Chapter Text
Vanya's breath steams up the window more than her coffee does. The mug has long since lost its heat, cooling in her still hands while she stared out over the city street outside her apartment.
It shouldn't be this difficult to write when her subject is her own lived experience. The first fifty pages practically fell out of her fingertips onto the typewriter that first week.
The problems set in when she has to look more closely at the other 'characters'. Or when she hits upon memories that she had tucked away as a child. With the eyes of an adult, some of those moments look more significant than they had at the time.
She settles back in her seat at her makeshift desk and puts the wasted coffee aside. She pulls the last page of writing from the typewriter and rereads what is, really, an exercise in automatic writing to summon old memories.
I suppose they thought they were alone. Even Five, my closest friend in the house, had a tendency to forget how my schedule ran so much looser than theirs. How my time was never accounted for in the same way. I could haunt the house at my leisure, more and more as I grew older.
Five wasn't permitted the same freedom. Despite his occasional dinnertime outbursts about time-travel or solo missions or trans-continental teleportation, he never took the plunge. He kept to the timetable our so-called 'father' assigned. Unlike me, he had to steal freedom where he could. I would have done anything to be so keenly watched, to be valued so much that my time would be restricted. I guess the grass is always greener. The others chafed under our father's reign.
That day, while Klaus recovered from the previous night's ordeal in his room, Five begged off of training with the claim he was near a breakthrough with the latest theoretical exercise our father had assigned him. As an excuse, it worked. Five was a promising liar, though sometimes too sure of himself to put the effort in to manipulate as easily as Klaus or Allison did.
So I was confused not to find him in his room, working on his equations. I don't think I called for him. I just wandered around the house silently, seeking him out. Klaus' door was ajar and as I passed, I heard murmuring voices inside. It wasn't unheard of for Klaus to talk to himself, but I could hear Five in there too, both of them hushed.
Then their voices fell silent. I could only hear a shift of weight on Klaus' bed. I pushed the door slightly and peered in.
Klaus' pale wrists looked fragile in Five's grip, but my gaze was only there for a moment before I realised they were kissing. There on Klaus' bed, Five on top of him and pinning him. Both of them pressing their lips together like we'd seen in the film we had snuck into just a couple of weeks before.
Vanya wonders if she ought to put a page or chapter reference in for the movie theatre anecdote. It had only been the last chapter... or had that moved in the edit? Maybe she shouldn't have started editing and reorganising until the first draft was done - she's starting to confuse herself. Either way, this will have to go after that. Probably.
Maybe she could make a chapter out of the romantic connections that never came to be. God knows she has enough material about Allison and Luther too, even though they had just shouted at her whenever she happened across them. Five and Klaus had, at least, not been quite so rude.
She flexes her fingers and checks her paper is in position before getting back to work on her next page.
Klaus was the first to see me. When Five decided to kiss at his neck, Klaus turned his head to allow it and squeaked upon seeing me. Patted Five on the back frantically. Five's eyes widened a little at seeing me, but he just cleared his throat and they both sat up on the bed as if pretending nothing had happened. Five asked if I was okay.
I don't remember what I said, but I remember the way Klaus scowled at me as Five followed me out of the bedroom. In hindsight, I'm sure Five was just trying to ensure I wouldn't say anything. By being my only friend he ensured my loyalty and secrecy.
Does that sound too Machiavellian? She knows Five wasn't her friend for that reason. If anything, it was because she wasn't in competition with him like the others were. He saw her as a harmless sounding board for his theories and ideas. It was probably the same thing that drew him to Klaus - easy acquiescence to Five's dominant attitudes, be it in conversation or in... other things.
Not for the first time, Vanya wonders how far it went between them. Whether they were in love. How it ended. Do they still stay in touch?
Of course, there is a way she could find out. She could ask. While she has no idea where Klaus is these days, Five is where he always was. Either out playing superhero with Luther or tucked away in the Academy working on math that would make a professor's head spin.
She's never broached the subject before. He might just refuse to talk to her.
Perhaps she can just stick to her own recollections, not speculate on what might have been?
To this day I can't say I understand what they had. Allison and Luther were childhood sweethearts, but Five always fancied himself above such petty things. But I would see him and Klaus drift together and--
And what? She doesn't know.
Vanya sighs and leaves the typewriter to make herself another coffee.
This one goes cold too, abandoned on the counter as she grabs her handbag and notepad and sets out to get a taxi to the Umbrella Academy.