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faye_dartmouthTitle: One Step at a Time
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Fills my amputation/loss of limb square for the lovely challenge at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hc_bingo. Completely unbeta’ed so beware of pointless typos.
Warning: For blood and gore. There are limbs being amputated, people. Well, one limb, but it’s graphic.
Summary: Five loses a leg. Diego loses a lot more.
PART ONE
PART TWO
-o-
All that talk about the way the world might end in a bang or a whimper or some other such poetic nonsense. It’s pointless speculation. Five’s been at the end of the world. It doesn’t matter how it ends, for the records. Just that it ends and it’s horrible. Anything other than complete disaster and widespread death are the preferable options. Bangs, whimpers: Five will take them all.
That’s his attitude, anyway. In this newfound life of his, in this new world he’s helping define, in this new future he’s a part of building. Five thinks he’s been through everything, more than most people could possibly imagine. There’s nothing that scares him.
But then, things go up in a bang.
And Five, much to his chagrin, is left to whimper.
-o-
It’s an explosion, see. Literally a bang. They’re clearing out a warehouse while stopping a weapons sale, and things are going pretty well. They’ve got the bad guys under wraps, they’ve made sure the weapons aren’t going anywhere, and so on and so forth. The Umbrella Academy is back to full functioning power about a year after returning to the present, and it’s not been perfect, but it’s been good. The team is coming together, the family is healing, they’re back to fighting crime and Five’s 14 now, so, you know, that’s progress. One step in front of another, he likes to say.
The explosion, however, throws him several steps back. He hits the ground hard, tumbling head over heels a few times as his ears ring and the reverberation echoes off his brain. He can feel the impact as it resounds through him, and he’s reeling when debris comes at him. He moves to lift his hands up and protect his face, but there’s nothing he can do about the section of the ceiling that falls directly down on him. Pain rips through him, a crushing weight on his foot. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. He cries, dropping back and squeezing his eyes shut.
This is bad, he thinks. This is really, really bad.
The others have to be clear; he thinks the others are clear. He’d been making a final sweep of the place with Diego. The others are outside, near the oceanfront, waiting for the cops. They’re safe. They’re safe.
He blinks, but his vision doesn’t clear. He can feel bile rise in the back of his throat. He tries to move, but it hurts too much. His leg -- his foot -- is pinned.
The explosion is still making his ears ring.
But it’s the sound of his own cry as he passes out that is louder than anything.
-o-
The thing about the end of the world is that it’s not really an end. Not for Five. He lived for decades when everything else had died. His life is both defined by finality and the lack thereof. Therefore, it’s not a surprise when he wakes up.
It is also, however, not pleasant.
As he comes back to himself, he’s aware first of the pain.
Unrelenting, excruciating, encompassing pain. Five’s experienced a fair amount of pain in his life -- neither the apocalypse nor time travel are particularly safe ventures -- but this is worse. Looking down, it’s hard to make sense of everything, but it’s pretty easy to see that his right foot has all but disappeared. It’s been swallowed up by a hunk of concrete, which has caved in from the ceiling. It’s a little surreal to look at as he lays on his back, staring. Mentally, he knows that this injury is serious, but emotionally, he can’t quite grasp the implications.
The implications are secondary anyway. Right now, he’s still preoccupied by the pain. There aren’t enough adjectives to capture the sensation. His leg feels like it’s on fire, honestly. He can practically smell the smoke.
No, he can actually smell smoke. Five has to work hard to control his breathing, bringing his focus around enough to make sense of the world around him again. His ears are still ringing from the explosion, and the warehouse has been decimated. Parts of the structure still stand, but much of it has collapsed in. There’s no clear exit anymore, and fires are burning in earnest.
Which means, it’s time to get the hell out.
Five grits his teeth and wills his power to respond. He feels a faint flicker inside of him, but it requires too much effort to grasp it. His concentration falters. He tries again, but this time, the swell of energy turns his stomach, and he retches instead.
So, blinking his way out of this is a no-go. He has to take several, long, tenuous moments just to get him vision to clear again. He’s shakier than before, and he’s too experienced to deny just how bad off he is. He’s not getting out of this by himself.
He eyes the fires, noting how fast they’re burning. There’s time before they reach him; there’s even a small window of time before the fumes become overwhelming to him and irreversible damage occurs. What there’s not time for, however, are the stockpiles of munitions. Bullets, explosives, gunpowder.
Five’s in the middle of a powder keg.
And he’s got no way out.
This is an example of one step forward, a thousand steps back, down all the way to the bottom. It makes him wonder why he bothers trying so hard at all if the world’s just going to keep insisting on leaving him to die in the worst possible scenarios imaginable.
Five is still contemplating the unfortunate reality of his prorogued mortality when he hears someone call his voice. As he’s in a burning warehouse with his foot crushed beneath debris, he thinks he might be imagining things.
“Five? Where are you?”
Five has to remind himself that no, he’s not in the apocalypse and no, he’s not working with the Commission. The Umbrella Academy is back together. There are people here, people who care about him, and while most of his siblings were well clear of the blast--
He shudders, swallowing hard to keep his pain in check. “Diego!” he calls. His voice is hoarse and he coughs, clearing his throat to yell again. “Diego!”
