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Nobody could say that Five Hargreeves didn’t care for his siblings.
They’d just been getting ready for dinner when they suddenly heard a loud thud and a choked-off yelp from upstairs that had everybody whipping their heads around towards the staircase in startled concern.
It wasn’t Ben, for obvious reasons. It wasn’t Klaus—he’d been stuffing his face with pizza before it even had the chance to cool down—and as such, nor was it Diego, who was currently trying to get Klaus to slow the hell down so he wouldn’t literally inhale the food.
It couldn’t be Luther, because he was busy in the kitchen putting more pizzas in the oven, and Five and Allison had been quietly chatting about what they’d need to get for groceries for the next week or so, so not them, either.
That left Viktor.
He’d asked for a bit of privacy before dinner so he could work on some of his writing, a new hobby he’d picked up recently, and they had obliged (with Klaus being a bit too nosy about the plot, perhaps, but at least he was showing an interest, Five supposed). But now there was crying coming from Viktor’s room and he needed to go and check it out.
Five and Viktor had always been pretty close, and that was sure as hell evident by the way he almost toppled out of his chair and then nearly fell down the stairs trying to get to Viktor’s room—their powers might be gone, but Five had zoomed off so fast he might as well have still had them.
“…do you think we should—?” Klaus started, but Diego shook his head minutely and mouthed, no, give him a moment. But he was keeping watch anyway, just to make sure.
“Vik?” Five called, knocking a couple of times so Viktor would be less startled and then carefully opening the door. “We heard something fall, are you—?”
He just barely heard a whimper coming from the direction of the bed, but the bed was empty, and he had to admit that he honestly froze for a second, because then the only place that noise could be coming from was…hang on.
Was Viktor hiding under the bed? He hadn’t done that since they were all very young children, since they’d all thought him to be a girl and he’d curl up there with Allison whenever it was storming outside—how did he even fit under there? He was small, sure, but not that small…
No matter.
Five slowly knelt down beside the bed and pushed the blankets aside so he could take a peek underneath it—and sure enough, huddled up in a trembling little ball in the corner looking absolutely distraught, with a night sky teddy bear clutched so tightly to his chest that it had to hurt, crying so hard that his shoulders were heaving with the force of his sobs and yet also trying so, so hard to not make any noise, was his favorite brother. He looked so…so little, the spitting image of a frightened child—
Oh.
He felt like somebody had knocked the wind out of him. Of course. He knew what this was, he could help. Maybe the whole “tenderness” thing didn’t exactly come naturally to him most of the time, but this was Viktor.
He just wondered if Viktor had ever regressed before—though judging by the sheer confusion in his eyes right then, he’d guess not.
“Hey, hey,” he murmured, slowly and gently pulling the blankets further back so Viktor could actually see him. “You okay, Vee? What happened?”
Viktor opened his mouth like he wanted to reply, but nothing came out and that just made him cry harder. At a loss, Five glanced behind him and saw something he hadn’t noticed before—a broken violin, haphazardly piled together in a mess of wood and bits of string, with a particularly sharp piece of wood in the mix that was near-totally stained bright red.
“B-Bi’yin,” Viktor whimpered, wobbly and meek and so, so little, and his breath hitched and oh somebody might as well have stabbed Five through the chest because that was sure what it felt like. “‘m sowry.”
“Oh, you poor dear,” he breathed, turning his full attention back to Viktor and noticing that he seemed a bit paler than he’d been just a few seconds before—it was admittedly hard to tell because it was dark, but his instincts were gnawing at him to get to his brother and he was this close to squeezing under there himself. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, baby. You look sort of pale, are you not feeling good?”
A whine. Weaker than Five would’ve liked, weak enough that it was starting to scare him, but it was a response. “I need you to come out of there for me, okay? You’re not in trouble, nobody’s mad at you, I promise, I just need to take a look at you and see if you’re hurt.”
Viktor just stared at him for a second, the words taking far longer than usual to register in his brain, but he slowly nodded and army-crawled his way out from underneath the bed before propping himself up into a sitting position, and immediately Five could see what the problem was—there was a huge gash in between Viktor’s cheek and chin right where it would normally rest when he played his violin, and as best as Five could piece together, the violin must have somehow broken in the middle of his playing and cut his cheek wide open in the process. He reached up on instinct to try and get a better look at it, and his fingers came back soaked in blood, a sight that made Viktor curl back in on himself and grab at Five’s palm anxiously.
“…b’eedin’…” Viktor whispered, pulling a little handkerchief out of his pocket and clumsily wiping the blood away, and Five realized with a start that he thought he was hurt. Tiny baby Viktor, mid-panic attack with a giant gash in his cheek, was fretting over Five and trying to help him. He could’ve cried.
