Alright so it won't be perfectly accurate but I haven't been able to finish the series yet and this fic literally just happened because I felt like this was glossed over and I needed to write this so here we are! Please excuse the plot flaws and be warned that drugs, alcohol, and death are mentioned!
Mercurial Aftermath
Klaus had actually died and nobody except the dead knew about it.
A literal war hadn't killed him despite his inexperience, the endless quantities of alcohol hadn't helped him meet death despite his carelessness, and the multitudes of pills he'd taken hadn't done the job even though he'd sometimes tried to help it along, but he'd been killed in that club, whilst trying to save a life no less, and it was almost a fitting end: A mundane trauma to the head for someone who's had plenty of invisible, completely opposite to mundane, trauma to the head.
It might even have been nice, something calm and illogically sensible after all those years of downright craziness. But no, even death - or God, but what difference does it make - had rejected him and only Ben had been able to tell once he'd come back from wherever it was he'd gone.
And his father, of course, but Klaus wasn't sure he could count that one.
The first thing he does is look for Luther. Of course it is, that's why he'd risked it all and gone to the club in the first place. But Luther isn't there and he's left to stumble out of the neon lights and back into the empty darkness by himself.
"Klaus?"
Oh yeah, he thinks, how had he forgotten that he's never really by himself?
"Go away, Ben," Klaus mumbles quietly.
"I couldn't see you," Ben replies, seemingly ignoring Klaus' dismissal. "For a few minutes, I couldn't connect to you. What happened?"
Klaus groans and braces himself on the graffiti-littered wall, taking a shuddering breath. "I think I died, Ben, I think- I met someone and she sounded like she was saying… As if she was God! Can you imagine?"
Ben only gives him a look and makes a move as if to reach out, then second-guesses himself and gestures for Klaus to go on.
"I thought- I thought I could see Dave. I thought I'd get at least that much for everything I've done…"
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Klaus registers the fact that Ben doesn't know much about Dave, but he doesn't have the energy to relive all that so he pretends he doesn't realise.
"But no, of course it was our dear old Papa. There to tell me I was his - and get this - his greatest disappointment!" Klaus' knees buckle and he hits the floor with a solid thud, but the shock of it goes right over his head as he looks up to Ben with watery eyes.
"He told me, he told me exactly that. He said I threw away my potential by poisoning my body." Klaus groans again, curling his arms around his stomach.
"He wasn't wrong, Klaus," Ben says softly.
Klaus flinches, frowning. "What? No, no, no, you can't be on his side. You can't- you're meant to be on my side, you've always been on my side, no, please-"
"Hey, hey, calm down, I'm not on his side, we both know that. But you also know I want you to stop taking your life for granted," Ben reiterates, kneeling down in front of Klaus and placing a ghostly hand on his shoulder.
Klaus shakes his head. "I'm not, I'm not, I was starting to take Dave for granted and look where that got me! I want to be better, you know? But I can't. Can't be better! He was right. Oh, Ben, he was right... I'm weak, I'm weak, I'm WEAK!"
Fire and hatred burning in his veins, burning hotter than the drugs he'd been so deeply craving, Klaus punches the wall.
It gives him nothing but a jarring pain, instantly blooming bruises, and an agonising howl that escapes from his own lips. Oh, and a pitying look from his dead brother, but that's not as important since he gets those all the time anyway.
"Are you done?" Ben asks diplomatically, as if he's done this a dozen times before which, to his credit, he has.
Klaus rocks back and forth as a series of whimpers escape him and, when he finally sucks in another shuddering breath and reaches up to brush his tears away so that he can be strong and haphazard and happy-go-lucky for his brothers, Ben's lifeless heart breaks for him.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't, I need- No, I don't even need… I want it to stop."
Ben pauses. "You want what to stop, exactly?"
And, only because Klaus has been his only friend, his best friend, for over a decade does he know to immediately shake his head. "No, no, Ben, not you, I don't want you to stop, I- I need, no, wait, I love- I'll always love knowing you're here."
After a second of deliberation, he adds, "Even if you are an annoyingly sober jerk most of the time."
"Yeah, I love you too," Ben murmurs because he knows what Klaus is saying, he knows Klaus wants the nightmares and the painful cravings to go away rather than him, his favourite brother, the only ghost he doesn't actively try to repel.
So he just waits until Klaus is done releasing the anger of his stubborn helplessness through hatred and counterintuitive violence. Waits and watches.
"My hands…" Klaus moans as soon as he calms down enough to focus back on Ben. "You should have stopped me," he laughs, clearly grieving something - or someone - Ben can't fathom rather than his actual hands.
"It wouldn't have made a difference," Ben counters, "because like you said, you can just walk through me."
Klaus' expression crumples. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that I wanted to, I-"
"I know, you idiot, I know," Ben reassures him, and it's nothing like when Number Five calls him a moron or when the others call him a junkie or when strangers call him a lunatic because Ben means well and his voice is warmer than those belonging to people who are very much alive.
Three deep and slightly painful breaths - apparently Luther had hit him harder than he'd thought - later, Klaus breathes out a grateful, "Thank you."
As usual, he stands up.
It's wobbly and almost embarrassing and far from what Ben would be pleased with, but he stands up and plasters a makeshift smile on his face for the few stragglers from the club who give him uncertain looks.
"I'm getting tired of all this nonsense you put yourself through," Ben grumbles, but he's too cheerful to be grumbling so it's more like a jovial quip.
Klaus beams at him, stumbles along the alleyway until he gets to the main road, then takes one look at the cars speeding by and twirls on the spot, choosing to travel by familiar, shadowed nooks and crannies instead. "Why don't you just take a nap, then? I've heard that people sleep like the dead when they want to get over the effects of clubbing," Klaus asks, rolling his eyes.
Ben rolls his eyes right back. "Ha, ha. Very funny. Honestly, you'd think you'd have better humour when you were sober."
"Nothing is better when you're sober; since when has that ever been a thing?" Klaus asks, raising an eyebrow, and then the other, and then both at once.
"You can conjure better when you're sober," Ben reminds him matter-of-factly, and Klaus halts in his tracks, putting his hands on his hips and blinking thickly for a few moments to try and clear the fuzziness of his head that hints at a possible concussion.
"Don't use that against me," Klaus mutters, then squints. "Have you gotten taller? Is it even possible for the dead to grow? Hang on, are we sure I didn't take anything?"
It's almost comical how mercurial Klaus' mood is right now but Ben can't bring himself to laugh at the tragedy of a childhood his siblings all seem to carry forward into their rather dismal lives. Instead, he shakes his head patiently and smirks at Klaus. "Unless you managed to find a way to pop a few pills while you were talking with the God you don't believe in, no, you didn't take anything, despite getting stupidly close to doing so. Now, get a move on!"
"Alright, Mr Uptight." Klaus pulls a face and continues on his journey, glancing sideways to check if Ben is there every so often as they get closer and closer to the house he'd once called home. As long as Ben is with him, Klaus thinks, he'll have the courage to pretend he's just peachy and participate in whatever his living siblings decide to attempt next.
And, oh boy, he just cannot wait to see what Luther has gotten himself into this time.
Thanks for reading! Leave a review with thoughts? See you next time I write for these dysfunctional siblings :)