Klaus Hargreeves was moderately sure he wasn't lying in a tent in a Vietnamese jungle. But he was lying somewhere in the dark and the world moved with him like an unhinged carousel. Even that stinky mattress swirled and he smelled things, felt things, touched things that had no business being there. In Vietnam. He wasn't in Vietnam. Probably. He willed his mind to sleep and ended up in a disagreement with his body. Especially with his stomach.

Are you sick, darling? Should I call the nurse? Or should I be your nurse?

Dave. That smirk. That blood. Those cries.

The eyes got slammed opened, breathing shallow, pupils painfully wide in the utter darkness, head heavy like it was pinned to the bed, the shadow of nausea playing hide and seek and his heart hammered, the panic crept up on his back with long, cold fingers. And claws. Count to ten, breath, let it happen - he knew the drill, been there done that way too many times. Count to ten, breath, let it happen, let it pass.

But you don't have to do this alone anymore, sweetheart, come here, lie with me!

Dave. That laugh, those shots. Nerves were breaking loose, breathing got hard, fingers grabbed the bag, but he couldn't lose it now. Not now, not there. When the panic hits, look for safe things, stable things! Stable. He couldn't find a damn stable thing when he was sane. Talk, just talk, hear a voice before the ghost arrive. He whined. There was too much blackness, too much noise. Klaus, love, darling, it will be alright. No. Get your shit together! What a life it was to be able to choose from dead lovers.

"Klaus?" He made a small sound, a cry for help. "Shh, I'm here, I'm here, I've got you, listen to my voice!"

There were stones in his mouth, concrete in his throat: impossible to talk, hard to stay sane in the darkness and trembling cold with nausea and a head heavy like it was filled with water. He needed minutes, breaths and more minutes, Ben's whispering till nothing was left just the darkness, the cold and the burning of his skin. A storm fought the woods outside. The much wrong in his head.

"It's night, right?" he managed cheeks hard against the mattress, fingers white around the bag.

"Three a.m. Your fever is high again."

"I'll make sure it goes to detox." He heard the eye roll and smiled into the sleeping bag. The grab eased somewhat, breathing too, he closed his eyes hard, swallowed a whine. Another sleepless night, the wrecked he felt, the tired and weak he was. Something x days, something hundred and x hours. Sleep was a sensible little bitch without the pills.

And it hadn't been even the first panic attack.

He sat up, groaned, leaned against the wet wall in the drenched sleeping bag, pushed his head against the cold, weigh wood. Or was it his head? Heavy, mushy, skin burning, trembling even cocooned in the sleeping bag. Withdrawal, fever, memories, the second round, two to zero this far. Winning this far, what a win though! He wasn't sure the insects were in the bag or under his skin.

Lightning split the sky, brightened the room, the thunder made the woods crawl into a ball. He always had a thing for storms, the sun was disgusting.

"Lie back, you need rest!"

"Yes, daddy..." he mocked. It was dark and loud in the room. The storm. But lately it got loud everywhere where Ben and him were left alone together. It howled. The tension probably. "I hope you don't have this kink. I don't. I have many, but I don't have this. Would call anyone master, but I don't do daddy."

Not even with Dave, that worked without ropes, pain and name calling – a first in its own way. The memories got swallowed before they could kick him cold again.

"I don't have kinks."

"Course…" he grinned eyes closed, pushing his head hard against the wall. "And played the peeping Tom watching your brother for how many years?"

"I wasn't watching!" Ben protested indignantly. "I was helping, trying to get you out of danger."

"That too." he opened his eyes, though it helped nothing, the room was just as dark as the inner of his eyelids. "You did that too a lot."

Get up, you hear me, get up, asshole, these are bad people, bad people, you need to get away! Their eyes met with Ben sitting at the table, watching him with those dark eyes on that clean face. He was the only thing he could see in the brighless night, like a beacon, burning like he glowed. Didn't, of course, but he could might as well. Ghosts weren't part of the world so the world had nothing on them. Is it true, though, Ben? Is it true? Is this a dream for you? A dream come true and ain't that the bullshit?

