Archive of Our Own

Funny, in the before times he’d always been kind of a picky eater. Usually it was things with weird textures, or too much texture- mushrooms were too spongey, oatmeal was too mushy, bananas were squishy and had those disgusting strings on them. “I like what I like,” he used to retort when his father commanded him to eat everything on his plate. At first Dad tried to withhold food from him as punishment, sending him to his room without dinner, which sometimes stretched into breakfast. But his powers sapped so much energy from him and blinking made him nauseous in those earlier days, and eventually Dad got fed up with him throwing up and passing out during training sessions.

Grace and Pogo kept them on pretty strict meal plans- three healthy meals a day, vitamin regimens based on their individual needs, junk food permitted only on Saturdays from noon until noon-thirty- but he was allowed a little more than the rest of his siblings, based on how quickly his powers could burn through carbs, and he didn’t have to eat the shit he didn’t like. (Which he personally enjoyed, it was fun to rub it in that his siblings had to eat liver and tofu while he got spaghetti or a grilled cheese sandwich). Grace fretted over him sometimes, how he wasn’t growing as quickly as he should or putting on enough weight, but he just shrugged and drank the protein shakes she offered. He got to eat what he wanted and he was getting better and better with his powers, he didn’t care.

But then the apocalypse happened. And there wasn’t a smiling robot mother setting out his meals at the regularly scheduled time. No more bedtime snacks. No more sneaking out with his siblings to gorge on chips and candy and sodas at the corner convenience store.

He was starving.

The first few days of the apocalypse he was in shock. He didn’t think about eating. But when the shock wore off the hunger set in, and he had to find something to eat. The academy kitchen was his first place to search, but without electricity the contents of the fridge and freezer were useless and the pantry was mostly obliterated.

As he started venturing out he looked for grocery stores. Anything fresh was out of the question- bread had gone moldy, milk was spoiled, fruits and vegetables were rotten. He got better at looking for things with a long shelf life, anything in a can or heavily laced with preservatives. 

Then a year went by, then two, then three. It got harder to find food, especially in the winter. Dad had taught them basic survival techniques, but those weren’t meant for long term. For a permanent life. He created rules for himself in order to stay alive. To keep from starving to death.

And then things changed, really changed, and he was back in the correct timeline. The good timeline. All of his siblings alive and safe. No apocalypse. Everything was fine. Better than fine, actually. They all had the lives they wanted, even the partners they loved. No powers anymore, but that was an exchange they were willing to make. It was perfect.

But he couldn’t turn his brain off. The rules were still in place, even though he wasn’t scrounging through rubble anymore and there was a kitchen full of food downstairs. He needed the rules. They kept him alive.

Rule #1: save half of everything you find, you might not find food again for a while

He made a mistake in the early days that he never repeated. Most buildings had been completely crushed, but he found a gas station that was still sort of standing, with a backup generator that was still operational. A miracle, honestly.

First he dug into the freezers, half burying himself in half melted ice and nearly crying at the coolness against his skin. The heat from the sun and the fires never seemed to stop burning and he felt like he was burning with it. And then he drank what felt like a gallon of water, breaking open the biggest bottles he could find and guzzling greedily.

And there was so much food. Some of the packaging was a little worse for wear, true, but it was edible. At this point he hadn’t eaten in days and he gorged himself on whatever he could find. Snack cakes, pretzels, fruit snacks. There were just two little problems with that.

One, he ate too much and too fast, and it immediately came back right back up. The nausea hit so fast and so hard he didn’t even see it coming until he was doubled over vomiting on the ground.

And two, the stock ran out faster than he thought. It seemed like there was so much, and then it was gone, and he was right back to where he started, hunger clawing at his belly with no food in sight.

The next time he found food he immediately set aside half of it for later. Who knew when he might need it? Better to divide it up and go a little hungry in the present so he wouldn’t go hungry in the future.

But in the future, his new future, he didn’t need that. Logically he knew there was plenty of food in the house. Grace went right back to making meals for them as if they’d never left. When she didn’t cook his siblings and their spouses took turns (with varied levels of success- Luther took to cooking fairly well, albeit with some odd seasoning choices here and there, while Diego should never be permitted near a stove). 

But no matter what, he would set part of his meal aside in his napkin. His siblings were easily distracted, they never noticed. Carefully, methodically he would pick something off of his plate, a roll or a chicken leg or a baked potato, and he’d wrap it up and smuggle it upstairs and find a spot to hide it. It wasn’t even that he was hungry enough to eat it- his appetite still hadn’t properly come back. It was just reassuring to know it was there, just in case. More than a few times when he couldn’t sleep he would check his food stores, mentally rationing it out into portions to see how many days he could survive off of it. 

At some point he wouldn’t need that rule anymore, but for now it made him feel like he was still in control.

Rule #2: eat whatever you find, even if you don’t like it

Any pickiness he’d had went straight out the window when his food supply was limited, he couldn’t afford to be precious about what he ate when there weren’t a lot of options. Mushrooms were a lot less awful when he had to choose between eating a can of them or going to sleep hungry. It was still disgusting, they were slippery and slimy and squished under his teeth, but they filled his stomach.

