Chapter Text
“So, when do I get a tour of the rest of this place?”
Klaus looked up from the mug of coffee he’d been contemplating and blinked at his new—houseguest? Employee?
…Overlord?
Over in the hearth, Ben snickered, a little crackle of a sound as the fire popped and sizzled in response to his amusement. Klaus hissed back at him and, with great dignity, restrained himself from sticking his tongue out in response to the taunting flickers of flame. When he turned back to the grouchy school-aged boy who’d recently taken up residence in his castle, he was met with an expectant (and slightly impatient) look.
Klaus cleared his throat and tried for a smile. “Sorry, what? I was a little distracted by this—’beverage’ you’ve so graciously provided.”
Five scowled at him disapprovingly, and Klaus wasn’t sure if it was for his inattention or the slight against the drink the newest member of their household had painstakingly brewed from a little satchel of beans he’d apparently found squirreled away somewhere in the pantry, though god knows how or when it had come to be there in the first place.
(And hadn’t that been a production, because apparently this newest stringbean of a boy who had started taking over his castle had opinions on the proper way to brew a stewed-bean drink, and Klaus’s kitchen and appliances didn’t meet his standards.)
“If you’re not going to drink it before it gets cold, give it here. I’d rather not waste coffee on someone who doesn’t appreciate it,” Five grumbled, taking the mug from Klaus’s unresisting hand and slamming it back like a shot of something much stronger. “Now, as I was saying : so far all I’ve seen of this castle of yours is this unrepentantly messy jumble of a kitchen-dining-parlor area and the bathroom over there. I want to see the rest of it so I can scope out a place to set up my office while I’m putting your books in order.”
From the squashy armchair by the counter where he was sorting reagents, Elliott looked up with a wide-eyed expression. He’d been twitchier than usual since Five had arrived, which Klaus could sympathize with; the neat little suit and baker boy cap didn’t do justice to the absolute well of frothing disdain and irritation that had washed up on their doorstep this morning like a tidal wave.
“There’s, uh, really not much more to see,” Klaus said delicately. “My room is the first door up the stairs to the left there, and my closet— Elliott’s room is the next door down. And then the little door here next to Ben goes out into the courtyard where we keep some odds and ends, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to work out there, the weather is so unpredictable.”
Five gaped at him. “That’s it? This place must be 60 metres tall from the outside, are you telling me there’s just four little rooms inside?”
Klaus resisted the urge to pout. It’s not like he planned for an invasive species of bean sprouts to invite themselves into his castle and expect him to have enough spare rooms for them to take their pick! “Look, it’s rather a lot of work to maintain a moving castle with all the protective charms and portal connections to different locations we have in place, and I didn’t exactly design this castle with heaps of inhabitants in mind! What part of a mysterious enchanted castle wandering the distant hills speaks to the idea of entertaining guests?”
With a scoff, Ben cut in. “Oh yeah, because you’re doing all the work to keep this place running.”
Ignoring him, Klaus tried to placate his new bookkeeper. “Look, we can see about adding some rooms next month when Mars is back in the fourth house, and property and household magic will be a bit more workable. In the meantime, we’ll clean off the table and that can be your dedicated workspace, alright? It’s a big table, and we hardly use it for sitting down to meals anyway.”
Still looking vaguely mutinous, Five subsided, mumbling something about “the terrible hospitality of this younger generation.”
With that near-crisis averted, Klaus returned his attention to more pressing matters. “Ben, would you move the castle at least three miles to the South and heat some water for that bath? I’ve got an engagement this afternoon I need to get ready for.”
“Surprise surprise,” Ben grumbled. “Would it kill you to spend a relaxing day at home for once instead of frolicking across the known world and sustaining yourself entirely on beauty elixirs and a bit of dry toast?”
Klaus ignored this, standing from the table and shaking out his robe so that it settled around him more neatly. “Elliott, would you be so kind as to help Five clear off the table so he can work? If you don’t know what to do with something just check with Ben.”
There, that should keep them occupied—
“Hang on, where am I going to sleep?” Five demanded.
Stymied, Klaus drew to a halt. He cast his gaze around the main room of the castle desperately, but found neither a solution nor support from Ben. The counter by the window really had too many delicate ingredients and magical artifacts to be relocated, the table was going to be repurposed into an office-space, the area by the hearth was cluttered with logs, fire pokers and Klaus’s favourite comfy armchair.
Klaus cleared his throat. “Oh just make yourself at home, there’s some spare bedding around here somewhere,” he said vaguely, then made his escape before any further arguments could break out.
--
Upon returning from his bath, Klaus realised he may have made a mistake in leaving his new bookkeeper in a temper with only Elliott and Ben to supervise him. Elliott, bless him, was a dedicated apprentice, but he was an absolute pushover; Ben regularly lectured Klaus to be nicer and stop taking advantage of his kind and accommodating nature, but Klaus held to the belief that if he kept at this, one day Elliott would get tired of the absurd nitpicking and constant orders, and would finally grow a backbone.
