"You are now dismissed for recess," Reginald says curtly, and the siblings scatter.

Ben is fifteen and following Klaus down the hall when he hears Reginald clear his throat behind him.

"Not you, Number Six. I want to have a conversation with you."

Ben casts a terrified look at Klaus, and Klaus widens his eyes. What could he want to talk to Ben about? Ben had been careful, over the years, to never speak up, never step out of line. He was as eager to get out as the rest of them, but arguing just meant punishments. And as soon as they turned eighteen, they could legally escape anyway. There's no reason to stir things up until then.

So what does their father want?

Maybe it's about Ben's powers. He'd been willing—not enthusiastic, but willing at least—to use them in the past. He's not sure where the tentacles come from or whether or not he's even a human, really, but at least he used to be able to control them. He decided whether or not they were released, told them what to do. And when they weren't on a mission, they stayed in. When he got dressed in the morning, he was like a normal person. His stomach was just skin, just like normal. Just like anybody else.

Sometimes he'd stand in front of the mirror and wonder if maybe his stomach wasn't the only thing hiding a monster. What if the rest of him erupted one day too?

But even though the tentacles were terrifying, they were his. They just felt like another arm—under control, even part of him.

Lately, that hadn't been the case. Lately, the tentacles felt like an actual other monster, like it's not him controlling them but vice versa.

During one mission, a few months ago, Luther ordered him to release the Horror. He did, and it killed the bad guys, like usual. But after, when he normally pulled them in and closed his jacket, they wouldn't come. The monster wouldn't retreat.

The pain, the literal pain, was unlike anything Ben had ever experienced. It had felt like his skin was boiling, like he was being torn inside out. For minutes, he could see, couldn't hear, couldn't think. All he knew was that the monster had turned on him.

Civilians died. In the end, Luther had to sedate him. Ben hadn't used his powers since.

"Come with me," Reginald says, and starts walking briskly toward his study. Ben almost has to jog to keep up with him. He does it silently.

"It has come to my attention, Number Six, that you have not released the horror in three months."

"I—" Ben says, but Reginald cuts him off.

"Let me finish, Number Six. During those six months, we have been on seven separate missions, and yet you have not used your powers once. Do you have an explanation for this?"

"Dad—"

"I have told you not to call me that."

"Sir," Ben corrects, even though it takes a certain amount of willpower to get the word out, "I can't control my powers anymore. I don't think it's safe for me to be using them if I don't know that I can be safe."

"Come," Reginald says, pushing open the study door. "Sit," he says, and Ben does. "Let me explain something to you, Number Six."

Ben wants to speak up, but he doesn't. Staying quiet is the best strategy with their Dad.

"Do you see this?" Reginald asks, gesturing to the clockwork chimpanzee sitting on his desk.

"Yes, Dad—sir."

"This ape is the Umbrella Academy, and each of you are one of its parts. Every one of you is like a piece of metal, all working together to accomplish one goal. Without one of those pieces," he unscrews a nail from the leg, and the chimpanzee collapses with a crash, "you can accomplish nothing."

"But—"

"The goal of this academy is to be an effective crime-fighting system. You know this, Number Six. None of you can accomplish this goal unless you work together properly. And to work together properly you must each play your part."

"Yes, sir," Ben says quietly, resigned.

"You are dismissed," Reginald says curtly, and opens his journal. Ben knows he isn't gonna get any more acknowledgement than that, and he leaves without saying another word.

The next mission, Ben tries his best. He can't bring himself to unleash the horror, but he uses his fists, uses whatever makeshift weapons he can. He fights, takes down bad guys, saves his siblings. They'd been trained in normal combat, after all. Just because Ben can't unleash the Horror doesn't mean he can't help.

Those next months are the golden times for the Umbrella Academy. The public finally knows who they are and the people love them. There are missions multiple times a week. Fans gather outside the academy on their birthday with signs and cards. Teenage girls run up to Ben and ask him for his autograph. Boys, too. Everyone wants to be part of the Umbrella Academy, to meet the six super-children. Luther gets a love letter in the mail, once, and Klaus reads it aloud, dramatically, in the living room. Allison stews, Diego and Ben laugh, and Luther hides his face.

It's only after when everything falls apart.

Thirteen years and an apocalypse later, Ben sits on the dusty ground in Klaus and Five's campsite.

The apocalypse had been bad for all of them, obviously, but the days leading up to it might have been even worse. Diego was arrested, and Allison spent all night at the police station trying to get him out. The two of them only ended up showing up the next morning, refusing to say how he'd escaped. They found the address of Harold Jenkin's grandmother's cabin, payed it a visit that night. It was completely empty. The next day, they'd visited Jenkin's own house. Still, empty. They went on a wild goose chase all around the city, trying to find him and Vanya, and had been meeting in the Academy itself when Luther burst through the doors with the news about Vanya's powers.

The worst thing of that week leading up to the apocalypse was seeing Vanya at the concert. Seeing her standing on stage, that cold, determined look in her eyes. She didn't look at all like the Vanya Ben knew.

