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@apaclypse
welcome to APACLYPSE : an independent, private, 18+, low activity rp blog for FIVE HARGREEVES of netflix’s THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY. penned by leah ( she/her. 22 ) !
carrd / about / memes
a study in the the irreparability of a life out of time, what it means to be a family, arrogance, the loss of self to sacrifices born of love, losing one’s childhood to trauma, healing at the end of the world, and how to find comfort in peace when all you’ve known is chaos.
friends i plan to be here soon-ish!! work has unexpectedly been kicking my ass </3 had some very long days and nights but know i am thinking of u all !!
TUA Appreciation Week | Day 3: Favorite Dynamic ↳ ft. the parallels of LUTHER & FIVE
* ☂ 𝚂𝙿𝙸𝚁𝙸𝚃 ... 𝙴𝚇𝚂𝙿𝙸𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃 :
“I think you look fine. You have all the benefits of adulthood, which are pretty much just getting drunk and high, and all the benefits of childhood, which are not getting taken too seriously or having the world expected of you. Sometimes I wish I was still twelve and innocent.” Well, mostly wishes — and mostly innocent.
She’s touched by his final comment, if brief. She wants badly to believe Five. It would make the whole prospect of growing up and dying less bleak.
“Can I tell you something?” She’s going to continue on without permission; she’s tipsy enough, and he’s caught her in conversation about the thing that captivates her the most. “I don’t know if there is a great beyond. Sometimes it feels impossible to help anyone pass over. And I used to try, a lot, when I was younger.”
A beat. “I don’t know if I’ll have any unfinished business besides fucking up as much shit as possible. I don’t mind doing that forever. It already feels like I hear a little bit of forever, all of the time. It’s only fair I exist on the same plane as the people who’ve followed me around for my entire existence.”
❛ easy for you to say. i’m sick and tired of not being taken seriously. ❜ he slurs through the words, his current state doing little to help his case. he wasn’t young and innocent, five wasn’t sure he ever had been. growing up in the umbrella academy meant throwing away your innocence as soon as you could walk or speak.
he nods, silently urging her to continue with curious eyes. ❛ can i tell you something ? ❜ five repeats her own words back at her, ❛ i hope there isn’t. that way everything can just ... boom ! be over. no waiting, no searching, no nothing. just gone. finally resting. ❜
five understands her sentiment, but he’d wandered the earth alone before. he didn’t want to do it after death. even if there were things to watch, people to check in on. once you were dead you couldn’t do anything to help the ones you cared for. he was certain it would be an existence of suffering. ❛ do you think you’ll be a better ghost ? cause you know what it’s like. maybe you’ll even get, ❜ he chuckles at his own words before they’ve left his tongue, ❛ magic ghost powers. ❜
* ☂ 𝙻𝙸𝚅 ... 𝙲𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙴𝙻 :
she holds her arms out wide, a shrug accompanying the action. “ hey, if you’re gonna be stuck in a car with me for hours, you gotta accept that this is who i am. deal with it or find someone else that’ll let you drag their ass across the country with no destination in sight, fiveroni. ” at the offering of the radioactive energy drink, liv decides to dial back the theatrics about 30%. good thing he got her favorite flavor ( the original, not that nasty ass pineapple ). overanalyzing her actually worked in both of their favors this time.
the can hisses when she cracks it open. “ mmm, not true, ” liv says after an obnoxiously loud sip. “ i met a chick on my girl interrupted stint that did the same thing. it’s a universal thing. like uh, ” she snaps her fingers, trying to find the word in a jumble of thoughts. “ coming of age! yeah. ” taking one more sip, her nose scrunches up. “ yeah, i can follow the itinerary if it’s not dumb as fuck. ”
❛ if you listened to me for once you’d know there actually is a destination. multiple destinations. and we are dragging our asses across the country to see all of them. ❜ and wasn’t that the point of the road trip ? who spent hours in a car just to see one thing ? wouldn’t that be a complete waste of time ? most days five didn’t understand how liv was still alive after everything she had gotten herself into in one lifetime. he was more confused that she had ever met anyone else who had even somewhat of a similar experience.
