Work Text:
Working as a waiter in a fancy restaurant was arguably worse than working in shitholes, Diego thought. At least in those places people didn’t look down on him. Diego often felt tempted to smugly inform the snobby customers that his father was a billionaire. They’d probably just assume he was the son of Pablo Escobar or something. “Duck the orange.” Diego grunted, unenthusiastically shoving the plate in front of the snooty shithead. “Duck à l'Orange.” his coworker warningly hissed as he brushed by. Diego knew what it was goddamn called. He spoke french fluently. He just hated these people.
Hearing someone crash directly into something from the front of the restaurant, and then an obnoxious giggle - Diego exhaustedly rolled his eyes, already knowing it was his brother. How could Klaus be so goddamn irritating when he was yet to say a word? Diego was surprised his brother could even remember he worked here. Turning to meet Klaus’ eye with a fiercely clenched jaw, Diego subtly gestured for him to leave. Klaus rudely scoffed, batting away the front of house who was attempting to remove him. Diego held up two fingers, signalling he’d meet him outside in two minutes. Klaus misconstrued this as a peace sign and returned the favor with a blue steel pose. Diego shook his head irately. “Two minutes.” he mouthed angrily. A look of realisation dawned on Klaus, and he happily stumbled back out of the door. Diego cringed with secondhand embarrassment as his brother walked straight into a fire hydrant, nearly giving his first broken jaw a run for its money.
—
Storming around the back and into the side alley, Diego whistled to catch his brother’s attention from the front. He couldn’t have anyone in the restaurant see them together. They’d have fair reason to look down on him if they did. He was also dangerously close to being fired because he was an asshole to everyone, his delinquent brother wouldn’t help his unpopularity with the managers. Klaus clumsily rushed over, rapidly chatting away to absolutely nobody. He was twitching like a dog in a goddamn shock collar.
“When did you come out?” Diego grunted, having been blissfully unaware his brother had even been released from prison. He was frankly still furious with Klaus that he’d been sent there to begin with. “When I was fifteen.” Klaus giggled at his own utter nonsense, blowing a revolting puff of smoke over Diego. He wafted it away with a scowl, trying to work out what the hell that response meant. He decided he’d just put it down to his brother’s evident inebriation. “I take it it didn’t scare you straight then?” Diego disapprovingly grumbled, taking in how out of it Klaus was. He looked even worse than he had before he’d gone to jail. Diego felt like an idiot for having had the slightest smidgen of hope that prison would have been a wake up call. His brother suddenly laughed so harshly that he spluttered, sending another cancerous cloud of smoke to Diego’s face.
Banging on his chest to stop coughing, Klaus tried to contain himself at how unimaginably hilarious that was. How could Diego make two gay puns, back to back, without even goddamn realising?! “More like the opposite! I’ve never been less straight in my life!” Klaus impishly exclaimed, causing a snort from Ben. His dead brother hadn’t been a fan of prison, which Klaus thought was mightily audacious since he wasn’t the one who was actually an inmate. At least Klaus had gotten his palm tattoos fixed up, no one had warned him they’d fade to illegibility. That would be a positive when he inevitably got sent back! He didn’t even have to pay the guy! Diego’s brow was tightly furrowed, looking at Klaus as though he were speaking latin. Well, maybe not latin... Pogo taught them that - some other dead language that he couldn’t understand. Diego shook his head to himself, clearly giving up trying to get a medal in his mental gymnastics. Klaus thought he could’ve gotten I’M and GAY on his palms instead, and Diego would have still stayed utterly clueless.
“I like you better when they’re tiny.” Diego scornfully pointed to his brother’s ginormous pupils. He was always insufferable, but especially so when he was like this. His grotesque near constant sniffles were like nails on a chalkboard. Klaus gasped swooningly, like he was deeply touched by the sentiment. “You actually like me sometimes?!” he teased childishly. Diego yanked the disgusting cigarette from his brother’s trembling fingers and flung it precisely into a far away dumpster as payback. “Hey! You owe me money for that!” Klaus cried out, looking down at his empty fingers with overwhelming disappointment. Diego chuckled with bitter disbelief. “Do you know how much money you owe me?!” he hissed, flabbergasted that his brother actually had the nerve to say that. Klaus dramatically rolled his eyes, reaching into his pocket for another cigarette. “No, but please tell me. I’ll write you a cheque.” he sarcastically murmured from the corner of his mouth as he began to light his replacement cancer stick. Diego pettily yanked the lighter from Klaus’ hand, deciding this would be a better punishment.
