It's not a wrong thing to say, you know. You're hardly ever here half the time. And I know it's all open-door possibility, nobody has to stay if they don't want to, whatever. But you kind of made a deal about moving in, like it was what you wanted, so was that all an act, or did you do it because you felt like it was expected?
[ It wasn't... all an act. He had wanted to be close to his siblings again. Had wanted to be with Diego, and Luther, and Allison and Ben and Five and maybe eventually Vanya, too. But a part of him, the selfish, awful part of him isn't ready to admit that half the reason he moved in was so he could have a stable place post Overdose while he went to whatever necessary counseling and treatment the doctors prescribed.
And as time wore on, well. He wasn't out partying every night, but he wasn't here, either. Restless and unsure about a place like this. When was the last time he'd ever slept in the same bed for more than a handful of days? A few weeks? A month at most in a rehab center and a few more in a jail cell?
It felt unnatural, having a place he could call 'his'. Having a room and a bed and a home, even if shared with his siblings. Because they'd never really had one, had they? It was a barracks, it was a training center. But it wasn't a home. ]
Do I ask questions I don't want answers to, Klaus? Yes, I want the real answer. All of it.
[This is already frustrating as all get out, but Diego went into it expecting it to be. If his brother wants him to pull teeth to get answers out of him, fine.]
[ He's so tired of arguing with all of them, and it's just... so much easier to take off. To disappear. That idealized image he had of their younger years, the brief moments of happiness and the people they were, have dried up with all his expectations. ]
i mean come on i don't exactly fit into the norman rockwell thanksgiving picture i think allisons trying to build here
What is it, exactly, that makes you so uncertain about it now?
[Klaus may not be able to hear it, but there's a laugh at that last text when it comes in. He can't believe that his brother would think anyone could expect that level of picturesque anything from them.]
Are you serious? You REALLY think that's what she's trying to do? What she EXPECTS? Do you think she doesn't know who and how we all are? No, I guarantee you she is not expecting a perfect dinner with no hiccups or bumps. But is it really THAT hard to think that maybe we could all eat a goddamn meal together like an actual fucking family? Are you honestly that scared of dealing with all of us at once, Klaus?
Diego stares at the texts for a handful of long, drawn out minutes, debating what he might say to it all before he decides to abandon the phone all together and march down the hall to Klaus' room. He doesn't bother knocking before he walks in. "This is exactly what your goddamn problem is, you know that?" He asks, shutting the door behind him. "You just run from everything. The second something isn't going your way, or in your favor, you dip out. How the fuck do you think anything is ever gonna get better if you don't start facing some of it?"
Klaus's heart flies into his throat at the sudden appearance of his brother, yanking his headphones off. "Diego what the hell-" Trapped, with that door shutting behind him. The panic is immediate and tangible, and he scrambles to get off the bed and open it again. Even just a crack.
"Didn't know you were home. You could have knocked." He frowns, yanking the door back open just a sliver. A crack. A way out, even unintentionally. "You here just to yell at me too? I mean everyone else already has."
Diego does a slow, half-turn back toward the door when Klaus darts toward it like he might leave, a frown etching deep across his features He won't pretend to understand what all that flailing was about. Instead, he'll just focus on the words pouring out of his brother's mouth, and the reason he had come in here in the first place.
"Have you stopped to think about why everyone might be having words with you?"
"Well, let's see. Do you want it by number order or chronologically?" Klaus replies stiffly, crossing the room to turn on his hot plate. Something to do, at least, until Diego forced him to sit still and face the music.
"Allison essentially blames me for the entire apocalypse, Luther's doing his 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed' routine, Ben thinks I'm an idiot- I mean what else is new- and Vanya..." The words are still at the back of his mind sometimes. That he should have just gone through with it instead of making Ben watch him, OD after OD after OD. That he should have died and Ben should have lived.
But she had been the first one to greet him when he came out of the Porter, after being essentially dead for a week. Her hands tight around his waist, her face buried in his chest. They were all lethal to each other, even if they loved each other. Prying at all the loose stones and jagged edges to pick under skin and make each other bleed.
"Look, I get it, alright? I'm the family screw up. No matter what I try to do to be better, it's never going to be good enough. So just get off my ass." Because he's tried. He's tried. He's gotten a stable job, he's stopped taking illegal drugs, he's tried to sort his shit out even if he's coming home late or staying out too long. Hell, he's even using his powers. Training with them. Even if he hasn't picked sparring back up with Diego, or Telekinesis with Luther, he's still learning how to use them.
But nothing he does will ever be good enough, because he'd done something in the past to bring it all crashing down around his ears. He wishes he could stop giving a shit. Wishes he had that power enhancer around his wrist again, when he felt in control and unstoppable and like he could conquer the world. Like he could conquer everything.
