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At the end of everything, Klaus closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and waits for tomorrow to start.
He hasn’t gotten out of bed all day, all week really, and he has no intention of getting out of bed tomorrow either. There’s no need to - he can’t die of starvation or dehydration or rotten old age. He can’t die at all. He doesn’t even age. Which is something that he wants to rub in Five’s face because one his siblings started getting creaky bones and he didn’t, the competition started.
To see who could make themselves last longer, of course. Five is pretty convinced he can come up with the answer to infinity. Klaus knows that Five has always been marked for death. Besides, infinity isn’t actually that much fun, even if it makes his powers grow strong enough to yank a ghost back from that white light.
“Tomorrow is Tuesday,” Ben says from one side of his bed, not looking up from the book he has cradled in his lap. “You gonna get up?”
Klaus cracks one eye open to squint at his brother. “I do like Tuesdays,” he concedes, but before he can crush Ben’s hopes himself, there’s a derisive snort from the other side of the bed. Klaus closes his eyes and sighs.
“He didn’t get up last Tuesday,” Diego says incredulously. He’s mashing the buttons on his grey Nintendo DS, brows furrowed in concentration. “Seriously, Ben, you gotta stop giving him the benefit of the doubt - he’s gonna disappoint you every time.”
Klaus doesn’t even bother to temper the brewing argument. He’s heard it enough times to recite both sides of it verbatim. It would make a fabulous theatre production.
Ben flips a page, cool as a cucumber. “You forget that I had to babysit his lazy ass for years before you decided to suddenly allow his presence in your life. I don’t have the capacity to be disappointed by him anymore.”
“Sorry that I wasn’t going to waste my time with a junkie-”
“He was still your brother-”
“Phones work both ways!”
“Ladies,” Klaus interrupts tiredly, waving one hand and keeping his eyes closed to ward off the impending headache. “It’s late and Mommy’s tired-”
“Gross,” Ben and Diego deadpan together, forever united only when they’re going against Klaus.
It’s all mostly a recital, and they all know it. None of them have to even look at each other to have this pseudo-conversation. Example: Diego is so intently focused on playing Mario Kart, he doesn’t notice when Ben flips him a very creative and really quite vulgar gesture. Ben is so engrossed in ‘Sense and Sensibility’, he doesn’t notice when Diego risks a glance up and pulls a face.
Klaus feels very much like an overworked parent.
“If I call Fivie, do you think he’ll answer?” He asks the room at large, blindly feeling around for his phone. “I haven’t seen any version of him for a while and I’m feeling neglected.” There was a time when the freshness of their challenge had kept Five visiting almost every week.
Eventually, though, as most good things always do, their bond had withered, and was now barely hanging onto life. Surely, Five had stumbled into another world-ending crisis that was five million years in the past, and Klaus had been forgotten about entirely.
“He said he’d take you with him,” Diego snarks, only to hiss at the DS as he inevitably lost whatever race he’s attempting. God, a decade playing the same game and he still can’t race his way out of a paper bag. “Not his fault you chose to stay in this shitty little cottage and rot.”
Klaus peels open his eyes and turns his head to glare at his brother. “Excuse you, this body is still a work of art.” He huffs as a faux-mean smirk teases Diego’s mouth. “Don’t be mad just because you don’t have one anymore.”
Diego raises one eyebrow and looks down very slowly at his still-well-defined chest and arm muscles. “I’m doing pretty good, thanks,” he says. “Worry about the stick insect over there, who looks like a light breeze could snap him in half.”
Raising a one-fingered salute, Ben says drily, “I’ve been dead longer than you, asshole.”
“Don’t be mean to your brother just because you were a scrawny little thing when you died,” Klaus scolds.
Ben doesn’t even deign to respond, which is actually mildly insulting, but Klaus will let it slide just this once because he’s just found his phone and fully intends to call Five for some company. These two can get on his nerves something chronic.
“He’s not going to answer,” Ben sing-songs, and turns a page.
Klaus very skillfully ignores him and just listens to the line ring.
Even though he expected it, the click of the call ending still kind of hurts him, somewhere near his shrivelled little heart. Five hasn’t answered one of his calls for years - Klaus always said he never had the time, which is a hilarious joke, Ben, shut the fuck up - but Klaus still lets himself get disappointed for some reason.
Very casually, Diego says, “You never would’ve let Luther get away with shit like this. Or Allison. I don’t know about Viktor, but I imagine you would’ve been a right pain in the ass until he talked to you.”
