Work Text
The subway is dank, dimly lit, and completely empty. Five’s footsteps echo on the floor of the train as they pace, cold and hard. He curses himself, distantly, for wearing such a light outfit. The three-piece looks good, but it’s not as warm as Lila’s jacket. Besides, who’s here to judge his suit, anyway? The subway rats?With a halt, the train stops, and Five grabs at the stanchion to keep from falling.“Same bat time, same bat channel?” Lila jokes as they step off the train, and Five shakes his head in exasperation as he follows her through the station.“Really,” Five huffs. It’s cold in this empty area, and his breath comes out in little puffs, like a cloud of steam. “Batman jokes? We’re lost in a time traveling subway.”“Only you would get that reference, grandpa. Gotta lighten the mood somehow.”“If you insist.”“I’ll race you up the stairs.”“You know I’ll beat you.”“With those knees, old man?”“Oh, fuck you, asshat!”Lila barks a laugh, loud and a little ugly, and makes a mad dash for the stairs. Begrudgingly, Five follows, loafers tapping on the chilly subway tiles.He knows where they are before he sees it. The sickening scent of rot, the heavy, heavy silence - the sound of a world with nobody left in it. An apocalypse. And not just any apocalypse, it’s Five’s apocalypse. These are the results of Viktor’s rage, the soundwaves that ripped the world apart, years and years later.Five almost calls for Lila, grabs her sleeve to turn them back, but she’s too far ahead and is already almost to the top. Everything in his body screams for him to turn back, but Five forces himself to follow.“See, I told you I’d beat you,” Lila begins to say, and pauses for a moment when she reaches the top of the stairs to assess the situation. In her eyes, Five can see the reflection of the burning buildings. There’s a dead body by his foot, old and deteriorating, and he can see worms of some sort moving underneath the skin. With a shudder of disgust, he turns away, stepping closer to the inviting mouth of the subway station. The chill of the tile feels warmer than the crunch of bones and ashes underfoot.“Oh,” she says, and Five, silently, echoes the sentiment. Oh.Cautiously, Lila steps forward, deeper into the debris. ARE YOU CRAZY, Five wants to scream. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS PLACE DID TO ME? He wants to drag Lila away, kicking or screaming; and more than anything, he wants to leave.“What… what is this place?” Lila asks, hushed, almost reverent.Five stares at her in disbelief. Does Lila really not recognize the place her mother had left him in for forty years? All the broken buildings, the debris, the faint smell of burning flesh. He had known it from the silence. He would know it in sleep, in death. When he closes his eyes, the fire flickers behind his lids. Most nights, he still wakes up screaming. The taste of rotten peaches and cockroaches lingers perpetually behind his tongue. Hotel Oblivion had been a break, but it hadn’t been enough to erase Five’s nightmares.He can feel his chest getting tight, but he forces down the familiar flavor of bile.“It’s my apocalypse,” he says, and his voice feels very far away in his own ears. “The one the Handler - um, your mom, left me in for forty years.”“You did the leaving yourself,” Lila said, voice deceptively light, but she drops the facade when Five’s breathing becomes shallow, body curved in on himself, protection for annoyance that never comes. Maybe being a mother has softened her, which is doubtful, or maybe Five’s getting worse at predicting what people will do. “Aw, shit. I’m not good at this comforting stuff. Five, mate, I didn’t mean it. Are you okay?”“I’m just peachy,” Five grits out, and Lila opens her mouth to spout some more comforting bullshit but she’s interrupted by the ring of a gunshot - Five feels the cold whistle of the bullet as it zips past his ear. Frantic, he scrabbles blindly at Lila’s coat sleeve, grabbing her wrist firmly and pulling them both behind the remains of an overturned car. Lila goes without protest, but he can sense the questions on the tip of her tongue: Who is alive? Who is shooting at them?“Fuck,” Five says, and drops into a crouch among the debris. Damnit, his suit is totally going to get all messed up and dusty.Lila’s head whips towards him, confused and panicked. “Who’s shooting at us?”There can only be one person. Five dares a peek over the debris, and it confirms his suspicions - the mirror image of himself, grimy and tear-streaked and determined, one beady eye and the barrel of a gun over a small hill of rubble. He looks so small. Even after he’d been turned back into a thirteen-year old, Five had always thought of himself as a man in his sixties - it was only times when he’d seen himself in the mirror when the reality of how young he truly looked struck him. It’s jarring. He doesn’t like it.Five sinks back down beside Lila, head spinning.“Well?” she hisses, impatient. “Who’s shooting?”“Who the hell do you think,” Five breathes back. “It’s me, you dickhead.”Above their heads, another bullet is fired. Five winces at the sound, Lila unflinching; after the ringing echo of it disappears, the world lapses into stifling silence.“I know you’re okay when you’re swearing at me,” whispers Lila, under her breath so the other Five can’t hear - he’s far enough away that he probably won’t, but Five appreciates the precaution. “But just because I know you have zero self preservation, I’m just going to check - are you sure that you’re… like, actually okay?”“I’m fine,” Five grits out. Actually, his vision is getting splotchy, and his lungs feel so tight that all of his breaths are coming out shallower than Diego’s intelligence. But he’s not actively bleeding out or feeling nauseous, so in his book, he’s okay.