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sissytobitch10seconds · 2 years

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Depressive Episodes

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: Viktor has gotten depressive episodes his entire life, but he was kind of hoping that they'd go away after the medication was flushed from his system. Unfortunately for him, luck has never been on his side. Warnings: Depression, suicidal thoughts, mentions of character death, mentions of transphobia, dysphoria, and self-harm Word Count: 10,598 Ship(s): Sissy Cooper/Viktor Hargreeves (past), Viktor Hargreeves & Everyone

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A/N: So I have become rather unhealthily attached to one (1) Viktor Hargreeves, which of course means that he's going to suffer. I based Viktor's depression and anxiety off of my own. I only have depressive episodes instead of just constant depression, so that's why he's okay for the majority of the time and feels a little bit better when being taken care of. I also want to put a small disclaimer here, I'm not a trans man (I'm AFAB genderfluid) so I don't know what it's like to transition myself even if I have done some research. I hope that you guys enjoy this! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Some part of him had been in denial about it, which is why it had been able to sneak up on him like this. The third apocalypse finally being averted meant that all five of his surviving siblings split off to go do their own thing, and he was left alone after discovering that he had powers, falling in love with a mother and her son, losing them both, gaining his siblings a couple of times, discovering that he was transgender, and then losing his powers.

After getting dumped in the new world and abandoned by his siblings, who all had their own problems to deal with, he stayed in a shelter for a while. It wasn’t long after that that he found out that, most likely by accident, his apartment was still exactly where it had been in the other timeline. He was able to return back home and even had some of his old students. He lost about half of them when he had to come out, which meant that he had to get another job to keep up with his apartment and bills. He ended up getting a job as a supplementary music tutor at a school nearby where he worked one-on-one with students that were either struggling or had a solo in their upcoming concerts. Before he had officially gotten the job, he splurged away his grocery money for the month to get his name legally changed to Viktor Skripka (in this new timeline he couldn't really get away with the last name Hargreeves). He had a good rapport with the students who thought that he was fun, and even more with the queer students who flocked to him like ducklings. They had been his biggest supporters, something that got him up and out of bed everyday to take care of himself despite how overwhelming it felt to go back to a normal life after everything that had happened. He still remembered how proud the little LGBT support club he was now supervising had been when they asked him to participate in the monthly check-in and he admitted that he had started T and was working on a date for top surgery. He was going to therapy again, like he had when he first got out of the house back at the tender age of eighteen. This time the main focus was his gender instead of his mental health, which was probably another factor in him missing all of the signs.

He had his music, students that loved him, colleagues that legally could not misgender him without getting in trouble (along with a couple of allies), an apartment that felt like a hug from the good parts of the past, and he was taking huge strides with his transition. The world was finally looking up for him. So, of course that was when things finally started to go South.

He had always struggled with anxiety and depression, though the latter had been severely lessened after he stopped taking the numbing medication in their original timeline. Viktor still had moments when he felt hollow and as if his very bones were exhausted, but he was generally able to shake it away with a small nap or good food with the choir teacher he had become quite close to during the school year. The anxiety attacks before his first day of work and before each doctor's appointment were harder to manage now that he no longer had the medication to fall back on. He was able to study some tips on how to deal with anxiety while also talking with his therapist since a lot of his worries wrapped around his newfound identity.

Then the end of the school year came. He had a couple of sessions scheduled with his students later in the Summer, but he was mostly left to his own devices. He had rehearsals with his orchestra every Sunday and a few miscellaneous plans with Delphi, the choir teacher, and her spouses at the end of June to celebrate pride month. Other than that, he was completely left to his own devices. He had saved up enough money over the school year that he didn't have to get another job to keep himself afloat in between his Summer tutoring sessions.

That resulted in him holing himself up in his apartment and hitting the biggest pit that he had since he moved out of the Academy to be shipped of to Reginald’s choice of college. It was really beginning to hit him just how much had happened in the last little while. The mourning that he had never gotten to do for both of his failed relationships and the death of his son-figure and girlfriend finally hit him like a train.

It felt like his heart was being torn into tiny pieces inside of him, scattering throughout his body so every fiber of his being seized like it was pain. He ached with the need to have them back in his arms. He was almost willing to give up his gender identity just to have Harlan, little Harlan that he had met when his mother hit Viktor with a car, playing in the next room while he and Sissy danced around each other in the kitchen. Carl had been gone so often that it almost felt like they were a little family themselves. It was something Viktor had wanted for so long, his entire life, that when he got it taken away from him he didn't realize just how much it would hurt.

He spent the first couple days of his pit sobbing relentlessly. He didn't ever remember being able to cry this much. It seemed like every time he saw something that reminded him of either one of them, which was often since he had gotten quite a few sixties inspired dishes since he settled back into normal life, he would burst into tears. The sobs would shake through his small frame like his power once had. They would leave him feeling absolutely destroyed with nothing to fill the hollow void in his chest but the deepest, ugliest despair. Viktor had gotten sinus and dehydration headaches so bad that he thought he was actually deathly ill. He hadn't been able to stomach the idea of eating anything the entire time that he had been in that mourning place. Despite what he had seen from other people when they were in mourning, he had never felt angry. He felt resentment towards Carl that his last few days with Sissy hadn't been spent happily under the covers of her bed or even in the hot Dallas air on the farm, but not once did he feel angry. He didn't blame Allison for killing Harlan, especially when that wasn't how he had died in this timeline. He wasn't angry at Five for dropping them in the wrong city and wrong time. He wasn't mad at Luther for showing up and sparking off the whole race to stop the end of the world again. He wasn't angry.

