Umbrella Academy fic: Changing All the Scenery (8/20)
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
PART SEVENTEEN
PART EIGHTEEN
PART NINETEEN
PART TWENTY
EIGHT
The thing about drugs is that they make you forget.
They make you forget about your powers. They make you forget about dead people. You forget about your family and how much you hate them and how you don’t know how to love them when you hate them and you don’t know why you love them when you’re supposed to hate them. Drugs make you forget about the fact that you’re a failure, you just forget all those mistakes, those shortcomings and misdeeds. You forget about the people you’ve disappointed and you totally forget that the person you’ve disappointed most is always, always, always yourself.
You forget about dead people who are missing limbs and still wearing bloody clothes. You forget about the way they scream, the way they’re always crying, always asking you for help. You forget how they cling to you, grab at you, every time you close your eyes, breathe, anything. You forget, okay? It’s really good to forget.
Drugs make you forget other things, too. Like, when Klaus takes drugs, he forgets that he’s supposed to be a superhero. He forgets if he’s eaten or not, and he forgets that a healthy diet actually matters. He forgets about things like basic safety and he has a habit of wandering in the middle of the street, giving the finger to traffic lights for being red for no apparent reason. He forgets about wearing clothes, sometimes, a lot of the time. He forgets about clean underwear and that bras are meant for women. He forgets that he can’t knit and wears anything he can around his neck because it makes him feel pretty. He forgets, unequivocally, that it never makes him look pretty.
He likes that about drugs. He likes forgetting. Memory is overrated.
He wants to forget.
He pays for the hit, a dealer he doesn’t know and doesn’t give a shit about. He overpays, pays all he has in his pockets for as much as he can get. He takes it back to an apartment that’s not his with people he doesn’t know. His fingers are trembling when he opens it. He thinks that he doesn’t have to do this.
But then he remembers.
He remembers Five’s plaintive admission. He remembers the way Five’s body had broken when he threw it around. He remembers that he hadn’t wanted to stop. He remembers wanting to break Five, to destroy him -- the way Five has destroyed him.
Because he also remembers what Dave told him.
He remembers the way that Five isn’t surprised.
He remembers, okay? He remembers that Five doesn’t remember, and he remembers how much he hates him for that, almost irrationally more than anything else.
And he remembers the way his siblings stopped him. He remembers Luther restraining him, Diego telling him he has to stop, he has to. He remembers the way Allison had stared at him, shocked and mystified, and he remembers how Vanya had cried. He can still hear her, crying. She’s wailing, scooping up Five’s broken body like there’s something there worth salvaging.
He can’t forget it. He can’t forget the broken words falling from his tongue when he tells them the truth. He remembers their questions, their doubts.
He remembers their acceptance.
Their rationalization.
“Five didn’t know.”
“Five didn’t mean to.”
“Five would never hurt you, any of us, intentionally.”
“There’s got to be more to the story.”
“But Five.”
Klaus remembers that he can’t listen to it anymore. Even when he leaves, when he walks out of the mansion with nothing but the clothes on his back, he can still hear them. He can still hear everything they said about forgiving Five, about letting it go.
And he remembers what Five didn’t say.
The absence of the apology is deafening.
The lack of a feasible explanation is glaring.
Klaus can’t forget.
For the love of God, he just wants to forget.
His fingers still. His heart thuds in his chest.
He remembers why he stopped using drugs. He remembers all the reasons. Mostly, he remembers why none of them matters.
Dave is smiling at him.
Damn it, Klaus wants to forget that, too.
He pops the pills; he smokes the joint; he snorts the line of powder.
And finally, finally, finally, Klaus forgets everything.
-o-
When the drugs wear off, he’s not quite sober, but he’s not high enough either. He lays, half dazed, half conscious, on a couch he doesn’t know. There are voices nearby, but they aren’t talking to him. He doesn’t know who they are; he knows just enough to know that he doesn’t need to ask. They don’t care about him.
Then again, he’s not sure who does care about him.
Back at home -- no, not home. Back at the mansion, when the others had finally come to see what was going on, they had taken measures to separate Five from Klaus. They had come in concern for both of them, but as Klaus fell back, listlessly against the wall, their concerns had become targeted at Five.
Klaus had tried to explain. He had tried to tell them what Five had did.
They’d been sorry, of course. They were so sorry, Klaus. That was horrible, Klaus. They couldn’t even imagine, Klaus.
He shudders, letting his eyes roll back toward the ceiling as his mouth gapes. While Luther had carried Five downstairs -- “He needs help, Klaus. You know he needs help” -- Diego had stayed with him. It was Allison who talked, though. Allison who kept her voice low and steady. “I know how hard this must be for you.”
It makes Klaus laugh, even now. His voice is thin and strangled, and he sounds like a half drowned alley cat. No one seems to hear him, though. At least, a place like this, he doesn’t expect them, too.
At first, he hadn’t been sure why he resisted so much. They had been supportive about it. They wanted to help him through it. They had wanted him to be okay.
“Then he needs to go.”
Klaus isn’t aware at first that he’s speaking, but he can feel the words scratch at his dry throat. He swallows with some difficulty and winces. He wonders if he has more drugs; he wonders if he has more money to buy more drugs. But he’s not sober enough to move. Just not high enough to forget. This is the worst place to be, the worst.
No, not the worst.
The worst when you are in the safest place in the world and you’re not safe at all. The worst is when you’re around people you trust, and they betray you all the same. The worse is when you are trying your best, and the world still shits on you.
He closes his eyes and cries. “Dave,” he mumbles. His fingers absently play with the dog tags around his neck. “Oh, Dave.”
There’s a problem, you see. His siblings think they can fix it. They think they can work through it. But they don’t understand that Klaus can’t exist in a world where his brother killed his lover. He can, maybe. The thing is, and this is the thing, the real thing, when you get right down to it, the only thing, he doesn’t want to.
See, if given the choice, who would Klaus save? Would he pick his long lost brother? Or would he pick the man of his dreams?
How the hell is he supposed to know?
Because he doesn’t get to choose.
The choice was made for him.
And Klaus is supposed to accept that? He’s supposed to understand? All the means and ends, and all it amounts to is Klaus getting screwed over just like he always does.
He doesn’t need his powers. He doesn’t need his family. And he most certainly doesn’t need Five’s explanation for why murder is an acceptable pastime.
All he needs is another hit.
With this galvanizing thought, Klaus struggles his way to a sitting position. There are two other people passed out on the couch, and someone else is giggling to himself in the chair. Across the room, two people are probably having sex, and someone seems to be baking brownies in the kitchen while singing opera without any clothes on. It’s debatable what parts are real and what parts are the machinations of his drug addled brain. What is real, however, is that Five is back at the mansion, making a full recovery with his siblings.
Dave is dead, nothing more than rotting bones and a listless spirit.
Also, the drugs splayed across the table, half used -- those are real, too.
Klaus gathers them up eagerly and hopes, hopes, hopes they’re real.
-o-
It is relatively hard to say how much time has passed. Honestly, time is a bit hazy for him starting at about age 13. That’s the first time he managed to smuggle drugs into the mansion, and he’s been angling for a fix ever since. He’s been in and out of rehab a lot -- he keeps the coins, they’re not worth enough to hawk -- and he measures his years by the amount of people he hasn’t yet alienated.
Luther had stopped talking to him quickly. Allison had seemed to roll her eyes and walk in the other direction. Vanya had told him to always call if he needed anything, but she didn’t drive and she didn’t have any money, so she wasn’t all that useful. Diego talked tough, but he was the softest touch of them all, and Klaus had leveraged that as often as he could. Ben was dead, so he didn’t count, and Five was gone.
No, Five wasn’t gone.
Five was preoccupied.
Five was off killing people he loved.
What is he thinking about again?
Time.
He’s thinking about time.
To the point, he doesn’t know how long he’s been away from the mansion this time. He feels like it’s been at least several days, but he has a sense that weeks have passed. It’s even hard to tell when he thinks about how long it’s been since he’s seen Dave. It feels like months, but it’s actually been decades, and Klaus doesn’t know what any of this means except that it’s time to go.
He gathers up his things only to remember he doesn’t have things. He gathers up some things anyway, figuring that no one else around here will remember what’s theirs or not. He picks some clothes, a few toiletry items that don’t look too rancid and a little bit of food. No, he takes all the food that is still edible and he only leaves the drugs because there’s not enough left to take.
Proper etiquette would dictate that he leave a note of thanks, but this is not a place for etiquette. Instead, he sneaks out and closes the door behind him before anyone manages to dredge themselves back to consciousness and ask who the hell he is. He’s halfway down the stairs when he realizes that he doesn’t know where he is much less where he’s going. He half falls to the landing and gets precariously to his feet. Looking down, he’s relieved he’s wearing clothes. If the cops pick him up, they’ll get him sober, and that would be such a waste of all the work he’s done into getting very, very high.
When he makes his way out onto the street, he’s surprised that it’s sunny out. He squints, trying to acclimate his eyes, and he fumbles a few steps before he distinguishes that the neighborhood isn’t as seedy as he expects. He glances back at the building he came from, but he finds they all look the same and he’s not sure how far he’s walked. He shrugs, waltzing forward a few more steps.
He makes it down a street or two before he feels woozy. Passing out is not what he wants right now, so he ducks into the closest alley, stumbles behind a dumpster and promptly throws up everything in his stomach. When he’s done, he falls to the ground, panting for air as he turns his face up to the sun.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Klaus groans and closes his eyes. “Neither should you. I didn’t think I had gone that long without a hit.”
Ben is staring at him, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the far wall of the alley. He hasn’t seen Ben in awhile, though that simply serves the point. He has no idea how long it’s been.
By the scowl on Ben’s face, he knows. That’s weird, suddenly. That ghosts can tell time better than he can. He wonders if there’s a place spirits go when they’re not being conjured or if Ben simply has heightened awareness of things due to his generally state of being noncorporeal.
That’s a lot of thinking, though.
Too much thinking.
Klaus wrinkles his nose and makes a face of disdain.
Ben huffs. “You need to go home.”
Home meant something to Klaus, but he’s not sure it does anymore. He snorts with a laugh. “I really don’t, though. Like, at all.”
“So you want to stay here?” Ben asks. He nods to the alley.
Klaus looks at it. “It’s kind of a nice alley,” he says. “I haven’t seen a single rat. That’s an exceptionally good alley, I think. And who knows what I’d find in that dumpster. It could be amazing.”
Ben is not buying it. Ben is tiresome like that. “You need to go home.”
“Uh, no,” Klaus replies. “I need to not go home because home is where Five is, and if you haven’t heard, Five’s the one who killed Dave. Like, killed him killed him. Shot him in the chest. Executed him. And took him away from me.”
He emphasizes that last bit, that last important bit. The vitriol colors his airy tone.
Ben does not respond with the appropriate gravitas. Their lives are so messed up that explaining the ins and outs of cold blooded murder seems to hardly make an impression. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“I know that Five doesn’t even remember is, so it probably is that simple,” Klaus counters.
