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Viktor sometimes wondered whether it had been worth moving into a new apartment. When Five had followed him home after all the events of— well— everything, he’d thought it was important for Five to have his own space. After all, he was an adult, he was older than the rest of them by far.
The thing was, Five never slept in a bed, so the extra bedroom felt largely pointless.
Allison had dragged the two of them out to a posh bed and mattress shop on one of her trips back from L.A. It had taken them an hour to convince Five to go with them, and then he’d selected the hardest mattress he could find, refusing to actually try any of them. Viktor had tried it for him and it had been like a rock. Not that it mattered, because Five never slept in a bed. To be honest, Viktor would have said he didn’t sleep at all if it wasn’t for the odd occasion he’d found him passed out in an armchair, or curled up in the corner of his room.
Viktor wanted to help, he really did, but in the grand scheme of problems Five had come home with, him not sleeping in a bed was the least of their worries. Five’s alcohol problem was far worse, but they weren’t getting anywhere with that either. Sometimes Viktor felt like he was acting out a modern day Jane Eyre. That Five was his 'Bertha Mason', not quite locked in the attic, but spending his days wandering idly about the apartment, never leaving and never really able to look forward.
Viktor didn’t know what to do. So every night he went to bed, and he left his brother clattering around like a poltergeist. Viktor could hear him now, from his position curled up under the covers. His head was almost fully under the blankets, but he could still hear Five making a noise behind him— wait.
Viktor was facing the door.
There was only the window behind him.
Slowly, hoping to feign a mid-sleep shuffle, Viktor rolled onto his back. The clattering stopped, but there was a much more concerning sound. Someone had a gun, and they’d just taken the safety off. Viktor opened his eyes, coming face to face with the barrel of a pistol.
“Don’t move. Don’t scream either. In fact, stay still or I’ll shoot.” said the man holding the gun.
The pistol was not wavering. Viktor kept his head still, just moving his eyes to glance at the man. He looked to be in his late thirties, with sandy blonde hair, and a very strong brow. The most terrifying fact of all being that Viktor had been allowed to see his face. This man had no intention of letting Viktor survive the night. Viktor just had to hope that Five was actually asleep somewhere, that this man knew nothing of his brother, and he'd be spared from whatever was coming next.
“Where’s your brother?” The man asked, pushing the gun further into Viktor’s face. Well, there went that little hope. Still, Viktor did his best to deflect.
“Which one? I have like, five of them” he asked. He still counted Ben in his head.
“Therein lies your answer, young man. Where is Number Five?” the man replied.
Oh, that was quite affirming. He had a gun to his head, but at least he wasn't being misgendered.
“I don’t know, man. He disappears off all the time!” Viktor replied, before adding “Teenage angst and all that.”
Maybe the man’s response would narrow down how he knew Five. If the man protested, suggested he knew that Five wasn’t a typical teenager, he was probably Commission.
“Teenage angst my ass, man’s old enough to be my father. Now, I know he’s here. So, let’s get this party started. Call him in here. Tell him you need him. I know he’ll come, he’s got ears like a bat and the only thing the bastard cares about is his family.” With that, the man grabbed Viktor’s collar, hoisting him up in the bed, and pushing the pistol against the side of his head.
“Go on, call him!”
Viktor had no choice. After all, if he didn’t comply he’d die anyway, and this mystery Commission man would go after Five. If Five was genuinely asleep for once, he might not stand a chance. At least this way, he could try and warn him. If he could just figure out how.
“Uh— Number Five? Five-o, are you awake?”
A voice from outside the door, groggy with sleep, or possibly alcohol. “Viktor, what the fuck do you—”
“Fivey!” Viktor said, hoping that his brother would cotton on to all the strange names, they were usually Klaus's domain, “I just—need you here.”
The door began to creep open slowly, Viktor could just see the outline of someone through the crack. The man beside Viktor swung the gun to point towards the noise. Then, there was a blast of blue light, and Five was behind the man, wrestling the gun out of his grip. The man swung forward, pulling Five over the top of him and onto the bed. He fired the gun, but Five blinked out of the way at the last second, and there was just a smoking hole in Viktor’s mattress. Five popped back up in another flash of blue, back against the doorway, looking casual.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend, Clive?” he asked, leaning against the door with his arms crossed. Viktor could catch a faint whiff of alcohol, but he seemed perfectly sober. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Viktor thought he'd cleared out all of Five's stashes.
