[open] i'm high, broke, searching for symbols

[substances]

Who: Klaus Hargreeves; OTA
What: just a catch-all for some threads that don't fit in the intro log and an open prompt (might add more later)
When: month of July
Where: various
Warnings: definitely drug use or thoughts of drug use; anything else tba in the subject lines



👻 aspiring horticulturist

It had taken Klaus approximately four days to completely run out of the weed he'd had in his pocket when he came from Hadriel. But since he's not really the type to run rescue missions and doesn't have the technical know-how to fix computers, he's mostly been wandering around the city trying to figure out what he actually can do. Trying to keep his mind occupied now that he doesn't have pot to turn to, trying to keep his mind off the painkillers in his bag back in his room.

When he makes his way to the upper levels, he lifts the bottom of his shirt to hold it over his mouth and nose, because the air up here is awful, and he pokes around a little bit, determined to check out what's going on and get the hell out of here. At least, until he finds the horticultural area. There's a computer there, the screen cracked and flickering, but it seems to be at least a little bit functional. Klaus doesn't know computers, but he's been using a phone since he arrived in Hadriel and that's like a month and a half of experience, so he heads over to the terminal, tapping at buttons under the screen until he figures out which one scrolls through the files of what kind of plants are stored here.

When he hears a sound behind him, he turns halfway to the side, glancing over his shoulder.

"Oh hey, do you know anything about computers?"

Comments

👻 for julie: and whole days turn into holes in my mind

[substances]

Part of him feels like he's going stir-crazy, there's too much going on in his head and not enough at the same time, and the ghosts here are so fucked up he can't ignore them as well. Especially not after getting used to the Hosts that he'd seen in Hadriel. Awful, but somehow a little less horrifying since they weren't really human. Most of the ghosts here are human, but they're shattered and glitchy and wrong. And somehow they still know his name.

When he wakes up from another nightmare to the sound of his own voice whimpering, sits up with a yelp and then slaps his hand over his face, goes still as he hears Ben or Diego shift in their beds, holding his breath, he knows he has to do something. It's dark and he's alone and he's fucking up his brothers' sleep and he doesn't think either of them would be happy to have him in their bed right now. So he slides out of his bunk and slips on his sandals, heads out the door and down the hallway.

Shirtless, in just a pair of pink knee-length sweatpants and his sandals, he knocks on Julie's door, then leans against the wall, eyes half-closed, running his hand back through his hair.

[redwinekindofgirl]

She's getting used to being on her own again. This place is quieter than Hadriel was, and the room she has is smaller, feeling all the emptier for it. Julie is awake and doodling something on a piece of scrap paper when the knock falls on the door, and she answers it with no small measure of suspicion (she feels she has the right to be suspicious, somewhere like this).

But it's just Klaus. It's just Klaus, and he doesn't look... great.

"Hey," Julie says, frowning in slight concern and immediately reaching out to grasp his wrist. "You look like shit. What's wrong?"

[substances]

Of course she has reason to be suspicious, but Klaus isn't in a great state of mind to think of something like that and announce himself. He's going to see Julie, and it's such a familiar thing that he doesn't even really consider how knocking on her door in the middle of the night might be just a little bit unnerving.

When she answers the door, looks up at him and frowns, reaches for his hand and takes his wrist, asks him what's wrong, and he laughs breathlessly.

"Oh my god, so much. Can I come in?"

[redwinekindofgirl]

Who else would it be knocking on her door in the middle of the night? She doesn't know too many people here, so barring someone being lost it would only ever be Klaus. When he asks to come in her face softens, and she gives his arm a soft tug.

"Yeah, come on, get in here."

She shuts the door once he's through it, and gets him a glass of water without the question being asked. Some things, you just know to do in a situation like this.

"Okay. Talk to me."

[substances]

Klaus follows Julie into her room and watches as she shuts the door behind them. As she gets a glass of water, he looks around to see if there are any ghosts in her room - there aren't, at least not right now, and the relief is almost dizzying.

When she hands him the glass, he takes a couple sips, and nods, sits down on the edge of her bed, and rubs a hand over her face.