It’s unclear if he’s calling to make sure his brother is okay or if he’s calling for help. Honestly, with the Hargreeves, it seems kind of like the same thing. At any rate, Five hears footsteps falling unsteadily over the debris and within several seconds, Diego’s face is present in the growing smog.
“Shit, Five,” Diego says. “What the hell happened?”
Five, still flat on his back with his leg pinned, has the inexplicable urge to laugh. It’s an autonomic response to extreme pain. Self control is diminished. “Place must have been rigged,” he posits as the only plausible explanation for both the timing and ferocity of the blast. “We’re unlucky, but we’re not that unlucky. They had to have suspected they were going down tonight, wanted to minimize the evidence.”
Diego is watching him, a little perplexed. His face is smeared with soot. There’s a cut on his forehead that is leaking blood sluggishly down the side of his temple and cheek. He looks worse for wear.
Five can only imagine how he looks himself.
“No,” Diego says, a little slow on the uptake. “I mean -- you. What happened to you?”
“Oh,” Five says, and he looks down, following the length of his body to the point where his foot has disappeared. He swallows back nausea. Concussion, shock, pain, terror. He gives in to none of them. “My foot is caught.”
Diego is moving now, climbing gently over the debris to Five’s side. He looks at the piece of concrete like it’s physically hurting him. “Five,” Diego says. “That’s not just caught--”
“Yeah, I know,” Five says. He can feel his heart fluttering in his chest now. He’s starting to tremble as he blinks his eyes rapidly. “I tried to blink my way out, but I can’t. I’ve hit my limit for the night, I guess.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Diego says, stepping a few steps tentatively toward Five’s crushed appendage. “I’ve got this.”
It’s said with such gusto that Five can’t bring himself to laugh at how ridiculous it is. He watches instead as Diego tries to lift the cement. When he fails, he repositions himself and tries again. He makes several valiant efforts, using the best lifting techniques and all types of physical leverage, but the cement doesn’t even budge a little. There’s not so much as a creak.
Exhausted, Diego almost falls back. He wipes his hand across his face and smears the sweat with his blood. “Shit,” he says. “That thing is heavy.”
Five can feel himself starting to get hazy, but he can’t possibly entertain the notion of passing out. He licks his lips and swallows, keeping his focus doggedly on point. “Heavy enough it’s not moving,” he says, because he finds no reason to pretend. He’s hurt and he’s shocky, but he’s still pragmatic. He breathes in another lungful of smoke and keeps the bigger picture in mind. “But it’s honestly not even our most pressing concern.”
Diego glances back at him, pure incredulity written all over his features.
“The fire,” Five says, wishing he didn’t have to spell it out. He wonders if Diego is concussed, but from his vantage point on the floor, there’s no way to effectively check. “It’s burning right next to a whole host of explosive materials. We’ve got ten minutes max before this whole place is blown sky high -- us along with it.”
Diego, for all that he’s into the job and fancies himself an expert strategist, has plainly not realized this yet. He looks around, half in awe, as he watches the fires burn. Five can see the mental process as he takes into account the munitions. He’s doing the math, and Diego’s shitty at math, but the conclusion isn’t hard to come to.
“Then we got to get you out,” he says, and he throws himself at Five’s leg again. He grunts and groans this time, but it doesn’t do anything. Five can’t even feel his leg anymore, if he’s honest. It feels like a phantom limb, and he wonders if it’s still there at all. The thought transfixes him, and he only just manages to stop himself from passing out.
With a rapid inhalation, he remembers that he’s not dead yet.
And neither is Diego.
If he passes out, Diego’s going to stand there like an idiot until this place explodes, killing them both.
If Five can keep his wits, then maybe he can save Diego’s life.
He’ll have to save his in the process.
This is, of course, easier said than done, and Five’s mind flits over the probabilities, but he comes back to one, recurrent solution with infallible odds that he can’t deny.
“Diego,” he says.
Diego is still attempting to use a pipe to lever the cement up. He applies all his weight to no avail.
“Diego!”
Diego turns, wide eyed and startled. He’s still stuck on a narrow definition of success. He’s not a creative thinker, you see. He sees problems and he wants to fix them without nuance. It’s a pragmatic way to approach life, in some ways. In others, it’s woefully shortsighted and naive.
That makes this harder, somehow.
Five feels his throat convulse, and he shudders again.
This whole thing is harder.
“Diego,” he says again. “The others. They’re clear?”
“Yeah, of course,” Diego says. “I mean, they’ve probably come running by now--”
“But they’re too far away,” Five says. “They won’t make it in time.”
“In time for what?”
“Before this explodes,” Five says. “They’re safe.”
“Sure,” Diego says. “But we have to get you--”
“I know, I know,” Five says. He swallows and has to resist the urge to laugh again. Laugh or cry, he’s not sure. They feel the same. Everything feels the same. Terrible. He can’t muster up much saliva on his tongue, but he licks his lips again anyway. “So you need to get a knife. Your biggest knife, the sharpest one.”
