Chapter Text
After that, there’s only Luther and Klaus left.
"Marianne Albrecht. Emigrated to London from Stuttgart, Germany in..." Diego flips through the file. "Nineteen ninety-six. So we were seven."
"Any family?" Luther asks.
"Yeah, a husband, also German, and – oh, snap. Two daughters."
Klaus looks up from his knitting. "She has kids?"
Diego grins and offers him the file. "Fourteen and twelve years old. You've got two more sisters, bro."
Ben crows delightedly and slaps Klaus on the back.
“Well, that works out,” Allison says. “Klaus and Luther can go to the UK together. Luther’s birth mom lives there too, right?” She gasps suddenly. “What if –”
“Don’t say family vacation,” Five groans.
“We should do a family vacation!”
“You sure you want to get a plane with this lunatic?” Diego points over his shoulder at their littlest brother. Five kicks the back of his knee viciously and he crumples to the floor, groaning. Vanya snickers.
Klaus claps his hands together in excitement. “This is going to be amazing! I can’t wait to ride first class.”
Five rolls his eyes and gets up to get more coffee. “I am not going anywhere with you numbskulls.”
//
Five decides that Hell is a crowded Heathrow baggage claim.
“Hey, Five, look!” Klaus yells from across the room. He’s sitting on the handles of Luther’s luggage trolley. “I can do a wheelie on this thing!”
He tries to do a spin and promptly tips the trolley over. He and their bags fly off and land on the ground with a few dull thunks right in front of a disgruntled-looking airport security officer.
Five sighs.
//
Somewhat surprisingly, Klaus gets along splendidly with his new sisters. Within half an hour of meeting for the first time, the three of them retreat to fourteen-year-old Liesel’s room to ostensibly catch up, but most likely talk about boys.
To everyone else’s dismay, this leaves his other siblings to make awkward small-talk with his mother – at least, awkward for them.
“Trust Klaus to make us socialise with his own estranged family,” Diego hisses into Five’s ear, as Luther and Vanya listen politely to a long-winded story about Mr Albrecht’s herb garden.
Five grits his teeth in a dismal attempt to smile. “When we leave, remind me to tell him to count his fucking days.”
“Right behind you, man.”
Allison seems to have recovered most of her bravado concerning her conversation skills, and asks Mrs Albrecht about her life in Germany.
“Oh, it was lovely, my dear, but really not the thing for me, you know? Too fast-paced! German people are so blunt all the time. And it’s always cold, too! Not like here in London.”
Allison smiles, the picture of an engaged listener. “You don’t say?”
“Of course, my dear! Ah, I’m suddenly reminded of what the young man next door’s brother said last week about turnips…”
Abandoning Luther to Mr Albrecht’s clutches, Vanya shifts closer to Diego and Five and lifts her teacup up as if to drink. Out of the corner of her mouth she whispers, “how come Klaus’ parents are so…”
“Suburban?” Diego suggests. “Boring?”
“I was gonna say ‘normal’, but yeah.”
“I don’t know, but looks like they dodged a bullet with him,” Five says sourly, and then a hissed, “ow, what the fuck, Vanya?”
She draws her hand back from his arm with a raised brow. “Don’t be rude, or I’ll pinch you again.”
Diego sniggers into his teacup.
There’s a sudden crunch. Everyone turns to look at Luther, who slowly sets the remnants of his shattered china teacup down on the coffee table.
Even Mr and Mrs Albrecht fall silent. Klaus’ high-pitched laughter sounds faintly in the distance followed by the shrieks of two preteen girls.
Luther grimaces. “I can pay for it?”
//
Five and Klaus opt out of meeting Luther’s mother, choosing to go bother seagulls on Brighton Beach instead of suffering through another hour of teatime. The rest of them turn up to Alice Wanstall’s house twenty minutes late, on account of most people spotting their blue-tinged, translucent dead brother and hurrying away before they could ask for directions.
Ben shrugs with apparent indifference, but Vanya can tell he finds it kind of funny.
After a memorable walk through a series of dank alleyways and a brief five-minute interlude where they realise they have phones to search directions on, Luther rings the bell of 17 Herston Road at precisely ten minutes to two. The door immediately swings open.
“Luther, my boy!”
The woman standing in the entrance is chubby, to say the least, with a sizeable nose that sits above a blinding, motherly smile. She bears such a striking resemblance to Five’s old ‘colleague’ Hazel that the five of them are momentarily struck silent. This doesn’t faze Alice, however, who ambles forward and wraps Luther in a tight hug.
They stay for three hours.
//
“That wasn’t as painful as I was expecting,” Luther says afterwards, sounding surprised. “I thought she’d be shocked to see me.”
“Why would she? She knew we were coming,” is Allison’s sensible reply.
“And you don’t exactly blend into a crowd, Luther,” Vanya points out. “People know what you look like.”
Luther shrugs and goes to talk to Ben.
“She probably got some pics from the super-secret MI6 source or whatever that Five won’t tell us about,” Klaus teases.
“I told you already, idiot,” Five gripes. “It’s not important.”
“Alright, then, keep your secrets,” Klaus says breezily. He sandwiches himself in between Allison and Vanya and throws his arms around their shoulders.
“I want a sundae,” he declares. “What do we say, ladies?”
“Fine by me.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Awesome! HEY, LUTHER, BEN,” Klaus screams up the deserted street. “COME ON, WE’RE GETTING ICE CREAM.”
They stop petting a dog to give him twin thumbs up.
It’s a good day.
//
bonus
“No, seriously, man,” Diego whispers, lagging behind the others. “How are you finding all these people? What are your sources? Because if you’re doing something shady –”
“Oh my god, fine,” Five hisses. “I found Dad’s records in the study and did a fucking Google search, Jesus Christ. I’m not the CIA. Don’t tell anyone or I’ll punch you in the dick.”
Diego stops short, gaping. “You…Googled it?”
Five raises a fist threateningly.
“Jesus, okay! I won’t tell!”