Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

School.
Five was going to have to attend school.

A truancy officer had shown up at the Academy’s doorstep, and had insisted that he be enrolled. Public or private, but he had to get some sort of education. Apparently his uniform wasn’t enough to convince them.

Diego, who had been pinned as Five’s father, much to both of their distaste, had argued with the officer, but with no backing evidence, had to relent. Five would be put in school as soon as possible.

When Five had first heard the news, he had rebuked the idea strongly, but even he knew that he would have to go, no matter how much he shouted, or spat, or swore.

They submitted the enrollment forms the following Saturday.
When Five had first stepped inside the school, a list of thoughts ran inside his mind.
First of all, it was filthy. A thin film of dust covered the trophy cases in the hall, and the desks inside the office. He made sure to touch as little of it as possible.

Second, the children attending were clearly dunces. Assignments, artworks and posters were posted along the walls in the hall, and they were messy, simple and inaccurate. Five had to withhold a scoff as the staff member guided Diego, himself and Klaus (who had volunteered to play the part of Five’s other parental figure, to everyone’s horror) through the corridors.

Lastly, there were clearly too many students in the school’s system. The empty classrooms were crammed with tiny desks and chairs, the hallways lined with too many and too small lockers. He grimaced and glared at his ‘parents’, who’d made the decision to send him to this particular school, just because it was close to the Academy. They paid no attention to him. Klaus was making conversation with their guide, talking about how happy he and Diego were that Five would finally be able to make friends his own age. It was over the top, sure, but he didn’t think that she noticed. If she did, she didn’t comment. Diego was following closely, fiddling with Patch’s rabbit foot keychain and making the occasional comment or asking a question about how things were run at the school.

Five was then asked to complete a test, in order to see where he stood academically. He was given two hours to fill it out.
He finished in fifteen minutes.

The teacher supervising was visibly impressed, and appeared to also be somewhat suspicious. He walked out of the testing room before she could ask any questions. If she thought he had somehow cheated that was her own problem.

Within two hours, Five had been formally enrolled, therefore signing his fate.

When they returned, Allison had walked up to him, scribbling something down into her notebook. “Need new clothes.” Klaus read aloud. “What, for you?” He asked, puzzled. Allison sighed and pointed at Five. “Guess I forgot about that.” Diego muttered. Klaus clapped enthusiastically. “Ooh, you should let me come!”
Allison started writing again. “We should all go.”
Five frowned at that. The last thing he wanted was a family outing. However, there was no arguing. Everyone had already split up. He huffed in exasperation, before turning and jumping in a warped pool of blue neon.

He reappeared in Vanya’s apartment, the sound of her playing Stravinsky greeting him. “Hey.”
Vanya jumped, her bow skipping. “Jesus, Five. Learn to knock, why don’t you?”
“Sorry that I startled you. Allison wants us to go clothes shopping.”
“She wants us all to come?”
“Yeah. You coming?”
Vanya walked over to her bow case, beginning to clean up. “Sure. I needed to go outside today, anyways.”
Five nodded, and then was gone.

The department store seemed intimidating. Klaus practically dragged them in, barely able to contain his excitement. Five had been wearing his uniform and suits forever, and didn’t know how to dress casually. He unconsciously gravitated towards the school uniforms department, but Klaus grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the other sections. He wanted Five to experiment and “find his style”. “I know you’re an grandpa, Five, but you look like a kid again, and you can finally dress however you like.”
Diego leaned in close to Five. “Just humour him, Five. Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.” With a roll of his eyes, Five allowed Klaus to run around and pick out clothes for him. He was pulled down aisles and departments. Mens, womens, outerwear, footwear, athletics, youth. They looked through them all.

Eventually, Five found himself in the changing rooms. He stood in front of the mirror in the small stall, trying on the clothing that his siblings had picked out for them. Luther, who had proclaimed that he didn’t know the first thing about clothing or fashion, was ferrying them to Five’s stall. He called out the name of whoever picked the articles of clothing, and they all had their own distinct style of clothes they chose for him.

