#umbrella academy five hargreeves

[kaybreezy3000]

The Anti Hero's Pitfall of Arrogance

Five Hargreeves / Female OC

What happens when you disarm an exceptionally arrogant person, one that is a self-absorbed, teleporting, teenaged superhero?

The answer is not great things.

Get ready for a taste of Five like you've never had before...

(Chapters 5, 6, and 7 post to complete this story)

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

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

Link to Chapters 1 and 2.

Link to Chapters 3 and 4

Chapter Five: Snowman

Phoebe Leroux = Undeniably Extraordinary.

When we were sixteen, I never even asked her last name before I enthusiastically felt her up and then aggressively stuck my dick down her throat.

Five Hargreeves = World’s biggest asshole.

My ax slams down through the log, the pieces fling to the side, falling in the pile at my feet.

Thanks to Phoebe, I still have both my feet, and I also have my life.

It has only been three months since the day she found me, and it’s already falling below zero at night and it’s not much better during the day. It went from a world so hot you could hardly breathe, to so cold I feel like I’m going to freeze my nuts off every time I’m out here.

With temperatures consistently this low, we are rapidly depleting our indoor supply of firewood. There’s plenty here thanks to our location and the home’s prior occupant and their neurotic preparations, but if we are going to keep our fire lit, one of us needs to come out and get more wood several times a day.

Even with Fee’s special warming powers, heating the one room cabin all night is something she’s not capable of. The second she’s asleep, she can’t control the temperature of anything other than herself and the things she’s touching. Unless we want to wake up in a room that feels like an icebox, we need a fire going in our stone hearth.

I slam the heavy ax back down again, splitting my last piece of wood, then I look back towards the house. The sun fell below the horizon over a half hour ago, but it was never sunny during the day and hasn’t been for two weeks. I had hardly noticed it was getting dark, but now I see that the ghostly shadows from the last hazy light are stretching across the yard, out from the equally haunted looking ruined forest to the west.

I’m sure Phoebe is wondering what in the hell is taking me so long. We have plenty of branches and larger dry pieces of wood already cut up. All I needed to do was go get them and that should have taken less than five minutes. I saw her peeping out the window, checking on me a few times, but I pretended that I didn’t see her.

Deliberately delaying going in, I slowly start stacking the wood in the drum of the wheelbarrow. I hate making her do everything, so I came out, but it’s also because I needed to clear my head. Unfortunately, even this cold fucking air isn’t helping set me straight.

Nothing is lately.

Once I go in, it’s going to be another one of those long nights, and the colder it gets, the closer we need to be and the harder this is.

Cart loaded; I stare blankly at the ground. I still can’t bring myself to go in. I am engulfed in a cloud of white vapor as I release another frazzled sigh. Arms dangling sulkily at my sides, I begin to aimlessly pace the open area of our yard.

After tossing a few rotten branches out into the brush pile, I wander over to the greenhouse and start inspecting a window I repaired over a month ago.

Fee finding his place, which is an entire survivalist’s estate that was featured on one of those dooms’ day preppers TV shows, once again proves how sheltered I was growing up, and how little I know about what regular people do in their free time. I never would have found this place without her and that’s because I never would have watched reality TV shows even if dad would have let us watch TV. Fee only saw the show once, but that was enough for her to remember it.

I glance up, looking back at the cabin again. I can see the glow of the oil lamp on our small kitchen table inside. She left it going for me. It’s like a signal, telling me I should get my skinny ass inside and stop being so stupid.

Still dawdling, I make my way around the glass grow-house, testing window frames that I already know will hold up just fine in the vicious winter winds since they already withstood the massive shockwaves that tore through this area five years ago.

When Fee found me, I was in Nowheresville Pennsylvania, but I was almost in bum-fuck West Virginia, which is where we are now at our posh hillbilly haven. This cabin was strategically built into the side of a rock cliff, and it is fully intact thanks to its fortified construction and because of its shielded location in the Alleghanian Mountains. The vast store of supplies that were stored underground are plentiful and unspoiled. There’s even a freshwater spring on property that tests in a much safer drinking range than anything I have had in the last five years. This is also where Fee found the off-road jeep that she used to recuse me.

This place is a huge blessing, but so is she. With Fee by my side, my life would be a million times easier no matter where I was.

During my first days here, I learned so many things about her, one being that she hadn’t been in this area very long which made her and I crossing paths even more of a miracle. The other thing I discovered, though I should have already known, is that she is inherently kind and compassionate and extremely sharp. She can take any problem and find a viable solution, continually surprising me with how fast and cleverly she can think outside the small box of numbers and figures my mind is used to operating in.

Staggering into the cabin that first night, I was completely at her mercy. I was still too weak to get up without her help and she pretty much had to carry me again.

She did everything for me. I never had to ask.

One of the nicest things she did (and there were many) was she washed my appallingly soiled and pathetically boney body. I hadn’t properly washed for weeks, so she had her work cut out for her. She cleaned and rewrapped my injured foot while I was knocked out from her glorious pain meds, but the rest happened the next morning after I woke up, after she made sure I ate my fill of breakfast first. She did it all in such a way to let me keep what was left of my dignity. Inch by inch, limb by limb, and other areas too, she kept me mostly covered as she bathed me with warm, soapy wash clothes.

With as close to death as I had been, it felt like I had died and went to heaven having that done to me.

She rinsed me and helped me dress in comfortable, fresh clothing. She ensured I ate again and even carefully cleaned and reclothed Dolores, always making sure she was by me, but never saying anything about my intense emotional and deep physical connection to her.

Fee could plainly see that I was broken and not just on the outside. She never pushed me to talk, or in any other way. She just took care of me.

It wasn’t until almost a week later that I lamely attempted to explain Dolores to her by revealing that I found her just two days after burying my family. If it wasn’t bad enough that I cried in front of Fee several times already, when I talked about those first days, I cried again. She still never showed any signs of judgment about my mind falling apart so fast, or my need to cling to something outside of me to pretend that I wasn’t alone.

Fee was so sweet about it all, and I still don’t know how to grasp that or everything I am feeling about her.

She always makes it her priority to take care of me. Even letting me be the one to come out here in the bitter cold took some convincing. I insisted that I had to take a leak, otherwise I knew she would have stuffed her feet in her boots and came out without even needing layer upon layer to keep her warm like I do.

Fee coddles me, but she has her reasons. One being that, since she found me, I am the weak link in this relationship.

That has to change.

Straightening my back, I walk back over to the loaded wheelbarrow. Digging the heels of my boots into the frozen ground, I thrust the handles down, forcing the weight onto the front tire so I can get it moving forward.

“Fuck,” I groan because it feels like every muscle in my body is being put to the test just to keep the stupid thing level. “I fucking hate wheelbarrows, they don’t make any fucking sense!” I shout out to no one because I’m nuts. At least I’m getting stronger again, but I have a long way to go in the brain department and physically.

It took three days after nearly dying before I could walk normally on my own. Phoebe would stay with me most of the time if I was awake, keeping me company by reading to me until I dozed off again. It was as if she knew my mind was badly troubled by things I couldn’t articulate and she was trying her best to help me run from my demons even for just a little while.

Sadly, I couldn't escape the horrors I had been through no matter how much I enjoyed listening to the soothing rhythm of her voice.

On day two, when I was doing so much better, and I was awake most of the day. We talked more and more, but mostly I listened. I had little to tell her other than where I’d been since coming here, which wasn’t very far compared to her.

I learned that after our first fateful encounter, Fee went on to do many things, including getting her citizenship. Life wasn’t easy for her or what many would call conventional, but like she said the day I met her, she is extremely resourceful, and like now, she got things done no matter what and she survived.

Phoebe traveled the world, often with hardly a dime to her name. She had many jobs related to performing and music, and many that didn’t. She is the kind that radiates happiness, and people naturally gravitate to that, so there were plenty of interesting friends made along the way and even some people that sound like they were more than friends, though she didn't elaborate on those relationships. I had nothing similar to share, so I just listened, imagining her free spiritedly drifting through her life.

During our many talks, Fee has always been forthcoming, but she always keeps her stories positive in nature and I think it’s for my benefit. She doesn’t want to make me think of more bad things. But even with my lack of understanding people, I can tell that her inability to settle any one place very long wasn’t simply because she didn’t want to. It was out of necessity.  

She virtually had nothing, and she never told anyone about what she could do. Only her mother had known. Putting herself out there like that in the public eye could have changed everything for her when it came to money worries, but it also would have meant living a life under constant scrutiny and expectations. She’d seen with my family what kind of exploitation could happen if suddenly the world knew you had superpowers.

Fee was scared to tell anyone the truth and that prevented anyone from ever really knowing her.

She wanted a normal life, but sadly it seems you can’t escape the isolation of being born this way. Looking back, I realize that is in part why she felt it was so important to tell me about 'others' with powers; she had hoped telling me meant she wouldn't have to be alone. She was searching for someone that would understand and that she could trust.

It makes me sick thinking about that and how badly I messed that up.

The night the world ended, Phoebe was alone because she often was. She was backcountry camping along the Colorado River. Her campsite was in an open box canyon so there was nothing out there to crush her. She was laying there, contemplating her next moves in life, but she was also stargazing. To her horror, she saw what looked like our moon breaking apart. Then even more shocking, fire started raining down from the sky in all directions.

She told me how terrified she was and how that feeling didn’t get any better in the days after that. She survived because thanks to her powers, she can’t burn. She didn’t even know that till then, and that’s because in those first few hours after the initial blast, fire was taking everything that hadn’t already been destroyed. That part she said very little about and I can only imagine why. I arrived the next day and things and people were still burning but not like I am sure they were the day before.

The moon being blown apart makes no sense scientifically, but I believe her that's what happened. There’s no way our government agencies would have missed an enormous asteroid or a comet big enough to do that. That means something unnatural happened and I can’t help thinking my family was involved in some way. It’s just too coincidental that my home was blown to hell the day before, and that Luther was holding on to that eyeball.

After telling Phoebe my thoughts on that, it became our mutual goal to get back and do anything we can to try and save them, and all of humanity. It’s a lofty goal, but we both see no other way.

Now more than ever, I need to figure out a way to travel back, because I am certain that there is something I can do about what happened. Now I don’t need to just pull myself back through the unknowns of time, I need to bring her along for the ride too. There’s no way I’d leave her. She is my friend and my teacher, showing me how to survive in this place far better than I was before.

In what feels even more important, Fee shows me every day what it means to be loved.

Like she was that night I met her in that damp and dirty warehouse, Phoebe is all brightness and tenderness in this world of murky nothingness. Just watching her as we go about our days together makes my heart feel so heavy. Sometimes she leaves me speechless by simply smiling at me in that pretty way of hers while she's doing the most mundane tasks.

Anytime she shows me affection, it’s always innocently, but…

Yeah.

Yup, coming outside didn’t help. It’s just prolonging the inevitable.

I can’t hide out here forever and I am shivering so hard now my damn teeth are clattering together.

Getting on with it, I unload part of the wood by the door, then heave the sling full of the rest up on my shoulder before teetering up the steps with it. I am sure that by now Fee is done getting ready for bed, meaning she’s in bed.

Our bed…

Fuck, fuck, triple times a million fucks.

Dolores knows where my mind is at, and as always, she understands, but she also thinks I am being ridiculous. She loves Fee and has since day one. When we are out scavenging, Phoebe always makes a point to find little treasures to bring back for Dolores.

They are big time buddies now.

Fee decorates Dolores like she’s the queen of the apocalypse, dressing her in expensive pieces of jewelry and excessively feminine tops with sparkles and sequins. Basically, anything goes if it makes no sense in the conditions we are living in, and it’s the exact opposite of what either of us wear daily. I didn’t even realize Dolores liked all that stuff until Fee started doing that with her. Then I saw how happy it makes them both.

Fee treats Dolores like she’s real. But not since the first days, when I was still very sick, have I talked to or touched Dolores so openly when Fee was around. I know that a part of her doing this kind of thing is to try to make me feel like it’s okay if I want to do it too. But things have drastically changed for Dolores and I since Fee found us, and my normal mode of conduct with her has been strictly kept for when Fee is not around, which isn’t very often. I haven’t slept with Dolores in my arms since that first fevered night.

I love her but doing that with her, or doing much of anything else that I feel the urge to do feels very wrong now.

I do speak with Dolores all the time, but we keep our conversations private. Dolores knows I’m having a hard time navigating this bizarre situation, but she’s adamant that I open myself up to Fee. Like so many things, I don’t know how or if I should. I don’t want to ruin what we have.

Phoebe hasn’t let on that she has any feelings for me in other way than the friendly kind of way, and I can’t blame her. Back when she was head over heels for me, which for her was a long time ago, I wasn’t anything anyone else would look twice at. Here, even as the only man on Earth, I am clearly not a catch. She already gave me a chance even though she shouldn’t have, and I epically blew it, and now I’m even more of a mess than I was at sixteen. In a normal situation, a beautiful, mature woman like Fee would want nothing to do with a lanky, immature fuck-up like me.

I’d be laughing if this ironic twist of fate weren’t so fucking heart wrenching. My heart hurts when I think about how much I care about Fee.

I am completely crushing on the girl who once crushed on me and got her heart stomped on for it.

“Fuck,” I mumble when I realize my frozen fingers won’t tighten around the doorknob enough to turn it. “Fuck you, you fucking-"

It finally clicks open, and I ram my head into it to push the door wide. With my giant load of wood, I stumble from the weight of it, then unsteadily kick the door closed behind me and loudly tromp over to the fireplace letting my sack tumble to the floor.

When I look across the small room, I can see that Fee is trying not to laugh over my graceless performance.

“Sorry,” I sheepishly offer, along with a lopsided grin. If my face wasn’t already bright red from the blistering cold, it would be now.

Sitting up straighter with her back against her pile of pillows, Fee lowers her book. “We weren’t trying to go to sleep yet, there’s no need to apologize for crashing through like the abominable snowman. Do you need some help with all that?”

By ‘we’ weren’t sleeping yet, Fee is referring to Dolores, who is sitting, wrapped in a fuzzy blanket on the chair next to my side of the bed, just like she is every night.

Yes. I sleep between two beautiful women, and I can’t touch either one the way I want.

Awesome.

Now Dolores is trying not to giggle at me.

I shake my head at her and covey my thoughts on that silently. I’m glad you’re entertained by my blue balls, sweetheart. 

After biting my glove to pull it off my numb hand, I spit it on the floor, then awkwardly clear my throat as I look back at Fee. “Ah, no. I’m good. Thank you though.”

The 'ahh' I stammered on just came out several octaves higher than normal because why not look like more of a moron?

Shucking my other glove off, I put my shaking hands down by the flames, bringing some immediate feeling back to them, then I busy myself with throwing more logs on, restacking the rest next to the wall and cleaning up the big mess I just made.

When I am done with all that and I’m over by the door again, kicking off my boots and peeling off my layers, I notice that Fee set her book on the side table and is staring at me with a cute but very devious look.

“We were getting a little worried in here. I thought maybe you accidently got too close when you were pissing on your favorite clothesline pole and that you accidentally froze your dick to it.”

Another thing I learned very quickly about Fee is that she’s got a wonderfully crude sense of humor.

My cheeks stretch and my lips pull to the side again. “No, I didn’t freeze my dick to a metal pole, but I did almost freeze.”

Freed of my layers, and only in fleece sleep pants and a sweatshirt, instead of blinking there, I sprint over to the bed, vaulting over the footboard with childlike enthusiasm.

The bed springs springing back, give Fee a good bounce and I knew this would make her laugh. That was part of the point of it, but it’s also because I am so flippin cold. Hiding outside was to avoid going to bed with her, but the reality is, this is exactly where I want to be.

I want it way too much, hence a major part of my problem.

Once I have crawled up next to her, I waste no time shuffling my body under the mound of blankets. When my freezing foot locks down over hers, she jolts from the chilly assault, but she doesn’t pull away because she never does. Within seconds, my entire body is warming back up. Currents of heat brush up my leg from our point of contact, spreading through my entire body as I melt into the mattress with a sigh of relief.

“Yowza! You are so cold! Why didn’t you just let me go out there? You could have pissed in that lovely chamber pot, or did your business and just came back in. You were out there for almost an hour, what the heck were you thinking?”

Unenthusiastically, I look over at the pot she’s referring to. I have used the pot. It was in my first days here when I didn’t want to make her carry me outside.

Looking at her overly sourly, I say, “I hate that thing and I won’t use it.”

She chuckles at that. “You hate a lot of things, one of them being cold, but you just willingly went out in it and stayed out when you didn’t need to. You are such a stubborn asshat. Sometimes I think you do things like this just to drive me nuts. It’s like your secret superpower that no one else ever was lucky enough to be privy to.” She sneaks a hand under the blankets and lightly prods my side, to provoke me further.

I want to ‘provoke’ her right back, but instead I frown at her.

She merely raises a brow, brining it on even more. “You know, Five, you could have just whacked-off in here?”

A puff of air rushes out of my chest and I think my face just lit on fire, but I stick my head further out of the blankets anyway, defiantly jutting my chin at her.

“My family was privy to my assholery, and I wasn’t whacking off. I was chopping wood and you know it.”

I seriously can’t think of anything better to retaliate with, and that’s probably because I have whacked off plenty of times while wandering around outside with her on my mind, and talking about jerking it right now isn’t helping me get my shit together or think with even the tiniest bit of intelligence.

Her body quakes with laughter as I narrow my eyes at her. “Yeah. Playing with your wood, like I said," she beautifully chackles.

Fully rolling over in her direction, I do my best pouty face. She gives me one right back.

“Miss, Leroux, you are awful.” I have to bite the inside of my cheek to hold in my smile.

There’s scratching around under the blankets, and I can feel Fee fishing around until she finds my hand closest to her where it’s tucked under my tightly crossed arms. Her warm fingers wrap around mine as she offers a much less naughty look.

My stomach flutters from her touch and my heart rate kicks up accordingly.

“I am sorry. I’m just messing with you because you make it so darn easy. You know I love you, Five. I wouldn’t want to be here with any other asshat than you, and that’s only partly because you’re the special teleporting kind that is going to get us out of this apocalyptic shit hole.”

I can’t help my truly contented smile from hearing her say that she loves me. I know it’s not in that way, but I love that she says it, and how she’s looking at me right now, and that she’s touching me for reasons other than to warm me up, but it’s doing that too despite her intentions.

Phoebe’s strawberry blonde hair is tied back in her nightly braid, but the wavey pieces framing her face are just begging for me to tuck them back behind her ears. Just the memory of brushing her hair back so I could see her better while she pleasured me, how soft everything about her feels, how those pink lips felt against my own, and on my…

Fuck me, I need to go back outside.

I could lay here all night and stare at her while fighting boners, but I force myself to roll on my back again and she does the same about a minute later.

I feel her wiggle closer, causing our hips to touch as we both gaze up at the ceiling, watching the fire light dance on the beams.

“Someday we’ll leave this place,” I breathe. Getting us out of this is the most important thing. Her unintentionally reminding me of that important point has my fucked-up mind on my most recent equations and time dilation sequences rather than on her lips and my dick, and that’s a very good thing. “I’ll figure it out. I promise, I will.”

“I know you will because you are this planet's one and only, time traveling mastermind. Number Five Hargreeves, you are our only hope.” She softly laughs at me as she pulls her hand away from mine but not before sneaking in a quick tickle.

Man, do I want to tickle her, but I’m scared I won’t be able to stop there.

“Okay, that’s it,” I say squirming a little as her nails dig in between my ribs. “You’ve been allotted your making fun of Five time slot for the day. It’s time to be quiet. Keep those tiny magical heater feet of yours on me and go to bed, mean girl.” I say it with disgruntled authority, but I can’t help the full smile I am wearing.  

“You like it when I tease you.”

I do, but my response is nothing more than a dismissive huff that makes her let out another girly little giggle.

I peek her direction just in time to see her eyes shutting. She’s still smiling that curious smile of hers that I can only conclude means that she is happy and that makes me happy. What I want doesn’t matter when it comes to more than this.

I carefully move my arm out from under the bedding, taking Dolores’s hand in mine.

“Just tell her. It will be okay. Everything is okay now that we have her,” she whispers.

My tired eyes close and the fuzzy black and white stars start dancing behind my lids, but those lips and that smile will forever be imprinted in my mind and not even sleep lets me forget them. Soon, images and of the feel of her will fill my dreams, they always do.

------Sleepy, happy Five....

----------

The thing about winter in the Apocalypse is it’s even more unbearable to be outside than normal. We hardly ever go out lately, but that wasn’t stopping me this morning when I woke pre-dawn, determined to complete a very important mission.

