#ben hargreeves oneshot | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sissytobitch10seconds · 1 year ago

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Always Present

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Ben may not be able to touch him anymore, but he still has his ways of keeping them intimate. Warnings: Dubious consent, drug use, sex work, and implied underage sex Word Count: 3,657 Ship(s): Klaus Hargreeves/Ben Hargreeves

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A/N: So I decided to do a kind of character study about Ben and Klaus and what their relationship might have been. It end up being kind of sad but given that Klaus gets Ben back in a way in S3 I think that gives some natural catharsis. Thank you all so much for reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

The evening air bit at his skin as he stumbled closer and closer to the edge of the alleyway where he had been trying to pick up guys. Something was coursing through his system that was making him feel like he was floating five feet in the air with every step that he took. A voice in the back of his brain was telling him to lift his foot, bring it forward, and then set it down so that he could continue to move in the direction that he needed to. The voice soundly oddly similar to Ben, which didn’t make a lot of sense to him since he couldn’t see his spectral shadow anywhere.

He couldn’t see a lot of things right now, though, so that wasn’t a huge shock to him.

He knew a couple of things about the situation that he had found himself in. He was wearing his favorite feathery coat, the one that had a thousand pockets inside of it and was warm enough to keep him from freezing on the streets without being big enough to make it so he didn’t look sexy anymore. He had on a pair of very uncomfortable pants, the ones that he always wore when he was trying to pick up the high paying guys. He knew that he was wearing a clean shirt underneath it all, but he couldn’t remember where he had got it from or even what it was.

He was floating and he felt good, even though there was a hand on te middle of his back and he was be guided down an alleyway to someone’s car. He really didn’t like it when the guys wanted them to sleep in his car because he was aware that they could just start up the vehicle and drive him away to murder him. So far nothing like that had happened that he could remember, but it was always a fear hanging around his mind even when he was incredibly out of it on whatever it was he had taken.

The door to the car was opened for him and Klaus entered into the backseat as if it was muscle memory. He couldn’t tell if it was at this point because his bones didn’t even feel like they existed. He didn’t know what he had taken but he wished that he had enough of it to make it last a lifetime because he felt amazing.

He backed himself up against the door on the other side so that part of his back and all of his lanky legs were along the seats. The man that had escorted him out of the alley clambered over top of him so that his knees were on either side of Klaus’ hips. He had closed the door behind him so that they had some relative privacy.

Klaus felt his heartbeat jump into his throat as he heard the locks on the doors of the car snap shut, keeping him in there unless he was able to clear his brain enough to figure out how they came undone. He wished that it was easier to do that and still feel as blissfully out of it as he was. He knew that it wasn’t. This was the trade off that he made for not having to deal with the constantly screaming spirits that had plagued him since he was a child. He sacrificed safety and clarity for comfort and reprieve.

“You really are beautiful, you know,” the man said.

The intoxicated superhero realized that he had said something like that before, so he began to wrack his floaty, spaced-out brain for something that he should say in return. He couldn’t find anything, but luckily he didn’t need to as someone whispered what he was supposed to say directly into his ear. “You’re not so bad looking yourself. Now, are we going to get down to business?”

The guy looked a bit shocked but then gave a nod. “Right, right. The guy that I talked to about where to find you said that I should bring lubes and a condom,” he dug into his pocket and then revealed the items.

The voice kept whispering into Klaus’ ears, so he kept talking. “That’s right. You know, I charge extra for guys that I want to fuck me and don’t just want a suck in a back alley.”

“I came prepared for that too,” he replied. It was really awkward to watch the guy move back so that he was sitting on his haunches and could dig through the other pocket. For a moment, Klaus wondered if he had ever slept with a guy before or if he was experimenting with some back-street prostitute that had a ghost for a pimp.

He pulled out a wad of cash with the hand that wasn’t holding the supplies and then tried to hand it over to Klaus. Whoever was telling him what to say told him to take the money, so he did. He shoved it into the pocket of his coat, the one that none of the cops had been able to find all the times that he had been arrested and dragged to jail. As soon as his money was safely where it could be found later when he was a little bit more sober, he removed his jacket and let it fall against the back seat.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” he asked, only because the voice told him to. Whoever it was that was guiding him through this interaction seemed rather antsy to get the whole ordeal over with. Klaus didn’t really understand why because as far as he could see, he was warm and the man above him seemed too nervous to be a serial killer or an abuser.

“Uh, uh, right,” he stuttered, his eyes going wide. The man reached the hand that wasn’t holding the condom and lube down to his pants so that he could yank at his zipper. As soon as it was undone, he shoved them down about six inches and then removed his cock. It was a little embarrassing to see that he was already hard at the mere idea of fucking Klaus when they had done literally nothing other than get in his car and exchange money.

Klaus was no stranger to embarrassing sexual experiences though, so he didn’t think much about it. Instead he reached down to his own pants and began to wiggle them off. He tilted his head back so that he could see the windows, just to make sure that they were tinted and no one was standing outside, waiting to catch them. That was one of the worst hookups that Klaus had ever had, one where the cop had gotten all the way through fucking him before he revealed that it was a trap and brought him right to rehab.

There was no one standing outside of the window and he took note of the fact that the glass was tinted, which was going to make it remarkably harder for them to get caught. Klaus preferred it like that, because it made his job so much easier.

The ex-superhero got his pants down just far enough that his entire ass was open for use, but not so far down that it would take him longer than about thirty seconds to put his clothes back on. The man hovering over him had just finished sliding the condom over his member. His hands were quivering slightly as he discarded the crinking package that the protection had come in. The man uncapped the lube and then spread a reasonable amount of his cock.

Without any preparation or even asking if Klaus had prepped himself, not that he could remember if he had or not, the man moved the head of his cock so that it was against Klaus’ hole. He pressed in with a fluid motion in his hips, breaching the tight circle of muscle and forcing his member even deeper despite the resistance he was being met with.

“Relax, baby,” the voice that had been telling Klaus what to do for the past ten minutes whispered directly into his ear. It was only then that he realized it was Ben, the superhero that had been guiding him through every moment of his drug-addled adventure on the streets after he had left that house. He felt his heart swell with adoration in his chest as he thought about how grateful he was that Ben was still with him even after Klaus had dismissed the ghost begging him again and again to get clean and live a better life. He loved Ben more than he ever knew how to express, which is why he hadn’t just ignored the advice that the other man had given him and let himself be killed. He was living because Ben wanted him to live, even if that meant prostitution and more drugs than one person should reasonably ever get their hands on at once.

Klaus let out a breathless moan, his back arching off of the seat a little bit. The muscles in his back were constricting so hard that they hurt like nothing had in a long time. The stretch around his hole was uncomfortable and burned. This didn’t feel at all like the sex that he wanted to be having, and that was when he realized that he was beginning to sober from whatever he had been high on. He wasn’t sure if that was because of how uncomfortable the sex was or just because it had been a while since he had taken anything.

“I know that it hurts, but it’ll hurt less if you just relax,” Ben informed him gently. He could almost feel his lover’s hands on his hips.

He could starkly remember the first time that they had done something like this, but it had been a lot more pleasant. There had been a lot of nervous shaking from the both of them, especially since Klaus was suffering through a little bit of withdrawal due to the mission they had most recently come off. Ben had hovered above him after what felt like hours and hours of fingering him until he was wide enough open that he could probably take two cocks. Yet as soon as the other teenager had pressed into Klaus, he had felt like they hadn’t done any prep. They had stopped after every inch to that Klaus could adjust and the experience could be pleasurable for the both of them.

But that wasn’t what was happening here. Here and now, the man was pressing into him steadily without even checking to make sure that the other was okay. Klaus was used to that happening though. No one really cared about the health and wellbeing of the guy that they had just paid two hundred dollars for a quick fuck to.

