Young!Klaus Shenanigans

[ghostphone]

Come one, come all. Get your teen!Klaus shenanigans here. Options in the comments, or start your own adventure! Multi-person threads are great (no post order, just slide in and out at will plz), threadjacking encouraged! Specify in your top-reply to any of mine if you DON'T want people to threadjack though (because sometimes one-to-ones are necessary TOO!)

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{Nightmares behind my eyes and voices in my head, my limbs all froze and my eyes won't close

[ghostphone]

Klaus dreads the days that he has to 'train' with Dad, which really only amounts to being locked away in the dark in a mausoleum with only the dead for company. The terrifying, blood-soaked, screeching dead, all screaming his name and reaching for him in silent bid for his attention.

And it goes on for hours.

Sometimes, he tries to just squeeze his eyes shut, clamp his hands over his ears and count the seconds until they become minutes, become hours, until it's over. Other times, he can't block it out at all, feels a sharp, icy sensation against his leg where one of the ghosts had tried to grab him. Those are the times he can't even dream of closing his eyes, because it's terrifying enough to be here, alone and not all at once-- and not seeing is sometimes worse than seeing.

It never ends any differently. Klaus is too terrified to do whatever it is Reginald is expecting of him. He's always told, "Such a disappointment, Number Four." before being hauled up the steps to return home. Klaus was seven when he stopped expecting his Dad to comfort him at all after putting him through this ritualistic torture, so he does his best on the way home to keep his breathing even and not let the tears fall.

He doesn't eat those nights, or if he does, it isn't much. He stays in the shower until the water runs cold and he absolutely refuses to be alone. He will find a sibling and stick to their side like glue whether they like it or not. He's a lot more subdued than is usual for him on nights like that, too. Calm and quiet in ways that people would normally beg for, but that are eerie in comparison.

He sleeps like hell, too. Though that's most nights, and training days just make it all the worse. He might wake up screaming. He might experience some minor sleep paralysis. But he never sleeps well. And some nights? A sibling might even wake up in the middle of the night to find him curled up next to them.

[lucky_no_7]

Lucy hadn't been with them from the beginning, she'd been dropped off at the house the year they all turned seven with the explanation that her mother -who had declined Reginald's initial offer- had fled the country, and the people she'd been left with couldn't handle her. The children had been young enough that after a few initial bumps, she'd integrated easily enough to be considered a member of the family, such as it was.

While sometimes it was those first couple hours after one of Klaus' training sessions that were the worst, usually it was the night after, and it didn't take her ability in predicting outcomes to know that he wasn't going to want to be alone and likely wasn't going to sleep either.

Which was why, long enough after lights-out that she knew Mom would be recharging and Pogo was likely to be asleep -and even if he wasn't, he was downstairs and wouldn't hear- she slipped out of her own room and across the hall, drumming her fingers lightly against the door before she opened it to slip through, "Klaus? You awake?" A brief pause before adding: "I brought snacks." Mom always made sure that she had a snack ready for them after training, even if the child in question's specific training wasn't entirely physical, and Lucy had pocketed hers that day, as well as the day before, just in case.

[ghostphone]

For whatever weird way that Klaus personally and mentally categorized everyone, Lucy was more like a cousin than a sister, like Charlie, Alli, and V. But cousins were pretty awesome, too, and Lucy had been around for so long at this point, Klaus isn't sure he could imagine what it would have been like without her. He jumps at the light sound of her fingers rapping on the door, the gasp and quick-to-follow sigh of relief both audible against the otherwise silent room. "Hey, Luce." He drags himself up to a sitting position, wedging himself to the corner where the walls meet, legs folded criss-cross underneath him. "You can't sleep or something?" He knows that, more than likely, she was here for his sake, but he could pretend, right?

[lucky_no_7]

Honestly Lucy mostly considered herself a cousin as well, regardless of the fact that Reginald had officially and legally changed her surname when he'd adopted her, just for uniformity's sake she was fairly sure, but she didn't let it bother her any, she knew she was a Weaver, though honestly given the circumstances, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be one of those, either.

