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The panicked face of their sister had tears streaming down red cheeks. Klaus stood there, cold creeping up his fingers and spreading through his whole body while Allison tried mutely to convince Luther to open the heavy metal door and Diego tried to stare and shout Luther down with anger radiating from his whole being. A distant part of Klaus noted how much Diego had changed from his stance regarding Vanya just a few days prior at their father’s funeral. He felt a bit of pride, more than the usual pride intermingling with love that he usually felt for the strong man. But nothing was relevant anymore if Number One kept their sister closed off in that cage.
Klaus could hear his own voice screaming for help and begging their father to let him out of the mausoleum, his fingers turning slippery with blood as he tried to somehow scratch his way out of the horrors surrounding him. He saw himself pounding against the thick glass of the door, only ten years old and terrified. It took him a few moments to realize Luther was talking to him and he only turned his head a bit, his eyes still trained on Vanya’s tear-stained face. “Come on, Klaus. We’re leaving.” “No.”, he whispered, barely loud enough to reach his siblings. “What? Klaus, we are leaving now!” Klaus turned around, a determination spreading through his body he had only felt once during his time in Vietnam.
“No. We are not leaving without Vanya. We are not leaving her here, scared out of her mind and with new powers she can’t control yet!”, he growled. Luther took a step forward and grabbed Klaus’ arm, anger evident on his face as he didn’t even try to moderate the brute strength he used. “I’m not repeating myself, Number Four! We are leaving now!” A slightly unhinged giggle escaped Klaus, but his eyes were still determined as he looked straight into his brother’s eyes. “Are you going to break my arm now? You are just like Reginald, just that he never left bruises that could be seen.” He didn’t let his siblings decipher what the meaning behind his words was, just barreled on. “Will you lock me in a cage as well? Just like him? Because I won’t leave without Vanya!”
Luther just stared for a minute but then he grabbed with his other hand for the heavy iron wheel and started to turn it. Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, before anyone could even try to begin and hope that Luther finally saw reason, he pulled the door open and pushed Klaus into the confined space, where he stumbled against Vanya and they fell, sprawled over the cold floor. The next moment the door was closed again. Klaus scrambled off his sister, his back against the cold wall of the cage, his knees close to his chest. He could see straight out of the glass, could see his siblings fighting, Allison hitting Luther and Diego holding a knife in one hand and pointing at the closed door with the other.
Distantly he was aware that Vanya was talking to him, but his ears were filled with the rushing of his blood through his veins. The walls were closing in on him, he could feel their coldness spreading over his whole body, could feel his heart slowing down until everything just went dark.
“Luther, dammit, you can’t just lock our siblings away, you fucking idiot!”, Diego shouted at the huge man standing in front of him. Did he leave his brain on the moon, or what was wrong with him? “If Klaus won’t listen, there is nothing else I can do.” “Fuck that, Luther! You are locking Vanya away because she hasn’t learned to control her powers yet and Klaus because he stood up for her! You almost broke Klaus’ arm! You are acting like Reginald did when we were younger! You are nothing but a tyrant!” Luther grabbed for Diego’s arm when a loud screech could be heard, like metal scraping on metal. All siblings turned around to the cage, surprised gasps leaving their lips.
They could see Klaus sitting against the opposite wall, his eyes were glowing a bright blue, with his hands doing the same. Vanya was kneeling next to him, not touching him but obviously frantically talking to him. Something seemed to be pressing against the seams of the cell from the inside, breaking it slowly open. Blue flashes were soaring through the room, bathing everything in an eerie glow.
“Fuck, what is happening in there?”, Diego gasped as the walls started to distort. “Vanya is doing something in there! Why isn’t Klaus stopping her?”, Luther shouted. “Are you fucking blind? Klaus is the one doing something, and Vanya tries to talk him down!” “But Klaus can’t do anything but see ghosts! If he had a useful power father would have used it!” Before Diego could cuss him out for being an asshole towards their brother Allison started to pull on their hands, effectively getting their attention. They looked back up to the steadily distorting cage and ran out of the room in a synchronized way that they didn’t even manage to pull off when they were still fighting against crime together.
A loud explosion made the walls around them shake and they could hear the walls of the cage crashing against the walls of the vault. As soon as the cacophony of noises calmed down they could hear Vanya begging with their brother: “Klaus, please, calm down! The cage is gone, you destroyed it! We are free, you don’t need to use your powers anymore!” She looked over her shoulder to the others peeking back into the room. “Diego! You have to talk to him, he doesn’t listen to me and I don’t know how to calm him down!”
