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Five flipped through the kitchen cabinets for the umpteenth time that afternoon and scowled.
No coffee.
He had been home for barely more than a day, and yet, the Commission had already chased him out of his favourite doughnut shop, making it impossible for him to show his face there again without much questioning, and more than a little distress. He warped the length of the kitchen. It was so in character for their father to own a perfectly effective little French press with nothing to use it on.
Without a doubt, the Temps Commission was actively searching for him. He had work to do, things to plan, and someone to… visit. Five had taken the opportunity to remove the Commission’s tracker, so that should have bought him some time, an evening at least.
Time enough for a coffee, before shit really hit the fan.
Klaus rolled his body halfway off of the couch, groaning as the room began to spin. He needed some food, asap.
Ben watched his brother untangle himself from his partly discarded skirt and pull himself, half swaying, into a standing position. With a shake and a shiver, Klaus stretched, purposefully ignoring Ben’s expression of annoyance.
“It’s torture for me watching you do this to yourself every morning.” Perched on a nearby chair, chin in hand, Ben sighed.
“Mmmm,” Klaus mumbled, “You know what would be great right about now?” he paused, looking expectantly at Ben.
“Watching you sleep for another ten hours?”
“Eggs,” Ignoring Ben for the second time, Klaus groaned happily, “Eggs would be unbelievably sublime… right about-” Klaus tipped himself back onto the couch, before popping back up in time to catch Five striding through the living room. “-Oh Five! Perfect timing, where are you off-”
“Nope.”
Without breaking pace Five warped from the room to the entranceway.
“Wait!” Scrambling, Klaus pulled on his formerly discarded clothing from the night before, including Allison’s skirt.
Ben peeked around the corner into the foyer as Klaus careened past, bouncing off of the door frame. “He’s definitely not waiting.”
Klaus caught up with his brother just as he was pulling away in the car. He tried the passenger side door handle, but it had been preemptively locked. “Five, please…” he pouted, tugging at the door handle in vain.
Without looking at Klaus, Five stopped the car and leaned over to unlock the passenger side door. “I’m not in the babysitting mood, Klaus.”
Klaus couldn’t even be bothered to feel offended, but he definitely looked it. “Oh well…” he said, making himself comfortable and clipping in his seat belt. “I thought we could catch up.”
Five looked at him blankly.
“You know, some brotherly bonding time… on the way to… wherever you’re going.”
Ben sighed loudly from the backseat.
“Try your hardest to make me not regret this. I’m getting coffee.”
In tandem, they jogged across the busy street after parking the car.
“Fifteen minutes,” Five reminded Klaus, “Fifteen minutes and we meet back at the car. Got it?”
“Yeah… yeah of course.” Klaus nodded as earnestly as he could manage. He gave his brother an easy smile. “No problemo.”
Five, appearing unconvinced, rolled his eyes, before darting through the other shoppers and entering the sliding doors of the store.
“You don’t even own a watch,” Ben hissed, “and you pawned your phone last week!”
Waving his hands around, as if to shoo Ben’s spirit away, Klaus followed Five into the store, making a beeline for the refrigerated aisles. He ignored the lingering side-eyes and scoffs of the other well-to-do shoppers. First up; eggs. Klaus sidled over to the dairy fridges and began pretending to check cartons for cracked eggs. With a certain sleight of hand, he slipped two eggs into each coat pocket before walking away; shaking his head in mock disgust as if annoyed by the quality. Ben followed him listlessly, peering into other people’s grocery carts, and sighing in longing at the mundanity of it all.
Klaus threaded through the aisles, on the lookout for anything that piqued his interest.
“Look!” Ben’s gasp stopped Klaus in his steps.
Frozen. Waffles.
Klaus had not tasted waffles since… since that day long rager where he had torn the ass of his pants out jumping the fence running from the cops. It had been 5 A.M and the girl he had been staying with stole three boxes of frozen waffles from the 7-Eleven. The most romantic thing anyone had done for him, probably.
Making his way over to the frozen foods, Klaus waited until he was relatively alone before snagging a box of chocolate chip waffles and slipping it under the back of his jacket and into the band of the skirt.
Ben watched his brother tense and wince from the cold. “Idiot.” he sighed, with no little affection.
“Worth it.” Klaus croaked as he half waddled his way to the liquor aisle.
The grocery store was an example of one of those shining monoliths that jammed itself into the center of many large cities, sporting separate floors, escalators, and the odd domestic scene of a family of faceless mannequins.
Five had not been inside a modern grocery store in years. Grace had managed most of the grocery orders when they were younger, but since their father’s death, she had been barely functioning.
“Where the fuck is the coffee?” Five swore under his breath, garnering more than a few startled looks from the other shoppers.
Cereal, crackers, a whole aisle for juice, even an entire area dedicated to clothing essentials... Turning a corner sharply Five nearly walked straight into a solo female mannequin. Someone had left her, half-clothed, next to a pile of empty boxes. She looked like she was either coming in or out of storage.
Five stopped abruptly, brogues squeaking on the linoleum, coffee forgotten. A flicker of familiarity followed closely by guilt shifted across his features. Despite the looming crisis of the apocalypse, finding Dolores was among his top priorities. Although, a sliver of regret had buried itself near the core of his consciousness.
