#timejumps

some meme idk / @timejumps

“So are you and your son up to anything nice today?” asks the woman behind the counter and Klaus grins like the fucking Cheshire Cat. Here’s the thing: he feels bad for Five, he really does. Lord knows if Klaus was forced back into his thirteen year old body again he’d be pretty pissed off, but the woman (Katy, her name tag reads) has just offered him an opportunity on a golden platter, what the hell is he meant to do? Besides which as Five’s younger brother Klaus is duty bound to wind him up, and it’s a duty he takes very seriously. 

“Oh me and little Fievel here have a great day planned, don’t we buddy?” one long arm slings itself around Five’s shoulders, the other ruffles his hair and Klaus knows without looking that Five is glaring daggers at him. It’s just as well looks can’t kill, or Klaus would be ten foot under and arguing with God right now. 

“Fievel? Like in An American Tail?” asks Katy and oh Klaus could kiss her. 

“The very same! Me and his mom are huge fans and between you and me,” he drops his voice to a stage whisper, leans in like he’s about to reveal a big secret, “we think little Fivey here is just as cute as any cartoon mouse-he had the big ears too before he grew into them.” 

        ❛  that ?   it’s  just  an  old  cross  stitch,  i  believe  i  made  it  the  night  when…  ❜   grace  stops  herself,  trailing  off  with  the  sentence  unfinished.   she’s  not  sure  if  he  knew  about  the  attack  on  the  academy,  or  if  diego  had  told  the  rest  of  what  he’d  done  that  night.   so  she  keeps  silent  about  it.   ❛  oh,  i  don’t  recall.  ❜

some meme idk / @timejumps

Klaus has never been one to wake peacefully. Every morning comes with a series of shudders, breath catching in his throat as he’s dragged into consciousness by ghosts and no, no, no, please. These days it’s worse than it ever has been. Klaus no longer jerks awake, he bolts upright in his bed gasping like a man drowned or else with a name on his lips, or a warning. Vietcong are in he trees but he can do nothing about it, or he’s trapped in the mausoleum, or Hazel and Cha Cha are there holding him down as he drips blood. Every night is like the worlds shittiest roulette: what night terror will he have the joy of experiencing today? 

Last night was awful, Klaus had screamed himself awake at four am and hadn’t calmed down for almost fifteen minutes of Ben talking slowly from the corner of the room. It’s a good thing Reginald soundproofed Klaus’ room, really, he thinks his siblings would appreciate the screaming and shouting about as much as he does, which is to say not at all. Going back to sleep was out of the question so Klaus spends the day exhausted and on edge. A helecopter flying overhead stops the blood in his veins, he steps on his eyeliner pencil and has to stop himself from yelling at Carter to watch his fucking step before he gets them all shot, in the kitchen Luther puts a mug down slightly too hard and Klaus bolts from the room faster than you can say shell shocked. Now he’s sat in the living room smoking a cigarette and daring Ben to say anything about it because God knows he could do with something stronger. Ben says nothing though, probably figuring some arguments just aren’t worth having while Klaus is in this state. Which is stupid really because Klaus is fine, he is-or he’s managing anyway, so whatever. It’s fine. 

Then somewhere near the mansion a car backfires, and all hell breaks loose. 

He flings himself to the ground, hands already scrambling for his rifle, he must have dropped it when the first grenade went off-idiot. It’s dark, they do this, come at night when the 173rd are half asleep and clumsy with fatigue. The jungle floor feels strange against his fingers, smooth, cold and almost like he isn’t in the jungle at all. Opening his eyes (when did he close them?) makes things even worse because what he’s seeing isn’t the same as what he should be seeing. Instead of jungle, Dave’s boots, his rifle, there is polished wood floor and old furniture. It makes him feel sick, like everything around him keeps changing and shifting too fast to keep up with. He wants Dave, but Dave is dead. Wants Carter or Smith to make bad jokes with, but Smith stepped on a mine, and Carter was shot through the head by a sniper not two weeks after. They’re in the jungle together, crouching low, but he’s also in the mansion pulling at his hair desperate for something, anything, to ground him. A terrible keening noise escapes him, raw and primal and terrified. 

