Archive of Our Own ^beta

Even the deer head on the wall gives him a scornful look. It’s almost like the beginning of the Laughing Scene from The Evil Dead — the only good thing is, zombies don’t exist. Klaus wouldn’t be surprised if they did, though.

What does exist in this fad of a timeline is a whole new family Daddy Dearest bought like a collection of action figures. Anything not to deal with the set of kids he fucked up first. 

“This isn’t your home. This is the Sparrow Academy.”

Reginald’s voice is as soft as the spear to the chest. Diego yells, Klaus winces, right ear going deaf. Will they ever learn that screaming never helps? But all of this doesn’t mean a thing now, because, 

“Everybody else can see Ben, right?”

Right. The others can see him or hear him; Ben doesn’t like it, exploding with a venomous commentary about Klaus’ hat. Klaus says Ben’s new hairstyle was a shitty choice.

He wonders if the other six figures — one of them is indeed a cube, Klaus’ sober-ish mind points out — can do anything else except for posing.

Klaus hears a low buzz, causing white noise to burst out all across his ghostly radio frequency. It might be another trick of this place; it might be one of his unique mysteries because his siblings and the Sparrows seem to be completely unfazed by the hum filling out the hall. He wants to tell them, but what Reginald says next, makes the question pop in his head like a soap bubble.

“Your mission has been successfully completed, Number Eight.” 

Klaus thinks he’s tripping, no, he is definitely tripping, because Reginald looks and sounds proud, and he talks to him. On the periphery, Ben rolls his eyes.

“My… what?” Klaus looks around, trying to find an answer in his siblings’ faces. Number Eight? That’s even more degrading than being accurately the middle number on the scale.

Behind him, Allison pushes Five on the shoulder and asks,

“What the hell is going on?”

With a spasmodic jerk of his head, Five replies,

“I don’t know yet, but it’s concerning.”

“They call themselves the Umbrella Academy, and be warned, they claim to be my spawn,” Reginald explains, far too enthusiastically. “Don’t worry, Klaus, you can tell the Sparrows about our plan now.”

The glances burning his back get more intense.

“Listen, it must be a mistake, right?” Klaus waltzes away from both of the families as he speaks. “I don’t know anything about Reggie’s plan, or these guys… Well, except for Ben, obviously,” he blows him a kiss in a mocking gesture. Ben imitates gagging. Just like the old one; Klaus would have smiled wider if it wasn’t for saving his poor ass on his own again. “It’s just a… minor misconception. I didn’t mean to lie to anyone.” 

He raises his hands, ready to surrender — peace and love, peace and love — and the sleeve of his Dallas Apocalypse jacket rides up, exposing the tattoo on his wrist. This is not a faded umbrella with a splotch of red on the handle he expects to see — it’s a bird, a neat and healthy-looking one, trapped in a black circle. 

Klaus fumbles to hide it back under his sleeve, but Diego’s farsightedness doesn’t leave him a chance.

“When the fuck did you get it?”

“I don’t…” Klaus chokes. “I don’t know! It was different this morning,” he can see the trust and sympathy leaving Diego’s eyes. “I was with you all that time, you idiots, do you think I’d have time to get the cover-up job done?”

“This is what we’re asking you,” Luther says. He even stops glaring daggers at the huge and muscular Sparrow — their Number One, presumably — to glare daggers at Klaus instead. Diego’s daggers are literal. Klaus hunches his back, not wanting to believe that his siblings have fallen for this shit. 

“Well, there’s the possibility that it’s still our Klaus, so…” Five begins, making Klaus perk up for a second.

Reginald cuts his joy.

“No, there’s not.” 

“But…”

Klaus doesn’t like being surrounded, yet this is how he feels his entire life. Siblings standing in a circle around him and one of his brothers beating the shit out of him in sparring; ghosts towering over him as he sits in the corner of a mausoleum. Now, it’s both Umbrellas and Sparrows teaming up against him. There’s no way he can blend in, he thinks he has a shiny forehead L like a neon sign for the attackers. 

Reginald ignores it, being a red flag himself. 

“Welcome back to family, Number Eight.”

***

“Where are you taking me?” Klaus pulls away when Ben grabs him by his sleeve. “What’s going on? Hey, Bennerino, stop—” he gasps as his shoulder slams into the wall. 

This Ben doesn’t remember him, Klaus can’t accept it. It was his last hope. 

“When will you stop making everything about yourself?” Ben hisses, pointing his finger at Klaus’ chest. “I’m only being nice to you because Dad told me that you might need some time to adapt back to your usual lifestyle after that damn mission.”

“Oh, that’s so touching,” Klaus clamps his palms together as if he’s about to pray. HELLO, God, I can explain… oh, you still don’t like me? Got it. GOODBYE. “I always knew you’re a turtle, babe. All soft inside—”

“Move!”

When Ben drags him down the hallway, Klaus flinches and covers his face with his hands. He takes a quick look between his fingers at the commotion downstairs — he doesn’t quite know which side of the family is about to start the fight, but Diego cracks his knuckles already.

“Why can’t you all just talk,” Klaus sighs.

“Why can’t you just shut up?”

Ben squeezes the life out of Klaus’ shoulder with such ardor that his vision turns white. He’s got a grip, trying to be good for Daddy. This makes Klaus giggle; this pisses Ben off.

Unlike Klaus, he’s got a reputation to lose. Klaus is still the only one who knew the real him since they got stuck together. When Ben was alive, they were never the best of buds, and this new reality proves it. This Ben is disgusted — like the rest of their families, probably. They all think that Klaus is diseased, and dirty, and will sell them for one last hit. They were never around for long enough to know he’s got some moral code too; a bit twisted one, but pretty solid nevertheless.

He lost his hat downstairs when Ben grabbed him; suddenly, Klaus feels naked. The Academy changed a lot — not only the Sparrow designs everywhere — it looks even more uninhabitable now. He sees one more familiar face as they walk — it’s Grace, looking a bit glitchy with a broken doll eye tic and with her hair a little messy. 

“I wasn’t expecting company,” she says, sounding so apologetically robotic as she holds a plate with cookies in her shaking hands. Klaus can relate — tremor is a bitch. Even if you’re not a human. He takes one of the cookies, not to break her electric heart even more. He hopes it tastes better than it looks.

“Do you not maintain her?”

“It’s Dad’s responsibility,” Ben replies coldly. Klaus watches Grace sway on her heels as she goes downstairs.

“Tell him she missed a few system updates.”

“It’s none of your business.”

This is so weird. The old Reginald was a tech nerd who’d spend days and nights ensuring Grace’s programming didn’t have bugs. The old Ben would be worried about it. This Ben has his own portrait in the main hall. 

Klaus knows he’d hate the statue he had in the backyard when he was dead.

Klaus stops dead in his tracks, making Ben stumble away as he hears the screams, sounds of skin punching the skin, and just the image of it makes bruises form all over his ribs. Yeah, he’s far too empathetic. 

“Thanks for the room tour, Benny, but I need to check on my siblings.”

He doesn’t specify which ones.

“Dad told you to stay away from the… Umbrellas,” Ben pronounces the last word with disdain. “You brought them here, the others will handle them. I am supposed to be helping them, but instead, I’m wasting my time babysitting you.”  

“Well, you don’t have to!” Klaus puts his hands on Ben’s shoulders. “I’ll just take a quick look and be right back!”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Ben says it as he means it.

More sounds of the punches fill the hall; something — or someone — hits the wall, something shatters. Diego curses, Luther growls. Klaus can only hope Viktor will not end the world for the third time due to all the noise he has to deal with.

Ben squirms out of Klaus’ grasp, nodding at the half-open bedroom door. Of all things, Klaus didn’t expect to have his old bed back. There are still fairy lights and psychedelic paintings on the walls, but the room looks much tidier than he last remembered it. Cigarette butts don’t spill over the edges of the ashtrays, no bong in the corner. No signs of bad habits, and a newly time-traveled Klaus needs a drink. Because he sees one more thing that makes him freeze and whistle in surprise. 

Next to the closet, hangs a full-length poster of Klaus “The Séance” Number Eight Hargreeves, the Sparrow Academy, whose entire look radiates with confidence. He’s wearing a red catsuit that masks his lack of muscle and accents the areas Klaus never thought could be accented with his fairly slim build. Whoever took this photo must have enjoyed themselves. Klaus’ hair is straightened, brushing over his shoulders and his chin beard is neatly trimmed, and he’s sure they did something to his eyebrows too. He’s a tough guy on this team. He doesn’t like it.

“I hope they paid me well enough to look so damn straight.”

“Don’t be a narcissist, Klaus. Just go to sleep.”

Ben is still so eager to join the fight. Klaus can feel it. He’d appreciate a printed-out version of himself a bit longer if it wasn’t about his family getting their asses kicked by individuals they were replaced with. With Ben’s help on the Sparrow side, they might not have a chance. 

Klaus swallows hard.

“You need to let them go.”

Ben shakes his head.

“Too many heroes for one timeline, don’t you think?”

“What? No! They’re not even heroes!” Klaus’ voice is too high-pitched all of a sudden. He’s sure that the man from the poster on his wall wouldn’t sound like that. “I know them, right? They’re— they’re just big fuckups! Not a threat, I swear!” he repeats the same words over and over again like a spell. 

“You can still talk to them when they’re dead,” Ben shrugs. 

“This is not you,” Klaus looks Ben in the eyes, searching for a glimpse of his brother. “You’d never—”

“I’d never what? Betray my family?” there’s no regret in Ben’s words. 

Klaus makes a move toward the door and Ben opens his red Academy jacket as if—

“You’re not doing this,” Klaus whisper-chuckles. “You’re not using Horror on me.”

Through the blood rushing in his ears, he hears the sound of a body tumbling down the stairs. He hopes he won’t get a new ghostly pal that is so sibling-shaped again. Ben doesn’t care, a perfect killing machine with perfectly wiped-out emotions. Even his Horror looks different in this timeline — less octopus-like, more squid-like. The tentacles are thin and slimy, and being hit with them across the face hurts like a bitch. Klaus learns it the tough way. 

“I told you to stay here.” 

Klaus sniffles back blood filling the Cupid’s bow of his lip.

“Stop me.”

He’s bluffing, he doesn’t feel any available ghosts around. The tattoos on his palms begin to glow, powers scanning through the dimension. He ducks when the Horror aims for his head, but another tentacle attacks him from the back. Once again, it hurts; once again, he didn’t expect it. His room is not big enough, and Ben has always been good at short-distance fights. The Horror lifts Klaus up, one tentacle wrapped around his waist and another one around his neck. 

“Still want to help them?”

Klaus nods. 

He scratches the Horror’s slimy skin to relieve the pressure as the tentacle covers his bleeding nose and mouth, making his vision black out as he blinks away tears. He was always the weakest; in this universe, too. He kicks his legs in the air, too far away from Ben to smack him in the teeth. The glowing on his hands fades, bitten fingernails turn violet. 

“Good night,” Ben says.

Klaus falls on his childhood bed, head lands heavily on the pillow. He wants to get up and shove the Horror up Ben’s arrogant ass, but his body feels — and looks, he doesn’t need a mirror to know — like roadkill.

Maybe Klaus hallucinates, but cold fingers tap along with the pulse on his carotid artery before he passes out fully.

***

He wakes up to a crowd chanting his name and wants to smother himself with a pillow. 

“Klaus! Klaus! Klaus!”  

Nothing he hasn’t heard before.

Klaus feels a wet cloth dabbing at his face and finally opens his eyes, to focus on a foggy silhouette of Grace sitting on the edge of his bed. She smiles at him and hums softly. Well, at least she’s still programmed to take care of all of them, Klaus included. 

His entire face hurts, and his back feels stiff. Not his best work at socializing. He shouldn’t have provoked Ben when he’s so out of shape, no, this is wrong, so wrong,

“He shouldn’t have choked me,” Klaus groans. 

He tries to lift his head, but Grace softly pushes it back onto the pillow. 

“Sh, lay still, silly.”

She wipes his nose with a wet cloth, and it comes away red. The slightest irritation in his coke-burnt vessels causes a bloody Niagara recently, he’s aware, thank you very much.

“Are they alive?” startled, Klaus pushes himself up with his elbow. “My fam— those people who came here with me?”

Grace puts the cloth on a metal tray with medical supplies. 

“I didn’t want them to get hurt. I always told you, kids, to solve your conflicts differently—”

“Yeah, yeah, no snapped necks and such,” Klaus nods hastily. It makes him dizzy. “So… did they… Leave?”

Grace’s right eye shines unevenly with blue flashes. Is there a camera in her eye? Klaus never thought of that.

“I wanted to give them cookies but they ran away so fast.”

“Thank God,” Klaus flops back on the mattress with a sigh of relief. “They could still walk. Who’s screaming, by the way?” his head is about to burst as he presses his palms to his ears. 

“Your fans,” Grace says proudly. 

“My who?” 

The Sparrow version of Klaus stares down at him from the poster. There’s no drop of life in that man’s eyes, only the desire to show off. And not in a way Klaus would do it. 

Whoever it is, it’s not him.

Grace smiles somewhat deliriously.  

“Everyone loves you.”

“Sure. How could they not,” Klaus replies light-heartedly.

It feels like having a cult all over again. He disappointed enough people in his life. They’re so noisy, so clingy, he can feel it even when he’s secured in his room; oddly enough, this place never provided him with the safety he always craved. They don’t love him, they don’t know he’s just a loser who can barely get a hold of his damn power; they love the Sparrow Guy who happens to look like him.

“You’re late for breakfast,” Grace says with a robotic frown wrinkling her brows. “Sir Reginald wants to see you. I ironed your uniform while you were sleeping,” she points at the chair with a neatly folded red jacket on it. Oh, of course, Klaus has one of those. “Get ready while I cook something for you, and come right to the kitchen when you’re done. You need strength,” she coos.  

He’s late because Ben knocked him out. Not the best way to celebrate his arrival. The thought of meeting Reginald makes Klaus’ heart drop to his stomach. He’ll never get used to it; what the old man is gonna do to him in this timeline? Plot another “special training” torment?

The humming in his ears doesn’t subside; it makes his bones vibrate and sends ripples through his blood.

“Do you feel it?” Klaus asks. Grace’s machine-oil-filled artificial veins can be just as sensitive as his spiritual ones. “That… buzz.”

“It’s God speaking,” her tone is serious, half a whisper as if she’s telling him a secret.

This is not what the Bicycle Girl sounds like. But Grace doesn’t know. 

She leaves him alone to these thoughts. He wishes he had some painkillers to function properly; the sound of his name makes his brain swell. Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. There’s no escape from the dead and the living. He pulls the curtain just slightly, only to see a flock of people in front of the Academy. They’re flooding the main street, they’re looking for him, holding up “The Séance is our #1” signs. Some of them wear red jackets. Back in the Umbrella Academy, they had their merch too: posters, comic books, toys and lunchboxes, but that was only for a short period of time. Because Five went missing, Ben died, and Klaus opened a miraculously-destructive world of addictions of all sorts.

He didn’t plan to become the face of marketing for the UA audience in his mid-thirties.

The fans scream louder when they spot him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus waves at them. “I love you too.” 

He rips the poster off the wall, cracks the window open and throws it out into the crowd. He watches the paper float in the air before landing on a bunch of greedy hands. They tear it to pieces in seconds, they’d do this to his meat and flesh if he’d come down.

They keep repeating his name until it’s just a mess of sounds in his head. 

He closes the curtain.

***

Wearing the Sparrow uniform brings certain childhood memories back. Klaus smiles to himself when he thinks of the days when he’d trade his shorts for Viktor’s skirt just to piss off Reginald. Reginald never commented on their fashion preferences, though. Now, they have to wear these damn white shirts with ties, knit vests, and suit pants indoors again. He didn’t miss that.

Klaus decides to stick to the advice a dead old Benny once gave him — control them, learn their secrets. He was talking about the spirits at that time, but Klaus has to hang out with someone who’s alive every now and again. He needs to know everything about the people in this mansion. Find Reginald’s journal maybe — speaking of Reginald, goosebumps still prickle Klaus’ skin as he sees his office.

“Come in, we don’t have much time to waste.”

“Indeed,” Klaus mutters, stepping into a dimly lit room.

If one thing never changes in the Academy, it’s the mess in this room. Papers, overloaded bookshelves, and poor victims of taxidermy steal all the air. Klaus clears his throat as the dust settles in his lungs. Maybe he’s allergic to it. Maybe it’s fear.

