Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Klaus was never the same after Five vanished.

He had never been… stable. Or at least, he had always been a little bit more unstable than the rest of them. Considering what their family was like, Ben supposed that wasn’t really saying much. But Klaus has always been slightly more off. There was always an edge to him, a hint of mania that was never far from the surface. Before Five disappeared though, it was largely contained.

Sure, it wasn’t unusual to smell the tell-tale scent of weed drifting from his clothes, and he set fire to his room a bit more often than was probably considered healthy. And there were days, after his private training with their Father, that he would shut himself away from the world, loud music waling from behind his locked door, finally emerging after a week without food looking tired and withdrawn and always with his arms wrapped around Five. But overall, Klaus was just like the rest of them: damaged, broken in ways only those who grew up in the Academy could be, but somehow together enough to keep moving. Keep living.

When Five never came home, however, Klaus shattered, and nothing any of them did could put the pieces back together again.

So as Ben stands there in the corner of the kitchen, listening as Five makes his customary sandwich while rattling off incomprehensible nonsense about consciousness and quantum states and out of the blue comments about Klaus’ clothes (yeah Five, just because the rest of their siblings apparently missed that one does not mean Ben did), he isn’t watching Five like everyone else. No. Ben is watching Klaus, perched on the kitchen table, doing a remarkable job of pretending to be his normal, unstable self.

He does a pretty good job of it, all things considered. But Ben has spent an inordinate amount of time with his brother since his death, enough to be able look past the quirks, the frenetic movements and offbeat comments. Ben notices the desperation tinging Klaus’ eyes, the tremor that seems to flicker across his fingers until Klaus pushes them up against his face in an effort to stop them. He also sees the way that Klaus lit up, for one brief moment, when Five made that comment about his dress. And for a small instant, Ben saw his brother as he was seventeen years ago, the way he couldn’t help but light up whenever Five turned his attention towards him. But then the moment passes, the light begins to fade, and at Five’s mention of Delores, whoever the fuck that is, Ben watches as it is completely snuffed out.

So, Ben stands silently, watching as each of his siblings float out of the kitchen in the wake of Five’s departure (and God, the little shit hadn’t changed at all with his ever-present flare for the dramatic). Klaus, however, does not move from his spot on the table, staring blankly into space, his breathing becoming shallower by the second. When the last of Luther’s echoing steps fade from hearing, Klaus collapses in on himself, like a puppet whose string have been cut, hands clawing at his chest while his breathing turns panicked and wheezy.

“Fuck, Klaus, you need to breathe. It’s a panic attack, okay? Remember what we have to do? Deep breaths.”

It’s moments like these, when Klaus’ entire body seems to be shaking apart, that Ben really hates being dead. Hates not being able to take his brother into his arms and try to hold his too fragile form together. Fortunately, or unfortunately as the case may be, this has happened enough times that he at least knows how to calm his brother down.

“Remember the numbers, okay? Just start counting down from 100, okay?”

Klaus begins counting down from 100 by 3s, a technique a rehab counsellor tried to teach him years ago, which Klaus ignored in his typical fashion, but Ben paid enough attention to that he has been able to use it often throughout the years since. When Klaus is in the 40s, his breathing is even enough that the tears have stopped falling and he looks less like the world is collapsing around him. By the 10s, the shaking has mostly stopped, and Klaus’ gaze is able to focus on Ben. After a few minutes of staring, reality finally seems to fully set in, and an alarming emptiness slowly settles into Klaus’ eyes.

“Five’s back.”

“Yeah, Klaus, he is.”

“He barely looked at me.”

Yes, Klaus was never the same after Five vanished. And Ben is fucking terrified about what will happen to Klaus now that he’s returned.

Chapter Text

Nice dress.

The words keep on echoing around Five’s head, accompanied with what sounds suspiciously like Delores’ cackling laughter.

Nice dress.

It was almost enough to distract Five from the sheer indignity of once again being pubescent. Almost. Because, really, nothing can quite top that revelation. The thought of having to go through puberty for a second time was a nightmarish prospect that has been festering in his mind ever since he heard the words “little Number Five” come out of Klaus’ stupidly pretty mouth. Fuck. Now he is thinking about Klaus again.

Nice dress.

Five can’t help but release a loud groan, smacking his head a few times on the steering wheel in the vain hope that doing so will knock loose some form of tact. Maybe it’s not entirely his fault? He did just spend the last 45 years either marooned in the future with no one but Delores and whatever alcohol he could find for company or killing people for a shady organisation of out of time assassins. Perhaps some lack of social skills is understandable. But still, in the rare moments when Five let himself think about seeing Klaus again, it definitely didn’t include being so tongue tied he basically ignored Klaus or only capable of saying something as inane as “nice dress.”

Even though it was a nice dress. And while it most certainly wasn’t something Five ever thought about Klaus wearing, he has to admit that dresses definitely suit the younger man. Which brings Five back to his original problem: his apparent inability to actually speak to Klaus in anything close to a meaningful way.

Sitting in the kitchen after their Father’s funeral, Klaus half naked and clutching a guitar of all things, Five had been completely at a loss for words. If Allison hadn’t come in Five is not entirely sure what he would have done, other than pretend to rummage through the cupboards for the fifth time for a package of coffee he knew from the very beginning that he was never going to find. And then, when Klaus had asked where he was going, Five’s mind had gone blank, and suddenly all he could think about was Klaus, dead, body broken and lying amongst the debris.

Five has spent the last 45 years haunted by that image and knowing that in eight days Klaus is going to die, that his entire family is going to die, means shit all because Five has no idea how to stop it. So, he had done what he always does, rely on his natural charm and social grace. In other words, he was a total asshole.

Which brings Five to his current whereabouts, parked outside of Vanya’s apartment, covered in blood, most of which is not his own, wondering what the fuck he was even doing here. Because, yes, he had read Vanya’s book. But some part of him hadn’t really wanted to believe his family was that bad. Luther and Diego were always going to be next to useless, one too naïve and the other too impulsive, both too proud to listen to anyone but themselves. But Five had had hopes for Allison. That the intelligent, ambitious, powerful sister he remembered was still underneath the vapid film star mask she had chosen to wear. And Klaus. Five had read Vanya’s words about Klaus. He had read about the drugs, the rehab stints, the legal problems. But for some ridiculous reason, some idiotic part of his brain had convinced itself that Vanya was exaggerating, or that in the time since her book was published Klaus had gotten clean. Ten minutes spent with Klaus had proven that that was definitely not the case. He was even more fragile, even more lost, than he was all those years ago. And part of Five is terrified to admit that him disappearing might be, at least partially, to blame.

Five is also worried about what will happen to Klaus if he gets too close to him. The men in the diner caught up to him far faster than he was anticipating. And yes, he has removed the tracker, but he knows the people he worked for, he knows The Handler, and they will keep sending more people after him. Lionel and Bree, or Manning, or Hazel and Cha-Cha, it doesn’t matter. She will send someone after him, and soon. Especially after the way he had torn through those hired guns. Can he really live with himself if Klaus is somehow caught in the crossfire? To save Klaus from death by apocalypse only to see him killed by time travelling assassin? He has already lost Klaus twice, once when he jumped forward in time, and again when he found his body, so different from the boy he left behind yet somehow still undeniably Klaus. A third time might destroy whatever part of his sanity he has somehow managed to retain throughout the years of isolation and time jumps.

So, here he is. Outside of Vanya’s apartment, coming to the rapid and terrifying realisation that the only sibling he might actually be able to rely on, the only one that he can trust, is Vanya. Ordinary Number Seven.

The world is totally fucked.

Chapter Text

“Klaus! Klaus! KLAUS!”

Feeling a sharp, stinging slap slam into his right cheek, Klaus is momentarily ripped away from the voices. As his eyes adjust to the low light, the high-pitched screaming noise that has been ringing in his ears since his Father last ‘checked’ up on him stops, and Klaus realises that he was the one making it. Suddenly slamming back into a reality in which his soul isn’t being crushed by the wails of the dead, Klaus lets his eyes slowly focus on the warm presence crouched down in front on him, their hands lightly pulling through his hair in a comforting rhythm.

“F-Five?”

At Klaus’ stuttered greeting, Five’s mouth twists into its characteristic sardonic half smile, one of his hands moving out of Klaus’ hair to cup his cheek and brush away the tears tracks with his thumb.

“Well I’m not Luther.”

“N-n-no. Luther’s t-taller.”

Klaus’ voice is broken and wispy, and his throat feels like it’s on fire every time he speaks or swallows. This is a pretty normal state of affairs when it comes to his ‘private training sessions’ with Dad. Of course, no one other than Five ever seems to care that Klaus never speaks for days after these sessions. Diego even once stuttered out that it was a welcome relief from Klaus’ usual loquaciousness. Klaus remembers being both hurt by the comment but also oddly proud that Diego had managed to get out the word ‘loquaciousness’. Klaus figures Mom’s not so secret (at least to Klaus) anti-stuttering lessons have been paying off.

“Why –”

Klaus’ question is interrupted when a shuddering sob wracks through his body. Waiting a few moments for the shaking and wet hiccupping to pass, Klaus instead leans forward, curling into Five’s body. Five doesn’t really let people touch him. Except for Klaus. And only then, Klaus is usually only permitted fleeting moments of contact, an arm resting on Five’s shoulder for a post-mission photo op, a brushing of fingers against their shared tattoos when Five is in one of his darker moods. After Klaus’ training sessions are the only times when Five lets Klaus touch as much as he wants. In fact, some of Klaus’ most cherished memories are lying curled up with his brother, hidden under the covers of his bed, whispering secret plans for the future, of escape and freedom, to each other into the early hours of the morning. So, Klaus knows, without any doubt or hesitation, that Five will allow this contact, will hold him tight until the last of the tears stop falling and his body stops shaking uncontrollably.

“Why are you h-here?”

“You’ve been gone five hours. He’s never left you in here this long. I –” Here, Five breaks himself off, and Klaus shift his head so that he can glance up at Five’s face, which seems to be twisted in an odd expression Klaus usually only ever sees when Five has been given an equation he can’t yet understand.

“You?”

Five looks down at Klaus, and this time his smile seems more hesitant than sardonic. Klaus feels his breath catch at the look but chalks it up to residual tremors from his crying earlier.

“I was worried.”

Klaus can’t help but release a small broken whine at Five’s admission. He and his siblings care for each other, yes. But Klaus is not sure any of them have ever expressed it so blatantly to one another as Five just did. Especially to Klaus. Only Mom has ever said anything like that to Klaus, and her statements of care and affection definitely do not make Klaus feel so simultaneously off kilter yet safe. And Mom definitely has never interfered with Dad’s training sessions. In fact, Klaus can’t think of a single time anyone has interfered with any training session, Klaus or anyone else’s.

“Wait, how did you get in here?”

“I spatial jumped.”

Jerking his body away from Five’s, Klaus’ somewhat lowered heartrate spikes up again.

“What?! But Dad said that they were too dangerous for you to try them outside of a controlled environment!”

“Yeah, well, Dad doesn’t know everything. He never thinks I’m ready for the next step.”

If Klaus was a better sibling, he wouldn’t be jealous about how well Five is progressing in his training, about how quickly he is able to master his abilities. But he isn’t, so while he is undoubtedly proud, and a little in awe, of Five, Klaus is also jealous. Klaus wishes his power was as simple as Five’s, or Luther’s, or any of his other siblings (well, except for Ben). Five never seems scared about what he can do, and Klaus is constantly terrified. But Five is also, secretly, his favourite sibling, so he pushes down the flare of jealously and instead focuses on the warm feelings Five’s pronouncement sets off in his chest.

“Thank you, for coming for me.”

“Of course. Did the old man say how long until he would let you out?”

Klaus shudders as he remembers their Father coming in and asking the eternal question: have you overcome your fear of the dead? Klaus would never not be afraid of the voices, of the spectres always shifting in his peripheral vision, clamouring for their opportunity to walk out of the shadows and force their existence upon him. Five seems to notice his distress, because the arms around him tighten a little, giving Klaus enough strength to reply.

“Three hours.”

Five is silent for a few moments, no doubt running various calculations through his mind. Five always seemed to be thinking about something complex and mind consuming. Klaus was actually quite fond of the way that Five would sometimes disappear into his head when he was considering something especially difficult or important. After a few moments of silence, however, Five seems to have worked out the answer to whatever unasked question was swirling in his mind.

“Okay. I’m going to stay with you until just before Dad comes back, alright?”

Nodding, Klaus lets out a relieved breath and curls in closer to Five, who has started humming tunelessly in a way he knows sometimes helps distract Klaus from the other voices always vying for his attention.

“Promise you’ll stay, Five?”

Five doesn’t even hesitate before answering Klaus’ oft asked question. A ritual that had started up when Five had first started sneaking into Klaus’ room after his training sessions, it was one of the few things in his life that Klaus felt he could ever really count on.

“I promise, Klaus.”

Chapter Text

Vanya is useless.

Five knows that he shouldn’t be surprised. All of his siblings are useless. The fucking apocalypse is going to happen in seven days, and they are so involved in their petty, insignificant little lives that Five wonders if any of them will even notice when the entire world fractures apart.

Storming through the front door, Five follows the sound of manic, one sided conversation, trying not to let loose the scream of rage that has been building in his chest since that idiot Meritech doctor called security on him. Young man. He was fifty-fucking-eight-years old. He had survived an apocalypse, worked for and then escaped the Temps Commission. He had killed, tortured, maimed. He was a fucking lethal weapon that was somehow trapped in the body of a pubescent boy. A body that was small, weak, and un-fucking-controllable if his near perpetual erections were anything to go by.

Five supposed that was one benefit of going through puberty in a post-apocalyptic wasteland: you were generally too concerned about living through the next ten minutes to really focus on the perpetual horniness. Or maybe it was just the lack of instances where he was forced to come face to face with a mostly naked Klaus wearing only a pair of tiny, brightly coloured underwear. Underwear that seemed to be designed to show off everything, if the slightly longer than Five would ever admit to taking look was anything to go by.

Five could practically hear Delores’ eyes rolling at the way it takes him a few tries to be able to produce anything other than a distorted, gurgling sound.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Five watches as Klaus whirls around in response, his face briefly breaking open with a wide, delighted grin before he seems to catch himself, and the grin shifts into something more closed and calculating. It’s the same smile Klaus always used to give their other siblings, a smile that had always amused Five who usually delighted in whatever mischief Klaus wreaked upon the unsuspecting morons. The fact that Klaus now looks at Five that way hurts in ways that Five is not entirely comfortable interrogating. In fact, Five would happily never think about any of his reactions to Klaus since he managed to claw his way back to his family. His grip on his sanity is a little too tenuous currently for any in depth bouts of introspection, thank you very much.

“Fivey, my most favourite sibling. Wha- Dead siblings don’t count, Ben… What the hell do you mean by that? I thought we agreed we were never talking about that ever again… Well luckily for me you’re dead and I’m the only unlucky bastard who can actually hear you, so suck on that.”

For a few moments, Five could only stare as Klaus apparently carried on a one sided conversation with their dead brother. It was definitely a strange experience. Klaus had always been so terrified of the voices that constantly whispered to him that Five had never really seen him carry on what was, all things considered, a fairly normal conversation with one of them. Five supposed that it made sense, what with Ben being the ghost and all. Ben and Klaus had always been close. Not as close as Five and Klaus, not really, but from what Five had gleamed from Vanya’s god-awful book, after he had gotten trapped in the future Ben was the one to step up and help Klaus. Although, considering that Ben is now dead and Klaus has spent the better part of a decade in and out of jail or rehab, Five kind of wishes his brother had done a better job.

Five quickly realises that Klaus is unlikely to stop bickering with Ben without intervention, so he clears his throat loudly and spatial jumps so that he is standing almost uncomfortably close to his mostly-naked sibling. It was a tactic that, in the past, never failed to get Klaus’ full attention. And sure enough...

“Jesus Christ! What the ever loving fuck, Five! You know I hate when you do that. I have a very delicate constitution! Shut the fuck up, Ben!”

Five quickly reaches up and grips Klaus’ chin with his right hand, forcing the younger man to focus on him.

“Klaus, I need you to do something for me.”

That calculating look is back in Klaus’ eyes, a Cheshire cat-like grin twisting his features.

“Really? And what’s it worth to you, little Number Five?”

Trying to bite back both the growl building in his chest in response to the appellation and the sudden impulse to shake this distant stranger until he suddenly transforms back into the boy he remembers, Five narrows his eyes and tightens his grip on Klaus’ chin. Not enough to hurt, never that. Just enough to ensure that Klaus understands how close he is to losing his ever-loving shit. Five has not been around someone who can push every button he has, and then some he wasn’t even aware existed, for a very long time. Even Delores wasn’t this bad.

“I’ll pay you.”

At the mention of money, Klaus’ eyes brighten, his smile becoming less calculating and more relieved. Five isn’t really sure if he will actually pay Klaus at the end of this. On the one hand, he has never lied to Klaus, and while he is perfectly happy screwing over the rest of the population, the thought of doing so to Klaus makes something distinctly uncomfortable shift in his stomach. But Five is not an idiot. He knows exactly what Klaus will use the money for.

“How much?"

Then again, Five needs Klaus to get the information on that eye. And, really, how much will Klaus’ sobriety matter if Five can’t stop the wold from ending? Five would rather Klaus be alive and high than dead and sober. He can worry about getting Klaus clean after he stops the apocalypse. And he will get Klaus sober. Just, not yet.

“Enough. You’ll need to wear something different, though.”

It takes every bit of control Five has cultivated over the last fifty or so years to keep his eyes from flicking down to take in Klaus’ naked body.

“Oooh! Dress up. And what, pray tell, will I be dressing in this evening? Slinky evening gown? Cowboy hat and boots? I have a pair of chaps somewhere around here that do wonders for my figure.”

Ignoring the part of his brain that was trying to decide if he would prefer Klaus in the chaps or the dress, Five smirks, satisfied and relieved to know that Klaus will do what he’s told. Well, at least as much as Klaus ever does.

“Professional. You’ll be accompanying me to a company called Meritech. They have information that I need and because I’m stuck in this joke of a body the pompous prick who works there won’t release any names to me.”

“I have to say, Five, if you want me to use my assets to get this information, ‘professional’ is probably not what you want me to be aiming for.”

Five feels his blood turn to ice at the very idea of what Klaus is suggesting. The fact that his mind went there so quickly means that it’s likely something Klaus has done before. Which makes Five see red. Grinding his teeth together, Five takes a few moments to beat back his fury, promising himself that when this is all over, he is going to track down every man, woman, and child that ever so much as looked at Klaus the wrong way and hurt them in ways that most people didn’t even know were possible.

“No. You’re going to be posing as my father.”

“Huh. Kinky.”

Jerking away from Klaus, Five can’t help but release a loud sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Get changed then meet me in my room. I’m sure you can manage at least something that simple on your own.”

Not waiting for a reply, Five quickly jumps to his room, hoping to God that his body will calm the fuck down by the time Klaus is finished getting dressed.

Chapter Text

Ben is worried about Klaus.

Which isn’t really all that different from their usual status quo. In fact, Ben has spent virtually his entire godforsaken afterlife in a near constant state of concern for his erratic brother. A good portion of his actual life too, now that he thinks about it. And considering the shit that he went through while he was alive, the fact that he had any room in his head to be worried about Klaus says something about the trouble his brother could get into.

So yes, Ben is used to worrying about Klaus. But there was something about the image of Klaus, wearing their father’s ill-fitting suit, staring off into the middle distance while gripping his hands together in an effort to stop Five noticing the beginning stages of withdrawal symptoms that flashed a huge red WARNING! sign across Ben’s mind.

Then again, it could also have been the weird way that Klaus kept looking at the doctor’s snow globe. Ben knows that look. That’s the look that usually heralds Klaus ending up in the back of a police cruiser in nothing but a tiny pink filly apron. The fact that that exact sequence of events has happened enough times to be predictable supports Ben’s belief that he spends far too much time worrying about Klaus. Realistically though, the fact that Klaus is now bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted head wound from said snow globe kind of validates his sense of concern.

Peace on earth indeed.

Ben doesn’t know what the fuck Five is thinking, dragging Klaus into whatever bullshit he has going on. Well, he does, in the sense that he is pretty sure Five is not thinking. Or at least, not allowing himself to think about anything or anyone outside of whatever he hopes to achieve. Five was always alarmingly single mined. Before he disappeared, most of that single mindedness had been focused on either protecting Klaus or developing his abilities. It is pretty clear though that over the last however many years Five lived in the future, his priorities had radically shifted. Which evidently meant that Five felt perfectly comfortable hanging the promise of $20 over Klaus’ head in order to coerce his starving, addict brother into going along with his whims. Which is a pretty neat encapsulation of Five as a person, now that Ben thinks about it.

Of course, even Five had looked mildly alarmed when Klaus had smashed the snow globe into his own head. If not for the fact that, you know, Klaus had just smashed a glass orb into his own head, Ben probably would have found Five’s stunned look amusing. That being said, Ben will have to content himself with basking in the memory of Klaus smashing his fist into Five’s face and Five’s stupid expression of angered bewilderment. Because while Ben can’t find it in himself to ever find enjoyment in anything that causes Klaus pain, he sure as fuck could appreciate it when Five was the one injured. Especially by Klaus.

Ben was willing to try to look past a lot of terrible behaviour on the part of his siblings. He grew up in the Academy too, so he knows what all of their so-called childhoods were like. His innate love for his erstwhile siblings even extended so far that he was somewhat capable of not wanting to stab Diego in the face with one of his stupid knives every time he talked down to Klaus. But that was because Diego had never really mattered all that much to Klaus. Well, at least he mattered about the same as their other siblings. Diego could still inflict hurt onto Klaus, but the damage never went too deep to heal. Only their father and Five really had power to hurt Klaus in ways that Ben was unsure he could ever recover from.

Really, if anyone needed proof of that, Klaus’ rapid and flamboyant spiral into addiction, crime, prostitution, homelessness, and finally incarceration was a pretty compelling argument. Five was the only real defence that Klaus had against their father. In his darker, more dramatic moments, Ben has often found himself wondering how much of Klaus Five took with him when he vanished from the face of the planet. In a lot of ways, the empty husk that has been stumbling around in Klaus’ clothes is just that: a walking corpse, the soul that once inhabited it ripped away and apparently thrust some twenty odd years into the future.

And now Ben is literally stuck here watching as Five takes advantage of every hurt his leaving has inflicted onto Klaus in order to attain whatever fucked up goal he has in mind. Because, really, a fucking eyeball? There is no way that any of this is ending well. Five had barely even noticed when Klaus had alluded to what happened to him in prison. Sure, there had been a moment where Ben thought that the old Five, Klaus’ Five, would make an appearance. For a brief second Ben had seen a flicker of concern in Five’s eyes, only to watch as their brother seemed to do what everyone else did whenever Klaus drew any kind of attention to the mountain of shit he has been through: dismiss it as Klaus just being his usual, eccentric self.

Which was fucked up in ways Ben couldn’t even begin to articulate because he has been there for all of it. Every overdose, every beatdown from a John that decided that he was craving something more violent than carnal, every time Klaus had been hurt by strangers, friends, or himself. Ben was there for all of it, helpless to do anything to save Klaus. All he could do was try to help Klaus pick up the pieces, offering emotional support and reminders that he needs to eat on a semi-regular basis. It sometimes made Ben wish that he could hate his siblings. Because they are here, they are alive, and they could help Klaus, actually help him rather than just stand by and let their father lock him into rehab clinics and sweep everything under the rug. Instead they just don’t look, and if they do ever look, they don’t really see.

And Ben, idiot that he is, had somehow convinced himself that Five would be different. Or maybe Klaus convinced him of that. Sometimes, when Klaus is really high, he talks about Five. Or at least some fictionalised version of Five and what their lives would have been like if Five had never left. He would mumble about promises to stay and safety and comfort, and smile in a way he never did except in those moments. So, there was a small, moronic part of Ben that somehow believed that Five coming back would actually change things. Instead, Ben gets to take a back seat in his own afterlife and watch as Five wistfully recounts the lost love of his life and try to ignore the momentary flash of agony that crosses Klaus’ face when he looks away from Five.