Diego, for all that he thinks of himself as independent minded, follows direction without question right now. There’s something in that, something that speaks to the bravado of a little boy who just wanted to be praised, but this is hardly the time or place for a sympathetic view on such things. More practically speaking, Five knows he’s established himself a bit in the family as the one full of last minute fixes to terrible problems. They’ve come to trust him in that regard, given that he literally came up with a makeshift plan of time travel that successfully saved the world.
And no doubt, Five’s good. He is. But he’s not a man of miracles. Even more than Diego, he’s simply a boy of desperation at his core. His siblings, steeped in their own issues and blinded by Five’s success, have not come to fully grasp the difference yet.
Not that Five’s wanted them to.
He’s tried to hide it more than they’ve tried not to see it, and that’s on him. The veil is going to be lifted someday. Five’s always known that on some level, but he didn’t expect it to be today.
All his forward progress and he’s back at square one.
As Diego produces the knife, Five feels his vision gray around the edges. His chest is noticeably tight now -- the smoke, the emotion, the pain that has deadened his senses almost entirely -- and his eyes are burning. “Good,” he says, and he feels a tremor and wills it away as he blinks wet eyes. “Now. I need you to do exactly as I say, no hesitations.”
Obediently, Diego nods. “Okay.”
Five forces air in and out of his lungs. It’s getting hard to do. “Okay. Move closer to me,” he instructs, working hard to keep his voice calm and even. It’s a level of control he just barely has, and he can feel the way the word become him. Sometimes, you have to fake shit to make it. Five’s made it this far on less. He nods his head as Diego complies. “Can you sanitize the knife maybe?”
Diego’s knives are always in impeccable condition, but they have been in combat tonight. Diego, oblivious to the possible implications, pulls out a lighter. He doesn’t smoke, but of course Diego has a lighter. It seems like a perfectly natural thing for him to carry, just in case.
Five watches, his breathing growing shallow as Diego takes the blade across the flame. His vision threatens to tunnel as Diego passes it over several times, and he just barely catches himself by the time Diego is done.
“Good,” he says. He nods, because it is good. It is. “Now. Pull up my pant leg. Cut it if you have to to get as close as you can to the cement.”
Only a flicker of concern passes over Diego’s face; he’s a man of action, not of thought. He’s not a planner; he reacts. That’s fine for now.
Five grits his teeth as Diego cuts away the bottom of his pant leg -- he’s finally traded in those awful Academy shorts for something more practical -- but it doesn’t hurt as much as he expects it to when Diego jostles his leg. The numbness is spreading, he realizes. It’s becoming pervasive.
“Good,” Five coaches breathlessly. He blinks rapidly a few times. “Now, use the cloth -- anything you can find -- and tie is around my leg, just under the knee. You need to make a tourniquet.”
It’s fortunate they all have extensive first aid training. He doesn’t have to explain what a tourniquet is or how to make it, and Diego complies with relative responsiveness. He’s good at completing simple tasks. He’s following orders without asking questions -- which is, no doubt, the stress.
Five winces as the fabric is tightened, pinching viciously into the skin below his knee. It’s painfully tight. “There,” Diego reports, nodding at his own handiwork. “Now what?”
Now what, Diego asks. Five thinks it’s funny, and he has another inappropriate urge to laugh. In fact, the whole situation is becoming oddly surreal. Looking down, there’s not even as much blood as he expects. It’s just his leg and then rubble. It’s just as well, Five thinks banally. What comes next will be sloppy enough.
What comes next.
He has a moment of giddy denial, but his mind settles back on the cold, hard numbers. The odds are impossible to deny. The logic is irrefutable.
The giddiness passes. In its wake, the numbness has overtaken his emotions now. There’s no more anxiety. There’s no more fear. There’s just certainty. Clarity. Fortitude.
For what comes next.
“Okay,” he says, drawing a steady breath. Diego looks back at him, anxious. “Now. Cut.”
Diego looks confused at first. “I already cut the pant leg.”
Five almost wants to smile; it’s that cute how naive Diego is. All this prep and he has no idea what it’s been for even when it’s been painfully, horrifyingly obvious. “No. Cut.”
He nods at his leg this time, emphatically tipping his head toward the rubble.
Diego stares at him still, blanker than before. “What?”
Five swallows and inhales. The variables have fallen into place and he understands the decision he’s making. It’s not theory; it’s practical application. You do whatever is necessary to save the people you care about. It’s how he was able to kill without remorse for so many years. That makes him a bad person, he knows that, but he’s not a hypocrite. If it applies to others, it applies to him.
It applies to him right now.
He nods, the thought fully realized now.
He’s been willing to sacrifice countless lives for the pursuit of saving his family.
You can sure as hell bet he’s willing to sacrifice one measly appendage.
“Cut my leg off.”
He says it without hesitation. The tremor is gone now. It could be shock that has taken hold or the simple knowledge that he knows what’s coming and he’s okay with that.
Diego, however, shakes his head. Even covered in soot, his face pales ominously. He looks horrified. “Cut off your leg?”
“Yes,” Five says without compunction. He nods. “You have to take the knife and cut through my leg.”
Diego makes a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a huff. “Five -- what -- no,” he says, fumbling for the words. He’s holding the knife, but it’s limp at his side. The fire burns brightly behind him. “There’s no way in hell I’m cutting your leg off.”
In other circumstances, Diego's insistence might seem sweet, but Five winces in pain. "You have to."
