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Klaus wakes up with shaking hands, and thinks to himself, “Ah, so it’ll be one of those days then.” before dragging himself from his bed, despite wanting to do just about anything else. He trips his way into a set of clothes that he’s fairly sure are clean, but he can’t muster up the energy to care enough if they aren’t.
He blinks, and he’s downstairs, slipping into the kitchen on feet that feel too light, devoid as they are of the mud-crusted boots that saw him through the jungle. He plops into a chair, feeling simultaneously like there are a thousand volts of electricity in his veins, and as if his bones have been coated in lead.
Ben whispers in his ear, “Luther’s trying to get your attention,” and Klaus jerks his head up.
Luther is watching him, brow crinkled. Behind him, Klaus can see Five struggling at the stove, cursing and pushing things around on several burners-- and to top it all off, he’s wrapped in Mom’s frilly pink apron. Klaus doesn’t feel present enough to find the humor in it.
He grunts at Luther.
“Klaus,” his large brother begins, “are you--”
Luther is cut off as everything goes to shit. Behind him, something that Five is doing goes up in a burst of flame, fwoosh ing to the ceiling, and all Klaus can think is napalm, drop!
He rolls, covering his ears, expecting another blast. The ground is shaking beneath him, his mind screaming Dave, Dave, Dave, and he feels naked without his helmet-- where’s his gun? He doesn’t even take a shit without the damn thing, it can’t be far--
He cracks open an eye, determined to keep the flying dirt out of it, even as he looks around, trying to see where the rest of his unit is-- the napalm is from their side, but whenever they’re in the shit you can barely even see who’s next to you, and he’s lost plenty of his unit to friendly fire.
As he looks around, he realizes he has no goddamn idea where he is. All he can hear is the scream of soldiers dying, of women and children and innocents burning, the bone-rattling shake of shells dropping. But he can feel the cool tile of the kitchen floor beneath him. He can see the underside of the table, scored from all the marks Diego had carved into it over the years; he can see Luther’s hulking form attempting to cram his head under the table enough to see Klaus.
And truly, how do you know which of your own senses to trust? Sure, he was in his childhood home this morning, can see it around him now, but he can hear the explosions, the dead and the dying. He clutches at the tags around his neck.
“Dave?” He keens, voice thick with tears. He’s not sure he’s loud enough to be heard above the explosions, but he can’t see any of his unit, doesn’t know where in the thick he is, so he can’t trust himself to possibly give away his position if there’s even one to be had.
“Klaus?” comes the reply, but it’s not Dave (never Dave, never again, dying dyingdying dead.), it’s Luther.
“Luther?” he croaks, and he cracks his eyes open again (when had he closed them?) to see his brother’s disproportionately tiny head bent sideways to fit under the table. His brow is still furrowed, eyes filled with concern, and Klaus could have cried at the sight of him, sitting there all clueless.
He rolls himself to his knees, rocks back and forth hesitantly for a moment, before diving forward and burying his face into Luther’s shoulder, into that stupid giant overcoat he wears. His nose fills with the smell of his brother, and Klaus relishes in it, the burning of agent orange slowly dissipating. His brother begins to run a clumsy hand down his back. He presses too hard and too lightly interchangeably, tangibly unsure of himself, and Klaus thinks that he’s never loved his brother more.
And as he lays there in the arms of his brother, ever so slowly, his hands begin to stop shaking.