29 March 2019 (Again)
Seated cross-legged atop the bar in the living room, Ben sat contentedly fiddling with an idle straw as he watched each of his siblings (sans Five and Vanya) trickle into the room. Luther had called the (second) family meeting to order earlier that day, not long after Theodore had left for his school's memorial. According to him (and Five) the end of the world was really and truly coming for them all and if they didn't pull their heads out of their asses long enough, there would be nothing left.
Ben's roving gaze traversed the group before him, trying to soak up & imprint the images of his siblings and the few changes that had accosted them in the last few days into his mind before the world evidently was supposed to end. Luther appeared to be the only one had remained unchanged in both posture and attitude. His right hand, Allison, on the other hand, had taken on a much more demure and investigative role as she both worried and searched for their missing sister.
Something which was evident in the way she presented herself; her ringlets weren't as bouncy as they had been when she had first arrived, her clothes had turned more towards the conservative and practical than the stylish and she seemed to wear this permanent expression of constipated worry on her face (one born from not expressing her concerns about Vanya and deciding to track her down on her own).
Despite this, the most obvious changes lay within Klaus and Diego. Where Klaus—now pale & shaky—had at first worn more feminine clothing garments beforehand, he now adorned himself in a rainbow-coloured tie-dye crop top that barely grazed his belly button (not that he seemed to care) and a pair of leather lace-up pants that were so tight you could see his religion (y'know, if Klaus subscribed to any one faith). The whole ensemble was topped off with a green military-style vest which had been brought back by his trip to the past and it framed the Sky Soldiers' tattoo that had been engraved on his shoulder.
Then there was Diego whose whole entire demeanour was pretty much more withdrawn and less patronising than when he had first saw him again. Plus there was the sling which encased his left arm—the one that he'd dislocated upon impact when Klaus had crashed the ice cream truck the other day. A sombre sort of air seemed to hang around Number Two and if Ben had to guess, he'd say it had something to do with their absent nephew (though they knew where he was) and their missing sister (who they had still been unable to reach since Tuesday).
"…Three days?" Allison reiterated incredulously for the umpteenth time since they had gathered together into the living room for said family meeting as she divvied out the piping hot coffees to her present brothers. Like the rest of them, Allison was still stuck on the fact that the world ended in three days time.
"That's what Five said" Luther replied, accepting the hot coffee with a nod as he precariously perched himself on one of the barstools.
"The ole bastard did mention the apocalypse, come to think of it" Klaus hummed as he took his own steaming beverage and curled up on the floor. "He just left out the part about how soon it was s'posed to be"
"Look, can we even trust him?" Allison asked, voicing the traitorous question than had been rolling around in each of their heads as she moved to lean against the bat next to Ben's feet. "I mean, I dunno if you've noticed but Five's a little cuckoo…!" She whistled, motioning how crazy she thought he was.
"Our little psycho~!" Klaus cooed as Diego shuffled over to awkwardly plop himself on the cushions of couch across from him, at the same time he tried not to spill his coffee. It was a funny sight nonetheless.
"He was pretty convincing" Luther chimed in, "And if he wasn't trying to stop the apocalypse from happening, then those two lunatics wouldn't be chasing him"
("What two lunatics?" Ben interjected as he accidentally flicked the straw far across the room. His face scrunched up as he tried to remember which two people that his siblings were talking about).
"Remember those two masked lunatics that shot up the house?" Klaus replied to Ben, making the rest of his siblings rather confused; not that he cared. "Y'know the ones that took me hostage?"
("Oh! Those lunatics!" Ben brightened when he remembered which ones they were talking about. Admittedly, it did take him a little longer than usual to connect the dots).
"How could you forget that?" Klaus quirked a brow at his ghostly brother, "You were there"
("Yeah…but you hang around lunatics all of the time, so it's kinda hard to keep track of the regulars and the really crazed ones")
"…Touché"
"Wait—! What d'you mean you were taken hostage?!" Luther piped up, furrowed brows that danced between between Klaus and the space on the bar top where Ben sat. "Since when—?"
"—Look, it doesn't matter" Diego easily ran over his brother's mumbled reply as he turned to his elder brother with an expectant look. "Luther, what did Five see?"
"Um…a-apparently, we all fought together against whomever was responsible…" Luther bumbled before he quickly jumped to his feet and began to pace. "Okay! So! Here's the plan! We go through Dad's—"
"—Wait! What?" Diego balked.
"Hold on!" Allison sat up straighter.
("Come again?" Ben's brow furrowed).
"Wait a tic! Wait a tic! Wait a tic!" Klaus interjected, his voice cancelling out the others' confused comments as the all pinned Luther with a questioning stare. "What actually happened the first time around?"
"Yeah" Diego nodded his agreement, "What aren't you telling us? C'me on, Big Boy, spit it out"
"…Uh…" Luther mumbled, stalling for time by gulping down a large mouthful of scalding coffee that made him wince at the heat of it. "…Wedied…"
"What was that?" Allison called out, using a tone that Ben was very much familiar with; a tone that was rather prominent in his childhood.
"Ahem!" Luther cleared his throat as he shuffled to the other end of the room to avoid all of the expectant stares pinned to his back. "I said we…died"
"We…died?" Diego balked, eyes wide as he blinked dumbly at his brother's back. He wasn't the only one to be knocked cold by the answer; jaws dropped and eyes blew wide as they tried to swallow that little fact. In fact, the shock was so strong that when an umbrella jumped from the stand and open upon the ground, more than one of them jumped in fright.
"…Like—like proper dead or just kinda dead?" Klaus asked hopefully after a moment, as the others just kinda sat there.
"What's the difference?" Allison puzzled.