"Absolutely not," Diego says. He makes a face, deeply and unreasonably incredulous. "That can’t be your plan."
Five is scowling now. "It’s not a plan; it’s the only solution," he seethes. "I will die if I stay here."
Diego shrugs, utterly simple. "So we get you out another way."
Five finds this tenacity vaguely wearisome. He’s never had much patience for other people, but, to be fair, his leg has been crushed under an immovable piece of cement, so he’s entitled a little frustration. “Diego, please,” he says plaintively. “We are out of time and out of options.”
Diego is many things, but he’s not a quitter. He shakes his head, adamant. “No, no,” he says. “I just need to go get Luther--”
The impulse is almost comical. Diego, with a knife in his hand, desperate to get the brother he’s resented all his life. Luther as Diego’s salvation. As if Five needs a reminder of just how dire the situation is.
That’s why it matters, though.
Diego will never leave him behind. Therefore, Five must convince him to leave just a token of him behind. “There’s no time for that,” he reasons. “We’ve got minutes before this thing blows. Do you want Luther to die, too?”
Diego does not quite acknowledge the sentiment. He shakes his head again, more stubborn than ever. “I don’t give a shit,” he says. “There’s no way I’m cutting your leg off.”
“Not my leg, just my foot,” Five says. “It looks like I’ll lose the ankle, but I’m keeping the knee, which is great for mobility.”
Diego’s eyes are starting to bug. He’s getting desperate as the fire crackles behind them, pressing closer still. “Five, we aren’t doing this--”
Closer still. Too close. How ironic. Five Hargreeves, running out of time. He sobers himself accordingly. “Then you are condemning me to death.”
It’s a sentiment designed to provoke, and Diego is incensed. In a furor, he turns back to the rubble and makes a frantic and utterly ineffective attempt to lift it again. He strains himself to the point of exhaustion, and he collapses back breathless. The cement has not shifted an inch.
The numbness has spread throughout most of his body now. It’s possible that his bodily systems are shutting down now, and that he’s in the process of dying. But he prefers to think of this as certainty. It’s a calmness from knowing what he has to do.
And Five will get it done.
No matter what.
“Diego,” he says. He sounds 14 but the calmness demands attention. “It’s okay.”
Diego looks back at him, stricken.
“I’ve done the math, Diego,” he says. He smiles. “I’ve run the odds. This is the only way, the only option to save us both.”
“I don’t give a shit about the odds--”
“I won’t blame you,” Five assures him. “Honestly, this is my idea. I acknowledge that it is fully and 100 percent my idea. This is what I want you to do. It’s not your choice; it’s mine.”
“Dude, you say that now,” Diego says, fumbling a bit. He’s still squatting near Five’s leg, the skin now exposed as the fires rage behind them. His knuckles are white on the hilt of the knife, still poised and shaking above Five’s leg. “But this is your leg, man.”
“And I won’t say anything later if you don’t do it,” Five reasons. “Look at this place. It’s going up -- and fast. I’m going to die if you don’t cut off my leg.”
Diego wavers, but he’s weak. Weaker than Five expects.
He girds himself as necessary. Diego has to do the hard part, and Five knows it. His only role is to talk him into it.
By any means necessary.
“Do you hear me?” Five asks, pointedly now. “I’ll die. Right here. No second chances or quick fixes. Do you want that on your conscience, Diego? Do you? Do you want to have to go back and tell the others how you couldn’t get the job done because you were scared?”
It’s cruel, and Five knows it. It’s mean and it’s the worst kind of guilt trip you can give.
But the fire is raging. The smog is thickening.
Five’s not lobbying for his own life.
He’s lobbying for Diego’s.
“Five,” Diego says, almost emphatically now. He’s imploring, jaw tight as he compresses a sob. “Come on--”
Five has to be ruthless. That’s how you survive. That’s how you save lives.
Absolutely, utterly ruthless.
He’s calm, he’s numb, he’s confident.
“You’re a joke, then,” Five says, scoffing now. “You like to act all strong, the big man of the house. You act like you’re the one getting shit done, but here you are. Weak and pathetic. You’ll die because you don’t have the guts to do what’s needed.”
Diego’s face is ashen; his eyes are glistening. “Five, that’s not fair,” he says, the words hissed out between clenched teeth. The knife wavers in his hand, rising and falling as he shakes.
“No, it’s not fair,” Five agrees with a condescending shake of his head. “That’s probably why Dad made you Number Two. Your genetics just didn’t leave you as gifted as Luther.”
Diego’s breathing is fast and shallow, hard through his nose. “Five--”
The fire is licking at the munitions box. The moment is at its climax.
“Cut off the leg, damn it!” Five screams now. “Do it!”
Diego, rebel that he wants to be, obeys completely. The knife drops down, hard, fast and thorough. Five feels it as it splits his flesh, cutting through skin and muscle and down to the bone. He bites back a scream, swallows back the agony as he feels his blood hot and sticky spilling out. It’s Diego who yells, guttural and desperate, as he draws the knife down hard and ragged through the bone.
It’s done, then, Five thinks as he passes out.
It’s done.
There’s no bang.