Ben hadn't been good friends with Vanya, as a kid, but he felt like he knew her. He knew that she was quiet, and that she loved the color blue. That she felt best when she felt needed, and that she would name each of her teddy bears something different. She collected them when she was little, back when Reginald would indulge them slightly more. He knew that she hated corn, but that cornbread was her favorite food. Ben knew Vanya, and he knew that the woman he'd seen on the stage in the Icarus Theater wasn't her. And if she'd changed somehow, then it had to be undoable.

If there was anything Ben could do to undo it, he would.

"Shit," Five exclaims. He's crouched in the dirt in front of Klaus, making an attempt at painting his nails.

"Hey, hey, careful there! I need to be presentable," Klaus says.

"Remind me why you can't do this yourself."

"C'mon, stop being so boring. We're bonding! This is fun, right? Ben?" Klaus looks over at Ben, who shakes his head. Five's had to remove an re-apply the nail polish more times than Ben can count, and Ben is tired of hearing the kid curse.

"Can we eat? It was time for lunch two hours ago," Ben says. He doesn't technically get hungry, but Klaus needs reminding.

Sometimes Ben feels like the only reason he exists at this point is to help Klaus, and there are times when grates on him. Well, it always grates on him, but he usually pushes the feeling of discontentment away..

"Am I the only one enjoying this?" Klaus cries, and Ben and Five both look at him, deadpan. "You know what? Fine! This is the last time I decide to try and pass the time with something productive."

"I fail to see how painting your nails is productive," Five says, screwing the little bottles shut. Ben had woken up to this, and he isn't sure exactly where they'd gotten the nail polish from. Or the rest of the stuff, for that matter. Klaus has somehow amassed a sizable stash of alcohol, several coats, three dresses, and four pairs of pants, one of which is bright purple. He's wearing a garish floral shirt and a pair of shimmery pink pants, neither of which Ben has ever seen before. And then there's the nail polish and two little baggies of makeup. Five, too, has about twenty books and a little pile of markers.

"I told you, I need to be presentable."

"The world ended. Presentable to who, exactly?"

"Oh, boo hoo, so our brothers and sisters are dead. Doesn't mean that I don't want to be pretty."

"This is ridiculous," Five says, turning and walking off. Klaus doesn't ask where he's going.

Over the past two days, Klaus and Five (although mostly Five, let's be honest here) have been going on little scouting trips throughout the city. The goal is to check for survivors, supplies, or shelter. There haven't been any storms, but they've seen clouds gathering on the horizon a couple of times, and they don't want to get caught out in the open. So far, all building have been destroyed and all bunkers are locked, but at least Klaus gets his clothes, apparently.

Klaus shuts the little nail polish box, bringing a bottle of brandy to his mouth.

"Klaus, no," Ben says, and Klaus looks over at him. The odds are already stacked against them—an emotionally stunted junkie and a thirteen-year old boy, alone after the apocalypse. It doesn't help that Klaus is falling back onto his drug habit.

"Excuse me?" Klaus asks. Ben's held back over the past couple of days, not saying a thing about Klaus's drinking, so Klaus must not be expecting this.

"You were sober for three days, Klaus. That was a big accomplishment. Don't fall back on this."

"Oh, shut up. You sound like Luther," Klaus says, scoffing and bringing the bottle back up to his lips.

"Come on, Klaus. You know what you have to do. Why are you running away from it?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? What do you mean, I know what I have to do? Everyone's dead, Ben. There isn't any coming back from this."

"You can stop it. You can go back. I know you and Five have been talking about it, so why don't you do it?"

"Do what?" Klaus is being stubborn, pretending he doesn't know what's going on. Ben can tell, Ben can always tell. Again, he reminds himself that there's a reason he sticks by Klaus, out of all the places he goes. Klaus needs him.

"We need the full force of the academy to accomplish anything. Isn't that what Dad always said?"

"Oh, yeah, Dad. When did we start trusting him? He was an asshole."

"Maybe just this once he was right. If you get all of us together, we can find a way to go back. To stop this all from happening. We used to work together, remember?"

"Why is this on me?"

"Because of your power, Klaus. You can manifest them."

There's a brief pause. "Why can't I have a break?"

"Because everyone died! Seven billion people died, Klaus. And you can stop it from ever happening. You have that ability, so why don't you do it?"

"I have time! Let me relax a little."

"But this is what you have to do, Klaus. It's your responsibility!"

"It's always my responsibility! It's always You aren't reaching the best of your ability, or you've disappointed me again, Klaus. It's not like they're getting any deader, so let me take a moment."

"But it is your responsibility, Klaus. And even if you don't want to use your powers, at least be sober. For Five."

"Yeah, yeah, speaking of Five. Why isn't this his responsibility? Why isn't this on him?"

"Because Five is a child, Klaus. He's thirteen. And I know you don't realize that, because he looks the same as he did back home, before the apocalypse, but he's a kid, and you have him doing everything while you sit here and wallow."

Klaus shuts his eyes for a moment, and Ben holds his breath. When Klaus opens his eyes, they're wet, and he says, "You're right, you're right. I'm sorry, I'm just—exhausted. The end of the world, and all. You know."

