Chapter Text
He was cold.
Oh, so very cold—the burning chill continuing to pump through his bloodstream and freeze everything it touched.
He was also in excruciating pain.
Klaus couldn’t tell you how he managed to get off the floor without keeling over, or how he managed to drag his uncooperative body to the elevator doors, after the disaster the dinner had been.
The cold continued to attack his nerve endings, his body heavy and cumbersome as he shuffled to the back of the lift. The world spun in nauseating circles, and his stomach flipped and revolted with each jarring step he took—the elevator bouncing with the added weight as everyone boarded, and causing him to topple as he lost his balance.
He groaned as his shoulder hit the metal, a blinding pain shooting across his skull as the headache, he hadn’t even known he had, finally presented itself. He had no strength left to stay standing, turning and sliding down the wall until he was a heaped mess of limbs on the metal floor.
Klaus could admit that he’s had some pretty bad trips in the past, but nothing was as bad as how he felt right now. Even the agony of his skull cracking open on the dance floor, and dying, didn’t feel as bad as how he was feeling right now.
This…
This was worse than all his past overdoses.
This was worse than death itself.
The lift jarred as it began to descend, and Klaus very nearly threw up right then and there as his world continued to spin in dizzying circles.
Jesus Christ, what the hell did Ben do to him?
As the lift stopped, and the last member of their family stepped out and into the lobby; Klaus remained behind—willing the metal under his ass to just swallow him into oblivion. An oblivion where the pain and nausea wouldn’t follow.
Or so he hoped.
Knowing his luck, oblivion would be a whole lot worse.
Spotting Ben shaking his head from the corner of his eye, Klaus rolled his heavy head to look at him and seethed.
“Fuck you, Ben!”
“Grow up, Klaus.”
“No! No, I won’t!” he shot back; ignoring the spikes of pain the volume of his own voice was doing to his head. Weakly his hand shot up to point an accusing finger at Ben—his muscles feeling like the damn Jell-O Elliott had tried to feed to them. “You had no goddamn right to take over my body! None! Zilch! And now—no thanks to you—everyone is fucking mad at me again!”
Neither of them heard the lumbering footsteps that froze just out of view from the still opened elevator; nor did they notice the hand that kept the doors open.
Ben rolled his eyes skyward with a drawn-out huff; crossed arms flopping to his sides as he pivoted to stare him down. “Oh, you do that well enough on your own, Klaus.”
“But this time it wasn’t my fault!”
“You sure about that?” Ben contended. “Cause I'm pretty sure, this whole mess could have been avoided if you had just spoken up! But no, you wouldn't do it. So I did because one of us had too!" He threw his hands up in aggravation. "And I didn't take your body, Klaus, I borrowed it!"
“That's rich!" Klaus scoffed. "Fuck you and fuck your borrowed too! You didn’t borrow anything!” he roared; then promptly winced as the pain and nausea spiked again. “You took! You took it over without my consent!”
“You wanna talk about consent?”
“Yeah, I wanna talk about consent!”
“Okay, we’ll talk about consent.” Ben bent down to be eye level with Klaus. “Where was my consent when you continuously kept telling our family that I’m not fucking here?!” Ben argued. “You had your chance to tell them, several times, Klaus! Several times! Like right up-fucking-there!” he pointed up to the ceiling—to the disaster that light supper had become.
Klaus blinked back at Ben, the anger, and the hurt, and the booze, mixing in a nauseating cocktail with the after-effects of the…
Of the possession
Because apparently that was a thing he and the ghosts could do now.
God, if he hated his powers before, then this absolutely took that loathing to a whole new level.
His body still felt like it’d been stuck in the freezer for days—his blood and the booze fighting to warm him up and failing miserably. Not to mention, his muscles felt as if he’d been forced to run a marathon after being dumped in a tub of ice.
Fuck!
Everything hurt.
And now, on top of all of that, he felt regret rearing its ugly head as Ben’s words settled themselves in his scattered thoughts.
The anger quickly won out in the end.
“Yeah, well,” he snorted scathingly. “That still doesn’t give you permission to take over my damn body, Ben!” he groaned as his stomach revolted and his head throbbed, once again. “Fuck that smarts!”
“I had no choice!”
“You had no choice?!” Klaus tittered sardonically—half-crazed from everything. “You had no choi—you took my choice away asshole!”
“Because you never gave me one in the first place!”
“Piss off, Ben! You still had no goddamn right!”
“Neither did you!” Ben bellowed back. “After three years of the two of us thinking they were dead, that they had moved on; don’t you think I deserve to talk to our family too?”
The anger fled out of Klaus as the exhaustion crept in; the pain flaring as he squeezed his eyes shut against the stars that burst across his sight.
Shit, he was definitely going to be feeling this for days.
Weakly, the fight no longer in him--ignoring the guilt gnawing and festering inside of him--he gazed jadedly back up at Ben and finished, “After everything we’ve been through, after everything you’ve—” he chocked, fighting back against the nauseating stomach acid and booze trying to crawl its way back up his throat. “After everything you’ve seen, while I—while we were on the streets. You just…” he trailed off. He was completely and utterly done with this shit. “Just go, Ben.”
“Klaus—”
“I said go!” He hissed and grabbed at his head. “Damn it!”
Why was this his lot in life?
(***)
Outside of the Elevator, hidden with his arm still outstretched to keep the doors open; Luther couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Ben? Ben was here? Klaus had lied--no big surprise there--and Ben had actually made it back with them?
He didn’t linger on that for long as the rest of the one-sided conversation continued; Luther zeroing in like a hawk.
Consent?
What the hell?
Working with Jack had shown Luther a side of the world that—while he’d always known about it—had never truly experienced it until he started working at the club.
