Chapter Text
There were so many things Five could be doing at two in the morning.
Sleeping would be the obvious choice, but that activity has been hit or miss over the last forty or so years.
Reading was another option - plenty of good books must be available. Movies, television, songs, etc., if he wanted to fulfill some sort of pop culture quota. Even learning a hobby like sewing or cooking or instrument playing.
The point is, what Five didn’t want to be doing at two in the morning was freezing his ass off in a car to go and pick up his perpetually disappointing brother from whatever bar or club he stumbled into this time.
See, he ignored the first call. It was a fair assumption to make that his - almost assuredly - drunk sibling had probably butt dialed him on accident or perhaps even engaged in a prank of some sort. He ignored the second call as well, intent on not giving Klaus the satisfaction of even a second of his time.
Then the third call came.
Five wasn’t naturally a nervous person per say, but there comes a point where that twinge of worry at the back of his mind begins to fester into something that will follow him around until he does something to abate it.
And so he answered.
No, it wasn’t shocking in the slightest that Klaus was, in fact, drunk off his ass. Nor did it shock him that he was being asked to leave the comfort of his own home to come pick him up at two in the morning. What shocked him was that Five was the one that Klaus turned to first.
Not team-mom Allison or Luther (whom Five liked to call “Captain White Bread” in his youth).
No, Klaus called him.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Perhaps it was a product of their childhoods. See, Luther and Diego spent most of it - at least the parts Five was there for - arguing over...well, anything really. Allison was attached to Luther by the hip, and poor Ben somehow always got stuck in the middle. Vanya was never around (obviously) which left Five and Klaus as something of a passive audience to their family’s chaos. Sometimes Ben would escape from whatever jockstrap measuring contest Luther and Diego were engaging in this time, but a fair portion of Five’s childhood involved Klaus being at his side.
So yes, maybe it shouldn’t be shocking that Five was the first sibling he’d go for in this type of situation.
The thought would warm his dear old heart if not for the fact that it was utterly freezing outside and his hands might be frozen to the steering wheel. He tried calling Klaus again (several times), but it had gone straight to voicemail. Either his dearest brother was ignoring him, or his phone had run out of charge.
Five favored the latter.
It was lucky then that Klaus had sent him his location before his cellular device had started pushing up daises.
Maybe it wasn’t so lucky that he was almost forty minutes away from the Hargreeves mansion. Or that it was snowing buckets. Or that Five had lost any and all feeling in his legs.
He tried calling once more for luck, but finally ended up turning on the radio as a means of breaking the silence. There was the nagging concern of his brother’s safety, but that also came with the realization that there was nothing really that he could do until he got there. Teleporting was out of the question. Five had never been to that location before, and trying to jump to things out of his direct sight line was hit or miss at best. Not that it would matter anyway. Even if he did somehow manage to teleport to wherever his idiot brother ended up, there was the problem of getting him back home. Teleporting himself some forty-odd miles would be hard enough; doing it with two people was borderline impossible.
So, the car it was. The snow wasn’t making things much easier, but Five supposed that was to be expected in January. The roads were slick and his sight was limited.
Perfect conditions for a road trip.
He played around with the radio for a bit, trying to sift through the channels and channels of static. Modern music wasn’t really his type of thing (too computerized), so he settled on an 80’s pop-rock station that occasionally went in and out with the snow beating down on him. Poor reception aside, the soothing tones of Hall and Oates settled him down a bit, or at least enough to steady his hand on the wheel. Driving in snow wasn’t an ideal situation in the slightest. Even as a child, Five was never a fan of the cold. His room had more blankets than any other, and it became a nightly routine of his during the wintertime to swaddle himself in as many as possible.
He did eventually reach wherever the hell Klaus told him he was - some forty goddamn minutes away from the house - and now Five was burdened with the task of actually finding him. From what he could tell, this area just looked like a cluster of bars and clubs, with half-dressed people walking in groups to wherever the nearest heat source was.
Who the hell goes clubbing when it’s 30 degrees outside?
Five was in the rather unfortunate situation of being simultaneously too old for this shit and too young to actually go into any of these places. If he was going to try to get Klaus out of whatever bar his drunk ass had ended up in, he was going to have a hard time convincing the bouncer that his almost fourteen year old body was a product of a miscalculation, not of a teenager trying to rub up on college students and burnouts.
It was lucky then, that his search didn’t last long.
“Baby brother, you came!”
The sound was unmistakably Klaus’s, and Five turned around to see his younger (older?) brother ambling towards him down the sidewalk.
This...was going to be a long night.
“How many times do I have to tell you,” Five growled, a headache already forming. “I am almost fifty-nine years old....”
Klaus leaned in for a hug before unceremoniously plopping onto the cement as Five took a step backwards.
He sighed, rubbing his temples in frustration.
“What are you even doing out here, Klaus?”
