terriblymisguided | Entries tagged with obi-wan

When Obi-Wan leaves without so much as a kiss goodbye, Klaus lets out a delighted cackle and quickly springs into action. He doesn't want to make Obi-Wan wait too long, but he has much to do and besides, the anticipation will be part of it, surely.

After depositing the shopping bags on the bed, he undresses and hops into the shower, where he cleans all his bits and then shaves his legs and his pits, because dealing with the eventual prickle of it all growing back will be worth it, he thinks.

He gets out of the shower and puts his hair up in a towel before shaving his face, too. He looks so much younger without facial hair, he thinks, but also more feminine. That isn't always what he wants, but tonight it is. He isn't doing this just for Obi-Wan, but for himself, too. It's fun to play a part and dress up in something sleek and sexy, especially when he knows that he'll get fantastic sex afterward.

His hair air dries as he puts on makeup-- a dark and dramatic smokey eye with blood red lips, contouring his cheekbones to make his features look sharper. It's what he imagines a wicked seductress from the dark side might look like, and he blows himself a kiss before turning away from the mirror.

Before getting dressed, Klaus slicks his fingers and opens himself up quickly and efficiently, and then pulls out the sleek chrome plug that Obi-Wan bought for him the previous year. The jewel at the end is purple, which doesn't quite match, but purple is what happens when red and blue mix together, so it'll do just fine.

He slips the toy into place and then slicks his hair back into a low bun before tackling the outfit. It's a little complicated, as any article of clothing made out of strips of black leather and vinyl might be, but eventually he gets it on and pulls out the handkerchiefs before stepping in front of the full length mirror.

"Wow," he says to his own reflection, because not to toot his own horn or anything, but he looks sexy as hell, like a dominatrix. Like something from the dark side.

He tucks one of the pieces of red silk into a strap that sits just below his hips, fiddling with it until it resembles something like a loin cloth. Another gets folded and tied around his bicep. The last one gets wrapped and tucked around the length of his riding crop to make it resemble a red lightsaber. The final touch is stepping into a pair of black heels, and then he's ready.

He blows his reflection a kiss and then pulls on a long black coat, the same he arrived in the city wearing, and calls a car to meet him downstairs. The ride is uneventful, spent quietly with Klaus thinking about what's about to happen and ignoring the curiously lustly glances the female driver keeps giving him in the rearview mirror.

Once they get to the school, Klaus thanks her and removes his coat once she's driven away, stashing it somewhere to be retrieved later before he starts walking toward the front door of the school. Obi-Wan may be watching, so he puts a bit of extra sass into his stride, confident and cocky, chin up, shoulders back, hips swaying as he holds the riding crop down at his side like a blade.

"Kenobi, darling," he calls out in a singsongy, challenging sort of voice, finding it quite easy to slip into a sultry, seductive sort of character. "Come out to play."

(cw: mentions of assault and murder of an npc)

Against all odds, Klaus has sort of figured out a career for himself. It could be argued that he already had one as a baby superhero, but this is a job that he decided on for himself, one that he likes. Sure, it's a little unconventional, a little unreliable, but that works for him. That is him. Klaus Hargreeves, Ghost PI. It could be a TV show.

The problem with this career is that he can't really set his own schedule. Sure, he can look up missing persons cases or go where bodies were found and try to see if the ghosts of any victims are hanging around, but more often than not, the ghosts find him, not the other way around.

This time, it's sort of late in the evening and Klaus is walking from the Hargreeves' house to Obi-Wan's building because he just feels like walking, feeling the city under his feet. He feels restless, a little antsy in a way that not even a joint could help. In what he likes to call the Before Times, this is when he would go find some shady dealer or someone easy to fuck or both, but he's slowly starting to realize that some of the things that he thought he enjoyed so much were actually just coping mechanisms.

Sure, he likes drinking and dancing and fucking but it's better when it's on his terms, and not as a response to something else. Now he knows to look inward and examine his feelings to try and actually make sense of what it is that he really wants.

Fucking Obi-Wan. This is what he gets for dating a space wizard.