“You need to quit smoking.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, young man!”

Klaus flinches as Reginald raises his voice. He didn’t even have time to bathe since he woke up; his hair reeks of tobacco, even his fucked up receptors can feel it. 

“Okay, I’ll try, okay? No promises, Dad.”

He wills to sound malicious. He’s not sure if it works on Reginald.

“Have a seat,” Reginald points at the couch. Klaus prepares himself for a lecture. He’s been there so many times when he was a teen who desperately needed to pawn yet another artifact from Reginald’s collection and get high.

“It’s gonna be a long one, I see,” he shivers uncomfortably, leaning against the back of a couch. It’s too hard under his aching back. If that Benny-bitch sprained something in him—

“In the sixties, you impressed me the most. Letting your dead brother possess you and being able to handle his power within yours,” leather creaks under the old man’s weight. Klaus fights the urge to move away. “There’s so much you can do with your gift, Klaus. We just need to get rid of a minor inconvenience first.”

“Inconvenience?”

“The impostors who call themselves the Umbrella Academy.”

“Get rid like… Kill them?” Klaus turns to Reginald to read the answer in his eyes. The monocle gleams almost threateningly. “Why do we need to kill them? I mean, they didn’t even want to be here, they told me, and—”

“To save the world,” Reginald pats his shoulder reassuringly.

“No fucking way!”

“Language!”

Klaus covers his face with his hands and giggles. Not to sob, mostly. They ran so fast only to end up in the beginning. No matter where they go, the Apocalypse follows.

“What do you want from me?” 

“To be a Sparrow,” Reginald says. “Tea?” he changes the topic of conversation drastically, voice softening. 

Klaus never had tea with Reginald before; Klaus never heard him talk to someone… respectfully? What has he done in this timeline, to this timeline to be in such a special position?

“Bottoms up,” Klaus mock-salutes with a cup and takes a sip. It burns his tongue, and he nearly spits it back out when Reginald offers him to watch the TV together. 

Klaus agrees, still shocked. He almost waits for something extra in the tea to kick in.

“...Ancient people believed we rode on the back of four flying turtles or on the horns of a white buffalo.”

It’s a documentary about space and the shape of reality — one of those he and Luther were obsessed with as kids. They never had enough free time to truly enjoy their little hobby, so Klaus is mesmerized still. 

He needs to find a way out of here to warn his siblings about Reginald’s plan. He doesn’t think it will be a problem; he’s known all the ways in and out of the Academy since he turned nine. He hopes Reginald didn’t remaster anything in this universe.

Klaus can’t keep avoiding the Sparrows; he’s had a heart-to-heart, or well, a Horror-to-the-neck talk with Ben, so only the Girl-on-a-bicycle knows what the others can do. Something tells him they fight dirty.

Something tells him Reginald trusts him. 

This version of him is kinder, or this is what Klaus wants to believe. 

When he turns to him to ask him more about his Apocalypse plan, he finds the old man sleeping, hands folded on his chest. Klaus used to tell his siblings scary stories about the Dad Who Never Sleeps when he was a kid. So seeing Reginald so calm and peaceful now is at least weird. Klaus is sure he’s the first person who’s ever caught him like that.  

“Ob…li…vi…on,” Reginald whispers. 

Klaus is not the only one who talks in his sleep, great. Oblivion? What does that even mean? Documentary forgotten, he stares at his “father”, waiting for more clues. The only thing that happens though, is a slight slide of a monocle down Reginald’s cheek. A round piece of glass falls on the cushion next to him, and it’s so tempting to finally solve its mystery. 

Klaus bites his lip, carefully tugging at a thin golden chain to get the monocle without waking Reginald. 

“Come here, baby.”

Got it! He gets up from the couch and comes to the mirror in the corner of the office; Reginald never left the house without making sure he looks perfect. Perfectly assholish, in Klaus’ memory. He only tries the monocle on, squinting his right eye not to let it fall out; it makes his reflection look older. Klaus blinks his left eye to adjust when his head suddenly feels hot, and a ball of energy bubbles in his chest. In the mirror, his chest glows. It’s a soft orange light peeking through the threads of his clothing, gathered in his solar plexus. And it does indeed shine bright, rays spreading around like tiny tendrils.

“What is—” Klaus doesn’t finish the question as the answer pops up with the pain in his head. It’s his power. Reginald had to take just one look at the baby through the monocle to see if it’s got powers. How smart. How terrifying. 

Klaus turns away from the mirror because his skull is about to explode; the visions don’t stop here, overlapping a boring design of the room. He sees the earth burning, something that Five mentioned more than once — he sees the last chunk of the planet with one single building on it. The Hotel Obsidian, big red letters read. He’s been there at some parties, to drink to childhood trauma; it all comes in flashes and ragged memories that are far too unpleasant to focus on them.

“The fuck you’re doing here?”

He rather hears than notices Ben, massaging his temples and struggling to finish watching the movie the monocle is showing him. When Klaus lifts his head, though, he sees a similar glowing in Ben’s ribcage. The Horror might be having fun in there. “May the darkness within you find peace in the light” — the quote from his brother’s statue has a whole new meaning now. The light beckons eldritch creatures like butterflies with fragile wings.  

“Did you know that… The world is ending?” Klaus shakes the monocle out of his eye. He thought he was crying, but the wetness on his lips doesn’t taste like tears. 

“Your nose is bleeding, idiot.”

Is that concern in his voice? Klaus might’ve fried his poor brain to a crisp. 

He quickly smears the blood across his nose with the cuff of his jacket and smiles.

“I know a place.”

“You don’t know shit,” Ben folds his arms over his chest as if locking the Horror inside. 

He’s not interested in Klaus’ explanations or documentaries, just turning off the TV. Too sad, Klaus wanted to listen to another theory. Ben takes one of the books from the shelf and stands still, turning the pages.

Klaus tosses the monocle on the couch and leaves.

***

He wants to save this Ben, too. There might be some hope for him yet.

He didn’t even notice when it got dark outside; Klaus thinks his teammates are boycotting him for being Dad’s favorite Sparrow. Well, it’s not his fault. He walks past the kitchen where Grace is doing her chores. She’s far too robotic for this timeline, yet far too sentient to be called a robot. 

Klaus’ muscles tense up as the buzz starts bothering him again; something is scratching the side of his consciousness, but he can’t put a name to this feeling. Might be a foreboding. He just saw the catastrophe, he brought it into this timeline. 

“Oh, really?” Klaus stops next to the window, noticing the two figures under the lamppost on the opposite side of the street. He’s going to get in trouble if he leaves the mansion, but what else can he do?

One of the silhouettes is tall, with grotesquely broad shoulders. Another one is mostly wearing black. What a good day to get stabbed or punched to death. Klaus looks around, not seeing any Sparrows in sight. They’re not spying on him. Or he hopes so. 

He uses one of his usual escape plans — a backdoor next to the dumpsters, so he can approach his brothers from around the corner and not draw unnecessary attention. 

“Psst,” Klaus gestures at them. 

Expectedly, Diego grabs a knife. 

“You’re going with us.”

They both look quite beaten, and bruised, and pathetic; Klaus feels the same way. He probably still has blood on his face after his monocle experience.

Klaus clicks his tongue.

“You rented a car for this?”

“I had to pawn my wristwatch,” Luther says, sounding pissed.

“Yeah, this usually gives you money.”

They don’t react to his remark. Klaus shrugs and opens the car door, but Diego suddenly grabs his hand, stopping him. 

“Here,” he ties a blindfold over Klaus’ eyes. “We don’t need you to know where we’re going.”

“A surprise date?” Klaus chuckles. “I always knew you had a soft spot for me but I hoped you’ll keep it subtle— ow,” he hits his head on the top of the car when Diego shoves him inside. “I know you guys don’t like to be compared, but you’re acting equally dumb at the moment. No winners here, sorry.”

He keeps babbling when someone — he thinks it’s Luther, because he can recognize Diego’s angry breathing next to his ear — starts the engine.

“Care to tell us what’s going on?” he was right, it was Diego with him in the backseat. Klaus wouldn’t be surprised if he felt a knife pressed to his throat.

“Shouldn’t we ask Five?”

“He has a couple of questions for you too.”

“Ben is alive in this universe, but he doesn’t remember us. Does anyone have questions for him, or is it my job to interview him?”

Did they want to break into the Academy for the second time today just to kidnap him? Klaus doesn’t hesitate to ask it.

“No,” Diego says. “We had a plan.”

He doesn’t sound convincing.

“What plan?”

“None of your business.” 

“Oh, you should thank me for kindly leaving my room and meeting you then,” Klaus quips.

“You shouldn’t have stayed with them in the first place.”

“And what did you expect me to do? To take out an entire room of assassins? Why didn’t you, super-superpowered people, do it?”

Inside, Klaus is shaking. Not because he’s scared of his brothers, no. He just realizes he’s broken what thin crust of trust was holding them together as a family. They think he’s not their Klaus just because he’s labeled differently. They think he stole their sibling’s memories and pretended to be him.

“Are you sure it’s a doppelgänger?” Luther asks.

“That’s a made-up word,” Klaus interjects before Diego answers. 

“Five tried to warn us about them. And this one… Has the Sparrow tattoo,” rough fingers clutch Klaus’ wrist, twisting his arm to the wrong angle.

“This one has a name,” Klaus tries to pull his arm out of Diego’s vise-grip. “Have you checked the others?” it’s just an innocent question, but he can imagine the grimaces on Luther and Diego’s faces. “Are you sure that Five is still Five and not some evil leprechaun wanting you all dead?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Luther warns.

But Diego listens, letting go of Klaus’ hand. 

“Just some food for thought,” Klaus leans back into the seat. The ride takes too long for his disoriented brain; darkness makes him claustrophobic. The gravel rustles under the tires as the car shakes sideways; he never liked taking rides with his siblings because they always were too into that stereotypical superhero driving.

At least they didn’t lock him in a trunk.

Before the car stops, Luther says, 

“We don’t want to hurt you.”

“Would you say the same if I was lying dead on the floor?” 

Klaus smirks, enjoying the silence. Luther doesn’t know, Luther doesn’t have to know it not to hurt his little Number One ego.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Diego groans, dragging Klaus out of the car. “We just need to talk. A family meeting.”

Knowing them, Klaus wouldn’t be surprised if they voted on whether they should kill him or not. Sadly. He holds a breath. 

“Backdoor, backdoor,” Luther whispers loudly. The keys jingle, and two pairs of hands push Klaus into the building; he tries his best not to freak out, he doesn’t like the dark, or being touched, and this situation is a combo of all the panic-inducing factors.

He almost sprains his ankle as his brothers maneuver him upstairs; one more door, one more hallway, and then they sit him down on a chair. 

He feels duct tape wrap around his forearms, and then the blindfold is removed, making him blink and squint to the light. There’s not much of it, but his eyelids are burning from dryness. 

His uniform shoes drag against the carpet with a zigzag print as Luther turns him to the reading lamp on the table. This is getting funny because Luther’s moves lack confidence. They don’t know what to expect from me, Klaus realizes. And as much as he loves his brothers, he’s not looking forward to getting his ass kicked by them again.

Klaus winces as Diego turns the light at his face.

“Didn’t know you finally fell for that copaganda shit,” he comments. He then looks around, bleary glance catching beige plastering and pictures with boring landscapes on the walls. “The Mockingbird Hotel? I know this place. Do they still run this Free Breakfast Sunday thing?”

That’s enough birds for him.

Diego glares at Luther. 

“Should have taken him to the warehouse, I fucking told you.”

“The diner one?” Klaus enjoys their confusion. 

Diego draws a heavy breath through his nose. Luther shrugs. 

“He knows the City.”

“Oh, that’s too simple,” Klaus cocks his head to his shoulder. “No one knows the City the way I do.”

He stayed in every hotel, he roamed every street and he drank in every bar; he can find his way back home from every dumpster, every flophouse.

Clearly distressed, Luther begins the interrogation with a question that makes Klaus want to facepalm. 

“Why is your stupid face on all these billboards on every corner?”

“Because I’m photogenic?”

He needs to tell them about the Apocalypse. He wonders if they’ll burn him with his old Zippo for bringing it up. Klaus still feels the buzz under the soles of his feet, but it’s mostly a distanced vibration here, nagging at his brain but overall not too distracting.

Diego turns the lamp at Klaus’ face again.

“Tell us something that only Klaus would know.”

He’s done with this low-budget detective movie style. He shakes his head, turning away from the light.

“Using the same trick again? You asked Ben to do this when he was inside of me,” technically, he’s doing what Diego wants. There were only the two of them, with Ben as Klaus’ plus one. “You told him to not give me my body back. Only because you didn’t want to deal with me. And now you’re suddenly missing me?”

He struggles against the restraints; his back still hurts after the fight with Ben, and sitting in such an uncomfortable position only makes it worse. Maybe it will be easier to make Ben cooperate with him, even. They’re on one team by default, at least.

“Listen, we love Klaus, okay?” Diego leans over him, putting his hands on Klaus’ forearms. “And we need to know what version of him you are.”

“We did it with Five in the sixties,” Luther nods. “Fives, plural.”

Klaus throws his head back and groans. It’s gonna be a long night. Good thing, one of the tapes begins to loosen up.

“Could’ve used a rope,” he eyes the knives in Diego’s harness. Can try and snatch one out if Diego comes a little closer. “Ah! I forgot! You suck at shibari,” Klaus can swear Luther blushes at this. Diego purses his lips. Klaus continues, “Patch told me. We had quite a lovely conversation—”

Klaus closes his eyes before Diego hits him. That was kind of a low blow, but it’s also one of the few things that only the Umbrella Klaus could know, right? He spent too much time at the police stations, and there were Diego’s friends sometimes. Speaking of the blow — it doesn’t come, but there’s only one thing that can stop Diego from smacking someone on the head. 

“What the hell is going on?”

Klaus opens his eyes only to see Five holding Diego’s fist in the air, at a dangerous proximity to Klaus’ jaw. 

Luther simply says,

“We got him.”

Five has a nasty gash on his forehead and an unstoppable wrath shaking his skinny frame. With a pocket knife, he cuts the tape around Klaus’ wrists. 

“Thanks,” Klaus shakes his hands to kick circulation back to normal. “Never disappoint me, Cinco.”

He’s still sitting in the chair, and Diego and Luther are still speechless when the door opens, letting Allison and Viktor in. 

“How was it?” Five asks.

“Marcus didn’t show up,” Viktor flops down on one of the beds with a prolonged sigh. “Something’s wrong.”

Five says,

“There were two parrots in the birdcage in the hall in the morning—”

“Sid and Nancy,” Klaus chimes in. “What a lovely pair.”

“Now the cage’s empty,” Five hobbles across the room like a broken mechanical toy.

“Somebody took Sid and Nancy?!” Klaus gasps. “I’m sure they were too young to die!” he turns to Five. “What do you even mean?”

“He— what? Did you two kidnap Klaus while we tried to find Marcus?” Allison sits down next to Viktor, looking beyond pissed. “Hi, Klaus,” Allison greets him tiredly. “I’d ask why you got blood and duct tape on you, but I’m afraid I won’t like the answer.”

“We didn’t even touch him,” Diego marches away from Klaus’ chair. “I only was going to, but—”

And then comes the inevitable.

“Do your thing,” Luther not-demands, not-towering above Allison. “Rumor him,” he nods at Klaus as if he’s just a movie set prop.

“Are you crazy?” Allison stands up, already on the edge. “I’m not rumoring Klaus!”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to melt his brain?”

“But we need to know what he’s doing here!” Luther stops Five from flattening out the fluffy carpet with his nervous footsteps. “Hey, tell her? Paradox psychosis? Evil clones?”

“We need to let him go,” Five says, grabbing the pen from the table and scribbling something down on a napkin.

“What?” Diego sounds disappointed. Klaus gloats.

“Never doubted you, my smart siblings.”

“Wouldn’t it be more logical if we kept him here until that Sparrow guy shows up?”

“Marcus. His name’s Marcus,” Viktor prompts. 

“I don’t care about names, I only care about their powers!” Five rolls the napkin into a ball and tosses it across the room. “Klaus can be useful, you idiots!”

“I… I don’t know anything about their powers yet,” Klaus interrupts, grateful to have protection in the form of Five.

Ben’s power is pretty much the same if you don’t think about the Horror’s changed appearance too much. 