the reference she makes finally sinks in and he looks over at her in concern, ❛ you tried to kill yourself ? ❜ he’d known that in the years he was gone none of them had it easy, that klaus had died more than once. but it’s still jarring to hear, ❛ how old were you when you were hospitalized ? ❜
five scoffs with a roll of his eyes, looking down at the map and all of the circled locations, ❛ i asked you to get me a list of places you’d want to see and you just gave me a sheet of paper that said oh so eloquently ‘your mom’. so you’ve waived your rights to call the itinerary dumb. ❜
* ☂ 𝙹𝙴𝚂𝙿𝙴𝚁 ... 𝙿𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙾𝙻𝚂𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚁 :
“ istamere exactly, ” there’s a strong note of amusement in jesper’s voice — not the hardy, patronising kind that brekker and helvar liked to sport, but the wondering kind that his father was apt to employ; it came with an unspoken well, fancy that! beyond being a little impressed at the accuracy of the guess ( was it a guess, or had the boy recognised the brand? ), he finds himself growing slightly less surprised at the very-exacting-but-secretive way this conversation has been going thus far. “ you’re not wrong to be wary of the water. anyone too poor to afford a tidemaker — or bribe someone who has one indentured — has to suffer the ills of shitty water. literally, shitty water, ”
and there, jesper shudders quite elegantly, and very prudishly. “ oh, the patrons may do exactly as they wish, as long as they’re content to deal with the aftermath, ” the pearl revolvers slung about jesper’s hips feel as if they hum at the words; the ceiling is riddled with bullet holes, of which only a fraction are jesper’s doing. “ i thought this was harmless conversation? it was meant to take your mind off biting into the dirtiest thing in ketterdam, save for the water. do i get to ask your name, at least? ”
five makes a quiet noise of satisfaction upon hearing that his guess was correct. though mentions of the water is enough to wipe any whisper of joy right off his face. he grimaces at the memories of some of his first nights in ketterdam, how he’d made the mistake of drinking it and spent the subsequent nights spewing his guts into the harbor. scowl forms at the mention of indentured grisha, ❛ i think we should start killing anyone who decides to force a contract onto anyone. grisha or otherwise. ❜ he knew what it was like to be treated as less of a person and more of a tool. it wasn’t something anyone should experience.
❛ it doesn’t take much for words to turn dangerous. ❜ five had grown up largely isolated from the outside world and while his father had deemed it for his protection, he had always known the truth. it was more a prison than a home, him and his siblings had been grisha test subjects, not children. ketterdam had been a rude awakening in his initial months here, but he’d quickly adapted. the city left no other choice. ❛ five. and yours ? ❜ most assumed it to be a moniker of sorts and that was fine by him. they didn’t need to know the truth behind it, the story of a childhood built on experimentation.
* ☂ 𝙽𝙸𝙺𝙾𝙻𝙰𝙸 ... 𝙺𝙲𝚁𝙲𝙻𝚁𝙴𝚉𝙽𝙸 :
“Uh, yes. May he rest in peace.” The man had been old when he’d first met him and that was so very long ago. In Nikolai’s humble opinion, he should have been long dead. Or not dead at all. He has to wonder the exact circumstances of his former acquaintance’s demise. Someone so abnormal in life surely couldn’t have had a normal death.
Nikolai hears time and math in the same sentence and his mind starts to buzz. “What do you mean by ‘correct math?’ I would assume the math is pretty simple, seeing as there’s twenty-four hours in a day and all. Unless you’ve somehow managed to figure out time travel–.” He blinks once and then again. He’d removed himself from Reginald Hargreeves’ business for a very long time. Who knows what the man’s family’s been able to figure out. “It can’t be too hard of an equation - assuming it’s one equation and not multiple.. and not solving for multiple missing variables…”
He forces himself to not get too carried away in his thoughts. He is mid-conversation, covered in blood at a diner, of course. There’s a kid staring at them from her high chair, jaw on the floor. He can see the resemblance with her parents, seeing as their jaws are also in a similar state…
After Five secures his milkshake, he orders a whiskey sour for himself and slips the waitress a $20 while apologizing ‘for the mess.’ He can’t help but raise an eyebrow when asked about Reginald. “Saints, it’s not like someone like him can stay out of the public eye. I’ve always had a knack for science and engineering, so I suppose my knowledge of him comes more from the period of time he contributed to the space race than, well, when he decided to adopt as many children as possible and turn them into superheroes. So, no, nothing I can do to help you with your apparently daddy issues, I’m afraid.”
wordlessly, five reaches for a napkin and retrieves a pen from his pocket, scribbling the beginnings of just some of the required equations. once he’s covered the whole thing with advanced differential calculus, the basics of euclidean spaces and their intersection with the few calculable aspects of the quantum state, he slides it across the table to nikolai with a smug grin.
