Chapter Text
Klaus awakens abruptly, dragged into consciousness by the shriek of the alarm at precisely 0810 hours, in exactly the way that this body is used too.
Klaus hates people that have alarms.
With a curse, he bats around the side table until he can silence the alarm. He yawns, carefully stretching his arms and legs out across the bed in such a way as to seem like a natural stretch, but actually feeling his way across the mattress, seeking.
He is completely alone in the bed.
Excellent.
Once upon a time he would have considered waking up alone to be the opposite, a complete travesty, but now? Now it is often so much more convenient. No pillow talk, no wracking him brain trying to remember the name of the person beside him, before they wake or get suspicious.
His eyes pop open and he rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling as he scratches idly at his belly. With a hum, he crosses his legs at the ankles (why is this guy wearing socks to bed?), stares up at the discoloured ceiling, and sinks back into his mind. Slipping easily into the familiar and almost meditative state that has become part of his daily morning routine.
It is a peculiar feeling, to rifle through somebody’s subconscious and memories, as if they were simply one of the filing cabinets they used to store all the patients records at the rehab center. But it is a technique he has perfected over the past three years, with some trial and error along the way.
Elliott.
Today, his name is Elliott.
A little bit more rummaging around tells him what he needs to know. Elliott is in his early-thirties, and well accustomed to an empty bed after 16 months separated from his wife Annie, and 4 months officially divorced. On a vaguely interesting side note, it was not an amicable breakup, and Annie is already engaged to the butcher down the street. There are rumours of a shotgun wedding being on the cards – scandalous, but not entirely surprising to Elliott. Their childless marriage was just one of the many reasons she left him. Aliens were another.
There is a radio in the corner of the room. The memories tell him that Elliott listens to it every morning without fail, tuning in to the news broadcast at 0815 whilst he dresses.
Normally Klaus would say ha-hah! not today amigo! and forego such a habit, but in the light of the rising tensions, and the landing of the Russians only two days ago, he decides that perhaps there is merit to it after all. Who knows how far they have advanced in the night? They were fairly close yesterday. Too close.
He wishes he had some way of directing which body he next lands in. He’d be fleeing as fast as he could if he did.
Sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he takes a second to appreciate Elliott’s lanky frame. He always prefers to be in a body that is in someway like his own. Makes it easier to relate. A body’s muscle memory is a powerful thing he has learned, saving him from the expected clumsy mishaps that would come with having different length limbs each day, but there is something comforting about having long legs and slim hips again. It helps him feel more him.
Of course, he hasn’t truly felt like himself for a long time now.
Would have appreciated a just taaaaaad more muscle though, he thinks wryly, poking at one of his thin arms, before pushing off the bed and stepping over to the radio.
It should switch on easily, long trained to a specific channel, but when Klaus attempts to tune in all he gets is a loud static. With a frown, he wiggles the dials and flicks the switches, not really sure what he’s doing but vaguely aware that twisting one knob or another, or tweaking the antenna, should be bringing him some sound.
No such luck.
Oh well, ce la vie.
With a yawn, he leaves the bedroom, idly digging into Elliott’s memories to locate the kitchen. This body hasn’t experienced any of the harder stuff, but it isn’t hard for Klaus to recognise addiction in the way its fingers twitch for the coffee pot, the siren song of caffeine pulling deep at his blood.
He has just set some coffee to brew when his attention is stolen by a wall plastered with handwritten notes, with string connecting them to black and white photographs. He steps closer to have a better look, his curiosity pipped by a sheet that just says ALIENS!!!!! in big bold writing. A memory surfaces without prompting, of sitting with a group of middle-aged men, drinking beers and discussing UFOs and other mysterious happenings.
Oh, so Elliott is into conspiracy theories huh?
Klaus is going to have a lot of fun with this day.
It isn’t until his eyes have scanned down the wall to the third photo that Klaus really pays attention to what he is seeing.
Because holy shit.
The black and white photo shows an alleyway. A familiar alleyway, with a very familiar dumpster.
A familiar alley, with a very familiar dumpster, and the very, very familiar figure of his sister. Allison, with her curls, cute leather jacket and tight black leggings, a distinctly 2019 look that feels almost foreign to him now. He makes a wounded noise, a lump rising in his throat as he quickly looks to the next picture.
It is Luther. Even in the grainy and shadowed black and white photograph, there can be no mistaking that giant silhouette climbing off the crumpled dumpster. ‘Number three, shouted for an ‘Allison’ before leaving’ reads the notecard next to it. There are question marks, a side note that says ‘who is Allison?’ in red ink.
Fucking figures, that’s just like Luther, Klaus thinks, laughing a little at the idea of Luther reduced to being called number three, even if that was the number of his favourite sibling.
His eyes have just dropped down to look at the photo of Diego, in his all-black leather get up, when he hears the faint pop of gunfire. He spins around to face the balcony, ears straining.
What the fuck?
What the actual fuck?!
He shoves his feet into a pair of worn leather shoes, grabs the umbrella off the hook on the wall, and gallops down the stairs into what looks like an old shop floor, heading towards the door where the sound gets louder. He throws it open with a crash, and spills out onto the street, dodging quickly behind a car as a rain of bullets spray into the building nearby.
“Shit!”
He peeks through the car window, and feels his heart sink into his boots as a tank rolls up the street.
Oh SHIT.
He vaguely remembers hearing something about an invasion, sometime in yesterday’s body. But it’s a wishy-washy memory, like a watercolour left out in the rain, the detail and colours seeping away. Except this time the rain had been denial, and pain meds, and booze.