(y/n) - your name

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Five and I walked towards the front of the strip club, weaving between the tables filled with hollering men whistling for the dancer on stage or the girls walking around with trays of drinks. I stuck close to him and followed him when he asked one of the girls for Luther, her nodding and going to get the big man while we both head towards the front rows in front of the stage to wait for Luther. There were a lot of girls giving me strange stares since the only customers here were men, the women being the ones working here and serving them. I was the odd one out.

And probably the youngest one here...

A lot of the men that sat around us stared at me and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, not liking how they were staring and whispering with greedy smiles. I shifted closer to Five while he poured himself a drink, holding onto his arm and he looks down at me with a worried look.

"Are you ok?" He whispers and I purse my lips to avoid looking at the men around us, him noticing how uncomfortable I was. He glances around, clenching his jaw when he notices the heated stares on me. "Here." He suddenly picks me up and places me on his lap, keeping a tight hold around my waist and I stifle my gasp from the sudden action. I held onto his shoulders tightly, my cheeks flaring red but I notice the men finally look away and I sigh out in relief.

I relax in Five's arms as he keeps his eyes solely on me, holding me tightly and I lean my head against his neck to hide my blush. "Thanks."

"Maybe, I shouldn't have brought you here with me." he mumbles into my hair, brushing his fingers against my cheek and tilting my head up to look at him. "You're not safe here."

"Hey, I'm safe with you Five. I'm fine." he doesn't say anything else, rubbing my arm when Luther finally comes by us. He narrows his eyes at us, especially at his brother whose hands rested to hold my waist making me flush.

"She's too young for you." Luther directs his sentence actually towards me and not the girl dancing on stage, my eyes widening with shock but Five simply chuckles in response to his brothers remark.

"Nice to see you too, Luther."

"What do you want?"

"For you to stop hovering like an ambitious stripper and sit down with me." 

Damn, the gal of this guy to say that!

And why was it kinda sexy too!?

Five runs his hands over my thighs and I blush as I wrap my arms around his neck so I don't fall off his lap, Luther taking notice of his brother's actions and he frowns at him. "I'm sorry miss," The ape-man glares at his smaller brother before looking at me with remorse. "you don't have to do anything he asks you to do." I look at Luther in confusion before staring up at Five and it clicks.

OH!

He thinks I work here.

He doesn't know it's me since he's never seen what I look like before properly.

"She doesn't work here Luther." Five tightens his grip around me and I blink down at him in shock. "And there's no way I would let her. No one can look at her like they want a piece of her." He growls the last sentence softly, Luther just missing it but my face slowly turns red from his words.

"Then who is she?" Five opens his mouth to answer back but I quickly slap my hand over his lips to shut him up, shaking my head at him when I have a brilliant idea.

A devious grin grows on my face and I turn to Luther.

"I'm someone from your nightmares, Luther. I know every weakness, every guilt, every regret that lurks within your mind." I speak eerily, slowly standing up and walking towards him, him looking at me kinda freaked out. "I know that you feel like you have no purpose, that's why you started working for your boss." Luther starts leaning back away from me when I walk closer towards him. "I know you still love Allison Hargreeves but you let her slip between your fingers." Luther visibly starts to sweat. "And I know deep down, you may hate Reginald but you still desire his approval as his Number One." I shoot him a wicked smile before sitting back down on his brother's lap who was laughing behind his hand, immediately resting his hands on my hips as if he needed constant skinship.

I look at Luther with an innocent smile as he stares at me with frightened eyes. "This is (y/n)." Five says and his brother blinks at me before he finally realises who I am.

"Oh! The ghost girl!"

"Yeah, that's me." I shrug.

"But I can see you! You're normal now!"

"Yep! Great isn't it? I can now hit people." I whisper evilly, looking directly at Luther but he pays no attention to me as he looks at Five.

I won't hit him now, too many people.

I'll do it later when he's least expecting it.

"How long have you been here?" Five asks and I rest my head on his shoulder, his fingers brushing circles on my arm.

"A year, thanks to you."

"I'm sorry Luther. I know that couldn't have been easy."

Five DOES say sorry in the show.

Terrible memory here.

"I thought everybody was dead!" Luther hisses, absolutely furious. We suddenly hear a commotion in the back of the club, a man becoming drunk off his ass. "I gotta go."

"Luther, wait!" Five quickly grabs his brother's arm and I quickly get off his lap so he could stand up. "Look, I get it, ok?"

"We both get it." I mumble out, hugging my arms to my chest. I frown, staring at the ground and thinking about the situation we're all in. Again.

"I know what it's like to be stuck in time... thinking this is how you're gonna live out the rest of your life. On the run," Five slowly lets Luther go and I add on.

"Not knowing if you're ever gonna see the people you love again." The Boy looks at me sadly as I think about my family again for the second and my heart hurts. "To be in an unfamiliar world." Ape-man looks down at me in pity seeing as I'm in a worse situation than they are.

I mean, I'm in a totally different universe.

My family might not even exist in this universe.

I don't know if I'll ever see them again.

I'm halfway across the country for god's sake.

And if there is somehow a copy of them in this world, my family isn't even born yet.

"But Luther, you're not alone. We have to find the others because the world ends again in 15 days and I have no idea how to stop it." Five glances at me and I look away, knowing what his stare meant.

I know I didn't break your world before when I gave an all-mighty spoil alert, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna risk it again.

I almost died!

I lowkey did a Peter Parker and I ain't going through that again!

"Five, he doesn't give a shit." I sigh out, turning back around to see Luther with his mouth open since I cut him off. "Close your mouth or flies are gonna go to their doom." he quickly closes his mouth, shaking his head and walks off to aid his boss.