As Klaus is cutting through a dimly lit parking lot, a tall blonde woman jumps out from between two cars and scares the shit out of him. He lifts his hands in a fighting position and then realizes that the woman is mostly naked and covered in cuts and bruises, and the awful sound that she's making is because of the dark ring of bruises around her neck.

She's very dead. Klaus can tell this right away because he gets this tingle down his spine and, well, by looking at her.

"Help me," she croaks out, and Klaus pauses. He's a little high, a little horny, and sort of just wants to chill. This is what he means by the working finding him, because now he suddenly feels like he's on the clock. "He's going to do it again."

The woman looks a little familiar, like he's seen her face in some database at the police station, and he decides then that he has to try to help her. He's going to do it again is too ominous to be ignored.

"You were murdered?" Klaus asks, because this isn't really the time to talk about how yes, he can see her, or to try to dance around a delicate topic. "What's your name? Do you know who did it?"

"I’m Taylor," she rasps out, seemingly so grateful to be seen and heard. Klaus can't imagine roaming the world like this, tortured and invisible, constantly screaming for help with no one around to hear. No wonder so many of them go mad. "Taylor Krause. It was-- it was September, last I knew. I was leaving a party. He took me. He took me and he did this!"

"Okay, okay," Klaus replies, and he wonders if it would be worth using his powers to make her solid so he can give her his coat. She's just standing in the middle of the parking lot, bloody and topless, but Klaus is the only one who can see, so he just keeps his gaze on her face, which is bruised and puffy, lips white and cracked. "Who took you, Taylor?"

"I-- I don't know," she sobs out, reaching out to grab Klaus's arm. Her touch is cold and Klaus shivers, feeling nauseated, but he doesn't pull away. "But I can show you where he took me!"

"Okay, hold on." Klaus pulls out his phone and calls Hopper, even though it's almost midnight. It's not like he ever calls the guy up just to chat, so he isn’t worried about it being too late. It's important. When Hopper answers (brusquely, of course), Klaus again skips the pleasantries. "What can you tell me about Taylor Krause?"

It's pretty basic, turns out. She left a birthday party last September and seemed to disappear without a trace. Family reported her missing, but the police pretty quickly hit a wall when clues dried up. Case is still open, but effectively cold.

"Pretty sure it's heating up again," Klaus tells him as Taylor takes his hand and yanks at him. Her fingers are ice cold and bony, digging into his skin with an icy blue glow, but Klaus lets himself be pulled. "I'm working on something. I'll call you back."

"Klaus, don't--"

He ends the call and shoots Obi-Wan a quick text. on the clock, it reads, followed by a ghost emoji. The pants that he’s wearing don’t have any pockets, so Klaus sticks his phone into the front of his underwear, because why not.

One very awkward cab ride later, he and Taylor are down by the docks in a very shady looking warehouse district composed of buildings that are already abandoned or about to be. She looks like something out of a slasher movie, bloody and half-naked and frantic, and Klaus followers after her.

“He drugged me and I pretended to still be out so I could tell where we were going,” she says in her strange, croaky voice, each word struggling past a crushed throat. “It was one of these buildings. There’s like a basement, and that’s the last thing I remember.”

She disappears through a broken door and Klaus takes a fortifying breath before following her inside. They go down the stairs, only Klaus’s footsteps crunching along debris, and Klaus squints against the darkness. He should probably be more worried about this situation that he’s suddenly found himself in, but he isn’t really. He survived Reginald Hargreeves. He fought crime as a child. He was a soldier. He was roasted by God herself. He’ll be fine.

Perhaps he should have listened to one of his father’s many lectures on hubris.

“It was here! I remember. This is where he hurt me!” Taylor is shrieking so loudly that Klaus can’t hear anything else, but he isn’t really worried about her drawing attention, since he’s the only one that can hear her. The problem, he’ll realize later, is that with her screaming, he can’t properly hear his surroundings.

Focused on her as he is, he doesn’t notice someone coming up behind him until suddenly there is a strong arm around his throat. He lifts his hands to try and fight, but a cloth is pressed to his mouth and the last thing he registers is Taylor’s bloody mouth opening in another horrified scream.

And then it all fades to black.

