Chapter Text
Klaus had his arms wrapped around his body, shivering despite having sweat run down his chest and his back. He wanted to go home a take the longest bath in the history of baths. His hair felt wet, and he already knew that it was drenched in blood from the fatal hit to the head.
Ben kept stealing glances at Klaus as they were walking down the alleyway, small lights illuminating the way. He felt guilty for forcing Klaus to go after Luther, and Ben didn’t dare ask Klaus what happened after he fell. The silence was uncomfortable, and it stayed like that until they reached the mansion.
Klaus was clinging to the railing as he was walking up the steps to his room, almost falling on multiple occasions.
“Maybe you should tell someone Klaus,” Ben suggested.
Klaus shook his head lightly. “Nah 'm fine, just peachy. I just need to get a bath to wash the blood out my hair”. His words slurred together.
“What happened back there?” Ben asked, hesitantly.
Klaus let out a little laugh. “Well, Bennyboy, I met God! And then I talked to Dad, turns out the old bastard offed himself!”
Ben pursed his lips together, unsure what he should say. He decided to ask about Reginald before Klaus lost his train of thought. “Why would he do that?”
“He knew about the apocalypse. Ima have to tell everyone tomorrow, I want to bathe and go to bed.” Klaus slurred, rubbing his eyes.
Arriving to his room, Klaus grabbed a towel and a new pair of clothes before going to the bathroom. Peeling off his leather pants and his excessively colorful tank top, he turned the water nozzle to warm and let the tub fill up. He slowly lowered himself into the bath. The ghosts were surprisingly not as loud as they were earlier, and he laughed at the thought that the rave might have scared them off.
After washing out his hair multiple times, he got out of the bath and put on the new clothes. He retreated to his bedroom and curled into the blankets. He went to sleep and for the first time in forever, it was uninterrupted.
The next morning Klaus woke up surprisingly energized and early. His once white pillow was now a tinted rust color where his head was lying. He slipped on his tight stitch-up leather pants, along with his tie-dye crop top, complementing it with his cut army jacket.
He played with his dog tags a bit, he desperately missed Dave and wished he saw him last night when he died. Then he realized he hadn’t seen Luther since last night. He was a bit sad that Luther didn’t even check upon him, but realized that the ape-man was so ridiculously high that he probably didn’t even know that Klaus tried to save him, and meeting his demise in the process.
Klaus had remembered that he needed to call a family meeting because of last night. He knew that he had a bell stashed away in his room somewhere, and that would pair up just great with Luther’s massive hangover.
Grabbing the bell, he made his way out to the hallway.
“Wakey, wakey! Eggs and Bakey.” He sang, ringing the bell as loud as he could.
Luther immediately came shuffling out of his room, wearing nothing but his comforter around his waist. Klaus could really see the changes his body went through now, and it looked terrifying.
“Oh, there’s the man. Someone pulled a disappearing act last night.” Klaus said, trying not to sound bitter.
Klaus threw his hands out and plastered on a smile. “What mis-chief did you get into?”
“What? I didn’t.” Luther stuttered out.
“Oh, no?” Klaus paused. “Maybe I should ask her. Hello.” He waved to the girl lying in his bed. Luther closed the door as fast as he could as she started to wave back. “Oh, come on, don’t be so shy, big guy. You needed it!” He was trying to convince himself. He was not Luther’s responsibility, but it also wasn’t Klaus’ responsibility to go find Luther, either.
“Not a lot of ladies on the moon, I assume. And all that, pressure resting on those big, hairy, shoulders.”
Luther sighed. “Klaus, enough.”
Klaus then had a sudden realization. “Wait. Was this, like...Is this like, your first time?” Klaus' voice was down to a whisper at the last part. Luther shot him a guilty look. “No way!”
Klaus started twirling around. “Whoo! He popped his cherry!”
Luther gulped. “We are not having this discussion.”
Klaus gasped loudly. “Now you’re gonna have to marry her!”
“Would you keep your voice down?” Luther quickly retorted.
“Hey, you know, I remember my first…Oh, no I don’t.” Klaus replied.
Luther rolled his eyes. “Klaus,” He gritted through his teeth. “What is it?”
