Chilly Boulder | Wednesday Evening

[knife_bender]

Look at that, Diego and Five were once again able to be together in the same room without immediately getting into a slap fight. It was a miracle. The fact that Diego's apartment was clean and Five was no longer in a tunic probably helped. Also the prospect of ice cream was a good lure.

Diego had ordered two black coffees and pointed at a random item on the menu without really paying attention to what he was ordering. That might end in regret.

[Diego's here for his brother, but open ice cream place is open]

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[apocalypsehow]

It might have had something to do with some distant memory with their mother maybe. Because Five hadn't stolen Diego's phone in order to destroy any evidence of the weekend.

Yet.

"Whatever you ordered better not have Old Bay on it."

[knife_bender]

"You know I can't guarantee that," he said. "It's Maryland, I'm surprised the coffee doesn't have Old Bay in it."

[apocalypsehow]

Five made a face, looking away before sniffing his coffee to make sure it wasn't poisoned. Or sullied with Old Bay.

[knife_bender]

"Annie says I'm supposed to apologize to you." Which would happen only if he was actively dying.

[apocalypsehow]

Five shot him a look that strongly implied Annie was once again acting like Grace. "She did?"

She didn't know anything about siblings, did she? They could just pretend things didn't happen and probably smack each other instead.

[knife_bender]

"Yeah," Diego said, shaking his head. He loved her, but no. That was never happening. "She's an only child."

[apocalypsehow]

Oh yeah that made more sense. Five considered it for a moment before nodding in understanding. "You can tell her you did."

Because an actual apology would cause them both to break out in hive.

[knife_bender]

"Dude, I'm not lying to my girlfriend," he said. "Also I'm not sorry."

[apocalypsehow]

"I know you're not sorry," Five replied, rolling his eyes. "Fine, I'll lie for you."

Because he didn't have any issues with it.

[knife_bender]

What a good brother Five was!

Diego rolled his eyes and looked up just in time to see two waitresses set down what Diego ordered at random.

"The Beast," the waitress said with a flourish of her hand. "If you finish it in an hour it's free."

[apocalypsehow]

That was legitimately the most loving thing a sibling in their messed up family could offer!

"...Diego, what did you do?"

[knife_bender]

"I didn't do it on purpose!" he snapped. "Who would order this on purpose?"

Adam Richman, host of Man vs Food for one, but Diego didn't really watch that sort of stuff.

[apocalypsehow]

Some day they were know of this show. If the world didn't end.

"Well, good luck finishing it," Five said. Because clearly he was too mature to help out.

[knife_bender]

"Grab a spoon and start eating, asshole, this thing is like thirty bucks." Sure, he had the money on him, but he wanted it to be free, damn it.

[apocalypsehow]

"That's your fault, not mine." He was gonna eat some, but he was gonna also be difficult about this.

[knife_bender]

"You wrecked my apartment." Annie forced him to keep the plant, Five! You owed him this!

[apocalypsehow]

That plant cleaned the air for you! It was a working plant!

Five sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes, grabbing a spoon. "Child," he muttered.

[knife_bender]

Diego looked very pleased to win an argument for once, even if it was over demolishing a giant sundae. He dug into the monstrosity, wrongly assuming they had plenty of time to finish this between the two of them.

"You owe me a conversation anyway," Diego said around a mouth of cookie dough. "We got interrupted by gunfire the last time."

[apocalypsehow]

"I'm still working out the details," Five said, a bit stiffly as he swallowed a mouthful of mint chocolate chip.

[knife_bender]

"The details," he repeated. "Of the world ending."

[apocalypsehow]

"Yes," Five replied like Deigo was just being difficult here and he wasn't being as confusing as possible to keep up the level of communication dysfunction that was just the Hargreeves family motto. "It's not like someone wrote down 'this is what happened' before everyone died."

[knife_bender]

"Fine," Diego said, picking an oreo out of the sundae. "What do you know? Anything at all?"

[apocalypsehow]

Five jabbed at the ice cream monstrosity for a moment. Because anger was how he processed grief. And by 'processed' he meant 'repressed'. "You were all there at the end. Fighting whatever caused it, I guess."

[knife_bender]

Well that seemed unlikely. But he could tell by the look on Five's face that he at least thought he was telling the truth.

"So the Umbrella Academy finally gets together to save the world and we fail?" he asked. "Man I bet Dad was pissed."

[apocalypsehow]

Don't make him relive your corpse, you asshole. It would just make him more angry.

Also, he might get into your liquor cabinet.

"He was also, presumably, dead."

Like everyone else, you know.