--

When Klaus regains consciousness, he thinks for a moment that he's been blinded. His head is pounding and all he can see is black. He blinks a few times and tries to sit up, but hits his head on something solid. He freezes, eyes wide against the absence of light, and fears a stab of true fear shoot through him.

"No, no, no, fuck." He's trapped in some sort of box, pitch black and small, and suddenly he's eight years old again, being held down by bony, icy hands that pull and scratch. "No, no, please."

When Klaus hears Taylor scream again, far off and muffled, Klaus squeezes his eyes shut and screams with her, screams with everything he has.

Continued from here.

( Read more... )

These days, Klaus seems to spend more nights at Obi-Wan's than he does at home. Sometimes he feels a little bad about it, but it's fleeting. It's still hard to leave his room and see Ben's empty across the hall, sitting just as he left it like some shrine.

Same with Allison's. Almost all of them were there, and they were bonding and they were happy, he thinks. As happy as a group of Hargreeves children could be, anyway. Now they're slowly disappearing and when Klaus is home, he just gets this sinking feeling. Who's next?

He doesn't get that at Obi-Wan's. Yes, there is a part of him that's terrified that one day he'll wake up and Obi-Wan will just be gone, like Ben and like Allison, but he tries not to think about it. There are no bad thoughts associated with Obi-Wan's apartment, which was once sparse and a little bland, but now is looking livelier. Obi-Wan lets him bring in pieces that he thinks would look good, even though he doesn't live there. Not officially, anyway. Even though more of his belongings seem to be migrating over, and he just buys two of all of his toiletries and make up now, one for each place.

Some people might find it difficult to migrate back and forth, but not Klaus. Back home, he was always on the move, always heading out on some new adventure. But living out of overnight bags and heading back and forth across the city provides a little satisfaction to the part of him that's unable to give into his wanderlust. He isn't really settled in any one place and, for now at least, that's how he likes it.

Staying over at Obi-Wan's is always a good time, because he gets put to bed with good sex and usually wakes up with more of it, or at least coffee and breakfast. Obi-Wan spoils him, but Klaus likes being spoiled, so he never tries to dissuade him.

This morning, Klaus is asleep on his back, face turned away from the light filtering in from the curtains. His chest is bare even though the room is a little chilly, and the blankets are pushed down to his hips, hair tossed across the pillow.

He wakes up just a little, breathing in deeply before drifting off again, not waking up enough to realize that at some point in the night, his body shifted into something different, one curvier and more feminine, with full breasts and the absence of a cock between his legs.

That will certainly catch his notice later, but for now, he sleeps. it's hard work growing such wonderful tits, after all.

Klaus is, shocker, not handling this well.

This is the third time that he's lost his brother, and the third time's a charm. Ben isn't coming back. Klaus has tried to conjure him, even knowing that he probably couldn't. He tried and tried until he felt drained enough to fall asleep, and then he woke up and tried again. But no, there is no conjuring Ben. He isn't on the other side of some veil. He hasn't moved on to some higher place. He's just gone, and it makes no sense. Why does he have to be gone?

He spirals a bit, takes pills for the first time in weeks. Avoids darkened alleys or anywhere that he could find something stronger, because he doesn't trust himself. He drinks, and he smokes, and he spirals.

Right now, he's up on the roof of the house, standing on top of a stack of boxed tile that was delivered. It's supposed to be part of his roof remodel, the place he wanted to make to bring them all closer. Now they're all just mourning in their own ways, in different places.

There's a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and he takes a drink as he steps from the boxes onto the edge of the roof, wobbling a bit before looking down at cement three stories below. He'd be lying if he said he never thought about offing himself. It's never something that he actively tried, but he's thought about it at different points of his life. There are times when he thought it would just be easier, like everything would finally be quiet. It'd all just stop.

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately, depending on who's asking), he's far too narcissistic to actually do it. And what if he did and then he was just there on the other side, becoming one of the screaming ghosts instead of just being forced to listen to them? That'd be even worse.

As he stands there on the ledge, balancing on one bare foot to let the other hover over the open air, he wonders if maybe he was just killing himself slowly all along, drinking and doing drugs and putting himself at risk, chasing adrenaline and danger. Is there such a thing as being passively suicidal?

