•Lonely is more than an adjective• || A Number Five x Reader Story

Chapter 18 - Some excerpts of a book unforgiving

Meals would become the one time we would all be together - and I met them with equal parts excitement and dread. Would today be the day I engaged myself and stood up to Diego's taunts? Maybe I would show Five that new piece I had been working on for weeks.

Though prone to arrogance and overconfidence, more so than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidant, for the years before he disappeared.  He was often to resist Dad's manipulation, a characteristic that came with his natural defiance to authority. I always found it strange, therefore, that by his side was the meekest of our siblings. She was kind to me, as I expected from someone of her character, but around Dad she would never dare defy him - through these acts I decided not to trust her actions. Shunning her was not the route I took, as I wanted as much sibling connection as I could, but her fickleness had me on edge, as she may soon become like the rest of our siblings, and Five would turn away with her. I was often afraid I would lose my connection with Five due to her, but it seemed he had other plans. I spent much of my childhood after that leaving out snacks as if Five would return one night - burning through our electricity bill in fear that he may return, get lost in the darkness and disappear again.

-

One morning, I left the academy, dressed to the gills with clothes from a childhood where I was always left behind. I think I even brought nightmares from home, following me wherever I went. I stopped at a bus stop, and I sat there all day long - and somehow it was the best time since I discovered the violin, as I was completely alone. I had thought I was alone my entire life, but this was something new and entirely different. I was afraid of what I could do and would choose if I didn't have to walk back down our street. Buses slowed each time they saw me, sat alone, but I waved the kind drivers away. That night I walked back through the front doors, and no one knew I had even left in the first place. I wonder how long it would have taken them to notice - an extra girl they never needed was gone -  to them it would it have even made a difference? To this day I'm not sure. The next time that I noticed someone was missing was when we all did. After what happened to Ben.

Our everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad had taken us from normal lives and brought us into his own life - dropped into as his experiments. Not children but animals. And what happened to Ben was what finally shattered the illusion for the others. I knew all along what they realized that day. I didn't want to leave on my own. It wasn't until Allison left to pursue her career in Hollywood and Diego cursed out the old man, did I realise we were ultimately a broken family. I always hoped that my family would accept me into the fold, as long as there was a club to belong to. One day, they would have all notice me and invited me to join them. Everyone would apologise to me, saying 'Vanya, we can't believe we've wasted so much time. We are so sorry and we love you. You're our sister, after all.'

They all left the academy without even acknowledging me, but it was then that I realized I didn't want to be apart of their group of spiteful super beings. There was nothing for me to aspire to be anymore. It was liberating. It was a life that I had wanted for as long as I could remember, a perfect family that has finally fallen apart. Without the Umbrella Academy, I had the freedom to be whomever I chose. Suddenly my violin playing wasn't stupid - it was something that made me special.

-

Perhaps unluckiest of us all was the sister who couldn't leave. Luther had made his own decisions to remain within the experiment, but trapped at thirteen allowed Dad to forever withhold her from normal life. I had once expected her to leave anyway, but after the third kidnapping, I'm not sure she even trusted herself to leave the house. Of course, it was only inside groups that knew why she kept getting targeted, those who saw her on missions and escaped, saw how she hadn't aged a day. Even now, it still surprises me to see my sister, the same as she was twelve years ago, and it was no wonder outside forces wanted to know her secret. The trouble always was she didn't know either, and the rest of the academy would shack up to save her, life continuing as if nothing happened the next moment. I always found myself hating how they would save her without a thought -  there was little to set her apart from myself bar a pair of mutations donning her back and yet as Dad accepted her as part of the Umbrella Academy she was also accepted by my siblings. I suppose I always felt this way towards her, no matter how kind she was to me when other weren't around. I can't blame her for being allowed to be a part of the family, but seeing her everyday was like seeing a life I could have lived right in front of me, taunting me every second of my life. The day wherein we realised she had stopped aging, I began to rethink my envy. Would I really want be thirteen forever? Many search for eternal life, but without a doubt there is not a single soul who would live trapped at such a harrowing age. Further down the line, I left the house, left behind what I thought I wanted for so long and I could finally look back and see her trapped within the walls in the life I once wished I could have and I concluded I wanted anything but. My envy melted into pity at my angel of a sister, both in image and mind - and I could almost see myself turning back to try and free her when I saw none of my siblings do so either. The sister they had all grown up so close to was left behind, so why should I, the one who had been abandoned, be the one to struggle to help her. I'm sure one of the others will snatch her from that house soon, as they all settle into their new lives, and I can live in comfort with the idea that these few extra years she has in that house are just the life I could have had if I too was accepted, and she is living them as penance for allowing me to be shunned.

~A/N - some of these are actual snippets from the book that can be spotted in the show, but it's only partial so I've filled in some gaps and added some more just for some fun :)