turn me out and i'll wander, baby

[terriblymisguided]

(cw: grief, alcoholism, addiction, mentions of death, vague references to attempted sexual misconduct)


As the day approaches, Klaus feels himself start to withdraw. The night before, he sits at dinner with his family, poking at a take out salad without eating a single bite, without engaging in any conversation, and then he goes up to his room and crawls into bed, staring at the wall with his hands over his ears until he succumbs to exhaustion.

When he wakes up the morning of (more like the noon of), he stares at the ceiling for a long time. It isn't the first anniversary of Dave's passing that Klaus has had to deal with, but it's the first time since his miserable failure in Dallas. It's only now that he's realizing that on these past few February 21sts, he held onto a foolish sort of hope. He was in the early 60s. Dave was still alive somewhere, and maybe Klaus could save him if he tried.

But no, he messed it up like he messes up most things. He actually drove Dave into enlisting even faster, managing to achieve the exact opposite of what he was going for, and now it's over. He blew his chance, and Dave is dead. He's really dead this time, and on this anniversary, the grief feels brand new. It feels so heavy, like it's dragging him down into some deep, dark abyss, and Klaus rolls out of bed to go for a futile attempt of a different sort.

For the first time since arriving in Darrow, Klaus tries to conjure someone. He tries to conjure Dave, gritting his teeth as his fists light up blue, but nothing happens. He knew it wouldn't, because Dave doesn't even exist here in Darrow, but he had to try. He tries and tries until all he hears is phantom gunfire and tears are streaming down his face, and then he gives up and turns to the snatch the bottle of whiskey off of his desk, flicking the cap off and tipping the bottle back. The liquid burns as he gulps it down, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight and ignores it. He pulls the bottle away with a gasp and wipes at his mouth with his forearm as he looks around the room with a panicked gaze.

He can't be here, not trapped in this room, but he can't face his siblings either because he's been trying so hard to be better, to make them proud, and he already knows that this is the day that he fucks it all up. None of them will be surprised, he's sure. This is what he does.

After getting dressed, he opens his sock drawer and digs until he finds the plastic baggie stuffed into the back of it. He lifts it up and stares at the pills inside, feeling a loathsome sort of pull to them, hating himself as he pulls a few out and tosses them into his mouth, washing them back with more whiskey. He's in pain and he hates himself and the room is full of ghosts from his attempt to find one that isn't even here. He's miserable and panicking but soon it starts to fade.

The whiskey dulls everything, putting a blurry haze over all of those sharp, awful thoughts. Soon the pills will add to that, and Klaus knows that he has to get out of the house. He leaves by way of the fire escape, running away like a coward rather than risk running into any disappointed faces. His boots hit the pavement and he flees, just wanting to get away, and then things go a bit fuzzy.

When awareness comes back to him, he's pushing his way through a bar, which makes sense. He thinks that maybe he'll get a few more drinks and make a few more bad decisions, until he goes back into that empty sort of numbness that keeps him from feeling anything at all. He's teetering right there on the edge of oblivion anyway, and he might as well jump right in. But then the song changes, and Klaus stops in his tracks, feeling a flush run through his body as his heart starts to pound.

Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen
Warm my mind near your gentle stove
Turn me out and I'll wander, baby
Stumblin' in the neon groves

The flashing lights seem to start to swirl around him, and suddenly he's back in that bar in Vietnam, back on that battlefield, kissing Dave, pressing his hands against the hole in Dave's chest and watching them turn crimson. Klaus puts his hands over his ears and closes his eyes, but all he can see is Dave, covered in blood, gasping for breath. He watching the light leave Dave's eyes, watching him die, and he can't stop seeing it. It's been years now, and it's still always right there behind his eyelids.

Someone puts their arm around his waist and tugs him in close and Klaus feels as if he might heave. The man says that he knows where they could go to have a good time, and Klaus knows what he looks like: a strung out junkie, up for anything, too out of it to say no. He's the kind of monster that Klaus would have left with, back before Dad died, before the apocalypse, before Dave. Before Obi-Wan and his siblings foolishly saw him as something better than he is.

