"Come on!" A young Vanya Hargreeves shouted excitedly. The house was quiet except for her voice. Darkness had settled over the Umbrella Academy hours before and every one was supposed to be in bed.
Two of her brothers, Klaus and Five trailed closely behind, arms filled with materials for the late night excursion. "Shhh, you're going to wake the old man."
This particular trio of siblings had been carefully picked out for this event. Luther would 100% snitch if they had even tried to invite him. Allison looked down on certain activities and would have just scolded them for it. Ben would probably have come if they asked, but he certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it. And Diego... Well, the three had decided that he would just be annoying.
Five had a large bottle of Jack Daniel's tucked securely under his right arm, under the other was a blanket from his bed. Klaus had two joints shoved in a sandwich bag in his pocket (but those were mostly for himself) and was carrying a stack of disposable cups. Vanya was really just happy to be included, so she brought enough joy for all three of them.
They treaded carefully throughout the house, alert and bursting with excitement.
Surprisingly enough, this had been Five's idea. The original plan was to drink with Vanya, but once he gave it a second thought, he decided that they should add in their eccentric brother to the mix because of his experience with alcohol.
Vanya giggled the moment they made it onto the roof. It was pretty dark up there, but there was just enough moonlight illuminating the space to make out the shapes of a stack of crates piled four high.
"Let's get this party started!" Klaus yelled and slunk to the middle of the open space.
The shorter boy handed off the whiskey bottle to his sister as he laid the blanket onto the cement.
For once, none of them were wearing their uniforms. Typically they wouldn't have access to clothing outside their day uniforms, pjs, and mission outfits, but Pogo had pulled some strings and got the children's uptight father to allow the children to go shopping on their own. The clothes they purchased of course, couldn't be worn except on Sundays. Now that had been a fun experience.
Many of their clothing choices had been predictable. Allison went straight for the flowy dresses, Diego grabbed anything that was black, while Klaus gravitated towards anything with fun colours and patterns.
Everyone sat down, and Klaus began spreading out solo cups. He rubbed his hands together as Five started pouring the liquor.
"So, how we doing this? Slow and steady- oh! Or a drinking game? That sounds fun."
With a delighted grin, Vanya spread her legs out in front of her. She loved getting to sit normally, without having to scrunch her legs together like she had to with skirts. Pants were free and comfortable. "We should play truth or dare!"
"That," Five started, screwing the cap back on the Jack Daniel's. "Is a horrible idea."
His little sister- she wasn't really younger, but he had always thought of her as such -deflated momentarily.
"Let's do it."
Klaus clapped. "Hell yeah." He lent back on his hands, glancing up at the stars. For one of his first truly Klaus outfits, he chose to wear a scandalously tight pair of skinny jeans and a pink tie dye shirt. In all honesty, it was the most he had ever looked like himself. "Only one rule: If you don't answer the truth or do the dare, you have to drink."
"Shouldn't we-"
"Uh uh uh, you uptight little man," Klaus shushed his brother. "I said only one rule."
Five huffed. "Fine."
A hand shot into the air. "Can I go first?" Vanya asked. No one objected, so she moved on. "Five, truth or dare?"
He was leaning against one of the crates, looking at his fingernails. "Truth."
"Weak!" Klaus called from around his cupped hands. His siblings ignored him.
The girl sat for a moment in thought. She hadn't really planned that fair ahead. "Oh, have you ever drank before?"
Both of the boys snorted. Five had been sneaking bailey's into his coffee for the last few months. Typically he wouldn't want to fog up his mind during the day, but it helped to lower his inhibitions for morning classes. "A few times, yeah. Klaus? Truth or dare?"
"Dare," the boy answered confidently. It didn't take a genius to guess that he'd say dare.
A wicked grin grabbed and Five's facial features. He smoothed his hands over the legs of his new jeans. "Alright. Go flash the street." He nodded towards the edge of the roof, where it looked out over the street, which was fairly busy, even for a Saturday night.
With a raised eyebrow, Klaus jumped up. "Hold my drink, Vanya dear."
The brunette held his cup, looking on in shock. "No way is he actually going to do that."
She was proved wrong by the sound of a zipper being yanked down. Luckily, he was facing the street already, standing on the edge of the flat roof. Vanya started to laugh as they watched his back. "Oh, God."
Still leaning on the crates, Five smiled in amusement. He didn't get to hang out with his siblings like this often. Normally, even on their days off, Five would spend his time locked up somewhere, studying. This was much more fun.
