Once Klaus Hargreeves bought a house.

Not recently though, it happened six, seven, eight years ago? Quit a time. It definitely happened before Ben showed up four, five, six years ago. Time was a cunt, always has been.

In these days he was mostly broke, the little money he earned one way or another was spent on drugs, alcohol or food depending on whether he was sober enough to care about hunger. He considered it a new age diet or a self-made self-regulated human experiment about how much a "special" Umbrella kid could endure before it starves depending on the mood. The latter almost sounded like a papa Hargreeves experiment. But of course Regi wouldn't want to kill them. He wouldn't necessary help them to stay alive, but wouldn't want to kill them.

He sighted, wiped his eyes, the tears dissolved his eyeliner and it stung. Fuck his life, fuck his... He clutched the wheel with two hands while fat raindrops thudded and raced on the windshield. The rain got harder. Some generic pop was playing on the radio. The wiper moved with a harsh, rubber-ish sound. The last headlights turned toward other roads. The world was plain, gray and empty around. He looked into the rear-view mirror. There was a wet rabbit out there in the field.

The world consisted of slow paced, broken mosaics and he was too sick and too sober.

There were ghosts on the road of course. Where weren't they? Everywhere. Everywhere. Roadkill mostly: half headed, broken, open. Kids too. He should've driven through them and never did.

Ben, what's after death?

I don't know. Never been at the other side.

Pff. You're like a Rembrandt for a blind man. That was sophisticated from him, once he had been sophisticated.

The ghosts looked at him, the van behind him honked as he trampled the break as one appeared right before him and drove through them as it bypassed. The ghosts approached him. He drove. Once he stopped and cried crouched down behind the tire. His siblings would've called it attention seeking, he didn't call it anything, they were not wrong.

It wasn't even his car, but this time at least he had left a note in the garage. If anyone would ever miss it. It was a mess. As luck would have it Klaus happened to be a mess too. Match made in heaven. Though he had been too high to drive since ages. He wouldn't've care just for himself but was almost manically afraid he would kill someone. His dad called him weak, Ben called him sensible - the same Ben who ripped people apart at age seven, the same Ben who died before he could've find out how to help him. The kids they had been...

But now he was driving and as it's been said before, once he bought a house. The money for it happened to be stolen from the cupboard when he run away for the first time precisely the second he turned eighteen. It hadn't been a lot of money, just enough, the house cost almost nothing which had something to do with being less of a house and more of an old, putrid shithole in the middle of the woods in the land called Two Miles Further from Mary's Butthole. A nice place, still better than under a bridge and way better than Hotel Hargreeves. He'd bought it in the heat of the moment after his first wake in an ambulance facing a defibrillator. So far out nobody would hear the screams or the shots and he could decay in peace... The possibility was calming and frightening at the same. He thought about it often, but never got going. Couldn't do that to Ben. It was stupid. But couldn't do that to Ben.

The house has been every bit of the rundown worthless shack he's expected it to be down to the last rusty nail. It had the color of the pine needles covering the ground thickly, there was moss growing on the walls and on the bent roof. A pile of chopped, rotting wood leaned against the wall conquered by mushrooms. The ground felt soft under his feet due to the needles, the pines towered above him gray and brown, menacing in the fall, only straight trunks wherever he could see, like many many old pencils. The air felt heavy with wood, rot, resin and wetness. A woodpecker hammered a tree somewhere near like the ratatata of a machine gun and for a split second he froze between tossing himself to the ground and already expecting the bullets to his chest. He laughed short and bitter.

"Fuck my life, would you..."

Since Vietnam he has been feeling old. Not old like Five, but old nevertheless. He assumed it was the war's doing, it was being there for almost a year, it was the killing and loss and... And coming back alone to that room without notice, carry on without anyone missing him. And now he felt old, alone, painfully sober, like there were insects under his skin crawling and running around. He saw faces among the trees, he did that sometimes: saw faces where none were, not even ghosts. They moved in the shadows, on the glass, in a cup of water, crawled from under his bed. He closed his eyes and saw faces.

What are you afraid of? The darkness?

Regi laughed at him, Ben held him, he thought himself weak, harboring some inherent failing in his genes, his soul, his body. He was afraid of ghost and even more he was afraid of death.

Sorry I can't sleep without it. Breath without it. Live with it. The pills almost embraced as soft as Ben did. The kids they had been...

He always thought the darkness was different for everyone: for him it was sneaking in his steps inescapable, for Ben it lurked inside and the others had been lucky not to know it. He never asked for seeing the dead. He never asked for being traumatized for a lifetime. Neither did Ben. Life was more of a shithole than his house could ever be.

I tried to draw a line and I've failed over and over. It's a spiral. I'm dizzy.