“What? Oh, the...Uh, important family business. Meet me downstairs, okay?” Klaus started walking until he turned around. “And, Luther. No dilly-dallying, all right? Chop, chop.”
Arriving at the kitchen, Klaus set out a mug at every chair, including Ben’s while he let the coffee brew. He also pulled out a chair for Ben, which the ghost happily sat in.
“Why are you setting me out a mug?” Ben asked.
Klaus shrugged, “Because I feel like it,”
He started to pour some coffee, and Luther came down wearing a black hoodie, with the hood up.
“Here we go, This’ll fix you up.” He said, pouring the coffee in the cup in front of Luther.
He filled up the cup in front of Ben, holding the pot’s lid on with his fingers. He then caught the glimpse of Five coming in with his blue pajamas and yanking the cup away from Luther as he went to go take a sip. Klaus filled up another cup for Luther and placed it in front of him.
As Five took a sip, he made a face. “Jesus. Who do I gotta kill to get a decent cup of coffee?”. The mug was placed on the table in front of him.
“Can we get started?” Luther mumbled, holding his head up with his hand.
“Anyone seen any of the others? Diego? Allison? No? All right, then, this is the closest thing to a quorum that we’re gonna get.” The metal spatula that Klaus was holding hit the table while he was talking.
Klaus took a deep breath. “All right listen up, there’s no easy way to say this so I’m just gonna spit it out…”
Ben crossed his arms. “This is a bad idea", which was then followed up by a “Yeah,”
“I conjured Dad last night.” He blurted out. Both siblings sitting before him looked intrigued.
Luther was the first to speak. “I thought you haven’t been able to conjure anyone in years.”
“Ah, yes, I know, but I’m sober. Ta-da.” Klaus countered with a wave of his hands. “I got clean, yesterday, to talk to someone special, and then ended up having this...conversation with dear old Daddy himself.”
Ben let out a sigh, as Luther shook his head. “Has anyone got some aspirin?” He asked, which Five quickly replied, “Top shelf, next to the crackers.”
Luther started to get up, “Hey, hey, hey. This is serious, guys, all right?” Klaus added. “This is what happened, I swear.”
Five rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. I’ll play. What did the old man have to say?”
“Well, he gave me the usual lecture about my appearance and my failures in life, yadda, yadda, yadda. Even the afterlife couldn’t soften a hardass like Dad, right? But he did mention something about his murder, or lack thereof, because…” Klaus was about to continue before Ben interrupted, “Wait for it.”
“Because he killed himself.”
Klaus looked down and both Luther and FIve scoffed. “We don’t have time for your games, Klaus.”
“I’m telling you the truth, Luther! Goddammit, why does no one ever believe me!”
Five asked a follow-up question but Klaus was already angrily fuming. He slammed down the spatula he was holding and walked out of the room. Ben followed quickly after him.
“I just don’t understand, I don’t! They ask me to do something and I go and do it and they don’t believe me!” Klaus ranted to Ben.
Every step that Klaus took down the hallway, the pictures and objects on the shelves that lined the walls fell.
“Klaus.” Ben started, trying to get his attention.
“Like I get it, I’m a no-good junkie and I always will be one but I am trying, and that asshole thinks I’m lying!”
“Klaus!”
“You know what he doesn’t understand? He doesn’t understand that I’m clean! There is so much great support in this one shithole family, am I right?”
“Klaus!” Ben yelled.
“What?” He asked, turning to him.
Ben pointed to all of the objects that were lying on the floor that was on the wall before.
Klaus’ mouth widened. “You did that.” Ben finalized.
“No, that’s impossible. Mom must be redecorating or something.”
As soon as Klaus reached his room, he threw off his jacket and shirt and decided to knit. The yarn kept getting all tangled up in his hands, though. He didn’t know what he was trying to make, but it was an old habit he used to calm down. A sudden bad feeling washed over him, and that definitely couldn’t have been a good thing.
Diego and Five came in not too long after that. “Get up, we’re going.”
“Where?” Klaus asked.
Five sighed. “To go get Allison and possibly save the world.”
“Oh, is that all? Great. You two have a lot of fun with that.”