Vanya picked things that were the closest to what Five was used to wearing. Plain button-ups, solid colour polos, pants and shorts. But she also threw in a couple things that were slightly outside of his comfort zone. Hoodies, T-shirts and flannels were thrown in with his ever-growing pile of things to try on, and he began to wonder if having no limit on the number of articles you could have in the changing rooms was a mistake on the store owner’s part. Though, he did find that he enjoyed some of them. He placed the ones he wanted on the rack in the stall and passed the rest back out to Luther, who took them back and returned them to the desk out front.

Diego had given him a selection of edgier clothing. Leather jackets and pants, boots and gloves, V-neck shirts and ripped jeans. He barely took anything from the stack, to Diego’s dismay, but not surprise. He only took two pairs of black jeans, the only ones that weren’t scuffed or torn.

Allison’s choices brought him trendy and conventionally stylish clothes. He admittedly liked quite a few of them. They weren’t too outlandish or gaudy, and suited Five just fine. She’d brought a collection of monochrome pullover sweaters, turtlenecks and blazers, as well as some dressier jeans and pants with some simple but fashionable shoes to go with them.

Klaus, unsurprisingly, brings him the boldest and most experimental clothing. Five is bewildered by how many of these clothes he actually likes. Klaus has given him floral button-downs and T-shirts, beachy tank tops, shorts, skirts and a few dresses. Five spots a pair of heels in the clothes, and gives them a toss across the stall. He doesn’t have any interest in tripping because of a pair of shoes that could potentially harm his feet, anyways. He grabs a few items from the rack and tries them on. He ends up taking a black skirt that ends just below his knees, a navy short-sleeved button down with a tiny white and teal flower stitched on the breast pocket and a red one with paper planes patterned neatly across it. There’re a number of other similar shirts that he takes, too. He also grabs a black T-shirt with red on the waist, collar and sleeves.

Five takes a moment to ask Luther to get his siblings to bring him some pyjamas. He wanted something other than the itchy, stiff Academy-mandated nightclothes, to sleep in.

He leaves with a sizable bag filled to the brim with his new clothes. He takes the bag up to his room and begins to unpack it, folding the clothes and placing them in his wardrobe. Footsteps approach and he turns to see Vanya. She brings him a steaming mug of coffee, and sits next to him on his bed. “Hey, Five. We didn’t talk much earlier, so I wanted to do that now.”
“What is there to talk about? I’m going to school with a bunch of children.”
Vanya nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“They’re all idiots.”
“They’re kids, Five. You’re much older than they are.”
“I knew more at age six than what they’ll ever know.”
Vanya elbows him lightly. “You were also at the mercy of Reginald Hargreeves.”
There was a brief pause as Five took a slow sip of the coffee, a murmur of resignation slipping past his lips.

After dinner that night, Five shut himself in his room. The rest of the Hargreeves sat at the table as they watched him walk off. “Kinda acts like a moody teenager, doesn’t he?” Klaus remarked, kicking his feet up on the table. Diego shoved them off, and started helping Grace clear the table. “I don’t know, I think he’s luckier than the rest of us. He gets a second chance at being a normal kid, and he’s just pissing all over it.” He huffed, scrubbing at a plate. Allison swirled her wine glass, staring into it. “He never wanted that as much as we did.” She wrote.
“I wonder why he didn’t. I mean, Dad was just as, if not more, hard on him as he was with us.” Luther said, putting his plate in the sink with more force than was necessary, splashing Diego, earning him a glare and a frustrated mutter of something along the lines of, “If you’re gonna be an asshole, you should do the goddamn dishes every once in a while.”

Five stood in the middle of his room, staring at the empty spot on his chair where Dolores used to sit. He wished that she was still there, but he’d thought that she would be better off where she belonged. In retrospect, he should’ve thought more carefully. The employees have probably mistaken her for trash, just a broken mannequin that some kid pulled off the street. He felt a deep, burning regret when he thought about his mistake. He should’ve kept her with him, or even found a safe place just for her. It was too late to fix his mistake now, though, he thought to himself, but the regret lingered, festering in a pit in his stomach.

