? It was hard to blame him for being skeptic; you knew that you were being sincere, but Klaus had no reason to think so. What was it, five years of good will that you’d thrown down the drain? Four years of friendship, one of love, and all for what? Because his father—?

A loud banging startled you clear out of your train of thought, causing you to jump three feet in the air; you thrust your arms out in front of you reflexively, choking on the swear caught in your throat. By the time you realized your power had been triggered, Klaus was held down by the force of it, slammed against the door he’d just been knocking on with his arms pinned above his head.

The expression he wore was downright miffed. “Alright, this shit was cool back in the day when we were kinky little shits, but I’m mad at you right now. Let me go.”

“I’m sorry,” you sighed, flipping the mental switch and releasing him. “You scared the shit out of me, okay, I just— just, sorry.” You paused a moment, just now registering what he’d said to you, and retorted, “For the record, you were the kinky one.”

“Oh, please,” Klaus shot back, absentmindedly eyeing you up and down. “I seem to remember someone getting a little too excited about the idea of fooling around in a cemetery.”

Jesus, you could not believe what you were hearing right now. “Okay, first of all, I was sixteen! I’d say that’s some pretty standard shit, wouldn’t you?”

“Uh, not when you can see all the ghosts watching you and your girlfriend try to—“

The end of his sentence was cut off by the sudden twisting of the doorknob. That was probably for the better; you definitely didn’t need a reminder of the stupid shit you and Klaus had gotten up to as teenagers, and especially not when you’d used those memories to torment yourself every night since you’d left. But, now? Now you had a whole other issue from when you were teenagers to deal with.

The wooden door opened, prompting you and Klaus to fall silent. Out popped Diego Hargreeves, half asleep and out of focus, but still just as imposing as he’d always been. Funny; where Klaus looked different from how you remembered him — too skinny for his frame, visibly exhausted beneath the heavy eye makeup, the gleam in his eyes you had always loved to see now missing — Diego looked oddly the same. Still well muscled, though not uncomfortably so, still poised like he was ready to start a fight in an instant, still handsome enough to get whatever he wanted.

It was pretty fucking annoying, truth be told.

He blinked against the harsh light of the hall, shielding his eyes with a hand that — notably — clutched a sleek, silver knife. He hadn’t noticed you yet, tucked behind Klaus as you were, and for that you said a prayer of thanks to whichever higher power had granted this small mercy. You could only imagine what his knee jerk reaction might have been if you’d greeted him instead of Klaus.

“You have any idea what fucking time it is, Klaus?” Diego grumbled, a powerful yawn possessing him suddenly. Distantly, you felt bad for dragging him out of bed at two in the morning; you weren’t sure what Diego had going on, but if he was anything like his brother, he definitely couldn’t have been getting enough rest. On the flip side, you were relieved, albeit for selfish reasons. Diego’s presence meant that you wouldn’t have to remain with Klaus in solitude, ensuring that there would be no more stunts that involved kissing, emotional turmoil, or backhanded guilt. “What are you doing here?”

Before you could even truly process what was happening, Klaus simply stepped back and to the side, wordlessly lifting a finger to point at you. He glanced between you and his brother, an awful smirk adorning his mouth as he watched the shift in Diego’s expression, realization dawning on his face as he worked out just who you were. A moment later, Klaus moved forward to step around his brother, entering the room and leaving you to Diego’s scrutiny.

Fucking traitor.

The flip in Diego’s demeanor was near instant, though you supposed you should expect nothing less from someone who spent their teen years training insistently. It wasn’t like you spent much time around Diego when you were younger — your days had always been explicitly dedicated to your relationship with Klaus — but you remembered enough to know that the way he was looking at you now was especially malicious. It was predatory and dark, fiercely protective and terrifyingly accusatory.

Everything Klaus deserved out of someone who cared about him, and unfortunately nothing you were able to give him yourself.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Diego muttered lowly, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking his head to the side. Jesus; twelve years hadn’t made him any less of a self righteous bastard, apparently. “Where do you get off, showing up here like nothing happened?” You didn’t much care for the way the silver point of the knife was twirling idly between his fingers.

“No offense, D,” you sighed, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose. Diego immediately bristled at the use of your old nickname for him; it was hard to blame him. Nicknames were familiar, for people who could be trusted, and you had done nothing to be worthy of Diego’s good graces in the last decade. Quite the opposite, actually, considering you’d torn his brother’s heart out of his chest and spat on it. Brushing past him and ducking into the tiny little room, you continued, “But I really don’t think I can do witty rat bastard tonight. There’s too much going on, and the sooner I catch you up, the sooner I can leave.”

“Oh, so you’re leaving again,” Diego spat, following in your steps. There wasn’t much space for that, but then, this was Diego you were dealing with. Dude would take any opportunity to be as dramatic as the situation would allow for. “Okay, well. Good to know you’re consistent, at least.”

You didn’t like what Diego’s tone implied. You understood why he was upset; really, you did. But you’d already gotten a massive load of shit from Klaus — who had taken it upon himself to not only pretend to hallucinate you, but had also kissed you in an effort to make you feel even shittier and insult your integrity further on the car ride here. In perfect honesty, you weren’t sure how much more shit from a Hargreeves sibling you could take; your quota was just about maxed.

You crossed your arms over your chest, biting your tongue. The old you, the one that hadn’t been swimming in guilt for the past twelve years, the one who had been just about to make an appearance while fighting with Klaus over picking the fucking gym lock, would have lit into Diego with little caution or remorse. He had been kind enough when you were younger, and had never said a word to anyone else on the nights he caught you sneaking in through Klaus’ window, but he was also a bit too judgmental for your liking. Would’ve been easy to knock him down a peg, but... well. Your heart just wasn’t in it these days.

“Something you wanna say to me?” you prompted when Diego simply continued staring you down. The words came out defensively, and you hated how guilty you sounded.

“Depends,” he shot back, matching your intensity. “You planning to fuck my brother again?”

“Well, if she is, it’s definitely not in the fun way,” Klaus called from the other side of the room where he was rifling through Diego’s things. It was easy enough to imagine the shit eating grin that would be present in his face.

You immediately winced, the dirty joke catching you by surprise, and you saw Diego grimace as he realized the misstep in his words. The two of you shared a mutual look of discomfort, and then the moment was gone like smoke in the wind.

“You know,” you whispered, glancing back at Klaus and frowning in worry. Not for the first time, you noted how worn out he looked. His words and actions spoke of eccentricity, but his face told another story entirely; that only solidified what you were about to do next. “Maybe we should talk abut this... outside?” Diego opened his mouth to protest, but you stopped him before he could. “Look, Klaus is really high, okay? And he... we had some issues on the way here. I just think we should wait to explain this to him until he’s a little more... you know, sober.”

