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Every day starts the same: Wake up at 6:00 AM, no excuses. Brush your teeth–wet the brush first, add the toothpaste second– then wash your face to clean off any spittle. Plain water won’t do, you need to use that one cleanser Allison used all her life. It must’ve worked wonders for her since her face has always been clear and pristine. A quick shower to finish the bathroom routine off. Grab a new pair of underwear and throw the bedsheets in the laundry basket if you’ve used them for a week. It’s good to sleep without clothes because that’s one less thing to wash. Dust accumulates shockingly fast, so dust off all surfaces in the room before heading to the kitchen, which should be 13 steps away from the bedroom. You then prepare your carefully crafted breakfast, the one you’ve spent the last several years testing: a bowl of oatmeal (no sugar, though: that stuff is poison. You can add cinnamon on Saturdays), a hard-boiled egg, a cup of green tea, two mini cucumbers from your mini garden. You can’t trust the markets these days…
Klaus has long since accepted that his powers are gone. No haunting spirits, no rising from the dead, no beloved tattoos…nothing. However, Klaus didn't take his situation seriously during the first few months of this new reality. He was still sober, and that wouldn’t change, but his zany attitude toward life remained and continued to cause all sorts of shenanigans. It wasn’t until his first near-death experience that he was shocked into a new attitude.
* * *
Luther and Klaus got lucky with the apartment they were currently staying in. The rent was cheap, amenities were adequate, it was within walking distance from a great corner store, and there was enough space for the two men to sleep in separate rooms (this was Klaus’ favorite part. He still gets flashbacks of rooming with Luther at Hotel Oblivion). All this made it easier to focus on the search for Sloane.
Luther did his best to find a similar job to the one he had in Dallas. He figured that, if he could find some other shady man to work for, he could use his resources to find Sloane. Unfortunately, he had no such luck and ended up working in construction for a bit. “Playing to my strengths,” is what he told Klaus, “and maybe the guys talk!” Guys talk for sure, but Luther isn’t the best at socializing, so one day Klaus figured he’d accompany his brother to get the ball rolling. He had a few elaborate plans to get close to the workers, but luckily Dave’s dog tags were more than enough to start a conversation with a coworker.
Turns out the poor guy lost his grandfather to the war and all he knows of the man are the photographs his grandmother showed him at every visit before she too passed. Klaus struggled to explain who Dave was to him, considering how confusing the timeline of events is for a normal person, so he settled on Dave being “his partner’s great-uncle.” The chat between them meant a lot to Klaus; aside from a few short conversations with his siblings, Klaus never had the opportunity to truly express how he felt about Dave’s passing, or how the war affected him.
It was a little tricky trying to hide his personal experience in Vietnam and his relationship and love for Dave. The young man shared secondhand stories he’d received about his grandfather: PTSD episodes, the letters his grandparents exchanged, the situations he found himself in while in Vietnam. Klaus did his best to reciprocate through his made-up partner’s made-up connection to Dave and, thanks to that effort, the two really bonded. They were about to exchange numbers before the accident.
Klaus was so immersed in the conversation–and you can’t blame him, all things considered–that he didn’t hear the other workers screaming and shouting about the falling steel bars. The young man took notice and tried to pull Klaus out of the way. At first, he flinched from the touch before registering the situation and leaping to the side. Being tall has its downsides: while he succeeded in moving away, his leg was still within the landing zone and the heavy bars fell right on top of it, spraining his ankle and breaking his foot in a few places. As the construction crew rushed to his side and Luther tried to lift him out, all the noises around Klaus faded into a faint ringing. He couldn’t even really feel the pain due to the shock. All he could think about was the fact that, if he were just a few inches off or a few seconds too late, those bars would’ve fallen right on his head and he would’ve died. No resurrection, no home in The Void, just plain death with no way out.
“...to a hospital, ok?”
Klaus blinked up at Luther after a few minutes of shock, finally feeling the pain and the noise and the heat from everybody crowding him. Luther doesn’t have his powers either, something he forgot until he failed to lift the steel off his sibling’s leg, so he had to wait until a few other workers heaved it as a team. The young worker Klaus got acquainted with called for an ambulance as everyone clustered around him, so it arrived and off they all went to their normal routines as the siblings climbed aboard.