Klaus never told him he imagined Ben in the place of the first guy he had sex with. He never told him that it felt so wrong, sick and cruel he cried in a shower for hours after trying just to wash away the dread and the feeling. Like he never told him he sought out the brutes, the sickest minded crazy and the weirdest, most painful, cruel shit just to know that it's a way Ben wouldn't do it. To know that that fantasy, that man, that feeling won't be fouled ever again.

He didn't told him how much sick, weird thoughts can fit just one man's head.

"M cold…" But his skin burned, his eyes and lips were on fire.

"I know. Can't help it, I wish I could."

You shouldn't want this and don't we all? A constant argument and a déjà vu. So many times he had been lying in some awful hole, on the streets in vomit and piss and grime and beaten and high, Ben standing over him. Watching. Always watching. Unable to do anything else. Sometimes he left if it had been too much, if he couldn't take it anymore, back to whatever was left for them in the afterlife. Klaus imagined him angry but Ben mostly cried.

You can't order me what I should want.

He fought his way out of the sleeping bag, down from the bed. The cold air felt nice against his naked skin but he trembled, staggered, weak on his feet, hungry and thirsty and hurt. Ben appeared beside him, his arms moving like he wanted to catch him, a move he hadn't done for years but since the kiss he was doing it again, everything fucking changed, although his fingers halted inches from Klaus' skin.

"What are you doing?"

"Can't take this darkness, Ben. Can't take this darkness." A lightning covered the room in brightness again before a thunder banged just above them. He flinched, head hurt, the rain got harder. Violent. There were no faces in the corners, nothing creeping toward him from under the bed no matter what he saw from the corner of his eyes.

Ben took a step back, told him where to look for the wood, for the match, for the fireplace, repeating again and again there was nothing else in the room. He lighted the fire, squinted in the brightness, watched the weak, orange flames as they conquered the logs, licked them, ate them. So cold everywhere. Reached toward the flickers squatted down in front to warm his hands but lost his balance and fell back to the ass.

He chuckled. "Gods, I'm out of."

"I wouldn't sit on this floor naked." Ben told from behind him, but he just grinned.

"I'm seconds away from don't giving a fuck and just lying down here and now."

"Please don't though."

He just chuckled again that turned almost into tears. He was so fucking out of it, fed up and hollow the same time. It's not the way you fight a war, lad, take that weapon, aim, shoot between the eyes. Once their camp was burned down. They got attacked during storms. He walked among corpses, turned out to be a good shot, made themselves live another day, another night at the light of a different fire.

Ben was watching him from behind. "You were shot?"

He looked for the wound on his left side, it healed a long time ago, but the scar was a gift for a lifetime. "Life of a rookie. I was..."

We're getting him outta here! One, two… He got a medal for it, then had left one friend to die. The most important one. No matter how many he shot or how many he covered, saved maybe there was only the dead to count till they lost it around way too much. It's alright, love, we're going home.

Did you, Dave? Did you get home? That chest looked something awful. The wrong man died. Twice now. He touched the scar on his side.

"I was useful till I wasn't."

The room was now filled with warm light, heating up his chest and front, leaving his back to the cold and darkness, but his head felt heavier than ever, the limbs boneless, the world spun and he fell over to the side just to keep up with it. The floor was cold, wet…

"Klaus!"

...stank like déjá vu.

"I've had worse."

"It's not a contest! You shouldn't just- !"

"But I can't get up, Ben." he smiled resigned. The memories were heavier than any fever. "Not this time."

That silenced his brother and he watched the flames; cold, naked, arm stretched toward the fire only that hand really warm. Then Ben moved, sat beside him, to his head, with only his legs in Klaus' field of view. Those long, beautiful legs… Ain't you a fan? He had been standing in the shower when Ben appeared some x years ago. Holy shit, man! Holy shit! Fell so hard had almost broken his elbow, but Ben just turned up from nowhere, after so many years, after so many things. His favorite "brother", his first love… felt so much more than love.

