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Thursday, April 16th, 2019. 8:16am.
Five stared wearily at the chipped paint of the ceiling above his bed. He could hear the sounds of his siblings clunking down the stairs, likely just as sleep-muddled as he was after their late night. For a moment he debated rolling over in bed for more rest, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep now.
He sighed and slid out of bed, making a token effort to neaten the blankets to avoid Delores’s disapproving gaze before heading for the door. He'd take the long way down to breakfast to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.
He reached the kitchen just as Diego sent a slice of toast sailing across the room to clock Luther in the head. Regretting his decision not to linger in bed but knowing it was too late to make his escape, he sighed and jumped across the line of fire to pour himself a mug of coffee. Honestly, he should just relocate this coffee machine to his room.
"Can I please have a waffle," Allison deadpanned over the sounds of Luther and Diego going at it. Grace pressed a kiss to the top of Allison's head as she passed, heading over to the stove to, presumably, make her a waffle.
Vanya shuffled into the room and collapsed into a chair at the table with a groan. Her eyes looked glazed and her face was slightly flushed, so Five assumed she had either been crying or was coming down with something. He hoped she was just coming down with something, because he was at his limit for weeping siblings. (His limit was zero.)
Klaus, unsurprisingly, didn't make it down to breakfast.
After he had finished eating, Five returned to his room to get dressed. He hesitated at his wardrobe and considered the row of identical uniforms, which for all their familiarity looked foreign and uncomfortable today. He glanced down at the pajamas he was wearing, literally the only other article of clothing in his size in this house, and made a face.
Well-- maybe not the only thing in his size.
**
"Five?" Vanya asked blurrily, sitting up in bed as Five appeared in her room. "Did you need something?"
Five shot her an evaluating look, then took a cautious step back. "If you're sick I don't want it."
"You came into my room," she pointed out, then had to catch a sneeze in her elbow. Five took another step back.
"It's not my fault you're the only other person in this house my size." Five turned away and began rummaging through the chest of drawers she had made Luther move six times before she admitted to being satisfied with its location the first time.
"Ah...okay. Well help yourself, I guess," Vanya said, slumping back into her pillow and wishing for a cool washcloth for her head. She heard a pop as Five vanished and regretted that she hadn't asked him to fetch Mom.
Before she could wallow too much, though, Five returned in a flash of blue light and wordlessly pressed a cool washcloth to her forehead. She smiled in thanks but knew better than to say anything out loud where Five would have to acknowledge it. A minute later, he left again without saying a word, but there was a glass of water and a blister pack of cold medicine on her bedside table.
**
“No, I need red bell peppers. Red, man, didn’t Mom teach you colors like the rest of us?”
Luther looked down at the sack of bell peppers he had just picked up from the store for Diego at his request. “You didn’t say what kind, though, you just said you wanted bell peppers?”
“Well green bell peppers obviously won’t work for this, what were you thinking?” Diego huffed, gesturing at the spread of ingredients Grace was still laying out on the counter in preparation.
“Oh,” Luther said as if in realization, although there had been no realization. “Okay, well I’ll go back and get red bell peppers then, do you need them right away?”
Diego shrugged, scrutinizing the items on the counter in deliberation. “I suppose we can wait for the red bell peppers, we’ll have to work around it for now but it’s not like I can use these.”
“I’ll make it quick, then,” Luther offered, already heading for the door and crossing paths with a sleepy-looking Klaus, who was on his way into the kitchen for a late breakfast. He patted Klaus’s shoulder companionably as he passed and received an inquisitive noise in return, like a cat woken from a nap by some unexpected touch. Hm, maybe a cat would be a good idea, they’d never been allowed pets as a kid even though they’d all wanted some kind of animal or another…
**
Allison set down the letter she had just finished reading and stared at it lying there on the desk like it might get up and start doing cartwheels. It didn’t, but frankly that would have been less mind-blowing than it had been to read its contents.
She glanced around the study and wished there was someone else around to share this revelation with her, but she could hear Klaus arguing with Ben in the hallway and the sound of the car starting in the alleyway as one of the others took off for god knows where. She looked down at the letter again, and then at the remaining stack of letters she had pulled from one of the drawers of their dad’s desk.
She bit her lip and reached for another.
**
“I can’t take you anywhere,” someone was saying in the front hall as Five returned from Gimbel Brother’s with a bag of purchases in hand. He poked his head around the corner and saw Klaus standing by the front door wearing a rainbow-print speedo, an orange crop top with the words “BEACH BABE” spelled out across the chest in rhinestones, and nothing else. He wasn’t even wearing any shoes, though in his hand was the gaudiest pair of sunglasses Five had ever seen.
There was no one else in sight, which meant that Klaus was probably unconsciously manifesting Ben, because usually if he was doing it intentionally he at least managed a faded blue apparition.
Frankly he didn’t want to know what the two of them were up to, so Five retreated to his room with his purchases without saying a word. God forbid Klaus catch wind of the fact that he’d been out clothes shopping without him.
**
“Hey Luther!” Diego hollered out the kitchen window.
Luther looked up from where he was sitting on the grass in the courtyard with his book (25 New Hobbies For The New You!). “Yeah?” he called back at a more reasonable volume.
“I need some lemons!” Diego yelled, again at top volume. They were less than 30 feet apart.
“Okay?” Luther glanced back down at his book and carefully marked his place with one of the pressed-flower bookmarks Allison had given him. He had a feeling he knew where this was leading.
“Can you run to the store and grab some? We’re completely out and we can’t finish this without lemon zest!”
“Why didn’t you have me grab some earlier when I was getting the red peppers? Or the poppy seeds?” Luther asked, but he was already pulling himself to his feet.
“We had some, but we used them all!” Diego shouted, as if Luther wasn’t already walking in his direction. “Make sure they’re yellow, too, I don’t want you coming back with limes when we need lemons just because you have a thing for the color green.”
Luther rolled his eyes; Diego hadn’t even said what color bell peppers to get, but somehow it was his fault that he’d grabbed the wrong kind. Diego used to eat green peppers like they were apples as a kid, he’d just assumed that was the kind he was after.
“Anything else you guys are missing, since I’m going back to the store anyway?” he asked as he set his book carefully on the gazebo railing just in case it decided to rain. It wasn’t in the forecast and he shouldn’t be gone too long, but you could never be too careful.
“Nah, just the lemons. Thanks man!” Diego yelled, ducking his head back inside to continue cooking...whatever it was he and Grace were making. Hopefully it was worth it after all this effort.
**
“Oh my god,” Allison whispered, letting the letter she had been reading fall onto the desk. She leaned back in the seat and shook her head. “I cannot believe he would...Ohh there better be more.”
She stuffed the letter back into its envelope so it wouldn’t get misplaced and yanked open the desk drawer she’d found the box in to begin with, but it was empty save for a few pens and a little address book. Undaunted, she tried the rest of the drawers, and when that turned up nothing she started scouring the bookshelves and cabinets for anywhere else Reginald might have tucked away old correspondence. She couldn’t just move on without knowing the rest.
**
Vanya stared down at the flight of stares before her, wondering if it was worth her dignity to slide down the steps one at a time on her bottom, or if she should risk taking a tumble by trying to walk down them like an adult.
When she moved back into the house she had been thrilled to be able to choose a new room, her childhood bedroom having been annexed by Klaus at some point in the last twelve years, but when she’d picked one of the empty third-floor rooms on the same floor as Five and Ben’s old rooms, she hadn’t taken into consideration that there was no bathroom up here. Usually it wasn’t a problem, but usually she didn’t feel like she’d just been hit by a truck while her head was stuffed with cotton, and she had already crashed into a wall just on her way out of her own room.
Dignity be damned. It was either slide down the stairs when there was no one around to see, or wake up in the infirmary with a broken jaw, and if she had been uncomfortable on Klaus’s behalf for the eight weeks he had been unable to speak, she couldn’t imagine she would feel any better if she was the one with her jaw wired shut. She gritted her teeth and lowered herself to sit on the top step.
