Leia Organa (awomansplace) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2019-06-18 06:52:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !completed gdoc, !log, ~2019 june, ~25 points, ~~klaus hargreeves (callsthedead), ~~leia organa (awomansplace) |
WHO: Klaus and Leia
WHAT: Helping a new friend
WHEN: Backdated to pre-cruise! Late night
WHERE: Not far from Verdant
WARNINGS: Klaus always comes with warnings
STATUS: Closed/Completed Gdoc
Klaus liked having money of his own. It was like stealing money, except he knew how much he’d have and when he’d have it. There was also a strange satisfaction in knowing that it was his and he didn’t have to feel guilty for spending it however he wanted to. He’d always poo-poohed the idea of having a job back home, mainly because he never believed he’d ever be able to hold one down. The way his life went, it was either go crazy from the voices or be high, and neither one of those tended to impress employers.
But Madison Valley, he was finding, was a very, very different place, and he liked that. He couldn’t believe he was saying it, but he liked it here. Sure, sure, the voices were still there and he spent a lot of his money on weed, pills and alcohol in order to quiet them down, but it was better than home. Much better than home, even if more and more of his family was arriving here. Honestly, the only member of his family he really had any trouble with was his dad. If he showed up, he’d probably lose his shit. Other than that...well. He was okay with it.
He’d just gotten off work, and was heading down the street towards the nearest liquor store that was still open. It was dark, but in this part of town the sidewalks were bright from the streetlamps. Of course, the light didn’t keep the dead away, and as his mind sobered, he began catching them in his peripheral vision and hearing their whispers in his ears. He reached up to brush at his ear as if that would be in any way helpful.
“Go away,” he whispered, his voice trembling just a little. “Go away, dammit.”
***
For the briefest moment, Leia thought the voice was telling her to go away. Which would be ridiculous, it was a public street, she had every right to be on it and she wasn't bothering anyone. But it had been so soft. If someone was angry at her for being there, surely they would have been more demanding.
When she turned to see who had said the words, though, she saw a sight that broke her heart. A man, a grown man, covering his ears, looking completely miserable. And she knew a thing or two about that. What other reason would she have for being out and about when normal people would be getting ready for bed?
She recognized his face from the tiny images on her tablet, though the technology was certainly inferior. It was the young man who used alternative methods to quiet the voices he heard. And, looking at him now, she could hardly blame him. Hesitantly, she closed the distance between them, reaching out to gently touch his shoulder. "Hey, it's all right. They're not going to hurt you, they can't hurt you." Her voice was soft, trying to soothe but still get through whatever it was he was hearing.
***
Klaus jumped when she touched him, his eyes focusing on hers only slowly, looking rather frantic when they did. He blinked once, then twice, before he recognized her from the network. Oh. She was the nice one who thought his dad was a total dick. Which he entirely agreed with. She was real. Surrounded by lot of people who weren’t, but he could separate her from them. They were different.
“You’re alive,” he said, rather obviously. “Talk loud. Maybe you can shut them up. Or scare them away.”
It wasn’t likely to happen, but he’d try anything. Literally anything.
***
She'd give just about anything right then for some of her brother's power. Maybe then she could literally force these apparitions away. It had worked on the wraiths in New Orleans, after all.
But that wasn't her. Not yet, anyway. Maybe if she worked on it. But that wasn't going to help this man now. So she gently took his face in her hands and did the one thing she could think that might help.
"Focus on me. I'm here. I'm real. See? I can touch you, they can't. They can't hurt you because they're not really here." She assumed. But lord she hoped she was right about that. If one of them did reach out and hurt him she'd feel like the world's biggest liar and he'd probably never accept anyone's promises again. "You're all right. Ignore them, they're probably being stupid anyway."
***
That was one thing that Klaus had going for him, they’d never touched him. They’d terrified him in every other way, but they’d never been able to physically affect him, not yet. After what he’d done with Ben in the concert hall, though...well...he was just going to choose not to think about that right now. It opened up a whole new world of things that the dead could try to use him for and he didn’t like that very much at all.
He blinked, his focus turning to the woman as she took his face in her hands. The touch silenced some of the dead, and forced many others into the background. Touch was real. It was right there in front of him, and it was something the dead couldn’t do.
“I’ve tried to ignore them all my life,” he said. Why did she think he’d gotten hooked on drugs in the first place? “But they don’t go away. Ever.”
And were they being stupid? He couldn’t really say they were. They wanted acknowledgement. Revenge. Justice. None of those things were really stupid, were they?
***
Leia could sympathize with the dead. Her entire planet, all of her people, her family and most of her friends, were all gone. But she also knew if they all came to try and talk to her at once, it would be anxiety inducing in the worst of ways. Worst of all, what if they blamed her? She often did.
