Chapter Text
Five stands up in the middle of lunch on a Tuesday when they’re all thirteen.
Klaus watches absently, more focused on the blunt he’s rolling under the table rather than the familiar routine of Five’s superiority complex battling against their father’s iron clad fist.
Looking around the table only Vanya seems to care about the disruption, watching her favorite brother with her wide eyes, shaking her head to discourage him.
Luther is looking at Allison and Allison is looking at her nails. Diego is digging his name into the wood of the table and Ben is reading the newest book Pogo had given him just that morning.
Klaus rolls his blunt and watches lazily as Five storms out of the room and out the front doors of the Academy, ignoring their father’s shout for him to come back and Vanya’s quiet little whisper of his name.
Five doesn’t come back after that.
A month passes, then two, then three. The rest of them pretty much have to accept that wherever Five went he was gone for good.
A painting of his smug little face gets hung up over the mantle in the living room and Klaus shoots it the bird every time he passes.
Vanya seems to be the only one holding out hope that he’ll come back. Klaus wakes up often in the middle of the night- usually to nightmares of the screaming dead clawing at his face- and when he wanders around he finds brightly lit rooms and overly sweet sandwiches by all the doors.
It’s kind of depressing, really.
Around month seven- and isn’t that fitting- Vanya doesn’t come down for dinner, and their father informs them all in his cold, impassive voice that little Number Seven has fallen ill, and will be quarantined until she’s better.
This isn’t strange, they usually spent sick days quarantined in their rooms, and Vanya got sick a lot. She was so frail, it seemed. Klaus remembers a solid week of her being gone when they were four.
(Something about that tickles at the back of his brain, a steady itch, a shiver of feeling or memory. Remember, it whispers, remember before).
That night they all wake up to the whole house shaking for one brief, terrifying moment. The stolen bottles of nail polish on his desk fall and shatter, the clothes in his wardrobe fall to the floor, the frames on his wall swing back and forth.
They all rush down to the living room, passing broken glass and felled portraits the whole way through the house.
Luther’s suit is only half on, pulled up to his waist and his boots on the wrong feet. Allison’s still in her pajamas, only wearing her mask while she yawns. Diego is the only one fully suited up, though instead of one of his knives he’s wielding an uncapped marker. Ben, still entirely in his pajamas, looks like he’s fallen asleep while standing up.
Klaus drops onto the couch, as prepared as Ben is, and lets himself doze quietly until their Mom, and Pogo come in and assure them it was only a minor earthquake. So they all go back to bed and forget about it.
Vanya still isn’t back by the end of the week, and Klaus is kind of starting to get worried.
None of them have ever been dangerously sick before. At least not to warrant so long away.
Klaus has never spent much time with the littlest one of them. The only one that had ever hung around her growing up had been Five, but he’s also the only one who never really seemed to care what dad thought about what he was doing.
But Klaus did like Vanya. She was quiet and nice and she was very good at the violin.
He liked to sit against their shared wall and listen to her play for hours, the sound so much louder than the ghosts that scream at him.
Sometimes he thinks he’d like to learn an instrument too, to play alongside her, start a little band and do that instead of whatever dad has planned for them.
A week turns to two, and still no sign of Vanya.
Allison, one of the braver of them all, asks their father one night before bed if she’s alright. She doesn’t really get an answer, and that makes something inside of Klaus twist nervously.
Seventeen days after Vanya was quarantined Klaus finally sees her.
Her door has been open since she left, and Klaus is passing by at the end of the day, on his way to his room to get changed for bed when he hears her sobbing.
He peers in cautiously and finds her curled up in a small ball on top of her bed, back to the door as she hugs her knees to her chest and cries.
Klaus looks around the hallway before stepping in, closing the door halfway behind him, “Vanya?” he whispers, “You ok?”
That just makes her cry harder, “Klaus… I’m sorry.” She sobs, repeating the phrase over and over like a mantra.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
“Hey it’s ok. What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything.” He sits on the end of her bed, a careful distance from her, not sure if he should reach out and hug her.
Vanya shakes apart before his eyes, “I don’t know where else to go….” She chokes out
Klaus frowns at her. Where else to go? Where else would she go? Why would she be anywhere but here?
Vanya slowly uncurls and finally turns to face him.
She’s still in her pajamas, though they’re dirty now, like they haven’t been taken off in weeks. They hang loose off her frame now, sagging drastically instead of perfectly tailored. She looks at him, tear tracks stained into her skin, eyes red rimmed and blood shot, sunken into her face. Her skin is pale and stretched paper thin over her bones, from her hollow cheeks to her protruding collar bone to her clearly visible wrists. She’s emaciated, like she’ hasn’t eaten in weeks.
