Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

So cold, I know you can't believe it,

Sometimes you gotta face the feelin'

And you don't care if you get up again.

There's a thousand things I will not understand,

Now you're dealin' with the hell I put you through

If I had my way I would be right there next to you

There's certain things in life you cannot change, 

There's certain things.

I hope you know I care

Klaus had arrived in a flash of blue in the middle of 1971, Vietnam, and the first thing he saw was a wonderfully charming man as voices rang out, heavy boots stomping on the ground as chaos erupted around them. He blinked at the man standing over him and the man, shoving his hand out to help him to his shaky feet, smiled. Klaus’ already pounding heart skipped a beat.

He later found out his name was Dave, while they sat on a dirty shaking bus, a few days after Klaus popped out of thin air, when he had the briefcase taken out of his arms and a gun to replace it. A new recruit, they called him, someone they must have overlooked, and Klaus was still too shocked to find his voice just yet. But then Dave shuffled to lean close to him, hand-clapping on his shoulder and that oh so warm smile that felt out of place among the grime-covered faces of the other soldiers and Klaus found himself sharing it.

They formerly introduced themselves and quickly found themselves hanging off each other at the next camp while they waited for their next orders. Klaus, still going through the roller coaster of withdrawal, would find himself ducking behind trees to throw up, hideaway to ride out the cold sweats and shaking and tears before anyone could see him. Dave found him once, when he missed dinner after a particularly harsh session of puking his guts up in a bush, the only one to notice him gone among all the loud men.

He crouched next to him as Klaus panted and shook, fingernails digging into his hair painfully, eye red-rimmed and still weepy. Dave put a hand on his back, rubbing slow circles as he gently asked him if he was okay. Klaus nodded, sniffing loudly, and Dave lightly joked that it took a while to get used to the food out here and Klaus, despite the lingering taste of vomit on his tongue, giggled wetly, his hands moving down to rub at his eyes “S’rry.”

Dave helped him to his feet, tucking his arm over Klaus’ armpit and led him back to the safety of the camp, telling him that the others were still eating and that the bunks should be empty and would be a good place for him to calm down. Klaus didn’t protest, and after Dave helped him settle into his bunk before retreating back to the others, and Klaus was grateful for the peace. The distance cries of dead soldiers still echoed from afar.

Months drifted by painfully, some days seemed to fly by where others felt as if time was stopped completely, and Klaus found comfort hanging around Dave, who was quite happy to have Klaus to talk to. He was loud and funny and Dave welcomed the distraction, and Dave listened and nodded and didn’t seem to bat an eye at Klaus’ nonsensical babbling and ill-timed jokes. It was easy to grow close during this time, the cling to each other as they sat in trenches, their brothers in arms falling next to them in bloody heaps, mud and blood in their fingernails, guns clutched in their hands as they worried about whether that would be alive the next day. It was easy after the bloodshed and death for them to return to camp, a few men shorter than when they left, and find themselves glued to each other’s side.

During the lulls of fighting, groups of soldiers would travel to the nearby town for endless drinks, smoking, and fucking. It was a short break, and Klaus would jump at the chance to leave the horrors and dead behind. He would drag Dave along, who went along with Klaus without complaint, out of their filthy uniform and into something more comfortable, more human, to drink and dance and laugh as if there wasn’t the possibility of them dying horribly the next week. Dave would always buy the first round, and the second, and they would knock back drinks, joking and chatting to themselves as the other soldiers filled the bar, paying the two no mind as they would drift away from the bar to the back rooms of the dingy bars, hidden away in dim lights and beaded curtains. They would kiss, slow and cautious at first, then rushed and desperate. If anyone saw them during these times, they never mentioned it.

Dave had always dreamed out loud of what his life will be like after the war.

“I have a house you know, it was my ma’s but she passed away when I was in college. It’s still there, waiting for me when I get back.”

Klaus asked him what it was like as they sat outside their camp in the dead of night, passing a cigarette between them as cicadas sang loud around them. There were no ghosts crying that night.

“Small but cozy, has one decent sized bedroom, more than enough room for both of us.”

Klaus couldn’t hold back that smile, sneering at Dave as he looked away in that ridiculous coy way of his.