Luther is badgering Klaus with questions as the EMTs work him up: all of this is absolutely overstimulating and all Klaus can do is stare, bewildered, and think about what just happened. The worst-case scenario that he narrowly avoided keeps playing in his head. Just one millisecond too late, one inch out of the way…the gory image of Klaus’ head exploding under the steel bars won’t leave his mind, and it stayed imprinted there throughout the day.
As the days pass, Klaus becomes more tense and less tolerant of Luther’s lifestyle. He’s a sweetheart, sure, and he cares so much for his siblings, but he’s a hot mess. Klaus and Luther have separate rooms, but they might as well live in a studio apartment because all of Luther’s things are spilling into Klaus’ space. Usually, Klaus is quite outspoken and doesn’t hold his opinions back but the near-death experience really shifted things. He started holding onto his displeasure with Luther until it festered into a resentment that eventually blew up and left Luther more confused than he usually is.
“I don’t understand where this is coming from, Klaus. We’ve been doing just fine for the past month! What’s going on with you? Are you using again?”
Of course his first thought is that Klaus is on drugs again. It feels like his siblings will never acknowledge how far he’s come and how good he’s been at staying sober. This just made him angrier.
“If you can’t realize what the issue is, Luther, then you really haven’t a clue. Your shit –the snack bars, the filthy socks, the miniature airplanes–they’re all over my room ! How did it even get here?! And you leave crumbs everywhere . The least you could do is clean up after yourself in the kitchen–and, by the way, close the fridge door properly next time before you let all our food spoil.”
‘Klaus never cared much for these small things,’ Luther thought. Sure, he’s always been sensitive to smells and his socks are…quite pungent, but he’s lived in way worse conditions. It just didn’t make sense, so Luther dropped it and did his best to be a better housemate. Unfortunately, though, his best wasn’t good enough for the increasingly tense Klaus, and so he moved out right after the month’s rent was due.
* * *
Regrettably, Klaus hasn’t seen Luther in years. He hasn’t seen any of his siblings, really. It makes things easier, he figured: no unexpected messes, no disruptions to his new routines. He has his morning agenda, cleans up after himself, then prepares himself for work.
This new “The Séance” gig is working wonders for him. It’s a little distressing having to meet all kinds of people who bring all kinds of germs and want to hug Klaus for his good deed, but it’s worth not having a boss to answer to. It also gives him a bittersweet sense of nostalgia. It’s ironic that now, after years of self-destructing over them, he misses the ghosts begging for his attention. And don’t even get him started on Ben. The loss Klaus feels still weighs heavily on him, even though he’s gotten used to the lack of nagging from his brother…
Whenever Klaus goes out, he’s well-equipped with all kinds of sanitary tools: heavy-duty gloves to save his hands, boot covers to make sure nothing gets to him through his shoes, sanitizer sprays and gels, paper bags in case he needs a quick dose of “clean” air, and surgical masks. He’s got plenty of bandaids and alcohol swabs in his knapsack for any cuts or scrapes he might get. Bloodborne diseases are very much a concern, and the skin can be quite fragile.
As he walks through the city to get to his little workspace, his hands clutch the strap of his knapsack so hard his knuckles turn white. Thank God the gloves hide that: he can’t have any potential clients thinking he lacks confidence. He’s spent years counting the steps to get there and finding the perfect, most accident-proof route so that he doesn’t have to spend any extra time in the elements and crowds.
The spot he’s leased for his services is a tiny space in an alleyway with a pathetic set of stairs leading up to the door. Just like his apartment, everything is placed with a purpose: from the chairs to the carpets to the candles.
The floor is covered with Persian rugs Klaus found at some poor old Iranian man’s garage sale. At the time, he asked the man why he was selling such lovely rugs at such low prices. The man said he felt his time was coming to an end and that all his family were gone already, so there was no one to pass them down to. He said that parting with them and making someone else a happy customer is much more favorable than watching them collect dust as he counts his days. Klaus takes very good care of these rugs. First, he has the concrete ground underneath them layered with bubble wrap for two reasons: to keep the rugs away from the rough cement and to protect anyone (and himself) from any sudden fainting spells or fistfights over what the “spirits” say. He also urges his clients to wear boot covers (he has a whole box of them stored somewhere). He paints them a story about a great-grandfather from Turkey who brought these rugs from way over there, and after death, he chose to reveal himself to Klaus and ask that he keep the rugs safe for his bloodline. His clients love it. He loves it, too–the rugs, not the story, because it’s his way of “summoning” that old man and his loved ones, even without his powers.
