Chapter Text
“ A party?” Allison asked.
“Viktor just came out to us, it’s a big deal.” Luther argued, “And big deals need parties to commemorate them.”
“Look at you, using your big boy words.”
“Shut up Diego.”
“What does commemorate mean?”
“Guys,” Allison held up her hands for silence. “Moving on that Klaus is an idiot-“
“Hey!” Klaus cried indignantly, “I’m proud to be an idiot.”
He was lying upside down on the green couch, his black hair brushing the marble floor. The Hargeeve siblings, apart from Viktor, were all gathered in the lobby of Hotel Oblivion having a family meeting. Luther was standing in the middle, his siblings surrounding him in a circle, like he standing at court.
“Do we actually have time for this?” Allison continued, as if she hadn’t heard. “I mean the literal world is ending.” She gestures to the windows, where a massive chunk of the Earth broke off from the already crumbling ground and started floating into space. It then crashed into a piece of floating cement and exploded.
This wasn’t helping Luther’s point much.
“Might as well go out with a bang.” Klaus piped up from the couch again, wiggling his fingers.
“I second that. And besides, Viktor needs this.” Diego said, leaning against the wall, twirling his knife between his fingers, the motion so fluid it looked like water. “Especially with all the shit Viktor has gone through with Dad.Think about it, he’s never had anything for himself. Not even his damn birthday.”
A moment of silence passed as each sibling considered Diego’s words.
“Well, Five?” Allison looked at him who was sitting on another green couch, considering his fingers, brows furrowed. After a sigh, he looked up:
“I can’t do shit on my own trying to stop this apocalypse on my own anyway. So sure, let’s have this stupid party.”
And five minutes later, the plan was formed.
“Allison, you make sure Viktor is busy and doesn’t come down as we are decorating.”
“Got it.” Allison said.
“Five, you’re on drinks.”
“Best job in this whole idea.”
“Klaus, you said you can cook right?” Luther enquired, looking at Klaus.
“Fabulously.”
“Right then, me and Diego are on decorating.”
As everyone began heading off to their destinations, Luther called out one last thing, “Also, I hate to agree with Diego but he’s right. Viktor needs this party to be good. We can’t mess up on this!”
“What, like we normally do?” Five called back, walking towards the cellar, not looking back at an exasperated Luther.
And on that cheerful note, the plan was officially in action.
******************************
Allison was running up the stairs when she saw Viktor coming down.
“Hey, are you having a family meeting? Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice wasn’t accusing but Allison felt guilty for some reason. Diego's words really hit home.
“We weren’t.” Allison grabbed Viktor’s sleeve and was about to pull him upstairs when she noticed. “Is that what you are wearing?”
“Yeah, I thought it was good.” It was a plain black button down with navy trousers with Viktor’s hair being unbrushed. Also, his socks are different colours. In Allison’s actor/hairdresser mind, he was a walking catastrophe.
He’s gonna hate me, she thought, He will. Hell, if he knew the torture I will submit him to for the next couple of hours he will never talk to me again.
It’s perfect.
“Let’s go upstairs.” Allison said cheerfully, pulling Viktor up the stairs as she went up two steps at a time.
“To do what?” Viktor struggled half-heartedly before letting himself be dragged up.
“Oh dear Victor,” Allison’s grin borders a bit too close to evil, “We are going shopping.”
********************************
Klaus looked around with his hands on his hips at the gleaming white kitchen of the hotel.
“I didn’t know you could cook.” Ben said suspiciously, standing close to the door as if trying to escape.
“Of course I can Benerino! I was the best cook in the army.” Klaus opened the fridge and let out a squeal. “Look, they have milk, sugar, eggs, everything. Everything to make a cake.”
“The army?” Ben asked. “Yes, cooking in the trenches with worms and where bombs being thrown at you every five minutes is exactly like cooking in the normal kitchen.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
“See, I detect mockery there. But I won’t let it affect me, cause I’m a good cook like that.” Klaus started putting all the ingredients onto the table and equipment and then he got to work making the horror.
After cracking too many eggs, covering his face and hands in flour and scraping something that definitely wasn’t butter off a plate and into the what-is-supposed-to-be-cake-batter, he was done.
“Well, that physically pained me.” Ben remarked, far away from the mess of sugar and the disgrace-that-is-supposed-to-be-a-cake Klaus had made on the table.
“Now it just needs to be in the oven and bam, cake is done, siblings are happy and Viktor’s trauma is erased. Also, you can’t pained Benerino, cause you’re dead.”
Klaus said happily, putting the mistake into the oven.
Ben crossed his arms and looked annoyed, which wasn’t a change from his usual facial expression really, but he has a special annoyed face when reminded of his state of not existing. “Just remember to keep an eye on the time, to get the cake when it’s ready. Can you do that?”
“Oh please,” Klaus started getting ready to make the frosting. “How hard can it be?”
