sixthiterationlogs | [open] i want to live where soul meets body

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[open] i want to live where soul meets body

WHO: Klaus Hargreeves
WHERE: Bunker, North Village Inn, Hot Springs; wherever else/wildcard
WHEN: Late March
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Possibly mentions of substance abuse and violence; nudity in the hot springs thread. Spoilers for The Umbrella Academy. Warning for pretentious lyrics-header usage.

👻 let the sun wrap its arms around me (bunker; closed to Diego Hargreeves)

Klaus wakes up all at once, in a rush, his eyes snapping open and his lips parting as he sucks in a deep gasp of breath.

"No no no no nonononono...."

He's not screaming, just moaning over and over again, head swiveling in a sort of panic, trying to move his arms and legs, groggy and disoriented. All he's aware of is that he's in some kind of tube, standing up, the walls closing in around him, the darkness like a physical thing that's trying to claw its way down his throat and around his eyeballs and into his ears until he's blind and deaf and mute and nothing exists but the pressure and the screaming of the dead. He remembers this from the crypt, closed in the dark, the smell of death and the whispers, the voices saying his name, calling him, a perpetual reminder of mortality. Gut clenching, lungs seizing, he squirms until he can get his arms up, hands closing into fists, and he starts pounding at the walls around him, kicking with his feet.

"Let me out! Help, someone help!"

It claws its way out his throat, and the dullness of the echo makes him think that no one can hear him, no one can hear him and he's going to suffocate alone in the dark surrounded by dead people. He stops speaking for a moment, and the only sounds in the tube are his own breathing - short, shallow breaths pulled through a partly open mouth - and a series of small whimpers that he recognizes intimately as his own. It's only a flash of a moment before he can't bear it anymore and starts shouting and crying, and he can feel the tears running down his cheeks as he pounds at the unforgiving metal in front of him, slamming fists against it until he feels stings of pain on his knuckles. Keeps going anyway, because he's never been afraid to bleed a little.

The panic is too thick in his throat and his brain for him to notice that he can't hear or see the dead around him.

👻 where i send my thoughts to far-off destinations (north village inn; ota)

A day to recuperate and fight off his demons - figuratively, of course, because ever since he arrived, he hasn't seen a single member of the dead - and Klaus is back in fighting form, or at least as close to fighting form as he ever is. Sharing a house with Diego is all well and good, but sticking around and socializing only with his siblings has never been Klaus' style. Other people, that's what he thinks might breathe a bit of energy into his life, especially now that he's not worried about seeing the terrifying, painful last moments of strangers' lives, put on loop with a soundtrack of screaming and shouting and jabbering and endless endless explaining. It may sound overly optimistic, but the living are much more tolerable than the dead.

And so Klaus has dragged a chair into the front room at the inn, which seems one of the more likely places to meet new and interesting people, and is lying on his back in front of the fireplace, dressed in his violet scrubs, legs propped up on the seat of the chair in front of him. Alternating between looking at the fire, the ceiling, and towards any sound resembling other people coming in, he rests, eating a piece of fruit as slowly as he can. Funny how good things taste when you're sober.

The moment he hears someone coming in, he'll be looking over toward the noise with his brows raised, head turning lazily, mouth curving into a crooked smile.

"Well, hello there. Why don't you join me? I've been saving a seat for you."

With that, he pulls his legs off the chair and sits up to greet his company, legs crossed, grinning.

👻 a melody softly soaring through my atmosphere (hot springs; ota; nudity)

It had taken a few days to find the hot springs, but once he'd found them, he'd decided that this is where he wants to exist for as long as possible. Back home it had been a rough week (plus 10 months), he'd been beaten and bruised and battered, had a multitude of injuries from his time in Vietnam, and every muscle in his body had been sore, aching. The bathtub at the Academy hadn't done him much good, he hadn't had much time to use it and most of it had been interrupted by painful memories, grief and tears, flashbacks and the sounds of helicopters, gunshots, the screams of the dead...

Not really relaxing.

These hot springs, though, they're on a whole other level. The bruises are gone, the scrapes have healed, the soreness is melting out of every muscle, and Klaus is lying on his back in the spring, with his eyes closed and every part of his body except his face blissfully submerged. At the edge of the spring, on a dry rock, sits a wad of his clothing - violet scrubs, socks, hiking boots, and notably a pair of white briefs draped over the top. If you're going to bathe, why wear clothes, after all?

If his head comes far enough out of the water to actually hear someone approaching, the only response will be a half-mumbled, half-moaned question:

"Five more minutes? Please?"

