Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Malibu California, May 5^th, 2019

If asked, Five denied it.

He refused it with the tenacity of a man sentenced to death row for a crime he hadn’t committed. Which was disturbing on so many levels, but Ben had told him not to make a big deal out of it and the only reason Klaus knew about the conversation was because Ben had told him.

Nevertheless, it had, like most awful and strange things in their lives, begun with Reginald Hargreeves.

One could also argue that it had begun because Five was an antagonizing, arrogant son of a bitch and had vanished from their lives for seventeen years. In that time, there had been varying ideas about what had happened to him. Klaus, personally, had always theorized that the little pisspot had just decided to... Ditch. He had run away. Vanished in a puff of torn spacetime.

In his head, Five was living out some dream existence in Finland, or something.

Maybe as a fisherman. Maybe as a stripper. Maybe as a banker.

This wasn’t exactly an original idea. Diego had come up with it first, though Klaus would never hand over the credit. “That little jerk abandoned us!” He declared one night at dinner, smacking his fork onto the plate as he glared at the meal mom still made for Five and set in his empty seat two years after his disappearance.

“He did not!” Tiny Vanya had cried, even though absolutely no one cared to listen to her because she didn’t have any powers. “H-he’s lost or something! Or he was kidnapped!”

“Grow up, Vanya,” Diego had yelled. “He left.”

Luther, even at that age, had been a complete ass-wipe about most things. As such, he had rolled his eyes, continued to cut up his steak and glanced up, to the head of the table. To Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself.

“What do you think, dad? Did Five leave?” he asked.

They all turned to him. They were too young to understand that their father was a cruel, sadistic bastard whose bluntness did not come from honesty but indifference. Reggie was strictly a to-be or not-to-be kinda guy, and he had long decided not to be a good father.

“I have to agree with Number Two’s assessment,” he replied. The wrinkles around his eyes tightened. “Number Five has deserted his responsibilities, and his family. There is no more to be said on the matter.”

And that was that.

A good nineteen years later, and here they were. Reginald had been wrong. Five reappeared like an old Barbie toy one found sticking out of the gutter one morning. Ben died, which, sad. They lived in the sixties because why not?

“But,” Klaus observed aloud, since it was barely dusk and he was the only one in the pool. “One could say this was a rather… Ironic statement, because Five did leave, but it wasn’t to fuck off to Switzerland.”

The Californian sun winked over the horizon as if to agree.

Klaus nodded and raised his half-emptied glass in salute to the ever-falling sun. That asshole. How was it that the sun never changed, though the years and timelines did? Wasn’t there a timeline out there where it was green or something? That would be cool. 

He could already hear Five’s you idiot.

It was the second to last thing he’d said when they pulled up in front of Allison’s 1960’s house that fateful day. The day when they were all reunited for the first time in… Years, for Klaus. But Five hadn’t seen Allison yet and Klaus liked to believe that was why the little gremlin ordered him to stay in the car while he fetched their sister.

Gently swaying his foot in the water, Klaus smiled to himself. And the sun.

The arrival of two skinny, long shadows in his left peripheral was his only warning that he had been joined by one of his siblings for an early afternoon swim. “Take a seat, brother or sister of mine,” he invited, waving lazily around the pool, where various flotation devices gently bobbed in the current his foot was making. “The water is…” The rest of his statement died away when he felt the cool nozzle of a pistol dig into his temple.

“Don’t move, asshole,” the gun owner sneered. Klaus slowly raised his hands, debating whether it might be a good idea to call out for help. Either the ghostly kind or family kind. Everyone knew he was a lover, not a fighter.

Before he could come to a decision, however, the ear-shattering pop of multiple gunshots echoed out over the Californian coast, followed by a startled scream he was pretty sure came from Allison.

Klaus sighed. Damn it. Of course they’d been attacked. Because fucking why not? He blamed Five. And dad. And Ben even though he was in heaven now or whatever. 

Mostly Five. After all, he would never admit it, but this whole family vacation had been his idea.

Chapter Text

Dallas Texas 1963

Five stopped just as his feet touched the ground outside of his sister’s door.

It was a completely average door. Nothing special about it. He was slightly disappointed. He had always believed that Alison’s home would be decorated in some overly exaggerated way. Yet it was, as their father might have had it, so stunningly ordinary it better fit Number Seven’s tastes.

As soon as Five thought it, he regretted the thought.

Still, there was no welcome mat. No doorbell. No windchimes of any sort. Just a door.

A door that he could easily bypass with his powers. Why was he standing there, like a lunatic?

He could feel the wary gazes on the back of his neck, dark eyes that had learned to fear the sudden intrusion of white people into their neighborhoods. Who, they must have been wondering, was this strange white boy and what did he want with two civil rights leaders?

He should go inside. They didn’t have much time to lose.

That was the entire reason he had yelled at Klaus to remain in the car, wasn’t it?

Knowing that maniac, he undoubtedly would have found a way to extend their stay another twenty hours if allowed inside. It had taken Five long enough to locate him for the family meeting, slinking around some dark holes that would not officially be called Gay bars until the late nineties.

What if Allison wasn’t home? What if it was her husband, this Raymond Chestnut?

What if she hated him?

Five could handle her ire. He could even live with her disgust, but… Hatred? Hatred that was truly and deeply warranted?

After all, it was his fault she was trapped here, in 1963 as a black woman. Any number of things could have happened to her. Maybe they already had. Poor dumb, sensitive Luther had been angry, and no one wanted his head for the color of his skin.

“You’ll never know if you just sit here sulking, will you?” A voice- Delores’s voice – pointed out. Five inhaled a deep breath and blinked inside. He landed in a living room so comfortable it made his skin itch. There was a coat rack and a to his left, a dining room. The mid-day sun cast everything in a pale-yellow light, like a halo.

“Five?”

He was losing his touch if he hadn’t noticed the woman sitting on the couch behind him. Despite his own trepidations about seeing her again, Five couldn’t help the tiny smile that tickled the sides of his mouth.

“Hello, Allison,” he replied, turning.

Allison was staring at him, slack jawed. She was alone on the couch, thank goodness. A mug of coffee on the side table beside her. In her hands was a book with dusty flaps and a red cover. Alice in Wonderland. How apt.

Five didn’t know what he’d expected. Would she tense and treat him like the world’s crappiest being as Luther had? Regard him with cold fury like Diego? Klaus assured him she hadn’t lost her memory like Vanya.

Neither spoke for a long moment. Allison set the book down beside her; and seemed to be waiting for him to perform some flip or extravagant feat. He crossed his arms defensively. He and Allison hadn’t been especially close as kids. Well, any closer than what psychology and human nature required, what with never seeing the outside world and going on life-endangering missions all the time.

“Five,” Allison repeated.

“Yes,” he answered, uncertain why she kept repeating his name. “Are you going to yell at me? If so, could you do it quickly? We don’t have much time until…” Allison rocketed to her feet with a quickness that made him stumble backwards, preparing for a hard punch to the jaw. It was instinct.

She didn’t hit him, which was strange. Instead, she pulled him to her and hugged him so tightly it momentarily blocked his airways, which was possibly stranger.

“Shit, I thought everyone was dead Five. I thought you were really gone this time,” she choked, pressing quivering lips to his forehead. The thought that maybe she meant to strangle him vanished.

He almost wished she had tried to do it. At least he would have known how to defend himself from strangulation. There was little he could do now, here, in her arms, but shuffle uncomfortably and wait for it to be over.

He cleared his throat when she did not release him after ten seconds.

“Oh,” Allison chuckled, stepping back so he could breathe again. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t like human contact.”

“I like to be warned first,” he replied, distantly. She was swiping tears from her eyes but otherwise appeared unharmed. There was a dark, jagged scar running across her neck that made him simultaneously want to kill someone and maybe allow her to hug him again. “Well, I can see you have your voice back.”

It occurred to him that this might have been an insensitive thing to mention too late, but the last time he’d seen her she had nearly died as a result of having her throat slit, so it was foremost on his mind. Sue him. 

“What?” Her hand went up to the scar, rubbing. “Oh, yeah. I lost it for a year. Five, what are you doing here? Where’ve you been? What the hell happened?”

He huffed. “We’re having a family meeting…”

“What? All of us? The others are here too? I knew about Klaus and Luther, but all I’d heard about Diego was that he was in a psych-ward and Vanya was out on some farm, Klaus started a frickin cult...”

“I know,” he interrupted, since her rambling didn’t sound like it would end anytime soon. “And you, uh, got married,” he stuffed his hands into his pockets and scanned the living room. “Very homey. How long have you been here?”

Her brows thundered. “Two years.”

He gulped. Longer than the rest of them then. Why hadn’t she hit him again? Maybe emotion had gotten the better of her. Five knew the sensation of being suddenly thrust into a world where everyone you loved was alive again. It took some adjusting.

“Have you… Have you been here that long too?” She asked, and there was some wariness there. She was preparing herself for something, but Five didn’t know her well enough to distinguish what yet.

“No. I arrived not even two weeks ago and, once again, the human race is in imminent danger… Wait,” he stopped as the logic finally caught up with him. “Did you think I’d, what, gotten you stranded in the 1960’s and decided just to leave you here for two years?”

The very notion was insulting. He had spent forty-five years worrying about them and she dared to even entertain the thought that he would just give up like that?

Allison’s expression was lined with exhaustion. “Well, I don’t know, Five. I mostly just thought you and the others had been scattered across time or space. Maybe you’d ended up in, like, the cretaceous or something. Maybe you were dead,” she shrugged. “Maybe you found a new family and decided we were on our own this time.”

Five spluttered unintelligibly. “It’s not like I would have blamed you, if that’s what happened. I mean, that’s what I did when I left the Academy. But, you say you landed barely two weeks ago, so, I guess you didn’t decide fuck-all and take a leave of absence. Were you stuck in the cretaceous?”

Five could solve seventeen-step equations in less than an hour. He could memorize entire family trees in fifteen minutes. He had witnessed and been part of some of the greatest historical moments on Earth, like the death of King Louis XVI or the construction of the Mali Empire, and yet he couldn’t decide which part of Allison’s speech he wanted to tackle first.

She had already decided to take his silence as either rage or dismissal anyway. Which wasn’t totally unfair. “Are the others here now? Vanya? Diego?” She asked, brushing past him toward the door.

Five caught her wrist before she could get more than three steps past him.

“Allison, I wasn’t in the cretaceous,” he informed her, this seeming the most obvious assumption to disabuse. For some reason, some of the rigidity leaked out of her shoulders. “I miscalculated our jump, and sent us all here, but at different moments in time. You seemed to have come through first and… I regret that. I regret what these past two years must have meant for you.”

He heard more than saw her gulp, since her back was still to him. He squeezed the wrist in his grasp. “But you have to know that nothing – nothing – would have gotten in the way of me finding you and the others once I realized what happened.”

She turned back to him with a wobbly smile. “You really didn’t think about ditching us for a nice hammock in the Bahamas?”

He didn’t even allow his eyes to twitch. “Not even for a second,” he swore.

Allison was stunningly beautiful. He had heard it said and thought it himself since he was a child, but beauty wasn’t exactly the word he would use to describe the moment when she believed him. The smile she flashed was a cross between bittersweet and gorgeous.

“You’re better than me, then. I’ve thought about leaving Klaus to fend for himself every day since I found him again,” she joked. Five let go of her wrist and nodded.

“Reasonable.”

“Where is he? He’s been staying here for a while, but I haven’t seen him since last night…”

“He’s in the car, waiting. Probably scaring your neighbors.”

She made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat. “As if he hasn’t done that enough lately. Hold on, let me get my purse and write a note for Ray. That’s my husband,” she explained, then dashed off before he could stress the importance of timeliness.

Whatever. It wasn’t as if the others understood how to read a clock either.

Five stood in the living room, awkwardly. There was a spider in the corner he thought about killing, but hell, he’d messed with the timeline enough. Who was to say this spider wouldn’t go on to give some famous epidemiologist the bite that would lead to a successful career and the discovery of a new bug species?

His eyes landed on the picture over the fireplace instead. In it, an older black man hugged a laughing Allison around the waist. They looked happy. “Does he treat you well?” He found himself blurting.

“What?” Allison called from the back room.

“Your husband. Does he treat you well?”

She reappeared with a purse in hand, hastily scribbling a note on a sheet of paper. “Ray?” She demanded, sounding aghast. She looked up. Five met her gaze. Allison shook her head, expression twisted into befuddlement. “Um, yeah. H-he does. He’s… Patient and kind and truly, truly good. He makes me happy.”

“You know you’ll have to leave him,” she bit her bottom lip and looked away quickly. “We don’t belong here Allison, and we can’t screw up the timeline by bringing him with us to 2019.”

A strand of bang fell into her face as she looked away. “He doesn’t deserve the way he gets treated here.”

“He does not,” Five agreed vehemently. “Neither do you.”

Allison set the note down on the table, eyes downcast in a way that made her look demure, obedient. He hated it. She hadn’t even looked that way with dad. “I-I mean I’ve always known I was Black Five. I’ve always known that I was different from you guys…”

“Not in any way that matters,” he argued.

“Five, I can’t drink out of the same water fountain as you!” he cringed. “I tried to sit at this all-white diner, and I was arrested by the cops! The first night I was here, these random white guys…” She snapped her mouth shut.

The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose. “What? What happened Allison?”

Her shoulders rose and lifted. The air whistled as it exited her nose in a long sigh. “Never mind. It’s in the past.”

“Did someone hurt you?” She said she couldn’t speak for a year. Damn it, that meant she’d been virtually defenseless.

She had martial arts training, same as the rest of them, but that could only go so far when she was alone, at night, surrounded by men who could do anything to her and face little to no ramifications for it.

“I said never mind!” She hissed, eyes flashing with a warning even he dared not push.

Five forced down his instinctive rage. I suppose I deserve that, he thought not without bitterness. I’m the one who got her stuck here in the first place.

“Come on, let’s just go,” Allison sighed.

“Vanya said the same thing,” he thought aloud.

She hesitated by the door. “What?”

Well, they may as well get this over with since Five had started it. Besides, he was genuinely curious. He crossed his arms and set his stance, though he doubted she meant to fight him to the death now.

“When I first came back, Vanya said something similar, and so did Diego. They acted as if I just ran away and found a different life for seventeen years. That I abandoned you all out of some misplaced hatred. Is that what dad told you?”

He wouldn’t put it past the cruel bastard.

Allison barked a laugh. “You know dad. Anything to fuck with our sense of self-worth and unity,” She replied.

“But there’s more,” he pressed. “Isn’t there?”

Her fingers circled the doorknob thoughtfully. “We didn’t talk about it much, but what else could we think? That you’d been kidnapped? What human on Earth could hold you? That you’d gotten lost? You have, like, photographic memory. You knew all the street signs before you were five.”

“You morons would have known them too if you didn’t share a single synapse between the six of you,” he pointed out.  

Allison ignored him. Or maybe she had ceased to see him. She was staring at a spot just over his shoulder with a tiny, dismal smile.

“The only other answer was that you were dead, and we couldn’t bear that so we – I – came up with this fantasy that you’d escaped. You snuck onto a plane to Switzerland or something. You were readopted by this nice, elderly couple who never asked where you came from. When you were in High School, you met this cute Swiss girl. Klaus swore her name had to be a Charlotte or Suzanne or something overly formal and classy.”

“What am I to you people, a Hallmark movie?” he demanded, though he had to admit he was amused by the scenario. How ironic that he had been fighting for his life and sanity in an endless wasteland instead.

“When you two graduated, you got married outside of the most geometrically well-designed building in Europe. Whatever the fuck that was. Vanya said that you started your own handmade chocolate shop. Ben thought you owned a bookstore. Luther and I had bets going as to what kind of professor you became and how you’d make all your students cry during midterms. Diego never talked about it, but I have it on mom’s good authority that he thought you became a train conductor because of that model train set you loved, remember?”

As soon as she said it, the memory flashed before his eyes with such clarity it left him momentarily dizzy. “I do.”

It was incredible what the Apocalypse had taken from him.

He had forgotten all about the tiny plastic trains he’d cherished as a child, obsessing over their every minute and correct detail. It was such an innocent love. He couldn’t even imagine it now.

“In some ways, I wanted you to forget about us. I wanted you to stay in whatever fantasy world you were in, and never come back. But I was angry and jealous, too. If you were going to run away, why not take all of us? Why didn’t you say goodbye? I didn’t know what it was like to love someone other than my siblings. I guess we were the stupid ones, huh?”

He nodded. “Always.”

Allison reached out to swat at him playfully. He easily ducked her hand. “Asshole. I’m going to rumor Klaus to lick your face when we get into the car, though knowing him I probably won’t need the mind control.”

Five wrinkled his nose and silently swore that he would cut off Klaus’s tongue rather than submit himself to such indecency. Nonetheless, he felt beholden to ease the age-old sorrow in her eyes, if only because it came from a completely ludicrous insecurity.

As if he could ever leave these idiots.

“I didn’t forget my family, Allison,” he told her firmly. He waved a hand to indicate the scant space between them. “And if you ever needed confirmation that we are related, despite the lack of blood, I had the same dreams about all of you.”

“I thought you only dreamt about stopping the apocalypse and kicking puppies.”

“I would never stoop so low as animal abuse,” he scoffed.

Allison eyed him with exasperation tinged with a bit of concern. “Yeah, because that’s the trench of morality,” she snorted.

“I’m serious. In the beginning, my plan was to go back in time to the exact moment I left. I would still be in my adult, true form of course. I was, uh,” he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. Besides Dolores, he had never shared this plan with anyone and hearing it aloud now, it sounded very juvenile.

“I was going to either assassinate dad and take custody or threaten the judge to have you juvenile delinquents taken from him and given to me instead. Either one. There was this cabin in Montana that I frequented during the end days. It was pretty well preserved, comfy in a drab, lifeless kind of way. We would go there.”

His sister cocked her head. Surprise unfolded in the air between them, so thick he could feel it strangling him with humiliation. “And you were gonna, what? Raise us yourself?”

 “Hell no!” he cried with an involuntary shudder. Five, raise Klaus? And Diego? No. 

“Pogo and mom were going to do that. I was just going to get you all as far away from dad as humanly possible. Maybe send you losers to an a ctual school with real kids. We could have had normal lives, or as normal as we were going to get,” the more he spoke, the more his favorite dream played out infront of him.

They would attend Allison’s plays, Diego’s boxing matches and Vanya’s violin performances. Ben would have lived. Klaus could have found a coping mechanism healthier than drugs. Luther would have joined Football or painting class depending on the year.

“We would have been a semi-composed, semi-sane family. Then I misplaced a decimal point, so we’re stuck here. Go figure.” He came back to himself with a shake of the head. Allison was giving him a very soft, very fond look. He bristled. “What?”

“Nothing. I just… That sounds beautiful, Five. One day, I’d like to do that. Whatever it would look like now. I’d like that.”

Oh. She wasn’t making fun of him. Five rolled his shoulders. He would take that.

“Maybe for our birthday. You know, if we live that long.”

This time he succeeded in a full laugh. “Yeah,” suddenly she gasped and slammed a hand against his shoulder. “Oh my gosh, Klaus! He hasn’t made a sound this whole time.”

“Fuck!” Five hissed, already blinking out of the house.

He sprinted to the car, heart pounding. Allison appeared right behind him as he rounded the car and peered into the window. Klaus was sitting in the driver’s seat slumped over the steering wheel, completely still.

Five almost tore the door from its hinges in his haste to get it open. His hands fumbled over Klaus’s back and neck, searching for bruises or cuts while Allison knelt in the gravel and shook Klaus’s knee urgently.

“Klaus! Klaus, can you hear me? Are you ok?”

He raised his head and fluttered his eyes at them gently. “Huh?” He murmured. Five rocked back on his heels. A bit of white froth was dribbling from Klaus’s mouth, along with drool. Next to him was a small bottle of whitish liquid.

“What the hell is this?” Five demanded.

Klaus ignored him in favor of giving their sister a beatific smile. “Oh, there you are sis. Hope you don’t mind but I raided your neighbor’s fridge. They really ought to lock their doors. Hey, have you ever tried this stuff?” He gestured to the bottle. Five gave it a suspicious sniff and slapped his forehead.

He was surrounded by pure and unequivocal fools.

“Klaus,” Allison clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes crinkling with inheld laughter. “That’s Horlicks. Its milk to make kids go to sleep.”

Klaus poked out his lip in a great imitation of a child. “Oh. I thought it was, like, some kind of creamy vodka. Bummer.”

Five sighed. “Get out of my seat you idiot.”

Chapter Text

Obsidian Hotel, April 3^rd, 2019

Luther remembered the last time he’d had a good day.

It was when he was twelve.

Twelve-years-old was his first and last memory of a good day. He’d had plenty of good and great moments, but those were usually spots of sunlight in otherwise drab or terrible days. Granted, he hadn’t always known they were bad days at the time. One just became accustomed to it, perhaps. But the clear memory he had of a truly good day had been their twelfth birthday.

It had been Pogo’s idea to take them to the New York State fair. Granted, he hadn’t gone himself, on account of being a talking chimp and that apparently wasn’t normal outside of their house. However, mom had agreed with the idea and somehow the two of them had managed to convince dad that it would promote team bonding and thus ensure more efficient practices.

Luther hadn’t been present for the negotiations, but he staunchly believed Allison had been brought in to rumor Hargreeves Senior as well, even though she denied it.

Did Diego eat too many hotdogs and end up vomiting on the rollercoaster? Yes.

Had Five been kicked out of the bumper-cars because he kept ramming toddlers with maniac glee? Yes.

Had Allison had a virtual tantrum because she hadn’t won any prizes and mom wouldn’t let her rumor the attendants? Yes.

Had Klaus somehow gotten wads of bubble gum stuck in his hair that had taken hours to shampoo loose? Yes.

Had Ben looked around like a frightened animal the entire time while Vanya tried her hardest to hide behind mom? Of course.

They wouldn’t be them if they didn’t have their flaws.

But Luther also remembered tasting cotton candy for the first time. He recalled how it had felt like silk strands in his mouth before dissolving and he’d been so entranced by it. He remembered how he’d shrieked with laughter on the rollercoaster even if he got some of Diego’s stomach acid on his shirt. He remembered how he and Five had jostled for a window seat on the kiddy train. And the big slide?

He remembered what it first felt like to fly.

That’s why this feeling is familiar, he thought as he watched Diego inhale his Chinese food while Klaus looked on with a disgusted expression and Five scanned the recent newspaper. Luther was here, alive, with his brothers.

They had saved the world twice. Five assured them that despite being replaced by their own dickhead of a father, this timeline wouldn’t come with any nasty side-effects. Besides their doppelgangers, but Five hadn’t been wrong when he pointed out the unlikelihood of them meeting.

Luther released a slow, long breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

“What was that for?” Klaus asked, still glaring at Diego from the corner of his eye. His lips were curled in revulsion. Diego pretended not to care the entire time.

“Just… I’m glad none of us are dead. Hey, Vanya!” He waved exuberantly as their sister appeared around the corner, craning her neck as she searched for them. Luther cocked his head.

“Nice haircut,” Klaus beat him to the compliment. Vanya smiled and patted at the new do self-consciously.

“Pull up a seat, Vanya, we were just debriefing,” Five nodded to a stray chair, which Vanya gently maneuvered from the next table and pressed next to Luther. He brightened, scooting over to make more room. He was still delighted by the fact that despite what he’d done to her, Vanya seemed to harbor no ill-will toward him. Not even a hint of fear.

“Are we all going to die?” Vanya asked as Diego and Luther pushed the plates of food in her direction.

“Nope. We’re in the clear so long as you don’t interact with your doppelganger.”

“I still vote we sleep with them. What do you say Vanny?” Klaus put in. Vanya spared him a curious glance but shook her head.

Vanya wriggled in her seat as if someone had just pinched her behind. “Um. Actually, its Viktor now.”

“Who the Hell is Viktor?” Diego slurred. With the food in his mouth, it sounded more like he said boo the spell cough shitter. Luther threw a napkin at his face.

Vanya tipped her chin daringly. “Me.”

They all stared, uncomprehending. Luther furrowed his brow. Why would Vanya want to change her name too…?

“Oh!” he cried, much too loudly. “Oh shit, wow. Wow. Really?”

His new brother nodded, a bit nervously. “I-is t-that, is that a problem for anyone?”

The others immediately shook their heads. Luther couldn’t stop grinning. “No, I think it’s great!” Klaus declared. There was a deep emotion in his eyes that Luther realized was seriousness. It looked weird on Klaus.

“I’m still going to make fun of your lack of height,” Diego replied with a shrug.

Five smiled. “I’m truly happy for you Viktor.”

“Should we throw you a party?” Luther asked, already envisioning the décor and cake they would need. What about tiny sandwiches? It wasn’t a party without those. “This is a huge deal! We have another brother, guys!”

“I didn’t want the first four,” Diego grunted.

“Have you told Allison?” Klaus asked.

Viktor shook his head shyly. There was a rose blush on his cheeks, but a genuine smile that tore his face in two. “No. She left yesterday to find Claire. I told her to call me when she gets to LA.”

“With what phone?” Diego pointed out.

“Oh yeah!” Viktor dug around in his back pocket for a moment and procured a small flip phone. “The barber who did my hair had an old one. It doesn’t do anything except call, but I told him that’s all we needed. I made Allison write the number on her wrist while she was at the airport. What are we gonna do about The Sparrows?”

“Ignore them,” Five flicked his newspaper back under his nose as if this was the last word on it.

“Kill them,” Diego voted, slamming a knife into the table.

“Give them all mind-blowing oral,” Klaus breathed with a dreamy sigh.

Luther rolled his eyes. Before he could tell them all that they were, undoubtedly, the most psychotic group of individuals to exist in any timeline, the phone on the table started to buzz. It was such a violent vibration that it did little hops off the table.

Viktor snatched it a second before Klaus could. “Hello? Allison? Hey!” he grinned at them. “Oh, yeah, yeah, we’re all here! Wait, lemme put you on speaker. Its Allison,” he explained, unnecessarily, as he peered at the keys. “Does this thing have speaker?”

“Turn it all the way up,” Diego commanded. “Why are you squinting like that? Do you need glasses?” Somehow, even his concerned inquiries managed to sound like threats or complaints. Luther snatched the last egg roll in retaliation.

“Why do we all have to talk to her?” Five drawled.

“Wow, Five, I’m so happy to hear your voice too,” Allison’s dry tone echoed over the table. Five shrugged.

“I saw you less than twenty-four hours ago. Leave for longer periods of time and I might put in the effort to miss you.”

“I miss you Alli! How’s Cali?” Klaus giggled at his own joke.

“Have you seen Claire yet?” Viktor added excitedly.

Allison gave a breathless little laugh. “No. I’m too nervous. I landed a couple hours ago, and I called a cab, but I made him drive all the way to the other side of the city because I’m so damn scared. I mean, what if Patrick doesn’t let me see her?”

