kingkeerys

[kingkeerys]

50 ways to say goodbye ♛ ben hargreeves 3/4

word count: 7,102 (hELp mE)

pairing(s): sparrow!ben hargreeves/oc, umbrella!ben hargreeves/oc (platonic-ish)

a/n: this is way too long, just enjoy the chapter. sorry for the wait. thanks for the feedback love you all xoxo

← previous chapt.

"I SAY WE CELEBRATE," Fei grinned as they made their way upstairs.

“Champagne?” Ben suggested, still rubbing his stomach.

“You know me so well, brother.”

Everyone seemed to be in high spirits and accepted empty flutes from both Fei and Ben with smiles. Well, Sam’s was more of a grimace and Allison foregoed a glass for an entire bottle all to herself.

Ben retrieved a bottle from their bar – Sam suspected they had an endless supply back there – and popped the cork, pouring everyone a generous amount. They toasted and tossed back their drinks as if they were shots, quickly finishing two and then three glasses until their nerves had worn down to a pleasant buzz.

Slowly but surely, everyone dispersed from the living room, going their own separate ways to wind down for the evening. Sam took her fourth glass of champagne to one of the many tall, intricate windows in the Hargreeves mansion and gazed outside. Her headache was gone, limbs feeling pleasantly heavy and her stomach warm from the alcohol in an almost comforting way.

She watched the fires bloom across the street, licking across buildings and street posts and benches, melting and blackening everything in their wake.

She felt someone approach her from behind and took a light sip from her glass.

“So… we saved the world, huh?” she asked. The person stepped up and stood beside her. “Tell me what world you see out there. What was the point?”

“We’re alive, aren’t we?” Ben asked. “I think that was the point.”

“But is anyone else?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

She sighed and looked away. “I didn’t think it was going to get this far, that there’d be this much destruction. I’m happy to be alive. I am. But what can we even do now? Where can we go?”

Ben pursed his lips and raised his glass to them, tossing back the rest of his champagne. There was a red flush to his cheeks – he’d probably had more glasses than she did.

“Who’s to say we can’t stay here?” he proposed. She furrowed her brows at him.

“Forever?”

He rolled his eyes. “We aren’t the only ones who survived this. There’s too many people on this Earth for us to be the only ones left on it. The world will rebuild and maybe for the better.”

“Yeah but that will take decades,” she argued. “We’ll be old and in rocking chairs before it’ll look even slightly livable. And that’s if we even make it that long. Do you not see?” she gestured out the window. “We didn’t save anything.”

She left Ben alone at the window, sitting her glass on one of the stray tables in the hallway before making her way upstairs.

She just wanted to sleep and pretend none of this had ever happened.

--

Sam wasn’t sure if she’d managed to fall asleep or was just dozing when she felt the bed shake beneath her.

She rubbed her eyes before widening them as she watched bottles of perfume and lotion fall from Jayme’s desk across from her. She quickly sat up in the bed and almost fell off of it as she felt a shock wave pulse through the room, sending her flying back against the wall.

She yelped, catching herself on the edge of the bed as she fell back down. Before she had the chance to regain her bearings, she felt a presence blink beside her. A pair of small arms wrapped around her frame, gripped her tight, and pulled her through space with a whoosh.

It felt like her body was being stretched like a rubber band through a hole barely the size of a penny. One second she was in a dark bedroom and the next she was in a bright, open room being sat in an armchair. She blinked quickly and glanced over at Five who let her go.

“Wha…?”

“I have to get Ben, I’ll be back!”

Before she could respond, he blinked out of the room and she fell back against the cushion of the chair with a sigh.

Why couldn’t anything go their way?

--

Ransacking the closets felt strange to her.

She knew the person the clothes belonged to most likely no longer existed, but it still felt wrong somehow.

Everyone needed a change of clothes, given the fact that most of them hadn’t changed since they arrived in the new timeline. Sam’s jeans had been hanging on by a thread, too many holes and rips for her to count. The Sparrow sweater she’d been given had loose threads falling around the hem, the sleeves and at the neckline. One wrong move and the whole thing would eventually come unraveled.

At Five’s suggestion, she went through the unlocked rooms to find a closet or suitcase that had clothes her size. It took a couple of tries but eventually she found one with clothes that fit her well enough. She considered hopping in the shower to wash the grime off her body, feeling itchy and sweaty, but she decided against it knowing there were bigger things to worry about at the moment than her hygiene.

She threw on a blouse and some fresh jeans – bell bottoms, of all things – and made her way down to the lobby of Hotel Obsidian where Five had blinked her and the rest of her siblings, plus Ben, to.

She found the rest of them congregating in the lounge overlooking the front room of the hotel and climbed the stairs, meeting the hard gaze of Ben who was freshly dressed along with everyone else. She stood off to the side, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You good, Sam?” Diego asked, leaning against the railing across from where she stood. She offered a stiff nod and nothing else.

Five had briefly explained to her that the Kugelblitz was too strong, too concentrated to be contained in Christopher’s little body. The trembling she felt was the Kugelblitz breaking free, swallowing the mansion whole along with every building in the surrounding area with it. It was back to reaping the universe tenfold, wave after wave emitting from its core and destroying everything in its path even quicker than before they’d trapped it.

So basically, a typical Tuesday.

Unfortunately, Ben’s sister Fei had been stuck in the immediate path of the Kugelblitz’s destruction. Five managed to blink to Ben just in time before the entire mansion was engulfed and for that she was thankful.

Despite his unpleasant attitude, she didn’t want to lose him a second time.

Allison was the first to break the silence.

“How is it that we’re still here but the whole of the universe is going down the cosmic shitter?”

“I don’t know,” said Viktor tiredly from one of the armchairs. “Maybe we’re just the last to get flushed.”

“Wasn’t talking to you,” Allison dismissed, not even glancing in Viktor’s direction.

“Maybe you should be more specific then when you ask a question,” Sam snapped back, returning Allison’s glare. She did not have time for Allison’s pettiness.

“Hey,” Luther interjecting, bringing everyone’s attention to him on the couch. “Where’s Klaus?”

“And Dad,” Sloane added with a frown.

“They’ll be here,” Diego assured them.

“What, did they hit traffic or something?” Ben snarked. Sam saw Diego clench his jaw before looking the other way. “Look people, we’re alive because we’re special, right? We’re the only ones who can save the universe.”

“Question, Ben,” Allison gave Sam a pointed look, who smiled sarcastically back. “Didn’t we just do that and fail miserably?”

Diego pointed towards Ben.

“That’s because his plan was stupid.” He stepped forward, ignoring Ben’s unimpressed look. “I’ve got a better one. We go with the large hard-on particle accelerator. You guys do some science,” he gestures towards Five and Sloane, “and we launch the Kugelblitz into outer space.”

Diego appeared proud of himself and Sam’s nose scrunched up.

“Didn’t think I knew that, did you?”

“It’s hadron,” Ben corrected with a sneer. “Not hard-on, you grade-A moron.”

Sam attempted to tune out their bickering, which eventually turned into an argument spoken in two completely different languages that no one was able to follow. Five had to interject, who seemed to be the only person capable of reigning everyone in.

“The universe is disappearing outside. You can keep rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic if it makes you feel better,” Sam frowned at the analogy. “But the fact remains that we are too late. It’s over. We failed.”

Her stomach felt like lead and the room was so quiet you could hear a pen drop until everyone jumped into action.

“That’s not true,” Luther shook his head.

“It can’t be over over,” Viktor denied.

“Yeah, Five,” said Diego. “We gotta figure this out, man.”

“Okay,” Five lifted his hands impatiently, his tone suggesting he was about to get incredibly sarcastic. “Let’s take a step back and look at the big picture here. Most of us have spent the last 28 days trying to save the world. What exactly have we accomplished?”

He glanced around the room, eyebrows raised expectantly. No one responded.

“Well,” Luther stumbled before his gaze fell onto Sloane. “We made a few friends along the way!”

“Incorrect,” Five interjected immediately. “We accomplished nothing. We made things worse every single time.”

Sam swallowed and crossed her arms tighter across her chest.

“Look, when I went to the Commission, I had a conversation with my 100-year-old self. You know what future me said?” Five’s eyes connected with everyone in the room, ending with Sam who almost didn’t want to hear what he had to say. “My last words were, ‘Don’t save the world.’ Make of that what you will.”

“So your plan,” Lila began, sounding skeptical. “Is to not have a plan at all?”

“Why not?” Five shrugged, appearing casual yet sounding defeated. “Maybe it’s what the universe needs. I say we embrace the apocalypse and see what’s on the other side.”

“What if it’s nothing?” Sloane asked, shrinking against Luther’s side.

Five’s lips thinned. “Then I suppose it’s been nice knowing you all. If you have anything on your bucket lists, I suggest doing them now.”

The room was silent again as everyone soaked in Five’s words. Then Luther spoke up.

“Well…”

--

Between the knowledge that their days were numbered, the announcement that her brother was engaged to Sloane, and Klaus showing up with their father in tow attempting to change their mind about letting Armageddon commence, she was about ready for a lobotomy.

There was a ceremony and celebration arranged for that evening and everyone aside from their father was invited. Klaus insisted on throwing a bachelor party for Luther after hearing the news, so the boys spent the better part of the afternoon doing whatever it was guys did when preparing for a wedding and apocalypse.

Sam holed herself up in the room she shared with Allison, who thankfully was nowhere to be seen. She passed the time by watching the world fade away outside their window, stare blank and eyes mostly unseeing.

When it came time to get ready for the ceremony itself, everyone had to raid their neighbor’s closets again for appropriate outfits. It took her the better part of an hour to find something even remotely appropriate that would fit her, but eventually she pulled out an emerald green dress with a lace corset that was nice enough for a wedding but plain enough to keep all eyes on the bride.

Not that she expected anyone would be paying much attention to what they wore.

She threw her hair up because she was not of a mindset to do anything very nice with it, and then headed down to the banquet hall to meet everyone else.

--

Watching her brother get married was odd.

And not just because Klaus was the officiator of the marriage, making it more of a dramatized screenplay than anything else.

For one, she’d never pictured any of her siblings getting married. Well, except for Allison. And if they were to get married, she surely didn’t expect to be present for it. As much as she hated to admit it, her siblings were never very close after the death of Ben. She fully anticipated them having their own separate lives, never to intertwine again for any reason.

And two, as happy as she was to see Luther happy, it was hard to stamp down the jarring reminder that the world was crumbling down around them. This time tomorrow, or the next day, or next week, they wouldn’t even exist. Each time her mind wandered and she let herself smile at the joyful grin on her brother’s face, the ominous cloud of reality quickly settled overhead again and the smile was quick to fade as something heavy settled in her gut.