👻 in my head there's a greyhound station (wildcard; ota)

Klaus is going to be out and about at various places, if you have an idea for one, hit me up on plurk at

caffemisto, discord at coffee #6251, or by PM to this journal and I'll write you something up! Alternately, fling me a surprise starter and I'll roll with the punches.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

While there aren't many bad guys to take on, unless one counts vampiric tiny deer who kind of scare the shit out of Diego - Not that he's admitting that to anyone - Diego almost finds himself at a loss in many ways. He went from throwing himself into every remotely violent call that comes through the police scanner to trying to avert the apocalypse, and now he finds himself kind of stuck with the worst possible company. His own thoughts over everything he's done right and wrong, especially in the last week since Reginald died and Five turned out to be alive and twelve.

Except it wasn't just last week. Not for Diego. For him it's now been a month since they stood on that stage, Vanya in Luther's arms and destruction barreling down on them. A month in this place that offers a reprieve and the guilt that comes with it. He's alive, the world isn't ending here, and he has a chance to figure out what he's never taken time to think about really. Who Diego Hargreeves is and what he wants out of life. About time he acts on those things he accuses Luther of never doing.

That he falls into old habits though is not surprising. Making daily patrols of the inn, the village that seems to be the main one, checking at the fountain where he finds himself often considering his options, and then making the hike out to the bunker. It at least gives him a focus as he heads downward, and almost instantly catching a sound he's not heard before.

Banging. Then what seems an odd, tinny sound that, after a step or two more, Diego realizes is a voice.

Rushing down into the room where the creepy human pneumatic tubes are, undoing closures he's studied before when there was no one else there and ripping open the tube to try and get to whoever is trapped within. Not even realizing yet that it's someone he knows as he he reaches in, getting his arms around whoever it is and hauling them out.

And praying to God that the bubble that has manifested in other moments when his stutter might bother him didn't shove whoever it was back into the tube.

It feels like forever, the panic swelling to the point that he's pretty sure he's losing his mind, that there's nothing left in him but the clawing desperation to get out and away, before he hears something. Movement above him, where he hopes the exit to this helltube is, and the sobbing and whimpering turns into screaming again, a little hysterical.

"Help! Help, get me out of here, help me, please..."

His voice chokes off when he smells and feels more than sees the exit to his prison opening, and then there are strong arms reaching down, wrapping around him, and Klaus reaches up in turn, closing his arms around the other person's shoulders, kicking his feet to get traction and push himself out. Tries not to think about how much he feels like, must look like, a person crawling out of a coffin.

Once he's free, he crumples to the floor, sits down, knees up, bending sideways to huddle in on himself, hands against the back of his head and neck while he rides out the worst of the fear. Hyperventilating, gasping for breath, trembling, he gets himself back together enough to look up at his savior.

"Diego?"

His voice is cracked, and he drops his hands, face wet with tears, chest rising and falling shallow and too fast.

"Thank god."

It's genuine enough, and he stands up, shakily, reaches out to put a hand against Diego's chest to brace himself, because his knees are still shaking, he's shaking all over, coherent but still in the grip of panic.

There is no consideration for who it might be, no care for anything but getting them out of the tubes and onto the ground. Worrying that if they've come to before the fountain, what might happen to them, how much they might have endured before he arrived. Most of that a fear of how long they were in there, pounding and panicking. Diego didn't have a fear of small, tight spaces but suspects anyone could develop that fear trapped in a tube that could so easily become a coffin.

Bending over the person, already trying to get them to lift their face, let him see their skin tone, their eyes, make sure they aren't in need of any immediate medical care even as his hands take theirs to see the damage possibly done. Going over a checklist in his head, ensuring himself that everything is okay about the person, but not putting the details together into a cohesive, and familiar, picture. Not until he hears his name and all of the pieces snap together into one piece.

"K-K..." He stops, leaning back a moment out of fear of that bubble as years of training in dangerous situations never prepared him for this. Especially when he's still not sure what this place is or what it means that he's there and has lost his other siblings. Until now.

"Klaus. Thank god," he echoes, moving to wrap his arms around his brother, hugging him tightly in that moment. Maybe he isn't lost in this place and they're stuck somewhere else without him. Maybe it's going to be okay.

"What the hell were you doing in there?"

Okay, some things never change.

Diego's in emergency mode, Klaus knows that look and the way Diego talks to him and touches him, like he's a crime victim not his dumb brother. It's kind of nice, in the distant sort of way that's the only way he can feel anything but panic right now. He's out of the tube, but it's still dark here, and everything feels too close, magnified and loud and too much. When Diego gets him to lift his face he lifts it, cheeks wet with tears, eyes wide, and then Diego is stuttering at him.

