[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

[redwinekindofgirl]

Julie makes a soft, soothing sound when he leans into her. It's hard, she knows it is, and it's so much harder for him than it ever was for her. She wasn't on the hard stuff for as long as he was, and she had eyes on her to make sure she couldn't go too far down the rabbit hole.

"It's okay. Look, I know it's not like flicking a fucking switch." Without forcing the movement of his hands to stop, she closes her own over his as he scratches at his skin.

"It's okay, Klaus... I want you to go get the stuff, and bring it back here. Right?" Julie cups a hand against his cheek, draws his head around so she can find his eyes. "You can do that, yeah?"

cw: mild suicidal ideation

[substances]

For a few minutes, he's lost in his own head, jaw clenching, teeth grit, eyes squeezed shut, trying to imagine living the rest of his life without anything to take the edge off how he feels. Living the rest of his life without anything to escape into, nothing to make him feel good and happy. Nothing to take away the pain of losing Dave and knowing he's never going to be loved again and all his memories and the flashbacks and the ghosts. It feels intolerable, like he'd rather die than do that.

But Julie's hands are soft over his as she touches his hands, and he stops scratching, taking a shaky inhale through a tense body.

"Yeah, yeah I can do that." he says, his throat dry, then he opens his eyes and looks over at her, licks his lips, "I Just don't know how to live without it. In Hadriel there was so much other stuff to think about, there was the war, and I didn't have any real options, but here..."

He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut again, "I just feel like I'd rather die than keep going on like this."

[redwinekindofgirl]

Oh.

She wishes she didn't understand that, too. She wishes she didn't understand how everything can just get to be too much, and the only way you can see out of it is ending everything.

"Look at me." And she tries to make sure that he does, tries to gently hold his head in place with both hands, keeps her soft blue eyes on his. "... That's okay, too. Really. But... I know you can do it. I know you can. You're so fucking strong, I've seen it, over and over again."

Her fingers brush into his hair, push it back off his forehead, and she leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

"You're stronger than this, and I'm not going to fucking lose you, okay? You and me are in this together now."

[substances]

When Julie tells him to look at her and tugs on his face to force the point, her hands on his cheeks and her eyes on his, he looks at her. Swallows hard when she says that's okay too, but she knows he can do it, that he's strong and she's seen him be strong over and over.

Klaus' throat chokes up a little, and his eyes go wet, and he laughs, shakes his head a little bit, eyes sinking shut as she kisses the corner of his mouth, turns his head to chase the contact, still holding her eyes with his.

This feels good, and that's something he can focus on. It feels good to have someone believe in him and call him strong when everyone from Diego to Ben to his dad have told him for so long that he's weak, that he's running away, that he's a wimp. He knows they're right, but he thinks maybe Julie's right too, or she will be if he does what she's asking him.

It feels good to have warm hands on his face and lips on the corner of his mouth, and so he leans in and presses his forehead against hers, breath coming shaky as she says she's not going to lose him and they're in this together.

"Okay. Okay okay okay..." he murmurs, then leans in and kisses her mouth, a quick soft peck, "I'll go...I'll go get them and bring them back. Okay?"

[redwinekindofgirl]

Julie may have only known Klaus a relatively short time, but there are parts of him that she knows as well as she knows herself. The parts that cry out for the pain to stop, for things to just end, for things to be a little better, just a little better, for a little while. Those things are as familiar to her as the marks on her wrists.

"Okay," she says, and she smiles. He can do this. She chases the peck to her mouth with another kiss before she lets him go.

"I'll be here. Or do you want me to come with you?"

Not something to be forced. She believes he can do this by himself, and she'll give as much support as he wants.

[substances]

"Come with me?"

It comes out of his mouth before he even really thinks about it, and he remembers when he'd taken the rope down to talk to Luther, how he'd thought that he is really the type of person who needs his options taken away in order to get clean. It's strange to think that he's trying to do it a different way this time, that something about him has changed enough to make this possible, but he still knows he needs Julie to come with him. That he can't do it alone.

He never could.

Standing up, he exhales heavily, and holds his hand out to Julie before heading out of her apartment and walking quietly up the hallway to the apartment he shares with Diego and Ben.

"Just wait out here, okay?" he whispers, "I don't want to wake my brothers up."

[redwinekindofgirl]

She only nods when he asks, and squeezes his hand when he takes it. There isn't a moment while they walk that she lets go of his hand, occasionally rubbing her thumb against the soft part of the back of his hand, or leaning her shoulder into his arm, just to ensure that he knows he isn't alone.

If she has anything to do with it, he's never going to have to feel like he's alone in facing this shit.

"Yeah, sure," Julie tells him once they reach the door, her voice as hushed as it can be. She smiles and gives his hand another squeeze, then lets go. "Just be really quiet. I don't wanna have to explain all this to them."

[substances]

"No shit. I don't either." he says, his voice a little shaky, and he rubs his hand over his face, squeezes her hand before he lets go, and slips into the room. Padding across the floor barefoot, he crouches beside his bed where Ben is sleeping fitfully, and pulls his bag out from under it.

It only takes a few moments to find the bottle of Oxycodone, and for a long few moments he sits there and stares at it, his mouth dry, his body trembling with desire, every nerve on fire and emotions churned up in his belly so hard he feels nauseous. Taking a breath, he stands and moves away from the beds, pressed up against the wall beside the door where neither Julie nor his brothers will here, and twists the cap off the bottle. Hand shaking, he silently shakes three pills out onto his palm and stares at them. He can feel sweat forming on his brow, he can feel his body trembling, he can feel every nerve screaming, the knot of desire in his gut so tight he can barely handle it.

But he doesn't take them, he heads back over to his bag, crouches down, and carefully unrolls a pair of his clean socks, tucks the pills into the folds of the cuffs, and rolls them back up, shoves them to the bottom of the bag. With a guilty huff of breath, he stands up and slips back out the door again.

The bottle is still closed in his fist, and he bites his lip as he looks at Julie, holds his hand up so she can see.

[redwinekindofgirl]

She waits outside, and she doesn't see the way he stows a couple of the pills away before he comes out again. Doesn't see it, but wouldn't be surprised to know it. It's the kind of thing she would have pulled too.

And it would have been easy enough to spy on him. Easy enough to slip around the door where he wouldn't have noticed and perhaps it's something she should have done (and in hindsight, down the line, may wish she had done) given Klaus' slightly shaky grasp on the entire situation.

When he comes back out again she smiles at him, and that smile widens as he holds up the bottle. She holds her hand out, but doesn't try to take it from him.

"I'll just keep them for you, yeah?"