"He's here," Luther murmured from his spot where he kept watch through the glass on the door before moving back and awkwardly pretending like he hadn't been standing guard there for the past hour.
They knew that there's one other Sparrow Academy member who hasn't come by and, given how the last time they met someone new (around a week or two ago? Fuck, time is confusing when you've been trapped, but they know they've been here for too long) turned into a fistfight, they decided to be as prepared as they could be. Five's plan of getting them out by focusing on developing his powers had given them a touch of hope, until they realized that he doesn't even have any access to his powers now. (Not that Five didn't try anyway; he fainted after trying to access his powers for three days with no sleep and was only convinced to stop when Zero actually brought him porridge and pretty much force fed him because he couldn't move his arms.)
They still agree that any sort of focus they had would be best placed on getting their powers back first, but Zero is proving to be stubborn and impossible to break. So now, the least they could do to prepare is taking turns standing guard by the door and warning the rest of the team if anyone was approaching.
Klaus' lookalike stood still outside the door with narrowed eyes for a while before his face broke into a grin and he lifted his hands for them to better see the tray on it filled with food.
"Oh my fucking god," Klaus gasped softly as he walked towards the door and looked through it like a child looking through the windows of a candy shop. "Is that fucking Empadão de Frango?" He stressed on every word, staring at the tray of food before looking up and slowly mirroring the wide grin on his counterpart's face. Suddenly, he turned on his heel and looked at his siblings with a serious expression. "Everybody will move back right now."
"Klaus—"
"Positions!" Klaus shouted, interrupting Allison's worried tone, and shooing them all to the back with his arms. "If I'm seeing things right, that's an Empadão de Frango on that tray from the small shop a few blocks away and it's the best kind of chicken pot pie which I haven't had in years." He sprinted to the back of the room and almost pressed himself into the spikes in excitement. "You're all going to move pronto so I can put that beautiful, blessed food in my mouth or I will find a way to kill you. And I won't even talk to you when you die."
The others exchanged looks and rolled eyes, but ultimately went to move to the back. There was the familiar sound of the door opening and the scent of food wafted in.
"Can I turn now?" Klaus all but whined, and he was answered by a light laugh and the sound of the door being closed.
The tray was set down. "Dig in."
Klaus, unsurprisingly, was the first to turn and rush to the food, taking a plate and serving himself a good slice of the pie. The others slowly followed, doing the usual routine of being suspicious of the food then eating it anyway. (They really don't have much of a choice nowadays.)
Other-Klaus sat on the ground by the door, watching them eat, his feet bare and his legs stretched out in front of him. He has a pair of small, black sunglasses resting on his short curly hairstyle that Klaus used to have pre-1960s. (You'd think that would mean the 1950s, but no. They just had to live a weird life, huh?) In fact, everything about him — his face, his clothes, his voice, his mannerisms they've seen so far — was a lot like Klaus.
The main difference was his skin. Klaus had always had light skin with a bit of brownish undertone that gets tanned easily. But this other-Klaus was terrifyingly pale. In place of the brownish undertone, he looked kind of blue? Like he's been thrown into the freezer and trapped there for several days.
He's not sure why he didn't notice it the first time around, but Luther can't ignore how unnaturally pale he is up close. Not pale in the sense that his skin is so white, but pale in the sense that he genuinely could pass as a corpse if he closed his eyes and laid still.
"Rita said you might like that." He interrupted the silence (and their awkward attempts at trying to look at him without being obvious). "She said you mentioned it once. I've never had it before, but she bought a box for us to try and, well, I get it. It's like it's made by the gods, for the gods." He even spoke with the same hand gestures and facial expressions Klaus makes.
"You," Klaus pointed at him with a fork, a smile growing on his face, "are not an asshole like your siblings, except Zero who is an angel, really. You brought us food. Good food. You are great. I shouldn't have expected any less from someone who's got such a handsome face like yours."
Other-Klaus winked. "Right back at ya."
"Unbelievable." Diego muttered while stabbing the pie and shoving it into his mouth. (Which was admittedly really good. The crust? Good. The filling? Good. What's not to like?)
"Did she tell you to call her Zero?" Other-Klaus asked curiously amidst the sounds of them eating.
"No," Vanya answered when no one else did. "It just kind of…stuck, I guess. We don't have a Number Zero."