Something about the stutter breaks through the panic, and Klaus lets out a high-pitched laugh, a manic sort of noise that isn't quite humour. And then Diego is hugging him, and he hugs back, arms around his brother's shoulders, burying his face into Diego's neck because the familiar smell is better than thinking about whatever damp cave they're probably in and how many spirits are probably here.

"Seriously man, I don't know."

It's meant to sound flippant, almost jokey, but it comes out hesitant, maybe a bit whiny, certainly still tinged with fear.

"You...you better believe I wouldn't have gone in there willingly. Are you kidding me? After the catacombs. No no...no way man. That's fucked up."

A swallow, and he leans back, puts his hand on Diego's chest again to keep his balance and keep contact, remind himself he's not alone, still shaking, looking around hesitantly.

"What is this place?"

It's an unfair though, but Diego is suddenly very happy he found himself at the bottom of the fountain than waking up in this tube. After the world ending around them, suddenly finding himself in what could easily be a casket is maddening.

Which is why there's a sudden burst of panic for his brother. Klaus has been through so much, and his connection with death is so tightly wound that Diego suddenly worries that this moment could do him so much harm that Diego will have no idea how to handle. Except he knows after all they've been through recently, he would try. This place be damned, he'd try.

"I know. I know you wouldn't. I think you got hung up," he admits. "Most talk about finding themselves at the bottom of a giant fountain and have to swim their way up." Which he is pretty damn sure is better. "As for this..."

His hand braces against Klaus' wrist as he pauses, looking up.

"Currently you're in some kind of bunker where some arrive, and where there's a machine that turns others into what we grew up as." Which is totally not why he first came down to the bunker. Nope. Not at all. Or totally. One or the other.

"The town though? Damned if I know, and no one seems to have a straight answer to tell me. I think somehow the blast screwed with what Five was trying to do," he admits, not realizing that what Klaus remembers may not be the same as what he remembers.

"Of course."

It's bitter and Klaus lifts the hand that's not still resting on Diego's chest to scrub over his face, mostly to ground himself. On most people, it might be partly to hide the tears, but frankly Klaus doesn't have any shame about that kind of thing. Never has, never will. His heart is still pounding, that clawing constricting hand of panic is wrapped around his throat, and he can feel Diego's heart pounding too, feels it speed up for a moment before he talks. Kind of idly wonders why, but lets that thought float away with the rush of panic.

Diego doesn't shove his hand away, just closes his fingers around his wrist and explains where he is. Half of it goes over Klaus' head, but the talking is a pretty decent distraction.

"Seriously? Just my luck, of course I'm the only one who gets stuck in this thing."

And finally he pulls away from his brother, to turn and kick the tube he'd arrived in hard, which only results in making him yelp a little with pain and hopping back. The pain is a pretty decent distraction too, and he scrapes his blunt nails down his own forearm after it passes, breathing shallow and too fast.

"S-so so...there's a town? Dude, I haven't seen anything except the inside of that piece of shit. Get me outta here, man."

It's whiny and accompanied by a fresh batch of tears streaking down his face, he should be ashamed, but he isn't.

Diego knows so much of it sounds crazy. If he hadn't been there for a few days, he'd think he had lost his mind. Hell he did think some had lost their minds when he got there, and he's not sure some of them still haven't, but the place is real. Odd, but real.

"Yeah well, you're out now," he says, but then something else occurs to him. Something they definitely need to talk about.

"Hey. Hey," he says, the first when he kicked the bunker, the second though when he scratches at himself. "Don't do that," he says, as if he's ever cared before. He let him go off partying and doing drugs to forget what he can do, and Diego has never been there for him. Now though, now that can change. He's realized in the last few days before he came to this place how much he needed his siblings. Losing them when he arrived had hurt more than he thought it might but now they're here, and Klaus is here. It's a start.

"Come on. We can head for the Inn, or to my place," he says, considering which would be better. "Though... we have to talk about something," he says, figuring of all the weird shit here, he should jump into that first.

Even as he says it, he gives a jerk of his head. "It's a bit of a walk, either way, and I can tell you if we start walking."

"Yeah. I am."

A pause, and he exhales, green eyes flicking up to Diego's face. He's still shaking, breath still hitching in his chest, but he can feel the panic subsiding a little. He wants out of this hole in the ground, wants some breath and space and maybe a hot bath, anything to just...get out of his own mind a little.

"Thanks, bro."