Just a whimper.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N: Fills my amputation/loss of limb square for the lovely challenge at
hc_bingo. Completely unbeta’ed so beware of pointless typos. Warning: For blood and gore. There are limbs being amputated, people. Well, one limb, but it’s graphic.
Summary: Five loses a leg. Diego loses a lot more.
PART ONE
PART TWO
-o-
All that talk about the way the world might end in a bang or a whimper or some other such poetic nonsense. It’s pointless speculation. Five’s been at the end of the world. It doesn’t matter how it ends, for the records. Just that it ends and it’s horrible. Anything other than complete disaster and widespread death are the preferable options. Bangs, whimpers: Five will take them all.
That’s his attitude, anyway. In this newfound life of his, in this new world he’s helping define, in this new future he’s a part of building. Five thinks he’s been through everything, more than most people could possibly imagine. There’s nothing that scares him.
But then, things go up in a bang.
And Five, much to his chagrin, is left to whimper.
-o-
It’s an explosion, see. Literally a bang. They’re clearing out a warehouse while stopping a weapons sale, and things are going pretty well. They’ve got the bad guys under wraps, they’ve made sure the weapons aren’t going anywhere, and so on and so forth. The Umbrella Academy is back to full functioning power about a year after returning to the present, and it’s not been perfect, but it’s been good. The team is coming together, the family is healing, they’re back to fighting crime and Five’s 14 now, so, you know, that’s progress. One step in front of another, he likes to say.
The explosion, however, throws him several steps back. He hits the ground hard, tumbling head over heels a few times as his ears ring and the reverberation echoes off his brain. He can feel the impact as it resounds through him, and he’s reeling when debris comes at him. He moves to lift his hands up and protect his face, but there’s nothing he can do about the section of the ceiling that falls directly down on him. Pain rips through him, a crushing weight on his foot. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. He cries, dropping back and squeezing his eyes shut.
This is bad, he thinks. This is really, really bad.
The others have to be clear; he thinks the others are clear. He’d been making a final sweep of the place with Diego. The others are outside, near the oceanfront, waiting for the cops. They’re safe. They’re safe.
He blinks, but his vision doesn’t clear. He can feel bile rise in the back of his throat. He tries to move, but it hurts too much. His leg -- his foot -- is pinned.
The explosion is still making his ears ring.
But it’s the sound of his own cry as he passes out that is louder than anything.
-o-
The thing about the end of the world is that it’s not really an end. Not for Five. He lived for decades when everything else had died. His life is both defined by finality and the lack thereof. Therefore, it’s not a surprise when he wakes up.
It is also, however, not pleasant.
As he comes back to himself, he’s aware first of the pain.
Unrelenting, excruciating, encompassing pain. Five’s experienced a fair amount of pain in his life -- neither the apocalypse nor time travel are particularly safe ventures -- but this is worse. Looking down, it’s hard to make sense of everything, but it’s pretty easy to see that his right foot has all but disappeared. It’s been swallowed up by a hunk of concrete, which has caved in from the ceiling. It’s a little surreal to look at as he lays on his back, staring. Mentally, he knows that this injury is serious, but emotionally, he can’t quite grasp the implications.
The implications are secondary anyway. Right now, he’s still preoccupied by the pain. There aren’t enough adjectives to capture the sensation. His leg feels like it’s on fire, honestly. He can practically smell the smoke.
No, he can actually smell smoke. Five has to work hard to control his breathing, bringing his focus around enough to make sense of the world around him again. His ears are still ringing from the explosion, and the warehouse has been decimated. Parts of the structure still stand, but much of it has collapsed in. There’s no clear exit anymore, and fires are burning in earnest.
Which means, it’s time to get the hell out.
Five grits his teeth and wills his power to respond. He feels a faint flicker inside of him, but it requires too much effort to grasp it. His concentration falters. He tries again, but this time, the swell of energy turns his stomach, and he retches instead.
So, blinking his way out of this is a no-go. He has to take several, long, tenuous moments just to get him vision to clear again. He’s shakier than before, and he’s too experienced to deny just how bad off he is. He’s not getting out of this by himself.
He eyes the fires, noting how fast they’re burning. There’s time before they reach him; there’s even a small window of time before the fumes become overwhelming to him and irreversible damage occurs. What there’s not time for, however, are the stockpiles of munitions. Bullets, explosives, gunpowder.
Five’s in the middle of a powder keg.
And he’s got no way out.
This is an example of one step forward, a thousand steps back, down all the way to the bottom. It makes him wonder why he bothers trying so hard at all if the world’s just going to keep insisting on leaving him to die in the worst possible scenarios imaginable.
Five is still contemplating the unfortunate reality of his prorogued mortality when he hears someone call his voice. As he’s in a burning warehouse with his foot crushed beneath debris, he thinks he might be imagining things.
“Five? Where are you?”
Five has to remind himself that no, he’s not in the apocalypse and no, he’s not working with the Commission. The Umbrella Academy is back together. There are people here, people who care about him, and while most of his siblings were well clear of the blast--
He shudders, swallowing hard to keep his pain in check. “Diego!” he calls. His voice is hoarse and he coughs, clearing his throat to yell again. “Diego!”