“Okay,” says Lila slowly. “Then do you want to head back to the subway? We’re not going to find what we’re looking for here.”More than half of Five wants to go back, to run back as fast as his legs can take him to the subway station, but the other bit of him feels a strange pull to this place, the place where he spent most of his life, his nightmare fuel. It’s like dripping wax on his fingers for fun, and watching it pour deeper and deeper over his hands until he’s covered in it.He doesn’t realize he’s gone silent until Lila is gripping his knee, yanking him harshly back to earth. “Hey, grandpa. Look. Breathe with me, okay? You are, like, the keeper of fucking time, yeah? You control this. It doesn’t control you anymore. At any point we can up and leave. I’m not going to leave you until you tell me we can go. You’re not alone here, Five.”Shakily, Five tries to mirror her breathing. If he looks at the space between her eyes, he can ignore the rotten bodies around him, the ruins of the city around them. The memories. He can’t make himself speak. There’s a ringing in his ears, and it won’t go away, but breathing dulls the edge of it.The Five who lives in this moment in time? He’s alone. But right now, Five Hargreeves is not alone. He can hear Lila’s breath, quiet and steady, and he latches onto that like a life preserver, struggling to stay afloat.“Are there five things you can see around you?” Lila asks, and then visibly regrets it almost immediately as she remembers their surroundings. “Wait, no. Keep focusing on me. What are five things you want to do, when we get everyone back to the right timeline?”Five things. Ha. Okay. Five’s brain is foggy, but he manages to get out, “Margarita.”Lila laughs, and the sound is like a knife in the silence. “Okay. Four more.”“Maybe… maybe adopt a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog.”“You’ve always struck me as a cat person.”“I like dogs better.”“Give me three more things.”“I want to tell my family sorry. For not trying harder.”Lila sighs. “Five. You asshole, you were trying the hardest you could. The stuff that happened to everyone isn’t exactly your fault, you know.”“Okay, but -““No buts,” says Lila firmly. “As your friend, and your best friend, at that, I will not allow you to continue down this rabbit hole. So be quiet and come up with two more things you want to do.”Five huffs in exasperation. Two more things is - it was hard enough to come up with the three, as is, and he truthfully hasn’t given much thought to the after.“Any friends you’d like to see,” Lila prompts.“My friends are all dead,” Five tells her.“Hey, rude, I’m not dead. Okay… what about things you’d like to create?”“Maybe a book of equations,” Five gets out, and Lila rolls her eyes.“God, you’re so boring!”He’s embarrassed, really. This is embarrassing - crouched behind a wrecked car in a burning world, next to his sister-in-law, of all people: moreover, the daughter of the woman who made most of his life a living hell - having a goddamned panic attack. If it wasn’t so inconvenient, Five almost would have laughed. Christ, he’s a fucking failure.But in the time they’ve spent, Lila’s become almost like a friend. And she’s trying to help, even if it’s just to get them back.“One more,” says Lila.“Um,” says Five. “Never fuck around with time travel again?”“Well,” Lila says, “I don’t know if that’s, like, the most ideal solution to our problems, but for now, I’ll take it.” She peers at him more closely, as if checking for fractures. “Are you feeling a little better?”Five shakily nods his head. His chest feels just a bit lighter, even if it still sort of feels like Luther’s sitting on top of him; besides, he’s wallowed for long enough.“Never better,” he quips, a weak attempt at humor. And then, more seriously, “You didn’t need to do all that, Lila. I would have been okay.”She just shrugs, and he’s almost startled at her nonchalance. “I know. You’re just my friend. That’s all.”“Should I just… blink us back?” Five asks carefully. He’s not positive that he’s got enough energy to not send them through a wall, but it could be quick and subtle. Other Five, if distracted, won’t be too bothered, but running back to the stairs could harbor a risk.“No,” Lila says. “Look, we’ll just make a mad dash for it - we’re not too far. I’m getting antsy and I haven’t spent nearly as long here as you have in your lifetime. I’m ready to get out of cockroach hell.”“Okay,” Five breathes, and he’s annoyed at how quivery his voice sounds. “On my count of three.”“No, on MY count of three,” Lila says, and Five rolls his eyes. “Three.”The entrance to the terminal is only about twenty feet away, but the run to it is hardly covered - nearly directly in Other Five’s line of sight and fire.“Two.”If he runs really fast with his eyes closed and his nose pinched shut, maybe he doesn’t have to smell the smoke and the corpses - here it’s bad, but by the stairs it’s even more pungent -“One.”Before he can back out, Lila grabs his arm and takes off towards the stairs. Five winces as his feet crunch a bone in two pieces, and they dive into the covered part just as Other Five begins firing. God, he’s trigger-happy. Five wishes his younger self hadn’t wasted so many bullets on so many useless things.Maybe he would have made it out a little less messed up if he hadn’t had to dig his bullets out of flesh.They run down into the station without missing a beat, and at last Lila drops heavy onto the bench to wait. The train isn’t here yet, but there are a lot of interesting mold patterns on the walls, so Five stays standing and traces them with his eyes. Lila doesn’t speak, so Five doesn’t, either - he’s afraid of what she’ll ask when he opens his mouth.“Five,” Lila says at last. “Are you -““If you ask me if I’m okay again, I’ll gut you like a fish,” Five interrupts, and Lila snorts.“Sorry for checking in, then.”“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it anymore.”“I’m just making sure that somebody’s looking out for you, because you sure as hell aren’t doing it yourself,” Lila mutters.“I’m fine,” Five insists. It seems to be his motto as of late.Behind him, the tracks screech - the subway must be approaching. Five longs for its clever, cool embrace, the seats. He’s in it almost before it stops.As they’re sitting down, Lila says, “Remember, Five. We don’t ever have to go there again. Okay?”“Good,” Five says, and the train takes off with a soft hitch. “Because I’m not going to.”As the train moves, he can feel the miles as they pass. The further they get from his apocalypse, the better he feels - but he can still see those sunken eyes of himself all those years ago, aiming his gun at someone he didn’t know.