**
“Oh Fiiiiiiiiive! Come out, come out wherever you are!”
Five looked up from the stack of books he had been sorting on his bookshelf and frowned in the direction of his door. He’d gotten the impression that Klaus and Ben were going to the beach when he saw them earlier, but then again basing an assumption of Klaus’s planned activities off of just his choice in outfit was an unreliable method at best.
“Yoohoo, Five-y!” Klaus drummed his fingers twice against Five’s door and then threw it open without waiting for a response, his only concession to Five’s rule that they knock before coming into his room. He supposed Klaus was usually loud enough to announce his presence on his way up to Five’s room, so it didn’t really matter that he never waited for Five to give him permission before coming inside.
“What do you want, Klaus?” Five said, already turning back to his bookshelf. To be honest, he didn’t want to have to look at that eye-searingly bright outfit again if he could help it.
“Today it’s not about what I want,” Klaus declared dramatically over the sound of something heavy dropping onto Five’s mattress. “Today is about what you want, that I am generous enough to provide.”
“What could you possibly have that I want?” Five asked, then almost jumped when Klaus flopped down next to him by the bookcase. He glanced distractedly at the bed to see what had hit the mattress if it hadn’t been Klaus in a typically dramatic sprawl, but his eyes caught first on the streak of blood smeared across Klaus’s cheekbone.
Immediately, he dropped the book he had been contemplating and turned to grip Klaus’s chin, tilting his head to one side to examine him for injuries. There wasn’t a cut, which implied the blood wasn’t Klaus’s, but a pale bruise was blossoming across his jaw and he looked disheveled. More than usual, at least.
“What happened?” he demanded, sliding a hand into Klaus’s hair to check for bumps. He looked more or less okay, but considering Five had seen him in perfect health less than two hours ago and now he was bruised and smeared with blood and dirt, he wasn’t very reassured.
“Five I’m fine, calm down,” Klaus said, though he didn’t pull away. “I had a little tussle with a pair of squares on our way to the beach, but Ben and I came out on top and with a little surprise!”
“Is the surprise the names and location of these “squares” so I can deal with them accordingly?” Five growled, but relaxed when he saw that Klaus really was okay aside from the bruise on his jaw and some scrapes on the exposed skin of his arms.
“Aw, you’re sweet,” Klaus said, patting Five’s hand before scooting across the floor to the bed. “No, your real surprise is this--voila!”
Klaus spun around dramatically with a familiar black briefcase in his arms.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Five jumped across the room and snatched the briefcase out of Klaus’s hands almost before he had finished turning around.
“My new compadres Mister and Mister Square--ran into them on our way across Murray Ave and they seemed to take offense to me, although I couldn’t imagine why, and once Ben and I had them thoroughly under control I figured I may as well take this as compensation for the trouble they caused us. Once I laid hands on it, I knew you would probably want to hold onto the thing. Um, it may have been dropped at one point, but it looks alright.”
Five examined the briefcase and saw that Klaus was right. The combination dials that set the destination of the briefcase were a little dented and the handle was coming loose, but otherwise the briefcase looked perfectly fine.
“Huh. Nicely done, Klaus,” Five said absently, though he did notice out of the corner of his eye that Klaus perked up considerably at the compliment. He chucked, turning towards his desk to set the briefcase down and shifting his grip on the thing awkwardly since the handle was unreliable. “Hah, that reminds me of the line they used at the Commission about--”
8:16am
Five blinked up at the chipped paint of the ceiling above him and frowned. The sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs leading down to the kitchen told him it was too late to sneak down for a quick cup of coffee before the horde descended, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.
He sighed and slipped from his bed, straightening the blankets perfunctorily because he knew Delores would have something to say about his laziness if he just left them. As he took the long way down to the kitchen to prolong the morning’s peace, he noticed that Vanya’s door was shut and the room silent, which was odd considering she was one of the early risers in the family. He paused as he considered knocking on her door, but he figured maybe she had just shut her door this morning and was already in the kitchen having breakfast.
Five arrived in the kitchen just in time for a strip of bacon to fly across the room and land in Luther’s cup of tea with a muted splash. He jumped across the field of war to pour himself a mug of coffee and watched in silence as a food fight broke out between Luther and Diego, Allison likewise sitting back in her chair to stay out of the battlefield.
Grace stood at the stove, humming as she checked on the waffle iron. She brushed by Five on her way to the fridge for something and smoothed down his bedhead absently as she passed.
Vanya dropped into a seat at the table with a muffled groan, her face flushed and miserable. Klaus followed her into the room only moments later, glancing around the room with a bemused look on his face.
Five took advantage of the momentary cease fire to sit down at the table and dig into the plate of toast Grace had left for him already. Allison was rubbing a hand down Vanya’s back and offering to get her some crackers, so he gathered that she was coming down with something rather than on the tail-end of a crying jag, which was a bit of a relief.
He finished his breakfast quickly and refilled his mug before retreating to his room to change. The line of pressed navy uniforms waiting for him in his wardrobe gave him an inexplicable feeling of dread, so he bypassed them entirely. At least there was one other person in this house whose clothes were the right size for him.
**
Vanya was just returning to her room when Five flashed in and made a bee-line for her dresser without so much as a hello. Bemused, she sank down onto the bed and watched him rummage through the chest of drawers she’d made Luther move six times before she admitted to liking the first location best. “Looking for something?” she croaked, wishing she had thought to bring up a glass of water with her.
Five glanced in her direction and frowned. “If you’re sick, stay on that side of the room, I don’t want to catch anything.”
“I mean it’s my room, but okay,” Vanya agreed, crawling back under the covers.
“It’s not my fault you’re the only person in this house with clothes that will fit me,” Five muttered, then vanished in a flash of blue light.
Vanya sighed, pulling the covers up to her chin. She wished she’d asked Five to send Grace up with some cold medicine.
A flash of blue lit up the room and then a cool washcloth dropped onto her forehead. She smiled.
**
“Holy shit,” Allison whispered, staring down at the letter clutched in her hands. She could hardly believe what she was reading, but also couldn’t imagine any of the people in this house faking these, and they were the only possible ones with access.
She peered uncertainly at the stack of remaining letters left sitting on the desk. Maybe just a few more…
**
“No man, why the hell would I want green bell peppers for this?” Diego scoffed. “Are you color blind?”
Luther looked down at the bag of produce clutched in his hand. “I mean, you just said bell peppers. I thought you liked green--?”
Diego waved at the counter where Grace was setting out the rest of the ingredients for...whatever it was they were preparing to make. “Does this look like the kind of meal that calls for green bell peppers? No, I need red peppers. You’ll have to go back.”
Luther opened his mouth to say he had no idea what recipe he was supposed to recognize based on the things that were set out, but thought better of it. He set the green bell peppers aside for Diego to snack on later if he got hungry, because he knew Diego liked them, and turned to head back to the store.
He noticed Klaus was standing frozen in the doorway with a bewildered look on his face and patted his shoulder as he squeezed by him on his way out. Klaus made a tiny noise of confusion that reminded Luther of the stray cats Allison had always wanted to keep as children. Hm, maybe it was time for them to get a family pet…
**
Five was on his way back to his room with a bagful of newly purchased clothes from Gimbel Brothers when he came across Klaus talking to himself in the middle of the hallway. This, actually, was a fairly common occurrence, even if it turned out Klaus wasn’t actually talking to a ghost--Klaus had thoughts, and he voiced them. It didn’t matter if he had an audience or not.
“--weird is going on, that’s all I’m saying. No, not just because of that. Well if it was, it was the most vivid--oh hey Five,” Klaus said, then caught sight of Five’s bag. “Oh you went shopping without me? What’s this, such violence against Caesar?”