Even though Diego goes 'hey' at him a couple times, Klaus keeps scraping his blunt nails lightly over his forearm just to keep his attention off the clawing panic and the desire to be out of his mind. The shaking is getting bad, going from his hands to his shoulders to his jaw, and he lets his mouth fall partly open to avoid his teeth clattering against each other.

"Sorry man, I just...trying to distract myself, this place messes me up..."

Swallowing hard, he follows Diego as he starts moving after him, feels that sinking sensation when Diego says that they have to talk about something.

"Great. Great great...that sounds really promising."

He mutters it under his breath, shoulders hunched, chest rising and falling heavily, lifts a hand to scrub at his face.

"You have a place here?"

Diego knows he's not good at physical affection. Hell, he's not even good at showing his siblings that he loves them, that he honestly cares about them. Only there towards the end, with Klaus especially, had he started to learn how to be an actual brother to them and not merely a number in competition with them.

It's those thoughts that came to him, moving to sling his arm over Klaus' shoulder, offering him some kind of comfort. Or at least thinking that's what he's trying to do. "You'll be out soon. Like I said, it's a bit of a hike but it won't be too far, and we'll get you cleaned up and something to eat."

He thinks about the vodka, about the porch pot, but he knows he can steer him away from all that. For his own sake.

And that gets them to the place they need to talk about, that Diego isn't sure about sharing and what it actually means. "I've been here a couple of weeks," he admits, glancing sidelong at Klaus. He should understand that kind of time travel from the things he's said before about when he vanished that night. "There's open homes and you can just... claim one," he says, shrugging slightly. "I figured the rest of you idiots would be along shortly, so I took the biggest one I could find. Master suite's mine though," he says, bumping Klaus as they walk.

Klaus actually startles when Diego's arm slides around his shoulders, jumps a little and then looks over at his brother, eyes a little wide. Diego may not be as good at giving physical affection as Klaus, but Klaus isn't used to or very adept at receiving it. But after a moment of stiffness, Klaus relaxes, exhales and shifts in a little closer. He's still freezing, Diego is warm and smells familiar and that's frankly a huge relief when he's feeling so panicked and out of his element and cold.

He doesn't mention it, though, because none of them really deal well with having attention drawn to their attempts at softness. Instead, he just lifts his other hand and pats it against Diego's chest, as a sort of thanks, even as he continues shivering.

"Okay, yeah, sure."

Carefully, he closes both arms around his middle, and laughs when Diego talks about the houses and knowing the rest of his idiot siblings would show up, shaking his head a bit.

"Funny how after all these years apart, we suddenly can't get rid of each other, right? I guess an apocalypse will do that to you."

He scratches at his forearm again, trying to ease the bugs-under-the-skin crawling feeling he has going on, blinking against the tears welling up in his eyes again. He doesn't even really know why he's crying.

"So uh. This big important thing we have to talk about, please tell me it was that you're inviting me to move in with you and not something even more awful."

Whatever this place is, they need to be there for one another. Maybe it's in the time with no hope or chance of seeing his family that he really started to realize all that he had ignored for too long. Now he has a chance of doing to much more. At least for Klaus.

Smiling at that pat, moving at a slow pace and not the kind of hard charging pace he might normally set for himself. At least this is familiar, something he's done for others in various escapades getting people in and out of emergencies. So he's taking his time, making sure that Klaus isn't rushed but isn't in this dark, dank place along.

He snorts at that, though he does nod. "Isn't that the case? Losing everything means you try and get back what you had." It's something he's been thinking about in the time he's been there alone, even if it hasn't been that long.

"You start taking off skin and I'll tape the end of your fingers," he taunts, though he might to watch over him, to try and keep him from hurting himself.

"What else would I be doing? Do I look like I need five bedrooms to myself?"

When they get to the entrance to the underground bunker, the wind hits Klaus' wet scrubs and he shivers, abrupt, a full-body trembling that makes him hunch his shoulders and push a little closer to Diego. Klaus has always run a little cold, so what heat he had in him is gone almost immediately, and his fingers clamp down on his own arm as he huddles in on himself. Diego is warm, so he stays close.

"I'd like to see you try, Diego."

There's the slight lilting of his voice, like it's a joking challenge, and he squeezes his fingers into his arm again to distract himself. It's becoming painfully obvious that the apocalypse had only distracted him from being dope sick enough to keep moving and stumbling his way through that whole mess. He feels like shit.

"Probably not, but you never know. The way you were saying 'we have to talk about something' made it sound a whole lot more serious than you telling me I have a room at your place."

A pause, and then, "Thanks for that, though."

