Author's Note: This story began as a fixfic, exploring how the scene in the VFW might have gone had a kinder vet spoken to Klaus (and told the douche vet to chill). It soon expanded into something more. I originally published it as separate oneshots, but for the sake of convenience, I'm going to publish them as chapters in the same story.
"You see that?"
Jim saw just about everyone who walked through those doors—which tended to be a small but devoted crowd, plus or minus a handful depending on the day of the week—but this one was hard to miss. He'd walked right through without a word of greeting, his mop of dark curls bobbing against the sea of white and grey.
"Lookit him. Marching on in like he's one of us."
"It's not like Vietnam was the last war we fought." Jim took a stab at the cue ball. His shot sent it crashing into the four which in turn sent the two across the table. "I've seen younger vets."
"Not here."
The kid had helped himself to the bar, sure, but he was a first. Most young folks preferred to flock with their own, flitting around the trendier bars downtown, the ones with names like Hawk and Hound or some word chosen by a blindfolded drunk man from a random page in the dictionary. Places that served pretentious drinks at pretentious prices, with little to offer besides an admittedly good—if overpriced—selection of craft beer. This kid should've headed to one of those, or else curled up at home with a bottle and whatever thoughts drove him to it. A VFW bar should've been the furthest destination from his mind. A memorial wall should have been out of the question.
He almost didn't see Mike start forward until he was three steps past, but instinct honed by years of familiarity with the man prevailed and Jim caught his shoulder. "I'll talk to him."
"Like hell you will." Mike tried to shrug the hand off, but Jim tightened his grip. Not enough to hurt, not enough to insult—just enough to let him know it wouldn't be that simple.
"If he's pulling the same shit as that asshole at Outback," Jim said, meeting Mike's gaze, "you can handle him."
A few seconds passed, and Mike broke free with a turn back toward the pool table. He snatched up his cue with enough force to let Jim know he didn't have long to sort out the truth, but until then he wouldn't do much more than miss easy shots and grumble under his breath. He'd want Jim to march straight on over and make demands, but Jim moved with the slow reverence the wall's solemnity demanded.
The kid's head was bowed, but that didn't hide the tears, didn't mask the heaves of his chest as the sobs came. Silent sobs, quiet tears, the sort of grief that didn't call attention to itself as it devoured its host from within. Jim nearly placed a hand on his shoulder, but a glint of steel dangling against his shirt made him think better of it.
"Somebody you know?"
"Yeah." He opened his eyes. Jim followed his gaze to what seemed to be the picture in question and his heart skipped a beat.
The soldier had been a mystery long before Jim relocated to the city. He wasn't the only one assumed MIA, not by a long shot, but he was the only one whose name remained missing. No draft card. No papers. No ID. Nothing to prove he'd ever served, nothing to prove he'd ever existed, save for a half-smiling face in an old photograph.
A face mirrored by the young man standing before it now.
Jim tamped down a dozen questions and any semblance of enthusiasm. This wasn't a time for questions—not that kind, anyway. He nodded to the mystery man. "That him?"
"Yeah."
The answer didn't sit right. The photograph dated from 1968, and this kid couldn't be older than thirty. He wasn't old enough to have met the soldier, let alone to plow through a VFW bar to cry over his photograph. The stink of alcohol hung about him like cheap cologne, but of the many drunk men Jim had met, this was the first and only to sob over a stranger's photograph in a bar patronized by veterans thirty to forty years his senior. It was a lie, the kid knew it was a lie, and Jim wouldn't in a hundred years call him on it.
A stick cracked against the cue ball, and pool balls clattered across the table. Mike swore, likely less at the outcome of his shot and more at the continued presence of an unwanted stranger. The kid closed his eyes as a fresh round of tears slipped down his cheeks.
"You don't have any other pictures of him?"
He shook his head.
"I can see about getting you a copy of that one, if you want."
It seemed to take a moment for the question to register, but when it did, he looked another long moment at the photograph before turning to Jim. And when he did, Jim saw the reason he'd come.
He saw the ghosts.