Five rolled his eyes and moved to continue up the next flight of stairs. “Maybe I should have taken you with me, it could have spared all of us having to see you wear that,” he said, gesturing at the lurid rainbow speedo Klaus held in one hand and receiving another wounded gasp in response. He slipped up the stairs and out of sight before Klaus could attempt to coerce him into going to the beach as well.
**
Diego surveyed the spread of ingredients before them and frowned. They only had a few lemons left, but…
“Hey Luther!” he yelled out the kitchen window to where Luther was lounging in the shade of one of the oak trees in the courtyard reading some book. “I need some lemons!”
Luther looked up from his book, a puzzled look on his face. “Okay?” he called back faintly.
“So go get me some from the store, why don’t you! We can’t finish without them.”
Luther dithered about with his book for a minute, instead of getting to his feet promptly the way Diego would have if Luther asked him for a favor. Well, maybe not Luther, but one of the other siblings he liked a little more. “Why didn’t you have me get lemons when you sent me back for the red peppers?” Luther asked as he shuffled over and set his book down on the gazebo railing.
“I didn’t need them then or I would have! And make sure to get lemons, they’re yellow. The green ones are limes!” Diego called helpfully.
Luther muttered something under his breath, but he was heading for the kitchen door, so Diego let it go.
Now, back to work.
**
"Holy shit," Allison whispered. She glanced around the room looking for anywhere else Reginald might have stashed his old correspondence, but was distracted by a faint thump from outside in the hall. Puzzled, she went to the door to check and found Vanya sitting flat on the ground at the foot of the stairs looking disgruntled.
"Vanya? Are you alright?" she asked.
Vanya glanced up at her, though it seemed to take a few moments before her brain caught up with what she was seeing. "Allison? I didn't think about having to go back up the stairs."
Allison suppressed a smile as she helped Vanya to her feet. "Flu got you down? Want me to bring you some juice and medicine?"
"No, thank you. Five left me some in my room, I just came down to pee," Vanya explained woozily. "But maybe I should bring it down here so I don't have to do the stairs again. They hate me."
"How about we make a deal," Allison offered. "You come sit on the couch here in the study so you're on the same floor as the bathroom in case you need it, and I'll grab you some juice and crackers. I'm just going through some of dad's papers to sort everything out and you would not believe what's in these letters I found--"
**
"Almond extract?" Luther asked, unimpressed. Diego nodded vehemently and gestured back towards the front door Luther had only just returned through.
He thought longingly of his book, sitting abandoned in the gazebo, and sighed. Well, if he was going back to the store he may as well stop and pick up some yarn along the way--the chapter on crochet had been very compelling.
**
"--telling you, something is going on and this proves it!" Klaus cried, slamming open the door to Five's bedroom. "What's your reasonable explanation for this one, Ben?"
Five looked up from his bookshelf with a scowl but froze when he saw the large black briefcase Klaus was clutching. He jumped across the room and yanked it from Klaus’s hands before he could protest, but he didn't even resist.
"Oh a new power, okay sure so last month it was possession, now it's clairvoyance. What's next, levitation?" Klaus threw his hands up in the air. "Five, tell Ben he's being ridiculous!"
"Klaus, you're being ridiculous," Five responded automatically, still examining the briefcase. It looked mostly intact, though the handle was broken and the dials were a little dinged. "Where did you even get this?"
Klaus huffed. "Well, I was on my way to the beach again when I ran into those squares, they tried to get the drop on me but I knew they were there and it didn't turn out the way they wanted. I even made it out with just the scrapes this time!"
Five’s attention snapped back to Klaus and he scanned him quickly, looking for signs of injury. Luckily, Klaus seemed to be telling the truth. The worst he appeared to have were some faintly bleeding scratches along his forearms and a ripped t-shirt.
“What do you mean this time?” Five demanded. He moved to his desk to set the briefcase down, careful not to use the broken handle.
“Well that’s what Ben and I are arguing about. So all day--”
**
8:16am
Vanya groaned, rolling over in bed and debating if she should bother going downstairs for breakfast. She wasn’t feeling very hungry, but she figured at least some juice or tea to soothe her throat would be nice.
She had just finished descending the first staircase (probably the slowest descent known to humankind, honestly) when the door to Klaus’s room burst open. She startled badly and nearly overbalanced as Klaus, usually the last one up in the morning, if he hadn’t stayed awake all night, stumbled out into the hall and looked around in confusion.
“Vanya!” he cried, catching sight of her slumped over the staircase railing. “Vanya, what day is it today?”
“Um, Thursday? The 16th, I think?” she offered weakly, but Klaus just shook his head.
“Stupid question, I didn’t know what day it was the first time,” Klaus muttered, already heading for the stairs. He waved dismissively at something to his left that could have been Ben, or could have been actual empty air, and called back over his shoulder, “Vanya, honey, go back to bed-- trust me when I say I’ve seen healthier ghosts.”
“Sure,” she agreed, wondering if that conversation would have actually made sense if her brain wasn’t overheating. “Sure, that sounds like a good idea.”
**
Five jumped through the line of fire and poured himself a cup of coffee. One of these days he was just going to move this thing upstairs to his room so he could avoid The Hargreeves Breakfast Extravaganza altogether.
“Ahah!” Klaus exclaimed, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen and pointing dramatically at each of them. “Exactly where you were last time, too!”
Even Luther and Diego stopped tossing breakfast foods at each other long enough to stare at Klaus.
“Uh, yes? This is where we eat breakfast?” Allison said, her tone gently mocking. “We do this every morning, Klaus, what exactly have you proven?”
Klaus wilted slightly. “Something weird is going on, I swear!” he whined, collapsing into his usual seat at the table and kicking out the chair next to him so Ben could sit as well.
“Something weird is always going on,” Five said dryly. “You’ll have to try a little harder than that, Klaus.”
Klaus muttered something under his breath that sounded like “you wait and see” and stabbed the stack of waffles on his plate more violently than seemed necessary.
**
Vanya blinked sleepily at the sudden appearance of Five in her room, but he barely glanced at her before yanking open the drawers of her dresser and rummaging around.
“If you’re sick, I don’t want it,” Five called, slinging a pair of corduroy pants over his shoulder and digging around for a shirt.
“I don’t either,” Vanya said plaintively. Five hummed, then vanished in a flash of blue light.
Before she had a chance to do much more than roll back over in bed, Five had returned with a glass of water and a blister pack of cold medicine, which he left on her end table. He pressed a cool washcloth to her head and patted her briskly twice on the shoulder, then disappeared again as quickly as he ever did.
“Thanks,” she mumbled to the empty room.
**
“Oh my god,” Allison said under her breath, rereading the positively juicy letter again to make sure she was really seeing this. What the hell kind of clandestine political meetings had Reginald been involved in and why was this the first time she was hearing about it?
**
“I thought you liked green peppers,” Luther explained, raising his hands defensively when Diego looked like he was about to chuck one of them at his head. “Okay, okay, I’ll go back for red bell peppers!”
**
“--even if I was clairvoyant, that doesn’t explain how--Five!” Klaus shouted, turning away from the hazy outline of Ben. “See, he just got back from shopping, just like I said he would!”
Five shot Klaus a look, decided he wanted no part in whatever this was, and jumped directly to his room.
**
“Vanya you’ll never believe--oh, sorry, are you sick?” Allison apologized, lowering her voice immediately when she saw Vanya curled up under a layer of blankets with a pile of tissues slowly overtaking the floor by her bed.
Vanya made a pathetic sound and gestured for Allison to come in. “It’s fine, I could use a distraction. What will I never believe?”
Without needing any more of an invitation, Allison threw herself into Vanya’s desk chair and laid out a stack of letters. “So I was sorting through dad’s office--”
**
“Did you know that there have been documented cases of people fatally overdosing on tea made from unwashed poppy seeds?” Luther offered as he handed Diego the jar of poppy seeds he’d just fetched from the store. “Like, over a dozen in the last few years.”
