Chapter Text
“Hello! Do you have a reservation with us?” The concierge smiles politely at Allison, eyes vacant.
Allison glances at her family around her. Luther, Diego, Klaus, and Viktor all shrug back.
“We’re here to visit Number Five Hargreeves,” she says.
The concierge’s expression doesn’t change, he just blinks slowly and continues to look through her. “I’m so sorry, but hotel policy currently doesn’t allow for visitors. We are only accepting guests with reservations at this time. If this causes a problem for you, you are welcome to leave a complaint I can pass on to management.”
“This will be really quick, in and out.” She smiles her best Hollywood smile. The way he doesn’t actually react to her, though, she knows trying to argue is probably a waste of time.
This whole place is so creepy.
Dad had straight up told them that he had stored Five away in a place called Hotel Oblivion, to keep him out of the way. To protect the timeline.
She can technically understand how, from his point of view, that might seem like a good idea. Five is devious and determined to do whatever he thinks is necessary to save them. But he’s their brother and they can’t just let their dad lock him up somewhere for convenience (and to be fair, most of the timeline issues were their fault, not his). They also need him to get out of the Sparrow timeline and back to their own. He’s the only one who understands time travel and, without the briefcase that got them here, can physically get them out.
Knowing the name of Dad’s weird, secret hotel did nothing to help them find it. It had taken the five of them an almost embarrassing amount of time to track it down. Allison would argue, in their defense, that they were also trying to dodge Sparrows while they looked and have no money and no resources. She has heard so many Rumors this week. But Klaus got lucky and literally stumbled upon it in one of their more desperate plans of ‘spread out in the city and just see if we can find it’.
The exterior of the hotel was really nothing special, rundown with lights that flicker and dirty windows that made it exceptionally unwelcoming. Once they stepped through the doors, though, they were transported to a massive, gorgeous lobby. Plush, red carpet led the way to the front desk, a solid, ornately carved piece of dark wood that matched the paneling on the walls. Massive, crystal chandeliers hung high above their heads and twinkled in their own light. Overstuffed couches and chairs encircled a huge stone fireplace and should have made the place welcoming.
The only staff present was a man, dressed in a maroon uniform with a thin, pencil mustache, who had politely waved them over.
And now here they are.
The concierge continues to smile blandly at Allison. “Again, my sincere apologies, but we currently can only accommodate those who have reservations.”
Allison inhales carefully through her nose. “We have reservations. With Number Five.”
“I’m sorry, we only take individual reservations. You must be mistaken. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“I heard a rumor you let us see Number Five,” she snaps. Luther shifts nervously behind her as her Rumor hits.
“As I said, we don’t allow visitors at this time. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Allison blinks and has to stop herself from taking a step back. Her Rumors always work. Diego mumbles, “What the fuck?” behind her. She agrees.
“I heard a rumor you had a reservation for the five of us with Number Five,” she tries again.
“Again, we only accept individual reservations. If there is nothing I can help you with, I can take a message down for management and get back to you with a response by end of business tomorrow.”
“One moment, please,” Allison says with another Hollywood smile and then herds her brothers to the fireplace.
“What the hell is his problem?” Klaus says, too loudly. Allison shoots him a look. They don’t know what sort of security Dad has here. He could be watching and listening to them right now. He has to know they’re trying to get Five, but if they can at least get to their brother before the alarms go off, that makes their rescue that much easier.
Luther looks over his giant shoulder at the concierge, who is still standing at the desk and smiling vacantly at the entrance. “If there’s no one else here, we could just… look for Five?” he suggests.
“This place is huge, though,” Viktor says, glancing at the massive staircases that lead to the wings of the hotel and the balcony above with more rooms. The hotel is enormous compared to its deceptively dinky exterior.
“And it’s Dad,” Diego points out, “so you know there’s probably a bunch of fucked up shit in here. He’s got to have traps or something.”
“Why didn’t my Rumor work?” Allison asks. Rumors always work.
Klaus shrugs. “Maybe he isn’t human.”
They all sit with that for a moment. The shadows seem to creep further into the room. A chill runs down Allison’s spine.
There is something deeply off about this place.
Diego rises to Klaus’ bait and starts them on an argument of if the concierge isn’t human then what the fuck else could he be. Allison ignores them and mentally reviews her short interaction with him. Only take individual reservations. No guests.
Both her rumors she’d tried to work went against the hotel’s rules.
Without saying anything to her brothers, Allison heads back to the front desk.
“Allison!” Luther hisses after her. She ignores him.