He expected it really, Klaus had rattled on about his estranged family, his terrible father’s death and his lack of affection or support while going through the worst of his withdrawals, the sun too hot and his heart beating painfully in his chest; he knew that he didn’t have anyone. Dave had his father, but the two weren’t exactly on speaking terms, so he was just as alone as Klaus, it seemed obvious, really, that he would want Klaus to return home with him. Who would want to go back home alone after fighting in such a terrible war?

“Isn’t that how you get fag burned into your front garden?”

Dave shrugged with that easy smile of his, and Klaus smiled back.

Chapter Text

I’ve been alone too many nights,

Too proud to tell you when you're right.

A little patience would have helped me then,

Lot like the break had been the common standard.

All the angels above the earth I prayed,

Sent this message right into her head

There’s certain things in life I cannon take,

And I will wait.

I hope you know I cared.

They left Vietnam on a terrible day, rain beating down on them hard like bullets and thunder crackling above, but it didn’t matter, because they were leaving, going back home. They were crammed into the buses, soaked to the bone and cold but they were leaving and everything felt so numb. It felt surreal, some were laughing, a smile that hasn’t graced their face for years suddenly impossible to wipe away from their faces, while others stared at nothing, eyes wide as they gripped the only bag of belongs to their chests like a lifeline.

Klaus fell in an empty row, side pressing against the freezing window as Dave slipped next to him, their legs pressed against each other firmly. Outside the bus stood Howard, head half blown off and looking lost and confused as he tried to find his bags because wasn’t he going home too?

They were silent as the others climbed into the bus, silent when they finally pulled away, leaving behind their home for the past year, with its terrible showers and shitty food and cots full of dead leaves and spiders, silent as they drove to the nearest airbase, where large planes sat waiting to take them home.

Klaus doesn’t remember his time at the base, nor does he recall the flight, that was surely long and tiring, or when they landed in the early morning, beating the sunrise as they bounced dangerously along the tarmac before coming to a sudden, screeching halt. He remembers Dave’s hand, cold and rough, holding onto his under their bags with the affection and desperation he has become accustomed too during the worst of their time there. He remembers Dave’s voice, hushed whisper that cut through the sound of the plane, deafening and suffocating, telling him that when they get back they’ll head home, where there’s a large bed with actual pillows and not rolled up old blankets, where they can cook actual meals and eat something together that’s not mush, where Klaus can have a bath, because of course, Klaus had said that was the first thing he would do after the war.

“And I’ll never get back out, I’ll die in that bathtub.”

Dave laughed when he said that, it was loud, it was wonderful.

Home was how Dave described it; small, painted yellow with pale blue around the doors and windows, old plant pots with dead, dried flowers around the pouch, the front garden had grown wild from the lack of care and bee buzzed loudly around their heads. The inside looked like it had belonged to a mother from the 60s, with floral patterned couches and armchairs, a TV the shape of a box sitting on a table covered in ornaments. Photos of a woman and man filled on walls, ranging from a newborn to a young adult, the woman always smiling.

It looked like the homes Klaus would see on TV as a kid that would belong to a mother and her young child, old and full of loved things, with cracks in the walls and stains in the carpet. It was both incredibly hard and remarkably easy to settle down there; there would be times lying in bed at 4 in the morning, looking at the stars through the gap in the curtains and listen to Dave’s breathing next to him, and just realize how out of place he is, just how much he didn’t belong there. There were times where he would watch Dave make breakfast, because despite his many talents, cooking wasn’t one, and would watch as Dave would get distracted by Klaus and his ways, and end up panicking when the toaster would start spewing smoke and Klaus would laugh so hard tear would threaten to spill.

Other times there was nothing, and Klaus would stand in the quiet living room in the empty house and pretend that he couldn’t see the woman from the many many photos sitting in the corner, smiling softly at him.

The briefcase sat upstairs in the closet, still the same as it ever was, hidden away behind old clothes and shoe boxes. It was a sudden and unwelcome reminder when they were leaving, shoved back into his arms along with his other belongs taken away from him when he was ‘recruited’ and Klaus couldn’t shake the thought of it linger in the back of his mind. Dave would find him, guard him back to the couch, ask him if it was about the war, Klaus would want to shake his head, but knew better and would nod, and the pair would fall back and let the silent overtake them. Dave’s mother had moved to sit and watch the neighbourhood from the bench on the pouch. There were no other ghosts.

