Backstory: Rin is a 19-year-old punk girl born with a strange power that she uses for illegal work: she can teleport, make herself invisible or intangible. One evening, while in police custody, she met a strange cellmate named Klaus. After bribing the officer for getting her address, he came to visit her. They realized that they shared more than just nights in police custody: a date of birth, and having a power.
TW: reference to drug use.
Argyle Park is still a place I love, even in January. Maybe it's because - there - you can imagine that the horizon exists, with its wide walkways, historic greenhouses, huge lawns and a wood. A wood, yes: almost a forest, bordering the orchards planted there, in the middle of the city. An almost 400-hectare lung of greenery in the midst of the stifling urbanization of The City, smelling of humus and waffles, and echoing with the cawing of crows. It's the place to be for morning runners, lunchtime lovers, evening strollers and night-time tramps. It's a place for children on Saturdays and salarymen on Mondays. There's life in Argyle Park, beyond which the tall skyscrapers of the business district rise. Even more than I suspected.
After my grandmother had violently kicked him out, Klaus didn't dare come back to the apartment. It's understandable, really: I don't know if I'd have taken the risk if I were him. I hadn't opted to be taken into custody again to try and see him, this time. No doubt I'd appreciated the fact that our last meeting was free of bars. And perhaps it had even left me with a feeling of unfinished business.
Walking down the central walkway towards the wood, I replayed in my mind the information he'd given me, namely that he regularly slept - these days - in the disused gardeners' shed in the northern grove: the one bordering the 'forest'. I could easily picture it in my mind, as I'd often come here to hang out. Past the hexagonal square and the terraced wisterias, beyond the waffle kiosk. An area that had been less maintained for several years. I'd deliberately chosen a day when it wasn't cold: I imagined that, that way, he'd be less likely to have tried to get locked up.
With my hands in the pockets of my perfecto, I passed the hexagonal square where the smell was that - delicious - of the puffy pastry rectangles. The wood had spread over what had once been a lawn, almost encompassing the gardeners' shed. Bushes surrounded it quite densely amidst young trees: it must indeed have been easy to enter without attracting attention. But how did Klaus manage to live in that divine smell all the time, probably without ever being able to afford those waffles, shamelessly sold for five dollars? My step hesitated for a moment, I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the kiosk and the few passers-by. Then I shrugged my shoulders and stepped off the path into the grove.
The shed was old, made of tin, but still relatively well insulated, as it had been used to store potting soil and products requiring protection from the weather. Climbing vegetation had grown in over time, insinuating itself into the interstices of the grilled window wells. These had been condemned, as had the door I found as I walked around. The latter had clearly been forced open, and equipped with a rope on the inside, which at the time was untied. I approached and leaned over. The gap was lined with a blanket, surely to try and keep the heat in. I pulled it aside slightly to try and get a peek inside.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, as the light was poor and contrasted with the brightness of midday. The first thing I saw was a jumble of gardening equipment of all kinds. Then a water collector that looked as if it had been connected to the gutter through one of the window wells, a cardboard box full of eclectic clothes stored in a heap, and a worn mattress in a corner, where an indistinct shape was breathing. Klaus had told me that it was easier for him to sleep during the day than at night, and he seemed to be succeeding, at that moment, when he had mentioned 'nightmares'. I chose not to wake him, I didn't even knock. I backed away without cracking a twig, and went back to the waffle kiosk in the hexagonal square.
Honestly? I still think that 10 dollars for two waffles is overpriced, and given that the owner has three shops in the whole park, it's practically organized theft. But this time I thought Klaus would be glad he wasn't just breathing them in, and that finding breakfast when he woke up might be a better start to our free-people relationship than a kick in the butt from Granny. The kiosk employee looked at my crest sideways, as if afraid that what I might want to loot the content of her cash register, not just buy her pastries. I was used to that. I knew how to answer with a big smile, which most of the time left people very disconcerted. I paid my dues and headed back to the not-so-abandoned shed, taking care to wait until the woman was busy scraping her waffle iron.