“Old friends don’t leave other old friends to die in the middle of Bloody Sunday!” Clive shouted. The gun was aimed at Five again, but Clive’s hand was shaking in rage.
“And you obviously didn’t die, so that rule clearly doesn’t apply to me.” Five turned to Viktor. “Viktor, meet Clive. We ran together for a while at The Commission. I’d say it was pleasurable, but I’m trying not to lie to family anymore.”
“Clive and Five? Really?” Viktor questioned.
“Hmm. I thought the same.” Five mused, a small smirk on his face, “It’s no wonder I left him in Ireland. That and the fact that he tried to kill me, twice.””
God, Viktor had missed this. Not the murder, not the reminder that his brother was a psychopathic hit-man, but the brightness in Five’s eyes. Ever since they’d stopped the apocalypse and Five had crippled The Commission enough to give them all a breather, he’d been a dead man walking. There’d been no passion, no wit. Just bottles of beer, bottles of whiskey and a thousand yard stare.
Hmm. It was nice and all to see Five back, but Viktor really wanted to get the gun away from him now, he was starting to freak out. He could see the furniture in the room was starting to shake just a little with his powers.
Five turned back towards Clive.
“Clive, for the fact that you’re not dead in the 70's, and the fact that I said I was out of the business, I’m giving you one chance to stop. To climb back out of that window and never be seen again. You have ten seconds to put down the gun and start climbing.”
Five tapped his foot, arms still crossed.
“Nine, Eight, Seven.”
“I’m not leaving here until you’re all dead!” Clive shouted, swinging the gun back to Viktor’s head. Viktor could hear the mechanism starting to shift as Clive pressed down on the trigger. Time slowed down as he realized that, fuck, he was going to die.
Another blue light, and Clive was on the floor, the bullet making its way into the ceiling. Viktor heard a few grunts, a snapping noise, and a thud. Not moving from his spot on the bed, Viktor kept his breathing as steady as he could, waiting to hear another noise. There was breathing, someone was still alive. In Viktor’s peripheral vision he saw the gangly limbs of a teenager. Five got up from the floor, leaning heavily against the foot of the bed. His arm was bleeding.
“Viktor?” Five asked, snapping his fingers in front of Viktor’s face. “You there? It’s over. You’re fine.”
Was it fine? They had almost died, again. Five was bleeding. Five was bleeding? Why was he bleeding? Was he going to die? Viktor didn’t want to lose his brother again. He’d lost him once already, he couldn’t do it again. God, Five's drifting round the apartment was so dreary, but Viktor didn’t want to live without it again? What if he died? Oh God, Oh God!
“Viktor. Viktor! I need you to calm down, okay? Jesus Viktor you’re going to bring the whole block down.”
Bring the block down? What did he mean? Oh, shit. Viktor had powers now, he needed to calm down!
But the thought was making Viktor even more anxious. He could now feel the whole room shaking, but he didn’t know how to stop. Viktor looked up at Five, who was now clambering onto the foot of the bed, holding his shoulder with his left hand and gingerly reaching out his right, to grab hold of him, to ground him. Five was almost there, when there was an almighty crack, and a piece of the ceiling came down, landing directly on top of him.
The shaking stopped immediately.
“Five? Oh God, Five, are you alright?”
A groan came from underneath the now shattered plasterboard. Five poked his head out from under the rubble, specks of dust and white paint covering his face and hair. If it wasn’t for the blood in his hairline, it would have looked kind of cute, like a baby dinosaur hatching.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, pulling himself upright. He put his hand to his forehead, rubbing it slightly, “but I’m bleeding in two places now. Think you can grab the first aid kit?”
Viktor jumped out of bed, heading to the bathroom.
“Of course." he replied, "Do you think you need a bit more than some band-aids though, Five? I’m guessing you’ve just been shot.” Viktor couldn’t think of any other way he’d managed to start bleeding before the ceiling had come down. Viktor heard a grumble somewhere along the lines of “it’s only a graze” and shook his head fondly. If Five wasn’t already willing to go to Grace (or the hospital), then Viktor wouldn’t be convincing him any time soon.
“I’m going to the lounge,” Five shouted through, “Your room is full of ceiling and dead guy.”