As if the fucking bleeding head wound wasn’t enough to be concerned about.

Of course, immature asshole that Five is, the moment he even hears about Klaus with another man he jumps into a passing cab. Ben kind of has to admire Five’s commitment to being a complete and total douche canoe. Force Klaus to listen to him rhapsodise about the love of his life? Totally fine. Sit around and hear about the guy that Klaus slept with for three weeks because it was the middle of winter and the choice was Emanuel and his osso buco or certain death via hypothermia? Not a chance.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, what about my money?! Fuck!”

“Forget him, Klaus. Once an asshole, always an asshole.”

Whirling around, Klaus levels a vicious glare at Ben, his upper lip curling in anger.

“Five wasn’t an asshole back then.”

“But you do admit that he is an asshole now?”

Klaus seems to hesitate at this, casting a brief glance in the direction that the cab disappeared in, before squaring his shoulders and plastering a manic grin across his face.

“Everyone is an asshole. I’m just lucky enough to be stuck with the dead ones as well as the live ones.”

Ben can’t help but let out a bark of laughter, glad to see that the manic edge to Klaus’ smile softens somewhat when Ben smiles at his brother.

“Fair enough. We should really find you something to eat though. You haven’t eaten in almost two days. Also, your head is still bleeding. You at least need some gauze or something.”

Klaus seems to startle at the mention of his injury, flinching when his hand instinctively reaches up to brush against the glitter covered gash.

“Oh, right, I had forgotten about that. Well, it should stop bleeding soon. Either that or I’ll pass out and die. But I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. Come along, Ben. I think I remember a supermarket with terrible security guards a few neighbourhoods over. Chop chop.”

It’s times like these that Ben honestly wonders how he has managed to keep Klaus alive this long.

Chapter Text

Five can’t get those stupid words out of his head. Logically, he knows that Klaus didn’t mean them. Klaus is a junkie looking for his next fix. And Five is a convenient source of cash. Five had debated whether or not he should actually give Klaus the twenty bucks he had promised him, but if there was one thing Five knew it was that he would never break a promise to Klaus. So, like an idiot, he had jumped into Klaus’ room while his brother was passed out from whatever poison he had just injected or swallowed or snorted or whatever the fuck Klaus did, and left four fives on top of his bedside table. Well, after he had stared at his sleeping brother for a little longer than Five was comfortable ever admitting to.

Of course, once that was done all he could think about was what if the hit that Klaus bought with his money was the one that finally killed him? Five wasn’t here last time. What if the only reason that Klaus survived until the apocalypse was because he couldn’t get enough cash together to buy the drugs that Five just funded? It was enough to drive him even more insane than what he already was. So, Five did what he always did when he got like this: he talked to Delores. Which of course meant he had to find Delores which wasn’t altogether too hard until fucking Hazel and Cha-Cha popped up.

Five really wishes he had fucking decapitated those two years ago. He should have known that The Handler would send them. Other than him, they were the best. Although how the hell they found him in the fucking department store was anyone’s guess. Five had to admit to some grudging respect for that feat of ingenuity. Of course, then they shot Delores, so now they have to die. But out of professional courtesy, he will try to make it as quick and painless as possible.

“Oh, shit.”

Only Klaus and those stupid fucking words could distract him enough to make him forget Delores. Reaching for the bag, he quickly pulls down the zipper, pulling out the half empty bottle of vodka and setting it aside so that he can gently let Delores out.

“Hey. Sorry you were in there for so long, Delores.”

Five can tell that Delores is eying off the half empty bottle on the seat next to her, accusation clear in her pointed silence.

“No, I’m not drunk. I’m working.”

She seems unconvinced, which is just rude, if you ask Five. She also once again expresses her scepticism about his plan to stop the apocalypse by tracking down the owner of the eye. Honestly, he has explained this to her so many freaking times by this point, you would think she would at least try to be supportive of his plan.

“Yes, it’s about the eye thing. This is the place it was made. Or… will be made. We just have to wait.”

Delores’ scepticism doesn’t seem to lessen at this explanation. After a few moments of sitting in accusatory silence, however, she picks up on Five’s inner turmoil like always. Hearing the unasked question, Five can’t help but let out a long groan, barely resisting the impulse to hit his head on the steering wheel in the vain hope that a traumatic brain injury would get him out of this conversation. After a few moments in which Delores decidedly does not let him get away with silence, however, Five realises he is going to have to talk about his feelings. It honestly disturbs him how good of an interrogator Delores is.

“For fuck’s sake fine! It’s Klaus, okay! But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

An unimpressed silence is all Five gets in response to his outburst, so he forces himself to take in a deep breath and slow his rapid heartbeat.

“Everything is so messed up, Delores. Vanya’s book? It’s true. Well, not the part about Klaus being insane. The others always never did take Dad seriously when he talked about Klaus’ potential. I’m pretty sure they still think that he is crazy rather than talking to Ben, which just shows what a bunch of useless idiots they actually are.”

Delores is not impressed at all by Five’s attempts to talk around the main issue, something she has no problem articulating in a rather brutal way, so Five reluctantly forces himself to say what has been echoing around his head since he talked to Klaus this morning

“He said he loves me. And I know he was just saying it because he wants my money but for a second all I could think about was his fucking corpse lying in the rubble and I swear to god I almost had a heart attack.”

Five couldn’t help but let out a wry laugh at Delores’ caustic response.

“Yeah, hence the alcohol. I figured I might need it at some point. But I haven’t drunk any yet, so I was telling the truth when I said I wasn’t drunk.”

The unspoken ‘yet’ seems to fill the van, forcing Five to pull his gaze away from the building so he can glare at Delores. Delores for her part does not appear to be cowed in the least, and instead forcibly shifts the topic back to Klaus. Delores has always liked talking about Klaus. It is honestly disturbing how much she seems to like a man she has never met, and only ever heard about through Five’s often heavily inebriated ramblings. Five had decided years ago that he would never let Delores and Klaus meet because he is fairly sure his mental stability would not survive both of them ganging up on him at the same time.

“I’m not getting him involved anymore, Delores. It’s too fucking dangerous. Either I will have to watch him overdose from the drugs he buys with the money that I give him or Hazel and Cha-Cha will catch up to me and Klaus will get hurt in the crossfire. Do you honestly think Klaus could survive those two? I mean, I didn’t even get out of that fucking store unscathed and I’m me. I somehow doubt Klaus would leave an encounter with those two with only a fucking bullet graze.”

Five can feel Delores’ judgement at Five’s not very flattering assessment of Klaus’ capabilities. Loathe to admit she has a point because Klaus had always been far more capable than he ever let on, Five turns back around to the Meritech building, intent on ignoring Delores for at least the next few hours. Delores hates it when he gives her the silent treatment, which makes doing so all the more satisfying. Delores, however, has had years of practice in baiting Five out of his silences, and this time is no different.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘is he everything you remember’? You sound like one of your fucking romance novels.”

Delores ignores his dig at her bizarre fondness for whatever romance novels they came across during the apocalypse, and instead proceeds to recite with almost terrifying accuracy what Five had said about Klaus the last time he had been blindingly drunk. Five can feel the flush creeping up the back of his neck towards his ears until Delores’ next words jerk him out of his humiliated reverie.

“I did not say his eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad. Where the hell did you even get that from? What does that even mean?”

Five does not appreciate the amused silence that follows. Delores seems far too pleased with herself. Her smugness visibly falls away, however, when Five finally gets the courage to voice the nightmare that keeps him awake at night.

“I can’t lose him, Delores. Not again. And if he’s around me he will get killed. The Handler will never just let me walk away. Even if I manage to stop the apocalypse, Hazel and Cha-Cha will still be after me. And there are dozens more in the wings just waiting to take their place, so even if I kill them there will always be more. Can you really say that spending time with Klaus is worth him getting killed, or worse?”

The fact that Delores, for once, actually agrees with Five somehow makes him feel even worse.

Chapter Text

My Name is Vanya Hargreeves, and this is my story…

We were never a real family. We were our father’s creation, family in name but not in fact. In the end, after our brother Ben had died, there was really nothing connecting us. We were just strangers living under the same roof, destined to be alone, starved for attention, damaged by our upbringing, and haunted by what might have been. But it was Klaus that left us first, disappearing in the middle of the night, leaving only a note explaining that he was never coming back and to not look for him. None of us, other than Mom, were actually surprised.

My brother Klaus had always teetered on the edge of sanity, standing so close to the edge that at times it seemed inevitable that he would fall. By the time we were seventeen, Klaus had already begun to habitually consume drugs, the ever-increasing uncertainty about whether he was sober or not leading to Luther usually refusing to take Klaus on missions. But it was Ben’s death that truly pushed Klaus over the edge, the demons that had been haunting him for years finally breaking free and consuming him.

I remember the first time that I heard Klaus talking to Ben, a week and a half after his funeral. My siblings were training, and I, like always, was an invisible presence on the margins, ever watchful but never seen or acknowledged. Our Father was on one of his research trips; long stretches of time where he would leave the Academy to escape the apparently stifling environment produced by seven children desperately seeking his love and approval. He had left two days after Ben’s funeral, and none of us had heard from him since. If he was another man, any other man, I would think he was in mourning. As a teenager, it was what I convinced myself of. But as an adult I recognise that it was not grief that drove our Father from the Academy but disappointment, the disappointment of a man who had just lost one of his most successful test subjects.

Klaus had, for once, just bested Diego in hand-to-hand combat, sweeping Diego’s legs out from underneath him in a complicated move that none of us had ever seen him accomplish before. As Diego went crashing to the ground, Klaus let out a triumphant squeal of laughter, spinning around while clapping his hands, the childlike mannerisms that Klaus never seemed to grow out of on full display. Everything changed, though, when Klaus turned to his left and started talking animatedly to an invisible, silent presence, demanding praise and recognition.

At first, the room was filled with palpable confusion, as even Luther and Allison stopped talking to turn and watch. After a few moments, however, confusion gave way to an icy sense of dread, when we all listened as Klaus finally identified his imaginary conversation partner as our recently deceased brother. In retrospect, with the wisdom of adulthood, I know how we should have responded. We should have been kind, gentle. We should have gotten Klaus the help he needed. In retrospect, it is clear to see that Klaus’ abilities had somehow finally pushed him from the edge into the abyss. That the damage wrought onto him by our father was finally too much for his psyche. That the drugs and the alcohol and the loneliness had finally taken their toll on Klaus. But at the time we were still children. And children are nothing if not cruel…

Chapter Text

A lot of unexpected things have happened in Klaus’ life.

There was the time his favourite brother, a boy he only too late realised that he was in love with, vanished without a trace. Then there was Ben’s death and the subsequent heart attack inducing moment where he woke up the next morning to see his very dead brother sitting on his bed looking nothing like the mess of blood and viscera that Klaus had last seen him as. Then there was that time that Vanya wrote a book in which she basically told the whole world that he was a useless, crazy junkie who would amount to nothing but an early death. Oh, and then there was the moment when Five somehow came back, looking exactly like he did the day he disappeared. So yeah, Klaus generally considered himself to be a connoisseur of the unexpected.

But even for Klaus, a giant wearing some nightmare Chuck E. Cheese mask crashing into his room while he was only wearing some towels and listening to Sinnerman on his clunky Walkman was really fucking unexpected.

So, maybe Klaus can be forgiven for only getting a few shots in against Chuck E. Cheese before the behemoth smashed his face against the wall and his vision exploded into fractals. Although, admittedly, they were pretty good shots. Klaus really hopes the guy wasn’t planning on having children because he’s pretty sure he might have done some irrevocable damage when he smashed his guitar into the man’s crotch. Then again, considering that he and his friend have spent the last ten hours torturing him, Klaus thinks that he would derive a lot of vindictive pleasure from permanently stripping this asshole of the ability to procreate.

“You know that’s not true, right?”

Glancing over at Ben, Klaus almost feels bad that his brother has to watch all of this because of whatever sick, cosmic joke that has resulted in them irrevocably tied to one another. Sure, it’s not the worst thing Ben has had to watch him endure, but as messed up as Klaus is, even he knows that having to sit on some crappy motel armchair while watching as his brother is beaten, cut, burned, strangled, and then waterboarded is not the way anyone would choose to spend their afterlife.

“Going to have to be a little more specific, Benny Boy. My head is a little too fuzzy to make logical leaps at the current moment.”

Sighing, Ben pushes himself off of the armchair and walks towards Klaus, finally squatting in front of the chair he is currently tied to.

“You said nobody will notice that you are missing. You’re wrong.”

“The fact that I’ve been missing for over twelve hours and no one has mounted a valiant rescue attempt kind of supports my proposition, brother mine. They don’t care. Never have, never will.”

Klaus tries not to wince at the pain in his chest that his own words cause. Instead, he watches with interest as emotions flash across Ben’s face, the usual congenial expression transformed into a mask of rage and disgust, before smoothing out again into something more hopeful.

“Five will notice you are gone, Klaus.”

Klaus can’t help the hysterical giggles that escape him at Ben’s pronouncement, the pain lancing through his chest increasing tenfold as he thinks about his few interactions with Five since his brother had returned.

“Ha! Not bloody likely. He’s been fucking obsessed with that eye ever since he came back. Five wouldn’t notice if I walked naked into oncoming traffic right in front of him.”

For some strange reason, Ben seems to find this hilarious, a burst of manic laughter exploding out of him for a few moments before he manages to get control over himself again. Standing up, he wanders over to perch on top of the desk opposite Klaus.

“Trust me Klaus, if you were naked, Five would definitely notice.”

Shaking his head, Klaus dismisses that odd comment to focus on more important things, like his and anyone who turns up at this motel room’s immanent death.

“And so what if he does notice I’m gone? He turns up here and these psychos kill him and then me?”

“I’m pretty sure Five could take them. Maybe.”

“Your faith in our brother, while truly heart-warming, does not inspire much confidence. Besides, we’ve gotten out of worse situations. Remember that guy with the foot fetish?”

Ben does not seem to appreciate Klaus’ attempt at levity but really, Klaus thinks that if he managed to escape a guy who had a freezer full of severed human feet, he at least has a fighting chance against these two weirdos. And the fact that they won’t kill him until Five arrives likely means that he is going to be stuck here long enough that some opportunity for escape will present itself. Hopefully. Then again, the withdrawal may just kill him before any of that can happen. Yeah, Klaus has been feeling that coming on for the last couple of hours. And the fact that he is pretty sure that he can see someone in his peripheral vision, their body becoming clearer and more defined the longer he is here, suggests that the last of the narcotics are well and truly leaving his system.

“Heads up, Furry One and Furry Two are coming back.”

“Oh goodie.”

Klaus tries to listen to his captors’ movements over the deafening sound of his heartbeat and the high-pitched ringing noise that he first noticed when he came to in the boot of Chuck E. Cheese’s car. Sure enough, the female in the mask fills his vision and proceeds to methodically beat him again, all the while asking him questions about Five’s whereabouts, as if Five actually cared enough about Klaus to let him in of his plans. With every “I don’t know”, the woman’s hits get harder and more strategically placed in order to cause the maximum amount pain while still ensuring Klaus’ spleen doesn’t rupture or some other fatal injury. Klaus is just grateful that, for the moment, she seems to have given up on the knives and cigarette butts.

It’s times like these that Klaus can almost feel something bordering on gratefulness to his sadistic father. Dear old Dad had been quite insistent that all of his children develop an abnormally high pain tolerance and Klaus was no exception. In fact, dearly departed Dad had insisted that Klaus especially should excel in this area, considering that his abilities had little to no offensive capabilities. Life will be hard. It will be painful. It was the one thing his father taught him that applied as much outside of the Academy as within it. So, Klaus just concentrates on trying to keep his breathing steady, anticipating hits and shifting his body minutely in a fairly vain attempt to minimise the damage.

It’s when he starts laughing hysterically at the thought of how proud the old man would be, that the woman finally gives up with a muffled shout of frustration and stalks off behind him to presumably confer with her partner.

“Eyes front, freak!”

Barely hearing the barked order, Klaus continues trying to breathe evenly, pushing through the blinding pain from what is likely at least two fractured ribs in order to take in as much oxygen as he can. He knows that passing out isn’t an option; he needs to stay alert enough that, should an opportunity for escape present itself, he can actually take advantage of it. Though tempting as a respite from the agony shooting through his body is, unconsciousness was not going to help him get out of this clusterfuck. Ben, thankfully, seems to read some of his thoughts, offering himself as a distraction against the looming threat of oblivion.

“You okay, Klaus?”

“Just peachy.”

Now that the beating is over, Klaus realises that he has unfortunately sobered up even more. The vague humanoid form in his periphery has now taken on the shape of an old woman with a head scarf who, the moment she notices Klaus’ attention, looks out of the window and starts babbling continuously in what might be Russian. For a few moments, likely brought on by a combination of blood loss and withdrawal, Klaus can’t help wondering why the dead people that come to him are never hot. The best-looking eye candy he gets on a regular basis is Ben, and Klaus is about as attracted to him as he was a cuttlefish he once found washed up at a beach.

Before Five stumbled through a fucking portal in the sky, a part of Klaus always felt heartbroken that his favourite brother never came to visit him. While the optimistic part of him liked to whisper hopeful dreams that Five’s absence meant that the boy was likely still alive, the lonely part of Klaus cried out for the comfort that only Five ever seemed to be able to provide him with. Dead or alive, Klaus has always and will always need Five. Klaus can’t help but think that it is rather ironic then that when he does finally get Five back, alive and even physically unchanged, there is nothing of his once protector left. Nothing that could or would assuage the consuming emptiness that had appeared right after Five had vanished all those years ago. Before he can depress himself further with this line of thinking, however, Klaus is pulled from his increasingly maudlin thoughts by Ben.

“Withdrawal. It’s starting now, isn’t it? Must be. Otherwise, who’s the dead babushka?”

At Ben’s almost teasing question, Klaus can feel his fear and despair shift almost immediately into righteous fury at his captors, at Ben, at Five and the rest of his deadbeat family, and most especially at the fucking Russian lady who was still talking.

“I don’t know, but it’s driving me crazy. The bitch won’t shut up!”

Klaus is distantly aware of Chuck E. Cheese yelling something at him, but he barely registers the words, too distracted by a combination of the tremors racking through his body and the anger suffusing his body.

“Stay calm, Klaus.”

“‘Stay calm’? ‘Stay clam’? Let’s have you kidnapped, tied to a chair naked, and then tortured by a bunch of sadistic freaks in cartoon animal masks and see how fucking calm you are, Ben!”

Ben appears to be both unsurprised and unimpressed by Klaus’ hissed diatribe, merely raising his eyebrows before turning his head to look over at his captors. The shift in focus draws Klaus’ attention to the fact that the sadistic assholes are coming over again, likely to continue the next round of let’s-ask-Klaus-questions-he-does-not-have-the-answers-to. Klaus is surprised, however, when instead of reaching for him, Chuck E. Cheese instead leans down and picks up his coat (and seriously, Klaus can’t decide if the fact that the guy even bothered to take the time to pick up and bring his coat after the man had knocked him unconscious is a good sign or a bad one) and hands it off to the woman who, if Klaus is being honest, seems to be the brains of this outfit.

Oh shit, his coat. Where the drugs are. And, possibly at this moment more importantly, where there are lock picking tools and a pocket knife sewn into a hidden pocket on the inside of the right sleeve. Klaus knows that at some point he will likely need those.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what are you doing? That’s mine. That’s my personal stuff.”

Neither captor seems impressed by his objections, with the woman exclaiming in mocking joy as she pulls out his stash of various drugs from one of the pockets.

“What do we have here?”

God, Klaus could really use any of those drugs. The Russian lady is still blathering on and trying to concentrate on what’s going in on the room with her in the background would already be difficult even without what he is coming to suspect is a fairly serious concussion impeding his ability to actually think clearly. Sure, the drugs will likely not help with the concussion, but they would definitely fix his loquacious Russian problem. Unfortunately, at Chuck E. Cheese’s request, the woman throws the drugs over to him. Assholes.

“Hey, no, no, no, no. Be- be careful with that. It’s- it’s my… asthma medication.”

Klaus ignored Ben’s incredulous snort and keeps his attention on the hand now holding the various pills. Chuck E. Cheese seems far too pleased by the intensity of Klaus’ focus. Klaus knows that the smart thing to do would be to not be this fucking obvious, to play it cool and try to pass himself off as a casual partier rather than the fucking useless junkie he really is. But nothing about his addictions is smart, so he isn’t really too surprised that this is now being used against him.

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

At his pronouncement, Chuck E. Cheese drops the drugs to the ground, beginning to crush to pills under his stupid clown-sized shoes.

“Hey, no, hey! Whoa! No, hey, hold on! Hold on! We can have a conversation. We’re adults.”

Neither masked wanker seems to be particularly moved by his plea, something that is proven with Chuck E. Cheese’s next move when he gleefully throws more of the pills on the ground and continues to stomp on them with vindictive pleasure. Klaus can’t help but try to lurch up from the chair, only succeeding in jumping it up and down on the spot, feeling the tears pricking in his eyes both at the loss of the pills and the humiliation at what that loss does to him.

“No! No! No, no, no! Stop! Please, listen. Listen, I can… I can get you cash, amputee hookers, whatever.”

As Klaus tries to bargain with the giant douche, he notices the woman handing over a bar of chocolate to her partner, and watches as Chuck E. Cheese begins to open it. A nebulous plan forming in his mind, Klaus continues to babble only semi-coherently in the hope that it will distract the over-grown asshole long enough that he actually eats some of the ridiculously potent shit. Sure enough the man breaks off a large piece and reaches under his mask to shove it into his mouth.

“You want a piece?”

At Chuck E. Cheese’s oh so generous offer to the woman standing behind him, Klaus can’t help but emit a gasp, half out of pain that the only part of his stash not crushed under this asshole’s shoe is about to be eaten by other people right in front of him, and half out of hopeful elation that his plan might actually work.

“You gonna tell him that it’s special chocolate?”

At Ben’s question, Klaus can’t help shooting a small smirk at his brother and replying in a soft murmur.

“Not until they’re high as kites.”

Luckily, neither of his captors appear to listen to his comment, seemingly already used enough to Klaus talking to himself to ignore much of what he says unless he is speaking directly to them. If not for the circumstances, Klaus would feel a little bitter about that, but if it helps him get out of this nightmare then he is fine with them treating him the same way everyone else does. Of course, his momentary victory is ruined by the Russian lady’s babbling getting louder, and the introduction of a few new whispered voices, not yet strong enough to have physical form, but loud enough that thy echo around the room, making him want to curl up into a ball and scream until he can’t hear them anymore.

“Klaus, be strong.”

Klaus only has a few seconds to contemplate Ben’s advice before the woman is dangling a bag of ecstasy pills over his head and any thoughts he had about escaping or holding out collapse under the weight of the voice screaming in his head, MINE.

“This could all be yours for the low, low price of telling us everything.”

Klaus briefly thinks of what little he knows about Five’s movements since he has returned and tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach as he realises what he is about to do. He can’t seem to entirely push down the sobs that are trying to escape, and he finally feels the tears in his eyes escape and roll down his face.

“Okay, fine.”

Chapter Text

There is not enough alcohol in the world to get Five to what would be an acceptable level of inebriation at this current moment. It is almost funny, really. He had actually thought he could stop the fucking apocalypse: he had finally found Meritech, gotten that little weasel Lance to finally cough up the information about the eye, and was on his way to pick up the list to find out who he needed to kill. Things were actually, for once, going according to plan. Saying that, a part of Five doesn’t really know if he was even truly surprised to see the building in flames when he arrived. The explosion throwing him ten feet across the pavement was, admittedly, fairly surprising. But somehow, after the cluster fuck that the last fifty-odd years have been, it wasn’t entirely unexpected for his plans to, once again, go up in literal flames.

Of course, smashing his head on said pavement and then waking up in the back of Diego’s car to the dulcet tones of his least favourite brothers bickering like… well like he and Delores if he was going to be honest about it, also probably counted as surprising too.

“… he blew it up, do you?”

“Somehow, Luther, I think that if Five had blown up a building he would have made sure he at least got clear of the explosion. But I don’t know, maybe that’s just me. Maybe you would stick around to become grafted to the pavement.”

“Go to hell, Diego.”

“Fuck you, Luther. How the fuck am I supposed to know if Five blew up the freaking building? Aren’t you supposed to be our fearless leader, Cornelius?”

“Who the hell is Cornelius?”

“God it’s like talking to a freaking–”

Five was too fucking sober for this.

“I’m too fucking sober for this.”

At his pained grumble, Five’s body is suddenly propelled forward as Diego, the eternal idiot, slams the brakes on his car. Five can’t help but let out an incoherent groan as his body collides with the driver’s seat and then collapses into the cramped space on the car floor. Deciding to take the few precious seconds of stunned silence that his emergence from unconsciousness has elicited from his brothers to assess whether or not he should spatial jump with a likely concussion, Five almost misses Luther’s predictably useless input.

“Five, you’re awake!”

“Glad to see you have not lost your powers of observation, brother. Diego, move your fucking seat forward before my spine snaps in two.”

As Diego complies, all the while muttering about ungrateful, idiotic brothers, Five can’t help but release a soft whine as he finally untangles himself enough to pull his now pain riddled body onto the back seat, collapsing when an explosion of white lights obscures his vision.

God, Diego needs to clean his car. Five can only hope to never find out what his face is currently smashed up against. Car seats should not be somehow both sticky and slippery at the same time.

“How did I get in your car?”

“We were trying to find you, so we were at the van. I decided to go pay back that store owner that Klaus robbed yesterday, and we were in there when the explosion hit.”

“Yeah, we peeled you off the sidewalk before the police arrived. No need to thank us or anything.” Five has decided that he is going to stab Diego. It’s not his fault someone blew up the building. The thing that really annoys him is that if he was even a foot and a half further away from the explosion, he probably would have been able to walk away from the site on his own two feet, rather than having to be rescued by his idiot brothers.

“Wait, why were you two there?”

“Two masked intruders attacked the Academy last night.” Five can’t help the sudden chill that runs through his body at Luther’s statement. Hazel and Cha-Cha. In the Academy. God, he should have realised that they would eventually link him to the Academy.

“And they were looking for you, asshole. So, we need you to tell us what the hell they want from you, Five, because I ha–”

“Was anyone hurt?”

Was Klaus hurt?

Diego does not seem to appreciate Five interrupting his no doubt asinine revenge soliloquy, but at this moment Five cannot give any of the fucks. All he can think about is the image of Hazel and Cha-Cha standing over Klaus’ lifeless body, and the knowledge that Five once again failed to protect him. Luther’s voice distracts him, though, from the gaping pit of despair forming in his chest.

“Vanya almost got killed by one of them and Allison has a few bruises, but other than that everyone is fine.” Five can tell that Luther is holding something back, his brother’s eyes shifting towards Diego during his explanation. This seems to aggravate Diego, who draws in a deep breath, something he only does when he is trying to prevent a stutter. Five’s lungs turn to stone, his breath catching as he takes in the expression of sorrow on his brothers’ faces.

“They killed Mom.” It takes Five a few moments to process Diego’s statement, his brain not seeming to comprehend the words at first.

“What?” Diego seems disinclined to elaborate, so after a few more moments of charged silence Luther steps up.

“They killed her. She was at her charging station and they cut into her arm and they… they…”

Five isn’t sure what to do with this. His mind is spinning. Mom. Gone. Killed by Hazel and Cha-Cha. Because of him. The next question is almost impossible to get out, the words seeming to stick to the back of his throat, too afraid of the answer they could elicit if they are spoken aloud.

“And Klaus?”

At Five’s softly spoken question, Diego lets out a contemptuous snort that makes Five’s fingers itch for his rifle.

“Klaus wasn’t even there. Knowing him he’s probably off somewhere getting high.” Luther seems to agree with Diego, if his disappointed scowl is anything to go by. Five is too busy learning how to breathe again to really care all that much, his lungs dragging in air as his panic abates. Klaus is fine. He’s alive. He’s–

“Wait, you don’t know where Klaus is?”

Luther doesn’t seem to recognise the dangerous edge to Five’s question, going on about how none of them had seen their brother since some big family meeting the day earlier. Diego, though, seems to sense something, sending a furtive, questioning glance towards Five. For his part, Five is barely listening to Luther, the only relevant information being that no one has seen Klaus for almost twenty-four hours. Five quickly casts his mind back, realising that the last time he had actually seen Klaus was when the younger man jumped into a cab while running away from a security guard.

Fuck.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Hazel and Cha-Cha found out about the Academy. They obviously know about Five’s family. And Klaus is running around, likely high out of his mind and completely helpless. And Diego and Luther don’t seem to even care. Five can’t help the snarl that rips through his chest, the sheer panic returning and quickly transforming into pure rage. Some part of him knows that most of this anger is directed at himself, for being so fucking idiotic to underestimate Hazel and Cha-Cha, to leave Klaus unprotected, to be so petty and childish that he pushed his brother away because he couldn’t fucking deal with the mess of emotions the other man brought up in him. Saying that, for the time being Five was perfectly happy directing his rage towards his hapless, careless brothers instead.

“Let me get this straight. Two assassins attacked the Academy, killed Mom, and almost killed the rest of you, and none of you thought to find Klaus and make sure that he is safe?”

The deafening silence that greets Five’s furious question is enough of an answer. Slowly, Five moves forward, pushing uncomfortably close to where both of his brothers have twisted their bodies to face the back of the car. Feeling the cold numbness that he usually felt right before a kill take over his face, Five reaches forward and grips the back of each of his brothers’ necks, twisting his nails into their skin until he is satisfied with the twinges of pain on both of their faces.

“Where the fuck is Klaus?”

Chapter Text

“–laus. Klaus! KLAUS!”

Wrenching his eyes open, Klaus lets out a small scream as he feels hands gripping and lightly shaking his shoulders. Before he can begin to hyperventilate, however, Klaus’ eyes adjust in the early morning light streaming through his window, and Five’s familiar face comes into focus.

“Five?”

At Klaus’ sleepy question, Five’s lips lift up into a soft smile, his hands moving from Klaus’ shoulders to scratch lightly through his hair. Klaus always feels a bit like a cat whenever Five does this but enjoys the sensation far too much to ever complain. Instead, he moves his head into Five’s hands, hoping that his brother will take the not so subtle hint to continue the petting. Five seems to get the message loud and clear, letting out a quiet chuckle and increasing the pressure on Klaus’ scalp.

“What was it this time?”

“The crypts. He locked me in the crypts, and everyone forgot about me.”

At Klaus’ explanation of his nightmare, Five’s brow furrows and he moves in closer, his hands leaving Klaus’ scalp to draw him into a tight hug. Klaus takes the opportunity to nuzzle into the crook of Five’s neck, enjoying the feeling of physical comfort that was such a rare occurrence in the Academy outside of his and Five’s mornings together.

“I would never forget about you, Klaus. Ever.”

“I know, Five.”

And Klaus does know that. Out of all his siblings, he knows Five more than anyone would never leave Klaus alone in the dark. Ever since he had mastered spatial jumping, Five had never left Klaus alone in the crypts for longer than it took for their Father to lock him in there. It was the only thing that got Klaus through those long hours. Five would smuggle in a Walkman for Klaus to distract himself with and sit quietly next to him reading whatever book Five was interested in at that particular moment by the light of a shitty torch that Five had apparently stolen from their Father’s supplies. Five still refused to bring Klaus any pot to smoke, but Klaus found that he didn’t need the dulling effects of the drug as much when his brother was around.

“I’m going to talk to him about stopping your training in the crypts.” At Five’s non sequitur, Klaus’ head jerks up, narrowly missing a no doubt painful collision with Five’s chin.

“What?” Five, if anything, seems to find Klaus’ shock amusing, moving his right hand back to Klaus’ hair and letting his left rest against Klaus’ face, his fingers softly tapping Klaus’ cheekbone.

“I think I can figure out a way to convince him that you need a different kind of training. I don’t know what yet, but anything has to be better than locking you in a freaking tomb for hours on end. He’s starting to talk about all of our untapped potential and new training regimens, so I just have to think of the right way to bring it up so that the old man thinks it was his idea.”

“Are you serious?”

Klaus can barely breathe he is so stunned by Five’s announcement. Five will get him out of the crypts. He will rescue him from the dark. Not waiting for Five’s reply, Klaus lets out a half-joyous, half-hysterical laugh and unthinkingly launches himself forward, smashing his lips onto Five’s cheek in a rough approximation of a kiss, although his beaming smile means that it is more teeth than anything. Not waiting for Five’s reaction, Klaus throws his arms over his brother and resumes his previous position, smothering his uncontrollable giggling into Five’s neck.

“I take it you approve, then?” Klaus elects to ignore Five’s attempt to return to his more usual mocking humour, knowing that his brother was just trying to cover over the blush Klaus could actually feel creeping down the other boy’s neck. They stay like that for another few minutes, before the distant sounds of Mom starting her rounds to wake all the children up for breakfast began. Groaning, Klaus tightens his grip on Five in defiance, almost willing to face his father’s disapproval if it means that he can stay curled up a little longer with Five.

“I should get back to my room before Mom notices I’m gone.”

“Do you have to?”

“Yep. Lots of important things to do today. Need the old man in a good mood.”

“Are you really going to talk to him about my training?”

“Of course. I’m also going to talk to him about me time travelling.” At Five’s pronouncement, Klaus can’t help the tendrils of worry that creep across his chest.

“I thought he said it was too dangerous.”

“Yeah well, Dad doesn’t know everything.” Responding with a noncommittal hum, Klaus tightens his hold on Five one more time before sighing deeply and letting go, shuffling backwards so his back presses up against the wall adjacent to his bed.

“Just be careful, okay?”

All Klaus gets in response is a fond eyeroll before Five disappears from his bed with the tell-tale sound of a spatial jump. Moving onto his back, Klaus looks at his ceiling forlornly for a few moments before Mom knocks opens his door and pops her head in.

“Breakfast in twenty minutes, Klaus. Time to get dressed and ready.”

Sighing, Klaus drags himself from bed and gets dressed, making sure to carefully tuck a joint in his pocket. It is as he is opening his door to step into the hallway that Klaus realises something that causes him to momentarily pause: that was the first time he has ever kissed Five. A small, shy smile lighting up his face, Klaus begins to skip down the hallway, humming softly to himself.

Chapter Text

Diego was… confused. That was probably the only word that adequately described how he was feeling right about now. And Diego hated feeling confused. Confusion led to uncertainty, uncertainty led to self-doubt, and if there was one thing Diego had sworn to himself that he would never let himself feel ever again, it was self-doubt. Despite that, Diego was nonetheless confused as fuck.

When Luther and he had initially begun looking for Five, Diego had thought that it would be relatively straight forward. Or at least as straight forward as searching for a time travelling teleporter trapped in the body of a 13-year-old boy with a really bad attitude could ever be. And it had, at first, been fairly simple. They had found Five, albeit unconscious and bleeding from a head wound, but nothing serious enough to warrant anything more than fleeting concern. Luther and he had loaded the twerp into his car, and then they had gone through the arduous process of then trying to fit Luther into his car (and Diego was never going to get those dents out).

But then, of course, Five woke up, and everything went to shit.

Diego isn’t really scared of much. He spends his time doing what the useless police won’t and actually saves people. He has the scars to prove it. Patch may talk about police procedure and all that crap but both she and Diego know that the real work of saving people is not done pushing paper behind a desk. It’s done in the dark, with blood and knives and pain.

So, yeah. Diego does not scare easy. But holy mother of God if the look that Five had given Luther and he in his car when he asked where Klaus was just about set every alarm bell off in his head. If it hadn’t been his brother sitting opposite him, Diego would have thrown his knives first and asked questions later. And the fact that, when Five had then demanded they go and pick up a busted mannequin that Five seems disturbingly attached to, neither he or Luther said anything remotely to the contrary, suggests that his other brother also picked up on the danger they had unknowingly dragged into Diego’s car.

So this brings Diego to where he is now, cruising around the less savoury parts of the city with a snoring giant ape man, an unhinged pubescent boy, and an apparently (according to Five’s running commentary at least) judgey, Harry Potter obsessed mannequin, looking for his delusional junkie brother who, for some weird reason, seems to matter a lot to a guy who doesn’t seem to care about much except for said mannequin. This is why Diego stopped talking to his family.

“We’ve been at this for hours, Five. I’m telling you, man, Klaus will show up when he runs out of either drugs or money. He always does.”

Diego is about to offer more specific stories about Klaus’ many, many, drug fuelled escapades, but the words die on his lips when he sees the look Five is levelling him through the rear-view mirror. Diego has seen that look on the faces of certain criminals he has taken down. The really dangerous ones. The ones that make violence an artform and take pleasure in the kill. And the fact that it’s his long-lost brother levelling that look at him somehow makes it all the more disconcerting.

“Look, I at least have to check in at work. See if there are any messages for me, pick up some stuff from home.”

Five’s only response is an unimpressed raised eyebrow, before he seems to be distracted by something the mannequin says (and Diego is not going anywhere near that), breaking eye contact with Diego to look at the mannequin, then letting out an irritated groan before turning to look outside of the window.

“Fine, Diego. We can go get your messages. But once we do, we are calling your cop friend and getting her help to find Klaus.”

Diego can’t help but groan. He is not sure what will be worse, enlisting Eudora to help him find his junkie brother and actually introducing her to the shit show that is his dysfunctional mess of a family, or having Five lose what little patience he has and teleport himself into the precinct and demand Patch’s assistance anyways. And by demand, Diego is envisioning something that will effectively amount to kidnapping. Envying Luther his current state of blissful unconsciousness, Diego resists the impulse to bang his head on the steering wheel.

“Chop, chop Diego. Klaus is not going to magically find himself. No Delores, for the last time, I am not going to be introducing you to Klaus when we find him. I do not even want to think about what you two would be like together.”

Jesus Christ, Diego’s family is so fucking messed up…

Chapter Text

“Yes, Delores, you are not wrong. This place is a shit hole.”

While Delores is cackling madly, Five walks down the steps of Diego’s… hovel? Boiler room? Who knows, really. And considering that Five spent a considerable portion of his life traipsing across a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the fact that he would have to think for a few moments if asked where he would prefer to spend the night says something about the state of Diego’s… living quarters.

“You are such prick, Five.”

Diego has been in a progressively worse mood as the day has gone on. After Five refused to tell Luther and Diego anything more about Hazel and Cha-Cha other than their names until they helped him locate Klaus, Diego seemed to have become increasingly indignant with every five minutes spent looking for “their useless junkie brother”. His mood was not improved when Five started stealing one of Diego’s knives for every disparaging comment he made about Klaus. Suffice to say, Diego was down quite a few. Five would care about how annoyed Diego was becoming, but both Luther and Diego are too invested in getting the information about Hazel and Cha-Cha that Five is holding over their heads to actually not help him, no matter how frustrated they get. So, Five and Delores are content to get some retribution for the way his siblings have apparently been treating Klaus since he got stuck in the future.

“True, Diego. But I also don’t live here, so there is that. You have ten minutes to find whatever you need to get before we are going back out there.”

After shooting Five a poisonous look, Diego stalks back over to the staircase and heads up to the gym level, slamming the door behind him like the hormonal teenager Five is now stuck as. Delores seems to find antagonising Diego to be endlessly amusing, already whispering new ways they could get under the younger man’s skin. Five’s favourites so far are either stealing all of his stupid knives or trading out all of Diego’s black leather for bright orange velour.

“As painful as it is to admit, we actually need the moron’s help. So, either option, while amusing, would likely be counterproductive.”

Delores’ scoffing retort to the idea that Diego could be useful in any shape, way, or form is interrupted by Luther clearing his throat pointedly. Five dearly misses those precious few hours when his other brother was asleep in the car.

“So… that’s the Delores you were with during the apocalypse?”

Delores and Five just look at each other for a moment, silently commiserating over the company they are currently being forced to keep. Delores, while initially excited to meet more members of Klaus’ infamously dysfunctional family, has not been very impressed so far, expressing her outrage that Five let Klaus run off before she could meet him, and therefore forcing her to settle for these subpar alternatives.

“Yes, this is Delores.”

“She seems… nice?”

Both Klaus and Delores are unconvinced by Luther’s questioning assessment, Five rolling his eyes and turning around so he doesn’t have to look at Luther. Of course, that means that he has nothing better to do than inspect Diego’s little knife shrine, carefully picking up a well-balanced butterfly knife and pocketing it. Delores seems to be trying to take Diego’s alleged usefulness in locating Klaus seriously, waves of disapproval emanating off her in response to his theft. Five is almost impressed that she apparently likes Klaus so much that she would risk actually doing something almost nice for Diego.

“Oh, I’m sure he will miss it, Delores. I just really don’t care either way.”

“So… you talk to it– her, I mean.”

Delores does not seem to appreciate the ‘it’ comment, hissing angry comments about her lifelong curse of being surrounded by idiotic, insensitive men with the emotional range of a teaspoon. Five would take offence, but they have this argument almost as often as the drinking too much one, so he decides to let it go for the moment. Sighing loudly, he turns away from the knives and once again faces his brother, wondering how he had gotten himself into a situation in which Diego and Luther were his best chances for protecting Klaus.

“She talks to me, yes, and I talk back. I could ignore her, but the last time I resorted to the silent treatment she sang It’s a Small fucking World for a week and a half straight. It was… less than pleasant.”

“Huh.”

Five is saved from trying to figure out what to do with that oh so eloquent answer by Diego storming back through the door above them, racing down the stairs and pushing Five out of the way to pick up more knives.

“Got a message from Patch from about ten minutes ago. She says that she found Klaus. She’s at some motel in Calhoun. Who the hell even knows what Klaus has gotten himself into if he is in that dump…”

At the mention of the motel, Five feels something like dread creep into his system. Delores is softly recounting all the motels that the Commission had put them in during his assignments, increasing concern slipping into her tone.

“How would they have found him though, Delores? Maybe it’s not them. People other than the Commission use motels, right?”

Delores seems unconvinced, and her worry is making his own sense of unease increase rapidly. Pulling out the butterfly knife, Five starts fidgeting with it in an effort to distract himself from his worry and how much he wishes he wasn’t startlingly sober right about now.

“You think that those psychopaths have Klaus?”

At Luther’s question, Five focuses his attention onto his giant of a brother, surprised that out of Diego and Luther, it was Luther that picked up on his concern.

“It’s a distinct possibility. If I was hunting me down, I would go for the vulnerabilities. It’s strange that they haven’t reached out yet, though. I mean, what’s the point of a hostage if no one knows that you have one?”

“If they have left a message at the Academy then Pogo or Allison would have contacted us by now.”

“I think it’s more likely that the addict is doing what addicts do in motels- get high.” Neither Five nor Delores appreciate Diego unwelcome addition to the conversation.

“You’re right, Delores, dropping him off a bridge is looking more and more appealing.” When Diego begins to reach towards one of his knives, Luther steps forward, using his bulk to physically separate Diego and Five. Five would be insulted that his brother actually thinks Diego poses any danger to him, but he has more important things to worry about at the moment.

“Guys stop it. We are going to work as a team and find Klaus, and then figure out how to deal with the assassins, alright?”

“Or Five could stop being an asshole and wasting both of our time and actually tell us what the fuck they want from him.”

“You know the deal. Not until Klaus is safe.”

“Newsflash, Five. Klaus is an unstable drug addict. You could lock the guy in a padded cell and he still probably wouldn’t qualify as safe.”

At this comment from Diego, Five loses his patience, spatial jumping around Luther and landing behind Diego, smashing his foot into the back of his knees and pulling his arms around Diego’s neck in what they both know would take half a second to change into a sleeper hold.

“Listen here, Number Two. We are going to that motel to get Klaus, and then we are bringing him to the Academy. And if Hazel and Cha-Cha have him, you are going to help me kill them in the slowest and most painful ways I know. And once we get him back to the Academy, you are going to keep your mouth shut, because if you say one more insulting thing about him, if you say one more insulting thing to him, I will sew your mouth shut with a fucking fishing hook and break every one of your fingers, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal.”

Chapter Text

When Klaus looks out the window and sees Five, Diego, Luther, and a random woman through the curtains, his first thought is that half of his family is dead. Because really, what else is he supposed to think? He has been in this god forsaken room for over twenty-four hours now, being tortured by a stunning combination of trigger-happy psychos and an ever-increasing number of mutilated dead people. The idea that salvation was actually here, let alone that his family gave enough shits about him to notice that he was missing in the first place, is unbelievable. Literally unbelievable. As in, it takes a few seconds to actually register that, no, Five is not dead, and that he is somehow walking around not five feet away from where Klaus is bleeding, tied to a chair, with duct tape covering his mouth.

Knowing that Hazel and Cha-Cha are currently having some sort of murder buddy crisis in the bathroom, Klaus takes a risk and starts crashing in head onto the desk next to him, in the vain hope that one of his brothers will actually hear him.

“Louder, Klaus! They can’t hear you.”

If Klaus gets out of this, he is working out a way to punch a dead person. Fighting the tears brought on by the pain now radiating through his forehead, Klaus takes a quick, deep breath in, and proceeds to hit his head so hard against the table he thinks he momentarily blacks out. Just as he is pulling back and readying for a second go, soft, hauntingly familiar hands suddenly thread through his hair, exerting enough pressure to stop his downward movement. Jerking his head around, Klaus is suddenly very grateful for the duct tape, as it helps smother the loud, slightly hysterical sob that rips through his chest when he sees Five standing next to him.

“Oh my god, Klaus.”

Five looks almost as upset as Klaus feels, his brow furrowed and his hands shaking slightly as he pulls out a butterfly knife from his pocket and starts tearing through the restraints on his wrists.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m so sorry Klaus, I didn’t know. I didn’t think– what have they done to you? I’m so sorry.”

Released from his bindings, Klaus finally gives into the impulse that has been slowly consuming him ever since Five fell out of that glowy portal thingy and wraps his arms around his brother in a nearly suffocating hug, dimly aware of the tears streaming down his face. Far too soon, Five pulls back, his eyes looking a little watery and he gently raises a hand to slowly pry the duct tape from Klaus’ face, apologising at the pained whines Klaus can’t help but emit.

“I’m sorry, I just have to get it off. It will just take a few more seconds, promise. I swear to you, Klaus, I am going to kill them for this. Then I am going to hunt down every member of the Commission and burn it to the fucking ground.”

Klaus doesn’t really know what Five is talking about other than the whole hunting down Hazel and Cha-Cha thing, which he is completely on board wi–

“Klaus! The bathroom door is opening!”

Just as Klaus hears Ben’s warning, he suddenly feels himself pushed violently to the side of the room behind one of the beds as a storm of bullets suddenly explode from the direction of the bathroom. Five, who Klaus now realises pushed him out of the way, is suddenly nowhere to be seen, but before Klaus can begin to panic that Five had been killed or abandoned him, he hears the familiar sound of Five’s spatial jumping and then a pained cry from what he is assuming is Hazel, based on the extremely heavy crash that echoes throughout the room as the other man falls to the floor.

Poking his head over the top of the bed, Klaus is just in time to see Hazel, keeling on the floor and bleeding form what looks like a nasty leg wound, aiming his gun at Five’s head, who disappears just in time to dodge the bullet. Suddenly, Five is next to him, quickly grabbing his hand and pulling Klaus towards the door.

“C’mon! You have to get out of he– FUCK!”

Five slams Klaus back down onto the ground and moves him into the corner of the room behind the bed again as bullets suddenly come flying through the window from outside of the motel room.

“Luther! Diego! What the fuck is going on?!”

“The woman is out here with a fucking machine gun! Patch has been shot! Get the fuck out here and help us, Five!”

Diego’s yelled command is overtaken by a spray of bullets coming from the bathroom area and the sounds of Hazel groaning as he pulls himself to his feet.

“Klaus, Klaus! You need to get out of here okay? I’m going to distract Hazel. You see an opportunity to run, you run. Don’t look back, just get the hell out of here, okay?”

