you say pillow pet but what i hear is “Five having more than Dolores in the apocalypse au”

so it starts with Dolores. He picks her up, and she has a human face that isn’t decomposing, and it’s partially on a whim that he sticks her in his little red wagon and partially out of desperation. He needs company, he needs someone to talk with, or else he’s going to genuinely go insane. 

He takes her with him because he remembers reading about programmers who talk to rubber ducks in order to find problems in the code, and he thinks “okay, this mannequin will be my rubber duck and she’ll help me with my equations to go home, simple as that”

it’s not as simple as that, and Dolores becomes someone real

but Dolores isn’t enough

he finds the teddy bear in the street, dropped a dusty and he very purposefully does not look around for where its owner might be. He already knows there are no survivors - he checked every body he came across in those first few weeks. But the bear is sitting there, and it looks so sad, and he has room in his wagon - and he just picks it up without really thinking about it and pops it next to Dolores.

Five names him Buddy, and learns that Buddy has a wicked sense of humor if a little dark. 

Next he finds a little stuffed cat caught between bits of rubble. He’d thought it was a body at first (it wasn’t just humans killed in the apocalypse, after all) but no. The fabric is face, the eyes are plastic, and maybe once upon a time it was white but apocalypse living doesn’t exactly help with cleanliness. He calls her Snowy anyway, and places her in the wagon next to Dolores and Buddy. She’s very shy at first, and she doesn’t like Buddy’s jokes, but Dolores enjoys having another girl on the team.

And from there on it becomes a thing.

He doesn’t take all of them with him, and some are only temporary companions. Jasper is a dog that’s missing two legs. Scrappy is probably a panda but honestly is so filthy that Five is just guessing. Will is some sort of goofy looking monster. But every one he finds, he brushes off and introduces to the others and has a conversation - even if they’re just pretend conversations. Because it’s the end of the world and he’s the only one left and he’s hanging onto his sanity by his fingernails but having some form of companionship is… nice.

Even if it isn’t real.

So Five lives the apocalypse surrounded by dozens of toys who never speak but who have their own individual personalities that Five learns. He breathes life into them and makes them real, or as real as they can possibly be out in the apocalypse. It isn’t always stuffed animals. Sometimes it’s other mannequins. Sometimes he pauses to say hello to an intact statue, tracing the names people over the years have drawn and carved into them with gentle fingers. 

He keeps Dolores by his side always, she was the first and he is most attached to her. The others are a somewhat rotating cast. Candles the lion lives in the ruins of the pharmacy with Jellybean the giraffe. Hoot the owl perches on top of what Five figures must have been an old church bell or something. Chip the hedgehog usually stands around the halfway point between the library ruins and the ruins of the umbrella academy. They’re familiar faces that when Five goes out scavenging, he calls out greetings to and pretends he receives them in return. An entire unliving city full of the creations of a desperate, lonely child.

They’re his neighbors. They’re his friends. They’re all the companionship he has out there as the only person left in the world.

And then the commission grabs him, and he leaves his friends behind, and he wasn’t quite expecting it to hurt as much as it did because he’s always been gearing up to leave them eventually. To travel back in time and save his siblings. But it still leaves him anxious and jumpy without any of his friends to confide in, though Dolores at least is with him even if she does constantly point out that his equations aren’t finished. 

He goes back. He shows up on the day of the funeral. He goes to find the owner of a glass eye, he speaks to his brother, and then he shows up with Dolores. His siblings don’t question her. But they are slightly more confused when random stuffed animals start also popping up in the house.

“What’s this?” Allison asks, puzzled, picking up what could be a crocodile or a lizard or… something vaguely reptilian in looks.

Five doesn’t even look up, “That’s Snorri. Snorri, Allison. Allison, Snorri.” 

“Okay.” Allison says slowly, and puts the stuffed toy back on the counter.

And when the stop the apocalypse, it keeps happening. Luther sits on the couch and is immediately shoved at by Five who has jumped over in a flash of blue. “You’re suffocating her!” He’s yelling, and Luther moves, and Five fishes out a stuffed whale which might or might not look like it came from the giftshop of the local aquarium. Five jumps away, cradling ‘her’ protectively in his arms before Luther can say a word.

“Should we ask about this?” Klaus asks at the breakfast table after Five takes his leave, looking at the place at the table where Five has placed a stuffed dog as if it was actually a person. “Like, I feel this is something we should be somewhat concerned about?” and nobody has anything to say to that, because Five had just carried out a one-sided conversation with a stuffed animal at the breakfast table like that was a normal and sane thing to do.

Finally Diego, who was volunteered by his family and upon refusal was goaded into it by Luther sighing and saying that he supposed, as team leader he should - , addresses the issue. Sort of.

