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It's late. Too late.
The sky is a pitch black blanket, covering the sky and holding its people near as it rocks them to sleep. Stars are faintly scattered in the horizon like stitches come undone, none so bright as the lights flashing from downtown.
Klaus can only stare down at them.
He knows what’s going on. The kinds of flashy, 3D lives people are trying to live right now. Hell, he’s lived them more times than he can count - lives spinning and humming with energy, lives that lift you off your feet and send you soaring with a single pill to dance among the stars, lives so bright and colorful that when morning comes around you can’t help but think to yourself, will anything ever be as good as this again?
And, of course, the answer is always no.
Really, if matters were up to him, he’d be living that life right now. He’d be down there, high as a kite, with his lips locked against some guy’s who's name was probably something stupid like Keith or Dylan and his pockets rattling with quickly vanishing pills.
And instead, he’s up here. Watching it go by without him. On a roof.
"I thought I'd find you here."
Klaus jolts, and the cigarette dangling from his lips slips to the ground. Ben, leaning out of the window next to him, tries to catch it as it falls, but it just passes through him, hitting the tiles and rolling off until it vanishes somewhere in the trees below. A falling star of dying light.
More like a safety hazard, some sane part of Klaus thinks dimly. A lit cigarette falling into a bunch of trees and shit is probably a safety hazard.
Oh well. At the very least, if a fire starts tomorrow, they'll all know who to blame.
To Ben, he says: "What, like a lucky guess? Nothing to do with us being spiritually bonded at the hip or whatever?"
Ben shrugs. Klaus can't see his face beyond a series of blocky shadows hidden by the window’s light, but if he had to guess, he'd say he seems disappointed. And maybe kind of resigned. Like not catching that cigarette was just the cherry on top of what was otherwise another great day of being dead for him.
The thought feels cruel, even in Klaus's head. He wishes he still had his cigarette to wash it down with smoke.
"No," Ben says. He takes a tentative step out of the window, although he has no reason to fear the fall, and Klaus automatically shifts to make room for him. "You know, I don't have to follow you."
"Okay. Then don't."
"I choose to."
"Okay."
"Because you're my brother."
"Aww."
"Who can speak to the dead."
Klaus fake sighs, throwing his head back. "Just a big old bundle of convenience, that's me."
Ben shrugs again, settling down next to him and pulling his knees up to his chest. Klaus can almost hear the smile tugging at his lips. "Pretty much."
Klaus rolls his eyes, still staring at the sky. “So why are you here now?”
Ben curls into himself comfortably. “Same reason as always. I was worried about you.”
Klaus goes to answer, and then stops himself, barely one breath away from a retort that involved the words ‘you don’t say’. All his jokes suddenly seem too wrong for the occasion, all his jabs too ill suited for Ben’s tone. “Oh,” he says instead. “Okay.”
And they both fall silent.
Klaus isn’t sure how to break the silence, so he doesn’t. He just keeps his words in his chest and his eyes trailing across the cosmic black graveyard they call a sky. He could swear it seems even darker than before now - like even the odd handful of stars he can see in the distance have gone cloudy, blinking in and out of existence drearily.
Or maybe those are his drugs finally kicking in.
Yeah, it's definitely the drugs.
"Are you looking at the planes?" Ben asks, and that actually explains a lot.
"No," Klaus says. "I'm looking at the stars."
Ben cranes his neck to look up with him, peering into the night. A moment passes before he says, "I don't see any stars. Just planes."
"It's the light pollution," Klaus grumbles. He's not completely sure if he's using the term correctly, but it sounds professional enough for him to feel good about using it at all. He tilts his head forwards again, and feels the world spin behind his eyelids. He's only half certain that it's the drugs this time. "Allison's been telling me about it."
"Yeah?" Ben says. He's still staring upwards. Klaus steals a look at him, then back again. If he curls his fists and pretends, real hard, that the way Ben's form flickers when he adjusts his seating is nothing more than a trick of the window's light, he can almost believe he's alive again, and he's not talking to thin air. "Well, I'm telling you they're just planes. And I'm telling you you're high."
Klaus winces, both at Ben’s matter of fact tone and at his ability to see right through him - even though it's not him who's the ghost between them.
"Maybe if we could at least pretend they're stars, we'd be a lot happier," he says. He's not sure why he says that, and he's not sure what he means, but in the moment the words feel right, and maybe that's all that matters. He looks straight ahead, and acts like he doesn't notice Ben staring at him.
There's a beat before his brother answers.
"Maybe if we could at least stop pretending, we'd be at peace with ourselves," he says. "And maybe you should sober up."
Klaus pauses, heart suddenly ringing in his ears. It's not like Ben to go uprooting ancient, collectively forgotten history, but his words are lined with implication like a crossroad lined with tar. And Klaus refuses to get his metaphorical car stuck in it.
"At peace with myself," he scoffs quickly. "Easy for you to say, you're dead. Being at peace with yourself is literally one of the requirements.” A breath. “I mean, it even said so on your statue."
"The one you knocked down?"
"The one Luther and Diego knocked down."
Ben shakes his head. "I never liked that statue anyway. They got my nose all wrong."