"Take that, world!" Klaus was shouting, hands up in the air.
Vanya couldn't stop laughing, even when Klaus had tucked himself back in and made his way back to the blanket. Her other brother was watching as he sipped from his cup.
The fourteen year old sat down with a sigh. "Got to hand it to you, man. I thought you'd say something boring."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Vanya, truth or dare?"
She took a moment to mull this over. "Truth."
"Predictable," he announced.
Her face fell at that. It could be worse though, he could be like Luther. Maybe she was predictable, but at least she was there.
"Lay off," Five ordered with a wave of his hand. Vanya could always count on him in situations like these to defuse the tension.
Shrugging Klaus placed a finger on his chin in thought. "Vanya, Vanya, Vanya," he sang, making the girl nervous. "I got it. Who's your latest crush?"
Instantly her cheeks began to heat up. Even at fourteen Vanya had never really gotten a chance to talk to her siblings about crushes. It also didn't help that she most definitely had a crush on Gwen Stefani, that she could barely admit to herself, let alone her brothers. "I don't have one."
"That's bullshit," Klaus insisted. "You are blushing way too hard for that to be true and you know it."
"I don't!" Vanya squeaked. She wasn't convincing anyone.
Her brother shook his head. "No way. Tell us or you drink."
Without hesitation, Vanya took a regrettably large gulp and immediately began to cough.
They ended the night by three, each sibling shushing the other as they giggled down the hall to their rooms. Klaus was handing it the best, due to experience, but in comparison Vanya wasn't doing so great.
"Would you shut up!" Five whispered, looking annoyed only for a moment. He couldn't possibly be mad when his sister was laughing hysterically, drunk, but having way too much fun.
She wiped a tear leaking from her eye, starting to wheeze. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just can't-" She gasped for breath again. "I can't believe you actually put on the dress!"
The other two exploded into a fit of laughter at the reminder. Klaus broke off first to go throw himself back into bed, but Five led Vanya back to her room, basically carrying the girl.
"You know, you're a lot heavier than you look," he told her, toeing open her door.
Vanya, who had her arms securely wrapped around his neck, yawned. "That's just because you're short."
Normally, he would have gotten mad at that comment, but she looked so peaceful that he didn't even bother. He deposited his sister on her bed, to which she quickly began to cuddle up to her many pillows. Five was drunk himself and tired, but as he pulled the covers over her he smiled fondly. He would do anything for his siblings, but despite Vanya being ordinary, she was the most important. She needed protecting and Five would do anything to keep her safe.
But he hated lying to her. Even after all those years, trying desperately to get back, he had a soft spot for his little sister. He hated keeping her out of the loop, but if he wanted to save everyone, it would be better this way.
"Damnit, where's Dad's stuff?"
Both Five and Charlotte glanced below them. Klaus, now a full grown man (if you could even say that) in Five's eyes, was standing in the middle of a full dumpster, rummaging through the trash. They paused only for a moment to watch.
"I'm trying to find whatever... priceless crap was in that priceless box so that Pogo will get off my ass!" He announced to no one in particular.
He hadn't changed a bit. Maybe gotten taller, grown into himself a little more, but his personality hadn't changed in the slightest.
Getting down the last ladder of the fire escape, Five looked at his brother over his shoulder. "I'd ask what you're up to, Klaus, but then it occurred to me... I don't care."
The redhead followed him down, with a pinched scowl. She always seemed to be incredibly displeased with whatever was going on, which Five couldn't really blame her for.
"Hey," Klaus greeted them. "You know there are easier ways out of the house, buddy?"
His brother cringed at the nickname. He knew that, he hadn't forgotten a single detail of his home. He knew every exit. "This one involved the least amount of talking." Five huffed, hopping off the last rung. Charlotte was close behind, but a bit less graceful with the decent. "Or so I thought," he added.
Klaus rushed to the side of the dumpster. "Hey, hey, hey, so- You need anymore company today?" He eyed Charlotte, who was trying to get a discarded wrapper off the bottom of her shoe. "I could clear my schedule," he said, taking a sip from a flask.
As much as Five would have loved to spend more time with his family and felt that ache in his chest at the offer, he declined. They would only get in the way and if he managed to save the human race from this inevitable apocalypse, they would have all the time in the world.
Charlotte watched Klaus pick up a bagel from next to him and take a bite in abject horror. Her and the teen boy shared a similar look of dismay.
"Oh, so you'll take her?!" He shouted after them, mouth full of moldy bagel.