“So uh,” Diego coughs from where he’s sitting awkwardly on the couch. Five is cross legged on the floor next to the coffee table, scribbling away at some equations while a plush wolf watches over with baleful eyes where its placed across from him on the tabletop. “What’s your uh, friend’s name?”

“Allie.” Five gestures with a wave of his hand, “She’s the best with polynomial functions.”

Diego nods, like that makes sense. “And uh, where did she come from?”

“I made Allie’s acquaintance on the corner of First and Gregory, I believe. She was trapped under a street lamp and about half a house when I found her.” Five says absently, still mostly focused on his equations. Honestly it’s easiest to get answers out of Five like this, when he’s only paying attention to what he’s saying with half his brain.

“Oh uh, in the apocalypse?” Diego asks dumbly, as if there were random collapsed houses in the streets.

But Five doesn’t call him out, too busy scribbling out some more numbers to bother verbally eviscerating his brother. He just nods.

“Are they all from the apocalypse?” Diego prods a little further, a picture starting to become clear in his mind and it’s not exactly one he’s liking.

“Mmhmm.” Five hums, “It’s not everyone, obviously. I’m not going to tear anyone away from their family of course. But anyone I met in shops and the like are fair game, and they’d much rather live with someone familiar to them until we figure out accommodations.”

“Accommodations?” Diego was so not ready for this discussion. He shouldn’t have let Luther manipulate him. He should have volunteered Vanya for it instead, no matter her excuses about actually having a job or whatever.

“Yeah,” Five nods, frowning at his paper for a moment before quickly erasing a number and continuing on, “Like Hoot used to live on the church bell but she can’t anymore ‘cause the church is still up. And people would try and make Chip move if he lived on Windsor street again.”

“Alright.” Diego says, and then decides to bite the bullet, “You do know they’re stuffed animals, right?”

The scratching of the pencil stops abruptly, and Diego finds himself staring into Five’s furious eyes. Five stands gracefully and Diego shifts warily, almost expecting Five to launch himself at his brother and attack. But no, instead Five scoops up the plush wolf into his arms and looks at Diego like he’s dirt, “You can apologize to Allie when you’re ready.” Five sniffs, before jumping away and taking the wolf with him.

Diego goes back to the rest of the family and is basically like ‘so like, he found them all in the apocalypse i think. He plans on rehoming them? I think? So I guess just… ignore it for now. And also if I’m smothered in my sleep know that it was murder.’

but yes five with lots of apocalypse friends of his own making, but dolores is still the most important because that’s his wife !!

y’all are very insistent on this lmao for anyone new this is regarding the broken five au where Reginald tries to control Five by threatening Vanya’s life so the kids run away! for all of it check out the ellie fortuin tag ;3c

I should make a master list of my aus at some point smh

ANYWAY so after Reggie arrives and Ellie kicks him the entire fuck out the kids reveal that they wish they could also rescue their mother, which is the first Ellie is hearing about this (she assumed the reason they looked sad when she accidentally brought up mothers is because theirs gave the up and sold them to Reginald Fucking Hargreeves - she did her research when she figured out who they were okay)

but in all she looked up she didn’t find anything about Reginald Hargreeves being married or anything so ???

and there’s another thing she’s been meaning to do for a while which she kind of needs to go to the house/Reginald to do and whatever so, you know. She tells the kids she’s going out, puts on her nicest plaid shirt (because actually fuck getting dressed up to see this dude she’s going to wear her muddiest boots) and gives them all kisses and reminders to be good and then sets out

(she puts Marmalade in charge because as much as she complains about the cat she doesn’t trust Clyde not to be a pushover and at least Marm is street smart)

so there she is hammering on the door to the Umbrella Academy with a backpack pull of papers on her back, a lengthy consultation with a lawyer to remember, and a mission in her mind and the door opens and there is a chimpanzee in a suit looking at her and Ellie is honestly just kind of like “Ah you know now it makes some sense why the kids are weird about bringing up monkeys” and just embraces that her life is weird as she follows the chimp (who talks and has introduced himself as Pogo what the fuck) into the house and is told to wait while he informs Master Reginald of her arrival

and while she’s waiting impatiently and kicking off bit of dried mud on her boots to kick under the fancy furniture to be spiteful, she hears humming and who comes into view but an absolute angel?? Ellie would genuinely swear her heart skipped a beat

“Oh!” The Angel says, spotting her, looking mildly surprised, “A guest! Has Pogo already seen to you, dear?”

“Uh.” Ellie says, very intelligently as her brain short-circuits

“I’m Grace.” The Angel smiles warmly and Ellie genuinely wants the floor to open up and swallow her because she cannot form a single coherent sentence and also didn’t the kids say Grace was their mothers name this is not the random old lady she was expecting, “Are you here to see Mr. Hargreeves?”

