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❛ ᴡᴀsᴛᴇʟᴀɴᴅs ᴏғ ᴛɪᴍᴇ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴᴇ
ʏᴏᴜ'ʀᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ꒱


❝ THE UNIVERSE IS ENDING &
WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE ❞

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Despite them parting on not-so-great terms, Dolores had never been happier to see the man she loved. She threw her arms around his neck and melted against him. While she normally wouldn't have been so forgiving— and would have happily put him through shit until she felt that she'd extracted enough revenge— the past few days had been hell. All she wanted was to be in the comfort of his arms.

It only took a moment for Five to get over the shock of her greeting before he did exactly that: he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him. He could hear her uneven breathing against his ear and smelled the blood on her clothes but as long as it wasn't hers, he didn't care. Diego couldn't help but feel pleased at his part in getting the pair back together— or so he thought that he had— and led Stan away to talk more about why Dolores was covered in blood.

"I'm sorry," were the first words that Five breathed out against her dark hair. "God, Dolly, I'm sorry. I'm sorry—" It seemed as if that was all he was capable of saying.

The brunette closed her eyes as she buried her face against the dark fabric of his suit jacket. She clung to him fiercely, hardly able to believe that he was here— it felt like he'd been gone for three years rather than only three days. She couldn't hold back her sob as she demanded: "where have you been?"

His hold on her tightened before he answered, "well, first I went on a road trip with Klaus, which wasn't bad, all thing things considered. Then after we came back Lila and I went to the Commission, which is where I just returned from."

Dolores pulled away to meet his eyes. Her voice cracked as she whispered: "I needed you here."

The sense of foreboding that he'd felt when he had talked to his older self returned. "What. . . what do you mean?"

She only shook her head and pulled him in for another hug. Five returned the gesture but frowned with concern as he rested his chin on her shoulder. There were too many things that needed to be said and too many questions that needed to be asked; he didn't even know where to start. All he knew was that he could never ask for her forgiveness enough. "Dol, I'm sorry."

She gave him a soft look. "I know. You should be."

Even though he hadn't expected her to receive his apology easily, hearing her lack of acceptance was still a punch to the gut. Perhaps because she saw the expression of guilt on his face, she lifted one of her hands— though she kept her gaze studiously away from her red fingers— to his face. "We'll talk, okay?"

Five's own eyes softened as he moved his own hand to rest on top of hers. "Okay," he agreed. "Why don't we get you cleaned up first?"

✧✧✧

After the boy helped her wash the dried blood off her skin, he then took her to the tailor that had made his suit. Since her clothes had gotten stained as well in the wake of Klaus' death she needed to wear something else unless she wanted to be a Carrie White knockoff. The suit she'd found was a three-piece; it consisted of a long-sleeved, white button-down collared shirt (much like Five's), a dark gray tie and gray-and-white pinstriped matching vest, jacket and pants. It had been a long time since she'd worn anything this form-fitting and it was her first time wearing something that was tailor-made.

While she felt better in new clothes and with her skin free of that nauseating metallic smell, Dolores' mood improved tenfold as she stepped out from the changing curtain. Five had chosen to wait in one of the provided chairs and his attention immediately snapped to her once she appeared. For the first time since their reunion, there were other thoughts on his mind besides I'm sorry.

"Holy shit."

The brunette felt her face warm; it was nice that even after all these years, she could still feel like a blushing schoolgirl around the man she loved. "I hope that's a good thing."

"Hell yes," he answered emphatically, then he looked a little embarrassed. "Er— I mean yes. You. . . wow."

She couldn't help the grin that lifted her lips as Five stared at her with wide eyes; he'd even half-risen out of his chair at her arrival. Almost as if he were dazed— which he kind of was, with how his hormones had suddenly surged up to take over the logical part of his brain— he slowly made his way over to her. As soon as he was close enough, the boy gently brushed her floppy bangs away from where they'd fallen into her eyes. Dolores' breath hitched as the pads of his fingertips brushed against her skin— though his efforts were futile as the short strands flopped back in her face.

