Work Text:
Klaus isn’t sure what he expected when he left that strange black and white barbershop, but waking up to the feeling of being shoved backwards wasn’t it.
He skids across the tiles, spluttering in shock and barely recognising Luther’s hulking form storming off down the hall.
“Shit!” Klaus gasps, patting at the stubble along his jaw, ignoring the complaints of his tailbone. Stubble, no shave. He mustn’t quite have cleared the drugs from his system after all, if he’d hallucinated a shave from dear old Dad.
Yet he can’t shake the déjà vu when he spots Luther across the dancefloor.
***
It's harder to ignore, the second, third, sixth time he goes skidding across the tiles. He gives up patting his face, instead rubbing the ache from his lower back.
Satan on a stick, he thinks. He’s getting too old for this.
By this point, he can mouth along to Ben’s speech, nearly word for word.
Surely, he is sober by now. It’s been days!
He knows exactly where to look when they enter the club. Which flashing light illuminates his brother having the time of his life, high on the dancefloor.
Yet he still makes the same choices.
Crack.
***
The seventh time he finds himself sliding backwards in the mansion, he doesn’t say a thing.
He stands up slowly, dusts himself off, and collects his coil of rope. Ignores Ben’s protests as he turns away from the front door and climbs the stairs. Steals the pair of police handcuffs from under Diego’s bed, and takes himself to the attic.
This is the fucking worst trip he’s ever had, and that’s saying something. It’s time to get clean.
He lashes his feet to the chair, and with careful wriggling, handcuffs himself to it.
Darkness falls. His head stays whole.
***
“Fucking asshole!”
His ass must be permanently black and blue from the amount of times Luther has thrown him to the floor. He lost count after fifteen.
“And YOU!” he continues, turning towards a wide-eyed Ben, “Can shut it! He might do anything for me but I’ve died for him!”
It hasn’t felt real, until this moment, taking out his frustration on Ben. But that’s what has been happening.
He dies. Over, and over again.
It doesn’t matter what he does. He dies on that dancefloor, or he goes from waking to sliding.
At least he hasn’t seen Dad again.
***
“But you need to keep trying!” Ben shouts, frustrated. “Help Luther!”
He has gotten sick of this day, resorting back to the script he knows so well, since changing things hasn’t worked.
Help Luther.
Isn’t that what he has done?
Tried to get him off the dancefloor, to shield him from his furry girlfriend’s jealous boyfriend.
Had his skull split open on the concrete for his troubles.
Who is helping him, when he starts each day still dope-sick, no matter that it feels like weeks and weeks since he last touched anything resembling a drug?
An hour later.
Crack.
***
This time, he is scrambling up off the floor before he has even finished sliding, running to block Luther in the hall way again.
“No!” he cries out, stretching out his arms as if that would stop anybody. Even little Vanya could knock his sweaty ass down right now. “I won’t let you keep making this mistake!”
“What mistake? Move Klaus.”
“No.”
“I swear to God, don’t make me move you Klaus,” Luther growls, rolling his shoulders.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
Luther steps forward. “You can’t stop me.” He grasps the front of Klaus’ vest, and flings him aside.
Crack.
***
“Fine, fine, I’ll come with you!” He shrieks, chasing after Luther. “I can’t let you go out and discover the world alone.”
Luther stops, looks at him sideways. “You’ll come with me?”
“Yeah, yeah. You know me, the life –ha!– and soul of the party.”
He takes him to a different club. One without neon furries, and nasty concrete floors crying out for his blood.
They drink, because why the hell not, and stumble home in the early hours to the sound of sirens.
Then there’s a loud car. A shot. A bloodied circle on Luther’s chest.
And he’s sliding.
***
Help Luther.
He can’t tell Ben he’s right, he’ll never hear the end of it. Besides, Ben hasn’t said it yet, not from his perspective.
But he is right.
The last loop — for it is a timeloop, Klaus has decided — had been different to all the rest. They had gone somewhere new. Done something different. Plenty of drink, but no drugs.
Yet Luther had died.
And…well…Klaus has never seen how these loops end for Luther. He’s either avoided him entirely, or died himself.
Not anymore. No. He needs to save Luther, to break the loop.
He fails. Over, and over.
***
After his first death, he doesn’t go back to the black and white place. At least, not that he can remember. Which is fine, because he doesn’t have much he’d like to say to little girl God, and the little he does wouldn’t be getting him on the nice list.
He’s not bothered about Dad. He’s not. Although he does burn with curiosity to know what he was trying to say.
If it was actually real that is.
He has died so many times now, he’s not sure if he just dreamed it all up.
Dad wouldn’t commit suicide…would he?
***
It’s pure desperation that does it.
He blocks the doorway again, and he sobs. He grasps Luther’s ridiculous coat, crying into his brother’s chest about how he just can’t lose another brother to stupid mistakes.
And Luther, the big, soft-hearted ape-man that he is, instantly forgets his anger and folds him into a hug.
They raid the liquor cabinet and shit-talk Dad until they fall asleep.
Crack!
Klaus startles awake. But it’s just the bottle that fell from his grasp, he realises, turning in wonderment to see Luther behind him, snoring on the couch.
They’re alive.
It’s a new day.