Diego hurriedly left their hiding space, effectively ignoring Luther’s spluttered attempts to keep him back, because Klaus was dangerous. “Hey, baby. Klaus, can you hear me?” The lithe man’s eyes snapped up to him and he carefully lowered a hand to streak up and down one of Klaus’ arms that were still securely holding his knees to his chest. “Calm down, yeah? The cage is destroyed, and no one will lock you up again, okay?” The blue glow slowly vanished, and Klaus blinked confusedly, first at Diego, then at Vanya. “What happened?”, he asked in a weak voice, his arms slowly relaxing around his knees. “What do you remember?” Klaus looked back to Diego, confusion evident on his face. “Luther locked Vanya up in the cage from hell. And then he locked me up because I didn’t want her to experience the same trauma as I did. Then everything went black. I think I might have had a panic attack? I’m not good with enclosed spaces…”
Suddenly Luther appeared right behind Diego, his figure looming above them and bathing them in his huge shadow. “We need to decide what to do with them. If not even father’s cage could hold them we need to find something else to contain them!”, his booming voice echoed through the room. Klaus shrunk back again and Vanya slid closer to him, a silent presence. Diego whipped around to the bigger man, his hand still on Klaus’ arm, and snarled: “How dumb are you? Didn’t you see what your first attempt to contain them did? They aren’t animals, you asshole!” “Because I saw what they can do we have to decide what to do with them! They are dangerous! We can’t let them run around free when they can hurt other people!” Despite Allison’s and Vanya’s insistency to somehow get their brothers’ attention only Ben’s unexpected voice managed to do so. “Guys! Stop arguing, you’re making it worse!” All four of them turned around to look at Ben, who was kneeling next to Klaus, a hand resting on the other’s shoulder. They were still staring in surprise when they finally noticed that Klaus’ hands were glowing that eerie blue again. “I’ll knock him out!”, Luther grumbled and took a step closer. “The fuck will you do!”, Ben shouted and jumped up to stand between his two brothers. “You asshole first choked him and threw him around like a doll when he couldn’t summon Reginald and then you got high and left him to die when he tried to help you! You will not go near him!” While the other three still tried to comprehend what Ben had just told them Luther just ignored his brother’s words and tried to step past him to get to Klaus.
Suddenly the whole room glowed in bright blue and shapes all around them took form. The siblings looked around in surprise and fear when they realized that Klaus hadn’t just given their brother a physical form, but also all the ghosts he had always complained about. That none of them had ever believed really existed.
They shimmered bright blue, but their grotesque forms were still startingly visible and they were loud, so loud, Allison and Vanya raised their hands to cover their ears. “What the fuck is this? Why are they so loud?”, Diego shouted over the noise. Ben said something too quietly to be heard before he raised his voice: “They realized you can see them! Usually they aren’t this loud!” “Knock him out! They will disappear then!”, Luther exclaimed over the noise and tried to step closer again, but got stopped by another exclamation.
“What the fuck is going on?” All siblings except for Klaus turned towards the voice. Five stood in the doorway, an expression on his face that was a mixture of confusion and anger. His eyes flittered through the room and then stopped at Klaus glowing hands. He cursed and then jumped to Klaus’ side. “Step away, you idiots! You are crowding him!” They hurried to comply their oldest brother, albeit some of them rather reluctantly.
“Klaus? Hey, little brother, it’s okay. You can stop now.” Diego looked on in confusion as Five worked on calming down the still catatonic Klaus. Slowly the ghosts disappeared, only leaving Ben corporeal, as the blue vanished from Klaus hands. He still stared into nothing, his body tense. Five frowned then he gestured Diego over to where he was crouching down. “Diego, come here. I think you can reach him better than I can.” The knife-wielder hurried over and sat down next to Klaus, carefully pulled him into a hug. “Hey, baby, it’s okay. It’s over. Everything will turn out fine. Just come back to me, yes?” Slowly Klaus closed his eyes and leaned his head on Diego’s shoulder. It took another few silent moments, only interrupted by the constant shuffling of their siblings, for Klaus to open his eyes again.
“I don’t like enclosed spaces, they remind me of the mausoleum…”, he mumbled quietly. Diego and Five frowned in confusion, but it was Vanya who asked: “What mausoleum, Klaus?” Klaus glanced over to Ben and the ghost sighed. “Dad used to lock him up in the mausoleum in the cemetery down the street. He wanted Klaus to lose his fear of ghosts, but instead he only managed for him to start getting drunk and then to take drugs.”
Luther stepped forward again, anger coloring his voice as he demanded: “Stop talking bad about father! You can’t blame him for Klaus’ weaknesses!” Klaus flinched in Diego’s arms and buried deeper in his side but didn’t say anything to defend himself against their brother’s harsh words. Five glowered at Luther with nothing but anger in his gaze. “Could you please shut up and think before you speak for once in your pathetic life? It’s either ‘Dad is perfect’ or ‘Dad sent me to the moon’ with you. And if I were you I would stop belittling my little brother, because I don’t care if we grew up together for thirteen years, I will gut you!”
Klaus turned his head towards Five, one of his hands snagged Five’s sleeve. “You are only a few minutes older than me.” Surprise rushed over Five’s face as he turned around to look at the younger man. “You know that we are twins?” Klaus nodded, buried his face back in Diego’s shoulder. “I found one of Reginald’s journals while I was looking for something to pawn off. We are twins and you are four minutes older than me. Which is funny, because I’m Number Four!”, he sniggered. “Just because he saw you before me. Otherwise I would have been number four! I probably found the same journal when I landed in the future. And don’t forget that I wasn’t just born first, but that I’m also 40 years older than you.”