He did pause once he had bottomed out, though. Klaus finally had the time to focus on relaxing all of his back muscles and his hole so that it was more comfortable to have the intrusion. He realized then that he hadn’t cleaned out before he had stumbled out of the apartment he was loitering in, so it was likely that the guy was going to be grossed out once all of this was done and over with. Thankfully there was a condom between him and everything in Klaus’ entrance, so it wasn’t going to be as gross as it could have been.

“Don’t think about him, don’t think about what comes after. Let your mind think about me and only me,” Ben whispered.

Klaus was well aware that he wasn’t sober enough to conjure any ghosts or make them solid enough to touch anything, which was something he had only been able to do once as a child and would likely forget as soon as he got high enough again, but he could almost feel the featherlight kisses against his jaw.

“That’s it, baby, that’s it,” Ben reassured him softly. “Imagine that it’s me above you. Our lives are wonderful, we’ve got that apartment that we always wanted. You don’t have to do this shit to get money and you don’t have to resort to hard drugs to make the ghosts go away. We’re spending some time together after a date, we were so excited that we just couldn’t wait until we had gotten home. I took you into the backseat and played with you so much that you started begging me to fuck you so I just had to oblige.”

The ex-superhero’s cock began to fill at the idea of coming apart in his lover’s hands. It was one of his favorite things, before that fateful mission, to spend the lonely hours of the night wrapped up in his boyfriend as they took each other apart piece by piece after a joint shared between them. It was something that he was never going to experience again, and that made him sad, but he was just high enough to be able to ignore that.

“Good job, baby, you’re doing so well,” Ben whispered. The man above Klaus had moved his hands so that he was grasping the back of the backseat as well as the headrest for the driver’s seat. Klaus was used to people not wanting to touch more of him than they had to despite the fact that they were having sex with him, which always seemed strange but he had grown up with only the weirdest.

“Imagine that’s my cock driving into you. It’s got that curve that you like, the one that can hit your spot every single time I thrust into you,” Ben commanded him. Klaus threw his head back against the seat and let out a loud moan. In all his years of sleeping with other people, whether for money or for fun, he had never been able to find someone with a cock that drove him as insane as Ben’s had. Just the mere idea of having it fucked into him again was driving him up the wall with arousal.

“I’m holding down your hips and all you can focus on is the way that my cock is pounding into you. It feels so good when I lean down and kiss over the hickies I put all over your neck. You know how much I like it when people can tell that you’re mine because I’ve marked you up so much. God, you’re irresistible to everyone that sees you and I have to make sure that they knew you’re mine,” the words that were pouring out of his ghostly boyfriend’s mouth were the most delicious thing that Klaus had ever heard.

This was the kind or arrangement that they had since they had left the house where their father had abused them for the last several years, trying to find respite anywhere they could in the streets. Ben was there to talk him through every paying sexual encounter that he ever had, and even a couple of the non-paying ones when they got really bad. It only worked sometimes, because there had been times in his life when the ex-superhero had been too far out of his mind on whatever the drug of the evening was to hear or even catch a glimpse of the ghost.

Ben had stopped talking, which let Klaus know that the man paying him for this encounter appeared to be getting closer to his orgasm. At this point, the psychic had sobered up enough that he was able to fake the moans that the stranger needed to achieve his completion. That had been the entire reason that Ben had been whispering all those dirty words to him, to make him aroused enough that he could put on a facade and hurry up the whole process.

Despite the fact that he remembered how unpleasant the whole experience was now that he wasn’t being fed the most amazing fantasy of his whole life, he was grateful that Ben had stopped when he did. Klaus had only cum a couple of times when he was servicing someone and it was always a bit of an awkward experience. He had to clean himself up with something that the customer provided him and it meant that he had to hang around them for longer. He much preferred it when he could bring them to orgasm and then bolt away from them as quickly as he could do deal with himself later.

The man let out one last grunt as he finally orgasmed, shoving his silicone covered cock all the way back into Klaus. He could feel the way that the cum was spirting out of him and into the condom, stretching out his insides even more so that he was extra uncomfortable.

As soon as he had finished, the man pulled out. He seemed to realize his mistake in not asking if Klaus had cleaned out. Before he had the chance to get upset or start yelling, the ex-superhero shoved himself back into his clothes. He sat up and unlocked the car in the same motion as Ben told him what kind of a lock it was.

It was almost like his heart had started beating again as he was able to push the door open and then step out into the cool air of the city. He felt weird and uncomfortable from being fucked with no preparation, but the more pressing issue was how his cock was pressed against the seam in his pants.

Klaus stumbled away from the car as quickly as he could while checking to make sure that all of his possessions were still present. He had a little bag of weed in his pocket, his favorite blunt roller, a lighter, the flask that he had stolen from his father when he was fourteen, and the hand-sized copy of Hamlet that Ben had given him for their seventeenth birthday. He also had the wad of cash stuck in the pocket next to his heart, which was important. He didn’t have to had to do that for nothing, so having his reward was reassuring.

He passed by the alley that he had just been in so that the man wouldn’t be able to find him and then slowly made his way back to the apartment complex that he was squatting in. It was abandoned and set to be demolished in a couple of days, so it wasn’t a place that he was going to be able to stay in for long, but it served him pretty well for the time being.

It was only when he had found the actual apartment that he had been staying in that he was able to pick up where he had left off with Ben. He dropped his coat down on top of the backpack that was laying next to his sleeping bag. He collapsed down onto the aforementioned makeshift bed and then shoved his pants down. He didn’t bother to try and finger himself or touch his ass knowing that he hadn’t had a decent shower in quite a long time and also hadn’t cleaned out. He wasn’t a virgin when it came to gay sex like his most recent customer had been.

His cock flopped angrily against his stomach as it was released from the tight confines of his pants. “Ben,” he gasped as he wrapped his hand around the base of it and then pumped up once. He was already so sensitive since he had gotten so worked up in the car but had to delay his orgasm for almost twenty minutes while getting somewhere safe.

“We got interrupted, didn’t we?” the shimmery ghost version of his boyfriend appeared a few feet away from where he was splayed out over the ground.

“Mhm,” Klaus whined. He began stroking himself lazily. He was doing it dry, which was a little uncomfortable, but it was leagues better than what he had going on in the car.

“You’re so handsome, baby,” Ben whispered. “Just jacking yourself off to me, thinking about the way that I would hold you down and fuck you. I’d thread my fingers through your hair and pull your head so far back that you could barely breathe while I used you. Then I’d make sure that you came so much that your legs gave out. You wouldn't be able to walk all day because of how hard I had fucked you. But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“You know that I would, Benny boy,” he groaned. He thrust his hips up despite the fact that he was in control of everything that was happening. The stimulation from the walk back to his hide out had made it so that he knew he wasn’t going to last very long.

Klaus let out a happy mewl as the fire inside of his stomach was finally allowed to explode out over his entire body, consuming himself with endorphins. He had a hypothesis, that if Ben hadn’t died and he had been able to get laid whenever he wanted, that he wouldn’t have resorted to hard drugs the way that he did. He had no way to test this hypothesis though, so he kept living the way that he did in the hopes that it would one day please Ben enough that he could join the other in the afterlife.

The ex-superhero dug an old towel out of his backpack and then cleaned his hand off with it. He stuffed himself back into his clothes and clambered back into his sleeping bag so that he could sleep off the rest of whatever he had taken despite barrelling closer and closer to sober.

