recklessthings | ᶾ allison hargreeves

"Yeah, and we're not the kids you left behind either."

It isn't so much as seeing Five as a child as wanting to protect her brother. She knows that the world became much simpler for him when he was on his own - only one person to care about, only one person to worry about - but she doesn't know how to impress upon him that he doesn't have to do it alone.

"You might be able to avoid having it be yours if you let us help you."

That's a nice thought, but for him it's more complicated. He's the one who's seen the future. And as much as he'd like to erase the last 45 years, he doesn't have that power. All he can do is try to alter the events that led to it so he's the only one who has to live with those memories.

Because he can handle it. They're still too young, even now, to understand.

"I know you're not. I did my homework." Vanya's book helped to fill it in some. Bits and pieces he found in that wasteland. He had plenty of time to try and figure out what became of his siblings.

He gives her a look that's not unkind, then lowers his head as he starts back to work pulling off his tie and jacket. That one's a little bit harder, so he's sure they must have managed to graze him.

Just when it looks like he isn't going to say anything else, it comes out. "...It's enough that you want to."

Allison nods, her eyes watching him as he starts to disrobe. She can see where the blood is pooling once his jacket is gone, and she steps out of the room briefly to get the first aid kit before returning and handing it off to him.

"We don't want to lose you again. We just got you back."

When she leaves the room, Five really thought that was going to be the end of their conversation. That's usually as far as they get. So in the time it takes to sit down and lift up his shirt to see if he needs to give himself stitches, he's positively surprised to find her right in front of him again.

He keeps her gaze for a moment, then grabs the kit from her hands.

"I could say the same to you." He doesn't want to explain what he means, so he goes about searching for the gauze instead. Seems it's as well stocked as it ever was, and it gives him an excuse to avoid noticing Allison's expression as he works. "This is nothing. We were in worse scrapes when were we kids."

"Yeah, we did." That doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to have proper care though. She's just saying. Then she takes a deep breath as she gives him space to work.

"I get that you lost way more. You lost all of us, all at once and that must have really sucked. And I'm sure Ben would be a lot better at having the right things to say, if he were here."

Ben always did have the most emotional intelligence out of all of them. Allison can fake it most days, but Ben saw a lot more than they ever gave him credit for.

"But Dad raised us to be a team for a reason. He wanted us, in all his misguided bullshit, to watch each other's backs."

Ben... the one person Five was never able to say goodbye to. There's still more he wants to know about him, about how they got through it, but he doubts it's any easier to talk about now. At least he got to see his statue before it came tumbling down.

"You saw how good I was at following his advice." He smiles to himself, as much as that's killed him to think about these past 45 years. Dad being right. He wasn't ready.

"I guess it must have sunk in at some point. I found you all together." Morbid topic, but that's all he ever thinks about. Nothing like the end of the world for a family gathering. As he prods his skin, he winces at another gash that's deeper than he expected. They're getting better at guessing where he'll jump to.

"I'll bring it up at the next family meeting."

She's not sure if that's comforting or not, that they all came together in the end. On the one hand, they finally learned to work together. On the other, what they did have to offer wasn't enough. She takes another step closer, looking over the supplies and crouching down to get closer.

"Let me."

She knows he doesn't necessarily want her help, but she has the better angle.

Five didn't really say it to be comforting. That's just what happened. Since then he's tried to imagine that it would have gone differently if he'd been there. The whole point of everything he's done... and now he's still not sure. But it'd make a nice footnote, anyway.

He looks up to see Allison suddenly near, and he only hesitates for a moment before he holds out the gauze in his hand. Then he carefully twists to give her a better view. He thinks of all the times their mother would be the one to do this, and for a moment, he really feels as old as he looks.

"How are things going, anyway?" That sounds like an awkward and obvious diversion when he's letting her take a look at his wounds, but that's not entirely why he asks. "You know, aside from all the death and destruction I brought back with me. I wasn't expecting to find it so quiet."