She wasn’t necessarily afraid to die. She’d long accepted the fact that her and her family were destined to live shorter lives than most just because of who they were. And with the inordinate amount of times they’d managed to bring about the apocalypse, death just sort of lost its shock value.

But there was a sadness to it as well. She was only thirty-years-old and there was a lot about life that was left undiscovered to her given her sheltered upbringing. There were plenty of things she wished she’d been able to do. Like skydive. She wasn’t a big fan of heights, or airplanes, or parachutes… but it was certain now that she’d never be able to do it and something about that just infuriated her.

Once the ‘ceremony’ was complete, their group made their way back inside the hotel to one of the ballrooms that had been set up for the post-wedding celebration. Chet, the front desk clerk and bellhop, was standing behind a DJ table at the dance floor playing what sounded like 60s or 70s jazz music and Sam had to chuckle to herself. Everything about the situation was so absurd, but in the best possible way.

Each person in their family seemed adamant to sit at their own separate tables for dinner. Luther and Sloane were already lost in their own newlywed world and clearly no one was of a mind to tolerate that in close proximity.

Ben had been grumbling about the ridiculousness of the situation ever since they all met up prior to the wedding, beginning with him scowling at how Luther was able to actually find a suit that fit him, and his sourness had not lost its potency since then. He yanked a chair out from a table as far from the happy couple as possible, flopping down into the seat with a scowl.

Diego and Lila seemed comfortable at their own table and Sam was certainly not going to interrupt their privacy, not willing to sit through another argument or disgusting lovesick stares. She couldn’t decide which was worse. Instead, she chose to sit next to Five, being that he was one of the more tolerable siblings she had.

Without greeting her, he popped open a bottle of champagne that he’d stolen the moment they entered the room and took a generous sip straight from the bottle. Sam stared at him.

“Aren’t you going to eat something?” she asked, gesturing to the buffet wafting temptingly from behind them. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually saw him eat something of real sustenance.

“Probably not,” he replied, burping after swallowing such a huge gulp of fizzy alcohol.

“Your stomach is completely empty, Five. That alcohol is going to go straight to your head,” she pestered, for once sounding older than him.

Five toasted her. “That’s the idea.”

She licked her lips and sighed, regretting her choice of company. Then again, she’d probably feel less depressed if she had a buzz.

She eventually grabbed herself a plate as Five continued to become more and more inebriated. She found it a bit amusing watching him as she ate. He loosened up when he had a few and if any of them needed to relax a little, it was Five. The more he drank, the less attention he paid on his surroundings and Sam would dilute his bottle of champagne with water every couple of minutes. It got to the point where he was clearly no longer paying attention to the taste, so if it was slightly less fizzy than before then he was none the wiser.

Even if he could drink them under the table as an adult, he still had the body and tolerance of a young teenager. She wanted him to have a good time, not die of alcohol poisoning.

“Have I told you how much I loved you?” Five slurred on his second full-size (diluted) bottle, swaying a bit in his seat. She quirked her lips in a light smirk.

“Not in the last two decades.”

“Well I do,” he pointed at her. “You’re great. Dad treated you so shitty but you di’nt listen to him. Your powers suck but all of our powers suck,” he outstretched his arms with a big grin. “We’re one big sucky, disappointing family! And we ended the world. Us! Hah!”

“Okay,” she gave him a sardonic smile. “I feel much better, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” he shouted before falling out of his chair.

She snorted and shook her head as he rolled around on the floor, asking himself why he was laying on the ceiling.

“If the world doesn’t end tonight then you’re going to wish it had in the morning.”

She poured her own glass of wine from one of the many bottles scattered about the room and sipped it, eyes scanning the area. Viktor looked upset and Allison was in the midst of marching out of the room. Sam didn’t want to know what happened there. Luther and Sloane were attempting to share food, or at least it looked like Luther was trying to make that happen, but Sloane wasn’t having it. Klaus gave her a boyish grin and overzealous wave as he pranced away from Ben’s table, setting his sharp gaze on Five who’d finally managed to climb back into his seat and was complaining about how his champagne tasted.

She furrowed her brows at Ben’s slouched form, who appeared to be sulking as he poked his full glass. No doubt he’d finished several prior to that moment. She bit the inside of her cheek, made sure no one was paying any attention to her, and stepped towards his table. She placed her half-empty glass of wine on the table next to him and pulled out a chair. His glassy eyes regarded her with a squint.

“You alright there?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Ben looked like he smelled something funny. “Yes, no thanks to you.”

She gave him an offended look. “Me? What did I do?”

“Your family,” he corrected, head rolling from side to side. “You showed up and ruined everything. You really should win an award for biggest colossal fuck-up of the year.”

She pursed her lips but tilted her head, not denying the accusation.

“This is so stupid,” he continued, scowling out into the room. “This is pointless. The world is going to end and they’re planning their Christmas card photos.”

“Maybe they’re just trying to be happy,” she retorted. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting the truth. They’re in love, let them be in love.”

She took a long drink of her wine. Ben made a face and stared at the table. She gazed at him for a moment.

“You told me that you’ve seen love before,” she played with her fingers for a moment before glancing over at Ben. “That you know what it looks like. Did you have someone once? That you loved?”

Ben blinked slowly and she almost wondered if his drunk-addled mind was able to comprehend what she said. He scrunched up his nose, face contorting into an exaggerated thinking expression before he pursed his lips.

“It was Alphonso,” he finally said. He played with his flute of champagne, watching the bubbles travel from the bottom of the glass to the top almost like they were racing. “Before he looked the way you saw, he knew this girl. She was a fan of us I guess, and she’d been hanging around our house with a group of people. Being Alphonso, he had to introduce himself. She told him he was her favorite.”

“That wasn’t… common, I take it?” she hedged.

Bun huffed a humorless laugh.

“He was always the funny guy. He made people laugh – that was his MO. No one ever really wants to be the funny guy,” he squinted up at her. “You get laughed at enough and you realize it’s all you’re good for so you stick with it, but it’s shit. He pretended to be fine with it but he wasn’t. So when a pretty girl comes onto you, suddenly it’s all you can think about.”

She felt a burst of sympathy for the late brother but didn’t express it out loud.

“So they were together, like officially? Even with your family’s…” what was the right word? “Fame?”

“Yeah, something like that. They went on dates, all that couple-y stuff. But Alphonso got the shit end of the stick. The more his powers manifested, the more we trained, the more disfigured he got. Like a side effect. And that was that, really. He changed but she didn’t change with him.”

She furrowed her brows. “So… she ended it? Just like that? Because he looked different?”

He nodded, puckering his lips. “Yep. Life’s a bitch, huh?”

She noticed his face tended to twist and express more under the influence of alcohol. It was a bit funny, not that she would tell him that.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Some people only care about what’s on the outside when really it’s the inside that matters.”

“Yeah well, he was better off without her anyway,” she smiled to herself at the snide comment. It was probably one of the few times she’d actually seen him act like a brother. “He got more confident after that. But I saw what it did to him. He had this look on his face,” his eyes rolled up to meet hers. “The one you get on yours whenever you see me. Like you’re constantly being reminded of what you no longer have and it hurts.”

She swallowed thickly before glancing back down at her hands.

“Yeah,” she agreed, voice hoarse. She cleared her throat. “I know what that feels like.”

Ben hummed, twirling his finger around the rim of the glass. He watched the movement, almost mesmerized, and then blurted out, “I miss my brother.”

She glanced back over at him, taken aback.

He almost seemed surprised by his own admission, but his face eventually settled into something more resolute. More sad.

“I miss all of them,” he told her, lips turning downward. “I know we weren’t the Brady Bunch or anything, not perfect like you. But we were us. And now it’s just… me. Alone.”

She had wondered when the dam was going to burst. She couldn’t understand how he’d managed to seem so unaffected by the death of his siblings. She knew the mask he wore was only a front, that he’d trained himself not to show weakness, to be the best. But he couldn’t have not cared. And maybe he thought he didn’t at first, too wrapped up in the universe trying to swallow them whole, too preoccupied with her own family to notice his was no longer there. But now, once the madness had died down, once he got a moment of reprieve, some time to digest and listen to his own thoughts, suddenly he realized. They were gone.

She reached a hand forward and carefully placed it on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Ben.”

His eyes shimmered with unshed tears. He clenched his jaw, steeled his expression, and blinked the tears away. She gave a gentle squeeze on his shoulder and he turned to look at the gesture before slowly moving up to her face.

“I’m sorry it had to end this way. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemy,” her thumb rubbed soothing circles against his shoulder. “But you’re not alone. We’re here and we’re not going to leave you. After all,” her lips quirked into a tiny smile, “we’ve got room for one more.”

Ben had a thoughtful look on his face, eyes skimming hers.

“You said I was nothing like him,” he reminded her. She pulled her hand away. “You said I was a disgrace to his memory.”

She felt the guilt well up inside her, forehead creasing. She had to look away.

“You’re right,” she nodded, squeezing her hands together. “I did say that. But I shouldn’t have. It was uncalled for, you didn’t deserve to hear that,” his eyes gleamed up at her, tickling the side of her face as she stared at her own glass. “It’s true that you’re nothing like him. But that’s okay. You’re not supposed to be. You’re just supposed to be you, whoever you want that to be.”

She chewed on her bottom lip, nails digging into her hands before meeting his gaze again. He had his arms crossed, leaning against the edge of the table, expression unreadable but his eyes were red-rimmed. She had a feeling it was mostly due to the champagne.

“I know what it’s like, feeling like you have to appease everyone. Like you have to excel at everything. I grew up with the same father you did,” her smile twisted into something more sardonic. “I could argue that ours might have been worse, but I don’t know. Nothing was ever good enough for him, no matter what we did. No matter what I did. He always wanted me to go that one step further. It’s exhausting chasing after his approval – I know because I always chased after it, always tried, ran marathons for it, and always fell short. Even today, seeing your version of him, it still bothered me that he didn’t care. That he made sure we weren’t his children because he was so disappointed in what we became.”

She sniffed, clearing her throat. “So I get it – wanting to be the best. I know you wish you were Number One,” Ben looked away at this. “I know you think you deserve it, that you had proven you were better than everyone else. I know that you always try to prove you’re better because your father set such unrealistic expectations for you that you feel you have to be the best or it’s not good enough. But you don’t,” she shook her head, watching his face as he took in her words. “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be. It’s not his decision to make. It’s yours.”

Ben’s face crumpled into something of a pout and in that moment he looked about ten years younger – like the Ben she remembered.

“I don’t think I know who I want to be,” he murmured, words slurring. She smiled again, this time a bit wider.

“Then welcome to the family, because none of us really do either.”

--

“The twerp seems to have the right idea,” Ben mused a few moments later. She followed her gaze over to Five, who was attempting to shoo Klaus away. His drunk demeanor already seemed to be wearing off slightly – something about Klaus must’ve been sobering him up.