For a moment, as he began to drift to sleep, he could have sworn that he felt Ben’s lips press a kiss to his temple.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #ao3 #archive of our own #oneshot #tua #the umbrella academy #horrance #klaus hargreeves #ben hargreeves #umbrella ben #klaus x ben #ben x klaus #always present fic

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sissytobitch10seconds · 2 years ago

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A Quiet Entrance

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Nine months after landing in Dallas, Texas during the 1960s, Diego is finally reunited with the rest of his family. They've got a lot to deal with until they're safe and they've got a lot of curveballs coming to them, but they can handle it because they're back together again. Warnings: Pregnant trans character, graphically described childbirth, mentions of mental distress, and period typical transphobia Word Count: 11,618 Ship(s): Diego Hargreeves/Viktor Hargreeves

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A/N: If you've noticed that I'm writing more fics like this, it's because my mutual poked me into watching Call the Midwife and it reignited my special interest surrounding childbirth and pregnancy, so I am combining it with my current fandom obsession. I hope that you guys can enjoy some of these, because there's going to be quite a few of them as time goes on. Thanks for reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

After making sure that all four of his already found siblings were listening to him, Five began to explain the situation that they were in. “I dumped you here without permission and we got the attention of the Commission, unfortunately. The Handler has been trying to do something nefarious with it since I joined and she’s using the fact that you’re all here as a way to continue doing that. I went back to the Commission and agreed to stop messing with time and keep certain things a secret as long as they helped me keep all of you safe. They’ve agreed to let us use one of their old safehouses. It’s one of the ones that The Handler isn’t aware of, so I’m sending you all there so that you can be safe.”

He had tried to make it so that his statement left no room for arguments. He didn’t want to spend an unknown amount of time poking, prodding, and reassuring them that it was okay and the right thing for them to do. He just wanted to make sure that the five remaining siblings he had were safe and tucked away until he could return them back to the world that they deserved.

Luther, however, seemed to have not gotten the message. Five should have suspected that he would be the biggest problem out of all of his siblings since their father had reassured him over and over again that he was the leader. “You’re going to go after that entire organization by yourself? Don’t you need the rest of us to help you?”

The oldest-youngest brother shook his head. “I don’t. I’m only going after The Handler and I’ve been given permission to use some of the other agents if I need any help. The thing that is going to help me most is having you all out of the way so that I don’t have to worry about you fucking up the timeline more. The Commission wants you out of the way as well. Two of you have tried to mess with the Kennedy assassination and the other two have made huge ripples in the culture of Dallas and the world as a whole.”

Diego pursed his lips and then folded his arms moodily over his chest as he sank down in his chair. Luther looked a little bit guilty and began to fidget impatiently. Allison let out a huffy noise and rolled her eyes, obviously not having any remorse for the ripples that she had sent through the timeline. Klaus just laughed as he lounged back on the couch that he was already sitting on.

“Do you understand?” Five asked as he looked out over all of his siblings. “If you all continue with what you’ve been doing until I got here then there’s the chance that the Commission will decide that you need to die anyway. You all have to go to the safehouse and stay there until I come to get you.”

Allison spoke up before the rest of them had the chance to, “Are we allowed to go back and say goodbye to any of the people that we loved?”

“No,” Five shook his head. “Not right now. Maybe if you’re all good and you’ve done what I’ve asked I can accompany you back so that you can say goodbye before we got back to where we’re supposed to be.”

She didn’t seem content with that answer, but she also didn’t pitch a big fuss. Five walked his siblings down the stairs so that they were near the car that Eliot had before he had been killed by the Swedes under The Handler’s instruction. “I want you to all go to this address and find Viktor. He’s going by his old name and working as a nanny for the family that lives at this address,” he didn’t bother to explain how he knew that as he wrote the information down and then handed the slip of paper over to Diego.

The aforementioned brother’s face was overcome with a kind of emotion that none of them had ever seen from him before. His brows were furrowed together and his mouth was in a pinched line. He walked to the other side of the car and then got in the front behind the wheel while waiting for the rest of his siblings to follow suit.

As soon as the present Hargreeves, with the exception of Five, had sat down in the car, he started it up. A flash of blue told him that Five had gone off to wherever he was finishing his business, so he pulled out of the driveway to go to the address they had been given.

Klaus struck up a conversation about halfway out of the city and towards the farm where their last brother was living. It was easy to fall into the pattern that they had grown up in, listening to him say something and then groaning or pointing out the inaccuracies in it. This time, even Luther joined in. Diego felt himself relaxing as he thought back to some of the more comforting memories that he had of when they were younger.

The tension and stress that he had felt before were back as soon as they pulled down the dirt driveway of the farm where Viktor was living. There were tire tracks down the path, but no car in front of the barn or beside the house which meant that someone had probably gone out.

Diego hung back in the car while the rest of the siblings piled out. He had a lot of emotions that he had to sort through concerning the brother that they had come to pick up, the least of which being the guilt that was boiling in his stomach at not coming to rescue Viktor from what might have been a very bad situation.

He stepped out after a moment, knowing that he couldn’t run away from it. He turned and then felt like his breath was stolen from his lungs in the best way possible.

His relationship with Viktor had been complicated from the very beginning of their lives, there was no alternative with the way that they had been raised. As they got older and began to come into themselves more as people, it had gotten even more twisted and confusing. He had always thought that the violinist was beautiful, but something had changed since they had last seen each other and the radiance of the other man had seemingly increased tenfold.

Viktor was standing next to a laundry line where he was picking up garments from a basket and then pinning them down so that they flapped dry in the breeze. He was wearing a long blue summer dress that brushed across his ankles and tightened up at the waist. The sleeves were simple and stopped at his mid-forearm with a looseness that allowed for work to be done easily. His hair was cut short again, like it had been right after they left the Academy and formed their short-lived band.

Something about the way that he was standing in the hot Dallas sun, the spring breeze wrapped around him, made him look more beautiful and ethereal that Diego had ever seen him look before. He could only see the side of Viktor’s face and yet the healthy glow that he had acquired since arriving in the past was evident. He was beautiful in the same way that he always had been, handsome yet soft, but at the same time different. It might have had something to do with the fact that he was off of the medication that he had been on his entire life and was finally able to feel his own feelings, but as soon as Viktor turned Diego knew that it wasn’t just that.

“Viktor?” Allison called, quickly getting the attention of their brother.

He turned around and his beautiful brown eyes welled up with tears. They didn’t even hang on his lashes as they often had when they were all children, back when his emotions were being suffocated by the medication that Reginald had kept him on since they were four. “Allison?” he asked.

The siblings had all been getting ready to approach their brother so that they could have a conversation without shouting, but as soon as he turned around they all stopped. He had one hand extended out over the top of a basket that was overflowing with wet laundry and clothespins, but the other one was what they were paying attention to. Even if it hadn’t been placed where it was, the object of their fascination would have been very obvious.

Viktor’s stomach was rounded out from underneath his chest all the way down to between his hips. It looked firm and not at all proportionate to what it would have been had the small man just gained some weight. The hand placed on the very bottom of his stomach made it even more obvious because it cut the dress so that the fabric was tightly formed around him. It was very blatant that he was pregnant.

Diego felt like he was frozen in place as soon as that finally clicked in his brain. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do when he saw the man that he had so much history with before that had been thrown into the equation, but now any ideas that he had were completely thrown out the window.

The rest of the siblings seemed to be similarly astounded that the bringer of the apocalypse, their timid little brother, was harboring a life inside of him. They were just as frozen as Diego and so Viktor had to be the one to make the first move. He dropped the basket of laundry so that they tumbled down onto the packed dirt and grass. He didn’t care as he hurried, as quickly as he could with the heavy weight on his abdomen, towards the siblings he was worried he would never see again.

He paused when he was finally in front of Allison, a mere foot away. “You’re okay?” he asked, his hand twitching at his side as he thought about whether or not it would be okay for him to reach out and touch her.

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m okay,” Allison immediately nodded. She lurched forward so that she was hugging her brother, saving him from having to make the decision. Viktor had been crying the entire time that he had been getting closer to her, but as soon as her arms were around him he began to sob loudly.

“I’m so sorry that all happened and then I wasn’t even there to make sure that you were okay. I tried to get back to you but then my powers they- they just took over so I couldn’t think anymore and then I woke up in Dallas and I didn’t even know if any of you were out here,” Viktor gasped around sobs.

“Shh, shh,” Allison immediately soothed. She brushed her hand over the back of his head in the same way that Grace had often done when they were younger. She placed a kiss on his forehead and Diego felt a spike of jealousy flare up inside of him as he wanted to be doing that, though he quickly stamped it down as he remembered all of the feelings he had nine months ago when they were in their own timeline.

