Jordan (crumbs) wrote in evaluation, @ 2020-01-10 12:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !rooms: 4: day 2, the raven cycle: jordan, umbrella academy: klaus hargreeves |
ROOM 4; DAY TWO
JORDAN ✦ KLAUS HARGREEVES
SHARING LIFE SUCKS STORIES OVER A MASSAGE AT THE SPA WARNINGS: SUICIDE AND ADDICTION DISCUSSION COMPLETE |
The more Klaus thought about it, the more he couldn't shake the idea that maybe they were being prepped to be offered as sacrifices in a volcano. After all, he thought he had the last room worked out until the Krampus demons had shown up. And after that, you might as well be prepared for anything. But he pushed all that out of his mind because he decided he wanted to believe they were just on a vacation. Who didn't like vacation? And there was a spa, where Klaus and Jordan now found themselves at, face down on fancy massage tables, having all the stress of Soviet Christmas and beyond worked out of them. It was glorious. "So who's back home?" he asked, not having forgotten what she'd written to him but deciding to have that conversation in person, even if it wasn't necessarily face to face. Jordan didn’t make a lot of friends. She wasn’t even sure if Klaus officially qualified. But he felt familiar, like a leather jacket someone broke in before she came across it. That was probably a bad analogy since he’d clearly been through the ringer of life. Just looking at him gave that much away. But it counted for enough that she felt comfortable laying out on the massage table next to his. Being completely truthful wasn’t really her style though. Especially not with the masseuse there working on her back. “My sister.” It was close enough to the truth. If Hennessy did find her way here, the near identical looks would have to be explained that way anyhow. “Anybody waiting on you?” "Ahh," he said, wishing he could turn and look at her but their current positions made that impossible. "My family's all here, except for Diego." He paused, closing his eyes as he thought about who he wished was waiting on him, the man he wanted to return to. "Other than that, I lost the only other person I'd truly wish to see on the front line in Vietnam. I was there, and trying to get home when I ended up here or well… you know." His voice was heavy as he tried to explain, as if the weight of Dave's loss was contained within those few words, and he didn't have it in him to say anymore right then, though it was that burden, not the presence of strangers, that silenced him. "So you're close to your sister, then?" he asked, seeking a reprieve. “Very,” Jordan admitted. “At least we were. Things have been complicated lately.” She hadn’t gone back the first chance she got. Or even the second. Ronan was here, but there was a chance Hennessy was on her own. The press of the masseuse’s hands felt like it was digging into all her guilty nooks and crannies. She was afraid to go home, right back into the mess that had taken most of her family away. The masseuse dug deeper into her shoulders. Maybe she could feel Jordan’s rising tension. “Wait. Front line in Vietnam?” she asked. “You mentioned Vietnam and war, but I thought you were just being dramatic.” "You and the rest of my family," Klaus lamented. "Yeah, I had this briefcase and it took me back in time. Sounds crazy, I know, but alas…" If his masseuse thought anything he was saying was odd, she didn't show it, to which he was deeply appreciative. "What sort of complications?" he asked. He knew something about complicated familial relationships. That's all the Hargreeves family consisted of. Time traveling briefcase. Jordan was glad Klaus couldn’t see her squinting face. She’d seen some unbelievable things in her life; hell, she was an unbelievable thing. But the people on this weird roadtrip of theirs still threw her for a loop every once in a while. “Sounds...portable? Not sure why putting a handle on a time travel device has evaded so many sci-fi writers to be honest.” It was maybe a little flippant, but it wasn’t outright disbelief. It gave her a moment to shift uncomfortably on the table while she decided what to say about Hennessy. “She’s been sick. And stubborn. You’ve got a bleeding truck full of siblings, I’m sure you understand.” Klaus sighed but it turned into a groan as he thought of his own family. "I do," he agreed. "And of all of them, I'm the biggest fuckup. Do you know that I was kidnapped and held hostage and not one of them noticed I was missing?" Of course she didn't know. How would she? The masseuse hit a tender spot and Klaus tensed up. Or was it the other way around? Either way, he remained silent for a moment, trying to relax again. "I guess that's what happens when your father collects a bunch of weirdos from all around the world and declares them a family." He'd have shrugged, but that required effort he'd already expended. "So why didn't you go home? Or you know… tried to?" She didn’t want to talk about that. Her night of confession with Declan was too fresh and unsettling, and frankly, she didn’t have an answer that didn’t make her sound like a selfish asshole of a sister. Jordan lifted a hand to wave it dismissively, even though he probably couldn’t see it. The masseuse quietly worked around it. “Your guess is as good as mine, mate,” she said. “Call it procrastination if you want. What’s this about your father collecting kids? And a kidnapping? Hell, you’ve gotten up to a lot.” Klaus knew deflection