Chapter Text

(I hope you know I care)

So cold, I know you can't believe it,

Sometimes you gotta face the feelin'

And you don't care if you get up again.

There's a thousand things I will not understand

(I hope you know I care)

The next day that sat in their kitchen nook. The sun had just begun its slow rise from the horizon and the coffee tasted bitter on Klaus’ tongue. It was too early and the ghosts were loud.

Klaus was full of regret at that moment; Regret for waking Dave up with a ridiculous nightmare, regret for not dismissing it like always and going back to bed. Regret letting everything slip.

Moment of weakness, he supposed.

Dave's hand hadn’t left Klaus’ since they sat down, both silent as they stared ahead, waiting for something to happen, for someone to talk, but both lost on what to say.

Until.

“Why didn’t you go back home?”

The first thought in Klaus’ mind was sudden and loud, and it left him wheeling because that was never his home.

For the first half of his life, the mansion had been his personal hell of torment and rules and disappointment. When he left, the streets and rehab centres and strangers beds were simply a means to an end, something that was better than the alternative. For the first 29 years of his life, Klaus hadn’t had a home, and he had never thought he would get home. Then he was kidnapped and sent crashing into a camp in the middle of a war zone and quickly found himself with a home.

It was full of guns and misery and ghosts, but there were people that would clap you on the back when you pulled of a practically sneaky hand in poker, people he would roll their eyes and snicker at his crude humour over terrible MREs, people who never turned and judge him after a nightmare or a breakdown because everyone had those there. It was hell but it was home.

Then the war ended and Klaus actually had a home, something that was warm and cosy and his.

“This is my home.”

“But your family?”

“They don’t need me, they never did.”

Dave pressed his lips together tightly but said nothing, his hand curling tightly around Klaus’ and he leaned closer, shoulders touching. They sat and waited as the room lit up in a warm orange glow as the morning came. Birds began to chirp and the ghosts began to soften their moans.

Klaus felt hollow, as if someone had dug out his insides and left a gaping hole of nothing where his stomach used to be and it hurts. But Dave’s hand his warm and soft on his, and the sun is hitting the back of his neck through the window and its nice. Klaus closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. From the living room, the radio turns on, soft and barely there. Neither of them had moved.

“I want to be here. With you. I never want to leave this.”

He said it so easily; there is no skip of his heart, a shiver of doubt, the voice in his head making him question himself. Everything he ever wanted, things he didn’t even know he needed, were right here. It was messy and cramped and it was perfect and Klaus can’t bring himself to even imagine himself anywhere else except next to Dave.

“I just want you to be happy.”

Klaus opened his eyes, blinking at the woman in the kitchen, looking out at their garden and the budding rose bushes and wildflowers with a twinkle in her eyes, her wrinkled hands clasped together against her chest as she swayed to the faint music. It had grown louder but neither of them had noticed.

He thinks of his family; of Ben, a lost ghost, no longer tethered to his terrible self-destructive brother, it would hurt, but maybe he would finally move on and be happy.

Of Diego, who would be angry, hurt, that Klaus had abandoned them in a time like this, but he wouldn’t have to drive him around anymore, he’ll probably be happy with all the gas money he would save.

Of Vanya and the music he would never hear her make again, his small sister up on a stage that would be too big, of the book she wrote with all their dirty secret, but Klaus didn’t blame her.

Of Allison and her movies that weren’t quite his cup of tea, but would watch anyway because that was his sister and wasn’t that kind of cool?

Of Luther and his short fuse, not able to take Klaus and his loud and flamboyance teasing and would shoo him away, as dismissively as their father.

Of Five, and his need to stop the end of the world, to save his family from a terrible fate. He had come all the way back from a terrible future just to save them, but Klaus didn’t think Five would be too upset that he couldn’t save Klaus, even he must know that Klaus was beyond saving.

“I've never been happier than when I'm with you.”

Now you're dealin' with the hell I put you through.

If I had my way I would be right there next to you,

There's certain things in life you cannot change

There's certain things

I hope you know I care