Allison pulled back then, brushed her fingers over her own eyes to rid them of the tears. “You shouldn’t be all worked up when you’re in this condition,” she sniffled.

Viktor laughed as the hand that wasn’t on Allison’s shoulder, reassuring him that his sister was really there and really okay, moved to his stomach. He rubbed a circle and then settled it back where it had been while he was working with the clothesline.

One of the other siblings slipped out of their surprise then as Klaus walked over to the smallest of the brothers. He wrapped one of his long arms around the violinist’s waist and brought him in to a half hug, “I never thought that we’d see you in a dress again, mein bruder.”

The aforementioned brother let out a half laugh, sounded absolutely exasperated despite how little Klaus had said so far. “How about you try being nine months pregnant in the beginning of Dallas summer and then tell me if you want to be wearing jeans?”

Klaus laughed, tossing his head back so that the black hat that was perched on the edge of his head tumbled back into the grass along with the laundry. “At least you don’t have much longer to go. When is baby supposed to come?” Klaus asked.

His hand moved over to Viktor’s stomach but Allison quickly hit it off. “Klaus! Never touch a pregnant person’s stomach without permission. Just because they’re carrying a baby doesn’t mean that they don’t get to have autonomy and consent anymore.”

The violinist quickly soothed the argument before it could really get started. “Allison, Klaus never asks when he touches someone so it isn’t like this is a pregnancy specific thing.” He then turned towards his brother with a small smile, “I am getting very close to my due date. We’re not sure when exactly because it took a while for me to remember again and then I couldn’t quite figure out conception dates because of how the time travel worked.”

“Remember?” Luther asked. He walked out from where he was standing next to the car so that he was closer to the rest of his siblings. Viktor tensed up a little bit and the wind picked up, but then he took a deep breath and everything settled again.

“I was dumped into a back alleyway when I got here. I was really disoriented because of the kinds of things that my powers had done to my head. I stumbled out into the road and someone hit me with their car,” he explained. “I actually work for her family, she’s been kind enough to let me stay here even with the baby on the way.”

“You were hit with a car?” Allison gasped.

“Yes, but don’t worry! She stopped as soon as she could so it basically just threw me down to the ground. I didn’t break any bones and the baby wasn’t hurt at all. I had a concussion for a little while and some scrapes but we’re both fine,” Viktor immediately soothed. He then flushed a little, no doubt ashamed that he had assumed they were worried about his and his baby’s health because of how he had been treated when they were younger.

Diego felt like he was suffocating, like the air around him was slowly seeping out. It reminded him of some of the training that he had done when he was younger, back when Reginald was trying to figure out if his breath-holding applied to anything other than world. His chest was beating up in his ears so that it made it hard to hear what his siblings were saying, but he was also hanging off of every word. His thoughts were rolling over and over in his head as he tried to figure out conception dates on his own.

“We should get going. Five said that we had to go straight to the safehouse after we picked him up,” Luther said as he glanced back towards Diego, who was still hanging back at the car.

The look got Viktor’s attention back in that direction as well. His eyes widened when he noticed that the brother he had been closest to as teenagers was there as well. He ducked his head down, though without the curtain of hair that he had all the way up until their sixteenth birthday, it was hard for him to hide the way that he was feeling. His eyes were wide and the tips of his cheeks were colored red with a nervous flush. Diego had seen that look a lot back when they were trying to, futilely, get their band off of the ground.

“Safehouse?” Viktor asked.

Klaus let out a sigh as he got ready to explain, “Our dear Fivey has been very busy since he dumped us here. He only got into Dallas about three days ago and he’s been working rather tirelessly to find us all. We were all dumped in different times because of how messy his powers are. Apparently we caught some nasty attention and so now he’s having to squirrel us away while he gets it all cleaned up and we get to go back home.”

“I can’t leave just yet. I told Sissy that I would get some chores done around the house and she might worry if she comes back and I’m just gone,” Viktor shook his head. He detached himself from Klaus and Allison as he slowly made his way back over to where the laundry basket was. Diego noticed, with affection swelling his heart, that Viktor had a little bit of a waddle now because of the size of the baby.

“Here, let me get that,” Allison quickly said as she moved past him and gathered the laundry up from the ground. She winced when she saw that one of the shirts had spilled out into a patch of mud and was now soaked. She placed that over one arm while she put the rest of the laundry back where it went and then handed it to Viktor.

“Thank you, I can’t reach stuff that falls as much as I used to. I refuse to be one of those people that just doesn’t pick things like that up because it’s harder, but it’s nice not having to do it every time,” he laughed as he took the basket. He turned back to his siblings. “Can you let me finish up the chores I need to do around the house and pack up some things?”

He was taking everything in better stride than they thought that he would given what their last interactions had been like. It was kind of hard to believe that the brother that they had seen up on that stage, bathed in white energy while trying his very best to kill everyone coming too close to him, was the same that was standing here. The Viktor that they had seen the last time they were all together was all blue-hued and cold while this one was full of rosy golden warmth.

Diego spoke up before anyone else had the chance to. His words had been stuck in his throat, much like his body had been stuck in place. “We have time, you can pack.”

From a few feet away from the car, between the vehicle and their pregnant brother, Luther whirled around with wide eyes. Despite his reluctance to help Five in the saving of the world earlier that day, he seemed to have jumped on it now. The idea of letting someone have more time than the rest of them also seemed to tick off Allison, but she didn’t say anything about it.

Viktor turned to face Diego for a moment, his eyes full of nearly-unreadable emotion. When they had been working together on starting their band, before Diego had flunked the police academy and blown away in the wind like bad dandelion seeds, the marksman had gotten very good at reading those emotions. He had to be since Viktor was shy and quiet and rarely ever spoke what he was thinking. “Thank you,” he whispered. He turned back around to his work so that he could finish hanging up the wet laundry on the line.

The lone girl of the family sent a half-pissed look at her brother, which just confirmed that the pregnancy was the only reason she wasn’t fighting against his decision the way that Luther was. She walked over to their brother and took the basket from him so that she could help him. Viktor was pulling garments out and then pinning them to the line while she trailed slowly after him while keeping the basket steady.

“What the Hell, Diego?” Luther demanded as he stormed back over towards his brother.

“You didn’t even want to save the world the last time that Five came to ask you for help,” Diego snarled.

“Why does he get more time than the rest of us to wrap up his shit? Five said that we had to get to the safehouse as quickly as possible because of the danger that the Commission is posing to us right now. If we stick around for too long they might figure out where we are,” Luther argued.

Diego felt a flare of anger burning up inside of him. He thought that he had left those kinds of feelings behind when he had dropped into this world. Despite the barbaric treatments of people in 1960s mental institutions, some of the things that he had talked about while in therapy had helped him with some of his issues. He had a couple of sessions of therapy under his belt before he even got there, so he just built their basic suggestions on the more modern ones he already knew. He had worked very hard to try and get over the issues that he had with his brother, to ration that it was their father that had turned them against each other like that.

He had forgiven Luther around the fourth month of being in the institution. The more that the other man was pushing this specific issue, the less he wanted to keep on that streak. “Because he’s fucking pregnant, Luther! You weren’t around him enough to see how much being forced to pretend that he was a girl messed him up. Pregnancy in the 1960s isn’t going to be fucking nice to him so we have to be gentle for two different reasons. I don’t think you want anything bad happening to him or the baby, do you, Luther?” he snapped.

“Something bad is going to happen to him, Diego!” Luther shouted. “There are dangerous people out there with guns that are going to hurt him, the baby, and the rest of us if they catch us!”

“They’re going to have to fucking wait until Viktor feels safe enough to go anywhere! I’m not going to push our pregnant brother into doing something he isn’t comfortable with,” he was basically seething at that point. They were going to be going back and forth like that for a while longer before one of them got bored and stopped fighting. It was something that they had done often when they were younger and were pushed against each other by their father. It was something that he often goaded them into and they fell into very easily. Diego also needed to burn off some of his anxiety and the other feelings that were swirling in his gut.