Before Klaus can beg Five not to leave him, his brother disappears only to reappear briefly to press something into Klaus’ hands. It takes a second or so to realise that Five had given Klaus his jacket, but before he can say anything to Five, his brother jumps again, and the sounds of fighting in the back of the room recommence, punctuated only by the occasional gun shot and spatial jump. Klaus takes a moment to look out of the window, quickly realising that he is just as likely to die if he leaves the room when he sees Diego flying past and crashing, presumably, onto the floor with a pained shout, before the woman, Cha-Cha, advances into Klaus’ sightline, shooting at where Diego likely was.

“Klaus! Focus! You need to get out of here!”

Swinging around to his right, Klaus goes to say something biting to his state the bleeding obvious brother before he notices an air vent that looks like it could maybe fit him if he thought particularly skinny thoughts. Not wasting time, Klaus launches himself towards the vent, ripping off the front and only taking a moment to take in the briefcase already sitting in the vent, before he shoves it forward and wriggles in, trying not to panic too much when he hears something like an explosion rip through the motel.

“What was it? Is Five okay?”

“Just keep going, Klaus. Luther just crashed through the wall. Five seems to be holding his own. Just don’t stop, okay?”

Taking Ben’s advice, Klaus keeps on moving forward, trying to block out his usual response to dark, enclosed spaces, his sense of panic made only worse by the image of Hazel’s gun being two inches away from Five’s face. Luckily, Ben seems to understand, and keeps up a steady stream of encouragements. After what feels like hours but was likely only three or four minutes, Klaus sees some light emanating from an offshoot of one of the vents, contorting his body to turn the corner and heading towards it. When he reaches the light source, he vaguely hears the typical sounds of a passionate, motel tryst, before one of the women seem to hear him banging on the vent’s grate and lets out a high-pitched scream.

“Izzy! Someone is in the fucking vents!”

“What?!”

“Someone is in the vent next to the bed!”

Klaus quickly notices that unlike the other vent, this grate is screwed shut, groaning as he realises that he is going to need these ladies’ help to get the fuck out here, preferably before Hazel and Cha-Cha figure out where he has disappeared to.

“Hi ladies! Sorry to interrupt what I’m sure was a lovely evening. Long story, really, but I am currently stuck. Would you mind unscrewing the vent so I can get out?”

“What the fuck?”

“Izzy, help me open the vent!”

“There is no way I am opening the vent so some weird vent gremlin can crawl into our room, Annie. What if he’s a serial killer?”

“I promise I’m not!”

“Yeah, like I’m going to take your word for it, pervert. We should call the manager.”

“NO! No please don’t! Please just let me out!”

“Aw Izzy, it sounds like he’s crying. Maybe we should let him out.”

Klaus was mortified to realise that he was crying, whatever adrenaline that had gotten him through the last twenty-four hours seeming to leave his body all at once until he could do nothing but sniffle pathetically and shake uncontrollably. Klaus is dimly aware of Ben trying to offer some form of comfort, but his words don’t really do much to help. All Klaus really wants is to curl up in bed and have someone pet their fingers through his hair. A traitorous part of his mind knows exactly who that someone would ideally be, but Klaus is trying not to set himself up for disappointment when he is feeling so fragile.

Suddenly, the light streaming in from the vent is obstructed slightly, and Klaus can just make out the vague outlines of a woman’s face staring at him.

“Listen up, vent gremlin. I have mace and a taser and I swear to god if you try anything, I will use both. Are we clear?

“Absolutely, beautiful Izzy.” Klaus was fairly sure this was Izzy, her faint Scottish accent giving her away.

“Don’t call me Izzy. Or beautiful. In fact, maybe just don’t talk. The more you talk, the dumber I feel for actually doing this.”

Ever one to prioritise self-preservation, Klaus goes against every instinct and remains dutifully silent for the minute or so it takes her to dislodge the vent. When she finally does and quickly moves away from it, Klaus pushes the briefcase through and then clumsily worms his way into the room.

“Holy fuck he’s naked. I fucking knew he was a pervert!”

“No, no, no, not a pervert! Not a pervert!”

As if to prove his point, Klaus quickly pulls on his coat and turns around to reach back to where his towel was lying limply where it had evidently gotten caught on the edge of the air vent as he was emerging. Once he is as covered up as he was going to get with his limited resources, Klaus quickly swings back around to face the women who are standing together on the other side of the bed, one of them ominously pointing what Klaus is pretty sure is the mace directly towards his face. In response to this, Klaus tries to subtly lift the briefcase a little higher, in the vain hope that it would at least block some of the chemicals, should she choose to release them. Ben, of course, is no help, chuckling wildly on the bed as he takes in the little tableau.

“Well, thank you ladies, but I feel I have overstayed my welcome and should probably leave. I would suggest, though, not leaving your room for the next hour or so. There’s a nasty dust up a few doors down. Safer for everyone if you stay out of the way.”

Not wanting to push his luck with the so far unreleased mace, Klaus inches his way towards the door, opening it slightly to check that the coast is clear, before making his way out slowly. Klaus can still vaguely hear the occasional sounds of gun fire coming from the right, so he quickly heads off in the opposite direction, keeping an eye out for a familiar vehicle that Five, Diego, and Luther could have used to get here. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, Klaus finally catches sight of what he thinks might be Diego’s car. Once he looks through the window and sees a bunch of knives in there, he is pretty convinced, although the mannequin in the cute polka-dot top was definitely not there the last time he hitched a ride with Diego. Dismissing it as his family’s usual weirdness, Klaus crouches down behind the car, poditioning himself so that he can see anyone coming from the direction of the motel through the car windows.

“Oh my god. Five came to save me.”

“I told you so.”

“No one asked for your input, Ben. Now be quiet, I am having some kind of existential not-crisis.”

“Did you really think Five wouldn’t come for you?”

At this loaded question, Klaus briefly shifts his gaze from his lookout position to his brother, before looking through the window again. There was no way in hell he was getting caught unaware by anymore psychos, even if he was fairly certain Ben would offer to keep lookout for him.

“Well, he did vanish for seventeen years. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

“I don’t really think that was by choice, Klaus.”

“The point still stands. Besides, when has anyone in the family come looking for me? Why should Five be any different?”

All Klaus gets in response to his question though is a vaguely mocking scoff, after which they both sit in silence for a few minutes, listening as the distant sounds of gunfire cease entirely.

“Do you think they are okay? Didn’t Diego say someone was shot?”

“I’m sure they’re fine, Klaus. Five seemed to be more toying with Hazel than actually fighting with him, so I am pretty sure they will be out here in a few minutes.”

Letting out a long sigh, Klaus can’t help but give into the temptation to lean his head against the car and close his eyes for a few moments, trying to fight off the sudden tidal wave of weariness that has crashed over him. As his body begins to relax, Klaus suddenly becomes aware of the way his arms are still wrapped tightly around the briefcase that he found in the vents.

“What do you think is in it?”

“I don’t know. Considering whose it was it could be anything from more weird masks to the severed hands of their victims.”

Ben gives the briefcase a dubious glance before shifting his eyes back in the direction of the motel, Klaus taking up the unspoken offer to rest for a few moments. Sighing, Klaus turns around, leaning his back against the car and spreads his legs out, the suitcase resting on his thighs.

“Wouldn’t be the first time we have opened something and found a bunch of body parts.”

“That’s really not a good thing, Klaus.”

“Says you. Maybe this is the spice of life, the secret to how we keep our relationship from getting stale?” Shooting a shit eating grin towards his exasperated brother, Klaus begins to fiddle with the locking mechanism. Not enough to move or open anything, but enough to keep himself suitably distracted. He has just about decided to open the briefcase when Ben suddenly perks up, his eyes narrowing as they focus on something.

“People are coming.”

“What? Who? Is it Hazel and Cha-Cha?”

Swinging around, Klaus squints through Diego’s windows, silently cursing his brother for not cleaning them as often as they should be. Vaguely in the distance, he can just make out the beginnings of two forms, one far larger than the other, emerging from the darkness. Before he can begin to freak out, however, Ben lets out a relieved sigh.

“It’s Luther and Five. They seem fine.”

“Oh, thank Christ.”

Turning his attention back to the briefcase now that he is sure that Five is okay and will be with him any moment, Klaus can’t help the burning curiosity spreading throughout his body.

“I’m going to take a look, before they get here.”

“Why? They are literally less than 30 seconds from being here, just wait.”

“Nah, Luther is no fun. What it there is something really interes–”

Just as Klaus is looking over to Ben with a conspiratorial wink, he flicks open the locking mechanism, and his world is suddenly engulfed in a vortex of blue light.

Chapter Text

“So, let me get this straight. There is a group of time travelling assassins that go around murdering people in order to not mess up the time continuum, and the way you guys get around is through time machine briefcases, which Klaus apparently got his hands on somehow and opened so now he is lost somewhere in history and we have no way to find him?”

“For the fifth and hopefully final time, yes, Luther.”

“I think I need to sit down.”

Five watches with some degree of bemusement as Luther collapses heavily onto the chair at the kitchen table they were gathered around. Diego, for his part, has mostly remained silent after his initial violent outburst at Five after he had returned from escorting his cop friend to the hospital. She was going to live, which Five considered good fortune considering the fact that she went up against Hazel and Cha-Cha, but Diego seems to have taken exception to his lady friend taking a bullet to the chest from a female assassin who was after Five. When Diego had initially arrived at the Academy, the ever-impulsive Number Two had, to Five’s amusement, tried to attack him. A large part of Five was actually disappointed that Luther stepped in and stopped Diego. Five could have used the distraction that beating Diego senseless would have offered. As it is, he has been forced to sit here and explain the Temps Commission, The Handler, and corrections going on five times now.

Then again, Five would infinitely prefer to spend the rest of eternity repeating this asinine conversation if it offered some distraction from Klaus slipping through his fingers just when he thought he had finally actually done his fucking job and kept the younger man safe.

“So… you were a hitman?”

Stifling the groan building in his chest, Five briefly looks across the table to where Delores is seated, sharing a commiserating glance before turning his attention back to Luther and his endlessly repetitive questions.

“Yes. As I have explained before. Six times now.”

“But, I mean, you had a code right? You didn’t kill just anybody.”

Delores seems to find this almost endearing. Five was pretty sure that if she wasn’t just as shell shocked as he was by Klaus’ disappearance, she would have been cooing sarcastically over Luther’s naively concerned expression. Diego seems to have a similar response, scoffing bemusedly and training his gaze, which had previously been directed somewhere into the middle distance, onto Five and Luther.

“No, Luther, we did not have a code. We had assignments. Corrections. We took out anyone who messed with the timeline. It wasn’t in our job description to ask questions.”

“We?”

“Delores and I. She was my partner.”

“Jesus Christ, this family is fucking insane.” Both Luther and Five seem to mutually agree to ignore Diego’s little interruption, with Luther continuing on his with naïve questions.

“What about innocent people though?”

At his horrified, judgemental expression, Five feels something snap in his chest, his lip curling up into a snarl.

“It was the only way I could get back here. I would have killed anyone they pointed me at if it meant I could actually get back to my time, to K–”

Cutting himself off, Five stares sightlessly into the cup of coffee sitting in front of him on the table, using the time it takes to take a long gulp to try to get control over himself. Delores, of course, sees right through him, offering what little comfort she is able to, given the current circumstances.

“I know Delores, we’ll get him back. Somehow.”

“But that’s murder, Five.”

“Jesus, Luther, grow up. We’re not kids anymore. There’s no such things as good guys or bad guys. And even if there was, I would become the bad guy a hundred times over to protect what’s mine. And besides, in the grand scheme of things, none of it even matters. In less than five days the entire world is going to go up in literal flames and everyone will be dead anyway.”

“Yeah, about that, when do you think you were going to fill us in on that little detail?” Five was mildly surprised that Diego had finally decided to end his self-imposed silent treatment. Diego always could sulk better than any of them.

“About the same time any of you actually pulled together some working brain cells and stopped being a bunch of useless, self-centred morons, Diego.”

“That’s it–”

At Diego’s outburst, Five watches coolly as his brother reaches for a knife and releases it, putting their bare minimum of effort into a spatial jump that moves him to the other side of the kitchen. Leaning against the wall, Five can’t help but chuckle darkly at the fact that even after hearing about Five’s life, Diego actually thinks that he can come close to injuring him.

“Nice try, Diego, but let me explain something that doesn’t seem to have sunk through your thick skull. I am a literal weapon, honed by years surviving in a fucking dystopian wasteland and then refined in the employ of an organisation so elite that none outside of it even know of its existence. Do you really think that throwing little pointy sticks at me is going to work?”

“Fuck you, F-Five. If you had actually been honest from the beginning instead of a pompous prick, Patch w-wouldn’t be lying in a hospital b-b-bed with a fucking hole in her chest.”

“Well, maybe if you had let me knock her out before we went into the motel like I wanted, she would be sitting at her desk rather than in the hospital. But no, we just had to let the pretty detective see us being the big bad hero.”

Five quickly spatial jumps again as another two knives come whistling towards him, landing in front of Diego and smashing his fist into his brother’s face, then jumping again back to his original seat, settling back into a vaguely comfortable slouch and taking another sip of the coffee and then delictely placing it back onto the table.

“Stop it! Both of you. This isn’t helping.”

“It may be not be helping, Number One, but it’s certainly making me feel better.”

“You broke my freaking nose!”

“Count yourself lucky that that’s all I broke. Usually I go for the neck.”

“I am going to kill you, you little assho–”

“ENOUGH!”

As Luther slams his fists on the table, Five quickly jerks his hands forward, just managing to rescue his mug of coffee before the entire table cracks in half and collapses into a heap. While he protectively nurses his coffee, Delores seems to be disturbingly distracted by the tinder pile Luther had reduced the table to with one move.

“Delores, for the love of God, do not ever say something like that about my brother again. I will never be able to unhear that.”

Dead silence greets Five’s request, until Luther seems to shake himself a little, the only sign of his discomfort being the slight blush suffusing his cheeks.

“Right. Well. First things first, how do we stop the apocalypse?”

“We don’t. I do. But that’s not my priority at the moment.”

This seems to be the breaking point for Diego who finally gives up on his still bleeding nose to glare over at Klaus.

“What do you mean, it’s not your priority?”

“I need to find Klaus. He could be anywhere. In any time. I need to find a way to get him back before he gets himself killed.”

“How the hell is that more important than the end of the world, Five?”

“Are you seriously asking me that? He’s our brother!”

“Diego’s right, Five. Our first priority has to be the apocalypse.”

“Unbelievable. Do either of you actually even care that Klaus could be hurt? Dying? Dead?”

“That’s not fair, Five. Of course Diego and I care about Klaus. But we have to think about the big picture. It’s what Dad trained us to do.”

“Besides, Klaus is scrappy. The guy is like a cockroach- impossible to kill. JESUS CHRIST, FIVE!”

At Diego’s cockroach comment, Five had decided that the sacrifice was worth it, lobbing his mug and what was left of his delicious coffee straight at Diego’s face, aiming particularly for his already broken nose. Unfortunately, his brother just manages to dive the side and avoid the ceramic projectile, so Five doesn’t get the satisfaction of breaking Diego’s nose twice in five minutes. As it is, he is nonetheless enjoying the image of Diego sprawled across the floor, blood still dripping slowly down his face.

Not waiting for the inevitable scolding from Luther, Five quickly jumps over to where Delores is, picks her up, and then jumps into his bedroom, placing Delores on the chair next to the window that she has become so fond of in the last couple of days. Collapsing onto his old bed, Five tries to hold back the urge to scream that has been building ever since he saw Klaus disappear into a temporal vortex.

He had been so close. A few seconds earlier and he would have been able to stop Klaus from opening the briefcase. But he had been too slow, not realising the danger his brother was in until it was too late.

“I don’t know what to do, Delores. I can’t find Klaus without access to a briefcase but the only briefcase in this time period disappeared when he did. I could try contacting The Handler and bargain for another one…”

Delores does not sound at all impressed with that suggestion, offering a caustic reply that at any other time probably would have made him reluctantly smile, but at the current moment just depressed him further.

“I know, you’re right. She’ll kill me before I even get near another briefcase. What the fuck am I going to do, Delores?”

At Delores’ reluctant admission that she doesn’t know, Five can’t help but groan, pressing his fists against his eyes in the vain hope that inspiration will explode in the darkness behind his eyelids. Predictably, nothing but the usual light bursts emerge, leaving Five with nothing but the awful silence stretching between them. Before he can even begin to think about the calculations he will need to do to try and work out, firstly, when Klaus travelled to, and, secondly, how Five could get there, the sound of heavy footfalls growing closer distracted him. Realising what they likely meant, Five gave in to the admittedly childish impulse to drag his pillow over his face at let out a muffled scream.

“Five? What are you… are you okay?”

“I’m just great, Number One.”

“You think you can move the pillow then? Kind of hard to understand what you are saying otherwise.”

Deciding that Luther is just stubborn enough to sit here until he and Five have whatever discussion he seems so intent on having, Five reluctantly pulls the pillow down and shifts so that he is leaning against the wall. Luther glances around the room uncomfortably for a few moments, seeming to take in Delores’ position on the only chair, before sighing resignedly and shifting gracelessly to the ground. Five elects to ignore Delores’ pointed comments about finally being around a true gentleman, and instead stares unblinkingly at his brother in the vain hope that he will make Luther so uncomfortable that he will just choose to leave. Luther, however, just releases a bemused chuckle, shaking his head slightly.

“God, I had actually forgotten how weirdly different but similar you and Klaus are.”

At the mention of Klaus’ name, Delores breaks off her rant about Five’s ‘ungentlemanly manners’ to regard Luther with more genuine interest than she had yet to accord any of Five’s other siblings. Despite himself, Five too was oddly curious about Luther’s non sequitur, having expected more asinine discussions about the state of his immortal soul or some such bullshit.

“How so?”

“I don’t know. You both have always been really good at getting information out of people. You use silence instead of constant talking, but it amounts to about the same thing.”

“Klaus always uses noise to distract people from what he is really doing.”

“Yeah, I suppose he does.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes until Luther seems to figure out what he wants to say.

“So, I guess that when you… found us- our bodies I mean- Klaus was there too?”

“Yes.”

At Five’s blunt answer Luther, who already had an uncomfortable look on his face as he seemingly came to realise his imminent mortality, grimaces and rubs his hands over his face.

“God, I’m sorry Five.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“I don’t really think that makes it any easier. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to see Allison like that.”

“No, you can’t. But it does provide a good source of motivation.”

“Yeah. Which is why we need your help to stop this thing, Five. It’s going to happen in less than four days.”

“You think I haven’t tried that, Luther? Trust me I fucking tried. But it’s all dead ends. Literally up in fucking flames. I mea- what?” At her sudden exclamation, Five shifts his attention from Luther to Delores. “It’s impossible. The amount of calculations alone. It wouldn’t even really- yeah, okay I could do that sure, but it would only narrow down the list of names from a thousand to maybe a hundred. Do you really think we have enough time to get to a hundred people? Okay, yeah, that might narrow it down a bit further…”

“Five? What are you talking about?”

Five, who had, at Delores’ suggestion to reverse and manually complete the equations used at the Temps Commission, already begun to lose himself in calculations, jerks his head back to Luther who is gaping at him from his position on the floor.

“I need you to leave. Now.”

“What? But what about the apocalypse, Five? We need to figure out a plan!”

“That’s what I’m doing. The sooner you leave, the sooner I can figure out how to stop it. Now, fuck off.”

The few minutes it takes for Luther to pull himself up from the ground are almost unbearable to Five, whose fingers are twitching as he begins to go through calculations in his head. Barely noticing when Luther finally leaves, Five leaps off the bed and makes his way towards the desk, pulling out a permanent marker.

“Okay, Delores. We figure out who to kill, kill them, draw out the Handler, steal her briefcase, and then we go and get Klaus. Sounds like a plan."

Chapter Text

Klaus is freaking out.

Correction. Klaus is freaking the fuck out.

Klaus is freaking out so badly that the fact that he is experiencing what feels like the worst come down of his life has barely even registered. The irony is that he isn't even high. Which is insane because opening a briefcase and suddenly landing in the middle on the Vietnam War would make so much more sense if he was off his face. A metric fucktonne of LSD could maybe explain why he was currently kitted out in army fatigues and clutching an M14 in a vehicle that was taking him deeper into a war-torn jungle. Klaus hasn’t even handled a gun since he ran away from the Academy. He had never even liked guns, always preferring either hand-to-hand combat or (and he would never, ever tell Diego this) knives. But even distracted as he is by the feeling of his insides trying to crawl up his oesophagus and escape the mess that is his body through his mouth, Klaus recognises that knives aren’t going to do shit against guerrilla fighters.

He could, of course, throw the dice and open up the briefcase. But, then again, Klaus is not even remotely sure that it will take him back to his own time. And sure, driving into a war is bad. But what if he opens that fucking abomination and winds up in medieval Europe and contracts plague? Or facing down a fucking Tyrannosaurus? Or what happens if Hazel and Cha-Cha have somehow rigged the thing and he winds up right back with them? He would almost prefer the plague.

Groaning softly, Klaus looks out the window, trying to distract himself by taking in the view. Which is really just a bunch of jungle, a bit more jungle, and oh look at that! Even more jungle! A reluctant part of Klaus can admit that it is beautiful, but he isn’t really in the mood for enjoying scenery. He is going to die here, in the middle of some fucking useless war, all alone.

And that is really the worse part of it. Klaus is alone.

When he had first landed, Klaus had been too distracted taking in his surroundings, the sounds of artillery, and then being yelled at by a very angry army commander to actually realise that something was missing. It wasn’t until he hopped into his pants, pulled on a vest and helmet and raced out of the tent that he realised that he couldn’t see Ben.

Since that morning after Ben died, Klaus had almost never been without his brother. Even when he was so high that he could barely remember his own name and all the other voices were finally muted, Klaus could still feel his brother, flickering on the periphery of his consciousness. Ben never left him. Through every bad trip, trick gone wrong, or rehab stint, Ben was always there. But now that Klaus was about 90% sure he was about to die, Ben was nowhere to be seen. Which made sense in a way. Ben hasn’t even been born yet, so how could his ghost be expected to make an appearance? Even knowing this logically, Klaus still feels a chasm ripping through his chest at the prospect of being without his brother. Of dying without his brother.

Feeling the tell-tale pressure in his chest that usually heralds his panic attacks, Klaus is suddenly ripped from his spiral by a hand falling onto his shoulder. Still trying to fight the constricting feeling spreading through his chest, Klaus turns slightly, just enough to see the vague outline of man in his peripheral vision.

“You just get in country?”

“Oh, uh…” Klaus is not sure whether he wants to laugh, cry, or scream. Maybe all three? Hoping for a distraction, he turns more fully to his new companion, realising that it was the same shirtless guy who was lying in bed when he first arrived. Klaus may or may not have noticed how insanely hot the half-naked man in front of him was before he was distracted by the sound of bombs being dropped disconcertingly close. “Yeah.”

Luckily hot guy seems to find Klaus’ spaced out answer amusing, chuckling softly before he continues speaking.

“Yeah, shit’s crazy. I know.”

Klaus supposes crazy is one word for it. Fucking insane, completely terrifying, and mind-blowingly ridiculous are some others that he personally feels might apply better. But crazy is probably a fairly accurate summation.

“Yeah!”

“You’ll adjust. I’m Dave.”

As Dave offers his hand in greeting, Klaus can’t help but be grateful to the man, whose smile and friendly words have managed to calm him slightly. Reaching his own hand out and gripping Dave’s, Klaus can feel his smile becoming a little less brittle.

“Klaus.”

“Nice to officially meet you, Klaus. I gotta say, man, you scared the shit out of me earlier. It was like you came out of nowhere.”

“Ah yeah… Sorry about that.”

“All good. So, where are you from, Klaus?”

“Um… here and there. Move a lot, you know? You?”

“Des Moines.”

“Iowa boy, huh?”

“Born and raised. Have to say, never thought I’d leave until I was drafted.”

