Inspired by the Family of Two AU by tumblr user uponagraydawn and others, where Aunt Cass is nonexistent/doesn't take them in and the boys are left to fend for themselves, and the Baby Hiro AU, where Hiro is more than ten years younger than Tadashi.
Well, with a bit of tweaking this would work for canonverse too, but I pictured it with canon Tadashi and toddler Hiro.
Mere minutes before dawn, soft whimpering from the other side of the room stirred Tadashi from what should have been a peaceful sleep but was instead a hollow, strained stupor.
"Hiro?" He stopped staring at the window blinds flap in the wind and climbed out of bed, hurrying to the small wooden bed where his baby brother slept.
The toddler wasn't asleep now, his tiny body curled up in a tight ball, his fist shoved against his mouth, his face damp with tears. He let out another whimper and held out his arms to Tadashi.
Biting his lip, Tadashi picked Hiro up, feeling the thin arms and legs wrap around him, their grip surprisingly strong. "What's wrong, Hiro?" he asked.
Had Tadashi been asked that question, he could have answered quickly and easily--everything. The fact that their parents had died. The fact that they had gone without their children by their side to hear their last goodbyes. The fact that they had left behind a teenager and a toddler to fend for themselves in a confusing and very scary world.
No, there was nothing right about any of that. But this was Hiro, and "wrong" for him could mean anything from a bad dream to too many blankets, so Tadashi waited for the answer, pacing about the room in hopes that the movement would help the child feel better.
Finally Hiro leaned back in his brother's arms so he could fix the older boy with innocent hazel eyes. "I want Mama," he said, with childish insistence.
Tadashi froze mid-pace.
It took him a few minutes to find his voice. How did one tell a three-year-old that his mother was dead?
"Mama is...gone, Hiro," he said slowly, trying to hide the tremor that threatened to fill his words. These few days, he'd purposefully avoided the d-word, as much for himself as for Hiro--he vaguely remembered someone telling him not to introduce children to death too early, and this way, somehow, it felt less awfully, terribly, irreversibly real. "She and Dad have gone to someplace else. Somewhere better than here." Better than this dark, drafty room, full of pain and pacing.
Only when Hiro's eyes widened in shock did Tadashi realize the error of what he'd said. "You mean they left us here?" the toddler burst out, fearful and disbelieving.
"Oh, no, I mean, yes." Tadashi hugged Hiro closer, more desperately, struggling for the right words to say. "They didn't want to go, they wanted to stay with us, but they had to."
Hiro bit his lip in perfect imitation of his older brother, and Tadashi could practically see the miniature cogs turning in his brilliant little mind. Then he spoke, tilting his messy head of hair to one side, his statement cutting straight to the bottom of Tadashi's heart.
"Are Mum and Dad dead?"
And for a moment Tadashi was absolutely lost for words, his mouth open and empty, because yes they were dead but how did the three-year-old know? How did he even know what death was?
Hiro was fidgeting, anxious for an answer, and then Tadashi remembered that time when Dad had brought him fishing. Too impatient and rambunctious for such an activity, Hiro had come back with a single fish no bigger than a thumbnail. He'd loved that ridiculous catch, had refused to let anyone even speak of cooking it, and had placed it tenderly into a plastic bowl filled with dechlorinated tap water. Tadashi seemed to remember him calling it Bubba.
"Dad? What's wrong with Bubba? He's not moving."
The minute fish was floating upside down in the water, while its owner tapped anxiously at the bowl.
Tomeo Hamada bent over the pet for a few seconds before straightening up and opening his mouth to speak. "Hiro, I'm afraid Bubba is--"
His wife cut him off with a firm shake of the head, and they went into a corner to argue for a few heated seconds. Tadashi caught phrases like "no point in shielding him" and "you need to do it with tact."
When Tomeo came back, a sympathetic smile on his face, he stooped down to Hiro's level to meet his eyes.
"Hiro, I'm going to tell you something, but you need to be strong, okay?"
The toddler nodded, serious and attentive.
"You know last week we learnt about the heart?"
Another nod.
"Well, sometimes the heart stops beating, and then breathing stops. Then the animal dies. That's what happened to Bubba."
"Oh, I know about dying," Hiro stated calmly, while the rest of his family gaped at him. "I read about it in my books. I just didn't know all of it. Is it like a really long sleep?"
"Kind of," Helen Hamada answered, holding out her arms. "His time just ran out, that's all. He's in a better place now. C'mere, baby."
Returning the hug, Hiro said into his mom's shoulder, "Well, I had fun with Bubba." He smiled a little, too reflective for a three-year-old. "It was good while it lasted."
Good while it lasted.
Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Tadashi jostled Hiro in a soothing rhythm as he resumed walking the room. He buried his head in the toddler's wild mop of hair to hide his misty eyes, and whispered, "Yes, Hiro. Mom and Dad are dead."
His feet slowly scraped to a stop on the wooden floor.
Tadashi was squeezing his eyes shut to will the tears away when he felt a tiny hand patting his cheek. He opened his eyes to see Hiro searching his face with worried eyes. "Are you crying?"
Blinking hard, Tadashi shook his head "no," but Hiro had both hands firmly cupping his older brother's face, too observant to be tricked. "You gotta be strong, remember?"
"I remember." Tadashi tightened his hold on the toddler, gaining comfort from the warm body pressed trustingly against his own. Hiro's thumb drifted towards his mouth, and his head sunk sleepily against a sturdy shoulder.
"I still want Mama."
I want her too. Tadashi bit the words back. It took a great deal of effort for him to tug the corners of his mouth upwards in a half-smile which quickly disappeared. "I know. But it's just you and me now. And you have me. You'll always have me."
Hiro snuggled deeper into Tadashi's chest, nodding drowsily. "Can you sing the song?"
"What song?"
"The sunshine song."
"But that's Mama's song," Tadashi murmured into the scent of baby shampoo, his eyes tired.
"I still want you to sing it."
Tadashi sighed silently, the rise and fall of his chest lulling Hiro further. "Okay," he gave in, beginning to sing in a soft voice, realising that the fight against tears was futile at the same time.
You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine.
As the boy's eyes slowly drifted shut into the blissful slumber of an untroubled child, the brother adjusted Hiro's position slightly, his weak but tuneful voice carrying across the room.
You make me happy
When skies are grey.
A small smile spread across Hiro's sleeping face as the first arrows of dawn crept into the attic room.
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Tadashi sang in a voice thick with grief to the child nestled in his arms, letting the tears run down his cheeks into the mess of Hiro's hair.
Please don't take my sunshine away.
The rosy sun rose on two brothers, rocking alone in the rhythm of the world, holding on to each other as the last words of the song were swallowed by the morning breezes.
Authorly Notes:
1. I'm going to drown myself in feels one day.
2. Hiro probably sucked his thumb longer than normal. Hence the tooth gap.
3. I am AU trash. 100% confirmed.
4. Also THIS SONG RIPS MY HEART OUT OKAY???
5. Is this angst or fluff or neither I don't even know.
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