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I
After the funeral, Ben reappears from the great beyond like he always does, sitting on Klaus’ bed, his scarred knuckles tightened into fists, his hoodie pulled low over his face, watching as Klaus lights up with trembling fingers, watching as he takes one hit after another. “What did I miss?” he asks, raising his eyebrow, and Klaus makes a sound that could be called a laugh, but mostly just sits low in his chest, aching. His eyes are wet as he looks back at Ben, as he looks back at what used to be blood and bone and teeth.
“Fuck,” Klaus breathes, a cloud of smoke, and sits down next to him, close enough to touch. It’s this, it’s always been this, the two of them against the rest, and Klaus remembers long before Ben died, long before the mausoleum and before their mother named them, when Ben would sneak into his room on the nights when their father wasn’t watching, when he would climb into Klaus’ bed and slide warm arms around him, pressing tightly against his back, crying about the things that rolled and tumbled inside of him, the things that leaked out of his seams, and in the morning Klaus would pretend that he had been asleep, that he had never felt the hot tears against the back of his neck, that he never even knew Ben was there.
(He’s always been a fucking coward.)
He takes another toke, and Ben places his hand on top of Klaus’ as if to stop him, but neither of them feel it.
“Aren’t you tired?” Klaus asks, and Ben looks up at him.
“Tired of what?”
Klaus smiles, and it’s sharp. “Always coming back here.”
Ben shrugs, and the blunt burns down in Klaus’ fingers, and they hear the others somewhere down below, Luther’s heavy footsteps and the flick of Diego’s knives and Allison talking softly to Vanya, her sweet voice and how much she pretends they missed each other, and it feels a lot like it used to, back in the old days.
“Home sweet home,” Ben says, and Klaus thinks it’s less of a lie coming from his mouth.
II
He’s tortured at five and thirteen and again at twenty-nine.
Klaus looks up at Hazel and Cha-Cha and smiles with bloody teeth.
Just another fucking day.
III
In the alleyway, after rehab, Ben had asked him what he wanted, palms up, exasperated, the same look Klaus has been getting since he was twelve, bringing rolling papers to the dinner table and waiting for his father to notice him. As a teenager, he would steal Allison’s dresses, their mother’s high heels, learned how to put on makeup by watching porn, would sneak out of the house in tight clothes to find somebody – anybody – to love him for ten minutes, his family never stopping him, never caring enough to ask why.
And when he would come back, in the early hours of the morning, scraping his hands raw on the rungs of the fire escape, their mother would be there to help him clamber through the window and into her soft, strong arms, wiping away his tears with the pads of her thumbs. And she would smile, her red lipstick and the bright white of her teeth, and Klaus knew that she was never programmed to be disappointed, but even then he would feel ashamed, the sickly-looking bruises like fingerprints on his hips, his thighs, the smear of his swollen mouth.
And she would draw him a bath, and he would thank her with his heart in his throat, and she would look at him as if nobody else mattered, her face bright above him until he had slid far enough under the water that she would become nothing but a blur of colors, his breath tight in his lungs, burning, screaming for a release.
And, in the alleyway, after rehab, Ben had said, “What’s the point?”
And Klaus had shrugged, swallowing the pills dry, more than a handful, all of what he’s been given. “Let me know when you find one,” he had said, his mouth and tongue starting to go numb.
And Ben had made a move like he wanted to push him, his ethereal hands, called him an asshole and – as the drugs had reached his bloodstream, as Klaus had begun the slow, frozen slide into quiet – disappeared, just like he always did.
IV
But don’t worry, Klaus had thought, in the ambulance, after the overdose. Don’t worry, as he looks up and sees Ben sitting there next to the paramedic, the anger lighting up his face.
Ben always comes back.
(Just like Klaus.)