❛ i figured out the mathematical basis to time travel when i was 8 years old. of course it’s worthless to someone like you but, i’m not like others. ❜ he leans forward in the booth, ❛ so yes. it’s a bit more complicated than one equation and multiple variables. ❜
five’s eyes narrow, ❛ that’s an oddly specific period of time considering many of his contributions during the space race are unknown or buried away in redacted documents. ” he’s interrupted by their drinks being dropped off and he greedily reaches out, taking a long slurp of the milkshake, pausing and sighing with satisfaction at the first taste of alcohol. he hadn’t been sure they’d really put any in it. ❛ not daddy issues. ❜ he’s quick to correct, ❛ i just know the type of people he associated with. if you were one of those associates well, it would change things. ❜
he still remembered the men in suits reginald would bring through the academy, how he would pull five aside and tell him that he alone was required to present to their guests. he’d never been told why, never been told much of anything about his father’s mysterious activities. but he’d done what he could to ruin it. ❛ so this knack for science and engineering, is that what you do for work ? ❜
IMPORTANT HEADCANONS TO CONSIDER
CAN THEY USE CHOPSTICKS: yes !!! five learned at a pretty young age how to use them, he’s totally comfortable with them
WHAT DO THEY DO WHEN THEY CAN’T SLEEP: usually he reads, about physics or math or history or sometimes he’ll read fiction. he used to really love dystopian sci-fi stories — now they sorta just leave a bad taste in his mouth. he’d like to get into graphic novels because he was super into comics as a kid, but he isn’t really sure where to start and it’s a bit overwhelming
WHAT WOULD THEY IMPULSE BUY AT THE GROCERY STORE: literally the most random shit, grocery shopping is actually a little stressful after years of having to scrounge there’s so many options he almost doesn’t know WHAT to impulse buy so he’ll get whatever his eyes land on and just toss it in the cart and figure out how to make it into a meal later
WHAT ORDER DO THEY WASH THINGS IN THE SHOWER: face then rest of body then hair, he’s very quick in and out because staying in one place too long stresses him out. it always feels like there’s things to do and no time to relax
WHAT’S THEIR COFFEE ORDER: just black coffee, anything else is too sweet. the first time he tried a flavored latte after the apocalypse it was so sweet he immediately threw up. he’s tried it a few times since with the exact same reaction, so now the thought of anything other than black coffee sorta just makes him sick to his stomach
WHAT SORT OF APPS WOULD THEY HAVE ON THEIR SMARTPHONE: SUDOKU! he doesn’t totally Get smartphones they’d take a lot of time for him to get used to he wouldn’t be a texter and he wouldn’t be the type to really spend much time on a phone anyways but i think he’d enjoy brain games like sudoku or daily crosswords. i think he’d also like that one star tracking app that you can like point at the sky and it’ll show you all of the constellations
HOW DO THEY ACT AROUND CHILDREN: he has no clue how to talk to them whatsoever, he is so mean to them (mostly unintentionally, sometimes not) and he probably makes them cry do not hire him to babysit Ever. as he gets more used to rejoining society and learning about the types of things you Can and Cannot say he gets a bit better with it, but it’s always an uphill battle
WHAT WOULD THEY WATCH ON TV WHEN THEY’RE BORED AND NOTHING THEY REALLY LIKE IS ON: 100% just the news, it’s his go-to he enjoys learning about what’s going on in the world. however, he has definitely ended up down an ancient aliens hole not because he thinks it’s true but because he thinks it is so idiotic he cannot look away
tagged by : @appleyed TYYYYYYYY tagging : @celestiel ( loba or jettie ), @exspiritment, @insprout ( ben ! ), @moonexile, @maimedaffair ( dave ! ), @henddriks, @vicioushope, @pistolslinger, @proditeur, and you !!
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#what a polite young menace
THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY 3x01 'Meet the Family' 3x04 'Kugelblitz' 3x10 'Oblivion'
* ☂ 𝙻𝚄𝚃𝙷𝙴𝚁 ... 𝙼𝙾𝙾𝙽𝙴𝚇𝙸𝙻𝙴 :
he did have a choice, luther thinks. because it’s the same choice that luther has while he was on the moon, the same choice that he thought about far too often —- but he came to the same conclusion that five did, too. all his work couldn’t be for nothing, this whole life where he was destined to be a superhero couldn’t go to waste all because he couldn’t handle the solitude. luther thinks about five’s experiences, and he’s reminded how glad he is that they’ve both made it to the other side of that suffering. ❝ —- you had to choose to live every day, ❞ he notes, a bit quieter now, and it’s almost as if he’s speaking to himself. ❝ i don’t think that’s for nothing. ❞ he’s trying to tell him that he thinks he’s strong, brave. maybe if luther had known five was out there, choosing to live every day instead of letting the world swallow him too, he might’ve been stronger on the moon with a little inspiration from his brother. that might be too much to tell him out loud, though. ❝ i know our training probably helped you out there, but —- i bet that’s not all. ❞ because five was always better than all of them; luther used to resent him for it, but now he sees that he probably kicked the apocalypse’s ass just as luther had seen him do here.