The man holds up a tiny baggie of off-white powder and Klaus's eyes widen. It's the kind of drug that he hasn't touched in years, since he was at his messiest. He feels his stomach lurch, stumbling as the man tries to drag him towards the door. Maybe he should just go with it, let himself be whisked away and dragged back down into the gutter, but he sees flashes of all those beautiful faces of people who care about him for some reason, and it gives him the small burst of resolve that he needs.

Well, the clock says it's time to close now
I know I have to go now

Klaus pushes the man away and turns to leave, ignoring all the names that the guy calls after him. He gets outside and is surprised to find that it's nighttime, and he pulls another pill out of his pocket and pops it into his mouth. No, he won't inject himself with anything, not ever again, but these were always his drug of choice anyway.

Somewhere on the way back to the house, he stops to buy another bottle of whiskey. The cashier looks at him like he's pathetic, but money is money, so he makes the sale. He almost makes it home, wondering how the hell he's going to climb up the fire escape like this, when he approaches the small park just up the street from the house.

There's a bench on the edge of the grass, facing the sidewalk, and there's something resting on it, illuminated by the streetlight. Once Klaus gets closer, he realizes that it's a military helmet, jungle green and standard issue. His vision goes double for a long moment as he stares unblinkingly, and then the D. KATZ in black ink along the back comes into focus, and the bottle of whiskey drops from Klaus's hand to land on the sidewalk with a thud, tipping over and rolling along the pavement, arcing until the lid is pointing at the helmet like some fucked up game of spin the bottle.

Klaus lurches toward the bench and picks up the helmet, running his trembling fingers over the ink. He was there when Dave put it there, and Klaus remembers laughing and asking him why, pointing out that they were standard. This one is mine, he had said, and Klaus had rolled his eyes and winked at him because there were too many people around to kiss him like he wanted.

He turns the helmet over and brings it to his face, feeling his legs give out as he takes in the scent of sweat and jungle and Dave, woodsy and a little like sunshine. Klaus had almost forgotten how good he always smelled. His ass meets the bench and he stares down at the helmet, turning it over to rest it on his thighs. For a long time, he's too out of it to do anything at all. The numbness that he's been chasing is right there, and Klaus knows that just one more pill will get him there. He could pull that bag out of his pocket, but instead he clutches at the helmet and bursts into tears.

Not even booze and pills could numb him, not today. He threw everything he'd been working toward away and set himself back, and it didn't even work. He's still sitting here sobbing over a helmet that shouldn't even be here, and a dead man who deserved more than pretty much anyone else to live.

Klaus doesn't know how long he sits there crying, sitting there in the cold in just a thin shirt because he didn't think to bring a jacket. His fingertips seem devoid of color as he wraps his arms around the helmet, curling around it as his shoulders quake.

He tried so hard to save Dave. He would have done anything to save him, would have swapped places in an instant, but he failed and now it seems that he's destined to be reminded of that forever. He thought he could be better, but maybe he was just fooling himself.

Maybe this is just who he is.

Comments

[larger_world]

Klaus has been noticeably absent for a few days. Not long enough that Obi-Wan has felt the need to seek him out or push for him to share what may be going on inside of him, but enough that he has made note of it, enough that it's been on his mind. The Jedi are not easily distracted and so Obi-Wan can acknowledge Klaus's absence and set it aside, allowing him to be on his own, if that's what he needs. There is concern, of course, settled deep inside of him, a desire to reach out and help if he can, but he knows sometimes help doesn't come from other people.

So he lets Klaus have this time. If it persists for another few days, he'll reach out, but until then, he busies himself with his own life.

That changes, however, the night of the twenty-first. He's meditating in the park, having felt a little restless within the confines of the apartment, and the blast of grief that hits him is unexpected both in its intensity and its familiarity and Obi-Wan's eyes fly open as he's wrenched from his meditative state. Before he realizes what he's doing, he's getting up, walking through the park, looking for the source of the powerful emotions he's just felt.

"Klaus."

When Obi-Wan finds him on the bench, he isn't surprised he's here. The state of him, though, wrenches at his chest, and Obi-Wan sweeps off his robe on a smooth movement to drop it over Klaus's shoulders to stop his shivering. He holds some kind of helmet in his arms, a soldier's helmet, he thinks, and he realizes all at once who it must have belonged to.

