Chapter Text
Spirits were already low when Luther pushed open the door to the first cramped motel room. Gathered around the doorway, the group issued a collective sigh as they took in the box-like room. The walls were stained yellow with nicotine, the net curtains spotted with mould from years of condensation. A threadbare sofa sat beneath them and directly opposite lay a distinctly lumpy looking double bed. Dust motes floated in the air before them, and a pungent smell of disinfectant tinged with cigarette smoke assailed the senses.
Klaus sneezed dramatically, throwing his arms up to shield his face as he plunged forth into the room. “Well,” he declared brightly, “I’ve stayed in worse places than this.”
He dropped his sequinned backpack on the stained, beige carpet and flung himself on the bed. The sound of twanging bed springs filled the small space. Klaus spread himself out into a starfish shape and smiled dreamily at the ceiling.
“You expect us to stay in this dump?” Diego demanded, dragging his eyes away from Klaus as he rounded on Luther, fists clenched.
“Reminds me of the apocalypse,” Five said, pushing between his two glaring brothers as he followed Klaus into the room. He looked around critically. “Only slightly less comfortable.”
"This isn’t my room, right?" Allison enquired hopefully, clinging on to the strap of her shoulder bag. She was yet to place a foot across the threshold.
“Uh,” Luther shuffled his feet, turning away from Diego to shoot her an apologetic look. “Well, I thought… you, me and Vanya in this one? I’ll take the sofa bed. And then the others next door?”
A stunned silence followed this announcement, broken only by the sound of a fly buzzing determinedly against the glass pane of the window. Diego seemed to have forgotten his fury in favour of pure astonishment. His mouth had literally dropped.
“Slumber party,” Klaus hooted joyfully, bouncing up from the bed amid another cacophony of creaking springs. “I’m calling dibs on our bed.”
“We’re sharing?” Vanya, asked, trailing in with arms loaded with grocery bags. She looked around with an impressively neutral expression, setting the paper bags down in what little free space there was. “I guess it’ll be safer that way…”
“Exactly,” Luther clapped her on the back a little too forcefully, sending her tripping over the shopping. He winced and reached out a hand immediately to steady her. “They only had two double rooms left, but I think we’re better off in groups. In case we get attacked, y’know.”
“Yes, well,” Five said, picking up his bag. “I’ll sleep in the car.”
“Not so fast, little man,” Klaus had already begun gathering a selection of the grocery bags from the floor. He rifled through their contents, removing a bunch of bananas in favour of a large bag of Cheetos. “You might need our protection. Come on team.”
He took the second key from Luther’s hand and hooked a finger through Diego’s knife holster in order to pull him insistently towards the door. Diego followed with a great show of reluctance, pausing to glower at Luther before he was tugged out of the room.
“You do need to stick together,” Luther agreed, avoiding Five’s eye as he began wrestling with the ancient sofa bed. The hinges of the folding mechanism groaned in protest as he attempted to wrestle it into shape.
“I’m not sharing with them,” Five hissed, looking scandalised. His eyes darted to the door from which their brothers had just departed. “You should split them up. Put me and Vanya with Diego.”
Vanya sat down pointedly on the bed and began removing her sneakers.
“Diego’s best at keeping an eye on Klaus,” Luther said. “What’s the issue?”
“I think it’s the double bed,” Allison interjected helpfully. She had moved resignedly into the room and was trailing a finger through the thick dust that coated the top of the boxy little television.
“Oh,” Luther rolled his eyes, as if Five were being extraordinarily childish. “You should have just said. I’m sure they’ll let you have the sofa.”
“Oh, I’ve got no doubt about that,” Five said. Turning on his heel, he left the room with a face like thunder.
Allison and Vanya exchanged a smirk and Luther rounded on them, throwing his arms wide in a bewildered shrug.
"Am I missing something?" He demanded.
…
Luther shifted on the sofa in the darkened room, attempting to force his limbs into a position approaching comfortable. He blinked furiously, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. From the bed came the sound of soft breathing, where the girls lay sleeping. Allison’s head was turned towards him and from the glow of a security light outside the motel room door he could just make out the curve of her cheekbone and the soft curls of her hair. Ears strained, he listened for the sounds of tyres scraping against the gravel outside. For the soft padding of footsteps. For the click of a gun.