Sometimes he thought back to his childhood and all the food he’d turned up his nose at. What wouldn’t he give now for that liver or tofu or oatmeal. God, he’d give his left arm for anything warm. He’d learned to build successful fires but there was nothing to cook. 

The cockroaches were the worst. Logically he knew they were good sources of protein, but they didn’t get any less disgusting. The shells crunched in his mouth and the innards oozed on his tongue. The first time he tried them he spat them right back out, but a leg got stuck in his teeth and he picked at his gums till they bled trying to get it. Eventually he learned how to muscle them down, even if he hated it.

In the new future, though, he kept forgetting he had options. Allison was visiting with Ray and Claire- she was back in LA, filming a movie, but she came to visit the family as often as possible- and they’d offered to make dinner for everyone. Ray kept joking that he was still stuck in the sixties and had made the sort of meal that could have come straight from a TV dinner in his time. Mashed potatoes, green beans, salisbury steak smothered in gravy and mushrooms.

Five swallowed hard as Diego set his plate down in front of him. He still didn’t like mushrooms. Green beans were right on the line too, he didn’t like them much either, but they were by far more palatable. But he picked up his fork and started gingerly picking at them. Better to eat what he didn’t like first, get it over with faster.

He grimaced at the feel of them on his tongue. You can’t waste it, he thought, and shoveled another forkful in his mouth. His siblings were still bickering and laughing and talking over each other, he didn’t think anyone would notice him.

“Five, are you actually eating mushrooms? I thought you hated those,” Viktor said.

Klaus laughed. “Our baby boy is growing up!”

He was on the spot and he wasn’t sure what to do. “I didn’t hate them that much as a kid,” he said.

“Oh, come on, sure you did, you were always a picky eater,” Luther said. He nudged Sloane. “One time when we were six Dad made him sit at the table until he ate everything on his plate, so he sat there three in the morning, finally finished it, and then puked. It was hilarious.”

Sloane blinked. “That’s…that’s not okay, Luther. I need you to realize that that’s not how people should treat children.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty concerning,” Ray said.

“I’m fine,” Five said. Just to prove himself, he took another bite. “I’ve been through a lot worse in my life, I think I can survive eating something I don’t enjoy.”

“Well, you don’t have to,” Allison said. She nodded towards her daughter. “Claire doesn’t like them either, she just pushes them to the side and gives them to Ray.”

“Yeah, they’re like gross sponges,” Claire said.

Five threw his fork down. “Okay, this is a weird thing to fixate on, can we change the subject to something slightly more interesting?” he said. 

Diego scooted around in his chair. “So I have the police academy exam tomorrow-” he began, bursting with excitement.

Lila groaned. “Yes, my love, please annoy the rest of your family with this instead of just me, let them suffer instead.”

“-so the police academy exam-”

That got everyone distracted, and under the cover of conversation Five finished off the mushrooms with a grimace, then scooped the green beans into his napkin and tucked the little bundle into his pocket. Not ideal, but they’d save better than anything else on his plate. Rule number one still had to be followed.

At least now he had the rest of the dinner to enjoy. He felt a little guilty that he couldn’t save more of it, but it wouldn’t keep, and at least he could go to bed with a full stomach tonight.

But he couldn't even be content with that. He couldn't sleep that night (not that that was anything new, he could never fall asleep) because it seemed wrong to not feel hunger clawing at his belly. Clean sheets, clean pajamas, peace and quiet. He didn't feel any peace, his body still tensed like he needed to be ready to run at a moment's notice.

When would it stop?

Rule #3: drink just enough to stay hydrated

Water was scarce in the apocalypse. Clean water, at least. There was standing water in the midst of the destruction but he retained at least some of Reginald’s lessons about survival. The ponds and creeks and rivers wouldn’t be safe. Not with all the ash and debris and rubble floating around.

And then there were the bodies. So many bodies, left to rot in the sun and burn in the fires left behind and bloat in the water.

He had to ration his water carefully. Drink just enough to not die. That part he knew well enough. Going without food was rough enough, but dehydration could kill faster. And he couldn’t die, if he died he would never be able to figure out how to go back and fix everything and save his family. If he could save them, maybe he could stop having nightmares about their dead bodies in the destruction, how their eyes stared blankly and their skin felt stiff and cool, how it took so long for his little thirteen year old self to dig their graves and bury them.

But anyways. Water.

He hoarded canned and bottled drinks for the first few years, drinking a lot of soda and self-stable juice along with the bottled water, until the years passed and so did the expiration dates. Alcohol too. In the before times he’d broken into his father’s liquor cabinet and wine cellar with his siblings on a few occasions, and back then he hadn’t really like the taste of alcohol and how it made him feel, but now he knew that wine and tequila and whiskey would be safe to drink, with the added bonus of making him forget for a little while.

