#the umbrella academy imagine

[mangoshorthand]

A Hargreeves Christmas Carol | Five Hargreeves/ F Reader | Ch4

SUMMARY: Luther is the sort of idiot who goes around with a 'Merry Christmas' and a goofy smile on his lips. In your opinion, he should be roasted with his own turkey and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Who better to teach you the error of your ways than Luther's brother, the man who holds the power of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come in the palm of his hand? Info/Announcement Post

<< Read Chapter Three

Chapter Four (Rated M, 4.3k words)

The Last of the Spirits

As the living room cleared of his family, their Christmas ruined by the argument, Five succeeded in priming the briefcase. He reached out as if to take your upper arm and vanish with you into the previous evening, but you jumped out of his reach. 

“No Five. Show me the future! Show me the nuclear armageddon all this is supposed to cause. Because, based on what I just saw, this is your fault, not mine.” 

You reached out a finger and jabbed him hard in the chest, withdrawing quickly lest he use the opportunity to grab you. 

“You’re going home,” he said, firmly.

“I am not!” you yelled, stamping your foot in frustration, “take me to the future and prove to me that you haven’t been lying for an opportunity to get in my pants!”

Five tossed his head angrily, shaking his fists at his sides in equal frustration and making the briefcase hit him hard in the leg. 

“Don’t flatter yourself” he spat, “You think I’d do all this just for that?”

And then, after a slight pause:

“You think I’d try to scare you into fucking me, is that it?

“I don’t know what to believe!” you cried. 

Five took two or three angry breaths and chewed the inside of his cheek before he responded.

“I didn’t lie to get into your pants,” he said, sounding bitter, but slightly calmer “And, technically, I didn’t lie to you at all. I never actually said you caused nuclear armageddon. I just let you believe it.”

“WHAT?”

“I said that upsetting Luther could potentially cause nuclear armageddon, which is true: actions like those can, indirectly, lead to apocalyptic events. I never actually said it did in this case, however.”

You seized a bookend off a nearby shelf and threw it at him, hard. He, of course, blinked and reappeared a short distance away, leaving the bookend to smash against the wall. 

“I guess I would have deserved that.” Five said, eyeing the bookend as it faded back into being on the bookshelf. 

“YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I know I shouldn’t -”

“YOU BASTARD!”

“I know,” he replied, a pleading note in his voice now, “but if you just-”

“YOU ARE BARRED. TAKE ME HOME, AND THEN NEVER SHOW YOUR FACE IN MY BAR AGAIN. I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!”

Five held up the hand not holding the briefcase.

“Fine, okay. I get it. But will you let me explain?”

You breathed like an angry bull, your fists clenched so hard it felt like you’d never be able to relax them again, but gave a resentful nod.

“Thank you,” he said, putting the briefcase down on one of the couches and sitting on its arm, facing you. 

“I guess it was my fault. I just…I guess I tried to blame you because that was easier than facing the fact I ruined Christmas for Luther… and for everyone else.”

You let out a huff, but his face kept you from an angry expostulation for the time being, and he continued: 

“But Sloane was right. You and I are similar. We’re both kind of misanthropic: we push the people who care about us away. It might not lead to an apocalypse, but it’s hardly gonna spell good news for us in the future.”

His expression appealed to yours, and you found it hard to maintain the same level of anger as you saw the honest-to-God anxiety in his face.

“I got a second chance to live my life,” he continued, quietly, “and I’m already fucking it up. You only got one life, and I don’t want to see you fuck it up either.”

You looked back at him, at his beautiful, infuriating, and wholly sincere face. Not for the first time that night, you felt the strange urge to cry. 

What was even stranger was the urge to cry on his shoulder. 

“I think you’re right,” he said.

“About what?” you asked, frowning.

“We should go see the future. Check in on you and I in, say, ten years time? See how bad it gets?”

The idea, though you’d been fiercely advocating for it only a minute or so earlier, suddenly filled you with a thrill of uncertain horror. Perhaps it was the effect of his speech, but to have such unnatural knowledge, impossible in the normal course of things, seemed now too terrible to comprehend. 

Nevertheless, you nodded silently, your legs starting to tremble beneath you. 

“Good,” Five said, and held out his hand. 

You took it. As he ran his thumb over the back of your hand, the fear became a little more bearable. 

“I really am sorry,” he said, seriously, still holding your eyes with his.

“I'll forgive you,” you replied, and squeezed his fingers. 

He smiled softly and let your hand go, reaching behind him for the briefcase once more.

“Okay,” he said, balancing it on one knee and playing with the dials, “since it’s still my hair in the briefcase, we may as well visit me first.”

The case clicked and whirred as, with a flourish, he finished his calibration. 

“Ready to see how shit my life gets?”

He looked up at you with a grin, took your hand again, and you both vanished into the now-familiar static.

You emerged in another living room, almost as different as it was possible to be from the one you just left. It was dingy, lit by a single bulb uncovered by any sort of shade.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” Five murmured, looking around disdainfully. 

You had overcome your fear for now, and you looked around the living room with interest. 

It was clean at least, but the furnishings left a lot to be desired. There was a single recliner in the center of the carpet facing a TV mounted on the wall in front of you. There was also a squashed looking chesterfield, which seemed as if it was only there for form’s sake; a vague gesture at the idea of having guests.

Other than that, there was a small table beside the recliner and a couple of IKEA-looking bookcases, each filled to the brim with books. Otherwise, the room was empty. 

“Well, I’m definitely still single.” Five said, nodding to the sparse decor slightly bitterly, “Figures.”

“Yep, it’s not great,” you confirmed, grimacing.

He glanced down at the briefcase and then around the room again.

“It’s definitely Christmas Eve,” he said, “but I guess I got nobody to put up a tree for. What would be the point?”

There was a voice from the other room and you both fell silent.

“Oh, that’s great. Tell him I say hi.” 

It was Five’s voice, and it was followed a half second later by Five himself coming into the room. 

“Really?” the Five beside you said, a mixture of disappointment and incredulity in his voice. 

The decade-older Five was wearing a pair of pajama pants, no shirt, and was sporting a chevron mustache that didn't suit him. He held a phone wedged between his ear and shoulder, and his well-abused slippers shushed against the carpet. 

He was carrying a beer in one hand and what looked like some sort of frozen dinner in the other: constituted beef packaged into steak-esque shapes was sitting on a bed of soggy green beans. On the side, there was a dump of watery potato puree masquerading as mashed. 

“This is so depressing,” Five said, cringing at the sight of himself.

“That mustache does make you look like a child molester,” you agreed.

“Thanks." 

“Mm-hm,” said the future Five, placing his sad meal on the table and settling himself in the recliner, facing away from you, “well that’s nice to hear. Did the gifts for the kids arrive...Good, good.”

He picked up the beer and took a swig, using the remote to turn on the TV and immediately mute it, flicking through the channels as he spoke on the phone. 

“Me? Oh, I’m fine. Just relaxing, you know?”

He paused in his channel surfing on a showing of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, set down the control and watched it as he continued the conversation.

“You know me, I hate Christmas … Yeah, I’m happy as hell here.”

Five winced beside you. 

“I’m guessing that’s a lie?” you murmured, looking at your Five sidelong.

“Yup,” Five said, grimly, “the only thing I hate worse than people is being alone.”

Five’s future self lifted his dinner onto his lap and speared a limp green bean onto his fork.

“How’s Luther?” he said, “Life and soul of the party, right? … Sure, sure … good for you.”

He took a few more bites of his meal, ‘uh-huh-ing’ and ‘mm-hm-ing’ occasionally at the voice on the other end of the line. 

 Well,” he said, an almost undetectable tinge of sadness in his voice now, “maybe next year.”

His tone made it so clear that he didn’t hold out much hope that you didn’t even bother conferring with the Five beside you.

“You guys got your New Years planned? … Nice, nice … do you know what everyone else is doing?”

He stayed quiet as he listened, eating some more and throwing out another mm-hm or uh-huh as the conversation required. 

“Huh?” he said, eventually. “I’ll probably hit the bars with a couple of friends. Maybe do the big countdown in Times Square or wherever.”

“I’m lying,” Five said to you, flatly.

“Yeah, yeah,” the Five in the chair continued, “well I’ll - what? … Oh. No, that’s fine. Have fun tomorrow. I gotta go now anyway … alright … yeah, Happy Christmas. Bye Vik.”

When the call ended, he put down his knife and fork for a few moments, sighed, and then lifted his eyes back to the TV and began eating once more. 

“This is what I get.” Five said dully, watching himself finish the last third of his meal. 

You looked from the Five facing away from you in the chair to the Five beside you, his expression haunted.

“But this is just a future that might be, right?” you said, half asking, half attempting to reassure him, “This isn’t set in stone.”

“If I don’t get my shit together, this is where I’ll be.”

“But you talk like you’re past all hope,” you said, bracingly, “You just have to make a change.”

“Yeah,” he said, though not sounding convinced. 

“And even if you get like this, it’s not like it’s too late to make it right! You’re, what, in your thirties here?” 

“Over eighty,” Five said. 

“Well, whatever,” you continued, “the one thing you got is time. If that Five pulled his finger out of his ass, he could go fix it. It’s not like anyone’s dead.”

As you spoke, the older Five finished his meal and began to channel surf again.

“I was alone for a very long time.” your Five said, “It does something to you.”

You watched him in silence as he continued. 

“When my brain was developing the finer points of empathy, I didn’t have anyone around to empathize with. There was nobody real to practice on while my brain was still plastic.”

You looked from him to the Five in the chair, considering him as you listened. 

“I feel like…maybe I’m doomed.” Five continued, “This is my mind’s comfort zone; nobody around to force me to be an actual human being. Nobody to challenge me, nobody to compromise for. Nobody to force me to be better by expecting more of me.”

Your attention was suddenly caught by the television.

“Uh, Five?”

“It’s like I’m stuck in this pattern of -”

“Five, seriously.”

This got his attention, and he looked at the TV in horror.

“Oh my god!” he cried, almost dropping the briefcase.

On the screen, there were two women gyrating against one another in barely-there Santa-themed lingerie. From the chair, a rhythmic shuffling sound confirmed the worst. 

Horrified, Five grabbed you by the back of your sweater, pulled you out of the room and into a sad looking bedroom. 

“I am so, so sorry!” he said, sitting down heavily on the bed and hiding his face in his hands, “I can’t believe you had to see that!”

You tried extremely hard to keep the laughter in, but a little burst bounds despite your best efforts. 

“I’m sorry,” you said back to him, looking up at you with a red, mortified face made even worse by your reaction, “I’m really sorry to laugh, I don’t want to embarrass you. It was just so unexpected!”

He hid his head in his hands again and groaned, just as the Five from the living room gave an audible groan of his own.

This was too much, and you fell into helpless giggles.

“I’m - s-so ….sorry!” you managed, struggling to speak against laughter that had you doubled over and leaning against the wall for support, “I’m not… I’m not j-judging you, it’s j-just… really f-f-f-funny!”

You struggled to get ahold of yourself, managing it with difficulty, and Five recovered himself just enough to look up at you, mortified. 

“I’m glad one of us is enjoying this at least.”

At this, all your hard work was undone and you bent double again, breathless with laughter.

“T-t-two of us are enjoying it!” you wheezed, gesturing in the direction of Five’s counterpart. 

Five’s face crumpled, but then a pained snort forced its way out, and then he was laughing too. 

“I can’t believe I masturbate to cable porn.” he said, agony in his voice, “That’s the worst part!”

You sat down beside him on the bed and put your arm around his shoulders, giggling breathlessly, his own reluctant laughter just adding to the hilarity. 

In this manner, the laughter gradually faded, and you finished up leaning against one another, still chuckling occasionally. 

Turning to him, you looked at his expression. Though he still looked amused, there was equal humiliation and misery in the lines of his face.

“Listen to me,” you said, softly, “you’re not doomed to loneliness and cable porn. You’re not… you’re not broken, maybe just a little bent.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, bowing his head and letting it rest gently against yours. 

He let out a little breath, as if he were laying down a heavy burden he knew he would have to pick up again all too soon. 

At this close quarters, you could smell that menthol scent again; eucalyptus, perhaps a hint of citrus.

And, rather like the night you wiped salt away from his chin, your body acted without your brain’s involvement. 

You pressed your lips to his scarlet temple, and then withdrew. 

Five looked surprised, and he lifted his head to look at you, only a few inches apart. 

“Thanks,” he said, again, though he mouthed it this time, the word barely articulated.

You looked at each other, caught in this strange, frozen moment. Both of you sat there, paralysed, completely unsure what might happen next.

And then, a particularly drawn out moan from the living room snapped you both back to reality. Apparently the other Five wasn’t far off finishing his visit to the land of cable porn. 

“We should go,” Five said, quickly, drawing away from you quickly and fumbling in his breast pocket for the vial containing your hair.

“Sounds good,” you said, brightly, hiding the awkwardness with jollity. 

There were a few exquisitely embarrassing moments as Five exchanged the hairs in which his older self was putting on rather the auditory show.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Five chanted as he worked, finally succeeding in slamming the DNA housing back into place and setting the briefcase.

With no preamble, he grabbed your arm and you both thankfully vanished into the ether. 

When you rematerialized, it was to find yourself in your bar on a busy night. 

“Thank God.” Five said, still bright pink.

He looked briefly down at the briefcase:

“Yep, same night.”

The bar looked relatively unchanged, though the fixtures and fittings had been upgraded at some point in the ten years that lay between you and this permutation of Maggie’s. There was the same half-assed tinsel around the window frame as the sole concession to the fact it was Christmas Eve.

