The wavering and the sudden brakes that little revelation put on everything else feels sharp and jagged and completely uneven. There was so much to deal with, and unpack, in all of this. But of all people, Diego can't blame him for coming up short on that. He'd done the same seeing her in that bunker when Derek was helping him look for the elusively missing Klaus, weeks ago now.
"Don't act like you actually care," he says in a low, dark tone just barely the smoothed edge side of a growl. "She wasn't anything to you besides wires and computer chips. You made that perfectly clear."
"Shit, Diego, I'm sorry. I didn't know." His voice is soft, and he doesn't know what to do. Idly, he runs his hands through his hair, looking away, because his relationship with their mother was complicated. Supposed to be a protector, supposed to take care of them, but she was always bent to their father's will.
Maybe there was a spark there, and he couldn't see it. Maybe in the rare glimpses, the extra time Grace took with Diego, he had seen something the rest of them didn't.
"... I didn't... I didn't summon her on purpose. Any of them." Except Dave.
There is a sudden sweep of grief across the room so tight it's nearly suffocating. The kind of thing that threatens the breath in someone's lungs, trapped in the cage of bone unable to escape because of words about emotion and weakness that their father had repeated so many times through the years that still, all these years later, even escaping it all the second he had a chance, filled every single inch of him. Every lesson so deeply drilled down into his bones that escaping the Academy had done nothing to make it go away, or stop being a party of every way he moved or thought or spoke anyway.
It's an equally sudden snap as it dissipates, a blank thing with no name replacing it-- because those things don't belong in the world, and they certainly don't happen in front of people. They belong in boxes he never touches, locked away to be ignored (but never forgotten, he would never forget).
"I don't wanna talk about it." He says, barely keeping the tremble out of his voice.
Carefully, carefully, Klaus reaches out for him. Long fingers reaching for his shoulder with a hesitation like he expects to be burned. Because he does. Klaus- who had never known the grief of separation, who had never learned to mourn- feels like he's ripped open a still healing wound and dumped salt in it.
And so his fingers tremble, and he hesitates, and he pulls back to place them on his dogtags instead.
The silence is awkward, and awful, and he doesn't know what to say. Only to fiddle with the chain around his neck, clear his throat, look to the side, and maybe open up with a secret. Pry open the scar tissue around his vulnerabilities, rip it open so it goes past the humor, past the anger, past the grief and the exhaustion and every other bone-aching emotion that seeps into his blood.
"Alright." He says, his voice quiet. "We won't talk about it."
"Good." That one word is ground out of his mouth between clenched teeth, like a cigarette under a boot. He won't look at it again, not here or now or in front of his brother. He sees the movement of Four's hand and, unsure if he's going to try to reach for him not, Diego instinctually shifts his weigh to his back foot, to make it obvious he doesn't want it, if that's the intention. Thankfully, he wraps his fingers around that chain at his neck instead.
A part of him wants to end it, to let that be it, and he debates for a long moment about turning on his heel and leaving the room. But no. Klaus had still not answered two of the biggest questions he'd asked before, and Diego decides he doesn't get to not. So he waits a moment before he finally reiterates, "What happened...between you and Allison that's made you...be this way toward her?" He asks again, finally looking at Klaus again, eyes on him more in a fashion of a sniper on a target than simply looking at him. "And when do you stop making the same choices over and over, expecting it to turn out different next time?"
Diego's intensity is met for all of a moment before Klaus turns his head away, dragging the tags across the chain to make a soft rasping sound as he bites his lip and tries to recall the particulars.
"I said she was hard to shop for. Back at the party. And she said I wasn't around to judge her, and it was my fault that we aren't connected. And then after the journal- it felt like she was blaming me for the entire apocalypse. Like I just gift-wrapped the thing and handed it to the guy." The memories are hazy, but the feeling lingered. The anger at being blamed for something beyond his control. Throwing it back in her face that the only person she'd ever even tried to reach out to was Vanya. She's their sister, but he doesn't feel like he belongs. Always the screw up, the class clown, the junkie...
"I'm already making different choices. I'm trying to tell you that."
"And this-- these two things, that's... everything that is the basis for you talking like you don't live here and maybe moving out? Somehow deciding Allison is the worst of the worst here?" He can't fathom it. Allison has been livid with him several times; they've gotten into arguments more than once in all these months living together. He hasn't, not once, considered that he wasn't wanted here. That he had any reason to leave. "Jesus, Klaus, we're going to argue and fight and be pissy at each other-- it doesn't stop the fact that we're all trying to be better with each other, or that we'd rip someone to shreds for hurting one of us."
He really... really doesn't want to get on the topic of the journal, even as Klaus brings it up, because it's this gigantically polarizing thing, as bad as politics, the kind of thing that could really drive the nail in the coffin, here. "It really may not have happened, if he had never had the journal, Klaus... that's just...a fact, not an accusation. Dad's journals were giant guidebooks to everything about us."
