substances | klaus hargreeves 👻 ic inbox

The whiplash snap quickness that the mountains of texts between them is suddenly dwindled down to two lines and then static for what feels like forever is... harsh. He isn't sure what set Klaus off to shut down that hard, but...the idea twists uncomfortably in his gut all the same.

While he waits for Klaus to get back, Diego texts Ben, partially in effort to pass the time, but mostly so he can try to process his way through all of this. The conversation helps, in so far as anything could help him in the middle of all this anyway.

He ends up drifting off, half-asleep, by the time Klaus wanders back to the quad. He's too easily brought to alert to miss the sound of the door, and more importantly his brother's voice. "Yeah," he mutters, sitting up, forgetting the phone was on his chest and it makes a horribly loud, in the otherwise quiet house, clattering sound as it falls to the floor. At least they're pretty durable... He blinks and scoops the phone up and pockets it, "Hey." Despite his seconds ago halfhearted nap, nothing about Diego would indicate that he'd ever been asleep in the first place.

It's mostly guilt that does it. Nothing shuts Klaus down like guilt or shame, and this is no exception. It takes a while for him to get back to the quad, but when he does, and calls Diego's name, he hears his brother answer, and then the clatter of something falling to the floor.

Klaus makes his way over to the bedroom area with his brows raised.

"You okay man?" he asks, blinking a few times as Diego is putting the phone in his pocket. Klaus gives him a little wave, and heads across the room so he can sit down on the bed beside his brother, his head down a little.

"I don't want to fight." he says, after a moment, "And I'm sorry I kept talking about the thing."

"Yeah, I'm good." he nods a little.

Diego frowns a little at that comment, a little surprised by it. Mostly because none of what he was saying, particularly toward the end of that conversation earlier, was meant as a fight. You know, for once in his life. "I'm not trying to fight." he assures him and then shakes his head. "It's okay, Klaus. It's just...a really sore subject for me, you know?" He rolls one shoulder in a shrug.

"Yeah...yeah yeah yeah I get it. I do, I just thought maybe it would cheer you up if I said it." he says, shrugging, "Didn't mean to do the opposite."

The part about Diego not trying to fight is a little harder to respond to.

"I know, man. I didn't think you were, we just have a tendency to fight whenever the drug shit comes up, you know? So I just wanted to, you know, lead with that. Since I said I hated you earlier and all."

At least he's not still feeling the high from that moss stuff, though he's definitely feeling the cravings, like a tug in his chest, an ache. Longing. A feeling of life being incomplete that's stronger now that he gave in a little. He sighs, tilting his head back, and closes his eyes.

"Fuuuuuuck." he groans, "This sucks, it sucks, everything sucks."

He manages a small smile at that, "It did- does. I-- it's good to know you think I would've been good at it." But overall, it was just... too sensitive of an area for him to have a full conversation about.

"Yeah, we do," he relents with a nod, but he nudges his shoulder against Klaus'. "You really think I'm gonna go and believe you hate me just because you yell it when we're fighting?" It was really not yelling, and felt a lot more resigned than that would make him picture it, but that didn't really matter, did it?

Diego tilts his head and follows Klaus' movements as he leans back a bit and complains. "You'll be okay... you went--" well, actually, he's not sure how long it was, technically. "this long sober... you can do it again." He hates that the count technically has to start over now. But... well. That's the nature of the beast, isn't it? Addiction is never easy to walk away from.

"No. You know I love you man, come on. I know you wouldn't take me seriously, but I figure that's the kind of thing that can rile a guy up, you know? And I didn't mean to rile you up. I was just...you know, embarrassed. Or something."

For a moment, he's still, and then he leans down to untie his boots and push them off his feet, followed quickly by his socks, which he flings across the room, because he hates socks, and pulls his feet up. Fidgeting for a moment with one of the ties on the side of his leather jeans, he shrugs narrow shoulders and then heaves a deep sigh while he presses his toes together.

"Four months." he says, quietly, biting at the inside of his lip hard enough that it stings and he tastes the tiniest hint of blood, "Except weed. And even that was like..." He waves a hand back and forth vaguely, "Maybe twice a week? I haven't even had any of that since I got here, because I didn't have any. And, you know. Today."

"It's okay, Klaus." he puts a hand on his knee in what is hopefully a reassuring gesture.

He watches Klaus as he fidgets and gets comfortable. All this wound up,
nervous energy, and Diego can't help but wonder if he feels like this all the time.

"You said it's the longest you've gone before, right?" It's not a judgment, and his voice reflects as such. "So, you did it... you can do it again."