"Do you even know how to drive?" Charlotte asked as she pulled herself into the passenger seat of the van at the end of the alley and felt the vehicle shudder to a start.
"Yes," Five answered flatly. She definitely didn't believe that, but put her seatbelt on nonetheless. He looked at her briefly before backing out. The girl was still visibly shaken from their conversation earlier. He supposed it was warranted, it was a lot of information to take in all at once, but they didn't have time for this. She was going to help him get a job done and he'd help her get her boyfriend back so he could be done with her.
The drive to Mertech was quiet. Charlotte was surprisingly silent about the whole situation. She was busy staring out the window, obviously deep in thought.
As it turns out, driving in a fifteen year old's body is hard. The seat felt way too low to see out the windshield properly and just about everyone else was driving like a maniac around him. Besides Five, Charlotte was holding on to the door like she might jump out if he turned too sharply.
The moment he secured a good vantage point in front of the building he was looking for, Five turned off the stolen van. "See? We didn't die."
Charlotte, once again, didn't look so sure, but stayed quiet.
The silence felt penetrating. Maybe he was busy, but that didn't erase the fact that Five had had very little conversation with new people as of recently. Maybe Charlotte was too similar to him in that regard. "You hide it well," he commented.
Her pale eyebrows furrowed. "Hide what?"
"Your accent." Five unbuckled and shifted in his seat to get comfortable. "You're from Ireland, aren't you?"
She nodded, still keeping her focus somewhere outside the van. "Moira," she clarified with the town's name. It had taken her years to rid herself of the unmistakable accent.
"I wouldn't have known."
A beat passed, where neither of them spoke, just sat soaking up the awkwardness. "Are you ever going to explain anything that's going on?"
Five paused. "Do you really want to know?"
For the first time since they had been in the kitchen, Charlotte made direct eye contact with him. Her deep eyes bore into his own. Five almost shivered. "I do."
He started the explanation with a sigh. "The world is going to end. Soon. I'm trying to stop it."
She stared at him blankly. The seconds passed, but Charlotte was unmoving. Five was starting to get uncomfortable with the look she was giving him.
"You..." She trailed off, almost as if she stopped herself from exploding. "You're delusional." Her hand was still latched on to the door handle, gripping it tighter as she spoke.
Five groaned and brushed his hands down his face. He knew this was going to happen. Of course no one would believe him! He looked like a freshman in high school.
"First, you hit me over the head and steal my briefcase. Then you- you suddenly pop us into your house, which is on the other side of town. Not only that, but you throw a stack of paperwork at my face, and know all about me and my life. Now you're trying to tell me that the world is going to end?!"
During her little rant, Charlotte had gotten so worked up that her face had flushed bright red. Her voice pitched at the end, disbelief and outrage clear on her face. Five didn't know she was even capable of talking so much.
"Are you done?"
She ignored him. "I just want to get out of here. Out of this disgusting town and away from him. All I wanted to do was run away, but no. I'm trapped here, in a van that smells like sweat and cheese puffs, with a little, mentally unstable boy-"
"Hey!" Snapped out of her trance, Charlotte looked at her partner. "I am way older than you, for your information. You didn't have to come. If you don't believe me, you can just leave and never see your friend again."
Her mouth was pinched into a small line at this. Why couldn't he say anything outright?
Sensing her dubiousness, Five took a deep breath. "It sounds crazy. I know, believe me, I do. But I saw it." Before she could say anything about him hallucinating, he moved on. "I got stuck in the future and it- it wasn't pretty."
There was something genuine to his expression that made Charlotte consider it. He wasn't lying, there was no reason for it. Something bad had happened to him and she could sense it just by the way he stared outside the windshield, like he was longing for something or recalling something heartbreaking.
"It was an accident. I was testing out time travel on my own- before I even knew that briefcases like the ones the Commission have exist. But it was finicky. Long story short, I got trapped in 2019. In just a few days from now. The world ends. Humans and most animals are going to be wiped off the face of the earth."
Mulling this over as calmly as possible, Charlotte stared at his sullen face. "How long were you there?"
He looked up from his lap, eyes full of sorrow. "Forty years."
Gooseflesh broke out on her arms. Forty years, oh God. Her chest ached at the thought- of the idea of that kind of solitude and of the possibility of the world ending. So many deaths, on such a mass scale was more than enough to make her feel dizzy again. It had to be the concussion that was making her feel nauseous at every other turn of her head.
