tact from me is like blood from a stone

[opiate_visions]

Isaac's birthday had been registered as the 17th of September, two weeks to the day before those children were born from mothers who weren't pregnant, the miracle children who were forgotten again until the unveiling of the Umbrella Academy.

Isaac had never learned much about it all. He'd lived somewhat sheltered from that part of the world and by the time he was old enough to explore on his own, the Umbrella Academy had come and gone and he was more interested in his own life and future.

But the blackouts became more frequent and the medication didn't help. He stopped taking the medication and it got more out of control, but he had found other ways to control it and by the time he was thirty, he was out of rehab (again) and didn't know what to do or where to go to learn about what he was.

So he used the last of his money to make his way to the old address of the Umbrella Academy and hoped someone there might be able to help.

He was raising his hand to knock on the door when he saw the flicker, a momentary glimpse and he stepped back enough that whoever was coming to the door wouldn't barrel into him...

Comments

A sideways angle on this

[excessed]

From one of the upper windows, Diego sees someone approach the house. As of late it's becoming a fairly regular sight though as more and more of the children that Sir Reggie hadn't been able to find or buy found their way to the house now that the universe has been reset. Some called to it, maybe. Others seeking out siblings that share a propensity for things that most can't do. Oddly there's been few fans or curiosity seekers so at least there's that. Which makes Diego wonder about who this one is. He doesn't head for the main door though, circling around to the back of the house and taking the walk around to the front of the house even as he starts to open. Huh. That is interesting in how he hadn't gone through with knocking. "Can I help you with something?" Coming up behind him, all in black and leather, but no knife in hand at least.

[opiate_visions]

In a show of elegance, grace and proficiency, Isaac yelps, spins on his heel and stumbles backwards, catching himself on the fence. "Jesus! Madre di Dios, don't do that." He presses a hand to his chest. "You nearly gave me a heart attack. I was hoping someone from the Academy days might be around."

He adjusts his duffle bag on his back. "Are you, one of them?"

[excessed]

Oh but he couldn't have planned that better if he had tried, not even hiding his wide grin at that reaction. His only regret is that he hadn't had a camera at the ready. "Yeah, there might be some of them around," he says, looking up at the windows, considering those heights and who might be behind those curtains.

"You came looking for them and you don't know who they are?"

[opiate_visions]

Isaac frowns slightly, bristling at the grinning, but then smiling slightly. Yeah, it's a little funny. "I'm not actually looking for any of the miracle children. Not necessarily. My parents disapproved of the whole thing and preferred the family wasn't exposed to it. But I have questions that I think can only be answered here."

[excessed]

God how he makes a face at the title about miracles. He's hated that and still does. The rest though he finds interesting, and he can't say he's not curious to know just what he's talking about. So he offers his hand to him.

"Number Two," he says, figuring if they guy's done any research, he'll know that name. "Or just Diego if that works for you." He glances at the house and then to Isaac. "Come on. There's likely coffee if Five hasn't found an IV for it."

[opiate_visions]

"Isaac Mendez." His spanish accent was still there, even after the years in New York. "Diego works fine for me. Numbering children instead of naming them seems a bit cold to me." Maybe that's just him. "Mind you, I spent my life coming second to my brother, so maybe numbering would've been more honest. Coffee sounds great."

[excessed]

Diego laughs, but it's a bitter sound rather than humorous. "Trust me, numbering us was one of the warmer things he did." He could have left them without designation at all.

A brow arches at that, considering. "Yeah, trust me. I know that feeling. Come on then. Just... be careful. The house is kind of... chaotic." And with that he steps past him and moves to open the door for him.

[opiate_visions]

"... yeah, I sort of got that." He's read a bit. Not least of all, he's read 'Extra Ordinary' but he thinks maybe that wouldn't be the best thing to say.

"I can deal with chaotic. I've lived in New York for years." But he follows, keeping Diego between him and the house.

[excessed]

There's noises coming from all over the house, shouts and talking and music. He leads into the house, through the massive rooms with vaulted ceilings and chandeliers that dangle precariously over everyone. The kitchen actually looks nothing like the rest of the house which says a lot.

"Have a seat," he says, moving to pour them both a cup of coffee before carrying them over to the table. "So... want to talk about why you're here?"

hello there.