She quirked her lips. “Probably.”

The sound of liquid being poured pulled her attention back to the table. Ben filled her glass back up before lifting his glass to her in a toast. She sighed but relented, clinking their glasses together.

“To the end of the fucking world,” Ben toasted and they downed their champagne.

Sam didn’t bother holding herself back, becoming more and more lax as Ben kept refilling her glass until their bottle ran empty. He stole another from the bar (he almost had to fight Five for it) and they were quick to drain it, too.

Sam wasn’t an alcoholic by any means, but once she got started, it was hard to stop. Alcohol seemed to be the only thing that could successfully shut off the reserved side of her brain – the part that was filled with worry, dread, fear. It made her body feel light, weightless, and after being crushed under a world so heavy and dark the past couple of months, she couldn’t get enough of it.

About half an hour later, Sam found herself attempting to support herself against the buffet as she watched her siblings (very badly) dance while Chet operated a fog machine, of all things. With the added benefit of alcohol, everything managed to be ten times funnier than it would be under normal circumstances. She found herself hunched over in laughter, almost stumbling to the ground more than once as she watched Klaus do the robot with Ben dancing goofily around him.

Ben came to stand (sway) next to her as Klaus dragged anyone into his dance routine that he could. They watched him with equally large smiles on their faces. Even in her drunken stupor, Sam realized how much more at ease Ben was with her and her family. It seemed he just needed a little liquid courage to loosen up.

Ben had another bottle in his hand, which he was drinking directly out of this time, and she watched him for a moment. Her eyes glided over his profile, trailing over his smooth, tanned skin and the small indent where the white scar ran down his cheekbone. His lips were widened in a grin, exposing white teeth. His smile was nice.

She’d always known Ben was handsome, but he’d really grown into his features in this timeline with his sharp jawline and defined collarbones. She felt something warm tingle in her stomach.

“Can I ask you something?” she directed to him. Ben turned to give her a bright smile, delightfully drunk.

“Ask awayyy, blondie.”

“That day when I told you about the Kugelblitz and we were talking about the other Ben… what did you mean when you said he probably felt the same way that I felt about him?”

“Well,” he began, loudly placing the bottle on the table behind them. “If you must know. There’s always been something a little familiar about you,” he wiggled his finger in her direction. “You and your annoying, talkative brother—”

“Klaus?”

“Whatever his name is. I didn’t get it at first because all of you were so irritating, but after hearing about the other Ben and how he was basically a copy of me, it kinda started to make sense. What if that version of Ben is connected to me?” he gestured boisterously towards himself.

She blinked owlishly at him.

“I’m not following…” she held up a hand. “Also you’re a copy of him, technically.”

“You guys being familiar to me… I think the other Ben is the reason for that. ‘Cause you guys were close, right? Maybe I’m just…” he waved his hand around, “Vibing with you.”

“I can’t believe you just said ‘vibing’,” she snorted before considering his words. Her lips curved into a sly smile. “So what you’re saying is, I was right when I said I’m growing on you.”

He rolled his eyes but she continued, moving closer to him teasingly, “You like me. You liiiike me.”

“How is it that you’re both irritating and cute as hell?” he countered, though a grin was beginning to form on his lips.

She pouted a bit, cheeks reddening. “You think I’m cute?”

He smirked. “I have no doubt the other Ben thought so.”

“But you aren’t the other Ben,” she gave him a pleased smile. He leaned in as well until their faces were only a few inches apart.

“And I bet you’re terribly upset by that.”

She pursed her lips and tilted her head, as if deep in thought. “I suppose you’re growing on me, too.”

He hummed, dark eyes flickering down to her lips. Their faces were so close at this point that it was almost impossible not to look. She bit the inside of her cheek. Her stomach was doing flips and turns and before she could figure out how to respond to her own body’s reactions, he leaned forward the rest of the way and pressed his lips to hers.

They were soft, as expected, and pleasantly warm. She couldn’t tell if her body was super cold or on fire, but either way she shivered as she pressed her palm against his chest. He stepped closer, bringing a hand up to cup her jaw as his lips moved against hers. She used her other hand to grip his arm, fingers pressing into the sleeves of his nice shirt.

They closed the rest of the gap between them, chest pressed against chest as he wrapped his free arm around her waist. She felt his fingers press into the dip of her lower back, digits gliding along the curve and slope of her spine. Her heart leapt as she felt the wet press of his tongue against her lips.

She sighed against his mouth and let him lead. He would grip a handful of her dress, tangle his fingers in her hair, lick deep into her mouth and all she could do was take whatever he gave her. Their kiss would break with a soft smack, only to have him come back in stronger, his taste and touch filling her senses until all she knew was Ben, Ben, Ben.

All too soon he pulled back a bit, their lips disconnecting with a string of saliva stretching between their bottom lips. He licked it away, the tip of his tongue flicking against her and she gave a soft moan, high-pitched but quiet. He kissed her again, just a press of lips against lips, before trailing down to her jaw and then her neck, where he pressed another kiss against her pulse.

She pulled away to see his face and he lifted his head to look at her, lips red and swollen and glistening. His breathing was uneven and he looked flushed down to his chest, though the smooth skin disappeared infuriatingly beneath the second button of his shirt so she couldn’t be sure.

She couldn’t resist and stole another kiss from him, wanting to mold herself against him and never let go. He bit her lip as she pulled away and she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin.

She licked her lips and opened her mouth to speak, trying to ignore how hoarse her voice was.

“So,” she croaked. “I’m growing on you a lot apparently.”

He bit his lower lip and gave her a heated stare.

“Well, something’s definitely growing.”

It took a moment for the innuendo to fully register in her brain and when it did her eyes widened. He pursed his lips in an attempt to suppress a giggle but then she pulled one of her hands from around his neck to slap his shoulder, hard enough for it to sting, and the giggles spilled from his lips.

Ignoring the heat on her cheeks, she squinted at him. “Are you this much of a dirty flirt when you’re sober?”

Ben gave her an affronted look nonetheless.

“Moi?” he exclaimed. She cackled, falling against his chest. His mouth was open in shock but he was still smiling. “I’m not the one defiling someone in a public setting. Nudity is not acceptable around your siblings, blondie, didn’t your father teach you that?”

As it turned out, her fingers really were working his shirt open one button at a time. She didn’t even realize she was doing it. She pulled her hands away, flushed down to her neck, and tried to ignore the lean chest she’d managed to expose.

“That’s the farthest thing from what my father would teach, Ben,” she chortled before arching a brow. “Did he teach you that?”

“I’m more self-taught when it comes to those things. Want me to show you?”

He laughed again, nearly crumpling against the buffet table as she gave him another open-mouthed stare.

“What, on God’s green Christian earth, is happening here?” Klaus’s voice interrupted Ben’s full body laughter. She turned to see him gesturing towards the space between them, or lack thereof, and then waving his hands wildly. “Separate, separate! Only one marriage is being consummated tonight!”

He yanked Ben away from her, who was still laughing, and the two of them nearly stumbled to the floor. Klaus ended up giggling at Ben’s clumsiness, which caused Sam to start laughing as well to cover up her embarrassment.

“Outside, you freaks!” Klaus shouted once he managed to right Ben, shooing the two of them towards the door.

She didn’t miss the way Klaus forced her to walk in front while him and Ben trailed behind her. They were draped over one another, probably in order to stand up straight. Sam glanced over her shoulder, eyes trailing downward, and… yep… Ben’s chest was about as red as her cheeks were. It made her feel hot all over and she quickly looked away before loudly asking Klaus where they were going.

He verbally directed her out onto the hotel’s large balcony where the ceremony had taken place earlier. The rest of the family aside from Allison were already sitting against or perched on the edge of the balcony. Sam spotted Sloane in her beautiful white gown cuddled up against Luther with his suit jacket draped over her shoulders and she had to smile to herself.

Somehow, despite all their differences, the two of them still managed to look good together.

“Oh no,” Diego called when the three of them came into view, jostling Lila in his lap. “Why’d you bring him out here?”

She knew without asking that he was referring to Ben and she most certainly was not going to be the one to answer him. She made her way towards Viktor, who gave her a careful half smile, and took a seat next to him after smoothing down her dress.

“C’mon,” Klaus whined. “He’s gotten better, I swear. He was swappin’ spit with our dear sister earlier so he’s practically family.”

“He what now?”

“I’m going to throw up.”

Diego and Five turned to squint at her and she gave them a sheepish wave, still riding her drunken haze just enough to not be completely mortified.

“Did he spike your drink?” Luther spoke up next, giving Sam a careful once over. She huffed a laugh until she realized he was serious.

“No!” She quickly denied and Klaus cackled.

“He’s a changed man,” their lanky brother intoned, pressing a hand to his heart. “C’mon, let the boy stay. He’s done no harm. I’m pretty sure their little escapade was one hundred percent consensual.”

“Klaus, please,” Sam rubbed her forehead. She glanced up between her fingers and caught the smirk Ben tossed her way. She shook her head but give a half-grin. It was so Klaus-and-Ben of them that she couldn’t be perturbed for long, enjoying the familiarity of their banter.

“Sickos,” Five droned, words slurring. “All of you are sickos.”

“Come on, big guy,” Klaus pouted, nudging Ben with his hip until he began to pout, as well. They were a powerful duo.

“Alright, alright,” Luther relented, and Klaus’s eyes lit up. “He can stay.”

“I won’t do it tonight since it’s Luther’s wedding night,” Diego announced, giving Ben a half-hearted glare, “but if I remember this conversation tomorrow, I’m kicking your ass.”

“Deal,” Klaus agreed for Ben, who only look mildly disconcerted by the threat.

The two of them made themselves comfortable on the ground in front of Sam and Viktor, Ben once again flashing a secret grin up at Sam with his glossy eyes. She nudged her foot against his lower back in response before glancing up at the sky.

Clouds of fire and smoke were roaring silently overhead, so thick and so vibrant that she felt as though she could reach forward and dip her finger into it. It was both terrifying and beautiful and she felt something sharp sweep through her gut that was quickly tampered out by the pleasant buzzing in her skull.

Now would have been a good time to go, when she didn’t have the ability to feel it. If only the world could end now, as they were, without fear or anticipation or anger.

“This is all I ever wanted,” said Luther after another moment of silence. “Just all of us together. No fighting or trying to save the world. Just… being in the moment.”

“I’m happy for you, Luther,” Sam told him. She gave him a smile when he turned to face her, seemingly surprised. “I know I haven’t told you and it was wrong of me not to. You’re my brother and I love you. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

The genuine smile she received in return was reward enough, Luther’s eyes sparkling. “Thanks, Sam. Love you, too.”