Christmas is only a few days away and I have nothing for Fee. We are almost always together when scavenging and that’s for safety and practicality reasons, but today I snuck out early while she was still sleeping.

Months ago, while out foraging with her, I found a guitar in a case in the remains of someone’s bedroom. I didn’t even think to tell her about it or take it because I was so used to being solely focused on finding and bringing back only what I needed to survive. Looking back on that now, and the fact that I know Fee loves to play and is very good at it, I can’t believe I didn’t even consider taking it for her. It’s the perfect gift.

I wrote a note, stating that I’d be gone for an hour or so. I was hoping that she wouldn’t even wake up until I was back.

That was three hours ago now.

Even before I got down to the valley floor and started making my way through the deep snow to the closest town, the storm clouds were ominously moving in from the east and the freezing winds were cutting through the mask protecting my face. Being I’m on the western side of the range, I had no way of knowing how bad things were going to get, but even that is not a great excuse for putting myself in this situation.

The snow is falling fast, and the gusts are blowing it in such a way that I can hardly see a few feet in front of me at times. I think I’m on the right path, maybe?

Stopping, I clomp my snowshoes around in a circle formation as I recheck where I am. North, South, East, West, it all looks the same right now. Blinking won’t even get me back since I can’t orient myself.

“Shit.”

Fee is going to be livid.

Checking my compass and readjusting the strap on the case I have slung on my back, I start trudging uphill again, moving East. I’m going approximately the right direction. I’m sure I will see a landmark of some kind soon.

Not for over another hour do I know for certain I’m getting close. By then, I am too exhausted to pull off a jump.

By the time I am heading up the twisting inclined path that is the road into what is now Fee and my property, I have been gone a total of six and half hours.

Fee has the door of the cabin open even before I can make it to the snow buried steps.

Raising my stiff arm, I push my ski goggles up with my frozen mitten. Phoebe crashes into me, flinging her arms around me even though I am covered in ice and snow.

“Fee, I’m so-"

My snow blindness begins to clear after a few slow blinks.

Oh, shit. She’s crying.

“I thought you were gone! I looked everywhere. There weren’t even any tracks!” she hysterically sobs.

She’s holding me so tight that I can feel her shaking and I know it’s not from the cold.

“I’d never leave you,” I say, holding her right back, but it’s more like I’m pathetically slumped around her smaller frame.

Fuck, I feel like such a bastard.

With her tears streaking down her cheeks and the snow sprinkling her hair in downy white, she lets me go, but only enough to start towing me inside, loudly slamming the door behind us as I tiredly slouch into the closest kitchen chair.

I can hardly move, and I know I’m in deep shit.

Fee wipes at her eyes, as she kneels in front of me. Still sniffling, she immediately starts unstrapping my boots out of my snowshoes. She looks back up at me once my boots are thrown off, but she doesn’t release my sore feet from her hot hands. I wiggle my toes to give her confirmation that I didn’t turn them into two blocks of ice with my ill-timed expedition.

“What were you thinking? You could have died out there.” She releases my feet, and her hands come up to rub her temples.

I don’t know what to say. I feel so bad. She looks so hurt and that’s not at all what I wanted.

“I am sorry, I wanted to-"

I stop, taking a deeply defeated breath as my shame sets in even more. Dropping my head, I reach back and pull the frozen strap off my shoulder, bringing the hard black guitar case around in front of her.

Fee looks confused, meaning she’s so upset that she hadn’t even noticed it yet.

She takes it and I slowly lean back as I watch her unlatch the two clasps holding it closed. Her eyes run over the polished black acoustic guitar inside. All its strings are still intact, but even if they aren’t good, there are several other packages of new ones inside the case along with a few other things someone like her would know how to use.

“I wanted to get you a present. Merry early Christmas, Fee.”

Now, after seeing how anguished she is, this hardly seems like a good explanation for what I did, but it’s all I have.

Her brows pull down as her lips push out in a quivering pout.

Shit, she’s crying again.

Before I know it, Phoebe sets my gift aside, pushes up from the floor and starts draping herself around me again, only this time she’s got me pinned to the chair with her bottom in my lap, her spread legs dangled at my sides, and her magical warm lips pressing into mine.

I have wanted this for so long, but I can’t even begin to comprehend what is happening right now.

Worried that I’m going to scare her off, I very gradually turn my face up to get a better angle to kiss her back.

Her hips subtly rub up against mine in response and even through my sub-zero snow gear, I can feel it in all the right, or maybe wrong ways.

“Mmmmm- mmmfff!”

I am not even close to being able to hold that embarrassingly high-pitched moan in as she pushes herself closer and her hands move inside my hood, her hot fingers forcing their way under the heavy scarf still wrapped around neck.

Not sure what to do, I very hesitantly bring my hands up on her waist, slowly moving back down her curves until they are wrapped behind her, gently holding her bottom.

Despite my best efforts to contain myself, my tongue has a mind of its own and it darts out in my increasingly excited state, but she doesn't seem to mind. Fee letting me kiss her like this feels so good that my damn head feels like it could roll right off my shoulders. If not for her fingers splayed out on the back of my skull as they lightly tug at my hair, I'm sure it would. Phoebe clearly has me secured where she wants me.

Fuck… She wants me.

Maybe?

Yes.

Obviously.

I think…

“Fff-fff-e-Fee?”

“Hmm?” she hums back, still not stopping with her kisses. Now they are moving from my lips to my jaw, and-

My legs both spontaneously tense and my hands inside my mittens clench as I try to latch on to her ass even tighter.

“Ahh-ya-you- Ahhhh.” My words fail to land in a way that’s coherent as her mouth moves to what she can get of my neck.

Holy fuck, this feels amazing and it’s getting so hot in here or maybe it’s just me. Fuck. It’s both. I wish I wasn’t wearing all this crap.

My little goddess of fire and ice works me over a little more before she graces me with her stunning blue eyes gazing into my own much less alluring and very droopy ones.

Her plump pink lips spread in a coy looking smile as she speaks. “Thank you for the gift.”

“You like it?”

She nods a yes as she bites her lower lip with her upper teeth.

“Am I out of the doghouse then?” I question, even though I feel pretty certain I am.

Fee softly laughs at my question and maybe even at my attempt at a funny expression, which consists of me trying to conjure up some major puppy dog eyes for her. “You were never in it. I was just so scared I’d lost you.”

“I am so sorry. I never met to scare you. I would never leave you, Fee.” I pause and my words come out shaking as I say them but it’s only because of how much I mean them. “I’m hopelessly in love with you, Phoebe. You are everything to me.”

Suddenly her face looks so sad again and I desperately want to take back what I just said.

My eyes frantically search hers, but I don’t know what I’m seeing in them.

“I wanted to give you something special. You have done so much for me,” I further explain, because I don’t know what to say or do.

Her normally sure voice cracks just a little. “All I want is you, Five. You are my special, I thought you knew that by now.”

“You want me?”

“Yes. I love you. I want to be there for you, and with you in every way if you are ready for it. I thought you understood that.”

Oh.

My eyes dart around as my brain tries to figure out what I have been missing all these months. Dolores is sitting on the tiny sofa next to the fireplace and the moment I lay eyes on her, she rolls her eyes at me, giving me one of her ‘I told you so looks.’

Before I can come up with an answer to that, Fee kisses me again and as soon as she does, my mind can do nothing but think of her lips and how they feel moving with my own.

Fee’s hands make fast work of unzipping my outer coat but when they dig inside and she finds that I am basically like a human Russian Doll, because I have layer upon layer of clothing on, she bursts out laughing even as I am trying to entice her into another round of tongue war.

“Five, I think you need to remove some of this, or you are going to spontaneously combust.”

“Too late, I think I am already on fire, Amore mio.” I boldly lift my hips, while pulling her up against the bulge in my pants that I am not even sure she knows is there because of the sheer amount of thermal insulation between us. Fee actually looks a little nervous as she glances over my shoulder, looking out the window at the storm for a second or two before locking eyes with me again. “Was that okay?” I worriedly ask.

“Yes.”

I don’t think a one-word answer could ever give me more relief, but then again, I just finally declared my love for her and she isn’t running for the hills, and I also just realized she loves me more than as a friend, so I’m pretty much on cloud nine thousand nine hundred and ninety zillion.

"Amore mio, posso portarti al nostro letto?" I question as I glance over at our bed.    (My love, can I take you to our bed?)

“Five, you must be confused. You know I don’t speak your and Dolores’s secret love language.”

True. Fee doesn’t speak Italian, that’s one of the reasons I use it when speaking to Dolores. That way this firey little redhead can’t understand what we are talking about.

I don’t speak French fluently, but Fee does, so for her, I’ll give it a whirl.

“Mon amour, puis-je vous livrer à notre lit?” I nervously bite my lip as I wait for her reply. (My love, may I deliver you to our bed?)

Fee’s beautiful blue eyes wrinkle at the corners. “Oui.”

Not wanting to let her go yet, I summon all my strength as I start to stand but lifting her up with me turns out way easier than I thought because she’s so light, and the moment she realizes what I’m doing, she locks her legs around my waist.

My heart is fucking racing from adrenalin as carry her across the small room and drop her down on the bed.

“Are you sure?”

“Sì, il mio cuore,” she whispers as she looks back up at me with a wicked smirk.   (Yes, my heart.)

That was a big wonderful yes, and to my surprise, it was in perfect Italian, meaning Phoebe has been bull shitting me for months saying she doesn’t understand a word I say to Dolores. As my mind is reeling, thinking of all the little things she’s no doubt been picking up on, her hands fall on the hem of her sweater, pulling it up over her head, before tossing it over one of the bed posts.

I stop breathing and I think my heart stops all together.

There are those perfect breasts I wanted to see so badly when my hands were on them five years ago.

Not thinking, with only my outer coat off and my snow pants unzipped and pulled part way down, I stumble over them in my haste to get closer to her again.

Fee laughs when I crash land on the bed but try to play it off like I meant to do it.

“Oh my God, Five. I love having you around, you are such a sexy klutz.”

Eyes fixed on her, I anxiously yank my pants off and start working on my two extra layers of sweaters. “Baby, I’m here for whatever you need, even if it’s your daily dose of comic relief. Just don’t tell anyone that I let you get away with all your cute teasing shit or I'll be forced to punish you.”

She laughs again. “Har-har, Mr. Scary. There’s no one to tell other than Dolores and she already knows you’re a big closet softy and she thinks your hilarious too.”

Having pulled my head out of my last heavy layer, I hesitate, trying to decide if I should take of my cotton long sleeve.

Fuck it.  Fee has seen the good, the bad and the ugly and she still loves me for some reason. Right now, I am pretty sure my hair is sticking straight up, and she looks like she could care less about how stupid I look.

“Hey,” I sternly admonish, “Dolores doesn’t pick on me. That’s your thing and yours alone, and it's high time you get fucked with.” I hit her back with the most menacing look I can.

Laying splayed out waiting for me in all her bare breasted glory, Fee merely shrugs as if she is not at all intimated and she knows that’s not true about Dolores. The damn thing of it is, my fucked-up brain is instantly wondering what kinds of things Dolores tells her about me when I’m not around, because that was lie. Dolores fucks with me all the time.

Thinking of Dolores again, I spontaneously blink over to her, quickly facing her body that way so she’s a part of this too. She’s been waiting for it, so there’s no way I’m going to deny my lovely loyal lady.

When I blink back, I land on top of Fee with my elbows supporting the weight from my upper half, but my lower half is flush with hers, pressing into the space between her legs with intent. I immediately start kissing her again and she lets me, but she also seems to be unable to stop laughing, so I halt my attack.

“What was that all about?” she breathlessly asks as she looks up at me with her beautiful smile and her rosy cheeks illuminating the rest of her beauty to a starling degree.

Pulling together all the confidence I can, I quirk a brow at her as I move my hand closer to her cheek, letting my fingers tenderly brush against it. “Dolores likes to watch. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“Watch what?” she pushes back sounding so innocent but the look in her eyes is anything but.

“You want to see?”

“Yes,” she taunts as if she thinks she can call my bluff.

Wrong.

My body is so revved-up from pent up horniness, and this siren of a woman lying under me just asked for it, and she knows me in ways no one else ever will, so I figure why not. I have little to no shame left.

With no warning, I drop my face down against her neck, as I drive my cock down between her legs.

“Oh, fuck me, I love your legs!” I groan out with my nose pressed up just under her ear as my hand at her side moves to grip her thigh and I rut into her.

Fee lets out a sound of shock over me saying that and doing this, but when it turns into a whimper and her head fall to the side to give me more access, I increase my efforts both with the rock of my hips and my mouth. To answer back to that, she rips one of my hands off the bed, forcing my hot palm down over her breast. That lets me know for sure that she’s more than okay with me showering her with the kinds of affections Dolores is used to, and that in playing out my perversions, I’m actually doing something right.

Letting myself go, I begin kissing her sweet smelling skin any way that I see fit, soft, hard, nips, and licks, it all feels so good, so I grind myself into her harder, my core muscles flexing and my hips moving as if I am fucking her even though I am not inside her and I have never fucked anything other than my hand, her mouth, and too many inanimate objects to count, including hundreds of cushions and pillows, but also sometimes my Dolores.

Phoebe is so soft and responsive, and I know Dolores is seeing all this and loving it, and that is messing with me, but because I’m clearly a warped little bastard, it’s turning me on even more.

Again, with no warning, I stop dry humping Fee, quickly sitting up off her so I can latch on to the tops of her leggings, but I stop short of pulling them down, looking up at her hopefully.

“I want to make you feel good too, will you please show me how?” I ask.

Fee’s wide eyes move from mine, downwards, stopping on my crotch area where my pants are sticking out in a very notable way. 

She giggles at the sweet tent I'm proudly sporting, then says, “You were already doing a pretty nice job of things, but I can teach you if you want. First, you need to take those sweatpants off before you hurt yourself.” 

I glance down at my hard-on, then back at her with a big smirk on my face. “I am very skilled when it comes to sexual rubbing with my clothes on, but I can see your point. You first though."

I purse my lips as I narrow my eyes at her. She responds by lifting her hips so I can pull her leggings off.

Oh fuck. She's wearing red panties!

She had a similar pair on the night I met her. 

Both her brows lift as her grin spreads the more I stare. “Five, sweetie... Take your pants off right now or I'll make you."

“Oh, really,” I cockily taunt back, but I lose all my bravado when she drops her hand between her legs and slowly starts rubbing her fingers over the lacey fabric that is creating a ‘v’ over her mysterious lady parts.

“Yes, really. Now take them off,” Fee orders.

Eyes trained on her hand, I quickly kick them off, then come back to her, on my knees with my hard shaft in hand, at the ready.

“What do I do?”

Her hand slides up and under her panties, pushing them down as her knees come up so she can get them off. The red lace goes flying over my head and boy do I love those red panties, but holy shit do I love them more on the floor.

“First, what you do is, you touch me, like this.” Fee slips her index finger between her folds, pressing the tip down as she slides it up and down, slowly but firmly.

Wetting my lips with my tongue, I flip my head to the side, anxiously flicking my hair out of my eyes as my hand reflexively works my cock.

“Five, it’s unbelievably hot watching you do that while I touch myself but even as good of a student as I know you are, the best way to learn is hands on, not just to observe.”

I need no other invitation. Coming down over her again, the sensation of flesh on flesh has every nerve ending in my body supercharged. As I carefully mold myself to one of her legs, Fee reaches out, taking my shaking hand, placing it where hers had just been and already I am a changed man.

Fuck...

Chapter Six: Ain't No Place for a Hero to Call Home

Holding the woman that you love while you sleep is akin to transcending into a supernatural place where you are lighter than air and all your worries just float away. Waking up next to your lover is even better.

I know that me saying that is a lot like that whimsical crap dad warned me with the day I took off and ended up in here, but just like that crazy sliding along ice then descending blindly as an acorn bullshit that I should have listened to, this is also so fucking true.

I am certain that the magical reactions of a woman’s body to different forms of touch will never cease to amaze me. In my opinion, females are much more complex than men, both mentally and sexually, but despite that, I am absolutely going to ace the art of getting my girl off. I probably never will figure out her beautiful mind, but this, finding ways to make her all mine, over and over again, I will master this glorious deed.

“Am I doing it right, Professor Honey Bunny?”

I purposefully hum my silly words against the nap of Fee’s neck, nuzzling my nose up into her hairline as I breathe in her flowery scent and rub my slicked cock up and down between her ass cheeks.

First lesson when it comes to real women, and it’s one that I managed to figure out without Fee outright telling me, is that they love it when you whisper or speak softly anywhere near their ear.

The second lesson is that they also love it when you are boldly willing to let go of shame and fall all over them with your adoring and sometimes perverted affections. Nothing proves your love than letting your defenses down and not being scared that they see who you really are, which for me is a total perv and a major dork.

When Phoebe doesn’t answer my question with anything other than a muted sighing sound, I find that’s not good enough for my continued educational purposes, so I up my game, sliding my fingers faster between her legs.

“How about this?” I try again.

Fee reacts to that change of pace quick enough, her bottom pushing back against me, pressing my erection even tighter between us as her head falls back against my shoulder while she moans so perfectly wantonly.

Getting a much better reaction, I can’t resist my excitement or sinking my teeth into the soft curve of her neck, applying just enough pressure to make her mouth fall open as she releases a quick and very feminine sounding rush of air with the hint of the letter ‘F’ in it.

Whether she meant that as my name or fuck, doesn’t matter, both are good with me.

My mouth goes back to applying much gentler kisses. Eventually, I move my licks and kisses to her ear again where I then drag my tongue along the shell of it before I let my breath cascade down, tickling the moist trail I just left on her skin.

Her body shivers and wriggles against me.

“I’ll take that as a, yes?” I smart back, not at all trying to hide how proud I am.

Lesson three when it comes to real women is knowing that you have the power to make them writhe is a huge turn on. Thanks to Fee’s guidance, I am now capable of driving her crazy, but as my clever girl already knew, that’s a win for both parties.

My lady love lets out the prettiest little laugh when I nip her again. “Yes, Five,” she giggles. “What you are doing feels so unbelievably good. Congratulations, you can consider yourself graduated with honors when it comes to finger fucking and ass humping.”

I know Fee’s teasing me for being so arrogant and because I am literally fucking her butt cheeks, but she does so lightly, while also tenderly running her hand over the top of mine as it fervently works her.

Wanting to mess with her more, I force myself to speak as seriously as possible as I add, “That’s good you are enjoying my latest break of dawn boner on your ass attack, but I’m trying for doctoral level mastery in all subjects ‘getting off.’ So ready yourself, little firecracker, because I am going to be doing major research and it’s starting with documenting all the ways I can hump you and make you cum at the same time.”

Fee’s body starts jiggling again as she starts laughing at me in her delightfully breathless way. I knew she’d get a kick out of more of my jackass commentary, and that’s the point of it. Adding to her already losing it over my usual absurdity, I start passionately rutting my dick up on her like a mindless wild animal.

“See,” I exclaim, “You better hang on, honey. It’s going to get very bumpy.”

“You mean, humpy,” she corrects, still laughing at me.

I love making Fee laugh, she is the joy in my life I never had before.

Since our Christmas weekend together a month and half ago, Fee has taught me plenty about what makes women feel good, and I have been one hell of an eager student for her. I can blame my fervor for all things sex related on my younger age all I want, but Fee is well aware that it’s not just that.

The escapism of her body and the sheer bliss of shutting out all else while in the act of searching for my release is entirely addicting for me. During my first years alone here, it’s the only thing I had that took me away from my suffering. It became a near daily reward system for surviving this hell. Now I still cling to it, but not so much for the same reasons.

Fee is my everything.

She makes me so unbelievably happy every day in the simplest of ways that have nothing to do with sex. That said, feeling my cock slip and slide on Phoebe is otherworldly. So much better than dry humping pillows and harder objects that chaff and dry out much faster when my pre-cum and spit fail me. I tend to prolong my sexual exploits for as long as I possibly can and playing with Fee and her seemingly infinite ability to stay wet for me is fucking great.

I dig my fingers into her slender waist, searching for more leverage as my hips frantically pump my cock against her. Through the sweaty fringe of my hair, I can see Dolores in her chair next to us. Her cheeks are flushed so beautifully from lasciviously watching me take Fee like this. As thrilled as she looks by my valiant efforts to entertain her, I can’t help but notice that she also looks slightly pissed.

Five Hargreeves-Brainless insensitive jerk.