Dave seems momentarily taken aback by what he had just revealed, blinking his eyes quickly as if to hold back tears. Watching this man trying to come to grips with leaving his home for violence, blood, and war, Klaus can feel his heart break for Dave. Moving his hand up, he squeezes Dave’s shoulder in what he hopes is a comforting manner and offers up a tentative smile. Taking in Dave’s returned grin, Klaus finally gives in to the temptation to ask the question that has been ringing around his head since he first realised that he was not in Kansas anymore. He figures that at the least, it will distract Dave from thoughts about a faraway home.

“So, bit of an odd question, but what is today’s date? I have to admit that I’ve lost track of time recently.”

As Dave’s eyebrows raise incredulously, Klaus just gives the other man his best only slightly manic grin, hoping that he is coming off as more substance abusing airhead than unwilling time traveller. Klaus figures Dave lands on something like the former when he gives an amused huff and shakes his head a little while rolling his eyes.

“July 6th, 1968.”

Well fuck.

It’s times like these that Klaus really wishes that he had paid more attention during the endless history lessons that Dad had insisted he and all his siblings had to undertake. Klaus can vaguely recall Pogo discussing the Vietnam War during the late 1960s, and some recess of his memory is reacting to the year, but for the life of him, Klaus cannot remember any specifics.

Five would have remembered.

Although, thinking about Five just makes Klaus feel even more terrible. It’s almost funny how, just when the universe finally gave Klaus a break and actually brought Five back to him, none of it really matters. Because the one thing Klaus does remember from those long-ago history lessons is the sheer number of soldiers killed or missing in action during this idiotic war. Which means that even as Klaus can still feel the phantom sensation of Five’s hands running through his hair, he knows that that was likely the last time he will ever see his brother again.

Chapter Text

Staring at the wall of the bar, Klaus tries to let the sounds filling the room, good music overlaid with bad singing and drunken exclamations, wash over him. Trying to ignore the fact that the men a few tables away from him are high enough that he could easily lift their heroine stash without any of them noticing, he closes his eyes and focuses on the lyrics filling the room.

Well, your fingers weave quick minarets
Speak in secret alphabets, I light another cigarette
Learn to forget, learn to forget

Feeling the tremors shooting through his own fingers, Klaus begins to slowly stretch out and then close his hands, letting the repetitive movements distract him from the phantom sounds of battle still ringing in his ears. It was a trick that Dave had taught him while they were holed up in the previously abandoned A Lưới Camp, nothing to do but listen to the sound of gunfire and try to ignore the smouldering ruin of a helicopter that had carried members of Klaus’ division. Klaus had never wanted to be high more than in that moment, bullets flying everywhere and the recently dead from both sides wailing at him for salvation they would never receive.

“Hey, you doing okay?”

Forcing his eyes open, Klaus focuses on Dave, who is settling himself onto a chair that conveniently blocks the high soldiers from Klaus’ view. Klaus is fairly sure his placement is deliberate. Klaus has found over the last month and a half that Dave is heartbreakingly kind that way.

“I’ve been worse.”

Dave offers a sympathetic smile, reaching forward to brush his hand comfortingly over Klaus’ clench hands.

“Sometimes I really wonder about what your life was like before you came here.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“So you keep saying. You sure you’re okay to be here?”

Klaus very deliberately does not let his eyes shift to look to what he knows is happening behind Dave. Instead, he squeezes Dave’s hands once before disentangling them and beginning to tap his fingers on the table softly.

“Nah, I’m fine. Got to get used to it sometime, right?”

Klaus’ decision to try to stay sober is one that he has questioned almost every minute and a half since he made it. Between being tortured by Hazel and Cha-Cha and his surprise bout of time travelling, Klaus had had few opportunities to think about locating any kind of drugs. Once things had calmed down somewhat and he and his new army pals arrived at their temporary base, the muscle spasms, anxiety, and increased heart rate were enough that he was barely able to walk, let alone go out a find a fix. Dave had seemed to know immediately what was happening, helping Klaus find a place to lie down and looking after him for the next week. It was then that Klaus had learnt that apparently drugs were insanely prevalent amongst the troops here, so Klaus was not the first to go through this. When the voices had started to become overwhelming though, and Klaus had begged Dave to find him anything that could quiet them, the man had refused. Klaus had wanted to kill him but could reluctantly admit that Dave’s reasoning was at least sound: they were in a warzone, and Klaus may be the only thing standing between Dave and a bullet. No fucking way can Dave trust a junkie to have his back. Harsh, but fair.

So, Klaus is trying sobriety. And he hates it. He hates every minute of it and is fairly sure that however much of his sanity he had managed to retain over the years is being slowly chipped away by a war full of the dead. But here he is, not ten feet away from precious oblivion, and he is still clean. All for some fucking Iowa boy with terrible fashion sense and the worst singing voice Klaus has ever heard.

“You’re doing well, all things considered.”

“I worry about how low your standards are if you consider this,” Klaus waves his hand to encompass his jittery body, “doing well.”

Dave just shrugs, his hand waving in a vague motion that Klaus interprets to mean something along the lines of ‘I’ve seen worse’.

“Hey, you saved my life at least a dozen times during that shit show. I consider that doing well.”

And isn’t that just tragically depressing. Because apparently, Klaus has found the one thing that being able to speak to dead people is actually good for: navigating battlefields. From the moment they landed, Klaus was surrounded by dead soldiers, all whispering in his ear about enemy positions, covered areas, and safest routes. Over the almost two weeks that Operation Somerset Plain (and who the hell names these things?) lasted, Klaus had gained a reputation in his division for always knowing when they were about to come under fire, for finding the best routes between enemy encampments, and locating the few remaining PAVN supplies they were there to destroy.

A part of Klaus is horrified to realise that his father might even have been proud of him, a thought that festers in the back of his mind whenever someone calls him by his atrocious new nickname, Shamrock. Klaus doesn’t even really get the name, because shamrocks are different to four-leaf clovers, but whenever he brings that fact up, Dave always tells him that logic isn’t really the point. Klaus supposes it could be worse. Poor Decourcy is still called Oatmeal for some unknowable reason. In the grand scheme of things, being considered lucky is infinitely better than forever being linked to the world’s worst breakfast food.

“I’ve told you already, I didn’t do anything. Just because a few of my hunch’s were right doesn’t mean that I actually saved anyone.”

Dave seems to be frustrated by Klaus’ answer, moving his chair across so there is only a few inches separating them, close enough that Klaus can feel the warmth radiating off his body. Tentatively, Dave reaches out to drag his fingers though Klaus’ hair, the familiar sensation stealing Klaus’ breath away and forcing him to squeeze his eyes closed before they start watering.

“Say what you want, Klaus, but we both know that the only reason why we got out of there alive was because of you.”

Klaus can feel Dave inching closer, and part of him wants to let him so badly he can barely stop himself from reaching out and dragging this wonderful, beautiful man forwards. But another part of him, the part that is whispering wrong, wrong, not enough, knows that that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. Opening his eyes, he hopes that Dave can’t read the regret that he knows is in them.

“I can’t.”

At Klaus’ softly exhaled words, Dave freezes, pulling away slightly. Not enough to make Klaus think that he is planning on leaving, but enough to give Klaus some space.

“Why?”

And isn’t that just the question of the wrong fucking century. Why indeed? Klaus can feel a hysterical bubble of laughter building in his chest as he thinks about that question, quickly tamping it down because of how much he knows it would hurt Dave if he laughed in his face. It isn’t even Dave that Klaus wants to laugh at. No, Klaus’ cruel mirth is directed solely at himself, who, apparently, is pathetic enough to latch onto one kind gesture as a good enough reason to reignite a long-ago discarded sense of undying loyalty.

“There’s someone… They- I- fuck, I don’t even really know. It’s insane, I’m insane. He left but then he came back and then he saved me.”

At Klaus’ words, Dave extracts his hand from Klaus’ hair, but rather than pulling away entirely, simply lays it down on Klaus’ forearm in an unspoken offer of comfort and support. Klaus really cannot believe he is letting himself do this.

“Sounds complicated.”

Letting out a snort of derisive laughter, Klaus shoots Dave a ridiculous grin.

“Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it. I mean, Jesus, none of it makes any sense. We don’t make any sense. He was gone for so long and then he came back and everything was different but the same and it honestly makes my head want to explode just trying to actually think about any of it.”

“How long have you known him?”

“That’s one of the many fucked up things about us. I’ve known him forever. We grew up together. Raised in the same house by the same people. I mean, we are as close to siblings as you can get without any kind of blood connection. We are siblings for all intents and purposes. I mean, how messed up is that?”

Dave seems to take a few moments to process what Klaus just told him, but before Klaus can worry that he has scared off the only thing that is actually getting him through this waking nightmare, the other man begins talking.

“So, you guys grew up together and he left?”

Klaus fought to sudden urge to drop his head onto the table and bang it a few times. How was he even meant to explain what had happened to Five? He can only imagine Dave’s face if Klaus even mentions the words ‘time travelling thirteen-year-old’. The fact that Dave is still here though, the fact that he didn’t disappear like so many others the moment he realised Klaus wouldn’t be giving him what he wanted, gives Klaus reason enough to try answering.

“Yeah. It wasn’t exactly his choice, but yeah, he left. For so long. I didn’t see him for seventeen years and then one day he just appeared again out of fucking nowhere. And, at first, I thought that everything was different, that he didn’t care anymore. But then he actually came for me. None of my family has ever done that. They always just kind of wrote me off. But Five actually came and rescued me like some kind of demented Prince Charming, and before I could even ask him why I was suddenly here in this mess and I don’t even know if I’m ever going to see him again. And now I’m fucking things up between you and me which is pretty par for the course for me if I’m being honest, but I don’t want that to happen. You are the only reason I am even remotely sane at the moment. You are the kindest, most amazing person I have ever met and I fucking hate myself for not jumping you right now, but apparently I’m even more messed up in the head than I previously thought I was.”

As Klaus continues to talk, his words come out faster and faster, and he is dimly aware that his breath is becoming more ragged, until he is barely breathing in between his words. By the end, he feels like he is about to pass out and thinks that he is actually about to until Dave quickly wraps his arms around Klaus, gripping him in a firm, comforting embrace.

“Hey, hey, Klaus, you need to breathe, okay? I’m not going anywhere, okay? I swear. You and I are going to get through this together, even if I have to drag you through it kicking and screaming. Got it?”

Chuckling wetly, Klaus can’t help but breathe deeply, letting himself be comforted by Dave’s scent, and praying to whatever sadistic deity that watches over his messed-up life that he is not making enough of a scene to draw any of the bar patrons’ attention. While most of the people here are likely too drunk, high, or distracted to pay any attention to him and Dave in the quiet corner of the bar that they are occupying, he still is unwilling to risk Dave getting hurt by overcompensating homophobic assholes. Counting down from five, Klaus takes a few more deep breaths and then pulls back, quickly entangling their fingers before Dave can interpret the move as a rebuke.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are ridiculously selfless?”

Dave’s only answer is to look down at the table, his cheeks and the tips of his ears going pink. Watching him, Klaus almost wishes that Five had never come to save him from Hazel and Cha-Cha. He can almost see it; how gone he would have been for this man if he still believed that Five saw him the same way all his other siblings do. Instead, while a part of him yearns for the man sitting in front of him, a larger part of him knows that whatever relationship they forge would always be haunted by the spectre of Five.

So instead, Klaus makes himself a silent promise. He is going to protect Dave, using every ability and skill he has spent so much of his life repressing or forgetting. He will make sure this gentle soul survives the horror of this war and gets to live a full and happy life. It’s not exactly saving the world, but Klaus can’t help but feel that this self-appointed task is more meaningful than anything his father ever trained him to do.

Chapter Text

“Four enemy combatants coming up from behind, to the right.”

At the warning from one of Klaus’ many mystery ghosts, Klaus quickly swings around and begins firing blindly in the direction the blood covered spectre is pointing. Dave, Decourcy, and Will, seeing the shift in Klaus’ focus and having spent enough time with him in battle situations over the last ten months to trust his instincts, also swing around and fire in the same direction. After a few moments, the same spectre emerges from the foliage and nods towards Klaus, before disappearing from sight. Turning back around, Klaus takes a moment to take in the three trails diverging from the one they are currently on. He has learnt over his time here that even dead, soldiers still are loyal, fallen North Vietnamese eager to lead the strange American invader that could see them to his death. Klaus didn’t really hold it against them. He was an invader. This whole war was an exercise in imperial hubris. But knowing that didn’t change his singular determination to keep his friends alive. So, if that meant ignoring the beckoning soldiers and using his own side’s fallen to kill their comrades, Klaus will have to find a way to live with that.

“Right trail!”

As he shouts out his decision, his lieutenant nods and begins leading Klaus’ squad up the right trail, all of them trying to keep low enough that the endless bullets firing around them go over their heads. From his peripheral vision, Klaus sees the spectre from earlier appear. He must have died recently. Klaus has often found that most of the ghosts haunting battlegrounds are the recently dead, usually killed in the month or so. The ones who are the most helpful, the most eager to interact with Klaus, are the ones who have fallen only minutes or hours before, still carrying out the mission they gave their lives in service to.

“There is a bunker up ahead. If your squad provides some cover fire, I can lead you up there and show you where to set up a Claymore for maximum damage.”

Klaus tried to suppress his groan at what Dave is going to say when Klaus tries to run off alone into the dense jungle, but nonetheless turns to his lieutenant.

“Bunker up ahead. I can get up there and set off a Claymore, but I need cover.”

“No fucking way Klaus!”

Ignoring Dave’s predictable outburst, Klaus waits until his lieutenant nods and then calls Will up to give him the anti-personnel mine. Watching as his squad walks forward and then begin setting themselves up so they can shoot from a covered position, Klaus breathes deeply before looking at Dave, the only one who had not moved.

“I’ll be fine! We can’t get any further with that thing there without us all becoming swiss cheese! I don’t know about you, but I don’t really think that bullet holes will match my general aesthetic.”

Rolling his eyes, Dave reaches forward, gripping Klaus’ neck and jerking Klaus towards him so that their helmets knock together.

“Be safe, please. You get shot and I will murder you, okay?”

Giving his best smile, Klaus takes note that his squad has started firing, in turn drawing what sounds to be machine gun fire. He would really have to remember to thank this mystery ghost when this is all over.

“I’ll be fine, Dave. Promise.” Before Dave can say anything, Klaus quickly ducks towards him and licks his cheek, revelling in the stunned and disgusted look that takes over the man’s face. “See? Now you don’t even want me to not get shot.”

Before Dave can give an answer, Klaus quickly turns around, following the ghost off the trail and into the dense foliage.

“How long will it take to get up there?”

“Two minutes. Just try to keep low. If you get shot, you are no good to anyone.”

“But, darling, I have so many skills that make me endlessly useful!”

The nonplussed look that the ghost shoots Klaus in response to his comment makes a part of him ache with longing for Ben. Quickly shaking thoughts of his much-missed brother from his mind, Klaus refocuses on the solider in front of him, stopping and falling to the ground when he gives a signal Klaus long learned to heed.

“Ten o’clock. If you stay low and quiet, they probably won’t notice as you set up the blast.”

Rolling his eyes at the ‘probably’, Klaus begins shuffling forward until he can see the tell-tale flashing light of a machine gun within a well-hidden bunker opening. Pulling out the Claymore and taking note of the FRONT TOWARD ENEMY instructions, Klaus begins setting up the mine, trying to walk that careful line between cautionary and quick. Looking through the open sight, he makes sure the aim will lead to the maximum amount of damage then, when he is satisfied, takes hold of the firing wire and begins to move back. Once he gets to a safe-ish distance, trying desperately not to remember that one article he saw a couple of years ago about the correlation between blast exposure and traumatic brain injury, Klaus detonates the mine.

Immediately, the explosion rips through the night, momentarily dulling out the near constant sound of gun fire. Distantly, Klaus can hear a few victory calls from the direction of his squad, taking comfort in the fact that they are unlikely to be so jubilant if someone had gotten shot while he was setting up the blast. Turning to where the ghost is now emerging from the direction of the bunker, Klaus gives him a questioning glance.

“Two killed, one injured.”

“How badly?”

“Not badly enough.”

Hanging his head, Klaus takes a brief moment to collect himself before he begins to run off in the direction of the bunker, pulling his M14 from around his back and bringing it up, ready to fire. Once he gets closer to the bunker, he looks towards to solider and, taking his nod for the signal that it was safe, quickly comes up to the opening and immediately fires at the man he can see moving near the corner. Wheeling around, Klaus can just make out his squad through the greenery and begins to make his way over to them, trying desperately not to think too closely about what he just did.

“Bunker cleared!”

“Fuck yeah, Shamrock!”

Listening to the cheers from his squad, Klaus feel nauseous, his mind recoiling at the idea of being congratulated for coldblooded murder. Before his breathing can begin to get panicked, however, Dave is suddenly filling his vision, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder.

“Glad you didn’t get shot, even if you are a complete weirdo.”

Klaus, having forgotten about the lick until that moment, lets out a bark of laughter before reaching up to grip the hand Dave has resting on his shoulder.

“I’m far too fabulous to get shot.”

“Well get your fabulous ass moving, Shamrock, because we are supposed to be getting up this fucking hill, not gossiping like a bunch of debutants.”

At the sound of their lieutenant’s colourful order, both Klaus and Dave disengage from each other, turning around and moving forwards with their squad. As they do, Klaus can’t help but wonder what in God’s name the army was thinking sending them here. This operation is a fucking death wish. The hill is almost useless, strategically speaking, and heavily fortified. The fact they are effectively walking up an insanely steep hill in which the PAVN have been entrenched in for months means that they aren’t only getting shot at from above, but from all sides, movement made almost impossible by the need to maintain 360-degree security. Sure enough, Klaus saw his grumpy ghost flicker to his left, taking the signal for what it was and shooting immediately towards him. When the ghost signalled that he had hit his targets, Klaus gave him a grateful nod and shifted his attention again to their steep climb.

“Jiminy Cricket, what I wouldn’t do for an escalator!”

“But how else are you going to keep your girlish figure, Shamrock? None of us wanted to mention it before, but you’ve been putting on the pounds lately.”

Laughing wildly at Decourcy’s comment, Klaus quickly began shooting towards another hidden group of enemies, his squad following suit when the hidden combatants return fire. After a few minutes, the firing stops and they recommence their glacial pace upwards, Klaus taking note of the temporary field fortifications they are currently stepping over. He can’t tell which side set them up, although considering how steep this hill is, Klaus guesses they must be the PAVN’s. There is no way that in the five days this fucking ridiculous assault has been going on, any of the American or South Vietnamese troops would have been able to drag those sandbags up here and not get shot to shit.

“I could definitely get on board with an escalator right about now.”

Hearing Dave’s comment, Klaus takes a moment to quickly glance at the man, offering him a cheeky smile.

“Of course you would, Newman. Shamrock could ask for all your food and ammo and you would hand it all over without even blinking.”

“Aw Oatmeal, if you wanted some attention from me, all you had to do was ask. I’m sure Klaus wouldn’t mind sharing.”

“No fucking way, Dave! Your food and ammo are all mine!”

“Will you three shut up? How do you even have the fucking energy to talk constantly when we are basically climbing at a 90-degree angle while getting shot at?!”

“Sorry, Will. Feeling a bit fatigued? Want a piggy-back ride?”

“I will shoot you, Shamrock. Don’t think I won’t. Incoming!”

Laughing wildly again, Klaus shoots in the direction Will indicated. He always gets like this. Something about the adrenaline. While some, like their lieutenant and Will become intensely focused in the heat of battle, Klaus went in the complete opposite direction, becoming more manic the longer he was out there. It was something he and Decourcy bonded over, each of them practically vibrating during entire combat missions and then for hours afterwards. Dave was normally much calmer, his best friend silent and deadly efficient. Sometimes though, when he could sense that Klaus was nearing the point where his mania would shift from coping mechanism to potentially dangerous, he would bring Klaus back to earth through odd comments and grounding touches. Each time made Klaus love him even more, eternally grateful that, if he has to live through this, he had somehow been lucky enough to do so with Dave.

“You and your squad need to get to cover! Two large groups are heading towards you!”

Swinging around, Klaus feels like he has been stabbed in the gut when he sees the panicked look on his mystery ghost’s face. As a general rule, ghosts usually don’t have much reason to panic. So, the fact that this one currently looked like he was about one second away from throwing his hands in the air and running screaming down the hill could only mean that they were completely screwed.

“Lieutenant! Incoming! We have to get to cover! NOW!”

It was a testament to how accustomed his commanding officer had become to Klaus’ sudden insights that he barely even hesitated before yelling at them all the get back to the fortifications they had passed earlier. In a too well-practiced move, Will and Decourcy began to set down cover fire, while the rest of the squad retreated back down. Once they hit the sandbags, they all hunkered down, only a few moments passing before Will and Decourcy came racing towards them as bullets fly around them. In the disturbing stillness that follows Willa and Decourcy’s arrival, Klaus turns to share a grim look with Dave, who briefly reaches out to squeeze Klaus’ hand before resuming firing position. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire comes from behind them, a spray of bullets emerging from the dense foliage below.

“Brown, Jones, cover our backs. Everyone else, keep ‘em busy. I’m going to call in air support.”

“Got it, Lieutenant!”

With their backs now being covered by Steve and Decourcy, Klaus once again focuses on the direction that the ghost had signalled when he gave his warning. It takes about thirty seconds, but sure enough, Klaus’ soldier finally appears again, signalling that the PAVN soldiers are about to converge.

“Lock and load, Charlie’s away!”

Heeding Klaus’ warning, his squad starts to open fire, pre-empting their enemies in a way that had, in the past, been the difference between life and death. Klaus is vaguely aware of his lieutenant trying to call in air support, whilst Decourcy is calling out for Will to fire up the Claymores. Reloading his rifle, and then continuing to fire, Klaus and his squad continue to fire towards their hidden assailants. After a few moments, the gunfire from further up the hill becomes infinitesimally lighter, signalling that they are least succeeding in thinning out their attackers.

“Whew! Christ on a cracker, that was a close one, huh, Dave?”

When Dave doesn’t offer up his usual snarky rebuttal, Klaus goes cold, something dark and vile beginning to grow in the back of his mind. Moving a little towards where Dave is leaning over his rifle, Klaus reaches out to lightly shove his best friend.

“Dave?”

When Dave remains still, that dark feeling takes over Klaus’ mind, blocking out any thoughts of ongoing threat, narrowing his entire focus onto the man lying unresponsive next to him. Reaching over desperately, Klaus turns Dave over, a wounded cry bursting from him when he sees the blood coming from bullet hole in his chest. Barely even aware of his actions, Klaus immediately puts his hands over the wound, applying as much pressure as he is physically able, before desperately looking around and screaming for a medic, hoping with everything that he has that Harry, their squad’s medic, is close enough to hear him. When no help immediately materialises, Klaus quickly turns back to Dave, feeling a part of himself die when he takes in the bloody foam collecting around Dave’s mouth.

“Hey! Dave, look at me. Look at me. Okay?”

Still keeping pressure on the wound with one hand, Klaus brings the other up to Dave’s face, slapping it lightly in an attempt to keep him conscious. Dave lets out a wet cough, his eyes frightened but still aware as he gazes at Klaus. Klaus knows what that cough means, knows that blood is slowly filling Dave’s lungs. That he needs medical attention, immediately.

Putting both of his hand on the wound again, he risks raising his head above the fortifications they are lying behind, screaming with everything that he has in him.

“Medic!”

“He’s dead. Your medic is dead.”

Whirling around to face the ghost that was now standing above Klaus and Dave, a sad expression on his face, Klaus can feel his eyes fill and uncontrollable sobs build in his chest. Turning back around, Klaus once again pulls up one of his hands, running it through Dave’s hair, begging every deity that he can think of. Please, please, not him, don’t take him, I need him, please, I love him too much, please, please. Dave gives a weak groan, and Klaus can feel his heart shattering at how terrified Dave looks.

“Okay. Look at me. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. It’s okay.”

As Klaus tries to comfort him with soft words, Dave seems to be trying to saying something, the whimpering noises he only seems capable of producing making Klaus just want to scream and burn everything and everyone to the ground.

“Please, please… please stay with me, Dave.”

