terriblymisguided (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
terriblymisguided) wrote2022-04-15 05:25 pm
terriblymisguided) wrote2022-04-15 05:25 pm
Entry tags:
keep your coffin, i'm gonna survive
(cw: mentions of assault and murder of an npc)
Against all odds, Klaus has sort of figured out a career for himself. It could be argued that he already had one as a baby superhero, but this is a job that he decided on for himself, one that he likes. Sure, it's a little unconventional, a little unreliable, but that works for him. That is him. Klaus Hargreeves, Ghost PI. It could be a TV show.
The problem with this career is that he can't really set his own schedule. Sure, he can look up missing persons cases or go where bodies were found and try to see if the ghosts of any victims are hanging around, but more often than not, the ghosts find him, not the other way around.
This time, it's sort of late in the evening and Klaus is walking from the Hargreeves' house to Obi-Wan's building because he just feels like walking, feeling the city under his feet. He feels restless, a little antsy in a way that not even a joint could help. In what he likes to call the Before Times, this is when he would go find some shady dealer or someone easy to fuck or both, but he's slowly starting to realize that some of the things that he thought he enjoyed so much were actually just coping mechanisms.
Sure, he likes drinking and dancing and fucking but it's better when it's on his terms, and not as a response to something else. Now he knows to look inward and examine his feelings to try and actually make sense of what it is that he really wants.
Fucking Obi-Wan. This is what he gets for dating a space wizard.
As Klaus is cutting through a dimly lit parking lot, a tall blonde woman jumps out from between two cars and scares the shit out of him. He lifts his hands in a fighting position and then realizes that the woman is mostly naked and covered in cuts and bruises, and the awful sound that she's making is because of the dark ring of bruises around her neck.
She's very dead. Klaus can tell this right away because he gets this tingle down his spine and, well, by looking at her.
"Help me," she croaks out, and Klaus pauses. He's a little high, a little horny, and sort of just wants to chill. This is what he means by the working finding him, because now he suddenly feels like he's on the clock. "He's going to do it again."
The woman looks a little familiar, like he's seen her face in some database at the police station, and he decides then that he has to try to help her. He's going to do it again is too ominous to be ignored.
"You were murdered?" Klaus asks, because this isn't really the time to talk about how yes, he can see her, or to try to dance around a delicate topic. "What's your name? Do you know who did it?"
"I’m Taylor," she rasps out, seemingly so grateful to be seen and heard. Klaus can't imagine roaming the world like this, tortured and invisible, constantly screaming for help with no one around to hear. No wonder so many of them go mad. "Taylor Krause. It was-- it was September, last I knew. I was leaving a party. He took me. He took me and he did this!"
"Okay, okay," Klaus replies, and he wonders if it would be worth using his powers to make her solid so he can give her his coat. She's just standing in the middle of the parking lot, bloody and topless, but Klaus is the only one who can see, so he just keeps his gaze on her face, which is bruised and puffy, lips white and cracked. "Who took you, Taylor?"
"I-- I don't know," she sobs out, reaching out to grab Klaus's arm. Her touch is cold and Klaus shivers, feeling nauseated, but he doesn't pull away. "But I can show you where he took me!"
"Okay, hold on." Klaus pulls out his phone and calls Hopper, even though it's almost midnight. It's not like he ever calls the guy up just to chat, so he isn’t worried about it being too late. It's important. When Hopper answers (brusquely, of course), Klaus again skips the pleasantries. "What can you tell me about Taylor Krause?"
It's pretty basic, turns out. She left a birthday party last September and seemed to disappear without a trace. Family reported her missing, but the police pretty quickly hit a wall when clues dried up. Case is still open, but effectively cold.
"Pretty sure it's heating up again," Klaus tells him as Taylor takes his hand and yanks at him. Her fingers are ice cold and bony, digging into his skin with an icy blue glow, but Klaus lets himself be pulled. "I'm working on something. I'll call you back."
