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[stars-struck-lover]

Convergence

Life moves on. You lose people you love. You meet knew ones.

Mary is learning that life doesn't always give her an easy solution.

Read on AO3 here Start | Prev

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Mary stumbled into the kitchen and made her way over to the fridge and reached in for a cold drink. She paused as she squinted at the contents of the fridge. She swore she had more soda left than that and Leaf wasn't one to steal. Had she drank one while she was high? She didn't remember seeing the can in her room, but it was possible.

She shrugged to herself and went back to her room.

It was a mess, but she couldn't bring herself to care. The only other person who ever came in her room anymore was Klaus, and he always said he had stayed in far worse. Mary would pointedly ignored the sad looks that Ben would shoot her way, and enjoy her time with Klaus while he was there.

She did clean up every now and again, when the mess made her feel too much like she was a part of the garbage.

She was, but she could pretend.

Leaf hadn't been home in a while. She thought they might have told her that they were going to go do a construction job somewhere a bit away, but that also could have just been a weird dream. The house was all her's until Leaf came home, or maybe Klaus would drop by. She would much prefer if Klaus dropped by. It had been a while since she had last seen him, and she really was starting to miss him.

She stopped her thought as she heard a strange sound, ,like a whoosh and a light thump.

It came from upstairs.

If she wasn't the only person in the house, she might have thought it was Leaf. She was the only one though, and now she was curious what had made that sound. She started to make her way towards the stairs slowly, her eyes locked on the top of the stairs as if she would see what made the sound there. She just made it to the bottom of the stairs reaching out for the rails when a loud voice from behind her made her scream and jump.

"Mary! I just saw a child teleport into the room upstairs!" Came Klaus' excited voice as he tumbled out of her room, never one to come through the front door.

Mary spun on her heels shushing Klaus, pointing upstairs as she did. Klaus' face fell into a face of realization, and he nodded as he put his finger to his own lips. He crept up next to Mary, and the two of them slowly made their way up the stairs. Mary indicated to Klaus to keep quiet, as she slowly started to open the doors to the top floor bedrooms.

They didn't find anything in the first three bedroom then they saw Ben waiting for them in the last bedroom with his arms crossed as he leaned against the window. He shook his head as they both crept in and started to look around.

"They're already gone." Ben said, making them jump.

"What." Klaus hissed at his brother.

"They left when you two made all that noise downstairs, but you can check the closet." Ben said, nodding his head towards said closet.

Mary and Klaus looked at each other before scrambling their way over to the closet, and opening it. Mary was surprised to see several soda cans tucked into a corner along with wrappers from snacks that she didn't even realize she was missing anything from. There was a little make-shift bed made out of sheets on the floor and a stolen pillow in the opposite corner to the trash.

Just how long had this kid been sleeping in this closet without Mary knowing? Does Leaf know about this?

"Haha. Squatters have a squatter." Klaus laughed.

Mary couldn't help but snort, because it really was ridiculous. Klaus said it was a kid though?

…

Wait.

"You said they teleported in here?" Mary asked incredulously as she turned to Klaus.

"Oh yeah. Just, Whoosh! One moment in the trees outside, then the next I see em in the window upstairs." Klaus said, as he sat back on his behind, pulling out a joint as he did. "It's weird. It looked just like the way my brother used to do it, but they didn't look anything like my brother..."

Mary gave Klaus a sympathetic look. He didn't talk about his missing brother often but when he did, she could tell that it still affected him no matter how much he tried to pretend it didn't. She reached out and squeezed his hand. He pulled away and stood up quickly, and Mary frowned. He always did that when she tried to comfort him. Always ran away and tried to change the subject.

"So, your little squatter's been staying here a while it seems."

"I barely even notice." Mary said, letting him have his distraction.

"You noticed something?" Ben asked, laughing bitterly, clearly surprised.

Mary shot him a quick glare, before she looked back in the closet.

"I thought my soda was going weirdly fast, but I couldn't figure out why." She said, shrugging as she did.

"You would think it would be the snacks you would have noticed." Ben muttered to himself.

"What's that supposed to mean." Mary snapped at Ben.

"When was the last time you were sober?" Ben asked instead of answering.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Ben rolled his eyes at Mary's answer and said, "Don't worry about it. At least the kid's managing to eat something."

Mary felt irritated by Ben's comment, but she knew he wouldn't answer her any further. He had been so much pricklier with her since she started using Klaus' method of keeping the hallucinations away... Ghost... Whatever. It was like he was irritated with her about something constantly. It was like dealing with Leaf, but at least Ben would still talk to her.

"Speaking of snacks, I'm starving." Klaus whined and he tugged Mary into a standing position. "Let's go downstairs and get something to eat. Party popper here can stay and watch for the kid."

Ben rolled his eye at the comment, but didn't move from his spot as the two started to leave.

He stayed where he was as they both left, and shook his head. Both of them were wasting their life away trying to avoid a part of who they were. He had liked Mary, at first. She had been nice, and would chat with him. He thought maybe she could show Klaus that things weren't that bad with his power, so that he would finally drag himself out of the gutter.

How wrong he had been.

Watching his brother drag Mary down with him, infuriated Ben to no end. They both had so much potential, had so much life ahead of them, and they would rather wallow in the gutter. It was insulting. He felt bad for Leaf. He knew how hard it was to watch a loved one go down this path on their own, but to watch someone else lead them down that path? That had to be terrible.

He looked out the window he was leaning against and could just make out the child hiding among the trees. He probably would have missed them if he wasn't actively looking for them, and already knew they were there. They looked like they might have made a make-shift shelter that they have camouflaged in the foliage.

Ben decided to go check it out, and made his was over.

He looked around, as he was next to the make-shift shelter. It was a lean-to that had been covered in fallen branches that still had their leaves on them. He noticed now that he was closer that the kid had a small fire going that was dug into the ground to keep it hidden from sight. He crouched down and looked at the kid.

It was a young girl around 12 years old if Ben had to guess. Her hair was short, it almost looked like it was growing out from a buzz cut. She was wearing baggy clothing that were too big for her. She probably stole it from someone's laundry if Ben had to guess. He was concerned when he realized that she wasn't wearing any shoes with how cold out it was. He couldn't do anything to help her, and the only people who could hear him were high as kites right now. He sighed and sat down next to her even though she had no clue he was there, and waited to see what she would do.

She looked irritated as she put more wood in her fire pit.

"Stupid fuckin' idiot ruining perfectly good fuckin'..." He heard her muttering to herself as she stoked the fire.

He laughed. Kid had a mouth.

"Who let you go around talking like that?" He asked, the laugh still in his voice.

She didn't reply. He didn't expect she would. She sighed to herself.

"Maybe the druggie will forget about it by tonight..." She muttered to herself.

"Geeze kid you've got some harsh language for a 12 year old." Ben said.

There was a rustling in the bushes off to their side and Ben was caught off guard when the girl suddenly threw a knife, and he heard an animal let out a broken squeak. She got up and carefully made her way over to the bushes. He saw her pull out a squirrel out along with the knife that she had thrown. She turned the squirrel over in her hands assessing it. It was pretty small, and wouldn't give her much of anything to eat by Ben's guess. Still she shrugged sitting down, and started to skin it and dress it.

Ben was curious why someone her age seemed to know all these survival tricks and tips. Granted he knew all these things at her age too, but his up bringing wasn't exactly what one would call normal.

"Kids in the room again."

Mary and Klaus jumped away from each other cursing, as Ben suddenly spoke scaring the two out of the start of any activities they may or may not have been heading towards.

"You're fucking with us." Klaus said irritably.

"Nope." Ben said cheekily.

"Ugh!" Klaus groaned over dramatically.

"How do we know we won't just scare them off again?" Mary asked, dragging her hand down her face.

"Well I did wait to tell you guys till she was asleep, so just don't be loud idiots again, and you should be find." Ben said as he looked at his fingernails.

Mary sent Klaus an unimpressed look at his brothers rude comment and he rolled his eyes and hopped onto his feet trying to shoving Ben over as he did. Mary pushed herself to her feet, and followed after Klaus. The two of them made their way quietly upstairs, to the bedroom that they had found the stuff in earlier.

"Oh yeah they have a knife, and know how to use it."

Mary covered Klaus' mouth while Klaus covered her mouth as they both tried to not let out a shout at Ben's sudden words in the quiet of the room. They both glare at Ben, who looks positively amused. Klaus gave him the double bird, and Ben just stuck his tongue out at Klaus in return.

He couldn't have warned them about the knife earlier?

Mary decided to creep closer since she couldn't stay dead, and open the closet door slowly. At least she wanted to open it slowly, but instead the door busted open from the inside, and she was suddenly facing Klaus and Ben with a knife to her throat. Both of them looked scared, and Mary realized that this might not have been a good idea. Mary pettily thought it served Ben right for being a little shit, instead of actually giving them fair warning ahead of time.

She was confused when the knife was removed from her throat. She didn't have much time to think on it, as she was thrown at Klaus. She heard the whooshing sound that she heard earlier that day, and that Klaus had described. She turned and saw that the child was gone.

"Wait!" She shouted even though they were gone.

When nothing happened Mary groaned and flopped onto Klaus.

The previous meeting ended up being the first of many times that Mary would try and fail to get the girl to talk to her. She was surprised that the girl didn't stop coming into the house. She didn't even change where she was staying. Klaus had left after the first time that they tried to talk to the girl. He said children weren't his thing, and that he would see Mary later. Mary could understand that, and honestly children weren't her thing either, but there was something about this girl that made Mary keep trying to talk to her.

She wasn't ready to admit to herself that that thing, was that this girl looked eerily like Star.

That was something to deal with later.

She did find herself getting closer and closer to being able to talk to the girl though. Sometimes she would hesitate before she would teleport away. There was times where Mary would curse herself because she had been so close to catching the girl for a second, so maybe she could just tell her that she just wanted to talk. Sometimes she felt suspicious of how close she was to catching the girl because it seemed like the girl would know exactly what Mary was about to do, just like Star used to when she slide back.

This night was another attempt to talk to the girl.

Mary crept up the stairs quietly. She had even made sure she was sober for this, so she didn't make a bunch of noise without realizing it because she was impaired. She realized too late that, that was what had let the girl know she was coming the first several times she tried to sneak up to talk to her. She got to the door, and quietly opened it only to be surprised to see the girl sitting on the bed, waiting for her.

"You still make way too much noise to ever sneak up on someone effectively."

It was the first thing the girl ever said to her, and she felt like her breath had been taken away.

Not only did she look like Star, she sounded like her too?

This was just cruel.

"What?" was all Mary could think to say as she got over her shock.

The girl looked at her and raised her eyebrows, as if questioning if she has to really repeat herself. It was so familiar. It was something Star used to do all the time when Mary's auditory processing wasn't working the best.

"What do you mean I make too much noise?" Mary asked, trying to get over the similarities.

"There is at least three squeaky steps on the stairs that you didn't avoid when coming up here. Walking through the middle of the hallway on a second floor in an older house like this always makes creeks. There also seems to be a floorboard that sticks up that you always trip over. I would honestly think you would remember that floorboard by now, sober or not with how many times you have nearly ate shit to it." The girl listed off. Her feet, that were hanging off the bed, started to swing back and forth as she continued on.

Mary couldn't help but stare at the girl as she told her all of this. She hadn't even realized that the house was that noisy. Or maybe she hadn't thought about how noisy the house was since she had gotten used to it. Either way it was pretty detrimental to try to sneak up on someone.