This is not family, this is an orphanage. Two orphans finding each other in a shithole is a love story and we should've felt bad about our last names? He gave exactly zero fucks about their names, would've changed it anyway after Regi's death. To Mr Klaus AnythingButNotHargreeves. Zero fucks. Zero. But they couldn't ignore death. Nobody could ignore death. Diego thought him lucky because he could see who he's lost, but Diego was fucking batshit.

When Ben returned he didn't know Klaus to be an addict, a wreck of a human, didn't know what he did to his body. He expected the same man who held him in his death and oh boy he had been in for a shitton of surprises.

"Talk about awkward meetings."

"Hm?"

"Ours. The first. The first after."

Ben leaned forward so now he could see his arms too from the ground, elbows on the knees, hand hanging loose toward the ground. Those elegant, flawless fingers.

"You hadn't known what to say." There was a smile in Ben's voice.

"Yeah." He hadn't, just sat there in the shower gaping up like a fish. Almost terrified, quite sure he smoked too much funny. I've missed you. - That's what Ben said.

Klaus' always been the talking one, who needed everything out loud. Ben cuddled: hugged him from behind when sad, held his hands all day after a mission, snuggled close to Klaus at night. Now it was hell, just plain hell being so close and so far. The things his brother had to see beside him…

"I'm sorry for what I did to you…"

"You did nothing."

"For that too then."

Ben's fingers moved like he wanted to touch, but they didn't. The flames danced, the rain beat down hard on the forest. It got warmer, but the fever made it feel even colder, the floor hurt under him, limbs felt numb.

"I've never blamed you, you know that right?" Ben said. "I wasn't angry at you, I was angry at them for leaving you alone."

Alone alright. When he screamed all day to make them hear him they closed the door, when he did stupid shit their mother packed everything up again with a smile and without acknowledgment, when he spoke about anything and everything to not hear the silence they walked on, when he tried to explain they never understood.

"If anybody knows what you went through, what that darkness is like, what living with powers you don't want is like... You kept me together when I was young and I tired to do the same when we got older, but then you had to…"

"Bury you."

"Bury me." Ben swallowed. They hardly talked about this.

The funeral had been on a bright, sunny day, short, simple, impersonal. Regi scolded him for crying, told him he knew about them, the others payed oblivious not standing up for him, only Vanya, but she hadn't had vote in the house neither. And Ben hadn't even got a painting, just a statue out there in the garden. This he never forgave their father, that he didn't miss Ben as he missed Five. Ben knew that darkness from the inside, Klaus from the outside and that knowledge and understanding made them strong. After Ben's death he just didn't know anything anymore.

"But you still blame me. I hadn't been stronger. Couldn't hold out long enough. Hadn't changed on a flick, hadn't listened."

"Klaus…"

"It's fine, I blame me too." It didn't worth asking the what if-s. And still.

Ben moved again like he wanted to touch, his muscles tense, angry and hurt and desperate, but the hand stilled again before it could reach him just above his head.

"You know it won't work too, hm?" The headache got heavier, the rain tantalizing. "That's why. I can be less an addict, but not more sober, Ben. Maybe less sick, but I don't think… I'm not sure it's sobriety."

He reached up, concentrated, tried to lay his hand on Ben's leg over his head: feel the clothes, feel the skin, feel anything solid, saw Ben's leg tremble, heard the hard breath, the crave, the anticipation, but his hand went right through and all he could feel was air. All he could feel was fucking air.

Both were watching Klaus' hand lying on the floor buried in Ben's form.

"I didn't kiss you, because you were near." Ben said silently. He looked up at him turning to his back.

"Figured that much."

Ben smiled weakly. "Yes, I'm-" Klaus reached up toward his cheeks, run his fingers where Ben would be, on the skin, in the hair. Ben held his wrist like he could hold it, kissed his fingers like he could kiss it, and he looked down at him like wanted, like he craved, like it hurt. And it hurt alright. And there was want alright. Ben hadn't looked at him like that for… for. Just hadn't. What had been there to hope? What was there to hope now? A single punch. A single kiss. A single crack on the ice and if it won't work… Desperation. What he felt was akin to desperation.

How long can you hurt someone you loved? And can you really love a ghost?

