1960

"Oh, I'm so happy!" Mrs. Randolph was practically ripping Klaus's arm out of its socket, grinning her big old lady smile, and it was all Ben could do not to try and draw enough power from Klaus to knock a vase off one of the living room side tables.

They were in one of the drawing rooms.

It was a Sunday in late December.

They'd been in the past for almost a year.

Mrs. Randolph had been talking for weeks about better outreach and spreading Klaus's message of peace, love, and photosynthesis. (Or, as Klaus insisted, communing with the universe.) And the moment she'd suggested something concrete—a trip, actually—Klaus had immediately agreed. Now he was smugly celebrating.

Ben watched him sourly from the opposite couch, toying with the cushion fabric he couldn't feel.

"I'm so, so happy. Klaus, you are so special, and you are going to help so many people." Mrs. Randolph let go of his arm—ever respectful of Klaus's aversion to prolonged contact. And she was looking at him with a familiar love in her eyes.

Klaus was running away from it, per usual, queued by the high pitch of his voice. "I know! I am too."

"I'll let you go do your prayers. We can talk about the details later." Mrs. Randolph patted his arm one more time for good measure, her face settling into a contented and proud smile that twisted the spectral guts in Ben's stomach. He'd thought he'd take any feeling over the rumble of the Horror about to break through his skin. But now…he wasn't so sure.

"Thank you." Klaus bowed back to her respectfully, his hands in prayer pose and touching his third eye. Then he swept up and straightened his long tunic and flowing pants before padding out of the room toward his own.

Ben was up and off the couch in a moment, catching up in the hall. "What the hell?" Ben usually tried his best not to be a hovering, haunting sort of specter. But at the moment he was basically right on top of Klaus and couldn't get himself to back off.

He kept wondering when all of this was going to be enough. And Klaus had finally just answered him. It was never.

Over the last year, Ben had been forced to "levitate" Klaus on multiple occasions, move or levitate objects for him an uncountable number of times, and endure his never-ending stream of infuriatingly fitting song lyrics disguised as "prophecy." The most egregious had to be lines from "The Rose" and the accompanying bird hand motion from that one scene in Napoleon Dynamite.

Before he realized what was happening, Klaus made Ben corporeal enough to dig his elbow into his chest and then kept walking. Ben just growled and backed up a little and proceeded to follow him.

Klaus had never been this happy and carefree, not even when they were children. He'd also never been this sober, this "with it" before. And he'd certainly never been this powerful. Ben almost wished he could just step back, roll his eyes, and let his brother have some much-needed fun.

And he would have if Klaus were in a better place mentally. Seizing the chance to go out and make disciples was merely the final straw on the towering haybale. Because nothing screamed "I'm actually super depressed" like going on a world tour of bullshit.

Ben pushed ahead of Klaus and walked through the wall of their room, not giving his brother the chance to slam the door in his face.

"You shouldn't be doing this." Ben had been trying to control his "nagging" voice—Klaus's words—lately, but he was too worried to care right now. Klaus shut the door behind him with a precise bang and turned his back on Ben to grab the clothes he'd left in a heap on his bed. "Is this about Dave?"

Klaus actually stopped for a second. Then he draped a fringe scarf across his shoulders and went on about his business as if that hadn't hurt him. They'd talked about his time in Vietnam a little bit; Klaus had seemed eager for Ben to know about Dave in general, but he always played off his own feelings as unimportant or nonexistent. Ben felt guilty bringing it up now, but it needed to be done. "I know you dream about him sometimes." He'd heard Klaus talking in his sleep for the last year. Without the drugs, he seemed to be having less mausoleum nightmares. But it sounded like Vietnam ones—specifically the battle in which Dave died—had taken their place. It wasn't fair; none of this was. Ben was probably a terrible person for pushing like this. "Klaus, please. If it's not Dave, why are you doing this?"

"You know, I thought that getting my powers under control would be good because then the legions of dead wouldn't be coming out of every crack in the wall, but now all I hear is booze-soaked country singers on the radio who don't know when to cap it on the trills." Klaus's drifted around his room rearranging items as if he wasn't doing a poor job of changing the subject. "I never thought I'd prefer the moaning of the deceased."

Ben waited to see if Klaus would get uncomfortable enough with the silence to keep talking. But Klaus just threw his dirty clothes in the basket he'd commandeered as a hamper and reached for his sorry excuse for mala beads from a racist tourist trap downtown, apparently intent on starting his prayers. Or whatever it was he actually did with them.

Fine. "You can talk to me."

"All I ever do is talk to you." This was not followed up by a sweet and sarcastic comment about still loving Ben. It had been a while since Klaus had done that, actually.

Ben told himself that didn't hurt. "And what's next? A 'sermon' on the Krabby Patty secret formula?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Nobody knows that." Klaus was in the habit of automatically manifesting Ben properly now when they were alone and giving him enough juice to move things. So Ben threw a pillow at him. Klaus easily batted it away. "That would actually be a miracle if I could get my hands on that information."

