umbrellajackassery | Young!Klaus Shenanigans

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.

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.

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."

"Oh." He blinks at that answer, actually not expecting it at all, and not being entirely sure how to handle it now that he'd gotten it.

He snorts at that comment-- because it is, a statement, and not a question, which is just a immutable as his brother ever is. "Seriously? Is-- that even a real question?" He scoffs and shakes his head, turning away, abandoning his brother in the doorway and wandering back over to the bed, scooping up the marker he'd had in his hand earlier for the sake of having something to play with.

"You know the routine by now, Captain. Dad locks me in a crypt, I fail, get some extra trauma I really didn't need, and I don't sleep for three days. So," he twists the marker between his fingers, eyes on it instead of Luther. "Nope. As usual--" This time he looks up, and his voices takes a slightly affected tone, 'I'm telling you the truth-- I'm not o-fucking-kay'." He grins, a too-wide, too-put-on sort of mask that's out of place for the words coming out of his mouth.

This grinning mask is distressingly more-and-more-common with Klaus lately. Maybe similar to the stern, businesslike one that Luther wears, but that doesn't mean he knows for a single second what to do with it. Like seeing hairline fractures spreading across a pane of glass, but not knowing how to piece them back together.

A slight wince, at the singsong. He recognises the lyrics; it's from one of the records that he'd jotted onto what he thought of as The Klaus Shelf, free for his brother to pillage when need be. Luther hadn't listened to it much, but he'd heard the discordant tones through the walls, bleeding down the hall.

When Klaus heaves himself back on the bed, Luther leans against the wall. "Are you at least getting a better grasp on your powers?"

It came out wrong -- came out sounding like it was about the powers themselves, only. (But they were the lynchpin beneath it all, because it was the whole point behind Klaus being put through the wringer like this. Sacrifice for a purpose. If Sir Reginald kept pushing, eventually Number Four would tumble through that block and he'd be able to control the manifestations and it would be better. He wouldn't suffer anymore. Would be okay. That was what Luther told himself, at least.

He had faith; he hoped.)

Klaus has turned his focus off of his brother again already, head slowly turning toward the open closet door. Open. Always open, because he hated when the woman that lived in it couldn't be immediately seen with his five sets of lights that were on at all times in his room. It was creepier somehow, if he couldn't glance over and see her-- when she decided she wanted to be seen, anyway. Like now.

"Can you ever just shut up?" He snaps at the (seemingly empty) closet. "Screaming fuckin' banshee." he picks up one of the mountain of pillows and hurls it at the open closet door. She disperses, at least, so he'll call it a win as he huffs back against the pillows.

Maybe it's because he only just got back from one of Dad's awful training sessions and he's always cagey after those. Maybe it's the lingering soft level of annoyance tingling at all of his edges from the moment with the ghost that has been haunting his room since he was old enough to talk. Maybe it's that Luther really is just that thick and it's aggravating. Maybe it's all of it added together.

Klaus can't stop the incredulous scoff as he finally turns his attention back to his brother again. "God, is that all you care about, Luther?" His last words are thrown like one of Diego's daggers, meant to hit and hurt, venom-coated with a matching look of disgust on his face to go with them. "You're no better than Dad sometimes, you know that?"

They've grown depressingly accustomed to Klaus' random interjections and whiplash outbursts at what had originally seemed like imaginary friends. It might look like madness, mental instability, in anyone else, but the Hargreeves know the truth. The ghosts are still Klaus-only, but they do exist.

Then, as Klaus' attention turns back to him, Luther's mouth purses. Each word is a knife flung, and they hit their mark. Do you really hate me that much, he almost asks, almost lashes back.

But just as Sir Reginald is trying to train Klaus to shrug off the sound and noise and fury of dozens of ghosts, learning to set them aside and shrug off their attention -- so too has he been teaching Luther to shrug off criticism, his siblings' barbs, to make his psychological skin as durable as his physical one. If he can withstand Diego's acerbic jibes, then he can let Klaus' wash over him, too.

(Besides, Number One still idolises The Monocle. Still doesn't quite see what's so bad about Reginald Hargreeves yet. That'll take another decade-plus to come home to roost.)

"I do care, though," Luther says, simply, and there's something in that basic honesty. No long rambling speech. Just unflinching truth compared to how much their father doesn't. "I want these nights to go better for you. Is there anything I can get you right now, to help? Something from the kitchen or anything to help you sleep?"

They could summon Grace anytime for soothing teas or snacks, but he's making the offer anyway. (It matters, to him, that the team captain offers.)

That unfettered, naked honesty is a gut-check all its own, the same as any punch might knock all the wind from his lungs. Luther had a way with honesty that none of the rest of them did-- it had a tendency to knock Klaus off his axis, especially in moments like these when he's geared up to fight, and argue. Diego took this kind of bait like a child would leap for a piece of chocolate.

He blinks, three times in rapid succession, and seems to shrink back down into himself a little, all that bluster from seconds ago dispersed. And then Luther's making offers to help and it unravels any scraps of ferocity in him as surely as tugging on a loose string.

Klaus' face crumbles and the next set of actions seem to happen all at once-- knees drawn to his chest, head tucked to rest against his knees, hands fisting in his hair, a long, stuttering breath in before he finds his voice again; one that's quiet and muffled for the way he's pulled in on himself almost as completely as he can. "I want it to stop, Luther... that's all I want. I don't wanna do this any more. I can't- I can't be what Dad wants me to be, I'm just a fuck up and a failure and a disappointment and I want it to be over."