Ben doesn’t waver. “Five’s never lied about his past. He’s always been open about what he’s done.”
“Um, but he glossed over a few key details,” Klaus points out. He inhales sharply and breathes out through his nose. “Like the part where he ruined my life.”
“He didn’t know,” Ben says.
Klaus laughs, a high, erratic sound. “You keep saying that like it means something.”
Ben sighs, conceding that point inherently. “We all have made mistakes.”
Klaus lets his eyes bug a little for effect. “Yeah, murder? Is not a mistake. It’s murder.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Ben argues. “What choice did he have?”
“He had the choice not to pull the trigger,” Klaus replies with an indignant shrug. “I mean, one time, maybe. Maybe you can call that a mistake. Shit happens, right? Bad shit. But for it to happen so many times that you can’t remember anymore? That’s not a mistake. That’s a life choice.”
It’s a messed up thing when someone is actually trying to defend murder, and Ben’s not the guy who can pull it off indefinitely. He chews his lip for a moment before trying another tact. “We’ve all killed people and none of us thought about it,” he says, a little quieter now. “You can’t hold it against him. I know you’re hurt, but you can’t hate him forever.”
“Uh, actually, brother of mine, I think I can,” Klaus said. He has the awareness now that he wants to move away from his puddle of vomit, but it just seems like too much work. “It’s not that hard. I mean, I have my coping mechanisms, and they work really well.”
“And you’ll cut the rest of them out, too?” Ben asks sharply. “You’d really just cut ties with your whole family?”
Klaus narrows his eyes, a little skeptical. “Isn’t that what we all did? I mean, Diego left home. Allison moved to Hollywood. Vanya got her own place. You died. The sociopath ran out the front door at 13 and never came back. Hell, you up and died,” he says. “We’re actually really good at not talking to each other. So I’m just not sure, you know? I’m not sure I see the problem.”
Ben’s plaintive stare is still wholly unconvinced. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” Klaus says, and he lets his voice get serious now. “I do, Ben. I really do. I can’t look at Five; I can’t be around Five. If they can tolerate a murderer at the mansion, then I can’t tolerate them, either.”
Ben steps away from the wall, clearly frustrated now. “You need to go home, Klaus.”
Home is such a weird concept, really. Home is more than a bed and a toilet. Home isn’t just food in the fridge and a working air conditioning unit. Home is security. Home is comfortable. Home is certainty.
That’s not what the mansion is for him. Not now, anyway. When he thinks of the mansion, he thinks of dark places and dusty rooms. He thinks of Five shrugging his shoulders, saying, “I didn’t know” like it means something. He thinks of Allison yelling at the top of her lungs, “I heard a rumor!” He thinks of their long, sad faces. He thinks of the thousand ways they tried to say I’m sorry. He thinks how none of it meant anything because they said the same to Five.
Maybe it makes sense for his siblings to pick Five over Dave. Maybe they don’t know Dave; maybe that’s why they’ll give Five the benefit of the doubt. But Klaus was there. Klaus was the one who tried to mop up the blood that Five spilled.
He can’t make it parse. The mansion can’t be home because he’s not comfortable, he’s not safe and he’s not sure. He’s not sure about anything.
Well, he’s sure about one thing.
Two things.
One: it’s Five’s fault.
Two: he needs another fix.
Struggling, he eventually gets to his feet. He only has to brace himself against the wall for a moment, swallowing back another wave of nausea. He rights himself and looks Ben in the eye. “That place -- that’s not home for me. It can’t be.”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” Ben says, gesturing in anger now. “It’s all wrapped up in your head, and you think drugs will make it clear? It’s just going to make it worse, Klaus. It’ll all get worse unless you deal with it, confront it.”
“Oh, I confronted it,” Klaus says, and he steps forward this time. “I confronted it by slamming his smug little face into the wall.”
“Yeah, because murder is the solution, right?”
Klaus throws his arms out with feigned nonchalance. “It worked for Five.”
“Damn it, it’s not the same thing!” Ben says, and he’s yelling now. “You know it’s not!”
Klaus crossed toward him, but when he reaches for Ben, he’s nothing but air. His powers are strong enough to make him corporeal. He lets his hands go disdainfully and steps back once more, his cheeks flushing.
Ben stands indifferently, as if Klaus’ lack of control these days proves some kind of point. It might, but the good news is that Klaus isn’t sober enough to admit it. “You need to start by getting sober,” Ben says.
Klaus makes a face, cursing as he turns away. Sobriety does make him more clever, which is unfortunate. It makes him smarter, more powerful, better connected -- and whatever.
He looks back at Ben. “I tried sobriety, gave it a real, honest go,” he says. “Didn’t take.”
“But it worked,” Ben insists. “You know it worked.”
“Did it, though?” Klaus asks. “Did it really? I mean, what exactly is our definition of worked?”
Ben rolls his eyes, unable to hide outright aggravation now. “Your powers, Klaus, Just look at your powers.”
“What about them?” Klaus asks. “So I can conjure dead people -- whoopee. And okay, so floating stuff around is kind of convenient, but it’s not that special. Is it? I mean, what good does any of it actually do. It’s not like it’s actually done anything for me.”
“Of course you’d say that now, but this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you, these last few months,” Ben points out.
“Uh, yeah, and look what happened,” Klaus says. He makes a little explosion with his hands. “The whole thing imploded. It was fake. Based on lies -- omissions -- blood -- whatever!”
