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[ It's a quiet enough night, with nothing extra noteworthy going on. Normal and ordinary and completely uninteresting. And yet here is, completely unable to sleep and feeling restless. It's not unusual, especially not in this place where they hardly have any objective beyond a nebulous "find a way back home", but it's never particularly pleasant.

Back in the apocalypse he'd just drink until he'd be drunk enough to pass out, but here, well. He's trying to move on, which is easier said than done.

Coffee, though, he can settle for that, no matter how poor an idea it is if he has any intention to sleep. Unsurprisingly since it's his, his kitchen is stocked with it, so that's his first stop as soon as he gets out of his room.

And to his surprise here he is, awake and snacking on whatever it is he managed to find in the store room, his not-exactly-wanted, but not-exactly-unwanted either guest. ]

Thought you'd be asleep by now.

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Klaus rolls onto his stomach, kicking his feet into the air above him. "A surprise," he echoes, and deliberately ignores the rest of Five's words. "Now, isn't that just the sweetest thing you've ever said. All those fluffernutter sandwiches have made you gooey inside."

Resting his chin on one hand, Klaus watches Five go through the motions of making coffee before speaking up again: "That'll stunt your growth, you know."

"I think I'll take that risk".

Moments like this he's reminded exactly why he'd made sure not to share his living location with anyone since he got here. He's used to being alone, do his thing and not have to talk with anyone in the process. Klaus makes things extra difficult by virtue of being, well, Klaus, so dealing with him is essentially as bad as dealing with multiple strangers.

Only Klaus isn't a stranger, he's his brother, and having him around is an excellent reminder that he's no longer stuck in the apocalypse, with no one to talk to beside Dolores. It's an excellent reminder of what actually matters to him too, despite how eager he is to pretend otherwise.

Once he's done with preparing his coffee he's going to offer a cup to Klaus as well before sitting down — on a chair, like a normal person.

"I couldn't sleep either."

"Well, welcome to the no sleep zone." Klaus tosses his free hand out in a grand dramatic gesture. "It's like a no fly zone, but... better. Or maybe worse. I haven't decided yet."

He finally pushes himself into a sitting position, crossing his legs as he brings the coffee cup to his mouth and taking a long, loud sip. "Ah, that's the stuff."

"It's barely decent, but still better than the shit you brew at home."

That's going to give him nightmares if he thinks back on it for too long. There's a pause as he takes a sip, finally enjoying his coffee, and then just looks at Klaus.

Eventually he finally asks.

"You okay?"

The thing about Five is, sometimes you look at him and it's like getting sucker-punched back into being scared and fifteen again. No one else will admit it, but Klaus knows that hanging around Five brings out this bizarre mix of parental protectiveness and teenaged assholery in all of them.

Other times, though, you look at him and you can see every single one of his long and traumatizing years alone.

This, right now, is something in-between.

"Fine," Klaus says, and then because he can't shut up to save his life (literally), "Fine, finer, finest, absolutely fine-o-rama. Don't I look it?"

The more Klaus repeats "fine", the less fine he actually sounds. Not that he's surprised — they're both here wide awake in the dead of night, and the way Klaus talked about the no sleep zone made it fairly obvious it can't be his first time either.

He doesn't believe a single word of it. But he's not going to push it — in the end he only asked to give Klaus a chance to talk if he wanted to talk about it.

"Of course. Must be why you're awake in the middle of the night and contemplating the stains on the ceiling. When was the last time you slept, Klaus?"

Klaus purses his lips and scrunches his brow, hemming and hawing for a moment before shrugging. "Is it Monday?"

"Tuesday, technically. It is night, after all."

"Oh, yay!" And he puts his coffee down so he can clap his hands. "I wasn't too far off. So either I've been awake forrrr three days, maybe, or a week and threee days. Benny says it's the latter and--hey, watch your language young man!"

Benny. Sometimes he forgets that having Klaus around means Ben is there too, and the realization is always ... something. With all of them traveling back in time he thought there was a possibility of bringing back Ben as well - alive ind in one piece. Thinking back on it, it was naive.

"You keep that up and you're going to join him soon. That's for both your lack of sleep and calling me young man."

Klaus sticks his tongue out. "I wasn't calling you a young man, gramps."

Real mature there, Klaus.

Well then, in that case he can enjoy whatever conversation this is about. He takes another sip of coffee and despite the fact he's rolling his eyes at Klaus calling him gramps and sticking his tongue out there's a hint of a smile on his face.

"Really. Now I'm curious about what he said."

Looking between Five and Ben, Klaus narrows his eyes. "Nuh-uh, no way, no how. I'm not playing telephone here." And then they widen into a truly impressive eye-roll. "Yeah, I know he can't hear you, but you can hear him just fine."

Another pause, and then a long-suffering huff. "Ben was just bitching me out for not sleeping, much like how you're doing, Five."