“Oh, little old me? You know....I’m here for a good time, not a long time.”
“You couldn’t fuck yourself up somewhere closer to home?”
“Well, I know this guy who has a brother who has a friend that...”
“Klaus....” Five cut in icily.
“...owns a club that was serving free drinks....”
He grabbed his larger brother’s arm and started hauling him towards the car. Sure, it was natural for young people to want to party, but Klaus wasn’t an ordinary person. He had a history of abusing drugs and alcohol. Five couldn’t lie and say that it wasn’t disheartening to see his brother backpedal back into this life, even if it was only once in a blue moon. At least Klaus had to decency to call him and get help, even if it was almost three a.m.
God, he was tired.
“Why’re you insucha rush, little dude,” Klaus slurred as Five shoved him in the back seat.
“I don’t know if you know this - and never call me ‘little dude’ again if you value your life - but it is fucking cold outside and I would like to go to bed at some point.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“What time ‘zit again?”
“How on earth do you not know....”
Five exhaled sharply, slamming the door shut.
“Actually, you know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re not dead, so I’ve considered that a win for tonight.”
“Wait, if we won do we get a prize?”
If Five could scream without drawing attention to himself, he would. Instead, he kicked the curb as hard as he could in an effort to get some of the pent-up annoyance out. It probably would have hurt if not for the fact that his foot was already numb.
“Five, why’re ya kicking...”
“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, turning the key in the ignition.
If the snow was bad before, it was even worse now. It came down in sheets, making Five’s ability to see damn near impossible. Apparently there was a car accident on the route he had come in on, so the GPS routed them onto a different road.
A much more....scenic route, to put it lightly.
It didn’t help that he had Klaus in the back, who apparently found that keeping quiet was too hard a task. Five turned the radio up even louder, but the music at this point was being punctuated with too much static to be listenable.
Maybe....maybe it was a good thing, right? Loud music could distract him from the road, and honestly, Five needed all the help he could get. It had gotten to the point where he was just praying and hoping he was going in a straight line. All of his senses said to stop; to pull over and wait it out, but it was so goddamn cold outside and just the thought of being stuck alone with a drunken Klaus was aggravating his headache even worse.
“I told you I can handle it, Ben....”
“No! I don’t care...”
“....you’re not my Dad....”
“Can you two converse when we’re off the road, please?” Five hissed, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
“No I’m not gonna tell him....”
“Tell me what, Klaus?”
“Nothin’....”
“Klaus....”
“Found a gun,” he giggled.
“You....what?”
“A gun, Five. You know? That thing you use to shoot people? Why’d ya bring a gun with you? Why’d you put it under the seat...”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Okay, so Five was a bit neurotic. It was his nature to be so. It was second nature for him to bring one for emergencies, and technically this counted as an emergency. What he didn’t count on, however, was his plastered brother actually digging under the seat to find it. Five could feel his heart rate skyrocketing.
He turned around quickly to see his idiot brother swinging it around his finger.
“Klaus,” he hissed. “Put it down before you hurt yourself. Or worse, me.”
“Awww Fivey, now you sound like Benny boy,” he pouted, giving him the lip.
“Dammit Klaus, I’m....”
He saw cut off by the sudden shaking of the car as it went over a bunch of rocks.
Shit.
Five swerved back on the road quickly, trying to catch his breath.
“Klaus,” he repeated slowly. “Give me the gun, please.”
“I’ll have you know that I’m a certified adult and I can handle...”
“Klaus I said give me the goddamn gun!” he cut in hastily.
“But I found it!” he replied like a petulant child.
Five tried controlling his breathing, controlling his anger, but dammit if he wasn’t tired and cold and just fucking pissed off.
He turned around again and tried yanking the gun out of his brother’s grasp.
“Hey, not fair....”
“I’m trying to get us home in one piece, you dolt...”
“I’ll be fine, dad....”
“Just give me the....”
“.....but I don’t want...”
“....and I don’t care....”
“....Five?”
“....what you think because...”
“Five!”
“....I am the one in charge....”
“Five, look out!”
Maybe if he had kept both hands on the wheel, he wouldn’t have been slowly swerving off of the road.
Maybe if he had his eyes in front of him, he could have noticed that they weren’t on the road anymore.
Maybe if he wasn’t focusing on getting the gun from his brother, he would have been able to stop the car’s forward momentum.
Maybe.
Five whipped around at his brother’s warning - just in time to get a glimpse of the tree that they plummeted into. It sounded like….like crushing an aluminum can between your hands. The crunching of the metal and the breaking of the glass and…and was that pain? A wetness, of some sort. Everything was happening too fast, or was it too slow? He could hear Klaus yell something – he didn’t know what – but it sounded urgent. Before Five was able to recognize what was happening, the car came to a halt and his neck snapped forward, plunging his whole world into darkness.