when he saw it, or at least most of the time, but he didn't press. "It's a long story," he said. "But each of my siblings was born on the first of October, 1989 with some sort of power to exploit." This was the first time his masseuse paused, of all the weird shit he'd said so far, and he almost commented on that but instead continued. "So yes, together we formed the Umbrella Academy and he spent his time training us to be super heroes and sent us on missions, and locked his son up in a mausoleum to conquer his fear of the dead… You know, just your typical childhood." He closed his eyes, thinking he would need to drink after this because anytime he thought about the mausoleum his thoughts would fixate on that. "You know what's really fucked up though?" he asked Jordan, drawing out the question. “You were all born on the same day with super powers and raised to fight.” Jordan said it flatly but not like she didn’t believe. Powers might have so far been limited in her world, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t familiar. Even the apparently parental mistreatment wasn’t too far off the mark. “How is locked up in a mausoleum as a child not the really fucked up part, Klaus?” "Well, I was thirteen," he offered. "That's also when I learned I could avoid the dead by avoiding sobriety. Oops? Sometimes," he said his voice a mixture of glee and regret if such a combination was possible, "there's unintended consequences." He didn't want this massage to ever end, it was eating up all his nerves and leaving him with gratitude. So much so that he was calm as he continued. "No, the really fucked up thing is that my dad was always preparing us to save the world but it turns out, the apocalypse happened and we didn't save the world… The details are hazy to me because apparently I was there, but that happened after I got home from Vietnam. You know how these things happen." She probably didn't know any better than him. "Oh, and I was here before? For the haunted mansion? My family just expected me to know this, somehow." But Klaus was a master at failing to meet expectations. "Oh, and the other really fucked up thing is that my father decided the only way to get my siblings back together was to kill himself, so yeah… I know how weird family issues go," he added as an afterthought, even though had been the point he'd originally intended to make. It was a lot to dump in Jordan’s lap at once. She had to huff a laugh down at the ground, humorless as it was. “Crumbs,” she muttered. “That’s a good long list of reasons to be in therapy, mate.” After a pause, she added an empathetic, “Sorry you got a raw deal.” She didn’t particularly want to share much, especially when everything she did share would be a half-lie by default, but Jordan felt like she owed at least a truth for all of Klaus’s many. “My sister’s an addict, though she’d probably never use that term out loud. Her—our mum was too.” Our. What a joke. Jordan had never even met Jayz even if she had all the memories of her. But there were some parts of the truth a girl like Jordan didn’t share with new friends. And some she tossed out like offerings that sounded more important than they were. “She offed herself too, so I suppose we’ve got ourselves a rubbish club to start.” Jordan’s masseuse twitched, clearly uncomfortable with the conversation. Jordan lifted her head to offer an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Suppose they don’t pay you two enough to hear everybody’s sob story.” It was only then, really, that Klaus realized how heavy the topic of conversation had turned. This was relatively normal for him, and when he wasn’t with his family he was in and out of rehab. Take out the supernatural and you ended up with many of the same stories there. So he said as much. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “And you too,” he directed at Jordan, before falling silent for the remaining duration of the massage, which wasn’t that much longer anyway. And hell, he felt great afterward. “Plenty of water now,” he said, repeating instructions once he was alone with Jordan again. “Guess I can have a glass before…” Before he resumed his normal diet of alcohol. “Thank you,” for going with me, he said, turning to her and enveloping her in a hug, feeling more relaxed and at ease than he had for who knows how long. He couldn’t remember, even all the time he’d spent with Dave had the war looming over him, and the sneaking suspicion that it would never last even if they’d both managed to survive. Jordan shrugged as best as she good with her head in a hole and a masseuse finishing up on her back. She did appreciate the concern, even if she was the wrong person to aim it at. Hennessy hilariously would’ve hated the concern even though she was the right person aim it at. Klaus seemed damaged but caring though, and that earned him a few points in Jordan’s book. Which was why she huffed a laugh when he surprised her with a hug and patted him amicably on the back. “Yeah, cheers. I feel pretty loose so I suppose I was…” She drew back to make air quotes. “Carrying a lot of tension.” Weren’t they all, after the demon-goats? After their lives? She smirked and gestured towards the exit. “Want to grab a bite before you follow up your one glass of water with whatever bad plan you have in mind?” "It's like you already know me," Klaus replied with a grin. "Food while we have it and alcohol. Diet of champions." |