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peachywise · 6 years ago

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nullify part 3

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader

- part iii: the difference between truths and lies || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ part vi ⋆ more parts to be released

- synopsis: Klaus may have terrified your neighbour, broken an unspoken contract, and overall just acted like an absolute ass, but hell. That wasn't anything compared to how shitty your first meeting went when you met the rest of his family.

- notes: Sorry, this chapter took a little longer to get up than expected! Then again, it was delayed because I got a puppy, so yeah man I'm not that sorry lmao. Hope you enjoy! Swearing and minor violence TW.

link on ao3

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“Did you break my lamp?”

Looking over his shoulder, Klaus peered at the tall beige light lying haphazardly on your floor, its shade squished to shit with little pieces of broken light bulb scattered around. It also just so happened to be right beside the window he had crawled in to get here.

“Would you believe me if I said it was like that when I got here?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. Patience. You had to have patience. Granted, that would be easier to achieve if you also had a lamp that was intact.

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, it made a loud enough crash and you didn’t even wake up. Would have thought you were dead if I wasn’t such a brilliant expert on the subject already.” Crossing the room to stand in front of you, he lowered his voice slightly, asking, “what pills do you take for it? Never seen anything like it.”

“Nothing. Just the sheer anger and exhaustion that comes from having been born,” you bluntly stated, only half-joking.

He tilted his head in a funny nod. “Ah, yes. That would do the trick.” Shaking your head, a little amused despite it all, you brushed past him to grab one of your canvas bags hanging by the front door. In doing so, Klaus’s eyes fell down to your hand, only just noticing the object clasped in your grasp. His face contorted in confusion “Are you actually bringing that clock with you? I was joking when I suggested it, sweetheart.”

Slipping the clock in the bag—which was little more than a defensive weapon now—you snorted. “I’m not taking any chances.” You’d already had a plate thrown at you, a spoon, and a pot dropped on your stomach, and that was all in less than twenty-four hours. If they were going to keep tossing ridiculous objects your way, then the clock was yours to use freely as far as you were concerned.

You almost wanted to smack him over the head with it again to avenge your fallen lamp. At least that’s why you told yourself you wanted to.

“Remind me why I agreed to go meet them, again?” You muttered, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you slipped some sneakers on. Klaus moved back over to your window, gingerly stepping over your lamp like he was afraid of damaging it more than he already had. How nice of him.

“Because I’m incredibly charming. And if you’re thinking of backing out, you aren’t going to get the ice cream cone I was going to treat you too on our midday stroll.”

Well, shit. Couldn’t say no to that.

“Let’s go, then."

Klaus’s grin was way too big, his face a little too excited. It was the same as that almost anticipative, hopeful look in his eyes you saw when you first met. The near intensity that he looked at you was enough to unnerve even the most confident of people. It was confusing. You had begun to think about what they could need. Clearly, they weren’t as interested in your forcefields ability of simple defense, given Five’s early dismissal of it. He was way more interested in learning you could nullify powers. At the very least you knew you could cancel out Klaus’s. Most likely they just needed you to do that with someone else. The question was, who was it?

Moving to unlock your door, you heard a familiar swish and click of a window. Turning back around, you noticed Klaus trying to squeeze himself through it, his body already halfway out.

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re doing that to be funny, or because you forgot we could leave out the front door.”

Stalling just before he stuck his second foot out on your fire escape, he stayed still for a beat then backtracked, maneuvering himself inside the apartment once more. Clearing his throat as he stood upright, he murmured, “I was just following Ben’s lead,” walking past you to swing the front door open. “Well come on, we haven’t got all day. Early bird gets the worm and all that."

Patting Klaus’s arm condescendingly, you stated a little loudly simply in hopes ghost boy was actually still in the room, “with how much I assume Klaus pins his stupid stunts on you, it's a travesty that you haven't been anointed to sainthood, Ben.”

“Please,” Klaus scoffed, throwing his arm over your shoulder as you moved out in the hallway, closing the door and locking it behind you. “You can’t even hear him and you believe him over me?”

Shrugging his arm off, you span around and walked backward, facing him. “Are you kidding? Currently, he’s my favourite because I can’t hear him. It’s blissful.”

Klaus was about to shoot something back at you, his face lighting with the knowing signs of amusement, but stopped himself before he could begin. Oh, so no clever come back? You’d gotten so used to the rapport you were almost disappointed, despite what you had just previously stated about the quiet.

But then you heard another voice behind you, and Christ, you already dreaded having to explain the presence of your rather scantily clad, eccentrically distinctive acquaintance.

“Honey, are you okay? I heard some noises coming from your apartment and I was just on my way to check.”

