Chapter Text
Klaus falls onto his bed, closes his eyes, and breathes.
His 2019 room still smells like weed and stale beer, and his sheets are ruined by the sharp tang of vodka. Klaus breathes it all in and holds it in his lungs for as long as he can, shuffling through his scattered memories until he can match the smell. This is his room from before.
“I’m 99.76% sure that there’s still drugs somewhere in this room,” he says out loud for Ben’s benefit.
Ben doesn’t say anything, because his spirit burned out in 1963 and there’s nothing left for Klaus to annoy.
Klaus sighs and peels his eyes back open, feeling disjointed and uncomfortable. It’s not silent - it’s never silent when he’s not high as fuck - but there’s a distinct lack of bitching that sets his teeth on edge. This isn’t right. It’s not right, and it’s never going to be right. Not ever again.
Ben is gone and Klaus, for the first time in a very long time, is actually, genuinely, alone.
“Klaus,” whispers the little boy beside the bed who doesn’t have the right side of his face.
Klaus’s hands twitch. Without Ben, there’s no need to hold off the drugs. There’s nobody here that’ll care if he falls off that particular bandwagon. Lord knows his siblings will simply write him off as a junkie and call it a day. There’s nobody left to disappoint.
He hauls himself upright, sliding off the bed with a small grunt. The little boy starts crying blood as he’s ignored. Klaus simply grits his teeth and blocks the sound out. He only has to try for a little bit longer, and then once he’s tracked down a dealer, he’ll be just fine.
Something cold shudders across the back of his neck. “Klaus,” pleads the woman behind him whose neck is forever branded with rope burn.
Klaus tugs his coat around himself a little tighter, ruffles his mane of hair, and escapes into the hallway. It’s almost surreal, being back here again, in this house. After years in the 60's and the first apocalypse and Dave, Klaus had almost forgotten what the hallways looked like, what the wooden walls smelled like, what the floorboards felt like under his bare feet.
He hadn’t missed this house, but something stabilises in his chest at the familiarity anyway.
He makes it all the way downstairs and almost to the foyer before he encounters someone else. Or rather, two someone elses. Mom and Diego are over by the wall, talking. They’re too close to the front door for Klaus to even hope to sneak past them.
“Klaus,” Mom greets as he gets closer. “Are you going out?”
Klaus manages a small smile, but only because it’s Mom. “Yeah,” he says a little breathlessly, moving past her slightly. He’s almost to the front door. “Just going for a walk.”
“With no shoes?” Mom sounds concerned. Klaus almost doesn’t care.
How does he tell her that he doesn’t care about shoes, that he’s dying? Inside, he means, not physically. He’s shrivelling up and wasting away, and this walk is going to fix it, at least for a little while. “I’ll be alright,” he promises raspily. It’s all he can offer her.
Diego frowns and steps towards him. Klaus flicks his eyes to the front door desperately. He’s so close. A few more steps, and he’s out.
“Klaus,” Diego says knowingly. “Mom’s right. If you want to go out, I’ll go get the car.”
“No, I-”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Mom says over the top of Klaus, who feels the last of his hope wither away. “I would hate for you to hurt your feet while you’re out, dear.”
Diego offers his brother a tight smile before turning and disappearing back into the house. Mom claps her hands, delighted. Klaus breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth before beaming at her.
“I’ll go wait for him out the front,” he tells her brightly, waving a hand lazily. “I’d hate to hold him up. You know how he can get.”
He scrambles out the front door before she has a chance to respond. “Klaus,” sighs the man with two broken arms and a gaping hole in his forehead.
The fresh air is crisp and cool, and Klaus feels it like a slap in the face. It’s winter, and Klaus experiments with exhaling in the cold, amused by the small white clouds he can make. For a moment, it’s almost like he’s smoking.
“You always used to bitch about the cold,” he says to Ben casually as he starts walking away from the Academy. “Remember that? Absolutely no tolerance for it. You’d hate to be alive for this.”
Ben says nothing because Ben isn’t there.
Klaus keeps walking, and if he stumbles a little bit more, if his lips tremble and his hands slap at his legs, nobody is there to call him out on it.
“I’m rather angry at you,” Klaus continues listlessly, cramming his hands in his pockets and kicking at the ground as he walks. “That whole thing you pulled with the possession was a dick move, and I’m never going to forgive you for it.”