Klaus wobbles a bit and puts both feet back on the ledge, steadying himself and laughing a bit as he looks out at the street again. He sees Obi-Wan there, approaching from across the way, and it startles enough that he drops the whiskey bottle in his hand, sending it clattering to the ledge.

"Shit," he says, leaning over to watch as it sails down to the pavement. "Watch out!"

As Klaus leans back against the bar in his favorite night club, sipping his third cocktail while watching a girl in hot pants and a bikini top shake her ass, he realizes just how long it's been since he's slept with someone who wasn't Obi-Wan.

It's not a conscious decision that he made. In fact, he had made it very clear at the start of their relationship that he didn't want to be monogamous. He very much planned on sleeping with other people because that's who he is. That's what he does. Sleeping around is a fundamental part of his personality.

Realizing how long it's been since he's slept with anyone else makes him anxious for some reason that he can't quite pinpoint. None of his freedom has been taken from him. Obi-Wan has never asked him for anything that he didn't want to give. He doesn't ever act jealous or possessive in any way, so Klaus has no reason to feel trapped.

Should he feel trapped? Before Obi-Wan, Klaus always thought that being in a relationship would mean that something would be taken from him. It had never once occurred to him that he might give it up willingly.

It's an irrational sort of panic, but he still feels the need to prove to himself that he can still do whatever he wants, be with whoever might catch his eye. So, after knocking back another two shots of vodka, Klaus steps onto the dancefloor and wraps his arms around the curvy woman in those tight little shorts. She is obviously pleased by the attention, and wastes no time in dragging him back to a shadowy corner of the club.

She presses him back against a wall and presses her mouth to his neck, and Klaus should be into it. She's hot and willing with big tits and a round ass and before he would have wasted no time in having her bent over. But that was before. Things are different now, and he never even really noticed it happening. He's different.

This woman's mouth on his neck, and her hand on his crotch, should feel good. And it does, in a way, but it could feel better. She smells like fruity chemical spray when he would rather smell vanilla bean and tea leaves. Her rounded shoulders are warm under his hands, but he wishes that she were taller.

When she lifts her head and kisses him on the mouth, Klaus finds himself jerking away without even meaning to. She gives him a confused look and tries to lean in again, but Klaus tightens his grip on her shoulders and gently pushes her away, saying nothing before leaving her there in the dark and winding his way back through the crowd towards the bar, feeling strange and unsettled.

After a few more shots, he just feels irritated. A man comes up to him at the bar, long and lithe with dark skin that reflects the lights in the club. He reaches out for Klaus's waistband and he shakes his head, gently knocking the man's hand away before turning to storm out of the club. He keeps on storming through quiet, empty streets until he gets to Obi-Wan's building, then storms upstairs and pounds on the door rather than using the spare key in his pocket.

Because he's mad at that, too. He's in love and has a key and it feels wrong now when strangers touch him, and this wasn't what he wanted. He never wanted any of this.

Or so he thought.

[From here.]

"You have a very sexy smile," Klaus tells him as they duck into a tent that he happens to know will be empty for a bit, since the people using it are set to be on stage right about now, and they'll want to join the party after. He drags the curtain serving as a door shut, giving them the illusion of privacy. People are still milling about, casting shadows against the sides of the tent, and Klaus finds himself thrilled by the entire situation.

"Oh, is that all?" He smiles as he steps into Obi-Wan's space, pressing him back against the edge of a folding table as he leans in give him a kiss. It's long and lingering, chaste for a few moments before Klaus licks into his mouth with a hungry groan. When he pulls back, Obi-Wan's lips are a little red from transferred color, and Klaus stares at him for a long moment before sinking elegantly down onto his knees, pressing them into the grass as he reaches for Obi-Wan's fly.

"I suppose I could have a little taste," he purrs out, batting his dark lashes up at Obi-Wan as he pops the button of Obi's jeans, slowly tugging his fly open. "If you think you can be quiet." He tilts his head as if considering, looking up at Obi's face as he tugs the band of his underwear down to expose his thickening cock, hooking the fabric under his balls. "Or maybe I'd like it if they heard you, since I have something they all want."

