"The plastic coated menu featuring a photograph of pancakes with whipped cream smiley faces was so offensive, he nearly chucked the thing straight out the door and down the block."
WHAT: Brothers catching up over waffles WHERE: A restaurant that sells waffles WHEN: February 23rd WARNINGS: References to death, destruction, apocalypses, family issues, drugs, and addiction STATUS:Complete!
"Mmmmm, waffles," Klaus said excitedly as he stared at the menu. There were so many kinds to choose from, ranging from blueberry or strawberry or peach to chocolate chip, but Klaus was going to go with plain and just load them up with maple syrup.
"Do you know how many places there are that have waffles here?" he asked his brother. The number was adding up, and Klaus was impressed. He set the menu down and waved his hand toward Diego to make his point. "If you're going to get sucked out of one reality into another, it helps when there's good waffles. Speaking of which, are you doing alright with that? I mean, the world hasn't blown up here! Yet…"
Diego glared at the mug of coffee in front of him as if its very presence offended him. It probably did. Most things offended Diego by their very presence. The plastic coated menu featuring a photograph of pancakes with whipped cream smiley faces was so offensive, he nearly chucked the thing straight out the door and down the block. How Klaus was able to always go through life with his usual ease, cheer, and obliviousness was entirely beyond Diego.
He looked healthy, at least, Diego admitted to himself, after he’d done a once over check on his brother when they’d met up. That was something.
“Doing just fine and dandy. We failed to prevent the apocalypse because our sister has powers that dear old daddy kept secret, we landed here and the apocalypse still might happen, Five and Luther are who the hell knows where, I am doing great.” For emphasis, Diego slammed a knife into the linoleum topped table. It was a butter knife from the silverware packet, thankfully, not one of the approximately three thousand knives Diego had on him at any given moment.
He took a long swig of his bitter coffee, almost punishing in how hot it was and then set down the cup. “You good?” Diego asked Klaus, an eyebrow arched and the butter knife pointed at his heart. “Don’t bullshit me.”
Klaus jumped in his seat some when the knife hit the table, staring at it afterward. "You know, if the waffles are good, I'd like to be able come back here," he muttered, bringing the straw from his chocolate milk to his mouth and taking a sip. First Vanya with the rattling mugs, now Diego slamming knives around. He raised his eyes when Diego brought the knife up. "Yeah, I'm alright," he replied. "I have a fabulous wardrobe now, full of things I could never afford back home. And a job at a clothing store where I'll get a discount. And a paycheck!" That was new, though Klaus was likely to spend the entirety of said paycheck at work if no one stopped him.
"And you know… this place exists." He didn't think home did anymore. He also didn't bother mentioning to Diego that when he'd first arrived with Allison he'd taken her out and gotten her drunk far too soon after the entire neck thing.
“You’re going to sell clothes to people? With the way you dress?” Diego, who had been wearing the same attire basically as long as he was kicked out of the police academy, asked, skeptical. He supposed it made sense, weirdly. Klaus’s outfits were outrageously accessorized, bright, garish, but Klaus carried himself with unmatched confidence. He never cared what anyone thought. If he could pass that on to people, so much the better. Hopefully with fewer fur trimmed fedoras or whatever. “I can’t believe you have an actual job. Don’t remember the last one you had.” For any solid length of time, at least. “Means you better start paying for your own waffles, asshole.”
Take that grumbling with the good intentions Diego meant it with. Not that he would ever actually tell any of his siblings what he thought about them (except for Luther, fuck that guy), god forbid. Diego’s brand of caring was...unique. You wanted to be cuddled and told everything was going to be okay, he wasn’t that type of person. You needed someone threatened within an inch of their lives in creative, often gory ways, that’s when you went to Diego.
The bell at the door chimed merrily, announcing another patron, and Diego out of habit looked up. Not that it mattered who it was, really, but Diego wanted to know. The fact that they were in a new place with new people had him on edge, and Diego lived his life about three inches from the ledge already. Satisfied that the harmless customer wanted breakfast foods and wasn’t carrying a sawed off shotgun, he looked back at his coffee. “If Five and Luther actually stop the apocalypse while the rest of us are stuck here, we’ll never hear the end of it.” Although how that was possible with Vanya here, Diego didn’t know. Diego didn’t understand how any of this worked, and quite frankly, he didn’t care to. Five was the time travel expert, Diego just asked what was the worst that could happen.
"If Five and Luther actually stop the apocalypse, I'll be alright with that," Klaus said easily. Really, he tried to avoid thinking of the fate of the world they had left behind because that was depressing and he couldn't do anything about it. Klaus didn't particularly enjoy feeling helpless, even if his constant need to self-medicate often made him feel that way.
"And what do you mean, with the way I dress? I am a fashion icon," he replied, looking down at the woman's shirt he was wearing and not finding a single thing at fault about it. "You know, Diego," he teased. "It might be time to update your look. Have you considered pinstripes?"
Diego’s eyes practically rolled out of his skull at the very notion. “The day I take any advice from you is the day someone better put a pillow over my face and suffocate me to take me out of my goddamn misery.” Diego wore the color of his coffee and the color of his soul (if he even had one): black. Better for skulking around in the shadows, waiting to smash through a window and beat criminals’ heads in. As long as there were pockets for readily accessible knives, he didn’t give a shit. Diego’s lifestyle had always been spartan. He lived in the boiler room of a boxing gym that had seen better days, his breakfasts were comprised of black coffee and an egg he’d either fry or just down raw. Diego was the exact opposite of a creature of comfort.
