Snippets of Memory - The Umbrella Academy

Whispers of the Minerva

This story is a one-shot, part of the recollections of Rin and Klaus' younger years, both of whom appear in the story "A Bend in Space Time" (taking place over the seasons of The Umbrella Academy - links in my profile).
---
Backstory: Rin is a 20-year-old punk girl born with a strange power that she uses for illegal work: she can teleport, make herself invisible or intangible. Over several nights in police custody, just over a year ago, she met a strange cellmate named Klaus... also endowed with an extremely invasive power: that of communicating with the dead.

TW: Reference to drug and alcohol use - Emotional co-dependency - allusions to transactional intimacy.

Soundtrack : Deftones - Minerva

---

Klaus kept telling he would never set foot in Hargreeves Mansion again, and yet his room still reeked of weed and bootleg patchouli. He always found an excuse: an urgent need for clothes forgotten at the back of his closet, the need to steal some trinket to pawn, or simply the irrational pull of this cursed place that, despite everything, remained the closest thing he had ever known to a home.

He only did it in his father's absence, under the silent tolerance of Pogo, with Grace programmed to let him be. He slinked in through the house's lower levels, slipping past the boiler's steam and the stench of stagnant water. Like a stray cat, irresistibly drawn to the home that had kicked him out.

And so, by consequence, I found myself returning there too, from time to time. To this place where the hallways were too quiet and the shadows stretched too long. Where the nights were heavy, but at least sheltered from the rain. Usually, Klaus would use the hallway phone, just outside his room, and tell me he had 'a big bathtub and decent whisky'. I knew exactly what that meant. And I knew he'd leave his window open.

*Crack!*

I landed on the ledge, just outside the glass, teetering between a sublime adrenaline rush and the very real risk of face-planting into the dumpsters below. That sound, he recognized it instantly, with something close to instinct, as if it were part of him too. He had heard it so many times that he reacted before even turning his head: already smirking, even when wasted. With weary eyes, yet alight with the certainty that it was me.

That night, like all the others, the first thing I did was assess his state, the moment my boots hit his old worn floorboards. A quick glance at the dark circles under his eyes, the way his fingers trembled against the half-empty glass in his hand, the tension in his jaw. He was brilliant at disguising his emotional state beneath thick layers of flamboyant humor, like so many ruffled layers of tulle. But not this. Not the cacophony of the voices in his head, even through the chemical haze.

This wasn't a good night.
I kicked my boots off against the hookah.

"You look like a kitten struggling with a nasty case of cat flu. How long has it been since you last slept?"

Klaus looked up, clearly hesitating between a joke and a half-truth. Looking back now, I know I could already sense the buildup of spectral energy around him, but back then, I could only feel a suffocation that was an extension of his own.

"Define 'sleep' for me, please", he said with a weak laugh. "Because if it's just closing my eyes and listening to Deftones, then I'm right on schedule."
I raised a brow, arms crossed, and waited. He let his head roll back against the chair.
"Okay. Two days. Three? I don't fucking know, Rinny."

He waved his 'Goodbye' hand through the air, then pulled his knees up against his chest, bare feet pressing into the cushions. Trying to make himself as small as possible. As if that could protect him from anything.

"I can handle it", he whispered. "I've been through worse".

That was true. I had seen him spiral so badly that getting close to him was impossible: there was nothing I could do in those moments but wait in silence until his brain could no longer process the voices, and until he collapsed with sheer exhaustion.