He was tired.

After the crying finally stopped, he was just exhausted. The hollow aching in the pit of his stomach had increased tenfold to the point where it felt like every nerve of his body was on fire. The only thing that helped soothe the pain at all was the gentle pressure of the blankets that he had bought for his bed during the winter. He had hiked up the AC despite what it would do to his bills and then curled underneath the nest of comfort he had created for himself. He didn't sleep for the first couple of hours that he was within the cocoon, just stared up at the ceiling or towards the door with vacant eyes. He wasn't really seeing anything that he was looking at, he just pointed his head in a direction and left it there.

He had started shaking at some point and then realized how long he had gone without taking care of himself. He turned off his air conditioning and lugged himself to the bathroom. By luck alone he had dug himself out of bed just in time to take his most recent shot of testosterone and go to his therapy appointment. They didn't have to talk about a lot since he was handling the transition part of his life really well. He didn't even bother to tell his therapist about the spiral that he had been in the last couple of days. He had no way to explain to her that he had fallen in love with a married woman and basically adopted her eight-year-old back in the 60s and then royally fucked up their life but not in this timeline. He wasn't even sure that they had known him in this timeline, but it was probably for the best that they didn't.

At some point on his journey down the hole of numbness, a voice had begun speaking to him in the back of his mind. It was something unlike he had had in a long time. He had left the voice after getting his powers and even though he had lost them again it still hadn't come back until now. It reminded him of all the horrible times in his childhood when his siblings had let him know just how deeply they didn't care about or want him around again. The apathy at his plight was almost worse than the outward annoyance he was normally faced with.

The voice told him lots of things that he was used to. About how he would never be truly loved, how he was completely useless and replaceable. The newest one was informing him that he had managed to turn everyone that might have had the chance at actually loving him against him. He had turned out to be too weak for Leonard, not strong enough for Sissy, too strong for Harlan, and too selfish for his siblings. Everything he had done in those two months when they had been trying to save the world three times over resulted in them all hating him. In the first one he hadn't even realized that he was going to be the one ending the world. He had just been scared and then it was like something had possessed him from his subconscious. A white hot thrumming of rage in his chest that had led him to destroy a version of their mother, Pogo, and their childhood home. In the second timeline he had just gone along with everything that they wanted him to until he made the selfish decision to try and run away with Sissy to the future. That had resulted in him almost blowing up the FBI headquarters and starting WWIII, as he had been informed by Five. Then in that same timeline he had managed to pass on his powers which got the attention of the entire commission and had gotten them all temporarily killed. In the third apocalypse, he had tried to make a deal with Marcus from the Sparrow Academy before he was eaten by the anomaly that he had technically created by passing on his powers to Harlan. Every single issue that his siblings had to face was directly or indirectly caused by his own actions. They hated him, and they were completely valid in that hate.

He found a small bit of comfort remembering how Luther had wanted to set up a party for him when he came out to show that he was loved, and how he had asked Viktor to be his best man. That feeling was quickly squashed as the devil in his mind reminded him that his brother hadn't reached out at all over the year they had been living in the new timeline despite finding his wife only a month after their arrival. He remembered the way that Diego had screamed at him over the phone when he finally got his hands on the book that Viktor had written back in the original timeline. Even though that now seemed like a lifetime ago, it still felt like a brand new wound that shot pain throughout his body. He remembered all of the false apologies Allison had given him, the false reassurances that she loved him and nothing could change that. She hadn't even talked to him anywhere outside of a group setting since they had gotten placed in this new timeline despite every wrong he had done being rectified. Allison's betrayal hurt most of all, above Five, Klaus, and Ben not reaching out to him. Even though this Ben wasn’t his Ben, the words still stung every time Viktor thought of them, to the point where they would cause tears to shine in his eyes.

That was the worst thing about the voice berating his every move and thought. It told him that this behavior was just to get someone to come and chase after him. The only thing that he wanted was for someone to pay attention to him, which is why he had gotten wrapped up with the convicted murderer and ended the world in the first place.

His entire body ached all the time when he was awake. The internal pain was so bad that he wanted it to be external, which only caused the guilt already festering in the open wounds his siblings left to become rabid and all-consuming. He longed for the ache in his head from crying too long, and the cramping hurt in his stomach from lack of food. He longed for the feeling of his slightly too long nails to be biting into his fingers, right under the callouses from his violin.

Viktor still tried his best to function like he was supposed to, he just left little things out of his routine. He would drink half a glass of water every morning before trying to burn his skin off in the shower. He would go to the shop everyday and then come back to give his one-on-one lessons with the students that had remained from the other timeline. He would eat the absolute bare minimum that he could choke down since he had no appetite. Then he would practice until the calluses on his fingers felt like they were raw and bleeding, and the bruise on his neck looked like he had been punched by Luther post-simian hybridization. He went to the couple of shows that his students had invited him to, cheering them on as they showed off how much better they had become than him at that age. He was proud that they had the support he never did as a child, but at the same time it left him in a horrific spiral of self-pity that led to guilt at daring to feel anything but resentment about himself, which left to more self-pity until the only thing that he felt was raw hurt.

Eventually he locked himself away in his apartment to just be alone. He didn't have lessons for the rest of the month, his orchestra was on their break, and none of his plans were for at least a week. The isolation turned him into someone that he thought he had left long in the past with his medication and tendency to fall into abusive relationships.