The girl scrubbed her hand through her hair, what little of it she had, and coughed awkwardly before asking, "Why are you so desperate to talk to me? Wouldn't you rather ignore that I exist, and keep going on your benders with that idiot from the other day?"

Rude.

"That idiot is my- uh- we're- uhh." Mary tried to defend Klaus only to realize she had no clue what her relationship with Klaus was.

"Oof. That's something for you to try and deal with later and him to 100% avoid." The kid said with an amused look.

"Hey! You don't know that he'll avoid it! You don't even know him!" Mary said irritated.

"Dude is willing to steal money from a homeless kid for his fix, and pretend not to recognize 'em later. He's very conflict avoidant." The girl said crossing her arms as she did.

"He stole your money?" Mary asked dumbfounded.

The kid snorted at the question.

"A while ago yeah. I followed him to try, and find a way to maybe get my money back, or get something of equal value, and he led me to this place. Been crashing here when the weathers too much ever since." The kid admitted.

Mary still wasn't sure how she convinced the kid to stay in the house, but she did it. Granted now that she thought about it, maybe the kid was tired of running so much, and wasn't that willing to put up a fight. She was still staying in the room she had been camping out in. Getting her to stop sleeping in the closet was turning out to be more of a chore than Mary thought it would be.

There was a perfectly good bed right. There!

The kid would not stop sleeping in the closet.

Mary didn't know what to do.

She ended up just admitting defeat on that front.

She hadn't gotten a name from the kid yet. Though, it wasn't so much that the kid didn't want to give a name. They kept telling her that they didn't remember their name. Whenever she asked what they meant by that the kid would just start telling her how their memories were all fuzzy, and not right before they would drift off looking at the wall as if they were trying to put the pieces together.

It was a little concerning, but they did seem to be making some progress.

If Mary just talked to the kid like normal, sometimes they would say something automatically in response to what she said. It was how Mary found out that the kid could also slide back like Star could. They had casually said something about not worrying about people trying to gun them down because they would just slide back and catch them off guard like they always did. Mary was horrified by that conversation. She had accidentally ended it by asking who would try and gun a kid down and that made the kid realize they didn't know who would.

Keeping a conversation going where she got new information from the kid was hard. She had to make sure to only prompt further with things that the kid could reasonably know. The problem was knowing what the kid reasonably knew at this point. Sometimes the kid would just go on and on and other times the kid would stop dead in the conversation and just get that confused look that said they didn't know why they said what they said.

It was frustrating.

She had only been dealing with the kid for about two weeks now, and she still was losing her mind a little over not being able to figure out how to get info out of her. She honestly could only imagine how the kid herself felt, since it was her own brain that was keeping this information from her, and she didn't seem to know any better than Mary how to get the information out of it.

Mary barely even reacted when the kid teleported into the kitchen, and started to rummage through the fridge. It was normal at this point. The kid told her that teleporting helped keep her energy levels down, so she wasn't bouncing off the walls, so if this was the trade-off for not having a kid that would drive her insane, she would take it. She was slightly caught off guard when the front door opened up, and she saw Leaf walk through. He'd been gone so long she thought he might not be coming back.

She was even more caught off guard when the kid suddenly threw something at Leaf while shouting, "Ha-yup!"

Leaf caught the thing that was thrown at them, and looked incredibly confused at the bottle of orange juice in her hand. The kid didn't even seem to think about what they had just done, and went back to pulling her food out of the fridge, taking it to the counter. Mary sat at the table and looked between the two, gaping like a fish. She had no clue how to explain this to Leaf.

"What the fuck?" Leaf exclaimed finally.

That was probably fair.

"Drink your vitamin C cuz." the kid said casually, as she started to make herself a quesadilla.

Mary and Leaf were frozen. That was something that Star used to say to Leaf. Now that Mary thought about it, throwing the juice at Leaf was also something Star used to do, and this kid did it all so casually, without thinking about it.

"This ain't fucking funny." Leaf said, glaring at Mary.

Mary put her hands up.

"I swear I'm not doing anything!" Mary said.

"She's too fucked up by her withdraw symptoms to be doing anything." the kid said, turning to face the adults, "Why are we mad?"

"Withdraw?" Leaf asked incredulously.

"Yeah, threw all the shit out like… two weeks ago. Well except the alcohol but, she hasn't touched it." The kid replied, and leaped up to sit on the counter. "Still manages to trip on the same damn floorboard every time she comes upstairs though."

Mary flushed. She hadn't been planning on telling Leaf until she was clear of her withdraw symptoms. Granted she hadn't been sure she would even return let alone talk to her.

Leaf was looking between Mary and the kid now.

"I haven't even been gone that long." They said.

"You've been gone a while now." Mary said quietly.

"I've been gone for 2 months! I've taken longer jobs! How the hell did I leave, and come back to you with some kid who looks like Star, and your fucking sober?" Leaf exclaimed, looking around confused.

"Star?" The kid repeated with the far-off sound in she got in voice when something was just on the edge of her memory.

"Listen! A lot happened! She had been hiding upstairs in the closet for months!" Mary tried to explain, "Klaus saw her when he-"

"Oh god." Leaf groaned at the mention of Klaus.

"Shut up!" Mary snapped, "Klaus saw her teleport into the house, and we tried to talk to her, and then it took a while, but I convinced her to stop running away and staying in the woods!"

"You were living in the woods!?" Leaf asked the kid incredulously.

"Lived worse places." the kid replied immediately without a thought. Then she looked dead at Leaf and said one word, "Leaf."

Mary and Leaf stopped and looked at the kid. Mary had never told the kid about Leaf, and no one had said their name yet.

"How did you..."Mary slowly started to ask.

"You look like shit. Smell like it too. Honestly you think those shitty as jobs you take on would throw you out when you start to smell like your friend's breath man." The kid rattled on not paying attention to either of their expressions as she jumped off the counter, and grabbed her food.

Mary couldn't even blame Leaf for the pained whine that she heard come from her.

"Star?" Leaf asked so, so hesitantly.

"God yeah!"The kid exclaimed, knocking on the side of her head, "I can't believe I forgot my name! Can you believe that Leaf? Fuckin' dumbass I am." the kid said amused, shaking their head as they spoke. "Need this memory shit to fuck off."

The silence after those words was deafening.

Turns out Leaf could make Star remember more than Mary could.

No surprises there.

They still didn't have an answer as to why Star was now a kid. Anytime they tried to ask her she why would start rambling about "time dilation" and "getting his damn calculations wrong." They still didn't know who "he" was. All though apparently Star had "his" journal, but would not let either of them look at it. She was incredibly protective of the thing, and kept it on her at all times. Mary had a feeling that Star was lying, when she said she couldn't remember his name. The few times they had asked her, she had a pained look on her face before saying that she didn't remember. Both Leaf and Mary decided it wasn't worth pushing.

Star would still say some of the most off the wall shit that would throw Leaf and Mary for a loop as they started to trigger more and more of her memory. Like when she told them the other day, she was glad she could eat real food again instead of scrounging for cockroaches or other bugs. When asked why the hell she would eat the bugs she just casually replied that the game was still too low in population to hunt regularly in the apocalypse.

The worst part was honestly Star's nightmares.

Neither Leaf nor Mary could calm Star down fully when she woke up from her nightmares. She would always just start calling out the number five, and then would cling to whoever managed to get to her first. There were always tears. She said she could never remember the dreams. Sometimes she would push them away, and accuse them of not being real. It always hurt when she did that.

Leaf caught themself staring at Star, as she laughed at Mary, who failed to catch her again in their weird game of tag . It was so strange seeing his cousin, so young again. They remembered only catching glances of her at this age because their cells were near each other. She certainly wasn't allowed to have her hair to her shoulders like it was now, but then again it had been about a year since Mary had found her upstairs. She remembered seeing that it was only just growing out from the close shave that they would have had at her age when she first got home.

It was weirdly nice to see her get to have this fun as a child where they never got to.

They were concerned when Star stopped hopping around Mary, and doubled over.

"Are you okay!?" Leaf asked rushing to Star's side. She heard Mary echo the same question on the other side of Star.

"I don't know." Star said with a pinched voice, "My stomach suddenly feels like someone is stabbing me in the gut and twisting the knife, but it's also on fire."

"The knife?"

"My stomach."

Leaf was about to panic. How were they going to take care of this? They couldn't' afford to take her to the hospital. They didn't even legally exist. Getting a doctor to look at her would be nearly impossible and-

"Uh. Is that blood?" Mary asked looking at Star's leg.

Both Star and Leaf looked down and had a look of horror at the sight of the blood and where it was coming from.

"No! No! No!" Star shouted. "They removed that! They removed any ability of that from all of us!"

"...when we were 13."Leaf said quietly.

Star looked at him in horror.

"You did look 12 when you showed up..." Mary said slowly.

Star started cursing up a storm as the realization fully hit her.

"I'm going to beat that stupid mother fucker's ass! Not only did his stupid calculations make me a fucking 12-year-old, but now he's going to make me go through this for the rest of my life? Ahhh! Good for nothing god damn calculations! First he disappears! Now this! He just had to go and do shit his way!" Star ranted.

"Jeez the way you rant about this guy you would think you two were married." Leaf joked.

"We are!" Star snapped.

Mary and Leaf looked at each other in surprise.

"I'm still bleeding!" Star shouted quickly changing the subject, and grabbed Mary as she stormed to the bathroom.

"Wha-bu-hu! Why am I coming with you!?" Mary asked incredulously.

"I've never done this before and you are gonna explain this shit to me while I wash this off!" Star demanded as she slammed the bathroom door shut behind them.

Mary and Leaf were not ready for how hard puberty hit Star.

Her hips grew in first, then her appetite followed soon after. If it weren't for the fact that Star was willing to hunt her own food, then she would be eating them out of house and home with how much she ate now. It was all a bit much for the two of them as they realized they would have to deal with her growing.

Leaf realized only now that the reason the both of them always looked so androgynous was because the growth hormones for their genders were stomped out by the government. He hadn't really thought Star would look any different growing up, even with her reproductive organs intact. Her face didn't change that much. Her voice hadn't changed that much. Everything was all just slight changes, and they made Leaf mildly uncomfortable, because Star did and didn't look like how she remembered them.

Mary wasn't sure how to deal with the fact that she was watching her cousin friend that had helped her get to her feet, and away from her parents have to physically grow up, and fight for who they were mentally.

It didn't help Mary, that since she had decided to quit almost all of the party drugs and shit, Klaus hadn't been coming by as much anymore...

She would still smoke pot, and drink every now and again, especially when Klaus was there, but she had made a house rule that nothing harder than weed could be in the house anymore. Klaus seemed to follow that rule, but mostly because he just stopped showing up much after she told him that. She had tried to explain to him, that while it helped her not see the ghost, she had never been more depressed. Leaf wouldn't talk to her, and ignored her for months on end, and Klaus himself only showed up every now and again then wouldn't even stay for that long. She felt so lonely, and no one was there to help her with that. Then Star showed up, and she realized that she couldn't be that fucked up around a kid. Even if that kid actually was her cousin friend who was randomly 12 years old again.

Klaus didn't seem to care about any of that.

It really hurt. She swore that they had something. She was doing her best to not let it bother her, but every time Klaus showed back up she always just wanted to fall into whatever he wanted to do. It was hard to stop herself.

