#people scoff and say “thats adulthood for you”

[broaken-thoughts]

I want to kill myself.

[pacoc-a]

Half In Love 

Rating: T

Characters: Five/Vanya

Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Five never leaves, Vanya doesn’t have powers, Fluff and Angst, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Pining, Other Additional Tags to be Added 

Five is not Vanya's soulmate.

[Read on Ao3]

One day a fever comes over Five’s arm . He thinks it's a rash. He picks and scratches the itch on his wrist until his skin is raw. By the end of the week, his skin has peeled off in scabs.

It was then that he realised this might be his soulmate mark.

The mark settles itself permanently over the umbrella academy tattoo. It coils over it like a dark, ugly ‘s’ snaking a trail from his wrist down the middle of his forearm.  It’s red and bumpy and stings like a brand.

It’s hideous, he thinks.

‘Looks like a snake.’ Klaus says, peering over his shoulder.

Five scowls and chases him off.

——

When Vanya learns she is happy for him.

Even when her arm is nothing but bare she is happy for him.

‘Someone out there is going to love you with their whole heart.’  She places her fingers on his wrist. ‘Someone with this mark. And you better let me meet them when you do.’

Her fingertips are rough from the violin, but her touch is soft. He wants to kiss them. Feel the calluses on his lips. Five swallows.

‘I don’t think that would be necessary.’ He pulls his wrist away.

The truth is, he could care less about soulmates. The very idea of a ‘predestined’ other half was bogus, designed to put a make-believe ‘constant’ in an ever-evolving state. It was like throwing a screwdriver at a network of cogs that are constantly changing shape.  

But Five cares about Vanya and she cares about this,  so he says nothing. Instead, he watches her look at the empty space of skin on her wrist. He already knows exactly what she’s thinking about.

‘It’ll appear.’ He says, ‘Klaus doesn’t have his yet either. Probably comes in faster for others.’

She nods, ‘I hope so. I can’t wait to see it.’

There is so much hope in her eyes. A part of him hurts because it’s not for him.

He wonders if she’s hurting too, that a piece of him has been marked by someone thats not her.

She smiles to herself and he hopes in the cruelest, darkest part of his mind that she is.

——

‘Did you know Luther got Allison.’ Ben tells them one day between pushups. ‘Diego got his too.’

Klaus is on the floor with Ben, while Five works a sweat on the treadmill. They are the only three in one of Reginald’s endurance training sessions, Five, Six and Four. With the Monocle himself preoccupied with overseeing a mission led by the other three, Pogo is tasked with keeping them on course with the session. It means a blissful couple of hours without Reginald’s iron-clad glare scanning over the rest of the mansion like a hawk.

‘Don’t you mean Allison got Luther. Don’t be sexist Ben.' Klaus says. He is laying on the floor on his belly, his legs and arms sprawled out around him like a starfish. He spots Pogo passing by and he quickly lifts himself up and counts his pushups to two hundred and seven.

‘You know, this training session will pass by much more quickly without your inane rambling.’ Five says. They’ve been at it for the better part of the session. It's irritating. He knows the sooner he can finish this session, the sooner he can spend his free time however he wants. But he can't concentrate without these two morons distracting him every two seconds.

‘Oh lighten up Dad , we’re just talking.’

He glares at him.

‘I got mine too.’ Ben adds. He looks over his shoulder, decides the coast is clear and quickly raises his shirt to reveal a tiny scar near his belly button. It’s still raw, but the mark is clearly formed to the shape of a tiny squid.

‘Nice.’

‘What do you think it means?’

Klaus shrugs.

‘It means you two need to shut the hell up or Pogo’s gonna come and give us all double the work again.’

They shut up.

There’s a couple of minutes of blissful silence where the only sound is Five’s sneakers stomping on the treadmill.

‘I hope she’s hot.’ Ben says finally.

He thinks about Vanya in her room and wonders how in the hell he got stuck with the two biggest idiots in the Academy.

‘What if she’s a hag. Would you still kiss her?’ Klaus looks over to him.

Ben shrugs, ‘Probably. If she’s got a nice personality.’ He pauses, then adds, ‘Or a nice butt.’

‘That’s enlightening . Really.’

Klaus flips over his belly and looks over at Five, ‘Well what about you. You’ve got yours too. What do you think yours will look like?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’  

‘Why not? Aren’t you curious.’

