Klaus Hargreeves was strolling through the woods following the ghost of the stranger from safe distance, from just close enough for it to be considered following. He usually didn't do this not ignoring the dead thing. The opposite to be honest: they weren't there, weren't looking, weren't talking. Period. From a young age he's been building a wall between him and the ghost due to fears and disgust. The fear that if he would've remarked them for real, just once clean and sober he would've seen there is no wall. There couldn't be any wall, they weren't different enough - and that thought terrified him. So no, he'd never done this 'remark the ghost' thing before minus that one time in the motel and back then when Regi forced him. And of course he never ignored Ben. That one always had been different. More than special.
Love made it different, there wasn't even a category for that.
In Vietnam he could've moved on with Dave's help, with the life he lived there. He killed so many, suffered so much but there had been at least no time to think about walls and lack of walls between him and the dead. There was no Ben to remind him. But here, in the middle of nowhere there was only this two things: Ben and time, a shitload of time with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from the thoughts. He made sure. This time he made sure. He would kill for a pill, for the thoughts and nightmares and visions to stop, for his mind and body to not feel this empty and thin and matterless, but this time he made sure. There was nothing to do but thinking, feeling and processing, so thinking feeling and processing he did. And was now following the ghost of the stranger.
The sun was already past midday at this point, the weather felt considerably warmer than in the morning, the terrain hard-ish under his feet but nothing really felt hard anymore compared to the jungle. He got stronger, more muscular in those months, but weak from stress and withdrawal in the past weak. All balanced out around zero, like his life. The fever was building up again. He slowed down, there was nothing to hurry about.
The funny guy, huh? Always the funny guy. Or the damaged gay kid. Could make a T-shirt with the caption.
"I turn my head for a second and you're neck deep again." Ben appeared beside him falling in step.
"What can I say, it's a talent." Superpower, like turning anything for the worse, as he did with the conversation with Ben that morning. Regi could've had fun with these "gifts" too.
Ben rolled his eyes but the concern on his face was stronger - like his basic facial expression in the past week.
"Why are you here, Klaus?"
In the middle of the woods? Alone, far from the house with some food and a bottle of water in his pocket, the sleeping bag on his back wandering further and further, deeper and deeper? Following something he would sooner shoot himself in the head than follow normally? Really, Klaus, why are you here? But then again, where else was left to be at?
The morning that day had passed calm and slow after their argument and Ben leaving to deal with the shit on his own. The weather was chill, but the sun shined through the window warm and friendly, caressing the skin and the air was still fresh after the storm and heavy with nature. He felt bad for the things he'd said and feeling bad led him to thinking.
It worked in waves: once he felt anxious, trembling in the inside, craving, the fever and nausea coming back with the weakness and the crazy, other times there was only calmness. Not that emptiness he knew, but just calmness. Almost like giving up: not the sobriety, but the fight. Letting go the fear for his own life, letting go the volition to be real and present and that giving up felt calm, clear somehow and sad somehow, but mostly clear, releasing. Like he could breathe deeper and the sun felt warm through the window, like he could just reach through the walls to feel more of it. Like if he would give up enough, give up against death, the walls and the howling, reaching ghost there would be so little left he could do whatever he wanted, go through wherever he wanted, reach through... The thoughts would've scared him, did scare him when he was at his right mind thinking about the siblings and Dave and the life he had, the outlooks he had and that grabbing anxious feeling like woke him, but the calmness was stronger. The wonder was stronger. That hollowness was stronger.
"I've tried everything except facing the fears."
The sun's path turned down and he stopped to drink a few sips of water. The stranger stopped too about a twenty steps before them, turned back to jabber about something nervously pointing toward even more depths in the woods.
"You still don't understand what he is on about, do you?" he shot a glance at Ben.
""I haven't learned a new language in the past three hours if that's what you're asking."
He grinned. "One can never know with you, you way too smart, all flying colors, beautiful eminent wonder kid."
"In primary school, Klaus, primary. All we did was basic math and you were too lazy to do it right."
He smiled warmly on the memory. They always had sat together in school during lessons, during lunch, did homework on Klaus' bed, Ben making him continue every time he tried to toss the books off the window. It was kinda Ben's doing he ended up at university, his memory kept him going for a long time even with the pills. He sometimes considered taking it on at he's left it. But of course back then he hadn't put too much effort into anything; standing out in something meant way too much work and attention. It felt strange now how he just wanted calm and peaceful back then, slow and steady. Always needed the slow and steady. He couldn't know how his very life will later revolve around being just noticed at all, to be there, be part of the living. Very often he just hadn't felt part of anything. Life happened but somehow he always was just elsewhere. The pills helped, chased the thoughts away. If he couldn't think, he couldn't think the bullshit either, couldn't see those fuckers.