On the corner table, a group of men donning Santa hats were singing an uproarious version of Jingle Bells, their drinks up over their heads and swaying in unison. 

There you were, behind the crowded bar as usual, shaking a cocktail with one hand and pulling a pint of lager with the other, working with the same, ruthless energy you always did, face hard and steely in concentration. 

Robbie was gone, it seemed, because you didn’t recognise the two employees helping to fend off the rest of the crowd of customers baying for booze and jacked up on Christmas cheer.

“This doesn’t seem fair,” Five said, “You’re doing great, but a few miles away I’m…wanking into a TV dinner like Ebenezer Splooge!”

“I look so much older,” you said, not listening and instead eyeing the first hint of crow’s feet emerging around your eyes.

“You look great,” Five said, impatiently, “This just proves that I’m the problem. You’re perfectly happy, and I'm a mess.”

He watched you almost wistfully, both envying your future and admiring your command, as he always found himself doing whenever he visited Maggie’s. You really were a sight to see behind that bar, and ten years had only added more skill. 

As another large table began to join in with the Jingle Bells guys, you said something that Five didn’t quite catch, and he tore his eyes away from the future you to look at the you beside him.

He was surprised to see tears streaming down your face.

“I’m not happy!” 

You fell against his chest and cried tears more violent than any you’d cried that night.

Five stood there, bewildered, as your desperate tears began to soak through his shirt. 

“Okay, okay,” he said, soothingly, “I’m gonna take you home, alright?”

He fiddled with the briefcase with difficulty, peering over your shoulder to set it where he held it behind your back. With a couple of pushes of buttons, he succeeded, and you were at last standing once more in your darkened living room, the high wind buffering the windows. 

Five looked briefly down at the briefcase for confirmation.

“Ten minutes after we left,” he murmured, satisfied, “Quantum suspension engaged, so no doppelganger for me. We’re good to go from here.”

This done, he lowered you both onto the couch, letting the briefcase bump down softly onto the floor. 

For a few moments, he simply held you against him, and then he shifted his grip to hold you by the shoulders in order to look into your face. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, “Why did seeing that make you cry?”

You shook your head and closed your eyes to weep once more, sobs overtaking you.

“Hey,” Five said, shaking you gently, “given all the shit you've seen about me tonight, you can at least tell me that!”

When this didn’t yield the desired result, he sighed and pulled you back against his shoulder.

“Okay, cry it out for now, but I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

You did cry it out, sniffling against his pure white shirt without a worry for how much you might be ruining it. Right now, he felt warm and safe. His was the only comfort you could imagine taking as waves of revelation broke upon you. 

His was the only comfort you could take, you realized.

Many of your bridges were burned, others had simply rotted away from lack of maintenance, and others yet had been severed by the loss of the other side. The end result was the same: you were very short on bridges. 

In truth, Luther, Robbie, and Five’s bridges were probably the only three you had left.

Luther had maintained his well, without your help, yet earlier today you’d launched a Molotov cocktail at it, leaving it in danger of burning down if you didn’t take action.

Robbie’s was a thin and sickly little bridge, barely a bridge at all. It could have been stronger, you knew, if only you’d allowed him to build as he wanted. 

And Five’s? Right now, it was the only one that could support your weight. It was untested before tonight, yet it was standing firm beneath your feet.

“I’m not happy,” you repeated, when your sobs had subsided enough to allow you to speak, “I haven’t been happy for a long, long time.”

Five’s arms tightened around you.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“Ever since my grandma died. I’ve felt…”

You broke, took a couple of breaths, and tried a different way of explaining it. 

“I looked at myself behind that bar, and I realized I have no idea who that woman is.”

Five nodded slowly, though you could tell he didn’t really understand. 

“I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want. I just know that I don’t want to be her in ten years’ time.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because she’s exactly the same as I am now!”

Five gave another of those slow nods, processing. 

“Tell me if I’m way off base,” he said, tentatively, as if he’d just drawn a tenuous red line between points in his mind, “your grandma died, and you took over Maggie’s immediately, right? When you were twenty one?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think that maybe you threw yourself into managing the place to avoid… actually grieving her?”

You made a small, wounded noise, a fresh wave of tears descended, and you nodded against his chest.

He reclined on the couch, taking you with him as he fumbled behind you to pull a blanket over you. It was warm, comforting, and it made you cry harder in relief.

“Maggie’s was never your baby,” he said, softly, “it was hers.”

You nodded.

“Do you even like running it?”

You shook your head, admitting it for the first time with a shuddering outward breath.

“Everything she did for me. I can’t just let that go. That bar was everything to her.”

Five shook his head.

“You think she gave you that bar so that you could chain yourself to it?”

“No.”

“Then sell it.”

“No!”

“Well, then find something in the middle!” 

You sniffled and took a few moments to regain some composure. 

“I don’t like managing the bar, but I like mixology. When I make cocktails, it reminds me of her and it feels good.”

“Then stick with mixology and ditch the rest,” he said, as if it were obvious.

You shook your head.

“I can’t let her down. If - if I don’t make it a success then… then I’ll be proving she was wrong to trust me with it.”

“Sounds like you got your thinking backwards to me,” Five scoffed. 

“What do you mean?”

“You said she always fought for you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re acting like she raised you just to make sure there would be someone around to make Maggie’s a success. Seems more likely that she worked her ass off in the bar to make sure she could leave something behind for you.”

You couldn’t help but see the logic in this, but still, something niggled:

“The bar’s her legacy. I can’t abandon it.”

“You’re her legacy, idiot.”

His logic had done little to dispel your doubts, but this emotional truth smashed through them with the force of a wrecking ball. 

You remembered her twinkling at you at fifteen as she taught you to make your first margaria, you remembered her beaming with pride when you first made a cosmo by heart, and you remembered her on her deathbed, pressing her rhinestone necklace into your hand and telling you how proud she was, how successful you’d be. 

You remembered her taking her in your arms and making you feel safe while your parents screamed. 

It wasn’t the bar, it was you. It was always you. 

And you were crying once more: hot, cleansing, healing tears.

“I miss her,” you hiccuped against Five’s chest. 

“I know,” he said, stroking your hair.

For the next several minutes, you cried yourself dry. And then you felt better. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, slightly hoarsely, “I cried all over your shirt.”

“I don’t mind,” Five said.

In truth, he could have stayed there all night with you in his arms, wet shirt or not. You stopping crying was bittersweet: your grief was over, but it meant that soon he’d have to stir himself, say his goodbyes and probably never touch you like this ever again. 

“Can I get you a nightcap?” you asked. 

“Sure.”

You extracted yourself from him and looked on the kitchen shelf that stored your private booze. 

“Tequila shot?” you asked him, with a mischievous grin. 

“Perfect,” he smiled back.

God, the pain your little grin caused him. Like a knife to his stomach. 

You returned to the couch with two shots of tequila and held one out to him. He took it with thanks, and you sat down again. 

Five raised his glass.

“To Maggie,” he said.

“To you,” you countered, “the man who said he didn’t have enough empathy.”

Five chuckled, and you clinked your glasses together before throwing them back, revelling in the heat as it went down. 

“I’d better take my leave,” Five said, when he’d recovered from the shot.

You nodded, and you both stood.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’d like you to come for Christmas tomorrow. But no pressure. I’m going to do things differently on my end this time, and none of that’s on you.”

“Thank you,” you said.

He bent, picked up the briefcase, and you followed him to your apartment door. There, he turned to look at you and held out his hand once more.

“Happy Holidays,” you said, solemnly, taking his outstretched hand.

Five raised your linked hands to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to the back of yours.

“Happy Holidays,” he replied, and left.

Read Chapter Five >> (Final chapter coming Christmas Eve!) I FEED OFF COMMENTS AND REBLOGS YUM YUM YUM

The Last of the Spirits — The Pointing Finger by John Leech, 1843 in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, first edition (1843).

Dickens' A Christmas Carol full text available here.

Read it! It's a much better than this, and you can see how many lines I stole verbatim or clumsily referenced.

Dividers used in this series by @bernardsbendystraws (garland) and @strangergraphics (lights) My husband (Mr Mango) also wishes it to be known that he came up with Ebenezer Splooge. It was him, it was him, it was all him! Here he is, at the bottom, where he belongs.

Taglist: @nevbrooke-555, @fiannee, @abeeabee6969, @chalametabingbong, @lolawassad, @icantpickanamefromonefandom @thebearmage @kaybreezy3000, @starlitflora (comment to be added or removed)

Megalist

Request info + rules

I take Five requests, I'm fairly versatile in what I write (fluff, smut, angst, psychological character study- I'll try it all) but I will consider them on a case by case basis. See request info + rules for request status and more.

[stiingrayyyy]

Dating Headcanons F.H

What it’s Like to Date Five Hargreeves

Pairings — Five Hargreeves x Reader (pronouns not specified)

Summary — My headcanons for if you were Five’s lover.

Warnings — opinions, no plot, it’s all over the place, last one is semi-NSFW.

A/N — i try to avoid nsfw with five because yk.. in the show, he’s physically thirteen but this one was too funny not to add. let’s all just pretend there was a happy ending okay 😭😭. i wrote this before season four came out so let’s pretend it ended happily.

— if you want another version where it’s just headcanons of you and five in the apocalypse i’m down for that.

— I see headcanons where Five is straight up mean, manipulative, and where he’s just using you.

— To me, that’s not Five being in love with you. Have you seen how he treats Delores? HE’S SO SWEET TO HER.

— So if you’re his lover, he will give you princess treatment like no other, holy shit.

—He’ll prepare breakfast so it’s ready to be eaten when you wake up.

— He thinks breakfast in bed is a recipe for disaster so he never does that.

— If you take a while to wake up he’ll wake you up.

— “My love, breakfast is ready.” He’ll whisper into your ear before pressing a kiss onto your temple, then one on your forehead, then your nose… then finally a chaste kiss on your lips.

— He’ll tuck you in bed at night and make sure you’re all snug before leaving. If you can’t sleep he’ll read to you.

— With him around, you genuinely never have to open a door. In addition to paying for every meal, he always walks on the outside of the sidewalk. He also pulls the chair out for you when you sit and showers you with praise.

— Sometimes the praise is simple whispers in your ear because he isn’t much into PDA.

— There was never an official wedding, he stole two matching rings and gave one to you.

— He’d like to have an official wedding.

— If he has to worry about the apocalypse he’ll probably neglect you only because he thinks the fate of the world is in his hands.

— He loves going on simple dates, whether it’s at Griddy’s Doughnuts, a simple stroll in the park, or a little painting place.

— He’s fancy but he doesn’t see the point in expensive restaurants. He likes the little things.

— He loves to make and paint pottery with you, it’s his favourite thing to do.

— When he can’t sleep he’ll come over to your place and sit on the roof with you.

— If you fall asleep he’ll Blink into your room and tuck you in, and he’ll even leave a note for you to read when you wake up.

— It usually goes along the lines of..

“You fell asleep, don’t worry I made sure you got back in your room and I picked up all your stuffies from the floor and put them on the bed with you.”

— He struggles with insomnia.

— He’ll write you love letters even though it’s more convenient to send a text. He loves you and he’s willing to put effort in love notes.

— His primary love languages are quality time and acts of service.

— He doesn’t show much affection in public.

— He doesn’t mind holding your hand though.

— Five won’t be afraid to hold your hand, wrap an arm around your shoulders or waist while he’s with his siblings.

— Kisses and hugs are private though.

— Despite being private, he doesn’t hide the fact he’s dating you.

— If anyone tries anything on you, Five will glare daggers. If that’s not enough, he’ll threaten them, and if they keep pushing he’ll make them bleed (but not too severe 🥰)

— He’s hella protective.

— You make midnight munchies together.

— He’ll refuse to dance with you in the kitchen at 2am but he’ll reluctantly say yes and end up actually enjoying it.

— Same goes for dancing in the rain. He pretends to hate it but he loves it and you know he does.

— You always make pasta or noodles for midnight munchies.

— One time you made cookies and accidentally woke up Klaus who ate the cookie dough before you got to put it in the oven.

— When you guys had sex for the first time Klaus congratulated you and Five with a cake that said ‘virgin’ in the middle of a 🚫 and woke you up the next day with confetti.

— sorry, i know i said i’d have a part three to my ben hargreeves fic but i wrote it and didn’t edit it.. and it didn’t seem entertaining enough to post, i’m sorry.

— if you want headcanons with the apocalypse involved, let me know <3

[jupiter-letters]

Dating Number 4/ Klaus Hargreeves would include☂️👻:

Fem! or GN! Reader TW: Brief mentions of addiction

A/N: I started Umbrella Academy a week ago and I’m obsessed, I’m almost done with season 3 and I can’t wait for season 4. I’d managed to fall in love with Robert Sheehan all over again and all that love has to go somewhere so here it is.

Waking up to little peppered kisses on your back and up your torso. If you don’t open your eyes he’ll just start blowing raspberries into your neck and on your face. Once he hears you laughing he’ll stop and flip you over. He likes being the first thing you see when you wake up. Some days are a little more peaceful and less silly, you wake to see him still asleep. A mess of curls and smudged glitter eyeshadow is the first thing you see. He’s at such peace and the most still you’ll ever see him. 

Putting makeup on each other, whether it’s going out or just playing around with new looks it doesn’t matter. Being able to experiment with new colors and combinations with each other is so much fun. On date nights you’ll pick outfits for each other, sometimes even just wearing each other’s clothes. Doing things like this with him leads to doing most things together. 

Why have him do things when you can do it for him? Or even with him? He loves having you wash his hair. Showers, baths? Of course we have to both be in there at the same time! Klaus is so touch starved any reason to spend time together he’ll take it,an added bonus is your company keeps the spirits away. 