Though he's never shown any true suicidal tendencies, the way Klaus phrases things can be concerning at times. But perhaps it's only a byproduct of being so surrounded by death and the dead all the time.

Witnessing this bare pain, stripped down to the bone, results in a sympathetic ache in Luther's chest, the panic of I don't know what to do and I don't know how to fix this. Because they can't quit the Academy. It was never something they signed up for, but they'd been flung into it since birth anyway, with no chance to opt out. It was their job. It was their purpose in life. It was what they did.

And Sir Reginald was the reigning king of cruel, cutting comments that chased them back into the saddle, and Luther might have been learning those lessons at their father's elbow, but he still can't put those sorts of words in his own mouth. Doesn't know how to do it. So he sits down on his brother's bed instead (all rumpled tangled sheets, unlike Luther's, which is made tight and pristine until you could bounce a coin off it). Draws an arm around Klaus' narrow shoulders, his bowed head and whole body turtling in on itself.

"You're not a fuck-up or a failure, Klaus," he says, because he can't think of anything else to say, and the rest of the truth is too miserable to name. (It'll never be over.) "You're just... still learning. Remember how Diego almost drowned when he was first learning his powers? It's a process."

He doesn't fight it at all when Luther slides an arm around him, if anything he only leans into his brother's side further for all that arm acts as an invitation. "Yes I am," he whispers quietly, voice still shaky. His fingers reaching up to tangle into the material of Luther's shirt. "Dad says it all the time. It's, like, his favorite thing to tell me."

He presses his cheek against Luther's ribs, tilting his head up a little to look up at him. "What if I never figure it out? Whu- what do you think Dad'll do, if I can't ever...stop being so scared?"

Luther is the blunt edge compared to Sir Reginald's knife; an indelicate instrument, often, but he's also the softer face of the academy's leadership. Tough-but-fair. A relatable face to catch the kids' insecurities, their weak moments; someone to buoy them after Reginald cuts them down to size.

But at Klaus' question, Luther's first thought comes quick and fleeting, like a deer running panicked through the woods: He'll get rid of you. Like putting down a prized racehorse that can't run anymore. Once he's not of any use anymore, the man might just dispose of him.

And just as that terrified thought skids through his head, hot on its heels comes the followup: Klaus needs to master his powers.

And, Dad wouldn't.

And, ...Would he?

Luther wants to believe he wouldn't, their father wouldn't, but in this moment he can't accurately say either way. Their patriarch is distant, aloof and inscrutable. So Luther grasps onto that shred of desperate hope, wraps himself in it: "He'll train you as far as you can, and that'll just have to be good enough. It'll be okay. And besides, you will figure it out. We're all still getting used to our abilities. It takes as long as it takes."

Even this half-embrace is testament to it: once upon a time, Luther had accidentally broken Klaus' arm, just a twist of the wrist delivered too strongly, unthinkingly. Today, he's careful in how he holds him, like he's handling brittle glass.

He knows Luther is trying, he does. But it isn't helping, not really. That kind of practicality might be a comfort to Luther, but it's cold logic that leaves Klaus just as terrified as he already was to start. Nothing really ever helps on nights like this. Except the closeness, and the touch. Warm, and solid against him in a way that lets him know they're real. That he's real. And here. Alive. Not becoming one of the specters that chases him.

He doesn't mean to cry. He knows he shouldn't. Isn't supposed to. "Crying is weakness, Number Four. Weakness is unacceptable." But everything is so terrifying after nights like this, and Luther's attempts at giving him something solid and real to hold onto, as a comfort, are falling so flat, and he can't help it. One sob breaks through the cracks and it opens the whole dam. He lets out a soft whine and curls tighter against his brother, pressing his face against his chest.

Tears are so unfamiliar that it sends another jolt of trepidation through Luther, caught off-guard and out of his element and unsure what to do with his hands -- what do you do with this? Should he pat Klaus' back, awkwardly? Stroke his hair? (Mom would probably have some programming for this.) Do you just give them some space, step away and let them deal with it by themselves? (Luther always wants space when it's him crumbling. Needs to be left alone, to wrestle with it in his own time and with no watching eyes.)

But Klaus is, above all things, needy, and the way he cottons even closer is probably a sign that he wants the company. Hands seizing on Luther's shirt to be as close as possible, an intimacy that he's not used to.

But he does pat Klaus' shoulder, and then just rests his hand there, a comforting weight against his back as he cries. Just lets it out.

And he's at loose ends and still not sure what to do -- (the secret, Number One, is that there is no solution to this, no easy fix); until the thought eventually comes to him. "I can sleep on the floor tonight," he offers. "If you need some company that isn't, uh. That banshee in the closet."

The hand on his back is comforting, and he sinks into the touch easily, only moving otherwise to look up at his brother when he makes that suggestion, "Really?" He sounds so hopeful at the idea of it. Klaus is no stranger to crawling into beds of other siblings, but it's Ben and Diego he does that to the most, and it's always so much more surprising if one of them makes the offer themselves. It's different when they offer, instead of just concede to him crashing in their room.

"Yes!" He says it so fast, it's like the word is being ripped out of his throat, like if he doesn't say it's okay, that he wants him to stay, that he'll just leave and Klaus will be alone and-- "Please?"

Young!Klaus Shenanigans

no subject

no subject

no subject

if you think MCR was not 1000% in Klaus' wheelhouse of early 00s jams, idk what to tell you XD

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject