Work Text:
one day, five was pacing around his room, talking to himself as per usual about the only comic book in the whole house and starting to get light headed from talking too much and not breathing properly. the door opens behind him but he doesn’t notice, taking a moment to angrily complain to himself about an inconsistency in the story with his favourite character.
then, “master five?”
five freezes, all his muscles suddenly tensing. his hands are out in front of him, half curled into fists. he stuffs them in the pockets of his blazer and turns to meet the voice.
pogo stands in the doorway, looking at him strangely. he vaguely gestures to five’s face, and he swipes the saliva from his chin and wipes it off in the inside of his pocket. “hey, pogo,” he tries, pretending that didn’t happen. “what’s up?”
“master hargreeves asks that you quieten down, number four is training at this time.”
five feels his shoulders slump. he was too loud. again. “right.” he whispers. he expects pogo to leave, but after a few moments, he’s still there.
“what were you talking about?” he asks, his voice polite, with an edge of curiosity.
“just—“ five falls silent. if he were to tell pogo, truthfully, what he was talking about, word would most definitely get back to dad and five would never lay his eyes, never mind his hands, on a comic book ever again. he looked around in the bottom corners of his vision, clenching his jaw and thinking on it.
he glanced at pogo. the forty year old primate just pushed his glasses up his nose and closed the door behind him. then he took a few steps to five’s desk at the foot of his bed, and pulled up a chair. “sit, dear boy.” he motioned faintly to the mattress.
five furrowed his brow, suspicious.
pogo smiled lightly, “or stand. it is your choice.”
pogo settled more into the chair, turning in it to face where five was standing in the opposite corner to where he was sitting. “now, go on. your passion has peaked my curiosity in this book.” his smile reached his old, orange-ish eyes, so five gave him a chance.
“ comic book.” he corrected, and then he took a deep breath.
and he went on for what felt like hours. he explained the premise, then the setting, then each of the individual characters at the beginning of the story, doing his best to be thorough and avoid confusion. then, once he couldn’t detect a hint of irritation or boredom in pogo’s features, he went on to explain the story.
he may have gotten sidetracked when he got half way. he began to go on about the best conflict in the comic, at least for most of the characters, before he got to his favourite.
he vaguely noticed he began to pace when he got onto his favourite character. he complained about how his beloved character had been totally ruined by this, how the writers most definitely hated him because they’d written it, and he even got out a notebook of his where he’d written his own fix-it of sorts. and, with the open notebook in hand, he wandered back and forth in front of pogo like a lecturer.
and, yes, he’d stammered and said the wrong words at parts, he may have spat accidentally more than usual, and his posture may have been horrible — sue him. he just knew, when he was finally interrupted with his mother calling “dinner!” down the hall and laid his eyes on pogo again, that he hadn’t been annoying him.
he hadn’t been a bother. even if only for an hour and a half. the heavy feeling that pogo had tolerated — enjoyed, even? — his thoughts weighed on him even as he scrambled to hide his comic and his notebook, even as he blinked down to the dining room and cut into his dinner.