illicit | five hargreeves - EDITING

seventy two

chapter seventy two: you're on your own, kid

"When we say say reality, what do we really mean? In the 1800s the best mind of the age theorized we live in a clockwork cosmos. In the Quantum Age, time and space are suspected to be a holograph, ancient people believed we rode on the back of four flying turtles or on the horns of a white buffalo. These ideas beg the question, will we ever know the shape of reality? Or offer still, does it have a shape other than the one we give it?"

Anthony leaned back against the chair, raising his hand slightly and looking at it. He felt weird, not in a bad way but more of a floaty way; he didn't exactly feel real right now, and he knew that a part of that was because he technically wasn't. He wasn't even a person anymore, he was just imply existing entirely outside of reality, which was sort of calming in a way.

He had spent a lot of his time, probably too much of it, thinking about death and what would happen to him when it inevitably happened. Anthony wouldn't admit to anyone other than his husband that the actual process of death terrified him, scared of going too soon and loosing everything he ever had.

The actual dying part didn't scare him, but what came for the entirety after is what did. None of us truly know what happens when we die until we get to that point ourselves, so it really is just one of the mysteries of life we'll never know, and Anthony wasn't an exception from that.

Anthony was slightly surprised that the actual dying part is what hurt a lot more than what had come after it. He remembered the pain and the fear inside of him as he felt his body slipping away from his grasp, but when he woke up in the deserted area all of that had gradually left him. Luther showed up not long later, which definitely helped him cope at first.

His only concern right now was Five; more so how long would he have to wait for him to get here. He wasn't sure if time worked the same way in the afterlife as it did down on Earth, so Anthony wondered whether or not he would be waiting years and years just to see his husband again, and that was the scariest part of the whole thing, he decided.

An eternity spent in peace sounded nice, but an eternity without Five just sounded more like Hell rather than Heaven.

"Wow!" Luther stated as he watched the screen sitting in front of them. "Makes you feel tiny, huh?"

Anthony hummed in agreement, looking at the pizza in his hand and wondering whether or not his lactose intolerance-ness stuck in the afterlife; that would suck even more if it did.

Klaus picked up a piece of pizza from the box, "Why would you put pineapple on a pizza?" he asked.

"You know when you think about it," Luther ignored him and continued. "We are just tiny specks of sand in a desert full of other sand."

He looked at his pizza "I mean it's a garnish for cocktails, at best," he only continued complaining.

"And that's inside solar systems," Luther kept talking, "Inside deserts of galaxies!"

Anthony only leaned into his seat, looking between the two of his brother-in-laws and trying to follow both of their rambling about different things. He held a soda can in his hand, sipping out of it from a straw as he just listened.

"I guess the real question to ask is, why is it on my pizza?" Klaus exclaimed, looking over at his brother.

"Klaus, are you even listening to me?" Luther asked.

He nodded, "Yeah sure, we're insignificant in all things blah, blah, blah," Klaus replied. "Sorry I'm not a stoned undergrad sitting in freshman philosophy."