Chapter Text
The world spun. It collapsed. It concaved, and his chest did the same. Ghosts died, and were reborn, and he watched them die again. Fingers flirted with each other and slipped away. He reached back and found a wrist. There was a hand on his shoulder. His bones melted and broke and were glued back together again. God didn’t want him, and neither did the devil, and he’s died enough to prove that he can’t anymore.
He opened his eyes.
“Fuck,” someone said. He looked up, surprised his neck wasn’t broken, and stared into the face of his dead brother.
“Ben,” he said.
Bodies rose around him, groaning and moaning and it was hard to let go of whoever’s wrist he was holding onto.
“Klaus? You good?”
He wished he died when the world did. Oh, well.
“That was my third time time traveling!” Klaus exclaimed proudly, letting his hand unfurl from Diego’s arm to stretch. Luther was holding his blonde head in his hand, his shoulders slumped and his chest now back to its 15-year-old frame. Allison, her hair darker and wilder, was leaning against a tree that was removed long ago (or hasn’t been removed yet, Klaus mused), Vanya in her arms. She was staring at Ben, who was staring at Diego, who was staring right back at him. Five was unconscious in the grass.
“Morning all,” Klaus said with grin. He felt frail and fragile, like he how he feels when he received a slap from dad or when Luther took his anger out on him during sparring.
“Did it work?” Allison murmured aloud, eyes still fixated on Ben. His once-dead brother (apparently), reached out his left hand to brush against Klaus’s face.
“I don’t think that’s very reliable now,” Klaus blurted, and Ben split into a smile and choked out a laugh, and Klaus felt one building his ribs but his head hurt and his hands were no longer his ouija board salutations, his goodbyes. Ben reached out and touched Diego instead, and Diego laughed, and Ben kept laughing, and Luther smiled and Allison giggled as she pet Vanya’s hair and Klaus realized Dave’s dog tags were no longer on him.
“Shut up, will you,” Five grumbled. “God, it’s like I’m hungover.”
“Thank God you’re alive, Five,” Klaus said. “You were so pale I thought I’d have to be stuck with another brother for all eternity.”
Ben punched him in the arm then and lay back down on the grass. Klaus wondered if ghosts could feel the earth.
“You were being serious that whole time?” Diego, in his boy-like self but stutter-free, asked. Klaus scowled.
“No shit, Sherlock, don’t you know my power?”
In Vietnam, there were so many ghosts it was hard for Klaus to tell who were alive and who weren’t. “Jeez, I thought you’d be the one to believe me,” and he reached for a bottle that wasn’t there.
Diego fell silent and looked down at his hands, his skin outlined by their uniform sleeves. Klaus felt stiff. Sober. Dave’s dog-tags must’ve fell off around here somewhere, he just had to look.
“What do we do now?” came a whisper, the question none of them wanted to answer. It came from Allison, ever the resilient, fearful to test her voice. Her hand never left Vanya’s head. “Do we… train her? Will she even remember what happened? What do we tell dad?”
“Someone should go get her medication,” started Luther, rubbing his temples, and this small statement sparked outrage among their siblings which began another bout of Five complaining about their sound.
“Sorry, Five, we’ll let you sleep,” Diego murmured, glaring daggers (this was quite a funny pun, in Klaus’s mind) at Luther. Five mentioned something about Delores and Klaus felt a pang in his stomach.
“Aww -” Klaus grinned, hands clasped together at the sight of Five’s curled up body “- look at him. Such a cute little killing machine.” Oh, the ghosts he’ll see by his brother.
“Fuck off, Klaus.”
“We’re not locking her up,” Allison hissed and Luther spread his hands in shock.
“I never said anything about locking her up!” he exclaimed, rather loudly. Ben nudged him and put a finger to his lips, and his touch made Luther start.
“That’s what you’ll want to do, eventually, when you get scared of her again,” Diego whispered and rose to his feet - only to sway slightly and decide the ground was a better option at the moment. Allison nodded her approval. “Exactly,” she said. “We’ll… we’re gonna fix her. We’re gonna help her. We just need to make sure dad doesn’t find out, yeah?”
Klaus can feel the others nodding, can feel their bodies shifting around in the great green grass and can see Vanya stirring, but he focuses on his chipped nail polish. Light pink and black, the colors of poodle hoop skirts from the 50s. Dave was born in 1940. Maybe his mother wore those, or his sister, or his first girlfriend. Someone grabs his shoulder and he realizes that, with this new ability, the ghosts can touch him.