Diego swivels where he stands to follow his brother as he moves across the room, arms slowly folding low across his stomach. He doesn't interrupt his tirade, actually, he wants to hear all of it, because he wants to understand Four's thought process in all of this. Diego can be incredibly narrow minded and tunnel-visioned at times, but he isn't completely incapable of hearing someone out.
He has thoughts on everything Klaus lists about the rest of their siblings-- he's pretty sure Allison isn't laying blame, and just wanting Klaus to own his piece of it, the same way she's been drilling Diego to own some of his worst pieces of himself recently; Luther... well, no, that tracks and Diego hates the 'not angry, just disappointed' thing; Ben is always the first to call Klaus an idiot, but also the first to coddle him-- "What about Vanya?" He presses for the unfinished piece of it. "And what about me? What do you think I'm here for?" He'd love to hear the assumptions, before he gives him even an inch to take about what he really wants to say.
Diego scoffs and shakes his head, "Klaus, quit the pity routine. You think you're the only one that fucks up? You think you're the only one Allison calls out on their shit? That Luther gets disappointed in? Trust me, you're not." He pauses and shakes his head, a firmer thing less of disbelief like the last one, more of a solid gesture of 'no' this time. "I'm not gonna get off your ass. Know why? Because I know you can do better." The only reason he's so hard on Klaus is exactly that. He knows the potential is there, but it's so aggravating to watch him waste it and let it all wither away to nothing.
He sighs and reaches up to scrub one hand across his face before making his way over to sit in the medium's pile of pillows masquerading as a bed. "I know you think you've done a lot toward sobriety by dropping down to just weed and booze, but... it's just another avoidance tactic. A way to not actually commit. And you're living your whole life that way, it's how you choose, over and over and over again, and then you wonder how you landed in yet another mess, again. The path of least resistance is not the one that makes you better than you were."
"Vanya said some shit. I said some shit back." Klaus shrugs, disappearing into the bathroom attached to his room to fill up the kettle with water. Keep his hands busy and himself occupied so he doesn't end up trying to climb out of the window to avoid this confrontation. "And you're probably here to chew me out for not coming to sparring practice or having whiskey in my room or something." He rolls his eyes and slowly turns off the tap.
He's not the only one Allison calls out, but it grates on his nerves all the same. Perfect Allison, who acts like she's above it all, who can't even answer a simple question without turning it back on him. He doesn't get to judge, he doesn't know her, he doesn't count.
"So what, going to start giving me surprise drug tests like I'm back at rehab?" Klaus laughs, hollow, like he's annoyed by the very thought. He's more annoyed that Diego sounds like their father, complaining about how Klaus squandered his potential, about how he only scratched the surface-
"What kind of shit?" He isn't sure Klaus will tell him, and if he doesn't he'll probably let it go this time. Maybe it just isn't the time for that particular discussion. Or he isn't the person for it.
He frowns when Klaus suddenly disappears, but he doesn't actually leave, so he doesn't say anything about it. "Honestly? I'm surprised you did the sparring as long as you did. But I told you when you asked about it, I wasn't going to waste my time, either. If you don't want to do it anymore, that's on you. I'm not going to hold your hand and beg you to do it. You know where to find me if you decide you want to pick it up again." He shrugs.
"If I didn't think you probably know how to fake the results, I might. But it isn't up to me to make you stay clean, Klaus. It doesn't matter what I want... it won't ever work if you don't want it. That's why it hasn't all the other times, either."
He hates this. He hates it so much. Maybe more than any of the others, except Ben, Diego has seen the degradation of his brother into his addictions. "Did you know... that sometimes, back home, when I listened to the police scanner, I listened for overdoses, expecting to hear something about a junkie with an umbrella tattoo on his wrist...?" He waits to ask that once Klaus is back properly on the room, staring up at him.
"You know, I said she wasn't special, she said I should have died instead of Ben. It's water under the bridge." He waves his hand, as if it isn't something that haunts him. How different would they be, if Ben had survived and he hadn't? If Ben had kept the team together, if Ben had survived- Leonard wouldn't have gotten the book, right? All this bullshit might not have happened?
But he quiets at that confession. After he reenters and puts the kettle on to boil. Crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway of the bathroom. He'd listened to the police scanner for him? How many times had he caught it? An EMT calling about a John Doe with no ID but a tattoo on his wrist, unresponsive in the back of an ambulance. Or when he'd ended up in a drunk tank? Arrested?
Both eyebrows arch upward, shocked and unsure if it's more about the fact Klaus caved and told him or what Vanya had apparently said. "Damn," the word is npthing more than mouthed, no volume to it, and he shakes his head.
"I only caught it once... I went by, watched them work on you... Should have stayed, I guess, but... I couldn't. I- I didn't wanna be there if they couldn't bring you back." Losing Ben had rocked the entire family to the core, and Diego didn't want to be there to lose another brother.