“If he doesn’t let you see her, I’ll stab him,” Diego assured her.

Klaus rammed an elbow into his ribs. “It’s only been a week to them, but it’s been two and a half years for me. I mean, I’ve aged. What if Claire doesn’t even recognize me anymore? What if Patrick notices that and thinks I skipped out on them?”

“Yeah, because your ex-husband is going to comment on how beaten-up and weathered you look,” Five snorted.

“Allison, it’ll be ok. You just need to go see her,” Viktor sneakily inched the phone closer to himself, no doubt trying to make it so Allison couldn’t hear the others. It was a smart strategy. Luther nodded his approval.

“If he’s that stupid, Allison, Five and I will both stab him. Right, old timer?” Diego offered. He probably thought that was nice of him to say, but Allison’s groan proved otherwise.

“Why can’t she stab him herself? She’s a grown up,” Five scowled at them confusedly. Diego leaned back in his seat to appraise Five as a matador did the bull before a round.

“Five, I know I’ve said this before, but you suck.”

“Yes,” Klaus agreed philosophically. “But the real question is, what does he…?”

“This isn’t what I called to tell you!” Allison yelled. Luther relaxed in his seat. It was too early for the can of worms Klaus wanted to open. Not to mention Five was doing that thing again where he incinerated them with his eyes. “You guys remember my friend Odessa from the sixties?”

“Uh, no. You didn’t let me meet any of your friends because you said you didn’t want to be associated with a cult leader, which obviously backfired on you,” Klaus sniffed with exaggerated offense.

“I would have loved to meet your friends but Five left me in a psych-ward,” Diego growled. Luther gave a start and looked at their oldest brother.

“I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t take you back to the psych-ward,” Five turned the page in his newspaper without a hint of apology.

“What about your friend Odessa, Allison?” Viktor asked when Allison made an exasperated sound in the back of her throat.

“Well, turns out, in 1967 she moved to California and had two daughters. One of those daughters became an investment realtor. I don’t know what the Hell that means, but apparently, she makes super bank. Guess who I ran into while I was wandering around?”

Luther felt as if he had just been told four different stories, and he wasn’t sure which he was supposed to pay attention too. Allison was waiting, obviously more excited than they were about the whole affair.

“Um... Bill Cosby?” He asked when no one offered any suggestions.

“I’m going to put in an application for better siblings,” Allison sighed while Klaus snickered, and Diego snorted into his drink. “No, Luther. I ran into Odessa. She recognized me. There was a lot of crying. Long story short, her rich daughter has a summer vacation home in Malibu, and I figured since we’ll need a base of operations away from The Sparrows while we figure out shit out…”

“No one wants to go to Malibu!” Diego shouted. “We have to reclaim our house! Do none of you dipshits care that we’ve been replaced by a bunch of blobs and birds and cubes and shit?!”

Klaus leaned over the table and cupped his mouth to whisper loudly at Five: “I mean, is it really too late to take him back to the psych-ward?”

“It’s never too late,” Five intoned.

“I will stab you both in the eye!”

“Allison, do you really think it’s a good idea to hide out in Malibu when the Sparrows could be after us? It’s not exactly inconspicuous.”

“You guys,” Allison moaned. Luther smiled. He could envision her dragging her palms down her face. “I literally found us a mansion in Malibu and you’re saying no?”

“Wait, you never said it was a mansion!” Diego leaned forward. “Does it have a pool?”

“Of course, and it’s huge.”

Klaus pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Jet bathtubs?”

“There is one big enough to hold three Luther’s,” his jaw dropped. Luther couldn’t even remember the last time he’d taken a bath. They were all too small for him to fit more than half his leg. Even showers were a hassle. Klaus whooped and flung his hands into the air.

“How long could we use it for?” Viktor asked.

“Odessa and I go way back,” Allison bragged, as if she hadn’t just met Odessa two years prior. “Her daughter doesn’t even stay there until August, and even then, she only stays for a month. It’s just empty space.”

Five set his newspaper down suspiciously. “Odessa didn’t ask you why you’re the same age as when you last saw her?”

“Of course she asked, Five. I told her it was a gift from Oshun.”

“Who?” Luther, Viktor and Klaus demanded in unison.

Five barked a laugh. “The Yoruba Goddess of the ocean? She believed that?”

“Hey, you weren’t in the Civil Rights Movement,” Allison said, with a sharpness that made all of them shut up. “We needed all the deities we could get,” Luther glanced around at the multiple faces surrounding them. Dark, light, pale, brown. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be surrounded by humans of all kinds. It was a nice feeling.

Guess he had his sister to thank for that.

“So, what do you guys say?”

“How many rooms are there?” Luther hurried to put in before the shouting could restart.

“Eight and a pool table,” There was a definite grin in Allison’s voice. Klaus choked on some of his food. Viktor gasped. Diego exposed a row of pearly teeth in a grin. Luther raised his hands. They could all have their own rooms. It was already better than their shitty existence in the Obsidian Hotel.

“I’m sold!”

Diego pretended to think it over as he stabbed at his teeth with a toothpick. “Well… I guess we do need a base of operations to plan our attack on the Sparrows,” he contemplated aloud. Luther rolled his eyes.

Viktor searched the table for a long second. “We can’t really go back to our old lives, huh?” he murmured.

“There’s an orchestra nearby that rents violin,” Allison piped in. Viktor’s entire demeanor changed, from someone who was half leaning/ half hiding behind the table to a child who’d just been told they could have an extra piece of candy.

“Ok, cool, I’m moving to California with Allison!” Allison squealed excitedly.

They all turned to Five.

“Hey Five-O, didn’t you say you were retiring?” Klaus waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “What better place to take a load off than a Malibu mansion?” The old man took his time sipping his coffee before answering because he was an asshole that way.

“Yes, Klaus, I am retired, meaning I am going to spend my time doing relaxing activities. None of you are what I would call stress-free.”

“Hey pal, you’re not exactly a ball of sunshine either,” Luther growled.

“C’mon Five,” Allison cajoled. “It may not be a cabin in Montana but you all could meet Claire and maybe we could start over here. Together. As a family,” the second half of her sentence was delivered with a passionate wobble.

Something in Five’s face softened, but the stubborn tilt to his head didn’t lessen. “We’re not kids, Allison. Besides, do you really want to live in one house with all of us?”

“Oh, shut up grandpa, where else you gonna go? You look like you haven’t started growing chest hair,” Diego snorted. Five blinked out of his seat; and returned a second later with someone’s slipper which he then used to smack Diego behind the head. “Ow! You know it’s true!”

“I am not driving cross country with these morons,” Five informed the phone tersely.

“Oh, we don’t have too,” Klaus yawned. “I snatched a wad of cash on dad’s desk when I went in there.”

Of course he had. Luther didn’t even try to act surprised. Diego gave Klaus a congratulatory punch to the shoulder. “How much?”

“Um… Six thousand, give or take?”

Viktor’s eyes rolled upwards as he did some mental math. “That will get us all a plane ticket.”

“And a rental car,” Luther bounced up and down in his seat, excitement and relief brewing in his chest. He was going to see Malibu. He was going to have his own room and three swimming pools. He glanced around the table.

He was going to be with his family.

“Odessa may have loaned me her ex-husband’s credit card,” Allison giggled.

“Unlimited funds, a Malibu beach house, separate rooms? Who even are you?” Klaus screamed. Allison laughed.

Luther set his elbow on the table to address their last member. “Five, I don’t want too, but I will knock you out and drag you along,” he said, trying to sound as menacing as possible. Five’s snort was not a sign of being intimidated.

“You wish, big boy,” he said.

“If we all rush him at the same time, I’m seventy-eight percent sure we can take him,” Diego hissed between clenched teeth.

“I accept those odds!” Klaus agreed, slamming his palms on the table.

“They’re faulty odds, Klaus. You all couldn’t take me if I were already unconscious,” Five arched a challenging brow at them to hide how he had just been scanning the room for exits not even four minutes earlier.

Luther glanced at Viktor, who was eyeing Five with an almost predatory gleam. As Luther watched, his eyes started to glow blue. Klaus raised both hands, flashing his hello and goodbye tattoos. Diego flipped a knife into his hand. “Minimal bodily injury only!” Allison called, somehow able to feel the tension even if she couldn’t see it.

Five didn’t look nervous, per se, but he was beginning to scoot backwards in his seat.

Luther flexed his fingers. “Ok, five… fourthreetwoone, go!”

“WAIT!” Five shouted, holding up his hands as if to ward off a swarm of bees. The large blue tentacle Viktor had wrapped around his waist paused, while four knives stopped inches away from his ankles as if suspended on a string. Klaus’s entire upper half was strewn across the table, and he had a handful of Five’s robes.

 Luther had upended a tray to slam into his forehead. Allison’s voice fizzled out just as she was about to finish the latter half of the word rumor. “Fine, I’ll go! But only because I like this robe and I don’t want to ruin it with all your blood splatters,” he snatched the edges of it from Klaus’s grasp belligerently.

“Ha ha!” Klaus surged to his feet on the table victoriously. “We’re headin’ to Malibu, bitches!”

Chapter Text

Malibu California, April 7^th, 2019

“Sixty-three bottles of whiskey on the wall, sixty-three bottles of whiskey! Take one down, pass it around and now there are sixty-two bottles of whiskey on the wall!”

“Klaus!” Five exploded. It had taken longer than Luther expected. Granted, twenty minutes prior, Five had gone on a rant about all the different ways he was going to debone Klaus with a garden hoe. Klaus had remained quiet for about ten minutes that time. New record. “I will pay you to shut up! Will that work? Will you accept money in exchange for my sanity?”

“Don’t do it,” Diego advised, monotone. He sat behind the driver’s seat, arms crossed, and voice muffled by the baseball cap he’d stuffed over his face.  “He’ll just take your money and sing a different song.”

Diego had the most experience with Klaus. Luther thought it was safe to agree with that assessment.

Five, in the middle seat, jutted his head in between Luther and Viktor with a snarl. “Luther! For the sake of all that is good and Holy, drive faster!”

“I’m trying!” Luther cried, glancing at the speedometer. So what if he was going fifteen miles an hour? They were also traveling uphill, and with him in the car that was a good amount of weight for this rental van. “These houses look really expensive. I mean, the mailboxes alone could send four kids to college. Where are we going? Right or left?”

Viktor squinted at the wrinkled map in his hands. “Um... Right? Yeah. Right.”

“Viktor, I swear if you send us down another wrong turn, I’m going to put a scorpion in your shoe,” Diego growled.

Viktor ducked his head peevishly. The three-hour drive had wrung the already thin patience right out of them all. 

“Hey, I don’t know this area, ok?!”

“Why are we going higher into the mountains? I thought this was a beach house. The beach is over there,” Klaus pressed his finger against the glass, staring longingly at the vast blue water that was rapidly disappearing from sight.

Instead, they seemed to be headed in the opposite direction, toward sun-scorched Earth interrupted by the occasional half-wilted bush or determined palm tree.

However, the houses were getting bigger and bigger the further uphill they went. Luther gawked at one with a Shakespearean-like entranceway and eight-foot elephant hedge in the front yard.

It would be a miracle if no one called the cops on them in this neighborhood.

“No one said it was a beach house, Klaus. Literally no one,” Diego pointed out.

Klaus threw himself against the back of his seat like a toddler. An actual three-year-old. Five glared at Luther from the rear mirror. “We’re in Malibu! What other kinds of houses are there!?”

“We’re running out of neighbors. I guess that’s good since we’re trying to stay off the radar,” Viktor pointed out, noticing the dwindling number of houses they were passing, all of which were big enough to house the entire state of Maryland.

Luther tried to sit up straighter and stretch his cramping calf muscle. He was grateful that the size of this can meant he was able to drive, but less grateful for the numerous body-aches the long, trafficked commute had given him.

“I’m hot,” Klaus complained for the thirtieth time.

“Luther, stop the car,” Five commanded. “I need to push Klaus in front of it and ram the gas.”

“Hm,” Klaus ignored the daggers Five was giving him and rested a bony elbow on the old man’s shoulder. Luther smiled brightly at an elderly couple sitting on their lawn. They stared at him as if he were an alien. “Can we get a cat, while we’re here? I’ve always wanted a pet.”

“Luther, stop the car,” Diego pleaded. “Five and I need to push Klaus in front of it and ram the gas.”

Luther didn’t know if he could do this. Even in a mansion, what were the chances they wouldn’t murder each other in the night?

“Hey, if you guys can’t act your ages, I will turn this van around!” he tried.

Diego snatched the cap from his face. “Please! Turn it around! We’re obviously lost again because Viktor is the most incompetent map reader since Columbus!”

Viktor sunk into his seat. “This is the way!”

“Columbus said that too, Viktor, and look where that got him.”

“He discovered a continent!”

“Excuse me?” Diego’s eyes nearly popped out of his head with indignance. “He didn’t discover jack shit! He slaughtered my ancestors and still didn’t know fuck about India!”

After smiling at another indifferent couple, Luther sighed and fiddled with the radio. He had accidentally broken the button in the first two minutes of their trip, resulting in Klaus wanting to supply the music, but maybe it would start working now.

Maybe? Hopefully? Please?

“You know what, let’s play the quiet game!” He yelled when static met his ears. “Whoever stays quiet the longest wins!”

“The only time I win this game is when I’m sleeping,” Klaus pouted.

“We could put you to sleep if Luther would stop the car,” Five offered, voice dripping with sweet sarcasm.

“Luther, Five wants to kill me and eat my bones!”

Luther slammed his head into the steering wheel. When had become the dad on this trip? He hadn’t even wanted to drive.

The only reason he was doing it was because Diego had road rage; Five looked like a kid; Viktor got nervous on unfamiliar roads and Klaus had been barred from operating machinery they had to return by unanimous vote.

“I said I would debone you, idiot!”

Luther scratched his chin. Was that the same marble water fountain they had passed earlier? He couldn’t tell. Also, in a state that often experienced drought, why and how had these people gotten their hands on a decorative water fountain? Seemed wasteful to him.

“Yeah, so you could eat my bones. I know it was you who did all that creepy wild shit in Russia!”

Viktor snorted a laugh. “What?”

“Like, the revolution?” Diego guessed, managing to sound more engaged than he had the entire trip. “Dude, cool. Do you know what happened to princess what’s-her-face?”

Viktor snapped his fingers. “Anastasia!”

“Yeah, her!”

“Ok, so maybe that wasn’t the same water fountain,” Luther murmured as they passed another yard, sculpted with beautiful arrangements of hydrangeas, large ferns and flowering cactuses in an almost perfect imitation of a tiny jungle. Luther wrinkled his nose. Allison had refused to tell them what the mansion looked like, claiming that it had to be a surprise. He hoped they didn’t have a tiny jungle.

“No! This is not what I’m talking about jackasses!” Klaus flapped his hands irritably. “There was that guy, that serial killer who used to make his victims bones into stew! You fit the profile, shorty Mc-stab-stab.”

Luther froze.  

In retrospect, hoping that Diego, Klaus and Five could behave for one day had been a little naïve.

When Luther’s eyes swiveled to the rearview mirror, he could already see red creeping up Five’s collar. Normally blur irises were completely obscured by the fiery depths of black hell. “What’d you call me?” He asked, in a deceptively serene tone.

Diego grinned maniacally. “He called you shorty McStab-stab, Five, what are you gonna do about it?”

“Five, no, don’t do anything!” Luther yelled just as Viktor twirled around in his seat to shout: “let it go, Five!”

It was too late. “That’s it!” Five roared. He didn’t even bother to unbuckle himself. He blinked out of his seat and into Klaus’s lap, where he took two handfuls of hair and started to bash Klaus’s head against the window.

“Agh! Argh!” Klaus shrieked, struggling. “Help me! I’m being deboned!”

“Five, stop it! Cut it out guys!” Viktor yelled.

Diego applauded enthusiastically. “Whoo! Get him Five! Go for the throat!”

“Ah! Ah! Stranger danger!”

It was either luck, fate or a continuation of Luther’s shitty day that a blonde-haired woman crossed the street, jogging. Her thin ponytail flapped in the breeze, and bronze shoulders heaved in tune to some indistinguishable song.

Luther slammed on the breaks, jammed the button to lower his window and desperately craned his neck out to catch her attention. “Excuse me ma’am!”

Luther counted the seconds it took for her eyes to focus on him. She scowled as if he was the most horrid being she’d ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on.

However, to his eternal gratitude, she did slow to a halt and take out one earbud. Luther flashed his most winning smile. “I’m sorry to bother you, but could you tell us where, uh,” he slapped at Viktor’s thigh one-handed until he handed Luther the map. He pointed to the address. “This house is?”

She sniffed. “Are you the cleaners?”

Luther blinked, taken aback. He had been mistaken for many things in his life, but a janitor was a new one. Klaus squealed in the back. There was some more jostling, another yelp and Diego laughed. Luther decided pride wasn’t his main problem here.

“Ugh… Yes.”

“Call the cops! Call the Coast Guard! I need emergency assistance! I’m being cannibalized! Ow, Five, that’s my fucking leg!” Klaus wailed.

The jogger took a few hurried steps backward. The flush of adrenaline in her cheeks reddened as she narrowed her eyes at him. One pale arm snuck toward her back pocket, no doubt to grab her phone.

“Ha ha! Very funny Klaus!” Even to his own ears, Luther’s stilted laugh sounded fake. Which… Whatever. He wasn’t the world’s greatest actor. Sue him. “Anyway, I’d really appreciate the help. We’ve gotten lost three times already. The house?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but her hands had stopped fidgeting around her back pocket. “Well, you’re on the right…”

“ARGH, HE BIT MY EAR!”

 She gasped. Luther’s cheekbones ached with the force of smiling so damn hard and unconvincingly. “Yes?”

“Is he alright?”

“Just a bit of a disagreement. They’ll work it o- ow!” Luther recoiled as a sharp pain suddenly invaded his left ear. Rubbing the smarting area, he glanced over his shoulder. Viktor had done a full 360 in his seat. Three sets of arms flew as Viktor heroically struggled to put himself between Five and Klaus.

“Sorry Luther!” Viktor apologized quickly, winded. “No, Five, Five! Put the knife down! Diego, you wanna give me a hand here?!”

Diego shrugged. “No. No I don’t.”

Luther resisted the urge to reach back there himself. At this rate, he may just break Five’s arm, break one of Klaus’s teeth or punch Diego’s lights out.

Besides, all he wanted was to find the damn house.

Thankfully the jogger was still there, though she did have her phone in her hand now. “Oh, so we’re going the right way?” He continued, ignoring the way his ear throbbed.

“Yes, so far. Just keep going up this road and take a left on Thompson. Then if you…”

“I-I c-can’t breathe!” Klaus wheezed.

“What is wrong with you people!?” Viktor suddenly screamed, so loudly Luther flinched and squirmed to see what the Hell was going on back there.

Five had his hands wrapped tight around Klaus’s throat while Klaus kicked and threw weak punches.

Viktor had gotten his hands on an empty plastic water bottle and was attempting to distract Five by repeatedly hitting him on the head with it. “You have issues! YOU. HAVE. ISSUES!” Viktor screamed. 

Diego rolled his window down. “Lady, where’s the damn house!” He barked, making the sweet woman jump halfway out of her skin with fright. “Can’t you see we’re having a crisis here?”

The woman danced on her tiptoes, trying to see around Diego. “Should I call the police? Are you kidnapping that man!?”

“No, no, that’s our brother!” Luther hurried to reassure her. Based on her expression of pure disbelief, that was a little hard to believe. “It’s our first family vacation. Everyone is just a little on edge right now. Please, we just need to get to the house.”

For some fucking reason, she nodded as if this was perfectly understandable. “Was it the traffic?”

Luther gasped. “Yes! Is it always like this?”

“Oh, constantly. How long were you stuck?”

“An hour and a half!”

“That’s not even that bad. One time, me and my sister were…”

“Luther!” Diego snapped. Apparently, the battle had gone too far because now he was trying to pry Five away by the shoulders.

With a grunt, Diego finally wrapped both arms around Five’s waist and hauled him off Klaus, locking him in place with an arm across the jugular. Klaus curled in on himself, moaning. “Get a move on! Klaus is bleeding back here!”

Klaus was, indeed, bleeding from the left ear. He had both hands pressed tight to area. Five’s teeth were stained red as spat out a glob of something Luther could only assume was Klaus’s flesh.

They all needed therapy.

The woman paled. “Take a left on Thompson and keep going, it’ll be on your right!” She cried, jabbing a finger to the North.

Oh, thank God.

“Appreciate it!” He called with a wave that she did not return. It didn’t matter. Luther rammed a foot into the gas and inhaled sharply as the van lurched forward with a piercing screech, now tearing up the hillside at fifty miles an hour. 

“Finally!” Diego breathed. “We’d better be close man. No, Klaus, let me see it… I’m sick of this stupid van and Klaus is bleeding all over the upholstery.”

“Did Five bite his ear off?” Luther demanded.

Viktor shook his head from where he was leaning over Klaus, holding Diego’s ballcap to the side of his head. “No, he just ripped it with his teeth,” Klaus whimpered. “Hold on Klaus, I’m sure there will be band-aids when we get there.”

Well fuck. Luther huffed and gave Five his sternest glower. “Five! Brothers do not bite holes in their brother’s ears!”

“Seriously, man, what the hell?” Diego agreed, though he had seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the show not twenty seconds before. Luther wondered if Allison would be amiable to rumoring them all into a coma.

Five used his elbow to swipe some of the blood off his cheek, looking sheepish. “I... may have lost it a little there. Sorry Klaus.”

“I don’t need band-aids, I need a rabies shot!” Klaus pointedly ignored Five and addressed Viktor, who was still murmuring comfort in the form of band-aid promises.

Luther sighed and pulled the vizor down to protect from the harsh glare of sunlight. A headache was already starting to bloom behind his eyes. “You guys just keep a look out for Allison and the house, ok? The lady said we’re almost there."

"We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t call the police,” Viktor breathed plopping back into his seat. He had a few streaks of Klaus’s blood on his cheek.

“This is why we should never ask for directions,” Diego grumbled. “Next time, we’re getting two different rental cars, agreed? Luther, Five and Viktor can go together, and I’ll take Klaus.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Good idea.”

“There’s going to be a next time?”

“I don’t even know why we agreed to this. Did Allison rumor us? Does anyone remember? Wow!” Klaus clung to the rear passenger door as the smooth cement turned into bumpy gravel. Luther gritted his teeth as the entire van started to vibrate as if they were on top of an animatronic bull. 

“Fantastic,” Five crossed his arms peevishly, his entire body hopping in its place.

White walls were beginning to peek over the hills. Please let this be it, please let this be it… Luther prayed. As the gravel road leveled, it became plain that they were pulling up into a round-about driveway of the biggest house Luther had ever seen.

“Oh, look there’s Allison!” Viktor cried. “We made it!”

Allison was indeed standing just under large entryway in a pair of bright blue shorts and a white blouse. She leaned against one towering pillar boredily until she noticed the van. Then she grinned brightly and began jumping up and down waving her hands.

“Thank God,” Five breathed with more emotion than he’d shown when they stopped the apocalypse.

“Welcome to California!” Allison squealed, grinning from ear to ear. That grin quickly vanished when Five blinked into the driveway and Klaus tore open the door with one hand holding his bleeding ear. “Um… What happened?”

“Do not ask. Family road trips? Off the table. Forever,” Viktor informed her as he jumped from the car to give her a hug.

Luther gasped as he tumbled from his own seat into the dirt. He ran his fingers through its dusty surface. There had been moments when he’d never thought he would feel the earth flowing through his fingers again because he would have committed fratricide and gone to prison or been killed by one of his brothers and ended up haunting them in prison.

Diego stood in the driveway studying the house. It was, indeed, beautiful to the eye. All elegant angles and riveting glass windows.  All around them, brown hills swayed and rolled around for miles. “There better be good air conditioning in this place,” was his first observation.

Allison jerked her head to the open door. “Go look inside. C’mere Klaus, let’s get the first aid kit,” she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and guided him with her into the house. Luther gave the ground one more grateful pat and stood to join them.

“Where’s the bathroom in this dump…?” Five’s statement petered out. He arched a brow. “Oh.”

Luther inhaled a sharp breath. Though the Academy was technically a mansion, it had never looked like this. To the left was the living room, with long, soft couches arranged in a U formation around the fireplace and TV that could have easily matched him for height and weight.

 Behind the couches was a grand piano and door leading to the backyard, where Luther could already spot a giant swimming pool and volleyball net. Right in front of them were a cascading set of curved stairs that were probably imported from a Disney set. To the right, a hallway with wallpaper that made Luther feel as if he had just been miniaturized and set down in the middle of a rose.

There was so much… Light.

The six Hargreeves stood there, gawking.

“Oh wow. Allison, this is amazing,” Viktor breathed at last, breaking the stunned silence. Diego shook his head and bounded up the stairs. Allison maneuvered Klaus down the hallway.

“Bathroom’s this way, Five! There are some upstairs too!” She called. Five nodded and vanished in a blink of blue light.

Luther felt as if he had just walked into a dream. Slowly, feeling as if he might puncture the peace of the moment by stepping wrong, he made his way into the living room and slowly lowered himself onto the couch.

He sank into the material with a low groan. His muscles seemed to melt into the softness, and the aches of the drive and looming headache ran screaming from the notion of true comfort and relaxation.

If they were attacked here, Luther would sacrifice a leg to keep these couches intact.

“This is…” he searched for the adequate word. “Rapturous.”

A blue jay chirped outside, as if in agreement. Luther toed off his shoes. If he weren’t so afraid to shatter the illusion, he would fall asleep right here.

“The kitchen is pretty high tech. The fridge just spoke to me,” Viktor reported softly, coming up behind him. He poked the sofa and hummed appreciatively. “Is it comfy?”

“Shhh,” he waved a lazy hand. “Just sit. Take it in.”

Viktor did so with a chuckle that rapidly became a moan as he sunk into the couch. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

“This is so nice.”

Luther closed his eyes, smiling. “I thought Allison was exaggerating about that jet tub, but I think it might fit you Luther,” Five’s voice came from nearby. It was followed by the G chord on the piano.

That was a bittersweet thought. Bitter because it meant he would have to rise from this couch, but sweet because that meant he could actually feel clean again. Five’s warmth hovered over his shoulder. Someone jabbed a finger into his temple. “You’re gonna break that couch, monkey boy.”

He popped one eye open to regard his oldest sibling. Decided moving wasn’t worth the effort of trying to punch Five and shrugged instead. “Five, not even you can be an asshole on this couch. Come. Join the bliss.”