Not that it mattered at the moment, because while she was definitely there for his sake, she was also perfectly willing to let them both pretend otherwise, "Or something." She replied, making sure the door was closed behind her before climbing up to sit on the foot of his bed, first handing over the baggie of snacks -wheat crackers with peanut butter and some apple slices- before also slapping down a pair of comic books, "Can you believe it's been two whole months since I've been able to sneak away for a few minutes?" They did, on occasion, have outings to the city, but usually for a sole point and purpose, but of any of them, Lucy was the one most able to slip away from the group and back to the group without being noticed or missed, and while they weren't supposed to have any of the media about them -except for copies of interviews, for posterity's sake- they had all read at least one of the comics at one point or another.

"You remember what sort of peril we were all in last?" She'd looked in a couple of their usual hiding places, but hadn't been able to find the last issue, which usually meant someone still had it, and it had been long enough that she only barely remembered the last cliffhanger.

oh hi bro

[thefirething]

Charlie doesn't mind being one of those siblings, if it helps one of her best friends out. So what if she wakes up to a bony, lanky individual in her bed? She's not going to complain. Not if it helps. And she's doing this for her benefit as much as his. She's started picking up on her siblings emotions and Klaus' are the worst ones. If she could figure out how to push feelings of comfort and peace into him, she'd do it in a heartbeat. But she can't.

The best she can do?

Wake up carefully and disentangle herself from the octopus arms that is Klaus Hargreeves, make her way to her project chest where all her finished sewing projects go for storage and pull out something with his initials sewn into it.

A quilt. All of their old, ill-fitting uniforms they can't wear anymore. It's not the best looking quilt. IT's clearly something a beginner did and just barely made successfully, and it's going to get carefully wrapped around Klaus before she crawls back into bed under her own blanket and waits.

Is he going to wake up and see it before she drops off? Only time will tell. She'll be awake for another few minutes before zonking out again, but not if he wakes up and catches her awake first.

char-chaaaarrr

[ghostphone]

Klaus probably seems like the type of person that would be a dead-to-the-world kind of sleeper, but the truth is, the tiniest things could wake him up. Especially nights like this, when sleep is such a precarious thing to get close enough to hold anyway. So, when Charlie shifts and slips away, Klaus is already awake. The disappearance of both the weight and warmth he'd been clinging to was a bit jarring, and he frowns, wondering where she was going. He can't see between the darkness of the room and his own sleep-blurred eyes. It isn't long, though, and she's back and draping a quilt over him. As Charlie settles back on the bed, Klaus turns onto his other side, staring at his sister. "Hey." he says quietly, smiling a little. "Thanks."

She loves her brother ok

[thefirething]

“I don’t know why you’re thanking me. It’s a terrible quilt.”


Charlie, don’t be a shitheel. This humble thing is not pretty. “But I made it for you. Your initials are in a few squares in your favorite colors.” The look on her face is tired and hopeful. She wants to ask if he likes it, even if it looks like nothing but flaws to her.

[obediences]

Many concepts have already been successfully drilled into the teenaged Luther Hargreeves.

Firstly, his siblings -- his teammates -- are his responsibility. If they're not functioning, part of that blame lies on his doorstep. It's his job to keep them in line, to keep them all running like a smoothly-oiled machine with six components spinning in harmony. (The seventh, of course, is neglected.) It's a team leader thing.

It's an older brother thing.

But it's difficult, sometimes, to patch them back together, like gluing the seams on Luther's delicate and carefully-constructed model airplanes. The training schedule is practically drummed into his bones, and it's so easy to tell when Klaus has come back from another night at the mausoleum: he's hollow-eyed and shaky, he barely picks at his breakfast, and Luther watches him over the silent dining table.

It's afterwards, once night falls, once everyone finishes their study session in the library and they all finally part ways, sent firmly off to bed, that Luther pauses before going all the way down that hallway. Lingers by Klaus' door instead. Raps his knuckles against the wood, gently, softly, because they're not supposed to be up past curfew but. There's something he needs to check on. Someone.

