#𝐢𝐯⠀:⠀𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚎. . .⠀⠀oh god knows where.

[greatloss]

@theseancekid. . . 𝙺𝙻𝙰𝚄𝚂 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙶𝚁𝙴𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚂.

❛ have a drink with me. ❜

the instinct to refuse on principle is on the tip of his tongue. habit ; sibling asks him to do something, tells him to do something, the chances of that thing being imbecilic or otherwise disastrous grow rather exponentially. apocalyptic, even, but today, the sun is low and the sky is free of smoke and ash, shadowed instead by drowsy clouds sleepwalking among the rooftops, and instead of the manic gleam five is accustomed to trying to smother in this particular brother there is something dulled. muted. cooled and gray, like the windowpanes. five finds he can stomach this shade more easily than the other [ not a lie, technically, even if he'd gladly stomach both than neither ], though perhaps only on the condition he climb up onto the barstool beside him. “ well, if you insist, ” he says, grin a jagged, small thing, tempered. five hasn't turned down a drink in his fifty - eight years on this piss - pool of a planet, but— sharp - shot eyes remain blink - less and narrowed up and down the line of klaus' sapped form up close as the man fills two glasses rather generously with liquid decidedly. . . colorful.

“ are you sure you want to— ” oh, if five mapped out his words as well as his physical coordinates in time - space, maybe he'd have landed in less shit than he has. where it counted, at least even so. “ y' know. ” he finishes flatly, more irritated, now, with himself than his brother. grabs his glass with white knuckles.

[greatloss]

@bentacled. . . 𝙱𝙴𝙽 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙶𝚁𝙴𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚂.

❛ i’ve got your back, okay ? ❜

record / chicken - scratch, the ball - point of five's pen pooling ink on the inside of his wrist. behind it trails breadcrumbs of letters and numbers and symbols half - smeared into each other, overlapping, comprehensible only to himself, needles upon needles upon haystacks of variables penned down to skin - grain— PAUSE. the pen trembles out another squiggle, meaningless. too telling, rather, matching the short rattle in his chest.

he lifts his head from his work and swallows it down, straightening, flattening, still. solid ; they must be solid. real. his gaze flicks to meet his long - dead brother's like a life - line thrown and caught, dear - in - headlights still, otherwise, corpse - like. the steel in him moltens at the warmth he finds there, though, something no longer brittle enough to snap ; only bend, as if to clutch at something just out of reach. “ i'm gonna fix this. alright ? ” he says it like a promise, but it's barely a whisper. the pen shudders again, so he buries it in his fist and turns to face ben fully, alive, alive, real. you're not gonna die again. i'm not gonna let you.