Work Text:
It’s the kind of awful feeling that he can’t shake. Like the smell of ash and smog and burned and rotting bodies. No matter how far removed he feels at times, he can’t ever forget that smell.
It clings to his nostrils, fills his lungs till he feels like he’s drowning.
It’s these kinds of days where he feels like he’s separate from his body, a bystander to his own life. He’s not even living.
He’s simply existing in a world he doesn’t belong to.
Not anymore.
He doesn’t belong anywhere.
If his decades in the apocalypse hadn’t already established that, the Handler certainly had.
He’s a man out of time, trapped in a body he doesn’t fit into, that’s too small for him, with a family he doesn’t know and that doesn’t know him.
He’s fine with that.
If they knew him, really knew him, they would hate him more than they already do. It’s okay, he thinks, because he hates himself too.
So Five throws himself into his equations. It keeps him prepared. Keeps him grounded in a reality he’s been feeling more and more out of touch with.
There’s no immediate threat that he knows of, the apocalypse has been averted, the Commission is off their back.
So what?
There could be another. It could be next week. It could be tomorrow.
His family could be dead in the blink of an eye.
Again.
Five can’t face that again. He can’t.
He needs to be prepared, not for the unimaginable or the unthinkable, but for the inevitable. He wasn’t made for peace.
He’s a weapon. A war machine.
He’s killed more people than he could possibly hope to remember and he’d do it all again if it meant getting his family home safe.
What does that say about him?
He’s a monster.
Five grimaces and keeps scratching equations on the wall. He’s long since accepted what he is. He had no other choice. He wasn’t made for peace.
He was made for blood and death and violence, but those are the all tools he has at his disposal, instrumental in keeping his family alive. Because as long as they live, as long as they’re safe, he can convince himself that that’s all that he needs. He doesn’t need them to understand. He doesn’t need them to love him back. They can hate him for all he cares.
He doesn’t even need them to be happy.
He just needs them to stay alive.
Anything beyond that, he can take or leave, no matter how much they might hate him for it and the world can go to hell. It’s not worth saving if it doesn’t have his family.
He doesn’t need them to love him.
No matter how many times he tells himself that, it doesn’t make it more true, but Five is used to not getting what he wants.
He doesn’t know what he wants.
So he scrawls his equations across the wall until his wrist aches, until there’s no more space left, because… because if he doesn’t, he doesn’t know what to do.
He doesn’t know what else is left for him.
“Knock, knock.” Klaus raps on the wall, cracking the door open an inch, before Five can get too lost in his own morose thoughts.
“Get out.” He doesn’t have time for this. He doesn’t look away from the writing on the wall.
“Unfortunately, little brother,” Klaus steps entirely into the room and Five bristles, “I’ve got orders.”
Five finally tears his eyes away from his handiwork and massages his temple. He really doesn’t have time for this. “What do you want, Klaus? I’m busy.” He’s been very clear in the past: he expects space when he works on his equations.
“I thought you’d never ask!” Klaus sounds positively gleeful, clapping his hands, and Five rolls his eyes.
“Klaus,” he snaps, growing more irritated. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Actually, you have all the time in the world, brother dear,” Klaus corrects him. He pretends to look at the nonexistent watch on his wrist. “The apocalypse has been averted, remember? Both of them, actually.”
“For now,” Five grinds out.
It frustrates him to no end that none of them can understand such a simple concept.
They’re never going to be safe. There’s always going to be another apocalypse, always going to be another danger, something that will kill them, unless he stops it.
It falls on him to keep them safe.
It always falls on him.
None of them understand what it was like. He’s seen them die.
“For now,” Klaus agrees. He picks a model train up from the shelf and turns it over in his hands before setting it back where he found it.
“I need to be prepared for when it happens.” He’s rolling the chalk between his fingers.
Klaus comes to stand by his side and squints. “Just looking at all of that makes my head hurt.”
“Then don’t look at it,” Five says. “Maybe if you actually had a brain… ” He stops himself, realizing what he’s about to say, but there’s no wounded look from Klaus.
Five looks away.
He’s not built for kindness. He doesn’t know how to be nice. He only knows how to keep them safe.
“You know,” Klaus says, “I see what it is you’re trying to do and it’s not going to work.”
