A Crappy Hotel and Beyond | Unnamed City | Evening

[knife_bender]

Diego broke many traffic laws to get to the seedy part of town to the motel where Patch said she'd be. He saw her car parked outside, and his heart sank when he saw that she wasn't in it waiting for back up.

He ran up the steps to the second floor, knife in hand. He tried several doors, calling out Klaus and Patch's names, hoping to hear an answer from one of them. He finally came across a door that was slightly ajar, but the room was dark.



"Klaus?" Diego whispered, letting his eyes adjust to the low light of the room. A moment later he saw the outline of a body. "No, no, no--"

Diego knelt down onto the carpet where Patch was. His hands were shaking as he moved to get a better look at the wounds. If he had been a little less overwhelmed he would have checked for a pulse, but all he saw was the pool of blood around her, already soaked into the carpet. How could anyone survive that? "Eudora?"

"Why didn't you wait?" Diego asked, voice cracking as tears came to his eyes. "I was on my way...why didn't you wait?"

He heard sirens outside and he knew he didn't have much time. "I've--I've gotta go, okay? I can't be here when they come."

He shakily got up, sparing one last glance at the body before leaving the motel. He needed to Five.

Luther	Right, so, Diego had ran off to do something stupid, but Five had sobered up at least. And was now being truthful about things. Only took hitting rock bottom to get there, but whatever. "When's it supposed to happen?" Luther asked, getting some water for Five. Last thing he needed was his shoes puked on again. "The apocalypse."
Five	Unfortunately he'd sobered up, yes. "I can't give you the exact hour," Five said with as much annoyance as he could muster with his head pounding like it was. "But from what I can gather... we have four days left."
Luther	"Why didn't you say something sooner?" Like when Luther had asked what the hell was going on the first time.
Five	"It wouldn't have mattered." Like, straight up. Teamwork did not, in fact, make the dream work in this case.
Luther	"Of course it would have." Jeez, Five, it's not like you even heard Dad's eulogy at Ben's--oh wait, he didn't. "We could have banded together and helped you stop this thing."
Five	OH SURE, BRING UP THE ONE BROTHER EVERYONE LIKED. "For the record, you already tried."
Luther	"What do you mean?" he asked.
Five	"I found all of you. Your bodies." Well, most of you. Not Vanya or Ben.
Luther	"We die?" That's generally what finding bodies meant, Luther.
Five	Luther. Really. "Horribly," Five informed him helpfully. "You were together, trying to stop whoever it was from ending the world."
Luther	"How could you possibly know that?" It seemed more likely they died bickering with each other and not noticing the end of the world happening until it was too late.
Five	You know what? That was fair. Five sighed and dug out the fake eye from his pocket to show him. "This was clutched in your dead hand when I found you. Must've ripped it out of their head right before you went down." Which. You know. Props for that, Luther.
Luther	Luther immediately opened his mouth to ask how long Five had been carrying that eyeball and then decided that he didn't want to know. "Whose head?"
Five	Just since he first got to the future! It wasn't weird at all! "Like I said," he replied, starting to remember how annoying Luther could be. "I don't know."
Luther	"Well there's a serial number on the back, maybe we could--"
Five	"No, no," Five said, cutting him off. "It's a dead end. This is just a hunk of glass." Because everything was terrible.
Diego	That was when Diego came back into the apartment (storage room), looking incredibly pissed off specifically in Five's direction. "You piece of shit, do you know what you just did?" Diego launched himself forward at Five but instead found himself being lifted off the ground by Luther in a bear hug. Ape hug. Whatever. "Nope, get your ape hands off me!" Diego said, trying to wriggle his way out.
Luther	Luther sighed. "I can do this as long as it takes you to calm down."
Diego	"Fine," Diego muttered, going still. Once Luther dropped him he made no effort to go after Five, but it looked like he wanted to. "Our brother's been pretty busy since he got back. He was in the middle of that shootout at Griddy's, and then at the Gimble Brothers."
Five	"None of which is your concern," Five said, giving Diego an up and down look.
Diego	"It is now," Diego said. "They just killed my friend."
Luther	Luther frowned, turning to look at Five. "Who are they?"
Five	Oh, what was that feeling? Was it... was it guilt? Five didn't like it. "They work for my former employer, a woman called the Handler," Five said, actually providing information for a change. Ugh, guilt wasn't fun. "She sent them to stop me. Then as soon as Diego's friend got in their way... Well, fair game."
Diego	"Well now they're my fair game," he said. "And I'm going to see that they pay." He knew how cliched that sounded, just let him be dramatic for a minute.
Five	Yeah, way to lean into that brooding loner stereotype, Diego. "That would be a mistake, Diego. They've killed people far more dangerous than you."
Diego	"Yeah, well, we'll see about that." Oh, you bet your ass he flounced out of there in a huff after saying that.
Luther	That went exactly how he thought it would. It was no use trying to calm Diego down, so instead he focused on Five. "Former employer? What's this all about?" He held up a hand. "And don't give me the 'it's none of your business' crap."
Five	Rude. It wasn't any of anyone else's business. "They turned me into the perfect instrument for rehabilitation of the time continuum. Or "corrections" as they called them," Five said, thinking back to how he'd been recruited after so many years alone save for Dolores. "I wasn't the only one. There are others like me. Beings out of time, fractured, extracted from the lives that they knew. I don't know how they got there. But I do know none of them were as good as me." Well, he wasn't proving Luther's 'you think you're better than everyone' thing wrong at all, was he? "They didn't realize it, but I was biding my time, trying to figure out the right equation so I could get back. I knew if I could get back I could stop the apocalypse. Save the world. So I... broke my contract."
Luther	Okay, well, that was a lot. And Luther didn't actually understand a good chunk of it, but he wasn't about to admit that to Five. "So you were a hit man?" That was the gist of it, right?
Five	Way to get just that out of Five being honest about his past here! "Yes."
Luther	"I mean, you had a code, right?" Luther asked, a wee bit innocently. "You didn't just kill anybody."
Five	"No code. We took out anyone that messed with the timeline." Because that was the job.
Luther	"What about innocent people?" Oh, bless.
Five	Jesus, Luther. He already felt guilt over Diego's friend here! "It was the only way I could get back here."
Luther	Oh, it was only getting worse. He now gave Five that kicked puppy look. "But that's murder."
Five	He was going to slap Luther's big, dumb face! "Jesus, Luther, grow up," Five snapped maybe a liiiittle defensively. "We're not kids anymore. There's no such thing as good guys and bad guys. There's just people going about their lives. But when the world ends, all those people die Including our family."

[NFI, NFB but OOC is appreciated. Taken from 1x05 "Number Five"]