do you have enough love in your heart

[somebadnews]

WHO: Five and OPEN
WHEN: After this mess and bounties are issued for Messalina's little helpers
WHERE: Various points around Ephes
WHAT: A boy plays fetch with a dog, gets targeted for murder, and has too much to drink, not in that order
WARNINGS: language, violence, dead hellhounds, and other typical Five-things

Prompts below, all taking place in the same day. (I'm sorry this idea started out so wholesome...) Open to action or prose, whatever your preference!

Comments

[nothinglikefather]

Jacob watches, head turned slightly towards Five, watching him think as he swallows, watching how he looks at something Jacob can't see- a past, a family, horrors untold that Five has battled through. Are things really no better? Are they worse? The end of the world isn't something Jacob has ever sparred much thought about, and what little he has considered isn't so much the destruction of human civilisation, but the end of the planet. After all, that's the world, isn't it? Maybe he's got that wrong.

"Is it really as bad as what you've experienced before?" He asks, because truly, he didn't think it was all that bad here. He's not been here long he'll admit, but he quite likes Ephes. Apart from the undead at the gates and the horrible mangled corpses.

He pauses, thinking back to what little he does know about the young man next to him, about the fact Five's father has brought them up to save humanity or... something like that. About the fact they keep failing to do that. But perhaps they actually keep succeeding, and it's the rest of humanity letting them down.

"You might be counting your chickens before they're hatched. We're not there yet. Things might turn out different. And if they don't, you've got the experience. You've got through five apocolapses. Thats five more than anyone else I've ever met. You'll get through another."

[somebadnews]

Jacob isn't the only person he's met who seems to genuinely prefer this world, but it's still a relatively new phenomenon. Mostly from those who haven't been round long enough to know better, as much as he wonders how bad things were at home if Ephes seems like a vacation. Then there's the fact that logically, Five should be the same. He's got a point. Anything is better than what he experienced before. No undead, just... dead. Everyone dead, until he reversed it after working on how for decades.

Here he has family. Two out of six isn't great, but it's better than none. And even if they've only gone from crisis to crisis, he got another shot to spend time with them. If he can ignore the fact that at least four others have been here, if he counts Lila, and disappeared without a trace. He tells himself they aren't dead, but they always die. No matter what he does.

"That's inaccurate," he mumbles, feeling the sudden need to clarify. "We've averted five potential apocalypses. I've only experienced the other side of one. That was... that was..."

Words fail him so he gestures vaguely at nothing. Five doesn't fool himself in pretend the apocalypse didn't warped his mind in ways no one seems to see. Returning to his childhood body certainly didn't help. But nobody wants to listen to an old man gripe about his trauma. Least of all someone who has killed as much as him. Although Jacob might be more accepting of that than most, as long as he doesn't get too many details.

"There are worse things. I suppose I just had... different expectations. I haven't gotten in right yet."