There’s blood trailing down the side of her face, from a crack in her skull that splits apart the tangled, matted mess of her unwashed hair.
Vanya was dead.
“Number Four.”
He turns around and Reginald Hargreeves is standing in the doorway to Vanya’s room, face twisted in a scowl.
Klaus stares at him and then at Vanya, at the way she flinched back and clenched her fists. “You killed her.” He says, and it comes out as barely a whisper.
The old man sneers, “Come with me. We need to talk.”
He doesn’t wait, he just reaches in and grabs Klaus by the wrist, yanking him out of her room and through the house to his office, slamming the heavy door shut behind them. Vanya has followed them, standing quietly in the corner, glaring black death at their father.
Their father who had killed her.
Klaus knows the man doesn’t love them, that he never has, and that he never will. But this, the fact that he could kill one of them….
“You killed her…” he says again, louder this time, and clenches his fists behind his back.
The old man sits at his desk, hands clasped together, scowl firm as he looks down at Klaus, his greatest disappointment. “What happened with Number Seven was… unexpected. And as I am sure you are to hear of it eventually, your sister has abilities, just like the rest of you.”
Klaus looks over to Vanya who has slowly moved forward to stand beside him, fists clenched and shaking. “He made Allison rumor me….” She hisses, and Klaus gasps.
Their father, not hearing this, continues, “She was… uncontrollable. Her emotions got the best of her, so I saw fit to have her abilities dampened.”
“He drugged me!” She says, mouth twisting in a snarl
“And with Number Five’s absence I thought it high time she finally learn to control them. She was however, still emotional.”
“I was scared!” she screams at their father’s impassive face, though he can’t hear her at all, “I was confused and angry and you- you just drugged me again!”
Klaus remembers the whole house shaking that first night. Was that Vanya? Was that her power?
“I had thought perhaps more time alone would calm her childishness, but she remained unwilling to cooperate. She attacked Grace.”
“He made her force those pills down my throat! What was I supposed to do?” Vanya shrieks counterpoint
“And then she refused to eat.”
“He wouldn’t bring me food!”
“Finally, this afternoon, she tripped, and due to the hunger was weak, and hit her head.”
“He hit me.” She snarls, “Because I refused to become one of his little soldiers. And I fell into those stupid spikes.”
Klaus feels like he might throw up.
“Now, Number Four, is she here now?”
Klaus looks to Vanya, crying beside him with eyes full of rage. He swallows and nods.
“Good.” Hargreeves says, pulling out his notebook, “I am sure that as we progress with your abilities you will able to summon her and make use of her own powers.”
Klaus’s heart stops. He wants him to… control Vanya? Even though she’s dead? He looks to his sister, her eyes wide, horrified.
“Please Klaus… please don’t…” she begs, shaking again, “I don’t want to…”
Klaus swallows, closing his eyes sharply and digging his nails into his palm. He lets out a deep breath, and snaps his eyes open, forcing his face into an expression of surprise, “Vanya!” he shouts, trying to sound startled, confused.
“Klaus? What are you doing? I’m right here!” Vanya yells, shaking harder.
Klaus makes a production of looking around the office, “Vanya? Vanya?”
“Number Four? What is the meaning of this? What’s happening?” Reginald snaps, sitting up straight, eyes narrowed.
“It’s Vanya she… she just vanished in some- some kind of light. I think she moved on.”
He makes direct eye contact with his sister and winks. She relaxes, and a look of wonder takes over her face.
“What do you mean? Summon her back!”
Klaus grits his teeth, “No.” he snaps, “If she wants to leave this stupid Academy and get as far away from your ugly, evil face then good for her!”
Reginald Hargreeves stands suddenly, storming around his desk to grab Klaus by the arm, “Insolent boy. Perhaps you need additional training to remind you of your place.”
Klaus pales, twisting and writhing as his father drags him out of the office and down the courtyard, tossing him bodily into the mausoleum so that he lands in a heap, “You will spend the rest of the night here, Number Four. And you will not speak of this to your siblings. One word and I can guarantee you much worse than this.”
Then the door slams shut and locks, and Klaus is alone.
Or, not alone, as a moment later Vanya appears beside him, curled up with her knees to her chest as she stares at him, horrified, “He locks you in here?”