Diego looked like he wanted to protest, but ultimately thought better of it. “Klaus,” he prompted, turning over his shoulder to eye his brother. You looked over as well, finding him propped against the wall, busting himself by absently and clumsily twirling a slim silver dagger between his fingers.

Oh, for fuck’s sake; with how high he was and whatever he was on, it was only a matter of time before he accidentally cut himself. Part of you instinctively wanted to chastise Diego for leaving the damn thing out, but you resisted. That shit wouldn’t fly, especially not in Diego’s own home.

“Maybe you wanna lay down?” Diego continued. You had to note the shift in tone, how much softer he’d made himself as he turned his attention to Klaus. That had to be new. You didn’t remember Diego being the biggest asshole in your youth, but he’d definitely never bothered to sugarcoat anything.

This, of course, begged the question — what the fuck had happened while you were gone?

“No,” Klaus responded, throwing the dagger up in the air and narrowly avoiding the blade biting into his palm. “No, I think I’m good.”

“Klaus,” you added before you could stop yourself. “I really think you should try and get some sleep.”

The resulting grin that split his face was both disingenuous and without humor. “No offense, sweetness, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t take advice from you.”

Diego shot you a dirty look, one that clearly told you to back off. He took another step toward his brother, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Klaus, really. It’s late, and you should get some sleep. Y/n and I are just gonna step outside and talk about a few things. It really won’t take long.”

Klaus hesitated this time, and for a moment — just one moment, fleeting and breathless and earth shatteringly something — his eyes flicked over to you, and you saw everything. Hints of old affection that still managed to cling to his mind, fondness that was no doubt wilted but was still there. The look present in his eyes that split second, full of fear and wonder and childlike hope, it was... it was the same look in his eyes from the night you’d met. Not even on your worst nights, when all you could do was cradle yourself and sob as you imagined a better outcome for you and Klaus, not even then had you imagined Klaus could still look at you like that.

He didn’t hate you — he just needed time. It was a long shot, but maybe... maybe you could get it all back. Maybe you didn’t have to return to isolation.

Down at his side, Klaus’ fingers stopped fiddling with the dagger. When he looked at you this time, it was full on, and the emotion in his gaze had shifted to something you couldn’t quite name. “If I go to sleep, am I gonna wake up to you being gone again?”

Despite the fact that his question was a fair one, it seemed to cut you deeper than that knife in his hand ever could.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” you murmured. You tried to communicate your sincerity with your gaze, but it was doubtful that held much weight. Hard to imagine that Klaus could out any trust in you at this point. “I’ll be here as long as you want me.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Diego shot your way. You opened your mouth to tell him to mind his business, but he was already turning back to Klaus. “Look, I’m not letting her leave without explaining herself, okay? But please, Klaus, you don’t look like you’re doing so great. Please just rest.”

He looked like he wanted to argue, but also understood this wasn’t a fight he was going to win. This was something Diego and you happened to be united on. With as rare as the two of you agreeing on something was, Klaus didn’t have a chance in hell.

Klaus rolled his eyes, letting the dagger in his hand clatter to the floor. “Great, yeah, cool,” he muttered. He didn’t spare either of you a second glance as he moved over to the cot in the corner, flopping down and rolling over. “You two have a nice time fist fighting, or... whatever it is you plan on doing.”

He looked small, curled up as he was now, and you were once again reminded of that night in the mausoleum, as well as the many spent in his bedroom, the two of you twisted together until you couldn’t make out where your limbs ended and his began. Part of you wanted to go to him now and relive those memories, but you fought the urge. Klaus had to set the pace; he’d be nothing but defensive if you got too familiar faster than he was comfortable with.

Diego grabbed your arm, jolting you out of your thoughts with his touch. You tried to protest, batting at his shoulder with what little resistance you could manage, but it was no use. He was too big and well muscled, and before you knew it, he had you shuffling out the door of his room and was leading you over to the boxing ring in the center of the gym — a safe enough distance that Klaus wouldn’t be able to hear your conversation. Once he was satisfied, he released his grip on you and crossed his arms over his chest, staring expectantly.

“Talk,” he said simply.

You opened your mouth to speak, then closed it again. What could you say? How did you justify your showing up unannounced? What would make him believe this was all worth while? You couldn’t beat around the bush, not with something like this. You had to tell the truth — it was what Klaus deserved. No sugarcoating, no bullshit, nothing. That, at least, you owed to him.

Taking a breath, you swallowed once before leveling Diego’s gaze with your own. “Klaus is in danger,” you muttered, pouring as much concern into your words as possible. Absently, you hoped you weren’t coming off as desperate. “There are people out there trying to kill him. I came as soon as I could to warn you.”

For having just told him that his brother was in danger of the lethal variety, Diego appeared to be surprisingly nonplussed. “Okay,” he allowed, narrowing his eyes. “I’ll bite. Who’s trying to kill him?”

“I’m not fucking joking, Diego, this is serious,” you insisted. You should have known he wasn’t going to put much stock into your words. “A few days ago, someone left a note on my front door. Said something called The Commission was after Klaus and that they needed him dead. Something about him being a liability to their plans? I dropped everything to come here and warn you.”

Diego blinked, clearly caught off guard. Yeah; that was what you thought. “Klaus is harmless,” he told you, lowering his voice to a mutter. “They wouldn’t be worried enough to come after him.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” you snapped, rolling your eyes. “Jesus, Diego, we’re not kids anymore and he’s your brother. Can’t you put away your shitty superiority complex for one second and worry about him?”

“I’m not—“ He cut himself off, clenching his fist and swallowing his words, voice becoming dangerously low. “I’m not doubting you. Not that you’d know, but Klaus... he’s powerful, yeah. Apparently always has been. But he’s no more use to anyone dead than he is alive, because his powers...”

The realization hit you like a sack of bricks.

“The drugs,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. Of course. He’d said as much in the car, had implied that he’d been using with how often he hallucinated you; he’d even branded himself a junkie, not that you had fully understood at the time. “How long has he...?”

“Since you left,” Diego muttered. There was something in the way he looked at you, the way his lip curled like he was sucking on something bitter. It was the same way you’d looked at yourself in the mirror every day for the last twelve years. Diego was... not angry, no; that wasn’t severe enough a word. Diego was downright livid. “You really did a number on him.”

Like you needed to be reminded of the pain you’d inflicted. Obviously you hadn’t been around to witness the aftermath, but Klaus’ emotional state couldn’t have been too far off from your own. Everything was the same; same pain, same depression, same burning hole in the middle of your chest. But for Diego to accuse you of being the reason that Klaus turned to drugs? That wasn’t a blame you were willing to let him lay on you.

“Okay, I said this to Klaus, and I’ll say it to you. I’m not responsible for anything he’s chosen to do since I left.” Funny; the words had been heavy on your tongue when you’d screamed them at Klaus in the car, but weren’t quite so weighted now. Maybe you were getting used to saying them. Or, maybe it was because you hadn’t actually done anything wrong to Diego. Either way. “There was nothing I could have done.”