Star thought she was going to lose her mind with how much her body was changing with her second puberty; even more with how hard her own mind fought her to get her own memories back. She felt like a stranger in her own body at this point. Her hips were too wide. She had breast growing in, and that made her severely uncomfortable. Her period would knock her to the ground with painful cramps. Anytime she tried to recall something her head hurt, and things were fuzzy. She would recall things at random times when she wasn't even trying to, and it would make the conversation awkward. Then there was the nightmares. Nothing she did stopped them. She could sleep with Leaf. She could sleep with Mary, She could sleep alone. It didn't matter she was going to have the nightmares. She hated it. She just wanted to go back to how she was.

She knew her memory had something to do with the time dilation affecting her because her husband did some kind of calculations wrong, and now she was stuck like this. The only thing Star couldn't figure is why she wouldn't just slide back? Why didn't she just slide back now to before the dilation? Something told her it wasn't a good idea... There was also an incredibly selfish part of her that didn't want to leave her family. She thought she had lost them for years maybe just maybe she wanted to take the time she had now to spend it with them.

If only she didn't also desperately miss him.

Star laid on the roof staring at the night sky, picking out constellations that she could barely make out through the light pollution. Her chest felt heavy as she felt memories of looking at the stars with someone else. The more she did little things like this the more little memories would tickle at the back of her mind. It would always make her feel lonely because he was missing, but she kept doing it hoping that she could remember more of their time together.

She barely looked away from the sky when she heard Leaf pull themself onto the roof with a grunt.

"Up here again?" they asked.

"It's calm up here." Star lied.

Leaf knew it was a lie, but he didn't call her out on it.

"Mind if I join you?" Leaf asked.

"You're always welcome Leaf." Star said warmly, looking at her with a small smile. It was the best she could muster right now.

Leaf carefully made their way over to Star's side and laid down next to her without any other words. They both stayed there in comfortable silence the only noise being the frogs and bugs. Star did feel a little less lonely with Leaf there but there was still a loneliness that sat heavy in her chest.

"What was he like?"

Star snorted and looked at Leaf who was purposefully not looking at Star. She sighed and looked back at the sky herself and thought about what she could remember.

"Stubborn as a fuckin' mule. Smart as hell. Reliable. Loyal. So loving, no matter how much he doesn't want others to know it." Star started to list, "God he loved his family so much... It was something we bonded over. We both missed our families so much, and wanted to get back to them so bad. He was always looking for ways for us to get back to save his family."

Star could feel the weight in her chest lightening a little as she remembered why she loved her other half so much.

"He taught me how to dance."

Leaf laughed at that.

"That must have driven him crazy."

"Hey! I wasn't that bad!" Star defended, and punched Leaf's shoulder before laying back down.

"... He proposed on accident." Star laughed as the memory resurfaced. "His face was so funny, when he realized what he had done. He apparently had this whole big idea of how he was going to pop the question, and instead we had found a working vinyl player with intact records, and had drank the better half of a bottle of wine as we danced the night away when he just asked with the softest smile on his face."

Star smiled softly to herself, bringing her left hand up in front of her face as she did, recalling the simple wedding band that he had found her.

"You sound like you really love him." Leaf said drawing her out of the memory.

"I-I miss him so much." Star admitted her voice cracking as she did.

Leaf reached over and pulled Star into a hug. Star let him. Neither of them said anything, and no one mentioned anything about if Star cried into Leaf's shoulder.

Next

[talentlesshuman]

🪷Lily Pad & Frog ✖️ Miku 🐸

[stars-struck-lover]

Convergence

Where did we end up? Why aren't we together? Is my family safe?

Star isn't having a good time.

Read on AO3 here Prev

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Star was starting to go stir crazy. Doing nothing but resting for the last few weeks had her buzzing with energy. This had been the longest she had ever gone without using her power, but there was no reason to rewind here. The man, Five as she had come to know him, was insistent that she stay on what was basically bed reset until she was fully healed because they didn't have access to doctors. It made sense. Frustratingly it made sense, but god she was going crazy staying in one place not doing anything. Five wouldn't even really talk to her all that much preferring the damn mannequin over herself. Dolores she had been told.

"Here." Five said shoving a bottle in Star's hands. More alcohol.

She sniffed it and wrinkled her nose. It smelled awful and made her eyes water.

"It's not supposed to smell good." Five remarked snidely as he went to go sit next to Dolores.

Star rolled her eyes and held her breath as she took a large swig. She immediately regretted it. It burned worse than any alcohol that she had ever drank before ever had and made her want to retch.

"Oh god what is that." Star gasped as the held the bottle away from herself.

"Moonshine." Five replied as he teleported over to her and grabbed the bottle. "Home made from the looks of where I found it."

"Are you-" Her stomach lurched, and she had to stop herself from throwing up. "Are you sure they made it right?"

Five looked concerned as he sniffed the alcohol himself, his face wrinkling as he did.

"Shit."

Star felt annoyed, but decided that this was the perfect time to let off some of her energy, and slide back to right before Five showed up with the bottle. She sighed leaning her head back as her chest stopped buzzing so much and her body no longer felt like revolting against her. She was shocked when Five teleported directly next to her and grabbed her shirt. He hadn't done that last time.

"What did you do." He demanded as if he knew something had happened.

"Wh-What?" She asked surprised.

People don't remember when she rewinds. Everything that happened technically never happened anywhere, but Star's memory. Why was Five acting different? Why was he acting like he knew something?

"You did something." He accused.

"You shouldn't remember that. It didn't happen. H-How are you?" She asked confused.

Five suddenly let go of her shirt and stood up straight. He looked at her with a unreadable expression.

"Five-"

"How far?"

"What?"

"How far back can you go?"

"I- I only like to go back a week at the farthest beca-"

"How far back can you go!" Five exploded.

Star hadn't seen him like this.

It scared her.

"Something messes with my power here, so I can only go as far back as when I landed here." She admitted, shrinking away from him.

He let out a frustrated yell as he pulled at his hair, turning away from her and cursing in what sounded like Greek and kicked one of the books on the ground sending it flying into the opposite wall.

"What do you mean something is messing with your power?"

"I-I don't know every time I tried to go further back I kept getting bounced back, like-like something was in the way."

He started pacing back and forth muttering to himself, as if he was trying to figure something out.

"You didn't jump." He said to her suddenly.

"I- What? Jump? Why would I jump?" Star asked confused.

"Jump! Jump through time! You didn't jump! I can't remember it very well but I remember that!" Five spat back frustrated leaning over her like it would get the idea through to her.

"Why would I jump! Jumping sounds messy! It sounds like it would just result in ripples that I don't want!" Star replied, just as frustrated as she looked up at him.

"You-" He started angrily then cut himself off as he seemed to realize what she was saying, "-don't jump?" He asked confused as he leaned away as he did.

"Dear god, he gets it." Star said sarcastically. He looked offended but didn't say anything in reply.

He was quiet as he looked Star over as if he was actually seeing her for the first time. He still didn't say anything by the time he turned away, and went to his usual seat putting his head in his hands. She had no clue what the whole frustrating interaction had been about when she suddenly heard him start to cry softly. She felt wildly unprepared to deal with a crying Five and she found herself looking around for help.

There was none to be found.

"Uh Five?" She tried softly.

He started shaking his head and roughly buried his hands in his hair as his crying became more ragged. Sobs started to rack his body. Star still didn't know what to do but she couldn't just leave him to this. She pushed herself up gently and slowly made her way over to his side. She made sure her footsteps made some noise so she didn't catch him off guard. She sat down next to him and she saw him tense. She waited for a moment before she reached out and tentatively pulled him into a hug. For a moment the two of them just sat the in tense silence then Five decided to lean into the hug and sobbed.

"I thought I finally found a way back home." He admitted between sobs. "A way back to my family."

Star's heart stung at those words because she would do anything to get back to her family, and she had only been here a few weeks. She couldn't imagine being here as long as Five had and having someone like her show up to give a false hope, whether she meant to or not, only for it to be quickly dashed. She would probably react just as badly as he had.

She said nothing, but pulled him closer and let him continue to cry.

Five curled in on himself, and Star could feel the sobs violently racking through his body. She tucked his head under her chin and started to rub his back. She vaguely recalled a kinder doctor doing something similar for her when she little and it helped calm her down. It had helped Leaf when she had done it for them. Maybe it would help Five, so she held him rubbing his back silently. His sobs slowly decreased, until he was left hiccuping. Even when the cry seemed to have stoped he didn't pull away form Star.

They ended up falling asleep like that. Her ribs did not thank her for sleeping in that position. Five was doing his best to pretend the whole thing hadn't happened. He didn't acknowledge Star when they woke up the next day, outside of giving her a whole bottle of whisky that he apparently had stored away. She assumed that he had been wanting to save it for a special occasion, and tried to give it back to him, but he wouldn't hear it. She wouldn't press him, if he didn't want to talk about it. What happened could stay in the past until he decided to drag it out again.

Days passed. Five went back to acting like he had before the moonshine incident. He would leave Star on her makeshift bed for the day and go out and hunt for food for the two of them. When he came back he would only talk to Dolores. Star was starting to wonder if he was ever going to acknowledge what happened.

"How does your power work?"

Star looked up at Five a little surprised. Those had been the first words he had said to her since that night. He sat down in front of the fire and put his fresh kill on it. It looked like he had managed to catch a rabbit for them to eat. It was better than the bugs they had been eating the last few nights, but you did what you had to when you were desperate.

"What exactly are you wanting to know?" Star asked in return.

"Can you go back and forth in time, or is it only one direction? Is time your only power? How can you backwards so easily when that is supposed to be impossible?"

"Oh boy that's some questions. I've never bothered to try and go forwards, it was never useful to me." She pondered the question, "Hum. I could check that really quick..."

"No!" Five said quickly teleporting from the fire to beside Star and grabbing her wrist in a panic. He cause her to drop the book she had been reading.

"I wouldn't be going that far. Maybe a few minutes." Star said trying to calm him down. She placed her free hand over his, in an attempt to reassure him.

She wasn't going to disappear on him forever.

"I don't want to tempt it if you've never done it before." He said.

She had a feeling there was some other reason but she wasn't going to push it. She nodded, and his shoulders relaxed.He let go of her wrist and returned his focus back to the animal cooking over the fire.

"Okay. I won't. Like I said was never useful to me anyways. I'm not sure why it's so easy. Maybe cause it is a natural part of my power? After the first time I figured it out, I just kept getting better and better at it." She said with a shrug.

"That doesn't make sense." Five argued. "My power lets me teleport through time and space and I can't just go back."

"... I've noticed that your power feels oddly similar to mine, so maybe you're going about it wrong?" Star said.

"What do you mean by that." Five said with a scowl.

"I mean... You clearly felt when I used my power, how did that feel to you?" Star asked.

".... It felt like when I jumped through time but... smoother." He admitted.

"Every time you jumped with me, my power acted like it had been activated by proxy, it felt odd." She admitted.

"What the hell does that mean? That we have the same power? The seems incredibly unlikely." Five scoffed.

"So the fact that our powers are weirdly similar and both react to each other is..?" Star drifted off prompting Five to answer. He glared at her but didn't say anything as he reached out and pulled a leg off of the rabbit shoved it in her direction. She took the leg and started to eat it graciously. They both sat in silence as they ate the rabbit.

"Why was going backwards so useful?" He asked breaking the silence.

Star stopped eating at the question.

She stared into the fire.