Chapter Text

There was only a week in between his enrollment and his first day at the school.
The dreaded day didn’t quite sneak up on him as much as it quickly made its advance right in front of his eyes as he stood paralyzed.

He begrudgingly awoke to the cruel sunrise that signified the start of a personal hell.
He stared into his wardrobe, almost reaching for a uniform, before catching himself and looking over his new clothes. He hadn’t worn any of them yet, wearing the Academy uniform and sleepwear as a feeble grasp on normality before school started. Now he surveyed them, unsure of what to wear. It wasn’t that he was afraid of what the other students would think, but rather that the need to make a choice was intimidating.
Finally, he grabbed a pair of the simplest clothes in his closet and headed downstairs.

Vanya found him in the kitchen, glaring blankly at the coffee machine. It sputtered out the last drop of coffee, and he poured it into his mug with much less care than he usually had. It splashed out of the mug as he poured it, onto the counter and his hand. Five didn’t so much as blink as the boiling liquid burned his hand, just walked over to the sink and shoving it under a stream of cold water. As he stood there staring at the growing red spots on his hand, Vanya went over to him. “You alright, Five?”
“‘M fine.”
“I just- you know, your hand and, all-”
“Said I’m fine.”
“Okay.”

Klaus then marched into the kitchen, ruffling Five’s hair as he passed. Rather, he tried to. As his hand neared his head, Five grabbed his wrist with an iron grasp. “Get your damn hands off of me.” He spat through clenched teeth, pushing Klaus’s hand away from him.
Five pulled his other hand out from the water, grabbing his coffee and stalking out of the kitchen.
Vanya looked at Klaus, and let out a sigh of mock-exasperation. “Teenagers are the worst aren’t they?” He snickered. “Tell me about it.” She made her way over to the table as Grace brought them breakfast. “So, who's gonna drive the little bastard to school?”
Vanya scoffed. “As if. He’ll probably drive himself.”
“How’re we gonna explain that?”
“I’m not an idiot. I’ll just park farther away.” Klaus turns to see Five as he dumped his mug in the sink. Klaus grinned. “You know, we could probably drive you--” He’s cut off by an apple hitting him square in the face as he spoke. “You can’t drive, asshole.” He sneered. He glanced at the clock across the room, sucking air in through his gritted teeth sharply. “Shit. I need to leave.”
“Have a lovely day at school, dear!” Klaus called after him as he teleported away.

He pulled up to the back alley a block away from the school with a pointed grimace, stepping out onto the gravel road. He began to make his way over to the crowded and dingy school.
As it came into view, he saw the sheer amount of the adolescents who would become his peers. He exhaled bitterly and walked up the sidewalk.
There were hundreds of them, clustered into little groups or standing by themselves. Five was one of the latter. He opened his shoulder bag and double-checked to make sure he had everything he needed. Seven one-hundred and forty page notebooks, a pencil case containing a geometry set, a ruler, six mechanical pencils and six black, blue and red gel pens, a sack containing his lunch and the required textbooks. He regretted not sneaking in a flask, even though he wouldn’t want to be caught drunk at this new school.

A shrill shriek of a bell cut him from his thoughts, and the doors to the school opened. The teens slowly shuffled in through the hallways, opening lockers and putting in and taking out things from them. He’d been assigned one last week, the code already ingrained in his memory. Unlocking it, he glared down at his schedule. With the first period came math class.
A scowl formed on his face. This was seventh grade math, simple and ridiculously easy. When it came to the equations he did on a day-to-day basis, anything he would have to do would simply equate to preschool problems. That is, what he assumed preschool problems would’ve been like. He’d never been to preschool. He barely even did simple addition before he had to move on to harder maths.
Five furrowed his brow and shoved the schedule back into his bag.
He put his jacket in his locker (he’d thought to throw one on, as the February air was still rather chilly), and started off for class, closing and locking his locker up.