Ben was judgementally raising an eyebrow at his brothers’ astonishing immaturity. They were twenty, not ten... though this behaviour would probably be juvenile even for ten year olds. He was regretting telling Klaus where Diego worked. It would’ve probably remained one of the rare instances where Klaus habitually blacking out and forgetting everything was a positive. Ben hadn’t been expecting his brother to just barge into the establishment like a bull in a china shop. Klaus licked his hand and shoved it towards Diego’s face, so he could make him cringe enough to be able to snatch the lighter back. Diego banged his head into the alley wall in his panicked efforts to avoid their brother’s ridiculously infantile move. “Why are you like this?!” Diego groaned with frustration, rubbing at the back of his head with a wince. This may just be a record time for them getting into a puerile fight, Ben predicted. “You don’t wanna know.” Klaus ominously snickered, successfully lighting his cigarette. That was true, Diego would probably go and murder their dad if he found out about the mausoleum. Their brother had a fiery temper and an abundance of knives.
Diego agreed, he really didn’t want to know. Massaging the bridge of his nose tensely, Diego tried to stop this spiralling into absurd bickering. He had to go back to work in a couple of minutes. “What do you want?” Diego flatly sighed, wanting this whole charade to be done and dusted. He knew perfectly well what his brother wanted. He practically used Diego as a bank. “Love from my brother?” Klaus pouted, feigning being heart wrenched. Diego tightly tensed his jaw in an effort not to slap his brother. “I don’t have any money.” he grunted, because he didn’t. He was poor as all hell. Klaus probably had a better income than he did, except he was an imbecile and spent it all as soon as it entered his pockets. “It’s not money. I have nowhere to stay.” Klaus gestured to his tatty backpack, seeming to aim his smoke at something - though Diego couldn’t understand what. At least it wasn’t his face this time.
Dodging the stream of smoke like something out of The Matrix, Ben glowered at his brother for once again attempting to blow smoke through his ghost. For the infinite time. “That’s never been funny.” Ben tiredly uttered, shuffling in between his brothers and ambling further down the alley to avoid any more of Klaus’ idiotic nonsense. He could hear his seance brother cursing due to the disappointment that Ben had successfully escaped his little trick. After three entire years, it was remarkable that Klaus still found that so entertaining.
There wasn’t really much reason for Klaus to be banned from the apartment now Eudora had moved out - besides him being unspeakably irritating, a drug addict, and a thief... but Diego would choose to ignore those things. For now. He was practically the only person Diego had in his life in a relatively committed manner. Even if Klaus just repeatedly screwed him over to get money, he was still his little (but not little) brother. “No. Go inject heroin into your eyeballs, or something.” Diego gruffly goaded, desperately not wanting Klaus to know it was the tiniest bit good to see him. His brother was unbearable enough as it was, he’d be even worse if he knew he was somewhat welcome. It wasn’t like Diego was overjoyed by his company... it was just better than being lonely, that was all. Maybe he was kind of entertaining too, but Klaus could under no circumstances be made aware of that.
Wishing he had needles on him to chase Diego around with, Klaus tried to appear as persuasive and endearing as possible. Diego seemed like his head was going to start spinning around 360° like in the The Exorcist. “No.” his living brother bluntly repeated, frowning so much he looked as though he had wrinkles. “Just for tonight!” Klaus begged, hoping his brother would take pity on him. Diego seemed utterly unimpressed and unconvinced, moodily turning on his heel to head back into the restaurant’s back entrance. Klaus traipsed on after him, almost walking directly into a door again. Diego slickly swivelled to face him, prodding him backwards with a stern finger. “My car’s two blocks over, I’ll be done at nine.” he reluctantly informed Klaus, pointing to the direction of his car. Klaus grinned exultantly, holding a giddy grabby hand out to receive the keys. Diego dryly stared at him, them both knowing it was more likely to see pigs fly. “You’re an idiot.” his living brother fondly yet grumpily grumbled as he sauntered back into the establishment. This was a cause for celebration!
Predicting Klaus had the idea to get up to no good in the meantime, Ben chased behind him as he promptly lurched off. He just knew he would dream about punching Klaus if he were able to sleep. Hopefully Diego would punch Klaus for him later. His seance brother had shoved more shit up his nose so far today than one would’ve thought possible. Ben couldn’t understand how he was the dead one out of them.