***********************************
Five let a low whistle escape his lips as he stood in the dingy, dark cellar. Every shelf along the wall was filled with dusty bottles, all of them untouched.
His aim was to pick a couple and head straight back up to make sure his stupid siblings don’t mess anything up. In and out, easy he thought. However, that was before his eye caught a specific nice looking-bottle of scotch.
It stood there nestled against the corner, light from the open glistening on the curve of its neck.It was basically begging Five to pick it up. And it didn’t hurt to just pick it up, right?
He walked up to it, grabbed by its neck and swished it side to side, watching the liquid behind the cloudy glass dance. Just one sip, that isn’t bad.
He uncorked the bottle, and swallowed a gulp. He immediately started spluttering and coughing, spraying the alcohol all over the dusty cellar floor. His eyes started watering and his throat felt one fire as he stared aghast at the bottle, like it betrayed him.
But, after a minute, it settled into his stomach and Five felt himself warm, from his throat all the way to his toes. It felt good. So good, he decided to have another sip.
And another.
And another.
********************************
Diego rooted around in the cardboard box in the middle of the Hotel Oblivion lobby, finding large pieces of white paper and nearly dried out pens. He went and hunted around the hotel's basement and found a couple of boxes of decorations. Luther was next to him, opening another box and losing his mind over how many balloons it had.
“They have all the right colours too! This might actually look nice!” He grinned, “And that paper could be used as a banner.”
Diego smoothed out the paper and the ground and sat down with a pen, focusing intently as Luther sat opposite him. “What should I write?” Diego asked, still looking down.
“I don’t know.”
“How ‘bout ‘Happy day’”
“The world is ending.”
“I don’t know, you write it!”
“I’m busy.” Diego looked up and saw Luther laying down on his stomach, his feet up in the air. His face was focused on concentration, his brow furrowed and eyes narrowed. He looked like back when Dad was alive and Luther had led them all on missions, making sure they killed whatever their Dad told them to kill and trying to make sure no one got lost, killed or had any of their limbs chopped off.
Diego’s eyes followed Luther's massive arms to his apeish hands holding a pen and scribbling across the length of the page. He was-
Diego spluttered with laughter, a sound that wasn’t heard of for some time now.“Why are you drawing flowers?”
Luther was drawing dainty, small little daisies across the page, focussing on the little edges of their petals and leaves. He still didn’t look up at the laughing Diego.
“Dude, you look like a little girl with her colouring book.” Diego snorted, standing up and digging through the box again.
“Shut up.”
“Okay, ape-man.”
“Don’t call me that!” Luther glared angrily at Diego , who was still.
“Look what I found.” Diego stood up and turned round, his eyes gleaming, lifting from the box an old, dusty and battered stereo and a case of CDs.
*****************************************************
Klaus looked down at his frosting bowl, all lumpy and a bad mix of dark blue, sickly pink and yellow (There wasn’t any white). His arms were now covered in expired icing sugar as well as eggs and he had flour in his hair. He looked like a madman.
“The frosting will look better on the cake.” Klaus said hopefully, then paused and looked towards Ben, who was staring at disgust at the frosting. “By the way, can you smell tha-”
Suddenly, a loud blaring sound started from out of nowhere. It assaulted Klaus’s ears, cutting him off his sentence and thought. Out of instinct, Klaus threw himself onto the ground and covered his head with his arms. He twisted his eyes shut as the shrieking went on, as if that would stop it. But it wouldn’t. The screaming and yelling pressed into Klaus’s skull, pushing forward into his skull despite how much he tried to cover his face in the muddy dirt of the trenches. He was consumed by it.
“Klaus!”
“Klaus!”
It was Ben. His face was pressed up against Klaus’s own,on his hands and knees, his face scrunched about in effort to yell and his eyes ablaze with worry. He was yelling to be heard over the sound of the fire alarm. The fire alarm. It was a god damn fire alarm.
Klaus stood up slowly, letting his hands touch the coolness of the solid, white floor and then spotted the device directly on the ceiling above him. The noise was still loud but tinny and annoying.
Grabbing a hand towel he waved it frantically in front of it, until the fire alarm finally stopped shrieking. Klaus stopped as well, panting, looking at Ben who was staring at him.
“Are you-” Ben started tentatively then stopped. Klaus was just trying to figure out how he could brush this off when his eye fell on small wisps of grey smoke escaping from the oven. His eyes grew wide.
“The cake!”
*******************************
Viktor wasn’t sure what he was expecting when Allison said shopping. Certainly not digging through piles of the long gone hotel residents.
Allison was sitting on a bed, watching him with the judging and narrowed eyes of an actress. “Now spin.”
Viktor spun slowly round in a circle, displaying a leather jacket Allison had found for him. “I look stupid.”
“That is just your face, but hopefully we’ll find something to cover up all the stupid.” Allison laughed at Viktor’s disgruntled face.