When he looks into Dave’s eyes, Klaus can see the resignation in them, Dave seeming to know what Klaus has refused to admit to himself until just now. Dave is dying, and Klaus isn’t going to be able to save him. Harry is dead, and even if he wasn’t, they are in the middle of the fucking jungle at night, surrounded by enemies and without any back up. Dave is dying. Klaus is going to have to watch Dave die.

“Stay with me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! No, no, no.”

Reaching forward, Klaus wraps his arms around Dave, kissing his forehead and eyelids, cradling Dave’s head in the crook of his neck. Feeling a twitch near his leg, Klaus looks down and sees Dave’s fingers jerking. Realising what the man is asking for, Klaus reaches down and entwines their fingers, bringing Dave’s hand to his mouth and pressing kisses against knuckles and then resting Dave’s palm against his face. When Dave lets out another pained whimper, Klaus can’t help but close his eyes for a moment, feeling the tears falling hot down his face. When he opens them, Klaus looks back down at the beautiful man below him and shifts his face so he can press a kiss into his palm.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. I’m right here, I promise. I’m not leaving you. I’ll be right here, okay. I swear, I won’t leave.”

Klaus lies there with Dave for the eight minutes it takes him to die, talking to him the entire time, desperately hoping that the man finds some comfort in the fact that he isn’t alone in his final moments. It’s only when that hauntingly familiar voice echoes from behind him, that Klaus lets himself let go of Dave’s body, knowing what he is going to find when he turns around.

Sure enough, Dave is standing there, looking shocked as he takes in the image of his own lifeless corpse, and even more astonished when he makes eye contact with Klaus. Before Klaus can say anything, however, Dave seems to get control over himself once more and speaks again.

“Klaus, you need to get everyone to safety. They need you to get them out of here.”

Looking up at Dave and then towards his other ghostly companion, Klaus can’t help but let his eyes fall back on Dave’s body.

“I’m not leaving you here. I can’t.”

When Klaus looks back at Dave’s ghost, his friend has an all too familiar determined expression on his face, the same one he always wears when he has to talk Klaus out of doing something truly idiotic.

“Yes, you can Klaus. You need to get everyone out of here. Think of Will and Decourcy, and the lieutenant, and Steve, and the others. Will’s injured, he needs medical attention. You have to get them out of here.”

Klaus didn’t think there was anything left of his heart to break, but he is proven wrong when he realises that he is going to have to leave Dave’s body here. Taking large gulps of air, Klaus feels himself nod, then looks towards his unnamed ghost.

“If you go through the foliage to the right you will eventually hit a trail that will take you to the bunker you cleared earlier. Most of the enemy soldiers around that area have been cleared out, you could hunker down there wait out the air strikes that your lieutenant was calling in, then use the aftermath as cover to get to safer ground.”

Nodding again, Klaus calls out to the lieutenant, conveying the soldier’s plan. When they have everyone ready to move, Decourcy and Steve are providing cover fire, Klaus quickly turns back to Dave’s body, taking a few precious seconds to gently remove the man’s dog tags and slip them over his neck. Looking challengingly over towards Dave’s ghost, his friend does nothing but offer a sad smile before moving into the jungle, presumably to keep a look out for advancing combatants. Drawing in a ragged breath, Klaus stands and follows, leading his squad to what he hopes is a safe place.

The next few days go by in a blur, the hours spent in the bunker waiting out the air support bleeding seamlessly into the days spent coordinating a joint battalion assault that ended in carnage, each side close enough to the other to lob grenades with frightening accuracy. By the end of it, Will, Steve, the lieutenant, and four other members of his squad are dead. Decourcy has burns stretching across his torso from a barely escaped grenade explosion, and Klaus has been shot twice and even stabbed by an especially ambitious PAVN soldier that had evidently thought he would be an easy target when Klaus had drifted too close to where the man was hidden. By the time Klaus is lying on a cot in an army medical tent, desperately trying not to burst into tears as Will begs him to tell his mother that he loves her and he is so sorry, he knows he can’t stay here anymore.

Klaus doesn’t care anymore if he contracts the plague, is eaten by a dinosaur, or dropped right back into the loving hands of Hazel and Cha-Cha. Anything is better than the hell he is currently living in.

Chapter Text

“Okay, I think I’ve got something Delores.”

Standing back to take in the most recent flurry of equations now adorning his walls, Klaus can’t help but sneer at Delores’ unconvinced answer.

“I am aware I said that earlier, but this time is different… It’s tenuous, but promising. Yes, I know that’s also what I said last time. I have got it down to four names, Delores. Four. That’s doable. And after the first two, The Handler will definitely realise what I am doing and either send someone higher up than Hazel and Cha-Cha, or even make an appearance herself.”

The plan has been slowly taking shape in Five’s mind ever since the he first began the probability map. Klaus is lost in time. The only way Five even has a remote chance of finding him is if he can somehow get to the Temps Commission. Somewhere in that godforsaken building there must be some way to find him. The problem is, of course, getting there. The only briefcase in this time period disappeared along with Klaus, and if Five knows anything about the Temps Commission and its employees, then there is no way that Hazel and Cha-Cha have told their superiors about it. Which means that if Five wants to get to the Temps Commission, he is going to have to get his hands on another briefcase. And what better way to draw someone from the Commission to his timeline than to start loudly and with the most mess possible, killing people whose deaths could alter the time continuum? The fact that it might also stop the apocalypse is another benefit, although one that, in both Five and Delores’ minds, comes a very distant second to getting Klaus back.

“Yes, I know it’s a long shot, Delores. But my guess is that if I kill the right people, they will think it’s above Hazel and Cha-Cha’s pay-grade. Okay, fine. I hope they will send someone else. But since you aren’t offering up any better ideas, this is what we have to work with for the moment.”

Sounding highly unimpressed, Five tries to ignore Delores’ mutterings about headstrong, impulsive idiots, and instead takes a moment to look at the names now adorning his wall. Four more names to add to the ever-growing list that he tries his best not to think about. Five knows what Luther and Diego think of him. That he’s a coldblooded murderer, that his willingness to kill anyone and everyone that the Temps Commission pointed him at means that he somehow enjoyed it. But that’s not exactly true. Five took pride in his work, in the fact that he was the best at something, but he never found pleasure in any of it. And now here were four more names. Names not given to him by the Commission, but pulled from his own calculations, meaning that their deaths would be entirely on his shoulders.

Five could try to convince himself that these deaths will be justified. That killing four people to save billions is worth the sacrifice. But he knows that’s not true. When he kills these people, it won’t be to stop the apocalypse. It will be to save just one person. Five isn’t sure why this makes a difference to how he feels about ending these strangers’ lives, but it does.

“So, how should we do this? We need to it to be noticeable, splashy enough that the Commission pays attention, but not so splashy that we unintentionally instigate a city-wide manhunt… I mean, it would almost be laughably easy to elude the police, but Diego and Luther will likely not approve. And while they are both morons, they could get in the way enough to slow us down…”

At Delores’ offhand reply, Five can’t help but swing around to face her, his surprise at her reply enough to actually draw him away from the names for a few moments.

“I don’t think Klaus would be very happy if he found out we killed either one of them. Also, that would kind of defeat the purpose of coming back to save them all.”

Five can’t help but flinch slightly in response to Delores’ cynical reply. Sometimes he hates that she knows him so well. Five is intimately aware of the darker aspects of his psyche: living alone in an apocalyptic wasteland leaves an almost disturbing amount of time for introspection. But sometimes he lets himself forget; he lets himself believe that at least some of the boy that Klaus looked up to when they were kids still resides somewhere inside of him. Delores never lets him forget what he is. Sometimes, when he is in a particularly uncharitable mood, Five can’t help but think that those darker parts are what she likes most about him. It’s an unfair thing to think, but it’s also unfair that Delores never lets Five pretend to be someone else. Someone who actually has any right to be anywhere near someone like Klaus.

“Okay, fine, they were never exactly my primary motivation. But they’re my family. I still… care about them. And I would kill anyone that hurt them. So no, killing any of them is not an option. It will never be an option. Understood?”

If her comment about finally turning into a real boy is anything to go by, Delores seems almost proud of him. Rolling his eyes, Five turns back to contemplate the names.

“So, any actual ideas? We could always go with the obvious: find a similar gun to what I used to use, and then recreate some of my more… identifiable hits… Yes, I am aware that the whole point of those was that they weren’t identifiable. But I’m guessing someone in the Commission will notice. The Handler always was frustratingly cautious.”

Only a minute into Delores’ well-rehearsed invective about the Handler, Five, who had been doing a remarkable job of ignoring the speech that he by now knew largely by heart, finds his attention drawn back to her when she suddenly goes silent.

“Everything alright? You didn’t even get to the bit where you start likening her to that Umbridge woman, whoever the fuck that is. I mean, I don’t really get how The Handler resembles a toad, but you seem to have strong feelings abou– what do you mean, ‘someone is downstairs’? Do you know how many people live in this house? There is always someone downstairs. It’s probably Pogo.”

Delores, however, does not seem to agree. And after a few seconds, Five has to reluctantly admit that her point about Hazel and Cha-Cha’s recent incursion being reason enough to be cautious when it comes to unknown people walking through their front door, is a good one.

“Fine, I’ll go see who it is. But I swear to God that if it is Pogo, I am going to lock you in a room with Diego. See how you enjoy that.”

Unimpressed with Delores’ hissed threats, Five spatial jumps out of the room, careful to land just behind one of the archways next to the entrance hall, hoping that if it is Hazel and Cha-Cha, he will at least have something to hide behind when the inevitable storm of bullets come his way. Peering around the wall, however, Five feels his entire body freeze for a few seconds as he tries to process what he is seeing. It’s only when the figure in front of him starts to limp slowly up the stairs that a switch finally flicks back on and he can remember how to move again, the sound of his own thunderous heartbeats nearly drowning out his soft, almost desperate exclamation.

“Klaus?”

Chapter Text

Klaus is fairly sure he's in shock. It’s become a familiar sensation over the last ten months so he shouldn’t really be surprised by the all-consuming sense of dissociation, the strange out of body sensation that marks the moments when some part of him shuts down in a last-ditch effort to preserve some of his sanity. Although, judging by the furtive looks the cab driver is sending him every minute or two, he may not be doing that good of a job at the holding onto sanity part.

Then again, it might be that he has spent the last thirty seconds telling not one, but two overprotective dead people to kindly shut the fuck up and just let him breathe for a few moments.

Apparently, they have decided not to listen to his request.

“Jesus Christ Klaus! What the hell happened to you? You fucking disappear for an entire day and then come back covered in blood. And who the hell is this guy?”

“Who am I? Who the hell are you? And where the hell are we? Everything looks…wrong. What was even in that briefcase, Klaus? Klaus?”

“Shit. Klaus, you need to breathe, okay? Remember the numbers, yeah?”

“Back the hell up okay? Klaus, just take deep breaths. You’re fine, you’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you, okay?”

“What the fuck is your problem? I’m his brother, I know how to handle his fucking panic attacks, thank you very much.”

“Yeah? Well I didn’t see you around while we were traipsing through a freaking jungle and getting shot at, so maybe back off and let me help him.”

“Oh my god, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

At Klaus’ verbal explosion, the taxi suddenly violently swerves to the right and comes to an abrupt stop.

“That’s it. Get out! I don’t know what the hell you are on but there is no way I am letting you stay in here. Get out, now!”

Giving the driver a dark glare and ignoring both of the affronted looks being aimed at him from Ben and Dave, Klaus opens the door and hobbles off before the driver remembers that he hasn’t paid for the few miles they did cover. Once he is far enough away that he is fairly sure that the driver won’t be able to find him, Klaus can’t help but fall to the ground, leaning his back against a brick wall and pressing his eyes against his knees until all he can see are colourful light explosions. He figures it’s probably too much to ask that Dave and Ben suddenly comprehend his need for just a few fucking minutes to process the fact that he is, in fact, back in his own time, and not being eaten by prehistoric animals or tied to a chair and being waterboarded. Again.

Sure enough, he only counts to thirty-eight before someone clears their throat obnoxiously. Looking up, however, Klaus is surprised to see that while Ben still has on his patented Concerned Brother face, most of his attention is not currently directed at Klaus, but at the man standing next to him, looking more and more panicked as he takes in the surrounding sites.

“Dave, are you okay?”

As Dave turns his focus back onto him, Klaus feels his heart break at the look of confusion and almost-hidden fear on the man’s face. After everything went to shit, Klaus never actually took the time to explain to Dave what was happening. He is fairly sure that Dave knows he’s dead, some part of his fuzzy mind remembering the look on the man’s face as he stared down at his own dead body cradled in Klaus’ arms. But afterwards, when Klaus had healed enough to be able to walk without collapsing into a heap, Klaus hadn’t taken the time to explain what was happening, simply telling him that he needed to find his briefcase and leave. Retrospectively, Klaus can understand that as shocking as it is for him to suddenly be back in the twenty-first century, it must be even more so for Dave.

“Where are we, Klaus?”

“My home. My time.”

“Your time?”

“Yeah. 2019. Surprise?”

“What?”

“I’m from the future. Or at least, your future. I don’t know how, but that briefcase that I always carried around took me to your time. Oh, and I can see dead people. Which I’m guessing you have already worked out, but yeah.”

“I think I need to sit down.”

Watching as Dave stumbles over to where he is currently crouched down, Klaus tries to suppress the sob that builds in his chest when Dave collapses to the ground and his arm, rather than knocking into his, phases right through. Dave lets out a soft curse when he sees his own arm move through Klaus’ and closes his eyes, leaning his head against the wall behind them. In too much pain to keep looking at Dave, Klaus turns his attention to his brother, finally letting himself feel some measure of relief at seeing Ben again after all this time.

“Hey Ben. Long-time no see. I missed you.”

“Klaus, what happened to you?”

“Well, you know how you’re always telling me not to go opening things if I don’t know what’s inside of it? I think I may have finally learnt that lesson.”

Seeming to understand that Klaus needs a few moments to collect himself, Ben simply crouches down in front of Klaus, offering silent support. After taking a few breaths and dimly taking note of the fact that Dave now has his eyes open and is watching their interaction, Klaus forces himself to continue.

“It was a time machine, Ben. It took me back to 1968 and dropped me right in the fucking middle of the goddamn Vietnam War.”

“That was the lightning storm when you appeared in the tent, wasn’t it? I recognised the light when you opened the briefcase. I thought I had dreamed it up.”

Glancing over at Dave, Klaus can only bring himself to give a small nod in affirmation before Ben draws his attention back.

“You were gone longer than a day, weren’t you? You look different. And you’re sober, right?”

“Ha, yeah. Figures that it would take being dropped in a fucking warzone to get me clean. But I realised that if I didn’t want to get shot,” Klaus tries to ignore the way that both he and Dave tense up at the mention of getting shot, “it would probably be a good idea to be able to tell the difference between reality and drug induced hallucinations. Also, being able to see dead people is surprisingly helpful in a warzone. Go figure, huh? It actually pains me to say it, but the old man may have had a small point when he would go on and on about my wasted potential. I was there for ten months and by the end I was getting fairly good at controlling it all. When I’m stressed or emotional it’s more difficult to block things out, but if I focus, I can actually push back some of the noise. Not entirely, but enough to function.”

“Jesus, Klaus.” Seeming to need a moment to process everything, Ben looks off to the side, a scowl crossing his face when he makes eye contact with Dave. “And he is…?”

Klaus can’t help the hysterical laughter that bursts from his chest as the sheer surrealness of the situation crashes into him all at once.

“Ah, right. Ben, meet Dave, brother in arms and best friend. Dave, meet Ben, one of many adopted siblings. Tentacles can burst out of his chest.”

Klaus takes a small amount of perverse pleasure in the way that Dave’s eyes widen, flicking back and forth between Ben’s face and his chest. Ben just rolls his eyes, apparently too used to Klaus’ antics to be bothered too much.

“I see sobriety hasn’t given you a better sense of humour.”

At Ben’s comment, Dave lets out a snort of laughter.

“God, you think this is bad. It somehow gets even worse when he is being shot at.”

“I can only imagine.”

Looking between two of his favourite people as they give each other tentative smiles, Klaus tries to push back the tears that are building behind his eyes, suddenly completely overwhelmed by everything that has happened in the last few months. Ben, seeming to sense his mood shift, quickly turns his attention from Dave to Klaus again.

“Hey, Klaus. You doing okay?”

“I’m not really sure how to even begin to answer that.”

“Maybe we should get you back to the Academy. Sitting in a dirty alley cannot be doing you any favours. Besides, my guess is that Five will want to know as soon as possible that you are okay.”

At the mention of Five, Klaus feels a strange combination of trepidation, excitement, despair, and exhaustion settle in his chest.

“Academy?”

Turning to look at Dave, Klaus grimaces slightly.

“My childhood home.”

“The place where you grew up with the abusive, asshole father, and the oblivious, dickhead siblings? You still live there?”

Ignoring Ben’s spluttering at presumably being potentially counted amongst the oblivious, dickhead siblings, Klaus sighs deeply.

“No. Haven’t been there for years. I was just back for the funeral. Fuck. That was technically only a few days ago. Time travel is so fucking weird.”

“I can imagine. I would say sorry about your father, but based on the few things you let slip, I’m kind of glad that he’s dead. It would be really hard to have to be around him and not be able to kick his teeth in.”

“Huh. I like this one, Klaus.”

Not looking away from Dave, Klaus smiles softly even as his heart feels like it’s fracturing.

“Me too.”

The moment is broken, however, when a car horn blares at the entrance of the alley, both Klaus and Dave jerking violently to their feet and reaching for weapons they no longer carry. Ben seems to take this in for a few moments, his brow furrowed until a look of dawning comprehension begins to take over his features. Not wanting to sit through the inevitable interrogation Klaus can see his brother gearing up for, he quickly swings around, trying to get an idea of how close to the Academy they are. Breathing out a sigh of relief when he recognises the shop front opposite the alley’s opening, Klaus starts walking towards the street as quickly as his injuries permit him to.

By the time they reach the Academy fifteen minutes later, Klaus is unbelievably grateful that both Dave and Ben seemed to have finally recognised his need for silence. Initially, both had been flitting fretfully around him, suggesting that he catch a taxi instead of walking, or asking if he was in any pain. After Dave attempted to broach the topic of whether or not Klaus even should be walking around with what are, effectively, barely treated gunshot and knife wounds, both he and Ben seemed to take the hint from the death glare Klaus levelled at his friend. Although, Klaus is pretty sure they have spent the last few minutes trying to communicate silently behind his back, if the odd hand gestures he has seen in his peripheral vision are anything to go by. So, when he finally sees the front door, Klaus almost starts crying he is so relieved.

His relief increases when he pushes against the door and finds it unlocked, and he takes a moment to close his eyes and pray to deities that he doesn’t believe in that he can get to his room without running into Pogo, or, god forbid, Diego. A part of him is screaming to find Five, but Klaus quickly shuts that impulse down, knowing that he is way too unstable at the moment to deal with the clusterfuck a confrontation between him and Five would likely entail. For some odd reason, Klaus isn’t exactly ecstatic at the notion of breaking down in hysterical sobs in front of Five, something that he is almost certain will inevitably happen if he sees his brother. After ten months spent alternatively missing, hating, resenting, and pining for Five, Klaus is not at all willing to face him before he has a chance to even begin processing everything that has happened to him.

Of course, if there is one thing that Klaus should have realised by now, it’s that he is the universe’s bitch. And the universe is a fucking asshole.

“Klaus?”

When he hears the voice that has haunted his dreams for almost twenty years, Klaus freezes his ascent up the stairs, clenching his eyes closed in the vain hope that if he wishes for it hard enough, this will somehow not be happening.

“K-Klaus?”

Hearing the uncharacteristically desperate edge to Five’s voice though, Klaus lets out a long breath, resigning himself to the inevitable as he slowly turns around to face his brother. The sight that greets him somehow makes everything worse. Standing in an archway, Five looks lost, a disconcerting sheen in his eyes, his hands clenched into shaking fists by his side.

“Hey.”

“You’re here?”

Stretching his arms out in a macabre imitation of his usual grandiose gestures, Klaus knocks his fist lightly against the banister, letting the rhythmic sounds echo throughout the entrance hall.

“It would seem so.”

Five seems to take a few moments to process this, before something unidentifiable flickers across his face and he suddenly disappears. Before Klaus can even begin to feel the hurt beginning to build in his chest at his brother’s indifference, Five suddenly reappears on the step just below him and launches himself at Klaus. It takes Klaus a few moments to realise what is happening, but when he finally comprehends that Five is hugging him, Klaus feels his already tenuous grip on his emotions shatter.

Wrapping his arms around Five, Klaus’ body is suddenly shaking uncontrollably with sobs, his knees giving out after a few seconds to send him crashing to the step below him. Trapped in each other’s grips, Five comes tumbling down too, awkwardly landing half on top of Klaus and half on the step he was previously standing on. Klaus barely gives their current tangle of limbs a second thought, burying his face in Five’s shoulder and sob after sob wracks through his body. In fact, Klaus is shaking so badly that it takes him a while to realise that Five is also letting out tiny, shuddering sobs, his grip on Klaus so tight it almost obstructs Klaus’ airflow. When Five’s arm shifts, however, putting pressure on the bullet wound near Klaus’ shoulder, Klaus can’t help the pained hiss that he releases.

Immediately, Five pulls back, watery eyes sweeping across Klaus’ body, before finally settling on the hint of dirty bandage just visible beneath Klaus’ blood stained top and vest.

“Y-you’re hurt. What happened? Who hurt you?”

“It’s fine. I’m fine. Fine and dandy.”

Five’s hard look communicates his disbelief, but Klaus is still too emotionally overwhelmed to care. Even now, speaking is made almost impossible by the sobs sporadically bursting out of his mouth.

“Seriously, I-I’m okay. I’m here and I’m okay. I promise.”

At the once familiar refrain shared between them, something in Five’s eyes softens, his arms disentangling from around Klaus to reach up and cup Klaus’ face.

“I thought I’d lost you. Again. Jesus Christ, Klaus. I thought… I thought- You disappeared right in front of me. I saw the light and I just… I thought I’d never see you again.”

Closing his eyes and releasing a pained sigh, Klaus lets himself lean heavily into the hands around his face, soaking in the comfort that only Five has ever been able to provide. Without thinking, Klaus turns his head, softly brushing his lips against Five’s palm, opening his eyes slowly at the sharp intake of breath his action provokes. Instead of the recrimination he half expects to find, however, Klaus is instead greeted with what he can only describe as wonder lighting up Five’s face.

“Five. I-”

“Wait! That’s Five?”

Automatically swinging his head around at the unexpected outburst, Klaus finds Dave staring at him in horror and confusion. Eyes flicking quickly around to Ben, then to Five again, who he is alarmed to realise looks almost hurt at Klaus’ sudden move away from him, and then back to Dave, who still looks as if he is about half a second away from running out of the room screaming, a slow sense of half-dread, half-reluctant amusement begins to rise in him as he realises what Dave is seeing.

“Well, this is going to be fun.”

Chapter Text

Five clenches his hands into fists in an effort to stop his fingers compulsively twitching in a futile attempt to reach out and pull Klaus back into his arms. The right one is especially bad, his palm still tingling where Klaus’ lips had, only moments before, been pressed up against it. Five desperately wants to return to that moment. It had felt like something imperceptible had shifted, a threshold had been crossed, as if he and Klaus were finally on a path they were always meant to walk down but had never quite managed to find. Given their track record, though, Five almost wasn’t even surprised when he was apparently cockblocked by a ghost. If the pure relief still coursing through Five’s veins at the realisation that Klaus had somehow found his way back to him wasn’t so strong, he would likely be fairly frustrated about that.

As it is, Klaus is here. Alive. And only minimally hurt, based on the fact that he is still physically capable of pacing back and forth across the entranceway, waving his hands in endearingly dramatic arcs. So, overall, his relief is far outweighing any kind of frustration Five might be feeling. Saying that, however, he is willing to at least admit that the only thing that would make this better was if Klaus was back in his arms, rather than talking desperately to some unseen entity while he seems to apparently forget that Five exists.