Truth is, Klaus does feel this way all the time. Pent up, full of energy, thinking too quickly and too much about all the wrong things. It's like his brain is out of control and it drags his body along with it, and Klaus is tired of being out of control. It's just that he doesn't know how to exert it, how to keep himself in line. He'd been impulsive before he even started taking drugs.

When Diego puts a calming, reassuring hand on his knee, Klaus exhales, eyes sinking shut for a moment.

"Yeah yeah yeah...it is." he says, then swallows hard, head tilting back again, "Guess I have to...to reset huh? Back to square one. Fuuuuuck."

"Yeah," he nods a little, a sad twist to the smile on his face. "but it's okay... you've got us-- me, and Ben...Julie. You've got people in your corner and we can help." Somehow. He has no clue how, but he wants to, desperately, and if Diego is nothing else, he's stubborn as hell, and he'll find a way, eventually.

He lets a silence lapse for a moment, debating his next words, but there's really only one thing that keeps sliding sticky across him. "...Before, when you said you don't know how to be okay... what did you mean?" His voice is soft and quiet, a little like he thinks if he's too loud, he'll ruin his chances of getting an answer.

When Diego confirms that this means he has to start back at square one, Klaus sighs in a long, put-upon way, making a loud raspberry with his mouth. But then Diego continues, saying that he's got Ben and him and Julie, and Klaus rolls his head to the side, looking at his brother and offering him a sad smile.

"Yeah, I do. It's...it's a lot more than I've ever had before. You know, I think that might be why I got so far before I fucked up. I'm not used to having people around. Ben was always there, but I can't...couldn't...see him when I was high any more than I could see other ghosts."

A shrug. And then Diego is asking him what he means by not knowing how to be okay, and Klaus winces, then laughs a little bitterly.

"I don't think I've ever been okay? Like, I've been seeing dead people since I was a kid, so I've been scared and miserable for as long as I can remember, you know? I just don't know any other way to be, unless I'm high."

"So, then... just focus on that, you know? That- that you have people and you don't have to do any of it alone." He's glad that resonated well, at least, in its own right. Diego doesn't know what he's doing, or what the right thing to say even is right now. Good to know that making shit up as he goes is apparently working out in his favor at the moment.

Whatever he might have expected Klaus' answer to be, for some reason, that in particular throws him a little more off-balance than expected. He blinks twice before he manages a quiet, "...Oh." A frown creases his forehead and he glances down at his hands hanging in a loose clasp between his knees where he sits at the edge of the bed.

He opens his mouth more than once, ready to say something about the topic at hand, but before he can manage it, his jaw snaps shut. These conversations are so much harder like this. In person. Right here. Next to him.

"Maybe... you need some more hobbies." He instantly feels like an idiot for that, of all things, being the thing he settled on, and that came out of his mouth. "I mean-- you can't just sit around all the time and dwell on it, right? You have to be proactive. Just...do something. Anything. And just stop thinking."

"Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah, I'm trying my best." he says, looking over at Diego for a moment, his eyes wet and a little red-rimmed, making his eyes look brighter than usual, and he reaches over, pats Diego's leg a couple times, "To remember, I mean, or focus, whatever. On you guys. I like being around you guys, you know?"

It's hard to verbalize what he's thinking, or what's going on under the words, because he isn't sure how to word it. That what he feels when he's hanging out and having a good time with his brothers or Julie or Drake or other friends isn't as good as being high, not in the same way, but that it's better than being alone.

And then Diego suggests hobbies. Klaus can tell from the look on his face he regrets it the minute he suggests it, but Klaus brightens almost immediately, "Yeah! I've thought about that, I just don't know where to start, all I've been doing is like...cooking food sometimes, and growing pot. I need something else. I just don't know what."

A pause, and then he laughs, "Uhhh, why don't you try finding one too, same time. We can check in, or...something." For a long moment, he's quiet, and he fidgets with a seam on his pants, because he feels anxious about what he's about to say, it feels like putting it out there, "I was thinking about trying to draw."

His eyes travel to the hand on his leg and his lips twitch in a small, brief smile. "Yeah, me too." And as off-hand as the words might seem, he really means it.

That smile returns a second later, a little brighter this time, when Klaus lights up at the idea of hobbies. "Cooking isn't a bad place to start." He remembers learning some things from Mom. She'd insisted that when he was all grown up, he'd need to know how to fix at least one decent dinner. He never loved it, but he liked spending time with Mom.

"I don't even know where I'd start." He admits with a soft scoff and a slight shake of his head. Diego wasn't really good at... doing things for himself, not like that. He notices the sudden, nervous fidgeting and he frowns a little, confused at what might be causing it. "Oh, yeah, you used to, didn't you? Like- when we were kids?"