The alcohol didn’t help with the dehydration, though- made it worse, actually, which he learned the hard way. Eventually he came up with a system to gather rainwater and boil it over a fire and store it in washed out wine bottles. But still, there was always the chance it might run out, so he measured his water carefully. 

Sometimes he dreamed about ice water, pouring himself glass after glass and drinking until the burning thirst faded from his throat and his mouth didn’t feel so dry and his ever-present headache went away. He always had a headache.

It was one of the first things he did when they landed in the good timeline, the perfect timeline. He unpacked a handful ice cubes into a glass and poured water ( safe clean good water) into it and drank greedily until it ran down his chin and dripped down the front of his shirt. He drank until he felt like he was drowning, until he felt a little sick, and he set the glass down in the sink.

What if it runs out? a little voice whispered in the recesses of his mind. What if something happens and there’s no more water and your siblings are dying and there’s nothing you can give them? They’re not prepared for that, not like you are. You have to take care of them.

It was easy to fall back into the patterns, as easy as breathing. He drank just enough water to stay functional. The headache came back, but he could ignore it. When he emptied a bottle of wine or tequila or whiskey he filled it with water and stowed it in his wardrobe. It wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough to keep them all hydrated for a few days if something should happen.

And even though there wasn’t an apocalypse anymore, nothing to outrun or fix, he still dreamed about finding his siblings’ bodies in the wreckage- sometimes the others too, Sloane and Lila and Ray and Dave, even little Claire and baby Gracie- and in his dreams he would touch their cold stiff rotting bodies and dig their graves until his hands were bleeding. When he woke up he felt like crying but there were never any tears.

Good. Crying was a waste of hydration.

Rule #4: never waste anything

Sometimes he thought about how much food he wasted as a little kid and hated himself. Now he couldn’t waste anything. It was hard at first, especially as he had to work harder and harder to find food. He had to stop being so precious about it. The fuzz of green mold could be scraped away. Hardened or rotting bits could be cut off. Stale food was still edible. Yeah, sometimes he had to choke it down, but he needed to eat something and if that was his only option then he had to eat it. Sometimes it made him sick, but that was the gamble he took sometimes.

On his sixteenth birthday he stumbled across a box of Twinkies. It had been a while since he’d found something like that, and yeah, the crumpled box was peppered with black mold, but the wrappers inside seemed untouched and the cakes themselves looked fine. He probably should have thought it through a little bit more, but he was still a teenager and the excitement pushed away the needed caution.

It tasted a little…off. But he chalked that up from not having one in so long, he had probably forgotten how it was supposed to taste. He scarfed down the first one, but the second one he ate slowly, savoring the flavor and the texture- he hadn’t had sweets in so long, he loved sweets, it made him miss sugary cereal and chocolate bars and fluffernutter sandwiches even more. The rest he saved, because the rules were still rules.

But within a few hours, he knew he’d made a huge mistake.

The headache he could ignore, and the stomachache. He always felt like that, that was normal now. Baseline. But then the nausea started to creep in. 

You’re not going to throw up, he told himself sternly. You’re not. You’ll be fucked.

He threw up an hour later, and then he couldn’t stop. Then the fever started.

There was barely time to find shelter before the worst of it hit. He all but collapsed, huddling under the meager cover he’d found, and all he could was shiver and whine and vomit. His fever kept climbing until he was dizzy and shaking, his mind muddled. 

At the worst of it he tried to call for help, forgetting that he was alone. He cried for Vanya, for Ben, for Mom. Luther, Allison, Klaus, Diego. No one answered. No one showed up to help him.

I’m going to die here , he thought wildly, lying in his own sick, his fever burning through his skin until he felt like he was freezing. I’m going to die here and no one will know and no one will bury me and no one will fix this.

He didn’t know how it didn’t kill him. He just knew that he eventually woke up, his clothes drenched in vomit and cold sweat from his fever breaking, and while he had lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose and he was as weak as a newborn kitten, he was alive.

When he was strong enough to move he threw out the remaining Twinkies. He’d lost his taste for sweets. And he still didn’t waste food, but he was a hell of a lot more careful.

That habit never left, even in the post-apocalypse timeline. He tried to keep his bank of hidden rations as well-stocked as possible, but he also couldn’t waste them. Usually he would wait until the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep and pick something to eat. Nothing was particularly appetizing, but he needed the fuel. That’s what he told himself. He needed the fuel and he couldn’t waste anything. 

Until one night it backfired.

He'd picked through what he had, unwrapping the paper napkins from the food he'd saved up and eating around the worst of the spoilage. Living in the new timeline was beginning to make him soft- now that he was eating better food regularly it was harder to force the saved food down. 

You would have killed to have this much stored up, he scolded himself. Stop being an ungrateful little shit. 

He remembered his thirteen year old self, the real one, the child freshly thrown into the apocalypse who cried himself to sleep every night with hunger gnawing at him, and he made himself eat it. Nothing could go to waste.

Later he was lying in his bed at two in the morning trying to doze- he was still a horrible sleeper, that hadn’t changed- when he felt the nausea starting up. It’s nothing, he told himself. It’s nothing, it’s just a stomachache, you’re fine.

