Chapter Text
Fedora release 10 (Cambridge)
Kernel 2.6.27.12-170 on an i686
login:
Klaus stares. Then he swallows. Then he starts typing.
login as: root
root@ modecker’s password:
Linux modecker 2.6.27.12-170-generic #1 SMP Fri Dec 24 04:45:36 UTC 2019 i686
Fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fucking fuck. If he gets caught… fuck it. Never mind. Focus. Shit. Fuck.
Klaus feels…
… kinda high.
EIGHT MONTHS AGO
“I’m just saying,” Klaus says, twirling spaghetti around his fork and letting it drop off for the fourth time now, heedless of Allison’s warning glance. “Like. You spend a lot of time on the thing. The computer. I know there’s that forum but still. Hey! Do you remember how much we used to hate those trips to the research places and stuff? You think it was just because it was all old white men doing the talking when we secretly knew it was actually all those ladies of colour and distinction they wouldn’t let out in public doing the hard work?”
“Klaus,” Diego says. “Could you just eat your food?”
“Hey,” Klaus puts his hands up, including his fork. Spaghetti drips down his wrist. Oops. “I’m making an observation as a dumbass white boy.”
“You are a dumbass white boy,” Diego mutters to himself, while Ben, behind him, says,
“Could you just eat it? I’m on edge watching you, man,” and Allison says,
“You seem a little twitchy. And you’re not actually eating that. And you didn’t eat lunch.”
Okay, alright. His leg is jiggling in place hard enough to rattle the knife left abandoned by his plate, okay Klaus can own up to that. And he has a bit of a –
“But do you remember when Bill Gates said that nobody would ever need more than, I can’t even remember, and now – and, wait is memory RAM? Was that the joke on that show I watched last night?”
“Klaus!”
“What?” he asks Allison, throwing his hands up again, a little more vigorously than before. Spaghetti flies over his shoulder. Klaus resolutely does not look at it.
“You – listen to yourself! You sound… I mean. You have a lot of energy right now. I think you need an outlet. Is all I’m saying.”
Diego points a fork at him rudely. “Not more time following me around the gym, either.”
“Like, a mental outlet,” Allison continues.
“That’s more effort than a crossword,” Diego adds, judgmentally.
“Excuse you both!” Klaus says. “I have an outlet. I knit. And I started that new dance routine. From that show. You know. I’m just asking about computer things. I can barely remember any of the stuff we were taught now, which is stupid.”
“Your amygdala was busy at the time,” Diego suggests.
“Give him money,” Klaus demands to Allison. “He remembered a brain part. He did a listen.”
“Also your SMART objectives say three meals a day,” Diego says, slightly meaner. “Every day. I’m telling Paul on Tuesday you’re not following them.” He eyeballs Klaus. “It’s because you’re just lounging around not doing anything unless we do it. There, I said it, eat your fucking dinner. And then get. A. Hobby.”
Oh. Klaus looks at his plate. He really, really doesn’t want it. Also… right. Okay. Now he feels a little bit shit.
“Hey, don’t make that face,” Diego is saying, and Allison is butting in,
“You could possibly have phrased that better,” and Diego is snapping,
“Which one of us does family therapy? Me. Which one of us cares enough to actually fucking say anything? Me. Shut up,” and Allison is using her outraged tone to counter,
“Are you seriously telling me to shut up?”
“Is that seriously what just came out of my mouth?”
“Are you-”
“I want yogurt!” Klaus blurts, at maybe twice his usual speaking volume, to try and distract them.
It works. They both stare at him.
And then Diego just... stands up and leaves. Allison frowns after him, expression displeased.
“Raspberry,” Klaus adds, so that she looks at him again.
“You know where the refrigerator is,” Allison informs him.
Diego stomps back in as abruptly as he left.
“Hey,” he says, sharp. He stalks over and dumps a big book in Klaus’ lap. It hits him right where it really did not need to. To say that Klaus winces is charitable.
“Fucker,” Klaus gasps.
“Read up,” Diego says. “You need a hobby.”
Aaaaaalmost a year ago to the week:
Something’s about to give, Klaus can feel it in his bones.
Also his guts. Also his teeth. MDMA is just not the party drug he remembers.