I am sorry. I meant no offense, sweetheart. I like the fact that you are hard and that we have our own special way of doing this. Your smooth, wonderfully cool breasts are still high up there on my list of favorite places to fuck. I’ll prove it to you later if our little red head is down to watch, but right now, I’m a-

“Oh, fuck!” I moan, my forehead pressing against Fee’s neck.

I am about to come already, and thinking about going full freak mode with Dolores while Fee watches, and maybe if I am lucky even joins the fun by playing with herself, isn’t helping reign it in.

Easing back a little, I force myself to push down the growing tension in my belly and the tightening waves of pleasure threatening to burst from my loins. Then I shove my whole hand down lower, pressing Fee’s pubic mound against my palm to keep applying proper fiction while my index finger begins dipping inside her tight entrance.

“Ahh -hha, ya-ye..ssss,” Fee whines so endearingly.

I risk glancing at Dolores again and she offers me one of her warm smiles.

‘That’s it, Five. Just focus on Fee a little longer. I’m not mad that you enjoy this. Don’t worry about me. You know I only want what’s best for you and this is.’

As always, Dolores' encouragement over Fee and I is never ending, and I love her so much for it. I love them both so much, and I know I’m nuts for entertaining all this madness still, but I can’t help it. I still hear Dolores even though now I am not alone anymore. Amazingly, Fee is just as understanding as her, because she lets me get away with this crazy shit too.

Listening to Dolores, I let go of Fee’s hip to further disengage myself. Instead, I latch onto one of her warm breasts, probably too roughly, but she doesn’t complain, so I don’t stop aggressively groping her.

“Baby, I want to fuck these sweet tits of yours so bad. I am going to make a mess of you when I paint your beautiful chest with my sticky seed.”

Fee’s laughter bursts out of her. “Five, you are so freaking cute. I love it when you try to talk dirty.”

“Cute?” I grunt in shock. “I am not cute, and I am not trying, honey. I am dirty.”

Finding a jerking rhythm, of hard, then soft, hard than soft, I show my girls just how I like it, and that I am not ‘cute.’ Knowing that Fee is plenty ready for it, I finally let two fingers plunge all the way inside her, angling them up the way she taught me so I am hitting her right where she can’t help but cry out.

“Yes, Five! Y-e-e-e-s-s-s-”

One of many other lessons about sex I’ve learned is that the build to the finish is over ninety percent the fun of it, so taking it slow at first and upping the level of intensity as you go is key to being a good lover.

Thank you, Fee.

My smile fortifies my words, as I keep up my pace inside her and up my filth factor. “I know just how wet it gets you two lovely ladies when I talk about blowing my load on you, and I love how open-minded you both are of my objectionable behaviors, but it looks like you’re going to have to wait for that titty fucking another time. I am very close, and Dolores is right, you need to come first. Is this going to be enough to get you there or do you want me to fuck you with my mouth too?”

“Fiv-ive-yo-you are fucking mee-ee just fine as you are, don’t you thhhh-ink?” Fee stammers as I slam against her.

“I could do better, honey. I know I can.”

I’d stop humping Fee and dive pussy deep like I said, but I honestly want to be next her, wrapped around her, because this feels like I am actually fucking her, or as close as I can get to it.

Fuck, do I want to stick my dick inside her and make her come with it. With me. I think about it all the time.

It’s not so much that this isn't enough, because it is. It’s just that we can’t do that. We can do everything but that.

Fee had plenty of medical supplies, personal care items, and medicine and other valuable things with her when she arrived here, but no birth control methods of any kind. She didn’t need it.

Since our being together like this, neither of us have found anything in our scavenging that looks like it’s still any good or worth the risk of trying it. Thanks to the nature of condoms being extremely thin latex, they unfortunately did not survive the intense heat of the near atomic blasts. And the birth control pills and other options that we’ve found are always melted in their packaging or destroyed from exposure and moisture.

Like so many things, birth control in the apocalypse is a problem.

Talk of having a child together is something we have only done in terms of getting back to the real world first. Once the world isn’t going to end and we are safe from the dangers of our current situation, then I want nothing more than to someday have a family with Phoebe if we can. Here, the risks are something I refuse to entertain. I can’t lose Fee. Just the thought of something bad happening to her because of complications from a pregnancy makes me sick.

This, what we have, is more than I ever dreamed possible.

“Fee, I love you so much. Come on, fuuu-ccckkk,” I anxiously groan, because I’m almost there again.

I feel her squirming as she searches for anything to ground her. Her small feet eventually end up locked around my own, helping to anchor us both. My fingers keep getting the tell tail sign that her climax is coming because her body keeps tensing around them as her breaths hitch for longer and longer periods.

Letting go again, I pull back enough to take my reddened cock in hand, directing it between her legs to re-wet it. The sensation makes my head feel dizzy.

“Oh fuck, yes, Five ! That’s it, leave it there. Baby, fuck me,” she moans.

Yup, I love the sound of that, but I don’t understand what she wants. I can’t fuck her like this. Not really.

Still positioned with my hips pressed up behind her and my length in my hand that’s wedged up against her delicious wet cunt, Fee begins to tighten her thighs around me.

I pull in a very unsteady breath as I loudly and frantically pant her name. “Fee?!”

My voice sounds so young, so unsure with its higher-than-normal pitch, but it's only because I am totally freaking out.

“Five, it’s ok. Do it like this. We will be super careful.” With my chin resting on her shoulder, I watch as Fee reaches out and grabs her shirt off the table next to her side of the bed. She tightens on me even more, her slender thighs working hard to encase me between them where my cock is now lying as motionless as my hand.

“I don’t-"

I don’t know what to say…

Fee reaches down, dragging my hand away from her heat.

“Fee?” I question again as my tacky fingers fall against her hip.

“It’s okay. This will feel just as good to me as your fingers. Just do it. Pretend you are fucking me, please, do it. I want to feel you like this so bad.”

I want it too.

Fuck.

As if her words are a knife to my throat, I instantly react, pulling back just enough to not slip all the way out of this confined love trap she made in the cavass between her legs, shoving back into her warmth.

And yeah. The feel of her desire wetting me as I slide, her swollen folds encasing me while her thighs tremble from her effort to keep them tightly clenched, it’s…

“Fuck,” I grunt as I thrust faster, making her have to cling to my hands on her hips where I now have them both locked, keeping us latched together.

That’s it.

This is too fucking great.

I can’t think of an objection no matter how hard I try.

It’s not like Fee hasn’t let me run my cock over her sex before, but I have only done it very cautiously from the front for fear of getting even the tiniest amount of my semen inside her.

This… It’s so close, so dangerous, but it’s so damn incredible. I could just slip inside her. I know I could. I can see it in my mind. I know the head of my cock is pushing out between her legs, covered in her love for me, and soon I won’t be able to contain my explosive desire for her as it streams out on the bedding. I’m going to pretend it is filling Fee, and I am very good at pretending.

Thinking about doing that, my body flames with fresh sparks of ecstasy, and I let loose, fucking her as fast as I can.

The increased friction is enough for Fee to dig her short fingernails across the tops of my hands, causing them to sting. Thankfully, even though I’m on another planet doing this, I feel it when her body begins to shudder in that familiar way that makes me so fucking proud every time it happens.

“Ohhh-fff, this feels so fucking-” I growl out as deeply as I can just below her ear as she gives herself over to her orgasm. “Fee, this feels so fucking-” I can’t even finish. I bite down viciously on my lower lip as I rail her, my pelvis absolutely thwacking against her round rosy ass, making the most wonderful kind of sound from our hot and sweaty skin-to-skin contact. “Ffff-"

My back arches and my eyes slam shut as my hips shunt in a very non rhythmic pattern. I am only partly aware of the sensation of Fee releasing my cock from her clamped together legs so she can jerk me through the last currents of utterly mind-blowing fuck tingles that are violently ripping through me.

Once I have some of my brain back at my disposal, I very groggily open my eyes. “That was…fuck .”

Fee laughs as she wipes me clean with her shirt. “Yes. Yes, it was. Another job well done, mon amour. You are the best student ever, but I am not at all surprised by that.”     (My love-in French)

