Screaming was echoing down the hallway of the bedrooms. This usually wasn't a cause for concern, as a scream could mean many things-a fright, an exclamation, a triumph, a fight, etc. However, this scream was of a special breed: it was one of pure terror. As such, it wasn't long before hasty footsteps were pounding down the hallway to its source.
Gentle rays of morning sunshine seeped in through the window panes and fell across the new arrivals to the room. Klaus didn't usually close his thin curtains, and so the room was exceptionally bright; it only enhanced how sickly pale he was compared to the warm mustard walls. He was shrunken into a ball, shivering, clutching handfulls of his hair so tightly he threatened to rip it, harsh breathing filling the resounding silence. It wasn't long before Grace showed up and elegantly sweeped her way through the staring children in pyjamas. By then, only Ben had moved to sit next to Klaus on his messy bed, and he gingerly shuffled off when Grace gave him a reassuring nod.
"It's alright, children," she said, "I have this. You may go get ready for breakfast now. It won't be lo-"
"What is going on in here?" interrupted the authoritative tone of Sir Reginald Hargreeves.
The children parted immediately, making way for the master of the house. He strode into the room with all the composure and poise of a dignified man who lived and breathed discipline, already clothed and probably awake since the crack of dawn. He stared around the quiet room, waiting for an answer that nobody wanted to give, before his eyes landed on Grace and Klaus.
"Well?" he prompted curtly.
Grace smiled, "Just a small hiccup. We will-"
"I did not ask for excuses, I asked for an explanation," Hargreeves cut her off. He turned his cold gaze on Klaus. "Well, Number Four?"
Klaus finally revealed his face, tear-stricken and haunted. His mouth opened and closed, but no words formed. His five remaining siblings watched him in trepidation and worry, all privy to the knowledge that he was plagued by nightmares more often than not. However, the wrath of their father was not something one willingly drew towards oneself, and so watch was all they continued to do.
"J-Just a bad dream..." Klaus mumbled out eventually.
Hargreeves was not satisfied. "About what?" he demanded sharply, his demeanure strict and unsympathetic. The fact that Klaus hesitated to respond was proof enough that the answer was an unacceptable one; Hargreeves didn't need much more exposition.
"I thought we already dealt with conquering your fear of the dead," Hargreeves said, ignoring or failing to notice his son's cringe. The others stood audience uneasily. Allowing Klaus to squirm in the stewing silence for a minute, Hargreeves stepped forward and pierced him with stern eyes. "I must say, I'm disappointed. Come now." The order was accompanied by a turn of Hargreeves' heel as he swiftly spun to exit the crowded bedroom. He paused, however, when Klaus did not immediately move to follow. Looking back, he repeated, "I said come, Number Four."
Klaus unfurled, but clutched discreetly at Grace's dress. He swallowed, "Where are we g-going?"
Hargreeves stared at him hard, "Where do you think, boy? The mausoleum! It's time you controlled your fears!"
If it were at all possible, the little colour in Klaus' face drained further, and his eyes widened in dreaded terror. Nostrils flaring, he shakily shook his head.
"Please, please no, dad, please," he uttered through trembling lips. "You can't..."
Hargreeves didn't seem to be picking up on Klaus' unadulterated fear. "What do you mean I can't? Of course I can! Now, get up!" The volume was rising in the room, as was the tension, and the other siblings winced.
"Dad, please!" Klaus began to plead, desperation tinting his tone, "It won't happen again!"
"You must control this, Number Four!" was Hargreeves' only response. To highlight his rising irritation, the man crossed back to the bed and gripped Klaus by the wrist. "Now come! I will not say it again!"
Grace stood quickly and ushered the other children aside as Hargreeves wrangled a now howling Klaus from the room. His screams once again wracked the hallways, wailing anguish and fear through the deaf walls of the house.
"PLEASE! PLEASE, DAD! NO, PLEASE!"
Ben covered his ears and shuddered under the comforting hand of Luther on his shoulder, Luther himself stiff and showing his uncertainty through his open countenance. Vanya and Allison held hands tightly, eyes wide and pupils tiny against the light dancing in through the window. Diego stood coiled and tense in the shadow of Grace, refusing to be touched.
"Go on and get dressed for breakfast, children," Grace said smilingly. "It will be ready soon." They stared at her, lost in the swirling emotions and confusion of the morning. Grace smiled still, waiting patiently as Klaus' screaming faded in the distance.
Diego took a shaky breath. "Mom... why does dad lock Klaus in the mausoleum?"
Grace tilted her head, "Well silly, it's to help your brother be brave, like your father said."
"I think he means how can dad lock Klaus in the mausoleum," interjected Vanya.
Grace folded her hands. "With the key," she said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "Now chop chop, the day won't wait for anyone!"
The children had just finished getting dressed when Pogo showed up in the hallway, beckoning for Luther and Allison.