luther leans his head back and rolls his eyes at his words, a reminder of another thing that he figured out a lot easier than him. driving was no simple task for luther to learn —- piloting a spaceship was much more his speed. ❝ yeah, well, try learning with other drives on the road. and dad in the passenger’s seat making that scowl —- you know the one, like he’s lecturing you without having to say anything at all. i’m not even sure why he let me learn, or why he taught me. guess he was bored. ❞ maybe part of him does understand it, though: it was for reginald’s own benefit, as everything was, and he scared him enough to make sure luther never felt compelled to take a car out on his own and leave that home behind for good.
when five insists that he likes it, luther looks out again, his mind quickly changing. if five can find the beauty in it, then so can luther. ❝ maybe you’re right. i’ve spent a whole lot of time looking at a whole lot of nothing. ❞ and space is the most beautiful place there is; he’s known it since he was a child —- but it’s still a lot of nothing, a lot of emptiness and no life. that’s not the same here, and he can appreciate it for that. he sees other families around, no two brothers looking like the two of them, but he can see them all enjoying it together, and he’s reminded of how grateful he is to be here with five now. it doesn’t matter what landmark they were looking at. it could be nothing but a pothole, but as long as he was with five, it’s a reminder of the life he still gets to live. ❝ hey, thanks for letting me come along. i’m glad i got to see it. ❞ it’s not about this, though — it’s about getting to make up for some lost time with his brother.
he remembers what it was like to land in the ‘60s, all alone, no idea where the rest of his siblings were —- especially viktor, who had just been cradled in his arms and was suddenly lost in time and space. he remembers that fear, the fear of knowing it should be his responsibility to protect him especially after all luther had done to him, only to have lost him, wondering if it was his fault. but there was some strange solace in not finding the rest of his siblings, either—- like maybe that’s how it was supposed to be, that maybe he’d find them again when he had worked to better himself and could prove to his siblings he was worth having around. the not knowing helped him, in a way. but if he had seen his siblings’ bodies and lost one of them, he’s not sure he could live with that knowledge. he hadn’t really considered that five hadn’t found everyone. ❝ sorry, ❞ he mumbles softly. he almost says, ‘ i remember how close you two were, ‘ but he quickly realizes he’s not sure if that’s actually the truth. he remembers viktor leaving things out for him in case he returned, but before that—- he wasn’t paying much attention to who hung around who, so he lets it go. a soft smile tugs at his lips as they talk about the book that meant so much to him, even if it might not have started that way. ❝ no, you weren’t. not even sure we were the only ones, ❞ he admits. ❝ uh, no. i’ve never told him. ❞ he hadn’t even considered. maybe he should have, with how hard diego was on him when they first reunited. maybe that’s when he should have stood up for viktor. he wasn’t always good at that, he only seemed to get worse after that, before he could get better. ❝ when dad died—- you know, before you came out of thin air, literally— ❞ he starts, shrugging his shoulders. ❝ guess it was the first time viktor had seen any of us since the book. wasn’t exactly pretty. they all said what they needed to. i dunno. y’know, when i first read it, i was just confused. kept circling things that i didn’t remember the same way, making notes to ask dad about, but—- never really had the courage. probably because i noticed he never opened his, ❞ he admits. ❝ i was confused back then. i guess, after the fourth or fifth time of reading it while i was up there . . . it started to make a bit more sense. and i didn’t know what to do with that. ❞ didn’t know how to admit to himself that viktor was opening his eyes to things that he had been too blind to understand before. five’s right, it would have meant a lot to viktor, he’s sure. he was just too stubborn to say anything. ❝ i didn’t, though. just like i didn’t hate anyone for leaving, even though—- even though i wanted to. ❞ maybe deep down, he always understood, even if he wasn’t ready to accept it himself. ❝ —- hope i didn’t disappoint you too much with the things you read about me, ❞ he notes with a soft smile.