“The blob one accumulates pain and sends it back to you,” Allison rubs her nose. “The short-haired one has birds. The cube…”

“Is a flying Taser,” Diego finishes.

Exchanging unreadable glances with him, Five adds,

“The small one spits hallucinogenics.”

“And Marcus is super strong,” Luther says reluctantly. “Like, super-super strong. Viktor managed to scare all of them shitless, though.”

“They also have the one who manipulates gravity. She threw me into the wall, and my powers sort of… erupted,” his voice is quiet as if he’s ashamed. “I could’ve killed them.”

“Speaking of killing,” Klaus gestures at his siblings to listen. “On this happy note with a family reunion and such, let me tell you something,” he pauses. “The world is ending.”

The storm of questions nearly blows him off the chair. 

“The world is what now?”

“Again?”

“Is it our fault?”

They don’t ask him if he’s high this time, which is the progress. 

“I took Reggie’s monocle,” Klaus says with a little ta-da wiggle of his fingers. “And I looked through it. I don’t know if that was what this thing usually shows, but,” he gets up from the chair. “I saw a place, and it was like, the last one standing. The Hotel Obsidian. I don’t know much. I think I was about to have a stroke — hence the blood, but… I think it wouldn’t lie.”

Five furrows his brows.

“Why do you think it wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know. But I think it wouldn’t hurt to check that slutty old dame Obsidian, right?” Klaus is about to plead. He must sell this place to them. “She’ll look after you, I promise, I’ve been there! It’s a perfect place if you need to hide from Reggie’s new murderous family. You know, ‘cause back in her heyday, she played host to world leaders—”

“Klaus, don’t go full The Shining here.”

Five doesn’t buy it. Of course, he doesn’t.

“But I just want you to stay safe while I go on my undercover mission here! Anything for family, right?”

“For us or birds?”

Diego. Ouch.

“Last I checked, your new girlfriend’s mother tried to kill us.”

Okay, maybe this convinces them just a little. 

“We’ll go there in the morning,” Luther says.

Klaus shakes his head.

“Go now. No time.”

“He’s right,” Five takes another napkin and covers it with his messy handwriting. “I don’t even know when it’s gonna happen.”

“This timeline is indeed nuts if suddenly we’re listening to Klaus,” Diego comments, throwing the remaining duct tape into a trash can. 

“Try harder and you’ll be me next time.”

Diego smirks, the tension between them easing. Klaus doesn’t want to go back to the Academy; he doesn’t want to meet a cold, unfamiliar Ben and an overly hospitable Reginald. He wants to see an umbrella on his wrist. 

“Tell Marcus we’re waiting for him,” Allison says when Klaus walks to the door. 

Klaus nods.

***

Klaus finds out Macrus is still missing as soon as he gets back to the mansion. He had to walk because of course there’s nothing in his pockets except for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. 

He hears the voices coming from Ben’s room and presses his back to the wall to stay still and listen.

“...just a Number Three? They keep Marcus somewhere, I know it. I could be One at this point, and we should figure Dad’s deal with Eight.”

“Didn’t you notice, he’s a bit…” there’s a whistle. Klaus rolls his eyes. Of course, they think he’s crazy. “I think they brainwashed him.”

“And what about the birds? Fei? Did you send them after him?”

Fei sighs.

“This is weird, but… They couldn’t see him. He trained his ghosties to cover him entirely. And my crows can’t break through his… aura, or how he’d call that shit.”

“Useless,” Ben spits and punches the wall.

Klaus can’t believe they’re talking about his powers. Ghosts hate him, scare him shitless. They never help.

Fei is the bird one then. He struggles to remember the names. He should make a list or something. Good thing that the siblings warned him a bit about the Sparrows’ powers since Klaus was… absent during the fight. 

He needs to take a bath. Seems that Benny-boy isn’t going to be any more informative here anyway.

There are ghosts in the mansion, he knows it. They’ve always been here, starting with the dead nannies that wanted to sing lullabies in different languages to a kid Klaus. Then, the Umbrella Academy victims started to appear, then a whole new batch of ghosts came in with Five. What Klaus sees reminds him of why he tried to avoid sobriety at all costs.

In this timeline, Reginald didn’t remaster the bathroom. There’s the same mold on the tiles from two timelines ago, the same hair stuck in the drain. Klaus hopes it’s his hair, at least.

There’s always something at the corner of his eyes, flashing, hiding with the turn of his head. It could be one of them, it could need the answer. 

“Where’s your manners?” Klaus mutters, shedding the uniform coat on the floor.

Whoever was watching him, disappears. Maybe he doesn’t know something about his powers in this timeline. Maybe he’s just too sober. The itch is always here, he needs to find a purpose to stay clean. It’s hard when nothing makes sense. 

He’s got more bruises on his body than he can count. Pain fills him to the brim, and even nice warm water can’t soothe it. Too many Apocalypses, Five was right.

The shadows hover over him, trying to break through his armor; they always want to get him defenseless, to slip into his mind-space. He lets out a shuddering breath and dives into the soapy water to block out the pressure building behind his eardrums. The dam’s about to break, they’re going to tear him apart, both mentally and physically. They can do it now; he wouldn’t be adopted by Reginald otherwise.

He almost starts manifesting an image of Ben in his head, the old Ben; he was an asshole sometimes, but at least he could say something to ground Klaus back to reality. 

“I’m glad you’re alive now,” Klaus whispers as he emerges.

He wishes he had someone to talk to.

***

Surprisingly, he still has his tattoos from Vietnam. Somehow, it makes his heart ache even more now. He thought he’d spend the rest of his life with Dave in the sixties — who would miss him in the present? — but it could only take the rest of Dave’s life. It took Dave’s life to realize that death and dying are always here to laugh behind Klaus’ back.

He has the dog tags too, clutching them in his palm as he leaves the bathroom; he’s covered with the towel from the chest down. He wore it the same way when those goons in cartoon masks got him. Now he’s sharing a house with someone who wants to kill his family, so it’s not much different. He doesn’t want them to see the memories inked across his skin.

In the hallway, he’s sure he sees a dark-haired woman in a long white dress. He blinks hard, and she disappears. 

Klaus almost wants to see her once again.

***

Things get worse because as it turns out, he still has to go and train with the others. Klaus hates gyms, okay? He’s good at running and he can shoot the rifle — thanks to Dave — who even needs these stupid sparring contests? Well, being Reginald’s favorite Sparrow doesn’t help Klaus steer from the workout routine. Their gym clothes are as red as their usual uniform jackets but with bigger Sparrow Academy logos on the chest. Klaus’ heart beats so fast it makes the bird tremble.

He just saw a crow peck at Ben’s tentacles, he needs to wash his eyes with holy water or bleach, thank you very much. Sparrow Six spat at the cube and it fell into some sort of a coma. And Klaus thought tripping on the wrong mushrooms was hell of a ride.

Five — Sparrow Five — looks nervous, shaking her hands and cracking her knuckles. She’s ready to alter the gravity at her round. Klaus turns to her and whispers into her ear,

“I love how no one gives a fuck that our Number One is missing.”

There’s fear flashing through Five’s eyes as she puts her forefinger over her lips.

“Don’t talk.”

She could be an ally; Klaus puts a checkmark in his mind. If she’s scared, then she’s willing to talk. He learned that from the ghosts. 

In typical Reginald manner, he turns a family nest into a hive of bees.

“Number Four,” he says, standing in the center of the gym again. Klaus flinches even if that’s not him. “And…” dramatic pause makes his stomach clench. “Number Eight!”

“Ah, that’s me,” Klaus gasps. “Show me what you got, Ben Grimm.”

He always hated numbers as names, but now he’s pissed that someone stole his number. Four’s moves are lazy, and so far from fantastic. Klaus remembers Allison’s warning about him — what can Klaus do if it’s not even up to him to decide when to land a punch?

“Get him, Alphonso!” Six cheers. Ben claps his hands reluctantly, still pissed about the crow thing. 

Alphonso. He knows a name, at least.

He forgets about the names’ importance immediately, when Alphonso hits himself square in the jaw, scarred skin vibrating like a huge antenna. Klaus’ teeth grind against each other, catching his tongue in the process; he doesn’t even have time to spit out blood as Alphonso punches himself in the gut. If the first blow sent Klaus swaying sideways, the second one knocked him off his feet with the firework of pain exploding in his liver.  

It’s like getting shrapnel stuck in his side again. He might’ve blacked out, because when he opens his eyes, he sees Alphonso’s gym shoes in front of his nose. Klaus landed on his stomach, blood gathering in a puddle under his chin.

Alphonso’s disfigured eyebrows rise in surprise.

“You okay, bro?”

“Why can’t we just… have a drink together?” Klaus wheezes out. Alphonso looks a little guilty.

If Reginald didn’t know that Klaus was, is, and always will be his greatest disappointment, then he’s about to learn. Klaus had seen Reginald’s pursed lips so many times on so many occasions that it feels more normal than not.

He looks at the timer in his hand.

“Get up, Eight!”

Klaus groans, pushing himself on his hands and knees, then straightening up shakily. One blow of wind is enough for him to keel over and Alphonso just wants to get some points in this family.   

And Klaus wants to find at least one family member who wouldn’t want or try to beat the shit out of him.

These fights are not about strength; they’re about trickery. He thinks of that woman in white he saw in the hallway yesterday; “come on, come on, come on,” he repeats, screwing shut his eyes.

“What’s he doing?”

“Losing?”

“Is it time to get Grace or something?”

Even the cube says something, but Klaus doesn’t get it. Ben shushes it, and the babbling stops.

“You’re here, I know you’re here, I can feel you,” Klaus rubs his palms together, then spreads his arms wide. His brain feels like a giant bruise, but he focuses on the pulsation in his Ouija tattoos. “Come here, come here, come here.”

Someone gasps.

Klaus feels something tangible gathering around him; he blinks his eyes open, all teary and bleary again, and sees figures stepping out of the corners of the room. The woman in white leads the ghost army; there are six of them, with their loose hair covering their bleeding ears. 

“Love pain, huh?” Klaus grins. “Tell them!” 

Alphonso hits himself in the nose, breaking the cartilage, but it only sends a slight ripple across the ghostly shield around Klaus. The blow returns to Alphonso like a boomerang, making him curse and clutch at his face. Reginald stares at this scene with his mouth agape. 

“Thank you, ladies!” Klaus bows. They don’t understand — he didn’t know he could do it. 

Ghostly women walk through Alphonso, making him bend over and breathe erratically. 

“Enough!” Reginald stops the timer when Alphonso’s lips turn blue. Six hands him an inhaler. “Excellent job, Number Eight!”

The women walk into the wall of the gym, taking the last bit of Klaus’ energy with them. He collapses on his knees, shaking, his condition not much better than Alphonso’s. Reginald grabs Klaus’ limp arm and jerks it upright, nearly tearing his shoulder out of the socket.

“What? No! Alphonso should’ve won!” Ben is the first to protest. “You didn’t give him a chance to fight back! Why the hell everything should be about Eight and his—”

“Language! No one’s going to give him a chance on the mission,” Reginald cuts off Ben’s furious speech.

“But you gave Eight a chance when he was almost knocked out!”

“He found his way out of the situation!” Reginald releases Klaus’ hand from his grasp, and it falls lifelessly in his lap. “And Four didn’t!”

“He pretty much did,” Six joins Ben in the dispute.

Five interjects,

“Their powers are too different! This round wasn’t fair!”

“Oh, because your little bestie Eight got hurt?”

“Aren’t we supposed to fight as a team, and not against each other?!”

“You are supposed to make decisions,” Reginald says. Alphonso uses the inhaler for the second time.

Klaus manages to get up to his feet; he feels glances full of hate on him as he limps to the door. Only Five looks at him reassuringly as he passes her.

Apparently, they used to be best friends.

***

Liquor burns his bitten tongue. Klaus almost bites it even deeper as someone touches his shoulder.

“Hey.”

Klaus raises his glass.

“Hey.”

“Sorry about the whole business,” Alphonso points at Klaus’ face. His jaw’s gone painfully numb, and his insides aren’t sure if they’re enjoying the party. “You know the rules.”

“Join me?” Klaus nods at the empty bar stool next to him. 

“Dad keeps the cabinets locked.”

Klaus shrugs.

“Nothing that I couldn’t pick.”

“Didn’t know you were drinking,” Alphonso’s voice is still a little raspy. Whatever ghosts Klaus managed to summon, handed his ass to him.  

“Oh, I’m not drinking,” Klaus corrects him. “I’m taking painkillers.”

“That’s concerning.”

Klaus takes another sip.

“I think you should talk to Sloane,” Alphonso suddenly says. “Jayme went too harsh on her. She stood up for you, like… You owe her. Go read magazines together, have a slumber party. Let her straighten your hair or something,” he chuckles.

Here it is. Two new names he’s going to forget. Sloane is the nice one, then. Klaus should ask her a thing or two. But first, he asks a thing that’s been bothering him since Allison mentioned Alphonso’s powers.

“Can you like… transmit hangovers? Or food poisoning?”

“What?”

“What? You can’t fight when your tummy hurts! There’s no need to cause internal bleeding, hey!”

“You’re crazy, man.”

“So can you?”

Klaus brings the glass to his lips again. 

Alphonso prefers to not answer.

***

Klaus doesn’t belong here, he knows. He doesn’t belong anywhere, in fact — the new Ben hates him, the Sparrows are side-eyeing him, and he can’t go back to his family either, because they also hate him. Just in case. Sure thing, Diego would just call him dramatic again.

Sloane is the only ray of sanity here.

He knocks on the door.

“Come in.”

Two timelines ago, this room used to be Allison’s.

“Nice… Curtains,” Klaus says to begin somewhere. “Let’s work together and ditch this stupid family? Just kidding,” he covers his face with an open palm as if she’s going to hit him.

Sloane puts away the book she was reading and casts him a heavy glance. 

“You’re different now. Not even making fun of me for wanting to leave anymore.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

He sits on the bed with her, thinking of the days when he would sneak into Allison’s room after the parties and gossip with her about everything. It feels like it was a thousand years ago. 

“The other ones… The Umbrellas, I mean, they…” Sloane fumbles with words. “They treated you like a brother. They are a real family,” she smiles dreamily. “This is what I always wanted for us. To be just siblings, not rivals.”

“Well, at least you can kick ass,” Klaus reassures her.

“I never wanted that.”

When your “father” buys you, it’s not about asking what you really want. It makes Klaus think of who he could’ve been if he didn’t grow up as a child superhero failure. Maybe this timeline is his chance to find out? The idea’s always been here, and now —

It feels like he’s got nothing to lose. It’s like shattering his heart and taking pieces away — brother, Dave, the world for the third time.

“Did Dad tell you anything about the new mission?” Klaus asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Like fighting crime?” Sloane bites her lip, thinking. “We haven’t had any major ones for literal years, since that time when we defeated Dr. Terminal, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure,” Klaus plays along. Badly. “My head’s been all messed up since the… the training.”

His jaw still hurts as he speaks. Having it broken as a kid took a toll on him. 

“Oh.”

She doesn’t know about Reginald’s plan to kill the Umbrellas to stop the Apocalypse; Klaus isn’t sure if it’s a good or bad thing yet. Instead, she tells him that Reginald put her against the cube — his name is Christopher — and she won by magnetizing him to the floor. He and Ben can cry together now. 

“I gotta go,” Klaus feels a familiar itch in his bones. It’s not cravings this time, it’s his intuition. He’s learning to listen to his inner voice which screams like a siren now. 

Sloane looks at him confused as he quickly shows her his GOODBYE palm and rushes out of her room.

If the earth is wailing in agony again, it’s time to at least solve one mystery.

And Klaus has unfinished business.

***

He knows this building so well he can as well get there through the chimney. He’s lucky today, and there’s no Reginald in sight, so Klaus can rummage through the papers like the free bird he is. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but there’s an imaginary light bulb shining above his head. 

Reggie has a ton of dirty secrets. 

It’s just like old times when Klaus would break into the Academy to find something of value to pawn. Back then, Reginald made Pogo put locks on all the drawers; it still couldn’t stop him.

And then he finds an expired check stub.

October 3rd, 1989

To: Rachel Herschberger

89 Old Holland Road, PA

For: (1) nine pound infant boy hereinafter referred to as NUMBER 8

Amount of this check: $3000 

It’s one of the “blink and you’ll miss it” evidence that Klaus does, indeed, exist in this timeline. 

