Work Text:
So this part of my house, no one's been in it for years
I built the safe room and I don't let no one in there
'Cause if I do, there's a chance that they might disappear and not come back
When he was young, Klaus wasn’t afraid of what he saw around him. Ghosts lurking in the old mansion where he was raised didn’t terrify him because that’s all he ever knew. Truthfully, they were rather comforting at times, a constant almost protective presence around him when his father would get cruel and demanding. It wasn’t until he started to go out into the world and see what other ghosts had in store for him that he truly understood how dark death could be. The first time dad locked him in the mausoleum, he wept uncomfortably until he passed out from exhaustion. The ghosts in the mansion were calm, nice even. The ghosts that lurked in the graveyards and mortuaries where his father dragged him were angry, bitter, and desperate to be acknowledged. They would fight for his attention, screaming and crying, begging for him to help them. But how do you help someone who’s already dead?
Most people don’t think about how many people have died around them - they don’t give much thought to the office buildings built atop graveyards or the poor lost souls that lost their lives to the railroad tracks they drive by. Klaus saw all of them and unlike when he was a small child he was afraid. They looked gruesome, still torn to shreds as they were in their last moments of life, and they would reach out and try and take hold of him to feel something real. Some ghosts even tried to speak to him - that is if their injuries didn’t destroy their ability to speak.
His dad thought he had so much potential. “If you can channel your power and control the undead, you’ll be well on your way to being a real superhero, my boy.” But controlling the dead meant he would have to engage with them, and engaging with them meant that he had to acknowledge their presence. That wasn’t an option for him, so he accepted that he would always be Daddy’s Little Disappointment and willed all of his powers away.
He drank, and shot up, and snorted the pain away. He never learned how to turn it off or make them go away, but they couldn’t get him if he was too high to use his powers. Even when it meant losing Ben in the process, he refused to see the horror that surrounded him. It was all too much. No one in his family could ever understand what he saw and he wanted to keep it that way. He wouldn’t wish his life on anyone - it wasn’t much of a life, after all.
—
With the Sparrow Academy on the defensive, the original Hargreeves had to figure out a way to prepare for battle. Defending their very existence in this timeline was life or death, and it meant they had to pull out every weapon in their arsenal. Everyone was hard at work on trying to push their powers to their limits and see what they could really do. Everyone but Klaus, of course.
“Are you just going to sit there all day?” Diego snarked at him, Klaus kicking his feet up on the couch.
“Hadn’t planned on it,” Klaus replied, adjusting his face mask. “I think I’m going to switch positions soon, maybe change locations and go to bed. It’s a Friday, I figured I’d mix it up.”
Luther groaned. “We’re all kicking own asses his trying to work on our powers and you’re washing your face?”
“Skincare is not all washing and drying, my good man,” he replied. “It’s about maintenance. I’ll have you know I’m hard at work letting these snail enzymes into my epidermis.”
“Leave him alone,” Allison said begrudgingly. “You know he isn’t going to listen to you, he doesn’t like using his powers.”
“Doesn’t like to or can’t?” Five asked. “So far we’ve seen him communicate with Ben in the afterlife and I half remember a visual of him summoning ghosts in the second apocalypse. Maybe he’s all tapped out.”
“A one trick pony,” Diego said, piling on.
“You all are no fun,” Klaus sighed, walking towards the door. “You’re killing my vibe.”
“Where are you going?” Vanya asked.
“Did you not hear what I said earlier about the sleeping?”
Luther stepped in front of him. “No, you’re not leaving. We’re a family, we’re gonna figure out how to take down the Sparrows together. Why can’t you just try to work with us here, why are you being so difficult?”
“Ben is gone now, so I don’t—“
“Don’t use Ben as an excuse, man,” Diego said. “It’s been too long. We get it, he’s gone, but you had powers before him and you still have them. Stop sitting around and being a damsel in distress and show us what you’re made of.”
What you’re made of was an interesting way to put it, Klaus thought.
“I don’t know what you want from me here,” he replied. “We haven’t seen my powers be any real use before until Ben got involved. And I don’t see anyone around here in desperate need of a medium or a psychic reading.”
“How do we even know he is capable of anything else?” Five asked. “Honestly. If he’s never going to try and live up to his potential, maybe we just accept that he’s not super-anything and move on. It’s been thirty years—or fifty years for me—and I’m tired of it.”
Vanya approached Klaus and put a kind hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you could just try for a little while, and then you could go back to your snails and your masks?”
Klaus sighed. “Fine, but I’m not overexerting myself. This is a self care day and I’m not going to break out in hives for you ungrateful lot.”
The other Hargreeves all looked at Klaus in anticipation.
“What are you all looking at?”
“I don’t know,” Diego said. “Waiting for you to do something. Throw something around, make someone do something, think…or whatever Five does to make his powers work.”
Klaus stood in place, closing his eyes and trying to summon…anything. He was sober, so the ghosts and spirits were already around him, but he was hoping he could make them do something or at least make the others see them so they’d be satisfied and leave him alone.
“He looks like he’s constipated,” Five said quietly as Allison hushed him.
Within a minute, Klaus opened his eyes and nothing had happened. The ghosts were there, of course - around four or five that had been haunting this old warehouse they claimed as their temporary headquarters - but they weren’t doing anything new. Gary was scratching at his neck where the rope burns once were, Sam the gunshot victim was looking for his stolen watch…same ol’, same ol’. It wasn’t until he heard a gasp from Allison that he realized anything was different.
