apocalypsehow | Hotel Obsidian | The same day as yesterday but sightly later (Reply)

Okay, so maybe losing some fingers did something to a guy. His left hand was now wrapped in gauze, his wedding ring was now on his right hand, and he was still frantically looking for Stan.

Despite seeing Stan disappear in front of him.

Maybe finding Stan was his way of distracting himself from the missing fingers.

Annie	"Honey." Annie's tone was careful and gentle, because yeah, it was pretty obvious to her, at least, that this was a denial-based coping mechanism. "I really think you should probably be resting your hand." Like, flipping mattresses right after you'd lost fingers probably wasn't great for the injury? And also, Stan had disappeared right in front of them, so.
Lila	Lila, however, had no patience for this 'maybe Stan is just missing' thing. Shit had gotten way too real, all of a sudden. "What the hell are you doing? Stanley is gone -- we need to face this!"
Diego	He was facing it! "Check the chimney." ...okay, no he wasn't.
Lila	"He's not in the bloody chimney!" Lila shouted, at the very end of her tether with all of this. And yes, sure, it was her own destructive behavior kicking her in the stupid face, but that wasn't the point right now. The point was that her friend Trudy's son, a boy she very much genuinely liked on his own merits, had been disappeared before their eyes, and this wasn't helping. None of it was. "He's been kugelblitzed!"
Diego	"And whose fault is that?" Diego shouted. "You're the one that brought him here!"
Five	"Congratulations, you're both mildly terrible parents." But hey, still better than The Handler and Sir Reginald. "Can we focus? Come on, how did this thing open before?"
Diego	Diego shrugged. "I don't know, it was already kinda open." Look, it had been a very stressful time, they were naked, Lila had been shouty, and there was a missing kid.
Lila	"Why do you want to go in there, anyway?" Lila demanded, definitely not hurrying back through that door herself. "It's just sushi and death."
Five	"When we met future me in the Commission bunker, I warned myself about Oblivion," Five replied, bringing them back to the plot here. It was his other super power, after all. "Now, Pogo told me--"
Diego	"Whoa, wait, Pogo's alive?" Diego asked. He didn't know why that was surprising. Maybe he figured one of the Sparrows ate him by now.
Five	"A different Pogo, but yes," Five replied, waving off Diego's... Diegoness on the matter. "The monkey said Dad spent years training the Sparrows for some kind of super-secret mission into... Oblivion." He gestured around them to express how the plot lines were all coming together. "So I come back here and find that you lot of idiots have actually been there. Everything's leading to Oblivion, so we have to go in there." Again.
Diego	"Hell no," Diego said firmly. "Not happening!" You know when Diego didn't want to do something stupid and dangerous then it must have been really bad.
Annie	"Are you serious?" Annie asked, shaking her head emphatically. "No way, Five, we were almost killed in there!" And like, she was pointing at Diego's hand, because she really was not just being dramatic or whatever.
Five	"Yeah, so what?" Five shot back. "This is about more than just you guys." He'd be going too, you big babies.
Diego	"Says the guy with all of his fingers," Diego said, lifting up his bandaged hand. "I didn't get this by giving a mummy a handjob, all right? I went in there, and I lost my fingers to this thing with a knife on a chain." It was very scary, okay!
Lila	It was so scary that Lila wasn't even vaguely pretending it had been no big deal just for Five's benefit! "Hey, Diego might be a moron, but he's right about Oblivion, okay? We're not going to waltz back in there just because you say so," she retorted, shaking her head.
Luther and Sloane	"Good, because you're coming with us." Just expect Luther and Sloane to be attached by the hip for the rest of this season, guys.
Five	"This should be interesting," Five sighed, just over all of the shenanigans when they could be going into the murder dimension.
Diego	"Where to?" Diego asked, fully expecting a stupid answer like The Sparrow Academy.
Luther	"The Sparrow Academy," Luther said. "The world's ending so I think it's time we set out petty bullshit aside and work together on the kugelblitz."
Diego	"Yeah?" Diego said. "Or what?"
Lila	Oh, come on, Diego. Even Lila knew the answer to this one, much though she also did not want to go to the stupid Sparrow Academy. "Or Stanley won't be the last of us to disappear."