She contemplated the question, and what it really meant. Was she willing to tell him the reason she needed to go back so often? The scientist used to call them long streams of numbers, maybe he took his name from that? A weird form of reclamation.

05713298 respond.

"Star?"

She jolted slightly, her hand reached up and touched the back of her neck as she scowled down at the ground. She didn't want to remember that. She had tried her hardest to forget those numbers. Did her best to never let them see the light of day again. She glanced at him, without looking up. He looked like he could be her age.

"Did they get a hold of you?" Star asked quietly. Suddenly, the rabbit didn't seem so appealing, as she thought of the past.

"Did-Did who get a hold of me?" Five asked confused his brows furrowing.

"The government." She said flatly, as she picked at the rabbit without eating any. "They collected as many of us as they could. I don't even know how many of us they had. There was so many cells. I never knew if they were all full or not. They would test us. We had to follow instructions. If you didn't follow instructions the killed you. Said you were to dangerous, or uncontrollable. There was so many of us there, I wouldn't be surprised if you were there, and I didn't know it."

Five felt horrified as Star spoke. Living with Reginald may have been difficult, but he didn't threaten to kill any of them.

"I don't- no." Five stutter horrified.

"Mmm." Star hummed as she stared into the fire. "Lucky. I was raised Facility Delta 09; that is what they called it, sometimes they just called it The Facility… It wasn't apparent what my power were at first, but they were determined to find out. They always found out something one way or another. They would run test after test. Each worst than the last. Eventually they did the most extreme test that they had to prompt our powers." She let out a deep sigh and seemed to need a moment to collect her thoughts before she continued, "I was put in a room with a trained marine. They, the scientist, would only let me out of the room alive if they knew what my power was. He came at me, and I tried to fight him… but our training was minimal so we couldn't overwhelm the guards and break out. He stabbed me in the gut. I remember how it felt when the knife went in my stomach, and how it felt when he twisted and yanked it out. It hurt so much that I just fell down. I was laying on the floor bleeding out. I was so scared. I didn't want to die, and I felt my powers come forward for the first time; I managed to go back to the beginning of the test. It was confusing, but I avoided the blow that killed me the first time, only to be caught by a different one. I went back again, and again and again, until the scientist began to think that I had some form of precognition…. And I let them think that. I couldn't have them thinking I had any form of time control they would have locked me up and drugged me to high heaven." She laughed bitterly at the thought.

Five didn't know what to say as Star kept going.

"It made it so much easier when we escaped. They thought I had shoddy precognition at best and Leaf was a vessel for the cosmic horrors of the universe." Star huffed a small laugh, "I mean Leaf does house the cosmic horrors of the universe, but I certainly don't have precognition. We were hell for their recollections groups." She grinned remembering how she, and Leaf worked together to avoid the government recollection teams.

Five couldn't help but stare at Star as she continued. The more she spoke the less real this sounded to him. Why would the government let his father adopt them if they did this to so many other kids? Was this real?

"Never knew when the collection groups might show up, but when they did, I would gather as much info as I could about them and then go back and tell Leaf everything so we could both plan how to take care to the team together."

Silence fell between the two of them as Star seemed to finished speaking.

"I- How did you escape?" Five asked.

Star though his question over for a moment before replying.

"There was this girl..."Star paused. "She could make anything she wanted happen by saying that she heard that it happened. They used to keep her drugged up all the time. She was too useful to kill I guess, but that was their mistake. I managed to slip into her room, and changed her dosage at one point. I made it so that they wouldn't notice the change, but her meds would wear off about 30 minutes before they usually refilled it. She ended up waking up and started causing all sorts of chaos. She opened everyone's cells, she disrupted the security system, and all other sorts of issues. Several of us broke out in the middle of all of that. The... The girl didn't make it. From what I heard she told a guard to shoot her in the head. I guess she couldn't take being trapped like that anymore, and didn't see any other way out. I wish I had gotten to her… Maybe she would have been able to make it out with me and Leaf."

Five felt his horror growing. The more Star described what happened to her and the people that were trapped with her the more they sound like his siblings.

"What did she look like?" He couldn't help but find himself asking.

"She was tiny... Pale as a sheet, her hair was red, might have been pretty if it had ever been able to be taken care of, but they kept all of us shaved down."

He felt relief that her description didn't sound anything like his sister, then he felt guilty because it was still someone that Star knew that died.

"What was her name?"

"I don't know." Star admitted, "I don't think she ever got to name herself. I didn't even name myself until I was free so..."

"...What did they call you?"

"I chose to forget that years ago." She said firmly.

Five let the silence fall over them again, picking at the rest of his rabbit. Everything about what he just heard didn't add up fully with his own experiences. From what he could tell Star didn't know anything about his family, and even if she grew up in a government facility she should have heard something about them after getting out. Yet the people she was describing had powers that sounded similar- no identical to his siblings. Her experiences didn't match to anything that he thought would be going on since Reginald was allowed to adopt seven of them and would have adopted more if he could have found more. Then there was the fact that Star's own power did feel similar to his even if she didn't use it like he did.

He thought about the strange portal he saw that lead him to find Star, and the strange loop that he felt when it first opened.

… He had a theory, but he needed to ask a few more questions before he said anything. "Before you ended up here what happened?" Star let out a frustrated sigh. "You are just full of questions today aren't you?" "Humor me." He said. Star looked unimpressed. She took a bite out of her rabbit, avoiding the question as she ate. "I'm trying to figure something out." Five said, and begrudgingly added, "Please." She huffed but said, "I don't really know."

Five growled irritated.

"Don't give me that." She snapped, "I rewound hours, days, weeks, I almost destabilized the timeline because I wanted to figure out what was going on so bad and I couldn't figure out what the hell was causing everything to go to shit. One moment everything is fine then suddenly the whole world is on fucking fire, and I'm trying to save the only people that matter to me." Five paused and mulled over the information. He put a pin in the 'destabilizing the timeline' bit for later. "Did the date happen to be April 1st 2019?"

"What?"

"The date. Was it April 1st 2019?"

"I… Yeah? How did you know that? Five stood up and started pacing. So that was the same. Could the reason be the same?

"Five?"

"Where all did you check?"

"I-' She sighed running her hand through her hair. "The usual suspects. Government bases, secret labs, counter intelligence. I even checked if there was a rouge meteor, or some shit. I couldn't find anything." Star said frustration in her voice. "What about the epicenter of the explosion?" "I don't know where it starts, and rewinding doesn't let me follow the explosion, just my timeline." He cursed.

"Five what is going on? Why are you asking all these questions?" She asked looking at him concerned.

"I-"He hesitated.

He hadn't admitted to anyone besides Dolores why he was here… but Star had just shared with him her horrid past after he asked. Was it really fair if he chickened out?

"I jumped through time after my father told me not to. It was late 2002 and I was frustrated because I could teleport without any issues and I wanted to move onto the next part of my power. I wanted to work with time travel. My father forbid me from doing so. He said moving through space was easy, but time travel was like diving into a frozen lake without any idea where you are going and coming out an acorn."

Star laughed.

"What? What does that mean" She asked amused.

"I-Don't know he never really explained it." Five admitted.

"I think he just didn't know how it worked and didn't wanna admit it." Star laughed.

Five couldn't help the small smile that played at his lips. If she wasn't sitting in front of him right now, as a shining example of everything that his father said was impossible he would disagree with her, but here she was. Perfectly able to go backwards in time. She's never even thought of jumping through time.

"I would say you are wrong but he always said time travel backwards was impossible, yet here you are."

"Here I am." She agreed amused. "I'll just have to help you figure out backwards, and maybe you can teach me how you hop though space like that."

His heart leapt into his throat at the thought of getting the ability to go back, but he ignored it for now.

He cleared his throat and continued his story.

"Well I didn't listen to my father. I jumped through time." He said somberly, "I landed a few times and it was thrilling to see the differences in the future, but suddenly everything was on fire, and in ruins. I landed in the apocalypse."

He heard Star's sharp intake of breath. He closed his eyes as he remembered that day.

"I ran home, screaming for my family, and everything was gone. It looked like the explosion started there, and my family-" his voice cracked. "Five…"

"My family was all there. They had tried to stop whatever caused the apocalypse, but they failed. They were all dead. The only clue I have to what started the apocalypse is this eye." Five said pulling out the fake eye he found in his brother's hand opening his eyes again.

Star looked at it, then at him.

"I'm sorry I don't know anything about it. I didn't even know it started… wherever we are." She said.

"Texas."

"Wh-Where?" She asked disbelievingly.

"Texas. We are in Texas." Five answered.

"How the fuck…" She muttered seemingly more to herself than anything else.

He finally sat back down and grabbed his cold rabbit. He held it over the fire to heat it up a little. Silence sat between the two of them again, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The fire popped and crackled. The tarps fluttered in the wind and he vaguely heard the pages of the book he kicked fluttering as well.

"So…" He started, "What did you mean by destabilizing the time line?"

He watched as her face scrunched up before she sighed.

"Might as well get the conversation out the way if you are gonna learn how to rewind anyways." She said.

His eyebrow raised at the comment, but he didn't say anything.

"So I've been experimenting with rewinds for a long time. Since I was… eight I think?" Star guessed, "Seconds, minutes, hours, even days really don't affect the timeline so long as you don't cause too much to change that has already happened. You start getting around a week or more and it starts to get a little funky. You changed too much of what you did, which changes what other people do, and so on, and so forth. That might not matter as much here because we are the only people who it affects supposedly, but before the world ended it mattered a lot more."

"How did you know the time line was destabilizing though?" Five asked.

"I could just… feel it?" Star said, "It's like umm if you have ever walked on a frozen lake and you realize the ice under you is no longer solid."

"We're back at the lake?" Five joked.

"Hey at least we are on the lake and not an acorn." Star protested.

He put his hands up in mock surrender.

"At least your's makes sense." He admitted.

"Ha!" She laughed sticking her tongue out playfully before continuing, "But, umm, my power, and probably your power, makes me really sensitive to the health of the time line."

"What so things have to go the same every time?" He asked upset.

"No." Star said quickly, "If it was supposed to be the same every time I would have been dead a long time ago. It's kinda arduous how to fix it when it is off course, but possible. On the opposite end there is a weirdly easy way to put it back on course, but it is morbid. "

"How arduous? And How do you put it back on course?" He asked more to sate his curiosity than anything.

"Well the last time I nearly destabilized the time line and had to actually fix it I was 10 and I didn't technically fix it until I was 17." Star looked pained as she recalled the memory. "Though that may have been my own self getting in the way of fixing it seeing as I was purposefully trying to destabilize everything."

"You what?" Five hissed.

"I didn't escape The Facility until I was 16 Five. I wasn't what you would call mentally well." Star replied dully.

"Wouldn't I have felt that?" He asked his mind coming back around to his earlier theory.

"Did you not?" Star asked confused.

"No. I didn't feel anything like that. In fact I don't ever remember anything like your power before you landed here." He said.

"That's weird…" She said and looked into the fire with confusion.

"I think..."He said delicately, "You somehow crashed into another universe. "

Star looked away from the fire and up at him, blinking.

"I-I hadn't considered that." Star said, looking contemplative. The look quickly changed to horror. "If that's true then the thing stopping me from going back is..."

Five felt the sinking feeling in his gut as he realized where her thoughts went.

She was blocked from her universe.

She was blocked from her family.

