Snippets of Memory - The Umbrella Academy

Whispers of the Minerva

"If you feel like scrubbing up, I swiped a bunch of free samples."

I nearly jumped and looked up into the mirror just as he appeared behind me, dragging his bare feet across the cold tile floor. He had slipped into a ridiculously oversized purple unicorn onesie, the hood's horn failing to contain the curls that had survived his latest straightening attempt. A surreal, nearly absurd presence in a setting that had the feel of a 19th-century barracks. He stepped inside, opened the small bathroom cabinet to the right of the mirror, and began rummaging through it. We weren't going to talk about what had just happened. We never did.

"What did you tell Granny?"
I turned off the water and dried my hands.
"Nothing. I'm twenty, I don't have to justify anything. No more than when you show up at my window".
He sighed with satisfaction.
"I love her so much. She's the only person on earth who's ever served me tea and a death threat in the same sentence".
"I don't understand her attitude toward you. Normally, she just hates people".

Much later, I found out that Reginald Hargreeves was her employer, as a tailor making custom clothing. That she had sewn all the Academy uniforms, as well as his gala suits. I learned that she knew Hargreeves Mansion far better than I'd ever imagined, along with all the grim stories revolving around the Monocle and his children. I also found out it wasn't without reason. But beyond all that, I think Granny understood. Understood that getting close to Klaus and the Hargreeves was the worst thing that could happen to me, and also the best.

Klaus pulled a tiny bottle from the cabinet, read the label, then put it back to inspect another.
"She's got that little BDSM side, with the passive-aggressive threat of coriander and the sting of lemongrass. Hey, if I put conditioner on my eyelashes, do you think it'll make them longer?"
I tilted my head, looking at him with jaded eyes.
"You'll mostly end up in the ER with a chemical burn."
"Oh, please. The time I tried bleaching them with hydrogen peroxide, nothing happened".

I chuckled softly. No matter how much reckless shit he pulled, Klaus never seemed to suffer the consequences that would have flattened anyone else. We had no idea why. We just assumed his luck was outrageously unfair, like a giant middle finger to risk, and to the pain in his life. Then he pointed at the toilet, just beside the bathroom.

"You know, when Pogo locked up the bar, I used to empty bottles of toilet drain cleaner just to refill them with gin. Neither Dad nor Grace ever figured out my stash."
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub.
"So that means that gin did unclog the pipes just as well..."
He shrugged his slender, twenty-year-old shoulders.
"What can I say, I had needs and no budget."

I blinked with a faint smile. Hargreeves Mansion breathed suffering: you could feel it, even without the ability to hear voices from the Void. And yet, this massive, unheated house was also brimming with memories, more than it could contain. Every hallway, every creaking staircase carried the echo of a stifled laugh, a forbidden race, a prank pulled in secret. Klaus didn't just have stolen Chanel samples tucked into corners. He had also left pieces of his childhood, embedded in the cracks of the lead-based paint.

"I don't know what to think of this place", I admitted. "Part of me wants to run, and part of me wants to see it all."

It was an honest expression of what I felt, and what I would feel again, when I came back to live here for a week much later, just before the world collapsed in the 2019 apocalypse. He looked at me, and I caught that mischievous gleam in his eyes, the one that only appeared when he was at peace, when he was genuinely doing better. And with that, I felt relieved. My 'efforts' hadn't been in vain. He shoved everything back into the cabinet in a careless heap, then shut it.

"I have an idea. Want to hear it?"
"I'm a little scared, but that's not going to stop you".

He pulled down the hood of his absurd unicorn onesie, yanked me up from the edge of the bathtub, and dragged me to my feet on the worn-out tiles.