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Published:
2019-06-10
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2020-06-02
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Antagonist

Summary:

Klaus, for all his loud personality, was never aggressively outspoken. The Hargreeves never noticed this as a particularly odd thing; after all, when Klaus was nice he was more likely to get things.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

For all the times Reginald (who at one point had been regarded as a father to him) had personally tortured Number Four for the sake of his fear of the dead, it would come as a surprise to anyone to discover that this fear hadn’t been the one to put him through the most grief. 

 

Fear of antagonistic behaviour. Fear of anger. Fear of yelling. These are more accurate fears of Four’s. 

 

Klaus had grown up in noise. Never had he slept in a room void of Mrs Gillian Clark and Marcy Donovan, an old landlady who died in a fire and a pigtailed girl who died in her sleep to illness. They’d whisper and wail and scream at him when he’d try to sleep, they’d grabble and scratch and claw at him when he’d try to ignore them.

 

So it was no surprise that when his sibling’s voices raised, he’d cower, and when his siblings would fight, he’d hold his breath. 

 

There had been times, after sparring or a disagreement, when he’d lock his room’s door and slide down to the floor. Forehead meeting his knees, trimmed fingernails digging into his shoulders, his breathing laboured. This particular experience happened more than he’d like.

 

There were times, too, when Four would sit with his siblings on their time off. Luther would start disagreeing with Diego and without knowing whether or not it would escalate, Klaus would stand up and remove himself from the situation.

 

He couldn’t stand to hear people being loud.

 

One time, Five had gotten into an argument with Reginald about the possibility of dimension travel. Five was shouting, Reginald’s voice had the commanding tone of an officer threatening dishonourable discharge. 

 

Klaus, in a fit of irritability and panic, had spoken up. 

 

“Shut up! We’re at dinner! Five, please stop! Stop being argumentative.” Klaus was gasping, tears running down his face, pleading, “Please, Dad. Please, stop being angry!”

 

The room went quiet, everyone turning to face Klaus. Klaus’ breath hitched, his eyebrows frozen in an angry scowl and he felt his muscles lock up and refuse to cooperate when his brain ordered him to apologise or cower or flee. 

 

Reginald, without a word, walked around the table and grabbed Klaus by under his bicep. Klaus’ voice wouldn’t work but by the time he was outside and being thrown into the mausoleum he was sobbing. 

 

He couldn’t explain why, or when this fear started, but he had a mortal fear of anger. He hated that when he looked in his father's eyes, he saw the same vengeful hatred that the ghosts exhibited. He hated that when people shouted, he felt drowned in insanity— as if the voices of the dead were seeping into the mortal realm and poisoning his siblings.

 

The drugs helped. They made the line between the living and dead less significant — As if he could dance the line without consequence. As if the meaning of words were paramount to the volume of the speech that delivered them. So when the ghosts screamed, “Help me!” All he registered was that they needed. 

 

But he needed too. He needed more pills. He needed his siblings to answer the phone. He needed to be able to go home, to have a home. He needed them to see him as more than a homeless junkie, to see him as a brother.

 

He didn’t fear the dead. He feared the fact that his dumb phobias had driven people to hate him.

Chapter 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Klaus’ childhood fear of ‘disputes’ ended up as less of a childhood thing, and more of a livelong trauma. 

 

The first time he’d been admitted to rehab, his psychiatrist diagnosed him with an anxiety disorder and wrote down on his record that he’d experienced dissociative episodes, sensory overloads and mild PTSD. The second time he went to rehab, they told him he had depression, bipolar disorder and a knack for escapism. The third? They told him there was a chance he had ADHD and by the time they’d planned more official tests, he’d gotten the hell out of dodge. 

 

One thing stayed constant throughout the wards he’d been forced to stay at: they were too quiet.

 

Now, Klaus himself will admit it's a little paradoxical of someone who fears loud noises, but he couldn’t stand the silence. It was also hypocritical of someone who risked life and limb to stay on the fringes of sanity to stop being barraged by the screams of the dead— but when had Klaus ever been a sensical person?

 

He would drown himself in street drugs to muffle the wails of wondering spirits and bathe himself in the screaming of raves and clubs. He ran from a home filled with conflict only to be met with the war of homeless thieves looking to steal his pocket-change. 

 

He knew how flawed his ideas were, and he alone has suffered at the hands of his own denial. But when he saunters across the club floor and sits on someone's lap, purring sweet nothingness in a man’s ear with a promise and a price, the loud sounds become background noise and he loves it. 

 

Maybe he loves the noise because he knows it's not them. Because when he hears a young adult shout in joy as another sweeps them off their feet, he innately knows it's not his brother meeting his end or a sibling being tortured. Because there’s this huge difference between exclaimed joy and agony, and he lives in the in-between and he gets lost in the mix. 

 

So if he ever had the courage to tell his siblings how much it pains him to hear them fight (Therapist no.1 called them anxiety-induced sensory overloads), they’d probably never believe him. 

 

After all, with such a loud personality, how on earth could he have an aversion to noise?

Notes:

I felt like adding another chapter as an extension and I'm considering adding more if I feel particularly inspired, so even though its a finished work I encourage anyone reading this to bookmark it anyway!
(FYI, I'll beta read this soon.)