"Your father would like your assistance," was all he said by explanation.
Luther and Allison shared a glance and then took off, Diego trailing after. Soon, Ben and Vanya also followed, unable to keep their curiosity and concern to themselves. As per Pogo's instructions, Luther and Allison led the pack to the courtyard, where Klaus was kneeling, sobbing, at the feet of their father, his arm still caught in Hargreeves' grip.
"Refusal is childish, Number Four!" Hargreeves was chastising when the others arrived. He looked up by way of greeting and ordered, "Number One, Three, come!"
Hesitantly, Luther and Allison approached. Hargreeves dropped Klaus' wrist, and Klaus looked up pleadingly, his eyes clearer than his siblings were used to seeing; it was unnerving, in a way. They were snapped out of their thoughts by their father.
"Number One, you will restrain your brother. Number Three, I want you to invoke compliance."
Klaus was whimpering a series of quiet "no's" as Luther and Allison stared at their father in shock. Hargreeves looked back with impatient expectancy.
Reluctantly, Luther was the first to move, crouching to maneuver Klaus' upper arms in a half-hearted hold. Klaus didn't fight back, defeat heavy in the bags under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders. He watched Allison through haunted eyes, openly crying and silently begging her to show mercy, to save him. Allison found herself rooted to the spot by his despair.
"Please, no. Don't put me back there," he was whispering, "You don't know what you're doing... You don't know what it's like... Please, please, please."
"Number Three! You are dawdling."
"Allison, please."
Allison broke, "Dad, this isn't right."
Hargreeves stared at her as if he was attempting to comprehend her defiance, and failing. After a moment he gave a haughty harrumph and dismissed her.
"Number One, to the car."
Klaus began to scream again, fighting with renewed vigour against Luther. Afraid to hurt his brother, Luther struggled to hold on, and the two scuffled momentarily in the shady courtyard. Desperation fuelled Klaus' movements, turning him violent and near-crazed. Physically, none of them were a match for Luther, but Klaus' uncharacteristic lapse into wild ferocity was frightening enough to catch Luther off-guard. A well-timed elbow to Luther's jaw unlocked his handhold, sending him reeling, but Klaus didn't stop there.
Using Luther's unsteadiness against him, Klaus twisted completely outside his grasp and threw a fist into the same place on Luther's jaw, finally dropping him.
"Sloppy, Number One!" Hargreeves criticised unhelpfully.
As Luther groaned and attempted to get up, Klaus panicked and kicked him down again, throwing himself to the ground to straddle Luther as he rained down punches.
The aim was probably not to kill Luther, but nevertheless, Allison's heart leapt in her chest and her breath caught at the sight of the unnecessarily brutal beating happening upon her best friend.
"Stop!" she screamed before even realised she'd opened her mouth. "Klaus, stop!" When Klaus faltered, she took her chance. Using her hands to show placation, she slowly made forwards. "It's okay, you don't have to do this. Just get off Luther and we can sort this out..."
The brief flicker of hope in Klaus' expression withered as he saw something in her face that Allison herself wasn't even aware of. He gave her a hurt look, something between betrayal and understanding, but he stood up from Luther nonetheless. His eyes were now dull, maybe resigned. The sparse spots where the light peeped through between the foreboding clouds and looming Academy walls picked apart the scene, catching innocently on a glinting object in Klaus' hand that he was discreetly moving towards his opposite wrist.
The words were out of her mouth before Allison could think to stop herself.
"I heard a rumour that you're very sleepy!"
It was quiet. A breeze blew past her.
A tinkling clatter resounded around the enclosed space as the small penknife slipped free from its owner's fingers. The painful clud of knees clad in thin pyjamas hitting the hard concrete was next, followed by the heavy thud of a body.
Allison could feel the eyes of her family all on her, burning with varying degrees of various emotions, but she couldn't bring herself to look away from the figure of her brother slumped on the ground. She'd done that. The mystery of where he'd gotten the knife or how he'd hidden it in his sleeve was lost to her, because she had done that.
"Very good, Number Three," Hargreeves' broke the deafening silence. "You can anticipate potential threats and act before they happen. Grace!"
"Yes, sir?" Grace stepped forward, unfazed.
"I will not be able to carry Number Four to the car. Pogo, you will drive us to the cemetery."
"Yes, sir," Pogo replied, resigned.
"Number Seven, you will treat Number One for his injuries until Grace gets back."
Vanya didn't verbally respond. Luther, however, groaned.
The party of four set off, leaving the children alone together. Vanya was the first to move as she scuttled over towards Luther. He hadn't quite been knocked unconscious, but he was certainly dazed; she concluded that he would be fine after a few hours. Ben showed up at her side to see Luther for himself. Then they both looked over to Allison.
