#fourthmedium

a  strategic  retreat :    camp  out  the  night  and  wait.   the  cicadas  chirping  in the summer heat,   sweat on everyone’s  dirty  faces,   the  stars  bright  lamps  looking  down on the evil  of  war  ...   klaus  found  dave  sitting  at the  base  of a  tree,   weapon  tucked  between his  knees,   shaking.  “  ...  i  can’t stop  shaking.  “    he  said  with a  breathless  laugh,   looking  up at  klaus,  on the  brink  of  letting nerves get the  best of him.     “  why can’t i  stop  shaking?  “

hyperventilation is a bitch of a thing when you’re trying to control something beyond yours. teeth grit. ben clenches his hands into fists. he wants to shout. he wants to tell klaus that it isn’t safe, that being around ben isn’t safe. that he should just run. to leave him. to save himself.        but some part of his brother’s words strikes him. he breathes through his teeth. a hiss. sharp. he’s trying so goddamn hard to concentrate.              another breath -- in through his nose. out through pursed lips. eyes shut tight. spots dancing behind his lids because of it.  ❝ just --- ❞   a grunt. fingers flexing.  ❝ --- please. keep... keep talking. ❞

                    “---Dude I think the light legit left his eyes. I gotta start trash fires outside of home depot more often. But like. Switch it up so they don’t catch on.” 

                     “No.” She lies trying to hide a reactive wince. But she needs that cleaned and bandaged and her hands are shaking too much to do it herself. She’d go to Riley’s mom, but she doesn’t know what Mrs. Ward would say, let alone do. The gash on her arm is ugly, not something she could have done herself. So she dragged the first aid kit to the tree house and asked Klaus to take a look. “—You don’t think I’ll need a doctor or anything, right?”

It takes a lot for someone to really catch Tao’s attention in a crowded club like this one. There’s far too much going on for him to focus on any one individual person for long unless he’s thinking about making a move on them. However, when he finds his eyes inexplicably drawn to the same man near the bar for the third time in the span of about ten minutes, he stops his eyes from wandering and really focuses on him.

There’s something familiar about him, but he just can’t place it. It’s possible they’ve simply crossed paths at one point, but that doesn’t feel right because Tao can’t see himself recognizing some random stranger he’d bumped into once, or even twice. He meets far too many people on a daily basis to really remember them, let alone feel any sort of connection to them, however tenuous that connection may be.

Sipping his drink at a cocktail table across the room, he struggles with his recall, too curious to just let the subject drop. So finally, as he reaches the bottom of his glass, he sets it aside and heads toward the bar itself, hoping a closer proximity to the mystery man might help him quench his curiosity. 

He slots himself into a space next to the stranger, brushing his shoulder as he raises an arm to flag down a bartender. Dropping a sizable bill into the tip jar as he receives his second drink of the night, Tao casts a glance down at the man’s forearm to examine the tattoo he’d seen out of the corner of his eye. And there it is: the piece of the puzzle he’d needed to figure out why this man looked so familiar.

He’s one of the Umbrella Academy kids Tao had been interested in as a child.

“ it’s no problem!   i’m glad you’re here ! “    and oh, how genuine     the young boys words are :    delight radiates from his face as he looks at klaus     standing in the doorway, unsubtle happiness filling his eyes with warmth as he opened up the entrance a little wider for him to come in through.      it had been  subtle, like a spy trick,      leaving that envelope in klaus’ pack   —-   the contents of which were a polite invitation to    please come over for dinner while my dad is out of town, late saturday next week ; i think rose thinks i’m making you up,    and really,     i’m just not that creative!      it would be really nice to see you, and   i  think you’d really like my family.    we’d like you, too.      DK.