He had left her.
In that implausible, gut-wrenching juncture in time when the Handler had found him, he had left Dolores. Five didn’t often spend time thinking about the first few years he had been stuck in the apocalyptic future. He had been a child then, not only mentally, but emotionally as well. The horror and mounting panic of being trapped in a ravaged world, alone, was something he would never be able to sufficiently describe. She had been his companion for decades, seeing him through some of his lowest moments, and he had left her. The icy grip of dread crept across his chest, and suddenly Five was there again, hands bleeding, digging through the rubble of his home to find the broken bodies of his family.
Once past the sliding doors of the grocery store, Klaus slid the mickey of vodka out of his skirt and hoofed it across the street. Ben followed closely behind him, passing through people on the busy sidewalk. “I think it’s been more than 15 minutes.”
“Pfft.” Klaus scoffed. “The car’s still here!” He loped over and tugged on the handle. Locked.
Where was Five?
25 minutes later, Klaus circled the car and picked a loose sour key out of his pocket. He had raided the candy scoop bins, stuffing handfuls of chocolate almonds, peppermints, and the like into his jacket pockets before making a hasty exit. He chewed on the candy absently, satisfied by the sour taste. Ben sat cross-legged on the hood of the car, watching his brother pace. Pulling the now warm waffle box from his skirt, Klaus tucked it carefully under the rear bumper of the car, along with the eggs, painkillers, and the small bottle of vodka. He patted it gently before straightening up. Ben watched him expectantly.
“Do you think something happened to Five?”
Klaus shook his head. “Back home for less than 48 hours and already upsetting the apple cart.” He sniffed. “If dear Dad could only see me now, being useful and everything.” With a sad chuckle, Klaus popped another sour key in his mouth and jogged back across the street; Ben followed closely behind, trailing his brother through the sliding doors. Turning from one end of the entrance to the other, Klaus ran his hands through his mop of curls. “Now if I was in a fresh teenage body, lost in a grocery store... Where would you find me?... Don’t answer that-”
Ben walked past him, peering through the lines of shoppers to the cashiers. “Why not ask one of them?” He gestured towards the people working the cashes. “They might know.”
“Oh Benny boy,” Klaus pretended to pat his brother’s ghostly face, “I knew I let you stick around for a reason.”
With Ben in tow, Klaus made his way against the flow of people to the nearest cashier. An older woman, she was distracted, counting her till, unaware of Klaus standing primly next to the counter. He rolled his shoulders and coughed loudly, but she seemed very engrossed in her organization of quarters. “Excuse me,” Klaus knocked on the counter next to her as calmly as he could, despite the painful headache blooming behind his eyes.
“Can I help you?” She didn’t even bother to look up from her counting. Her voice was curt and tired.
“I’m looking for my… b-brother - Little brother.” He added hastily. Klaus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, balling them into fists to keep them from shaking. In the last five minutes, his body had seemed to amp up the combined withdrawal and hangover symptoms to 10.
She sniffed, seemingly even more annoyed. "Well, I could call for him over the intercom?" She offered it like she was giving up a kidney. "What's your brother's name?"
Ben sighed. Klaus smiled. He could already hear the inevitable questions ringing in his ears. "Well, our father was quite the guy, let me tell you…"
Five heard his name as if from underwater.
“... Five… Five if you are in the grocery store, your brother… Klaus… is looking for you. Please make your way to…”
Five shook the fog from his head. He had been listlessly wandering the aisles of the grocery store for who knows how long. The tightness in his chest remained. He felt lost, exhausted, and frustrated that he was on the brink of tears over something so trivial as coffee. Turning about in the aisle he groaned aloud, unsure of which way the exit or checkouts were located.
Without warning, Klaus appeared at the end of the aisle, sliding into a grocery cart before waving at him. “Five! You!... you rascal.” He jogged down the rest of the way, panting.
He stopped short when he saw Five’s face. “Hey, hey, hey,” Klaus said softly, “This place is a mess, you need a map to find anything. What say we get out of here?” His headache was all but forgotten in the face of Five’s current state. His brother’s eyes were red, posture tense. Klaus reached out and gently squeezed his brother’s shoulder. Stepping past him, Ben bent down wordlessly and did his best to envelop Five in his ghostly embrace. Five’s posture relaxed. He scrubbed a sleeve across his face. “Thanks, Klaus.” His voice was scratchy.
Ben pulled away, looking sadly at his brothers. Klaus shook his head. He was never good at this. None of them were. A family of broken pieces. There was so much unsaid between them all and no safe place to begin.
“You know what? I know a great little coffee place close by, a little pricey but the barista is great to look at and even gave me a job in 2016 after I…” He paused. Klaus barely knew his brother. Unfortunately, Five couldn't say the same about him. 45 years in the apocalypse to read Vanya's autobiography and all those news columns about his brothers’ fuck ups meant there was no need for Klaus to elaborate. “Anyways... At the very least, He owes me a joint and a bag of fresh ground coffee. Wanna go?”
Five smiled faintly. “Yes, let’s.”