#luther: maybe we should lock vanya up -
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Kassandra Hargreeves' Scenes, S01E09: Changes
Kassandra learns the truth and tries to fight for Vanya's freedom
Kassandra felt a feeling of dread rise within her as she stood in the small elevator. It barely had enough space for her, Luther, Klaus and Diego. She couldn’t remember ever having been to this part of the house but she recognized it. Something about it was so awfully familiar. The elevator came to a stop. In front of them lay a long, dark hallway. It was a very depressing environment, cold and grey. As they walked forwards, a presence moved itself into Kassandra’s mind. Vanya. Unconscious. Slowly, the pieces clicked into place. Vanya. The basement. Without noticing it, Kassandra sped up. Then, she saw a thick door at the end of a hallway. It could just as well have belonged in a submarine, yet it had a small window in it. Just then, Vanya woke up. Panic travelled through the air. That was when Kassandra realized what this was. She took off running, sprinted for the door. There she was. Vanya, banging against the door. Her screaming was only audible in Kassandra’s head.
“Luther, how could you?!” Kassandra cried out.
She reached for the valve locking the door but Luther grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. Klaus had reached the door now too and was staring inside with wide eyes.
“What did you lock her in there for?” Diego asked, sounding shaken.
“She has powers”, Luther explained firmly. “Powers that are too dangerous and out of control.”
“You locked up our sister because you think she has powers?”
“No, I know she does. Pogo told me.”
“So what if she has powers, that’s no reason!” Kassandra scoffed. “Luther, you can’t do this to her. You’re making the same mistake our father made!”
“So you knew too?” Diego asked. “Who else knew? Why would they hide this from us? I mean, am I the only one who didn’t know this place existed?”
“Dad hid so much from us”, Klaus mumbled, eyes still locked on Vanya.
“He hid it because he was afraid”, Luther said. “Of her.”
“Well, I’m not afraid”, Kassandra cut in. “Vanya needs us. She didn’t know either, she’s scared, she- Don’t you have any empathy? Can’t you put yourself in her shoes for once?”
“Well, maybe you should be afraid. Dad must have locked her up here for a reason.”
“Dad was cruel”, Kassandra muttered. “He created reasons if he had to.”
“If Luther’s right”, Diego interrupted them, “then maybe Vanya is the one who killed Peabody.”
“And cut Allison’s throat”, Luther added.
Kassandra gasped audibly. She tried to find something to say, something to yell, but the words got scrambled in her mouth. How could he suggest something like that? Vanya? A killer?
“Wait, wait, let’s go back, alright?” Klaus cut in frantically. He spoke out what Kassandra was trying to say. “This is Vanya we’re talking about, our sister! The one who always cried when we stepped on ants as kids!”
“I know it’s difficult to accept-”
“It’s not difficult to accept, it’s impossible to accept!”
“No, he’s right, we can’t keep her locked up without proof”, Diego declared.
“What more proof do you need?” Luther scoffed.
“Well, why don’t we just open the door and ask her?” Kassandra blurted out.
She reached out to open the door again but Luther pulled her back so forcefully she almost tumbled over. Klaus tried too, but he was also blocked off.
“No, she’s not going anywhere.”
“Even if you’re right”, Diego hissed, “it’s just like Kass said: She needs our help. And we can’t do that if she’s locked in a cage.”
“Look”, Luther said grimly, “if what Pogo told me is even half true, then she is not just a danger to us.”
That was when someone came closer. Kassandra turned around. Allison was standing in the hallway, like a phantom.
“Allison, what are you doing down here?” Luther asked. “You should be in bed.”
Kassandra clenched her hands to fist. “Luther, could you stop being such a prick?!” she spat out. “Just because you’re Number One doesn’t mean you get to boss us around! Allison came down here for a reason, she has something to say.”
Swiftly, Kassandra walked over to Allison and took her hand. Immediately, images flooded her brain. They stirred Kassandra’s heart down to her core. A fight between Vanya and Allison. About her powers. Shouting. A violin bow. A slash. Blood. So, Vanya had done it. But what Kassandra felt coming from Allison was guilt, not anger.
“She wants you to let her go, Luther”, Kassandra announced.
“Stop using her for your cause, Kassandra”, Luther growled.
To this, Allison grimaced. She scribbled on a notepad she had brought and held it out to Luther.
Let her go.
“I can’t do that”, Luther said. “She hurt you.”
My fault.
“I’m sorry but she’s staying put.”
“You’re a monster, Luther”, Kassandra hissed.
She and Allison started for the door at the same time. They needed to let her out. They needed to help her. But Luther grabbed them both and held them back.
“She’s staying put”, he insisted. “At least until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Kassandra struggled and fought but she was nothing against Luther’s strength. She could do nothing against him dragging her away. Finally, she let out a sigh and gave up. There had to be a smarter way to convince him to let Vanya go.
#the umbrella academy#tua#tua oc#oc: kassandra hargreeves#fanfiction#kass rewrites#fam: your tears are mine
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Ok I totally want to hear more about this survivors au/Delores is real! How do the siblings handle having this different version of Five? Five may be better adjusted but he still has to heard his family around like a bunch of stray cats. What happens when Hazel and Cha Cha show up? How do they find out that Vanya causes the apocalypse and how does Five handle that revelation?!
here is the thing, i think the survivors au has the potential to be HILARIOUS
no one knows how to handle a well-adjusted five, and this absolutely includes the commission
So you mentioned Hazel and Cha-Cha?? Five in this au was not nearly as absolutely feral as he is in the show bc he knows how to interact with people - he was raised by a competent adult and a weird best friend and they occasionally saw other survivors as well
please picture old Five hanging around the water cooler and chatting with Hazel
the other funny thing is that Five is competent passing - he is well adjusted emotionally but functionally?? Hazel is out there complaining about dental being cut and office parties and budgets and Five is there sipping his drink having never filed taxes in his life. Five doesn't know what the fuck a dental plan is, he was a child soldier and then lived in an apocalypse.
So please picture for me Hazel being like "okay I know corporate wants us to keep what we're being paid to ourselves but fuck that, workers unite, what do you get paid as a legend old timer?"
and five is like "you're getting paid? i get to not get tossed back into the apocalypse, I think"
"but what about expense forms? what about medical care?"
"I'm like 80% sure i'm being experimented on, actually." Five says nonchalantly, "Don't get me wrong, my idea of medical care is fucked by being a child soldier but I'm pretty sure regular people don't have electrodes attached to their heads every time they get a checkup. Could be wrong though! My ex-dad used to monitor my brainwaves while I slept so like, my idea of appropriate shit is fucked, you know?"
This is a Five who was raised by Rick, he is polite to his coworkers. If Dot asked him if he wanted to grab lunch, Five would have gone and grabbed lunch with her or politely said that he couldn't.
Cha Cha only ever talks to Five when she wants to talk shop, so they've had a couple of conversations about weapons but not much else tbh, Hazel just tends to be more personable
So when they're sent after Five, Hazel is much more hesitant to kill who he perceives as a "work friend" and also is definitely thinking about all the times Five casually revealed a way the commission was being highkey shady about him, such as the potential experimentation, no pay, working under duress etc. He's much more easily turned against the commission because he's even more primed to say "fuck the commission" than he is in canon
Hazel out here like "how did Five break his contract when Five wasn't even being paid? I kind of want to read it."
Hazel out here like "I would unionize if I didn't think the commission was anti-union enough to send literal assassins after me if I suggested it :/"
meanwhile with the siblings
Five just. talks over them a lot and makes so much sense that it's actually really hard to argue with him, and he's weirdly considerate of his family's obligations
Like Diego is like "i have to go see Patch" then Five is like "that's great I'm proud of you buddy, it would actually be really handy to have some law enforcement read into the situation if you think she's up to the task. that goes for everyone by the way! If y'all have people you trust, more bodies would be super helpful I think"
the entire family, collectively, who have like zero trusted social links: uhhhhhhhh
Diego, with this weird permission, probably?? Does? Awkwardly attempt to read Patch into the situation? Patch is, obviously, like "what the fuck, Diego" but probably goes with him to the mansion (????????) because she's concerned and then meets his fucking whacko family with their superpowers and suddenly everything is 100% more realistic
Five is just like "yes hello I'm aware I look like a child, i'm actually in my late 50s or early 60s (apocalypse time amiright) because of time travel stuff. Yes I am Five Hargreeves who went missing in like 2002 or whatever. anyway it's lovely to meet you, i'm so glad diego has someone he trusts, and considering my sibling's shifty looks when i told them to invite anyone they trusted this genuinely makes me concerned that Diego is the most socially well-adjusted of them."
"That cannot be possible." Patch says, like someone who has met Diego Hargreeves.
"You haven't met the rest." Five says sympathetically, "In our defense we were raised in isolation as child soldiers."
"That... explains so much." Is all Patch can say to that, "But you seem..."
"I'm adopted." Five waves away.
"We're ALL adopted." Diego grits out, very aggrieved by this and also not sure if he likes the fact that Patch seems friendly with Five, or at least is listening to him?
"I'm double adopted."
However! With the recruitment of Patch, herding Diego becomes like 90% easier.
Honestly the worst to herd are probably Luther and Allison? Luther because he's Number One and resents Five taking charge and also resents Five's casual dismissal of Reginald and also suspects that Five (or at least the commission) has something to do with Reginald's death?
Allison because she is torn between following Luther and helping him and helping Five but also calling Patrick and Claire at every possible moment while ALSO trying to repair her relationship with Vanya. She's flighty - she'd bail on a Five-apocalypse-assignment if Vanya mentioned being hungry or if Luther called or anything like that
Vanya likes to be included and, if asked, would probably drop as many current obligations as she can. Like she would probably cancel her teaching if Five genuinely and sincerely asked her for her help, which he does because he's 100% sure Dolores would manifest in front of him and smack him if he dared even imply someone without powers wouldn't be helpful
Vanya is like "I'm not sure if i'll be helpful - I don't have powers ):" and Patch is like "wtf are you talking about - my superpowers are Gun, Backup, and Reading Comprehension and i am like the most useful member of this team right now"
Vanya gets a confidence boost just from hanging out with Patch honestly, I think they should be friends
Klaus is thrilled to be included are you kidding?? He says he does it for money but he's just happy to be there and also as one of the most emotionally intelligent siblings he is mildly concerned about the fact that Five looks like he's about to cry and also emotes
Five also gives Klaus positive reinforcement, hugs, and Five absolutely weaponizes the I'm not mad, but I believe that you can do better and I'm going to give you more chances because I love you and fully believe that next time you'll be amazing way that Rick used on him.
I feel like Five ends up saying something along the lines of "I understand that x is really important, and we're definitely going to look into it. Is it something that needs to be addressed right now, or is it something that can wait until after April 1st? If it can wait, I can write it down here on this list so we don't forget. If it can't wait then we can figure out a time to address it and help you" a lot
Like Grace malfunctioning and potentially killing Reginald?
"We don't have to make this decision right now." Five says patiently, "Because Grace is a robot, we have some options. Living with a robot who is potentially malfunctioning and homicidal is dangerous, but Luther saying that means admitting that Reginald might have made a mistake or error with Grace's programming or upkeep. I haven't been here for a long time, but I remember Reginald being very precise. Regardless, this isn't a choice between permanently shutting her off or not. We can shut her down temporarily until we can fully address the issue. We can ask and see if there is a 'system reboot' option or some sort of system check that Grace can undergo. We can try find and hire an expert to take a look at her programming to find the issue."
Five gives this speech while like, organizing the weaponry in the house on a table very nonchalantly
Five out here making buzzer noises at his siblings arguments like "yeah no that's a false dichotomy and a strawman's argument, want to try again?"
(Look apocalypse nights were long and they had games that were literally about arguing pointless shit like ranking types of chairs or the best way to break out of a prison without powers and things could get heated)
"Who died and made you boss?" Luther demands.
"Uh, the world? Were you not listening?" Five asks, looking very purposefully confused.
It gets even MORE delightful when Five reads Rick into the situation because a) he promised and b) his siblings really have like, no connections jeeze
Rick fully believes that this is his son from the future, like Five introduced himself, but Five skipped out on a few key details. Such as being adopted.
So Rick spends a solid chunk of time just staring at Five, who looks basically nothing like him, trying to think like, who is his mother ???? if we save the world will Five stop existing? why would I name my child 'Five'? Does everyone have powers in the future? was there like... a radioactive apocalypse? would radiation give future humans superpowers? when did my life turn into a comic book? am i even allowed to ask these questions? will knowledge of the future fuck things up?
and then when Five comes back and is like "what is up everyone this is my dad Rick who will be joining us, he doesn't have any memories of me thanks to time travel but if anyone is mean to him i WILL kneecap them"
"Your DAD?"
Five does kidney punch Klaus for saying that Rick is a DILF but otherwise everyone just is like, warily looking at this Normal Dad Man in confusion because?? This is the dude who raised Five, who they watched take out like an entire commission team by himself yesterday? He looks so. Normal.
Rick is very confused and like, wonders if he's supposed to be the team mascot? But Five keeps involving him and asking his opinion and in return Rick enforces snack breaks and makes everyone sandwiches and has gentle talks with everyone
Every time Five notices someone about to blow he just lovingly makes sure that that person is alone in a room with Rick
Luther ends up crying on the sofa with Rick gently patting his back as Rick calmly states that Luther seems like he's put a lot of time and effort into his family and making his father proud and that since Reginald isn't here to say it, Rick will have to be the one to say that he's proud and that they've been dropped into a difficult and stressful situation - so soon after Reginald's death when they're still grieving! - and he's doing so well
Luther, experiencing unconditional positive paternal regard for the first time in his life: i don't know why i'm crying so much
honestly this is just a comedy of juggling the gang, having impromptu therapy sessions and discussions, investigating the apocalypse and the eye, leonard trying to meet vanya continuously and failing because she's constantly surrounding by family or rick/patch, the commission trying their best to bust up the dream team/isolate Vanya/kill or remove Five, while Hazel lives out his romcom dreams with Agnes and also says "fuck the commission"
#HUH?#survivors au#well adjusted five au#long post#far tua long#five recruits rick to be team dad#rick is DEEPLY confused#but he's the kind of person that rolls with it#dolores probably ends up tagging along as well on at least one occasion#dolores and patch bond#five pretends that dolores is a new sibling and not his dolores#five calls rick 'dad' and it messes with everyone else#patch is on team fuck-the-apocalypse(-and-reginald)#vanya is never alone so fuck leonard#five finds out that vanya causes the apocalypse and is like#vanya: HUH?#luther: maybe we should lock vanya up -#rick: are there are any other possible actions that might be more appropriate in this situation?#vanya: i could try get more meds to take and we could address the powers thing after april 1st#vanya immediately gets validated that reginald sucks#even luther who has had multiple conversations with rick is like 'dad... didn't always make the best choices...'#everyone: :0#hazel doesn't kill patch so he probably joins team anti-apocalypse at some point#hazel: why are you a child#five: oh you know i'm young at heart and all that#OH forgot to mention one of the main differences in this au is that five like properly grew up this time#so while he is inconvenienced by his body he's not so deeply uncomfortable or angry about it#just resigned#'this might as well happen' - five#five probably makes jokes about it as well
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Alright so this came outta nowhere but why not. Just a little something in that special niche genre I love: cheerful angst.
Five's technically younger than his siblings so it makes sense that he's going to die last, he doesn't like it but he accepts it. G, 1334 words, major character deaths:
-
It’s stupid, really goddamn stupid, Five thinks, that Luther’s 58 when he dies. He gets the joke, thanks universe, but he doesn’t think it’s funny that his twin is the age Five came back to him as when he dies. Five’s mind is 85 but his body’s only 40 and even though he knows he shouldn’t he still hates that he’s not the first one to go.
It’s the serum’s fault of course. Despite his powers, despite the strength and endurance, people can’t walk around as two different creatures, not forever. Stupider still Luther knows it’s happening.
“Ben’s probably been bored without us,” Luther says, sitting with one arm around Five’s shoulders, Five’s head tucked into his neck. Five feels so small, this time it doesn’t make him angry it just makes him sad.
“He’s waited this long,” Five says.
“It’s okay, we’ll keep each other company until the rest of you get there,” Luther’s voice is quiet, he sounds tired. “It’s okay.”
Klaus tells him after the funeral that Luther stuck around after to tell him to watch over Five and hopes he doesn’t see any of them any time soon.
“Me, look after you? Delusional right at the end wasn’t he?”
Five doesn’t want to smile at that but he does.
-
Diego’s 65 and he dies cause he’s an idiot. That’s what Allison tells him though her voice is choked, trying to speak through tears.
“Still kicked that guy’s ass,” Diego says with a weak grin. He never gave up that whole vigilante thing and no matter how many times they yelled and scolded and at one point actively locked him up, nothing ever stopped him.
“Could’ve picked something cooler than a gunshot wound,” Five says, holding his shoulder in his hospital bed.
“Yeah,” Diego sighs, “that part kind of sucks.” When he coughs Vanya squeezes his hand in hers.
“Fitting,” Klaus says with a smirk though his eyes are watery, “you’d go after Lu, like always.”
Diego chuckles, says, “I’ll tell him you guys say hi.”
At the funeral Five tells himself he only needs to do this three more times, as if that’s a good thing. He’s decided he’s not leaving any of them first. If he has to be the last anyway he’s holding on tooth and nail until he really is the last. He’s 93 in his head, he feels ancient.
“Convenient he was already wearing black,” Klaus says with a cigarette between his lips. This time Allison laughs until she cries.
-
“We’re just going right in order aren’t we?” Klaus mutters as he sniffs a rose. It’s one of thousands that’ve been sent to the mansion, now stacked ceiling to floor with gifts from Allison’s fans.
Heart attack, 82. So mundane and simple for someone like her. Five always figured she’d go out with fireworks but on the other hand it was peaceful and easy and honestly, not a bad way to go. He hopes his own happens like that.
“Vanya you have to take something home,” Claire urges her aunt, “I can’t take all this back to LA.”
Vanya plucks a single lily from a bouquet. “Hmm, I’ll take this,” she says teasingly. Claire rolls her eyes, hugs her for the 100th time.
