Inktober day one: Birthday
Prompt list by @totallyevan, here ;3c
below the cut bc long
“Happy Birthday to us!” Klaus cheers loudly, passing out the party hats that Five suspects he’d stolen from the dollar store. Klaus himself is wearing two, having explained unprompted that clearly he was wearing Ben’s hat for him as well.
“I’m not wearing this.” Diego tells them all severely, glaring at the bright paper cone. “Absolutely not.”
“C’mon, D.” Klaus rolls his eyes, “Be a good sport!”
He’s inching closer to Five as he says this, causing the boy to squint suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. The fact that Klaus is gripping another party hat in his hands gave more than the necessary hint as to what he was up to.
“If you even try,” Five informs his brother serenely, making Klaus freeze in place, “Not even the buzzards will find your body.”
“Five,” Vanya says admonishingly. He gives his sister a scowl and crosses his arms. He’s not going to bow to this idiocy just because his favorite sister is looking at him like that. He’s not.
“If Diego doesn’t have to wear one then I don’t have to, either.” Five declares, and as one the entire family swings around to stare at Diego, who pinks at the attention and hunches his shoulders defensively.
“If I have to wear one, everyone has to wear one.” Luther scowls, and he really does look ridiculous with the tiny party hat against his big body. However, this input has the opposite effect of getting Diego to fall in line and he tosses the hat onto the table.
“Everyone has to wear one anyway, because it’s our birthday! Birthdays! We have to celebrate!” Klaus exclaims, leaning so far over the table that it’s a very real possibility that he’s going to tip over and crash. “We’re all together! For the first time in ages! Together birthday bash!”
“It’s not even your birthday.” Five’s voice cuts through the noise, making everyone blink and turn to him. Not expecting the attention, Five takes a small step back. “I mean - Klaus was in Vietnam for ten months. Technically his 30th birthday was… ten months ago. His 31st is in two months. It’s not today.”
Klaus blinks as the rest of the family turns towards him. “Hey hey, that’s not fair. That’s not what a birthday is! A birthday is the day you were born, and I’ll thank you all to remember that I was born on October 1st just like the rest of you.”
“A birthday is the celebration of surviving another 365 days,” Five rebuffs, “Otherwise people born on leap years would be legally toddlers their whole lives.”
“Is it the days that your mind has gone through or your body?” Vanya interrupts, looking contemplative. “Because you ended up in your younger body, Five. Does that make this your 59th birthday or your 14th?”
Five sputters with incoherent rage, as he always does when his physical vs. mental age is brought up, but the other siblings are picking up that thread now.
“If he has the body he left in,” Allison muses aloud, “And he left in November, right? We’d only just turned thirteen, right? So from April 1st to now is what, six months? So wouldn’t Five still be thirteen?”
“I am not thirteen!” Five hollers and is generally ignored by the rest of the family. As he always is when he tries to protest against being treated like a child.
“Your body is still thirteen.” Luther attempts to soothe, “We know you’re not actually thirteen.”
Five does not appreciate this. Five has never appreciated this argument. No one is sure why Luther thinks it might work this time when the evidence against it is so strong.
“I think everyone is getting off topic right now!” Klaus yells, slamming his hands on the table enthusiastically, right before he picks them up and rubs at them with a small whimper. Probably not his best idea, but at this point he’s committed. “What Five was really saying - is that I’m totally the oldest sibling now and by rules of oldest sibling I get to make everyone wear a party hat.”
There’s a short pause as they digest this information, and then absolute chaos as everyone immediately starts protesting as one.
“Absolutely not,” Allison is saying, shaking her head and looking vaguely horrified at the fact that technically Klaus is the oldest of them.
Luther and Diego seem to be attempting to compete with one another with sheer volume of their arguments against Klaus’s claims to the point that no one can understand either of them.
“I’m the oldest!” Five howls in outrage, slamming his own hands against the poor table and not even flinching. It’s much more impressive than Klaus’s earlier similar gesture.
“Nuh uh!” Klaus shoots back, very maturely. “In body! I have the body of an almost-32-year-old! Everyone else is 30, and you’re 13! That makes me the oldest!”
“He has a point.” Vanya, the only sibling still sitting calmly in her party hat, shrugs. Since coming off her meds she’s kind of become a little shit - giving the illusion of a neutral party while absolutely stirring shit within the family. Everyone figures it’s only fair after everything that’s happened though.
