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watchmegetobsessed · 12 hours

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TOO SWEET

A/N: i know originally i teased something else with the hozier song, but this came to me when i saw the pics below and i just had to write them. also, i put the bruises on him so go easy on my photoshop skills lol

WORD COUNT: 1.5k

WARNING: mention of blood and bruises

SUMMARY: You and Harry are worlds apart, yet you can't let go of each other, not even when he stumbles into your home in the middle of the night, bruised and in pain.

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You wake to the sound of the front door closing and by the time his footsteps reach the bathroom down the hall you’re fully conscious. There was a time when you considered yourself a heavy sleeper, when the smallest noises could not bother you enough to wake from your dreams, but those days have been gone ever since Harry came into your life.

You kind of knew what you were getting yourself into, his reputation and horrific stories about his dark deals were more than well-known around town and there was a time you never thought you’d get involved with him. You’re worlds apart, he is the fire that will burn you if you get too close, but it appears you’re the water that could take his danger out. Just one party, one glance across the room was enough to bound you two together and turn your life upside down.

Surprisingly, you weren’t the only one fighting against the pull. In the beginning, Harry tried to keep him away from you just as much as you attempted to convince yourself he is nothing but trouble. You still remember what he told you one night when you met him at a dodgy bar against your better judgment.

“I take my whiskey neat, my coffee black and my bed at three. You’re way too sweet for me, baby.”

It felt like he wasn’t even talking to you but to himself. His light green eyes were darker than ever as he stared down at your lips and you couldn’t figure out what you wanted more, to kiss him or to leave him. Even though what he said sounded a lot like a promise that he’ll step back, somehow you just ended up even closer.

Life with Harry is like a rollercoaster that takes you through Hell and Heaven at the same time. When it’s good, it’s a high you’ve never experienced before, he is everything you want and could ever need, he fills your heart and eases your mind like no one can and you know he is the piece you’ve been searching for all your life.

But when it’s low… the darkness feels like a weight you can barely carry and it’s hard to remember what it was like when you were blossoming.

You never asked Harry to stop his underworld deals, you know it’s practically impossible, but it’s also hard to live like this. Fearing every call you get, fighting intrusive thoughts about what might have happened to him every time he doesn’t answer your messages and then there are the nights like this, when he visits you in the middle of the night but it’s always for the wrong reason.

The first time Harry appeared at your door at two am, blood running down his face, barely holding himself up, you got so worried he had to calm you even though he was the one with the injuries, but you just couldn’t stop crying and sobbing.

Now you still get yourself worked up but you learned to keep your face straight as you clean his wounds or even stitch them, but it’s still just as much of a struggle emotionally to see the man you love like this all the time.

You sit up in your bed as you hear him grunt before closing the bathroom door as quietly as he can and then the water starts running. Reaching for your phone on the nightstand you check the time, it’s just a little past three in the morning, the dim light of the streetlamps are the only source of light in your tiny bedroom, but even despite the darkness, it still feels bright and homey, you spent a lot of time to create this bubble for yourself and though Harry’s gruff and edgy presence feels the farthest from your colorful life, he still somehow belongs here, in your life.

Rubbing your eyes you stand up and look for the cardigan you know you left on the chair in the corner. When you find it you wrap yourself into it tight and take a moment to mentally prepare yourself for whatever you’ll see. From what you heard, he wasn’t limping so that’s a good start, but you still know there’s a whole lot that could be terrifyingly wrong with him to make him come to you instead of his place.

The water has stopped running by the time you make your way out of the bedroom and over to the bathroom. Light is flowing out underneath the door and you don’t know before simply twisting the knob and opening the door, revealing Harry sitting in the bathtub, bent forward, his curls wet and brushed back, bruises covering his shoulders, back and jawline, his bottom lip busted open.

Repentance fills his glimmering eyes when he looks at you and you know what he would say if his pride allowed him to speak.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry. I want to be better for you, but it’s so hard.”

Walking over you kneel down next to the tub and cup his face with your palm, gentle and soft, not to hurt him and he melts into your touch in an instant.

“I’m alright,” he rasps as you run your hand down his naked chest, over some of the bruises and you notice how he winces when your cold hand touches a vigorously dark mark on his collarbone.

You’d do anything to free him from this dark world that keeps him as its prisoner, but ironically you know what kind of consequences one would have to endure to be set free and you fear those would take him from you forever. So every time you see the marks of this evil life on him, a piece of you dies. For him.

“I’ll get you some pills,” you whisper and try to get up, but his hand grabs your arm, holding you back.

“Just… stay with me, please.” It’s a desperate plea you could never ignore, so you settle back onto the fuzzy rug next to the tub, one arm against his chest as he hugs it like a child, your thumb gently rubbing the side of his neck. But you don’t stay like that much longer. The urge to get closer to him grows unbearable, so you move to stand again and when you see the panic in his eyes you’re quick to calm him.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Hesitantly, but he lets go of your arm and watches you as you undress yourself and join him in the tub, sitting behind him so you can hug him from behind, your chest melting against his back as your heartbeats sync.

His head falls back onto your shoulder while your lips pepper kisses onto his every once in a while, your hands gently running up and down his front, eager to feel the softness of his skin.

“You’re way too sweet for me,” he breathes out.

“Haven’t we been over this?” you ask with a soft smile. He lifts his head and then turns it so he can look at you.

“I feel like I’m ruining you.”

“Don’t act like it’s all on you. I made a decision too and I chose to be with you.”

“You made a mistake,” he whispers and you see something dark, something desperate take over his face for a moment, but you’re quick to bring him back to you, like you always do.

Soothing his hair back, you pull him closer so your lips meet for the softest kiss.

“You could never be a mistake,” you whisper against his lips and you feel him inhale sharply before he kisses you, harder and needier and you’re happy to give him whatever he demands from you.

You stay in the tub until the water gets too cold. Then you grab him a shirt and a pair of underwear he left at yours a while ago and you move to the bedroom. He finally lets you get him some painkillers and you tell him to get in bed when he tries to randomly fix the jammed drawer of your desk. He loves to play the handyman when he’s over, but now is definitely not the time for that.

“Okay, doctor, gotcha,” he chuckles cheekily as he shuffles over to the bed. He watches you with a smirk as you’re moving around, grabbing another blanket before joining him in bed.

“What?” you ask when he just keeps looking at you smugly.

“You take so good care of me, baby. You know, there is one more thing I think I need to feel better.”

Reaching over he hooks a finger into the front of your shirt, tugging it down teasingly.

“Oh, really?” you arch an eyebrow at him.

“Absolutely.”

Instead of a reply, you move closer and press two fingers into a bruise on his shoulder just enough to make him wince and flinch back from the pain.

“I think you need to stay away from physical activities, that’s the doctor’s order,” you scoff.

“Fuck, there was nothing sweet about that, damn!” he grunts, making you laugh.

“But you love it when I put you into your place, don’t you?” Grinning you scoot closer, his arm curling around you instantly.

“I do. Only you can do that,” he smiles down at you.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb

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smallandalmosthonest · 1 day

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i’m just saying if i had to write a final bucktommy scene at the end of s7

i’d probably have a full-circle moment of them at a romantic restaurant, this time they’re holding hands and buck only has eyes for tommy. they only pull apart when the bill comes (buck pays without hesitating)

and as they’re getting up and tommy’s helping buck into his jacket, buck remembers, oh, and asks if tommy can drop him off at eddie’s instead of the loft; he promised he’d pop over to play this new video game chris diligently saved his allowance for

and tommy says of course, he says sure, and he smiles but there’s something… else behind it. not malice, not quite sorrow, not resignation. maybe resolve? nothing buck can identify, but we see him clock it with a tiny, inquiring head tilt, a question in his eyes. tommy just smiles at him, hand on his lower back, guiding him out of the restaurant.

cut to them pulling up in front of the diaz house; Buck unbuckles his seat belt, leans over to kiss tommy goodnight, and tommy… lingers. just a second too long. he’s playing the same cautious beat we saw after their first kiss. buck doesn’t let it go this time.

so buck invites tommy to come join them for a while, to come play games. he clearly doesn’t want to leave him like this. and tommy, always clever, makes a quip about buck inviting him into someone else’s house.

buck hedges, because it’s not “someone else’s” house, not really, it’s eddie’s house. maybe buck says something about it being more of a home than the loft is?

and tommy’s got that look again. and buck, a little scared now, asks him what’s wrong. and tommy takes his hand and says “evan… i —“

“wait, tommy, don’t —“

“i think we need to talk.”

cut to inside the diaz house: chris answers the door, and buck looks… hollow, maybe. eddie comes around the corner and immediately asks chris to get the game set up while he talks to buck for a minute.

chris goes, shooting buck a concerned look. eddie gets close, asks buck if he’s okay. buck just barely shakes his head, tears in his eyes, and eddie immediately shuffles him to his room, closing the door behind them, giving them privacy.

“tommy just broke up with me.” he says it before eddie can even ask.

and eddie is shocked, concerned, because what happened? they were good, so good, buck had even said that he was really falling for him —

“yeah… he said the same thing.” and buck’s really not trying to hold back the tears but he’s not exactly crying, it’s more like the tears are just happening while his mind is elsewhere. “he said he doesn’t want to fall in love with me.”

and now eddie’s getting pissed, because what the hell? why wouldn’t he want to fall in love with him? was he — was he afraid of commitment, or did he want — ?

but buck cuts him off, barely listening to eddie, and says “he said he didn’t want to fall in love with me when i’m… already in love. with someone else.”

and then buck, breath shaky, looks at eddie for the first time since he came into the house. “eddie?” he asks, and its fragile and terrified and somehow both hopeful and hopeless, “am i in love with you?”

and we just see eddie hear this. and he opens his mouth to say something, anything, and —

roll credits.