Spinning back around, you gave a tight smile in welcome to your elderly neighbour, Eliza Carr. She was a sweet little woman, albeit nosy as all hell. Shrunken to about 4’9 with overly long grey hair pinned up in a tight bun, you always wondered if she did it too stretch her wrinkles in a make do facelift. Ingenious, really. She’d always kind of reminded you of a fairy. Odd comparison, but it worked when you considered they were often pleasant under the guise cover an impish exterior.

Once you had even caught her looking through your mail. You were pretty sure she had taken a pizza coupon from the stack and hid it in her bra.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Carr. I was just—”

“With me,” Klaus interjected, stepping beside you and looping his arm through yours, pressing you closer to his side as he put on his fake little polite act.

Shit.

Why he interrupted, you had no idea. Maybe it was just his incessant need to hear his own voice, or his need to make his presence known lest he disappears like the invisible ghost who trailed along after him.

“Believe me, I tried to quiet them down but they just can’t keep their hands off! Didn’t help that they ball-gagged me and had my hands and feet tied together, but that’s pretty tame compared to last night.”

Maybe he interrupted because this truly was hell and Klaus was a literal fucking demon given the duty to torment you in every sense of the word. Then Eliza’s hand went to her chest, and you had decided he was actually the grim reaper who just tried to kill the poor old bat.

Widening your eyes, you were completely stunned into silence, unable to cough even the slightest noise or retaliate against his words. Then Eliza dropped her hand and took a small, concerned step forward, reaching that hand out to place it on your forearm in a comforting, though at the moment mortifying, gesture. “Why don’t you come to church with me on Sunday, Hun? I think—”

Sidestepping away from her grasp, you gripped Klaus’s wrist as you finally found your voice again. “Sorry, gotta go! Late for an appointment!” Before she could try to convince you that you needed Jesus—someone who inevitably must have abandoned the earth the moment your present companion was born—you pulled Klaus behind you in your frantic attempt to escape. Then he turned just slightly to yell back at the woman, “we’re trying to adopt! I think we’ll make fantastic parents," as you turned down the hall and raced down the few flights of stairs. Klaus snickered the whole way down.

As soon as you reached the landing of your lobby, musty and welcoming with its stained emerald carpet and all, you dropped his wrist and indignantly ignored him as you exited the building. He trailed behind you like the world’s worst trained mutt. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, will ya?” He huffed, as you walked down the concrete steps and on to the sidewalk. “I’m still a little winded from having that ball gag in my—”

Sticking your leg out casually as he descended from the final step, he comically tripped over it and fell to the ground just as gratifyingly as you had imagined it.

“Do that again and I’ll shove coal so far down your throat you’ll be shitting diamonds for years to come.”

“You promise?” He smiled, pushing himself off the ground and wiping the gravel from his hands on to his pants. Not like those things could really get any dirtier. “Also, that’s an oddly specific threat. You pick it up from Five? Sounds like him, though it’s a little crude.”

“Do you get off on making a random strangers life hell?” You questioned, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared at him indignantly.

Klaus stepped beside you and bumped his shoulder with yours. Smirking as he bent his face lower to your level, he groaned out, “come on, you had to find it a little funny. That woman probably isn’t a saint herself. Seen plenty of grannies reading Fifty Shades of Grey on the bus. Think she’d want to give it a go with me?”

Okay. It was a little funny.

Taking your silence and the slight upturn of your mouth as a win, he poked your arm as if the last attempt to coax you out of grumpiness. You let out a small laugh. “Fine, whatever,” you conceded, “It was a little funny. But seriously, don’t do it again. She’s tried to get me to go to her church so many times that I think next time she’ll just knock me out and drag me there in her car.”

Chuckling back, he sprang into action as he began walking down the street, calling back, “come on, let’s go get that ice cream.”

“I can’t believe you,” you muttered, pulling the vibrantly pink sunglasses down off your head to cover your eyes, despite being inside.

Klaus turned to glance through his matching pair.

“What? I told you. It will present us as a united front.”

“Not the glasses,” you said, taking another lick of the ice cream. You know, the ice cream that you paid for despite him saying it was his treat? Yeah. At this point, you were just ashamed that you had even believed him. And to trick you with the promise of ice cream, of all things! He was truly and most undoubtedly heinous. “When you say you’re going to treat someone to ice cream, typically that means you’ll pay for it, not just order mine and one for yourself, then look me dead in the eye to tell me to pay the man.”

“Did I not hand it to you? I treated you. It's not my fault you thought I had money.”

Wow. He truly would have thrived in high school debate. How disappointing he was raised to be a freakin’ con man instead.

