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It was early on that Five had sought out refuge in an old library, only partially collapsed after the apocalypse. He had spent the first few days in hell tirelessly trying to jump back to the Academy, back to his family; and only succeeded in passing out amongst the rubble. When he awoke he wiped the dust from his blazer, dried the tears from his face, and started walking. Five remembers breathing in the ashen air as he trudged along the land. He remembers stumbling over the remains of buildings, the forgotten memories of places and people that once were. More than anything, he remembers feeling as though his hands were covered in innocent blood.
Five only stopped walking when he noticed the goddamn library still standing in the distance. At barely thirteen, he had foolishly hoped for another living soul to be there waiting for him. He had hoped for food, water, perhaps even just a soft place to rest for a moment.
What he found was Vanya’s book. Adult Vanya, all grown up, in her late twenties, writing about the Academy (her family) in scathing detail. She had walked in on Allison and Luther kissing when they were fourteen, only to be forced out within seconds of her arrival. She was there the first time Klaus overdosed at seventeen and begged him to stay at the Academy, to stay sober, when Number Four packed a bag and ran off to God knows where.
There was an entire chapter detailing Ben’s death. His gruesome, violent death.
Four pages in, Five prompted vomited. Sweet, quiet Ben who read books of poetry at the dinner table and used to feed stray cats in the neighborhood was dead and Five wasn’t even there.
Number Five prided himself in repressing the hell out of such memories. But on this particular gloomy Wednesday morning, lurking in the doorway, he found himself back in the library, with the book in his shaking hands, a pile of vomit directly in front of him.
Klaus was sitting cross legged in one of their father’s old armchairs, silent tears running down his face. Every few seconds he would mumble something to thin air and continue on with his mournful sobs. Five stopped dead in the doorway as soon as he noticed his brother, unsure of how to approach the situation. He missed out on years of his siblings lives and couldn’t possibly pretend he knew them beyond their thirteen year old selves--and beyond Vanya’s descriptions, of course.
“Why are you crying?” he demanded much more harshly than intended, hesitantly entering the room.
“Because I’m feeling sad,” Klaus said with a watery laugh. He paused to consider something, “Ben says it’s rude to not tell you. You wouldn’t know.”
“Ben’s here?”
“Our brother is always in our hearts,” Klaus said in a pseudo-dramatic voice, clutching at his chest. “Also, today’s the, uh..anniversary of his death. So we’re hanging out.”
Five felt his heart drop. The living room of the Academy disintegrated before his eyes and he was back in the barren landscape of nothing. He could taste the ash in his mouth. He could see himself stumbling into the old library, reaching for the book, sobbing until his tear ducts seemed to just give up under the strain. Why could he taste fucking ash?
“Whoa, whoa, Five, what the fuck just happened?”
He was vaguely aware of Klaus frantically jumping out of the chair, talking to the empty chair that Ben was presumably occupying, and reaching a tentative hand out to his brother.
“Don’t touch me!” Five screamed, “Don’t put your fucking hands anywhere near me.” This was the day that Ben had died. How many years ago now Five didn’t even know, simple math seemed too far away to access.
“Five, listen, I’m gonna just sit next to you like this, I won’t touch you--Ben says to take a deep breath, count to five, and then let it out again.”
Five heard himself let out an agonized sob. Klaus had no right to sit here and comfort him. He had no right to cry over their lost brother when he was the only person who could still talk to him.
“There’s no reason to cry if you can still see him,” Five snared, “I wasn’t even there when he died, you fucking jackass.”
Klaus let loud a laugh that sounded more like a choked whimper. “You don’t think I wish all of you could see him too? Growing up with your dead brother by your side alone isn’t quite the walk in the park you may think, Five--no, no I’m fine. He wasn’t even here when you died. How can you even--”
When they were kids Klaus would never speak to ghosts out loud; an uncharacteristic embarrassment and horror that always seemed to loom over his shoulders. While the others were used to his conversations with Ben by now, Five felt as though he had missed something…
or perhaps years worth of somethings. If blood wasn’t roaring through his ears right now, he might have stopped to ponder how little he knew about Klaus’ powers for a few more seconds.
“It’s not like I chose to time travel the fuck out of all your lives, Klaus!” He was crying, he was crying and he couldn’t stop. “Do you have any idea what it was like? Do you have any idea how batshit crazy it is to disappear from your family and then show up again to find they’ve all grown up without you?”
“Fiv-”
“No!” This was not good. He was losing control. He was going to lose his mind if this kept up. He would end up back there. He wouldn’t be able to find a way home again. “I found Vanya’s book in a barely standing library. I sat there and read about you overdosing and Allison and Luther hooking up and I read about Ben fucking dying in a book because I was alone in the apocalypse without any of you!”
Five threw his hands down on the ground and collapsed into heavy sobs. The weight of it all was far too much to carry any longer.
“Well, for one thing, Luther and Allison never quite ‘hooked up.’ Luther was a virgin up until right before the apocalypse.” Klaus quipped, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it. He sounded bone tired, tears still streaming down his face.
“Ben says--he says it’s okay, Five. He says to focus on breathing, he says to think of when we were all kids and Dad actually let us play outside every now and then. When we almost felt like we were normal for a while.”
Five looked wildly around the room. “Ben, I’m sorry Dad let that happen to you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to kick Klaus’ ass for letting himself become a fucking addict--”
He launched himself into Klaus’ open arms, clinging desperately onto whatever ridiculous shirt his brother had on today.
“I swear to God, I’m not leaving again,” Five mumbled into his brother’s warm embrace. His brother was rubbing comforting circles on his back, much like Grace did when they were children and were upset over something.
He forgot how much solace there was within a simple touch.
“Bold of you to assume we’d let you go anywhere, Five-y,” Klaus said, his voice thick with grief.
Five wasn’t sure when it was socially acceptable to pull out of the embrace, but he had no intentions of letting go any time soon. He had too much lost time to make up for.