Five blinked back the tears welling up in his eyes and swallowed hard. “I’m not hurt, buddy, ‘s not mine,” he murmured, trying to use his fingers to get a rough estimate of the wound’s measurements before setting his non-bloodied hand on Viktor’s shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “But we’re gonna get you all fixed up, okay? We’re gonna go downstairs and get the first-aid kit, and I won’t lie to you, Vivi, I’m gonna have to stitch it up, it’s a very big owie—but we’re gonna numb it up as best we can and then I’ll get Diego to make you a big ol’ plate of chocolate-chip cookies for being such a big, brave boy, yeah? I know you love those cookies.”
Viktor seemed to perk up a bit at the mention of cookies, and then a little more when he heard the word “boy” used in reference to him, which encouraged Five to keep going. “How big is this sweet boy here, hm?” he asked, gently booping the tip of Viktor’s nose with his index finger. “This little hungry-for-chocolate-chip-cookies baby boy, this boy right in front of me. That one, that boy. You!”
Viktor buried his face in his hands with a squeak, his feet tippy-tapping against the floor with delight for a few seconds before he got settled again, and then he remembered the question and looked completely baffled for a moment before hesitantly holding up two fingers and then shrugging, his little face the epitome of uncertainty.
So Five was dealing with a toddler, then. That was fine, he’d suspected either that or a baby when Viktor had tried to speak earlier, but even though tiny-Viktor was the most well-behaved little thing Five had ever seen (to the point where it quite frankly concerned him, if he was being honest), he still wouldn’t be able to stitch up that wound without help. Hm…
“Hey, bud, there’s pizza downstairs,” Five offered. “What do you say we go grab a slice and then I’ll get my stuff ready?”
Another tiny nod, though he didn’t seem too sure about it, and Five gently took both of Viktor’s hands and helped him up off the floor—and almost immediately Viktor stumbled and nearly fell over, clutching at Five’s forearms in desperation so he wouldn’t go down.
“What’s wrong?” Five asked, having trouble hiding the urgency in his voice. “Did you get dizzy? Vik? Viktor?”
Viktor didn’t respond, his eyes rolling back in his head before he just crumpled bonelessly into Five’s chest like a puppet with the strings cut, his teddy bear falling to the floor in between them.
Five’s heart leapt into his throat for half a second before he realized what had probably happened, internally cursing himself for forgetting how pale his brother’s face had been earlier before shaking his head, realizing it wouldn’t do any good now, and carefully laying Viktor back down and propping his feet up on some pillows to help get the blood flow back to his brain.
Viktor wasn’t out for too long—around thirty seconds-ish, if Five had to guess—before he groaned softly and his eyelids slowly started to flutter.
“Hi,” Five breathed, scooping the teddy up off the floor and slipping it back into Viktor’s grasp before he could even notice its absence, then lying down next to him because he’d heard that could be comforting sometimes, and glassy eyes opened and seemed to stare through the ceiling for a few moments before finally focusing on him and filling with tears. “Easy, buddy, there’s no rush. Do you remember what happened?”
Viktor was panting hard, his chest heaving like he was out of breath as he shook his head, and it looked like it took him great effort to even do that. “Mm-mm.”
“Just try and relax, now,” Five soothed, dabbing a bit of sweat off of Viktor’s forehead before it could get in his eye. “You fainted. I know that had to be really scary, huh, little one? Change of plans: we’re gonna stay down here for now, and I’ll have somebody bring the first-aid kit up to us…is there anybody in particular you want?”
Viktor still looked really disoriented, and for a moment Five wasn’t sure if he’d even heard any of that before he blinked a few times and clumsily traced a K on the floor with his finger.
“Klaus?” Five checked, and when Viktor nodded he pulled out his phone and fired off a quick text.
Come here, bring the first-aid kit. Viktor’s violin broke and cut him badly, he needs stitches.
Viktor was starting to shake by this point; whether it was the pain or the blood loss or the fear getting to him Five didn’t know, but either way he pulled him close with a “c’mere, baby,” and listened for Klaus.
It couldn’t have been ten seconds before that man was pounding up the stairs and bursting into the room with the blessed first-aid kit in his grasp, immediately handing it over to Five as he shifted back upright before sitting down on Viktor’s other side. “Yeesh, that looks rough. And because of his violin…no wonder he slipped.”
“Yeah, I found him hiding under—” Five popped open the case and then stopped to turn and look at Klaus in suspicion. “…how the hell did you know that?”
“No swearing in front of the baby!” Klaus chided indignantly, earning him a tiny giggle from Viktor, and then just raised an eyebrow until he got it…and then Five felt a bit dumb. Duh. He was an army vet, he’d seen some shit, and a few of the other soldiers probably did stuff like this to cope with everything they had to deal with.