“You could have stayed,” Diego shot back. “Honestly, what did you think would happen? Was he supposed to just forget you? You should have known he wasn’t stable enough to handle that kind of loss, especially not after Ben!”

Oh, he was dangerously close to provoking a fight. It wouldn’t do you any good — would probably only make things worse. But Diego had no idea what he was saying, couldn’t have known that he was giving a voice to the darker thoughts living in your head.

“Diego,” you sighed, trying to figure out how to word it all. “Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t have stayed if I was able? If I knew what was going to happen to him? I’m not a psychic, okay? I can’t see the future. He and I liked to get drunk sometimes, and yeah, we smoked pot like three times. There weren’t any signs that he was... I didn’t know he had the addict gene. I did my best to stay, and it wasn’t enough, but I never would’ve abandoned him to become a junkie if I had known.”

The humorless laugh Diego barked out was so similar to Klaus’ that the sound was jarring. They may not have been related by blood, but they were certainly brothers.

“You know something?” he prompted, leveling you with an unforgiving glare. It didn’t match your mental image of him, wasn’t quite on par with how Diego looked in your memories. Between the number that adulthood had clearly done on Diego and Klaus, it was hard not to wonder how the rest of the Hargreeves had turned out. “You were it for my brother. The way he talked about you, the way he started looking forward to spending every night in the mausoleum because you would be there? I used to think he was making you up because there was no way that any of my siblings or I could have something that good. Klaus got dealt a shit hand in life, but you were the thing that made it all just a little more worth it. You wouldn’t know — mostly because I never bothered to say it — but I was grateful to you. You kept him grounded.”

For a moment, Diego’s cold mask cracked, and you saw beyond the tough guy vigilante facade he was always careful to maintain. Beneath that mask was an attentive older brother, one who cared deeply for his troubled sibling and would chase after anything to make that sibling happy. Gone was the illusion of a rough, jagged exterior, of the implication that he wished you harm. He was just a concerned brother, pure and genuine. That was all this was.

“Klaus,” you began, swallowing hard and looking away, “was probably the only thing I ever looked forward to. Mom died when I was seven, so I got chucked into foster care and bounced around a lot. I couldn’t use my powers unless I wanted people to think I was a freak, so I didn’t tell anyone about them. Jesus, I mean, I literally had to trespass in a cemetery and break into a mausoleum just to make a friend. But after that...” You raised your gaze, showing Diego a genuine, wistful smile. “After that he was the entire reason I bothered to do anything. Klaus was the only person who actually cared how I ended up. My foster parents were fucking terrible, and the social workers were shit at their jobs. My teachers never said much to me when I stopped showing up to school half the time. Klaus just kept checking in, and eventually I got so used to it that the idea of him stopping was... fucking terrible.” Your tone became wistful, mind beginning to whirl with memories from your youth. “He was the only good thing I had. I’m not being dramatic when I say that.”

The silence between the two of you was heavy, and you realized you’d led Diego down a path that could only end in him asking one question.

“If that’s true,” he murmured, sympathy seeping into his words, “then why did you leave?”

The words sprang to your lips before dying just as quickly. Twelve years; twelve years you spent training yourself not think about what Diego was asking. Mostly just because living with what you’d lost was easier if you could put the details out of your mind, but also because there was some fear attached to what might happen if you decided to tell anyone the truth. But then, this was Diego, wasn’t it? If there was anyone who could figure out away around the repercussions, it was definitely him.

And, besides; you and Klaus were no longer children. There was no way the consequences could hold the same weight as they would have ten years ago. That, at least, was the one good thing about adulthood.

“I left,” you whispered, squeezing your eyes shut and searching for any spare scrap of courage you could muster. “I left because of your father.”

Diego blinked, stunned to silence. When he finally managed to speak, it was with confusion and disbelief. “My father?” he repeated. “What does my father have to do with—?”

The plaster of the wall you were standing in front of suddenly exploded, bits of paint and wood splintering with a loud crack and covering you in a cloud of debris. It wasn’t until Diego had tackled you to the floor a moment later, seconds before another explosion of plaster, that you realized what was happening — or that, had you been standing an inch closer to him, the first bullet would have struck you directly in the throat.

“You okay?” Diego shouted, shifting to shield you from the barrage of buckets shooting into the wall above your heads. “Are you hit?”

“I’m fine!” you called back, hoping he could hear you. This wasn’t the time for panic, but fighting it off proved difficult. “What do we do?”

Diego opened his mouth, but cut himself off at the telltale sound of a heart stopping click. For a split second, you made eye contact, exchanging unspoken words. Surely this was just some dual hallucination brought on by stress or lack of sleep. Surely you hadn’t actually heard that noise.

But then the sinister sound of metal rolling against the floor followed, and before you could really register what was going on, you and Diego were scrambling to evade the grenade, tripping over each other as you attempted to right yourselves.

He was screaming — you could hardly blame him. It was clear you wouldn’t be getting away in time, and though you’d managed to become tolerable to each other in the last few minutes, there were certainly other people you would prefer to die with. But you couldn’t worry about that right now — you didn’t have the luxury. Your fight or flight response was kicking into high gear, and if you didn’t focus, things would be ending very shortly for you and Diego Hargreeves.

For a moment, you couldn’t feel it, and you were genuinely worried your ability had faded from disuse. Thankfully, though, the familiar tug of your power began cinching your sternum, and you managed to solidify a large patch of air to use as a shield just as the grenade blew.

The force of the explosion added to the effort required to maintain your shield was enough to physically pain you. Preventing your deaths was easy enough, thank god, but the effort was too great and your skill level was lacking; at the tail end of the impact, you lost your hold and the shield dropped. The explosion itself was over and done with, but the stinging fire suddenly shooting through your leg meant you hadn’t managed to avoid the shrapnel.

“Fuck!” you screamed, pained tears springing to your eyes. You could already feel blood beginning to bloom over the fabric of your jeans.

This wasn’t right; this had to be them. Whoever was coming for Klaus, whoever wanted him dead, they’d finally managed to track him down.

They’d come to kill him.

“Diego, we have to—“

“Can you walk?” he demanded, cutting you off. The bullets had stopped for the moment, but that wouldn’t last; you could hear a gun being conspicuously reloaded off in the distance. “You need to find Klaus, you hear me? Both of you get somewhere safe and stay there. Meet me at the academy in the morning — do not try and go until daylight hits.”

You blinked hard, trying to comprehend Diego’s words, shove down your panic, and ignore the searing pain trailing up your leg. “What? What about you?”

“I’m gonna go get the son of a bitch shooting up my fucking gym,” he answered. He grabbed your shoulders and met your gaze. It only lasted a second, but his meaning was clear. “Find my brother. Tell him what our dad did.”

