death is but the next great adventure

[terriblymisguided]

Klaus has a funny relationship with death. Mostly, he's a little surprised that after a childhood spent being a rather worthless superhero, followed by over a decade of addiction and one stupid decision after another, death hasn't come for him yet. It's sort of a miracle that he's even stayed alive this long, given the circumstances .

There have been close calls, of course. Perhaps none closer than that night with Luther where he struck his head against a cement floor and went to wherever that was where he spoke with that bitchy child and his bitchier father.

It had even gotten to the point where Klaus thought that maybe he'd end up cheating death entirely, but it seems that he was wrong about that. Death will come for him. He thinks maybe it's coming for him now.

Death is at the front of his mind, but that isn't surprising. What else is there to think about when you're bleeding out on the sidewalk?



It all happens very fast.

Klaus is walking along the street, sipping iced coffee and gesticulating wildly as he recounts an embellished story about a drag king he'd befriended in Amsterdam, when suddenly there's a wild cacophony of sound. A peaceful afternoon is disrupted when a car runs a red light and crashes into the side of another car, sending it spinning wildly into the front of a bakery just a few yards from where they're standing.

Glass and metal explode outward and litter the ground, which startles Klaus enough that he drops his iced coffee. The plastic breaks as it hits the pavement and the coffee spills, sending the liquid outward to follow the patterns of cracks and grooves in the sidewalk.

"That was a close one, huh?" Klaus says to the person next to him, but his voice sounds strange. His throat tickles and when he tries to clear it, the taste of copper fills his mouth and he coughs a little in surprise, blinking as blood trickles out from the corner of his mouth.

He hears a scream and coughs again, starting to shake as he tips his head down to look at his chest. There's so much blood there suddenly, pumping out of a hole in his chest and staining the thin pink tee that he's wearing. It spreads outwards like the coffee on the ground, growing and taking over whatever dry space it can reach.

Klaus reaches up to touch his trembling fingers to the edge of the jagged wound, coughing again as he slowly turns to look behind him. There's a piece of metal on the ground, rebar shrapnel, and it too is covered in crimson red. “Fuck.”

It's only once he realizes what's happened that it starts to hurt, and he feels like a child that's fallen down but doesn't start to cry until he spots the blood on his knee. It hurts so bad that Klaus can't breathe, or maybe that's because his lungs are filling up with blood.

He gives the person next to him a panicked look and then stumbles backwards, collapsing back onto the pavement and staring up at the sky. There's blood in his throat, pooling in his mouth until he chokes, and a part of him wants to laugh.

All those dangerous missions, all those years ruining himself with drugs. Multiple apocalypses. Frontline combat in Vietnam. All of that and this is how he's going to go-- random happenstance. A horrible accident. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so fucking depressing.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out to the person kneeling at his side, because he loves them and he doesn't want them to have to deal with this. He doesn't want to leave them, but everything is getting dark and cold and he's being called away to somewhere else.

Death is pulling him away, sick of being cheated out of the chance to reap Klaus Hargreeves, and this time, he can't seem to fight it.

This time, he has to go, even though it's the most that he's ever wanted to stay.

Comments

[number_five]

It's been a surreal few days and Five is still trying to catch his breath. He'd forgotten how difficult it was, readjusting to society after the Handler had recruited him, and though his time in an empty Darrow had been a drop in the bucket compared to the time he'd spent alone in the apocalypse, the change has been just as jarring. Falling back into survival mode had been easier.

For example, he's still pretending not to flinch every time a car speeds past him as he walks on the sidewalk. It's a work in progress. Because he nearly jumps out of his skin at the collision nearby, when the impact from one car sends a second careening.

And he's so worried about his own stupid reaction that he doesn't notice at first what's happened. That there's a familiar figure lying on the sidewalk, blood pooling around him.

"Klaus?" Five says to himself, in disbelief at first. "Klaus!"

He teleports over to his brother, and before he has time to think, grabs Klaus's hand and tries to remember where the nearest hospital is. He's walked this city alone for years, and has the layout nearly memorized.

"It's okay! We're going to get you help!" he says and with a blink of blue light, they're in front of Darrow General. He just has to hope there's still time.

[terriblymisguided]

Just when Klaus thinks that he's going to die alone, just like he was always afraid he would, there's a familiar flash of blue light and his brother is suddenly there. Klaus lets out a relieved sob and squeezes Five's hand as hard as he can, stomach heaving as he's flung across town in less than a second.

He makes out the sign for an emergency room and he shakes his head a little, swallowing the blood in his mouth as he tries to speak. There isn't anything to be done. He's not sure that he's ever seen Five look so concerned, and as he does his best to focus on Five's face, he realizes that it's a bit different. It's sharper, perhaps a little gaunt, and even now, Klaus wants to ask him what happened.

"This is it, old man," he manages to say, doing his best to smile as he squeezes Five's hand. He doesn't want Five beating himself up for this, or spend any time wondering if he could have done something differently. He's just glad that Five is here, and he isn't alone. "I'm glad you came back."

Klaus weakly reaches up to touch Five's face, fingertips leaving bloody smears against his jaw before he goes limp against the pavement, letting out a last gurgling breath as his eyes go unfocused. Lifeless.

[number_five]

"Klaus?! Klaus, you're not going anywhere," Five says, frantic, then looks toward the emergency room door, a fire in his eyes.

"Somebody help!" he shouts, but there's blood on his brother's face and his breathing is labored, and Five has seen enough people die in his life-- and been the cause of the vast majority of them-- that he knows when someone is done for. He's watched the light fade from the eyes of his marks, some who deserved it, some whose crime was just not being a part of the timeline.

He's seen a dead world, the streets littered with bodies, his own family crushed and broken under rubble in the apocalypse.

He's seen more death than a person should in a lifetime, and still, he feels unprepared for this.

Klaus reaches up and touches Five's face, the coppery smell of blood familiar as it smears against his jaw. His brother breathes once more, and is still.

"...Klaus."

[terriblymisguided]

While his blood spreads out in a sticky pool on the hot sidewalk, Klaus is going through something. He's learning things about himself, terrible and great things, and all the while he's doing his best to fight his way back.

Minutes pass and then the heavy silence of disrupted by Klaus suddenly gasping, eyes flying open as chokes on a cough, turning his head to spit blood out onto the sidewalk. His whole body shakes and he squints against the sun, head pounding and heart kickstarting back into rhythm.

"Five," he pants out, squeezing his eyes shut as he reaches for his brother's hand, looking at his face with wide eyes.