In an attempt to not give into the stereotype of 'horny teenagers,' the brunette cleared her throat. "We should— uh— get. . . get back to the. . . others."

"In a minute," he replied quietly. His eyes held an intensity to them that made it extremely hard to keep up her 'straight and narrow' efforts. His fingers traced their way down her face until his palm cupped her cheek. One of them leaned forward (neither could say who, or maybe it was both) and then they were kissing.

Dolores grasped the front of his jacket to keep him from pulling away as her lips moved against his hungrily. While neither knew what the other had been through in the time they'd been separated, both decided that whatever it was had been worth it. Five's carefully controlled teenage hormones broke free as one of his hands began to wander up under the vest she wore.

His hips shifted against hers in a way that made the brunette gasp— and then he pulled away. "That kiss meant something to you, right?"

The brunette didn't answer for a moment as she stared at him uncomprehendingly. She was eventually able to stammer out: "y-yes. . . of-of course—"

Five used all of his self-control to extract himself from her to slide his hands into the pockets of his pants casually (for both the appearance of 'nonchalance' and to. . . help himself.) He gave her a cocky smirk. "Good, just checking. Come on, we should get back to my siblings."

Dolores' mouth dropped open with outrage as he turned and all but strutted out of the changing room. "What the hell, you asshole?!"

✧✧✧

Needless to say, Dolores was very distracted when they met up with everyone at the bar. Even all of the doom-and-gloom talk about the end of the world wasn't enough to pull her out of the hormone-induced stupor, courtesy of Five. She did her best to hide her. . . reaction to their impromptu (and unfortunately brief) make-out session behind the glass of alcohol that had been poured for her.

She was only pulled out of her admiration of her husband by the arrival of the missing Hargreeves. Dolores dropped her glass with shock, causing it to shatter on the floor. "Klaus!" Similarly to the greeting she'd given Five, she flung herself at the long-haired man.

He caught her easily, though his return gesture was far more awkward as he patted her on the head. "Well, hey there, Jellybean. What's been cookin'?"

She looked up at him with wide eyes. "I thought you were dead," she breathed out shakily. "You-you saved me."

Klaus gave her another pat. "Hey. Anything for family, am I right? If you really wanna pay me back for being your sacrificial lamb then why don't you get me a drink? You really get to miss alcohol when you're dead."

Dolores quickly went to fulfill his request as Five gave his brother a curious glance. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, just a spear gun to the chest. No big deal."

The brunette handed him a freshly poured drink. As she returned to her previous spot— leaning against one of the nearby pillars— Diego gave her a stern look that asked: have you been drinking? She shook her head in response. He seemed to pick up on her lie but let it go in favor of asking a more important question: "what did we miss?"

"The universe is ending and we're all going to die," Lila answered with false cheer. 

✧✧✧

Since her breakdown after the Sparrow's attack from earlier, Dolores had been out of the loop on Harlan. She barely even remembered the boy from '63 and he wasn't all that important to her. While admitting that probably made her sound like a terrible person, she'd never even had one conversation with him— and besides, she wasn't really a part of the Academy so she didn't have much sway in what happened to him. Instead, she stayed by Klaus until Five returned.

"That went great!" the fourth Hargreeves exclaimed grimly. Then, he sighed and reached over the bar for a bottle of alcohol. He poured three shot glasses, one for each of them. "There."

Five sat in the chair next to Dolores'. "Thanks." He paused for a moment before he spoke: "I saw my future self die."

The brunette shot him a sharp look, though concern was also there. They hadn't had time to talk yet, so she still didn't know why he'd gone to the Commission or what had happened. While she was perfectly content with accepting her own mortality, she knew it couldn't have been easy to see when you had superpowers— it was always harder to think about death when you had a way out.

Klaus gasped. "That's crazy! Almost the exact same thing happened to me but I didn't die. Well, I did, but. . ."