His body still ached. His heart ached too. He and Ben had their moments of disagreements, but the possession thing had blown past that line without second thought. There was a level of violation to it, a type of fear that Klaus is still trying to understand.
Ben doesn’t defend himself. He can’t. He’s gone.
Klaus keeps walking, following the route by muscle memory only. To think that only a few days ago he was three years sober, no longer a junkie, and stuck in the homophobic 60's. Oh how fate must be laughing.
A car horn sounds behind him, familiar and jarring all at once. “Hey!” Diego yells. “I told you I was getting the car!”
“I should’ve run instead, then!” Klaus shouts back and then proceeds to do exactly that. Not for far, or for long because he’s never been one for sports or athletics. Diego keeps up with him anyway, because Klaus is walking down a street where there are no little side alleys.
Diego rolls the window down. “Get in the car, Klaus.”
Klaus waves a hand, his tattoos blurring out of the corner of his eyes. “Get fucked.”
“I’m not here to babysit you. Get in the car.”
“If you’re not here to babysit me, then why are you here? I was just going on a walk.”
“Get in the fucking car or I’m going to hit you with it.”
“Sheesh,” Klaus mumbles, slowing to a halt and swinging open the car door and sliding into the front seat. “You’re bossy.” The lady with a slashed-open throat that had followed him from the house roars in defeat as Diego starts driving too fast for her to keep up. Klaus winds up the window.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” Diego shoots back, even as he takes his eyes off the road to run considering eyes over Klaus’s body. “You alright?”
Klaus snuggles into his coat. His long hair helps to hide his face. “Peachy keen, brother mine.” He’s not surprised when Diego snorts disbelievingly - he’d sounded flat even to his own ears. Usually, Ben tells him when he’s being a morose moron.
Ben isn’t here anymore.
To Diego’s credit, he stays silent for another ten minutes and just drives around town like he isn’t aware of why Klaus twitches and shivers beside him. They both pretend that the other isn’t aware that they know.
“So,” Diego says finally. “1963, huh?”
Klaus barks a horrible laugh. “Yeah,” he says bitterly. “1963. And 1962. And 1961. And 1960.”
“Shit. You were there for that long?”
“Me and Ben, slutting it around the country.”
Diego goes strangely quiet, fingers clenching around the steering wheel. His hair is pulled back into a small ponytail, so Klaus has a front row seat to the clenching of his brother’s jaw, and the bob of his throat as he swallows harshly.
Oh, of course. Diego and Ben had had a moment together, hadn’t they? While Klaus was locked away.
Hadn’t Diego told Ben to stay in the body?
Klaus doesn’t want to be in the car anymore. He just wants to go home, to hug Mom, and then go to bed and not leave until the day God finally lets him die. It’s not worth doing anything else. Nobody wants him to do anything else.
“Take me home, Diego,” he says.
Diego frowns. “What? Already?”
Klaus wriggles his fingers lazily and doesn’t bother answering. Diego will take him home or he won’t. Klaus doesn’t care anymore. He’s tired. His body hurts. Cravings drag through his veins. His room has the drugs that he needs.
“Klaus,” moans the young girl who always follows Diego around. She’s missing an eye and her hands are mangled.
Klaus drops his head against the closed window and huffs. “These folks are very needy,” he mutters. “I’m glad you aren’t such a nag, Ben. Oh wait.” He waits for the scoff, or the eyeroll, or for the tell-tale chill that indicates Ben’s tried to hit him.
Nothing happens and Klaus squeezes his eyes closed.
He hadn’t expected it to be this lonely. After the possession, he’d expected to be relieved. After the possession, Klaus had almost wanted to send Ben away himself. But now Ben’s actually gone, and Klaus can feel the loneliness press in on him with such force that it’s actually kind of hard to breathe.
“Trust you to be a selfish bastard,” he murmurs. “Even at the end.”
Diego slaps the steering wheel suddenly. Klaus jumps and opens his eyes. “Who are you talking to?” Diego asks sharply. “You keep mumbling to yourself and it’s actually kind of annoying.”
“Sheesh,” says Klaus. “1963 did nothing for your temperament.”
“You watch your whore mouth, Klaus. I have knives.”
Klaus doesn’t dare look at his brother, he just presses the back of his hand over his eyes. “Just take me home, Dee. Please.”
