Open | Chose your adventure

[n5]

1- We're canceling the apocalypse

The world ended.

Twice.

And both times, that wasn't quite right with Five Hargreeves. So he got back in time to change it, taking his family with him. They were, after all, the ones to blame for the long list of mistakes that culminated in their sister blowing up the moon. If Vanya was the bomb and Harold Jenkins was the fuse, Reginald Hargreaves was without a doubt the maker of the explosive. They had to do better this time and they had to do it together.

Time traveling was a messy business, more so when you were doing it in a rush and without the proper calculations. But they made it back in time to the morning of their father's funeral, in one piece against all odds, and after some trouble, their brother Ben was back with them.

His family was alive, hurt but whole.

Five gave a small smile before his eyes rolled back into his head and he promptly passed out from the effort, nose bleeding.



2 - (You Give Me) Fever, In the morning child, Fever all through the night

A few days later, the pain in his body had yet to subside and Five wondered if it could be a permanent effect of time traveling. You could only gamble with time so much until it started getting pissed off at you. His family was still dealing with the last week's events, either mourning, keeping to themselves or thinking about the future, but everything was relatively stress-free.

For the past 40 years, Five has never lived a single day that wasn't pressure-packed. And now, his body has decided that ey, this would be the perfect moment to crash. Bright lights made his eyes burn and increased his headaches, his throat hurt so much that he had stopped eating, his cheeks were constantly flushed and he felt hot a minute and freezing the next.

But the worse of all was that he sneezed.

Actually, the worst of all was that the sneezing made him space jump without intent or control. So far he had accidentally teleported himself to the basement, atop the kitchen's fridge, to the bar -knocking several bottles in the process-, to their mother's lap while she was sitting in front of the paintings, and into the bathtub.

The alarmed and frustrated shriek that Five gave out could be heard all around the house after a sneeze had teleported him to the chandelier, leaving him holding onto it for dear life several feet above the ground.



3- Another One Bites The Dust

When tiredness got too much or he had accidentally teleported himself somewhere, Five gave up and slept. Never in his room, if he could avoid it. He hadn't used it for decades and it was a reminder of the life he had lost, filled with books and toys and memories of a lost innocence that felt unpleasant.

Vanya's room was spartan and clean in all ways Klaus' wasn't but both reflected their owners and brought Five a sense of comfort, familiarity. Allison's bed was the comfiest, a soft mattress and softer pillows, while Luther had the biggest one. Five liked to curl into a ball in the middle of it and let himself feel small for once.

Diego and Ben's rooms hadn't been used in some time but Grace made sure to keep them both clean and they had signs of his sibling's personalities all over the place. A peaceful sleep still didn't come easy, though, with the fever only making his usual nightmares worse.


4- Wildcard

[ Do you want Five anywhere? Feel free to write your own starter, I'll adapt! ]

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[n5]

It takes him a second now, he's still half asleep, but he nods in understanding. Lonenyless is hard to shake off, like a beast that sinks its claws in you and refuses to let go. The silence of the post Apocalypse almost drove Five nuts. He might not have liked to be around people much as a kid but he knew they were there, could hear his siblings around the house, the city sounds coming through the windows, the faint chatter and the music. When you no longer have that, you start talking to mannequins only to fill the void. Living on the moon can't be much different.

"If you are sure." He lies back on the pillows with a sigh, making himself more comfortable, like a cat who got into a room he wasn't supposed to be. If Luther get company and he gets a comfy big bed to get some of his energy back, then it works for them both. And maybe, just maybe, he likes to keep an eye on his brother too.

Sleeping helped, he didn't even have nightmares this time but when Luther mentions his room the exhaustion on Five's face is more visible, darker strokes beneath his eyes. He doesn't answer immediately.

It's a child's room and it feels like a museum, a memory of the person he once was. He wants it gone and not at the same time. He can't be in there unless he is working on equations, using the walls as a board and ignoring the reminders about his childhood. He likes some of them, like the soothing shade of green of the walls, and despise others like the toys and the childlike drawings that were never that childlike to begin with, with depictions of how to disarm enemies and math equations scattered in the margins.

"Time traveling is always a pain but it doesn't usually last this long." Maybe dragging six people with him had something to do with it, oh well. "I'll be fine, I had worse."

His hair is tousled from sleeping curled on his side and Five runs a hand through it to try to smooth it down. He accomplishes the opposite effect, which only makes him look more sleepy. The tea is helping his sore throat and his voice sounds a little less like gravel now. Luther is much more smarter than any of the give him credit for, at at least more observant.

"Maybe that's not...a terrible idea."

[obediences]

"You ripped a hole in the universe and shoved seven people through. Kinda makes sense that you'd be hungover." Luther's smile is rueful, grateful.

He doesn't have the same kind of knife-sharp intellect and book smarts as Five, or Diego's cutting wit, or Allison's ability to wrap an entire room around her finger with charisma alone — but Luther knows his team. Watches them, and used to know how they tick, how far to push them and when they're struggling. It had been his job for a decade-plus, keeping the delicate moods of the Academy tuned enough to function in the field. It had worked until it hadn't.