For a while, Klaus floats. Everything is muffled but the sound of his own gasping breaths gunfire that he doesn’t know is real or not. Sometimes he felt like a ghost, stuck in the middle and belonging nowhere. Vietnam is in his bones, his sleep, in every fucking helicopter or too loud noise, but he’s also at the mansion ignoring all the signs of his father, shivering whenever he walks past the office. Klaus is tired of not knowing where or when he is, not knowing if he’s sweating to death in the heat of Vietnam or sat in the kitchen while Grace hums. So he slips, he closes his eyes in the kitchen and opens them again half an hour later in his bedroom with no idea how he got there. His days are aimless, spent wondering the halls of his old home and in the mirror his face is pale and worn as any ghost he’s ever seen. It would almost be funny if he weren’t so very tired and so very, very afraid. 

There’s a voice. One that doesn’t belong in Vietnam and is only just starting to belong in the mansion again. Five, talking about something Klaus cannot make out over the blood pounding in his ears, but talking all the same. He focuses on it, forces himself to forget everything else until the muffled sounds become words and he can finally open his eyes again. Five’s sat in front of him, crossed legged in the floor talking about-maths? Klaus isn’t sure, the words are words again but the meaning still escapes him. He blinks, slowly lowers his hands from his head. 

“Five?” his voice is rough, as if he’s been screaming. He has. Five looks at him properly then, frowning slightly eyes full of something Klaus would almost mistake for concern if that wasn’t such a stupid idea. 

“Back with us?” Five asks in that same no-nonsense voice of his which is far more calming than it has any right to be, all things considered. Klaus nods, a pained jerking motion that doesn’t feel like it comes from him but Five seems to understand anyway. “Good.”  they lapse into silence, Klaus’ scratching the backs of his hands and trying to steady his breathing out, Five simply watching as if he’s a puzzle to be solved. It’s nice. Having someone alive here too. Makes it easier for Klaus to ground himself. 

“1968,” he says suddenly, surprising himself. “When you asked-the briefcase-I went to 1968-Vietnam. I served. Ten months.” he doesn’t explain further than that, doesn’t go into why he didn’t come back sooner even with all the death and gunfire and nightmares. Five spent years finding a way back to his family, and Klaus spent ten months believing he’d never come back again. Probably that makes Five the better person out of the two of them, which wouldn’t surprise Klaus. Most people are better than he is, really.

“Oh,” says Five because he’s not one to coddle but he’s acknowledging it anyway, accepting the truth of the thing which Klaus is grateful for beyond what words can express. Klaus nods, mouths the word yeah but can’t seem to make his voice work again. Silence settles between them again because there really is nothing more to say. Klaus’ hands are still shaking, his face caked with sweat and tears, but he feels more grounded than he has all day, calmer too.

“Thanks.”

Before this, Klaus had never been afraid of dying. How can he be, with a life like his-with powers like his? Death holds no mystery to Klaus, and though he’s never relished the idea of becoming a screaming ghost at least he knows what to expect. More times than he can count he’s pissed off the wrong person, taken too much of the wrong thing, stared death in the face and laughed. This is different though. Dying of an overdose is one thing, being brutally murdered by torturers who want his brother is another. Whatever slim hopes Klaus had of them letting him go are long gone. If Five doesn’t turn up (and he won’t, Klaus is sure) they’ll kill him, if someone does by some miracle come for him, then they’ll kill him. It’s a no win scenario and the ghosts of all those victims are here to remind him just what’s at stake. Klaus has never been that bothered about living, but that doesn’t mean he wants to bleed out in a bathtub with his hands cut off either. 