"I wouldn't call it bitching. Consider this me indulging in being a older sibling and keeping your health in consideration. Besides, like I said, I can't sleep either." He considers whether he wants to say more or not. The last time he found himself with nothing to do and an apocalypse he thought he prevented, Klaus accused him of being like him — an addict.

It's infuriating to think about even now. But even though he'll never admit it out loud, he knows the assessment is not entirely wrong. Which is exactly why he hesitates before continuing on. "I'm not used to having all the time in the world and absolutely nothing worthwhile to do with it. It keeps me on edge."

There's a frown on his face as he thinks about the other, biggest reason why he can't shut his thoughts off and enjoy a good night's sleep. When he created that portal, he thought all six of them — seven, if Ben could have been counted — would have jumped out of it with him. But in the end it was just him, and Klaus joined him later.

While his theory is that they will all eventually find their way here, he doesn't know for sure and he hasn't yet figured out a way to get to them instead.

Edited (hours later i realize i completely misread that.) 2019-05-29 20:16 (UTC)

"Hey, I'm still second oldest. I've got a whole ten months on everyone else!" He wrinkles his nose, "...Does that make my birthday in January now? Because I gotta say, weird occultist happenings in January has much less impact than October."

Klaus scoots so he's sitting at the edge of the table and swings his feet back and forth, patting the spot next to him. "Take the time to chill out and relax, Five. We could...go for a drink! --That does remind me, though. Is addiction in the mind or in the body? Cause goddamn, sometimes I really want to find something, but I can't tell if it's because I'm craving a hit or if it's because I don't really know what to do with myself otherwise."

Kind of like Five and the apocalypse.

Edited (...wow that was a mistake I didn't realize for hours) 2019-05-30 16:03 (UTC)

He's going to quirk an eyebrow at Klaus patting the spot next to him. Normally, he'd just turn the offer down - it's ridiculous and he has no reason to sit on the table, much less when he's perfectly comfortable where he is.

But he's reminded of when they were all children - sneaking out to eat donuts escaping and rebelling in small, meaningless ways that still felt significant for them at the time. Eventually he sighs, making a big show of how exasperated he feels, but still ports himself right next to Klaus, sitting on the spot he just patted and drinking from his cup.

"I wouldn't know about that. Unlike you I've never been an addict." Again, he'll never admit out loud that Klaus had a point with his assessment. Alcohol, of course, doesn't count. "Pretty sure it's a combination of both, but what does it matter? You're not going to find any drugs in the store room."

It doesn't escape him that yeah, they really are in the same situation right now. Neither of them know what to do with themselves now that they actually have a choice in the matter and options.

Klaus lets out a long suffering sigh, throwing his GOODBYE hand up as Ben wanders off with a sigh of his own. Where do ghosts go when they're not haunting him, anyway? On that note, where the heck is Ben getting those books he tends to read? How is he flipping pages? What is, why, who--

Whups. He's getting distracted.

"Hate to break it to you, Five my man, but an addition oc the mind is still an addiction. And yeah, I know. I noticed. Even the booze," he waves the sandwich he's still holding, "isn't that great."

"I told you already, I am not an addict. We're not the same."

And just like that, he's putting his cup down and porting again - away from the table and Klaus. Really working hard to put some literal and metaphorical distance in there.

"Now if you'll excuse me. I'll go take that drink you mentioned earlier."

What did he say about moving on? Screw that. Coffee is clearly not enough here.

"Aw, no, c'mon Five, don't be like that."

Klaus hops off the table as well, scrambling to keep up with Five.

"We could go exploring! Check out all the weird things here?"

He is totally being like that. But on the other hand, aside from his initial porting away he is not disappearing completely, and he's in fact letting Klaus catch up with him.

"What even is there to explore? It's the middle of the night and I've already checked every inch of this shithole." He's pretty much on top of the whole exploration business, really - as soon as new things show up, he's already there. "Unless your dead friends have found a place I haven't seen yet, I'm sticking to drinking."

Klaus pulls a face, and chooses to ignore Five's comment about ghosts. "Weeeell, I don't know if you've seen, but there's a beach at night when it's daytime everywhere else! Maybe, just maybe, it's night here so it's day there?"

"What part of 'I've already checked every inch of this shithole' is unclear, exactly? I've already seen it. Obviously."

But Klaus is right in guessing he hadn't tried it at night, not really. It'd make sense for things to be inverted over there, and while he doesn't particularly care, maybe it's something to check.

"But fine. I'll humor it. It's not like I have anything better to do, and I know an idiot who hid a stash of alcohol there."

"Ooooh!" Klaus claps his hands cheerfully, "Goody, time to try some alien booze!"

Hey, if someone was reckless enough to get caught hiding things, they deserve to get it looted.

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