A House Off Island | Thursday Afternoon

[knife_bender]

It had been almost two months since they landed back from 1963, and Diego still felt like had a duty to make sure his siblings were fitting in okay. He and Five had come back to something familiar, the other four...well, they were in an entirely different universe, in a year that never existed for them. He didn't expect them to be okay with that, but he wanted them to be comfortable, at least.

Thankfully Annie was, like, a kajillionare so they at least weren't forced to get jobs right away, unless they wanted to.



Diego let himself in (his fiancée paid for the place he damn well had a key), balancing a couple pizzas in his other hand with little effort. "Anybody here?"

He felt weird about calling it 'home' around them.

Diego heard the patter of feet coming downstairs and he looked up to see Vanya. Who had a new, very short haircut. "Hey, nice hair."

"Thanks," he said, immediately going to help Diego with the pizza. "It felt more...me."

"Yeah, I get that. I'm debating doing the same thing." He knew how much Annie liked his hair long but it was starting to drive him a little nuts. It wasn't because Five made fun of him, shut up.

Diego nodded his head towards the kitchen, and couldn't help notice there was some awkwardness coming from his sibling. "Everything okay, Vanya?"

"Yeah," he said with a nod, placing the pizzas on the counter. "It's just...it's Viktor. I'm Viktor."

It took Diego a second to figure out what that meant. But the name, plus the haircut, and the way Viktor was looking at him with anticipation told him everything.

"Oh." So Vanya was...Viktor. And he looked a lot more confident with himself than Diego had seen him since he took down a bunch of Commission guys, which was the only thing that mattered.

Viktor looked up at him. "Is that a problem?"

Diego shook his head. "No, of course not. Thank you for telling me."

The smile Viktor gave him was the most genuine sign of happiness that Diego had seen in awhile from one of his siblings.

"Allison's out on the deck," Viktor said. "I'll get her and let her know the food's here."

Luther entered the kitchen almost as soon as Viktor left, immediately opening one of the pizza boxes and picking up a slice. Screw waiting for everyone else. "So, Viktor."

Diego nodded. "Yep. Viktor. Good for him."

"Do you think we should do something?" Luther asked. "To, like, commemorate it?"

"Like what?" Diego asked. "You want to throw a stupid party or something for our brother?"

"What do you have against tiny sandwiches?" Luther asked around a mouthful of pizza.

And that was Viktor's cue to come back to the kitchen. He was not surprised Luther started without everyone else. It was expected, even. "Hey, what's up?"

"Luther wants to throw you a big, stupid party so you feel loved," Diego said, having no problem telling on his brother. Also tiny sandwiches were stupid and a scam!

Viktor looked between his brothers, somewhere between touched and shy. "Oh."

"Do you feel loved?" Diego asked.

"Yeah," Viktor said with a nod. "I do."

"Good. You are." Diego wasn't outwardly affectionate often, but if there was ever a time to assure his siblings he loved them, it was now.

There were a few moments of silence, with Viktor beaming at Diego and Luther looking like the world was about to end (again).

Diego could only take a few seconds of it, before gesturing to the food. "Eat something before Luther hogs it all and we repeat the pizza puking disaster of 2003."

"I told you, that was food poisoning!"



[NFB due to distance. Very minor spoilers for TUA season 3 and now I can finally change my character tag for him]