cigarette breaks / five hargreeves

Reunion (the wrong kind)

"𝘪 𝘥𝘰𝘯'𝘵 𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘬𝘦 / 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪'𝘮 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶" i don't smoke, mitski

/

Oz had woken up on top of their bed, still in the academy uniform they had disappeared in. The room was clean and the sheets still smelled fresh. Grace must still clean my room, they thought as they pushed themself up. They swung their legs over the bed and moved over to the mirror, where they discovered with a sigh that they were still in the eighteen-year-old body they had disappeared in. Ah, well. It could have been worse.

There were voices downstairs. Chatter. The living room. Oz pulled on their shoes and made their way downstairs quickly. There were five people sitting in there, all of whom turned to look at them in shock when they appeared in the room.

Klaus was the first to notice them. "Speaking of nonsense, is anyone else seeing teenage Oz standing right there?"

"My body's eighteen, thank you very much." They mumbled in shock, slight amusement in their voice but clearly they hadn't quite processed the people in front of them.

The rest of the group stared in disbelief at them.

"Oz?" Luther's voice cracked slightly.

Viktor's face was creased into a confused frown, "What's going on? I mean, how- how are you here?"

"And why the hell do you still look like that?" Diego took a couple strong steps towards them.

Oz gave a nervous grin, "Uh, you guys are..." everyone looked almost the same as they did in that show from the other reality... "This is actually real, right?"

"God, I hope so." Klaus chuckled, "Otherwise whatever I've smoked was definitely laced."

"I, um, don't know what Reginald told you guys, but when I disappeared when I got sick, I got taken through a kind of rift and thrown around in a bunch of other realities for twenty-seven years. I'm ...guessing I look like this because this was the last physical form I held in this reality." They answered, immediately heading over to the bar at the end of the room to pour themself a drink.

Klaus looked over at them with an exaggerated pout on his face, "Are you trying to say you're the oldest now? That's not fair!" He gave them a wink, "I'll forgive you if you get me another drink."

"Klaus, you've had enough alcohol." Luther scolded, "Oz, when did you get back?"

They mixed the drink and took a sip, sighing in satisfaction as the alcohol burned down the back of their throat, "About five minutes ago. Where's, uh, Reginald?"

"Dad died last night." Allison said softly.

"What?" They looked up in alarm, "Wait, wait- what year is it?"

"2019." Viktor answered, "Are you okay?"

Oz took a moment to nod slowly, trying their best to remember what they could from that other reality, "Just a shock. It's okay, not like I was close with the man. My brain's just a bit scrambled, y'know? Haven't been back here in a while."

"He wasn't really the type of man to be close to anyone." Klaus shrugged, "Miserable bastard. Well, except Luther, of course." He waved a hand vaguely in Luther's direction.

Luther scoffed, "Is everything a joke to you, Klaus? Is our father's death a joke?"

Klaus lowered his voice to an exaggerated stage whisper, "You know, I really thought something more impressive than heart failure would get to him. Like... murder."