Five stops and turns to face him. They are both lounging across their training mats, flopped over to their bellies. He scoffs, ‘Because this whole thing is bullshit. It’s just a mark. Most people don’t even meet their soulmates till they’re 50, if they even meet them.’

‘So?’

‘ So .’ He sneers, ‘It means it doesn’t matter. We’re not destined for shit. People choose to drink a cup of coffee one day when they could’ve had tea. Life is just one big, impossible equation because the numbers keep changing. It’s chaos. It’s stupid. It’s just— life. This mark’s not gonna change anything about it. ‘

They stare at him.

‘Vanya still hasn’t gotten hers.’ Ben says.

This time, the silence is from him.

Klaus lets out a small sound. ‘That’s too bad huh. Poor Vanya.’

Ben nods, then turns to Five knowingly. ‘At least she’s got you. Stupid life, huh?’

——

Five hates the noise of the Academy. They're loud and arrogant, and they make a point to grate on his nerves on a daily basis.

But they're the only family he's got so he tolerates them.

Vanya is different.

He likes their quiet. The kind that keeps you warm without saying. He likes the way her hair would fall across her eyes when she reads. He likes her even without the Academy and he'd like her still even if their father never brought them together.

But most of all, he likes that Vanya is kind.

When he limps over, and she grabs the bandages, she winces every time she sees the pain on his arm and tries her best to apply the medicine as gently as she can.

'Are you okay?' She asks him. It's a question that leaves him reeling.

He's never sure what to do with her kindness, with that honest, open way of hers that leaves him bare.

In a house like this she's the only one who ever felt real.

‘It's nothing.’ He tells her.

'It looks really bad…' She frowns, 'If you need anything else…. I can make you coffee or...?'

'I'm fine. Thanks.'

He watches while she works. When they were 10, Vanya caught a fever that kept her bed-ridden for a week.

It was the longest week of his life.

Most of it was a blur. He can recall her pale skin and the sweat that's stuck on her bed sheets like grime. He can remember the dreadful, swirling pit in his stomach as he holds her hands inside his fists and thinks that if they’d ever let her die then he will never forgive them.

Now, he watches the way the sunlight streaks through her hair like quiet gold. There’s a warmth in his belly when they’re sitting like this, sharing in each other’s quiet.

Vanya is different. Even in the Academy. Even with the mark burning on his skin like a brand.

——

Vanya waits a long time for her soulmate mark to appear.

It never does.

By the time she turns 18 she stops waiting.

It was unusual for one to never have a mark, but not impossible. For Vanya Hargreeves it's just another sign of the universe’s divine plan to constantly screw her over.

‘Figures the only thing special about me is that I’ll never be special to someone else.’ She laughs bitterly.

——

Adulthood brings in change the way a tide sweeps over a dusty shore. After Ben’s death, the halls of the Academy become hollow, the umbrella academy stripped down to what it truly was, an old man’s paranoia and a lifetime of servitude to a ‘father’ that never really cared about them past what he could use.

The organisation, restless and jaded after so many years, pulls away one by one, guided by their own compass and a healthy dose of misdirection.

Five and Vanya separate. His work is his life now. He's built a sort of prestige when he was in the Academy and he figures it's time to cash in, now that he's out and Reginald's constant disapproval matters as much as the gum on his boot when he steps out on the way to MIT.

He’s a sort of teacher, occasionally organising lectures for those brain-dead kids at university, but his real work is his research and it's thrilling to be recognised like this, to have colleagues who could keep up with him intellectually. His research grant makes life easy and Five drowns himself in work and in his papers. He doesn't think about his past life in the Academy. He doesn't talk to any of his siblings.

The only exception is Vanya.

He sets aside time in his busy schedule for her weekly calls. He'll lose his mind if he doesn't. He tells her as much over the phone while he's nursing a large mug of dark coffee. His paperwork is piled up to his head, it’s almost comically grim the amount of work he needs to do. Vanya would’ve teased him about it if she was here.

'That moron, Bill is hanging around again.' He twirls his pen, agitated. 'He keeps hanging around outside the door, asking me if I want to have lunch with the others.’

‘Maybe he just wants to be friends?’

Five scoffs, ‘Well, I’m about five minutes away from stabbing a pencil through his skull.

She chuckles to herself. The sound is a raspy, jumpy static behind the line and it calms him a little though he can’t understand what she finds so utterly hilarious with the situation.

‘Well, I can’t talk long. I’ve got to take care of this… thing, I’m doing.’

There’s a large pop and Vanya’s resounding shit! that echoes behind the line.