Ben was watching the setting sun through the trees lips pressed to a thin line.
"If we turn back now we may reach the house before darkness."
"Yeah, we may, though we'll never know going forward as we are."
"You want to sleep in the woods?" Ben looked at him incredulous.
"Now want is a strong word, I don't want to spend the night out here, but I won't turn back now."
"To prove what exactly?" Ben sounded angry. Wrong. Nervous. He was nervous. And afraid. "That you're not afraid of this one? Afraid of the dark? Your incredible plan is to die out here to prove you're not afraid of death?"
It was funny Ben thinking he had a plan at all. Making it always up as you go and missing the destination with real class till you walk into a chasm. Always with class. Wouldn't work without the class. What was his plan, really? He had no fucking answers.
It took two more hours till they arrived to a scarp deep in the forest. Once it might've been a tunnel that collapsed a few ten-hundred years ago. Now it was quit deep; fallen leaves, branches, stones and moss covering the bottom. The ghost pointed at something below them, then appeared again down there as they approached the edge and looked down carefully. Agoraphobia was one of the few things he's never had but there was a big difference between looking down and climbing in the dusk with his nausea and trembling accompanying him.
You really just can't sit still on your butt, can you?
"You think he died down there?" Ben bent over the edge.
"That or he wants us dead. Must be lonely around here." You can tell that again – Ben's eyes said. He groaned. Couldn't be anything just said without hidden meanings and weights and damn it. Damn it, 'cause everything changed since that punch; like they were marching on broken glass barefoot. "Let's just get this over with!"
"I'm not sure you should..." Ben tried but Klaus was already climbing.
"Stop me if you can!"
He was the kid on the yard who just couldn't play nice. If you fall, you deserve every stone you land on.
Of course Ben couldn't stop him, so he did the next best thing and helped him get down safe by telling where the next footholds and stable rocks were. It hasn't been that hard of a wall to climb nor extremely steep, he hadn't climbed many walls, but he became familiar with huge trees in the past months. It wasn't that different.
Ben appeared beside him worried the second his foot touched the ground again. That made him irritated. "I had been in the army, you know, and I'd been capable, got a medal even and some shit, stop fretting about me stumbling over my own feet!"
Ben looked at him long, contemplating, sad. He did that often, every time Klaus opened his mouth lately. "They really just let you fight? Appearing out of nowhere in the state you were in and they just gave you a gun?"
Beaten and bloody and half dead - fit there like camouflage.
"Pretty much. Believe me or not, I wasn't the strangest thing there." And the others helped a lot. Dave mostly, but not just Dave; they got him uniform, gun and papers. Dave gave it to him the night he offered him a new life there with him if he wanted. The memories touched a spot in his soul he my be never be over.
"Without a training?"
"Aw, but wasn't our childhood enough? Dear Regi did more for training our survivor than any officer could."
Ben agreed. In better countries people who raised their children the way their father did would've been imprisoned for a lifetime, this was something none of them ever doubted – except Luther of course. He believed what the old man said as young and privileged, as number one and couldn't not believe it after he gave up his freedom, body and the love of his life for the maniacs of their father. It was madness. It wasn't greater madness than running away at age eighteen without a plan and ending up on the streets.
"Had Dave known how you got there?"
"He had."
It had the strangest conversation. He not necessarily believed him, that wasn't even something Klaus expected, but Dave listened, accepted. The shock of the situation and the urge to just to talk about what happened had been too great, the need to trust someone with it. And Dave was… everything really in those few months. He couldn't not tell him and it hadn't fucked up anything. That had been a first too, felt great for a change.
Ben looked at him like that again. You would've just gave up me there. Would've gave us up - his eyes said.
You're dead, Ben. What could've I done with the dead?
The words hanged in the air, but neither of them spoke them out loud. Ben turned away from him with sadness again looking for the stranger and whatever he wanted to show them and Klaus joined him after a deep sight.
They indeed found the stranger's body at the bottom covered by rocks and fallen leaves. It was an old one, decayed, only the bones left, some remnants of the clothes, nothing they could've identify him for, the only thing they could tell for moderately sure was that the guy died around the eighteen's, seventeen's guessed from the belongings lying around. Dude walked into the scarp alright, lost his face on the stones, died there and now was standing beside them jabbering something exasperated in some foreign language. Neither of them understood.
The dead body made Klaus uneasy, but the helplessness of the dead man even more. He tried to tell them, tried to ask but his every effort was in vain. He had the luck to meet a medium who didn't speak the language. The ghost got angrier, more desperate, stepped toward them and Klaus backed away, Ben stepping between the two protectively. No matter that they've found the body, nothing could be done; they'd no name, no address, no way of communication. Whatever the man wanted they wouldn't know. It seemed like it wasn't enough to find the body and if it happened a long time ago the ghost will be stuck here till he gives up or till the end of time going mad slowly, losing touch with the world turning into one of those mad tings. Whichever comes first. The signs were there.