Klaus is silent as Diego talks. As he tries to picture it- Diego in his beat up sedan, rushing into the ER. Watching him the same way Ben would whenever he ended up there. And part of him wants to be angry that he didn't stay. That he wasn't there when he woke up.
But can he blame him?
Can he blame him, after Ben's death had torn them apart? After they'd been ripped at the seams and scattered to the winds and unable to look back? "... Can't blame you for not staying, not the first or last time I ended up there." He turns his back to Diego, exhaustion clear in his voice as he starts setting up two mugs for tea. "Surprised you didn't hear I got arrested. Twice."
"I wasn't stalking everything you did, Klaus. I just... sometimes listened for that. Because it's what I expected." Does he not understand the gravity of that? That he was literally waiting to hear that he'd died in some back alley somewhere? He hates the way Klaus twists everything into a joke, flippant and facetious to the end.
Silence lapses, and it's not something Diego is a stranger to. He's sat in plenty of silences in his life and he really prefers it to incessant, needless chatter most of the time. But this... is a harder sort of silence, because he's trying to figure out how to say what he really wants Klaus to understand in all of this. And so much of it feels useless, because he's not convinced Klaus wants to hear any of it. To heed any kind of advice he might try to give. But... he's still his brother.
"Klaus... can you just explain to me why you keep running? You run from everything. The ghosts. The fuck-ups. The family." He tilts his head up to look at Klaus, who's busying himself with making tea. "You've been running for nearly two decades... aren't you sick of it?"
"I know, I know, I just... I mean, you knew all those cops and you were going to the academy, I thought me getting arrested might have made it on the radar." He shrugs slightly. The kettle is whistling, and he pours two cups, letting it seep. Quietly staring at the liquid as it starts to take the tea leaves.
He's so tired of running. He's tired of running because he doesn't have the numbness to fall back on. And it's leaving him drained, leaving him exhausted. Like he just wants to curl up in his blankets and disappear. Sleep until he can find a reason to keep going.
The one good thing he'd ever had, the one person he'd ever loved more than himself- and his ghost had been... It hadn't been him. It couldn't have been. Not with how he acted, not with how he blamed him, not with...
"... You don't want to hear it." He laughs, but it sounds hollow. Empty. Tired. "You never want to hear it."
Because it's an excuse, huh? He hates his powers. He fears them. Waking in the middle of the night as a child with a corpse standing over his bed, or someone slipping into his skin and the terror that he might not ever get his own body back. Ben following him around like an albatross around his neck, a reminder of the fact he couldn't save him. Did Ben blame him? Did he as good as kill him?
The first taste of freedom from those ghouls was when he'd fallen down the stairs and the carefully administered pain medicine their mother and nurse gave him made him unable to see the usual specters in his training. And after he'd healed? Well. No hard thing to start stealing drinks from their father's well stocked bar or scoring some weed from an avid fan for a kiss and a wink. When Vanya cut him off from her pills - those few brief months where he had felt so removed from his powers it was absolute bliss- he'd had to go to other sources to get his fixes, and it snowballed from there.
And after Ben had died? After Diego left? After he turned 18 and was no longer Reginald Hargreeves's ward? He'd fallen, hard. He'd chased that high and never and tried to come down.
Because running was easier than fighting. Running was easier than talking. Running was easier than having yet another shrink look at him like he was crazy when he tried to open up about his powers, about the abuse all of the Academy suffered, about the people who came and haunted his dreams when he was sober. Than trying to explain why a locked door made him panic and how he couldn't breathe any time a space was too small, too dark, too closed off.
Because running was the only thing he's known since he was 13. And because that high is the only time he's ever known peace outside of that thin, dark place between life and death that he's always been just shy of crossing over.
((OOC note: Headcanon about the pills being shared/stolen is 100% collab between Ari and myself ))
Diego doesn't pay one ounce of attention to the mention of being around cops or the road it tries to force his mind down. He locks it away and not even a flicker of the emotion he felt shows on his face. He wasn't as on Diego's radar as he seemed to think, it was just a here and there thing. If mentions of an overdose showed up, he paid attention, he listened for specific descriptions, and dreaded the day he had to find a way to tell the rest of their siblings that he'd finally gone and done it.
"I asked, didn't I?" The words are practically a challenge, eyebrow lifted in defiance of that half-laughed out, hollow statement. But it isn't long before he adds, "Or are you just going to tell me it's because you're scared, and traumatized? Because newsflash, Klaus, you aren't the only one Dad fucking traumatized! He did it to all of us, in specifically tailored ways, and it isn't a goddamn contest you can win, as to who has it the worst." Because if that's all he was going to say? Yeah. He's right. He doesn't want to hear the same, tired excuse that he's been spinning since Diego could remember.