Meanwhile, Klaus had wandered off to talk with Viktor and Allison. “So what have you been doing since your little ending-the-world rendezvous?” he asked as he snagged one of the clothespins to play with.

The pregnant man pursed his lips and shrank down into himself. Allison opened her mouth to object over their brother bringing up that topic, but she was shut down before she really got to, “I’ve just been living here. Like I said earlier, Sissy hit me with her car and then brought me to the hospital. I had a pretty bad concussion and had no idea who I was so they brought me back with them to take care of me since I didn’t match up with any missing person’s reports. My memory slowly came back and we tried to reach out to you guys but I was too pregnant to get a job so that I could get an apartment. I work as a nanny here so that Sissy can focus on the farm.”

“They’re not working you too hard, are they?” Allison asked, her eyes drifting down specifically to Viktor’s domed stomach.

He chuckled and placed a hand on his swollen bump. “No, they’re not. I mainly do household chores and watch after Harlan. My midwife said that getting the exercise that I do is actually good for me and the baby. Makes it so they can grow up to be healthy and strong. Also means that I’m not liable to go into labor sooner than I’m supposed to,” he grabbed the last garment from the bag and then took the basket from Allison.

Viktor turned back towards the car, trying to catch some kind of a glance at Diego, when he saw the two brothers fighting. “Allison, why don’t you go see if you can talk Luther down and then send Diego into the house with me? We need to talk.”

He didn’t give them any room to argue as he drifted back into the house to finish up the remainder of his chores before he had to leave. Klaus and Allison glanced at each other knowingly before doing as they had been asked.

The back door that Viktor had just come through slowly opened and then closed as Diego walked through it into the kitchen. Viktor was placing the shirt that had gotten dirty when the basket fell back into the washing machine so that it could be washed with the next load. He set the basket down on the ground next to it and then slowly pushed himself up into a standing positon, one hand going to his back for extra support.

“Allison said that you had something you wanted to talk to me about,” Diego said softly as he walked over to one of the counters in the kitchen.

“Yeah, I do,” Viktor nodded. He turned around to that they could have their conversation face-to-face but then paused as he felt the burning, searing pain beginning to grow in his back. He placed his hand on the wall to support himself as he took in a deep breath through his nose. The muscles along his spine tightened painfully and then wrapped around his gravid belly for a solid thirty seconds before they all released. The pain fled and he was flushed with endorphins before he remembered everything that was happening. “Um, would you mind making another tally under the four on that paper for me since it’s behind you?”

Diego had been staring at him the entire time that he had been standing there, he was able to feel the other man’s eyes boring into his very being. It was only after he said something that the spell or captivation that had been placed on him was finally broken. He turned around to grab the paper and pencil that had been requested of him before he paused. “Viktor, what is this?” he asked.

“It’s just something that my midwife asked me to keep. A log book of all my false labor contractions to make sure that nothing is wrong with baby,” he replied. “Which is kind of what I need to talk to you about.”

“False labor?” Diego asked, trying to play stupid to give himself more time to process the information on the paper. It was broken up into seven sections, each with several numbers spread evenly throughout. Underneath each number was a certain amount of tallies, with some being more frequent and most of them being devoid of the marks altogether. The one at the bottom that was marked with their current date was what had caught his attention, however. The tallies increased as the day got later, to the point where there were already five in the column underneath the four.

“No, the baby,” Viktor shook his head. He snagged the paper and then set a tally mark down where it needed to be. “I know that you and I haven’t always had the… most stable relationship,” he winced.

Diego snorted, “You could say that.”

“Do you remember right when we found out that Dad died? You got distracted when you were doing your whole Batman-thing and came to me to get patched up, like you always did. And we…” his ears were burning red as he fully trailed off.

The memories of that night came flooding back to them both. It was like whenever they were seated that close together, on the poorly tiled floor of Viktor’s tiny bathroom, something drew them even closer. They had become intertwined as they had many times before, but they had become so giddy with the news of their father’s death that they had forgotten to be as careful as they usually were. It had resulted in them having to shower to get all of the blood from Diego’s cut off of them and Viktor complaining under his breath about having to pick up a Plan B on his way to work the next morning.

“I never did it. I was late going to orchestra and then the funeral happened and now…” he placed his hand on his swollen stomach.

“Are you saying…?” Diego felt his eyes widen as the words got stuck in his throat. That had happened so often when they were younger and Viktor had always been the most patient about it, struggling with his own words more often than not. The thought had flit across his mind as soon as he had seen the state that his adoptive brother was in, but he pushed it away quickly after reminding himself that nothing good ever happened to him.

Viktor nodded, tears welling in his dark brown eyes. “I think so. I- there’s a chance that it could be Harold’s because we weren’t… there was a time, right after my powers went haywire when Allison triggered me with her rumor that he… and I didn’t really have the brain space to be able to tell him that I didn’t want to or that he had to use a condom,” he gave a shudder.

Immediately upon hearing that, the amazement and wonder was replaced with burning rage. He had already felt a huge surge of protectiveness over his pseudo-lover when they found the body of the poor woman who had first chair violin in Viktor’s orchestra, but knowing that the murder had taken advantage of Viktor during a vulnerable time in his life made his blood boil. Diego had often initiated forceful sex and kissed without asking first, but he had always immediately backed off without any attempt at coercion when he had been told no.

He was brought out of some of the darker thoughts when he watched Viktor wiping at his face with both of his calloused hands. “Sorry. I haven’t been able to think about it much during the pregnancy, I’ve kind of decided that they’re yours already because I can’t bare the idea that he could have gotten me pregnant on top of everything else.”

Diego’s hand twitched at his side and he slowly brought it up to Viktor’s stomach, giving the other man ample opportunity to say that he didn’t want it. Instead, Viktor reached up and took his wrist so that he could lay Diego’s palm flat against his stomach, right above his belly button. “I had sex with you first and we know for a fact that you were ovulating then and we didn’t use protection. The chances are pretty damn high that this baby is mine,” he whispered.

Normally he wouldn’t have been able to say something like that because it all would have felt too overwhelming. While he always wanted to be a father, a child was a big responsibility and having a baby suddenly dumped on his lap when he didn’t have any time to think and panic about it made him want to throw himself into a lake and live there eternally. The impulse didn’t plague him now, though, because he knew that Viktor needed that reassurance. The baby would be born soon, especially if Viktor’s midwife was right about due dates, and he needed to be strong for the blossoming family and the man that he loved.

Diego took a deep breath as he leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together. It was an intimate gesture that used to be very common for them, back when they were playing small gigs in the back of pizza parlors and abandoned garages. Viktor had always been nervous, even when he was back on the medication that their father had given him, and that was one of the only ways that would properly soothe his nerves. “It’s a lot to take in, huh?” Diego asked.

He felt like he was going to shake apart at the seams as his brain really began to process everything that had happened. One day it felt like he was going about his normal life, working as a janitor in a gym by day and being a vigilante at night. The next his father was dead, he had some of the best sex of his life, and then he was at his father’s wake. Everything after that, finding out that Viktor had powers, that his sort-of lover was dating someone new, that someone turning out to be an obsessive murderer, watching his mother die twice, watching his childhood home crumble, being forced to sit silently as Viktor begged him to let him out of the cage they had locked him in, and then watching powers none of them understood taking over their brother. That had all been before the time travel, the asylum, the second end of the world, and everything that had happened with Lila.

Now he was standing in a stranger’s kitchen, trying to work through all of those events while also processing that it was very likely he would be a father before the week ended.

“I don’t think I’ve had the chance to process it all since it began. I was back here and then I was pregnant and I had that to worry about. Still do, and then I’ll have the baby. But there’s always time for a panic attack later, right?” he chuckled.

Diego cracked a smile at that. Despite the nervous energy that was thrumming through his body because of everything happening around him, that nod back to their band days helped him feel immensely better. It wasn’t something that they had enjoyed at the time and it had worried him then, but now it made him feel warm. It reminded him of back when they thought that they had a chance for the future, that they would never hurt each other because they understood the other too well. That hadn’t lasted long because Diego was shit at managing his life and had a mean mouth to boot, but he had changed a lot since then.