What the fuck was it this time? Oh yeah. He was bored. He was bored and there’s a lot of world out there and he’d spent all of ten minutes thinking about actually cleaning up his act and doing something with his life – well. There’s too much fucking choice, isn’t there. He should get a job! Do some philanthropy! Become, like, a doctor or something? Except that leads to thinking about previous life choices and school and the world and Klaus just isn’t built for this anxiety, he needs to stop, and be – what was it? Carefree! Yeah! Just for a while! It’ll be fine, he can try again tomorrow.
Klaus has tried and tried to quit using, and every fucking time so far managed to fuck it up. He half thinks he doesn’t want to quit. The problem is that he also thinks that he doesn’t want to keep using. The other problem is that he’s starting to feel really, ridiculously unwell all of the time, and like, he might have cancer or something shit and he wouldn’t have a fucking clue because fucking fucking fuck.
He’d even tried it for fucking Dave, and staying sober after 24 hours – nightmare, nightmare, nightmare. Not happening.
The ghost world has become untenable again anyway, and he doesn’t really have anybody to talk to or turn to; and if he did he thinks he might just start screaming at them, which. Well. It’s never really gone down that well before now, so.
Klaus is tired. Klaus feels like shit. Absolutely nothing has been fun for a very long time, and all in all: Klaus kind of wants out.
He can’t kill himself, so. Option two:
Klaus is going back to rehab.
Using dead old Reggie’s money he checks himself in somewhere he’s never been before on account of it being even more fucking expensive than average. The – new build, very private – facility has very, very few dead folks haunting its hallways. More’s to celebrate there’s no religious cant, which is also attractive. Means no AA or NA or any of that shit that’s never worked out before. This kind of feels like a last ditch attempt so. New or bust, he figures. If that’s a phrase. It doesn’t feel like a phrase.
He drinks a little to take the edge off before he makes it all the way onto the locked down premises and just succeeds in making himself even more maudlin. He regrets everything as he signs away thirty days worth of rights. He wishes he’d chugged the whole bottle instead of the quarter of it that was left. He doesn’t even like gin! What a shitty choice.
Most of all, though, and what actually keeps the pen moving across pages of signatures and dates, is the craving; he just craves craves craves being locked up in a nice place with people that are actively motivated to make and keep him clean. He is desperate to just be surrounded by people who will pay him attention, take care of withdraw for him, explain the mysteries of the world – like why people like coffee so much, what the fuck is up with that? – and just make him be something resembling healthy.
It’s a crappy, awful, quiet ride. Even Ben is somewhat scarce as Klaus shits his guts out, endures his B vitamin injections and swallows all the other gross supplements, sweats and sweats and tears at his nails and snaps at staff and cries, and wishes he had anybody in his life that he didn’t have to pay these exorbitant fees who will keep him locked up and safe like this, keep him away from drugs and alcohol and stand steadfast while he lies or yells or pleads with them for fucking anything to get a hit, no matter what, when this is done. It doesn’t feel like something he can do by himself, frankly, no matter how clean he gets in here.
He has an assigned case worker; and the guy had just sat with him while he shivered and lied and prevaricated and tried to be distracting and everything else, in the first week. Ditching the physical dependency, they’d said. It had been a special kind of hell.
The second week had been an abrupt new hell, that he’d kind of needed, desperately, since ‘Nam, to just give him something; anything, that wasn’t fucking substance abuse to start dealing with his life.
It had been full of sheets of paper covered in things he didn’t want to think about, with dumb action plans written alongside. And goals.
Klaus has a Hierarchy of Values taped up next to his bed. Midway down the list is “fuck up dead bitches”.
His case worker hadn’t commented on it, but had given him a wink and a gold star.
By week three, of note! The tremors have let up.
Also, he is somewhat blown away to receive some personal mail.
When he opens it after breakfast – two eggs with a bun! Klaus is living – it’s turns out that it’s a letter, from Allison of all people, c/o the Academy – which means that someone there knows where he is (Diego, he imagines, must have returned back there then for god only knows what reason... although he guesses he wouldn’t put it past Five to be stalking them all just for the sake of it). It contains a server address, account details and password. It looks, very, very strangely, like instructions to get into an email account. Week three comes with internet access on a facility computer. It’s got parental controls or whatever on the browser but Klaus doesn’t really give a shit since he barely uses his daily hour. However, logging on to find an email waiting with a link to some utter garbage from what sounded like old people who used to be Umbrella Academy fans, subsequently Klaus finds himself spending the whole sixty minutes clicking around, reading trash. And it is. These people seem to be fans of Vanyas book.
