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Dave is, in no uncertain terms, the best thing that has ever happened to Klaus.
He is kind, strong, vulnerable, and beautiful. The beautiful part is what he notices first. One minute, he’s sitting on the dirty bus bench, cracking open a stupid briefcase to see what was inside that he could possibly pawn off for drug money, and the next he’s literally in the middle of a war zone. Men are yelling and there are fucking explosions going off outside of the tent, and he sees this beautiful man sitting in front of him and at least that much seems alright. Then someone is throwing pants at him and shoving a helmet onto his head and a gun into his hands and he’s whisked away.
Dave introduces himself on the bus. They shake hands, but he doesn’t pull away in the timely, appropriately heterosexual manner that Klaus is accustomed to. Everything about Dave lingers, from his stare to his handshake to his general presence.
They strike up an easy friendship. Dave teaches him how to shoot a gun, which is nice and extremely helpful when they’re under attack. Klaus finds that it’s pretty easy to accept that he’s in 1968 Vietnam when there’s a constant threat of gunfire and ambush. The fact that his brother is a time traveler also makes everything feel very plausible. Dave also doesn’t seem overly perturbed by the fact that he doesn’t talk the way everyone else does, doesn’t have any belongings or training to speak of, and didn’t even know what year it was. He takes everything Klaus says and does in stride while everyone else gives him a rather wide berth.
Klaus knows he’s on the flamboyant side. Not only with the way he likes to dress (mostly in Allison’s clothes, when he can get his hands on them), but also in his mannerisms. It’s something he thinks he should try to tone down, especially since the 60s and the army aren’t the most welcoming of anything short of a man’s man. It’s not easy to turn off, however. He could maybe pass, but he doesn’t really want to, and he’s never really had a knack for self preservation anyway.
The best part about Vietnam is he has surprisingly easy access to drugs. He thought it would be much harder to get his hands on pills here, but he pretty much gets whatever he wants when they go into town, which is not very often, but he’s got a good enough handle on making deals to have a healthy supply. Dave doesn’t say anything about the drugs, but Klaus knows he knows about them. He doesn’t let himself get so high that he can protect his team. He learns quickly that first and foremost, they all have each other’s backs. He just needs to take enough to keep the edge off and the spirits at bay. It turns out that an active war zone is actually the worst place to be able to see dead people, not a cemetery or a hospital.
He’s seen a lot of dead people in his life, but he’s never killed anyone until Vietnam. The man he kills is a soldier from the other side, and he does it using the training Dave gave him to save Dave’s life, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch the man bleed out from a gunshot wound to the throat. He very nearly overdoses that night, back in his bunk, surrounded by the dark and his fellow soldiers and Dave. He is woken by a nightmare. He desperately tries to blink away the lingering vision of the dead man choking on his own blood. He crawls out of bed and searches desperately for his duffel. He bypasses the briefcase, which he has stored under his bunk for safekeeping, and drags his bag out. He’s taken a handful of pills before he realizes what he’s doing and stuffs the rest back into his sock and down to the bottom of the bag. He hunches his body forward, over the bag, and does his best to stifle his sobs.
He’s woken up to the sounds of some of the men crying before. A lot of the guys have nightmares. Most of them look down on him for self-medicating, but he can’t and won’t explain himself to them. Still, he doesn’t need any of them to see him cry, so he shoves his fist in his mouth and does his best to muffle the sound. His head begins to spin and that’s when he knows he’s made a very grave mistake. He’s overdosed before - several times. He recognizes the spins and the sweats and wonders giddily if he will be able find any NARCAN in the trenches of 1968 Vietnam or if he’s really, finally shit the bed this time.
“Up and at ‘em, soldier,” a voice says gently, and then he’s being bodily dragged upright. The rainforest heat is swampy and oppressive. Klaus feels grass and dirt under his feet and knows he’s outside of the tent at least, but he has no bearings on where there going.
“I really did it this time, Ben,” Klaus mumbles. “Screwed the pooch big time.”
“You’re gonna be okay,” the man dragging him says.