“Yeah, there will be time for panic attacks later,” he murmured as he rubbed his hand over the swollen bump on his brother’s abdomen. The idea that their child was inside of the smaller man, nestled away from the world and safely growing until they could make their debut was the most exciting and terrifying thing that Diego had ever thought about.

He felt a small kick to his hand just as Viktor’s face fell from the delicate smile he had been wearing. He let out a small hum in the back of his throat as his spare hand moved away from Diego's shoulder and to his back, supporting him through another one of the pains.

Diego kept one hand on Viktor’s bump while the other moved to support his brother. They slowly walked over to the dining room table a few feet away from the kitchen. He helped Viktor lower himself down until he was leaning back in the chair, finally sitting down and off his feet. “So I’m not exactly an expert on this, but I don’t think that false labor contractions happen this often,” he gestured with his head over to the note that he had snagged on their way to the chair.

“I’m not in labor,” Viktor shook his head. “When my midwife came to the house yesterday she said that I still had a couple of days. Nothing is on the move yet, so we should have plenty of time for Five to finish doing whatever it is that he needs to get done.”

There was no argument in his voice and Diego was too worn out from having all of the information dumped on him to try and find the words. He merely added another tally underneath the hour and sat with Viktor until the other man felt steady enough to get back up. “Do you think that you could help me with some of the packing? I’ve already done most of the chores that Sissy asked me to do while she was away.”

“Of course,” Diego replied. He was standing and helping Viktor to his feet in an instant. Knowing that the other man still loved him, at least in some way even if it wasn’t the more direct way that he had been hoping for, had directed some of his attention away from all of his other thoughts. He had been of the opinion that the fathers-to-be that were obsessed with their spouses when they were expecting had been cheesy and unrealistic. He had never been around someone that was pregnant all the way from the beginning to the end when he was that young, but his opinion had stayed the same as he got older. He had figured that nothing much could change in the way that someone loved just because their partner was pregnant. He now knew better than that, because he felt completely enamored with Viktor now that he knew the other man was responsible for making him a father.

“Just through here,” Viktor explained as he waddled towards the living room. The couch had a stack of blankets and pillows carefully made up on one side and there was a suitcase full of clothes next to the chair.

Diego felt his mouth flicker down into a frown. He was grateful that this family had taken in Viktor when he needed them but he wished that it had been a slightly better situation. If the apocalypse hadn’t happened Diego might not have been able to offer Viktor a better place to stay himself, but at least in their own time the pregnant man had his own apartment and an actual bed to sleep on.

“Where’s the baby stuff?” Diego asked as he searched for it.

“Under the couch. It’s bigger than you think,” Viktor chuckled. He walked over and hefted the suitcase up onto the chair so that he could flick it open and look through it. It was full of clothes from throughout his pregnancy, though there weren’t a lot of garments in there. It was about half full with a half dozen pairs of pants, three button ups and a pair of overalls. There was plenty of room for him to move the baby clothes that he hadn’t prepared yet into it.

Diego slid everything that had been nestled underneath the couch out and then began to help Viktor fold them and get them packed away. The smaller man had another two contractions while they were working but waved away Diego’s little concerned noises every time.

Eventually, the domesticity of the situation was interrupted by another one of their siblings. They had been in the house for longer than they thought and the others were beginning to get worried that they were hanging around for too long. “How’s it going in here?” Allison asked as she looked over the baby clothes that they were sorting through. It was two full boxes worth of clothing items, everything that Sissy had saved from when Harlan was born and a few that they had gotten just in case the baby was a girl.

“Good,” Viktor smiled. He turned towards her to give her more details but then stopped as he felt another one of the building pains. Diego was on his feet in an instant, allowing Viktor to use the other man’s hands so that he could stay upright and steady.

Their sister turned towards Diego and their eyes met. A whole conversation exchanged between them in the silence of Viktor’s contraction. “Are you in labor?” she asked, keeping her voice low and compassionate as she walked over to help keep him steady.

“No,” the smaller man objected. He stood up straight with a little grunt in the back of his throat and then a splattering noise sounded through the room.

Allison let out a little giggle as she said, “I think that baby is determined to prove you wrong. Unless you just peed yourself, I think that was your water breaking.”

He slowly tilted his head down so that he could see the growing puddle of water in the middle of the living room. Despite being nine months pregnant, he had never had an issue with his bladder other than feeling like had to pee more often. He was also aware enough of his own body to know that the clear fluid leaking out of him certainly wasn’t urine. “I thought that I was going to have more time…”

Another silent conversation passed between the other siblings. Diego grasped Viktor’s elbow with one hand and placed a hand on his back with the other. “Come on, we can go out to the car and wait there while people finish up here,” he said softly.

“Wouldn’t it be a better idea for me to go out to the car with him? I’ve had a baby before,” Allison argued.

“That’s why I need you in here,” Viktor replied as he nodded towards his suitcase. “You know more about baby clothes than Diego does. He can sit with me in the car and hold my hand or whatever people are supposed to do when they’re around other people in labor.”

She looked like she wanted to protest, but he had made a good point. Instead of wasting what little time that they had before the baby got there and it was a lot harder to get to the safehouse, she gathered up the items from the couch and basically forced them into Diego’s arms. The duo were then shepherded out of the backdoor and towards the car so that Viktor would have a semi-stationary place to labor.

Klaus and Luther were talking about something amongst the white sheets that were now billowing in the hot desert wind, but Viktor didn’t really pay much attention to either of them. He had been so wrapped up in his feelings and everything that was happening before his water broke that he barely noticed when the contractions came and went. Now that the protective bubble of the amniotic fluid had left and he was focusing on how soon he was going to meet his baby, everything felt a lot more present. He had to pause every time that he got one of the pains, which was thankfully only once as they made their way out of the house and to the car.

They paused in their conversation to watch the slow way that Viktor was walking while almost clutching at his stomach. He was sure that the lower half of his sun dress was almost soaked with the fluid that was still trickling down his leg when he moved the wrong way. He tried not to think about it too much because the idea that he was going to give birth soon was almost too much for him to handle.

Diego opened up the back of the car and then carefully helped Viktor into it. The only section of the vehicle that Luther fit in, they found out, was the trunk, so even though Viktor would have more maneuverability back there, it was off limits so that they could get the entire family to the safehouse.

The marksman laid down one the blankets on the backseat and then another in the footwell so that there was some cushion no matter how he decided he needed to be. “Can you run back into the house and get some more towels? I have a baby blanket but that’s not going to be of any use to us until baby is at least a little bit clean. Especially since we have no idea what this house Five is stashing us at is like,” he explained.

Diego looked a little anxious at the idea of having to leave his heavily pregnant and laboring partner, but he also knew better than to argue. He slipped out of the backseat, but thankfully he didn’t have to go far. The other two had been watching the interaction that they were having and slowly drifting over. Diego explained about the contractions and how Viktor’s water had broken when they were in the house, which only served to make Luther look a little pale and clammy. “Can one of you go get some towels? It sucks that we have to steal from this family but it’s not like we want this baby to be born with nothing if this house Five is sending us to ends up being empty.”

Klaus immediately agreed, turning and rushing off to do as he had been asked. Luther slowly trailed after Diego as the marksman returned to his lover. He paused when he got about a yard away from the car, turning to look around like attackers could be coming from anywhere. It was a little silly since Five had guaranteed that they’d be safe for a few hours while they drove to the house, but anything that made him feel better was getting a pass in Diego’s book.

It took about ten minutes for them to all be ready to go. Viktor was in the backseat with his forearms pressed together on the backseat of the car, kneeling down in the footwell behind the front. Diego was right beside him with a bowl of water snuggled up to the door and the crease in the seat so it didn’t spill. He would douse a cloth in it and then either use it to wet Viktor’s lips or run it over the back of his neck to keep him cool. It was kind of beautiful and terrifying to see what his lover was going through to bring their baby into the world.