"It's only been Dad, Pogo and Mom here for years."

It's an awkward diversion, but she's happy to fill in the details. She knows that there's a lot Vanya's book didn't cover, mostly because there was a lot of pain and damage under the memories she tried to sensationalize.

"After Ben, we all scattered. Klaus went first - mentally, then physically. Then Diego, then me, then Vanya. Luther was the last one, and he didn't really leave. Dad just sent him to the moon."

Five watches her as he shifts uncomfortably, restraining himself from the urge to back away and insist he doesn’t need help. It’s not easy to give himself space for this. Time. He allows his sister to fuss over him because he genuinely missed her. One reason he’s kept up his guard is because he needs them focused on what’s ahead, but... no one else is around. He might not get another chance.

She mostly tells him things he knows, which is probably more than she expects. Still, it’s nice to hear it from her.

“You tried to move on.” He almost asks about her life, her daughter, things he found out in the rubble of some library. But she might not like knowing that a few tabloids survived the apocalypse. He shakes his head. “I’m not surprised Luther was the last one. You see what loyalty gets you.”

Maybe it would have been better if he’d stayed up there a while longer. The idea that their father knew and was trying to spare him is so laughable that he scoffs to himself. No, he definitely wouldn’t have done that to save his son. But the world... Five still doesn’t get it. How he knew what was coming.

"It's not his fault."

Allison would like to think that there are places in the world where the investment you put into things would equal the investment you got out of it. In a perfect world, it would. But in a perfect world, they probably wouldn't have been raised by Reginald Hargreeves.

"He wanted to be loved by his father. I think at the end of the day, that's what any kid wants." The only problem is that Luther didn't realize that it was something he would never get until it was too late.

He could argue that Luther isn't a kid any more, but he stays silent. It doesn't feel like his place. They were all around their father longer than he was, and besides that, he's too far removed from the equation. While they spent their early adulthood grappling with their childhood traumas, he was fighting to survive in the apocalypse. Time changed him and how he looked back on those early years. They don't have that benefit of perspective, and it leaves him disconnected.

Dad didn't raise them out of love. He raised them to save the world, and they failed. If they knew everything Five has done to rewrite history, maybe they'd see how pointless their hurt feelings are.

"Keep an eye on them." He tries pulling away, his patience at her work suddenly gone. His side hurts when he stretches and reaches for the fresh shirt beside him, but that only results in a frown. Easily covered when he keeps talking like he's giving her instructions he expects her to follow. "I need to know that I can find you."

Her brow furrows, but she doesn't fight him when he pulls away from her. She knew that she was only going to be able to get him to sit still for so long, but at least he put up with her for as long as he did.

But when he asks that she keep an eye on them, that she be present, that's not something she's sure she can promise. Most of the rest of them are local, save for Klaus who wanders wherever his whimsy takes him. Eventually Allison is going to have to go home.

"I can't stay here forever, Five. Eventually I'm going to have to go home to Claire."

She's going to have to sort out things with Patrick eventually because she can't be out of her daughter's life forever. Especially not if the world is ending.

"I'm not running out on the mission. But how long do you need me to watch them?"

It was a matter of time before the moment was spoiled, but it still manages to feel like a slap in the face when she finally says what's on her mind. Five tenses at the first words that leave her mouth, and by the time she asks him how long she needs to inconvenience herself, he looks like can barely comprehend the sheer audacity of the question.

"As long as it takes, Allison." His voice raises with him, getting up before she can stand and whipping around to face her while she's not yet towering over him. The move twists open the same wound that she patched, but he's too furious to care. "I'm not asking for you for a favor. I'm telling you that I need you here. I need all of you here, or the whole world dies. Why is that so hard to understand?"

Why they all think they have time for this is lost on him. They've only been dealing with the knowledge that the world is ending for days and she already wants to give up. She still has no idea, no concept, of what it took for him to get back.

"Nothing else matters right now."

