Work Text:
Vanya used to have a lot of dreams about Five.
During those first few anxiety-ridden weeks after he stormed out, it felt like every night her mind was trying as hard as possible to make her suffer, feeding her twisted, fragmented childhood memories and impossible futures of her and Five.
Not nightmares – it would have been easier if they were. No, she dreamt of performances and missions, and growing up, and being children again. She dreamt about them going to all the places that she would memorize from magazines, about them having a cat and living in an apartment in Amsterdam, just big enough for the three of them.
She hated it – she was just thirteen, and she felt like her own brain was breaking. She would wake up with a smile and a lonely, cold bed. She would forget – she would forget he was gone. There would be a warm half-second when she woke up, still foggy from the dreams, where she would forget, always, before the freezing cold dread and fear of remembering.
But the months crept on, and Reginald hung up the portrait, and then it passed one year, and Five didn’t come back. And the dreams, as aching and bittersweet as they were, stopped coming, and then she just felt empty.
…
When Five has nightmares, they are quiet, private. He doesn’t scream, like Klaus and Ben do, or thrash around, or say words aloud in his sleep. But Vanya knows when he is having one. She just knows.
He wakes, shuddering, and she is already there, grasping for him reflexively.
“I’m here, it’s okay, I’m here,” she whispers, as loudly as she dares. God, she thinks hazily, she’s thankful to Klaus for getting rid of the cameras.
Five grabs her face with trembling hands, his breathing laboured and scratchy. His face, she now sees in the pale grey moonlight, is wet. “Seven.” He balls his fists in the collar of her pyjama top.
“Five, breathe.”
“Seven,” Five says again, like a prayer.
“I’m here,” she repeats, waiting for him to come back, trying not to let her emotions overwhelm her.
“No,” he whimpers, face contorting, and takes a gasping breath, squeezing his eyes shut and letting go of her, pulling at his hair. “I’m dreaming again, aren’t I. Go away.”
“Five,” she insists, voice breaking. This is worse than usual – and it hurts so much to see him like this. “You’re awake. You’re home, at the Umbrella Academy, remember?” She is begging him to remember.
“No, no, no,” he moans, and he starts to cry again, each sob racking his body a painful stab at her heart. “I miss you. I want to go home.”
Five covers his face with his arms and cries in big gulping gasps.
She starts to feel her own eyes well up with unwanted tears. Too sensitive. Not helpful. “Five, love, look at me, please,” she whispers, throat constricted, desperate. She tugs on his arms until she can see his face.
He looks at her doubtfully, angrily, from under wet lashes.
“It’s really me,” she soothes, trying to be real. “See?”
She pinches his rib cage. He doesn’t react.
Vanya kisses the palm of his hand, then his forehead, searching for something. Waiting.
But Number Five just looks at her, mourning, the pit of his eyes so achingly lonely that she suddenly has the most horrible feeling that she doesn’t even exist. That she’s made up – that he is dreaming, and she’s dead.
“I miss you,” this boy, still trapped in hell, says to her ghost. And she believes him. “I’m sorry I left you alone.” His face crumples again and he tears his hand away, shaking. “Now go away.”
Vanya fights down the stab of hurt – she’s not real – and doesn’t let him go. She runs her nails through his hair, and hugs him so tightly that he must be able to feel the crazy beating of her heart.
He seems to think about pushing her away, but eventually just gives up. If she can just hold him tight enough, make him feel, he will believe she’s really there.
Finally, after who knows how long, Five says, “Vanya,” and he sounds slightly strangled and she knows he remembers now.
“Five,” she breathes, the fear subsiding.
“I’m sorry. I’m back now.”
“I know,” she mumbles, face pressed into his hair. “It’s okay.”
“Yeah,” he says, but doesn’t sound like he believes it. “You should go back to sleep.”
“Not tired,” she lies, and he lets out a shaky sigh and moves his arms around her to return the hug. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It was just the. Usual stuff,” he says haltingly. “Nothing of note.”
“Five,” she says, pulling away and looking at his face. She wants to say I love you, but it doesn’t seem like the right time. He might not believe her. He avoids her gaze, taking her arm off him and tracing a finger around the bare area of her wrist where the Umbrella tattoo would be, if she had it.
Neither of them speaks for a while, Five’s breathing still returning to normal, and Vanya attempting to blink away tears.
And then, unprompted; “I never understood why you wanted the brand,” he says quietly, almost to himself, pressing a kiss to the almost-translucent skin. “I hated it, back then. Knowing Reginald was marking us as his property.” The change in subject worries her, but she doesn’t want him to go scarily silent again.
“You know why I wanted it,” Vanya says, embarrassed. He does. He knows her very well. She doesn’t often bring it up, but she suspects it’s because of her book from the future, her autobiography. He said he had it memorized, which means – he probably knows all her innermost thoughts and feelings. The thought doesn’t bother her like it probably should, but she does feel slightly envious. She wishes she could read Five’s mind sometimes.