“Fake? Come on, Klaus,” Ben says, brow creased with vexation now. “You had hobbies. You had relationships. You were happy.”
Klaus lights on that. “Relationships. Oh. Relationships,” he says. “You mean like the relationship I had with Five? The killer of my boyfriend? That relationship? Is that one you’re talking about?”
Ben knows he’s walked into that one, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “This is about more than Five.”
Klaus nods his head in condescension. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? But that busy little bastard, he keeps showing up in places he doesn’t belong. If you haven’t forgotten, he was the one who got me kidnapped in the first place, and he’s the one who had the Commission on our tail and nearly got us all killed.”
“Because he was saving us -- and the rest of the world in the process!” Ben says. He throws his hands up, turning away. “If it weren’t for him, we’d all be dead!”
Klaus follows him, unable to let this point slide. “So you agree with him? The ends justify the means? We get to do anything we want? Anything at all if we have a good reason?”
Ben turns back, fuming. “No, but I am saying that some sacrifices are worthwhile.”
“And that’s what Dave was?” Klaus returns back, entirely unyielding. “He was a worthwhile sacrifice? You knew him, Ben. You knew him. You were there. Is that what he was?”
Ben draws an even, measured breath as he tones back his own temper. “I’m not saying it’s all perfect or that it all makes sense, and I’m not saying that Five was right about every choice he made,” he says, quieter now. “But you’re letting this ruin you. You’re letting this ruin the family, the whole Umbrella Academy. You’re willing to throw everything you’ve worked so hard to build because of this, and I think that’s wrong. I think it’s a mistake. Dave wouldn’t want this for you.”
Klaus bristles at that, stepping back once more. “Yeah, well, Dave probably didn’t want to be dead, either.”
“You conjured him,” Ben shoots back. “What did he say?”
“About dying?”
“Dying, life, you,” Ben says with a nod. “All of it.”
Honestly, it’s not something Klaus has thought about. He’d become so preoccupied with one question that he’d forgotten how many others he could ask. Conjuring Dave had been a means to an end, and he knew it. He hadn’t taken the time to embrace Dave, to tell him how much he loved him. In fact, he’s not sure he even said goodbye.
That’s honestly.
Klaus is strung out on drugs, however. As an addict, Klaus is never honest. In fact, lying is a necessary defense mechanism, and he’s really, really good at it after all these years.
He’s caught, though. Somewhere between a denial and acceptance, and he finds himself unable to reply.
Ben is not nearly as bold in his gloating as you might expect. Instead, he simply tips his head toward Klaus knowingly. “You should ask him,” he says. “No more of this debate. Let Dave tell us his opinion, right here, right now.”
Ben knows very well that that’s not possible, and the implication pisses Klaus off. He snarls a little. “Oh, please, like you know,” he mutters tersely. “Why don’t we just ask you. Do you want to be dead, brother dear? Do you like the fact that your life was ended violently at a young age? Hm?”
Klaus isn’t being kind now, but he doesn’t think that’s his fault. Ben’s the one who started this conversation. Ben’s the one who won’t leave this shit alone. Ben’s the one defending Five; Ben’s the one throwing around Dave’s name like he has some right to it.
It’s a good thing Ben isn’t corporeal or Klaus might try to throttle him, too.
He’s been high before; it doesn’t usually make him this murderous.
That seems like Five’s fault.
A lot of this seems like Five’s fault.
Everything seems like Five’s fault.
Ben, though, isn’t scared of Klaus. It could be because he’s a ghost, but it’s also probably because Ben has seen Klaus through everything. Hell, Ben probably remembers more of Klaus’ adult life than he does. And these days, Ben’s not able to hold physical form, but he sure as hell knows how to land a punch.
“Better dead than like this,” Ben says, gesturing to Klaus.
“Screw you,” Klaus retorts, because he’s out of clever things to say. He’s out of energy to try. He’s just out.
“Get sober and make me,” Ben says, almost taunting now.
Klaus laughs, and this time it sounds twisted and dark. “You know, I don’t think I need to,” he says. He smirks. “I’ve got another idea.”
He sees the split second of protest on Ben’s face as Klaus closes his eyes. His wits are still scattered from the drugs, but he’s got just enough coherency in him to gather his power. It feels dull and witless, but he doesn’t need much.
In fact, he doesn’t need any.
That’s the point.
He gathers the power, holds it as close as he can, feeling it burn in his chest, throb in his head, tingle down his spine. He holds it a moment more.
Then, with a willful force, he lets it go.
He expends it all, expels it.
And when he opens his eyes, he gasps for air, staring at an empty, lonely alleyway.
-o-
With Ben gone, there’s no one to stop him. Or, at least, there’s no one left to try.
It's not a distinction that matters to him, at least not anymore. He thinks maybe it did once, but he can’t be sure. Most distinctions don't matter much to him these days. How could they? Why should they?
He knows the broad strokes, the big picture, and that really seems pretty good enough. It works; it gets him through. He can't always remember, if he's honest, why he's so mad at Five, but he figures the details aren't important. All he knows, the one thing he remembers, after all the drugs, after all the drinks, after all the long nights of nothing, is that Dave isn't here.
And it's all Five's fault.
There’s no distinction between escape and addiction. There’s no distinction between pain and loss. There’s no distinction between stupid and scared.
There’s just the next hit.
And the next hit.
And the one after that.
Because there are a lot of problems Klaus will never be able to fix.
But the drugs, he decides, are quite a fix enough.
