Rainy Days

Chapter Eighty-Four: S T O N K S

[jordans house—around two p.m., thursday]

JORDAN WAS sure that this war was soon going to come to a close. The three upstairs had finished off what remained of the soldiers up there and had joined the rest of them downstairs, effectively managing to force the rest into a tight circle. Five was moving slowly and sluggishly, his left eye swelling and blood trickling from his lip. Diego was limping slightly but it hadn't seemed to hindered his ability to fight that much, and Allison had narrowly missed someone shooting her through the throat. Ben hadn't sustained much injury, but he seemed exhausted. Luther was bleeding from a cut on his arm, and Klaus had blood flowing much too freely from his forehead, and Vanya's skirt was torn. Jordan himself had (obviously) been stabbed in the back of his leg and was fairly certain that was his only injury.

Only ten people dressed in the uniform all the soldiers had worn to Jordan's house remained, and all ten of them stood back to back, surrounded by the Hargreeves and him. The Green Day music had been cut off with a loud crash, which Jordan only assumed meant that the weird technical system Five had set up had been destroyed.

"Wait!" Diego shouted, his voice strained. The other seven froze, and the people they had surrounded watched with careful eyes.

"Do you give up?" the boy asked.

"We do not," one of them spoke out.

"Well, alrighty." Diego threw a knife at them and it landed in their throat, starting up another commotion; the creature that lived under Ben's shirt lashed out and grabbed two, while Vanya played a song no one else knew and effectively managed to snap one of their necks; Five spacial jumped so that he landed on a fourth's back and started strangling them, while Jordan and Allison used their respective powers to convince one of them to stand still while Jordan drowned them with the (now pretty disgusting) bathtub water. Luther and Klaus teamed up against the remaining ones.

It was going well. The entire thing had been going well, following the plan with few bump ups and it was working out so fucking well that, even though he felt like collapsing onto the floor and never getting up, Jordan was starting to feel exhilarated again as they finally got rid of the last one.

The last one.

It was deafeningly silent now, the only sound their erratic breathing of the eight of them scattered about the living room. It was nearly frightening, how quiet and still everything was after the chaos that had all but destroyed Jordan's house. It was almost uncomfrotable.

"Wow," Klaus whistled. "We actually won."

"Yeah," Jordan giggled. "We did." He looked up from the floor and relaxed his hands, the water he'd been controlling falling to the ground and soaking the floor. The liquid trickled over to Allison and Ben, seeping into their shoes a little bit, but they didn't care.

Diego made eye contact with Vanya and dissolved into laughter, the relief of winning just so overpowering that they couldn't help it. Soon enough, Allison had joined in, quickly followed by Klaus, who took one glance at Ben and sent the other into giggles too. Jordan's small chuckles became full-out laughter and Five was giggling to himself too. Luther was the last one to join in, but he did so loudly and happily.

"We fucking beat them!" Diego called out, his eyes twinkling as Allison hugged him tightly. "We fucking won!"

"Yeah, we did!" Ben cheered, laughing more when Klaus grabbed his brother and tried to sling him over his shoulder—failing immeaditely, as they both tumbled to the floor and lay there, laughing and laughing as though they had never been stressed about anything in the world.

Five made his way to Jordan and smiled widely at him.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked, and Jordan arched an eyebrow.

"I don't know, can you?" he teased, and Five rolled his eyes. Jordan grinned and pressed his lips to the other boy's, long and hard, the taste of blood strong. (He didn't mind, though—he'd get over it.)

"You're so fucking funny," Five mumbled, and then he kissed Jordan again.

"Stop being so romantic and cliche!" Klaus yelled from where he lay on the floor. "It's disgusting!"

"Fight me, Klaus!" Five said back, but he was smiling wider than anyone had ever seen him do so before.

For the next few moments, it was an entirely happy situation—they had just won one of the biggest fights they'd ever fought, they had defeated the Commission, they were alive and although the house had been pretty much fucking demolished, everything else was going just fine.

Then, a gunshot rang out. Allison let out a shriek of surprise and everyone froze, tensing up and whirling around to fidn the source of the noise.

Billie stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, her hair snarled and her face dirty and bloodied.

"You fuckers thought you won," she sneered. "But you didn't."

Luther fell to the ground, blood dripping over his fingers as Vanya shouted for her brother.

A/N:
o no luthie got shot :'(