﹁ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵃᵛᵉⁿ - Ben Hargreeves﹂ ✔

klaus

(tw; panic attack)

present day.

"I SURVIVED on scraps, canned food, cockroaches, anything I could find." Five chuckles dryly

"You know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life?" he asked both the girls, "Well, it's total bullshit."

"I can't even imagine." Vanya sighed and Riya sighed in horror.

"You do whatever it takes to survive, or you die. So we adapted." Five said, "Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it."

"We? Us? are we talking about Delores?" Riya smirked at Five.

Five doesn't answer, instead looks at his empty coffee cup and asks Vanya "You got anything stronger?"

She nods and takes out alcohol from her cabinet.

"Want some?" Vanya asks Riya who nods.

Vanya looks at Five with sympathetic eyes.

"You think I'm crazy." Five answers for her.

"No." Vanya stammers "It's just..."

"it's a lot to take in...?" Riya helps Vanya.

"Exactly what don't you understand?" Five asks, mainly Vanya.

"Why didn't you just time travel back?"

Five scoffs and sighs.

"V, I don't think he could." Riya said lowly.

"Gee, wish I'd thought of that." Five spat.

"Time travel is a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. You think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?"

"If you grew old there, you know, in the apocalypse, how come you still look like a kid?" Vanya asked.

"He got the equation wrong." Riya said along with Five in unison.

"I must have got the equations wrong."

Riya felt her stomach churning, before she could comprehend she ran towards the restroom and threw up.

"I'm fine." she screamed which made Five and Vanya sigh.

"Maybe I should have said no to the alcohol."

when Riya reversed her heightened healing, she also lost her amazing resistance to alcohol.

When Riya came out she heard Vanya say,

"I haven't seen you in a long time, and I don't want to lose you again. That's all.And you know what, it's getting late, and... I have lessons early, and I need to sleep, and I'm sure you do, too. Here." Vanya makes him a makeshift sofa bed, "We'll talk in the morning again. Okay? I promise. Night."

"Night R." she turned to Riya and walked off.

"Night." Five says.

"You going?" Five asks Riya nods.

Riya goes upto and gives him a hug, "What are you doing?"

"God, let me hug you!" she says and Five manages to loosen up.

"Brighten up you old man." she sighs and goes back to the Hargreeves mansion.

She did not want to go back to her place.

The umbrella academy was near anyways.

-x-

(flashback 2005)