“Why should father have kept that information for himself?” Five sighed long suffering and turned back to their biggest brother, size-wise. “Probably because he didn’t want us to develop real brotherly feelings for each other. It’s not like he raised us in a way to feel any kind of affection to each other, did he?” The “Thank fuck he didn’t.” whispered into Diego’s shoulder stayed mostly unheard.
“Seriously though, Luther. Why are you still doubting what we have proof for? Do you really think Klaus would have brought down a fucking iron cage like this if he didn’t suffer some kind of trauma?”, sounded Diego’s exasperated voice.
“Honestly, I’d rather like to know what Ben meant with Klaus died?”, Vanya asked quietly. “What?” Five’s voice was sharp enough to cut glass. “Oh yeah. Luther freaked out after he found out that Reginald sent him to the moon without reason and asked me to summon him, which I couldn’t do. He choked me and threw me around before he just up and left to enjoy his life before the apocalypse, or something. I tried to find him, but it was difficult for me because I’m trying to get clean.”, he ignored the unbelieving scoff from Luther, “I still went from one club to the next until I found him high at some rave, flirting with this girl. Her boyfriend wasn’t too happy about it and I jumped on his back to stop him from attacking Luther. When he threw me down I cracked my head and died. The little god-girl doesn’t like me though and sent me back after Reginald reminded me that I’m his greatest disappointment. I didn’t really plan on telling anyone though.” He glanced to Ben who just shrugged. “They should know, though. You matter Klaus! You matter to me and to your twin. You matter to Diego. And I don’t want you to forget that. I will always blame myself for insisting that you search for Luther and dying in the process. I thought his brain was bigger than a bird’s but evidently I was wrong. I really thought he would have done the same thing for you.”
“Could you please stop making me the bad guy? Because I’m not!” Diego snorted. “You might not have noticed yet but you act like Reginald, and he is the bad guy.” “Dad always wanted the best for us!” Klaus sat up abruptly, anger pulsing in waves off him, it was tangible. Everything started to shake again. “Dad locked me up in a mausoleum for days at a time when I was ten years old! He gave Vanya drugs to mute her emotions! He forced Diego to stay under water just to see how long he could hold his breath before he passed out! He forced Ben to use the monster again and again and again until it destroyed him from inside out! He forced Five to jump until he broke down of exhaustion! He kept it a secret that Vanya has powers, that Five and I are actual blood related family! He threatened to punish you guys if I ever told anyone about the abuse we suffered, because let’s face it: He abused us!” “Klaus, please calm down!”, Diego whispered urgently, his eyes jumping between the levitating pieces of iron and Klaus’ angered face. “He isn’t worth it. Neither Reginald nor Luther are.” For a moment it seemed like Klaus was ready to hit the bigger man with the iron but decided against it in the end. Everything fell down with loud noise and he slumped back against Diego’s side. “Can we please get out of here? The walls are closing in on me…”
Klaus felt unbelievably heavy as Diego and Allison helped him up the stairs and into the living room. He was thankful when they deposited him on the soft couch and Mom came running to flit around them. He thanked her with a small smile as she pushed a glass of water into his and drained it in one go. “You don’t need to hover.”, he mumbled with a glance on his siblings clustered around the couch. Luther was the only one who still stood in the doorway, effectively blocking them in. “Luther, if you don’t want me to freak out again you should really step away from that door. You are closing us in.” Luther rolled his eyes but stepped away to free the door.
Allison rapped her knuckles against the table and held up her notebook. ‘What about the apocalypse?’ Five sat down next to Klaus and held out one of his PB&M sandwiches. Klaus took it with a thankful smile despite the fact that they reminded him of their childhood and long nights in which he watched Vanya make them and wait for Five to return. “I think Vanya was supposed to be the cause of the apocalypse. But Klaus action stopped her from freaking out herself and we stopped Klaus from freaking out even more. I think we effectively averted the apocalypse. Which means that Luther would have been responsible for the apocalypse, otherwise.”, explained Five with a raised eyebrow. Diego, like he had been doing it his whole life, lift up Klaus carefully, just to sit down and hold him on his lap. Klaus gasped in surprised but soon found himself cuddling into Diego’s broad chest with a small smile on his lips. “That means we just have to train Vanya and Klaus. They need to learn to control their powers. If we manage that there probably won’t be an apocalypse anytime soon.”, he stated with confidence, his arms securely around Klaus’ thin waist. “That means you can’t lock them away again, Luther.” It was obvious how bad Luther wanted to hit Diego, but he refrained. “Just wait. One of them will lose control and someone will get hurt.”, he grumbled instead.
“We won’t.”, smiled Vanya and reached over to take Klaus’ hand in hers. “We have our family to help us control this.” Klaus smiled back at her and nodded. He squeezed her hand and put his other hand down on Diego’s that was still securely around his middle.
Tomorrow, when he wasn’t as exhausted anymore, he would freak out about new powers, almost apocalypses and the thing that might or might not be between him and Diego, but for now he would enjoy being close to his family.