Chapter Text
When Five looked back to try and determine exactly what happened, even he couldn't make much sense of it.
They had all been together at the mall, all six of them. Klaus would argue all seven of them as Ben was with him, but as Ben seemed tethered to Klaus, did that really count?
Regardless, they were all together and actually getting along for once. Well, "getting along" was a very loose and ambiguous term, but there were no raised voices or blood, so Five figured that was about as best as he could hope for.
He didn't see how it all started. He was taking his coffee ice cream cone from Vanya and was turned in the wrong direction. All he knew was there was some sort of explosion in the distance, the roaring heat sweeping over them in a tsunami of oppressive air current, and he hadn't even taken the time to form another thought before he unceremoniously dropped his cone, dragged Vanya over to his siblings huddled around their own sweet treats, and jumped.
It got a little warbled after that. His jumps required precise calculations, even the simple ones he performed with little fanfare because those calculations had become second nature. He knew exactly how his body, his consciousness, basically everything fit into his jumps. It became quite a bit more complicated when he had a passenger. That took planning and precision to ensure that even the simplest jumps turned out correctly. He definitely did not plan on miscalculating and ending up with a child version of his siblings.
Once they had settled into a rhythm of their normal lives, post apocalypse, he began the calculations if he should ever need to jump with one of his siblings. It didn't hurt to be prepared, and if there was anything his life had taught him, being over-prepared ensured survival.
What he hadn't exactly counted on was having to jump all five of his siblings at once without any sort of calculations beforehand.
Things got quite messy after that, the sparking blue of his powers blinking sharply behind his eyes as he did his best to contain all of them from slipping into the inbetween space of his jump. There were wild sparks of other colors, violent and raw, crackling with an energy he had never felt before. Everything became too close and too far at once, distorting the space around them like a fun house mirror.
Then an all consuming white noise. Five wasn't sure he actually lost consciousness because nothing faded to black, but the droning of the white noise, rough against his skin, held him in a semi-conscious state. At least, he thought he was semi-conscious. Nothing existed but his thoughts and the buzzing whiteness. And then, as quickly as everything fled him, it all came back at once.
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Feeling flooded back into his body left a staticky itch sparking across his skin. Sound came next, a dull roar turning into pained moans of despair. He was on a cold and hard surface, but his nose detected the unique pungence of furniture polish and despair that made up the Hargreeves Manor. Good, at least he had made it back to the manor. He pried open his eyes and gazed up at the chandelier swaying gently above his head. Groaning, he put a hand to his forehead and kneaded it sharply before turning his head to the side to check on his siblings.
Only to be met with the sight of his own face.
A high pitched yelp left his lips as he scrambled away from the perfect doppelganger of his body lying bonelessly a foot away from him on the ground. A bruise decorated the right temple, face lax in unconsciousness. He crawled a bit closer, curious at this new development, before his brother popped up between them.
"Oh my God, Klaus, I've been trying to get your attention! Are you okay, man? What even happened?" Ben shot rapid fire questions, hands fluttering in worry.
Five stared at Ben, who had definitely not been there before. Had he somehow made Ben corporeal in the same way he duplicated his body? But that didn't make any sense. Curiously, he swiped a hand at Ben's chest, fingers sinking through. Not corporeal then. So how was he visible?
His eyes quickly darted around the dog pile of bodies surrounding him, searching for Klaus. Was he consciously making Ben corporeal? Klaus had been working on that endeavor recently, but had been met with varying success. His eyes scanned the faces of his siblings twice over before he came to the conclusion that Klaus was missing.
Oh God, had he left him at the mall? Lost him in the void? Was Ben all that was left of him? Was Ben here to haunt Five for letting their brother disintegrate into the cosmos?
"Klaus man, come on, calm down. Deep breaths. In four, hold four, out four. Come on, breathe with me. In four-"
"Ben?" Five asked, voice cracking with emotion.
"Yeah, Klaus, I'm here," Ben soothed, kneeling down in front of Five and reaching for his hand. "It's fine. We're all safe. Five got us here."
Five furrowed his brow, confused. "I... didn't lose Klaus in the jump?"
It was Ben's turn to scrunch his face up in bafflement. "What are you talking about? Are you okay? Did you hit your head? I know you're clean, so you can't be high-"
"Ben," Five said as gently as he could. "Klaus isn't here. It's me, Five."
Ben's mouth fell open as he stared at Five, gobsmacked. Ben turned to stare at the doppelganger and then back at Five. A heavy silence fell over them both.
It was only during that moment of confusion that Five noticed two things. One, his hands were far larger than usual, an adornment of flashy rings clinking as he moved. Two, there was a small child, no older than seven, limping towards him clutching a headless teddy bear, both eyes burned out of her sockets.
He stared at the doppelganger of himself, eyelids fluttering with a groan before he locked eyes with Ben.
"Shit."