Klaus rolls his head lazily, hiding his barbed retort behind his teeth as he drawls, “Are you accusing me of having favourites, my darling jungle explorer?”
Ben snickers meanly, only to break off into a yelp as Diego throws a pen at his face. Sometimes, when they’d get to this part of their routine, they’d try to wrestle each other – fingers going for the eyes and knees landing heavily on the ribs – and they’d shout and garble out insults and it would go on for quite some time. Klaus would get tired of it eventually and flick his fingers, and they’d fall through each other as he took away their physical presence. They’d scream, because apparently not being corporeal meant that they could feel when things went through them, and then they’d laugh, and Klaus would grant them their bodies again,
They did it to cheer him up, he knew that. It was the only way they knew how to comfort him when the weight of time settled a little too heavily on his shoulders.
Something about the unending horrors being….well, unending. You know?
He sighs to himself as the bickering and grappling increases in volume and intensity, and not for the first time, he wonders why he doesn’t just send them both to that happy place the rest of his siblings chose to go. Well, the rest of his siblings minus Five.
But he had to respect their decision to stick around; they’d taken bets on Klaus’s challenge with Five as to who could stay alive the longest. Ben had bet on Klaus outlasting the little shit given that he was apparently immortal. Diego, because he’s a hater, had bet that Klaus succumbed to boredom before Five even started to slow down.
Klaus will never, ever admit out loud that Diego is ever right about anything - because he’s usually always wrong and also because he’ll gloat about it forever - but he thinks that Diego might just have the winning bet, this time.
It’s just that…
Look, Klaus doesn’t give a shit that Five has apparently forgotten about him. He’s a very forgettable person, and Five has a hard time giving a flying fuck about anyone who isn’t that mannequin from his time in the apocalypse and maybe Viktor, once upon a time. It’s just who they are as people.
The part of it that bugs him is that he’s bored. He’s tired. He hasn’t spoken to God since that time last century when he’d somehow bled out three times in the same day. She’d yanked him into that shitty little monochrome field, told him to pick a fucking side, and then sent him hurtling back to his body at supersonic speeds.
Ben and Diego still won’t let him live that one down.
Heh.
Live.
“You’re such a DICK!” Ben shouts as Diego gives up on the physical wrestling and instead starts to tear pages out of Ben’s book. “Klaus, make him stop!”
Klaus rolls his eyes and waves a hand dismissively, snorting to himself when he hears the book hit the floor.
“Klaus!” Diego complains. “That’s not fair! Ben’s just whining because I was winning!”
Ben sticks his tongue out. “Told you I was his favourite.”
“Yeah right. At least he chose me. You just stuck around and he didn’t know how to make you go away.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Klaus interrupts tiredly, snuggling back down under the covers and discarding his phone somewhere off to the side. “Really, you’re both very pretty, but if I have to hear one more word out of you right now, you’re both getting sent to the other side to visit Luther. Tell him hi for me, ‘kay?”
Diego crosses his arms. “I don’t wanna see monkey-boy,” he grumbles. “He’s insufferable.”
Ben settles back down in his chair. “What, and you aren’t?”
“Shut up, Ben.”
“Yeah,” Klaus mutters, “shut up, Ben.”
“Die in a fire, Klaus.”
Klaus doesn’t say anything back, not because he’s upset but because he’s tired.
For some reason, Diego and Ben go completely quiet after that and just let him sleep.
~
Klaus wakes up and there is a missed call on his phone.
Five does not leave a voicemail.
“Holy shit,” Diego snarks as Klaus clambers out of bed and scrambles to get dressed in front of the dusty mirror he’s had for like fifty-something years. “I didn’t know your fuckin’ legs still worked. You’ve been moping in bed for so long I would’ve thought your bones, like, disintegrated or something.”
Ben scoffs from where he’s scouring Klaus’s closet, picking out different garments and tossing them to the side as he tries to piece together some kind of outfit. “You’re a fucking moron, Diego.”
“Takes one to know one,” Diego says sweetly, and blows a kiss.
Klaus takes the jacket that Ben offers him before sitting on the edge of the bed to tie up the laces on his heavy combat boots. They remind him, just for a moment, of the boots he wore when he met Dave.
He considers his room once he’s done, pursing his lips as he eyes his phone and the empty coffee cup beside it. “If Fivie really is coming to see me, should I have coffee ready or something? Do twelve-year olds drink coffee? I think I have whiskey somewhere, actually.”
Ben pouts. “You never give me this much consideration, and I’m stuck with your ass for eternity. Why does Five get coffee when he ignored you for like a decade?”