[ghostphone]

Once they're sent away to bed--no deviations from routine, ever--Klaus wastes absolutely no time in heading to his room. He had debated detouring to Ben's room instead, but decided against it at the last second. He's settled as well as he's going to for now, perched at the edge of his bed with a marker in his hand, poised just away from the nearest part of the wall, which has slowly started collecting all sorts of phrases, poetic and depressing alike, through the last couple of years. The knock interrupts him and he jumps about a mile out of his skin. "Christ on a cracker." He mutters harshly under his breath, capping the marker and setting it on the table beside the bed before clamoring his way over toward the door to throw it open. "Oh, hey, Luther... Dad send you?" The assumption is an easy enough one to make, all things considered. When Dad wanted to know things, he had a tendency to send Luther to find them out. Klaus doesn't actively hate his brother or anything so strongly worded, but they clash more often than not because Luther is so rigid and Klaus is everything but. Plus, it's hard not to harbor some jealousy toward The Favored Number One.

[obediences]

A flicker at the corner of Luther's mouth -- "No," he says stiffly, jaw working but successfully tamping down whatever initial reaction he'd had at the question. Unable to quite pinpoint what emotion that was, though. Irritation that Klaus thought he couldn't show initiative, think for himself outside of his orders, and simply check in on his brother? (Or abashment that Klaus was right, actually, because Sir Reginald had sent him out so many times to take the pulse of the academy?)

But still. He's used to weathering his siblings' moods -- he's been crafted, honed and moulded and chipped into the steady rock which the others can dash themselves against, and he will not move -- so he doesn't nip back. Just says: "I wanted to see how you were feeling. If you were okay."

{And I swear you're just like a pill, 'stead of makin' me better, you keep makin' me ill

[ghostphone]

All teenagers experiment. It's a part of life, it's the kind of rite of passage no amount of weird powers and training schedules can really circumvent entirely. The more Reginald tried to put the reins on the kids, the more Klaus rebelled. Study more? Nah, he'd rather play video games. Curfew? Please, he'll be home at 1am, thanks. Klaus does what he wants, when he wants, within a very peculiar sort of parameters. It doesn't help Reginald's view of him as a disappointment, but after a person hears something so much, they start to believe it. Live up and into that descriptor so that at least it can never be a lie. And that's exactly what Klaus did. He met people and made friends with an ease most would envy. At the movie theater, at the arcade, at a coffee shop. Klaus could go anywhere and meet someone new to hang out with. It's how he ended up at the parties he always seemed to be at. Pretty girls and prettier boys, loud music, drinks no one bothered asking how they got their hands on always flowing, and a number of other various party favors floating around. Klaus mostly drank or smoked weed, but sometimes he'd take pills. When people had something interesting to take, at least. Sometimes, he'd stay out and just not show back up at home until breakfast the next morning (no one can blame him, Mom's waffles are the best), passed out on a couch somewhere far, far away from the torment of home. Others, he would try to sneak back in, unnoticed, at far too late of an hour. Sneaking is a lot harder to do when you're some brand of intoxicated though, and when the house is quiet as a graveyard (for other people), it seems like every noise that's made is a hundred times louder than it should be.

[gigue]

Vanya has spent a lot of her nights up since Five vanished. It feels like that's when things started really spiraling out of control - when seven became six (and really, more like six becoming five), things started to slip. It was okay, before: not good, definitely lonely, but okay. The house gets so dark at night, and so quiet. What if Five comes back? What if he can't find his way and decides it's safer to just leave again - what if he doesn't even recognize he's come home?

Klaus isn't the only one to sneak out at night, but Vanya doesn't go nearly as far as he does. Just down to the kitchen, to make a few peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches. She never eats them, but takes them on plates and paper towels to leave them at various points around the house, where he might come back to. Who knows where Five has been: he might be hungry.