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
PART NINE
PART TEN
PART ELEVEN
PART TWELVE
PART THIRTEEN
PART FOURTEEN
PART FIFTEEN
PART SIXTEEN
PART SEVENTEEN
PART EIGHTEEN
PART NINETEEN
PART TWENTY
EIGHT
The thing about drugs is that they make you forget.
They make you forget about your powers. They make you forget about dead people. You forget about your family and how much you hate them and how you don’t know how to love them when you hate them and you don’t know why you love them when you’re supposed to hate them. Drugs make you forget about the fact that you’re a failure, you just forget all those mistakes, those shortcomings and misdeeds. You forget about the people you’ve disappointed and you totally forget that the person you’ve disappointed most is always, always, always yourself.
You forget about dead people who are missing limbs and still wearing bloody clothes. You forget about the way they scream, the way they’re always crying, always asking you for help. You forget how they cling to you, grab at you, every time you close your eyes, breathe, anything. You forget, okay? It’s really good to forget.
Drugs make you forget other things, too. Like, when Klaus takes drugs, he forgets that he’s supposed to be a superhero. He forgets if he’s eaten or not, and he forgets that a healthy diet actually matters. He forgets about things like basic safety and he has a habit of wandering in the middle of the street, giving the finger to traffic lights for being red for no apparent reason. He forgets about wearing clothes, sometimes, a lot of the time. He forgets about clean underwear and that bras are meant for women. He forgets that he can’t knit and wears anything he can around his neck because it makes him feel pretty. He forgets, unequivocally, that it never makes him look pretty.
He likes that about drugs. He likes forgetting. Memory is overrated.
He wants to forget.
He pays for the hit, a dealer he doesn’t know and doesn’t give a shit about. He overpays, pays all he has in his pockets for as much as he can get. He takes it back to an apartment that’s not his with people he doesn’t know. His fingers are trembling when he opens it. He thinks that he doesn’t have to do this.
But then he remembers.
He remembers Five’s plaintive admission. He remembers the way Five’s body had broken when he threw it around. He remembers that he hadn’t wanted to stop. He remembers wanting to break Five, to destroy him -- the way Five has destroyed him.
Because he also remembers what Dave told him.
He remembers the way that Five isn’t surprised.
He remembers, okay? He remembers that Five doesn’t remember, and he remembers how much he hates him for that, almost irrationally more than anything else.
And he remembers the way his siblings stopped him. He remembers Luther restraining him, Diego telling him he has to stop, he has to. He remembers the way Allison had stared at him, shocked and mystified, and he remembers how Vanya had cried. He can still hear her, crying. She’s wailing, scooping up Five’s broken body like there’s something there worth salvaging.
He can’t forget it. He can’t forget the broken words falling from his tongue when he tells them the truth. He remembers their questions, their doubts.
He remembers their acceptance.
Their rationalization.
“Five didn’t know.”
“Five didn’t mean to.”
“Five would never hurt you, any of us, intentionally.”
“There’s got to be more to the story.”
“But Five.”
Klaus remembers that he can’t listen to it anymore. Even when he leaves, when he walks out of the mansion with nothing but the clothes on his back, he can still hear them. He can still hear everything they said about forgiving Five, about letting it go.
And he remembers what Five didn’t say.
The absence of the apology is deafening.
The lack of a feasible explanation is glaring.
Klaus can’t forget.
For the love of God, he just wants to forget.
His fingers still. His heart thuds in his chest.
He remembers why he stopped using drugs. He remembers all the reasons. Mostly, he remembers why none of them matters.
Dave is smiling at him.
Damn it, Klaus wants to forget that, too.
He pops the pills; he smokes the joint; he snorts the line of powder.
And finally, finally, finally, Klaus forgets everything.
-o-
When the drugs wear off, he’s not quite sober, but he’s not high enough either. He lays, half dazed, half conscious, on a couch he doesn’t know. There are voices nearby, but they aren’t talking to him. He doesn’t know who they are; he knows just enough to know that he doesn’t need to ask. They don’t care about him.
Then again, he’s not sure who does care about him.
Back at home -- no, not home. Back at the mansion, when the others had finally come to see what was going on, they had taken measures to separate Five from Klaus. They had come in concern for both of them, but as Klaus fell back, listlessly against the wall, their concerns had become targeted at Five.
Klaus had tried to explain. He had tried to tell them what Five had did.
They’d been sorry, of course. They were so sorry, Klaus. That was horrible, Klaus. They couldn’t even imagine, Klaus.
He shudders, letting his eyes roll back toward the ceiling as his mouth gapes. While Luther had carried Five downstairs -- “He needs help, Klaus. You know he needs help” -- Diego had stayed with him. It was Allison who talked, though. Allison who kept her voice low and steady. “I know how hard this must be for you.”
It makes Klaus laugh, even now. His voice is thin and strangled, and he sounds like a half drowned alley cat. No one seems to hear him, though. At least, a place like this, he doesn’t expect them, too.
At first, he hadn’t been sure why he resisted so much. They had been supportive about it. They wanted to help him through it. They had wanted him to be okay.
“Then he needs to go.”
Klaus isn’t aware at first that he’s speaking, but he can feel the words scratch at his dry throat. He swallows with some difficulty and winces. He wonders if he has more drugs; he wonders if he has more money to buy more drugs. But he’s not sober enough to move. Just not high enough to forget. This is the worst place to be, the worst.
No, not the worst.
The worst when you are in the safest place in the world and you’re not safe at all. The worst is when you’re around people you trust, and they betray you all the same. The worse is when you are trying your best, and the world still shits on you.