V
It this, it’s always been this, Klaus at sixteen coming home late from a show with pink lipstick on the corner of his mouth, a souvenir, tapping at Ben’s bedroom door with numb, heavy fingers, asking to be let in. And Ben would because of course he would always let him in, and Klaus would press into him, press close, smelling like beer and piss and the shiny stench of sweat, and Ben would slide a palm up the back of his neck and into his hair, and Klaus would say something that sounded suspiciously close to Ben’s name, but could be anything, anything at all. And Klaus would kiss him roughly on the mouth, the room swelling with whispers and ghosts, and Ben would kiss back, the monsters underneath his skin begging to get out, and for a moment – for one, heart-stopping moment – nothing and everything would exist at the same time.
And Ben would pull away (because he would always pull away), and Klaus would laugh to hide the pain, and Ben would push him into the bed and tell him to go to sleep – just sleep – his fingers and wrists and arms hot enough to burn Klaus’ skin. And Klaus would ask him to stay up and watch him for a while, make sure the dead don’t touch him while he sleeps, and of course Ben would, of course, brushing kisses to Klaus’ temple, Klaus’ mouth opening slowly, wetly, against the pulse point of Ben’s throat, tasting all that Ben is.
And, in the morning, when their mother would ring the breakfast bell and Ben would wake up with Klaus’ leg curled around his hip, Klaus’ palm flat against Ben’s stomach, when Pogo would knock lightly on Ben’s door and ask him if he’s seen Master Klaus, in the morning, when Klaus would sigh Ben’s name in his sleep, when Ben would delicately extricate himself and leave Klaus where he is, Ben would pretend that he was never there, that he never even remembered the night before, that Klaus’ memories were a little more than lies, a little less than the truth.
And, in the morning, after Klaus would catch him in the hallway, his mouth pressed close to Ben’s, in the morning, when Ben would whisper to him that nothing happened, that nothing ever happens, and Klaus would lift the corner of his mouth and say, “Okay,” his voice hoarse, rough on his tongue, say, “Sure,” the bruised skin underneath his eyes, the bitten-down, dirty nails, say, “Whatever you want, Ben.”
It’s this, always this look, Klaus’ soft touch as he places two fingers on the inside of Ben’s wrist, as the light in his eyes dim further, it’s this that Ben regrets more than anything.
VI
There was no funeral when Ben died.
Their father commissioned the statue, erecting it in the backyard quietly in the middle of the night and never speaking of it with the children, as if it was of some long dead relative, some stranger that only shared their name. Luther would sit on the stone sometimes, his head resting against Ben’s legs, and Klaus would walk over and tell him to stop fucking up the patina, swaying with the four finger’s worth of whiskey he found in a locked drawer in Five’s room.
“Who says?” Luther would ask, looking up at him with a straight mouth, drawn eyebrows, his fists shaking at his sides. He might have taken Ben’s death the hardest, but it’s their father they really blame, and maybe that’s the bigger pill Luther had to swallow.
And Klaus would snort, and say, “Ben says,” gesturing to his left like someone’s standing there, but of course no one is because Klaus hadn’t seen Ben since he was alive, since before they went on that last mission, Klaus’ fingers on the zipper of Ben’s hoodie and his teeth nipping at Ben’s jugular, Ben whispering his name softly, slowly, saying, “No,” and, “Stop, and “We’ve got to go, Klaus,” but of course never moving away from him, never removing his hands from Klaus’ hair, the back of his neck.
And Luther would get up, sheepishly, looking at Klaus’ left and then away, stuttering out apologies before moving back inside, carefully edging around the person-shaped hole. And Klaus would laugh, because it would be funny at the time, but, later, after he’s all alone, he would try it again: the pounding headache and the calls from other victims and the voices in his head, conjuring, conjuring, conjuring. He would ask Ben to come back, he would beg, he would plead, he would cry great heaving sobs, but of course nothing would ever happen.
And, four days later, he would leave the house for good this time.
Wouldn’t come back until the next death.
VII
The ghosts call Number Four by the name his father gives him, their fingers hovering over his face as he tries to sleep. He’s four, he’s eight, he’s ten, fists holding tightly to the covers, face buried in the pillow, and he cries loudly but nobody ever hears him, especially not his father. And they come for him at night, always, their open wounds and their sharp teeth and the way they choke out words in languages he doesn’t know but can somehow understand, scaring him when they shout, when they scream.