"The ghosts. The crypt. The dark. Those are things you run from regularly. They are not the reason you run from us. So try. again." His words are spoken slowly, bitten off in sharp points, because Klaus isn't the only one that's tired. Diego is tired of the circular way every conversation with Klaus comes back to this. Of trying to help him, when it's so clear all he wants to do is go trip face-first into a pile of cocaine. Or jam a needle in veins that have been so abused through the years that it's probably hard for him to even find one that he hasn't blown out at one time or another. Toss a handful of unknown pills down his throat just to see what happens. It's stupid. It's all so stupid and Diego can't even pretend to understand the logic of an addict. A junkie, because Klaus really is more that, than just the subtle, softer sound of addict.
"Because this isn't just everything of the last two decades. It's more and more here, being piled on top of it, too. Every time something blows up, you dip out. You can't stay here, you have to go crash on someone's couch for a week. For fuck's sake, you're talking to Allison right now like you don't even fucking live here! And that is some of the most emotionally manipulative fucking bullshit I've seen from you yet." He scoffs and shakes his head, "You try to carve sympathy out of everyone around you and the second someone stops trying to coddle you and be real with you, you flip out and try to turn things around on them, pointing fingers at everyone else, all while you never own up to your own part in anything.
"It's bullshit and I don't think I'm wrong in saying I think we're all sick of it. But me and Allison are just the only ones that actively say so, so directly. Luther is disappointed. Ben is the worst offender of coddling all of your bad habits. Vanya vacillates so hard between hating all of us so much that she can't stand the sight of us, to being too terrified to say the wrong thing to us to even speak to most of us. But I really doubt anyone is chomping at the bits to have to go pick up the pieces Klaus has blown himself into again, over the same old shit that he always does it for."
Diego knows everything he's saying is harsh, but honestly, he doesn't care. He's kept most of this to himself for too long, and he's just tired from holding it all in. And sometimes harsh is what people need to snap them back into reality. "Do you realize that I've spent probably more than three-quarters of our time here since that last big OD of yours, just waiting for you to do it again? Because I don't have any reason to believe your half-assed committal to being clean. All you're doing is keeping one foot in that door, keeping it so much easier to slide right back to it again." For a moment, his voice drops the harsh edge it's had through all of the rest of this. "You're not doing yourself any favors, Klaus. If you want to get clean, get clean." But this is a topic too hard for him not to feel strongly about, and that same sharpness comes back a moment late, "Otherwise, stop parading around like you're doing something so grand because, hey, at least it's not coke or heroin, right? That's all that matters, isn't it? Who cares if you continue the same goddamn behavior without it."
There's a pause as he considers that last statement, tilting his head back to stare up at his brother. Twists that statement into a question to push him to answer. "So there's another question for you, Klaus: What's left to take the fall of all those bad decisions, so you don't have to, if the drugs you blamed it all on aren't in the equation anymore?"
Sometimes harsh is what people need to snap back into reality. And sometimes harsh just makes them withdraw all the more. Klaus doesn't turn around as Diego rails into him, gripping tightly to the desk the hotplate is on, trying to focus on breathing, on the tea steeping, on anything other than snapping and turning around duking it out with his brother.
He's sharp knives and snap judgments, isn't he? And does Diego honestly think he doesn't know these things? That dad tortured all of them, that all of this isn't a contest? He knows damn well that dad hurt all of them, but his powers? Those ghosts that he'd seen since he was a child, broken and bloody and bruised? None of them understood what it was like- except for Ben. Ben, who had seen the blood and gore he'd witnessed in the handful of times he'd been sober enough to see ghosts in his adult life. Except for Vanya, who had witnessed his powers on the train, who had seen Leonard as he was at death.
Honestly, he just wants to tell Diego to get out. That Diego doesn't know about his fights with Allison, that he doesn't like feeling constantly observed and judged as he tries to fight what he knows is an uphill battle. It's why he's been keeping odd hours, so he won't be observed. Because he feels like he's under a microscope. Like every mistake he makes is magnified and every struggle, every accomplishment is discarded as an outlier.
He had been proud of himself for cutting off from the harder shit. For coming back, still with the taste of that high that the power enhancer had given him and depressed from his failure, and not immediately chasing down the nearest ecstasy dealer. He had been proud of taking a job in Jeopardy, at a Psychic shop, learning to get over his fears with the shop mascot, Mary. He had been proud of actually going to the fight with OTO, for helping capture an agent, for what sacrifices he'd made when he was confronted by Clotho, even if he couldn't remember them exactly.
And none of it mattered, did it?
None of it mattered because, despite all his growth and progress, he'd had setbacks. He'd had shit from back home come to haunt him here. He'd fucked up and fucked himself over and he feels like he might as well be right back where he started.
So when he answers, its with the quietest voice. Tired, and holding so much back, because he doesn't know how to put his frustration into the right words. It's a discussion he'd had briefly with Vanya, when he'd first come back from that strange space between here and home, between life and death. It's something he's turned over in his mind in the dark of the night, when standing outside smoking and watching the stars as the moon hangs low overhead.
