how could i not? - f.h.
warnings: cursing, mentions of knives in the first paragraph, a bit of ooc five at the end? idrk what else
word count: 2.3k
pairing: (16yo!) (dumbass!)five hargreeves × (16yo!) (fem!)reader
summary: y/n can't keep her feelings bottled up anymore, but she can't tell anyone either. she finds a creative way to let five know how she feels
a/n: i like this a lot, but also the ooc five at the end is bothering me just a little
y/n/n = your nickname
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Y/n giggled, leaving yet another note for Five. This one was in Italian, yet another language she knew the boy did not know. Five was a smart person, and he loved to read books, but he had never really indulged in the world of linguistics, let alone try to learn a whole other language.
It was not long after the two had met - a day, three years prior, that had involved knives, black coffee, threats, and the slightest useage of telekinesis - that they had become the best of friends; however, after some time, y/n began to harbour feelings of something more. Feelings - she decided - that were best kept secret, for the sake of hers and Five's friendship.
In spite of this decision, y/n sometimes felt that if she didn't say anything to anyone, she might just burst. So she devised a plan.
The young girl knew that her friend wasn't particularly aware of any language besides English. She also knew that while he was one of the most brilliant people she'd ever met - and quite possibly a genius - in some instances he failed to display even a sliver of common knowledge. She hoped this would be the case in her situation as well. The plan - as she decided - was to send Five numerous notes throughout the day, every day (for a certain amount of time). Notes that would contain secret messages - messages written in various languages, all of which Five - hopefully - did not know. The message? It would be the same on each note - 'i love you.'
She'd started off with French; a simple 'je taime' scribbled on a sticky note (in disguised handwriting, of course). She was - as anyone would be in her situation - deathly afraid, and feeling as though she may regurgitate her mother's potato salad. She quickly slid the note underneath Five's door, before walking away as fast as she could without looking too suspicious.
She continued the day - excited, but nervous. As she sat in one of the Hargreeves Mansion's many common areas, accompanied by Allison and Diego, her results came to light.
A faint "what the..." could be heard from just down the hall. Allison and Diego exchanged looks, but y/n knew what it was. A second later, Five appeared in the doorway holding up y/n's folded note.
"Do any of you know what jee... tay may is?" he asked, squinting at the note.
Y/n supressed the rising giggle in her throat. "Maybe-" she coughed. "maybe it's a secret message,"
"Who's sending me secret messages?" Five questioned. "Is this even English?" he observed the note again, more carefully this time.
The longer he gazed at it, the harder and faster y/n felt her heart beating in her chest; it pounded at her chest with such chutzpah that one might assume it was trying to escape her body.
"I don't know," said Five, finally, folding the note back up and placing it in his pocket. Y/n allowed a small sigh of relief to escape her body as Five teleported away.
"Weird" remarked Allison. "What do you think 'jee tay may' is?"
Y/n turned to face her. "Honest?" Allsion nodded. "I think he was reading it wrong,"
The next day, with a bit more confidence than the last, y/n sent another. This one, the girl decided, would be written in Welsh. She - in her disguised hand - wrote out 'rwy'n dy garu di', and slipped the note under Five's door as she had done the day before.
This time, however, y/n hadn't been there for Five's reaction. He had - as his victim would later relate it - stormed into Klaus's room, and screamed "What does this even say? Do you know what this says?" Shoving the note into Klaus's face to read.
Y/n continued this for weeks; each language was more complicated than the last. She even once branched out to Arabic, which sent Five into a flying rage that was quite hilarious to watch.
Back in present-day, y/n had decided to tone it down once more a few days ago, starting up again with Swahili. Today's language, however, was Italian. She quietly slid the note under Five's bedroom door, and relocated as fast as she could.
She found herself in a hallway, staring back at the one Hargreeves child she had been hoping not to run into.
"Hey, y/n/n," he grinned. "I was looking for you, actually,"
"Really?"
