@crowdeads : people can’t always hear what i hear.
“guess i’m just the sensitive type, then.”
the sentence comes with a smile that isn’t really a smile, more of a grimace that warps his expression. his voice is caustic. he doesn’t really mean it to be. living alone in the apocalypse doesn’t exactly teach you to be kind, and the commission didn’t teach him that either. in fact, there he was often intentionally cruel, especially at first. you have to convince the higher-ups that you don’t need something ridiculous like a partner to keep you in check. efficient. cold. and good at what he does. it comes through even now, in the body of his thirteen year old self.
there is nothing sensitive about him. he is not a finely tuned instrument in the way klaus can communicate with the dead, or the way that viktor hears sounds. no. he’s nothing like that at all. what he does tears holes in the fabric of things. space. and now time, too.
he waves a hand idly, dismissive in the way a thirteen year old should never be. it comes off as the demeanor of an old man. “or i’ve got job experience in the world ending. a few times, actually.” five leans back in his chair. it’s an old impulse to stretch out his back and alleviate aches and pains that no longer exist, not in this body. sometimes he half-expects to wake up in the body that should be his, one that wants to retire and do nothing while somewhere that’s a comfortable temperature. “as long as it’s not one of my beloved siblings behind the whole damn thing, i can probably assume i’ve dealt with worse.”