It was Five's turn to not know what to do as Star covered her mouth and tried to stop the sobs as she started to cry, but they came anyways. He looked around desperately. Dolores offered him no help. He awkwardly moved to sit next to Star and wrapped one arm around her shoulders, the way she had done for him. She kept crying, burring her face in her hands. Her body shook, he was certain this wasn't good for her ribs, but he didn't know what to do to help her or calm her down. He just held her and let her cry it out just like she had done for him.

Eventually she cried herself to sleep, and Five wasn't sure what to do. She had curled into his side, and was holding on to him in her sleep. He sighed, picking her up, carrying her over to where she usually slept, and tried to deposit her. He was slightly annoyed when she didn't let go of him. Dolores was still no help, and she was laughing at him now. He resigned himself to his fate and laid down next to Star, who seemed content with this in her sleep. He hated to admit… but it was nice to have a little extra warmth throughout the cold night, and it did help him sleep a little better. He made absolutely sure to wake up earlier than Star to disentangle himself from her to avoid the embarrassment in the morning.

"Stop Laughing." He barked quietly at Dolores, as he walked away form Star's sleeping form. "You were no help last night."

Star never even finished answering his questions.

Klaus lounged on Mary's bed as he waited for the woman to return home. He honestly couldn't' be sure when she would get home, since he had let himself in, but he was in the area and getting high with her was so fun. His head lulled off the side of her bed as he brought a blunt to his lips, taking a deep drag.

"You know, if Ben hadn't warned me that you were here, I might have thrown something right at your crotch."

"Mary!" Klaus launched himself up excitedly, the room spinning slightly as the blood rushed back to his head.

Mary was standing in her doorway waving away some of the smoke from her face, with her nose wrinkled. She made her way further into the room shutting the door behind her as she did. Klaus grinned and bounced up onto his knees holding his arms out for a hug as he did. Mary rolled her eyes, but obliged him giving him a hug.

"You smell like a skunk." Mary complained, "You couldn't spring for something a little better?"

"If it works it works baby. "Klaus said with a wink and shimmied his hips as he did. Mary laughed at him pushing him over onto the bed, as she crawled in herself.

"God you are awful sometimes."

"But you love it~"

Leaf wrinkled his nose as he walked into the house. It smelled like cheap weed. Her eyes darted over to Mary's room and felt irritation at the sight of the sock on the door. Klaus was here.

They didn't like Klaus.

He was a terrible influence, and Mary could do so much better.

For some reason, however Mary seemed enthralled by Klaus, and kept making that bad decision again and again every time he came around. It technically wasn't her problem, but Leaf hated watching Mary go down this path. She was the only thing they had left at this point. Boy did that hurt to think about.

It had been too long.

Star wasn't coming back, as much as Leaf hoped and prayed, she would. So, it was just Leaf and Mary. Leaf would have to figure out how to help Mary. Which was going to be a problem since Mary didn't even seem to realize that she needed help in the first place. Leaf just might have to kill Klaus himself if that dick gets Mary hooked on any hard shit.

…

God, Leaf wished Star was here to help solve this shit.

"You have so much sand in your hair it's matting."

Five grimaced at Star's words. They may be true, but did she have to be so blunt?

"What do you expect me to do about that?" He groused at her as she moved closer to him, her steps becoming audible.

He noticed, once she had been able to get up, and start moving around that she moved as silently as possible unless she wanted him to know she was getting close to him. There were little things about her movements that caught his attention like that. Based on the things she had told him about how she grew up, he couldn't say he was surprised, but it was interesting to see someone outside of his family move in similar manners to him.

"Let me cut your hair. At least to get the mats out."

"You realize that your hair is also starting to mat because of the sand." Five countered.

"Cut it for me then. Tit for tat."

While he was mildly annoyed with how she brought it up, it was a good idea. His hair was scratchy and pulled constantly because of the mats. It was usually fine in the dry season, but when the rainy season started, as it was about to soon, it was hard to keep his hair dry enough for the sand not to clump into it and make it not mat. He had been cutting it himself when it became too much of a problem, but if she was going to offer then he might as well take advantage of it.

"Fine."

"Great. Sit down." Star said and patted him on the shoulders.

He did as she said and sat down, pulling off the hat he wore to protect the top of his head from the sun as he did. It was still odd having another person around who he could interact with so much. As much as he loved Dolores, she couldn't interact with him the same way that Star did.

It was also strange to him how free Star was with her touch. He would have thought that with how she grew up she would want to avoid touch, but it seemed like she was looking for it constantly. Five wasn't used to someone touching him casually. Anytime he interacted with his siblings they usually were training, wrestling, or doing something to one up each other to show their father that they were better than one another. They didn't try, and show weakness around their father by crying or comforting one another. They certainly didn't touch each other for the sake of touching each other.

How was he supposed to react to someone who did all of that so casually?

He almost jumped out of his skin when Star started wiping away sand from the nape of his neck, idly complaining about the sand being everywhere. He didn't reply because he had a feeling that she wasn't really complaining. Once she wiped all the sand away, she started gently cutting away the mats in his hair, taking care not to pull too much on his head at any time. It was almost too much. It made him embarrassed. Why would she be so gentle with him? Hadn't he been nothing, but course and stiff with her since she got here? The one night months ago was an exception, but that didn't count. He wanted to know more about her powers, and had accidentally pushed her into a break down. He felt as if he owed her some kindness after that.

"There we go." Star said pulling him from his thoughts, as she now brushed loose hair from the nape of his neck. "Much better!"

He stood up and looked in the mirror he had off to the side, and saw that not only had she cut out the mats, but she had trimmed his hair, so it didn't look choppy thanks to the missing parts. His beard was still wild and untamed in comparison, but his hair looked somewhat presentable. If he really wanted he could trim his beard later if he wanted it to match.

"Whada'ya think?" Star asked as she came over and propped her arm up on his shoulder. "I could probably clean it up a little more, but I figured you cared more about practicality. "

He wasn't going to give her the reaction she was looking for the that last bit.

He ran his hands through his hair and appraised it. He purposefully took longer than necessary, before turning to Star.

"It's adequate. Now sit."

She pouted at his reaction, and he was mildly amused.

"Adequate? That's it?"

"Yes, now sit."

Star did as he said and took a seat where he had previously been.

Mary nearly jumped out of her skin when she opened her bedroom door and Leaf was right there.

"Leaf! You just scared the crap out of me!"

Leaf to their part looked surprised at the door opening and was poised to knock.

"Uhhh. My bad, cousin I didn't think you would be up this early." Leaf said apologetically, "But I do need to talk to you."

"Okay, can it wait for me to pee?" Mary asked, pulling her robe tighter around her as a breeze blew through the house.

"Yeah! Of course! Sorry!" Leaf apologized, getting out of Mary's way.

Mary sighed in relief and quickly made her way to the bathroom. As she did, she missed as Leaf peaked his head into her room looking for a certain unwanted house guest as she did.

Mary came out of the bathroom not to long after and saw Leaf sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee. One for her and one for themself. Oof she might not be sober enough for this conversation. Or was she too sober for this conversation? She was one of the two. Still she made her way to the kitchen table and sat across from Leaf, who pushed a coffee towards her. She noticed that it already was filled with cream and sugar just how she liked it. Leaf was definitely ready for this conversation.

"Do I get to know what we are talking about?" Mary asked casually as she took a sip of her coffee.

"I think Klaus is bad for you." Leaf said bluntly. Mary almost chocked on her drink at how bluntly they said it.

"Excuse me?"

"The weed was one thing, the drinking was a bit in excess, still not too far, but the fact that you have been taking shrooms, smoking weed, and drinking in some combination every day for the past three months is too fucking much." Leaf listed off then asked, "When was the last time you were sober?"

"The fuck does that matter to you?" Mary asked offended.

"It matters because we are supposed to take care of each other!" Leaf shouted, their fist banging on the table as they did. "But how the hell am I supposed to depend on you for anything when you can't even be trusted to sleep safely in your own bed without choking on your own spit?"

Leaf wasn't looking at her. She could see his whole body was shaking, and she thought they might be crying.

"We are all we have left, and I have to worry about you doing this stupid ass shit because that fucker told you it would be fun or some shit? You never got to act out with your parent's, okay, whatever, why the hell would you start doing this shit with me? I've already lost Star, are you gonna make me lose you too? Because I didn't remember to come check on you in the middle of the night to make sure you weren't lying on your back? Because you were fucking tripping on shrooms, and tried to walk off the top of the stairs again? This shit has to stop Mary I can't deal with this. I don't care if you might come back, I still have to see you gone. I still have to live with the fear that you might not come back."

Mary sat quietly through Leafs rant. Partially because she wanted to listen, but also partially because she really wasn't ready for this conversation. She heaved a heavy sigh and let her face drop into her hands. It hurt that she was putting her friend through this… but she felt like she was in control for once. Klaus was making her feel normal! He accepted all her quirks and helped her not have to face the ones she hated… Like seeing ghosts.

It was so easy to smoke a joint or chug a beer. Granted over time the effectiveness of those things had gone down. Leading her to try shrooms. He had assured her it was safe. He had done them a million times. Besides, she apparently couldn't die. Her God didn't want her, and this God sure as shit didn't want her either. Wasn't that a wild thing to learn after a bad trip. Star had launched them into a whole different universe. Klaus had gotten a real kick out of the idea that he was sleeping with an alternate universe version of himself, but Mary still wasn't convinced they were that exactly.

"Klaus is just helping me. " She muttered, unable to look at Leaf. "This isn't some rebellious teenage phase Leaf. He isn't bad for me, he makes me feel good! Normal! "

Wanted. Needed.

But that wasn't fair to say to Leaf. Not in this moment. When Leaf was telling her how much they needed her. It was different though...it was different.

"I'll find something else then if the shrooms are too scary." She was scared of how far that would go. "But I won't leave Klaus. I..." She huffed, running her hand through her hair. When was the last time she showered? She didn't want to think about that right now. "He hasn't forced me into anything. He just offered. I made the decision to take him up on it. It isn't fair to blame him. "

She took a steadying breath, looking at Leaf finally.

"He is helping me. He said these things can keep the hallucinations away, and they do! I don't see the people...ghosts...whatever when I'm drunk or high."

Even if she had different hallucinations on the drugs she had tried.

Leaf didn't say anything. Leaf just stared at her with an unreadable expression before slowly getting up from her seat. Mary wasn't sure why, but she felt panicked at he did.

"Where are you going?"

"I told you I can't deal with this anymore. Trading one problem for another doesn't fix the issue. Klaus may not have forced anything on you, but he's the one who got you on all this shit. Do you really think this is the answer to life?" They gestured towards Mary. "To go around high as a kite and fucked out of your mind?" Leaf sighed as they stopped themself. "I'm going to my room. Do whatever you want. Clearly you're going to anyways."

Five let out a frustrated growl as he once again failed to rewind.

"You're trying to jump again." Star said simply, as she watched his power rebound on him again.

"No I'm not!"He snapped, even though they both knew he was lying.

She sighed and walked over to him offering her hand to him. He looked at her skeptically, but took it. He inhaled sharply as he felt her sliding backwards, pulling him with her. It was an odd feeling, like thick water sliding over him as he was pulled through it. He watched as the world around them reversed around them, seconds, then a minute, then two minutes, then it stop. Star was sitting down again, but he was there next to her still holding her hand.

"So how'd that feel to ya?" Star asked, as she looked up at him.

"It… felt like I was being pulled through thick liquid and flowing through it with you." He contemplated allowed.

"Oh." She sounded surprised, "I guess it would feel different experiencing it from an outside perspective."