Huh. That was a point. Viktor was not quite sure how they were going to dispose of that.
After a few minutes of collecting all the various first aid kits he’d had bought in the last few months, Viktor headed towards the lounge, focused intently on not dropping anything. He deposited everything on a side table, before looking up at his brother.
Five was stood almost completely still, staring at the lounge wall. Most of his body was like a statue, but his hand was opening and closing, as if he was trying to grab something.
“Hey, Five? You okay?” Viktor asked, hovering in the doorway. If Five was having a moment, if it was the (undiagnosed, but absolutely real) PTSD, then it wasn’t always clear what the best course of action was. If he was thinking about the apocalypse, then getting into his space, reminding him he wasn’t the only one alive, was a good place to start. But, if it was about The Commission, or about The Handler, then that was a dangerous plan. Five had some terrifying reflexes.
“What are you seeing, Five?” Viktor asked tentatively.
“I—I’m” Five started before pausing. “Something’s wrong.” he said, turning slowly towards his brother.
“It’s okay Five, I promise—”
“Something’s wrong .” Five repeated, before his back went ramrod straight. Viktor rushed towards him, catching him as he started to fall, and lowering him onto his back. Five’s muscles were now jerking rhythmically, and his eyes had rolled up into his head. The head wound was still bleeding, and Five now had blood smeared across the entirety of his forehead.
Viktor shoved the coffee table and the wastepaper bin out of the way, before reaching up and grabbing a cushion from the couch, gently lifting Five’s head and placing it underneath. He glanced up at the clock, 2.34am, before focusing back on his brother. There was spit all around his mouth, and his lips were a little blue. It was terrifying, but Viktor thought back to the excessive number of first aid lessons they’d all taken as kids, it wasn’t an unusual symptom of a tonic-clonic seizure, or whatever the hell they called them these days. Viktor kept glancing back at the clock, pleased to see after just a couple of minutes that things were calming down. It was now 2.36am, two minutes or so. That wasn’t too bad.
Once Five’s body had relaxed, Viktor checked his breathing, happy to find it seemed normal. Slowly, he turned his brother onto his side, pulling him into the recovery position. It was far too easy, Five was far too light. Had he been eating at all since they’d got back? Jesus, Viktor was going to get investigated by CPS at this rate.
Shit. Viktor suddenly remembered part of their seizure training as kids. If they had any reason to suspect it was someone’s first seizure, or if one occurred after a head injury, you had to call an ambulance. Five needed an ambulance.
That was fine, hypothetically. There was even a phone in reach. The problem was that Five was still legally dead and had refused to do anything about it. That, and there was a corpse in the bedroom, covered in plaster. So, Viktor rang Diego.
”Viktor, what the hell are you doing ringing me at this hour?”
“Not like you were asleep,” Viktor grumbled, before adding, “I need your help.”
Diego’s anger dissipated immediately, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but Five—he's just had a seizure.”
“He’s what?!” Diego shouted down the line, “You need to ring an ambulance, it’s his first seizure, right?”
Viktor assumed so, but with Five being away for so long, he couldn’t say for sure. It didn’t matter though, there had been a head injury. However, that was part of the problem.
“Diego, there was a man in the house, Five’s got a head wound and a graze from a bullet, if I call an ambulance, CPS will take over and we’ll never see him again.” he paused, before adding “Oh, and there’s a corpse beside my bed with a snapped neck, so I’d probably go to jail.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, ring the ambulance. I’ll be there in no more than five minutes. I’ll figure something out about the body, so we don’t have to break you out of jail. Then—” He paused, “I’ll ring Allison, get her on a plane from L.A, if we can keep Five in our sights for the next six hours or so, she can rumor everyone and we can at least get him home safe.”
It was a plan. Not a good plan, but a plan nonetheless. Viktor looked over to Five, who was starting to move a little, it seemed like he might be coming round.
“Okay,” Viktor said, “I’ll see you in five.”
He hung up the phone, reaching down to stroke his brother’s hair. Five groaned a little.
“whassgoin-on?” he murmured, before smacking his lips together. His eyes were hardly open, but Viktor could just about see his brother looking from side to side, as if checking Viktor for injuries. Of course he was, the selfless little bastard.
“It’s fine, Five. You hit your head, but you’re going to be fine. Okay?”