“Holy shit,” Diego said under his breath.
“What?” Klaus asked, confused.
“Are those ghosts? Is that what they look like?” Allison asked.
“Definitely not like Casper,” Vanya said quietly.
Klaus looked at the ghosts and back at the others. The ghosts even looked surprised that they were being seen by anyone else.
“You can see them? Gary, Sam, Ashley and the…other one?”
Luther just nodded silently. Gary and Sam were certainly gruesome, but they were nothing compared to Ashley and…the other one. The woman he assumed was Ashley had blood stains covering her torso where her chest was mutilated, her clothes torn and shredded where her murderer had ripped them. The other ghost still had what looked like blood dripping from his open jaw - or at least what was left of it.
“Christ, that’s fucked,” Five said breathlessly.
“Is that normal?” Allison asked, moving further away from the four spirits. “Why do they…look like that?”
“Are you going to talk about us or talk to us?” Ashley said, her voice raw and rough from her crushed vocal cords.
Allison flinched. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t know you could…”
“Didn’t know we could what, hear you?” Gary asked. “Hear you? Yeah, we hear you all the time.”
“You’re a little prick, did you know that?” he said to Five, rubbing his ghostly hand through his hair. “Oh shit, we can touch you guys now too? Nice one, Klaus, this is gonna be fun.”
“What the fuck!” Five screamed, jumping away from the ghost.
“They can touch us?” Diego asked, horrified. “That’s fucked up, man. Nah, nah, I can’t deal with that. You better stay away from me!”
Klaus stood silently watching his siblings interact with the spirits he had come to quietly accept. Ever since he got sober he made it his goal to befriend the ghosts but keep them at arms’ length. He wasn’t going to risk any of them having possession abilities like Ben - he’d seen horror movies before and wasn’t going to take that risk.
“What, you don’t want to touch me, daddy?” Ashley said to Luther, rubbing up against him. “Do I not turn you on anymore?” She laughed a horrible, gritty cackle that ran chills down his spine.
“Can any of you help me find my wallet?” Sam said, not paying attention to the group’s previous interactions. “I can’t find my wallet, and my wife is gonna be pissed if I lost my driver’s license again.” The blood from his gunshot wound dripped on the floor as he crawled around it, at one point dripping onto Diego’s shoes as he shrieked in fear.
“So sorry about that, I’ll have it dry cleaned, I promise!” Sam assured him.
The Hargreeves looked at him in confusion. “He doesn’t know he’s dead yet,” Ashley explained.
“Oh, he knows,” Gary said. “He just won’t accept it. Poor bastard.”
“I just have to find my wallet…”
“Okay, Klaus, I think we’ve had enough of this, could you…you know, make them go away?” Allison asked.
Klaus looked at them perplexed. “Well they never go away.”
“What do you mean?” Vanya asked him.
“Even if I figure out how to stop you from seeing them,” he explained. “They’re never going to go away. They’re ghosts, they haunt places. I can’t banish them to hell or anything, they just stick around until…until they’re ready to go, I guess.”
Vanya looked at him with empathetic eyes. “So you see them all the time?”
“Pretty much,” he replied. “I like these guys, though, they’re good people. Except Jawbreaker over there, he’s an asshole.”
The ghost with a missing jaw lurched forward, throwing himself at Luther. He tried to push the ghost off him, but it was impossible to fight something off that could take themselves in and out of sentience. The ghost got close to Luther’s face as he screamed for help.
Klaus tried to help drag the ghost off, but he wasn’t budging. Unfortunately what ghosts lack in life they make up for in strength.
“Get…off…” he grunted as he ripped at the ghost’s police uniform. “Get off!”
As soon as he commanded it, the ghost released its grip on Luther and angrily slinked back to his corner of the warehouse. He tried to say something as he left, but all that came out was blood and mumbling.
Klaus nodded, surprised and pleased with himself. “Well that’s a new one. What’ll I call that…ghost scolding?”
“King of the undead,” Ashley said jokingly. “Or king of the dead, I guess. Man, that sucks.”
“Huh,” Klaus replied. “Yeah. Yeah it does.”
Just as soon as the experience started, it ended. Klaus closed his eyes and was able to erase the ghosts…at least from everyone else’s view. For the first time in a long time, he felt satisfied with himself and his abilities, not frightened of them. Maybe this seance thing wasn’t so bad.
“Oh thank god,” Allison said, noting the ghosts’ disappearance.
“I never want to see that again, that was…that was fucked, man,” Diego said.
“I can’t believe you see that all the time,” Vanya said. “Everywhere. They’re everywhere, aren’t they?”
Klaus looked pensive as he replied, “Yeah, they’re everywhere. Anywhere someone can die. So…everywhere.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t take it seriously before, I just—“ Luther said.
“It’s okay,” Klaus responded, cutting him off.
“No, it’s not,” Vanya told him. “You were alone with them all this time. That couldn’t have been easy. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re alone…powerless.”
Klaus put an arm around Vanya. “Well I’m not alone here, Vans, I’ve got you guys.”
He shot a knowing glance across the room at Gary giving him a ghostly thumbs up.
“And some others on my side.”