{Another day goes by, I think it feels just like yesterday

[ghostphone]

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{Maybe I'm scared, I don't care, I'm addicted

[ghostphone]

The one thing that's struck the youngest version of Klaus as the weirdest is the apparently varying degrees to which a handful of his older selves seem to be attempting sobriety. And for the most part, it doesn't seem to be because of their siblings being on their cases, but just an honest choice of their own making. He doesn't get it, and he hasn't bothered to ask about it, either. If they wanted to discuss it, they were the adults of the bedroom and they could bring it up. He doesn't particularly care either way. Which is easily shown with the easy way he goes about rolling a blunt, sitting with his legs criss-crossed underneath him while he works. He doesn't intend on slowing down or stopping his own habits just because some other, older, lamer version of him is trying to. He glances up when someone enters the room and gives a distracted half-hearted nod. "What'sup?" He doesn't bother trying to hide what he's doing, everyone already knows, even Mom.

[ouiking_ouija]

"Coffee run?" He replied, jostling the take-out cup in his hand as if to indicate what a ridiculous question that was. Though he didn't actually sound put out at all, just a little puzzled.

After a quick check to make sure they were, at least currently, the only two in the room, he offered over the white bakery bag as well, "Doughnuts too, or, I mean, doughnut holes, but those are the best kind anyway, don't have to worry about spilling powdered sugar or sprinkles on anything."

[ghostphone]

"Uh, duh." He takes the bag and pops one of the doughnut holes in his mouth. At least some things stay consistent through the years. He leans across the bed and throws the nightstand drawer open, fishing for a lighter before he sits back up, drawer abandoned and left open. "You want in?" He asks, holding up the blunt he'd rolled before flicking the lighter into action without waiting for an answer. Little bit of wake-n-bake, perfect for a Saturday morning. Was it even Saturday? Klaus doesn't know.

[ouiking_ouija]

He actually had to think about that question, but shook his head as he dropped down to the beanbag chair, just leaning back until he was at a comfortable angle that wouldn't end up with spilled coffee, "Nah, m'good."

Of course, he knew that cigarettes, coffee and open, blatant flirting with whoever was at the counter that day being his only vices hadn't changed anything, his powers were still the same, the ghosts were just as loud and for the most part incoherent, but he was ever-hopeful that he'd be able to repeat just what he'd done with Ben with any kind of predictability.

That and he was still hoping he'd actually, finally, get to see who he was hoping for, but aside from those few moments Dave's ghost remained elusive.

[ghostphone]

"Wait-- seriously?" He asks around the blunt now lit and tucked between his lips. He frowns and stares at his older self incredulously. "Dude, I thought you still smoked..." He squints for a second. "Maybe it was the other us.... One of you definitely smoked a joint with me the other day." Look, he's doing good to roll with the fact that he has like a half a dozen Ghosts of Christmas Future roaming around the house. Telling them all apart in some intricate kind of way is asking a lot, okay?

"Still don't get it though. The sobriety thing you're doing." He holds his hit in as long as he can before he blows out the excess smoke. "It doesn't make sense."

[ouiking_ouija]

"Yeah, one of the others." He replied easily enough, swiping the bag of doughnut holes back so he could stuff one in his mouth, something to keep him from running it off before he had his thoughts in order.

"As much as it absolutely pains me to say it, and believe me it does, old Reg was right about one thing, I'm never going to learn what I'm really capable of if I keep cutting myself off from my abilities." It wasn't exactly a lie, it wasn't the only reason, either, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to even start to explain about Dave.

There was also the part where sobriety -so far- hadn't actually helped, as the bitten-ragged fingernails and the fact that he tried to sleep in the library or the parlor as often as not would attest to, but he wasn't yet ready to admit defeat.