Klaus nods, slamming his hands over his ears as the screaming starts up. Ghosts start crawling out of their graves, literally crawling in some cases, the ghost with his legs ripped of dragging himself across the floor to get to Klaus.
“KLAUS!” they scream, “HELP US!” they start to press in close, gory faces stretched wide in horrible screams, wailing and sobbing around him.
“They’re so loud…” Vanya whimpers, “Are they always like this?”
“Yeah…” he whimpers, flinching back when Screaming Susan flails her arms through his body and keeps screaming.
“Stop it!” Vanya says, standing quickly to shove at the woman. Screaming Susan backs up a few steps, and then starts screaming at Vanya, “Leave him alone!” she yells back, and she stands in front of Klaus, as if blocking him from the other ghosts.
Klaus looks up at her, eyes wide. A harsh wind is blowing Vanya’s hair all around her, the ghosts too, all of them backing up rapidly. He doesn’t feel so much as a light breeze.
“Vanya…”
“Go away!” Vanya demands, stomping her foot. The wind around her forms into a barrier, a flash of light that pushes out of her and into the horde of ghosts, forcing them backwards, all of them scrambling away from her, pressing into the far corners of the mausoleum, the weaker ones vanishing in a blink.
Klaus gapes, eyes wide, “How did you do that?” he asks, looking up at his little sister standing over him.
Vanya stares at her hands, “I… I think that’s my power… It has to do with sound.” She comes back to sit by him, pressing so close that her knee passes through his, a spike of cold where the touch should be.
He swallows, staring out at the ghosts. They’re still there, they’re always there, but now they’re quiet, distant. Afraid.
“Thank you.” He whispers, starting to shake.
Vanya stares at him, eyes so wide, and it’s hard to look at her, to see her so thin and skeletal. Vanya had always been a chubby-cheeked kid, all round and soft, her big eyes fit perfectly on her baby smooth face. But now she’s all sunken and frail looking, her eyes practically bulging out of her skull. Blood is still oozing down the side of her head.
“You’re welcome.” She says softly
He breathes slowly. He’s never been able to breath in here before. For the first time the walls don’t feel like they’re closing in, like he’s suffocating.
“Wanna play I spy?”
++
He’s finally let out the next morning, bright and early, the sun just starting to rise. It’s one of the longest nights he’s ever spent in the mausoleum but definitely the best.
Vanya had kept the ghosts at bay all night long, and they’d talked quietly about how awful their father was and about what had happened downstairs in the basement for the last nearly three weeks.
By the time old man Reginald finally lets him out to go change and get ready, the rest of his siblings are already at the breakfast table, eating their morning oatmeal quietly.
Klaus sinks into his seat, shoveling food quickly into his mouth. Vanya stands awkwardly in the corner of the room, watching their siblings eat and their mother mill about the kitchen cleaning up dishes.
A moment later their father steps into the room and they all freeze.
Breakfast was the one meal they had to themselves. It was still meant to be eaten in silence, but it wasn’t heavily enforced. Their father usually didn’t come down from his office until eight am for their first training session of the day.
He looks around slowly, eyes narrowed, and glares for an extra second at Klaus before he clears his throat, “Children. Last night Number Seven ran away. Let this be a warning to you all, that I shall not tolerate any more foolishness from the rest of you. Understood?”
They all gape. Klaus ducks his head and glares at his oatmeal.
“Ran away?” Allison finally gasps, standing halfway from her chair, “Where did she go?”
“Unimportant.” The man snaps, glaring at Three, who drops back down into her seat. “I expect you all to be on time to training despite this.” Then he turns and marches out.
Everyone starts talking at once, whispering quietly about Vanya and Five and running away.
Klaus stays silent, refusing to look at the others or at Vanya, hunched in on herself in the corner.
++
Life goes on for all of them except Vanya. Klaus watches his siblings carefully, wondering when they’ll figure it out themselves, but keeps his mouth firmly shut on the matter.
He’s not going to bring his father’s rage down on him again.
Allison seems to be taking their sister’s ‘disappearance’ the hardest, which Klaus finds strange because she never much spent time with Vanya before. Maybe it was a girls thing, now that Allison was the only one, but Klaus often found her staring into Vanya’s bedroom with such sad eyes, or whispering quietly to Luther about going to find her when they were older.
Diego isn’t too happy either, though Klaus suspects that’s more due to the fact that he blames himself for Vanya running away. He was never nice to Vanya, not because he didn’t like her but because he was afraid that letting her get too close would get her hurt. Dad had already made Diego throw his knives at Mom and Klaus and Ben for practice, he didn’t want quiet, unprotected little Vanya in the line of fire either.