Charlotte kept her mouth shut. There wasn't any way to respond to that that she could possibly conceive. 'I'm sorry', maybe? But she doubted that would sound genuine or really get the point across. Forty years, even to Charlotte, who had spent various periods of time throughout history, sounded insane.
"Five. Five!"
Their attention slid to the man frantically knocking on the passenger side window. Luther.
"Get in the back," Five ordered. Begrudgingly and with even more confusion, Charlotte climbed over the middle console of the van and into the back. "Don't step on Dolores!"
"What?"
Luther opened the door and scrunched himself into the seat that Charlotte had just been occupying. He struggled to get the door closed because of his large stature. "You okay?"
No. "You shouldn't be..." Five said just above a whisper, still reeling from his previous conversation. "How did you find me?"
His older brother nodded behind them, where Klaus was holding Five's beloved mannequin and humming as he whispered to it. Charlotte was watching in poorly disguised amusement. "Hey, a little privacy, guys. We're really hitting it off back here."
An empty can went flying at his head, but Klaus used the mannequin to deflect the projectile. Charlotte was giggling at the scene, welcoming the distraction.
"Get out! You can't be here!"
"Oh, but she can be?" Klaus asked, discarding the fake woman among the scattered tools in the back and pointing at Charlotte.
Waving his hands wildly, Five gestured at her. "That's different. We're busy."
"Mmm... Busy." Klaus moved forward and put his head in between Luther and Five's seats. "Any luck finding your one-eyed man?"
Things were starting to seem like they would never fully make sense to Charlotte. Every time she thought that she understood what was going on here, somebody threw another random piece of nonsense in. The man who had taken her seat was proof enough of that. He was so large that his head was bent, chin to chest, just to fit into the vehicle. His shoulders were almost three times the width of Charlotte's own body and though she could never pass as a large person, that was just ridiculous.
"Grace has something to do with dad's death." She perked up at the familiar name, but then frowned. Death?
"You have no concept of what's important," Five was saying when she tuned back in. His voice always sounded so firm. Whatever weakness that has weaseled its way into his tone earlier was gone.
From beside her, Klaus also perked up. "Hey! Did I ever tell you guys about the time I waxed my ass with chocolate pudding?" He laughed at himself shrilly, looking between his brothers.
Wasn't this man just in a garbage can? Charlotte matched everyone else's expression, which was a mix of confusion, disgust, and slight amusement.
"It was so painful."
Luther looked back at him, "What are you still doing here?" He asked in a hushed tone.
"I- What? I need an excuse to hang out with my family and some random girl from the street?"
"We're trying to have a serious conversation here."
Five watched this exchange in agreement. For once, Luther was right. "You should get out."
As Klaus moved towards the sliding door of the van, the redhead followed. "I'm just going to step out for a moment."
"Fine!" Klaus shouted as he got out, clearly not done with his sulking. The door slammed behind them. As soon as their contact with the others was lost, he turned to Charlotte. "How about some refreshments?"
Refreshments sounded vague, but Charlotte was all for food and drinks. "Lead the way."
He led her to a convenience store not far from where the van was parked, really just across the street from it. "I don't have any money," Charlotte told him when they stopped outside the entrance.
In an instant, Klaus shot her a toothy grin. "Neither do I."
She smiled as he darted inside the variety store. He resorted to petty theft to spite people as well. Maybe she had more in common with these people than just their powers.
The clerk was sat closer to the back of the store, which was going to make this much easier, at least for Klaus; Charlotte never really had to worry about getting caught. The aisles were short and narrow, making it obvious that it was an older store. Slipping behind one and crouching so that her head was below the top, Charlotte focused on her body, flexing her ability the way one would do to a muscle.
Her blood ran cold in that comforting way and she straightened, scanning the place again. Klaus was already not-so-inconspicuously shoving various things in the pockets of his jacket. She would have to work fast to keep up. She grabbed for the first thing she saw: a packet of cookies. The candy aisle was the next stop.
Charlotte shoved three different bags of candy into her pockets before going at the gum. The drink coolers lay behind her. Normally, she wouldn't dare grab anything from there in case doors randomly opening brought attention, but everyone was about to be way more concerned that Klaus was about to run out of the store with his arms full of snacks.
"Hurry!" He shouted frantically, not quite realizing that he couldn't see his accomplice. The cashier was yelling now.
Last, Charlotte shoved a redbull into the waistband of her pants, being out of pocket space and scooped up an armful of beef jerky. Klaus was already running out the door when she was finished. She barreled after him.
"Hey Bitches!"