umbrellajackassery | 01: i spend too much time ghosting [ota]

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01: i spend too much time ghosting [ota]

In the name of avoiding everyone and everything until he had sorted out the chaos in his own head, Ben had gone into hiding.

He hadn't left or gone anywhere else, he could still feel that tether drawing him back here, but that was where it got messy. Ben had several truths in his world. Even death didn't stop the Horror. Being dead sucked. He knew where Klaus was.

He was sixteen when he died, just shy of seventeen. And ever since then, nearly half of his existence, he always knew where Klaus was. It was always just a thought and he was right near him, usually in the middle of whatever chaos Klaus had caused.

But there wasn't a Klaus.

He was sure he'd seen at least three by now. One of them was definitely not the Klaus he thought of as 'his', because he had a Ben with him, a living, smiling Ben. And he was fairly sure he'd seen another version of himself, silent and invisible and lurking in a corridor outside a door.

But he wasn't sure which one was his and it was overwhelming and frightening, in a way that the world hadn't been for him for a long time. Which was why he had decided to go to the place he hated most and he knew the others would mostly avoid.

He went to Sir's office and sat down in a corner on an antique chair that they never would have been allowed to touch. He sat and rubbed his stomach where the Horror roiled, unsettled by his own discomfort.

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"Six." He repeats it and then he stops, blinking at that. "Oh. Well shit," he says, shoving his hands in his pockets and staring at this guy... well trying to stare at him, given he's not really all there because, yeah dead.

"That's kind of crazy impressive," he says. "I mean, coming back from the dead. Lots of people have tried for centuries to do that."

He's still that pale, pale blue, hardly visible and whisper soft. He's shy. Always has been, and years of not being able to interact haven't helped.

"I'm not. I'm dead. Died years ago." He edges around the doorframe a little more. "My brother can conjure the dead, remember?"

He looks a bit sheepish then, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks away. "I didn't really look... I didn't read it all. Your all became famous about the time I learned what I could do and it was painful and it was shit and it ruined my life so I really didn't want to know about a bunch of kids who were making a life with their powers.

"I didn't even really think about it when I came here either," he admits. "I just... I felt I didn't have a choice. I had to be here," he says, shrugging, not sure what to think about that. "But sorry. I mean, that thoroughly sucks."

"We weren't making a life with our powers." That would imply they had any say in it. "Our father bought us to make a team of teenage superheroes."

Sir hadn't told them that to be cruel. That was the worst of it, his cruelty was sheer indifference to them.

He shrugs a little. "It's fine. Just weird being able to talk to people."

"I've been hiding mine my whole life," he says, shrugging. "People don't react well." Which he's guessing they've experienced as well, even with being made into superheroes.

He blinks at that. "My mom told me, when I asked, she convinced herself my birthday was a coincidence, but..." Again, that shrug, dropping down onto the couch and watching Ben.

"It caused by whatever it is that told me I needed to come here?"

Ben can't remember a time before the Horror. As a baby, he apparently fell from the changing table once and was caught by tentacles.

"No. Klaus is getting better at controlling his abilities." Klaus was sober and there were a lot of him and it seemed to be making it easier to be visible.

"Huh. How'd he manage that? It's taken me so much to find control. Most of it meaning I just have to do everything I can to not get angry. Which means I meditate so much I go Ooohhhmmm in my sleep," he admits with a snort.

"If you want to know about Klaus, you should ask Klaus." Klaus would lie and obfuscate and maybe sprinkle in the truth in outlandish ways.

He's of half a mind to warn the young man off sleeping with his brother, but really, it's not actually his place to police what klaus does, as tempting as it is.

"The secret to not getting angry is resignation."

"Yeah, that means making it clear I've basically snuck into this house to see what I can find out because everywhere I was I saw signs that I should be here," he says, making a face. "You were hiding in a giant chair," he points out as if that fixes thing.

"Resignation? Just say fuck it to everything? Yeah, haven't found that ability yet."

"Diego's in the kitchen with a random artist who turned up and wanted to talk about powers. I've seen three versions of one of my brothers walking around and there's a me somewhere here that isn't dead. No one will care."

All said with the same soft resignation. It just is how it is. "Give it time. I treated it like my panic attacks, you simply accept that you control nothing but how you choose to react and have no expectations of anything else. Of course, my guardian also encouraged me to murder people from my early teens, so my coping skills are probably questionable."

"Is the you who isn't dead whatever age you are, or are they thirty like the rest of us?" Because it is obvious Ben's the age he was, not their age. And hell, if he's going to answer questions, Warren is going to ask.

"Yeah well mine kind of took the rap for the damage I did, and it was years before I knew he wasn't my old man so..." Not admitting to the murders, even if Ben is talking about it. His was socially acceptable, criminals. Warren's were not.

"Didn't stay for a good look. Too busy being creeped out and fleeing back to Klaus." Klaus' horrors were familiar and mundane and they commiserated on being creeped out and sober.

"The people who love you and raise you are your parents. Reginald did neither for us, but he was our legal guardian." Grace did her best for them, so did Pogo. Poor, cowed Pogo, who felt he owed Reginald everything and could never stand up against the tyrant.

"Guess I'll just keep hoping I don't run into my doppelganger," he admits, not liking the idea. Not in the least. "Sorry you have to deal with it."

Because he is. It's weird, and kind of crazy, and no one should have to deal with it, but a bunch of them in this place do anyway.

"Not going so far to say he loves me, but he didn't let me go to prison," he points out. "So that says a lot."

"Hope you don't either. It's creepy. I think we're all avoiding each other with more success than most of of my siblings." Ben's a skulker. It's translated well. And undoubtedly, they're all pretty freaked out and uncomfortable with the idea of another them.

Another Horror.

"That's love of a kind. Love isn't always gentle or kind." Love was punching Klaus in the mouth to stop him getting high.

"Unlike the one siblings. Klaus, right? They like run around together. I've already noticed that," he admits, making a face. "I don't get it. I wouldn't do it," he admits.

"Yeah well this wasn't any of the above. I still live with it. I just didn't end up a pretty kid in prison," he says, shrugging, looking away.

"Some of them do." Ben's Klaus is intensely uncomfortable with it most of the time. Possibly because he's trying hard to stay clean.

"Meaning to kill them doesn't make it easier," Ben promises.

He's quiet a minute, thinking about that. He's not talked about it much, though around here he has been feeling things out, wondering. He considers Ben, the things he remembers when he read up on the family.

"But at least no one else took the rap and went to prison for what you did," he points out softly, shrugging as he looks away, patting his pocket until he finds his cigarettes. "Let me guess, can't smoke in here, huh?"

Ben considers this for a moment and then nods. "That's true. Because they were 'bad', no one really cared that much."

The cigarettes draw a snort from Ben. "Klaus does, mostly to spite Sir's rules of no smoking. I don't think anyone will care, except maybe Luther and I haven't seen him about."

He arches a brow at that. "Bad how? I mean, killed others?" He's trying to figure out when being super heroes means killing without a trial and all, but then he figures that is part of the things he's hearing about how messed up things were inside these walls.

"I mean... I guess?"

Ben's fading again, visibly, audibly, like he just doesn't want to do this. Or maybe, that he's lost the drive to interact for now.

"Sorry," he says, noticing how pale he is. "Working out things in my head. Sorry, not on you, man. I'll letcha be," he says, backing for the door.

Ben knows he's done something wrong.

He vanishes, fleeing back to the ether and then back to Klaus to calm himself down.

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01: i spend too much time ghosting [ota]

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