She felt someone’s head fall back against her knee and she glanced down at Ben, whose hair was in disarray and falling over his forehead as he glanced up at her. Klaus had their arms winded together, tugging the boy as close to himself as he could. There was a cigarette tucked lazily between Ben’s lips (she was sure Klaus had given it to him), smoke floating up and tickling her nose.

He leaned back further, tucking his head and neck against her thigh, exposing part of her leg from beneath her dress and she flushed at the closeness. He turned to rub his cheek against her knee before pulling the cigarette from his lips so he could press them against her skin instead. She didn’t know how to react or what to say so instead she gave a small, hesitant smile.

He winked before moving his gaze to the sky, still resting back against her legs.

She carefully ran her fingers through his hair before looking back up as well, trying to ignore the painful swelling in her chest. Something about the look on his face was sobering to her, causing the tingling in the base of her skull to fade.

She decided she was going to need to be much, much drunker in order to make it through the rest of the night.

#ben hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy imagine #ben hargreeves #umbrella academy #umbrella academy imagines

[kingkeerys]

#aakaksjdk #tua #five is me

[kingkeerys]

everything klaus does is so intricately and vitally intertwined with every single major plot point in the show and yet he is always on some bizarre side quest. simultaneously the most and least plot involved character.

#JUSTICE FOR KLAUS HARGREEVES #GODDAMNIT #tua

[kingkeerys]

David Castañeda, Justin H. Min and Ritu Arya on the set of The Umbrella Academy season 3

via David Castañeda on Instagram

#stop they love him #david castenada #justin h min #tua

[kingkeerys]

I’m sorry but I haven’t seen, heard, or cared about Allison’s family since the first season. Idc who that upsets or who claims that it’s insensitive. I get 100% that they’re a huge part of her character arc, but it was not working for me this season. And how they all of a sudden cared about their birth parents had me up in arms as well because not once in the first season did they mention wanting to get to know them or seeking them out.

And coming from someone who was a die hard Allison fan, she was a top 5 weirdo this season. The writers are going to have to work overtime to even get that lady back in my top 20 yet alone top 7. Jesus Christ

#real talk #but yes emmy is a phenomenal actress like woman should get an award for this season #tua

[kingkeerys]

there are 2 types of people

#sebastian x anthony #always #THICC BIH

[kingkeerys]

#if you know you know #buzzfeed unsolved

[kingkeerys]

I was so excited for your new Ben fic, but I just can’t read it now that you’ve named her Sam.. it’s a shame, it was such a good fic otherwise :(

never thought I’d have someone be this upset over a name lol

[kingkeerys]

50 ways to say goodbye ♛ ben hargreeves 2/4

word count: 5,100

pairing(s): sparrow!ben hargreeves/oc, umbrella!ben hargreeves/oc (platonic-ish)

a/n: i'm annoyed with myself for not knowing when to stop and turning this into a 4-parter vs the 2 parts i originally started with. i'm even more annoyed with having to go back on my word of not giving the oc a name OR a power. blah! so yes, her name is sam. don't get confused pls. also i'm the president of the "allison is now dead to me" club and all of you can join free of charge. (p.s. let me know if you like part 2. thanks xoxo)

← previous chapt. next chapt. →

FEI ENTERED THE ROOM with a pleased smirk, followed by a tentative Sloane and a confused Luther.

Sam felt a pang of anxiety at the thought of Ben knowing Luther had been there all along, which meant he knew about their not-so-secret relationship. That had to have been a bad thing, right? She knew if she were him, she certainly wouldn’t have been pleased. Hell, she wasn’t him and she wasn’t exactly happy about it.

“Make yourself comfortable,” said Fei. She was grinning at Ben but her words had clearly been addressed to Luther.

Luther glanced warily around the room, Sloane clutching his arm like a stranded koala, and when his eyes fell on Sam’s timid form on the couch, they widened.

“Sam? When did you get here?” he asked, gaze jumping between her, Ben and Fei. He gestured to the siblings. “Did they do anything to you? Did you hurt her?”

He stepped forward, large shoulders hunched threateningly. Sloane placed a comforting hand on his forearm, coaxing him back towards her. Neither Ben nor Fei appeared intimidated. Sam stood and quickly shook her head.

“I’m fine, Luther. No one hurt me. I think,” she eyed Ben out of her peripherals, “I might be here for the same reason you are.”

Luther’s brows furrowed, glancing between her and Ben, before making some sort of connection that caused his eyes to widen a second time. He pointed to Ben accusingly.

“Are you sneaking around with him?” he hissed in a whisper that was anything but subtle. She wanted to facepalm at the very wrong conclusion he’d drawn from that but settled with sighing impatiently.

“No, Luther, I’m saying he wanted us both here because he has something to tell us. I knew you were going to be here,” she admitted sheepishly, ignoring Luther’s own embarrassment that she was keeping tabs on his rendezvous with Sloane. “I followed you so I could keep an eye on you, make sure you were going to be okay. When Ben found me, I told him about the Kugelblitz. Something has to be done,” she stressed.

It took Luther a moment to catch up, but the creases in his forehead slowly eased and he nodded along. “No, yeah, I totally agree. We need to… do something.”

His lame response wasn’t met with a very impressed crowd, but Ben feigned a smile nonetheless.

“That’s exactly why you’re here,” said Ben. His sharp eyes flashed to Sloane standing half behind Luther. “Give us a minute.”

Sam watched Sloane tiptoe to press a kiss to Luther’s cheek – how bizarre to watch – before gracefully leaving the room, but not before ordering her brother to be nice. The smile Ben gave in return was anything but. Without taking his gaze off Luther, he nudged his chin towards Fei and she left the room without comment, accepting the wordless signal.

Luther fidgeted under Ben’s stare and was the first to speak once only the three of them remained.

“Listen man, if this is about Sloane, I’m sorry for creeping into your house like this, we’re just—”

“What’s your game?” Ben interrupted him.

Luther flashed him a goofy smile.

“Big fan of Yahtzee,” At Ben’s unchanged face, Luther’s smile faded. “Old Ben would have laughed at that joke.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Spare me the ‘old Ben’ monologue, blondie already took care of that for you.”

At Luther’s stare, Sam gave a small wave and a chagrinned smile. He glanced back over at Ben and squinted his eyes, leaning forward a bit. Ben scrunched up his nose and leaned away out of reflex.

“You know, I’m not entirely convinced the old Ben isn’t in there somewhere,” Luther surmised, studying Ben closely.

“He’s not,” Ben snipped, as if offended by the very notion. Luther ignored him.

“I mean, you’re technically the exact same person he was, DNA and all, just raised in a different environment.”

She blinked. She hadn’t thought of it that way. Given the fact that appearance-wise he looked exactly the same, only a few years older, it was fair enough to speculate that the same woman had given birth to him. If that was the case, Luther’s logic was completely sound. She didn’t know how she felt about that.

“Ah, yes,” Ben agreed, no less condescending than before. “The old nature vs nurture argument.”

She shook her head, irritated by his indifference. “Amazing how growing up without us can turn you into such an asshole.”

Luther quirked his head in agreement and Ben gave her a withering glare.

“It’s true though. You could try toning that down just a bit,” Luther dropped his hand from about collarbone level to just below his chest. He gave a shrug. “You are kind of mean.”

Ben slapped his hand out of the way. “I didn’t call you down here for advice on my character. Just worry about yourself, Gigantor. But we could use your advice on something else.”

Before she or Luther could guess what Ben could possibly want advice on, he called for Grace. And as if waiting for permission to enter, they watched as the primly-dressed robot appeared in the doorway carrying a black box with Fei trailing silently behind her.

Her mannerisms in this reality were troublesome enough as it was, but what was really unsettling was the fact that her right eye seemed to be missing. This hadn’t been the case the last time they saw her. Her circuitry glowed blue through the empty crevice in her face, causing her to appear even more unnatural and inhuman. The missing appendage appeared to have little affect on her though, which was all the more disconcerting.

Sam hated that Grace, their mother, was nothing more than a mindless machine in this timeline.

She stood and followed as Luther met Grace halfway. Grace presented the box to him with an unnerving smile. He stared down at it for a good three seconds.

“What’s this?” he finally asked.

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Open it.”

Sam stood to Luther’s right as he lifted the cover from the box, revealing a shiny burgundy suit with an unmistakable seal of a Sparrow on the left breast.

“A Sparrow uniform?” she was so taken aback that she had to ask the question out loud.

“Astute observation,” Ben deadpanned before redirecting his attention to Luther. “It’s Marcus’s, but you have a similar build.”

“I can’t take this,” said Luther. He frowned at Ben, then Sloane as she stepped into the room, recognizing the box immediately. A hovering, iridescent block hovered just past Sloane’s shoulder, chirping curiously in her wake and Sam jumped – she’d completely forgotten about the cube. What was its name again? “I’m not a Sparrow – I’m still part of the Umbrella Academy.”

“Are you?” Ben countered, eyes sliding over to Sloane’s form who appeared delighted by the turn of events. “We no longer have a Number One, or anyone who can properly fill those shoes,” he slitted his gaze at Fei – clearly there had been an argument on that topic. “That’s where you come in.”

“Pick someone else,” Sam interjected, face stony. Ben lifted an eyebrow at her. “Anyone else, I don’t care. A random gym rat off the street should do the trick.”

Ben huffed a laugh. “I’m not only asking him.”

It took another five, maybe ten seconds for her to understand what he was implying. Her anger melted away into confusion.

“Me?” she checked, perplexed. “Why me? What would you need me for?”

Ben clasped his hands in front of himself, taking a step towards her. “To fight. To take care of this Kugelblitz thing; to save the world, become one big happy family,” he cocked his head. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“To a degree,” she replied, eyeing him skeptically. “But not what you wanted. Why the change of heart?”

“Incidentally, I believe you,” he said, surprising her again. “The Kugelblitz has to be stopped, and we can’t fight it alone. We’re better off having you both with us rather than against us.”

“And you need us to be Sparrows in order to do that?” Luther interjected.

Ben’s smile was unreadable.

“You can stay as long as you’d like,” he then directed his attention to Sam. “Jayme’s uniform should fit you. Come with me.”

--

She stared mutely at the uniform outstretched on the bed across from her, chin resting in her hand as she perched on the chair at Jayme’s old desk.

The Sparrows’ infamous logo sat in the center of the uniform above the chest. Unlike Luther’s uniform – or Marcus’s, rather – it had a zipper extending from the neck and curving down the body of the uniform, wrapping around it like a vice until it reached the hip. She could tell at first glance that the zipper was only for show.

“Well?” Ben’s voice echoed from the doorway of the bedroom. “Aren’t you going to try it on?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“What’s stopping you?”

She lifted her head and placed her hand on the back of the chair, narrowing her eyes at him.