"I dunno…just…y'know" Klaus shrugged, unable to really translate what he was trying to say. Sadly, Ben knew exactly what his brother was trying to say.
Despite Klaus' poor choice of words—or lack thereof—they still seemed to be able to get the ball rolling as a torrent of questions quickly flowed from their siblings' mouths. The questions quickly overwhelmed Luther, who floundered under the hail of words, but that didn't stop them. Ben preferred to pick up a wayward cork to play with as Luther found himself drowned in questions; although that didn't mean Number Six wasn't curious too.
"So, wait—! You're telling us that—" Diego puzzled.
"—We died, what else is there to grasp?" Luther interjected, annoyed that his siblings couldn't move on from that little fact that had yet to happen.
"—No, we need to figure this out!" Diego retorted as they gathered around the countertop, each sibling talking over the other.
"Is it just us?" Allison questioned.
"Yes—no—it's everybody" Luther stammered, falling over his words in the process to get them out.
"Like, in the house?" Diego continued.
"No, outside the house"
"The whole planet?!" Allison cried.
"Everyone died" Luther reaffirmed.
"Like everyone, everyone?"
"Everyone. Everywhere"
("Moon's looking pretty good not, isn't it?" Ben sassed, making Klaus snicker into his coffee. "Too bad Abhijat won't let us drive The Minerva").
"So, what? It's like the dinosaurs?" Klaus proposed, "Boom! No more people? That's kinda grim"
"Look—!" Luther cut-in over everyone else, his loud voice morphing into his usual leader-like tone as he commanded his band of family members. "We need to figure out what causes the apocalypse. Now there are loads of possibilities: nuclear war, asteroids, alien invasion—but I'm thinking that this has got to be about the moon, right? Dad must've sent me up there for a reason!"
("Oh Luther…" Ben sighed as Klaus and Diego both rolled their eyes in unison, more than done with their brother's obsession with the big white rock in the sky).
"And—and I was giving him daily updates on the conditions. I even sent home field samples…! So, I was thinking—"
"—Whoa! Hold the phone! Hold the phone!" Klaus mercifully interrupted before Luther (who bashfully paced as he talked, gesturing wildly) could ramble on any longer. "We all died fighting this—this thing the first time around, remember?"
"Klaus shockingly has a point" Diego agreed as he moved around to the other side of the bar, fiddling with a dagger as he went. "What gives us a win this time?"
"Five" Luther stated as if it were obvious. "Last time we didn't have, but this time we're all together. This time we'll have the full force of the Hargreeves family. That's what we need"
"So where's Five now?" Allison sighed exasperatedly, "Or Vanya for that matter?"
"Uh…Five had to a plan to change the timeline, so he'll be back soon" Luther replied.
"What about Vanny?" Klaus pursued.
"No one knows" Allison shrugged, although it was clear that the action was anything but nonchalant.
"Maybe she's hanging out with her mysterious baby daddy?"
"Tch" Diego scoffed under his breath, "Yeah right!"
"Care to share with the class, Diego?" Allison quirked a questionable brow.
"Ooh! I bet they're doing all sorts of mushy stuff!" Klaus brightened, ignoring his brother's derisive comments. "Like those couples in the rom-coms!"
"What's wrong with rom-coms?" Allison asked indignantly, turning to her other brother with a bit of a chip on her shoulder.
"Oh, don't get me started!" Klaus rolled his eyes dramatically, but he was clearly teasing as he batted his eyelashes at his sister. "They're all about this female protagonist who's either given up on love or looking for it and they've somehow come across their 'soul mate' in some meet-cute cliché, which leads to the protagonist obsessing over said person for the next hour & a half. And that's before someone inevitably gets hurt, sick, moves away or dies and then they learn that their 'one true soul mate' was actually by their side all along. As like a best friend, a neighbour of some ex and they live happily ever after! Blergh!"
"Well, I happen to like those movies!" Luther piped up, no doubt aware that Allison go her start (as most actresses in Hollywood do) in rom-coms.
"Yeah, you would!" Diego scoffed, averting his eyes to the blade in his hands.
"What was that?" Luther scowled, turning on his brother
"What was what?" He played innocent with a wicked grin on his lips, daring Luther to push further.
"Okay…" Klaus drawled, (strangely) redirecting them back to the topic at hand. "What about Teddy? Where's he at?"
("He's at school, remember?" Ben replied in tune with their sister. "For that memorial thing? He'll be back later").
"Oh yeah…!" Klaus' eyes brightened in realisation before turning to Ben. "Y'know, it's weird when you two do that, right?"
("What? Speak in unison?" Ben replied).
"Yeah, that"
Thankfully, their siblings just brushed off Klaus' weird one-sided conversation as something influenced by drugs or drink. The pale, shakiness of his limbs and the red-eyed eyes that peered from beneath his fringe didn't exactly help that opinion.
"Well, i'm going after Hazel & Cha-Cha and then going to find our missing sister" Diego piped up as he wove around the bar and over towards the door with determined steps and sling bouncing.
"Wha-what? Right now?" Luther spluttered, moving to stop his brother from leaving. This Umbrella Academy mission debriefing had quickly taken a turn and not in the direction he had been hoping for.
"Hell yeah!" Diego spun on his heel to confront Luther, eyes narrowed on the tall blonde. "Three days left and I'm loosing light by the minute!"
"Wait—! Diego! Look, I know you wanna avenge your friend, but we gotta—" Luther tried.
"—She wasn't just some friend, Luther!" Diego interjected, fighting to keep the budding tears from falling. "If I'm gonna die, I need to know that I killed those bastards first! I need to know that Vanya is safe! So stop making it all about you—!"
WHOOSH!