“No he doesn’t!” Five looks a little bit like he’s going to hurl himself across the table and physically fight Klaus, just that tiny mad gleam in his eyes, “I did not spend fucking decades in the apocalypse to be delegated to youngest siblings because of a fucking math error!”
“Well maybe ya shouldn’t have made the error!” Klaus shoots back, sniffing and crossing his arms like he’s the offended party in this discussion.
Five makes a strangled noise and then does launch himself across the table. Klaus yelps and stumbles backwards, tripping over his own two feet (albeit helped somewhat by the long rainbow feather boa that also looks like it came from dollar tree) and lands with a thump on his ass. He only has a few seconds before Five is making a grab for him and he starts outright screaming.
“Five!” Allison shouts, which Luther takes as his cue to at least try and resolve this situation. Of course, he does it in the worst possible way by scooping Five up by his armpits and physically trying to yank him off of Klaus.
This might have worked, if Five didn’t have a death grip on the brother he was currently most furious with. As it is, Klaus is yanked up alongside Five. Klaus was still screaming.
“What is going on in here?” A voice cuts through the insanity and everyone freezes.
Grace stands in the doorway with a cake in her hands, blinking at the absolutely chaotic scene before her.
Luther is halfway through folding in pain because one of Five’s sneakered feet is buried in his gut, while Five holds Klaus in a chokehold and refuses to let go, and Diego has come around and has his arms on Klaus’s arm to try and yank him away from their feral brother.
Allison is standing with her hands on her hips, mouth snapped shut where it was previously yelling at everyone, and Vanya is balancing precariously on two legs on the chair that she hasn’t yet moved from as she contemplates the insanity involved with being included as a member of the family.
“Hi mom.” Vanya offers into the silence.
“It’s Klaus’s fault!” Five bursts out before Grace can even answer.
“Is not!” Klaus shoots back, slapping at Five’s arm that is still wrapped around his neck.
“Is too!” Five shoots back, tightening his grip and making Klaus yell. This almost sparks into an entirely new scuffle as Diego starts to move and Luther unfolds - but thankfully they are interrupted.
“Boys,” Grace tuts, looking almost disappointed. “Can you not all try to get along, on today of all days?”
That makes Five finally release his grip on Klaus. Unfortunately, Klaus was not expecting this and shoots into Diego, making them both tumble to the floor. Luther was also not expecting the sudden loss of weight and Five shoots up in his arms like a jack in the box and is very nearly tossed across the room, and would have been if Luther’s grip had been any less secure.
“Five!” Diego snaps, hauling himself to his feet and bringing Klaus along for the ride. Klaus now only has one party hat perched precariously on his head, the other one having vanished to places unknown. His remaining one looks like it has seen better days.
“Diego.” Five shoots back, mockingly.
“Boys.” Grace says firmly, making them both look abashed. “Luther, put Five down. Diego, Klaus, why don’t you two take a seat. You can all tell me what this was about.”
“Klaus was trying to get us to wear his stupid party hats.” Five offers as soon as his feet hit the ground and he pulls out a chair.
“They’re not stupid!” Klaus squawks in outrage, “And Five said it’s not my birthday!”
“It’s not my fault you time traveled that first time! You did that all by yourself.” Five shoots back, leaning forward to better engage in the argument, but pauses when he sees the looks Grace is shooting all of them. Disappointed. He slumps back down in his chair and crosses his arms resentfully.
“Klaus,” Grace says gently, “Why are the party hats so important to you?”
Klaus crosses his arms as well, looking at the table. “‘Cause it’s our birthday. An’ it’s our first birthday together for seventeen years. I just wanted it to be special, and we never got proper birthdays as kids.”
The table is silent for a minute before Diego sighs loudly and snatches up his previously discarded party hat and jams it on his head. “Happy now?” He demands gruffly.
Klaus gives him a watery smile in response.
“Five?” Grace asks, “Why is it so important for you to not wear the party hat?”
Five shuffles in his seat, not making eye contact. “‘S childish and dumb.” He mutters under his breath, but the silence at the table means that it’s heard loud and clear.
“Why?” Grace asks again, gently.
“I’m not a child.” Five says, scowling at the surface of the table, “The others all want to - I dunno, vicariously live their childhoods through me or whatever but they don’t care that it’s not what I want. I’m not a kid and I don’t want to be childish.”
