Chapter Text
“What am I doing?” Five muttered. Why was he even here? It was increasingly harder to think when he was bleeding out.
Bang! Well, that was just an unnecessary waste of ammo. Five already knew they were there.
From where he was crouched behind some rickety produce shelf, Five knew he was rapidly running out time. He had to act now, or die trying.
Gritting his teeth and curling his arms tightly around his gushing gunshot wound, Five tried in vain to jump away. All he was given for his efforts was a feeble blue fizzle.
Klaus was right, he should’ve eaten that energy bar.
Or just breakfast in general.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the looter sang, all oily and taunting. This idiot thought he was a kid — usually a grave mistake, but, well, Five was having an off day.
Shit, his family was going to be furious. He could already hear their chorus of obnoxious voices reminding him of how foolish he’d been.
Lately, Five was finding that his hallucinatory nightmares of his family were just as hauntingly poignant alive as they were dead,
Five winced, a groan of pain escaping him. It seemed only a millisecond had passed before that barrel was pointed at his head again.
Five didn’t flinch, didn’t close his eyes. He stared directly into the face of death.
His killer cocked the pistol, pulling back the trigger at an agonizingly slow pace. Five had never killed like this, never made them wait to be put out of their misery — his jobs were merciful.
So, ultimately, it wasn’t the gun, the harbinger of his inevitable doom, that made him look away in fear, it was the beast.
Big and burly with coarse, orange-tinted apricot fur, snarling teeth sharp as iron and dark drooping jowls.
Five would be eternally grateful that when the beast roared, it wasn’t at him.
Oh how he roared. Again and again and again, nearing closer to the assailant with each passing second. The looter pivoted, roughly aiming the pistol towards the beast and shooting. A warning shot — intended for both of them.
The beast didn’t let up, He charged, snapping those mighty jaws down onto the man’s legs with a visceral spray of red.
“Damn mutt!” he cursed. One more shot, ominous as it pierced the tense air, sounded before the man fled.
A moment passed before the beast, no, a dog, a big dog, collapsed to the ground with a whimper.
Gathering his bearings, Five rushed forward, nervously running his hand over the dog’s stomach. He gasped when he found the blood, wet and flowing.
Bile rose in Five’s throat. What kind of monster would shoot a dog?
“You saved my life,” Five said. “Thank you.”
Taking a deep breath, Five summoned all of the energy he could muster. He was going to need it if he was going to blink them both out before the police showed up.
You’ve jumped multiple people before, what’s the difference? he scolded himself, straining.
The cynical part of him snapped, And look how well that turned out.
Seconds later, Five could feel cold gravel digging into his knees. They’d landed in an alleyway. It was close enough to the Academy — it’d have to do.
“Hey, hey,” Five said softly, stroking the dog’s floppy black ears. He suspected the dog was some kind of mastiff given his enormous size.
Five almost chuckled to himself at how similar the mastiff looked to Klaus after experiencing Five’s spatial jumps.
“I’m going to call you Mr. Pennycrumb,” Five said. “Get it? It’s ironic, kind of like how I thought you were a beast. No offense.”
Mr. Pennycrumb sighed, laying his boxy head onto Five’s lap. Whether he was sighing in exasperation or approval, Five couldn’t tell. He could barely keep up with his own emotions, much less a dog’s.
Five pushed himself off the ground, knowing he was currently too weak for much else.
“I’ll be back with help,” Five promised. “And you have a name now, so you can’t die, okay?”
Five was scarily close to keeling over by the time he was pushing the Academy door open, bracing himself for a lecture.
This time, it was Diego and Allison who descended on him like a hurricane of concerned frustration.
“Where have you been, Five? It’s midnight!”
“You’re such a dumbass! What are you even trying to prove? You can’t go off doing stupid shit on your own anymore! You’re acting like—“
“Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? You put Viktor in such a state he almost called off his concert!”
“You’re acting like me, dude! How stupid can you get?” Diego cried, shaking him a bit to hammer the point through. Five supposed that, at least, was warranted. Any semblance of following Diego’s footsteps was definitely cause for concern.
“Wait,” Allison held up her hand, her eyes widening and she zeroed in on something. “You’re bleeding. We need to get you to Mom.”
Five glared up at the two of them, subconsciously folding his arms over the portion of his uniform now stained with blood. Normally, he would’ve been all barbed wire; I’m not a kid, stop mothering me. I don’t need a fucking curfew. I don’t need you here, I can take care of myself.
“I’m not the priority here! There’s someone else and he needs your help,” Five bit out.
“Someone else?” Allison and Diego shared an incredulous look. The same look all of his siblings shared whenever he dismissed his injuries (and feelings) in favor of more pressing matters.
Five didn’t care. He was already throwing the door open to lead them back to the alley.
Thankfully, Mr. Pennycrumb was still there, weak and bleeding out, but there nonetheless. Five rushed forward anxiously. He was only partly reassured by the soft thrum of the mutt’s wagging tail against the ground.
“Oh my god, you found a dog,” said Allison, fondness lacing her tone.
“A big dog,” Diego added.
Five woke up screaming. Acrid smoke filled his nostrils, clouded his lungs — he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see.
He was still here. He had never left.
And they were touching him, shaking him. Reanimated corpses of his siblings staring at him with cold, glassy eyes. They weren’t brain dead zombies, not quite. That would be too considerate, because his siblings recognized him down to the most minute detail, blamed him. They knew how he’d failed.
