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Even before Ben died, him and Klaus had always been close (albeit not quite as close as Ben, Five, and Viktor). Part of it was Ben just got along with everyone. Most of it was that Klaus and Ben happened to have the darkest sorts of powers. The sort that keeps you up for days at a time.
Still, Klaus had been kind of a loner like Diego. They were the Even Numbers Club but they were, quite frankly, not as close to each other as others. Diego and Klaus had been much more likely to hang out than Klaus and Ben, though Diego rather preferred to be alone to practice.
Ben had been there for Klaus more than anyone else when it came to nightmares way back when. Especially so when he died. It was really only then, when just Klaus could see and talk to him, did Ben grasp that Klaus’ powers were as gory as his own. He had understood as a kid that Klaus didn’t like the ghosts and was afraid but he had never known why. He had never asked. And he never asked Klaus any questions after he died either. There didn’t seem to be much of a point when he could see it too.
Ben still disapproved of the drugs and partying and alcohol and homelessness and prostitution and stealing. But he didn’t say as much as he would’ve against it were he, you know, alive and kicking.
Maybe it should’ve been expected: the judging looks, the scornful words. But Ben had never told Klaus of his revelation, and now he was really starting to regret it. Ben regretted a lot of things after spending so long with Klaus.
He was used to the twitching movements and darting eyes. Used to the ghosts getting up close and personal because Klaus was a light in the darkness to them, a saving grace that wasn’t saving them. Klaus is the warm cove in the coldest sea, the breath of fresh air after escaping a burning building, the light at the end of a dismal, repetitive, pitch black tunnel.
Ben would’ve never understood had he went into the light and left Klaus on Earth. Which he did do, eventually, but not before staying for nearly two decades. Klaus had been the only thing keeping him sane, and Ben wishes he could’ve been there to help Klaus in the minimal way he could when their siblings turned a blind eye.
…
Klaus has been sober for nearing two months at this point. He’s quite proud of himself, seeing as the ghosts were even more insistent than the few times he’d been sober with Ben around. It sucked, not seeing Dave, not having Ben. He’s never felt more alone (even if he never really is).
Family meetings required attendance every other week, if not weekly.
Five had become the ringleader, so to speak, seeing as Luther had stopped pushing agendas and purpose and had started mellowing out. Five was also the oldest and somehow had the most authority, despite being in a thirteen year old body. Allison was generally the most aggravated, seeing as she lost her daughter and her husband in quick succession. Diego was scathing but that’s just Diego, he liked to pick fights. Viktor was much more outspoken but resigned to Allison’s disdain, he’s not really talked to her since they’ve hopped timelines again and Klaus doesn’t blame him.
Being sober meant being bombarded. Yeah, you could say Klaus had a much better handle on his powers, but that didn’t mean the ghosts listened to him. He could push them away but only with concentration, he wasn’t to the point where he didn’t even have to try. He still had to try, very hard actually, so it was much easier just to attempt to ignore them when these meetings took place. It was also easier to do that when around living people.
Sometimes it didn’t work too well.
“Klaus!” Five’s voice was sharp, making Klaus wince. “Pay attention. This is important.”
“I’m tryin’, Five-O,” Klaus sighed, rubbing at his temples and not glancing at the floor where a man with his entrails is dragging, instead focusing his gaze on his brother.
Five was scowling, “Try harder. We’re trying to figure out-“
“Blah, blah, how to get home. I know .” Klaus rolls his eyes. “I’d like to see you try to listen with all this noise.”
His scowl is still in place but his eyebrows furrow, “What noise?”
Klaus plugs up his right ear when a woman decides to start sobbing up against the arm of the couch he’s on. He winces away from her but keeps his attention on Five. Ignoring helps sometimes, other times it makes it worse.
The ghosts of his siblings’ kills are starting to filter through now. Hopefully they wouldn’t pack like the sardines they were typically apt to imitate in group settings. It was like a choir of screaming, groaning, and sobbing then.
“Ghosts,” Klaus says in a duh tone, glancing around for a quick moment to assess. There were about ten in the vicinity but Klaus could see more roaming around the mansion through the threshold.
“Are they talking to you?” Viktor asks, looking around as if he could see or hear them if he tried hard enough. Klaus gives him a weird look.
“No? Of course not. Well, they’re trying to, I guess.” Klaus is referring to the little boy in the corner with bloody… everything. His eyes are stark wide and contrast greatly against the lack of whatever color his skin had been. He’s saying “no” over and over again. He doesn’t look at him directly, very rarely did Klaus come across someone who was skinned. He didn’t want to know whose ghost that was, if it’s any of theirs.