Diego stared blankly at him, the jar clutched loosely in his hand.
“Don’t worry, that’s just the unwashed kind. These store-bought ones will be fine,” Luther reassured him, already on his way to the courtyard. It seemed like it was going to be a nice afternoon, and he wanted to read that new book Klaus had gotten him about hobbies to try.
**
“Alright listen up!” Klaus said, throwing open the door to Five’s room without even a cursory knock. “Something is going on and once again it’s one of these fucking things that’s to blame!”
Five looked up, annoyed, but the reprimand died in his throat when he saw Klaus was brandishing a dented black briefcase at him. He immediately jumped to Klaus’s side to take it off his hands, careful of the broken handle. “Where did this come from, Klaus?”
“Ugh, well that’s a whole other story. The last time I thought I was just having a really strong case of deja vu, but Mister and Mister Square were hanging around on the exact same block of Murray Ave again. I was generous enough to take this case off their hands,” Klaus explained, as if anything he had just said made any sense.
“There are Commission agents in the city?” Five asked, still examining the briefcase carefully. Something Klaus had just said caught his attention and he fought down a smile. “Actually that reminds me of the one they used to tell at the Commissi--”
**
8:16am
Five blinked sleepily up at the cracked paint on his ceiling and debated trying to get back to sleep. He knew it was futile, but after the long night he didn’t relish the idea of braving a full-scale Hargreeves breakfast.
He had just rolled out of bed and was in the process of straightening the blankets when the door to his room burst open and Klaus stomped inside.
“Okay that’s twice now--what’s the one they used to tell at the Commission?” Klaus demanded, apropos of absolutely nothing as far as Five could tell.
“What the hell are you on about, and why are you in my room?” Five said, unimpressed. He abandoned tidying his bedsheets and started herding Klaus back towards the door.
“No, wait, hang on! Now I’m curious, what is the line the Commission agents used? It was apparently pretty funny if it got you to laugh,” Klaus protested, doing his level best to plant his feet so that Five couldn’t push him any further.
Too bad for Klaus, Five had no trouble playing dirty; he kicked Klaus in the back of one knee to destabilize him and shoved him violently back through the door. "Klaus have you slept at any point in the last three days?" he asked wearily, tugging his door shut behind them.
Klaus opened his mouth, looking indignant, then paused. "You know, I really can't be sure with all of this. Is this resetting while I'm asleep and I'm catching a few z's every time? Or has it been bringing me back to the exact moment I woke up? How would I ever know?"
Five rolled his eyes and moved past Klaus towards the stairs. "Actually I've decided I don't care. Just...go take a nap or something."
"No, Five, wait! You haven't told me--"
**
Vanya groaned miserably as she trooped back to her room to return to bed. The tea and juice mom had loaded her up with after only a few seconds of assessment had done little to fortify her against the day, and since she didn't have any lessons today she was just going to try to sleep this off.
She was startled when she opened the door to her room to find Five raiding her dresser like a raccoon at a city dumpster. He barely glanced up to acknowledge her, tossing a pair of corduroy pants over one shoulder and holding up a plain button down shirt to eye it critically.
"Um," Vanya started, admittedly feeling a little slow from the brain fog.
"It's fine, I'm just leaving," Five reassured her, apparently judging the shirt up to his standards. He vanished a moment later without so much as a word of goodbye.
**
Allison scowled down at the desk before her.
Trust Reginald Hargreeves to make everything more complicated than it needed to be. The man had evidently orchestrated his own death with the intention that his children stop the apocalypse and ensure humanity lived to see another day, but he hadn't had the forethought to get his affairs in order before he made his dramatic exit? She wasn't sure if that was a sign of his typical disregard for the inconvenience he caused others, or if the man had had such a poor opinion of his children that he lacked faith they would succeed in stopping the end of days.
Either way, the end result was Allison taking one for the team and dedicating what would probably be her entire day to sorting through and figuring out the legalities of Reginald’s affairs. She honestly didn't mind too much, it would at least keep her mind from wandering if she was occupied with a task like this-- she just hoped she survived the boredom.
**
"If he wanted red peppers he should have said something," Luther muttered as he shut the front door behind him. He squinted up at the sun for a moment and regretted not bringing a hat-- he burned easily, that hadn't changed even when everything else about his body had.
Sighing, he made his way down the sidewalk. The store was only a couple blocks away so at least making another trip for Diego wouldn't take up too much of his day. He did wonder why Diego hadn't been more prepared with a full list of groceries he needed, as he took afternoons cooking with mom very seriously.
It was as Luther was passing the alley that cut over to Murray Ave that he heard a crash from behind him. He only just turned in time to catch sight of the heavy wooden bat aiming for his head at quite a speed. Startled, he raised an arm to block the attack, which had the added side effect of shattering the poor bat into splinters.
When Luther lowered his arm again, he saw the gobsmacked face of a short, broad shouldered man in a navy blue suit. The man recovered quickly though, and swung a fist instead. Luther blocked this, too, though he was careful to roll with it enough that the man's fist didn't shatter the way the bat had.
The man was joined moments later by his partner, but in the end the skirmish lasted only a minute or two before Luther managed to knock both of them out. He wondered for a moment what their aim had been, as it didn't really seem to have been an opportunistic mugging, especially not with the get up these two were in.
Actually, there was something really familiar about those suits…
**
"Nope!"
Klaus made a wounded sound and followed Five anyway. "Seriously, you know my curiosity is insatiable, why must you prolong my agony?"
"Klaus for the last time, I have no idea what you're talking about. I can't think of a single time I've broached the subject of the Commission with you, and I cannot think of a single reason I would." He tossed his bag of newly purchased clothes onto the bed and turned back to face Klaus, a little surprised his melodramatic brother hadn't had anything to say about Five going shopping without him.
"Ugh! I can't believe you would do this to me," Klaus whined. He hissed at something to his left and folded his arms in a pout. "Now the curiosity is going to eat me alive."
"One can only hope so," Five muttered. "Maybe then I'll finally have some peace."
**
"Dude what the hell? First green peppers, now a fucking suitcase?" Diego demanded. "You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?"
"No, hang on, I have the red peppers too. But it was weird Diego, these dudes ambushed me in an alley on my way over to the market. If I didn't know better I would say they were Commission agents," Luther explained, setting the case gingerly on the coffee table. It looked a little dinged and the handle was kind of broken, but Luther was sure it must have looked like that before the fight too.
"Oh they were," Klaus said glumly as he entered the room. He dug a pear out of the fruit bowl Allison had placed on top of the bar optimistically, like just providing healthier options would be enough to deter her family from day-drinking. Ignoring the incredulous looks Luther and Diego were shooting his way, Klaus wandered over to the briefcase and scowled down at it like it had personally offended him. "Don't sit there all smug, you know what you did," he accused.
Diego stared for a second longer, then visibly decided it was more trouble than it was worth to go down that road. He picked up the bag of red peppers Luther had made sure to bring home and turned back to the kitchen, leaving just Luther to watch awkwardly from the sidelines as Klaus held a (presumably one-sided) conversation with the Commission agents' briefcase.
Never a dull moment with this family.
8:16am
Five blinked sleepily up at the chipped paint on the ceiling in his room. He could hear the sounds of his family thumping around on the floor below him, because they were all unrepentantly noisy children, particularly before breakfast.
He sighed and got out of bed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep any longer now that he’d heard all of his siblings going down to breakfast. He made a half-hearted effort to neaten his bed and then shuffled out of his room and down the stairs to join his family.
Five arrived just in time to see a piece of toast go sailing across the kitchen and slap Luther directly in the face, butter side down. He rolled his eyes and jumped across the room to the coffee pot before any of his siblings could catch sight of his smile. When he turned around again, mug of coffee clutched tightly in his hand, he was surprised to see Klaus sitting at the table with a cup of tea by his elbow, apparently engaged in an in-depth conversation with Ben about some dream or moment of deja vu he’d just had, from the sounds of it. It wasn’t unheard of for Klaus to join them for breakfast if he had been up all night or slept through most of the previous day, but Five could have sworn Klaus went to bed around the same time he’d called it a night and he hadn’t expected to see Klaus again before noon.
Five’s attention shifted from Klaus’s irregular sleeping habits as Vanya dropped heavily into her chair and let her head fall forward to rest on the table, groaning. He was about to ask her if she was feeling alright when he caught the sound of tiny sniffles coming from her bowed head and he decided the matter was better left to Allison just in case Vanya was actually crying; Five had a zero-tolerance policy on crying siblings.
“Because deja vu only happens once!” Klaus cried, sounded exasperated. He didn’t seem to notice that he suddenly had the entire table’s attention, wiggling his fingers dismissively at Ben. “No, I won’t tolerate this disbelief from my own kin; all the things that have happened to this family, and this is where you draw the line?”
“Klaus, what are you going on about?” Allison asked. She sounded somewhere between disturbed and fond.
Klaus picked up his cup of tea and drank it like a shot. “If Ben doesn’t even believe me, none of the rest of you are going to be on my side either,” he said sullenly. “No, I’m on my own for this one.”
As they watched, he rose from his seat, flung out his bathrobe so it billowed behind him like a cape, and strode from the room, his chin lifted proudly.
After a moment, Diego broke the silence. “I can’t decide if we should be worried about that, or if it’s just more of Klaus’s regular dramatics.”
**
Allison gaped down at the shockingly petty letter addressed to Reginald in her hand that was signed by a former freaking Secretary of State. She had known their father was involved in politics throughout the years, but she had never imagined there’d been beef between him and astonishingly high-ranking officials in the US Government. She only had one half of the enduring exchange so her only knowledge about what Reginald himself might have been saying came from the responses she had found, but the little she had to go on was downright juicy.
Whatever feud these two had had going on in the late 90s was much more interesting than sorting through the stacks of research and corporate records for any relevant legal documents. Allison cleared a space on the table for the box of letters and dug in.
**
Vanya groaned as she dropped into her chair at the table. Her head was pounding so badly she would have wondered if she had hit it while getting out of bed if it wasn't for all the other signs and symptoms of the flu she was also suffering. She stared sadly down at the plate of waffles Mom had left for her and reached instead for the safe choice of a glass of orange juice.
“Hey Five!” Klaus said loudly from about a foot away, causing Vanya to startle.
Five looked up from his mug of coffee and squinted at Klaus.
“Why don’t you tell everyone the one about the Commission agents?” Klaus prompted, an expectant look on his face.
Five blinked down at his mug of coffee, then back at Klaus. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Klaus wilted. “The joke...about. Commission agents. And, uh, what they used to say back in the Commission? I don’t know, it’s your joke.”
“Are you sure?” Five asked. “Are you really sure it’s my joke? Because I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Well you were going to tell it to me, so you must know it.” Klaus folded his arms obstinately.
“When did I supposedly tell you this joke? About Commission agents? Why did I tell you this joke about Commission agents?”
“You haven’t yet, that’s the problem!” Klaus cried in frustration.
“Oookay,” Allison said, patting Klaus’s hand and standing up from the table. “Well, while you all figure this out, I’ve got a phone call to make and then I’m going to get started on cleaning out dad’s office. See you guys later.”
Five had taken the distraction of Allison speaking to vanish from the room, apparently. Klaus didn’t look deterred; if anything, he seemed to have had an idea.
“Allison you’re going to be sorting paperwork all day, right? And Diego, you were uh--cooking with mom?” he asked, looking like he was calculating something.
Diego froze, halfway through the act of throwing something over Luther’s shoulder into his mug of tea. “Uh, yeah? Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“No reason, just, y’know, checking in with the fam. Discussing our plans for the day. And Vanya, you’re going back to bed to sleep this off, right?” Klaus turned to look at her, expectant.
“Yes?” she croaked. “I don’t have any lessons today so I was just going to take a nap.”
“Good, excellent! Keeping things simple, I like it. Okay, Luther--what were your plans for the day?”
Luther looked up from fishing something out of his coffee with a disturbed look on his face, seeming caught off guard by the direction the conversation had taken. “Um, I was going to read in the courtyard, maybe? I’ve got a couple new books I want to try out.”
“Perfect! And Five goes shopping for clothes, and Ben and I are going to the beach. Okay, we can do this!” He clapped his hands excitedly. “I’ll hear the end of that joke if it’s the last thing I do!”
“Wait, Five’s going shopping? By himself?” Allison asked, pausing by the door. “I need to pick up a few things too unless I want to keep wearing the outdated outfits still in my closet from 2007.”
“What?” Klaus looked surprised. “No, wait, you didn’t go with him--”
**
"Luther!" Diego hollered out the window. Luther sighed and set down his book--
**
Vanya groaned and sat back down on the stairs. She hadn't thought about needing to go back up the steps--
**
The door to the mansion burst open, two men in navy suits tumbling inside in a shower of glass. Luther looked up from the tangle of yarn in his hands and opened his mouth to call out a warning for the others--
**
Five rolled his eyes as Luther took a sip of tea and immediately choked it back out, frowning down at the slice of banana that landed on the table with a wet splat. Diego tried and failed to contain his laughter--
**
Ben threw up his hands in exasperation. “I can’t take you anywhere. Are you really going to walk to the beach barefoot--?”
**
“Did you know there’s a tea you can make from unwashed poppy seeds that will get you high, but it can actually be super dangerous--?”
**
Vanya smiled as a cool washcloth covered her forehead and a small hand patted her shoulder bracingly--
**
“Can I please get a waffle--?”
**
"No way--" Allison breathed, then startled as she heard a thump from the stairs outside. She reluctantly set down the letter she had been reading and went to investigate.
When she opened the door to the hallway, she didn’t know what she had been expecting to see, but somehow she was still surprised at finding Klaus laying on the carpet in front of the stairs that led up to the bedrooms. He looked like he might have tripped and landed that way, but with Klaus it was just as likely that he’d suddenly decided he couldn’t bear to take another step and was ready to let the world pass him by.
“Everything alright?” she asked, amused but trying to gauge whether Klaus was really hurt or not. She hadn’t seen much of him that day; he hadn’t made it to breakfast with the rest of them, and so far the only time she’d caught a glimpse of him today he seemed to have been arguing with Ben about groundhogs, for some reason.
Klaus heaved a herculean sigh and turned a pitiful expression in her direction. “No matter what I do, something always changes.”
“O...kay?” Slightly more concerned, Allison nudged Klaus’s shoulder gently to clear some space and settled next to him on the steps. “What exactly is changing?”
“Today! Today changes every time I do it, and yes I hear how that sounds but I mean specifically this day, April--whatever it is, April 20th.”
“It’s the sixteenth,” Allison said patiently.
“Sure, if you say so. Honestly for me it’s like the 35th of April by this point, I think. How many hours do I get, actually?” Klaus sat up, suddenly pensive. “I wake up for breakfast--”
“--impressive, for you,” Allison couldn’t resist cutting in. Klaus stuck his tongue out at her in response.
“I wake up for breakfast and then Ben and I are supposed to go to the beach but I have to put together an outfit and pack my beach snacks! So we usually leave around noon, I think,” Klaus continued.
“I didn’t know you and Ben had been going to the beach. Isn’t it a little cold for that?”
“By the time we make it back here with that horrible lump of leather and metal, it’s easily early afternoon. I haven’t actually paid attention to the time before, I wonder--Ben? No wait, you’re useless, you won’t remember,” Klaus dismissed, ignoring the disembodied scoff that came from somewhere near the wall.