Klaus knows Diego well enough to know that the words sound flippant but the meaning behind them is very real. Smiling a little, he pats Diego's leg again and then draws his hand back, wrapping his arms loosely around his raised knees and starts fiddling with a scrape in the leather of his pants, at the knee. Digging his blunt nail into the scrape, he purses his lips a little, then stops before he can do more damage.

Diego is saying cooking isn't a bad place to start, but then goes on to say that he doesn't know where he would start, and Klaus snorts.

"Tell me about it. I mean, what do you do for fun? Work out? Uh..." A shrug, and he laughs nervously when Diego asks about Klaus drawing when they were kids, "Uh, yeah sort of. I drew on my walls and stuff, mostly when I was high, but it keeps my hands busy, you know? So I don't do anything stupid."

"Yeah, yeah... I know. I'm boring." He smirks a little, glancing back at Klaus over his shoulder. "I don't-- I haven't... done fun in...awhile." He could mostly pinpoint the last time he let himself actually do something fun, and he doesn't particularly want to think about it right now, either.

"Yeah, I remember, your walls were always just--" he makes a vague waving motion with one hand. "covered with... stuff. What was it were always writing on the walls anyway?" A beat passes and there's a sudden heaviness pressed into the air between them as a thought occurs to him. "Was it- was it them?" The ghosts, but he doesn't think he has to specify.

"You're not boring, I mean, I've always thought if you'd do anything other than cracking skulls, you'd be a really great time. But you never party or anything, it's laaaame." he says, shrugging narrow shoulders and biting at a hangnail at the corner of his index fingernail.

"I mean, like I said, I mostly did that when I was high, half of it doesn't make any sense, the stuff I wrote, but the art part was fun."

A few more moments of biting at his fingernail before he finally speaks again, "What do you mean, was it them?"

"Really?" He tilts his head a little to the side, curiosity spilling across his face. "And what, exactly, did you ever picture me doing to be 'a really great time'?" This should be interesting-- if Klaus actually answers and doesn't dither himself right out of answering, because he thinks Diego will take something he says wrong.

"I think you should give it a go-- getting back into the art stuff." He smiles a little, but it fades when Klaus asks for the clarification on that last part. He rolls one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "Just-- I dunno, I always kinda thought maybe some of it was stuff the ghosts told you." He knows it isn't exactly a subject Klaus loves to talk about, and he drops his voice a little quieter, like if he's softer in his explanation it might lessen the blow of having to talk about something he hates.

"Oh, I don't know, you're like, the only sibling with a sense of humour, besides me. I would totally go to karaoke with you, or a show. I bet you'd be killer in a mosh pit."

Klaus' eyes brighten when he talks about it, and he's grinning a little as he looks over at his brother. For once, he's not really worrying about offending Diego because he's not really talking about anything that involves drugs or drinking or anything, even if all the suggestions he'd offered were totally better with alcohol or drugs.

But then Diego changes the subject, back to the art and the stuff on his walls and how that was related to ghosts, and suddenly Klaus has his hands up by his mouth again, chewing the corner of his fingernail, where the black nail polish is chipped off, and he closes his eyes for a moment.

"Yeah yeah yeah, some of it was." he admits, and he shrugs, and when he speaks again there's his usual put on affected voice, "Would you believe me if I told you the stuff that makes the most sense was totally the ghosts?"

"Karaoke, huh?" His eyebrows lift in an amused manner, a smirk on his lips at the idea of it. Maybe if their lives had been more normal... "Concerts are fun, I couldn't tell you the last one I went to, though." He really was awful at getting out, and doing things for the sake of enjoyment.

The shift in Klaus' demeanor is so snap-quick, it would be jarring if Diego didn't know to expect it. As it is, he did know, and it just makes his heart sink to witness. He manages a half-hearted smirk at the question, and that voice. He wonders how many people think that's really just how he talks, how many don't realize how much of Klaus is a play act.

"Have you had any- you know, problems with it, here? You've been sober, right, so..." he can't hide the concern from his face or his voice. "I mean, it's okay, right? You're okay?"

Edited 2019-09-08 12:37 (UTC)

"Oh, I've been to a few, or at least I was before the whole...apocalypse thing." he says, breathing the last two out words on a deep sigh, "It's easy to scramble up the money for a cover charge, way easier to get myself supplied for the night with whatever was available."

A moment after he's said it, he realizes who he's saying it to, and drops his head back to thump against the wall, "Sorry, sorry sorry sorry, that's not what...that isn't what I meant about wanting to do with you, just...that was what it was last time I went, and..."