When Klaus refocuses, his siblings are staring at him. He raises an eyebrow.
“What does that mean?” Luther queries in the relative silence, seeming small despite his large stature.
“What does what mean?” Klaus picks at a loose thread as he floats his gaze around his siblings like hot potato, staring at one of them too long will result in a ghosty deciding to stick around them so he’s forced to look at them too. “I thought we were talking about time travel.”
“We were , until we noticed you weren’t paying attention.” Five counters, crossing his arms. “What are they saying? Anything important?”
Klaus pauses for a moment before really looking at the group of living. They all seem curious, patient for his response. Klaus throws them another weird look.
“It’s never anything important …” Klaus answers a bit incredulously. “A bit of woe is me , or a little where’s my family , and a sprinkle of screaming mixed in.”
Klaus shrugs, continuing his endeavor in yanking at the bare thread on the couch’s arm. The woman sobbing next to his ear had turned to cries and whispers of begging and pleading. It was quieter than before but just as grating.
“What?” Diego sounds stunned. Klaus falters where he sits, glancing up shows disbelief and misunderstanding. What do they think he means?
Klaus sits up straighter, eyebrows raising, “What do you mean ‘ what ’?!”
“They’re loud?”
“How many are there?”
“What are they saying exactly?”
Klaus holds up his hands, hello, goodbye , “Wait, wait, wait. What ?! You don’t know!?”
“How are we supposed to know?” Diego throws a knife in the air, eyeing him. Klaus’ jaw drops.
“Um, maybe I’d expect you to know because you lived with me for seventeen years ? What did you miss about seeing the dead exactly?”
“You’re not summoning them?” Luther sounds so confused and Klaus can’t help but laugh. It’s uproarious and louder than the ghosts and it startled his family. Who are looking at him like they’ve never seen him before.
“Of course not! You think I would summon them just to listen to them moan and cry at me? Why do you think I was high all the time?!” Klaus’ voice elevates and his muscles are locking. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. How do they not know? He’s always been quite loud about how he feels about his powers.
“Stop! Stop.” Five shouts over them when their voices overlap in response to Klaus. He takes charge as usual and sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I think we’re having a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?!” Klaus barks a wry, mirthless laugh that’s more scoff than anything. “This is more than a misunderstanding!”
“Okay! Okay, you’re right, Klaus. You’re right.” Diego holds out placating hands and Klaus glares back.
“No shit, I’m right!”
“Alright! We get it! We fucked up, boo hoo, add that to the list-“ Klaus’ eyes pop wide open at the derision from Allison.
Klaus has to stand to release the tension, making everyone else stiff in their seats while Five is exasperated on a barstool.
“No! I don’t think you fucking understand, you-you assholes!” Klaus spits, his hands clench into fists and he feels on fire. Is this what Five feels like nowadays, a constant simmering, murderous rage? Is this what Diego feels, the urge to maim and berate and hit? “You more than fucked up! You think ghosts are nice little people going about their lives while being ignored and walked through and forgotten?! You think they leave little old me alone!? The only one who can see and hear them!? Are you fucking kidding me?!”
Klaus is glaring. He feels so angry. He never feels like this, he’s a live-and-let-be type of guy, let the sleeping dogs lie, you know. This isn’t a sleeping dog though. And if it is, it’s a cane corso, not a sweet tiny dachshund.
“They flock to me like goddamn sheep! They wail and they rant and they scream, and I never get a moment of fucking peace! They follow me into a restaurant, into my bedroom, into the damn bathroom ! They’re everywhere! People die everywhere ! And, fortunately enough for me, I have a family filled with murderers!” Klaus laughs but it’s wry and furious. “Which means I get to see all your little entourages! My own personal party!”
Klaus’ chest is heaving and he’s surprised at the cool flush across his skin. Looking down, his eyes widen at the blue shimmering in his veins. He unclenches his fists and turns his hands around in wonder.
When he looks back up, his siblings are wide eyed and leaning away from the ghosts around them. They’re visible. He made them visible .
Oh, god, he never wanted to subject them to this. Klaus starts shaking his hands desperately, panic hitting him. They didn’t deserve this, not his wrath, not the noise, not the grisly, bloody scene the sitting room makes.
“Get off, get off, get off,” Klaus whispers harshly, trying to wipe away the eery glow. As his heart squeezes and his lungs shudder, then does the toxic blue fade, ghosts vanishing before his siblings. They don’t relax.