Allison glanced around and cast a smile in what she hoped was Ben’s direction, and was rewarded with a gentle three-beat pattern rapped against the wood trim of the hallway wall. She grinned and turned back to Klaus, only to find him heaving himself upright and glancing around the hall as if looking for something.
“Ah hah!” he said triumphantly, striding through the still-open study doors and over to their father’s desk. Before Allison could ask him what he was looking for, Klaus was already scooping up the heavy gilt mantle clock that rested on the corner of the desk and weighing it consideringly. He made a satisfied noise, propped it against his hip like a toddler, and headed for the set of doors that led to the mezzanine, humming cheerfully.
Blinking, Allison stared after him. She didn’t honestly think he was back to pawning trinkets for drug money, but still, “Klaus what are you--?”
“Research!” Klaus called over his shoulder, like that explained anything.
Well, maybe it did. It was Klaus, after all.
Shaking her head, Allison pulled herself up from the stairs and headed back to the study. Those letters weren’t going to read themselves.
**
“Luther I need--What are you doing?”
Luther looked up from the thick pad of paper that was propped up in front of him, startled. “Diego? Did you need something else from the store?”
Diego ignored him and peered more closely at the setup Luther had taken over the dining room table with. He had a pad of heavy-looking cardstock and some excessively fancy pens laid out, along with a thick book balanced dangerously against the empty fruit bowl so that Luther could look at its pages. “Are you learning calligraphy, man?”
“Yeah!” Luther said eagerly, leaning back so that Diego had a better view. “So when you sent me back for the chives, I stopped at this little specialist store that’s across the street from the market. They sell all kinds of papers and inks and stationery there, and calligraphy was in that book of hobbies I’ve been trying to read so I thought, y’know, why not?”
Diego shook his head, bemused. “When I said get a hobby I was thinking, like, woodworking or gardening or something. But hey, you do you, man.”
Before Luther could reply, or ask what it was Diego had wanted in the first place, Klaus wandered into the dining room with a mantle clock perched on one hip and a smoothie clutched in his other hand. He appeared entirely unconcerned with the looks Diego and Luther were both shooting at him as he dropped into a seat at the table, propping his feet up on the seat next to him and watching the dull ticking of the clock like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen all day.
Luther opened his mouth, clearly ready to ask Klaus what he was doing, but then paused as if to reconsider. He turned back to his calligraphy tools without saying anything, shaking his head. If this is what Klaus was choosing to do with his free time, at least it meant he was here in the house where they could keep an eye on him.
Diego had reached the same conclusion, giving Klaus one final judgemental look before turning back to the urgent matter at hand. “Luther, I need you to run to the store and get me some grapes. Red grapes.”
8:16am
Grace hummed to herself and tapped a cheerful little beat against the side of the pyrex bowl of waffle batter she was holding. The iron was only 365C, which was sufficient for cooking a decent batch of waffles, but her children deserved the very best. She would keep tabs on the heat readings her sensors were feeding her until it reached just the right temperature.
"Five--"
"If this is about the Commission again, Klaus, I swear to god--"
"No! This is a math question, you like math, right?" Klaus whined.
Grace smiled to herself as she heard Five and Klaus enter the kitchen and take their seats at the table behind her. Well, Klaus took a seat--she could hear Five pop across the room as he made straight for the coffee machine, which she had just finished brewing 2.65 minutes ago in anticipation of his arrival.
Pleased at her excellent timing, she gave the waffle batter a quick stir to mix in the cinnamon she had added. She always waited until the very end to mix in the cinnamon--it didn’t have any effect on the texture or taste of the waffles to add the cinnamon just before cooking the waffles, but she did so like to see the river of brown flecks as the batter spread across the hot iron. It reminded her of the painting of windswept autumn leaves against the blacktop pavement that hung in the second floor corridor of the East wing.
“I’m not just some calculator you can plug numbers into to get solutions, Klaus!” Five snapped indignantly.
“No one said you were, you little monster; no one could ever make that mistake. I just didn’t think this was such a taxing calculation that--”
“Oh don’t try to manipulate me into doing your homework you little shit--”
Grace shook her head fondly, but refrained from chastising them over their language. They were grown boys, now, Five especially; they wouldn’t appreciate being told to mind their manners. Besides, it was so nice to hear them talk freely and without the constant threat of an affronted scolding around every corner. Let them enjoy their coarse language and petty squabbles at the breakfast table, goodness knows they hadn’t always had the luxury.
“Just as a thought experiment, then, how many minutes between 8:16 in the morning and 3:07--”
“Why do you think calling it a thought experiment would make me more likely to entertain this--?”
“Four-hundred and eleven minutes!” Grace cut in brightly, dropping a waffle onto one of the plates stacked at her elbow and placing it in front of Klaus at the table; it was a perfect crispy golden brown. “Klaus, dear, please let your brother enjoy his breakfast in peace--growing boys need to eat a full meal to help them become big and strong, and they can’t do that if they’re busy chatting away instead of chewing their meal!”
“Sorry Mom,” Klaus said automatically, then dropped his fork as her words registered. “Wait, four-hundred and eleven? Are you shitting me, four-hundred and eleven minutes?”
Allison sighed, accepting the plate Grace had just handed her. “Here we go.”
“Nine minutes away from four-hundred and twenty! Nine minutes! This is someone’s idea of a joke, and I bet it’s that damn little girl, her and her stupid bike!” Klaus cried, slapping his hand on the table emphatically. He winced and immediately retracted his hand, cradling it to his chest with a pout.
“What?” Vanya asked from the doorway to the kitchen, blinking owlishly. Grace tutted as she caught sight of her and reached for the pitcher of orange juice next to the fridge.
“Klaus has lost it,” Diego explained unhelpfully from where he was making a game of flicking bits of food into Luther’s mug of tea. Luther carried on reading the newspaper, oblivious.
“Klaus thinks he’s developed the power to see precisely four-hundred and eleven minutes into the future,” Allison corrected.
“Klaus is going to eat breakfast in his room where the whole world isn’t conspiring against him, including his heartless family,” Klaus said snidely, picking up his plate of waffles and the jar of syrup Grace had just placed on the table. He lifted his chin and marched towards the door. “And Luther? Diego and Mom are making brownies; don’t believe him if he tells you he needs bell peppers.”
Grace smiled as she added another waffle to the growing stack. Bell peppers in a recipe for brownies, what an absurd idea.
**
“What the hell is really going on with you, Klaus?” Ben frowned as he watched his brother dust off the ledge of the planter box and sit down like a monarch assuming their throne. “You’ve been acting off all morning, and now you’re just going to sit on this random street corner and watch people walk by you all afternoon?”
Klaus sighed, then patted the brick next to him to indicate Ben should sit with him. When Ben folded his arms and leaned cooly against one of the trees lining the street instead, Klaus rolled his eyes. “I get tired of explaining this, San Benadino. Can you just trust me that I know what I’m doing?”
“I would, if I hadn’t watched you act like you’re following a script all morning. Why does it matter so much that Luther reads in the courtyard and Allison goes digging through dad’s old office?” Ben asked in exasperation. “You said we were going to go to the beach, but now halfway there you just sit down on the street like you’re waiting for--”
Ben almost wouldn’t have noticed the man who lunged at Klaus at that moment if Klaus hadn’t turned to look down the mouth of the alley moments before the guy emerged wielding a baseball bat. He immediately straightened and braced himself for Klaus to bring him fully into the physical world so he could take care of this asshole, but Klaus hadn’t even paused before using the man’s momentum to throw him over his shoulder and yank the bat free of his hand.
While the first guy was still recovering from taking a header to the sidewalk, Klaus swung around to catch the approach of a second man with a solid crack to the side of his head. Klaus nonchalantly dropped the bat directly onto the temple of the first man as he tried to climb to his feet, and let him crash face first into the side of the brick planter box he’d been sitting on only moments ago.
