The Hargreeves mansion feels both like long lost home and a sinking ship, wrapped up in expensive antiques, dust, and the smell of furniture polish. There's a fire burning in the hearth of the great room, the sounds of Grace's humming from the library, the scuff of boots or music from a bedroom far overhead. The house seems to be stuttering back to life, breathing on rickety lungs where Reginald had left them to rot.
The old man gone, the house is nothing more than a monument to manipulation, a bastion of warning to all things that away them by the end of the week. The end of the world. 2019.
The house might as well be dead and empty when he blinks home, blood splattered on the starched, white collar of his shirt, sticky in his hair, an annoying spot of dried spit on his tie. The last thirty-six hours have been nothing at all what Number Five intended, but then again, he hadn't intended to return to this timeline in the body of the thirteen-year-old willful try hard that his siblings knew all those years ago. Things are different now and the weight on his shoulders bears heavily upon him; the world is ending. The world is ending in five days.
The coffee at Griddy's had burned hours before he'd been served it and he can taste the bitter char on the back of his tongue even still as he paces through the foyer, a tin of coffee grounds tucked under his arm. Hindsight tells him he should have grabbed a donut on the way out, too, but the coffee's a start. (The donut would taste like a different year with a different bite, would speak to late nights huddled in a booth with kids his age, snort-laughing while Number Four tried to blow custard out of his nose).
He's grateful that the house seems quiet as he plods down the stairs and into the kitchen, cracking open the coffee tin on the way in. He blinks across the room, gathering a mug, then filling the coffee maker with water, and then—
"Shit."
No filters. No filters for a fucking coffee machine? He rifles through cabinets, drawers, and even digs behind loose tiles they used to hide things in as children. He comes up empty handed, save for an old set of playing cards with cartoon pinups on the faces, splotched in black mold. Tossing them aside, the pack slapping on the flooring, he plants his hands on the counter, closes his eyes, and breathes.
"Five days left in this shithole and I can't even get a decent cup of coffee."
ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏɴ' ᴅᴏ ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ's ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀ
The old man gone, the house is nothing more than a monument to manipulation, a bastion of warning to all things that away them by the end of the week. The end of the world. 2019.
The house might as well be dead and empty when he blinks home, blood splattered on the starched, white collar of his shirt, sticky in his hair, an annoying spot of dried spit on his tie. The last thirty-six hours have been nothing at all what Number Five intended, but then again, he hadn't intended to return to this timeline in the body of the thirteen-year-old willful try hard that his siblings knew all those years ago. Things are different now and the weight on his shoulders bears heavily upon him; the world is ending. The world is ending in five days.
The coffee at Griddy's had burned hours before he'd been served it and he can taste the bitter char on the back of his tongue even still as he paces through the foyer, a tin of coffee grounds tucked under his arm. Hindsight tells him he should have grabbed a donut on the way out, too, but the coffee's a start. (The donut would taste like a different year with a different bite, would speak to late nights huddled in a booth with kids his age, snort-laughing while Number Four tried to blow custard out of his nose).
He's grateful that the house seems quiet as he plods down the stairs and into the kitchen, cracking open the coffee tin on the way in. He blinks across the room, gathering a mug, then filling the coffee maker with water, and then—
"Shit."
No filters. No filters for a fucking coffee machine? He rifles through cabinets, drawers, and even digs behind loose tiles they used to hide things in as children. He comes up empty handed, save for an old set of playing cards with cartoon pinups on the faces, splotched in black mold. Tossing them aside, the pack slapping on the flooring, he plants his hands on the counter, closes his eyes, and breathes.
"Five days left in this shithole and I can't even get a decent cup of coffee."