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus doesn't even realize that he isn't alone anymore until he's suddenly blanketed with warmth. He flinches a little and looks up to see Obi-Wan standing over him, and he feels awash with shame.

"Fuck," he breathes out, reaching up to cover his face with shaking hands, because he never wanted Obi-Wan to see him like this. He knows about Klaus's struggle, and that he's lost himself to it in the past, but seeing it in action is something different.

But as ashamed as he is, he's also a little glad that Obi-Wan is here, because Obi always makes him feel better and he'll also be able to understand this particular hurt. He wars with himself for a long moment, letting his tear-stained hands fall back to the helmet again.

"This is the day that Dave died," he says, flinching at the obvious slur in his voice. "And this was his. It was on him when he died and now it's here and I don't know why."

[larger_world]

When Klaus begins to speak, Obi-Wan simply sits next to him on the bench, looking at the helmet, listening to Klaus's words. There's a slur to his voice and Obi-Wan hears it, but pays it no mind. What Klaus says, it sinks into Obi-Wan's heart, and his eyes close briefly as the wave of grief washes over him again.

He remembers feeling that way. He remembers holding Satine as she died and the pain of that loss. The grief is so similar it could be his own and he understands intimately why Klaus is in his current state.

"This place can be cruel," he says in a soft voice. "I've heard stories of people receiving things from their home. Meaningful items. Things that sometimes cause happiness and, more often, seem to cause pain."

[terriblymisguided]

It does feel exceedingly cruel. It's not as if Klaus would ever forget what day it is. He'll never forget, no matter what he does to himself.

"I tried so hard to save him," he sobs out, looking down at his hands where they're pressed to the helmet, fingers overlapping like they were when he held them to Dave's chest. It's almost like he can still feel the blood bubbling up against them, spilling out no matter what he did.

His fingers shake as they trace Dave's name, and he tips over to rest his head on Obi-Wan's shoulder as he cries, sobbing so hard that he can barely breathe. "I would have taken his place. He was so much better than me, Obi. It doesn't make sense."

[larger_world]

All Obi-Wan can do is slide his arm around Klaus when he leans in, hold his shaking body against his side. There are no words to eliminate grief, nothing he can say that will make this better and although he is a Jedi and has been trained to let go of his strong emotions, Klaus hasn't had that same training. He can't be expected to let go of something like this and Obi-Wan knows better than to try and make him.

The man he loved died as he held him. Even a Jedi can be ruined by something like that.

"I know," he says. While Obi-Wan would never say any one person is better than another and certainly would never say it about Klaus, he also understands what Klaus is saying. He would have done the same, allowed Maul to kill him if it meant Satine could live. Mandalore needed her more than they would ever need another Jedi and had Obi-Wan been given a choice in the matter, he would have taken her place without the slightest hesitation.

"The galaxy often doesn't make sense," he murmurs, turning his head so he can press his lips to Klaus's hair, speaking against him. "And it doesn't care who it takes, no matter how good they are. I'm so sorry, Klaus."

[number1_himbo]

Luther, even at his best, fails to be the most perceptive of the Hargreeves.

While Klaus seems off that night, Luther's not sure if it really means anything in particular. Anyone can have an off night, and even though Luther's working hard on his newly (self) articulated goal of being a better brother, he's also not sure if it's better or worse to call attention to it, so he lets it be.

The next day, he doesn't see Klaus around, really, but their new life in Darrow comes packed with distractions, and Luther's finding it easy to stay busy. Busy enough that the evening rolls around and he realizes he hasn't seen Klaus at all, and that thought buddies up with the memory from last night.

Luther's made a plan to know how to walk to anywhere in Darrow, and it lines up perfectly with the weirdly sharp pang of worry. He's just decided to do a broad sweep when he finds Klaus not very far from home at all, hunched miserably on a bench, and he jogs over, probably shaking the damn bench.