He closes his eyes and cries. “Dave,” he mumbles. His fingers absently play with the dog tags around his neck. “Oh, Dave.”
There’s a problem, you see. His siblings think they can fix it. They think they can work through it. But they don’t understand that Klaus can’t exist in a world where his brother killed his lover. He can, maybe. The thing is, and this is the thing, the real thing, when you get right down to it, the only thing, he doesn’t want to.
See, if given the choice, who would Klaus save? Would he pick his long lost brother? Or would he pick the man of his dreams?
How the hell is he supposed to know?
Because he doesn’t get to choose.
The choice was made for him.
And Klaus is supposed to accept that? He’s supposed to understand? All the means and ends, and all it amounts to is Klaus getting screwed over just like he always does.
He doesn’t need his powers. He doesn’t need his family. And he most certainly doesn’t need Five’s explanation for why murder is an acceptable pastime.
All he needs is another hit.
With this galvanizing thought, Klaus struggles his way to a sitting position. There are two other people passed out on the couch, and someone else is giggling to himself in the chair. Across the room, two people are probably having sex, and someone seems to be baking brownies in the kitchen while singing opera without any clothes on. It’s debatable what parts are real and what parts are the machinations of his drug addled brain. What is real, however, is that Five is back at the mansion, making a full recovery with his siblings.
Dave is dead, nothing more than rotting bones and a listless spirit.
Also, the drugs splayed across the table, half used -- those are real, too.
Klaus gathers them up eagerly and hopes, hopes, hopes they’re real.
-o-
It is relatively hard to say how much time has passed. Honestly, time is a bit hazy for him starting at about age 13. That’s the first time he managed to smuggle drugs into the mansion, and he’s been angling for a fix ever since. He’s been in and out of rehab a lot -- he keeps the coins, they’re not worth enough to hawk -- and he measures his years by the amount of people he hasn’t yet alienated.
Luther had stopped talking to him quickly. Allison had seemed to roll her eyes and walk in the other direction. Vanya had told him to always call if he needed anything, but she didn’t drive and she didn’t have any money, so she wasn’t all that useful. Diego talked tough, but he was the softest touch of them all, and Klaus had leveraged that as often as he could. Ben was dead, so he didn’t count, and Five was gone.
No, Five wasn’t gone.
Five was preoccupied.
Five was off killing people he loved.
What is he thinking about again?
Time.
He’s thinking about time.
To the point, he doesn’t know how long he’s been away from the mansion this time. He feels like it’s been at least several days, but he has a sense that weeks have passed. It’s even hard to tell when he thinks about how long it’s been since he’s seen Dave. It feels like months, but it’s actually been decades, and Klaus doesn’t know what any of this means except that it’s time to go.
He gathers up his things only to remember he doesn’t have things. He gathers up some things anyway, figuring that no one else around here will remember what’s theirs or not. He picks some clothes, a few toiletry items that don’t look too rancid and a little bit of food. No, he takes all the food that is still edible and he only leaves the drugs because there’s not enough left to take.
Proper etiquette would dictate that he leave a note of thanks, but this is not a place for etiquette. Instead, he sneaks out and closes the door behind him before anyone manages to dredge themselves back to consciousness and ask who the hell he is. He’s halfway down the stairs when he realizes that he doesn’t know where he is much less where he’s going. He half falls to the landing and gets precariously to his feet. Looking down, he’s relieved he’s wearing clothes. If the cops pick him up, they’ll get him sober, and that would be such a waste of all the work he’s done into getting very, very high.
When he makes his way out onto the street, he’s surprised that it’s sunny out. He squints, trying to acclimate his eyes, and he fumbles a few steps before he distinguishes that the neighborhood isn’t as seedy as he expects. He glances back at the building he came from, but he finds they all look the same and he’s not sure how far he’s walked. He shrugs, waltzing forward a few more steps.
He makes it down a street or two before he feels woozy. Passing out is not what he wants right now, so he ducks into the closest alley, stumbles behind a dumpster and promptly throws up everything in his stomach. When he’s done, he falls to the ground, panting for air as he turns his face up to the sun.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Klaus groans and closes his eyes. “Neither should you. I didn’t think I had gone that long without a hit.”
Ben is staring at him, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the far wall of the alley. He hasn’t seen Ben in awhile, though that simply serves the point. He has no idea how long it’s been.
By the scowl on Ben’s face, he knows. That’s weird, suddenly. That ghosts can tell time better than he can. He wonders if there’s a place spirits go when they’re not being conjured or if Ben simply has heightened awareness of things due to his generally state of being noncorporeal.
That’s a lot of thinking, though.
Too much thinking.
Klaus wrinkles his nose and makes a face of disdain.
Ben huffs. “You need to go home.”
Home meant something to Klaus, but he’s not sure it does anymore. He snorts with a laugh. “I really don’t, though. Like, at all.”
“So you want to stay here?” Ben asks. He nods to the alley.
Klaus looks at it. “It’s kind of a nice alley,” he says. “I haven’t seen a single rat. That’s an exceptionally good alley, I think. And who knows what I’d find in that dumpster. It could be amazing.”
Ben is not buying it. Ben is tiresome like that. “You need to go home.”
“Uh, no,” Klaus replies. “I need to not go home because home is where Five is, and if you haven’t heard, Five’s the one who killed Dave. Like, killed him killed him. Shot him in the chest. Executed him. And took him away from me.”
He emphasizes that last bit, that last important bit. The vitriol colors his airy tone.