The walls of this spot are insanely dull, just plain bricks painted grey to make the room even less inviting. Klaus hasn’t been as flamboyant as he’d like to be in a while, but he still recognizes when something needs some character. He’s in the business of delivering comfort to the grieving, so the space needs to be more…comforting. Since he got so lucky at that one garage sale, he went hunting for more. He found himself in the driveway of a sweet elderly couple who traveled a lot in their prime, collecting all sorts of paintings from aspiring artists selling their work on the streets. Beautiful canvases of the Scottish Highlands, Lake Orta in Italy, and Hạ Long Bay in Vietnam. Klaus agonized over that last one, staring at it for much too long to the point of spooking the couple. He didn’t want a bitter reminder of that time, but he also wanted some way to honor Dave. He has the dog tags, of course, but he’s started using them as proof of his services once the customers started taking notice. He tells them that sometimes, his powers are strong enough to summon items from the land of the dead. He felt guilty for it, like he was exploiting Dave’s death, so eventually he decided this painting would serve as a more personal homage: an intimate connection between the two.
Finally, the table where he conducts his business. The plethora of candles really sells the whole séance shtick, Klaus figured, and it helps that he’s always found the smell of smoke oddly comforting. He has a variety of candlestick holders scattered around the table from various antique stores. Another thing he felt séances should have is a penchant for weird and random things: no order, no restrictions, all kinds of vibes and styles to ensure all the deceased are comfortable in this new space, regardless of who they were as people. It’s a great coincidence that he, too, has a penchant for disorder, so the decorating process came easily to him. He also has a small lucky cat statue right by where he’d grab his client’s hands. Aside from the fact that it makes him smile a little every time he sees it, it also serves a precautionary purpose. Once he walks into the room, he knocks the cat’s head once. He tells himself it’s just for the noise: it’s a nice, clean bonk that feels like it comes from the cat’s belly. Before “summoning” a loved one, he taps the cat’s tiny waving arm twice–you know, just for good luck with successfully selling the act. And finally, before grabbing a client’s hand, he rubs the cat’s tail: three mini clockwise circles followed by four mini counterclockwise ones. In total, that makes ten physical interactions with the cat. After that, he skillfully dodges any contact with it to avoid disturbing the peace it brings.
He doesn’t open for business until 1 PM. He arrives a few hours earlier to mentally prepare for the day: meditating to the same guided meditation playlist he’s used for years for one hour at 10 AM, a cup of green tea at 11:11 AM, dressing up as “The Séance” at 11:30 AM with his accessories and robe and eye makeup, and finally reading his self-help book ( The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck , all about realizing what you can’t control and accepting it) until the alarm blares at 1 o’clock. He slides a thin, circular, off-white rug under the door that he embroidered with the word “WELCOME!” using a deep golden thread. It took him months to finish that craft. It took a while to get used to the fine finger movements and the rhythm of the stitch, and the fact that he was trying to spell out something legible on it made it that much harder. He attempted to “write” it in cursive, but now it just looks like someone with messy handwriting tried to write neatly for once.
He never opens the door right away, though, doesn’t even leave it unlocked. He’s instructed all his clients to knock 4 times: overhand, underhand, overhand, underhand, giving about 4 seconds between each knock. Klaus doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s paranoid; He’s been chased and shot at for so long that he just wants to do his best to minimize the unpleasant and unprecedented encounters in his life. He found an easy way to install a peephole into the door, which he checks every 45 minutes, just in case. When he’s not preoccupied with the door, Klaus looks at the tiny calendar he’s got in the impossibly small personal room located at the back of his workspace to see which clients are coming in that day. The calendar has cats on it. Up until recently, he swore that he’d never so much as look at a cat ever again after Reginald killed his beloved Oswald in an attempt to force Klaus to use his powers, but the need for familiarity and comfort made him rethink that decision. If he ignores that funny little traumatic detail, then the subtle reminder of Oswald really carries him through the day.
He takes a look at the calendar, runs his finger along the grid of dates to get to the right one. It’s October 1st, his birthday, his siblings’ birthday, the day his mother died. It’s a good thing October is prime spirit-summoning season: silly teens and their desire to connect with the dead, or silly people who for some reason believe the “Halloween spirit encourages the dead to visit”. He always does his best to schedule plenty of sessions during the first week of October to avoid dwelling on his birthday and his family for too long.
Unfortunately, today, this year, October 1st brings one measly customer at 3:15 PM. Happy birthday to Klaus Hargreeves. Signed: The Universe.