Dropping his hands to his sides, he sighs deeply, eyes sinking shut, "Yeah. There's ghosts here, and I've been sober, so of course I have problems with it. There aren't as many as at home, thank Christ, but they're worse, somehow, they're glitchy and they...you know, they flicker, like bad TV signal and they don't scream but they follow me around and...it's fucked, Diego. It's just fucked."

He sees that regret at his words the instant it hits Klaus' face and his heart sinks. That's his fault, he knows it is. Klaus shouldn't have to be so... ashamed and self-conscious of what he says, constantly worried about Diego's judgements of him. Diego can't really help how he sees things, this situation has been going on for so long it's hard not to let those past moments influence his current opinions. Doesn't mean he doesn't feel bad about it-- but... how does he even say that? He doesn't know.

"It's okay, Klaus." he says quietly, "I... I know that... I mean, I know that a lot of your stories from before are- are gonna involve that stuff, it's... okay. You don't have to feel bad for talking about it."

When he talks about the ghosts, it's... hard. The way he just nearly curls in on himself, tries to shrink away and disappear just for it being brought to the front of his mind. Diego doesn't like being the reason his brother looks like that. "Do they talk to you? Ever- say anything useful at all?" He doesn't mean to take that Number Two position suddenly-- Leader in Luther's absence, practicality over emotions, breaking everything into missions. It just happens.

It just seems like the wrong time to mention his particular memories about going to clubs and getting high and seeing shows. They're good memories, at least the ones he can remember, but he knows how Diego feels about how he'd been then. Diego had freaked out today because he thought Klaus was going back to being like that, and now he's just reminded him of that and they're going to fight again and...

Oh. Diego is saying it's okay, that he doesn't mind if Klaus talks about it.

"Oh...oh okay, okay...yeah..." he mumbles, glancing down at his own knees. Lifting a hand, he bites at his fingernail again, and exhales, wraps his arms around his raised knees, as if making himself smaller would keep him safer from the ghosts, the monsters that are all around him like some kind of fucked up horror movie.

"I mean...no, no not really. I can't understand half of it anyway, it's all..." He lifts one hand, enough to gesture vaguely toward the side, "Garbled up, like with static and microphone feedback."

Diego is a plethora of contradictions, which is probably part of what makes it so hard for Klaus to talk to him at times. Sometimes, he goes off at the drop of a hat, others it's... this attempted sense of understanding, even when he doesn't actually understand at all. It's an amalgam of flip-flopping that makes interactions confusing, only made worse by that idea of trying to be better already so drilled into the undercurrent of everything he's doing, from his short time in the other place, conversations he'd had. Watching Allison, and the way she was trying so hard to mend things with Vanya. He could do that, couldn't he?

He nods a little at the explanation. "Right... yeah, that's..." he frowns a little. "Weird. Something about this place inferring, I guess?" He's doing it again and he silently curses himself for it. He shakes his head a little, "We can talk about something else."

Diego is...well, he's unpredictable, and that's why it's sometimes hard to open up to him. He's easier than most of the others, but Klaus feels like he can never quite tell if Diego's gonna be pissed at him or sympathetic for half of what he says to him. Sometimes, he's just not in a place where he can deal with that. Sometimes, Diego makes him feel so damn safe and sometimes so angry he just blurts shit out like he had earlier about the oxy.

Swallowing hard, he glances over at his brother as Diego asks if maybe something is interfering with them, that it's weird, and then says they can talk about something else. Staring into space, Klaus shakes his head, pushes his fingertips against his mouth for a moment while he tries to figure out how to say what's going through his head. Everything is still swimming a bit from being around the algae stuff, and Diego is unpredictable, Klaus feels a little on edge.

But Diego is trying.

"No...no no, man, it's okay. You know...it's been a really long time since. You know since any of you have talked to me about them. The ghosts. I never really felt like you guys took it seriously, like...I thought...they figure I'm just a junkie because I'm a coward, not because there's..."

He trails off and waves a hand, still just staring ahead of himself, "You know, it gets really bad. Did I ever tell you what they looked like back home?"

"You sure?" He presses a little more when Klaus says it's okay, because it doesn't exactly feel okay. Or maybe that's his own unease? It's hard to tell, sometimes. "I did." He admits quietly, biting his lip slightly. "I mean- I always kind of felt like...drugs were a coward's way out. That if you could stop being so scared of it, you could control it more." He's not completely sure that's right, but it's true, at least to his own assumptions for all these years. The honesty stings, but it's better than not admitting, isn't it?

He shakes his head a little. "No, I don't think so."

klaus hargreeves 👻 ic inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject