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Allison wasn’t sure what had woken her up at first. Her heart was settled so it clearly wasn’t a nightmare, those always left her breathless and with her heart pounding a mile a minute in her chest. By all means, she had woken up peacefully, the only indication that something had even woken her up being the fact that she had been asleep a minute ago and now she was awake.
Gradually, she peeked one eye open only to notice that it was still dark so it wasn’t the sun waking her up at a reasonable time to get up. Her bed was as comfortable as a childhood bed made for a kid could be, which wasn’t significantly uncomfortable, but it was no adult bed.
They had all been talking about having each of them claim one of the other unused rooms on the other wing of the house to have as their new bedroom for those who still lived in the academy and those who only visited every once in a while. It was a nice thought, but no one seemed ready to give up their spaces yet.
Viktor had apparently already claimed a room, but with him jumping back and forth between his apartment and the academy, Allison figured that there wasn’t much progress done on the room.
So her room wasn’t uncomfortable to sleep in, nor was the bed. And Allison didn’t think she was hungry or thirsty or any of the other reasons that she might be awake in the middle of the night—was it the middle of the night?
Allison rolled over to her other side, patting around on her side table to pull the small intricately decorated analog clock over to her. It was either three or four in the morning. Allison couldn’t remember if she had changed the time on this clock to be accurate any time recently.
Well, with no other reason why her body had decided to wake her up at this time, the clearly only other thing left to do was to go back to sleep. She rolled over onto her back, sinking deeper into the plush pillow, and shut her eyes, hoping the remnants of exhaustion that clung to her would be enough to allow her to drift off to sleep swiftly.
Only, as soon as she did so, Allison heard what must have woken her up in the first place. Footsteps. Unsteady ones at that. They passed by the front of her door and then faded away, but then a few seconds later they were back getting closer and closer, uncoordinated steps thumping awkwardly over the floor. And then they left once again.
After her initial jolt of panic at the thought of an intruder, Allison remembered that she was currently sharing the house with several other of her insomniac siblings. It likely wasn’t an intruder, but whoever it was wasn’t doing a good job of being quiet.
Allison waited, curious if the person pacing outside her door would actually try to come in. From the pattern of footsteps, she had a small feeling that it was either Klaus or Five. They were the only ones who really had a habit of pacing around at night, although Klaus had been a lot better about doing it in places that wouldn’t wake anyone up. Five specifically did it in the hallway outside their bedrooms. Allison hadn’t figured out as to why yet.
As she silently tried to decide whether or not getting up to investigate was a good enough reason to get out of bed, she heard a telltale sound of rushing air, and then silence.
She sighed. Okay, so it was Five that was awake. Awesome.
There weren’t that many reasons why Five was awake at night anymore. Especially not awake and pacing around the hallway.
Especially not when she could actually hear his footsteps. He was a trained assassin, he knew how to be quiet.
Unfortunately for her, Allison actually cared about her brothers, and even more unfortunately, she knew that Five hadn’t been adjusting well to having stopped the whole end of the world for good. Anything that he was doing in the middle of the night couldn’t have been good.
Deciding that she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep unless she figured out what exactly was going on, Allison sighed and shoved her blankets to the side, pushing herself up to her feet.
She found a pair of slippers by the door, not wanting to venture out on the cold tile in bare feet. Then she decided to just bite the bullet hard and pull the door open without any time to consider. The door creaked loudly as she did so and she hoped that no one else was awake right now.
As she figured, the hallway was empty with no sign that anyone had been down here in the last few hours. Allison didn’t want to search the entire house in the middle of the night for her disgruntled older-younger brother. He could be anywhere, especially when it was late at night and he was trying to do god only knows what. Thankfully, some clattering from downstairs in the kitchen made it very easy to decide where to check first.
Allison padded down the stairs silently in her slippers, not trying too hard not to be quiet, but she didn’t want to wake up the rest of their siblings either. She just didn’t want to sneak up on Five by accident. They all knew how that usually went when that happened. A black eye wouldn’t look good in interviews.
