EUNOIA ━ diego hargreeves

23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

──-ˋˏ☂︎ˎˊ-──

ALLISON GROANED dramatically as she took a swig of her drink, angrily placing it back down onto one of the counters in the hair salon. The sound of the bottle rattling echoed throughout the room.

"The nerve of that man!" She ranted. "I mean, one thing goes wrong, and he's on a warpath. He doesn't know who I am? No, no. No Ray. You know exactly who I am. You just can't handle it. I'm protecting him."

Vanya made finger guns at the mirror as Freya laid on the floor, her limbs sprawled out in a starfish position as she stared at the tiled ceiling. Klaus let out a grunt as she smacked the side of his face. "Ow! From what?"

"The end of the world, for one."

"Is the world really gonna end?" Vanya asked in a small voice.

"I don't understand men," Freya confessed from the floor. "I mean, one second they're kissing you, the next they're with another girl—but then they get mad at you for not understanding how they feel! I give up."

"Hey," Klaus sat up in his chair. "Wouldn't it be weird if Five grew up all hot?"

Freya scrunched her face up. "I'm terrified of your brain."

"Ew," Allison cringed.

"Ew?" Klaus repeated, stepping over Freya. "Please. Misses 'Luther was my lover' and 'I have a crush on Diego but he's confusing me and I'm too cowardly to admit my feelings for him.'"

"We have never even kissed!" Allison defended.

"Can't relate," Freya muttered, grabbing Klaus's ankle in attempt to prevent him from stepping on her hair.

"You guys were making sick little moon-dog eyed at each other all through puberty and breakfasts and all that."

"I'm so glad I wasn't friends with Klaus then to see that," Freya declared, before she mimicked gagging. "I mean, seriously, Luther? God he's so gross."

"Wait, aren't we, like, all brothers and sisters?" Vanya wondered as Allison shot her a sour look.

Klaus snorted as Allison struggled to explain herself. "Well, technically it—"

"Technically?!" Klaus repeated, Freya cackled from her place on the floor. "If you have to use the word technically, you're already in trouble." He turned back to Vanya. "But yes. Minus this bitch here. She's been my conjoined-lover-twin since I was twelve."

"I will kill myself if you ever call me your conjoined-lover-twin ever again," Freya said, hiccuping. Klaus frowned.

"Rude."

"Can we focus?" Allison interrupted. "Clearly we're not saving the world tonight. But maybe, maybe, we could at least try to save my marriage."

"No!" Klaus yelled, spilling liquid all over Freya, who opened her mouth as she tried to drink it, before she drunkenly giggled as she pictured how ridiculous she must've looked. "No. Because that's like... that's like asking a nun to hump someone's leg."

"Those things have no correlation to each other," Freya pointed out. "Hey, am I hot? Like I'm hot, right?"

"Smoking," Klaus replied, making a sizzling sound as he waved his finger around in the air. "Who in this room knows shit about relationships? This one?" He pointed to Vanya. "In secret love with some farm Frau."

"Her name's Sissy!" Vanya defended.

"Which is an improvement on her previous relationship," Klaus commented, ignoring Allison's pointed look. "The serial killer."

"What?!"

"Oh," Freya breathed. "Funny story actually. So funny..."

"Meanwhile, I'm carrying a torch," Klaus continued. "For a solider I haven't technically met yet. Luther is in love with Allison—who is married to another man. And Freya is too blind to see that Diego is head over heels for her."

"Hello?" Freya echoed. "He is not!"

"Face it," Klaus went on. "The healthiest long-term relationship in this family is when Five was banging that mannequin!"

Freya coughed a laugh as she pushed herself up, ignoring how sticky she was due to Klaus' clumsiness. "I forgot about that! Yo, wait. How do you think it worked? Like did they...You know—"

"Stop!" Allison cut her off, waving her hands in her face. "I don't need any visuals."

"The only thing the Umbrella Academy knows about love, is how to screw it up. And you might hate to admit it Freya, but you've been by my side long enough to be considered one of us, so you screw it up, too."

Freya bit back a sigh as she realized that he was right, but Vanya shifted in her chair, allowing it to make loud squeak which made all of them turn their attention to her. "How do you guys deal with this?"

"With what?"

"I mean, all of it. The time travel. The seeing the dead. The end of the world."

"Well, I get really high," Klaus told her. "Allison lies to herself. And Freya puts on a front to act like nothing is bothering her! And you...you suppress all of your emotions deep down until you explode and blow shit up."

"Yeah, I'd really like to not do that anymore," Vanya confessed, looking embarrassed.

"You've got six days, missy."

"What the hell are we supposed to do with six days?" Allison questioned.

"I don't know. Party?"

"I'm gonna tell Sissy that I love her," Vanya announced.

"You're bold for that," Freya stated. "Could never be me."

"Could've been you kissed him back," Klaus commented.

"He pulled away before I could even react!"

"I don't want any secrets," Vanya said.

"Yes!" Allison agreed, standing up. "You're right. Yeah, cause you know if it's all gonna go tits-up, the least I could do is be honest with my husband."

"Oh..." Klaus muttered. "Does that mean I have to face my cult? I just hate group breakups. It's why I stopped dating twins."

Freya's heart stopped as they all turned to stare at her expectedly. "I'm not telling Diego shit."

Vanya raised her hands into the air. "This family is amazing!"

Klaus cackled, pushing himself from his chair. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Allison ordered, laughing as well. The two of them drunkenly hugged, and Klaus struggled to pull Freya to her feet as he wrapped an arm around her.

"Come on, Vanya," he commanded, gesturing for her to join the embrace as well, and she quickly rushed over to them. "I love you guys." Nobody said anything after a moment, and his face fell slightly, but he covered it up with a fake snort.

"You guys!" Allison broke apart first when an upbeat sound started to play from the radio. "I love this song!"

The four of them dramatically danced around the room, and Freya twirled Klaus around with a large smile. They snickered loudly together, and Freya was breathless with laughter by the time the song was over.

They collapsed onto the floor, their heavy breathing filling the silent room. Freya lifted her head to look over at Klaus. "Hey, bitch," she nudged him.

"What?" He asked, glancing back at her, his brows raised in confusion at her sudden serious tone.

"I love you too."

──-ˋˏ☂︎ˎˊ-──

authors note:

rewritten as of 2/8/22