[substances]

Klaus doesn't really make a big habit of hanging around the old Umbrella Academy, but sometimes he gets a little tired of trying to find somewhere to sleep or take a bath. He isn't high all the time anymore, he's been slowly crawling his way out of that particular hole, but he's not exactly rooted in society just yet. Doesn't have the capital for that kind of undertaking.

So as Isaac is approaching the manor, Klaus is getting ready to leave it, his headphones around his neck, wearing his fur-trimmed patchwork jacket over a wide v-neck sweater. He pulls open the door and makes a little squeak, jumping back a bit when he's faced with a stranger outside the door.

"Holy shit, you scared the bejeezus out of me!"

[opiate_visions]

Isaac flinches back, because he knew someone was coming to the door, but it still always takes him back when it happens.

He takes in things quickly. The jitters. The marks. The way his eyes focus and then don't. Everything that screams 'fellow user', because once you've been there, you can see others. There's some kind of awareness.

"Sorry. I- was going to knock, but, yeah. You were at the door." He pushes a hand through his hair. "Is there anyone here I can speak to about all, the stuff? The children, the births, the powers?"

[substances]

It's maybe just a little gratifying when the handsome stranger jumps back just like Klaus did. He laughs, puts a hand against his chest, ignores the itch under the skin of his forearms, and raises his brows as the guy pushes a hand through his hair and asks about the good ol' Umbrella Academy.

Of course.

"Well well well, come for a little superhero tourism, have we? Come right in."

Klaus sees it too, the hint of edginess that comes from the craving, the need, the waves of want that get so overwhelming you can't really focus on anything but riding through it, like the world's worst surf ride. But he doesn't comment. Best to leave these things unsaid.

"I am one of the aforementioned children, do go on."

[opiate_visions]

"Not... really." His English is softly accented. "Not tourism. My birth certificate says I was born in September, that I was premature and that's why my mother didn't show her pregnancy."

He steps up and in, shifting the weight of his bag and the document tube. "My name is Isaac. Isaac Mendez. And I'm clairvoyant. I think my birth certificate was faked, my parents just lied to hide me."

[substances]

When the guy explains that he's not here for tourism, Klaus actually steps aside, gestures for him to come in, leaning curiously to look him up and down. A new sibling. A new sibling! One that he's never met. One who sees the future.

It's about time one of the others had a fucked up occult power.

"Yay, spooky shit, now I'm not alone anymore. Come in come in. It's lovely to meet you Isaac Mendez. I'm Klaus."

He holds out a hand, offering to shake.

[opiate_visions]

"Yay?" Isaac sounds about as enthusiastic as expected to be in the barrel of 'powers that drive you crazy'. "You're the medium." he shakes Klaus, hand, gaze flicking to his arm and back to his face. "Looks like we share more than just mind breaking abilities."

He holds Klaus' gaze for a moment and then considers. "Actually... can I draw you? You have lovely bone structure."

[substances]

"The medium. I like it. Makes me sound very mysterious and all."

When Isaac looks at his arm and then his face, Klaus recoils, just a little. It's a small movement but his whole body sways a little and he glances down at Isaac's arm.

"Something tells me the mind-breaking abilities and the track marks go hand in hand."

It's said with a droll tone, a little sing-song, and then the guy is asking him if he can draw him. Blinking, he turns and looks at Isaac.

"Uh. Sure? Me?"

[opiate_visions]

Isaac laughs. "Yeah, I think so. I got into the junk to try and stop the flashes of other places and times and instead-" He started having full blown visions and blackouts. "Eh, never mind. I'm nearly three months clean. And yes, you. You've got great bone structure and your eyes..."

Isaac shrugs and smiles again. "You're beautiful, in a hollowed out way that's familiar."

Set to when she leaves after Five shows up

[missnobody]

Her cab was waiting for her. Vanya wasn't sure why she'd ever thought she could come back to the Academy, maybe start over now that their father wasn't here to dictate their lives. Those were uncharitable thoughts, though. She didn't hate her dad, exactly. Mostly she was disappointed. In him, in her brothers and Allison, in herself.

They'd had the funeral and hey, even Five was back, but now things would go back to normal. Now all the members of her family would go their separate ways and she'd probably never hear from them until something disastrous happened. Pogo dying or maybe the memory issues that Mom seemed to have getting worse. It made her sad, but maybe that was as much going back to the life that she just seemed to live by rote as anything else. It had been too many years since she'd been close to anyone in the house behind her.