"So I heard." Other-Klaus nodded. "She prefers Rita, though. Z as a nickname. She hated numbers as names because it was confusing when we were kids."
"She called my counterpart 'Daniel'." Five noted.
"She's the only one who does. And he's the only one who calls her Zero in exchange, despite Rita telling him to stop." Other-Klaus sent a fond look towards Five. "You look exactly like him when he just rolled his eyes at our names and demanded to still be called Five." Five responded by glaring back and focusing on the food on his plate.
The rest of time spent eating was mostly silent. The only sounds were the silverware hitting the plates and Klaus occasionally praising the food or thanking Other-Klaus through compliments again. When they were finished and had set the plates aside on the tray by the door, Other-Klaus remained sitting still, looking around the room.
If he wasn't so suspicious and watching closely, Diego wouldn't have noticed the slight change in expression when his eyes darted to a certain point at the side of the room. Other-Klaus blinked, and his eyebrow twitched very subtly, but there was obviously something there. Or someone.
"What are you seeing?" He asked, the question obviously unexpected when the pale man turned to him with raised eyebrows. "You're staring somewhere at that side of the room," Diego gestured vaguely to the side Vanya was at, "and you have the power to see things we don't, save Klaus, but he doesn't exactly have his powers now. It doesn't take a genius to find out you're seeing something."
Vanya sat still with wide eyes before looking around her, as if trying to see if she could find what it is. Klaus grinned widely and moved there. "Wow," he breathed out. "Sober and, yet, I don't see a single one of them."
Other-Klaus slowly stood and walked over, his eyes on Vanya. "He knows you." He hummed, tapping a finger on his chin.
"What?" She asked, staring back at him.
He nodded nonchalantly to the space beside her. "He knows you." At that, Vanya scrambles to her feet and moves back, staring at the spot he mentioned. "No need to run. He seems to like you."
He left it at that and everyone watched in silence as he turned and gathered the tray of now empty plates. "Ah," he exclaimed, standing straight before shooting a look at Klaus. "I almost forgot. You can see them."
Klaus slowly shook his head. "No. I'm on timeout."
"Yes," Other-Klaus allowed, struggling to balance the tray on his pale arms. "But timeout always worked differently for me."
"Are you saying Klaus can use his powers?" Five asked, looking at him suspiciously.
"Kinda."
Allison raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you telling us this?"
He shrugged. "I said 'kinda'. You're left with something pretty useless and irritating. So, this is more of a warning than anything else." He turned to face Klaus again. "Rita's used to it with me, I guess. That's probably why she forgot to tell you. Everything else is blocked, but she can only ever put something like really dark sunglasses over my eyes. The ghosties are gone when the timeout's recent, but they're not really gone gone. They're just there until you see them again."
"But it's been a while since she put me on timeout." Klaus countered. "I haven't seen any."
"Then you're doing a damn good job at ignoring them." He started motioning for the others to move back, signalling he's about to leave. They reluctantly followed. "It's easy to do that, but it always gets annoying for me at some point. It's like those magic eye optical illusion things. They start off as wisps of light that keep bothering your eyesight, but, the more you focus, the clearer they become. Then they start babbling to you endlessly again and it's time to be Rita to put you on timeout."
He pulled the door open, grunting a bit at the effort, but managing to not drop the plates. "You can practice, if you want. There's a ghost in this room, beside your Vanya, who seems like he's staying." And he shut the door behind him.
"I don't see anything." Klaus breathed out a few moments later, eyes darting around the side of the room Vanya is at.
Diego stepped back. "You don't think he's just saying that to, I don't know, scare us?"
"You're scared?" Vanya hissed. "It's apparently beside me."
"He," Klaus corrected automatically. "Other-me said 'he'. Don't anger him by referring to him as an object if he's actually real."
"So, you really think there's a… ghost in here? With us?" Luther asked, sounding (appropriately) spooked about the whole thing.
He shrugged in reply. "I don't know, I haven't noticed a thing."
"Try, Klaus." Five insisted. "If you get to talk with it—him," he corrected at Vanya's look, "then we might be able to find out more about this place and get out."
His hesitation must have been obvious because Allison slipped her hand into his and held on tightly. "Don't worry." She smiled. "We'll be right here."
"Well, it's not like you can go anywhere." Klaus took a deep breath before looking at the rest of them. "And I don't have anything better to do, anyway."