They were there in his eyes, of course, but they'd also made themselves at home in the lines on his face, settled on his shoulders to hold him lower than gravity alone. Jim couldn't name them, not without knowing where he'd served, but he did not for a moment doubt this kid had served. The tears and photo, the dog tags and the tattoo partially covered by the sleeve of his shirt formed an image and the ghosts completed it. He'd been to hell, and hell had followed him home.
"You….you could?"
It wasn't quite hope that had edged its way into his voice, but it made Jim's chest ache. He hadn't promised anything, hadn't offered more than half a chance, but he might as well have offered the shirt off his back.
"Picture's fifty years old and a military record," Jim admitted, "so there's got to be some special procedure for getting a copy, if they can get one. But I've got friends over at City Archives, and they've got contacts. I'll see what they can do."
Whatever had buoyed him up for those few seconds leaked out like air from a balloon, leaving his shoulders to sag. "Like they'd bother."
With some effort, Jim kept the pang from his voice. With more, he added a subtle note of false cheer. "Archivists are just librarians who hoard books instead of lending 'em out," he said, repeating a quip he'd heard from both parties. "You ever met a librarian?"
"No."
"Bunch of sentimental bastards." His mouth quirked at the saga he'd witnessed during his first few months of volunteer work, of the time and expense and calls to libraries in ten different states before one of them finally turned up a copy of a rare out-of-print novel, all so one old woman could reread a story she'd loved as a teenager. "If they can get you a copy, they'll get you a copy."
Another crack, a louder one this time, accompanied by the sound of pool balls rolling across a felted table, filled the silence.
"You want me to check?"
After a moment's consideration, the kid nodded. "Yeah." His voice cracked. "I…I'd like that."
HIs fingers brushed the glass laid over the photograph, brushed the face of the man whose resemblance he bore. No—not him. The man beside him. Jim recalled his name, but at that moment, at the very moment when remembering it seemed most important, the name refused to surface.
"Klaus?"
The kid didn't turn from the photo, but he let his hand fall. "Yeah?"
Jim tensed as a young man clad in head-to-toe black started forward, calculating how many steps it would take to place himself between Klaus and the newcomer. But the newcomer's movements were cautious and slow, absent a single trace of irritation or anything that might be taken for aggression, and Jim allowed himself to relax, allowed the newcomer to place a hand on Klaus' shoulder. The resulting flinch was enough for Jim to see and probably enough for the newcomer to feel, but no more than that.
"You wanna tell me what's going on?"
Klaus' lips parted, then pressed together. His gaze lingered on the photograph a second longer before dropping to the floor.
"I was just about to get his number before I talk to Archives about getting him a copy of that picture," Jim said, nodding to the photo in question.
The newcomer blinked as though Jim had spoken gibberish. He stared, opened his mouth for an apparent question, then closed it and shook his head, as if it was all too much to consider at once. "Fine. You got a pen?"
The newcomer's name was Diego—or at least, that was the name he'd scribbled beneath one number before taking the paper back and writing a second beneath it in smaller print. "Call that first one and ask for Klaus. Or me, I guess. If you can't get anyone at the first number, hang up and try the second one."
Klaus was steady enough getting to the car, but Diego helped him into his seat anyway. A partially empty bottle of vodka was pushed to the floor, only to be retrieved with unsteady hands. Jim waited to see if he peered through the window to meet his gaze or simply seek him out, but for a long moment he stared at nothing but the floor. A breeze, chillier than usual for this time of year, made Jim long for the jacket he'd left inside.
"You his brother?"
Diego halted, turned around. The question had been a guess, but from the looks of things, that guess was correct.
"Yeah. I'm his brother."
Jim cast another glance at Klaus in the front seat, head tipped back against the headrest, eyes closed. The face of the unnamed soldier broke into Jim's mind again, imposed itself over the face of the man before him, but none of the questions the resemblance brought made Jim's insides twist the way the sight of Klaus did. None of those questions were as important as the man who had caused them.
"Take care of him, will you?"
Diego looked at Klaus too, watching him through the window, seeing the weary anguish and the bottle in his hands. He let out a short sigh.
"I'll try."
They exchanged nods, and Diego climbed into the front seat and started the engine. Jim watched from the sidewalk as he pulled out onto the street, watched until the car rounded a corner and disappeared from sight. Even when it was long gone, he kept on watching.