By the time he’s eleven, he’s breaking into Daddy’s liquor cabinet and getting drunk on the ancient bottles of vermouth to dull his senses, the sickly sweet taste coating his tongue. He climbs the stairs on shaky legs, numb and heavy and nauseous, and pads down the hallway on bare feet, his fingernails scraping at the walls. He throws up in the bathroom twice, almost not making it to the toilet, this awful retching sound that echoes across the tiles, and Number Two takes pity on him, pressing a cool washcloth to the back of his neck in the dark, his voice low as he says, “A-a-are you o-o-okay?”
And Number Four laughs – because he’s gotten good at laughing by now, good at pretending to be something he’s not – and tells him to fuck off, his sweaty forehead still sticking to the seat of the toilet, his mouth tasting like an ashtray, and Number Two looks at him for a moment, the moon glinting off one of his knives, the knives that are always quick to gravitate towards his fingers, but he doesn’t move. “Y-y-y,” Number Two says, and takes in a shuddering breath, “Y-y-you should let them talk to you.”
And Number Four laughs again, laughs so hard that he starts to cry, and it’s because they do, oh they do, their words in his head every night, crawling underneath his skin. Before he learned the alcohol trick, he would stuff cotton balls into his ears, wear his domino mask to bed, hum loud enough to drown out the screaming, singing the words of his favorite songs over and over and over again until Number Five would yell at him to shut up. It’s hard not to hear them when they want him to, the ice that slides down his spine every time he accidentally conjures, when he’s not paying attention, when they want to climb their way back to the living.
Number Two says, “Why are you so afraid?”
And Number Four runs a palm over his wet eyes as he looks up, as he shakily breathes in and breathes out, as the mutilated corpses over Number Two’s shoulder look back at him with hungry eyes.
VIII
They start with knives.
Cha-Cha slices a line across his collarbone and he hisses in air through his teeth, the giggle he holds between his lungs bubbling up and out of his mouth. This is before the duct tape, before the closet, before she unties her own shoelace and wraps it tight around his neck, pulling and pulling until he begs her not to stop.
They ask him questions he doesn’t know the answer to, questions about Five, and at first he thinks his father has sent them, but – through the pain of the cuts, the cigarette burns, Hazel hitting him over and over and over again with a closed fist, an open palm – he remembers that his father is dead. Ben leans against the dresser with his arms crossed and tells him to be strong, his voice unwavering in the space between them, but Klaus has never been strong and Ben should fucking know this.
Hazel tightens a fist in Klaus’ hair and pulls, and Klaus thinks he could use another fucking high right about now, numb himself right up, because he knows that the withdrawal is coming soon, can feel it sitting there like a brick in his belly waiting to be thrown. Ben presses his lips tighter, saying, “C’mon, Klaus,” his voice loud in the quiet room, saying, “Stay with me,” and Klaus means to laugh, he really does, but it comes out as a cough instead, bright red spots of blood painting the white of his towel.
Cha-Cha, through the face of her stupid mask, asks him if he has something to say.
“Yes,” Klaus says, the taste of metal on his tongue. “Yes, okay, okay.”
Hazel comes around to stand beside her, and Klaus can see Ben hovering behind them, his eyebrows raised. “Spit it out,” Hazel says, and Klaus does, the blood and spit leaking down his chin. Cha-Cha makes a noise of disgust.
“You two remind me of a date I once had,” Klaus says, opening and closing his eyes. Ben’s there, and then he’s not, and somewhere in the back of Klaus’ mind, somewhere far away from here, he wonders if this is the last time he will ever see him. “Always giving, never receiving.”
Cha-Cha cracks her knuckles against his mouth, and Klaus almost chokes on his tongue.
“Fuck, okay,” he says. “You got me; I was talking about myself.”
Hazel pulls a pair of brass knuckles out of his pocket.
And Klaus grins up at them, shrugging his bare shoulders as he says, “I can’t help it if I’m a selfless lover.”
