Various The Umbrella Academy One Shots

Care(requested)

The rain that was thundering down outside, stealing each and every other sound away with it's dull roar. For Klaus Hargreeves, this was a much needed relief, because it was far easier to focus on the sound of rain than to try and outright block out sounds that he did not want to have to hear.
Rain always did have a way of washing away everything in its path, leaving behind something that was all the more tolerable, tolerable or at the very least more real in its place, so in the wider scheme of things, there was something about that of which was all there could be as a defense against the world.

But, as it so often was the case, the partial silence of which the lad was enjoying to the best of his ability was broken with a knocking at his bedroom door. It was not the insistent sort of knock that he had likened to his father, but rather the sort of knock that managed to appear hesitant through its softness, more so that of a frightened child - and g*d knew there was more than enough children there to fit that description - than anyone with any sort of self assurance.

"Can I come in?" a voice, Ben's voice, called weakly through the door, the few words he did say were punctuated with sniffles. Sniffled that brought a particular sinking feeling in the gut of his brother.

"Come on, then." came the response, Klaus shifting and shuffling about a bit so that he could untangle himself from his blankets.

It wouldn't have taken a genius to realise the something was wrong. There was always something wrong that came from the twisted torture - either physical or psychological or, worse still, both - that The Monocle put them through so it was a safe assumption that this would be the case, but he had still managed to underestimate things.
The Horror was a sight to behold, and not in a good way, and The Séance felt his own breath catch in his chest. What little skin that was visible was dotted with an array of bruises, all the colours of the rainbow decorating him with torment that nobody would want to think too much about. His nose was still bloody with the remnants of what had once been a nosebleed, and his eyes were red and puffy from crying, tears still fresh upon his cheeks.

"Jeez, Ben, what the hell'd he do to you?" Klaus asked, almost instinctively shuffling over to the side so that his brother could take over the nest he had made for himself, patting the empty space invitingly. He'd seen spirits in better shape than the slightly shaking individual before him, and they had succumb to their wounds and died. "No, actually," he continued before the other was given the chance to reply, "It doesn't matter what he did, whatever it was was shitty and shouldn't have happened."

More than willing to take the invitation, Ben crawled over to the empty space that was being offered to him. At that moment, all bruised and battered about as he was, he looked all the more like a frightened child and less like a boy of almost sixteen.
"He said that if I was strong enough, they," the clench of his shirt about his belly making it clear what he was referring to, "Would protect me if I was in harms way but I guess I..." He was forced to pause, his jaw was aching and his sniffling had come back with a vengeance, "I wasn't strong enough..."

"Like hell you weren't!" Klaus declared, this coming off a little more forceful than he mean it, and he was left feeling immediately guilty when his brother flinched. "Listen, Ben," he dared to continue, speaking far softer this time as to not frighten the other while he was still in a heightened state of vulnerability, "It has nothing to do with whether or not you were strong enough, he's a sick, sadistic bastard and he would have found some excuse to get you hurt no matter what you did. It isn't, and never will be your fault, alright?"
The Séance had long since stopped caring, instead kicking against the world in every way he could. But even still there was a part of him that could never truly shake away the expectations, the gaze that managed to scrutinise each and every part of his whole damned soul.
"Alright, you know what we're gonna do right now?" he continued, waiting for The Horror to gingerly shake his head in response, "We're gonna patch you up right as rain, then you and I are gonna sneak on down to the kitchen and get more cookies and cocoa than we can eat. That sound alright to you?"

The faintest ghost of a smile dared to cautiously creep across poor Ben's face, adding just a little brightness into the gloom that was settling into his being. It wasn't much, but it was an awful lot more than he had before and, well, that had to count for something in the wider scheme of things, surely.
"Yeah," said he, "I think I'd like that."

With an expert sort of ease, Klaus hauled himself up to his feet and, following a short cluster of moments, had a small and tragically under-filled makeshift medicine box. He emptied the contents out onto the bed and, plopping himself down again, set himself to his task. There was a marvelous degree of cautious softness in each and every dab of ointment or fresh - but lukewarm - water from a bottle by his bed that he used to wash away dried blood away.
In the end, he didn't exactly look perfect, but Ben wound up in a slightly less worse-for-wear state, and given the extent of his injuries, that was the best he could hope for.

"And now, for the most important step in your recovery!"

With the only sound being the rain outside, the brothers crept out of the room and skulked their way down the hall, silent shadows who muffled their footsteps so nobody at all would know they were there.
The only evidence that they had snuck out of the room at all was that there was several packets of cookies missing in the morning.