“Hi,” she says when she reaches the desk. The concierge turns that blank smile on to her.
“Hello! Welcome to Hotel Oblivion. Do you have a reservation with us?”
“I heard a rumor I had a reservation with Number Five Hargreeves.”
The concierge’s blank gaze clouds over. Allison swallows her gasp and keeps her polite smile in place. He turns to look at the book in front of him and runs a finger down to the last entry. “So you do! Room 5A. A bellboy will be here in a moment to escort you.”
Her brothers had crept after her. “You’re in?” Diego asks.
“Seems like it.”
An acne-covered teen in another maroon uniform steps through the office door. He has the same blank stare as the concierge, looking more through than at them. “Hello, I can help you to your room,” he says flatly.
The five of them exchange a glance and Klaus shrugs. Allison steps forward to follow the bellhop. The rest of them move after her.
“Excuse me. So sorry, once again, we do not allow visitors at this time,” the concierge interrupts with a smile. The bellboy stops walking. The concierge rings a bell and the office door opens, again. Two burly security guards step out and flank him.
They don’t even know how far away Five is. They can’t afford trouble, not yet. “It’s ok,” Allison says quietly. “Five has been here almost a week, he’s got to be going insane trying to get out. I’ll find him and we’ll be back in no time. We’ll meet you back here.”
Predictably, Luther balks. “We’re not going to send you alone into Dad’s creepy hotel.”
“I don’t think we have a lot of choice,” Allison hisses, glancing at the security guards. They aren’t doing anything, just staring blankly, but she has a feeling they aren’t the only two around. “And Dad has to know we’re here by now. You guys can act as lookout, buffer any Sparrows that show up. And see if you can find out anything else about this place. It’s so weird.”
Luther sets his jaw but nods. He takes a step back. Diego, Klaus, and Viktor shuffle back with him towards the fireplace.
The bellboy starts walking again. Allison follows. He leads her up the stairs and down the hall, not looking back to see if she’s following, and continues to smile that vacant smile at nothing. She grabs one last glance over her shoulder at her family before they’re cut off from her view. Four worried faces watch her go.
Her heart is beating in her ears as she follows the bellboy down long hallway after long hallway. How big is this hotel? It’s so quiet. They don’t come across any other guests, no other employees. Just dark paneled hallways lined with doors, cushy red carpet underfoot, and smaller chandeliers above.
How long have they been walking? Are they going in circles? She tries to follow the numbers on the doors but as soon as she starts looking for them, they disappear. She memorizes the turns they take. Right, right, left, right, left…
Abruptly, the bellboy stops in the middle of a hallway. “Here we are, ma’am. Room 5A. I hope you have a pleasant stay!” He holds a hand out to the door with a smile. He does not react as she cautiously reaches for the knob.
“Five?” she calls. “It’s Allison. I’m here to get you out!”
Silence rings around her. The bellboy still stands with his hand out and doesn’t move.
She braces herself as she grabs the doorknob. Nothing happens. She feels a little silly for being afraid of the door.
Allison takes a deep breath in, opens the door, and enters Five’s room.
She steps out onto a sunny street. She blinks. She closes her eyes, counts to five, and opens them again. The bustling street is still in front of her. Allison spins around for the hotel door and is met with the glass door of a general store.
What the fuck?
Cautiously, she steps farther onto the sidewalk. Her first thought is that she’s back in the sixties. It looks like she’s on a downtown main street that has that aesthetic she came to know so well. A family walks past her, dressed like it’s the fifties, and doesn’t even give her a second glance. She has to jump back into the doorway as a man on a velocipede rides past, tall on the ridiculous bike. He tips his straw hat at the family as he passes.
Allison watches him disappear down the block with wide eyes. She looks back at the street with renewed interest, actually taking in the details.
The cars parked in front of her are an eclectic bunch. Most are models she recognizes from the early sixties, but there’s an eighties muscle car halfway down the block and a 1920s roadster across the street. A Model-T chugs past.
The more she looks, the weirder it gets. There’s a classic pharmacy next to a record store. A fifties’ diner next to a nineteenth-century grocer. A movie theater a ways down the block advertises five cent tickets for “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Great Escape”. The people on the street look like they’ve stepped from every decade imaginable. There’s a hippie couple passing by a woman in a full Victorian gown. The group on the corner look like they just stepped out of a Renaissance painting. A knight in full armor stands outside of the bank.
