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The sound of someone screaming in the Academy was not unusual.
Perhaps it should have been, in an ideal world-- and while the Academy somehow managed to stop the end of times, it was not an ideal world.
Since the apocalypse was stopped through understanding and loving each other, for one week a month, they all had to move back into the Academy and bond. The other three weeks they could go live their lives as they pleased, possibly not talking to any of their siblings, going back to their own homes, if they had one. But for one week a month, they had to spend time together.
It was exhausting.
They’d never been around each other much even when they were growing up, when the screaming was more commonplace. Usually by the end of the week they had to take a three week rest otherwise someone may kill another sibling out of annoyance.
It’s hard to learn to be around people again.
But growing up, the screaming, it was normal. It could come from anyone’s room for any reason, but mostly it was from Number Four, Klaus Hargreeves’ room. Reginald had apparently debated on soundproofing it when they were all children but clearly either wanted to see what would happen if Klaus woke his siblings up every night with his nightmares or he didn’t want to bother making a second sound proof room.
A house only needs one of them, amirite?
So on this fateful night, the screaming starts as per usual.
The moon is in the sky, peeking out behind clouds as it should, stars dancing beside her as, somehow, everyone in the Academy is asleep. This is notable as with seven people with varied trauma and schedules, it was hard to find a time when they were all asleep at once.
The only one who had changed rooms was Vanya, still staying close by but wanting a room that her sibling, Klaus, hadn’t torn a wall down so his room could be bigger. Technically she didn’t change rooms, but got a new one after Klaus cannibalized hers.
She was happier in her new room.
Possibly not tonight, as tonight was when everything changes.
Well it changes for Klaus, not for everyone in the world. The moon is still in the sky and the world is not exploding. For everyone outside of the Academy the world goes on as per usual.
Inside the Academy however--
It starts off with screaming.
All but one of the Hargreves wakes up. At first they sigh, roll their eyes, put a pillow over their head, ugh Klaus was having a nightmare again. He didn’t seem to have them much anymore; at least not ones that left him screaming and crying and fighting off flashbacks and panic attacks, hands shaking and hiding as best he could when he was claustrophobic and afraid of the dark.
One would think that knowing that so many of Klaus’s nights ended up like that someone would rush to wake him, comfort him but that would also mean one assumes they know how Klaus would accidentally harm himself, trying to get safe, that the ghosts would terrorize him, that he was fighting off childhood ptsd along with some new fun ptsd, more the merrier after all!
We digress.
A normal night: the moon, the stars, the screaming.
But then it all changes as a second voice joins the screaming.
And a third.
A fourth?
More and more and more and more and more and more andmore and mdore ndmore ndmor e and
They don’t sound human.
The pain that is sounded is astonishing, it sits low in your belly and turns your insides, twisting them as the voice twists in pain. Goosebumps and hair rising screams of pure terror sound throughout the house. Somehow reaching beyond your skin, into your heart, into your bones and shaking them. Feel the pain, know it, join the crying.
For they are now.
All of the Hargreeves who were woken are crying.
Not a single dry eye.
Give the screaming a standing ovation, throw the flowers on stage, the emotions they make others feel is almost without words.
Almost.
It is for sure life changing.
But who is screaming? It’s not Klaus. Or-- It’s not only Klaus.
They meet in the hallway, stumbling out of their rooms, hands over their ears, panic in their eyes, mouthing questions that go unheard from all the screaming.
Getting closer to the epicenter of it all, figures could start to be seen. At first, a trick of the light, a person barely there, as if gasp! a ghost.
Could you imagine?
Outside the room, with the door cracked open, because they all know Klaus does not like closed doors; only they don’t know why, they just know it sends him into a panic, one that they don’t want to-- don’t know how to deal with.
We can’t blame them though, they have their own traumas and quirks.
But sometimes it helps when one recognizes the trauma someone else went through is going through..
Which is the point of this exercise. Keep up darlings, if you weren’t aware of that.
The ghosts became more and more real the closer you got. No longer just screaming, some words, pleads, yelling, arguing, name calling you mother fucking whore of a shit stain who doesn’t deserve to fucking live I should be living not you what did you even do with your life you worthless shell of a person, I could have done so much more than you if I had lived but please i need to find my mom she’s missing and i miss her and i’m scared can you help me mister please she does her eyes like you i don’t like it here there was a man he was mean he’s gone now but please mister help me I Was Just Robbing A Bank I Didn’t Deserve To Die Why Did He Throw A Knife In My Throat Your Brother Is Fucking Awful But Not As Awful As You You Could Have Stopped It You Could Have Saved Me Why Didn’t You Save Me You No Good Piece Of Trash
Meanwhile they also appeared more real. The injuries telling stories they were not. The ones with little injuries, the ones with many, leaving nothing to the imagination. Limbs torn, necks bent, hearts in hands, a child with one leg leaning against a wall asking for his dad to stop, a woman Five recognizes and a familiar gunshot to the head, men smashed because Luther threw them too far and they broke like a toy, stab wounds that kept bleeding no matter how much their hands tries to stop it, suicides asking for others to join them it's not too bad, junkies saying how the last high was worth it, men and women and children. Body parts missing, some only body parts, the work of Ben. Others decayed into what could be described as a monster, just screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming dan scremaing and scremamign adn
Some of them are recognized by the siblings, some not.