It's something he says in the softest whisper, because even he's not sure its what he wants.
Silence. It's all that he said is greeted with. A nearly endless, slow, dragging thing, that after a few minutes, Diego is convinced Klaus might allow to go forever. There's a tension tight enough to snap in the air of the room. A clear frustration rolling off of his brother in waves, undercut by an equally obvious sort of bone-deep exhaustion that Diego recognizes almost instantly-- because he's just as tired of the circular nature of all of this, too, from the other side of it.
He waits patiently for Klaus to say something. Anything. To turn on his heel and rant and rave back at him. Fall into the bait of the argument, like they are both prone to do at times. But it never comes. Diego is only met with more silence to wait out.
Diego refuses to be the one to break the quiet. He's said his piece, now it's Four's turn to actually explain his own internal reasoning for doing the things he does.
Except. It never comes. Nothing ever comes.
The silence just keeps dragging on. And on. And on. Until Diego is almost certain that his brother has just decided to check out of the conversation, completely ignoring him now.
Until--
Diego's features crack into a scoff and an expression full of bewilderment. "Wow. Really? That's all you have to say to all of that?" He shakes his head, a mirthless, hollow laugh escaping him. "You didn't even answer my question-- though I guess that speaks volume enough, all on its own." After all, silence, lack of explanation, of defense, can all be just as telling as the words that come pouring out of someone.
"How do you think that's the answer to everything? Do you somehow think that if you leave, that all your problems disappear? Because that isn't going to happen, Klaus. That isn't how it works. Problems don't just get swept under a rug to be forgotten entirely if you ignore it long enough-- it follows you, no matter where you go, until you put your foot down and truly work to change it." He's been figuring that out in the hardest way with Vanya, and all the ways he keeps screwing up with her.
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forgot to put that lol
you know, joking, like tell me something i don't know lol
[ He wonders idly if Diego can sense his emotions. If they're close enough that Diego can feel him. ]
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Why are you over there talking to Allison like you don't fucking live here any more?
You moving out, that it?
Do you think that's what any of us want?
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It's not a wrong thing to say, you know. You're hardly ever here half the time.
And I know it's all open-door possibility, nobody has to stay if they don't want to, whatever. But you kind of made a deal about moving in, like it was what you wanted, so was that all an act, or did you do it because you felt like it was expected?
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[ It wasn't... all an act. He had wanted to be close to his siblings again. Had wanted to be with Diego, and Luther, and Allison and Ben and Five and maybe eventually Vanya, too. But a part of him, the selfish, awful part of him isn't ready to admit that half the reason he moved in was so he could have a stable place post Overdose while he went to whatever necessary counseling and treatment the doctors prescribed.
And as time wore on, well. He wasn't out partying every night, but he wasn't here, either. Restless and unsure about a place like this. When was the last time he'd ever slept in the same bed for more than a handful of days? A few weeks? A month at most in a rehab center and a few more in a jail cell?
It felt unnatural, having a place he could call 'his'. Having a room and a bed and a home, even if shared with his siblings. Because they'd never really had one, had they? It was a barracks, it was a training center. But it wasn't a home. ]
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Yes, I want the real answer. All of it.
[This is already frustrating as all get out, but Diego went into it expecting it to be. If his brother wants him to pull teeth to get answers out of him, fine.]
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i wanted to be here
wanted is the key word
now im not so sure
[ He's so tired of arguing with all of them, and it's just... so much easier to take off. To disappear. That idealized image he had of their younger years, the brief moments of happiness and the people they were, have dried up with all his expectations. ]
i mean come on i don't exactly fit into the norman rockwell thanksgiving picture i think allisons trying to build here
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[Klaus may not be able to hear it, but there's a laugh at that last text when it comes in. He can't believe that his brother would think anyone could expect that level of picturesque anything from them.]
Are you serious?
You REALLY think that's what she's trying to do? What she EXPECTS? Do you think she doesn't know who and how we all are? No, I guarantee you she is not expecting a perfect dinner with no hiccups or bumps.
But is it really THAT hard to think that maybe we could all eat a goddamn meal together like an actual fucking family? Are you honestly that scared of dealing with all of us at once, Klaus?
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commute from jeopardy is hell, don't think i have to tell u that
and just
i feel like i always ruin everything
i mean come on, the journal, the party, the ghosts? what havent i screwed up lately?
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"Diego what the hell-" Trapped, with that door shutting behind him. The panic is immediate and tangible, and he scrambles to get off the bed and open it again. Even just a crack.
"Didn't know you were home. You could have knocked." He frowns, yanking the door back open just a sliver. A crack. A way out, even unintentionally.
"You here just to yell at me too? I mean everyone else already has."
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"Have you stopped to think about why everyone might be having words with you?"
