Chapter Text
The umbrella kid is cooler than you'd think for someone who has to wear knee-high socks every day and is only allowed to watch TV on the weekends. Everyone had thought he was a narc when he showed up last fall until Ashley had admitted to inviting him to their group after watching him pickpocket a guy on the street for a shit ton of painkillers. She didn't even know he was famous.
He's taller now and his hair is longer and curlier than the pompadour crew cut he wore on that interview a couple years ago, so nobody else had felt embarrassed about not recognizing him either because it's not flattering to be impressed by celebrities. You're not supposed to care.
Besides: Klaus acts weird, but he doesn't act like a celebrity.
His hands are always filthy when he meets up with everyone at the bleachers after dark. He's not exactly coordinated, especially for a guy with psychic abilities who stops bank robbers, so it can't be a very smooth endeavor for him to amble down the fire escape and press his palms on the gritty railing as he grips it to get himself down in one piece. Matt doesn't mind touching them to catch the bowl and lighter when Klaus passes them and says, "You're good, Matthew, it's still hot enough if you hurry."
Matt lets the smoke build up inside the pipe and breathes in while Klaus touches the back of his shoulder with the affectionate support he's known for. He stares at the sky, purple-orange from light pollution and not a star in sight.
While Matt holds the burn in his lungs, Klaus takes his hand back and says out of nowhere, "I wish I went to this school."
"What the hell do you mean?" asks Ayana, who skipped a grade and is acing all her classes. She swings her legs from the step above him and pokes his shoulder with her toe. "No you fuckin' don't."
Klaus grabs her entire foot and then leans back, elbows up behind him in a way that might be comfortable on a sofa but has to be sore on cold ridged metal. He lets go and gives it a little toss in the air.
"Yeah I do. My dad sucks," he says.
"Everyone's dad sucks," Matt says on his exhale, smoke leaving his mouth in an inelegant wispy-white sheet. He hands the supplies back to Klaus and they brush fingers again.
"Warm hands, Matthew," Klaus comments as he passes them up to Ayana.
"You guys skipped me," Ashley complains.
Ayana waves her off and says, "It's fine, you can just go next."
She takes a long hit and hands the bowl to Ashley, who says, "It's almost cashed, assholes."
"We don't have any more?" Matt asks.
"No, I'm not picking up 'til tomorrow," Ashley tells him.
"That's okay," Klaus says. He doesn't seem bothered by it because he doesn't seem bothered by anything; they almost got busted last week and he chattered away making fun of the cop while they hid beneath the seats in Matt's car and the rest of them practically had a heart attack. "We can shotgun the last of it."
Klaus leans his body jerkily like he's punching Matt with his shoulder to indicate he meant him. Klaus is always touching everybody, light and delicate and sometimes without a reason, but this one still catches Matt by surprise. He doesn't know what to do so he bumps him back and listens to Klaus laugh shortly as though Matt had physically knocked the huff of delight right out of him.
"We did it before," Klaus says, holding out his index finger and waving his hand back and forth, pointing between himself and Ashley. "It's cool. I'll show you, okay?"
Klaus does show him and Matt loves it and tries not to grab his friend's bicep in the process for the sake of both passion and balance. Nobody has anything to say about it when he does that anyway because he can't help it, not even Klaus. He's hard and skinny and sharp but Matt has to let go eventually anyway.
Without anything left to smoke, it's not long before everyone gets bored and decides to split for the night. It's barely half past midnight, but Ashley says she's going to skip first period anyway and decides to take the long way walk home to clear her head. Klaus had offered to escort her and nobody could tell if he was serious about it (probably not).
Ayana lives a few blocks away and is not as tough as she seems, so Matt gives her a ride and Klaus tags along because he likes to keep himself from going home for as long as he can help it. Matt pulls into the alley so she can go in through the back, even though her mom works nights and won't be home for a few hours. They live on the first floor so she might just not want to wake the neighbors when the jingle of her keys echoes through the stairwell.
Before she's even closed the door to the building, Klaus crawls to the front seat and reaches for the lever to pull the chair back. He kisses Matt just like before but this time without the weed, and Matt stays illegally in the neighbor's back driveway and doesn't bother taking the car out of park.