He had almost stopped eating entirely now. He spent more than his fair time in the shower, making the pain he felt inside finally spring to the outside. It caused more of the horrible screaming sobs that lived deep in his heart, where Sissy and Harlan were buried, to erupt from him into the crowded noise of the bathroom. He barely remembered to take his binder off when he went to bed because his skin felt so unlike his own that he thought he might have been placed into someone else's body entirely. It was like a thousand bugs were living just underneath the surface, like he was stretched across too much and too little at the same time, like he was watching someone else move his arms and legs.

He spent a lot of time staring, and even more time sleeping. Sleep was the only time that he got a reprieve from the voice in his head and the hurt living where his soul was supposed to be. He felt tired all the time, and sleeping was the blissful siren call at all hours of the day. He was able to dream that he was living back in the 60s, in the perfect version of his body, with Sissy and Harlan thriving on their farm. His siblings were happy and visited him every now and again, just like he had wished when he first moved away from the Academy. It was like every time his brain began to drift into that soft place he had found Nirvana, and he longed to stay there forever.

---

Viktor startled awake when he heard an unfamiliar sound ringing through his apartment. He tossed himself the opposite direction so that he was no longer huddled around the wall but facing towards his nightstand. He reached his hand out so that he was grasping for his phone, which he stared at blearily for a moment. He then realized that someone was calling him and swiped so that he accepted the call. "'lo?" he asked, his voice low and gruff because he had just woken up and the testosterone shots were already doing their magic.

"Viktor?"

He blinked a few times. "Who?"

"Pretty sure you should recognize that name seeing as you chose it," the person on the other end responded.

He whimpered and rolled over in his bed again so that the mess of sheets and blankets is covering a bit more of him. "Delphi?"

"Guess again, but I should warn you that it's three strikes and you're out," they chuckled.

"Klaus?" Viktor then asked as he sat up on the bed. He glanced around his dark room like that would give him any information about why his brother was suddenly calling him out of the blue.

"Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner," he made fake cheering sounds. Viktor realized that something was truly wrong with him when his brother's antics failed to make him crack even a small smile. Back when he had been on a the medication, his emotions had been muted but he was still receptive to his brother's jokes. "Now tell me about this Delphi person," the other man began.

Viktor didn't have to even come up with an excuse to avoid doing so as he could hear arguing a little ways away from the phone before a new voice spoke into it. "Hey Viktor, we just wanted to know where you were. This whole thing is kind of a check up on us all so you do need to attend. We even got Ben here!"

"Hi Sloane," he let his shoulders fall a little bit. When he had heard a female lilt to the digitized voice he had been worried that it was Allison. He loved his sister just as much as he loved his brothers, but the only time she had spoken to him back before they came to this new world she had been yelling at him. They hadn't spoken much at Luther and Sloane's real wedding and hadn't been visiting Diego and Lila at the same time after Chrysanthemum's birth. "Uh, I didn't think that the sibling power check up thing was this week. Isn't it on the twenty fourth?"

"It is the twenty fourth," Sloane replied, her voice taking on a worried tone. "Viktor, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Viktor tried to scramble out of his bed so that he could start getting ready, but the blankets were so tangled around him that they sent him flying off of the side and onto the hard wooden floor. He let out a grunt of pain as an old wound on his hip from their fight with the Sparrows at the beginning of the third apocalypse sent an ache of pain through his nerves.

"Are you sure? What was that?" Sloane asked immediately upon hearing the noise.

"I just ran into something, no big deal," he replied a little too quickly. "Sorry that I messed up the days. School and tutoring have only been out for a little while so I was trying to catch up on some sleep and personal practice and I guess I just lost track of the time. Give me like twenty minutes and I'll be there. I'm so sorry, again."

Sloane was quiet for a moment and Viktor could hear someone, probably Luther, talking to her. He couldn't make out the words but both voices sounded really worried. The ex-superpowered man focused on trying to kick away his blankets so that he could get up and get ready for the day. Ben's words from his first big blow-up with Allison were ringing through his head as he scrambled to find some suitable clothes that would hide his mental state.

Were you waiting for someone to come chasing after you? Pathetic.

"Well, here's the thing, we were worried about you so Diego and Allison are already headed to your place," the woman admitted when she finally returned back to talking to her brother-in-law.

"Huh? I just slept in," he tried to keep the anxiety and panic out of his voice. He had been so low on energy since the Summer had started that the only thing making him move as quickly as he was and actually have a conversation was the adrenaline flushing through his veins. "Really, you can text them and tell them that they can go back. I just need to get ready and catch a cab over to the park. It won't take me that long."

"I'm sure that they'd love to come over with you. That way you can save a little bit on transport. See you soon!" Sloane ended the call, leaving Viktor standing there with his heart thrumming up in his ears.

It was like a huge bucket of ice water had been dumped over him. He hadn't gotten that feeling since Harold had tried to lock Viktor in his cabin, or Carl had driven them up to the farm and threatened him. "Shit, shit, shit, shit," he muttered to himself as he scrambled to try and get ready before Allison and Diego arrived at his apartment. He stumbled to the bathroom where he was able to strip off his sleep-sweat soaked clothes and turn on the shower. He didn't even wait for the water to heat up like he normally did, to feel something at all, before he got underneath the pelting droplets. He washed himself in record time before he was out and tugging on the cleanest clothes he could find. He settled for an oversized t-shirt, despite having his binder securely fastened over his bruised chest, and a pair of jeans covered in little drawings and paintings from an event he did with the LGBT club he oversaw at his school.