So far no luck, and Klaus was beginning to feel the tiniest stirrings of guilt, but like hell was he going to admit that much to Ben.
The point being—did he have a point?
Oh. Right.
Klaus settled his hands on his hips as he surveyed what had once been his cozy front room, and now appeared to be in the process of being methodically stripped of his belongings and rearranged to the point of being unrecognisable. The sturdy old countertop he used for mixing potions and spells had been shoved into the far corner by the door, and Elliott was in the process of trying to organise and find space for all the reagents and charms that had previously been scattered haphazardly around the room, a harried look in his eyes. The dining table had been cleared off, and on the floor to one side there was a pile of books, candles, and assorted odds and ends, including what looked like his guitar and an old umbrella with a jewel-encrusted handle that he’d— liberated from his old tutor. The only things remaining on the table were an inkpot and quill, a small pile of loose papers with the splotchy inked figures Elliott had been using to track inventory and income, and, perched just on the corner of the table in danger of teetering right off the edge, that strange old human skull that had turned up a couple weeks ago. His favourite armchair was completely missing, and Klaus shuddered to imagine what fate it had met with.
Perhaps worst of all, in the newly vacated stretch of room near the hearth, Five was busy at work laying out a make-shift bed made up of blankets, extra pillows, some curtains, and what appeared to be Klaus’s favourite quilted robe. Ben, the rotten traitor, seemed to be directing him on where to find an old fur-lined coat that might make for some nice additional padding.
Catching sight of a pink feather tufting out from under a heap of trinkets that had been stuffed into his old cauldron, Klaus squawked indignantly and swept forward to tug his treasured feather boa free from the mess. “Just what is going on here?”
“You said he could make himself at home,” Ben replied, his flames dancing merrily and contradicting his innocent tone. “We had to get creative to come up with something that would be comfortable to sleep on for any length of time.”
Giving up on freeing his feather boa, Klaus huffed and instead heaved the cauldron into his arms and clutched at it like a parent might with a cherished toddler. He scowled fiercely at Ben, then glanced nervously at the smiling devil now laying out Klaus’s favorite wool sweater as an extra pillow. Forget leaving Ben to supervise Five , he should have left someone to supervise the two of them together, because it was evident Ben was thrilled to have a partner in crime to make Klaus’s life miserable. What had he ever done to deserve this?
As if he could read his mind, Ben chose that moment to speak. “I mean unless you want to add on to the castle now? I know you have plans for this afternoon, but I’m sure you agree it’s important your new employee has somewhere comfortable to rest until you can get around to adding rooms, oh great and powerful wizard.”
Klaus gritted his teeth and forced a smile onto his lips. “No of course , you’re right Ben. We wouldn’t want anyone to be uncomfortable. I’m sure the coat and the curtains and—” Klaus gulped “—my one-of-a-kind handmade quilted robe will be just fine being used for bedding.”
“Glad you agree,” Five hummed cheerfully, not even bothering to look up at Klaus as he plumped up his new ‘pillows’. “Thanks for your hospitality!”
Klaus swallowed back a whimper and closed his eyes. “Right,” he said faintly, trying to gather his strength. “I’m just…going to go get ready to head out. Powder my nose, and all that. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
As he staggered up the stairs to his room, feeling not unlike he had just fought his way through a hurricane, he caught sight of a smirk flickering across Five’s face. With the dim light of the hearth casting shadows over his face when he bent down to smooth out his blankets, Five looked more sinister than the actual fire demon Klaus had entered into a contract with.
“Oh don’t worry, I will.”
--
So. Going out this afternoon had been a mistake, evidently.
Not that Klaus hadn’t had a great time down in Kingsbury! He’d met a charming and sophisticated visiting tailor when he’d stopped into his favourite boutique while visiting the shops and she’d had some truly inspired ideas about fabric patterns, and the little cafe he frequented for afternoon tea had been positively alive with local gossip; a pair of teenage girls had sat at a table next to him and quietly admired Klaus’s sleek, sophisticated jaw-length bob, even remarking to one another how mysterious and cultured it made him look! He’d still been buzzing smugly from the overheard comments when he sat by the plaza fountain with Helga for at least an hour as she rambled about her grandkids and her garden and her poor widower son who really was looking to get back out there and just needed the right person to draw him back into the world.
Klaus thought Felipe sounded like a charming man, but he really wasn’t sure if he was cut out to be a stepfather. And thinking about the pair of troublesome anklebiters he had back at home, he wasn’t eager to add any more.
Which brought Klaus back to his main point: given the state of things when he’d returned from something so brief as a (2.5 hour) bath, he really ought not to have been surprised when he came home from his afternoon of frolicking about Kingsbury to find all his inventory and potion ingredients scattered haphazardly across the dining table, his repurposed butcher-block counter displaced from the corner where it belonged, and a mess of sawdust and scrap pieces of wood from the courtyard littering the floor. Elliott was hard at work hammering together a few pieces of timber, muttering furiously in concentration, and to be honest Klaus was a little worried about spooking him while he held such a potentially-lethal weapon.
