Various The Umbrella Academy One Shots

Of tortoises and eagles (requested)

The room had been perfectly quiet until all of three minutes ago, where Five's intentionally sought out peace and quiet was evaporated with the same speed that it took for Klaus to unceremoniously flop himself down onto the counter, tucking his legs up under him in a neat cross-legged position, gazing expectantly at his sibling.

"What is it now?" the significantly older of the two asked, a weary sigh dragging this out with all the disapproval that his incorrect and misleadingly young countenance could provide. Was it too much to ask for a moment to himself for once? He had spent so many years completely and entirely alone and so it almost felt strange to be in the company of others, especially when the others in question were those he had spent so long struggling to force himself to accept their untimely death, and so had been thrown in a loop when seeing them all alive and as well as anyone in their family could be.

"Well!" declared the other, gesturing in such a way that the gaudy peacock blue of his sheer coat fluttered about in a way that seemed excessively theatrical, "Now that you mention it," he continued as if he had not entered the room with a particular intention in mind, once more pausing for dramatic effect, "I've been thinking about your predicament!" This came with a vague gesture in the direction in his sibling's general direction.

"Have you now?" came the response, Five already beginning to wonder whether or not he would be able to simply escape this conversation or if it would be one that would simply come up again later on. Having decided that the latter was the more likely option, he simply let his attention land more directly on the extravagantly dressed fellow.

"I have!" Klaus returned, clasping his tattooed hands together, making the rings he happened to have adorned his fingers with at that moment click together in a way that he found to be particularly satisfying when it came to adding emphasis to the words. "And I have come to the conclusion that you, dear brother, are a tortoise!"

Thankfully Five had never gotten around to getting the coffee he was planning on fetching before his sibling had arrived because he most certainly would have found himself choking in a most undignified manner. He should have expected it, really, knowing full well that his brother was prone to the occasional, too frequent bout of foolishness. That said, he had never been called a tortoise, or even a similar creature before.

"From the tortoise and eagle fable!" Klaus, thankfully, explained, but at a bewildered look from his brother - not coming from an unfamiliarity with the Aesop's Fable in question, but rather to why he was being subjected to it at that very moment - took a particularly deep breath and set about elaborating on the tale.

"So, there was this tortoise that was just chilling one day, enjoying the sun and doing all the tortsoisey things that tortoises do, but he was majorly bummed out. One of his bird friends flew up and she was all 'Dude, what's wrong? You have this sweet rock in the sun!' but he was like 'Yeah but like, you won't get it, this rock's sweet and all but it's just a rock, you get me?' so she was all 'I get you," so he 'You're so lucky you have wings and can fly around have a good time with all the other birds!' so she was all 'Oh shit, bro, I could totally just pick you up with me next time and we can fly about!' and they were all 'Oh no way!' 'Oh yes way!' 'Oh no way!'"

An impatient clearing of his throat from Five, a man - a little lad that was the oldest out of any of them - who quite literally had all the time in the world, implied that his willingness to listen to the story was dwindling even faster than when he first heard that he was going to be subjected to it.

"Well anyway, the bird told our tortoise dude that she wasn't able to just give free rides, so he was all 'I've got, like, five buck on me, that chill?' and she was all 'Shout me to lunch too and we've got a deal!' so he was all 'Yeah whatever, next time I have money.' so the bird decided it was chill and scooped the tortoise up in her talons. Up up she flew, the tortoise having one hell of a wild time since he was getting further and further from from his rock, which was all he really knew since he's a tortoise and moves super so. So, there he is having the time of his life until she lost her grip on his shell and he fell. When the poor dude was dying on the ground he let out one final cry of 'Oh shit, this fucking sucks, ow ow!'"

Klaus gave himself a moment to pause, having done an unnecessarily exaggerated telling of the fable, all fitting hand gestures and attempts at putting on voices for the proverbial characters.

"And the point is, never hitch a ride with a bird because they're flakes and will mess up your plans."

There was several long moments of silence following the end of the fable, and each of these moments contained Five expressing several different emotions one after another as if his face could not quite match up with what it was he was feeling. Exasperated seemed to be largely the winning emotion, but he couldn't quite settle on this.

"It's miraculous," Five finally observed, something that was close to wonderment in his tone, even if this marveling was being weighed down by a heavy blanket of sheer exhaustion leaning forward just a little, leaning hard and heavy on his knees as he did so, "Somehow you managed to tell a moral tale while omitting all actual morality it was supposed to convey."

(Requested)