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

Entry tags:

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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alexis was one of those random people in the house, though she wasn't staying there like some of the others, she had somewhere else to actually stay, but that didn't mean she wasn't visiting as often as possible, often at odd hours and for irregular amounts of time. Which was probably the only reason she hadn't heard what had happened.

As often as not she looked like some full-grown, six-foot-four Pippi Longstocking, red hair tied back in a loose braid or just held out of her face with a knotted bandanna, sometimes both, wearing workboots and jeans that were more utility than fashion, the same way the unbuttoned flannel layered over two different tank tops was.

It was late in the evening, after regular dinner hours, but not yet into late hours, and she had a tarp rolled out across the kitchen table -to make cleanup easier- while she repotted and tended to almost a full pallet of seedlings she'd rescued from the hardware store when she became aware of her audience, "They don't bite. You can help if you don't mind getting your hands dirty."

He's stood in the doorway, just watching her for a long moment, quiet and chewing on the nail of one thumb. He doesn't even know her name, or anything about her. He's just seen her in passing a couple times. He blinks when she addresses him, his gaze sweeping up to her face. "Oh- uh... no, I- I'd probably fuck it up." Like everything else he touches.

"What are they, though?" he asks quietly with the kind of passing interest that only someone who really needs a distraction can hold. He steps properly into the room and comes to stand on the other side of the table, staring down at the mess on the table.

"Tomatoes mostly, though there's some flowers and some herbs in there too, and believe me, you wouldn't be able to fuck them up any worse than the hardware store did." She shook her head, "They should stick to hardware and leave the plants to the professionals."

She smiled up at him then, expression a little wry, apparently having realized she was on the cusp of a rant to a veritable stranger, "I'm Alexis, by the by. Feel free to shorten it, most people do."

It was a simple process, really, and she did it with a practiced ease, scooping a little bit of potting soil out of a bag with a cupcake-wrapper sized peat pot, sliding the seedling in question out of its section of the four or six pack plastic it was in and settling it into the new pot with another sprinkle of dirt to cover any exposed roots and hold it upright and then moving it to a tray with the others for later planting outside.

She offered over a stack of the peat pots, "Here, you can do the easy part, fill those about halfway"

"Why're they sellin' this stuff at a hardware store anyway?" That hardly made any sense to him at all, if he's honest.

He stands there awkwardly watching her work for a moment before she pushes some of it over to him and suggests he can absolutely do some of this. "Okay..." At least it gave him something to do with his hands instead of nervously fidgeting with his own fingers. "I don't think your name is long enough to bother shortening-- I mean, I can think of at least five different nicknames out of it, but it seems redundant with a short name." he shrugs a little.

"You'd be surprised, three whole syllables is apparently too many for some people." She shrugged, crinkling the cups on the next set of plants to loosen them a little and make them easier to transplant, "And I don't know, I never know, especially when they don't actually have a plants and nursery section and just have these poor things out in a rack out front, usually out in the sun with not enough water. Just trying to reach a wider audience or make a couple extra dollars, I guess."

Which in this case they definitely had, because botanical avenger she may be, but she wasn't about to get a store clerk in trouble by just walking off with a rack of plants.

The plants she was working with had twined a thready tendril around the fingers she was holding onto the container with, which made her laugh, "Ah, green beans." She gave those fingers a gentle wiggle, to dislodge without tearing or uprooting whole, "C'mon guys. You have to let go so we can get you somewhere to stretch out, okay?"

"People are dumb." it's the most automatic reaction he has to almost anything about people, as a whole. How unfortunate that the general population only continues to prove him right on that score. "Guess so," he mutters, shrugging a little. He doesn't really care about this. Conversation. Filling these pots with soil. It's just something to do, to not be lost in his own head, or be by himself.

"You're talking to the plants?" He can't help the little smirk that tugs up one corner of his mouth. It's kind of amusing.

"Of course I am." She replied, matter-of-fact, "Someone should, and since I speak their language, it might as well be me."