This was all a routine; Five just didn’t know where he would wake up next. Five knew his siblings would leave him here eventually, all alone at the end of the world.
He deserves it.
The bitter, festering wound of self-disgust never left, taking root inside of him like a poisonous fungus as he called out for his family.
“Please! Please don’t leave me!” Five cried, hating how his voice cracked. “I’ll come back! I’ll fix this!”
“Five!” a rough voice called out. Five wasn’t sure from where.
The floodgate was open now, tears streaming down his face as Five curled in on himself.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
“Five,” said another voice, much gentler than the former. “Look who came to see you.”
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.
Grounding, like a heartbeat.
With great difficulty, Five managed to open his eyes. It was blurry, then it was dark, then he saw Klaus.
“Hey buddy, you with us now?” Klaus’ gaze glistened with empathy from where he sat perched on the side of Five’s bed, rubbing his hand in slow, rhythmic motions.
Five swallowed thickly. “Klaus? Are you—?”
“He’s alive. We’re all alive,” Diego confirmed from his other side. Five hadn’t even realized he was in the room. “Don’t worry about us, okay?”
Five would have laughed if he wasn’t already drowning in tears. Worrying about his siblings was about all he did.
Ba-dum.
A tiny sliver of moonlight filtered through his blinds, but apart from that, the room was dark. It must have been early.
This definitely was not the first time he’d woken his family screaming because of horrific flashbacks. Embarrassed and guilty, Five quickly rubbed his eyes dry. “I’m sorry, I woke you up. You guys can go n—“
“No, no, it’s okay, don’t apologize,” Klaus cut in. Something in his expression seemed. . . pained. Then he added sheepishly, “And, uh, you didn’t wake us. Your dog did.”
Looking down, Five finally realized why he’d felt so grounded. Mr. Pennycrumb was curled against his side, his head resting on Five’s chest while Five’s arm draped across his stomach — rising and falling with the steady ba-dum of the dog’s heart.
“Oh,” Five whispered, surprised in the best way possible.
Klaus grinned brightly, “Yeah, he came into my room and—“
“You mean the couch,” Diego cut in.
“—he started nudging me until I got up. I mean, Mr. Pennycrumb here would not shut up. You’d never expect him to be a whiner, but alas. He brought me right to you!”
Diego rolled his eyes. “What Klaus means to say is that you’ve got a keeper here, Five.”
Five smiled, stroking the mastiff in a silent show of gratitude. “I guess I do.”
Mr. Pennycrumb never left Five’s side after that.
Five carried his stack of theoretical physics textbooks all the way from his bedroom down into the checkered kitchen. Mr. Pennycrumb followed close behind, his tongue lolling out lazily.
Instead of the table, Five set each open textbook in a disarray across the floor. It was easier to focus that way, everything laid out.
Five took a seat, chewing on the eraser of his pencil as he contemplated the blank notebook staring back at him. Mr. Pennycrumb settled — more like flopped — down beside him.
“We’re in for the long haul,” Five said aloud as he began scribbling out complex equations.
The canopied kitchen, considering it was nestled in the basement of the Academy, hardly ever got good sunlight. Either Five was seriously slipping or his limited childhood memories just didn’t come as easy anymore, but it seemed brighter today.
Hours must have passed before they were disturbed, given the window-cast shadows were longer. Five should have seen it coming.
“Oh Five-O!”
And who was he kidding, the fluttery tone and incredibly annoying nickname could only be attributed to Klaus.
“Working,” he grumbled.
Klaus peered down at his equations, most likely registering them as something slightly above comprehensible chicken scratch. “In this musty air? Please! I know the real reason you’re down here is because you’ve already used up the writing real estate of your bedroom walls.”
Peace and quiet was a bonus, too.
“So what? This is important,” Five insisted, a touch of a challenge sharpening his voice.
Klaus put his hands up in mock surrender. “Never doubted it, cross my heart and hope to die. Just checking on you is all — I’m not sure you’ve actually moved.”
Five glared up at him mutinously, ignoring how Mr. Pennycrumb dampened the effect by licking his cheek. “You would be incorrect. I moved to get Mr. Pennycrumb some food earlier.”
“What, that dinosaur bone he’s gnawing on?” Klaus asked lightheartedly.
“It’s part bull testicle actually.”
“Does that make him gay?”
“Klaus!” Five scoffed.
“Wha-at?” Klaus let out a breathy giggle. “It’s a genuine question!”
Five sighed. “Do you need something, Klaus? Attention?”
“Aw come on, I need an excuse to hang out with my brother?” Klaus motioned to the behemoth of a dog laying beside him. “He can drool all over your equations, and that’s perfectly fine?”
“He’s magnifying them,” Five shrugged.
Klaus shook with quiet laughter, making eye contact with someone invisible. “Don’t give me that look, Ben.”
Now that piqued Five’s interest. “Ben’s here?”
“Always is,” said Klaus.
Five hummed, returning to his work. His heart warmed knowing Ben was around. Knowing Ben was close.
A minute passed before Five piped up, “Are you going to hang around all day? Your breathing is distracting.”
“Fine, I tried,” Klaus relented. “See you round, little brother.”
Opting to ignore the little brother comment, Five flashed Klaus a shit-eating grin. “Ben can stay.”