Before he ventured further inside, he turned, opened the hood grabbed the first wires and tubes he saw, yanked them out and tossed them far into the thicket. That's for that. Sanity was overrated anyway.

Then he threw up.

Back then when they were younger he had been the first to leave - apart from Ben of course, but dying young just didn't count. He was the first to leave now again – apart from Ben and this time he didn't know what to make of him not appearing again. He stood at the middle of that one single room of the house with the table, the disgusting bed and single stove. It was dark inside. There was dark inside. And spiders. Probably other animals from the smell.

Once he almost tattooed 'Don't open dead inside' onto his chest but it would've been to edgy even for an edgelord. And he had been so high.

He craved to feel numb again and he couldn't - had made sure of that. If he ever made a bad decision...

"Ben?" he called out, waited but got no answer. The woodpecker pecked the wood, termites feasted in the wall. He tossed his bag to the ground, sat down to a chair angry, disappointed, hiding his face into his hand. Edgelord. Always has been. The darkest goths had nothing compared to him.

"You dead sonofabitch…" he laughed again bitterly, leaned back. There was some old gadgets around the house, real old, real dirty. The shit his brother had seen beside him… That shit that has been his life, was his life, will be his life. Some inherent failure, because he was afraid of death. Maybe afraid of life.

The worst of the first wave of withdrawal had passed a day before, but he wasn't out of the water: the insects under his skin, the mess inside his head that aching. The worst kind of hunger. The worst kind of itching inside his bones. Inside his head. Junkie. But he wasn't a junkie just an addict. He had learned biology at uni briefly. This has nothing to do with addiction, he just liked to remember. Psychology too, he gave it up at psychology. It almost seemed like there was a time he tried to understand what was happening to him. And to Ben. He always thought about Ben too.

His dead brother had begged him not to come, begged him to tell the others where he was going, what he was fighting against. He hadn't. And won't. He lived without them this far and will live without them this for. As much as he loved them fuck them all. And fuck Ben, fuck that he watched it all along and saw it, fuck that he could never send him away, fuck that he reminded him of...

Just go away, Ben! Go away! Go to heaven or toward the light or reincarnate or some other bullshit, just let me be the fuck alone!

He would have been dead if not for his brother. Killed in an orgy not even knowing what's happening to his body. He did die many times actually. And Ben saw it and Ben wouldn't talk to him for days after. Hours. He tried to draw lines and those lines would be drawn ever lower.

He stood. It rained outside, the drops thumped on the car, on the trees, the moss on the roof protected the house. There was a man wandering around among the pine trees half of his face was eaten from his skull.

They can do nothing. They can do nothing. He watched the man, fingers white on the windowsill.

Ben had kissed him. Yeah, that probably actually happened. After he slapped the pill out of him - literally. The punch, the surprise and the next thing he knew were Ben's lips on his, Ben's breath on his skin, his hand on his back, the solid body against him. That kiss. So fast and so heavy.

Then just like to annoy him, that end of the world bullshit happened, which was averted by not being complete dickheads to Vanya, Diego punching out Luther landed the message. Who would've thought it will not being the assholes that saves the world? It was some otherworldly miracle they could do it considering… well, considering who they were and how day behaved on a daily basis.

Life returned back to normal and he left. After arguing with Ben. After not being able to touch him again. After not being fucking able to touch him again. For fuck's sake. For fuck's sake.

The half faced man was wandering outside and he considered that as good time as any.

The rain hit hard on his skin, borderland painful and cold like it was ice itself, like a wet, cold, frozen blanket all over him. Wet and goosebumped. It felt so good. All the pain, all the pleasure showed him he was still present. This two could break through the numbness of the pills, but he loved pain more, it felt so much more familiar. More deserving. And more welcomed.

He approached the wandering man carefully, drenched to the bones in seconds. The ghost saw him, talked to him in some foreign language that he couldn't understand, but the man was pointing toward the depths of the forest. Half of his head was missing the flesh, cranium cracked open like a nut, features frozen to the last expression: to that fear, pain and desperation. Horrific. And he suffered greatly, saw it in his eyes, but was calm, calmer than the others coming for him, trying to touch and scream and hate and claw.

The dead were loud and crazy, but Ben was calm. He wasn't patient, not really, but has always been calm.

The man motioned toward him then to the forest, got moving then stopped, looked back, moved again. He followed. Toward the darkness, in the cold and rain. He had nothing else to do. Sanity has always been overrated.

"Klaus" a gentle but anxious voice called out to him. He turned and Ben was standing there the rain and pine needles falling right through him. "What are you doing?"

He just motioned toward the direction he was heading."Befriending the locals?"

"That's knew." Ben made a face. "Your lips are purple."

"New place, knew me?" He touched his own lips, like if he could feel it's color. Stupid shit, his brain on autopilot, through the skin did felt cold, freezing even, but it felt so good, he could feel his skin emitting the heat till nothing would be left. The air full with oxygen and decay. He never has been a nature type of kid.