“We’ll put this half,” Klaus says gesturing to one side of the room, “on Luther’s, and this half on Diego’s.” He twirls the rose, “and this I’ll put in Ben’s little copper hand.”
Five huffs and shakes his head at him though he can’t hide his smirk.
Before Claire goes back to LA a few days later she hugs Five for a long time. She’s not a young woman but Five will always see her as that little 5 year old Allison finally got to bring back to their family home to meet her aunt and all her uncles.
“Bet she and Diego are already arguing,” Klaus says later as they sit by the fireplace.
“Bet Ben’s already sick of all of them,” Five says.
-
Klaus is wrong, he’s not next. Vanya loses her voice to throat cancer a couple months before she goes but it doesn’t actually seem to bother her. It makes Five angry and sad, but she just grins and has whole conversations with him and Klaus by manipulating records and radios and TV’s.
Five’ll ask how she’s feeling and she’ll pull down the soundwaves of the TV playing upstairs, the weather report announcing: “Sunny without a cloud in the sky.”
She’d spent years looking for pictures of Sissy and Harlan, gotten a locket and put them in it. She'd been buried with it but Five puts some of the extra photos by her headstone just to show everyone they were hers too. Klaus lays the violin down with them.
“I broke it,” Klaus says, “Just a little. So it could follow her up there.”
Five is ready to be angry about that, it’s so ridiculous and stupid but then again…well, it is stupid, and sweet and he imagines Vanya entertaining the others with her music, all together again. He surprises himself when he laughs.
“You really did fry your brain didn’t you?”
“Like an egg,” Klaus says.
-
Five was only ever being rational when he figured Klaus would die first. He’d spent most of his life with any variety of poisons in his system, spent decades abusing his body. Five considered it reasonable to brace himself to lose Klaus first.
Except no, Klaus is the last, just he and Five left. Klaus is 93, then 94, and so on and still they both linger. Five’s body is 20 years younger than Klaus’s but his consciousness is 25 years older. His bones shouldn’t feel as old as his mind but they do.
But he’s not lonely. The mansion’s too big for them but neither are willing to give it up, they belong there they figure. When Klaus has to start using a wheelchair he makes Five push him around the house, pretending to give him tours and rattling off absolutely nonsense stories of the past. He still drinks wine and smokes and wears feather boas and Five wakes up every day then has to wait til Klaus rolls out of bed at noon.
As the years pass the others get further away and yet closer at the same time. Klaus tells him what he knows about the afterlife: that it’s there, that it’s bright, that there is color you just have to want it.
-
“No roses,” Klaus says, leaning back in his wheelchair, face to the sun. “Too cliché. Tulips maybe. Marigolds. All together, my grave should look like a parade float.”
“Dandelions,” Five says, leaning his chin on his cane.
“I like dandelions,” Klaus hums. Then: “Not that you’ll be around to put them there.”
Five’s face scrunches, “Of course I will.”
Klaus opens his eyes, turns to him. “No no, I die after you that’s how it goes.” He says it so nonchalant.
“What’re you talking about?” Five is genuinely thrown, “Of course I’ll die first.”
Klaus shakes his head, like Five is being obtuse. “That’s not the deal.”
“What deal?”
Klaus’s turn to be confused, looks him over with a furrowed brow. “Five, have you been waiting around for me?”
Five reels back as far as his body will let him. “Of course I have!”
Klaus shakes his head, smiles like he can’t believe it. “No Fivey, I worked it out with the big one upstairs,” he points heavenward with a boney finger, “I get to stick around for all of you as long as I don’t bother her before then.”
Five sits back against the bench, processing.
“Besides,” Klaus says with a shrug, “Luther told me to look after you.”
Oh, well, that’s that then. Five smiles.
-
Five is 85, Five is 130, and he dies peacefully in his sleep just like he wanted. Klaus sticks around to put him next to his twin, then he sits in the courtyard with Dave's dogtags in his hand, looks skyward, and says, “You all better have rolled out the red carpet for me.”
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I Wanna Be Adored 2 (Number 5x reader)
A/N: wowe a part 2 of my i wanna be adored fic this is also an old draft that ive finished after s1, give the first one a read x
Request: hh.. that five imagine was so soft and sweet to read, great job <3 would you ever consider doing a part two? maybe the rest of the hargreeves meeting five's s/o? feel free to skip this one. but for real, it's such a good text <33
Words: 1529
“I’m just not drinking as much coffee anymore.” He said matter-o-factly. “I used to not be able to sleep very well so I’d just drink a lot of coffee to keep myself awake but I guess I just don’t have to anymore. I’ve been sleeping really well recently when I’ve been with you.” You smile as you feel him gently press a kiss to the side of your head. You smile contently, beginning to close your eyes, his heartbeat sounding like sweet music to your ears.
“Five, do you have a girl in your room?” A distance voice was heard echoing through the academy.
“Shit.” He mumbled into your hair, you knew it was going to be a long day in the Academy.
Five looked around frantically, trying to decide what to do. He pulled you up from his bed, mischievous glint in his eyes as he moved quickly to the window, you shake your head, trying to let him know you weren’t going to jump out the window. Giving you a wink, he pulled you towards his closet just before Fives bedroom door swung open.
“Shit. They’re not in here Diego!” Five let out a quite breathy laugh, locking his eyes with yours. It was only in this moment that you realised your closeness, it’s not like you have never been as close to Five as you were in that moment but the small space in the closest emphasised it. Five could feel the sudden change in mood as well, slowly moving his hands around your waist.
In that moment you forgot about Fives two older brothers peering out the open window, you forgot about your exams, you forgot about everything except Five. The collision of your lips felt like a thousand lighting bolts between the both of you. You were both so horrifically in love with each other but neither of you could get the words out.
Klaus and Diego had came to the conclusion that Five and y/n had either climbed out the window or teleported away, that was until they heard a loud thump come from the direction of the closet. They both slowly crept forward before swinging the closet door open expecting to find their ‘younger’ brother. Klaus and Diego were met with nothing but a few toppled over books with no answer on where Five or his ‘friend’ were.
You collapsed back onto your bed in a flash of blue, giggling like school children giddy from a sugar rush. In the closet you’d both gotten too into the moment, Five pushing you against the side of the closet wall resulting in a bang.
“I would really like to meet your family, you know.” You say softly to him, settling into a state of calm. “So at least they know who you’re with rather than stress them out when they don’t know where you are.” His hair was silky to your touch.
“I know,” He let out an almost overdramatic sigh. “They’re strange, I don’t want to scare you off. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me.” You smile at his words but you were concerned, you knew all about Fives time in the apocalypse or at least as much as he would tell you, he would sometimes let something slip about the crippling loneliness or his time in the commission.
“I’ve been able to deal with your strange ass for the past year, I think I can cope.” You slightly shove him as you speak, admiring the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles. “Maybe if you warn them in advance, then they won’t “scare me off’ and they’ll be slightly normal?”
He seemed to think about it, for just a split second the only thing whizzing around his fast mind was the thought of you meeting his family. Every possible situation that could occur whizzed through his head, every bad situation with every one of his siblings.
“Okay.”
A shiver ran down your body as you stood at the doors of the large mansion, waiting for the right time to knock at the door, or even just to convince yourself to do it. Every time you had been to the academy no one else was home, except for Pogo and Grace of course but they never asked too many questions, or Five just blips you into his room, you’d never knocked before.
But you knew you had to do this, for Five, so his family doesn’t worry as much. You’d even put on your best pair of jeans and best t-shirt, just to hope to make the right impression to his six sibling. So despite all of the atoms in your body screaming with anxiety not to knock on the door, you banged the knocker, you couldn’t even get a third knock in before the door swung open to reveal a nervous looking Five. His face lit up when he saw you, his eyes drifting up and down your figure.
“You look nice.” He said as he held his hand out for you to take, gently pulling you into the academy.
“I do try sometimes, you know.” You squeeze his hand as you stepped inside, hearing the chatter of his siblings from the other room. Letting go of his hand, you gently lift your bag from across you. Without missing a beat Five gently took it from your hand and hung it up.
“It’ll be fine.” Five whispered in your ear as you walked into the room, reassuringly placing his hand on the small of your back. Your face instantly got red as you got closer to his siblings, all of their eyes falling on you, some giving you kind smiles while some didn’t show any emotion at all.
“Hi,” You spoke softly to the crowd, giving a soft smile. “I’m Y/n.”
“She’s my girlfriend.” Five added, moving his hand from your back to around your waist, giving it a gentle squeeze. A series of raised eyebrows erupted around the room as they all glance at each other. The room fell silent until someone finally spoke up.
“It’s really nice to meet you, I’m Allison.”
“Klaus.”
“Luther.”
“Vanya.”
“Ben also says hello.” Klaus spoke again.
“Diego.”
“Come sit down.” Allison said warmly, moving over so there was enough room for you and Five to sit down. You gladly sat down with Five squeezing next to you, his hand still resting around your waist.
“So,” Klaus said as he crossed his legs and rested his head on his hands. “How did you both meet?”
“I work at Griddy’s in between school, Five came in a lot and we just ended up talking, this was nearly a year ago now I think.” You say nervously, you gripped both of your hands together to stop them from shaking.
The mood relaxed as you all made general chit chat, asking about your ambitions and your interests, how you’re doing at school and even a little bit about your relationship with Five. Diego however, had not muttered a single word, he just kept intently staring at you, maybe trying to read you and judge your character, or maybe he was still mad about when he last saw you.
A cold breeze drifted through the room, causing you to shiver and your bare arms get goosebumps. Five ran his hand down your arm, feeling how cold you were. “Want me to get you a hoodie?” He spoke quietly to you, you shook your head no to his question, not wanting to be a bother. “I’ll get you one, you’re freezing y/n, I’ll be back in a minute” The last part was spoke mainly to the room as he stood up and started walking to the stairs only to be gone in a flash of blue.
“Diego, I’m sorry!” You spoke quickly. “I’m sorry about how Five acted with you when you saw me last, I was the one who wanted to meet you all.” You were almost tumbling over your words as they spilled out of you. “I just thought you should know who Five is with when he’s not here, I’m super responsable and always make sure he’s safe.” When you finish your face was flushed, the anxiety crept up on you as you spoke, being unable to read Diegos face.
“I appreciate that, thank you,” He said genuinely. “We just worry about him sometimes, ya know.” You nodded to his words before Five appeared before you, he was now wearing a jacket over his own hoodie and holding one out to you which you gratefully took.
“We’re going to head off,” Five said to the room, waiting for you to pull his hoodie on before pulling you up by your hand. “I’ll be back later.”
“It was nice meeting you all!” You say, you received a series of ‘you too’s and ‘come back any times’s. You walked with Five to the door before wrapping you bag back around you and leaving the academy. Fives hand was instantly in yours as soon as you were walking down the steps and out into the street, swinging it as you both walked.
“I think that went rather well.”
#number 5#number five#number five imagine#number five x reader#number five fluff#number 5 x reader#number 5 imagine#five hargreeves x reader#five hargreeves#five hargreeves imagine#tua five#The Umbrella Academy
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The Rewatch Academy: Episode 4 of Season 1
“Man on the Moon”
I am in no way a good analyst so my little analysis and speculations probably sound a bit goofy or pretty wild and probably mean nothing at all. Everything I put into this post about each episode is purely what I noticed or thought, whether it’s funny or serious. I will be making jokes, so please just leave it at that (in no way am I trying to make fun of an actor and or character!) I am also in no way saying I noticed this stuff first. This is just what I noticed while rewatching these episodes
☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂
1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 |
☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂
☂ So at that point Luther had already been alone for about five years (due to his siblings leaving when they were 18 or even 17 according to Diego), and by alone I mean he did’t have his siblings with him. I’m not counting Reginald, Grace, or Pogo because I’d imagine they weren’t the best company. There was a two year gap between Luther getting the serum and then being sent to the moon. He had already been “alone” for five years before he was sent away to be completely alone for four years. He hasn’t had really any social/outside interaction besides going on missions for almost ten years, which means Luther is an awkward dude and he hasn’t been a true leader because he hasn’t had anyone to lead. I don’t think people really realize this and I think that’s where some of the hate towards him comes from
☂ We see that Luther looks into Allison’s and Klaus’s bedrooms as he makes his way down the hall, and I’m willing to bet he did that for all of his siblings. Makes me wonder how many times the siblings went to Five’s room to visit it or to even check with hope that he had come back
☂ I wish I could ride my bike around my house and chug a gallon of milk :[
☂ I can’t believe that Reginald still made him wear that leather battle suit 💀
☂ Why are there posters of animal anatomy in the infirmary?
☂ Apparently it takes between two to four months to grow a full beard, so that’s about how long Luther had been lying there
☂ *suffers through the Allison and Luther scene*
☂ “HoPe I wAsN’t BeInG tOo LoUd”
☂ Vanya and Leonard were really sweet in the beginning. Screw you Leonard
☂ It’s really sad that not one his siblings notice that Klaus is gone. Not. One.
☂ Are you telling me that Klaus and Five are certified freaks? At least I’m sure that’s who Cha Cha is referring to, or maybe it’s Luther
☂ I tried looking up tortures in Trinidad to see if Cha Cha was referring to any specific event, but I think it’s just a random thing in the show
☂ It’s only when Diego mutters “The boy” that it reminds him either of Five’s superhero name “The Boy” or his new appearance as a teen again so it finally clicks in his head that that’s who the mystery kid is
☂ Diego admitting that he doesn’t really know how to process his feelings!
☂ He’s very protective of his family and that’s something that I love about Diego. He doesn’t know who Hazel and Cha Cha are but all he knows is that they are searching for Five for some reason and that his siblings almost got killed last night
☂ Five doesn't realize the suffering that he’s putting his family through at this point since he’s only focused on finding who’s responsible for the end of the world. It’s ironic that he’s doing all of this to keep them alive and safe and yet him not being with them almost got them killed. Five buddy, you should have included all of your siblings from the start no matter how much they annoy you
☂ Also where has Five been this entire time? He left the van at night and now it’s the next morning. He’s been following the guy but why did it take him so long to corner him?
☂ Ope, and there’s a continuation error! When Luther takes his arm out of Five’s dresser, he takes part of the wood panel with him. When it cuts back to Diego talking there’s just a fist size hole
☂ “We barely got out with our lives.” Okay but where were you, Pogo?
☂ It’s funny how quickly they revert to child-like shame when Pogo scolds them. At least they still respect him I guess
☂ Is Hazel eating potato chips with ketchup?
☂ I think one reason why nobody notices that Klaus is gone is because none of them saw him that night during the attack. They possibly assumed he already had left the Academy??
☂ Looooove the “Shingaling” scene. They are straight up vibing
☂ I don’t know why Luther was frustrated with the van door being locked. It’s not like he could rip the door off or anything.......
☂ I have a two questions here:
Why did Diego know where to find Five based off of the book? Sure he saw that it came from the library, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll be there
Wouldn’t Luther and Diego have seen the smoke coming from the Meritech building? Unless they left immediately and weren’t able to see the smoke even though they probably were still in the vicinity when it began to burn
☂ Five is holding the man’s arm to make sure that he doesn’t get away (hard to tell in the pic below though). He needs that sense of security that this lead isn’t going to escape his grasp, but I’m sure that if he were to run he wouldn’t get far when you can just teleport after him
☂ I got a nice pic of Five (also the dude on the bike that was riding behind Five as he runs up in this shot just does not care that this building is on fire)
☂ When it shows Five on the ground, it at first starts off with light and slightly comedic music before it quickly switches over to something dramatic. I always thought it was funny that they play the light stuff as we see Five just laying there 💀
☂ You can see just how quickly Five’s face changes from shock to disbelief and disappointment as his only lead is literally blown away from him look, you can pinpoint the exact moment his heart breaks. Also Five definitely would have had hearing issues since we can see that the windows on the building behind him were shattered. He’s staring into your soul....
☂ There’s nothing really significant about this at all, but Whippets are racing dogs and in the comics Five goes to watch a dog race at one point
☂ “I hate sprinkles.” Hey, me too!
☂ I love that Griddy’s is still open despite the damage that was done to it
☂ Diego left home at 17 (which is illegal so I wonder if he was emancipated or maybe Diego ran away and Reginald didn’t care to look for him) so I wonder if the others left when they were 17 too or if they waited until they were 18
☂ Luther I don’t really think you’re one to talk about being “grown up” my guy. In fairness none of the Umbrellas know how to be fully functioning adults, not even Five who’s about twice the age of his siblings and is almost a senior citizen
☂ “I stayed because the world needed me.” Hey that was basically Five’s reason too, but more so for getting to see his family again. Anyways, like brother, like, uh, brother!
☂ "And things are never gonna go back to the way they used to be.” You sir just predicted the next week(s) (and technically years in the 60s) of your life and the lives of your siblings! This also applies for what happens after those weeks/years, but we haven’t gotten there yet but it’s certainly not the way things used to be!
☂ How was Luther upset enough that he wanted Diego to stop talking after he said something genuine and a bit sad?
☂ This whole relationship talk isn’t exactly relatable......
☂ He’s just chillin’
☂ Reginald can ✨perish✨ Oh wait, he already did
☂ Here I am taking any little scrap and running with it, but when Five says he’s going through puberty twice does that mean that he didn’t get his aging altered by The Commission? In the comics, Temps Aeternalis/Commission stopped Five’s aging but here it sounds like that didn’t happen. Since we haven’t heard anything about Five’s DNA in the tv show we don’t really know much about his aging alteration either. I think that they really do have to leave that part out due to Aidan himself, who is a growing teen, and for the fact that they would need to come up with an excuse for Five’s aging (Aidan already looks different in S2 and he’s taller too). I wish they would bring this stuff up in the show!
☂ Five deflects answering the question of what he’s the best at most likely just because he’s just distracted but also possibly because he doesn’t want his brothers to know at this point
☂ First the feral chimp smile and now this
☂ Five actually sounded serious when he was talking about how many people he has killed and how he’s the ”Four frickin’ Horsemen” which is more so an exaggeration but it still shows us that he views himself as dangerous and powerful. He revealed this to them while he was drunk, even though they don’t really understand, but I wonder if Five ever actually planned on telling his siblings what he did and how much blood he has on his hands. I feel like he would have told them after he had saved the world from the apocalypse, but yet again I could also see him brushing off questions in relation to what he just said to Luther and Diego to hide his past from his family
☂ ✨”Little Psycho”✨
☂ As eerie as all of those ghosts are, it’s a really neat scene
☂ It’s not really meant to be funny, but Klaus denying the duct tape just reminds me of a little kid refusing to go into timeout
☂ I guess Cha Cha got out through the door next to the bathroom when Klaus was banging his head on the table?