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"Allison essentially blames me for the entire apocalypse, Luther's doing his 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed' routine, Ben thinks I'm an idiot- I mean what else is new- and Vanya..." The words are still at the back of his mind sometimes. That he should have just gone through with it instead of making Ben watch him, OD after OD after OD. That he should have died and Ben should have lived.
But she had been the first one to greet him when he came out of the Porter, after being essentially dead for a week. Her hands tight around his waist, her face buried in his chest.
They were all lethal to each other, even if they loved each other. Prying at all the loose stones and jagged edges to pick under skin and make each other bleed.
"Look, I get it, alright? I'm the family screw up. No matter what I try to do to be better, it's never going to be good enough. So just get off my ass."
Because he's tried. He's tried. He's gotten a stable job, he's stopped taking illegal drugs, he's tried to sort his shit out even if he's coming home late or staying out too long. Hell, he's even using his powers. Training with them. Even if he hasn't picked sparring back up with Diego, or Telekinesis with Luther, he's still learning how to use them.
But nothing he does will ever be good enough, because he'd done something in the past to bring it all crashing down around his ears.
He wishes he could stop giving a shit. Wishes he had that power enhancer around his wrist again, when he felt in control and unstoppable and like he could conquer the world. Like he could conquer everything.
He wishes he were numb again.
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He has thoughts on everything Klaus lists about the rest of their siblings-- he's pretty sure Allison isn't laying blame, and just wanting Klaus to own his piece of it, the same way she's been drilling Diego to own some of his worst pieces of himself recently; Luther... well, no, that tracks and Diego hates the 'not angry, just disappointed' thing; Ben is always the first to call Klaus an idiot, but also the first to coddle him-- "What about Vanya?" He presses for the unfinished piece of it. "And what about me? What do you think I'm here for?" He'd love to hear the assumptions, before he gives him even an inch to take about what he really wants to say.
Diego scoffs and shakes his head, "Klaus, quit the pity routine. You think you're the only one that fucks up? You think you're the only one Allison calls out on their shit? That Luther gets disappointed in? Trust me, you're not." He pauses and shakes his head, a firmer thing less of disbelief like the last one, more of a solid gesture of 'no' this time. "I'm not gonna get off your ass. Know why? Because I know you can do better." The only reason he's so hard on Klaus is exactly that. He knows the potential is there, but it's so aggravating to watch him waste it and let it all wither away to nothing.
He sighs and reaches up to scrub one hand across his face before making his way over to sit in the medium's pile of pillows masquerading as a bed. "I know you think you've done a lot toward sobriety by dropping down to just weed and booze, but... it's just another avoidance tactic. A way to not actually commit. And you're living your whole life that way, it's how you choose, over and over and over again, and then you wonder how you landed in yet another mess, again. The path of least resistance is not the one that makes you better than you were."
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"And you're probably here to chew me out for not coming to sparring practice or having whiskey in my room or something." He rolls his eyes and slowly turns off the tap.
He's not the only one Allison calls out, but it grates on his nerves all the same. Perfect Allison, who acts like she's above it all, who can't even answer a simple question without turning it back on him. He doesn't get to judge, he doesn't know her, he doesn't count.
"So what, going to start giving me surprise drug tests like I'm back at rehab?" Klaus laughs, hollow, like he's annoyed by the very thought. He's more annoyed that Diego sounds like their father, complaining about how Klaus squandered his potential, about how he only scratched the surface-
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He frowns when Klaus suddenly disappears, but he doesn't actually leave, so he doesn't say anything about it. "Honestly? I'm surprised you did the sparring as long as you did. But I told you when you asked about it, I wasn't going to waste my time, either. If you don't want to do it anymore, that's on you. I'm not going to hold your hand and beg you to do it. You know where to find me if you decide you want to pick it up again." He shrugs.
"If I didn't think you probably know how to fake the results, I might. But it isn't up to me to make you stay clean, Klaus. It doesn't matter what I want... it won't ever work if you don't want it. That's why it hasn't all the other times, either."
He hates this. He hates it so much. Maybe more than any of the others, except Ben, Diego has seen the degradation of his brother into his addictions. "Did you know... that sometimes, back home, when I listened to the police scanner, I listened for overdoses, expecting to hear something about a junkie with an umbrella tattoo on his wrist...?" He waits to ask that once Klaus is back properly on the room, staring up at him.
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But he quiets at that confession. After he reenters and puts the kettle on to boil. Crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway of the bathroom. He'd listened to the police scanner for him? How many times had he caught it? An EMT calling about a John Doe with no ID but a tattoo on his wrist, unresponsive in the back of an ambulance. Or when he'd ended up in a drunk tank? Arrested?
"... I didn't..."
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"I only caught it once... I went by, watched them work on you... Should have stayed, I guess, but... I couldn't. I- I didn't wanna be there if they couldn't bring you back." Losing Ben had rocked the entire family to the core, and Diego didn't want to be there to lose another brother.
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But can he blame him?