"Just be an adult. Take some of the responsibilities. Maybe go scouting a little, instead of just letting Five do it, for once."

Klaus nods slowly, and then takes a swig of whisky. Ben opens his mouth, and then closes it.

Klaus had nodded. That's progress.

"I found something today that might help," Five says, tossing a book onto the ground that night. They're eating dinner around their little makeshift campfire—cold chilli.

Ben isn't eating, half because cold chilli and have because, well, death. His hands aren't exactly material. Neither is his stomach.

"Help with what?" Klaus asks around a mouthful of food.

"Stopping the apocalypse, dipshit."

"See? He's doing something," Ben says, looking pointedly at Klaus. Klaus ignores him, as per usual.

"Wow, we're really progressing here. First moron, now dipshit. I'm proud of you, brother," says Klaus.

"It's Vanya's book. I don't know if you ever read it, but it's pretty ballsy, the things she says. And I think it can help us."

"Oh, I know, I read it. It was hilarious. I'm only offended that I wasn't in it more."

"You should be glad you weren't worse to her. You should have seen the stuff she said about Dad. Not to mention Diego."

"How can this help to stop the apocalypse, though? I mean, it's not like she wrote about her powers."

"Yeah, but can't you see?" Five's voice is picking up in pace now, and Ben can tell that he's getting excited. "A lifetime of being pushed aside, of being ostracized by her own family. Maybe that's what did it. Maybe she just snapped."

"Yeah, but what did Jenkins have to do with it, then? There has to be more factors," Klaus says.

"Then tell me. Explain to me exactly what happened leading up to the apocalypse. Spare no detail."

"I've already told you everything."

"That can't be everything. You said that Luther knew she had powers. How?"

Klaus looks at Five, and there's a quiet pain in his eyes that Ben has seen before. "I don't—I don't know, I'm sorry. They don't tell me anything, least of all Luther."

"So talk to them! You have your powers, you can do it."

Klaus shuts his eyes, shaking his head, and Ben scoots closer, reaching to put a hand on Klaus's shoulder and only realizing at the last second that it's impossible.

"Klaus—"

"Go away, Ben," Klaus moans, flapping at him like he's a fly.

Ben takes a breath. He's seen Klaus broken in every way. He's seen him vomiting in an alley, crying in the back of a bus, laughing giddily and letting himself be pulled into a dark corner by the fifth man of the week. But what Ben's asking Klaus to do might break him worse than ever before. "Klaus, you can do this." Klaus looks at him, eyes wet. "It's gonna be hard—"

"Oh, gee, that makes me feel better."

"It's gonna be hard, but you have to. You know you do."

"Oh, god," Klaus moans, looking upwards and hastily wiping his eyes. "Okay. Okay." He turns to Five, who's gone quiet. "I'll do it, I'll do it."

"You sure you can handle it?" Five asks warily, but Ben knows that there's genuine concern there. For Klaus, not just for their plan.

"Yeah," Klaus says, wiping his tears away and rubbing his hands together. "Oh, yeah, easy-peasy. Let's go for it."

Five grins. "We'll start planning in the morning."

Early the next morning, early enough for it to reasonably be called night, Ben wakes to find Klaus standing a couple hundred feet away, standing on the top of a rocky hill. He's emptied Five's cart of food and filled it with his alcohol stash. One by one, the bottles go crashing onto the rocks two hundred feet below.

He's crying, quietly.

"You made the right decision, Klaus," Ben says softly, and Klaus jumps.

"Yeah, I know," he says, not bothering to hide the tears from Ben. "I know."

"You know this is good for you, right? You need to face them. Your powers."

"Yeah, yeah. I told you, I'm great. I'm gonna do great." Klaus grins as he says it, but Ben knows he's lying.

He doesn't say anything else as they stand there, clothes ruffled by the wind. The only sounds are the Klaus's quiet sobs and the distant breaking of glass.

thank you all so much for reading!

next week's chapter is a Luther pov, which is...controversial and difficult to write. i want to say now that i'm never one to hate characters - everything they do is part of the story, and all characters make bad decisions. and i did think Luther made a lot of bad decisions during the show, but they made sense, and everyone else made bad decisions too. The difference for me is that Klaus and Five's bad decisions (since they seem to be the fandom favorites) are much more relatable and "uwu poor baby" than Luther's, which just appear downright cruel. so anyway. i definitely don't hate him, but I do think he made mistakes, and i'm going to write him making mistakes, just like I would Five or Klaus (discluding Ben because we all know he's perfection).

TL;DR: don't hate him, don't love him, and my writing him making mistakes isn't me attempting to punish or bash him, it's just me writing him as a character. i would do the same for Five or Klaus.

(side not: i've edited the tags to include everything that's going to happen in the rest of the story, since they originally only included stuff from that first chapter, which was meant to be a one shot).

aaanywayyyyyy. thank you so much for reading! (and for reading this minor monolith of a note, if you did.) comments give me life when coffee and the souls of the innocent can't, so please leave one if you enjoyed the chapter!