{Can't sleep, can't dream, long nights, no peace

[ghostphone]

Nights are the worst time for Klaus, because the ghosts tend to like to appear more then. He supposes it's just their natural habitat or something, more shadows to hide in or jump out of and the like. He remembers being little and crying in the dark about a woman in the closet that wouldn't leave him alone. Dad didn't believe him, but she was there, she was always there, waiting for him to go to bed at night, all the lights to be out, before she'd show up. Long, fancy-ish, blood-spattered dress, long dark hair, sad eyes. She never said much-- she just screamed. It was terrifying. But unfortunately, even on nights he was numb enough not to be bothered by spirits, sleep still didn't come easy. Self-taught insomnia, he supposes, but he gets bored of trying to lay somewhere-- whether it's the bed, a chair, in a pile of clothes or just on the floor-- and get some sleep. Eventually, he gets up and rummages around the closet for something to do. Most nights, one or the other of his older selves are also awake, so he'll drag out a deck of cards, a set of dominoes, or some boardgame or another so they'd have something to do to pass all the time they weren't sleeping.

[fluffyexterior]

She didn't mean to sneak up on him, it was just that she didn't really have as much control here over her comings and goings as she'd had at home. Which was why, on one of those trips to the closet, she was just there when he closed the door again, probably looking at least as surprised about at as he would.

She rallied easily enough, however, "Oh, hiya. And sorry, really wasn't trying to sneak up on you, I swear. If I was trying I think I'd have done better."

[ghostphone]

He jumps at the sudden voice. "Jesusfuck." he spins toward the owner of the voice, eyes a little wider than usual, a hand on his chest like that might calm the way his heart is jumping in his chest. "No need to do it any better, lady." He half-growls, annoyed at the interruption by someone who clearly is a ghost.

He moves over to the bed, to flop down onto it and start shuffling the cards he'd grabbed from the closet. "You're a lot less blood-soaked and shrieky than the usual suspects." He perks a brow at her.

[fluffyexterior]

"Yeah, so I've been told." She replied, following so that she could perch on the nearest surface, "Eventually it might stop being weird to hear it." Though somehow she doubted that, "I'm Thelma, guess word hasn't got around yet."

Though given as how even she wasn't sure where she'd been since talking to the other one at the party, that made a certain amount of sense. Sometimes she was just wandering the halls of the frankly fucking enormous house, and sometimes she just found herself doing that again after having been... nowhere, probably. Which was what had happened this time.

[ghostphone]

"Wouldn't count on it." He shrugs and pauses in his shuffling of the cards to look up at her again when she introduces herself. "I'm Klaus. But I guess you know that, if you met one of the other ones. They're all older, though."

He finishes shifting the cards around and pauses for a second, squinting at her. "Can you hold stuff?" He's never seen any of them do it, but considering she seems new-- because, really, he did not at all recognize her from the faces that normally followed him when he was at home-- he may as well ask. He's still not completely sure how all the ghost rules apply.

[fluffyexterior]

"I can." She said with a nod, edging a little closer, "But depending on what it is doesn't mean I will just because I can." She'd dated boys off and on before realizing that what she was supposed to do wasn't what she wanted to do, and she knew that question -and questions like it- were often followed by something lewd, and she wasn't taking any chances.

It was easy to wing back around to the first statement, "And I have, yeah, and they are, everyone here is, it's a little unnerving, really. Feel like I've got to be on my best behavior all the time even though I know nobody's actually going to be able to tell if I'm not." She shook her head again, smile emerging, cautious, but still amused, "Present company excluded, of course."

[channellings]

Tonight, when Klaus stumbles across his younger self, he's obviously far more wired than usual, muttering to himself (or so it seems?) as he toes out of his sneakers, pivots on the ball of his foot and— Oh, shit, there's a little Number Four there.

"Oh," he notes, bringing his arms together so he can rub the inside of his wrist with his thumb. Fuck, he hopes he didn't look suspicious at all. "Having trouble sleeping again, huh?" And maybe if he acts like he's not high as a damn kite, the teenager won't call him out if he'd heard him talking to nothing.