He crept down the quiet hall to the bathroom, thankful that no one could hear him. His siblings had settled themselves so easily into the new timeline, the ones who stayed in the academy had chosen new spaces and closed up their childhood rooms. He’d stayed in his, though. The children’s wing was silent and all but abandoned now. He felt like a ghost haunting his own home.

The medicine cabinet only held ibuprofen and antacids but he took a healthy dose of both, chasing it with an efficient swallow of water from the tap. “You’re fine,” he told himself as he wandered back to his room. “You’re not going to be sick.”

He set his desk trashcan beside his bed and crawled back under the covers, lying down on his back and staring at the ceiling. His bedroom was meant for a little boy, with the childish wallpaper and the toys scattered around. Sloane and Viktor had offered to help him move to a different bedroom, or at least redo this one, but he’d refused. In a strange way it made him feel like he was reclaiming some vestige of the childhood he’d lost. Getting that time back. As much as he bitched about his thirteen year old body and going through puberty again, it was almost healing in a weird twisted up way.

Especially, in times like this, when his thirteen year old body and brain and hormones were winning over his grown up memories. Most of the time he could push it down, block out the need to feel like the child that he actually was, remind himself sternly that he was a grown man .

But now he felt every inch of thirteen. The nausea kept pulsing in the pit of his stomach and his head was pounding and he knew, he knew what was coming and he couldn’t stop it, and he was terrified.

Go find someone, he thought. Wake up someone up, tell them you’re sick.

But he couldn’t do it. He laid in bed, paralyzed, his breathing picking up in panic, until he doubled over and threw up. 

Once he started he couldn’t stop. The nausea was crippling, keeping him from getting up to even make it to the bathroom, and he couldn’t keep himself from throwing up. The fever set in fast, crawling under his skin and making him shiver.

“Viktor?” he called, his voice scratchy and wobbly. “Luther? Sloane?”

He called for all of them, but he was too far away and he couldn’t get up in search of help. So he laid there instead, shivering under the covers, leaning over the edge of the bed to throw up and whining through his teeth. In between bouts of vomiting his mind wandered, lost in fever dreams. He saw himself wandering through the apocalypse alone again, the sun burning him mercilessly, and there was no water and no food and everywhere he turned he saw their bodies, waiting for him to bury them, but no matter how hard he tried to dig their graves it wasn’t deep enough, and they were staring at him with sightless eyes.

Eventually the sun started to peek through the curtains, but morning offered no relief. He felt worse, if anything. Soon everyone would be getting up, starting their day, making breakfast. Maybe someone would come looking for him.

Sure enough, there was a light knock on his door. “Five, you up? Breakfast is ready, and no, I didn’t make it,” Klaus said.

He swallowed hard, trying to speak, but his mouth was too dry, burning with acid. “Eh, he probably wants to be alone, you know how he gets,” Diego said. “He’ll wander down when he’s ready.”

No no no no no, he thought frantically, but their footsteps died down as they walked away. He whined through his teeth. Come back. Come back!

He needed to get up, but he couldn’t move. Get up, he thought. Get up, just get up.

His whole body shook with effort, but he pushed himself to sit up. Standing was more difficult, his knees threatening to buckle, but he took a slow shaking step towards the door. Where’s my wagon? he thought, and then just after that no, I’m not there. Not in the apocalypse.

He wasn’t there. This time he wasn’t alone. This time he needed help, and he was going to go looking for it.

Viktor frowned at the calendar on the fridge. “Okay, so I’m teaching lessons this afternoon and then I have an orchestra rehearsal,” he said. “Klaus just took Gracie to the park-”

“Who knew he’d make such a good nanny,” Luther said as he poured himself a second bowl of cereal. 

“-everyone else has their normal work schedules, and then you two-”

“We’re both off today, the studio is getting new floors installed,” Sloane said. 

Viktor nodded, adding a note. It was a bit difficult balancing everyone’s schedules sometimes, especially when the family was constantly coming and going from their own homes to the academy and back, but they made it work. It was shocking how easily they’d figured out a new normal. Regular jobs, regular lives. No more apocalypse, no more superhero work. Just a slightly dysfunctional but happy family, all together.

Mostly together. 

“Has anyone seen Five yet?” he asked.

Diego took a big swig of orange juice. “Klaus and I knocked on his door to see if he wanted to come down to breakfast, he didn’t answer so we figured he was asleep.”

"Good, he needs to sleep, he's still always so cranky," Luther mumbled under his breath.

“Hopefully he’ll be awake in time for lunch,” Sloane said as she started to gather up the breakfast dishes. “I’ll check on him if he’s not up by noon.”

Viktor nodded. “That’s probably a good idea, he doesn’t-” He broke off midsentence as Five shuffled into the kitchen. “Oh, there you are. We were just talking about you.”

“Do you want breakfast?” Sloane asked. Five shook his head. “Are you sure, honey? There’s plenty left, and if you don’t want bacon and eggs there’s cereal.”

Viktor paused. “Five?” he said. “Hey, what’s wrong? What happened?”