As she got to the kitchen, Allison stopped, hovering in the middle of the entryway for a few moments, unsure of the situation that she had just walked in on.
Just like she had predicted, she found Five standing in front of one of the counters, leaning heavily against the marble surface with one of his legs looking like they were about to buckle. He had his forearm braced with his shoulders hunched over as if that might help him avoid colliding with the floor.
His back was to her, hair mussed from what she hoped was at least a little sleep, and he was wearing what looked like half of the academy uniform. He was either in a state of half dress or half undress, although with Five she couldn’t exactly be sure.
The blazer was missing and so his arms were exposed to the chilly kitchen air, goosebumps prickling at his skin. The vest seemed to have been haphazardly pulled on or had been desperately pulled from its normal place tucked into the waistband of his shorts. Allison could see creases of wrinkles in the vest and the white undershirt as well, one of his sleeves weirdly pushed up to his shoulder. Both of his socks were starting to fall down.
Allison hadn’t seen him wearing the uniform earlier today, so she had a small feeling that he had tried to hurriedly put it on sometime in the last few hours. She just couldn’t fathom why.
In front of him was a plate, some bread, and a jar of peanut butter. He fumbled with a butter knife, digging in the half-full jar with the effort of a man trying to pry gold out of a solid stone. His hands were trembling and he kept losing his grip on the knife.
He also didn’t notice that Allison was watching him.
“Hey, Five,” Allison muttered, just loud enough for her voice to carry across the room. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, it really was cold down here.
Thankfully, Five seemed to finally react to her presence, his shoulders tensing a little bit. His fists almost fizzled blue for a moment, but when he straightened and nearly fell, his powers quickly snuffed out.
When he turned to look at Allison, nothing more than a furrowed brow on his face, she could see the deep flush of alcohol on his cheeks. His eyes were hazy and not all the way there and once he noticed her, he blinked a few times and scrubbed at his face with the back of his wrist.
He was drunk. Very drunk by the looks of it.
Allison stepped further into the room, slowly approaching her brother. Five watched her, swaying a little bit where he stood, seeming to forget all about the sandwich that he had been trying to make.
“Have you been drinking?” Allison asked softly, reaching out and placing a hand on the center of his back to steady him. Five dropped both elbows onto the counter and shied away from her touch, a small breath leaving his lips.
“No,” He mumbled.
He reeked of booze.
Allison sighed through her nose, frowning slightly as she took in the situation in front of her.
“What are you doing?” Allison then tried, hoping to get a few more answers out of Five. He was always a little more talkative when drunk, she didn’t want to take advantage of that, but she hoped that maybe he would give her something to work with. Why had he been drinking in the first place? Nightmares? Memories of the apocalypse? She needed to know how to approach this.
“Uhm,” Five wet his lips and then turned back to what he had been doing. He lowered himself a little bit onto the counter, reaching up to rub at his face again, sliding his fingers through his hair. “Sandwich?”
“Okay,” Allison nodded slowly, “How about you sit down and I’ll finish making this for you?”
“‘M hungry,” Five muttered, rubbing his eyes and pressing the heel of his palm against his cheekbone. He sighed and put his head on the counter, narrowly missing getting his hair in the peanut butter.
“Sure,” Allison said, keeping her hand on his back, “I’ll get you a sandwich, okay? Let’s sit down first.” He already seemed halfway to the floor, and it seemed like he was about to go all the way if she didn’t get him to a chair soon.
She tugged him away from the counter gently by the elbow, supporting him with an arm across his shoulders and a steady grip on his bicep. Five stumbled over his feet, all but falling against Allison’s side with a small oof. He let himself be maneuvered away from the counter easily, although it was a bit more of a challenge to get him a few feet to the kitchen table so he could sit down.
Allison let go of Five’s arm for only a second to grab the chair and pull it out from under the table. In that time, Five just allowed himself to sink against her, sighing heavily and shutting his eyes.