#spec fic?#almost?#buddie #ashwrites #do we see the vision?????#911 spoilers #i guess #can anyone hear me is this thing on

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miniversse · 19 hours

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⭑ ”i owe you” pt.2 ⭑

╰┈➤ READ PART 1

⭑ jeongin x female reader

⭑ content includes: non-idol reader, non-idol jeongin, mentions of drinking, unprotected sex, releasing, fingering, mentions of scars and stitches, use of pet names (baby)

⭑ note: i cannot begin to describe how much i love this piece. please read part 1 for it all to make sense! ⭑ minors dni

⭑——————————————————⭑

recollections of that very night begin to flow through your mind and how everyday for weeks you stared into the dark alleyways, trying to picture his body there. immediately your eyes dart to his neck, only to find his tattoos slightly fading…

(SKZ)

your eyes dart back to his face, still questioning if it was true or not.

“i owe you.”

“j-jeongin?”

he slowly nods, a soft smile growing on his healed face.

“i don’t think i thanked you enough for that night.” he stops to look down at his shoes, kicking at the box in front of him to fill the silence, speaking again.

“what you did, it really changed me. you didn’t have to help me, even after i was a total bitch to you.”

the emotions you had five years ago the first time you locked eyes with him grew inside of you again, but in another light. first time it was sympathy and worry. but now it’s love and comfort.

“come have a drink at my place, as way of welcoming you as my new neighbor” you suggest, hoping it can soften the mood.

“you changed your paintings” he sets his shot glass slowly on the table, observing your living room.

“how do you know?” you never knew he would remember so much, and you felt embarrassed.

“i had to distract myself from the pain, it was the only thing i could admire.”

“i thought it was time for a cha-“

“other than you”

the words caught in your throat and your heart stopped beating for a moment. the way he glanced at you never left your mind, and it all made sense now. before you could react, he brings himself closer to you on the couch, resting his palm on your cheek. you were able to get a closer look of his healed scar, secretly admiring your work.

“5 years, y/n. you never left my mind for a day”

his lips clash with yours, aggressive kisses from the beginning. his tongue glides over yours, moving deeper and deeper inside of your mouth. his hand rests on your waist, sneakily pushing you closer to him. it felt like the world was timing you, your bodies frantically rushing to the bedroom, lips still locked.

his hand rides up your shirt, fiddling with your bra strap. your body tingles at his touch, bringing him closer.

“more, jeongin”

“i.n” he mumbles, breaking the kiss you thought would never end.

“I don’t want this to be a one time thing, y/n”

you couldn’t take him seriously while he glides his hands over your skin, exploring every part of your body and feeling his boner against your thigh.

“isn’t that why you moved next to me?”

he laughs, placing his head in the nook of your neck, taking in your sweet smell. he brings his mouth closer to your ear, placing small hot kisses around it.

“you could say so”

the setting sun glorified his body over yours, stripping naked and revealing his bare self to you. there was more than you thought had happened to him. his chest had several stitches everywhere which were slowly healing.

“w-what’s this?”

he looks down, tracing every stitch and bringing his fingers down to trace them onto your bare torso.

“SKZ. i was apart of some underground group. we got into a lot of scandals and fights and deals gone wrong. we were wanted, dead or alive.”

he moves to lay down next to you, tucking strands of your hair behind your ear as you listen attentively.

“i was always the one who got the hurts, because i was always initiating the problems. that day, was my last day being in SKZ”

“what made you leave?” your questions didn’t bother him anymore, he answered you with love and passion, and it couldn’t have been better.

“you. i was a hopeless romantic, and i thought no doctor would date someone like me. so i changed for you.”

you place a peck on his cheek, laying on his chest to hear the rest.

“i wrote your address on a paper, got a stable job, got off the police’s radar and here i am. with you.”

his words made you squirm with joy and sympathy. you wanted to pay off every day of those 5 years he spent for you. you want it to be eternity with him.

“fuck, baby” he groans at the way you stretch around his dick, grabbing onto the sheets for support.

you moved up and down his thick length, moaning with every inch he put inside of you. he felt like an escape of the harsh and cruel worlds you both lived in.

“faster baby, faster” you oblige, taking him in faster and slamming your ass down on him, making him go wild. he brings his two fingers to your mouth, pushing your bottom lip open. he swirls your saliva around them and brings it down to your clit, moving in slow circular motions.

“oh my fu- i.n fuck” your breath became harder to catch at the overloaded sensory.

he bit at his lower lip, enjoying the view of your sex face, pounding body and wet clit. you couldn’t deny that he looked ten times hotter with his scars that must carry so much significance to him.

his dick jerks inside of you and his veins glide again your walls. he only rubbed you faster, moving to place his fingers inside of you too, bringing you to your orgasm. your unholy moans and sweet nothings filled the air, and your release coated his dick, lubricating his final moments before he releases too.

you fall onto the mattress beside him, panting and holding each other tight.

“baby?” you whisper to him softly.

“hm?” his foxy eyes gaze into yours, waiting to listen to you all day, all month, all year.

“i owe you”

FIN.

⭑ TAG LIST

@captainchrisstan @all4minnie @rylea08 @strayywayy @katsukis1wife @kayleefriedchicken

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ivantillz · 3 days

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can u write a fic of ivantill navigating their feelings after the kiss if they were both saved by the rebels

Till was annoyed. He was also feeling a lot of other things, undoubtedly, but annoyance was at the top of the list because why wouldn't they just let him see Ivan already?

"Can you please stop pacing?"

He paused mid-step and glanced over at Mizi.

"I just found out one of my friends who I honestly thought was dead has actually been alive this whole time and my other friend is currently being operated on after nearly giving his life to save me. Sorry if I'm a little antsy."

Mizi gave a small smile, undeterred by his bluntness as usual. Or what used to be usual. Till wasn't so sure what had or hadn't changed.

"He'll be okay, I promise." Even as she said it, her eyes were drawn to the closed door. They couldn't even hear anything through the thick metal. "You heard them; the wound was pretty minor. Just grazed his side."

Till pressed his lips into a thin line, hands curled into fists at his sides.

"Why did he do that?" he asked, barely louder than a whisper. Mizi stood up and crossed the hall, drawing him into a hug. He used to dream about this - having her undivided attention - but now it did little to ease the terrible pain in his chest.

Sniffing once, he hugged her tight. She didn't say anything, even as began to cry into her shoulder.

It was nearly two hours before the door opened and one of the healers - Mizi had introduced them but honestly Till couldn't remember her name; he had been kind of traumatized at the time, okay? - stepped out.

Till tried very hard not to focus on the blood staining the front of her shirt. "He's stable," she said.

"Okay, great." Till didn't even wait before trying to push past her; she didn't budge. "Come on! I just want to see him."

She smiled politely. "I didn't say you couldn't. Just try and be quiet, okay? He might be doze in and out, don't try to force him to stay awake."

Till pursed his lips. "I know," he grumbled. Mizi joined his side.

"Thank you," she said. With a shared nod, the healer left. Inside the room was the other healer; he quietly set a rag on Ivan's forehead before also leaving the room.

"He still has a slight fever," he explained. "If he asks, you can refresh the rag." He pointed to a bucket on the table with what Till could only hope was clean water.

Once he was gone, Till walked over to the bed and sat down. Mizi sat on the other side of the bed. Ivan hadn't stirred since they walked in.

He looked bad - terrible, even. His skin was even paler than usual, there was a bit of crusted blood still at the corner of his mouth, dark circles under his eyes.

But he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

"I'll just stay until he wakes up," Mizi said quietly, staring at him. "I just want to make sure he's okay."

Till had almost forgotten he wasn't the only one who had been wounded by what happened. He suddenly felt a little guilty.

"You don't have to leave," he said instead.

She smiled over at him; there was something about the look in her eyes that made Till feel exposed. He didn't like the feeling. "I think you two need to talk."

He didn't argue, even if the last thing he wanted to do right now was talk about what had happened. Any of it.

Ivan woke up about ten minutes later; he was groggy, as expected, voice hoarse and scratchy.

"Here." Till moved without even thinking, grabbing a cup he had noticed on the table a little earlier.

Ivan was too weak to even hold it. Till adapted quickly; he held the cup to his lips and tilted it back a little. Once Ivan was done, he set it aside again.

"So," he licked his lips. "I guess this isn't heaven, huh?"

Mizi laughed softly. "Not even close. But you're safe here, at least."

He sighed, groaning a little as he tried to sit up. Till moved quickly, gently grabbing his arm to help him. He wasn't even sure if he should be moving yet but he wasn't about to fight him; that just seemed like asking for even more trouble.

"I really expected to die up there," he said once he was settled, the rag fallen at his side. Till grabbed it, plopping it in the bucket for now.

Mizi pressed her lips together. "I think I'm going to go see if they have anything that'll be easy enough on your stomach," she said, gently touching Ivan's shoulder as she stood.

"I'm not hungry," he replied automatically.

She clicked her tongue. "Too bad; you need to eat to recover."

Without waiting for a reply, she swept around the bed and paused just long enough to squeeze Till's shoulder once before leaving the room.

The silence was almost suffocating.

"You weren't really choking me," Till blurted.

Ivan side-eyed him. "Of course not," he said slowly. "Did you really think I would?"

Till opened his mouth, closed it. "I'm not really sure of anything anymore," he admitted quietly.

"It was just a ploy," Ivan continued, looking away. "I don't know. I just needed them to believe it."

It was silent again for a few beats. Till stared at his hands.

"You could've killed me," he said eventually. "I didn't care."

He chanced a look; Ivan was still staring ahead at nothing, his mouth a tight line. "I would've never let that happen," he said and for a moment Till wasn't sure what he meant until - "I would've done anything to ensure your safety."

And that was the crux of it, huh?

Till thought of Ivan's hands around his throat, surprisingly gentle. He thought about his mouth. His lips. He had kissed Till like he was searching for something. Like he needed something.

"You kissed me," he said. It felt weird, finally saying the words.

Ivan snorted, shaking his head minutely. "I did." He side-eyed Till again. "I know it was selfish of me. I know."

"But if you could do it over again, would you still kiss me?"

Till wasn't even sure what had motivated him to ask. Ivan smiled; it was almost sad. "Probably."

He nodded. He wasn't upset. He wasn't even sure if he had been upset, in the moment, not for longer than a second. Mostly he had been confused.

But now that he had time to think on it, he wasn't so confused anymore.

