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Tweak says, "2. 4. 3."

Klaus Hargreeves (fourthranked) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2020-09-25 22:58:00

Who: Klaus and Ben Hargreeves.
What: Brotherly talking
Where: a quiet place in Asgard.
When: Backdated to Tuesday

It wasn’t unusual for Klaus to have trouble sleeping, but he was obsessed with the fortune cookie he’d received days ago. It was… normal for Klaus to get obsessed if he was being honest, his brain just latched onto things, people, ideas, songs, art, things that just replayed and replayed in his head. The vision was one of those things.

Klaus was the only one of Hargreeve siblings that knew about the alternate dimension that they’d stepped into, even though he clearly saw Five and Alison speaking about it. Klaus pulled his hair back into a bun, and sat half out his window smoking half a pack of cigarettes before he finally put his thoughts on the network. He was antsy, and when Ben reached out to him… Klaus could push his siblings away… but it was always hard with Ben. Ben was his shadow, and Klaus had treated him as such, even though he realized that he shouldn’t.

They found a quiet place in the sparkling city. He couldn’t deny the beauty of it all, even though he was exhausted and anxious. He wasn’t cold, but he’d pulled a soft sweater over his arms regardless for the comfort. He laid his head on Ben’s shoulder, his eyes closed for a second. “You win best brother, you know.” Klaus said softly.

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wheee
2020-09-26 10:23 pm UTC (link)

Ben was confused.

He'd seen Klaus through an awful lot of different moods. Many of them drug induced, but not all. But this was a whole new level. This was closer to how he'd been when Ben had first died. But that was silly because they were here. And Ben was alive.

That was still taking some getting used to.

But despite his insistence that he wanted a bit of independence from his brothers and sisters in order to find out exactly who this adult alive Ben was, he couldn't just turn his back on Klaus. Klaus had been his sole companion for almost twenty years. When his brother needed him, he'd be there. "Of course I do, look at my competition. Luther never learned to deal with emotions, Diego just stabs everyone, and Five is...kinda weird."

And he loved every single one of them desperately.

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fourthranked
2020-09-26 11:56 pm UTC (link)

Klaus managed a soft, shaky laugh. “They’ve gotten better.” Klaus said with a small smile. They had. They had come together when Vanya needed them. He remembered Luther using his body to shield himself and Alison from the bullets, he remembered Diego standing up to his girlfriend and working with Herb to save them, he remembered Vanya floating like a ghost and shattering the agency to protect them. They had all really cared for each other in the way that their dad had never let them.

Klaus rubbed his face. He bet that Asgard had some pretty magical fucking drugs, and there was a part of him that wanted that more than anything. It wouldn’t be so bad if he just forgot. “I can’t even remember the last time Diego threw something at me or Five called me an idiot.” He smiled though.

“How are you, though?” Klaus was pretty good at deflecting, “How are you adjusting?”

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wheee
2020-09-28 01:09 am UTC (link)

Ben did love his family. Even if they were a bit much at times. But if you weren't being overdramatic, were you even a Hargreeves? It was just hard, sometimes. When Klaus and the others would go on and Ben... Nothing. If they were all returned tomorrow, the rest of them would keep going. But Ben, Ben would have to leave them behind. He'd have to finally see what those lights were all about.

And it was somehow both calming and terrifying.

"He hasn't called you an idiot out loud. It's Five, I feel like he's thinking it about all of us most of the time." Five had always been the smarter sibling and he rarely let it go unknown.

Ben caught the deflection, but he'd offered to just sit with his brother and not force him to talk so he wanted to live up to that. "I'm okay. I think. My roommates are pretty quiet but I kind of need that right now." The people here enjoyed parties a lot and that just wasn't him. Not yet anyway. Maybe someday he'd be able to surround himself with people having fun and yelling and joking with each other. But right now, even six siblings could be tough to handle.

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fourthranked
2020-09-28 01:31 am UTC (link)

"I don't know how he does this." Klaus said, talking about Five, pulling his sweater around him tighter and rubbing his thumb across one of the buttons repeatedly, taking in the smoothness of it. "Keeps all that... everything in his head. all the time lines. all the dots. When they connect. When they dont." His voice was disjointed and clipped, but not in a way that would note Klaus's drug use, just in a way that one would speak when something didn't make sense when they desperately wanted it to.

"I'm glad you're roommates are good to you, Ben." That was an honest statement. Klaus thought that Ben deserved the world... probably the best one out of the lot of them-- either because he hadn't lived long enough to break as hard as the rest of them, or because he was simply just... stronger than them. He sighed a little.

"Have you been to that big library yet? I mean, I don't think there is one right now, but when this place is new york."

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wheee
2020-09-28 01:48 am UTC (link)

Ben shrugged, dropping his head into his hands and propping his elbows on his knees. It still felt kind of weird actually feeling the weight of his head and the actual texture of his skin and clothes. He didn't hate it. "He's a literal genius. And he had a whole lot of time away from any other human to think things like that over. Plus that whole agency commission thing."

A part of him did want to cave and ask if they could just throw an air mattress on the floor of the apartment all of his siblings were living in. But Ben knew, on a more logical level, that he needed this. He needed to grow and learn how to be on his own. He loved every single one of his siblings but he needed to learn who he was outside of all of the craziness around them.

"I don't know, an Asgardian library would be pretty epic. But I haven't been to the one at home yet. Is it the real New York Public Library? Like in the movies?" Like the one where they'd burnt all those books to stay alive.

Ben didn't really like that part at all.

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fourthranked
2020-09-28 02:03 am UTC (link)

"Got more braincells than me at least." Klaus said with a bit of a snort. "I've only... traveled like twice? And I can barely keep it straight. Doesn't help that Diego is the only one who knows what it was like after we got through to Vanya..." And Ben died again for real. "But even he stops just short of us getting home." Which, in Klaus's mind, was the biggest clusterfuck.

"You would think that, Nerd." Klaus teased gently, "Yeah, the library is legit." Klaus nodded, "Books as far as the eyes can see, and like at least four levels. Its... interesting." He shrugged. "Seems like a place you would like anyway."

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