Small recruit #8

All of it looks like a bad joke. Yes, he knew he was bought like a fancy pet, but seeing the price with his own eyes still hurts. She couldn’t have held out for five? Six? Klaus probably didn’t even want to know that his life was so cheap.

He shoves the stub into his pocket and curses under his breath when he hears someone approach the door. He doesn’t have time to open the window and climb down the fire escape ladder; the best Klaus can do is hide under the massive oak table and hope that the privacy panel won’t out him. There’s not enough room for his legs down there, and he has to curl into himself, making his bruised body protest.

Someone enters the office in the middle of an argument. 

“I’m telling you, I should go to them, not him—” 

“Hi, Ben,” Klaus greets him mentally. They have so much shit to sort out. Klaus doesn’t have to see Reginald’s face to know what kind of grimace it twists into as he speaks.  

“This is Number Eight’s mission, and he ought to finish it!”

“But Dad! Eight’s powers are useless here!”

“My boy, you have outstanding leadership qualities and excellent power control, but Eight is a better negotiator.”

Reginald stands so close to the table Klaus can see his shadow on the floor. Does his monocle show Klaus’ presence? Klaus never figured out how to turn off this thing. 

“What’s so special about him?” Ben sounds so genuinely devastated that Klaus wants to hug him. He doesn’t want this stupid mission, he wants his brother back.

“His unlimited potential he barely scratched the surface of.”

Is this the part where Klaus should be proud? He’s heard something like this from the old version of Reginald in the neutral territory of being dead. Is this about the Apocalypse? Must be. 

Reginald takes something from the table; underneath, Klaus holds his breath and nearly bites his knee, turning into a ball of nerves. Reginald scrapes the journals into a pile, footsteps shuffle back to the door. 

“I need your help in the archive, Two.”

“Paperwork again?” Ben groans. From his position on the floor, Klaus feels his pain. Paperwork sucks.

Luck is on his side today, so both Reginald and Ben leave before Klaus’ ribs start tearing apart his innards.

He’s going to pay Five a visit next.

***

“You know what time it is, Klaus?”

“You’re the one with the wristwatch, so enlighten me.”

It was 9 PM when he left the mansion.

“It’s nearly midnight,” Five says. 

“Less traffic then. Let’s go,” he gestures at Five to follow him down the hallway. Surprisingly, Five follows. To call him an idiot again, apparently. “Can you like… use one of those briefcases and blink us to Pennsylvania real quick?”

“Are you an idiot, Klaus?”

“Called it,” Klaus raises his finger. “So… Ready for a carefree road trip?”

Good thing, his family indeed moved to the hotel Obsidian, so it was fairly easy to find them. There are some changes too — Klaus was excited to see his old friend Chet, the receptionist, but instead of him, there’s a young Asian guy at the desk. His name tag reads OBSCURA, and he has a camera for his left eye. Something in his facial expressions and voice makes Klaus think he’s not an android. 

He tries his best to not stare.

Five tells him that the briefcase isn’t working anymore. 

“Lila brought another one, but… Same shit.”

“Lila? She’s back?” Klaus finds it funny. She wanted to kill them. “Passed the family test, right?”

“She pretty much did,” Five nods.

Klaus can swear Five didn’t have a swollen lip when they last met.

“We should rent a car.”

“Do I look like I have money?”

Five’s dressed like a fisherman in his late fifties. If that was the goal, he achieved it. The yellow sunglasses is something that Klaus would wear himself too, though. He’s glad that his new fashion sense isn’t much different from his preferences from two timelines ago. He expected to see tight rows of similar uniforms in his closet, so finding this yellow shirt with an ethnic floral print and leather leggings felt like a breath of fresh air.

“Okay, I should rent a car,” Klaus corrects himself. “I’m the rich one here, right?”

Five shoots him a death glare.

“You stole something from the Sparrows?”

“Why “stole”? Who do you think I am?” Klaus fake-gasps. “The me from this timeline had money in the drawer. So I’m paying for the trip, come on, Five,” he rubs his hands nervously. “We gotta go.”

He knows Five wasn’t sleeping anyway. Klaus wouldn’t have bumped right into him in the hallway otherwise. 

“What’s the hurry, Klaus?”

Klaus stops. He has two options: a) tell Five the truth now and watch him quit; b) tell Five the truth later and watch him quit anyway.

“I want to meet my birth mother before the world ends.”

“Are you serious?”

“Sadly,” Klaus sighs. “I found a check stub in Reginald’s office.”

Of course, Five has other things to do. Like some math to stop the Apocalypse.

“And you need me…”

“For emotional support,” Klaus holds his hands in a plea. “No one else would come with me!”

“I can guess why,” Five deadpans. 

“And?”

“Let’s go find your stupid mother,” Five pats him on the shoulder, and Klaus can swear he smiles.

***

“Did you see anything about my mother?”

“No,” Klaus bites his nails, watching the sunset rising outside the window. “Sorry.”

Five slows down a little. 

“And the others?”

Klaus shrugs. 

“Only mine. Don’t even know why he didn’t burn it.”

“Maybe it’s a trap,” Five turns the car onto a thin road crossing the forest. 

“Just like this whole timeline?” Klaus smirks. Dying along with billions of people never gets old. “Any news on the Apocalypse problem?”

“It’s more complicated than I thought,” Five adjusts the glasses on his nose. “Turns out we… We might have identical versions of ourselves, and if you meet your doppelgänger…”

“You have to sleep with them?”

“You might go insane.”

“Oh.”

This doesn’t sound good.

“We have to make sure you don’t have a version of you in Pennsylvania.”

“Yeah, I’m insane enough for the Sparrows already,” Klaus agrees. “Can’t wait until you guys kidnap me again.”

“It’s safer for you to hang out with the old man,” Five says. Klaus missed his grumpiness; at the moment, he misses everyone. Luther and Diego’s bickering, seeing Viktor and Allison learn how to work together. He doesn’t want to come back to the Academy.  

“Living with them is torture, Five. And it comes from a man — me — who was tortured! Everything about them sucks. They have oatmeal for breakfast.”

“And you prefer crack?”

“Oh, so my sobriety is a joke to you?”

It hurts a little. A lot, to be honest. Five is not a guy who apologizes often, but it’s one of those occasions.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Whatever.”

Anyway, Klaus is not the only one in this family who has a drinking problem. He’s just the only one who’s not ashamed to admit it. 

Five yawns and shakes his head to get rid of sleepiness. 

“I can drive,” Klaus offers. “You can sleep in the backseat.”

“No,” Five clenches his jaw firmly.

“No way,” Klaus grins. “You still get carsick. You thought I forgot? This is why you don’t let me drive.”

“Shut up. You’ve been drinking, I can smell it. One more word and I’ll throw you out of the car.”

Five never accepts his weakness. Klaus thinks his system already digested all alcohol he consumed after the training. He still has a flask in his pocket, just in case. 

He wants to take a sip as the car rolls onto the rural road; a squall of noises of a waking up village fills Klaus’ ears. The chicks are clucking, the cows moo down in the field, and the wheels of an old horse-drawn carriage cry out under their own weight.

People in the community are mostly wearing black and white, plain, simple clothing. Men have beards, women wear traditional kapps.

“Son of a bitch. You’re Amish.”

Five shoves his hands into his vest’s pockets and looks around. 

“You know what’s odd? This is everything my childhood was missing, but at the same time this place looks like a conservative hell.”

Klaus nearly gets run over by a bunch of kids who he’s sure didn’t even notice him.

“I hope you’ll find your mother,” Five says, sounding as sincere as his assholish nature lets him. 

“Try not to kill anyone when they start throwing rocks at me.”

“Why would they?”

“I don’t know. Watch me,” Klaus walks toward the first barn he sees.

He’s surprised to see Five following him step to step. 

“Someone needs to blink you out of the fight.”

He doesn’t add, “idiot” this time. Klaus always knew he was Five’s favorite sibling. His palms keep sweating as people give him uneasy glances. “I don’t belong here,” rattles in his head. Then, there’s a man who tells him the same.

“You’re upsetting the womenfolk, and now you’re upsetting me,” he adds.

Klaus speaks before he thinks,

“You’re not my type either.” 

Then, there’s the woman who stops him from pushing Klaus and Five out of the barn — good luck with that, Five was already clenching his fists when she said,

“Caleb. You’re scaring the kid.”

“Sarah-Beth! I don’t want any trouble!”

Caleb scratches his beard and showers Klaus with wordless hate. He walks out of the barn holding a stick in his hand. Well, coming here with Five was a great idea. 

“I’m looking for Rachel Herschberger,” he notices Sarah-Beth flinching at this name. “Do you know where I can find her?”

He sort of waits for her to hit him with an empty bucket she’s holding, but instead, she replies,

“She’s my sister.”

“Can we see her?” Five’s getting all impatient which is not a good sign.

“Young man, she’s been dead for over thirty years.”

“Should’ve started with you, then,” Five elbows Klaus in the side. “Didn’t you know?”

“What? Why would I?” 

Klaus is nearly hysterical. Sarah-Beth chokes down a sob.

“She passed away on October 1st, 1989. Sorry, I’m… sorry,” she wipes away a tear. “She was so devastated about the stillborn, and two days later, that man came…”

Klaus feels chills run down his spine.

“What man?” he already knows the answer.

“He had a monocle,” Sarah-Beth makes a circle with her fingers to mimic it. “And he wanted the… body.”

“Oh,” Klaus feels a soft brush across his hair. He sways and leans against the wall. “I’m so… so sorry. How did she…?”

“Brain hemorrhage. Took her quick, thank the Lord. Right after giving birth… I used to think she and her baby boy are now together in Heaven,” Sarah-Beth looks at the door and then back at Klaus. “We don’t have much time. Do I know you?”

“No, no, I don’t think so, sadly,” Klaus tries to stop his hands from shaking. The hay from the barn’s floor keeps sticking into his flip-flops. Reality, he needs to get a grip on reality. 

Even Five looks a bit dejected.

Such tragic news on such a sunny day.

“English! The cows are missing?”

“What?” Klaus turns to the voice. It’s Caleb, holding a pitchfork at Klaus’ chest level. A few other men stand right behind him, all equally angry. 

“There was a herd of cows in the field, and they all disappeared!”

“Do you think I stuffed them in my pockets or what?” Klaus screams out, stepping away. “I just wanted to talk!” he makes sure Sarah-Beth stays away from the fight.

She looks at him sympathetically.

“Care to conjure your mother and explain?” Five hisses.

“I— what? I don’t—” Klaus stumbles, shaking his hands. He can’t focus on his powers, channeling, whatever it is. The thing is, he’s not good at that, only having random outbursts when he least expects it.

“Should’ve known better.”

Five blinks them out of the barn right when Caleb’s pitchfork pierces the air where Klaus was standing. Before the bubble of time and space bursts, Klaus hears a collective gasp of surprise. 

The tear in reality spits them out a few feet away from the car. Klaus stumbles and falls, thinking he might’ve landed in Vietnam again, or worse. Everything is too loud and too unsteady; his stomach rolls, but Five stubbornly tugs at his arm.

“Klaus! If you don’t want me to kill anyone, then get the fuck up!” 

The Amish folk are getting closer. More pitchforks sway in the air, and not to recreate the American Gothic painting. Some of them even have shovels. To bury the bodies, probably. Five slaps him over the back of his head, which doesn’t help clear it, but it does make Klaus yelp and scramble to his feet. 

“Thelma and Louise on the open road, huh?” he exhales as they run to the car.

“You know they die in the end?” Five spits out. “Carefree road trip, my ass!”

“I warned you!”

Klaus jerks away when Five’s about to grab his arm again. Grabbing him means more blinking, and more blinking will make him puke. He hasn’t been feeling great since they landed in this shit of a timeline. 

They make it to the car when the pursuers get dangerously close.

“Wait! Oh, wait!” 

Klaus twists his neck to see Sarah-Beth amongst them. 

“Get in the car, Klaus!”

Five already starts the engine, but Klaus ignores his words, as a rope in his chest tugs him back to his aunt. He risks getting impaled like a pancake, but he can’t help it. Sarah-Beth hands him a thick journal with a leather cover.

“Take this!”

He has to hold it with both hands, not to let yellowed pages fall out.

“What is it?”

“Rachel’s death was unusual, and she wasn’t the only one,” Sarah-Beth places her calloused palms on the sides of Klaus’ face. “You have her eyes. Go, now, go, go!”

The car beeps.

“I’m leaving you here with yet another family, Klaus!”

Klaus thanks Sarah-Beth with a nod and jumps into the passenger seat. 

“God, I feel so bad for her,” he presses the journal to his chest, catching his breath. “Never blink me without my consent ever again, deal?”

Five grips the steering wheel so hard he might rip it out of the dashboard.

“They’d kill you.”

“Huh, so what? I was born dead.”

Klaus flips the pages, rummaging through the notes and newspaper clippings. There are black and white pictures of women who died on the same day — October 1st, 1989. Six of them, Rachel Herschberger included. Klaus vaguely remembers something, brain still fuzzy after the blink. Doing this with Five is much worse than with the briefcase. 

And then it hits him. 

The ghosts he summoned during the fight with Alphonso — those poor bleeding women — and the lady in white,

It was Rachel. His mother. In the picture added to the case, she is wearing traditional Amish clothes. 

“This timeline’s chock-full of riddles,” Klaus drags his finger along the lines: Efa, Dublin, found dead at the butcher shop. “My Mom was the only one who had a baby on October 1st. Looks like yours died before you were even born.”

Five hits the brakes so suddenly Klaus’s heart jumps to his throat. He steadies himself in the seat and shows the article to Five. 

“You think this one’s really mine?”

“Why not? You ever imagined you could be Irish?”

“Never thought of it.”

“Liar. Being Irish is fun.”

Five just rolls his eyes. A little sensitive bastard. When they were kids, Grace noticed that they looked kind of identical. Both green-eyed, dark-haired and left-handed — it was enough for Diego to start calling them twins. Then it stuck to them, despite Five’s constant denial. Klaus knew he secretly enjoyed it. Now, Five looks upset. 

“We should tell the others. The doppelgängers issue is not what we should fear.”

“Yeah, but before we continue,” Klaus throws the door open. “I’ll get a little air.”

“Klaus, no,” Five groans.

“What? A piss break. It’s been hours, I think I deserve one.”

“Can you act mature for once?”

“You have no idea how many kidney inflammations I’ve had. The blink didn’t help,” he takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “The car’s still rental, by the way,” he flicks the lighter.

He mostly needs to think. And well, finish both of his businesses while Five’s being so kind. Klaus zips his pants and snuffs out a cigarette butt on the tree when he sees a flash across the empty road. It’s so far away from him, but the sonic wave rolls through him like music from the speaker when you’re too drunk to detect it, but the bass line keeps dancing on your eardrums. 

“Weird,” is the only thing he can say. He hurries back to the car. “Hey, Five, did you feel it?”

Five sits with his head pressed to the steering wheel.

“Feel what? This awful smell? That’s just you. For fuck’s sake, quit sm—”

“No, no, the…” Klaus shakes his shoulders. “The vibration. There was… the light.”

His brother raises his head, looking around like a lost kid. 

“Where?”

Klaus waves his arm in an abstract direction.

“Behind the trees. Do you think it’s aliens?”

“Shit,” Five pulls the car from the roadside in a rush. “Buckle up.”

Klaus does as he’s told, though, still thinking it’s his turn to drive, Five’s carsickness be damned. He’s a very careful driver, okay? Never hit the speed limit since he got sober… sober-ish. You never know what’s alive on the road.

“What’s going on? Five?”

“It’s chasing us.”

“What?”

“The Apocalypse!”

“Reckless driving is not the answer to any of these, Five!”

The trees outside the window mush together into a blur. Something’s coming for them, Klaus can feel it. It’s like surfing through the tidal wave, getting into the tunnel of water and never emerging. An invisible tongue licks the trunk of the car, turning it over. Klaus automatically puts Sarah-Beth’s journal to his face to protect it from the shards of glass flying his way.

Then he hears a muffled crack.

***

The grayscale world doesn’t have a bicycle bouncer this time. 

Klaus wakes up with his cheek pressed to the white tablecloth, with a salty breeze tickling his nostrils. He hears a soft “hey” before opening his eyes fully.

Rachel Herschberger is sitting at the opposite side of the table. In the center, lies her sister’s journal.

“Mom? This is not the book club I was aspiring to join.”

And she says,

“I couldn’t tell you earlier. But I was always watching you.”