"Klaus, don't--"
He ends the call and shoots Obi-Wan a quick text. on the clock, it reads, followed by a ghost emoji. The pants that he’s wearing don’t have any pockets, so Klaus sticks his phone into the front of his underwear, because why not.
One very awkward cab ride later, he and Taylor are down by the docks in a very shady looking warehouse district composed of buildings that are already abandoned or about to be. She looks like something out of a slasher movie, bloody and half-naked and frantic, and Klaus followers after her.
“He drugged me and I pretended to still be out so I could tell where we were going,” she says in her strange, croaky voice, each word struggling past a crushed throat. “It was one of these buildings. There’s like a basement, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
She disappears through a broken door and Klaus takes a fortifying breath before following her inside. They go down the stairs, only Klaus’s footsteps crunching along debris, and Klaus squints against the darkness. He should probably be more worried about this situation that he’s suddenly found himself in, but he isn’t really. He survived Reginald Hargreeves. He fought crime as a child. He was a soldier. He was roasted by God herself. He’ll be fine.
Perhaps he should have listened to one of his father’s many lectures on hubris.
“It was here! I remember. This is where he hurt me!” Taylor is shrieking so loudly that Klaus can’t hear anything else, but he isn’t really worried about her drawing attention, since he’s the only one that can hear her. The problem, he’ll realize later, is that with her screaming, he can’t properly hear his surroundings.
Focused on her as he is, he doesn’t notice someone coming up behind him until suddenly there is a strong arm around his throat. He lifts his hands to try and fight, but a cloth is pressed to his mouth and the last thing he registers is Taylor’s bloody mouth opening in another horrified scream.
And then it all fades to black.
--
When Klaus regains consciousness, he thinks for a moment that he's been blinded. His head is pounding and all he can see is black. He blinks a few times and tries to sit up, but hits his head on something solid. He freezes, eyes wide against the absence of light, and fears a stab of true fear shoot through him.
"No, no, no, fuck." He's trapped in some sort of box, pitch black and small, and suddenly he's eight years old again, being held down by bony, icy hands that pull and scratch. "No, no, please."
When Klaus hears Taylor scream again, far off and muffled, Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and screams with her, screams with everything he has.
Against all odds, Klaus has sort of figured out a career for himself. It could be argued that he already had one as a baby superhero, but this is a job that he decided on for himself, one that he likes. Sure, it's a little unconventional, a little unreliable, but that works for him. That is him. Klaus Hargreeves, Ghost PI. It could be a TV show.
The problem with this career is that he can't really set his own schedule. Sure, he can look up missing persons cases or go where bodies were found and try to see if the ghosts of any victims are hanging around, but more often than not, the ghosts find him, not the other way around.
This time, it's sort of late in the evening and Klaus is walking from the Hargreeves' house to Obi-Wan's building because he just feels like walking, feeling the city under his feet. He feels restless, a little antsy in a way that not even a joint could help. In what he likes to call the Before Times, this is when he would go find some shady dealer or someone easy to fuck or both, but he's slowly starting to realize that some of the things that he thought he enjoyed so much were actually just coping mechanisms.
Sure, he likes drinking and dancing and fucking but it's better when it's on his terms, and not as a response to something else. Now he knows to look inward and examine his feelings to try and actually make sense of what it is that he really wants.
Fucking Obi-Wan. This is what he gets for dating a space wizard.
As Klaus is cutting through a dimly lit parking lot, a tall blonde woman jumps out from between two cars and scares the shit out of him. He lifts his hands in a fighting position and then realizes that the woman is mostly naked and covered in cuts and bruises, and the awful sound that she's making is because of the dark ring of bruises around her neck.
She's very dead. Klaus can tell this right away because he gets this tingle down his spine and, well, by looking at her.
"Help me," she croaks out, and Klaus pauses. He's a little high, a little horny, and sort of just wants to chill. This is what he means by the working finding him, because now he suddenly feels like he's on the clock. "He's going to do it again."
The woman looks a little familiar, like he's seen her face in some database at the police station, and he decides then that he has to try to help her. He's going to do it again is too ominous to be ignored.
