Chapter Text
"Viktor, what about your powers?"
Your powers.
Your. Powers.
~~~
Viktor hated the way a lump lodged into his throat, preventing him from answering. In the midst of learning about their own altered-childhoods, he forgot he even had powers.
"I - I don't know...I think I still have them?" He tells Five, pretending to not hear how his other siblings suck in sharp breaths of their own.
"We need to know for sure, let's go outside."
And just like that, Viktor was standing in their back yard and out of sight from their house. His siblings stood back, but he felt that they were there for him.
He closed his eyes, listening to the sounds around him, listening to nature. The hum of a bird, the rustle of something in their crops, the shallow breaths of his siblings, he called on all of it, felt it rise within his chest like oxygen, and stuck out his fist. And when he opened his eyes, a blue charge of energy was swathing his pale fist. It was sickening to see again, it was unfathomable, but it also felt...empowering.
He felt in control.
He let the charge go and watch it dissipate back into the hum of a bird, the rustle of the family crops, and the shallow breathing of his siblings.
"Oh, shit," he breathed, turning wide-eyed back to his family.
"Yeah, oh shit," Allison gulped. "That never gets old to see."
Viktor rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly smiling at Allison's compliment. He didn't know where they stood now. They had a...third(?) chance at life again, and, he hated to admit it, but he wanted his sister back. If only he knew how to tell her.
Five clapped his hands, nodding at Viktor. "Well, that solves that. There might be some Irony here too. Viktor, once the only powerless sibling, now the only powered sibling. Damn."
"I, for one, am glad I don't have mine back. I'm so over ghosts and their B.S." Klaus smiled sagely, and, unbeknownst to the rest, felt his heart squeeze. He wanted to stay sober, and he would. He had too.
"Maybe you all are, but mine was badass!" Diego lamented. "Knives are what I live for! Throwing them at assholes is my therapy, I'll have you all know."
"Speak for yourself, Diego," Allison started, "but I'm glad mine is gone too. I can finally get past 'I heard a rumor'--"
Diego's eyes glazed over, and, well, the siblings, Hargreeves or Coopers, were never known for their levelheadedness.
Someone screamed, Klaus swore, Five swore and blinked at the same time and landed right on top of Viktor, sending the both of them to the grass. Klaus groaned and fell to the fetal position, whining and rocking back and forth. Luther stood dumbly, watching with wide eyes and Allison, for her part, tried to stay calm as she dispelled Diego's accidental rumor, but there was panic rooted in her words.
"I need to call Lila!" Diego yelled and ran back towards the house. Nobody noticed, but there was a skip in his step and excitement in his voice.
~~~
"I swear to God, Five, if you don't stop pacing I'm going to blast you through the wall." Viktor was exhausted, it was the middle of the night, and his left shoulder ached even after it had been hours since Five so rudely tackled him.
"There's gotta be a reason," Five muttered, disregarding Viktor's threat. "There has to be."
Viktor sighed, sitting up on his bed to let his legs hang over. "you're not going to sleep tonight, are you?"
Five kept pacing.
"You know we have church, right?"
Undeterred pacing filled the lack of response.
Viktor nodded to himself, threading his lips into a fine line. "I'll put on a pot of coffee, let's go down to the kitchen, but stop your fucking pacing. We have to be quiet."
Five was like a dog. He was loyal, he loved his family even when they cause him more headaches than joy, and he always found his way back home, but he also had favorite words. And coffee got his tail wagging like no other. He complied to Viktor's request embarrassingly quick.
Their room was the second to last room on the right, with Allison's room at the very end. Her door was closed, as were their faux-parents room on the left parallel to Allison's. But Klaus and Ben's room door was ajar, and Viktor could see Klaus sitting with his back against his bed staring blankly at what was presumably Ben's sleeping form. Viktor wasn't sure, the door obscured most of the room and he didn't want to intrude. He almost knocked, wanting to invite Klaus down with them, but then he heard a sniffle and Klaus wiped his eyes, and suddenly he clammed up, not knowing how Klaus would take the invitation.
He decided to ask him about it later. He would do the brotherly thing, and check up on his older brother.
Viktor could hear Luther snoring on the other side of his door, and he was pretty sure Diego farted in his sleep. Viktor walked faster, thanking his lucky stars that they roomed him with Five, and that Five was at least decently cleanly.
Five switched the kitchen light on as Viktor began preparing coffee as silently as he could. The microwave digital clock read Three Twenty-Eight A.M.
Viktor took a seat adjacent to Five as they waited. "So, powers, huh?"
Five shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense. And if it doesn't make sense to me, then something is very wrong here."
Viktor felt a laugh bubble up his throat. "Five, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but every solution you've ever had has gone wrong, like, every time."