The only problem: he's never been all that great with acting, and he imagines if anyone were going to be able to see right through him, it'd be his counterpart. He strides over, picks up a domino or two, click-clacks them together by rolling his fingers. "Wanna play for a while?"

[ghostphone]

"Huh?" He hears the muttering, but not really the words, as he pops back out of the closet to find one of the older him's wandering in, looking half-surprised to find him in here. "Oh, hey." he waves a little on his way from the closet to... the biggest area of not-piled-with-crap part of the floor to start setting up the dominoes. He had maybe kinda-sorta-definitely just planned to make some kind of random design and knock them over, but having someone else in the room and the ability to play an actual game is way more appealing so-- "Duh." He says like it's clearly obvious. And you know. Maybe it is. He shuffles the dominoes around before sliding seven of them out to line up for himself.

[channellings]

Except there's one problem with being high as fuck: sometimes your mouth moves a bit more quickly than your brain. Klaus registers it's teenager him, even vaguely remembers doing this many a times himself, but what he fails to remember during the worry of being caught intoxicated is this version knows nothing, Jon Snow.

"Yeah, hey to you, too. Eh, I was just telling Ben how much of an asshole he is," a beat, then he even adds, "Again," and follows it with a laugh before he realizes moments too late-- oh no, he's made a terrible mistake.

He raises both hands, cups them firmly around his mouth. "Jumping Jesus on a goddamn pogo-stick." Too bad it does nothing to muffle the devastation in his tone, though. "N-No one you know, of course! Someone you'll meet when you're older." Shit, that doesn't help. "'Eyyy, don't worry about it," attempts the taller of them, shifting to grab for his own dominoes in hopes it'll be enough of a distraction (it probably won't be).

[ghostphone]

Klaus is sitting with his legs folded under him, criss-cross-applesauce and looking over the dominoes he's pulled for himself when the older one gives his explanation. His incredibly off-the-wall, nonsensical explanation because-- His faces squinches up, eyes squinted, a frown etched across his forehead, the insult written clearly across every inch of his face, "Ben isn't even in here, you, idi--" But as he's midway toward throwing the barb out at him, the older version of him is stammering through a bunch of bullshit in a weak attempt to cover the tracks of what he'd just, inadvertently, laid out on the ground in admission. "Wait... n- you... is he?" His voice hits a little bit of a higher pitch on those last two words, his face threatening to crumble depending on the answer his doppelganger gave to that question. Dominoes abandoned, his heart slamming too hard in his chest at the implication he'd just been handed, his eyes stay trained on the older Klaus practically begging to be wrong, to have misunderstood.

{Can't sleep alone in this haunted home

[ghostphone]

On nights when his other selves are busy, gone, asleep, or in some other way occupied and he has no hope of sleeping stuck alone in his room, Klaus slips out and wanders around the empty, quiet halls of the house. After some internal debate about who might be best to potentially bother, he'll make his way into one of the others' rooms, and either take up a chair or slip into the bed with them outright. Usually he goes for a sibling, because they were the safest ones for all intents and purposes, but he might misjudge the room he's sliding into and end up somewhere else, too. He tries his best not to wake them, that isn't really his intended purpose, he just doesn't want to be alone.

oh hi

[belay]

Lara wasn't the heaviest sleeper, honestly. Not since Yamatai or Peru or any other place she'd been where people and nature and monsters were out to get her. Ghosts trying to possess her best friend, controlling the weather to keep people on a forgotten island. Madmen trying to change the world in their image with the help of ancient gods.

She knows a thing or two about ghosts, Klaus, though maybe not quite the same way he does. When he does pop into her room, she wakes at the noise but keeps still, willing herself to remain calm. This isn't the jungle. Nothing's out to get her.

So, the British girl frequently seen with Diego rolls over to see who came into her room and greets Klaus with a hello that sounds a little more awake than anyone should be at this hour.

"Is everything alright?"

Probably not, and she's considering whether or not she should grab the bow and arrows she'd bought earlier, just in case. But she sits up and sits still, reaching for a couple hair ties and finger-brushing her dark hair out of her face, twisting it into dual french braids a bit at a time.