"Yeah," he answered. "I wanted you to help me figure out who the hell keeps sending all these notes,"
In the moment, y/n's heart dropped. How was she supposed to conduct an investigation on a crime that she was guilty for?
"Will you?" Five asked hopefully.
"Sure!" y/n said quickly, regretting it immediately. "Maybe, " she thought, in an attempt to make herself feel better, "I could prevent Five from figuring out that it's me. Yes, yes! I'll follow thousands of red herrings - anything that will lead the blame away from me!"
"Great!" he beamed at her, before striding away.
Y/n smiled to herself, and began to make her way down to the kitchen, in search of something to snack on.
Upon arrival, she found Vanya tearing open a box of Pop-Tarts. She looked up. "Hi,"
"Hey Vanya," Y/n replied. "Pass me one, will you?" Vanya handed her one of the packs of Pop-Tarts. As the girls started in on their mid-day snacks, somewhere else in the house, a very exasperated boy found a note.
"whY," Five groaned from his position in the doorway of his bedroom. "Tye Aye-moe! What the hell is tye aye-moe?"
"Why don't you just put it in google translate?" said Allison, coming out of her own room to answer her brother.
"That-" Five thought for a moment. "That could work,"
Allison rolled her eyes and watched as Five pulled out his phone - a gift for his fourteenth/fifty-ninth birthday - and typed the words in. "It says.. it says it means 'I love you',"
Allison made a face, taking the note from Five's hand. "This says ti amo, dumbass! I love you in Italian,"
"Call me that again and you'll be holding your tongue," he hissed, snatching the note back. "How do you even know that?"
"I rumored myself into being able to speak every language on Earth," she answered, ignoring her brother's threat.
"You can do that?"
She shrugged in reply. "I guess," she looked around. "Do you have any of the other notes? So we can see what those say,"
Five led his sister into his room, where he pointed towards a large pile of folded sticky notes.
Allison picked one up, and typed it into her phone. "This says the same thing,"
"So does this one," said Five, throwing down the note he'd been holding.
"But who loves you?" Allison wondered aloud.
He stared at the notes as she spoke. "As far as I know? Not a single soul,"
"Hey!" Allison said, nudging him on the shoulder. "We all love you! Just, not enough to leave secret notes in different languages,"
Five shrugged, walking towards the door with Allsion. "I'll figure it out tomorrow," he said, before heading to the kitchen.
Later that night, while everyone else was peacefully sleeping, he lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling. His mind was swimming with thoughts - "who was the note-leaver?" being the most prominent of them all.
Suddenly, Five came up with an idea. He would teleport into the surveillance room and watch the camera footage of the last couple of hours. Surely, Five thought, this would answer the question he had been asking for the last month-and-half - who was leaving these mysterious notes?
He locked his bedroom door, and teleported immediately. Before long, he was in the surveillance room watching the hallway tapes on fast-forward. He slowed it down to regular speed once he saw himself leaving his room. Not soon after this, y/n came along on the screen.
Five didn't think much of her, until he saw her bend down and slide a note under his door. He stopped the video, unsure what to think. Y/n? His best friend? She... she loved him?
He teleported back into his bedroom, but there was still no way he was getting to sleep. He'd known y/n since they were thirteen - almost three years now. She knew everything about him; his awful alcohol addiction, his snarky attitude, his bloodied past. How... how could she love him?
Did he love her? He stared into the ceiling once more, contemplating this. Of course he loved her. She was the only person he'd ever met who seemed to be just as competent (if not more, at times) as him. She was scary too - she was 100% the most badass of the people he knew. And god, was she pretty - oh, her smile was one of the only things that made him genuinely happy.
How would he tell her he knew? When he did tell her, would she deny it? Would she say it was meant as a joke? And if she didn't... would he be able to tell her how he felt? Or would he chicken out like so many times in the past?
He'd never been good at expressing his feelings; it wasn't his fault, either! Even before the apocalypse, the only real contact he'd had with people was firing insults at criminals and arguing with his siblings. And what if he, by some miracle, worked up the courage to talk about his emotions for more than 0.02 seconds? What would he say?