And then Diego was gone, slipping down the hall in the direction the bullets had been shot from. You called out to him, but your voice was again stolen by the pain in your leg as you made to stand.

There was only one thing left to do now.

—

Better Off Tag List:

@pandalandalopalis @healojane @xcrqwley @byya525 @pensysto 

@onetwistedbutterfly @rebeccashideout​ @feelmyroarrrr @fandom-feelss @daddyloonglegss

[immortal-imagines]

Happy Together

Summary: Klaus fluff, but this time he has a wife.

(Klaus Hargreeves x Reader)

Warnings: Mentions of drug and alcohol use, but mostly fluffy, with some implied smut

Word Count: 1,436

Requested by: @tinabazinga 

A/N: I decided to give Klaus a wife. I was requested domestic fluff, so here we are. Klaus deserves good things and he’s my absolute favourite! I hope you enjoy this one. I’m working my way through requests at the moment, so bear with me!

“Oo, is someone having a party?” (Y/N) said, as she walking into the living room of the Academy.

“No,” Alison replied, rolling her eyes, “Luther decided today was the day to organise dad’s liquor cabinet.”

The bar was lined with bottles containing various kinds of alcohol. They all looked extremely fancy and expensive. “I give it ten minutes before Klaus breaks one of those,” (Y/N) said, gesturing to the bottles.

“Alison, Diego and I already placed bets,” Luther said, chuckling as he reached up to the top shelf to take a bottle hidden at the back.

“Did someone say party?” Klaus’ head popped up from under the bar. (Y/N) wasn’t surprised that he’d been hiding out under there. He’d probably stolen something and was drinking it out of sight. Luther shook his head, “How long have you been under there?”

Klaus clambered to his feet, using the bar as support. “Let’s throw a party!” he said, his words slightly slurred. (Y/N) smirked, walking over to help him move to the sofa.

“I asked if you were having a party. I didn’t tell you to have one,” she said, seating Klaus before sitting down next to him herself.

“No time for parties,” Luther added, “We have to get all of this tidy. I promised mum we would have it sorted by this evening.”

Alison groaned, Diego following suit. “Luther, we’re tired. We’ve been at this all day. Can we at least take a break for some food?” Alison asked.

“Food! Excellent idea,” Klaus piped up. He snuggled himself into (Y/N)’s shoulder, pressing a kiss against her neck. (Y/N) ruffled his hair, enjoying how affectionate he was being, even if it was mostly due to alcohol. “Come on, big guy,” she said, “Let’s get you some water and food and sober you up.” She took his hand in hers and pulled him off the sofa. His body had become deadweight, which he of course found hilarious. “Diego, a little help please?” (Y/N) asked. Diego tutted, but slung one of Klaus’ arms over his shoulder and guided him to the bedroom he and (Y/N) shared.

They dropped Klaus to the bed and Klaus immediately wrapped himself in the blanket.

“Thanks, Diego,” (Y/N) smiled at her brother-in-law. He nodded and left the room.

“Hey, (Y/N)?” Klaus said, his voice muffled under the blanket.

“Yeah?” she asked, perching on the end of the bed.

“Can I have a grilled cheese?”

“Of course, you can, Klaus. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She stood up and looked to the space at the end of the bed, “Ben, keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t go wandering off please.”

Being around Klaus pretty much 24/7 had given her a good sense of when Ben was there and where he usually was.

“Ben says sure, but he can’t make any promises,” Klaus said.

(Y/N) chuckled and made her way down to the kitchen, where the other siblings were already having lunch.

(Y/N) and Klaus had been married for three years and together for ten. After the whole apocalypse situation settled down and the siblings managed to somehow reverse it, Klaus had decided that life was too short and unpredictable to waste. That was when he proposed to (Y/N). He had also made a vow that day to sober up. He hadn’t taken any form of drug since the day he proposed. He allowed himself to get a little tipsy occasionally, but that was it. However, on the day of their wedding, he didn’t have a sip of alcohol. Klaus had told (Y/N) that he didn’t need any high other than how in love he was with her, to which Five had chimed in saying, “That is so sappy, I might vomit.”

Klaus had met (Y/N) at a college party he had stumbled into. She attended the college, while he didn’t. They immediately took a liking to each other and, after only a few short weeks of dating, Klaus told her about his powers. Not long after did he ask her to move in with him. When the siblings reunited, both (Y/N) and Klaus moved into the Academy. It was a grand step up from the tiny apartment they had been living in beforehand and (Y/N) was glad to leave the mould and rats behind. It had been an adjustment, living with the siblings, but it was one they had gotten used to.

“Hey, (Y/N),” Five waved, as she walked into the kitchen. (Y/N) smiled at the boy, wise beyond what his appearance may imply. He enjoyed (Y/N)’s company, as she wasn’t as crazy as Klaus, but also not as uptight as Luther or Diego. To him, she was a happy medium.

“How’s Klaus?” Alison asked.

“He’s okay. He’s requested a grilled cheese and has hopefully by now drifted off. I’m just praying Ben doesn’t let him go rogue around the house,” (Y/N) said.

“You’re in luck,” Luther said, “I’ve just made grilled cheese and I have extra.” He handed (Y/N) a plate and two sandwiches, along with a tall glass of water.

“You’re a star,” (Y/N) smiled.

“Good luck,” Alison called after her, as she left the kitchen to deliver Klaus his lunch.

“Klaus?” (Y/N) called, a hint of worry in her tone when she entered the room and couldn’t see her husband.

“I’m in here,” came a muted reply. It sounded like he was in the wardrobe. She set the grilled cheese and water down and went to open the wardrobe, only to burst into uncontrollable laughter at the sight of Klaus. He was sat, cross-legged, in the bottom of the wardrobe, wearing what seemed like every item of clothing he could find.

“What on earth are you doing?” (Y/N) managed, through snorts.

“I wanted to look like Luther,” he said, holding his arms out to show the bulkiness caused by all the jumpers he was wearing. “You must be boiling,” (Y/N) said, taking his hands and hauling him out of the wardrobe. She began delayering him as best she could, or at least until he decided he was bored of being cooperative, and started to tickle her. They both collapsed on the bed, among a heap of t-shirts and jumpers, laughing so hard that tears began streaming down their faces.

“Klaus… Get… Off!” (Y/N) breathed.

“Would you believe, my dear, that I am completely sober now?” he said, ceasing tickling to take her face in his hands and plant a delicate kiss on her nose.

“Not even slightly, love, but you’re getting there and I’m proud of you for it,” she replied. She retrieved the grilled cheese, cold by now, and the glass and passed them to him. “Eat up. Luther’s specialty,” (Y/N) grinned.

Klaus groaned, “I better not find a hair in this.” He sat up and tucked in. The sandwich was gone in mere seconds and he downed the water somehow even faster. He hiccupped, making himself laugh again. He was still tangled in a few remaining jumpers that (Y/N) hadn’t managed to get off him yet.