❝ an asshole is more like it, ❞ he corrects with a laugh. he looks out at the view again as five recalls the memory, his face lighting up as he starts to remember himself —- something he hadn’t thought about in quite sometime now. he’s surprised ( and touched, really ) that five remembers it. ❝ yeah, yeah. i remember. i kept telling you to get on with it, and you were ignoring me. i had to do something, ❞ he insists, his grin growing. ❝ and i had to get the guy out of the way anyway. two-for-one. hey, see, we made a pretty good tag-team, right? ❞ the thought of five laughing about it later makes him even happier. maybe they did have some good memories through all of that, after all. those memories were made by them, not by what their father made them do—- and he can’t take that away from them. he scoffs, turning to look at him —- finding five’s smile even more contagious. ❝ oh, you sure as hell did. i knew you could handle it, anyway. i always did. ❞
luther looks down, because it’s maybe the first time that he’s ever heard that out loud ( at least the first time he’s heard it and actually believed it, too much time convincing himself that what his father did to him was out of the good of his heart, and that he should be grateful, like he was in debt to him. ) he doesn’t say anything about it, because he’s not sure where to even start. he’s always resented himself for what he was turned into. he’s always felt displaced, disconnected from the man he was supposed to be or could have been. ❝ —- you noticed right away, didn’t you? ❞ he asks quietly. he tried so hard to keep himself covered, but five seemed to have clocked him right away, only for luther to find out later on. ❝ i used to be ashamed, ❞ he admits, his brows furrowing before he shakes his head. ❝ maybe i still am. i’m never going to be normal. guess there’s comfort in knowing none of us ever will be. ❞ for once, he doesn’t feel alone. and he knows it’s not too far off for five, too. he finally looks back at him and nods his head. ❝ we’re a couple of goofs, huh? me, lookin’ like this . . . ❞ ape, but he’s never felt right calling himself that; the second he says it out loud himself, he loses the humanity of his body. ❝ —- with my 13-year-old older brother, ❞ he notes, letting out a soft laugh, trying to make light of it. ❝ i know the others can never understand what i went through. but—- feels like i can talk to you about it, ❞ he admits. meaning, he understands that five can resonate, being in the wrong body. hopefully that will show him he can open up too, if he wishes.
he hadn’t realized that he admitted to writing poetry. he had decided to never tell anyone, yet things are coming out easily with five. maybe it’s the comfort of being free for the first time in their lives —- or maybe it’s just that he knows five can understand him on a level the others can’t. ❝ yeah, don’t tell diego that. i’ll never hear the end of it, ❞ he insists. ❝ i did, anyway. been a few years since i tried. kinda lost the inspiration, ❞ he admits. but it got him through for a while, before his poems turned darker and darker— and eventually, to nothing.
he wants to scream at the question. not at five, but because it’s a question that he’s asked himself over and over for the past few months ( and even before then, before he realized who reginald really was, and before he was willing to admit that he hurt him. ) everything in him is telling him to just say ‘yes’ and move on. but after everything, he’s only gotten worse at lying—- especially to himself. ❝ i don’t think so. ❞ it’s barely loud enough to hear. ❝ that’s bullshit, isn’t it? i should. i should hate him. i want to hate him. he just —- ❞ he rolls his eyes and scoffs. ❝ makes it so damn hard, doesn’t he? ❞ in some ways, he does. he hates him for everything he did to him, everything he took from him, everything he kept him from, but there’s still part of luther that wants to badly for it all to go away, for reginald to tell him that their relationship hadn’t been a lie and he truly believed in him all along —- and he’s still in that cycle of only resenting himself because he doesn’t know how to put it all on reginald.
he thinks over his question for a moment, remembering the days before his accident. he buried those feelings so deep because he had to, he had to focus on the moon mission ( but that was reginald’s plan, wasn’t it? to make him forget about the opportunities elsewhere. ) ❝ i think part of me was ready to leave home, you know, before i got hurt. klaus had broken in one night. didn’t really hit me ’til he was gone again that i realized how badly i wanted to be around people again. i thought about going, and then—- ❞ their father made sure he had no reason to. ❝ then when i was on the moon, well—- i guess it’s like you were saying. i didn’t want all those days to be for nothing. ❞
he hadn’t considered living to be a choice. by all accounts it was, and one that had taken a long and arduous series of smaller events in order to actually succeed. but his family hadn’t deserved their fate and maybe he did, he still wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t about him. it wasn’t about his choices. it never had been. if it had been about what he wanted, five thought he would have curled up next to them, right at the start, and put a stop to things long before he ever had to endure forty-five years of suffering. ❛ no ... i suppose it’s not. ❜ the only reason it wasn’t for nothing was because his family was standing here alive. they were safe, everything else was ... just noise. five takes the compliment with a gracious nod, ❛ i managed. i learned how to adapt fairly early on. to be honest, our training had more of an impact when i was with the commission. however, in my younger years i had enough spite. i wanted to prove dad wrong, show him i could control time. there were times i wondered if he intentionally instilled that spite. ❜ five’s lips twist somewhere in between a grimace and strained smile, ❛ but that’s giving reginald too much credit. eventually i realized he was just a bitter old man and likely all the things he did that made me detest him weren’t for some ulterior motive. they were just because he was a horrible person and even worse father. ❜
it had been a hard pill to swallow — it meant that the pain he endured at the academy didn’t mean anything. it wasn’t to make him stronger or more resilient or special, it was pointless. it was just pain, plain and simple. five looks over at him, almost doubtful. he didn’t think luther was lying but it was hard to imagine their father taking the time out of his oh so important day to spend with any of them, let alone to teach one of them how to drive. it had been obvious that luther’s relationship with their father had always been different from five’s own. he supposed if he were to do it with any of them, it made sense that it was luther. ❛ dad taught you how to drive ? i bet he took you down 8th street didn’t he ? the road you can never turn left onto because of all the traffic ? ❜ five had only known about it because of the number of cars that remained on the road in the apocalypse, it’d been more than any other he saw clustered in one location.