Diego	Surely this meeting with Sparrows won't go as badly as the last one. The last one had a body count. This one at least had snacks, though Grace wasn't at her best, moving around jerkily and missing an eye. Diego looked over at Luther and pointed at his own eye, silently asking what had happened to Grace. Luther responded with a gesture to his own eye, indicating it had been stabbed out. So. That was a great start.
Annie	Yeah, that super was not the best, but you know what was already making this situation mildly better than the last family meeting, at least? Snacks. She was starving and you people kept basing your conversations around alcohol and sushi consumption. Potato chips? And Twizzlers? Don't mind if she did. But she wasn't so distracted by candy and carbs that she didn't give Luther and Sloane -- hello, over there on the Sparrow side, Luther -- a little wave as she found a seat next to Diego.
Fei	Fei was happy to play hostess. "Welcome. Please make yourselves at home."
Allison	"Bitch, this is our home," Allison muttered, ignoring Fei's responding "Excuse me?"
Diego	"Where the hell are Viktor and Klaus?" Diego asked. God, this family was so hard to keep track of sometimes.
Five	"With our luck probably kugelblitzed by now," Five replied dryly.
Diego	"You're a dark little dude sometimes." Diego was sure Five already knew that, but sometimes it had to be said out loud.
Fei	Fei let out a little gasp, and it was hard to tell whether or not it was sarcastic. "Oh, what happened to your hand?"
Ben	"We don't have time for idle chitchat," Ben said, not caring at all about knife guy's stupid hand. "Everyone sit down."
Annie	"So polite," Annie commented, not quite enough under her breath to count for much. The snacks were helping, though. Sincerely. Also, you know what? Fei, you get a smile for asking about Diego's hand. Even if Annie hated your dumb birds, still.
Luther and Sloane	"So this is kind of nice, right? All of us here, together. One big happy family." Oh god, Luther. He leaned over to Sloane. "I feel like I'm sweating, am I sweating?" Sloane shook her head. "No, you're fine."
Ben	"Look," Ben started, ignoring Luther's...Luther-ness. "I know there's bad blood between us. Whatever. Bygones, right?" He frowned when Diego raised his hand. "Question?"
Diego	"Yeah, if I kill you, do we get our Ben back?" Diego asked. "Hypothetically." It was a super valid, fair question in Diego's opinion.
Annie	"Babe," Annie said quietly, gently putting a hand on his arm and shooting Ben a look. "It's gonna take a lot more than that." Seriously, this Ben was the wooooooooooooooorst. So bad that Annie actually felt like he'd deserved that!
Five	"Okay, so if you all are done bickering, I'd like to get back to a plan," Five chimed in. End of the universe. All that jazz.
Viktor	Nope, more bickering was going to happen because Viktor had arrived. "Where is he?"
Allison	Allison looked pretty calm for someone about to start a huge fight. "Viktor."
Viktor	"What did you do to Harlan?" Viktor asked, honing in on where Fei and Sloane were.
Allison	"They didn't do anything," Allison said. "I did. I killed Harlan."
Viktor	Viktor turned towards Allison, shock written all over his face. "What...I don't understand. Why?"
Allison	"Because he didn't deserve to live," Allison replied coolly.
Viktor	"Why?" Viktor asked. "Because they said so? You don't have to listen to them."
Ben	Ben was a messy bitch who lived for drama so he got out of their way and squished himself between Diego and Five on the couch. "20 bucks on the little one."
Five	"I'll take that action." Allison was extra angry these days. And Viktor was still... Viktor.
Viktor	Honestly, judging from the look on his face, Viktor also was heading into extra angry territory. "You could have talked to me. We could have figured out something else."
Allison	"So, what, you can lie to us again and take his side?" Allison asked.
Viktor	"That's not what happened," Viktor said, but he didn't sound entirely confident in that.
Allison	"Oh, no, that's exactly what happened," Allison said, standing up. "I know Harlan killed our mothers."
Diego	Whoa. That was definitely news to Diego, at least. "What?"
Lila	"Bloody plot twist." Annie might have gone right for the snacks, but Lila was the one who was eating her Twizzlers like she was at the cinema right now. Part of her kind of wanted to start chanting, 'Fight, fight, fight,' but that might be a bit too on the nose, or distract them.