You’re always in close proximity to each other, so your skin is always touching. Klaus just can’t get enough, physical touch becomes his middle name. He’s a natural affectionate person but just having you near is very grounding for him. 

He’ll draw on you with little glitter pens he carries in his pocket, he likes to call you his “canvas and his muse.” Even without the pens he’ll trace random shapes and words onto your arm or your back when you both lie in bed. Klaus also likes to play with your fingers when he’s bored.

Kissing!! He’s such a fiend for kissing my god, after that first kiss he’s finished. He always says he wants just one but it ends up escalating to a full on make out sesh. Doesn’t matter if you’re public or not you look too good it’d be a crime not to kiss you. Klaus doesn’t really give a damn about public embarrassment, if you wanted him to he’d run through central park naked, he would.

 Once he knows you’re ok with all the random bursts of affection he really piles it on. Neck kisses, shoulder kisses, nose kisses, not one day goes by where he doesn’t kiss you. He kisses like he wants to devour you, if he wasn’t able to kiss you that’d be hell on Earth. If you’re a fan of random kisses at the most inappropriate times he’s a professional. You’re driving, he’s gonna make out with you. Out shopping, kissing! Right now! Doctor’s appointment? Kisses under your jaw in the waiting room, he can’t help it, he's bored.

Helping him get clean, you and Ben have been pretty good influences in his life. Trying to keep him on the straight and narrow for the sake of his health. He wants to be present for you, he wants to be able to remember the things you do together. You help him find fun things to do without getting drugs involved. Taking your time and being patient with him means the world to him. He loves his siblings but they aren’t the best at helping him with it. They do try a little harder when you come around seeing how serious you are about helping him. You stay awake with him when his nightmares get too bad or when the withdrawal is really wearing him down. If it’s the ghosts that are bothering him you just tell them to piss off.(he really appreciates that)

Klaus begins to teach himself new skills to help you out around the house, cooking, cleaning you name it. He doesn’t do it very well but you appreciate the effort anyway. Chores become another activity for you both to do. He’ll even indulge in some of your hobbies just for the fun of it. 

Tattoos! He gets something on his wrist that reminds him of you, he can’t wait to show you too. If you get one related to him, god forbid a little number 4 on you he’ll cry. He does eventually tell you about the rest of his journey in Vietnam and Dave. Klaus wants to be sure you know he won’t compare you to him, He’ll always love Dave but he doesn’t love you any less. He’ll get really shy if you kiss his hand tattoos, there aren’t a lot of ways to fluster him so that’s a good one. 

Being surrounded by death and destruction most of his life really makes him appreciate what you have. The way you indulge in his antics and impulses makes Klaus feel so seen. You don’t feel real to him sometimes; late at night he’ll just lay his head on your chest and listen to your heart beating. 

When some crazy new developments or drama happens in his family you’re first to know. Luther tells him something very personal and secret and 15 mins later he’s calling you on the mansion’s phone. 

Luther: “This stays between us Klaus I mean it…” Klaus: “Of course Lulu I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone you’re dirty little secret” A few moments later… Klaus: “Babe you’ll never believe what Luther just told me!”

He’ll always be looking at you, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing you have his full attention. Klaus will just be gazing at you lovingly while five is trying to talk to him, eventually he’ll just ignore him and go to talk to you. You're his favorite person to talk to; he never gets bored with you.

Thanks for reading! Lemme know what you think. Please like or reblog if you like my stuff.

[rcksmith]

I have no words to describe my disappointment with the 4th season of TUA. Five's character was SO out of character that I wanted to scream!

He would NEVER be in the CIA. He would NEVER have betrayed on Diego.

He would NEVER have been with a MARRIED woman.

He would NEVER have acted SO calm and stupid about everything like a plant!

HE IS EXTREMELY INTELLIGENT AND DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO DECIPHER ANYTHING?

I refuse to write anything about him this season. All his virtues; FIERCE loyalty to family, ALWAYS saving family NO MATTER the means, ALWAYS COMING HOME, have been thrown away!

I feel betrayed by Netflix.

I'll only write anything from 3s onwards.

[girlkisser13]

dating five hargreeves would include

• five loves having deep conversations with you. whether it’s about time travel theories, existential questions, or complex mathematical problems, he enjoys engaging with someone who can keep up with his sharp mind.

• he values his alone time, but he also cherishes moments spent with you. he’d find simple yet meaningful ways to connect, like sharing a quiet cup of coffee together, reading in comfortable silence, or taking walks where you can just be yourselves.

• five has a sharp tongue and a sarcastic sense of humor, and he’d love it if you could match his wit. you’d exchange playful banter regularly, and he’d find your quick comebacks refreshing. it’s his way of showing affection and enjoying your company.

• while five might not be overly affectionate in front of others, when you're alone, he lets his guard down. he'd be more open to holding hands, giving you quick kisses, and showing that soft side he usually keeps hidden.

• LITTLE SPOON FIVE>>>

• after being alone for so long, he begins to develop separation anxiety when the two of you have to part ways, so he’ll always kiss you before you have to leave him.

• five has been through a lot, which makes him wary of trusting people. it would take time for him to fully open up, but once he does, you’d know that he trusts you completely. your relationship would be built on mutual respect and understanding.

• he’s not one for grand romantic gestures, but when he gives gifts, they have thought behind them. it could be something practical that he knows you need or a book he thinks you’d love, showing that he pays attention to your interests.

• five would value your opinion and input, especially when dealing with complex issues. he’d appreciate having someone he could brainstorm with, whether it’s about a mission or a personal dilemma, making you a true partner in every sense.

• while he might not be the best cook, five enjoys the act of making food with you. it’s a way for him to relax and focus on something simple and grounding. expect a lot of sarcastic commentary in the kitchen, especially if something goes wrong.

• five might not admit it openly, but he’d enjoy binge-watching tv shows with you, especially if they have complex plots or time travel themes. he’d probably have a lot to say about the inaccuracies in time travel depictions, making watching these shows an entertaining experience.

• despite his sarcasm, five retains some old-fashioned manners, likely from his upbringing and time spent in different eras. he’d open doors for you, offer his arm when walking together, and use polite language, making you feel respected and cherished.

• he is very protective, but not in an overbearing way. he respects your autonomy and knows you can handle yourself. however, if he senses genuine danger, he’ll step in without hesitation, often with a cool, calculating demeanor to handle the situation.

• five enjoys the quiet solace of bookstores, finding comfort in the smell of old books and the peace they provide. you’d often go on dates to local bookstores, spending hours browsing the shelves and discussing your favorite reads.

• this man is the DEFINITION of touch starved.

• when the two of you are alone, he likes to hold you in his arms with your head resting on his chest. he just likes to know that you’re always there.

• five’s humor can be dark and dry, reflecting his life experiences. while it might catch others off guard, you’ve come to appreciate this aspect of him. it’s his way of coping with the world, and you know how to respond with your own brand of humor.

• he struggles with opening up emotionally due to his past, but when he does, it’s very genuine. he’d share his fears, hopes, and the weight of the things he’s seen, creating a deep emotional bond that strengthens your relationship.

• he is used to being alone and might need his own space from time to time to think and recharge. he appreciates that you give him the freedom to have his alone time, knowing that it’s not about you but rather his way of coping with everything.

• once five becomes more comfortable and confident in his abilities, he might take you on small time jumps for fun. these trips would be carefully planned, giving you both a chance to experience different eras together, even if just for a few moments.

• over time, you help him overcome his ptsd and comfort him through his nightmares. <33

[gravity-barbie]

The Hargreeves' reactions to you getting catcalled

A/N: Sorry, I think I accidentally deleted the original request for this, because I could not find it anywhere

Masterlist

Luther Hargreeves

-Luther is shocked and outraged, getting up in the perpetrator’s face immediately, and probably scaring the crap out of them with that stature of his

-As much as he thinks the person deserves a good beating, they’re already pretty much at his mercy so instead he just demands an apology for you

-He’s so soft and considerate to you afterwards, triple checking that you’re okay and questioning if there’s anything else he can do, literally anything

-The incident makes him more protective, he’s always volunteering to accompany you when you go out, and pretty much insists if he thinks the area you’re headed seems shady

Diego Hargreeves

-Diego already hates catcalling but the fact that it’s directed at you just makes him extra pissed, slightly unhinged even, he advances on them while yelling insults, fully ready to get violent

-Even if you want and are able to drag him away, he’s probably already hatching a plan to come back for some vigilante justice later

-He’s pretty heated, but he does recognise that you must feel way worse than him and that he should prioritise your feelings, checking if you’re alright, and even if you brush it off he’s perceptive enough to get a read on how you really feel

-If you’re very upset, despite his anger he gets a hold of himself and turns into the sweetest marshmallow while trying to comfort you

Allison Hargreeves

-Allison tenses up, checking your reaction first and foremost, if you want to ignore it and get out of there she’ll just put a protective hand on you and usher you forward

-But if not, or if the catcaller is being persistent, she is more than willing to confront them and make them regret ever opening their disgusting mouth

-Depending on her relationship with her power at the time she’d be quick to rumour them, probably not physically hurt them (depending on how graphic they were being) but at the very least put the fear of god in them

-She’s had a lot of experience with things like this, so she comforts you with a lot of understanding and empathy, pretty accurately predicting your feelings and needs

Klaus Hargreeves

-Klaus’ policy has always been to brush off stuff like this with a sassy remark and move on, he wishes he was the type of person that could easily defend you but he just isn’t

-He does have the urge to talk shit back to them, even to his own detriment, and if he was alone he might, but you’re here and he’s not going to risk any further trouble for you by causing a scene

-He asks if you’re okay but otherwise tries to change the topic and lighten the atmosphere pretty quickly, he does care of course, he just thinks the best thing he can do is cheer you up

-Maybe later when you’re less shaken he’ll bring it up again, just to see if you’re really okay, let you vent if you need to or see if there’s anything he can do

Five Hargreeves

-Five is caught somewhere between wanting to ignore it and wanting to pull out those assassin skills of his

-It depends on how you react, if you just huff and keep walking he’ll ask if you’re alright but drop it when you do, if you seem shaken up though, there’s no way he’s letting it go

-Internally he’s livid, but he acts more cocky than anything else as he gives them both a physical and verbal beating, finishing it off with a warning that they better not harass anyone again

-He isn’t good at comfort, he’ll never bring this up again if you don’t, but if you do want to talk he’s there for you, trying his best to offer the kindness you need

Viktor Hargreeves

-On pure instinct Viktor confronts them, not before manoeuvring you protectively behind him though

-His exterior is icy, and way more dangerous than this person realises, if they don’t back down he won’t hesitate to pull his powers out to back up his warning, after all he’s had a bad experience with this kind of thing before

-Though if you try to pull him away, for your sake he’ll go, since your comfort and sense of safety is more important than his righteous anger, the fear alone will teach them a lesson anyway

-He’s very sweet and attentive afterwards, and whether you need silence, to vent or to be distracted he's got you covered

[perpetuallyburntout]

“Can you come get me?”

Five Hargreeves x gn!reader

Five takes care of you after you get injured.

Word Count: 990

TW: blood, mentions of injuries and needles/stitches

My back hit the door, and I sucked in a breath as my legs gave out and I sank to the floor. Unbuttoning my shirt with trembling hands, I looked down and examined the injury in my side, feeling a wave of nausea as I saw the blood and a new wave of pain overcame me.

I fumbled for my phone, not really thinking as I unlocked it and called a number I knew by heart. It rang for several painstaking seconds, before a familiar voice deadpanned from the other side.

“I take it you’re not dead.”

Hearing Five’s voice was enough to make me relax slightly, but I swallowed hard and kept myself as alert as possible.

“N-no, I’m not…” I said with a weak huff of laughter. “Disappointed?”

There was a short silence, then his tone of voice was slightly different as he asked, “Are you… what did you need?”

“Oh, um…” I leaned my head back against the wall, taking a deep breath. “C-can you please come get me? Now?”

If I hadn’t been trying to ignore the pain in my side and the dizziness in my head, I would have been flattered by the lack of hesitation in his voice when he replied, “Be there in a minute.”

I almost asked him to stay on the line, but he hung up before I could get anything else out. Dropping my phone at my side, I kept my eyes up at the ceiling and tried not to glance down at my injury. Just a minute. I just had to hang in there for a minute.

It could have been a few seconds, a minute, or an hour that I waited with how slow time seemed to move, but finally, with a brief flash of light, Five appeared a few feet away from me.

His brows raised slightly as he noticed me, a curse leaving his lips before he knelt beside me. “Who did this to you?”

I opened my mouth to reply, but he abruptly cut me off before the words could leave my mouth. “It doesn’t matter right now. I’m getting you out of here.”

As he leaned down and hooked an arm around my waist, I muttered. “Your power makes me nauseous.”

“Yes, well, unless you’d like to walk, you don’t have any other options,” he told me shortly.

His grip on me tightened slightly, and in an instant, my world spun. I felt like I was floating until, as quickly as the floor was gone from below me, it was back. My mouth watered with the urge to throw up, and I forced it back.

“Throw up on me, and I’ll leave you to die,” Five hissed, letting go of me and stepping hastily back. I watched him as he walked across the room—his room, I realised—and opened a drawer, digging around for something. He glanced back at me briefly. “Start talking. I need you to stay awake.”

“What is there to talk about?” I sighed, flexing my fingers.

“You tell me.”

“Ugh… I just got caught is all. I incapacitated most of them.”

He returned to my side with a first aid kit in hand, moving my shirt out of the way and wiping away the excess blood around the wound. “Most of them?”