He found his class, briskly stepping through the opened door.
A slip of paper was tacked to the whiteboard. Five leaned in closer to look at it. A seating plan.
He nearly sighed in relief when he saw what it was. He wouldn’t have to pick one for himself.
Five began scouring the paper to see where his desk was. Thankfully, he saw “HARGREEVES” written on the desk in the back corner. He walked over, and noticed that he wasn’t the only one in the room. There was a kid asleep on his desk in the opposite corner. He raised his head slightly to look at Five, but promptly fell back asleep.

Slowly, other kids began to filter in. They took their seats, and noise began filling the room. Five stared at them, as they sat down at their desks, taking out their books and pencils. He saw some kids opening them and furiously writing, supposedly attempting to finish their homework before the final bell. Said bell rang (not really a bell, but some shitty pop song playing over the low-quality speakers), and some of those who were finishing up managed to do so, while others started panicking and wrote faster, trying to get it done before the teacher came around to check.

The math teacher walked in. He was a tall, thin man holding a travel mug full of what Five assumed was coffee. He crossed over to his desk, setting his mug down and clapping his hands together. “Alright, guys. Let’s see who got the homework done.” He began walking down the aisles, looking into the students’ books, writing a checkmark on finished homework and an X on unfinished, chastising the ones who hadn’t completed the work.

As he made his way over to Five’s desk, he smiled at him, to which Five responded with a frustrated mock-smile. The teacher’s smile faded somewhat, and Five thinks that he might’ve heard him huff lightly. He probably thought that Five was going to be a troublemaker with a superiority complex, not that he was completely incorrect.

He finished marking the homework and returned to the front of the room. “Okay, so because I forgot to mark who was here while I was marking, we’re gonna have to take roll.”
A few students smiled slightly, happy that a few minutes of class time was going to be wasted.
He opened a clipboard and started calling out names.
“Josiah?”
“Here.”
“Daniel?”
“Here.”
“Alyssa?”
“Present.”
He called out name after name, finally reaching his name. His name was last, even though it was an ‘H’ name, because he was new, he guessed.
“Uh, Five?”
“Present.” He said lamely, as a few kids snickered. The teacher peered over his glasses at them, looking back at Five. “Well, I’m Mr. Kirkland, welcome to Rolling Hills Junior HIgh.”

An hour of boring, far too easy math later, the bell rang again, signalling the end of class. Five got up from his seat and grabbed his bag as Mr. Kirkland called after the students, “You have no homework tonight, see you tomorrow!”
Five assumed that Mr. Kirkland’s cheery tone was fake. No one could possibly enjoy teaching rowdy teenagers simple maths.

His next class was English. He tried to make his way over to the classroom as quickly as possible, trying to avoid the inevitable rush of kids that would soon flood the hallways, effectively blocking it off.
When he got to his class, the seating plan informed him that he was not as lucky as he’d hoped, as he was seated smack-dab in the middle of the class. He scowled and dropped his bag onto his desk a little heavier than he should’ve. Pulling out a new notebook and his English textbook, he watched as a broken stream of students enter the room, taking their seats. Most of them did, anyways. A group of girls wearing crop tops and obnoxious scrunchies on their wrists crowded around one girl’s desk. When he was a kid, he remembered seeing people wearing scrunchies. All trends come back eventually, he thought to himself.
The girls were chattering among themselves, looking at their phones and laughing. Five found it annoying, and hard to keep a hold on his temper as they squealed. He could catch parts of their conversation, something about one of their boyfriends, some kids they thought were losers, et cetera, et cetera.
Then one of them pointed at him. He wasn’t looking at them anymore, but the girl’s finger, decorated with a sharp pastel acrylic nail, pointing, invaded his peripherals. She said something, and the others started giggling.
She started towards his desk, her friends watching her as she went. “Are you really named Five?” She asked, her voice a high, bitchy tone. “Yes, I am.” He answered, a look of annoyance crossing his face.
“That’s a weird name.”
“I’m from a weird family.”
“No shit.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulders, and picked at her mascara a little. “You’re the one with two dads, right?”
Five thought for a moment. He’d nearly forgotten about Diego and Klaus, who were his fake parents for this. “Yeah, what about them?”
“Well, are you gay?”
“That is entirely irrelevant.”She shrugged sarcastically and walked back over to her group of friends.

