The Horror surged and writhed under his skin, just shy of breaking free. Ben focused on its strength, its energy, determined, this time, to make this work. He could feel the pressure pushing him back, like repellent magnets, warding him away. He gritted his teeth and balled his fists, concentrating all the harder. He had to break through. He had to.

There! A moment of calm in the silent chaos trapping him, a sudden absence of the solid fog. He didn't have time for pride or relief.

"Klaus!" he shouted, already straining to keep himself steady in this battering tide. "Klaus, listen to me!" He gasped a breath, the effort making his extremities fainter, less real. "Klaus it's not real! They're not real! It's the Handler! You're drugged, you're –"

Like a slamming door the buzzing pressure returned, forcing him back a step, breath catching. He stumbled, overbalanced, and fell into a heap, barely noticing the discomfort of not feeling the impact.

"Goddamnit."

Feeling hollow despite the Horror's mild churning, he looked up at Klaus. He hadn't moved from the corner in the hours – or was it days? – since the false ghosts had forced him there. He'd looked up at Ben during those fleeting seconds of presence, but his eyes were as empty as they had been since he'd woken up in that coffin. Ben doubted his words had sunk in.

Shit. There was a knack to this, he was sure of it. It was just like those early years of his ghosthood, battling Klaus's drugs when he couldn't stand to see Ben anymore. Those few times Klaus had tried to stop himself seeing anything again. Somehow, maybe because they were brothers, maybe because they were connected by whatever insanity brought them into the world, Ben had grown to withstand all but the strongest of overdoses. Then, once he'd gotten the hang of slipping in and out of the Void when he was tired of Klaus's shit, he'd barely noticed the effort it took to hang around when all other ghosts were drugged away.

This was the same thing. He just needed to level up, that was all. Train harder. He needed to be seen long enough for Klaus to understand what they were doing to him. He'd laughed his way through the electroshocks and interrogations, but this enforced solitude save the family he thought was dead? Ben knew Klaus well enough to know he wouldn't survive this. Not for much longer. He already looked far away, withdrawn within himself. He barely reacted to the fake ghosts anymore and it was that, more than anything, that frightened Ben.

Throughout their years together, the one thing Ben constantly advised and the one thing Klaus could never do, was ignore the ghosts. He couldn't take the screaming, the accusations, would flinch away from the gory figures. That he was confronted now by his own family, all gruesome in death, and remained silent and still? Ben hadn't seen that since Klaus had returned from Vietnam. But there was no dire distraction now to pull him out of it, no purpose to draw him from his grief. He thought he was alone.

And worse, he thought that Ben had betrayed him.

Ben couldn't see the apparitions. They existed for Klaus alone. But he could guess what kind of things they said to make Klaus howl and cower as he had those first hours. He'd heard Klaus beg the fake-Ben to stop, to take it back.

He'd heard him mention the deal.

Ben stood up. Whatever his drug-induced self said to Klaus, it had to stop. There was no counting on the rest of the family. He was all Klaus had left, and dead or not he was going to save his idiot brother.

After all, Klaus had saved him.

He took a deep breath. And another. Squared his shoulders. Shook out his arms. Stared at Klaus. Willing himself to connect again with that power lying slumberous in his brother's mind.

He closed his eyes. Felt the Horror stir. Remembered that electric tingle that'd buzzed along his skin when Klaus had manifested him. Imagined Klaus's power as a waiting energy, a powder keg in need of a spark. Thought himself a flame.

The pressure fizzled and vanished. Ben opened his eyes and leapt to Klaus's side, hunkering down to his level.

"Klaus? Klaus it's me." He tried grabbing his brother's shoulder but his hand passed right through him with that faint sensation of pins-and-needles. "Damn it. Klaus, you need to hear me, okay? It's Ben – the real Ben. Those ghosts you see aren't real, you've been drugged –" The pressure was beginning to build and he forced it back with sheer willpower.

Klaus's blank expression twitched.

"I need you to keep our deal, Klaus," he said quickly, unsure how much longer he could hold his presence. "I'm still here, buddy, you just can't see me. I need you to hold on – I'll figure something out." The strain made his voice shake. Klaus turned his head, cautious eyes glancing to his.

"Ben?"

Ben beamed. "Yeah, buddy, it's me. I'm here, okay? You can keep me around, you need to use your power like in the theatre –"

Something in Klaus's eyes flickered and darkened. "The theatre," he breathed, brows pinching.

Crap. "Klaus, stay with me!" His grip was slipping. The pressure hummed soundlessly around him. "Klaus, you gotta fight it! It's all lies, what they're saying is lies! It's the Handler, remember? You gotta stay with me! Klaus, I –"

Klaus's gaze went right through him as the drugs forced him away.

"– love you."

Ben slumped back, wishing for the impossible.

The first time he saw Klaus after he'd died, he'd thought for one insane moment that he'd somehow lived. That all those impressions and feverish dreams weren't real, that he'd been in a coma or something. But no. He was dead. And Klaus had summoned him from a twilight of waiting, from an unbearable weight of uncertainty and fear. Ben knew that corridor still waited for him, beyond the Void. The final hurdle before whatever lay beyond and the one all Klaus's ghosts were too scared to overcome.

If Klaus died, could they both hover in the in-between? Or would they be sucked through that corridor Ben had been too afraid to traverse? How did the other ghosts do it, what kept them tethered to life? Even after all his years bound to Klaus, Ben still couldn't say. Unfinished business was the party line, but, speaking as ghost, he was pretty sure it was the bog-standard fear of death. But, call him a pessimist, somehow Ben didn't think he'd be able to avoid that last journey without Klaus holding him here.

Which meant, if he didn't figure out how to save Klaus, they were both doomed.

The Horror shifted uncomfortably under his skin.

Yeah. No pressure.