“Oh, I see you guys found the couch,” Allison quipped as she and Klaus reentered the space. Klaus’s left ear was now covered in three Hello Kitty band-aids. He glared at Five as he passed, clinging to Allison’s arm.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Diego’s sudden shout sent a startled tingle up Luther’s spine. He sat up, already searching the area for attacking birds or the guy with super-strength. Diego shot down the stairs, screeching to a halt on the bottom step whilst grinning wider than Luther had ever seen. “Allison Hargreeves, if you’re shitting me right now, I will never speak to you again. Are you shitting me right now?”

Allison laughed and spread her arms. “Nope. It’s all ours.”

“What is it?” Luther asked, intrigued.

Diego let out a celebratory screech. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! People, there’s a Ping-Pong table with a full-service bar upstairs! There is a gym with boxing gear and weights! There’s a mini fridge in every room!”

“Shut up!” Klaus cried.

“Come look!”

Luther couldn’t help but snicker as Klaus stumbled up the stairs after Diego. “Klaus! Be careful on the…” Allison started, but they were both already gone. “Oh, never mind. Hey Viktor, there’s a violin in your room upstairs. I bought it with Odessa’s husband’s credit card this morning.”

Viktor’s eyes widened as if someone had just told him fairies were real. “What?”

“Yeah, your room is second to the right. Across from mine. I hope it’s the right kind or whatever. I was kind of going off of memory but I…” Viktor was already sprinting up the steps to the bedrooms. Allison huffed and arched a brow.

“Have you seen Claire?” Luther asked. Klaus hooted something indistinguishable but undoubtedly happy upstairs.

“No. I keep calling Patrick but no response. He’s probably still pissed.” Allison rubbed the back of her neck, something troubled and unsure in her eyes. Luther frowned.

“It’ll be ok. You’ve changed,” he assured her.

“Is this a walk-in shower?! Viktor! Viktor, come look at this! We can all fit in this shower!” Klaus’s excited babbling echoed down the staircase. A door slammed upstairs. 

“Um…he knows we’re not actually showering together, right?” Allison queried to no one in particular, with a worried expression.

Five shook his head. “You’d think they’ve never seen nice things before.”

Luther bit the inside of his lip before he could remind Five that Klaus had spent much of his twenties high and homeless, Diego had lived in a cement studio shack, and even he hadn’t had it this good in a one-man single cell on the moon. Only Allison was accustomed to such luxury, and she hadn’t had wealth by any means in the sixties.

She crossed her arms. “Not this nice. Oh, Five, I got you something too.”

Five cocked a brow at her curiously. “Yeah?”

“Go check the kitchen.”

Five blinked away without another word. Luther reclined his head against the backboard to meet her eyes. “What’d you get him?”

She gave a casual half-shrug. “Well, I doubt he’d like Californian’s idea of coffee, which is primarily ice with sugar and cream, but thankfully Odessa’s daughter also has a caffeine addiction. There’s a fancy coffee maker that I lugged from the back room. Like, that thing cost five hundred dollars.”

Five returned a second later with a mug of steaming coffee. Luther rolled his eyes. Only Five could pick hot coffee when it was literally a hundred degrees outside.

He took a sip. Luther had never seen Five do a double take before and it was hilarious. He was all frazzled eyes and confused scowl. Like a displeased kitten.

“It’s um… Satisfactory. That was kind. Thank you,” he said after a moment of contemplation, sounding at once surprised and a bit embarrassed to be so transparent about enjoying something.

Allison returned his nod. “You’re welcome.”

Diego and Klaus strolled back into the room two stairs a time. “Hey, this was really cool of Odessa’s daughter. We’ll have to thank her,” Luther pointed out as the two of them whispered some conspiracy together. Probably the Ping-Pong table.

“Oh, absolutely,” Allison clapped her hands together primly. “But first, I think you all need some rest and I most definitely need a drink.”

“Yeah, yeah, sounds like a plan, but uh,” he gestured at the deep, comfortable indent he had made in the couch. “Can someone help me stand up? I think I’m stuck.”

Chapter Text

They slept for the better part of two days.

All of them.

In a mansion that held their greatest desires, the first and most important thing they did was pick rooms, fall into memory foam beds and promptly knock the hell out.

He was stirred from this restful death slumber by the melancholy drone of a violin.

And bacon. There were bacon aromas in the air.

“Ugh,” he groaned, to the universe in general. His mattress was so, so comfy. He was warm and enclosed by thick ass blankets that almost perfectly mimicked a hug. He rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow.

It still smelled like lavender and dust. All these hours and days later. Miraculous.

His stomach growled low in protest. Klaus whined in the back of his throat and pressed his hands against the grumbling flesh. “No fair. I haven’t had a bed this good in decades! Ben, would you do your fav bro a favor and…” Klaus looked up, fully expecting to see Ben standing over him with irritation in his eyes.

There was nothing there.

Klaus blinked as the memories came rushing back. Ben was gone. He had sacrificed his chord to the Earth - to them - for Viktor. He was somewhere in the great beyond now, far from Klaus’s reach or influence.

Klaus exhaled a slow breath, trying to ease out the lump of grief that settled in the back of his throat. It had been… years since he had been alone like this. Not just by himself or taking a small break from Ben’s presence via drugs or booze, but truly, irrevocably alone.

It felt as if someone had chopped off his pinky finger. An unimportant appendage when one had it, but after it was gone, they realized they hadn’t even an iota of their former hand strength and couldn’t even give mediocre hand-jobs anymore.

“Well fuck,” he breathed past a shuddering breath.

“He told me to tell you he was too scared to go to the light.”

Klaus smiled up at the ceiling fan lazily spinning above him.

“It wasn’t you that made him stay.”

“Ouch! Shit, Luther, you tryin’ to kill me?” Klaus turned. The window beside his bed had a thick blackout curtain covering the serene Californian countryside. Reluctantly, Klaus inched his way off the edge of the bed and pulled back said curtain.

In the backyard, Diego lay on his back, clutching a football to his chest and groaning. Klaus could already see the chaos unfolding. Luther, chucking the ball at no less than sixty miles an hour. Diego, in his stupidity and stubbornness, arcing through the air to catch it. The ball, bashing into Diego’s stomach and knocking the wind out of him while also jostling a few internal organs. Meanwhile, Luther stood across the field clutching at a stitch in his side and wheezing with laughter.

“I wish you could see this Ben,” Klaus whispered. He perked up, hoping to feel something. A ghostly presence, a sense of comfort or agreement, but the only sound that answered was his stomach, growling again, and a surprise from his tooshie as he accidentally passed gas.

If Luther and Diego were playing kill-ball, Viktor was doing his violin thing, that meant either Allison or Fives was cooking breakfast. Or maybe they were both doing it. Together.

Klaus hurriedly stuffed his arms into the grayish robe he’d stolen from the Obsidian Hotel and raced downstairs.

He had to see this.

To his disappointment, neither were cooking.

There was a plate of cooked bacon sitting on the countertop in the kitchen, but the cooks had all abandoned their posts so there was no evidence. Allison and Five sat at the breakfast table. It was small, considering the enormity of the house. Some kind of oval monstrosity that made Klaus want to stick a pole in the middle and begin his usual routine.

Allison was scribbling madly on a sheet of paper while Five sipped his coffee, reading a book thicker than Klaus’s head. When he tilted his head to look at the cover, he saw a jumble of numbers and some white dude holding a clock.

Boring.

“Good morning, all!” He yelled. There was a door from the staircase to the kitchen. He passed through it and began investigating the steaming bacon. “Who made these?”

“Viktor,” Allison replied without looking up.

Klaus pursed his lips. “Viktor can cook?”

“Not really,” good old number seven admitted as he also entered the kitchen. He had a black and gold violin in one hand. There was a definite glow about him as he rummaged in the fridge. “I can do basics. Bacon, eggs, waffles.”

Klaus’s stomach roared. “Are there waffles?”

“In the fridge,” Allison, Five and Viktor answered in unison.

Klaus was so excited about the waffles that he didn’t even coo at their new display of unity. He used one hip to bump Viktor out of the way and grabbed the plate of waffles eagerly. “V, the violin sounds stellar as always. Did anyone else see Luther and Diego playing catch in the backyard? It’s disturbingly domestic.”

He nabbed some syrup from a cabinet and hurried to claim the spot as far away from Five as possible. His ear still hurt.

“The acoustics in the sunroom are amazing,” Viktor told them. Klaus had to admit that enthusiasm looked good on him. It made him glow from the inside out without imminent threat of blowing up the moon. “Does Odessa’s daughter play an instrument?”

“Sings,” Allison replied absently. She was glaring at her sheet of paper as if it had slighted her in some way. “Or maybe Odessa’s granddaughter sings? Someone is in choir.”

“I’ll record a song for them as a thank you,” Viktor volunteered.

Klaus stuffed half his waffle into his mouth, then realized with a start that Ben wasn’t around to scold him for eating too fast anymore. He gulped painfully. “I can do an interpretive dance! It’ll be like a whole music video,” he grinned as Viktor froze, the half-tipped carton of orange juice hanging midair.

“Um…”

“That’s a terrible idea Klaus,” Five interrupted in his snotty little voice. Klaus barred his teeth in a tight-lipped, false smile.

“I’m sorry, did you guys hear something? My hearing has been wonky ever since somebody tried to devour my ear yesterday.”

“Technically, it was two days ago,” Viktor put in, sounding a bit desperate.

Five sighed and set his book down. “Are you still mad about that?”

“I don’t know, Five, do I still have a freakin’ bandage on my ear?”

Five’s beady, cold eyes narrowed at him. Klaus met his gaze squarely. Did he like conflict? No. Was he an annoying son of a bitch? Absolutely, but he drew the line on having his ears bitten off a scant seventy-two hours after he lost a brother and was nearly blown up by Five’s arch nemesis.

“Fine Klaus,” Five ran both hands over his face. “How can I make it up to you?”

Allison’s head snapped up. Orange juice started to puddle around Viktor’s cup as he pivoted on a heel, mouth hanging open in clear astonishment. Klaus studied Five, skepticism coiling in his gut. However, Five’s gaze was honest, if not a little exasperated.

“You have to be nice to me for seventy-two hours.”

Five set his elbows on the table. “Twelve hours.”

Klaus could bargain. He could bargain with the best of them. He crossed his arms. “Twenty-four.”

“Eighteen.”

He grinned. “Deal.”

“Good,” Five leaned back in his seat and resumed reading.

“Damnit!” Viktor gasped as the orange juice splashed all over his bare feet. He scurried to the counter and started snatching napkins.

“I think I just witnessed an act of God,” Allison marveled quietly. Klaus nibbled on a slice of bacon and peered over her shoulder at the paper. It was a mess of half-finished sentences, unpunctuated paragraphs and a frowny face hastily drawn in the corner.

“What you doin’ there, sis? Writing your own script? Ooh, can I be in the movie?”

The ideas flashed by him so quickly he went from curious to proud to excited. Ben had always claimed he might have some kind of hyperactive disorder. Allison blinked at him. “Huh? Oh. No, I’m… I’m preparing, I guess? Just in case Patrick is still mad. I’m writing down reasons he should let me see Claire.”

He plopped his chin into his palms. “Besides the fact that you’re her mother?”

“I don’t have custody over her anymore Klaus. Technically, he doesn’t need to let me see her. I don’t think he would go so far as a restraining order but…” She bit her bottom lip nervously. Klaus’s heart melted. Allison, for all her confident front, was just as insecure as the rest of them.

“Can’t you just rumor him into doing it?” Five asked.

Klaus sent him a heated glance. He was ninety-nine percent sure Five didn’t know why Allison had lost custody or he wouldn’t have said something so stupid, but he wasn’t bound to be helpful anyway.

“Shut up Five, you don’t know anything,” he snipped.

Five nearly dropped his book. “Oh, I don’t know anything? You-”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Klaus wagged a finger at him. “You have to be nice to me for eighteen hours remember?”

Five opened his mouth once, reconsidered, and growled low in his throat instead. “This is going to be a long eighteen hours, isn’t it?’

“Oh, buddy, I’m just getting started.”

“I forgot you’ve never seen how petty Klaus can be,” Allison laughed. “Viktor, you remember that one time Diego put a fake spider in Klaus’s shoe and then told dad he cried about it, so Klaus replaced Diego’s sports drink with dog pee? I was laughing so hard I almost passed out, Klaus.”

Klaus threw his head back to snicker, clapping his hands in delight at the memory. Viktor paused mopping up the kitchen floor with napkins to chortle. “The worst part is that Diego didn’t know it was dog pee at first. He just thought his drink was stale.”

“S-so he said,” Allison flung out a hand to steady herself against Five’s shoulder as she dissolved into hysterical giggles. “Who left my drink out, guys? I-it’s…”

“Its warm!” Klaus and Viktor finished before bursting into laughter. Five’s expression twisted into disgust as he shuddered.

At that moment the back door opened. “What’s so funny?!” Luther asked as he swabbed at his sweaty forehead with a towel. Diego pushed past him to the fridge.

“Are there any sports drinks in this place?” He demanded.

Allison had tears running down her face. Klaus held his side as his stomach spasmed with wheezing gasps. Viktor had sunk to his hands and knees, snickering. “I’m related to a bunch of psychopaths,” Five supposed, shaking his head.

“What’s so funny?” Luther repeated, standing over them with an eager look on his face.

“Ah, I’ll tell you later big guy,” Klaus patted his arm. “Anyway, Allison, can’t you like, apply to get custody back or some shit?”

“We talkin’ about your stupid ex again?” Diego had settled for the remaining orange juice and was chugging it straight from the carton like a barbarian. “I’ll kill that guy.”

“Yeah,” she swiped away a tear with the back of her hand. “I’m going to do that, but… Not yet. I have to regain Claire’s trust. Last time she saw me we were in a courthouse and some scary men were telling her I was a liar and a manipulator.”

Diego put the empty carton of orange juice back in the fridge. Klaus tried not to stare. “Oh, I’ve had that dream. Once you’ve seen one scary naked man, you’ve seen them all.”

Allison went back to studying her paper. “The divorce and custody hearing were pretty public. I don’t even know if the judge would consider my case unless I had… testimonies or something,” she glanced up, uncharacteristically shy. “Would you guys…?”

“Yes,” the five of them replied without missing a beat and, for the first time in years, without any sarcasm whatsoever.

Some of the stress in Allison’s face lessened. “Thanks.”

“You’re worrying too much, Allison,” Klaus told her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed until she smiled. “Any day now I’m going to meet my niece and become her favorite uncle. I already know all the things I’m going to teach her.”

Diego snorted. “Like what? Burglary and the proper way to snort cocaine?”

Klaus exchanged a glance with his hostage for the next eighteen hours. “Five, if you would?”

Five calmly dogeared his page and blinked from his seat. A second later, he appeared in front of Diego with one leg outstretched. “What the fuck, man?!” Diego yelped as he stumbled over the sudden obstacle and went tumbling to the ground, choking on a piece of bacon.

Five reappeared in his chair and picked up his book again.

“Thank you, mon frere. I am going to teach my niece Claire how to paint nails, find good men and barter at the night markets.”

Diego slammed a fist against his chest. His face was mysteriously red from all the choking. He’d obviously never had superior gag reflexes. “Since when is Five doing Klaus’s dirty work?”

Five gently turned the page. “I’m under contract.”

“To trip me?”

“Klaus is right,” Luther assured Allison. “You’ll get custody back in no time. Claire is going to have more uncles than she knows what to do with.”

“Oh, she already knows about all of you,” Allison aggressively erased a sentence.

“What about Ben?” Klaus asked.

“What about me?” Five added.

Allison glanced up with a sad smile. “She used to pray that Uncle Ben could have as many ice cream sandwiches as he wanted in heaven,” Klaus’s eyes grew hot. Something in his chest clenched. Ben had adored ice cream sandwiches as a kid.

It was the only treat he would actively try to steal despite knowing the consequences. He was always caught, and almost always tried again soon after. “And I told her Uncle Five was living out his days with this Swiss girl named Charlotte. Switzerland is the only other country she can spell because of it.”

Klaus could almost hear Ben’s soft aww.

His own heart was doing a painful little jig too. After Allison left, Klaus had supposed she wanted to forget all about the Umbrella Academy, including her siblings. It had never occurred to him that she might want Claire to know about her screw-up uncles.

“I still don’t know whether to be offended, flattered or confused that you all thought I ditched you for a quiet life in Switzerland,” Five grumbled into his book.

“Ben used to complain that Diego told him Five was eaten by the swamp monster that lived in the New York sewers,” he recalled with a smile.

For some reason, Diego had elected to remain on the ground. He flicked a bit of dirt with his finger and shrugged. “Not gonna lie, I totally thought that was what happened a full month after Five disappeared. I even snuck out one night and went looking for the monster in the sewers to avenge the little shithead.”

Five grasped at his heart exaggeratedly. “Ah Diego, for me?”

“You go missing now, I’m gonna throw a fucking block party. With bounce houses and everything.”

“Don’t we have to rent bounce houses from a special store? We should get one for when Claire comes,” Luther contemplated.

Klaus gasped. He almost fell out of his chair in excitement. “That is a great idea, Luther! We can throw a whole shindig! Does Claire like ponies? I know a guy who owns, like, an entire farm of ponies. He uses them to run drugs between states.”

“Guys, I haven’t even seen her yet,” Allison pointed out.

“Kids don’t like ponies nowadays! Its all about the technology,” Diego yelled. Viktor finally took a seat at the table, gently setting his violin case down in front of him as if it would get up and walk away. “You want to impress a kid? Get them a pet robot dog.”

Luther rolled his eyes. “A robot dog?”

“Yeah, it’s like those sea monkeys we loved as kids, but with wires.”

“Didn’t you kill my sea monkeys?” Viktor demanded suspiciously. This was an old mystery of the house. Diego shrugged.

“How should I know? It was years ago. Sounds like something I would do though.”

Luther snapped his fingers. “What about a moped?”

“Mopeds are stylish,” Klaus offered.

“We could call it Claire’s Canter machine!” Luther searched their faces for the same amount of energy he had put into the name. Klaus offered him a sympathetic thumbs up. Allison pretended to sip her water. Viktor and Five didn’t even deign to look up.

“You know what I think?” Diego didn’t wait for anyone to tell him they actually weren’t very interested in hearing what he thought. “I think we should all get paintball guns and start teaching her attack strategy.”

Allison gave Diego a look of such pure disapproval that Klaus shivered with second-hand shame. “We are not turning my daughter into a child soldier.”

“Of course not, we’re teaching her self-defense! That’s my job,” he jabbed both thumbs at his chest. “Uncle Diego the self-defense master.”

“You gonna get a shirt with that printed on it?”

“I sure the fuck am.”

“Wait, wait, are we choosing jobs?” Luther rubbed his hands together. “I want to teach her how to fly a plane.”

Klaus inhaled a sharp breath. “You know how to fly a plane?” He was already wondering how high Odessa’s ex-husbands credit card limit was. If they could buy a private jet, Klaus could spend a few weeks in Fiji.

Luther gave him a thoroughly unimpressed look. “I was an astronaut, Klaus. I had to learn how to fly a lot of things.”

“Didn’t you say she wanted to learn the guitar?” Viktor looked to Allison, who nodded, eyes wide. As if they all hadn’t stolen tidbits of information about Claire and horded them away in their dead hearts all these years. “I don’t know much, but I bet we could do it together, and Five can teach her math.”

“No niece of mine is going to be incompetent in the mathematical field,” he agreed fiercely.

Under Klaus’s arm, his sister’s shoulders hitched. He twirled around to study the tears twinkling in her eyelashes. “Allison? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she sniffled, swiping away a stray tear. “You guys are so stupid and weird, but I love you.”

Chapter Text

The twenty-fifth year of his torturous existence in the Apocalypse, Delores had stumbled upon a still-functional cassette player. He never found out where it had been and why finding cassette tapes to play had seemed more important than harvesting edible trash, but Delores had never seemed happier.

“Five! Five! Come look!” She shouted, waving him closer as he struggled to light the old box of torn shoes that they’d scavenged. Shoe leather was notoriously hard to ignite, but it burned for hours without much maintenance.

He squatted near the chunky box and squinted suspiciously.

“We might be able to use some of that tape for…” he began, but never got to finish his sentence because she hit him in the arm.

“Shush! Listen!” She turned the dial up, slowly, grinning at the small box.

The sound was staticky and distant, like listening to an echo, but it was so clear and loud and human in the barren land that it made them both jump.

What would Delores say now, if she could see the endless sprawl of browned grass? His bare feet, being tickled and prodded by the prickly Earth? No ash, no dust, no rubble or flames springing from the truancy of humanity?

He knew she would have been ecstatic for him. They had both whispered their dreams of escape to each other, even when they didn’t have the nutrients available to believe in dreams anymore.

Five squinted down at the bright red lawnmower he was guiding across the grass. It was so bright.

Like his shirt, a loose polo with bright tropical flowers spinning across it.

Like the sun, which hadn’t dimmed its vibrancy in all the hours since he’d first woken.

Like this new life he led, which he had never thought he would actually see.

“I see the crystal raindrops fall and the beauty of it all is when the sunshine comes shining through…”

Five had never been one for the Motown collection, mainly because his father had insisted the only worthwhile music was classical. If it had lyrics at all, he shunned it as a baser organism born from the feces of true musical talent.

Delores shrieked and leapt to her feet. “Dance with me, mi amor!” She hauled him to his feet despite his protests. F

ive, even after years of companionship and having seen Delores in nearly every state known to man, was too flustered to touch her waist so she had to guide his hand to her hip instead.

Her lips were chapped from dehydration and the endless tract of sun exposure. Five still smiled when she pressed her lips against his and breathed.

“Just the two of us. We can make it if we try, just the two of us.”

He was in a younger body now than when he and Delores had first met, in fact.

Would she have found him handsome in this form? He was sure she would have appeared heavenly even if she’d lived to see her fifties, like he had. Five thought about her so often that his memories were starting to become fuzzy from overuse.

“It will be dark soon,” he murmured against her dry forehead as they swayed in tune with the haunting music. “I have to get the fire going.”

“Don’t you dare let go of me,” she replied. He obeyed because disobedience was often more painful than a cold night.

“Just the two of us, building big castles way up high. Just the two of us, you and I…”

He was jolted from the scene by something harsh and blunt slapping his shoulder with such force he nearly jumped away by instinct. He slammed the lawn mower to a stop and looked up, prepared to attack at a moments notice.

Diego stood a few feet away, waving. Five glanced down at the football Diego had thrown at him. Probably to avoid being inadvertently gutted. Smart.

He was still interrupting Five’s quiet time.

He removed the large noise-cancelling earphones. “What?!” he snapped.

“What the hell are you doing?” Diego gestured to the lawn mower, the earphones and him in general. Five rolled his eyes.

If only Delores was there. She had always been the patient one.

“What’s it look like, nimrod? I’m mowing the lawn.”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Diego marched over to grab the football as if Five had stolen it instead of been attacked by it. “Why?”

“I’m in retirement. This is what old men do. Besides, I’ve never done it before.”

Growing up in the Academy, there hadn’t been any lawns to mow. Most plant life had been eradicated in the apocalypse, and he hadn’t had any free time anyway.

His brother’s dark brow made an aggressive V when he frowned. Diego kicked at a random hole in the ground. Five had no clue why there were so many. Did California have ground hogs? He couldn’t recall.

“You’re supposed to mow in vertical lines, not horizontal.”

Whatever possessed him to save the world on their behalf was entirely trauma based. No logic at all to it. Five could see that now.

He reached back to clutch one of the giant earbuds. Earphones? Earpieces? Viktor insisted there was a difference. “Did you have a reason to come out here or are you just going around aggravating everyone?”

“Mainly making my rounds,” Diego shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Oh yeah, and Klaus called a family meeting.”

Well, that sounded like something they should all ignore.

“And?”

“And he says you’ve sworn to be nice to him for another fourteen hours.”

Five leaned his forehead against the handle of his lawnmower. “I should have known I would regret that,” he mumbled. “No one can talk him out of it?”

“Viktor and Luther tried, but he’s adamant for some reason. I have a feeling it’ll be amusing so that’s the only reason I’m going.” He also looked bored, which was surprising considering the sheer number of activities in the house. Hadn’t he been the one raving about a Ping-Pong table?

Then again, once the novelty of those things wore off, what did Diego like to do? What did Five like to do?

“Fine,” he nodded to the unfinished work of his afternoon. “Let me finish my row.”

Diego smacked his lips in pretend sympathy. “It’s really sad that you thought the lines were supposed to be horizontal.”

“I am still capable of and willing to stab you.”

Half an hour later, he blinked into his room to replace the pair of shorts he’d managed to get grass-stained everywhere. Just everywhere. Their rooms were spacious. He had his own bathroom, thanks to some good luck and cheating.   

Once he’d slipped on a pair of black sweatpants he walked downstairs. The others were already in the living room.

Luther had sunken into his now favorite spot on the couch, eyes closed. For once, the tension lines in his face were smoothed out. He was taking this vacation in stride, then. Diego was leaning against the grand piano watching Viktor tickle Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star out of the keys.

Allison sat beside Luther, flipping through channels on the TV, prim and straight-backed as if she had been invited by the Queen of England. There were dark circles under her eyes. No wonder. Five could heard her rapid pacing all throughout the night.

Klaus was doing some strange rendition of the downward dog on the floor. Five wondered if it would be a violation of his be nice to Klaus contract to kick him over. He blinked into the kitchen, leaned against the counter, and started the coffee maker.  

“How’d you do that? I thought you said you never played piano,” Diego asked when Viktor’s song came to a lilting end.

Viktor shrugged self-consciously, eyes roving the piano keys with some admiration. “Kids lullabies are pretty easy. It’s just the same keys over and over again. It’s the first song I learned to play on the violin.”

“I thought the first song you ever learned to play was Happy Birthday!” Five called, having been there through all of Viktor’s terrible first attempts on the violin.

“That was the first song I played for anyone else. Twinkle, Twinkle was the first song I learned to play period.”

Diego scowled. “Wasn’t the first time you played in front of us at dad’s birthday?”

Five remembered that. It had been a total shitshow. Their father had treated the performance like a period of forced captivity. He still felt those flinty eyes studying Viktor’s every move with flashing irritation.

His memories of their father had grown fonder through the Apocalypse. The old man had been right about time travel, after all, and there were people worse than him. Not many, admittedly, but some.

 However, Five was the last person who would deny that he had been a complete and utter narcissistic bastard.

“Oh yeah. He hated it,” Viktor shook his head with a bittersweet smile.

“Yeah, well he hated us too,” Diego pointed out dryly.

Five’s coffee trickled into the mug. He watched the dark liquid contemplatively. “I didn’t know Nigerians made coffee,” he mumbled to himself. He had found the canister earlier that day and still, frankly, felt a bit stumped over it. He had believed he’d tasted coffee beans from every crevice of the Earth, but he hadn’t known about the Nigerians.

It was the best coffee ground by far.

He inhaled the heady, warm scent long and hard before tasting it. It was hot enough to scald his tongue. Perfect.

