Work Text:
It’s a hot summer night, stickier than normal following a late afternoon thunderstorm that caused the nighttime humidity to skyrocket, and Vanya is coated in a thin layer of sweat. This is perhaps partially due to the insufferable humidity, creeping into her room despite (or perhaps to spite) the pathetic A/C unit sputtering in her windowframe, but it is more due to the hand she has working under the covers between her legs.
It’s a familiar nighttime routine for her. She has one hand against her mouth to muffle any sounds that come out, the other working in feverish circles that she occasionally lifts her hips to. She knows this routine well, has repeated it almost every night since their father finally admitted that the cameras in their room were perhaps somewhat…too invasive, given his adoptive children’s aggressive forays into puberty. What comes next is part of the routine as well – she feels something building low in her stomach and sinks her teeth into her fingers as she arches up into it, willing for the feeling to build…and instead, despite picking up the pace and pressing harder, the feeling of her stomach bottoming out suddenly vanishes, the pleasure building disappears as quickly as it had come.
Vanya drops her hand from her mouth so that she can instead bring the pillow to her face and scream into it. Every night. Every night this happens; the tension builds, she can feel it so tantalizingly close, and then instead something goes wrong and her promise of climax vanishes. Vanya will be the first to admit there’s a possibility she’s doing it wrong; she honestly doesn’t know much about masturbation. She knows the general feeling, knows how to move her hand and how to vary pressure, even thinks she knows what would happen if she orgasms – or at least she thinks she does, based on a video Klaus invited her to watch once that got him banned from computer privileges for a month – and she doesn’t understand why it won’t work for her. There must be something she’s missing, some key move she has to do to push herself to completion. The problem is, Vanya has no idea what that could be, and her research opportunities are almost nonexistent. She isn’t allowed computer time unsupervised, and isn’t brave enough to look up videos of it when other people are in the room like Klaus. She isn’t allowed to read books if she isn’t given them by Pogo or her father, after a memorable incident where she read “The Awakening” and father yelled at her for “getting ideas”. The thought of asking Pogo to get her a book of female anatomy is…horrid, to say the least.
Her only other research opportunity lies in asking her siblings themselves. It’s a promising thought in practice, but Vanya finds it impossibly embarrassing to think about in reality. Allison would be her first bet, as the only other non-AI female Vanya interacts with on a daily basis, and Allison is definitely knowledgeable about it because she also got her computer privileges taken away when father discovered she was using her Daily Unscheduled Hour to connect on an anonymous videochat website to flash strange boys. Anyone who does that would surely know what Vanya is doing wrong. But Allison and Vanya have never had that kind of relationship – the kindest Allison has ever been was when she told Vanya that she should borrow some eyeliner to accent her ‘kind of pretty eyes’. The idea of marching up to Allison and saying “I can’t get off when I masturbate at night, what’s up with that” makes Vanya want to throw herself from the roof. And the thought of asking Luther and having him report that back to Allison, so that they can giggle about it together…no, no, also an unsafe option. Klaus seemed plausible when she first thought about it, but then Vanya remembered that every secret someone tells Klaus inevitably gets spilled when he returns messy and drunk from a party and wants to get one of the others in more trouble than him. Ben would probably explode from embarrassment if she asked him, if Vanya didn’t explode from the humiliation first. She knows Diego has a stack of magazines he stole from a shop once when the Academy was on a mission and the store got blown up – she’s seen him reading them, tracing the pages of topless women with mouths open and breasts pushed together. But for all that desperate paper stroking (and, theoretically, the self-stroking it leads to), she feels almost certain he wouldn’t know first thing about female anatomy. Anyway, Diego barely remembers she exists, and she isn’t sure she wants to remind him of that by telling him she’s his sexually incompetent sister and could he help her, please?
That leaves Five. It’s the most sensible option. Five is smart, he’s no-nonsense, and other than Ben he’s the only one that interacts with Vanya with anything resembling fondness. Plus, he can keep secrets – he slips Vanya books he thinks she might enjoy when he can, and she’s heard the unmistakable sounds of him getting off once or twice since their room shares a wall, so she knows he at least understands her desire. The only reason she hasn’t asked him is because it’s just seemed so…embarrassing, to admit her lack of expertise, the fact that she is yet again a failure. She’s been keeping at it solo for months, assuming eventually she’ll have her own breakthrough, and instead the opposite has happened. Every night leaves her sweaty, breathless, and more frustrated than the last. She just can’t take it anymore.