So she could understand feeling torn. Not trusting them not to be angry because he couldn't help them. "What happens when you acknowledge them?" She asked quietly. He seemed to be settling a bit so she dropped her hands from his face to his shoulders. Still touch, still solid and firm, but considerably less intimate. "Are they angry with you? Do they try and take their revenge on you?"
That would be unfair and would lose most of the sympathy she had. They were wrongfully dead, and that was sad, yes. But just because this man could communicate, didn't mean they should force him to.
***
“They’re...angry,” he said slowly, “But not at me. I don’t think. I mean, some of them are angry. But some of them are sad. Or hurt. Or...you know, other emotions.” None of them were happy, that was the important part. They wanted him to do something, or talk to somebody. “They’re demanding, really. They want me to find their relatives, or help them get revenge or justice. I mean, I guess I can’t blame them. But…”
He shuddered a little. He’d always hated his ability and had found it overwhelming. Father’s attempts to get him used to it had only ever made things worse.
“I mean...when it’s Ben, my brother, that’s okay? He’s just kind of there. But the others?? Not okay. Not okay at all.”
***
“Oh, I’m sorry about your brother.” She hadn’t known that, she was pretty sure. Interesting, though, that his brother was one of the voices that came to him. Or… “It’s not just the voices, is it? You can see them, too.” That made it even more complicated. Voices he could block. But visions were probably harder. And explained why he was fine using hallucinogens.
“I blame them,” she countered, a bit hotly. “I understand it has to be hard for them, but they don’t get to take it out on someone else.” On the one hand, it would be kind of incredible to bring killers of the dead to justice. Or to find a way to reunite someone with their loved ones to let them know they were at peace. But that didn’t mean they got to be demanding about it, abusing a man, even verbally.
“I’m Leia, by the way. I don’t think I ever introduced myself and well, now seems like as good a time as any.” They’d gotten pretty close pretty quickly here, after all.
***
Klaus kind of half-nodded, no longer making eye contact. “Yep. I can see them, too. Everywhere. Some of them are bloody and horrified. Others just have dead eyes or their skin’s the wrong color. Some of them look normal….at first.” He shook his head. “But they’re everywhere. Wherever I am, they find me and there are so many of them. Even if I wanted to help one, how could I? I can’t hear them and they’re all shouting at me and crowding me and…” He trailed off, covering his ears with his hands again. He wanted to curl up into a ball, but he couldn’t exactly do that while standing up on the street.
Klaus knew it had to be hard for them too, and part of what he drank away or used the pills to push out of his mind was the guilt he felt for ignoring them. He wasn’t a bad guy. Actually, he was a sensitive guy who really cared about other people. And he knew he should help them. But he was just so...so…scared.
“Klaus,” he said. “Or Number Four. Whichever you want. Four was good enough for dad.”
***
Leia also thought maybe it would help if he actually talked to them. But there wasn’t any way to say that without sounding like some horrible person. She didn’t know what he was going through. It wasn’t like she saw the dead at all waking hours.
“Well, I am not the biggest supporter of your father. And mine turned into a homicidal Sith lord, so that’s saying something. I will absolutely call you Klaus.” It was a nice name, actually. It had a good strong sound to it. Now to get him to be brave enough to match it. “No one should be identified by merely a number.”
“Have you ever talked back to them?” She so badly wanted to help. She just wasn’t sure how much he’d be comfortable telling to a relative stranger. But she needed more to go on. And he needed to be willing to have someone help. Those were two very important factors.
***
“Yes,” he said. He had talked back to them. Father had ordered it, and when he’d been younger he’d kind of been proud of his superpower. Before it started to drive him absolutely crazy, that was. “I did. They used to...help us sometimes. When we were superheroes.”
Because that’s what they’d been, right? That was what father had wanted, anyway. His own little team of Superheroes. He guessed it wasn’t until they all started going their own way that he really fell by the wayside.
***
"They helped you? But that's good, isn't it?" It seemed like a good thing. Like between himself and the people...haunting him, for lack of a better word, they could possibly come to an arrangement.
"What if…" She considered for a moment. He was obviously deathly afraid of the people he saw. And it was understandable. But there had to be a better way to deal with them than cutting himself off and drinking to an early grave of his own. "Could you maybe make arrangements with them? Set up times to listen? And they have to leave you alone at all other times?"
Well, that was probably the most ridiculous idea she'd had yet. Appointment hours with the dead. Sure.
***
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her for a moment like she was insane. Which then made him laugh because it was so painfully clear that if either of them was insane, it was him. He was a good bit of the way in that direction, anyway.
“They won’t listen,” he said. “I mean, some of them might, but you have no idea how many there are. “Thousands. Millions. Billions. And they were all people once, and you know how shitty people can be.”