"I never knew," he mused quietly. "I mean." He looked up, suddenly a little angry. "You never told me. You should've told me."

All that time he had been chasing after Mizi and a part of him had always known it was never going to happen. She had loved - she still did - love Sua.

Time wasted. He had never even considered...

"There was no reason to burden you with my own feelings," Ivan said evenly. "I'm selfish, maybe, but I didn't want to make things even more complicated for you."

Till breathed out through his nose. "You really think you were doing that for my sake?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice level. "You think you had the right to decide what was best for me?"

Ivan stared back at him, eyes as dark as ever. "I don't understand."

"You kept it from me," Till continued, pressing a hand to his chest, "because you were scared to say it. You were scared of how I would respond."

Ivan let out a humorless laugh. "We both know how you would've responded, Till." He sighed. "This is a pointless argument to have."

He still wasn't getting it. "No," he said, leaning closer. "We don't know how I would've responded because you never gave me the chance."

"Just like you gave the same chance to Mizi?" he shot back.

Till pressed his lips together. "That is not the same and you know it. Sua loved her back. It was different. I - " He paused, biting the inside of his cheek.

Suddenly the fight was drained out of him. Ivan eyed him warily.

"You what?" he asked, looking cautious and almost nervous. Till had never seen that expression on his face. He always looked so in control of everything. It was nice to be reminded he was really just human like the rest of them.

Till swallowed around the lump in his throat. "I think I could've liked you, Ivan. If only I had known."

Ivan stared at him like he wasn't really seeing him. "No," he said, too fast. He looked more scared, here, than he had up on that stage.

"Didn't factor that into your little plan, huh?" he asked; without asking, he pulled the rag out of the water and wrung it before leaning forward to gently scrub away the dried blood on his chin. "I don't think I ever really liked her, not in the way I thought I did."

Ivan was silent, his jaw clenched.

"I was just - I needed something. An escape. A dream. She was nice to me. Pretty..." Till sat back. "I think I just really wanted someone to care about me."

Ivan glanced at him briefly before looking away again.

"But this whole time I was blind to see I had that," Till felt his eyes burning. "Maybe you weren't as obvious about it, maybe you had your own way of showing it, but... that doesn't matter." He tossed the rag aside and reached for his hand; Ivan stiffened as he grabbed it but didn't pull away. "I would like to have a second chance."

Ivan stared at their hands. "You don't owe me this," he said, voice still carefully even.

"I'm not offering anything because I feel like endowed to you," he squeezed his hand, hard. "You know me well enough to know I wouldn't do that. Now stop fighting me on this and look at me."

Ivan lifted his head.

"Thank you, Ivan," he said, staring into his eyes - dark, yes, but warm, comforting and familiar - "for caring about me, even when I couldn't see it."

Ivan opened his mouth, closed it. He squeezed his hand back. If Till didn't know better, he would even say he was blushing a little.

Maybe he would always have a bit of regret for not really seeing Ivan earlier. Maybe Ivan would apologize many more times for kissing him without permission. Maybe he would try to apologize for hurting Till, even if he didn't. Not really. All the pain he had felt - the real pain - was cured the moment he had known he would be okay. Maybe they would still struggle a lot, have bad and good days, but maybe that was okay.

#alnst #ivantill #alien stage #ivantill fic #alnst till #alnst ivan #alnst mizi #mywriting #hope u enjoy anon!#ivantill requests/prompts are open to all btw #they rly help motivate me soooo

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mystycalypso · 22 hours

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Return to Ravenbrooks: Biography

Entry 2

Name: Nicholas Michael Roth

Date of Birth: 1997

Gender: M

Current Address: [REDACTED]

Height: 5'6 (5'3 when hunched)

Hair color: Brown

Eye color: Brown

Key features: Freckles, Messy hair, 5 o'clock shadow, hunched posture, goggles

Role: Spy

Abilities: Lock picking, pickpocketing, sneaking, gadget inventing, climbing, crafting

Occupation: N/A

Status: Stunted

Biography:

I couldn't find a reaction to the blue home that pulled into view in front of me. As far as I knew it wouldn't be our house for long.

It never was. It seemed like every summer we were packing up again. Another school year, another house, another happy realtor welcoming us to the town.

He looked back at me from the mirror, a smile on his face while we slid into the driveway. "Chin up Narf! Yknow with any luck-" I fought the urge to finish the sentence. It was the same every time. "This'll be it! No more boxes, no more moving trucks!"

I remember sitting on the curb, staring at everything and nothing. He sat next to me, pulling the brim of my cap down over my eyes. "You doing alright, Narf?" I was silent. He waited patiently for a minute, then let out a soft sigh. "I know it's hard moving so much." Most of his words are fuzzy now. But I can remember the warmth of his voice, the weight of the gift he put in my hand. It made a metal clunk. Like the box of drill bits he kept around. But it wasn't drill bits. It was something much better. More useful.

I'll forever be thankful for that gift. Those lockpicks have done me so much good over these years. Without them, I'd never have met Aaron, and I might not even be here today.

When that summer had come around again, it was a surprise to not see any packing. No for sale signs, nothing.

For a few months believed he'd been right. That I'd end up growing up in this house, just across the street from my best friend and his little sister. I thought we'd go on looking for supernatural mysteries in the town until we were too old to believe in them.

Why couldn't that have been the end of it?

Why did I have to wake up that night to my mother's bloodcurdling scream?

Why did I run downstairs?

Why did I have to see his body in such a state?

The windows were open, the curtains billowing wildly in the wind. Those birds were- everywhere. It felt like they were watching us. If I hadn't woken up, maybe they would've fed on my mother too, in her fainted state.

"Natural causes," they told us. Nothing they could do.

Mom tried to keep it together, to keep calm despite everything. But the house, it was too much. Just being in the same room brought her to hysterics. And I...I could barely understand it all back then.

Everyone in town knew what happened in our house. Despite everything they did to "fix it". The new bright orange coat of paint wouldn't be enough to sell it. At least- I thought so for so long. Heck, I didn't believe it when I saw the "sold" sticker. It was only when I saw them from the chimney of Mr. Peterson's house that I realized it had really happened. That something had really changed. I just didn't know how much.

#welcome to raven brooks #hello neighbor welcome to raven brooks #hello neighbor #hello neighbor fanart #hello neighbor au #rtrb #return to ravenbrooks #artist #digital art #hnas #drawing #artists on tumblr #nicky hello neighbor #hello neighbor nicky #nicky roth #nicky roth hello neighbor #au #alternate universe

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seramilla · 2 days

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God that must be so hard and nerve wracking for Carmilla. Finally knowing what happened to the baby she lost and feeling slightly relieved cause now here was her baby safe and here in her arms again where she belonged damnit but they were all in hell and her baby had already lost an eye and had to fight every day...

But also...how are Clara and Odette handling the news that they found their baby sister and just who she is?

Carmilla takes a few days to determine if she wants to inform Odette and Clara about what she'd gleaned following the most recent Extermination. In the first place, her girls had been working overtime extracting all the angelic steel left behind near the Hotel; it's a veritable treasure trove this time, and they'd been so excited to get started. Second, Carmilla needed time to process recent revelations herself, and figure out how to delicately broach the subject with her eldest two.

How is she supposed to tell her daughters that their sister, whose existence they'd barely even registered back on Earth, had quite literally come back from the dead? Not only that, they'd missed an entire childhood together; growing, playing, bonding, fighting, and loving one another -- all things Clara and Odette had the opportunity to do. How is Carmilla supposed to just go up to them and say, "Surprise! You remember that child I was pregnant with when we all died? Well, she's still around! She's an ex-Exterminator, killed hundreds of our people, and I don't even know if she wants anything to do with us!"

Would Odette even accept her? Clara is usually the more open-minded of the two. That's another question she can't answer. With how many times Vaggie's "sister" Exorcists have tried to kill them over the years, would her other daughters even want to have anything to do with Vaggie? She thinks they would...Clara the most likely of the two...but they are fully grown women with their own thoughts and feelings. She wouldn't blame them if they...well, they'd have every right not to want that kind of relationship with Vaggie, at any rate.

Carmilla is still stewing in these thoughts, having practically worn a path in the middle of her bedroom floor by walking back and forth so many times, when she feels a vibration in her pocket. Pulling out her phone, Vaggie's name flashes prominently on the screen, like a fresh piece of graffiti on the side of a building. She almost drops her phone in surprise, but manages to keep it together. She taps the answer icon in trepidation.

"Ye-yes?"

"Carmilla?" Vaggie's voice on the other end sounds so...tired. Carmilla recalls she's been home for a few days now, but she wouldn't have been able to tell by the sound of her voice alone. Her tone is so...ragged and laced with anxiety; a spitting image of her own, if she's honest.

"Vaggie! Umm, yes! How can I help you?"

There is a definitive pause, one that makes the distance between them seem more metaphysical than real. They are just across the city from each other, but in every other sense, Vaggie is undoubtedly existing in her own plane of reality right now. She seems so much farther away than Carmilla could possibly reach by foot. It must have taken her a lot to call Carmilla. The arms dealer puts her patience to the test, and waits intently for Vaggie to find the words to voice what she needs to say.

"Carmilla..." Vaggie finally starts, a voice much shakier and insecure than she remembers; a far cry from that determined, brave girl that challenged her at her compound all those days ago. "Can I...come over?"

Carmilla's heart jumps into her throat. Her ears start ringing, and she almost needs to sit down on her bed before she collapses.

"Yes!" she says, flinching as she sounds a little too eager for her own ears. There's no helping that now. "Of-of course! Whatever you need, mi querida. My door is always open. When do you want to come by?"

"Ummm," Vaggie hesitates, as if she fears she's asking too much. "Is right now okay? Are you...busy?"

Odette and Clara will be back soon, but that is the furthest thing from Carmilla's mind at the moment. She'll deal with it when the time comes.

"No, that's perfectly fine! Absolutely, I'll be here! I'm not going anywhere today."

Vaggie sounds a little relieved, but also like she hadn't expected her question to be answered so quickly, so freely. Carmilla hopes she doesn't sound too eager...but she is. How can she not be? This is her daughter, for goodness’ sake, her child, wanting to see her.