"The ghosts here are really fucking with my head. And my brother Diego came from some other world before this where I was a dick, and he was mad at me, and I don't think he thinks it counts that I was sober in Hadriel because I didn't have the option to be. And when I went to the MedBay for my shoulder the bots there gave me a bunch of painkillers I definitely shouldn't have and they're still in my bag, and I don't know what to do."

It's rambled out at a relatively high speed, and then he pauses, gulps a mouthful of water, and swallows, eyes on her.

[killedwithlove]

Cole can help, some of the time, but he's not very technologically minded (at all) and given that he doesn't eat or sleep, he tends to wander a lot.

He's in the area when he realises Klaus is about and he drifts over, humming at the question. "Yes. They run on electricity, which is like lightning. And they go wrong a lot!"

Cole is clearly very proud for knowing something about computers.

[substances]

That is just about the sum total of what Klaus knows about computers too. Electricity, he knows, but computers? Completely unfathomable. This whole setup is pretty different than the phone he'd used in Hadriel or the sat phone here, those are easy to figure out, but this thing is huge and looks way more complicated and he doesn't want to break it.

"Bummer. I think we could grow plants if this computer was working."

[killedwithlove]

"Why would you need the computer to grow plants? You just need dirt and seeds and light." As far as he understood, anyway, that was all farming was. "Not Blight dirt. Blight dirt is bad for everyone. Even me."

He nods, pleased with this bit of sage advice.

[substances]

"It's the seeds. I think they have them like...stored away so they don't...go bad? Rot? Get radiation poisoning or whatever? I dunno. But I think you need the computer to get the seeds out."

Klaus leans his hip against the computer bank and gestures at it vaguely.

"If I could get the seeds out maybe you could show me how to grow them."

[killedwithlove]

"Oh." He looks out and back. "We could try opening them up without. I'm very good with locks, they want to be open, really."

That could mean many things.

"I don't know a lot about growing things. Cole didn't really farm, he gathered from the woods, though his mother had a garden."

🐙 | how to human

[benhargreeves]

[ By Ben's count, it's been just over 20 hours since he had arrived in this place, alive and with no idea how any of it was possible. A lot has happened in that time. He'd reunited with Klaus, gotten Klaus medical attention, reunited with Diego, found all of them a place to live, gotten everyone settled, and spent the rest of the day gathering information, learning as much as he can. He never drifted too far from either of his brothers, concerned in particular about Klaus, injured as he is.

He's gotten even more of the essential research done in the last few hours after Diego and Klaus had both gone to sleep. It's slow going, figuring out how to work the communication and information device he'd been given, but Ben is teaching himself through trial and error. Except more and more he is feeling... bad.

It's been a long time, since Ben Hargreeves had a body. He's gotten into the habit of not needing anything at all, and not feeling anything at all. All the input that he ought to easily be able to parse and identify - what is hunger, what is thirst, what is sleepiness, what is a headache, what is needing to pee, what is feeling sore and needing to readjust his posture - it's all tangled up and indecipherable to his brain right now. So he does what he's used to doing. In other words, none of it. All he's aware of is an increasing feeling of wretchedness. That this is a bad situation they're in, everything is terrible, that they will only get worse, and things will go on like this forever and ever.

He looks up from the frustrating device when he hears Klaus entering the room, concerned that he is awake. Had he slept poorly? Is he in pain? ]

Hey, Klaus.

[ Ben's voice comes out a little scratchy, strained. He is, to Klaus's view, sitting in the exact same place he had been six hours before, without any sign of having gone to bed, or moved whatsoever. ]

[substances]

[Klaus had slept for at least 10 hours in the MedBay after his conversation with Diego, and then gone out to wander a bit and play on his phone. Exhausted as he is, it hadn't taken him long to get tired out again, and once Ben had shown him the room and he'd gotten everything into it, he'd napped for a few hours, then gone back out just long enough to scavenge something to eat before falling back to sleep.

He has no idea how long he's been asleep when a nightmare wakes him up in a cold sweat and gasping for breath, his hair stuck to his forehead and heart pounding. Sliding out of bed, he winces and stumbles his way into the main room in search of a glass of water. Except when he comes out, he sees Ben at the desk, in exactly the same spot he'd been when Klaus went to sleep.]

Hey Ben.