He usually has a plan in place for when he’s got time between appointments, but today’s different. Klaus is way too stressed by the sudden intrusion of memories from past benders and his family and his childhood. Back in the day, he spent every birthday overdosing on some insane mix of substances, trying to explain to Ben that it’s just a “birthday gift to himself”, to be able to overindulge more than usual. He can’t do that again–he won’t do that again and undo all his progress–so he keeps himself busy. He tries some guided meditation, but he’s so restless that he can’t focus on his breathing or mind’s eye or whatever , he just can’t focus. He tries reading his book, hoping it’ll give him some insight in this time of need, but it only seems to piss him off with its “nothing matters, so what? Move on and live in the now !” attitude. So, he spends hours alternating between meditating and reading and cleaning and resisting the urge to pet his lucky cat statue until the rhythmic knocking of the door causes relief to wash over him.
Klaus practically runs to the door, catching himself after almost tripping on the lovely rugs. When he opens it, he’s met with a young woman, no older than 30, with curly black hair and tanned skin and a satchel that looks almost identical to his. She seems anxious–probably the sketchy alleyway and sketchy mediumship business–but she speaks first.
“This is where The Séance is, right? I have an appointment under ‘Mona’, 3:15…?”
Klaus blinks for a moment, mouth hanging open until he starts nodding and stuttering out a “Yes, come on in”. Mona nods, reaches for the boot covers she has in her bag–Klaus' happy to see a client coming prepared, he's running out of his own–and puts them on before stepping inside. She stares at her feet when she walks, Klaus notes.
“I love the carpets, reminds me of my family,” she tries to break the ice, her eyes still glued to her feet. Klaus opens his mouth to tell his Turkish grandfather story, but his throat catches. For some reason, he can’t lie to Mona: he feels a connection, like they’re both going through the same thing somehow, so he tells her the truth. He tells her about the old man and his rugs and his family and his acceptance of defeat. He tells her about why he bought so many of the rugs from the guy, about the bubble wrap protecting them from the concrete floor, about the memory he’s trying to keep alive in his silly little business space. The whole time, Mona’s eyes bounce around the room. They land on Klaus briefly, then jump around some more, but he knows she’s listening because she gives tiny nods after each sentence.
“So now, I’ve got these lovely carpets to brighten up this…” Klaus’ face scrunches in disgust as he looks around, his nose crinkling a little before gesturing vaguely at the walls and ceiling, “...already lovely workspace.”
“Good move, this place looks rough even with the ‘lovely’ décor,” Mona laughs. Her eyes have started restricting their bouncing to Klaus’ person, not the entire room. He takes that as a sign of trust, so he urges her to take a seat to get on with the session.
Mona’s incredibly observant, Klaus realizes. He realizes when she catches him eyeing the lucky cat statue every once in a while before she confronts him and asks what it means to him. Since she’s observant, she notices that Klaus was caught off-guard with the question and starts apologizing profusely, ready to change the subject before Klaus snaps out of it. He reassures her she’s fine, and that he’s fine, and that he’d love to tell her.
“I had this cat as a kid–Oswald–and he was my best friend. My childhood was…” Klaus takes a deep breath, taps his left fingers rhythmically against the lines of his right palm, then continues “...messy, to say the least. I was quirky, and well aware of it too, and my father hated it. He believed I could do so much more, even as a child. So, in a spectacular attempt to push little duckling me off the nest into the dark and dangerous world below, my father–” Klaus stops. He searches Mona’s face for a sign of discomfort, a sign that he’s totally trauma-dumping, very passionately and angrily, and that he should change the subject. All he sees is wide, concerned eyes and a subtle frown tinged with confusion. She definitely wants to know more, but Klaus figures he should try harder to lie this time.
“M-my father…he, uh, didn’t have the sense to lie to me when Oswald died. He told me that he accidentally ran Oswald over and he even showed me the corpse. And when I cried, he told me to move on. It’s been decades, but I just, you know, like to remember him every once in a while.”
He’s relieved when Mona doesn’t go for his hand to convey her support. He hasn’t done his cat-taps yet, so the contact would surely spell certain doom. Instead, her features soften and her eyebrows crease and she gives her condolences. They sit in comfortable silence for a while, Klaus staring at his fingers as they tap his palm and Mona staring over his shoulder. Then Klaus remembers where they are and what his role is, and so he speaks.