"Why are you up?"

[ghostphone]

"Oh, shit." He mutters under his breath when he hears a very, very wrong voice. Soft and quiet and British and-- "Yeah." That sure was an easy lie, wasn't it? Shame that it actually sounds convincing. "No, I mean- I just can't sleep. That's all." At least until he tries to explain, and is suddenly very, very awkward about it. "Miscounted the doors. I was trying to... nevermind." He shakes his head. "Why are you still awake?" Turnabout's fair play and all that jazz.

[belay]

She doesn't mind the question and knows a good distraction technique when she hears one, so the youngest Klaus gets a smile as she sits up more, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around her shins.

"Nightmares. Not a fan," she replies with a faint frown and a shake of her head. "That and jetlag."

Shitty combination, really.

[ghostphone]

His face scrunches up at the word. "Ew." He could definitely relate. Since she isn't just kicking him to the curb for invading her room unexpectedly in the middle of the night, Klaus decides that's the same as an invitation to hang out.

He pulls the chair from the desk in the far corner over to sit in it backwards, leaning his arms against the back of it. "What time does your body think it is?"

[n5]

Any other night, Klaus would have seen the light coming from under Five's door. This time, the teen was in his bed with his back close to the wall and curled into himself, right arm wrapped around a pillow.

The Apocalypse had been avoided but that didn't mean he had it any easier when it came to sleep. Five was often up at unholy hours, searching through their father's papers, trying to find clues about who were the other kids born on that same day in October or working on calculations. He only slept when he had exhausted himself, when no amount of coffee was enough to keep him up, because then he was too tired to even have nightmares.

He still wrote on walls, but only one of them now. He followed Luther's advise -it was easier when it was actually a good one- and reorganized his old room. No more toys or childish posters were scattered around the room, now kept on boxes and replaced by books and a few plants. One of the walls was painted with chalkboard paint so Five could write on it to his heart content and clean it easily.

Colorful pieces of chalk now also scattered on the table and some dropped on the floor, Klaus might step on them by accident after walking into the room.

[ghostphone]

Klaus is no stranger to writing on walls, his own are full of plenty of things-- some from ghosts, that he let himself almost do a form of automatic writing for; others of the words on his walls are his own, but he'll never tell which was which. Nobody needed to know.

Five's room looks distinctly... different than he remembers. They never changed it, or threw anything out, after he left. It seemed wrong to do, and Vanya probably would've pitched a fit about it anyway. As he's taking in the differences that he can note in the darkness, he misses the chalk on the floor and steps on a piece just so in the right way to make it catch and roll under his foot and send him off-balance and on his ass. Way louder than he was trying to be, which means it's just the most natural end this moment could have met. Everything is always louder when you're trying your hardest to be quiet.

"Ow..." he mutters, rubbing a spot on the back of his head where he'd hit the ground.

[n5]

That sound immediately has Five awake and on high alert. Eyes shooting open, posture shifting quickly into a defensive one and back hitting the wall. Somehow, there's now a short, but very pointy, knife in his right hand. Must have been under the pillow all along.

Alarmed eyes fall on Klaus' form on the floor, squinting in suspicion a moment later. Five doesn't look any more relaxed to see his brother in his room than when he thought it was someone breaking in.

"What are you doing?" Five's question is a hiss through gritted teeth. He is still trying to keep his voice low so he sounds like a disgruntled cat.

[ghostphone]

His eyes go wide at the sudden flurry of movement from the other boy on the bed, and more importantly the knife held in his hand. Klaus' eyes are wide and his hands go up in surrender. "Christ, Five, it's me!" That question earns Five an almost sheepish look. "I couldn't sleep... sometimes it's better when I'm not alone." Five wasn't here for the years on end of Klaus barging into bedrooms and taking up space on a bed that wasn't his. He was already gone when things kept getting progressively worse with Dad and his efforts to desensitize Klaus to the dead.