Archive of Our Own

They spend more time at the library than they probably need to. They even have to make a second trip when their search through the stacks proves futile—but this second trip goes better, after a tip from Vanya.

Five had been complaining to her, and Vanya said, “Why don’t you just Google it?” and Five said, “Do what now?” and Klaus said, “Oh, my God, I’m an idiot.”

Klaus doesn’t normally have access to computers, and the only technology Five has used much is all that futuristic assassin headquarters shit, so both of them had forgotten that finding computers at the library was an option.

They find a .gov VA website called grave locator and set to looking.

“I’m going to move in with Vanya after we find this guy of yours,” Five says while they’re waiting for the results to load.

Klaus blinks at the announcement. He’s half surprised and half not. It’s still odd adapting to Five’s presence in their lives after decades of him being missing presumed dead, so he imagines it’s odd for Five, too, who’d been separated from them even longer. Vanya’s apartment is more neutral ground than the mansion, and out of all of them, Five got along with Vanya best. Klaus vaguely remembers Vanya leaving out sandwiches for Five at night back in the day and thinks to himself that all that luring finally paid off.

“I’m proud of you,” he says to Five, imagining Five nesting in Vanya’s apartment with books and that mannequin and coffee and whatever other hoarded shit he likes.

Five gives him a weirded-out look.

“For what?”

“You’re moving out,” Klaus said. “Our baby boy, all grown up—”

“I’m older than all of you,” Five snarled, and then the results popped up on the computer.

...

Five says something about how Dave must've been something special if Klaus was willing to stay in the worst year of the Vietnam War for the guy.

"It's not like I knew how to use the briefcase anyway," Klaus says. "But, yeah. He was special. He was everything. I loved him, and he loved me, and that was all that mattered."

...

A memory:

Dave's mom mails Dave a knit scarf, which is completely useless in this heat, but he's like, "We're from northern Iowa; she probably can't even comprehend how hot it is here, no matter what I say in the letters." They later have to use it for field wound dressing after an ambush, and Klaus says, "I'll knit you a new scarf someday. It'll be the nicest scarf you've ever seen, and it'll be so soft, and in the winter we'll go ice skating and you can wear it." 

"I've never been ice skating before," Dave says. 

"Neither have I," Klaus says, "but it's probably fun, right?" 

"Do you know how to knit?" Dave asks.

"I'll learn," Klaus says.

...

Klaus remembers the ghosts of the soldiers in Vietnam. If he ever finds Dave, he's terrified of what he'll be like when he finds him, whether he'll recognize him, be mad with grief. But he has to try.

...

Five gives it away—he mentions something about Dave dying in the A Sầu Valley, and Klaus is confused because he never told Five that. Five's face changes when he realizes what he's said, and then Klaus understands, and he has a bit of a breakdown over the fact that his brother killed his boyfriend.

He gets Five to tell him—Klaus stands there, trying not to react, while Five tells him everything.

"I didn't know he was important to you," Five says. "I didn't even know you were there."

Five looks pained. 

"If I'd known—"

"You'd've still killed him," Klaus says, and he's aware enough of how much Five's gone through to get here that he doesn't blame him, but he's too in shock to forgive him yet, either.

"I'd have rescued you," Five says. "We'd've figured something out."

"Me and Dave?" Klaus wonders. There's no point in wondering, but he says it without thinking.

"You matter to me," Five says.

"Thanks, little guy."

"I mean it, Klaus," Five says. "You matter to me, he matters to you, so he matters." He looks away. "I recognized his name the minute I had the dog tags in my hand," he says. "I meant to tell you, I just—"

"You remembered him?" Klaus says.

"I remember all of them," Five says.

He looks so tired. So goddamn tired.

"Thank you," Klaus says. "I—at least I know now. And you were just doing what you were told. You were just trying to get home."

"I figured I could at least help you find him," Five says, "and since you already see the ghosts of the people I've killed..." He spreads his hands.

"You thought he'd come if you were here," Klaus says.

"I just thought it might give you another source of gravity," Five says.

...

Klaus makes Five take a plane to the location of Dave's grave because Klaus as a ghost doesn't know how to go with Five on his little teleportation blips. Five intends on sleeping in a stolen car or outside under a tree somewhere—he's used to slumming it in the apocalypse, he can really sleep anywhere—but Klaus remembers being homeless and says absolutely not. He makes him get a motel room. Five argues that it's a waste of time and money, but Klaus argues that Five deserves better, and after back and forth Five gives in. Five handles the exchange of money, but Klaus makes himself visible to pretend to be Five's dad so the motel clerk doesn't give Five a hard time. It's like their little duo act when they went to intimidate that scientist guy, but Klaus doesn't smash a snowglobe on his face this time, which is a win in his book.

...

Five brings the dog tags to Dave's grave, and they wait a little while, and it works--God help him, it works--and he hates that he doesn't know what makes Dave show up, whether it's him or Five or both of them, and he hates that he might never know—but Dave flickers into view before them, and if Klaus still breathed he would've felt his throat close up.

"Look at me," Klaus says.

Dave stares vacantly through Klaus, his green military shirt drenched in blood, acting like any other ghost. 

"Look at me, Dave," Klaus says. "You promised you'd remember me—you promised, in that hotel room in Saigon, remember, we spent a week there, and you swore that if I didn't make it, you'd remember me. You promised. Fuck you, you promised! Look at me!"

Klaus gets desperate—he extends his hands, finds what feels like an invisible rope, and it's like trying to haul a car out of mud, but he yanks it, and Dave says, "Klaus?"

All Klaus can think about are all the ghosts who've cried out to him before, Klaus, Klaus, and Four, Four, before wailing and shrieking and ruining his life.

But then Dave says, "What the hell are you wearing?"

Klaus throws himself at Dave and wills them both into solidity before he kisses the hell out of him.

Dave rests his forehead on Klaus's when they part. Klaus closes his eyes and inhales raggedly. It's not a real breath, and there's no sort of scent from Dave, no sweat or food or laundry detergent or anything, but it doesn't matter because Dave's here.

"I feel like I just woke up from a long nightmare," Dave says. "All groggy and fogged up."

"We're a little dead," Klaus says. "Ghosts. If you didn't know."

"Can ghosts get headaches?" Dave asks. "Everything is so—"

He pats his own bloody chest. 

"What the hell?"

"I'm sorry," Klaus says. "At least we're together?"

"Yeah," Dave says, and then he says it more strongly. "Yeah. I wish you'd lived, though."

"I lived a little," Klaus says, indicating his outfit.

"What happened?" Dave says. "You made it out of the war, but—"

Klaus checks on Five, who's leaning against a tree. Five waves a hand at them patiently. Klaus looks back at Dave and explains everything--the time travel, the briefcase, and how he's from the future, and he got killed in a fight in a nightclub. 

Klaus vows to tell Dave about Five sometime, because he's not going to lie to Dave anymore. He'd only ever lied to Dave out of necessity and the necessity is gone. So he's going to tell him. He's just not going to do it right this second, because "I time traveled is hard enough to work through, and immediately following that up with, "My brother is a time-traveling assassin and his organization made him kill you," might give Dave an aneurysm and kill him a second time.

"How dumb, right?" Klaus says. "I survived a war but not a nightclub."

"Oh, you're dumb, alright," Dave says, "but not because of that."

"Oh yeah?" Klaus says. "Why am I dumb?"

"'Cause you fell for me," Dave says.

"I've done a lot of dumb things," Klaus says, "like, a lot. But you're the best thing. The best damn thing."

...

(And they haunt each other happily ever after.)