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

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{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.

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Klaus was on some sort of drifting auto-pilot on his way through the halls in the house. He wasn't really paying attention to where he was wandering, or where he stopped, until he gets noticed or called out. He blinks and stares at Hela, rolling his shoulders in a nearly lifeless sort of shrug. "Nearly dying does that, I guess." He says it so plainly that it almost seems like he's unphased by it-- except that Klaus is normally enough personality to fill a hotel suite all on his own, and all of that is just... more than muted, it just seems gone in the boy in front of her.

"...I beg your pardon?" Two words, those two words have the tipsy lassitude of her earlier lounging fizzle away like mist before the sun, tension locking up her spine and jaw as she jerks herself upright to stare at him. He's always had expressive eyes, did Klaus, all the more so when he was younger. Seeing him at this age and so...muted. So flat, the deadpan thousand-yard stare of someone that knows horrible things?

Didn't suit him. It isn't something she'd ever expected to see on any of her siblings, let alone Klaus. "Who am I murdering?" It's knee jerk and immediate, for all her casual contempt of the Academy, her disgust of Reginald- her siblings she cares for in her own abrasive way. Such as rolling to her feet, dagger flowing into life in one hand, eyes flitting behind Klaus like someone else was watching and waiting or would provide answers. Either would be appropriate.

He can feel it in the air like electricity charging the entire room when her demeanor shifts. It's always been that way with Hela, her anger is this just-nearly-tangible thing, always burning bright and hot and ready under the surface. Most of the time, it's not that bad, it's almost just nice to feel that kind of white-hot protection in your corner. But right now, as it is, it's almost too much to deal with for him.

"Me, I guess," he says flippantly, moving properly into the room and dropping down onto the first surface he can fit on to sit leaned back on his arms. "I overdosed the other night." he admits quietly, a hot, dark shame shadowing his eyes as well as his words.

"What." Flat, furious, frustrated- the trifecta that usually serves as a warning of a lit fuse before the inevitable explosion but there's no one here to stab, no figure to rage at, no bone and flesh to rend until her anger has burned away clean. Only a too quiet sibling that's too young for so much of what's on his shoulders, an inability to talk to him (she's never known what to say, what to do), and the truth laid bare with all his usual nonchalance.

For a moment rage flares bright, roiling in her gut with vodka and visceral intent- the grip around her obsidian blade going tight enough to shatter in one pained instant before she swallows it down.

Not a problem she can stab.

Dismissing the remnants of her weapon Hela drops to Klaus' level, one hand on the sofa behind him, eyes flicking over his face, taking him in. "I suppose..."

She's- not good at this. She's never been good at this. "I'm not killing you. You're not allowed to kill you either." That's not useful. She rocks back onto her heels, smoothing her hair out of her face with a grimace. "You don't feel like you should be alone."

Not a question. That's- understandable. That she can get her head around.

She drops down to his level and gets so close it's almost unnerving-- Hela had that effect, sometimes-- but her words, however awkward she may feel in giving them at all, only make tears spring hot and sharp to the edges of his eyes. "I wasn't trying to." That counts for something, right? It was absolutely accidental and not anything like an intention that he'd set out for.

He shakes his head a little, "No... I mean, less... shouldn't be alone more... super don't wanna be? Not like-- I think I'm do it again or something, but... just--" he shrugs and fidgets with his fingers.

"Of course you weren't. If you meant it, you'd make it stick." As much shit as their father piled on Klaus every hour of every day in their youth- if Klaus truly wanted something to happen, if he really wanted to do something? It would be done come hell or high water. Why people overlooked this in him Hela never understood.

Buying into the casual mask must be simple, she supposes.

Gentleness isn't something she's skilled in, nor comfort, nor kindness- but she reaches out all the same, hand dropping to his shoulder, her other smoothing through his hair. A soothing stroke. "It's easier to think about it if you're by yourself. I know."

A beat as she considers for a long moment whether or not she should...

"I've been there."

"I-- I don't think...that's as comforting as you thought it would be?" He frowns and cants his head slightly to one side as he considers it. "But... yeah. I mean, I guess...that's true. And...I mean, sometimes I think that not existing would be kinda great sometimes, because it's just- it's hard and it's always been hard and it's always gonna be, and I'm really not sure it's ever gonna get better, but-- I don't want to die." He hates how broken his voice is, but it's a constant for the moment, he can't stop the odd catches in his words.

He doesn't mind the touches to his shoulder and her fingers in his hair-- Klaus has always been the kind of person to get comfort out of touch above just about anything else, so he leans into that easy, soothing stroke tangling in his curls.