[His voice is scratchy, and he pours a glass of water, makes his way over and picks up his phone from the desk to check the time. Six hours. He'd been asleep six hours, and Ben is still...sitting there in the same position hunched over the same books and device.]

Did you eat dinner already?

[He pitches it casually, takes a gulp of water, and then holds the cup out to his brother, one brow raised quizzically.]

Or drink any water?

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben takes the cup from Klaus, but the gesture is an automatic one. Because now that Klaus is here, asking those questions in a voice still half-mumbly with sleep, Ben realizes that, no. He hasn't done any of those things. He hadn't even decided not to do those things.

He looks up from the glass to Klaus, admits, in a voice that comes out smaller than he meant it to: ]

...I forgot.

[ He hadn't forgotten that he was alive again, but it's been so long that he's out of the habit of taking care of himself. The fact is, he's been dead practically as long as he ever was alive. And for most of those years, it had never been his choice, when he could sleep, when he could eat, what were the allowed times to shower or use the bathroom. Of course, Ben's been with Klaus in all the years since then, seen him living outside that rigid routine, but he hadn't been participating in it. He has a lot of practice at nagging Klaus that he needs to eat something, and no practice at following through on self-maintenance himself.

As soon as he puts the cup to his lips and drinks, Ben realizes how dehydrated he must be. The water going down his throat feels amazing, and he quickly drains the rest, gives a grateful little nod.

The exhaustion, and hunger, and light-headedness - all of it contributes in a way. For a long time, it's been easy for Ben to keep a firm handle on his emotions (except anger, which was easier as a ghost than it had ever been when he was alive). It's only now that he's getting that part of the reason that was, was because he didn't have a body. None of those chemicals crashing together inside him, churned up by a heartbeat, impossible to shut off. It's all hitting him again like a flood, and he can't find the shutoff valve. ]

Klaus... I'm alive again. I'm alive-

[ His voice cracks on the word the second time, and he deliberately gets to his feet, stalls by going to pour more water into Klaus's glass, sipping at it before offering it to his brother again, and finishing: ]

I- barely remember how to be alive anymore.

[ It's not the sort of thing Ben would probably have admitted to Klaus if he were thinking straight, if he hadn't already given that away. He has spent a long time being the competent, calm one, faking it even when he wasn't to support his brother. But he hasn't got any faking in him right now. ]

[substances]

[It doesn't come as the slightest surprise when Ben says he forgot, because Klaus had pretty much assumed that was the case when he looked at his brother. Sighing a little, Klaus pushes a hand back through his hair as he watches Ben drink the rest of the water in the cup as if he's just come out of the Sahara and nod at Klaus thankfully.]

I figured.

[When Ben says that he's alive again, that he doesn't remember how to be alive anymore, with that tight little pull in his voice and the that expression on his face, Klaus feels something in his gut and his throat tighten up into a little fist all at the same time, and he sighs softly. Crossing the room, he picks up his bag and starts digging around in it, pushing aside the bundles of clothing, the lighter and sheathed knives and all the rest of it until he finds a little wrapped bar at the bottom. Standing up, he heads over to Ben and pushes it into his hand - a protein bar, the high-cal meal replacement kind. Cookies and cream flavoured.]

Here. Come on, come on, let's go sit down...

[Gently, he slides an arm around his brother's shoulders, and when Ben offers the water glass he shakes his head - the glass of water had been for Ben in the first place, Klaus had figured it would be easier to get Ben to drink if they were sharing - and guides his brother into the other room where Klaus' bed is. It's still warm, unmade, the blankets pushed back, and Klaus gently tugs Ben down with him.]

It's okay if you forgot, Ben. You've got me. I mean, I'm certainly not claiming to be a genius when it comes to being alive, but I have got one or two tricks up my sleeve.

[Winking at Ben, he slides his arm back around Ben's waist, and holds a hand out for the protein bar.]

Want me to open that for you while you finish the water?

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben is aware of how pathetic he is being, but it is just easier to be passive, to let Klaus give him food and coax him into the other room. He sits on the edge of the bed with Klaus, hands over the protein bar, though he says while he does: ]

I know how to open a wrapper, I'm not a complete idiot.