He shakes his head. "How much of the last two months have been for same shit, Klaus? The same basic screw ups over and over. Nevermind the last decade.... you don't make up for twelve years of screw-ups in half a year in another universe, it's not that simple. It's- it's not even like there's some kind of scale to balance."
He sighs softly and and scrubs a hand down his face. "Just-- if you don't take anything else out of any of this, and God I hope you do, but if you don't... can you just stop calling yourself sober?" It may be smaller in the grand scheme of everything, but it's one of the things Diego has a big problem with, because it's a lie, a reality that Klaus isn't really ready to accept or handle, so he curbs it, but he hasn't stopped. And it's an insult to people fighting that same battle in themselves every day, to flippantly throw the word around the way he has been doing for months.
"Yeah, she's my sister, it doesn't mean I have to live with her." He crosses his arms tightly, defensive, as he stares down Diego. "I'm not making her out to be a villain. She said I wasn't around enough for it to count, so I may as well not be living here. And you know what? Maybe she's right. Do you have any idea how I felt, coming back after disappearing? How much I dreaded coming here because I knew that you, and Allison, and Luther would all chew me out because I made a mistake? I was this close," he pinches his fingers together, "to finding the nearest dealer because honestly? I'm tired of being like I'm- Like I'm the one to blame for everything."
He crosses his arms again, looking down, a shuddering huff running through his chest. "I screw up. I know I screw up. I know what progress I make doesn't make up for the shit I've screwed up with. But Jesus, Diego, how many times are you going to throw every mistake I make back in my face?"
"You're right. You don't have to live with her. Or me, or any of us. Or even here, in this house at all. Because that's been the whole point all along," Which, until this second, Diego wasn't completely convinced that Klaus was fully understanding-- and he still feels like what he says next might be the truest point in the whole living here or not situation for his brother. "If that's all it takes for you to wanna get out of here, maybe you weren't ready to be here in the first place, Klaus."
Diego had been here from the moment it was decided there would be a house for the entire family to be in, at any time, for any reason, or not at all if that's what they chose. Along with Allison and Luther, Diego has completely be 'in' on the idea of it from day one. There was no doubt in his mind, after showing up in a weird world that wasn't engulfed in flames, the only place he wanted to be was with his siblings. He personally couldn't picture being anywhere else. At home? Sure, it could be easily different, but this place, where nothing was the same, and everything was too off-kilter to be normal, he wanted the only thing that had any hope or chance of grounding him-- his family.
Whatever Diego may be able to deal with and handle, it's Klaus' next point that Four barrels into like a battering ram that sends his head into a spin, lights up his so easily reachable anger in an instant, bright and white-hot. "Fuck you, Klaus." There's something sharp and awful at even having one finger of blame directed at him for Klaus' near-dive into whatever the nearest dealer might shove him toward. Some logical part of him realizes that choice can't ever be his fault, but logic isn't what latches onto that blame. It rises in the back of his throat, acrid and noxious; ties sharp knots in his stomach that wind up to his chest. His voice is thick when he speaks, "I don't blame you for everything. I just want you to accept and own what is yours in it-- home, here, both."
There is only one answer to last that question, and it is burning at the end of Diego's tongue before the words die on Klaus' lips. He moves to stand close, nearly nose-to-nose with his brother, and his voice is low and quiet, not threatening, but still absolutely serious. "Until you learn from it." That will be his ending note-- he can't handle any of this any more. He doesn't even give Klaus time to say anything else before he turns and leaves the room to go down the hall, and back to his own room.
There's something hollow in his chest when Diego tears into him. Something tired and exhausted that makes him shut down. Shut off. He doesn't say anything as he leaves, and he hears the door open. It's only then the anger comes. The frustration. Pouring out of him as he grabs one of the mugs of tea. He doesn't care that the water seeps through the cracks, scalding hot. He doesn't care that it's still full. He throws the porcelain as hard as he can against the nearest wall, the shattering strangely comforting. So he picks up the other. Broken glass and broken pottery as he takes his frustrations, his anger, his grief and his misery out on some of the more fragile objects in his room.
At least his relationships aren't the only thing in this house that are broken now.
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"Don't act like you actually care," he says in a low, dark tone just barely the smoothed edge side of a growl. "She wasn't anything to you besides wires and computer chips. You made that perfectly clear."
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Maybe there was a spark there, and he couldn't see it. Maybe in the rare glimpses, the extra time Grace took with Diego, he had seen something the rest of them didn't.
"... I didn't... I didn't summon her on purpose. Any of them." Except Dave.
no subject
It's an equally sudden snap as it dissipates, a blank thing with no name replacing it-- because those things don't belong in the world, and they certainly don't happen in front of people. They belong in boxes he never touches, locked away to be ignored (but never forgotten, he would never forget).
"I don't wanna talk about it." He says, barely keeping the tremble out of his voice.
no subject
And so his fingers tremble, and he hesitates, and he pulls back to place them on his dogtags instead.