“Come on, here we go,” Allison shifted him around so that he could plop down on the heavy wooden chair in front of the table. Five didn’t weigh much more than a bundle of sticks and barely came above five feet, but it was still difficult for her to maneuver a limp little brother who barely wanted to keep his head up for a couple of seconds.
“Allison?” Five leaned his chin on his hand, blinking up at her through bleary eyes. He sighed and pressed the pads of his fingers into the skin of his cheeks.
“Yes?” Allison knelt in front of him, it took him a few seconds for his eyes to follow where she had gone.
“Missed you,” Five mumbled, his eyes slipping shut as he leaned heavily on his hand. He sniffled and let out another sigh like a dog that had been left out on the back porch for too long.
Allison reached up and cupped Five’s other cheek in her hand. “Missed you too, Five.”
His lips twitched and he smiled, albeit briefly.
“Let’s get you some water and something to eat, m’kay?” Allison patted his face and used the table as an anchor to push herself up to her feet. “You stay there.”
Five gave no indication that he had heard her. He just leaned over the wooden table, plopping his head down onto his crossed arms, greasy hair falling in clumps over his face. He looked every bit his physical age, and Allison was sure that he was feeling the consequences of having a fifty-eight-year-old drinking habit in a thirteen-year-old body.
Allison stood and first opened the cupboard for a glass. She filled it at the sink with cold water and placed it in front of Five loudly. He flinched as if she had just fired a gun right in front of his ear, but he didn’t seem to react badly. He rubbed his eyes and blinked tiredly at the glass in front of him. Allison was glad when she saw him shakily reach out for it, drinking most of the glass in one go. Some water in his system would do some good.
Five hadn’t gotten very far in the process of making his sandwich, it seemed like all he had managed to do was just stir the peanut butter around in the jar with the knife. The bread was laid out haphazardly on the plate and it seemed like he had been eating the crust since some pieces were missing that were nowhere to be found.
Allison spread a generous amount of peanut butter on one of the slices of bread and then squished it together with the other one, making a decent enough looking sandwich. It didn’t matter, Five was drunk, and he wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care if he was sober either.
She placed the plate in front of him and watched as he shakily lifted his head from the table. Allison sat down across from him, watching him closely as he fumbled with the sandwich.
“How come you were drinking tonight, Five?” Allison asked, hoping that she might get some sort of coherent answer out of him. Five had been doing good with working on his drinking problem the last few weeks, establishing a bit more moderation with his alcohol consumption. Allison hadn’t heard of anyone finding him this drunk in a while which worried her.
“You keep dying,” Five mumbled through his sandwich, leaning his chin on one hand, the other grasped firmly around the bread, squeezing the sandwich so hard that a bit of peanut butter was oozing out the sides. His eyelids drooped and he had to force them back open with a shake of his head. “Over… Over ‘n over… I can’t keep seeing you die.”
Ah. Bad night.
“I missed you…” Five continued, dropping his sandwich back onto the plate as if the thought of it disgusted him. “Missed you all so… so much and… and you keep dying… and I…” He shook his head, fumbling for the glass of water which was almost empty at this point. He finished it off in two messy gulps and then sat it back down on the table with a startling noise. “I don’t like being the last one alive… Don’t like livin’ like that.”
“I’m sorry,” Allison said, because what else was there for her to say? She wanted to console him, but she never knew what the right to say was. Five was difficult to comfort, and she figured that he wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning anyway. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. “We’re alive though, remember, you saved us all and so now you’re still here.”
She reached across the table to lay her hand over Five’s. “You aren’t alone anymore, you don’t have to miss us.”
“Hate being alone…” Five’s head was slowly inching towards the table. He sighed heavily, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand.
“You’re not anymore,” Allison promised, “We’re right here, okay?”
“You’re gonna die again… n’ then I’m gonna be alone,” Five sniffled and Allison felt a jolt of panic as she saw tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. “‘Cuz I keep… keep living.”
“We aren’t going to die again, Five, you stopped the end of the world, we’re all okay,” Allison told him. This was a routine script for dealing with Five, especially when drunk. There wasn’t much that any of them could do to fully console him, but she had a small feeling that their reassurances helped. It just seemed that he was the type that would have to wait out things like this.