He looks up and sees Ben, Ben and his little uniform, Ben with his tousled black hair but always neater than Klaus’s. He missed Ben’s hoodie.
“You good?” he whispered, and Klaus smiled and got on his hands and knees.
“Have you seen those dog-tags around here anywhere? I must’ve dropped them coming through, or they fell off my neck or something.”
“Don’t be a dumbass, everything we had on in that timeline has now been reversed to what we have on now,” Five grumbled and Klaus stuck out his tongue.
“Yeah, but I was holding them. They should be around here.” He spotted something glint in the sun and realized it was a piece of glass, most likely from bottles he smashed at nighttime when he was a kid (he’s a kid now, Klaus realized).
“Alright, we better… we better get inside,” said Allison, right before Luther leaned over and vomited onto the lawn. Klaus let out a guffaw and slapped his mouth shut, his crinkled eyes gateways into how humorous he found his brother’s embarrassment. The ‘children’ all collectively groaned and scooted back from the stench, Allison pulling Vanya closer to her and Five demanding Diego drag him farther away.
“Sorry,” Luther groaned, eyes shut against the harsh summer sun.
“Don’t worry big brother,” Klaus snickered, holding his blazer to his nose, “it happens to the best of us.”
“I miss not being able to smell,” Ben snorted, and suddenly Klaus felt compelled to give him a hug, so he did, and he hugged him tight and tried to remember the last time he touched his brother while he was alive. Diego joined them, and then Luther despite Klaus’s comedic complaints, then Allison lay Vanya on the ground so that she could touch Ben, too, and say his name aloud, and Klaus called for Five to join them (who promptly gave them the middle finger), and then Vanya woke up.
“Wh -”
The arms broke away, the bodies slid under each other and Klaus imagined them as snakes, slithering towards their prey, and Vanya backed herself up against the tree and covered her face in her hands and screamed.
“Oh my God oh my God oh my God I didn’t mean to do it I didn’t mean to do it I’m sorry I’m sorry oh my God -”
“Shh,” Allison whispered, pulling Vanya’s fingers away from her eyes and Klaus wished that the earth would stop shaking, shaking, shaking -
“I’m so sorry,” Vanya sobbed, and her voice was to childish, too girlish, she reminded Klaus of the dead little girls he played with as a child, and he imagined Vanya to be like that - dead and empty and mourning and crying out for help. He couldn’t give her it.
He stayed back with Luther while the others gently explained to her what happened, told her they’re going to help, she won’t have to take those pills anymore (it would calm the ghosts in her mind, Klaus thought with a giggle), that father wouldn’t hurt her anymore (promise me that, too, please). She’d calmed down enough that only the branches of the tree above them shook and occasionally dropped their green leaves. Klaus watched one drift to the ground as Vanya tentatively reached out to touch Ben’s face.
“Ben,” she whispered. He cupped her hand in his.
“Hey, V,” he said back.
In an attempt to be sympathetic, Klaus pat Luther on the back. “It’s alright bud, she’ll get over it.”
“I just want to apologize,” his brother muttered, knees drawn up to his chest. “I didn’t - I didn’t mean to.”
Klaus didn’t answer. He just told Luther it wouldn’t be best for her to see him yet. Klaus didn’t like being the wise one for once (in truth, he didn’t think it was appropriate for Luther to be listening to him), but his forearms were itchy and he felt that if he scratched them enough he’d find drugs. A swing of alcohol. A fleeting kiss. God, he would always be this, a fucking junkie, an addict, a body they find in allies, his death only on the news because of his last name and because everyone expected him to end up this way. Fuck, he hated this place, he hated the stone and brick house that stood over them and the 10 by 10 backyard with the little tree and the shrubs that took up half the yard, hated how the grass withered and died every year and hated how he felt like if he tried hard enough, he’d see the ghosts of the flowers ever winter.
The door swung open. He hated that sound.
“Children!” Grace gasped, hurrying down the stairs. Her apron was pressed and her hair was perfect, and Klaus looked to see Diego’s eyes welling with tears. “What on earth are you doing out here? Your father will be back soon.”
“Mom,” Diego shouted and stood quickly, wobbling for a minute before stumbling over and wrapping himself around her waist. Grace laughed, as delighted and surprised as a robot could be, and rubbed his back. “I l-l-lo-love you,” he mumbled into her chest.
