Snippets of Memory - The Umbrella Academy

No tears left to cry

"I was allowed to keep my music..."

His headphones were around his neck, and for - all his subsequent rehabs - this remained an absolute constant. Music helped him isolate himself from his power. The one on his walkman, the one at concerts, even the one I sometimes hummed. It wasn't a miracle cure, of course not. But it at least kept him in touch with reality and gave him a kind of endorphin rush capable of briefly damming up the spirits. And similarly, he added:

"...and I always had the option of banging one of those junkies".

It took me a long time to realize that Klaus's power was not only linked to death, but also to life. That this part of him would always be prominent, and that what may seem to the outsiders to be perverse frivolity was in fact as much a part of who he was as being a ghost magnet. One seemed to be able to counterbalance the other, for a while anyway, as if life's impulses could transiently take over: when he was having sex with anyone and for a while afterwards, the effect wasn't that different from a shot of ketamine.

You know how he is. He sought this effect, having undoubtedly rooted one of the many facets of his pansexuality. I always used to say that the 'P' in 'pan' stood - as far as he was concerned - for 'Pleasure', the A for 'Attraction' and the N for 'Necessity'. Unfortunately, we could have continued the list and added that the next S was all too often for 'Sustenance", when he was negotiating a place to sleep or funding for his dope. The final letter L for 'Love' - unfortunately for him - didn't enter the equation until years later, in its romantic meaning anyway. And that story didn't end well.

"Seriously? You're allowed to do that in rehab?"
My question was asked in a stupid way. I still wonder why I phrased it that way.
"Oh, it's - how can I put this - allowed if you don't get busted. But you know me, I'm very creative."
He slung the bag full of Twinkies over his shoulder, with nonsensical innocence considering the conversation we were having.
"Between the risk of being lectured a little and keeping my sanity, the choice was easy, you know".

He stopped, he ran his 'Hello' hand in my crest. Clearly, there were still details he was capable of not forgetting.

"So finally it's purple?"
I smiled, and said:
"I'm planning to go to the Nexus tonight. Ingrid can sneak us in."
"Ingrid, huh? I thought you were still with... that big beefy Jamaican guy who made you look like a Chihuahua next to a St. Bernard dog. I adored him..."
"Malik. In the end he was a jerk."
"You're right. In the end I couldn't stand him either. But the Nexus, that's good, that's... really good."

The Nexus Bar was - and still is - a staple of The City's underground scene. A huge room in the basement of West-Argyle, only accessible via a staircase in a hipster bar serving spirits from all over the world. With a single emergency exit: probably an outrage in terms of fire safety. But a flagship of rock and electro music, where both Klaus and I loved to go and binge on sound, bass and black lights. We'd let the night take us away from everything: free and ghostless. The last thirty days didn't matter, and neither would the next thirty.

"That's what I need tonight," he whispered. "Exactly what I need."

Today - looking back on all this - he would certainly describe his mindset then as that of his beloved Ariana Grande in 'No Tears Left to Cry', which he turned into a Veda in 1962: getting into a positive, if possibly blind, state of mind, forgetting everything for a while, and picking it up, living it up.

That night, he wouldn't think about rehab, or all the reminiscences Dr. Milligan had stirred up. He'd take the fix he'd been stocking up on, let his nervous system vibrate to the sound of tracks that would never make the charts, then find a new couch to crash on or sneak into Granny's apartment. That night, I wouldn't think about my mother and the tubes that kept her alive. Of the new industrial spying job PezziCola had offered me, which I'd decided to turn down to put this life behind me. To the money I no longer knew where to find. To the real job I was thinking of looking for, and the crest I might have to shave. That night, we'd possibly find the P, the A and the N. That night, we'd feed on Twinkies and drink on whatever Klaus could negotiate.

And once again, until dawn, we would party our lives away, unaware that we were actually consuming them even more.

---

Notes:

This chapter is less light-hearted than it appears, in many ways, as often, beyond Klaus's laughter. These are topics that the series, and especially the comics, address between the lines for one, and more frontally for the other. Here, I've chosen to tackle them through Rin's eyes as she looks back on her youth.

We've jumped a year in time, compared with the first three one-shots. These snippets of memory are also a bend in space-time. I hope they will shed some light on questions you may have had while reading the main fic, and perhaps - who knows - while watching the series.

Any comment will make my day! ♡