Glancing over at him, at that challenge, but getting distracted by how he looks. Cold, shivering, and he winces. Years of fighting to protect others, and sometimes he doesn't think about the littlest things he should just assume or think of from the start.

Shrugging the pack from his shoulders, he digs around in it until he can find the coat at the bottom. Letting the pack drop as he shakes it out, holding it out for Klaus. "Here. It's dry and should help. You can change now, if you want." He'd offer to duck back inside, but he's not sure Klaus would be okay with that.

"And, yeah, well, there is more you need to know but not about the house. More... You won't be seeing the dead here. That's over while you're here. I don't know how but it is." And he wishes he knew more, especially of how they do it, but it's all he can tell him.

When Diego pulls out the jacket and hands it to him, Klaus takes it with a sigh of relief and, absolutely shamelessly, he strips off the wet scrub top and pulling the jacket on over his bare torso, buttons up the jacket with shaking fingers, and then wraps his arms around himself again. He's still shivering, but it's a bit better.

And then Diego says that he won't be seeing the dead here, that it's over with and he doesn't know how but it is. For a moment, Klaus goes completely still, his eyes widening and mouth falling open in shock before he snaps it shut and hisses through his teeth.

"Haha, funny joke Diego." He says, after a moment, then reaches down to take the pack himself, turning and continuing to walk. Slowly, so Diego can catch up, but still walking. It sounds like a cruel joke, honestly, but now that Diego has said it, his eyes are flicking back and forth over the woods on either side of them, searching for the ghosts he should probably be seeing right now.

"No," Steph calls out flatly. She doesn't come any closer: If there's a guy in the hot tub, he's probably naked. She's really not sure why more people don't just wear underwear into the thing. Just looking for the excuse, probably.

"I've got a broken rib and I'm kinda in the mood to share."

With a long groan, Klaus shifts, kicking his legs down to the bottom of the springs and lifting his head, curls plastered to his skull with water. Pushing his fingers back through it, he looks over at the girl standing there, and offers her a little smile.

"If you're in the mood to share, feel free. There's plenty of room for everyone."

She gives him the condescending look of one who expects to be unimpressed. She might be only 18 but she's had enough bad experiences that she's always ready to punch a stranger. She's pleasantly surprised that the response is just friendliness.

She shrugs, then drops her bag. Her shirt and pants go inside, the towel from inside goes on top, and her shoes go next to it before she's ready to actually get in the water. There's a large, layered bruise on her right rib, where apparently an older injury got whacked in the stomach by a tree branch. The rest of her is covered in healed scars, much less obvious as she slips into the spring with a sigh of relief.

"Please god tell me you're wearing boxers?" she asks wistfully. She's not holding out hope.

Klaus pushes off the bottom of the spring with a foot and drifts over to the edge with minimal effort - just the way he likes it - to rest his crossed arms against the stone at the edge of the pool. She's undressing, and he watches without any particular interest until the giant bruise is uncovered.

"Ouch. That looks like it stings. Rough week?"

As she slides into the spring, he turns to face her, brings up one knee to block her view of his bits, just in case the water doesn't do a good enough job.

"So sorry to disappoint, but I'm naked under here." he says, with a rakish little grin.

Her next sigh is a world-weary one. Yeah, she figured. But putting that aside-

"I've had worse. I'm just tired of dealing with it when I don't have to, you know?" The bruises are already shrinking, though she'll be impressed if the water manages to knit the bone back together.

"I'm Steph, by the way. I haven't seen you around before."

He hears that sigh and laughs, softly, shaking his head where it's rested against the edge of the pool again, eyes on the sky.

"If it bothers you that much, close your eyes for a minute and I'll put those awful white briefs back on. Not that white cloth is gonna do much..."

Letting that go for a moment, he lifts his head and looks at her again, "People get banged up on the regular around here?"

Shifting in the water again, he lets his shoulders sink under it, "I'm Klaus. Just got here a few days ago."

"Welcome to the boonies, or something." 'Boonies' kind of implies that there's something established here and not just a bunch of lawless people struggling to survive on the daily. She lets the briefs comment slide and chooses instead to keep her eyes well away from the problem area.

"People, no. I'm just especially bad at staying out of trouble." And landing when she changes between bird and human shape, but that's beside the point.

"Pffffft."

With a big sigh, he leans his head back against the edge of the pool again, to skywatch. He's still feeling jittery, on edge, keeps expecting the spirits to show up at the worst possible time with his head so clear.

"Oh, me too. Guess I better get used to being banged up. Not that that makes much of a change from the usual..."