Maybe he was looking for closure and maybe that closure was already gone too: lost, dead, whatever.
He hated these things, these ghosts. This madness was frightening. The ghost tried to come closer again but it halted as he looked up at him. At least this one wasn't violent, even if technically none of them could hurt him.
Nevertheless, Klaus felt awful; bodies made him always feel awful, it was an empathy thing. Facing death crushed him without exceptions be it somebody who he knew or a stranger or a teammate, even an enemy on the battlefield. Their dad had been the only exception, the only man he kinda wanted dead. Would've killed him for Ben, but Ben died first and he just couldn't care anymore. Even so it touched him hard. Not the loss, not the ashes, but the fact itself that even that asshole monster of a man could die. He almost expected him just reform himself from the ashes somehow. Went home to make sure the man's really dead and then met the others and all the other shit. This empathy thing... The drugs were perfect against empathy too.
He slumped down to some moss, hid his face into the palm to get his shit together.
"One might think war made you got used to death. How were you able to be there at all?"
"Opiates. We ate them like sugar, everyone, wouldn't have kept sane without it." He looked along the stones and dried bushes. The stranger was still strolling around his body. " It's the funny thing about that place: we've all seen the ghosts."
There was the point Ben's nerves just gave up. "Yet you stayed almost a year! A year, Klaus, when you could've come back in a minute!"
"Yes, yes I did..."
"You stayed there to kill people and watch other die instead to come home and get your life together!"
The same shit over and over, the same broken record. Why can't you just get better? Why can't you just be normal?
"There at least had been a life to ge together! I had friends there, a family there! I wasn't left to keep watch at the door, wasn't forgotten when we went somewhere, they listened when I talked and they trusted me with their shit in return. They would've fuckin' noticed in a second if I had gone missing, and I would face thousands of dead bodies just to feel that again!"
Ben kept silent watching him fighting his anger and hurt for some seconds before he looked him in the eye. "You know who noticed you were missing? Me. Right away, in an instant and I was looking for you."
"How long will we keep pretending it's the same as back then? Everything sunshine and rainbows for fuck' sake, Ben, you died!"
"Very clever, you noticed that all by yourself. Yes. I died, and I came back for you. Can you imagine what I'd felt when in one minute I'm staying with you, forced to watch they torture you, and the next you're nowhere, gone, can't find you anywhere, feel you anywhere, can't ask anybody what happened to you because they can't hear me, can't see me? I was looking for you! I was going crazy! Then you appear from nowhere after a day and it's nine months passed for you, you came back with scars and tattoos, PTSD, a dead lover, as a veteran, with a new life I'm not part of, a life you would've chosen instead of me and I…" his voice failed and Klaus felt like the worst man on the face of earth. "You consider the Vietnam war the best part of your life. The Vietnam war! And I was just a plan B."
"You weren't even a plan, Ben." he argued tired and resigned. "You're a ghost."
"And? Is that really so bad?"
"Yes, it's so bad! So freaking bad, Jesus, don't dare to pretend this works for you, don't be blind and stupid!" He looked away, anything just not at Ben. Feelings, memories and hopes mixed into a heavy, colorful mush in his head. What Ben didn't know that that how much really that punch changed. "I didn't know we could've more. I know now and I'm trying."
"If this is trying then fuck yourself!"
For seconds there was nothing to hear except the insects among the leaves, both of them just fuming in anger glaring at each other while the sun went down slowly and the world turned gray around them. Klaus was the first cool down, his expression softened and the exact moment Ben let out a deep sight too.
"I didn't mean it. The last one."
"I know."
"Only the last one."
"Yes."
"My feelings are not less real because I don't have body anymore, Klaus. I don't know many things that happened to you but neither do you about things happened to me. You don't know how scared I was when you disappeared one moment to another or when I died. When I was lying there in my own blood and looked up at you holding me in your arm and I knew I'll die and you will be left there alone and whatever will happen from there on out will hurt you beyond strength but I can't be there, can't help, can't protect..."
"We were kids, Ben, you can't... you shouldn't…" The gentle look in Ben's eyes made him forget what he was about to say. Fucked up childhood, really bad fucked up childhood. "You helped, it's just..." he motioned around meaning the circumstances.
Ben nodded, turned away, not like he was about leave or angry or anything, just like he needed a minute, more than a minute, a hard reset just to process everything, these past few days. Both of them needed that. They didn't even tried to touch anymore.
"What have you felt when I touched you?"