"I thought you had a thing with Ashley?" Matt says after a few minutes or maybe more. He's not actually sure how long it's been, but that's how long it feels.
Klaus kisses him again but stays close.
"I dunno, we made out," he says. "It was pretty good, but it wasn't… I don't know, maybe she was too soft, or she wasn't bigger than me, or something. I just think it could've been better."
"Is this better right now?" Matt asks. He feels weird. He feels insecure and worried about pissing off his friend or dealer or whatever Ashley is to him, but he feels aligned, too. He feels balanced when he's touching Klaus like this, like he's doing something he's supposed to be doing, and that's nice enough to cancel out all of the fear and then some.
"Yeah, way better," Klaus says. "I usually like kissing guys a lot more. And you're very handsome, Matthew, very talented."
"Thank you," Matt says. Klaus might be lying, but it's nice to hear from him so Matt doesn't care. Without thinking, he cradles the other part of his statement in the front of his mind and asks, "Are you gay?"
It might have been the wrong question if he'd asked another guy he was hooking up with for the first time, but asking Klaus doesn't feel wrong at all.
Klaus responds at first by looking like he's never even thought about it, like he's kissed plenty of dudes but never once wondered what it could mean about himself. That must be nice, Matt thinks.
"I don't know," Klaus says contemplatively, and it sounds like that doesn't bother him, either. "Maybe. Probably."
"I think am," Matt confesses and tries to make it sound like it doesn't mean very much to him.
"Yeah?"
Klaus meets his eyes and it means everything to him.
His voice was soft and curious which makes Matt get tangled all of a sudden. "I just don't wanna, like…" he starts to say. Klaus leans back and gets comfortable so he can listen to him. "What if I meet a-- I don't know, dude."
"You dont have to know," Klaus promises, as though he knows what Matt wants to say before Matt does. "No, you don't have to know anything."
But he wants to. "What if I do want to fuck a girl one day?"
Klaus hums like Matt's old therapist used to hum and Matt waits for his insight. He's used to not knowing what to do when it comes to things like this. Nobody ever taught him.
"You might," Klaus says after a moment. Matt doesn't like his answer and reminds himself that Klaus isn't a fortune teller, but that's dumb and doesn't make him feel better. "Who knows. You could just be gay now and then be something else later, if you want. It doesn't really matter."
Klaus is probably gay, Matt decides.
"Would you have sex with a girl?" he asks.
He doesn't think it's a difficult question, but Klaus takes a second. "I guess I'm open to it," he says. "I don't really want to, so probably not, but it might be fun. Girls are fun sometimes. I'm just saying that if I ever want to then there's no rule that says I can't."
"You don't think about it?"
"What, sex with girls? Not really."
"No, just-- I mean, about any of this. It doesn't seem like you do."
Klaus looks like he's about a thousand years old. He's still smiling, he's always smiling when things get serious, and he's still letting Matt hold his hand. His lips are swollen but they're tight, and he loosens them to show his teeth but then he has to look away. Matt tries to follow his line of sight but decides to give him some privacy.
"Nah," Klaus says, "I've just got other shit to think about."
His voice is neutral and pleasant and there's something really sad about that. Matt doesn't know why. All he can do is feel it and wonder what kind of conversation Klaus is trying to protect him from.
He's never seen Klaus get quiet like this and it makes him worry that he might be upset. He doesn't know very much about Klaus besides that he's fun and hot and easy to be around and learned how to score drugs and find dealers remarkably fast, so it's not easy to read him or to know what kinds of topics might send him somewhere dark. Matt had never followed the whole superhero thing and Klaus doesn't talk about what his life is like at home, aside from mentioning that he doesn't like it, and now that Matt knows him personally it'd feel creepy and invasive to look up any press junket shit from his past.
So that means that once again, Matt's sitting next to Klaus with no idea know what to do about him. However, unlike before, he's got some experience and broken a new physical barrier, so in a panic, he tilts Klaus back over and kisses him with an already comfortable familiarity.