“One got away,” I told him, glancing down as he worked.

“I’m going to kill them,” he muttered, then said louder, “You’re not gonna die. But I need to stitch this up.”

I winced. “Do you have anything to numb it?”

“No.” He pulled stitches out of the kit and prepared them. “You ready?”

“No. Do it anyway.”

“Good attitude.”

I couldn’t watch as he pressed the needle into my skin, but I felt the pain as he got to work. I inhaled shakily, blackness crowding my vision as another wave of dizziness hit me.

“Y/n,” he snapped, but my eyes were fluttering shut. A sudden sharp pain in my cheek snapped my eyes back open. He smacked me.

“Prick,” I muttered.

“Now’s not the time for naps,” he retorted with a sarcastic smile. “I’ll do it again if you get any ideas.”

I gritted my teeth, but focused every bit of my energy on keeping my eyes open as he finished stitching the wound. Afterwards, he cleaned up the extra blood and started bandaging it, wrapping the bandages around my abdomen, not too tight. Another minute later, he leaned back.

“Done.”

I let out a long breath, hair falling over my face as I dropped my head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Can I sleep now?”

“Can you stand?”

I braced my hands against the floor, pushing myself up and hissing at the pain. Five wrapped an arm around me, helping me up and leading me to his bed, letting me sit back against the mattress. He made a face. “I’m gonna have to wash my sheets after this.”

“Oh, what an inconvenience I am to you,” I retorted, leaning back carefully until my head reached his pillow.

“You have no idea.”

He glanced towards the door, but I spoke up before he could disappear. “Wait, Five…”

I reached out to grab his wrist, but stopped short. He noticed this. “What, do you want me to stay, too?”

I winced, dropping my hand, and his sharp gaze softened slightly. Sighing softly, he dragged a chair over to the bedside and sat back in it. “Fine.”

I shut my eyes briefly, relief crashing down on me. I didn’t want to be alone right now. “Thank you. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” he said simply. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He wasn’t going anywhere. He was staying. Thank god for that.

As my body sank further into the mattress and I inhaled the lingering scent of him on the sheets, I could feel myself slipping away. My last thought before blackness swamped me was that I really needed to repay him someday.

[kaivenom]

Our first and last dance, i suppose

Summary: After messing with the universe and changing the timeline for last time, the universe it's ending and you only want to do one hing before that.

Paring: Five Hargreeves x reader

Warning: angst, fluff, drinking, the end of the world, it's short.

A/N: in this imagine you both went back in time so you have the same age and bodies, but imagine the bodies are 18 years old.

Masterlist

(Imagine Ed Sheeran's song "Perfect" playing on the backrgound)

All the family was celebrating Luther and Sloane's wedding, you were happy for them. The music was playing on the background and you were letting yourself get loosen up a little, you were a little drunk too. After the wild season you had and plus the end of the world happening, you needed to forget everything.

You got again to the bar, jumping a little to sit, this young adult body it's still new. Five was next to you, sipping some glass of alcohol.

"I'm taking what he is taking."

"Are you sure?" his eyes were soft when he looks at you, you loved that.

"I am only sure about two things, i want to continue drinking and i want to dance... with you."

"We would figure out how to restart the universe, i promise." he put his hand on yours kindly.

"I don't care, i only want a free night, away from everything... just with you."

"Then we should dance."

He went to the dance floor, interconneting his hand with yours. The music was slow, your bodies started to bounce at the rythm. You lean yourself on his chest and he put his hand on your waist.

"This it's beautifull, we should have done this a long time ao."

"Yeah, we should have, but i am a little stupid and unconventional... you know that."

"I know, and you had Dolores."

"Dolores was good but the time on the Comission with you were the best, even though i hate the Comission."

"I wish we could have more time."

"I will find the way, i promise."

"I think we could make pretty awesome ghosts."

"I am not letting that happen."

The song continued playing but you didn't care, there was only Five's hearbeat and the slowly swing of your bodies. His hands were cold but the alcohol didn't let you care about it. You both were drunk but the moment was vividly on your minds and hearts. He placed little kisses on your forehead from time to time. The perfect moment before disaster, you couldn't wish for nothing more.

[gay-dorito-dust]

Random idea:

If you were ever interested in getting a tattoo, just know that Ben Hargreeves will probably have a sketchbook filled to the brim with ideas, and he is more than rearing to talk your ear off about them with that exited looked within his beautiful dark eyes.

He’s just really happy that someone was more than willing to have his art tattooed on their body.

(Is this based of the fact that my co-worker -who had a GCSE in art- offered to hand draw me some tattoo ideas for the nearby future? Yes)

[myboipracticallyimagines]

Scarlet - Five Hargreeves x Reader

Prompt: You were a Sparrow dragging into a new timeline with your singular surviving sibling and a family who claimed he was theirs. In this new world, your powers of youth were ripped away, forcing you to age in five years what should have been twenty. Though you were the same age as the rest of the Sparrows, you were now perpetually in the aging body of a twenty-year-old. Unlike the rest of the Hargreeves, you needed to get back.

So did Five.

(A/N: Spoilers for Season 4 if any of y'all care. I wouldn't. Hopefully this will make the ending a tiny shred better for you guys.)

It had been five years in this timeline. This broken, hellscape of a timeline in which Ben was all that was left of your family and your powers didn’t exist. Your power of youth did nothing here but make you perpetually younger than the rest of the Hargreeves. They wouldn't let you forget it, either. Though you were the same age as them, down to the minute, they seemed to regard you as their innocent, no-blood-on-your-hands, little sister that they were stuck looking out for. Save, Five, of course, who apparently was older than each of you but stuck in a younger version of himself. You would've been thrown off by the coincidence if everything about your world wasn't already fucked. The worst part, by far, was that you couldn’t even buy a fucking drink in this apocalypse.

Luther was the main, if not only, force keeping the family together - you and Ben included. Even though you apparently didn’t exist in his timeline, he tried his best to include you in the family functions. Even though you would've rather drowned yourself in your sorrows, you were grateful for him. Sometimes when he looked at you, you could see a hint of his own grief in them. It should've been Sloane who made it to this world with him, not you. Nothing tied you to this family except for Ben.

Not that he was much help. By year one he had built a Ponzi scheme empire and by year two he was in a low security federal prison. You couldn't help but think that he was better off there sometimes. He at least had a fresh start. He wasn't forced to assimilate to a different version of the family whose bodies were still fresh in your own timeline. He didn't have to push down his grief to save face, nor did he have to forge his own 'fresh start' in an utterly unfulfilling career.

Everyone else had their own vices in this timeline - bubble wrap, a bar, a family. They all seemed to assimilate fine to mundane life. Diego and Lila were seemingly never happier. They welcomed three children into this world in five years. Lila even had her birth family here. You were probably most jealous of her. Or maybe Allison, whose husband and daughter were both waiting for her as soon as she crossed over. You had never been lucky enough to love someone like that.

Or be loved like that.

Of course, none of the Hargreeves knew the full extent of what this world was doing to you. None of them felt the weight of time pulling them as you did. None of them felt themselves age in five years what should’ve been twenty. You needed to find a way back. Quickly.

Thus entered the Keepers. They weren’t hard to find by any means. You were introduced to them via flyer on your apartment building’s bulletin board. For a secret society, they had a fuckton of marketing. In your reality, you would’ve easily spilled the information to your sisters. In this one, you kept that shit to yourself.

Five began attending a month after you did.

You could tell by looking at him that he didn’t believe a word of what Jean and Gene were saying. It annoyed you at first - he’d been stuck in the future for 40 years, but a cleanse was where he drew the line? It didn’t take a genius to realize that the cleanse was just a fancy remarketing of an apocalypse, of which he had now allegedly survived four of.

While Five hovered near you for the duration of the meeting, he didn't speak to you until you were out of the building. "Need a ride?" "I only live a few blocks away," you shrugged. "And it's dark now. Can I give you a ride?" You rolled your eyes. "Sure. Thanks."

