FIVE WAS HAVING A SHIT DAY. A shit week. A shit life. Everything was shit. Everything and everyone was a peice of shit and it was all fucked. Even him. Especially him.
He wanted a couple of hours. Just a couple of hours to do one nice thing for the woman he'd loved all his love before he could move on. To what? He didn't know. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. He was still reeling from the fact Jay agreed to stay. He could handle growing up again so long as Jay was with him. He could handle anything so long as Jay was with him.
Just a couple of hours. He left his family alone for just a couple hours and they managed to fuck everything up worse than he ever feared possible.
He got back from the store having left Delores with her friends to find his home reduced to a burning pile of rubble. Just like before. At least this time his siblings' corpses weren't buried in the rubble. They were sat on their asses sulking like kids in timeout.
Sure, Five thought. The apocalypse is back on and we're probably all gonna be dead in a few hours but let's just sit around and wallow. Take all the time you need, guys, I'll just sort all this shit out by myself, shall I? Like I always do. Sometimes Five wondered why he bothered.
It was the dead of night, sunrise not for another good few hours, but a newspaper still sat forgotten on the street, April 1st, 2019 written in the top corner. Same headline, Five saw. Same headline, same homely hellscape, same timeline.
"Guys!" He called, running over to meet his siblings. "This is it. The apocalypse is still on. The world ends today."
"I thought you said it was over." Luther stepped towards him.
"I was wrong, okay?" He held up the newspaper. "This newspaper, I found it in the future the day I got stuck. The headline hasn't changed."
Diego, sat on a bit of rubble, shook his head, tears in his eyes. "No that doesn't mean anything. Time could've been altered since that newspaper came out this morning."
"You're not listening to me." Five shook his head frantically. "When I found it, I assumed this place came down along with everything else, but here we are. The Moon's still shining. The Earth is in one piece. But not the Academy."
He was very aware of how his voice was shaking, how all of him was shaking. But if his siblings noticed, they didn't care. Five wasn't sure which idea he preferred.
Klaus snatched the paper from his to read. "I'm confused."
"Then listen to me you idiot!" He snapped. "Viktor destroys the Academy before the apocalypse. I thought Harold Jenkins was the cause but he was just the fuse. Viktor is the bomb. Viktor causes the apocalypse."
His siblings just stared at him. Five wanted to scream, at them, at Viktor, at nothing, at anything. His hand instinctively went to his side, closing around empty air where Jay's wrist should've been.
He suddenly realised the absence of annoying comments and the smell of cigarettes, of snappy explanations and that comforting, steady pulse beneath his fingers.
"Wh..." his head snapped around in each direction. "Where's Jay?"
There was a pause. The other Hargreeves suddenly looked around as well, while Allison and Luther exchanged a worried look. Five just stared at them, eyes wide with accusation. At last Luther spoke, loudly yet hesitantly.
"Shit."
Jay hurt. Her back hurt, her ribs hurt, her lungs hurt, her arms, her legs, even her fingers were consumed by a dull, stinging ache. The rubble pressing down on her was too heavy for her to breathe properly, but if she could her breaths would've been short and panicked, only sucking in more dust and dirt and pain.
YOU ARE READING
Ruins (Five Hargreeves)
Fanfiction"You've ruined me, Five." Jay had spent what felt like her whole life at the Commission. She couldn't remember anything else, anything different. She didn't know how to do anything but follow orders and kill. She'd never leave, and she was okay wit...