If pressed, Klaus couldn't really say why he has been so resistant to learning true meditation. He does have his reasons, the biggest being that he does not want to be alone with his thoughts in such a way, but that's not a good enough reason. The spirits still haunt him at night, no matter what he does.

Mostly, he's just scared. Both of what will happen in his own head, and of failing miserably at the whole thing.

The more time he spends with Obi-Wan, the more intrigued he becomes with the idea. It obviously helps Obi-Wan, and that only becomes more clear after everything with Anakin regaining his memories. It's obviously a traumatic thing for Obi-Wan, and Klaus was worried for him the entire time he was out meditating in the woods. At first, Klaus had thought the idea was kind of crazy, but he didn't protest. Of course he didn't, because Obi-Wan knows himself.

When Obi-Wan came back, he seemed better. A lot better, actually. And then he had his body taken from him and replaced with an entirely new one, and he seemed okay with that, too. Klaus knows that it isn't that things don't bother Obi-Wan. It's that he knows how to handle these awful things when they come. He meditates on them, and always seems at peace afterward. Klaus wants to know if he might be able to achieve something similar, if he were go ahead and actually face his fears and try.

He thinks on it, but the decision is made for him after he wakes up screaming from another nightmare, struggling against ghostly hands around his throat. Vanya comes in and helps him calm down, and Klaus holds onto her so that he doesn't head straight for the stash of pills in his underwear drawer. He doesn't want to keep numbing himself forever, he realizes. He wants to learn how to handle it.

After his sister makes him have some breakfast, he kisses her head and leaves the house to head towards Obi-Wan's place, exhausted and trembling, but sure of himself. He wants to try. He has to try.

When he makes it to Obi-Wan's apartment, he knocks a few times before letting himself in with his key, unsurprised to find Obi-Wan sitting on his meditation cushions. It's that time of day, after all. He stays quiet, not wanting to interrupt, and goes to make himself some coffee. He'll need it for this conversation, and for whatever comes after.

(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.

The first time Klaus walked into this club, he did it with the intention of getting absolutely plastered and finding someone to go home with for drunk, sloppy sex that would distract him for a few hours. He did not accomplish either of those things. Before he could get too drunk, he spotted someone interesting and was taken back to his place for some very fantastic mind-blowing sex that immediately set a bar so high that no one else can reach it.

If, on that first night, someone told Klaus that the next time he'd be walking into this club would be on the arm of that very same man, some three months later, he'd have laughed in their face.

But that is exactly what's happening. When Klaus realized how long they'd been doing this, he told Obi-Wan that he thought it would be fun to go back to that club for another dance. It only occurred to him hours later what he had just proposed: celebrating an anniversary. Thankfully, he was at home by the time it happened, and he was able to freak out and talk himself back down in private.

In Vietnam, Klaus counted the months. It was a way to keep track of how long he'd been away from his own timeline, and also how long he'd had Dave in his life. Each month was silently acknowledged, quietly celebrated and agonized over in equal measure, but it was never anything he gave a voice to, or talked to Dave about. He just counted them until he got to ten, and then there were no more.

By the time that Obi-Wan picks him up, Klaus has calmed down (thanks in part to a blunt he panic-smoked on his balcony) and dressed himself in black leather pants and a wine-colored button down shirt, with only the button at his sternum fastened. Seeing Obi-Wan makes him feel as excited as he did when he first mentions it, and he feels silly for getting himself so worked up. They're just going to have some fun.

They arrive at the club and get their wrists stamped, and Klaus is more then relieved to get inside where it's warmer. The music thumps in his chest and Klaus grins, bouncing a little as he grabs Obi-Wan's hand and drags him inside.

"Why did you come here that first night?" Klaus asks once they're at the bar, tilting his head to look at him curiously. "This isn't your usual scene."

Ben is here. Ben is alive.

Holy shit. Ben is here. Ben is alive.

Klaus's mind can't seem to stop spinning. After sharing some waffles with his brother, the formerly dead one, the one who's his best friend, the one he thought he would never see again, he walks Ben back to his apartment with the promise that he'll give Ben some time before telling their siblings that he's here, so he can ease into it.