“Ti amo così tanto, prometto che non mi lascerai mai...” I whisper back, shutting my eyes again as I nuzzle my face against her neck. Soon I am falling into one of my many early morning naps while spooning the woman I love. We never even left our bed to start the day, but I'm right where I want to be.   (I love you so much, promise you will never leave me-in Italian),

~~~~~~~~~~

On the couch behind me, I hear the slow rhythmic strum of another cord. I love it when Fee plays like this. Between the soothing sounds of the guitar and the sound of the early spring rain softly pattering our metal roof, I feel so unbelievably relaxed and content.

I know I am not supposed to be happy living life in the apocalypse, but with Fee, I am. I am more settled and happier than I have ever been. I can easily pretend that we are in our own little world by choice, not because we are the only ones left, and I often find that I do and can’t help it. I am just that happy. I am in love with the perfect girl, and she is in love with me too.

I smile as I peek behind me. Phoebe senses me looking and looks up. She smiles back at me as she strums and plucks the strings, effortlessly making a song that is as beautiful as she is.

“My red-headed one, I want to be your everything…” I begin to sing as I fish around in the soapy water looking for another fork that I know is in there. “Fill your plate with me, lick and lap all you want, baby. I am all yours… I want to be consumed by your love…”

My impromptu attempt at serenading my lady love, and calling her by the literal and very fitting definition of her last name, is met with the breathy sound of Fee trying not to laugh at my very stupid lyrics.

I drop my cleaned dish in the drying rack and pick up another, using my cloth to scrub off the remnants of the shockingly satisfying wild mushrooms and rice that we made for dinner. There’s still no major growth outside of any kind, but that’s not stopping my crafty girl from finding all kinds of interesting and safe to eat fungus, or from attempting to start some seeds in the uncontaminated soil inside our green house. Maybe, if we are very lucky, by the time the longer warmer days fully set in, we will have fresh vegetables every now and then.

We love to fight over which will be better, the tomatoes or the cucumbers. Like the immature fool I am, I tell Fee she only thinks the cucumbers are going to better because they remind her of my amazing dick. She tells me I am amazing, but not just because my male parts are very nice. Fee always finds ways to tease me and feed my relentless ego. Finding that delicate balance to keep me in check is just one of her many talents.

Talking stupid and naughty always gets my lady smiling, so I am always going to do it. There is no shortage of love between us or laughs. Food on the other hand is, and always will be an issue for us. Even with the stores of dry things like rice and beans, and vacuum sealed seeds for potential future plantings that were left here, we still worry.

Thinking of food…

I loudly clear my throat, letting Fee know she’s in for another good line. “I want to be your breakfast in bed. I’ll be your food. I’ll run your bubble bath, make you laugh…  Tu me fais voir la vie en rose,” I croon, adding that last bit as French as I can, but even if it's wrong, I make sure to use my best sexy voice I can produce.  ('You make me see life in pink'-meaning, with you, I see life as perfect or through rose colored glasses- a similar line from the song Vie en Rosa.)

“Oh my God!” she sputters. “That’s it, Hargreeves. You are killing me over here. I’m not so sure about this ‘you being my food’ thing that you’re going on about, but in case you weren't already aware of it, you are one hell of a very sexy muse. Come here and let me teach you something new, you big goof.”

More than ready to please my girl, I excitedly pull the plug on the wash basin and aimlessly chuck my rag before bounding over to her. Crashing in next to her on our tiny loveseat, I look over at her with a big stupid smile as I try to suggestively wiggle one eyebrow at her. It’s a total sexy fail, and I know it, but that’s the point. Fee thinks I am irresistibly sexy when I am silly and that's because I am not normally a silly person.

It's all for her.

Another lesson with women, they like it if you are smart, but they don’t need to be reminded of it, especially if it’s in the arrogant, ass-hole-ish way I used to lay on thick for pretty much everyone.

“Teach away, baby. Like I said, I am all yours,” I push when she merely eyes me with that pretty smirk of hers.

When Fee doesn’t put the guitar away, that should have been the first sign she wasn’t planning on teaching me something new in the form of pleasuring her. But it wasn’t because I am a total boner.

Taking my hand in hers, she shifts my arms so that the black body of the instrument is in my lap, not hers. Placing my left hand on the neck, she positions my fingers around it so the pads of each are pressing down on different strings.

“There,” she says, “You are going to learn to play.”

“I am?”

“Yes.” It takes her a second to stop laughing at how baffled I am. “If you can sing, which you can, albeit somewhat more humorously than sincerely, then you can play and sing. They always complement each other nicely and it's fun. You just need to learn a few basic cords and then you can really get my panties wet with your mad skills.”

“I think I am good with having you as my own personal music box, sweet peaches.” I try to hand the guitar back but she pushes it away, shaking her head.

“Nope, you need a healthy hobby other than running all your big fancy numbers, and trying to find all the ways you can fuck me without fucking me.”

“Those are healthy hobbies.," I said defensively. "You said having a big libido was a good thing for a guy my age.”

Fee ignores that valid point as she stuffs a pillow down behind my back, then she pushes herself up so she can snake her body in behind mine. With her chin resting on my shoulder, she wraps her left hand around mine so she can maneuver my fingers how she wants them.

“There, keep that amount of pressure on those positions and bring your right hand down over the strings like this, Mr. Peaches.”

Her other hand lovingly brushes against my side before it finds my free hand, placing it how she means, with my palm flush against the body of the guitar. “Use the side of your thumb for now, and if you find that you like a pick better later, go for it. Anything goes, it’s all personal preference.”

Moving my hand for me, my thumb lightly jumps over the strings, one by one. I am shocked that a sound rings out that is not awful.

Fee kisses my neck from behind which increases my smile. “You know, I only call you peaches because they are my favorite canned food, and they are orange and sweet and they remind me of you. And I really like what you’re doing back there, ginger,” I say, leaning my head back so she is forced to press her lips on me again.

“I know you do,” she purrs, “but I am not orange. That ‘G’ major wasn’t bad, but your nicknames are. With your long, very clever fingers, you’ll be plucking those strings like a real wild West Virginia mountain man in no time.”

“I’d rather pluck your strings,’ I hum right back.

I can feel Fee’s mouth spread as her warm breath dances over my skin, sending wonderful shivers up my spine.

Maybe thinking I am cold, maybe not, within seconds of her focusing her energy on it, the hearth is filled with flames, working their way through the brush and other smaller pieces of kindling I put in there earlier. She didn’t even have to touch it to ignite it, and that is not the only thing she’s setting on fire.

Having her pressed in behind me like this… Yeah. It’s giving me ideas, but then again, so is her hand gently rubbing my thigh.

“Pay attention,” Fee scolds as she fights with my left hand to get it over the strings again.

Once they are placed differently, she guides my right hand again, only this time down, up, down, down, and up, in a different pattern, skipping the lowest sounding string every time. Again, it doesn’t sound bad. It sounds like music.

“That’s a ‘C’ chord. Not the easiest stretch for some but it’s looking easy enough for a very handsome drink of water like yourself. These fingers of yours, Hargeeves-damn. They are so long and useful,” she teases.

“I am slim and long limbed, but I am not attractive or tall, so saying that colloquial expression doesn’t really apply to me,” I correct.

"Wrong. You are very attractive and compared to me, you are tall,” she laughs.

“Only part true," I laugh back.

I am at least two inches taller than my little woman and I love it. I reverse the positions of our right hands. Gently stroking her hand, the strings under her fingers ring out again, but this time, I am pretty sure not in the way they should.

“Speaking of size, and my long, brilliant fingers, things are getting substantially lengthier in my pants the more you press that hot body of yours on me like that. I think we should do music lessons later. Right now, I think you should keep kissing my neck like that, while I teach you how to give me a reach around whack off.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?”

“Uh-huh,” I softly murmur, placing her hand on my leg again, moving it towards my sizable problem just so she’s fully aware that I’m not completely joking. Once her hand is on me, she gets it, and I know she's going to give in to my audacious request.

I can’t help but let my head flop back and my mouth drop open. My lids automatically close as I relish the feel of her touching me even if it’s just over my pants. “Maybe when you're done taking care of me, I can get on my knees, sit you back, and return the favor?” My words come out so incredibly strained already.

“I would love for you to do that, but first you are going to learn two more chords. Then you will be able to play something satisfying right away.”

"This is already pretty damn satisfying," I argue.

To that remark I get nothing, but her hand does keep moving up and down as I shift myself so she can get at my restrained shaft a little better. Being a musician who can do two very different things with her hands at the same time, she fiddles my clenched fingers on the neck of the guitar in a new way even while stroking me. “Try that one,” she commands, with her mouth tickling the back of my ear.

Right hand shaking, I bring it down over the strings again, making a pleasant sound that is a little deeper sounding.

“Good. That’s an A major.” Fee slides her right hand up my torso, bringing it back down inside the waistband of my pants.

“Fuck Fee. This feels so good,” I breathe when I feel the flesh of her warm hand directly on me.

“I know, baby, and you are doing so good. Just one more, I promise,” she says as she holds the head of my cock in her hand, her thumb rubbing back and forth on the underside, causing me to helplessly whimper. I hardly notice my left hand being repositioned as she spreads my pearly seed round and round my swollen tip. “Again, but try to only hit the four bottom strings,” she says, letting her words vibrate along my upper spine. I strum the strings with an even more unsteady hand. “That’s a D chord. We will save the B and several other nice ones for our next lesson. I am proud of you, Five.”

My hips shunt as Fee brings her hand down over my length again. “You are?” I ask in a fresh moan as she runs her hand further south, tenderly fondling my balls.

“I always am,” Phoebe claims, then kisses the back of my neck so torturously slow, in pace with how she’s handling my cock.

My jaw clenches and I force myself to relax. “Honey. You are driving me crazy.”

“I know. Payback's a bitch, isn’t it?”

Dropping my right hand, I push it inside my already stretched sweatpants, clamping my fingers around hers, forcing her to grip me tighter.

“Harder,” I demand as I show her what I mean, working her hand over me at a much more brutal pace. “This isn’t going to take long,” I warn. Like I usually do, my hips start fucking back up into her hand, increasing the feel that I am actually fucking her. “I love you so much, Fee. You are so good to me. Thank you,” I breathe, releasing her so she can get to it on her own. I reach next to me, grasping her right leg, my knuckles going white as my fingers dig into her calf.

“Rrrhhhaa, Ffffffff,” I groan through clenched teeth as my cock slides up and down in her hand at the pace that makes my brain completely turn off.

Fee’s lips caress my skin, moving along the back side of my shoulder over the fabric of my cotton shirt and back up again. “Five, you are one very horny young man, and I wouldn’t want you any other way because you are young, and you have every right to be horny. I love you too,” she says, letting her words softly vibrate my spine again. “Now, be a good boy and set that beautiful present you gave me down before you accidentally drop it. I am about to get really good for you, baby.”   

Holy fuck. I have no idea what chords I just learned, but I know that I will never forget my first guitar lesson.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bent over with my elbows on my knees, I rock back and forth, my heart racing as my fingers yank at my shaggy hair.

"Mother fucker of all fuckers!"

“Five, take a break,” Fee declares over my tenth outburst in the last half hour.

Opening my tightly clamped eyes, I wearily drag them across the yard in her direction. She is lying under the jeep, trying to see if there’s anything she can do about the cracked coil on the left rear tire. She thinks it happened the night she saved me, but since then we haven’t found a part to fix it. That’s not really the biggest problem though, because the thing won’t start anyway. Sitting all winter didn’t help, but Fee is almost certain that's because of a faulty starter, and we have nothing to fix that either.

With my lack of mechanical know-how, I can do little to help her diagnose all our many vehicle problems. Instead of getting greasy with her, most of the last two days of it finally not blowing like mad while the angry sky also dumped torrents of rain on us, I have been sitting outside with her, plunked down in my rusty old chair, swearing up a whole different kind of shit storm.

I can’t come up with anything that even remotely solves the issue of overcoming the indirect curvature of time and the rapid acceleration of energy needed to traverse it. Going forward when it comes to time travel was child’s play compared to going back. It’s all new, never done before math and concepts, and even with all that I know about it and having actually jumped years forward at a time, I am stumped.

“I can’t fucking figure this out,” I yell as I throw my latest scribble filled notebook down on the grass.

Hearing me really flipping out, Fee pushes herself out from under the vehicle and comes my way, stopping with her oily hands on her hips as she squints at me.

After a moment of silence, she reaches for her hat that’s hanging on the arm of my chair, plunking it down on her head so the sun isn't in her eyes. “You know, I can’t figure this shit out either, but you don’t hear me swearing every two minutes. Getting mad is never helpful. Why don’t you take a break?”

I don’t answer. My eyes dart away from her judgmental looking gaze.

She sighs loudly while bonking my foot with one of her sandals, and that makes me feel like I have to look back. When our eyes meet again, Fee gives me one of her sympathetic looks. “You will figure it out, Five.”

“Yeah, you don’t know that!” I bark back.

Clearly not liking that, she throws her hands up, shaking her head at me. “Maybe you just need something else to go on. We could go back to the city. You said the library there wasn’t a total loss. I am sure we can find texts in the ruins that will have some ideas you can use to expand your theories. I know you’ve been stuck on this for months. I am sorry. I know it’s driving you crazy but please don’t take it out on me.”

“We’ve talked about this, Fee. We can’t go. It’s so dangerous back there. And now, with the river flooding out all the roads around here, and the jeep not working, we can’t make it anywhere unless it’s on foot.”

“We can’t right now, but we can make the trip at some point. I know we can make it together just fine. You are acting like walking is a problem, but if I recall, that’s how you were getting around for five years before I found you.” She grins. “Has staying here in our luxurious mountain abode made you scared of getting your hands dirty or opposed to a few blisters on your cute feet? I thought we were saving the role of pampered princess for Dolores. Shall I start finding pretty little charms to decorate you with too? You know, you would look nice in sequins,” she says with a small laugh at the end.

“Real Nice,” I snap. “Why do you always have to act like you have all the answers? When it comes to this, you clearly don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have been in New York, you haven't! You think that your opinion is the only one that matters. It's like you enjoy making me feel like a little kid!

Fee instantly looks taken aback by my outburst, but she quickly schools her features to hide it. “Five… I was just joking. You know, trying to make you laugh and realize this isn't a big deal. I obviously know you aren't scared of hard work or walking. I never mean to make you feel like a child." She pushes her lips out, looking confused. "I am sorry, I didn't know you felt that I did." She pauses again, looking somewhere over my head with a blankness in her eyes before they come back to mine again. "Five, I don't understand. I am just trying to help.”

“Well, it's not funny and you can’t help with this. So just back off and do your thing and I will do mine!”

Her hands slap against her thighs as she pulls a frown at me. “No , I can’t. You are right. I am sorry that math and time travel really aren’t my thing, but I do my best with what I can help with, even if sometimes that’s putting up with your big boy tantrums.”

I cock my head, glaring at her as my shoulders rise with a tick like twitch that makes my growing anger and inability to control it blatantly obvious, which only pisses me off even more because I'm just proving her right; I am being a baby about this.

Leaving here is a very bad idea and every time Fee mentions it or questions how far I am getting with my calculations, my defenses trigger on a level that I am having a harder and harder hiding.

I feel like she’s trying to set me off on purpose, so I yell, “Fee. Just stop patronizing me, okay!”

“I am not doing that! I am just trying to make you realize that getting mad isn't going to help you.” She swallows several times trying to calm herself back down. Her eyes fall on the ground at my feet as she tosses her wrench back over by her other tools. “You know…” She pauses and my narrowed eyes come back to take on her fresh, icy blue glare. “I probably shouldn't say this, but sometimes I wonder if you are confusing the importance of what we have here with the reality that nothing is more important than getting back. There’s no reason we can’t go back to the city. You lived there on your own for five years and you survived. It clearly wasn’t as bad as the burning hot death hole you accidentally strolled into. You’ve got me with you now either way. Like I said, we will both be fine. If there's a chance that going will help you find the answers you need, then it's worth it. You know that we can't stay here forever.”

My eyes go wide as I jump out of my chair and get in her face. “I fucking know that, and I know you saved me! I know you are taking care of me, Fee! Do you always have to remind me of that!”

“That's not fair and you know it, and that’s not what I was saying. Why are you being so defensive? I am just pointing out that it’s okay to go and we should if it will help you figure out your math.”

“Phoebe, I know just how important getting back to save the entire fucking world is. Forgive me if I want to keep you safe and not have to bury another person that I love all because of massive amounts of stupid equations that I can’t figure out because I am stupid.”

“You are not stupid, and I am fine, Five. In case you forgot, I got along just fine without you, so with you I’m hardly in any more danger of death than I was before, and I came to this lovely area all the way from Utah so, yeah… Being mad at me for pointing that out, or not, going to New York from here is nothing. Like I said, we will be fine.”

“You just can’t stop, can you?" I furiously spit back. "I am well aware of how good you are at everything and how I nearly died next to a gigantic crater made by the fucking moon because I am an idiot!”

“Urgg! Five why are you being such a shit? I am not saying that!”

“It's because I am an asshole, remember?”

Fee’s expression softens into something that looks almost pained as her lips slowly part and her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Five, you are being an asshole right now, but I know it’s just because you are frustrated, and you are scared. I wouldn’t do something that could mean that I'd lose you either. Us leaving here together won’t risk that. We just need to watch the water levels and wait a little longer and we will be fine. I know we can find a route into the city and avoid the flooding. It may take a week or whatever for the latest storm damage to run its course but…”

She reaches out to take my hand, but like the baby I am being, a flash of electrical blue static surrounds me as I blink myself a few yards away where I reappear and instantly begin to pace with my head down rather than acknowledge what I just did or what she just said.

I hear her aggravated little huff, but I refuse to turn back and look at her.

“Fine. Whatever. You obviously need some space. I am going for a walk,” she mumbles as she marches away.

Hours later, Fee is not back.

I know that I was being awful, and I know I hurt her. I feel horrible about that and not being smart enough to solve the math needed to make this work. She is right as always. I am scared and I irrationally took my anger out on her. I am just mad that I can’t do this. It’s like when I was young and never good enough no matter how hard I tried.

Fee wasn't wrong that taking a break, or even going to the city to look for texts with ideas I can use, would be a smart plan of action, but no, I wouldn't listen. I yelled at her and blamed her for my own shortcomings rather than owning up to the real reason I am upset and digging my feet in.

I am putting being here with her, where I know we are safe, ahead of everyone else, and it’s selfish. As much as Fee loves me, I know being here alone like we are is not what she wants when she knows there’s a chance we can do something to prevent this. It’s not really what I want either, but I have never had this kind of thing with someone, and I am terrified of losing it.

That all lies on me, and I am being a total fuck head about it, and to her.

No wonder she didn’t come back yet.

I was such an epic asshole again and I hardly have me being an emotionally stunted teenager brought up in a house of equally confused kids as an excuse.

Walking down the gravel road to go after her, I have to constantly jump and dart around deep washouts. The rains that came in the last two weeks have been so bad that we are lucky there is any road left. Even so, taking the jeep anywhere or the bike isn’t looking promising even if we can get the damn things started.

When I get close to reaching where the small mountain stream runs alongside the road, I can already hear it, meaning it’s not a small creek anymore. When I get even further down the road, I am surprised to see it is still raging even though it hasn’t rained in over forty-eight hours.

When I get to the end of the line, which shouldn’t be, because it’s actually still about another mile and half before the road levels out and splits to the north and south along the range, I find there’s no road left as far as my eyes can see. The river swept it away.

Days ago, when Fee and I walked down here together, the road was just a little flooded on one side where the banks had spilled over.

Huge trees and branches sweep past me in the viciously churning water, moving so fast that when they slam up against other broken debris and rocks hidden under the muddy water, they make powerful cracking and tearing sounds.

There’s no way Fee went past here but I didn’t pass her so that must mean that she came back another way and I missed her somehow when I went in the house. Since it’s definitely not as sunny or warm over here, I figure that maybe she's wandering around on the other side of the bluff like she likes to do in the afternoon.

Looking up, I see the sun’s rays illuminating just the tops of the remaining trees that still stand tall, like smooth gray, wind torn monuments to what once was part of a vast wooded range formed over 480 million years old. A chill runs up my arms from the breeze blowing through the pass.

Spinning around, looking at the river again, something brightly colored catches my eye.

I walk over and bend down.

It’s a tiny bouquet of early spring purple wildflowers mixed with a few budded shoots from some kind of tree.

Fee loves finding things like this and bringing them back so she can show me and then proudly display them in the colorful glass vase I found for her that sits on our mantel.

“Fee!”

My shout is swallowed by the much louder sound of the water.

My heart sinks when I think about how she wouldn’t have dropped those by accident or just left them like this.

She has to still be near here.

Full-on panicking, I sprint around, searching the area, calling for her, over and over.

She doesn’t answer.

Nothing looks the same as it did a few days ago and I have no idea which way she would have gone. There isn’t really anywhere obvious to go. One side of the road is butted up to a relatively steep rocky cliff and the other is flooded.

Working my way back up along the winding water’s edge I see something.

Back where I just was, where the road had been, I can see that the soil there is darker colored and freshly disturbed compared to the rest of the embankment around it. It’s like it very recently washed out, eroded by the rushing water, causing it to abruptly collapse and disappear like the rest of the road in front of it already has.

Holding my breath, I come as close to the edge as I can without potentially making my weight cause it to collapse again.

“No, no, no! Fee!” I scream when I see Phoebe’s baseball cap down below, stuck a little way out on a half-submerged branch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I searched everywhere for Fee. Up and down the river, over and over. Through the woods, miles and miles around our cabin and I found nothing.

Not another trace of her.

Every day I refused to give up hope that she was out there, somewhere. Maybe she was mad at me still and just not ready to come back yet.

All I wanted was for her to come home.

It wasn’t until almost two weeks later, when the river had become nothing more than a lazy stream again that I found her.

She wasn't far from where she disappeared.

A clump of her long red hair was wrapped around a branch laying on the ground, and at first, I just thought she must have got it stuck on there and she had to have cut it off or something. When I tried to pick up the snarl covered wood, I realized it was stuck down because it was attached to something buried under it. Then, as sickness filled my gut, just a few feet away, partly hidden in a tangle of grass, I saw a familiar rainbowy strappy sandal with a foot in it. It was partly encased in the gray clay. Those two parts of her were the only things of color on the dead landscape.

Seeing that... Finally knowing... My heart broke and so did I.

I couldn't see the rest of her body, but from what I could tell, she was there, only twisted in a sick and unnatural way based on where her head was compared to her feet. My beautiful girl was stuck into the dried mud so hard that it took me hours with my bare hands to get her out, but there was no way I could pull myself away from her to go back for a shovel. Even if I did go get something better to break the ground, I would have been too terrified to use it. She was so hurt already; I couldn't risk hurting her even more.

I wanted to die right there with her.

It felt like I did.

It didn’t matter that she was decomposing, or that her body was brutally ruined by the wrath of the river, once I had her free, I held her to me, begging her to forgive me.