Their eyes met for a long moment, got lost in those deep eyes, clear, handsome face, felt his own goofy smile.

"What are you thinking about?"

"That the only reason I hadn't shot me in the head is that I would've turned out like them. They all look the way they died, only you look pretty. Couldn't tell you were dead if I hadn't, you know… seen it." He shivered, Ben came closer, but no matter how close he seemed to be he couldn't have been further. "Tell me something though: had you done that to yourself?"

Ben froze. "You never asked this before."

"Yeah, guess it wouldn't've changed anything anyway."

"And now?"

He shrugged or rather shivered again. "Humor me!"

"Would've never done that to you."

That hit him hard. With the withdrawal and itches and insects under the skin, the apocalypse, his dad, his siblings, the war, Dave, the army. And this. And Ben. That he couldn't touch again. It was so much he just sat down into the mud and pine needles in the rain that got harder so that it buzzed. It thundered.

I wish I could tell you the same. I wish you left a long time ago or would've never came at all.

Ben was watching him standing just above him. "Get up!"

"Naw." he snickered. "It feels good."

"Please."

It reminded him of waterboarding, of that whole two days in the motel. It hurt and he was so afraid. So afraid. But it felt so good because it wasn't that fear. It popped him a boner.

Some inherent failure in who he was.

Ben made it worse. He was the only one who could make things better and worse at the same time.

"You will get sick, die from a cold."

"You can't die from a cold."

"There is a first in everything."

"Aw, but I can't be the first, silly, I'm Number Four." he grinned playing with the pine needles. Those numbers were weird shit, made him think about Luther, Allison and Diego as older sibling though they were the same age. And Vanya would've been everyone's little sister, if they would've had the capacity to care.

"You should call someone: Diego, Allison, your dealer, I don't care, just call someone!" Ben nagged him again. "You know I want you sober, but this is no game, Klaus. You need help, real help. I don't want to watch this."

"You don't have to, dear brother. Never had to." he closed his eyes. It was so cold, the ghost of the stranger was talking again. "I really thought you won't come this time."

When he looked up Ben looked sad. He rarely looked anything but stoic. "Because of the fight?"

He shrugged.

"Never gonna happen." the ghost crouched down to him. "You're a dumbass, Klaus. We've always been together."

They had been. So close, so warm. The only ever good thing Reginald had ever done is not separating the two of them. They had the same room, often the same bed. Both were dysfunctional on their own, unmanageable, but Ben calmed him in the dark lying so close and warm and present, and he held Ben when he was drenched in blood, shattered to the core. He tore people apart at age nine.

I am a monster. I am a monster.

He held him so close, so tight, palm on Ben's chest loving, trusting, in the same bed, petting his head, kissing his cheek. It's not your fault, none of it. I've got you. They were killing his brother day by day.

"You hit dad for me once." Ben smiled nostalgic.

Let go of him! Let go! You don't bring him anywhere! His dad was afraid of Vanya, but was never afraid of Ben. He has been too nice, too quiet, too gentle. Ben, you're such a sweetheart.

"Yeah." he snickered. He would've killed the man if he knew it would help.

Ben has been everything for him. Then Ben died.

"You know… when I saw dad again -" he touched his forehead with a fingertip then motioned a 'boo I was out of my mind'. He was shaking in the cold. "he told me he prepared us for the apocalypse... and for a second I thought: oh it's the greatest thing ever because then he at least had a damn purpose. What he did to us. This." he motioned vaguely to themselves. "He has been a mysterious old jerk enough to know about it, or eat someone's soul, who knows. I don't and I don't care. But you see, if he would've known anything, he wouldn't've been such an asshole at least to Vanya. Or would've killed her. You know, what dads do to their teenage daughters."

"You think he lied?"

"I think he was crazy. Megalomaniac. He thought he could pull a Nick Fury. You won't get to be a Nick Fury with a name like Reginald."

"More like a Charles Xavier."

He laughed. "Yeah, that's what we would needed, him reading mind too. Or guess what, I hope he could cause then he knew how much we hated him."

"You miss him though."

"I miss any sane adult in our vicinity from back then." He smiled bitter, crazy, his head hurt, the nausea got stronger with the itching. Just one more. Just one more to feel good before coming down. One more. Except there was no coming down. Drugs worked a bit like tonic, the aftertaste was so awful it was easier just drink another. Not seeing the dead and sleeping calmly were more addictive than any drug could be though.

"I smoked extra to make sure not to see him again."

When Ben appeared in his mid twenties he's been already and addict more or less living on the streets.

Ben crouched before him, his eyes so deep storming with powerlessness, impatience and the anger of not being there. He hadn't been like this before, that touch changed everything.