❛ you’re telling me. ❜ five mutters in agreement, shaking his head with a small sigh. he’d missed this, the feeling he got in his stomach when he stared out at the reminder of how long the earth had existed before them and how long it would exist after them. at least now that they had saved it. luther had a lot to do with it too, more than five knew how to admit. if he were here alone, he thinks that he likely would have already turned around and left. but now he finds himself examining every little crack in the canyon, trying to buy more time with his brother. five’s lips press into a thin line, eyebrows narrowing as he slouches, ❛ yeah. thanks for coming. i wasn’t sure you’d want to. ❜ most days five spent waiting for his siblings to tell him they wanted nothing more to do with him. it had always felt a little too good to be true that they put up with him when their imminent doom was on the horizon. when it wasn’t ... they didn’t need him anymore.
five’s mouth opens and then closes, lump forming in his throat. what was he supposed to say ? that there was no point apologizing for something that hadn’t been luther’s fault ? that no amount of sorrys could ever make up for what he had been through ? he’d screamed so loud he’d been without a voice that first week, calling for his brother who was nowhere to be found. begging the universe that he was alive out there, that not finding his body had been a blessing. in the end it had only been another horror in his waking nightmare : the umbrella academy nothing more than a haunted house and him the poor soul stuck being haunted by it. he finally swallows the lump down, ❛ me too. it is what it is. i’m just glad no one else had to deal with it. ❜
he’d gotten off good when it came to viktor’s book. there were still harsh truths written about him, but it wasn’t all bad. he’d benefitted from that fact that people always saw their lost loved ones in a better light. viktor had described him as ‘prone to arrogance and outbursts’ but he’d also pointed out that five was the only one impervious to reginald’s manipulation. it spoke of how they confided in one another, how they trusted each other. viktor had been five’s best friend for years and then he blinked, and now the younger brother he had once told everything, sometimes felt like a stranger. he mourned what they might have been had he never run away, maybe viktor wouldn’t have been so lonely, so miserable all those years at the academy. maybe the world would have never ended. maybe that meant the world ending was five’s fault. maybe the both of them would have gone on to find some semblance of happiness in their lives instead of an all-consuming darkness that ate away at them day after lonely day. after growing up in a house with six siblings, five had never gotten used to the quiet. ❛ one of the first things he said to me when i got back was that he should have never written it. he never wanted to hurt anyone, he was just angry and sad. i’m not sure he realized how much it would affect you all. ❜ five was grateful that he had, but if he went back in time and changed it, he’d try to convince viktor to leave their siblings out of it. he was all for exposing their father, but he didn’t think their own problems needed to be put on display for the world to see. still, he’d take it over the alternative of it never being written. in many ways, it kept him alive, made him feel less alone on the worst nights.
five chuckles lightly, ❛ i had a lot of time to be angry for him. there were nights i sat awake and thought about throttling all of you for never reaching out to him but ... ❜ he had never been able to stay mad at them. he’d imagine their faces and his chest would tighten and all he’d be able to think about was everything he had lost. his jaw tightens at the memory and he’s quick to move on, ❛ i knew what it was like to be part of the academy. viktor didn’t see it for what it really was and reginald went out of his way to keep him separate. mostly, i was just pissed at dad. besides, ❜ he grins, making it obvious that his next words are only a joke, ❛ i was used to being disappointed by all of you. ❜
his grin quickly turns into something far more genuine, the type of smile he usually reserved for when he was alone. maybe it was about time he began trusting the others enough to allow himself to feel anything when he was with them. ❛ i had a good reason to ignore you. i was going to trick two of them into shooting each other before you messed up my plan. ❜ he’d come up with everything last minute, he’d been proud of how he’d thought of something so foolproof in such a short amount of time. he was certain it was a move that would prove how talented he was. now, five was glad it had gone the way it had instead. ❛ yeah, yeah i guess we did. imagine what we could do if we actually planned. ❜ perhaps that was one of many downfalls in their family : they were all both each other’s greatest strength and biggest weakness. ❛ oh i’m aware. i figured that out after all the times you glared at me during training when i came in first. ❜ there had been nights five wondered if luther hated him for always finding a way to adapt, a loophole in their father’s instructions. ❛ it seemed a whole lot like knowing i could handle whatever you threw at me was your biggest issue with me. ❜