Five looked awful. He was deathly pale, his lips gray and his glazed-over eyes shadowed in deep purple. There was a wet stain down the front of his shirt and he wavered on his feet like he was about to collapse. He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t get words out.

“Whoa, whoa, Five, you look like death warmed over,” Luther said. “What’s going on?”

Five swallowed hard. “I don’t…feel well,” he said, his lips slack. “I…I can’t-”

Suddenly he bolted for the sink. Viktor took a step back, startled, as his smallest brother gripped the sides, doubled over, and retched violently. “Yikes, dude, gross,” Diego said. “Can you do that in the bathroom and not the kitchen?”

Viktor rested his hand on Five’s shaking back. “Hey, you’re okay,” he said. “Ignore Diego.” Diego rolled his eyes.

Sloane crossed over to them quickly; as Five stumbled back from the sink, gasping, she tugged him close to her side and pressed her hand to his forehead. “He has a fever, he’s burning up,” she said. 

Luther winced. “Stomach bug?” he said sympathetically.

Viktor turned on tap to rinse out the sink and froze. “Guys,” he said. “Guys, he threw up blood.”

“Are you sure?” Sloane said.

“It’s not all blood, but it’s definitely there.”

“I’ll get Mom,” Diego said, already rising from his chair.

“No, she’s charging,” Luther said.

"So we wait for her to finish."

Luther looked into the sink; Viktor saw his face fall at the sight of the lurid red splotches. “I think we gotta take him to the emergency room.” He looked at his wife. “Right?”

Five dropped his head against Sloane’s shoulder, his arms hanging limply at his sides. “Right,” she said. “We can take him.”

“I’ll go with you,” Viktor said firmly, fully prepared to argue, but luckily no one protested. “Diego, can you grab him a clean shirt? He puked all over the one he’s wearing.”

“Oh, gross, yeah, I’m on it,” he said, already bolting out of the kitchen.

Five’s eyes were nearly closed, he mumbled something into Sloane’s shoulder that Viktor couldn’t hear. “I know, I know,” Sloane soothed. “You’ll be all right. You’re not going to die.”

Viktor touched the back of his hand to Five’s cheek and winced. “Jesus, he’s on fire,” he said. “This might be more than just a stomach bug.”

“The ER can figure that out,” Luther said.

Diego jogged back into the kitchen and tossed a shirt at Viktor. “Guys, his room smells like fucking death,” he said.

Viktor helped Five out of his pajama shirt while Sloane held him steady. Five offered zero resistance and that scared him more than anything else. “Well, he’s probably been throwing up for a while.”

“Yeah, yeah, he was and that part was already disgusting, trust me, but his room smells like something’s rotting,” Diego said. “Can’t figure out what it is.”

“We can figure it out later,” Luther said. He slid his arms behind Five’s back and under his knees and lifted him up carefully; he’d lost his gorilla body in the new timeline and he didn’t have superpowered strength anymore, but he was still strong enough to pick up and carry a skinny thirteen year old. “Viktor, can you drive?”

“Yeah, yeah, for sure,” he said, already fumbling for his keys.

He drove faster than he probably should, but he needed to do something to keep from panicking. Five was fine yesterday, he’d been his normal self, he’d spent most of the afternoon reading and had patiently played a board game with Klaus and Dave and Claire and he’d eaten dinner with everyone. Now he was lying down in the backseat with his head on Sloane’s lap, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Thankfully they made it to the emergency room quickly; Five didn’t throw up in the car but as soon as Luther helped him out of the backseat he threw up in the parking lot, bloody vomit splattering on the asphalt. “Oh, fuck,” Luther said, startled. “Ooh, that looks bad.”

Five tried to grip at Luther’s arm but his slender fingers were shaking. “‘m gonna die,” he mumbled. “Gotta…gotta stay ‘live to…to fix things.” He looked up at Luther. “Don’...don’ look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Luther said, confused.

“We need to get him inside,” Viktor said. “You’re not going to die, Five, you’re okay, we’re getting you help. Come on.”

Luther picked Five up easily. He looked so small in his arms, his head resting on the broad plane of his shoulder and his skinny limbs dangling. “Let’s get you looked at, buddy,” he said.

The emergency room was busier than Viktor liked, a busy ER meant it would take longer to get Five looked at. “I’ll handle the paperwork,” he said. 

Five gagged again as Luther set him down; Sloane took a seat and pulled him onto her lap. He didn’t fight it, he just curled up in her arms like a child. “I’m gonna find him something to puke in,” Luther said. 

Viktor thought he’d lucked out with the easier task, but he stared at the clipboard in dismay. “Oh fuck,” he mumbled under his breath. Name and birthdate shouldn’t be this difficult, but the name Five would raise some questions, a birth year of 1989 even more.

He sighed heavily. Time to make some stuff up.

He handed the completed form back to the check in nurse and plunked down in an open seat across from his siblings. “All right, uh…so I might’ve had to lie,” he said.

“About what?” Sloane said.