"Well how did teleporting feel?" Five asked.

"It… felt like I was being pulled through a hole that wasn't quiet meant for me, then we were in a free fall, but only for a second before we landed wherever you were aiming for." Star mused. Idly her thumb started rubbing circles on the back of his hand as she recalled the experience.

"What are you doing." He asked stiffly, but left his hand where it was.

"What?"

"Nothing." He dismissed quickly before changing back to subject at hand, "If that isn't how you experience rewinds that how does it feel to you?"

She hummed.

"So water isn't far off from how it feels for me either, but it feels like I'm a gerridae on top of the water and I'm trying to cause as little ripples in the water as possible. If I can just skate by with as little ripples as possible than everything turns out fine."

"And if you cause ripples?" Five asked.

"Destabilization here we come."Star sighed annoyed.

"How did pulling me back with you not cause ripples?"

"I mean it kinda did," Star admitted, "But… I noticed after the moonshine incident that ripples involving the two of us just seem to smooth out."

"What?"

She shrugged.

"I think because our powers naturally let us mess with time, when we do mess with it, the things we do get smoothed over easier than changes of others we may cause. So say we somehow made it back before the apocalypse; the timeline would be heavily forgiving to our presence there, but if we tried to stop the apocalypse not so much. Not that we couldn't stop it, but we would be making up for it for a while after."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and clenched his other fist at her words. She knew he wanted to learn this to get back to his family. She knew he wanted to stop the end of the world. She wasn't stupid. She had probably figured him out before she even offered the trade. He hated how emotional he felt. His siblings would make fun of him for being like this. His father would tell him to pull himself together…. But none of them were here.

"We?" He hated the way his voice cracked at the question.

He saw as Star chewed on the inside of her cheek before she answered.

"Unless you plan on leaving me here."

Those words felt like they punched the air out of Five's gut. He realized that maybe she didn't have him as figured out as he thought she did. Maybe he was just feeling over exposed because she was the first person he had really spoken to outside of Dolores in over a decade. (And maybe he wasn't too far gone to realize that meant she was the only person he had spoken to in over a decade.) She must have felt like she was going out on a limb by offering to teach him how to rewind. He never even promised to teach her how to teleport, he realized.

"I m-mean if you don't fuck the timeline I'll still land roughly where I did, so I guess it might not be that bad." Star started to ramble in Five's silence, "You would still remember me, so if you just don't let me die that would be nice." She was starting to hiccup and he could tell she was working herself into an anxiety attack, "I-I I've never been on the other s-side of a rewind so I don't know how much I-I would remember, but it seemed like you are remember more th-the more you are practicing with your time powers s-so-"

Five grabbed her shoulder with his free hand stopping her rant.

"Stop." He demanded, "Look me in the eye."

Star hesitated before complying. There were tears in her eye and she was still hiccuping.

"Breath. In. Hold. Out. Follow me." He said and demonstrated how he wanted her to breath.

She watched him then started following. They sat there breathing together until he felt like she was fully calmed down. He sighed.

"I have no intentions of just leaving you here by yourself." He said, "From the sounds of it fixing the apocalypse is going to be complicated even without taking you into account. For all I know if I did rewind and fixed the apocalypse I knew about you crashing into the world might cause an entirely different one. I'm pretty sure the portal you came through caused some sort of EMP, and from what I've read that would wreak havoc."

Star snorted.

"Depends how strong of an EMP it was. Either I'm just screwing Texas or I'm possibly causing World War 3… Granted Texas may still try and instigate World War 3 in either case."

"Either way," Five lightly snapped, "It is better if we find a way to get us both back there. Ripples or no."

Star cleared her throat and looked down.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"Okay." He could hear something different in her tone.

"What is it now?" He asked. Before she spoke he realized that she was smiling to herself.

Great did he have to worry about her having wild mood swings?

"You're still holding my hand."

He felt his face and ears get hot.

Next

[stars-struck-lover]

Convergence

The Umbrella Academy, is not the only way life could have gone for the children born on that day.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves was lucky his world did not fear the children that came about with powers form that fateful day. Other worlds version of the children were not so lucky. What happens to the timeline when those children from another world spill over into the world that The Hargreeves are used to?

Will the world survive?

Read on AO3 here

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Star laughed pushing Leaf's shoulder as they put the"donated" food away.

"Shut up dude. We are not trying that." Star scoffed, "Don't we feed those things enough? Why would we give them our perfectly good food on top of it?"

"Come oooon."Leaf laughed as they tried to make their case. "Maybe if we feed them nice food they will be friendlier to you and we can really fuck up those-"

A knock at the front door cut Leaf off. Both of them froze looked at each other then started moving silently. The two moved around each other effortlessly, as they started assessing the situation. Star's eye darted around looking at the windows, checking for threats. Leaf crouched and slowly made his way towards the door.

"Who is it." Leaf asked quietly.

"I don't know. First time." Star answered as she moved to hide where she could still see the door but not be in line of sight.

"Great." Leaf sighed, as she crept over to the window next to the door and peaked out. They were confused as they saw a random girl standing outside waiting at the door.

He turned to Star and signed 'girl. alone. going to answer door.'

Star frowned, but stayed hidden in-case this was a new tactic that the government was using to lull them into a false sense of security.

"Can I help you?" Leaf said as they opened the door. She purposefully used her more masculine sounding voice as she spoke to the girl in front of her.

The girl didn't jump to her credit. Just turned and blinked at Leaf. The young woman looked to be roughly the same age as Leaf and Star. She wore modest clothes, and she had a suitcase next to her. She stared passed him looking at nothing before she shook her head and nodded.

"Yes! I'm responding to the ad in the newspaper for a roommate." She said happily, seemingly not perturbed by the decrepit nature of the house.

"Uhh."

"The What!?" Star snapped as she hoped out of her hiding place and came to the door.

"It was a joke! I thought people would show up and see this place and leave! I didn't think anyone would actually take it seriously!" Leaf said defending himself, his hand up in surrender. Star smacked Leaf hard and glared at her.

"Oh if you guys aren't actually looking for a roommate..." The girl said sadly, looking away dejected.

"Oh my god look what you've done!" Star hissed at Leaf, before turning back to the girl and smiling politely. "Listen its really not safe to stay here. My idiot cousin may have thought this was a funny joke, but this place gets shot up, all the time, and really I wouldn't want to put someone else in that kind of-"

"I don't care about that." The girl interrupted Star. Star blinked surprised.

"Huh?"

"I don't care about that. I don't care if it's dangerous. I just need somewhere to stay, that isn't my parents' place. Please. Please. I really need somewhere to stay." The girl begged, her eyes shining with un-shed tears.

"Oh g- Yours." Star said, walking away from the door.

"Uhhhh. Welcome in cousin?" Leaf said awkwardly.

Star spun around on her heels about to give Leaf a piece of her mind when the girl started crying. Both Leaf and Star gave each other bug eyed stares, as they didn't know what to do with her crying. Leaf pointed from Star to the girl and Star shook her head violently while signing.

'Your problem! Your problem!'

'Please. Please. Please.' Leaf begged while signing franticly.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to cry I just am so relieved to have somewhere to stay." The girl apologized, wiping her face.

The two looked between each other then back at the crying girl. Star sighed. They weren't going to throw this poor thing back onto the streets. Star would have to get back at Leaf for this later. They had just made both of their lives so much more complicated.

"Babe have whatever room you want that isn't claimed. " Star said throwing her hands up and walking back towards the kitchen.

The girl beamed at those words and picked up the luggage that was beside her and made her way in. She looked around with wide eyes. She looked like it was the greatest thing she had ever seen.

"Uhh." Leaf rubbed the back of their head, as they closed the door. "Yeah, this is our home."

"It's much nicer inside." the girl commented.

"It's what we can do ya know?" Leaf said as he walked around. "Uhh by the way what should we call you?"

"Oh! I didn't introduce myself! I'm sorry that is so rude! I'm Mary Ann Ruthridge! Nice to meet you! And you are?" the girl introduced herself.

"I'm Leaf and that's Star." Leaf said motioning over to Star who was just finishing up putting away the food.

"...Last names?"

"Freeman." Star answered as she came back over holding two bottles of orange juice. She threw one over to Leaf who caught it easily.

"Oh! Both of you?" Mary asked.

"We're cousins." they both replied, as they took a sip of their juice in sync.

"Okay." Mary said, nodding to herself even though she knew she was going to forget their names in two minutes. "You will have to forgive me I am terrible with name so I might ask for them again."

"It's fine he forgets his own name half the time." Star joked, elbowing Leaf.

"I do not!" Leaf scoffed dramatically, shoving Star.

"So you don't just garble your own name when someone pretty asks you for it?" Star teased.

"Shut up!"

Mary laughed at the cousins as they started to bicker before turning, and grabbing her luggage and looking for a room to stay in. She wandered into one close to the stairs and figured that it was a good as any other and placed her stuff down. She could still hear the cousins bickering in the other room. It was friendly bickering instead of a screaming match that she used to hear at home. She took a deep breath and sighed. She could do this.

"Their monsters!"

"Help me!"

"They need to be locked up!"

Mary's face scrunched up as the voices started to ring through her ears and she quickly dug through her purse pulling out her antipsychotic drugs and downed some as fast as she could. She could do this. She could do this.

Star sighed at she fell back into her bed. The last few months had been a lot. With Mary moving in. With the governments sudden increase in trying to "reposes" Star and Leaf. She didn't feel like she could even sleep at this rate. It was constant rewinds. Constantly making sure they all made it out alive. Every fiber of her being felt like it was constantly firing, constantly working. Her eyes hurt as she stared up at the ceiling on her room.

Her chest was buzzing with energy.

The night felt off.

Something about the air and the way everything moved felt like she was repeating it, but Star knew this was the first time she had lived this night. It wasn't like anyone else had her power; as far as she knew. The government didn't even think she had her power. Mary only recently learned about Leaf and Star's powers. Granted Mary seemed reluctant to believe anything about powers considering she wouldn't even believe she had one of her own.

Star had seen it.

The government had sent two teams at the same time, but only one had done the recon; Star had only seen and planned for the one team. Star had only planed for one team. Chaos had broken out in the house after the second team breached. Leaf and Star had almost cleared the first team when the second entered the home. As soon as they came in they shot Mary in the head with one of their assault rifles.

Star knew that Mary was dead. A shot directly to the face with that kind of ammunition isn't something you just brush off. One of the mercenaries managed to shoot Leaf in the back. Star felt panic starting to over take her when another was standing over her with his gun pointed at her head. Then Mary got back up after being dead for two minutes and shot the mercenary who was about to kill Star, who was still trying to wrap her head around what was happening. Mary didn't know it but she saved their lives by doing that, giving Star a moment to collect herself and rewind.

Star couldn't sit still when the air felt like this.

She pushed herself up and started to creep silently around the house. Checking all the windows. Looking for any sign of an on coming attack. Anything that would explain why she felt so on edge. To her surprise she found Leaf and Mary doing the same thing.

'You feel it too?' Star signed to the other two.

They both nodded. No one wanted to break the silence. The air was so thick with tension that you could cut it with a butter knife.

Silently, they all crept down stairs making sure to avoid the loud steps as they descended.

Something was very wrong if all of them felt like this.

'What should we-' Leaf started to sign when the silence was shattered by a deafening boom that shattered all of the glass in their home. Leaf grabbed the two of them and shielded them with his body as glass rained down from all over.

