trashbinned | call me out!

Klaus crawls his way up onto the bed, dragging himself so that he's stretched out on his back, arms flopped over his head just to the side of where she's settled. "It takes a little bad luck and an army of moronic cult followers to achieve greatness," he sighs dramatically.

The sixties weren't so bad, really, and he lived a more comfortable life there than he had in any other blip of time he existed, but he never felt settled. Not really. But some of the others had, hadn't they? His sisters, in particular. Allison with Ray, Vanya with Sissy. He drops a hand to squeeze her forearm.

"You don't need to say sorry, Vanny," he says, thoughtful. "We're all one, big fucked up family just trying to figure things out. We're not very good at it, admittedly, but we wouldn't be the Umbrella Academy if we were." He affects a posh air when he speaks of the Academy, voice dripping with sarcasm.

She looks over at him, her brow furrowing slightly as she studies him. She wouldn't be surprised if the cult had been a con, but she is surprised at how dismissive he is of it. Of all things, she thought Klaus would appreciate the undying devotion and adoration of a large group of people. "You didn't like being the leader?"

She looks down at his hand on her arm, grateful that any of them can even look at her, let alone touch her to try to comfort her after all the things she's done. She feels her chest tighten with fondness and smiles faintly at the childhood nickname.

She rolls the cigarette between her fingers. "Yeah, but I don't recall ending the world, not once but twice, being a side effect of any of your powers."

"Like is a strong word when you're being smothered, grabbed and prayed to daily. They would believe anything I said. I even tried to tell them I was a fraud once and they took it to mean that our very existence is a fraudulent thing we must absolve ourselves of or something other esoteric bullshit."

He sighs and takes a drag from his cigarette, not seeming to mind that the ashes fall to the carpet. "See, you end the world the world sometimes and I see dead people. Occasionally I take a little trip to heaven or hell, they look the same really, and yet here we are. We're a lovely pair." He sighs, glancing up at her again.

"You can't exactly control what you don't know exists, you know. Though it's an admirable effort, really."

She chuckles, despite herself, looking over at Klaus with a small smile. Of course, he'd found himself in that situation. "They sound incredibly devoted."

She takes another drag, the taste settling on her tongue and in her nose. She raises her eyebrows at him doubtfully. "You've been to heaven and hell?"

She's not sure if he means literally or figuratively. With Klaus, it's a toss-up, but if she's honest she just wants to keep him talking. She'd come to see if he was okay, but somehow he was comforting her. She tries not to feel worthless about that.

"I wanted powers my whole life," she says slowly. "I just never thought they'd turn me into a ticking time bomb." She huffs. "I really wanted to talk to animals when I was younger. You can't end the world with that."

"Haven't we all? The great Umbrella Academy was a delightful amalgamation of both, wouldn't you say?"

Though visiting with dad in the barbershop was definitely some sort of afterlife, even if he's somehow managed to come back from it. He kicks his feet back and forth, like they're two gossipy girls at a sleep over, even if they're both sitting in a shitty motel smoking instead.

"Oh god, no. Trust me. I get the joyous experience of listening to the undead all day, and they have nothing exciting to say. Just imagine it like this— you're just trying to sit down and enjoy your time on the john, getting ready to take a nice shit, when you hear a fucking bird outside suddenly screaming about the quality of worm it's been eating. If they're even that intelligent, but it can be a real mood killer, let me tell you."

She grins. He's not wrong. It widens into a smile at his silly impression of two girls gossiping. She wonders when the last time they talked like this was and it makes her heart ache to know it's been much too long.

"What do they say?" she asks, her brows furrowing in genuine curiosity. She's always wanted to ask, but Klaus had never really seemed willing to talk about it. When they were younger he'd do anything to avoid using his powers. Something that had gotten more and more extreme the older he'd gotten.

She waves her hand quickly, some of the ash falling on her jeans where she wipes it away. "Not that I don't think you're entitled to your privacy." She pauses, a wry smile on her lips. "Especially in the bathroom."

Klaus snorts and waves a hand at her dismissively. Had this conversation taken place years ago, he might have been more disturbed. But communing with the dead has become something of a norm for him and while they're still a little creepy, he doesn't feel as scared as he did before.

"They'll bitch about the weather, sports, the fact that I ignore them when I can. If I stopped and listened to every ghost I'd never get my beauty sleep, and we know how important that is. Otherwise my abilities are useless. I mean if you need a ghost army, let me know and I'll call up a few of the old faithfuls to lend you a hand."

Rolling his eyes, he flops over onto his back beside her, stretching his arms over his head to hang over the bed, nothing but drama. "You were kind of a bad ass at the barn. You know that, right? Complete and utter babe, kicking ass and taking names. And all without blowing up the world. See?"

"Not completely useless," she says, her eyes drifting to his face. After all, it had allowed him to see Ben when the rest of them had grieved and tried to move on. The question is on the edge of her lips, but then he flips over and starts talking about the standoff.

She shakes her head, sighing. "Yeah, a lot of good that did." Though, he's right. She didn't blow up the world that time. And she had helped Harlan.

Did that makeup for ending a world or killing thousands of assassins. Vanya doubted it, but her family was intact, and so was Sissy and Harlan. She'd take any win she could.

"Does that mean I get to join the Academy?"

"Do you want to join the Academy?"

What is the Academy without their father, without the crime fighting and the nonsense? Without personalities and names and a family that can openly care for one another?