"You can't because it doesn't exist yet because we're not supposed to be here!" He'd let this go on for long enough. In fact, Ben had known for weeks that he needed to reel Klaus back in. It had only been the cautious wonder of never having seen Klaus this sober for this long that had made Ben hesitate. Being semi-functional and putting up a front about the rest was technically progress. But maybe Ben had been leaning on that for too long now. "Whatever you're not telling me this time, running away isn't going to make it better."

"We're going out there. I'm sick of being cooped up in this shithole."

"Oh, you mean the extravagant mansion you conned your way into or the city of over half a million people you can roam freely?"

"Not this again."

Another deflection. Ben glared as Klaus stood across from him, arms stuffed tight up to his chest. "I'm not talking about you being alive. I'm talking about the fact that you're not trapped here. And Mrs. Randolph, she cares about you. You know that right?"

As far as they could tell, Mrs. Randolph had been married twice but didn't seem to have any children from either marriage. Ben didn't want to pry and hadn't gone snooping, but he couldn't help but imagine that if she did have children, they'd probably be around Klaus's age at this point. Another uncomfortable truth he knew that Klaus had already figured out and was trying to avoid.

"I am the prophet."

"No, you're not." Ben wanted to punch him. "I know you fancy yourself a spiritual guru and all of that, so this is gonna be hard to hear, but you need serious help."

Klaus, as always, could tell when Ben was actually mad. He cocked his head with a shit-eating smirk. "I mean, technically, I am performing 'miracles.' In fact, I'm starting to believe in myself."

"Oh, without me, you'd be dead in a ditch somewhere," Ben snapped back.

"You know," Klaus played with the fringe on his scarf, his face smoothing out in mock realization. "I just realized who you sound like."

"Who?"

"Dad."

Ben flinched before he could stop himself. "Don't say that."

Klaus's grin came back in full force. He was about to win, and he knew it. "Daaaaad."

"I'm serious; shut up!"

"Sixteen years in the grave and you finally turned into your father!"

That did it. Ben let out a strangled yell and lunged forward, throwing himself toward Klaus, who held up his hands in mock fear and screeched a little for good measure. And when Ben reached him and was about to go through him…

…he got…kind of…stuck. For a moment, it was like the room was spinning and he could feel the air hitting his hands, feel the vertigo of starting to lose balance…

And then he was out the other side and careening into the side of Klaus's bed. He fell onto the coverlet, groaning in unison with Klaus behind him.

Other than some unfamiliar dizziness, Ben came back to himself a moment later and stood, looking around the room, at Klaus who was shaking and making noises, and back to the coverlet. "That was…weird…"

"…Ben," Klaus was groaning and shivering violently, brought to his knees, "…what the hell did you just do-o-o?"

Ben stumbled closer, checking Klaus over to make sure there wasn't anything else wrong with him, and looked down at his own hands. The answer was right there, and it tasted awful on his tongue. "I think I was…inside of you?"

Klaus looked up at him, and they both shivered again. There was a very long, very awkward silence. Ben was fairly certain reality—that this was a major development and Klaus was shaping up to be just as powerful as he seemed to fear—was dawning over both of them.

"We're s-still going," Klaus stammered out of nowhere, seemingly having come back to himself too. He stood up and headed for the door. Before Ben could respond, Klaus was announcing he was going to take a long bath. "Stay here, Mein Vater."

It was ridiculous and juvenile and clearly meant to get a rise out of him. But it worked.

"I'm nothing like Dad!" Ben screamed after him.

000

1962

Vanya wasn't surprised that she didn't feel any better in the morning. And she woke with the desperate thought that she didn't want to talk about her and Luther's conversation last night. She couldn't remember any of her dreams, but she knew she'd had them. Logic told her none of them had been good, and it was enough to put her on edge.

Luther was still sleeping in his bed as Vanya sat up and eased out of hers. She wasn't surprised that her whole body felt sore and ornery. At this point, it could have been from any number of things: Dad, the end of the world, her newfound powers, being off the meds, being crushed into unconsciousness, apparently falling out of the sky into an alleyway, overwhelming stress, all the other damn things that had made up the last week of her life. She wasn't even really sure if it mattered as she headed into the bathroom.

Vanya took her time washing her face and staring at her gaunt face in the mirror. Last night had been…bad. The fragments of it grazed against the edges of her mind, drawing more and more blood. Blood on her hands, like Lady Macbeth. She actually looked down at them on impulse, the pale skin red from lack of moisturizer. The pads of her left hand's fingers were calloused from years of practice, and she recoiled as soon as the memory of playing surfaced. She'd almost killed Allison with her bow. She'd almost killed everyone else with her violin. And just like that, her one sanctuary and constant was gone. Ripped from her. The renewed sense of loss hit her hard, and Vanya leaned her forearms against the countertop, trying to take deep breaths to stave off a panic attack.

She could do this. She had to do this. It wasn't going to be easy, and she didn't know what would happen if Luther didn't listen to her, but she knew she had to put her foot down now. So as soon as she got her breathing back under control and the memories numbed enough that she could stand up, Vanya took a deep breath and went back out into the rest of the room.