Viktor had just finished putting on his socks when he moved to the bathroom to check and make sure his hair wasn't too messy. His eyes drifted down to the stubbly facial hair that was beginning to grow thanks to the HRT he had been on for months now. It was splotchy and thin, which made him more dysphoric than less. He had heard other trans men rave about how exciting it had been to start growing a beard after so long wishing that they had. All Viktor could see was the person that he was desperately trying to be. The man that he wasn't quite.

He didn't know how long he had been staring at the reflection of himself, his fingers picking angry red spots into his jawline. He was shaken out of it when he heard someone banging on his door. "Shit, fuck, god damnit," he growled as he rushed back to his room. He had to throw blankets and pillows away from the disaster he had made at the side of his bed to try and find where he had lost his phone. Once he finally found it he stuffed it into his pocket and tried to get up to the door. He was scrambling to try and put the dishes from the eggs he had half finished the last time he ate out of sight when he heard his brother's voice from the other side of his door.

"Viktor, you better open up! I can still pick a lock in under a minute flat so you're not going to have any other options," Diego warned.

"Just a second!" he called back in reply as he tried stuffing the junk mail piling up on his floor in front of the mail slot in his apartment door into the drawer next to his door. He hadn't realized how messy everything had gotten when he fell into his stupor, but now that he was fueled on adrenaline and fear he had to make sure that his siblings couldn't tell either.

He turned around and scanned across his room before he saw several of the needles he used to give himself his shots still on the kitchen counter. He lunged to try and get to them, but just then the door was flung open and Diego was revealed, squatting down next to where the lock and handle had been moments before Allison pushed the now unlocked door open.

He stood up and took a few steps into his apartment. His face noticeably paled when he noticed all of the needles clutched in Viktor's hands. "Dude. If you got addicted to something I'm sure you can talk about it to Klaus instead of hiding from the whole family.

"No, I really just overslept," he insisted as he shoved them into the biohazard bag he brought back to the doctor every few months so the sharps could be disposed of properly.

"Overslept?" Allison asked, raising a brow at him to show her disbelief. "You've never been one to oversleep before. If I remember correctly you were the first out of all of us to get up back in the Academy."

Viktor opened and closed his mouth a couple times while he tried to find something to say. The fear that had jump started his day was beginning to wear off, leaving him with the familiar ache of exhaustion. Guilt also swirled in his empty, cramping stomach as he realized that he had forced them here out of his own stupidity. "Yeah, well, we're adults now or whatever," he tried to sound casual and ignore the way that his voice cracked when he got too emotional. He knew that starting HRT was like going through puberty all over again, but it still sucked to not just wake up with that amazing deep voice he desperately wanted.

"Hey man, are you okay? I don't ever remember your place looking this disheveled," Diego asked as he began to look around. He was doing the thing that he had back when Viktor had first moved out, checking the windows for locks (which had been installed almost immediately after he moved in) and looking over everything to make sure it was all in place. Like he was casing the apartment for a break in or checking for signs of forced entry.

"I'm fine," he replied too quickly. He looked up from where he was tugging on his boots to see his siblings give each other a quick look that he wasn't able to decipher. "School got out pretty recently and I had students to tutor so I didn't have a lot of time to clean, is all."

"School?" Allison asked. Her voice was calm and compassionate, like it had been back at Reginald's funeral in their original timeline.

"Uh, yeah," Viktor replied as he stood up. He was unable to stop the wince, even if the hiss of pain died before it could get past his teeth, when he felt the binder pressing on the rubbed raw skin. "I, uh, got a music tutoring job at a local school. I also supervise their LGBT club."

Diego reached a hand out, placing it on his shoulder. "Viktor, what's going on? You haven't been late to any of our get-togethers in the past year. And you weren't late to anything that didn't involve kidnapping or arrests in the entire time I've known you before then."

The touch made Viktor want to scream. He wanted to move away from it so that Diego was at least a room away from him. He wanted to lean into it so that his brother had both arms wrapped around him in those hugs that he missed so much. He had gotten a couple hugs from his students when they found him after their concerts, but nothing from his family. "That's not hard, there were only two," he replied, blinking at his brother. "And school kept me on a pretty tight schedule so I guess I've just been kind of forgetful since then. I was catching up on sleep and just kind of… overdid it."

Allison looked over at her brothers. She had one hip popped up and her arms folded across his chest like they were misbehaving children. She then sighed and moved so that she was shepherding them out of the door. "Come on, both of you, we have a family gathering to go to."

Both of the brothers stared at each other for a moment longer before they moved to leave. Viktor grabbed the lanyard that he now kept his keys on with his keycard into the school before they left. He made sure to re-lock his door before he walked after them. The drive to the park was completely silent, neither of his siblings even trying to make conversation with him the entire way. He let his head fall back against the headrest in the backseat, his eyes drifting shut. He could feel his own personal paradise, the inky blackness of sleep, tugging at him again. He had always liked movement, which is why his nannies had kept his baby carriage around for so much longer than the others, so that they could rock him back to sleep or take him on walks until he napped.

As soon as the car came to a halt he jerked a little bit. The anxiety was still resting just underneath the ache, waiting for its turn to make him feel like absolute shit and steal the remnants of his energy.

Viktor shook his head as if it would help himself stay out of his mind and in the moment. He clambered out of the car and followed after his siblings who were already walking towards the others. They didn't look like they were having a fun time like he would have expected, since they all got along so much better than he did. Five was doing the thing where he flicked his hair out of his face while glowering at someone, which meant that they were having a serious conversation. Sloane had her arms wrapped around one of Luther's while he fidgeted back and forth. Klaus was dragging his hands over his beard and through his thick curls. Ben had his arms crossed firmly over his chest and a deep scowl on his face. Lila was standing next to them all with her arms over her chest, Chrysanthemum sleeping soundly next to her in the baby carrier.