"Klaus," he says, hushed and urgent. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus currently already feels as if the world is spinning around him, so when the bench that he's sitting on suddenly starts to quake, he lifts his head in alarm and then flinches slightly when he sees Luther. He wanted to keep any of his family from seeing him like this, but it seems like he's destined to fail at that, too.

The question makes him let out a bitter sort of laugh, and he wipes at his eyes with his palms before settling them back onto the helmet. "Nothing's after me, if that's what you're asking."

He can't help but to remember Luther's spiral after discovering the truth about the moon. I want to be like you, he'd said, and Klaus had felt such a stab a panic at that, because none of his siblings deserve this.

"You still want to be like me, huh?" He lets out a bitter snort and looks up at Luther, vision blurring due to drunkenness and tears, and he shrugs helplessly. "Look at me, so carefree."

[number1_himbo]

"You don't look like nothing's after you," Luther says, and sure, he gets the basic outline of what's happening, but he's coming back in a hurry to the realization he has never, no matter how much he wanted that knowledge, known what to say to Klaus about this. It's one of the reasons he'd been a shitty Number One, at the end of the day.

Number One never knew how to deal with this, but Luther, Luther wants to figure out what to do here.

"I was wrong about that," he says, probably after thinking about it too long. "All I saw was that it looked like you didn't care, and I was so tired of caring. That's-- that's a talk for another time, because yeah, there are still things I wish I could be more like you about."

His jaw clenches, and he looks down at his hands. He can't stop thinking about the day Klaus asked him to tie him up, to help him get sober through whatever that was.

"Can we go back to the house? Jesus, I've treated you like shit, I know, but can I help you get back there?"

[terriblymisguided]

That makes Klaus look up at Luther in surprise, brows furrowed slightly as he takes in his brother's expression. He wasn't expecting that, and it cuts through the haze of his high enough for him to give Luther a shrewd look. The two of them have never been all that close. They love each other, of course. Klaus would lay down his life for Luther and he's sure that Luther would do the same for him, because they're family, but they've never been friends.

Growing up, they were too different. Luther wanted to please their dad while Klaus wanted to rebel against him. Luther was a leader and Klaus did not wish to be led, not by Dad or Luther or anyone else.

But maybe things are different now. Maybe Reginald Hargreeves won't cast such a shadow over them now, and they can get to know each other all over again. Maybe this is a good, if very messy, start.

"I've kind of been avoiding the house," Klaus tells him, holding on tightly to the helmet as he glances in the direction of the house. Truth is, he's embarrassed and he doesn't want anyone else to see him like this and look at him like he's a disappointment.

[badassbroad]

"Oof. Looks like somebody opened the floodgates, huh?" I said, shrugging out of my floor length, faux rainbow fur coat and draping it around his shoulders as I dropped into a crouch in front of him.

I'd been on my way... somewhere, but whatever it was on my agenda could wait.

"Alright, just let it out." I put my hand over the top of his own, my own eyes welling up. Gosh, this was some pure, unadulterated anguish, right there. I didn't know why, but that didn't matter just yet.

[terriblymisguided]

When Klaus feels a sudden warmth around his shoulders, his breath hitches and he sniffs, looking up to see Harley in front of him. When he realizes that it's her, he isn't embarrassed or ashamed for her to see him like this, not like he'd be with anyone else, because he knows that she understands what it's like to be a mess sometimes, and she would never judge him for it. Just like he would never judge her.

"I fucked up," he slurs out, putting his other hand over hers on top of the helmet. "I couldn't handle it."

Harley would have liked Dave. Everyone liked Dave. He was funny and kind and as warm as the sun, and he didn't deserve to die. "He wouldn't have wanted me to do this."

[badassbroad]

"Who wouldn't?" She asked, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. "I know I don't look like a good listener. I'm probably not a good listener. I used to be a good listener. You know what, why don't you tell me what's going on, and we'll find out."

I stood, sliding onto the bench beside him, leaning in to leave a smudge of lipstick on his temple.

"Sheesh, you're an icicle."

[terriblymisguided]

Harley and Klaus are alike in a lot of ways, including how people might have a hard time taking them seriously at first glance, but Klaus knows better. He knows that Harley is far more than how she presents herself to the world, so he doesn't doubt that she's a good listener, or that she wants to help him. He doesn't doubt that she cares about him, and maybe that's what he needs most right now.