Can he blame him, after Ben's death had torn them apart? After they'd been ripped at the seams and scattered to the winds and unable to look back?
"... Can't blame you for not staying, not the first or last time I ended up there." He turns his back to Diego, exhaustion clear in his voice as he starts setting up two mugs for tea.
"Surprised you didn't hear I got arrested. Twice."
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Silence lapses, and it's not something Diego is a stranger to. He's sat in plenty of silences in his life and he really prefers it to incessant, needless chatter most of the time. But this... is a harder sort of silence, because he's trying to figure out how to say what he really wants Klaus to understand in all of this. And so much of it feels useless, because he's not convinced Klaus wants to hear any of it. To heed any kind of advice he might try to give. But... he's still his brother.
"Klaus... can you just explain to me why you keep running? You run from everything. The ghosts. The fuck-ups. The family." He tilts his head up to look at Klaus, who's busying himself with making tea. "You've been running for nearly two decades... aren't you sick of it?"
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He's so tired of running. He's tired of running because he doesn't have the numbness to fall back on. And it's leaving him drained, leaving him exhausted. Like he just wants to curl up in his blankets and disappear. Sleep until he can find a reason to keep going.
The one good thing he'd ever had, the one person he'd ever loved more than himself- and his ghost had been... It hadn't been him. It couldn't have been. Not with how he acted, not with how he blamed him, not with...
"... You don't want to hear it." He laughs, but it sounds hollow. Empty. Tired. "You never want to hear it."
Because it's an excuse, huh? He hates his powers. He fears them. Waking in the middle of the night as a child with a corpse standing over his bed, or someone slipping into his skin and the terror that he might not ever get his own body back. Ben following him around like an albatross around his neck, a reminder of the fact he couldn't save him. Did Ben blame him? Did he as good as kill him?
The first taste of freedom from those ghouls was when he'd fallen down the stairs and the carefully administered pain medicine their mother and nurse gave him made him unable to see the usual specters in his training. And after he'd healed? Well. No hard thing to start stealing drinks from their father's well stocked bar or scoring some weed from an avid fan for a kiss and a wink. When Vanya cut him off from her pills - those few brief months where he had felt so removed from his powers it was absolute bliss- he'd had to go to other sources to get his fixes, and it snowballed from there.
And after Ben had died? After Diego left? After he turned 18 and was no longer Reginald Hargreeves's ward? He'd fallen, hard. He'd chased that high and never and tried to come down.
Because running was easier than fighting. Running was easier than talking. Running was easier than having yet another shrink look at him like he was crazy when he tried to open up about his powers, about the abuse all of the Academy suffered, about the people who came and haunted his dreams when he was sober. Than trying to explain why a locked door made him panic and how he couldn't breathe any time a space was too small, too dark, too closed off.
Because running was the only thing he's known since he was 13.
And because that high is the only time he's ever known peace outside of that thin, dark place between life and death that he's always been just shy of crossing over.
((OOC note: Headcanon about the pills being shared/stolen is 100% collab between Ari and myself ))
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"I asked, didn't I?" The words are practically a challenge, eyebrow lifted in defiance of that half-laughed out, hollow statement. But it isn't long before he adds, "Or are you just going to tell me it's because you're scared, and traumatized? Because newsflash, Klaus, you aren't the only one Dad fucking traumatized! He did it to all of us, in specifically tailored ways, and it isn't a goddamn contest you can win, as to who has it the worst." Because if that's all he was going to say? Yeah. He's right. He doesn't want to hear the same, tired excuse that he's been spinning since Diego could remember.
"The ghosts. The crypt. The dark. Those are things you run from regularly. They are not the reason you run from us. So try. again." His words are spoken slowly, bitten off in sharp points, because Klaus isn't the only one that's tired. Diego is tired of the circular way every conversation with Klaus comes back to this. Of trying to help him, when it's so clear all he wants to do is go trip face-first into a pile of cocaine. Or jam a needle in veins that have been so abused through the years that it's probably hard for him to even find one that he hasn't blown out at one time or another. Toss a handful of unknown pills down his throat just to see what happens. It's stupid. It's all so stupid and Diego can't even pretend to understand the logic of an addict. A junkie, because Klaus really is more that, than just the subtle, softer sound of addict.
"Because this isn't just everything of the last two decades. It's more and more here, being piled on top of it, too. Every time something blows up, you dip out. You can't stay here, you have to go crash on someone's couch for a week. For fuck's sake, you're talking to Allison right now like you don't even fucking live here! And that is some of the most emotionally manipulative fucking bullshit I've seen from you yet." He scoffs and shakes his head, "You try to carve sympathy out of everyone around you and the second someone stops trying to coddle you and be real with you, you flip out and try to turn things around on them, pointing fingers at everyone else, all while you never own up to your own part in anything.