He’s been vaguely calm the past few days, but, somewhat mysteriously, his mood dips and by the time he’s going to sleep, looking at his dumb lists and goals for the week, Klaus is back to wanting to just… he doesn’t know. Pop a pill? Chase a dragon? Maybe? Maybe not. He journals it, doodles some pictures of laser beams blowing up the moon alongside the words.
Between making lists, classes, therapy, group sessions and downtime Klaus does do a little browsing of the forums Allison sent him the link for. He rolls his eyes imagining exactly how much she would love this; half expects a post declaring “Allison Hargreeves here!” with some outfit choices and movie recommendations or something. Instead, somewhat inexplicably, a user with the handle DIEGOHARGREEVES appears to be doing a stunningly accurate impression of Klaus’ actual brother.
Klaus kind of misses him. He makes a handle (K-HOLE! So funny. So topical) and starts passive-aggressively commenting on stuff after him. He maybe writes one of those short story things detailing why Diego’s a shit for not visiting, because this sibling will probably actually read it and maybe give him some attention back.
He does not expect a whole entire email to arrive the next day.
FROM: GrumpyGoth
YO. Are you hounding me on purpose? If you wanted me to visit you should have said, not just told me bye bye see you when you die when you fell out of my car. That shit was pretty fucking clear cut.
Klaus is in a bad mood, suddenly, for no reason whatsoever. He cracks his knuckles and suddenly a vivid image of a behaviour wheel flashes before his eyes, ‘actions!’ and ‘consequences!’.
Fuck it.
TO: GrumpyGoth
dear shithead. thanks for not noticing i spent fifteen years trying to die slowly and horribly. you may console yourself with the knowledge there was also total missing content/mention/anything from anybody else (except VANYAS BOOK which i know you looooove !!!!!) i am as unsurprised as the next motherfucker in here that nobody wants to visit or turn up to fucking anything or have anything to do with me because as vanya wrote i have always been a difficult child, acting out and annoying you all terribly, so very sorry, don’t feel bad, enjoy living your best life and also fuck you because
And then Klaus stops, abruptly, and blinks, and then in, a fit of complete and utter self sabotage, hits the send button.
Fuck, shit.
That was… awful. Well, Diego is never going to speak to him ever again, now. Klaus has thrown the one remaining person in the world he could ask for a ride into the garbage. Was it so bad? He chances a look back at the screen.
Klaus exits the browser hastily. He’s got the shakes again, a little bit. They weren’t meant to be happening any more.
Klaus does not utilise his daily computer hour again.
Two days later, he’s passing near to the main greeting area, walking back from outdoor activity group – Klaus can now identify a starling, because they have bling bling! – when he hears a familiar voice. And it’s not Nico, who coordinates the guests, although he’s talking, too:
“I can’t divulge that; visitation is weekend only or family therapy sessions and it has to be pre-booked, this is for patient safety,” Nico is explaining, in the voice he starts using when he’s had to say it more than once.
“Well he’s not talking to me, so here we are,” Diego’s voice is responding, and when Klaus peeks around the corner, he sees Diego practically draped over Nico’s desk – in a manner that Klaus imagines Diego imagines is somehow becoming. Also – what?
“I mean, you’re not really helping yourself, man,” Nice says, lightly, and the whole tone is relaxed and what is Diego doing here? Has he come to kick Klaus’ ass in person? “Look, you’ve got to have an appointment okay? And I really can’t give out medical information, so please stop asking.”
Diego huffs at that, sighs and runs his hand through his air. “Okay,” he says. “Strictly out of curiosity what happens if I just walk on in -” he gestures to the corridor separating them, and Klaus immediately hides like a coward.
“You get escorted off away from the premises by security.” Nico says, still pleasant.
“I don’t see security,” Diego tells him.
“We’re here, don’t worry,” says a voice that sounds like it’s coming from an intercom or something. Klaus doesn’t know, he can’t see them any more.