Five glared, making a fist. "And every time, it has never been my fault something has gone wrong. You all don't know how to follow directions!" His tone was ice, but he was close to shouting.
Viktor raised his hands. "Keep your voice down! If we wake Carl, I'm fifty-eight percent positive he might beat us. And, you're wrong, because even if we followed directions the world would have still ended. Who's to say that won't happen again regardless of what you come up with?"
The coffee pot was done, the gargling noise had stopped, so Five rose to pour himself a cup. Viktor followed.
"I shouldn't even have to come up with anything, because we should be dead," Five said lowly, sipping his scalding hot coffee.
Viktor blew on his, shrugging tiredly. "And as I told you all that day-which, fuck feels like years ago but was literally five days-I was the only one who had to die. None of you would let me, so if we are fucked, it's not my fault." He sipped his coffee. The slight burn it provided was a welcomed contrast to the delirious cold he'd been submerged in. He almost forgot what it felt like to be real.
"You don't understand, Vik. None of us should exist. the world would have still ended no matter if you played hero or not. For all we know, you just postponed it, again."
"Then why did you take us to the subway?"
Five paused, his mug halfway to his lips, he stared down at the dark substance. In the light of the kitchen, his reflection showed a tired, worn out old man with the face of a teenager. "I don't know." Then, softer, "Maybe...maybe I didn't want to die. I didn't want us all to die like, that. I...have a lot left to do, to say to people. Starting with Diego."
Viktor swished his drink around. "What...happened between you two? You both seem cagey around each other. And, not to mention yesterday with him at your throat."
Five closed his eyes, draining his coffee in one long sip. He got up to pour himself another cup. "I don't want to talk about it." He stood at the counter for a second, turning his back to the only sibling he could trust. "I can't talk about it, Vik. Not yet."
"Five, you know you can talk to me. Whatever is said in this kitchen stays in this kitchen. I've had a lot of private kitchen talks right here at this table, actually." Viktor's heart lurched at his past, his one-sided memories taunted him during his weakest points. He still can't look Sissy in the eye's without feeling guilt, shame, disgust with himself, or a mix of all three.
"I know." Five tried to smile as he sat back down, but it was too weak, to shallow, Viktor saw right through it. "And I will, but right now, we have bigger things to talk about."
"Right, timeline chaos." Viktor chugged his coffee sardonically, pushing the cup aside.
"So, all we know is that we were born on October first, Nineteen Eighty-three, abandoned at age seven, put into the system, and got adopted a year later but at different times. I mean, they're crazy enough to want seven kids, but why not do it at the same time, right? why drag it out?"
"Maybe that's what they wanted? But the system wouldn't let them, I don't know. But we know Allison was first, then Luther, then Klaus, then Diego, me, you, Ben. I know they don't 'number' us, but they do keep track of us in order of adoption. Weird. And, weird that they didn't have kids of their own."
"Yeah." Five drug out the monosyllabic word, rubbing his chin. "And, our last name was Hargreeves, so Reggie, in theory, is around."
Viktor shivered at the thought. "Do we...track him down?"
Five scoffed, again draining his coffee in a long gulp. "Not if we don't need to."
"Good, I didn't want to."
"There's just," Five collapsed back into the chair, throwing his hand out to the empty silence between them, "so much information and nothing makes sense about it. It's all just, there. We were abandoned, found, adopted, and that's it."
"That's what I've been saying, Fivey, what if this is our third chance? What if we can just use it to live instead of fight and die?"
Five shifted uncomfortably. "It doesn't explain our powers?"
Viktor coughed, his face reddening as he came to a realization. "Actually, it might."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the last thing I remember before waking up here was blasting you all and a really, really bright white light-jeez say that five times fast."
Five tilted his head, perplexed. A moment passed, then, "...Me too. You blasted us and then...white. The rest of us didn't land here like you normally would-plopping down out of thin air. It was like becoming conscious again. How you just one day blink as a child and suddenly you know exactly who you are and where you are. We were in the subway and then I blinked and all of us were sitting around the breakfast table talking and eating like we did it all the goddamn time. Sissy came down the stairs fretting about you and then...I don't know, we adapted. Spent three days just going through the motions until you woke up."
Viktor bit his lip, feeling the coffee writhe in his stomach. "Did I tear through the fabric of time, or something?"
Five looked a little helpless. There was a line of sweat curling around his hairline. "I think - I think so."
Viktor dropped his head into his hands. "We're not getting any sleep tonight, are we?"
Viktor heard a shuffle, a chair sliding backwards, silence, and then the old gurgling of the coffee pot. He accepted his fate.