“I hate being thirteen,” Five suddenly let his head thunk to the table, barely landing with his forehead on his right arm. “I wanna die with the rest of you.”
“Oh…” The realization hit Allison like a truck at full speed. “Oh, Five…” What was she supposed to say to that?
They were all physically so much older than Five. There would be a time, eventually, as long as all things stayed good and friendly, where Five would probably outlive all of them. Maybe only by a few years. But a few years is a lot of time when one had spent his entire life being the last one surviving.
This wasn’t a conversation to have with a drunk Five.
This wasn’t a conversation that they should be having at all. Allison felt a little bad for prying now when Five was inebriated, it felt like taking advantage of him. He was usually pretty talkative while drunk.
“Five, you don’t have to worry about that right now,” Allison told him, hoping that he wouldn’t notice the waiver in her voice, although she doubted that he was noticing much about her at all right now. “That’s not something you’ll have to worry about for a long, long time.”
Five sniffled, pawing at his face where tears seemed adamant on falling.
“Hey, hey,” Allison stood and rounded the table, placing a hand on the center of his back and rubbing small circles, “You’re okay. C’mon, let’s get some more water in you, that’ll help.”
Five said nothing but continued to rub at his eyes as Allison refilled his glass and sat it back down in front of him.
She settled into the chair right next to him, leaning forward until her knee was pressed against his thigh. She patted his arm to get him to sit up a bit more, once he noticed the glass of water he immediately lifted it to his lips and drank quickly.
“Dolores is going to be upset with me,” Five muttered, still sniffling. He sounded miserable, Allison hated hearing him like this. It made her heart ache. “She hates when I drink.”
“I think she’ll understand,” Allison told him, unable to stop herself from frowning. Dolores was such a touchy subject with Five and Allison never knew how to properly approach it whenever he brought her up. It made her sad to think about. She always felt like she should say something else, but there was never the right thing to say. It was like that a lot with Five.
“Are you upset with me?” Five then asked, looking away from Allison as if he were ashamed.
“No, Five,” Allison told him, “I’m not upset. I don’t like seeing you drunk like this though, it’s not good for you.” It was hard to be upset with him when he was looking at nothing with tears in his eyes and a miserable expression on his face. As much as he loved to scowl and make himself look mean, Allison figured that his sad face was a lot more effective.
Five said nothing and stared down at the glass of water.
“We’re just concerned about you,” Allison continued, noticing the look on Five’s face, “You make it difficult for us to help you.”
“I’m sorry…” Five blinked tiredly. “I don’t mean to…”
Allison didn’t expect that. She tried not to let her surprise show on her face.
“We know,” Allison put her arm around his shoulder, leaning into him and rubbing small circles on his back with her nails. He absolutely melted under the touch, tension that Allison didn’t even realize that he was holding draining from his spine. “It’s hard relying on others when you’ve been alone your whole life, huh?”
Five nodded, although, by the look on his face, it didn’t seem like he was fully following what she was saying anymore. His eyelids were droopy and he was having a tough time keeping his head up.
“Hey, finish your water, and let’s get you to bed,” Allison patted his arm, jostling him just a bit to wake him up from where he seemed to be falling asleep.
Five mumbled something incoherent but did as he was told, finishing the last bit of his water, droplets of it rolling down the corner of his mouth. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and sniffled, still seeming dangerously close to falling asleep.
“C’mon, do you think that you can walk?” Allison asked, still holding her hand on his arm. She squeezed his wrist gently.
“Mhm,” Five hummed blearily.
Turns out that no, he couldn’t, at least not without dragging them both down. Allison was glad that he didn’t weigh that much and seemed to at least cooperate with her picking him up. She managed to get him on her back, his arms thrown loosely around her shoulders, face pressed against the crook of her neck. She held her arms underneath his thighs, lifting him easily from the chair he sat on.
He was still mumbling incoherently as she brought him up the stairs to his bedroom, trying to avoid the squeaky floorboards so she didn’t needlessly wake anyone else up.