Diego leaned forward to place a solemn hand on Viktor’s shoulder. “When they make a movie about my life, I nominate you to be the music director Viktor,” he intoned as if he were bestowing a great honor.

Five rolled his eyes. He was enjoying his coffee too much to stop breathing it in so he could tell Diego he didn’t warrant a webtoon, much less a movie.

Viktor’s eyes widened; panic written into every line on his face. “I don’t think you really want that.”

“No. I do.”

Viktor was shaking his head violently. “I promise you Diego…”

“Hey, there’s a serial killer on the loose if anyone cares!” Klaus called. He had twisted his body into a pretzel configuration that made Five a bit nauseous.

He swiveled his eyes to the screen instead, where a news anchor was speaking in a grave tone about missing people.

“We know, Klaus. Five is out and walking around,” Diego snorted.

“I wonder if this couch has goose feathers. I’ve heard they’re the softest,” Luther craned his neck to peer at Allison hopefully. “Do you know?”

Their sister didn’t even spare Luther a glance this time. She just sighed. “Luther, you ask me again, I’m going to have Klaus have Five bite off your finger.”

Maybe he should be worried that his siblings used him to threaten each other, but honestly Five was a bit flattered. After seventeen years, he hadn’t expected them to slot him back into their inside jokes so quickly. It felt nice to be included.

“He’ll do it too. He’s still under oath,” Klaus straightened and clapped his hands. “Gather round family! We’re all here!”

“This should be good,” Diego grumbled. Five blinked into the room and claimed a spot nearest the end table for his coffee. Allison switched off the TV as Diego and Viktor joined them. Klaus smiled at him, then leaned over to sniff Five’s shirt.

“You smell like grass. Wha’chu been doing, Fivey? Frolicking in meadows?”

Just a few more hours, a few more hours, a few more hours…

He technically couldn’t say anything, but he hoped the long slurp he took was indicative enough of what he would do to Klaus if he didn’t get the fuck away from him.

“Why are we here, Klaus?” Allison called.

“I was practicing,” Viktor added in a put-upon sigh.

Thankfully, Klaus abandoned Five to step in front of the TV and clasp his hands behind his back. “And once we are done with our little family time, you can keep practicing and I wanna watch because you look gorgeous when you play.”

Viktor executed an inspiring impression of Bambi caught in headlights. “Um… Thank you.”

Klaus nodded. “I called a family meeting because we need to have, as Oprah would say, some good ole family what-the-fuck-just-happened time.”

Allison crossed her arms, glaring. “Have you been sniffing bath salts? I thought I hid them all.”

“Uh, you didn’t hide them all, but that’s not the point. The point is that we just escaped two apocalypses and the roaring sixties babes! If we don’t debrief, I fully believe the past will come back to bite us in the ass. Plus, there’s drama here that I’m missing, and I hate missing out on drama so everyone spill!”

Viktor glanced around the room as if sheepish to have been summoned to the family meeting. “He’s got a point.”

“Shocking, really,” Allison snorted.

“Blasphemy!” Klaus suddenly flicked a crumpled wad of paper from his back pocket. He smoothed it out against his thigh, still speaking a million miles an hour. “I have here a list of questions and observations that have been driving me up the fucking wall.”

He cleared his throat and squinted at the paper. Five snorted into his coffee. Klaus probably couldn’t read his own handwriting. “Number one, where did those bruises on Allison’s back and arms come from?”

Klaus jutted an accusatory finger at Allison, who inhaled a sharp breath. “Did you and your hubby get into BDSM in the sixties? I never pegged Ray as that type, but appearances can be deceiving. Spill the beans, sis, what fabric belt did ya’ll use? Asking for a friend.”

Five leaned forward, mouth agape, but Diego beat him to the explosion. “What the hell is he talking about?” he demanded.

Luther wrinkled his nose distastefully. “What’s BDSM? Is that a disease?”

“Klaus, what the Hell?” Allison wrapped her arms around herself as if they could all peek the bruises past her layers of clothing. “There’s a reason I haven’t shown a ton of skin you weirdo!”

“Well, if you wanted it to be a secret don’t walk around in only a towel, sister mine,” Klaus sniffed.

“That was at, like, three in the morning!”

“Numero dos, who was that chic fashionista in the bright ascot and what did Diego and Five say to make her so mad at us?”

“I told you,” Five gritted from between clenched teeth. He never wanted to think about that woman again. “That was The Handler.”

Allison tucked herself in between two fat cushions, simultaneously hiding and coiling into attack mode. Fun. “I mean, its Five and Diego, did they really need to say anything?” She snapped.

 “Number Three, where was Luther and Five when Viktor here was about to blow up the world again? If you guys had some kind of weird bonding moment, I want details.”

Luther shrugged. “I almost shot him. So.”

“Had me fooled for a second there,” Five agreed. Was he upset that Luther had appeared on the verge of shooting him? Not particularly. He most certainly would have shot himself in the same situation.

“You what?” Viktor shrieked.

Diego exhaled a dark chuckle. “What stopped you?”

“Number four: how did Viktor meet his dream lady, the farmer who was?”

“She hit me with her truck.”

Allison slapped her forehead. “Of course she did.”

“Number five…”

“Present,” Five snarked.

Klaus ignored him. He lowered the paper and looked up with eyes that were suddenly worryingly serious. “I reunited with the love of my life in 1963 and now he’s dead, which seems to be a running theme, so any other memorials I should start building?”

His what?

“Oh, Klaus…” Viktor breathed, one hand fluttering to his chest.

Diego planted an elbow on one knee to gaze up at Klaus with a concerned tilt to his mouth. “Wait, your boyfriend from Vietnam?”

Five exchanged a glance with Luther and Allison; and was gratified to see that they seemed just as lost as he was. “When did you go to Vietnam?”

Klaus shook his head in a mute plea not to ask any more questions (which was the fucking premise of their shit family wasn’t it?) and continued, albeit shakily.

“Number six, and this wasn’t only my idea but is kinda a collective query… Five, what the fuck did you do?” he cringed. “With the mannequin, with the getting us stuck in the 60’s, with this apparent war with the Soviet’s no one but you saw? If you only answer one of those questions, please let it be about the mannequin.”

“No.”

“And finally, an announcement!” Klaus gave a watery quirk of the mouth and gestured to the empty space beside him. “Ben is… Really gone. I can’t summon him. I can’t see him.”

“Are you sure?” Allison blurted. Five’s fists clench in his lap. He exhaled a calming breath. All this pain, all this suffering, and why? Why them?  “M-Maybe it’s because we switched timelines again…”

“No,” Klaus repeated, firmly. “He moved on to the next celestial plane or whatever the fuck, and that sucks but I know he would want me to tell you all that he missed you and loved you and he was, stupidly, so, so proud of us,” he swiped away a tear. The sight of it sent a pang through Five sharper than any torture he’d endured while in the Commission. “Oh, and we never actually celebrated the fact that Five came back from Switzerland.”

With that, Klaus returned to his seat to lean against Luther, who reached up to squeeze the back of his neck. It was such an intimate action that Five looked away, gulping.

“I was in the apocalypse, you morons,” he croaked, for the Hell of it.

Silence.

At length, Viktor ran his hands through his hair. “So… Which of those issues do we tackle first? I agree with Klaus. We need to be transparent or else something is going to come stab us in the back when we’re least expecting it, and we’ve still got the Sparrows out there trying to do that.”

Five had to acknowledge the logic of that argument. But he’d spent the past fifty odd years alone. He had never had to explain himself to anyone. The bare, factual reports he had given to The Commission hardly counted as a debrief. He suddenly had the overwhelming urge to itch or tap his foot or start finding lint to pick at in his pockets.

“Could we… Have a memorial for Ray if you’re serious about making one?” Allison peeped Klaus.

“And Sissy and Harlan?”

“Hazel,” Five breathed, recalling their cherub-faced ally.

Luther’s large chest rose and fell slowly. “Elliot.”

Klaus nodded. “Yes, yes, and check.”

Vitor clasped his hands together in between bony knees. “I’m really sorry about your boyfriend Klaus, and Ben. I know it must be hard for you without them.”

Klaus’s smile was at once grateful and overwhelmingly bitter. “Oh V, you have no idea. But I plan to get wasted later and never think about it again. Next confession!”

“The Hell you are!” Diego skewered Klaus with a warning glare. “You’re sober now. Permanently. You’re gonna stay sober. For Ben,” some of the severity in his expression softened. “And Dave.”

Allison leaned over to take one of Klaus’s hands in her own. “Dave. Tell us about him. We never got to meet him.”

“Oh, he would have loved you guys,” Klaus whispered. “He probably would have been terrified too. He was brave and gentle, but a proper gentleman. Clean pants and everything, but he was still confused just like me. He just wanted to find something to live for, ya know? He always gave people second chances. Or, in my case, twenty-seven chances in one consecutive hour.”

They each laughed a bit in their turn.

Luther arched a brow. “Wasn’t the old mailman named David?”

Five looked around, realizing with a start that this was just another event he’d missed out on. “He was eighteen at most,” Viktor snorted, though with a twinkle in his eye.

Allison giggled. “You remember you used to go out and try to talk to him every day? You would steal my lip-gloss.”

Klaus gave a watery smile. “You always let me.”

She shrugged, eyes glittering. “He was cute.”

“There was a delivery guy. He used to bring us fresh vegetables if mom was too busy to go shopping,” Five said, slowly, as the memory coalesced in front of him. “You had a passing romance with him. What was his name?”

“Devon,” Klaus wrapped his arms around himself as if cold. Luther rubbed his arm soothingly, fully obscuring the thin limb in his hands. “Ben hated that guy. He said Devon was stuck-up just because he told Ben that lactose free milk was for babies. But I swore I was in love,” a tiny smile. “He used to throw rocks at my window, and we would talk for hours.”

“Oh man, I remember! We all had to hide it from dad. Viktor would play music as a distraction,” Luther laughed.

“Which didn’t work because Pogo still found out about it. He never told dad though… And Diego scared Devon away!” Klaus whined.

Diego didn’t look at all sorry to have scared Devon away. He just slammed both hands to his chest and spread them out like a male peacock. “That was after he made you cry because he said you dressed like a girl! I couldn’t let him get away with that!”

“I think you might have a thing for D names Klaus,” Five teased.

“Ha!” Klaus clapped his hands with a nostalgic smile. “And you know how much crap Ben gave me for it? Every time we met a man with a name that started with D, he would elbow me and go ‘there’s your man Klaus.’ Irritating little shit.”

Allison recoiled in surprise. “That doesn’t sound like the Ben we knew.”

None of you sound like the people I knew, Five thought.

“Yeah well,” Klaus’s head rolled around to peer directly at him, as if they had a secret no one else in the room knew. “Everyone changes, right?”

Five gulped. It was his turn then. “The Handler went back on the deal we made,” he began, studying his hands so he didn’t have to see their reactions. “If I killed the Commission’s board members, clearing the way for her to take over, she would give me a briefcase. We could go home, and no one would bother us.”

“Oh,” Luther sighed, wholeheartedly. “Well shit.”

Five couldn’t tell if that was a disappointed shit, an angry shit or a disgusted shit. He played with his shirtsleeve so he wouldn’t think about it. A week earlier, he wouldn’t have cared if any of them thought he was a monster, or insane. He had a universe to save.

He hadn’t realized just how much he craved their acceptance. It was embarrassing.

“How many people were on the board?” Viktor asked softly. Whatever he was feeling, his expression remained neutral, almost indifferent.

Five shook his head. “I honestly wish I could remember, but it’s mostly just a blur of blood and screams.” And the gleam of light against the axe. Even if he replayed the entire day over in his head, he couldn’t recall the faces or eyes of those he had murdered.

The Commission was full of deadly, terrible, murderous people but he wasn’t so naïve as to think they couldn’t have changed. That he was any better. That bad people didn’t still have children and husbands and dogs of their own. 

“Is that what the whole deadline thing was about?” Luther added, with a hint of guilt.

Five’s fingers curled around the warmth of his mug. He stared at a stray piece of lint on the carpet, brows furrowed. “Yes, but I’ve been thinking. The spiel she sold me about our window of time closing, it was all bullshit. She could have expanded that window, would have if I’d given her what she really wanted.”

“All this killing… I’m done with it.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

His cheeks twitched as a phantom handkerchief swept over his face. How distantly she had smiled at him as she tried to wipe away the blood. The Handler had always been like that: motherly even as she twisted your arm behind your back.

If there was any part of himself that Five still respected, it was that he never tried to play at anything other than what he was. He may have been a killer, but he was no liar or deceiver.

“And… What did she really want?”

He harrumphed. “Her prized killer. The most lethal assassin the Commission ever created: me,” he ran a hand down the back of his neck. The exhale building in his chest was heavy. “But I’m so… Tired of killing. I told her I’m done. And she saw that I meant it, so she snatched that chance away from us.”

He had barely finished speaking when Viktor smacked his lips. “You know Five, if it’s between having you, and having a magic cure-all, my money will always be on you.”

Five looked up, a blush already creeping up his neck and surprise dissipating the darkness that seemed intent to cling to him. When he looked around, he saw similar expressions of… Not approval exactly, but not condemnation either.

Indeed, Luther smiled. “It’s like I keep saying, you’re still a good person, and you’re not on your own anymore. The Commission wants you; it’ll have to go through us.”

Klaus flexed a bicep confidently. “I can do a lot of damage with the bath salts Allison thinks she’s hiding.”

Five couldn’t help but huff a laugh. “I have no doubt, Klaus,” he agreed softly.

Diego was picking at something beneath his fingernails with the tip of a knife, but the fondness in his voice was genuine. “I’m glad you’ve given up your murdering lifestyle, bro, but I still think Luther should have shot you.”

Luther arched his brows thoughtfully. “Maybe just in the shoulder?”

“The mouth?” Klaus suggested devilishly.

Allison and Viktor were nodding with twin looks of smart-assery. “I mean it’s only fair, he did ditch us for a peaceful life in Switzerland so…”

And life returned to normal. Five’s shoulders relaxed. “Have I mentioned how much I hate you all lately?” He quipped, in case he should again.

“Have we mentioned how much we fuckin’ missed you, pipsqueak?” Allison replied in the same tone one would use to say My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.

“Viktor kept the lights on and made you food for years,” Klaus whispered behind one hand, as if it were a sensitive secret.

Viktor eyed Klaus with some amazement. “I didn’t know anyone but me and Pogo knew about that.”

“Oh please, we all knew!” Allison reached over to slap Viktor’s hand playfully. “One night dad stepped in a sandwich, and he was so pissed he was going to take your violin away, but I rumored him into blaming it on a stray raccoon.”

Diego barked a laugh. “Oh man! Is that why he made mom set up all those outdoor traps and cameras? Classic!”

Klaus sat bolt upright as if a squirrel had bitten his ass. “Hey! I thought your rumors didn’t work on dad. You could have rumored him into giving us an inheritance or something!”

Luther rubbed his chin. “Dad? Give us an inheritance? I think we’d need Allison’s rumor and a few crates of hallucinogens for that.”

“It’s more likely he would have left us each personalized death threats,” Five agreed.

Allison twirled a strand of her hair around one finger. “Oh yeah, my rumors could work on dad, but he made it quite clear early-on that using one on him wouldn’t be tolerated. When I was seven, I rumored him into letting me stay up an extra hour. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was due for a dental exam. I had a cavity. Somehow dad convinced the dentist to remove my infected tooth without anesthetic.”

They all flinched with similar hisses and grunts of sympathy. Klaus and Luther clapped hands to their cheeks as if feeling the phantom pain.

“Oh fuck!”

“Damn!”

“What kind of torturous shit is that?”

Five raised his mug in a sarcastic salute. “Reginald Hargreeves, everyone, at his best!”

“We should put a pipe bomb under his office,” Luther murmured, then jumped as Klaus let out a shrill giggle and the rest of them stared. “What? Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be cathartic!”

“You know what would be really cathartic?” Klaus asked. They all turned to him, but by the time Five’s head swiveled, Klaus was already sprinting across the room and flinging his arms around his neck.

“Fuck! Klaus!” he yelped as some of his coffee spilled over his hand. He hurriedly pushed it onto the end table. Klaus was strung over him like a limp octopus, all long, gangly arms and crushing grip. Five rolled his eyes to the heavens and released a slow breath. “I will allow you ten seconds before I get out of this.”

“Hurry! Hurry!” Klaus detached one arm to beckon to the others frantically. “The seconds are ticking!”

“No!”

Damn it.

The rest of his siblings moved with a speed that would have been helpful when the world was fucking ending. Everyone but Diego saddled into the torture session, smushing him in every direction until only Five’s head remained uncovered.

Luther wrapped large arms around all of them and squeezed. It felt as if someone had placed a boa constrictor on his shoulders and told it he was a chicken wing.

“Say cheese, fuckers!” Diego ordered, raising Viktor’s cellphone (when had he even grabbed that? Stupid pickpocket) to snap an undoubtedly terrible Selfie.

“Welcome Home, sweet Number Five!” Klaus shouted directly into his ear.

 Alright. Enough was enough. Five blinked out of his imprisonment and stumbled to the other side of the room, gasping. “This is the exact opposite of the kind of reunion I wanted,” he lied.

Allison laughed and plopped back onto the couch with a flourish. “We’ll get you a congrats for surviving the end-times cake tomorrow, ok?”

“Can we even buy big coffee cakes at the store? I’ve only ever seen those little ones that look like they can feed a lobster. You know what I’m talking about?” Klaus lay on the couch, head in Allison’s lap and allowed her to play with his coils.

“We all try not to know what you’re talking about Klaus,” Allison told him honestly.

Five waited until the others had likewise returned to their seats before blinking back to his own. “You all realize I’m an assassin, don’t you? A serial murderer. I think I still have blood under my fingernails.”

Diego yawned. Viktor looked as if he were envisioning being anywhere else. Allison tugged something from Klaus’s hair with a frown. Luther shrugged. “That’s not half as disturbing as the fact that Diego likes to drink mustard,” he replied.

Klaus craned his neck to squint at Diego. “What?”

Said person quickly snatched off his slipper and flung it at Luther, who caught it with a cheerful laugh. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone, you asshole!”

“Diego, I don’t know what species you are, but that’s not a good way to blend in,” Allison informed him. Diego pitched his other slipper at her.

“Hey, its tangy alright? I like the tang! You jerks are just close-minded and ignorant!”

“We don’t love you any less because you’re a freak, D,” Klaus promised.

Five chuckled, but Viktor was studying their sister keenly. “Allison, you ok?” He called, his sharp concern splitting through their moment of levity. Five turned to see Allison rubbed at the shoulder Diego’s shoe had just a barely scraped with a pained expression.

Her smile was probably meant to be reassuring, but it just looked forced. “Yeah. I moved too fast. Irritated an old bruise.”

Luther leaned forward and planted one hand on his knee, fingers tapping. “Was Ray…? Did he ever…?”

“What?” Allison shuffled as if someone had just pushed her. “No, no! Ray would never! He was a good man, and a good husband! How could you even ask me something like that?”

Despite how much relief the words brought him, Five couldn’t help but wonder if Allison would have admitted it if she were being abused.

Was it probable that she could kick Ray’s ass all on her own? Of course, but Five had seen many relationships through time. When one loved, it was difficult to see the abuse as just that: abuse.

Luther raised his hands pacifically. “I’m sorry, I just…”

“It’s from…” Allison sighed. Her hands stilled on Klaus’s head. “From the sit-ins. Most of the time people would just stand behind us and shout, call us names but sometimes… They used to throw things at us, spit on us, hit us with mugs and bats and crowbars. And then, when the police came, with their dogs and batons…” She shuddered violently. “I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been beaten.”

Five’s blood ran cold.

Fucking Hell.

Klaus whimpered and grabbed one of Allison’s hands to cradle it against his chest. Luther drew himself up, fingers clenching and unclenching in his lap. Viktor paled. What did any of them say to that? How could they even begin to broach the gap growing between them and Allison?

Diego hummed. “The doctors at the psych-ward, I think they just liked to drug me for fun sometimes. Don’t even know what was in that crap,” he shrugged when they all swiveled to stare at him, aghast. “Who was going say anything bout it? Who was gonna stand up for a fucking so-called Cuban national? They can’t even get their Latinos right.”

Five remembered how Diego had been cuffed and pressed into the table, the panic in his voice as he protested. “Five, wait! No, Five!” At the time, he thought it had been a ploy to distract him from his mission. That was all he had been able to see: the damn mission.

It had never occurred to him that Diego was in more danger in the psych-ward than he was outside of it. What else wasn’t Diego saying? Had he, too, been beaten? Electrocuted for trying to save the President? He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat.

“I would have,” Allison whispered.

Diego flashed her a small smile. “You know, some of those cops might still be around. You wanna play Batman-”

“Bargain Batman, maybe,” Allison retorted.

“…Bargain Batman and bash some heads in?”

Klaus raised his hand shyly. “Is this a family activity? Because beating up racists is, like, my calling,” he asked. Diego and Allison exchanged a long look before she smiled.

“Sounds like a legit Hargreeves family outing to me.”

Viktor twiddled his thumbs, throat bobbing. “I’m sorry we weren’t there for either of you. I’m sorry we didn’t… We didn’t even realize about what being there meant for you. I’ve never thought of you as anything other than my brother and sister.”

Diego released a slow breath. “We are your brother and sister, but we’re… different too,” he and Allison exchanged a look. She nodded. “Not in any way that should matter, but in a lot of ways that mean we have more bruises than you pale-skinned motherfuckers.”

“I’m sorry I got you stuck there,” Five tipped his chin and met them square in the eyes. “I truly am.”

Allison cocked her head. “You know Five, if I thought you did it on purpose, I would have rumored you into having a heart attack, but I know you didn’t mean it.”

He looked to Diego, cautiously. “We good?”

Never let it be said that Diego was good at holding grudges, despite his obvious temper. He shrugged. “Only because you didn’t kill my girlfriend when you had the chance.”

Five had to inhale a long breath to ease the emotions threatening to take hold. “Thank you.”

“You know something, guys?” Klaus wiped away a tear. “I think we’re gonna be ok.”

Chapter Text

Sloane didn’t know why she volunteered to spy on the Umbrellas.

In retrospect, Fei would have been the better choice, or even Ben. Sloane hated stakeouts when they were hunting down human traffickers. Why would it be any different now?

“You sure?” Marcus had asked, brows inching toward his hairline and irritation in his eyes. If anything deviated from Marcus’s expectations – in life or family – he took it as a personal attack or an ill-timed joke.

She was not sure, but she said she was because disappointing Marcus was akin to skinning one’s own foot.

Maybe it was because the big guy who had punched her in the face was cute. According to the small file Dad had written on them, Luther had the same abilities as Marcus. Super strength. She had been able to see it, lurking deep in his eyes…

“Ten bucks she gets bored and starts watching butterflies instead,” Jayme had joked, elbowing Alphonso. He had laughed and Sloane had sighed as the true reason became apparent. She loved her sisters and brothers, in some dark, twisted piece of her heart. Yet a vacation in Malibu didn’t sound bad at all.

That was how she ended up sitting by the hotel pool watching surveillance videos of their new enemies. The sun felt like a warm cotton shawl against the bare skin of her legs and belly. She readjusted the floppy ends of her hat as it dipped into her face.

“Smoothie, Ms. Hargreeves?” One of the hotel waiters asked. The tall one with beautiful brown eyes that Fei would have loved if she were present. He bent low beside her pool chair, offering another orange drink in spotless glass. She grinned at him.

“No thank you Jeremy.”

He returned the smile and nod, though it made the kindness in his eyes flash to disgust instead. She could smell the dislike on him. She had enough practice with Ben.

Sloane returned to her espionage. It had taken her maybe two days to locate the Umbrellas after Marcus hacked into airline records and found their tickets to California. Social media was a lifesaver.  

One flight, some tweets on a local neighborhood page about a man being kidnapped by janitors, and a quick flight over the area and she had spotted them with ease. Setting up secret cameras in their stunning mansion hadn’t been all that difficult either.

Really, this was setting up to be a great vacation.

They were all gathered around the kitchen table. Which was odd and had set off the motion sensor alarms by Sloane’s bedside table. Usually, the first stirrings of wakefulness didn’t come until 11 am or later.

 She checked the small file dad had written about them; and recognized the one standing at the head of the table as Diego.

He was dressed in tactical gear, layered with knives and… Was that a hickey? Sloane quickly looked away as he clapped his hands together.

“Up and at em’ Team Zero! It’s time for training!” He hollered.

He laid a hand on the British woman’s shoulder. She wasn’t in dad’s file, and so far, all Sloane had managed to glean from conversations was that she was Diego’s ex-girlfriend, she hated Five and had shown up without invitation and the least amount of welcome possible.

Beside Diego, a young boy everyone called Stan the same way one would speak the name of a rather unliked pet, stood proud and straight-backed with a clipboard.

“Training for what, you lunatic?” That was Luther. He was the only other one who seemed to be fully cognizant of his surroundings. He was dressed in a pair of grey sweats that hugged his rear in a very pleasing way, smearing jelly on a piece of toast. 

“An attack by the Sparrows is imminent.”

“Is it though?” Klaus drawled. In her opinion, Klaus had the fashion sense of a colorblind peacock. But his flowy skirt looked like it could have been dressy once. Why no shirt though? Did he sleep in skirts?

She typed the question on her iPad for further deliberation.

“No duh idiot, and I’ve been thinking. Five said all our powers were supercharged when we were fighting the Soviets, right?”

Five raised his head from where he had been staring intently at the coffee maker for the past ten minutes. He was wearing slippers with fuzzy bunny ears. It didn’t exactly fit the curmudgeonly way he leaned against the kitchen counter. “See? This is why I never tell you guys anything. You start getting ideas.”

“Well, I found out that I can redirect bullets in Dallas, so obviously there’s a whole side to our powers we haven’t explored yet. No time like the present,” Diego slammed a fist against the table next to Klaus’s head. “Wake up dumbass!”

Klaus startled in his seat. “Huh?”

“And you woke us up at seven in the morning to… train?” Allison yawned into her hand. She slipped into a seat at the table delicately with a plate of fruit in one hand and a piece of wrinkled paper in the other. Sloane tried to zoom in so she could read the scribbled words, but they were too blurry. She made a note to steal it later.

“Exactly. I have a plan. Stan here will be my assistant.”

Stan nodded resolutely.

“I’m going back to bed,” Klaus shook his head and started to stand. He froze when a sharp dagger landed in the space between his pinky and forefinger on the table. Sloane inhaled a sharp breath in surprise. She hadn’t even seen Diego move.  

“Sit down, Klaus.”

“Or what?” Klaus challenged. “You’ll stab me?”

Why does no one else seem worried? Sloane wondered.

The stand-off happening had garnered as little attention as if Diego and Klaus were discussing the weather. She had to admit the Umbrellas seemed… Unhinged and uncoordinated, but not downright murderous.