Careful not to drop my precious golden gift, I crossed the few brambles crawling by the door again. This time, my foot cracked a bit of dead wood, and I nearly stumbled. At that sound - all of a sudden - the door, which had remained ajar, slammed shut. I think it was the tenant's habit to be alarmed if someone had the potential to come and evict him. I stepped over the brambles and almost came to rest against the door.
"Klaus?", I called, since I couldn't knock with my hands full.
I could have teleported in, since I'd seen the inside, but that would have been a bit too bold. There was a moment of latency, a few seconds when nothing seemed to move. And just as I was about to call out a second time, the door finally swung open. A tattooed hand drew aside the curtain... and Klaus's shaggy curly head suddenly emerged, his eyes twisted by the light outside as much as by his surprise at seeing me there.
"Room-service?", I said, lifting my waffles.
" Holy shit, Rin!"
He burst into a laugh he tried to keep quiet, then pulled me by the arm inside before closing the door.
"If I'd known, I'd have dusted that place..."
Suddenly, he seemed to be in a hurry - not to say a panic - and started tidying up what he could around him. Clearing his bed of the musty old bedcover he'd picked up somewhere. Straightening his pile of clothes, as if that would make them look neatly folded. Pushing empty bottles under the shelves of herbicide tanks, and a whole lot of other stuff I guessed was used for drugs. The place reeked extremely strongly of weed, mixed with other smells I couldn't identify.
"Hey, I don't care about your mess," I said. "My bed wasn't made either."
With a broad gesture, he grabbed a metal crate and flipped it over next to the mattress, as if it were a state-of-the-art Stark coffee table.
"It's crazy that you came today. Tomorrow at this time, I wouldn't have been there."
I stopped looking around so insistently, put down the waffles and sat down. The mattress was covered in stains and smelled - this time - of old, adulterated alcohol.
"Have you found... another place to crash?
He shook his head, in a way that could have said yes and no at the same time.
"I've been in custody too often, they've got social services on my ass."
He started rummaging through a shopping bag, not far from his crate of clothes.
"At nineteen, they can't send you home..."
"Hell, thank goodness they can't. But they're sending me to a thirty-day rehab."
He kept searching, and my silence probably spoke volumes about the strange sense of disappointment I'd just felt at the thought of not seeing him for a month.
"What would happen if you don't show up?"
It wasn't a suggestion, but he could have taken it that way: come to think of it, I shouldn't have asked him that. But he shrugged, and pulled a cold canned coffee out of his bag, one of those - terrible - ones you find in vending machines.
"I'd probably get into bigger jams. And anyway, there's going to be another cold snap."
At the time, I didn't know how to read the strange twinge that passed between his eyebrows as he said that. I nodded as he opened my hand to lay the coffee can on it. I looked at it, then at him, as he let himself flop gracelessly down next to me on the mattress. This time, his toenails were fushchia.
"Hey, if you paid for that thing or spent energy stealing it, there's no point in wasting it on me..."
He shook his head.
"You said you liked coffee. I kept it... in case you came to this shithole."
I looked at the little can again, and smiled, because I know what a sacrifice it could be for him to give me anything.
"Thanks."
I cracked it open and - believe it or not - drank some. He lifted his waffle, and I swear he downed it in just three bites. I watched him do it and laughed. Then I cut mine in half to leave him more, and started eating my share.
"Klaus, about last time..."
I'd turned those words over so many times in my head before coming here.
"You know, this is the first time I've met someone 'like me'."
"Me too."
He kept chewing while taking the last half of waffle, without even hesitating. Depending on what he found to eat... and what substances he did or didn't take - for years - he'd go through periods where he was hungry all the time... or on the contrary, ate nothing at all. I tilted my head.
"Never?"
I was completely ignorant of my own condition, with no point of reference as to how uncommon it was. Having seen the Umbrella Academy in the media in the 2000s had convinced me that it probably wasn't that rare, but if Klaus had never met anyone like us, I began to doubt. He finished the second half of the waffle in one go, and shook his head.