Luther pretends nothing is wrong, same as with Five. That this is all part of Dad’s plan and the two ‘runaways’ were imperfect, lazy and worthless to their grand goal.
Ben mopes around for a little while, reading his books slower than usual because he keeps getting distracted. He’d said some harsh things to Vanya, they all had, but Ben had always appreciated how quiet she was in this madhouse. Ben is allowed three new books a week, courtesy of Pogo, and he’s always hoarded them. After Five disappeared he got two books for himself and the third on something their brother would like, leaving them in stacks on his floor. Now he only gets one for himself, one for Five, adding to the ever growing tower, and now one for Vanya, musical theory and history and sheet music that starts stacking up on her bed.
Klaus watches them all and he watches Vanya, her eyes too wide on her sallow face, so sad and angry all at once.
It isn’t fair.
++
He tries, exactly once, to tell someone about it.
He goes to Ben one afternoon after their lecture, the both of them headed towards the upstairs library to do their homework.
He hesitantly brings up Vanya’s disappearance, what Ben thought about it, where he thinks Vanya would go, especially since she wasn’t prepared.
If she was sick for so long, how could she run away?
Ben frowns, considering, but before he can answer Pogo appears in the doorway with his deep frown and informs them that their father has summoned Klaus to his office.
He goes.
He’s not sure how the man found out about it, if he’s watching him on the cameras of just has some kind of ESP about this, but he knows.
He isn’t happy.
Klaus’ jaw doesn’t break like it did when he took his tumble down the stairs two years ago, but the ugly black bruise oozing blood hurts like a bitch every time he moves so he’s not sure this is much better.
He doesn’t even get pain killers.
Vanya cries miserably as he sits in his room- sent there without dinner as a second part to his punishment- and Klaus stares at his reflection.
Who knew a walking cane to the face could hurt so much?
++
Klaus wakes up one morning and finds Vanya hovering in the doorway to her room, staring at her violin with such a desperate longing it makes Klaus himself ache.
The house had become so quiet without her playing to fill it up. Klaus hadn’t really realized just how big and lonely this house was until it was silent.
He stands behind her and looks over her shoulder into her bedroom, at the little violin leant against the wall and the small stack of books on her bed.
“Think you could teach me?” he asks quietly, face carefully turned away from the cameras.
Vanya spins quickly to stare at him, wide-eyed, “What?”
“Violin. I think I’d make a decent player.”
A tiny smile lights her face, and she nods emphatically.
That afternoon, during their thirty minutes of allotted free time, Klaus and Vanya sneak up to the attic, where there are no cameras or microphones and where the sound proofing is marginally better, and they stand by the window.
Klaus holds Vanya’s violin as carefully as he can as his little sister directs him on how to position it on his shoulder, under his chin, where to put his fingers and how to hold the bow. Then she teaches him how to tune it, teaches him the chords and the difference between strings, how to move the bow to get new sounds, how best to maneuver his fingers.
They don’t end up playing that afternoon, or the next two either. They just stand there, in the dimly lit attic, as Vanya teaches him the basics until he can recite them from memory. They both know they only have one shot at this turning out right.
On the fourth day Klaus finally puts bow to string in an awful, screeching noise that makes Vanya wince and Klaus grin madly.
“Hey, you did the same when you first started!” he reminds her, “We share a wall! I heard!”
She giggles a little, shaking her head, and starts telling him what to do.
Five minutes into their little practice session the door bursts open and Reginald Hargreeves stands there, glaring at him.
“What is the meaning of this Number Four?” he snaps, eyes narrowed on the violin.
Klaus just smirks, setting the instrument carefully back in its case next to the stacks of books he’d brought up as he turns fully to face his father, “I thought I’d learn to play. No one else is using it after all.”
The old man’s eye twitches. “You will cease this nonsense at once. You are not permitted-“
“I could always tell the others why Vanya didn’t take her violin with her.” Klaus cuts in, glaring at the man though his smirk doesn’t so much as shift.
There’s a very small chance this actually works, and honestly even if it does he’ll still probably spend the night in the crypt but… But he’s going to do this. For Vanya.
The two of them stare each other down, the old man stern and furious and Klaus determined and firm.
At length the man straightens his spine, “Very well then. Perhaps music lessons will help to focus you, Number Four. But remember this boy,” he snarls, “Do not threaten me.”
Klaus does spend the night in the mausoleum. But Vanya is there, grinning wider than he’s ever seen her, keeping the ghosts at bay with the happy, excited wind swirling around her. So that’s ok.
