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do not resuscitate.
When Diego had first seen it, he had thought nothing of it. Klaus had plenty of tattoos- on his back, his hands, his shoulders- this one on his chest was nothing out of the ordinary. Klaus had always seemed to straddle the line between life and death-- embraced it, even. He made jokes of the macabre, dressed in dark clothes, and ringed his eyes in black eyeliner. Klaus had always joked, when they were younger, that he danced with death. He would sweep around the living room, arms around no one, bobbing his head to a tune only he could hear.
This one particular mark, stark and plain over Klaus’ heart, hadn’t seemed anything out of the ordinary-- ordinary for Klaus, anyways.
And then he gets shot, point blank, in the head.
The thing was, they had stopped going on missions over a decade ago. The apocalypse had been averted, and there was no reason for a gun to end up anywhere near Diego’s brother.
But, apparently, some idiots just saw a mansion and didn’t connect the dots to the fact that this was where the Umbrella Academy had lived.
They were common thugs, and despite the amount of them, they were swiftly dispatched by his siblings.
Allison’s leg lifted in a high arc, her hair swirling around her as she planted her foot across one of their faces. Vanya, behind her, had her eyes clenched shut and was breathing deeply, trying to keep her calm. Five was swipping around, popping up behind and in front of thugs, sending them crashing to the floor or into each other, out cold.
The last finally goon crashes to the floor, the noise ringing out in the silence. Despite how many years it’s been since they’ve all fought together like this, none of them are winded enough to be breathing hard.
It is in this silence that they hear the cracking noise of someone cocking a pistol.
Diego had whipped around, a knife poised to fly, before he could really think about. But his hand stilled at the sight before him.
Klaus’ neck was pinned inside one of the goon's elbows, tight against his throat. The man’s other hand pressed a pistol into Klaus’ temple.
“Take another step,” He said, too-white teeth gleaming in the light, “and pretty-boy here dies.”
“If you think we’re just gonna let you--” Five begins, and Diego can see his fists clenching in preparation for another warp, despite how drained he must be-- but Klaus cuts him off.
“Don’t worry, old man.” He grins at them, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the force of it. “I’ve got this. No biggie.”
Before anyone can even blink, Klaus has shoved the man’s arm away from him, pushing it up and away from him at an angle that has to be wrenching the other man’s shoulder.
It almost works, too. But the man is just plain stronger than spindly, stringy Klaus. He pulls his arm back towards himself, his huge meaty fist knocking itself into Klaus’ face with enough force to send him staggering.
Diego watches in slow-motion horror as the man brings his other arm up, his finger tightening on the trigger. There is no hesitation. At this range, there is no need for aim.
Diego’s knife goes flying from his fingertips, burying itself in the man’s head with a dull thump-- but the sound is lost under the ear splitting crack accompanying the gun going off.
The bullet strikes Klaus through the forehead. He slumps backwards to the ground bonelessly at the same time as the man who held him hostage meer moments before.
He’s dead in an instant. Diego is by his side in less than that, diving forward and skidding on his knees towards the too-still body of his baby brother.
Klaus is never still, and everything about this picture looks wrong-- Klaus’ eyes are cloudy and dull, his eyes staring sightlessly into the air above him.
“K-klaus!” He calls. There is no answer.
He cradles his brother’s head in his lap, ignoring the leaking blood and grey matter staining his fingers.
He can’t--
He can’t be--
But he is. He’s still warm to the touch, and if Diego closed his eyes he could almost imagine Klaus pestering him, asking for rides, bothering him about anything and everything that comes into his mind. Diego would give him a thousand rides, listen to him babble all day, anything-- if it would stop his baby brother’s corpse from cooling in his arms.
Klaus is--
Klaus is dead.
Behind him, Vanya lets out a wail, and everything on the walls falls off, shattering.
__________________________
The 1st time Klaus had died, he didn’t know it. When he blinked awake, pills scattered on the pavement around him, he thought back to the little girl on a swing, gently swaying back and forth, asking him why he even bothered to come.
He scooped the pills back into the little baggie, intent on swapping them for something else. Obviously, whatever this was, it didn’t agree with him. Maybe the younger you were the weirder your trips were? Either way, Klaus was not taking any more of this stuff.
___________________________
He’s 14, and stuck inside the Mausoleum again, ghosts around him screaming and clawing and begging and stoppleaseSTOP--
He bangs his head against the wall until they go silent and everything around him goes dark.
He wakes up to Reginald opening the door, saying Good job, Number Four, accessing more of your powers--
Is this what he wants? Klaus thinks as he’s led back to the car.
Klaus does not ask. He follows his Father back to the academy, says nothing of the Mausoleum, and trains with the rest of his siblings, blathering away until one of them flicks him in the ear and says “ Quiet, Klaus!” and he relaxes, knowing for sure now that they are real.
