Dysphoria- An Umbrella Academy Fanfiction

†'Via'

"Language." The small boy muttered into the ground, and started to brush off the dirt on his school uniform.

"Is it just me, or is that little number Five?" Klaus asked after a few seconds of stunned silence.

Octavia looked from Five to her siblings, then back again, just to make sure that Five wasn't the result of a drug-induced hallucination, but their shocked faces confirmed that she wasn't making this up.

She, now being in the few minutes of clear-headedness of her high, was able to (try) and help Five stand up and linked arms with him, to his surface-level disdain, to support him walking back to the house.

By the time the rest of her family joined them, Octavia was sitting crossed-legged on the cool oak wood of the table, and Five was franticly looking around for some bread to make his disgusting 'concoction' as Octavia called it as, in her opinion, it really shouldn't be called a sandwich.

'Five-"

"What's the date?" Five asked, interrupting Luther the way that he had perfected over the years. "The exact date."

Klaus lifted himself onto the table, and lent his head on Octavia's shoulder, while she started to fiddle with the stray threads hanging off the end of his skirt.

Vanya was strangely calm compared to the rest of the siblings when she answered, "The 24th."

"Of march?" Octavia asked, not looking up as she began twirling the threads around her fingers.

"Last time I checked."

Five placed a cutting board in front of him, throwing the bread onto it, as he quantum jumped to grab some butter.

"It's been twelve years," Luther started to say, standing up in a futile attempt to intimidate Five.

"It's been a lot longer than-"

Octavia sharply let in a breath when she saw a man standing in the doorway, blood dripping down his hands and pooling onto the floor. The man had two second mouths carved into his wrists, and he was crying, tears and snot smearing all over his face. He was naked, and soaking wet, the water that dripped off his body fell to the ground, diluting the blood soaked into the floorboards.

Octavia squeezed her eyes shut, and tried her best to clear her mind completely, and block His whispers out of her head, but His words echoed in her skull, and the sharp corners sliced open the little indents in her brain, all control of her own mind leaking out the scars.

Jesus, she really needed another hit. But if she went off now, people would notice, and besides she wanted to see Five! She wanted to never stop talking to him, never let him out of her sight again, never. Did Five even know about her problem? He would hate her for it she knew, hate her for 'throwing everything away' and never forgive her for the countless near-death experiences she's had because of it, he would hate her in the same way he had begun to hate Klaus; her siblings should really have realised she's relapsed by now, but they probably already did but pushed it to the back of their minds in favour of an easier life. They're the ones who had payed for the rehab in the first place, not her, she was practically overdosing when they forced her to go (not that they knew that, of course). She just wanted everything to stop, all the voices, all the visions He forced upon her, all the pain, all the sadness and worse, the numbness that would come after.

God, she was so tired.

Klaus put his hand in his sisters, running his fingers over the crescent indents she had been making in her skin with her short, bitten nails. He watched as the blackness filling her eyes retreated until only the dark circles of her pupils remained.

Octavia looked up at Klaus, then looked back to the doorway, but the man with the three mouths was gone.

∆∆∆

With half-lidded eyes, Octavia stumbled into the hallway after hearing the familiar voices of her favourite sister and probably around second or third favourite brother.

She stopped outside the door, leaning on the wall next to it for support. People in this family really liked to not tell her things for some reason, and if she was going to find out something, it was probably going to be from eavesdropping.

"I thought your book was pretty good," Five was saying, "all things considered. Definitely brave, giving up the family secrets."

Octavia could hear his shoes clacking against the polished floor as he paced, before he stopped in front of the mantlepiece.

"They all hate me. Via too, though she'll never admit it."

'Via' definitely did not. In fact, she was under the impression Vanya hated her.

"I doubt she does."

Five sounded bored by the conversation already, and Octavia giggled lazily, her pupils blown.

"Anyway, there are worse things that can happen than a few people hating you." Five said, he, obviously, meant the apocalypse, but Vanya's mind jumped to her brother.

"You mean what happened to Ben?" Five's eyes locked with Vanya's.

"Was it bad?"

Octavia quietly giggled again, her head leant against the wall.

Of course it was bad.

She could still see him. His body torn apart, bits of brain matter scattered over his face, his entire torso soaked in blood, his academy uniform seemed to melt into the rest of his body, even though Klaus said he appeared to him in a hoodie.

"I wish I had known what to do, Five. I wish you had been there"

"A remember that, don't you,'Via'?"

"Me too."

Five's eyes had not diverted from his shoes the whole time Vanya was talking.

Without saying a word, he walked out of the room.

Octavia, surprised by the sudden loud footsteps coming towards her, turned and tried to run up the stairs, but her head began to spin and she had to hurriedly sit down on a step to avoid a concussion.

Unfortunately, Five took notice of her.

"Octavia! Were you spying on me?" A familiar smirk danced on his lips.

"I uh, no?" Was all her foggy mind could think of to say back and she smiled sheepishly, her eyes trying to focus on her brother.

Five just smiled, and stroked her head as he walked up the stairs past her.

She tried to follow him with her eyes, but this proved impossible as she almost had complete double vision at the moment.

She thought, and knew that they had never been close when they were kids, in fact Five had actively made a point to let Octavia know how useless she was and how much wasted potential she had.

To be honest, Octavia wasn't sure she whole heartedly believed Five's story. If he was the only survivor, how had he met this woman, Delores? Why did he look like a child if he was sixty? How had he come back suddenly if he had been stuck all those years? Octavia was trying to wade through the sludge in her brain to figure it out. When He was able to get through the barrier of substances she had created He could probably explain it to her. He was clever. He was cleverer than anybody else.

She looked up through her eyelashes at the chandelier, a blur of gold and silver and wasn't able to make out any distinctive feature of it. That meant she was at the peak of her high. No one could get to her, not even Him.

She wished it could stay like that forever.