he frowns, eyes falling as memories flooded him : the blood on the glass eye, the crushed bones beneath the rubble, the way his lungs had burned after just dragging one of them out. five thought he would have figured it out even if he hadn’t spent any time in the apocalypse, but he hadn’t noticed that there was something far too different about luther’s body just because he was observant. ❛ it was obvious. ❜ he bristles at his own words, as if he hadn’t expected them to fall out. were it anyone else, he likely would have just left it at that. five not wanting to talk about how he had known so quickly didn’t mean that his brother didn’t deserve to know. ❛ and ... ❜ he takes a small breath, ❛ when i found all of you dead, i wanted to move everyone from beneath the rubble. i tried to forget it but ... i couldn’t. ❜ his expression strains, he’d never thought he would talk about this in such detail. never expected to talk about anything that had happened during those 45 years. ❛ your shirt had been ruined in your fight to save the world. when i started to move the rubble off your body so i could bury you, the clothes ended up in an even worse state. i didn’t know what happened to you but i saw you were different. ❜
this time, five doesn’t laugh along with his brother and he can’t find it in him to even offer an attempt of a smile. ❛ i feel trapped. ❜ he stares down at the palm of his hand, folding it into a fist, ❛ and it’s made worse by everything up here. ❜ he motions to his head, ❛ do you have any idea how different the brain functions at 13 instead of 58 ? extremely. ❜ it was as if every second he had to fight his own impulsivity and remind himself to step outside of the body he was in and try to construct what his first thought might have been had he been in the correct body. it was exhausting. ❛ i’ve accepted that no one will ever see me for what i am. ❜ he thought that it would make it easier. it didn’t. he’d gotten better at responding to comments about his youth, when strangers referred to him as things like “young man” or claimed that he sure acted “mature for his age”. now, he’d often just ignore them. but the sharp pain that came with the reminders of his mistake had yet to fade. at this point he was convinced it never would. five sighs, ❛ maybe one day, i can accept it too. maybe the both of us will figure it out. ❜ with time, everything could change, and not just in a bad way. there was a chance, albeit a small one, but a chance nonetheless.
❛ now’s as good a time as any to start up again. poets seem to think that the end of the world would be perfect inspiration. ❜ there’s only a hint of bitterness in his tone and it’s by no means directed at his brother. in his short time back he’d learned so much media revolved around end of the world stories. what people didn’t understand was that there simply weren’t any stories that survived. not really. ❛ it could help you process what it was like on the moon. ❜ he knows he’s being hypocritical, if someone thrust a page and a pen in his hands and told him to journal about his isolation, he was certain he’d laugh in their face. five wouldn’t even know where to begin.
❛ it’s not bullshit. ❜ five mulls over the question for longer than he’d like to admit, ❛ dad made it hard for you to hate him. ❜ he doesn’t say it to make himself sound better or as if luther was the only one to be manipulated by their father’s actions. that would be a gross simplification of what occured in the academy. ❛ he needed you on his side. if number one hated him, it’d all come crashing down. so he did everything he could to keep you under his thumb. there’s a reason you knew he had a favorite tree and the rest of us didn’t. ❜ they were all manipulated in different ways by reginald. Ignored, locked away, and in some cases : shown an imitation of love that for a group of kids that had never known the love a parent, felt genuine. such a thing would make it hard to hate him. ❛ word of advice from someone who spent decades hating the guy ? it doesn’t fix what he did. but it does make it a hell of a lot easier not to trust him. do with that what you will. ❜ what he’s really trying to say is something along the lines of i’ll carry the weight of hating him for the both of us until you decide. until then, i’ll be there to remind you that you can’t trust him.
he nods solemnly, of course reginald wouldn’t have wanted to let him go. he’d never wanted any of them to have a real chance at living their lives. it’s why any real fun occurred when sneaking behind his back. ❛ any ideas for what you want to do now that you’ve got your whole life ahead of you ? anywhere you were thinking of going back when you first considered leaving the academy ? ❜
* ☂ 𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙳𝙰 ... 𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙻𝙴𝚈𝙴𝙳 :
🌿 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐚𝐲 there are visitors to the farm. in fact, she almost never has visitors. someone from the farmer’s market might stop by every once in a while. the most regular visitor is the lone postal worker, who puts the sparse mail in the box at the end of a long stone path. the presley farm is inhabited by seven chickens, two goats, one cow, nine duck, three sheep, and one human.
each and every one of them are startled to find one more number in their midst. andromeda has never been great at guessing the ages of others – always judging from the edge in their eyes or weariness in their posture, the wise turn of lips or the speedy bite of the young. the boy still fits in that category – boy – and is too disheveled for this to be how introductions were meant to happen. the dust of the barn gently swirls around him, as if the air that had distributed him here had been swept up in his wake. for a long moment, they’re held in stares : two humans, twenty - two animals, inside one barn, lit by one sun low in the sky. andromeda breaks the silence first. “ i don’t remember closin’ you in here with them last night. ” / @apaclypse gets a str.anger things starter.