Chapter 3: All is Fair

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

How could he— of all people— wind up thrown into a war?

 

He was a pacifistic gay genderqueer twink with more (diagnosed) mental health disorders than anyone in his fucked-up family, and yet he’d landed himself smack-bang in the middle of the most pointless war he hadn’t be bothered to learn about in the academy. 

 

And then there was Dave— angel-on-a-popsicle-stick Dave— embodying the dichotomy of kindness and soldier, gay and 60s, parties and sobriety. Dave introduced Klaus to everything he didn’t know he was and was the first person to hold his hand in living, breathing and existing as himself. 

 

For the first time, he was wholly him and not some personality byproduct of drug dependency. 

 

Klaus learned that he loved to dance, and not just the sexy kind, but the kind where the two of them would get lost in a crowd and find one another improvising a tango with strangers to a put-together jazz band. 

 

Klaus learned that he loved people, and not just getting his way, but talking and laughing to jokes the soldiers wouldn’t get yet. He loved knowing the names of every soldier he bared arms for. He loved raising a glass to others lives and despite the tragedy, he knew these men and women would live on in his memory and that was such an intimate precious privilege.

 

Klaus learned he loved the feeling of breathing in damp jungle air after sharing breath with his lover, the two watching sunrise as they kit up and move through the underbrush to assigned posts. He loved feeling his lover's pulse in his band and the air on their tongues and knowing they were going to survive this because they had one another. 

 

The thing about war is that you learn a lot about yourself and others. Nothing is truer a test of character than how a soldier reacts to the situation and how the ranks treat one another. The war affected Klaus in important ways: he learnt to love, but he also learned hate. 

 

Klaus learned to hate the scramble for life, losing his battalion in the fray and stumbling across scenes painted in lifeblood, holding a strangers hand as they close their eyes and telling them its gonna be okay, he’ll get him back to his girl and they can forget ever being apart. 

 

Klaus learned to hate people, seeing people lining the tree-line with bombs and as much ill will and the US soldiers, themselves, carry— which is today, none. No one here wanted to die or kill, they were just obeying the pointless orders of pointless people with pointless money. 

 

Klaus learned to hate breath. He learnt this when he held his dying lover in his arms and all he could think was the absence of air, the absence of pulse, and the presence of his own. 

 

Dave was still, and Klaus was not. For a moment, the world seemed silent. 

 

Klaus wasn’t afraid of the war, he was afraid of what it cost. 

Notes:

Thank you to everyone who's supported this and its continuation!! You have my gratitude :)

This chapter I wanted to deal with some canon events and I'm sorry if there are errors, I haven't betaed it, so I'd be really thankful if you relay any you find :)

Thanks, and peace out!!

Chapter 4: Feather

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The Hargreaves siblings would sooner compare Klaus to a feather than a soldier. He had Blanche DeBois’ voice— airy and submissive, lost to a daydream— and drifted between rooms like a ghost drifting from one reality to the next, gracing people with his presence with the sincerity of someone who doesn’t really care for gravity or its consequences.


His siblings knew him as a child built on a tower of drugs so high that nothing could ground him. They did not know him how Dave knew him: A man so afraid of feeling that he’d sooner give up his own mind and wellbeing than confront the possibility of people caring. 


People caring meant that people would know him, and he was too terrified to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known. He wondered what they would think. He’d escaped ghosts by sacrificing his mind, he’d run away from his father by sacrificing his body and only in the war did he find someone worth fighting for. 


Would they judge him for staying and fighting with a stranger? Would they understand why he’d done the things he’d done— would they even care the prices he’s paid for his own cowardice and would it be penance enough? If he’d died, would they morn him? 


He wondered for a short moment if Five would care that he was responsible for Kaus being tortured, or would be angry that he gave up information. What would they think if they knew drugs were what broke him— not the burning or the choking or the fingernails or the slicing. The drugs. 


He felt like a weak pathetic creature and yet Dave had loved him. He’d looked this drugged-up coward in the eyes and he’d told Klaus he was beautiful. That he was strong. That he was worth fighting beside. 

 

 

He didn’t know how long he sat on that bus, waiting for the world to feel familiar. His blood-crust nails dug into the edges of the metal casing cradled in his lap, army greens stained black and brown and clashing with the sheer silver of two sets of dog-tags dangling from his thin neck.


Army rations weren’t kind. They’d left him thin and light-headed most days, struggling with sickness and withdrawal. He couldn’t help but clutch the case harder, feeling his bony fingers pulse in protest. Any amount of poisoning or overdosing wouldn’t compare to the hollow feeling in his throat. The heat in his chest burning out any awareness of the onlookers. When he got off the bus, eyes followed him.

 

He was tired of being a feather, so he took the smoking contraption in his hand, lifted it high and screamed. Like every soul suffering the effects of war, he broke.

 

When Klaus finally returned to the land of the living with a new tattoo and fresh trauma, they’d assumed he’d had a makeover.

Notes:

There ya go: a fourth chapter! Thanks for the support in continuing this, if anyone has any ideas for additional chapters, don't be a stranger and drop a comment :)
Looking forward to any suggestions! Thanks and peace out.

[EDIT, 16th June 2020: I just realised when I posted this I acidentally cut off the last sentance— sorry about that!!]