Viktor tapped Five lightly on the knee. “So…the hospital thinks your name is Theo,” he said.

Five roused a little, scrunching up his face. “Why the fuck…did you pick that?” he mumbled.

“Well, Five might attract too much attention that’s all I could think of on short notice,” Viktor said. 

Five sank back against Sloane. “Could’ve done better…than fucking Theo…”

“It’s not that bad. Anyways. You were born…uh, in 2006. And Luther and Sloane are your parents.”

“What the fuck, Viktor?” Luther said.

“We can’t just waltz in here with a sick kid named Five and say that he doesn’t have any concerned parents!” Viktor said. “People are going to ask questions that we’re definitely not prepared to answer.”

“We don’t look old enough to have a thirteen year old,” Luther said. He frowned. “Unless…a teen pregnancy, in high school, maybe-”

“I don’t think they’re going to ask that many details, babe,” Sloane asked. She rubbed Five’s back. "Did you have to make up cover stories like this every time you got hurt on missions and had to go to the hospital?"

Viktor shrugged. "Grace just patched us up, we didn't go unless she couldn't do it. Why, what did you do?"

"We were the Sparrows," Sloane said, as if that explained everything. "We went to the emergency room. There was a wing named after us."

Luther shook his head. "We really did have very different childhoods," he mused. "I wonder how-" His words were cut off by Five retching; he quickly held the emesis bag for him. "Okay, okay, I've got you. Shit, this looks bad."

Sloane cupped her hand around Five's neck and leaned him back against her; he was shivering hard and she curved her arms around him protectively. “We just need to get him seen before he gets worse. How long did they say we have to wait, Viktor?”

As it turned out, a kid throwing up blood got them moved to the front of the line. They brought him back quickly into triage; Luther set him down on the bed and Sloane held an emesis bag for him to puke in, moving too fast made the nausea surge again. 

“It’s kind of crowded in here, do you want me to wait-” Viktor began.

“No!” Five said, struggling to sit up. “No, no, don’t leave, you can’t leave.” He swayed a little, his eyes glazed over and his shoulders slumped. “If you leave, I won’t…I won’t be able to find you again, your body…I can’t bury you, please, don’t leave…”

“You don’t have to bury anyone, sweetheart,” Sloane said, running her hand over his sweat damp hair, but Viktor exchanged a look with Luther. They knew what he meant.

“I won’t leave,” Viktor said quietly. He squeezed Five’s thin limp hand. “I’ll stay right here, okay? So will Luther and so will Sloane.”

Five’s narrow chest heaved. “Where’s th’others?”

“They’re safe,” Luther said. “All of them are safe. No more apocalypse. You stopped it.”

Five didn’t seem convinced. His lower lip wobbled like he was on the verge of tears. “Stopped?”

“Yeah, yeah, you saved us,” Viktor reassured him. “Everything’s okay now.”

He wanted to keep comforting him, but a pleasant faced nurse in teal scrubs bustled into the room. “Hi, there,” she said. “Oh, you look like you’re feeling really awful, sweetie. Let’s take a look at you, hm?”

Viktor shifted his weight anxiously. He could count their childhood emergency room trips on hand. Dad usually relied on Grace to tend to them when they were sick or injured. Dealing with the a hospital amongst the masses was saved only for the most dire of emergencies, or if Grace wasn’t available for whatever reason. 

This felt so…ordinary, in a strange way. He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, but it was ordinary. If he didn’t know what had happened in the past, what they’d been through, then he could definitely believe they were just a regular family with a sick kid.

The nurse checked Five over thoroughly and he was too sick to protest, which made worry spike uncomfortably in the pit of Viktor’s stomach. She took his blood pressure and his temperature- 104.1, which really made the worry spike more- and didn’t seem fazed when he threw up for what seemed like the millionth time.

“Where’s the blood coming from?” Luther said anxiously. 

“Most likely he’s torn up his throat from all the vomiting,” the nurse said as she shone a flashlight in Five’s eyes. “See that bruising on his jaw? That’s-”

“It’s petechiae, he’s been throwing up so much it’s popped blood vessels,” Sloane said.

“Uh-huh, that’s why his eyes are so red too,” the nurse said. “Now, this looks to be a pretty nasty case of food poisoning. Not much to do about that except wait for it get out of his system, unfortunately, but in the meantime we’ll give him something to help with the nausea and get him hydrated again.”

Viktor looked at Luther and Sloane; they looked just as puzzled as he felt. No one else was sick. And Five barely ate at meals, what the hell could he have eaten to make him so violently ill?

The nurse didn't notice. “Let’s get some ice packs on him to help with the fever, and I’ll get that IV prepped,” she said cheerfully. 

That was easier said than done- as soon as the ice packs touched Five he howled, arching his back and trying to pull away. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” Sloane soothed. 

“I’m cold ,” he protested, but when he attempted to sit up he fell right back. “I don’t…I don’t feel good. I don’t…I want to go home.”

“We’ll go home soon,” Viktor promised as Sloane took Five’s hand and squeezed tight. “They’re gonna help you and then we’ll go home and everything will be okay.”

