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Sleeping at Vanya's is always a gamble.
Sometimes, her minimalist vintage decor and high ceilings and neutral pastels suit Klaus just fine, and the night passes uneventfully even after Vanya goes to sleep and Klaus employs his inherent freedom to make himself right at home in her living room. Unlike his encounters with Allison's space, his stays at Vanya's don't tend to bear many fruits because she and Klaus don't wear the same size of anything -- Klaus can't even stretch them to fit -- and she buys groceries several times a week to accommodate for her tiny kitchen, so there's not often a lot to snack on.
He helps himself regardless, of course. Usually he likes to shower using her modestly-scented gender neutral body wash, because that's nice and exotic, and then he leafs through any sheet music she's left out to see if she's learning anything cool (she isn't, but he likes to check) or gossiping about her students in the margins (she isn't, but sometimes she makes these frustrated marks by the parts that look extra complicated and Klaus loves to see those).
Her apartment is always warm, it's always clean, and unlike the inhospitable echoing depths of their accursed childhood manor, it's always garnished with passages of evidence that somebody spends even a smidgen of time living and leisuring there. No one gruesome haunts the premises, at least not that Klaus has seen in the few months that he's been visiting here sober, and that's more than enough of what Klaus needs these days to have a satisfied and enchanting evening. He usually wakes up on her short green couch with the serenity of restfulness in his head and his sporadic penchant for familiarity feeling sweetly fulfilled.
But there are also times when, despite giving Klaus a lot of what he enjoys -- which, admittedly, doesn't take a lot -- Vanya's apartment is strangely supremely uncomfortable. Klaus hasn't been able to find a rhyme or reason as to why, nor has he ever taken the time to try and identify a pattern, but every once in a while, when he visits, he finds his entire body needling like he's covered in pinpricks of crawling specimens inside and out, and he can't even brush them off because they aren't even real. Sometimes the feeling stays with him throughout the visit, but at others it fades not too long after he steps inside. It isn't unbearable, but it is unpredictable, and those are the times when nights spent at Vanya's are neutralized by a juxtaposition of discomfort and ease.
This, right now, is one of those times.
For a lot of reasons, he's used to leaving promptly once he wakes up and feeling better shortly after, so there might be something bothering him in her apartment that comes and goes, or maybe he just coincidentally feels like that on some of the same mornings that he sleeps on his sister's couch. It's never been much of a problem or worth paying a lot of attention to because it doesn't last very long, but they've been hanging out lately and today, unlike the last time and the last time and the last time, Klaus doesn't have anywhere else he needs to be.
So there he stays, even a few hours past dawn, alone with the living room's tranquility and the lit sparkler inside of his face. There are no nightmares to recover from this morning, thank Christ or the universe or whoever is responsible, but Ben isn't here either (maybe he's spying on -- watching over -- the others, Klaus hopes, and when he comes back Klaus can finally find a way to badger him into providing a recap), which leaves him with nothing else to focus on until he hears Vanya's bedroom door unlatch and creak all the way open.
"Good morning," she welcomes him with just enough energy to imply she's been up for a while, but not to the extent that might suggest that Vanya herself is a morning person.
"Heeeyyyy sunshine," returns Klaus as he lets his legs stretch until his calves are halfway off of the armrest, then he pushes himself up because despite being a regular early riser, he isn’t a morning person right now either but knows how to pretend. Although he's stayed at Vanya's plenty of times before, most of those instances ended up with Klaus coming out of a good high or a bad dream as he awoke, which had him rushing out into the cold weather and colder alleyway culture that he'd mastered the same way Vanya had mastered the violin. If he did happen to see her at all during those mornings, it was tremendously fleeting with nothing for Klaus to offer other than a brusque See ya, thanks Sis that he threw at her as he incautiously swung that giant wooden door shut.
He's finding out right now, though, that she's plenty nice even before noon strikes.
"I wasn't too loud, was I?" is the first thing she asks. "I had to talk to a student earlier and the call went on longer than I expected."
"Nope." Really, how sweet. "Quiet as a lamb. I could hear all sorts of pins dropping everywhere. Ping, ping…"
Vanya relaxes. She's always been so soft-spoken and serious, which in addition to their overall segregation as they were growing up, meant that Klaus never got to know her very well. He's finding that although she doesn't warm up quickly, she's quite kind and stays loyal once you do get a hold of her trust. They'd always called her ordinary, but God is it so much fucking better to be around somebody normal who knows how to talk to people and navigate a regular relationship with all of its modest courteousness and easy conversational sways. Although he had submerged himself into just as much of the real world as Vanya did, not a lot of the company Klaus has kept has been lucid and dependable the way she is. Lately, Klaus has been appreciating those types of people a lot more.