Klaus snorts, and they both fall silent again, the ringing in Klaus’s head stilling back to silence.
Another history avoided. Another night saved.
From inside the house, commotion can be heard. Voices swelling, anger crackling like electricity in the air. Klaus gives it ten minutes before they're at each other's throats, with Grace coming in to offer them snacks in between the bloodshed. He wonders if it's her who has to patch up all the broken furniture like she does their bones. He wonders if Luther will ever get around to turning her off like he and Allison wanted - whatever the deal between the two of them is.
"Somebody should really unelect Luther from family meeting leader," he says without thinking. He's not sure if that's how it works - can you unelect someone if they were never really elected in the first place? can you even ‘unelect’ someone? - but Ben hums in agreement, so he figures it couldn't have been that stupid a statement.
“He's a good follower,” Ben says. “A good soldier. That's why he was dad's favorite.”
“Who cares?” Klaus says. He goes to take a puff of his cigarette, then remembers it rolled off the building. He settles for crossing his arms over his chest sulkily instead. “Being dad’s favorite sounds more like an insult than anything. I mean, can you imagine having that scrawny sadist’s seal of approval? I'd rather drop dead.”
“Low blow,” Ben says. “And you're not one to talk about scrawny.”
Klaus gasps, pressing a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I'll have you know, I have strangers clamoring from all five corners of the earth to get a touch of this.” He gestures at himself, and grins when Ben rolls his eyes.
“Four,” he corrects. “Four corners of the earth. Please sober up.”
Klaus crosses his legs. “Nah.”
“Yes. And it's not like we didn't fall into the trap when we were kids. We all wanted his approval.”
“Not me,” Klaus says. Ben fixes him with a patented steely look, and he squirms. “What? I didn't.”
“We all,” Ben repeats, “wanted his approval. And some of us still do.”
“Like Luther?”
“Like anyone who still calls him dad.”
Klaus raises his hands defensively. “Look, old habits die hard. It doesn't mean my secret daddy approval complex is jumping out or anything.”
Ben just fixes him with another look, and says nothing. The voices in the house are growing louder now. Klaus thinks he hears a crash. What'll it be? The expensive china, the dining room table…
“I hate seeing them fight,” Ben abruptly says. He's staring at his shoes now, pulls himself closer into his own embrace. “We never fought like this when we were kids.”
“Yeah, well. Things change.”
“People change.”
Klaus swallows, but it’s too late. The words are already out. “People die.”
Another pause.
Maybe that's all this night will be, Klaus thinks faintly when Ben doesn't answer. A half steady flow of uncomfortable conversation, and shards of history that rear their heads too soon. Are over ten years still too soon? Will it ever not be too soon?
He reaches into his coat’s pockets, and roots for a cigarette. He doesn't find one, but he finds his flask instead, and since these drugs were obviously not on the stronger end of the spectrum he pulls it out. Ben regards him disapprovingly as he unscrews it.
Inside the house, a thump is heard. As if something - or someone - just hit a wall.
“Luther!” Allison screams. It's probably Allison. Vanya is never here during times like this - maybe for the better. “Let go, you'll hurt him-!"
“Should we do anything about that?” Ben asks. He doesn't sound worried, not exactly, but his feet are curled in such a way to suggest action, his eyes are flitting to the window nervously.
Klaus takes a swig from his flask. It's already half empty. “Like what? Door duty?” His throat burns, but he takes another swig. “I'm not exactly on Luther’s level, physically speaking.” A third. “Besides, the reason I came out here was to get away from that mess.”
“Me too,” Ben says distractedly. “Well, I came out here to find you to get away from that mess.”
“I mean, you want to be around the family so bad,” Klaus says. He's not sure where this spite is coming from, but it feels right on his lips, burns just as well as the liquor. “I’d say this is the family at its best. Peak team performance. Why don’t you go in and deal with it?”
“I can’t deal with anything,” Ben says. “I’m dead.”
“Is that an excuse I hear, number six?” Klaus says, in what he’s pretty sure is his best Reginald Hargreeves impression to date. “Tut, tut. And that’s another week in the aquarium for you! Or whatever he did when you were bad, I dunno.”
Ben cocks an eyebrow. “Aquarium?”
“You know. Tentacles.”
“I wasn’t an octopus, Klaus.”
“Yeah, I know, bad example.”
“Are you angry with me?”
Klaus stares at him, and then drains the rest of his flask. The commotion inside has stopped now, save for some weird heavy breathing he thinks might be crying. Allison, probably. Unless Diego finally decided to publicly give in to the softness they all know he hides inside him.
“I,” he says, then his voice dies out and he has to try again. Don’t have the right to be angry with you. “Should not be sober right now.”
Ben stares back at him, unfazed. “Do you not want to talk to me?”
“Fuck, Ben, no. You keep nagging me about being sober, it’s like having an AA meeting in my ear twenty-four seven.”
“That’s not it and you know it. Are you angry that I care about the others too?”