The whole thing took maybe fifteen seconds, but the most bizarre part was how calmly Klaus had handled the situation. He knew his brother had been through the same training as the rest of them as kids, and had certainly been in his fair share of scraps in the intervening years, but he’d never known him to so effortlessly anticipate and dispatch a clearly targeted assault, especially not without relying on Ben to help.
“...Okay,” he said finally, watching Klaus cross to the alley and tug a dingy leather briefcase out from behind a crate. “Yeah, now I trust that you know what you’re doing.”
**
“Oh Fiiiiiiiiiiive!” a voice sang from the hallway, accompanied by the sound of hurried footsteps.
Five groaned and debated leaving, but it was his room dammit. "What do you want, Klaus?"
The door burst open to admit a practically skipping Klaus, who was dressed in some horribly contrasting combination of orange crop top and tye-dyed swim shorts. More importantly, he was holding a familiar-looking black leather briefcase.
Five jumped across the room and yanked the briefcase from Klaus before he had finished entering the room. It looked more or less intact, maybe a little scuffed and with a dent in the combination locks. He frowned at it consideringly and moved to set it on his desk.
"Misters Square were kind enough to give it to me as consolation for interrupting my beach plans!" Klaus chirped. "They were hanging out in one of my favorite alleys and seemed interested in getting the drop on any member of the Umbrella Academy who passed them by, but they picked the wrong Hargreeves to mess with!"
Five hummed absently, paying little attention to the expectant look on Klaus’s face. He squinted at the combination locks and bent over to examine them more closely.
Klaus hopped up to sit on the desk next to the briefcase and waved a hand at Five. "I said, they picked the wrong Hargreeves to mess with. Don't you have anything to tell me?"
"Huh?" Five looked up, batting away Klaus’s hand. "Yeah uh, nice job Klaus. You should get Diego or Luther to help you clean up the evidence."
Klaus huffed. "Okay fine, but that's not what I meant; you're seriously not going to say anything about the Commission this time?"
Five was barely listening, his attention already back on the briefcase. He reached out a hand and hesitated an inch or so away from the dials, wondering if the targeting mechanism would have been damaged as well. "What about the Commission? We should keep an eye out and start doing check ins until we're sure they--"
8:16am
Five blinked up at the cracked paint on the ceiling of his bedroom. Maybe he could roll over and get another couple hours of rest--
"Are you kidding me!"
Five sat up and frowned as he heard the sound of Klaus stomping around his room downstairs and throwing open the bedroom door. He debated whether to venture down and see what the problem was, but the idea of confronting a moody Klaus without even a drop of caffeine in his system seemed like a little too much for 8:15 in the morning, so he jumped directly to the kitchen instead to avoid any run-ins.
When he arrived, Luther was just removing a piece of toast from his cheek and sighing heavily, as if he and Diego didn’t have childish food-fights at breakfast 3 or 4 times a week. Five rolled his eyes around a reluctant smile and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Klaus stomped into the room a minute later, looking mutinous. He kept shooting filthy looks in Five’s direction for no particular reason Five could think of, but then again with Klaus who knew. He took a sip of his coffee as Vanya wandered into the room, looking disoriented.
He sighed.
It was going to be a long day.
**
“No, man, red peppers,” Diego said adamantly. He shook his head and waited until Luther finally left the kitchen before picking up one of the green bell peppers from the counter to run it under the tap. He smirked as he heard the front door shut behind Luther and took a bite.
**
Ben tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for Klaus to emerge from the depths of Allison’s closet. “Was there something wrong with the last outfit you put together?”
A crash as something fell, probably knocked over by Klaus’s fumbling. “I told you, I’m tired of wearing that one!”
“You just picked it out last night, have you even worn it?” Ben pointed out reasonably.
“I’ve worn it more times than you could possibly understand, Benjamin Button,” Klaus retorted as he wiggled backwards out of the closet, fighting with a long striped beach dress that seemed to be tangled up in a pair of bedazzled boot-cut jeans. “I need something fresh this time around if I have to go through all of this all over again. That last time should have worked, I did everything perfectly.”
“What exactly are you talking about?” Ben asked. Klaus had been acting funny from the moment he woke up, except where usually Ben could find a rhyme or reason for Klaus’s mood, today he was at a loss. It wouldn’t be the first time a nightmare had set Klaus off on a spiral, but he’d seemed to sleep peacefully while Ben entertained himself watching the goldfish Klaus had brought home the other day and listened to the radio. It was like he’d woken up from a relatively peaceful (for him) night of rest and immediately been pissed off at the universe.
“Little green men came to me in my dream last night and gave me strict instructions on how to become the most beautiful bitch who ever lived, one who is not burdened by simple-minded questions from the masses; I’ve followed all their instructions to the letter and yet you’re still here asking me the same thing you ask me every day.” Klaus shimmied out of his bathrobe and tugged on the swimsuit cover-up over his pajama shorts, turning to evaluate himself in Allison’s full-length mirror. “Well, at least I am still the most beautiful bitch who ever did live.”
Ben rolled his eyes and considered just going to the beach by himself.
**
Allison shook her head in disbelief as she set down the letter from a former Secretary of State dated in July of 1996, which contained a scathing rebuke of Reginald’s stance on the marriage of some old oil-baron to a model six decades younger than him. She could only guess, judging by the quickly escalating vitriol in the letters she had just read, that her father’s responses had been just as incendiary and opinionated, though why either of them had cared so much about the topic she couldn’t fathom.
She’d known Reginald had been heavily involved in politics for decades and had a lot of distinguished friends, but these letters read more like petty high-school squabbles between the debate team captain and the president of the chess club.
She was about to pick up the next letter and keep unravelling the feud when the sound of something shattering in the hallway distracted her. When she went to investigate, she found Klaus standing on the balcony that overlooked the foyer, hurling some of their father’s horribly expensive vases and bottles of alcohol to the floor below.
“Klaus, what are you doing?” she demanded, hurrying over to check that there was no one in the room below.
Klaus cackled and tossed what looked like a bottle of cologne right at the mounted wildebeest head over the bar. “What’s it look like? I’m redecorating!” At Allison’s disbelieving expression, he added, “don’t worry, in a few hours you won’t have to deal with it. I’ve just always wanted to do this and there’s no better time!”
“What is going on with you today?” Allison asked, looking Klaus up and down. He looked the same as he always did, but there was something about the exhausted slump of his shoulders and the manic glint in his eyes today that just seemed…off. She wondered if he was coming down with something, like Vanya.
“Which today are you talking about?” Klaus asked nonsensically, tossing a little glass paperweight up and down a few times before lobbing it at the mantle.
“Guys?” Luther poked his head around the wall with a befuddled look on his face. “Klaus, what are you doing?”
“Luther!” Klaus cheered. “Hey, wanna help me heave this display case over the railing?”
8:16am
Vanya groaned and rolled over in bed, debating if she should bother going down for breakfast. She blinked sleepily and watched her bedside clock tick away the minutes as she tried to work up the willpower to at least go downstairs for some juice and toast.
She was just pulling herself reluctantly upright when she heard a creak and some violent cursing from outside her window. Confused, but probably not as concerned as she felt she should have been, Vanya peered out the window and down at the fire escape below.
“Klaus?” she said, then winced and cleared her throat as her voice gave out.
Klaus looked up from where he was tugging a large black briefcase up the fire escape and trying to clamber back through the window into his room. He offered a tired wiggle of his fingers in greeting, then shouldered the briefcase through his window with a muffled crash and disappeared inside after it.
Vanya stared down at the empty fire escape for another minute, but the last few minutes didn’t suddenly resolve into clarity or make any more sense than they had while she was experiencing them. She turned back to her bed and tipped the clock face-down onto the nightstand.
Clearly, she was beyond the help of a glass of orange juice.