"O-oh-okay!" Vaggie says, a little more eager this time. "Gi-give me an hour? And I'll...I'll be there."

"Text me once you're close by," Carmilla says, trying to push away any further doubts and hesitation from her mind. Vaggie wants to come over. She needs to be strong for her. She needs to keep it the fuck together. "I'll come out and get you this time."

"Okay," Vaggie responds. "Thanks...thank you, Carmilla."

Vaggie hangs up. Carmilla stiffens. She stands up, putting her large hands over her face, wiping her forehead down to her cheeks from the stress of it all. Vaggie is coming back, coming here, right now. She tries so much not to freak the fuck out.

Now to figure out what to do about Odette and Clara.

#hazbin hotel #carmilla carmine #vaggie #vaggie hazbin hotel #odette hazbin hotel #clara hazbin hotel #fan theories #ask #anon #vaggie carmilla related au

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gallavichsreddie1128 · 1 day

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After The Fall (Hannibal/Will)

Description: What would happen if Y/N was there doing the fall?

Word Count: 1,515k

Y/N gasped as Will pushed her out of the hug, all three were sharing and pushed himself and Hannibal off the cliff. She fell to the ground with a groan. She got up and yelled their names as she ran to the cliff. Except, she didn’t see them. She didn’t see any bodies, didn’t hear any noise besides waves of the water. Tears welled up in her eyes, thinking the worst.

Will had gotten hurt pretty bad during the fight. She looked down at the wounds she had and thought she was in no better place. She turned to look at the body of the red dragon. The memory that happened 5 minutes ago played in her head. They killed him. She, unlike Will and Hannibal, had never killed anyone. Not even as self defensive. Though she didn’t feel bad for what she did, how could she? This man, this thing had tried to kill her husband and their boyfriend. The Red Dragon, what a joke, she thought. She couldn’t believe what Will just did, that wasn’t part of the plan. Though to her, none of this was.

“Are you sure?” She asked Will as they drove to the prison that Hannibal was in. He shook his head and chuckled. “No, I’m not sure.” He said and looked over at her. “I’m not either.” She looked down at her hands. “I love him. We both do.” She said, looking over at him. “But this is our way out. Out of Jack and all that’s come with it.” He gave her a small smile. “Yeah, that would be nice.” He said, she looked at him. “I’m serious Will. Maybe we shouldn’t go.” She said. “We’ve thought long and hard about this, Y/N. We love him and if all goes well. Years from now we can be a happy family.” He said and placed his hand over her stomach that held their 2 month old baby.

Though they’ve been married for years, she just recently got pregnant. The baby was Will’s given the fact that Hannibal has been in prison the last 3 years. “I don’t know. I just have an odd feeling about this.” “Y/N, I can’t promise you that everything will go right in the end. But you will be safe, no matter what.” He promised. Luckily, the wounds were on her arms and not near the baby. Hanni and Will made sure of that. She felt sick and it wasn’t because of her pregnancy. Why would Will do that? What was his goal? He lied to her, except he really didn’t. She was okay, physically but mentally she was not. Did they drown?

A million questions ran through her head, none that she had a reasonable answer to. She walked into the house and sighed. Anywhere she looked, she thought of them and what the hell happened. She didn’t have her phone on her or anything. She walked out of the house and to the cop car. She remembers them stealing it and thought it wouldn’t be best to drive it. Hannibal was still a wanted man. She began walking away from the house, praying that nobody would see her. She began the walk down the road away from the house. Tears streamed down her face as she came to the worst conclusion. Will and Hannibal were dead. She didn’t think that Will survived that given the wounds he had. Hannibal, maybe but even then.

It would be months later that she was back at her and Will’s house with the many dogs they collected over the years. She was now 7 months pregnant and she lived alone. Occasionally, Alana would come visit. Y/N tried her best to forget the events that happened 5 months ago but it was hard. She didn’t sleep in the bed anymore. She just couldn’t, not without Will. She barely went in there. The dogs missed Will as well, she could tell. When she opened the bedroom door the cold air hit her. She hadn’t been here in months. The bed was still made as they left it that very morning before the fall. Pictures of them littered the bedroom which made her tear up. She walked up to one of the pictures and sighed. Will was such a happier man before all this happened. Hannibal, Jack, The FBI. She missed that life.

But it was no longer and hadn’t been in a long time. She walked over to Will’s closet. She opened it and saw his clothes. She looked through them before grabbing a shirt. She brought it up to her face and sniffed it. It smelled like him, and god did she miss that smell. She sat on the bed and held it up to her face. The scent of him entering her nose. She started sobbing into the shirt, not being able to control herself. She did this for the next 2 minutes before she heard a knock at the door. She looked up from the shirt and got off the bed. She sat the shirt on the bed and wiped the tears from her face. She tried to make it look like she hadn’t been crying.

She walked to the door as the dogs went crazy. She sighed and opened the door. Her eyes widened and her heart stopped. Will and Hannibal. They gave her small smiles but she couldn’t move. She didn’t believe what she was seeing. They looked the same, I mean it had only been 5 months but they looked good. When it finally clicked in her head that they were there and real she started sobbing. Will went in and hugged her. She sobbed on his chest as Hannibal watched the two with a smile. “You were dead.” She sobbed. Will shook his head, “No, I wasn’t. We survived.” She pulled away and looked up at him. He looked down at her with awe in his eyes. She reached up to grab his face but ended up slapping him.

“Why did you do that?” She asked, hurt lacing her voice. “Why didn’t you contact me?” She sobbed. Hannibal and Will felt guilt lace through them. “We didn’t want the police finding us.” Will said. “Why’d you throw yourselves off a fucking cliff?” He sighed and shrugged. “I told you that I couldn’t promise that everything would work out but I did say that you would be okay and you are.” He said. “No I’m not. What were you gonna leave me to raise our baby alone?” She yelled. He shook his head, “No, of course not we planned this out. I’ll be here for our baby and you.” “So will I.” Hannibal said. She looked over at the man.

She missed him as well but wanted to punch him and scream at him. A part of her blames him for what has happened. “You guys planned this without me?” She asked. “We didn’t want the police to know anything. It was for the best.” Hannibal told her. She scoffed and walked in the house. The two men look at each other and follow her. Will greeted the dogs and let them tackle him to the ground. Y/N walked back into the living room and watched them play with the dogs. She felt relief knowing that they were safe but she was still so mad at them.

Will stood up from the dogs and noticed that she wasn’t wearing her ring. “Where’s your ring?” He asked her. “It’s in the bedroom. I thought you were dead so I put it in there with everything else.” “Everything else?” “The memories Will. The day that you decided to fall off a fucking cliff and leave me.” She yelled. He understood her anger as did Hannibal. “I’m sorry baby.” She shook her head. “Yeah I bet.” “I’m here. We are here and will be spending the rest of our lives making it up to you.” He said. Hannibal agreed with him.

She sighed and looked at them. No matter how mad she was, she still loved them with all her heart. “Well what are you waiting for? Get over here so we can hug and this time don’t push me.” She warns Will, making him laugh. They walked over to her and hugged her. She sighed and drowned in their scent. After what felt like seconds but was minutes, they pulled away. They looked down at her stomach that was bigger than it was before.

“It’s a girl.” She told them. Will smiled with tears in his eyes. Hannibal kissed the man’s head as they looked at the woman. “Wow.” Will whispered. Y/N couldn’t help herself and she kissed him. He immediately kissed back and they fell into the kiss. It felt good to be kissing him again. She never thought she’d get the chance. They pulled away when they needed air. She looked at Hannibal and did the same. He smiled into the kiss and pulled her closer. They pulled away and she sighed, happily. Her two boys were back and better than ever.

#hannibal #mads mikkelsen #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hugh dancy #hannibal imagine #will graham #will graham x reader #will graham imagine #hannibal x will #hannigram #hannibal lecter x reader #hannibal lecter imagine

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jimraisedmeup · 2 days

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TICK // 6.1 - i feel you

Rating: mature (violence, language)

Word Count: 500

A/N: First and foremost, thank you to everyone who has taken a portion of their time to read TICK... words cannot explain my joy to know if even one person can relate to it or make them feel some type of way. I also wanted to mention, this is a random short chapter - just for this one, we are fast forwarding to 1986, what I am calling "present day" (AKA Season 4) for a smidge ;-D As part of the storytelling, I might do this more, and there might be small time skips coming up, so, *wink wink* watch the date at the beginning of each chapter. thank u agn love u all

...now let's get on with it.

☾

I feel you Your sun it shines I feel you Within my mind

☾

Spring Break 1986 - present day

Eddie Munson held a broken beer bottle against Steve Harrington's throat.

Three dark figures rushed forward, at the front being Dustin Henderson. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eddie! Eddie! Stop!" He was frantic.

But Eddie knew better than to let his guard down at the mere arrival of a friendly face. Even the innocent face of a freshman in the Hellfire Club. The situation was dire.

"Eddie. Eddie. It's me. It's Dustin." The shorter kid gestured towards Harrington. "This is Steve. He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?"

The douchebag in his grasp was barely visible in the dark boathouse, but Eddie could feel him nod.

"Right. Yeah."

"Steve, why don't you drop the oar?" Dustin suggested.

He hesitated for a second, but then Harrington finally dropped the oar. The sudden sound of it crashing on the ground only prompted Eddie to press the broken glass further onto Steve's neck.

The trio behind him pleaded with him.

"He's cool! He's. Cool."

Past the glints of light coming off his own silver rings, Eddie made eye contact with the guy struggling in his grasp.

"I'm cool, man. I'm cool."

"What are you doing here?" was the only thing Eddie Munson could think to ask.

Dustin raised his hands before him. "We're looking for you."

A familiar voice chirped from Dustin's right, distracting him for a second. "We're here to help."

He felt a tugging at the back of his skull... a distant memory. Dustin kept rambling.

"Eddie, these are my friends. You know Robin, from band. This is my friend Max. The one who never wants to play D&D," Dustin paused. "Eddie. We're on your side. I swear on my mother! Right guys?"