His stomach rolls. “Sick,” he gasps, and it’s the only warning he can give. The man stops and lowers him to the ground. He curls over on his side for a moment, clutching his gut, then lifts himself shakily to his hands and knees and heaves into the dirt. He pukes for what feels like forever, and it’s painful because he doesn’t have much in his stomach besides the pills. The man rubs his back.
“Ben,” Klaus gasps.
“Sorry, Private. Just me.” Klaus cranes his neck to see who he’s talking to.
“Dave,” he sighs. “Oh, Dave. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Dave says gently. “Looks like you got most of it out of your system. I’m taking you to the med tent.”
“No,” Klaus mumbles, “I’m okay, Dave. Just leave me here.”
“Not happening,” Dave says. His tone is firm but gentle and so are his hands when they pull Klaus back to his feet.
He wakes up on a cot similar to the one he’s assigned to in their own tent, but the IV in his arm tells him all he needs to know about his circumstances. He still feels fuzzy, but he’s definitely coming down. His body aches. Dave is sitting nearby.
“I could help you get clean, you know,” Dave says quietly. He’s all broad shoulders and harsh lines, but Klaus knows he’s soft. Too soft, he might usually guess, for war. But stranger things have happened.
“More stubborn men have tried,” Klaus murmurs.
“Like Ben?” Dave asks. Klaus huffs a sigh.
“Always on my case,” he whispers. He sighs again. “I miss him.”
“Who is he to you?” Dave asks. He almost sounds casual. Almost.
“Jealous, Davey Dearest?” Klaus grins. He hasn’t quite opened his eyes yet in fear of the world spinning far too fast, but he thinks Dave might be smiling too. “Ben is my brother.”
“Your brother, huh? How’d you end up with a name like Klaus and he got a name like Ben?” Dave asks.
“Adopted. Mom picked out names later. When we were four or five, I think. We were just numbers before that. One through Seven,” Klaus sighs. “Dad still always used the numbers though. Even when we were all grown up. Even after...” He realizes too late that he probably shouldn’t have said anything about that, but it’s not like he’s ever been an expert at keeping his mouth shut. Dave has the decency not to comment, even though Klaus is sure he’s choking on questions and judgment. But Dave has no way of knowing what childhood was like for them, and Klaus wants to spare him as much of that as he can.
“Ben must be a good brother,” Dave says awkwardly.
“He was. He is,” Klaus corrects himself.
“But?”
“But he’s not here. He’s always here, but now... and I don’t know how to do this without him. I don’t think I know how to be me without him,” Klaus confesses.
“I’m here,” Dave says. A calloused hand slips into his, and Klaus understands, not for the first time, that he truly does not belong here. His hands are soft against Dave’s.
“I’ll never be able to get clean, Dave. It’s nice of you to offer, and way too good of you to even give a damn and drag my sorry ass all the way here. It’s just not gonna happen,” Klaus says. He opens his eyes at last and meets Dave’s gaze.
“Part of being in this war is the brotherhood,” Dave says. “Your brother Ben might not be here, but the rest of us are, and we’ll kick your ass from here to Tuesday if that’s what it takes. We’re your family here, Klaus, and we’ll take care of you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Make me, then.” Dave squeezes his hand.
“I need them. I need to be numb,” he says.
“Why?” Klaus closes his eyes and turns his head away. “No, Klaus. Tell me why.”
“I need to keep the ghosts away,” Klaus whispers. It isn’t the first time he’s brought up ghosts around one of the guys. Dave is good enough not to give him the look like he’s lost his mind. He’s said more than enough about crazy future shit and ghosts and has used enough era-inappropriate slang to most of the guys already. That’s probably why none of them talk to him. They probably think he’s completely out of his mind, the weak link, the liability. If they already think he’s crazy (and it isn’t that far of a stretch, his mind supplies), then it doesn’t hurt to double down. “I’m not well, Dave. You and anyone can see that. I like the sentiment behind your brotherhood, but the fact is that I don’t belong here and you and anyone else who tries to get me to get my shit together will just be wasting your time. I have six siblings who I was raised with who don’t give a fuck about me on a good day. I don’t know why you think these strangers who won’t even look at me sideways will be anything different. I’ve never been able to quit before, and you’re not gonna be able to get me to now. And you know what? Maybe I don’t want to quit, Dave. Did you ever think about that?”