Diego doesn’t. Diego turns into a side street that honestly looks like a place where Klaus used to go to get drugs and hits the fucking breaks hard enough that Klaus is almost jolted out of his chair. He sees a brief glimpse of a woman slamming through the windshield.
She screams his name as he stares at the missing skin and shattered cheekbone that makes up her face.
“This isn’t home,” he tells Diego just to be an ass, tearing his eyes away from the ghost. “Maybe 1963 messed you up more than we thought. I don’t live on the streets anymore. I live at the Academy. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
Diego moves. Klaus braces for the impact, because he’s pushing and Diego’s patience is non-existent after the JFK debacle. He just wants to feel it, because he deserves it.
“Klaus,” says Diego gently, instead.
“No,” says Klaus, clapping his hands over his ears.
He doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want Diego to be a good brother. He just wants to go home.
Hands tug at his palms, peeling them away from his head. “Klaus,” Diego says again. “C’mon man.” There’s no impact, no punch. There’s just Diego, holding Klaus’s wrist loosely and watching him with eyes that are far too knowing and bright with grief.
“Klaus,” wails that little girl who still hasn’t left the back seat. She taps his shoulder. “Klaus.”
Ben used to stop them from touching him.
Klaus recoils into the door, crumpling into a little ball and ripping his arms away from Diego. “No,” he says. “Stop.”
“Woah.” Diego holds his hands up. “Klaus, hey. You good?”
Klaus laughs, wild and angry and heartbroken. “Yeah, yeah. Always.” He’s not. He can feel it piling up - the disaster with Dave, the possession, seeing Dad again, the homophobia, Allison’s agony over almost losing her husband, the cloying presence of his cult.
Ben.
Ben and his kaleidoscope of emotions and actions and feelings. Ben, who could be so condescending about how Klaus lives, the choices he makes, and then turn around and care so deeply and wholly that Klaus selfishly kept him a secret so that Ben couldn’t ever leave him for someone else.
Well, Ben left him alright. Left him in pieces. Left him in pain. Left him to suffer in his own body as his control was methodically stripped away. Left him alone in a world that he doesn’t fit into with siblings who don’t really want him.
“Klaus,” sobs the old man outside the window. He’s the most whole ghost Klaus has seen; he’s not broken, just sad.
“I want waffles,” Klaus tells Diego, still squished against the door. “Ben always liked waffles.”
Diego drops his hands slowly, like Klaus is some startled animal that might flee if there’s any sudden movements. Klaus might laugh if it was funny. “So this is about Ben.”
“I’m not sure which other ghostly sibling I could be talking about, Number Two. You got anything to tell me?”
“I’m not Number Two. Not anymore.”
“Sorry. I forgot about your identity issues. Do you want me to quote Dora at you to feel more secure in your name? I always excelled at ‘Swiper, no swiping!’ if you catch my drift.”
“Klaus.”
Klaus waves his brother off and looks back to the old man, whose alligator tears are somehow graceful. He looks lost and agonoised and heartbroken; the same three feelings that are burrowing inside Klaus’s bones and making his body their home.
“Hey,” he says quietly, rolling down the window and ignoring Diego’s noise of protest behind him. “Hey, what’s your name?”
The old man stops repeating Klaus’s name, his laboured breathing stuttering past his lips as he considers the question. He doesn’t watch Klaus like the other ghosts do. He isn’t hungry or desperate. He just looks sad.
He reaches a withered hand out to touch Klaus’s face. The young Sèance can’t help but shy away from it. “Norman,” the old man rasps miserably, retracting his hand. “I think my name is Norman.”
“Norman.” Klaus manages a small smile. “Why are you hanging around, Norman?”
Norman stares straight through Klaus. His eyes are a very similar colour to Ben’s. “They murdered me for the inheritance,” he says. “They put poison in my tea.”
Klaus nods, swallows, and then rolls up the window. The mangled girl in the backseat is still there. She’s screaming now. No syllables or enunciated sounds - just wordless shrieks of grief and pain. Klaus considers joining her.
Diego, always present but never invasive, bumps his leg with a soft fist. “Hey, tell me what you’re seeing.”
Klaus blinks down at his own thighs with burning eyes. “There are so many tragedies,” he says. “I should be like Vanya and write a book.”
Diego sighs, heavy and tired. “Whatever. Let’s just get you home.”
“But I want waffles!” Klaus protests.
Diego whips around in his seat to glare at him, slapping an open palm of the dash of the car. Klaus pushes further into the door. He can feel the chill radiating off Norman, who’s still lingering outside. “You don’t want waffles!” Diego shouts, voice scraped raw. “Damn it, Klaus, you don’t want waffles and you don’t want drugs! You just want Ben!”
“Yes, I do! What’s wrong with that?”
“Why do you get to mourn him?” Diego presses closer, mouth twisting into a vicious sneer. “We all went years without him, and we did just fine. You were selfish, and you kept him here, and now you get to experience the same loss that we all felt. You can’t just force people to be around you, Klaus.”
Klaus didn’t force Ben to stick around, he didn’t! Ben had said it to Vanya who had said it to Klaus. Ben had been too scared to leave and Klaus had offered him a way to stay. Klaus hadn’t done anything but hold his hand out.
Diego isn’t finished. “You kept him around, and then you kept him to yourself. As if it wasn’t bad enough that we’d already lost him every other way. And the time jump? When you said he hadn’t made it back with us and he had? There was a reason I told him to stay in your body, Klaus!”
“Klaus,” sighs Norman before he fades away completely. The girl screams louder.
Klaus scrabbles for the door handle, falling out of the car in a heap. It’s cold and he’s only wearing pants and a singlet, but he can’t find it in himself to care as he stumbles away from Diego’s car. His brother doesn’t shout after him, doesn’t give chase.
Klaus runs away again, on his own, and this time he thinks that he won’t go back.
This time he thinks he might not make it much farther.
The ghosts around him don’t follow, but there are so any of them lining the streets that Klaus can’t escape them all anyway. They sink into his skin as he hurries past, cry his name with the futile hope that he can help them. He can’t. He can’t help them. Just like he couldn’t help Ben.
Ben, who hadn’t been forced to stay, who’d wanted to stay. Ben, who had seen Klaus at his best and his worst. Ben, who should’ve been able to talk to his siblings, to hug them, if only Klaus hadn’t been so afraid.
If only Klaus hadn’t been a junkie. If only Klaus had pulled himself together. If only Klaus had seen his Dave one last time. If only Klaus had been anybody else.
Klaus isn’t one for crying, but he swipes at his face anyway as he skillfully navigates the roads until he slows to a walk in a familiar alley. He’d spent a lot of nights sleeping here before Reginald had died.
“This is your fault,” he says to Ben. “This is all your fault. I hope you’re happy with yourself, you useless prick.”
It’s not Ben’s fault, and Klaus knows that. It’s just easier to blame someone who isn’t there to defend themselves.
Instinctively, his feet stop at his old huddle spot, packed tight into the space between a dumpster and the cold brick wall. It’s clear that other people have used it over the time he’s been gone, but there’s nobody there now, so he lets himself sink to the ground. He cushions his head against the unforgiving bricks.
He’s not going back to Diego. And he doesn’t want to go back to the Academy. He wants....
Diego had been right. Klaus just wants Ben.
His phone, old and battered as it is, vibrates against his hip. He’d grabbed it on a whim before trying to escape the Academy and shoved it down the waistband of his pants. He’s glad for it now. It’s gonna let him get this one last thing in order.
Surprisingly, it’s Allison’s name that stares back at him, so Klaus answers it. “My dearest, sweetest sister whom I love the most in the world,” he greets with a brightness he doesn’t feel.
“Klaus,” Allison exhales, but there’s a smile in her voice. “Just checking in. Are you and Diego heading back any time soon? Mom wants to know about dinner plans.”
Mom.
Klaus feels an unexpected pang in his chest. He hadn’t let himself think about Mom, who’d lost a child and her husband and an old friend. How would she react if he didn’t come home? Would she care? Would her programming force her to move on without mourning him?
“Klaus?”
“Right, of course, of course.” Klaus thumps his head on the wall once. “Well, Diego and I aren’t together anymore, so I can’t speak for us both, but I know that I won’t be home tonight.”
“Klaus,” whispers the voice of Ben, but when Klaus looks, Ben isn’t there to be seen.
God doesn’t like him, Klaus knows that, but he’s done. He’d saved the world. Twice, really. He’s lost enough, and he’s gained nothing. So she’s going to accept him or he’s going to fuck her up. There isn’t really a choice for her.