[ But he lets Klaus open it for him all the same, drinking the rest of the water diligently. The mechanics of it are so much more involved than he'd remembered - the acute sensation of temperature, swallowing, timing it around needing to breathe too. A dozen tiny things that were automatic for living people, would be automatic for him too, eventually, he hopes.

He sets the glass down on the little table by Klaus's bed, opening his mouth to apologize for being so needy, but the words won't come. All he manages is a small: ]

Thanks, Klaus.

[ The experience with the protein bar is similar to the water; it isn't until he starts eating that he identifies how hungry he is. By the time he's three small bites in, he can feel it, there in his guts, twisting away, awful and awfully familiar. Ben shuts his eyes, chastising himself silently for letting it get this bad. He can't afford to forget things like this. He knows that. Knows better. Just because he's a little fucked up about being alive again isn't an excuse to endanger Klaus and Diego and whoever else might be trapped in this place.

Ben's breaths have gone very shaky. He can hear it, knows Klaus will be able to hear it. He's going to have to learn all over again how to hide these things better. But at least it is Klaus, and the room is dim-lit and Klaus isn't looking at him. Finishing the bar mechanically, Ben says, voice unsteady: ]

You're wrong. You're really good at being alive.

[ Not at thriving and succeeding in the ways others might want him to or the ways he might want to, but Klaus is a hell of a survivor. He'd gotten through two wars, survived their home (more than Ben had managed). He'd OD'd so many times and clung on. Even dying at that club hadn't stuck. Klaus has got more than just two tricks up his sleeve, Ben thinks. ]

{All the things time and death stole from us » @ Ben Hargreeves

[deadlycurves]

[Diego can adapt with pretty much anything thrown his way, he's very malleable in certain ways. But in other ways, he's really, really bad at dealing with change. He hadn't realized how quickly he'd grown so used to the sounds of anywhere between two or five of his other siblings milling about in the house at all hours of the day and night until he found himself in this second, new world suddenly dwindled down to only two of his brothers. But at least they were here together, and at least they had all agreed they needed to stay together, so even if they separated and did their own things during the day in this place, at the end of it, eventually, he could know he didn't need to worry about where either Ben or Klaus would end up. But. He was missing the rest of his siblings. He'd had all of them, except Vanya who had disappeared recently, in Nonah and occasionally spread across the other Porter cities, but they were never that far away. He finds it hard to sleep, without those growing-familiar noises of the others quietly going on in the background of his attempt at it. Which is why, well after midnight, Diego finds himself slipping out of bed and tapping uselessly at the computer terminal. Seems pretty busted, near as he can tell, but what does he know about shit like this? He only knows how to use the stupid communicator device because he'd had a similar one in the other world. He sinks down in the chair at the desk on the far side of the room, a deep sense of...something hard to name, twisted and tangled up with a dull melancholy, a razor-sharp anger, and an abrupt drop-off into almost resignation, both sinks down into the marrow of his bones, and echoes into the immediate vicinity around him. He scrubs a hand roughly over his face and sighs. He hates this place just as much as the first, and he wants to go home, to the true, real other side of Five's jump to know what happens to them, and the rest of their world. Ben may be the only reason he might ever consider wanting to stay here at all.]

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben had been quiet even before he was a ghost. He's only gotten up for a glass of water, when by chance he sees Diego sitting at the desk in the next room, looking tired and defeated. It isn't even a choice, really. Ben's instinct has always been to help, if he can - especially his brothers and sisters.

Without a word, he comes into the room, crosses over to the corner where Diego is. Ben sets the glass of water down on the edge of the desk and eases himself down onto the floor, sitting with his arms around his knees. He is close to Diego but not too close. Ben just sits, not saying anything. Just keeping Diego company, waiting for him to be ready to talk. If being a ghost had taught Ben anything, it is patience. He can wait a very long time without getting bored. ]

[deadlycurves]