He sees Ben smile wide over Hazel’s shoulder as Hazel pulls back his fist.
IX
He finds Ben in the library, tucked between the arms of the reading chair, a book open on his lap. He says Ben’s name, but no sound comes out of his mouth, so Ben doesn’t look up. Klaus has had this dream before, this ghost dream, but this is right after the mausoleum, right after his father opened the door for the second time and allowed him to escape the dead – this is real – so when he tries again, “Ben,” in this hoarse, bitten down excuse for a voice, Ben finally sees him, his face going slack.
They’re thirteen going on sixty, the things they’ve seen, the things they’ve done, and Ben gently lifts himself from the chair and folds his book carefully down on the seat, and Klaus stands there shaking, his dry eyes, his dirty hands, and Ben tells him that it will be alright. He’s always done this, will always do this even after the day he dies, and it’s not now, but it’s soon, Ben’s strong words somewhere behind him in the closet after Hazel and Cha-Cha leave, calling his name over and over again, begging him to calm down.
And it’s not now, but it’s soon, their father’s hands in Klaus’ hair, confirming his greatest disappointment, but now – in the library – Klaus knows it’s true, here, when Ben looks at him and only sees his scraped knees, his wild eyes, the ragged edges of his nails, scratching at the stone all night long, scratching at his own face. The dead can’t touch him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not afraid, crying long into the early hours of the morning, screaming at them to leave him alone, pleading with his father to let him out.
None of the others had noticed his disappearance; they never do.
Ben says, “Klaus?” and Klaus looks at him but doesn’t see him. This is a few years before he tries the pain relief he sees on bad TV movies, the pills, the powders, a few years before he starts sneaking into clubs and paying for drinks with stolen credit cards, before Ben dies and Allison and Diego and Five leave him to fend for himself. He folds an arm around his middle, presses it tight against his ribs, feels nothing except the ache of his bones.
And Ben says his name again, this whisper, and curls himself around him, his nose in the hollow of Klaus’ neck, his tears sliding hot against him, and Klaus stands still underneath his arms, unable to move, and he thinks this – if anything – is why he deserves his father’s attention.
Ben – if anyone – is worth the pain.
X
In 1968, Klaus falls in love.
Diego says, “Well, you’re luckier than most,” turning away from Klaus in the car, avoiding his eyes. “When you lose someone, at least you can see them whenever you want.”
And Klaus thinks that this, more than anything, is the funniest joke the universe has ever told.
XI
He gets the tattoo after a drunken night in the barracks. He doesn’t remember much, mostly Dave’s palm on the small of his back when he goes to puke outside the officer’s tent, and then – later, much later – Dave’s mouth where his palm used to be. His arm feels like it’s on fire for days, reminds him of the time when they were kids, the umbrella they were forced into wearing, his touch a comfort around Allison’s shoulders, Vanya tracing the symbol over and over again on her wrist when the Sharpie would eventually wash off.
He doesn’t tell Dave about his family. There’s no putting the cat back in that bag, and anyway he wants Dave to be his and his alone, a small relief from the fucked up superhero fantasy that his family has been living for years. Walking through the jungle, their M14s slung low across their backs, he talks about a distant uncle who took him in when his parents died, and he sees Ben watching him carefully as he lies, watching the way his mouth moves, the small, sad look on Ben’s face, but Klaus isn’t sorry.
He forgets about the suitcase, hides it under his cot among the extra socks the squad donated to him on the first day, lets it sit there for a while, collecting dust. Ben doesn’t ask him why he stays, and Klaus figures that he knows before even Klaus does, that it doesn’t take much to figure it out from the outside, but inside it’s like a slow eruption, this cloud of ash that chokes him until he can’t breathe. He thinks that Dave is something that he’s never had before, something that he’s never been allowed, and as the realization breaks open inside of him, he thinks that Dave is something that he can’t afford to lose.
And, in the middle of the night, when Dave turns over on his cot, the dark shape of him, the glint of his dog tags in the moonlight, and says, “Who are you talking to?”