"I don't have any appointments until eleven. If you want I can make breakfast…?"
"Please." Please, please, Vanya, you angel.
"Tea or coffee?"
"Depends. What kind of…" Klaus has to stop when the irritated tingling in his head spreads and blooms right in the middle of his face not for the first time this morning, its obstinate intensity causing him to almost shudder before he concludes its effects with a sneeze.
"Bless you."
"Thanks. What kind of tea?"
Vanya opens one of her cabinets, the one with all the spices and whatever, and angles her head upward.
"Green," she lists, "peppermint, ginger… English breakfast, bergamot orange black…"
Klaus leans back, relaxes, and lets her go on.
"Earl Grey, Hot Cinnamon Sunset, white pear-- oh, uh, green hibiscus--"
"Hot Cinnamon Sunset," repeats Klaus. What the hell. That one doesn't fit in with the others at all. That's the one he likes. "Spicy. Did you buy that one, or was it a gift?"
Vanya smiles and surprises him. "No, I bought it."
"Is it any good? Don't tell me," Klaus says. "That's the one, Vanya, that's our winner."
So Vanya fills and stations her shiny old-fashioned kettle and then pulls out a pan and opens the fridge. "Eggs okay?" she asks like Klaus is some sort of king. Well, goodness. He should have been staying for breakfast since the beginning. "How do you like them?"
Klaus says, "How do you like them? I just realized I don't know that about you."
"I usually just scramble them. That's always been the easiest."
"Fabulous," Klaus says. He would have said that no matter what her answer was; he isn't picky. While Vanya spins the knob that click-click-clicks on the gas burner, he adds, "Do you know how to poach them? I could show you."
It's cute how Vanya and Allison are both prone to adorning the same exact skeptical smile, crooked and challenging and soft, squinting at him like an amused mother who knows their son lied about doing his homework but is going to let him go out and play anyway. "You do?"
Klaus wants to tell her all about this rich guy he stayed with a while back who'd years-and-years-ago been kicked out of his fraternity and how funny his not-a-fraternity communal bachelor pad was for Klaus to observe, but first he has to scratch at the prospering, tantalizing itch that's just now intensified behind his eyes by turning away from her and the kitchen and sneezing toward his shoulder. Then, quickly, he answers, "Yes."
"Bless you."
"Might have to saythatagain--" because Klaus brings up a hand and sneezes twice more, allowed less than a second to catch his breath in between but each one asserting itself as its own separate entity. He pauses for a moment afterward to be certain that his body has had its way with him for now. "Jesus Christ, okay, sorry. Excuse me."
Vanya rinses her hands after cracking so many eggshells, then dries them on the stout white towel hanging off of the dishwasher handle. "Jeez. Bless you," she repeats, just a little more impressed this time, but maybe not enough.
"Thank you."
"Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. I'm wonderful. Starving, though. What was I…?"
"You were telling me how you became a Grade-A chef, Klaus."
"Oh yes, a Chef de Cuisine, yes, I did. You know, I was staying with this guy for a couple days, and he had this roommate -- he was kind of cute, he was tiny, maybe you guys would have liked him -- haha -- who I think was going through this phase where he was, uh… you know those people who love to challenge themselves," he didn't mean to sound so spiteful, he doesn't really mind them, "by learning all of these random, ineffectual things just for the sake of showing off, but then forget they know how to do them?"
"Yeah," Vanya says. She'd looked like she had something else to say while Klaus was talking, but she seems to have switched gears. "I've taught a few of them, actually. Like a jack of all trades."
"Yes, exactly, but just slightly more sinister." His voice is starting to sound like that, a little bit nasally, almost threatening, like if he doesn't play his cards right then his nose is going to start running and give him an extra chore to have to deal with. He isn't sure if it's from sneezing four times or if it would have started doing that anyway because of Vanya's mysterious apartment. "And he was going through one of those phases where he was trying to perfect all of these French salads."
"French salads?" asks Vanya. Her spatula is so cute, matching everything else in her kitchen, stainless steel with a ceramic turquoise handle. She likes that color a lot, so Klaus wonders why she doesn't ever wear it.
"I'm not sure why he chose such an ambitious genre," Klaus says. "Maybe those things choose you. I don't know. Hmm. Does a violin phase choose a person, do you think?"