All of them clung to each other as hell seemed to open up around them. The world shifted into screams, and crashing as it sounded like buildings around them started to come down. And it kept coming down no matter what Star did. She rewound hours, days, a week, two week ,the time line started to protest, and nothing changed. She couldn't figure out what was making everything go to shit. Something was happening somewhere that she couldn't figure out that kept making everything go to hell.

She gave up on saving the world and focused on saving only what mattered to her.

"We can't stay here!" Star shouted as everything started to come down around them once again.

"Where the hell do you think we can go in all this!?" Leaf shouted back. The sounds of agony just became louder and louder as they argued.

"I'm going to try something!" Star shouted, her voice scratching as she tried to be heard over the cacophony of noise.

She pulled Mary and Leaf even closer to her as she started to will her power to do what she wanted.

She could feel the fight and push back as she forced her power to cover not only herself but her family. Her head and chest started to hurt as she pushed harder; forcing it to do what she wanted. She almost had the bubble that she was going to use to try and take them back with her, when something collided with them, and everything suddenly was moving far to fast. Star screamed as she suddenly felt herself ripped from the other two. She saw both of them try to grab her again but she was too far out of their reach to successfully catch her.

Spinning and tumbling Star cried out until they suddenly crashed into something grainy, and then something hard.

Star's head spun as she laid in the heat and what felt like sand, against hot metal that wasn't helping anything that was going on right now. She had tried to rewind a few times, but ended up in similar positions to the one she was in now, and now her chest hurt for a different reason entirely. Now she just stayed where she was with a horrible pain radiating from her side, unbearable heat bearing down on her, and a horrible ache in her chest that only happened when she over used her power.

Was there worse ways to die? She couldn't think of many. Losing her family, losing her home, and ending up stranded in some fucking hellishly hot desert with some kind of injury that made moving nearly impossible… Yeah this was pretty high up there.

She heard the gun click and she barely could bring herself to lift up her head to see the gun that was being pointed at her. Was this really how she was going to go out after all these years?

"Who are you." demanded the man pointing the gun at her. "How did you get here! What are you doing here!"

Star blandly glanced at the man. He was tall, most of his face was and skin was covered making it hard to tell anything about his features. Probably a fair idea in this kind of weather. He was pointing a hunting rifle at her. A hunting rifle was a new one. He better make it count. Star shook her head of that thought. That wasn't exactly something to worry about now that she's lost everything now was it?

"Who are you!" the man demanded again this time getting closer the barrel of the rifle nearly touching her face. "I've been out here for 10 years and haven't seen anyone in all those years and suddenly I'm supposed to believe that you just appeared out of nowhere."

"I don't want to be here anymore than you seem to want me here." Star croaked finally. The man seemed to lock up at her reply, almost as if he didn't expect her to actually say anything. "I'd give anything to go back to my family, but I keep ending. Up. Here. A fucking lump in the sand not even able to get myself out of the fucking hole I'm in." Her voice broke as she said the last sentence, and she hated it.

He didn't seem to know what to do with her words, but she had started in on them now.

"I'm supposed to be the one that makes sure that we don't get split up! I'm supposed to make sure no one ends up dead! And yet! Here I am stuck in a fucking shit ass desert with no way to get back to my cousins to make sure that they are okay, with some fuck who's aiming his fucking rifle at my head. You wanna shoot me with that gun?"She spat lunging up as she did, "You better make it count. Cause I'm a fucking bitch and a half to kill and I'll kill you twice as hard if you piss me off."

The man skittered back a little, but kept his gun trained on Star the whole time, looking like he had seen a ghost. The two stared each other down for several moments. Neither of them making a move. Then slowly he lowered the gun. He carefully put it on his back and approached her cautiously, looking at her shoulder as he did.

"Its dislocated." He said flatly.

She bit her lip to stop herself from making a snide remark about the obvious.

"You know how to relocate it?" Star asked instead.

She tried to get a clearer look at him now that he was closer. His eyes were sharp, and intelligent as he looked her over. He was thin, his skin looked rough; from the sand and sun was her assumption. She could just make out that he had some kind of facial hair under the layers that were covering his face, but she couldn't tell if it was just a mustache or if it was a full beard. He didn't say anything as he looked her over, so she stayed silent.

Her question was answered when he reached out grabbing her shoulder and popping it back into place without giving her any warning. Star gritted her teeth, barely keeping her scream in. She waited for the spots in her vision to clear before she glared at the man.

"Warning would have been nice." She grouched,"What if I bit my tongue off?"

"I knew what I was doing." Was all the man said in reply before he grabbed her good arm and used it to haul her up. She hissed in pain as he did, her side felling like it was stabbing into her. "What hurts?"

"My ribs." Star gasped.

"Well shit." The man said. "We'll check it back at the base."

Star felt the world twist around them and they were falling but only for a second before they were suddenly somewhere else. It felt jarring yet somehow oddly familiar. It was almost like when she used her power but different.

"Wha..."She started confused, but the man ignored her and the twist happened again and they were once again elsewhere.

It happened again and they were outside a building that had tarps covering it all over. The man sighed as he looked at the building and then a final twist and they were inside. Star looked around and saw books pilled around, math scrawled everywhere, and clothing thrown about. The man placed her down so she was sitting comfortably and motioned at her.

Star stared at him.

"Well come on!" The man said irritated, "I need to see your ribs."

"Just because you relocated my arm doesn't mean I can lift it." Star replied annoyed.

He let out and aggravated sigh as he leaned down and started to pull up Star's shirt. She just let him since he didn't seem to have anything other than checking her injuries in mind. She heard him hiss as he got a look at her ribs.

"Those look nasty already. I'm gonna feel em to see if anything's broken so don't fucking elbow me." He warned.

Star appreciated the warning, and did her best to not react as he as he said. His touch was gentle, but Start still couldn't help but hiss in pain. She tried to distract herself with something else as he started prodding a little deeper to check for breaks. His hands were calloused and rough in texture, even if his touch was as gentle, or as it could be give the situation. He poked at one rib and Star couldn't help, but jolt and yelp. She tried to keep her arm to herself, but she did accidentally catch him just slightly clipping his temple. He hissed, but didn't say anything as he kept looking over her ribs. She quietly apologized, and started breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

"Looks like only one actually broke. It looks like it didn't get too far out of place, so that's good." The man said as he pulled Star's shirt back down and stood up. "Don't have much in the way of pain relief here but I can get you some good booze, so maybe you don't feel it as much."

"What do you count as good?" Star asked skeptically.

"Whatever gets you drunk fast." The man replied and sat down across from her. "You won't be much use until you are healed up, so better to stay comfortable till then."

"Well that's a nice sentiment." Star said dryly.

"It's practical." The man replied.

Mary screamed as she hit the ground. It hurt, her head was spinning, but she was more worried about if her friends were with her or not.

"Leaf! Star!" She called out voice strained as she pushed herself up and tried looking around.

"Mary!" Leaf replied and she felt her hand slap her side. Relief flooded her for a moment and she collapsed back down before she realized that she didn't hear anything from Star.

"Star?" Mary called out again her voice pitching with panic. She started to push herself up to look around. She saw Leaf doing the same, calling out for their cousin as well.

Looking around Mary saw that she and Leaf were in an ally way that looked and smelled like it hadn't been cleaned ever. She was worried because she didn't see Star anywhere around them. She knew that they had lost hold of her when they were tumbling through... whatever that was, but she still had hoped that Star would land near them. Or maybe she had just landed a little father away. That was probably what had happened. Mary convinced herself that that had to be what happened and pushed herself to her feet.

"We've gotta find Star." She said.

Leaf didn't argue as they got to their feet. They looked worried at the loss of their cousin and friend, but neither of them spoke out loud the real fear that they both had. If they didn't give the thoughts life then they couldn't be real. They both helped each other limp out of the ally way and tried to figure out where they were. As it turned out they ended up in Atlanta somehow. They weren't sure how, considering Star's power had only ever took her back in time, but maybe whatever happened caused weird things to happen. They were both mildly worried that maybe Star had actually landed back at the house in Savannah while they had been knocked to Atlanta.

It took them a little while but they realized that that wasn't the case.

Mary remembered that Star had told them several times that while sliding back a few hours was easy the longer she tried to go back the harder it was, and the more unstable her ability became. She said didn't like to do more than a week because it became hard to control how well the time stream handled what changes she made to it with out destabilizing. She did admit once, to trying to destabilize the time stream when she was younger, while still trapped in the government facility, but her powers also made her naturally want to fix those kind of issues so she failed. To say the least she didn't slide too far back in the time stream anymore.

So when Leaf and Mary saw that it was 2014 instead of 2019 they knew something was wrong.

Finding Star ended up amounting to nothing. Neither Mary nor Leaf would admit that there was a chance that they might not see Star again. They decided that they were going to find themselves a place to stay for when they eventually ran into Star again. Leaf managed to find a run down looking, but rather structurally sound house that they could take up residence in. She had a real talent for finding places like that apparently, since she had found the home that she and Star had taken up residence in before as well. Mary wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and took everything in stride.

The house did take quite a bit of clean up since no one had stayed inside of it in years.

Apparently there was rumors of it being incredibly haunted.

Mary could happily report that she hadn't run into a single ghost in the house as of yet, so the house probably was just old, and scared the neighborhood kids. It could stay that way for all Mary cared. The fact that none of the ghost that had harassed her at their old home managed to follow them was such a relief to her.... Not that ghost actually existed. It was just her illness. She kept forgetting that she wasn't special like Star and Leaf. Star had been so convincing… But that wasn't in the cards for Mary, she wasn't special…Mary missed Star.

She shook her head and returned her concentration back to what she was doing. The pile of garbage in front of her needed to be taken out of the house in a way that wouldn't bring to much suspicion on the fact that they had moved in. Mary knew there was a dumpster without a lock in an ally way near.

Leaf was in the middle of making sure that they wouldn't be rained on so Mary left them to that, and grabbed the bags herself. She made sure to not be seen, as she left the house and made her way to the ally with the dumpster. She had to pause every now and again to readjust her hold on the bags, and to make sure that none of them had busted, but she made it to the ally and disposed of the garbage. She was thankful that none of the bags had busted open. She didn't want any of their contents leaking on to her. She brushed herself off and turned to make her way back home when she heard someone yelling.

"Hey! Someone help! My brother's OD-ed! Help!"

She winced. It sounded like they were in the ally next to her. She groaned to herself as she realized that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she just ignored this, so she ran over to the other ally way, and saw a Asian young man standing over an unconscious man shouting.

"Hey what's going on!" Mary asked as she ran up. Her blood ran cold as the boy turned to face her looking at her with shock, and she realized that she could just slightly see though him.

"You can hear me?" he asked surprised. "You can see me?"

Mary did her best to pretend that she didn't do either of those things as she immediately knelt down and started shaking the man on the ground. "Hey are you okay? Can you hear me? Buddy you need to wake up!"

"He can't hear you he's OD-ed. You need to call an ambulance." The boy said kneeling down next to Mary. "I know you heard me. You looked right at me when you ran up." He sounded oddly calm compared to any ghost Mary had ever met. "If you don't have a phone his is in his ass."

"I hope you mean pocket." Mary couldn't help but say in reply.

The boy laughed. "Oh yeah, that would be nice, but he doesn't have pockets in these pants. It's not shove up there, so you just need to grab it, and dial 911."

