"If I might offer a suggestion," Klaus begins, ignoring the scowl carved into his brother's face like wood, "drinking straight vodka this early in the afternoon is very hard on the digestive system. I recommend something a little more refined, like a nicely aged scotch."
"We don't have any more scotch," Five replies, taking another drink and Klaus flashes him a devil's grin.
"Exactly! Which is why I volunteer my time and services in the acquisition of said refreshment. In exchange for a nominal processing fee, of course."
"I don't need you to buy me alcohol." The words are mashed together, falling apart at the seams and Klaus wonders how long his brother's been sitting here drinking.
"Liquor stores don't usually sell booze to schoolboys, old man."
"Who said anything about buying it?" he asks with a vodka-soaked smile.
Klaus affects an incredulous tone, hand over his heart. "My own brother, a criminal? And here I thought I was the disreputable stain on the family name. How can I distinguish myself if my siblings start turning to a life of drugs and petty crime? I'll have to go work in an office somewhere." He strikes a dramatic pose, "Do you think I could pull off a pencil skirt? I'm not sure I have the legs for it."
Five gives a long-suffering sigh, "What do you want, Klaus?"
"Money," he says, unashamed. "Drugs...food would be nice. Maybe a quick lay-"
He starts leveraging himself off the bar stool. "Well your not getting any of that from me." He swipes at the bottle but stumbles slightly and Klaus reaches for him, unthinking, long fingers locking around his brother's arm.
"Careful-"
Five jerks away with enough force it sends him careening back against the bar. "Don't. Touch me," he growls, something black and seething in his voice.
"Whoa, hey," Klaus' hands come up defensively. "Chill out, old man. What's eating you?"
For a moment he really does look old and tired. "Nothing," he says, inexplicably climbing onto the stool again. "I'm fine, go away." The words are spoken on autopilot, half muttered into his glass. Klaus thinks it means something that he isn't trying harder.
"Ben says you're lying," he says after a moment.
"Ben's dead," Five shoots back, pouring the last of the vodka into his glass and almost missing.
Klaus concedes the point. "Well yeah. But you know, dead people can be very insightful-"
"If you don't stop talking I'm gonna break this bottle over your head."
Klaus considers his options, closes his mouth and takes a seat next to his intoxicated sibling.
Five glances over. "W-what are you doing?" he asks, sounding bewildered and Klaus flaps his hands in mimic pantomime, pointing at his mouth.
He scoffs and shakes his head. "Whatever. Forget I asked." And there they sit, silence stretching out between them as Five nursed the last dregs of vodka. It was boring but also the most quality time Klaus has spent with his brother in seventeen years, and Klaus has a niggling feeling this is where he needs to be. Yay family. Surprisingly, Five is the first to speak.
"Can you really talk to Ben?" he asks, holding the glass up to the light and watching as the crystal broke it apart, sending starbursts dancing across the bar top.
Klaus nods mutely.
He seems to ponder that. "Huh."
For his part Klaus doesn't know why everyone's so surprised by the idea. Talking to the dead is like, his thing. Granted he wasn't much good at it while high and that was the point but Ben wasn't like the others. He was family and anyway, Klaus was there when he died; he supposes that imprinted on him a bit. After the funeral when he came out of his month long bender Ben was there waiting for him and he's been hanging around ever since.
"You-you wanna know a secret?" Five asks apropos of nothing and of course Klaus nods because hey, why not? Might do his brother some good to talk to someone. De-stress a bit.
"I see dead people too," Five says with a wry grin and Klaus would swear he's taking the piss out of him but behind the twisted, sickly smile there's something unfathomably sad and Klaus can't bring himself to assume his brother is just poking fun.
"Yeah?" he says, wondering where this is all going and how concerned he should be. Five nods drunkenly.
"Billions of 'em. Everywhere, every day. They're all dead, Klaus. They just don't know it yet."
Klaus decides they're too drunk and high, respectively, to be having this philosophical of a conversation. "That's uh...very Tao of you. Or something." He wasn't very good at religion.
Five chuckles and even that sounds melancholy and flat. "You're an idiot."
"Yeah, I know." He knows, and that's just one of the reasons he's not the right person for this. Klaus doesn't know what his brother needs right now but it's not alcohol and it's probably not him either. Who the hell needed him around?
"A dead idiot," he adds, and Klaus' concern spikes up a notch.
"Wow. I don't know if I'm being threatened or warned."
"Whichever," Five says with a sloppy shrug, sagging off the bar stool again and gathering his legs under him. Klaus doesn't offer any assistance this time, even if he wants to.
"Where are you going?" he calls after him as Five weaves his way towards the door.
"Wherever the corpses aren't," Five replies cryptically.
Klaus sits there a bit longer. "Well, I can understand that," he says to the empty stool where Five had been. He wonders if he should follow. Probably not. Whatever Five was looking for, company wasn't on the list.
Maybe once Klaus sobers up, once he starts dealing with life instead of hiding from it he might think back on the conversation in a different light. Maybe once the drugs in his system aren't blunting his perception and dulling his mind he'll recognize Five's confession for what it is. Assuming of course he remembers it at all. But sobriety isn't in the cards today, and so the true meaning of Five's words are lost, just as he knew they would be.
Klaus glances to his other side. "Hey man, you wanna go get some tacos?"