☂ It’s a shame that Patch died right away, I really liked her
☂ Klaus, where you’re going really isn’t any better
☂ It’s sweet that Diego puts Delores down gently and doesn’t just toss her somewhere. Even though she’s a mannequin, Diego knows that she means something to Five
☂ Well Luther I think it’s pretty self-explanatory what he meant. You just need more context
☂ Diego: *signaling that someone, possibly a threat, is approaching and to be alert*
Luther: 🕴👁`👄’👁
☂ Even if they did think that Klaus had left the Academy before Hazel and Cha Cha attacked it, it’s sad that it took them this long to think about him
☂ Luther patting Delores is so cute
☂ Say it with me kids, “Patch deserved so much better!”
☂ My heart breaks to see Diego so heartbroken and upset, especially when he says “I gotta go, okay? I can’t be here when they come, okay?” Ugh, that gets me
☂☂☂☂☂☂☂
Feel free to comment or reblog with things you have noticed too!
#tra#the rewatch academy#tua#the umbrella academy#umbrella academy#luther hargreeves#diego hargreeves#allison hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#number five#five hargreeves#ben hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#hazel and cha cha#eudora patch#reginald hargreeves#man on the moon
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Ok here is the thing I’ve been thinking on: that old!Five and Five scene but with Vanya (not instead of Luther, it could be just a coincidence). Anyway, Luther and Five watching how Vanya is like “Please give us the suitcase, Five. Please? For me?” And Five being jealous of himself???
hmm, anon. okay.
(In a universe where maybe perhaps Five and Vanya threw down a little in 3x7 and my girl got her memories back. Maybe also in the universe of the lost myth of true love idk)
((Also I know the teenage five is technically the older five. Don’t fight me pls))
Luther throws an arm across Five’s chest to stop him from marching straight up to his former self. “Stop,” he half-shouts, wincing when the sound carries. “Look,” he begins again, voice lowered now that he has Five’s attention. “You’re.. you’re him. You’re going to freak him out stomping up to him like that.” He pauses, looking at Five, then at his smallest sister, who Five has kept half hidden behind him ever since the both of them had come tumbling into the alley where they were supposed to go back to the future.
Neither has truly told him what happened; when Luther questions the way Vanya seems to lean away from him, tiny hand wrapped around Five’s bicep, Five merely tells him that she has retrieved her memories. The tone of his voice discourages conversation, and Luther realizes that Vanya remembers the way he locked her in a cage. He doesn’t know how to apologize, not when he’s still unsure whether what he did was truly wrong, so he keeps his distance.
“One of us should go,” he finished, keeping his gaze on Vanya. He wants to include her in the conversation.
She smiles faintly at him, and he beams back. Progress. “I’ll go,” she volunteers, moving to circle Five.
Before she can take more than half a step, Five’s hand darts out, fast as lightening, gripping her wrist. “No,” he denies firmly. “You promised, remember?”
Luther doesn’t know what Vanya promised, but it’s enough for her to step back, tugging her hand from his grip and instead wrapping it around his arm. Five goes along with the movement gladly, a shadow of a smirk crossing his face.
Luther shrugs, approaching the older Five delicately. Soon enough, he beckons the other two forward.
And if he is thrown off by the murderous glare old Five turns on his teenage self, that is nothing compared to when Vanya peeks at them over Five’s shoulder.
“Vanya,” the old Five breathes, stepping forward. Luther watches the way he nearly drops the briefcase in awe, fumbling awkward before he takes another step. The way he is looking at Vanya is the way that Luther knows he’s looked at Allison, but somehow more reverent… more desperate… like a holy man who has gone without God for decades, only to see God rushing towards him like a brilliant sun. The realization hits Luther like a freight train, and there is only one question capable of running through his mind:
How long has Five been in love with Vanya?
“Hi, Five,” Vanya says shyly. “You look good.”
Old Five, the nervous, cold man who he had just spoken to, honest-to-god chuckles, stealing the space between them with another step. He is moving slightly to the right too, approaching her so that young Five is not directly between them. The younger version is watching him carefully, Luther notes, but the older one doesn’t seem to care.
“That picture in your book didn’t do you justice, sweetheart,” old Five says gently. “You look radiant.” He’s not too close to her, yet, but he still lifts a shaking hand, like he is reaching for her face. Like he is already imagining the sensation of her skin against his.
“Oh, well,” Vanya replies, takes a tiny step toward him, “I finally got off my pills-“
The step is evidently, literally, a step to far, and young Five arches his shoulders in a move that Luther now recognizes as his ’I’m gonna kill you’ pose. “That’s enough,” he grits out, dropping Vanya’s hand from his arm and instead circling that arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “We didn’t come here for this. This isn’t yours yet, old man.”
Old Five arches a brow. “I rather think it is not yours yet. What are you, thirteen…?”
Vanya rolls her eyes in a show of emotion that Luther is completely shocked by, breaking free from young Five and taking two large steps to come to stand in front of old Five. The man is obviously hyperventilating at her proximity, and she raises her arms cautiously.
“This okay?” She asks. He nods vigorously, and she wraps her arms around him.
He holds her back, breathing her in with his eyes wide open, intent on his younger self. “Now, angel, tell me why you’re here, and I’ll help the best I can.”
Young Five growls. “She doesn’t need your help,” he hisses. “Vanya, you can’t trust him, c’mon, you know I’m the one-“
Vanya cuts him off. “He’s you, Five. Of course I trust him.”
Young Five looks like he doesn’t know what to do with that, but there is a faint blue glow in his eyes, and Luther realizes this could go ugly. Fast.
“Okay guys, for now, we’re trying to save the world. Maybe we can chill out?”
Both the Fives grumble, and Vanya takes a step back. She looks nervously at Luther. “Is this the Paradox Psychosis?”
Luther doesn’t think so, but he doesn’t tell Vanya that. No need to let her know that he’s seen jealousy, he’s seen to men on the verge of killing each other over something precious, and this is definitely that. “I think maybe you should sit on my side of the booth,” he says kindly, and she nods after shooting a long look at young Five.
“If you touch her again, Luther…” He trails off, ignoring the old Five’s indignant questions about what the hell he means.
“Noted,” Luther agrees, and they slide into the booth.
Vanya leans forward, smiling softly at old Five. “It’s about your briefcase,” she begins softly, “and how you get back to me.”
From the rapt look in older Five’s eyes, and the burning jealousy in the other’s, Luther thinks they probably have this in the bag.
Well, as long as homicidal rage doesn’t exacerbate the fact that both Fives seem like they could happily skin each other if it meant getting to hold his powerful little sister’s hand.
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let's save the world
season two, episode six
five hargreeves x reader
summary: you attend a light supper with the hargreeves family- you’re confident to say it was a shit supper
warnings: cursing, the asshole reginald
word count: 4.5k
a/n: okay, i’m so sorry that this part took so long to come out (it’s also kinda short but that’s more because the episode focuses a lot more on the other siblings), at first i stopped writing for a week or two and then i kinda focused on requests because i didn’t want those people waiting too long, but hopefully i’ll be able to crank these out over the next week and finish the second season. which comes the question: when season three comes out, do you want me to continue this? it might be a while, and it will also depend if i feel like continuing, but i want to know what you want as well. thanks :) please enjoy
i’m also sorry if there are any inconsistencies. i realized i’ve had r go back to the cafe on multiple occasions when she said she wouldn’t be back- i went ahead and changed that. i might have to read through my own story to fix my mistakes 😪
after your drunken four person party at the hair salon, everyone went on their own ways to confront the issues they had so that they could have some semblance of peace before the six days you had were up.
you couldn’t exactly face your problem. it came in the form of a certain fifty-eight year old man that had fucked up both of your bodies, and you didn’t know where he was. sure, you could admit the problem and see that as facing it, but you wanted to at least tell five. you had no clue as to why.
for that moment, you allowed yourself to let it go. you were stumbling through the streets with the near empty bottle of champagne almost slipping from your grip. it was definitely a sight to see, one that would definitely be concerning to the passerby- only a few spared you a glance, though.
when you ended up at the cafe that you had missed, even after only being away for a day or two, you looked through the window from a few feet away. taking one last glance to the bottle, you quickly downed the remaining drink before tossing it into a nearby trash can and pushing through the door that rang a bell atop it.
stacy happened to be on shift, and when she looked over to see you, she had a smile at first- until she noticed your state. “y/n? what happened?”
waving your hand in dismissal, you push past the swinging gate. her face scrunches up as you move past her, “is that- are you drunk?”
with a shrug, you lean against the door to the back, only a push away from falling straight onto your back. “i’d like to think i hold my alcohol well,” you lick your lips, a small smile tugging your lips up, “it’s nice to see you again.”
before she had a chance to respond- to question why you were drinking, since she thought you to be a teenager, you had pushed through into the kitchen. you could walk to the stairs to the apartment with your eyes closed, and you nearly did. it was made a bit more difficult, since you were unable to balance fully on your feet, but you managed.
it only took you a few minutes to wrestle with the lock before you stumbled through the door and to the bed, falling onto the soft mattress, almost instantaneously passing out.
-
when you woke up, you had a killer headache, and you had to lay with your face in the pillow beneath your head- one that had a pool of drool sinking into the fabric, but you couldn’t care for that right now- for a few minutes to remember what you did yesterday that gave you the horrible ache. it came back to you slowly, and you sighed heavily as you sat up, running your fingers through your messed hair.
standing from the bed, you made your way into the bathroom, looking in the mirror hanging above the sink to fix you hair that seemed to have gone through hell, with how it had been messed up so severely.
you shook your head once you were done, fixing your shirt slightly and grabbing a pain killer before shutting the light off and moving to leave the apartment. your eyebrows furrowed when your gaze fell upon an envelope that looked like it had been slipped through the crack at the bottom of your door.
glancing around the small room cautiously, you slowly stepped towards it, snatching it up off of the wooden floor once you made it. it was plain, save for the circular golden sticker holding the flap closed.
you pursed your lips, hesitantly pulling the sticker off and pulling the card inside out. your eyes skimmed over the words written.
from the office of sir reginald hargreeves
to my pursuers:
i, reginald hargreeves, request the pleasure of your company for a light supper on the twentieth of november, nineteen sixty-three, at half past seven o’clock.
-1624 magnolia street-
dallas, texas
“shit,” you mutter to yourself quietly, the envelope drifting to the floor as you release your grip on it to scratch your scalp. glancing towards the calendar, which had previously been used to count the days you were stuck here alone, your eyebrows furrow. “that’s today.”
-
you make your way to the address listed on the paper, looking at the tall building once you finally make it.
southland life.
reading the card once more to be sure this was the place, you sighed softly and walked across the parking lot to get to the entrance, not sparing another look up as you walk through the door.
looking around as you make your way up polished steps, you stuff the now folded card into your back pocket. as you get to the elevators, you see that one is already opened, so you quickly walk over to get in before it leaves you behind.
when you look into the opened doors, you stop for a moment when you see five. “oh,” you stare at him for a moment. “you’re back.”
“yeah.” he motions to his side for you to actually step in, and you realize that you hadn’t actually done that yet, practically jumping inside.
you stick your hands in your pockets. “you usually don’t just up and go like that on me.” you point out his previous actions, indirectly questioning where he had gone that was so important to leave you behind.
“sorry,” he glances to the ground, and you could tell he actually was. “i-”
he was cut off by the sight of a hand stopping the doors just as they nearly closed, “wait up.”
it’s diego who steps into the small space next, and you all look at each other in surprise and confusion, before the rest of the hargreeves family files in, all glancing at each other. it ends with luther, who you have to move to the side for.
the doors finally close on all of you, and there is a silence that you know is from the anticipation of what exactly is going to happen. the numbers over the doors begin to light up, one by one, each letting a ding echo through the space.
after a few seconds, a stench fills the air that has your nose beginning to scrunch up as you try not to breathe in- everyone else notices the smell, and soon it’s realized that luther was the one who had caused it. “sorry.” he stared straight at the numbers, not looking at any of you, “i’m nervous.”
the doors take way too long to open, but when they do everyone is rushing out, covering their noses to avoid smelling it any longer.
when you enter the floor, a sign hanging from a pole supporting the roof tells you that it is a tiki bar- if it wasn’t obvious enough from the beachy decorations surrounding you.
“alright,” five is the first to get to the table, standing by a seat surrounding the circle. “when dad gets here, i’ll do the talking, okay?”
it’s more of a statement than a question- you know that and you aren’t about to argue. the only thing you know about the man is what five told you when he was actually thirteen. that he was a man who cared for nothing but himself and creating a team that he could control. you believed it. it was hard not to.
“i’ve got a few questions for him myself.” diego tells him, and you know if he actually managed to ask any of them, this whole meeting would be over in an instant. he wasn’t exactly the calm and understanding type.
you shake your head as you turn to look at them, standing at the chair next to five, “we don’t want to scare him off.” you tell them, glancing over everyone, “he might be able to help us stop this new apocalypse and get home.”
the man isn’t so ready to cooperate. “no, y/n, we need to figure out why he’s planning to kill the president.”
“okay, this is a matter of life and death, you imbecile!” five argues back, and you can tell this supper is going to be a real shit show.
“okay, maybe we should take turns talking?” vanya suggests, everyone looking to her as she grabs one of the decorations, “alright, whoever has this conch shell gets to talk.”
you run a hand down your face. this family and their terrible communication. “vanya, we don’t have time for a debate, okay?” five tells her, already seeming to begin to lose his patience.
“maybe i should lead.” allison walks forward and takes the shell from the other girl, “we all know i’m a much better public speaker than the rest of you.”
diego looks at her from where he paces, “okay, daddy’s girl.” the jab is small, but you know it’s going to set off a lot. you look to five, your expression showing all of what you think. he just shrugs.
“oh, jealous number two?” the girl questions, raising an eyebrow at him.
the man moves around the table, “hey, no more numbers.” he glances around, “no more bullshit. we’re team zero.”
your eyebrows furrow in confusion. what is this crap? team zero?
“uh, diego.” luther speaks from his seat, “you don’t have the conch.” he motions to the object in allison’s hand.
you have to look down at the table to hold in your laugh at that.
the man gives a tight lipped smile, holding his finger up for a second before taking the conch from allison and... throwing it, letting it shatter against the wall.
you’re about to finally let your laugh out, until the door comes swinging open, reginald swiftly making his way to the table as everyone stares. he sits and everyone is silent as they take their seats as well, and you fidget with your fingers.
“you have not only burglarized my lab, set my chimp loose,” his tone is serious as he fixes the cuffs of his sleeves, “conned your way into the mexican consulate, repeatedly stalked and attacked me,” you didn’t realize how much you had really done until you had gotten the list from the old man, and you see that he has brought a notebook with him when he brings out a pencil. “but you have, on numerous occasions, called me...”
klaus is pulling a chair out next to him, a drink in hand. of course he had gone to the bar already. “hey, pop.” he smiles as he sits and leans back in the chair, “how’s it hangin’?”
reginald barely looks at him when he intrudes his little speech, his eyes moving to look around at all of you. “...dad.” you glance to your side to see how five’s doing, and as you had expected, he was annoyed. you could tell by the way his jaw had begun to lock in it’s place. “my reconnaissance tells me that you are not cia, not kgb, certainly not mi-five, so.” he places the pencil on the table, “who are you?”
everyone is silent, not sure exactly what to say, but five speaks up after a moment. “we’re your children.”
“except for me.” you cut in, holding up a finger just so he knew. you did not want to be associated with this man.
his gaze falls on you two as five takes a quick glance in your direction, “we’re from the future.” he continues as if you hadn’t interrupted him, “in nineteen eighty-nine, you adopted us and trained us to fight against the end of the world.” the old man looks around, seemingly not believing what he was saying. “called us the umbrella academy.”
his gaze continues to move around, “why on earth would i adopt six-”
“seven.” he is cut off by allison, “one of us isn’t here.”
diego is staring at the table, “dead.” he informs, looking up, “one of us is dead.”
“yeah, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, enough of that now,” klaus speaks from his chair and you all look to him, slightly confused as he had turned to talk to what seemed like an empty space behind him. he turns back to the table, waving his hand in a silent sign to continue.
reginald laces his fingers together on the table, “regardless,” he looks away from who looked like a crazy person, “what would possess me to adopt seven ill-mannered malcontents?”
“we all have special abilities,” you lean forward on the table with a pursed smile on your face, “but, once again, you didn’t get me.” you wag your finger in the air, feeling the need to reassure that point.
“special?” reginald seems to ignore your second point, an eyebrow raised in interest, “in what sense?”
“in the superpower sense.” luther speaks from beside him, giving a small smile as he nods.
the old man looks to him, “call me old fashioned, but i’m a stickler for a pesky little thing called evidence.” he returns his gaze to everyone, “show me.”
allison picks up her drink, stirring it with her straw, “everyone wants to see powers all of a sudden,” she jokes, taking a sip.
“we’re not circus animals, okay?” luther informs him, “we’re not going to balance balls on our noses and... clap our hands like seals for your amusement.” he claps his hands together a few times. just as he finished speaking, though, a knife flies through the air, curving around reginald to stick in one of the wooden pillars.
it’s quiet as everyone looks at the knife, before reginald opens his notebook and begins scribbling something. everyone leans forward, “what are you writing?” diego questions quickly.
he looks up from the paper, “you are zero for two, young man.”
allison giggles into her drink, and diego begins to push away from the table to go after their dad. you try to stand and stop him, but five gets there before you in a flash of blue. “stop!” he whispers to him, his hands on his shoulders for a moment to keep him from moving any further.
you sit back down in your seat, and look to reginald, who seems impressed. “now, that is interesting.”
with a sigh, five moves away. “alright, quick run down.” he begins to move around the table, pointing to each person as he gives away their powers, “luther: super strength, klaus can commune with the dead, y/n can create and control fire, and allison can rumor anyone to do anything.”