There’s a beat, and then his brother says, “I’m leaving my number. If Klaus doesn’t want me to come back tomorrow, let me know. Otherwise – it’s a Saturday, right? And this is me making an appointment.”
“I’ll let you know either way,” Nico is saying, and Klaus turns and walks in the direction of the rec room, where the computers live, because the horrid feeling in his gut that’s been gnawing at him for a couple of days now is ramping back up and – surely Diego would have replied before he drove all the way out here? Or maybe there’s a rant on the forum on one of his mean posts, or maybe – maybe nothing. He can’t shake the bad thoughts. At least knowing how mad his brother is would be better than this uncertainty.
When he gets into his inbox, there are two new emails, which is unexpected. The first one is from Allison and he reads it first. It’s short. It just says, ‘Hey. Enjoying writing fanfiction about yourselves? I’m actually impressed with the quality of your work. Kudos, boys, kudos.’ Klaus doesn’t get it. Maybe it’s code or something.
He opens the next one.
FROM: GrumpyGoth
OKAY you’re upset I get it. You’re in rehab so I’m gonna let that craptalk slide. I’m guessing that shit is rough. I’m driving up tomorrow.
Oh.
OH. That wasn’t… ohhhh.
Klaus wants rather abruptly to run back out into the foyer. He also thinks he might do something ridiculous like try to hug his brother or something else that would risk pissing him off all over again though, so he stays put.
His knee jiggles. He reads through the four sentences four more times before he shuts the thing down.
Next up is art class. Klaus feels pretty good by that point; he paints a bunch of starlings hanging out on a branch.
When he signs the visitation sheet before dinner, Nico asks him if he wants supervision. Klaus doesn’t get why.
When Saturday happens Klaus is ready. He’s got lines. He’s got an action plan. He’s got back up things to say in case they start arguing. He’s… weirdly nervous about the whole thing, actually. Nobody has ever visited him mid-rehab before, and this time he’s actually trying and making big lists of stuff he actually kind of wants out of life now that it looks like he might soon be experiencing it in full colour and HD and whatnot. He also doesn’t really know how to talk to his family at all and now they’re visiting.
His lines are kind of thrown to the breeze when Diego actually turns up. “Holy shit,” is the first thing Diego says, on spotting him.
Okay, Klaus was wrong, he wasn’t ready at all! – what was that for? How the hell do they greet each other? Should he be proving sobriety somehow? Should he – do they shake hands? Diego comes at him and he’s too distracted by his own thoughts to move, and then he’s being lifted off his feet by his brother, who is holding him up with two arms clamped around his middle. “You dick,” Diego says, keeping him off the ground. “I thought you’d be all sick and crap.” He sets him back down none too gently, and Klaus tumbles forwards and has to catch himself on Diego’s collarbone.
“I’m the opposite of sick,” he says, still kind of ironically unable to think straight, “I’m practically radiant.”
“You look so good,” Diego tells him. “What are they feeding you?”
“Uh, meals,” Klaus says. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Diego sort of huffs back at him. “Jesus, you look so much better than last time I saw you.”
“How tactful you are,” Klaus scoffs. “Come on,” he says, suddenly remembering his plan. “We have a list of stuff to do.”
He doesn’t quite regret letting Paul meet Diego at the family and support network group session, but it’s kind of close.
“Yeah, where am I signing up for family therapy?” Diego barrels on, after he’s had the introduction. He’s holding a fucking pamphlet. “You need a support network, I got this bro,” he says, waving it. “These people are the actual shit, huh.”
Whatever the fuck’s gotten into him, Klaus does not know. He tries not to be too obvious with the crying.
Diego comes back six more times. They have visitation on Saturdays and then he comes to four of Klaus’ family therapy slots. Paul keeps giving him literature and lecturing him about shit like being a ‘lighthouse’, and not trying to ‘captain’ Klaus’ ‘ship’ - which sounds hella inappropriate, but pointing this out doesn’t phase either of them.
Klaus tries his best a couple of times to ‘sabotage his recovery efforts’ (thanks, Paul) by ‘being a little shit’ (thanks, Diego), and it doesn’t work. Diego just stays, even if they have a fight he just sits and listens and doesn’t threaten him or even look embarrassed. It’s embarrassing for Klaus, after the second or third time of accidentally trying to wind him up, because at that point Paul decides to ask Diego what he thinks Klaus is doing it for.