"It's a very complicated story," Klaus sighs out as she sits next to him, letting his eyes fall closed at that soft press of her lips. "Involving time travel and torture and war."

His head hips over onto her shoulder and he looks down at the helmet, eyes welling up again as he splays his palm over the top of it. His voice is low and slurred and rough from crying, and he winces a little at the sound of it. "But the short version is that I loved someone very much, more than I had ever loved anyone, and I watched him die. Three years ago today, give or take all the time travel and coming here."

[fifthbeatle]

Living in the moment is tough. Vanya tries through meditation and gentle self-reflection. Progress is made and unmade, shuffled seemingly randomly. She wants to like herself. First, she has to know herself. There's a lot of lost time to make up for. And there are a great many things she does know. Like her family.

Klaus is not doing well. Vanya's done her best to make herself available to him, but there's a fine line to walk there, too. In her quest for self-discovery and her bountiful training sessions, she's found herself thinking about give and take. What she wants is her siblings' approval, full stop. Most of the time she believes she has it, but there's still a little, angry girl in her with a loud voice that says you're not doing enough. The voice is the very thing that coaxed her off the deep end. It's a part of her. That little girl deserves to be heard, but she doesn't know what's best now. So, when her heart screams to follow Klaus around and beg him to talk to her, she tries to diffuse the energy in more productive ways. She'll squeeze his hand when she walks by. If she sees his coffee cup is empty, she'll fill it. Every once in a while, she'll remind him in a voice full of soft confidence that she loves him. Gentle things. Little things. Not-smothering things. Now that she knows more about what he's been through - that she's confident that he won't abandon her - it's easier to give him space.

Addiction is a bitch and a thing she knows she can't understand. Klaus' problem comes from the same place hers does: having powers they can't control. When Vanya loses control, she kills 7.6 billion people. Who is she to judge a bender to run from screaming ghosts?

It's been too long, though. Klaus has looked hollow and gaunt for days - a ghost. He isn't answering his texts. She hasn't seen him. Maybe he's coming in late and leaving early, but she hasn't heard him. Nothing. She listens to the house. She listens to the trees. She listens to the distant traffic. Still nothing. She has to find him.

The park is close enough that it doesn't take too long. From about a block away Vanya sees a figure hunched on a bench and she knows it's him immediately. There's a concave twist to him that is hard to forget. She thinks he might be hopped up or falling out or maybe even withdrawing. She wants to run to him, but the last thing she wants to do is startle him.

"Klaus?" She says softly once she's close enough. She's announcing herself, hoping not to startle him. He is wrapped tightly around something green and curved. The first thing that springs to mind is a turtle shell, but when she kneels in front of him and touches her hand to his knee, she can see the word KATZ on it.

"God, you're freezing." Before she's even done speaking, she's unzipping her big, warm coat and settling next to him to help him into it. "Here, come on."

[terriblymisguided]

At the touch to his knee, Klaus startles a little, lifting his head sluggishly to see see Vanya crouching in front of him. His instinct is to be embarrassed, but he doesn't think that he needs to be, not with her. He stares at her as she puts her coat around him, choking on his sobs as she arranges his arms into the coat like he's a child.

"I didn't want to be like this again," he gets out, breath hitching as his hands return to the helmet, clutching at it desperately. "But-- but he died today. And I could have saved him but I fucked it up."

He fucks everything up. He had the chance in Dallas to change Dave's life, to save him from war and death, to keep him and his beautiful soul alive, but he couldn't. Tears roll down his cheeks as he grips the helmet, hugging it to his chest and letting out another sob. "This was his. I found it here."

[fifthbeatle]

"Hey, don't say that," Vanya says gently. God, he's so strung out. It kills her to see his pupils like saucers, all slurred speech and heavy limbs. There's no judgement in her as she zips up the puffy coat. It's quite long on her, which means it fits Klaus just about like a normal coat would, if not a little on the snug side. She adjusts the lapels and uses it to turn her brother toward her a little. "You did everything you could. You went back in time and travelled across the country." She wipes gently at his cheeks with her fingertips. She tucks a bit of hair behind his ears.