“Why, I love you too Diego,” she giggled. “But whatever are you all doing out here?”
“Resting,” came Five. “We’re tired.”
Grace sighed and gently pulled away from Diego, who watched after her like a hurt puppy. “I suppose your father has been training you all pretty hard recently, but he’d like it better if you rested inside. Come, take a nap and I’ll make you all a snack!”
With that, she twirled around and nearly floated after the steps, and they all stayed there - even Diego. But Klaus was tired, so he brought himself to his feet and drifted to the door.
“Klaus!” Allison hissed, loud enough for Klaus to look back over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I’m tired,” he said lamely and Ben locked eyes with him.
“Klaus,” he growled (the demons in his closet). His voice was warning, waning. “Don’t, okay?”
Klaus nodded. He was numb. He didn’t need anything else to help.
He went up the stairs and listened to his siblings bicker amongst themselves about how irresponsible he was, and he thought he heard Vanya lamenting on how heartbroken he looked when she was locked away, and he maybe heard Diego - or Ben? defending him, but his eyes were too heavy to contemplate any of this, so he just went to bed.
…
He woke to an alarm.
The sound was too familiar not to miss but still, after years and years of not hearing it he jerked awake, about to cuss off whoever pulled it, before he remembered where he was.
His walls were somewhat bare, a new coat of yellow paint covering his old poems, his thoughts, his conversations. He hid his posters under his bed before Grace painted it (at the demand of Sir Reginald Hargreeves) so that she wouldn’t report them. He knew she would never, but one of the ghosts advised him on it, and sometimes ghosts were right.
Still, Klaus was still Klaus, so he shouted fuck off! before falling back to sleep.
“Up, children, up! Another robbery on 16th street!” came the voice. “Number Four, out of bed this instant!”
“Sir, Number Seven and Three are feeling extremely under the weather today,” Luther was saying, “I will bring them to Mom for treatment.”
“Very well, Number One, and get Four out of his godforsaken room this instant.”
Klaus’s room was soundproof, he suddenly remembered. No one heard his curse. He waited until Luther threw open the door - exasperated and annoyed, before shouting it again.
“Shut up,” Luther growled. “Come on. He can’t know anything is wrong.”
“What about five?” Klaus mumbled, grabbing a bottle of advil and popping three pills. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine, and even if he wasn’t he’s too stubborn to miss out. Come on, Two and Six are waiting.”
Klaus scowled at that. Their names were Diego and Ben, thank you very much, and they sometimes asked if Klaus is okay, and Klaus believed that that deserves calling them by their real names.
Groggily, Klaus stumbled out in half his uniform (without any shoes, as he preferred it that way) and met his brothers at the door. He earned a flick to the back of the head from daddy dear before he briefed them on the situation: it was a very busy morning at the bank, just like it was on the first mission when they were revealed to the public; the gunners had run in, killed five hostages already - including a couple of the tellers - and was threatening to kill off another every twenty minutes if their demands weren’t met and they weren’t guaranteed a safe way out of there.
“Better to kill them,” Reginald said, very matter of fact. “Six, stop that shaking this instant. One, lead them on.”
Klaus hold onto Ben as they exited - the poor boy hadn’t been in the field in years (then again, neither had Klaus) and obviously wasn’t excited to unleash “his horror.”
“It’ll be okay,” Klaus murmured and Ben stiffened, as if he knew Klaus didn’t believe his own words. “They won’t make you do anything.”
“I can’t control them.”
“I know.”
Klaus, when they got there, was the distraction. Beforehand, Luther and Diego filled him in on the situation with Vanya and Allison; their sisters would be “sick” for a while, so they could figure out strategies to just calm Vanya down, figure out how to switch her pills, how to control what’s inside her just a little more.
Klaus stayed in the back of the bank, near the vault which was supposed to be empty, according to Five - who, apparently, could barely walk but was still fighting (what a tough little 58 year old). He was to make sure no one escaped through there. That was fine. It was a nice, easy, pleasant job, something he’s used to, something he’s content with. He scratched at his nails as he waited, sitting, against a wall. The sounds of the fighting continued, dimmed by the thick walls of the vault. He contemplated snatching a few hundred bills - no, not for drugs, he would tell Ben if he was with him, but he liked saving up money for new posters, doughnuts, things like that. No, Ben, not alcohol either. Not even weed. I promised you, Ben, I’m staying clean! I’m staying sober, for you! Then again, I don’t need to be sober to see you clearly anymore, but I promise you! I promised myself! Maybe I’ll even see Dave again, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? It’d be weird though, I’m just a child. No, Ben, just for doughnuts -
“Hey! What are you doing here! Get with the others!”