“Well, I promised you my services, which don’t include letting you be my therapist. So, what brings you to me?” Mona seems to have forgotten why she’s here, too, because she fixes her posture and clears her throat.
“My older sister, Darya. About a year ago today, she–wait, how much information do you need? The whole story of how she died and stuff? To channel her.”
“Anything you’ll give me will help, honestly, so long as you're comfortable and you’re not revealing any of her deep dark secrets…she wouldn’t want to meet us if you did.” He chuckles at that, and she returns the gesture.
“Right, right…” Mona paused and let her eyes bounce around the room again, seemingly deciding on how much to give. “Darya, she died in her sleep two years ago. Everyone deemed it natural causes because she had cancer with no sign of improvement, but she was acting strange the night before. She was–do you have sisters, Klaus?”
“Just one. And five brothers. One dead.” He hopes she didn’t notice his voice cracking when he answered her.
“Oh, I’m sorry… S-so you understand how siblings are. The bickering, the snide comments, the inability to be sincere or to genuinely compliment each other. Like, the last time we said ‘I love you’ to each other was when we were kids. So when she beckons me over to her room, sits me down on her bed just to ‘remind me that she’s always loved me and always will’...well, you get worried. She sounded like she knew she was dying tomorrow… And she had this sense of urgency in her voice and her eyes were shaky and she just–it just wasn’t right. Something was wrong, so I asked if she was okay and if she wanted me to call an ambulance but she insisted it was nothing, that she was just thinking about how she should be a better older sister. That she wants to give me as many touching, sibling-y moments as possible. And then she died. And I think she did it to herself. And I want to know if she did, what happened after I left that room, what she was thinking…I just– I want to know.”
Mona takes a deep breath once she’s done talking. She was talking so fast, she probably didn’t breathe once. She was shaking, too, her hands grasping at each other to steady herself. Klaus knows how hard it is to open up, especially about your family, and especially when they’re dead. He felt guilty about it, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Ben as she spoke. He didn’t get a chance to sit him down and tell him how much he loved him…he didn’t get to apologize on everyone’s behalf for telling him to suck it up whenever he expressed his very justified concerns about a mission. Sure, Klaus had years with Ben afterward and they had some lovely moments that he’ll never forget, but he just can’t help but feel he could’ve done more than just give Ben a place to stay before going into the light.
Klaus figures he can override his routine, just this once. He speeds up his process: he quickly rubs the lucky cat’s tail the way he always does, then reaches for her hand. Mona’s eyes are brought to his hands, and then, for the first time since she’s walked in, she makes eye contact with Klaus. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull his hand away. He maintains the soft eye contact with his hands outstretched for Mona to grab onto. She gulps before giving him her shaky hand, which he slowly wraps with his fingers and squeezes lightly. He releases a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding before responding to her.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mona. Losing a sibling, it’s a kind of pain no one really gets until they’ve experienced it themselves. Especially when the circumstances are so unclear… I’m going to do my very best to get you the closure you both deserve, okay?” He punctuates the promise with another squeeze of her hand. She gives a shaky nod as she wipes the tears gathering above her lower eyelid before they get a chance to fall.
“I’m going to get started, okay? You ready?” She nods again, much more steady this time.
He taps the cat’s arms twice, very light and feathery taps, before putting on his act. He mumbles some pretend “prayers” he’s come up with. He traces the lines on her palm with his eyes squeezed shut, then taps their fingertips together. He then rubs her inner wrist, where the veins are, before letting go of her hand altogether. Klaus opens his eyes, looks past Mona, and raises his arms up and out of his way, puffing out his chest in her direction.
“I can feel her here…she’s trying to join us.”
Mona’s eyes go wide and the tears start to well up again. She frantically turns around to see where Klaus is looking but sees nothing. She turns back to him, mouth agape.
“It’s okay, you won’t get to see her but she’ll be here. I’ll communicate on her behalf.”
She sighs out a defeated “Okay, got it,” before fiddling with a handmade bracelet on her wrist. Klaus sneaks a peek at it and notices the name “DARYA” spelled out with beads of various shades of purple. His breath catches for a second when he realizes it might be a childhood gift exchanged between the sisters. He shouldn’t be playing on this girl’s feelings, on her grief, with this faux séance act. He shouldn’t…
“She’s here, and she looks healthy.”
Fine, he’ll just waive his service fee. Just for Mona.
Mona covers a gasp with her hand. She looks like she wants to say something, to ask something, but she can’t decide on what. Klaus takes charge for a little longer.