His siblings, specifically.

By the time he leaves Ben's, it's well and truly the middle of the night, mere hours before dawn, but he's full of a manic sort of energy that he can't contain. Instead of going home to a house full of people that he now has to keep a huge secret from, he runs to Obi-Wan's. He said he wouldn't tell their siblings. Klaus never promised anything about not telling Obi-Wan. Ha, loophole!

As the elevator draws him nearer to Obi's floor, Klaus paces in cramped space, eyes wide as he tries to process this information. It doesn't feel real but it is. It's all so complicated and it doesn't make any sense but Klaus is so happy that he could cry, because it's Ben.

He would feel bad about waking Obi-Wan up, but the man barely sleeps anyway (same!) and Klaus knows that he won't be upset. He wouldn't anyway, but especially not for this.

Klaus jogs up the hallway and skids past Obi-Wan's door, grabbing at the frame to right himself before starting to knock a little frantically, swallowing hard as he waits for the door to be opened. "Obi, it's me!"

When Klaus learns that Obi-Wan has never had the proper movie theater experience, he decides to change that. He genuinely enjoys showing Obi-Wan new things, little things that he came to take for granted during his years of freedom. Ben always liked going to the movies, but Klaus usually found it hard to focus on them, for the most part. Probably because he was high most of the time.

Today, he isn't high! Well, a little, but it's just weed. And okay, he did have a cocktail or two with lunch, but he's not out of it. He's leveled, is the point.

He picks the older theater downtown, a one-screen with velvet seats and a balcony. It's better than the bland, cookie cutter multiplex by the mall. It makes him a little nostalgic for the sixties, actually. He really did have so much fun there, for awhile.

After buying two tickets at the tiny box office, Klaus ushers Obi-Wan into the lobby and heads for the concession stand. "First stop, popcorn. Have you had popcorn?"

[from here.]

Obi-Wan crowds him against the door in a way that Klaus wholly appreciates, and he swallows hard, Adam's apple bobbing as Obi's hands slip under his skirt. He's barely been touched but there is already arousal pooling between his legs, making his cock twitch and start to take notice. The shifting temperatures only add to it all, along with the way that Obi-Wan wanted him so badly that he drug him away to an empty bedroom in someone else's house.

"I thought that you might like that," Klaus breathes out, sliding his hands down to Obi's chest, thumbing at his nipples through the soft fabric of his shirt. His own stiffen into tight peaks, and each scrape of lace against him sends another little shock of pleasure through him. "I added a little something to your suit, too."

He bites his bottom lip with a sly grin, and slides his hand into the breast pocket of Obi's suit jacket to extract a strip of three condoms. His mouth falls open in faux surprise as he holds them up between two fingers, and then he reaches into the left pocket of the coat to pull out a small tube of lube. "Accessories make the outfit, darling."

Well, that worked out better than expected.

He had texted Obi-Wan because he was horny and bored, and nothing sounded more interesting than Obi. He didn't want to go to a bar or a club, not tonight. He's feeling mellow, and the spirits have been quiet tonight with nothing more than a pot brownie in his system.

And maybe he just wants to spend time around someone who gives a shit about him.

His cock is desperately hard, but he wasn't lying. He'll wait for Obi to get here before he does anything, so he wills himself to calm down. He isn't sure how long it'll take Obi to get here, and he sits up when he realizes that this will be the first time Obi is in his room. Fuck.

He rolls out of bed and does a quick dash around to make sure that there's nothing that will embarrass him too much, and finds himself very glad that Five is out when he's suddenly power walking to the kitchen with his arms full of cups and a raging hard-on.

After going back into his room, he kicks his boots under the bed and then pulls on the cheap pink silk robe that he picked up while shopping for clothes. By the time there's a knock on the door, one that Klaus is pleased to find sounds a little frantic, he's erection is flagging, but knowing that Obi rushed over here just for him helps.

"That was quick," Klaus says as he opens the door, laughing happily as he reaches out to grab a fistful of Obi's robes and tug him inside.