Thankfully Ellie doesn’t have to embarrass herself any further by attempting to produce something approaching speech because Pogo is back and gesturing for Ellie to follow him.

“It was lovely meeting you.” Grace tells her, before turning back to cleaning or whatever she was doing and Ellie is helpless except to follow after Pogo to do what she actually came here to do.

So that’s what has Ellie standing in front of Reginald Hargreeves and slamming a whole bunch of papers on his desk and saying “Independent adoption” to him as though he, who literally bought seven children, did not know what adoption was.

And then there is a long an complicated argument that busts out a lot of legal terms and more than a few vague threats on both sides. Because Ellie does not want this man to have any legal power over her kids and apparently he is still under the delusion that the kids will ever go back to live and train under him or whatever which HA is not happening

“They need to stop the apocalypse.” Reginald Hargreeves insists to her face.

“Those kids,” Ellie says, voice low and dangerous, “Are powerful beyond measure, and before I got them they didn’t care about the world one lick. Because they’d never seen it. Because what had the world ever done for them? The only thing they knew about humanity was you, Reginald Hargreeves. And you taught them that people were cruel and ruthless and only wanted to use them. You taught them that people without powers were useless and worthless and ordinary.”

She opens her arms wide, “And you think that those kids would save the world? You think they would lift a finger to help humanity when all they knew was that it was evil? The way you were raising them, I’d be more shocked if it wasn’t them who caused the apocalypse for goodness sake.”

Reginald sits before her, pale in his fury, but she doesn’t drop it there.

“Luther likes building with his hands, and he’s really good at it. His favorite food is baby carrots because he likes the crunch and also likes sneaking them to Clyde. He likes helping people carry things to their cars and any praise makes him light up like a Christmas tree, bless him. And when I got him? He didn’t know how to help people, he only knew how to stop ‘bad guys’ and had no idea how to even talk to people.”

Reginald doesn’t say anything. Ellie presses on.

“Diego is an angry kid, yeah, but he had a heart of fucking gold. He’s the first one to volunteer to help with chores or dinner or anything. He’s protective as anything when it comes to his siblings. He was the one who brought home the cranky old tomcat that no one could get near just because he thought that he was lonely and needed a home. And when I got him? He would barely even talk to me because he thought he’d get in trouble for struggling with his words. Thought that his ideas were worth less somehow just because he took longer to get them out. And that’s what you taught him.”

Ellie is really still furious about that. Diego’s stuttering usually only surfaced when he was nervous or stressed now, which wasn’t as often as it used to be, but the fact that he told her once with anger and heartbreak on her face that he was just dumb broke her heart.

“Allison made friends quicker than anyone. She loves to talk to people. She was so excited to go to her friend’s birthday party and when I asked her why she said she’d never been allowed to have friends, before. Never allowed to have friends. Her and Klaus pick out some of the wildest clothes because they’d never been allowed to express themselves before. She’s so bright, and wonderful, and she loves going to the movies more than anything.”

“You can stop, now.” Reginald tells her.

“No I can’t.” Ellie surges up with a roar, clearly taking Reginald aback. “No, I can’t, because those kids are just that - kids. They didn’t know how to save the world because they didn’t even know what the world was! They weren’t allowed friends, they weren’t allowed outside, they weren’t allowed to be kids - do you know anything about them? Do you know that Klaus is brilliant at knitting, and that Vanya can be bribed into just about anything with butterscotch cookies? Do you know that Ben can’t get enough of soap operas, and that Luther would rather go a science museum over a gym any day of the week?”

Ellie shakes her head slowly. “Do you know that they’re all afraid of you? Does it make you feel big to have a bunch of children absolutely convinced that you would kill one of them to keep them in line?”

Reginald looks very tired. Ellie doesn’t feel very sorry for him though because she kind of wishes he was dead, so. “What do you want, Miss Fortuin?”

“Custody of the kids.” Ellie shoots back without hesitation. “I have the forms with me. I have arrangements made for a home inspection by the relevant people to make it official. I have the numbers of people to call to go through with it. They’re already living with me anyway, this would just make it official.”

“Why?” Reginald asks her, which is a fair question she supposes. She already has the kids and threatened Reginald into staying away from them, after all.

“It’s their birthday soon.” She tells him, after a long pause. “We finished the extension so they have their own rooms, even if they all end up camped in one. But I want to give them certainty. I want them to be absolutely sure that you can’t waltz right in and destroy everything that they’ve worked for. I want them to be less afraid.”

Reginald pulls the papers to him and starts scanning them, making Pogo (who had been standing silently by the door the entire time) start in alarm. “Sir? What about the apocalypse?”