Delores would likely accuse Five of being jealous. It’s lucky that Five decided years ago not to listen to Delores. Five is not jealous. He’s not. At all.

“Okay, I know this looks really bad… I wasn’t lying, I did grow up with him! Would you believe me if I said we have really good anti-aging creams in the future? Shut up Ben, you are not helping. Ugh, seriously Dave, I swear it’s not what it looks like. Technically I’m the baby in the cradle snatching scenario! Not that there is any snatching going on, I told you it’s not like that… What does that even mean, ‘that’s not what it looked like to me’? I may be bat shit insane most of the time, but I am pretty sure I would notice something like that!... Well if you stopped screeching at me for half a minute I could actually try to explain it!”

“Klaus?”

Trying to suppress a groan at the sound of Luther’s voice, Five follows Klaus’ gaze, turning his body around from where he is still perched on the step he landed on earlier to see Luther standing at the top of the stairs, patented confused look on his face.

“Why, hello Luther. How are you this fine morning? Or is it afternoon? I must confess, time has gotten a little away from me lately.”

Against his will, Five’s lips twitch up into a momentary smile. Klaus’ weird humour always was one of Five’s favourite things about his brother. He knew most of it was affected, Klaus’ exaggerated persona carefully designed to lower people’s guards enough that he could easily take advantage of them. But, really, that was half the fun of it: watching people, their siblings especially, try to process the sheer weirdness that sometimes comes out of Klaus’ mouth.

“You’re back?”

“Excellent deduction, Number One. Truly some of your best work to date”

At his interjection, both Luther and Klaus’ gazes swivel towards Five. Barely even giving Luther a moment thought, Five takes the opportunity of Klaus’ attention finally being directed back towards him to spatial jump in front of his brother. Looking him up and down, he quickly takes inventory of the new scars and more obvious muscle definition, before focusing in on the patches of dried blood splashed across his army fatigues. He had noticed the bandages earlier but was distracted by the overwhelming relief that had been coursing through his body. Reaching up, Five lightly brushes over the edges of the bandage near Klaus’ shoulder, then slowly moves his hand down towards another large bloodstain marring the left side of Klaus’ torso. He is dimly aware of Klaus’ sharp intake of breath, although whether it is because of pain or surprise at Five’s proximity, he can’t really tell.

“How badly are you injured?”

Before he can answer, however, Klaus jerks his head to his right, shooting a narrow-eyed glare to what Klaus is assuming is either Ben or the mysterious Dave.

“I do not lie, Dave. I’m am fine… Well it’s not the first time I have been, so I’m not sure what the big deal is… Okay, yes, perhaps the stabbing was new, but the whole getting shot thing is practically passé by this point… Ben has seen me way worse than this! Haven’t you, Ben? Ugh, you are so not helpful.”

At Klaus’ likely unintentional reveal that he had been stabbed and shot, Five can feel his self-control quickly unravelling, the temptation to destroy everything in the entrance hall growing to an almost unbearable point. Knowing, though, that suddenly going on a rampage was not going to help Klaus, Five reaches up (gritting his teeth at the fact that he has to go up on tiptoes, god fucking dammit) and gently grips Klaus’ chin, physically forcing his brother to shift his attention back to him.

“How badly?”

Seemingly recognising Five’s tone and what it signalled in terms of his lack of patience over this matter, Klaus sighs loudly, his whole body releasing most of its tension and leaning heavily towards Five.

“Bullet wound to my shoulder. Clean entrance and exit wound, minimal damage. Another bullet wound to my right thigh. That one had to be dug out, but it didn’t hit any bone so mostly soft-tissue damage. Stab wound to the abdomen is probably the worst. The army medic was pretty sure that it didn’t hit anything vital, but I didn’t really stick around long enough for him to double-check. I have to imagine he was right though, considering the fact that I am alive and not dying from internal bleeding. So, I was telling the truth. I’m fine.”

“How much pain are you in?”

Five quickly realises that this seems to be the right question, considering the way that Klaus’ eyes guiltily shift away from his. Pulling up his other hand, he lightly taps his fingers on Klaus’ jawline in a silent command to answer the question. After a few more seconds in which Klaus seems to realise that there is no way out of the situation, he once again sighs and shifts his gaze back to Five.

“A bit. They tried to give me something for it, but I didn’t want to take it.”

Processing that, Five takes a few moments to look closer at Klaus, quickly taking in his almost preternatural stillness and the focused look in his eyes. Slowly, as the realisation dawns on him, Five doesn’t know whether to slap himself for not noticing sooner, or burst into tears from sheer relief.

“You’re clean.”

“Wait. You’re sober? How?”

Rather than answer Five or Luther’s questions, Klaus simply nods slightly, his eyes dropping down then flicking back up to Five’s. Five can’t decide what the expression on Klaus’ face exactly means, some odd combination of pride, trepidation, and something almost sad. Before Five can decipher it, however, Klaus’ attention is once again drawn to whatever invisible asshole Five will be finding a way to murder at some point. Whatever they are saying, Klaus seems to find equal parts amusing and horrifying, judging from the way his lips keep on twitching up into an involuntary smile while his eyes seem to get wider by the second.

By this point, Five is about ready to drag Klaus up the stairs so that he can treat his wounds, whether or not the younger man wants to. The only thing giving him pause is the high likelihood that Klaus’ injuries could be exacerbated in the struggle that would likely follow such a plan. Trying to fight the impulse to groan loudly when he realises that he is going to have to go and get the supplies and bring them here, he once again physically shifts Klaus’ attention back onto him.

“I’m going to go get a medical kit. You stay here and do not move. If you do, I will know and I will find you and then we do this the hard way, which will involve me knocking you out and then tying you to my bed and treating your injuries there. Are we clear?”

“I always knew you were hiding a secret kinky side, Five.”

Narrowing his eyes in warning, Five tightens his grip ever so slightly on Klaus’ chin.

“I’m serious, Klaus. You move from this spot and you will not like what happens.”

“Promises, promises.”

Deciding that is as close as he is ever going to get to agreement, Five takes a final moment to let himself fully take in the fact that Klaus is alive, mostly in one piece, and here with him. It’s as close to pure happiness he has experienced in… well, forty-five years. Almost high on the euphoria, he can’t help but let a bubble of laughter burst from his chest, a likely near-manic grin spreading across his face. Before he even realises what he is doing, he pushes himself up so that he can lightly brush his lips against Klaus’. It lasts only a second a half before he suddenly realises what he has done, cold reality quickly dousing whatever serotonin overload had momentarily dismantled his decision making abilities and led to this disastrous situation. In a panic, he quickly spatial jumps, landing in his bedroom next to Delores and slowly sliding down the wall, hoping that if he thinks about it hard enough, an inter-dimensional blackhole will somehow open up in his bedroom and suck him into it.

Weirder things have happened.

Chapter Text

“Klaus, are you okay?”

Blinking a few times, Klaus tries in vain to restart his brain.

“Huh?”

Seeming to realise that Klaus is not going to regain cognitive functionality anytime soon, Ben rolls his eyes and walks over so he is standing right in front of Klaus.

“You’ve been staring into space for over three minutes, which is impressive considering that Luther and your solider friend have been loudly freaking out the entire time.”

Following Ben’s unimpressed gaze over to the right, Klaus is somewhat alarmed to see Dave pacing around the hallway muttering incessantly and Luther mid-lecture about inappropriate relationships, which is pretty rich considering his and Allison’s will-they-won’t-they-oh-my-god-just-fucking-get-over-yourselves-and-fuck-already thing. Quickly deciding that all of that seems far too annoying to deal with at the current moment, Klaus elects to turn his focus back onto Ben.

“I didn’t imagine that happening, right?”

“If you mean Five kissing you then running off like the emotionally stunted eight-year-old child that he somehow still is, then no, you did not imagine that. And seriously, it’s about time. If I had to sit through one more minute of you two staring at the other longingly when you think no one is looking, I was going to go insane.”

“But he left.”

Sighing, Ben waves his hand in a sweeping motion that encapsulates Klaus, Luther and himself.

“Seriously, Klaus, what else did you expect? We are some of the most fucked up, emotionally illiterate people on the planet, and Five is one of the worst. He may even beat out Luther, which is saying something.”

Taking a moment to process that, Klaus can feel a smile creeping across his face, an unfamiliar feeling of elation spreading throughout his chest.

“Five kissed me.”

“I swear to fucking God Klaus, if you do not somehow explain all this in a way that does not end with you in jail, I am going to completely lose my mind!”

Swinging around, Klaus feels a strong wave of guilt at the completely overwhelmed look on Dave’s face. The poor man had been through a pretty traumatic couple of days, and Klaus dragging him into the future, unprepared, and then shoving the insane cluster-fuck that was his relationship with Five in his face likely just made everything worse. When they first arrived at the Academy and Dave was freaking out, Klaus had been too overwhelmed with everything that was happening to react rationally and calmly answer Dave’s questions. Of course, Dave’s screeched accusations hadn’t really helped Klaus remained calm, but the point remains. Drawing in a deep breath, Klaus tries his best to centre himself and think tranquil thoughts.

“I didn’t lie, Dave. Five and I are adopted brothers. And I know it sounds impossible, but I swear it’s not what it looks like. He might look thirteen, but he’s not. He’s actually a lot older than that.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“Klaus, who the hell are you even talking to?”

Waving his hand dismissively at Luther and his unhelpful interruptions, Klaus focuses back on Dave.

“You saw how he vanished then appeared at different points in the room?”

“Somehow, Klaus, I did in fact notice the teleporting child.”

“Okay! Well, he can not only move through space, but also time. Sort of like how the briefcase took me from my time to yours and then back again. Somehow, Five can do that himself. I don’t even know how, so don’t ask. But he can. And when we were thirteen, he jumped into the future and got stuck there. And he didn’t come back until a few days before I was sent to your time. And for some weird, truly fucked up reason, even though he was gone for seventeen years in my timeline and almost sixty in his, when he came back it was in his old thirteen-year-old body.”

“My head hurts.”

Walking over to crouch beside Dave who was now sitting on the floor of the entrance hall looking like he was about five seconds away from passing out, Klaus wishes more than anything that he could reach out and actually touch his friend. The need to offer some kind of physical comfort is like a near-painful itch building just beneath his skin.

“I’m sorry I didn’t explain everything before. But in my defence, telling you that I was raised in a house full of people with superpowers and then fell in love with my pseudo-brother who then disappeared for seventeen years and then reappeared in the body of a child would have sounded completely insane. Even knowing it’s all true, I think I’m crazy half the time.”

“‘House full of people with superpowers’?”

“Ah, yes. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that quite yet.”

Narrowing his eyes at Klaus in a withering glare, Dave suddenly seems to come to a realisation, his eyes widening and then darting towards Ben and then back to Klaus.

“Does that mean that you weren’t joking about the tentacle thing?”

Ben’s snort of laughter was apparently enough of an answer for Dave, because the about-to-pass-out look is back. Trying to distract his friend, Klaus manoeuvres his body so that he is blocking Dave’s sight line to Ben, pasting on a wide grin.

“I also have a sister who can make you do anything she tells you to do. And she’s a famous movie star.”

“Somehow, finding out that your sister is famous is the most normal thing that has happened in the last few days… Seriously though Klaus, what the hell?”

“Yeah, I imagine it’s a lot to take in all at once.”

Letting out a bark out laughter, Dave levels a fond gaze at Klaus.

“You talking to dead people and the time travelling briefcase were ‘a lot to take in’. Finding out that Five looks like a kid and Ben is actually dead and apparently houses a freaking Cthulhu might have broken me.”

“Nah, you’re doing fine. You should have seen how we all reacted when Five suddenly reappeared.”

“I can only imagine.”

“Yeah, sent me straight into a panic attack. Have to say, for the first hour of so I thought I was having a really intense, fucked up trip. I think Luther’s brain just about melted out of his ears.”

“Hey!”

“So that’s Luther, huh?”

Turning around to look at his affronted brother, Klaus grins wildly at the look of sheer frustration colouring Luther’s face.

“Yep, that’s our fearless leader, Number One.”

“Number One?”

“Oh right. Dear old Dad didn’t actually give us names, just numbers. I’m technically Number Four.”

“Jesus, that’s fucked up.”

Opening his mouth to concur with Dave’s statement, Klaus barely get’s the first syllable out before Luther interrupts again.

“Seriously, Klaus, who the hell are you talking to? Where have you been? How did you get back? And what the fuck was that with Five?!”

“Ugh, so many questions. Let a girl breathe! I wonder if Five will get annoyed if I go to my room to lie down for a while…”

“Considering I told you to stay put and you have already moved, I think it’s safe to assume that I would be pretty annoyed.”

Whirling around to face the stairs, something in Klaus’ chest somersaults as he takes in Five shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot all while holding in one hand a first aid kit and a broken store mannequin, of all things, in the other. By the way that Five determinately meets Klaus’ gaze and the forced casualness of his previous statement, Klaus is fairly sure Five is going for the I’m-going-to-pretend-nothing-happened route of avoidance. Which is adorable, really, because if Five actually thinks Klaus is going to drop this when he is so close to getting something he has wanted since he was twelve years old, then Five wins for most delusional Hargreeves sibling. If Klaus can find a way past a seventeen year absence, a trip to the Vietnam War, and the fact that, oh yeah, Five looks like he is still thirteen, then Five can put on his big boy pants and suck it the fuck up.

“Well, as we can see, I was a good boy. Does that mean I get a reward?”

“Yes. I will treat your wounds, so you don’t bleed to death.”

“That doesn’t really sound like a fun reward. I was thinking of something a little more… personal.”

Based on the odd facial spasm that greets his admittedly indecently lascivious tone, Klaus is fairly sure his plan of annoying Five into an admission that the kiss did, in fact, happen will not take long to come to fruition. Klaus’ momentary celebration is, however, cut short when Five’s expression shifts from careful neutrality to exasperation as he looks down in astonishment at the mannequin tucked under his right arm.

“It’s because you say things like that that I don’t want to introduce you!”

Looking down at the mannequin Five is apparently talking to, Klaus quickly swings his gaze over to Ben, who looks nonplussed, then Dave, who looks so completely over everything that is happening that it’s actually kind of hilarious, and finally lands on Luther, who just shrugs and waves his hand around his head like that is supposed to explain anything. Rolling his eyes at how spectacularly unhelpful that was, Klaus shifts his attention back to Five, who is still conversing with… her?

“No, I’m not going to ask him that! Why not? Because I’m a functional adult man and not a teenage girl with a crush!”

Well, now Klaus is just intrigued. Deciding that the best way to get answers is the direct approach, he clears his throat loudly and dons a bright smile.

“And who might this be lovely lady be?”

The look of almost-guilty surprise and the faint blush that spreads across Five’s face at Klaus’ question is enough to convince him that stepping forward and dipping into a low, ostentatious bow is a good idea. If anything, the dramatic gesture of chivalry aimed at the mannequin makes Five’s blush worsen. Or maybe it’s the way that the bow makes Klaus’ shirt and vest gape, giving Five a clear and prolonged glimpse of his chest. If Klaus is being optimistic, he kind of hopes it’s the latter. Five’s rather spot-on tomato impression is interrupted, however, by what seems to be another comment from the mannequin.

“Oh my God! Do not ever say anything like that again, Delores! I think I liked it better when you were lusting after Luther!”

“What?!”

“That’s Delores?”

“Is he actually talking to the mannequin?”

Letting all of the room’s occupants’ statements wash over him, Klaus takes a minute to luxuriate in the relief coursing through his body before it is overcome with empathy and pain at everything that Five has endured the last five decades or so. Because that’s Delores. Delores, Five’s mystery companion who he so obviously cares for deeply and whose absence he had opined in such a longing tone that it had made something in Klaus’ chest shatter. But this is not what he was expecting when he let himself imagine Five falling in love and living a life with someone else. Or maybe it’s just that Klaus’ perspective has changed. Because it is fairly apparent that Delores is Five’s Dave, the person who got him through being out of time. Realising this, Klaus quickly decides that, much like everything else that is the disaster of his and Five’s relationship so far, that he can work with it. Besides, he talks to people no one else can see all the time. It might be nice for Five to be able to do the same.

“So, this is the mysterious Delores I have heard so much about. Charmed, I’m sure.”

Reaching out to the mannequin’s one remaining arm, Klaus gently bends over it so that he can brush a gently kiss over the hand, a shit eating grin splitting his face when he sees Five’s face go somehow even redder. Klaus had actually forgotten that Five could blush this much. Five had always been so controlled when they were children, so it was fairly rare even back then. And ever since he had returned, Five’s general get-the-fuck-away-from-me demeanour had not really left much room for embarrassment. In fact, the last fifteen minutes or so is probably the most expressive Klaus has ever seen his brother, except for the few occasions when Five and their Father were fighting.

“I should have known that you two would just encourage each other.”

Glancing up through his lashes, Klaus shoots his brother a wicked grin while slowly drawing himself up from leaning over Delores’ hand, trying to ignore the ridiculous fluttering sensation building in his chest as he looks down at Five. Seeming to read something of his thoughts in his expression, Five’s eyes skitter away, before flicking back, seemingly not of his own volition, before shifting once again down to Delores. His brow furrowing in concentration, he mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “fine, but keep your hands to yourself” while placing her gently on the ground before shifting his attention back to Klaus, a familiar determined look taking over his face.

“Shirt off.”

Mind blanking momentarily, Klaus can’t help but raise his eyebrows at Five’s sudden request. After a second, Five seems to realise what he just ordered Klaus to do, the blush somehow getting even deeper.

“Not that! I mean- oh my fucking god, Delores. Not the time. We are literally in the fucking entrance way with a good chunk of our fami- well unlike you, exhibitionism is not one of my kinks… Oh, shut the hell up. That doesn’t fucking count, and you know it. And I thought we agreed to never talk about that?”

Coming to the conclusion that this could, conceivably, go on for a good long while, and suddenly realising that whatever adrenaline burst had kept him on his feet since he landed back in the present was fast waning, Klaus decides to streamline the process, quickly stripping off his vest and pulling off the blood crusted shirt underneath. He elects to ignore the strange squawking noise that emanates from Luther’s direction in favour of watching Five’s reaction. Which basically amounts to an almost alarming widening of his eyes before he seems to get control of his expression and forces it back into some degree of neutral indifference. Klaus barely even has time to be offended that the sight of him half naked is so easy to process, when a strange wounded noise bursts out of Five and he suddenly has his brother’s hands gently moving up and down his torso. Which, while not by any means unwanted (and Klaus definitely cannot say that exhibitionism isn’t one of his many kinks), was not quite as enjoyable as it should have been on account of the numerous open wounds and extensive bruises littering his torso. Klaus is vaguely aware of the exclamations of concern and startlement emanating from the rest of the room’s occupants but chooses to ignore them for the time being in favour of watching Five map out the various injuries, scars, and tattoos that now adorn his body with his fingers.

“How long were you there, exactly?”

“Ten months.”

At Klaus’ answer, Five’s breath seems to catch for a few moments, before it evens out again and his fingers continue to flick from mark to mark.

“I had a lot of scars too. Before, I mean.”

“Five?”

“The worst was from this pack of wild dogs. I was tired and hungry. Slow. They tore apart most of the skin on my left arm and my upper back before I managed to kill them. The infection was awful. Don’t really know how I survived it. But the scars were everywhere. Huge, matted things.”

“They’re gone?”

“Yeah. Lost them all when I came back looking like this. I suppose I should be happy about it. I hated looking at the things. But in a weird way, I miss them. They were proof, you know? Proof of what I’d done, what I’d felt. The pain, the survival, everything. And all of it was just wiped away in less than a second like, in the end, none of it meant anything.”

Not being able to help himself any longer, Klaus lifts his own hands up to gently brush his fingers across Five’s face, smoothing out the too familiar frown lines before running them through his hair.

“It means everything, Five. I promise.”

A small smile flickers across Five’s lips before something seems to shift in his eyes, as if he had just come to some kind of decision.

“Not everything. Everything that I did, everything that happened, it was never about me surviving. Not really. It was a means to an end. A way to get back and…”

“And?”

“Save you. Every moment spent in that apocalyptic hell hole was about saving you, Klaus.”

Chapter Text

Five lasts about three minutes before Delores’ endless and increasingly pointed questions get to be too much and he finally gives up his attempt at silently willing away the few minutes of his existence. Closing his eyes, Five can’t help but give into the temptation to hit the back of his head against the wall he is crouched up against in the vain hope that if he can’t reverse what he just did, maybe he can at least give himself a bad enough concussion that he will somehow forget it. Delores, as always, ruins his brilliant plan with totally unwanted logic.

“I am aware that it likely won’t work. I’m holding out for the unlikely scenario.”

Delores doesn’t even justify his response with a verbal answer, instead allowing pointed silence to communicate clearly what she thinks of his attempt to evade her questions. Five really wishes it didn’t work as well as it did.

“Fine, fine, fine. I will stop trying to concuss myself. Are you happy now? Are you satisfied?”

Descending back into silence, Five tries to distract himself by looking around his once familiar room, losing himself for a moment in the alien sensation of being back in a place that was so foreign from everything he has known for the last almost five decades. When he first came back, he was struck that almost nothing had changed. It was as if when he left, time in this room stopped, froze over, simply waiting patiently for him to return to begin moving forward again. It was almost eerie. Five doesn’t know what he would have done if he had come back to find this room cleared out, but somehow, he thinks that would have felt less like walking into his own tomb. And the fact that his fucking body is now the exact same as when he left somehow compounds the feeling. It makes him feel like a wraith, like he never actually made it back here. Or, worse, like he never actually left.

Startling at Delores’ question, Five takes a moment to take in the fact that he had been unconsciously rubbing his left arm, his body seeking out the erased scars in an attempt to knead out the phantom aches he had long grown used to. Pulling away his right hand and fisting it by his side, Five lets out a long breath.

“Nothing happened.”

The sarcastic remark and snort of derision that meets his rather weak attempt to get Delores off his back almost makes him smile.

“Klaus is back.”

At Delores’ immediate response, Five suddenly remembers why he came up here in the first place, quickly pulling himself up to reach under his bed for the first aid kit he used to keep there for whenever Klaus got injured during training. Opening it, he inspects the contents, making a note to swing by one of the bathrooms to get some antiseptic that didn’t expire over a decade ago.

“Yeah, he’s alive. And mostly unharmed. He’s also clean. Which is… good? I think? I don’t really know. Is it wrong that I’m happy about it if the only reason why he got clean in the first place is because that fucking briefcase took him somewhere where apparently getting shot and stabbed is par for the course?”

Electing to ignore Delores’ comment about how she wishes getting shot at did something to alleviate his substance abuse issues, Five simply rolls his eyes and tries to focus on anything else but the images that keep on flashing through his head and the tingling sensation that is still somehow suffusing his lips. Of course, like most things, actively trying not to think about it means that Five can think about nothing but how it felt to actually have Klaus’ lips pressed against his, and the startled expression on Klaus’ face that Five only had milliseconds to take in before he was spatial jumping to safety. Unable to help himself, Five softly brushes his fingers against his lips before, after realising exactly what he was doing and in whose company he was doing it, he quickly rips his hand away and shoves it into his pocket. Unfortunately, Delores is nothing if not freakishly observant.

“I do not have a stupid look on my face. Actually, you know what? I’m not discussing this with you. I have to get back downstairs and make sure that Klaus isn’t bleeding out all over the entrance hall.”

Delores, as always, sees straight through his bullshit.

“No! Nothing happened! Why would something have happened? For fuck sake, my voice does not sound like a barely pubescent boy when I lie. News flash: I am a barely pubescent boy! Again! Because apparently that’s a thing that can happen when someone doesn’t factor in the effect of quantum mechanical particles that carry anti-gravitational force because, and I quote, “that’s the least of our problems at the moment, dunderhead.””

Calling the silence that descends over the room in the wake of his outburst unimpressed is a considerable understatement. Five is pretty sure that if she had the ability, laser beams would have shot out of Delores’ eyes and melted off his stupid barely pubescent dick. When she deigns to reply, Five feels the fight go out of him at the sheer reasonableness of her tone. Five hates it when Delores acts all mature. It makes him feel like a tantrum-prone toddler.