Five’s chest heaved and he mumbled under his breath. “We’re real, sweetheart, everyone’s safe,” Sloane said. “You can feel me squeezing your hand, right? I’m real. I’m right here. Focus on holding my hand.”

He could only imagine what was going on in Five’s fever-addled brain. “Luther and I are right here, we’re going to keep you safe,” Viktor said.

“Yeah, we won’t let anything happen to you,” Luther promised.

That seemed to calm him down a little, until the nurse started prepping him for the IV. He was so dehydrated that she couldn’t get a good vein, and the multiple attempts to stick him made Five restless again. “Hold still, sweetie,” the nurse said as he tried to tug his arm away. “Hold your mama’s hand, okay? I just need to get this in.”

Five’s chest heaved. He was trying to say something but his words came out in a panicky garbled slur, and to Viktor’s horror he started to cry. “Oh, come on, you’re okay, don’t cry,” Luther said. He'd never been able to handle his siblings crying when they were kids, clearly not much had changed. “Come on.”

The nurse sighed. “Let me try his other arm, I just can’t get a good vein,” she said. “Mom, Dad, can you keep him calm?”

“He’s scared and you’re hurting him,” Sloane said, still holding Five’s hand tightly. “You have to be gentle!”

The nurse shot her a sympathetic look. “I know it’s hard to see your baby sick, but this has to be done,” she said. “Let me try his other arm, I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Viktor couldn’t remember the last time he saw Five cry. Dad didn’t exactly tolerate crying children- something he knew well from his own childhood, he and Klaus were notorious for being the family crybabies. But he remembered Five keeping all of his emotions in at training sessions, bottling it up, and then waiting until he could be alone and hide. It was safer that way. Not a secret- they all knew he was crying- but safer.

He guessed Luther was thinking the same thing, how Five never let anyone see them cry when they were small. “It’s okay, buddy, stop crying, just take a deep breath,” he was entreating, his voice spiraling up. “Don’t cry. Come on, please don’t cry.”

For a horrible, nauseating moment Viktor imagined Five crying in the apocalypse, all by himself, thirteen and skinny and scared. He never talked about it, never told them what really happened, but he could picture it clearly and it made him feel sick to his stomach. 

“There we are!” the nurse said cheerfully. “Finally got it. Now, I’m getting you set up with saline and Zofran and we’ll give it a little time to work and see how you’re feeling. Just take it easy.”

“See, Five? That’ll help,” Luther said. He grabbed a tissue from the counter and handed it to Sloane, she dabbed lightly at the tear tracks on Five’s fever flushed cheeks. 

Viktor waited for the nurse to leave, closing the door behind her, and then squeezed Five’s ankle. “You’re going to be okay, Five,” he said quietly. “Can you tell us what happened? What you ate that made you sick?”

But Five wasn’t in any shape to answer questions. He was lost in a feverish haze, tears dripping off his chin, mumbling frantically under his breath but nothing made any sense. “Lay back down,” Sloane said gently. She stroked his hair away from his forehead. “The sooner you let the IV work the sooner you’ll feel better and the sooner we can go home.”

He gazed up at her, struggling to catch his breath. “Sloane, don’t leave,” he said. “Sloane-”

She kissed his forehead lightly. “Sh, sh, I’m not leaving,” she soothed. “Neither is Luther or Viktor."

Five's chest heaved. "Where's...where everyone else?" he said. "I hafta...I hafta go-"

Viktor rested his hand on his brother's shoulder and quietly went through the list of every sibling, every family member, and where they were. The wildness started to fade from Five's eyes, the panic dissipating, until he was finally lying down, still shaking but quieter. "No one needs to be rescued," Viktor said. "There's no apocalypse to outrun. Just lie still and let the medicine work, okay?”

“Okay,” he echoed, his voice small and quiet. 

Thankfully the IV started to work, and slowly Five settled down, his breathing dropping to a normal pace and his eyes drifting shut. He still held tight to Sloane’s hand and she kept stroking his hair and humming lightly, even when he finally dozed off.

The nurse hooked him to a second bag of fluids when the first one emptied, but after that was finished she handed Luther the discharge paperwork along with strict instructions to bring him back if his fever went back up or he started vomiting again. His temperature had lowered to a slightly more reasonable 101.8 and he had a little color in his face again, but he slept the whole way home, lying down in the backseat with his head on Sloane’s lap.

“We’re home,” Viktor called when they made it inside. “Anybody else here?”

Diego and Klaus emerged almost immediately. “How’s the little guy? Is he better? Is he still puking?” Klaus said.

“He’s better but he needs a lot of rest,” Sloane said. 

Luther adjusted him carefully. “I’m going to carry him up to his room.”

“Not…not right now,” Diego said. He shifted his weight. “We poked around in his room while you were gone, trying to figure out where the death smell was coming from.”

“Oh, we found it all right,” Klaus said. “ Vile .”

“What was it?” Viktor said.