As crazed as I was, my fractured mind wouldn’t give me the solace of letting her answer my pleas. Her voice is one I could not conjure but that didn't stop me from trying.

I tried to blink with her to get her back but the first time I landed with her, just up the dried embankment, her body tore apart, and I knew I couldn't go further with her that way.

Like a mindless zombie, covered in dirt and the pungent smell of human decay, I eventually made it back to the cabin. I don't remember that walk or the walk back to her. Near dark, I pulled my wagon up the mountain pass, loaded with Fee's small, battered body in a blanket on top of it. As I wheeled her along, all my mind could do was think about getting her somewhere safe.

Once I finally had her to our home, I couldn’t bury her.

I couldn’t think.

My mind at that point was more gone than it had ever been. I was mad with rage one minute then sobbing endlessly the next.

Days later, with no other choice but to give her dignity, I finally buried Phoebe under an old, dead black ash tree that she had always said would have been so beautiful if it were alive still.

Unable to leave her, I stayed at our cabin for two more months. I hardly ate. I hardly slept more than a few hours at a time, but when I did, it was clinging to her pillow, pretending that the faint traces of her scent meant that she was still with me.

When I left, it was only because I had finally pulled myself together enough to face the horrible world again and because it was the only way I could save her.

That thought alone is what held me together.

Like the day I lost her, I was stuck. Stuck inside myself, stuck with my calculations, and stuck blaming myself for something that I knew deep down Phoebe would tell me was wrong for me to be doing.

She would have said it was an accident. Fee never wanted me to suffer. She always said that none of this was my fault.

But it was.

I know that she went for that walk because of how unfair I was being to her.

She was upset by my behavior, and she had reason to be.

I know the only reason Fee went down to the river’s edge that day was because she was checking to see how bad it was. She wanted to help me and leaving to go back to the city seemed like the best option in her mind.

But, even getting to the city and my library, I remained stuck, unable to perfect the math that I needed to get back. I was trapped there another thirty-eight years, alone except for Dolores. After that, Dolores did all she could do to comfort me, just like she always did. We eventually picked up our old routine, but the reality was, neither of us could ever move on from losing Fee.

Even in my time with The Commission after The Handler came to pluck me out of my hell, I suffered for my sins, just in new ways.

I don’t think I could ever hate myself so much as I did that day I found Phoebe’s body, but as it turns out, almost a lifetime later, I did thanks to my years of killing innocent people all in the name of maintaining the generally accepted timeline for a corrupt space time continuum organization ran by a bunch of creepy manipulative self-serving fucks.

As long as it has been, no matter how many years pass, and how unredeemable I become, I still love my Fee.

For her and for everyone else, I will figure out this mess I've made.

I promised her I would, and I won't stop until I do or until I have no choice in the matter.

No matter what, every single day, I never give up hope that I will someday be deserving of seeing her smiling face again.

Someday...

Chapter Seven: Epilogue (Oblivion Park)

Klaus puts both his hands out in front of him, wiggling his fingers as he concentrates. "Alakazam, ghosties!"

And...nothing.

Our newly alive again ghost whispering brother looks very perplexed at his inability to use his powers, as do all of us.

After the recently resurrected, much less ape-like looking Luther finishes angrily grabbing me by my collar, yelling at me about Sloane being missing from our group, I am forced to tell him I have no idea where she is. He clearly thinks this is my fault and he does not look pleased when I add that she may not even be in this new utopian version of the world our dad and Allison must have created with that little coup they pulled back in the hotel hell that miraculously had been right here a few minutes ago but isn't now.

Everyone is having their own usual meltdowns, babbling on like always about themselves. Then, after zero discussion, other than that we have no powers, and deciding that we are pretty much shit out of luck with what to do about that, they all just start to wander off.

Again, taking another look at my suddenly reappeared severed arm, I shake my head in disbelief. It's nice to have that back, and not have blood all over my brand-new suit, and not be dying but...

Looking up at Lila’s excited expression and Diego’s equally eager look, then the bronze statue of dad’s head, I can’t help my frown.

They are all leaving. After everything.

We almost just got kugelblitzed. Reginald nearly just killed us. He sucked our powers from us like we are nothing more than batteries that he always planned to drain, then he just threw us away, and this is what we do about it? We abandon each other? Have we learned nothing?

Really?

Cursing, Ben disappears the same way Luther just left without so much as a goodbye.

Viktor clearly feels the same way I do about this, and despite him trying to stop them, he is losing his fight to keep us all together, but I shouldn’t really be upset or surprised by that or any of this.

Thinking and trying to understand what just happened and what this means, it dawns on me that we might have actually done it this time.

Well, maybe we didn’t, but Reginald or Allison did. Either way, they never would have reset the world on a course that was going to simply end again in a few days.

That means the apocalypse is over. We are safe. Lila is right. We can start to live our life as we want for once.

I spin around, my suit jacket swinging open from the momentum. It’s just me and Viktor left with our dad’s monument between us.

My eyes widen with realization. “Fee,” I whisper under my breath.

Twisting on my heel, I start picking up pace as I head toward the large stone arch leading out of the circular garden.

“Five! Where are you going?” Viktor shouts, interrupting my racing thoughts and my attempt at a hasty departure.

The heels of my dress shoes grind on the loose stone path as I turn back. “I am going to find Fee.”

“Who?”

“Phoebe Leroux.” Just saying her name out loud makes my heart feel so tight. It always aches when I think about her, but I’ll never stop.

"Who is Phoebe Leroux?"

My brows furrow as my mind goes back to her, remembering.

“Fee is a woman that I have been in love with for nearly forty-five years,” I quietly admit, “and she is someone that I wronged very, very badly.” I pause as I think about the extremely heavy truth of that.

Seeing Viktor looking at me like he has no clue what the hell I am talking about, I find myself laughing even though I shouldn't be. It's like a madness erupting in me that I can control. They know nothing about Fee. Not even The Commission let on that they knew she was with me in the apocalypse even though I am sure they knew. All of this is madness but it's finally over. We are finally free of all of it.

I stride back, meeting Viktor halfway in the shadowy garden. Running my hand back through my hair, I shake my head, trying to think of a way to explain all this.

“I met Fee only once, back when we were sixteen, and I epically fouled up that first brief encounter. Then, as fate would have it, because she had powers like we do, she survived when the ‘moon’ thing went down.”

I try to smile at Viktor when I air quote the moon thing, and that’s because I know full well that he still feels awful about that. My small overture gets him to return one of his very awkward looking grins.

Placing my hands back in my pockets, I continue explaining. “Phoebe was there alone in the apocalypse too, and she found me and saved me when I was about to die because I’m a never-ending arrogant asshole. That bright moment on my list of many happened five years into that hell. Her saving me is what ultimately got us all to this point, so I guess, in a way, she’s the one that saved everyone. She is the bravest, most caring person I have ever met, and I love her.”

“You mean you weren’t alone all those years?” Viktor looks utterly confused and even more floored by my explanation. “I mean, other than Dolores? I know you were with her and all that, and she is very real to you but…” he tries to clarify. “I am sorry, that’s not coming out right at all,” he apologizes, his pale cheeks flaming.

I smile at my brother’s embarrassment over my lifelong romantic relationship with a mannequin. I can’t exactly blame him for still being weirded out about that. “Don’t apologize, you have no reason to, and yes,” I say with another laugh. “I was with my loving Dolores for the entirety of my time in the apocalypse, but there was a short time when we weren’t alone. For eight months, seventeen days, ten hours, thirty-six minutes and give or take forty-nine seconds we were madly in love with a very special, very real woman.”

“Where’d she go?”

My somewhat manic smile evaporates as I think about what happened.

“We had a stupid fight about me being stupid. Fee went for a walk to give me space to calm down and get my shit together.” I have to stop to swallow the lump in my throat. “I messed up and I let her down. She didn’t deserve that from me, not after everything.” The lump comes back, but I speak through it, my voice cracking just a little. “There had been storms for weeks, and…” I look down at my shoes. “She drowned,” I simply say because I’m unable to say more.

“Oh no, Five! That’s-”

“That was a long time ago,” I quickly add, cutting him off, trying to let Viktor know he doesn’t need to say anything. I don’t want him to.

This is why I never told any of them. One, because everyone, including myself, were too wrapped up in their own things and jumping through time and fucking everything up, but it's also because I didn’t want them to know. If they did, it would just be one more thing I have to explain about my dark life that is too hard for me to talk about.

Something feels different now though. I want Viktor to know. Memories of Fee playing her guitar and me telling her about my siblings fill my mind with warm loving nights cuddling next to her by the fire, me talking with her for hours, back when I was happy.

The Handler was right. We all want happy.

A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth when I remember telling Fee of how my sister may not have had powers like us, but she was a very kind and passionate and proficient musician that I knew she’d get along with famously because they were actually very similar in many ways.

Avoiding that same person I had long ago told Fee about and their wide eyed, very concerned gaze they are giving me, I look around again, checking out what I can see of the city skyline peeking out over the tall, groomed hedges. Slowly I count in my head the days since when the apocalypse should have ended all this.

Fee would have caught a flight this morning out of Salt Lake City. Based on the time, she is supposed to be performing at a location not that far from here.

“I have to go,” I say as I start walking away.

“What are you going to do, Five?” Viktor asks.

“I need to deliver a long overdue apology.”

“But if the apocalypse didn’t happen and you guys never met again, how’s she-”

“It doesn’t matter if she remembers what we had,” I say, interrupting him. “I still owe her an apology.” Viktor just stares at me with his big brown eyes looking so lost, so I find myself saying, “I just need to see her again. It’s been so long and I…”

I can’t even begin to say how I feel, so I don’t.

Viktor stuffs his hands in his pockets the same way I have mine. “Well, if you want company, I would be happy to come with you for emotional support,” he offers.

“You mean like my wingman?” I correct him with a knowing smile.

Viktor isn’t like the rest of them, ready to leave everyone behind and never look back. He has never been that person. As his older brother, this time around my instinct to take care of him is stronger than my desire to figure out how to save the world and that's because it is figured out. No more apocalypse, that's all that matters. All this has me thinking that doing what my girl taught me, showing a little more heart, and by doing so, letting him be my ‘wingman’ isn’t a horrible idea.

Viktor nervously laughs. “Yeah, I guess I mean like that. This woman sounds pretty special, maybe you can hope for more than just a chance to say you’re sorry. If she forgave you for whatever happened between you two when you were sixteen, and she fell for you once before, then maybe she will again. You are only a few years younger than you were. You're technically legal, so maybe that wouldn’t be too…” He nervously laughs again, and I can’t help but join him.

I am physically eighteen instead of fifty-eight thanks to accidentally fucking up a decimal placement in my math so yeah… At least I'm legal as he so nicely just reminded me, then again, Fee is five years younger, so...

“Yeah, maybe…” I agree with a smirk, thinking about what Phoebe would have to say about all that and my nerdy, even more boyish appearance than what she had to deal with the first time. Looking back over at my brother, I nod. “Well Viktor, I think I’ll take you up on that offer, if you’re willing to be my emotional support sibling, I’ll take it. Clearly, I can use all the help I can get.”

Viktor nods back, probably unable to come up with words to express his shock over my rare show of maturity and willingness to admit so openly that I need someone.

As my brother and I silently start walking out of the garden the same why the rest of our family vanished, we begin to take note of all the strange new buildings that weren't there before, especially the fact that nearly half of them appear to be owned by none other than Sir Reginal Hargreeves, the alien ass lord who is responsible for stripping us of our powers and for us being here.

Moving down the sidewalk heading towards the busy downtown, I know I should be more concerned about all that, but my old broken heart in my new young body races as I let myself think about Fee and all the possibilities a woman like that can bring to a broken man’s life if she’s willing.

She saved me once before, so maybe, just maybe, she will open her beautiful heart to an old crazy wretch like me and do it all over again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Link from a special request scene extension from the point he found her.

Thanks to all who read this one. ❤️

Master Post List to all my Five Centric Stories and Art

Link to visit me on AO3

Link to my other posts on Tumblr

#number five smut #number five #five hargreaves #number five fanfiction #number five female oc #the umbrella academy number five #umbrella academy five hargreeves #five hargreeves imagine #kaybreezy-on-a03 #number 5 #number five hargreeves #hurt number five #number five imagine #five hargreeves smut #smut with feelings #smut with story #whump writing #his pain and endless strength and love are beautiful #number five fanfic

[mcntsee]

The real barbie is Y/n.

Y/n’s a doctor, a cop, a scientist, an agent, vet, hero, villain, astronaut, lawyer, spy, criminal, artist, chef, engineer, psychologist, architect, journalist, firefighter, event planner, mechanic, photographer, musician, actor, interior designer, bartender, fashion designer, barista, florist, forensic scientist, flight attendant, profiler, tour guide, translator, etc.

#y/n #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds x reader #cod x reader #simon riley x reader #konig x reader #cod x y/n #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x y/n #konig x y/n #harry potter x y/n #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker x y/n #six of crows x reader #jesper fahey x reader #jesper fahey x y/n #wylan van eck x reader #fanfiction #fluff #angst #alastor x reader #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x y/n #alastor x y/n #hobie brown x reader #hobie brown x y/n #the umbrella academy x reader #five hargreaves x reader #klaus hargreeves x reader

[c0ffeeb1ack]

he's a cult leader, he's a fashion icon, he's a war veteran, he's immortal, he dies all the time, he's haunted, he's high and he's sober, he's agnostic, god hates him personally. i didn't say his name but he popped into your head, didn't he?

#the umbrella academy #tua #klaus hargreeves #yeah i just did one of these for five but i hope you'll allow me this indulgence <3 #might end up doing more if i don't get bored of this format lol

[sweetpastillas]

totally real umbrella academy merchandise

#tua #the umbrella academy #barbie #barbie movie #im so so so sorry i didnt know what to rlly put for diego fhfdjdj #ALSO HIII I LOVE THAT RITU IS GOING TO BE IN THIS FILM #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #umbrella ben #ben hargreeves #viktor hargreeves

[myhyperfixationisiforgot]

"If the Hargreeves had phones every season would end in two episodes!" Babe if there were cell phones in the Umbrella Academy it would be so much worse. Not a single person in that house is capable of conveying information in a coherent manner. Diego has them all blocked. Viktor only listens to his voicemail in bulk once a month. Five developed his own shorthand during the apocalypse that he truly thinks is coherent to other human beings (it is not). Luther, by nature of who he is, absolutely Does Not Text for any reason and keeps calling the others. Klaus is carrying at least four conversations in the same thread at any given point in time. Even if they all managed to remember that they owned phones (unlikely) and then proceeded to convey relevant information in a timely fashion (even less likely), not a single one of them would figure it out. Allison could probably muster the braincells necessary but would not under any circumstances manage to stay on task long enough to do anything about it. Phones would absolutely not help with anything at all.

#cell phones would add at least two possibly six side quests to any given plot line #someone has to convince five not to just smash his phone with a hammer at least twice a week #the umbrella academy #diego hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #five hargreeves #luther hargreeves

[diamondri]

ok but Klaus and Five are Sirius and Regulus variants

#all the young dudes #the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #diego hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #ben hargreeves #allison hargreeves #marauders #marauders era #james potter #peter pettigrew #sirius black #sirius orion black #regulus black #regulus arcturus black #the black family #the black brothers #atyd #anything for our moony #wolfstar #jegulus #dead gay wizards from the 70s #gay dead wizards #dead gay wizards #incorrect marauders #marauders incorrect quotes #incorrect marauders quotes #james & peter & remus & sirius #james fleamont potter

[brellygifs]

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, SEASON 4 First Look

#tuaedit #the umbrella academy #umbrellacademyedit #uaedit #hargreevesedit #the hargreeves #five hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #ben hargreeves #diego hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #lila pitts #s4 #* #by becca

[momokodaisy]

Extremely Late Umbrella Academy Textposts That Have Definitely Been Done Before (6/?) Prev Next

Bonus:

#allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #lila pitts #luther hargreeves #five hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #sloane hargreeves #tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy

[sunriseseance]

Posters and release date.

#the umbrella academy #klaus hargreeves #tua spoilers #allison hargreeves #diego hargreeves #five hargreeves #Luther Hargreeves #Lila Pitts #Viktor Hargreeves #Ben Hargreeves #Reginald Hargreeves #Tua s4

[wingedshoes]

you're ALL WRONG the umbrella academy can never be riverdale because they have 30 year olds playing 16 year olds and tua has an 18 year old playing a 58 year old

#tua s3 #the umbrella academy #elliot page #viktor hargreeves #ben hargreeves #the sparrow academy #sparrow ben #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #aidan gallagher #david casteñeda #diego hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #tua

[weird-little-book-lover]

Does anyone else know what I'm talking about here?

#good omens 2 #good omens #good omens crowley #david tennant #ineffable husbands #good omens season 2 #good omens season two #anthony j crowley #loki series #loki #Tom Hiddleston #klaus hargreeves #umbrella academy #five hargreeves #loki variant

[kaybreezy3000]

Bad Things (Five Hargreeves/Reader)

~Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy, the inability to distinguish between right and wrong, poor behavioral controls, and behaviors that contradict social norms which then commonly result in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behavior.

Enter, Five Hargreeves, everyone's favorite little psycho.

(Chapters 5, 6, and 7)

-If you need to read this from the beginning hit the links below.

Link to Summary and Chapter 1 and 2

Link to Chapter 3

Link to Chapter 4

Warnings and tags: Mental disintegration, psychological trauma, effects of isolation, masturbation, non-consensual voyeurism, explicit sexual content, bondage, POV altering, touch starved, obsessive behavior, inanimate object love, and many other sexually deviant themes all mixed with a lovely twist that you will hopefully enjoy...

-this post is longer than the others. It is chapters 5-7 and this will complete this story as it is currently written. Thank you so much for reading this and for your support.

Chapter Five: Elastic Heart

(There will be a page break to make this more palatable and there will be a red page break added in chapter 4 to show the one P0V change near the end)

As Five cleans up his bathroom, he can only imagine what the girl is thinking right now, or why she did what she did and then let him go. She had no reason to want to help him. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t wrap his head around it or the fact that he’s scrubbing an astonishing amount of his own ejaculation off the sink, the counter, the faucet, and even the front of the cabinets. Even after seeing the evidence, Five still doesn’t remember abusing himself or his bathroom in such an embarrassingly demented way.

Hearing his front door click closed, Five instantly comes out with his dustpan full of broken glass in one hand, the broom in the other.

“What’d she say?” he anxiously asks, his pinched expression giving away his distress just as much as his clipped words.

Klaus comes in further and slowly sits down on the edge of Five’s bed, folding his hands in his lap as he glances at the ropes still tied to the wooden frame. His head shakes back and forth as he looks at Five, but not because he means it in a critical way. Other than a few well-deserved jaw drops as Five told him what happened, Klaus has been very understanding.

“She didn’t say anything. She wasn’t there.”

“Are you sure?” Five asks, clearly not accepting this answer.

“Well, no. I am not sure, but she didn’t answer her buzzer so she might not be there or she’s just choosing not to answer, which she has every right to do.”

Five doesn’t say anything, he just stands there, hands full, eyes darting around as he thinks.

“Someone needs to make sure she’s okay,” Five abruptly declares after a moment or two of silence.

“I know,” Klaus agrees. “But that person maybe shouldn’t be me, and it definitely shouldn’t be you. I can honestly say after what you said happened, I am also worried about her. The truth is though, she doesn’t really know you or me. I am not really surprised if she doesn’t want anything to do with this now that it’s over.”

Five knows that’s true but he looks miserable hearing it anyway.

“She may not have gone home,” Klaus adds. “You don’t know her phone number, and if she’s not going to answer the door, then this is all we can do. I am sorry. I left her a note with my number, but maybe it’s for the best to leave her be, you know…” Klaus rubs his hands together. He knows this is not the answer Five wants. “She’s probably just sleeping. You said she normally doesn’t get home from work till well after three am. On any other day, this would be when she'd be asleep, so that’s probably what she’s doing.”

“Klaus, after what I did to her, I doubt she went home and fell asleep. She’s probably scared out of her mind. She may have seemed in control and knew what she was doing, but I know what I saw and she’s not okay. She’s probably holed up over there, with my gun in her hands, just waiting for me to try to do something to her that's even more crazy than the shit I already did!”

“Sounds to me that she knew exactly what she was doing and why. She may have wanted to frighten you, but mostly she wanted to help you. If things went farther than you think she intended, then I am sure this chick is feeling a little messed up and confused about that, but she also clearly saw that despite what you did, you were worth trying to save. I think she took your gun so you didn’t do something bad to yourself, not because she thought you were going to come after her. She made it plenty clear she wasn’t scared of you when she rode you like a pony, humpity-hump dry fuck style, or when she let you go free. She also evidently didn’t call the cops and she isn’t going to if that’s what you are worried about.”

“I am worried about her, not me!” Five tries doing his deep breaths to calm down but it doesn’t help. “She is hurt, and I did that to her!” Five spats at his brother even though he’s not mad at him.

Klaus remains calmly unfazed. “She may have been upset when she left but what can we do?”

Not knowing how to reply to that, Five walks over to his kitchen, and dumps what’s left of his bathroom mirror in the garbage. Putting his cleaning stuff away, he slams the cabinet door too hard.

“Hey, just try to relax. Why don’t you just take a shower, get cleaned up and let’s get out of here? We can get some food. You can come back and rest, and if you feel like it, when you wake up, we can talk or yell about anything you want all night. We will have a nice brotherly sleep over with popcorn and…” Klaus glances around Five’s small apartment. “We won’t be able to watch romcoms, and that’s because you are a super big nerd who doesn’t’ have TV, but we can wrestle, and tickle fight, and make mystery potions out of your huge supply of fast-food seasoning packets and then we can dare each other to drink them. It will be great!”

The more Klaus says, the further Five’s brows draw together like he can’t fathom where his brother gets these bizarre ideas.

“Even if I had a TV, I would not watch romantic comedies, and we do not need to have a sleepover.”

“Okay. Maybe you’re more of a horror, Bates Motel, put the lotion in the basket, chainsaws, and skin suits kind of guy. I get that, and it totally makes sense all things considered, but it’s long overdue for us to have some bonding time. That giant ball of twine thing was great, but I know we can do way better than that.”

Now Five’s jaw is really working as he stands there leering at Klaus. “I know that I am horrible but are you seriously comparing me to Norman Bates, Buffalo Bill, and Leatherface?”

Klaus cocks his head, smiling innocently. “I’m just joking, bro. Of course, I don’t think you are the creepy Ed Gein, making lamps out of body parts kind of psycho. You’re the charming, get forcefully genetically altered, and manipulated into murdering for the time police, obsess and jerk it over your cute neighbor, and accidentally abduct her and then seduce her with your adorable broken-hearted handsomeness, kind of everyday lunatic.”

“That is not what happened.”

“Well, it kind of sounds like it to me.”

“I didn’t seduce her, I mean.”

Klaus just shrugs as he keeps smiling at Five. “Yeah, it sounds like you did. Chicks don’t just frot up on your hot rod to help you get off for no reason. By the sounds of it, she had already put you in your place at that point, and doing that, and getting as into it as much you did means it was something else entirely.”

Five stops fidgeting with his cuffs long enough to point an angry finger at his chest. “It means that she took pity on me because I am just that appallingly pitiful.”