He needed advice, he decided - but from who? No one in his family was functional enough to know anything about love... were they? Maybe he'd ask Vanya... or Allison. His brothers seemed a bit... clueless. At least, when it came to the topic of girls.
So that was it - he had made up his mind. As soon as Allison or Vanya awoke (whichever came first), he would tell them his dilemma.
The boy spent the rest of the night staring at the wall, trying to tell himself that everything would be alright.
The first person awake was Luther, as usual. Then came Allison.
When the boy's sister awoke from her slumber he was at her bedside, his body draped over one of her obnoxiously pink chairs. When she saw him, she yelped, but refrained from attacking upon the realization that it was only Five.
"What-" she yawned, putting down the magazine she had snatched up in defense. "what are you doing in my room?"
"I have a problem," said Five, brushing off her question. "I was hoping you could help me?"
"What is it?" Allison asked, sitting up in her bed. "If you need to kill someone, I'm not-"
"It's y/n," said Five, cutting her off. "Last night I couldn't sleep, so I checked the camera footage. Y/n's been putting the notes under my door, Allison. She... she...she-"
"She loves you," his sister finished for him. "She loves you! Do you... you know...?"
"Reciprocate her feelings?" Allison nodded excitedly. "Of course," he said dismissively, though he could feel himself blush.
"OoooOoh you two are going to be the cutest couple!"
"Well I need to tell her first," said Five. "I need to tell her that I know she was sending the notes, I need to tell her I know what they say, and I need to tell her that I like her back,"
Allison's eyes lit up. "I know. What you. Should do."
"Wha-"
"Alright!" She said excitedly, clasping her hands together. She was seemingly unaware that she'd just cut her brother off. "So. You teleport from here back into your room. When y/n comes over say you're going to the store or something, and leave really quickly. Once you're far away enough from the house, teleport back into your room. When y/n slides the note under it, open the door and pick it up. And you pick up the note go 'so you're the infamous note writer,' then open it and be like 'hey doesn't this say 'I love you'?'"
"I... uh-"
"It'll be great!" Allison assured her brother. "I know you may not believe me, Five, but you're a wonderful brother, and an even better friend,"
Five would never admit it, but at that moment, he was fighting off tears.
"Th-thanks," he said, giving his sister an awkward hug.
After this rare moment of Hargreeves-sibling-affection, he teleported downstairs, awaiting y/n's arrival.
Once y/n showed up, he followed Allison's plan exactly. He pushed past her at the door muttering something about going to the store.
He tried following the direction he would take if he were actually going to the store, but that was the path he'd taken when running away from home, and he preferred not to walk that way.
Instead, he turned left, continuing for about 30 seconds before teleporting back into his room.
Soon after he'd arrived in his bedroom, a folded sticky-note slid under his door. He scrambled towards the door.
As he opened it, he saw y/n walking away. "So... uh," he cleared his throat. "you've been leaving the notes."
At this, y/n blushed severely. She wished she could bury herself deep in the Earth and never have to come out.
"What language is it today?" Five continued with Allison's script, though his mouth was growing dry and his hands were shaking.
He opened the note. It took him a moment to remember how to read; he'd been preparing his mind for some foreign language. This, as he understood it, was English.
'I love you, Five' the note read. 'Y/n'
He looked up at her. She, while he had been reading the note, had grown more and more upset. She now looked as though she was going to cry, or maybe as if she had been crying for some time.
"Hey," Five said quietly. "hey, hey, don't cry," he extended his arms and pulled his friend into a hug. "You wanna know something wild, y/n/n?"
Y/n's response was a muffled mumble, but he took it for a yes. "I love you too,"
She moved her arms up and tightened them around him. "Really?" she sniffled.
He pulled away from her, smiling. He wiped underneath her eye with his thumb. "Of course I do, y/n/n," he placed a light kiss on her forehead. "How could I not?"
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