Everyone else around him quickly concurred. But Eddie's mind went completely blank at the name Robin.

"Yes. Yes. We swear." A small red-haired girl, looking extremely depressed.

"On Dustin's mother." That familiar voice again, bringing him back to images and memories he repressed over a year ago.

Eddie was pulled out of his thoughts by Harrington speaking, squirming in his grip.

"Yeah, Dustin's… Dustin's mother."

He stared at the Harrington kid for a second, remembering all the times he and his jock friends called him a "freak". But now wasn't the time for old grudges. A new dawn approached.

Eddie let him go and stepped away.

"Jesus Chr-" Steve complained, holding his neck.

The rest of them watched Eddie carefully as he leaned against the wall, slowly sliding down until he reached the floor. His head felt like a timebomb ready to blow at any moment.

Dustin crouched in front of him. "We just want to talk. Okay."

"We want to know what happened." The girl with short hair and blue eyes approached him. Those damn blue eyes.

"Robin Buckley?"

"Uh… the one and only." She couldn't have possibly looked more uncomfortable.

Eddie was utterly confused for a moment, his brown eyes moving to each of the faces like he was looking for someone.

"Wait," he spoke, his voice hoarse. "How exactly did you guys find me?"

Unbeknownst to the shaken man, you sat on the hood of the car outside, acting as a lookout.

☾

I feel you Each move you make I feel you Each breath you take

Where angels sing And spread their wings My love's on high You take me home To glory's throne By and by

☾

(song lyrics credit: "I Feel You" by Depeche Mode)

TAGLIST for this series if you would like to be notified when I post new chapters!

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie x fem!reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddiemunson #eddie munson x female reader #stranger things #eddie munson slow burn #eddie x you #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x buckley!reader

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ranbling · 2 days

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So I have rewatched Chimney and Hen begins episodes, and I thought maybe I was just remembering the negative things that happened to Chim and Hen, but now I'm not indifferent towards Tommy, I actively dislike him (i listed everything he did in my post)

You mean to tell the best option for Buck's first male love interest was someone who was an absolute jerk to Chim and Hen? And I don't want to hear about growth (he was acting the same way with Hen that he did with Chim, I'm not seeing the growth there) and there wasn't even a real apology to any of them. You mean to tell me you believe Buck would date someone who treated his family horribly in the past?

And I get that the 118 was an old school place, but there is a difference between not doing anything against the racism and misogyny (which is not ideal, but I understand that sometimes you'll in a situation where you have to protect yourself by not getting involved) or actively taking part in it. Tommy is a white guy, he's the thing the old captain wants in a firehouse, had he just stayed silent, he would have been safe.

If they wanted to have a character who is already existing for Buck's love interest, they should have choosen Casey the gay firefighter from the 115 (the one is Athena's support group). Hen is probably still friends with him, he could have been the one who is with the helicopter station (and could have been explained with a line "oh I didn't even know you transferred here?" "Yeah I did and when I heard what you're planning to do for Athena I knew I have to help you")

There are my notes I took during the episode, to support what I just said

- okay Chimney comes up with his work bag and Tommy (!!) without the others seeing Chimney makes a comment about him being a delivery guy (they also knew they'll get a probie that day, so I feel like it's definitely a jab at Chim being asian)

- the "you still here?" comment? It's not the end of their shift and the tone of his voice is not like a "wow, how can you still be here and endure how we treat you?" he's just being a jerk to Chim

- Tommy and Sal just ignore Chim when he starts talking to them

- Chimney offers an olive branch to Tommy, and he's like "If I thought about you at all, I probably wouldn't [like you])

- the whole earn their respect before they want to befriend you is just bullshit. There is difference between being kinda distant with someone until you know they're actually capable of not dying, and acting like someone is nothing and looking through them

(I absolutely adore the scene where the past and present is kinda blurring together)

- Tommy thanks Chim for saving his life (which like bare minimum), but there is not like an apology for anything for being a jerk

In Chim begins Sal isn't even named and has one or two lines which are not even directed at Chim, and while the Captain is the one who makes Chim do all the chores and stay behind all the time and eat at the little table, Tommy is the one who is like vocally being a jerk

Now to Hen begins

- there the Captain is the one who starts being a jerk to Hen, but like Sal and Tommy is fast to follow

- the new your bitchiness comment - like it was so uncalled for, why would you even imply someone is a bitch when you've been working together for max. a week??

- so Chim says that even though they accept him inside the firehouse, they don't actually consider him being a part of the team enough to invite him to anything outside of work

( I love Athena's little group of Hen, the gay firefighter from 115 and the other female patrol officer)

- Chim looks so proud of Hen during her speech (i'm not gonna guess what others are feeling, but most of them look annoyed at being called out)

- Sal and Tommy also doesn't give an apology to Hen, they're just good work, shake our hands and let's forget how we treated you

#911 abc #hen wilson #evan buckley #chimney han #anti tommy kinard #anti bucktommy #how can people watch the begins episode and then root for Tommy???

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sea-owl · 2 days

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You know I was reading up on inheritance laws for different parts of the world back in older times and this thought kinda got into my head.

So we know the whole "boy moms" things and sons being heavily favored even in more progressive countries to this day. A part of me wonders if that is some sort of leftover survival instinct. (Bad word for it but it's the closest I can think of at this moment) It wasn't that long ago that a women couldn't really do anything or even have a bank account without her husband okaying. And even farther back, when it was extremely difficult for a woman to inheirt anything, if she could at all, they had pray for the mercy of their sons to take care of them after death of their husbands.

Jane Austen wrote about this issue in several of her works. In Sense and Sensibility Henry Dashwood made his son John Dashwood promise to take care of his sisters and stepmother after his death. John does promise this but then easily let's his wife Mrs. Dashwood talk him out of it and basically give his sisters the very bare minimum. The Dashwood sisters actually had to rely on a distant relative because their brother broke his promise. Now Mrs. Dashwood frames it to her husband like hey why would you take this money away from your son. A part of me wonders though if she was also trying to secure herself too for if she outlives her husband.

This issue also comes up again in Pride and Prejudice with Mrs. Bennett worrying for her daughters because Mr. Bennett has greatly shown he does not really care about the future after he's gone, hell he hasnt even bithered to look to who his estate will go to when he passes. He has of age daughters that he should he taking to London or higher populated areas to give them better odds of marrying and marrying well. But he doesn't like the city so they stay in the country and thankfully they got lucky that Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy ended up rolling into town. I also don't remember exactly how this went but Mr. Bennett also was not really setting anything aside for his daughters dowieries and instead was relying on Mrs. Bennett's dowery for that. Mrs. Bennett's dowery wasn't much either when divided among all the girls especially considering she married up when she married Mr. Bennett. Compared to Mr. Darcy who is properly taking care of his female relatives and even Lizzie's. Mr. Darcy did more for the search for Lydia then Mr. Bennett, Lydia's father!

Another example is in Bridgerton. Lord and Lady Featherington are in my opinion Mr and Mrs. Bennett coded except now we are seeing what happens when Mr. Bennett/Lord Featherington dies and have done nothing to help his daughters. The whole Featherington family was stressed about the new lord because they had no idea of what he would do to them. He very easily could have kicked them out onto the street and left them with nothing. Then he turns out to be a scam artist who only cares for himself. I don't blame Portia for getting those fake documents, but back to the son thing even in those documents it is spefically stated that the firstborn grandson would become the new lord. Still putting the Featherington sisters and Portia herself at the mercy of a male relative. Because while women could inheirt, although a difficult process and often if she was married it would fall into her husband's hands until 1870, estates that were tied to a title had to be inherited by a male relative.

So that's kinda why I'm wondering if this is why the whole boy preference still exists because women's survival not too long ago very much relyed on the mercy of their male relatives.

#ignore me im rambling #jane austen #sense and sensibility #pride and prejudice #bridgerton

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soshadysoquiet · 3 days

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TUA fanfic WIP: Sibling Beach Trip

I've recently devoured @assaily 's WIP posts and you know what, why hoard all of my WIPs when I may never finish them and people might enjoy them?

Having said that this isn't a snippet so much as it's a 2 thirds done fic that I've lost inspiration for the ending for so grab yourself a drink and enjoy!

Working Title: Beach No Beach. Love a working title

Length: 6k. Self control? Who is she?

Premise: Post apocalypse a family beach trip is proposed. Five has his reservations and is finding real life hard to adjust to, but he'll go if that's the Sibling Movement of the week. This is basically a slice of life fic that I'm pretty sure was going to build to Diego needing to save Five from drowning at the beach, because of course it was, but I think the rest of this has enough low-level angst and family moments to be entertaining on it's own.

Warnings: This fic discusses body dysmorphia in small detail and has underage drinking from Five.

It was embarrassing. More than embarrassing, really.

Shameful.

But Five couldn’t swim.

They’d had what constituted as ‘lessons’ when they were kids, apparently. Five had very limited memories of life before the Apocalypse, and often they seemed more surreal than anything.

‘We did?’ He asked blankly, barely looking over his morning cup of coffee to Viktor and Klaus.

‘All the time bro!’ Klaus replied breathily, laughing, eyes just a little wide in the thrill of memory, or possibly at Five not remembering something. ‘You don’t remember the pool? I’m pretty sure Dad blocked off the door after we started sneaking down there to play.’

‘I remember.’ Viktor nodded along, smile curling his lips so that his face lit up. ‘That’s how we found about Diego-‘

‘And his creepy fish power!’ Klaus looked ready to implode with hysteria and even Viktor bent to the table with a snort before looking between them.

‘You really don’t remember that?’

‘Diego isn’t a fish…’ He spoke slowly. He was talking to children after all. Or maybe he was hallucinating again. It happened. Hiding his grimace, Five took a sip.

‘Yeah! Yeah he can really hold his breath, come on you have to remember that, we teased him for weeks!’

‘Yeah that was kinda mean of us.’ Viktor grimaced a little into his own coffee. Probably for no reason, Viktor at that age wouldn’t have said Boo to a goose.