Ben does not respond with the appropriate gravitas. Their lives are so messed up that explaining the ins and outs of cold blooded murder seems to hardly make an impression. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“I know that Five doesn’t even remember is, so it probably is that simple,” Klaus counters.
Ben doesn’t waver. “Five’s never lied about his past. He’s always been open about what he’s done.”
“Um, but he glossed over a few key details,” Klaus points out. He inhales sharply and breathes out through his nose. “Like the part where he ruined my life.”
“He didn’t know,” Ben says.
Klaus laughs, a high, erratic sound. “You keep saying that like it means something.”
Ben sighs, conceding that point inherently. “We all have made mistakes.”
Klaus lets his eyes bug a little for effect. “Yeah, murder? Is not a mistake. It’s murder.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Ben argues. “What choice did he have?”
“He had the choice not to pull the trigger,” Klaus replies with an indignant shrug. “I mean, one time, maybe. Maybe you can call that a mistake. Shit happens, right? Bad shit. But for it to happen so many times that you can’t remember anymore? That’s not a mistake. That’s a life choice.”
It’s a messed up thing when someone is actually trying to defend murder, and Ben’s not the guy who can pull it off indefinitely. He chews his lip for a moment before trying another tact. “We’ve all killed people and none of us thought about it,” he says, a little quieter now. “You can’t hold it against him. I know you’re hurt, but you can’t hate him forever.”
“Uh, actually, brother of mine, I think I can,” Klaus said. He has the awareness now that he wants to move away from his puddle of vomit, but it just seems like too much work. “It’s not that hard. I mean, I have my coping mechanisms, and they work really well.”
“And you’ll cut the rest of them out, too?” Ben asks sharply. “You’d really just cut ties with your whole family?”
Klaus narrows his eyes, a little skeptical. “Isn’t that what we all did? I mean, Diego left home. Allison moved to Hollywood. Vanya got her own place. You died. The sociopath ran out the front door at 13 and never came back. Hell, you up and died,” he says. “We’re actually really good at not talking to each other. So I’m just not sure, you know? I’m not sure I see the problem.”
Ben’s plaintive stare is still wholly unconvinced. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” Klaus says, and he lets his voice get serious now. “I do, Ben. I really do. I can’t look at Five; I can’t be around Five. If they can tolerate a murderer at the mansion, then I can’t tolerate them, either.”
Ben steps away from the wall, clearly frustrated now. “You need to go home, Klaus.”
Home is such a weird concept, really. Home is more than a bed and a toilet. Home isn’t just food in the fridge and a working air conditioning unit. Home is security. Home is comfortable. Home is certainty.
That’s not what the mansion is for him. Not now, anyway. When he thinks of the mansion, he thinks of dark places and dusty rooms. He thinks of Five shrugging his shoulders, saying, “I didn’t know” like it means something. He thinks of Allison yelling at the top of her lungs, “I heard a rumor!” He thinks of their long, sad faces. He thinks of the thousand ways they tried to say I’m sorry. He thinks how none of it meant anything because they said the same to Five.
Maybe it makes sense for his siblings to pick Five over Dave. Maybe they don’t know Dave; maybe that’s why they’ll give Five the benefit of the doubt. But Klaus was there. Klaus was the one who tried to mop up the blood that Five spilled.
He can’t make it parse. The mansion can’t be home because he’s not comfortable, he’s not safe and he’s not sure. He’s not sure about anything.
Well, he’s sure about one thing.
Two things.
One: it’s Five’s fault.
Two: he needs another fix.
Struggling, he eventually gets to his feet. He only has to brace himself against the wall for a moment, swallowing back another wave of nausea. He rights himself and looks Ben in the eye. “That place -- that’s not home for me. It can’t be.”
“You don’t even know what you’re saying,” Ben says, gesturing in anger now. “It’s all wrapped up in your head, and you think drugs will make it clear? It’s just going to make it worse, Klaus. It’ll all get worse unless you deal with it, confront it.”
“Oh, I confronted it,” Klaus says, and he steps forward this time. “I confronted it by slamming his smug little face into the wall.”
“Yeah, because murder is the solution, right?”
Klaus throws his arms out with feigned nonchalance. “It worked for Five.”
“Damn it, it’s not the same thing!” Ben says, and he’s yelling now. “You know it’s not!”
Klaus crossed toward him, but when he reaches for Ben, he’s nothing but air. His powers are strong enough to make him corporeal. He lets his hands go disdainfully and steps back once more, his cheeks flushing.
Ben stands indifferently, as if Klaus’ lack of control these days proves some kind of point. It might, but the good news is that Klaus isn’t sober enough to admit it. “You need to start by getting sober,” Ben says.
Klaus makes a face, cursing as he turns away. Sobriety does make him more clever, which is unfortunate. It makes him smarter, more powerful, better connected -- and whatever.
He looks back at Ben. “I tried sobriety, gave it a real, honest go,” he says. “Didn’t take.”
“But it worked,” Ben insists. “You know it worked.”
“Did it, though?” Klaus asks. “Did it really? I mean, what exactly is our definition of worked?”
Ben rolls his eyes, unable to hide outright aggravation now. “Your powers, Klaus, Just look at your powers.”
“What about them?” Klaus asks. “So I can conjure dead people -- whoopee. And okay, so floating stuff around is kind of convenient, but it’s not that special. Is it? I mean, what good does any of it actually do. It’s not like it’s actually done anything for me.”
“Of course you’d say that now, but this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you, these last few months,” Ben points out.
“Uh, yeah, and look what happened,” Klaus says. He makes a little explosion with his hands. “The whole thing imploded. It was fake. Based on lies -- omissions -- blood -- whatever!”
