Chapter Text
"Luther can handle it, right? Or do you think he might panic?"
"He won't panic," Ben said. "He'll just be a little annoyed, but he'll forgive us."
"Are you sure?" Five said.
"No, but-" Ben wasn't able to get another word in.
They both felt it when they were pulled, forcefully yanked, into a yellow portal.
It felt like falling out of an airplane.
Five reached out for him as they fell, heroically pulled Ben into his arms, and shouted,
"Platonic Soulmates Five and Six Hargreeves!"
More flashing yellow lights, a puff of air blown into their faces that reeked of onions, and a shower of yellow and orange glitter.
These were the details Five would obsess over for centuries. Ben wrote them down as soon as he was able.
The alien beam (because that's what it was, wasn't it?) that had abruptly kidnapped them deposited two teenage brothers into a dimly lit zoo.
It was the very same zoo they were originally intending to visit, but the sky was darker than they'd ever seen it before.
This may have been because there were only seven stars above them.
Small stars.
Distant. Young.
The zoo itself was crowded. Though it should have been closed at this hour, the zoo was open and thousands of women were happily playing with the animals. Directly playing with them inside of the enclosures.
There were women ridding elephants and women wrestling lions and women swimming with dolphins.
Outwardly, there was nothing remarkable about these women. They looked to be in their mid thirties. They were all brunettes.
"Mom?!" Ben gasped.
The boys had been mistakenly shifted into a baby timeline.
And, by an unfortunate series of infinite coincidences, this baby timeline was exclusively populated by Grace Hargreeves doppelgangers.
They were a joyous coven of sisters in perfect harmony; dancing, swimming, running, petting the giraffes, waving, feeding the fish, and then one of the doppels spotted two teenage boys clutching at each other as if they were about to be ganged up on.
"O dear," The nearest Grace said when she spotted them. "We had a hell of a ride. But I thought we were riding to Heaven."
"Huh?" Ben said.
Three Grace robots surrounded Ben and Five. Five clutched at Ben more tightly than he ever had before and hid his face in the crook of Ben's neck.
"We had a hell of a ride," The Grace in the Middle said, smiling softly. "But I thought we were riding to Heaven, Heaven. You motherfucking lied."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Ben said.
Breathing shakily, Five pulled away from Ben and wiped at his eyes.
Decades later, this was the detail Ben would fixate on. Five's tear stained face. He looked terrified, but instead of cowering Five quickly wiped off the tears and straightened his shoulders to turn and face the crowd of Grace bots.
Cautiously, with shaking hands, Five reached out as if preparing to make one of those cliche business deal handshakes.
The Grace in the Middle of her two doppels politely accepted Five's handshake, giving three exaggerated pumps up down up down up down one two one two one two one zero one zero one zero.
It didn't seem important at the time, but Ben spent the rest of his life obsessing over this detail.
Then Grace handed Five a microphone. It was one of those wireless karaoke mics. The animals surrounding them looked docile enough, but one of the lions got a little too close for comfort and Five flinched back against Ben's chest.
Instinctively, Ben wrapped his arms around Five's waist.
Then Five cleared his throat and hesitantly spoke into the microphone, "So crank that funky shit to 11?"
Three of the Grace bots, the ones most closely circling them, turned around and proudly held their arms up into the air while the surrounding crowd whooped and cheered.
They were acting as if the three women had just won some sort of vague competition.
Then there were more microphones being thrown into the air. The three Grace bots who had hemmed Ben and Five together at the center of their circle began singing Klaus's voice out of their mouths.
As if the three of them had just turned an old stereo on, Ben could hear his older brother Klaus's voice singing the cover of Bo Burnham's best song, Hell of a Ride.
It was a song they had both spent a couple months obsessively singing all over the house. It had given Luther a headache, especially at the dinner table, but Old Five would just indulgently smirk at them. As if he were being a magnanimous audience gracing them with his presence.
The crowd surrounding them exploded into the most perfectly synchronized dance that Ben had ever seen. Thousands of Grace Hargreeves doppelgangers, some of them in dresses, some in pants, and some in gym shorts were all doing the Y M C A while singing animatedly in Klaus's voice, "We had a hell of a riiiiide. But you thought we were riding to Heaven, Heaven. I motherfuckin' lied!"
When Ben finally realized that the army of Grace bots had introduced themselves by quoting an ancient Bo Burnham song he burst into laughter.
"H-how did they know this song?" Ben shouted over the sound of the music. It kept getting louder and louder as more Grace bots turned on their own music and joyfully joined the Y M C A dance.
The zoo was already over crowded with women eager to get as close to the center as possible. It felt like being squashed in the center of a mosh pit.
There was a flash of purple light and then Klaus was there with his arms around them both, laughing joyfully and pulling his brothers into the single most wholesome hug that Ben had ever experienced.
"Welcome to Day One, mi hermanos!" Klaus said, cheerfully. "You've won the game!"
"Wh-what game?" Ben said, heart pounding wildly in his chest.
"The game of life, fam!" Klaus said, excitedly. "It's us three, baby! Oh. Mah. GAWD, I've never been so happy to come in third place before in my afterlife!"
"You're third place?" Ben said. "Me and Five tied for first. It was a tie, right Five?"
Five was avoiding eye contact. He shaded his eyes with his hand and ducked his head down.
"But this is the best Three in the multi-verse dudes," Klaus continued, blithely ignoring their mini-drama the way he always did. "I couldn't have made a better heaven myself if I'd tried!"
Klaus was like this when he was stoned, Ben realized. The high would trigger his super energetic Fun Uncle energy and he would apologize for ditching them for girlfriends all the time. Which Ben and Five would graciously accept, of course, cause the two of them were just fine without Klaus.
"Pleasure to meet you," Five said. "I'm Ferris Hargreeves and this is my brother Ben Hargreeves."
Looking pleased as punch, Klaus gave both their shoulders a squeeze and happily announced, "In the beginning, it was June 26, 2022! I can't wait to meet ourselves!"
Then he vanished in a theatrical puff of yellow smoke.
In that moment, Ben tried desperately to hold onto these details.
There was an after taste in his mouth. A smell that lingered in the air.