Edited 2021-04-20 03:16 (UTC)

"You need all of us here, but at the same time all of us are here and we all died."

Allison isn't going to be shamed for wanting to see her daughter. She isn't going to be shamed for having a life and things that matter to her beyond these walls. She left to build a life for herself, and sure. Maybe some of it was built on pillars of sand by the use of her power, but she's not going to give up Claire.

"But do you have any leads? Anything you'd actually care to share about what we're dealing with? Are you going to actually tell us anything that matters?"

Maybe if they knew more, they might be able to fix things sooner.

'...we all died'

From the mouth of his own sister. Whatever cutting argument he had ready is thrown off by those few careless words. Never mind that he's constantly reminding them of the fact, but he didn't count on her getting desensitized to it already. It was supposed to motivate them, to rally and do what he asks them to do, not... give up. What's wrong with this family that they won't even fight to live? To do just a fraction of what he has to survive?

Or maybe it's just that they don't have any faith in him. She probably still thinks he's crazy.

"I'm working on it." His reply lacks the earlier venom, and part of him is genuinely afraid that she's going to walk out of that door and he'll never see her again. It could fall apart that easily.

"I know I'm asking you to take a leap of faith. I've seen the future, but I haven't put all the pieces together yet." That's nothing he hasn't said before. He breathes out his nostrils and tries to stay calm enough to give her something that will satisfy her. "Someone causes it. Whoever it is, there are people who will try to make sure they succeed, because that's what's supposed to happen. They'll try to stop me."

There. That's something new, if only a fraction of the story. Maybe that and the fact that he showed up bleeding will be enough to get his point across.

"So I need you for when I need you."

It's what he's been telling them, hasn't he? If they don't listen and do as he says, they die, but the problem is he hasn't been telling them what to do. He's only been holding them into a cycle of hurry up and wait, and Allison isn't seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

If the world's going to end, and she's going to die, she'd rather do it with her daughter in her arms than here, far away from her. She wants to be able to tell her not to be scared, even when she's terrified. She came home to bury her father, she didn't come home for this.

If he expected her to just take it at face value and leave it, then he's sorely mistaken and should have known better.

"What do you know about him? The one who causes it."

It's true, there was a hopeful side of him that thought maybe they'd just accept what he had to say at face value. Aside from his word, there's not a whole lot he can do to prove to them that he knows better. If he tries, really tries, he can maybe put himself in Allison's shoes. See what she values most. She's the one who had more of a go at it than any of them, so she might have forgotten. As much as he'd like to tell her she can be with her daughter, she's a part of this family too.

Is it because of him? Five vividly remembers seeing her there in the rubble, with all of them, so she obviously stuck around the last time. Now that he's told her what's coming, she wants to take the first plane out. He frowns and shakes his head, then heaves a heavier sigh. Back to business.

"I know he loses an eye in the next few days. And I know he'll be near here when it happens. Or she, I suppose." As for what they can do in the meantime, he doesn't have a good answer, and it's hard not to let that frustration turn to anger. To tell her she should go if that's what she wants, then teleport away before she can say a word in response.

"Just... give me time. I came back because of this. Do you even know what that took?"

Allison nods slowly, weighing her wants and needs against the fact that this is important. She can see it in every sentence Five utters, even if it's frustrating. But she knows that she can't just commit fully to following him down the rabbit hole, as much as he may want her to.

She has missed her family - people who really do love her, even if they don't always like her. She is curious about this guy that Vanya is seeing - a guy who pings every one of her "bad idea" red flags. But she also spent two hours fighting on the phone with Patrick to get him to feel an ounce of empathy for her and not reset all the work she's done to get her daughter back back to square one.

"I have to be back in L.A., in ten days, on my family therapists couch or I might lose my daughter for good. You say that the world will be over by then, so if it is, I wasn't going to make it anyway. But if it's not, then I'm going to be on that couch. Is that fair?"