“This is more than just putting on an outfit and admiring myself in the mirror. That uniform represents a family I’m not apart of. Putting it on means setting my own family aside.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “You’re not signing your life away to us by wearing a jumpsuit, and it’s not like a group of paparazzi are going to snap photos of you in it and sell them to the black market. No one outside our families are going to know. It doesn’t mean whatever you’re trying to make it mean.”

She gave him a hard look. Her life would be so much easier if she just had the ability to read minds.

“Does it not bother you at all that I’d be wearing your sister’s uniform?”

His expression steeled and he kicked himself away from the doorframe, jaw clenched. “She was weak. Let’s hope you aren’t, too.”

He left with those ominous words hanging heavy in the air and she returned her gaze to the uniform, not entirely convinced she wasn’t.

--

She eventually did try the uniform on, several hours after Ben left her to her own thoughts. It fit well enough and that was all she needed to know before taking it right back off. She hoped she’d never actually have to wear it.

Allison showed up at nightfall, which was a surprise to everyone. Sam had been sitting in the living room being a third wheel to Luther and Sloane when Ben marched out the front door seemingly out of nowhere, Fei at his heels. The three of them had exchanged curious looks before following after them.

What awaited them made her stomach turn. The man from before who knew Viktor, the one who had killed Jayme and Alphonso – Harlan – was stuffed in the trunk of Allison’s car.

Death was never something Sam coped well with, and she never enjoyed killing another human being whether it was deserved or not. It disturbed her to see the bodies; empty shells of the person that once occupied them, gray and motionless and always appearing in some state of frozen shock. She thanked God she didn’t have Klaus’s power.

“Does he know?” Luther had asked. When Allison gave him a blank stare, he elaborated, “Viktor. Does he know?”

“He will,” was all she said before turning to Ben and Fei, who stood in front of the trunk. “It’s done. You owe us.”

She waited until she received Ben’s nod before shoving past everyone into the house, but not before scoffing at Luther donned in the Sparrow uniform.

Sam felt sick.

--

Luther made it his mission to gather the rest of their family and have them meet at the mansion. Sam was too cowardly to tag along and she locked herself away in Jayme’s old room, lying on the bed above the covers feeling painfully out of place.

By the time everyone arrived, it was nearing daybreak. She found that she had dosed on and off for most of the night, having weird dreams of flying over a desolate land consumed with flames. Without seeing it, she could feel that she was a crow – one of Fei’s birds held under the girl’s control.

The commotion caused her to roll out of bed, exhaustion set deep in her bones, and make her way down the stairs.

All eyes landed on her as she arrived in the living room. She’d been given a black sweatshirt similar to the previous one she wore when Ben first found her. It was left hanging over the desk chair sometime in the night and she’d pulled it on without thinking during one of her many sleepless hours, discarding her wrinkly stained sweater on the floor beside the bed. It wouldn’t have been worth mentioning, except the Sparrow Academy’s emblem was embroidered over the left breast similar to Marcus’s—Luther’s—suit and everyone seemed to notice.

Allison, of course, was the first to react.

“Amazing,” she shook her head with a sneer. “Nice to see how easily the two of you can switch teams. A little merch and a place to sleep and suddenly you’re good to go. Like a bunch of groupies.”

“Allison…” Sam began, weary and half-asleep, but Allison didn’t let her continue.

“Save it, I don’t give a shit anymore.”

Her mouth snapped shut, a little offended by the brazen look the taller girl was giving her. Ben caught her eye and he lifted his eyebrows, as if to prove a point, and she quickly looked away.

Sam tuned out most of the conversation following that, too irritated with Allison’s snide remark to really focus much. She knew Luther was trying to make everyone feel comfortable, which meant he was making the situation immensely more awkward, and Ben and Diego argued over something most likely meaningless. Five attempted to redirect the conversation on a more productive route, which succeeded for all of ten seconds before Viktor sped into the room and suddenly Sam was hyperaware of every sound in the room.

“What happened to Harlan?”

She looked away, choosing instead to stare at the scar below Diego’s temple as he sat on her left. She closed her eyes in an attempt to block out what was being said, but inevitably she couldn’t ignore the ugliness spewing from Allison’s mouth.

“I know he killed our mothers,” Allison spat, causing Sam to look up to quickly. She blinked, glancing over at Diego who had almost immediately turned to face her as if to gauge her reaction.

How was she supposed to react to that? Was she supposed to feel sad? Whenever her birth mother was brought up (which was pretty much never before they zapped themselves into this timeline) there was a disconnection there that kept her from really feeling much of anything because she never got the chance to know her. All she knew was Sir Reginald Hargreeves and his academy crusade; she didn’t know what it was like to have a mother. The closest thing she had was Grace. She knew Klaus had attempted to find his mother – something she briefly considered doing herself, if to just find a reason to get away from her family and breathe. She supposed it did make her feel a little sad knowing that finding her was no longer a possibility.

“Who told you that?” Viktor asked, appearing shaken.

“Harlan did after you lied about it to my face.”

“Is it true, Viktor?” Diego’s large eyes sparkled at Viktor, face somber as if begging for it not to be. “Did Harlan start all of this?”

Yes but also no, she thought bitterly. Had they not dropped themselves in the 60s, none of it would have happened anyway. But she kept her mouth shut.

“He didn’t mean to hurt anybody. It only happened because I was the one who gave those powers to him. If anything, it’s my fault. I’m the one you should blame.”

“What makes you think I don’t?”

Viktor’s eyes glistened with tears, lips pursing. He stared at Allison for a moment, then nodded to himself. “This wasn’t about saving the world. This was about hurting me. Hurting me for—”

“Go ahead,” Allison stood, stalking towards Viktor with a look that could melt steel. Her eyes were ablaze with fury, lip curled and hands shaking. The air in the room suddenly grew thick and Sam felt Diego and Lila tense on either side of her. “Say her name.”

Sam put a hand to her forehead and looked away again, tuning out their arguing. Her chest began to burn again and her stomach was turning over on itself. She took a deep breath in, held it, then slowly let it out until she no longer felt like her skin was on fire. Voices began to rise and her fingertips prickled. She quickly closed them into a fist, slamming the fist onto her temple.

“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!”

Sam jumped, jerking her arm down and accidentally hitting Lila on the leg. She felt Diego jolt next to her.

“Holy shit, Allison, calm down!”

“EVERY TIME I BUILD A NEW LIFE FOR MYSELF, YOU END THE WORLD AND TAKE IT FROM ME!”

The room trembled, lamps shook, the foundation itself tremored beneath their feet and Sam gaped up at Allison who looked… nothing like her sister. Her eyes glowed a fierce yellow, cheeks blood red, fists clenched and back hunched. Sam’s fingers tingled again and there was a stinging in her joints, causing her hand to twitch. Someone’s hand engulfed hers, twining their fingers through hers with a painful grunt and she gasped, squeezing the hand back. Diego winced to her left.

Five’s cautious voice came through next. “How are you doing this without rumoring?”

“A little gift I received from Harlan.”

Luther stood as Viktor choked on air, grasping his throat with a wheeze. “Allison, that’s enough!’

And Viktor was coughing, desperately sucking in air as he bent over. Allison lifted her hands as if to pacify Luther, but she took the opportunity to bend forward and murmur close to Viktor’s ear but loud enough to where everyone in the room could hear her:

“We should have left you in the basement.”

A painful crack echoed throughout the room as Viktor slapped her hard across the face, throwing her back a few feet. Sam watched Viktor’s heartbroken face, red-rimmed eyes, throat bruised from grasping it so hard to get air, and she didn’t even realize she was standing until Diego and Five were jumping up too, throwing their hands in her direction.

“Allison,” she spat. The candles on the far side of the room exploded from their casings, sending melted wax through the air and onto the walls. She shrugged off Diego’s grasp on her arm, taking a measured step forward. Allison’s eyes narrowed into slits, blood dripping from her lip as Viktor stumbled out of the room. “For once in your life, how about you stop acting like you’re the only person in this family who has lost someone?”

Allison smirked, licking the blood from her swollen lip.

“And who have you lost, Sammy? Who do you have? Who did you ever have?” she tilted her head. “No one. No husband, no child, no one who gives a damn about you outside of our fucking family. Do not talk to me about losing anyone when you have nothing.”

Sam marched forward, kicking the coffee table out of her way.

“I wasn’t talking about myself, Allison. I was talking about Klaus. Have you forgotten him? The man he fell in love with when he was forced back in time and went through literal hell and back? I guess that doesn���t really matter to you, huh? I actually think about other people, not just myself.”

Allison’s eyes glowed yellow again and she lifted her hands as if to shove Sam back, but Sam lifted her hand as well and suddenly her entire forearm ignited into flames.

“Try me,” Sam threatened. The tingling in her chest was almost too much bear, too much heat and too much light threatened to consume her, wrap around her and cocoon her, but she clenched her jaw and held it back. The fire inside her swelled with pride at the fact that Allison backed down. “See what happens.”

“DAMN IT SAM, STOP IT!”

She was yanked back by two sets of hands, a thick wet cloth smothering her right arm and tamping out the flame with a sizzle. A dark figure stepped in front of her but the room was hazy and the sounds were muffled as she nearly lost her balance.

“As entertaining as this is,” the figure in front of her spoke. Her brain focused in on the voice, sluggishly recognizing it to be Ben’s. His back was to her. “We have shit we need to do and it’s not going to work if everyone has torn themselves to pieces in our living room.”

She lost consciousness before she could hear a response.

--

Coming back from an episode was always rough for her. It felt kind of like a hangover, a dull pulsing behind her eyes and a twinge of nausea that never really went away. Her mouth felt like cotton due to the dehydration.

After all, when a fire lights inside your chest cavity, it sucks up all the water in your system with it.

When Sam woke up she was alone, back in Jayme’s bedroom. The room was silent and dark with the curtains pulled shut, no doubt one of her brothers’ doing as they knew how horrible she always felt after. It was ten minutes before she was able to fully open her eyes, and another ten before she managed to sit up. The world spun, flipped upside down and left to right before slowly readjusting and she groaned, leaning forward to rest her head in her hands.

Eyes closed again. Ten minutes passed. She then opened them and spotted the glass of water on the bedside table. She chugged it, swallowed down the bile that rose in her throat, then placed her head back in her hands again.

It had to have been an hour before she risked leaving the bedroom. Her stomach had calmed down and her temples were no longer throbbing, but there was an itch at the base of her skull she couldn’t scratch. Her mind was fuzzy, memory a little warped, but she remembered most of the details and for once wished she didn’t have a sister.

“You’re up,” a male’s voice spoke from a room over after she reached the bottom of the stairs. She knew before looking up that it was Diego. He made his way over to her, face relatively blank but concern flashed in his eyes as he watched her rub her neck. “You good?”

“Never better,” she croaked, rotating her head from side to side.

He nodded to himself. He looked like he wanted to say more but seemed to think better of it, instead tossing a thumb over his shoulder.