“Yeah. Thank you for disappearing before the whole… bathroom thing.”

Klaus wants to apologize for being born dead and scaring her. Rachel didn’t deserve it.

She’s beautiful. With her dark, wavy hair and with her bright-green eyes, and her open smile. She’s wearing a light frill dress that has to do nothing with Amish traditional clothes. Rachel looks peaceful, and Klaus wants to feel this way one day too.

“What is this place?”

“The Void,” she waves her arm toward the ocean. “This is where your power comes from.”

“The… Void,” the word tastes like sand on Klaus’ tongue. “I like it.”

He doesn’t feel any pain here.

“Your brother is waiting for you.”

“Five’s alive,” Klaus lets out a sigh of relief. “I don’t want him to haunt my ass.”

Rachel opens the journal, nodding at the Umbrellas’ mothers’ pictures. 

“It was just an accident, all of it. You’re not looking for vengeance, Schnucki. You’re looking for purpose.”

“Who did it?” Klaus takes her hands in his. “Just tell me. I can handle it, I promise.”

“This is not what you need.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I am your mother,” she simply replies.

The air around her begins to ripple, a Fata Morgana of an image. It’s almost like hearing a unique and the most beautiful melody in your sleep and wanting to memorize it, but the sound slowly fades until there’s nothing. 

There’s nothing to look for. 

***

Klaus comes to with a seizure twisting his bones under his skin, muscles tying into knots. He’s cold, he’s feeling too many things at once; the rocks under his shoulder blades, someone holding his head in place, and the smell of Five’s cologne. 

“Klaus?” a gentle tap on his cheek turns into a full-blown slap. “You’re with me?”

“I… think so,” he’s just testing his vocal cords. He peels his eyes open, seeing Five’s pale face looming above him upside-down. “Hey there.”

“You know you were dead, right?”

“Yeah, I’m kinda… aware,” Klaus rubs his neck to make sure it’s in one piece now. “Met my Mom, and all that,” he can’t help but notice Five’s full-body flinch. “Aw, you were worried about me?”

Five has blood smeared across his chin. Apart from that, he looks a lot more alive than Klaus feels. He sits up, bones and insides feeling like jelly.

“45 minutes and 13 seconds,” Five says. Klaus winces as he sees the car turned upside down, crumpled on the passenger’s side, the door and window caved in.

“That’s… not too bad I guess?”

Five shrugs.

“I saw your neck snap. Blinked us out of the crash, but it was… too late. I supposed you’d come back so I just… waited,” he nods at the notepad full of scribbles lying on the grass beside him. “Tried to calculate the possibilities.” 

“I’m sorry,” Klaus throws his arm over Five’s shoulder. Five doesn’t even push him away. “I can’t control how long I stay dead.”

He can only wonder how many times in his life he actually died. He only remembers the Rave Incident, but he didn’t want to come back even then. But this juicy gift was the real reason why Reggie bought him, he knew, the old bitch knew! But did ghost Ben know? Did it also scare him? Klaus didn’t mean to scare anyone. After the afterlife, everything is too bright and colorful. Klaus squints his eyes as Five shows him messy lines of fresh notes. 

“So, near-immortality it is, then,” Five huffs, turning back into his grumpy self. “Do you even know what you could do with that?”

“Join the circus?”

“Save the world!”

“What are we saving the world from this time?”

Five bites the pen that already has his teeth marks on it.

“From what it looks like, we brought the Kugelblitz into this timeline, and the universe is collapsing in on itself.”

“The Kugelblitz? Like, the ball lightning?”

Five nods.

“It’s a time travel paradox, and it’s… swallowing things. Like parrots, cows, God knows what else!”

“This is what the monocle showed me. The world burning.”

His siblings shouldn’t exist in this timeline. How could they possibly save it? Klaus rubs his face and groans, brain full of slugs instead of coherent thoughts. While he’s having a crisis silently, Five is full of energy again, walking circles around the crashed car.

“You said the Hotel Obsidian was the last safe place?”

“Yeah,” Klaus flops his back on the grass. Coming back to life is painful, and exhausting, and there’s no way he can walk back to the Academy all by himself now. But there’s also a good thing — he feels sort of renewed now. His back stopped aching, and whatever of his insides were punched to a bloody pulp seem to be regenerated.

Five finally stops, only to kick Klaus in the shin.

“You okay to go?”

Absolutely not.

“Sure.” Klaus doesn’t even move. “Just enjoying the view,” he covers his eyes with his forearm. “I don’t want to watch the car explode.”

“It won’t explode. Unlike the whole fucking planet.”

Five sounds irritated. So cute.

“Do you need a map to like, get back?” Klaus sighs. 

“I have a better idea, but I need your consent now, since you asked.”

Oh. The thought of being blinked alone makes Klaus want to throw up and cry. 

“Can we like… Hitchhike?”

“Did you see many cars on our way here?”

There were just a few. Klaus sighs again.

“One blink will be enough?” he doesn’t want to lose hope. They’re still far in the countryside.

Five calculates something in his head again.

“There will be a series. Plus, I might need some time to power up.”

“Great.”

It’s gonna be even worse than the car crash itself, Klaus wants to say sorry in advance. Time travel is shit, but somehow these little spatial jumps mess him up more than a whole journey. 

He’s only wearing one of his flip-flops, and it takes a while to find another near the mangled car.

“I know you hate it, but it’ll save us time,” Five outstretches his hand. Klaus takes it.

“Just do it quick.”

Klaus braces himself for the inevitable feeling of getting squeezed through a cocktail straw and spat out in a different place. He feels like he’s going to die, heart racing and hair sticking to his sweaty neck. He keeps pressing Sarah-Beth’s journal to his chest, not wanting to lose a single page of it. Next to him, Five evens out his breath.

“You’ll adjust.”

Klaus knew a man who told him the same. 

“Is crying acceptable yet?”

Five doesn’t listen to him, blinking again. And again. And again.

Klaus regrets the whole road trip idea as he leans his shoulder on the wall — the wall? — and vomits. He hears the boos and chuckles coming from all around him; they all sound drunk. He’s jealous. He wishes he could stay upright for long enough to recognize someone. Even though he shouldn’t. Of all places, he didn’t expect to land right outside the biker gang club. More specifically, the Mothers of Agony. 

“Uh, Five?” 

Little bitch doesn’t even blink an eye. The women all dressed in leather look at them, heavily tattooed men look too.  

“Sh, I’m trying to get us a bike.”

“You’re trying?!” Klaus giggles maniacally. “One minute at this bar, and I’m dead again! I’m not ready! Not now!”

Five grabs Klaus by the collar of his shirt. 

“Shut up if you don’t wanna blink with me again. They don’t remember you.”

“But I do remember them, hello? I fucking do remember everything!” Klaus sniffles. “They were… my drug dealers, my pimps, my life was revolving around them for like three years!”

Maybe he’s screaming too loudly, maybe they have colorful memories too. He catches quite unfriendly glances as he follows Five down the road. A man who can’t walk a straight line and a kid as a duo draws far too much unwanted attention. 

“You’re paranoid, Klaus.”

“Yeah, as if you weren’t paranoid when you just popped your Apocalypse cherry.”

This place is about to destroy him like it did many times before. There’s a tiny room upstairs that keeps so many memories; Klaus shudders and wraps his arms around his stomach as nausea twists his insides again. Five pats his back, looking frazzled himself. 

“Hey, you!” a whistle behind his back makes him want to shrink into himself. The Mothers of Agony always had a type. 

“Hurry,” Five grabs Klaus’s wrists to pull him out of a possible conversation. A woman exhales a cloud of strawberry smoke as they walk by.  

“Are you lost, boys?”

“I saw that guy on the TV!” someone shouts. “He’s a medium!”

“Oh shit,” Klaus covers the side of his face with his palm as Five drags him through the group of bikers. They smell of beer and smoke and lust, and Klaus is about to beg Five to blink him the hell out of here. 

There are a few bikes right across the road; Five jumps on one of them, and Klaus takes the pillion seat. 

“Try not to fall off,” he screams through the roaring of the engine.

“Or what? I will die?”

“Shut up!”

Klaus laughs. Someone throws a bottle at them, it shatters on the rear fender, spraying Klaus’ ankle with beer. He tries not to squeeze Five too tight, not to tumble both of them on the ground as the bike swerves.

“Five! Can we keep it when it’s over? I think I just found a hobby that is not alcoholism!”

This is a rhetorical question Five prefers to not answer.

The road trip was too eventful for Klaus’ liking.

***

Five drops him off by the Academy.

“I love working with you,” Klaus says, wincing at the pain in his thighs. “You’re… a good brother.”

“Mh-m.”

“Come on, say something nice about me!”

“Thank you for not puking on my back during the ride,” Five smiles with the corner of his mouth.

“Trust me, I tried.”

Klaus salutes at him with the journal. Their journey wasn’t fruitless, after all. 

“Don’t let Dad confiscate it,” Five says. 

“Oh, no worries, I’ll sleep with this thing under my pillow,” Klaus covers the journal with his baggy shirt. He’s halfway up the marble steps when Five calls for him again.

“Klaus!”

“What?” he doesn’t even turn around, glance glued to the door. Fuck this logo, fuck this tattoo. 

“Family meeting tomorrow. The Hotel Obsidian. Ten o’clock sharp.”

“So early? I’ll have to start my makeup routine at six!”

“Klaus. You heard me.”

“Ten o’clock, got it,” Klaus bites down his lip not to smile.

It just feels so nice to be included for once. Klaus pushes the door open as Five rides down the road.

The sun is setting, and Klaus wonders what kind of punishment he’s going to endure for skipping the whole day of training and God-knows-what-else at the mansion. It’s so peacefully quiet that it makes him think that the Kugelblitz has swallowed everyone already. Klaus feels the hum tearing through the cracks in concrete again; the sound messes with his frequency, making his ghost radar fail. 

He sneaks into his room, only seeing one of the crows perched on the railing. Two timelines ago, he knew a waitress who loved the birds — she’d give a name to every crow in the mansion. Klaus even wants to ask Fei if she names them. They’re like pets sometimes, he saw bird cages in her room downstairs.

Klaus is changing into his Sparrow uniform when the Academy comes back to life again. He’s shirtless in his room, no tattoos hidden when a visitor comes in. Good thing, his pants are still on.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Klaus covers his bare chest and his crotch with his hands, pin-up style. In front of him, Ben tries to avert his gaze from the tattoos on Klaus’ bicep and stomach.

“Ever heard of not being a dumbass?”

“Oh, did Daddy ground you for not kissing his ass hard enough?”

Klaus chokes and chuckles at the same time when one of the tentacles wraps around his neck again.

“Listen to me,” Ben hisses out. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re not Eight.”

With that, he pushes Klaus away; he stumbles and falls on his bed.

“You had a thing for Eight, huh?”

Klaus curls into himself to protect his most fragile parts from a possible punch, but Ben just sits on the lumpy mattress next to him.

“This is pointless. He’d fight back. And you don’t.”

“Peace and love will save us all,” Klaus says with a half-shrug. He’s been at war, he doesn’t want to bring it with him, is it too hard to understand? Beside him, Ben continues, on the verge of a breakdown,

“He didn’t smoke, or drink, and your room fucking stinks like a dumpster. What else? Eight was good at training and was Dad’s favorite.”

Well, that’s an impressive list.

“You two were rivals?” Klaus sits up, curious. “Of all people, you chose to compete with a fucking dead-speaking Ouija freak? Seriously?”

Laughter bubbles in his chest, erupting out of his throat in unsteady bursts. Ben looks confused. Klaus can’t find his uniform shirt, or his tie, just putting a knit vest on. Who cares anyway. Fashion is fashion.

“This is why I came to you,” Ben takes a deep breath, hesitating. “I think Marcus is dead.”

“How so?”

“He’s been missing, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Oh, I pretty much did.”

“Clown,” Ben rolls his eyes. “Conjure him.”

“I can’t.”

“I saw you do it with Alphonso!”

“I don’t know how I did it!” Klaus gets up, startled by his own scream. “I don’t know how my powers work, okay? You can beat the shit out of me, you can kill me — oh, good-fucking-luck with that, but I don’t pull rabbits out of my ass! I’m not a magician, I’m not Number Eight, I’m just…” he turns to Ben. “I had a different you, too. Ben, Number Six, my brother, who was a lovable asshole and… It might sound ridiculous, but we got much closer when he died.”

“He died?” Ben’s voice is drenched in disbelief.

“You have a Lovecraftian creation in your tummy, and tales like this still surprise you?”

“I think Dad should know that you’re one of the reasons why the world is ending,” Ben rubs his chin, thinking. 

“The real reason is,” Klaus holds a dramatic pause. “You all suck.”

“I never wanted you here in the first place.”

“And I’m just glad to see you alive. You’re not the old Ben, my Ben, but you’re still my brother.”

Ben stares at the empty wall where the poster once was.

“I thought you loved it.”

“Yeah, I loved it so much that I threw it out of the window.” 

Klaus doesn’t miss it a single bit. Ben is the opposite. 

“Why?”

“Someone wanted to jerk it to my image, I couldn’t blame them.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And so effortlessly funny.”

He can feel the ice break now. This Ben doesn’t look like he’s going to put Klaus’ head through the wall anymore. 

“What was your number in… another universe?”

“Four,” Klaus holds out his fingers for Ben to visualize. “We were a solid ten together. We almost stopped the Apocalypse! Just like now. “Team Ten”, what do you think? Looks like you love numbers.”

“Sh,” Ben puts a finger over his lips. “Do you hear it?”

“The buzz? Yeah, since I got here.”

“No, I mean… The singing.”

Klaus listens. Sometimes it’s hard to tune in on just one of the sounds surrounding him. He recognizes this singing voice, he heard it when he was a kid. Grace used to sing lullabies in different languages to them every night — it was one of those things that made their childhood look almost normal. If you don’t think about the fact that she needed to recharge right after.

They leave Klaus’ room on tiptoes, trying to figure out the source of the sound. It’s coming from the basement where Grace used to keep all her luggage. She speaks in tongues as they get closer, creeping downstairs not to make her system glitch even more. Everything feels too surreal, Klaus is about to start glitching himself.

“Is it just me or does this sound kinda ritualistic?”

“Did you hit your head or something?” 

“Yeah, many times.”

Then, there’s the light, and if Ben wanted to say something witty again, he might’ve bitten his tongue. Everything they see now is a huge, blinding orb of light in the darkness of the room. Grace is on her knees, squeezing chalk in her hand and drawing symbols all over the floor. She’s in some sort of a trance, speaking phrases in dead languages.

They found it. The Kugelblitz.

“Ritualistic?” Ben whispers.

And Klaus whispers back,

“Told you so.”

He nods at Ben, then at Grace. There’s an empty cookie plate right under the ball of lighting. 

“You’re shaking,” Ben says, pointing at Klaus’ hands. He can’t tame the tremor suddenly seizing his body again.

“I felt it,” he replies, teeth chattering. “This whole time. I didn’t know it was so close.”

Grace notices them, getting up to her feet so harshly that it makes both Klaus and Ben jump away.

“God is angry,” she says, her right eye erupting with blue flashes like a Morse code. “It took Marcus because he disrespected Him.”

“Marcus?” Ben stands too close to a black hole. Klaus doesn’t want to lose him again, so he grips at the back of Ben’s jacket.

“Get on your knees and pray!”

“Oh, no, thanks, that’s not my kinda thing,” Klaus jumps up at Grace’s persistent shriek. “Let’s go upstairs, this angry ball is driving me crazy.”

She cocks her head to the side with a crack that makes Klaus grind his teeth together. He heard this sound just a while ago, when his own neck snapped. 

“So… this is why you can’t conjure Marcus?” Ben seems hypnotized, not willing to move.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll cry and grieve later,” Klaus shoves him to the stairs. He doesn’t want to stay at the Academy anymore, Reggie be damned, the Sparrows be damned. “Come on, we have so many things to do, Bennerino.”

Ben looks a little more like himself when the Kugelblitz is out of his sight. Klaus steadies him against the wall, concerned. He even checks Ben for a fever, pressing his palm to his clammy forehead. Ben lazily slaps Klaus’ arm away.

“What… things?”

“We have a family meeting. Now. You come with me.”

Five was going to wait until tomorrow. Five will kill them if they don’t hurry.

“It was…calling for me? In Korean. It speaks every language,” Ben shakes his head to gather his bearings. “Did it call for you too?”

Klaus rubs his chin.