"If it won't work… If it won't work I want you to go back to the light."


The next time he opened his eyes the room was brighter, the fire out again but the windows were gray in the daybreak, the world colorless, silent, the storm had passed and he felt placid. Tired like he'd run all night, but calm, the burning of the fever had passed for now though every single bone and muscle hurt in his body. Sleeping on the floor felt like a hard beating.

Usually when he woke like this he had been used long and careless by one to many. Memories ghosted around him about cellars and dungeons, toys, whips and painful looking way too big things. He managed to avoid the heavier kind of drugs because they caused visions even more jarring than reality, but sex and alcohol were just as bad substitutes. If Ben wanted him, wanted to fuck him after everything he had seen, after everything he knows to had been on and inside his body he was more sick and disgusting than Klaus could ever be.

Where are those lines you'd drawn again?

Even he didn't wanted to fuck himself sometimes and carefully never asked Ben about it. Back then they had been too young and too afraid to do more than think about it. That was for the better maybe, saved that innocence.

For minutes he just lied there in silence, fingers moving on the floor, like playing the piano he'd never played, listening to his own breathing. In and out. Water dipped. His limbs felt cold to the bone and numb. The madness was behind him, but the anxiousness it's brought lingered. In and out. But that anxiousness chased him up, feet against the dotty, old wooden floor, legs antsy, he groaned as his body protested. Unresponsive to the morning. Cause that's what he needed, the possibility to jerk off in a shack in the middle of nowhere to a dead lover. To a ghost. That was actually a line drawn. Right after his first time. There was a big difference between a memory and seeing them again as ghosts. Illusion being that difference. A fucking illusion.

For minutes he just sat there in the gray room with the rising sun, alone, Ben away. Birds twitched outside and somewhere at the back of his mind he still wondered why he wasn't in a Vietnamese jungle with the others. A weak ago. He lived a different life just a week ago, the most violent turn of his life. Coming back, that is. That coming back. Life took a hard turn like hairpin and this was not the straight part of the ride.

The night on the other hand, that he remembered.


Not much later that day the door closed behind him with a small noise. The forest looked back at him just as deep, calm and infinite as a day before. Needles, moss, lichen, rocks. And a car. Of course. Still useless, will be useless in the foreseeable future and if he would've had the right state of mind he would've indeed stressed about how he will ever get out of there but he just didn't have it. So he just looked at the car, noted the dirt the storm left on it, noted the lack of way out then looked at something else.

In a hurry to where, anyway? Home? There? Back to the drugs and that life? The lack of any care wasn't unusual, but it frightened him now after Vietnam. After he lived a life for almost a year where he actually wanted to get out of bed most mornings. He'd escaped to fucking war from this life.

A good view reached far ahead among the bare, pencil-like trunks, but farther the picture blurred into a brown-gray mass like it was a wall, the end of the world. An abyss. It was so different than any jungle. The morning breeze felt cool on his skin even in a jacket, the forest was filled with chirping, busy with squirrels and others: a fox run away with a rabbit in his mouth, and something fast made his way through under the leaves as it heard his footsteps. The ground was even mushier after the storm but the air was clearer than anything he'd ever breathed in before. Cold and crisp, like it washed him out, cleared his lungs, blood and head.

His mind needed a spring cleaning right about that fucking moment anyway.

He circled the old car, opened the trunk with a loud, metallic noise in the nature. It screamed intruder. The slowness of the world around him felt alien, like he was forgetting something and the craving for the pills raised its head from the depths of his mind. He pushed it back down. There was some food in the trunk, but Ben has been right, not too much, enough for some days for a single man; and single he was alright - after burying the two he loved. How many can you bury before you lay down yourself?

A slow clap, that's what he needed. He couldn't get the drugs, meds or food if it was the last thing to keep himself alive. One day impulsiveness would kill him. He always thought it would be the drugs.

He took out a cereal bar, closed the trunk, sat on the front of the car to eat his breakfast while watching the crumbly house and the forest. The wooden walls looked almost black wet like this under the green moss, there were pine saplings growing on the roof, birds hunting in the eaves, some brave squirrels coming closer. They were none the wiser about Ben just appearing beside and only run away in panic when he spoke munching on the cereal.