He frowns, 'Are you cooking?'.

‘Uh, yeah, sorry about that, I was just um— shit… I’m trying out the cookbook you sent me.’

‘Well, how’s that working out for you.’ He says. He lays back on his seat, feeling the soft leather pressing on his back.

‘Horribly.’ She sighs, ‘God. I think I’m just gonna stick to um, noodles or something. Not sure if this is going to work out.’

‘You know, you have to make sure you don’t turn it up too high or it’s gonna go everywhere. I can help you, just keep me on the phone.’

‘No you don’t have to, honestly, you’re probably really busy, and I don’t want to impose or anything.’

He’s irritated, ‘You’re not imposing if I’m offering.’

‘It’s fine, Five. Really.’ She says, though he can hear the smile behind her voice, ‘I’ll figure this out. Thanks, though. I’ll just whip something up for when you get here.’

He sighs. It’s frustrating that he can’t be there for her in times like these. Now, they’re no longer kids, and the distance that separates them is an hour plane ride away, instead of just a couple of metres walk down a hallway.

But what could he do? He wanted to pursue his career and she wanted to stay in the same city.

‘I’ll see you tonight then?’

‘Course.’ He says. ‘See you.’

He waits before she hangs up and the dial closes and leaves behind its familiar tone.

That’s when Bill comes in and promptly gets kicked out along with his tray of christmas cupcakes.

——

Five makes up for the distance by spending his holidays with her. Thats why, tonight, he is flying over for Christmas so they can enjoy hot cocoa and cheap whiskey in her shitty apartment, and then talk about the past month and everything else in between. She hates Jonathan, that cellist in her orchestra. And Mr. Kowalski’s cat that leaves cat poop near the sill. The stink always wafts inside during a windy day and makes the apartment smell like cat poop.

He tells her about Bill from the office and his incessant need to ask about his day, like it’s the most interesting topic he’s ever heard.

Vanya is the only one who he celebrates these holidays with. She’s never flown to his and that’s fine, he prefers her apartment anyway. It’s bright and sunny in the afternoon in a way that doesn’t make his head ache. The couch isn’t hard on his back, and her scent lingers on the blankets and it feels at home here, more than he’s ever felt anywhere else.

Tonight though, they leave the empty wine glasses on the table, and then they drag her mattress on the living room together. She takes a couple of spare blankets and her pillows, and he pitches up the blankets with some pegs on a coat rack and a couple of lamps until the living room is transformed into their own pillow fortress.

Vanya lays flat on the mattress, ‘I think this is the best pillow fortress ever made.’ She says, matter-of-fact.

Her cheeks and nose are flushed from the wine, and her eyes glassy. Vanya could never handle her alcohol very well. The sight of it makes his stomach twist tight though, and he doesn’t want to think about that now when she’s only a couple of inches away from him and the alcohol is making everything swim like a dream.

Vanya rolls over and he looks at him with a silly grin that makes it hard to repress his own, so he doesn’t.

‘Not that you’re wrong, but care to explain how you came to that conclusion?’

‘Cause we made it.’ She grins, smug.

He grins too.

‘And cause you’re here.’ Her eyes don't leave his, ‘I’m glad you came over. You always do.’

‘Why would I want to miss this?’ The wine is making his head spin, but her hair is splayed out around her head, and the dim light makes her eyes shine like two pairs of chocolate stars. She’s beautiful, even when she’s drunk and she’s trying her best to get under his skin.

‘Go to sleep.’ He says.

She giggles.

Five sighs, and pulls the blankets over her, ‘Go to sleep, Vanya.’

‘I don’t want to.’ But he watches as she buries herself under the covers anyway.

‘Goodnight.’ He says.

‘Yeah, yeah.’

He laughs.  

‘I hope you meet your soulmate and they take good care of you.’ Vanya yawns, and turns over, ‘You deserve to be happy, Five.’

Her voice is barely comprehensible under the sheets. But it’s like time has stopped for him. He looks at her, and his heart is beating loud behind his eardrums. He thinks about what he feels about her, and how much he wants to say.

And he thinks about her laugh, her red, drunken nose and the slow, steady rise and fall of her breathing and falls just a little bit more in love with her than before.

‘I’m happy now.’  Five mumbles against the kiss he plants on her forehead. He knows this, even when the feeling in his chest is twisting, and the words are sinking down his throat like a stone.

And maybe if he said it long enough he can start to believe it.