“but she never uses it.” diego takes his seat again, and allison rolls her eyes.
looking up from her drink, she looks to him. “i heard a rumor, you punched yourself in the face.” his eyes turn white and his hand balls into his fist before colliding with his face, and you cringe as he groans in pain, holding his head in his hands.
as he curses in pain, reginald seems to ignore it as he looks to the woman sitting next to him. vanya. “and you?” he questions her.
“uh, maybe we don’t take vanya for a test run.” luther suggests, and everyone seems to agree.
she looks nonchalant about it. “it’s fine.” she says with a shrug, “i can handle it.”
she reaches for a fork, and everyone begins to try to stop her, “handle it?” allison questions with a raised brow, “last time you handled it, you definitely blew up the moon.”
when she doesn’t seem to be stopping to everyone’s protests, clinking the metal to her glass, all of you begin to push away from the table, but it’s too late when the fruit at the center of the table explodes, covering the table and everyone around it.
you look to your shirt in disgust. she couldn’t have done something a bit less messy?
she smiles in her seat, shrugging her shoulders as she looks to the table. “oops.”
allison presses her lips together as she gets another drink and switches her straw over. diego stands from his seat, leaning onto the table. “look, we know you’re involved in a plot to assassinate the president.” he speaks, and you roll your eyes at his continued insistence to save the president, as if that wouldn’t change the timeline one bit.
reginald looks to him. “you were recently hospitalized, correct?” you can’t help but to clench your jaw at the mention, “you still appear to be suffering from delusions of grandeur and acute paranoia.” his tone is matter of fact.
you look to five, who also seems to be knowing the direction this dinner was taking. south. plummeting into a near-erupting volcano that bubbled at the surface.
“am i?” diego pulls the picture of their dad in the grassy knoll out of his back pocket, reaching over the table to put it in front of him. “that’s you.” he informs, pointing to his figure in the picture, “that’s two days from now on the grassy knoll, at the exact spot the president is going to get shot.”
picking the paper up, he looks to him after inspecting it for a moment. “well...” he looks around before passing the picture back over the table, “i suppose you’ve solved it. you have single handedly unearthed my nefarious plot.”
diego looks at him, and you bite your lip. suddenly, you feel bad for him- mostly because reginald was a bastard that you could easily burn for everything he had done. “is that what you wanted to hear?” he questions, “you fancy yourself a do-gooder? the last man who will save us from our descent into corruption and conspiracy?” everyone is silent as he continues, “this is a fantastic delusion. despite the reality that you are a desperate man, tragically unaware of his own insignificance, desperately clinging to his own ineffectual reasoning. more succinctly, a man in over his head.”
he had sunk back down to his seat throughout his father’s speech, and you could see the tears gathering in his eyes. you look to five and he returns your gaze, and you can feel the frown that sets into your face. he sighs softly, looking down to the table as diego stutters his denial.
everyone is silent for another few moments, and you shake your head. “look, forget about the president.” you wave your hand as if to swat the idea out of the air, “we have a catastrophic war coming in five days. we need to figure out how to stop it.”
reginald looks at you. “war? men will always be at war with one another.”
“no, this isn’t just some war.” five tells him from beside you, his fingers laced together on the table that he leans on, “we’re talking about a doomsday. the end of the world.”
the old man looks at him for a moment. “well,” he says after a moment, raising his hands to motion to the group, “you’re the special ones, aren’t you?” he smiles, but you can see the sarcasm behind it, “why don’t you band together and do something about it?”
you all stare at him, until from the chair next to him, klaus’ hands fly up into the air and he begins to shake, choked gasps escaping him. “is he having a seizure?” allison asks in concern, everyone looking at him in confusion.
“overdosing, probably.” diego comments.
luther’s eyebrows furrow, “should we do something?”
“klaus!” five whisper-yells at the man as he leans over the table, “now is not the time! what are you doing?”
he slowly turns towards where you’re sitting, and you grimace as you see the vessels that are beginning to pop out from beneath his skin, his face turning red from his choked breathing. “i’m...” the word is barely there.
“out with it, boy!” reginald exclaims.
“ben!” after the word is spoken, he goes limp and falls to the ground, shuddering from where he lays on the wood.
reginald closes his book, placing it on top of some folders that he had also brought, “well...” standing from his seat, he tucks the things in the nook of his arm, “thank you all for coming. i’ve seen about enough.”
as he steps over the barely conscious klaus, luther watches, “no- i-” after a second, his hands slam down onto the table, making you flinch slightly from the sudden bang. he stands, ripping his button-up open, “look at what you did to me!” he seems distressed as he shouts, “look at it!”
five lets out a slight huff, falling back into his seat. “oh, shit. why?”
you bury your face in your hands, unable to comprehend how broken this family is. what is wrong with all of them? you don’t think you’ll ever know.
you look back up as reginald glances around before pointing to five. “you in the culottes.” the young-looking boy lifts his head to look at him, “a word, in private?” he doesn’t give him a chance to answer as he turns to leave, walking away from the family.
watching as five gets up, you fight for words but can’t manage to say anything as he leaves you behind. he seems to enjoy doing that these past two days.
“check, please.” allison holds her finger up for the waiter to end this shit show already. you don’t even wait for the paper to come, standing from your seat to get in the elevator ahead of them all.
the numbers ticked down as you stare up at them, letting out a soft sigh in the otherwise silent space. when the doors slide open, you’re left staring out into the hallway for a moment before you finally stepped out and left the building to be hit with the chilly night air.
deciding to stay a bit to possibly catch five on his way out you move to the side of the entrance on the sidewalk, sitting down on the cold concrete. you can see the cars waiting in the parking lot. you think one of them must be reginald’s.
a few minutes later the other siblings exit the building, and you watch silently as they begin to make their way away from the building- but diego and luther come to talk to you first.
“you’re not heading back to elliott’s place?” the knife thrower questions, raising an eyebrow at you as you look at him.
shaking your head, you pull your knees to your chest to get a bit more warmth. “i’m going to try to wait for five. i’d rather he not leave me behind for something important again.”
it’s quiet for a moment as the two nod, before luther claps his hands together. “alright, then. we’ll see you when you get back.”
you play with your fingers as they walk away and one of the car leaves- vanya had gotten in, so you assume it was her ‘farm frau’ as klaus had called her. the rest of the siblings quickly disappeared to... wherever they were going, and you were left alone (aside from the car that awaited reginald’s exit).
after waiting for you don’t know how long- maybe about twenty minutes or so- you see the flash of blue that signals five’s arrival and you quickly jump up from the concrete.
“oh, finally.” you sigh, brushing off your pants as he does the same with his uniform jacket, “it was starting to get too cold. what did the old man say? does he know how to stop this thing?”
the frown on his face tells you otherwise, and he sighs softly. “he didn’t help with anything. just told me what i already know.”
you run your fingers through your hair, staying quiet for a moment. “so, what do we do now?” the question almost makes you sound weak, and you hate it. you were just tired of having to save the world from something that you don’t even know.
“now, we make a deal.” he tells you, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion, watching as he glances to the ground. “the handler told me she would give us a briefcase in return for a favor.”
you feel your shoulders slump slightly at the mention of the woman. “i can’t believe this.” you shake your head with a sigh, but you’re already grabbing his hand so he can flash you to wherever she may be.
when he doesn’t do it, you look at him with a raised eyebrow. he looks surprised, for some reason. “you’re not going to ask what it is?” he asks, wondering why you just blindly agreed.
“i trust you.” you shrug, and you yourself also find it incredibly stupid. the deal could be a death trap that you didn’t know about, yet you’re ready just because he thinks it will help save everyone’s ass.
after a moment of quiet, he nods. “okay.” he blows out some air, and you feel his hand tighten around yours slightly. “you should know, though. she wants us to kill the board.”
that is what really gets you. “the board? how are we even supposed to do that?”
“she knows when and where they’re meeting.” he tells you, and you purse your lips.
“alright.” you take a deep breath, “let’s make this deal before i change my mind.”
he nods, and without another second, you’ve appeared in front of the door of a room that looks to be in a very fancy hotel. you keep hold of his hand, not able to deny the nervousness that washes over you at this task. but you could do it. you were one of the best assassins, so what’s killing a few more people?
after five knocks on the doors a few times, they open to show a smiling handler. “ah!” she exclaims, and you can tell she had been waiting on the two of you. “just in time for a nightcap.”
she walks away from the door and you finally release his hand when you step in and close the doors behind you. “to be clear.” five speaks as the handler holds a cocktail out to him, “we take out the board... you get us all home. no doomsday, no apocalypse.”
as he speaks she had moved to the bed, laying on top of the covers on her side as she takes a drag from her cigarette. holding a paper up in the air. “that’s the deal.”
“we’re in.” you tell her before you can think any further, just knowing that this was a way to get home, the only way you knew of at the moment. if you didn’t take this, who knows if you would be able to stop this. the first time around you didn’t even stop the apocalypse, only escaped it.
when she waved the paper, you stepped forward and took it, unfolding the invitation. five looks over your shoulder. there’s a seal of a bird at the top, and you quickly skim over the words.
the lonely lodger inn
oshkosh wisconsin, 1982
taglists
main: @horrorklaus @megasimpleplan4ever
tua: @rasberrymay @noodlextrash @atomicpillar @malfovs @andreasworlsboring101
five taglist: @anapocalypseinmymind @five-hargreeves-official @insatiable-ivy @coffee-e-addict @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @colie-babi @flowertoty
let’s save the world: @aspiringwriter1 @thetrashypanda423 @lilacs-lavender @wow-lookit-all-the-fandoms @ohmyitsfaith @xplrreylo @fandomfreakff @onedollarduck @sleepygal124 @faith-quake @stripedchickens @youcandalekmyballs @pettyjayy @libidinexx @bts-chub @theoriginalkat @flowertoty @whenyouwantdeath @ot7purple @ purblerain @megasimpleplan4ever @whenyouregrungeaff @dumdumsun @malfovs @hxney-lemcn @frnks-stuff
#the umbrella academy#umbrella academy#tua#five hargreeves#five#number five#the umbrella academy x reader#umbrella academy x reader#tua x reader#five hargreeves x reader#number five x reader#five x reader#lstw#let's save the world
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AU-gust: Escaping the Family
Read on AO3
No warnings
prompt no 6: Gaming
Characters: Lila Pitts, Diego Hargreeves, Five Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves, Vanya Hargreeves, Luther Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves
Relationship: Lila Pitts/Diego Hargreeves
-
This is by far the weirdest birthday Lila has ever had.
She’s in a new city in a foreign country, she’s in an escape room for the first time in her life, and she’s somehow ended up in a team with six bickering adult siblings and their teenage brother, who were apparently all born on the same day as her.
This, she finds completely unbelievable, though why they would lie, just to make use of the promotional free admission to people born on the first of October is entirely beyond her.
They’re all wearing stickers with Hello, my name is _______ and their handwritten name printed on them, though Lila feels it’s a little superfluous, as everyone except for her already knows each other, and she was also instantly annoyed when the little twerp in the pretentious school uniform wrote ‘Five’ on his name badge and his siblings are apparently indulging him.
Whatever, she’s not here to argue with a teenager. She’s really not too sure why she’s here at all.
Maybe she was feeling a little low and lonely when she passed the building and saw the ad for the birthday special, but now she's not too sure why she thought this was a good place to meet new people.
Currently she’s quickly losing her cool watching these complete strangers make an absolute pig’s ear of things.
The boy, Five, apparently, is sitting at an antique looking bureau trying to fiddle with something and swatting his brother Ben away, whenever he’s trying to help or interfere, she’s not entirely certain which.
The two siblings who look like models or influencers or something like that, Allison and Klaus are in another corner of the room and flicking small marbles up against the ceiling, though Lila is completely in the dark as to why, and going off their constant criticising of each other’s aim, they’re not doing a particularly good job.
The remaining three siblings Vanya, Luther, and Diego are huddled together in yet another corner, arguing over a scrap of paper and the presumed meaning of the words written on it, though it’s mostly devolved into hissed threats of bodily harm between the two bigger brothers and exasperated eye-rolling from Vanya.
Nobody has paid any attention to Lila in a solid fifteen minutes.
She’d take it personally if it weren’t for the fact that the only reason they seem to be interacting with each other is so they can make snide remarks about their lack of success with their respective tasks.
Lila decides that she’s had enough.
“Jesus Christ, you people are by far the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever come across and I should know, my parents were murdered in a botched robbery when I was four!”
By the end of her outburst she is shouting and now a pin could be heard if it were dropped.
The little wanker in the knee high socks is the first to break the silence, “Thought this was an escape room not a therapy session for traumatized orphans.”
“Hey, Five, don’t be mean to the nice crazy lady!” Diego, who she’s admittedly has had a bit of an eye on, jumps in, but right now the last thing Lila needs is some arsehole pretty boy white-knighting her, so she levels him with the deadliest glare she can manage and to her satisfaction he withers a little and doesn’t say anything else.
The rest of them just stare at her with differing levels of disbelief.
“Right!” Lila says with a determination that she’s mostly using to cover up the sudden awkwardness, “this might not have occurred to you, but can I suggest that we work together as a team and maybe try and solve the puzzles together?” She tries to keep the sarcasm in her voice to a minimum.
The siblings give each other slightly confused looks as if working together may be the furthest thing from their minds.
In the end Vanya is the first to break and says, “We’ve got a message here and I’m quite certain that it’s in Greek, though Diego says it’s Latin and Luther says it’s Russian. Does anyone have an idea what to do with this?”
Five gets up in a huff, storms over to unceremoniously take the note out of Vanya’s hand and then mumbles, “This is definitely ancient Greek, nice spot Vanya! Give me a minute, I think I can translate it.”
Ben, who has now finally got a chance to look at what Five was fiddling with at the bureau, calls out to the rest of them, “There’s two overlaying circle plaques here with the letters A to G in lower case and capital letters on them. There’s also some random small b’s and hashtags strewn in.”
“Let me see!” Vanya comes over to Ben excitedly, seemingly having had an idea. “Oh yeah, that’s a circle of fifths. Hold on we just have to turn it like this to get the right parallel modes together -”
There’s a click and one of the draws opens and Ben reaches in and presents a key to the rest of the group.
Lila is a bit surprised herself at how effective her little tantrum seems to have been.
“Ooh! Ooh! Do us next!” Klaus says with a little enthusiastic clap, looking expectantly at Lila, as if she’s done anything beyond merely pointing out that they should work together.
Allison, next to him, gives him a look that is mostly just an eyebrow lift, but Lila doesn’t need to have grown up with siblings to know that this is probably a very frequent expression between the two of them. Then Allison turns to the room at large and starts explaining, “There’s a small hole up there in the ceiling and we’re pretty certain there’s another switch inside it and there were these conveniently placed marbles that look like they just about fit through the hole, but we've missed everytime so far. I don’t know, maybe Five could get on Luther’s shoulders and see if he can reach it that way…” Allison trails off looking up at the ceiling.
“Show me?” Diego says slightly hesitantly, having kept quiet since Lila had put him in his place with a look.
He walks over to his brother and sister, takes one of the marbles from Allison, flicks it up at the ceiling without much hesitation, and hits the ceiling just next to the tiny hole in the wood panelling.
Without a word Klaus hands him another marble and Diego flicks this one up as well, manages to hit the hole and there’s another click from one of the draws in the bureau.
Ben reaches in and pulls out another key with a delighted, “Aha!”
-
In the end they get out using the two keys on the locks on the door and punching the code that Five deciphered from the Greek message into the additional keypad.
And then Lila suddenly finds herself out on the cold pavement, her quasi teammates a little way off, apparently arguing over where to go for food, though she’s trying strenuously not to eavesdrop, as now, after she was trying to get away from them as fast as possible, she feels a little forlorn.
She’s pulling the edges of her coat more tightly around herself while she’s wondering whether to try and catch a bus or splash out on a taxi for the occasion of her birthday, when Diego separates from his siblings and wanders over to her, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.
“We’re… uh… we’re going for some food, d’you wanna come with?” he asks uncertainly, pulling a hand out to point a thumb over his shoulder towards his family.
Lila looks around him to where the five grown-ups and the teenager are apparently in the middle of a heated argument, and though a moment ago she felt oddly lonely, the thought of spending the rest of the evening with their constant bickering feels like a little much after all.
It seems Diego recognises the dilemma playing out on her face because he crosses his arms, looks down at his boot where he’s kicking at nothing on the pavement, and mumbles, “Or I could ditch them and you and I go out for a drink?”
Lila would have probably said yes anyway, but the shy smile on his face when he finally looks back up at her is stupidly irresistible.
“Won’t your siblings miss you for your birthday dinner?” Lila asks sincerely, though she hopes he’ll say they won’t.
“Eh, we meet up every first Sunday of the month, so I’ll see them at the weekend anyway,” he offers with a shrug.
“Well, do you know of anywhere where I can get a decent pint around here, then?” Lila asks with a bright smile on her face and a small flutter in her chest.
#au_gust_2021#fanfic#tua#the umbrella academy#diego hargreeves#lila pitts#dielila#diego x lila#diego/lila#five hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#luther hargreeves#ben hargreeves#allison hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#lochrannn lxd au challenge
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thanks to @actualtimetravelingcat for giving me this fic idea!
Summary: Klaus steals some of Vanya’s pills
WC: 1843
Twice a day, Vanya would take a pill. All of the siblings were vaguely aware of this in their own ways, but to them, it was just a Fact of Life. For Klaus, it had been the same, until now.
After Reggie let him out of the mausoleum, he ran to his room and cried. He felt so overwhelmed that he couldn’t even count how many other bad things he was feeling. After a half hour, his brain started to calm down. He wasn’t over this, he’d never be over this, but human brains just aren’t built to feel strong emotions all the time.
Emotions.