Diego flashed a charming smile. “I wouldn’t waste the knives, but I will fill your underwear drawer with tarantulas. I saw some yesterday,” Klaus harrumphed and sank back into his seat huffily. “I thought so. Now, we all know that dad gave us only enough training to make himself feel accomplished, but I have actual goals for everyone. Stanley, hand out the worksheets.”

As Stan hurried to pass out sheets of paper from his clipboard, Sloane tapped her chin. Who exactly had trained these amateurs? All had basic hand-to-hand skills, except the tiny one, as far as she could tell.

Ben said Five was quick and well-trained in martial arts. Fei agreed that Allison had a decent right hook. Dad and Pogo had overseen the Sparrow Academy’s training with rigorous zeal but these guys had all the grace and stealth of a lame panda bear.

Luther turned the paper in his hands side to side, studying it as if the words were in a different language. The crinkle between his brows was kinda cute. “You created these?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“No one thought you could read,” Lila supplied into her own drink. Sloane was pretty sure it was vodka in a mug.

“Really, Diego?” The little one dad said was named Vanya, but the others called Viktor waved their paper in the air with an eye roll. “Don’t blow up the moon?”

“Hey, that’s a valid goal right there! You need the most training, since, you know, dad kept you drugged and oblivious your whole life.”

“I hate to say it, but he has a point Viktor. It would be preferable if we don’t have to worry that you’re going to end all of existence by accident during a fight,” Five accepted his own worksheet with a scowl. He briefly squinted at the words and scoffed. “Who put this here? I can’t blink other people unless I’m attached to them you idiot.”

Lila tilted her head back to regard him with white hot hatred. “Yes, you can.”

“What?”

“How do you think I got my mum in the barn without you knowing? I just snapped my fingers and teleported her into the room,” Lila nabbed a strawberry from Allison’s plate. The other woman glanced up hotly; but didn’t comment.

“Is this another of your hairbrained schemes to distract me so you can slit my throat?”

She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. Or she was choking on something. Sloane couldn’t tell. “Unfortunately, no, because one of my fucking goals is to not kill you without permission.”

“You couldn’t kill me even if you…” Five stuffed his mug into the coffee maker as dark liquid trickled out, brows furrowed. “Wait, permission from whom?”

“That’s a good fucking question.”

Diego knocked against the table. “All of us. If you really need to kill Five, we’ll put it to a vote.”

They have very loose and casual opinions on murder. Possibly psychotic, Sloane wrote.

Lila leaned back in her sat and stretched her arms above her head, exposing unshaved pits in her loose tank top. “How democratic, but I think I’ll just have a go at him whenever it fancies me.”

Allison popped a mango chunk in her mouth and smiled acidly. “Except one of the terms of you staying here, in this nice mansion my friend’s daughter owns, is that you don’t murder Five or I get to rumor you into a coma.”

There is tension between Lila and Allison, Sloane added, though she had specified this in earlier posts. Could be exploited?

Lila levelled a butter knife at Allison warningly. “Try it, pretty lips, I dare you.”

“We are getting off task!” Diego clapped his hands again just as Viktor’s eyes began to glow and Klaus tensed in his seat. “No murder. Everyone is murder free here. Except if someone sees a Sparrow. Murder them all you like.”

Big talk for someone who doesn’t even notice the hidden camera in the room, she thought.

“Here are your goals: Five, learn how to blink other people without touching them. Luther, I want to see you jumping off skyscrapers like no one’s business. Viktor, blowing stuff up is forbidden, you will now focus on keeping yourself from being blown up. Klaus, you’re gonna call and keep contact with a ghost army.”

“The hell I am! Do you have any idea how…?”

Diego kept going. “Allison, you’re gonna rumor things that don’t exist into existence. Lila, you’re gonna mimic more than one power at a time and I am gonna work on redirecting objects other than knives. Stanley here will provide us with explosives and snacks. Any questions?”

Allison raised her hand. “If I knock you out, can we go back to sleep?”

Viktor slung one leg over his knee thoughtfully. “I mean Diego, why would the Sparrows attack, really? As long as we leave them alone, I bet they’re satisfied with letting us do whatever.”

“Besides,” Luther added cheerfully. He didn’t sit down, but he did inch closer to the conversation while chomping on his toast. “How are they going to find us? We’re across the country.”

Someone posted a picture of you on Twitter with the caption #LA traffic destroys families, Sloane wished she could say.

“Have you forgotten who their patriarch is? Reginald fucking crazy-ass Hargreeves!” Diego said, as if this was rock-solid proof. Sloane would be the first to agree that their father was strict, harsh and menacing, but crazy? Not likely.

“He’s not gonna let us go. He’s not gonna let us rest. Besides, they have the briefcase remember? What if that flying cube opens it and… And… Saves the dinosaurs or some crap?”

Note: this is the third time they have referred to ‘a briefcase’ as some kind of powerful object. Delusions or do they know something I don’t? I am tempted to say its just a delusion.

Five sipped his coffee, nodding. “He’s right on that point. We do need to get the briefcase back, but I could do that myself.”

Diego snorted. “You can’t even reach the top shelf by yourself. Besides, from now on, solo work is for dickheads and lonely cat ladies. We’re team zero. We kick ass and take names as a family, capiche?”

“Who died and made you the boss?” Klaus grumbled.

“Stanley, commence with phase one.”

With a grin big enough to swallow his face, Stan suddenly bent down, lifted a bucket of… Sloane gagged as handfuls of worms came into sight. Stan then tipped the buckets over Lila’s head. Allison shrieked and leapt aside. Klaus burst into laughter. Viktor looked briefly as if he was considering throwing himself down the stairs.

“Oh my…! What the Hell, Stanley!?” Lila screeched, jumping to her feet.

“This is your chance, Lila!” Diego encouraged. “Rumor him to sleep and then chuck him out a window!”

“You are a terrible father,” Luther informed Diego, matter of fact. He then flinched as a water balloon hit the side of his head. Sloane giggled at the indignant shock on his face. “Ow! Did he put rocks in the water balloon?”

Stan made a face at them. “Come and get me, monekybrains!”

“You know what? This is ridiculous!” Allison slapped her hands against the table and stood like an irritated Goddess. “Diego, we’re never going to…” She gasped when a water balloon shattered against her ear. “What the actual fuck! Stanley!”

Diego blew on the whistle with such force even Sloane cringed back from the piercing sound. “Training day one starts now!”

Chapter Text

Allison was going to kill her brother. She wasn’t sure which one yet, but fratricide was in the near future.

Viktor, bless his pure heart, did not look furious so much as nervous. He kept stealing peeks at his white tennis shoes. Pale, skinny legs shone in the bright sun as he shuffled on the lawn.

Diego’s plan to irritate them all into having better control of their powers had been a miserable failure. The only outcomes so far were that Stan had been locked in a closet for an hour, Luther dangled Diego upside by the ankles over the staircase and there were worms all over the kitchen floor.

Somehow, Diego had succeeded in convincing them to rise and stay awake earlier than eleven in the morning. Hence why Allison was standing in sandals watching as Klaus and Stan lugged a wagon of footballs from the house.

“Tell me again what messed up logic you’ve got goin' here?” Allison called to Diego, who had a bandage wrapped around a cut on his forehead but otherwise sustained little damage from his own idiocy.

It was unfair really.

“We know Viktor can project his powers out,” Diego repeated. “But now we’ll see if he can use his powers to shield himself.”

“Fifteen bucks says Viktor accidentally breaks Klaus’s leg,” Five, who had arrived to watch the chaos unfold with an apple in hand, murmured. Allison scoffed and crossed her arms as the wagon screeched to a stop.

“Hey, um, where’d you get all those footballs?” She demanded suspiciously.

Klaus straightened up and swiped sweat from his brow even though Stanly had done most of the work. “Oh, they were in a huge crate in the shed.”

“There’s a shed? Where?” Diego demanded, surprised.

They couldn’t be that stupid, they couldn’t be that stupid, they couldn’t be that stupid… Allison had to ask anyway. “The shed with a lock on the door?”

“Yeah, that’s the one! Why didn’t you say anything about it if you knew? There’s a ton of cool shit in there.”

“We found sodas that are like twelve years old,” Stan agreed excitedly.

Allison pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, I don’t know Klaus, maybe because I saw the lock and assumed it meant we shouldn’t go in there?”

“We’ll put it all back!” Klaus suddenly let out a belch that rattled his whole body. “Oh, scusi. Except for the sodas.”

Allison was already drafting a letter of apology to Odessa’s daughter. She decided to add a plea that Odessa’s family adopt her post haste to the last paragraph. Diego jabbed a finger at her own inane project. “Hey, focus on your own goals, Mariah Carey understudy!”

“I’m sorry, what the hell am I supposed to do with a pumpkin?”

It was a rather large pumpkin set on a chair seven feet away from her. It could have been the backdrop to a wonderful fall photograph if not for the browned grass and dry, dead mountains in the background. “Turn it into a taco. A good one." 

Allison had already explained, four times, that she could not and would never be able to turn objects into other objects, but as usual, no one listened. She glanced down. “Five, I know you said you’re done killing…”

“Give it twenty more minutes and you won’t even have to ask,” Five assured her.

Stan and Klaus each loaded a football in hand. “Are you ready Viktor?” Klaus called.

Viktor’s shoulders rose and fell in a mountainous sigh. “Um…. No.”

An outsider would have said Klaus couldn’t give less of a fuck. That outsider would be correct. Klaus grinned. “Ready, aim fire!” Without further ado, they began to pitch the footballs at Viktor, who instantly began lurching side to side to avoid being struck.  

“Ow!” he cried when one hit him in the thigh, quickly followed by another striking his side. “Fuck, Klaus!”

“Klaus!” Allison scolded.

Klaus laughed. It was such a full-bodied, joyous sound that Allison had to pinch herself to make sure this wasn’t a dream. “Hey, what kind of brother would I be if I were given a ball and told to chuck it at my youngest brother, and didn’t throw it with everything I had? A crap brother, that’s what kind!”

“Build a shield, Viktor! You can do it!” Diego shouted.

“Nope!” Viktor raised his hands in exasperation and made his way back to the house. “I’m done. I’m out of here.”

“Lasted longer than I thought,” Five admitted.

“No, stop running! Get back here! Face your fear!” Diego yelled. Viktor flashed him the middle finger over his shoulder.

“I’m going to need a drink,” Allison predicted.

It was many hours before she could indulge herself with that drink.

The last rays of sun were staining the countryside a deep maroon. Smog sat low over the horizon, and even from this distance the city lights made the entire sky seem lit up from the inside.

Allison sat in the raggedy tree toward the back of the property. The lowest branch she had been able to reach was barely any taller than she was, but it was enough height for her feet not to scuff the earth as she swung her legs back and forth.

She slapped at a mosquito trying to gnaw on her bared leg. Across the yard, Diego had not ceased his attempts to unlock the secrets of Luther’s apparent invulnerability.

He, Stan and Luther were illuminated by the lights from the house as they unpackaged the fireworks Diego had bought or stolen. Allison tried not to ask questions she didn’t want to know the answers too anymore.

The ice in her water bottle jingled when she shook it. Allison didn’t know if filling a water bottle with pina colada was weird, but she figured that the context of her environment was odd enough that the action was normal by comparison.

“Oh,” she jumped as Lila suddenly appeared on the branch next to her with a dark whiskey bottle in hand. “I knew the view from up here would be even better.”

Allison snorted and jerked her chin to indicate the bottle. “Bourbon?”

Lila nodded and took a swig from said bourbon. She was very much like Diego, the more Allison observed. So far, none of them had had much of a chance to speak to Lila outside of casual threats to her life if she tried to attack Five.

She had popped into their living room one night with Stanley and announced her intention to stay as soon as she noticed the pool and extra room.

“What else do you drink while watching idiots?” Lila replied with a devilish smile at the proceedings.

“Maybe we need to set them all off at the same time,” Stanley contemplated, standing over the row of fireworks he had propped up with various kitchen implements, including the blender. None of them were lit yet, but Allison knew that was about to change.

Diego snapped his fingers. “Great idea Stan!”

Luther smacked his lips. “Um… How many is all?”

“Only ten.”

“Only?”

It occurred to Allison that she should be recording this. She dug around in her back pocket for the flip phone. The camera on it was truly terrible, but until they found a better substitute, this was all they had. “So, how long until you tell Diego Stanley’s not his son?” She asked, snapping a photo of the three morons trying to light themselves on fire.

Lila chuckled deep in her throat. “That obvious?”

“Well, Stan looks nothing like either you or Diego, so yes,” though she knew her brother wouldn’t have noticed that. “Where’d you find him?”

“Germany, where all the best orphans come from.”

Well, at least Lila hadn’t kidnapped Stan from a loving, stable home. That made their lives that much easier. Allison nodded and swished some of the icy rum around her mouth. “Ah. Getting back at Diego for what happened in Dallas?”

“Fine,” Luther asserted with crossed arms. “You can shoot five of them at me.”

Stanley made a rude noise in the back of his throat. He certainly acted like Diego, even if there was no blood between them. Allison knew better than most how much that made sense. “You’re lame,” he told Luther, who scowled.

“Shut up Stanley,” Diego kicked over five of the fireworks and clapped Luther on the shoulder. “Alright, showtime. Turn around Lu.”

Lila barked a soft laugh. “Lu?”

Allison smiled. “It was our nickname for him as kids. I totally forgot about it.”

Luther turned his back to them the same way a condemned man would step onto a scaffolding to be hung. He caught sight of them in the tree and his eyes grew wide with desperation.

“Help me,” he mouthed.

Allison just raised her glass in a salute. “Can Five really teleport other people?” She asked, curiously. While she was willing to believe that their father hadn’t known or wanted to know the full extent of their powers, she had assumed they were as developed as they were going to get.

Lila shrugged. “How the fuck should I know? My m-mum…” Her voice hitched. “The Handler got into the room with a briefcase. But watching him mope around thinking he’s inferior to me is literally like my therapy.”

Sounded legit.

Allison had done equally petty things to get back at her siblings for offenses much less significant. “Gotta find joy wherever you can, sister,” she supposed, then froze as the word sister settled between them, heavy and tentative.  

Lila was gracious enough to pretend not to have heard. She clinked her bottle against Allison’s. “Amen to that.”

“You know, Diego is an insensitive, egotistical, emotionally stunted asshole,” Allison nodded to where Diego was fumbling with the lighter, alternating between cursing at the inanimate object, ordering Luther not to move and yelling at Stanley to look under the sink for a new one. “But he really does care about you, and he wasn’t lying. You could have a family here, with us.”

Lila’s voice was dry. “But only if I don’t kill the man who murdered my parents?”

The ice was beginning to interfere with the silkiness of her pina colada. Allison unscrewed the top and flicked a few chunks to the ground. “It is a tall order, I grant you. How about you lessen your bloodlust to two times a week instead of every day?” She suggested. Lila’s mouth quirked up in a smirk that reminded her of Ben so fiercely that Allison’s heart skipped a beat.

“Baby steps?”

How else did one forgive the murder of their birth parents? Allison wondered about her birth family every so often. What would it be like to learn that they’d been murdered, and then have to befriend the man who murdered them?

“If it helps, casual murder is kind of a running theme in this family,” she rubbed the thin scar across her neck. “You know Viktor?”

“The mousy one?”

“He slit my throat a few years back,” the admission made her throat close up suddenly. She had never phrased it like that before. She tried not to think about that day, most of the time.

She gulped. She could still feel her own blood staining her fingers.

Allison was snapped from the unpleasant memory by Lila shoving her shoulder. “Get out! That little pipsqueak slit your throat?”

“Yep,” she sighed and took another long drab of her drink. “Luther almost shot Five, Five took a chunk out of Klaus’s ear, I made Diego punch himself in the face and I can’t count how many times that knife-throwing adrenaline junkie has stabbed one of us. He says it was by accident, but my scars say otherwise.”

As if to prove her point, Stan had finally dug a working lighter from some crevice of the house. The fireworks screamed as they were ignited, tearing across the short distance right into Luther’s bare back. Allison shielded her eyes from the sparks of vivid light.

“I don’t know if I even want to be in your bloody family,” Lila breathed.

“Did you feel that?!” Diego shouted from somewhere inside the exploding firework display.

“Yes!” Luther cried. He slapped at some dark embers dotting his arms. “Ow!”

Allison squinted into the night, hoping that his back would not be burnt to a crisp, but Luther wasn’t screaming in agony or crumpling to the ground, so she wasn’t too worried yet.

Diego and Stanley circled Luther, gawking. “There’s not a scratch on you bro.”

Luther craned his neck to peer over his shoulder. “Really? It feels like there is.”

Huh. Maybe Diego did have a point about them needing more training.

“Dude, this is so awesome!” Diego laughed. He pounded an affectionate fist against Luther’s chest. Luther was smiling as if being used for target practice was a great honor. “You’re invincible. Fire up the next ones Stan!”

Allison relaxed against the tree branch once more, satisfied that Luther wouldn’t need an emergency skin graft. “Do you?” Lila continued in a low voice.

“Do I what?”

“If you had a choice, go back and do everything over, would you still want to be part of this circus act?”

Patrick had once asked her the same thing. “Wouldn’t you want to be normal?” was the way he’d phrased it, with that tight smile that showed she was expected to reply in the affirmative.

Allison hadn’t seen it at the time, but Patrick, in many ways, was similar to her father. He was intelligent, arrogant and a perfectionist. That had appealed to her once. She had seen it as strength at the time.

Now she knew it was just another way Reginald Hargreeves had fucked with her head.

She studied her hands. By the light of the fading sun, her skin flashed gold, her fingers drawing long shadows across her knees. She wondered if Claire’s hands would look the same one day. What would it be like to not know?

“You know what’s really pathetic? I can count on one hand the number of good things I’ve had in my life. My daughter, Ray, this one bottle of Rosé that was truly divine, and my brothers. They are destructive and strange and…”

“Fire in the hole!” Diego shouted, then dove aside as more fireworks squealed from their cardboard casing. Luther cried out as they struck his back and bounced off as if hitting a brick wall.

“So much work,” Allison finished with a sigh. “But at the end of the day, they have always been the first and sometimes only people who choose me every time, knowing all my flaws, all my mistakes,” she dared to meet Lila’s intense gaze. “We aren’t family because some rich asshole made us that way Lila, we’re family because we keep choosing each other, even when none of us deserves it.”

Lila studied her closely. “Sounds bothersome.”

Allison snorted a laugh and gestured to the waning firework show. “Oh, a hundred percent. There are some upsides though, like nonstop entertainment.”

Diego laughed from his spot several feet away from Luther, who was bent over gasping for breath. “Bro, I have so much more respect for you right now!”

Luther scowled. “Do you guys smell barbeque?”

Oh crap, Allison thought twelve seconds before the tiny embers in Luther’s back hairs were stroked by a passing breeze. Stanley screamed and stumbled backwards until he ran into Diego, eyes wide in horror. “He’s on fire!”

“Your back is on fire!” Diego yelled.

Luther screamed and tried to slap at the flames protruding from his back like wings. “I’M ON FIRE!”

Allison quickly snapped a picture of it, torn between disbelief, terror and a hysterical urge to laugh.

As the three of them continued to shriek and flail around, the phone in Allison’s hand vibrated. She stuffed one finger in her ear to drown out the noise.

It was Viktor, who sounded as if he had just woken from a nice nap. “Hey, I hear yelling. Is it normal screaming or are we under attack?”

She glanced at the chaos. Luther was running in circles, with Diego and Stan following like ducklings, trying to pat and fan the flames away.

“Uh, yeah, Luther’s back hairs caught on fire,” she reported. Viktor made a sound of exasperation in the back of his throat.

“Stop, drop and roll dude!” Diego yelled. “Didn’t you watch the informercials?”

Luther dropped like a sack of bricks, turning in the grass like a shish kebab. 

“He’s definitely going to feel that in the morning,” Lila predicted. She was watching this with the same befuddled expression one would wear if watching people toast the new year on a sinking ship.  

“Oh, shit the grass is dry!” Stanley pointed out as suddenly the brittle yard caught aflame as well. Luther’s screams sounded suspiciously like sobs.

Allison pinched herself to make sure this wasn’t some drunken dream. Usually, the sky would have started falling by this point. “And now some of the yard is on fire. Would you – or someone – bring out a fire extinguisher please? I’m not even halfway done with my drink.”

Viktor yawned. “Five said if anyone bothers him, he’s going to blink a bear into the living room and let it eat us alive.”

“Creative.”

“Hm. So, I guess that leaves Klaus… Never mind, Klaus sprained his hamstring trying to lick his toes,” Viktor’s reluctance dripped from his tone. “I’ll be right out.”

“Thanks Vik,” Allison snapped the phone shut. “You might have a point about them being a lot to handle.”

“Might? You bloody brothers are about to burn down the whole west coast!” Diego and Stan were taking turns trying to stomp out the small fires burning holes into the yard while Luther lay on his stomach, groaning. 

“Viktor is bringing the fire extinguisher. I try as hard as possible not to play the role of tired mom in this household.”

“You’re doing a shit job of it. How old is your daughter?”

Allison choked on her drink. “Um… Fuck, she was six when I left,” she rasped, pounding on her chest to ease the burn of alcohol having slithered down the wrong pipe.

“You’ve not been to see her then? I thought that was the whole reason you lot came to California,” Allison sent her a sharp look. Lila raised her hands pacifically. “Diego is not good at keeping secrets, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Allison sighed and slapped at invisible itches along her thighs. How to explain this to a virtual stranger? It was hard enough admitting to her brothers.

“Things were complicated even before our dad’s funeral. I wasn’t exactly a model mom. I think about her every second of every day. I miss her more than I thought it was possible to miss another human being, but…”

Viktor arrived with a fire extinguisher, towel and first aid kit. “What the hell, guys? In what universe was this a good idea?” He demanded as he tossed Diego the fire extinguisher and knelt beside Luther.

“It’s Diego’s fault,” Luther whined. Viktor opened the kit and began to dig around.

“We found out you’re invulnerable, didn’t we?” Diego started spraying down the dirt with extinguisher casually. “Stan, go get the hose for your Uncle Luther.”

Allison meant to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sob. “What kind of life is this for a child?” She waved a hand at the burning yard. “I mean, I tried the whole normal thing. Twice. It never works out. Can I really drag Claire into my bubble knowing that, at any moment, the Sparrows could attack, or the Commission could hunt us down or another apocalypse could slip under the radar? Maybe she’s safer far away from me.”

Wouldn’t you want to be normal? Patrick had asked.

And yes, she did. Allison wished for normalcy with the might of the damn sun. What use was the fame and the mind control and the damn power if it meant she couldn’t even raise her daughter?

Allison had reinvented herself twice in attempts to leave the trauma and shame of her childhood behind, but it never stayed buried.

What kind of mother would pass that all to Claire?

Lila tapped the bottle against the tree trunk. “Take it from someone who would literally kill everyone I know just for ten minutes with my birth mum… The best place for Claire is with you. Whacky and disorganized as your family is. Oi, nimrod!” She yelled. “Don’t drown the fucking Earth in extinguisher! The ozone is already patchy!”

She had drawn attention to their unhelpful state. Diego put his hands on his hips. “Were you guys just up there watching this whole time?” He yelled.

Allison waved the phone. “I took pictures for the scrapbook.”

“We’re not making a fucking scrapbook. That shit is for losers,” Diego declared, for the sixth time since Allison had first recommended that they make one.

She harrumphed and snapped another pic of his face. For the scrapbook.

“My back hurts!” Luther wailed.

Viktor gently patted his charred back with some disinfectant, shaking his head. “It’s not even a third-degree burn. It just looks like you got a little sunburned. This is pretty incredible Luther.”

“Well, it isn’t a sunburn; my back was on fire.”

Allison slid down from the tree. Her knees shook when her feet collided with the ground. Maybe she would never be normal, but she would always have the Earth, and hopefully her brothers, and responsibility as one of the only sane ones in the house.

“I’d better grab him some burn cream,” she glanced up at her companion for the night. “You wanna come?”

Surprise flitted across Lila’s face, quickly followed by feigned indifference. She nodded and jumped down to stand beside Allison. “Ah fuck it, why not? I suppose this can be the first night I begin practicing some sisterly duties.”

Yes. She should always have this.

“That’s the spirit.”

Chapter Text

“Sloane. Status report.”

If she were Fei, or Alphonso or Jayme, she would have replied with gee, it’s nice to hear from you too, Marcus.

But despite his curt tone, Sloane liked to believe that Marcus did care about their family. He also cared about fame and his reputation and status as number one... But everyone had their flaws, right?

She slipped the sunflower yellow top back onto its place on the clothing rack and kept skimming over the merchandise. Thank goodness she had thought ahead and disabled her phone’s GPS tracking capacity.

If Marcus asked, she would tell him it was because of an update.

“I’m currently tracking targets one, seven, three and four. They left the bunker at approximately one fifty-two this afternoon and have been here for three hours.”

“Where’s here?” Marcus demanded. Sloane rolled her eyes. She had uploaded all this information to the iPad already. Marcus surely must have seen the data; but leave it to her big brother to want a confirmation.

Or, a tiny voice in the back of her mind, the voice that had been trained into her by dad whispered, he doesn’t trust you.

Sloane gritted her teeth and ducked her head to peer at the price tag of a blouse. It shouldn’t hurt so much to know that Marcus didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust any of them. None of them trusted each other outside of missions. There was a strict hierarchy that separated them, turned them feral in each other’s presence.

Sloane didn’t want to be number one. She just wanted a family.

“The mall,” she replied. The blouse was seventy-five dollars. Even with her family being affluent as it was, Sloane could acknowledge that that was a cheat. She put it back with a harrumph.

There was a beat of silence. Then, “Sloane, are you shopping right now?”

Her cheeks grew hot. “No! I-I’m doing espionage.”

Granted, she had no idea where the Umbrella siblings were at the moment, but even good spies had their moments, right?

“I didn’t send you to California for a vacation,” Marcus snapped. “If you can’t stay focused, maybe I should have Ben take point on this assignment instead.”

Sloane tensed. Sending Ben to do anything was always a threat. He saw any opportunity to flaunt his strength as further evidence that he was better than the rest of them. He was never quiet about it either. If Sloane wanted to sleep in the next six months without being endlessly mocked and ridiculed, not to mention forced to go through behavioral conditioning training, she needed to keep Ben out of this.

“That isn’t necessary,” she replied, monotone. Marcus would see any emotion as a sign of weakness. He always did. “I’m watching them.”

“Good. I want weaknesses to exploit, Sloane. These people are dangerous and unstable. We’re taking them down.”

“I understand, Marcus,” she sighed. The line clicked off without so much as a Good Luck. Sloane lowered her sunglasses back onto her face and slipped from the store back into the quiet Malibu Street. It was mid-day, and the small square of stores and markets weren’t as crowded as usual.