        ❛    that’s  such  a  sweet  thought,  darling.   but  nothing  bad  is  going  to  happen  to  me,  don’t  worry.    ❜   there’s  a  light  tone  to  her  words,  smile  as  warm  as  the  sun;  nothing  could  be  worse  than  what  his  father  made  her  and  forbade  her  to  do  when  he  was  still  alive,  but  his  own  tone  worries  her.   ever  since  five  had  come  back  —  from  the  future,  apparently  —  he’d  been  jittery  and  always  on  his  toes,  always  looking  over  his  shoulder.   the  writings  she  saw  all  over  the  walls  in  his  room  only  made  her  more  confused  about  what  he  could’ve  been  so  anxious  about;  grace  wishes  she  knew  how  to  help  him.   ❛    besides,  it’s  my  job  to  take  care  of  you  ——  as  it’s  always  been.    ❜

a muse i’ve played :  wirt from over the garden wall.  i don’t know about him.  i had a lot of fun writing him and i have some fond memories of the friends i made there but,  there’s ot a lot to say.  it was a long time ago ( 2015,  i think? ) and my memory sucks so.  yeah.  but he was my baby and i enjoyed writing him very much !

❛       WHAT   THE   HELL   .  .  .       ❜         pause ,  several  blinks  to  evaluate    unexpected  situation  in  front  of  him .     blue  light ,  a  portal   ( space  time  anomaly ? )   and  then  a  body  falling ,  hitting  the  ground .    his  body .   forgive  him  for  being  a  tad  speechless  here ,     or  maybe  not .       ❛      did  i  just              who  are  you ?     are  you  me ?     ❜

caring starters / accepting / @timejumps

Wherever the line between nightmares and night-terrors is, Klaus knows he crossed it long ago. Once, when he was about ten, not long after dad had locked him in the mausoleum for the first time he’d woken up screaming himself raw with his sheets soaked in urine. The next day dad soundproofed his room, and threw him back on the mausoleum for another few hours to face his fears. Say what you like about the old man (and Klaus often does) but he was never one to do things by half. Your kid is afraid of ghosts? Fuck it, throw him in a dark, locked room full of angry spirits for a few hours at a time and be done with it. Reginald always prided himself on being a smart man, but it truly boggles the mind that he never saw the flaw in that particular plan of his.  Years have passed since then, Reginald is dead and the apocalypse averted, but the ghosts still linger both literally and metaphorically. Klaus is in the process of trying to go sober too, which is feeling like less of a good thing with every day that passes but he’s trying which probably counts for something. Even with the drugs it was rare for him to get a peaceful nights sleep, and so it really isn’t surprising when his night is interrupted in the worst way.

In Klaus’ mind there are cold, rotting fingers clawing at him. They pull at his hair, his clothes, trying to grab onto him and he knows, he knows if they get the chance they’ll possess him. One ghost, the same one that’s been burned into his memory for over a decade, screams his name-an impressive feat for someone with half of their face caved in. There’s so many of them, all clawing and screaming and scratching. In his bed Klaus screams too and his bedroom door opens with a bang that he is too terrified to hear, and too out of it to consider the implications of. Klaus! The ghosts become louder, and he matches their volume, eyes wide but unseeing. Suddenly there are hands on his shoulder, his face, another voice added to the chaos and Klaus does the only thing his panicked brain can think of-he lashes out, swinging his fist until he feels it connect with something solid.

There’s a crash, some more yelling, and Klaus knows that he is awake now but he’s so blinded by terror that all he can do is push himself into the very corner of his room and shiver. It’s so loud. It’s always so fucking loud and he brings his hands to his face, clawing at it with his nails desperate for something to focus on that isn’t the ghosts and dammit why did he decide to go sober he needs a hit he needs it so badly and maybe there’s still something hidden in his room but he can’t breathe let alone move to look for it.

A flash of blue light. Someone calling his name, but softer, calmer, so unlike the ghosts that Klaus allows himself the briefest glance through his fingers. Five. Five with a busted lip and oh-oh, realisation hits Klaus suddenly and were he not already hyperventilating it would probably knock the wind out of him. “I’m sorry,” his hands are still shaking, still clinging to his stinging face, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” In the corner of the room a ghost wails. Klaus sobs. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine, let me see your face.” Five’s voice is calm, business like and no-nonsense as ever and Klaus doesn’t resist as he takes hold of his wrists, gently pulls them away from his face. The cold night air stings the scratches from his nails, but it gives him something to focus on, something that isn’t a ghost, or cravings, or the way that he’ll never escape his father, or the fact that he’s a twenty nine year old man sobbing in the corner of his bedroom because of nightmares and fuck, fuck!