Klaus smiles softly and doesn’t even look at Ben when he replies, “Nobody.”
XII
Klaus dies, briefly.
(Again.)
When he wakes up at the rave with everyone standing around him, the music pulsing, throbbing in his blood, he wonders why he never seems to get what he wants.
XIII
They duct tape his mouth before they slide his chair into the closet, the slats in the door providing little light and even less air. He screams until he can taste blood at the back of his throat, screams until he knows that nobody is coming for him except the dead. Ben doesn’t ask him why he’s afraid; he’s always been smart.
He screams and screams and screams, and Ben says, his voice close enough to Klaus’ ear that Klaus can almost feel it, “You know what the worst part of being dead is?”
And Klaus knows, of course, he knows that it’s him and his scrawny, junkie ass, and the way that he fucks everything up because he’s never been enough for anyone, the world’s greatest disappointment. He can hear the constant hum of the motel maid’s vacuum, rolling over and over the blood-stained carpet, and he can feel his heart exploding in his chest, the blood like ammunition in his veins, hot and heavy and loud, and somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders where Ben goes when Klaus dies, if Klaus is not there to bring him back. And it’s a selfish, heedless thought in a sea of selfish, heedless thoughts, that somehow Klaus is the only reason why Ben exists, that somehow he can play God with the things he doesn’t understand.
And Ben says, “You’re stuck. Nowhere to go. No way to change,” and Klaus wants to tell him that he gets it, he does, Klaus the asshole just like his father, inherited that little disappointing party trick through nurture instead of nature, the downfall of something more than genes. He wants to tell him that he knows he’s a fucked up idiot who cares only about himself and what the world can give him, but he figures Ben is less than eager to hear these stunning revelations in this cramped sweatbox of a coffin, the world closing in on Klaus inch by fucking inch.
He feels the ghosts surround him there, in the closet, in the mausoleum, there beside him whispering his name, and he thinks that if God does exist, then she’s just as much of an asshole as him and his father before him.
And he thinks, if God does exist, why bother making Klaus at all?
XIV
(And, in the bridge between here and there, he learns that God does exist.
And, quell surprise, she hates him just as much as he hates himself.)
XV
The first time, Ben appears to him like a goddamn death knell.
This is after the statue but before their father’s funeral, before Vanya’s book is released, before the first thirty day chip, the second, the third. He’s sentenced to a little less than a year for possession (always, forever, again), and – in jail, that first night, sitting on his bunk – there Ben is, splayed out and winking up at him like it was just yesterday that he saw him last, like he’s always been there just out of reach. And Klaus supposes that he was, what with Klaus being unable to conjure shit because of the high that he wraps around himself like a security blanket, but now that he’s (regrettably) clean, he feels the darkness edging just that much closer to him, the ghosts that come to him at night when he tries to sleep through the shouts of the other inmates.
And, that first night, on the bottom bunk, Ben smiles up at him and says, “Welcome back,” and Klaus closes his eyes and breathes until his heart stops beating in his throat.
It’s a long year, an even longer stint of half sobriety, but he gets good at exploiting his gift while he’s inside, selling his talent to the highest bidder, passing along messages from dead grandmas and murdered snitches when he keeps himself clean enough to do it. He sells everything else, too, his hands, his mouth, nothing different from what he would do on the streets when he didn’t have enough money for his next high. He stopped relying on his inheritance when he was eighteen, the room he didn’t want to go back to, the family that was never there.
He knows he should, but he doesn’t keep to himself around the other inmates, in the cell, out in the yard, their calloused fingers and their wet mouths and the way they leave bruises on the stretches of skin he allows them to touch. He lets them handle him as if he has never been fragile, as if he’s never been broken.
He gives them what they want.
After all, he’s always known that the ghosts aren’t the only ones itching for a piece of him.
XVI
They’re sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, living out the lives of teenage superheroes, famously adored. Ben corners him in the bathroom one morning, kissing the back of his neck as he brushes his teeth, says, “Caught your interview in Tiger Beat,” and Klaus finds this stupidly funny, laughing loud and long, spitting white toothpaste all over the mirror.