“Ben?” he asked, his gaze still fixed on whatever it was Elliott seemed to be building. “What is happening?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” Ben said cheerfully. “Lots of things are happening, Klaus—it’s a big, mysterious world we’re living in, to say nothing of all the others.”
Klaus expelled a noise that was somewhere between a squeak and an indignant huff. He gestured pointedly at the mess his home had become in the time he’d been gone. “This, Ben! Are we renovating? What is all of this, and, and—hey, where’d the alarming preteen bookkeeper go? Did I hallucinate that after all?”
There was a snort of laughter from the direction of the stairs, and Klaus whipped his head around to see the aforementioned harbinger of mathematics and doom descending from on high, his hands stuffed smugly into the pockets of his perfectly tailored shorts. “I’d ask if you frequently suffer from hallucinations, but then I realized—I don’t care.”
“He’d hallucinate a lot less if he stuck to using the psychedelics in his concoctions like he was taught instead of sampling them,” Ben said, his words caught amongst the crackle of the flames.
Five looked like he was smirking, but he finally seemed to take pity on Klaus and give him an answer. “We’re making use of all that junk you had thrown out in the courtyard and building some shelves to store all of your magic baubles. It was frankly such a mess over there that Elliott and I couldn’t make heads or tails of your inventory, which makes it a bit difficult to do your books to say the least. Frankly I’m amazed you’ve managed to stay in business this long if this is how you run things.”
Klaus shrugged. “These things usually work themselves out; the universe finds a way to reward those it treasures,” he said loftily, watching with a frown as Elliott let out a yelp and clutched a hand to his chest.
“Oh, is that what we’re calling it when you wake up in a panic at 3 o’clock in the morning and demand I switch out the door to Port Haven again so you can evade customers until you’ve had time to fill backorders and send Elliott out into the Waste to pick herbs and dig up roots?” Ben chirped obnoxiously. (And how a hearth could chirp obnoxiously was a question Klaus had stopped asking some number of years ago; Ben’s ability to sass was a mysterious and powerful force second only to Klaus’s ability to ignore it.)
Ignoring Ben, Klaus picked his way across the room, stepping carefully over the sawdust to avoid getting wood chips in or on his suede boots, and gestured wordlessly for Elliott to hold out his hand. “Yowza, kid, you nearly turned your thumb into a pancake there,” he said sympathetically. He twirled a finger in the direction of the table to call over a pinch of glittering powder, which he dusted carefully over Elliott’s swollen hand and activated with a quiet spell.
“Thanks,” Elliott said sheepishly, peering down at the convoluted wood frame Klaus could sort of picture coming together into a bookshelf, if a bookshelf was styled after swiss cheese.
Klaus patted Elliott on the head absent-mindedly, his attention now already on the possibilities of storage space offered by a bookshelf. Think of the decorating he could do! So many empty shelves to fill with tchotchkes!
Ben heaved a sigh, his flames popping sharply in disapproval. “No, Klaus, you do not need more useless trinkets to litter around this place. That shelf is for your merchandise and so poor Elliott can actually find the stuff he needs to fill orders for your customers!”
Klaus felt his lips curve into a pout. “But he’s been managing just fine until now!”
“Actually—” Elliott began timidly, but Klaus kept talking; Elliott could finally grow a backbone some other time, when it didn’t inconvenience the frankly innovative vision taking shape in Klaus’s imagination.
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of shelves sooner! Think of all the things I could buy if I just had somewhere to put them. It’ll be so nice to have somewhere to display it all, too, don’t you think?” Klaus chattered eagerly, shrugging off his feathered coat and tossing it over the back of one of the dining table chairs. “Better Homes and Garden ain’t got shit on the interior design that’s about to take place here at Castle de Klaus. Ben, heat some water for a bath, I need to have a good soak while I think.”
“Oh, about the bathroom—” Elliot started. Klaus barely noticed Five quickly shushing him, a strange glint in his eyes, too busy summoning his hairbrush from wherever it had wound up to save on time hunting it down in this mess. He hummed to himself as he began brushing his hair as he made his way to the stairs. He remembered he’d gotten a nice new conditioning serum he was eager to try out that was supposed to work absolute magic and produce luscious, shiny locks with no fuss whatsoever. Despite its ups and downs, this day was turning out to be quite promising!
--
Exactly one hour and forty-six minutes later, a piercing shriek split the peaceful evening as Klaus glanced in the mirror after his bath and caught sight of the horrifying, cherubic riot of burnished honey-brown curls that had replaced his gorgeous, chic modern bob.
Forget ups and downs; the day had effectively just derailed like a rollercoaster at the apex of its loop-de-loop and sent him hurtling straight down into the abhorrent, unforgiving embrace of catastrophe.