It’s unclear if he’s calling to make sure his brother is okay or if he’s calling for help. Honestly, with the Hargreeves, it seems kind of like the same thing. At any rate, Five hears footsteps falling unsteadily over the debris and within several seconds, Diego’s face is present in the growing smog.
“Shit, Five,” Diego says. “What the hell happened?”
Five, still flat on his back with his leg pinned, has the inexplicable urge to laugh. It’s an autonomic response to extreme pain. Self control is diminished. “Place must have been rigged,” he posits as the only plausible explanation for both the timing and ferocity of the blast. “We’re unlucky, but we’re not that unlucky. They had to have suspected they were going down tonight, wanted to minimize the evidence.”
Diego is watching him, a little perplexed. His face is smeared with soot. There’s a cut on his forehead that is leaking blood sluggishly down the side of his temple and cheek. He looks worse for wear.
Five can only imagine how he looks himself.
“No,” Diego says, a little slow on the uptake. “I mean -- you. What happened to you?”
“Oh,” Five says, and he looks down, following the length of his body to the point where his foot has disappeared. He swallows back nausea. Concussion, shock, pain, terror. He gives in to none of them. “My foot is caught.”
Diego is moving now, climbing gently over the debris to Five’s side. He looks at the piece of concrete like it’s physically hurting him. “Five,” Diego says. “That’s not just caught--”
“Yeah, I know,” Five says. He can feel his heart fluttering in his chest now. He’s starting to tremble as he blinks his eyes rapidly. “I tried to blink my way out, but I can’t. I’ve hit my limit for the night, I guess.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Diego says, stepping a few steps tentatively toward Five’s crushed appendage. “I’ve got this.”
It’s said with such gusto that Five can’t bring himself to laugh at how ridiculous it is. He watches instead as Diego tries to lift the cement. When he fails, he repositions himself and tries again. He makes several valiant efforts, using the best lifting techniques and all types of physical leverage, but the cement doesn’t even budge a little. There’s not so much as a creak.
Exhausted, Diego almost falls back. He wipes his hand across his face and smears the sweat with his blood. “Shit,” he says. “That thing is heavy.”
Five can feel himself starting to get hazy, but he can’t possibly entertain the notion of passing out. He licks his lips and swallows, keeping his focus doggedly on point. “Heavy enough it’s not moving,” he says, because he finds no reason to pretend. He’s hurt and he’s shocky, but he’s still pragmatic. He breathes in another lungful of smoke and keeps the bigger picture in mind. “But it’s honestly not even our most pressing concern.”
Diego glances back at him, pure incredulity written all over his features.
“The fire,” Five says, wishing he didn’t have to spell it out. He wonders if Diego is concussed, but from his vantage point on the floor, there’s no way to effectively check. “It’s burning right next to a whole host of explosive materials. We’ve got ten minutes max before this whole place is blown sky high -- us along with it.”
Diego, for all that he’s into the job and fancies himself an expert strategist, has plainly not realized this yet. He looks around, half in awe, as he watches the fires burn. Five can see the mental process as he takes into account the munitions. He’s doing the math, and Diego’s shitty at math, but the conclusion isn’t hard to come to.
“Then we got to get you out,” he says, and he throws himself at Five’s leg again. He grunts and groans this time, but it doesn’t do anything. Five can’t even feel his leg anymore, if he’s honest. It feels like a phantom limb, and he wonders if it’s still there at all. The thought transfixes him, and he only just manages to stop himself from passing out.
With a rapid inhalation, he remembers that he’s not dead yet.
And neither is Diego.
If he passes out, Diego’s going to stand there like an idiot until this place explodes, killing them both.
If Five can keep his wits, then maybe he can save Diego’s life.
He’ll have to save his in the process.
This is, of course, easier said than done, and Five’s mind flits over the probabilities, but he comes back to one, recurrent solution with infallible odds that he can’t deny.
“Diego,” he says.
Diego is still attempting to use a pipe to lever the cement up. He applies all his weight to no avail.
“Diego!”
Diego turns, wide eyed and startled. He’s still stuck on a narrow definition of success. He’s not a creative thinker, you see. He sees problems and he wants to fix them without nuance. It’s a pragmatic way to approach life, in some ways. In others, it’s woefully shortsighted and naive.
That makes this harder, somehow.
Five feels his throat convulse, and he shudders again.
This whole thing is harder.
“Diego,” he says again. “The others. They’re clear?”
“Yeah, of course,” Diego says. “I mean, they’ve probably come running by now--”
“But they’re too far away,” Five says. “They won’t make it in time.”
“In time for what?”
“Before this explodes,” Five says. “They’re safe.”
“Sure,” Diego says. “But we have to get you--”
“I know, I know,” Five says. He swallows and has to resist the urge to laugh again. Laugh or cry, he’s not sure. They feel the same. Everything feels the same. Terrible. He can’t muster up much saliva on his tongue, but he licks his lips again anyway. “So you need to get a knife. Your biggest knife, the sharpest one.”
Diego, for all that he thinks of himself as independent minded, follows direction without question right now. There’s something in that, something that speaks to the bravado of a little boy who just wanted to be praised, but this is hardly the time or place for a sympathetic view on such things. More practically speaking, Five knows he’s established himself a bit in the family as the one full of last minute fixes to terrible problems. They’ve come to trust him in that regard, given that he literally came up with a makeshift plan of time travel that successfully saved the world.