“Let’s take these off and how about we listen to some music in bed?” (Y/N) suggested, tugging at the hem of one of the jumpers, “I’m not overly sold on the fact that you’ve stretched out my jumpers by layering them so much.”

Klaus pulled the last few over his head. “I was experimenting,” he said, “And it made you laugh, so clearly it wasn’t a waste of time.” He pulled the bottom of (Y/N)’s shirt, then started to play with the buttons. She grabbed his hand to stop him. “Is Ben around?” she asked, glancing quickly round the room. Usually she could have a good sense for if he was there, but she would always double check before getting changed or having a bath or any other fun stuff.

Klaus shook his head. “Ben disappeared during the tickle war,” he said, poking (Y/N)’s side, “Said it was a bit sappy or something.”

“In that case,” (Y/N) continued, unbuttoning her shirt and sliding it off her shoulders, “Naked cuddles it is.” She flicked the ‘on’ switch on the little radio next to the bed and slowly began undressing. Klaus did the same, then climbed under the covers and pulled her close to him. He ran his fingers through her hair, humming along to ‘Happy Together’, as it played. (Y/N) twirled her wedding ring around her finger, revelling in how peaceful her life was in that moment.

Of course, this peace wouldn’t last forever, as one of the siblings would probably need their help. But, for now, it was perfect bliss.

[skyblue-369]

When it rains, flowers bloom

A little disclaimer before starting: I know what you're thinking. I know it doesn't look so good. I'm not an artist (or a writer lmao), I just wanted to give a general idea of how I designed the character. Remember! Criticism is acceptable, just be polite.

(I'd like to put a "read more" link on the tunblr app but I can't. If anyone reading this knows how, I'll appreciate your help.)

Plus, bonus gif at the end of the post ⬇️

Word count: 1341

"Be one of you? A member of your superhero team or something?" asked the blonde girl, finally sitting on a cut tree trunk, because at the moment all of her energy had to be switched from her limbs to her thoughts. In her mindset it was already confusing that someone had broken her daily routine. Surely accidents happened before, like the time some ravens started chasing her because her hair looked like a nest, or the time she believed covering in mud was the perfect idea to become invisible at night and almost got caught. As i said, accidents happened, but never on this level.

Moreover, those six kids were offering her to change life nonchalantly, and she didn't know if she had the strenght to do it, not again. Although living for three years in a cave all by yourself can make you crave some company, Maria wasn't sure if becoming a superhero was the right path to take. It sounded weird in her head.

<p/>"I'd prefer to use the term family."

Luckily, Ben giggled at the comment and added a clarification that would make her change point of view. "Family" was the magic word because, at the end, wasn't it everything she ever wanted?

"Wait, so they are brothers? How? Oh wait, adoption...An orphan that doesn't know siblings don't always look the same. How ironic."

Just the idea of a family, of a mum, a dad, and brothers and sisters that couldn't be afraid or jealous of her was more than tempting.

She could tolerate to use her powers more often if it meant that her reward was love.

However, the sparkle in her eyes was blown away very soon. It seemed clear that the Hargreeves had different opinions on the matter.

For example Diego, who was standing far from her until now, snapped and pointed his finger so sharply against the girl that he could almost stab her. Maybe because he was literally holding a knife in said hand.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Not everybody agreed on this! We're already full of problems, don't you think? We don't need to add another weird kid to the list."

"He's saying that as if he wasn't one." Maria mumbled glancing at the only other girl in the room. She would rather speak Italian in order not to be understood, but there she believed she was in good faith because she wasn't mocking, just explaining her misunderstanding to Allison.

"Stop behaving like a jerk, Diego." Three caught the signal and replied, while getting off the table to protect the blondie, almost covering her view. Obviously One had to join the discussion. In fact, as Number Seven will explain to her the next day in the comfy living room of the mansion, Two's rage acts like a tornado. It is sudden and aggressive and destroys everything around it, especially Luther's patience. Moreover, It looked like One shared the same brain as his sister because they tend to agree on anything, but this time Luther's way of laying out words only made her facepalm.

"I don't know you, but for all of my childhood I had been wondering if other people with our kind of abilities even existed. Now that we found one, the least we can do is report her to Father."

"Are you listening to yourself, Luther? What childhood? If Father lays his hands on her, he'll make her suffer as he did with us, treating her like some sort of machine. We're doing her a favour."

The air was becoming thicker, both metaphorically and literally. The cave already had a little airflow owing to the fact that the entrance had to be hidden by two doors, which were a layer of plants and a sheet of iron.

Maria felt her breath even heavier. It was the first conversation when she wasn't just staring from afar since a long time. She wasn't used to talking, let alone arguing. She wanted to light the mood but didn't know how, and tried to find advice in Ben's eyes, still in contact with hers.

"Don't want to interrupt you guys or something, but shouldn't we be asking her? Anyway honey, how can you not get your boobs stuck into this thing? Tell me your secret!"

Who could tell that the miracle could reside in the only person who didn't speak a single syllable in the whole fight, if we count that Five was muttering to himself!

That kind soul of Klaus was laying on his stomach on the girl's floating bed, that wasn't so practical to sleep in. What would you expect from a net, "purchased" by some gentle fishermen, attached to the roof of the cave and decorated with some pillows?

In fact, the boy was having fun tracing the outline of its holes, while gazing at Maria through one of them.

The poor girl was trying to cover her almost flat chest with her arms, her blush fading into the orange light of the candles. Everybody seemed to empathize with her embarassment and fell into silence for a second.

"Not that she can really choose, Klaus. Tell me, how long did you think you could live like this?" Five was too serious to get distracted from his brother's nonsense and actually heard his only logical sentence.

"Scostumato (Rude)! You have no idea how many things I had to steal just to give some colour to this room!" finally Maria managed to talk back and wanted to approach that old-young man. On the other side, Five's eyes were moving around so fast to analyze every piece of furniture, but could never stop to look at the blondie.

That's the change of subject that the "rescue team" needed to shot the final question.

"So what do you say? Wanna come?" almost sang Ben to sound more convincing, causing Four to laugh a little.

Maria told them without any frills how amazing it would have been to join them.

"I'd like to, but I respect every opinion, even Diego's..." these were her words.

They didn't show the complete truth, she was just being polite.

"Don't listen to him, he's always so grumpy." Allison tried to calm her down, while glancing at Number Two, who was already stepping outside.

"I'm going. Reach me when you finish this puppet show." he growled, right before putting in act his dramatic exit.

He was just moving the door when his hand was caught by Maria's.

"Where do you think you're going? We're deep in the forest, you'd get lost for sure." she gave him a lovable smile, mixed of concern and satisfaction, which made Diego freeze subtly. He felt trapped by some memories.