"Outside of my litter of freaks, no," he said. "That's why when you turned invisible and..."
He tried in vain to convey it through gestures, not quite sure how to express it.
"Intangible?"
I sighed and added.
"I'm sorry it freaked you out."
He laughed with a hint of frustrated irony.
"You gave me a hug to demonstrate it, I don't know if you can picture how cruel that was."
Yes, I did. I realized it right then and there, and I wasn't proud of it. But at the time, I'd only scratched the surface of Klaus's state of affective deprivation, and I was also acting like the brat that - after all - I was. He was right to express it: something twisted in my stomach when he did. But on the spot, I awkwardly told him:
"I did it so you'd understand."
From under his pillow, he pulled out a bottle of gin. In hindsight, I doubt there wasn't a causal link. And he just muttered:
"Yes, I got it right".
I drank the rest of the 'coffee'. For the sugar I was going to need and the little caffeine in it. On the way here, I'd decided to get to this point, and I was bringing it like a band-aid you'd wish to rip off. Without taking into account what he was trying to express on his part, I stammered:
"Actually... there is another thing I can do."
He blinked as he uncorked the bottle of gin, resting it against his lips.
"Wait, are we talking powers or hugs now?"
I didn't even look up. I put the empty can down on the upturned crate, made a move to stand up. And *Crack!"*, I teleported myself against the rows of rusty rakes on the other side of this one-room abandoned shed. A very ordinary and utilitarian move, for me, which I even used at home to go to the bathroom, when I was in a hurry. But an action that once again had a violence on Klaus that I wouldn't have expected.
I think I felt the gin spurt from a distance of seven feet, and the metal crate nearly toppled over. He coughed, and he wasn't faking it: he really nearly choked, and I know that strong alcohol like that tears up the windpipe when it goes down the wrong way. The bottle paid for with his weekly savings rolled to the floor and began to empty. *Crack!* I came back to pick it up and clap him on the back. He continued to almost die for a moment, however, gasping for air. His reaction had been even sharper than the first time, when he could theoretically have expected anything. I didn't have the keys to understand his surprise, and I was bound not to be enlightened this time.
"You..."
He coughed again, finally seeming to recover.
"You also blink through space... plus invisibility and intangibility..."
I nodded.
"I don't know the link between the three."
'Blinking through space'. I'd never heard the term, but it was graphic enough for me to understand why he was using it. I just sat back down next to him, who was now clutching his safe bottle to his heart. He looked at me with confused, wistful astonishment, and I know today that it was Five he was seeing again through me for a moment. This time, however, he said nothing about him, and merely whispered:
"It must be devilishly efficient for your odd jobs".
I looked down at the surface of our makeshift metal table, and soberly nodded. Because I saw at that moment that he had no recollection of me, whereas I did. When we'd last met, I too had been very disturbed to discover who he was. Because the truth is, police custody wasn't the first place we'd crossed paths. Stealing, spying, falsifying... I was nothing more than the archetypal rogue that the Umbrella Academy had spent years putting in jail. Yes, we had bumped into each other once. Me too, there were things I'd rather forget.
"Yes," I simply whispered. "I'm not very proud of using this power to earn a living."
We remained silent for a moment, and turning my head somewhat towards him, I asked, without any idea of what I would trigger:
"Haven't you ever done it?"
I was thinking that - last time - we didn't get into any details after all, that I was happy to be able to have this kind of conversation with him for the first time... But my train of thought had no time to go anywhere, as Klaus uttered, leaving me as frozen as he had been:
"I have no power. The ghosts are the ones having power over me."
I blinked a few times, my eyebrows pinched, and asked him with a caution that at the time I was far from mastering:
"You can't control it?"
