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assaily · 2 years ago

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Been a while since I’ve posted anything fic related, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about this fic before.

The basic premise is the Handler/Commission put some kind of kill switch in Five that would slowly destroy his body planned obsolescence style in the event that he ever successfully defected. It’s essentially a sickfic and another one of those no sparrow, no season 3 au’s bc i wrote this a year and a half ago and the season wasn’t even out yet. I found it again this morning bc I finally had some thoughts for it after all this time.

Anyway, here is some gratuitous angst and Diego cuddling Five. CW for mild suicidal ideation.

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Five looked miserable. Pale and shivering, he looked so frail and small, so old and young at the same time. Diego wasn’t a fan, he didn’t want to be in the room any longer than he had to. The space heater next to the bed was blasting like a Mojave wind, and still Five shivered quietly on his bed.

Five didn’t complain, not even to inform them he was cold. He hadn’t complained this whole time, and maybe that’s what was getting to Diego. Five was miserable, it was obvious he was hurting, it was obvious he was struggling just to stay conscious enough to mechanically munch on his peanut butter crackers. But he didn’t say a thing.

A cracker was left half-eaten between two fingers, his head drooped and his eyes slipped shut. He slumped into himself, still shivering. Diego frowned, slapping his knees as he stood from the armchair. “Alright.”

His voice startled Five, likely having forgotten he was there again. He flinched, head popping up, bloodshot eyes confused and darting before landing on Diego’s face. The relief was palpable, his shoulders slumping, something relaxing in the pinch of his expression.

“Diego,” he croaked.

“Yeah, just me bud.”

“Are you leaving?” He tried to make it sound like an innocent question, tried his damndest to keep his inflection flat, Diego could tell. But he could also hear the quiet fear burbling beneath it.

“No,” he lied, and almost sat back down again.

Five nodded and seemed to remember his cracker. He nibbled on the corner of it again, his arm shaking with that little effort. “It’s not stale,” he remarked, hardly above a whisper. It was the third time he’d said that about the cracker and every time it struck at something soft in Diego’s chest.

“Fresh crackers, just for you.”

“Fresh…” he rolled the word around in his mouth like he was tasting it. “Where’d you find them?”

“The store on fifth.”

Five nodded slowly, processing. The last two times that was the end of the conversation. Diego hoped it would be the end of this one too, but then Five looked over at him, a stark confusion breaking through the dead-eyed exhaustion. “Isn’t the roof…?” he made a fluttery motion with his hand, dropping crumbs into his lap.

“Roof is fine, Five.”

He shook his head, brow pinching. “No, I remember it collapsed.” He paused, Diego at a loss for how to answer. “There’s a pharmacy on tenth, it still has stuff. There might be medicine there.”

“We have medicine for you,” Diego said, gesturing at the table with the small battery of bottles atop it.

Five looked over at it, expression falling blank as he failed to process something. He stared for too long, unblinking and unmoving, that Diego figured he’d lost him again. Lights on, but no one was home.

“I hurt,” Five sighed at long last, breaking the silence and his stillness with another shiver.

Diego chuffed a surprised laugh. “I bet you do.”

“I’m done,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Diego swallowed down the lump that jumped into his throat. Five didn’t complain, not about the pain, the confusion, the exhaustion.

Five shivered again, cracker forgotten.

Diego couldn’t stand it anymore. “Okay, okay.” He needed to do something, anything to help. He couldn’t just stand there watching Five in misery, watching over him as he got worse and worse, as even the pills and syrups and whatever pain meds Mom tried to give him failed to do a goddamn thing.

“Are you still cold?”

Five looked up at the question, considering him for a solid ten seconds before nodding clumsily. “It’s winter,” he said as if that explained everything.

Diego didn’t have the heart to tell him it was the dead of August. “I’m cold too,” he said, reaching down to turn the heater off. Diego was sure Five didn’t even know what the damn thing was but his shivering took on a new ferocity the moment the coils darkened. He looked confused, lost and as Diego approached the bedside, suddenly defensive. His arms curled over his chest, jaw clenching, pulling himself back as if he could get away from Diego.

“You’re not--” he started, aborted with his mouth open, eyes darting around the room. “Wait, I don’t--”

Diego crouched at the bedside, realizing he was looming a little. “You’re okay, it’s just me.” He reached out, careful to keep his palm up and gesture slow. Five watched his hand, pulling back from him as he tried to touch his arm. “It’s just me,” he repeated.

Five didn’t complain, and he never talked about why he was so damn untrusting of them in his confused state. Diego didn’t want to think about who could have planted that mistrust and why. He knew why. He’d spent enough time with Lila. He’d met her mother. The first person Five interacted with in decades. Diego would have trust issues too.

“Diego,” Five said flatly, more an affirmation than anything else.

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing here?”