A sudden flash of blue light sent him rocketing up from his reclined position.
“Fuck,” he bellowed, stumbling over twisted sheets as his hand scrambled for the gun he’d stashed under the sofa cushions.
“Put that down,” said Five, having materialised in the centre of the room. “You look ridiculous.”
“What’s going on?” Vanya asked, now sitting bolt upright in bed. She reached for the bedside lamped and flicked it on, filling the room with a soft orange glow.
Allison opened half an eye and groaned at the sight of Five in his blue and white striped pyjamas. She rolled away to face the wall and pulled a pillow over her head.
“What’s up?” Luther questioned sharply, already pulling jeans on over his boxer shorts.
“I should not have taken the sofa,” Five replied enigmatically. He sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed and looked around the room, purposefully avoiding his brother’s eye. “Any chance of a cup of coffee?”
“Its two in the morning,” Vanya pointed out, suppressing a yawn. Her hair was sticking up on one side and her eyes were blurred from sleep. “Why are you here?”
Five rolled his eyes, his flushing cheeks belying the look of bored irritation on his face. He bit his lip and examined his fingernails in apparent fascination. “I heard noises.”
“Is someone here?” Luther asked, still gripping the gun in his right hand. He glanced from the girls to Five in confusion. “Have they found us?”
"With no disrespect," Five said, "if they had found us, I wouldn’t be wasting time chatting to you, Luther."
Allison issued a heavy sigh, giving up on sleep as she forced herself into a seated position on the bed. She pulled the sheets up to her neck and glowered at Five. “What do you mean, you heard noises?”
“Moaning,” Five replied, coolly, “from the bed.”
A heavy silence descended on the room.
“So, Klaus was having one of his nightmares,” Luther shrugged. “I don’t see why we should all have to wake up because of it.”
Five rested his head in his hands and began kneading at his temples. “It wasn’t that kind of moaning.”
“You owe me five bucks,” Vanya announced conversationally, punching Allison lightly on the shoulder.
“Wait, what?” Luther said.
“Moaning,” Five repeated impatiently. “Whispering… giggling.” He shuddered.
Luther chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Five. You’re imagining things.”
Five regarded him with an expression of absolute disdain. "The day I start imagining Diego and Klaus shagging,” he began, “is the day I will voluntarily re-join the commission, kick start the apocalypse and see out the end of the world with one of Dolores’s famous margaritas-”
His tirade was cut short by the dull thudding sound of a heavy object being repeatedly pushed into a hard surface.
In unison, the four of them turned fearfully to the wall separating their two motel rooms.
“Told you so,” Five said, as the muffled thudding sound was broken by a low groan. He glanced at his watch as if wishing away the hours until morning. “Looks like they’ve noticed I’ve gone.”
“Fucking hell.” Luther clamped his hands hurriedly over his ears, wincing at the sounds now reverberating through the paper-thin wall. “You should have stayed there.”
Five spluttered in outrage, turning a bright shade of crimson. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, struggling to form words. “Did that transformation addle with your brain as well as your body?” he eventually managed to ask.
In the bed, Vanya and Allison had both dissolved into giggles, hands pressed over their ears.
Another loud moan came from next door, followed by the sound of Diego cursing repeatedly and then another muffled thud as the headboard hit the wall.
“Anyway,” Five said, raising his voice in an attempt to drown out the sound. He straightened the front of his pyjama shirt and headed towards the door. “I spotted an all-night diner across the road. Anyone care to join me?”
The sound of Diego’s grunts had been joined by a high-pitched whimpering noise. The bed frame hit the wall again, with enough force to cause dust to descend from the ceiling.
Vanya and Allison scrambled out from the bed, pulling jumpers and shoes on over their nightwear.
“I wouldn’t actually say no to that coffee,” Vanya said, almost falling over in her haste to push past Five and head out of the door.
“But…” Luther gripped Five’s wrist as the two girls fled past them, into the neon-lit carpark. He gestured hopefully at the wall separating the two rooms. “We can’t just leave them. What if someone finds them while we’re gone?”
“Oh believe me,” Five patted him reassuringly on one huge shoulder as he handed him his hoodie from the hook by the door. “Even the commission’s best agents wouldn’t be brave enough to get in the way of that.”