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Klaus was napping on the couch in the living room of the Hargreeves mansion in his colorful and tropical printed underwear. He had been struggling with his withdrawals and hearing the dead all over again. It hurt Luca to seem him shiver and shout in his sleep, but he knew he couldn't make a big deal out of his pain. Because if Luca babied him, he'd crawl back to the comfort of drugs. Klaus' eyes shot wide open and he jumped into his awakened state. "You know, I can tie you up in the attic if that helps you get through the withdrawals." Luca suggested with a mere shrug as he flipped through the pages of a book he found.
"That doesn't sound too bad!" Klaus sarcastically enthused, then rolled his eyes.
"What happened to that box you sto—" Luca began to speak, but Klaus stopped him from finishing his sentence by crashing his lips on his.
When Klaus pulled away, he leaned forward to whisper in Luca's ear. "Never know who's listening." Klaus informed Luca.
Luca nodded his head slowly, a bit confused. When Klaus stood up and turned back around, he met the face of Pogo— the talking chimpanzee that lived in the Hargreeves mansion. He was Klaus' father's assistant and a dear friend to the family. "Christ on a cracker! Pogo?" Klaus screeched, scared at the sudden appearance of the chimp.
"My apologies, Master Klaus. I have a query for you." Pogo proposed.
"Oh?" Klaus was intrigued, yet also a bit anxious now.
"Items from your father's office have gone missing. In particular, an ornate box with pearl inlay." Pogo began to speak.
Now, Luca understood why he couldn't speak of the box Klaus stole— but Pogo's inquiry only ignited Luca's curiosity of what was in it. "Really? You don't say." Klaus looked over at Luca with a subtle twinkle in his eye.
"Any idea where it went?" Pogo asked, suspicious of Klaus being the thief.
Klaus looked up at Pogo and sucked in his cheeks. "No, no, no. No idea. Sorry." Klaus sighed then whispered, randomly, "drop dead."
Luca knew he must've been speaking to Ben, who— if was still alive— would expose Klaus every waking minute he had. "Would you shut up!" Klaus whisper-yelled, likely, again, at Ben, but Pogo thought it was to him.
"Excuse me?" Pogo seemed offended.
"Pogo, I didn't mean you, I just.. I- you know, there's been a lot of stuff I've been dealing with. Just a lot of memories coming up. All those good times. Well, not so much good times as really awful, terrible, depressing times." Klaus pretended to tear up as he approached Pogo.
"The contents of that box are priceless. Were they to find their way back to the office, whoever took it would be absolved of any blame or consequences." Pogo insinuated that he knew Klaus stole the box. Giving him the opportunity to return it.
"Oh, well, what a lucky bastard." Klaus chuckled half heartedly.
"Indeed." Pogo clicked his tongue.
* * *
In Klaus' childhood bedroom, Luca and Klaus could finally speak in private about the damned box. "You threw it away?!" Luca gasped.
"There was nothing interesting in it." Klaus whined, feeling a bit guilty that he had thrown it away. His light eyeliner was smudging under his eyes.
"To you!" Luca slapped Klaus' arm. Klaus clutched his arm, defensively. "What were you even looking for?"
Klaus cracked a smile. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart." Luca huffed and began to walk out of the room to go look for the box in the garbage bin outside. There could've been valuable memories in the box and Klaus was too small minded to pay any mind to it.
"Put some clothes on, Klaus." Luca told before leaving Klaus to contemplate his mistake or to be scolded more by Ben— his dead brother— on his own.
* * *
To no avail, Luca couldn't find the contents of the box nor the box itself. It seemed as if someone had already found it and took it. Regardless, Klaus had already found himself wrapped up in some more family conflicts. His newly found brother— Number Five— (the time traveling one) had asked Klaus and Luca to join him on a mission. "I thought I told you two to put on something professional." Five scolded the two flamboyant boys.
Klaus looked down at his colorful and obscure shirt, confused. "What? This is my nicest outfit." Klaus pouted.
"It's true," Luca shrugged, "didn't you want us to pose as your gay parents?" Luca asked for clarification, insinuating that their outfits screamed that they were gay.
"It's too... youthful. Just raid the old man's closet." Five sighed, stomping out the room.
"Whatever, as long as I get paid." Klaus followed Five out the door.
"When the job is done." Five reminded. Luca felt that it wasn't going to be the only time Five was to say that.
"Okay, but just so we're clear on the finer details, we just gotta go into this place and pretend to be your dead old dads, correct?" Klaus inquired.
"Yeah. Something like that." Five seemed to be quite fed up with his overly extravagant and dramatic brother.
"What's our cover story?" Klaus asked suddenly.
"What? What are you talking about?" Five asked.
"I mean, were we really young when we adopted you? Like, 16? Like, young? Or did I have you in high school then turn gay?" Klaus created various stories in his scrambled mind.
"Sure." Five sighed.
"Your mother, that slut— whoever she was— was the only woman I ever slept with. And we met at... the disco. Oh, my God, the sex was amazing." Klaus added dramatic effect to the words slut and amazing. Luca looked at Klaus is a disturbed way, wondering if there was any truth to Klaus' lie.
"What a disturbing glimpse into that thing you call a brain." Five gagged.
"Don't make me put you in time-out!" Klaus pretended to be an actual parent.
"This is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? Start a family with?" Five asked Luca, furrowing his brows like usual.
Luca looked over at Klaus with a questionable look. "I'm starting to reconsider.." Luca joked.
"Come on, son." Luca wrapped his arm around Five's shoulder and walked away with him down the hall.
"Hey!" Klaus called after them and scurried to keep up.