That's how she comes on Klaus, with two sandwiches in each hand, following the sound of someone stumbling through a dark hall. She can feel her heart beating in her throat with excitement, hope, and as she rounds the corner she calls out, "Five--?"

But it's not. V takes a moment, digesting that particular disappointment, and scowls at him. "What are you doing here?"

[ghostphone]

"Well, hello to you, too, V." His words are slurred and they feel heavy in his mouth. Talking feels like a lot of effort right now. He blinks, trying to force his eyes to focus. "What kinda question is that anyway? I live here."

[gigue]

He sounds...he sounds really messed up. For a second she feels frozen, a sandwich in each hand. Only one way to fix that - she reaches out, shoving one of Five's favorites into Klaus' hand instead.

"Are you drunk again? Eat that."

{You seen good and bad, you been hurt beyond sin, but it's only a season, better days are comin'

[ghostphone]

Some days, the kids don't have to train or study or be Academy Kids at all. Mostly by Mom's notion that "Children need time away from their studies to grow and learn, too, Reginald." But whatever the reason, Klaus is glad to have actual factual free time sometimes. Not that he spends it what some might call well, but at least it's his own time to do with what he actually wants. Today? He's camped out in front of a tv with a video game. "Aw, come on, come on, you can do it! I believe in you, Sonic!" There's a brief, tense pause in his commentary and-- the distinct sound of GAME OVER is heard, along with the clatter of a controller and a loud, "Aw, man!"

Have a brother?

[badatinterrogating]

Peter was as big a fan of video games as Klaus was, so he was waiting his turn with the Sega Genesis with fake patience. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the controller but knew that with Klaus playing, he would be waiting a while. So he brought down one of his many tech projects, an upgrade to his webshooters. As he tinkered away at the device, he glances up to watch a few moments of gameplay and then offers some helpful advice.

“You gotta hit that hill at a spin run and when you roll off it, you won’t miss the spring board.”

yassss

[ghostphone]

Klaus is all about some gaming, but to be honest, he's been at it for awhile, his joints are stiff from sitting in the same position for too long and... he's growing bored of it anyway. "Show me," he says, leaning over the edge of the couch to reach with the barest tips of his fingers to slide the controller back over to where he could reach, just so he could toss it in the general direction of his brother. It might hit him in the face, or he might catch it, who knows.

[badatinterrogating]

He catches it. Spider-sense was tingling, or something like that, so his hand shoots out to grab the controller carefully. Super Strength is one of his abilities, and they've been through a couple controllers because Peter's grip has a tendency to tighten as he plays.

"Just...just watch, okay? When you get right to this tree..." And he goes on to explain what to do next; hit down arrow, touch nothing until you hit the springboard, bounce off of the crab robot and spin dash through the loop-de-loop.

Once that's successful, he hands the controller back.

"See? Real world physics don't apply to video games, but you can follow the in game laws of physics to get pretty far, pretty quick."

{I'll tell a lie to live, take 'til there's nothing left for you to give | @gigue

[ghostphone]

"Heyyy, Veeee..." comes the familiar sing-song voice of her more spastic brother as he swings into her room by way of holding the edge of her doorway and throwing his body forward. This is not an unfamiliar greeting, particularly late at night on days that he's had some issue or another; has been followed by a persistent spirit or another that won't leave him alone. Any number of reasons. Through time, it seemed these meetings only increased in frequency, and the reasons disappeared until the only thing that mattered was getting the pills from Vanya. But as long as she continued to pluck them from her own supply, it really didn't matter, did it? "Whatcha doin'?" He asks, carefully avoiding the small scattering of boxes in various states of packing around the room, dropping down onto one corner of the bed.

[gigue]

She knows that tone, and her whole body goes tense when she hears it. The stack of books - small, really, given how big this fucking house is - gets dropped into their box with a little more force than Vanya intended. Her jaw clenches, and she glances over as he waltzes in, sits down on her bed.

For a second she just stares at him, then turns in a half circle to gesture at her room. It should be obvious, shouldn't it? But then, he's probably already messed up; she can't remember the last time she saw him really sober.