“She says she loves your bracelet. She’s laughing fondly about it. How’d you get it?”
Mona composes herself by stifling a sob, then she speaks.
“When we were kids, no older than 12, we were obsessed with bracelet-making. God, the beads were everywhere, and our parents would get so mad…” She giggles to herself and sniffles before continuing: “One day, they said we had to use up all the beads and thread we had or they’d throw any materials they found in the trash. I can’t blame them now; my poor father stepped on so many sharp, diamond-shaped beads, and my mother somehow kept finding them in her jars of lentils and sugar and whatever. So, we worked for hours , staying up way past our bedtime just to make every bracelet we ever wanted to make. Eventually, we ran out of ideas, so Darya–” a hiccup and sharp inhale cuts her off for a second, “–Darya goes ‘Why don’t we make bracelets for each other?’ I got so excited, I drew up designs and everything. I made her this sparkly bracelet with all shades of purple, her favorite color, and a gold-colored thread held it together. She saw it and her smile dropped, like I did something wrong. And I got so worried until she showed me the one she made for me. I was a little upset at first–because why would I want someone else’s name on my wrist?–but then she burst out laughing and asked if I could add my name to the bracelet I made for her. She…she goes ‘This way, we’re always together’ and…”
Mona can’t hold it back anymore. She completely breaks down, heaving sobs wracking her already shaky body. She does her very best to hide her face with her hands as if Klaus wouldn’t be able to tell she was crying if he couldn’t see her clearly, but she was crumbling down in her seat. And he’s ashamed to admit it, but Klaus wanted to crumble down with her, too. She was in so much pain, had experienced such a huge loss, and he felt it all. If it weren’t for this new habit of routines and safety measures he’s developed, he’d jump out of his seat and hug her, give her his shoulder to cry on, figuratively and literally. If he hadn’t changed so much, if he was just the way he was before… But there he was, glued to his seat, stunned and sad and disappointed in himself for only being able to provide this “service” instead of actual comfort.
He knows lying is wrong, he knows he’s been preying on people just to get by, but now he’s convincing himself that the lie could help her. That, if Reginald had lied to him about Oswald, his heart would be less heavy. So, he picks himself back up and decides to give Mona the best service he can offer.
“She nodded the whole time you spoke, Mona. And you’ll never guess what’s on her wrist: the bracelet you made for her. She was fidgeting with it this entire time.”
A particularly loud sob escapes Mona before she laughs a little.
“Of course she’s fidgeting with it, God, she was always so restless and it drove everyone crazy. Always itching to drag me outside to climb a tree or jump over some river or something dangerous for our age.” She takes a few steadying breaths before straightening up in her seat and looking Klaus in the face again. Her eyes are still wet, he notes, but they seem lighter.
“Could you ask her why, or-or how, how she knew she was going to leave? Did she really not have a hand in that?”
Her eyes were boring into his now, as if she might be able to see Darya reflected in them. He shudders at the intense contact and prays she didn’t notice. He nods, then looks past her again to silently speak with “Darya”.
“She says she would never do that to you…she would never deliberately cut the little time she had with you short. She tells me it was a feeling she had: not pain or anything, just a hunch that her time was coming. And she wanted to talk to you. She wanted you to be the last face she saw if her hunch was true. She’s sorry that she scared you and that she’s sent you on this crazy hunt for the truth for so long. She asks that you think about her death as a gift, as a release from her condition. And that you always look at your bracelet and know that whenever you touch it, she’ll feel it,” Klaus turns his gaze back to Mona. “She loves you, Mona, and she always will.”
Poor Mona breaks down again, but her crying isn’t as heavy and despairing as it previously sounded. She’s looking up at the ceiling instead of retreating into herself, twisting the bracelet on her wrist as she cries. Klaus offers his hands to her again, and when she notices, she takes them into her own. They share a meaningful, knowing look.
“Listen, Mona, I can’t express how badly I wish I could take this pain away from you. But she’s happy, she’s free, and she’s always with you,” he gestures at the bracelet with his chin, “She wants you to be the same, Mona. She wants you to live your life, if not for yourself, then for her.” He gives a soft smile, which Mona tearfully returns, before thanking him profusely for a chance to speak to her sister again. She holds his hands up to her face and whispers thanks after thanks until she’s out of breath.