Diego walked ahead of the group so that he could get back to his little family faster than Allison was going. Sloane turned around as soon as she heard him walking over, a bright grin splitting across her face when she saw Viktor. She detached herself from her husband and nearly skipped over to him. Viktor had no idea how she could be so perky all the time, it sounded absolutely exhausting. Then again, over the past few weeks everything had sounded exhausting. Sloane wrapped her arms around her shortest brother-in-law, placing her head on top of his for just a moment. Viktor went stiff as his brain tried to process what to do in this kind of a situation. He was so unused to casual affection. Sloane beamed as she pulled back, guiding him over to the group by the hand, "You made it! I was kind of worried that something had happened."

"Why? I said I just overslept," he replied, clearing his throat to try and stop the cracking.

"Well I heard a big thump and I thought maybe something had happened," she shrugged. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No," he shook his head. He gave the rest of the family a small, awkward wave once they were all standing in their semi-circle.

Klaus waved back at him, while Five looked him over like he was a particularly hard puzzle. Ben paid him no mind, as always. Lila gave him one of her crazed smiles that meant she liked you, according to Diego. Luther cleared his throat as soon as Allison finished meeting up with the rest of them as well. "Should we go find somewhere to sit at the picnic tables? Sloane and I made a picnic lunch so that we had something to do other than discuss our lack or powers," the tallest of the siblings grinned as he placed an arm around his wife's waist. She easily leaned into him, her smile matching the intensity of his perfectly. It made Viktor's heart clench and the ache return tenfold, he had never missed Sissy more than when he was watching someone else be happy with their partner.

There was a murmur of agreement, ranging from adamant excitement (Klaus) and apathetic borderline whining (Ben). The group walked over to the picnic tables a few yards away from the playground. They piled onto one of them while Sloane and Luther unpacked the food that they had brought and left while everyone was getting ready.

"Sorry for being so late, I hope I didn't ruin anything," Viktor said, trying to act as natural as possible. The sight of the food, while normally appetizing since Sloane was a great cook, was making his tight stomach roil with displeasure.

"You couldn't ruin anything," Sloane said, giving him another smile. She had become very close with all of the siblings, but she always seemed to show a special kindness to Viktor, like she knew what it was like to be the odd sibling out even if their traumas didn't align perfectly.

The aforementioned man let out an almost deranged bark of laughter, which brought him unwanted attention from Lila and Diego. They turned and stared at him for a moment, the former's brows furrowed together so they're almost a congruent line. Allison was quick to divert the attention away from him as she asked, "So this is a check in. Has anyone noticed anything concerning their old powers or new ones? Any flashes?"

Klaus made a face and shrugged. He knocked shoulders with Ben before saying, "I've remained ghost free for the whole year, babe. And the bentacles are yet to make another appearance."

Ben shot him a glare with no real fire behind it and stole a deviled egg before Five had the chance to grab it. "Too slow, old man," he smirked.

"I will gut you like a fish, hentai," the teenage-shaped man warned, pointing his plastic fork at the other former-superhero menacingly.

"Hey, both of you stop that," Luther said before it had a chance to get any more out of hand. Sloane served Five another deviled egg to try and placate him, which worked. Despite being the only woman in the group that hadn't had a child, she seemed to be the most maternal out of the three. She also knew which foods each sibling liked best, for the most part, and so made sure that they had one serving of their favorites on their plates.

Viktor clutched at the fork in his hand while he picked at the food he had served himself to blend in. He knew he was going to have to eat eventually, but it seemed like so much work that he didn't have in him.

"Diego still cuts himself every time he tries to make anything in the kitchen, so I haven't had a good power to try and mirror but I haven't noticed anything. Nothing from Chrys either," she reached her hand down and touched the handle part of the baby car seat when her daughter was mentioned. The little girl made a gurgling shriek when she was mentioned. Lila immediately leaned down and removed her from her carrier so that the baby was sitting on her mother’s lap and looking at all of her uncles and aunts with fascinated brown eyes.

No one else spoke up about their power returning, and the group fell quiet for a while. Five stabbed his fork down into the middle of his sandwich as he looked over his family with a quirked eyebrow, "Well, that's not the worst thing in the world. Has anyone had any difficulties? Things like the Commission showing up or possible stalking." There was again a murmur of decline that spread out around the table. They had all been able to pass pretty easily under the radar. Allison was the only one of them that was famous now, since she was still a movie star.

The group moved on to a different topic of discussion after that. Viktor wasn't really listening as he tried to get down as much of the food on his plate as he could. It felt like he was trying to swallow rocks, especially with how heavy every bite sat in his gut.

"Dude!" Diego snapped his fingers in front of his shortest brother's face to try and get his attention.

"Huh?" Viktor asked intelligently.

"We've been calling your name for like thirty seconds. Are you sure that you're okay?" Sloane said, reaching across the table to place a comforting hand on his wrist.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he shook off their concern. "Just tired, that's all. What was the question?"

"How have things been going for you? I heard that you got a job," Sloane repeated the question that she had asked earlier.

It took longer than he would have liked for his brain to process everything that was being said to him. His tongue felt like lead in his mouth and the sinking panic in his gut was the only emotion that got past the ever-expanding void that had replaced his heart. "Oh, yeah," he nodded. "I got a job as a supplemental music tutor at a high school near my apartment. Essentially I just meet up with small groups of students or one-on-one with them during their free periods or study hours and help them practice more. I also help the music teachers during their lessons by playing the piano or helping them pick pieces to play in upcoming concerts. I also observe the LGBT club with the choir teacher."