No one gives her a second glance as she stands there, gaping. It’s almost a relief, after the stress of the sixties, to be honest. “Ok, Allison,” she mutters to herself. “Make a plan, find Five.”
Almost as a dare to herself, she heads to the diner. She holds her breath as she steps in, waiting for someone to yell at her to get out, but a young waitress just hands her a menu and motions her towards a booth by the window. Allison releases her breath. Whatever weird time zone Five is in, at least it’s not segregated. Small mercies.
She orders a coffee and takes stock of her situation while she sips it. Allison thinks she’s still technically inside Hotel Oblivion, Five’s room is just much larger than she expected. She is here alone. She does not know how to get out. All she can hope is that she can find wherever they’re holding Five captive and his big brain can figure out the exit.
It doesn’t make any sense, though. Why go through all the trouble to make whatever this place is? Does every room in the hotel lead to here? Are all these people the other guests? If not, then why? What is the point of all this effort of random decades to hold Five here? Is it to thwart his time traveling? Bring all the decades to one place so there’s nowhere for him to jump to?
“Allison?” a woman calls.
Allison startles. No one has given her a second glance since she got here. The waitress barely acknowledged her outside of doing her job to take Allison’s order. She looks up in surprise.
“I thought that was you!” A woman in a wheelchair rolls over and Allison chokes on her coffee.
The woman is petite, her one arm long and slender. Her large green eyes look over Allison with familiarity, thin and expressive eyebrows arched neatly above them. Her nose is small and curves upwards slightly, her lips full and painted pale pink. A colorful scarf is artfully wrapped around her head. Allison knows if she pulled it off, she would be bald.
“Delores,” Allison breathes.
Delores smiles, and it’s a little stiff. Allison doesn’t know if that’s something she should read into or if it’s just because Delores is technically plastic. “We weren’t expecting you yet! Such a surprise you’re here now! You’ll stay with us, of course. Five will get the guest bed all set for you. Do you mind if I join you?”
Allison blinks. “Oh, um, no! Not at all. Um, please.” Her response is a beat late but her mind is racing. The entire situation has just flipped. Delores is here, a Delores that is real and Allison can actually talk to and interact with. What does that mean for Five? Is Delores here to help or is she a trick to keep Five trapped here? If she’s a trap, the incongruency outside makes more sense as a strategy to thwart his time traveling. Everything is out of time and Five, himself, is a man out of time.
Whatever the point, it does mean one thing: Allison’s job to get Five out of here just got much harder.
Or maybe she’s getting ahead of herself. Five is ridiculously pragmatic. He has to have pegged all the asynchronisms here, knows they’re wrong, and is working on a solution out. Delores being here is probably a good thing. He always said that she checked his work, pushed him in the right direction. Maybe with whatever this representation of Delores that’s here—
“Penny for your thoughts?” Delores interrupts. She’s wheeled herself to the edge of the table, neatly tucking most of her chair underneath. There’s a blanket on her lap that, when Allison looks, is definitely covering her legs but from her peripheral lays over an empty seat.
Allison pulls on a smile. She needs to play nice with Delores until she figures out if she’s a friend or an obstacle. “Just a long day to get here! I was taking in the sights.”
“It is a lovely city, isn’t it? Have you been to the library? We’ll have to visit, it’s so homey…” Delores rambles on about the city’s attractions. Allison is distracted by how she moves. She can’t decide if Delores moves only when Allison is looking or only when she isn’t. Either way, it’s deeply unsettling.
“Where is Five?” Allison interrupts, rudely.
Delores takes it in stride. “He’s at work, at the university. I usually go in with him but I took the afternoon off. Felt like something I should do. And look, it worked out! I ran into you!”
“When will he be done?”
“It’s almost five o’clock,” Delores says, without looking at a watch or there being any clock that Allison can see in the diner, “so we can probably still catch him at our office. Or we can meet him back home.”
“We should catch him at the office,” Allison says. The sooner she can find and talk to Five, the better.
“We best get going then! It’s a short walk.” Delores reverses from the table and rolls towards the door, her chair’s small motor humming.
Allison is about to follow when she remembers she hasn’t gotten the check. “Delores! Wait, I just have to pay, one second.”
Delores frowns at her. “Pay? For what?”
“My coffee?”
Delores laughs politely like she thinks Allison is trying to make a joke that she isn’t getting. Allison glances around the restaurant. There is a cash register but none of the employees go near it. It’s like it’s just there because it’s supposed to be, for decoration or completion's sake.
Confused, Allison drops it and follows Delores out onto the street. No one stops her for ditching on the bill.