Vanya huffs a brief springy laugh. It looks good on her; he doesn't remember her doing that very much before. "They usually call it quits when they realize it takes more than a couple months to become good enough at it to tell people they can play it. That's what they want."
"Also ambitious. So disrespectful… to you," Klaus says. He sniffles just a couple of times, great, and it's certainly not the last of them, either. "I thought those people were all big researchers."
"Yeah, maybe not so much. What about, uh, French salad guy?"
"Oh! That's right. Okay, he-- When I was over there, he was in the middle of perfecting the salade niçoise, which, Vanya, is not supposed to incorporate poached eggs whatsoever, hard-boiled only, unless you're this guy, apparently. He-- for some reason-- insisted on poaching them, even though they're very strict about that sort of thing, the French. Huh. I guess they aren't really big researchers after all."
"Or maybe he was good enough to try and innovate," suggests Vanya, who appears to be an innovator herself, pouring something out from a canister that Klaus can't see and scraping it around with their food in the pan.
"You know. Maybe," Klaus agrees offhandedly, and then he's pressed to say, "sorry again, I really have to…" before his actions speak for themselves once more and he gives back into the seesawing flutter and sneezes concedingly behind the side of his hand. He's lucky he isn't one of those people who tends to sneeze in a way that practically throws them across the room, because he doesn't have to worry too much about restraining himself or keeping quiet during times like these when he just has to keep doing it, for some reason.
He assesses his anatomy for a few seconds to see if he can relax and finds out that he cannot, then turns his hand halfway over for security and sneezes again.
This time, Vanya sounds concerned and also a little suspicious. "Bless--" she says, halts, and then follows up by saying, "hang on," and walks off down the hidden depths of her hallway, probably to fetch Klaus a box of tissues because six times is just outrageous.
He's quite grateful for that, because he probably wouldn't have had the foresight or initiative to get up and grab them himself.
Even from the other room and without Vanya having to raise her voice, Klaus can very clearly hear her saying "oh my God" in the same tone the scientists probably used when they looked at all their satellites and discovered global warming. The walls are thin, but Klaus recognizes that Vanya lives alone and doesn't entertain many guests other than himself and Allison and maybe a lady or two if her once-in-a-blue-moon Tinder dates go well, so she probably doesn't even know he can hear her.
She comes back into view carrying a box of Kleenex -- rectangular, not square, which means it's meant to be stationary on a flat surface instead of nestled in the arms of grown adults who are clearly and desperately suffering through the most harrowing of times they’ve ever known -- and a very distraught expression that overtakes her entire face, eyes intense and brows tilted.
"Klaus," she says, "I am so sorry."
Vanya -- like all of his siblings always, always just love to do whenever anything happens to anyone in any capacity -- is having some sort of an overreaction.
"Okay," he bites. "What's wrong?"
"I totally forgot," she continues cryptically.
"Uh-huh. People forget things." What did she forget?
"My neighbor's cat gets out sometimes," explains Vanya, horrified and apologetic, "and she wasn't home when it happened yesterday, and I was just practicing so I let him come in here, on that couch, mostly, until she could take him back. I totally forgot you were allergic."
Jesus Christ, is that all?
"Oh my God," Klaus says. How about that, though. "Vanya. It's fine."
If he were less amused, Klaus would almost be taken aback by the depth of her reaction, still not so used to seeing Vanya with this much access to her emotions. The reserved, demure quality of her character remains, but there's been more life to her eyes lately, more presence.
"I guess that's the sort of humanizing detail you forget after a while," admits Vanya as she approaches Klaus with his treasure. She's becoming too pensive for a thirty-year-old woman wearing sweatpants while her apartment becomes ravished with the smell of melting butter.
"Yes, of course, yes, yes, the sorrow of familial estrangement," says Klaus as he takes the box out of her gratuitously fretful hands. He has what he needs now, so he decides that's enough of that. "Now come on, come on. As much as I love the shrieking ballad of stainless steel…"
Vanya smooths out just a little as she returns to the stovetop so she can tend to the kettle as it whistles out a trail of steam. But even as she takes a mug down from its hook on her shelf and fills it with hot water, she says, "I can get you an antihistamine in a minute." Then, as she delivers it to Klaus and scandalously places it on the table next to him without a coaster, she asks, "Are you going to be okay?"
Klaus plucks one, two, three tissues from the box and uses them to squeeze down the bridge of his nose and then pull downward as a campaign against his body as he battles for just a dash of relief.
"My God, Vanya," he says afterward, and maybe he shouldn't laugh but he can't help giggling for a second because of all the things for Vanya to worry about when it comes to Klaus, she chooses his very scarce and very moderate allergy to an animal that isn't even presently in the room with them. "I promise, okay? It's not that serious."
She seems like she's about to let it go, but first she has to cover the tracks of her sad-sister conscience and say, "Ugh. I'm sorry. I really can't believe I forgot you were allergic to cats."
"I forget all the time," Klaus says. Now that his mystery is solved and there's a clear, obvious end in sight, the symptoms don't seem as annoying. Vanya's worry is working on him like reverse psychology. He waves a hand at her, maybe a little too forcefully to make up for the fact that he just remembered he can't use those muscles to scratch at his skin. "It's not a big deal. I'll just sneeze a few times and then I'll go somewhere else and it'll stop. You know our food is about to burn."
"Shit." Vanya, momentarily steered away from her makeshift emergency, hurries back over to the stove and pan and ceramic-metal spatula so she can take care of what's really important. Klaus, meanwhile, wonders how long it'll take him to deplete what is presumably his sister's entire home-supply of tissues, because his eyes snap tightly shut and he's sneezing again, twice in a row like before, and the box had already felt like it could've been half empty when he got it. Oh well. "Bless you."
"Thank you. You know what," Klaus says, then stops to blow his nose for just a couple of seconds because it's more itchy than stuffed up and trying to do something about that is probably going to be his priority for the rest of the morning, "you are definitely not allowed to say that to me if you're going to sound all guilty about it." He sniffles and feels like it might never end. That could be the case. There's really no telling. "You're going to bum me out."
The tea is pretty good, spicy-sweet like it's coating him and kicking him at the same time, which is exactly what he needs. Maybe Klaus subconsciously chose it because he knew it would feel nice on his throat.
Vanya grants him victory when she rolls her eyes, good-natured humor bleeding back into her demeanor like watercolor on a dry paper towel. "Okay. I'll be cool," she says. Klaus hears the moisture in the eggs sizzle as they get knocked around in the pan one last time before Vanya divides them up and slides them onto two plates. "Come sit at the table."
Klaus feels the draft against his bare legs as he migrates, no longer protected by the couch behind him holding onto his body heat. He expected to feel a little less itchy underneath his skin at least once he stopped making contact with all of that dander-woven fabric, but it may be too late. Vanya sets their plates down gently enough for the ceramic not to make that rolling sound as they hit the wood, then she hands Klaus a fork and he waits for her.
But Vanya doesn't sit down. Instead, she asks him, "Have you taken Zyrtec before?"
"What a question!" Klaus says. "Uh," he clears his throat and laughs a little, weirdly self-conscious, "yeah, probably."
"It doesn't usually have any side effects," Vanya tells him as though that's important. "I mean, can you take…?"
He laughs again. Not a lot, but he can't help it. "I'm not going to get high off of… off of an antihistamine," he promises, then reminds her of how much he might need it anyway by shielding his face and sneezing off to the side. Just one on its own; maybe now that he's away from the couch he's starting to get better after all.
"All right. Bless you," Vanya says with a clear, deliberate effort to sound neutral, then goes away again. Klaus still feels like he needs to sneeze, but it's stuck right on the other side of the limbo where he can either decide to concentrate and get his body to push it out of him or rub his nose to try and get it to go away, which only works some of the time. He chooses the latter option for now, listening to Vanya opening the cabinet behind her bathroom mirror and then the thick rustle of cardboard being slid against cardboard as she grabs him a dose of optimistic relief. Her medicine cabinet has always looked more like a first aid kit than anything, its only actual medicinal contents being over the counter pain reliever type of stuff and her own prescriptions. She's never been very frivolous, but even so, she bears no struggle in giving Klaus what he needs.
When Vanya returns, she hands him two tiny round white pills.
"Thanks," Klaus says, purposefully articulate even though he's starting to get a little tired, then Vanya watches as he swallows them dry without a problem.
"I've always been able to do that, too," she says conversationally as she sits down and starts gathering some of her breakfast onto a fork. "Some people just choke."
"Yeah, well," Klaus says, smiling to show her it's okay that he says so, "we've both had plenty of practice." He checks to see that she's okay -- and she is -- before he follows her example and takes a bite. "This is good! You're the real Grade-A chef, Vanya, why didn't you say anything before?"
Vanya smiles back at him and says, "Oh, come on."
And then as she loosens right back up -- and Klaus is proud now to be one of the people who can get sort of her to do that -- the two of them recapture that easiness, that safety that Klaus has become familiar with and doesn't plan to forget.