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'So let me get this straight…' Ben says, his words slurring together slightly. 'I was a ghost?'
'Sortaa' Klaus replies, head buzzing from the alcohol. He's drunk but not as drunk as Ben, not by halves. 'He..you..my Ben was a ghost yeah.'
It's late and everyone else has long since gone to bed except for Klaus and Ben. They're lying underneath one of the pool tables in the Hotel Obsidian in near pitch darkness.
Ben has decided Klaus' arm is a very good pillow and he's lying on it with his whole body nestled into Klaus' side. Turns out drunk Sparrow Ben is a cuddler, who would have guessed it?
Klaus' arm has completely gone to sleep under Ben's weight but honestly he doesn't really care. Having Ben heavy and warm and alive beside him is worth the discomfort.
The whole thing is a headfuck really. Its definitely Ben but at the same time it isn't his brother and that is messing with his head more than a little bit. But he finds to his surprise, that he doesn't really care. He'll take whatever version of Ben he can get.
'Tell me about him.' Ben says from the darkness beside him.
'Whaaat?' Klaus asks, the alcohol making his brain slow down. 'Why?'
He feels Ben shift his weight ever so slightly next to him and then settle back with a sigh. Klaus can smell the booze on his breath.
'I wanna know what I'm competing with.' he replies. 'Your stupid, perfect Ben.'
Klaus lets out a snort of laughter at this.
'He wasn't perfect.' he says, 'He was stubborn and a smart arse our Benny boy. Not to mention grumpy in the mornings, my god .'
'But you all loved him,' Ben persists. 'Especially you.'
'He was my best friend.' Klaus says. 'And he was kind and funny and god he really was the best of us. We fell apart without him.'
Ben is quiet next to him for a couple of moments, and Klaus momentarily wonders whether he's fallen asleep.
'What happened to him?' Ben asks hesitantly. 'How'd he y know…die?'
Klaus is really glad it's dark and Ben can't see the tears pooling in his eyes in spite of himself. They don't talk about the incident where they lost their Ben. Klaus can't even remember the details of how it happened, he'd been so out of it, it's all just a blur of shouts and screams and so much blood.
'We couldn't…' Klaus chokes on his words. 'Couldn't save him. We couldn't reach him, he was too far away.'
His voice is shaking and he's certain Ben must be able to hear it.
'I missed him,' he continues. 'So I brought that idiot back but I lost him again.'
Ben is silent again after this, snuggling into Klaus' side. He sighs in contentment, and Klaus can't help but smile to himself. Underneath that spiky exterior, it turns out the new Ben is even more of a softie than the old one.
'Family.' Ben finally mutters so quietly that it would have been inaudible had his mouth not been inches from Klaus' ear.
'Mm?' Klaus says. 'What about it?'
'S'all I wanted.' Ben replies. 'Love. Like you guys have.'
'I love you, y know.' Klaus says, suddenly needing Ben to know that, to understand it. 'You will always be my best friend, and I love you in every fucking timeline ok. No matter how much of a dickhead you are in this one.'
'I'm not him though.' Ben insists, 'M'not your Ben…'
He rolls away, and the weight is gone from Klaus' arm. He misses it immediately but he's glad to get some feeling back into it. He flexes his fingers and tries to make out Ben's face in the darkness.
He can see a vague outline of Ben, propped up on an elbow but he can't make any features through the gloom. He continues talking anyway.
'I know that.' Klaus says. 'But you're still our brother, you idiot. You, Sloane, Lila, you're family regardless of which psychopath raised us.'
He hears Ben sniff audibly and he has the overwhelming urge to reach across the space between them and take his hand.
'Shame the world's ending tomorrow.' Ben says. 'It would have been nice to have a proper family, even one as stupid as yours.'
And Klaus knows in that moment that he would tear the Void apart to save this Ben. He couldn't save his Benny but he will fight like hell to not lose this one too. He will fight God, the Devil and that weird little girl on the bike to kep hold of his brother.
'Y know.' Klaus says. 'We've survied two apocalypses already, me and my family. Plus dad has a plan this time. Reset the universe. We might still survive.'
Ben flops back down onto his back and throws a hand across his face dramatically.
'Oh god, I forgot about the resetting the universe plan.' he says, the first notes of panic in his voice. 'What if it resets everything, all this. Like it never happened. Like we never met.'
Klaus doesn't know the specifics of Reggie's universe reset plan. So he doesn't feel like he can reassure Ben that it won't happen. He doesn't want to lie to him. So he tells him the truth instead.
'I don't know what's going to happen.' he says. 'Knowing Daddio, it'll send us to different planets or something. But I promise that whatever weird new reality we end up in, I'll find you. We're connected Bentacles, and we will always find each other again.'
And Klaus sincerely believes that. He doesn't know how but he knows he's connected to Ben in every universe. He presumes it's because in his original timeline he conjured Ben's ghost and the ghost stayed with him for a good eighteen years.
When Ben finally walked into the light in Dallas, Klaus knew as soon as he woke up that he wasn't there anymore. He couldn't feel the connection. Ben was gone and it had hurt like hell but he'd pushed it down because the siblings had more important things to do.
Then they landed in the Sparrow Academy and Klaus thought the time travel had messed with his mojo because he could feel that pull again. Not the same as it had been but it was there all the same. And it shouldn't have been there because Ben was gone . Like properly gone this time.
Then the other Ben walked out and Klaus understood where the feeling was coming from even if he didn't know how it was possible because it shouldn't have been possible.
And now he's lying under a pool table in Hotel Obsidian with this new version of Ben and honestly Klaus wonders sometimes if the universe is playing a massive joke on him. It probably is.
'I hope you find me.' Ben says sleepily and Klaus isn't all together convinced he knows what he's saying. 'I think I kinda like you actually.'
And Klaus smiles to himself, he'll take that.