He resolutely does not think of whatever it was that had happened in the Mausoleum.
___________________________
The 7th time Klaus died, he flipped the little girl off before she sent him away again. Last time, 2 days ago, the overdose had been unintentional. Klaus couldn’t be fucked to remember if he had already taken any of those pills, so for good measure, he popped 8 of ‘em.
Turns out, he had already done that twice.
This time, though, he had tied the noose with every intention of dying. He knew that’s what this was now-- dying. Father had tested it, and he already knew asphyxiation wouldn’t keep him down for more than an hour.
He’d be right as rain come time for dinner.
He also had every intention of flipping that little girl off with every ounce of spite within him. Which was quite a lot.
Sure, the bruises around his neck for the following weeks had been less than pleasant, but oh so truly worth it.
___________________________
Klaus died for the 13th time with blood dripping down his wrists, sobbing.
He had sucked some guy’s dick in exchange for his pocket knife (he had lost his last one during his most recent stint in rehab) and his throat was still sore for it. Which wouldn't matter much until he woke up again in a few hours, but he just wanted a goddamn break.
Every time he closed his eyes to sleep, the mausoleum rose up unbidden in his mind, warping his dreams until he was sure that Reginald had left him there for another endless, timeless blur of training.
Truly, he wanted to die. He wanted to stop being a beacon for the dead, he wanted to stop the ever present screaming in his periphery, he wanted Father to stop sending him out on missions, wanted Father to stop treating him like a lab rat, wanted Ben’s bloody visage to go away, he just wanted it all to stop.
But he knew, by now, that even if he cut down to the bone, he would still wake up again with deep-but-not-fatal cuts on his wrist.
(He knew because he had tried, so frustrated and scared and hurting that he had placed the knife against his wrist, placed his knee on type of it, and pushed with all his might downward, screaming the whole time. He had woken up to a rust stained coat and a fuzzy taste in his mouth that he washed away with the tongue of another man, in exchange for a small blue pill that he had crunched with a relieved smile.)
He woke up to a face tight with dried tears, Ben sat cross legged to his right. There was no judgement on his face, and when Klaus broke into sobs once again, Ben shushed him, pantomiming at petting his hair.
Klaus didn’t ever go home after that.
___________________________
Klaus died for the Nth time in the trenches of ‘Nam, shrapnel blown through his chest.
The little girl- whom he supposed might have been god- had actually let him stay for a little while this time. She said that she felt bad for him, and that if she had a choice she probably wouldn’t be doing this to him. Before Klaus could ask what that meant, she told him that the shrapnel had finished removing itself from his chest, and she snapped her fingers.
Klaus sat up with a gasp, and the man in the trench next to him yelled out in surprise.
“Christ, Hargreeves, I thought you were dead!”
Klaus coughed, trying to forget the feeling of a shard of metal stuck in his chest.
“If only I’d be so lucky.” He choked out.
___________________________
Somewhere in there, Klaus gets a tattoo.
He gets three, actually.
HELLO on his right.
GOODBYE on his left.
do not resuscitate in clear, simple font across his heart.
___________________________
Klaus sits up with a groan, rubbing at his forehead. It feels like someone knocked him upside the head with a crowbar. (And yes, that has happened to him before, so he is allowed to make that analogy. Simile. Metaphor?)
“It is literally illegal for me to feel like I have a hangover when I am 4 months sober.” Klaus says, wincing against the light in the room. Around him, he can make out 5 vaguely sibling-shaped blobs. After a moment of blinking, he manages to open his eyes all the way. All of his siblings are pale, a few of them definitely crying. He blinks at them.
“You guys look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He says, because never in his life has he known when to keep his mouth shut. Vanya launches herself at him with a cry. He catches her, but only due to Diego’s hand on his back to keep him upright.
“Don’t ever do that again.” She sobs, clinging onto him tightly. He shoots a bewildered look over to Ben, who just looks back at him sadly. He looks around himself, and is surprised to see the room around them in extreme disarray, and what looks like--
Ah. Now he remembers. The ghosts of the robbers hang out over their bodies, wailing and screaming. He remembers, very suddenly, the man aiming a gun at his head and pulling the trigger.
“Oh.” he says.
“ What.” Five growls, full of more fury than any prepubescent body has any right to have, “ The. Hell. Was. That?”
“You mean the--” he breaks off, waving vaguely at his head. Five nods tersely.
“I don’t stay dead.” He says, shrugging. His hands pet down Vanya’s back of their own accord.
“W-what the hell does that even m-m-mean?” Diego demand, moving into Klaus’ line of sight. Vanya, too, is now looking up at him in askance.
“Doesn’t matter how it happens, I always wake up after I should be dead. God doesn’t much like me.” He says, twirling Vanya’s hair around his fingers.