"I don't think there is an Academy anymore, Vanya. Not like it used to be. There's a new one now," he says, groaning as he finally pushes himself up. He fishes around in the bedcovers and finds his flask, unscrewing the lid and drinking deeply from it before offering it out to her.

"And you've always been a part of it. We've only got each other now, you know? All of us losers who keep failing to save the world. Don't let any of them tell you differently."

Yes. The answer comes to her without a moment's hesitation. Even after all these years, all this distance, all the revelations and the pain she can still feel the answer in the marrow of her bones. And she hates herself for it. For knowing that it was never what she thought it was and yet being unable to stop wanting it anyway.

She reaches out for the flask, the untouched cigarette shifting in her other hand and covering her jeans in ash. She doesn't know why she took the cigarette. She isn't really smoking it. She sets the flask down by her hip, reaching for a laminated TV listing to put her cigarette out on before picking up the flask and taking a drink.

There's something satisfying about the bitter taste as it goes down. She gives him a wan smile. "Team zero," she says.

But in this world they aren't siblings. They may not even exist here. "What makes you so sure we won't drift apart again?"

Edited 2020-09-07 23:27 (UTC)

"What makes you so sure we will?"

Klaus counters with a smile and stretches his legs far out in front of him before he looks over at Vanya. "I mean come on, look us now. Everyone's infinitely hotter, we're all working together, who could resist the pull of family bonds at a time like this!"

But the concern is real enough and he can't help but worry what will happen to them in this place where they don't exist. If he lets himself follow the path of thinking, it could mean that wherever they came from doesn't exist anymore.

He sighs, reaching to swipe the flask for another drink, hissing at the burn of the liquor on the way down.

"You're stuck with me, anyway. And my army of drunken ghosts if you really want them. What fun."

She shrugs and gives him a small grin. "Unwavering pessimism?"

She watches him stretch out, looking as if he has no care in the world, even when she knows he must. They all do.

"Stuck?" She repeats, despite knowing that she heard him right. She tries not to think about all the times that they had left her out. Shut her out. But that had been before. Before she'd decided that she needed to try to shut the door on them.

They were all in it together now. She was one of them. Possibly the most dangerous.

"I'm sorry about Ben." The words fall out of her before she can even sense them coming on and she stills, clenching her jaw and waiting for this moment to shatter between them. For the walls to come back up. For those warm, dark eyes of her brother to shutter shut and dismiss her.

She lets out a stuttering breath. "Klaus, I never meant to hurt him."

Klaus doesn't know what he expects Vanya to say, but when she apologizes for Ben, he turns to look at her with wide eyes, surprised.

"Oh, Vanny, no..." Klaus breathes, reaching a hand to squeeze her forearm. Something squeezes deep in his chest, because the pain and the fear she feels now is something he's carried with him all of his life. From the moment he summoned Ben and turned him away from that white light all those years ago, to the moment Ben faded away, Klaus could neve shake the feeling he was responsible.

"You didn't hurt him. You could never hurt him. Some spirits aren't meant to stay around as long as they have and let me tell you, Bennyboy and I go way back. If anything, I'm the one that caused him trauma over the years. I mean, can you imagine? Living with me for most of your adult life? Ugh." He rolls his eyes but he removes his hand from Vanya's arm, only to loop his own around her shoulders and tug her into his side. "So quit all that silly thinking you're doing there. You've done nothing wrong."

He pauses, thoughtful, and looks away from her for the first time. "I told Ben he didn't have to go, back when he died. I always thought it was my fault he stayed around, that I messed up the whole afterlife for him, you know? Talk about a buzzkill."

Klaus is probably the only person in the entire world who can call her that and not make her want to ask him to stop. She lets out a deep breath at the squeeze of his hand, sinking into his side when he wraps his arm around her.

She wraps her arms around him in a loose hug, grateful that he doesn't take this as one more reason to push her away, and rests her head on his shoulder.

"He chose to stay," she says, softly. "He wanted to make sure you knew that. Whatever trauma you caused him, he must have thought it was worth it."

"Oh there was plenty of trauma," Klaus laughs softly, tilting his head so that it rests against hers. "But I guess he and I were a real Thelma and Louise situation, you know?"

He laughs at the thought, but it dies down to a sigh seconds after. He's glad she dropped in like this. Even at the ends of worlds this family finds itself again, and if there's nothing else left for them, they have each other.

"Little shit. Feelings are very complicated and unnecessary. That he took advantage of that is a real low blow, but he always did get the last word." He huffs and lifts his head to press a kiss to her crown.

"But he brought you back, so I guess we're all the lucky ones."

The tenderness surprises her and overwhelms her, especially because she doesn't feel deserving of it. She swallows, forcing a smile and pulling back just enough to look at her brother.

"You're amazing, you know that?" Fondness shines in her eyes as she clears her throat and looks away. I've missed you. Something she hasn't been able to say just yet.

She sighs, pulling her arm from around him. "I'm going to go get some coffee. Do you want me to bring you back some?"

"Moderately mediocre at best, but by all means, don't let me change your mind."

Klaus laughs and draws away from her, hands falling back into his lap, if only so he can fumble with the pack of cigarettes.

"Dear god, coffee would be heavenly," he breathes around a new cigarette pressed between his lips. "And I'll even keep your side of the bed nice and warm for you while you're gone. We have a lot of catching up to do, missy, so don't try and skip town on me."

He lights the cigarette and takes a drag, exhaling a cloud of smoke on a laugh. "I mean that. But don't let poor, sentimental old me stop you. Caffeine is the nectar of the gods, Vanya, deprive us no longer."

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