He sighed. “No, the only way to escape is to shut them up. Chemically.”
The only way he’d found out, anyway.
***
Her face scrunched into a tiny laugh. Okay, yeah, that hadn't been her best idea ever. She was just so concerned about him, though. There had to be some other way.
"But how do you even have a life? How can you have friends and loved ones if you can't even enjoy a few minutes of your day without some substance."
Sighing, she stepped back, giving him a bit more space. Leia stayed close, though, ready if he needed her. "How long has it been since you've last had something?" Maybe one of the Healers in this place had some options. Something more natural. Something that could allow him something resembling a normal life.
***
“I don’t,” he said simply. “This job here? It’s the first one I’ve ever had, because Sara doesn’t care if I come to work high or drunk. Back home, what am I supposed to do? I’ll get fired if I’m not sober and I’ll get fired if I get fucked up from all the dead. It’s damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
Yeah, there wasn’t much optimism in Klaus’s life. But really, why should there be?
“Something? I mean, I haven’t had any pills in a while, but I had quite a bit to drink at work.”
***
Leia's face fell again. "You've been drinking at work and yet they're still affecting you this much?" This was ridiculous. And a large part of her blamed it on Klaus' father. Maybe if he had learned early how to communicate with the dead, it wouldn't hurt him so much now. Instead, he'd literally tortured a child. Something she couldn't and wouldn't forgive.
"Are you staying at the apartments? I'll walk home with you. I assume you have something you can take there?" If not, she didn't really want to know how he went about obtaining less than legal substances in this place. She wasn't exactly your prim and proper law abiding princess, but that didn't mean she was exactly up for illicit activities that night, either.
***
“Yeah,” he said. It usually took more than alcohol to silence the voices, at least for very long. It definitely took the edge off but to get rid of them all together, well, that was why he had pills. And ever since he got a job it had been easier than ever to keep them on hand. One good thing about working, anyway. That wasn’t fair, actually, since he liked his job more than he ever dreamed that he would.
“And yeah, I’ve got plenty. You can share with me if you like.”
He was pretty sure she’d say no, but it only seemed polite to offer. And she was nice, and he found himself wanting to be polite to her. Huh.
***
Her eyebrows lifted and she shot him a 'look' that very plainly said he was more than welcome to partake on his own. Besides, if he was getting high, one of them needed to keep it together. Sure, he usually managed alright on his own, but this wasn't his home world, either. This dome apparently did strange things and she wouldn't risk him that way.
Not that she knew when she had gotten all protective of him. But she did still have her blaster on her hip for a reason.
"I'm going to leave that to you, Klaus." There was, after all, a part of her that still feared her father up and turning on them. And she needed to keep her mind as sharp as possible. She hadn't even been drinking, though she knew here she wasn't even technically old enough. "Let's get you home in one piece first."
***
“Your loss,” he shrugged. He was more than willing to share with her, but if she didn’t want any, he wasn’t going to force her. It wasn’t like this was his first time doing drugs alone. He’d always done them alone because one of the main reasons he did them was that he wanted to be alone for once.
“Alright. Home in one piece.” He nodded and headed in the direction of his apartment.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
***
She stayed as close as she dared, glancing around. Logically she knew she wouldn't be able to see the beings he saw. That didn't mean she wasn't on alert, glaring all around them. As if somehow she could make them leave him alone by sheer will.
At his question, she paused, thinking it over. "I guess...in some ways I just think you deserve better," Leia began. "And also, well… You remind me of my brother, a little. He got a power he hadn't planned on and it took him on a very dangerous path." But Luke had learned to handle his gifts. Klaus could, too, with effort. Maybe with someone who wasn't his disgusting excuse for a father. "Luke managed, eventually. But it wasn't easy on him. He got pulled into a war he'd never planned for."
***
“Yeah, well, back home my sister caused the apocalypse, so I guess you can say that the same sort of thing happened to me, too.” He shuddered a little, but it turned into a slightly unhinged laugh before too long. Most of what Klaus did was somewhat unhinged, as was his entire life so far.
“Think you can help me manage?”
He’d let her, but he had about as much faith in it working as he had with everything else he’d tried so far.
***
"My father killed my entire planet, so I can relate." She tried to laugh as well but it was a strained sound. Getting closer to Anakin meant it was very difficult to see him as the man who had destroyed Alderaan.
It was a huge undertaking. Leia wasn't an idiot. But, for better or for worse, she found she liked Klaus. He was a sweet guy, and she was pretty sure it wasn't because of the liquor or the drugs. He didn't deserve what happened to him and he sure as hell didn't deserve what his father had done.
"If I can't help you, you can be damn sure I'll find someone who can. There are options here. Tons of them. Things I've only ever dreamed of. We can get you some help, Klaus. And I promise you, I'll be there the whole time."
***