“You’re just in time. We’ve got a plan on how to contain the Kugelblitz.”

“That fast, huh?”

“We’re sharp when we wanna be. C’mon.”

He led her down to the basement with a hand wrapped loosely around her wrist. She knew he did it to make sure she wouldn’t fall. Her equilibrium was still a bit out of whack.

Both families excluding Klaus – honestly, where was he? – were gathered in a half circle facing the back room. She remembered Klaus mentioning that the Kugelblitz had formed directly underneath them, and the vibrations on the air caused the hairs to stand up on her arms. Even without seeing it, she could feel the Kugelblitz’s energy. It made her stomach churn again.

Diego gave her shoulder a pat before making his way over to Lila, who was shaking her hands out on the far side of the room. The Kugelblitz came into view and Sam had to shield her eyes from the brightness, the swirling vortex of energy shimmering and glistening too brilliantly for her delicate eyes to handle so soon after an episode. She stopped somewhere behind Sloane, who was speaking, and tilted her head down away from the view of the Kugelblitz.

The person to her left crossed their arms lightly over their chest and she eyed the stripes on their dark shirt. A golden ring with a black stone rested on their pinky finger, shimmering in the light.

“You’re alive,” Ben noted, voice lowered as he watched his sister give instructions.

“Barely,” she replied hoarsely. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say what you’re going to say. About how my power drains me. About being weak. Just… don’t.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “We’ve learned that the Kugelblitz is comprised of micro black holes collapsing in on themselves over and over again. It’s here because you’re here – some time paradox bullshit I don’t really understand. The waves come every 9-10 hours. It’s been roughly six and a half hours since the last one, so we figure another one is due in about three. The only way to stop it is to contain it and that’s what Sloane, Christopher, Lila and Viktor are going to do.”

She pressed a finger to her temples. “How?”

“By condensing it with its own gravity.”

“Cool,” she heard Luther murmur from behind her.

She felt the ground shake beneath them and could only assume the condensing was underway. She focused on breathing evenly, keeping her eyes closed. She wanted to feel relieved, or nervous, or angry, anything – but the only thing she could really felt was tired.

“Mom?” Diego asked suddenly and even though her eyes were closed, she furrowed her brows in confusion. Was Grace there?

“You have no right to do that,” came an electronic voice, similar to Grace’s but also not. It sounded wrong, broken. Sam lifted her head, ignoring the sharp stab in her neck as she turned to see what was happening by the stairs.

“The day of vengeance was in my heart,” Grace continued. Sam squinted her eyes, moving around Luther to see a dark figure cloaked by the shadows of the room looming towards them. A glowing blue orb stuck out against a black, empty face. Sam felt a pang in her heart at the sight, spine straightening. “And my year of redemption hath come!”

“What are you…?”

Before Diego could finish his sentence, Grace lifted something in her hands and from within her grasp came a burst of fire that roared towards them. Sam’s eyes widened, her mind too preoccupied with the pinpricks in her skull, reflexes too slow to react. When the fire was just a breath’s width from her face, someone had her yanked to the ground.

She cried out as she landed on her shoulder, wincing as the flames tore through the air a few feet above her body. The temperature was strong, like standing in front of an oven, and the embers in her chest resonated with the heat. She swallowed the saliva trapped in her throat and rolled over onto her side, seeing Luther and Ben hunched on the ground not far from her with Diego off to the side.

Another roar of fire expelled from the machine Grace held and as she clamored forward to get out of the fire’s path, Ben grabbed her arm and hauled her behind him as he thew himself past one of the stone walls. She collapsed against him without meaning to, pulling her body out of harm’s way in the nick of time. She could feel the flames lick her skin as it collided with the bricks pressed against her back right where they laid seconds before.

“The day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption hath come…”

“Mom, stop!” Diego cried. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

Ben crawled around her, peering his head from behind the wall. He pushed himself up from the ground, steadying himself before a tentacle shot out from his chest. Sam leaned over to see what was happening, watching as he aimed for knocking the flamethrower out of Grace’s grip. Instead, fire ignited from the machine again and singed the tenacle, causing Ben to yell.

Sam pulled herself up by gripping the bricks in the wall, arm outstretched to catch Ben before he fell. She tugged him back behind the wall, eyes wide with worry as Diego ran towards Grace. The tip of the flamethrower glowed orange and Sam lifted a hand, her eyes glowing an equally bright shade of red as she focused on the flame inside the machine, formed her hand into a fist, and pulled. The flames that burst through were redirected to the side, missing Diego entirely, and she panted before unclenching her fist. At least it was easier to control when the flame was made from something else.

It was then that Five blipped in behind Grace, threw a hand over her mouth, and disappeared with her in his grip.

“Fuck,” Ben hissed, capturing her attention again. She quickly found him leaning against the wall, clutching his abdomen with his face crumpled in pain.

“Are you okay?” she asked, gripping his arm.

“No, damn it,” he snipped back. He grunted, tossing his head back against the wall and went limp. She made sure to keep a hold of him before glancing back at the mission at hand.

The Kugelblitz, which was once the size of a car, was now nothing more than a shrunken orb that could nearly fit in the palm of her hand. Sloane stood before it with Lila and Viktor on either side of her, her hands glowing as she forced the Kugelblitz even smaller. Pieces of the cube—Christopher, she had to remind herself—slowly came together around the orb until it was nothing more than a speck of shimmering dust. Christopher reformed himself, the pieces fused together, and the room went dark.

“Holy shit,” Diego breathed. “We did it. We actually fuckin’ did it.”

Sam slid down the wall, chest burning and head throbbing again. Her hand fell from Ben’s shoulder, who moaned as she slumped against him.

“Don’t make me save your ass again,” he groaned.

“Never asked you to,” she griped back. “Guess I’m growing on you.”

She fell against him again and he let her, supporting her weight as he leaned into her in return.

“Fuck,” was all he said.

#ben hargreeves imagine #ben hargreeves #the umbrella academy imagine #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy imagines

[kingkeerys]

I LOVEEEE 50 ways to say goodbye!!! When’s part 2 out??? I’m so excited ❤️

thanks so much! I’m hoping to have part two out by the end of the week. thanks for reading! ❤️

[kingkeerys]

50 ways to say goodbye ♛ ben hargreeves 1/4

word count: 5,331 (yikes)

pairing(s): sparrow!ben hargreeves/oc, umbrella!ben hargreeves/oc (platonic-ish)

a/n: to be honest, the title itself doesn’t have very much to do with the story. I was listening to “50 ways to say goodbye” by train and the line, ‘help me, help me, I'm all out of lies and ways to say you died’ just kind of stuck with me. anyway, what the hell am I doing? I haven’t written anything in years. actual years. and suddenly I’m doing this? what? ben hargreeves has always fucked me up but s3 ben really fucked me up. I needed to write something for him, even if it’s just a choppy story with no real backstory or world-building. yes, this is one of those eighth-hargreeves-female-insert stories. no, it is not told in a second person “reader” perspective because I just can’t write in that format. she hasn’t been given a name and I’m not sure if she ever will have one. I haven’t given her a number, either. if you want her to be eight she can be eight, or zero, or 1.5, whatever you want. I don’t specify her powers, either. if this gets any views at all and if people are interested, maybe I’ll build her character a little more. otherwise, enjoy! there will be a part 2 to wrap up the season. there’ll be 4 parts in total because i’m nuts. the intention is to have the story sporadic so I don’t have to make any committments. I intended to have this just be one part only but the word count got away from me and I was like holy lord have mercy time to stop. let me know what you think. y’know, if you have time. xo

next chapter →

All she could do was stare.

It was Ben.

He looked so much like Ben.

Granted, he was a few years older. The roundness of his cheeks had hardened over the years, his jawline more defined and cheekbones pronounced as time had matured him into an adult. He had always been a cute kid; the gentleness of his demeanor perfectly complimenting the soft edges of his smile and the delicate crinkle around his eyes.

But now he was handsome, with stubble dusting his chin and upper lip, something Diego used to always tease he would never have. A jagged white scar ran down his left cheek, tainting his smooth complexion and speaking of the violence he had to endure growing up. His hair was styled in some sort of disarray that seemed purposeful, suave yet elegant. He had a slight build, not entirely surprising given how lanky and small he’d been as a teen, but even through the uniform he wore she could spot the hardened muscle only years of strength training could build.

His eyes, though. Those were different. Darker, colder. Unfamiliar. Not a hint of recognition as he glared at the figures in front of him with contempt, shoulders stiff with defense that screamed, get out of my house.

He looked so much like Ben.

And yet, he was a stranger.

She could sense her family was similarly distraught by the reality on either side of her. It was Luther who broke first.

“Ben?” At the man’s furrowed brows, Luther added, “It’s us. Your family.”

“My family’s right behind me. Who the hell are you?”

She didn’t know if it made it better or worse that in this new reality, he still had the same name. He was Ben, sure, he just wasn’t their Ben.

And they fought, because of course they did. That’s the only way their family seemed to know how to handle a situation – to fight against it. And though it wasn’t the most conventional, they were still pretty good at it.

Well, up until now.

The Sparrow Academy, as they seemed to be called, were not only the new and improved children of Reginald Hargreeves, but they were new and improved at everything. Any move that her or siblings made, they were one step ahead every time. And Reginald himself stood off to the side, hands clasped behind his back, monocle firmly in place, suit spotless, watching intently as the violent events unfolded.

Each time she managed to escape one of the Sparrows’ grasps, she found Reginald’s still form in the corner. And while he didn’t appear impressed – rather, he held no real expression at all – he certainly didn’t seem disappointed. This was more than she could ever say about their Reginald, who always managed to have a sneer of distain on his face whenever he mentally graded their abilities.

It hurt. She hated to admit that it hurt. Somehow the old man still managed to have a hold on her, even when they were no longer his to torment. At what point did she stop grasping for his approval?

The fight ended as quickly as it began with her and her siblings running out the door with their tails between their legs, bruised and bleeding in more ways than one.

As she stumbled down the front stairs, clutching her ribs (at least one was broken) with sweat gleaming her brow, she glanced over her shoulder and her eyes met Ben’s. They narrowed at her immediately and his jaw clenched, as if daring her to turn around, and with wet eyes she looked away and continued after her siblings.

New Ben was kind of the worst.

 --

 As it turned out, the whole family was kind of the worst. In a big, fuck you sort of way that only Reginald Hargreeves could create.

In the midst of discovering a new academy had taken their place, the world was once again on the brink of destruction due to their incessant need to mess with the time-space continuum. She had long since made peace with the fact that they should have let the world end the first time around and let bygones be bygones. And if she had any say in it, the first place they’d travel to once getting the briefcase back would be in 2019, the original 2019, at the theater, seconds before the meteor struck so they wouldn’t have a chance to find an escape route a second time.

