number six

——SOMETHING ABOUT A MOVIE NIGHT IN A PLACE like this..excited montana. she loved late night movies like this, she loved the idea of being scared. there was a cigarette between her lips; the tip a bright orange as she took a drag. ❝ M A Y B E.. ❞ she exhaled a puff of smoke. ❝ the dead was some entertainment too..so why not ? ❞ her brows wiggled as she slipped her wild hair out of her face. ❝ want me to hold your hand ? ❞ she smirked before motioning forward. ❝ you’re up N E X T. ❞

ben’s argument fell flat at her words. she had a point, but that didn’t make ACCEPTING it any easier. “nah, i’m good ..” he replied with a roll of his shoulders; a weak attempt at hyping himself up. be an ADULT, ben. it wouldn’t kill you again. “yeah i’m ... going.” & he actually was ! one foot in front of the other, shoes crunching on the graveled path.

“it’s not that gross.” mal reassured the male as she headed into the fron entrance of the cemetery. “it might be because i’m from the isle and i’ve seen grosser, but it’s not half bad here.”

“the isle ?” people had been throwing around a lot of strange terms around lately. & he was honestly getting tired of information, that couldn’t be found in books, being SPEWED at him. “that’s a fairly ambiguous name.”

carol didn’t really celebrate halloween or any other human holiday, to be precise.. back then, when she lived monica and maria, she had.. a reason to do it. she had a family and now she didn’t and.. why should she do any of that? she mostly occupied her time between work, between training and being with goose and.. if you asked her, she’d say she had a pretty fantastic life. still, sometimes.. it could be… pretty lonely, so much that she found herself standing right in front of the cemetery, curious about what everyone else was doing there. “not pretty smart. what if the movies are true and.. they all come back and eat them at the end?” she shrugged, grinning a little bit. “nah, i’m just messing with you, kid. i think it’s pretty in the halloween spirit, even if i don’t really celebrate it myself.”

brown eyes ROLL ( as the comment is reminiscent of something klaus would say ) & ben might’ve comeback with a snarky comment if he knew her better. her smile helped, though, as it gave off a friendly enough vibe for ben to interact. “i just wouldn’t want someone stomping all over my bones. it kind of makes us obnoxious neighbors in an upstairs apartment,” he confessed, still hesitant about entering. “i guess you’re right.”

jason looked at the guy ❝don’t tell me your a pussy and too scared to be around a bunch of dead bodies?❞ he smirked  ❝its not like they are gonna object. i mean its just basically dirt.❞ he rolled his eyes

“no, i just used to be one of those dead bodies & i’m a little offended,” ben grumbled, eyes falling down onto the ground. he could handle it when his family were acting like assholes -- but it was different with strangers.  “i wouldn’t want someone sitting on top of ME while they’re watching a movie.”

it’s strange; being on his own. it isn’t the loneliness that bothers him so much, but the not knowing what to do. after a handful of years being klaus’ shadow, ben had become accustomed to the spurts of quiet. he’d been a quiet boy himself, never saying much when he was alive & simply doing what he could to please ( albeit reluctantly ). & death wasn’t always lonely. occasionally, when his brother wasn’t fucked up on pills, he’d get to see other spirits; but, that was rarer than their dad actually giving a shit about them. still, he almost always had something to do -- he KNEW what he wanted to do. so, coming back from the dead hasn’t been so great. there isn’t any klaus to follow around and try to help & you can only shove your nose in a book for so long before even that gets exhausting. often it’s aimless wandering around the island, questioning if the umbrella academy was ever real. having a fake family who subtly fucks with your memories hasn’t been helpful either. though there was ONE benefit to a second chance at life -- he’d come back the same age as he died. at least, that’s what his real memories told him. those memories also told him that the person he was looking at was his BROTHER on the street corner before him. had one of his wandering sessions really been succesful ? YES. from his stupid quirks, to the look on his face, ben could recognize him from anywhere. “...five ?” he called out, hurriedly approaching his sibling.

“Well my family has made a blood oath hundreds of years ago to always look out for each other. Always and Forever. No matter what comes our way we have the strength of family and we will always be there if one of us falls, we will have another be able to pick us back up. I guess that is one of the good things about my family though, not all families can be as we are. Then again not all families have had hundreds of years together either.” 

“does your family have a time traveler too ?” once the words left his lips, it felt like a stupid question. was all that time spent with klaus ( his brother ) finally getting to him ? “that’s...a long time. sounds complicated.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble but I have never heard of you. I am pretty sure that no one from where I am from has even heard of your family or whatever academy you go to. I mean it would help if I found them around. So far it is just my little sister that has been here with me. I am sure that my other siblings will find their way here soon enough.” 

ben shrugged. “no bubble to burst, it’s not the first time someone’s said that to me.” & they were lucky, if you asked him -- a world where the umbrella academy was never needed was probably peaceful. “they’re probably here...it’s just harder to find the ones who don’t remember as much, i think. or they don’t want to be found.”

“As your family? What are you talking about? Who even are you?” He asks in confusion before downing some of his drink. “Not a rough day, just wanted to come here to relax. Maybe see if I could remember something about my past…anything about who I am besides my family.” 

ben didn’t talk about them much, but it felt like the world had been giving him constant reminders lately. if he had a chance to acknowledge the life he remembered, then why not go for it ? ( he was definitely going to regret this later ) “yeah, my siblings. the umbrella academy ? we’re all grown up now, but our faces used to be on everything when we were kids. i’m ben hargreeves -- the dead one. ” well, he wasn’t so dead anymore -- but he couldn’t really explain that bit. the only information he could find on coming back from the dead were some books about ‘accidental burials’. definitely NOT his situation. “shit, dude, that sucks. but your family can probably help, right ?”

Klaus had been sitting in the bar contemplating many things. His memories and mind had been fuzzier than usually lately and he couldn’t figure out why. The hybrid figured that it would be best to just get himself a drink and not think about it too hard. When someone sat down next to him, he ordered another drink. “Rough day?” He asks them before looking over at them. 

rough day; that was a gross understatement when you considered all of the WEIRDNESS october had brought to truman island. ben glanced over his shoulder, eyeing the suspicious man who had sat down next to him. “it’s just been a while since i’ve seen people dressing up as my FAMILY for halloween,” he confessed, brows furrowing as he turned his head back to look down at his rum & coke. technically speaking, were they even his family now ? he wasn’t entirely sure how this shit worked anymore. “what about you ?”

! TW DEATH !