"You were murdered?" Klaus asks, because this isn't really the time to talk about how yes, he can see her, or to try to dance around a delicate topic. "What's your name? Do you know who did it?"
"I’m Taylor," she rasps out, seemingly so grateful to be seen and heard. Klaus can't imagine roaming the world like this, tortured and invisible, constantly screaming for help with no one around to hear. No wonder so many of them go mad. "Taylor Krause. It was-- it was September, last I knew. I was leaving a party. He took me. He took me and he did this!"
"Okay, okay," Klaus replies, and he wonders if it would be worth using his powers to make her solid so he can give her his coat. She's just standing in the middle of the parking lot, bloody and topless, but Klaus is the only one who can see, so he just keeps his gaze on her face, which is bruised and puffy, lips white and cracked. "Who took you, Taylor?"
"I-- I don't know," she sobs out, reaching out to grab Klaus's arm. Her touch is cold and Klaus shivers, feeling nauseated, but he doesn't pull away. "But I can show you where he took me!"
"Okay, hold on." Klaus pulls out his phone and calls Hopper, even though it's almost midnight. It's not like he ever calls the guy up just to chat, so he isn’t worried about it being too late. It's important. When Hopper answers (brusquely, of course), Klaus again skips the pleasantries. "What can you tell me about Taylor Krause?"
It's pretty basic, turns out. She left a birthday party last September and seemed to disappear without a trace. Family reported her missing, but the police pretty quickly hit a wall when clues dried up. Case is still open, but effectively cold.
"Pretty sure it's heating up again," Klaus tells him as Taylor takes his hand and yanks at him. Her fingers are ice cold and bony, digging into his skin with an icy blue glow, but Klaus lets himself be pulled. "I'm working on something. I'll call you back."
"Klaus, don't--"
He ends the call and shoots Obi-Wan a quick text. on the clock, it reads, followed by a ghost emoji. The pants that he’s wearing don’t have any pockets, so Klaus sticks his phone into the front of his underwear, because why not.
One very awkward cab ride later, he and Taylor are down by the docks in a very shady looking warehouse district composed of buildings that are already abandoned or about to be. She looks like something out of a slasher movie, bloody and half-naked and frantic, and Klaus followers after her.
“He drugged me and I pretended to still be out so I could tell where we were going,” she says in her strange, croaky voice, each word struggling past a crushed throat. “It was one of these buildings. There’s like a basement, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
She disappears through a broken door and Klaus takes a fortifying breath before following her inside. They go down the stairs, only Klaus’s footsteps crunching along debris, and Klaus squints against the darkness. He should probably be more worried about this situation that he’s suddenly found himself in, but he isn’t really. He survived Reginald Hargreeves. He fought crime as a child. He was a soldier. He was roasted by God herself. He’ll be fine.
Perhaps he should have listened to one of his father’s many lectures on hubris.
“It was here! I remember. This is where he hurt me!” Taylor is shrieking so loudly that Klaus can’t hear anything else, but he isn’t really worried about her drawing attention, since he’s the only one that can hear her. The problem, he’ll realize later, is that with her screaming, he can’t properly hear his surroundings.
Focused on her as he is, he doesn’t notice someone coming up behind him until suddenly there is a strong arm around his throat. He lifts his hands to try and fight, but a cloth is pressed to his mouth and the last thing he registers is Taylor’s bloody mouth opening in another horrified scream.
And then it all fades to black.
--
When Klaus regains consciousness, he thinks for a moment that he's been blinded. His head is pounding and all he can see is black. He blinks a few times and tries to sit up, but hits his head on something solid. He freezes, eyes wide against the absence of light, and fears a stab of true fear shoot through him.
"No, no, no, fuck." He's trapped in some sort of box, pitch black and small, and suddenly he's eight years old again, being held down by bony, icy hands that pull and scratch. "No, no, please."
When Klaus hears Taylor scream again, far off and muffled, Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and screams with her, screams with everything he has.