Klaus leans forward, his hands palm out in a calming gesture. “Five, no. It doesn’t mean that. Not from the way you said it happened. She did that of her own free will, and if she’s not okay with it, there is nothing we can do about it.”

Five throws his hands back through his tangled hair as he begins to pace. “I know I can’t do shit about it. I can’t do anything right! Ever!”

Seeing that his brother isn’t taking this well, Klaus takes a different approach.

“That is also not true. You are being too hard on yourself.”

“Sure,” Five animatedly barks as he flails his arms around before stopping to stare at the girl’s empty dish sitting on top of his books.”

Klaus’s eyes follow Five’s as he says, “Look at this way. Several very good things came out of what happened, but the most important is that you are willing to get help. My buddy John is all set up to meet with you on Monday and we just need to get through till then. I need to know that you are okay, and I don’t want to leave until I know you’ve had the chance to talk with someone better than me about all this.”

With a heavy sigh, Five picks up the dirty plate and looks up at his brother who is cautiously watching him still like he’s a bomb about to explode.

“Klaus, I am not going to run, and I am doing anything reckless. I already did that. I know I am beyond fucking nuts, but I get that loud and clear now. There is seriously very little left that I can do at this point that would be worse than what I have already done.”

Five can’t help it when his attention goes back to his window as he tries again to see signs of life next door but he gets nothing other than the dark behind her curtains.

“I appreciate the offer, but you can go. I will be fine. No skin suit making or anything else weird going on over here from now on,” Five distractedly promises.

“I know you will be fine. You can get through anything, but I am not leaving you to do it alone this time, not unless you make me. But be prepared if you want to have a tussle about it, I am not as wimpy as I look. I am not going down easy and I am not holding back when I unleash the biggest can of whoop ass you’ve ever seen.”

Five looks back, his mouth drawn in a hardline before he speaks. “Klaus, I know that if you set your mind to it, you can be quite the force to reckon with, but as much as you are irritating me, and how fun it would be to make you eat your words, I am not fighting with you. So, stop asking for it with all this Normal Bates comparison shit. Just get it through that big curly-haired head of yours, I don’t need a babysitter. I won’t do anything bad.”

Five glances out the window again.

Klaus leans back on Five’s bed, stretching his long legs out as he makes himself more comfortable. “I know you won’t do anything when it comes to her other than sit over here and worry and feel awful, but last night you proved that you do need a babysitter till you talk to someone professional. It’s not good to sit here alone and wallow in your dark thoughts and I know you are having them and can’t help it.”

Five silently concedes to that one, again, his eyes moving to the windows like he’s drawn to them like a magnet.

“You can’t keep looking over there, man. No matter what your intentions are, it’s not healthy. That’s how all this started. We can go stay at my friend’s place if that would help. I know he won’t mind another good-looking Hargreeves hanging around.”

“I know I can’t keep doing this, but there’s no way I am going to your fuck friend’s place with you. That is not a long-term option. I should just move and what is in my brain that makes me this way is permeant, no professional can change what I have become. This is all a waste of your time. You should just run and don't look back. I am a monster, but I swear I won't hurt anyone else. I just won't leave the house any more,” Five mumbles as he clears the small distance between him and the kitchen.

He drops the plate in his sink then moves to the window, abruptly throwing the blinds down. The move blocks out all natural light other than the bright beams shooting in from the edges of the brittle vinyl pull downs.

“Uh-oh!” Klaus laughs as he swiftly throws himself out of Five’s bed and starts staggering towards him in the dark, arms stretched like he’s blind.

“What the hell are you doing?” Five questions as he watches his brother coming for him.

“I am scared of the dark, remember,” Klaus giggles. “And, hiding in your house or moving are options, but they won’t help silence the lambs unless you deal with them.” Klaus trips over Five’s dress shoes but isn’t deterred as he lunges for him. “Help, Fivey! I can hear them crying! Hold me and we can make them stop together!”

Five dodges Klaus’s ambush, flipping on the switch to the corroded brass chandelier above his table. In the yellow light beaming down on him in his exceptionally disheveled state with his vest still hanging open and the rest of his expensive dress clothes bloodied and rumbled, Five looks every bit the part of the psycho.

He purposefully cocks his chin at Klaus as the corners of his mouth turn up in a very menacing looking smile.

“Be careful, Clarice,” he smoothly warns. Klaus’s big blue eyes grow even wider as Five slowly steps closer. “They once sent a census taker to my door, and he dared to test me just like you are doing, so I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”

Klaus bursts out laughing. “Do you have some fava beans and chianti? We can totally add that to our sleepover snacks. You can have the beans and I’ll have all the chianti since you are never ever drinking again. And just for fun I’ll even tie you to your bed and force feed you if you really want to get freaky like you like!”

Five glares at him. “You are really going to make me regret telling you everything she did to me, aren’t you.”

“Hey, you are the intelligent psycho Hannibal Lecter kind of guy minus the cannibalism, and having these delightful tie downs all ready to go are too fun to waste. You obviously like being dominated, and I am more than willing to tie you up and take advantage of you by sticking straws up your nose, and putting makeup on you so you look even more cute when you’re screaming at me to let you go.”

“No thanks, I think I’m good with just the simple brotherly popcorn picnic and sauce packet challenge. No tie down domination needed. My unintended captive proved to be an extremely competent master of mind and body fucks, so I think I got that out of my system for a little while.”

“See,” Klaus says with a boisterous laugh as he comes over to Five and puts an arm around his shoulder. “You are capable of being funny. I told Diego you were. Now, go wash off your wickedly debauched and somewhat less virginal dickie pickle. I am not running from you, you scary little bastard, and you are stuck with me till Monday. I am not taking no for an answer, so off with you boy!” Klaus theatrically commands while giving Five a swift slap on the ass.

To add to Klaus’s amusement, instead of getting mad about it, Five obediently takes off to the bathroom without any of his normal back talk.

Hearing the sound of the shower, Klaus flops down on Five’s bed chuckling. “Submissive little Fivey…. Who knew?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After showering, Five comes out with a towel around his waist, yanks open a dresser drawer pulling out whatever is on top.

“Holy shit,” Klaus gasps as he sets down Five’s book on theoretical physics that he had been looking at upside down. “I had no idea you had any non-dress clothes. You look really nice in casual gear.”

“No, I don’t,” Five says, then sits down on his bed next to him wearing black sweats and a matching hoodie as he begins putting on a very normal looking pair of black running shoes.

“Sure, you do,” Klaus pauses, then smirks, “you look like any other super hungover young dude that just rolled out of bed mid-day on a Saturday.”

“Great,” Five dryly responds, eyeing him from under the fringe of damp hair hanging over his face.

“You want to try that breakfast place I was telling you about? I have like-” Klaus begins digging around in the front of his stretch pants because he has no pockets. “Oh yeah,” he laughs as he readjusts is dick, “I blew my wad and most of my funds last night clubbing. I have like ten dollars, but I’ll buy you a donut or two and another coffee?”

“I think having zero social life and living in a shit hole affords me enough extra cash to buy you breakfast,” Five says, standing up to show Klaus he is ready to go. Five offers his hand. “Come on, I owe you, but I also need to ask you to help me with something else other than making sure I don’t go off the deep end all alone over here in my fucked-up fantasy world of fake relationships.”

Klaus reaches for Five but when he does Five pulls away and smirks.

“You little shit heel,” Klaus laughs.

“Yup,” Five agrees as Klaus quickly rolls himself out of bed.

“What do you need help with?”

Five suddenly looks down at the floor, his face looking resigned yet somehow also completely miserable, much like it did when Klaus got here.

“I know I have done some very dumb shit and I have no right to ask anything of you, but I don’t know if I can do this alone,” he quietly explains, all play gone again.

“Whatever you want, Five. I am all in, you know that.”

“I know, but you shouldn’t be,” Five replies, followed by a deep breath and a light mist to his eyes.

Five tries to push aside the overwhelming sorrow that has been threatening to take him down all morning, but he can’t even begin to at this point. He looks back up, determinedly meeting his brother’s even more concerned eyes, hating that he’s the reason Klaus looks this way when he’s much older and he should be taking care of him, not the other way around.

Five lets out another heavy breath, pulling his hands from his pockets and bringing them down to his sides for a second before he anxiously changes his mind and shoves them back inside his pants pockets, hiding them away again.

“I need to bring Dolores back where she belongs.”

“Are you sure?” Klaus asks, searching Five’s face even though right now it’s turned towards his mannequin. Even if Five doesn’t want to give her up, Klaus knows that his mind is giving him no other choice but to see that she finally left him, and even sadder, from the way Five sees it, it’s not on good terms.

“It’s time, and it probably was long before this only I was too fucked up to see it,” Five insists though he sounds anything but sure. “I just don’t know if I can get her there and inside without your help.”

Five tries to smile when he looks back at Klaus but the skewed look of it only makes his brother know just how extreme his pain is.

“I am here for whatever you want, little bro. We got this,” he assures.

“Yeah, well… Being unable to teleport is a real bitch when it comes to breaking and entering, so it’s going to have to be done while they are open. I figured you could help me come up with something interesting to get her inside without me getting myself arrested and having my pathetic face getting plastered all over the local news with the caption, world’s biggest pervert, busted for stealing and then bringing back his fuck mannequin.”

“Five, you are an adorably committed perv, but you are not pathetic, and Dolores was much more than that to you and we all know it and we understand why. I am so sorry this is happening to you, man.”

“I know you tolerate my delusions, and I really appreciate it.” Five’s eyes gloss over even more. “She’s gone, and I-” Five can’t even finish, his chin lowers again.

When Klaus moves to give him a hug, Five reactively tenses up and starts to back away, but as his brother’s arms wrap around him anyway and the façade of self-control that he has been trying so hard to hold together this morning completely crumbles.

“I hate this. I don’t know how you can forgive me, but thank you for not hating me.” Five’s entire body shudders as his head falls weakly against Klaus’s shoulder.

“Five, you are so unbelievably smart, but you are also so stupid for thinking that I or any one of our fucked-up siblings could ever hate you. We are all really dumb and act like self-self-centered jerks most of the time, but I love you and they do too. Whatever you need, I am here. I am so sorry I wasn’t here for you sooner,” Klaus soothes, rubbing Five’s back, not letting him go even though he tries to pull away from him again.

“It’s not your fault. It’s all mine,” Five shakily breathes as he lets himself drop into his brother, partly because he wants to, and partly because Klaus isn’t giving him a choice to do otherwise.

“Not true. We all screwed up big time, buddy. None of this crazy shit is your fault. You have to stop thinking that. You messed up when it came to this chick, but you are not broken, and you are not bad. It’s not too late to make this right. We can fix this. You deserve a chance at happiness, and I promise we aren’t stopping till you find it.”

“I love you so much,” Five quietly sobs with his own trembling hand on Klaus’s arm that's clinging to him, holding him up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Klaus makes good on his promise not to leave Five, and by Sunday night, they have their stolen mall maintenance uniforms on and are walking down the street with garbage bags slung over their shoulders.

“I am so glad we are getting to hang out so much,” Klaus cheerfully exclaims as he prances along the sidewalk sipping his smoothie.

Five glances at him. “Yeah, who knew it would be so fun lugging around pieces of my plastic girlfriend while we are dressed like the Mario brothers.”  

“Hey, man! We do look like Mario and Luigi! But...they were plumbers. We are janitors. That’s way cooler,” Klaus corrects.

Five smirks. “I hate to inform you, but you have that mixed up. Plumbers are much higher ranked on the ladder of shit related duties. Janitors are pretty much as low as you can go.”

“I think you are wrong, but we can pretend to be plumbers and then this cool adventure can sort of make up for Dad never giving in and buying us a Nintendo. It is like we are about to storm King Kuppa’s castle and save the princess, only the opposite, because we are returning your lovely peaches Dolores.”

Trying to understand how his brother thinks but coming up with nothing other than he secretly likes it even if it is nuts, Five slows his pace, stopping short of the back door that they already staked out the day prior on their way back from breakfast.

Using the extremely complicated old stick your foot in the door method, Five and Klaus easily slip inside after someone leaves. Seeing the coast is clear; they start making their way through the damp service corridor to the secondhand store where Five originally found Dolores back during the apocalypse, and then again because he fell into another living nightmare when he realized that he was so far gone that he couldn't live a normal life in a normal world.

Getting to the correct shop’s back entrance takes a while because they have no idea where they are going, but the brothers eventually find it. Unfortunately, the door is locked but they expected that.

Stepping a few feet away, Klaus looks at his drink. “You were lovely and delicious, but goodbye my love…”

Klaus’s smoothie hits the floor, splattering all over the cement and up the wall. He reaches into his bag and hands Five one of the two pink scrub brushes, and they set about their plan of making it look like they are cleaning up the gooey mess he just made.

“It would be cool if we had tails and we were flying around or shooting fireballs while we took out evil turtles, but this is nice too,” Klaus says as he starts bobbing his head around and he sings. “Mop mop mop, all day long. Mop mop mop while I sing my song.”

Five is glad his hair is obscuring his face because there’s no way he can hide his smile and because Klaus needs no more encouragement when it comes to turning everything into a goof fest.

After a minute or two, Klaus begins spraying Five with his squirt bottle filled with water, even getting him in ear several times.

“It’s really too bad I can’t kill you since you can’t still fart yourself back into existence a few minutes later.” Five does his best to sound mad, but when Klaus gets him again, he shakes from the small huffs of laughter he’s been trying to hold in.

“I am really enjoying watching you try and fail to resist my charms,” Klaus teases.

Just as he sprays Five again and gets him right in the face, the back door of the secondhand store opens, and a tired looking woman comes out the back, lugging a large bag of garbage. Klaus and Five quickly turn their faces to the floor again as they silently go about their janitorial duties, but the woman stops right behind them, dropping the garbage next to the two bags containing the disassembled parts of Dolores.

“Here you go boys. Make yourselves useful and take this one out with all that other smelly shit you got there.” After saying that, the woman stomps back to the store, flinging the door wide.

“Quick, catch it!” Five hisses even as Klaus makes a mad dash to stick his scrubby wand in just before the latch catches.

“And that is why I am the magnificent leader of this very important quest. I have all the mad sneaky skills,” Klaus proudly states, grinning at Five with a bow as he comes towards him with water still dripping down his face.

“You are also a total pest, you dipshit.”

“Love you to,” Klaus replies.

Lugging the love of his life on his back, Five rolls his eyes but does so while offering a small but very heartfelt smile as he slips past him inside the back room of the clothing store.

He and Klaus crouch down behind a set of tall shelves and quickly reassemble Dolores and set her straight in her favorite sequined outfit. Then, even though Klaus is right there watching him do it, Five folds himself around her for the briefest moment before softly kissing her lips one last time.

“I am so sorry it ended like this. You will always be my heart,” he quietly whispers, with his face pressed against hers as he brushes his fingers down her back.

Klaus suddenly yanks on the back of Five’s overhauls, because that bitchy woman with the garbage just came in the back room again.

To Five’s shock, when he turns around to take off after Klaus, he hears Dolores’s loving voice calling out to him in his mind, vowing that she will always love him too.

With fresh tears blurring his vision, Five and Klaus sprint down the cold smelly hallway that heads out to the garbage dumpsters where they came in, but he does so with a much less heavy heart than when he started the day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Monday comes, though Five is understandably reluctant, he pushes past his anxiety and goes with Klaus to meet his therapist friend. As expected, it starts off rough, but just like Klaus promised him, Five quickly finds a willing and competent ear in the ex-soldier turned psychiatrist.

As the week goes on, Five visits the doctor and sets up regular scheduled appointments with him. He goes to work just like he always does and comes home at night to his small apartment. Five never opens his blinds but he never stops thinking about the girl and wondering if she is home and if she is okay.

Peeking out his window for even a second would be invading her privacy, and to Five, it would feel like he was violating her all over again, so he refuses to do it. Unable to stop himself, Five does glance up before entering his building, but he never sees her lights on, and her curtains never seem to change position from how she left them open that last night. By two weeks in, he becomes convinced that she moved out and he missed it while he was at work.

It makes him so angry that it came to this, but he can’t blame her for wanting to get as far away from him as possible. Since she is gone, Five stops searching for a different crap-hole apartment he can afford because there is no reason to anymore.

As Five’s therapy sessions continue, he opens himself up more and more about his long and varied catalog of traumas, but the topic of the girl and what he did to her doesn’t come up till week three. Like all the other unbelievable things Five has had to spill about his life, his doctor takes the news of his accidental voyeurism and extreme mental break in stride.

Five assures him that he has not partaken in that perverse behavior since that night, but hearing that it happened, and what this mysterious girl did to Five after it sets off a whole new list of treatment goals when it comes to the ones already prescribed as a part of his already long and extensive healing plan.

Adding to the daunting task of undoing his ingrained negative thought patterns and avoiding situations that might increase their chances, Five is given the added goal of finding new outlets to manage his arousal other than pleasuring himself privately.

With extreme embarrassment, Five tries to explain that he is fine with the way things are and why dating isn’t an option for him, but his psychiatrist wasn’t having it and tasks him with getting out socially and talking to women as a jumping off point. Five assures him that talking to women isn’t the problem, it's actually having them know who he really is, but that just gets the doctor enlisting Klaus to see to it that Five gets out and mingles.

This leads to Friday, exactly four weeks after Five took the girl.

Sitting jammed in tight with his legs getting repeatedly bonked by strangers, Five feels particularly annoyed with being forced to go out. Trying to ignore that he doesn’t want to be here, he picks up his tumbler and slowly nurses his club soda as he glances at his watch.

The entire night has been a list of humiliating fails as he attempted to strike up significant conversations with any woman that sits next to him long enough to not immediately grab their drink and move off to someone less unfriendly.

“What’s the problem with that one?” Klaus asks as he slides into the recently vacated seat that a tall busty redhead dressed in a gaudy tube top just got up from.

Five’s mouth pulls to the side as he swirls his bubbly water. “I guess she’s not interested in dickheads that don’t care to talk about her newly shellacked sparkly nails.”

Klaus frowns. “You have to play the game to get some game, man.”

“I don’t want that kind of game and she didn’t want mine.”

“You don’t know that because you don’t give anyone a chance to see how wonderful you really are. You don’t have to like any of these chicks enough to marry them. You just need to find them attractive enough to bring them home and show them some of your magical pickle tickle action. Like your Doc said at the meeting I got to sit in on last week, just like your murderous tendencies are really a part of you flexing your long-ingrained need for control because so often in life you have had none, he's also right in that you need to pop that old man cherry of yours to move past the idea that you're never going to be loved by anyone like that.”

“Please stop talking about my old man cherry and referring to my dick as a pickle.” Five pushes his drink away. “I am leaving,” he grumbles as he stands up.

“Hey, don’t give up. This is part of your process,” Klaus pushes. “You can’t move on if you don’t open yourself up to other people outside your comfort zone. I am very cool but hanging out with me and only me isn’t what your doctor meant by socializing.”

Diego comes up behind Five, aggressively messing up his perfectly coiffed hair. “Five, stop being a grumpy little shit.”

“You guys seriously need to fuck off!” Five snaps as he tries to straighten his dark head of hair back the way it was. “I am fine with my fancy new plastic toys and I also hangout with this other moron, so I’d say I vastly broadened my inner circle,” Five finishes, shouldering Diego out of his way while giving him one of his beaming saccharin smiles.

Before Klaus can stall Five, he gets pulled away by one of the guys that he had been dancing with before coming over.

Seeing that it’s his turn to rally around their brother, Diego steps up to the plate. “Five, I hate to break it to you, but that new flesh light Klaus got you doesn’t count as a girlfriend, or as mingling and that’s even if you like to talk to it really nice while you jerk off.”

“It counts as my girlfriend if I say it does,” Five disagrees.

“Really, dude? Is it really time to go home and eat your old man peanuts with a nightly bowl of butterscotch ice cream while you watch porn on your phone and whack it out in your tube socks?”

“It’s midnight,” Five informs him. “I have fulfilled my weekly social obligations.”

“Okay,” Diego laughs, “but there’s been a hot chick over on the other side of the bar eyeballing you for the last half hour. You maybe would have noticed if you weren’t so fixated on your ice cubes.”

“Whatever,” Five yells over the music, pushing past him.

“Really, I am not kidding. She was checking you out,” Diego insists but Five isn’t listening so he follows him, determined to find a way to make him stay or simple not go home alone and sulk. "Hey! If you really want to go, I'll come with you. We can go downtown, pick some fights, and you can help me figure out what this shit is going on down at dad's evil headquarters. It looks like he is adding more floors to his tower of doom. That asshole is up to something bad, I just know it."

All Diego gets for that idea is a loudly grumbled, "I don't care!"

As Five heads out through the rowdy crowd, Klaus comes running up blocking his path. Not watching because he’s looking back at the bar trying to find the girl he’s talking about, Diego runs right into Five’s back, dumping his drink down the back of his suit jacket.

Five turns around ready to flip out on Diego, but Klaus aggressively spins him back by the elbow before he can. “God damn you guys!” Five yells. “I hate coming out to these kinds of places and what’s even worse is when we get here, you two always seem to find every imaginable way to piss me off even more.”

“Five, I just saw her!” Klaus shrieks over the loud music as he excitedly pounces around, eyes darting around the club.

“Who?” Five asks, as he angrily shrugs off his wet coat.

“Ahhhh…” Klaus looks at Diego, thinking how to say this because even though he has been a part of pushing Five to go out and he knows about the therapy sessions, he doesn’t know that something bad happened that initially prompted it. “It was that one girl, you know the cute freaky one that used to be your neighbor…” he says, eyes deliberately bugging out.

Five spins around looking through the throngs of people, but he doesn’t see her.

He looks back at Klaus. “Are you sure?”

“Wait, what cute freaky neighbor?” Diego demands.

“It was her. She was wearing a pretty little dress with cherries printed all over it,” Klaus replies.

“The hot chick at the bar was wearing a dress like that,” Diego says, clearly pondering if this could be the same girl.

Spinning on his heel as he looks for her again, Five impatiently asks, “Which way did she go?” He can’t help cursing under his breath because he’s so frustrated that he didn’t see her, and she was right in front of him.

“She was over by the-"

Before Klaus can finish his thought, all three Hargreeves brothers stop dead in their search because the girl is prowling towards them in her red kitten heels.

She winks at Five. “Hello, sunshine. Looks like other than being a little wet and bored out of your mind, you seem to be doing much better than the last time I saw you. I am glad to see it,” she says, as she gazes up at Five’s very flushed, slack jawed face.

“Ahhh…Yeah?” he stammers, not sure what to say to that, and also clearly unable to grasp that the girl he thought hated him, and that he’d been worried about for weeks, is standing right in front of him willingly speaking to him, and she seems fond of calling him of all people the nickname sunshine.

“Mind walking me home if you are heading out? This city is so dangerous, especially our neighborhood. You know, with all those pervy weirdos living around there,” she laughs.

Five swallows several times. “You want me to walk you home?” he asks, thumb pointed at his chest in confusion.

“Yes.”

Still looking totally thrown he glances at Klaus for help but gets nothing, so he looks back to the girl. “I thought you moved.”

“No, why would you think that?

“Ah, well… Because you- Uhm….”  

Her smile gets bigger, and she comes just a little closer. “Have you been spying on me?”

“No!” Five squeaks and that makes the girl’s smile even brighter.