“What do you mean, “no matter how it happens”? How many times has it happened?” Vanya asked him. He stiffened for a second, before forcing the tension out of his shoulders. He shrugged again. Why were they so interested?
“A… few times. Shrapnel in ‘Nam, got in a couple fights, blunt force trauma at the club with Luther, OD’d a few times.” He tries to sound both flippant and truthful at the same time. Don’t ask too many questions. Don’t ask too many questions .
Avoiding everyone else’s gaze, his eyes meet Ben’s. His eyes are sad, but he’s smiling reassuringly at Klaus.
Diego says something, too quiet for Klaus to hear.
“What?” he asks.
“ Do not resuscitate.” He says, louder this time. Klaus forces his face not to show the panic he feels.
In the useless hope that this time I won’t come back. He doesn’t say.
“Daddy dearest always said it was no use wasting supplies when I was gonna come back anyways.” he says around the lump in his throat.
“ Dad?” Luther demands. “ No, no, he wouldn’t.” He says, crossing his arms over his giant chest and shaking his head.
Vanya laughs, something dark and awful.
“Why not? He already had locked me up and made me forget my own powers.”
Luther looks torn for a moment, likely wanting to defend their father and defend his actions, before wisely subsiding after catching sight of Five’s glare.
“What was that you said earlier?” Five says, sounding more like his normal superior self, and of course Five is gonna bother him for details, “About Luther? And the Club? And Vietnam?”
Klaus silently regrets the facts that he ever learned how to communicate in the English language.
“Just… stuff.” He says waving his hand nonchalantly.
“I’d like to hear about this… stuff.” Allison says, voice scratchy but full of steel.
“If you lie, and we’ll know because we’ll ask Ben next time we see him, I’ll break all your eyeshadows.” Five says, and it’s the surety in his voice that gives Klaus pause. His eyeshadows didn’t deserve that, and it’s not like they’ll care, right? He dives into his rant before he can rethink it.
“So. ‘Nam. When Cha-Cha and Hazel came looking for Five, they found me instead. We spent some quality time together before Diego’s lovely lady friend came and got me out. I, uh, grabbed the briefcase on the way out, figured I could pawn it. Opened the latches on the bus, spent 10 lovely months in ‘Nam, got some lovely tattoos, made some lovely friends, got some lovely bits of shrapnel inside me, died a little bit-- altogether lovely time.” He clears his throat, ignoring the looks his siblings are throwing him, because he’s not quite sure what to make of them. He plows on before one of them can try and tell him to stop being ridiculous.
“Next: Luther and the club. Luther finds out he was in space for no apparent reason because, surprise! Dad doesn’t give a shit about any of us. He’s drinking, we’re talking, he’s flinging me into a pillar, then he is off to a club to get his groove on. I, newly sober, make the elective decision to stay as far away from that club as I can. Ben points out how shitty of a brother I am being by letting Luther go off and get into things he doesn’t know anything about, because Luther would have stopped me if it was the other way around. So Ben and I follow after. After some more convincing from our favorite dearly departed Number Six, I am headed into the rave. Someone handed me a pill but in a wonderful show of self-control, I yeeted that bitch. In a less-wonderful show of self-control, I go crawling after it. I kinda forget where I am for just a tick. Kinda thought I was in ‘Nam for a sec, but then I remembered Dave is dead, so.” He waves his hand, as if it’s not a big deal, but has to take a second to clear his throat before continuing again.
“Anyways, the furry Luther is dancing with is apparently a taken furry, but due to my intervention the furry’s man comes after me, and my head makes acquaintance with the cement flooring and pop! Me and god are chatting again. She sends me off to meet someone, who turns out to be the Old Fart, he tells me I’m a huge disappointment, bla bla bla, and wham! Back at the rave. I go home with Ben. The end.”
Klaus flops backward to avoid looking at any of his siblings and lands, conveniently, sprawled across Diego’s lap.
“I’m going to kill you, Luther.” Diego says in the probably the calmest voice Klaus has ever heard from him when addressing their brother.
Vanya and Five both nod in agreeance, and Klaus shoots up.
“No, no, no. No killing! Did you not hear anything I just said? Everything that happened is due to one fuck up of mine or another, so please leave Luther alone.”
Ben is at his side now.
“Klaus,” He starts reproachfully, but Klaus bulldozes over him before he can start lecturing him.
“No, no, you were included in those first ‘No’s, Ben.”
“Ok, so not even talking about Luther-- fucking Vietnam? Is that why you were crying over that picture in the Vet Bar? Was that your unit?” Diego grips his shoulder tightly as he talks, firm and reassuring.
Klaus clears his throat.
“Yeah. The 173rd Airborne.”
They’re silent for a long moment before Vanya, voice soft, says, “You said that… Dad?”