"Well hey, there you go. You're halfway there already." She closes her eyes and sinks further into the water until her chin is just barely submerged.

"Not too much trouble if you don't play around in the woods, though. Or do gymnastics. Always get a little battered doing gymnastics."

It's not just the expectation that the spirits are going to show up. There's other things too, there's the itching of cravings clawing at the back of his mind, but he focuses on the heat of the water, the soothing way it cradles him while he listens.

"Hah. Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'...good way to be, right? Better than...easily bruised."

A little laugh, and he lifts his legs, hooks his heels close to where he's sitting, knees up.

"You do gymnastics? Man, I am nowhere near graceful enough for that."

She’s not sure she likes that phrasing. It sounds like she refuses to die, which is... the opposite of true.

"Yeah, since I was little. Though I don’t know how much grace has to do with it." She’s never really thought of herself in those terms, competitions and all. She dips her mouth under the water long enough to blow bubbles, then lays her head back on the rocks to look at the sky.

"I’m not sure I count as ‘still ticking’ either. Depends how you define it, I guess."

As much as he'd like to sometimes, Klaus somehow still ends up refusing to die. And of course he's easily bruised as well, stuck somewhere in between, suffering with no way out.

Morbid. Not exactly the first impression he wants to make on this girl.

"You don't? I'd probably...trip over my own feet."

He lifts his hands, holds one flat down and lets the other smack onto it, accompanied by a little raspberry sound.

"Probably bust my nose or something."

A shrug of his narrow shoulders, and then he's leaning in, a little curious.

"What do you mean by that?"

She shrugs. Everyone trips over themselves when they start out in gymnastics, but it’s a little late for him to start learning regardless. It’s easier when you’re lighter, more energized, and less discouraged by grievous personal injury.

"I died. Before... here." She gestures at the surroundings. "And it’s not really clear what happens between here and home. Someone said we might be clones. It’s about as likely as anything else. But I know I’m me, and I know I remember dying, so technically I think that makes me dead. You know?"

It isn't so much that grievous personal injury bothers him, really. After all, he has laughed in the face of torture within the last week or two (or is it a year?) and survived the Vietnam war, so...

Doesn't matter. He's not going to be doing gymnastics anytime soon, and he's way too distracted by the way she says she died before coming here. Almost immediately, his body goes tense, and he sits up a bit straighter, looking at her, squinting slightly.

"Uh..."

Stretching out his foot, he cautiously slides it across to her side of the spring, presses his toes up against her leg and finds it very solid. With a big huff of relief, he lifts his knee up again and drapes back against the edge of the spring.

"Sorry, sorry. Rude, I know, it's just...I saw dead people. Before I came here. Never really solid, and always a huge pain in the ass, and I was really just getting used to the whole concept of not being constantly terrified out of my skull by violent apparitions screaming my name. Dead people are the worst."

A pause.

"No offense. You seem to operate like an alive person."

The unexpected touch under the surface of a natural spring makes her kick out instinctively and jump a good foot out of the water. He'll have to forgive her if she thought he was a snake or something. She chooses not to apologize. It's his own fault.

She huffs as she recovers from her scare, now paying full attention to her surroundings.

"Thanks, I think? I do try to avoid violent screaming." It seems obvious to her that she's not a ghost, but maybe it works differently than she imagines.

"They don't like, look different, or something? I mean, I met a ghost once, but she might have been an exception."

Totally his own fault.

Lifting both hands, he holds them up to indicate his harmless intent, clearly showing off the "Hello" and "Good Bye" tattoos on the palms.

"Sorry, sorry sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

A beat, and he furrows his brows a little.

"Well, that's a...surprisingly intelligent question. Gawsh, no one's ever asked me about this stuff before."

Leaning back against the edge of the spring, he hooks one elbow on the edges of a big flat rock, and taps at his lips with the forefinger of the other hand.

"Some of them do? The ones with guts hanging out or whatever, but some of them look just like totally normal people, except you can walk right through 'em. Thus the..." He gestures vaguely toward her, "Poking thing."

Abruptly, he misses Ben, and sighs, tilting his head back, eyes closed.

It's still far too cold to swim in the lake or the river, cold in ways it doesn't get in the warm coastal climes of District Four. Finnick misses the ocean, misses being able to walk down to the beach and immerse himself in the soothing pulse of the waves, soothing his inner scars in ways that nothing else could. Since the coast is days away on foot and the lake still has the deep chill of winter, Finnick often visits the hot springs. Not only do they heal the part of his mind that feels best when he's surrounded by water, but they have that difficult to define healing quality that's helped nurture many people here back from illness and injury.