The teacher, a stout woman named Mrs. Davis, was stricter than Mr. Kirkland, but still wasn’t enough to fully wrangle her students. After roll was called, he began to keep track of how many times students got in trouble.
Five students were written up.
Two were given detentions.
One was asked to leave and sit in the hallway.
Six were shouted at.

It was exhausting. Too easy classes, too loud students, lazy teachers and filthy classrooms. By the time they were let out for lunch, Five was sure he’d lost many brain cells since the first bell.

He sat down at a table and opened his lunch bag. Grace had made him a lunch the night before, packing him a water bottle, sandwich and an orange. The sandwich itself wasn’t the kind he made when he was a kid, with peanut butter and marshmallows (that kind was just a fun snack that he and Vanya made, late at night), but instead contained grilled chicken, arugula, sun dried tomatoes and roasted bell peppers.

He took a bite of the sandwich and uncapped a pen. He rolled up his sleeve and started scribbling down equations onto his arm.
Five was more motivated than ever to find the equation that would put him in the body he’d intended to have when he first arrived in the timeline. That being the thirty year old body that would free him from his siblings’ condescending nature, but also not have them make fun of his rightful fifty-eight year old one.
He’d written halfway up his arm and finished his lunch by the time someone came over, sitting down in the chair across from him. Without looking up, he simply said, “There’s a free table over there.”
“Well, I wanna talk to you.” A male voice replied, his voice cracking on the talk.
“I’m busy, if you couldn’t tell.” He said, frustration lacing his words.
“Wow, rude.”
Five looked up to see a kid, around twelve or thirteen, sitting across the table. He wore a hoodie and had headphones hung around his neck, with a face spotted with freckles.
“Anyways, you the new kid?”
Five went back to writing on his skin, crossing out a product he’d multiplied incorrectly. “Yes.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Math.”
“Why?”
“You couldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“I will not.”
The kid huffed and pulled out his phone. He pulled his headphones over his ears and started scrolling through some social media page.
Five put the cap back on his pen and packed his lunch bag back up. He grabbed the water bottle, taking a swig from it as he walked. He definitely wished that the bottle contained something much, much stronger. He went to the bathroom and scrubbed the equations off his arm.

He had two classes before the end of the day. Physical education and art.
Five was fit, and it wasn’t like he would struggle physically during gym, it was just the people that he would have to be around. He wasn’t very excited about the fact that he would have to change in front of all the fifty-some boys in his grade.

The gym teacher was a grouchy, burly man with a permanent frown carved into his red, alcohol-swollen face, and had “JOHNSON” stitched onto his sweater. He handed Five a bag with a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and pointed to the boys’ locker room.

He opened the door to the changing room, being instantly hit with a wave of sweaty, thick air that also smelled like a gross concoction of different deodorants, body sprays and colognes.
There were only maybe ten or so boys in there, much less than the amount that would soon enter, so Five intended to change in a timely manner. But, he wasn’t keen on just ripping off his shirt and pants, even though that’s what all the other guys in the room were doing. The next group of people to walk in gave Five the motivation to just get it over with.

He changed as fast as he could, trying not to let the others see any of his scars or bruises. The last thing he wanted was questions about what happened to him.
When he pulled on the T-shirt, Five realized that there was another problem.
His tattoo was visible.

He didn’t know what to do about it, so he just decided that probably no one would notice, and that it would probably be fine until he could find something to cover it up. He made sure that he kept his arms crossed as often as he could, though.