~~~
Allison didn't hate the fact that she had six brothers. No, she loved them in their own specific ways, but, girl, on mornings where she had to get dressed up for an outing-even if said outing was church-she hated how she had to do it alone. She didn't have a sister to sit next to her and talk while they did their hair. She wasn't an older sister to a girl who she could teach the wonders of girlhood to, and she wasn't a younger sister to a girl that could teach her the wonders of makeup and hair care and what to wear and how to wear it.
"Diego, give me my tie back before I kick your ass!" She could hear Viktor yell as two pairs of footsteps ran down the hall, and stopped harshly as she assumed both boys crashed into the wall just outside her closed bedroom door. They bickered, Diego yelped, Viktor punched, Diego punched, and then--
"Hey! Knock it off!" Allison winced as Carl chastised them. "Diego, give your sis-brother his tie back or you're both grounded."
She bit the inside of her cheek as she didn't miss the near slip up. It wasn't even her who it offended and yet, she couldn't help the way anger simmered within. Even as kids, Viktor was never a girl. In their original timeline, Viktor was just Viktor. He was quiet, he played the violin, got treated like shit, didn't like scrambled eggs, and grew up to end worlds, she knew him all her life.
It was that easy, Carl.
(But was it? He hated her, or at the least he didn't like her. She couldn't blame him; she didn't even like her. She knew she had to talk to him. She missed her brother. She didn't know how to tell him, she didn't want to know. She didn't want to burden him.)
As she looked herself in the mirror, Allison smoothed out her plain blue church dress that went down to her knees. It was fitting for a sixteen year old girl going to church, but it was not her style. Too plain, if you asked her.
There was a knock, and then Sissy opened the door, smiling as she came through. "Oh, good, you're ready." She walked further into the room, looking Allison up and down in the way a mother would-a soft smile and eyes that told you she was admiring just how much you've grown over the years. "Your brothers, not so much, but you know how boys are."
"Yeah, I heard Viktor and Diego fighting," She sucked her teeth, hoping that the way her heart was hammering out of her chest wasn't palpable. How does one act around your Mom who's not your Mom? Is there a website for that? A forum, maybe?
Sissy rolled her eyes in the fond way that meant she wasn't really annoyed. "Those two, always at each other for something or other."
Allison jolted. It was like that in Timeline Number One, as well. "Yeah, well, boys will be boys, right?" She hoped her grimace came off as more of a fond sister-smile.
Sissy laughed, coming up to cup her daughter's face. "Oh, Allison, you may be outnumbered by boys, but you will always find a way to be smarter than them."
And then she was alone again. Sissy bid her with a kiss to the forehead and a warning to be out to the car in five. When her door closed, she bent against her white vanity, holding it with a knuckle whitening grip.
What was that?
Sissy had said it in that fond, motherly tone, that sounded harmless, but she herself had been a mother at one point. She knew the layers it held. She held her breath, willing back the threat of tears, and steeled herself. She may be alone, but she could learn to be alone in a house full of people she knew.
~~~
"What in the knock off Brady Bunch are we?" Klaus mused, glancing at his siblings with a shit-eating grin.
They were in matching fucking outfits. his brothers all in blue button ups and slacks with their little black ties hanging primly down their chests; they all looked so stupid he couldn't bring himself to care that he was wearing the same thing.
Then, Allison came walking out of the house, and Klaus couldn’t help himself from barking out a sharp laugh.
”Oh, we are so white.” He ran a hand down his face, leaning against the minivan their parents owned.
He nudged Ben. “Tell me, are we Catholic, too?”
Ben’s eyebrows scrunched as he looked at Klaus like he was the weird one. “Yeah, Klaus, you know that.”
”…oh.”
~~~
The siblings, for all their faults and sins, could act like God-fearing, obedient children when it was required.
Really, how hard could it be?
They were polite, they let the old ladies pinch their cheeks and crush them in hugs with their eighty-year old strength, and they even let the grubby little kids hang off of them like they were jungle gyms. It was going stellar if you asked them.
Lila walked over to them, snorting, “Well don’t you lot look like a bunch of fancied up China Dolls.”
“Nice to see you, too, Lila,” Five gave a strained smile.
Allison tuned them out, stalking over to Luther. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He awkwardly smiled, adjusting his tie. “This is so weird, isn’t it?”
”Yeah, I haven’t been to church since…” She trailed off, her eyes clouding with a memory that sucked the air right from the room.
Luther frowned. “Are you okay, Allison?”
Allison blinked, mustering up the beginnings of a smile when a solid mass rammed into her right hip, latching on and giggling like a child on crack.
She stumbled, instinctively wrapping her arms around the thing attached to her.
”Allison!” Came a tiny, pitched voice.
Her heart stopped dead, falling out of her ass. And when she looked down—
“Claire?”