“No. But it makes me all itchy and a bit disoriented. Hangover even. Nothing I didn’t feel before, right?”

“You tell me.”

Well, the new new Ben is gone now. The one that wanted to choke Klaus to death only to see him fight back. This one… is almost like his brother. Klaus feels bad about Marcus, and as much as Ben tries to pretend he’s not hurt by this news, Klaus can feel his pain. Benny has always been a sensitive boy. And an ass.

This is what Klaus was so eager to see in his Sparrow version.

***

Klaus tells Ben about Sarah-Beth’s investigation, too. Klaus even lets Ben hold this leather-clad treasure as he makes an escape plan for tonight.

They’re about to leave the Academy; Klaus could’ve shown Ben the sewer-way-out just for fun, but he preferred to not get his perfect haircut messed up. So it’s just one of the many hallways that ends up with a locked door. Klaus used to carry around a Swiss knife, both for protection and in case he needed to pick a lock. These two occasions usually come hand-in-hand, to be fair. 

“Keep a watch out for me, Benji,” Klaus gestures at Ben. Ben looks pissed but doesn’t argue. “You know, I once had to pick a lock with my teeth while partially paralyzed on Quaaludes,” he chuckles. “Oh man, that was an evening.”

He doesn’t mention that he needed to unlock one of those fluffy handcuffs that don’t even need a key to be undone. His yet another partner just thought he was dead and left him cuffed to the headboard of the bed. Klaus can’t blame them, he can’t even be sure that he didn’t indeed die that night.

The old Ben never stopped scolding Klaus about this. 

The new Ben responds with an eloquent glance.

This is like one of those childhood memories when Klaus would sneak out of the Academy, and Ben’s ghost would join him like an angel on his shoulder, getting on his nerves with his lectures. He was right, most of the time, because Klaus used to get himself into situations he wouldn’t even wish for his worst enemies. He probably was his worst enemy, even.

And again, Klaus opens the door and gets out, feeling oddly free. 

“Why should I even trust you?” Ben visibly hesitates but follows him anyway.

“Because it’s still you?” Klaus hops over the metal fence, waiting for Ben on the other side. “Biologically, or some shit. Your Bentacles remember me? Did I ever tell you that you had thicker ones in my universe?”

“Did I ever tell you that Eight didn’t talk so fucking much?’ Ben bristles.

“I don’t know what you thought, Benny, but that’s just facts.”

Klaus loves roaming the City at night. Doing it with the living version of his still-a-brother is much funnier now. Klaus occasionally shares with him memories about certain clubs, alleyways and dumpsters, knowing all the shortest ways, knowing all the safest ways. He’s sure that even if Fei’s birds could see him, he’d throw them off the scent with his unpredictable, zigzag-like trajectory.

He can only hope that his ghostly stealth shield covers Ben too. 

By the time they make it to the Hotel Obsidian, he’s made Ben laugh twice, Klaus is so proud of himself. 

At the receptionist stand, Obscura zooms in his lens, catching them in his view. 

“Are you recording?” Klaus asks.

“No,” he writes something down in the visitor journal. “Just checking.”

Klaus once again tries to look through his camera but sees nothing but his distorted reflection in it. Whoever created Obscura, was a tech nerd. Sadly, Klaus only knows one, and his most successful creation has recently adopted a black hole that is about to swallow the whole planet for a dessert. 

People disappeared from the hotel, too, some rooms remain open, with no signs of tenants inside. This place is like a huge thrift store now. 

“You sure they didn’t… evaporate?” Ben asks, no sarcasm in his voice. 

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Klaus ignores a tingly feeling in his gut. “Just doing their… regular superhero shit.” 

Five didn’t tell him the number of the room; Klaus had no desire to ask Obscura either. It’s a miracle they could still get inside. In the past, Klaus had a few lovely encounters with local bouncers who had mistaken him for a homeless junkie — well, they weren’t technically wrong, but they didn’t have to insult him for that.

There’s one more room Klaus doesn’t recall — the White Buffalo Suite — a fancy-looking locked door at the end of the hallway. Sure thing, Klaus could be high enough when he last attended a party here, but he’d never forget a suite. He’d try to get inside. 

“Klaus! This is not what we’re supposed to be doing.”

Well, times might have changed, but Ben is still Ben. 

“No, no, you don’t understand,” Klaus takes a Swiss knife out of his pocket again. “This is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.”

The lock responds with a soft click.

“Klaus,” Ben groans. “This is a bad idea.”

“Why? Why do I have to listen to you again?”

“Because I’m Number Two!”

“And I’m older!”

This is the card he never wanted to play. This is the card he never knew would beat Ben.

“Oh, you know what? Screw you!”

Ben steps into the darkness of a hotel room first. Klaus looks over his shoulder, impressed by the interior. It’s everything Reginald would like, but too white and pink. Almost like a room for lovers on Valentine’s Day. There’s the head of a white buffalo on the wall, right above the fireplace. Klaus kicks the edge of a fluffy white carpet in the center of the room. 

“This is one of the best and worst designs I’ve ever seen.”

“What are we looking for?”

“I’ll tell you when I find out.”

Klaus wiggles his eyebrows to keep the tone of the conversation light, but his sixth sense has been acting weird lately. He just keeps touching everything to find the answer.

Eventually, the answer finds him.

He doesn’t expect to find a door behind one of the paintings; he can swear he’s checked every inch of the wall twice. A blue light spills out of the narrow hallway, so mesmerizing and welcoming that Klaus can’t resist the urge.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just need to check something out real quick,” Klaus shakes Ben’s hand off his shoulder and walks straight into the rays of light, forming a grid. 

“Where are we going?”

“I wish I knew, Benji.”

“Is it a thing from another timeline? Or…”

“Sh,” Klaus listens to the silence clogging his ears. “We’re not alone here.”

There are footsteps, growing louder, louder, louder; the light shining from the walls creates an illusion of endlessness, turning the corridor into a maze. Klaus sees shadows, vague figures hiding around the corners. They’re scared of him; they’re scared of the monsters Ben possesses. Maybe it’s time to go back, but Klaus can’t stop, diving into the shower of strobing flashes. He doesn’t know what is real anymore — hands are grabbing him from the walls, pinning him down, craving his attention — they helped him once, and now they want to take his sanity in return. 

His mother’s eye is all blown-up, hanging on a thin thread down her cheek. The dead mothers gather in a circle around him. Efa has the side of her head all slick and bloody, with her brain tissue staining her dress. A black woman has blood dripping out of her nose and past her chin, and a woman in a swimsuit keeps repeating, “будь ты проклят, будь ты проклят!”

Klaus is cursed, there’s no need to double it.

“I’m sorry,” he’s on his knees, huddling in the corner, a scared kid in a mausoleum. He learned nothing. He learned nothing. “I’m sorry, sorry, Es tut mir Leid, простите!”

And they all die again, a bad-quality snuff movie burnt into Klaus’ brain. Eardrums ruptured, heads exploded, eyes rolled in agony. No matter how many ghosts he’s seen he’ll never stop wishing he never had that power in the first place. 

“Klaus!”

He covers his ears with his palms and hides his head between his knees. He can’t bring them back. 

“Klaus!”

“No, no, don’t touch me, I’m sorry—”

“Klaus, look at me!” 

His hands are being pulled away from his face, and there’s nothing to hold tears back. 

“Did you see them?”

He’s sorry he made Ben go through this with him.

“Who?”

“The… ghosts?” Klaus’ voice cracks. He looks around. The light above him flickers, but yelling women with torn-off faces have disappeared. Ben offers him a hand to get up.

“Does it happen to you often?”

“What, the whole ghost-seeing shit?”

“No, these… fits, hey, oh— hey,” Ben instinctively pats Klaus’ back when he pulls him into a hug. Coming back from the nightmare is never easy, and he’s always been forced to do this alone. This incident was a bit different — as if the ghosts surrounding him weren’t real, it didn’t feel like his power manifestation. It was a vision. This place tries to speak to him in the language of death and torture, and Klaus is failing an exam.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he sniffles. Whatever this mysterious hallway is, he doesn’t want to explore it further. Ben understands him. 

“If you’re done using me as your handkerchief, let’s go back?”

Klaus lets out wet laughter and pulls his face away from Ben’s shoulder. Hysteria is still burning his chest with an unreleased cry, and he can barely move his legs as it usually happens after an especially intense panic attack.

“You think I can be just photosensitive?” Klaus guesses. He doesn’t know what could trigger such a vivid hallucination. 

“It hurts my eyes, too,” Ben responds.

Klaus props his hand against the wall to keep himself upright, while his other arm is thrown over Ben’s shoulder. He’s afraid the way they used to come here might be gone, but some of the turns still look familiar.

Ben eventually gets him out of this nightmarish trip, back into the White Buffalo Suite. 

“Thank you,” Klaus sighs and falls onto the king-size bed.

He only closes his eyes, when the room fills with voices, and gasps, and life.  

“Klaus? Ben?”

“Oh, thank god, I found you,” Klaus props himself up with an elbow. In front of him, stands Allison, with a half-pissed half-worried look on her face. “Hey, everyone.”

He lost hope to see all the family together again, Lila included. There’s a few hugs, a few you-look-like-shit compliments from Viktor and Luther, and one wrong assumption from Diego, but it only makes Klaus smile this time. He doesn’t even remember when he last drank something alcoholic. His drinking virginity is back. 

“This looks like a family meeting,” Luther says, sitting on the bed next to Klaus. “Just like old times.”

His siblings side-eye Ben at first. Ben glares back at him.

“We can trust him,” Klaus says, nodding at the journal lying on the bedside table. “We need to know who killed our moms.”

“We need to stop the Apocalypse,” Five corrects him.

“Don’t you think these could be tied?” Klaus is about to fight him to get him to listen. “Do none of you heartless bastards care about these poor murdered women?”

It’s important. If no one cares, he’ll get back to Pennsylvania and finish the investigation himself until Kugelblitz swallows his ass.

Diego takes his side,

“I think he’s got a point. I’d like to have a word with that fucker.”

“See?” Klaus high-fives Diego from the distance. “Still sharing a brain cell,” he presses the heels of his palms to his eyeballs as the memories of the vision come back. “Where have all of you been?”

“Here,” Five shrugs. “I only had to go back to that biker bar to talk to Pogo… Long story,” he shakes his head. “The others were here pretty much all day.”

“Are you sure?” Ben looks at Five with an unreadable facial expression. “We couldn’t find you.”

Allison speaks in Five’s defense.

“But we stayed here. Couldn’t stop people from disappearing though. We don’t even know who’s next.”

It’s one of the tricks of this place. As if the building is alive, wanting to separate them. It alters the reality, memories, it messes up their powers too — this is where the vision came from.

“We should be careful, and preferably stick together,” Klaus warns. And quickly adds, catching a plethora of surprised glances on him, “the hotel is changing.”

***

“So, the Kugelblitz is in the basement of the Academy?” 

“You think it’ll make more sense if you repeat it a hundred times?” Klaus groans. It doesn’t sound any weirder than everything they had to deal with. “Or… are you jealous that Ben and I found it first?”

Five stops in the middle of the room, pen and paper in hand. 

“I thought you’d find it sooner, actually.”

“Ah,” Klaus clicks his tongue. “Sorry to disappoint. You’re not the first, not the last, Cinco. Are you still sad that you’re not my twin?”

Five used to believe it until he got lost in time. 

Five will never admit it, changing the topic quickly,

“We need to use all of our powers.”

It’s too hard to breathe in a room full of people, but it also feels so nice to have found his family again. Klaus doesn’t know how he can be helpful, and how the ghosts can save the world. 

“Guys, I have an idea,” Viktor says. “We could also use Harlan’s power for it. And mine. And Lila’s mimicking. And if Ben could talk to the Sparrows—”

“Oh, we already have a bird whisperer here,” Ben slaps Klaus’ back. “A better negotiator than me, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard it. I was there, in fact. Under the table.”

Ben almost pushes him off the bed for this. 

“Show off.”

“Is it a good time to tell you that Reginald wants to kill you all to stop the Apocalypse?” Klaus looks around the room. Everyone looks equally pissed. “Yeah, that’s how bad it is.”

“We don’t use Harlan’s powers, thank you very much,” Allison says. “When you tried to get it back,” she turns to Viktor. “It almost killed you.”

“Where’s he now, by the way?” Diego asks.

“Resting in his room,” Viktor replies.

“Yeah, because torturing someone with their shared power is so exhausting—”

“Allison!”

Allison’s hands are bruised. She notices Klaus’ glance and hides them in her pockets.

“Are we not getting anywhere again?” Lila throws Diego’s knife into the buffalo’s head, drawing everyone’s attention. “Everyone’s just gonna bitch while people keep disappearing?”

“She’s got a point,” Luther says. “We don’t have a plan.”

“The last plan we had chewed us up and spat us out in this universe.”

Five’s right, not to mention that it was his plan.

Klaus didn’t know Harlan was back. Something happens every time he blinks. He doesn’t even know what to expect from this place anymore. But he should’ve known what to expect from Reginald, now that he lost three of his little soldiers. Yes, Klaus considers Ben his teammate now, he can’t help it.

The only option everyone eventually agrees with is to go to the Academy and at least take a closer look at the Kugelblitz. While they still have someone to save. 

It was a hectic day, and an even more hectic night, all sleepless and unpredictable, but the morning comes with even worse news. 

With the Sparrows. 

“We don’t have time to sort this shit out with the bird family anymore,” Allison is the first to notice the five figures blocking out their way in the hall. They are all wearing their red superhero spandex catsuits.

“Bad idea.”

Ben is not ready to confront his siblings, but Klaus managed to put the seed of doubt in his head. 

“Just come back and finish the mission,” Fei says, crows cawing behind her back. “I knew you’d run after this little traitor Eight. This is all you can do since you can’t be better than him.”

“Oh, he doesn’t even need to try, no worries here,” Klaus waves her a HELLO.  

Sloane doesn’t look happy, mouthing “run” at Luther. He doesn’t get it.

“Listen, I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Viktor says.

“You killed Marcus!” 

“We didn’t!”

“You started the Apocalypse?” 

Jayme spits her venom at Five, but he blinks out of the trajectory. No one wants to listen to their explanations, because Daddy’s training wasn’t fruitless, after all. When Christopher begins to spin in the air, Klaus feels like his brain is being unraveled, thread by thread pulled out through his ear. He sees the others curled on the floor, too; the high-pitched ringing doesn’t go away when another player joins the game. It’s an old man with headphones around his neck who appears seemingly out of nowhere; he stands in front of Viktor, and there’s an electric discharge rattling through the space between them.

“Harlan, no!” Viktor wheezes, curling into himself in pain.

It’s weird to see the kid from the sixties living up to his full potential. Harlan’s and Viktor’s powers collide, swiping the Sparrows off their feet. Alphonso’s face gets covered with blisters before he accumulates the outburst and returns it to the sender like a boomerang. The air smells of burnt flesh, and another wave of fire-like energy captures the hall. Klaus can’t breathe, gagging as Ben yanks him out of the epicenter and presses him firmly to the floor. 

It doesn’t harm his body, but it does harm his mind with the pictures he’s forced to see. At first, he sees the Farm Frau in her hospital bed, lips blood-stained and hair gone, skin deadly gray. Next to her, a young man screams in agony, erupting with a whirlwind of a telekinetic surge that makes the whole room explode with chaos. The IV stand, the vase with flowers on a bedside table, the chair, and a thin blue blanket levitate, as the man’s eyes change their color to yellow. The Farm Frau is dead.

Along with her, die the others. 

Klaus already saw the aftermath, but never the process — Diego’s mother was cooking a meal at home when her eyes and nose began to bleed; Allison’s mother was a teacher, drawing the earth’s layers on the chalkboard when her gums turned into a bloody mush. Rachel Herschberger was sitting in the barn in her dress all bloody, and cradling her dead son to her chest when a red trickle ran down her neck, head going limp. And more, and more, and more. Klaus himself feels like all the mothers at once. 

Harlan did it. Accidentally, just like Klaus’ mother said. But nonetheless, he killed six women while going through the five stages of grief. And Klaus’ vision at the White Buffalo Suite was a warning sign. Subconsciously, they knew their murderer.

They wanted to scare Klaus away.

He doesn’t know what’s happening and what’s the commotion around him when he opens his eyes, disoriented. His hair is wet, and from the terrified glances of his siblings, he realizes it’s not sweat. He doesn’t need to touch his ears to know they are all bloody.