After opening and closing your door for you, Five got into the driver seat, though he made no effort to start the engine. He exhaled deeply. “It won’t work.” “What won’t work?” “The cleanse. It has every workings of an apocalypse. It’s not a magical reset button on the timeline. At least not for humanity.” “And how are you so sure of that?” “I’d been running from apocalypses for forty years before I met you. The people who died stayed dead. You can only watch the ones you love die so many times before you get a little cynical.” He turned towards you, eyes set on yours. “These timelines, as fleeting as they may be, are the only way for my family to be alive.” “No chance this one is just a magic reset button?” He pulled his lips into a tight smile. “Not a fucking chance.”

~~~

New Grumpson was perfect. It was the town out of a Hallmark Christmas movie, down to the hot chocolate stall and ice-skating rink. You would've started a new life there if everyone didn't immediately start shooting at you.

Every single one of you would have died if you hadn't just gotten your powers back. They were stronger here. You no longer had to touch your assailant to steal their youth. Instead, you could draw in youth from a crowd, watching their skin wrinkle and bones brittle from yards away. "What the fuck was that!" Diego shouted as the men before you fell to their knees, taking shaky last breaths as their lungs shriveled within their aging chests. "That's youth, baby!" you shouted back, spryer than you'd been in years. "Watch out!" Lila yells. In a split second you see the spray of bullets heading towards you - far too quickly to avoid. Just before they hit you, Five grabbed onto your shoulder and blinked

You had never felt his power before, and the sensation ripped the air out of your lungs. "Calm down, calm down," he spoke calmly, hands resting on your back as you doubled over. “Holy shit,” you whimpered, the rest of your body still vibrating from the trip. “What the fuck, Five?” “You’re welcome. Your cute little aging shit would’ve done nothing against a hundred bullet holes, sweetheart.”

With a deep breath, you steadied yourself and finally took a moment to look at your surroundings. While at first it just appeared to be a subway station, it was eerily dilapidated, and all the normal writing had been replaced by strange ciphers. “What is this place?” “This is my new power. Every time I blink, I land here. The trains go to the exact moment and place in time I blinked from in a different timeline. I’ve explored three so far. When I walked out of this station, minutes had passed - not the days I’d been away.” “What- Why-,” you stuttered through your question, your mind latching onto a million ideas as you replayed his words. “Why didn’t you tell us?” “Why would I?” “Because my family could be in one! There could be one where the world isn’t about to be fucking ripped apart! There could be one where I could be fucking happy!” “Not the ones I’ve seen. This place is a paradise compared to what I’ve walked through.”

A low squealing of metal alerted you to a train on approach. “Show me.” “Show you?” “Please, Five. I need to see it. I will never be content here if I knew something better could be waiting.” He let out a low groan. “Fine. One timeline. And then we’re going back, and I will hear no more of this station.” You nodded fiercely. “Not a word.”

He took you to the first new timeline he came across. He promised to play fair and avoid the few that he'd already seen. Four stops down and you were at your destination - a train station almost identical to the one you'd boarded. Five took note of the few differentials - different symbols on the signs, a murky looking puddle, and so on.

"Done journaling?" you finally asked as he placed his notebook back in his pocket. A look of distaste crossed his lips. "This journaling is what is going to keep you alive. In our timeline at least. Who's to say in this one." "Lovely," you smiled back. "Just stay behind me."

You obliged, following him up the stairs of the station and into the sunlight of the wide open. The heat was the first thing that hit you - it was brutal. Not only was your skin burning, but so were your lungs. It felt like stepping into a blazing fire. "What is this place?" you coughed. When no response immediately came, you turned to Five. He seemed transfixed, eyes shifting around quickly to try and take in as much information as he could. "Five, are you okay?" "This is my apocalypse," he breathed. "This is where I was stuck for forty years." "Fuck." Your voice barely carried above the wind. "Let's get out of here."

Five was still frozen in place when the rain of bullets began. You hit the ground, pushing yourself behind what used to be a car. "Who's shooting at us?" you screamed at Five, who had dropped just after you did. "I am!" he yelled back. He repositioned himself to kneel beside you. The moment his hand hit yours, you were back in the station.

"I am so sorry," you choked out the moment your lungs refilled with air. "I didn't even consider we could end up there." "I knew the risk. I just didn't think we'd end up there so soon." He didn't look at you when he spoke. "I am sorry, Five. I shouldn't have made you show me." "But you did," he sighed. "Let's just get home and forget this ever happened.

You didn't speak to him as you waited for the next train, or as you boarded the car, nor as you stopped at three stations. You did, however, let out a quick gasp when you passed station four at full speed and traveled onto the next. "Did that happen last time?" Five grit his teeth. "It did not." Apprehensively, you spoke again. "We can just get off at the next one and go northbound instead."

It was a great idea, in theory. In reality, the track had shifted, leading you to an entirely new station that held an extremist military regime topside. You got out of that one pretty quickly. Five studied the map some more and went seven stops southbound, leading you directly into the mouth of an active volcano. You tried eleven more south, six more north, two more south, and nineteen more north before you had to rest. "We've been down here for three days," Five finally spoke as the two of you sat around a small fire he had made. "It's been a few minutes now back home. My whole family could be dead." "They're not dead, Five. They have their powers back. They're strong." He rolled his eyes. "You were seconds from death when I brought you here." "And I'm still alive. They have each other, too, Five. When we get back, they'll have every soldier wiped out." "I think you are severely underestimating how much those people wanted to kill us." "And you are severely underestimating your siblings' power. They can handle themselves until you get back." Five sighed. "We'll see."

That conversation had taken place approximately six years, five months, and two days ago.

You had eaten more subway rats in that time than anyone should have to see in their entire lives. The two of you had been shot at, stabbed, burnt, and bitten enough for several lifetimes over, and were somehow still alive. On the bright side, it had gotten much easier to set up camp in the station. The process was almost flawless, with Five tending to a fire and updating his journal as you captured your dinner. Dinner was almost always rats. Some days you got really lucky and found a stray bird. Other days there was no life at all. Today was just average, with you scavenging two healthy sized rats for Five to cook over the fire. "Tonight, I present to you a lovely appetizer of subway rat, following by a delicious main of rat from a subway," you said, pulling the two rodents from behind your back. "Ah, a true delicacy," he smiled up at you. You smiled back, "I aim to please."

You sank to the ground beside him, completely spent from days of running from apocalypse to apocalypse. Five took care of the actually gross part of the meal preparation, and today you watched him work in silence. When he finally leaned back beside you, you spoke. "I'm tired, Five. I don't know how much longer I have in me." "I know," he said softly. Neither of you spoke for a long time. Crackles and sparks from the fire were the only noises that greeted you tonight. No trains ran by either direction, solidifying you were staying just where you were tonight. "Do you remember the greenhouse we found a few weeks ago?" You smiled. "How could I forget? Those strawberries were the highlight of my year." Five let out a small laugh before tightening his lips. "What if we went back there? Just to regroup and regain some strength?" Everything in you wanted nothing more than to go back there - to live whatever time you had left in the warm sun and safety that the timeline had offered. "We can't." "Why not?" "Because I won't be able to leave, Five. I am exhausted to the very core my being, but I would never forgive myself if we gave up. I'm the reason you're here. I can't be the reason you stay here." "Don't say that," Five said softly. "You are not the reason we got stuck. And we aren't giving up. We're just taking a pause." "Fine," you finally give in. "But I'm following you up there. You have to be the one to pull us back to reality." "Kicking and screaming," he smiled.

Train station eighteen north brought you up to the most beautiful place you had ever seen with your own eyes. The grass was green and lush and spread as far as the eye could see. Below your feet, the ground was cool and sturdy, and before you, the path led to a quaint cottage with an attached greenhouse. The sun hit it at all hours of the day and the gardens were overgrown with berries. Wildlife was still abundant here, the deer and rabbits unafraid of the two intruders on their land. It was a paradise.

"Home sweet home," you smiled, opening the door to the most homely abandoned house you'd ever encountered. Technology was different in every timeline, but this one seemed to be similar to a few decades ago in yours. There was a working shower, sinks, and refrigerator, but you also had lamps for light and a wood stove for warmth. Though you loved your family with all your heart, the house you had grown up in had never been a home. This was a home. And it was somehow yours. You were still taking it in when Five rushed past you. "I call first shower." "No fair!" you shouted back, but he was already in the bathroom with the door locked behind him.

While Five showered, you picked your first of many crates of strawberries. They were perfectly ripened and easily the best thing you'd tasted in six and a half years. With shaky hands, you sat down at the table and brought the fruit to your lips. "Thank you," you whispered, unable to stop the flow of tears running from the corner of your eyes unto your collarbones. They were unrelenting and unstoppable once they began. It had been eleven years since you felt this level of peace. And you feared you would never feel it again. Even if you made it back, you knew death was only a step behind you, hot on your heels.

"Alright, I'm-" Five said before crossing the threshold into the living room. With a shaky hand, you wiped your eyes, but Five had already seen your tears. "What's wrong?" "It's nothing," you pushed away, trying to calm your still shaky breaths. "No, it's not. I've known you for twelve years and I have never seen you cry." "I said it was nothing, Five," you said sharply, storming into the greenhouse. He caught up quickly, pulling you swiftly back into his arms. He held you closely, wrapping one arm around your waist and using the other to grab the back of your neck, holding you in place. You could've gotten away easily if you wanted to. But you didn't want to. Your snap was immediate, and this time the tears weren't silent. They were accompanied by sobs that raked through your body and crawled forcefully from your lips. They were uncontainable, uncontrollable, and unrelenting. When your legs became weak, Five lowered to the floor with you, still holding you tightly to his chest. It could've been hours, days, or merely seconds before you were finally able to calm yourself down. Your body had collapsed against Five and you couldn't bring yourself to pull away. You didn't apologize for your breakdown, nor did you make any effort to pull yourself away from him. When you finally mustered the strength to look at him, he was staring down at you.

"What's wrong?" he asked once more. You shake your head slightly, trying to prevent another wave of tears. "It's just so nice here." "It is. Why did that make you cry?" he asked, wiping your matted hair from your face. It took you a moment to find your voice again, your throat still trying to close in on itself. "I haven't felt this peaceful in eleven years. Maybe even then. I don't know if I'll ever experience it again." Five didn't immediately speak, so the words kept coming. "I know I shouldn't feel happy that I'm here, but I do. The world is crashing on almost every single person I have left and I'm here, eating fucking strawberries." "You're stuck here eating strawberries," Five corrected. "You did not choose to abandon the rest of the world; you were forced to. There is no reason you can't find a glimmer of comfort in your own apocalypse." His usual temper was gone, replaced with a softness you'd never seen from him before.

You wanted to kiss him.

You wanted to reach up and pull his lips to yours and disappear into him completely. To hold onto him as the world fell apart around you. To become his.

He kissed you first.

He moved slowly at first, apprehension forcing him to pull his punches. His hands didn't wander as he drank you in, as if he were afraid that one rash movement would snap you back to reality. You pushed further into him, wrapping your arms around him, digging your nails into his scarred skin. That spurred him on. One hand tangling itself into your hair while the other cupped your face against his. Each movement, each scratch and pull and moan pulled him further in, until he was all you could see or feel or think. He was yours. And you were his.

Months passed in domestic tranquility. By day you ate strawberries and game, and by night you drank in each other. The world fell around you, but you remained safe in the haven of your own creation. While this world took care of you, you took care of it. Each morning you turned your attention to the cottage, repairing every last item in disarray. You mended clothing and quilts while Five fixed pipes and floorboards. Not a soul interrupted you during your stay. It seemed you might have been the only souls left - the sole inhabitants of an apocalyptic after. You were the first breath of life after it was wiped from existence.

And from your two lives, came another.

You had suspected you were pregnant for weeks, but your second missed period finally fully convinced you. In a few months, you were going to bring a baby into this world. A perfect child born into an apocalypse. The future, which had finally been palatable, now terrified you. Would this universe collapse again? Did it even matter? Your child would know nothing but the two of you. They would have no friends, no life or love outside of you and Five. Even if you found a way home, how could you bring them into an apocalypse on the verge of collapse?

Five broke you out of your trance. He was flushed and breathing heavily - he had run back from the train station. "I have to tell you something," he said quickly. "So do I." "You go first," you said in sync. You rolled your eyes, though a smile pulled at your lips. He smiled too, before closing the distance between you and pulling you into a deep kiss. He paused as he pulled away. "You go first," he whispered. He remained a breath away from you, holding you tight to him. "I'm pregnant, Five." He drew a sharp breath. "You're sure?" You nodded. "It's been two months. I think I've known for a while now but didn't want it to be true. I've condemned them to death even before their birth." "They won't die here," Five spoke calmly, though his eyes glistened with the ghost of a tear. "I found a cipher. I know the way out."

You refused to believe him until he showed you. Within his hands, Five held the guide to a million universes, with yours at the center. The one which held the rest of your family sat only seven stops away.

"They've been so close all this time," you said as your throat threatened to close in on itself. "They were within our reach all this time." "This knowledge doesn't affect our past. We could've looked for them for years and still not found them. Either of us could've died in the next apocalypse we found. We did what we could to survive this." You shook your head. "We weren't surviving, Five. We were thriving. We found the cushiest apocalypse we could and started playing house." "Is that what this is to you? Playing house?" His tone hardened but his voice didn't rise against you. "What else is it, then?" "I think you know." Your heart stopped beating within your chest the moment the worlds left his mouth. "I don't." "Yes, you do." "Say it then." You refused to pull the words out of him. The three words that you had kept deep within you for the past two years.

"I love you."

Your world stopped. The only things left in existence were you, Five, and the flutter within your stomach.

"I love you, too."

A minute passed. Then two.

"I can't bring our baby back there, Five."

Another minute.

"I know."

The two of you stood in the greenhouse for ages, just staring at the other. No more words were shared. They didn't need to be. Both of you knew what you were asking of the other.

“I’ll age here,” Five spoke softly. “So will I.” You drew in a deep breath. “I age the same as you do without a fight. There’s nothing to keep me young here.” “Maybe that’s a good thing. We can grow old together without the threat of another apocalypse. Raise our child in a world that isn't always on the edge of extinction.” “What about your family?” you ask. "They've mourned me once before. They'll survive a second time." "You'd give them up to stay here. With me?" "For you, my love, I would give up the universe."