Hold his breath? It almost was a memory. Someone laughing, Diego pouting, then throwing a fit.

‘I think I’d remember us finding out about that.’

‘Maybe you blocked it out, it was pretty horrible at the time.’ The tone shifted after Viktor’s words.

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me.’

‘What doesn’t surprise you?’ Diego.

‘Speak of the devil!’ Klaus chorused, Five flinched a little at Diego’s hand falling briefly onto his shoulder as he passed. But it was barely noticeable now, he’d almost got a hang on it. ‘We were reminiscing about the time Dear old Dad decided to test out our underwater endurance.’

‘You mean when he held us all under the water until you all near passed out and I beat all your asses.’

‘Definitely would have remembered that one.’ Five murmured, covering up the chill skipping over his flesh.

‘Technically you didn’t beat my ass, since I wasn’t included in How to Drown Your Kids 101.’ Viktor replied with a darkly amused smirk and the sort of steel satisfaction that only true trauma inspired.

‘Well I’d have beaten you too.’ Diego retorted, confident as he went about fetching some ungodly looking juice concoction from the fridge.

How many different fruits went into just that, how many vegetables? The math wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth the pang of mixed dread and desire it inspired in him.

‘And then we all called you, ah, well, never mind eh?’ Diego’s glare had silenced Klaus.

‘For the record, we’re sorry.’ Viktor offered, voice so gentle and meaning.

‘I’ve got nothing to be sorry for.’ Five retorted. He wasn’t there after all, and he was above childish name calling. He had found more creative insults.

‘Well you got off the hook easily anyway, you weren’t even there.’ Diego chimed in, but did take the time to nod to Viktor in a passing sense of camaraderie. He sat heavily at the table and looked at them all as he took a drink. ‘What brought this on anyway?’

‘We’re trying to convince little Fivey-‘

‘Older than you!’ His insistence was soundly ignored.

‘To come to the beach with us all at the weekend.’ Diego hastily swallowed the mouthful of his juice. What could all those ingredients even taste like together? Five shook his head at the sight.

‘Hell yeah you should come! You don’t get out enough.’

‘I get out plenty.’

‘To the library maybe.’ Klaus mumbled, twiddling with the buttons undone on his shirt.

‘Come on Five, it would be fun!’

‘Would it really?’ He sighed, wished he’d just blinked back up to his room with the coffee.

‘Its the beach bro.’ Diego’s voice was so deadpan that Five managed to feel insulted.

‘There isn’t even anything there! It’s all dead anyway!’ One of his hands gestured with the coffee cup for effect as he complained but the others were staring at him and, oh, right. Nervously he cleared his throat. ’I mean-‘

‘No, no what is it?’ Klaus was too gentle. They’d started doing this recently, paying attention to him rather than responding with their own drama and pushing what he said aside. Five didn’t know what to do with it. And it only took a few rapid equations to work out the cheapest way out of this situation.

‘Fine I’ll go. But don’t expect me to enjoy it.’ He blinked away. But not far.

Paranoid.

‘Alright alright.’ Five muttered quietly at Dolores’ imagined critique from where he sat in the pantry, listening.

‘Well, that was surprisingly easy, only took ten minutes.’ Klaus sounded both pleased and a little disappointed. Had he not wanted Five to come after all, or had he just wanted to do more wheedling?

‘What do you think he meant by it being dead?’ Viktor asked, voice contemplative and too damn observant.

‘I swear to God Klaus, if you making him go to the beach causes another apocalypse-‘

Diego and Klaus devolved into childish squabbles and Five blinked out of the pantry.

The beach huh. He hadn’t seen it in decades. He’d only been the once. If they’d ever done any missions by the sea as children Five certainly didn’t remember it.

It could be nice this time.

‘We can’t swim Dolores.’ In the emptiness of his room, the reminder drifted lifeless. He’d learned that one the hard way. ‘And only you can float.’

A weekend beach trip sounded like hell to Five but apparently he was one of the few. Yet it was interesting that the closer they got to the date the more cracks appeared in the others’ armour.

Diego would boast about his abilities, but when Luther had guffawed ‘oh my god! Fish-Boy!’ Their knife-wielding vigilante had begun to stammer on and off when they talked about the ocean. Allison had bitched at Luther down the phone for it, as had Klaus in person. Five had been listening in on parts of the phone call.

Because he liked to hear their voices, not because he was paranoid, Dolores!

But it wasn’t just Diego.

Allison had sounded hesitant, and wanted to bring Claire, but remained nervous about mixing Claire with their family. Five usually made himself scarce on the rare occasions that Allison brought Claire around. It had only been twice, but no matter how much he wanted to meet her, Five didn’t have anything to fall back on when interacting with people outside his siblings. Unless they were a threat, or it was for less than two minutes.

Three minutes fifteen had been his record, at the library where he went to practice. And after that he’d had to go hide in the bathroom stall and have a minor panic attack.

With people that mattered it was harder. Because there was only so long Five could talk to someone who mattered before he fucked it up. He’d only been able to say ‘Hi, nice to meet you’ to Claire before becoming overwhelmed by her childlike open-stare and making an excuse to run away. But he wasn’t the only reason for Allison’s hesitance.

Five thought she was worried about the crazy rubbing off.

During last month’s visit Klaus had told Claire the story of Dead Uncle Ben after she’d caught Klaus talking to what looked like thin air. Five had overheard on the phone call the week after how Claire had begun ‘talking to Dead Uncle Ben’ at school. For a custody battle situation, it was understandably a nightmare.

Diego always had knives on him, and children had sticky fingers. Claire kept trying to pull them out from Diego’s pockets and holsters and fingers. It wasn’t as if Diego encouraged or approved of it, but he had offered to teach her before he’d caught Allison’s look. And even at the beach Diego would probably be packing at least three knives. Probably more.

Luther had been fine at first, and was Claire’s favourite uncle. But then the Holy Trinity of Stupid; hitherto named Klaus, Luther and Diego, had loudly reminisced about the all the times Luther had accidentally injured them during training when they were kids. Even Five had joined in; Luther smacking him hard enough into the wall after a mis-timed jump and cracking his arm during combat training were ironically some of his clearer memories. Allison trusted Luther with Claire’s life, but she had looked a little green around the gills as they all laughed about it.

Viktor hadn’t done anything to directly inspire worry, but Allison had told Luther she was worried about Claire finding out what she’d done to her sibling when they were children. Five had stopped listening to the phone call once Allison started crying, feeling more than a little guilty about his eavesdropping.

So, Allison was apprehensive about Family Fun-Time at the Beach because it involved Family Fun-Time. Otherwise known as ill-facilitated chaos.

Klaus worried about taking Ben to the ocean and Ben being sad about only being able to be so-corporeal in the ocean. A guilt Five felt Klaus didn’t need to put on himself, given that without him there would be no beach for Ben. But he’d been told he had a rather unsympathetic view on things and asked to leave. It didn’t help that Ben was apparently desperate to go to the ocean and also sad about it, apparently.

Or so Five could tell from what he’d heard when he stood nearby Klaus’ room at night, or followed him at night down the street, or when he was hiding in the pantry eating fluffed-nutter sandwiches and just listening to his siblings being alive.

Friday lunchtime and Five thought that most of the pre-beach drama had probably run its course, that said nothing for what would blow up when they were actually there in typical Hargreeves-style. And he counted the journey to and from as a separate nightmarish entity altogether, but at least this time he was one of the cats to be herded, not the one doing the herding. Small mercies.

They were just lucky that Lila had decided not to come. Apparently their powers ‘gave her a headache’ whilst she was pregnant. Five had gone to visit her out of boredom and sibling duty, and swore to report back on the idiocy for her, and had somehow gotten roped into shopping.

‘Just zap us all there, I want to feel alive again.’

‘You could do it yourself.’ He pointed out, and she groaned and grabbed his hand. They did that a lot, held hands. Five had actually come to enjoy the brusque contact with his most violent sister. There remained a certain comfort in the knowledge he was holding the hand of another killer.

‘Don’t be a prick.’ She groaned. He waited, brow raised. ‘Look you’re more practiced than me alright! I don’t want to jump there and find out little Lila Junior is all over the floor somewhere else!’

‘Okay that’s disgusting.’ He’d blinked them just to stop the conversation, but not so quick that he hadn’t seen her wicked grin at his pain.

And, of course, after jumping that far, he didn’t have the juice to escape.

‘Do you even own anything that isn’t some god-awful dark academia bullshit?’

‘Rich coming from a punk.’

‘You’re going to the beach not a banquet-‘ They’d snapped and bitten at each other whilst grinning through their shark teeth and Lila had forced him to buy a pair of truly heinous swimming trunks about the length of the Academy shorts he’d used to wear. At least until Allison had dragged him out shopping again.

‘You wore that nice suit in the Sparrow timeline, you do not need to go back to looking like a prep-school kid.’

At least Allison had taste.

And secretly, Five had been glad that someone had made him do it. Old routines were the hardest to break for him when they seemed so ultimately unimportant.

‘Sunglasses!’ Lila belted out, breaking his musings and dragged him roughly over to a stand. She’d fussed over trying on shades and insisting on him doing the same and Five had allowed himself to pick out a pair he actually quite liked.

They suit you better than those goggles. Five huffed a smile at that. Dolores always had deplored his apocalyptic wardrobe.

‘I just, I want to be out there, but I’m not sure I’m ready to be out there.’ Five’s head popped up over the sunglasses stand.

‘Viktor? Luthor?’

‘Five!’

‘Lila?’

‘There’s the boys! No Klaus?’

‘He was, um, what are you doing here?’ Luther stumbled the words, other than Klaus and Five, the siblings were still somewhat awkward around Diego’s partner. Lila didn’t let it show, but Five thought the distance there bothered her. Five certainly wasn’t the one to know what to do about it. Klaus had told him he ‘imprinted’, like a duckling, and that had been enough ‘friendship’ talk to last another lifetime.

And he got embarrassed enough by Diego’s obvious happiness at him taking the time to include Lila.

Five held up the shorts he was being frog-marched into buying.

Not that there was a point, because he wouldn’t be stepping foot in the ocean ever again.