“I do now,” he says absently. “You know the tattoo was how I identified their bodies?”
“Their… bodies?” Vanya repeats, going cold.
“Mhm.” He presses her palm to his face and closes his eyes. “That’s how I knew it was them. All grown up.”
“Five,” Vanya says, voice wavering. “That’s horrible.”
“It – was,” he agrees. The words seem to crack under the weight of his voice, and he says again, painfully, “Yeah, it was.”
Something about his wording is off. “You… didn’t find me there, then?” She asks, fearing the answer.
Five shakes his head. “No.” He swallows. “I looked for – a long time. I never did.”
Vanya feels relieved by this, somehow, though she is hurt be the idea that when they all died, Vanya wasn’t with the rest of them. She was alone. She must have died alone.
But – would he have even recognised her as an adult?
She decides to stop thinking about it, and says, “So you don’t think it’s stupid of me to want the tattoo?”
“No,” he says, surprised. He wipes a hand over his eyes to erase the proof of his tears and looks at her. “No, I think I understand it now. To you, it’s not about belonging to Reginald, it’s about belonging with each other.”
“Yeah,” Vanya says. He gets it. Of course he does. “That’s why I wanted it, too. To belong.” She knows… but a part of her still wants proof. The empty skin is like a constant reminder that she’s never enough, that she’s worth less. That she’s… worthless. To the rest of them.
Not to Five, though, she reminds herself.
“You still want it.”
Five doesn’t phrase it as a question. “Yes,” she says anyway, hating herself for it. “I still do.” She can’t help it.
Despite him agreeing with her a few moments ago, some protective boyfriend – boyfriend!!!! – instinct must kick in because he backtracks. “But, you know it’s still just an arbitrary symbol of Reginald’s possession and control, and not having it doesn’t make you less valuable or important. You still belong with – us.” Five sounds like he’s about to fall asleep. He always rambles when he’s tired.
“Yeah, I know, Five,” she says.
He pauses. “You still want the tattoo.”
“Yeah.”
Five sighs from his nose, probably knowing this is something he won’t ever fully understand, and pulls her closer by the waist, resting his head on top of hers. His hands are still unsteady from the nightmare. “Fine. You shouldn’t get an umbrella, though. It’s overdone. People might think you’re just a super-fan.” She laughs at that. “If you’re going to get a tattoo, make it something special to you.”
That’s very Five of him to say. Vanya thinks, what on Earth is more special than the Umbrella Academy? But she humors him, and says, “Like what?”
“I don’t know. Just… something you like, not what Reginald chose. A…. violin? A number seven?” He grimaces. “Not that.”
“Music notes, maybe?”
“Hm… for what song?”
“I don’t know. That’s a lot of commitment.”
“Yeah.” He says, tracing something on her back with his finger. The sensation sends a thrill through her – light, yet intimate.
“A number five,” she suggests quietly, and hears his breath hitch. I love you.
“I – ah,” Five says, his heartbeat having picked up considerably. She imagines him blushing dark red in the moonlight. He swallows again. “I like that.”
She kisses the pale skin of his throat, smiling, and hums. Hers. “Me too.”
His heart is quick and flighty next to her ear, and he holds her that little bit firmer, his hands latching on to the fabric of her pyjamas once again, but not out of fear, this time. She suddenly really wants to tell him about the apartment in Amsterdam, and their cat, but she doesn’t.
“Ven,” he says into the dark, sounding tired and almost silent. Vanya isn’t even sure if he’s talking to her, or if he’s just mouthing words out loud.
“Mm?”
“I’m sorry. For leaving you.”
Her heart clenches. She thinks of how he sobbed, before. She wonders if he would cry a lot, there. “It’s fine, Five. I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But – I left,” he says, wobbly. Is he talking to her, or her ghost? “I left you alone.”
“And then you came back.”
He says, “I took too long.”
“Impossible. I’d have waited forever.”
“Vanya, that’s – so fucking sad,” Five whispers, his chest moving in silent laughter, or sobs. His nails scratch her back lightly where he clutches onto her pyjamas even tighter.
Those damn tears well up and threaten to spill out. “I forgive you, okay? I forgive you for leaving.”
She thinks that might mean even more than I love you, as Five, seemingly unable to speak, buries his face in her hair.
That’s enough talking for tonight anyway. She tucks one hand under him and wraps the other around his arm, safe, secure.
Five tangles their legs together under the blanket and they stay like that, entwined, holding on for dear life like they might be swept away without something real to grab onto.
And in the morning, Vanya’s bed won’t be cold. And she won’t be alone.
Yes, Vanya knows exactly where she belongs. Here.