Klaus & Five vs The Universe

Family Bonding

The first day passes with relative ease. Five takes charge, instructing Klaus on where to look for food and shelter. The city is laid out differently from when The Umbrella Academy—complete with all six members—were saving the world. That, unfortunately, means he has to rely on Klaus's instructions, which are often substance-centric and involve a good deal of wandering.

Thankfully, as they go, he has the opportunity to pry information from Klaus. It's clear he can't remember any immediate details of what led to this apocalyptic hellscape, nor can he recall how he survived it, which is frustrating, to say the least, but Klaus rambles on about their siblings' lifetime achievements, and Five deigns to catch about half of it. Luther went to the moon. Allison had a kid. Viktor published a book, then pretty much vanished. Diego works as a vigilante.

Yet, Five can't seem to drag his thoughts away from the singular question that's been plaguing him since he saw Klaus across that rubble-covered road. How is he alive? When Five had arrived in the apocalypse two days ago, he'd seen Klaus's corpse. He was dead. But now...

He glances to his left to find his brother animatedly poking through a convenience store's potentially salvageable debris. Alive. He was very much alive.

It didn't make much sense. Though, he supposed, Klaus's powers involved convening with the dead. Maybe one of them had—

He stops in his tracks so suddenly that he nearly falls off the pile he'd climbed. "Klaus!" He blinks beside his brother.

Klaus rights himself, eyes raised as he wobbles. There are tin cans in his hands—salvageable ones. That's good news on its own and reason enough to keep Klaus around, but there are more pressing matters at hand.

"Your powers! Ask our siblings what happened!"

Klaus's eyes widen before he pushes the cans into Five's hands, quickly wobbling away toward a different pile. "No can do, brotherino."

It takes everything in him to not drop the cans directly where he stands and barge over to wring his lackadaisical companion's stringy little neck. "Why not?"

"I'm not," he waved his hands superfluously, "in the right state of mind for something like that." He giggles to himself as he begins picking through the rubble again.

"You're high?" The accusation borders on a snarl, and Five drops the cans in their salvaged wagon before he has the urge to break something.

"There are some things you'll understand when you're older, dear Fivey."

He blinks across the lot in an instant. "And there are some things you should understand now, Klaus," he hisses. "We're in the apocalypse. We're dying if there's no way out of here. So you need to get sober so you can find out how we ended up in this mess!"

Klaus's resolve cracks slightly. The threat of death—real and true death—makes him uneasy enough to abandon his fixation on anti-sobriety. Yet, the ghosts are a special level of hell that make him think death may be preferable. "But it's awful and our siblings will be so mean to me!" is the excuse he comes up with.

"If you'd like," Five offers through clenched teeth, "I can be mean enough for all of them right now."

It isn't really an offer he'd like to cash in on.

Thus begins Klaus Hargreeves's—admittedly wandering—path to sobriety. He has enough drugs stashed on his person to avoid going cold-turkey, and they manage to find a few unbroken bottles of booze that he wouldn't mind swiping, but his stupid, blinking brother makes it nearly impossible to use anything of note.

Slowly, but surely, Five takes over his stash, and the haze that has blanketed Klaus's world for years begins to slowly dissipate.

It fucking sucks.

They spend days scavenging for food, clothes, and other useful tidbits while his body flushes the chemicals—or, as Five has said multiple times over the short time they've been reunited, useless shit—out of his system. He's awfully mouthy for a kid, Klaus thinks, and he makes it known as the days drag on.

Tension crackles between them as both of them begin running out of patience. They are two pieces of flint slowly grinding against one another. One, a sobering powderkeg. The other, a hormone-driven child with the weight of the world on his shoulders. It is a dismal time to be alive.

Especially when the spirits start coming.

For some reason that Klaus does not want to contemplate, Ben is not waiting for him when he's finally run out of things to swallow. None of his siblings are. For a while, he thinks maybe he's broken. He even considers telling Five the fifty thousandth time he asks about their siblings.

But then the ghosts start trickling in, and he knows the problem isn't on his end. It's enough to distract him from wondering about his siblings, though, because the ghosts that have arrived really don't like him for some unknown and totally unjustified reason.

They're nuns. Nuns that multiply like rabbits. They also don't like when he points out things like that, so they chime in with distasteful observations of their own. Pointed. Loud. Their anger grows into a roar he can't possibly stifle.

"Noooo," he whines helplessly. "Leave me alone!"

"I can't really do that when we're surviving this thing together."

Five's wry reply only exasperates Klaus more. He waves a hand at him halfheartedly. "Not you."

When it clicks, Five's face melts into something more gentle. He knows by now that Klaus will tell him if their siblings show up, so that isn't who's pestering him, but he asks anyway in the hopes it will be somewhat of a distraction. "Are they here yet?"

"No," Klaus whines. "Just a bunch of angry nuns that think I did all this." He swats his hand again, but this time it isn't directed at Five, who's now watching him openly. "Please leave me alone! I'm not the devil just because I have tattoos!"

The angry Nuns close in, and he flinches away from the impending brush of spirits against his skin. "No, no, no."

He balls up on himself, head tucking between his knees. He would go for anything if it meant he could get away from these things. Their bodies are so close to him that he can't even rock back and forth—a useful coping method in his times of trouble—without experiencing the cold, unsettling touch of a stranger's soul.

But a hand clamps against his shoulder a moment later. A very human hand. A very alive hand. Five.

Their eyes meet through the sea of spirits, and Five is the first to speak. "Hey. They can't get you unless you let them."

"Tell that to them," he mutters uselessly.

Five looks at him with something that borders on concern. It's as kind as it is uncharacteristic, and Klaus has half a mind to doubt his sincerity. Yet, Five tugs him away from the ring of angry nuns all the same and thrusts a half-burned chocolate bar into his hands as though it's made of gold.

"I really would prefer something stronger," he admits, though he tears into the chocolate anyway.

Five smirks—the closest expression he's made to a smile since they've arrived in this charred, godforsaken place. "I found a half-full bottle of tequila. Once the family comes and sorts all this shit out, it's all yours."

Klaus nearly swoons at the thought, and Five has to blink to save the chocolate bar before it tumbles to the ground.