Had Marcus been a little less of an asshole, Sloane would have told him that she was beginning to think the Umbrellas weren’t actually a threat at all. If anything, the only one concerned with her family seemed to be Diego, and even his enthusiasm had waned over the week since Sloane had been spying on them.

Maybe the Umbrellas were unpredictable, but she would hardly categorize them as dangerous. But how to explain this in her reports? How did one tell Marcus this, when he saw his own family as active threats to him?

How did Sloane say that the Umbrella’s training seemed to have devolved into some sort of concerted therapy session? Just three days earlier, Viktor had learned to use his violin to aim exact soundwaves at targets. Sloane had found herself cheering along with the others when the small man had dropped his instrument in shock and joy.

Lila was able to use two of the other’s powers so long as she was focusing hard enough to give herself a headache. Sloane may have been imagining it, but the other woman seemed to have grafted herself into the family with more ease, too.

Klaus affectionately called her Number Eight, which was really cute and never failed to make Lila smile.

Lila and Five no longer tried to assassinate each other on the stairs. In fact, Lila had begun making Five a cup of coffee in the morning while he poured her a cup of scotch in the afternoon. It was a tentative peace.

How could Sloane think this batch of so-called criminals meant any harm when there were plans to throw Viktor a Transition party and get Five a Welcome-back-from- Switzerland cake? For shits sakes, Luther was teaching Stanley to play basketball. Lila, Viktor and Allison had a standing reservation to watch trashy reality television at noon.

Diego and Klaus prank called random numbers from the internet, pretending to be telemarketers named Ruby and Franko. Five often vanished for several hours a day but returned with small but sweet gifts for each of his siblings.

He’d brought Allison a seashell from the coast yesterday and Sloane knew for a fact that it sat right on Allison’s bedside table.

Observing the Umbrella Academy had given Sloane a cramp in her cheek from smiling so hard. It was akin to watching one’s favorite show, aching for the characters while also loving and envying them in equal measure.

When she was little, Sloane thought her siblings and her couldn’t be a family because of their powers, their inherent responsibility to the world. But the Umbrellas somehow managed not only to be a family, but a good one, powers be damned.

She checked the tracer she had sewn into the seam of Luther’s hoodie. She had contemplated putting it in his back pocket, but his pants were already… Well-shaped to his rear. He would probably feel it, and the lump would obscure Sloane’s view.

He was… In the store next to her.

Interesting.

Sloane adjusted her glasses, reapplied her lip gloss (this isn’t a date, Sloane, Fei might have scoffed) and hurried inside. It wasn’t difficult to locate Luther. He was inside a home goods store after all, staring down at the shelf full of candles wonderingly.

Sloane’s heart skipped a beat. Luther’s shoulders were broad and bulky, but the kindness in his face was like staring into the sun. How could Marcus ever think he was some madman? He looked like an angel on steroids.

She ducked behind a stand of cards just as he looked up. He’d probably sensed her staring at him like an idiot. Damn it she was an idiot. Spy 101 said thou shalt not get caught by the person you’re spying on even if he has a nice smile and compassionate eyes damn it, Sloane…

“Oh, hey,” Sloane yelped as Luther’s voice spoke from directly over her shoulder.

She tripped over her own feet in her haste to stumble backwards; and would have ended up flat on her face if a strong arm hadn’t wrapped around her waist from behind. “Whoa, careful!” Luther cried.

Sloane looked up. Her breath hitched in her throat at his apologetic smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. You’re Sloane, right?”

So much for secrecy. Whoever said sunglasses were a good disguise?

“Um. Yeah. Hi. I’m Sloane. Yeah,” she giggled awkwardly because his arm was still around her and it was sending shivers down her spine. He was so big. “Nice to, um, see you again. Luther, right?”

As if she hadn’t been stalking him for the past week. He unwound her from his grip, much to her disappointment, and nodded. “That’s me. I was, uh, shopping with my family.” His enormous shoulders lifted in a half shrug.

“Oh. That’s nice.”

Sloane had never gone shopping with her family. Grace did all of that. Sloane had tried to go with Fei once when they were seventeen, but because of the dark glasses people assumed Fei was blind, and that made Fei mad, so she had given more than one person a black eye which was, in Marcus’s words, “bad for business.”

They never went out after that.

Luther rocked back and forth on his heels.

Sloane obsessively shoved strands of her hair behind her ear.

“So, uh, if you don’t mind sharing…”

“Well, can I ask…?

“What are you doing in California?” They both blurted at the same time, then burst into laughter. The woman standing behind the counter to the left snorted and eyed Sloane over the rim of her glasses in silent judgement.

“My sister Allison has a friend whose daughter owns a summer house here. She agreed to let us hang out until we figure out our next steps,” Luther explained. Sloane nodded. She had wondered how the Umbrellas could afford such a magnificent estate. The six thousand they’d pocketed off dad wouldn’t be nearly enough to grant them this fancy asylum.

“Next steps,” she repeated warily. “As in…?”

“Oh, where we go from here, what we do now… Oh, oh!” Luther’s eyes grew wide. “No, no, I don’t mean steps like, as in, attacking your family or anything! We wouldn’t do that. I mean, it’s not you guy’s fault dad didn’t adopt us this time around, right? So yeah, no hard feelings. On our side, I mean. Well, Diego is still pretty pissed but that’s like his default setting, so it doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking too much, aren’t I? Sorry.”

Sloane couldn’t help but grin, her suspicions confirmed. She folded her hands in front of her daintily. “No, its alright. I’m glad to hear it. We thought maybe you’d come back to try and finish us off, but if that isn’t the case…”

Luther snorted. “Trust me, my family can’t ambush worth shit. You’d hear us coming from eight blocks away.” Sloane laughed. “So, what are you doing in California?”

“Oh, I…” She wracked her brain for a viable reason that was not I’m watching your family to expose your weak spots. “There’s a child trafficking ring. My family had tracked down some of its leaders here, so I’m, uh, working to root them out. Hero stuff, ya know?”

“Wow,” Luther breathed, with his big, trusting eyes. Sloane felt a pang of guilt. “That’s incredible. Do you need any help? I’m sure you’ve got everything covered, but I’d be happy to help. For the kids, of course.”

The worst part was that she could tell he meant it.

“No thanks,” she whispered, stomach twisting into knots. “It’s just reconnaissance right now.”

Luther’s gaze fell. “Oh. Well, that’s cool. Dad never had doing complex stuff like that. It was always stop a bank robbery or free some hostages from a terrorist network,” he rolled his eyes as if he had just described being relegated to the sidelines during a big game. Sloane gawked.

“You guys used to do hero gigs too?” She asked. She had never seen any billboards out for them, but it made sense. They had some preliminary training in hand-to-hand combat and using their abilities. They had to have used those skills somewhere.

Luther didn’t seem all that proud about it. “Oh yeah. When we were kids.”

“Why’d you stop?”

She couldn’t imagine living in a world where she didn’t use her powers to help people. What would be the point of her?

“Uh, one of our brothers, Ben, died on one of our missions,” Luther gulped, eyes glaring at some point over Sloane’s shoulder. “After that we fell apart. Everyone went their separate ways.”

“Oh,” she had wondered why there was no Number Six in the house, and why they had stared at her Ben with such wonder and bamboozlement. Now she knew. She reached out, instinctively, to squeeze Luther’s hand. “I’m so sorry. For what it’s worth, I’m sure your brother would be proud of you.”

His giant smile returned, and Sloane basked in its rays for a moment. “Thanks. Hey, I got separated from the others. Klaus has to try on, like eighty different outfits at each store and Viktor was going to start looking for a tailor. They’ll probably be a while. Would you want to, I don’t know, grab a coffee or something?”

“Good. I want weaknesses to exploit, Sloane. These people are dangerous and unstable. We’re taking them down.”

For the first time in her life, Sloane shoved Marcus’s directives out of her mind, and lifted her chin to the possibility of making a choice for her, not the business or the family or the world. Her. Sloane.

Something unfurled in her heart and began to sing.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I would love to do that.”

Chapter Text

“Ok, ok,” Diego choked on a giggle. “You want to do it this time?”

He ducked his head with a muffled snort as he offered Klaus their most recent version of entertainment. This old mansion still had a home phone line attached, and it was, honestly, the best part of Klaus’s life right now.

“Yeah, yeah give me the phone,” he whispered, already checking the internet for a new number. Someone really oughta be recording this. Why weren’t they recording this?

“Hey, imbeciles!” Diego and Klaus both swiveled on a heel. Klaus hid the beeping phone behind his back and Diego endeavored to look less like they were committing a minor felony. Thankfully, it was only the family’s other resident criminal. Five stood in the hallway glaring at them. “If you keep doing that, eventually the cops are gonna get wind of it and come arrest you.”

He made it sound as if he would be the ones calling the cops. Which was bullshit because Five was a total softy now. Retirement had mellowed him out. The other day he’d reappeared at the dinner table after spending all day who-the-fuck-knew-where and given Diego a shark’s tooth on a string.

No one asked where he’d gotten it or what happened to the shark.

Klaus flashed his most innocent grin and batted his eyelashes. “You wouldn’t let the cops take me, would you Fivey?”

“I most certainly would. I would cheer them on, as a matter of fact.”

Lies. All lies.

Diego rubbed the shark’s tooth around his neck absently. “Shouldn’t you be practicing your blinks, sir killjoy?”

As usual, the status of Five’s training instantly sent him into an indignant rage. “Lila was lying!” he barked. Retirement was making him predictable too. “There’s no way I can…”

“You know what I’m hearing Klaus?” Diego interrupted.

“Hmm,” Klaus agreed sadly, leaning over to start tapping in the number of their poor, unsuspecting victim. “Five has admitted defeat.”

Diego clucked his tongue. “I never thought I’d see the day that Number Five Hargreeves admits that he is subordinate to Lila.”

The thin ring signaled that his call was going through. Klaus bit his bottom lip to hold in an anticipatory giggle. While waiting, though, he supposed he could continue to torment Five. “Guess we have to ship him back to Switzerland. He can’t possibly be part of the family now.”

“Hello?” A feminine voice on the other end asked.

Excitement made his stomach flutter. He’d not had this much fun since they were twelve and he convinced Ben to help him hide a pigeon in his room. Klaus danced on his toes. “Shush, shush!”

Five stalked toward them, eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’m not part of the family?” He hissed. He snatched the phone and shoved Klaus to the side. “Watch and learn amateurs. Excuse me, is this Olga Foroga?”

Diego paled. “Stop.”

The woman’s voice came back, slow with confusion. “Um… No, I’m sorry. You have the wrong number…”

“No, I’m sure of it. You must be Olga. In which case, I have a message for you,” Five lowered his voice until it was dark and menacing. It would probably sound like a serial killer to someone who couldn’t see how Five’s baby cheeks. “You killed one of ours, Olga, and now we’re coming for you. You will be dead by nightfall.”

Klaus elbowed Diego, who looked as if he were about to spontaneously combust. “I thought we were having family dinner at nightfall.”

Diego clutched his stomach. “Oh shit.”

Five flicked some dirt from his sleeve, tone lightening into polite pleasantness. “Oh wait, I just rechecked. Wrong number. Have a fantastic day,” he slammed the phone back into the receiver and turned to them with a self-satisfied smirk. “That’s how you do it assholes.”

“I don’t get it,” Klaus admitted.  

Diego suddenly burst into howling laughter. “Oh fuck, my sides… I-I can’t b-breathe…”

Klaus shook him. “Hey! Don’t keep me in suspense here guys, what was the joke?”

A fat tear streaked down Diego’s face. It was a little creepy and/or cute to see him smiling so widely. Like the time Klaus had found a five-legged kitten. “I…I gotta tell Luther… He’s never gonna believe this…” Diego leaned against the wall, still snickering. “Ah shit, Five, you got me.”

“No one ever tells me anything!” He whined.

Five patted his shoulder as he passed, followed by a still-snickering Diego. “Maybe when you’re older Klaus.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh har har, gramps. I didn’t want to know anyway!” He called after Diego and Five’s retreating backs. With a harrumph, Klaus made his way to the living room to complain.

Unfortunately, Allison, Viktor and Lila were not in their usual spot watching reality drama. Where was everyone? Klaus was a social creature. He hadn’t been alone since he was seventeen years old after all, and Ben’s missing presence was a perpetual anchor around his good mood. He checked the fridge for snacks to replace the urge for LSD building in his psyche.

“Hey, who’s martini is this!” he yelled, catching sight of the tiny glass of clear liquid. The musky scent of a chilled martini floated up to him. He smiled, waited a beat before shrugging. “Well, no answer means no limits. Thank you very much universe.”

Klaus was just pondering life and Five’s role in their current vacation when two skinny, long shadows appeared in his left peripheral.

“Take a seat, brother or sister of mine,” he invited, waving lazily around the pool, where various flotation devices gently bobbed in the current his foot was making. “The water is…” The rest of his statement died away when he felt the cool nozzle of a pistol dig into his temple.

“Don’t move, asshole,” the gun owner sneered. Klaus slowly raised his hands, debating whether it might be a good idea to call out for help. Either the ghostly kind or family kind. Everyone knew he was a lover, not a fighter.

Before he could come to a decision, however, the ear-shattering pop of multiple gunshots echoed out over the Californian coast, followed by a startled scream he was pretty sure came from Allison.

Klaus sighed. Damn it. Of course they’d been attacked. “Are you from MTV? Because these scare episodes are so early 2000’s,” he quipped. He responded to fear with snark. He was a Hargreeves. Sue him.

The sharp slap upside his head was only slightly better than aa lawsuit. “Ow!”

“Funny guy, huh? Keep that mouth shut and come with me,” Klaus yelped as someone grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. The martini crashed as he stumbled upright.

Aw man, he thought. That had been a good martini.

He glanced at his assailant. If he was getting kidnapped, he’d at least like to know who the fuck… Fuck. The man beside him was wearing a rabbit mask, a very snazzy black suit, and he had a briefcase in his left hand.

Stupid commission.

“You guys here for Five or Lila?” he demanded past the lump in his throat. Last time he had been kidnapped by one of these guys he had been brutally tortured. Klaus’s feet began to ache in remembered pain.

The Commission goon didn’t respond. He only kept the pistol pressed firmly into Klaus’s ribs as he steered him by the shoulder into the house. The silent hopes Klaus had had that his family would come to the rescue were dashed by the sight that met him.

Allison, Luther, and Diego were kneeling in the middle of the living room floor, hands splayed above their heads. Diego was bleeding from the hairline.

Allison had a sock shoved into her mouth, which, gross. Beside her, a small body lay curled on the ground as if asleep. Klaus’s heart hurtled right up into his throat, where he choked on dread. It was Viktor.

The three men holding them at gunpoint did not have rabbit masks, thank fuck, but the ski masks were just as creepy. Stanley sat next to Diego. His wrists were zip-tied together but otherwise he just looked offended not to have someone threatening him with a gun.

“Any of you move and we’ll spray this nice carpet with your brains,” the man hissed into Klaus’s ear before he shoved him down next to Luther.

“You ok?” Luther whispered with a concerned glance.  

Klaus sighed and wriggled until he found a comfortable position on his knees, hands raised. “I think my band-aid is peeling off,” he could feel the cold sting of air against the healing tear in his ear. It was even more discomfiting than the gun pressed to the back of his head. “Is Viktor…?”

“Just out-cold,” Luther assured him. Klaus let out a breath of relief.

“What’s your plan, Easter Bunny?” Diego growled. “If you know jack-shit about us, you know you can’t hold us here forever.”

“Which one is he again?” One of the ski-masked men whispered. Or maybe it was a woman. They had nice curves and Klaus wasn’t sexist.

“I don’t know,” the man standing behind Diego slapped him with the butt of his gun. It was one of those long hunting rifles that should be illegal but wasn’t. “Hey, are you the one who throws paper clips?”

Allison snorted past the gag in her mouth. “Whose sock is that?” Klaus wondered aloud. “Is it mine? I’m sorry if its mine.”

“You throw paperclips?” Stan drawled. “I knew you were lame.”

Diego’s eyes flashed. “Knives! I throw knives!”

“He used to throw paperclips,” Luther offered helpfully. “When we were little.”

Viktor groaned next to Allison. Klaus hoped he woke up and blew the brains out of these guys. Without killing the rest of them, that was. “Where’s June and Irving with the other two?” Rabbit mask demanded in a harsh whisper.

“Just wait until my girl gets here man,” Diego boasted. “Then you ass-wipes are fried.”

“Yeah,” Stanley brightened. “She’s gonna slurp your brains out through a straw and then sell your organs on the black web!”

Diego leaned over to arch a brow at Allison. “You two been watching slasher films again?”

Klaus gave a start. He loved slasher films. They were always so gory and had lots of half-naked men. He turned to his sister with a look of betrayal, which she returned with an eye roll and impenitent shrug.

“Get your hands off me, you son of a bitch!” The last of their hopes and dreams, Lila and Five, were unceremoniously marched down the stairs.

One of the ski-masked villains had Lila by the bicep, and she was trying to wrestle them off like a puma caught in a net. Five, meanwhile, appeared calm enough. He merely walked down the stairs with a put-upon expression.

That changed when he saw them. Pure rage flashed in his eyes. He snarled.  

“What the Hell do you idiots think you’re doing?” he snapped. Klaus couldn’t tell if he was talking to them or the masked gunmen, but he was willing to put it on the back burner for now.

Diego threw his head back to groan, nearly knocking into the nozzle of the gun behind him. “How’d you guys get captured?! Come on, you’re supposed to be assassins!”

“Well, we couldn’t very well go about having a shootout when they have guns trained on you now could we?” Lila snapped. She and Five were led to the back of the couch, where they stood in tense silence.

“Good,” Rabbit mask grunted. “We’re all here. Now…”

“Martin?” Lila squinted at him suspiciously. “Martin is that you?”

“That isn’t Martin. Martin isn’t smart enough to pull this off,” Five was now studying the rabbit mask too.  

“My name is soul-breaker.”

Klaus lasted ten seconds before he burst into laughter. Luther didn’t even manage to hold out for that long. They leaned against each other, snickering. Felt good to have something in common again.

“Maybe it is Martin,” Five admitted ruefully.  

“Hold on a minute, did this guy just call himself soul-breaker?” Diego guffawed. “Who’s this little shit behind me? Spirit-Snatcher?”

“Widow maker?” Luther added, giggling.

“Ooh, ooh! Can I call mine Todd?” Klaus asked. He lowered one hand to try and smooth his band-aid back into place, but it kept peeling away from his ear. He wondered if Todd would get him a new one.

“Shut up!” Martin snapped. He jammed the butt of his gun into Klaus’s wrist. He recoiled with a shriek as pain ricocheted up his arm. “I’m sick and tired of you selfish pricks messing up the timeline! It’s gone too far!”

“What are you blathering on about Martin?” Lila’s nose ring wriggled as she let out an explosive exhale. “They fixed it! Apocalypses averted!”

“No. You snot-rags literally created a Kugelblitz.”

Five inhaled a sharp breath. Lila looked as if someone had just kicked her in the kidneys. Klaus cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to sound uncultured, but what the hell is a ketchup bliss?” He asked politely.

“A Kugelblitz,” Martin corrected, sounding as if he wanted to pinch his eyes. Klaus knew the sound well. “A rift in time and space. Its already taken most of the Commission staff. Thousands of people have been wiped from existence. The universe is going to end unless someone does something about you, circus freaks.”

“Oh, come on, we would totally notice something like that!” Luther cried.

“Haven’t there been a lot of people going missing lately?” Klaus smacked his lips in thought. “I just thought Five ate them all, but maybe it is a Kellogg bricks.”

“So what’s your solution Martin?” Five spread his arms impatiently. “You think you’re gonna, what? Make us fix it at gunpoint?”

“No,” Klaus couldn’t see Martin’s face, but he could hear the dark amusement in his voice. “We’re resetting the timeline. Your freakish family here was never born in this one,” he poked Klaus’s back with a boot. “Easy enough problem to correct.”

The safety of someone’s gun clicked off in the background. Klaus gulped. Five’s knuckles whitened as he leaned forward, squeezing the couch’s backrest. “Listen to me carefully, you sack of defiled excrement, you hurt my family and I’ll make you wish you’d never been born,” he hissed.

Martin waved a dismissive hand. “You are going back to where you belong, Number Five. Straight into the Apocalypse.”

“Harsh,” Lila murmured as Five flinched back, something like fear in his eyes.

“Hey! You can’t do that to him!” Luther hissed.

“It’s true. He would only survive it again. Harder to kill than a cockroach, believe me,” Lila agreed pleasantly. Five jammed an elbow into her ribs.

“We’d love to keep you around Lila, but the world has enough super-powered weirdos, so you’re going back into that cupboard to die with your stupid parents.”

Lila’s nostrils flared. “You can’t just erase me from history, you fuckers! I did shit! I’m important!”

“What about me?” Stan was fairly vibrating with excitement. “What are you going to do with me?”

Martin shrugged. “Eh. We’ll just drop you off in the woods during the Triassic or something. I’m not a huge fan of killing kids outright.”

“I get to see dinosaurs? Cool!”

“Stanley!” Diego hissed. “Not cool! Not cool!”

“Any last words?”

“Martin, I am warning you…” Five hissed, taking a step forward. He might have done something. Klaus was actually very excited to see it, but they’d all forgotten about two members of the family while having their lovely little discussion. Or maybe Klaus had just forgotten and this had all been part of some grand plan of distraction. Who knew?

 One of them lowered her hands and stood with the grace of a swan in flight.

“I have one,” Allison announced. She dropped the sock wad with a disgusted expression and turned to the gunmen behind her. “I heard a rumor that you shot your leader.”

Two things happened then, in such quick succession that Klaus didn’t have time to register them before his death. The first was that the gunmen behind Allison’s eyes filmed over white as her rumor took hold. He swiveled, aiming directly for Martin, who in his shock and surprise, gave the trigger of his gun the tiniest of pressures.

The second was that the pressure was just enough to send the bullet rocketing right into the back of Klaus’s head. He was dead on impact so he didn’t see the rest but that was fine because there was a disappointed frown and wholehearted sigh waiting for him.

“Klaus,” Ben Hargreeves, good ole Number Six, said. “What the hell did you do now?”

Chapter Text

For a solid five seconds after Klaus’s death, everyone froze.

The gunman she had rumored did, indeed, shoot at Martin but the fucker dove aside, and the bullet missed him. No one moved to stop him. No one moved at all.

Every gaze was glued to Klaus, lying on the floor with a single, clean hole through his head. A pool of blood was beginning to seep into the carpet. Tiny gray brain-chunks were littered on the floor like cat food.

Allison clapped her hands over her mouth in horror. Tears welled in her eyes because Klaus, her little brother, was dead. He was dead and it was all her fault. She had rumored the wrong guy. She shouldn’t have spoken.

Her gift had always been a curse, but no more than right now.

“Get them!” Martin roared.

“Allison, get down!” She gasped as thin arms wrapped around her torso and dragged her to the floor. When Allison opened her eyes, she noticed a blue, thin wall between her and the gunmen. All of whom were shooting at them. And the bullets were ricocheting off the shield like hail off a tin roof.

Viktor knelt above her, holding his arms out. The shield was actually a bubble, and they were encased in its protective warmth. Allison’s gaze was drawn instinctively to Klaus.

“Everyone on Viktor!”

Five lunged for Luther and blinked him inside the shield a half second after Diego hauled Stan up by the back of the pants and dove to meet them. Lila punched one of the ski-masked jerks in the face, stole their gun and blinked in next. They all huddled on the floor inside the shield.

Allison had a vivid memory of the time Klaus had convinced them to make a blanket fort and they had all tried to scoot inside. The oppressive heat and twang of bodies pressed too closely together.

“Nice, bro, you figured out the shield!” Diego gasped.

Viktor’s face was pinched. “Yeah, but I can’t hold it for long.”

Allison reached out to press her hand against the shield. It felt like cool glass. “Klaus,” she sobbed. Luther laid a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll mourn later,” Lila’s gun clicked as she turned off the safety. “For now, let’s make these fuckers pay.”

The promise of revenge lit her from the inside out. Allison felt as if she were on fire. “What’s the plan?” She growled, swiping away her tears with the back of her hand. 

Five had snapped to attention and was studying their attackers with cold eyes. “Luther, Diego, you’re with me. Diego, you have to redirect those bullets. Luther, take out Martin’s dumbass henchmen,” he commanded, brusque. “Lila, trade Viktor with the shield. Give Stan the gun. Stan, go nuts.”

“Alright!” Stan whooped, as Lila passed him said weapon.

Five continued in clipped tones. “Viktor, move Klaus out of the line of fire and secure the west side perimeter. Allison, grab a gun and take the East. Anyone has a chance to grab Martin, take him alive. I have questions.”

“And he’s gonna pay for what he did to Klaus,” Diego added in a sneer. Five turned to stare at each of them as if memorizing their features. It made Allison gulp and reach out, blindly, to take Viktor’s hand. 

“Watch each other’s backs, stay safe. I’m not losing anyone else today, got it?” They all nodded. “Go!”

Allison had trained most of her childhood to handle situations like these. The time away seemed to melt into the background of her thoughts. She moved by muscle memory, lunging for the nearest gunman just as Luther disarmed him with a wide swipe of his arm.

Allison had him in a headlock before she knew it, pressing down on the delicate nerves of his windpipe.

She didn’t know if she meant to strangle him or make him pass out. Her father would have ordered her to kill him. Ray would have wanted her to have mercy.

“I heard a rumor you went to sleep,” she whispered against his ear. He went limp in her grasp and Allison stepped back, allowing him to collapse at her feet.

She kicked him once in the kidneys for the Hell of it and then knelt to curl her fingers around the gun he’d dropped. A cursory sweep of the room assured her that most of her siblings were handling their own situation with similar success.

Luther was holding one of the screaming gunmen above his head. Diego had a tornado of bullets spiraling around him. If she didn’t know better, she would have said he were at the heart of a swirling beehive.

Every so often he would flick his head or hand and one of the bullets would go flying into the back of the henchman closest. It would have been awe-inspiring if Allison weren’t so numb.

Stan had taken cover behind Lila, who stood near the fireplace with hands raised and eyes glowing. The blue shield in front of her vibrated ever so slightly. She couldn’t hold it forever. Stanley was grinning ferally as he took well-timed shots at their enemies from the safety of his mom.

Viktor had already grabbed Klaus and dragged him out of the room. He was probably circling the perimeter by now.

Five and Martin were on top of the dining room table having a full out brawl. A fourteen-year-old versus a grown man, and yet Five appeared to have the upper hand. Allison cocked the safety on her gun and began inching her way around the chaos to the doorway. If anyone else tried to come in…

A flash of reflected light caught her eye. Allison glanced down. The henchman she had downed had apparently woken up, and finding his gun mission, had chosen a different weapon. He had a poker tong from the fireplace and was slowly crawling toward Diego, who was too busy making bullets fly to notice the man on the ground next to him.

