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“Why are you here?” Diego was just about to collapse in his bed, narrowly avoiding his siblings’ scrutinising gazes when he sees Klaus draped himself on the bed, he gives him a bright smile.
"Di! I’m just here to take care of you,” he points to the big box of first aid where he had propped his feet up. “I’m not gonna rat you out about your nightly escapades, but I do need to have a look at your leg.” Diego scoffs, crossing his arms and drops on the bureau chair instead, trying his best to deflect from the situation, “what nonsense are you talking about now?” Klaus just hums absentmindedly and drops to his knees to tug on his shoes, “what the hell are you doing, why does no one believe me?” He scoffs, “wow, that’s very rich coming from one of you. Look, you can lie to judge Judgerson and his entourage of dancing Judge Judy’s, but I’m not here for you, take of your pants.” He tries pull Diego’s leg towards himself and when he yelps in pain, he makes a satisfied hum, before he gets kicked in the face.
“You need to leave!” He yells at Klaus, who sits on his haunches a moment, looking at Diego with a look he has never seen before. “I know you can take care of yourself brother, and I know that this whole vigilante thing is a sort of therapy for you. So, I’m not going to rat you out, but I need to take a look at where they swiped at you, she’s not going to rest until the man who tried to safe her is at least a little taken care of. So, don’t be rude, lift up that ugly uniform, so I can clean this up.” Diego stares at him for a moment, eyes bright, suddenly the exhaustion is gone, and it feels like his veins are on fire again, “she’s here?” He nods, “why do you think I knew about that you even left for the night? So, for her peace and mine, can you please let me take care of you?” Diego nods dumbly, and finally let’s Klaus do his part, “she was so worried, immediately went in this spiel about you, that the one person who answered her cries needs help and she’s not going to let you pass by like others did her. When she described you, I told she had nothing to worry about,” he finally, lifts his pant leg, after all the little clasps and Velcro is away. It looks worse than it feels.
"Yeah, that’s a bullet wound, you absolute buffoon.” Diego chuckles, “yeah I’ve had worse, don’t worry.” He gets slapped on the side of his head. “Hey!” Klaus smiles innocently, “that’s what you get for worrying old ladies. Huh? No, he doesn’t need a hospital, he’s right, it’s nothing he hasn’t had before and it’s a real easy fix, don’t you worry, he’ll be right as rain.” Diego winces a little at the needle, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you ma’am, if I’d just been a little… ow! Klaus!” He smiles, “she’s asking if you really think she blames you for what happened and if that’s so,” Klaus chuckles through the rest of the sentence. “Then you’re an idiot boy with even less sense than she’s realised.” Diego gives the air a sheepish smile, before he winces again at the first stitch. “Yeah of course ma’am,” his brother says suddenly after a beat of silence, he’ll never really get over the talking in the air thing, he’s seen his brother do it silently over course of the years, mumbling and hissing to someone he now knows is Ben, (and hasn’t that been one big painful realisation.)
But openly talking to someone took a long time for Klaus to be comfortable at, it shouldn’t be a big surprise, that with the sudden realisation came about a dozen memories of little Klaus talking to the air and dear old dad scolding him for seeking attention.
Everyone’s doing a little more their best to be a family after they narrowly averted the apocalypse by letting their baby sister out of the cage number one put her in for a moment and trying to fix the big and little things wrong in the family. Taking Klaus a little more serious was one they’re still all trying to work on, including Klaus himself.
Three days sober and he made Ben corporal for 2 minutes. A week sober and Klaus knocked on Diego’s door to strap him up again for the night, instead they watched old children’s movies with Vanya that they missed because of their messed up childhood. Five made an excellent trap sprawled over Klaus’ lap and in the end, Klaus made it another two weeks. Ben’s been corporal for all their family meals since Friday. He’s still in awe of his baby brother, “16 years high on one thing or another so have some patience with my sobriety, please.” He had asked when they went on a drug hunt around the house the day after the apocalypse was meant to come about. 16 years. That he’s even doing this good makes Diego a very proud number two indeed.
“Hey,” he pats Klaus on the head a moment when he’s putting a plaster on the wound, talking animatedly with a ghost, “I love you, I’m proud of you.” Klaus mock puts a hand on his heart, looking like he’s about to swoon, but Diego pushes him away, “I’m serious.” His brother grins at him, it looks a little like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, he can reference that now, “thanks Di, me too.” He closes up the kit and rolls the pants back down, “just tell me, okay? Hell, take me with you, just as a lookout. I swear I won’t say shit to the rest.”
Diego takes a moment, “I’ll think about it, yeah?” Klaus nods, moving away to take his leave, “that’s all I ask. I’m going to stay up a little bit, Carmen and I are going to make tamales, she wants her granddaughter to have the recipe, but she never wrote it down, and we’re way to skinny to not have a batch ourselves.” Klaus pitches his voice higher, pretending to be the ghost, imitating a bad Spanish accent. “Haha, you can’t hit me, you’re not corporal, ow!” Diego took it upon himself to do the dead granny a favour himself.