++
Their music lessons continue, but now the old man has given him a set time and a room to practice in. Right before bed, while the rest of his siblings are reading books of their choosing, Klaus gets to learn the violin.
Sometimes Pogo or Mom will join him, Pogo’s eyes full of guilt and sorrow as he offers critiques and helpful advice, giving Klaus a physical hand in tuning the instrument that Vanya can’t provide. Mom is always happy to listen, praising him endlessly for each little improvement and making sad little comments about how beautifully he and Vanya would have played together.
His siblings come by, occasionally. Ben mostly, whose lip wobbles when he demands to know why Klaus is doing this. Klaus only tells him that he wants to impress Vanya and Ben refuses to meet his eye and comments on her liking it when she ‘gets back’. Klaus keeps his mouth shut.
Allison yells at him the first time, for touching Vanya’s violin and stealing her thing. She refuses to speak to him for weeks. But she’s also the one he always finds sitting outside his practice room, listening attentively with her eyes closed, like she’s still listening to Vanya.
Diego winces whenever he hears the sound, even when Klaus starts getting good enough that it no longer screeches. But he does compliment Klaus’ talent and promises to make sure dad doesn’t take the thing away.
Luther says nothing. He just frowns, glares at Klaus, and moves on.
Vanya loves it. She’s so happy now, teaching Klaus to play. She laughs a lot more than he can remember her doing their whole lives, as he cracks jokes through practice and makes silly faces at her. She still misses being able to play on her own, he knows, but just hearing the music has her dancing happily around the room, wind blowing her hair around her, and she laughs.
++
Klaus is sixteen the first, and last time he overdoses.
He’s shaking and tired and the ghosts are screaming and he feels bad, so bad, that little Vanya is stuck with him, is stuck watching him, that she’s dead and he’s alive and he’s worthless and nothing and stupid and-
He takes a pill in the bath that night. And then two. And then five. Around pill eight Vanya disappears along with the others.
Around pill twelve he blacks out, head slipping under the water as he floats in that hazy, perfect place of nothingness.
He wakes up the next morning in the infirmary hooked up to an IV with mom’s worried face hovering over him. Luther had been the one to find him, having burst open the bathroom door when water had started leaking under the door.
He’d also told their father, so Klaus expects another mausoleum trip is in his future.
Mom leaves the room to get him something to eat and Klaus turns slowly to find Vanya standing next to his bed, tears streaming down her face.
“Don’t do that again.” She begs, hands shaking. She’s still fourteen, she’ll always be fourteen, always skeletal with her eyes bulging and blood pouring down her face.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, voice hoarse
“Don’t leave me.” She begs, hands reaching out as if to touch him but they pass through his arm, leaving cold patches in her wake.
“I won’t.” he promises, and closes his eyes.
“I’ll keep the ghosts away.” She cries, “I’ll work harder so… so please….”
He can’t leave Vanya. She needs him. He needs to stop this.
“It’s ok Van. It’s ok.”
++
Klaus is sixteen and he’s been sober for four months now, since his overdose.
It’s… not fun. The ghosts are so much louder and angrier than when he was a child, but with Vanya around at least it’s easier to push them away.
It’s bedtime now, and Klaus is changing out of the baggy lounge clothes he’d gotten himself instead of the stupid uniform when he notices Vanya hovering the in the corner of his room.
She’s still in her pajamas, the ones they wore when they were younger, that awful blue and white, perfectly tailored monstrosity that hangs off her skeletal frame.
Klaus looks down at the sweatshirt he’d thrown on the floor, sadness rushing through him. She’d be so much more comfortable in it, so much happier in something soft and warm. It’d probably be more of a dress on her small frame, would practically swallow her up. But she’d love it.
He lays down, closing his eyes. And that’s all he can see, little Vanya smiling, all wrapped up in his baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants. He falls asleep thinking of slumber parties and makeovers and Vanya.
He wakes up to Vanya screeching in his ear, “Klaus! Klaus wake up!”
He groans, rolling over slowly to fix his sister with a grumpy glare, “What?” he whines
Vanya is grinning, eyes so wide, “How did you do it!” she asks, more excited than he’s heard her since they started learning the violin.
He blinks blearily at her, still half asleep, “Do wha?”
She stands up straight, spinning in a circle and gesturing to herself dramatically- a gesture she’s very much picked up from him.
Klaus blinks a few more times and then shoots up in bed because Holy Shit!