“You do know that I have, can and will kill people?” Viktor frowned at Allison,but had to stop the edges of his own mouth quirking up when Alison started laughing
“Viktor,” Allison made an exaggerated shocked face, “That kind of violent language doesn’t suit you.”
“I have made a hundred knives pierce a man’s flesh while he was floating so he could slowly bleed out in mid air.”
“Deserved it. Absolute asshole.”
It was Viktor’s turn now, mimicking her voice. “Allison, that sort of violent language doesn’t suit you.”
Allison threw a pillow at Viktor and he dodged, grinning. She sighed and looked at him again.
“This jacket suits you though; broadens your shoulders.” She said.
Viktor let himself glow at the compliment, unseen by Allison, who was looking through a pile of jumpers on the bed. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being up here. Yes, he had tried to escape (Allison had tied him down to a chair with a scarf before he pinky promised he wouldn’t leave) and would still jump out the window if he could.
But it was sort of nice. Just talking and laughing with Allison like the old-
But Viktor let himself truly consider. When had he ever talked to Alison in this comfortable, easy way? Definitely not when he was in the Academy.
Perhaps going through a murder phase, too many apocalypses and dead dads and siblings made you have that bond with someone.
But suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by a muffled blaring. It was muffled by the separation of the two floors but still discernible. It was repetitive and loud, sort of like an alarm, “What was that?”
Alison’s eyes went wide slightly, “What was what?”
Well, this was fun but time to go. “I’m gonna go check.” Viktor began walking to the door, glad he was escaping out of the door and not jumping out the window and into the hell outside and becoming dust like he planned on doing eventually when he wore so many clothes he could tear his eyes out.
“No!” Allison caught up to him and grabbed his wrist, a wide, too wide, smile on her face. “It’s no problem. The others will probably figure it out.”
Viktor narrowed his eyes. “They are all downstairs? What are they doing?”
“Stuff, I don’t know.” Allison still hadn’t let go of his wrist, “C’mon, let’s see how the jumper looks.”
“Yeah, no. Very much no. I’ll go downstairs.” Viktor turned back round, about to set a foot over the door way.
“Wait, dont-”, Suddenly, Viktor felt himself falling, his knees buckling as Alison forced them both onto the ground, their fall broken by the many clothes. He fell face first, lying there for a moment in absolute shock as Allison started getting up.
“Allison!” Viktor yelled, his voice rising as he turned round to face her, face distorted in confusion. What the hell?
Whatever he was talking about a minute ago, about bonds and sentiments and whatsoever was long gone. Viktor narrowed his eyes at Allison, “I’m going downstairs,” he paused, letting Alison hear the finality in his voice. “Don’t make me fight you.”
“You know you are not intimidating, right?” Allison hit back, grim victory on her face as she got back on her feet.
That’s when Viktor tackled her to the ground.
***************************
Luther was tying the banner to either side of the room, the middle of the banner reading “Happy Party” in scrawling, almost illegible handwriting.
Diego was blowing blue, pink and white balloons and throwing them around the room, bopping his head to some AC/DC song. He and Diego had spilled the entire case of CDs on the ground as they’d argued about what song to play. Luther watched Diego dance around, his foot almost catching on the minefield of CDs as “Thunder” played.
“You better clean those up or someone’s gonna trip.”
Diego didn’t miss a beat of his head bopping, “Or you shouldn’t hang it so low, someone can hit their head on it or something.”
“It’s fine!”
Before the two could continue, the doors of the room flew open and Klaus ran in. His hair had streaks of flour in it, his eyes were like a scared animal and Luther would watch in horror later when he saw bits of raw egg on his forearm.
But right now, Luther’s focus was not on his brother’s deteriorating mental state and state of dress, the absolute horror that was on a silver tray as Klaus held.
It was in a circular shape, like a cake. But this resembled more like a creation of satan than a cake. It was slathered in a mix of alarming shades of yellow, blue and pink yet Luther could see the burnt black underneath the disturbing mess of colour.
Also, it was on fire.
Klaus ran towards Luther and Diego, the disgrace-upon-all-cakes sliding precariously along the tray it was on, the small orange fire on top wobbling alarmingly with it.
“Oh good, I’m not late.” Klaus said, his voice shaking loft some reason, sounding and looking more like a crazy person than ever. “Now we-“
That’s when his foot caught on a Madonna CD. In slow motion, Luther watched his brother’s mouth open in surprise as his body tipped forwards,his foot skidding the CD backwards. To Klaus’s credit, he didn’t let go of the tray, even as he was about to face-plant the floor. However, despite the yell leaving Klaus’s mouth, the monstrosity-that-didn’t-deserve-to-be-called-a-cake slid off the tray.
It flew through the air, low curve, spinning once, twice, three times. Luther began shaking his head in horror as the cake fell on the banner he spent ages on. It caught quickly, the fire spreading like a disease across the banner, burning the painstakingly detailed flowers to ash.
And the trio watched, Klaus from his position on the ground as the banner burned to the ground as the stereo blared out “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie.