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Allison stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
“Why…” She turned to where Five was sprawled in an armchair with this face buried in a newspaper. “Why is Klaus yelling in the living room?”
“Dunno. He’s always talking to himself.”
“But he’s not usually…yelling.” She paused to listen and sure enough, Klaus wasn’t so much having a heated conversation as he was full on screaming.
“Should we do something?”
“I haven’t in the past 40 minutes or so and it’s been fine. Let’s see if yelling back works. HEY KLAUS!” Five craned his neck. “KEEP IT DOWN! SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO RELAX!”
“It’s been going on for 40 minutes?”
Klaus howled something back—possibly in a response to Five—that sounded vaguely like it ended with bitch.
Five shrugged. “It’s calmed down a bit.”
“Riiight.” Allison altered course and headed towards the living room, whatever she had previously been doing promptly forgotten.
“Hey, Klaus?” She poked her head in to find her brother pacing between the couches, brandishing his arms in an animated conversation with no one. No on visible, anyway. That in itself was nothing new, but the ferocity of the one-sided argument was unusual.
Five appeared beside her, looking pointedly unamused. “As usual, we want to know what the fuck.”
Klaus barely spared the pair of them a glance, still pacing. He was holding a tattered paperback clutched close to his chest, but didn’t seem to be reading it so much as holding it hostage. “I’m not doing anything!”
“Of course you’re not. But that still begs the question: what the fuck?”
“None of your business pipsqueak!” Then, Klaus whirled around again to point accusingly at the end table in the corner. “BEN! You shut your ghost-whore mouth!”
There was no audible response from Ben.
“Well then. This is completely pointless.” Five clapped his hands together. “I am disappointed yet unsurprised.”
“Is that,” Allison watched as Klaus assaulted the empty air, beating it with the book he was holding. “Is that Viktor’s book?”
“Sure ain’t the Bible!” Klaus tried to kick at the unoccupied corner of the room and nearly overbalanced.
“You actually read that thing?” Five, who had been just about to jump away, stopped at the mention of what Klaus was up to.
“Reading.” Klaus corrected. “Before I was so rudely interrupted.”
“Why were you yelling at Ben?”
“Cause Casper here wants to read over my shoulder and it’s annoying!” He took another swing at where Ben was apparently standing. “I can’t help the fact that I’m a slow reader Benerino! It’s my copy and my hands, so I’m turning the pages when I say so! No I didn’t steal it.”
“My god. He’s actually trying to raise the family literacy rate.” Five rubbed at his forehead. “Bold undertaking Klaus, but I think it’d take a miracle to get above two-thirds.”
“Oh you’re just pissy because this one’s a little above your grade level for reading comprehension, Short Round. But maybe if you behave, I’ll read you a bedtime story.”
“Doubt you could make it through Goodnight Moon without sounding out half the words!”
“Guys!”
“Just because your balls haven’t dropped doesn’t mean you have to take it out on me!”
“And yours have? You juvenile ignoramus!”
“OH hooooh. The mouth on you!” Klaus used the spine of the book to point accusingly at Five. “Viktor was right!”
Allison took a seat on the couch. This might as well be her afternoon. “Right about what?”
“That he’d never grow up to be a decent member of society!” Klaus licked his finger and used it to flip through pages until he found the one he wanted. “And I quote: ‘He would remain the youngest of us all, eternally. The rest of the Hargreeves siblings, one way or another, eventually made it out of that house. But that’s where the memory of Five would stay. We didn’t have a body to burry. He never even got a name. It’s difficult to think he’d—”
“GIVE ME THAT!” Five lunged at Klaus, who danced away holding the book over his head. That worked for all of six seconds before Five popped in and out of arm’s reach fast enough to grab it.
“Owwwuhhh!” Klaus rubbed at his wrist. “That was rude! It doesn’t even say the worst stuff about you.”
Allison snorted. “I mean that was published when Five was 13 and dead. Viktor had no way of knowing he actually would get the chance to actually grow up. Well. Kind of.”
Five fixed her with his most withering glare.
“Or that any of us would end up…the way we did.”
“Oh but if chapter five wasn’t dedicated entirely to him, there’d be nowhere else to wax nostalgic about the deep sentimental significance of fluffernutter sandwiches!” Klaus stuck a hand out, pretending to pinch at Five’s cheek and earned another punch to the gut for it.
“The hell’s a fluffernutter sandwich?”
That was enough to break up the escalating squabble, both boys turning to Allison. Five looked uncharacteristically embarrassed.
Klaus looked like Christmas had come early.
“You didn’t even read it!” He cackled, voice loud and high with mirth. “Here I thought I was being the objectively worst sibling again. Per usual. But you didn’t even read the damn thing!”
“I read it!” Allison bristled. Then, under glares from both of them she relented. “Skimmed it. Alright? I skimmed it. I was in the middle of this huge shoot right when it came out, but I bought a copy!”
“Oh, well in that case!”
“Klaus hadn’t even read it until just now! How come I’m the villain here?”
“We’re horrible!” Klaus threw up his arms. “You all get that right? We’re all horrible siblings. That’s exactly Viktor’s whole point!”
“That’s not his point!” Allison snapped, a little too fast.
“OH yeah? Well how’d you know Miss I-skimmed-it. Bet you only read the parts about you!”
“I did not! I distinctly remember a section in which you got called a ‘The family disappointment in a family of disappointments.’”
“Yeah and? Even I’d agree that’s a fairly accurate assessment.” Then Klaus stuck his tongue out at her. “Not my fault Viktor pulled punches for you.”
“Did not!”
“Didn’t even realize yet how manipulative you are!”