She’s always been a practical, problem-solving girl. Vanya swings her legs out of bed, straightens her loose sleep tanktop and shorts, and slips out of her room. Still, she loses courage once she’s actually standing outside Five’s door, hand raised to knock. What if he laughs in her face? Or, almost worse, what if he doesn’t laugh in her face but tries to help her and then it turns out she’s just defective and can’t orgasm at all? What if she’s doomed to live her life never experiencing something everyone else does, again, which always happens to her?
No. Vanya can’t accept that. Her pulse racing, before she can think twice, Vanya knocks very softly on the door and calls “Five?” He opens it immediately. “I was wondering if I was going to have to knock for you,” he says. “Hi, Vanya.”
“Can I come in?” she whispers anxiously, and he nods, grasping her wrist and pulling her inside to shut his door silently behind her.
“What’s up?” he asks. She sees he’s been at his desk, working on some equation – papers are covering it and scattered on the chairs and floor around the desk. He’s been working on time jumping again, says it’s just a matter of replaced consciousness – Vanya and he will sometimes lounge in the library together, her trying to compose a new score, him explaining his theories and ideas to her while she nods along and asks questions when she understands enough to formulate them.
Tonight, he takes a seat and starts scribbling again, clearly only half-listening to her. She crosses the room to take a seat on his bed, takes a fortifying breath, and before she can shrink into herself the way she always does she blurts out, “I can’t get off and I don’t know why.”
Five makes a funny little noise and his pencil jerks. “Come again?” he asks, swiveling to face her. His pencil is still on the paper and it drags the paper with the motion of his body.
“That’s the problem,” Vanya explains, because frankly she couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “I can’t even come once. I’ve been trying and trying.”
“I--” she has stunned him speechless. His mouth opens and closes for a minute. Vanya enjoys it more than she means to. “What?”
“I’ve been masturbating for months and I’ve never even had a single orgasm. I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong but I figured you’re smart and maybe if I ask you, you’d…you’d know.” It’s all she can say under the excruciatingly awkward circumstances. Vanya tucks her hair behind one ear and looks at her hands so that she doesn't have to look at him and see his thoughts on his face, in case they're disgust. Or laughter.
“You thought I’d…be able to help you masturbate?” Five has managed to get his expression under control again and now she can't tell what he's thinking. Vanya isn't too proud to admit she's a little disappointed he's recovered so quickly.
“You’re smart,” she tells him earnestly. “And I trust you. If I ask the others they’d laugh at me. I need to know what I’m doing wrong, because it’s clearly something.”
Five steeples his fingers and pauses for a moment. Then he nods jerkily and says, “Sound logic. Okay, I can see why you came to me. Uh, okay, I’d be happy to help. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to, but I’ll give it a go. Let’s start easy. Questions.” He pauses to gather himself before he nods decisively. “What’s your technique?”
“I don’t know,” Vanya says, “rubbing?”
“Jesus,” Five sighs. “Thanks for the incredibly helpful description. Rubbing how?”
“I don’t know,” Vanya repeats, because apparently that’s all she has to say, “in circles? Slow at first and then kind of fast.”
“On…um, your clit?” Five looks like an young, exceedingly awkward doctor. Vanya is half expecting him to take notes.
“I guess? What’s my clit?” Vanya asks him, and Five very theatrically runs his hands down his face and mumbles ‘jesus’ again under his breath. “Sorry,” she adds, smaller, for good measure. In this, as in all things, Vanya is proving a failure.
“No, no, okay, nothing to be sorry for. If you’re having trouble finding self-pleasure I shouldn’t be surprised you aren’t sure about your own anatomy.” Five huffs out a breath. “Really, the sex ed in this place is absurd.” Vanya looks at him because she doesn’t know what else to do, and because he’s got his determined face on, which means he’s coming up with an idea. She’s proven right when two seconds later he says, “I have an idea. You aren’t going to like it.”
“I’ll probably like it,” Vanya assures him. “You always have good ideas.”
“Excellent!” Five almost claps his hands and then remembers it’s far past midnight and stops himself. “Okay, take off your clothes and lay down. You’re going to show me how you get off.”
She hadn’t expected that. Vanya is pretty sure her whole body turns the color of a fire hydrant. “What?!” Her voice comes out in a strangled squeak.