“He’s been hoarding food,” Diego said. “Stacks of it wrapped up in napkins. Shit from days ago. Weeks maybe. It’s all rotten, it’s disgusting. Probably that’s what made him sick.”

Sloane blinked. “Why would he do that?” she said, but Viktor’s heart sank in his chest.

“He’s got a ton of water stored up too.”

“That’s where all the empty liquor bottles have been disappearing to,” Klaus added.

“He’s storing up in case of another apocalypse,” Diego said quietly. “The kid can’t just rest.”

“Shit,” Viktor said. He looked over at Five, still fever flushed and sleeping peacefully in Luther’s arms. “How did I not notice that?”

“None of us did, he’s good at hiding things like this,” Diego said. “Look, his room is in no state for him to be in right now. Take him somewhere else for now while we sanitize the shit out of it. And we can talk about the rest of it when he’s not projectile vomiting anymore.”

Sloane ran her hand along the curve of Five’s cheek. “I don’t understand,” she said in a small voice.

“We'll talk about it later, honey,” Luther said gently. “Come on, let’s put him in our room for now. He needs to sleep.”

Viktor ran a hand through his hair and exhaled slowly. They all had trauma, they were all undoing years of damage. But there was still so much going on with Five that they didn’t know about, and how could they help if they didn’t know?

Five walked down the stairs slowly. His fever had broken yesterday, leaving him weak and shaky but no longer wracked with chills or feeling like his brain was boiling in his skull. The vomiting had stopped too, although he hadn’t tried anything more complicated than pedialyte or chicken broth since his little…bout of illness. No one had told him he was clear to get out of bed yet, but he was tired of lying around. Especially since he’d been sleeping in Luther and Sloane’s room for reasons that no one had yet to explain. 

The others were all in the kitchen, chatting while Dave and Klaus made breakfast. He still wasn’t particularly hungry, but at least the smell of food didn’t make him feel nauseous anymore. Silently he inched closer, feeling uncharacteristically awkward, and cleared his throat.

“Has anyone made coffee?” he asked.

His siblings turned to look at him and then they were all talking at once.

“Here, sit down.”

“Should you be out of bed yet?”

“I’ll make coffee.”

“Should he have coffee yet?”

“Guys, guys, stop it,” he complained. “I’ll sit down, but yes, I think I can tolerate coffee just fine.”

Luther pulled out a chair for him next to Sloane; he sank down, suddenly too tired to stand, and she patted his back and smiled at him. “Shit, Five, you look paler than usual,” Lila said, bouncing Gracie on her hip. “Didn’t think you could get much pastier, and yet there you are.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Lila, really appreciate that.”

Diego set a plate with a single slice of plain toast. “See if you can keep that down,” he said.

“I just had a little stomach bug, I wasn’t dying or anything,” Five said. You should have seen what I ate and survived in the apocalypse, he wanted to add, but thought better of it. They didn’t need to know.

His siblings exchanged a look, and he didn’t like that. “Five, we need to talk,” Viktor said. “It wasn’t a stomach bug.”

“You had food poisoning,” Luther said. “A really, really nasty case of food poisoning.”

Shit, they figured it out. “Oh, really?” he said, feigning surprise. “Wonder how that happened.”

He didn't touch the toast. I should save some of this, he thought. I can wait a little longer to eat now, I'll save this for later when I'm actually hungry.

“Maybe you got sick from the disgusting collection of rotting food you had hidden under your bed,” Klaus said.

Five bristled, sitting up sharply. “You went in my room?”

They collectively ignored him. “You’re not in the apocalypse anymore, Five,” Luther said quietly. “Food’s not going to run out. You’re not going to starve.”

If he had any appetite before, it sure as fuck was gone now. “I’m not…I know I’m not in the apocalypse anymore,” he snapped.

“You spent all those years taking care of yourself, and they’re over,” Viktor said. “And you don’t have to take care of us either. There’s no more doomsday, nothing to outrun anymore. You’re safe and so are we.”

His eyes burned. “I can’t…” he started to say, stopped, tried again. What would he achieve by lying at this point? “I can’t...I can't turn it off.”

He wanted to explain himself, he didn't want to explain it, he couldn't explain it. Why couldn't he turn it off? Why couldn't he just be normal? He had nearly everything he had ever dreamed of, and yet he was still so fucked up.

Lila set a mug of hot black coffee down in front of him and Sloane took his hand. “We cleared out one of the drawers in the refrigerator for you, and there’s a basket in the pantry with your name on it,” she said. “Whatever food you want to hold onto you can save there, instead of in your room. That’s the compromise, okay?” She squeezed his hand. “And in the meantime you can eat whatever you want. It’s not going to run out. You’re not going to go hungry.”

“We get it, you can take care of yourself, but we're here too," Diego said.

Under his skin he still felt that crawling panicking urge to keep going, to keep running, to keep planning ahead, but as he looked up at his living, breathing siblings it was a little harder to hold onto the past than it was before. Maybe he could learn. Maybe he could get the second chance at life that he’d dreamed of for so long. Normalcy.

“Okay,” he said, and he picked up the toast.