What were those pills for again? Anxiety or emotions or something? Reggie hadn’t talked about them in years. Well, Klaus was basically a ball of anxiety and emotions right now. Vanya was fine, he was not. And with that, he rationalized stealing one of Vanya’s pills from the little top drawer of her dresser. He snuck it back into his room and swallowed it. Nothing happened. This is fine, Klaus thought. He remembered one winter the flu was brought home somehow and they all had to take some pills and they didn’t work immediately either. Everyone had been silently watching Vanya that week, rather than silently ignoring her, worried that her childhood illness might have made her weaker. Luckily, everyone was fine, of course.
By dinner he still didn’t feel any different. Well, he did feel somewhat calmer than he’d been several hours earlier that day, but he couldn’t tell if that was just because he was relieved it was over, or because of the pill.
The next day, during free time after lunch, while Vanya was practicing violin, Klaus snuck back into her room and read the label on the orange bottle, wondering exactly what happened. The bottle wasn’t helpful at all. It had the “take twice a day” directions and just said that the pills calmed anxiety. Klaus was struck with an idea, and took another pill from the bottle. This time, though, he didn’t pop it immediately.
If there was one thing that made life with Reginald tolerable, it was that he prided himself on punctuality. Last Thursday, he had banged on Klaus’s door to wake him up just before dawn and throw him in the mausoleum, so Wednesday night Klaus took the pill and prayed that it would help.
Sure enough, there was a banging on Klaus’s door at an ungodly hour of the morning.
“NUMBER FOUR!” Reggie shouted. Klaus immediately got up and threw on his uniform, and followed Reggie out to the mausoleum, barely feeling the ground under his feet, the air around his skin, or anything really except the anxiety in his stomach. The anxiety only made him more anxious. Maybe the pills were specifically tailored to Vanya’s biology or something. Maybe they didn’t do what they say they did.
“Let’s try this again Number Four,” Reginald said, as they stood outside the mausoleum.
With a light tap he pushed Klaus inside and shut the door. Klaus stood right next to it and saw… nothing. No ghosts. He heard nothing. No screams. The mausoleum was still a bit creepy, but it was empty. To any other 12-year-old, being alone with a bunch of corpses would be scary as hell, but to Klaus, this empty dark room wasn’t scary at all. It was a little strange. The ghosts seemed to know he was coming last time, as if they could sense that he could see them. He took one step into the room, and then another, until he was in the middle looking around. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Klaus could’ve assumed, at this point, that the ghosts didn’t care about him anymore and no longer wanted him to help them complete their unfinished purpose on Earth, but he didn’t. If he was Luther, maybe he would’ve thought that way, but he wasn’t Luther, he was Klaus, and his mind immediately jumped to the more fantastical but correct conclusion.
Vanya’s pills make his powers go away. Now, if Klaus was Five, then maybe he would’ve concluded the next logical step in this thought process: does this mean that the pills are suppressing powers in Vanya? But Klaus wasn’t Five, he was Klaus, so he didn’t think or care about what the pills were doing to Vanya. His anxieties melted away and were replaced with unrestrained joy. A little white pill was the answer to all of his problems.
By this point, Reginald was a little concerned, or at least confused, about why he heard no screaming from Number Four. Had he conquered his fears that quickly? Surely not. He opened the door to see Klaus standing in the middle of the room. Luckily, Klaus was still facing away from the door and Reggie couldn’t see the gigantic smile on his face.
“Number Four!” Reggie cried. Klaus whipped around, his smile leaving his face immediately out of habit. The two pairs of eyes met, the fake cold-steely gray and the innocent green. Neither understood what was going on in the other, until Klaus saw the confusion in Reggie’s (or at least he thought he did). Reggie was certainly confused. It took one day? One day for Number Four to get over his fears? There must be something else going on. He briefly considered locking Klaus in the mausoleum for longer, but he eventually decided not to.
“Out,” Reginald said, pointing towards the exit. Klaus very quickly left. So the boy still was jumpy. He wasn’t devoid of fear. Reggie briefly regretted letting him out, before realizing he wasn’t scared of the mausoleum anymore. He was scared of something else. He’d be sure to tell Grace and Pogo to keep an eye on Klaus. Reginald didn’t like not knowing things, and he certainly didn’t like not knowing where Number Four’s fear was coming from.
Three days later Vanya’s pill bottle ran empty. There should’ve been two more. Klaus should’ve seen this coming.
Reginald didn’t seem to blame Vanya at all. After all, she’d been on top of her pills for god-knows-how-many years. That afternoon, during what was supposed to be a free period, all of the children were lined up in the foyer. Including Vanya.
Reginald was pacing in front of them, back and forth, not saying anything. For about forty seconds, the seven children and one adult stood (or paced) there in silence.
Luther was the one to raise his hand. Klaus was a little surprised, but Luther likes clear directions and plans. It was clear he was uncomfortable having no idea what was going on. He also might have figured that he was the least likely to be yelled at for raising his hand, because he was the favorite. Luther could be self-sacrificing like that.
Reggie didn’t seem to notice that Luther’s hand was up. Luther didn’t say anything.
“Dad?” Allison asked after another 20 seconds. Reggie looked at her. She pointed at Luther.
“Yes Number One?” Reggie asked.
“Why are we here?” Luther asked quietly. From here, Reginald seemed to launch into a prepared monologue. Klaus wondered why he didn’t just start there instead of wasting time. His stomach was already in knots.
“I ordered you all here because something very important has gone missing. You all know how I loathe deceit and thievery, and I do not tolerate them in my house. The missing items are two of Vanya’s pills. I would like them returned to me.” Reggie’s eyes passed over all the children. Klaus glanced at his siblings, knowing their innocence.
Luther was nervous anyways. A bead of sweat was on his forehead, but he was clearly doing well at remaining calm. Diego stared ahead with no emotion as if to say “I know nothing and have nothing to hide.” Allison was also looking around the room, trying to guess who did it. Five looked cool as a cucumber, with his hands in his jacket pockets. Ben looked very nervous, and was looking back and forth from his siblings to Dad. Vanya looked like she was on the brink of tears. Klaus wondered what Reggie had said to her in private.
“If anyone knows anything about the pills please report it to me immediately.” Reginald said. “Dismissed.”
And with that, he marched out. All the children noticed he said nothing about immunity or punishments. Everyone’s body language clearly relaxed when Reginald left, but before any of them could leave, Luther stepped forward and crossed his arms.
“Did any of you actually steal some of Vanya’s pills?” he asked, forever one to believe his siblings had the best intentions at all times.
“It’s pretty strange the old man was so keen to believe that immediately,” Diego added perceptively. “I’d say he thinks he knows who it is already.” Diego’s eyes swept the room, looking for a culprit to gulp or do something at his idea.
“The pills could’ve fallen out of the bottle,” Luther retorted.
“He made me search my room,” Vanya said quietly. “Very thoroughly.”
“So they didn’t,” Diego said, turning back to Luther.
Luther still didn’t look convinced.
“Guys, let’s not blame each other,” Allison said. “Clearly that’s what Dad wants. Just let this play out, okay? The pills will probably re-appear in Vanya’s room tonight. Who’d even want them anyways?”
“I agree,” Five said. “The old man is playing with us. Whoever took the pills should give them back immediately.”
Five left, and that signaled everyone else to leave. Klaus slipped out and went to the roof, a place he could be alone that wasn’t as stifling as his room, and proceeded to freak out. How could he be so short-sighted! How could he be so stupid! Of course Reginald keeps track of Vanya’s pills! If he fessed up, he knew he’d be a ghost well before he should be.
Diego and Luther both held investigations, but they were fruitless, not that everyone didn’t figure out eventually that it was Klaus, or at least Dad thought it was Klaus. It started that evening at dinner, with Reginald telling him to go help Grace with the dishes. There were little things like that: an extra ten pushups, two more laps around the house, dust all the bookshelves in the library alone, clean the silver, and other piddly punishments. These sucked, as they would for any 12-year-old, but the real punishment came in the form of Klaus being forced back into the mausoleum, now twice a week, each Tuesday and Thursday morning.
“You’re weak, Number four,” Reginald said one early morn as they crossed the property to the mausoleum. “What you did was weakness.”
Klaus didn’t respond, refusing to own up.
“Weakness isn’t allowed in the Umbrella Academy,” Reginald continued. “It is a worse crime than lying or thievery combined. Deception and thievery can both have a place in the world, especially when it comes to saving it, but weakness has no place anywhere.” Reginald stopped, and faced Klaus. “Do you understand, Number Four?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Reginald pushed Klaus in.
#tua#ua#Umbrella Academy#the umbrella academy#tua fanfic#tua fanfiction#umbrella academy fanfic#umbrella academy fanfiction#klaus hargreeves#reginald hargreeves#reggie hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#luther hargreeves#diego hargreeves#allison hargreeves#five hargreeves#ben hargreeves
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The Umbrella Cafe | Diego Hargreeves x Reader (Oneshot)
Prompt: Coffee Shop AU
Fandom: The Umbrella Academy
Words: 1711
A/N: This took longer than it should to write this, but I tried to avoid it being too close to the other Coffee Shop AU I had done last year. Enjoy.
-
Ever since their dad passed, the seven Hargreeves had been helping their mom run The Umbrella Cafe. It had been messy at first, being that the siblings had not seen each other since they had moved out, but everyone eventually settled within their roles around the cafe.
Luther, no matter how many times he insisted that he was in charge of the whole team, was actually in charge of inventory and occasional kitchen help. Allison was in charge of accounting and event planning. Klaus floats around between coffee making and partial cleaning, but he does surprisingly well in the kitchen. Frank, or, as his family likes to call him, Five, may be the youngest but his mind seemed older and thus became team manager. Ben was the friendly cashier and barista that everyone liked. Vanya was the shy one, but she was good at making desserts and helped Allison with event planning. Then there was Diego, who insisted that he can float and do every task that needs to be done.
You had heard about The Umbrella Cafe from your friends and decided to stop by while you were out doing errands. The front had a white umbrella logo with the name below, the windows lined with fairy lights and various types of umbrellas lined on the bottom. You ducked in from the cold, rubbing your hands together to keep them warm. Of course you’d forget a jacket on the day it rained.
“Welcome!” came a chorus of greetings from around the cafe.
You stared up at the menu, deciding to start with something simple. A young man walks out from the back, talking to another man with long hair that had been tied into a bun. The former, with a name tag that read Ben, gave you a friendly smile, taking his place behind the cashier while the latter, Klaus, went to clean the coffee machine.
“Welcome, what can I get for you today?” he asked.
You told him your order, your favorite drink paired with your favorite pastry, You’ll be using that to decide whether or not you wanted to make this place a regular go-to for hanging out and relaxing. Ben rang you up, mentioning the small bookshelf they had in the corner that he had placed himself. You decided to check it out, taking a book before finding a seat near the window.
“Diego, can you take this order?” Vanya asked, shrugging on her jacket as she walked towards the back exit.
“And where the hell are you going” Diego turned, flipping a knife around in his hand.
“I have to help Allison run some errands downtown. Please.”
Diego narrowed his eyes, then relented. “Okay, you owe me one!” he shouted at her retreating form, pointing the knife at her. She waved him off and left. “She’s lucky I’m the cool brother.”
Luther snorted, his tall form scooching passed him towards the stove.
“Hey, what was that, Donkey Kong?” Diego demanded, turning the knife to him.
Luther held his hands up in surrender. “Nothing,” he said unconvincingly.
“Enough, you too,” Ben scolded, poking his head into the kitchen before returning to the cashier.
They grunted, sending one last glare at each other for good measure and turned to their own tasks. Diego checked your order again and got to work. Vanya had recipes written out neatly and organized, but Diego would skim through it and add his own style to them. The additions weren’t bad or made the food inedible, so the others left him to it. Not like he’d listen anyways.
When your order was ready, he plated it and rang the bell, clearing up his station. Klaus grabbed it from the window and waltzed over to your table. You were already given your drink and you were happily sipping on it as you read.
“Bon appetit,” Klaus said with a dramatic bow.
You laughed. “Thank you.”
You cut a piece of the pastry off and took a bite. It was a perfect balance of sweetness topped with your favorite flavor. You took another bite, and another, trying to have yourself to take a break by sipping your drink in between. It was the best version of your favorite pastry that you had ever eaten. You were definitely going to come back again.
-
“Morning, (Y/n)!” Allison greeted you as you entered.
Her and Vanya were setting up a small stage for a special summer open mic night. Given that there would be more students over at night, Allison decided to make an event calendar to make most of the school break.
“You guys need any help?” you asked, putting your bag down on your usual table.
“You don’t even work here, sit down.”
Vanya dusted off her clothes and grabbed her apron from the nearby table. “I can get started on your order. The ones from earlier this morning were gone fast,” she said.
“You don’t have to. Take your time,” you assured her.
“It’s really no problem.”
You sighed. “Thank you. Oh, and, um, I’ve noticed that sometimes it tastes different. I just assumed that you were the one in charge of the pastries.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I have Diego help me when I’m swamped or busy.”
With that, Vanya disappeared into the kitchen. Allison straightened up from the stage, looking around for her other siblings before approaching your table. You smiled, wondering if there was something she wanted.
Allison cleared her throat and gracefully slid into the chair next to you. She didn’t have to say anything for you to know what she wanted to say. You raised an eyebrow at her and she mirrored your expression, adding a tilt of her head.
“Drop it, Allison.”
“Okay, okay. Anyways, I’ve got the events for the rest of the month planned out.”
Allison pulled out a printed calendar and proceeded to explain each even and asked for any feedback you can give on each one. With each suggestion you gave, she noted it down in the margins of the calendar.
Diego bursted through the back exit, having taken out the garbage and broken down boxes. He passed by Luther, who gave an exaggerated disgusted noise at the faint lingering smell of trash. Diego opened his mouth to retort when Vanya stepped over.
“Hey, I’m thinking of starting up with the new pastries Five and Allison wanted us to try out, can you help with (Y/n)’s order again?” Vanya asked.
“(Y/n)... (Y/n) here?” Diego asked, his voice sounding softer than normal. He caught himself, clearing his throat. “I mean, sure. I am the cool brother after all.”
“Thanks.”
As Diego walked towards his station, Vanya and Luther exchanged a wink. For the past few months that you had regularly visited the cafe, the siblings had noticed something brewing between you and Diego. After Allison had passed formalities with you, she had introduced you to the rest of her siblings. When you reached Diego, the two of you were frozen speechless until Allison nudged Diego. He gave a short greeting, extending a hand out to you, which you embarrassingly remember you shook way too long than normal.
Ever since then, the siblings have been conspiring to get the two of you together. Even Five, who hoped that the two of you dating would mean that Diego would be less of a mess and actually do work when you were around, had contributed to the planning and working out ways for it to go smoothly. The others were impressed with his whiteboard explanation so it was easier for them to follow his train of thought.
When the pastry was finished and plated, Diego placed it at the window and rang the bell. After cleaning up, he saw that no one had come to grab it. He stuck his head through and didn’t see any signs of Ben or Klaus.
“Where the hell are they?” Diego asked, turning to Luther.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe Five needed them in the office,” he said indifferently.
Diego frowned. “What good is Klaus in any office?”
“I don’t know, Diego, serve it yourself. Geez.”
Frustrated, Diego grabbed the plate and walked out of the kitchen, set on serving it and leaving quickly before you noticed. It seemed easier to do in his head. Yet, as he approached your table, his hands began to turn clammy as his heart raced.
Allison had left to meet up with sponsors a few minutes ago, so you had gone to Ben’s bookshelf and picked up a new one to read. Halfway through, you heard a clatter on the table, followed by a hushed curse. You looked up to see Diego who had delivered your pastry this time. It was rare to see him. After officially meeting him, you would only see him in passing or catch glimpses of him in the kitchen or cleaning.
“Thank you,” you said with a smile.
He smiled back. Opening and closing his mouth, willing himself to say something simple back. “Y-y-you’re w-w-welcome,” he said.
“Oh!” A thought had just occurred to you. “Vanya said that you sometimes make the pastries for me and I just want to say that I really like the way you make them. They’re really good, thank you.”
Diego nodded, his cheeks heating up as he quickly turned to leave. Suddenly, Ben came out and flipped the sign to “On Break, Be Back In 15 Minutes” before beelining for the kitchen, the door locked behind him and the curtain at the window being drawn closed as soon as he entered.
“Um…” Diego narrowed his eyes, suspicious of what his siblings were planning.
“Now that you’re on break, um,” you said awkwardly, “You wanna sit with me? If you want to, you don’t have to. We can talk, if you want. I think I haven’t spoken to you at all compared to your siblings. This is only if you want to, I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to-”
“Okay,” he said, smiling.
The siblings peeked out from their respective hiding places, seeing Diego sitting and talking to you, and exchanged hi-fives and owing up to their respective bets of Diego being able to have a conversation with you.
#WritersMonth2020#diego hargreeves x reader#diego hargreeves#The Umbrella Academy#tua#the umbrella academy imagine#oneshot#COFFEE SHOP AU#The siblings being a goddamn family!
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Diego: Cha-Cha is literally gonna kill me Allison: i DoNt WaNnA uSe mY pOwEr iM oN a bReAk No hate to Allison but the writers should’ve thought a little more smarter. Allison could’ve rumored Cha-Cha to kill herself and Klaus never would’ve been taken and suffered through the trauma of Vietnam and Dave’s death. I know she doesn’t wanna use it bc she used it for fame but if her siblings were in danger she would use it to save them
O K A Y so anon, I was gonna hold my tongue. I have been for some time. But holy shit these writers sometimes do some characters so fucking dirty and now I'm going to talk about it. From one writer to the other, sometimes, I wanna tackle these bitches. Tackle them with love, yes, but also with a desperation to fix their fucking plots/subplots.
Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate what they have done. Writing an entire TV show for millions in X amount of weeks is tough. The industry is fucking brutal, and they will rip you apart regardless. On top of that, they need to work around specific logistics: shooting and budgeting requirements, sets and locations, physical capability of doing things, checking the fluidity of the lines, etc. It's tough. But, if I were them, I'd change my tactics for their plotting.
It's hard to write at least seven individual subplots. Because let's think about it: they need entire story arcs from start to a relative finish within ten episodes, but within a specific amount of time. They have the seven siblings' plots, then the overarching apocalypse plot, then antagonists plots and their individual stories, such as the Handler, or Hazel. That, right now, is up to nine subplots and one overarching plot.