Allison is still on the other end of the call. “What do you mean you two aren’t together? Where’s Diego?”
Klaus’s laugh is splintered and ugly. “He delivered me to my destination and then fucked right back off again. He’s my driver, not my babysitter.”
“That’s not what I-”
“I gotta go in a sec, Ally, but I just gotta tell you something first.” Klaus rubs the back of his hand over his forehead, goodbye flashing the sky. He inhales deeply. “Remember that rose jumper you lost? The one you adored more than life itself?”
“Klaus, I swear to God-”
Klaus chokes on his hysterical giggle. “It’s in the back of my wardrobe. Under one of Diego’s hoodies. Actually, there’s a fuckton of clothes in there that aren’t mine if you wanna give them back to everyone.”
“Klaus-”
“Oh, and I’m pretty sure there’s some drugs stashed in there too if you want to have some fun with Luther.”
“Klau-”
“Bye Allison. Love you.”
Klaus hangs up before his sister can hear his tears and then he throws his phone at the wall hard enough for it to shatter. His goodbye tattoo is still pointed at a rapidly-darkening sky. His hello hand comes to rest palm-up on his knee.
He should go and get something else inked on him. Something that Ben would’ve loathed. Something like a cartoon ghost with octopus legs. Klaus grins. “You would hate that,” he says out loud, snuffling an inhale. “Maybe you’d hate it enough to come back.”
Ben doesn’t answer him. Norman does.
The old spirit appears gradually, slow and unhurried. He flickers, and his presence is a little less tangible than before, but he’s there and Klaus isn’t entirely alone anymore.
“Klaus,” says Norman.
“Norman,” says Klaus.
Norman smiles sadly. “Lonely Klaus.”
Klaus shakes his head and tucks his body into a small ball. His warmth is fading, chased off by the harsh winter air and the ever-present chill of death. Norman’s existence is guaranteeing that Klaus won’t be warm again tonight.
“He’s gone, Norman,” Klaus says tiredly, burying his head in his arms. His voice comes out muffled. “He’s not coming back.”
Norman hums and sits down beside the young Sèance. He’s a ghost, but his joints creak and snap like he’s alive. “The monster boy,” he snuffles. “Your guardsman. I don’t see him anymore.”
Klaus lifts his head and frowns. “You’ve been around to see him?”
Norman suddenly looks very, very old. “My family poisoned me. Your family stops you from poisoning yourself.”
No, they don’t. Klaus can’t make himself say anything but Norman’s words make something shiver and curl up inside him, withering away under the heavy knowledge that Klaus isn’t something his family cares about. They’d chosen Ben over him. They’d spent years without each other, and then they’d let Klaus be tortured.
Nobody wants him. Diego wants to be a hero, Five wants control, Luther wants validation, Allison wants love, Vanya wants to be accepted.
Ben just wants to be alive.
And Klaus? Klaus wants Ben back. Klaus wants Dave. Klaus wants the angry ghosts to go away. Klaus wants to feel better. Klaus just wants to be okay, and to have someone give a damn about him. Ben had. And sure it might not have been consensual - Ben might not have had a choice - but Ben had cared, in his own way.
(No, Ben had been given a choice. That’s what he told Vanya to tell Klaus. That he’d had a choice and he’d chosen Klaus.)
“What are you waiting for, Norman?” He wonders out loud. “What’s keeping you around?”
Norman’s hand falls through Klaus’s leg and drains whatever warmth had been left. “They poisoned me for my inheritance.”
“I know that. Why are you staying?”
“They poisoned me.”
“Christ, you’re a fucking joy to be around.”
“That money is poisoned money.” Norman’s voice is becoming something else, and his hand is still dipped beneath Klaus’s skin, stealing his life and his warmth. “They have blood on their hands. My blood. That money was my money to give, not theirs to steal. They murdered me. My own family killed me because they thought I owed them something.”
(Diego, telling Ben to stay inside Klaus’s body. Ben, refusing to regret it even as Klaus shrank away from him, violated. His siblings seeing him possessed and doing nothing about it because they wanted Ben, they didn’t want Klaus.)
Klaus is getting warm again. Norman’s hand is still in his leg.
Klaus closes his eyes and thinks of Ben.