Klaus & Five vs The Universe

Good Morning, Sunshine

Klaus resists the urge to stretch as he begins to wake up from his nap. For a few moments, he tries and fails to lull himself back into a foggy, sleep-filled stupor. But wherever he'd fallen asleep the night before—he can't exactly remember what happened, but that's par for the course these days—is deeply uncomfortable and digging into his back at odd angles.

It would be better to move, he thinks. Take a few more pills. Then find a more comfortable place to sleep. He only deserves the finest of comforts, after all.

The sky is gray when he opens his eyes. Smokey, too. He doesn't remember going to a garden party, but maybe the smoke is something else. It doesn't smell like cigarettes, nor weed. Cigars are a wholly unlikely crowd.

He doesn't like his odds that this isn't, in fact, a party.

When he sits up, he realizes that it is most definitely not a party. It's the unpartyist of all parties. A wasteland. The aftermath of a rager hosted by God.

Well, that only counts if God isn't the little girl on the bicycle. He isn't really sure where she stands yet, though she could enjoy a good party. But this isn't a good party at all.

The rubble is rough under his hands, biting into his flesh and coating his dark clothes in an itchy layer of plaster-turned-dust. Why is his life always so uncomfortable?

When he finally is on two feet on relatively flat ground, he thinks—hopes, really—that he's experiencing some sick overdose fever dream. The buildings around him have all turned to dust and debris as far as the eye can see. Smoke curls in lazy towers in the distance, dotting the streets and corners with a notably unwelcoming fog.

This is not something he can deal with on his own, but the threat of impending sobriety is much scarier, so he hopes to find a guiding source at the nearest liquor store, wherever that may be. No ghosts today. No, siree.

It shouldn't be that hard to find something to calm his racing heart, he thinks, but a few more steps has him falling toward the ground, alcohol forgotten as his knees scrape against the powdery pile of rubble his siblings' corpses are buried in.

They're obviously dead. So obviously dead that he isn't sure whether to laugh or cry, whether to search for a fix or puke on the sidewalk. They're gone. All of them. But there's a fifty-fifty chance they'll come back to haunt his ass, and Klaus really can't decide if that's a better or worse outcome.

Regardless, he doesn't like being the only one left. No, even as the tears well in his eyes and he chokes back sobs and muttered eulogies, he's stumbling to his feet in the hopes of going anywhere so he doesn't have to be alone.

But wherever he goes, he finds no one.

The city sleeps—eerily silently—aside from the fires that crackle and roar with life.

The first night, Klaus crouches by one of the many fires, idly poking it with a stick. The drugs in his pockets are starting to run thin, and he's stretching them out in the hopes they'll last longer. It leaves him jumpy and uncomfortable, having such a diluted high. There's no way he'll sleep anytime soon.

The smoke is probably filled with noxious chemicals, too. Part of him hopes it is. Maybe it'll help keep the spirits at bay—blur the lines he's desperately drawn over the years in a feeble attempt to exert control over his powers.

Yet, with the eerie silence stretching through the night, he almost aches for Ben's presence. Almost.

The morning dawns as barren and lifeless as the night had been. There are no chirping birds or bushy-tailed paperboys encouraging him to start his day. It's just bright. Bright and smokey.

He's starting to get hungry.

This isn't the first time Klaus has scavenged for food. Sometimes, when funds were particularly low, he'd search for free food in a bid to stretch his cash. It worked then. It works a lot less now, when he's digging through rubble and avoiding smoldering trash cans that would typically hold at least a little stale pizza in the time of non-apocalyptic wasteland scenarios.

The trek back to the Academy comes easily to him. Even destroyed, he can orienteer himself well enough to get back. There might be food around there. Food he can eat.

He's not desperate enough to try drywall yet. Maybe later when the pills kick in.

He isn't sure why he goes back to the Academy specifically. Maybe because it's familiar. Because, in a way, it's the closest thing he's ever known to a home. Because his siblings are gone and he has no one else.

He isn't sure he can stomach seeing their corpses again, but it's a risk he has to take if he wants to look for food. The other shop faces along the road by the academy are equally as destroyed, and he isn't sure how he feels about rummaging through any of them for food. There's a chance he'll mar his delicate skin digging for things that have already been claimed by cockroaches.

He isn't desperate enough to eat that yet, either.

But as he turns the corner to the Academy, bracing himself for the three-foot pile of building-turned-rubble, he sees something standing beside the carnage. A kid. Wearing culottes.

There have been worse fashion choices in the history of the universe, he supposes. Though, the bland, all dark color really isn't doing the kid's complection any favors...

A part of him can't stand the thought of getting closer. If it's a ghost, then he'll probably never be rid of it. But if it's a kid... It would be really nice to not be on this hellscape earth completely alone. A kid could be fun. Lively. Something to make his conversations less one-sided (though he's hardly ever minded that before).

He stumbles forward, wary as he notices the kid's tense shoulders.

"Hey, buddy," he calls warmly, waving even before the kid had turned around. "You lost?"

His face falls as the kid turns, and for one long moment, they both gawp at one another.

Klaus is the first to break from the trance, grinning openly as he stumbles forward, arms extending in preparation for a hug that probably won't come. "Five! Oh, we've missed you. It's been so many years! And you're still so little—!"

"Klaus." It's an acknowledgement that rests somewhere between a terse greeting and total disbelief. "How the hell are you alive?"

Now that he's come to think of it, he really isn't sure. He isn't sure what happened, though he can vaguely remember hitting his head... "I don't know," he mumbles, rubbing his temple in irritation. It only lasts a moment before his smile returns. "But we're here and we're here together!"

The smile does little to halt Five's barrage of questions. "What happened? How did the world end?"

Again, Klaus does not know. There are hazy details he can make out in the fog of his memories. Luther. A fight. Dad dying. Hitting his head really hard. The rest is a blur. A chasm of unknowns, if you will. But that still doesn't deter Five's curiosity, so the following minutes proceed as a flurry of half-questions, half-insults while Klaus whines out how terrible Five is being to him after such a long time.

However, Five, oblivious to the twenty-something years he's been missing, is in a much less celebration-centric state of mind. The world has ended; seemingly everyone on the face of the Earth—aside from Klaus—has died. There has to be a way to find out why. To stop the apocalypse from happening. But in order to do that, they need to survive. One glance at Klaus tells him that he'll need to pull the weight in this particular arena.

"We should go," he finally concedes, pushing aside his infinite list of questions for later. "Find a place to camp before it gets dark."

Despite the fact that they're here, and there's a very slim chance they'll escape their fate of dying in the post-apocalypse, Klaus's smile is still as radiant as the sun.