"Is that who Delphi is?" Klaus asked, batting his lashes at his brother as if that would get Viktor to give him more information.

"Yeah. She's just a friend," he shrugged. "She and her partners are going to be taking me to my first pride festival in two days though. I've met them before, they're pretty nice."

"Partners?" Allison asked, a small scowl flashing across her face.

Viktor nodded before he scrounged up the little bit of energy that he had to explain it. "She's got a husband, partner, and girlfriend. She calls them her spouses even though she's only married to one. They have a daughter who's about Ha- eight years old. They're pretty great, which is why I feel safe letting them take me to the festival."

"Aww, V, you could have asked me and we would have done a tour of them. We're around a lot of big cities that have some pretty great parades and festivals," Klaus commented, picking apart the roll while letting the crumbs get all over the table. "We could have even helped you look for another beautiful blond to capture your heart."

The grief that he had been battling for weeks came back and hit him full force. He dragged his face into a smile and gave his brother a weak nod. "What about, uh, what about you, Sloane? Did you find out what kind of job you wanted to do?" The aforementioned woman's face lit up as she began to explain what she and Luther had been doing since they had all seen each other. Viktor did his best to pay attention and give his normal quips, as if he wasn't feeling empty and heavy inside.

He stayed for another hour before he checked his phone. "I should really get going. It was great to see you all," he waved at his siblings as he carefully removed himself from the bench he was sitting on. "I'll try to keep in touch more than I have been."

Klaus removed himself from the bench as well, before Viktor had the chance to leave, wrapping his little brother in a hug. He whispered into Viktor's ear as he did so, low enough that no one else was able to hear him, "Sorry for bringing up Sissy. I know how much it sucks to lose someone you love because of time travel. Let me know if you need anything."

"I will," Viktor replied on instinct, giving his brother a small pat on the back. The hug made him long for affection that he knew he didn't deserve. He had made life a living Hell for every single person sitting around the table because he didn't have any self control and didn't know how to be part of a family. He couldn't demand that they love and care for him after that. He had to distance himself from them.

Sloane was the next to get up and hug him. She tucked a sandwich into his hand after noticing how little he had eaten. "I know appetites are weird, but you need to make sure that you eat so you can make that beautiful music. I want to see you play next time your orchestra performs, please," she grinned.

"I'll try to let you know," Viktor nodded. It still felt awkward to have a family member that actually acted like a sister. Even back in their original timeline, he knew that it wasn't really normal for siblings to treat each other as they had treated one another. When he got out of the Academy and got to see families interact with each other on TV and when they came into the little bookshop he had gotten his first job in, he realized just how badly they had it. Even siblings that hated each other, the pair of twins that he had been trying to get prepared for the winter concert flashed in his mind, didn't act the way that they did towards each other. He and Allison had barely paid each other any mind when they were younger, and then their interactions afterwards had pretty much been them arguing about Viktor's choice in partners.

Luther got up and wrapped his brother up in a hug. For just a split second he felt panic shoot through his veins as he remembered the first time that Luther had hugged him. It hadn't even been a hug, it had been an attack to lock him in that horrible basement cage. He relaxed as his mind noted how much smaller the other man's body was compared to that moment. "Be safe on your way home, Viktor. Let us know when you get there?" he asked hopefully as he pulled back to look him over.

"Of course," he nodded. "I'm sorry to leave so soon, I have a lot of rehearsing to catch up on since I overslept this morning."

"Say goodbye to the baby," Lila stood up and dumped Chrysanthemum into her uncle's arms before she stalked off towards the direction of her and Diego's car.

"I- okay," he laughed a little bit. Being out of his cursed apartment and around his family was helping him feel better, and he knew that was the exact reason that he couldn't be around them anymore. Every time he began to feel happy about anything it immediately got worse. It had with Harold, Sissy, and his own gender revelation. Every time he had joy it was ripped from him just as he was beginning to settle into it. So he wasn't going to let himself feel joy anymore. "You're pretty cute," he informed the little girl as he looked down at her. One of her hands reached up and she wrapped her chubby little fingers around the closest lock of Viktor's bangs that she could reach. He hadn't had the time to cut his hair recently, so it was shaggy and hung down in his face.

"Ow," he laughed, untangling her little hand. "That's not very nice, flower. Can't imagine how your mom feels if you managed to do that to me in the first ten seconds of our second meeting."

He forgot how wonderful it felt to interact with kids. He had loved Harlan with his whole heart and soul after he had met him properly once he had been released from the hospital. The two of them had been like two peas in a pod immediately after that, barely ever being apart from each other. The medication had stamped away a lot of his emotions, but he knew that he wouldn't have been able to feel love like that before then even without them. Harlan had been sweet, kind, compassionate, funny, and reserved all at the same time. There were so many lines of Sissy in him, and Sissy had been the absolute love of Viktor's life. There were some days that he still woke up and called for them both, like they had been there his entire life.

Viktor let out a small sigh. He had to get out of here before he started crying again, because then he would never get his family off of his back. "I really do have to get going. It was wonderful to see you all," he gently placed Chrys back into her father's arms. He waved to his family before he turned his back on them and walked towards the front of the park.

The walk back to his apartment was just long enough for him to have time to think and process. His brain felt like it was filled with storm clouds. They made it hard for the good thoughts to get through and made the voice telling him about how he had hurt those he loved most rung around his skull like thunderclaps. The rain supplied the tears that were constantly blurring his vision and threatening to run down his face.