Klaus hugs himself, arms around his torso, focusing his eyes on the man at his feet. His hands are swiping through Klaus’ shoes and blood is flooding out of the giant hole missing from his skull. His brain is falling in chunks into his broken jaw—which only allows for gurgling and moaning—and onto the floor.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I swear.” Klaus forces his eyes away from the man, Five is staring at the spot the man is in with wild eyes. Klaus knows he can’t see him but he rambles to get their attention away from it. “I just got so angry and I couldn’t get it to stop. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I would never want you to see that, I swear.”
Five blinks a couple times before he shakes his head. When his crystalline eyes meet Klaus’, they’re filled with shock and regret. Five never looks like that. And Klaus made him. He squeezes his arms tighter around himself and chews on his lip, waiting for the verdict.
“Klaus… is, is that what you always see?”
Klaus smiles, sympathetic and empty, he looks down at the man again, “They’re kinda gruesome, aren’t they.”
“Oh my god,” Viktor whispers, paler than usual and hand over his mouth. Allison’s fingers are wound tight in her pants and her eyes are darting around. Diego’s holding stiffly onto a blade, him and Luther with similar frightened features. Five is cursing up a storm, running his hands through slick hair.
“I really didn’t mean to do that,” Klaus says again desperately. “No one deserves to see that.”
“ You do ! You see that!” Five’s voice is a snarl of fury, sharp and unrepentant. “Even as- you were four w hen you-“
Klaus’ heart is beating so fast. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t. He was angry but he’s not anymore. It doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t matter. No one but him can see the ghosts and no one else should ever be subjected to such horror of the human psyche.
“I-I was high most of the time!” Klaus blurts, hands wringing together and eyes everywhere but his family. “Okay? I was high-“
“You were in rehab like twenty times, Klaus,” Viktor speaks carefully, quietly. “You weren’t high all the time.”
“Yeah, but, I tried to be!” Klaus reiterates, swallowing roughly. “Look, I’m sorry I got mad. I didn’t mean to. It’s just- difficult, right now. I’ll get used to it again.” He hopes.
“I’m sorry, Klaus.” Klaus jerks back, shock making him meet Five’s sad, old gaze. He really looks sixty then, even in that teenage body. “I’m sorry about- not caring, when we were kids. And for, uh, my.. my entourage .”
Five grimaces as he says it, shoulders slouching, and Klaus just knows he’s remembering body upon body and survival through destruction. Klaus winces, he doesn’t want this . He never wanted this.
“No! No . I’m stopping you all right there.” Klaus is momentarily taken aback when all his siblings immediately focus in on him, but he gets back on track soon enough. “Look, these are my powers. And, yeah, they suck, a lot, but that doesn’t mean it’s your fault, okay? I’ve had them for thirty-six years, man, just because you now know the… sadder side of them, it doesn’t change anything.”
“I’d s-s-say it changes a w-whole lot!” Diego barely stutters through the sentence but the locking of muscles is draining away, his grip on his knife remains taut.
“It doesn’t,” Klaus shrugs. They stare at him, bewildered. “You can’t do anything to them and you can’t make them go away. I guess, just, gimme some slack, okay? It’s hard to listen sometimes.”
“I think this was enough today.” Five gives him an out, and Klaus doesn’t even have to give him a grateful look. “We’ll reconvene next week.”
Klaus relaxes then, exhausted now after all the hustle and bustle, glad for the quick reprieve. None of his siblings make him stay when he immediately escapes up the stairs and goes for the more quiet space of Ben’s old bedroom (the ghosts knew his bedroom but they were less likely to go into Ben’s).
“So we’re not gonna do anything?” Diego sounds angry.
“What can we do?” Luther sounds just as frustrated.
“You heard him, we be patient and lenient.” Five interjects, a mediator among the most volatile of them, though he’s the same.
“I feel like we should be doing more,” Viktor fidgets with a button on his plaid shirt.
“I think treating him differently would be worse.” Diego rolls his eyes, it’s obvious how Klaus feels but he does want to do more. He just also knows he can’t.
“Guys, you heard him. Leave it be.” Allison also rolled her eyes, with a more blasé attitude.
“It’s self-explanatory,” Five settles the rising tension again. “We all know what to do now. Maybe a couple apologies, I don’t know, if you want to do more, ask Klaus. End of discussion.”
This leaves them all unsatisfied. Even Five, the spokesperson. But there really isn’t anything to do to remedy such a situation. Perhaps all they will ever get from this day was more perspective on Klaus.
Still, that doesn’t quite settle the lump of stones appearing in their stomachs.