She had dropped into a crouch, grief caressing the soft features of her face as she hugged herself tightly. It was hard to hate her when she looked like she hated herself the most, and Ben gave a sigh as he straightened up to go to her. Vanya couldn't quite hear what he was saying to her, but it didn't seem like Allison could hear him either. Glancing around for their last sibling, Vanya found that Diego had disappeared. She sighed; he would definitely hold Luther and Allison to this for a long time. It was something of an unspoken rule that they would never use their abilities on each other outside of sparring, a rule which Diego took particularly seriously, and which their missing brother Five had taken particularly lightly, to his own detriment.
Vanya's heart twanged; what she would do for Five's ruthless logic and unshakeable calm right now.
Luther was sat up in an armchair in the lounge room, a cold compress held to his swollen jaw. He looked properly ashamed of himself, and denied Vanya the chance to look him in the eye by keeping his head bowed. Grace had gone to do her duties and Vanya had just told him what had happened, leaving him feeling like a failure of a leader for letting down both Klaus and Allison.
"Where is she now?" he croaked.
"In her room," Vanya replied, "I think Ben is with her."
Luther closed his pale eyes, "Good."
They sat quietly in one another's company for a while. Then Luther opened his eyes and placed the ice pack on the table to his left, preparing to rise. Vanya quickly stopped him. It was just as well, he almost tipped forwards from the way the world swayed just by turning his head.
"You should just sit for a while," she advised.
"I left her alone to make a horrible decision because I wasn't strong enough to follow dad's orders," Luther growled, "I need to go apologise at least."
Vanya drew her brow in and allowed her dark eyes to bore through him, and he paused.
His words were unwavering and his ability to act on them clearly determined, and yet somehow, impossibly, Vanya was always able to stop him with a simple look. The girl who, undeniably, was the least equiped to defy him, was the most capable of besting him. Luther couldn't say he was surprised, but it was still disappointing. He grew quiet as he submitted and retreated to the back of his mind.
"...Vanya?" he asked after a few minutes.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'm a bad leader?"
Luther waited with baited breath as a pregnant pause followed. He couldn't even bear to glance upwards in fear of gathering Vanya's thoughts through her expression.
"I think you hold yourself to an impossible standard," was what she said. It wasn't the direct response he'd wanted, but he realised that he shouldn't have expected that of his contemplative sister in the first place. Another miscalculation on his part. He rubbed his face and then flinched when his bruised jaw complained.
"Damn it," he sighed, picking back up the ice pack to sooth his pain. "I can't believe I got beaten up by Klaus, of all people."
Vanya couldn't stifle her amusement and a smile slipped through; the atmosphere of the room lightened by several degrees.
"He was pretty impressive, I have to say," she teased.
"Yeah, yeah," he tried to roll his eyes and immediately regretted it. He settled for a small smile instead, "I'm sure his fists are probably in worse condition."
"You're probably right, you always did have a thick skull, after all," retorted a new voice, and the comment would have been funny had it been said in a friendlier tone.
Luther watched Vanya's eyes refocus on the person behind him, but he didn't need to look to know who it was. He knew the timbres of his siblings' voices better than he knew his own, and Diego's had been growing bitter and distant since Five disappeared.
Diego didn't wait for Luther to defend himself, not that Luther really had the motivation to do so. He leaned over the armchair and settled his strong hands on Luther's shoulders; Luther felt them squeeze, and he sensed the capability in those hands, the precision, skill and training that made them the hands of a hunter. Their weight was like a physical representation of his burdens.
Diego's voice pulled him from his imaginations as he said lowly, "Y'know, he's gonna wake up all alone in that place, his own personal hell, and he's gonna come back like last time: broken." Luther closed his eyes, waiting. "But this time it's worse, because he'll know it's your fault. You don't deserve to joke around, you deserve to feel terrible. At least Allison is shut up in her room with the guilt, 'Number One'." Diego left it at that, always one to end on a significantly nasty note. His footsteps thumped away, echoing slightly as he disappeared into the reception and up the staircase.
Luther kept his eyes closed.
Klaus reappeared the following morning, having spent a day and a night inside the mausoleum, but it was clear that he had not yet actually returned. Any attempts to talk to him were met with dim eyes and silence. It was hard on Allison and Luther, whose apologies fell short, not for lack of trying. Klaus himself did not make a single sound, and Vanya theorised that perhaps it was because he couldn't. It wasn't difficult to imagine the echoes of his screams still resonating within the walls of the tomb, the sound etched into the stone like writing. The penknife had disappeared and nobody asked about it further, although nearly everyone could guess at its fate.
He barely ate, hardly slept, and spent exceptionally long periods of time in the bathroom. However, slowly, he began to regain parts of himself again, and gradually, Klaus recovered. He never spoke of his experience to anyone, or brought up Luther and Allison's part in it, but after that day, he never once woke from a nightmare screaming again.
Thanks for reading x