"You think I should renovate?"

"Would you stay for that long?" Ben's voice was laced with tension, his arms folded on his chest.

He arched a brow. "Who pissed in your soup?"

"I wonder." His brother looked at him. "You sent me away, Klaus!"

"I didn't."

"But you did. Go to the light if it doesn't works, rings a bell?"

It did. Of course it did, he expected the shoe to drop from the second the words left his mouth. Maybe Ben's thought him too sick to argue the night, but he hadn't said anything for hours. Ignored him for hours, like he hadn't heard him and he was so sick of that, sick of not being taken seriously. Not in this. Not when it was about this. Ben's lost the right to protest.

"Why, how long could you carry this on?" he snapped jumping down from the car to face him. "This!" he reached through Ben's chest to prove the point. "How long? Cause all the squirrels see now is me arguing with damn air!"

It hadn't been incidental that they'd never talked about what they've had between them. Never a word, never a mention before that one touch and that one kiss, never a reminder, because it just couldn't be done. Couldn't be borne. The way they lived, the way things was, he couldn't face what it had been. They'd been kids, raised like brothers, not together, not old enough, not free enough, but neither of them had given a single fuck because it had been real. With Ben being a ghost it just couldn't be real again. Still it'd been fine till the kiss. Had been fine till the kiss. Now he just couldn't do that two steps back. Sick of living an illusion.

They should've talked about this a long time ago.

"I don't give a damn about what the squirrels think, but I can't play this game."

"Because of Dave?" There was no sting in that question. There should've been a sting in it, but all it was was sorrow.

The sun shone through the pines, it felt warm where it touched skin. Birds twitched. A breeze fluttered the branches. Everything to fill the silence. Because of Dave? No, maybe, partly. He loved him, buried him and not even a week ago. Hey, beautiful, come with me, dance with me, kiss me, touch me... And oh he would touch him! He loved him and liked it in Vietnam, in the damn war, where he had a place in the team, where he had the chance to prove without judgment. And he loved Dave, but lost him too and tried to get his shit together for Ben while him asking if he failed because of Dave. But if it was because of Dave then it was because of Ben too and it wasn't because of Ben. It was all on Klaus.

Come home with me when it's over! Come with me!

Why he had to answer this now, why he had to feel guilty about everything? Guilty about an escape, a love. Always guilty about himself. So sick of guilt, so sick of poison.

Ben got off of the car too to face him. "I'm not less real."

"But you are, aren't you? Ben- I wouldn't've come home if he hadn't died." He felt the pang in that very long second. Like the roof cracked, a thunder struck and it was utter silence with that pang and twitching. Echoing. Echoing in those dark eyes watching him. "You shouldn't be here with me."

He saw it just a moment sooner, that crush and crumble in Ben's eyes, that abyss and fall; he reached for him, tried to grab him but there was only air and Ben looked back at him with those talking eyes and it was hurt and sorrow and a punch to the gut alright. Those feelings, that one, the same he looked at him with back then. It's you and me. Like back then, we had so much, we were so much. Why would you push me away? Why would you betray me?

But they weren't damn kids anymore.

"Do you even want this, Klaus?"

"Don't be stupid!"

"I'm not, how could you... Okay, then what now? You send me away? Call him back? Try it with him 'cause then it will work? Because you want him and just don't want me enough? That's what you want to say?"

"No."

"Then what, love?!" Ben shouted. Shouted. And he just stood there looking into those stoic eyes now deep, dark and raging with emotions. "Then what, love?" he asked again gentler. Like a caress, like an apology, like a proclamation. A confirmation.

He hadn't felt more lost in his life than standing now there in the middle of the woods before his brother.

"I don't know, Ben. I don't know- I don't know what's missing..."

The stress and tiredness pulled one over him, messed with his nerves and he closed his eyes to halt the tears.

"I'm not going anywhere." Ben moved towards him, tried to hold him, kiss him, and he still felt nothing but air. Nothing more than the fucking air.