Seven months later, you brought your daughter into the world, kicking and screaming. She was as stubborn as her father and caused you to labor for 27 hours before she finally made her debut. Five didn't breathe until she let out her first cry, followed immediately by his. He pushed her onto your chest, holding both of you against his. His tears mixed into yours as he showered you in kisses and praises.

You named her Scarlet, after the shade of the perfect strawberries that had pulled you into this timeline. As much as you could possibly love her, Five loved her more. He hated to be away from her in the hours he needed to hunt or scavenge. He found any way to cut his outings short, pulling her into his arms as soon as he returned. When she was six months old, you sewed him a wrap to carry her with him. She was a far better hunting partner than you were. For however many hours the two were out, both returned happy.

Upon return from metal scavenging one morning when Scarlet was almost one, she returned with a folded-up piece of cloth within her tiny first. "What do you have there, baby girl?" you asked, pulling her from her father's grasp into yours. You unfolded the cloth to find a silver ring. Your fingers traced the intricate patterns adorning the jewelry. "Where did you get this?" you turned to Five, who was knelt before you. "Scarlet and I made it for you." He took the ring back and placed it gingerly onto your left ring finger. "Will you marry me?" "Yes," you exclaimed tenderly, pulling Five up to kiss you. The two of you shared tears of happiness, only interrupted by Scarlet's occasional coo.

Scarlet was four when you stood at the top of the train station, bundled up tightly in the winter air. "Are you sure about this?" Five asked. "As I'll ever be," you said, holding Scarlet tightly at your side. With one hand around you and the other around his daughter, Five led you into the station.

[s1xthirty]

EVERYTHING IS FINE! | The Good Place AU with Ben Hargreeves

Summary : After saving Viktor from ending the world and finally left for the afterlife, Ben found himself in ‘The Good Place’

A/n : it’s still a work in progress!! If some of you have been here long enough, then you know how long i’ve been abandoning this idea, but it’s here!!! I’m still in dilemma whether if i should pair him with an OC or make it X Fem!Reader. Tell me what you think of the story!! I’m up for discussion.

"Can I ask you a weird favor?"

"Anything."

"Can you hug me as I go?" Ben asked one more favor before leaving. "It's been a long time since—"

Without waiting for Ben to finish his word, Viktor immediately wrapped his arms around Ben. He hadn't been hugged in such a long time, he forgot how nice hugs are.

"Tell Klaus something for me, will you?"

Seventeen years ago Ben Hargreeves died and saw a light, they told him to walk through it but he never did. He wasn't ready. It was too soon, but now—here in his brother’s arms, he is not scared anymore. He finally got to say goodbye and leave for good this time.

The transition to the afterlife didn't feel painful at all, Ben casually opened his eyes as if he had just blinked—except he doesn't recognize the room he's in. The first thing he saw was a clean white wall facing him with a big text that says 'Welcome! Everything is fine.' in green. He finds that somehow very comforting, so he sighed in relief.

As Ben tries to recall his memory of how he got here, a man comes out of the door beside the room. "Ben, come on in."

Ben stood up from the couch he didn't know he was sitting on and entered the beige-colored room. The man gestured his hand for Ben to sit down on the chair in front of his desk.

"Hi, Ben. I'm Michael, how are you today?" The man before him asked.

"I'm great." Ben answered. "Um, I'm sorry, where am i?"

"So, you, Ben Hargreeves, are dead." said Michael. "Your life on Earth has ended, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe."

"Oh," Ben breathed out an unexpected sigh of relief. Hearing his name and death being in the same sentence somehow wasn't a big surprise for him. He knows he's been dead for quite some time now, but this time he actually took a step forward and left the world of the living for good.

"You're in the good place."

[mangoshorthand]

A Hargreeves Christmas Carol | Five Hargreeves/ F Reader | Ch2

SUMMARY: Luther is the sort of idiot who goes around with a 'Merry Christmas' and a goofy smile on his lips. In your opinion, he should be roasted with his own turkey and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Who better to teach you the error of your ways than Luther's brother, the man who holds the power of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come in the palm of his hand? Info/Announcement Post << Read Chapter One

Chapter Two (Rated T, 4.7k words)

The First of the Three Spirits

You blinked, eyes protesting in sudden, bright daylight. 

“Where are we?” came Five’s voice, still holding tight to your elbow.

“How the hell am I -?”

But you broke off. You knew this place.

“It’s your past,” Five said. 

And then, proudly, as if he couldn’t help himself, he elaborated:

“This briefcase is a prototype I made. It just needs DNA, and it can take you back along that person’s individual’s timeline. All I needed was a hair from the brush in your room, and here we are.”

You weren’t fully listening. Instead, you were looking around at your surroundings, staggered by what you were seeing. 

You and Five were standing on a suburban street; a sprawl that would be featureless to all but those to whom it was familiar. The snow, in gentle flurries, was just starting to overcome the grit on the road, and shoveled driveways too were being dusted with fresh power. 

“I lived here.” you said, softly.

You gazed at the small house across the street from where you stood, at the azalea bush whose flowers used to brush the living room window in spring. So many memories rushed back, half forgotten and shadowy in quality; like dreams you couldn’t be sure really happened.

It made you feel strange. 

“I was little,” you murmured.

Your voice was soft, and it wavered as you spoke. Five looked at you curiously, at your trembling lip and the small tear on your face.

“Are you okay?” he asked, more gently than he’d yet spoken. 

You swallowed.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I didn’t.” Five said, “Emotional stuff gets into your DNA too. I just programmed it to take me to your earliest salient christmas. And here we are.”

He continued to look at you appraisingly. 

“I don’t want to do this,” you said. 

There was no anger in your voice, none of the rudeness or indignance from before, only vulnerability. 

He knew you well enough for this to strike him as unusual. You were a tour de force: a hard-nosed bar owner, a woman he’d watched ordering drunk and disorderly patrons out of her establishment without turning a hair. It would be fair to say he admired you. You were striking: hair shining in the low light, the unadorned, efficient way you pulled a pint or shook a cocktail. The bar was your stage, and your presence there was magnetic. 

For a moment, he felt guilty about the part he was playing, about the hornet’s nest in your life that he might, even now, be kicking. He didn’t know quite why he did it, but something about the tear falling down your cheek made him release your elbow and hold out his hand instead.

You took it, and led him towards the house.

“You can go in,” he said, when you hesitated a little out of view of the front windows, “they can’t see us. This is a read only visit.”

“What?”

“It means we can’t affect anything,” he explained, patiently, “It’s as if we’re watching a movie of what happened.”

He eyed you then, at the thin sweater you were wearing, and felt another small pang of guilt that he hadn’t let you get a coat. 

“I don’t want to go inside,” you said, quietly, and led him to the front window. Together, beside the bloomless azalea bush, you pressed your faces against the glass.

Inside was a christmas tree, at the foot of which a small girl sat, surrounded by gifts, discarded wrapping paper and new toys. There was a set of crayons and a coloring book, a small lego set, and a stuffed calico cat with a bright pink bow around its neck.

She was alone in the room and, what was even more unusual, she was not opening any of the other gifts around her and was instead staring at her own legs in footsie pajamas. 

The reason why was clear. From within the house, a raging argument was clearly audible, even though layers of walls and glass must separate you from them.

“What world do you live in?” came a woman’s shriek.

“A world where me placing one little bet isn’t going to break the fucking bank, Ellen!”

“Fuck you! Two hundred dollars is not a little bet! I earn twice your wage, what makes you think you can -?”

“Oh HERE we go,” the man shouted, “you never let me forget that, do you?”

“Not when you’re wasting the money that I earned!”

“What about when you earned less than I did? Back then there was plenty of money for you to spend on fucking David!”

“Go fuck yourself!”

There was a loud crash and a cry from your fighting parents that made your younger self jump and start to cry.

Maybe I wouldn’t have been fucking David if you hadn’t been neglecting me!” came a shrill, scream, “You’ve never cared whether I’m happy!”

“GET OFF ME, YOU CRAZY FUCKING BITCH!”

As you looked at your younger self, you cried along with her, all the memories coming back in that moment: hurled insults, smashed plates and drunken tussles. 

Five’s hand came to the small of your back.

“Hey, look,” he said.

A car was pulling up on the drive. You turned your tear-streaked face towards it, and it made your heart skip a beat.

Everything about the car and its driver fell hard on your heart: the sickly beige of her Dodge Caravan, the squeak of the parking brake as it engaged, her perm, the swing of her leather purse as she carried over her arm with a sack of gifts clutched to her side; all of it just made the tears come faster. 

“It’s my grandma,” you wept, and Five’s hand rose to your shoulders, rubbing tentatively between your shoulder blades as your grandmother juggled with her stuff and knocked on the door. 

In the living room, little you sprang to her feet, ran to the hallway and opened the door, falling against your grandmother’s legs to cry against her. The young you cried with relief that she could run into her grandmother’s arms, while the adult you cried in grief that she could never do so again. 

“What’s all this?” your Grandma said, scooping you up and holding you to her chest, “What’s wrong?”

But the young you was too overwhelmed to respond, and the voices echoing from within the house quickly helped grandma to put two and two together.

“Fighting again?” she said, grimly, holding open the front door with one leg, “Merry goddamn christmas.”

She joggled you onto one hip and shouldered her way into the house.

When the door clicked closed behind you, muffling your parents’ screaming, you were left sniffling beside the azalea. 

“She got full custody of me eventually,” you said, “Dad left, Mom moved back in with her, and then Mom married a new guy, moved to Illinois, and left me with her.”

“Ouch,” Five said, wincing, “so no Parent of the Year awards here?”

“Grandma was parent of the century.”

Five nodded. His arm hadn’t moved from around your shoulders. 

“I bet you had a lot of happy christmases with her at least?” he said. 

“I guess so,” you said, quietly, “but she wasn’t big on celebrating.”

You stood there, shivering, watching your younger self curled up on the couch while shadows moved in the kitchen behind you, as your Grandmother tried to lay down the law with her daughter and son in law before giving in and taking you back to her apartment.

There, you’d be in peace, away from the gifts, the twinkling lights and all the yelling, watching the snow fall down onto the city street outside the window, and drinking hot chocolate in her undecorated but undeniably peaceful apartment. 

Five, watching you, briefly set down his briefcase, removed his coat and placed it around your shoulders. 

“She died when I was twenty-one,” you said, quietly, drawing Five’s coat more closely around you.

��I remember you saying once that she left you the bar?”

“Yeah. And the apartment above. Mom tried to contest the will, but Grandma left it watertight. She always fought for me.”

You chuckled reminiscently.

“She left Mom one dollar and an ugly ceramic beagle.”

Five gave a half smile. 

“She sounds like an impressive woman. Formidable.”

“She was,” you sniffed, wiping your face with your hands. 

“Like you.”

You looked at him and returned his smile, tears dried now. 

“Let’s see another Christmas,” he said, taking your hand gently.

Again, you vanished with a fizz into the ether, and the world materialized around you as your body buzzed with electricity. 

It was a Starbucks filled with people, and festooned for the holidays, a jazzy version of Sleigh Ride pumped through the speakers. It was stiflingly hot, so you pulled off Five’s coat and folded it over your arm. The patrons jostled one another as they joined the line, staked out tables, or took their takeout, walking through you and Five as if you were nothing more than ghosts. 

And there you were, at twenty-three, sitting at a table in a low armchair, the seat of which sloped at such a high angle that your body was sunk back into it. You looked older than your age, tired and drawn: this impression would only increase over the years as the day to day stresses got to you. 

“Oh no!” you groaned, turning back to Five and deliberately blocking his view, “Not this.”

“What’s going to happen?” Five asked, craning around you curiously. 

Something about your tone had piqued his interest. It wasn’t a tone of distress, but embarrassment. His consciousness of this, as evidenced by a small smirk playing around his lips, made you scowl.

“I’m about to get dumped.”

Five quirked a brow.

“Well this I have to see.”

And he disappeared, leaving that little electrical frisson on your skin as he dematerialized, and then rematerialized immediately behind you.

“You’re such an asshole!” you said, following him as he approached the table.

Across from you sat Nick, your ex, running his fingers through his straw colored hair.

“He’s drinking a latte,” Five said, as if it was a crime. 

“- Is this about Brisbane again?” you were saying, with a roll of your eyes, “Do you expect me to close up for two weeks during the holidays? It’s the busiest time of year. If I acted like you wanted, I’d barely break even. Right now, I’m actually making real money.”

“You remember in college we used to talk about traveling after we graduated? We even talked about volunteering to teach in Ghana. We used to actually talk and laugh, but now you just snap at me. All you do is count your profits and push me away.”

You disclaimed this with a little shake of the head.

“I don’t push you away, I -”

“But you do.” he interrupted, “ever since you took over the bar. You’ve changed so much. I feel like I barely know you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Nick,” you said, sarcastically, “excuse me for not having the time to fantasize about vacations when I have my grandmother’s business to run.”

“Do you think she would have wanted this?”

“Yes!” you cried, “She put her whole life into that bar!”

Nick gave a small, defeated sigh and took another sip of his latte. When he looked up again, he asked:

“Tell me something. If you met me now, would you want to be with me?”

You watched your younger self struggle to reply, the justice of what he was saying dawning in her eyes. You remembered the feeling well. 

When you opened your mouth to answer and nothing came out, Nick put his mug carefully down on the table.

“I didn’t think so.”

His voice faltered as he spoke, and you sat in silence for a few moments while Nick recovered himself. 

“I think that clears things up.” he said, simply.

“Nick…”

“No,” he said, his grey eyes serious, “I’m sorry, but it’s over.”

And he stood up from the table, leaving the last third of his latte. 

“Nick.” you said, again, starting to cry. 

“I think it’s been over a long time. I just didn’t see it.”

You tried to stand up to follow him as he moved towards the door, but the ridiculous armchair made you scramble to find your feet, and when you did, you fell back into it.

Five stifled a snort beside you, so you kicked him in the shin, slightly harder than could have been called gentle. 

“Ow!”

I hope you get everything you want,” Nick said, sincerely, “I really hope you find happiness.”

He hesitated a moment, looking awkward.

“So…goodbye then.”

And then he was fighting his way through all the people towards the door, leaving you staring after him with tears brimming in your younger self’s eyes. 

You watched you pained expression, and then turned to Five.

“I want to go home,” you said, to Five, “you’ve tortured me enough. What good does this do?”

Five was looking at the point where Nick had vanished into the crowd.

“I didn’t like him,” he said, bluntly, “You’re better off in my opinion. A Starbucks latte? No, you need a real man. I wouldn’t drink that shit if -”

But then he cut himself off, his eyes caught by something.

“Shit,” he said, distractedly, “that’s Luther.”

You looked up and followed his gaze. There, indeed was Luther, standing in line for the counter, looking unlike you’d ever seen him before: he looked young, comparatively baby-faced, and, though still tall, his proportions looked completely normal. 

Five glanced down at a display near the briefcase’s handle.

“It’s before he went to the moon,” he murmured. And then, in a more normal tone, “I didn’t know you knew him this far back.”

“I didn’t,” you said, dumbfounded.

“I didn’t know Dad let him leave the Academy,” Five said, almost to himself. 