He walked out of the lockers as most of the boys who’d barely made it in before the bell came in. The gym teacher blew his whistle. “Mr. Hargreeves! Please go stand with the boys over there.” He shouted. Five walked over to the side of the gym where a few boys were.

As the last of the teens made their way out of the changing rooms, the whistle screeched again, and Mr. Johnson assigned a few of the students to go get some supplies from the gym storage. “Alright! Today we’re playing dodgeball. You guys probably know the rules by now: no headshots, no cheating; you get hit, you get out. Stay on your side of the gym and if you catch the ball before it hits you, the person who threw the ball is out. Okay, everyone put one hand on your wall, otherwise we’re not gonna start.”
The two kids he’d told to go into the storage closet wheeled out a cart filled with big, red, rubber playground balls. Mr. Johnson started lining up the balls on the black line running down the middle of the gym, his two helpers splitting up and scurrying over to their sides.
A buzzer sounded as everyone made a mad dash for the black line, grabbing the balls. Five analysed the area, and found that there were three types of people: the ones that grabbed the balls and recklessly threw them across the gym, those who held one and used it to block the balls coming towards them, and the ones who strategically threw them at the weaker, more timid students.
A tall girl on the other side was definitely one of the latter, and had taken Five for someone who couldn’t dodge a ball if his life depended on it.
She was wrong.
As the red ball hurtled towards his chest, he snatched it out of the air and gripped it. The girl stormed off towards the bleachers, where only a few of the scrawnier kids sat. The balls ricocheted off of kids and walls and the floor with a hollow slam all around him.

Five found himself becoming increasingly more competitive as the game continued. Any ball that came towards him he caught, his reflexes sharpened from years of survival and maltreatment. He could easily hit his targets without thinking much of it. Such was to be expected from an ex-assassin. He’d been the best in the Commission, his kill count higher than Cha-Cha and Hazel’s had ever been.

The game ended with him as the last one standing. The teacher tiredly announced him as the winner, and let everyone go change.

Five was intent to change quickly again, the stench of sweat more than enough to make him want to leave.
But as he was about to pull his shirt off, some kid looked at his arm. “Dude, what the fuck is on your arm?”
His friend hit him on the arm. “Probably pen. Didn’t you see him at lunch? He was fuckin’
drawing all over his arms.”
“Weird as hell.”

Five put his regular clothes back on and shoved his sleeve down over his tattoo.

The art classroom was refreshingly large, and fairly clean. The chairs and tables were tall, and he was apparently early again. He wondered how slowly the other students walked. He sat down at an empty table and the teacher, a young woman, who walked over to him and gave him a new sketchbook with his name written on the front and a pack of pencils.
He hung his bag over the side of the chair, opening his sketchbook, a standard 7”x10” page size. He also popped open the plastic case of sketching pencils. A few of them were in decent condition, but a few were chipped, chewed on or broken. The 2H’s graphite was completely missing, having been pulled out through the bottom. He brought this up to the instructor, who shook her head and sighed. She gave him a new one and an apology for the state of the pencil.

“Good afternoon, everyone. Who is not here today?” She called to her class, as Five returned to his seat.
A teen in the back of the class raised his hand. “Uh, Danny is sick, Celine’s at an appointment… Jared isn’t here either, and Ethan and Cooper are in the hallway.”
“Thank you, Dylan. Andrew, could you go retrieve them?”
“Sure.” A taller Asian boy sitting across from Five got out of his seat and walked out into the hallway. Five heard a muffled “Didn’t you hear the bell? Class started like, five minutes ago.”
Andrew returned a few seconds later, a pair of students following behind him. They sat down at the empty chairs at Five’s table, taking their sketchbooks out of their backpacks. A few giggled a bit as they took out their pencils, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

The teacher walked up to the whiteboard and uncapped a dry-erase marker. She wrote “FREE SKETCH PERIOD” in bold letters at the top of the board, a few quiet cheers erupting from the students. “Feel free to start any new drawings, or continue old ones.”
Free sketch period? Five thought to himself. Shit. That means there aren’t any rules. What am I supposed to do?
He took an HB out of his case and brought it up to his paper. Sure, Grace’d taught them art lessons as a part of their tutoring, but that’d been over forty-five years ago. He could barely remember how to draw anything. He’d been decent back then, but not great. Art had been more of Diego’s area of expertise.