Vanya is in his sweatshirt and sweatpants. The ones he’d been thinking about last night. One look confirms both articles of clothing are still crumpled on his floor but… But Vanya is definitely wearing them now.
“How’d you do it?” she asks again, grinning.
He shrugs, “I have no idea….” He frowns staring at her, “Van, come her, I wanna try something.
She jumps up onto his bed, the sheets not even ruffling under her as she sits criss-cross in front of him.
He mirrors her position, hands on his knees, taking a deep breath as he closes his eyes.
He thinks of Vanya before, of Vanya and her chubby cheeks, her round little face, her big dark eyes and her hair framing her face. Her fingers wrapped around the violin, the way she swayed to the music, the soft little smile whenever anyone spoke to her.
Vanya gasps, “Klaus..”
The way she glared whenever they had oatmeal for breakfast. The pout on her lips that puffed her face up. The way she shuffled her feet when she was nervous and dug her bare toes into the carpet. The longing on her face when they went out on missions, the peanut butter on her cheek when she made Five sandwiches, the indignant anger when any of them ended up in the infirmary after practice. The tiny little laugh she let out when Klaus was being dramatic.
He opens his eyes slowly, hoping, half-afraid.
Vanya sits across from him, the Vanya he used to know. The Vanya he remembers being alive. She grins, cheeks full and round, hands lost in the fabric of his sweatshirt. Her hair is smooth again, not matted and dirty, the blood gone, the crack in her skull closed. She looks alive.
“Vanya…”
She reaches out to him, her hand phasing through his shoulder, comforting in its cold familiarity, “You did it… Thank you Klaus.”
He grins at her, wishing desperately to hug her, and he laughs.
++
Of course nothing good ever lasts. Not for them.
Klaus and the others are nineteen, Vanya is still fourteen, and everything is crumbling.
Diego had left a few months prior, had just packed up all his things and gone to join the police academy under a fake name with a fake ID Klaus had gotten him when they were sixteen.
Thing had been rocky for a while, shaky. Luther had been lording over all of them without Diego to get in his face. Allison was already pulling away. Ben and Klaus were sitting in silence, trying to ignore their father’s harsh words.
And then Klaus wakes up one morning to Vanya sobbing miserably, curled up in a heap on his floor.
She hasn’t sobbed like this since the first year she died so Klaus immediately jumps up, legs tangling in the sheets as he rushes to her side.
“Van? Van what’s wrong?”
“Klaus?”
His head snaps up, eyes widening.
Ben is standing in his room. Ben who was supposed to be in London on a mission with Luther. Ben whose uniform is ripped and bloody, whose hair is plastered to his face with sweat and blood, whose chest is ripped open in an awful, gory mess of guts.
“No….” he gasps, dropping heavily onto the floor, “No Ben…”
Ben stares at him, and then at Vanya, and then he starts to sob.
Vanya is still wailing, and with Ben’s cries Klaus can hardly hear himself think. That old urge to be numb again is crawling under his skin, the urge to lose himself, but he doesn’t. He just closes his eyes, slams his hands over his ears, and screams.
++
Klaus leaves the Academy two weeks later. After a week in the infirmary being sedated to calm him and another night in the mausoleum for screaming at his father when they return.
Luther had been so still and quiet, eyes wide and pained and guilty. He doesn’t speak to Klaus, doesn’t look at him. Just sits in his room, blaring his music through the house, and does nothing.
Allison is already packing her bags when Klaus gets to leave the infirmary. He’s sure she’ll be gone within the week as well. She got a job offer as an actress in LA and Klaus wonders what she had to say to get it.
Klaus doesn’t take the time to think about what he’s going to do. He packs up his comfiest clothes, the violin, and as much cash and shiny objects as he can get his hands on between his room and the front door.
He’s lost three siblings now, though he’s pretty sure Five at the very least is alive.
He’s lost quiet little Vanya and shy little Ben and he can’t… he won’t die for that man.
“Where are we going?” Vanya asks, trailing nervously behind him. She’s never left the house, not even after her death.
“Don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”
Ben is still staring silently at Vanya. He’d been furious, when he’d found out the truth, and then he’d cried some more. Once Klaus had managed to make him look less like a walking horror movie monster he’d immediately pulled little Vanya into a hug and held her tight.
Klaus is glad. Finally, Vanya has someone to hold her. He’s never been able to figure out how to do it.
He wanders the city until he’s far enough away from the Academy to get a hotel. His fake ID says his name is Clyde Harris, and that’s who he’s going to be from now on.
They’re going to be ok. He’ll figure out something.