𝐖𝐄'𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐘𝐎𝐔, ben hargreeves

𝟎𝟒 the one who raises a glass for the departed

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━━━━━ ⊹⊱☂︎⊰⊹ ━━━━━

⊹⊱ № 𝟎𝟒 ⊰⊹
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐀
𝐆𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐄𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐃

━━━━━ ⊹⊱☂︎⊰⊹ ━━━━━

【𝑨-𝑺𝑰𝑫𝑬】
"we all carry on when our brothers
in arms are gone. so raise your
glass high for tomorrow, we die and
return from the ashes you call"
mama; my chemical romance

【𝑩-𝑺𝑰𝑫𝑬】
"we'll toast what could have
been, my dearly departed"
dearly departed;
marianas trench

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            NUMBER FOUR was hated by the universe. He was so sure of it. His powers suck, his luck was absolute shit, he had a knack for fucking up all the good things that mattered in his life— Hell, he can't even die in peace.

Not to mention, he managed to live this long despite all his attempts not to do so. (Don't get him wrong, he's not trying to die per se. He wasn't even aware of the number of times he had, in fact, died.)

Simply put, if the Hargrevees all constituted one gigantic mess, then Klaus was definitely a complete disaster. After all, Number Four was known to be the fuck-up of the Umbrella Academy.

Sure, he was not powerless like their seventh, he didn't run away like their eighth, and he wasn't drunk on his hubris like their fifth— but for all intents and purposes, he was still the scapegoat of their family.

It's a chronic label slapped on his face that always seemed to follow him around.

So he stops trying because he wants to give them the benefit of the doubt. As if in doing so, he will not only avoid failure but also escape their dreary expectations of him, overall evading the day that he will confirm their beliefs that perhaps he truly was an incompetent fool.

            It starts gradually, from not listening to lessons and cutting back on training to the beginning of his vices. A sip of alcohol turns into a lifetime of emptied bottles into a variety of drugs and a crippling addiction. Being high was the constant state of his mind, so much so that he never realizes the dangers he placed himself in.

Well, does it even matter?

Klaus Hargreeves had a knack for playing with death, and yet, was often evaded by such. Eventually, he becomes numb to it, taking for granted the way that two of his siblings had chosen to stay behind with him.

He takes for granted the very thing Number Six and Nine had been stripped of.

He drowns and he drowns and he drowns. He drowns in himself and he has no idea how to come up for air.

Then, he sinks even deeper and deeper.

He's off hopping rehab centers just to have a roof over his head. He's off throwing away everything he has in order to chase some stupid high. And sometimes, he doesn't even remember the name of the person on whose bed he finds himself sleeping in for the day.

It's a shitty way to live his life, or so Ben says.

But the dead shouldn't get an opinion. It's not like they were doing any better.