“Oh, yeah?” he asks, rinsing out his mouth. He looks at Ben looking at him, feels the bloom of something warm deep inside. “Gonna tape it to the wall with the rest of Allison’s shrine?”
“Maybe,” Ben says, and blushes, smiling shyly behind him. “Maybe I’ll keep that one just for myself.”
And Klaus turns around, his fingers dipping below the waistband of Ben’s pajama pants. “Come and get the real thing instead,” he says, and feels the stretch of the tentacles pressing against Ben’s belly, the violent push and pull underneath his skin. And Ben leans in and kisses him sweetly on the mouth, murmurs his name in this soft, hypnotic voice when Klaus pulls away.
And it’s not now, but it’s soon, Klaus in this same bathroom, leaning over the faucet to press his forehead against the cool glass, to wash the blood from his hands, Klaus wondering how many pills it will take to numb the pain that catches and flames like wildfire inside of him. And it’s not now, but it’s soon, Klaus ending up with twelve stitches somewhere around his knuckles after he pulls his fist back and breaks the mirror, the ragged shards raining down, little flashes of light in his hair, on his hands, in the stained sink below. And it’s not now, but it’s soon, Klaus sitting there on the armchair by the paintings, his whole body shaking in his mother’s little room, watching but not watching as she pulls the thread up and over and around, never saying anything when he finishes the half empty bottle of bourbon beside him, his tongue heavy in his mouth.
And it’s not now, but it’s soon, Klaus with his hands on Ben’s chest (on Dave’s), begging a God he’s not sure he believes in to let him stop being such a fucking disappointment.
(XVII
In another timeline, Klaus sees Dave again before the world ends.
This is the first time he’s ever been thankful for his powers.)
XVIII
Ben touches him, cold where Klaus is warm.
Klaus smiles up at him, breathless, his voice wavering as he says, “Holy shit.”
XIX
In the jungle, Dave licks the sweat off the spot where Klaus’ neck meets his shoulder. He shivers, Dave’s hands slipping smooth beneath his shirt, his palm curving around his back. They have ten minutes here, in the dark, outside their tent somewhere near the latrines, the sharp smell of sweat and shit and the fantastic gutrot that Vietnam calls whiskey smothering them until they can’t breathe. Dave calls Klaus by his name – the name his mother gave him – a soft murmur pressed into the side of his face, his breath tickling the underside of Klaus’ chin, and sinks to his knees in the mud.
It’s different for Klaus, this, whatever this is. Different for Dave, too, Klaus knows, can see it in the way that Dave looks at him in the mess, the golden light of morning a halo around the crown of his hair, Dave the first person he sees when he opens his eyes, Dave the last person he sees when he closes them. And Dave always and everywhere and in between, too, Dave mouthing at the spot just below his belly, his tongue hotter than the humid air around them, Klaus pulling in air through his teeth.
They hunt, in the jungle, they hunt and they kill and sometimes Klaus will catch Dave looking at him from behind the scope of his M14 after a particularly nasty explosion, after the light dies down and the heat subsides, after the ringing in their ears stop, Dave’s worried eyes sweeping over Klaus’ uniform, his bared skin, searching for blood. And it will be okay, Klaus thinks, having forgotten all about the briefcase, having forgotten which year he was born in, which year he was supposed to be in now, it will be okay just as long as they survive this. And, Dave’s hands gripping Klaus’ hips tight enough to hurt, the thumb-shaped bruises that will be there in the morning when Klaus goes to take a shower, already missing the prickly heat of Dave against him, the bruises that catch his breath when he presses them with his own fingers, the opposite of his fucked up childhood almost forty years from now, the opposite of being ashamed.
And, Dave looking up at him, his bright, beautiful eyes, never saying it, but always meaning it: I love you, I love you, I love you.
And, Klaus thinks, it will all be okay if only he can bring Dave home.
XX
The Umbrella Academy doesn’t save the world.
Did they really think they could?