That's fucking insane. And incredibly impressive that they made it as cohesive as they did...
Impressive but, sadly, messy.
And that's all because they just have too much shit happening at once, too many characters that are important, and just not enough time. It's because of that, but also the time crunch to write a season in only, say, eight weeks. So then the characters do dumb shit to advance the plot, and are randomly developed in sporadic bursts.
For example, notice how Five always seems to be hung up doing something while chaos is happening? They need to toss him to the side because he could easily fix the plot, and the writers can't think of something good enough to get him out of the way that isn't yet another subplot, and isn't permanent.
So, instead, the Handler draws him into a hotel room "to distract him". He returns Dolores to the department store with little reason or buildup. He has random bricks conveniently dropped on him. There are countless moments where his character is done dirty because the writers couldn't think of another way to sidetrack him.
In all honesty, I'm not sure how to fix every awkward plot thingie for Five. They have the episodes locked so tightly that it's hard to wiggle things around. But that's an error in itself: they should leave the plot a little loose to be able to manipulate things should they need to. Nothing should be completely solidified, in my opinion. However, one of the things they could have done was, instead, give him a better subplot. Or tie his subplot to someone else's.
Another example, like you said, is Allison. Allison doesn't use her powers when she very well should, when people are getting hurt around her. For Allison in season two, it can be implied that the reason she isn't acting against the racism around her is because she doesn't want to change history too much. But she doesn't say that. She says, "I don't want to use my powers because it nearly killed me last time."
And that? That's fucking lame.
It would be far more powerful and controversial, in my opinion, if we saw her conflicted, saw her use her powers against the racism around her and saw it drastically change history somehow, saw her realize that she can't do that again because it would ruin the timeline even though she so desperately wants to.
But instead we are given a half-assed, "I haven't used my powers since then. I can't use them. I'm taking a break."
You know? To me, it feels like the writers were a few steps back, still. But maybe that's just me.
I think one of the things the writers should consider is maybe grouping and splitting the characters, dividing them into grouped subplots. So, instead of at least seven individual subplots, they do this for a few episodes:
Subplot Group A1 - Luther, Allison, and Vanya
Subplot Group B1 - Five, Klaus, Diego, and Ben.
Then this for another few:
Subplot Group A2 - Allison, Vanya
Subplot Group B2 - Klaus, Ben, Diego
Subplot Group C - Five and Luther
So, they did do that for the end of season two. Sort of. They had the siblings' seven individual subplots, but then they merged them a bit towards the end. It allowed them to have some wiggle room and be able to advance the overarching plot easier. Season one didn't really have this at all. I know it can be said that they were so distant from one another that they couldn't work together well. But I disagree. Diego, Allison, and Five worked together fantastically in season one. And the funeral scenes were great.
What I, personally, am writing for my season three spec is to have almost no individual sibling scenes. They will constantly be around another main character, constantly interacting with one another, constantly building more tension, more stress, more frustration, ect. And I will have them constantly running into plausible constraints that make it hard to fix the problem easily. Five is being manipulated by Reggie, Klaus is emotionally wrecked around Sparrow!Ben, Diego has been kidnapped and manipulated left and right, unable to find his family.
You know? Real issues with real intention to drag them apart from one another despite constantly being around each other, all emotional, psychological, and mental stakes. Physical stakes seem sloppy (i.e. bricks dropping out of nowhere, dropping off Dolores, going to the Handler for no reason, not rumoring people because it's break time). Emotional stakes allow you to really fuck up the characters and throw the plot wild.
A good example of a strong emotional plot would be with Five and the Board of Directors/Handler scene in Öga för Öga. He is physically busy murdering people and rounding up his siblings, but he is emotionally strained and caught up with what he has to do, with the manipulation from the Handler, from falling into her trap again, from realizing that he only has so much time to save his brothers and sisters. The emotional constraints are far more powerful and far more realistic over a meager, "I wasn't there for the fight because I was dropping off my mannequin wife without any reason whatsoever, really" narrative they gave us. But that's just my opinion...
Okay, I went a bit off the rails, here.
I apologize.
I guess a TL; DR is that I think the writers need to find more creative ways to stop their OP characters from solving their problems too quickly, all while decreasing their amount of subplots because it's a bit much and they could instead focus on their main plot and character relationships.
Sorry for...ranting. I'm passionate and really want to be in that writer's room...
And of course, this is just my opinion. It can totally be argued against if people disagree.
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au where five found out about vanya's powers in the apocalypse? Like maybe he found Reggie's book or he saw the eyes of vanya's corpse?
oh man like. that would be interesting to be sure, if Five managed to find Reginald’s book in the apocalypse
(He doesn’t read it at first, not for a few months after he finds it. He opened to the page that detailed Reginald’s experiments with how long Deigo could hold his breath in clinical unfeeling words and has to put it away while he breathed - not too deeply though, he didn’t want to breathe in more ash than necessary)
But he eventually does. He sits Dolores up and rages and vents to her, cursing Reginald’s name with every new sordid detail, every new terrible sin he now knows to hurl at Reginald’s feet. He reads no great loss under his section and he’s too dehydrated to weep but something breaks inside his chest nevertheless
(He’d never thought that dad loved them, not really. He might have hoped, back when he was little but he knew better now. He was thirteen, old enough to know better. But he’d at least thought that dad found them useful.
Five had tried to hard, trained so much, been so adaptable. Even then he was no great loss.)
Five finds out from Reginald’s book about Ben’s death. Cold words that describe the way his brother died. Reginald seemed to care more about Ben’s death than Five’s presumed death, but that could be becuase Ben’s power was always bigger than Five’s. More violent. More efficient. Of course Ben was a greater loss, Five’s power wasn’t even inherently useful for fighting.
(Klaus’s power wasn’t useful for fighting either. Reading Dad’s dismissive words calling Klaus a failure makes him bristle. Reading about Reginald locking Klaus away in the mausoleum for days make Five want to hurl the book against the wall.)
Finding out about Vanya is - it’s weird. Vanya was always so ordinary. He loved her of course, for fucks sake he was the only one who cared to interact with her half the time. He loves all of his siblings but he has no illusions about how casually cruel they could be to one another.
But he reads about her powers and clenches his fists and wonders what Reginald would have done if Five had stayed, if Five had kept on his path of rebellion. Would Reginald have drugged him, too?
(Reginald had the power to take their powers away. Five wonders what Klaus thought when he found out, if he had cursed and sworn and raged at the man who watched his son suffer and turn to drugs to deal with seeing things no child should ever see. Reginald had the power to help, and he tortured Klaus instead.)
Because - of course Five assumes that they know. He reads Vanya’s books as well when he comes across it, tucking it into his wagon. He wonders when the truth came out, because the rage that drips from those pages is very real. Vanya doesn’t mention her powers in the book of course, but she would have been what, in her 20s when she wrote it?
Vanya said in her book that she left home at 18, which means she’s had years to get the drugs out of her system and discover what their father had taken from her. Did she think that they knew? That they had kept it from her? Is that why the pages of her book drip with bone deep hurt, making Five’s fingers shake with the ache of them
(Or it could be the hunger, a now constant companion)
Five keeps both books close, even though he wants to vandilize Reginald’s book half the time. It’s strange to see the insight on them and their powers from the perspective of a scientist, odd to see the written results of the torture they went though
(He almost rips the page on the effects of electricity on his warping powers out on principle, but he just ends up curled around Dolores as he trembles involuntarily at the memories)
Five has so few belongings when he is recruited to the Commission, or at least has very few personal ones. He leaves Dolores behind in the apocalypse with a heavy heart but she’s too big to take with him. Too big to hide.
(Five always learned to only take what you can hide, because what you can’t hide will always be used against you.)
He tucks Reginald’s notebook in the waistband on his pants, the hard edges against his back a constant almost reassuring pressure. Vanya’s book gets pushed into one of his deep pockets. The glass eye gets shoved into his sock the same way he used to hide scavenged bills and quarters he would then place beneath the floorboards of his room
(He wonders absently if his money stash was ever found, but it doesn’t really matter now does it?)
He goes through the Commission with the knowledge that he has a bomb hidden away. As much as he keeps the notebook around out of a sense of sentiment he knows he doesn’t want it to fall into the hands of the commission, doesn’t want them to have this dissection of his powers on hand
(he has so little of his siblings left, just the bitter words of Reginald and Vanya both - the irony is that no matter how much Vanya extolled being excluded she had constantly been by Reginald’s side to write down observations, listening to his words, by his side more than any of them. sometimes he reads Vanya’s vicious words and hears the echo of their father in them. It makes sense. He still hates it, just a little bit)
He writes his equations into Vanya’s book instead of Reginald’s. He doesn’t like to read the red book, only opens it to look at the photos included so that he won’t forget what his siblings look like, tries to ignore the words that detail exactly how much force it takes to pop Luther’s bones out of his oh-so-durable joints
He solves them one day, or at least comes close. Closer than he ever had before, and he figures why not? Time for another little experiment. Who knows? Maybe he’ll add this one to dad’s book.
He pushes, and pushes, and then he falls and he’s in a courtyard he hasn’t seen in decades staring at people he hasn’t spoken to in just as long. He looks at them all with wide eyes
(He looks at Allison and hears his father’s clipped tone stating how Allison in improving at overriding survival instincts, he looks at Luther and hears Vanya’s childish voice accusing him of caring more about being a hero than anything else in his life, including his family, he looks at Klaus and sees a face covered in ash and blood with unseeing eyes)
He looks down at himself and sees smaller hands with smoother skin, absent of the burn marks from the variety of fires he’d set in the apocalypse, absent of the crooked knuckles from when he’d crushed two fingers in some rubble trying to get to a can of food, absent of the cracked and brittle nails from malnutrition and food issues
“Shit.” He says, with feeling.
He can feels the press of the glass eye against his leg, the solid weight of Vanya’s book in his pocket, the edges of Reginald’s notebook digging into his skin as he hauls himself off the ground and into a standing position.
They have a family meeting in the kitchen.
Sort of. Five flits about, snagging bread and peanut butter and marshmallow fluff from the cupboard to make himself a sandwich, trying to avoid looking too desperately eager. He hasn’t had his favorite food in so long that the anticipation is actually insane.
“What’s the date?” Five asks, and learns that he doesn’t actually have all that long until the end of the world. But hey, it’s doable. Probably. Unless the reason the world ended was like, political nuclear war or something? But there would probably be survivors of that somewhere, so it was more likely something bigger scale.
(It has to be something he can stop, or this was all for nothing. He refuses to believe he doesn’t have a chance.)
“Cool, so like, the world is ending.” Five says, because why the fuck not? He has all his siblings in one room (except Ben, he has failed Ben, will always have failed Ben because he’s a coward who couldn’t return to a time when Reginald Hargreeves was alive) and he has Reginald and Vanya’s words pressed into his brain, “We have eight-ish days to fix that.”
“Five, what the hell are you talking about?” Luther demands.
Five waves his hand, “Dad sucked, I time-travelled, the end is nigh. I figured even you could grasp that.”
(His eyes ghost over Luther, skittering about the room. He can’t look at Luther’s body without remembering the cruel diagrams pain stakingly inked into the book as Reginald grumbled about failed experiments.)
“You went to the future?” Diego says, voice full of doubt that make his voice harsh. It’s so much deeper than when Five left, no more of the cracks of puberty.
“No shit.” Five says, and he’s so tired. “I was in that hellscape for forty-five years.”
“Forty-five years?” Diego squawks, as though he’s personally offended.
“That would make you... fifty-eight?” Luther’s voice also has doubt in it, and Five can’t really blame him looking at his squishy little barely teenage body.
“Dad was right,” Five manages to get out without gritting his teeth, “Time travel is a crapshoot and sometimes your body does fun and wacky things on you, blah blah blah trees and acorns.”
“Prove you’re from the future!” Klaus demands, eyes bright as he leans across the table, “What’re the lotto numbers, baby brother?”
“I think they’re ‘fuck you the world had already ended by the time I ended up stuck there,’ Klaus.” Five says, mock thoughtfully before tearing off a chunk of his sandwich.
It tastes like ash and peanut butter. Only Five’s genuine trauma regarding food waste and the fact that most things tasted like ash in the apocalypse have him still chewing his food and swallowing.
“Rude.” Klaus says, making a ‘blat’ noise in disappointment.
“Dad’s rich as fuck, wasn’t him kicking the bucket essentially like winning the lottery?” Five points out, and this time it is Luther squawking at him in disapproval.
“Don’t talk about Dad like that!” He demands, and Five has some more uncharitable thoughts about the way Luther’s arms flex just a little unnaturally underneath that big trenchcoat.
“I like this version of Five better.” Klaus declares, looking like Christmas has come early.
“Dad was murdered and you guys don’t even care.” Luther spits out, looking very offended.
“You were murdered and I care very much about that.” Five retaliates, and the entire kitchen goes quiet.
“Can you elaborate a little, Five?” Allison says, ever the diplomat.
(That’s a lie. Allison started more fights than Diego, probably. She just got caught way less often.)
“Well. I mean, I dunno if murdered is the right word considering everyone was dead. You might have just been collateral damage, who knows? Does murder imply intent?”
“Everyone was dead?” Vanya says, voice very quiet.
Five shrugs, then nods, then shrugs again. He doesn’t like thinking about it. “Yeah, but that’s not going to happen this time.”
“I don’t have time for this nonsense.” Luther mutters, and Five valiantly tries to ignore him.
“Five, are you - are you sure you’re alright?” Vanya’s voice wobbles and she looks like she wants to reach out and hold him or something ridiculous like that. She looks at him with big sad brown eyes, “Dad did say that time travel could... mess with you a little.”
Allison nods and oh, Five does not have time for this bullshit.
“I have proof.” He says, and he reaches back and pulls out Reginald’s red notebook and slams it onto the table.
“Is that Dad’s - ” Luther cuts himself off, looking at the notebook with wide eyes.
It is very clearly beaten up to hell and back. Ash has stained the edges of the pages grey and there may or may not be a gouge across the front from a near miss with a bullet while working at the commission. It is a book that has clearly been through hell.
Five also dig’s Vanya’s equally beaten up book from his pocket to dump on the table as well, equally stained with ash and barely held together after being read over and over again for decades, including being used as a notebook in the final years.
(Vanya lets out a little gasp, hand flying up to her mouth with the knowledge that at least one of her siblings read her book. Certainly not the one she thought it would be.)
Five reaches into his sock to pull out the glass eye triumphantly, setting it down on his small stack of treasures.
“What the fuck?” Diego is the one to ask.
“If I time travelled from that day in 2002 to right now, how the fuck would I have Vanya’s book?” Five says triumphantly, “It came out in 2015.”
“Why do you have an eye?” Allison sounds slightly horrified.
“It’s the key to figuring out who caused the apocalypse.” Five says, turning it over in his hands, “It’s gotta have something to do with it at least.”
“Why does he have Dad’s notebook?” Luther demands, sounding equally outraged.
“Found it.” Five shrugs, like the little scavenger he is.
(Emphasis on little. His suit still almost fits, and reading the numbers in Reginald’s notebook versus seeing how fucking tall all his siblings got in person is frankly unfair.)
“Oh my god, okay.” Allison says, throwing her hands up in the air like they’re all nuisances. It’s a familiar Allison look, and Five actually feels a little soothed by the memory. “So the world is ending, Five is back from the dead, and our only clue is a goddamn eye?”
“I was never dead.” Five points out, “But basically, yeah.”
“I don’t have time for this, I have to get back to my daughter.” Allison says, shaking her head.
“I mean if you want Claire to live I would think stopping the apocalypse would kind of be a priority.”
This draw Allison to a halt from where she’d been gathering herself to leave, “You... know her name?”
Five makes the executive decision to not mention the torn out magazine cover featuring his sister and niece that is pressed between some of the pages in Reginald’s journal. “I’d like to meet her one day.”
Just like that, Allison has been won over.
“Do you think it has something to do with whoever murdered Dad?” Luther asks seriously, even if the question makes Diego groan like this is an argument they have had before.
“Who knows?” Five shrugs, “But if we’re splitting into investigation teams, I call Vanya.”
Vanya startles from where she has been sitting quietly, “Me?” She asks, eyes wide.
“Yeah.” Five nods, “I mean, with Ben gone you’re probably the team’s heaviest hitter.”
“What?” Several voices ring out in confusion.
Five blinks, a little confused himself. Unless - “Wait, did you never train your powers?”
“Five,” Vanya says slowly, like she’s explaining a simple concept to a particularly dim child, “I don’t have powers.”
This was - this was unexpected. Why did he not think of this explanation? It’s just - he has now known about Vanya’s powers for like way longer than he hasn’t. It’s almost second nature to think of Vanya as having powers by now. And she doesn’t know.
“Oh boy.” He says, picking up Reginald’s notebook, “This debriefing may take a bit longer than I first thought. Oh, and at some point we should probably cut the tracker out of my arm as well.”
“The what out of your what?”
Yeah the day doesn’t really get much better from there.
#the red book au#five finds reggie's journal in the apocalypse#and so he is very familiar with his sister's powers!! isn't that fun#he's also like 50% more spiteful because actually Fuck Reginald Hargreeves#he is the president of the Dad Sucks Club#because he has the notebook he's been essentially planning his apocalypse game plan for years#with the power of strategy and knowing his siblings powers inside out#or at least to the extent reggie understood them#so he's much more MISSION REPORT when he gets to 2019#time to debrief the squad on what the fuck is up#five lets the cat out of the bag so early lmao#fuck u leonard#five: haha yeah i want vanya on my team so i can see her sick ass powers in action#the family: her WHAT#five: *surprised pikachu face*#five has spent so long in the apocalypse with dolores who knows what he is thinking#that he struggles with the concept that people don't know what he knows sometimes#me pointing at vanya's book and reginald's notebook: there are both traumatizing to read#Anonymous#long post#far tua long
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(Ok this was supposed to be like, a couple of paragraphs but it turned into a freaking essay, so it’s under the cut haha)
On Klaus, Luther and addiction
So this is something I personally find to have a lot of great thematic potential for these two characters. The idea of Luther falling into the same trap that Klaus has for both similar and different reasons and Klaus dealing with Luther’s addictions while facing his own is such a great thru line for both of them. The show’s set them up with the building blocks for this plot point and it would be so easy for it to come into play this season, especially this season actually.
