As The World Caves In [Five]

Sixteen

Do you prefer chocolate or candy?

They all moved with one goal in mind: get back to the academy.

But moving Five down from the attic, down the steps, and into the car was quickly proving itself to be more of a demanding task than anyone dreamed of.

None of them had the power to move Fives passed out figure without hurting him but when Allison gave up and said they would just have to lower him through the hatch as gently as possible, Emery had a thought.

What was it Five had said? Light was in everything?

He didn't think it could be possible, what he wanted to do but everyone's eyes were wide and they were clearly afraid of hurting their brother even more. With a shrapnel wound left unattended to for so long, there was no telling what might happen to the boy if something were to go wrong

So Emery had taken a shaky breath in and then another and another until the breath was clear and even and then he spread his palms and felt for the light in between each atom of air, of Fives clothes and his entire being.

Slowly, after he thought his efforts were surely doomed to fail, Five's body became weightless, carried by the strengthened light down the hatch.

Emery carried Five from there with his own hands, too unreliable were his abilities to manipulate light to trust them to carry Five to the car and back.

By the time they got to the academy, the muscles in Emery's arms were strained. It wasn't because Five was heavy. Not in the slightest. He had just tightened them unbelievably so to reduce the likelihood of dropping the boy. His arms dropped to his sides as he as they laid the boy down and gathered around him.

"Idiot." Emery said— had said and would say for many more times before and after that moment in time. "Idiot."

"We should have taken him to the hospital."

"A kid with a shrapnel wound might raise some questions." Five contributed. He had woken up some time along the way. To be fair though, he's never really fallen asleep. Just had— fainted... several times and then come back to them in a deleterious haze.

"Yeah, well, so does the murder shrine in Harold Jenkins' attic," Diego said.

"He's still losing blood. What do we do?" Allison asked.

"Well, to start, get the shrapnel out. We have to clean the wound and make sure it's not infected before stitching it back up and wrapping it." Emery had never known much about how to tend to a wound before but being around Five in general and his mighty conquest to save the world from complete annihilation taught Emery enough about wounds to know how to go about fixing one.

"He's right." Diego agreed but his gaze snapped to elsewhere and then he was moving.

"Diego, where are you going?" Allison called out after the man but he wouldn't listen.

"Mom?" He called out and then Emery saw Grace there. It was the first time he had seen the woman but then again- he only saw glimpses of her as she and Diego talked and then she was coming towards them with almost stiff movements and a frown on her face. She scooped Five up despite his grains and carried him upstairs. Emery followed behind silently, taking the liberty of going to the washroom he had seen along the way and washing the remains of blood and dirt from his face when Grace claimed she needed a moment to work in silence.

He didn't know why but something pulled at him when he left Five and Grace alone. And he knew it was because some deep part inside of him wanted to stay, wanted to be there when Five woke up to comfort him and console him through the pain. He shook his head and splashed cold water on his face, ridding the thoughts away in time with the water disappearing down the drain.