“It’s unconventional, true, but I won’t be able to help you through talking. I think we’re both coming at it from the wrong angle, so to speak. If I watch your method, I can course-correct and we can go from there.” He nods decisively and stands up, wiping his hands on his thighs. It’s his nervous gesture, and knowing that he feels at least a little nervous about this is what gives Vanya the courage to say “okay” and stand up, stripping off her pants and underwear and top before she has time to think about it too hard. She feels light-headed, heart pounding when she lays down. Five’s eyes on her only make the feeling worse. They’d all seen each other partially undressed and even naked, certainly when they were younger, but since they’d hit puberty those instances had become almost nonexistent. She lies very still and focuses on not clenching her hands into fists, her own nervous tell.
“Yes. Hm. Okay.” Five stammers a little and then seems to get himself back on track, walking to the end of the bed. “So, ah, have at it, I suppose,” he manages, when Vanya continues to lie stiffly.
It proves to be too much. “Can we turn off the light?” she asks. Five frowns at her.
“How am I supposed to see what you’re doing if it’s dark,” he asks, in his best ‘don’t be an idiot’ voice.
Vanya wiggles anxiously on the bed and says, “our eyes will adjust, and all that streetlight comes in your window anyway. I don’t think I can do this with you just…staring. It you turn it off it will be better.” Five groans like she’s caused him a minor annoyance, like asking him to put the peanut butter away, rather than help her facilitate ideal conditions to masturbate in. “Fine,” he snaps, and goes to turn the light off.
In the dark, it’s much easier. Before either of their eyes adjust too much, Vanya lifts a trembling hand and moves to rub between where her legs would be if she could even feel them at the moment. At first she feels nothing, numb with nervousness, but then she adjusts into it and finds a rhythm. She’s still a little keyed up from earlier, which helps, and being in Five’s bed, the scent of whatever products he uses, helps as well. Without real thought her other hand immediately goes up to her mouth to silence any sounds that might slip through. She’s focusing so hard that it makes her jump when Five says, “okay, I think that hand you’ve got doing all the ‘rubbing’ you were talking about is too high. It’s not hitting where it needs to.”
Vanya says, “oh” because there isn’t much else to say. “Where should I lower it?”
“You should be able to feel it…what will really work for you is your clitoris, the thing I mentioned earlier,” Five explains. “It has 8,000 nerve endings, so it’s quite sensitive. In fact, ancient texts-" Vanya groans, making to sit up, and Five says, "Okay okay, sorry, point taken, off topic, we'll shelve it for another time. Let me…here, I’ll just move your hand for you.” Vanya obligingly stills her hand, relaxing to lay back down, and Five carefully takes her wrist and guides it lower. There’s enough light that they can see each other more clearly now, even enough that she can see the hint of a darkened blush on his cheeks. He moves her hand slightly lower, then presses it in. “There,” he explains. “Trying rubbing more there.”
“Oh,” Vanya says, and rubs experimentally. And then, “Oh! I know this! It felt too overwhelming when I tried masturbating by pressing it last time so I didn’t keep trying.” When Five asks, “overwhelming how?”, she doesn’t have a good explanation for him. “I don’t know,” she says for what feels like the hundredth time. “It almost hurt. It made my toes curl and my nose tingle.” “That’s good,” Five says approvingly. “You want to keep that feeling. That’s probably your issue, you just weren’t in the right place.” Vanya, encouraged, begins to rub at her clit with renewed vigor. It’s a much more intense feeling, like a sneeze building up, and soon she’s rocking her hips up into her hand clumsily and biting down on her hand to try and keep her gasps quiet.
Still, it isn’t enough. Minutes go by and her wrist begins to get tired and finally, with a frustrated huff, she ceases movement and says, “Five, it isn’t working.” She tries and fails not to sound whiny.
“It looked like it was working to me,” Five says. “You just need to be more patient.”
“No I don’t,” Vanya huffs. “I know this feeling. It just stays and stays and I never make it over the edge.”
“Hmm. Okay.” Five has his best clinical voice on. “Maybe you need to use your other hand more than for covering your mouth. Try to…fondle…your breast.”
“Fondle my breast.” Vanya keeps her voice her flat so that Five can hear how unimpressed she is. “Like just…this?” she puts her palm on her breast and rubs that too. It feels like a ridiculous version of patting your head and rubbing your stomach.