Luther was yawning and rubbing at his eyes, and she made herself just spit it out. "I can't start training right now."

He blinked at her sleepily and took a deep breath. "Vanya…"

She held up a hand. "Just don't. It's not going to do us any good to fight about this."

Instead of immediately plowing on, Luther looked like he was actually considering it. Finally, he said, "You'll still need to train eventually."

"I know. And I agree." But she'd killed people —multiple people; almost all people she loved—with these powers. Not to mention ending the world shortly after. And right now, Vanya couldn't bring herself to face that head on. "I just…need some time."

"Okay." When she blinked at him this time, Luther just nodded once and then broke eye contact to yawn again.

Wow. That was…easier than she'd thought it would be. Before he could say anything else, Vanya ducked her head reflexively and went back over to her bed. Her half-finished box of cereal was still on the nightstand, and she settled back among the sheets and pillows with it. There was already a comically large pile of empty cereal boxes sitting near the trash bin. Luther must have eaten while she was holed up in the bathroom last night. And apparently he went through food like Adam Richman.

"Cereal and TV for the day?" Luther's voice was drowsy, and he'd laid back down on his bed to look up at the ceiling. He turned his head to look at her after a second of Vanya's surprised silence.

"I mean, I'm definitely not going to say no."

Luther yawned for a third time and sat up with a groan, listing his body to one side to baby his shoulder. He looked just as sore all over as she was, if not more. She imagined he'd taken the brunt of the force when they fell through Five's portal. And amidst a sudden, renewed worry for their siblings was the relief that for once Luther's plan wasn't just to put his head down and go forward. That he was the one suggesting a day off.

Vanya focused on that instead of the various dire scenarios involving their siblings her mind kept trying to show her and got comfortable against her mountain of pillows.

Luther selected some cornflakes from the line of boxes on the dresser and turned the small television on. "Okay," he breathed out, adjusting the rabbit ears. "Time to start praying cartoons are on one of these."

000

1960

Ben was napping, which had never happened before. He'd been curled up, sound asleep on one of the floor cushions when Klaus came back from his bath. And as with every new development concerning his powers, Klaus was sitting on the floor, trying to meditate it away.

On a basic level, Klaus knew it was because he, personally, was exhausted, and from there it was a short leap to assuming that he was pushing that exhaustion onto Ben. Thanks to Dad, he'd probably never know for sure if this theory was right, and he was going to keep telling himself he didn't care if he ever found out.

He was also going to keep it from Ben for as long as possible. His dearest ghost brother was so intent on "helping" him that no matter how many times Klaus tried to communicate that he needed space and didn't want to be helped or looked after, Ben steamrolled right over him. For a long time, part of Klaus's life had involved just putting up with Ben's mothering, so he hadn't been prepared to get off the drugs and suddenly find it this insufferable.

Now, Klaus held his beads a little tighter; the one he was currently on was round and smooth beneath the pads of his fingers. What he was doing was wrong. Five had made that much clear after he'd found out Klaus had used and then destroyed the briefcase. Five had been all, timeline this and apocalypse that, and My employers are psychopaths, and I'm so much smarter than everyone else, so I'm the only one who's allowed to irrevocably alter the time-space continuum, blah, blah blah. Smug little shit.

But Five wasn't here. Klaus had waited almost a whole year for their family, had put up with almost a whole year of Ben's incessant nagging about Klaus's mental health and other related bullshit. Now it was time to take matters into his own hands and mess up the time-space continuum on purpose. He'd just been given the perfect out, and damn if he wasn't going to take it.

Klaus could absolutely not roam the city. And he wasn't about to tell Ben why.

It was the early sixties, and Dave was in his teens. He also lived in Dallas, which Klaus had been forcefully not thinking about so that it wouldn't drive him crazy. Now, though, it seemed to consume him. It was a slow-burning fire in the back of his mind that he couldn't put out. He thought about it—this opportunity that had been staring him in the face the whole time—almost obsessively. He couldn't focus on meditating, didn't care about even trying to pull together comprehensible sermons anymore (he'd been turning the idea of Krabby Patties over in his mind the whole afternoon trying to come up with an angle to work it in), and the hot, sunlit days seemed to stretch on impossibly long.

He needed to get out of Dallas for a while. He needed to let Dave grow up a little. He needed to figure out how he was going to do this so that some good came out of it without drawing attention.

Unfortunately, some of that attention was Ben's. They rarely saw eye-to-eye about actions and consequences, and Klaus wasn't going to take the chance. Not when Dave was on the line. Klaus had told Dave one night when they were on watch together—a rare occurrence—that he'd do anything for him. It was time to make good on that.

And no one, dead or alive, was going to stop him.

Katie and Jess are my wonderful betas, and thank you for reading!

The chapter title is a reference to Community. I also don't hate country music per se, but I think Klaus would take a very Crawl from Son in Law approach to being stuck in Texas, lol.

A big thank you to Anonymous00 for the review! I'm so happy you're enjoying the fic so far!