Leaving your younger self to cry in her armchair, you and Five approached his brother. 

“Hey there,” he said, with his usual, grin, “I’ll just take this smoothie to go, thanks.”

And then something caught Luther’s attention. Perhaps he caught a glance of something out of the corner of his eye, because he turned to stare directly at you and Five. 

“Oh fu-” Five began, but petered out as it became clear that he wasn’t actually staring at you, but rather through you.

No, he wasn’t looking at you and Five, he was looking at the younger you, and his face had fallen into lines of empathy. 

“If I buy something for that lady, will you take it to her after I’m gone?”

Your breath caught in your throat. 

“Sure,” answered the barista, glancing at you, crying at your table, and immediately understanding Luther’s kind intentions. 

He furrowed his brow as he read the menu.

“I think she needs something chocolatey,” he said, “how about…a venti gingerbread hot chocolate with cream and those gold sprinkles?”

You watched Luther’s honest, earnest face as he paid, took his little bottle of smoothie, and left, humming a little snatch of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen as he went.

“That was him?” you said, watching Luther’s retreating figure with a dumbfounded expression on your face,  “I remember that. I thought one of the baristas took pity on me. It made me feel…”

Your own words to Luther echoed back in your mind:

“Why not keep all your Christmas shit to yourself and mind your own goddamn business?”

And then his reply, so like Nick’s:

“Why are you pushing me away?”

And your face flushed with shame.

“I was so mean to him,” you said, ruefully.

“Well,” Five said, with the reasonable air of someone chairing a debate, “it can be hard not to be mean to him. He asks for it.”

This didn’t make you feel any better, but Five continued.

“He didn’t always have it easy, but he always had this… uncrushable spirit beneath the surface. He’s always been a teddy bear, no matter how much Dad taught him to suppress it.”

Five gave a reluctant, half mocking chuckle.

“If you ask me,” he continued, “I think he’s trying to make up for lost time: our Christmases sucked.”

There was another moment of silence in which you looked down at the briefcase. 

“Can you show me?” you asked. 

“Huh?”

“Show me what it was like for you and Luther as kids. 

“We’re here to sort out your shit,” he said reprovingly, his thick eyebrows lowered.

“You think you can stop me from causing nuclear armageddon if you show me the past, right?”  

“We’re here to get to the root of your christmas hate-boner so you don’t cause such a mess, yeah.”

“Then show me Luther’s past. Show me why it’s so important to him.”

Five considered you, a vertical line between his brows and the corners of his mouth turned down. After a moment, he spoke, sounding impressed with the idea:

“I guess we could try it. And I know just the one.” 

He moved closer to the table and armchairs to give himself space, knelt and placed the briefcase on the floor beside him. He reached into an inner pocket of his blazer and withdrew a pair of tweezers and a small vial sealed with a cork. 

Carefully, he bent over the briefcase and removed the strand of your hair from one of its mechanisms with the tweezers, and deposited it into the vial.

“That’s creepy as shit,” you remarked, “Do you regularly steal DNA from women’s bedrooms to keep in little jars?”

Five rolled his eyes as he stowed the vial away again.

“Trust me, if I wanted to be creepy, your mess of a bedroom gave me ample opportunity. Do you even own a laundry hamper? If I had a thing for worn panties, that room would be nirvana.”

You felt your cheeks heat up as Five used the tweezers to pluck a single dark hair from his own head. 

“That ought to do it.”

With a steady, precise hand, he slid his own hair into the briefcase’s mechanism. When he clicked it closed, the entire panel hummed, lit briefly with a faint blue glow. 

“Perfect,” he said to himself, and drummed his fingers briefly on the briefcase as he thought.

“Christmas of ‘95? Yeah, six seems about right.”

He fiddled with the dials briefly.

Five rose to his feet again and held out his arm, which you took readily. 

“Here we go,” he said, and clicked something on the briefcase. 

And there was the roiling static, your skin alive with tingles, and you arrived, swaying, into a scene unlike any you’d seen so far. 

The room was white walled, the floor of that squeaky wooden variety you get in a school gymnasium. Padded mats were stacked neatly against the wall at one end, and mirrors lined one of the walls.

Four small children stood in front of the mirror, watching two more facing each other in the on a large mat in the center of the room. One of these was blonde and tall for his age, the other slight and dark.

“Where are we? Wait, is that you and -?”

“Number One and Number Five,” came a crisp voice from the other end of the room, “I have chosen to pair you today because your respective power offers the other a unique and complementary challenge.”

It was Reginald Hargreeves, standing tall and imposing in a pinstriped suit, trademark monocle firmly in place. Beside him, another child stood, hiding behind bangs with a clipboard at the ready, presumably to take notes.  

“Wait,” you asked, “isn’t this supposed to be Christmas?”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the grown Five beside you confirmed, grimly. “Didn’t mean shit when it came to our training.”

As he spoke, Hargreeves continued.

“Number One, you have size and strength on your side, but you are uncontrolled; clumsy. Number Five, while you may be agile and precise, you are small and weak.”

The young Five in the center of the room’s jaw set. It was simultaneously a sad expression to see on the face of such a young child, and a pleasant little hint of the man he would grow into.

“You were adorable,” you said, before you could stop yourself. Then, you hurriedly added, “all of you, I mean.”

Five only smiled in a way that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was looking at the two boys in front of him, and it seemed as if he was already regretting his decision to show you this.

“The object of this fight is to overpower the other by any means necessary,” Hargreeves continued.

“Jesus,” you murmured, and Five shrugged beside you. 

“Prepare yourselves.” 

The two children shifted, and squared their small frames, bare feet planting against the mats. 

“Three,” Hargreeves voice rang out, “Two…One. Begin!���

Young Five and Luther sprung into action, Five vanishing before the latter could even make his first move. On instinct, Luther ducked immediately, avoiding Five’s tiny fist as it punched the air where the back of his brother’s head was, just a moment earlier.

“Oh my god,” you whispered, half in shock, half in horror.

The two children moved like professionals: like lightning, almost. It was hard to keep track of whose body was where: one minute Five was spinning away from Luther’s perfectly executed knifehand strike, and the next Luther was leaping over Five’s leg, extended in a high kick.

When the first hit came, you gasped and clapped a hand over your mouth.

The heel of Five’s hand slammed up and into Luther’s face, causing him to cry out and stagger backwards, his hands clasped over one eye. 

“Oww!” he whimpered, body wracked with sobs, “Ow, Dad!”

As Luther wept, the young Five hesitated, his hard, determined expression betraying a little remorse. Though he remained on the balls of his feet, prepared for another attack, he glanced guiltily at his father. 

“Press your advantage, Number Five,” Reginald said, a hint of pride in his voice, “and Number One, pull yourself together. Take a demerit for tears.”

At their father’s words, both Five and Luther leapt back into action, Luther’s expression contorted into pure, emotion driven frenzy, lashing out in pain more than he was sparring. 

You took an instinctive half a step forward, hand extended towards them.

“You can’t help,” Five reminded you, his voice carefully nonchalant, “they’re just shadows of what happened.”

Luther became wild and less disciplined in his movements, and though Five blinked around so fast that he was barely visible, the forceful strikes he landed affected Luther no more than a foam bat might have done. 

Then, Luther landed a hit of his own, a blow to Five’s stomach that made him double over at the waist with a hiss as all the air was punched out of his lungs.

“Excellent, Number One.” Hargreeves said, motioning to the child beside him to take a note.

But Luther wasn’t listening. Breathing through his teeth as snot ran from his nose, he pulled back his fist once more and struck Five squarely on the chin with a devastating uppercut that sent him off his feet and flying across the room, struck with the full force of the young Luther’s power.

His head hit the far wall with a sickly crack, and he fell like a ragdoll onto the pile of stacked mats. 

A great gasp went up around the room, yours included. You dropped Five’s coat and, unthinking, ran over to the injured child and dropped to your knees beside him, reaching out a hand. But, of course, your fingers passed straight through his face. 

His eyes were open, but far from alert. One of them, filled with blood from burst blood vessels, was looking inwards towards his nose, while the other looked straight ahead, unfocused. His mouth dripped with blood from a badly bitten tongue. 

You looked from him to the older Five, who simply shrugged as if to say: ‘what are you gonna do?’

“What happened?” you asked, turning desperately to Five, though the words kept coming before he could answer, “Oh my God, I didn’t know what he made you... it’s horrible!”

“It’s not how I’d raise kids,” Five said, with an air of forced casualness.

As Hargreeves lectured Luther for being undisciplined and told him that his fun and games privileges tomorrow were revoked, Five approached your end of the room. 

He picked up his coat with the hand not holding the briefcase and folded it over his own arm. 

“You want to see what happened?” 

You nodded, and Five began to fiddle with the briefcase once more. It took no more than a grasp of his hand and the final click of a button before you were in a bright, cozy sitting room.

“This is Christmas day,” Five said, “I was the only one who got the day off training - I still couldn’t see right -  but the others except Luther got to watch the movie with me.”

Though a fire was crackling in the grate, there were no decorations, you noticed. 

Little Five was sitting propped up in an armchair, his face bruised, one eye still red and a bandage wrapped around his head. All the other children save Luther were seated on a couch.

One of the boys was wriggling, much to the annoyance of his brother.

“Klaus,” he said, indignantly, “stop kicking me!”

“Stop kicking me,”  Klaus imitated.

Then, one of the girls piped up from the floor.

“Can you two be quiet? I want to watch Rudolph!”

The two boys fell into scowling silence, and all eyes turned to the stop-motion animation on the TV, where Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was guiding Santa’s sleigh across the sky. 

Little Five looked from the TV to the sibling beside him.

“Hey, Ben,” came Five’s whisper, leaning towards him with difficulty. 

“What?” 

“I got presents from Santa last night.”

“No you didn’t,” Ben said, dismissively.

“Yes I did,” Five countered, “I got a black power ranger and three of the candies Dad gives us on our birthday, and a bookmark and two moon rocks. And it was all in a sock hanging on my bed, just like in the movie.”

“You’re lying,” Ben replied, “Santa’s not real. Dad says it’s just a lie they tell normal children.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, with a smug smile. “Then how come I got presents?

“Because you’re lying,” Ben retorted, tartly.

”I am not lying,” 

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Shut up!” said the girl again, indignantly.

“You shut up, Allison!”

“Oh yeah? Well I heard a rumor you stopped talking until after Rudolph!”

The two boys fell silent immediately, though Ben stuck his tongue out at Five. 

“I was such a little asshole,” the Five beside you said.

“You were a kid,” you said, gently, “you all were.”

“I guess.”

You watched the six of them, legs too short to touch the floor, and frowned.

“It was Luther, wasn’t it? The sock.”

“Yeah,” Five said, a tender note in his voice, “and he got in trouble for it. He stole the candies from Dad’s office.”

The corner of your lip twitched outwards in a sad smile. Five’s hand was still in yours, and you squeezed it. 

The pressure seemed to bring Five back to himself, and he cleared his throat, shaking off a little of the gravity that had settled on him as he revisited his own past.

“So that’s why you need to come tomorrow,” he said, stoutly, “for Luther, Christmas is about rejecting what Dad tried to turn him into. He feeds off showing people he cares, and he wants to show you.”

“But why am I so important?” you asked, a small whine edge into your voice, “He has you guys to show he cares. Why would him not being able to serve me turkey cause armageddon? Can’t I just smooth things over with him in the New Year?”

Five gave a large sigh and looked up at the ceiling, bringing all the lines and hollows of his neck into greater prominence. 

“God, you’re so stubborn. I am done trying to get through to you. Is all this not enough for you? You hate Christmas because your parents sucked and you got dumped, I get it. But still, you had people who loved you and were kind to you, and that’s what it’s supposed to be about, asshole! What more do you want from me?”

“What?” you asked, irritated, “you just expect me to jump for joy and turn into Mrs-fucking-Claus at the drop of a hat?”

“No,” Five said, dropping your hand and setting the briefcase with gritted teeth, “I was hoping you’d get your head out of your ass long enough to realise not everything’s about you and your, frankly, pretty mundane traumas.”

“Fuck you,” you retorted, annoyed by his attitude. “I’m sorry your dad made you beat the shit out of each other, but that doesn’t mean you get to dismiss my feelings!”

“I am not dismissing your feelings,” he said, punching a final few settings on the briefcase, “but would it kill you to make Luther’s day? Sometimes we do stuff to make other people happy. That’s what it’s supposed to mean to live in a goddamn society.”

“Are you fucking kidd-” you began, but your voice was cut of as Five seized a fistful of your sweater and you disappeared in a flash of light.

Read Chapter Three >> I FEED OFF COMMENTS AND REBLOGS YUM YUM YUM

Mr Fezziwig's Ball (left) and Scrooge Extinguishes the First of The Three Spirits (right) Both by John Leech, 1843 in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, first edition (1843).

Dickens' A Christmas Carol full text available here.

Read it! It's a much better than this, and you can see how many lines I stole verbatim or clumsily referenced.

Dividers used in this series by @bernardsbendystraws (garland) and @strangergraphics (lights)

Taglist: @nevbrooke-555, @fiannee, @abeeabee6969, @chalametabingbong, @lolawassad, @icantpickanamefromonefandom @thebearmage @kaybreezy3000, @starlitflora (comment to be added or removed)

Megalist

Request info + rules

I take Five requests, I'm fairly versatile in what I write (fluff, smut, angst, psychological character study- I'll try it all) but I will consider them on a case by case basis. See request info + rules for request status and more.

[death---dealer]

Not to sound like a slut fuck it

But imagine exploring timelines with Five and he asks you to grab his little binoculars from the inside of his jacket, like he’s staring at something in the distance and is frozen and asks you to grab them and place them in his hand

THE UNREQUITED TENSION AS YOU DIG YOUR HAND INTO THE INNER JACKET POCKET? So close to his chest and you can feel the warmth of his skin from under the thinner dress shirt

THE SUBTLE JEER HE GIVES YOU FOR TAKING SO DAMN LONG COUPLED WITH A SNIDE COMMENT?

I’m not okay, do I need to write this

[thebearmage]

Reborn - Five Hargreeves x Dolores - Chapter One

Rated 18+/Mature

(Chapter One) (Chapter Two)

Chapter One - Awake "Do you trust me?"

"Viktor!? What are you doing!? Stop her!"

"Allison, don't do it!"

"Allison, wait!"

The entire universe goes dark as if someone turned off the power on an old TV - there's a beat, then two, then three. 

She startles awake with a gasp, breath filling her lungs, looking up at the white ceiling tiles. She's laying on her back, trembling, body working overdrive as it struggles to grasp its new mechanisms. 

Everything is too bright; everything is too loud. Her head hurts, her body hurts, and everything felt constricting and too loose at the same time. Before they can process what's happening, they turn onto her side and vomit. 

It's mostly bile, for her stomach has nothing in it, never has. She pants roughly as spots dance before her vision, black threads falling into her face as they attempt to push themselves into a kneeling position. 

A hand is on her back. She looks up to see a store worker - a kind-looking woman, pear-shaped, with gray hair and soft eyes. 

"Are you alright, honey?" She asks, "Did you fall?"

The words sound like gibberish for a moment, her neurons firing faster than ever before. They blink in confusion for a moment before the words finally register. 

"I…" 

She turns and coughs as soon as she tries to speak. Her throat feels like sandpaper; she grips it softly as she coughs, and the woman rubs her back. 

"Easy, now, take it slow. You must have passed out," 

The store worker helps her to her feet, and she has to grab the clothes rack next to them in order to stand properly. Her legs felt weak…unused. 