“You back with us, bro?” Diego is crouched down next to him.

“Yeah,” Klaus tries to sit up and regrets it. His brain is still dripping from his earlobes, soaking through his uniform vest. “I hope so.”

Another mission gone wrong. 

He sees the bodies and wants to cry, because death makes no sense. They all pop up in Klaus’ realm in the end. Alphonso and Jayme have their skulls melted, disfigured features no longer recognizable. A few feet away from them, lies Harlan, having taken the blow of his own power. It was timed perfectly with Klaus’ paranormal stroke, so he didn’t have to see him take his last breath, experiencing the deaths of their mothers instead. Harlan’s skin looks like a wax puddle, spread around his head. One look at his corpse is enough for Klaus’ stomach to give up. 

He can’t make it to the trash can near the receptionist’s stand, but no one yells at him this time. 

“We thought you died,” Luther says, while Sloane cries into his broad shoulder.

“No worries, Lulu, death doesn’t… stick with me,” Klaus manages to hack up before he retches again. “But celestial comedown is a bitch.”

The shocked glances from every side make him want to dissolve in the Obsidian’s fancy tiling. Ben doesn’t even punch him when he grabs his arm for support. Klaus tries not to look at the bodies again.

“What the hell was that?” Lila nervously shakes her hands. “I just wanted to try and mimic your power for fun!”

She never tried it before, Klaus is aware.

“What did it feel like?”

“Like being banned from your favorite pub.”

“Ah, can relate.”

Klaus smiles, but no one else shares his enthusiasm. 

“We need to trap the Kugelblitz in the Academy,” Five says, stepping over a pool of vomit on the floor. “I don’t know if it’ll work, but we need to team up,” he glares at the remaining Sparrows, “and try.”

“Just let me clean the blood out of my ears, and I’m good to go.”

Klaus wishes he could stand upright without leaning on Ben’s shoulder. Five notices it. 

“You’re not going anywhere today.”

“Why? You usually need someone to yell at.”

He knows that the ghosts he can conjure won’t save the world from falling apart, but being left behind again feels so familiar he wants to cry. 

“You know, Klaus,” Luther reassuringly pats his shoulder. 

“You did a good job,” Five nods. “Ben, you’re coming with us.”

Klaus’ brain still feels like expired milk.

“Yeah. Go get it, buddy.”

Looking at the backs of his siblings and the Sparrows is incredibly sad.

*** 

Allison volunteers to stay with him. Because it’s not safe to leave Klaus unsupervised, because it’s not safe to leave the hotel unsupervised. So they share a room, not trusting what they see or hear anymore. Klaus spends an hour in the bathroom, washing the blood clots out of his hair. It makes him think of his vision, it makes him feel sick again. He didn’t know that sober mediumship could be that painful. 

His Sparrow uniform knit vest still has brownish-red splatters on it and Klaus doesn’t want to put it on anymore. Allison found some new clothes for him in one of the vacant rooms — a black t-shirt that is too loose, and plaid pants that are too tight. There are also some nice boots just about his size, so he can surprise the Kugelfucker with his stunning look.

Even Obscura has left his post at the receptionist’s desk. 

The Sparrows didn’t even mourn their dead siblings, not even Ben.

“Do they even have emotions?” Klaus asks, removing a towel from his head. It felt nice to take a bath, but he wishes it could clear his head too. His thoughts are still quite muddy, hangover-ish even.

Allison lies on the bed, seastar-like, and stares at the ceiling.

“Is this what Dad always wanted from us?”

“To hate each other?”

They can ping-pong each other with questions endlessly, but there’s one more thing burning Klaus’ tongue.

“I’m sorry about Claire.”

“Everyone says that,” Allison picks at the scab on her bruised knuckles. Klaus sits next to her. 

“I’d do anything to fix it.”

“That too.”

Klaus didn’t have enough time to check if Dave existed in this timeline; he’d be blitzed along with the others by now, anyway. Klaus can’t find him, Klaus can’t even speak to a possible elder version of the man he fell in love with in Vietnam.

“I hope you’ll find the right timeline,” is the only thing he can say to a grieving mother. Klaus is grieving, too. His entire life, he’s grieving a person he could’ve been; but now, he’s an addict first and an annoying sibling second.

He melts into the touch when Allison hugs him. 

“Diego and Lila are having a baby,” she says, tone as dull as a faded newspaper headline. “It could be one of the extraordinary ones, don’t you think?”

Klaus drops his head onto her shoulder, water dripping from his curls wets the fabric of her green overall.

“When I looked through Reggie’s monocle, I saw where our powers are located. Here,” he presses his palm to his chest. “But I bet Diego’s power is located in his balls. Always hitting the mark, right?”

Allison chuckles. 

She had big hopes for this universe, but they have been smashed with a hammer of their bad luck. 

“Have you tried to…” she nods at the dog tags around Klaus’ neck.

“Trying makes no sense any more,” Klaus clutches them in his palm. “The more I try, the worse it gets. It’s better for everyone if I stop at this point.”

“But why?”

“Not everyone gets their happy ending, Ally. And it better be me than anyone else.”

“I don’t get it. I really don’t get it,” Allison releases Klaus from her hug. She carries her and Raymond’s wedding rings on a golden chain like the last piece of the life she once had. “Why don’t you want to fight for your happiness?”

“I’ve fought enough,” Klaus sighs. “I only had ten months with a person who made me happy, and I could barely do the same for him,” he mentally turns the pages of a photo album in his head. War, blood, ghosts, agony. Withdrawals, falling off the wagon, more withdrawals, all the I’m-proud-of-you’s and you’re-doing-so-good’s. “Memories are all I have now. There’s no way back for me.”

Allison still can find Claire, get a job and self-actualize if she hasn’t already. 

And Klaus’ back is about to break from the burden of labels.

“We need to get this damn world fixed,” Allison tugs at the chain so hard she might break it. “I will never lose anyone in my life anymore, I swear.”

This is one of the “if only I had a chance” situations. Klaus wishes they had a chance.

***

“What do you mean we can’t do anything?” 

Allison grabs Five by the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer.

“We just lost… all the Sparrows. Except for Ben and Sloane,” he blinks out of the radius of her anger. “And Klaus. Technically.”

“Yeah, I see.”

Klaus smirks melancholically, seeing Sloane and Luther glued together in a hug like two damsels in distress. 

“And you brought Dad here, because—”

“He has a plan.”

“The last plan Dad had was killing us,” Allison shoots Reginald a glance full of hate. 

Klaus can’t say he’s surprised to see the old man here. But he feels a familiar twitch in his heart he felt when he first entered his office in this timeline.

“I worked so hard on a new one.”

“Of course you did,” Klaus mutters, looking away. Five looks like he’s a second away from giving up. There’s almost no one to save. The Kugelblitz took the bodies, too; one more wave and there’ll be no ghosts to haunt him. 

“You wanna…” Allison follows Five down the hall. “You wanna say we’re the last people on the earth?”

Diego hugs Lila too, even though she keeps cursing into his shoulder.

“How much time do we have?”

“48 hours, give or take,” Five quickly calculates something in his mind. And blinks out of the room.

“We can still change it! This is what I raised you for!”

“This is what our family died for?”

Everyone turns to Ben who didn’t even need to raise his voice to draw attention.

“They died so that we could live.”

Reginald speaks with such passion it makes everyone fall silent.

“Do you really call this living, Dad?” 

It’s a mockery, because Klaus is tired of pretending. Reginald looks through him, monocle gleaming almost like Obscura’s lens. Klaus is going to miss him, he’d like to know that guy better. They only have two days left to do whatever is on their bucket lists.

“There’s still a chance,” Reginald replies before heading to the stairs. He doesn’t ask them to follow, he doesn’t explain anything. It was supposed to be one of the family meetings where they’d tear each other’s throats apart, but everyone just leaves silently. 

“Asshole,” Diego comments.

No matter how sad Viktor’s glance is, Klaus can’t help him.

“I’m sorry,” he pulls Viktor into a hug. “I can’t conjure them. They’re gone… Like, really gone.”

Viktor nods and leaves too.

This doesn’t look like them; seeing Five being so apathetic about the whole thing breaks Klaus’ heart. He doesn’t know what to do to light the sparkle inside him again. Because it’s Five, their leader, the smart one, the old one, the grumpy one. When he looked at Klaus, the light in his eyes was gone. 

48 hours. 

And Klaus’ worst enemy with a plan he’d prefer to never know about.

So he decides to do the opposite.

***

He finds Reginald in the White Buffalo Suite, sitting at the table and writing something in a thick black journal. He probably has an endless stash of them. Outside the window, the sky is crimson and orange, a deadly watercolor mixed with soot. 

“Hey, Dad,” Klaus waves at him.

Reginald tucks the pen between the pages like a bookmark.

“Number Eight?”

“Just Klaus,” he sits down on the chair in front of the old man. “The world’s really ending, huh? What if I… were a little curious about the plan you mentioned earlier?”

His voice is pure honey, spilling out of his chest, soft and a bit raspy as it sticks to his vocal cords. His “customer service” mode he toggles on when he needs to get something. The “something” usually was just one more day to find more money.

Reginald squints his monocle eye at him. 

“Are you interested in joining me on this journey?”

And Klaus asks in return,

“You did recognize them, right?”

Reginald falters. 

“The mothers,” Klaus breathes out in a venomous whisper. “They died because of you.”

“I did not kill them,” Reginald pulls away, deeply uncomfortable. 

“What if those poor women just had their babies and you never tried to buy them in the first place?” Klaus’s fist bangs the table in despair. “Did this thought ever cross your mind?”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Oh, then I wouldn’t be standing here, right?”

Klaus shuffles across the carpet, to the tunnel door. 

“Do not open it yet.”

“I’ve been there,” Klaus drags his knuckles down the surface. “But before, this damn place tricked me.”

“Reality is malleable.”

“Yeah, so is my brain.”

Klaus thinks he still has some brain tissue in his hair. He wonders if Reginald even cares. 

“You’ve endured so much pain, I see,” Reginald nods to himself.

His emotions, his words, and even the color of his skin seem fake. He knew everyone would die, he probably already knows that Klaus tends to come back. 

“What’s on the other side?”

Klaus didn’t even make it that far to know that there must be something special. According to the mental protection set around it.

“If the universe ever faced total annihilation, there is a portal in the universe. I built this hotel around it, and on the other side is the answer.”

“But it will fuck your mind in the process,” Klaus rubs his forehead. A warning, it all was a warning. He doesn’t want to go there to prolong his suffering.

“There’s the guardian protecting the back door,” Reginald says as if it means nothing.

This is not what Klaus was excited to see.

“I think this lovely Overlook could stand up for herself without a bodyguard.”

“It protects the new universe from people with malicious intentions.”

“Like, from you?”

“My intentions are never malicious.”

Klaus only laughs at that. No, but it’s really funny. This man locked him in a mausoleum with ghosts to overcome his fears. Something twinges in his memory, telling him that Reginald did the same thing to Number Eight too.

But it’s still Klaus who entered this room first.

“What do you want from me?”

“To convince the others.”

“Oh, of all people I’m the last person they will ever trust.”

Klaus wants to leave, but the head of the white buffalo on the wall keeps hypnotizing him.

“You want to save them,” Reginald says. “And so do I. You’ve got a kind heart, Klaus.”

“So we like… have to go through the tunnel, kill that guy, and… everything will be fine?”

Sounds too good to be true. Except for killing; this thing feels like making a bowl of cereal with vodka. 

Reginald nods. 

“Deal?”

“I don’t like it,” Klaus says honestly. 

“You can save the world.”

“I’m not sure—”

Eight wouldn’t hesitate, he knows. And once again, Reginald says, reaching out his open palm for Klaus.

“Deal?”

“Deal,” Klaus’ sarcastic HELLO slaps against the cold skin.

***

He starts with Ben, of course, he starts with Ben.

He finds Ben sitting on the billiard table, a bottle of gin in hand. 

“Wow,” Klaus comments. The last time he tried to talk to his drunk sibling he got choked and then thrown across the floor. 

“The world is ending,” Ben informs him.

“Your first time, huh?”

Ben silently offers him a bottle.

Klaus rolls one of the balls into the side pocket. He never played billiard sober. It’s weird to observe someone he’s never seen drinking before. He doesn’t want to join Ben’s pity party; two timelines ago, he’d be the one who threw it. 

“What if I told you that there’s still a chance to get out of this pile of shit?” Klaus throws his arm over Ben’s shoulder. Ben almost pushes him off the table for that.

“How?”

“Through the tunnel, you know,” the words lose their power as soon as they slip his tongue. “In the buffalo room.”

“The one that caused your epileptic fit?”

“A vision. But… yeah.”

“A vision?” Ben puts the bottle aside. “Are you like… a prophet?”

“Don’t call me that!”

The whole cult thing was a huge mistake. He shouldn’t have listened to Kitty — the old lady who found him lying on the pavement — he accidentally conjured her dead husband after having been sober for five days. He didn’t know what to expect from his powers back then, he doesn’t know when they are going to betray him now.

“Klaus, what do you want?”

And Klaus simply says,

“To save you.”

This is what the old bitch Reggy told him, too. Reggie, who wanted to kill the Umbrellas but lost almost all of his adopted birds instead. It’s not that Klaus’ siblings have a degree in being extraordinary, it’s just circumstances. Give them the world, and they’ll blow it up again. 

“You know the tunnel is… dangerous, right?” 

Well, Ben is not as heartless and drunk as Klaus thought. Well, maybe the alcohol just filled the hole where his squid heart was. 

Klaus nods. 

“There’s the guardian.”

“And then?”

“Peace? I don’t know,” Klaus feels like one of the billiard balls rolling on the rim of the pocket and not getting inside. “We have to try. Got nothing to lose anyway. You might wake up tomorrow with half of your Bentacles gone.”

If he was Five, everyone would listen to him. 

“I need to think,” Ben says, lying down on the billiard table. He needs to sleep, but well, this works too. He didn’t try to break Klaus’ poor spine this time.

***

It’s somehow easier with Allison. 

“What are you getting from it?” she only asks.

“Redemption arc? I didn’t really… think of it.”

He’s empty, all hopes gone. They all are gonna die anyway.

“Well, someone has to tell you that you’re not crazy,” Allison pats him on the shoulder. “If Dad offered me the deal, I would have agreed too.”

Klaus understands the level of her desperation to get back things she fought so hard for. He wants to help her as she helped him, paying for rehabs and his medical bills. He can’t say it worked, because he’s a professional at fucking up his life. Some people only knew him as the “Allison Hargreeves’ junkie brother”, but he’s grateful that she didn’t rumor him out of her life. 

He tells her about the guardian.

“Well, we might need someone with the power great enough to end the world twice then.”

Klaus promises her to stay sober when it’s all over. 

Allison promises him to talk to Viktor.

***

“I already helped you to find your family, and they all wanted to kill you. And now they’ve been Kugelblitzed. Why would I want to join the old man’s team?”

“Because… you’re a hitman? And we need to defeat one Big Bad Guy to get our lives back?”

“And you believe him?”

“You have a better idea than giving up?”

Klaus wants to pull his hair in a frenzy. Of all people, Five is the only one who has a bit of authority here. Maybe Klaus shouldn’t have woken him up from his last nap on earth and his first nap in 45 years. Five looks like he’s about to smother Klaus with a pillow.

“And you think a magic tunnel wouldn’t fuck shit up?”

“Oh, we’ll find out if we’re alive, I guess.”

“I need to talk to Reginald myself,” Five groans, getting up from the mattress. “Probably gonna visit those two sentient STDs too and pray that they’re decent this time.” 

Klaus knows that he probably looked so miserable it melted Five’s icy-cold heart. 

“Hey,” he manages before Five blinks out of the room.

“What?”

“Don’t be sad about the whole… twin thing. I’d let you still be the smart one, I swear!”

Five’s blink tears the air in the room, but Klaus can only smile at his friendly advice,

“Klaus. Shut up.”

***

He gets sick when another Kugelwave happens. The whole building shakes, throwing Klaus into the wall when he’s on his way to talk to Luther. The pieces of his brain that was torn apart just a few hours ago don’t want to stay together as a whole; there’s the dent where the back of his head hit the plastering. Klaus crawls through the whiteout on the edges of his vision, knees bending and stomach lurching. Bitter saliva floods his mouth; a pair of strong hairy arms catches him up when he doubles over and throws up in a large flower pot at the end of the hallway.