And if that’s not enough to drive Dave away, Klaus doesn’t know what he can do to convince him. He pulls his hand away and rolls over, turning his back on his one ally.
He sleeps a little. The medic gives him the all clear in the morning to go back to his tent and get started on his day, so he does. He doesn’t see Dave there, but some of the other guys give him a cursory nod as he returns. He doesn’t know what they know. He just gets dressed, grabs his gun and his pack, swallows a pill, and follows them out.
Klaus and Dave play a game of watching each other when they think the other isn’t looking all day.
Klaus wonders how the dynamic changes now that he doesn’t have Dave in his corner. He meant what he said about the other soldiers in the unit being part of a brotherhood. He’s never fit into that, and that’s okay because he’s never really fit in anywhere, even with his own siblings. The being high thing numbs that, too. Still, he really does miss having Ben around, even though he was constantly giving him a hard time about how many drugs he’s doing and when and why. He misses Vanya too, and Allison and Number Five, and even Luther to an extent. He even misses Diego, even though he’s still sort of upset at him. He knows it’s pretty unfair of him to put so much blame and hurt on Diego when the reality is that none of them noticed he was gone at all until it was spelled out for them. But Diego was the one who showed up and confessed it, so he’s the easiest to lay blame on, even if he’s technically the one who probably deserves it the least. Klaus remembers how sad he looked, how gentle he’d been on that night when he’d rescued him. He wonders if Eudora survived. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever really know.
He has the briefcase. He can go home anytime (in theory, that is; he doesn’t actually know what will happen if he opens it again), but something stops him. Something always stops him.
Their unit goes into the city that night. Being at war isn’t always trenches and sweltering heat and gunfire and unbearable waiting. They do have some down time, and this time they’re spending it in some dive bar, which is just fine by Klaus. He tags along even though he’s not certain he’s welcome because him not being welcome has never stopped him from doing anything before. It’s also never stopped him from butting in, which is exactly what he has to do when one of the guys in the unit, Curtis, gets into an argument about some girl with said random girl’s apparent boyfriend. Klaus isn’t really one for fights, but he’s not gonna watch Curtis get his ass kicked either, and he does have all that combat training from childhood. So when the other guy throws the first punch, Klaus doesn’t hesitate to launch himself across the bar and take the guy out. He’s screaming and whaling on the guy as chaos erupts around them.
Dave is the one who pulls him off. They have to make a quick retreat from the bar, but it’s not really a defeat. The guys are all hooting and hollering as they’re chased down the street until they eventually lose the men chasing them and dip into a different bar. Inside, Klaus recieves several claps on the back and encouraging words. It’s the first time Klaus can remember being part of something. It’s the first time he’s part of a group and they’re not just waiting for him to be quiet or go home.
That night, they all get rip-roaring drunk and return to base with matching tattoos. Klaus goes to sleep that night with a hazy mind and a sense of peace that he’s never known.
Everything shifts after that. Curtis’s teasing jabs become more affectionate than critical. It becomes normal for one of the guys to clap him on the back or shoulder in passing. Danny asks him to play cards every other night. Kevin shows him some basic whittling. He’s generally included more. They drink together and he cuts back on the pills. He’s one of them, after weeks of being on the outside. It feels good. They make him feel like he’s worth a damn in a way none of his siblings ever did. Especially not when he was tortured for two days and none of them even noticed he was gone. For once, Klaus is happy to cut back on the harder drugs. He sticks mostly to alcohol and weed. It’s a bit of a learning curve because the withdrawal from opioids lasts weeks and leaves him a sweating, anxious, puking, miserable mess, but he evens out eventually, and the pot and the vodka numbs him enough from the dead and still lets him hang onto the feeling of being wanted around, which is almost a drug in itself.
On a night of leave not too long after their epic bar brawl, Klaus finds himself alone with Dave at a club while the rest of the guys make themselves scarce. Klaus doesn’t know if Dave planned it that way or not, but he secretly hopes he did. They both dance with girls. They have to. It’s not that Klaus doesn’t like girls - he certainly does. He’s had his fair share of girlfriends and hookups - and boyfriends and hookups, for that matter. He doesn’t really discriminate when it comes to showing physical affection. But the girls at this club with their cute sweaters and tight slacks and knee high socks are not Dave, and Dave is across the dance floor dancing with a cutie with a ponytail, but his eyes are on Klaus.