How…how did she know…anything? She didn’t know what a store or clothes were; she knew nothing 30 seconds ago. But now she has all this shit in her head, thoughts pounding against her skull as she tries to make sense of it all. 

"Oh honey," The worker helps balance her, "What happened?"

They don't answer her at first, looking behind her to see small platforms. Two nicely dressed mannequins occupied two platforms, but the third - the one in the middle - was empty. 

Thoughts come streaming together in a whirlwind, causing her head to hurt. They look down at themselves: black and white polka-dot t-shirt, black pencil skirt, pale skin. 

They look to the side to see a black beret and matching shoes near the base of the middle pedestal. Her breathing picks up. They grip her arms so hard they feel her fingers dig into her skin. Panic starts to rise within her, and the worker gently grabs her face to make eye contact. 

"Sweetie, look at me," she instructs softly, "Can you hear me? What color is my jacket?"

Her eyes flicker down to the woman's vest, "B-blue," her voice is raspy as if she's never spoken before.

"Good, what color is your skirt?"

"B-black?"

"Very good," the woman smiles as they slowly start to calm down, "what color is the floor,"

"Gray,"

The woman helps them take deep breaths, and soon, her pounding heart slows. 

"Now, what's your name, darling?" the woman asks again. 

She blinks before answering, "Dolores,"

»»————　★　————««

Dolores sits in the department store's break room. She looks at her reflection in a little mirror. She guessed the women used to correct their makeup during their breaks. 

Dark hair and green eyes looked back at her; her face was not too angular but not round. Her eyes lidded but not tried looking. Her cheeks were rosy, and her lips a soft pink. Dolores's dark hair stopped right at her shoulders, straight but with a slight wave. 

It's not what either of them imagined. 

Dolores breaks the intense eye contact with her reflection to look at the cup of a dark liquid in her hands. 

Coffee…right… it's called coffee. 

Dolores, curious, raises the drink to her lips and takes a sip, nearly spitting the bitter liquid out. 

"Not a coffee fan?"

They looked up to see the woman before walking into the room. Dolores tried to smile. Her mind was slowly piercing itself together, memories fitting back into place. She didn't know how it happened, but she was alive. Plastic was replaced with skin, and a hollow torso was replaced with organs and blood. 

"Not really," Dolores laughs softly, coughing a bit. Her vocal cords were still not used to working. Or rather, she was still getting used to having a voice.

"Well, it'll help either way," the woman sits in a chair across from Dolores, looking at them softly, "That was one nasty fall you took there,"

Dolores nods, "I remember…"

"What happened?"

Dolores takes a moment to answer, her newly born thoughts firing rapidly. What happened isn’t normal. She isn’t normal. She can’t tell the truth. She’d be accused of being insane and convicted. She had a lie. To hide. Protect herself.

"I was trying to see the hat the mannequin was wearing. I was too short, so I stepped up on the platform to see. I slipped," Dolores took another sip of the coffee, wincing at the taste again, "It was stupid, I'm sorry,"

The woman looks sympathetic, "Well, you're okay, and you learned not to do that again," she laughs softly. Dolores smiles. 

"Is there anyone I can call for you?" the woman presses. "Family or friends?"

Dolores shakes her head, "No,"

"Spouse? Wife? Husband?"

A face flashes in her mind - well, two faces: an old man and a teenage boy. But Dolores knew it was the same person. It was--

"No," she says, "I'm…alone,"

The woman looks concerned, "Are you--"

"Thanks for the coffee," Dolores gently cuts her off, "And for helping me, but I better get going,"

The worker sputters as Dolores exits the break room, walking down the aisles to the door. 

"Wait!"

Dolores turns back around to see the woman hobbling after her, "Are you sure you're okay, honey? I can call someone to help you,"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dolores tries to smile, "Thank you again,"

The woman looks like she wants to protest, but Dolores turns away and slips out of the store. 

»»————　★　————««

Dolores doesn't know how long she's been walking. Her feet were starting to hurt, but she felt like she couldn't stop. She's never been able to move, walk, or pose independently; she's always been guided by someone else to pose silently, frozen. 

What was she going to do? She had some understanding of how the world worked; he would keep complaining about it to no end, and he sometimes brought her to different places, riding around on the back of a wagon…or was it a bike? Maybe both?

Should they go to him? Ask him to take them in?

Dolores shook the thought away. No. Hell no. They were not going back. Every time they were around him, they got shot at, thrown, used as leverage, or abandoned. Yeah, no fucking thanks. 

So what are they to do? They need a job, a place to live, food and water. 

Dolores noticed that it was getting dark out. In a slight panic, they looked around, seeing they were in the…darker parts of town. 

The only establishment nearby was a club, and there was nowhere else to go. Dolores crossed the street and entered. As soon as the door closed, she felt eyes on her. Most of the patrons were men, with scarcely dressed women dancing on poles, serving drinks, and even sitting with them. 

Dolores felt uncomfortable but knew she couldn't back out—not with how the men looked at her. Most were older, with graying hair and crooked teeth. Some were younger, middle-aged, and handsome, with evil glints in their eyes. Dolores felt like…she…they were looking at her as if she were a doll again. For a brief moment, Dolores thought she had turned back, only to snap back to herself when a voice behind her went. 

“You going to walk in, missy, or keep blocking the door?”

Dolores paused; she also didn’t have anywhere else to go. So, holding her head up high, she walked to the bar at the end. 

"Hey, sugar, what can I get ya?" The bartender asks, looking happy to serve someone other than a sleazy older man. 

"Just water is fine," Dolores answered, and the woman nodded and walked away. 

Dolores nurses her water for the next hour, ignoring the men talking and staring at her. She needs a job, but what sane person would hire a woman with no history - no birth certificate, no social security number, no driver's license, no fucking proof of identification. 

This…was going to be a lot harder than they thought. Dolores sighs, racking her head. Many of her memories were fuzzy and incomplete, but a few were vivid and clear. On top of that, she had a lot of information flowing into her head like a river, as if someone had activated the default settings on a video game character. 

She knows what a video game is…?

"Hey, princess!" A gruff voice calls out. Dolores looks up to see a nicely dressed older man in a crimson suit looking at her. He was big, with graying hair, flushed skin, a double chin, gold bracelets and necklaces, and a golden tooth. He beckons her over. 

"Come sit next to me, darling. I wanna get a good look at you," 

Dolores' eyes narrow, and she sips her water without breaking eye contact or moving. The man's smile is full of false warmth. 

"Oh, come on, princess. I won't do nothin' honest! Just wanna get a closer look at you,"

Dolores was about to refuse when she noticed the fear on the bartender's face. They made eye contact, and the woman gestured for her to go over. With a sigh, Dolores took her water and plopped down beside the man. 

"There we go. That wasn't so hard, right?" The man leans closer to Dolores, who leans back a bit, "You're a pretty one, all right. What's your name?"

"Dolores," Dolores answers shortly, "Yours?"

"They call me Mr. Higgins. A pleasure to meet you, Miss. Dolores," 

Higgins takes Dolores' hand and kisses it. They want nothing more than to rip it away. They steel her expression and sip her water. 

"So, Miss Dolores," Higgins speaks casually, either not noticing or ignoring her discomfort, "What does a pretty thing like you do?"

Dolores sees the trap before it's laid, but they also see an opportunity, "I don't have a job right now,"

Higgins has the decency to pretend to be shocked, "Oh? Well, that's a shame. How do you pay for your house?"

Dolores starts to wonder if this man has been following her, "I don't have one,"

Higgins gasps in fake horror, "You're homeless? Oh princess, that's not right," he retakes her hand, "Let me help you, darlin'. I can help you get back on your feet! Work for me. I'll let you stay in one of my backrooms," Higgins's smile is full of malice. Dolores can also see the sharp teeth, "Nobody like you should be wandering around alone, I'll take good care of you,"

Knowing this was a bad idea but desperately needing the money, Dolores struggled with her decision. She knew she was walking into a trap, but the allure of a job and a place to stay was too strong. She plastered a grateful smile on her face and nodded, "Thank you very much! I'd like that!"

As she agreed to Higgins's offer, she felt a surge of anger and frustration. She wanted nothing more than to punch that wicked smile off the man's face as it grew in triumph. But they knew they had to play along, for now. Dolores was determined to find a way out of her current situation, no matter what it took. 

[samdeancass]

Make It Count

Requested by @acing-dyslexia with prompt #16 from Sentence Prompts: "I'm going to beat you until you can't remember you're own name." "I'll give you one hit. You better make it good."

Pairing: Diego Hargreeves x reader

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Characters: Diego, Y/N

Description: Y/N is taken by an old enemy of Diego's and when he comes to their rescue, he makes the kidnapper pay.

If you were honest with yourself, you expected to be kidnapped considering who your boyfriend was and who his family were. What you didn't expect, however, is to be kidnapped by somebody you knew.

You were sat in the middle of a darkened room, the only light coming from the small window at the side of you. Your wrists were sore and slightly bleeding from the constant writhing to get out of the ropes. Hearing footsteps coming closer to the door, you sat up straight and put on a stoic expression before your kidnapper entered the room.

"Hello, Y/N. How lovely to see you again." Your eyes widened as your childhood best friend stood in front of you. "Bradley? What the actual hell?!" He chuckled as he walked towards you and knelt down in front of you. "Well, Y/N, it turns out that your boyfriend and I have a rather large rivalry with each other. He keeps beating down my illegal dealings and to be honest, I've had enough."

You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion. "OK, let me get this straight. Diego is doing good in this world by taking down whatever illegal shit you're doing and you've decided to take me as a way to teach him a lesson?" Bradley smiled at you and tapped your cheek. "Well done, you're catching on." "Well, I want to know something. How did my sweet best friend turn into a full-on criminal mastermind?" He smirked at you and stood up. "That's a story for another day I'm afraid. It seems as though Diego has made his arrival."

A huge smirk spread across your face. "He is going to kick your ass. It was the worst mistake taking me." Bradley made his way behind you and wound a gag tight around your head before pointing a gun at your head. A loud scuffle sounded outside the door and a pang of happiness rang through your body. You weren't scared in the slightest, you knew what Diego was capable of and you knew that he wouldn't let Bradley hurt you.

The door swung open and Diego pushed one of the guards in, ripping his knife out of their chest. Spotting you in the middle of the room, his eyes widened a little but you nodded to signal that you were alright. "You have 3 seconds to move that gun away from their head before I beat the shit out of you."

Bradley pushed the gun further into the side of your head, making you wince a little. Diego growled and Bradley chuckled at how quickly he was getting to him. "Now, now Diego. No need for violence. I just want you to stop interfering with my work. It's getting really annoying and I need to live, ya know?"

"I wouldn't have to interfere if your work was legit but what you're doing is hurting people and it needs to stop. There is no way I'm going to let it carry on." Diego gripped the base of his knife tightly in his hand as he spotted Bradley moving further beside you. "Well, then, I suppose Y/N here will have to say goodbye won't they?" You heard the click of the gun right in your ear and you closed your eyes, knowing exactly what was about to happen.

Before Bradley could shoot Diego threw the knife at the gun and knocked it out of his hand, causing Bradley to stumble back in surprise. "I'm going to beat you until you can't remember you're own name." Diego stalked towards Bradley as if he were prey, a sinister smirk on his face. "I'll give you one hit. You better make it good." "Don't worry, it will be."

Diego swung his fist back and put all of his power into the punch, knocking Bradley completely off his feet and to the ground. Diego climbed on top of him and grabbed the scruff of his shirt. "If you ever touch Y/N again, or even think about them, I won't be so easy on you. I won't just beat your ass, I'll kill you. Understand?" Bradley nodded his head, clearly scared. Diego laughed before swinging his fist back and connected it with Bradley's face, knocking him out cold.

Diego got up and ran over to you, cutting your binds from your hands. You took the gag out of your mouth and smiled at your boyfriend, who offered you his hand to help you up. "You alright? Did he hurt you?" "No, but I did know him. Turns out he was my childhood best friend." Diego raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "I will never understand the things that go through these guys heads."

He kissed the side of your head, swung his arm over your shoulders, and walked you out of the building. "Wanna go for food? I'm starving." You rolled your eyes and chuckled before getting into your side of the car. "Trust you to be hungry after beating a guy."

[girlkisser13]

dating klaus hargreeves would include

• klaus loves to take you on spontaneous and unconventional dates. from late-night walks through empty streets to exploring abandoned buildings, each outing would feel like a mini-adventure.

• he isn’t one for structured romance, so expect lots of random hugs, kisses, and cuddles. he’d always find a way to touch you, whether it's holding your hand, resting his head on your shoulder, or intertwining your fingers with his.

• you’d need to have a good sense of humor and be comfortable with dark, often morbid jokes. klaus would use humor as a way to cope with his past traumas, and he’d appreciate someone who could laugh with him, even at the bleakest of times.

• over time, he would open up to you about his ability to see the dead, his struggles with addiction, and his fears. your relationship would deepen as he slowly lets you into the parts of his life that he usually keeps hidden.

• despite his carefree nature, klaus would be surprisingly protective of you. he’d be the first to stand up for you in a confrontation and wouldn’t hesitate to use his powers if it meant keeping you safe.

• being with klaus would inspire you to be more creative and think outside the box. his unconventional approach to life would challenge you to see things differently, and you’d often find yourself getting involved in his artsy and eccentric projects.

• klaus is full of surprises, and he’d love to keep you guessing. from surprising you with your favorite takeout when you’re having a bad day to bringing home a stray animal because he felt sorry for it, life with klaus would never be boring.

• he has a unique way of showing love. It might be through acts like letting you wear his favorite band t-shirt, insisting you join him on a spiritual retreat, or simply holding you close after a nightmare.

• klaus is known for his mood swings, often shifting from joy to sorrow in the blink of an eye. dating him would mean riding this emotional roller coaster with him. you’d become skilled at reading his moods and knowing when he needs comfort or space.

• your home is a reflection of klaus’s eclectic personality. it is filled with mismatched furniture, various thrift store finds, and an array of colorful decor. klaus’s style would make your space feel more like an artistic expression than a conventional living area.

• klaus has a love for music, and your relationship would be filled with impromptu dance parties. he’d put on his favorite records and pull you into the middle of the room, dancing with abandon. these moments would be some of the happiest, where you both let go of everything and just enjoy each other’s company.

• you're the first person who has made him feel important and valued. you listened to him, allowed him to be himself, and never judged him.

• klaus is dramatic by nature, and your life together would be filled with theatrical gestures. he’d quote poetry at random moments, declare his love in over-the-top ways, and make even mundane tasks feel like scenes from a play.

• you’d develop a collection of inside jokes that no one else understands, creating a bond that feels private and unique. klaus would also love giving you nicknames, often humorous or slightly outlandish, to make you smile.

• he 100% calls you pookie.

• klaus has had struggles with addiction, so if he’s working on staying sober, your support would mean the world to him. you’d encourage him through difficult times and celebrate his victories, no matter how small. your patience and understanding would be key to helping him stay on track.

• you're his anchor; the one who grounds him when the chaos of his life becomes overwhelming. <33