Chapter Text
Duncan could see the shadows of the past in Klaus’s eyes. He could see them every time someone raised their voice. Every time he moved a little too quickly, a little too suddenly.
However, even for them, there were some things you just don’t discuss.
Some things you don’t want to remember.
It had been two years since the Baudelaires had found themselves once more back on the shores of Briny Beach, shivering, wet, and, luckily, not quite alone. Since that night, the children (hardly children anymore) were all healing. They had a modest home together just outside of the city, with a library and a garden and a kitchen. They had hope.
Still, there were things Duncan couldn’t ignore. The way Klaus’s hands shook slightly when he heard carnival music. How he refused to set foot in a hospital or theatre. The way his eyes went glassy and dull during thunderstorms, and how he sunk into himself every year on his birthday and sometimes needed whispered reassurance of where he was.
Still.
There are some things you don’t discuss. Are afraid to discuss.
“Duncan, love,” Klaus said one afternoon as the low sun streamed through the leaves and the window, casting the living room in dappled sunlight. “Have you seen my copy of Aspects of the War ?”
“Sorry?” Duncan said, looking up sharply from his laptop. He had been puzzling over the same research paper for hours, working firmly against a deadline. His head was starting to ache and his eyes were starting to sting. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over.
“ Aspects of the War ?” Klaus restated, straightening his back and smoothing down his sweater. “The Melville poetry. I’ve been meaning to go over it again and I can’t find it in the library. Have you seen it?”
Duncan rubbed at his temples, breathing out slowly. “Klaus, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”
Klaus stood up and walked over to his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around him and smoothing his hands over his chest. “I know love, I’m just asking. I thought you were the last person I saw with it.”
“Well,” Duncan replied shortly, shrugging Klaus’s touch off, “Clearly I wasn’t.”
Klaus frowned slightly, feeling a familiarly cold feeling begin to grow in the back of his chest, but he pushed it away. “What are you working on?” he said brightly, leaning down to rest his chin atop Duncan’s head.
“My paper, Klaus, and would you mind leaving me alone?” Duncan snapped, spinning around and staring up at the taller boy. Klaus took a step back, stumbling as though he had been struck.
“What?” he said dumbly, the cold feeling in his chest pushing against his lungs.
“Leave me alone!” Duncan said again, his words cold and biting. “I’ve been working on this for hours, and nothing is going right. I feel like I’m losing my mind and just going over and over again working on the same thing and nothing is coming easy, so could you just leave me alone !”
Silence stretched throughout the room. The clock ticked. Klaus’s breathing came faster and faster, and the cold grew from his lungs and spread through his entire chest, tingling up the top of his spine and closing around his neck. After a moment of stillness, Duncan unclenched his fists and looked up from where his vision had been blurring on the ground.
“Shit, I’m sorry baby, I- Klaus?”
Duncan took in the younger boys' shaking frame and blown pupils that seemed to be staring at nothing and everything all at once.
“Klaus, are you okay?” Duncan took a step forward, reaching his hand out to-
“Pleasedonthitme,” Klaus breathed out quickly stumbling back again and slowly sinking to the floor. “Please don’t, I, I don’t know what I did wrong just please don’t hit me I’m sorry I made you mad just please, please don't-”
Duncan’s heart splintered as he took in the sight before him. I did this, he thought to himself, appalled. He sunk to the floor as well, sitting back on his knees and being careful this time to keep his distance, about two feet away from his boyfriend.
“Klaus, I wouldn’t-” tears welled up in his eyes but he blinked them back. This wasn’t about him. “I would never, never, hit you. You’re my- you don’t deserve- I mean, no one… No one deserves to be hit, Klaus.”
There was another moment of tense breathing, and tears rolled down Klaus’s face. Finally, he spoke again. It sounded small.
“He would always hit me,” Klaus murmured, sounding like the scared kid he used to be all over again.
And then he fell apart.
Violent sobs shook his body, and he felt infinitely small as he hugged his knees to his chest and gasped for breath. Duncan just stared at him, knowing he shouldn’t reach out but unable to bear not doing anything.
“I- I, I don’t, I- please just don’t, please I- where am I? I, I don’t- don’t hurt me please I’ll be good I won’t bother you just please don’t- I don’t- ”
Klaus kept whispering strings of meaningless words like a mantra. Duncan felt powerless, so he began to speak.
“Hey, you’re okay baby, you’re okay, I promise. I’m not going to hurt you. I wouldn’t. I won’t. You’re okay baby, you're safe.”
After a few minutes, the sobbing subsided. Klaus’s body stilled, and his eyes seemed to focus again. He looked up, still seeming slightly disoriented.
“D- Duncan?” he said softly, finding his boyfriends eyes with his own. Duncan smiled at him gently, breathing a sigh of relief.
“Yeah baby, I’m right here. You’re right here.”
Klaus looked around, as though suddenly coming back to his body. “And. Uh. Count Olaf?” he asked, locking in on the taller boys brown eyes again.
Oh. Duncans heart sank. That’s what this is about. “He’s not here baby,” he murmured. “He’s been gone for a long time, and he isn’t coming back.”
“Oh. Promise?”
“Yeah baby, I promise.”
Klaus looked up at him, looking so so scared and so so small.
“Would you hold me?” he asked timidly.
Duncan had never felt more relieved than when he heard those words. He crawled across the floor and wrapped his arms tightly around the smaller boy, rocking him gently. Finally, he spoke.
“You know I would never hurt you, right baby?”
Klaus didn’t answer. Duncan looked down, searching Klaus’s face- to find him fast asleep. He chuckled. He looked up and looked out the window, noticing the darkness that seemed to have suddenly enveloped the room. He sighed, and glanced once more at the sleeping figure in his arms.
There were some things you didn’t want to discuss. There were also some things you had to.
Finally, there were some things that could wait till morning.