Five chewed on his lip a little, eyebrows furrowed as he processed the words Viktor had said. After a moment, his face relaxed, and he shut his eyes again.
“Okay” he whispered, voice a little slurred. Then he nestled his head back into the couch cushion. Viktor grabbed the phone again, dialing 9-1-1. He kept a hand on Five’s mop of hair the whole time, unwilling to let go.
Diego’s solution to the paramedic problem had been to roll the body under the bed. Surprisingly, it had worked. The paramedics had taken one quick look at the room, concluded there was something faulty with the plasterboard on the ceiling, and had gone back to their patient. Viktor had ridden alongside Five, leaving Diego with the more permanent clean-up. Viktor didn’t really want to know what Diego was planning. Clive, whoever he was to Five, had tried to kill him, but that didn’t mean Viktor didn’t feel a little bad about leaving him dead in his bedroom. It was hypocritical, when he’d ended the world and killed billions of people just a few months ago, but that whole thing hadn’t been deliberate, not really.
Five was now in a hospital bed, a bandage wrapped around his head, like a cartoon character. Viktor kept almost expecting to see little birds flying around him, or little stars floating above his head. Five’s arm had also been patched up, but that was just a couple of stitches and some gauze, it really had only been a graze for once. Viktor sat in the chair beside the bed, waiting for his brother to come round. The doctors said it should be any minute now.
“Viktor, where the fuck am I?”
Speak of the devil.
“You’re in a hospital, Five.”
“I realize that, Viktor. I was being rhetorical. Why am I in a hospital?”
Viktor sighed. Cranky Five was the worst Five, and Viktor was undoubtedly dealing with cranky Five.
“Remember when the ceiling came down in my bedroom for no apparent reason? ” he asked, emphasizing the end of the sentence, “well, you hit your head and hurt your arm, so we had to bring you here.”
“Viktor, what the fuck—”
“As your guardian Five, I had to make sure you’re okay. Yeah?”
Five’s face was creased in anger. He was tired, and his head obviously hurt by the way he was wincing. Most importantly, he clearly wasn’t getting any of Viktor’s hints.
“I do NOT need a guardian, Viktor I am not a child! I am—”
“Fourteen, Five. And I know you think you should be able to live alone now that Dad’s dead, but legally you are a child, and it’s me or CPS.
Viktor had his eyebrows raised now, desperately hoping Five would cotton on. Five’s face was still furrowed, when suddenly he relaxed, understanding dawning on his face.
“I guess you’re right, Viktor.”
Viktor let out a sigh of relief. It had been bad enough dealing with the hospital staff already, the last thing they needed was Five blowing their cover. Viktor leaned in close to his brother, lowering his voice.
“I’m sorry you’re here. I had no choice. And, I’m sorry about the ceiling.”
Five smiled a little.
“I’m the one who led a murderous moron to your door.”
“Actually,” Viktor replied, “he came in through the window.”
“Hah!” Five exclaimed, lowered voice forgotten, “I told you that you needed better locks!”
Viktor smiled, pleased to see a hint of his brother back. Now they just needed to figure out how to keep this Five around. He needed something to aim for, something to challenge him. He wasn’t good with relaxation. Luckily for Viktor (and possibly unluckily for Five), he had an idea.
“So, Allison came and smoothed everything over with the hospital, right?” Viktor began.
“Right?” Five questioned, looking a little confused.
“But we’ve got an appointment with social security next month, to fix their 'records errors'." Viktor grinned, "So, how are you going to convince them you’re not a teenager?”
The fury returned to Five’s face, just as Diego, Klaus and Allison walked in, Luther was somewhere behind them, probably fumbling about with discharge papers.
“Ooh!” Klaus exclaimed, clasping his hands together. “Did you tell him about the social security thing?”
“Yup.” Viktor replied, leaning back in his chair, and smiling at Five's growing anger. It was so much better then the blank face he'd got used to. Cranky Five was definitely better than blank Five.
Jaw clenched, but eyes bright for the first time in weeks, Five looked up at them all.
“I hate you. All of you.”
“Uh huh!” Klaus replied, “So, you won’t be wanting these peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches, then. Seeing as they were made by the enemy?
“Well...”
The Hargreeves all started laughing loudly, garnering dirty glares from the nursing staff in the corridor. It was worth it.