“You know what? The glasses I was fine paying for. They’re cool. But to make me buy you ice cream, taking back an unspoken contract? Despicable.”

You couldn’t tell if the offended look on Klaus’s face was real or a weak attempt to hide the pleasure you knew he was truly taking from this mindless argument.

“Unspoken contract!” He snorted, exiting the elevator on one of the higher levels of an apartment complex way nicer than your own. “Why are we even having this conversation? We both have ice cream, do we not? I call that a win-win.”

“That’s because you're stupid,” you jeered back, reaching over to take a bite of his ice cream like a passive-aggressive child. He gasped in what seemed like true horror. “Hey, you have your own!” Klaus whined, lifting his ice cream high up like that would actually stop you. You gave him a cheery grin—downright innocent. “I bought it. Both are mine.”

Klaus stopped in front of one of the apartment doors, not even bothering to knock as he swung the door open and entered inside. You followed behind him.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called out, then turned his attention back to you, swooping down to take a bite out of your ice cream in return. You gasped, recoiling back as if he had just tried to take your most precious possession. Man, now you knew how Gollum felt. “Not fair!” You laughed loudly, Klaus’s eyes crinkling as he returned the laughter in kind.

Then the thunk of something planting itself in the wall right beside your ear had your laughter cutting off rather fast, and you dropped your ice cream too the nicely tiled floor in shock.

Oh, hell no.

“Diego, what did I say?” Echoed a baritone voice from around the corner. Turning your head slightly to stare directly down the hall, you lifted the sunglasses back on your head and made eye contact with one of the family, Diego. Luther soon followed into view and tugged him back.

Klaus muttered a small “uh oh,” beside you.

Peering from the corner of your eye at the knife he had just thrown at you, narrowly missing your head by a fraction of an inch, you turned your attention fully back to Number Two, squinting as you did.

“I am not a fucking steak!” You yelled at him, getting really tired the cutlery this family just kept throwing at you. So tired, in fact, that you ignored the man’s inquisitive look in favour of scrounging in your bag, pulling out your broken clock and throwing it with the intent to clock him on the head, no pun intended. Instead, it just bounced enthusiastically off his chest, falling to the floor and cracking its glass face.

Everything went quiet. Well, apart from the snort Klaus tried so hard to mask by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t see any force field. I told you I don’t trust them,” Diego sneered to Luther, turning back around the corridor with a lasting, “we don’t need to involve anyone else.” You weren't necessarily going to dispute that, but man, he was a bitter boy.

Klaus leaned down close to your ear, whispering, “that was Diego. A ray of sunshine, isn’t he?”

Absolutely delightful.

Luther took that opportune moment to advance towards you too. While his disposition tried to read friendly, you knew underneath it all he was scrutinizing you just as much as the trigger-happy Diego had. Reaching out a gloved hand, you tried hard not to let his intimidating size spook you. When the fuck did he get that big?

“I’m Luther,” he introduced himself, as you shook his hand firmly but briefly.

“I know who you are,” you commented back, dropping his hand and taking a tiny step back. “Care to explain what’s going on?”

A look of confusion fell over his face. “Wait, no one told you?” Wow, the whole family was smart, weren’t they? “Klaus, you were supposed to tell her,” he sighed, turning towards his brother.

“Probably best he didn’t. He’s not the most reliable source for information,” came another voice, slightly higher pitched and overly familiar. Five moved to stand in front of you. “Nice to see you again. Was that a clock you threw?”

“Yes. Probably looks a little different from the Disney themed one you have beside your race car bed, so I understand your confusion.”

The only tell he had of his annoyance was the slightest tick at the corner of his eye. “Are you done and ready to talk like an adult now?”

“What, looking for practice? Can’t remember the last time I played house. Maybe kindergarten.” You were going to milk this as long as you could. It wasn’t just that you were trying to avoid whatever weird, nearly cult-like thing this had evolved into in your mind. It was also because you wanted to see just how much you could push the little tyke’s buttons until he snapped.

And then he snapped.

Giving a small huff, a knowing, almost winning look crossing his features. “And that was before your house burned down with you in it, right? If I recall correctly, that was when you were ten.”

This motherfucker. He knew. He knew everything.

Judging by the perplexed look on Luther’s face, and Klaus’s small exclamation of, “what?” it seemed that he was the only one who did. At that moment, it was the only thing stopping you from falling into a spiraling descent of panic and unbelievable ire.

This wasn’t worth it. No matter your curiosity, this was far from worth it.

Turning to Klaus, you bit out, “I think you need to set the kid down for his afternoon nap. He turns into the world’s biggest asshole when he’s tired,” and then swiftly moved to open the apartment door, slamming it behind you as you left without even saying goodbye.

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