And if the fact that they no longer had the briefcase wasn’t good enough, the Sparrow Academy seemed to make it their own personal mission to destroy her entire family. She could only assume they were threatened by her family somehow stealing their spotlight – they’d racked up quite the fanbase, something her own family had never managed to accomplish.

They’ve had several run-ins with the new family now and each time they barely made it out with their lives. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the Sparrows during their last meeting. She tried to not let that bother her.

And now, with the Kugelblitz looming its imminent demise over their heads, they had to find a way to stop it or, once again, humankind would cease to exist.

Just another day at the office. And it wouldn’t be complete without another Hargreeves-sized argument that has split the family three or four ways with Allison mourning the death (or nonexistence) of her child, Diego somehow coming to terms with the child he didn’t know he had, Luther bumping uglies with the enemy, Van—Viktor defending the man who successfully wiped out one-third of the Sparrow Academy, and Five attempting to reel everyone in at once, to no avail.

There were many places she would rather be right now. In a hot bath, drinking her woes away at Hotel Obsidian’s now-open bar due to the Kugelblitz’d hotel patrons, maybe somewhere in Europe or Asia or as far away from her family and she could physically be. Hell, she’d take Luther’s old hideout on the moon over the shitstorm that has become planet Earth.

Instead, her sister senses were tingling and she couldn’t help but worry that Luther was going to get himself into trouble with the floating Hargreeves girl who’d somehow managed to wrap him around her finger in less than a week.

If I were avoiding my family during the third apocalypse, where would I go? She thought cynically to herself, meandering down the city sidewalk with itchy eyes and a throbbing headache.

She knew the street like the back of her hand, could find her way to the house with her eyes closed from any direction. That’s why it didn’t take long at all for the Hargreeves mansion to come into view, sticking out like a sore thumb in the city’s modernized metropolitan.

Wrapping her arms tighter around herself, she stepped around the front of the building and curved down the back alley on the building’s left. She peered up at the left wing of the mansion, eyes catching sight of a top story window with its light on, barely noticeable in the bright morning sun.

She squinted her eyes, leaning further into the brick as a dark figure came into view amidst the yellow glow of the window. Bingo. The large shoulders and hunched frame confirmed her suspicions and she clicked her tongue, feeling annoyed. How many times had he visited this girl since they kidnapped him? Why was he willingly visiting someone who kidnapped him?

‘The lack of oxygen on the moon has gone to his brain,’ Diego’s sardonic words echoed in her mind. No kidding, she agreed tersely, feeling a bit betrayed.

Attempting to build an amicable relationship between the family that sought to kill them was one thing. But getting involved with one of them? Romantically?

At least when he and Allison were a… well, whatever that was… she wasn’t plotting his murder or holding him captive. They knew each other, grew up together, had formed a bond. They could trust one another. A line had to be drawn somewhere and Luther was so beyond crossing that line at this point. The line wasn’t even on the same continent anymore as far as she was concerned.

“Unbelievable,” she muttered, nails digging into the brick.

“You once again trespassing on private property? Yes, I’d have to agree,” a voice came from directly behind her. She yelped, jumping nearly a foot in the air as she spun around.

There stood Ben, hands clasped in front of himself as he stood calmly with a smile on his face that could only be described as sarcastic. His short-sleeved shirt and dark pants appeared casual, but the intricate detailing of the knit material suggested it cost more than any nice dress she had once owned. Reginald Hargreeves apparently spared no expense for his precious Sparrows.

She swallowed and he opened his mouth to speak again, though the words were muffled from the blood pumping furiously in her ears at the scare.

“Any particular reason you’re staring up at my sister’s window? She showered a few hours ago so if you were hoping for a show, I’m sorry to say you’ve missed it.”

“What?” she gaped. “No, I’m watching my—” It was then she remembered that oh, right, no one was supposed to know Luther was there. “My room,” she said instead. She pointed ruefully up at the window.  “That used to be my room, when we… I mean, in the other timeline, when my family lived here. I stayed in that room.”

“Bit of an odd time to get sentimental,” Ben mused, tilting his head. His eyes skimmed her figure, drinking in the dark clothing that would have blended in well with the murkiness of the alleyway had it been several hours later. “If you’re trying to hide, you’re not doing a very good job.”

“So what if I was?” she retorted. “What are you doing out here prowling around, anyway? Does father not pay for his own security?”

“My father has other things to worry about,” he corrected, eyes narrowing. “And if you paid any sort of attention, you’d see the camera sitting directly above your pretty little head.”

She glanced up, sheepishly spotting the small black box with a glowing red dot taunting her from the corner of the mansion’s gutter, pointing in her direction. She met his gaze again, this time with red cheeks, and attempted to lift her chin. His smile transformed into a knowing smirk at her attempted confidence.

“Of course I saw the camera,” she lied, brushing down her sleeves as if to regain her dignity. “As it so happens, our father rarely paid any attention to the ones we had. Half of them were only for show.”

Ben gave a false pitying smile. “Well, unlike you, we have things actually worth protecting in our home.”

A spark of anger ignited in her gut. “Oh we had plenty worth protecting, we just didn’t need the protection.”

Ben gave a humorless laugh, eyes rolling, before taking a step forward. She had to refrain from stepping back in return. She didn’t want to appear weak.

“Let’s cut the bullshit. I thought we told you to stay away until you were ready to bargain.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, weighing her options. “I don’t have the man who killed your siblings. My si—brother has him and isn’t willing to give him up so easily.”

“Then you’re wasting my time,” he took another step forward, crowding her against the cold wall. His voice dropped to an octave above a whisper, “What’s to stop me from ending you right here? I’ve been generous up until this point, but you’re really starting to overstay your welcome.”

“You won’t hurt me,” she countered, though her confidence was lacking. Ben’s nose curled, eyes flashing coolly.

“I’ve hurt plenty of people for a lot less.”

“How can you…” she grinded her teeth and looked away, unable to hold the stare. His words left her stomach feeling heavy, her head swimming. She kind of felt like she was going to cry. “You would never act like this…”

“You don’t know me,” he snapped, lip curling into a snarl. “Stop acting like you do. All of you. I’m not your dead brother.”

She laughed wetly, sniffing. “No, clearly you aren’t. Our brother wasn’t a heartless piece of shit.”

“What the hell did you just say?”

He closed the distance between them, hands reaching out to squeeze her shoulders as if to shake her or slam her into the brick. He settled for the latter, fingers digging into the material of her sweater and bruising the skin immediately. She winced, tensing up, but continued to glare heatedly at the boy in front of her despite the pain.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened to your brother and sister, okay?” she said honestly, even as he pressed her further against the wall at the mention of his siblings. “We didn’t plan that, we didn’t even know who that man was. I get that you don’t want us around. You don’t know us, you’re threatened by us. And that’s fine. But maybe if you took a second to climb down from your high horse, you’d see things from our perspective,” she pushed her head from the wall, holding his gaze. “You’re in our home. Whether you want to believe it or not, it was ours first. We changed the timeline, we screwed up – something we’re unfortunately really good at doing lately – and now our home is gone. We have nowhere to go, no purpose, and there’s this guy living in our old house who looks exactly like our brother that died too young. He was innocent, he was good. We loved him. And you’re just—” her breath hitched, words catching in her throat. Ben’s grip loosened, but only slightly. “You’re just nothing like him. It’s just… it’s like a disgrace to his memory.”

Ben huffed a breath through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment to steel himself before opening them again.

“What do you want from us?” he finally asked. There was no underlying malice, no simmering contempt. It was a genuine question, as if he really didn’t know. “Why are you here?”

She licked her lips. Now was the time for her to play her cards right.

“We have a mutual interest,” she said.

“And that is?”

“We both live on this earth. Right now, at the same time. And if we want to continue living so that we can fight to the death later, we need to take out the common enemy.”

Ben didn’t look convinced, but gave a mocking smile nonetheless. “What is our common enemy?”

“The Kugelblitz.”

Ben finally released her shoulders with an irritated sigh and stepped back. “The what?”

“The end of the world,” she elaborated. Ben scowled at her.

“If the world was ending, don’t you think my family would be the first to know about it?”

She rolled her eyes, suppressing a snort. “You’d be the last to know about it with how your family operates.”

“Let me guess,” Ben countered, straightening himself with a haughty sort of smirk. “Your family is the reason behind it.”

She made a face. “You’re not exactly wrong.”

Ben eyed her for a few tense moments, scanning her face with his lips pursed. Most likely trying to determine if what she said could be believed. The cawing of a crow startled her and she tore her gaze from his face to watch the bird land gracefully on a window ledge to Ben’s right. He appeared unaffected by the crow’s presence, but something in his expression shifted and he relaxed his posture.

“Come inside,” he said, though it was more of a command rather than an invitation. “We can finish this conversation in private.”

“And risk getting kidnapped?” she snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His previous smile returned, though this time with more of a mischievous curve. “Well, it seemed to work out well for your brother.”

Before she could decipher exactly what he meant by that, he had his back to her and was walking around the front of the mansion towards the stairs.

She watched him go, chewing on the inside of her lip. Was it the smartest idea to follow him? She’d be outnumbered. Luther was going to be close by, but consequentially he didn’t even know she was there. That left her alone against Ben, the crow woman, and Luther’s insufferable crush. But what if she could make them see reason? What if they ended up believing her about the Kugelblitz? Was it worth the risk to try? As much as she dreaded the thought of spending more time with this Ben, this family, there were more important things to worry about. The future of humanity was at stake.

The easiness in Ben’s steps as he walked away suggested he knew she would follow.

And he wasn’t wrong.

 --

 “Make yourself at home,” Ben flicked his hand in the direction of one of the grand couches in their large living room.

This was the first time she’d seen the house at the hands of the Sparrows not littered with destruction. It didn’t look much different than she remembered from their timeline – the furniture was gaudy and outdated, the décor tacky at best with little cohesiveness, and naturally there was just a hint of narcissism as the cherry on top that came with being a Hargreeves. But instead of Five’s painting hanging proudly on the wall for all to bear witness, it was instead a portrait of Ben.

She scowled at the painting. The purpose of Five’s portrait was to honor his memory, their last recollection of him frozen in time as a reminder that he was still part of the family despite no longer being there to serve as such. What was the point of Ben’s painting? Was it just vanity? And if that were the case, why not have a painting of their Number One instead?

“Not too much, though,” Ben added when she didn’t respond, tossing a look at her over his shoulder. “It’s not really your home. Not anymore.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” she muttered, standing in front of the couch without sitting. It looked highly uncomfortable and stiff, and the patterns woven into the fabric made her dizzy.

“Drink?” he offered. She glanced warily at the bottle he retrieved from the bar on the far side of the room. It appeared to be wine, a simplistic label on the front in neat script with a blood red seal, no doubt purchased for some atrocious price. At her skeptical look, he rolled his eyes. “It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re wondering. We have a bit more class than that.”

