{I'm not afraid of the dark, perhaps that's part of the problem

[ghostphone]

Options in the comments. Not looking for much thread-jacking on this one, because they're going to be heavy-handed and in need of narrower focus.
CWs: drug abuse, overdose, anxiety/depression descriptions, potential suicidal ideation

For all of everything that stays completely unpredictable in Klaus Hargreeves' life, the one thing he can count on like clockwork is that he will always have some curveball or another thrown at him. Anything like a steady state of affairs and he might get concerned because that would mean the other shoe is about to drop.

And it did, a week ago, when one of his older doppelgangers told him that Ben is dead, has been, for years, and that it was probably happening any time if-when he ever got sent back to the right place. It happened again about five days ago, when Dad showed up. When one of the Vanyas explained something about an Apocalypse that was coming in his future. One that was caused and created by his own family.

For a week, he's kept largely to himself. Quiet, reserved, a harsh snap of a callback to those moments when he was younger and less accustomed to being locked in a crypt. How much he always isolated himself when his training was front-and-center in Dad's schedule. He hasn't left his room for much except an occasional trip downstairs for food, preferring to stay locked away, hiding-- under blankets, on the floor between the bed and the wall with a marker tucked between his teeth as he scribbles something new along with the faded ink from years past, wherever feels the most appropriate in the moment.

But tonight... he can't take the pressure of these walls caging him in any more. Staying one more minute in the bones of this house is too much to ask. He can't breathe here, and he needs to find somewhere with new air.

Once he's dressed--easy and casual, t-shirt, black jeans, converse sneakers-- he slips out of the house with an expert sort of ease, with no doubt no one saw him or would even notice he'd disappeared.

-----

Things may not be exactly identical in the city as the year Klaus had come from, but the truth is, as much that had changed had also stayed the same, and Klaus finds his way into a club with relative ease. Once inside, he wastes no time in flirting his way into a few drinks, and the night will only get more wild from there.

He finds friends everywhere he goes, and more importantly, they're the kind of friends that party and they're the kind that like to share whatever they're partying with. These three college kids that Klaus has followed back to a hotel room are so his kind of people. Chatty and touchy and the blonde boy keeps kissing him and Klaus really can't hate anything about this night.

Drinks continue being poured, blunts passed around in illogical rotations as they spread out across the room, lines of coke are inhaled from tabletops and mirrors. Klaus has nearly forgotten about everything that he's learned this week and his head is fuzzy and his vision is spinny, so he collapses against the bed in the hotel room next to Blondie, grin wide and sloppy on his lips. "Hi, Pretty." he mumbles, digging his fingers into the older boy's hair with one hand while gripping a fist full of his shirt with the other, to give himself the leverage to roll on top of him as Klaus kisses him.

Comments

[ghostphone]

"I guess." He mumbles, taking another bite of his food. But it feels like so much more than 'we don't do Thanksgiving', especially with words like 'lose touch' and 'scatter' thrown into the explanation. Like once they leave the Academy, they have nothing left to hold them together. He blinks back the tears that try to spill and is just glad that, for once, they don't spill in spite of him when he tries.

He gives a tired, sad quirk of his lips that doesn't really quite make its way to becoming a true smile at the squeeze on his neck again. He appreciates everything he's done- is doing- right now, even if a lot of it feels too heavy, too big to hold.

A silence that he hates--because Klaus hates most, if not all, silences--draws on for several long, intertwined moments. Mostly, he focuses on eating and at least that gives him a reason not to be talking, which he can deal with better than being quiet for the sake of it. But eventually, he has to say something, anything at all, to fill it-- even if he knows the question resting on the edge of his tongue is not going to do anything to make this conversation lighter or smaller.

With his forehead resting in the hollow of his fingers--elbows propped on the table, fingers laced, thumbs almost steepled on either of his temple--Klaus tilts his head to the side to give his doppelganger a sidelong glance, chewing on his lip before finally trying to speak. "You said...that eventually you kind of... stopped caring if you died, right? Does- does that mean... I mean--" His haze drops and his palms press against his eyes.

How do you actively ask someone if they're suicidal?

[substances]

It's an awkward silence, and that's not Klaus' favourite either. There's a lot of heaviness hanging between them in the quiet, while the kid eats and Klaus turns his attention to the waffles. His appetite's pretty much gone, but he forges ahead anyway, scoops up a forkful of straight whipped cream and puts it in his mouth, then cuts down through waffles and strawberries with the side of the fork and follows the whipped cream with it. He manages two more bites before he's feeling full and just pushing soggy strawberries around the plate with his fork.

Thankfully, the kid saves him from continuing to pretend to eat by asking a question, and it only takes a second to realize that answering it is going to be somehow even more complicated and difficult than this whole situation has been so far.

With a deep sigh, Klaus closes his eyes and rubs at the lids with his fingertips, and makes a soft 'mm' in his throat.

"It's easy to stop caring about things when you're high or coming down. Even things like dying." He pauses, looks over at the kid, "But that's not what you're asking, is it?"

[ghostphone]

He knows it's hard and heavy and a lot and would absolutely understand if Klaus didn't actually want to talk about it at all. Who could blame him, really? He doesn't really want to talk about it either, but this whole ordeal has shaken him up pretty hard. Who better to talk to about it than an older version of himself?

He shakes his head slowly, managing to whisper, "No..." But before he gets the wrong idea--or maybe it's the right idea and he just keeps trying to classify it differently to make himself feel better--he adds, "It's not that-- I mean, I don't really... want to die. That's- that's not what happened, I swear, it was an accident, but..." he fidgets with his fingers in nervous habit after trying to qualify the point he was making. "I don't know, it's just like... dying scares me and that really isn't what I want, but at the same time, maybe sometimes just not existing would be good." He glances over at the older man, "I- does that make sense? It's not the same, to me, it's different."

[substances]

"Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah....that's. It makes sense."

Klaus' voice is soft and a little distant, and he keeps his eyes on his plate of food. It does make sense, what the kid says. That there's a difference between wanting to be dead and wanting to just get away from your life. To not exist. Isn't that where the drug problem started?

He laughs softly, a little helplessly, closes his eyes and rests his elbow on the table, rubs at his eyes with his fingers.

"You just wanna live like a normal person, right? To just shut them down and make them go away and...that's why we started drugs, isn't it? Trying to escape. I get it. I don't want to die either, and now that I'm sober it's..." A pause, "It's hard, dealing with corpses, but it's not as hard now as it was when I was your age."

Another pause, another laugh, "Wow, I sound like an old guy. Wow. Anyway, without dear old Papa flinging us into crypts and having Ben around all the time, it's a lot less of a pain in the ass. Not easy, but not total shit either."

[ghostphone]

"Sometimes, yeah," he admits with a little nod at the question about being normal. "But-- I dunno, sometimes it's like...more than that. Like... I just don't even wanna be here. I don't wanna die, but... I don't wanna be here. I don't wanna do anything or be anybody at all. I just... I just wanna disappear for awhile." The drugs really, really do help with that a lot, if he's honest. He doesn't have to be himself, or anyone-or-anything when he's high. He can lose everything about who he is in those moments and it's so freeing. That may be more addictive than the drugs themselves, sometimes. "You are an old guy." His lips twitch the tiniest bit, unable to take a potshot when it's presented, despite the gravity of what they're discussing. It settles though, in seconds, any hint of smirk or smile faded like it had never existed at all. "When you left home... did he leave you alone? Dad, I mean."