Luther’s build up to addiction is subtle but I think they’ve planted the seeds enough to make it into something. Him falling apart in The Day That Was and his first reaction is to turn to alcohol and drugs is pretty significant considering it’s obvious that he’s probably been very ‘straight edge’ his whole life, probably never having even drank before then. And he tells Klaus straight out that he wishes he was like him, that he didn’t care and that he could just ignore all his own feelings like he thinks Klaus does. (I’ll get into how the family deals with Klaus’s addiction in a minute.) He goes out and does things under the influence he would never have done while sober, things that end up being self destructive (ie having sex that he seemed to really not want). But even then he’s gotten the idea that if he’s drinking/on something then he’s not thinking about all his shitty feelings.
Season two really sets it up because it’s not just one event but several. In the first ep at the bar he has a drink very casually, like he’s been doing it for years and not just because his life fell apart in the past how many months. The flask when he goes to Vanya’s is really telling firstly because he has a flask on him at all times at this point, that he uses it to get his courage up to go in the barn, and that he does it even when he’s driving. But it’s the nitrous scene that really cements it for me, again simply because he went from being basically a teetotaler to jumping at the first offer of heavy drugs. And he says he should’ve done this a long time ago. If I may get a little personal I know how easy it is to fall into this, the idea of ‘hey alcohol (or drugs) makes me feel better or at least I don’t think/care as much so why wouldn’t I do it?’. It’s such an easy slope to fall down and on the surface Luther has plenty of reasons to want to.
Now, Klaus: there’s plenty already been said about Klaus’s relationship with drugs and alcohol so I won’t get too wordy. Klaus is defined to us right away as a junkie and addict. Someone who uses substances to avoid dealing specifically with his powers and also his shitty upbringing. He plays very fast and loose with his own sobriety and even his mortality. Basically: he uses drugs to avoid thinking or feeling bad, or at least worse but he’s far, far past the point of entry into full blown dependence.
The scene between him and Luther in season 1 is a personal favorite just because it manages to deal with and establish a number of thematic ideas and the potential for how Luther and Klaus’s relationship can go from there. Luther, like the rest of the family, doesn’t understand Klaus’s addiction partially because they’ve all been estranged for 13 years and partially because Klaus doesn’t take it seriously and puts forth a very flippant persona, hell he doesn’t take anything that seriously. The world’s ending, they don’t have the time or inclination to humor Klaus’s story of chocolate pudding. Luther clearly misunderstands his addiction because yes, Klaus comes across as kind of happy and okay with himself but that’s because of the drugs. To Luther who’s been locked up with their asshole of a father Klaus seems to actually have a life of his own.
But Klaus doesn’t try too hard to walk that opinion back and here’s something I find important that tends to get left out when people point out that the family doesn’t take Klaus’s problems seriously: Klaus doesn’t talk about it or try and deal with it. Klaus really really doesn’t like dealing with things if he thinks he can avoid them. His powers, his childhood, Reginald, Ben, his cult – if he can run away from it or make a joke about it instead that’s what he’ll do. The one thing he ever really shows much initiative with is Dave. He’s self centered and I mean that in the most basic way – everything comes down to what he wants to do and he actually keeps his feelings close to the vest for the most part. Basically he doesn’t want to give the others an ‘in’ point to really address it (bonus they all heaps of problems of their own). And when he does get into it just the barest amount with Luther Luther’s high as fuck.
(Just to touch on Ben he kind of doesn’t count because firstly he can’t talk to anyone else and secondly he and Klaus have such a strained relationship especially regarding Klaus’s drug use that even if anyone else could hear him he probably wouldn’t be that supportive.)
So, actually getting into the whole season 3 thing: the siblings are about to face off with a whole lot of daddy and family issues in this time line and everyone’s got huge potential for emotional and mental shakedowns, but I think Luther’s gonna have the worst time of it. Don’t think I’m going to get into that BS of comparing traumas and saying anyone’s more ‘worthy’ of sympathy than any of the others, I’m saying specifically because it’s to do with Reginald not only rejecting him yet again and outright replacing him but that it’s not even ‘his’ Reginald so does that mean all the shit he put Luther through doesn’t count? I just see it as catalyst for a real breakdown for him.
Not to say this won’t mess with Klaus but Klaus hated Reginald long ago and has accepted that the guy was a douchebag and had no real love for his children, so personally I see his drug use as dealing with Reggie’s abuse but more so to deal with his powers. So yes, this’ll absolutely fuck with him but Luther’s the primo target here.
So what if we see Luther leaning even harder into drinking or even heavier things? Now he really has an excuse to because where’s he supposed to go from here? What’s he meant to do? He’s not the leader anymore, his family doesn’t always treat his trauma seriously (Klaus parallels there) nevermind he doesn’t even like to address it himself, he has no idea who he’s supposed to be and the one person who he thought actually cared about him not only doesn’t but never did and now he’ll never get back what he saw as his purpose in life. The whole Ben being alive thing is just icing on the cake. If he spirals in s3 it would make perfect sense because of all this and all the set up for it.
Klaus spiraled too at the end of s2 again becoming the fatalistic junkie he used to be, he’s gonna run from his problems again but it’s not just his powers this time. So he’s off the wagon but what if he notices Luther is too?
I can definitely see Luther trying to hide it from the others. He’s already given away too much of his weaknesses, he doesn’t want them to see their ‘leader’ continue to fall and I don’t think he’d want them to know he’s still that affected by Reginald. They want him to have dealt with it, like he seems to have at least a little in s2, if he’s completely fallen apart because of his dad again then that just makes him look pathetic. So he keeps his flask and finds excuses to get away with stumbling or slurring his words. But Klaus notices, because Klaus knows the signs.
In that scene in s1 Klaus very obviously doesn’t like seeing Luther like that or using drugs as an escape like he does. He’s self aware enough to know that this isn’t any way to live but is too pessimistic when it comes to himself. But, again, he tends to be pretty self centered. This is not a bad thing, this is a great character trait and it makes Klaus interesting. He does not know how to relate to his siblings on the whole, doesn’t know how to talk about his own traumas and addictions, so when he does hear them out it’s usually because he had was focusing on his own shit first. For instance: when he has the heart to heart with Allison in her kitchen he’s only there in the first place because he was falling apart because of Dave.
Luther having a problem will have to be something Klaus purposefully chooses to deal with because he’s worried about one of this siblings. And for obvious reasons Klaus is the perfect one to help him with it. He doesn’t want to see Luther like that but he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on if he wants him to stop. Hell, if Klaus won’t stop why should Luther? Klaus can’t use ‘do what I say not as I do’, partially because Luther has proven to have some self destructive/self harming tendencies and again, if it makes him feel okay or at least steady then why would he stop?
But Klaus stopping means that he’s going to have to confront his quite literal demons when it comes to his powers (I could go off on how much I don’t love that he was somehow sober for 3 years in the 60’s no problem but it didn’t seem to affect his powers at all but that’s another post). The number one thing he’s been running from his whole life, something the show hasn’t actually done a whole lot with. We knows he hates it, we knows he’s tortured by it, but we’ve seen no evidence that he’s ever really confronted it. He was traumatized by Reggie who did everything wrong so he went the opposite route.
But what if he has to stay sober for Luther’s sake? Even if he doesn’t want to help, even if he just enables it or joins him at first eventually he’d have to come the realization that he doesn’t like this, that he wouldn’t wish this kind of problem on someone he cares about. So he’s going to have to turn inward, he’s going to have to face up to both his addiction and his powers, maybe even finally try to tame and use his powers. And at some point he’d have to talk to Luther about it and stop hiding behind his glib façade.
So in the end we’d get to see Luther falling apart trying to deal with everything that he still very much needs to deal with and his subconscious tendency for self destruction, Klaus confronting his addictions, his own feelings and relationship to his siblings, and his powers and hell, maybe then we’ll actually get him using his powers to his/the group’s benefit.
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A Forgotten Birthday
Fandom: The Umbrella Academy
Pairing: Number Five x reader
Summary: After saving the world from the apocalypse, Five struggles with living a simple life causing a strain on his relationship.
Word Count: 2009
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5...4...3...2..1! Happy Birthday to me.
Sunlight shone throughout my room, and a gentle breeze drifted through the open windows. Looking over at the clock which now read 6.00am, I allowed a smile to grace over my lips. I had been restless all night and had been sat up worrying about Five like usual. I hoped today would be different, giving both of us one day to take a break from his obsessive apocalyptic nature.
Rolling over on my side, I was shocked to find the other side of the bed empty and Five's early morning 'signature' coffee missing. Letting out a frustrated sigh, I peeled back the duvet and groggily trudged over to the bathroom. After gently splashing some cold water over my face and brushing my teeth, I tossed my crazy-ass hair into a messy bun like a boss, and began the trek to the kitchen.
Expecting to be greeted with breakfast and a fresh cup of coffee, I found non other than a half-naked Klaus passed out on the table, and Five no where in sight. For fucks sake. I rolled my eyes and began making Klaus some breakfast as he'll need some hangover food to soak up all the alcohol. I decided to just throw in some toast and pour a glass of orange juice, as Klaus began waking up and mumbling something about his ass and chocolate pudding?
"Morning sunshine." I said with an amused smile on my face, whilst Klaus began to groan and pulled himself up into a sitting position.
"What rude bitch opened the blinds this morning?" He said after accepting a glass of orange juice I handed him.
"That would have been you, and your amazing Picasso skills last night I'm guessing."
Klaus looked up at the blinds to see that someone had cut them up to make some clothes, since there was underwear shaped holes missing.
"I was wondering what I was wearing, it's definitely not yours or Allison's."
"I think the yellow 'blind' underwear, really complements your eyes." I laughed winking at him, as I took the toast out and began buttering it.
"Danke."
"So what year is it again?" Klaus mumbled as he began munching on the toast I put in front of him.
"You mean the date Klaus?."
"Yeah that."
"It's __________ (insert birthday🥳)."
"Holy shit!" Klaus shot up, knocking his chair over and throwing the toast to the ground. Then sassily marched over to me, where he pulled me into a giant bone crushing hug. Jesus how does he wake up so fast?
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU SEXY MIDGET."
"I'M ONLY 4"10, FIGHT ME BITCH."
"ALSO BEN SAYS HAPPY BIRTHDAY."
"TELL HIM I LOVE HIM."
*Meanwhile Ben just rolls his eyes*
"There is way too much Klaus and Y/N in here, this early in the morning." Diego huffed as he began filling up the kettle, not even bothering to comment on Klaus's attire.
"Good morning to you too Antonio Banderas." Klaus laughed and high-fived me.
"Besides it's only 7.00am." I smiled.
"Whatever."
"Oooo whose got your panties in a twist?."
"Anyway, Happy Birthday Y/N." Diego huffed.
"Awww you remembered, I knew you loved me really." I said forcing Diego into a hug which he eventually gave into. Suddenly another pair of arms wrapped around us. Diego became alarmed and shouted "What is wrong with you?!"
Klaus innocently smiled "I just wanted to be part of the moment."
"What's wrong with who?" Trust monkey boy to enter at this moment.
"I'll take this as my leave." Diego shrugged Klaus's arms off him, then subtly tilted his head at me, towards a card he placed by the microwave. Before marching off, after I gave him a beaming smile and a wave.
"Happy Birthday kid."
"Thanks Luther but you know I'm 28 years older than you."
"And your even more immature than Klaus, and trust me that's saying something."
"Rude. Hey don't agree with him Ben, you're supposed to be on my side." Klaus began to have a one-sided argument with 'Ben.' While I took this as a chance to slip out the kitchen and get ready.
*2 hours later*
Yes I'm high maintenance, and looking this gorgeous takes a while.
I finally finished my outfit my adding my new moon necklace, which was a birthday present from Luther (that was probably picked by Allison).
I sprayed some perfume and let my h/c hair fall down. Mission was ago. Find Five. Get drunk. Party. Have an awesome birthday. Go back a few steps and whoop Five's ass for no breakfast in bed. Perfect.
I looked through the entire house, where there was no trace of him so decided to head over to Griddy's Doughnuts. As I opened the front door, I walked into Allison and Vanya who immediately wished me a Happy Birthday and began planning a girls night out. Just what I need after putting up with all this shit, Five keeps throwing at me.
*Flashback* - Warning Mild Smut ⚠️
I was lounging across Five's bed pretending to read this boring romance novel, whilst Five was consistently writing long, complicated equations all over his wall. I wasn't expecting this is what he meant when he invited me over to spend sometime together. My patience was wearing thin, as I tried to tell myself that he was just not used to having a life outside of the apocalypse. But I went through it with him, so if I can learn to adapt, he should to.
Sneakily looking over at him, I came up with a plan to draw his attention away. Gently placing the book on the bed, I slowly walked towards him and placed my arms around his neck. It was no shocker that he immediately tensed up and his brows began to frown deeper.
"What do you want Y/N?"
"Not much." I whispered in his ear, as I ghosted my lips over his neck. "Just a little bit of attention."
Five sighed and tried to focus on the equation he was working on, which had now proven difficult as I began to pepper kisses along his jaw.
"Come on, enough."
I ignored him and began to drag my soft kisses down his neck, sucking a little harder until I found his sweet spot. Got you.
"Y/N...." He drifted off, as the pen dropped from his hands.
"Hmm?" I smirked and began grasping at his dark hair.
He finally turned around and smashed our lips together sloppily, as our tongues began fighting for dominance. He obviously won. His hands began to gently slide up the bottom of my top, just resting above my hips as he began to draw circles on my skin. Suddenly blue sparks surrounded us as I found ourselves teleported onto his desk.
He shoved all of his work out the way and began making out with me again. I gradually lifted my arms up, as he began to pull my top off...
"Y/N?"
"Y/N?"
"Y/N?!!"
My eyes fluttered dreamily as I looked over at Five who was frowning at me.
"For gods sake, did you fall asleep?! I wanted some help with these equations as you're the only non-idiotic person I know. Ugh forget it, of course it doesn't matter if there's another apocalypse." He whined sarcastically, and turned back around, continuing his work.
Five's writing came to a stop and as I launched my book at the walk near his head.
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" He shouted, finally exploding with frustration.
"You're an ass." I mumbled. He rolled his eyes and teleported away, probably before he did or said something he'd regret.
I preferred dream Five.
*Flashback over*
Arriving at Griddy's, I locked the car and walked over to the entrance and went inside. Surprise, surprise my 'affectionate' boyfriend was sat with a mug of coffee writing equations on napkins.
"Well, well, well good afternoon handsome." Five looked up irritated and forced a smile.
"What is it?" Was he joking?
"I thought we were going to spend the day together, you said you had something planned last week."
"We'll have to reschedule or something."
"Hahaha very funny grumpy-ass." He didn't look very amused, as he sighed and took a long sip of coffee.
"Can we talk later, I'm kind of in the middle of something?"
Alarms were going off. He had forgotten. Maybe he needed a little more convincing and a few hints.
"Well today is kind of a special day." He looked blankly at me before he gave me a genuine smile.
"Is it national coffee day? Thanks for reminding me gorgeous." He smirked and winked. Was he for fucking real?
"Maybe you should get some cake with that coffee."
"The sweetness ruins the bitter taste I like." You bitter old bugger.
"Isn't there something you're forgetting Five? Some sort of special day, for a special girl."
"Shit. You're right. Meet me at the house in 20 mins." With that he teleported away. Well my work here is done. I'm expecting a decent last minute party though.
After wasting 30 mins shopping, I decided to head back and see what Five had done. As I entered the house it was really quiet, until I reached the living room....
Where Five sat lounging on a sofa drinking margaritas with Dolores.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!!"
"Well when you say about a special day for a special lady, I remembered-d that it's been some years years since we found the lovely-y Dolores." He smirked cheekily at me and offered me a glass.
"Are you drunk?"
"No...."
"......."
"Maybe..."
"......"
"Yes..."
Just at the wrong time everyone came rushing in with party poppers, and balloons shouting 'SURPRISE.' I looked down to the floor with angry tears burning down my cheeks, I couldn't believe him. Everyone could sense the tension in the room, except for Five who still looked completely clueless.
"What's goin-n on? He slurred.
"Check the calendar..." I whispered.
I couldn't stand everyone looking at me with such pity so I went straight to our room, crying myself to sleep early.
*A few hours later*
I woke up to knocking at the door.
"Go away."
Hearing the familiar sound of Five's special jump I buried my face into my pillow.
"Can we talk...?"
"...."
"Please... Y/N."
"...."
"Can we just..."
"WHAT?!" I hissed, ripping the duvet off me to glare at him.
He straight away noticed my red, blotchy face, and long tear lines causing my mascara to run down my face.
"I'm sorry..." With that Five burst into tears. I'd only ever seem him cry twice so I wasn't sure what to do.
"I'm sorry-y... I've j-just been trying-g to be ready f-for something bad to happen-n again, as I know the c-commission wants order-r. We've both been-n to hell and b-back, and I can't imagine-e loosing you. I j-just wanted to keep-p you safe, but I've b-been so wrapped up in d-doing all these possible equations-s, that I've p-pushed you away.... Then I've been-n so preoccupied that I forgot-t your b-birthday..."
"Oh Five." I wrapped my arms around him as he began to sob into my chest. I whispered soothing words as I gently rubbed his back.
"You'll never loose me, and I'm not upset about my birthday that much. I honestly just miss spending time with you, and can't believe you prioritised coffee and a manikin over me you ass!" At this Five chuckled and began to calm down.
"You know I don't say it enough... but I love you Y/N."
"I love you too Five."
"Did you want to have that amazing party you've been telling me about?"
"Actually can we just spend the rest of today cuddling and watch a move?"
"Anything you want love."
"You were totally jealous of Dolores."
"Shut up Five."
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Hope you enjoyed it, let me know what you think 💖☂️
#number five#tua#writers on tumblr#the umbrella academy#netflix series#five hargreeves#vanya hargreeves#luther hargreeves#allison hargreeves#ben hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#five x reader#number five x you#number five x reader
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There’s this sheet of ice right? Hundreds and hundreds of meters thick, strong and sturdy and stretching for miles. And then one day, humans appeared on the ice, building cities and roads. They conquered and explored and evolved, creating new things, new ideas, always, always searching, until one day, they nodded, satisfied, because they had finally explored every square inch of their world.