[Diego didn't hear him at all, Ben really is crazy-quiet, always was. But the movement catches in the corner of his eye and at first, it makes his entire body tense, muscles coiled and ready to jump immediately into seamless action if necessary from training deeper than thought. But it's only a second or two, and he consciously forces himself to relax. It's Ben. It's Ben. Just sitting and keeping him company, not saying a word. And it takes him back to something long-buried in the furthest reach of memory along with everything else in the box in his mind labeled Ben, which was never, ever to be opened. Until he didn't have a choice-- like being faced with him suddenly being so very here and so very, very alive again. Diego and Allison had exploded at each other during dinner, sniping remarks matched with equally biting ones, both of them ignoring Reginald's calls for order at the dinner table, until Allison just kept it up until Diego tripped on his own words in his anger and she laughed and nearly immediately slapped a hand over her mouth after it. Nothing outright meant to be mean, more than anything it was just a petty and unintentional reaction altogether, one tiny blip of a half-lived giggle before she caught herself and realized. Some things, Mom always said, they simply do not mock in each other, and Two's stutter is one of those things. Allison would apologize for it later, true and sincere, and without even any prompting from Mom first. But in the moment, it didn't matter. In that second, it was all fierce indignation and embarrassment and Diego darted from the room, ignoring anything his father was yelling after him. A short handful of minutes later, his bedroom door slammed shut and the rest of the dinner table was tense and silent. Later, though... when dinner was through and there were no more lessons for the day, Diego would find Ben slipping impossibly quiet into his room, folding in on himself to sit on the floor next to his bed. Diego huffed and ignored him, not in the mood to talk and he all but refused to actually look at his brother, but Ben didn't move. And he didn't speak, either. Just sat there and waited until Diego finally would turn toward him and maybe he'd talk about it, or maybe he'd talk about something else, whichever way it went... Ben was there. To listen. To offer an ear to bend, and if desired, the distraction to talk about anything else at all. That was hardly the only time Ben had just... been there, when Diego needed the company, but didn't want to talk or do anything at all. He made a sort of habit of it, seemed to sometimes have some kind of sixth sense about when any of his siblings may need his particular, and specifically-tailored, brand of help at any given time. It was just one of an absolute galaxy of things he missed about Ben. He turns his head to look at his brother, even opens his mouth to say something, but the words are lost, or his voice; maybe it was both at once. His gaze drops to the hands hanging loosely between his knees and it takes several, long and drawn out minutes more of silence before he finds his voice again. And when he does, all he manages is a quiet whisper of:] I missed you. [Beat.] So much.

[benhargreeves]

[ This conversation (and Ben is counting the silence as a part of it) was inevitable. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. When they have first reunited, everything was hectic. There were questions to be asked and arrangements to be made. They'd had to make sure Klaus was safe and suss out everything about the different versions of themselves and that place Diego had been.

But now the dust is settling, and they are both left with the bare truth of it. They are together again. After so many years. There's a lot that both of them need to say to one another. ]

I missed you, too.

[ It is not as acute, and Ben knows that. He'd been able to see Diego, from time to time. He'd watched him grow up over the years and gotten updates. To Diego, Ben had been gone. Ben shifts position slightly, drawing his knees a little closer. All those years of being dead had been full of 'what if's and 'if only's. He'd wanted to say a thousand different things, to Diego, and the rest of them, and not been able to.

Now, he can. If only his throat didn't feel so tight. ]

I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me.

[ Ben isn't referring to any specific incident; there must have been so many of them, stretching out over fourteen years. When their father was vindictive, when Diego first was out on his own, when he was forced to leave the police academy, when Vanya's book came out with all its casual cruelty, when he was out there getting all those scars he wears so proudly. Other moments, too. Quiet ones like this in the middle of the night, when it all weighed so heavily.

He hadn't meant to, hadn't had a choice, but that doesn't change the fact of his absence in Diego's life. ]

For a long time, I wished I could to tell you- what you used to do, back home... going out every night and saving people? Running into danger all by yourself? It was totally reckless, and crazy- and I'm really proud. You stopped awful things from happening to innocent people, and you didn't do it because you had to, and you didn't ask anybody for thanks. I wanted to tell you- that it was good.