She slid one of the filled pots over so that she could move the plant -still clinging to her hand- into it, fingers pressing down into the dirt, "Here, watch this." Her brow creased a little in concentration, and then like some kind of time-lapse video of a plant growing, the bean sprout did just that, uncurling from her fingers and growing rapidly to about a half-foot tall plant, leaves popping open all along it and stopping only when the clusters of buds that would be flowers and later actual green beans started to form, "That one's going to need something to climb before the rest of them do, now, but that's alright."

Klaus isn't sure why he didn't assume that she must be one of them if she was hanging around the house in any capacity, but-- well, it makes sense, he supposes.

His eyes widen a little as he watches her push the sprout further into it's vegetation. "That's pretty cool." He admits with a small smile.

She grinned as she set the plant aside with the others, "You think that's cool, watch this." She chirped, squeaking the way one would to get a cat's attention, the sound returned from under the table, followed shortly there after by a sound not unlike a gecko's feet sticking and unsticking from the table leg. A tendril that looked more like a thick ivy vine than it did the bean sprout, though leaf-less, stretched up over the edge of the table like a periscope, swaying from side to side before sliding out across the table itself, followed by a volleyball sized lump of what was apparently moss.

It looked like a much larger version of a Marimo moss ball, if someone had managed to breed one with shorter 'fur' and three vine-like tendrils, though those quickly retracted into the mass once it was up on the table itself, rolling back and forth briefly and bubbling in what was apparently contentment, sounding just a little bit like oatmeal simmering, "Meet Bob." She tapped it lightly, "Say hello, Bob." One of those tendrils re-emerged, seemingly cautious, but the whole mass shifted towards Klaus slightly, as if extending that vine for a handshake.

He perks a brow and just... watches her for a long moment, not entirely sure what she was about to do or pull out of her metaphorical hat, here.

Apparently, it was a moss-blob named Bob.

He blinks and tilts his head, but offers his hand for a shake with the vibe. "'sup, Bob? I'm Klaus."

Before Klaus could actually connect, Bob slurped the tendril back in again, making a sound more than a little like someone sucking up the last few drops of a milkshake, followed by a cartoonish sad trombone sound.

Alexis stifled a laugh, shaking her head, "We're, uh, we're still working on when 'down low, too slow' is appropriate."

At first, his eyes widen and he watches the display from the blobby plant before Alexis explains and he laughs, "Snarky little greenery, you got there."

"Yeah, it's because he takes after his mom." She replied with another smile, "It's just that he's still learning, and I figure the only way he's going to do that is if I let him interact with other people."

She gave Bob another pat even as one of those vines slid into the bag of potting soil to gather a clump, not retracting as the first had done, but making muted Cookie Monster noises as it stuffed the dirt into a nonexistent mouth, though it did disappear as if it had been eaten, "He's mostly lichen, but I know they stuffed more in him, I just haven't been able to figure out what, don't figure it really matters much as long as he's happy."

"Yeah..." He tips his head a little to one side. "I guess that's true."

He watches, a little amused, as the animated plant seems to start munching on the dirt. "Oh... okay." He doesn't know what type of plant that makes-- it? him? she said he, right... actually, "How do you know it's a boy?" Is that weird? It feels like a really weird question to ask about a plant.

"Well, most plants do have genders, which sounds weird, but it's true, some bloom some pollinate, it's a whole thing. It's why bees and other insects are so important, because they'll carry the pollen from the pollinators to the blossoms and that's how we get more plants."

She shook her head even as she continued re-potting the rest of the seedlings in the tray, "Problem is, he's mostly lichen, and lichens and mosses don't usually have genders the same way other plants do? So, I'm mostly guessing, and he hasn't ever called me on it or corrected me, so I guess I was right the first time? But maybe it's like people who think all dogs are boys and all cats are girls."

A crooked smile came next, "So short answer, I don't know, I just guessed and stuck with it."

"Oh." He blinks as he takes in all of that information. "I guess I didn't pay that much attention in science." He shrugs and wanders away from the table to first rinse his hands off, and then start rummaging through the fridge for something to eat.