“weren’t you scared?” The children ask them, eyes wide “of demons?” and the adults will tell them, bright and brave and bold that they scanned and double and triple checked, and that there were no demons or monsters, there never had been “they’re just stories” they soothe their young ones, before ushering them off to bed
They all share stories and laugh at how naive they had been back then, believing in things like monsters and demons and devils when the only thing they had to fear on their travels were wild animals, mother nature and their fellow man
The ice is thick, so thick you can’t see to the other side, can’t see the water underneath. Can’t see the creatures that swim beneath it. Nobody knows how deep it is. It doesn’t even occur to anybody that there may be something beneath the ice, waiting
Ben tells this story sometimes, when his siblings or a reporter ask him about the Horror. Above the ice he explains, is their world, earth and everything in it, and below the ice is it’s world.
They never really get it, but he never really expects them to
Here’s the thing you have to understand about the Horror: it’s not just tentacles that come out of Ben’s stomach, it had it’s own body and it is huge. If it were to try and force it’s way out of Ben’s stomach, he would be ripped in half
(in another universe, a funeral is held)
In this universe, Ben is brought up to believe that the Horror is bad, is evil is wrong but it wasn’t always this way
When he was a kid, the Horror was his Belly Friend- someone who would tickle him and he would stroke it and feed it scraps. It was kind of like having your own personal best friend inside of you
His father, sensing his son was having Positive Thoughts, decided to devote the rest of his life to Stopping That
Ben & the Horror are symbiotic- they’re supposed to work together and care for each other. But that’s not what happened
The two are connected to each other, always and forever. They can feel eachothers emotions and even, when they were younger, thoughts
The Horror cannot speak, at least not human, but that’s okay because Ben understood him anyways.
(little number six grows up learning languages no human should speak, words that could rupture organs and tear through flesh)
(it makes his father nervous so he puts a stop to it)
They can only communicate to eachother when they want to, and overtime, Ben starts tuning it out, shutting it out
Luther wants to impress his father, Allison wants to be famous, Diego wants to be free, Klaus wants his powers gone, Five wants to know, Vanya wants acknowledgement outside of her powers
Ben? Ben just wants to be good
He reads books on heroes and villians and takes their ideas and black and white thinking and places it in his world-the real world
He tries to do what the pure, idealistic heroes do- he makes himself available to every member of the household, he puts them first, always. He never, ever ever tries to get angry
Someone suggests that whenever he gets mad, it’s not him it’s the Horror, and he leaps at that idea, because he can’t be angry, Good People are supposed to forgive, to let go
(Klaus and Five and Vanya always look sad when he says that. Well, Five looks constipated but close enough)
Whenever he feels hurt or angry or too agitated he just locks those emotions away and shoves them at the Horror to deal with
And as he’s shut out more and more by his family, he tries to compartmentalise all his hurt feelings, by repressing them, by blaming the Horror
Remember when Klaus resurected Ben and he was able to summon the Horror? Yeah there’s a reason for that. It isn’t part of Ben’s body. It’s part of Ben’s soul. It is Ben. They’re two halves of one whole
And here’s what dear ol’ dad never quite figures out; The Horror gets more unstable the more unstable Ben is yes, but the two are supposed to be one. It’s not just Ben’s feelings towards everyone else that makes it so shaky, it’s Ben’s feelings towards it. Because, like it or not, the Horror is a part of Ben. They are two creatures sharing one body. One soul. They are supposed to be co-existing peacefully, but Ben’s self-hatred is messing things up
So, yeah, Five comes back with a warning about the apocalypse. Ben, worried for the whole fate of humanity thing, forgets to take his pills (i haven’t decided if Harolds in it, but i am planning to make ben a famous author working under a penname so maybe they could meet through that? i dunno)
Five is worried about Ben. His last memories of his family, the first three had been distant, yes, but not like this. And Klaus and Vanya were acting like it as well.
(Luther may or may not think Ben killed dad in this)
But that worry pales in comparison to Ben himself. He doesn’t. . . seem right. He’s too blank, too expressionless too calm about certain things
(his ben had been shy and anxious and snarky and sarcastic . . what happened?)
Hell, maybe Ben didn’t actually forget to take his medication? Maybe Five figured out his dad was dulling his baby brothers emotions and took the bottle away, not knowing it was stopping his powers
You bet your ass that Klaus was pissed when he found out about the pills though, and that Ben kept it from him
That’s actually a big thing here- the others find out Ben had been taking pills to supress powers for years and kept it from them. Klaus and Allison are pissed, because they would have wanted them at some point
And even though they don’t really know it, they have been conditioned to blame Ben for their troubles for their problems. Allison probably thinks that if she had the medication she never would have rumoured Claire, and the divorce never would have happened. Klaus is obvious. The others are all hurt that he has lied to them for years now
The problem with having everyone you know dehumanising someone, is that you start to believe that that person isn’t actually a human being. It happens in families that don’t have kids with actual eldritch abominations living in their stomach, you can bet it happens here
Sometimes, they all lie awake and remember that none of them are natural, and when you know that is it such a weird thought to have that maybe one of your brothers is maybe less natural than the others
(after a while, even ben starts to believe it)
Five tries to break it up because jesus what is wrong with you people
And Ben has been off his medication for his while at this point- not too long, a handful of hours but the Horror has been caged for years now, and it wakes up and it roars
Ben has to leave the house before he does something rash and Five reads his siblings the riot act before heading out on his own once more to try and fix the mess that is the future, leaving Ben alone again
But the anger is growing now, bouncing between the two halves, like a feedback loop, growing stronger each time. Ben breaks down in tears as the Horror howls under his skin, because the man that did this to them is dead, and they can never get revenge for all the shit he put them through
Except . . he’s not the only one who hurt him. He thinks of his siblings, shutting him out and mocking him and hating him. Revenge? The Horror thinks, the first time since they were six in age and not just name that he has been able to hear their voice
Ben should say no, should explain that they are supposed to be good and that he loves them except . .
He is so, so tired of trying to be good. So tired of this runaround, of trying to please his siblings, of being pushed around for no reason other than their dad told them to
He can taste his own rage, finally after all these years, bottled up from years of abuse and neglect, exploding outwards in a violent explosion
Ben and Horror are two halves, but they’ve never really come together, been whole before. But now . .
The two become one. They are not Ben. They are not Horror.
They are hungry and sad and hurt and scared and angry
So very, very angry
There we go! I always liked the idea of Ben and the Horror, in a desperate act, fusing and becoming one creature. I have no idea what Horror!Ben would look like btw. He wouldn’t look human at least- I like to imagine the Horror is roughly the size of a skyscraper and looks like a cross between a squid and snake and cthulhu. They’re still the same size as Ben, obviously, but they look sort of demonic. Probably have scales and stuff
#Cthulhu au#umbrella academy#the umbrella academy#umbrella academy au#umbrella academy allison#umbrella academy vanya#luther hargreeves#diego hargreeves#klaus hargreeves#number five#ben hargreeves#reginald hargreeves#the horror
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The Rewatch Academy: Episode 6 of Season 1
“The Day That Wasn’t”
I am in no way a good analyst so my little analysis and speculations probably sound a bit goofy or pretty wild and probably mean nothing at all. Everything I put into this post about each episode is purely what I noticed or thought, whether it’s funny or serious. I will be making jokes, so please just leave it at that (in no way am I trying to make fun of an actor and or character!) I am also in no way saying I noticed this stuff first. This is just what I noticed while rewatching these episodes
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| 1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 | 1x04 | 1x05 |
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☂ Klaus is lucky that he never got the briefcase shot up
☂ *Hears Klaus flush the toilet and talk* Luther: Oh good, you’re up
☂ Also Luther gave Klaus about two seconds to get up before hounding him again on getting downstairs
☂ Sounds like Tom’s accent slipped a little bit when he said “three days”
☂ Yeah they needed to have a family meeting right away and yet they took the time to go get coffee or at least order it and have it delivered
☂ “Old bastard” and “Our little psycho”
☂ I still don’t get at this point how they wouldn’t believe Five. Look at him, he himself is evidence of his time traveling! He was gone for 45 years, but to them it was only 17. Either way they try to grasp at that, Five would look older if he made it back without messing up. He knew about their father’s death without anyone telling him. I really think all the mistrust comes from the way he looks and the way he acts (they obviously believe he’s just crazy right now)
☂ “What did Five even see?”
☂ Also throw back to 1x02 and I didn’t realized this until now but Five doesn’t have his tie
☂ I know it’s for the title card gag but no one questions the random umbrella falling and popping open
☂ I aspire to be as sarcastic as Hazel
☂ So where exactly is The Commission HQ at? Is it a random location in the real world? If so then wouldn’t normal people happen to stumble upon it? What about their location in space in the comics? Is this in space?? All we know is that it’s in/based off of the year 1955
☂ “I’d like to discuss the logistics of my family’s safety at your earliest convenience.” He cuts right to what’s most important to him. No “How will you stop the apocalypse?” or “What’s my job?” and even “How will my body replacement work?”
☂ Five sounds almost like he’s snapped back into a work mindset. He's suddenly polite and calm with The Handler. Maybe being back in a work environment has made his brain automatically switch into being more professional. However he might also be acting this way to try to throw her off of him being antsy with a plan
☂ Here's some Commission posters shown throughout 1x06
☂ One of us, one of us, one of us-
☂ So basically The Commission makes up history? How do they know what to do and when to make something happen? How do they know it’s right? And what’s The Commission supposed to do when the world ends? Haven't they already fixed stuff in the past or are there just continuous time loops so they need to make sure things happen over and over again? If multiple historical events happen with multiple ways they are made, then which one gets to be in the original timeline??
☂ Dot: No hard feelings! 😁
Ma’am does it look like he’s going to accept that
☂ Wait why are Hazel and Cha-Cha considered the best Temporal Assassins if Five was/is the best?
☂ Well Five has the job of taking down the Hindenburg again but this time from behind a desk. So it’s possible to accomplish “corrections” without actually having assassins do the work. So I guess there’s just so many timelines that they need to fix every single one of them over and over? That sounds like a pain in the ass
☂ TUA portraits!
☂ Y’know I have to agree with Allison on this one. Vanya was left out, however she’s offering to talk with her about the important family matter and Vanya is just denying it. I get she’s upset, but her sister is offering to include her. After Vanya leaves Allison immediately wants to go after her to talk with her. On the other hand Allison should have told her it was an emergency meeting and that they didn’t have the time to ask Vanya to join them
☂ Klaus seems genuinely concerned/upset for Vanya
☂ “We need to figure out what causes the apocalypse. Now, there are loads of possibilities. Nuclear war, asteroids.” Wow spot on, Luther! I can’t believe they actually included foreshadowing for both apocalypses (even though technically it was a chunk of the moon, not an asteroid.) I wonder how much foreshadowing for S3 was put into S2.......
☂ I know it’s big joke about Luther and the moon, but the poor guy just really believes that he was on the moon for an important reason. I mean if I were in his shoes I would believe him too since he had to send a lot of daily updates and samples
☂ “Klaus shockingly has a point. What gives us a win this time?” Shhhh careful Diego, he’s right behind you
☂ Luther is initially the only one onboard with Five on trying to stop the apocalypse. All the others want to go off and do their own thing before the world ends. He tries to get The Umbrella Academy back together to work as a team, but his leadership skills are now severely lacking. Do people *cough cough* mainly people who hate him *cough cough* overlook Luther wanting to also get his family together to stop the apocalypse with his family? Definitely.
☂ “We need the full force of the Academy to stand a chance.” Well golly gee, Allison, what did did Luther just try to do? Was that not him trying to round up all of The Umbrella Academy to stop the apocalypse?
☂ Even though Vanya is ranting, how does she not hear all the creaking metal and shaking cars?
☂ *it’s sunny around them but just the block they’re walking on is rainy until she calms down* “ThAt’S a CoInCiDeNcE.”
☂ The hall floor and Diego’s floor are so dusty
☂ It’s sweet that Diego wants Klaus to get clean in a safe way instead of going cold turkey
☂ Dot, what does “utter silence” mean to you?
☂ “Look at you, deadly little thing.” You’re not wrong, but I don’t think he appreciates being called “thing”
☂ Such a smug smile
☂ So how does Five know all of this about Karl and his son? Does it talk about Otto never washing his hands in the file? That seems like an oddly specific detail but I guess in a case file it gives as many details as possible for the worker to figure out who needs to get assassinated
☂ There are a few cog references all relating to The Commission, so I wonder if this is a nod to “Teenagers” or if they’re just using this terminology
☂ Odd tattoos (sorry for the super blurry pic)
☂ “Can I ask you a cuckoo bananas question?” Hazel is such a fun guy
☂ “Wouldn’t it be nice to kill who you want for a change?” You mean like straight up unhinged murder?
☂ The first time I watched this Hazel and Cha-Cha scene I for sure thought that Hazel was a dead man
☂ This scene just absolutely breaks my heart 💔
☂ *skips 25:24-27:42*
☂ Diego is just so accepting to everything Klaus is saying
☂ I’m sorry, are we suddenly on the set of The Phantom of the Opera?
☂ Diego, I think you’re forgetting a very important person in your life who you let down too who is also dead......(poor Ben can’t believe what his brother just said so he leaves)
☂ “Ordinary is not a word I’d use to describe you.” You’re right, it’s “Extra Ordinary” ha! Sorry Vanya, I had to use that joke
☂ Well at least we know Five ate a sandwich
☂ How exciting! The same division that made a simple candy taste like a candy from the past, but technically it’s not the past since The Commission HQ is based in 1955, is building a human body! That sounds so promising
☂ Sooooo whatever happened to Five’s new body? Is it just sitting in a lab somewhere?? Or is The Handler just lying about it to try to get Five to stay at The Commission?
☂ With the amount of time Five was staring at the suit, it obviously hurt him to know that while he has a new body within reach, he’s not going to get it because he’s about to leave
☂ “Course it’s a bit easier to see from 30,000 feet.” What is she talking about Reconnaissance aircraft? There was no mention of aircraft though so why would she bring that up? My closest guess is that she’s referring to strategic bombing in general, or even the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
☂ It sounds like Five suddenly has a New York accent when he says “operator” when talking to The Handler about Gloria
☂ Fuck you, Veggie Tales Hargreeves
☂ *skips 36:47-39:48*
☂ Well there’s your hit, Klaus
☂ I love the camera moving with Klaus as he falls and the transition into Vietnam
☂ “Lock and load, Charlie’s away!” Wikipedia’s definition of a “Charlie” is an American military slang referring to the Viiet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers
☂ Klaus desperately calling out for a medic hurts my heart
☂ Well Luther if you had left then your body wouldn’t be the way it is now
☂ *fucking skips 45:41-50:00*
☂ Ooooh I just really love the entirety of the “Kill Of The Night” scene! If you listen to the lyrics it’s about someone luring someone into a trap to get revenge because they messed with the wrong person (it’s also about love but we’re going to ignore that part). I personally believe it’s aimed at The Commission from Five because the entire time it plays he’s messing things up for them and in some way it’s like a little bit of revenge from him
☂ Why is Gloria confused on who Hazel and Cha-Cha are? Hasn’t she heard their names a ton of times especially since they’re some of the best assassins?
☂ How did Five know which tubes to put the messages in?
☂ You can see at this part how Five immediately gets anxious and antsy. He has a wild look in his eyes. From this point onwards he’s constantly moving, shaking with energy, anticipation, and probably a little bit of anger
☂ “You’re a great disappointment to me.” That’s definitely not the first time he’s heard that
☂ “I don’t belong anywhere thanks to you. You made me a killer!” The first part of that stings. Obviously he feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere, but again I think has to do with the whole “good” and “bad” thing that’s going on. He feels like he doesn’t belong at home because he’s “bad” and has done a lot of dark stuff to get home (it doesn’t help that Luther voiced his acknowledgment of this to Five and now he has that in his mind that Luther knows and somewhat views him as “bad”). Five 100% feels shame in what he has done, and definitely has an issue of coming back to his family with blood on his hands form what he has done. He doesn’t belong in The Commission anymore because he doesn’t want to stay there to do their dirty work to kill or give out kill orders. He’s done with that or at least wants to be done with that life.
The last statement though is Five taking his anger and guilt about being becoming an assassin out on The Handler. She brought him into The Commission, which in turn he became the best assassin across The Space-Time Continuum. It’s not something he’s proud of, and he never enjoyed killing (as much as I want it to be the DNA alteration I just don’t think it exists in the show or at least not yet). However The Handler replies with “You were always a killer. I just pointed you in a direction.” which you can immediately tell has struck a chord with Five. For the briefest second he looks taken aback and his eyes ever so slightly open wider in shock, whether he took that as the truth or just a terrible accusation isn’t exactly clear. Either way he doesn’t like being accused or hearing the truth out loud of always being able to be murderous, a killer.
I believe it’s a mixture of The Handler just trying to get into his head and a combination of the truth. Reginald trained The Umbrella Academy to use brute force, but that doesn’t mean Five had killed anyone but he was definitely violent when it came to stopping bad guys (not to mention in the pilot script he was called a “Ruthless little war machine” after violently attacking and decapitating a bunch of mannequins)
☂ Diego: I’m going to go kill Hazel and Cha-Cha!........Riiiiight after I get done walking with my mom in the park
☂ He’s so happy to see Klaus again
☂ ✨Gremlin✨
☂ Who exactly does Five owe a debt to? Maybe his family after accidentally leaving them and now he wants to save them? Or is it a singular person?
☂ Ouch! Now that’s what I call a problem later!
☂
☂ Five using “Ya’ll” is weird to hear
☂ Five is talking to his siblings like he knows what’s been happening but in reality he’s rarely been at home so how would he know
☂ I love that Five doesn't even answer Diego at the end and instead just stares at his siblings
☂☂☂☂☂☂☂
Feel free to comment or reblog with things you have noticed too!
#surprise here's another long over due post!#tra#the rewatch academy#the umbrella academy#umbrella academy
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