“Okay. Fine. Something may have happened. Sort of. Maybe… Okay, okay! For fuck’s sake! I kissed him, okay? What do you mean, “is that all?”?! This is a big deal, Delores! I kissed Klaus! What am I even meant to say to him after that? How am I even meant to go down there and… Oh, fuck. I just realised that Luther was down there too. Oh my god, he’s going to tell everyone. Ugh. I swear if Diego even fucking looks at me sideways I am going to stab him in the eye… How does it even matter whether it was good or not? And no, I am not a fucking heroine in a romance novel so my knees did not go weak, nor did my nether regions “quiver”. Seriously? What is even wrong with you that that is your great takeaway from this?”

When Delores simply repeats her previous question, Five feels his righteous indignation crumble around him.

“It was amazing. And quick. And a complete mistake… How could it not be a mistake? He’s Klaus. He deserves the fucking world. Not a broken old man stuck in the body of a fucking child… Well, I didn’t really stick around to hear what he thought about it, so who the hell knows what he thinks about it? He’s probably disgusted. Or at the very least convinced that I’m bat shit insane.”

At Delores’ insulting reply, Five swings his gaze around from where he had been glaring a hole into the wall to finally make eye contact with her. Before he can start yelling again, however, she continues talking and Five feels his anger ebb away with every word.

“It doesn’t matter if all of this is for him, Delores. That doesn’t mean that he will feel the same way. Hell, it doesn’t even mean that I will be able to untangle the confusing mess of emotions that even is what I feel about Klaus. You know me. Can you honestly say that I even deserve him? After everything we– I’ve done? I have left rivers of blood in my wake and am heading towards a future that is, at best, precarious as all fuck. Hazel and Cha-Cha are still here. And even after I kill them for what they did to him, she will just send more. And even disregarding all of that, I still haven’t worked out how to stop the end of the fucking world. I’ve failed him at every turn and I’m going to fail him again and again. How can I even begin to justify being selfish enough to ask him to risk dying because of me?”

When nothing but silence greets his question, Five can feel dejection spreading through his body, making his limbs somehow feel heavier. Sighing, Five turns away from Delores and begins to head towards the door. Just before his outstretched hand touches the doorknob, however, Delores’ reply stops him in his tracks.

So don’t risk it. Burn it all to the ground to keep him safe. But trust in Klaus enough to know that he will be right there beside you, lighting the matches.

Chapter Text

When he was growing up, Dave went to church with his mother every Sunday. He remembers sitting in the pews, uncomfortable and wanting nothing more than to be outside playing with his friends, listening as the preacher read Bible passages and talked about God and his many miracles. Dave never really believed what the preacher was saying. Living in a small town in the middle of nowhere in Iowa, it seemed unlikely that miracles would ever find their way into his life. The only time he remembers ever thinking differently was when he was thirteen years old, praying desperately day and night for one, after he realised that while none of the girls in his school turned his head, his stomach filled with butterflies every time he and Pete McCloud played in the local lake. No miracles had come then to take away those terrifying feelings. It was somewhere around then when Dave stopped hoping for miracles.

So, when a seemingly real miracle actually occurred, and a beautiful man with wide green eyes was dropped almost literally into his lap in a storm of blue light, Dave was forced to radically re-evaluate his past stance of miracles. Because that’s what Klaus was to him: his own personal miracle. Somewhere in the hell he had been dragged into, God had seen fit to give him the one thing that could not only help him survive, but actually make him want to live.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect. That night in the bar, the night Dave somehow dug deep enough within himself to find the courage to lean forward, close enough to feel Klaus’s breath intermingle with his, was when Dave learnt that sometimes miracles don’t mean getting everything you want. Sitting there, listening to Klaus say that there was someone else, someone that had already carved out a space for themselves in his soul, broke something in Dave’s. But he made the decision to move past it. Because it didn’t matter that Klaus would never see Dave through the shadow cast by Five; Klaus was Dave’s very own miracle and Dave was content to love him the way Klaus needed to be loved, even if that form of love was not the one Dave was hoping for.

So yeah, meeting Klaus, falling in love with Klaus, watching Klaus guide him and his squad through shitstorm after shitstorm unscathed, Dave began to believe in miracles. And then the biggest miracle of them all happened, and Dave was left looking down at his own dead body, realising that Klaus could see him. And then it seemed like the miracles (and Dave was beginning to feel that ‘miracle’ was the wrong word what with its decidedly misleading positive connotations) just started multiplying. Dave was suddenly standing in an alien time, in a house full of people with superpowers, watching the man he had fallen in love with get felt up by a teleporting thirteen-year-old boy.

“You doing okay?”

Ripping his gaze away from where Klaus is standing with Five, Dave glances over to Klaus’ brother Ben. Who was also dead. And apparently had giant tentacles hidden away in his chest. And seemed to be way too comfortable with the fact that one of his brothers was feeling up the other brother’s naked chest in the middle of their childhood home. Dave would think the entire family was just nuts, except that the alarmingly big guy in the corner looks like he is either about to pass out or start yelling.

“What’s your definition of okay?”

Shrugging, Ben simply offers a sardonic smile. The smile changes into something warmer though when his eyes flick over in Klaus’ direction. Following Ben’s gaze, Dave notices that Five has somehow wrangled Klaus into sitting on the steps and is applying antiseptic creams and bandages to the various injuries littering Klaus’ chest, muttering the whole time, although Dave isn’t sure if Five is talking to Klaus or the creepy mannequin propped up next to Klaus (Dave isn’t even remotely going there- no fucking way). Klaus, of course, just has that adorable lovestruck look he almost always wears when he talks about Five, murmuring softly to his brother every so often.

It makes Dave think about one night in the jungle, he and Klaus crouched under some rocks as rain poured down around them, almost heavy enough to entirely block out the near constant sound of guns firing in the distance, Klaus whispering stories about his childhood. Every word that Klaus had uttered had made Dave more and more furious, until he almost wanted to burst out of their hiding spot and charge at their seemingly omnipresent enemy, if only to find release for even some of the rage that he thought would consume him. He wanted to kill Reginald Hargreeves. He wanted to maim every one of Klaus’ cruel, self-absorbed siblings. But most of all, he wanted to eviscerate Five. Because throughout every story that Klaus told him, Five was always cast as the hero, his knight in shining armour, always bounding in to wipe away Klaus’ tears and make the monsters go away.

And Five had left him. Five had left Klaus.

And, still, Klaus loved him. Loved him in a way that Dave, no matter how much he loved Klaus with all of his soul, could barely comprehend. Because Dave had always been taught that love was something beautiful. Harmonious. Selfless. But that’s not what Klaus’ love for Five felt like. Or Five’s love for Klaus, filtered as it was through the fractured lens of Klaus’ memories. That’s not to say those aspects weren’t there, shining through in stories of secret sleepovers in Klaus’ room, cuddled under the blankets with a torch as they whispered secrets and promises of eternal devotion (Klaus never used those words, but Dave could see what maybe even his friend had failed to understand he and his brother were promising each other). But layered over that more familiar love was something dark, something almost maniacal. It was possessive and violent, a promise of destruction should it ever be threatened. It was built on insecurities and loss and unspoken resentment, until it was almost so twisted Dave wasn’t sure if even Klaus knew that as much as he loves Five, he hates him just as much.

Klaus’ love for Five is terrifying in its depth and potential for brutality. Being near it is the closest Dave has ever come to feeling frightened of his friend.

But then the darkness would lift, or maybe it is more accurate to say that some light would pierce through, and Dave would almost be able to forget what he believes Klaus might be truly capable of if he was ever truly pushed to the breaking point. Even now, looking over at the two of them as they speak to each other almost as gently, as reverently, as the way they are touching, Dave can see it. It’s beautiful and terrifying. The quiet that falls over a jungle just before the first shot is fired.

Maybe they wouldn’t have been this way if their lives had been different. If their Father wasn’t such a monster. If they grew up separately. If Five had never left. But then again, Dave isn’t sure if he would love Klaus in the same way as he does now if the man was less… himself.

Glancing over at Ben, Dave opens his mouth, unsure exactly what he can even say. Reading something in his expression, Ben’s brows furrow and he looks over to his brothers again. It’s then that Dave realises that Ben doesn’t see it. Or at least, if he does see it, he doesn’t quite understand what it is he is seeing.

Klaus and Five will lay waste to the world, rather than lose each other.

And god help him, but Dave will watch them do it. Hell, if he can, he will even help. Because Klaus saved him in ways Dave is fairly sure the other man will never fully understand. He’s Dave’s miracle.

And that’s what you do for miracles.

Chapter Text

“Klaus. Klaus?”

Mumbling darkly, Klaus tries to burrow further into the warmth surrounding him in the vain hope that maybe the annoying voice trying to wake him up will go away if he ignores it long enough. Of course, that full-proof plan is derailed when the bands wrapped around him begin shaking slightly, and a soft rumbling begins to emanate from the hard, warm surface his face is currently pressed up against. Blinking slowly, it takes Klaus a few moments before he can push past the dense fog of exhaustion clouding his brain. Once he does though, he suddenly realises that he is pressed up against Five’s chest, the smaller boy’s arms wrapped around him. And the shaking and rumbling is Five laughing softly, at what, Klaus can only begin to imagine. Trying to make his immense displeasure clear, Klaus attempts to let out an ominous growl that end up sounding more like he has phlegm caught in the back of his throat.

“Mrrrrgh.”

For a blissful second, Klaus thinks his phlegmy gurgle actually worked, but then the shaking gets stronger and the rumbling noise has somehow morphed into full-blown chuckles.

“I’d forgotten you get like this when you are woken up.”

Klaus is tossing up between biting Five’s chest or not but is distracted from his plans when a hand begins running gently through his hair. Deciding that as long as Five pets him, he will refrain from chomping on his brother, Klaus lets out a contented murmur and cuddles further into his brothers’ arms.

“As…cute… as this is, Klaus, we do have to get up. I’m pretty sure Diego is back and knowing our brother, it’s only a matter of time before he comes bursting in here. I’m pretty sure the only reason why he hasn’t so far is because Luther is physically restraining him.”

Fast realising that he is not going to be returning to sleep anytime soon, Klaus reluctantly pulls his head from Five’s chest to look up to his brother. Dimly, he notes in his peripheral vision that Ben and Dave are talking softly between themselves, but he quickly decides that Five is far more interesting to focus on.

“Why would Luther be restraining him?”

In response to Klaus’ question, Five’s lip twitches up into a slight almost-smile, before he settles back into his customary I-am-a-serious-person-so-take-me-seriously face. Klaus finds it endearing that Five actually thinks that expression works on him. To prove this, he pokes Five’s cheek twice and then boops his nose for good measure. Someone needs to keep Five from taking himself too seriously. Rolling his eyes (Klaus likes to think his brother does this fondly), Five finally answers.

“Once I dragged you up here and forced you to lie down, I may have threatened to cut off certain… appendages… if Luther let anyone disturb you.”

“I don’t think Pogo would let you do that. Or Allison, for that matter.”

“Hmm… Allison may be a little tricky but I’m pretty sure I can take her.”

Snorting, Klaus can’t help the wide grin that breaks across his face.

“Pretty sure she would kick your ass.”

Smile growing somehow even wider at the mock offended look Five shoots him, Klaus is not really surprised when he is suddenly alone on the bed and the bed covers are ripped off him a moment later.

“Five! You asshole!”

Looking supremely unimpressed with Klaus’ mutinous glare, Five merely exhales a long suffering sigh and then tilts his head towards the bedroom door, where the vague sounds of Diego and Luther yelling and what sounds suspiciously like a physical scuffle are emanating from somewhere in the house.

“Fine, fine, fine. I’m up. I’m up.”

Of course, saying that is one thing, but the process of actually dragging himself to a standing position is infinitely harder. Klaus feels like he has been hit by a truck. Or, more accurately, that he has been shot and stabbed while running through a jungle in the fucking pitch black. Before he can help himself, a pained whine escapes his lips, and Five is suddenly very much in his personal space, hands hovering half an inch away from Klaus’ body, as if he is afraid to touch him.

“What hurts? Did you pull your stiches? Fuck. I should have let you sleep more.”

Not willing to let Five blame himself for something that he has no control over, Klaus plasters on a smile and shakes his head.

“I’m fine, Five. Just a bit stiff. I really don’t think six-foot-tall adults are meant to be sleeping in a bed that small, that’s all.”

Five doesn’t seem to believe him, but Klaus is at least relieved that his previous sorrowful look has been replaced with a disbelieving one.

“So, Diego and Luther? Wait- where has Diego been? He wasn’t at the Academy when I arrived, and he’s only just getting back now? How long was I asleep?”

“You were asleep for about two hours. Not entirely sure about Diego. My guess is that he was visiting his cop friend at the hospital. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Patch. Pretty sure her name is Eudora Patch.”

Shrugging at the surprised look Five shoots him, Klaus answers the unasked question.

“I’m more observant than most people give me credit for. Besides, I have brush ups with the law on a fairly semi-regular basis. It helps to keep a list of names of potentially friendly cops. Or at least, potentially non-unfriendly ones.”

Klaus never find’s out Five’s response to his comment, though, because just as his brother is about to answer, a loud crash echoes in the hallway outside and the distinct sounds of Luther yelling follow shortly after. Rolling his eyes, Klaus grits his teeth and makes his way to the door, jerking it open and coming face-to-face with Diego, who looks like he was preparing to kick the poor innocent door down. And his siblings think he is the dramatic one.

“Can I help you, Diego?”

“You’re back. Good. Now Five can help me track down Hazel and Cha-Cha and kill them.”

Before Klaus can volunteer his services to that little endeavour, Luther appears seemingly out of nowhere (which really shouldn’t be possible for someone that big), patent morally righteous expression firmly in place.

“No one is killing anyone. Besides, none of that matters. We need to work on stopping the apocalypse. That’s what is really important here.”

Huh. Well, that’s new.

“Apocalypse?”

At Klaus’ question, everyone seems to go almost preternaturally silent. Turning away from Luther and Diego’s confused expressions, Klaus turns to Five, who seems to be coming to a realisation. A realisation he seems a little bit… sheepish?... about.

“Oh. With everything that’s happened, I kind of forgot I hadn’t actually told you about that. Well, anyway. The future I got stuck in? It was post-apocalypse. As in the apocalypse.”

“Huh… And how long until said apocalypse?”

“Four days, give-or-take a few hours.”

Well that put a damper on Klaus’ plans to get a repeat of that kiss from earlier. Or maybe it fast tracked them? He would have to figure that out. And pretty quickly, it seems.

“And do we, perchance, know what causes the apocalypse?”

The ringing silence that greets his question is answer enough. Rubbing his eyes, Klaus can’t help but lament that he chose now, of all times, to get clean. Off to the side of the room, Klaus vaguely registers that Ben and Dave are no longer talking between themselves and are instead laser focused on the shit show now playing out in front of them. Sending Ben a long-suffering look, Klaus tries to focus back on Five.

“Okay. Well, do we have a plan? Or are we taking a more “what will be will be” approach to it all?”

Before Five can answer, Luther burst into the conversation from his position outside in the hallway. Klaus tried not to laugh at the sight of Luther and Diego fighting like children over who gets to occupy the doorway. Laughing probably isn’t appropriate, considering the topic under discussion.

“Of course not. We were trying to figure out a plan, but Five wouldn’t do anything about it until he got you back from wherever you were.”

“Is that true, Five?”

Based on the pink tinge spreading across Five’s cheeks and his refusal to meet Klaus’ eyes, Klaus realises that Luther is telling the truth. Klaus takes a moment to luxuriate in the warm feeling suffusing his chest. It is almost ridiculously gratifying to know that on the list of Five’s priorities, locating his wayward brother trumped stopping the literal end of the world.

“Huh. Well, I suppose we better get on that.”

Chapter Text

There were times, alarmingly often if Klaus is honest with himself, when he finds himself understanding at least some of Dad’s preferred absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder style of parenting. These periods of highly disturbing empathetic insight always happen in almost the exact same moment of the exact same argument that Klaus has witnessed (and, yes, been part of – shut up Ben) pretty much every time his family spends more than five minutes in the same room with each other.

Sure, the exact players vary, and some combinations are harder to look at than others; something about the unresolved romantic tension between Allison and Luther always hit a little too close to home for Klaus to ever stay in the room long when they got going. And back before Five disappeared, Klaus never quite knew what do to with himself when Five would be part of the equation, his instinctual response to leave or block out the noise crashing up against other, somehow deeper, instincts that made clear what side he fell on, would always fall on, and demanded that he made this allegiance clear. Luther and Diego, however, were another matter entirely, the repetitiveness and frequency of their clashes rendering them mundane, as much a part of the tapestry of his homelife as terrifying nights in the crypt, Mom’s smiling egg breakfast, and missing Five.

It was at the moment, right before one or another of his siblings was about to cross whatever invisible line they all knew was there and was better left undisturbed, that Klaus could understand their father’s prescient decision to lock himself in his study and leave the parenting to Pogo and Mom. It doesn’t actually excuse the choices the bastard made. In fact, Klaus is of the firm opinion that his father reaped what he sewed, when it came to the general fucked up-ness of the Hargreeves. But in that seemingly endless second before one of his siblings says something so carefully calculated to harm, Klaus can’t help but wish for his own office to hide away in.

(Of course, Ben had once pointed out that Klaus essentially constructed his own office out of drugs, booze, and bad decisions. But Klaus worked out years ago that the best way to deal with Ben is to never let him know that he maybe has a point. It makes him insufferable.)

So, here he is, sitting on the coffee table cross-legged, trying to fight the impulse to kick Diego in his balls before he can say the over-line taunt Klaus can practically see forming. And while Luther and Five are just as bad, the fact that the world is apparently going to end in three days means that Klaus is going to have to do something he never, ever, wanted to do.

Klaus is going to have to be the mature Hargreeves sibling.

Mother fuckers.

“Okay, so let me get this straight.”

Sensing the impending interruption from Luther or Diego, Klaus pauses and sends his best glare over to his brothers who, for once, seem to get the message to shut the fuck up. Mildly impressed that with sobriety has apparently come the ability to finally get his brothers to remain silent, Klaus turns his focus back onto Five, who has been getting increasingly paler and hesitant with each piece of information he has revealed about what his life was like after he disappeared. A part of Klaus just wants to go over and wrap Five up in his arms, both to assure himself that Five is back and away from everything and everyone who had tried to hurt him or take advantage of him, and to show Five that nothing Klaus had heard changed how he felt or thought about his brother. Knowing how much Five would hate him doing that in front of their siblings, however, Klaus contents himself with sending a small smile to his brother before continuing.

“Some cataclysmic event happens in the next three days that essentially obliterates life on earth, and you somehow survived in that wasteland until you were recruited by time travelling assassins. And now said assassins want to kill you because you want to stop the aforementioned cataclysmic event and they don’t want you to stop it. Oh, and you were part of the JFK assassination.”

“Yeah, let’s not forget that little revelation. Oh, and don’t forget the Hindenburg. What the hell even is your family, Klaus?”

“Perhaps a little less judgement from your corner, Dave. Lest we discuss the glass jungle you and I have been traipsing through the past year.”

“So not the same thing, Klaus. But fine, whatever. I’ll drop it.”

Huh. Apparently the glare also works on dead best friends, as well as brothers. Good to know.

“And now, we need to figure out a way to get back to the time travelling assassin’s headquarters –”

“The Temps Commission, yes.”

“Yes, that. So, we need to get there because that’s the only place we can find the answer to how the apocalypse can be stopped. Which we can’t currently do because I might have, completely reasonably I might add, destroyed our only way of getting there. Which, for the record, I am not apologising for. Because that briefcase was the fucking worst, which I think was definitively proven when it exploded right in front of me.”

“That may have had something to do with you bashing it against the pavement, Klaus.”

“Yes, Ben, I am aware.”

“So, to get back to the conversation Luther and I were having before this useless interruption – we’re fucked.”

Sparing an unimpressed glance in Diego’s direction, Klaus can’t help but silently agree with his brother’s oh so eloquent assessment of where things currently stand. But knowing that he will never say so out loud, if only for the sake of Five’s sanity, Klaus just refocuses back on Five, who is now trading whispers back and forth with Delores.

“Anything you two want to share with the class?”

The guilty look that flashes through Five’s eyes when he looks over makes something heavy settle inside Klaus’ chest. It may have been seventeen years since he last saw that look, but Klaus knows exactly what it means: Five has an idea that he knows that Klaus is not going to like. At all. Sure enough, after sharing a shifty look with Delores, Five stands up and moves his hands behind his back in that way he does when has to do something he knows will be… unpleasant.

“There is one way that I can get to Headquarters.”

“Uh huh. And does this one way, by chance, involve something stupidly dangerous that has a high probably of getting you killed?”

Klaus lets the whole ‘I’ thing slide, for the time being. Because while the chances of Klaus letting Five go anywhere without backup is somewhere in the range of him sitting down for tea and biscuits with Hazel and Cha-Cha, Klaus is trying to do the mature thing and pick his fucking battles. For now.

“Does it matter?”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re talking about the end of the world, Klaus. It’s worth the risk.”

“Five’s right. This is what Dad trained us for.”

Ignoring Luther’s moronic and decidedly unwelcome input, Klaus continues to glare at Five.

“Try the fuck again, Five.”

Seeming to read how close Klaus is to losing his ever loving shit, Five takes a breath and appears to change tactics, his posture relaxing somewhat as he steps away from the armchair he and Delores were previously occupying, coming to a stop right in front of where Klaus is still perched in the coffee table. Part of Klaus wants to slap Five’s hands away when he starts running them through his hair, knowing that his brother knows exactly what he is doing. The other part of him though, namely the part of him that desperately wants a repeat of that kiss incident, is content enough to bask in Five’s affection that they don’t care that said affection is actually blatant emotional manipulation. Something about Klaus’ internal struggle must show on his face, because Five sends him a knowing smirk that tips the scales decidedly in favour of slapping.

“I’m not letting you die again, Klaus. And the only way to do that is to get into Headquarters. I’ll be fine.”

“Again?”

“Another time. Okay?”

Taking note of the haunted look in Five’s eyes, Klaus swallows the impulse to demand answers, and instead reaches up to tangle his fingers with Five’s, pulling his hand down so that Five is forced to take a step even closer.

“We. We’ll be fine.”

“Klaus…”

“No. I don’t give a shit what kind of hare-brained scheme you and Delores have come up with, or how impressive your time travelling assassin skills are. If you think I am letting you go there, alone, then you are fucking delusional.”

“Klaus, if it’s the only way to stop the apo–”

“Not your turn Luther, I have the talking stick right now.”

“I’m with Klaus. You can’t go on your own.”

Sending a surprised but cautiously grateful look at Diego, Klaus reaches forward and fists his fingers in the fabric of Five’s stupid Academy vest.

“Please, Five. Let us help.”

The devasted look that passes across Five’s features is enough to make Klaus realise his brother has already made up his mind, even before Five moves his hands to cup Klaus’ face so that he can’t break eye contact.

“It’s not a choice, Klaus. We don’t have a briefcase, so the only way to get into Commission Headquarters is for Handler to bring me there herself.”

Suddenly realising what Five’s plan entails, Klaus can’t help but direct the flash of impotent rage suddenly suffusing his body towards his brother.

“No. No fucking way. There is no way I am letting that manipulative demon anywhere near you. What the hell, Five? You can’t ask me to do that!”

“How would you even get the Handler to bring you there? Doesn’t she want you dead?”

Five must sense how close Klaus is to the edge, because he doesn’t break eye contact with Klaus even once as he answers Diego’s question.

“I’m an important asset to the Commission. Sure, if the choice is between me and upholding the space-time continuum, they will eliminate me, no questions asked. But if I take away that choice, if I neutralise the threat to their work, I suddenly become valuable again. I know the Handler. She’ll offer a trade. And that will give me an opening. But it only works if I’m alone and she thinks that I am trapped in a corner.”

“Why?”

This time, it’s Klaus that answers Diego’s question.

“Because we’ll be the trade. Our lives for his… services. It’s the only exchange she will actually believe.”