Eventually Allison and Klaus both came out of the house. The suitcase full of things that Viktor would need for the newborn was placed into the trunk alongside the towels and the kit that the midwife had dropped off for his delivery. Klaus was driving and Allison was sitting in the passgender’s seat, though there had been a brief argument about who should be the one sitting beside Viktor.

None of their siblings knew about their band or what their relationship had been like after Five left and Ben died, when they could only find solace and companionship between the two of them. Allison’s argument for her being back with him was that she had been in labor and delivered before, but Klaus was quick to chime in and tell her that she had a c-section so she wasn’t really going to be a huge help during the delivery part.

Viktor barely even noticed anything had changed when the car started moving. Despite not having done it for most of his life, Klaus was fairly good at driving so even the transition down the long dirt driveway away from the farm was fairly smooth. They drove through the endless streets as they tried to get to the safehouse that Five had set up for them. Allison sat so that her back was pressed to the door and she could see both out of the windshield and her laboring brother, which was the only way that she allowed Diego to stay in the back with him.

“He’s so quiet,” she whispered after almost half an hour of driving. Viktor had been swaying back and forth and breathing rhythmically the entire time, which made it very hard for her to time how close his contractions were.

“I thought that the screaming and shouting and throwing things during labor was a stupid movie trope,” Luther piped up from the back. He was nervously worrying a blanket in between his fingers to try and settle down. He kept checking behind them like he was suddenly going to see the FBI and Commission coming to chase them down, as though they didn’t look like any other family trying to get where they needed to go before a baby came into the world.

Allison moved her hand back and forth. “Yes and no. I didn’t tell Patrick that I hated him or I never wanted to have sex with him again when I had Claire but I still made noise. Contractions are probably the most painful thing that I’ve ever been through,” she explained.

Viktor was lulled by the sounds of his families’ voices all around him. He had always wanted to be surrounded by their love and warmth and he had been denied that for so long when he was younger. It was nice to be around them when he already felt so zeroed in and focused on what was happening. His brain was fuzzy and distant like it had been when his powers took over his body, but in a much different was. The only thing that he could focus on was the steadily raising tide of pain and pressure. Each wave would overcome him for about thirty seconds and then recede before the next one came in. He could feel every distinctive thing happening in his body as his baby stilled and made their descent into the birth canal.

His body had basically taken over the entire situation. He didn’t feel like he had to worry because Diego was a steady, constant presence beside him and his other siblings were all within grabbing reach. He could just focus on the pressure low in his pelvis and the steady descent of his baby.

He leaned forward and shifted so that he was up on his feet instead of his knees. It spread his pelvis at least a little bit wider, which was much more comfortable now that he was at this point in his labor. Viktor grasped the blanket that Diego had spread out over the seat of the car so that his knuckles had turned almost white as he felt the overwhelming urge to bear down. He wasn’t going to deny his body what it wanted after years of his life being consumed by only that alone. He also wasn’t sure that he was physically capable of resisting the urge.

Almost as soon as he had made the choice to start pushing, the pressure was alleviated off of him entirely. It was enough of a relief that he let out a small whimper when he breathed out after the contraction passed.

“You doing okay, V?” Diego asked as he brought the cloth over. He had wrung it out so that he could place the entire thing over Viktor’s head and cool him down. It did the trick as the water weighted down his feathery brown locks just enough that his scalp was bathed with cool.

Viktor turned his head to the side so that he could meet his lover’s eyes. He gave him a tired smile and said, “Yeah, s’just a lot.”

“You know that you can cry out, right?” Allison asked, reaching over so that she could rub his back with one hand. “We know that it hurts. No one is going to get mad at you for making noise while your body literally prepares to birth a child.”

He gave a small nod as he returned back to what he had been doing before. He wasn’t making noise not because he was scared to, but because the pain didn’t seem all that terrible to him when his mind was as fuzzy as his was. The pressure was what was wearing him out since he dealt with low level pain almost every single day. The steady movement on his back was just the right amount of stimulation that he needed to keep his body from freaking out. It was something to focus on other than the baby’s head slowly descending down his birth canal.

The tension in the car was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife. They were all worried about being able to make it to the safe house that Five had set up for them in the time that he had given them to show up. Luther was basically staring out of the back window like he was going to be able to summon a monster for him to fight just to get his nerves to settle down. Klaus was focusing on driving, though he kept muttering to someone that none of the rest of them could see. Diego was focused mainly on Viktor, but images of having to fight while his boyfriend was giving birth to their child alone kept flashing through his mind and it was making him feel restless. Allison kept twitching back and forth, her eyes never hovering on any of the siblings for long but taking more time with Viktor than she ever had before.

Suddenly, she jerked forward and asked, “Is he pushing?”

Diego’s attention was snapped out of his thoughts and day-mares so that he could focus entirely on the brother that he had been taking care of during their long drive. “V? Hey, baby, I need you to look at me,” he made sure that his voice was soft and compassionate as he said that.

Viktor had, in fact, been pushing for the last ten minutes at least while they sped through Texas. He shifted so that he was leaning back against the front seat and looking towards Diego. His chest was heaving for breath but he focused on panting like he had practiced with his midwife when they were preparing for the birth.

None of the siblings said anything about the inherently romantic pet name that their brother had just called the laboring man, focusing entirely on the way that Viktor was cupping something between his legs. His hands had moved under the sundress that he was wearing somewhere in the twenty minutes that they had all been quiet. The billowy material of the outfit was enough that none of them could make out what it was.

Diego brought the cloth down and brushed the edges of it over his red-hued cheeks to try and help him cool down. “Just breathe, baby, just breathe. You’re doing so well, working to bring our kid into the world. Don’t worry about anything else, we’ve got it.”

The words rushed over him like the soothing water from the cloth. He felt some of the tension in his muscles relax as he continued to let his body do what it needed to. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as he felt the head, which had been crowning for quite some time, finally reach the apex and then slip out of him entirely. He had been feeling the soft, dirty, downy hair of his baby while he waited for that very thing to happen. Now that it had, he simply cradled the little head while he waited for the next pain to take over him.

Allison and Klaus shared a look with each other as they realized who the father of their brother’s baby was. It wasn’t like the pseudo-incest that any relationship between the Academy kids had been taboo. Allison and Luther had been making moon-eyes at each other since they were thirteen and they had all been raised as child soldiers instead of siblings like others might have been. It was just surprising because up until that very moment, all of them had assumed that the duo hated each other based on the way that Diego had acted during their father’s wake.

Soon, Allison recovered from the shock and turned around so that she could continue to enquire about the situation. “Diego, is he pushing?”

During the time that she had been asking him that, Viktor felt another contraction come on so he pushed harder. He let his head fall back against the front seat of the car and then whimpered when the shoulders of the baby finally slipped from him and into his waiting hands.

One second he was pushing with all his might to rid his body of the tiny infant coming out of him and the next both of his hands were full of baby. He completed the movement by removing the baby from underneath his dress and placing them on his chest, cradled protectively in his arms.

“Holy shit,” Diego whispered as he felt his eyes go wide. He might have gotten faint at the sight of needles, but blood and whatever else the newborn was covered with weren’t affecting him in the slightest. He had never felt more awake than he did in that very moment, staring at the squirming body of his firstborn.

“What? What just happened?” Klaus asked as he tried to glance back into the backseat using the rearview mirror. They had just passed by a rest stop so the amount of cars that they were passing increased enough that he had to pay attention to the road.

“Oh my God,” Allison gasped as she watched her brother slowly sink down into a sitting position with the baby grasped in his arms.

All of the noise and Allison’s insistent questions was enough to tear Luther away from where he was staring out the back window for any threats. He was now staring directly ahead, where all other eyes were, on the sweaty forehead of their brother next to the grimy body of the newest Hargreeves family member. “Viktor literally just gave birth,” he said as a way of explanation for Klaus.