“I am teasing you. You look like you are about to have a heart attack. Please don’t,” she says, laughing at him.

Suddenly realizing how tense he must look, Five instantly tries to shake it off, but his awkward shifting and fidgeting only makes the girl giggle at him even more.

Five lets out a shaky breath, his doleful eyes glued to hers. “I thought you hated me.”

“No. I do not hate you. I have had a lot to think about since our last date, but hate is not something I feel about you or how that turned out.”

“Oh,” Five breaths relieved but confused still.

Her cool calculating eyes flick from Five’s to Klaus, her smile unwavering. “Hi, Klaus.”

“Hi,” Klaus giggles, unable to hold in his amusement over this very interesting exchange.

“You look so different without one-hundred straws stuck up your nose. I almost didn’t recognize you when I passed you a few minutes ago.”

Just as Diego is about to say something that’s probably going to be dumb and also make Five even more uncomfortable, Klaus throws his hand over his mouth. “We better get back to ah… Yeah.” He points to the dance floor, nodding at Five as he drags Diego along with him.

Diego twists Klaus' arm around to make him let go but it obviously doesn't hurt because Klaus just laughs about it. “Hold up. What’s she-"

“Nope,” Klaus snaps, slapping his hand back over Diego’s mouth, yanking him by his leather utility vest he can’t seem to give up. “This is one of Five’s solo missions, man.” Klaus gives Five a very silly smile. “You have successfully let go of the dark side, but much to learn you still have, young Padawan. Go now. May the force be with you.”

Five looks even more flustered by him saying that and by their abandonment than he was by their overbearing presence. His eyes dart back and forth from his retreating brothers to the petite woman standing there grinning at him in a cute but also very mischievous way that’s doing nothing to calm his haywire nerves.

When he realizes her hand is reaching for his, Five’s head jerks down, eyes wide with shock, but he doesn’t pull away. Her fingers lace between his and Five lets her pull him through the crowd.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Outside, the city streets are damp from the earlier rain. The girl tows Five along, slowing only when they are far enough away from the doors of the club so that they aren’t being bombarded by the loud music flowing out.

She uses Five’s hand in hers to maneuver him to a stop just inside the entrance to the adjacent alley. He opens his mouth, not sure what’s happening but sure that now that they are alone, he’s going to say all the things he has wanted to say since the moment he last saw her.

“I am so sorr-"

The girl’s warm lips press against Five’s, preventing him from trying to apologize. Her small body moves flush with his as her hands come up around Five’s neck, her fingers brushing gently through his soft strands of dark hair. Five’s suit jacket slowly slips out of his hand, falling at their feet. A second later, both his hands are gingerly resting on the girl’s narrow waist.

Even though her tongue is softly massaging his and it feels so good that it’s making it feel like his head is floating high above the tall buildings around him, Five manages to break away. He pulls back, anxiously watching her eyes flutter back open.

“Your magical lips are pretty much the best thing that I have ever felt but you’re going to have to forgive me. I don’t know what’s going on. I thought that I would never see you again. I was so worried about you. I assumed you left because you were so upset by what I did.” Five quickly rattles off his line of thinking, then takes a deep breath, trying to calm down as he searches her eyes for the answers.

“I am sorry,” she says back equally nervously. “I did leave the city for a little while because I needed to clear my head and that was because of you.”

“You have every reason to hate me, and you should have had me arrested. I don’t understand this. Why are you talking to me let alone letting me kiss you again? I don’t deserve this from you of all people, but the truth is, this is all I have wanted since I watched you walk out my door, and I know that’s wrong and everything about me is crazy, but it’s been killing me not knowing what happened to you. I know you probably don't believe it, but I really do care about you.”

Her hand comes up pushing some of Five’s hair back out of his eyes and when she does, her fingers brush against his forehead. It feels so unbelievably amazing to him that he inadvertently lets out the smallest of sounds from deep in his throat. Five’s face turns towards her touch as he shuts his eyes, trying to stop the tears being brought on by the flood of emotions he’s feeling.

“Please don’t feel bad. It is not wrong to feel and want the things you do, Five. I have wanted nothing more than to kiss you again ever since you threw me for a loop and blew my mind while I was trying to blow yours.”

“You have?” Five asks, not believing it even though it just happened, and she just said it, and she’s touching him so softly that it’s the sweetest hurt he’s ever known.

The girl leans in, raising up on her toes, meeting Five’s slightly parted lips with her own in a feather light touch that lasts only a second before she pulls away again even though he moves forward with her withdrawal trying to prolong it.

Her heels drop down again, as she smiles up at Five with her own glistening eyes giving away that she’s equally overwhelmed by this.

“Five Hargreeves, I can’t stop thinking about you. At first, I was confused by it. While I was gone, I realized that I was feeling this way because I saw something in you, and it’s something most people don’t have and never will.”

She smiles in what looks like a deceptively coy manner. Then her hands slide down to Five's shoulders, holding him firm by the collar of his dress shirt in a controlling but playful way that he is more than okay with because it means he isn’t going anywhere, and neither is she.

Her grin turns all fox again proving Five right. She is trying to fuck with him.

“And… by something most people don’t have, I don’t mean that you are a genetically altered ex-assassin, who is mentally an old man but somehow physically the opposite, or that you lost your ability to travel time and teleport around like an electrified perv on superhero steroids. Mostly people don’t have all that going for them and that’s all very interesting, but that’s not it.”

She laughs and shrugs a little, her smile softens, and it looks so accepting.

“When we were together, you made me feel things I have never felt with anyone else. It hurt me to see you hurting the way you were. I wanted nothing more than to break you out of your hell. The way you look at me, the way you give every part of yourself over so honestly and completely, the way your kisses make me feel so alive… Five, you may be full of all sorts of bad things that will always haunt you, but the fact that you are still fighting to be this good person who is also so desperately handsome it should be illegal, it is truly the most real and beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“You see me like that?”

“I do.”

“You aren’t scared of me?”

“No. I know you didn’t mean to have things go down the way they did. I know you needed help, and I am glad that you’ve been getting it.”

“How did you know I have been getting help? I mean, I know you text Klaus about it, but how do you know I have been going?”

Her smile broadens. “You aren’t the only one who can spy on people. I have had my eyes on you, and running into you tonight while you were having one of your many brotherly misadventures wasn’t a coincidence. I have been stalking you, Hargreeves,” she taunts, giving Five’s shirt a feisty tug.

“You have?”

“I have and I think you realize by now that I am not the innocent girl you thought you were falling for.” She giggles. “I am far from perfect. I know what I did to you was wrong. I never meant to take it that far. From the start, it was wrong even if I was trying to help.”

“I think you are perfect,” Five quickly blurts, his intense stare never faltering.

Five saying that makes the girl’s teasing smile weaken a little, but she doesn’t let him go.

“I assure you I am not perfect, and if you knew me, you’d see that. Even tonight, when I was watching you trying so hard to fit in but also self-sabotaging your own efforts because places like that are the last place you want to be, me being unable to stay away is not fair and that's because you are still working through so many things.”

“I don’t want you to stay away. I want to know you, the real you,” Five says, sounding so sincere. “I haven’t been able to stop wanting that.”

“I want that too, but I didn’t mean to throw myself at you like this, but you are so damn lost and dead sexy and you make me totally crazy and I couldn’t help it. My kooky brain wants to do all sorts of things with you other than help you escape that obnoxious place, but that’s me being wrong, not you. I think I have proved that you are not the only one who is badly behaved.”

She tries to move back.

Five can’t resist. His fingers latch onto her small hips preventing her from getting away from him.

“I want you more than anything. Maybe we can be wrong and badly behaved together?”

The girl looks nervous but not in a bad way and that gives Five the nerve to keep spilling what’s on his mind and also start fucking with her right back.

“Please believe me that I want to know you more than bodily, though I absolutely want to make love to you right fucking now too.” His voice comes out low and dangerous and the girl’s breath hitches as she stares into his honest eyes.

Five moves closer, stepping on his disregarded jacket as his head falls to the side while he studies her cute reactions to him. Seeing the cherry covered fabric covering her chest rising and falling quicker has his mouth pulling to the side.

“You want to do that?”

“Yes, I fucking do. I want to gently take your shoulders and guide you backwards until your back is pressed into that wall behind you. I want to let my hands run as light as possible up and down your gorgeous arms, and the entire time I will keep my mouth against yours in a soft kiss that makes you believe how much I want all of you.”

Five eases her backward, just like he said. His cautious kiss is so delicate it makes her entire body shiver.

His warm lips move away only enough to say, “From there, I am going to wrap your legs around my waist, open my pants, and slowly, gently, slide my naughty meat puppet inside you.”

She softly giggles over that, and Five holds his serious tone, but his smile widens and his eyes narrow.

He doesn’t follow through with that action. Instead, Five runs his fingers down over the tops of her exposed thighs with spider light touch calling every goose bump on her legs to attention.

When Five has her back against the cool brick wall, he leans in close like he is going to kiss her again, but then he abruptly moves to her ear.

“If you allow me to fuck you…” He moves his hands around the back of her legs, gripping her thighs tightly and pushing her hips into his, “at first it will be slow and gentle but as I go, things will be anything but. Every thrust, every touch will convey how fucking sexy I find you and I promise there will be no shortage of passion.”

The girl clears throat, looking much less the part of the sly dominatrix she has been putting on for Five. “Uhmmm, Wowza… This confidence act you have going is pretty damn good and it’s sure to drop some panties if you put it to use next time your brothers force you out with them.”

“It’s not an act, and your panties are the only ones I want to drop,” Five smarts back, full of renewed certainty of that fact over seeing her so cutely flustered over his ridiculous dirty talk.

“Really because among your many talents I have heard about, I didn’t really think that you were the ass kissing kind of guy. That’s unless you were given no other choice, like in our little situation, but that was because you were literally tied to your bed, and you were so hard you were about to come in your pants.”

“I am usually not an ass kisser, but I’d love to kiss your ass and have my way with your ass in other ways too, and maybe even vice versa. I am not opposed to trying new things, or to being punished in any way you see fit.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. You can rule me anytime. I have wanted nothing else since you had me under you pleading for your love."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

They way Five is acting and hearing him say that makes your jaw drop.

The way Five says the word love, it feels like it could make your heart stop beating. You feel faint. If not for his strong grip on your bottom you’d be swaying like a drunken sailor, and you didn’t drink any alcohol at the bar.

This insanely sexy man is proving once again to be everything you knew he was and then some.

“As much as I like your idea of using this wall as a backdrop for carrying out your clever plan, I think maybe we should take our conversation somewhere more private?”

“You like my plan?”

“Yes, Five, and even though I loved making you quiver and moan for me, I am more than willing to let you take the lead and let things go as far as you want this time. I like control but I like being controlled just as much if it’s by the right person.”

Five’s eyes never leave yours as he grins and presses his impressive hard-on between your legs. “Damn. I wish I could blink us back to my super crappy apartment.”

“Blink?”

His beautiful smile spreads in that way that makes your heart feel like it could plunk out completely.

“I mean teleport. That’s what my siblings started calling it when we were kids. It would happen in the blink of an eye, and that was very unsettling for anyone around me when I did it. The porthole manifests with an electrical charge followed by a bright flash of blue flashes of light, so calling it that made sense to my family and the word stuck,” he explains.

“I am glad you have them. Your family, I mean.”

You know that you sound like an awe-struck fool but it’s hard not to. As much as you know now about Five and the Umbrella Academy, it’s still hard to fathom all the wild  things about him that make him who he is.

“I am glad I have them too. If you hadn’t given me this chance, I never would have been able to tell them how much they mean to me, but I have now and I have you to thank for that, though sometimes I still sort of want to kill them. So, that is why I go to a shrink twice a week and probably always will. I am crazy as fuck and they all know it.” Five finishes that by laughing at his own attempt at making light of his tendency to jump straight to thoughts of murderous rage.  

You shake your head, chuckling just a little. Even trying to be mean and belittle himself, you can see the love in Five’s eyes as he thinks about them.

When you feel Five’s fingers slipping off your backside, you shiver again, but this time it’s more from the cold of his withdrawal. He swiftly bends down picking up his dirty suit coat, his dark brows furrowing as he looks at the garment.

“I would offer you this, but it’s covered in Diego’s margarita, and now I really did it because I think that’s gum stuck to it.” Five lifts the coat higher, eyeing it closer in the dim light. “Yup, that’s gum. Looks like I am going to have another expensive dry-cleaning bill, which is funny because that happened the last time that I was with you.”

Five’s smile looks positively wicked. He is all danger of the good and very bad kind and you love it.

Five is clearly trying to tease you about punching him in the nose, causing him to bleed all over his dress shirt, and then later, how you shamelessly rubbed yourself all over the protruding crotch of his pants.

Thinking about that, you immediately feel your desire for him making itself even more apparent between your legs, so you snatch up his free hand, leading him back out on the street.

“I wish you could blink us back too, but it looks like we will be walking like the rest of the boring regular humans.”

Five scrambles along behind you as fast as he can, trying to adjust himself in his pants in a way that makes his nice sized, rock-hard dick less noticeable, and he couldn’t look hotter doing it.

“Thank God, it’s only four blocks. I know it’s only ten minutes away, but I have been waiting over sixty years for a chance like this and I feel like even a minute more and I might die before we get there,” he says while excitedly sliding in at your side giving you the most adorably boyish smile.

As you and Five quickly walk the shadowy streets, he asks questions about your life in such a way that proves he wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to know you. You can’t help but laugh at him a few times over how the moment you finish telling him one thing, he fires off another question as if he’s reciting them from a list he’s been compiling in his head since he first laid eyes on you from across the alley.

As the pattern continues, Five never loses his enthusiastic momentum, and you realize he probably does have an actual list of things he’s been wanting to ask. That gets you giggling as you try to keep up with him, but he doesn’t seem to care if you laugh at him as long as you don’t stop answering his sweetly thought-out questions that comprise of everything from where you grew-up, to details about your family, the books you love, your favorite foods, if you prefer dogs or cats, and even if you favor the right or the left side of the bed when sleeping. To that curious question you tell Five, you prefer the middle since you generally sleep alone, and that response is met with what you determine is a very mischievous, but also very happy looking grin.

Together, with plenty of nervous smiles, your feet rapidly click along, mimicking the anticipation you feel, and you are sure Five feels it too. As you make your way to your destination, it’s with the mutual understanding that something very special is happening.

Chapter Six: Underneath It All

Outside your building, when Five begins to lead you towards his, you pull back.

“Come to my place.”

You don’t say it in question and that’s because you don’t feel that it is.

Even so, Five looks at you with that troubled expression traveling across his face, and it hits you again how gorgeous he is, not just his looks, but it’s more that he has a smoldering sexuality in the hint of vulnerability within his many troubled expressions.

“Are you sure?”

You can hear his doubt, and you know why it’s there. Five is still terrified of doing anything that will invade your private space after what he did, and that’s all the more reason for you to bring him inside your place to help move past it.

“Five, I am sure. I want to know you, and for you to know me the right way. What started this may have been very bad, but sometimes bad things can turn out good. I have been home for the last three weeks and I have never once shut my curtains. I wanted you to open your blinds and see me openly letting you into my life and that’s because I want you in every way.”

The cool green in Five’s eyes is so beautiful as he breathlessly brushes his lips across yours. He’s so warm and soft. You are stunned speechless by the gesture because it’s so desperate yet gentle.

“Okay.” Five’s reply falls from his lips so softly and unsure, but he doesn’t pull back when you lead him inside.

At your door, he slows his pace to a full stop, his hand pulling back on yours as his eyes move around your home taking it in for the first time from the inside not out.

Seeing that scared look on Five’s face, you immediately yank him over the threshold and throw the door closed behind him. Before the poor guy so much as has a chance to let out another one of his long nervous breaths, you are on him, your mouth covering that sexy neck of his in fevered kisses that make his breath catch sharply in his throat. If he had on one of his black ties, you’d be securing him to you with that, but griping his shirt will have to do.

All at once, Five’s hands lock down on your hips letting you know that he's not going anywhere.

“I want you to kiss me again, Five,” you hum as his head drops back and his lips part.

Another sound of desperate craving erupts from somewhere deep inside him, but after a second or two Five finds his senses again, and just as fast, his tongue is obediently pressing inside your mouth.

After expertly reacquainting himself with the motions of a deep kiss again, breathless and flushed, Five pulls his mouth off yours. “Thank you for allowing me to touch you this time. The ropes were fun but his is, fuck .”

Five’s use of the word fuck gets you every time, only making what he says hotter, and you grin at him, ready to give him whatever he wants, all things fuck included.

One of Five’s hands brushes against your breast, tentatively sliding up and down with his happy words. The next thing you know, he has the other hand moving up your skirt and his warm fingers are running along the joint between thigh and your hips, tracing a line over the thin lacy fabric.

A soft moan-like sound escapes your tightly pressed lips because you are a little surprised by him so brazenly touching you so fast being a few minutes ago he was so nervous. He may be thrown by it too based on the way he appeared to just stop breathing.

Five’s hand under your skirt suddenly moves away, flipping the flared fabric up as he retreats and even though you understand his nerves, you are slightly confused by the back-and-forth pattern of intense confidence to having almost none.

“This little dress of yours is humorously appropriate considering this is technically my first time and I have been getting shit constantly from my brother’s about being the oldest virgin on the planet.”

Five fingers puck at a conveniently placed cherry on the pattern of your dress and you let out a tiny yelp that has him looking so smug that it makes you think you may have just misread him and this confidence thing big time.

“You look unbelievably hot in this, but I need you to take this off and get on your bed as soon as possible,” he orders as he tightens both hands on your breasts and his hips pump against yours, deliberately giving you another taste of his renewed stiffness below the fabric of his black slacks.

Letting your fingers run down the front of Five’s crisp white dress shirt, causes him to shudder and it reminds you that no matter how he’s acting now, it’s easy to make him react in such an unbelievably sexy and uninhibited way. Five Hargreeves, the broken down mentally sixty some year-old virgin, is literally the sexiest old man you've ever seen and that's because he is enjoying the prime of his life all over again, and his reactions to the smallest touches are the biggest turn on ever.

As you look him dead in the eye, you reach along your side and undo the hidden clasp above your side zipper, not stopping until your dress falls at your ankles and Five is unable to hold your stare. His focus drops, moving up and down your body a few times before hungrily landing on your bare breasts.

Without a word, Five swiftly swoops you up, your legs flipping up over his arm as he brings you over to your bed and proceeds to lower you like you’re the most breakable thing he’s ever held. Just as fast though, he comes down next to you with one of his legs possessively pinning yours to the bed.

Five props himself up on one elbow, his face falling against your breasts. Looking down, all you could see is his dark hair as he abruptly covers one of your nipples with his mouth. His warm lips part over you, his tongue coming out, wetting the sensitive skin as his hand moves, running up and down your opposite side so slowly.

His lips, his tongue, his soft hair tickling you, all of it is incredible. You let out a high-pitched whining and kick out your feet, but Five tightens his hold on you making sure to keep you secured where he wants you.

When Five pulls back, his eyes are closed and there is a look of peace on his face that instantly turns pained again when he opens them.  

“I have wanted to know what that was like for so long. That was way better than I imagined it and I imagined it a lot," he admits with a small laugh that makes you want to immediately kiss him. "Things got so lonely when I was completely isolated in my windswept wasteland for forty years, but they weren’t much better after that. Dolores was my everything. She kept me from completely going insane. She was all I had. She was all I thought I’d ever have, and then you saw it, she left me too.” Five's handsome smile fades just a little as he further explains what's on his mind.

“Five, where is she?” you ask.

He lets out a long breath and his sweet smile returns, covering a deep sadness. “I took her home to be with her friends because that is where she belongs.”

Your brows furrow but you smile because he is. “Five, you didn’t need to do that. Your Dolores seemed very nice, and I don’t mind a three-way as long as it’s with someone as easy going as her.”

Five laughs and not just any laugh either, he throws his head back and laughs so hard the skin around his eyes crinkles and you can see his nice white, perfectly straight teeth.

“Though I really appreciate your offer to let me be with two lovely ladies at one time, it’s okay. I think I like the idea way too much, but I am not sure I could successfully please two women at once even if one is made of plastic and I manifest everything she thinks and feels inside my own fucked up brain.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “It was time. You helped me see that and it was a very good thing.”

As you are about to tell Five, that based on the demonstration that he gave you before he drunkenly passed out on you at his apartment, you are pretty sure he actually could successfully pleasure two real women at once, his lips crush yours again, and you can hear the soft murmur of that amazing whimpering sound coming from him again. Five’s tongue snakes into your mouth pushing for more as he kisses you, deeply, roughly, and desperately.

You kiss him back, eyes crashing closed, your hands flinging up, feeling that wonderful hair of his as they move up his neck and your tongue drives into his mouth equally aggressively. You hear that Five’s breaths are already coming quickly as begins lowering himself down over you and the warmth of his fully clothed body presses against yours like you are two magnets being pulled together and there’s no stopping it.

Once Five gets a handle on himself, swallowing down his excitement he opens his eyes again, releasing your lips. You feel his hands on the bed next to your sides tighten into clenched fists. “I want to use my fingers on you the way you did to yourself. Will you show me how to do it right?”

Even hearing Five so sweetly asking permission to do that has your legs fighting to tighten together as coils of longing burn through you. He shifts himself over you as his right hand comes around your hip, stopping on your thigh. Between what he just said and where he has his hand, it’s clear what he means. The confirmation of your small nod gets his fingers moving again.

Your mouth opens in anticipation as his fingers creep down between your legs, stroking you so lightly and carefully over our panties.

“Does this feel good?” Five asks, sounding so unsure of himself even though you know damn well that he can feel how wet you are through the almost non-existent lace.

Propping yourself up just a little on your elbows, you bring your flushed face up to his, seeing even clearer that his pupils are blown wide and dark by desire. You nod again as you bite your lip and reach down to show him how to move in a way that’s even better, but you do so by taking his hand in yours to demonstrate.

Just the look on Five’s face is enough to do you in, but a short review of your previous lesson is all he needs, and within a minute he has it under control and you are reeling in pleasure from the sheer feel of his fingers on you quickly giving you what you want. As Five’s fingers slide between your folds, your attraction to him can’t be ignored and he lets out a very sharp and pained sounded moan because of it.

“My god, you are beautiful.” He all but whispers his sweet compliment as he lightly ruts his restrained erection up against the side of your leg in time with his hand.

“Fi-ivvvve ,” you embarrassingly mumble out as his fingers move faster, “you are wearing way too much clothing for this!”