‘Apparently this is required dress code.’

‘Oh, same.’ Luther grinned a bit, before his face fell. Viktor, who’d been the one talking earlier, looked a little sullen.

‘No offence, but me and my spawn are going to walk away from all this.’ Lila gestured and excited stage left back towards the child section where, embarrassingly, Five had just come from to get the shorts in his hand. She had meant that their powers were bothering her, a weird pregnancy side-effect, but the pair of them looked a little slapped in the face.

‘What’s up with you two?’ Five asked, coming around the sunglasses stand to eye them up and down better. ‘Was it Diego? It’s usually Diego.’

‘What? No.’ Luther insisted. Viktor cleared his throat.

‘It’s just,’ Viktor paused for a breath and looked to Luther, who nodded encouragingly. ‘It’s hard to, cross some hurdles, with the dysmorphia.’

‘It’ll get easier, or I hope it will.’ Luther’s half-encouragement was half-hearted but well meaning, and Viktor offered him a small sad smile. Five just frowned at them.

‘Dysmorphia?’ He rolled the word around, squinting. ‘The medical condition?’ He frowned harder. In a sense, Luther’s ape-like physicality could be called that. But Sloane had gone a long way to helping with that. But she wasn’t fully welcomed into the loving disaster that was his family yet, so she wouldn’t be at the beach. Maybe that was the problem.

He’d said the wrong thing, Luther was flushed in embarrassment and Viktor put a hand on his arm before cutting in.

‘No, well-‘

‘Sort of, in my case. Both I guess.’ Luther spoke over Viktor, seeming to pull in his confidence with a truly remarkable strength. Strength of character that their father had always failed to measure. Much like Viktor’s patience.

‘Body dysmorphia. It’s when you might feel like the way your body looks isn’t how you think it should be. It’s how I felt, before. And somedays there’s another new hurdle to cross.’

‘It’s not comfortable, the idea of being on show like that.’ They managed their words with aplomb, but Five was somewhere between them and himself.

Maybe that was selfish, but he found himself looking at his own hands as they spoke, jaw a little slack.

Dysmorphia.

‘Oh.’ He didn’t have many more words for them, but the silence suggested he should, so he pulled away from himself and looked to them again. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

Taken aback a little by the blunt question, they looked at each other. Viktor found his voice first.

‘We were debating between making a ’t-shirts are ok’ pact or a-‘

‘’Skin or nothing’ oath.’ Luther finished. Five didn’t think he had the skill set to say the right thing.

You do. Dolores insisted softly. You’re kinder than you think.

‘Well, let me know what you decide.’ He offered, hoping he was somewhere on the track to wiping the misery off their faces. Three apocalypses and it’s still the human condition bringing us all down. ‘I’ll join you.’ Decidedly he nodded, and turned to make sure Lila wasn’t getting caught shoplifting. Honestly her skills needed some improvement. Although she would probably say the same about him.

Viktor and Luther’s seaside-problems Five could understand maybe a bit better on a personal level than those afflicting the rest of his family, because there was a certain degree of dysmorphia to all their bodily situations that didn’t bother dwelling on but couldn’t not be dwelt on at the beach. It wasn’t like he enjoyed looking at himself in the mirror, so on some level he got it.

He’d bring a t-shirt in case.

Despite their united worry, and Five’s pessimism, the Hargreeves family all descended on the mansion Friday evening for their trip to the beach the following day.

Five nearly blinked to the roof when Claire ran up and hugged him, standing with his fists clenched throughout and then vanishing behind the bar. As in hidden behind the bar. He had long ago sworn to Allison that he wouldn’t drink in front of Claire. They could at least both agree that she was a child.

Luther and surprisingly Viktor got drunk on the other side of the bar and Klaus merrily joined in.

Lila dropped Diego off to stay overnight since they had an early start come the morning, and Five contemplated blinking into their car to escape whilst Diego shouted at her to not do anything criminal while he was gone.

Allison escaped to smoke twice in between fretting about which sibling to entrust Claire to in the meantime, and quickly decided to just put Claire to bed instead.

Five listened to it all hidden behind the bar. Klaus knew he was there, he kept passing his glass down for Five to refill. Five left a shot out for Ben as well, because it felt polite, Even if apparently Ben disapproved of alcohol.

All too soon, they were turning in for the night in dribs and drabs.

Five hung on until the end. Surprisingly with Luther and Viktor.

‘Ahem.’ Luther cleared his throat and knocked a little sloppily on the bar top as they were turning to go. Five had been humming ‘Dream a little Dream of me’ for Dolores for the last few minutes and hiccupped himself to a stop. ‘For tomorrow, no shirts.’

‘No shirts!’ Viktor chorused loudly and very, very drunk, toppling a little from the sounds of it.

‘No shirts!’ Luther joined in and the pair stumbled up for the night.

‘No shirts.’ He toasted to the air, took his last swig and went to pick up Dolores-

But she wasn’t there. The shop had thrown her away.

In a flash the martini glass he’d been drinking from smashed against the bar where he’d thrown it.

You’re gonna have to clean that up now.

‘I know, I know.’

He ignored the catch in his voice as he moved to do just that, craving to hold her and getting glass shards instead.

—

‘Get up Five! Christ, there’s always one.’

‘And it’s usually him, or you. Actually it's usually you.’

‘Shut up and help me! Oh wait you can’t.’

‘Wow, low blow.’

‘Oh I can go lower-‘

‘Shut up.’ Five smacked his pillow at Klaus like a true teenager and glowered. His hair was ruffled and he smelt like a bar.

‘You look like some nasty little cat I found on the sidewalk and just want to put in a blanket,’ Klaus half-crooned, half sneered, grabbing his grumbling gremlin of a brother. ‘Now come on, get up and showered or Allison will have our asses.’

‘Have our asses!’ All three of them turned with slightly horrified gazes to see Claire standing in the door giggling, fingers pressed over her mouth and looking like she knew exactly what she was doing. The little tyrant. With a final giggle she turned and ran. ‘Mooooooom!’

‘No no no no no!’ Klaus abandoned Five to his fate and sprinted off after his favourite little terror of a niece. If she made it to Allison, they were all doomed.

She made it Allison.

Five managed to get himself somewhat presentable, down the stairs and into clothes. In fact they all did, more or les on time, it was a Hargreeves miracle.

‘Loving the shorts buddy. You needed more colour in your wardrobe.’

‘Keep talking and I’ll sk-‘ Five stopped himself, Ben snorted uncharitably behind Klaus’ shoulder as Claire looked eerily around at them, eyes wide and guileless. Klaus cleared his throat whilst Five’s brain seemed to re-wire itself, clutching his coffee for dear life and eyes shielded by shades. ‘Skkkunk you.’

‘Skunk you.’ Claire mouthed, hand benignly in Allison’s, eyes bright with hell-fire.

‘Skunk me?’ Klaus turned to Five again, disbelief and laughter battling for dominance in his chest. ‘That’s the best you could do?’

‘Keep talking, and you’ll find out.’ Five’s coffee got grumbled into and Ben guffawed behind them.

‘You’re both idiots.’

‘Shut up Ben!’

‘Dead Uncle Ben’s here?!’ Klaus shrivelled under the weight of Allison’s incredulous raised brows turning to him with the sweet promise of death as Ben ‘awwed’ behind him.

Allison had already had to put up with Claire having a tantrum about not being able to talk to Uncle Ben, and had thrown her hands in the air when Klaus had said Ben also wanted to talk to Claire.

‘Sure, why not! Let’s just wheel her right into therapy rather than window-shopping it!’ She had stormed to the back of the bus and sat next to Five, because he was currently the quietest and she saw the least of him.

Ben’s blue conjured form absolutely enchanted Claire, and her eyes swelled so large and happy and un-affected by rumour as she looked gleefully between Dead Uncle Ben and her Mom that it made Allison’s heart lighter.

Watching Ben form into what existence Klaus could give him was always a delight, if a bittersweet one, and Allison found herself relaxing a bit at watching the joint joy on her child and brother’s faces.

They had taken the bus to the beach, changed three times and by the time the ocean breeze was coming salty and refreshing through the window Allison’s hungover siblings had drunk enough coffee, water and juice to grace the land of the living. Viktor and Luther had woken from their nap enough to tease Diego about his upcoming life of parenthood. She’d berate them, or join them, but honestly they were just the warm up act for the terror Allison herself could inspire if she told Diego the truth of parenting. But she didn’t quite want to do that.

Something in her knew the horrors too well to joke about them right now, the emotions always too present. And some dark voice inside her said that she didn’t get to lord it over anyone. Not with the mess she’d made the first time round.

And probably was making, letting her kid talk to her ghost Uncle.

‘It’ll be fine.’ Allison jolted a bit, and glanced down at Five, slumped still somewhat bonelessly, dressed in a plain top and tropical beach shorts that were almost the same shade of yellow as Allison’s own bikini under her wrap dress. Five was alert enough to be verbal, which was good, but not quite enough to move further down the bus and put up with their family’s particular brand of unending bullshit.

‘What will?’ She asked, bewildered. ‘This family trip? I’m pretty sure its’ already gone way better than it should, which means we’re due for a tsunami at least.’ He snickered at that and she smiled at the rarely heard sound.

‘Well I won’t disagree, but I meant Claire with Ben. If anyone can talk sense to her, it’s the one who usually holds the brain cell.’

And Five was somewhat right. Despite the way he very awkwardly coughed and looked through his fringe out the window when Claire came to sit between them.

‘Mom, I’m sorry about pretending to see Dead Uncle, I mean, Uncle Ben at school. I know it’s a Serious Topic now.’ She nodded solemnly, and Allison felt her face crease up in adoration at the attemptive-adult look on her daughter’s angelic face. And the apology that she wasn’t sure she deserved, but couldn’t help melting over. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop talking about him because Uncle Ben and Death are important.’ And just like that, adoration turned to the sort of disbelief that only children could inspire. Five snorted.

‘Smart kid.’ He muttered, and Allison found her smile reforming.