This allowed the girl to pass him, make a little turn and march backwards to see if everything was at its place.

"You have to go to the main road, right? Let me guide you myself! And can the last one who comes out turn the candles off, please? We don't want to start a fire."

One at a time, they all passed around the little lake avoiding to step into the water.

The only exception was for Klaus, who didn't care about the waterfall when he ran to the others. Turning off the lights didn't take a lot, he was just stealing a jar full of suspicious herbs.

"So, what's the verdict, my partner in crime?" he asked, hugging Ben from behind.

"I'll take it as a yes..."

"Welcome to our dysfunctional family, honey!" he shouted, as on the other side of the line the blonde girl crawled a little on herself, putting her arms around her waist. A golden tear fell straight to the ground, giving birth to a daisy.

She was leaving that place as if she just slept there for a night. She's never had a connection with it, really. The only thing that attracted her was the beauty of nature, which could be found everywhere. And then, all the good memories she wanted to keep were already treasured in her blue t-shirt.

Preparing to get childhood traumas with the Hargreeves be like:

(Kiernan Shipka looks so cute in this I can't)

[rambling-at-midnight]

Snowflakes Melt Too Quickly: Part 2

Okay, I’m sorry it took so long. I’m working on a bunch of other projects in the wake of Avengers: Endgame, but don’t worry, this is still going to get finished!

Pairing: Five x Reader

The Freeze

Day 6

Five knows a lot about patching up burns (you suspect he knows a lot about patching up wounds in general, or just everything in general) and he helps you to find a cream to put on your feet and arms. It stings like a bitch and you cry, too strung out and tired from the actual apocalypse to deal with more pain. He also makes a whole day out of clearing the ground a bit so it’s easier for you to roll your wheelchair around.

You appoint yourself to be in charge of the food. By some miraculous fluke, there is an emergency power switch that’s working, so you manage to keep the fridges running, which means there’s frozen food, power outlets, and pretty much everything you need.

Five must come from a pretty sheltered family. He doesn’t know anything about the one fancy coffee machine you’d pulled out of the wreckage of TVs and he also doesn’t know how to use the microwave, saying his is a lot older than that one. How old is his microwave? It’s not like microwaves have changed a whole lot in the past decade, but you digress. You’re just happy someone else has survived the apocalypse.

To pay him back for all his help, you turn on some music from some electronics you’d found in the back. The internet is still up, but you have a feeling there’s not going to be any updates to any sites or software any time soon. He hadn’t known what a tablet was or how a phone could be that small.

He must come from a really old-fashioned family.

At the end of the day, you pull out another version of one of the puzzles you’ve already made. One good thing about puzzles is that they never really get old. Five helps you for maybe thirty minutes before asking you about heavier topics.

“Y/N, do you have any family? Is there any way any of them could be alive?”

You put the puzzle away before responding. “I had my mom and my dad. My dad was at home, so I assume he’s dead.” You have to stuff your fist in your mouth to keep from choking out a sob at that callous statement. You hope he’s not dead, but you know, logically, that he is.

“Hey,” Five says softly, moving to sit next to you on the ground. “I know it’s hard. I lost my family too.” A shadow passes over his face and your heart aches for him.

You take a deep breath and blink quickly. You can’t close your eyes too long, though, because you can still see the moon exploding, like it’s been etched into the inside of your eyelids. “Yeah. And I was with my mom when… it happened, but she wanted to drive somewhere safe, and, well, everyone knows that a Costco is a pretty safe place to go if anything’s happening…” you wipe away a stray tear trickling down your cheek. “I ran back in here just moments before the fire hit.” Just thinking about it makes your chest feel tight.

“The fire?” Five repeats. “What fire? What happened, exactly, Y/N?”

“I’m sorry,” you gasp out. You can’t breathe. “I don’t want to talk about it. And don’t you know?” Accusing Five helps you breathe a little deeper, takes your mind off the fact that he’s the only person you’ll ever talk to again.

“Long story,” he says shortly, which he said yesterday. Maybe he doesn’t trust you enough to tell you his story, but honestly, if the two of you are the last people on earth, what’s the point of secrets?

You’ll ask him about it another time. Who knows, maybe he feels the same way about his story that you do about yours, but you can’t imagine Five, who, in the last day you’ve known him, being as weak as you are.

Day 14

You can’t believe how long it took you. Your parents told you all about his siblings, their special powers, and the whole Academy. They got Luther and Allison’s autographs, for heaven’s sake!

“You’re Five Hargreeves,” you blurt out one morning during breakfast.

Five quirks one eyebrow at you as he looks up from his strawberries and bread. You chose the less healthy option of a piece of ice cream cake, citing the excuse that it would get bad quicker. “Yes.” He draws out the word, making it clear he doesn’t really see why it’s important.

“But you disappeared years ago,” you say, abandoning the rest of your cake. You were almost done with it anyway, and this new development is certainly interesting. “And that means you’re about thirty years old. So why do you look my age? And how did you survive?”

Five sighs and puts down his fork. “I’m assuming you know my power.”

You nod.

“Well, another part of my power is the ability to time travel,” he explains. “Unfortunately, it was not a skill that my old man wanted to train on very much. He felt that no matter how much I practiced, time travel is just too unpredictable.”

“So when you disappeared you jumped to 2019,” you guess. “Now. Just after the apocalypse. And you’re my age even though you were born thirty years ago. But why haven’t you time traveled back?”

He inclines his head to you, raising his eyebrows. “I’m impressed you were able to put it together so quickly. Unfortunately, as the old man had said, time travel is unpredictable. It did something to my powers so that I can’t even jump right now.”

“That sucks,” you say, not very eloquently.

Five shrugs, though you think it bothers him more than he lets on. It would bother you for sure. “I’ll get them under control soon enough. I’m more impressed with you. I should think I’m not talked about much in this era, seeing as how I’m the only one not still out and about.”

“Well, you and Ben,” you say without thinking, and then wince.

Five’s head snaps up and he narrows his eyes at you. “What?”

You swallow and keep your eyes on your plate, scratching at the foam with your plastic fork. “Ben died just before the Umbrella Academy broke up. I don’t know how. Your dad was pretty private. And, really, your disappearance and Ben’s death set you two apart from the others. There are lots of conspiracy theories about you on the internet. There were,” you correct. After thirteen years of being surrounded by people, being so alone is hard to get used to.

Five leans back in the lawn chair he’d assembled three days ago and crosses his arms on his chest, staring at you with a stony expression. “Give me a minute.” He gets up and walks away into the toiletry aisle, knowing full well you can’t follow him. That aisle has the most boxes on the floor and you simply can’t get into it with your wheelchair.

Not that you would follow him anyway. Finding out that your siblings are all dead is tough. Even if Ben would have died anyway in the apocalypse, it’s hard to hear that he died when Five was gone. For all you know, Five’s presence could have saved him.