"...really?" He bites his lip and looks up at her, not sure if he should press any further than that.

"I'm not anyone's first choice for support and comfort, Kitten." She sighs, ruffling his curls. It's an unfortunate spiral and, honestly? She ought to be less surprised something set him off. What's happened, Reginald showing up again- someone should have been watching him. With him. Making the mental adjustment to mind her siblings as she had her men will take a little more effort for some but- for Klaus? It's easy.

As easy as it is likely difficult to see her, indomitable, unrepentant, viciously alive standing against anything she puts herself in front of without fear or shame- and consider she's had a similar moment.

"First month in Solitary. I didn't have anything but my own thoughts and they weren't terribly kind." Hela rolls back to her feet, slumping into the sofa next to him, arm casually hooked around his shoulder. "Having something to focus on makes it easier to ignore. Finding a semi-permanent distraction."

He wastes no time sinking against her side, this tiny, gangly thing that's all limbs and no bulk who fits rather easily next to her this way. He's always felt younger than most of the Hargreeves children, and now he is, and it feels right, somehow. And it's so easy to let them all crowd around and pay attention to him, even if he'd really rather the reason they were doing so not be the one that it is.

"What did you pick to focus on?" he asks quietly, curious.

"Revenge." A beat. "Not terribly healthy but show me one of us that says they've got a healthy means of coping and I'll show you a liar."

This is easier. Talking idly, petting his hair, holding him against her side where she can feel the flutter of his pulse warm and alive through her stolen shirt. Nothing and no one is allowed to kill her siblings, including themselves. Ben she'd failed- or hadn't she? It seems complicated.

"I'm still trying to follow the money, find where it went wrong. And knitting." It reminded her of home, a little. In one of the rare ways that wasn't terrible.

He laughs a little at that, "Yeahhh..." He closes his eyes and lets her play with his hair. A small smile tugs up on corner of his mouth. "Are you the one I get the knitting habit from? Five said the older me's knit, too." He hasn't started it yet, he supposes it's some sort of secret sibling bonding thing between him and Hela, now. Even if he's wrong, the image of the pair of them sneaking downstairs in the dead of night to secretly knit is kind of hilarious.

"Mother wanted me to pick up something to do with my hands that wasn't violent. You were bored and better than me." Not something she admits often or lightly- but true none the less. "So I had you show me how you were able to do it so easily. Mostly when we couldn't sleep. We'd come downstairs and I'd make coffee or tea or something for us to drink and...for a little while it was like we weren't little soldiers."

For a little while? It was like they were normal.

"Makes sense." He admits, that same tiny little corner-uptick smile on his face as he listens to the story. "Sounds kinda nice." He wonders where he picks it up, in that case, but it doesn't seem very important right now.

"In fact..." She reaches behind the sofa to pull a canvas bag up- balls of yarn, needles, and a half-finished project in soft, pale blue cashmere. "It's been a long while since we last sat together like this. Do you want me to teach you?"

Take his mind off of what had him racing for distraction, give him a skill he'll know in the coming years anyway.

He perks up a little when she reaches behind the couch for something, only smirking a little when it's the very thing they were talking about. "Yeah-- okay." He nods a little, sitting up a little more, turning sideways on the couch to face her. He would really take anything as far as distractions go, and learning something he doesn't know anything about is a great way to keep his mind too occupied to wander very much.

"Pick a color." She has six at the moment- the pale blue, a silky black, a light green, a darker red, a tawny gold, a soft violet. She has a skein of the blue rolled and attached to glittering obsidian needles, the long coil of a shawl attached. It's meticulous and repetitive and kinetic- good for people like them that need some movement while busy.

He has to debate for a moment, even if he has absolutely no clue what she's going to teach him to make. Colors are Important, thanks. He points to the violet; it's quiet but still color and a soft kind of pop that just feels right in his heart in the moment. "What are you making, anyway?"

"A shawl for Charlie, socks for Five, an infinity scarf for Ben, fingerless gloves for Diego, A beanie for Peter- and I am still trying to decide what to make for all of you." Meaning all the Klauses. She'll...think of something. For now, she pulls out the scarf and those needles, forming a pair for Klaus. "Now, kitten, watch my hands carefully."

Showing him how to cast on is easy enough.

"Whoa, all kinds of stuff for everybody, huh?" He grins a little at the pure sentimentality of it. So very the opposite of everything Hela tries to seem like she is, but it exists somewhere deep down inside of her all the same.

He frowns in concentration as he watches her before attempting to repeat the process himself. It... goes about as well as expected and he's half-tangled in the yarn. "Are you sure I'm better than you at this later cuz--" he snorts and starts over.

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

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