“Everyone else is wearing the dumb hats and none of us are kids,” Diego points out, rolling his eyes. The other faces at the table look a tiny bit more thoughtful. Allison’s is going through some interesting mental gymnastics in the corner.
“None of you look like kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re childish or whatever because no one is going to mistake you guys for dumb kids.” Five scowls.
“But,” Grace interrupts, raising a finger, “Everyone here is well aware that your physical body does not match your mental state. So no one here would mistake you for a real child for partaking.”
“Except they do!” Five protests, voice cracking embarrassingly. But he forges on regardless, “They’re constantly treating me like a little kid! And every time we go out and someone says something they all tease me like it’s all one big joke to them, but this is my life! This is reality for me, and it sucks!”
Deafening silence follows this outburst.
“Five…” Allison says, but the sentence doesn’t go anywhere.
“You don’t have to wear the party hat.” Klaus offers after another beat of silence.
“It’s not about the stupid hat at this point, Klaus.” Diego hisses, elbowing Klaus none too gently.
Grace holds up a hand and everyone quiets down. “Five,” She says, “Is it just the hat, or is it something else about all this that makes you feel childish.”
Five’s shoulders are up around his ears and he hunches down in his chair even further. “I dunno. The hat yeah. And the decorations. And the stupid paper plates. And the cake. It’s all just… stupid.”
“The birthday party itself is childish.” Grace clarifies.
“Yeah I guess.” Five shrugs. “I mean, I haven’t celebrated my birthday since I was…”
“Since you were thirteen.” Grace supplies softly.
Five can only shrug again. “I mean, I didn’t exactly know when I landed - only that it was after April 1st I guess. I only really counted like, summers and winters? Instead of months that is. Because there weren’t months or days or whatever anymore. So it’s not like I knew whenever October 1st rolled around.”
“And the Commission?” Grace asks.
“The Commission was - ” Five frowns to himself, “It was timeless. There weren’t really seasons? And when I went on missions there were seasons but there weren’t constant seasons, or months, or days, or anything. I’d have a missions one day where it snowed and the next week I was sent somewhere in the height of summer. It was weird. I think they do it on purpose though, to keep everyone off balance.”
“So this is your first real October 1st in a very long time.” Grace nods sympathetically. “So, do you know what an adult birthday party looks like?”
Five pauses, frown deepening. “No one in the Commission celebrated their birthdays and they were adults.”
“But you’ve mentioned you didn’t socialize within the Commission,” Grace points out, “So isn’t it possible that there were birthday parties you just didn’t get invited to?”
“I guess.” Five concedes.
Grace presses on, “So isn’t it possible that all of this,” She gestures at the paper plates and the party hats and the cake she set down with the delicately frosted letters, “Is in fact typical of an adult birthday party and that key features between child and adult birthday parties don’t change?”
“Diego didn’t want to wear a hat.” Five maintains his stance.
Grace tilts her head, “Is Diego your role model for adult life, Five?”
Five instantly is sputtering out denials and the others are laughing into their hands. Diego, for his part, looks incredibly offended by the direction this conversation has taken.
“If you had to pick one of your siblings to say who was the most adult,” Grace continues on easily, “Who would it be?”
Five actually looks thoughtful at the question. He looks up in thought before finally offering, “Vanya, I guess? She actually has a steady job. And a home. And she pays taxes.”
“Is Vanya wearing a hat?”
Vanya is indeed still wearing her bright and colorful birthday hat.
There’s a beat of silence, before - “Fine, I’ll wear the stupid hat. But if anyone says the words cute or adorable or young man or anything along those lines then I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“No one is going to treat you like a child today, Five.” Grace assures him, giving the rest of the family a look which there’s no arguing with. They sheepishly nod their heads in agreement, even though there was almost certainly teasing planned at the beginning of the day.
Grace smiles benignly at her children and claps her hands, “In that case, it’s time for the cake! I have the candles here, though I’m afraid since there’s only one cake you’ll all simply have to blow out the candles together.”
The kids gather round as Grace dims the lights to make the fire of the candles stand out all the more brightly. Mercifully, the group as a whole elects to skip the birthday song since it’s pretty much everyone’s birthday.
“Make a wish!” Grace commands, stepping back. Without needing further prompting, the group leans forward to blow, and the candles flicker out as quickly as they were lit.
Diego brings out a knife and starts a debate to the side about whether his knives should be allowed to doubly function as food knives. Allison stands up so she can straighten Luther’s party hat where the earlier fight knocked it off kilter. Grace moves to stand behind Five, placing a kind hand on his shoulder.