He almost wanted to know where ‘here’ was for Five. Somewhere cold, somewhere beyond the end of the world, somewhere lost in his own past. “I’m here to save you.” It sounded stupid coming out of his mouth, feeling it burn in his eyes.

Five paused for half a second, something in his eyes growing sharper than it had in days. Then he laughed, a single mournful guffaw that threw his head back and nearly toppled him back into his pillows. “Save me?” he asked, incredulous. “How? You’re dead, remember?” He smiled wide, shoulders shaking with more than just cold. “You’re dead.” His mirth turned to grief in a second, his expression twisting into honest fury if he’d had the strength. “You can’t save me,” he spat. “I have to save you.”

Diego reached across the bed and put his hand over Five’s arm. His skin was cold as ice, his wrist sharp and bony under Diego’s palm. “You already saved us.”

Five’s anger was smothered by the touch on his arm, his entire attention drawn to it. He opened his mouth, but only a half-aborted burst of air made it out.

Diego didn’t waste time. With the heater off, Five had nothing keeping him warm and Diego didn’t dare let him go now. “I’m cold, too.” Diego said again, catching Five’s attention back to his face and voice.

“I’m cold,” Five said, and Diego couldn’t tell if he was saying a truth or just repeating the last thing he heard.

“Let me in there, then.”

“Huh?”

Diego didn’t wait for him to figure it out. He half-stood, slipping his shoes off and dragging back the covers in one move. He pulled himself under the blankets, one arm around Five’s shoulders, the other making sure his brother was still covered.

“What are you--” Five realized half-way through the sentence that Diego was warm. The question forgotten, Five pressed himself into Diego’s side, shivering fiercely. “Oh,” he sighed, hands finding warm places to shove themselves into.

“Yeah, thought you might like this better.” Even though the old man would never admit it in his entire life. Neither would Diego. No one was home to see this blatant display of affection, so Diego could deal. He was pretty sure Five wasn’t going to remember a thing about this later.

He flicked the half-cracker to the floor, got himself comfortable, Five slumping more and more of his weight against him. His shivering was easy to feel, his whole body so cold. This wasn’t normal, and it settled uncomfortably in Diego’s gut. He wrapped his tiny older brother in his arms, tucking him against his chest to lay on the pillows together.

It took a while for the shivering to subside, took even longer for Five’s breathing to ease and his body to relax. “Diego,” he whispered, so quietly Diego nearly missed it.

He hummed, letting it rumble in his chest so Five could hear it where his ear was pressed against him.

“Diego,” he said again, and that was all. Nothing else to it, but Diego understood this time. An affirmation of gratitude in a whispered little tone, hidden every time he said their names. He’d fought so hard for them, and now Diego couldn’t stop imagining him when he was actually thirteen, alone and starving and whispering their names, putting everything into surviving so he could see them again. So he could come home.

It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t even have that.

Diego held him a little tighter, frail and bony and so, so cold. “You’re gonna be alright.” He was going to get better.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Five said softly, still below that careful whisper.

A laugh burst from Diego, surprised and a little wet. He swallowed the burning lump in his throat and closed his eyes so the tears would roll away and get lost on the pillow. “Thanks.”

“Don’t cry over me.”

Diego couldn’t answer that, couldn’t hold him any tighter, he could already feel his bones creaking. “You’ll be okay.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I’ll wake up,” he promised.

Diego let out the breath he was holding like a balloon, eyes clouding. “Shut up and go to sleep.” It wasn’t even a fear, he refused to acknowledge it.

“I’m not worth… all this.”

“Shut up.” Diego gripped the back of his neck, too hard at first, making Five tense. He softened his hold, kneading his thumb into the muscle, feeling Five’s heart fluttering that awful off-rhythm beat against his fingertips. “Were we ever worth all that?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. “You were.”

Diego shook his head, his chest aching, scratching gently into Five’s scalp. “You’re a part of this family, too.”

Five didn’t answer. He didn’t rebuke, didn’t affirm. Diego could feel him thinking about it, and hoped somewhere in that muddled little head of his that he’d at least internalize that. How could someone who loved so hard think he deserved so little in return. It wasn’t fair.

No more fair than how hard Five had to fight, only to die a few months after achieving it all. No, Diego refused. Five wasn’t going to die. Not yet, not this year or this decade. Five did everything in his power to protect them. It was time someone stepped up and did the same for him.

#in case it wasn't obvious i have a serious soft spot for Diego taking care of a semi-delirious Five #i mean Five being taken care in general but this specific flavor of it appears to be a favorite of mine lol #tua #the umbrella academy #fanfic #fic snips and bloopers #tua fanfic #tua fic #Five Hargreeves #my stuff #my fics #planned obsolescence #i considered saving this for masked author/artist coming up but i doubt this will be any condition for AO3 by may #and i feel like i'd get clocked so fast posting something like this #also i have a shit memory and i already had a planned obso tag so now im worried i;ve posted this before and have simply forgotten #if i did tumblr ate it #hope y'all enjoy :)

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