Five gripped his pencil in what he hoped was the correct way to hold a pencil when drawing. He drew a dark, shaky line in the centre of his paper, having no real plan of where to go with it. Andrew looked up from his drawing, an intricate, well-drawn image of a dragon on a mountain, to Five’s paper. “Dude, try pushing a little lighter and hold your pencil like this.” He held his own pencil up, showing Five. Five relaxed his fingers, to which Andrew nodded with approval. “Yeah, that’s right.” He lowered his pencil back to the paper, pressing lightly. He sketched out a simple cube, one of the few things he frequently drew, even though it was just for math. The others at his table went back to whatever they were doing.
Andrew put in his earbuds, and Five could just faintly hear the throbbing bass that escaped them.
Five, unable to draw without an assigned subject or style, ended up back at mathematics. He copied down the formula that he’d thought had been right, but the answer seemed to always be incorrect, no matter how many little changes he made. He was about to reach his tolerance limit for this formula’s stubborn refusal to be correct, when the final bell rang.
Five shut his book and put it in his bag, along with his pencil case.

“See you tomorrow, Five.” Five turned to look at Andrew, who waved and exited the classroom.
Andrew, Five decided, was tolerable.

He walked down the alleyway to his car, the gravel of the dirt road crunching beneath the soles of his Oxfords. Unlocking the door, he slipped inside.

Grace greeted him at the door as he entered. She asked him about school, and if he wanted cookies. Five didn’t mind Grace’s mannerisms. She was meant to be a mother, and she spoke to all of his siblings as if they were still children, anyways.

He meandered into the kitchen, where most of his siblings sat around a table with a plate of cookies in the middle. They all had a cup of tea or milk, and were chatting rather amicably. They quieted down as he walked in. “How was school, Five?” Vanya asked. “Ridiculous. Where’s Allison and Luther?”
“They went shopping or something.”

Five let out a puff of air. He wasn’t sure if he was frustrated, confused or relieved. He sure as hell was tired, though. He sat down at an empty spot at the table, and Vanya passed him a cup of tea.
Five wished the steaming mug was coffee, but this would do. He realized that when he raised the mug to his lips, his jaw ached. He must’ve been grinding his teeth all day, a habit he picked up in the apocalypse. Anxiety was a constant back then, and it lingered now. There was no danger. Vanya would not start the apocalypse. He didn’t have to fear starvation or illness from the rot that built up in the crumbling gutters. Hazel and Cha-Cha weren’t after him anymore.
And yet, the fear never went away. He was always subconsciously terrified of an ambush around the next corner, or a fire sparking up in the path where he walked.

He had never been one for tea, but the taste of the citrus with, the way he preferred his tea when he did partake in it, lots and lots of honey, was comforting and soothed the headache that flared up when he grinded his teeth. His siblings returned to their conversations, and Five could hear them, but he wasn’t listening. The exhaustion had hit him like a train as soon as he sat down.

Five stared at his reflection in the tea. It was his face staring back at him, but it wasn’t at the same time. It was familiar, but not.
But his eyes held his age, if you looked close enough. That withered, tortured, traumatized soul.
The phrase eyes are the windows to the soul was entirely true in him. You could see the years of pain that lay beneath his young exterior.
He left the tea, half-finished, on the table and went to his bedroom. Jumping would’ve been faster, but he was too tired to try. He trudged up the stairs, all three flights, up to his bedroom. He collapsed in bed, kicking off his shoes. Now he really wished Dolores was with him.

Chapter Text

I forgot about this story with everything going on, I'm sorry. New chapters are coming, but it'll take a while.