He looks up at her, looking contemplative. “Aren’t wishes for children?” He asks her, even though he participated along with the rest of them.
“Wishes are for everyone.” Grace informs him with a smile, leaning down and and pressing a kiss against his forehead. He made a face at her, so reminiscent of when he was younger, but didn’t move to scrub the kiss away like he might have done back in those days.
“Happy Birthday, Five.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
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Inktober But With Words, Day 26: Tattoos
We’re gonna pretend I’m not late.
Prompt created by @totallyevan
Summary: Klaus pretends he doesn’t remember the most important experience in his life.
°•○●○•°
“How about that new tattoo?”
Klaus threw his arm up, trying to ignore the pounding in his brain. “You know, I don’t totally remember even getting it. Like I said, it was a long night.”
Klaus, if it wasn’t obvious, was lying. The memory of that permanent ink was so engrained in his brain that it too, might as well have been a tattoo.
It was week 3 in Vietnam, and Dave had seen that Klaus didn’t have a tattoo of his troop, and it confused him. Troop tattoos were supposed to be a symbol of whose ‘team’ you were on, so you couldn’t be confused with the enemy and be killed.
Dave walked over to Klaus, stretching out his hand as an offering. “Come on, I wanna take you somewhere.”
Klaus carefully grabbed his hand, very confused. He followed behind Dave, trying not to show his blush because ‘Dave was holding his hand holy shit.’ They walked into a tent by the edge of camp, and Klaus saw what was happening.
A gruff man sat on a rickety stool with a tattoo gun in his hand. Dave gestured to the stool in front of the man with a smile.
“I noticed that you don’t have a troop tattoo, so I called in a favour with Buck!” He exclaimed, looking like a puppy on crack, or something. It took everything in Klaus not to swoon. He nodded, mainly because he wanted to see more of Dave’s cute smile.
He sat down and laid his arm down on the TV tray that was being used as a makeshift counter. Dave sat on the floor next to him.
“So, what is a troop tattoo?” Klaus felt weird asking, because he was afraid that his Time Traveler was showing. Dave looked up at him briefly before continuing.
“Basically it helps the troops to know who to shoot. Don’t want your own buddies killing ya out there!” Klaus nodded, still not fully understanding, and heard the familiar buzz of the gun start, and the needle pressed into his arm.
Dave looked at his own tattoo on his arm, the shoulder opposite from Klaus’. He sighed in nostalgia and turned back to the boy on the stool.
“You know, you fascinate me, Klaus.” The mentioned man looked at him funny. “I mean, you’re just so…bold! It’s far out!” He laughs, making Klaus just melt.
Dave sat and stared at Klaus, thinking he didn’t notice. “So…Tell me about yourself.”
Klaus was taken aback. People never really wanted to hear him talk. His whole childhood was filled with constant variations of “Klaus, will you stop talking?” He didn’t really know where to start.
“Uh, well, I was born in Michigan, and I have 4 brothers, 2 sisters.” He started. Dave smiled brightly.
“Oh Cool! Well, I was born in Wisconsin, and I have 3 older brothers and one half-sister, Michael, Scott, Robert, and Laura. What are your siblings’ names?”
Klaus became a little uncomfortable. He held a bit of resentment towards his ‘family’ for not taking note of his disappearance. “Uh, well I’m the 4th oldest. You have Luther, he’s really bossy, then Diego, he’s a bit of an asshole. Allison, she’s pretty cool. She once helped me paint my nails when we were 12. Then you have yours truly.” He stumbled a bit when he came up to Five. How do you explain to someone from 1968 why a child’s name is a number?
“Fi-” he searched through dozens of names before stealing a name from someone else. “Freddie. Yep. That’s it.” Sorry Mercury. He thought to himself briefly. “Then there’s Ben, he’s pretty quiet, you hardly really know he’s there.”
Ben gave Klaus a dirty look from where he was standing at the back of the tent. He threw an apologetic glance in return before continuing.
“Vanya’s the youngest, but she’s super cool. I never really hung out with her much when we were younger though.” Dave grinned.
“Sound like a gas. I wish I could meet them.” Buck pat Klaus on the back to let him know he was finished. He stood up and walked toward the tent opening with Dave, who hesitated slightly before turning to him.
“So there’s this club out in town. Do you wanna go?”
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