Mary groaned as she listened to the ghost boy next to her and reached for the phone. She was horrified to find the phone was exactly where he said it would be. She dialed 911 and told them that she had found the man OD-ed in the ally way. There were they surprisingly fast and the man was taken away on the ambulance. The ghost boy left with the man, but waved at Mary as he went.

"Thanks! I owe you!" He shouted as the doors to the ambulance closed.

Mary still had the mans phone.

The phone that had been exactly where the boy told her it would be.

…

She needed to go home.

A tapping on her window caught Mary's attention. She stared at the window and decided to ignore it and go back to reading the story she had found online. The tapping happened again and this time she heard a voice say something that she didn't quiet make out. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she realized that someone was outside her window, trying to get her attention. She slowly put down her phone (technically the phone she had taken from the man she saved) as she moved off her bed and crept over to her window.

She nearly screamed when the young man that had been with the man in the ally way stuck his head through the closed window and grinned as he saw her. She did fall back on her ass though, so she had to stare up at the boy.

"Hey!" The young man greeted, "My brother's outside. He wants to thank you for saving him. Sorry, about the time he's not very good at being a normal person."

Mary stared at the young man like he had grown two heads, and she processed what had just been said to her.

"It's been months!" Was all Mary could think to say.

"It took a while to convince Klaus that you had been able to see me too."

"Move your ass. I wanna meet this girl." Mary heard the man from outside say.

The boy pulled his head out and Mary heard him say, "Klaus she hasn't said she wants to see you yet! Don't just barge your way in!"

"We can both see your ass and other fucking Ghost, while other people can't? Fuckin who the hell else is she ever gonna be able to bitch about that to properly?" the man said, and... it was a good point if he could see the same things that she could.

Mary got up from her position on the floor and opened her window and stuck her head out. She could see the young man arguing with his brother. She took a moment to really look both of them over now. The young man looked like he was in his late teens to early twenties, but Mary couldn't be sure. He was wearing black pants, a black shirt and a black and gray hoodie. His hair was short and black. It must have been a tragedy for the man to have lost his brother at such a young age. Looking at the man she guessed that they weren't biologically related as he was thin gaunt white man with short brown hair. He was wearing leather pants that clung tightly to him, his shirt was a low collar tank-top and a black and brown fur lined jacket. The two looked like they couldn't be farther apart from each other.

"Uhh hi?" Mary said catching the two off guard.

The man, Klaus apparently, turned to face Mary and smiled reaching out and grabbing her hand shaking it as he spoke.

"Oh my god hi~ I'm Klaus. This storm cloud over my shoulder is my brother Ben. He told me that you saved me."

The young man, Ben, rolled his eyes at Klaus's antics.

"I, uhh, just called the ambulance for you." Mary said. She was caught off guard when Klaus pushed her back and started to climb into her window. She backed up and watched as he fell on the floor. He quickly recovered and stood up.

"Oh heeey. You've cleaned this place up real nice." Klaus commented as he looked around.

"Ha-Have you been here before?" Mary asked.

"Once or twice." Klaus answered while waiving his hand as if it didn't matter. "But I think we both know that we are avoiding the fact that you can see Ben."

Mary realized that Ben was already in the room and his hood was up. He didn't look like he was too happy that Klaus was bringing up this conversation.

"I-"

"Mary! You okay in there? I heard a lot of noise." Leaf called out, and Mary realized that he was coming to check on her.

"Oh you have a roommate!" Klaus said cheerfully and started to make his way towards the door.

"No!" Mary said sharply and grabbed Klaus before he could reach the door. She cursed herself, as she heard Leaf go from calmly moving to check on her, to hauling ass to her room. They threw the door open and Mary threw Klaus behind her to save him from any possible chance of meeting Leaf's "friends".

"I'm Okay!" Mary shouted before Leaf could do anything.

Leaf stopped, and looked around the room and was confused by the man in the room.

"...Are you having a booty call?" Leaf asked mildly perturbed.

"Ohhh that'd be fun. We can definitely put that on the list if you want, hun." the man chimed as he got up from his place on the floor.

Leaf felt slightly relieved at the look that Mary shot the man and confused at the pleading look she was was shooting the corner of her room. She sighed and looked at Leaf.

"Leaf this is Klaus. He's the guy that I saved in the ally way a few months ago..." Mary seemed to hesitate before she continued, " His brother Ben is the one who told me where to find his phone."

"Uhh okay why didn't Ben just call?" Leaf asked confused.

"Ben's in the corner."

Leaf blinked. Looked at the empty corner again and back at Mary.

"Wait so not only can you not fuckin die you can talk to the dead?" Leaf asked incredulously.

"You cant die?" Klaus asked surprised. "Well that's just rude of god."

Mary flinched, and Leaf assumed that maybe Ben had also been caught off guard by that.

"Okay we don't actually know that for sure." Mary tried to excuse.

"Are you calling Star a liar?" Leaf asked.

Mary shrunk and muttered, "No, but I really don't believe that I could have done something like that."

"Well there's clearly a lot to unpack there, but really I just wanted to commensurate with someone else who was also harassed by the dead." Klaus said.

Leaf processed what was just said and looked over at Klaus. She couldn't help but blink a few times as she looked at the man.

"I'm sorry you can see the dead too?"

Klaus shrugged and waved off the question with a coy smile before really smiling and winking at Leaf as he brought his finger up a 'shush' motion.

Leaf just looked away from the man and looked at Mary.

"You're okay?"

"I'm okay, if not a little overwhelmed." Mary admitted.

"You want him to leave?"

"No I want to talk to him."

"Okay. Let me know if you need anything."

With that Leaf turned and left the room.

Next

[mintmoth]

More art fight attacks and revenges!

This time featuring ocs belonging to @inkyteaart, Ritzu, itscheeb, @telewarp, @cartilagehumdrum, Sketchy-Pako, and ughaubs!

[green446004]

revenge on @myramola (aucatgirl on AF)

artfight

[inkyteaart]

Rises from the dead to drop my Artfight card a week late. Ive already done some attacks and will post them when I get home :p

[inkyteaart]

I'm late posting my attacks from the first week so here's one post dedicated to the first week!!!

Credits:

1) Tenshi Yamanaka belonging to Harveydangerfield on artfight

2) Miu belonging to @mintmoth

3) Lumi belonging to @preserveswerve

4) Maria Reyes aka Cupid belonging to @valenreina

5) Keller and Eda by Ooz3d on artfight (revenge)

6) Ashima Senju belonging to Ryuukari on artfight (revenge)

[parchy]

Love That Lags

StreamerBakugou x Reader

(All photos are from Pinterest)

——

The bass from the stage was enough to rattle the ice cubes in your overpriced, tacky themed drink. Denki, as true to his word as ever, practically screamed over the band as another upbeat cover echos around you.

“Dudes got talent from the gods.” He practically yells as the guitarist finishes a solo. “His fingers move so fast I bet he’d be a killer receptionist.”

Jiros eyes roll in sync with yours, moving her drink to her lips. “His tempos too fast, the drummer can hardly keep up. But.. since Shinso isn’t used to playing in front of crowds I suppose I’ll let it slide.” Her gaze then shifts to you, uninterested in the music, as she smiles softly. “So, you need to scream out some embarrassment, huh?”

You groan, dropping your head to the table dramatically. “Please don’t remind me. I literally told Katsuki Bakugou to have an awful night. He’s known for his temper, you know? He’ll for sure yell at me if he ever finds out who I am.”

“I mean.. to be fair, Bakugo does also have a black bag.” Denki shrugs, using the time between songs to chime into the conversation. “You told Sero the nerd had a black bag, it’s a valid mistake man.”

“Why is everyone so focused on the bag?!” The exasperation in your tone pulls a small snort from Jiro, but the glare you send after causes her to look away. “I just hope he actually blocks me and Tape brain doesn’t open his mouth.”

“Speak of the devil.” Jiro nods toward the entrance. Sero walks in, waving happily at Denki who waves just as enthusiastically. “And make it double.”

Behind Sero, looking unpleasantly irritated, was Katsuki Bakugo. Your heart violently thrashes against your chest as you reach to pull up the hood of your jacket. Maybe if you press far enough into the seat, neither of them would notice.

Bakugos hands shove into his pockets, eyes sweeping over the obnoxious crowed as Sero leads him between the bouncing bodies and straight toward your table. He’s dressed in a slouched hoodie and sweat pants, his blonde hair spiked in every direction, looking just as aggressive as his texts implied.

“Yo, my favorite couple and their training wheel.” Sero grins, sliding in beside you. Bakugo following suit. “Sorry I’m late, this guy had to clear a sweat lobby before we came.”

“It’s third wheel, dip shit.” Bakugous voice growls, but you can’t focus on anything accept avoiding eye contact. “And I told you not to drag me out for some lame ass cover band.”

“They’re actually awesome, man! Listen!” Denki cups his ear, dramatically listening to the song. “Anyway, this is y/n. You’ve probably seen her with Tape-y mc dumb ass on campus.”

His eyes move to yours, uninterested unlike your wide eyes. For one terrifying second, you freeze, worried he could read your text logs by just looking at you. A second later, you can breathe again, his eyes leaving your general area as if they hadn’t even seen you in the first place. The relief doesn’t last long, because he takes a longer, more cautious glance at your appearance. There’s a brief flicker of annoyance behind his red eyes, but thankfully no recognition.

To him, you were just another faceless extra in a sea of people he was vaguely familiar with.

“Oh, yeah.” Sero laughs. “Totally cleared up the ‘Nerd Boy’ thing with Kirishima. We both got a laugh out of it”

You freeze again. This time, ice running down your spine. Sero doesn’t seem to notice the look of irritated terror that finds home on your red face.

Right on cue, Bakugos phone vibrates. The vibration giving him the opportunity to casually check his messages.. even the ones from earlier. You watch in slow motion as his eyebrows twitch ever so slightly as a displeased scowl joins the reaction.

“The hell..?” Bakugous voice growls, staring intensely at his screen. His fingers tap with unnecessary force, his jaw tight.

Your hands under the table move quick, powering off your phone before the text you were certain he was sending could be sent. You can see him watching for a reaction from the corner of your eyes, but you say nothing, sipping your drink as if you weren’t about to combust. Then, after the longest few seconds of your life, he shoves his own phone away, seemingly accepting you weren’t the ‘Desperate and annoying fan girl’ he’d complained to his live stream just an hour prior.

But that would all change soon.

-

Uhm.. so hey..

I know I took the world’s longest hiatus after I was hacked. But I had too much going on and too much anxiety to upload. But I missed writing, and this account, so I decided to start uploading again. But I won’t be sharing my personal life at all anymore. I’m sorry to the friends I’d made I had ghosted, someone had somehow gotten my personal phone number and it terrified me. Which is why I’d taken so much time away from this account 😅 plz be kind and I’m sorry 😭

Love always, Parchy 💖

————

[hijkio]

Team 7 Modern AU 🏫📚

[hinamie]

at the club w my non-alcoholic sparkling beverage throwing off the white balance of the group shot ✌︎('ω')✌︎

[ohfuff]

This was supposed to be angsty and it became something else 😅

[greenfinchg-illustration]

Artfight revenge~

Celeste by Wystana

[nanibooze]

FIRST ATTACKKKK RAHHH

Lulu by @dapperzz

I love her shes so crazy

[catmask]

alcohol marker af attack on @holoswirl!

[inkyteaart]

Rises from the dead to drop my Artfight card a week late. Ive already done some attacks and will post them when I get home :p