Oh, you fool, there are rules, I am coming for you

(You can run but you can't escape)

Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins

(You will open the yawning grave)

/

"The Yawning Grave" by Lord Huron

It's May, and the fire escape is coated in ice. This is annoying, but it's not enough of an obstacle to stop Klaus. His right arm is still bound up and held close to his chest, so he can't use it to hold the railing. Instead he resorts to sitting down and sliding down the stairs on his ass. It's not as fun as it was when he was twelve. It's not fun at all, because he's bruised all to shit and shivering in the bitter cold and almost has enough shame to turn around and head back up.

Then he's at the bottom, and he realizes he couldn't get back up there if he tried, so the only way to get back inside would be through the front door, which would involve alerting either Mom or Pogo, so he can't go back now. He has no choice but to go get wasted, really.

Ghosts watch him from all angles. Maybe. Some of them are real, definitely, and the others are radiation afterimages from the nightmare that woke him, and he can't bring himself to care which is which. His skin is crawling with more than just the cold, and his ears are ringing, and he needs something to take the edge off. Just a little bit, just one hit, just to make them shut up, that's all he needs.

His talk with Diego happened two days ago, or three, he's not sure, he hasn't been sleeping. Diego had tried, he'd been—he'd been great, really, truly, but Klaus can't do this. He's tried, and nothing is working, and he's in so much pain and he's seeing things that no one else sees, and Ben is gone. His last attempt to summon Ben, that wonderful spectacle of corporeal ghosties that Diego had been privy to, may as well have scrambled his brain. He feels like he's been in a perpetual state of panic ever since.

Klaus hasn't taken more than a step before he slips on a patch of ice and collapses against the wall of the alley. He jars his—everything—in the process and takes a moment to ease short, shallow breaths through his bruised lungs. He slams his head into the wall once, twice, and it's a pain he can control, and for a moment it whites out the voices around and inside him.

It doesn't last though, and now his head hurts along with the rest of his body. A woman, more or less intact, tries to touch his shoulder and he shrinks back like a stray dog. A man whose entrails drape like ivy spilling over the waistband of his jeans says his name. Klaus lurches upright and forces himself to keep walking. The little girl who has been his constant companion in Ben's absence trods alongside him—she's real, probably. He still can't communicate with her and has made no effort to do so. She watches him with big, worried eyes, and her pale hands clutch at the sleeves of her bloody wedding dress. He wishes she would go away. He'll feel better soon. He'll get what he needs and they'll all go away and he'll feel better.

The insides of his elbows itch like his cravings are trying to physically manifest. His friend Brandi should be in these parts until the end of the summer, and her stash is always good. She might even have coke in addition to smack, he could speedball and be out of it for a whole day. Hell, he'll take whatever she's got. If she's still around, that is. She didn't look too great the last time he saw her.

Mentally he runs through his other plugs if she falls through, the alleys he knows by heart forming a treasure map in his mind's eye. Larson is a bit further away, and he usually doesn't peddle black tar, but X will do in a pinch. Mack doesn't like Klaus much on account of Klaus not putting out unless he's practically catatonic (which is because the ghost of Mack's kid brother is particularly stubborn and makes Klaus feel all kinds of wrong) so he's pretty much a no-go. Jax only has poppers and Klaus is really, really not looking to get laid tonight.

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of him at the thought.

He could've just shot up with morphine from the infirmary. The stuff doesn't work very well on him anymore, though, and someone would be sure to catch him. His plan is to be back in his room before morning (maybe scaling the fire escape will be easier when his body isn't screaming at him), and no one will ever have to know.

He just doesn't want to keep waking up from one nightmare into another one. Would his family begrudge him that? If they knew that's why he's doing this, would they forgive him? Does he even care anymore?

Of course he does. He cares so, so much, and the thought of making his family's pain any worse is all that's kept him away from the streets until this point. But wouldn't telling them his truths hurt them, too? It had hurt Vanya terribly. Ben is gone because of something Klaus did. And Diego is going to therapy, the last thing he needs is Klaus's issues on top of his own. So maybe the best thing he can do for them is take care of this himself. They'll never have to know more (and they'll never get the chance to reject him).

Klaus sees one of the ghosts reaching for him out of the corner of his eye, and he flinches long before he would have if he'd been attempting to appear normal. On days when he's this bad, Ben would talk to him, just an endless stream of mindless commentary to drown out some of the screams. He's been this bad for days now, building up to it for two weeks, and he's fraying like an old violin bow. He's falling to pieces, stringing apart, losing himself in the things he's seeing and not sure how to get back. And Ben is still gone.

"You need to talk to someone," the ghost of the ghost of Ben says. "Please, Klaus. Anyone."

But why? What would be the point? They would talk him out of this and he'd spend another night dreaming about bombs and guns and gore and screams and filthy cold grasping hands—and Ben would still be gone, and Dave wouldn't be any closer, and he'd wake up crying and unable to breathe or worse they wouldn't even believe him and he can't do this anymore.

Klaus chokes on his next breath when a bone-deep shiver racks his body. It claws at his throat, like he's coughing up a rib, and he very nearly manages to collapse again. He hasn't made it very far. The alleys are slick with black ice and Klaus forgot to put on shoes and a dim inkling of worry begins to enter his brain when he realizes he forgot a coat, too.

Diego is going to be so pissed if he dies out here. Another shaky giggle travels up his spine and pours out his mouth. Vanya will be sad and she'll blame herself and Allison—he slams his head into the brick wall once, twice, as punishment. Allison is going through enough right now and he hasn't even been able to focus enough recently to learn sign language with her so he can't stand here laughing about what her reaction will be when they find him dead.