* * *
After a lengthy cleaning of the workspace, Klaus takes a second to process the day. This isn’t according to plan, but he figured he made so many changes to his routine today that one more to gather himself after all the deviations is fine. He stares at the lucky cat until his eyes burn and are forced closed. He hesitates to rub his temples before remembering the deep handwashing he did after seeing Mona off, so he grabs at his face and massages it all over. His hands haven’t stopped shaking since “Darya” left, and he can’t figure out how to stop it. He just needs to get home, and fast. He gathers his things, triple-checks that everything is in order, then locks up and heads home the same way he came.
He’s hoping it’s just his imagination, but he feels like he was shaking the whole way over. He didn’t notice until he got home and went to take off his boot covers: his hands were shaking so much that it took him several tries to reach for the plastic, and even more tries to untie the shoelaces. He figures he just needs to eat, so he goes in for his carefully planned lunch: a caprese sandwich with whole-wheat sourdough bread, all ingredients and vegetables made by his hand, and a spinach, banana, and pineapple smoothie. He sits upright, back held straight as he eats, wiping his hands with a wet wipe after every five bites. He read somewhere that food needs to be chewed at least 32 times before swallowing to maximize nutrient absorption and aid with digestion, so he makes sure to do just that. When he’s done, he takes his dishes to the sink, washes them with his yellow latex gloves, then walks around the apartment to avoid any acid reflux.
A few hours later and he’s still shaky, his whole body shivering with every breath he takes. At this point, he’s done convincing himself he’s fine: the alarm bells are going off and he’s scrambling to find a way to save himself. He sprints to his bedroom, searching for his meditation iPod so that he can control his breathing. When he finds it, he exhales sharply and frantically tries to shove the earbuds in so that the playlist can start.
The first five minutes of meditation seem to work, slowing his heart rate down to a manageable level and quieting the screaming in his head. It works until it doesn’t, and now he’s hyperventilating again and choking up because an uninvited breakdown is coming. And he can’t fight it, he’s been trying and he’s failed, so he gives in. And he cries.
He collapses in on himself, bending down so that his head rests on his crossed legs as he bawls into them. His sobs start increasing in volume to the point they drown out the thoughts in his head, but he can still feel the pain. He still feels Mona’s loss, Luther’s guilt, Diego’s insecurity, Allison’s rage, Five’s anxiety, Ben’s despair, Viktor’s loneliness. He can feel them all weighing so heavily on his chest that it’s hard to breathe. He’s gasping now, begging for the misery to end, begging for his father to just let him go back to bed. His memories flood him: Oswald’s mangled corpse, Dave’s lifeless body, Reginald’s disapproving scowl and incessant insults, Hazel and Cha-Cha beating and starving him. The memory of his 18th birthday, the day Reginald threw his belongings out of the academy and cut him off for good. The memory of Vivian Clarke taking advantage of him and feeding into his addiction just for another shot at Hollywood fame. It’s all so much, too much, that he’s started begging for Ben to show up and tell him where he hid his drugs. He’s hysterical, and he’s alone, and nothing’s working.
Klaus has one last resort, one last method to stop the torment: his rituals. He scrambles to the bathroom in a half-crawl, half-sprint. He grasps the sink so tightly he feels he’ll break it. He turns the cold water faucet to the max before running his fingers underneath the stream. He swipes each finger through the water: thumb, forefinger, middle, ring, then pinkie, and then he flips his palm over and runs it back in the same order. He does this 25 times for each hand–he counted, of course–and then he gathers the water in his palms and splashes his face with it. He’s still shaking and tears are still falling, but at least he can breathe. He can breathe and his mind is almost entirely his again, so he grabs his phone. When he misses Dave, Klaus texts an inactive number to feel like he’s speaking to him again. He goes through his contacts to find “Dave”, but he comes across Luther’s name first.
Klaus’ thumb hesitates over the name as he contemplates whether he should try to reach out to the one brother he still has in his life or if he should tough it out alone again. He gets ready to scroll away, opting for the latter option, until Mona’s bittersweet expression flashes in his mind. She did everything to hear from her sister again, even going out of her comfort zone and speaking to some shady “séance” to reach out to Darya. And Mona shared a lot of traits with Klaus: the anxiety, the hesitance with intimacy, the feeling that you’re living detached from the world, just going through the motions after a tremendous loss. If she could go the extra mile to live for herself and her sister, then Klaus has no right to give her the fake closure he won’t give himself. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, swallows down any doubts he has, and calls Luther to say “Happy birthday”.