what the fuck. this wasn’t ... home. where was he ? it had felt wrong when he jumped, like something had dragged him from the stream of time. an imbalance in the universe, even now, he still felt it. clearly he wasn’t in kansas anymore. five takes a moment to pause and glance around, nose immediately scrunching at the smell of manure, maybe he was in kansas. there’s a quiet cluck — yep, definitely not at the academy.
five almost laughs. of course nothing would work out for him, of course he’d botch things so badly he ends up in some girl’s barn with a ton of smelly animals in the body of his childhood self. because why should anything ever be easy for him ? he simply clears his throat, ❛ what year is it and where am i ? ❜ five didn’t have time for an explanation of how he got here or why ( nor did he have one ). what he needed to do was simply begin the very long process of finding out how to get back where he belonged. for all he knew the commission was right on his trail, maybe it had been them who knocked him out of time. ❛ and do you have anything to drink ? preferably coffee. ❜
* ☂ 𝚁𝙴𝙶𝚄𝙻𝚄𝚂 ... 𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙳𝙸𝚃𝙴𝚄𝚁 :
@apaclypse – plotted starter…
“it’s funny…”
a voice calls out as if from everywhere—echoing out from the endless aisles of shelves and shelves and books and books and the tables between them, perfectly-aligned, seats perfectly straight, as if never before touched.
and perhaps they haven’t been. it’s pristine, this place, despite the endlessness. despite the unfathomable heights of the woodwork and columns that support a ceiling cloaked in darkness. is there one? or is this place, in and of itself, simply… space?
“when you’re a guardian,” the voice continues, a little close now, a little more ‘behind’ five, the library’s unwitting intruder, “you begin to wonder at some point… whether or not you’ve finally seen them. the ‘very last visitor.’ ever. the centuries and millennia drag on, and you think, maybe it’s finally happened: the library, its knowledge, and you yourself are completely wiped from memory.”
five spins, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. where was he ? it wasn’t the first time he’d jumped to the wrong place ( or the wrong time ), if he wasn’t thinking with a clear head or let himself get distracted, he’d ended up usually a few feet from where he meant to go. but this was more than a few feet. he looks up, maybe the voice was coming from the all-consuming darkness — but then it comes from behind him.
he turns, eyes wide, forcing his heart to slow down. freaking out will solve nothing, he reminds himself, but it’d been a long time since he’d be thoroughly scared. ❛ guardian of what ? ❜ five pauses for just a moment, taking a deep breath and steadying his voice. he needed to be prepared, giving into fear would do nothing but endanger him.
he’d faced the unknown before, in circumstances more desperate than this. he could do it once more. ❛ a bit of a philosophy fan i take it ? can’t say it’s ever been my thing. people either remember you or they don’t. it’s not worth wondering about. ❜
Five + that lean thing he does
AAAAA just had my first day teaching ever i am Exhausted
please just let him sleep
* ☂ 𝙱𝙴𝙽 ... 𝟼𝚄𝙽𝙳𝙴𝚁 :
it takes him a moment, arms folded across his chest as leg bounces away. it’s only after a pointed, drawn out stare from five that he finally snaps to, giving a small start. “ — ?! oh. uh, sorry. “ sitting up straighter in his chair, he swallows, arms folding tighter as he clears his throat. “ uh, right. wh - what was i saying? “
with a sheepish chuckle, he scratches at his cheek idly, before : “ oh. right, i, uh, never really got to hear what you went through back in the future. y’ know, during the whole first - world - ending - apocalypse - … thing? “
his jaw sets, frown pulling taut on his face, his entire demeanor shifting in seconds. five was always on edge, easily angered, seemingly constantly at his wit’s end. mentions of the apocalypse made him quiet, as if some heavy silence had washed over him and forced him into saying nothing at all. with a sigh, he stands, ❛ well i’m going to need something stronger if you want to talk about that. ❜
five found there was very little he could say that would accurately describe what it was like. the words would catch in his throat, lump forming, and he’d change the subject. there was nothing worth saying at the end of the world. he tenses, ❛ you know i don’t get why everyone asks about it, it’s not like any of you missed out on anything good. ❜ he knew his family just cared, but he never wanted them to waste their time worrying over him.
how would he feel if the only clothes he could find were like. anime themed ones.
he'd absolute loathe it he'd see those funky little anime bitches and be like, “ why is their hair so spiky..... i don’t want to wear this .... why are they posing like that ” he’d be grumpy all day long but mostly just confused about the Youth