They share a drink, and then another, their arms snaked together as they take shot after shot, and then Klaus lets Dave kiss him behind a shimmering beaded curtain in the corner. Dave is hesitant and sweet, and Klaus lets him lead. He doesn’t want to chance scaring him off. It’s the sixties; men aren’t as open about their sexuality as he’s used to. He doesn’t want to push.
Dave pulls away slowly but doesn’t go far.
“First time kissing another man?” Klaus asks quietly. He doesn’t look up to meet Dave’s eyes. He doesn’t want to do anything that night spook him. Dave’s breath smells like vodka and cherries. He can feel its warmth ghosting across his cheek.
“No,” Dave admits quietly. Klaus looks up, surprised. “There was this one guy at basic training. And when I was twelve, I kissed Johnny Bowman behind the shed at school. My daddy tanned my hide.”
“Sounds like a roaring good time,” Klaus jokes, but it’s lost on Dave. He kisses him again, soft and sweet.
“We could get a room for the night,” Dave suggests.
Dave has sex the same way he kisses: soft, slow, warm, and sweet. It’s different than anything Klaus has ever experienced, and, after, when they’re lying together on a too-small bed in a tiny hostel, Klaus thinks he might even call it making love.
“You’re something else, Klaus,” Dave whispers against his neck. Klaus takes a drag off of his cigarette and taps the ashes out into the ashtray on the bedside table. There’s something to say about being able to smoke indoors again.
“In a good way, I’m sure,” he muses. Dave’s hand trails up and down his bare side and he shivers.
“In the best way,” Dave agrees. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I feel like you have this draw to you. Haven’t been able to look away since the first time I saw you.”
Klaus’s heart flutters because, in all honesty, he feels the same. Something about Dave has always attracted him, and not just his physical appearance. Dave is someone special. He is kind, strong, vulnerable, and beautiful, and Klaus thinks he loves him
It takes only a few weeks before Klaus knows he loves him. They spend too much time in the trenches, too much time going on missions and not enough time going on leave. Their relationship isn’t exactly a secret from the other guys in the unit. Some of them handle it better than others. It makes Greg out-of-this-world angry, and he stops speaking to either of them unless he has to. He spends a lot of quality time with his bible when they’re around. Some of the others just brush it off as loneliness and not enough women around. Curtis gives them a hard time, but he’s a good guy. It’s mostly unspoken. Don’t ask, don’t tell, Klaus thinks to himself giddily as he steals a kiss behind their backs.
On a night of leave, they all hunker down in the tent to wait out a vicious rainstorm and one of them has the bright idea to play poker to pass the time, and when Klaus playfully suggests strip poker instead, they are all somehow bored and drunk enough to go along with it. Klaus knows he has a notoriously bad poker face, and he ends up stripped to his skivvies and undershirt in no time at all. Dave hooks one socked foot around Klaus’s bare ankle under the table. Arthur lays down his cards on the table and Klaus groans dramatically.
“If you all wanted to see my rocking bod, all you had to do was say so! You didn’t have to humiliate me first,” he grumbles, and they all laugh. He stands up and shucks off his tank top, making a show of wiggling his hips as he sits back down. Dave laughs and passes him the vodka, which he accepts gratefully.
“What’s that one from, Hargreeves?” Curtis asks. He points to his own chest and then at Klaus’s. Klaus finishes taking a swig from the bottle and looks down at the scar Curtis is referencing.
“Oh, that.” Klaus touches the thick, short scar near his collar bone. “Some guy stabbed me in an alley once. Can you believe that? There I was, minding my own business as lookout, just trying to smoke a little dope in my free time, and suddenly some asshole is stabbing me. No respect.”
Dave’s eyebrows furrow. Klaus knows he’ll have to fend of questions about that later. It’s not unusual for the guys to show off their scars to each other. Klaus absolutely marvels at the ideology that these big, tough, straight men envy each other’s battle wounds and drunken mistakes.