"How old did you say you were again?" he asks, after a pause. "You mentioned, in the middle of everything, but." It's hard to wrap his mind around, trying to parse the fact that little Five is so much older than him now. Although Luther's room is oddly trapped in the past, too, despite the fact that he'd lived here longer: model airplanes still soaring overhead, dangling from the ceiling. He'd hung onto them even into his twenties, when he did live here. Still can't quite articulate why.

[n5]

"When you put it that way." The corner of Five's lips upturns into a small smile despite the tiredness. It's odd to see that expression on Luther's face, more so after all their arguing and fighting but it makes something inside Five feel more at ease. Sometimes he can't still believe it that they're here, in one piece, all of them. Not everything is fine but they can work on it at their own pace.

"Too old." He feels like it most of the time, even if this young body is blessedly free of the many issues the old one had. The Time Commission fixed a few things but growing up eating scraps for four decades and living off of alcohol left Five with a dozen of different deficiencies. It felt like a miracle to make it that long. "Fifty eight years old. And yet I'm still the shortest brother...life really isn't fair."

[obediences]

These two brothers -- the head and the fist, the twins -- are sheer opposites, and yet the paths their lives took have left them more similar than most. They've just never broached it yet; Luther isn't one to just ask about it outright, but he thinks he can see the effects of that long solitude, sometimes, in Five. How he jolts away from too much socialisation, but can't help but dart back eventually, on his own terms, wending his way to the family he professes to be irritated by. Like a feral stray cat, slowly winding its way closer.

"Fifty-eight," Luther repeats, still stunned by the thought, unable to really line it up with the boy in front of him. Twenty-eight years older than him. Almost twice his age. Five's gone and lapped them all, double over, and yet he looks like he's been cut straight out of that portrait in the hall.

"Well. Think on this. At least you're still taller than Vanya?"

It's the feeblest of reassurances, but he's trying.

[n5]

So different in many ways and so alike in others, it's almost funny in its irony. Maybe if they had grown together instead of having their childhood interrupted by Five's disappearance things would have been different. It always makes something in Five's chest ache when he thinks about all the moments he missed, even if from what he has gathered most of them haven't been good. He wonders if maybe Ben would be alive, if Vanya could have been happier, if he would have fought with their parent about sending Luther to the moon because that was such an idiotic idea...but maybe not, maybe he would have ended worse than he already did. Luther isn't wrong about thinking of Five as a feral cat, he can even hiss like one when annoyed.


"It's weird, I know. Do you think that now we aren't fighting the end of Times I could get some actual long pants...?" He would very much stop looking like he just left school. Luther attempts at reassurance isn't much, no, but it does get Five to snicker. "There's that. It's fun, I remembered her taller when we were kids. Klaus, however, has always been a beanpole."

Once he's done drinking Five leaves the teacup on the bedside table, eyes darting to another small cardboard airplane model sitting there, and immediately picking it up to fidget. After a second, he throws it at Luther for him to catch. "You and her will have to talk at some point."

[obediences]

Luther jolts slightly as the cardboard plane flies over at him, but his reflexes are fast enough, hard-wired and automatic enough, that he reaches up and catches it in both hands, cradling it like a small bird. If he'd seized it with just one, he probably would've accidentally crumpled it in a fist.

And then he looks down at it rather than meet Five's eye, turning it end-over-end. (The plane is meticulously-assembled, carefully-painted. The colours worn from sunlight, though. He should probably give all of his models a touch-up.)

"I know," he finally says. "I can't imagine she really wants to hear from me, though."

[n5]

Luther's quick reaction reminds Five of their training as kids, something he had almost forgotten until now. It's good to see that his brother is still relatively fast when it comes to objects being thrown at his direction despite his big size.

It might come in handy if they're attacked by the time Commission again. Five is sure they're still lurking, probably searching for them across the timeline. it's a matter of time, the word was never more fitting, until they figure out that the whole family time-traveled.

"She probably doesn't." Five confirms, blunt as ever. His voice turns kinder as he goes on. "But you are family and we all screwed up. We need to have a talk once we're all calm and rested."

[obediences]

Those infamous family meetings, that never really seemed to go successfully whenever Luther called one lately. People talked over each other, mocked each other, lashed out, made jokes, and then just... walked right out. Sir Reginald would never have accepted such disobedience, but Luther seems to have lost the knack of keeping them all in line. It's like herding cats and with his confidence shaken after that disastrous week, he feels like he can't do it. It's a wonder they all even managed to muster together enough to stop the apocalypse in all that mess and that panic, with Allison near-dead, Vanya missing, murderous assassins hot on their heels...

But perhaps because of that very situation, Luther's grown to listen to Five's advice. Unhinged as The Boy can be, he also knows what he's talking about. He's proven his competence over and over.

So: "Guess we do, after a rest," Luther admits. A thoughtful pause. "And when you don't look like you're dying."