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It had been three weeks since anyone had seen Klaus. Diego slumped down into a chair at his table and stared down at the crappy TV dinner that he had made. It smelt as bad as it looked but he slowly began to shovel it into his mouth, chewing quickly to escape the taste. He hated the feeling of loss that had been following him around in Klaus’ absence. His stomach turned and he shoved the plastic tray away. The apartment was too quiet so he stood and turned the radio on.
“Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife”
Diego flicked the radio off and sighed. Glancing over at the shut door to Klaus’ old bedroom he knew he had put it off long enough. Grabbing two trash bags from under the sink he cracked the door open and stepped inside. The blunt from that night still lay on the floor and was the first thing Diego threw into a trash bag. He dug around Klaus’ drawers, pulling out three baggies of pills and tossed them into a pile to be dumped down the toilet. He tossed the clothes into the bag before moving on to the small bookshelf. There were little things on the shelves, things Klaus had gotten from him or Eudora. A rubix cube, still not solved. A small piggy bank in the shape of a teddy bear. A wooden box that Diego remembered Klaus painting. Black with a ghostly eldritch monster on the cover. Diego put all this in the trash bag, wincing when he heard the piggy bank break. Next was the nightstand. There was more weed and two bags of pills to go down the toilet. After that Diego peered under the bed an frowned. Taped to the bottom of the frame was what looked like an envelope. Diego pried it from its hiding spot. Klaus’ name was written in thick black marker. The print all capitol letters and blocky. Diego opened it and dumped it’s contents, expecting to find more drugs. Instead there photos spilled across the sheets and Diego’s eyes widened in horror. The photos were high quality, some were of Diego and Klaus eating dinner, others were of Eudora with Klaus. There were even some of the three of them. With a shaking hand, Diego picked up on of the photos of him and Klaus eating dinner and flipped it over
3/5/19 Subject eating dinner, Velveeta mac’n’cheese, with brother. Subject made dinner and did the dishes after. They played the board game parcheesi afterwards before watching the movie Up. The subject fell asleep halfway through and the brother carried him to bed.
The surgical laying out of what had to have been a typical night for the two of them sunk Diego to his knees. How long had Klaus had these? Were they all like this? Diego flipped through the photos, noting that each one had a description of a part of their day on the back as well as the date. Was this why Klaus had gone back to drugs? Why hadn’t he shown these to him? Why hadn’t he trusted Diego? Carefully Diego collected the photos up and shoved them back into the envelope. He pulled the items that had been on Klaus’ shelves out of the bag and put them back where they had been. The piggy bank was broken beyond repair so he left it in the bag while he pulled out Klaus’ clothes and folded them before tucking them back into the drawers. He sat on the bed afterwards as the sun set outside the window Diego reached into the only place he hadn’t touched in Klaus’ room. The milk crate that held all of Klaus’ sketchbooks. He started with the one that Klaus had had before moving in. There were drawings of people in clubs, working women on street corners. There were a few drawings of them as kids, him, and Ben smiling like they had used to when they had successfully pulled a prank on Luther or Allison. The further back into the book the more drawings of ben there were. Some had notes that reminded Diego that Klaus had seen ghosts. Scribble of ‘Ben says he hates this doodle’ next to a cartoon version of the eldritch monster and beside a drawing of Pogo eating a banana there was ‘monkey see monkey do ’. The next sketchbook was the one that Diego had bought when Klaus had first come to live with him. There were several sketches of things Klaus had no doubt seen on the streets but there was also a lot of drawings of people Diego didn’t know. A girl with her head cocked and a soft smile on her lips. A old man leaning heavily on a cane. An woman with a baby in her arms. There were drawings of Ben mixed among them, one in particular caught Diego’s attention. It was of the kitchen with Ben sitting on the counter. Diego shut the sketchbook and grabbed the latest one. The drawings in this one were completely different. Most were of him, sleeping, laughing, cleaning his gun. Doing things around the apartment. Klaus had filled most of the pages with drawings of him.
Diego wasn’t sure if he could look at himself in the mirror after learning this