The door to his room was still cracked open, so Allison simply toed it open the rest of the way with her foot, flicking on the light with her elbow so she didn’t trip over anything.
Five’s room was a subtle blend of chaos and organization. It always had been in a way but now it was even worse. Papers, books, and notebooks were confined to the corner of his room where his desk was, although from there, not much order could be found. There were bottles of alcohol in various states of fullness sitting on and around the chair by his window, but besides that, his room was mostly clutter-free.
The walls were incoherent with scribbles of chalk and probably normal sharpie. Allison couldn’t make out half of what was written, it was more of Five’s math, although it seemed to take up much more of the room than it had before, so he clearly had been working on it.
Allison just sighed, walking over to Five’s bed and pushing off some clutter of books and clothes. It definitely didn’t seem like he had used it in the past few days. The sheets were still made, and she knew he didn’t make his bed in the morning.
As gently as she could, Allison placed Five down on the bed, detangling herself from his mass of gangly limbs. He whined softly in protest, hands reaching out to grab at Allison again.
“I’m right here, I’m right here,” Allison reassured him, taking his hand into her own and intertwining their fingers together. “Lay down.”
She pulled the sheets back from the top of the bed, letting him wiggle underneath the covers. Five flopped down hard against the pillow, narrowly missing conking his head on the wall.
Allison tucked him in, bringing the sheets up to his shoulders. Five immediately rolled over onto his side, curling in on himself with his knees to his chest. His eyes were closed but he didn’t appear to be asleep.
She had just turned the lights off and was about to return to her room when she heard Five fumble to sit back up. His arms slid against the sheets as he struggled to keep them under himself, peering into the darkness with eyes barely wider than slits.
“Allison?” Five mumbled, voice thick with exhaustion and alcohol.
“Yes?” Allison asked, pausing with her hand wrapped around the doorknob.
“Don’t go…” Five begged, sounding so much younger than Allison had ever heard him. Allison let out a small breath, not a sigh, but almost lighter than a gasp. She stepped back into the room and shut the door just enough that there was only a sliver of light coming in from the hallway.
“I’m here, you lay back down and get some rest,” Allison sat down on the edge of his bed, gently pushing on his shoulders to get him to lie down. He fell against the pillows with an oof, his arms sprawling around him awkwardly.
Five continued to stare up at her, forcing his eyes open with what looked like the greatest battle known to man. Allison wasn’t entirely sure what he still wanted.
Then, he shifted slightly, a little awkwardly given his lack of coordination, moving so that he was pushed more toward one side of the bed. He grasped at the blankets and pulled them back about as far as his elbow could extend, which wasn’t that far in retrospect, but it was enough that Allison got the picture.
“Oh,” Allison understood then what he wanted immediately. She smiled ever so softly, a painful bout of nostalgia worming its way into her chest.
Allison laid down next to Five, getting under the covers with him. He sighed in contentment, snuggling a bit closer to her, tucking himself in between her arms like a very satisfied cat. She encircled him with her arms, absently rubbing his back.
She used to do this with Claire when she had nightmares when she was younger. And even before that, she remembered sneaking out of her room to cuddle with one of the others when they were kids, and she knew that the others had done the same too. But Allison didn’t know if Five had ever done that. She didn’t think so.
If it was possible, it seemed like as soon as he had settled into her arms, Five was out completely, his soft breaths brushing against the bare skin of her collar.
Without thinking better of it, Allison pressed a small kiss to the top of his head, smoothing his hair away from his face. He sighed in his sleep but didn’t react, if anything melting deeper into the sheets, completely boneless in her arms.
He needed a good night’s rest, even if it would only be for a few hours until the sun came up.
Five was so going to hate her in the morning. He’d be absolutely mortified. But Allison didn’t find it within her to try to wiggle out from his grasp and risk waking him up. Let him be embarrassed about it, Allison didn’t mind it in the slightest. She had no idea when the last time he had been hugged was, or even if he had ever been cuddled before in his life.
After everything he had been through, he deserved this kind of comfort at least.