The silence is awkward, and awful, and he doesn't know what to say. Only to fiddle with the chain around his neck, clear his throat, look to the side, and maybe open up with a secret. Pry open the scar tissue around his vulnerabilities, rip it open so it goes past the humor, past the anger, past the grief and the exhaustion and every other bone-aching emotion that seeps into his blood.
"Alright." He says, his voice quiet. "We won't talk about it."
no subject
A part of him wants to end it, to let that be it, and he debates for a long moment about turning on his heel and leaving the room. But no. Klaus had still not answered two of the biggest questions he'd asked before, and Diego decides he doesn't get to not. So he waits a moment before he finally reiterates, "What happened...between you and Allison that's made you...be this way toward her?" He asks again, finally looking at Klaus again, eyes on him more in a fashion of a sniper on a target than simply looking at him. "And when do you stop making the same choices over and over, expecting it to turn out different next time?"
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"I said she was hard to shop for. Back at the party. And she said I wasn't around to judge her, and it was my fault that we aren't connected. And then after the journal- it felt like she was blaming me for the entire apocalypse. Like I just gift-wrapped the thing and handed it to the guy." The memories are hazy, but the feeling lingered. The anger at being blamed for something beyond his control. Throwing it back in her face that the only person she'd ever even tried to reach out to was Vanya. She's their sister, but he doesn't feel like he belongs. Always the screw up, the class clown, the junkie...
"I'm already making different choices. I'm trying to tell you that."
no subject
He really... really doesn't want to get on the topic of the journal, even as Klaus brings it up, because it's this gigantically polarizing thing, as bad as politics, the kind of thing that could really drive the nail in the coffin, here. "It really may not have happened, if he had never had the journal, Klaus... that's just...a fact, not an accusation. Dad's journals were giant guidebooks to everything about us."
He shakes his head. "How much of the last two months have been for same shit, Klaus? The same basic screw ups over and over. Nevermind the last decade.... you don't make up for twelve years of screw-ups in half a year in another universe, it's not that simple. It's- it's not even like there's some kind of scale to balance."
He sighs softly and and scrubs a hand down his face. "Just-- if you don't take anything else out of any of this, and God I hope you do, but if you don't... can you just stop calling yourself sober?" It may be smaller in the grand scheme of everything, but it's one of the things Diego has a big problem with, because it's a lie, a reality that Klaus isn't really ready to accept or handle, so he curbs it, but he hasn't stopped. And it's an insult to people fighting that same battle in themselves every day, to flippantly throw the word around the way he has been doing for months.
no subject
"I'm not making her out to be a villain. She said I wasn't around enough for it to count, so I may as well not be living here. And you know what? Maybe she's right. Do you have any idea how I felt, coming back after disappearing? How much I dreaded coming here because I knew that you, and Allison, and Luther would all chew me out because I made a mistake? I was this close," he pinches his fingers together, "to finding the nearest dealer because honestly? I'm tired of being like I'm- Like I'm the one to blame for everything."
He crosses his arms again, looking down, a shuddering huff running through his chest.
"I screw up. I know I screw up. I know what progress I make doesn't make up for the shit I've screwed up with. But Jesus, Diego, how many times are you going to throw every mistake I make back in my face?"
no subject
Diego had been here from the moment it was decided there would be a house for the entire family to be in, at any time, for any reason, or not at all if that's what they chose. Along with Allison and Luther, Diego has completely be 'in' on the idea of it from day one. There was no doubt in his mind, after showing up in a weird world that wasn't engulfed in flames, the only place he wanted to be was with his siblings. He personally couldn't picture being anywhere else. At home? Sure, it could be easily different, but this place, where nothing was the same, and everything was too off-kilter to be normal, he wanted the only thing that had any hope or chance of grounding him-- his family.
Whatever Diego may be able to deal with and handle, it's Klaus' next point that Four barrels into like a battering ram that sends his head into a spin, lights up his so easily reachable anger in an instant, bright and white-hot. "Fuck you, Klaus." There's something sharp and awful at even having one finger of blame directed at him for Klaus' near-dive into whatever the nearest dealer might shove him toward. Some logical part of him realizes that choice can't ever be his fault, but logic isn't what latches onto that blame. It rises in the back of his throat, acrid and noxious; ties sharp knots in his stomach that wind up to his chest. His voice is thick when he speaks, "I don't blame you for everything. I just want you to accept and own what is yours in it-- home, here, both."
There is only one answer to last that question, and it is burning at the end of Diego's tongue before the words die on Klaus' lips. He moves to stand close, nearly nose-to-nose with his brother, and his voice is low and quiet, not threatening, but still absolutely serious. "Until you learn from it." That will be his ending note-- he can't handle any of this any more. He doesn't even give Klaus time to say anything else before he turns and leaves the room to go down the hall, and back to his own room.
End
At least his relationships aren't the only thing in this house that are broken now.