Despite his tumultuous emotions, he made it back to his apartment without incident. He didn't even realize he had gotten so close because he was so lost in his thoughts about his siblings and the lost family that he could have had. He was somehow even more exhausted coming back than he had been when he was present around his family and trying his best to hide his depression. Viktor dug his keys out of his pocket and then forced them into the lock before he could collapse into the hallway. He needed a good cry, maybe to break something, and another thirty-six hour nap.

He ran a hand over his hair as he dumped his lanyard in the bowl next to his door, letting it close behind him. He locked it and then toed off his shoes so he'd be that much closer to getting back to sleep like he wanted. Viktor ran a hand over his face to try and stop himself from crying before he was even a foot into the apartment.

"These are really sweet," came a voice from the kitchen.

Viktor jumped and reached for his keys again. He had never had any self defense training but he had been a young woman walking around a city full of people he didn't know for most of his adult life. Then, he caught sight of his brother standing in the kitchen in front of his fridge. He had his finger underneath the large notecard Viktor's students had given him at the end of the year so that he could read it easier. "How did you get in here? I have locks on my windows, I know for a fact that my door was locked, and you can't blink anymore."

"Mr. V, thank you for helping me learn how to hold my bow in a way that didn't hurt my hands, love Marcie. Mr. V, thank you for helping me realize my gender identity, Apple really appreciates that I'm not complaining anymore, thanks again, Sea."

"Five," Viktor said as he set his lanyard back down and walked closer to the other ex-powered man. Five had grown to about the age of eighteen in between all of the time jumps and the year they spent in the new timeline. He was already about six inches taller and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. "What are you doing here?"

"Mr. V," he started to continue reading the notes.

"Five!"

The younger-older brother rolled his eyes and let the collection of notes drop back down into its place on the fridge. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit pants as he turned to look at the shorter man, "What, a worried man can't come and check in on his brother?"

Viktor crossed his arms defensively over his chest. "That's not something that you do, so tell me what you actually want."

"Believe it or not, I am actually concerned for you, Viktor," Five took a step closer to his brother. "I know what it's like to be alone for an extended period of time. Getting a family and then having to return to that solitude is hard."

"I'm fine," he said quickly.

"You're not fine. You barely ate any of the wonderful food that Sloane made and you barely engaged in any conversation. Remember, Viktor, I used to be a trained assassin. I know every little flicker in someone and what it could mean. I saw how you shut down when Klaus made a joke about Sissy, and I heard you almost bring up Harlan," Five said. "I know how hard it can be to lose people that you're close to. Please just let me help you."

"Help me with what?" he asked, leaning heavily against the counter.

"Your depression. And the PTSD you most likely have. I think that the worst thing for you is to be alone in your old apartment. I can't imagine what being cooped up in here is doing to you," Five answered.

Viktor brought his hands up to his face, scrubbing at it for a moment. "Five, I know that you didn't know me for very long in the grand scheme of things, but I don't need any help. I've had depression my entire life and it's honestly easier to deal with now that I'm not on the meds Dad used to give me. This isn't my first depressive episode and it won't be my last. I'm fine," he repeated the thing that he had been telling his family all day.

"So you know that you're depressed and yet you still haven't reached out to anyone about it?" Five asked, his brows furrowing together in confusion. "Even after all this time, I don't understand other people."

"Apparently not. I hate to break it to you, but not a lot of people want to go around throwing their mental health issues all over their family," he snorted.

"The rest of our siblings don't seem to have a problem with it. Now are you going to let me help you or not?" the taller man nearly demanded.

"Surely you have better things to do."

"I do not. Do you really think that I would waste time here if I had something better to do?" he asked, trailing his finger over the fine coating of dust that was layered all over his apartment. It had been a long while, even into the school year, since he had the energy to clean. "You take precedent over the other things I had planned to do."

"I shouldn't," Viktor almost spat. "After everything that I've done you should all hate me."

"You didn't mean to start three apocalypses, we should all be blaming Dad for that," he said dismissively. "Now come on," he grasped his brother's arm and dragged him back to the living room. Five pushed Viktor down on the couch and then gathered up the dishes that were littering his coffee table. He opened up the windows behind the couch so that there was sun and fresh air streaming into the stuffy apartment. After things were cleaned up a little, he sat down next to his brother. "Talk."

"About?" Viktor asked as he let his head roll back against the couch. He turned so that he was looking at the taller man, who was picking at stray threads on the arm of the couch.

"Anything you'd like. Your students, that friend you mentioned, your transition, Sissy and Harlan. Anything," he replied.

It was as if those words had opened up a floodgate he didn't know about. He began to babble about the month he had spent with the love of his life and the boy he had grown to think of as a son. He told Five all about the horses and cows that he had walked with Harlan to go see, and the nearly endless games of hide-and-seek that they had played in the barn. His breath hitched in his throat as he realized he was about to admit something he had barely even thought about himself, but it was going to be out in the open with or without his consent. "I… I loved them so much that I almost didn't want you to come and find me. It wasn't like my memories were hidden because I had an actual brain injury, they were hidden as a trauma response to finding out about my powers and almost killing all of you. I think some part of me didn't want you guys to come and find me. Of course, I wanted to know who I was and why I had been hit by a car after waking up in an alley. But at the same time, I was happy with Sissy and Harlan and I didn't want that to go away. And then it did. And then I found out how much I had destroyed their lives. They never got to be happy because I did something stupid. It was my fault that Harlan ran out to the lake, and then my fault that he got powers, and then my fault because I didn't bring them to the future with us. I fucked up their lives and made them absolutely miserable."