Whether it's because they actually manage to solve it or the world doesn't end, it doesn't matter. That's the boundary she's imposing.

Five expected more arguing. More trying to convince her that he wasn't crazy, if he found the patience for it, which wasn't likely. So for one of his siblings to sound reasonable catches him so unexpectedly that he needs moment to switch gears. He's been too used to being questioned that it's a bigger relief than it probably should be.

"Ten days." After a while, he finally nods. "Okay."

Sure, he'd like to spend more time with his family in the event they all don't die horribly, but if they manage to avert to apocalypse he's not going to ask for more. And he does... get it. Wanting to have a relationship with her daughter that's better than what they grew up with. Besides, Five will probably need a break from all of them by then. -- Look at him, getting ahead of himself.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He sounds sincere for once, and he holds her gaze up until he remembers what he came here to do. So he starts to fiddle with the buttons around the top, in case she needed an excuse to look away from him. For whatever reason, the bloodstains seem to bother him more than they did initially, and he's eager to get rid of them.

All of his shirts have to be white.

She doesn't think that he would have gone through all he says he has, wrestling dealing with a much younger body, if there weren't something to what he's saying. Their father knew something, was always preparing them for some kind of grand event.

Maybe this is it. He just didn't live to see it.

But there's only so far she can be pushed, so she's relieved when he agrees. "Okay."

Allison returns his smile in kind, before shrugging. "You were always the most intense of all of us. That much hasn't changed. But it meant that you usually got what you were looking for. Whoever's trying to start the end of the world ... I almost feel bad for them."

Because they're about to have seven very scary people coming down on their front door, with Five leading the charge.

The most intense, huh? He looks up from the bloodied shirt he's unbuttoning and has to agree, smiling a little more at the compliment she suddenly decides to pay him. Likely because she's grateful that he isn't a totally unreasonable asshole at all times. He's focused, sure, but sometimes he thinks they forget how much he cares about them.

Maybe just a hair more than he cares about the end of the world. You kind of need one to have the other, so that simplifies his priorities.

"As long as I've waited, you should." Despite all outwards signs, he's not immune to doubt, and none of this has been easy for him. Given their timeframe, every setback could be potentially devastating. So hearing that from her actually makes it sound a little more possible. It's also kind of nice to be recognized without the implications that he's some psychopath killer. This is what it was all for.

"The full force of the Umbrella Academy, right? I think we're overdue for a comeback."

"And, we can do it our way, not the old man's."

Which honestly they might be better off. She knows Luther's going to try and run this like a mission, and true, that could have some efficacy. But they were always a little better when they improvised. They understood each other's strengths and weaknesses a little better too.

"The world might be better off."

He watches Allison for a measured moment, considering what she said. The pep talk is a welcome change. Actually managing to focus on what's important for more than a minute. It makes him think he should have spoken to her one-on-one sooner. He probably couldn't talk her into rumoring their siblings into cooperating, but it'd help to have someone to focus on keeping everyone out of trouble while he works.

She is wrong about one thing though.

"We'll do it my way." That's an important distinction. Luther doesn't get to play leader this go around, and as the oldest and most experienced, that's part of the deal. "As much as I appreciate the input, need I remind you what happened the first time. Whatever you all came up with, it didn't make a difference. I will."

That statement only loses a little of its weight when he finishes unbuttoning. He glances to the bed where the clean shirt is waiting. Suddenly it feels awkward to undress in front of his sister while stuck in a thirteen-year-old body. Like showing off his scrawny muscles is going to spoil the point he was making.

"Do you want to... turn around or something?"

... Oh.

Allison will do that, turning to face the doorway, while her eyes drift up to the ceiling. She also is amused at the idea that Luther and Diego are just going to step down and let Five lead.

"You'll have to take that up with Luther and Diego and see if they can stop measuring their dicks long enough to make that happen."

But she'll do her best to stay in Five's corner.

ᶾ allison hargreeves | the umbrella academy

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