"Luther!" Five chases after him and I follow suit as he stops him at the var. "The hell is wrong with you, Luther? I just told you the world's gonna end in 15 days!"

"Yeah, well, you're always saying that." Luther brushes off his brother, not caring a single bit and walks off but Five stops him again.

"And so far, I've been right. We've been right!" he glances at me but I wasn't really paying attention, thinking about how I could go back home.

"Look, you want to go save the world? Knock yourself out. All right? I already got a job."

"Wait, you work in this shithole!?" Five was gobsmacked at how low his brother had fallen, grimacing at the strip club and the drunken men being less than civil with the girls.

"Yeah. Well, my boss owns the place. I'm his body man." Luther says.

"What's that? Like a masseuse or something?" Five questions.

"How do you not know what your brother means when you're like over 58 man? You've been through this timeline." The Boy narrows his eyes at me at my remark and the ape man just looks at us in confusion.

"Ok, you can make fun all you want, but I take good care of Mr. Ruby."

"Wait, Ruby. The Jack Ruby, the gangster who shot Oswald?"

"Yeah, the one and only." I didn't know why Luther looked so proud, not really well versed in American history and such cause I couldn't care less about it. Or about history in general.

"Well, it finally happened. That gorilla DNA has taken over your mind." I stifle back my laughter, looking between the brothers with wide eyes at the drama.

"Hey, watch it, all right! Jack's a good friend!"

"And you're Number One." I finally speak up, wanting this scene to move on already.

"There is no Number One." Luther says and I sigh out heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose in annoyance. "Not anymore. Not in 1963."

"Ok, listen here monkey for brains," I step forward, poking Luther's chest. "you really want to work in this shithole of a strip club," I shove him back and he stumbles back in susprise. "being some worthless underground wrestler to Ruby," I push him more, suddenly getting angry all of a sudden. "instead of being the leader you're supposed to be!?" I hiss out and Luther looks down at me for a few heartbeats.

"Yeah."

I throw my hands up in the air in defeat. "That's it, I'm done with you!"

"Look, I've been stranded here alone for a year! What did you expect-"

"-Five was stranded for over 35 years!" I exclaim furiously, trying to calm down and Luther glares at me.

"I get it, all right?" Five says, holding my shoulder to try and calm me down but I shrug him off, growing hotter with anger and frustration. "You watched Pogo die, the world exploded and I marooned your big dumb ass in time." I walked off to just breathe and let Five try to convince his brother to help him, suddenly feeling my eyes prick with tears but I hold them back. "I'm sorry, ok? But I'm asking for your help, Luther."

I come back to the brothers, deciding to leave the club for some air. "The umbrella academy needs you." I breathe out as I walked past them but Luther scoffs softly.

"It doesn't need me. It never did." A waitress comes by and tells him that his boss needs him, walking off again but Five stops his brother and that was the last thing I saw as I left the club. I shivered against the biting cold wind, walking away from the club to somewhere more quiet and I sit down on the curb. My heated head finally cooled down and I just buried my head in my arms miserably, hearing a whoosh and I know Five was near me. 

I hear his footsteps and they stop next to me, being quiet at first before he spoke up. "Are you ok...?" he asks, unsure and I shrug, lifting my head to just lay in my hands as I watched the stars. There were a lot more of them hear than I have witnessed back home. It was nice.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"  I shrug, just tired of everything and I stand up, brushing the dust off my dress. "Let's just go back to Elliots." I mutter out and I walk off, brushing past Five and he quickly follows after me before grabbing my arm to stop me.

"You're not ok-"

"-and what makes you say that?" I snap at him, ripping my arm from his grip and he purses his lips.

"Just back there, when we were talking about being stuck here..." Guilt flashes in his eyes and I look away with a frown, walking off again and he follows me. "I'm sorry (y/n). I'm sorry for stranding you here with us, not knowing if you can go back and see your family." I look at Five as he stares at the ground, his shoulder slumped. "I'm sorry-"

"-Five, it's ok. I never once complained about it, did I?"

"You should've! You should've gotten angry at me for trapping you here. You should've yelled at me. Hell, I don't even know if I can send you back!" I stop walking and he does the same. "I don't know if I'm capable of getting you back to your family. I don't even know how I did it in the first place!"

"Five, you didn't trap me here on purpose. It's not your fault. Things happen and I guess I was meant to arrive in this universe." he looks up at me, frowning. "Don't beat yourself up about it. I know we'll find a way." I give him a smile to reassure him that I wasn't upset but I don't think he believed me. Hell, I was lying to myself that I was ok with this when I knew I wasn't. 

"And if we don't? If we don't find a way...?"

"Then I guess we don't. Five, we're human. We're going to miss the people we love but we have to move on one way or another, even under strange circumstances. Don't burden yourself with this. I should worry about my family, you don't need to." I hold Five's cheeks, raising his head to look at me. He had enough on his plate already and he didn't need any more problems. Especially not my own. He didn't need that, didn't need to focus on that. He needed to get his family back again.

"(y/n)..."

"If there doesn't seem to be a way for me to go back, then I'll just stay with you. With the Hargreeves family." I smile wider this time, trying to ease his mind and it works when he sighs out softly in relief, a small smile on his face. "If you would have me that is."

"We would love to have you be part of our family. You fought against the apocalypse with us. That counts you as a Hargreeves already." I smile warily, nodding before taking a step back to walk off again. Five walked beside me, his hand brushing against mine but I moved my arms to wrap around myself to try and ward off the cold. He takes his blazer off and drapes it over my shoulders, squeezing them to stop me from declining his clothing and I let it be. We walked peacefully under the stars, crickets singing out but that didn't stop the sadness blooming in my heart.

I won't be able to see my family again, will I?

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