Under The Influence: A Klaus Hargreeves Fanfic | Umbrella Academy AU |

Throw Back

Screaming.

Constantly screaming. It was a good word to summarize Klaus' life. He came into the world screaming. He spent his childhood running from ghosts that couldn't stop screaming.

Screaming his name.

Like they knew him. Like they were depending on him for help. He supposed there were few other people to act as a bridge between the living and the dead, but why, as such a young child, was he forced to carry their burdens along with him?

Why were they always screaming? Why couldn't he connect with the ones that died peacefully in their sleep, or of old age in their lovers arms?

Well, he could only guess that, no matter how you framed it, dying was painful. Painful for the person losing their life, even more so for the people that they left behind. Emotionally painful, at the very least. He'd lost Ben, and even though he got to see his brother more than any of his other siblings, the blow hit him just as hard. He couldn't imagine losing someone in a more permanent sense.

Forever seemed like a long time, too long for Klaus' drug-ridden brain to comprehend. It was a consequence that he didn't have to face too often. Whoever he lost would come back to him eventually. There was no sense in screaming over the loss of someone that would follow you forever.

But still, this morning, like most mornings, Klaus woke up screaming.

At the top of his lungs, what were squeezed like an empty Capri Sun, he was gasping for air and clutching at his chest. He sat sitting straight up, in a foreign place. A place with brick walls that were crumbling and wood floors that were old and worn down, in a bed on the floor with midnight colored sheets that hugged his lower torso generously. His hands, clammy and trembling, hot like ash, grabbed at the satin sheets, trying to get a hold of himself.

Like most mornings, he began to comfort himself with tiny incantations. It's not your fault, he exhaled shaking breaths from his worn lungs. I need a fucking smoke. He began looking around for his coat, and looked up to find a girl rushing over to him.

Unlike most mornings, Klaus didn't wake up physically alone. She was there. Willow with the pile of jeans. Willow with the pale skin, soft and warm like a hot towel, with an actual white towel around her torso and wrapped into her hair. Her face was glowing, but her eyes of warm embers were a shade darker, tainted with worry.

"Hey, hey." She spoke in such a soothing tone that Klaus stopped searching for his cigarettes to look at her, and it took him that long to realize that she was in a towel and she had nothing underneath it. "Are you okay?"

And then Willow was in his personal space, one hand at her breast to hold up the cotton while the other touched his face without permission. It was alright because he melted under her warm, silken touch, but he furrowed his brows in a disoriented way.

"Did I wake you?" Her voice was small and somehow quieter, a whisper in the silent apartment building. The sun crept through the untreated windows, signaling the sunrise and golden light to infiltrate the room. "I'm sorry, I should have been quieter."

It's not your fault, Klaus tried to say out loud but found his tongue sticking to the inside of his mouth, inflated like a balloon. He parted his lips to speak, and moved his hands to touch her face, to comfort her, but she interrupted his gestures.

"I'll get you a glass of water." Willow nodded and took her hands away. Klaus wanted to scream, but his hoarse voice wouldn't allow it.

"Stay." He insisted, grabbing her hand and slipping his fingers into hers, tears threatening to pour from his dew-soaked grass eyes. "Please." Klaus begged in a wordless motion of his lips, squeezing her hand.