"He told me not to save the world and then he died," the boy continued. He glanced over at the girl next to him and decided to say nothing about what his older self had mentioned about her— for the time being at least. "What do you think he meant by that?"

"Well, shouldn't you know?"

Dolores followed up with: "isn't it obvious?"

"Neither of those questions are remotely helpful."

Klaus raised his glass. "Well, up your ass."

"Salud."

"Cheers!"

As his brother and Dolores downed their shots, Five hesitated before he drank his. "I've dedicated my entire life to stopping the apocalypse—apocalypses, plural— and he tells me that it's. . . it's what? It's meaningless?"

"Oh, well, I don't know anything—"

"Maybe it's his way of saying not to become him but. ."

"Exactly," the brunette agreed. "He tried to save the world and whatever happened, happened. To break the loop you have to do something entirely unexpected."

"Your. . . lover is pretty smart. If you're really messed up about this maybe you should talk to her instead of me," Klaus offered.

Five sighed and set his now-empty glass down. Dolores didn't understand the longing his expression held as he looked over at her but the emotion made her heart twist in her chest. She could tell that he desperately wanted to talk to her but maybe he. . . couldn't? Wouldn't do it with his brother right there? She didn't know.

"I've cheated time so much that I figured I'd somehow cheat death. . ."

The girl gave a humorless chuckle. "Even though I wasn't born with superpowers I kind of think that being normal is one. I've already cheated death twice and lived to tell the tale, which is more than any of you have— not including Klaus, obviously. I don't have any special tricks except for knowing someone who can reverse time."

Her lips curled into a faint grin as she reached over to gently squeeze the boy's hand. She made to pull away but he flipped his hand over so their palms touched. He intertwined their fingers and squeezed her hand in return. Dolores' smile became more genuine as his thumb brushed against the back of her hand while he thought.

"The only thing to come out of that whole escapade is this trashy tattoo," the boy finished eventually. He reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and threw the scrap on the table.

"Ugh," Klaus exclaimed. "Is this your skin?"

"Oh, gross," Dolores coughed to hide her gag of disgust. She tried to take her hand away from his— mostly just to distance herself from the extracted carving— but Five kept his grasp her hand to keep her in place.

As his brother touched it experimentally, Five shook his head. "I'll be damned if I go out with an old man tramp stamp."

"If you don't wanna end up like this guy why don't you just do something completely different like Dolores suggested? Ooh, I know! Move upstate and become an alpaca farmer."

"Yeah, I could. The timeline's malleable; we've proven that much. I could try and break the cycle, but—"

Dolores smirked at him. "You could even go out west and fish. You already have the grandpa outfit for it."

Five glared half-heartedly at her. "Oh, like your fashion sense is any better than mine."

"It is, actually," she corrected him smugly. "I happen to recall that you gaped at me like a fish when you first saw me in this suit."

She laughed quietly as his face turned red. "Shut up. That was just the hormones talking."

"Sure," the brunette drawled. Then, she leaned forward— close enough that her chest brushed against his arm— and whispered some very. . . suggestive things in his ear that she'd like to 'talk' about with him.

Five's expression went slack as his mind conjured images of her words. He tried to fight against her influence but that proved futile as more than just his face grew hot. Klaus chuckled at their interaction as he stood. "Well, I'll leave you two to. . . discuss things," he said. "I don't know what you've proposed, Jellybean, but I hope your fantasies don't include biker gangs." He pointed to the cut-out skin. "The Mothers of Agony aren't big on PDA."

The comment made Five turn away from her— a blessed relief, for the time being— and towards his brother. "What?"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you're old. PDA stands for—"

"No, not that. What were you saying about the Mothers of Agony?"

"It's the symbol of the biker gang, the Mothers of Agony," Klaus explained.

A/n: for Dolores' new suit, I was imagining the one that Violet Baudelaire wears in A Series of Unfortunate Events during the Ersatz Elevator episodes.