She was expecting the cab, but what she wasn't expecting was a man to be standing almost right in front of her. He was stepping back as she opened the door as if he knew she was going to be there. Well, in her life, maybe he did.

"Can I help you?"

[opiate_visions]

He knew her.

He stared for a moment and then swallowed and smiled, remembering his manners. "Perdon, I just, I have seen you before, Miss Hargreeves. In my paintings." He straightened up a bit more. "Isaac Mendez." He offered a hand out to her. "I've come to suspect I was born on the first of October, nineteen eighty nine. Whatever my parents have told me."

[missnobody]

Vanya frowned. Maybe she should have been more surprised, but she’d just come from a room of people who could make people do whatever she wanted, could bend throwing knives around corners, and could speak to the dead. Seeing things in paintings was pretty much par for the course as far as she was concerned. The part that did surprise her was that he’d seen her.

She shook his hand and then jerked her head back to the door behind her.

“The people you’re going to want to talk to are in there.” Because he might have been one of the people who used to idolize her family, but they’d never known about her. Not unless they’d read her book and people had pretty much forgotten about the book almost as soon as they read it.

“I don’t have any powers.”

[opiate_visions]

"Don't you?"

He knew what he had seen in the paint. A moon falling apart, a white figure with a white violin, surrounded by her siblings.

"I read your book. And I painted you. It's why I came here, what I saw in those paintings." He looked up and saw a figure move past a window. A blink, and he saw the actual person move through.

"I destroyed them. Took photos and destroyed them. I want to help stop them happening. Stop that happening to you."

[missnobody]

Vanya shivered slightly, thinking of some of the things Five had said. About how the future was shit and talking about finding her book in a library that was ‘still standing’. But whatever the future held, there was one thing she knew for sure.

“No. Trust me, I’ve spent my entire life knowing that there was absolutely nothing special about me. I was the dud of our father’s experiments.”

“Five’s inside,” she said. If he’d read her book, he knew who Five was and why that was important. She’d written about how their father hadn’t even tried to find a way to get Five back. “He just showed up and if anyone is the person to talk to about the future, it’s him. He’s apparently lived it.”

She shivered again at the idea of something happened to her. Of everyone, she knew she was the most defenseless. Her father hadn’t even bothered to give her the self-defense lessons that the rest of the family got. Probably because she was supposed to be safe behind the walls of the Academy.

[opiate_visions]

"Forty three children were born to mothers who hadn't been pregnant until the moment they gave birth. Every single one of them has powers. So... either you're so unique that you don't have a power, unlike every other one of us..."

He swallowed hard and made the decision on the spot, which wasn't the best way to do it, but it was what he tended to do. He dug into his pocket, pulled out a wallet and slid out a polaroid photo which he held out, face down.

"If you look... you'll know what I saw. I see futures. Possible ones. Pasts, sometimes, other presents, but this is a future. Or was, I don't know. It's you. I've painted you a lot. And what I saw inspired me to get clean and come here."

[missnobody]

"There's nothing special about me," Vanya repeated, the words obviously a litany that she had repeated to herself or that had been repeated to her. Or both. "Believe me, our father did extensive testing on us when we were younger. If there'd been something there to find, he would have found it."

It was true. It had to be true, because what was her life otherwise? A lie from beginning to end? That or a mistake.

She took the photo because it was offered to her without actually looking at it. A part of her was scared at what she'd see if she looked down. What would she prefer? To know that he was wrong? Or that he was right?

[opiate_visions]

"Your father? You mean the man who bought seven children and then pitted them against one another relentlessly until one vanished and he managed to drive another to his grave? That father? Why wouldn't he lie if he had a justification in his mind? What if your power was exploding? What if he just didn't think you could cope so he decided to take it away entirely?"

Isaac read about the Academy, not just Vanya's book. And Reginald Hargreeves might have been a great man, but he was a terrible father and not a particularly kind person."

He took hold of her hand. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not like, a hundred percent accurate or anything. And whatever you choose, it doesn't change that you survived your childhood with your mind intact, and that's pretty amazing in and of itself. Nothing can take that away from you."