"Oh! Well okay," Klaus responds, and he's happy again, thank God thank God thank God.
This is so much easier than whatever emotional stuff Matt was scared was about to happen, but not only because most things would've been. He isn't the first boy Klaus has romanced, apparently, obviously, but it doesn't feel like Klaus is his first either, even though he definitely, definitely is. Matt was destined to do this and feels like the first sixteen years of his life were a bust because he wasted them doing literally anything else.
Klaus has to break off after nobody knows how long but it wasn't long enough and probably never could be.
"I'm coming down, Matthew, darling," he says, looking up through his eyelashes. He's used a pet name on Matt before-- he's used one on everyone before-- but it's different hearing it from him now. Klaus inhales long and quick and deep through his teeth. "Do you have like… You don't have anything else, do you?"
Matt is still plenty high off of the exact same stuff. How long has Klaus been smoking with them? Not even a year, right? He'd been a lightweight when they started smoking him up. It was cute.
"Uh…" He thinks about it. "Anything else, like…?"
"I mean anything. Like even Robitussin or something," Klaus says. He's calm, still friendly, but something's wrong and Matt has never seen him act like this, either.
"I'm dry, dude, I'm sorry," Matt says.
"That's okay!" Klaus reassures him. "Fuck. No, don't worry about it. I can tell you want to worry but you're too gorgeous to worry, Matthew, it's okay." He doesn't move yet, but his body relaxes-- almost too much, like he's forcing himself to do it. "But I doooooo need you to take me home, in that case, unfortunately for the both of us."
"Okay," Matt says immediately so Klaus doesn't think he's going to trap him or take advantage of him or something. "Absolutely. Oh my God, that's no problem--"
"Heeeeeyyy." Klaus rubs up and down Matt's forearm, more solidly than his usual gentle back and forth. "Man, it's okay, seriously. You're fine. I'd invite you up, but…"
Matt turns the key in the ignition and blinks a few times to determine whether he's sober enough to drive another six blocks up. "It's all right, Klaus. I know. I sneak out too," he says.
"My bastard father doesn't care if I'm gay," Klaus clarifies. "Just that I'm enjoying myself, experiencing happiness, experiencing the world, but I can't do that any of that unless he's off in evil dreamland tormenting the Sandman and all his sheep. And I've just gotta…"
"I get it. You're kinda like Cinderella."
Klaus smiles and it reaches his eyes.
Matt drops him off a few blocks away from his house just like Klaus asks him to, and then he sees him the next night just after ten-thirty like always. Some nights Klaus doesn't show, but he doesn't say why, and not a lot of time passes before his absences start to double up. Although he fits in with everybody like he's known them for his entire life, at the end of the day Klaus is still always going to be the odd one out. No one's ever been able to see him during daylight and he never allows the mystery of his life outside of the after-dark drugs circle to get any brighter.
And despite the quality time they spend together a few times a week, Matt doesn't know much more about Klaus than he did when they first met, though he does watch his tolerance climbing.
Unsurprisingly, the student becomes the master and it isn't long before Klaus starts bringing his own stuff to the field. His weed is better than Ashley's. He doles out mushrooms a few times and they're not as life-changing as Matt expected them to be, and sometimes Klaus offers other shit -- pills, not powders -- but nobody else is up to joining him in downing those.
Alcohol isn't off limits, though, and even though it's harder to get in the city than street drugs before you turn 21, Klaus somehow scores an abundance of that too, and his explanations as to how are always different, vague, impossible to gauge for honesty. Most of the time Klaus appears to know that they know he's fucking around, but that doesn't mean he's any more likely to give them a real answer.
The last time he sees them, Klaus leaves a bottle of half-empty Ciroc vodka, which is French and probably expensive, under the backseat of Matt's car and promises to pick it up later.
"So long as you don't finish it before I get a chance, mon chéri," he adds before he closes the passenger side door and glides down the sidewalk to the shackles of his father's urban mansion, his silhouette lanky and sparkling and beautiful, and by then Matt knows Klaus well enough to recognize that he's saying goodbye.
Klaus doesn't come around again after that. Matt stops smoking on the bleachers and tries not to miss him.