“Right, um—well, I need help keeping him distracted so I can stitch this up,” Five explained, grabbing a little tube of numbing cream and rubbing it in all around the wound. “Got any ideas?”
“‘Course I do, her-mano,” Klaus replied as easy as you please, and Five cringed a bit at the mispronunciation. “I got fairytales aplenty in this ol’ noggin of mine, I’ll have him absolutely enchanted—”
Viktor wasn’t having it, though, and reached silently for Five, and Five took one look at that trusting, scared, sad, confused little face and he couldn’t do it. “…Klaus,” he asked, “how good are you at stitching?”
Of all the things that could be said about Klaus, stupid was not one of them (even if he seemed that way on occasion). He especially was very emotionally intelligent, and he caught on to the situation immediately, yoinking the needle out of Five’s hands once it was threaded. “Better than everybody else in this house, I’d say, other than you. And yes, I washed my hands.”
“Thanks,” Five breathed, and the two awkwardly scooched past one another and swapped places. “Talk to me, Vivi, what color’s your teddy?”
Viktor’s eyes were half-lidded and he seemed to be struggling to move his hands, though Five couldn’t tell whether that meant he was dropping younger or getting weaker. He played with one of the teddy’s paws between his fingers for a moment while he tried to think up his answer, and he was about to reply when Klaus began to work the needle in where it needed to be.
Five had expected flailing, hitting, kicking, screaming at the very least, all of which would have been perfectly reasonable reactions to being three years old and getting stitches in your face without any pain medication and only superficial numbing, but Viktor didn’t do any of that, he just flinched a bit at the first stitch and hid behind his teddy with tears streaming down his sheet-white face and Five felt like a goddamn monster.
“Hey—hey, Vivi, hey,” he cooed, gently tapping at Viktor’s uninjured cheek because his eyes were kind of rolling back again and he didn’t like that. “I’m so sorry, baby, I know…hey, do you remember when we went ice-skating that one time and Luther fell over and was sliding around on the ice on his butt for like a whole minute? That was fun, huh? Or maybe when we went to the arcade and Allison managed to rumor the claw machines into letting her win, and we all got teddy bears? Mine was red, Allison’s was green plaid, Klaus got a yellow one, Luther got brown, and Diego got black? Is that right?”
Viktor giggled weakly and hummed in affirmation, looking pointedly at his teddy as if to say, you forgot somebody.
“That’s right, that’s where your teddy came from too,” Five praised softly. “Such a smart boy. Does your teddy have a name?”
Viktor thought hard for a moment, trying to convey the teddy’s name without words or letters that were so far out of reach for his baby-brain, and finally he just pointed at the teddy and hoped Five would understand—which, of course he would, he was Five.
“Hm? I’m not—” Five paused and pretended to snap his fingers in understanding (not actually doing it because that would be too loud for baby ears and might also make Klaus mess up what he’s doing). “Ohhh, I see! Is her name Layla? ‘Cause it means ‘night’? Clever!”
Viktor nodded excitedly and he seemed quite proud of himself, the corners of his mouth quirking up in a smile, but of course he couldn’t catch a break and Klaus hit a spot where the numbing cream had started to wear off a bit early, making him whimper in pain.
“It’s gonna be okay, Vee, I’m…almost…done! I’m all done,” Klaus announced, and the moment he said that Viktor gasped and threw up all over himself and the floor, mumbling in discomfort and looking up at Five with such tired and pained eyes that Five had no clue what to do next—but Klaus did.
“Here, let’s sit up a bit, huh?” he asked quietly, gently weaving his hands under Viktor’s armpits and propping him up against the bedframe. “There we go, now we’re not right next to the icky. But you, my dear, still need a change of clothes, yeah? I bet you gotta be cold now. How ‘bout some jammies? You wanna put on your jammies?”
Viktor looked conflicted and crossed both arms over his chest, not in the pouty “I don’t wanna” way but more so like he was trying to hide himself, which indicated that he was feeling embarrassed and uncomfortable with the way he looked. “…b-boy…” he managed, his feet shuffling anxiously along the carpet as his breathing started to pick up a bit, and it became abundantly clear why he felt so self-conscious.
“You are,” Five affirmed, “you are a boy. Deep breaths, baby, deep breaths…there we are. What’s going on, bud?”
“Hey, pumpkin,” Klaus said gently, “look at my hair. See how long it is? That doesn’t make me any less of a guy.” He wasn’t actually sure whether he was fully a guy, if he was being honest, but it wasn’t because of his hair, and that was a problem for another day, anyway. “There’s lotsa other boys out there who look like you, too. So that’s not a girl’s chest, that’s your chest, and since you are very much a boy then your tiddies are very much boy tiddies.”
“Klaus!” Five hissed, elbowing Klaus hard in the side. “Not so vulgar, he’s just a kid right now!”