Diego was the first to recover from the shock. He turned around and then flipped his body over the back seat. Luther barely even noticed that he was there, until the taller man was pushed almost unceremoniously to the side so that Diego could grab the delivery kit from where it was on top of the suitcase full of baby clothes. He also snagged a towel before he turned back around and dumped the former of the two items down. He handed the towel over to Viktor as he slid down onto the floor.

“You did this, you brought this baby into the world,” he smiled so wide that his cheeks hurt. It was hard for him to really grasp, that in a moment, without even knowing it, his baby had been born and he had become a father. The mere idea that Viktor had been that quick and efficient in giving life to another human made him all the more amazed with his boyfriend.

“S-sorry I didn’t tell you, I got too wrapped up in trying to get it over with,” Viktor replied breathlessly as his eyes flit up to where his sister was staring at the baby in dazed wonderment.

Diego leaned down and pressed a kiss to his wet forehead. “You have nothing to apologize for. I would take being surprised that I’m now a dad over you suffering or feeling uncomfortable any day,” he explained. He set the towel down over the other side the baby so that they were sheltered entirely from the rest of the outside world.

The smaller man brought his hand up so that he was rubbing small circles on the baby’s back to start cleaning off some of the birth goop. He let out a small, adoring laugh when the newborn took in their first breath and began to wail so loudly that he was sure the cars passing by could hear. “Hi baby, hey,” he whispered happily. He shifted a little bit, with Diego’s help, so that he was laying against the door with his legs spread out so that his knees weren’t bent any longer.

Diego got up onto the seat of the car and began to unpack what was in the birth pack the midwife had sent. He got out the clamps first so that he could cut the cord like he needed to. “Roll them out towards me?” he asked Viktor.

The other man complied, shifting the baby around so that the neonate was facing up towards the ceiling while still protectively wrapped up in the towel. “A little boy. We’ve got a little boy, Vik,” Diego was almost crying as he got a good look at his son. He would have been happy with either sex and he would be happy with any gender that his child may or may not decide he wanted to be in the future. He was more marveling about every little detail he got to know about his baby now that the little one was finally there.

“We do, he’s our little boy,” Viktor beamed at him before he looked down at the newborn with a fascination that only a brand new parent could have.

Allison instructed Diego on about how far down he had to cut the cord based on what she remembered from when she gave birth to Claire. They gave it an extra little bit just so that they could be sure they weren’t hurting the newborn.

He shifted again, placing the clamp back in the bag now that they had tied and cut the cord. He wet a towel with the water from the bowl and handed it to Viktor before he dumped the rest of it out of the rolled down window. He then placed the bowl on the ground of the car so that they could use it to catch the afterbirth when it finally came. He knew that much from the mandatory lessons about childbirth they had to take during their first aide training.

“We’re about an hour away from the safehouse where we’re going to be able to bury it, sorry,” Klaus said as he checked the roadsigns that they were passing by.

“It’ll fly by now that we’ve got him here,” Viktor whispered as he looked down at his son. He had finished washing the baby off so that he was now spotless, pinked skin and kicking his chubby legs like his life depended on it.

They managed to get some clothes from the back thanks to Luther rooting through it until he found something that looked to be about the right size. Once the baby was changed into a diaper and onesie, Viktor wrapped him up in the baby blanket that Sissy had given him when he first found out he was pregnant. “You wanna hold him? I have to pass the afterbirth and then I want to change into something so I can feed him.”

That question was one that, for some reason, he hadn’t really been expecting to be asked. He knew that the baby was his and eventually he would hold his son, especially since he wasn’t going to be distant like some of the fathers he had seen in the sixties or his own. Still, it came as a bit of a shock to him and sent his brain reeling.

He ended up just opening his arms for the newborn instead of being able to give an affirmative properly. All of his words were stuck in his throat, like they got every time he was worried about something. He carefully took the baby into his arms and then sat back on the seat of the car while staring down at the tiny face of the newborn. His son was still wailing loudly since it was overwhelming and confusing to be out in the world when he had been in the protection of Viktor’s womb only moments before.

The aforementioned man moved so that he was in a squatting position above the bowl and grunted as he pushed one last time and the afterbirth came out of him. Allison ended up looking it over with a pair of gloves from he birthing kit so that they could make sure it was the entire thing.

Viktor was changed out of the now completely ruined sundress into a pair of baggy pajama pants and one of the button up shirts for ease of access when he was breastfeeding. His belly was still there but it wasn’t nearly as large or hard as it had been when the baby was inside. Diego got him set up on the seat part of the back with the pillow they had grabbed from the house propping him up against the door. He sat on the floor, though the blanket that had once been down there was now rolled up on the other side with the afterbirth bowl tucked inside of it so that no one had to look at it.

The rest of the siblings were quiet, each of them processing the fact that they had just become uncles and an aunt. Luther was staring out the back of the car to protect them from attacks in that direction and Klaus was focusing on driving.

Diego brushed his fingers over the soft hair on the back of the baby’s head while Viktor focused on helping the baby get his first feeding. “It’s hard to believe that he’s real. I know he’s mine though, he’s already got my nose and lips.”

“He’s got your eyes too. The shape of them. The blue will go away eventually,” Viktor said affectionately. “I think. It’s possible we’ve both got blue eyed parents and we don’t know.”

“I know he’s all squished and lopsided right now but he really does look like us.” He was marveling over that fact for several minutes until he finally asked, “What are we going to name him?”

“I was hoping that we could name him something Russian. I know that you’re Spanish and that’s also very important to you but… I just wanted something to connect him back to my own mother since I was thinking about her a lot when I was pregnant,” Viktor said, his voice small and nervous.

“Something Russian,” Diego hummed as he thought about it, not even questioning it.

“Rasputin,” Klaus said from the front seat. That got a laugh from the rest of the siblings, which was enough to make them all relax a little bit. None of them seemed to realize how the nerves of the baby being born on top of fleeing to a safehouse had worn on them until that joke finally broke the tension like a ball of glass.

They went quiet again, though it was a lot more easy this time. Diego brushed his fingers over the back of the baby’s head. “Aleksei?”

Viktor looked at him, tearing his eyes away from their baby’s now sleeping face for only a moment. “Aleksei Benjamin Hargreeves. I like it.”

In the front seat, despite being the person that had been most relaxed through the entire process of driving to the safehouse, Klaus tensed up. He turned to the side where Allison was sitting, though it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t looking at her. He glanced to the backseat and said, “Ben says he’s honored.”

None of them could say anything about that, but Viktor leaned forward so that he wasn’t directly crying down onto the baby as he suppressed a sob. Diego moved so that his boyfriend was laying down in between his legs and surrounded by his warmth. They stayed like that until they got to the safehouse, forty five minutes after Aleksei had been born.

Luther carried Viktor into the house, which they found to have two bedrooms and be completely furnished with anything that someone would need to live there for upwards of two weeks. Diego was put in charge of getting all of Viktor’s clothes set out along with setting up the cot for the baby to sleep in. Luther was in charge of digging the whole for the afterbirth while Allison and Klaus worked on getting some food ready for the rest of their family.

Viktor chose to be in the living room while all of that was happening. He had been separated from his siblings for his entire life and he had just been through something deeply traumatic and frightening, so he didn’t want to be away from them again so soon. Aleksei seemed to be soothed by being around Diego anyway, and he was building the small cot in the living room where there was more room.

Another half hour had passed by the time that the tell-tale pop of Five teleporting sounded around the room. “You all got here safe, good,” Five breathed out. He looked worn out and tired, like he had lived an entire life between when he had told them to come here and that moment.

“Hey, do you want a grilled cheese? I know you prefer that peanut butter monstrosity but Viktor got to choose because… well,” Klaus waved the cheese-covered spatula towards the aforementioned brother.

Five’s brow furrowed together with confusion before he turned towards Viktor. He was laying on the couch with a blanket draped over his legs and part of his chest as he nursed the newborn again. The eldest-youngest brother blinked a few times and then said, “What the fuck?”

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