“Fake? Come on, Klaus,” Ben says, brow creased with vexation now. “You had hobbies. You had relationships. You were happy.”
Klaus lights on that. “Relationships. Oh. Relationships,” he says. “You mean like the relationship I had with Five? The killer of my boyfriend? That relationship? Is that one you’re talking about?”
Ben knows he’s walked into that one, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “This is about more than Five.”
Klaus nods his head in condescension. “You would think that, wouldn’t you? But that busy little bastard, he keeps showing up in places he doesn’t belong. If you haven’t forgotten, he was the one who got me kidnapped in the first place, and he’s the one who had the Commission on our tail and nearly got us all killed.”
“Because he was saving us -- and the rest of the world in the process!” Ben says. He throws his hands up, turning away. “If it weren’t for him, we’d all be dead!”
Klaus follows him, unable to let this point slide. “So you agree with him? The ends justify the means? We get to do anything we want? Anything at all if we have a good reason?”
Ben turns back, fuming. “No, but I am saying that some sacrifices are worthwhile.”
“And that’s what Dave was?” Klaus returns back, entirely unyielding. “He was a worthwhile sacrifice? You knew him, Ben. You knew him. You were there. Is that what he was?”
Ben draws an even, measured breath as he tones back his own temper. “I’m not saying it’s all perfect or that it all makes sense, and I’m not saying that Five was right about every choice he made,” he says, quieter now. “But you’re letting this ruin you. You’re letting this ruin the family, the whole Umbrella Academy. You’re willing to throw everything you’ve worked so hard to build because of this, and I think that’s wrong. I think it’s a mistake. Dave wouldn’t want this for you.”
Klaus bristles at that, stepping back once more. “Yeah, well, Dave probably didn’t want to be dead, either.”
“You conjured him,” Ben shoots back. “What did he say?”
“About dying?”
“Dying, life, you,” Ben says with a nod. “All of it.”
Honestly, it’s not something Klaus has thought about. He’d become so preoccupied with one question that he’d forgotten how many others he could ask. Conjuring Dave had been a means to an end, and he knew it. He hadn’t taken the time to embrace Dave, to tell him how much he loved him. In fact, he’s not sure he even said goodbye.
That’s honestly.
Klaus is strung out on drugs, however. As an addict, Klaus is never honest. In fact, lying is a necessary defense mechanism, and he’s really, really good at it after all these years.
He’s caught, though. Somewhere between a denial and acceptance, and he finds himself unable to reply.
Ben is not nearly as bold in his gloating as you might expect. Instead, he simply tips his head toward Klaus knowingly. “You should ask him,” he says. “No more of this debate. Let Dave tell us his opinion, right here, right now.”
Ben knows very well that that’s not possible, and the implication pisses Klaus off. He snarls a little. “Oh, please, like you know,” he mutters tersely. “Why don’t we just ask you. Do you want to be dead, brother dear? Do you like the fact that your life was ended violently at a young age? Hm?”
Klaus isn’t being kind now, but he doesn’t think that’s his fault. Ben’s the one who started this conversation. Ben’s the one who won’t leave this shit alone. Ben’s the one defending Five; Ben’s the one throwing around Dave’s name like he has some right to it.
It’s a good thing Ben isn’t corporeal or Klaus might try to throttle him, too.
He’s been high before; it doesn’t usually make him this murderous.
That seems like Five’s fault.
A lot of this seems like Five’s fault.
Everything seems like Five’s fault.
Ben, though, isn’t scared of Klaus. It could be because he’s a ghost, but it’s also probably because Ben has seen Klaus through everything. Hell, Ben probably remembers more of Klaus’ adult life than he does. And these days, Ben’s not able to hold physical form, but he sure as hell knows how to land a punch.
“Better dead than like this,” Ben says, gesturing to Klaus.
“Screw you,” Klaus retorts, because he’s out of clever things to say. He’s out of energy to try. He’s just out.
“Get sober and make me,” Ben says, almost taunting now.
Klaus laughs, and this time it sounds twisted and dark. “You know, I don’t think I need to,” he says. He smirks. “I’ve got another idea.”
He sees the split second of protest on Ben’s face as Klaus closes his eyes. His wits are still scattered from the drugs, but he’s got just enough coherency in him to gather his power. It feels dull and witless, but he doesn’t need much.
In fact, he doesn’t need any.
That’s the point.
He gathers the power, holds it as close as he can, feeling it burn in his chest, throb in his head, tingle down his spine. He holds it a moment more.
Then, with a willful force, he lets it go.
He expends it all, expels it.
And when he opens his eyes, he gasps for air, staring at an empty, lonely alleyway.
-o-
With Ben gone, there’s no one to stop him. Or, at least, there’s no one left to try.
It's not a distinction that matters to him, at least not anymore. He thinks maybe it did once, but he can’t be sure. Most distinctions don't matter much to him these days. How could they? Why should they?
He knows the broad strokes, the big picture, and that really seems pretty good enough. It works; it gets him through. He can't always remember, if he's honest, why he's so mad at Five, but he figures the details aren't important. All he knows, the one thing he remembers, after all the drugs, after all the drinks, after all the long nights of nothing, is that Dave isn't here.
And it's all Five's fault.
There’s no distinction between escape and addiction. There’s no distinction between pain and loss. There’s no distinction between stupid and scared.
There’s just the next hit.
And the next hit.
And the one after that.
Because there are a lot of problems Klaus will never be able to fix.
But the drugs, he decides, are quite a fix enough.