But Viktor didn’t seem to mind at all—in fact, he was laughing harder than Five or Klaus (or any of them, really) had seen in years, though soon enough the sensation of chilled vomit on his clothes brought him back down to Earth.
“‘m ‘ticky,” he muttered as he pulled at his shirt, his words a little more confident now that he didn’t have an actively-bleeding wound on his face. “Iiiiick.”
Klaus was way ahead of them, already getting up and heading off to his room, leaving Viktor and Five both immensely confused before he came back with two washcloths and some soft pastel yellow footie pajamas (where the hell did he even get those?). They looked like they’d be a bit big on Viktor, but he immediately lit up and giggled eagerly when he saw them, so all was well.
“You like the jammies?” Klaus cooed, heading to the bathroom and turning on the sink to soak the washcloths before pumping some soap into one of them and scrubbing it in. “Five? Can you help get Vik out of those stuffy big-boy clothes so we can clean him up? I don’t think he can handle a bath right now, I don’t want him passing out in the water.”
Five had expected some resistance, given Viktor’s reaction earlier to being offered pajamas, but when he turned back around Viktor had just managed to wriggle out of his pants and turned his attention to his shirt.
“Thank you, pumpkin,” Five praised. “Can I help with that?”
Viktor nodded, so Five leaned closer and pulled off the shirt, leaving him in just a pair of boxers, before grabbing a blanket off the bed to cover his legs because he was beginning to shiver a bit. “There we go. You’re a very helpful boy.”
“We all situated?” Klaus called out, heading over towards the two of them and handing Five the soapy rag. “Is this okay, Vik? Five washes, I…rinse? I mean, it’s not really rinsing, but I dunno what else to call it.”
Viktor looked at them both for a moment and nodded. He didn’t exactly seem pleased with the arrangement, per se, but he didn’t look upset, either. He just wanted to not feel gross anymore. “‘kay….t’us’ you.”
Klaus immediately got all teary-eyed and nudged Five’s shoulder with a smile. “Fiveeee! Did you hear that? He said he trusts me!”
“Of course he does, you doof,” Five muttered, wrapping an arm around Viktor’s shoulders for stability and wiping off his face before going and scrubbing at the first spot of drying puke he could find, but secretly he was melting on the inside too. “We’re brothers.”
It turned out that most of the vomit ended up down the center of Viktor’s torso, which was good because that meant they could minimize any dysphoria he might be feeling. There was one small spot that did wind up off to the side a bit, and when it was the last one left Viktor reached for the washcloths and they let him get that one himself.
“There we go, all clean!” Klaus cheered, ruffling Viktor’s hair and unzipping the footie pajamas. “Suit up!”
Viktor giggled and let Klaus slip the pajamas onto him, and he made surprisingly quick work of it. “Ta-da!! There he is, our ittiest-bittiest baby boy! Does baby think he feels okay enough to come downstairs and eat?”
“He might not want the others to see him like this,” Five whispered, but Viktor nodded and his stomach even growled a bit as if to cement the point, so Klaus scooped him up and set him on his hip (which actually worked a lot better than he thought it would) and off they all went.
When they stepped out of the bedroom and into the hallway, though, Viktor suddenly squeaked and hid his face in Klaus’s shoulder, his grip on him tightening like he was afraid.
“We’re all siblings, baby, they love you,” Five murmured, “and they’re gonna love baby-you too. I swear it.”
Not even two seconds after Klaus stepped foot on the staircase, all eyes turned to him and the bundle in his arms. Viktor risked a quick peek but couldn’t decipher the expressions on their faces, so he hid back in the safety of Klaus’s shoulder.
Five stood in front of the pair just in case, looking around at everybody to make sure no one would get upset. Allison seemed more concerned than anything and Diego just looked confused, but surprisingly Luther clocked the pajamas and made an “o” face of realization before turning around in his chair to face them.
“Hey, little guy!” he greeted, and that got the other two to figure out what was happening, though they just elected to watch for the time being. “That cheek looks like it hurts a lot! You’re a very brave boy, getting stitches.”
Startled by this reaction, Viktor just nodded, but he seemed a bit anxious because he couldn’t actually thank Luther for the compliment, so Klaus tried to distract him by setting him down in an empty chair and putting a couple of slices of plain cheese pizza on a plate for him. “Here we go, bud! Pizza! And it’s finger food, too!”
Viktor hesitantly picked up a slice and took a small bite, then another, and then some more, until eventually the whole slice was gone, at which point he stopped and held off for a minute to make sure it would stay down (which it did). He ate another slice like this and washed it down with some water that was slid his way, though he had to be very careful because it was in a glass and he didn’t want to spill any, and then he yawned and Klaus scooped him back up with promises of naptime and cuddles and yes, Five not-so-secretly loved how sweet his family could be.