And Diego says, kind of bluntly, “when we were growing up everything was a competition. Nobody helped anybody with anything. Or they got told off for cheating.” He shrugs, looking pissed off. “I guess that shit sticks.”
Paul asks him what that means in context.
When Diego says, “Idiot. I’m here, I’m helping, there’s nobody waiting to shove you in a mausoleum on your own again when we’re done, because Dad’s dead,” Klaus wails uncontrollably for around twenty minutes. Diego apologises repeatedly and then puts his arms out like they’re going to hug, and Klaus isn’t actually that sure how to do that and then trying to hug is so horribly awkward that they end up laughing hysterically on the couch in Paul’s stupid little office until Klaus’ hiccups have stopped. Paul is actually making notes, Klaus never wants to see them ever.
It takes him until his last week to gather up the guts to ask Diego if he’d mind being his babysitter, if only for his first week out in the wild. The idea of leaving is terrifying.
Diego agrees and punches him in the arm for asking. Staff don’t seem to understand why this makes him so happy, and call Paul, who says that they have stuff to work on, whatever he means by that.
Getting out, signed off, signed up to ongoing therapy sessions is wild enough. Being collected by Diego is a complete mind blower.
The two of them moving in with Allison is the next to last in the list of unexpected surprises.
The very last surprise is staying sober.
Klaus has his SMART recovery objectives pinned to his bedroom wall, his ABC problem solving worksheets in a pile underneath his CRISIS/RECOVERY handbook, his cost benefit analysis sheets on his night stand, his change plan on his bedroom door, and his hierarchy of values under his pillowcase because he wants it near and dear to his psyche, and that includes when he’s asleep.
So. Almost a year ago to the week, Klaus made his first tactical manoeuvre to becoming tentatively sober in the real world, for the first time in almost two decades.
But.
Back tooooo… what was it? Right. Eight months ago:
“Not that I don’t appreciate the drop kick to the nuts, but what the hell am I meant to do with this?” Klaus groans, holding up the enormous textbook that Diego has unceremoniously dumped on him.
“You’re complaining you can’t remember anything and don’t understand computers,” Diego tells him, walking toward the kitchen. “Cyber crime is on the up on the internet. You could do something good, if you can be bothered to crack it.”
“Ha, crack,” is Klaus’ response.
Diego walks back into the room with a raspberry yogurt and a spoon, and then looks back at Allison with his eyebrows all funny, and Klaus thinks about that for a moment and then is distracted by the smell of bolognaise by his face. He looks and realises his arm his still covered in spaghetti sauce. What the hell. He takes a big lick just to be gross.
Diego just rolls his eyes and exchanges his plate for the yogurt, taking it away to the kitchen.
“Diego,” Allison admonishes, and Klaus has no idea why. She looks at Klaus for a moment, seems to be thinking on something. “I mean,” she says, “I know you were never that into them,” she says, “but did you know there’s games and stuff on the computer now too?”
Urgh. “I was never like Diego or Five or, freaking, Luther,” Klaus tells her, exasperated. “And besides. Don’t you need some brains for that kind of adventure? Pretty sure mine all melted out of my nose via PCP. Or maybe it was the crack,” he contemplates. “Or the molly. Or the alcohol to be honest, that shit’s just straight up bad for brain functioning. How many crosswords do you think I was getting done when I was wasted?” Ben begins smacking himself in the face repeatedly in Klaus’ periphery. He waves his hands some more and ignores his beloved deceased bro. “None, that’s how many! ‘Grub that eight spat out’?” Klaus gestures to Allison’s plate. “Not a chance. I don’t know if I could have even spelled ‘spaghetti’ back when, uh.”
“Shut up,” Diego says, coming back in. He has an A4 piece of paper in his hand.
“Oh, God,” Klaus says. “I mean good. Thank you. Um.”
“Objectives,” Diego informs him, handing him the pre-printed form. Klaus has stacks of them in a ring binder, fills out one a week. Sometimes an extra one if he ends up having a less decent week. “I’m not telling you what to put.” Diego slides a pen over. “Write down ‘reading that book’.”
It’s a ridiculously good feeling to have somebody give a shit.