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There were very few times in Five's life where he had woken disoriented.
Most were because of drinking hours before. Some had been from passing out, varying between blood loss to malnourishment to simple exhaustion. And, on the rare occasion, it had been none of the above but, rather, because Five had let his guard slip enough to get drugged.
The sensation was obvious: sedatives had always left him feeling as if he were floating within his own skin. He would oftentimes become a guest to his own brain when the effects took their root...
Just as he was now.
Five struggled to unglue his eyes. For a moment, he couldn't orient himself.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew he had been drugged. But the how, and when, and with what, and, most importantly, why , had evaded him. Five let his head flop sideways, lolling against his shoulder. He stared ahead at a blank wall.
It looked wrong: too blurry, too dark. Five raised his hand to swipe at his eyes--
His arm stopped short. A metallic sound rang out. He tried again. The same outcome, the same confusion...
Had he been restrained?
Five maneuvered his chin down to his chest. He blinked slow at the archaic-looking manacles clamped around his wrists and sighed softly. Sedated and shackled to the floor, then. How quaint.
There was no purpose in panicking, but it certainly didn't look good. Sluggishly, Five drew from his powers, pulling and twisting and reaching for the familiar tug of a portal. Blue light sputtered at his fingertips, sizzling hot against his skin, before giving out completely.
He deflated back against the floor.
"Five?"
The drugs muted his surprise at the sound of his distorted name. Five craned his neck, dragging his gaze up, up, higher up until he locked eyes with a frazzled-looking Klaus. Despite being chained to the floor, too, Klaus hadn't seemed nearly as inebriated as he was.
Why was that?
Klaus whispered, "Hey, hey there. Welcome back."
"Wh...a'?" Five's tongue felt too heavy. Whatever they had given him was strong , strong enough to knock out his adult self, no doubt. The Commission it was, then.
Curse his thirteen-year-old self for being so useless. Five had prided himself, at one point, for being immune to a number of poisons and drugs, all of which had been painstakingly built up. Now, though? Now, his body was useless. He was a goddamn liability to himself .
Five struggled to hold his stare with Klaus. He must have looked ridiculous, all slack-jawed and teetering on the verge of passing out again, but if he had, Klaus didn't say anything. Instead, he whispered, "You with me?"
"Mn…" Five's eyebrow twitched. His eyes slid shut.
Klaus' own manacles made a scuffling sound against the floor. "Hey. No, no, no. Five-y, you can't--!"
And Five was out.
He waded through consciousness. It was thick and a pain in the ass to navigate. Distantly, he could make out Klaus' high-pitched pleading of, "Five? Hey, Five?" Annoyingly, every time he resurfaced, he seemed to slip right back in within a few seconds.
That was until he was jolted back to consciousness by gravity, of all things.
He had anticipated being slapped awake, but instead, it was mere physics that brought him to semi-coherence. His head snapped back as he was yanked upwards by the lapels of his blazer, coming face-to-face with one very heavily scarred, very angry Commission agent. The guy's name was something ridiculous, like Scoog, or Scourge…
Behind him, Klaus was screaming. Maybe his name? Maybe "stop"? Five didn't care. Both were equally as useless, and he could hardly focus on the agent spitting in his face, let alone on Klaus shrieking in the background.
Scroop dropped him. Five's head smacked the concrete. He swallowed his groan. "Shut your mouth! " the agent yelled. "Or I'll shut it for you!"
Klaus quieted.
The agent leaned over him, all smug despite the disgusting up-nose angle that had Five cringing more than anything. He made a point to roll his eyes. Just for agent Scout. Agent Scoop? Scoot? Fuck, Five couldn't remember the asshole's name for the life of him...
"You son of a bitch, " The guy peeled Five off the floor again. "I swear t--"
Scoob's head rocketed sideways in time with his body as Klaus' foot quick-kicked against his skull. The agent dropped on Five's left. Klaus took a knee on Five's right and grabbed one of his arms. He flipped it over and jammed a hair barrette into the cuff's lock.
Five half-watched Klaus' work, half-zoned out to it.
"Hey, you still orbiting this planet, beansprout?" Klaus giggled tightly. His shaking hands rattled the manacles as he wrestled with the lock. "Did you know I used to know a guy who knew a guy who escaped from prison? He was an absolute boss of a cook. But one time he sat me down and was like, 'I need to show you something' and I was like, 'okay' and like, man , that--...I never thought this skill would come in handy!" He pulled Five's wrist from the shackle and moved to his other arm. "And holy shit I'm glad I know this now!"
His other wrist fell free.
Next to Five, agent Scoobydoo groaned.
Klaus hooked his hands under Five's arms and dragged him upright. Their feet tangled as Five struggled to connect his brain to his legs. All cylinders were mostly firing on his end, and yet, his body failed to respond. He grunted in frustration.
Klaus said, "Hey, pal. Could you, like, say something? Anything? "
Five grumbled, "Stop... talkin'… " He wanted to add more, to say, "let me concentrate on the minute task of walking " but, instead, he leaned into Klaus and let him guide them towards the door.
"Okay, okay, can do! Sounds like a plan." Klaus chirped. "Oh, hey, did I tell you about the time Diego glued my pinkies together?"