Chapter Text
“Ohhhh my god, these waffles are soooo gooood” Klaus slurred, doing a little dance where he sat in the booth.
“Yeah, a little louder, Klaus” Ben rolled his eyes and looked around. A few people were staring at his brother apparently talking to himself, but it wasn’t too bad. They returned their attention back to their own meals without much of a fuss.
“Oh what? Like I care. I’m a millionaire!” Klaus waved his arms as he spoke and a piece of waffle flew off his fork. Luckily it flew towards the wall and not one of the other patrons. “Oops.” Klaus looked like he was trying to focus on the waffle to pick it up, but was having a bit of trouble. “Ever since that old lady left me her fortune I can fund whatever lifestyle I want.”
“I don’t know if this is possible, but are you more drunk than usual?”
“Oh, well I haven’t scouted out a heroin dealer here yet, so I gotta rely on boose for my buzz, and I need a lot of booze buzz to match my former heroin buzz. Is heroin even a thing in 1960?”
“Maybe you could try and get clean. See if you can conjure the others. I mean, if they’re not here with us… Hasn’t the thought crossed your mind that maybe something went wrong?”
Klaus sighed “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Benerino? You could have friends in the afterlife besides me.”
“Don’t you want to see them again?”
Ben didn’t need to see the forlorn expression on Klaus’ face to know that his brother missed their other siblings too. Klaus didn’t say anything, but took another swig of whisky.”
“You know it’s like 8:30 in the morning, right?”
“If I don’t stop drinking, I don’t get a hangover” Klaus looked at Ben as though he’d just said something very profound and was waiting for Ben to realise it. Ben just rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Ben vaguely noticed the ‘ding’ of the bell at the diner counter indicating that another patron was about to receive their order. “Here’s your coffee, Dave”
“Thanks Mac” came the reply, “See you tomorrow.”
Klaus’s head snapped in the direction of the voice. Ben didn’t have to look back to realise who it belonged to. Klaus stood up slowly, as if in a trance. “Dave…” he whispered, looking like a lovelorn puppy.
“Klaus…” Ben cautioned. Surely he wasn’t going to follow him. “Klaus, you’re drunk. He hasn’t met you yet, he doesn’t know you.” But Klaus was already walking out of the diner and after Dave, so Ben followed. “What are you even gonna say to him? Hi I’m your boyfriend from the future you haven’t met yet? You’re gonna sound like a crazy person. You think he’s gonna fall into your arms? He’s gonna have you committed. This is 1960, Klaus. At best you’re gonna embarrass yourself and at worst…” Ben didn’t want to think about the worst that could happen to a man like Klaus in 1960. He’d seen his brother get into a few homophobic scrapes even in their own time period. If Klaus could have just a tad more self preservation instincts he’d be fine, but he seemed to almost seek out the homophobes’ ire. He seemed to seek out everyone’s ire and it was so fucking frustrating, because… Well, because it sucked watching his brother get hurt and not being able to do anything about it, that’s why.
They stopped at a hardware store that Dave had gone into. “Klaus, just walk away. I know you want to see him, but you’re really drunk and this is a bad idea.”
“Yeah, sounds great.” Klaus said as he opened the door. Had he even heard a word Ben had said? Ben grimaced. Whatever happened, this was going to be painful.