(Vanya bites the side of her tongue, thinking of Dad's harsh words for her yesterday, is it so hard for you to keep track of your possessions, Number Seven, must you be utterly useless, and tastes blood.)

"What's it look like?" She goes to her music stand, pulling various concert pieces off and stuffing them into a folder to be packed away.

[ghostphone]

If she's assuming he's already taken something, Vanya is exactly correctamundo, amiga. Klaus really stays some level of buzzed or fuzzy-headed any more. Ever since he'd realized that he could get away from the ghosts, it was like magic, only made better by how genuinely good that feeling became to him. Fuzzy and numb and like he couldn't be in a bad mood if he tried. It's perfect. Beautiful. It's-- He jumps at the sudden, sharp snap! of the books in Vanya's hand clapping down into the box she was standing in front of. Then she's flitting around the room, grabbing things and putting them into folders, snapping words at him. He glances around and actually takes in the look of the room this time. "Oh-- Dad was serious about that?" As if Reginald Hargreeves had ever told a joke in his life. He'd heard Dad throw something about a musical prison-- sorry, boarding school at dinner one night a handful of weeks ago, but he thought it was more like the way parents in movies threatened bootcamp at their kids. Just an empty threat to set their kids on the path they wanted them to follow. But apparently this was nothing like that at all.

[gigue]

"When isn't he serious?" Especially about them, especially about her. Holding his notebook during training didn't mean shit because she - she was the runt of the family. She was nothing. She was nobody.

She didn't have powers, and so what reason did he have to pay any attention to her?

Folding up her music stand with some small struggles, she drops it into another box, and goes to her desk to rummage through. There's not much to pack: she doesn't own much, all things told. Most of it is music, or blank sheet paper for working out chords, or extra strings for her violin. She's pretty sure she won't even need all these boxes, because all her clothes - uniform on uniform on uniform, for an Academy she'll never really belong to - will fit in one suit case. Her whole life here, summed up in a handful of square feet.

"What do you want? I only have a couple days left." And she's not sure she wants to spend that time with her spine feeling like it's going to jump out of her skin, waiting for him to ask what she knows he came to ask.

{Somethin' 'bout boots and boys, bring me so much joy | @familiarnightmares & @badatinterrogating

[ghostphone]

Peter and Eddie are set up in the living room doing.... whatever it is Peter and Eddie always do, Klaus isn't sure he's paid enough attention to follow, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is that Eddie is here. And Eddie is hot. So, like any sibling with a tiny-sorta-maybe crush on their brother's friend, Klaus tries to invade their hang-time when it's in the more public spaces of the house instead of Peter's bedroom or workshop.

He flounces into the room with all the pep for at least three people and drops onto the couch to have a good spot to perch at and observe... whatever they're doing. Which-- "Whatcha doin?" he asks, only curious enough to sound interested, while simultaneously not really being very interested at all. There is definitely a sucker in his mouth. This seems, somehow, note-worthy.

[familiarnightmares]

"Uh. Stuff?" Eloquent as always, but then Klaus seems to have that effect on him. For some reason. And yes, Eddie notices the sucker, thanks. Venom laughs at him, like it knows something he doesn't, which only results in a petulant "Shut up" muttered under his breath as he shifts in his spot on the couch and mutinously continues staring at the work in his lap and spread out onto the floor. It's a plan for some gadget Peter understands a hell of a lot better than he does, but that's okay, it's supposed to help them both with patrols so he doesn't have much objection. "Hi Klaus."

[badatinterrogating]

"We're building a Spy-der," Peter says, pointing out the device's name. It's smaller than a goldfish, according to the schematics, and obviously spider-shaped. Built to slip under doors and climb up walls, equipped with a camera and a microphone and Peter is frowning at something on the blueprint.

"No, that's...not right and that's my fault," Peter half-mutters, reaching for a pencil and erasing some line of reference or another.

Is he oblivious to his brother flirting with his best friend? No. He's aware. He's just unphased and focused on the Spy-der plans.