All those nights, when he’d have to kick one too many customers out because they didn’t understand that no truly meant no; and that the girls serving them their drinks, weren’t just being coy. He still remembers the night when Susan, just before she had quit—not being able to handle the constant harassment any longer—had snapped and cried herself hoarse. He remembers driving her home, the poor girl frightened that the asshole he’d kicked out would follow her back.
“—after everything you’ve seen, while I—while we were on the streets. You just…”
Luther remembers the tone he’d heard in her voice—the pain, the helplessness, the defeat—and couldn’t help but hear it mingling in the tone he could hear coming from Klaus right now.
“Just go, Ben.” There was a moment of silence. “I said go!”
It was only after he heard the hissed curse of pain that Luther finally stepped into the doorway and took a slow step inside.
“Klaus—”
“Oh my god, Ben! For the love of—” Klaus grouched and rolled his head back up, only to freeze when his eyes landed on him.
“Klaus, what’s going on?” Luther tried again, now that he had his brother’s attention.
Klaus tittered and waved his hand weakly at him--as if he were waving away his concern like he would a pesky fly buzzing around his head.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Luther scowled. “Not happening.” His hand shot out to keep the doors from closing, before turning his full attention back to Klaus. “What happened?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
There it was again.
That tone.
Susan flittered into his mind’s eye, seeing her with mascara and tears dripping down her face before the image flickered and Klaus was looking up at him instead; complexion paler than normal, and a bone-deep exhaustion etched all over his face.
With a sigh, allowing the doors to close and give them a semblance of privacy—Diego could wait for as long as this was going to take, Luther had the damn keys to his own car after all—he shifted until he was sitting on the floor beside Klaus.
“Why don’t you try me?”
“What’s there to tell?” Klaus countered; head slouched as if it were a herculean task to keep it up.
“I don’t know.” Luther shrugged. “Maybe start with how you’ve been lying this whole time about Ben?”
“I wasn’t lyin—” he cut himself off at the look Luther shot him. “Alright, he’s been here the whole time.”
“So, he was there for the reunion?”
Klaus weakly nodded.
“And he was here tonight?” Luther continued.
Klaus weakly nodded again.
“Is he here now?”
“For once the bastard listened to me.”
“Klaus,”
Klaus tsked and flopped his hand at him, before wincing in pain.
“Did you take something?” Luther genuinely asked with concern, no hint of anger or disappointment in his voice as he leaned to meet Klaus’ eyes.
“No,” Klaus glared ruefully back. “Wish I had, would have made all of this easier to deal with…” he grumbled lowly under his breath; Luther straining to hear the muttered words.
“If you didn’t take anything, then, what happened?”
“Ben happened.”
Luther raised his eyebrow, “And?” he pushed for Klaus to elaborate when his brother remained stubbornly silent.
“And what?” Klaus grouched. “That’s what happened. Ben took over my damn body while we were up there and now I feel like shit.” He groaned and shuddered and muttered to himself again. "I need a bath after all of that."
Luther blinked owlishly, mouth opening and closing but no words tumbling out.
What?
Luther had so many questions.
Too many questions.
“So that—”
“—Was Ben.” Klaus interrupted.
“When did you learn that he--that the ghosts could—” Luther gestured weakly at the air around him, still not really knowing or understanding how Klaus’ power worked. “—do that?”
“It was a recent development.” Klaus deadpanned, “0 out of 10, would not like to do that again.” he moaned as he held tight to his stomach.
Luther shifted slightly away at that. He’d already had one brother throw up on him; he really didn’t need another one doing the same.
“Why would Ben…” Luther trailed off, not knowing how to approach the topic when he didn’t know the full story. “Why would Ben… take over your body?” he had to bite his tongue to keep the ‘what did you do now’ from escaping past his lips.
Klaus remained stubbornly quiet.
“Klaus?”
“I may… have been a bit of an ass.” He finally sighed out.
“You’re always an ass.” Luther shot back.
Klaus laughed before wincing once again, grumbling the sarcastic ‘thanks’, under his breath.
When Klaus didn’t say anything else, Luther sighed. “Klaus, I can’t help you, if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
When the silence continued to stretch between them, Luther’s patience wore thin.
If Klaus didn’t want to talk about it, then fine; Luther wasn’t going to keep pushing.
“Look, I don’t know what all happened between you two, but it’s clear you both need to work it out,” Luther told him. “I don’t care if it’s your fault or his fault or both of your faults. Work. It. Out.”
He pushed himself back up to his feet, the elevator shifting and causing Klaus to groan up at him with a weak glare.
“Stop moving,” He whined.
Luther stared down at the pitiful mess that was his brother.
Klaus was clearly in no state to be by himself right now.
“Alright, up you get.”
Klaus whimpered. “Just leave me.”
“I hate to tell you, Klaus, but you can’t stay here. You want our father to find you?”
That got more of a reaction out of him.
“Damn it.” He whined petulantly; head lolling. “Fine. Help me up.” Klaus caved as he reached out a hand for Luther to take.
The moment Klaus was on his feet, Luther kept his hand at Klaus’ elbow to keep him steady; the trek back to the car slow-moving.
"Took you long enough." Diego greeted the moment he saw them, faltering slightly when he saw Klaus practically being carried to the car. "Try not to throw up on the way home."
“Step a little closer, and I’ll do it right now.” Klaus sniped back.
“Nobody will be doing anything.” Luther cut in with a roll of his eyes. “But if you throw up on me,” Luther warned down at Klaus. “I will drop you, and you can walk."
"Aw," Klaus cooed weakly, his normal theatrics and sarcasm, dulled with his fatigue. "Love you too, big guy."
This was going to be a long night.