He grabs a couple of containers of various leftovers and sets them on the counter, dropping bird-like helpings of about four different things that had been part of dinner earlier when Mom had made it onto a plate to pop in the microwave. "So, is there other stuff you can do with your powers?" he asks, one hip leaned against the counter as he waits on his food.

Her head tilted a little, "Besides being able to make plants do what I want them to? Bloom and fruit out of season or away from their natural biome. I can make them grow at hundreds of times their normal rate, or even size." She nodded towards the one bean plant she'd already grown, "I can go full Jack and the Beanstalk as far as size goes, but mostly I do bonsai? Even for plants that shouldn't be able to survive that small."

A thoughtful sound, petting Bob as if he were a cat even as he continued munching happily on the potting soil, "If a plant's sick I can tell if it's dehydration or too much water, or rot or mites."

"That's pretty cool." He nods along to her explanation. "Could you, like-- weaponize them? I mean, if you had to or something." He's an avid comics reader, excuse his crudeness and lack of sensitivity toward plants, Alexis. "Do you talk to them? I mean, like-- do they tell you things when something's wrong or is it kind of an inherent sense about it?"

"Bob's the only one that really 'talks' and he's more like a parrot. It's mostly just a sense thing." She agreed, though her smile tilted as she flicked her fingers, causing one of the tendrils of the bean plant she'd just accelerated to snap like a bullwhip across the top of the table. It didn't have quite the same crack to it, but it was definitely at a velocity that would hurt if it hit someone.

"And have you seen the kind of damage tree roots can do to, let's just say sewer pipes or building foundations? Imagine what could happen if someone with my skill had blueprints or building plans. I mean, even just regular climbing ivy or roses, those will destroy brick and mortar on their own, but with some kind of direction? Some real mass behind them? It's less of a knife in the dark kind of weapon and more of a grenade, but it's doable. Not to mention how many plants are toxic to humans even just via touch."

"Weird," he mutters at the idea of talking plants, but his eyes widen a little at the snap of the vine before a grin breaks out across his face. "That's pretty cool." he says, pointing at the vine and giving Alexis a nod.

Bob, still giving the impression of having his mouth full despite not actually having a mouth, chirped: "Weird." Right back at him, hopping back from the bag of potting soil with another: "Weird!" It was only a moment before the moss ball was bouncing around in tiny circles, waving all three of its vines back and forth like some miniature Bellagio fountain display, just sing-songing 'weird' at different cadences.

Alexis, for her part, had to press a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing outright, though her shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter, especially when Bob finished this dance by flattening a little, all three of those vines pointed in Klaus' direction, a small loop in the end of each as if giving some sort of triple thumbs-up, without the thumbs, finishing with a warble of: "Pretty cool."

Alexis still had her hand over her mouth, though the actual laughter had died down, lifting the hand away in a 'there you go' sort of gesture, "Sounds like approval to me."

Klaus' eyes widen and his eyebrows arch as he watches Bob the moss blob dance and sing the word 'weird' over and over. He has no idea how it-- he?-- can talk, but it's kind of amazing. He laughs a little as he gets the vine-equivalent of a thumbs up. "That's amazing."

"Just like a parrot." She said, smiling again, "Sometimes repeats things he hears, usually it's just sound effects, but sometimes he'll find a word he likes."

She went about picking up another tray of seedlings to start on re-potting them, "For all I know he might actually have some parrot genes in there, he was made in a lab." This statement got a drawn-out raspberry out of Bob, his opinion on said lab clear enough.

"In a lab?" He perks a brow. "So, wait-- is he supposed to be this, uh-- animated? I thought that was you, it is, right? Or..." Is there some shady government science bullshit going on somewhere to make plants sentient?!

"Not anymore they're not." She replied, utterly matter of fact, "And I don't think they were actually doing it for more than just the one. He was supposed to keep me from trying to escape again. Which, uh, obviously didn't work."

She shook her head, "But no, he's actually one plant I can't control, though I can still understand him the same way I can with the others. So even if he's not feeling talkative I'll still know if something's going on with him." And often that was her first clue.

(no subject)

ghostphone - 2019-06-24 18:24 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only