Allison’s world narrowed to the sharp tip aimed at her brother’s back.

He was going to impale Diego. She had already lost one brother. She would not – could not – lose another.

“Diego!” She screamed. Air whistled in her ears as she sailed over the couch. Diego pivoted just as Allison threw her entire self in front of him, arms outstretched. 

The metal tip tickled the edge of her belly button. Suddenly, her father’s voice echoed in her mind.

It is a contest of wills, Number Three, he had told her once. Your will must be equal or superior to the will of whatever being you are possessing. Or, and here his eyes had gleamed menacingly. Whatever object of nature you are transforming.

She had never understood what the hell he was talking about, but in the sharp pinch of the poker, she knew with bracing clarity.  “I heard a rumor that that isn’t a poker, it’s a pool noodle!” She blurted, willing with every ounce of her being for it to be true, for her not to die here, now, without having ever seen her baby girl again.

The spongy tip of a pool noodle rammed into her midriff. Allison’s eyes crossed as she stared down at the light blue, round surface. “Son of a bitch,” she breathed.

The henchman raised the pool noodle, trembling. “What the fuck!” He shrieked just as Diego sent a bullet flying into his right eye. He was thrown backwards by the impact and landed with a dull thud on the couch.

These stains are never going to come out, Allison thought hysterically.

 Diego grabbed her by the shoulders and twirled her around to face him. “Did you just jump in front of a fucking sword for me?” He demanded.

“It was a fireplace poker thingy,” she corrected dizzily.

“Shit, Allison!” He yanked her to his chest in a hug tight enough to force the air from her lungs. “Like, thanks, but don’t ever do that again!”

“Was it always a pool noodle?” She asked, in case she had hallucinated the past few minutes. “Did I really just do that?”

Diego held her by the shoulders. The pride in his face was enough to warm the frost that had settled around her heart when Klaus died. “You sure the fuck did! Man, you’re the coolest sister ever!”

“Luther, catch him!” Five suddenly roared behind them.

Martin was clumsily stumbling across the room to the door, bleeding from his busted lip and bruised cheekbone. He was also very fast for someone who was limping pretty heavily and probably had a serious concussion judging from the lump on his forehead.

“Stay back bitches!” He yelled, shooting wildly over one shoulder.

“I heard a rumor those aren’t bullets, they’re butterflies!” Allison cried. The bullets that were about to lodge into Lila, Stan and Five made a small popping sound, and then there were fourteen colorful butterflies flitting wildly in various directions.  

“Don’t let him use the briefcase!” Lila ordered. It was too late. Martin looked up, flashed a sleezy grin, and vanished. Luther and Five stood in the spot where he had just been, craning their necks as if Martin would jump out of a corner.

“Um… How did I get here?” Luther asked when it became apparent that Martin had indeed gotten away. Allison looked around. She hadn’t seen him move. Five waved his hand distractedly.

“Oh, I blinked you.”

Lila let out a tiny, incredulous laugh.

Five’s jaw dropped as his own words registered to him. He straightened, staring at them all with pure disbelief. “I blinked you from over there,” he jutted a finger at the dining room. “Without touching you. Without even looking at you.”

Allison’s knees buckled. She sat down on the floor.

“You think that was cool? I just controlled at least five hundred bullets. I made my own ass-kickin’ hurricane,” Diego rubbed his hands together. “Allison turned bullets into freakin’ bugs and Viktor went full Invisible shield. We just leveled the fuck up, people!”

“But…” Luther stammered. “But Klaus.”

Diego’s smile dropped. Allison’s bottom lip trembled. “It’s all my fault,” she whispered. Why couldn’t she have found out about her power before Klaus had been killed? Why did it always take tragedy for them to band together?

Why was she doomed to bury her brothers?

A shadow passed by the open doorway. Luther was wrapping his arms around the intruder before anyone could so much as cry out a warning. Viktor’s short legs flailed as he struggled. “L-Luther!” he rasped.

“Oh shit! Sorry Vik!” Luther dropped their brother, paling. “You ok?”

Viktor nodded, still gasping for breath. “You guys are never going to believe this, but…”

“Oh fuck, did we win!?” All eyes swiveled to the achingly familiar voice. Klaus peeked around the doorway, eyes wide and holding one of their kitchen skillets like it was a baseball bat. “I was positive we were all going to die. Oh, and Ben says hi by the way.”

Chapter Text

Upon waking up, the first thing Five did was wonder who had drugged him.

Obviously, someone had, or he wouldn’t have succumbed to the childish humiliation of being used as a damn pillow. He tried to pull his right arm out from under Allison’s head, but a human body was very heavy while limp. He succeeded only in freeing a few inches of skin before he gave up with a sigh.

Her hair is fucking silky, he thought then. He hadn’t expected Allison’s hair to be this soft. Very careful not to wake the sleeping woman, he let his fingers slide over the errant curls. Allison still had bits of Klaus’s blood sticking to her bouncy coils.

Five squinted as a beam of fresh sunlight momentarily blinded him.

It was too fucking early for this.

He looked around. His family was, for the most part, in the same position they had fallen asleep in. The television was still on and everything. Some home repair show or something. He couldn’t tell without the sound, and some good Samaritan had had the sense to mute it the night before.

Fuck. The night before. What had become of his damn life?

After Klaus had been stunningly resurrected by forces unknown, they had all lapsed into an exhausted half-coma. Too weary to stay upright and too jittery to separate, they had instead locked all the doors and windows and retired to the living room.

Five distinctly recalled making space for himself (and only himself) in the corner of the couch, but that space had soon been breached by Klaus, who was trying to escape Luther’s protective hug.

The tiredness in his bones had made him sluggish and indifferent. “So… Kugelblitz?” he had asked Lila, who reclined against Diego like a human feline.

“Yeah,” she agreed with utmost exasperation. “We’re all going to die.”

He had nodded, and that had been the most of their conversation. He vaguely remembered defining the word for the others. Klaus had reported that Ben was happy and at peace in the afterlife, and he said hi and showered them with praise for their personal developments over the past few weeks.

Luther threw the dead bodies of Martin’s dumbass henchmen into the shed in the back. Viktor turned on the TV. Stan had fallen asleep first, drooling into the meat of Lila’s arm. They shuffled around a bit, finding new seats, rearranging pillows. Someone had tossed a blanket over him, and before he knew it, Five was dozing off curled into Luther’s right side with Allison using him as her own personal pillow.

She was heavy and warm and smelled of sweat and something distinctly sweet, like apple cider. On the other side of Luther’s bulk, Viktor sat upright, his neck bared as he sagged against the couch armrest. Klaus was sprawled half in Viktor’s lap with knees up and feet slipped under Luther’s thigh. He would probably loose both of those feet.

Diego held Lila against his chest and had an arm wrapped around Stanley’s waist. It was domestic and so sweet it curdled his stomach. How many times had he begged for the comfort of a human touch during the apocalypse? And now that it was here, he was in danger of losing it all. Again.

Restlessness seeped into his stomach. If there really was a Kugelblitz out there, he needed to ascertain just how much damage it had done and how to stop it. Newly determined, he lightly slapped Allison’s cheek. Her dark eyes fluttered open and focused on him blearily. “Five? What?”

“Time to wake up, sister dearest,” he would be a liar if he said her sleepy expression didn’t make him melt a little. “We have to save the world again.”

“Ugh,” Allison groaned. Her head dropped back down onto his arm, and she tightened her arms around his waist. “Can’t it wait, like, another hour?”

“The fate of humanity itself is at stake here, Allison.”

In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t the best thing to say. Her nose scrunched as her eyes closed again. “Yeah? What else is new?”

“Hey,” Diego waved a drowsy middle finger. “You two shut up. I’m tryin to sleep.”

Viktor raised his head with a small gasp. “Klaus?” His hands flopped around uselessly until they landed in Klaus’s hair. He made a grumbling noise of dissent and Viktor relaxed again. “Oh. Ok.”

“People!” Five raised his voice and dug his finger into Allison’s shoulder. “We have dead bodies in the shed and another apocalypse on the way. Anyone else think this isn’t the time for a communal nap?”

“Shhh,” Luther patted his head in jerky, fumbling movements. “Go to sleep, Five. I like you much better when you’re asleep.”

“Gee, thanks,” Five replied dryly. Deciding that no one else was going to rise anytime soon, Five sighed and blinked from under Allison. He landed on his knees just in time to catch her slumping head and shoulder and gently lower it to the couch. Allison frowned.

“Where’s my brother?” She demanded in a put-upon voice, patting the sofa in search of him. He chuckled softly.

“I’m right here,” he breathed, swiping a strand of hair from her face. “Go back to sleep. I’m going to find some answers.”

“Alright,” she yawned. “Be careful.”

Five stood and blinked back up to his room. If he was going to save the world again, he wasn’t going to do it in day old clothes. A quick shower later, he reappeared downstairs in time to catch Lila untangling herself from Diego’s loose hug.

“No, let go you damn octopus. I have important shit to do today, like saving all our lives,” she growled when Diego’s fingers tightened around her arm. She glanced up at him. “Clingy as fuck, he is.” She blinked a few feet away, hands on her hips.

“You get used to it. You ready?”

“Wait a bloody minute, we can’t both leave.”

He arched a brow. “Why not?”

Lila gestured to the sleeping bundle of idiots he called family. “Because Martin got away, turd waffle. What if he comes back and tries to put a cap in our family again?”

Five didn’t know how he felt about her referring to them as our family. Shouldn’t there be some kind of initiation ritual to become a Hargreeves? A bloodletting ceremony?

He shook his head and wrenched his attention back to the problem at hand. “If you hadn’t noticed, they handled themselves pretty well. Got new powers and everything. I think we’re good to leave for a couple hours.”

“If you’re leaving, bring back some milk,” Diego mumbled.

Lila glanced at him fondly. “We’re not going to the grocery store, Diego.”

“Bring back milk,” Diego reiterated, the latter half of his command turning into a light snore as he drifted back to sleep. Five snorted.

“We’re all lactose intolerant, idiot. None of us can even drink milk,” which was strange when he thought about it. How could seven individuals from different parts of the globe all be lactose intolerant? It couldn’t possibly be that common.

“He means for Stanley. He’s in some kind of chocolate milk phase,” Lila explained. “And anyway, we don’t have a working briefcase. What do you suggest we do?”

“Oh, we have a briefcase. It just isn’t here,” he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Lila, it looks like we need to pay a quick visit to the Sparrow Academy.”

Chapter Text

“Ugh, gross!” Viktor recoiled and clapped a hand over his mouth and nose the second Luther opened up the shed. The dead gunmen lay in various states of bloody and dead in the middle of the sweltering space, and they stunk. Bad.

“Yeah,” Luther waved his hands. “Forgot the heat would make it worse. We should have done this earlier in the morning.”

Viktor could have pointed out that it was actually one in the afternoon, but what would be the point? They’d all woken up not an hour before. So technically, to them, it was morning.

Luther handed him a shovel. “Can you start on the holes? I’ll bring them out.”

Viktor gagged as a small breeze carried the smell over him. Notably, Luther didn’t even flinch. He just shivered, as if trying to dislodge the scent from his person and bent down to start wrapping the bodies in a garbage bag. “So… How are we getting rid of the bodies again?” Viktor asked.

“Chloric acid. Diego and Klaus said they know how to get some. We just need to dig a hole, put the bodies in there and pour the acid,” he looked up with a bright smile that looked so, so wrong next to a pile of bodies. “Presto! Bodies dissolved!”

“You don’t seem very… Um, disturbed by all this,” none of the others had seemed perturbed, as a matter of fact. Lila and Five were already gone when Viktor woke up, off to find the coco dibs or whatever. Allison was inside scrubbing blood from the carpets, humming. Klaus, Stan and Diego left to steal acid, joking around about some lady named Olga.

If anyone else was uncomfortable about having killed faceless human beings or being attacked in their own home or watching Klaus die, they were hiding it pretty well.

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” Luther’s expression fell into guilt. “Because you didn’t train with us, you aren’t used to… Hey, I can do this on my own. You don’t have to stay.”

“I want to help!” he had spent a lifetime shunned from family activities. He refused to go drop out now because the going was rough. He nudged one of the bodies with a toe and jumped away with a yelp when the foot gave a startled twitch. Why the hell was it twitching? “I didn’t know dad had you guys hide bodies.”

“They were mostly cadavers but… We didn’t always train with dummies you know.”

Viktor gulped. The other’s individual training had, for the most part, been shrouded in mystery. He knew from Klaus and Five that dad hid those aspects from all of them. Luther had no idea what dad had forced Diego to do, and vice versa. However, he had been present at all the group training sessions… or so he had thought.

“There had to have been something wrong with dad that he thought all this was ok,” he mumbled.

Luther shrugged. “Maybe.”

It was a comforting thought, actually. At least if dad had been insane, it meant he hadn’t tortured them out of malice or hatred.

Viktor slunk away to begin digging; but stopped just within hearing range. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted the answer to this, but he plowed on with the question anyway. “Have you ever thought about what it would have been like, if you’d been raised by your birth family instead?”

“Oh, all the time,” Luther replied calmly, wrapping someone’s half-exploded head like it was a Christmas present. “You remember that weatherman from Channel six? I forget his name. Andrew something. I used to imagine what it would be like if he were my real dad. How he would take me to ‘bring your kid to work day’ and the desk ladies would pinch my cheeks and call me handsome,” Viktor smiled sadly. He had always thought Luther was a handsome man, but he doubted anyone had told him for some time.

“I figured we would do normal stuff. Go to baseball games, where Diego and I would fight over who got a signed ball and Klaus would try to flirt with the players. Allison would make, like, eighteen friends in the first ten minutes and get us free hot dogs. You, Ben and Five would probably be bored and make fun of the game but…”

“Wait, we were in your dreams? Even though it was with your birth parents?” He interrupted, pitching a foot atop the shovel and shoving it into the ground.

Luther looked up with wide eyes. “Oh. Yeah. I guess I just couldn’t imagine a life where we weren’t adopted together. You know how it was. We never left the manor or saw much of anything outside the academy. You guys were my whole life.”

“I know,” Viktor peeped past the lump in his throat.

“Why? What did you imagine?”

“Before it really hit me that not everyone had robot moms, I thought Grace was secretly my real mother,” he rolled his shoulders, embarrassed. “I was convinced she was just biding her time, waiting for you guys to have better control over your powers, and when you did, she would take us all away and we’d live in some cramped apartment in Johannesburg or something. Somewhere dad would never find us.”

“That would have been great,” Luther agreed.  

“Luther?”

“Hm?”

“Now what do you imagine… for the future, I mean?”

And am I in it still? Was the question he wanted to ask, but fidgeted with the seams of his shorts instead. Luther was right. As kids, it had been unthinkable that they’d one day go their separate ways, but that was what had happened.

Viktor never wanted to be without his family again. Was that so wrong? 

Luther flashed a sheepish smile, as if he hadn’t thought about it. “I guess we can’t stay in this house forever, huh?”

Especially since they were burying dead people in the backyard. Viktor hoped they didn’t haunt Klaus. “We’re all eventually going to have to get jobs,” he supposed sadly.

“If I’m being honest, I kind of miss NASA. Not the moon, obviously. Never going back there, but I liked feeling as if I were part of something important. Maybe I could stay here and work at an observatory or something. Buy a house. Move in with Slo- a girl I like.” He blushed.

Viktor would forgive the slight lie. Everyone knew Luther had been sneaking out after dinner to meet up with some unidentified girl. Allison had threatened to rumor them all into eating bread mold if they spied on him. “That sounds nice.”

“I wonder if we could all be on the same block,” Luther was staring up at him hopefully. “I guess it’s weird to live with your siblings your whole life, but we can still be close. Have our own little pocket of the neighborhood.”

Viktor’s heart gave a little leap of relief. “Five will have to stay with one of us. He can’t technically get a job or pay his own bills. Besides, he deserves the chance for a redo. He can grow up with a semi-calm life.”

“Yeah, not it,” Luther snorted. “He can stay with you. You two get along best. You’re like Klaus and Ben, hectic but somehow it works.”

“Can you imagine all of us, living on the same block? We’d always be at each other’s house.”

Luther dumped the garbage bag body onto the lawn. “I’ll have to put a lock on my fridge.”

“What’s up, assholes!” Stanley yelled, waltzing out of the back door. He leaned over Viktor’s tiny hole, a red lollipop cradled between his cheek and teeth. “That’s pathetic, Uncle V.”

The novelty of being known as Uncle V had long worn off. Viktor reached out to squeeze Stanley’s shoulder firmly. “Why don’t you grab a shovel and give me a hand then?”

Stan shook his head. “Nah, I think I’ll just stand here and critique you. Besides, dad said I shouldn’t get my clothes dirty.”

“Why? He’s never had a problem with you looking like an endangered water buffalo before,” Luther called from the shed.

“You look like a gorilla,” Stanley pointed out, with the drawling sarcasm of one not offended by a myriad of insults. He was a Hargreeves alright.

“We got the stuff!” Klaus ambled onto the lawn, barefoot and holding a tray of colorful glasses. “The acid and the smoothies. For all toiling bodies. Including mine. Because I toiled. To steal the acid.” He offered Viktor a smoothie with a flashy bow that made him smile.

“Thanks Klaus,” he took a sip. Strawberry mango. Nice.

“Where’s Diego?”  Luther asked as he accepted his own smoothie.

Klaus gently slapped Stan behind the head, an act of affection, and sipped from the last cup. “He’s giving Alli a pep talk. She’s gone to see Claire.”

Viktor dropped the shovel in surprise. “What? Now?”

Klaus flapped his hand in a casual gesture that looked like a bird being hit by a plane. “Oh yeah, she said something about how last night opened her eyes or whatever. She also told me to tell you guys to hurry up and hide the evidence. She wants us to look presentable for Claire.”

“She’s bringing Claire here?” Viktor shrieked, thinking of the mess left behind by Wilton or whatever his name was.

“Yeah,” Klaus smacked his lips with a scowl. “Does anyone want to trade smoothies? Blueberry banana is not doin it for me.”

As Luther, Klaus and Stan debated the merits of blueberry and banana flavoring, Viktor headed inside. Maybe he could catch Allison before she left and wish her luck. He knew that Claire’s absence had been plaguing his sister ever since their first jump.

He found Diego in the kitchen squinting at the back of a receipt. “Is she already gone?” Viktor asked and deflated when Diego gave a short nod.

“She promised to bring Claire round later on if Patrick isn’t being a total douche. I’m makin a list of shit to buy for the party,” he scribbled something on the back of the receipt. “Hey, do kids still like licorice or is that old-school now?”

Why did everyone assume Viktor knew what kids liked? They were all the same age. Well, except for Five, who managed to act both younger and older than the rest of them. There had also been numerous arguments in their childhood about who had been born a few seconds, minutes or hours before the others.

“I don’t know. Aren’t some kids allergic?”

Diego gasped as if Viktor had just announced his bid for the presidency. “Who the hell is allergic to licorice? No. No niece of mine is going to bow down to nature. Not if it means she can’t have licorice. Come on,” Diego grabbed Viktor’s arm and dragged him to the door. “We’re headed to the candy store. Fucking allergic my ass!”

“We’re headed to the candy store!” Viktor called over his shoulder, in case anyone should miss them, though he doubted they would.

He stumbled into the front door two hours later, arms heavy with grocery bags.

“Is she here yet?” He gasped to the general assembly. No one was listening, of course. Klaus and Luther were standing on chairs above the stairwell hanging a sign reading Welcome Home Claire.

They were also arguing, making it appear more like they were playing tug of war than decorating. “Klaus!” Luther snapped. “It isn’t centered!”

“Exactly, you giant oatmeal lump. To be centered, we need to tilt it to the right!”

“Left!”

“Right!”

“Do I have to keep blowing up balloons?!” Stanley yelled from somewhere further in the house. Viktor snorted and ducked beneath Luther and Klaus to the kitchen, where Stanley was propped against the kitchen counter huffing into a deflated balloon.

Viktor decided not to ask where they’d found all these materials.

“How many have you done so far?” he asked, fishing the refrigerable items out of the plastic grocery bags. Ice cream, cookie dough, Five’s coffee cake, coffee creamer, another bottle of tequila.

“Two, and my lungs already hurt. Have I mentioned I have asthma?”

“No, you don’t,” Viktor replied shortly. “Keep blowing.”

Stanley stomped one foot in an almost exact approximation of Diego when he had been eleven years old. “Yes I DO!”  He yelled. Viktor slid a chocolate bar across the countertop.

“You get another one if you blow up five balloons. Hey, did Luther bury the bodies?” He stopped as soon as the question left his mouth. What kind of family were they, anyway? Had he ever heard anyone else ask a child that, Viktor would have called CPS immediately.

Stanley took it in stride. He chewed his candy bar with one side of his mouth while blowing into the balloon with the other. It was pretty impressive mouth coordination. He could play the trumpet or clarinet with that kind of control. “Oh yeah we poured acid on them and everything.”

He cringed. “Hey, don’t mention that while Claire’s here, ok?”

“Why? Is she a spoiled rich girl or something?”

“Or something,” Diego answered as he passed by them in a blur. He waved the smoking tip of incense around as if casting away demons. “Anyone seen Lila or Five?”

Lither popped his head around the corner from the living room. “No. But we got rid of the bodies and cleaned the house. Did you guys pick up my protein bars by chance?”

Viktor pointed. “They’re in that bag.”

“Nice. Thanks!”

“I should get paid for this,” Stanley grumbled. Viktor watched his brothers circle each other in the kitchen, Diego filling the air with incense to hide the metallic scent of blood, Stanley getting brown lip stains all over the balloons, Luther reading the ingredients on the back of his protein bars and Klaus trying to stuff the entire Tequila bottle into his shirt.

He grinned. This was awesome. They were finally acting like a family.

It was at that moment that Five blinked into the room, landing with a thump and harsh grunt by the piano. Lila, of course, landed with similar aplomb on top of the dining room table. “People, we have a problem!” Five announced, then stopped when he noticed the busy atmosphere. “What the Hell is going on here?”

“Oh, hey babe,” Diego slapped Lila’s rear distractedly. “What’d you dorks find out about the fiddle sticks?”

“Why do these balloons have brown shit all over them?” Lila demanded, kicking away one of said balloons as it slowly floated toward her.

Viktor started to unwrap a cheese stick, wondering if there was an abbreviated version of the story for her. Lila tended to be impatient.

Five clapped his hands. “Ok everyone, listen up, Martin is an idiot, but he wasn’t lying. The Kugelblitz is real. We paid a visit to Commission headquarters, which no longer exists because everyone inside has been wiped out by the Kugelblitz.”

Diego twirled the incense in a circle around Five’s head. “Good riddance.”

Five shoved him away with a baleful look. “Normally, I’d agree, but this is an extinction level event. The whole universe is vanishing at a rapid rate.”

A few weeks earlier, Viktor might have been alarmed at this. Now, he just chewed on his cheese stick and wondered if they had always tasted slightly plastic-y or if this was due to the steroids that they gave cows nowadays.

Luther seemed equally as unaffected. He jerked his head to the small object at Lila’s feet. “Where’d you find a briefcase?”

“We nabbed it from those Sparrow fuckers,” Lila explained. She jumped down from the table and assessed the activities with hands on her hips. “No one was home, by the way. Which I find… odd.”

“You don’t think they’re having an orgy without us, do you?” Klaus had given up trying to sneak away the tequila and was now attempting to open the bottle with a can opener. It was going about as well as most of Klaus’s ventures.  

“Maybe they disappeared?” Viktor suggested, tearing his gaze away.  

“Only if we’re lucky. The Kugelblitz also seems to have messed with Commission technology,” Five snatched the bag and held it up so everyone could see the large dent in its side, sparking with electrical charge. “Behold, what remains of our briefcase.”

“Cool. So, we’re stuck here, in a timeline that is rapidly turning to mush,”
 Luther started stacking his protein bars on top of each other like they were Jenga pieces.

“Yes, and there’s more.”

“Oh yeah, because I thought the end of everything was too easy,” Viktor lightly tapped the back of Klaus’s knee with his foot. “Klaus, you’re going to hurt yourself.” His brother looked up with an indignant expression, which quickly transformed into panic when Diego swooped in to snatch the alcohol.

“Hey, put the tequila down! It’s addictive!”

Klaus danced away, holding the tequila to his chest. “I never had an alcohol problem; it was only with drugs!”

“Would you two take this seriously!” Five snapped.

“Will Jimi Hendrix one day be forgotten? I don’t think so Five!”

Five pinched the bridge of his nose. “Listen. The Commission has software that tracked our powers through time. Before we arrived here a few weeks ago, there was no indication that our specific powers had been used.”

Hm. That was interesting. Viktor ducked to avoid being smacked in the face by Klaus trying to escape Diego. He sneezed when the incense tickled his nose.

“Uh, what does that mean? Our doppelgangers don’t have any powers?”

“No,” Five’s cheeks were starting to bloom red in frustration. “Remember what Martin said last night?”

Luther, Klaus, Diego and Viktor exchanged a look. “I honestly wasn’t paying attention,” Klaus admitted.

Viktor shrugged. “I was knocked out.” He still had the lump on his head to prove it.

Diego snorted in between grunts as he tried to hold Klaus still against the fridge. “He called himself soul-breaker, Five. Anything he said after that went in one ear and out the other.”

“I blew up the balloons!” Stanley held one up for examination, grinning from ear-to-ear. Lila scrubbed her knuckles against his head, eliciting a round of laughter.

“I’m surrounded by morons,” Five marveled. “He said none of you exist in this timeline. As in, were never born.”

Viktor was sure Five would have had more to say, a lot of warnings and threats and probably some yelling would have ensued, but he didn’t get to elaborate before the front door creaked open. “Allison?! Is that you?” Viktor shoved the rest of his cheese stick in his mouth and sprinted to the living room. “Is Claire here?”

Klaus slammed into his back like a freight train. “Hey! Where’s my niece?!”

Viktor expected a crying, happy Allison with an equally excited little girl. He did not see either. Instead, Allison stood in the open doorway, silent tears running down her face. Her jeans and shirt were torn and blackened by… Scorch marks?

She had a long cut trailing from above her left eye to the bridge of her nose. The wound was openly weeping. Bare brown arms were a myriad of yellow and purple bruising, along with scratches and cuts. She was missing one shoe and held only a dangling set of keys.

She looked as if she had just stepped out of a horror movie.

“Oh shit, what happened to you?” Viktor gasped as the others crowded in behind him.

“Was it that Martin dude? Did the soul-breaker strike again?” Klaus gripped Viktor by the shoulders and craned his neck about suspiciously.

“Was it the Sparrows? Are they after you?” Diego barked, drawing one of his knives.

