"How the Cards Fell" I Five Hargreeves x Reader I

Apocalyptic Longing

//wanna ride my bike with you//

Five's POV - The Apocalypse

I wandered the streets. I wandered the alleyways. I stalked the Umbrella Academy for days, hoping, waiting, wondering if there was anyone left.

There was.

And she called out to me, but it wasn't Y/N that spoke from that cold, feelingless mouth. It wasn't Y/N, who searched for me long after I'd left. It was the monster in the Cards. Call me crazy, call me whatever the fuck you want, but I know Y/N. And that – that thing – wasn't her.

_

Five's eyes perused my expression with curiosity. He wasn't angry, nor had he ever been angry. Since the moment he got here, he'd kept me locked tightly by his side. And now I know the reason. Somehow, I survived the apocalypse.

Hell, Five probably thinks I caused it.

Maybe I do.

"You came to," Five licked his lips, "--after a few days. You seemed more normal," he doesn't elaborate, and the rest of the story is guesswork. If he wasn't with me when he got back, then I didn't survive the entire ordeal. "The Card, I had some assistance removing it...and well – here we are."

I folded my hands together on my lap, staring into the blackened sky. "You think that I was responsible for it. Don't you? That if I was the only one who survived, then I was the cause of it."

Five didn't respond to me. His hand tucked into mine. His thumb grazed the top of my hand. "No. You can be insane sometimes, Y/N. Don't mistake this as pity, or an underestimation of your powers. But you're not capable of world destruction." His hands lifted from mine and he tucked them behind his head. "I've seen the extent of your powers. Several hundred deaths in the city." He laughed under his breath.

"You find that funny?"

"Trust me," Five said, his voice mediocre at being comforting. "I've killed far more than you." He sounded slightly sad when he said those words but there was that hint of pride that came through. Five smirked. "If we want to get technical with the numbers, well..."

Somehow, in some mysterious ways, his words calmed me down. I may have been a reckless murderer with a deck of Cards and a monster that lived within them to show for it, but at least I had Five. Cold-blooded, spiteful, stubborn, beautiful Five. Through the thick of it, he was here.

He was here.

He was like the cat that always came back.

"Send me away again," Five grinned. "Kill the entire world. Fuck, try to kill me, if you want to. But I once promised you that I'd come back, yeah?"

He was silent for a moment. "It's a promise I don't intend to break."

No words floating to my mind, I reacted the only way I knew how. I climbed over the gearshift, straddled his body underneath me, and kissed him so hard that his head tipped backwards onto the headrest. Five's fingers bent over my shorts, pressing the fabric against my skin. His lips murmured on mine as his warm breath brushed my face.

Warm. Mint. Five's hand lifted from my back to tangle in the back of my hair. My thoughts were discombobulated as he shifted his hips forward.

"Five," it was a pained sound. For me to have to speak. To ruin the moment. "We only have –"

Softly –"you don't have to tell me that. I know there are only six days left."

I pushed back from him, tucking my legs on the sides of the chair. He was small enough that I fit like a spider, my limbs drawn and folded.

Five sighed. "This is the only lead we have." for a moment, he sounded defeated. Unlike the usual cockiness. His usual confident demeanour, crushed under the weight of the world.

"The...the glass eye is our best lead?"

"Yeah you got a better idea?" Five muttered. The breadth of his patience was thin. His unusual level of comfort had dwindled, replaced by determination.

"I don't."

"Okay, then."

Instead of talking, I kissed him again, this time out of desperation. If there were six days left, and I had nothing but him, I would draw it out as long as possible. If it was the last thing I ever did, it would be spent with Five. (If he was the last thing I did it would be even more fitting).

Getting ahead of myself, again.

Five paused where his hands sat and he turned his head slightly. I leaned back.

"What is it?"

His voice was quiet. "There's our guy." he narrowed his eyes. "What the hell is he up to?"

We watched Lance Biggs scamper across the darkened street. "Y/N, take my hand, yeah?"

_