“Oh?” Five scoffs, but decides to humor him anyways. “Enlighten me. What is this… thing I’m trying to do?”
“It’s a classic deflection tactic,” Klaus says and, damn him, he sounds so confident right now, like he knows what he’s talking about, and it makes Five’s hackles rise. Klaus plows forward, either completely unaware of the dangerous waters he’s treading or choosing entirely to ignore them. Five suspects it’s the latter. “You’ve spent so much of your life fighting these things, you don’t know how to stop.”
He sucks in a breath. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about, Fivie.” Klaus smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “And so do you.”
“The moment I stop is the moment something happens. I can’t afford to let my guard down.” Not when… not when that might mean something happening to all of you. His tongue feels too thick in his mouth and he inhales shakily.
“Yes, you can,” Klaus says. “You’re not alone anymore. You’ve got the five of us.” He ticks them all off his fingers. “Luther. Diego. Allison. Viktor. Me. We’ve got your back, Five. You don’t have to worry about us anymore.”
Except that isn’t true. That isn’t true at all.
Every time he’s left them to their own devices, they’ve died. They’ve all died on him.
He closes his eyes and he sees them.
He sees them in the smoldering aftermath of the first apocalypse. He sees them riddled with bullet holes after the Handler caught them by surprise.
“You don’t understand,” he grinds out. His eyes burn and he blinks furiously. He’s not going to cry.
“Then help us to understand, Five,” Klaus says gently. “How can we help you?” He doesn’t touch him. Five doesn’t know if he would be able to handle it if he touched him.
So why is he so disappointed that he doesn’t? He shoves that thought to the deep recesses of his mind and works his jaw. “There’s nothing you can do,” he says.
“You keep saying that,” Klaus says and Five is shocked that he actually sounds almost angry, “but how do you know? Have you actually given us a chance?”
Five remains stubbornly silent, lips pressed in a thin line, eyes on the wall of equations in front of him because it’s easier than looking at Klaus.
He hasn’t given them a chance. Look at what’s happened in the past, he argues with himself and if his chest constricts and his breath catches in his throat, so what?
“You don’t know any other way to be, do you?” Klaus says quietly. There’s no condescension in his tone. Only understanding.
The chalk breaks in his hand. Shocked, Five opens his palm and stares at it. He can’t say anything.
What is there to say?
The blood is roaring in his ears, his heart pounds against his ribcage. He feels like a trapped animal. The walls are closing steadily around him.
Ash falls like snow around him, settling on his shoulders, and it’s been so long, it’s been so long, since he’s slipped, since he found himself on the brink of forgetting where he was.
And he can’t breathe.
He can’t breathe.
He places a hand on his chest, folding in on himself, and braces himself against the other wall with his other hand. In the back of his mind, he recognizes that Klaus is still here, that he’s worked so hard to avoid being vulnerable like this in front of his family, but everything else is too loud inside his head.
“Five?” Klaus’ voice is distorted and when he touches his shoulder, Five doesn’t have the energy to shrug him off. “Hey. Talk to me.”
Except his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth and he can’t think. He can’t talk. It’s all static and white noise and things he doesn’t want to remember.
He opens his mouth and nothing but a choked gasp comes out.
Klaus surprises him then, grabbing him by the shoulders and hugging him fiercely to his chest. “You’re okay,” he murmurs into his hair. “I’ve got you.”
Five might have killed him for it at any other time, so it’s something of a shock that he attempts it now. His hands grip Klaus’ shirt- he doesn’t know if he meant to push him away or pull him closer.
Tears are sliding down his face and it’s awful and humiliating and he hates it and yet he can’t let go of his brother.
Klaus’ hand cradles the back of his head. There’s a pain in the back of Five’s neck and throat, a dizziness that he tries to ignore that won’t let him go, but it all ends with him holding Klaus like he’s the only lifeline he has.
When was the last time he hugged someone? Or was hugged by someone? He doesn’t actually remember. And it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter because he’s not built for kindness. Not for giving it out and not for receiving it.
It’s insulting. It’s infantilizing. It’s… not something he wants to end.
He buries himself in Klaus’ shoulder and, for the first time in a long time, he lets himself be held.