**
Allison shook her head in admiration. She didn’t know much about this Warren Christopher guy, but anyone who got away with calling her father a “shriveled-minded toad with the foresight of an ice cube and half the wit” and lived to tell the tale was a legend in her book.
**
“Has anyone seen Klaus today?” Luther asked Diego as he wandered into the kitchen, munching on one of the apples from the fruit bowl on the bar. He’d given up on his book after Diego had sent him for turmeric and was trying to keep close to the kitchen in case Diego remembered something else he urgently needed from the store.
Diego looked up from smoothing out a pan of...brownie batter? Luther squinted closely at it, but it still looked like brownies. He wondered where turmeric had come into play in that recipe, but he’d be the first to admit he knew nothing about baking.
“I haven’t seen him, but I’ve been in the kitchen all day. Did he and Allison go somewhere?”
“Allison is in the study trying to make sense of the mess Dad left,” Luther replied, reaching out to swipe a taste of the brownie batter from the bowl and receiving a smack on his wrist from Diego in retaliation.
“Five’s been in and out of the house all day, maybe he’s seen him?” Diego suggested. “I haven’t seen Vanya either, but Mom took some cold medicine upstairs to her a while ago so she’s probably still in bed.”
“Weird,” remarked Luther. “I mean he might have just had a rough night, but usually he at least wanders in for a late breakfast at some point and it’s already almost 3 o’clock. Maybe someone should check on him, he could have caught whatever it is Vanya has.”
“I checked on Klaus when I went up to see Vanya,” Grace interjected, returning from the pantry with a package of walnuts in her hand. She sounded mildly puzzled, but not concerned. “He didn’t have a fever, but he asked to just be left alone to catch up on some sleep this afternoon. He claimed he hasn’t had a chance to rest in the last week, which didn’t really make sense since I know he spent half of the day napping on the couch yesterday, but he did seem very tired so I left him be.”
“Thanks Mom,” Diego said warmly, then glanced around the kitchen and frowned. “Are we out of garlic?”
Luther stood up.
8:16am
Five blinked up at the chipped paint of the ceiling above his bed. He could hear the sounds of his siblings trooping downstairs for breakfast and debated rolling over to try for some more sleep, but the still shadows in the corners of his room reminded him suddenly of long dark nights in the apocalypse. He rolled out of bed quickly and made only a cursory effort to tidy his bed before heading downstairs to breakfast.
He arrived in the kitchen just in time to see a piece of bacon fly across the room and bounce off of Luther’s head. Rather than walk through that field of battle, he jumped directly to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup as a full-scale food fight broke out between Diego and Luther.
Vanya shuffled into the room and collapsed into a chair, looking barely awake. Five was about to join her at the table when Klaus wandered in wearing what looked like Allison’s silk robe over his pajama shorts, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He seemed oblivious to Allison’s scowl, or maybe just indifferent.
“Sleep well?” she asked pointedly.
“Mm, yeah taking a loop off really cleared my head, things were getting pretty squirrly there,” Klaus responded absently, shuffling over to the stove to peek over Grace’s shoulder at the waffles she was cooking. “Hey, can I have strawberries on mine?”
“Where were the squirrels?” Vanya asked, looking up in confusion.
Five snorted and slid the pitcher of orange juice across the table at Vanya. “You should probably just drink some of this and go back to bed, V.”
Vanya’s brow furrowed like she didn’t quite follow his train of thought, but she nodded anyway and picked up the pitcher.
And then she stood up and walked right back out of the kitchen, still holding the orange juice.
Five watched her go, trying not to laugh. They all waited for the sound of Vanya’s footsteps to fade as she shuffled back upstairs, then Klaus whistled lowly and shook his head.
“Well, at least she’ll stay hydrated.”
**
“Hey Luther, man, I need a favor.”
Luther paused at the foot of the staircase, his foot already resting on the first stair as he looked back over his shoulder at Diego. “Yeah? What do you need?”
“Bell peppers.”
**
“Are you sure that thing isn’t going to explode?” Ben hovered anxiously as Klaus sauntered up the front steps with a dented briefcase swinging from one hand.
“Well it hasn’t yet,” Klaus said, unconcerned. He passed through the front hall without pausing, humming slightly as he made for the courtyard door.
“Klaus seriously, last time you got on the wrong side of one of these things you spent ten months in a literal war zone,” Ben fretted. “The handle doesn’t even look like it’s fully attached, would you please be careful?”
Klaus snorted. “You’re missing some of the more recent times this thing has been out to get me, but sure if it will make you feel better, I’ll be more careful,” Klaus assured Ben, then made direct eye contact with him and dropped the briefcase carelessly onto the stone bench.
“Oops.”
Ben groaned, slapping a hand over his face like that would actually shield him from having to bear witness to this. He peeked through his fingers and grimaced at the sight of Klaus hefting a piece of loose brick consideringly as he loomed over the briefcase. “I get that this thing is associated with some bad memories, but do you really think you need to destroy it? It could come in handy at some point.”
“Oh yeah, sure, no, what a great idea to keep the battered old time travel machine that’s skipping like a bad record, just in case we want to make use of it at some point.” Klaus set down the brick and picked up one of the heavy stones that lined the walking path, then muttered, “as if we’ll ever see ‘some point’ at the rate we’re going. No, Ben, I’ve had enough.”
“What the hell are you doing, Klaus?” Five interjected, rounding the corner of the building that led to the alleyway with a Gimbel’s Brother’s bag clutched in his arms. When he caught sight of what Klaus was standing over, he immediately jumped across the courtyard and yanked the rock from Klaus’s hand, his bag forgotten. “Jesus Christ, are you nuts? Where did you even get one of these?”
“What, the rock?” Klaus asked innocently. “Ohh, do you mean this old thing? Yeah, a couple of old friends left this in my hands. Well-- they left it, and I took it into my hands.”
Five had already turned his back and was pouring over the briefcase, his lips pursed. “Left it in your hands, huh.”
Then, seeming distracted for a moment, Five huffed and shook his head. “That reminds me of the stupid line the Commission always fed us about needing to keep a hand on the briefcases at all times when in the field, even though these things are so heavy and cumbersome.” Five smiled as he crouched down to get on eye level with the briefcase. “They were never specific enough about whose hands needed to be on it, though, which led to some…creative adornments on these things when they were returned after a job.”
Disturbed at the mental image that statement had prompted, it took Ben a moment to realize Klaus was standing completely still, staring at Five with a disbelieving look on his face. He looked somewhere between incredulous and outraged.
After a second, Five must have sensed his gaze as well because he looked up at Klaus and frowned in confusion at the sight that greeted him. “Klaus?”
“That’s it?” Klaus demanded, his voice pitching up in distress. “All of this, and that’s the end of that godforsaken joke? I--ugh!”
Ben took a step out of the line of fire as Klaus began stomping in a tight circle, waving his hand over his head as he started and stopped speaking several times without actually saying anything, evidently incoherent with rage. Five stood next to Ben, likewise confused; the briefcase sat forgotten on the bench behind them.
Or not forgotten, as it turned out.
Klaus spun around, righteous indignation on his face. “That joke wasn’t even funny,” he said accusingly, and then before Five could stop him he snatched the lopsided handle of the briefcase, yanked it from the bench, and slammed it into the still-empty stone pedestal where Ben’s statue once stood.
Five made an affronted noise, but it was too late. The briefcase gave a terrifying screeching sound as it connected with the stone, thunked loudly like something inside had just come loose, and then a let out a sharp pop that had Ben flexing his jaw and trying to shake off a weird sensation in his ears like he’d just gotten off an airplane.
For a moment, none of them spoke, Ben disoriented and Five speechless. Then, Klaus straightened up with a tiny noise of satisfaction and held out the lightly-smoking briefcase towards Five.
“Here, this thing was broken anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Ben and I are going to the beach.”