He notices the clothes on the rock before the bather's head emerges enough to speak. Fresh clothes, violet scrubs, boots that are barely scuffed by the exertions of this place, unlike Finnick's which are dirtied and damaged by so many months of hiking. A newcomer, then, or very close to one.

Finnick bends down to tug at his bootlaces and grins at Klaus' plea.

"I'm not here to kick you out," he promises. "I can share."

"Oh good."

He ducks his head back under the water as his new companion undresses, eyes closed, enjoying just floating in the heat. This has always been his tradition, when he's hurt and afraid and feeling awful, he soaks in the bath. Preferably with headphones, but what can you do?

Sitting up, he exits the water, lifts his hands to push them over his face, back through his hair, smudging his face with leftover dirt and eyeliner, squeezing the hot water out of his damp curls. The guy on the shore is good-looking, in that strapping blond way that Klaus is a particular fan of. A moment after thinking it, he realizes he's ruined, that when he thinks about strapping blonds his mind goes to Dave and the pain comes back like a railroad spike through the chest.

So he makes his way to the edge of the spring, folds his arms on the stone and rests his chin against them.

"You better be planning to skinny dip."

Finnick is good at reading people, at looking at them and seeing what he needs to know about them, or at least the start of what he needs to know about them. And it's been a long time since he saw a man other than himself who wears any kind of makeup, even just the dark eyeliner he sees streak across the stranger's face. The detail makes him consider the pretty face for another few moments before he pulls his shirt off over his head.

"Why, you want the show?"

He says it with a tease in his voice, because a tease is all anyone but Annie will ever get from him now, but it's a friendly tease, none of the sharp edges on it that he used to use when he wielded his beauty as a weapon in the Capitol.

He sets the shirt aside and slips out of his pants, standing naked for a moment before wading into the water a little way away from the other man.

"Skinny dipping is the best way to do it."

"It's a shared space. Get used to sharing," Nida answers as he starts stripping. He hurts, his shoulder most of all. By the time his shirt is off, it makes sense. There's an ugly, puckered, and relatively fresh scar piercing through his left shoulder. Which of course is why he's here. Well, that and the equally ugly and slightly less fresh scar down his leg.

He doesn't even wait for Klaus to respond before slipping into another area in the hot water, closing his eyes with a moan over how good it feels on his body.

When he hears the voice, so brisk and bossy, he sits up and turns, rests his arms on the edge of the spring and raises his brows as he watches the guy get undressed. They only raise a little higher when he sees that nasty scar on the guy's shoulder, and it somehow reminds him of Diego, just a little.

Klaus cracks a smile.

"Oh feel free, make yourself at home."

Lifting a hand, he gestures vaguely and loopily at the rest of the spring where the other guy has chosen to settle, and turns, hooking one foot under his butt while the other stretches out, luxuriously.

"I prefer to share, personally. Being naked alone is never as fun as being naked with someone else."

Sorry, Klaus, he'll be a bit calmer once the heat and water have worn away a little of the ache in his shoulder and leg. Even what little he's manage to do around the village strains the relatively freshly healed wounds. Of course they did, they had almost killed him. And while the spring does wonders for a lot of things, scars take more time. He closes his eyes and shifts to slip further down into the water, letting it lap over his shoulders, just barely keeping his head above water. He knows better than to tempt himself by ducking fully under it.

"You're not wrong about that," Nida agrees with the stranger, more out of habit than out of an actual agreement at the moment. Too much practice at flirting, it was too rote in his line of work, to even think about what he said. How it could be construed. It's just habit, one he had gotten back into in the last year and a half, and would probably hate himself for later. "Granted, heat is its own reward."

Fortunately, Klaus is quite used to bossy people with big personalities and enjoys a bit of pleasant bickering. The fact that his new hot spring buddy gets amiable pretty damn quickly is a huge bonus. Well, that and the fact that he's pretty good-looking.

It also doesn't hurt that he flirts back. Leaning his elbows on the edge of the spring, Klaus regards the other guy. Not that it's going to go much of anywhere because he's still in love with Dave, is going to be in love with Dave for the rest of his life, it's still nice to get a little attention.

"Mmph, yeah you've got that right. I thought the bath back at home was great, this one really takes the cake, you know?"

Sliding further down in the water, he looks up at the sky, lets his hair get soaking wet and then pushes fingers back through it, sighing contentedly.

"I'm Klaus, by the way. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"I grew up with communal showers, so yeah, this is pretty amazing," Nida agrees as he leans back against the edge of the pool basking in the warmth.

Can he live here? Should live here. But the food places are all so far away.