Klaus looked up, looked at the man staring at him through the door and for a second wondered if he was a ghost or not. There were tons roaming around when he entered; the gunmen had been busy. He saw a couple children. He did not respect these gunmen.
“Oh!” Klaus shouted. “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry. Uh, the leader put me here. I don’t know, I think I’m bait or something, heh.”
The man narrowed his bushy eyebrows and shouldered his rifle (thank God, though Klaus didn’t fear getting killed at that moment), leaned forward and grabbed his collar.
“Watch it!” Klaus snapped, struggling against him. God, he was even weaker as a child. “I could charge you for this! This is assault.”
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll kill you,” said the man, his stubble raking across Klaus’s chin as he leaned in to give his message. He reminded Klaus of Dave, for some reason. Maybe it was the way he shoved the gun against Klaus’s temple, but Dave would never shove him forward so violently.
Klaus thought about his options here. He wouldn’t be able to take on the man himself - he’s too small, too weak, too skinny and too pale and the man knew this. There was no way Klaus could just ‘summon a ghost,’ like he did with Ben a couple nights ago (fourteen, fifteen years in the future, though?), but he also wouldn’t like being dragged out in the middle of the bank lobby to be humiliated in front of his brothers. Not that he cared, of course, but he really wanted that couple hundred bucks.
Perhaps he could - ah, yes, kick the guy in the dick, grab the gun before it goes off - yeah, he’ll try that. He did. The gun went off earlier, diverting the attention from the main fight off to the back.
“Klaus!” someone shouted.
“Christ, you’re one of them!” the man he was now piggy-backing cried. “Fucking freak! Get off of me!”
He grappled with his gun, trying to reach up to shoot Klaus - but in doing so would shoot himself, so he resorted to smashing Klaus’s body against the marble wall. “You motherfucking bastard! Get off me! Aghhh!”
Twelve people circled around Klaus, each with gunshot wounds to the head. They killed them execution style.
“I’m sorry,” Klaus said to the ghosts, and they realized that he could see them and they flocked closer. Fuck, Klaus thought to himself. That wasn’t really the outcome he wanted. There was blood on his fingernails now, too; he’d have to repaint them. Blood always leaves a stain on this type of polish.
Klaus dug his elbow into the guy’s neck, briefly stopping the periodical smashing, and continued to dig his fingers into the guy’s face, his eyes, his mouth, his nose, disgusting himself in the process but he could’ve been the one to kill the 12-year-old girl standing in front of him holding her little sister’s hand.
A knife slashed through the man’s neck and the two of them dropped to the ground.
“We told you to stay put!” Diego seethed, and Klaus could still feel the barrel of the gun against his head.
“Help,” said the girl and her sister, and the others repeated the mantra, and they knew his name and they screeched it, and Klaus stumbled back to the vault finally doing what he was told but mainly because he was afraid the ghosts could touch him now. He felt one of their fingers brush against his forearm and he screamed.
…
They killed the rest of the gunmen. Ben didn’t have to fight like Reginald used to make him do. He fought with his combat skills alone, which was quite enough. Klaus was busy scratching his arm and staring at the ghosts of the gunmen, shouting, shouting, shouting. They reached for him and reached for their guns and Klaus wondered what would happen if they could pull the trigger. Who would they shoot first?
“Come on Klaus,” Ben sighed, grabbing him by the collar like that man did and pulling him to his feet. “Come on.”
Klaus nodded, silent, because he knew that if he acknowledged the demons it’d only enrage them more.
“Severely disappointed in you, Number Four,” said their father when they approached him in the alleyway. The public knew this was an act of the Umbrella Academy but they weren’t doing press that day. “Phenomenal job, One, Two, Six - I see you failed to unleash the horror. We’ll work on that. Come, let’s get home.”
Sometimes, ghosts followed him home. One did, that day, the one whose neck was slashed and eyes gouged out. He waited in Klaus’s room for him to return to dinner, and no one heard him crying because his room was soundproofed and he was crying out for Dave, who probably couldn’t hear him either.