As for the helmet, she has no idea how it could have gotten here. She stares at it dumbly. Does that mean Dave is here somewhere looking for his helmet? Vanya has a thousand questions, but none of the answers matter when her brother is under duress. She's terrified that she might cry, as well, and that can't be what Klaus needs. All she can do is keep her arms around him.

What she wants is to bring him home. They have a place where they can feel safe and her heart is begging her to go there. It's hard to be vulnerable in public, and for her it's not safe, but this isn't about her.

"Do you want to go home?" she asks after a few seconds of just holding him and listening to him talk and cry. Whatever the answer, she'll make it happen. If he asks her to see outer space, she'll float them there. It doesn't matter.

[terriblymisguided]

Tears continue to spill from his eyes as Vanya sips him into her coat and wipes at his cheeks, because he's embarrassed and unused to this level of care. But Vanya loves him, doesn't judge him, and Klaus is so grateful for her presence that all he can do is stare at her for a long moment.

"I don't want them to see me like this," he says after a long moment, expression crumbling as he looks in the direction of the house. "I know what they think of me, and I've been trying so hard."

His unfocused gaze drifts back to Vanya and he blinks away a fresh set of tears. "I ruined it, Vanny. It's what I do."

[number_five]

Five knows now that his current situation is likely only temporary. He's been dreading knowing that at any moment, he could revert back to his thirteen year old self, stuck again in the throes of puberty and a constant reminder to himself of the one mistake he'd made traveling to 2019.

As such, he's been spending more time away from the house than usual, taking advantage of the fact that he can buy himself a glass of bourbon in a bar if he wants, that he doesn't get strange looks from people on the street. He feels like himself, and more at peace that he's felt in months.

It's late when Five finally crawls off of a barstool, not drunk, but well lubricated and pleased following polite conversation with a woman he's seen a few times this week, and he's nearly home when he spots Klaus.

Admittedly, Five's been distracted this week. He hasn't noticed Klaus withdrawing, hasn't though much of his frequent absences. At least not until he sees his brother's gaunt face, and the helmet illuminated under the glow of the streetlamp.

"Klaus?" Five asks, approaching, not quite sure what to say.

[terriblymisguided]

At the sound of his name, Klaus sucks in a breath and sluggishly lifts his head, squinting in confusion at the old man standing in front of him. Then he remembers that this is his brother in his proper body, instead of that of a child, and he has to get used to that. Or maybe not. Maybe he'll turn back. This place loves to play mind games, and the evidence of that is sitting in Klaus's lap.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Klaus slurs out, reaching up one one hand to wipe his eyes as his other arm stays around the helmet. He thinks of that conversation with Five after he got back from Vietnam, and how close he was to falling apart entirely. This feels like a delayed reaction, years in the making, and he wonders if Five thinks he's weak. Useless. An idiot. Any of the other adjectives that Five has had for him in the past.

Klaus knows that he's weak. That's always been his problem.

"This is the date I came back from Vietnam," he says quietly, sniffling a bit as he looks down at the helmet again. "On that end, anyway."

[number_five]

Maybe it'll take some getting used to, maybe it won't. Neil seems to think that these things are often temporary, but Five is hoping that he's wrong.

He frowns at Klaus's words, glancing down at the helmet. Five remembers the day that Klaus showed up without the briefcase, with a new tattoo, and dog tags Five didn't remember him having before. He'd had his own guesses for where Klaus had been, but they hadn't gotten into specifics.

"And that helmet just turned up, I take it?" Five asks, remembering a day not too long ago in Petros park, Dolores turning up on a bench out of nowhere.

After a moment of contemplation, Five peels off his suit jacket and offers it to Klaus. It's a cold night.

[terriblymisguided]

"Yeah," Klaus breathes out, letting out a brittle sort of laugh as he looks down at the helmet. "Not quite as happy a reunion as you and Dolores."