Diego glared at him. “You’re going.”
Klaus shook his head. “You can’t make me.”
Diego didn’t hesitate reaching into his belt, pulling out a knife, and aiming for the wall that Klaus sitting up against. Except it didn’t reach there, as soon as the object came close to Klaus, it flung down to the ground and Diego stood there wide-eyed.
“What the fuck?” Diego asked and Klaus shrugged it off. Ben gave him an ‘I told you so’ look.
“We don’t have time for this! We have to go find Luther and get to Allison!” Five exclaimed. Klaus got up off the bed. He slid on his shirt and stretched, yawning in the process. He put on the closest shoes and followed them out the door. He wondered where Luther even went.
They found Luther in the bar, drunk out of his mind once again.
“Look.” Klaus pointed out.
“What is with this family and drinking problems,” Diego muttered.
Klaus walked up to the table Luther was sat at. “Trying a little hair of the dog, are we?”
“Leave me alone,” Luther wallowed.
Diego took a seat “Give us a minute,”
“Okay, come on. Maybe they’ll brood each other to death.” Klaus told Five, walking off to the side. Not even moments later Luther got up from his chair at the mention of Allison and started to run slanted out of the building. He quickly got into the backseat of the car, as Five got in the driver's seat, Klaus was in the passenger seat, and Diego was behind Klaus.
The distance to the cabin where Vanya was staying at was fairly far and would take them four or five hours to get there. Klaus was anxious the whole way, and about two hours into the drive, he was practically bouncing off the walls. Both of his sisters were potentially stuck at a house with a psychotic dickhead.
“Can you go any faster?” He begged.
Five snorted. “No, because if we get caught by the police, I’m a thirteen-year-old driving a car.”
“Five, listen. I have a really bad feeling. We need to get there, and we need to get there fast.”
“Don’t you think I know this? But there is nothing I can do.” Five responded.
“Let me drive,” Klaus told him.
Five huffed. “You’ve gotta be out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to let you drive.”
“Then can we step on it, please?”
“If we get caught it’s your fault.” Five replied, stepping on the gas.
Five didn’t speed up much, but he was going a bit faster nonetheless. As they got closer to their destination, Klaus’ bad feeling grew immensely.
Luther then spoke up. “Hey, Could you go any faster.”
Five didn’t even look away from the road, just dryly replied. “Ask me again, and I’ll burn you with the cigarette lighter.” Ben, who sat in the middle seat in the back, snorted.
“Five, burn rubber.” Klaus snapped.
“No.” He said with a roll of his eyes.
“Five, now!” Klaus demanded, his voice loud. As soon as the words left his mouth the car slightly swerved, as Five didn’t have control of the wheel.
“Jesus Five! Are you trying to kill us?” Diego asked.
Five went wide-eyed. “I swear I didn’t do it,” he replied, picking up speed.
Blood started to run from Klaus’ nose, and he wiped it away as he watched the trees out the window. He thought that maybe nobody saw it, but of course Ben did.
“Klaus? What happened to your nose?” He asked, and Klaus shrugged nonchalantly. Ben then realized it was Klaus who swerved the car by accident.
The rest of the car ride was dead silent, except for the occasional beeping of the turn signal.
They finally reached the cabin, and Klaus jumped out of the car before Five could even stop it. Everything around the cabin was moving crazily, crashing together. You could hear what seemed to be arguing coming from inside. His brothers followed right behind him until Luther took the upper hand and went first (because he was, ‘number one’).
As soon as Luther opened the door, everything seemed to be going in slow motion. Vanya had her violin bow in her hand, slashing it towards Allison. Klaus threw his hands out on instinct, causing the bow to go flying against the wall and the two sisters being knocked down. Klaus fell to the floor as well.
He was so confused as to what had just happened along with everybody else. Luther ran towards Allison to help her up and Diego and Five ran to Vanya to help her up.
Ben stared at his siblings in disbelief on how they just ignored Klaus.
“What? How?” Ben gestured wildly at his insensitive siblings.
Klaus sighed. “Don’t worry about it Bennyboy, some people don’t change and that’s okay. All that matters is that they’re all okay.” He said, closing his eyes and meeting darkness.