THROUGH TIME & SPACE ★ FIVE HARGREEVES X READER

CH. VI

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WE ONLY SEE EACH OTHER AT WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS

"if you're waiting all your life,
you won't ever go"

2019

"FIVE, WHERE THE FUCK HAVE you been?!" (Y/N) hissed as she crammed her head into her hands, clearly very confused and demanding for answers. Not only did she now look like her 13-year-old self from 17 years ago, but she felt like she was in one, too. She could already feel the oily sweat forming on her forehead and hoped that she wasn't going through what she thought she was again.

"Hey, you're a kid now, so you can't swear!" Klaus teased the girl.

Instead, Five ignored her question and went straight for what he had come back to 2019 for. Of course, if he had more time, he would sit his best friend down and have a long chat, catching up, talking about the good times, giving her a tight hug saying that it's all okay, to apologise to her for his absence and that he would be there for her no matter what, but there wasn't much time, considering he didn't even know if he got the calculations right and came back to the right date. So that was exactly where he started.

"What's the date? The exact date." The young teenager put down a cutting board on the kitchen table and walked over to a shelf to get a loaf of bread.

"The 24th," Vanya answered him.

"Of what?"

"March."

He paused, thinking about something, and then proceeded to pull out a piece of bread.

"So, are we going to talk about what just happened?" Luther said, dumbfounded.

"Have none of you been listening to me for the last two minutes?" (Y/N) exclaimed as she threw her hands up.

Instead of replying, Five kept silent and put down the two pieces and tried to reach for a bag of marshmallows when Luther stepped in front of him and said, "it's been 17 years."

"It's been a lot longer than that." He phased through Luther and appeared next to a step stool to grab the plastic bag.

"I haven't missed that..." Luther mumbled.

"Where'd you go?" Diego asked without turning towards him, knowing that he would soon reappear back at the table.

"The future," he said simply. "It's shit by the way."

"Called it," Klaus raised a hand.

"Hold up, hold up." (Y/N) put up her hands to stop all conversation, leaning forwards and jabbing her forefinger into the top of the table for emphasis on her words. "You're telling me Project Chicken Nuggets worked?"

"You were part of his disappearance?!" Vanya asked, shocked.

"I—"

"She had nothing to do with what happened to me after I left." Five cut in and shot a glare at Vanya. "She helped me run a couple of calculations, sure, but it wasn't her fault. So yes, the Chicken Nuggets worked... Not wholly though. I should've listened to the old man." Five sighed, holding open the fridge door and quickly snatching a jar of peanut butter from it. "You know, jumping through space is one thing, jumping through time is a toss of the dice."

The boy glanced up at Klaus. "Nice dress."

"Oh, well, danke!"

"Wait, how did you get back?" Vanya questioned. It made (Y/N) increasingly exasperated to see that her best friend — well, she wasn't too sure if Five still considered her as his best friend because of the amount of time they had spent apart from each other — wasn't answering her growing queue of questions she just wanted to clear things up with.