Except when it came to Grace’s mothering. But she was dead now. The thought made him itchy.
“How long’s Vanya been here?” He asked. Of course, Diego could have asked their sister himself, but the Hargreeves family had never been good about actually showing concern for each other. Not that Diego was doing that now, of course. He was simply trying to collect information.
"Months," Klaus replied, musing over the word because it seemed insane. They had been all together and then they hadn't, apparently. "She's probably as old as I am now. I should ask…" his voice trailed off, as he thought briefly about Dave and Vietnam and then forced both from his mind almost as quickly as they had arrived. But he was curious now, who was older. Him or Vanya? Five still had them all beat.
He cast an appraising glance at his brother. "You should take my advice. You'd look so good in royal blue. There's nothing wrong with colors, Diego. They can bring some cheer and happiness into your life, maybe momentarily give you a break from scowling. Can you imagine?"
“Months,” Diego repeated, gruffly. Yet another thing Diego didn’t understand about time travel--if Vanya had been here for months, then she shouldn’t have been with them. That part only made sense. But Diego had never been one for learning like Ben with his books, or even Five with his too sharp mind always playing chess while everyone else was playing tic tac toe. He acted first, and then thinking came about five days later.
Vanya had been gone for months, Klaus had been gone for months and fought in the damn Vietnam War. Diego had had no idea of either. The idea of that had Diego...feeling something. He hated feeling things besides the pure anger that seemed to simmer just below his skin, but whatever it was felt like the same feeling he had when he thought of Ben dying, Five in the apocalypse alone, or Allison laying on a table bleeding out. Even Luther, on the moon, if Diego was truly honest with himself.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to be and so he shoved all of that deep, deep down where he didn’t need to look, think, or feel it. Problem fucking solved. It was easier to roll his eyes at Klaus and throw a straw wrapper at his face with unerring precision. “I could wear color,” he allowed. “But blood shows on it.”
Their server came back to take their orders, and Klaus waffled over toppings, deciding on blueberry in the end. Possibly because he was still debating how best to convince his brother to try something new in his drab, ridiculous wardrobe.
"You know," he said, tossing the straw wrapper back at Diego and barely missing his brother's coffee, "I manage to go 73% of days without getting blood on my clothes. You should try harder."
For a moment there sparked an ember of humor in Diego’s coal black eyes, a twitch of his lips to tug upward in spite of himself. “Dunno that that math works out evenly, little brother,” he said, throwing the wrapper back at Klaus again. Aimed for his ear this time and Diego never missed. But he tampered down the not-quite-a-smile because that veered into different grounds and Diego clung to his anger and bitterness with everything he had in him. At the end of the rope, he tied a knot and held on for dear life. He wasn’t ready for anything but anger and bitterness, not with Patch dead, not with their mom dead, not with a failed apocalypse hanging over their heads.
But he got to talk to Ben for the first time in years. Vanya had control of herself. Klaus looked healthy, Allison lived. Diego had thought of Patch just before he could have smashed Cha-Cha’s face in, and chose to let her live.
He was a fucking train wreck of a person.
Diego took another gulp of coffee and nodded in acquiescence when asked if he wanted a refill. For all that he claimed his body was a temple, he had a few vices. Speaking of. “You’re still clean, right?” Laser focused gaze went straight to Klaus, the butter knife once again gripped in a tight fist. It looked ridiculous, of course, but Hargreeves fought fast and dirty and Diego fought the fastest and dirtiest of them all. Anything he could throw was a weapon.
"You know I'm ten months older than you now, right?" Klaus replied, managing to casually bring up Vietnam into conversation without going straight to the worst of it. Progress. He retrieved the wrapper and then tossed it aside to the edge of the table, done with it.
And then Diego asked him if he was still clean and his countenance fell. "Uh, mostly?" he offered. "I mean, for Ben's sake, I'm trying most of the time? But there's still ghosts here and even though they're mostly calmer… Mostly... "
If he said the word mostly one more time he was going to annoy himself and that was saying something. "Anyway they have dispensaries here, Diego. And they gave me money…" Right, that sounded like a lot of excuses but as Klaus eyed the knife in Diego's grip, he hoped they were enough.
Diego watched Klaus, one judgemental eyebrow arched, his jaw tightened. To be fair, Diego’s jaw was tightened so often it was amazing he had any molars left. He watched and waited, listening to excuses (and Diego had heard them before) but these were, at least, honest. Honesty when Klaus was using--when anyone was using, Diego knew, was rare to be found. “You also have to eat, Klaus, you also have to live, Klaus, pretty sure just because you have money it isn’t a reason to just run off and do whatever.”
But Diego’s snappy tone was tempered the next minute as he thought it over. Which was, of course, the majority of Diego’s problems (besides the screwed up childhood, of course), he didn’t stop to think. “I guess that’s better than other things,” he allowed, cautiously. The stone that settled on Diego’s chest when he thought about Klaus shooting or snorting or taking who knew what given by who knew who lifted, just a little bit. At home. Diego’s vigilantism had him walking the streets at night, and more often than he’d like to have admitted he checked corners for a familiar dark head.
Relieved every time it wasn’t Klaus.
He reached across the table to lightly slap Klaus’s head. “But God help you, I swear to God if I find out it’s anything other than that I will find every single dealer, I will cut off their fingers, I will stuff them down their collective throats.”
Klaus was bracing for an argument and was surprised when it didn't come. But his eyes widened as his brother threatened any poor unfortunate bastard of a dealer Klaus may turn to. And then he smiled, tilting his head slightly as he looked at his brother.