"I don't think so," Five shook his head. "I mean, if you really made their lives so miserable she wouldn't have been that in love with you. I may not have spent a lot of my life around other people that weren't trained assassins but I knew how much she cared about you."

"I miss her," Viktor felt the lump in his throat growing more and more as he thought about the two people he had loved so intensely and lost so violently. "I miss her every day. Sometimes I have dreams that we got the lives I wanted us to have, right after I got all my memories back and I thought I had taken the powers away from Harlan. Then I realize that in this universe she didn't even know I existed."

"Cherish the memories that you have with her, Viktor, and mourn her as much as you need," Five reached over and rubbed his brother's shoulder reassuringly. They were both so awkward when it came to physical affection that they weren't quite sure what to do, but it was clear the taller brother was trying his best to express his love. "If Allison gets to get away with making a deal with our father that resulted in both Luther and Klaus', albeit temporary, death, then you can be sad for as long as you need."

Viktor brought his legs up to his chest and finally let the ball of pain resting in his throat explode. He had already cried and hurt so much for them, but there was something different about mourning with someone else with you. "Everyone I love gets hurt."

"That's not true," Five replied with a small shake of his head. He glanced towards the door, something that Viktor immediately noticed.

"You can leave if you want, you don't have to stay here. It's not exactly a fun time," he let out a small laugh.

"No, it's not that. I asked someone else to meet us here. I'm not very good at… feelings," he hummed. "I knew that I would get you to open up to me but there are other members of our family that are more socially apt than I."

The smaller man hummed as he dragged the throw blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around his shoulders. "I feel like shit all the time, Five. What's wrong with me?"

The retired assassin got up from the couch and wandered to his small kitchen. He was looking through the cupboard and the fridge for things that he could use to feed his brother. "You cut off all contact with the people that love and care about you. Both by circumstance and because of your mental health," he answered. "You've done it your entire life. When we were kids it was because Dad forced you to, and then Harold, and then your amnesia. This time you did it because of your own head."

"Yeah. I fuck up everything for myself and others," Viktor said, his voice dripping poison meant only for himself.

Five threw a ball of paper at the smaller man. "Shut up. Don't talk about yourself like that. We're all people that make mistakes. You just happened to make a mistake that we can fix this time."

Viktor didn't get the chance to try and argue with him as there was a knock on the door. Five walked from the kitchen to the entryway before the other man had the chance to get up. "It's about time you got here," he sassed as he almost threw open the front door.

"Hey, when you're taking care of a five-month-old you can yell all you want about punctuality but until then you gotta shut your tiny mouth," Diego said from the other side of the door. All of the siblings from the original timeline pushed past him and into Viktor's tiny apartment.

"Wow, this place looks almost exactly like it did in the original timeline," Allison commented. She then smiled upon seeing her brother sitting on the couch. He looked even smaller than he did normally because of the way that the blanket was wrapped around him, hiding the position he was in. "Hey little bro. How are you feeling?"

"Like garbage," he replied, forcing the tears off his face with his hand.

She let out a motherly click of her tongue as she walked over to him. "I'm sorry," she grasped a few tissues from the box on the table next to the couch and handed them over. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Not anymore. I already told Five," he replied. He took the tissues, no matter how reluctantly, and wiped the tears and snot away properly. Klaus walked over to the other side of the couch and nearly collapsed down. He threw an arm around his brother's shoulder to bring him into a comforting cuddle.

"That's okay. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to. But you do have to put up with us being in your space. We're going to take care of you whether you like it or not," Klaus informed him with a grin.

Diego nodded as he walked in and sat down on the chair next to the couch, facing away from the kitchen where Luther was walking. Five was still rummaging around in the cupboards, but he was quickly pulled away and pushed out of the room. "Five, get out of the kitchen," Luther called. "Go to the store and pick up some bread and eggs. I'm going to make the french toast recipe that Sloane and I found the other day."

Five opened his mouth to try and argue, "I don't think we should trust you in the kitchen."

"Why? I have a wonderful wife that's been teaching me to cook since we got our apartment," Luther was still shooing the other man out of the kitchen. Five was about six inches shorter than Luther, reaching closer to Diego and Ben's height. The two continued to argue before their youngest/oldest sibling was stalking out of the apartment with a handful of bills clamped in his hand. Viktor laughed a little bit at that, feeling slightly lighter than he had before.

They sat in silence for a while as Luther rummaged around in the kitchen to try and find/clean the things that he needed. Diego then grunted and moved to stand up from his chair. "Hey V, has anyone taught you how to shave yet?"

"No, the beard is kind of new," he shook his head and ran his hand over the gruff patches of facial hair. They were only really noticeable when someone was looking for them, but they were splotchy and awkward.

"Come on. I'll show you how to shave so that you can decide what you want to do when it all comes in," Diego motioned for the other man to follow him. Viktor slowly slipped out of the hold of his siblings to follow his brother.

He was leaving bits of the stormcloud that had taken up residency in his head every time that he took a step forward. The weight and void that had replaced his heart were being chased away the longer that he spent with his family. He felt a little bit better, as he had in the park, but the feeling was growing and growing now that he knew his family cared about him so much they had gone out of their way to help him out. He knew that this wasn't the last depressive episode that he was going to have, and the one he was having most likely wasn't going to go away because his siblings had shown up once. It was nice not to have to fight his own mind on his own, however. He had always wanted to be a part of a family, so the fact that he had one now, especially once that wasn't being forced together because of the world ending, made everything feel a bit easier.

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