[deadlycurves]

[He smiles a little, something small and tinted with sadness. Because even though Ben was just gonegonegone for Diego, he knows the reverse wasn't true for Ben. Not exactly, not really. At least, not whenever he was around Klaus. The siblings' estrangement from each other over the years probably made it feel more like the same, for Ben, but... not just assuming it, actually physically hearing it straight from him, in his own voice, is a lot more emotional than Diego might have expected. Especially since he'd already had the Oh my God, you're alive moment with another, different Ben somewhere else before this. But it's not the same. It's so different. And it hurts. But it's that next set of words that really drive the dagger between his ribs further in, twist in the pain just a little deeper. He shakes his head a little.] Don't... don't do that. That- that's not your fault. It's not-- you didn't ask to- to die, Ben. It wasn't some choice you made, it- it just happened. ["Just happened" might be a bit of an understatement, really, but... well. It was more that than an active choice, at least. But... apparently, that isn't where this ends. Ben keeps going. And it keeps making this whole conversation harder and harder. Because he wasn't supposed to ever have this chance. He wasn't supposed to be able to say any of this. But he is, and he can, and Diego can't help wonder if he'll forget all of this if he ever goes home. And these things? These are things he would have killed, probably literally, to hear from someone. Dad. Luther, even. But he never got that kind of recognition. That kind of acknowledgment that would have been so easy, so simple for anyone to give, but mean the absolute world to him. And here's Ben, giving it his all to make Diego have to blink back stinging sharpness from his eyes. He kind of hates him for that, in that way that only a brother can say he hates you, and you know he never in a million years could mean it, not really. When he speaks again, his voice is soft and it wavers a little.] Thank you... [He fidgets idly with his own fingers, not sure what he's supposed to say on the heels of that, that would mean anything like what Ben just said meant to him. It takes him another long, several minutes to figure it out, to put the words together in the right way that made it all matter. And in the end, he's not sure it does at all, anyway.] I wish I could've believed Klaus sooner about you... I guess, maybe-- I dunno, maybe I just couldn't let myself believe it, because it wasn't fair that he got to keep you, while the rest of us just lost you. You were there, and then you weren't, and that was it. [His voice is thick with emotion.] I missed you all the time... I couldn't stand to be in that house knowing it, and Dad, and his mission for us, is what got you killed. I didn't wanna watch the same thing happen to the rest of us... so I left.

text; july 22nd, start of the redout

[braveoff]

[ Drake has been trying to keep tabs on the people he knows that are stuck here with him, but he feels like he's losing his grip a little. He's barely sleeping, which may not have been much of a problem for him the past couple of years but as a human? It sucks a lot. He's tired and lonely and scared and trying not to let on about any of that, because aren't they all? The act is just getting a tiny bit harder with each passing day, and Anchor's power failing and whatever the hell just happened outside isn't helping one bit.

Right now he's just trying to stick to his routine despite everything, and at the top of his priority list is Klaus. He considers just swinging by the room his friend shares with his siblings, but really, he could be anywhere, and Drake's feeling a little too wrung out to keep up appearances with strangers. Text first. ]

Hey, how are you holding up?

[substances]

[It hasn't been easy for Klaus the past week or two either. Things have been completely insane with his siblings, especially with Diego having empathy and Ben...Ben's everything really. Klaus has been feeling a little ragged with trying to keep track of his brother's routine, to make sure he's eating and sleeping and taking care of himself. Ben's getting back in the hang of it, but Klaus is still too worried to not check in on him pretty consistently.

This whole trapped in the dark thing? Not fun. Not even a little bit. As if it hadn't been bad enough getting flashbacks to the war and the Null and about Dave, now he gets to struggle with remembering the mausoleum too? Great.

The text is a welcome distraction.]

oh super great
i love being stucck in the dark
u?

[braveoff]

[ For as much as his opinion matters, Drake feels like Klaus has been doing amazingly well. He didn't slip when he could have, so easily, and looking after his brothers seems to be doing more good for him than otherwise. But it does mean Drake's been hanging back a bit. Making sure he's not overbearing or registering as someone who needs taking care of as well, because Klaus has enough on his plate.

That reply makes him worry, though. ]

Not really a fan, myself.
You up for company?

[substances]

[Honestly, taking care of his brothers has been the best thing for keeping his mind off drug cravings and the danger they're in and a whole bunch of other stuff. Having someone else to take care of...isn't all that bad an option.]

yessssssssssss
plz
i miss u :(

[braveoff]

[ Drake can't help it, even with the little sad face at the end he smiles at his communicator. ]

Same, man.
Where are you?