You pack up the rest of the cake and put it back into the freezer. Time to practice walking again. It’s not as painful as it was when Five first showed up, but you still can’t do it for long, and you hate the weakness.

Day 48

Five can’t sleep.

It’s not just the cold winds blowing in from all angles, through the various holes in the warehouse’s walls. It’s not just the hard, cold floor he’s lying on. It’s not just the knowledge that he’s stuck 15 years in the future. It’s not even the knowledge that the future sucks actual ass.

It’s you. You’re sniffling again, obviously crying but trying to cry as quietly as possible.

It’s annoying.

Yeah, he knows that losing your entire family is hard. Five lost his, too! And being here with each other is definitely better than being alone, but Five’s under no delusions. He knows he’s not exactly easy to live with. He’s brash and abrasive and he ignores you without telling you why. He knows you’ve gotten so mad with him you’ve had to scream and cry several times (he’s only been here six weeks, too), but at least you have the good sense to do it in private. There’s hope for you yet.

Sure, he supposes it’s annoying to have permanently disfigured feet, but they’re not that bad. They’re just discolored, really, and a little bit swollen. And he knows that it hurts to walk, too, a lot of the time; your permanent limp is a testament to that. He’s told you time and time again that it’ll get better. It always gets better. When Five’s not being a complete jerk, he’s trying to make up for being a complete jerk. There’s hope for him yet.

And, yes, he gets that you’re going to be scared once he figures out how to jump back to his time and stop the apocalypse from happening, but as he’d told you earlier that day, he’s going to stop the apocalypse from happening.

There’s hope for both of you yet.

You obviously think Five’s sleeping or you would’ve walked away to do your crying in a more private place. He feels a little bad that he’s going to leave you and even worse that you’re so scared of being left alone. He’s pretty sure, though, the worst part of it is how he’s letting you cry right now, just listening, not letting you know that he can hear you and that he doesn’t really want to abandon you, but he doesn’t really have a choice.

He can’t speak, though. Something in his stomach will make his voice crack if he speaks, he knows it, or he won’t even get the words out. He can’t say anything.

A particularly harsh burst of wind washes over your two forms. Five, laying under the puzzle table in the center of the warehouse, pillows and blankets piled under him in the form of a makeshift mattress, and more blankets on top of him to keep the chill away. You, underneath the book table because god forbid a boy and a girl sleep next to each other, laying on a layer of only blankets because you toss and turn in your sleep and move the pillows that are under you, with a small mountain of blankets on your form and a fort of pillows around your form in an attempt to block out the wind.

Only six feet apart and yet it’s twenty miles. Complete strangers still but the closest friends (you can’t be friends, Five knows, because he doesn’t have friends, and besides, friends don’t make other friends cry, but what else can he call the two of you?).

Very different sleeping styles. If Five came to you, the ground would be too hard for him to sleep, and if he invited you to sleep you’d shiver and shake and move all the pillows away until you’re both lying on the cold stone ground.

He rolls over, squeezes his eyes shut, and lets you cry.

Day 183

“Try again,” you encourage, sitting on top of a table and swinging your legs. You’ve got a loose t-shirt on and shorts. During the winter the warehouse is too cold and during the summer it’s too hot. What you wouldn’t give for some air conditioning right now.

Five glares at you, ignoring the pained look on your face as you watch him possibly abandon you. He hasn’t missed the way you tense every time his fists make that blue light. “Don’t rush me.” He takes a deep breath and shakes his hands, shifting his weight between his feet. What if this is it? What if this is the moment he’s finally able to jump again?

What if this is the very last moment he spends with you?

Five drops his hands and looks at you. “You know I don’t want to leave you, right?” The honesty surprises and scares him; he’s never said anything that nice to you. He’s never said anything that nice to anyone. Growing up in the Umbrella Academy forbade emotional connections (unless Reginald could exploit them).

The half-smile drops off your face and you scowl. “No. You’re an asshole to me most of the time. I’m sure you’ll be glad to get rid of me.”

Five blinks, taken aback by the attack. He’d meant to have a nice moment, possibly a goodbye, and you just metaphorically lunged for his throat.

You ease yourself off the desk and limp away from Five. He’d offered to make you crutches the other day, but you’d pointed out that both of your feet hurt, and crutches are for the people that have at least one working leg. He’d pointed out that you could give your feet breaks one at a time. You’d told him you’d get back to him on it. He’d thought you’d been thinking about it, too. Maybe his daily attempts to jump, though, are what’s making you so hesitant to ask him for a favor or so aggressive when he tries to establish an emotional connection with you. They’re a daily reminder that he’s going to leave—trying as hard as he can to leave—and you can’t come with him.

It’s as if Five’s been spitting in your face every day.

“Come on, Y/N,” he says, chasing after you. It’s not hard to catch up; he’s fast and sure on his feet, and you’re limping. Five grabs your arm to slow you down. “Come on.”

“What?” you snap, slapping his hand away. “Come to insult me again?”

“Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have called you a cripple yesterday,” Five admits.

You laugh sarcastically. “Oh, you think?”

“Y/N, we are the last two people on earth!” Five exclaims. “Don’t you think it’d be a good idea to get along? Your only option is me!”

“Yeah, and that’s the only reason I’m putting up with you,” you snarl. “I’d choose anyone over you, Five. You’re an asshole! You’re arrogant, you’re selfish, you’re rude, and if I could run I’d have run from here the day you came!”

“It’s not like you’re a ray of sunshine either!” Five yells back. “All you do is sit and whine and cry about your feet and your family! Guess what? My family’s dead, too, and I shouldn’t even be going through this crapfest of an apocalypse. I should be growing up with my family!”

“Then go back and try to jump!” you bellow, shoving him with both your hands. Five stumbles back and would have fallen if his back hadn’t collided with a metal rack. The pain makes him even angrier.

“I will!” he bawls back. “I will! I hope I make it back, too! I hope I grow up with them and die in the apocalypse and you survive so you live out the rest of your miserable life with no help and no one to talk to!”

You slap Five, hard, and turn away again.

He doesn’t chase after you.

It takes Five a full week to talk to you, and then it’s only a stiff “Where’s the milk?”

You don’t respond.

It takes you two weeks to talk to him.

Day 363

You’re crying again. You’d dropped a heavy pan on your foot and screamed. The only protection you have on your feet are fuzzy socks. Apart from the occasional splinter and piece of glass (after the last time you’d been cut on your left foot and not cried at all despite your white knuckles as Five cleaned the wound, he’d spent two full days without sleeping cleaning up every part of the warehouse so you’d have to search out something to step on) there was no need for you to wear anything else.

Now that you’re able to walk for a little bit without pain, whereas before there was always pain, you’re starting to do a little more lifting and work in order to stay busy. It would be so easy to just sit and eat, read, and puzzle yourself to death, but you can’t do that. You have to stay busy like how Five has to do his mathematical equations to stay busy.