And no doubt, Five’s good. He is. But he’s not a man of miracles. Even more than Diego, he’s simply a boy of desperation at his core. His siblings, steeped in their own issues and blinded by Five’s success, have not come to fully grasp the difference yet.
Not that Five’s wanted them to.
He’s tried to hide it more than they’ve tried not to see it, and that’s on him. The veil is going to be lifted someday. Five’s always known that on some level, but he didn’t expect it to be today.
All his forward progress and he’s back at square one.
As Diego produces the knife, Five feels his vision gray around the edges. His chest is noticeably tight now -- the smoke, the emotion, the pain that has deadened his senses almost entirely -- and his eyes are burning. “Good,” he says, and he feels a tremor and wills it away as he blinks wet eyes. “Now. I need you to do exactly as I say, no hesitations.”
Obediently, Diego nods. “Okay.”
Five forces air in and out of his lungs. It’s getting hard to do. “Okay. Move closer to me,” he instructs, working hard to keep his voice calm and even. It’s a level of control he just barely has, and he can feel the way the word become him. Sometimes, you have to fake shit to make it. Five’s made it this far on less. He nods his head as Diego complies. “Can you sanitize the knife maybe?”
Diego’s knives are always in impeccable condition, but they have been in combat tonight. Diego, oblivious to the possible implications, pulls out a lighter. He doesn’t smoke, but of course Diego has a lighter. It seems like a perfectly natural thing for him to carry, just in case.
Five watches, his breathing growing shallow as Diego takes the blade across the flame. His vision threatens to tunnel as Diego passes it over several times, and he just barely catches himself by the time Diego is done.
“Good,” he says. He nods, because it is good. It is. “Now. Pull up my pant leg. Cut it if you have to to get as close as you can to the cement.”
Only a flicker of concern passes over Diego’s face; he’s a man of action, not of thought. He’s not a planner; he reacts. That’s fine for now.
Five grits his teeth as Diego cuts away the bottom of his pant leg -- he’s finally traded in those awful Academy shorts for something more practical -- but it doesn’t hurt as much as he expects it to when Diego jostles his leg. The numbness is spreading, he realizes. It’s becoming pervasive.
“Good,” Five coaches breathlessly. He blinks rapidly a few times. “Now, use the cloth -- anything you can find -- and tie is around my leg, just under the knee. You need to make a tourniquet.”
It’s fortunate they all have extensive first aid training. He doesn’t have to explain what a tourniquet is or how to make it, and Diego complies with relative responsiveness. He’s good at completing simple tasks. He’s following orders without asking questions -- which is, no doubt, the stress.
Five winces as the fabric is tightened, pinching viciously into the skin below his knee. It’s painfully tight. “There,” Diego reports, nodding at his own handiwork. “Now what?”
Now what, Diego asks. Five thinks it’s funny, and he has another inappropriate urge to laugh. In fact, the whole situation is becoming oddly surreal. Looking down, there’s not even as much blood as he expects. It’s just his leg and then rubble. It’s just as well, Five thinks banally. What comes next will be sloppy enough.
What comes next.
He has a moment of giddy denial, but his mind settles back on the cold, hard numbers. The odds are impossible to deny. The logic is irrefutable.
The giddiness passes. In its wake, the numbness has overtaken his emotions now. There’s no more anxiety. There’s no more fear. There’s just certainty. Clarity. Fortitude.
For what comes next.
“Okay,” he says, drawing a steady breath. Diego looks back at him, anxious. “Now. Cut.”
Diego looks confused at first. “I already cut the pant leg.”
Five almost wants to smile; it’s that cute how naive Diego is. All this prep and he has no idea what it’s been for even when it’s been painfully, horrifyingly obvious. “No. Cut.”
He nods at his leg this time, emphatically tipping his head toward the rubble.
Diego stares at him still, blanker than before. “What?”
Five swallows and inhales. The variables have fallen into place and he understands the decision he’s making. It’s not theory; it’s practical application. You do whatever is necessary to save the people you care about. It’s how he was able to kill without remorse for so many years. That makes him a bad person, he knows that, but he’s not a hypocrite. If it applies to others, it applies to him.
It applies to him right now.
He nods, the thought fully realized now.
He’s been willing to sacrifice countless lives for the pursuit of saving his family.
You can sure as hell bet he’s willing to sacrifice one measly appendage.
“Cut my leg off.”
He says it without hesitation. The tremor is gone now. It could be shock that has taken hold or the simple knowledge that he knows what’s coming and he’s okay with that.
Diego, however, shakes his head. Even covered in soot, his face pales ominously. He looks horrified. “Cut off your leg?”
“Yes,” Five says without compunction. He nods. “You have to take the knife and cut through my leg.”
Diego makes a small sound, somewhere between a laugh and a huff. “Five -- what -- no,” he says, fumbling for the words. He’s holding the knife, but it’s limp at his side. The fire burns brightly behind him. “There’s no way in hell I’m cutting your leg off.”
In other circumstances, Diego's insistence might seem sweet, but Five winces in pain. "You have to."