He laughs at that as your pleasure builds to an almost unbearable degree. Feeling desperate with the need to see all of him, you try reaching for him to tear his shirt off but the sexy shit wiggles further down the bed so you can’t.

“If I was naked, this would be over way too quick,” he says, still laughing. “I want to make sure I see that beautiful face of yours falling apart for me this way before it comes to that.”

His fingers slow but only for a moment before he presses them down deeper, letting the tip of one slip inside you in just the smallest amount.

“Now keep your hands to yourself or I’ll find a way to make you. Thanks to my peeping Tom perving on you, I know you keep some very nice toys in that drawer over there and I am sure there’s bound to be something in there that I can use to keep your hands busy while I enjoy myself manually down here,” he cockily warns as you begin to reach for him again.

First you try to look shocked by that, but Five’s smart-ass grin proves that was his intention, so you show him your poutiest pout instead, but it also does no good, so you obey by throwing yourself back down in the pillows, hands balled up in the blankets at your sides.

“This is fucking amazing,” Five curses as he dips in even more while his eyes remain locked on yours as he studiously watches you unraveling for him, your hips bucking each time he his knuckles push against you.

“Yessss, ahhh…FFF! Just like that,” you gasp as Five forces his two buried fingers up while inside you, then pulls them back out with a firm glide as you helplessly rock your hips up into his hand.

The smooth motion as he works into you, deeper and faster, leaves your thighs quivering and a sweet ache spreading from your toes to your scalp.

Five’s look of admiration and childlike wonder over this is enough to send your orgasm flying through you.

“Fff-ive! Aaa—na, MmmfFFF!” you incoherently cry out.

He has to feel it happening. You catch that glimmer of defiant pride in the dark depths of his unbelievably expressive eyes.

Five seems older in doing this to you and you can see his true age coming into play in his ability to just stop and focus his complex mind on what he’s seeing and feeling. As the pulsing explosion of the purest release he just caused begins to fade, his fingers pull out of you, but they don’t stop slowly making circles over your clit.

He is so quiet and contemplative that you don’t see it coming until he drops his head and begins to lick you, his damp fingers clinging to your hips to keep you still and to give his mouth room to work.

“I want to do that all day, every day,” he buzzes after a few exceptionally long and leisurely licks. Your body shudders from that alone.

“Oh my God, Five. You are…. Wow.”

Five shamelessly laps at you with his searing tongue and it is almost too much to handle, making you squirm from being over stimulated due to not being over the orgasmic bliss he just gave you.

Five only lifts his head when he feels your fingernails brushing against his scalp gently pulling him up.

“No one has ever trusted me or seen me the way you do,” he whispers and his warm breath is still so close to your skin it feels like just another one of his brilliant touches.

Five looks to the side, a wayward look in his eyes as the light from the window and the lamp in your adjacent living room space illuminates his face.

“All I want is to make you feel as good as you make me feel,” he admits, so damn softly again.

The way he says it sounds so scared, like he feels that he needs to explain what he just did and it's like he feels in the wrong for wanting that.

“Five, consider that one checked off your list because you are making me feel so far beyond good. Now take off your clothes and get up here,” you playfully demand.

After that, he springs to action faster than you’ve ever seen a man move and seeing it has you smiling because you can’t help thinking about how quick Five would be if he could still do his mysterious blinky thing. Thanks to only having on a dress shirt and fitted dress pants, though still looking hot as hell, Five has himself fully naked in ten seconds flat.

And damn…

Wow, wow, wow.

You knew that Five was all lean muscle. You’d seen it before, but like this. All out there…

Yeah.

Five is standing there, very erect dick at full attention, looking down at you looking so absorbed, like he’s so ready to do anything you tell him to do. Despite what he said he was going to do to you back while you were out on the street, now he is looking for direction of any kind and you know it’s because he’s never done this before and he’s probably also scared of pushing you too far in any way.

His face begins to melt into a look of almost childlike distress and it’s actually a very adorable look on him that’s equally sexy for some reason. This man is mentally over the age of sixty and he’s never been with a real woman. Five is such an anomaly in that he carries himself both with a cold hypnotic confidence yet also so much uncertainty and innocence that it’s hard to grasp it can all be in one beautiful yet very complicated person.

“I am such a stupid asshole. I don’t have any protection,” he says, looking so cutely flustered when he admits what’s partly troubling him.

You smile and giggle because you had thought it was more than that. “It’s okay. I am on a very reliable birth control that will take care of that for us and I haven’t been with anyone since I was last tested, and that was over a year ago. A lot of what I did and said when I tied you up was to fuck with you, but I was not lying when I said that I don't date much.”

Five smiles now too.

“Come here,” you say, seductively curling your finger at him.

Five’s weight makes the mattress sink as he moves closer, but he stops short, and it seems like he is still hesitant to make the first move now that things just got very real, so you decide for him how this is going to start.

When you lure him in for a kiss and his face meets yours, you abruptly push him over flat on his back on the bed as you hop on top straddling him. It only works because Five lets you, and giving in to your insistence, his head falls back, his dark hair spilling out on the white pillowcase, and he looks so handsome laying there under you that you could die.

You are strongly considering wrapping your mouth around his cock, and as you lick your lips thinking about it, Five bucks up just a little. Him doing that reminds you that he probably wouldn’t be able to take much of that and the real goal here is to get him laid and a blow job finish doesn’t count.

“Oh, are we doing this again?” he questions with plenty of teasing in his tone.

“We can do anything you want, I just thought you needed a little guidance there for a second.”

You reach down between your spread legs, running your hand over Five’s shaft, relishing how hard he was. Even the feeling of him this way alone, and the sight of his eyes rolling with pleasure, makes you gasp and fresh wetness spills between your legs.

You tickle your nails along his chest as you start to rub the swollen tip of his cock, gathering his drizzle of pre-cum on your finger before bringing it to your mouth, giving him a little taste.

“Mmmm,” you hum. “You taste good too, Number Five.”

“MMmffuck.”

The tiniest muffled moan from Five and you want to give him the world.

“Are you ready?” you question even though you know he is more than ready.

Five looks like he is already beside himself over that, and he never stops holding your gaze but you can tell something wrong.

“I am, but I am scared this can’t possibly be real,” he whispers on what looks like trembling lips. “So much is not real, I just trick myself into thinking it is and I have been doing it so long, I don’t know what to think anymore. Even you feel unreal because there’s no way in my mind that I can work out why you would want this with me.”

Cupping his jaw with your hand, you lean in close, touching his forehead to yours.

Five whispers your name.

Thinking about what he just said, you almost sob out his. “ Five . This. Is. Real.” You say each word in a way that you hope drills it home for him and you also rub his tip back and forth across your entrance to further prove the point. “I promise you won’t always feel this way,” you pant out in small huffs as you begin to lower your body over him.

As the heavy feeling of him begins to fill you, it’s harder and harder to keep your eyes open, but you do it because you can’t take your eyes off him.

“Oh my, Fu-uuck ,” Five groans, throwing his head back as his eyes slam closed.

Just seeing that.

Oh my God!

You let out a low helpless sounding moan of your own and that makes him writhe beneath you even more.

Careful to only undulating your hips very slowly at first, you softly shoosh him, while running your lips along his handsomely defined jaw.  

It takes Five a second or two, fists clenching at his sides, laying almost completely still again, for his eyes to open again. It’s as if he is unable to speak because he’s so overwhelmed.

Maybe he can’t?

Again, that is so fucking hot.

Since Five is property indisposed, you let your lips meet in a kiss that leaves you shaken to the cells of your being. Like before, Five may not be in control of this, but he is eliciting a primal response in you, one that is as welcoming as it is frightening in your pure need to give him anything you can.

Very slowly, you begin rocking your hips, moving back and forth.

Five’s fingers brush across your skin, tracing lines of want over your shoulders and arms.

“I love the way you touch me,” you say, gasping for air. “I don’t know how you know what to do but you do.”

“You feel so fucking good, all I want is to touch you,” he breaths as he lays there looking up at you in such an honest loving way that you know you have never seen anyone look at you like this before now.

Sitting up on him much straighter, you continued to very slowly roll against him, enjoying the feeling of him inside you but trying to take it easy on him to make this last as long as possible. You watch his eyes move from yours down to your chest, then down to wear your bodies are joined. Again, Five curses from the sight, and you feel his cock inside you simultaneously jolt, which is quite impressive considering it is being squeezed tight within your walls.

Five can’t reach you as well now so instead his hands drop, clinging to the rumbled blankets under him.

You can tell he wants to do more but he is fighting to remain as is, letting you do this to him.

Feeling empowered the more you watch him strain and try to control himself, you dig your toes into the bed looking for leverage to really fuck him. You begin thrusting your hips down on him over and over, making his cock move in and out, just at the tip, before you fuck back down on him hard again, eliciting the most glorious cry from his gaping mouth.

Five’s moans of pleasure as he struggles, and the feel of him, exquisitely inexperienced and so fucking hard inside you are enough for your own building pleasure to just about send you over the edge again.

“Oh fuck,” he cries as he suddenly sits up enough to wrap his arms around you, pulling you down with him.

You think that he just wanted you near again, but that’s when Five flips you over, your bodies not even parting as he skillfully traps you under him. His hands come down under your ass, squeezing but also trembling as he lays there with his face against your neck trying to catch his breath.

“I am sorry,” he breathes, “That was beautiful, but I just have to know what it’s like to fuck you.”

“Fuck away,” you giggle as Five starts pulling himself up on his elbows positioning himself to do just that.

Five’s face is full of color, his strong body tense as he drags his cock out, and for the first time he is one getting to be in control of this while being with someone who knows the difference. That looks like it sends him to another planet, but his otherworldly look gets even better when he slowly pushes his length back inside you. There’s no way to describe the low sounds coming from Five other than to say they are part pain and part pleasure. It’s like Five is savoring every inch of you he takes even if doing it slowly is taking every bit of control he has left.

You start kissing Five right along the hollow where his shoulder and collarbone meet. Your hands both slid down his smooth back and your fingers dig into his firm ass, urging him to take you harder.

When you lick along his neck and suck his earlobe, Five groans so lustfully, but it’s almost like he can’t take even one more thing because suddenly, his hand moves under one of your legs, lifting your bottom while sliding your entire body backwards. He does it so unexpectedly that you would have bonked into the headboard if not for him quickly putting his other arm around you, holding you till you’re settled again.

“Hang on to your headboard, this is going to get rough,” he warns.

As he’s saying that, Five positions one of your legs up over his shoulder while he latches the other around his waist, and you have to wonder how he knows how to do this and where he’s getting this idea from. Then you realize that this behavior is exactly what he would have been used to doing with Dolores because with her, he could do anything he wanted, and he was able to position her body in different ways to some extent. Just thinking of Five deviantly pretending to have sex with his Dolores in this way is making you feel even more turned on.

“Now I am going to really fuck you,” he growls as he thrusts himself full to the hilt, his hair falling in his eyes as his face contorts with pleasure.

You cry out from the sheer intensity of it as he clings to you. Sensations you don’t even comprehend begin to flood your body as he does it again and again. For someone that has never done this with a real person, Five knows what he’s doing. His cock works inside you each time with such an explosive momentum that makes your body quake. But when he pulls out, Five makes sure to buck up into you at the same time so that his member slides across the secret parts of you that make you melt.

“Five, you’re the one that’s unreal,” you moan out so frazzled sounding that it has him grinning ear to ear.

You can tell that Five’s main mode of operation is to act on pure instinct and immense need and that’s exactly how this should be. When Five lets it all out there, he’s the opposite of vacant coldness. He’s literally bursting with desire, passion, empathy, and tenderness that can make you weep.

Five’s face is suffused with a light red flush, his top teeth studding into his bottom lip. He has you filled entirely, pushing achingly through your body. You feel like you may have just died from how brutally hot he looks while fucking you.

You swear your heart stops because you can hardly breathe. The pleasure building makes you want to go limp, but he keeps your leg lifted, how he wants, as his strong hips fuck into you and you hang on for dear life.

You can feel your orgasm building blindingly inside you, but before you can let yourself go, Five swiftly moves you again, dropping your leg and aggressively pulling your body down off the pillows as he covers you. Letting go of the rungs on your headboard, your nails dig into his shoulders hard enough that he flinches. Perhaps in retaliation, Five’s mouth goes back to your breast, sucking deeply at one nipple, and with that you cry out, coming undone.

Your head flings back, mouth opened. “Oh Fuck! Five, fuck!” A hard, pulsing, orgasm shakes through you, making you cling to him.

He laughs of all things, and it is enough to make you shudder and clench around his thrusting length even more. Five is the epitome of deep, primal, carnal joy and he looks so beautiful you could cry.

Five’s hands at your sides keep you captive, impaled on his length. You press your face onto his shoulder. His flesh still working, sliding in and out of you is teasing every nerve you have far past any mental understanding. He nips and sucks at your neck, his hips slamming powerfully against yours in a rhythmic pattern that’s as simple as in and out as quick as he can. He grasps at your body in a way that is surely going to bruise, lost in passion that is all intensity and burning heat.

The pace of his furor begins to fall apart, the fiction too much for him, turning each attack into a much less coordinated effort but no less intense as his pumping hips continue to seek his first ever release inside of someone.

You know it is coming soon when Five stops his onslaught of dizzying kisses and bites, his eyes closing as he buries his face against your neck. One of his hands comes up and his fingers twist into your hair. He moans, a long low sound that sends you over the edge again.

“Five ,” you softly whimper because you are so far past crying out.

That is it. You feel him spilling. It’s so warm, and notably lengthy, like the sixty some years of waiting to do that equates to his impressive amount of cum though you know that has nothing to do with it and it seems to be his norm.

Five’s whole body shudders over and over but he remains silent other than his heavy breathing. Erratically lifting his hips with his knees pushing down on the bed, he eventually gives up trying to move. His whole body goes limp. He is covered in a sheen of sweat, panting, body reddened from heat.

Though no one is, you are sure that Five is flawless in this one beautiful moment.

Still speechless, Five nuzzles into your neck even more while he pulls himself out. You hear his breath hitch and yours does too but within a second, he’s got his softening length against your hip and he’s laying down beside you placing a gentle kiss on your shoulder.

“I know it makes me even more nuts to feel this way, but I want to say something so badly that I shouldn’t,” he admits so quietly you hardly hear him. Five kisses you again, his lips spreading against your skin. “I’m going to be smart for a change and just shut up.”

Thinking about what is going on in Five’s wild mind, you are pretty sure you know what he wants to say and that's because you feel it too. Taking his cue not to go there, you silently continue to brush your fingers through his hair and just let yourself look at him laying there totally happy and at peace.

With that, the slow languor that is left over from your sex drifts into something else, something so sweet and full of hope and promise.

Five eventually draws you into the hollow under his arm and his head falls against the pillows. This way you can see his face even better and what a face.

Without a word, you lean over, placing a soft kiss on his lips. Five tries to open his eyes, but his heavy lids keep drooping back down in an adorable way that makes him look like an incredibly sleepy kid who is about to fall asleep at the table in his pile of mashed potatoes.

You don’t want that wonderful look to ever fade.

Though Five Hargreeves seemed so broken at first, he clearly knows what love is and he knows how to give it. More importantly, when his walls come down, Five is willing to receive love and you are sure that you've never met someone more deserving. Hopefully this, and everything else he is doing to save himself is enough to help him see that real happiness is not something out of his reach, and that is because you want nothing more than to be a part of his happiness and his future.

Just as you are sure Five fell asleep, he whispers, “Do you want me to go?”

Your reply is simple but true. “Never.”

Chapter Seven: Epilogue

Five’s warm  fingers tighten around yours as you make your way down the busy sidewalk. 

“When I left my demeaning work cave yesterday, I never would have guessed in a million years that this is how my weekend would turn out. I am on my first real date with the most amazing woman in the world and I still can’t believe it. I am the luckiest man alive.”

Five’s smile as he expresses again how happy he is looks so handsome that it makes your heart skip a beat.

Taking you by surprise, he stops right in the middle of all the rest of the pedestrians and his hands come up in your hair, gently pulling you in for a kiss.

“There,” he laughs after finishing his sudden display of affection with one more quick and very cutely maneuvered peck. “I may need to do that every few minutes for a while until I can get it through my crazy head that this is happening and I am not imagining it.”

Your heart is racing as you gaze up at him. “You can do that anytime you want even after you realize I am not a figment of your beautiful imagination.”

Someone swears as they walk by and Five smirks. “Shall we proceed to the Argyle Library where I can give you the grand tour of all my favorite sections and maybe even whisk you to a semiprivate nook where I am going to seduce you into sharing my love of poetry while I also do my best to fuck you with my fingers dancing around up your skirt?”

Your chest rises and falls with laughter. 

So many times since you both woke up and Five ravaged you again, he’s made you laugh. You knew from his long history that he was capable of anything, but you're still shocked with how funny he is now that he’s letting himself enjoy life a little.

And damn those fingers of his. Boy do they dance when he wants them to, which reminds you that after Five’s allotted part of this fun outing, you are taking him back home and he promised that he’d actually dance with you even though he claims he hates it and doesn’t know how.

“I do not like poetry but when you put it that way, I just might after this,” you reply, trying not to sound so infatuated by him, but by the look on Five’s face, you can tell he knows that you are, and thankfully he feels exactly the same as you do otherwise you’d really be embarrassed with how fast you are falling for him.

Five is right, this is unreal. What is happening with him feels too good to be true, but some things just are this good. That is why life is worth living and you aren’t going to stop trying to give him anything you can give until he never forgets it.

“Come on, time is of the essence, my love.” Five swiftly leads you on again through the throngs of people going to and from whatever they are doing on this sunny Saturday in the city.

My love?

That’s a new one. It's sort of old fashion but also very classic and sweet. It's very him.

Five peeks at you out of the corner of his eye and you can tell he’s checking your reaction, which is full blushing and fidgeting like a silly schoolgirl in love. 

There is no need to tell him you liked it. He knows.

As you are smiling to yourself over this fast but wonderful feeling growing inside your heart, all of a sudden your hand in Five’s feels oddly very hot.

Like burning hot.

“Ow!” you shout as you instinctually pull away from the pain. “Five?”

Five crumbles to the ground, his knees hitting the pavement hard as his hands pull together clenching and shaking uncontrollably. 

“Five!” 

It’s like he can’t answer. There are what looks like blue flames erupting around his hands and his face is twisting in pure agony. His teeth are clenched so hard it looks like they might shatter as his entire body folds in on itself and spasms.

Even Five’s pale but beautiful skin is suddenly turning the most terrifying grayish hue of death.

You try to touch him and his head swings back, his neck bending back with a snap as his face looks up to the sky. His soft green eyes are now filled with the same nightmarish blue light that is beginning to spread around the rest of his body. It's like it's coming out of him.

You can’t even get close enough to touch him because the heat of the electrical storm engulfing him burns you with blistering heat. Five is clearly being hurt by what is happening but what burned you doesn't seem to be actually burning him in the same way.

You hold your injured hand to your chest, but you don’t care how bad it feels, all you want to do is help Five so you start to come at him again.

“NO!” Five screams in the most terrifying way but you don’t know if it’s at you or from what’s happening to him. You stop anyway, in part because how scared he sounds, and also because you simply can't get close enough to him to do anything. 

This entire time, the other people on the sidewalk have been steadily moving away from this unimaginable scene happening before their eyes. But when you frantically look out in search of anyone willing to help, you realize that most of them aren’t even looking at Five. 

Your eyes follow theirs upwards along the skyline filled with looming skyscrapers.

Now you see why they aren’t worried about the stranger on the street dying in front of them. 

The top of The Hargreeves International building is alight with the exact same blue fire that’s all over Five, and the flames are spreading outwards in the sky and spilling down the sides of the building at an alarming rate.

Just as you look back down at Five, the blue electricity snaps ferociously, lashing outwards. He collapses, his head smacking the cement. His mouth opens in a silent scream that matches your very real one, and then just like that, Five is gone.

“No, no, no, no, no, this can’t be happening.” You look all around, and he’s just gone. The supernatural light covering him blinked out in the matter of a second and Five disappeared with it.

Before you can even try to understand what just happened to Five and if it was his own lost power somehow coming back and doing that to him, or if it has something to do with his dad's building and what is happening in the burning sky raining down around you, everything comes to an abrupt and ominously quiet halt.

No one is moving or screaming. People are frozen mid step in their frantic attempts to run away. 

In a dazed like state of shock you lift your scorched hand, looking at your red fingers. Time and space around you are standing still but for some reason you are not a part of it. 

As if one inconceivably bad thing taking away the man you are falling in love with isn't enough, things instantly start moving again and now you are watching a wave of bursting blue light rushing towards you, sucking away everything in its path.

Again, thank you for reading this. ❤️

If you are interested in my other stories, hit the link below.

Master Post List to my Five Centric Stories and art

Link to visit me on A03

Link to my other posts on Tumblr

Special shout out to one of my friends and favorite Five fiction TUA author's. Thanks for all the kind words and reblogs!

@mangoshorthand. Hit this link to visit her Tumblr blog and checkout her amazing Five-centric series and one-shots

#five x you #number five x reader #number five #five hargreeves smut #number five smut #the umbrella academy number five #number five x you #umbrella academy five hargreeves #number 5 #number five imagine #tua five #number five hargreeves #kaybreezy-on-a03 #smut with plot #smut with feelings #five hargreeves x reader #number 5 x reader #five hargreeves imagine #five x reader #whump writing #dark number five #dark aesthetic

[nicostiel]

Five Hargreeves + Text Posts Part 5

#theumbrellaacademyedit #tuaedit #the umbrella academy #tua #five hargreeves #aidan gallagher #tua spoilers #the umbrella academy spoilers #tua season 3 #the umbrella academy season 3 #tvedit #*myedits

[rocks-in-my-vodka]

when that dance battle started in the first episode, i for real was just ready to accept that that was what they were doing. like yea. dance it out, you little funkies

#it did not even occur to me that it was a hallucination #i thought it was really what the scene was #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy s3 #tua s3 ep1 #ben hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #marcus #sloane #vanya hargreeves #umbrella academy #christopher the cube #ben #robert sheehan #victor hargreeves #elliot page #diego hargreeves #five #aidan gallagher #mine own

[hihomeghere]

I’m so normal about them

#the umbrella academy #tua #five hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #diego hargreeves #luther hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #alison hargreeves #ben hargreeves #sir reginald hargreeves #sloane hargreeves #fei hargreeves #marcus hargreeves #the sparrow academy #incorrect tua quotes #vanya hargreeves #lila pitts

[oskarwing]

Five *talking about how different versions of them exist now*

Luther *gasps* DOPPELGÄNGER! PARADOX PSYCHOSIS! I learned all about this in Texas! This is great. I'm gonna get a good grade in little side adventures with my elderly brother, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.

#tua s3 spoilers #tua season 3 #luther hargreeves #five hargreeves #that's how the scene went right? #the umbrella academy