Viktor	The confident look on Viktor's face was wiped away. "Who told you that?"
Allison	"Harlan," Allison replied. "After you lied about it to my face."
Diego	"Is that true, Viktor?" Diego asked. "Harlan started all of this?"
Viktor	Oh god, now he had to clean all of this up. "Yeah, but he didn't mean to hurt anyone. He--"
Five	"How do you know?" Five asked, cutting right on into this fight.
Viktor	"Because I know him," Viktor said. "And he was sweet, and he was kind, until I made him like us. Okay? So I screwed him up. And if you need someone to blame, I'm right here."
Allison	Allison lifted her eyebrows. "What makes you think I don't?"
Viktor	Viktor huffed, shaking his head. "This wasn't about saving the world. This was about hurting me. Payback for--"
Allison	"Go on," Allison said, moving closer. "Say her name."
Luther	"You know what? Maybe we should take a minute--" Luther immediately sat back down when Allison put her hand up. "Okay."
Viktor	"Did killing Harlan bring Claire back?" Viktor asked quietly.
Allison	"Did protecting him bring Sissy back?" Allison retorted. "It was just as personal for you--"
Viktor	"I didn't kill anyone!" Viktor yelled.
Allison	"But you risked everyone!" Allison said. "Do you know what that felt like? Watching you fight harder to protect the man who helped destroy my daughter than you ever did to bring her back?"
Viktor	"I don't know how to bring Claire back, okay? No one does," Viktor said, trying to be the calm one here. "But I was there for you. I tried."
Allison	"To what? Help me grieve? God, this whole family is so quick to tell me to suck up my pain and so worried about fixing yours!" That's right, Allison was pissed at all of you. "Somebody had to pay because you never seem to" she continued. "Destroy the world, kill Pogo, almost kill me, and for what? So we can all run around and clean up your mess? I'm sick of it."
Five	"Take it easy, Allison," Five warned. Like he could stop her now or something.
Ben	"Shh!" This was the most interesting your family has ever been, Five, don't ruin it for Ben!
Viktor	Viktor held up his hands, again trying to keep things from getting out of hand. "Okay--"
Allison	Nope. It was officially going to get out of hand. Allison's eyes glowed a bright gold as she approached Viktor and yelled, "Shut your mouth!" There was a grim satisfaction in watching Viktor's eyes gloss over with white, hands going to his throat as he suddenly couldn't breathe. Allison didn't really seem to care her brother was choking in front of her. "Every time I build a new life for myself, you end the world and take it from me!"
Annie	And just like that, Annie -- whose mouth was, inconveniently, totally full of cookies -- was transported back to a cabin, nearly two years ago, when she'd stupidly put herself between these two siblings and had been thrown through a very solid wall for her efforts. Not doing that today, nope, but just because Annie knew better than to interfere practically didn't mean she didn't react at all. "She's choking him." Just in case the others couldn't tell that Viktor clearly could not breathe. Reasoning with Allison herself didn't seem like a great path to victory, but maybe if she called it out, someone would -- do something?
Five	"How are you doing this without saying 'I heard a rumor'?" Five asked, officially alarmed by the lack of a power inhibitor there.
Allison	"Little gift leftover from Harlan," Allison said, still not letting go of her hold of Viktor.
Luther	"All right, knock off that power shit, Allison!" Luther said. "It's not okay!"
Allison	Allison released her hold on her brother, watching him gasp for air now that he could breathe again. "We should have left you in the basement."
Diego	Now Diego was standing up. "Whoa, Allison!"
Viktor	Viktor had recovered enough to give Allison a swift backhand for that before walking away.
Five	"You okay?" Five asked, watching Viktor stomp off before turning his attention back to Allison. Hopefully that got some of this out of her system.
Allison	"I'm fine," Allison said, wiping blood away from her nose. "Let's continue."
Ben	Ben didn't even know if he won or lost 20 bucks and he didn't care. That was awesome. "Sweet, you guys fight just like us."
Diego	"Nah, man," Diego said, looking in the direction of where Viktor had gone. "We don't fight like that."