"It's bullshit and I don't think I'm wrong in saying I think we're all sick of it. But me and Allison are just the only ones that actively say so, so directly. Luther is disappointed. Ben is the worst offender of coddling all of your bad habits. Vanya vacillates so hard between hating all of us so much that she can't stand the sight of us, to being too terrified to say the wrong thing to us to even speak to most of us. But I really doubt anyone is chomping at the bits to have to go pick up the pieces Klaus has blown himself into again, over the same old shit that he always does it for."
Diego knows everything he's saying is harsh, but honestly, he doesn't care. He's kept most of this to himself for too long, and he's just tired from holding it all in. And sometimes harsh is what people need to snap them back into reality. "Do you realize that I've spent probably more than three-quarters of our time here since that last big OD of yours, just waiting for you to do it again? Because I don't have any reason to believe your half-assed committal to being clean. All you're doing is keeping one foot in that door, keeping it so much easier to slide right back to it again." For a moment, his voice drops the harsh edge it's had through all of the rest of this. "You're not doing yourself any favors, Klaus. If you want to get clean, get clean." But this is a topic too hard for him not to feel strongly about, and that same sharpness comes back a moment late, "Otherwise, stop parading around like you're doing something so grand because, hey, at least it's not coke or heroin, right? That's all that matters, isn't it? Who cares if you continue the same goddamn behavior without it."
There's a pause as he considers that last statement, tilting his head back to stare up at his brother. Twists that statement into a question to push him to answer. "So there's another question for you, Klaus: What's left to take the fall of all those bad decisions, so you don't have to, if the drugs you blamed it all on aren't in the equation anymore?"
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He's sharp knives and snap judgments, isn't he? And does Diego honestly think he doesn't know these things? That dad tortured all of them, that all of this isn't a contest? He knows damn well that dad hurt all of them, but his powers? Those ghosts that he'd seen since he was a child, broken and bloody and bruised? None of them understood what it was like- except for Ben. Ben, who had seen the blood and gore he'd witnessed in the handful of times he'd been sober enough to see ghosts in his adult life. Except for Vanya, who had witnessed his powers on the train, who had seen Leonard as he was at death.
Honestly, he just wants to tell Diego to get out. That Diego doesn't know about his fights with Allison, that he doesn't like feeling constantly observed and judged as he tries to fight what he knows is an uphill battle. It's why he's been keeping odd hours, so he won't be observed. Because he feels like he's under a microscope. Like every mistake he makes is magnified and every struggle, every accomplishment is discarded as an outlier.
He had been proud of himself for cutting off from the harder shit. For coming back, still with the taste of that high that the power enhancer had given him and depressed from his failure, and not immediately chasing down the nearest ecstasy dealer. He had been proud of taking a job in Jeopardy, at a Psychic shop, learning to get over his fears with the shop mascot, Mary. He had been proud of actually going to the fight with OTO, for helping capture an agent, for what sacrifices he'd made when he was confronted by Clotho, even if he couldn't remember them exactly.
And none of it mattered, did it?
None of it mattered because, despite all his growth and progress, he'd had setbacks. He'd had shit from back home come to haunt him here. He'd fucked up and fucked himself over and he feels like he might as well be right back where he started.
So when he answers, its with the quietest voice. Tired, and holding so much back, because he doesn't know how to put his frustration into the right words.
It's a discussion he'd had briefly with Vanya, when he'd first come back from that strange space between here and home, between life and death. It's something he's turned over in his mind in the dark of the night, when standing outside smoking and watching the stars as the moon hangs low overhead.
It's something he says in the softest whisper, because even he's not sure its what he wants.
"Maybe I should just move out."
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He waits patiently for Klaus to say something. Anything. To turn on his heel and rant and rave back at him. Fall into the bait of the argument, like they are both prone to do at times. But it never comes. Diego is only met with more silence to wait out.
Diego refuses to be the one to break the quiet. He's said his piece, now it's Four's turn to actually explain his own internal reasoning for doing the things he does.
Except.
It never comes.
Nothing ever comes.
The silence just keeps dragging on. And on. And on. Until Diego is almost certain that his brother has just decided to check out of the conversation, completely ignoring him now.
Until--
Diego's features crack into a scoff and an expression full of bewilderment. "Wow. Really? That's all you have to say to all of that?" He shakes his head, a mirthless, hollow laugh escaping him. "You didn't even answer my question-- though I guess that speaks volume enough, all on its own." After all, silence, lack of explanation, of defense, can all be just as telling as the words that come pouring out of someone.
"How do you think that's the answer to everything? Do you somehow think that if you leave, that all your problems disappear? Because that isn't going to happen, Klaus. That isn't how it works. Problems don't just get swept under a rug to be forgotten entirely if you ignore it long enough-- it follows you, no matter where you go, until you put your foot down and truly work to change it." He's been figuring that out in the hardest way with Vanya, and all the ways he keeps screwing up with her.
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