"Surprise."
"Before that, when it happened."
Anger, frustration, disappointment, all the feelings he was already familiar with but he didn't remembered clearly, the surprise of the punch overwhelmed any other feeling he might have had. Ben was probably right though, it could've been important, probably was, but he couldn't remember. He shook his head, Ben couldn't see it, but knew, somehow these things he always knew.
They sat camp in a cavern in the wall sheltered by huge rocks, covered by leaves and moss. He lighted a fire from the dry bushes lying around and now he was just sitting there in his sleeping bag, hands on the moss beside him, gazing into the fire, while the world darkened outside the cavern. It was cold, not too much colder than in the shack with the fire burning but it couldn't be left to die out here if he wanted to wake up in the morning. Ben was sitting next to him silent also in his thoughts.
He wanted to say so much and couldn't say a thing. There was only the fire crackling, and the nightlife outside with nothing too dangerous living around those woods. The ghost of the stranger was there still appearing from time to time at the mouth of the cavern but being peaceful mostly. The scenery reminded him of the time when he lived under that bridge, when it was a cold night and they gathered around a burning container telling stories and getting high to survive the night. They were quit the gathering, half of them ghosts, most of them recently deceased still calm, not yet crazy from solitude and whatever turned them violent on the long run. They were just laughing there among themselves and they seemed like some of them didn't even know what happened to them. That had been the only time he actually talked to a ghost not realizing what they were and they talked to him like he had been one of them. Later the memory terrified him, now he wondered what exactly had been so frightening about it.
The idea that he actually, deep down isn't alive and never was. Yeah, that must be it. His friendly neighborhood dooming thought.
This notion had been always fidgeting at the back of his mind since the first hours in the crypt: he is dead, he is like those crazy things in the crypt: mad and howling and fucking disgusting and terrifying. He isn't noticed, is forgotten, is ignored and misplaced and lost, and everything because he already turned into a ghost and the world is just waiting to blow him away, turn him even madder and crazier. He was afraid of death, the dead, afraid of this life where every day was fighting against his own thoughts, for staying sane, not letting the fears sweep him away. He escaped to the pills from the thoughts.
He was just a young man, a mostly cheerful, borderline crazy, more than averagely messed up one. He was not dead, he was not a ghost. The thoughts chased him to madness through his entire life. Now in the dark and silence he wondered if it really would be that bad.
There was nobody around, no sound just the fire, no brightness just that fire but that fire will die down and there will be nothing left just darkness and he will sit there with two ghosts, both mostly peaceful and sane. Just like under the bridge. Calm and peaceful like he wanted it back when he had been still a child.
Sobriety made everything worse and now there were nowhere to run from the thoughts, from the crypt and memories and death. In the dark in the silence he could be already dead and none would be the wiser, it wouldn't even matter. This was the first time the thought didn't terrified him.
You shouldn't be afraid of darkness. Because you're part of it. And if there were wrong ways to show this to a child, If there were wrong ways to make him realize and accept who he was Regi had found them all. But maybe, just maybe he had done it because he knew, like hi knew the apocalypse and he closed him in there to kill the fear.
Are you still afraid? Are you still afraid? But Klaus had been too strong and too stubborn to give up on who he was, give up on his life. Even if Regi had known somehow the thoughts torturing him, even if he meant well in the end it didn't make him less of a monster, just a monster who had been right. Because maybe, just maybe Klaus wasn't a man, a medium who could see ghosts but an already dead one, a ghost in a human body stuck at the border between the dead and the living being able to communicate both ways, touch both ways and who could know what else?
Ben was a monster and he was a ghost. And a thought that terrified him in all his life before made too much fucking sense there in the dark, in silence, being sober, sick and hungry, at the verge of his strength.
Because there was hardly any difference between a human with a soul and a ghost with a body - only the mindset.
The giving up.
Giving in.
Something warm touched to his hand and he jumped in surprise.
"Klaus!" Ben was looking at him with wide shot eyes his eyes so dark and deep and fucking beaming. "Klaus…"
"Did you…?"
"Yes, yes, you…" Ben reached for him again, offered his hand, palm upwards. Smiling so fucking hopeful.
It was giving up.
On life.
On who he was.
It doesn't make me less real. It wouldn't make you less real.
He reached for Ben too.
"Don't panic now, love. It will work, just take a deep breath!"
It was just giving up. It hadn't been the first time, it happened before, that day, exactly before Ben punched him to the face. That's what he felt: acceptance, and now their hands touched; Ben warm and soft around his hand, smiling and laughing and talking to him so overflown with joy, grabbing his hand, kissing into his palm.
What now, love, what now?
It's just giving up.
I'm a ghost.
Ben kissed him and he pulled him into the tightest embrace.