Klaus chokes on his spit, and spends a good few seconds coughing before Diego whacks him across the back.
“Um. Yeah. Daddy… always did like his tests.” Klaus laughs awkwardly, before looking down at his feet. He picks at his nails and avoids eye contact.
“I used to be so jealous of you, and the extra training you’d get for days at a time. I feel like an idiot.” Five says, voice full of self-reproach.
“Hey, hey,” Klaus said, gathering his confidence and meeting Five’s gaze. He stepped forward, and gripped Five by the shoulders. “Dad fucked us all up. There’s nothing you can do about it now. But you came back for us . I don’t think many people can say that their brother figured out the theoretical mumbo-jumbo behind time travel for them.” Klaus said, smiling at his younger/older brother. Five launched himself forward, headbutting Klaus in the gut and wrapping his arms tightly around Klaus’ middle.
“Klaus, that can’t be good for you though. Don’t think you’re gonna get away without talking to us about this.” Diego said once Five had broken away. Klaus didn’t think anyone else would notice the infinitesimally smaller space than normal Five had left between them, but for the old goat that was practically holding Klaus’ hand. Klaus shrugged at Diego.
“It’s a good reset.” He said. “If I couldn’t afford the drugs, and the goddamn ghosts wouldn’t shut up?” he gestured to his neck, miming a slice across it. “Infected cut I didn’t have the money to treat? Take a few too many pills. Don’t have money for food? Just a quick little trip off a building, and I’m right as rain.” Klaus shrugged once more.
Diego strode forward, and when he grabbed him by the shoulders, this time it was tight and painful.
“ Klaus. You realize you’re talking about…” He swallowed, seeming unable to say the words.
“Killing myself? Di, death isn’t the same for me as it is for you. I mean, have you ever been to someone's funeral with them? After that- Ben cried, by the way- you kind of lose any sort of reverence you have for the dead. But really, if I had any left after that, a good couple nights on the streets, meeting the hosts of people who have frozen or starved or god-knows-what-else to death, I really would’ve been over it. Plus, it’s never stuck. No matter how bad I hurt myself, or someone hurts me, or anything else, I always bounce back.”
“Hurt yourself?” Allison asks, voice croaky. Klaus turns to her slowly, swallowing.
“Ha-- did I? Did I say that? You, you heard me wrong, I think--” Before Klaus can come up with anything to get himself off the hook, Diego steps forward, grabbing for his wrist. Soldier’s reflexes or not, Diego is faster, and he grabs his wrist in an iron grip. He pulls it up close, and runs his thumb softly over the thick, ropey scar on Klaus’ wrist, looking heartbroken. Klaus wrenches his hand away, swallowing and looking at his bare toes wiggling on the plush carpet.
“It’s-- it’s hard. It didn’t matter what I did to myself, I’d always come back. It was a break, a reprieve.” His voice turns accusatory and defensive. “You don't know what it’s like. It’s constant, they’re always screaming. They never stop. They never go away. They never get quieter. The drugs don’t even stop them, just makes it easier to ignore them!”
He swipes a glowing blue hand out from himself, as if swiping something away. A pulse of blue sweeps outwards, lighting up each spirit that it passes through and making them visible and audible for a moment before they fade again. By the time the pulse has made it to the edges of the room, where it dissipates, all of his siblings are covering their ears.
He stands there for a moment afterwards, panting from exertion and his outburst.
Vanya steps forward to place her hand gently on his arm.
“We know it’s hard Klaus. We’re just worried about you. It’s not healthy to look at suicide as the solution-- even if it isn’t permanent for you.”
“Oh don’t try to therapize me.” Klaus spits. He immediately regrets it. “I’m sorry, Van, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, really, I didn’t.”
“It’s ok, Klaus,” she says, as kind and forgiving as she has always been. “But you gotta let us help you, ok? Next time something like that happens, you can come to one of us. Diego will take you wherever you want, or I’ll play violin as loud as I can, or Allison will take you shopping-- I’d even rather that you and Five go cause some chaos.” She said, smiling, and Klaus could have cried. Really, really, really-- what did the world do to deserve someone as kind and fiercely sweet as his little baby sister? He lets out a shuddering sigh.
“Ok, Van.” He says, leaning forward to give her a hug. Diego’s hand was firm against his back, Allison’s hair tickled against his nose, and he heard the tell-tale sound of Five's warp as the kid weaseled his way between him and Vanya, wrapping his arms around Klaus’ waist in a bruising grip. Ben, a steady presence in the peripheral of his vision, like always.
“I’m still gonna kill Luther.” Five said, voice muffled by Klaus’ chest. Klaus laughed, reaching into the tangled mess of his siblings to ruffle his hair.
“How about, instead, we buy a big box of Griddy’s donuts and eat them right in front of his face.”
“...fine.”