Five doesn’t blame you for screeching. You’re lucky you didn’t break any toes; the pan is heavy metal, and that plus your burn pain? He can’t even fathom being as strong as you are.

He wraps your foot up and decides that now is the perfect time to give you the crutches he’d made. It had taken a lot of work, sleepless nights, and splinters, but he’d managed to fasten two big logs he’d found on the ground into crutches. He’d had to cut off different parts of the logs to create handholds as well as make them a reasonable size. Stapling fabric and stuffing to the top part wasn’t hard.

They may look terrible compared to professional crutches, but Five’s proud he did what he could with what he had. Secretly, he starts to fantasize leaving the warehouse and finding a hospital to get you better crutches, but he thinks he’ll start out with getting you a pair of shoes. If only this Costco had shoes.

With a pang of shock, Five realizes he doesn’t want to leave you alone, despite the lack of any risk. You’d be completely fine if he left to find you shoes and crutches.

He just doesn’t want to be alone, and more importantly, he doesn’t want you to be alone.

You start crying harder when he presents the crutches to you and you fling your arms around his neck, squeezing as hard as you can as you thanked him over and over again.

Five doesn’t understand girls.

Day 447

“Five!” You shake Five’s shoulder again. For the first time ever you’re awake earlier than him, mostly because the wall you’d built out of pillows had toppled in the middle of the night (you suspect you kicked it) and a gust of wind had woken you. You don’t know how he can ignore the wind. It digs through your skin and deep to your bones with every gust.

“Huh?” the boy rubs his eyes. “Y/N? Is everything all right?” Five’s eyes are barely cracked open. He doesn’t want to fully open them because then it means that he’ll be fully awake and not going back to sleep until nighttime.

“It’s snowing!” you’d excitedly responded, pulling him up. You can feel the cold seeping through your sweatshirt and leggings, but you don’t mind. You’ll put on more layers later, but you know for a fact that playing in the snow doesn’t make you cold. “Come on, Five!”

“It’s just snow, Y/N,” he’d grumbled, trying to turn over and go back to sleep (he was up late last night because you’d been snoring). “It’ll still be here later.”

“But we have to be the first people to mess it up!” you exclaim. Every other time it had snowed you’d woken up early so your neighbors wouldn’t mess up the snow in your yards before you. There is something extremely satisfying about fresh snow, and it’s even more satisfying when you’re the one messing it up.

“Y/N, there’s no one left to mess it up,” Five grumbles, turning over in his bed.

You fall back on your haunches, realization hitting you. You’d been so excited about the snow that the constant shadow hanging over your head—the shadow of all your dead friends and family, the shadow of all the people that didn’t survive the fire—had disappeared for a second.

You walk out to the snow anyway, trying not to let Five ruin your day just like he always does, but it’s black.

Day 524

Five’s fingers are running through your hair gently as he braids it. He’d said his sisters taught him how to braid their hair when they couldn’t do it themselves, but you honestly can’t imagine Allison ever needing help with anything. Plus, you can’t ever imagine Vanya in a braid. Every time you’d ever seen pictures of her, her hair was only ever unstyled and hanging loose around her face.

“I was thinking,” he begins, interrupting your reading of The Catcher in the Rye. “We’re almost out of food.”

You scoff, closing the book but keeping your finger in the page you were reading. “What are you talking about? We’ve got a ton left!” Sure, it’s almost halfway gone, but there’s still a lot left. You and Five have barely started on the packaged and snack food, too; he’d insisted on eating the perishables first.

“It’ll only last us a few more months,” Five insists. He pulls on your hair, but you’re not sure if it was on purpose. “I’m sure there are other buildings out there that have more food.”

You tense and start to turn around, but he yanks you back so your hair doesn’t get messed up. “You want to leave?”

“Just for a few days,” Five insists. “And just me. I don’t want you walking around for long because of your feet, you know, and why should we permanently leave a working shelter that has everything we need? I just want to bring back a little bit more food and supplies for all of us. I also want to see if there are any undamaged showers nearby. Using the sink in the women’s bathroom gets old quickly.”

You can’t argue with that. It takes forever to scrub yourself with the sink’s water. It’s not efficient, but it’s better than nothing.

Still, you don’t want to be left here alone. “I could go with you, though. And how will you bring anything back? How would you find your way back?”

“I found a wagon that I could use,” Five suggests. “And we could go all Hansel and Gretel if you like. I’m sure there’s a string that I could wrap around trees and such for a path.”

“I don’t like it,” you say stubbornly. “I want to go with you.”

“Y/N, you won’t be able to walk as far as I want to go,” Five says, tying an elastic around the end of the braid. “I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

The problem with that is you don’t know if he’ll come back. Sure, he could pretend that he’s going to, and he could put up an act of leaving a trail, but the second he’s out of sight you could be on your own for the rest of your life.

You turn around, chewing on your lip as you look at Five’s earnest face. He doesn’t look like he’s lying.

I trust you, you want to say. You wouldn’t have said that a year ago, or even six months ago. You shouldn’t trust him. He’s still trying to jump, but he doesn’t try as often as every day anymore. Do you trust Five to leave and come back?

Day 558

Five can’t help the butterflies in his stomach as he sees the familiar Costco, the place he’s been living with you for the past year and a half, looming on the horizon. His right hand clenches around the string he’s holding. It’s stretched taut between the burnt shell of a car that may or may not have been red before the fire and a stray lamppost that had been mangled. It was his breadcrumb trail for the entire time he was gone.

The wagon creaks and rattles as he pulls it along with his left hand. The ground is especially rough and more than a few times Five has had to pick everything up from the ground when it all fell from the wagon. The crutches have fallen over the most, but it’ll be worth it to see your face when Five gives them to you.

“Y/N!” he yells, trotting around the cars’ corpses. “Y/N, I’m back!” In the silence of the apocalypse, his voice is deafening. Every creak of the wagon sounds like a gunshot.

“Y/N!” Five drops the handle of the wagon at the entrance of the warehouse. “I’m back!”

“Five?” You limp into his gaze. You sound entirely too surprised to see him again. Had you really thought he wasn’t coming back? Sure, Five was gone longer than he had anticipated, but he’d promised to come back.

The look on your face is priceless. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open and turning up like you’re trying not to smile. Five imagines he has a similar look on his face as he tries to stifle his smile. He’d missed you more than he’d thought possible, just like he misses his siblings. He supposes that’s what happens when someone gets used to someone else’s presence in the way you get used to someone that lives with you. It’s alien to live without them.

Faster than Five had ever seen you walk before, your hobble turns into sort of a gallop and you throw yourself into his arms. “I thought you weren’t coming back,” you whisper into his neck, and it breaks his heart a little bit.

“I said I was,” he replies, wrapping his arms around your waist and squeezing. “And I did.”

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