‘Thank you Claire, and you’re right, those are important topics. We’ll have a talk about bluntness at, a much, much later date.’ Because there were only so many Serious Parenting Moments she could handle before 10 in the morning. She thought she had an easy out, but then Five was turning to Claire with a devilish look at Allison over his glasses and a truly awful smile. Her stomach dropped.

‘Whatever she says don’t listen to her, your Mom mastered bluntness at age Six.’

‘Six?!’

‘Six.’ Five nodded.

‘I think you should go talk to Uncle Ben while he’s here sweetie, Uncle Klaus can only keep him visible so long-‘

‘But I wanna talk to Uncle Five too!’

‘No you don’t-‘ Allison and Five flashed each other an awkward look at their matching words.

‘Hey Claire! Claire! Wanna see the octopus in Uncle Ben’s belly-‘

‘NO SHOWING HER THE HORROR!’ Allison shouted as Claire squealed and ran for a glaring Ben and shit-eating Klaus.

She didn’t have one child, she had a whole bus of them.

The beach spray in the air wasn’t like he��d thought it would be.

Five watched the unreal blue hue of the ocean, heard the waves crash rather than slosh thickly, felt sand rather than trash and rubble under his feet.

It was beautiful.

‘So, we doing this?’

‘We’re doing this.’ He glanced to Luther and Viktor. They’d set up their family’s base-camp on the beach, and Allison was over at the nearby changing huts getting Claire sorted. Diego had set them up under one of the available umbrellas and was lecturing Klaus on sunscreen. Because of course he was.

Red rays from the too-hot sunlight burnt through the distorted atmosphere, piercing dust-and-storm clouds, lighting the grey sloshing water in an eerie light.

‘Don’t you want to swim? I always wanted to swim.’

‘Hey Five!’ Sand hit him in the face. Five spluttered and spun around. No crap littering the golden sands. Just his family and the blue tide. Disguising his shaky breath, Five glared at Diego. ‘You too, sun cream, come on line up.’

‘Sun cream Nazi.’

‘Want me to spray it in your face Klaus?’ Klaus just groaned, turning around obediently as Diego sprayed an endless can of aerosol ‘factor 30’ onto his pale skin.

‘Might as well get it over with Five. He’ll have his way.’ Klaus pouted.

‘That I will, alright, you’re done, come back in three hours.’

‘Alright Mom.’ Klaus mocked with a grin and escaped away, donning his brimmed hat and heading to the ocean.

‘You’re up.’ Diego beckoned him over and Five shook his head snorting.

‘The sun’s not even radioactive at this point.’ Diego stared and then grabbed him.

‘You’re the most in danger, young skin is important to protect.’

‘Get off me!’ Five snatched the can and roughly sprayed over himself before throwing it back. ‘Happy?’

‘That’s not how you apply sunscreen bro.’

‘Its literally what you just did.’

‘No sunscreen, no sun.’ Diego stated with an impressive amount of finality and pointed at the towels under the parasol where Viktor and Luther were lurking. Beyond them, Allison was running after Claire to the water.

‘Fine by me.’ He wasn’t swimming anyway, and he’d had enough of the sun’s harsh rays. Diego seemed appeased, and headed to the ocean himself.

Five settled down and, seeing his remaining brothers had already removed their shirts, did the same. Solidarity and all.

Job done, he settled back, and watched the ocean.

It was even more mesmeric now than it had been back then, thick with ash and ruined life, but the largest amount of water he’d seen in months.

He hadn’t washed in months.

Is it even real? Dolores laughed at him

‘Of course it’s real.’ Walking there had been a dream, heart thudding, shedding clothes along the way haphazardly, stumbling over ruble and Dolores in his arms, in a dream till the water sloshed over his ankles.

The sensation had sent shivers up his spine.

‘Hey, you swimming?’ Viktor nudged him back into focus and Five looked around him, glad of the sunglasses hiding his eyes.

‘No.’

‘Really? But we’re at the beach, and it’s pretty empty, even Luther’s in.’ It took Five a moment to notice that yes, he was. Tossing Claire up in the air and into the water as she squealed in delight. Diego looked like he was doing some pretty serious swimming while Klaus and Allison lounged in the shallows.

‘You go, have fun. I’ll guard the camp. Wouldn’t want us loosing our clothes.’ He got a frown at that, but Five had lost his Academy uniform that day on the beach and with it the only reminder of home he had left, the only identity he had. Not to mention the only clothes he’d had.

Just because he’d wanted to feel water and hadn’t weighed them down.

‘Well, come over when you’re ready. You’ll like it.’ He grinned in lieu of answering and Viktor shrugged and went off, both him and Luther bare-skinned from the waist up and wearing it with growing confidence.

Smiling a little, Five folded his arms behind his head and stretched his toes into the sand. It burned a bit, but the feeling was unlike anything he’d felt before. He kept doing it over and over, finally sitting up and admitting that he wanted to touch it.

Five settled off the towel and felt the sand all over, shivering, digging his fingers into it.

Dry and hot on top, cool and heavier underneath if he dug down far enough.

Golden, soft.

His fingers found a shell and Five took a while staring at the delicate pattern, mesmerised. He looked for more.

‘What are you doing?’ Five had to get a better handle on being snuck up on. He looked around to see Claire staring at him, rocking on her feet.

‘Finding shells.’ He replied.

‘I’ll help!’ She lay down next to the hole he’d dug and reached her arms in to tease through the sand. ‘They’re pretty.’

‘Uh, sure.’ Seeing how deep Claire had to reach into the hole, Five looked around and winced. Half of their belongings were covered in sand and to match the hole was a large mountain he’d moved aside, digging straight down mindlessly.

‘Is this one good?’ Claire pulled out a long, thin shell, poking Five’s knee with it.

‘Its great.’ He took it and tried not to feel her eyes on him as he looked it over. ‘It’s a razor clam shell.’ He offered, turning it over in his fingers and admiring the barred pattern. He put it in the ‘clam’ pile.

‘Really? What’s this one.’

‘A snail.’

‘And this one?’ Five glanced over from where he’d reached for another speck of porcelain white buried in the sand.

‘A crab claw.’

‘Where’s the rest of the crab?’

‘Given that that’s it’s arm, I’m assuming that it’s dead.’

‘Like Uncle Ben.’

‘Like Uncle Ben. Although, I don’t know if crabs have ghosts that stick around, that’s really an ethical and philosophical debate on the presence of a soul and frankly it’s exhausting.’

‘Oh.’

‘Claire! There you are, don’t run off like that!’ Allison looked vaguely harassed as she hurried to them. ‘Oh, Five, thanks for looking after her.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ He replied, somewhat guilty where he had moved to sit in the hole he’d dug, and hadn’t even noticed Claire being ‘missing’ in the first place. He’d been too focused by the texture of sand and delicate shells.

‘What are you two doing?’ The frown and amused quirk to her mouth suggested that this wasn’t normal.

‘Uncle Five’s collecting shells.’ Incredulous eyes turned his way, Five scowled.

‘I can stop.’ He snapped out.

‘No, no Five, it’s okay. People collect shells at the beach.’ Her assurance was swift but gentle, genuine. Claire was looking at him wide-eyed.

‘Oh. Okay.’ He replied, somewhat derailed from defending himself.

Prickly. Five ignored Dolores’ fond chuckle.

‘Impressive hole Five.’ Luther came up behind Allison and Five hopped out enough to sit on the rim of his sand pit. Claire squealed on seeing him and reached up to be lifted, she kept hold of the crab claw.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s Uncle Five’s dead crab!’

‘Don’t touch things like that!’ Allison wrestled it from Claire who pouted.

‘Uncle Five touched it!’

‘Well, he’s a heathen, not a lady.’ Five snorted, but didn’t deny it. ‘Let’s go wash your hands.’ Claire was led away with a plea of ‘but mooooooom’ and Luther took her place.

‘You’re not swimming?’

‘Apparently I’m collecting shells.’ Five gestured over to the neatly sorted collection he’d accumulated.

Dolores liked them.

‘I just thought you were digging a hole. Maybe we should make a sand castle.’

‘A what?’ Luther was already gathering the sand Five had piled up and grinned.

‘I’ll show you! I used to try and make miniature ones on the moon with the moon dust I collected, but we could make a really big one!’ The childlike enthusiasm was enough to stir Five’s eternal curiosity, he followed Luther out of his hole and felt the sun lap his skin as they began forming a ‘foundation’.

It was surprisingly enjoyable. Therapeutically technical.

It looks good.

It did, Five thought.

Give it a tower for me, like a princess would have.

‘It needs a tower.’

‘Good idea. And a flag.’

They built for a while before Diego came to join them and added himself in with a comment of ‘sick’. They stuck one of Diego’s knives in the top in place of a flag and Viktor and Klaus came by with a heaping assortment of lunch foods.

‘Feeding time at the zoo!’

Allison and Claire followed having been in the sea again, and Five got up and stretched from where he’d been hunched over. The water glittered in the sun.

Five thought he might like the beach.

‘Five, your back!’

‘What about it?’ Five looked at Diego askance but got pushed under the shade.

‘It’s coming up red already, I told you to stay in the shade.’

‘Such a parent in the making.’ Klaus teased. ‘What? I think it’s sweet, really!’ Ben, apparently, was getting involved.

‘I’m fine.’ Five protested, but was wrangled onto one of their sandy towels and he watched bemused as Diego wetted a t-shirt and draped it over Five’s shoulders. The coolness did feel good, he hadn’t realised how hot his skin had gotten. Sometimes it was hard to feel things.

‘After lunch, you’re putting sunscreen on.’ Diego warned with a raised finger and firm stare. ‘Now drink your water.’

‘You’re not the boss of me.’ But he wasn’t about to waste water, so he drunk what he was given and ate the hotdog passed his way and listened to their chatter. With the distraction of the sand gone, his thoughts ticked lazily back to the last ocean trip he’d had.

He’d been so hungry that time that he’d contemplated eating one of the rotting fish carcasses before deciding better.

#the umbrella academy #tua #five hargreeves #diego hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #luther hargreeves #tua fan fiction #tua fanfic #allison hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #ben hargreeves #family bonding #slice of life #wip

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