I don't know if I could put into words the look he gave me. I realized that my words were an understatement. No, even worse: that I was four light years away from reality. He brought his overgrown teenage legs up against him on the mattress, grabbed his knees, and said, staring into the shadows of the old garden shed:
"I feel each one of them, and if I push one away, three come. What they felt when they died: their pain, their sorrow, their anger... they scream it to me, especially at night."
He swallowed, still not looking at me.
"Their fear, too, and I feel it tenfold."
Three sentences. He'd only said three sentences, but I think I understood, in that second, that - in our similarity - he and I were literally not born equals. And that this was probably what he'd meant too, last time, when he'd ironically remarked that my power was 'so much cooler than his'.
"Damn it, Klaus," I said, "that sounds like a curse."
It was another stupid thing to tell him, but he didn't hold it against me. And I think - to be honest - it was the first time he'd ever talked about it like that, too.
"It is," he said. "A curse that's been going on since I was six."
"For you, it started when you were six?"
I probably should have stopped there. The moment he started to tremble from it.
"I was mostly a kid with really bad sleep and supposed nightmares, at first."
"You were scared shitless."
He closed his eyes.
"I thought I was going mad."
He had just voiced this with a factual murmur heavier in texture than lead. No more jokes, no more offbeat comparisons or even ironic laughter. No more pretence. For once - even in the history of our relationship - he didn't put up any walls. I let him carry on, and still with his eyes on something I couldn't see - probably Ben, actually - he added:
"There's a void in the darkness, and voices in that void. When I called at night, my mother was programmed not to come. Nobody did. Except..."
I didn't ask about his 'mother' at the time. I thought for a moment that something in this conversation would bring some warmth to my heart, and I was sorely mistaken.
"Except?"
"Except when my father decided to make the most of it."
I didn't know the full extent of what this word implied until much later, but I guessed that what he was talking about had something to do with the missions for which I - like everyone else in The City and beyond - had known about the Umbrella Academy. Despite my youth, despite all the clumsiness I'd already demonstrated, I had the presence of mind not to push him further at that point. Perhaps because I felt I was on the verge of causing him an anxiety attack I couldn't have handled, or perhaps because he himself drowned it directly in a gin swig. I looked again at the stuff he'd sent under the shelf, at his bottle, and remembered the effect chemicals had on me too, including paracetamol, if I ever took too much.
"Hooch and drugs... You called them 'solutions' the night we met."
He sighed and swirled his bottle. I think he already knew I'd figured it out, but since we were putting our cards on the table, he replied:
"It silences them. I'd rather be numb than completely insane, Rin".
I frowned painfully as he looked at me, and he added with a dull form of terror in his voice:
"I've never been to rehab and it scares the hell out of me."
You should know that this was the most serious conversation I've ever had with Klaus, and actually the last one for a long time. Maybe ever since. In that moment, as the swamp-green filled with goddamn tears, I promised myself that we'd forget the whole thing. That I'd go visit him in rehab if I could. That as soon as he'd be out, we'd go party wherever he wanted. Over and over. Every night if necessary. That we'd burst out laughing again, like we did in the cells of police custody. That I wouldn't care if he climbed the fire escape when Granny was asleep. And that I would never - ever - judge what he was doing to himself so he wouldn't have to endure all of this.
Hesitantly, I raised a hand and slowly patted his back. I was aware that I'd been physically rough with him last time, but now my demonstration of caring was sincere, so much so that I saw him hopeful again. I sighed. I told him:
"I won't make myself intangible this time".
And in a split second, he turned this miserable shed into a memory we'd remember for a lifetime.
Notes :
If you've read 'A Bend in Space-Time', you'll know that this location on the edge of the Argyle Park woods features in Klaus's peri-mortem space, along with the water tower at the Ap Bia camp and the barber store from his childhood. He once said that heaven looks like the idea you'd like to have of it. It seems that his smells a little like waffles.
Some conversations never took place between him and Rin again. She chose to bring him out of his darkness by partying him away, and respect his choices no matter how bad they were. If you read seasons 1 and 2, you'll understand that she will wonder someday if it was the right thing to do. But she did what she could, in the moment.
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