"Nida, and the pleasure is all mine. Haven't seen you around before, Klaus. I'm certain I would remember you if I had."

Which is more to say that he's good with faces than to continue the unintentional flirting.

It probably says something about Klaus that he doesn't even think about how far away the food sources are. Right now, he feels like he could live in the water forever, just stay here and soak until he turns into a giant pink prune, and die hungry and happy.

"Yep. Brand spankin' new. Just clawed my way out of the good ol' iron coffin thanks to my brother and I'm still getting over the shakes. You been here a while?"

"Since December. Which means I'm nearing five months. Hyne, almost half a year now."

Half a year of his life lost to this place. How was he to come to terms with that? This wasn't what he'd signed up for, but in some ways it was a good thing anyway. Better than being home. Still, wait...

"Brother? You have family here? That's... not common. Only one I can think of off the top of my head are the twins."

Edited 2019-04-22 22:59 (UTC)

"Wow. That's crazy, they seriously keep us here for that long? And I thought 90-day rehab was a long time to be stuck somewhere."

He waves a hand, and laughs, as if he could brush it off, then sinks lower into the water and sighs deeply. The comment about his brother catches his attention, though, and he sits up a bit.

"Really? Man, it figures. Of course we end up in the same place." A spiteful little laugh at his own bad luck, and then, "Twins?"

"I've known people who have been here for years. So yes, they seem to be able to keep us here for as long as they wish. But tell me, who is your brother? I've probably run into them."

It's a small enough set of villages that he knows he's run into most people, even if only in passing.

Still he smirks, no, smiles warmly at the word twins. "Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd. Yes their names are different but they are still twins."

"But you... don't even know who I am," the brunette says, bemused, as she looks around at the near-empty space. No one even lives in the rooms upstairs, to the best of her knowledge.

Brigitte lives in the southern inn, but she's rarely here up north — with Leonardo da Vinci starting up his smithy, though, she's found reasons to come here more often. Compare notes. Get tips and run her own ideas past him, for how she's running the southern smithy. She'd wandered into the inn once she saw the chimney was lit; exhausted, and ready to sit down for a while and warm up before reluctantly starting that trek back down south.

And then there's this stranger, beckoning her to sit down. She squints at him, a little skeptically. "Can you tell the future or something?"

(There are stranger powers, after all.)

"Consider it a collective 'you' then."

He can't help but grin at her while he takes another bite of his fruit, is surprised all over again by how juicy and sweet it is when he's not fogged out of his mind on something. The majority of his brain is trying to convince him that it's not worth the withdrawals, not worth the too-sharp awareness of various other sensations, but he forces himself to ignore it, focuses on this girl instead.

"Nah. I figured someone would have to be by eventually, and I need some new friends. Just got here, you see, had my brother dig me out of a nasty tube, and I'm still in recovery."

"Oh! Well, welcome -- I wasn't sure if maybe you were new, or if I just did not recognise you because you live up here. I'm from the south." The woman waves at the wall, as if gesturing to the other mirror village a few miles south. And then she walks over, approaching him to accept Klaus' invite; but instead of pulling up a second chair, she just drops herself gracelessly to join him on the floor, cross-legged. Completely unfussed. It's actually pretty comfortable, compared to those stiff, heavy Edwardian chairs.

"I can't decide if waking up in the tube or the fountain is worse. The tube sounds terrible, but with the fountain you kind of risk drowning or hypothermia. So it is a hell of a welcome, either way," Brigitte says, dryly. She's cheerful and open enough, but with a touch of gallow's humour. Surely, there had to be a better system than a freezing fountain in the middle of winter.

When the girl comes closer and flops down on the floor right beside him, Klaus grins up at the ceiling, leaning back on one hand, still chewing at his bite of fruit. He takes a deep breath, shivers a little, and then looks at her again.

"New. Very new. And personally I would've really preferred the fountain. Swimming I can do. Metal coffin? Not my favourite place to be. I don't like tight spaces on the best of days, let alone after a cross-universe kidnapping."

A shrug, and he holds out the fruit.

"Want a bite?"

Only polite to share. And speaking of sharing...

"I'm Klaus, by the way."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] i want to live where soul meets body

Bunker

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Hot Springs, because I'm horrible

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hot springs

sorry so late, a migraine destroyed me

I'm so sorry school ate me alive but I'm back now

Hot Springs

sorry for the delay I got eaten by a migraine

no problem, been in a bad place myself lately

I hope it gets better <3

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the north inn

sorry for the wait, I got flattened by a migraine

np, i've been slow too ♥

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