In the middle, much to the dismay as the bulk of the Hargreeves, as they opened the door the rest of the way to Klaus’s room and waded through the ghosts who were visible but thankfully not solid was that
Klaus
was still asleep.
Hands pulled at him, going through his skin, yelling and spitting in his face and yet Klaus just absently pulled his blanket up more, snuggling into it and letting out what would be heard as a snore if it could be heard.
Five took the initiative.
He shook Klaus, yelling his name, trying to get him to wake.
And thankfully it had been Five because one of the new fun ptsd Klaus suffered from was from the Vietnam War and he woke, someone touching him and so he threw a punch before his eyes were open and Five still appeared thirteen, shorter than the average person and the fist went over his head.
The ghosts disappeared to all but Klaus.
Klaus blinked slowly, rubbing his eyes, “What? Why is everyone in my room?”
They were speechless. They could breathe again. They forgot that the ghosts weren’t gone for Klaus.
“You were asleep.”
Klaus raised his eyebrows, “Yeah I tend to do that at night sometimes.” His eyes dart to a corner of the room before going back to the group. “Doesn’t mean you guys need to spy on me sleeping.”
“You were-- the ghosts--”
Klaus’s eyes dart to the foot of his bed. Turning, he looked at the empty space and let out a pained, choked off noise, “No. No, I didn’t--” Twisting, he faced his living siblings again, “Ben said I was projecting them? Shit guys, sorry to wake you with this screaming.” He gestured around himself and gave a shrug. A small apologetic grin, “Well now that that’s settled you can go finish your beauty rests. Y’all need it.”
“Are they-- always like this?”
Klaus looked around the room, really taking in his family’s demeanor. They were frightened, scared, worried. They hadn’t known you see, what it was like for Klaus. They thought they did, they’d listened to their father as he spoke about Klaus’s powers and never listened to Klaus. How silly of them to trust their father on the subject, but when you go through childhood abuse and trauma it kind of makes you do silly things like that.
“Not all the time,” Klaus muttered. “Don’t you worry, dears. It’s not normally so, uh, busy.”
“Why is it so busy now?”
A shrug, “How should I know? By morning some will have wandered away, don’t worry about it. The sober life, huh? So relaxing.” Klaus glanced to the side and hissed at something only he could see.
“You can’t tell them to leave?”
“I mean yeah but they won’t listen,” Klaus gave an eyeroll. “The power is to see ghosts, not control people. That’s more dear Allie’s power.”
“But you can control the ghosts.”
“No, I can’t. Just see them. I can’t-- they’re still people. You understand that? I can’t control people when they are alive or dead,” Klaus thought this was an easy thing to grasp. He’d not known that this whole time his family thought he could control them. Tell them to leave and they do. Tell them to shut up and they do.
Sure he yelled it enough at them, but they never listened, they never--
“You don’t conjure them do you? They’re just there.”
“Um, yeah?” Klaus scratched at his chin absently before glaring to a space between two siblings and flipping it off.
“You can’t conjure when you’re high so-- when you’re high they’re gone?”
“Sure,” Klaus said, eyes back on his family. “Wait did you not know that either? Wow guys. I at least know the simple facts about your powers. Rude much?”
“You never told us!”
Klaus scoffed, “I did. Over and over. I protested that I can’t control them, that they don’t listen, that they don’t leave me alone. I stopped asking for you to try and understand ages ago. Klaus they’re just ghosts, what are they gonna do?” He giggled for a short time, it got cut off by a yawn.
Ignoring how all of his siblings were now seeing him in a new light, remembering how he had told them when they were kids, how he’d want to snuggle, want to hear or feel their heartbeat, wanted to be around his living family, to be distracted, how he was loud and how he didn’t always pay attention or hear the plan, how he screamed, Klaus snuggled back into his blankets, “A bitch needs some beauty rest too. It’s me, I’m the bitch.”
“How can you? They’ll still here right? Haven’t left? How can you sleep?”
A yawn muffling his words, Klaus closed his eyes, “I’m used to the screams.”