“Klaus?”

Luther’s muscular forearms keep squeezing his midsection, which only makes him retch again. Nothing comes up this time, but Luther is extremely emetophobic. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Klaus covers his face with his elbows, locking his fingers behind his head. “I’m sober, didn’t take anything, I swear—”

“Klaus!”

That was probably too loud, but the humming in his ears blocks out the sounds. Luther shakes him, then drags him away from the flower pot as the ceiling begins to crack. Something crashes behind their backs as Luther ducks along with Klaus’ limp body into the first hotel room on their way. 

Luther gently lowers him to sit on the bunk bed. Klaus hiccups and wipes his mouth on his wrist. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to speak. Klaus clutches his stomach and lurches forward, almost pressing his nose to his knees.

“My head hurts. I’m not high, I sw—”

“Stop it,” Luther makes him straighten up his back against the sharp pain in his side. “Man, you’re bleeding.”

“What?” Klaus runs his finger down the wet patch on his neck. Something leaks out of his ear. “Sucks,” he hopes it’s not his concussed brain. 

Luther doesn’t scold him for not being able to quell his nausea. Klaus isn’t even sure if he’s not going to throw up again.

“Did I hurt your ribs?”

Klaus shakes his head. It doesn’t matter. They can’t even leave the room and go check on the others because Klaus simply can’t walk. He can’t talk either, too afraid his stomach acid might spill on the carpet by his feet. 

He doesn’t know what’s happening, but it feels like the building is falling apart. The window is covered with thick brown curtains, with no sight of anything between them. Maybe, the chunk of earth with the Hotel Obsidian is the grain of sand in outer space that still has life on it. 

Luther crouches down in front of him.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to yell. I know you’re sober.”

Klaus sniffles.

“Thanks.”

Their relationship never was easy, because Luther never considered Klaus as someone at his level despite being diffident himself. Because Klaus never kept his mouth shut. 

“Listen, um,” Luther lowers his head to look Klaus in the eye. “The world’s ending, and… There’s one thing that’s been bothering me all this time. Do you remember… that one evening?”

“The rave?” Klaus asks, voice hoarse from all the spasms.

“No, another one.”

“Huh?”

Luther was taught to keep his emotions at bay so it’s hard for him to open up. Especially when it’s Klaus.

“Our birthday. We just turned nineteen, and you eventually appeared on the Academy’s steps, and Dad told me to kick you out. He didn’t want you to steal something from him… again,” Luther’s voice cracks, and Klaus knows why. “I pushed you, and… you slipped and fell,” he takes Klaus’ hands in his. “Was it bad?”

Klaus left the Academy two months after Ben’s death; he couldn’t get a job or a place to sleep, and his future “inheritance” was his only source of money. It’d be much easier for him to live his life if Reginald didn’t turn Luther into his gorilla-sized lapdog, his bodyguard and bouncer. Reginald thought that having no access to money would motivate Klaus to get clean; in retrospect, it only motivated him to pick locks and pickpocket.

He wants to say that it was fine, and he landed happily on the asphalt, because he was trained to fall correctly. But the world is ending, and Luther deserves to know the truth.

“I broke my arm,” Klaus says. Luther suddenly withdraws his palms as if Klaus’ skin is a hot iron. “I didn’t even want to steal anything, I just… Had nowhere to go. I had a nasty cold or something, then when I had to “leave”, and spend the night on the street, it worsened. I couldn’t breathe normally like for a month after that. Not to mention that ugly cast,” he moves his fingers in the air. It was his left arm. “Too bad I’m not ambidextrous.”

He has to die to heal a broken bone. Too sad he didn’t know it when he was nineteen.

“I’m a monster,” Luther’s tone gets a little too hysterical, and it’s not something Klaus wants to deal with right now. “You were the only one of us who could get pneumonia in the middle of summer, and… I’m a monster.”

Luther didn’t know about the nights Klaus spent shaking on the damp stone floor of the mausoleum with ghosts wailing in his ears. Luther didn’t know how bad his lungs hurt from screaming and gulping cold air, how Grace had to buy a heating pad because acute kidney pain didn’t let him sleep. 

Klaus didn’t know death could cure it. But it also explains why and how he made it into his 30s able-bodied. He lived from one sickness to another for weeks and months, because dying couldn’t convince his health to stop being shitty.

And now, Luther apologizes for what their “father” did. 

“Hey, it’s fine, big guy, you didn’t know you could do better, right?” Klaus taps Luther on the cheek. “Just don’t try to break my tailbone the next time I talk to you, okay?”

Something crashes in the hallway, making both of them turn their heads toward the door. 

“Klaus, I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I know, I know,” Klaus gets up on his shaky feet. “I’m not mad at you, okay? You’re not gonna like it now, but,” he staggers across the room. “We need to hold a family meeting in the White Buffalo Suite. Reggie included.”

It feels so weird calling Reginald his family now. 

“A meeting?”

“Yeah, about… Killing some Cerberus,” Klaus peeks into the hallway. “Let’s go.”

***

The first thing Reginald tells them is that the Kugelblitz took Sloane. Klaus didn’t know her well enough, but it hurts to know anyway.

They’re not resilient to anything. 

Klaus did what he was told — he brought the remains of the families together. Now he’s sitting cross-legged on the fluffy white carpet, leaning his heavy head against Ben’s thigh. Ben keeps kicking his leg to get rid of him. Klaus thinks he was too close to getting blitzed himself, and this is why he feels so shitty now. 

Reginald tells them the story about the tunnel and the guardian again.

As promised, Allison brought Viktor, and Five came with Diego and Lila. Everyone looks bored but nervous; they might not survive the next Kugelwave, it’s clear.

They agree, of course, they all agree; the building begins to rattle and sway again when Reginald throws the door open. 

“Get in, children! There’s only one way into Oblivion,” he stands next to the exit, letting people go inside one by one. “Klaus! Come on, what are you waiting for?!”

With that, Reginald pushes him into the lighting grid that made his nightmares surface once. Klaus squints his eyes as they begin to burn; he can barely see the backs of his siblings, grabbing by the shoulder the first person he sees.  

“Help me out, please, Ben,” Klaus wheezes.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” 

Ben doesn’t push him away this time, taking half of Klaus’ weight as he drapes on his shoulder. 

“This place hates me.”

He closes his eyes shut not to see what he’s about to see. He doesn’t open his eyes until he’s thrown onto the bed on the other side. He blinks and sees all of his siblings here, he sees Reginald here.

And the white buffalo’s ass on the wall, where the head was. 

“I love contemporary art,” Klaus comments, making Diego chuckle.

Reginald scans all of them with his monocle-covered eye.  

“We’re here now, in the Hotel Oblivion. And, we need to split.”

“Split?” Viktor asks. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“This is how we find the guardian faster.”

This is one of Reginald’s methods — act faster than people think. He’s a great manipulator, a quality Klaus only started to adopt; he only manages to blink once when he finds himself paired with Ben. Regardless of the timeline, they always end up stuck together.

Allison and Viktor. Luther and Five. Diego and Lila. Nothing unusual, but nothing effective either. 

No one argues.

***

“If you’re gonna pass out, at least warn.”

“Oh, I feel great. As if I made it all the way through the hotel’s rectum and it shat me out on the other side. Which is technically true, so…”

“I wish you never learned to speak.”

“I wish you could just be my brother again.”

Klaus is too tired to keep bickering. They don’t even know what they’re looking for. It’s a moment of silence, before Ben asks,

“Don’t you think it’s weird that Dad didn’t join any of the groups?”

“Miss him already, Benihana?”

Klaus chuckles and ducks under Ben’s hand when he’s about to smack him on the back of his head. He’s about to start to forget that this guy hasn’t been through too many embarrassing situations along with him. It probably multiplied Ben’s childhood trauma. 

They wander the halls, not seeing or hearing any of the others. Klaus never thought the inside-out version of the Obsidian is so soundproof. 

“Stop biting your nails.”

“I’m nervous,” Klaus mutters, middle finger still clamped between his teeth. He used to bite his nails until they bled while going through withdrawal. “Mind if I’ll smoke?”

Ben’s pathetic look is the response Klaus expects to get. 

“I don’t want to smell like your cigarettes.”

“God, I wish he paired me with Allison,” Klaus groans, shoving the pack back into his pocket. The two smokers of the family, they would understand each other’s needs.

Ben grins, celebrating Klaus’ defeat. Klaus starts biting his nails again. 

They make it downstairs, to the empty kitchen and the warehouse section. Klaus notices a few cockroaches near the fridges and shelves, wondering why they didn’t disappear along with humanity.

He almost starts to believe that Reginald lied to them about the guardian. He’s an old man, right? No one knows his age, so his brain might not be functioning correctly anymore —

“Klaus! Down!”

His body hits the floor faster than his consciousness registers it — thanks to Ben again — jarring all the organs that barely healed after his previous adventures. Klaus hisses through his clenched teeth, pressing his palm to his right shoulder. The wound is bleeding profusely, gathering into a crimson puddle on the tiled floor.

He rolls over, ignoring the pain.

A few feet away from him, an armored figure with a sickle on a chain attacks Ben again and again. The guardian. Klaus grabs a metal tray off the table and holds it in front of his stomach like a shield. 

“Stay the fuck away or I’ll knock you out!” Ben yells while the Horror works on catching the guardian. The sickle cuts through one of the tentacles; blood sprays the wall as Ben lets out a low, guttural growl. 

He can’t die. Klaus can’t let him die again. 

The sickle hits the tray, making it rattle and vibrate in Klaus’ hands, making his shoulder and his bitten fingers bleed harder. He grabs one of the knives from the holder just in case. Diego would have nailed it.

Klaus throws the knife, stepping over one of the tendrils on the floor. The throw is shitty, and the only thing it does is hit the handle against the guardian’s thick neck. It stops him from trying to disarm Ben; a helmet-covered head turns to Klaus, sickle in hand is about to make a fatal swing. 

It buys Ben some time. 

Klaus falls to his knees and crawls underneath the table when Ben’s Horror wraps around the guardian’s neck and his midsection, parting them with a single pull. Cockroaches erupt out of the tears, and the body goes limp on the floor. 

“You okay?” Klaus has to get out of his hiding place, flooded with bugs. 

Ben nods. His skin is glistening with sweat, and he’s all covered in blood splatters, but he’s still alive. The Horror used to fight dirty.

“Let’s go find the others,” it’s Ben’s turn to lean on Klaus’ good shoulder.

They step on the cockroaches on the way out of the kitchen.    

“Can you grow them back like a lizard?” Klaus nods at the amputated tentacles next to the guardian’s corpse. His skin is pus-green, all covered in tiny holes.

Ben lets out a heavy sigh.

“Would you shut up if I said yes?”

“Yeah,” Klaus leads him to the main hall. “Why I never asked before?”

Exhausted, Ben leaves him without an answer.

***

Klaus lets out a shriek of joy when he sees his siblings alive in the main hall. All, all of them are here, but neither of them looks happy. 

Allison sports a bloodied cloth wrapped around her forearm, Viktor has a busted eyebrow, Luther and Five look equally beaten despite the difference in their sizes. Lila has to pin Diego to the couch as he’s about to jump up, fists clenched.

“Why the fuck you didn’t tell us there were two guardians?!” 

“One had an ax,” Five says. 

“Another one had a sword,” Allison adds darkly. “Killing them was such a pain in the ass.”

Ben stops clinging to Klaus, stepping in front of him as if to protect him from all the hate he’s showered in.

“Three, technically. Ours had a sickle.”

“I didn’t—” Klaus feels the world tilt around him. “I didn’t know! Reggie told me there was only one!”

“Correct,” he hears from behind his back. 

Diego pulls out a knife immediately.

“What?”

“I didn’t tell you there were three guardians because none of you would be standing here otherwise.”

“You are a crazy old man,” Five spits the words along with blood. 

“I saved your lives! And now, it’s time to finish the preparations,” Reginald goes to the empty receptionist stand and pulls out a journal. “I need each one of you to stand on the symbols on the floor while Klaus will be assisting me.”

“Assisting?” Klaus doesn’t like how it sounds. “Can’t you like… just open a portal to a new happy life now?”

“Don’t distract me, young man,” Reginald starts pressing some buttons Klaus didn’t know were hiding under the desktop. “You don’t belong here.”

“What? What do you mean?”

The walls around them turn into futuristic constructions, throwing a honey glow onto the figures standing in a circle in the center of the hall. There’s a huge dome-like transparent screen covering the receptionist stand and trapping Reginald inside a whirlwind of ones and zeros. 

“Your body might have replaced Number Eight’s, but his mind was still present. I’m just paying him a debt. I know you are not a Sparrow, Klaus.”

“You tricked me!” Klaus rushes towards Reginald and bangs his fist on the dome. It doesn’t crack, unlike Klaus’ knuckles. “You fucking used me for nothing!”

“It takes a sacrifice to reset the universe,” Reginald replies automatically. 

Klaus looks back at his family — they hate him, they hate him, they hate him — they all are connected with the rays of golden light spraying out of their chests. Their faces are gray, eyes hollow and half-lifeless.

“You’re taking their powers! Stop it, you’re hurting them, you’re killing them!”

He betrayed them.

They will die thinking their junkie sibling sold them off for his addictions. 

“Stop it!”

Bang.

“Stop it!”

Bang.

“Don’t do it!”

Reginald doesn’t pay attention to him anymore, pushing button after button. The sparrow on Klaus’ wrist begins to burn and itch, skin bulges up around. And, his mind is filled with his own voice that doesn’t belong to him,

“Get out!”

And,

“This is my new body!”

And,

“Did you know you’re a virgin again?”

And,

“The Void is not big enough for the two of us, baby.”

“Shut up,” Klaus is on his knees, swaying back and forth and having the worst nosebleed in his life. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

The Void, the place that gave him his near-immortality gives him ideas now. 

If the new universe needs their powers, then maybe the power of everything will be enough to quell its hunger. He takes a deep breath that tastes like salt and copper and gets up on his feet. Reginald turns into a piece of the Oblivion’s deadly interior.

Klaus’ siblings lie on the ground as he sprints toward them, jumping into the spot where the rays of their powers cross. It pierces him, it cuts loose all the threads; the glowing in the Umbrellas’ chests sucks the light back hungrily, faces fill with color again.

This is what Klaus sees before his solar plexus explodes with the fluorescence spikes, taking all space around him. 

“Klaus?” someone calls. “Klaus!” 

He can’t open his eyes, swallowing blood that clogs his throat. 

“Number Eight!”

“Suck my ass, Dad,” Klaus manages, forcing himself for the last one smile.

He knows he disappears as if he never existed here. His body becomes lighter, thinner, smaller. He didn’t belong here, and he tricked the trickster before doing the thing his Ben also did — sacrificing himself to give a chance to people who’ve got something to lose.

“Klaus!”

All they see is a faint GOODBYE-shaped ink stain in the air.

***

Klaus sits in a soft, leather armchair in front of the TV that doesn’t even need electricity to work in the middle of the desert. The carpet and the coffee table are covered in sand, but it doesn’t bother him much. He switches the channels, out of curiosity, to take a little break from the documentaries he used to watch. 

Click.

He sees Viktor and Lila in a band together — the violinist and the drummer — and Diego playing air guitar backstage, making his daughter laugh.

Click.

Luther and Sloane both work at the Space Center. It’s good to know she’s back. It’s fun to see Luther in a well-proportioned body.

Click.

Allison, Raymond, and Claire have a family dinner, celebrating the launching of a charity campaign. Klaus wipes away a tear when she mentions that his “death” inspired her to work with rehabilitation centers closer.   

Click.

Five is the “youngest” professor at the university, because no one knows his consciousness is about to turn sixty. What a cheater. At least he’s not marrying mannequins anymore.

Click.

Ben visits his mother’s art exhibition; he’s got a few ideas for his own gallery. It might even include the portrayal of ghosts in Korean culture, but he’s not sure yet.

Klaus has all channels here, but he never checks on Reginald. Because he’s too peaceful to care. Because he knows the others are waiting for a moment to put a gun to his head. Maybe Reginald is even trying to behave. If the new, reset universe is going to end itself, the seven superpowered people will gladly screw up her last days in their trademark, chaotic fashion.

Klaus knows they’re going to celebrate their birthday together this year and maybe he’ll leave this comfy armchair in the Void to join them.

He looks down at his arm, and,

There’s a faded umbrella, dwelling in a black circle on his wrist. Klaus smiles.