Ben hasn’t raised his voice, but he doesn’t need to. His words are dripping with everything his volume would imply. “Are you pissed off that I miss them, and hate watching you push them all away? I only really see them as much as you see them, you know. And that’s never.” He smiles thinly. It’s not a real smile. It burns. “My brother is a psychic, and the last time I talked to them was before I died.”
“PBD,” Klaus jokes weakly. “Pre Ben Death.”
“Funny.”
“Look,” Klaus snaps, “I never signed up to be your family medium counselor.”
“Yeah, well,” Ben says, “I never signed up to die like this.”
“Oh, come on. You weren’t happy,” Klaus argues desperately. They’re approaching thin ice now, territory so blurred with the stains of history and denial there’s no saying if they can both face it and come out alive. Territory they haven’t discussed in over 10 years, and Klaus hoped not to discuss ever. He should not have polished off that flask so soon -- it wasn’t even enough to make Ben disappear, just blur a bit. It almost makes him sick. “You hated it.”
“Yeah,” Ben says bitterly. “But I was just a kid. And unlike you, I could have asked for help.”
“Help? From who? Reggie Hargreeves, father extraordinaire?” Klaus laughs. It comes out a bit hysterical. “One of your stick in the ass siblings? Wake up and smell the coffins, Ben. People like us don’t get to ask for help.”
“From you,” Ben says, so quiet Klaus has to strain to hear him. “From Vanya, maybe. You knew what it was like to have a power you hated. I could have gone to you.”
Klaus laughs again, more hopelessly this time. There’s a twist in his gut he can’t bear to face, one that feels like someone shoved a knife into his insides and twisted the handle. “Me? I can’t even take care of myself.” He looks back to the city. He can’t bring himself to look at Ben. “All things considered, you’re probably the lucky one of the two of us, anyway. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
“Except the apocalypse.”
“Yeah.”
“And you.”
Klaus sighs. “I’m a big boy, you know. I can do that myself.”
“You just said you couldn’t.”
“Wrong. I said I can’t take care of myself. I can worry just fine.”
"You still haven't told the others I'm here," Ben says, as if to himself.
"I've tried," Klaus says. It's almost a plea. "You've seen me try. They just don't believe me."
“You gave up after the first try. You think if they find out, all you'll become is a note passer from me to them," Ben continues, like Klaus hadn’t spoken. “You think you'll lose them and their attention even more. And you think you'll lose me too."
Klaus stares at him like he's grown a second head. "What is this," he says, in a voice nothing short of disbelief, "therapy?"
"You still can’t make peace with yourself," Ben rattles on. There's almost a sort of sad relish in his voice, a bitter joy in the words finally being spoken. "About what happened with me. You keep telling yourself it’s not that bad and that it was for the best. You keep using the same arguments the ghosts gave you--”
“Shut up, that’s not--”
“All those years--”
“You don’t know what you’re--”
“So you can face me every day. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself otherwise. You can’t even say you’re sorry.”
Klaus takes a deep breath. It sticks in his throat. “I thought that was implied.”
“Well,” Ben says, in that tone he uses whenever he hates the way a conversation is going and wants it to be over, “it’s not.”
A pause.
“You don’t think I’m sorry?” Klaus says, and it’s the most quiet he thinks he’s ever been. Ben huffs out something that might, under different circumstances, have been a laugh.
“I don’t know what I think. You just said I’m the lucky one between us.”
“I didn’t mean it. I don’t mean, like, ninety nine percent of what I say.”
“I know, Klaus.”
“Ben.”
“Yeah?”
“I am sorry.” Klaus’s head is ringing again, but he tries to ignore it, tries to barrel through the words that sting like liquor on his tongue and finally, finally put in words the missing chapter from their history: “About killing you, I mean.”
Ben doesn’t answer, so he continues, each word more insistent than the last as he tries, desperately, to make Ben understand: “The ghosts, they just made all these good points, said that you would end up doing it anyway, and the whole thing about ghosts is that if you don’t control them they can control you, and I was just a kid, and you were so miserable, and--”
“I know, Klaus.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, Klaus.”
Klaus shifts his seat. Moves a bit closer to Ben. Ben doesn’t stop him, just looks ahead with eyes that seem to be staring at something far beyond the city lights horizon. Timidly, almost, just as he used to do to Grace as a child when he’d had a bad dream, Klaus rests his head on his shoulder - and doesn’t fall through. Ben’s shoulder is warm, a nest of flesh and blood - a home that Klaus had forgotten since they were kids.
There’s silence inside the house now. Klaus thinks that’s their cue. He feels more hollow inside than he’s ever been - if he strains, he’s not sure he can even hear his heartbeat. He's not sure he even minds.
“I’m not a great person,” he says.
There’s a pause, in which the universe hangs from a string. Klaus waits, selfishly, for Ben to refute him, and sure enough -
“You’re trying,” Ben tells him.
Ben, his brother. Ben, his friend. Ben, who he murdered as a child because he couldn’t bear to face the wrath his own power had to offer if he didn’t, Ben who still stuck by him despite it all, offering him selfless comfort and trying to help him live the life he never got to live.
The universe falls into place. Klaus falls into Ben’s shoulder.
Ben, Ben, Ben.
“I think that makes you at least a good one.”
Together, they watch as the lights go out.