Allison’s voice was flat and hoarse. “I got into a car accident and walked here.”

Viktor took a step forward, hand outstretched. “Oh my God, are you…?”

Suddenly, Allison raised the dangling keys to her mouth and spoke in the same emotionless tone. “These aren’t keys, they’re axes.” The tiny metal keys in her hand warped and bubbled, a caterpillar in death throes. Then they changed into three large axes.

Which Allison arched in her hands as if to throw.

“Oh, shit, hit the floor!” Luther cried, tackling Viktor and Klaus a millisecond before Allison did launch one axe across the room. It dug into a wall several feet away with an awful clattering that made Viktor whimper.

“Allison, what is it? Calm down!” Klaus shouted.

Lila’s dark eyes were full of alarm as she herded Stanley to a far corner and ducked over him like a mother hen. “Is she usually like this?”

“Only when she’s pissed!” Luther replied. He flinched as another axe smashed through a few curtains and shattered a vase. “Allison, you’re gonna kill us all!”

“Hey!” Diego was the first one up. Maneuvering around the axe’s sharp tip, he ran to grab the last axe by its handle, fingers curling over Allison’s. “Whatever it is, whoever you’re aiming at, I am a hundred percent sure they’re dead. Put the axe down, sis,” the weapon clattered against the ground.

“Well, it’s been some time since my life flashed before my eyes like that,” Five observed dryly, blinking back into the room. He extended a hand to Viktor and Luther.  

Diego’s voice was still soft and assuring. He held Allison by the shoulders. “Now, tell big brother why you’re throwing sharp objects.”

Allison’s pupils focused on him as if for the first time. “It’s… Its Claire,” she croaked.

Viktor’s heart snapped into his throat. Oh no.

“What about her?”

“She’s gone.”

Viktor found his feet. He scrambled to stand beside Allison, looking up into that blank, wide-eyed stare worriedly. “What do you mean she’s gone?”

Had Patrick taken her to a different state, country? Or, worse yet, was she dead?

Allison’s breath hitched with a strangled sob. “I mean I went to my house – the house me and Patrick bought four months after we got married; and found him with another woman and another child.”

“He’s cheating on you?!” Lila hollered. “That two-timing son of a bitch, I’ll wrench his dick off and feed it to a shark!”

“No!” Now Allison lurched forward, as if to fall, kept upright only by Viktor’s hold on her arm and Diego’s grip on her shoulders. Tears streaked down her face as it twisted into horror. “He didn’t know me. He doesn’t remember me. Those people are his family. That girl was his daughter, and he never had a child named Claire. He never met me or married me because I don’t exist here. So Claire doesn’t exist in this timeline.”

Viktor paled. Diego recoiled. “Oh fuck.”

Luther appeared over Allison’s shoulder. “Is… Is there any way to make sure? Maybe there’s been a mistake. Maybe you had Claire with some other guy…”

“Then, t-then would it even be Claire?” Klaus stammered, glancing between them all.  

“It isn’t possible anyway,” they all twirled around to face Five, who was standing with a bowed head next to Diego. “None of us were even born in this timeline,” he met Allison’s eyes with a pained grimace. “I’m so sorry, Allison.”

Allison crumpled, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Allison!” Viktor breathed. Without thinking, he slumped to catch his much taller sister around the shoulders.

“Whoa! Whoa!” Diego held her under the arms, sinking slowly to one knee in an attempt to slow Allison’s descent. She was shaking hard enough to make Viktor’s teeth rattle. From his periphery, he noticed the others all sinking to the ground with her, as one, as a family.

His heart ached all the same.

Viktor inhaled a sharp breath as he watched his normally poised sister’s hands fly to her mouth, then stomach, then her heart. “I never should have left her. I should have stayed!” She sobbed.

“No, no Allison!” Viktor cradled her head to his chest. “Then you would be dead.”

“Then I would be with my daughter,” Allison pitched forward, fingers grasping at the carpet. She opened her mouth and wailed, long and with such agony reality itself shook. Viktor could only rock forward and try to hold the writhing body in his arms as she shook and screamed and cried out for a daughter that had never been born.

“My baby! My baby! MY BABY!”

Chapter Text

The coffee shop had just ended its early morning bustle when Luther squeezed past the two older men talking in front of the doors. Sloane looked up from the booth where she had spent the past hour reading, legs crossed and mind spinning.

A lot had happened in the past week and a half, not all of it things she understood. “Hey Sloane. I’m sorry I’m late,” Luther told her, sounding out of breath. The dark circles under his eyes stood out in the brilliant whiteness of morning sunlight. Sloane flashed him a small smile and pushed the mug of semi-warm coffee toward him.

“It’s ok. I ordered your usual,” Luther liked the lavender lattes this tiny boutique called their specialty. Sloane thought it tasted like sugary dirt, but there was no accounting for tastes.

“Thanks.”

She sipped her Earl Gray, long grown cold and watery, eyeing Luther over the rim of her cup. “How are you, Luther?”

He propped one elbow up on the table and sagged against it as if the question had sucked the life from him.  “Oh, you know. Stressed.” That was very apparent. Even if Sloane hadn’t had access to cameras all over Luther’s house, she still would have been able to feel the waves of exhaustion pouring out of him like sweat.

She once again sent up a silent prayer of thanks that her own siblings were too busy handling the outpouring of crime that had sprouted up in the wake of the world’s disappearances. Marcus would have seen this as a perfect moment to strike, and he would have been right. Sloane had never seen the Umbrellas acting so much like… Sparrows as she had witnessed the past few days.

“How’s Allison?”

Luther shook his head. “No change.”

Sloane set the cup down just to fill the dreaded silence. It rattled against the wood counter. “How long has it been?” This was a question to mask her true intentions in LA. Sloane knew how long it had been. She was an unseen spectator to it all, and not for the first time, her intestines curdled with shame.

“Five days,” Luther bowed his head and ran his hands through short bristles anxiously. “She just lays in bed all day, sleeping. She won’t speak. She won’t eat. She won’t bathe. We can spend all day talking to her and she doesn’t even look like she’s hearing us.”

No, she walks, Sloane wanted to tell him. She climbs out of the window and walks the streets all night. Sometimes I follow her just to make sure she makes it home safely. I don’t think she knows where she’s even going.

“She’s going through some pretty extreme grieving,” in fact Sloane had never seen anything like it. If Luther looked tired, then Allison looked like she had slipped into a coma even past the fuzz of Sloane’s cameras. “Maybe you should get a therapist?”

“Oh, we tried.”

“And?”

Luther glanced up with eyes that held sorrows Sloane wanted to swipe away. If only she had that power, the ability to mold sorrow like she could gravity. “The therapist came back out and he had been rumored to forget everything that happened in the past seventy-two hours.”

Sloane sat back in her seat. She hadn’t known Allison possessed the ability to make people forget things. That was definitely going in the notes. “Shit.”

“Yeah,” Luther was doing that thing again where his leg thumped against the ground with such force that she felt the vibrations in her own legs. “We had to hook her up to an IV drip, but… She’s so wasted Sloane. I don’t know what to do. None of us knows. We’re…” his voice cracked. “I’m scared.”

She laid a hand atop his. “I may not know a lot about mothers,” neither of them had ever had a true mother. Grace didn’t count. “But I do know that if Allison is half as strong as you are, she’ll come out on the other side of this.”

Luther exhaled a shuddering breath. Sloane couldn’t help the flicker of pride in her chest when her words made him square his shoulders. “Thanks,” he gave her one of those genuine, bright smiles she so loved. “Do you have any more news about the disappearing people?”

Fucking hell. The Kugelblitz. Sloane wished she could say it wasn’t on the forefront of her mind. She had stopped two muggings and an assault the night before.

“Only that every three hours there’s another… Shockwave, and then exactly two hundred thousand people are gone. It’s happening randomly. No pattern that I can see, and we haven’t found a focal point yet either,” she glanced around at the remaining patrons. Everyone looked like zombies these days. They were frazzled with fear that they might vanish next, or their loved ones.

It was a miracle that businesses were still up, only the completely alone immune to the alarm spreading like wildfire.

“My family is overwhelmed trying to calm all the crimes and riots. Everyone is scared Luther. The world is panicking,” she inhaled a deep breath and met his gaze with as much non-judgement as possible. “Have you…Um… Have you told your family that we’re working together on this?”

She hoped he had. Sloane was tired of sticking to the shadows, pretending to be Luther’s… Something while in town while hiding the fact that she was a spy in the hotel while also operating as a source of information and resources for both teams.

She had always been a multi-tasker, but this was a bit much.

Luther rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I keep meaning too, but everyone is just so worried and snappish and stressed, and my siblings can be territorial about world-saving on a good day. I’m scared to light another fuse.”

She patted his hand. “I understand, but Luther… The entire universe is at stake here. Our families need to be working together.”

Granted, she had not broached this topic with her family either, but honestly how was she supposed to explain all this? Time-traveling siblings and briefcases and black holes and apocalypses? Even with their lives being what they were, it was all just… Insane.

“I know. We’re having another family meeting tonight. I’ll bring it up then. I promise,” he squeezed their conjoined hands. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t talk to you.”

The diner suddenly shook, the saltshakers and mugs trembling as another two hundred thousand people vanished. In the back kitchen, someone shrieked. “Carly!” Outside, a baby wailed. Sloane sighed. Luther blanched. The world shrunk.

“Likewise. I know it feels impossible right now, but please try not to give up faith. We are going to find the kugel thingy and we are going to help Allison.”

Luther sighed and pushed himself up from the table at the same time she did. Carly’s coworker was sobbing nearby, and being heroes meant they were called by her grief like sailors to a siren.

“I just hope we won’t be too late. For either of those things.”

Chapter Text

Klaus rehearsed his entrance for five minutes in the bathroom mirror before making the attempt. Schooled his face into cheerfulness. Applied a little concealer to hide the way his face had broken out in angry red pimples. It was the stress.

He tugged the sleeves of his shirt over the bruises littering his arms and wrists. The world was ending and the ghosts of those killed by the Kugel wave were becoming more violent with each passing moment.

But Allison didn’t need to know that.

Klaus still knocked before he entered. A full ten seconds of silence passed before he opened the door and flung himself into the room with a loud bang!

“Hey, Alli, its dinnertime!”

The room was dark. Darker even than the shaded crack dens Klaus used to frequent, where everyone sat in a cold, drug-induced coma. It smelled kinda like those places too, sweat and the musty scent of despair.

He sat in the plush chair by her bed. “Come on, I brought you your favorite: shrimp tortellini! Remember, you said that Savory Jack’s in downtown LA was your fav place, so we got you their Wednesday special!”

No response.

He pried open the plastic to-go box. The shrimp tortellini smelled divine, if he did say so himself. The chef was a retired veteran who liked to cook to blow off some steam after his entire family had disappeared. People could do incredible things when they didn’t have any other reason to live.

Klaus waved it at Allison’s back to spread the delicious waft. His sister looked like a mountain range of suffering, curled under the covers in her pajamas. Same as yesterday and the day before, and the day before that.

“Come on Allison, you’ve got to eat something. Please? Just a nibble?” He begged. “You know, Diego swears that he’s going to come force feed you and while I’d love to watch you kick his ass, why go through all the drama when you could just eat a tiny bit here?”

From the corner of his eyes, he made out the spirit of a woman watching them with a distinct look of pity. At least she wasn’t screaming and trying to claw his face off. Nevertheless, Klaus scooted a bit closer to Allison. He made a shoo motion with his hands, but the ghost had nowhere else to go, nothing else to watch apparently. So she just stood in the corner, shrugging.

He sighed. “Ok. Yeah,” he lowered his voice. The whole afterlife didn’t need to know his business. Besides, he needed to keep someone up to date on all his various flirtatious adventures. “Well, you should know there’s this guy at Savory Jacks. He was a waiter, but now he just hangs around with the others who have no one left.”

Klaus cleared his throat. He knew grief intimately, but… Not like this.

His entire chest felt like a hollow cavity, and his yearning for Ben or drugs or Ben to scold him about his drug problem grew the longer he breathed. “He has the hottest, most luscious lips imaginable. Dreamy brown eyes. Cute smile. You want to know his name? C’mon guess!” he lightly pushed her shoulder.

The skin moved, and it was warm, but there was no other indication that she was even alive. “It’s Darren! Can’t you see it? Darren and Klaus. Klaus and Darren. I even think Ben would approve of this one and you know he hated all my boos except good ole Dave.”

He crossed his legs and set his chin in his hands. How weird was it to have a crush at the end of the world?

“Anyway, me being me, I approached him with my best, award-winning sashay and we got to talking. A little flirt flirt, you know the game. And I got his number!” he dug the crinkled napkin from his pocket and waved it victoriously. "We’ve been texting non-stop for the past forty-five minutes since I picked up your food. What do you think our first date should be? Amusement Park? Bar? A strip club? You know LA best. Give me some tips.”

He didn’t expect her to answer anymore. They had all tried various ways to make her talk. Five had spent three straight hours babbling about time space continuum and reading his equations aloud to her one night and even that hadn’t inspired a sarcastic quip or irritated huff. Just silence. It was grating to his nerves.

Klaus didn’t realize he was chewing his lip until he tasted blood. He licked the tiny cut. “It’s ok, Alli. Just… Take your time, alright? No pressure.”

A car alarm droned in the distance. Had another wave come? Klaus was so used to them that he barely noticed anymore. Maybe that was wrong. Ben would probably think it was wrong. If Klaus were a fully functioning being, he would be worried that one of his siblings could vanish at any second, but it just didn’t seem… Plausible.

After all, the universe just loved to fuck with its old friends the Umbrella Academy, didn’t it?

“Well, a little pressure,” he amended. “Five says the Kellogg bricks will destroy all of humanity in a few days, but he’s always saying shit like that. We’re going to have another family meeting about it tonight,” he pretended to snap his fingers as if an idea had just occurred to him. “Hey, you should come! I need someone who won’t spout doom and gloom and help me sass the toxic masculinity out of Diego, Luther and Five.”

What was it Ben had called them once? The Ego triad? Triangle of suppressed feelings? Something clever like that. Klaus wished he could remember. Sometimes it felt like every memory of Ben was slowly fading.

He urgently checked his phone for new messages from Darren. He needed something -someone – to latch unto.

Klaus didn’t have the best track record when it came to spatial awareness, but even he had to admit he should have noticed Diego walk into the room. The heavy tread of his boots was like tiny earthquakes. “Klaus?” But his voice was a whisper. “How is she, man?”

He jumped in his seat, but regained composure before Diego could tease him for it. “Oh, you know, we’re just gossiping about my love life. Nothing special.”

“Hm,” Diego rounded the bed to take Allison’s pulse. They did that a lot. “You finally talk to that Darren guy?”

“Got his number and everything.”

“That’s good buddy,” Diego crouched beside the bed, staring into Allison’s face as if he might discern something in her expression. A flicker of life. Klaus personally did not like to test his luck this way. He was afraid of what he might find in his sister’s eyes. “Hey Allison. Want me to crack a window? It’s hot as hell in here.”

No response. Typical.

Klaus stood to open the window himself. He was just beginning his daily wrestle with the rusty latch when Lila blinked into the room with a somber look. “Everyone is ready.”

“Ah!” Klaus jumped again because damn, shit, fucking hell he was surrounded by a whole ton of fucking nightcrawlers. Why didn’t anyone in this house make noise? Thankfully, it was enough push to jar the window open. He inhaled a deep breath of the cool night air.

“Yeah,” Diego stood. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Allison.

Klaus nabbed the tortellini. No use in it going to waste. “Don’t have too much fun without us, sis! We’ll check back in so I can give you the hot details tomorrow,” he arched a brow at the spectral woman. “You there, ghosty, no bothering my sister!”

“This is your sister?” The woman drawled with a confused expression. “What’s wrong with her?”

For some reason, that question made him furious. “Get out of here, would ya? Don’t you have graveyards to frequent?!” he snapped. The ghost harrumphed and swiveled on a heel with exaggerated offense. Klaus sniffed as she vanished into the wall, off to haunt her own house no doubt.

“Ghost gone?” Diego asked. He nodded. “Good. Night, Allison.”

They closed the door behind them and stood in an awkward circle outside the door. Lila crossed her arms. “Nothing?”

Klaus hugged the tortellini box to his chest. “Not even a peep.”

Diego shouldered past them down the stairs. “Come on.”

Klaus glanced at Allison’s door again, nervously, before joining them in the living room.

Everyone was assembled as usual. Five with his coffee and jittery anger. Luther in brooding silence. Viktor with a violin case in his lap, his own version of a comfort blanket. Stan was stress eating chocolate at the dining room table. Klaus plopped down between Viktor and Luther and started to eat. Lila settled into Diego’s lap.

“It’s not even been a week,” Lila blurted into the silence, as if they had longer than a week to live. Which, according to Five, was very unlikely. “We’re being bloody impatient.”

Luther’s expression darkened as it always did whenever one of them mentioned Allison. “Doesn’t take more than that for someone to starve to death. She still won’t eat and the IV drip isn’t going to cut it forever.”

Five sighed and stirred his fancy Nigerian coffee. “We have bigger issues.”

Viktor’s brows furrowed. “Bigger than our sister who won’t even look at any of us?”

“Unfortunately,” Five ran a hand across his face. “I went to the Commission again today and had a riveting chat with my hundred-year-old self. He told me, and I quote, don’t talk to the orb.”

Klaus slurped a piece of tender shrimp from the fork. “Well, at least we know Five outlasts us all. And still spouts nonsense at the tender age of old-as-fuck,” he observed. At least I’ll have one sibling with me in the apocalypse, he didn’t say. Being immortal had its drawbacks.

Five did not look nearly so comforted. “I already lived through one apocalypse. I’d rather not repeat the experience, thanks. I think he may have meant for us not to get near the Kugelblitz. Maybe our powers will activate some kind of fail safe.”

“Or maybe dad will pop out of it in his underwear and start singing showtunes?” Klaus muttered bitterly.

Luther clapped his knees as if to stand, but never moved an inch. He was probably stuck in the couch again. There were already, like, five dents in it where he had sat. If Odessa’s daughter remained, she would definitely be billing them for property damage. “Klaus, can you ask some ghosts if they know what to do?”

He snorted. “Um. The only ghosts around here are people you guys killed and buried in the backyard like pet parakeets,” two of which were hovering just over Diego’s shoulder, making snide comments about Lila’s mini skirt. “Or the people who got dusted by the blitz, so… No.”

“Well…” Luther twiddled his thumbs and avoided everyone’s gaze. “What about the Sparrows?”

“What about them?” Viktor asked.

“We aren’t the only ones with powers here. Maybe together we can…”

“Get our asses kicked a second time?” Klaus suggested. “Oh, wait, maybe a third or fourth! Get hit enough times and we’ll have an epiphany,” Luther stared at him with hurt in his eyes and yeah, maybe that had been a bit mean, but Klaus was too waspish and stressed and useless to be nice right now.

He hunched his shoulders and swallowed one of his noodles.

Lila peered into Diego’s face keenly. “Diego. You’ve been silent for more than fifteen seconds. What’s up?”

“We can’t skip over this,” Diego jabbed a finger at the stairs, or, more importantly, the sister still in her room. “She is not eating. She just lays in bed staring at nothing.”

Five leaned forward on his elbows. “As much as it sucks, Allison has to take the back burner here. We don’t stop the Kugelblitz, we won’t have time to help her.”

“You know what I hate?” Klaus asked no one in particular, noticing the way Diego’s eyes flashed. “The little blue veins in the shrimp. I mean, what even is that? Should I be concerned?”

“Easy for you to say!” Diego growled. “You’re gone all day, with my girlfriend I might add, running equations and tracking down glowing orbs while we have to sit here and watch Allison starve herself!”

“What do you want, Diego? For us all to sit around and hold her hand while millions of other mothers lose their children?”

“I don’t know Five, I’m just saying it would really suck to save the whole entire universe, but not our own sister!”

Klaus wondered if this was what it was like to have children. Just an endless cycle of watching them bicker and fight and toss each other under the fucking bus. No wonder dad had hated them all.

Five clenched his fists. “This is bigger than us.”

Diego threw his hands into the air. “Name one time we’ve ever faced something smaller than us, Five. It’s always going to be big, but… Damn it, the Sparrows can fucking handle this, ok? Whatever. Let them take the lead. Let Milton the soul-crusher pull his weight.”

“I thought his name was Martin?” Viktor mumbled.

Klaus flapped his hand dismissively. “Martin, Milton, Marvin, Murphy, Matthew. You want a strong name, V, name your boy McCartney. McCartney is a good name.”  

Five’s eyes were bugging out of his head now. Like the shrimp. “You want that lunatic to save the world?!”

“Maybe what Allison needs isn’t us!” Viktor interjected. “Maybe she needs professional help.”

“Oh, like the therapist who couldn’t remember how he got here?” Lila’s sarcasm was superb. Unhelpful, but superb.

“Like…” Viktor tapped his fingers against the hard shell of his violin case. “A place where they specialize in situations like this. Just until we figure out the Kugelblitz.”

Five gave a decisive nod. “That’s a good idea Viktor.”

Lila yelped as Diego dumped her from his lap as he rocketed to his feet. “No. Hell no!” he sliced the air fiercely.

“Diego…”

“No way! I will be dead and dancing the macarena with Muhammed Ali in purgatory before I put my sister in one of those hell holes!”

There were many things wrong with that sentence, but Klaus agreed with the general sentiment. Viktor spread his palms desperately. “It won’t be like the place where you were. Things have changed since then…”

“How would you know? You didn’t even know what kinds of things were happening in the place where I was!” Diego’s nostrils flared. “Fuck Viktor, if anyone understood I thought it would be you! We can’t just send her away to be locked up!”

The reminder of the basement made Viktor’s eyes widen. He gulped audibly.

“Besides, who could hold her?” Klaus added, patting his hand in sympathy. “She can escape with four words unless they gag her, which is… Horrible,” it was such a horrible image in fact that Klaus shuddered and inched himself further into the cushions.

“We are getting off topic here!” Five ground out between clenched teeth. “End of the world? Vanishing populace, anyone?”

It was the wrong and right thing to say. Now he had Luther going. Maroon bloomed in the giant man’s cheeks. “For shit sakes Five, can you spare one minute to care more about your family than you care about being daddy’s good little Academy soldier?” he snapped.

“Excuse me if I’ve grown past the childish need for everything to be about me, Luther. We have a responsibility…”

“You sound just like dad,” Luther and Diego interrupted bitterly, in unison.

Five got to his feet slowly, a cobra rising to spit in someone’s face. “And you sound like you think one life is more important than the billions of lives at stake here. They are at stake because of our mistakes!”

“No!” Luther’s whole face was red as peppers. “They’re at stake because Reginald Hargreeves was a small, evil man who drugged his children and made us think we’re so vital to the world that we have a right to tread all over it. I’m with Viktor,” he slapped a hand down next to said person, who looked around with palpable puzzlement. “Allison needs someplace where they specialize in helping grieving people. Our priority should be getting her there.”

“Our priority is saving the world!” Five argued hotly. “Or we’re no better than murderers.”

“And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Five?” Diego snarled, moving forward to ram a finger into Five’s bony shoulder. The tension levels in the room skyrocketed. “You know, I’m starting to think all these doomsdays are just you trying to make up for all the fucked-up shit you did in the Commission and anybody who gets in the way of you and your redemption can go fuck themselves, right!?”

Klaus inhaled a sharp breath. His own words rang in his head from… Shit, had it been years earlier? Really?

“That’s the look of a man who doesn’t know what to do without his high.”

Five still had that crazed, feral expression now. The loom of an addict who thought you were out to take their drugs. “What an astute observation, but the last time I checked, there isn’t a single person in this room who hasn’t taken a life, or several. Or do you still think all those men dad had you knife were really criminals and pedophiles, Diego?”

Ah damn. None of them ever brought up the people dad had forced them to fight during their training. Ever. It was an unestablished rule that the murders they’d committed as child soldiers were off limits.

Guess the limits had shifted.

“Guys, stop!” Viktor shouted. Lila’s objection was more action orientated. She stood and placed herself between the two bulls in the middle of the room, looking from one to the other as if she couldn’t decide which to hit first. Viktor stood and grabbed Five’s arm. 

Diego shoved Five’s shoulder brutally. “I think I’m done following you around from one jacked-up space and time to the next!”

“Oh, would you rather I leave you to die?” 

Diego threw his head back to rasp a sarcastic and cynical laugh. “Why not Five? That’s what you do! You leave and show back up when it’s your time to be a big hero! Well, you needn’t bother anymore, you can just stay gone!”

“Alright, knock it off!” Lila demanded.

Five was struggling to wrestle out of Viktor’s hold. “Oh, believe me, Diego, if I could leave, I would!”

“Five, come on!” Viktor shouted.

“No! I don’t even know why I bothered to think you screw-ups were worth saving!” Five blinked out of Viktor’s hold to regard them all with such extreme vitriol that the half-eaten shrimp dropped from Klaus’s mouth. “I would love to leave! Unfortunately, you idiots can’t help but cause catastrophes! Matter of fact, if you were half the brother as you were a massive screw up, there wouldn’t have been the first apocalypse!”

Viktor recoiled as if struck. Klaus glanced up the stairs, hoping to see Allison appear at the top like a guardian angel. But there was no one but a dead henchman, grinning ferally as he watched them fall apart.

“Oh, what? So it’s our fault?”

“Yes, Diego, it is! It is your fault I was stuck in an inhospitable wasteland for forty-five years! It is your fault that I am stuck saving the world for the third time in twenty-eight days!”

“No, Five, that’s your own fault! You left us! And now at the first sign of trouble, you’re willing to ship Allison out of sight, out of mind so you can relive your Umbrella lost days!”

Five bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “I should have left you to burn.”

At last, Luther managed to shimmy out of the couch slump. He grabbed Diego and Five by the back of the shirt and hauled them into the air. “Stop it! This… This is exactly what happened with Ben and its stupid! Allison isn’t dead,” he dropped them both, shoved Diego toward Lila and Five into Viktor’s loose embrace. “Everyone take a walk. We’ll pick this up in an hour.”

“Don’t wait for me,” Five wrenched himself free. “You guys want to handle this on your own? Be my fucking guest.”

With that, he blinked away. He was probably off to Maui so he could enjoy the last few days on earth in relative peace. “Go, you gigantic idiot!” Lila snapped, pushing Diego out of the room toward the stairs.

Stanley jogged after them with a subdued, shocked air. As if he’d just watched a wrestling match that had ended in one of the wrestlers being shot in the face.

Kind of felt that way.

Luther threw his hands up and stomped into the kitchen. “Five!” Viktor called, already sprinting out the front door. Maybe he knew where Five would go. Klaus hadn’t the slightest clue.

He remained in his seat, fork half raised to his mouth, appetite forgotten.

“If only the old man could see us now,” he mumbled. “Eh, Ben?”