﹁ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵃᵛᵉⁿ - Ben Hargreeves﹂ ✔

forty three

DECEMBER, Ariya's favourite time of the year. At least it used to be. She didn't celebrate Christmas, but she did receive a lot of gifts. The only person she would give a gift to was Amaya and Ben. but plot twist.

The new timeline sucks. The new life sucks.

Maya hates her, Ben is in jail, and she has to buy 10 different gifts for Lila's whole family.

Living in Diego's basement is not all that bad, but there are just so many people there.

"Maasi! Maasi!" (Aunty!) Little Gracie called out running downstairs, almost tripping, but composing herself before jumping on Ariya's makeshift bed.

Ariya smiled at her as she sat next to her with her horribly wrapped gift, as her little hands help scissors and tape, "Yes?"

"Can you help me wrap this?"

"What do we have here?" Ariya nodded looking at the clay dog? she wasn't sure, but she knew the gift was for Diego and Lila. 

"It's a dinosaur, duh!" Gracie looked up to face Ariya giving her a look.

Ariya quickly nodded, "Oh, yes. Very cool dinosaur indeed."

Gracie nodded along satisfied with herself. Don't get Ariya wrong, the dinosaur was slightly deformed, but it was cute as heck, and she also knew Diego and Lila would probably put it up the mantel or something.

Looking at Gracie and the twins with Diego and Lila, Ariya wondered if she would want kids, if she would like something like that. 

The answer was no, it was weird. She liked kids, she loved Diego's kids, but she didn't fancy the idea of having kids, or raising them in fact. She preferred the aunt title more than being a mother really.

Plus how would she have kids right now? Her husband was IN JAIL.

Either ways, it was Gracie's birthday in two days, and there was going to be a party, in Lil' Monkeys.

And Ariya was in charge of soda, because that's apparently the only thing she can't fuck up.

So to prove Diego wrong, she had already bought the soda, and hid it in her mini fridge.

That can't go wrong, right?

-x-

Ariya was working today, she was going to leave early for the birthday festivities, but she had to finish her assigned work before she could do so.

She was still working in her family business, and she was in the same position as she was before.

The only difference being, the lack of communication with her sister. Ariya lost her powers, gained her parents, but lost also lost her sister.

As Ariya tried to adapt to the new world without being herself completely, she did what she always did, tried to talk to Maya about it. But every time she did so, she only ever got a cold response.

As the days passed, Ariya realised in this timeline she didn't have a good relationship with her sister, they didn't talk unless they had to, they didn't need to live together (they didn't), they didn't need to be in each others life.

Which is exactly why she moved with the Hargreeves. The fear of living entirely alone after Ben was sent to prison was so unbearable, she decided to stay with Cheap Bullseye.

After work Ariya rushed to the venue, to find Diego and Lila setting things up. The kids playing around, and the rest of the Gill family conversing with people.

"Where were you! We looked everywhere for you!" Lila shouted, and grabbed the soda's, clearly waiting for that and not Ariya.

"Hello to you too, Lila. I'm doing fine, thanks for asking." She muttered, but Lila paid no attention, and continued to argue with Diego about the Piñata.

Ariya rolled her eyes and continued to walk around, hoping to find Five or someone who wouldn't talk her ears off.

"What was it? A Ponzi scheme? White- collar fraud?" 

"Crypto exchange. Web 3.0, baby. Feds only went after me because I'm an outsider. A fucking maverick like Elon."

Ariya's ears turned red when she heard the voice.

She wasn't shy or anything, her ears turned red when she was angry. It was comic actually.

She stormed her way towards to ball-pit balls to confirm. When she saw the two people talking, it was confirmed.

Ben was back from prison.

"You keep telling yourself that." Ariya stated, calm enough to startle Ben and almost spitting his bear out.

He turned to face her, "Ari--" He started.

But Ariya scoffed and walked away.

You would think Ben would follow quickly. But the boy sighed, took a sip-- gulp of his beer, nodding at Five before going after her, thinking of the monologue he would say to her.

"Ari, listen."

Ariya was sitting on one of the chairs, "weren't you supposed to be in there longer." She snapped.

Ben didn't know if he should sit or not, and decided to keep standing, "they let me go early. Good behavior I suppose."

Ariya scoffed, "good behavior? You?"

Ben sighed, "I'm sorry. I've said it a million times already."

"That's what you always do. You fuck up, say sorry and expect everything to go back to normal?" She flicked his forehead, "Well, surprise! Real world doesn't work like that and you can't expect me to take you in with open arms."

Ben sighed, "I don't know what else to say."

"Then don't. Just go."

If you thought Ariya is bad at expressing feelings, you should meet Ben. He's way worse.

So he just left.

Ariya groaned out of frustration, kicking a random ball that had fallen out of the ball-pit without looking up.

"Ow!" Someone screamed.

When Ariya looked up she was a man dressed like an OCD poet.

Well the OCD poet was Klaus. Who had all the phobias in the world now.

"Hobo!" She acknowledged, "you cleaned up well."

Klaus gave her an awkward smile.

Luther ran to Klaus, trying to hug him. To which he backed away. "Sorry. Don't touch. Spasibo."

Luther nodded, "Yeah, right. Of course."

Ben was now walking with Five, "He is a germaphobe now and extremely sober. Hi, Klaus!"

The Hi got completely ignored when Klaus saw Ben. "Benjamin."

"Klaus." He acknowledged.

Klaus, still staring at him wide eyed, "Wha... when did you get out?"

"About an hour ago." He said nonchalantly, Klaus nodded, "but, I'm strongly considering robbing a bank to get back in."

"Robbing a bank to get back in." Ariya mocked as she got up to leave, that was Ben's cue to follow.

"Ari, wait--"

-x-

As if the party wasn't already a mess, now the whole place had been a mess too.

It all started with the soda.

The bottles were shaken up so much with all the travelling, the soda volcano erupted when Lila opened the bottle.

And then the pinata, the pinata was such a bitch, it wasn't giving up. And a very hungry Luther decided to matters into his own hands, which is how the cake is on the floor, uncut and uneaten.

Happy fucking birthday.

-x-

checkout the changes in the cast chapter for act four

thanks for reading <3