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Klaus sees ghosts. That means he’s special.
It started when he was around twelve, thirteen - he was crying over something or other, and an opinion had popped into his mind, and suddenly - without warning - the ghosts were screaming their disagreement, arguing with one another as if he weren’t even there.
He couldn’t see them, but he could hear them, even when he covered his ears. They were so loud. He was so scared.
The screaming stopped abruptly. No more wailing, or arguing, or accusations. He’d been so scared that he’d stopped crying, tears drying on his cheeks, arms shaky and heartbeat fast. Nobody was looking at him, even though he was in public - it was as if he were one of the ghosts himself, invisible apart from his own reflection, dead to the world.
He got up and left, and didn’t speak a word of it to anyone.
He has a guardian angel, in the form of a pretty little pin on the collar of his shirt. He wears it every day that he goes outside, because whenever he doesn’t bad things happen.
He forgets it one day, in the little basket of trinkets that their mother keeps safe for them, and trips and falls directly into some shattered glass left by a drunk the night before. He screams and sobs until Luther picks him up like a doll and carries him home, whispering assurances the whole way.
They patch him up, and let him curl up with their mother until he stops crying - and then Luther fishes his pin out of the basket and clips it to his collar, smiling gently.
“It’s like a lucky charm,” he says, quiet, careful that their father won’t hear him up in his study. Klaus nods, still teary-eyed, and the taller of the brothers kneels, rubbing gently at the pin’s surface. “I’ve never had a lucky charm. They must work well if yours protects you from things like this.”
It’s nice, having somebody take this seriously. He knows that part of Luther’s sincerity is rooted in fear, in knowledge of his brother’s fragility, in carefully tiptoeing around his own skepticism - but he can’t find it in him to care.
An arm - pale white, silver bangles, sleeves rolled up to the elbow - reaches out and shoves his pencil-case off the desk when he’s in the middle of drawing, during their half-hour of free time.
“Shit,” he mutters, picking the case up - and he realises, dread filling his stomach, that nobody in the house rolls up their sleeves, or wears silver bangles, or has paper-white skin.
His eyes dart around the room. Diego’s sat across from him, sharpening a knife, shoulders still puffed from the momentary disruption of the case falling. Klaus straightens in his seat. “Brother-dearest,” Diego looks up, eyebrow raised, “did you see who knocked it down?”
A moment of silence. Then another. Diego blinks, eyebrows furrowing in something like confusion and concern. “Nobody,” he says finally. “Fuckin’... gravity, and your elbow. There was nobody else there.”
Klaus swivels in his seat, just to be sure - and yeah, there’s no door they could’ve exited through, no furniture they could hide behind, just a wall. He’s scared, just for a moment - and then his brain offers him a solution that sounds right.
“It must’ve been a ghost, then,” he says, cheery. “A poltergeist.”
Diego looks slightly more rattled at his conclusion, but nods and goes back to his knives, still sitting stiffly with nerves.
“Diego told me you think you see ghosts.”
It’s 4am. He’s usually the only one awake. Five’s voice makes him jump, and the cup of fancy shit with some French name he can’t pronounce jostles in his hand, nearly spilling. He doesn’t turn to face his brother, because Five is small and fast and deadly, and has already crossed the room to the cupboards and gotten a glass.
He stops at the table, and eyes the bottle with the French label. Klaus pushes it towards him, rewarded with a mischievous grin as the smaller brother fills his glass almost to the brim.
“Yeah,” he finds his voice, watching Five gulp down a few mouthfuls of the alcohol, not even flinching at the burn. They’re both far too fucking young to be so used to this. “Yeah, I do. I see them.”
“Or something fucked with your head.” Five reasons, reaching for a refill. Klaus flinches, grimacing, and Five rolls his eyes. “I’m fucked too, Klaus. I reckon I can time travel.”
A blink. Two blinks. “What?”
“You heard me. I can time travel.” He’s sitting down now, still a little shorter than Klaus in these chairs. “It just happens, sometimes. Time’ll just stop, and I’ll keep going. The world stops, and I’m still moving. And then I blink, and hours have passed.”
Klaus grabs the bottle before Five can hog it all, pouring himself another glass. “I don’t think that’s time travel, mein bruder.”
“And I don’t think they’re ghosts,” Five grins, shifting in his seat, “but here we are.”
Klaus thinks Five is fucked for other reasons, too.
He looks at people like he knows what they’re thinking; he scratches at his arms like there are trackers under the skin; he gets really tense, sometimes, and never turns his back to people, or windows, or doorways; he says he has to finish these equations, has to find these people, has to do these things, or else the world will end; he always does things in fives, like tapping his pencil twenty-five times on the desk or flickering the light ten times before he enters the room.
And, y’know, the time travel thing.
It’s alright, though. He’s decided there’s nothing wrong with being fucked, even if he can hear Five calling himself crazy through the walls at night, even if Five talks about himself like he’s dangerous.
“Stop saying that,” Vanya insists. “Stop saying you’re fucked. Stop saying Five’s fucked. You’re not.”
Klaus gnaws at his lip, licks his teeth, rolls over to face her in the darkness. “What do you propose we say instead, then?”
“Sick? Hurt?” She’s quiet for a moment, scanning him with her eyes, and then, “Different?”
“Mmm, different,” He can’t help the laugh that bubbles in his throat. “This family already has a whole lot o’ different, Vanya.”
“Then a little more won’t hurt,” she says. She sounds determined. He doesn’t want to argue with that, so he just nods and changes topic.