I'm trying. I'm trying. I don't know how I could try harder.

You were the greatest disappointment, never even got close to your full potential.

He broke after Ben's death. He got lost after his brother died. Forgotten. He was every bit of a weird shit and he got forgotten. Ben looked at him as he was something precious. My brother fucking up his life I was robbed from.

"Go in, Klaus, please!" It was almost begging. He shook his head.

I would change place with you.

You would want to be the tentacle monster and I should see the dead?

Would for you. For you not to be. And nobody should see the dead.

Ben tried to touch him again and his hand went right through his knee. Klaus whined deep, guttural in desperation, tried to touch too from deep inside, with everything. They had played that child's game at the house for hours, concentrated so hard. They wanted it so badly, more than curiosity. Fuck Curiosity. Now it wasn't working again, his hand went right through Ben's again and again. Why? Why? He tried, he wanted, he was sober, so painfully sober, sharp like he could cut himself with it, aching all over, and cold and nauseous with the beginning of a migraine. He craved from so deep inside he would just walk three days back to town to get his pills, but he didn't. He made sure. He'll sooner nail himself to the table if he must.

Ben gave up first. Klaus cried again silently. It was the powerlessness, the disappointment. And of course it was the sorrow. It always had been the sorrow.

"Please call someone!" Ben tried to reason again. "You haven't brought anything. Or just go in at least, please."

He looked Ben in the eye. Those eyes told him Ben kissed him the first thing he had the chance and he let him heard him inside this time.

The nightmares woke him just like every damn time he approached sober. The older he got the more material they gained: like Vietnam or living on the streets. If he wouldn't act cheerful and clumsy he would be screaming. He shook, wiped his eyes. Like he hadn't slept at all, felt anxious and heavy. It was the nightmares and the withdrawal. Five days straight, nearly a hundred and twenty hours.

"You have a fever." Ben told him. He was sitting near the window tense and angry.

"Or the fever has me." he pointed out collapsing back to the sleeping bag groaning. It smelled. Maybe he smelled. He had the faint memory of throwing up.

"Cut the bullshit, would you?"

"Okay then, doctor Casper, what's the plan?"

The bed stunk too and itched, he was naked in the bag. The clothes got wet in the rain and he didn't had the patience or the coordination to change. He was happy he had the state of mind to make the fire.

"You still have sixty percent on the phone and you got signal. Call Diego!"

"Naw."

"Call Allison!"

"Double naw."

"Go home, then!"

"Car's wires missing."

"I'll help look for them."

"Dunno how to fix a car."

Ben looked at him bewildered, angry and afraid. Ben was afraid. Fucking ghosts were afraid of nothing.

"You don't have enough food here, no medicine, not even a real blanket, what about water? You want me to see you die so much?"

He buried his face into the bag. It would have been so much easier just die - if he knew he wouldn't be stuck here as ghost for eternity - if Ben wouldn't have come back. He could've been with Ben and Dave except both have passed to the other side and he knew he wouldn't. He knew it like he knew the dead and he gave up to figure that shit out a long time ago too. Still the thought hurt his soul like the withdrawal his pained bones and the fever his muscles. Back then a breathing, young Ben would've lie beside him warm, soft and comforting. Dave would've cheered him up with kisses. Ben would've spun some stories to distract him holding onto him just as much as Klaus was.

Ben had been so much and Ben died. Dave died too. But I came back, Klaus, because I wanted to.

"You ever thought about how sooner we would've found this out if I'm just cleaner?"

Ben looked sad again. "It's not worth asking the what if-s."

"Still." he stood, folded the sleeping back around himself went to the window barefoot. He was cold, now on two feet felt the fever too. The storm hadn't passed, but the time did and the woods around him darkened. The half faced ghost hadn't came closer but was staring at him. In that moment it hit him how alone he really was in the middle of the woods. No road, no civilization, no phone in a few hours, no car, no others. Only the dead, like in the crypt. He was as alone as he usually felt.

"I feel like a ghost sometimes." he looked back at Ben. "No matter how much noise or mess I make, everyone looks right through me. Like I'm not there, like they forget me the moment they look elsewhere. After you were gone and I just... like I got lost or got mute and invisible. Like they forgot me, I just ceased to be. You were the only one."

Telling a ghost what it felt like. Real clever. Real considerate. I don't want you here but I'm so afraid to be alone. Ben hadn't been there till the mid twenties, he wouldn't know. And still he would know the best. He almost expected his brother to be angry, but Ben wasn't.

"They can at least touch you."

"Yeah, they can."

And how good it was craving the drugs and hating them, loathing the touches but needing them, being disgusted during and after. Being disgusted of himself, of the insects under his skin, of that inherent fault, of the fears, the poison. The thing he did for just one touch...

The things he would do for one touch.

He reached For Ben's hand. "Let me try again…"