“AM NOT!”
“Guys? What are you all doing?” Luther ducked through the doorway of the living room, looking none too pleased about the continued shouting.
“Ah! Luther!” Klaus used the moment of distraction to snatch the book back out of Five’s hands. “Knew you could sense fun a mile away. Here to stomp out the party?”
“Right.” Luther glanced between the three of them. “Party is exactly the word I was going to use.”
“Boy, someone woke up on the wrong side of the waning gibbous. Mad you didn’t get chapter one, Number One?”
“Like I care what that thing says about me!” He paused. “…What does it, say about me?”
“Oh your chapter gets the best subtitle.” Klaus put on his dramatic narrator voice again. “The first-born in name only: heir to the Hargreeves mess.”
Then it was Luther’s turn to chase Klaus around the couch. Klaus was surprisingly fast, keeping just out of reach while still reading aloud.
“Page 82 calls you a damn dirty ape!”
“It does NOT!”
"You haven’t even read it!”
“And you won’t ever make it to the end if I kill you first!”
“How is it,” Five dropped onto the couch next to Allison to watch the unfolding antics. “That we’re all technically the same age, and somehow every single one of us ended up with middle-child energy?”
Allison sighed. “Dad was a scientist, not a miracle worker. Or a good example.”
“You know this really should be a family affair,” Klaus said. He had paused at the edge of the couch—just outside of arm’s reach from Luther, who was too tired to give chase.
“Where’s Deigo?”
“Devastated he’s been missing this, I’m sure,” Five said. “I’m not getting him.”
“Deigo!” Klaus hollered. “DEIGO!”
The first sign of Deigo was his knife that came hurtling out of the darkness to clip Klaus on the ear.
“Would you lot fucking quit yelling?” Deigo appeared not long after the projectile, stalking up to Klaus to pull his dagger from where it’d lodged in the wall.
“OW! What’s everyone beating me up for?” Klaus pinched the top of his ear to stem the trickle of blood. “I didn’t write it!”
“You’re the one who roped us all into involuntary book club.” Luther said, taking the seat on Allison’s other side. “And I am attender under protest, for the record.”
“Klaus, put that thing away. It’s trash.”
“Deigo come ooooooon, it’ll be fun!” Klaus put on his very best puppy-dog eyes. “You can be first for once in your life!”
The pillow hit Klaus square in the chest with a thump. Goose-down feathers scattered across the floor.
“Fine! Fine.” Deigo settled onto the couch as well. “Go on, then. Read the damn thing if it’ll make you feel better.”
“That’s the spirit!” Klaus went back to thumbling through the book. “Where was it? Blah blah, sad childhoods all round. Blah blah, un-special, blah blah.”
It was one of the very few times the Hargreeves children were all silent, sat in rapt attention.
“Oh! Here’s a good bit! Viktor included the time I ended our prank war by telling him the ghost of an old woman stands at the food of his bed to watch him sleep. We were 7, I think? Good times”
“Does it say anything about dad?” Luther asked. Then, when Allison leaned over to smack his arm: “What? I wanna know!”
“Oh yeah, the whole book’s dedicated to father dearest.” Klaus held open the front cover so they could see. “In a therapy-speak reverse-psychology sort of way.”
It read: “To Reginald: Can you hear me now?”
“So the old man’s an insufferable asshole all our lives,” Deigo pouted, “and he gets a fucking book dedicated to him?”
“Oh well I’m sure in the sequel that honor will go to you.” Allison narrowly dodged the decorative throw pillow that was launched in her direction.
“God. This doesn’t even mention my prolific overdose streak!” Klaus shook the book like it would change the words on the page. “That’s like 67% of my whole personality! Lame.”
“You’re mad that Viktor didn’t print the innumerable ways in which you almost died?” Five had popped out at some point and now perusing his own copy of the book.
“If Vik really was going to spill the family beans I’d prefer it at least made me look cool.”
“He’d need a better editor for that, Klaus.”
But Klaus wasn’t listening, he’d turned to watch the space just over Allison’s head behind the couch. “Shut it, Ben. You’re just smug cause it’s gauche to speak ill of the dead.”
“Right, well if we all die by second edition Viktor will have no choice but to only say nice things.”
“Jesus, Luther!”
“I’m just saying.”
Klaus held up his hands. “Fine, fine. Ben wants the chapter about his funeral, the ghostly un-dead diva.”
It shouldn’t have been funny, given the subject matter, but the Hargreeves siblings could tease each other about anything. Death included. Klaus narrated, pausing now and again to relay Ben’s comments. This was the best entertainment they’d had in a long time.
But the more Klaus read, the more he settled into narrating long chunks of chapters verbatim. The charm of riffing on each new hot take slowly dwindled. Soon, there was barely any response to the depressingly honest observations. The mood in the room sank like a stone. What had started boisterous and teasing, devolved into Klaus leaning against the stone fireplace earnestly reading them Viktor’s very sad book.
The spell was only broken when the front door clicked open.
If any one of them had remembered that Viktor’d gone out to meet with a new violin tutor, they might have had the good sense to have the whole thing wrapped up by now. But they’d all legitimately lost track of time. Which was a compliment for Viktor’s writing but did nothing to diffuse the current situation.
Viktor stood in the doorway, wide eyes searching each of them until they landed on Klaus, who had trailed off mid-sentence.
“Um. Hi, guys.” A hand went up to adjust the strap of his violin case, the creaking it made in his grasp audible through the horribly silent room.
“What are you…” Then his eyes fell on the book, and the end of the question comes out as a squeak. “…reading?”
There was one long moment of silence in which they all just stared at each other—then everyone starts talking at once.