“You’re lucky I’m a patient teacher,” Five snips at her. “No, you know.” Vanya doesn’t know, that’s why she came to Five, and she tells him as much. “I don’t know, I thought you’d be more of a natural at this,” he says all huffily. “Do something more like this.” Coming around the bed, Five bats her hand lying limply on her breast off and replaces it with his own, making an almost massaging movement. He seems to warm to this task and takes her nipple, rolling it in his fingers until Vanya shivers under his hand and it perks up. Without real conscious thought, she begins the gentle circles on her clit again, her other hand moving to grasp at the bedsheets. Five notices the movement. “Maybe it would help if you got a little bit of insertion,” he suggests. “Try to finger yourself.” When Vanya gives him a quizzical look, he amends, “like…move a finger to where you would...uh, put a tampon.”
The awkwardness of the discussion has, miraculously, faded, despite the mention of her monthly cycle. Vanya makes an attempt but the angle is awkward – it’s hard to get two hands down there, and reaching the one on her clit downwards means losing pressure there. “I don’t think I can,” she tells Five, who is still providing very even, rhythmic ministrations to her nipple. In this, as in everything, he is calculating. “Maybe I should sit up?” she suggests. Five nods approvingly – “Good initiative!” – but when she shuffles up against his headboard, it’s exceedingly uncomfortable to slump against, the thin railings digging into her spine. “What if you sit behind me?” she says to Five, after a few minutes of ineffectual shifting around. “Like act as a buffer. And then I can kind of slump against you.”
Five swallows and looks perhaps the most uncertain she’s ever seen, but he allows that it makes sense. Vanya scoots down so that Five can carefully fit his lanky body behind her. He’s shot up in the last few years, now a good head taller than her, and when she inches back up she finds that it is most comfortable to rest her head on his collarbone. He’s holding himself stiff, legs almost locked, and that won’t do at all – it won’t be possible to orgasm if she’s up against a human 2x4. Vanya shoves at his legs until he lets them fall open and she can situate herself more comfortable between them. She feels good about this change. Tucked up against Five, Vanya resumes her ministrations, reaching down to prod experimental fingers at where Five had directed. At this angle, she can get a finger partially in, and is surprised to find that it does feel good – it fulfills an aching need she wasn’t sure she knew existed. Still, she can’t do as many things as need to be done with only two hands. Five, however – well, he’s got two perfectly good hands and he currently isn’t using either of them. She knows he’s capable, and that’s what makes her grab on of his hands in her own, position it at her clit, and prompt him with, “you have to help me.”
“Bossy,” Five says, and then clears his throat, “but okay, if you think this will help. Just once I suppose.” He obediently begins to circle, tentatively at first, and then with increasing confidence as she shifts or sighs out moans against him appreciatively when he hits the right stride. Her own other hand is up, repeating his earlier movements on her breast, and it isn’t long before this combination has her picking up speed, hips shifting clumsily to match the pace. She hunches a little to get the angle on the finger she’s tentatively moving in and out of herself better, and the movement makes her hips stutter backward. Five makes a funny noise in the back of his throat like his breath has caught and he’s choked on it, and suddenly his other hand is around her waist and hauling her back tighter into him, caging her against him.
Being against him, she can feel what she couldn’t before – through his loose sleep trousers, Five has developed an erection. The knowledge, bizarrely, pleases Vanya. She knows she isn’t particularly pretty or smart or interesting, so the knowledge that she’s done this to normally so controlled Five sends a little thrill through her. She shifts her hips back against him with a little more vigor than necessary, and is rewarded when Five hisses, “Vanya” and his hand jerks a little from where it’s been keeping a measured pace on her clit.
“Rub harder,” she instructs him, too worked up now to try to word it more politely. Her bangs are sticking to her forehead, and she can feel sweat pooling in her lower back. Five obliges, experimenting with varied pressure, and she’s starting to have troubling thinking past the white-hot feeling building in her stomach and crawling up her spine. She wants to grab something, bite something maybe, anything – she doesn’t know, she’s never gotten this far before. Suddenly it all seems so overwhelming and she’s gasping out loud without being aware that she’s been doing it. Vanya panics slightly at the new feeling of a loss of control. She tries to move her hand, intending to nudge Five’s hand away to give her a second to clear her head, but he’s clever, and his hands are larger than hers – he thwarts her by trapping her clit between two fingers and squeezing, almost.
Vanya’s head bangs against his collarbone and she wordlessly gasps, her whole body rising up in an arch against that movement. One of her hands comes down without her permission to grip at Five’s thigh for stability and she digs her nails in; behind her, Five grunts and his hips jerk almost as helplessly as hers are. She doesn’t think she’s come, yet, brings her hand back down to facilitate it, and get a shaky finger to pick up its rhythm in-out-in again. Five has slid the hand not mercilessly teasing her clit up to her throat, slides it past to cup her chin and mouth finally, and he’s panting “shh, Vanya, we have to be quiet,” in her ear desperately even as he tries to silence her gasping moans. She wants to tell him it’s ironic coming from him, since he’s been making just as much noise as she is, but she can’t really form coherent thought anymore, beyond marveling at how big his hands have gotten, that they can effectively trap her mouth and chin to silence her.
Finally, finally, it happens, just as Vanya’s wrist is beginning to ache and her head is lolling back against Five’s shoulder – Five presses down hard, suddenly, and the circles he’s been varying on and around her clit pick up. She feels hot all over, but he just keeps going faster, pressing harder, and she’s providing the tandem movement down below while her other hand flutters between uselessly clutching at her breast and gripping Five’s thigh desperately, but when she brings the other hand back to her nipple again she pinches it just as Five moves his hand in some motion that makes the white noise crawling up her spine explode.
Vanya’s whole body feels like it’s going to shake apart. Her free hand comes back to scrabble at Five’s shoulder as she gasps, shrieks, “Five”, not even remembering how to be silent, muffled by the palm over her mouth, biting at the meat of his hand as she arches back against him mindlessly. She feels like she’s come apart, like a dying star. Behind her, Five chokes wordlessly, and she’s aware that something happening, but she’s too caught up in the fact that’s she’s potentially dying from pleasure to care. Her hand not involved in fingering herself has braced against Five’s thigh again, pushing her up and off, nails digging in to the soft inner flesh of his thigh through his pants, quivering helplessly. The hand Five had on her clit has abandoned its effort so that it can come up and wrap around her stomach, holding her closer to him as he jerks upwards against her.
It takes her a while to come back to her awareness, panting and sweaty, a patch of wetness at her back. Five has his face buried in her hair near her neck, gasping harshly. Feeling half-insane, more awake and satisfied than she has in ages, and with her whole lower half throbbing in shock, Vanya giggles a little madly. She’s gone mostly slack against Five, who is still half-slumped over her although he’s clearly trying to gather himself, clearing his throat repeatedly and trying to pull his shaking arms away from around her. There’s silence in his room while they both slow their panting, calming down, the humid night even seeming to have cooled to relief now that Vanya has finally reached a climax.
Or maybe that’s because father bought Five a nicer A/C unit than Vanya, who can say.
Five, of course, recovers first, and shifts against her. “I should go clean up,” he says after a few minutes, clearly striving for casual. Vanya refuses to shift against him. She knows he’s probably embarrassed that he came too – in his sleep pants! – but really, it’s almost flattering, that she got him worked up. That she did that. It feels just as good as her own orgasm…which is an interesting reaction that she’ll need to examine, but for another day.
“Okay,” she says agreeably. Then, “Can…can I sleep in here tonight?” When Five stills against her, she hastens to add, “your room is so much cooler than mine. And I’m sleepy.” To prove a point, she slips off of him and snuggles down into his covers, striving to look as nice and harmless as possible.
Five sighs, swings his legs over the bed, and says, “well obviously I’m not going to say no.” By the time he’s back, Vanya has her pants and tank back on and is tucked under his covers, which she raises invitingly for him. In the streetlight shining in she can see he’s changed into a pair of shorts instead, and that (even though they’re going to sleep) his hair is back to being excellently coiffed. He slides in next to her silently, wiggling down to get comfortable.
Vanya lets him adjust, then very carefully moves so that she is tucked almost into his side. When he doesn’t protest that, she snuggles closer, until her head is very close to what she would define as ‘resting on his chest’. Miraculously, he doesn’t protest that either – he doesn’t even tense up. “Thank you,” she whispers, when everything has gone perfectly still and silent, and she listens to his heart in his chest pick up slightly.
“Anything for my favorite member of the household,” Five says. “Although I suppose we didn’t really achieve our goal…you didn’t orgasm through masturbation, since I was helping.”
“That’s true,” Vanya whispers back at him. She pauses again. Somehow this is almost harder to say than her original ask, but she manages to get out, “maybe we’ll have to try again so that this time you can just instruct me.”
She wonders if he can feel her heart slamming against her ribs the same way his is, and that is what makes her certain of his answer, before he even says it, which is “Yes.” She goes to sleep with a smile on her face.
She’s fairly certain he does too.