And that just makes Ellie angry. She whirls around, jabbing a finger at the alarmed looking butler. “Why don’t you do something about the apocalypse, huh? Why don’t you fix the world? Those kids might have powers, but they are children. Fuck you for putting the weight of the world on their shoulders. Luther can pick up something really heavy? There’s an entire fucking sport that revolves around that, find one of those guys. Diego can curve knives? You built them a fucking robot mother I’m pretty sure it’s within your capabilities to makes some kind of targeting weapon. Heat seeking missiles exist, it’s not that much a stretch. Stop pinning all your hopes on them and start getting off your ass and do something yourselves you sanctimonious pricks.”

Pogo looks shocked. Reginald looks taken aback.

“They’re just little kids.” Ellie tells them, suddenly tired herself. “They’re just little kids. They aren’t soldiers in whatever war you’ve cooked up in your head. They deserve a chance to be happy.”

Reginald looks down at the papers, not managing to look her in the eye. “And if there is someone bringing about the end of the world? Will the children fight, then?”

“Maybe.” Ellie shoots back, no hesitation. “But before I let them have at it’s going to be me going in with my fucking wood axe first. Or at the very least I’ll be there right alongside them helping out. My axe will kill ‘em dead just as much as Diego’s knives or Vanya’s sound waves or Ben’s tentacles.”

Reginald sighs and signs the papers with a flourish. “Will there be anything else, Miss Fortuin?” He says it almost sarcastically, as thought he can’t imagine her needing anything else.

Ellie’s honestly surprised that it actually happened. She thought she’d leave her empty handed and furious but at least knowing she tried. She swipes the papers up into her hands, unwilling to give Reginald to chance to back out.

And then she decides to press her luck. “Actually, yeah. The kids want their mother back. I understand she’s a robot, so we’ll need the appropriate charging materials.”

Reginald raises an eyebrow at her.

“I’ll be back in a week to pick everything up. At the very least I’ll install charging stuff at my house so she can come and visit.” She feels a little bad for just demanding custody of the kids mother as if she’s just an object. Diego insists she’s a whole person who is just under the control of their dad, and unfortunate and hopefully fixable issue.

“It’s a robot.” Reginald says, almost dumbly. 

“She’s their mother.” Ellie corrects Reginald viciously, “And she did a damn sight better at parenting than you ever did, even though it must have been an uphill battle the entire time. I’ll be back in a week. Good day to you, sir.”

And with that she turns on her heel and strides out of the room, wondering when the fuck she turned into an angry character in some regency show. Good day to you, sir? Maybe it was the house. Or that ridiculous fucking monocle, god.

She almost runs right into Grace, who blinks at her and smiles beautifully.

“I’ll show you out.” Grace tells her, and Ellie doesn’t have anything to say to that. They get to the door, and Grace opens it, and - 

“Do you uh, do you want to come with us? In a week?” Ellie asks, before she gets all the way through, turning to Grace. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask I just - ”

“Thank you,” Grace cuts her off, eyes sparkling and Ellie knows she’s more than just a robot. “Thank you for taking care of my children. For doing what I could not. I will see you in a week.”

The door closes and Ellie is left on the other side with a whole bunch of papers in her arms and hope in her chest and the need to get in contact with more than one person to verify all of this and make this adoption go through.

There was still more to do - like changing the kids legal names (which were still numbers) and figuring out where the charging port and stuff would go in the house (would Grace want her own house?? Ellie was 100% sure they absolutely could not finish an entire small cabin in a week even between the eight of them but Ellie’s cabin wasn’t exactly as spacious as the mansion Grace would surely be used to - Ellie liked to refer to it as cosy)

(a week later, Ellie borrows a friend’s pickup and grabs all the stuff from the Hargreeves mansion she needs. Grace rides shotgun smiling the whole way there.)

(Ellie doesn’t mention that the ‘luggage’ Grace brought with her looks suspiciously like a wrapped up painting that may or may not have been stolen straight off of Reginald Hargreeves’ walls)

I’m so glad so many people like Ellie like she was literally a last minute addition to an au where i was like “hmm maybe the kids should have,, SOME form of adult in their life” and my brain was just like “f,,forest lesbian” and i ran with it

Honestly she’s very good but also relatable like look at this picture - I’m not sure what emotion it is but I fuckin feel it man

I FUCKING KNOW

🎵 a reclusive billionaire with seven children 🎶

🎶 what’s so fearsome about that 🎵

i’m HOWLING at the realization. It could be an au with or without powers and I am absolutely delighted at the thought. Teach these children how to be children and not little soldiers!! Let them play and climb trees! and sing songs!! and be comforted when storms are being scary!!