Klaus squints at his reflection again, reaches up to tousle his curls so they sit a little more sexily. “Because you are ridiculously high maintenance, and Five is not.”
“Do you practice your hypocrisy in front of a mirror, or does it just come to you naturally?”
“It’s not the only thing that comes naturally.” Klaus wiggles his eyebrows, only to dissolve into manic laughter as Ben’s face twists in disgust and he splutters. He always blushes so easily, has never adjusted to Klaus’s off-handed comments despite spending years by his side. “Stop being such a prude, Ben. You’ve seen me do so much worse.”
Ben is still embarrassed, but he says, “Trauma response, Klaus. I’ve blocked it all from my memory.”
“A skill not all of us have the luxury of possessing,” says Diego, who hasn’t witnessed half as much as Ben has, but also once tied Klaus to a chair while he was getting a hard-on, so like, they’ve already got twin traumas. But then Diego says, “He’s not coming, Klaus.”
Klaus scowls. “Aren’t you a little ray of sunshine? Zip it, Casper.”
Diego gives him a pitying look. “Giving you a call back isn’t the same as dropping in for a visit. He hasn’t visited in years, Klaus, why would he change that now?”
Klaus doesn’t have an answer, so he does the mature thing and flips his brother off. DIego laughs, but meanly, because he’s a piece of shit.
“We’re the only Hargreeves left,” Klaus says, because it’s true. “Five’s cold, but he’s not a fucking robot.”
“Five can visit the past,” Diego argues. “He can go back to the Academy, you realise that, right? What the fuck does he need you for?”
“Diego,” Ben murmurs.
He’s right, Klaus thinks but doesn’t say, because he refuses to ever admit it out loud. By the look on Diego’s face, he knows it anyway. But instead of bragging or continuing on with his bullying, he just picks up his DS and power on Mario Kart again. Ben gives Klaus one last look before grabbing a book off the shelf and settling down again.
Klaus sits on the end of the bed and waits for Five to show up.
He doesn’t.
~
The world keeps turning for a very long time.
Klaus waits, and waits, and waits.
Five does not come.
~
The sun is exploding tomorrow, Ben has informed him casually. Apparently it's something ghosts can sense; the imminent doom and destruction of the planet Earth and everything on it. Klaus will be disintegrated into tiny little dust particles - a death that even he can’t recover from - and then he can rejoin his family in God’s little garden of Eden or whatever. Presuming God lets him in. He doesn’t actually know where she stands with him these days.
There's a knock on Klaus’s door.
“No fucking way,” Diego groans as Klaus stands up to open it.
Five grins at him from the other side of the threshold. “Hi Klaus.”
From behind him, Ben crows in delight as Diego hands over a fifty dollar bill, cursing up a storm the whole time.
“Hi Fivie,” Klaus says, and claps excitedly. “You here to watch the end of the world with me? My ghostly little parasites tell me it's happening in less than twenty-four hours?”
Five laughs, free and manic and tired. “I’m here to drink,” he says, and pushes past Klaus into the room. “You got any whiskey?”
Klaus beams and gestures to the mini fridge that lives in the corner that he hasn’t touched since Five was last here. So…. a long, long, long fucking time. “Have at it, baby boy.”
“Ew,” Five, Ben, and Diego all say at the same time.
“So who wins the challenge?” Klaus wonders as he settles down at the table next to his baby brother, who is no longer very baby and is instead an aged man. “Cause I mean, we’re both getting eviscerated soon.”
Five shrugs and takes a sip of whiskey, humming in appreciation. “Let's call it a draw,” he suggests cheerfully. “We can try again in the next life.”
Klaus shrugs and salutes with his glass. “To doing this shit all over again,” he toasts, and smiles like a moron when Ben and Diego echo the sentiment back to him.
~
Twenty two hours and seventeen minutes later, the sun erupts in a massive fireball that shreds the ozone layer like it's made of paper. The Earth scorches itself so intently that there’s nothing left but a little blob of charcoal and ash floating about in the ravaging solar system.
Somewhere in God’s little garden of souls, four spirits appear together, holding hands. They have belonged to her for a long, long time, but she was generous enough to let them explore their curiosity about the inevitable heat death of the universe.
They’re home now, though, and she smiles to herself as she lets them reunite with the three other kindred spirits that have been waiting for them for a very long time, indeed.
She’s very fond of them, you know. Maybe one day, when she builds another planet, she might just let them go back and do it all over again.