There's suddenly a shadow over his face, and Klaus looks up to see Five holding out his jacket. Klaus stares blankly for a moment, surprised by the gesture, but he reaches out to take it. He's moving sluggishly so it takes a fumbling moment, but he manages to get his arms through the sleeves before reaching up to wipe his face with his hands.

"I went on the bender before I even saw this," Klaus admits, though he's sure Five knew that already. He takes a breath and goes to speak, pauses, and then looks up at Five again. "I tried to save him, you know. Back in Dallas."

He knows that Five was deeply unimpressed with him in Dallas, but Five always seems unimpressed with him. Klaus knows that he should have tried harder to hold his shit together and help his family. There are a lot of things he should have done. "It didn't work. He still enlisted. He's still going to die. Or-- or did die. Who fucking knows what timeline we're even in anymore."

[horrorofahero]

It's not really like Ben stalks Klaus. The thing is, after seeing him in the kitchen the other night, he's been kind of concerned about him, which means that he's been spending a little more time hovering around Klaus' comings and goings. Tonight, when he's not back, he heads out with phone in hand, clicking through social media and sending texts as he roams through the city, but it's near home that he finds him.

Ben doesn't say anything, really, he just sits down beside Klaus, shoulder to shoulder, as he drags his knees up into his chest. There are really only a few things that make Klaus like this, and he's pretty sure he knows which one had done it, given what Klaus is holding. He gets it, too. For all that he'd disapproved of Klaus reaching out to him, it wasn't because he didn't like the guy. Dave had been so good for Klaus, a really and genuinely kind person.

The thing is, he also kind of fucks Klaus up the way no one else can.

Ben shifts a hand to press against Klaus' back, still silent as he sits there, wanting to let Klaus have the first word and set the tone.

[terriblymisguided]

When Klaus registers that it's Ben sitting next to him, he tenses for a moment, afraid that Ben will have something snarky to say. He didn't want Ben to see him like this, not after he's been trying so hard to be better, to make Ben and the rest of them proud. He doesn't want to be a failure in his brother's eyes anymore.

But then again, Ben doesn't make a habit of kicking him while he's down, and he's seen Klaus a lot worse off than this. Ben knows more about Dave than anyone else. He's the only one who knows exactly what happened in Dallas, and how he failed to save the love of his life. Ben didn't even want him talking to Dave, had said it was a bad idea from the start, and maybe he was right. But Klaus had to try.

Ben has sat with Klaus through many of his rock bottoms, but this one is different. This time, he can reach out and put his hand on Klaus's back, solid and real, and Klaus tips over to rest his head on Ben's shoulder, letting out another sob as he reaches up to cover his face.

"I'm sorry," he gets out, because he wanted to be better than this but he keeps ending up here over and over again, no matter what he does.

[horrorofahero]

"Why, because it's so cold out here?" Ben quips, a little awkward and a little aware that he shouldn't be making Klaus feel bad about the fact that he's mourning something that he's lost more than once. Really, if you count what happened in Dallas and coming here, that's three times over. Ben might have been dead, but he's never really loved anyone, not the way that Klaus had loved Dave.

He shifts a little and grabs Klaus to bury him in against his shoulder, glad he gets to be the warm and supportive actual shoulder and not just the judging shadow who watched Klaus get drunk. This is a way better option and he feels so much less useless.

"Where'd you find this stuff?" he asks him, keeping his voice low, as if it's a secret.

[terriblymisguided]

"Yeah, that's why," Klaus says with a dry huff of laughter. Ben pulls him in closer, ticking Klaus's head against his shoulder, and that's enough to make a fresh set of tears spill from his eyes. Ben is here, and sometimes Klaus still can't believe it. He's so grateful for it every single day.

"It was just sitting here. This place does that sometimes." He keeps his head on Ben's shoulder and pulls the helmet over to where their thighs are pressed together. Dolores showing up is proof of that, and Klaus is glad to have that knowledge. He doesn't have to wonder if Dave is around here somewhere. Instead, this is just a very cruel-- he doesn't know what. A prank?

"You knew I wouldn't be able to handle it, didn't you?" Klaus drawls out, thinking back to their conversation in the car in Dallas, after he saw Dave that first time. "I didn't lie to you when I said I could. Just to myself."