“You are full of crazy stories, Hargreeves,” Curtis shakes his head.
“Oh, you want to hear crazy? Look at this one,” Klaus says jovially. He stands again and leans across the table to show Curtis and the other guys a thin white scar on his neck. While he’s leaned over, he gives Dave a good view of his ass and bare back, which is also mottled in scars. “This one,” Klaus continues, “is from when I was fighting off this asshole -“
He rattles on about his teenage superhero misadventures. Nobody takes him too seriously, which is probably good. He doesn’t know enough about time travel and changing the future to be able to know how badly he’s fucking everything up. Maybe at some point he’ll be able to ask Five about it.
Later, tucked together in his cot, Dave asks Klaus about each scar he can see. The stabbing story is true (a mission stakeout that had gone sideways), the neck scar was a little exaggerated (he wasn’t fighting anyone off as much as he was mugged by some other junkie who was also trying to score). The cluster of burns on his shoulder blade is from Hazel and Cha-Cha.
“They had me tied to that damn chair for two days,” he whispers. Dave’s arms tighten around him and he presses his lips to the top of Klaus’s head. His curly hair is damp with sweat. “Even though I told them - I told them no one was going to come.”
“Why did you think that?” Dave whispers into his hair. Klaus traces patterns on Dave’s chest with the tips of his fingers.
“Because it was true,” he laughs. “I was right. The only reason Diego came was because those crazy guys told him they had me. No one even realized I was gone until then.”
Klaus tucks his head further into the crick of Dave’s neck. Dave cradles the back of his head and kisses his hair.
“I don’t like that,” he whispers. He wonders how many of the guys are actually asleep and how many are whispering.
“Like what?” Klaus mumbles sleepily.
“That they didn’t realize you were gone. That you were hurting and no one was there. I don’t like that you were alone,” Dave says quietly. Klaus sighs and squeezes Dave a little tighter.
“Not alone now,” he says. Its barely above a whisper, something akin to a prayer.
“Never again,” Dave promises.
Dave dies some weeks later in Klaus’s arms, gurgling and choking on his own blood while Klaus screams and wails for a medic, for help, for anything.
“Where’s the fucking medic!” Klaus screams, his hands clumsily fumbling with the gaping hole in Dave’s chest. “I need a medic over here!”
Dave tries to grasp at Klaus’s hands while he’s doing his best to stem the blood. Klaus looks down at him and meets his eyes as gunfire flies over their heads. There’s so much screaming and gunfire and noise that Klaus knows in that moment that no medic will be able to get close enough to help. Klaus looks into Dave’s eyes and knows he knows it too. He leans in and presses his forehead to Dave’s.
“You can’t die, Dave,” he begs. “You promised me. You promised.”
Klaus knows better than to trust any promise. People have promised him plenty of things in the past. The old Klaus knew better than to put stock into that kind of thing. Klaus feels different now though, and he knows he can’t exactly blame Dave for being shot in the chest at the front lines of a literal war, but none of that matters - not when he thought he could really be happy for once and now it’s all slipping through his fingers, hot and wet and red.
“Klaus,” Dave mouths his name. Klaus closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the life slip out of Dave’s.
Eventually, when the gunfire and the shouting stops for the time being, a medic does come. He comes upon Dave, flat on his back and staring blankly up at the trees above them, and Klaus all but draped over his chest, his hands slick with blood and his chest heaving with sobs. He lets Curtis get him up and away so they can check him over and make sure he’s unhurt.
The next thing he remembers is being back in the tent, sitting on his cot but staring at Dave’s pillow, remembering the heady smell of his sweat and feeling the phantom pressure of his hand on his cheek. Klaus knows all at once that if Dave is gone, he cannot stay here. His mind stirs a moment. His only hope is under his bed. He reaches under his cot and pulls out the briefcase he’d stolen from Hazel and Cha-Cha. It’s dusty from being forgotten under his bunk for so long, but he runs his bloody hands over the top of it. It brought him back once, so maybe he can go back just a little, just a little this time and be more aware of what’s happening and he can protect Dave. Maybe -
He opens the case. There’s a whoosh and a zap and a blinding blue light -
And he’s gone.