"Absolutely not," Diego says. He makes a face, deeply and unreasonably incredulous. "That can’t be your plan."
Five is scowling now. "It’s not a plan; it’s the only solution," he seethes. "I will die if I stay here."
Diego shrugs, utterly simple. "So we get you out another way."
Five finds this tenacity vaguely wearisome. He’s never had much patience for other people, but, to be fair, his leg has been crushed under an immovable piece of cement, so he’s entitled a little frustration. “Diego, please,” he says plaintively. “We are out of time and out of options.”
Diego is many things, but he’s not a quitter. He shakes his head, adamant. “No, no,” he says. “I just need to go get Luther--”
The impulse is almost comical. Diego, with a knife in his hand, desperate to get the brother he’s resented all his life. Luther as Diego’s salvation. As if Five needs a reminder of just how dire the situation is.
That’s why it matters, though.
Diego will never leave him behind. Therefore, Five must convince him to leave just a token of him behind. “There’s no time for that,” he reasons. “We’ve got minutes before this thing blows. Do you want Luther to die, too?”
Diego does not quite acknowledge the sentiment. He shakes his head again, more stubborn than ever. “I don’t give a shit,” he says. “There’s no way I’m cutting your leg off.”
“Not my leg, just my foot,” Five says. “It looks like I’ll lose the ankle, but I’m keeping the knee, which is great for mobility.”
Diego’s eyes are starting to bug. He’s getting desperate as the fire crackles behind them, pressing closer still. “Five, we aren’t doing this--”
Closer still. Too close. How ironic. Five Hargreeves, running out of time. He sobers himself accordingly. “Then you are condemning me to death.”
It’s a sentiment designed to provoke, and Diego is incensed. In a furor, he turns back to the rubble and makes a frantic and utterly ineffective attempt to lift it again. He strains himself to the point of exhaustion, and he collapses back breathless. The cement has not shifted an inch.
The numbness has spread throughout most of his body now. It’s possible that his bodily systems are shutting down now, and that he’s in the process of dying. But he prefers to think of this as certainty. It’s a calmness from knowing what he has to do.
And Five will get it done.
No matter what.
“Diego,” he says. He sounds 14 but the calmness demands attention. “It’s okay.”
Diego looks back at him, stricken.
“I’ve done the math, Diego,” he says. He smiles. “I’ve run the odds. This is the only way, the only option to save us both.”
“I don’t give a shit about the odds--”
“I won’t blame you,” Five assures him. “Honestly, this is my idea. I acknowledge that it is fully and 100 percent my idea. This is what I want you to do. It’s not your choice; it’s mine.”
“Dude, you say that now,” Diego says, fumbling a bit. He’s still squatting near Five’s leg, the skin now exposed as the fires rage behind them. His knuckles are white on the hilt of the knife, still poised and shaking above Five’s leg. “But this is your leg, man.”
“And I won’t say anything later if you don’t do it,” Five reasons. “Look at this place. It’s going up -- and fast. I’m going to die if you don’t cut off my leg.”
Diego wavers, but he’s weak. Weaker than Five expects.
He girds himself as necessary. Diego has to do the hard part, and Five knows it. His only role is to talk him into it.
By any means necessary.
“Do you hear me?” Five asks, pointedly now. “I’ll die. Right here. No second chances or quick fixes. Do you want that on your conscience, Diego? Do you? Do you want to have to go back and tell the others how you couldn’t get the job done because you were scared?”
It’s cruel, and Five knows it. It’s mean and it’s the worst kind of guilt trip you can give.
But the fire is raging. The smog is thickening.
Five’s not lobbying for his own life.
He’s lobbying for Diego’s.
“Five,” Diego says, almost emphatically now. He’s imploring, jaw tight as he compresses a sob. “Come on--”
Five has to be ruthless. That’s how you survive. That’s how you save lives.
Absolutely, utterly ruthless.
He’s calm, he’s numb, he’s confident.
“You’re a joke, then,” Five says, scoffing now. “You like to act all strong, the big man of the house. You act like you’re the one getting shit done, but here you are. Weak and pathetic. You’ll die because you don’t have the guts to do what’s needed.”
Diego’s face is ashen; his eyes are glistening. “Five, that’s not fair,” he says, the words hissed out between clenched teeth. The knife wavers in his hand, rising and falling as he shakes.
“No, it’s not fair,” Five agrees with a condescending shake of his head. “That’s probably why Dad made you Number Two. Your genetics just didn’t leave you as gifted as Luther.”
Diego’s breathing is fast and shallow, hard through his nose. “Five--”
The fire is licking at the munitions box. The moment is at its climax.
“Cut off the leg, damn it!” Five screams now. “Do it!”
Diego, rebel that he wants to be, obeys completely. The knife drops down, hard, fast and thorough. Five feels it as it splits his flesh, cutting through skin and muscle and down to the bone. He bites back a scream, swallows back the agony as he feels his blood hot and sticky spilling out. It’s Diego who yells, guttural and desperate, as he draws the knife down hard and ragged through the bone.
It’s done, then, Five thinks as he passes out.
It’s done.
There’s no bang.
Just a whimper.
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Date: 2020-10-05 05:57 am (UTC)Ouch! A wonderful fic, First one I’ve read with this!