And in true high-class fashion, he popped the cork and tossed it to the ground before taking a sip directly from the bottle. Then he gestured to himself.

“See? I’m still alive.”

She made a face. “That’s unfortunate. And no, I’d rather not drink your saliva, but thank you.”

“Come on,” he plucked two wine glasses perched on a crystal stand at the bar, balancing them in one hand while he carried the opened bottle with the other. “We are family, after all.”

She watched him place both glasses on the golden table in front of the sofa and pour a generous amount of purple-red liquid into each.

“You don’t believe that,” she countered when he offered a glass to her. She reluctantly accepted it but refused to put it to her lips.

Ben took a drink from the glass, smacking his lips afterwards.

“You’re right, I don’t,” he pointed to the couch, tone losing its lightness. “Sit.”

She complied after another moment of hesitation, resting the glass of wine delicately in her lap. Once she was seated, he sat on the loveseat opposite her and leaned back against the cushion, crossing one leg over the other as he studied her from afar. He sipped his wine once more.

“So let’s chat,” he said, leaving the sentence open as if expecting her to start. She bristled.

“It’s not like we couldn’t have done this outside.”

“I didn’t have wine outside,” he smirked wryly before the expression immediately dropped as if it hadn’t been there. “What’s a Kugelblitz?”

“It’s… kind of hard to explain,” she began, swirling the wine gently in her hand. “My brother could explain it a lot better. It’s basically a blackhole that will eventually swallow the universe whole given enough time. It’s already started with animals and apparently some people.”

“And you created this?” he replied doubtfully, as if a phenomenon of that degree was beneath them to accomplish.

“More or less,” she nodded. “By jumping the timeline too much, by existing in a time and space where two versions of ourselves exist, by tampering with history and the future and everything in between… take your pick.”

She finally took a generous sip of her wine at the gruesome reminder of their universal screw-ups.

Ben didn’t appear sympathetic, but there was a glimmer of intrigue in the tilt of his head. “And you’ve been jumping through time and space why now?”

“To stop the apocalypse,” she answered obviously. At Ben’s raised eyebrows she quickly elaborated, “Well, it started with an apocalypse. There was a meteor heading towards Earth, and whether or not that was our fault is entirely unrelated, so we spacial jumped together and ended up sixty years into the past by mistake. Our presence in the 1960s interfered with a lot of very important historical moments that could have potentially started another apocalypse and in the midst of fixing our interferences, we managed to jump forward in time again in the hopes of getting back to our regular timeline. Except now we’re here and so are you and apparently the universe is not happy about that.”

Ben stared at her again, bobbing his foot up and down as he let the information digest. He eventually made a ‘hmph’ sound and downed the rest of his wine.

“So you managed to fuck up the fuck up. Impressive,” he ignored her scowl in favor of getting more wine. “How is this Kugelblitz swallowing animals or humans or whatever?”

“I don’t know,” she stressed, annoyance flaring again. “The point is we need to stop it before it takes anyone else.”

Ben squinted at her, hand clenching around his wine glass. “And how do you expect to do that when you don’t even know how it’s happening in the first place?”

“That’s why I need your help!” she snapped.

“My help?”

“Your family’s help,” she corrected. Ben ran his tongue over his teeth, eyeing her skeptically again as if he thought she was trying to deceive him. “Look, between your family and mine, I’m sure we both have siblings that are much smarter than us,” she thought of Five as she said this. “I can certainly think of at least one. If anyone’s going to understand how this thing works, it’s going to be them. We’re all on the same side here. If we look the other way and keep fighting each other, we’re just going to kill ourselves and then the world will end anyway. What’s the point?”

Ben sighed and leaned back in his seat, gaze still infuriatingly upon her as if performing a mental dissection. He wasn’t immediately arguing and she took that as a good sign, though he was nearly impossible to read compared to her other siblings. Her eyes skimmed over his face and inevitably landed on the aging silver scar on his left cheek. Something in her chest tingled and she held back the urge to ask how he got it.

A painfully familiar caw! echoed loudly to her immediate left and she nearly dropped her half empty glass of wine, jerking away just in time to see a crow flutter off the back of the couch several inches from her head.

“God!” she gasped, shakily sitting her glass down before glaring at the crow (which eventually landed on the loveseat next to Ben) and slowly transferring that glare to him. “Is that your sister?”

“Yeah, she does that,” he replied, unaffected by her plight. “She likes to eavesdrop. No sense of personal space. Bad, Fei, very bad.”

The crow cawed again at his sarcasm and he had the nerve to chuckle at the irritated look on her face as she glared at the bird.

“Leave us,” Ben ordered and for a moment she thought he was directing this to her. She opened her mouth to respond, something about him forcing her inside their house in the first place, but then the bird squawked in indignation. He threw an arm out, knocking the crow off its perch on the loveseat. “Now.”

It nipped at his hand, though noticeably did not pierce the skin, before flapping out of the room in one fell swoop. She watched it go and waited until she could no longer see its tiny black figure fluttering up the second level of the house before giving Ben a confused look.

“What was that for?”

“I was tired of her company.”

She shook her head tiredly. “Why did you ask me to come in here?”

He tapped his lips with the hand he kept hanging over the back of the loveseat after shooing the crow away.

“Tell me about Ben,” he said.

She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“What was so great about him? I mean, you all talk about him enough. The looks you give me are more or less creepy, if not slightly stalkerish if I’m being honest, and I think I deserve to know the whole story since I’m involved. Against my will, mind you.”

Her brows furrowed. “Why do you want to know so bad? Why should it matter? I already told you you’re nothing like him.”

“But I look like him apparently,” he countered before shrugging. “Call me curious. I think I’m a delight to be around so clearly our opinions on my personality differ.”

“He cared about other people,” she finally leaned back on the couch, relaxing her posture as she crossed her hands in her lap. She gave Ben a pointed stare, refusing to break contact as she spoke. “He loved his family. He was selfless, respectful, kind. Better than all of us in so many ways. He deserved the world,” she shook her head, lips pursing, a lump growing in her throat. “It’s such a shame that we couldn’t give it to him. He was the glue that held us together. After he… when he was gone, nothing was the same. The world felt a little bit darker after that and it’s like we couldn’t look at each other without seeing him. We never came back from that,” she finally broke the gaze, eyes landing somewhere behind him, far away. “He took parts of us with him and… suddenly Dad’s missions didn’t matter so much anymore.

“He made me laugh,” she smiled a little to herself. “He always said the silliest things just to lighten the mood. He wasn’t funny like Klaus, they were polar opposites actually, but he made me laugh in ways that Klaus couldn’t. He was gentle, loving, always calm and level-headed. I think he loved us, too. He made us feel loved, anyway. And that was hard, growing up like we did. Love wasn’t easy to come by. But he gave us that and… I just hope that we were able to give it back to him in some way.”

She swallowed thickly, blinking the tears away before they could fall. Her vision blurred for a moment until she was able to focus back on Ben’s face. And when she did, she couldn’t really tell what she saw. If this had been her first time seeing him, she would think he gave no reaction at all. But she saw the way his jaw clenched, how his hand clenched on the cushion. Whether that was a result of what she said or something else, she couldn’t tell.

“Well,” Ben finally broke the silence, another phony smile taking over his face. “He sounds like quite the guy,” his knuckles knocked against the loveseat. “They do say the good always die young. But I must admit, I’m a little surprised. The way you talk about Ben… doesn’t sound like something a sister would say to me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean I’ve never heard anyone speak that way about a brother. Sounds to me like the love you had for him went a little beyond sisterly.”

Her lip curled and she snarled at him, “Clearly you don’t know what it means to have a family then.”

“Oh I know what it means,” he grinned pleasantly, but his teeth flashed razor sharp in the dim lighting. “I’ve just never wanted to fuck my sister, that’s all.”

“You…” her mouth opened and closed, unable to form words beyond the trembling of her hands. Her chest felt like it was on fire and it was all she could do not to reach across the table and slap him.

“It must be hard,” he lamented, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Having to look at me and only see him. You can deny it all you want but I know what love looks like, what that kind of love looks like. You can fool yourself but you can’t fool me, sweetheart.”

Her mouth remained open, forming words that maybe made sense, maybe didn’t. It wasn’t often that someone rendered her speechless. Ben seemed to find this highly amusing.

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna judge you. I mean, if your family’s anything like my family, then you aren’t actually related. It’s obvious none of us look alike. I mean, some are better looking than others, but, well. I guess that doesn’t really matter. Or, well, it shouldn’t. But it’s impossible not to look.”

Her breathing sped up and quickly wiped her hands down her face before brushing her hair out of her eyes. Ben’s head tilted, watching her squirm as she stared unseeing at the ground.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. Of course, it was hard not to what with Luther and Allison Luther-and-Allison-ing everywhere at all times, never really hiding it from anyone despite what they may have thought. But she never really thought about it – never let herself cross that line. She had treated Ben like she treated all of her siblings, never any differently, never showing favoritism or giving him secret smiles behind bookshelves or holding hands under the dining room table. Had she wanted to? That was another thing entirely.

“I can see you’re having some sort of gravity-shifting revelation,” Ben’s words tore through her thoughts, pulling her out of her reverie. She blinked up at him, hands falling from where they’d tangled themselves in her hair. He gave her another smile, nearly as false as the last one, before standing from his seat and strolling towards her.

He paused a few feet from where she sat and bent down until they were eye level.

“For what it’s worth,” he started, snark still intact but with an underlying hint of something else she couldn’t put her finger on, “He probably felt the same way.”

He pulled away, eyebrows raised as if trying to convey something through that expression alone, before raising his voice.

“Fei,” he called and in less than five seconds a crow reappeared almost as quickly as it had left. This time she didn’t jump. “Grab the oaf from Sloane’s room,” he ordered, still staring down at her with an unreadable expression. Her gut clenched as her brain caught up to his words. “I’ve got a few things I want to say to him.”

#ben hargreeves imagine #the umbrella academy imagine #ben hargreeves #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #umbrella academy imagines

[kingkeerys]

— you’re not alone anymore // k.s.

#😭😭 #eleven #stranger things

[kingkeerys]

At last, the firstborn of beloved Queen Atlanna.

#murder me #i mean what #arthur curry #justice league

[kingkeerys]

Palette Challenge - Lydia Martin + Ocean Five for @paullwalkers

#so pretty aaAaA #lydia martin #teen wolf

[kingkeerys]

requested by @hurtslikeyourmouth

#this movie #xmen

[kingkeerys]

(งツ)ว on my way to fuck things up

#me

[kingkeerys]

bill skarsgård ‒ battlecreek. (2017)

#IM YODELING #he’s so pretty help me #bill skarsgard #battlecreek