"Allison knows something's up with you," the ghost of the ghost of Ben says. "She always knows. You remember how scary observant she was when we were kids."

Klaus does remember this, and he's not convinced that Allison doesn't have some idea about the nature of his powers. She's often too patient with him, too accommodating, too difficult to annoy and drive away. It's only gotten worse recently. He's even snapped at her and the others a few times to get them to leave him alone when his pain was particularly bad and the ghosts particularly loud, but she's been gracious every time.

Come to think of it, so has Luther. Unless Allison has told him something, which she wouldn't, or he's figured something out on his own, which he hasn't, it must just be a coincidence. Whatever the reason, Klaus is grateful, because he's kind of afraid of Luther. Diego had thought Klaus might be afraid of him, too. Klaus hadn't assured him otherwise, which he should have, because Diego is insecure as fuck and needs all the affirmation he can get, but all Klaus does is fuck things up and burden the people around him.

So. Klaus strikes his head against the wall once more, relishes in the dull thump and the briefest cessation of noise, and continues on his way. The little girl jogs a bit to stand in front of him. She doesn't say anything, doesn't even open her mouth, just stares at him with imploring gray eyes. He stops in his tracks, even though he doesn't have to.

A woman (alive, probably) gives him a weird look as she ducks around him and passes him by. He hadn't even noticed her walking behind him. The little girl watches the woman's retreating back apprehensively. Had she been trying to protect Klaus? Weird, considering the woman obviously hadn't meant him any harm. Not that he doesn't think a woman could attack him. It's happened before.

Maybe he should feel grateful that someone's looking out for his well-being when he's woefully unequipped to do so himself, but mostly it makes him miss Ben bitterly. At least Ben could tell Klaus what was wrong, and wasn't covered in blood, and wasn't a constant reminder of sexual violence committed against children. He's being unfair, probably. It's not the girl's fault Klaus can't look at her without feeling ill. Klaus is his own fault.

The girl is looking increasingly nervous. She looks back the way they came, then back to where the woman has disappeared down another alley, and then back at Klaus. A ghost beside her tells Klaus all about how it's a bad idea to eat strange mushrooms one finds in the woods. A ghost that Klaus can barely see (and who is probably not real) screams and screams in between paranoid accusations. Five will be a lot like that ghost when he dies, if he never lets go of his fear of The Apocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo.

It was so much easier to pay attention to the world around him, and parse out what was real, with Ben by his side. Even in the midst of withdrawals with hallucinations and flashbacks gnawing at his psyche, Ben kept him grounded. Now Ben is gone and Klaus is drifting untethered and he's trying really, really hard not to feel bitter about it. But the little girl is staring into his eyes and she looks frightened and unsure and there's nothing Klaus can do for her when there's nothing he can even do for himself. He needs to get himself right, just rest easy for one night, and then he'll get back to figuring this all out.

No one besides Diego even knows he's lost Ben. He doesn't even know if Ben's alright, wherever he is.

The ground beneath Klaus's feet doesn't seem as cold as it should be anymore. He thinks the air around him is probably getting colder because he's shivering violently now, but he can't tell if that's really due to the temperature or to his rapidly gathering nerves and declining stability. His feet crunch on pebbles and ice and even broken glass but he barely feels it. There might be blood on the ground, a long trail behind him, but he doesn't want to see it and not know whether or not it's real. He's lost his mind, probably.

He keeps going until he reaches a split in the alley. It branches off in two directions—straight ahead, that's the way to Brandi's apartment, and off to the left, where the woman disappeared a few moments earlier. On a whim he glances that way. The alley is dark and cramped, moreso than the main branch. The brick walls gleam wetly with mildew and ice, furrows and puddles frozen in place on the ground. The woman is there. So is a man.

Klaus isn't really sure what's happening because he's not sure it's real. The man has the woman pressed up against the wall with his body, one hand clamped over her mouth and absorbing the muffled screams she's emitting. Her thrashing movements do nothing to dislodge him, and the whites of her eyes flash brightly as they roll in terror. As Klaus watches, the man's other hand creeps up under her coat.

His brain has cooked up worse things. But there's no feverish intensity to this, no screaming desperation in the quiet struggle in front of him. The little girl is very pointedly not looking at the scene. She's staring up at Klaus, and she's beginning to glow blue.

Around him, the other ghosts light up. One by one an ethereal glow envelops them. Klaus looks down at his good hand, just to confirm, and sure enough his fingers are laced with blue light. He's never felt colder in his life, like his very blood has frozen, and sure enough the surfaces around him are crackling with spider web frost, drifting outward from Klaus, the epicenter. Icy vapor rises around him. The living must be able to see and hear the dead now, because both the man and the woman look in their direction.

The man's grip on the woman loosens, and she runs. She shoves him as hard as she can, tugs down her coat and bolts in the opposite direction. The man just stares at Klaus. His face is awash in blue, draped in heavy shadow, as he gazes in awe and in terror. Klaus expects to feel relief that the woman is safe, satisfaction in the fear he is eliciting, but he feels numb. Numb and steadier than he has in a long time.

He raises his hand and points at the man. The dead advance, except for the little girl, who stays rooted at Klaus's side. The man screams when the first ghost touches him, wrapping its translucent hand around his neck. The man's skin rapidly turns blue and then black at the touch. He struggles and tries to fight as more hands grip him, and the ghost of a little boy bites down on his wrist, and his blood sprays the walls.

Klaus watches, entranced, as the blood freezes within moments of hitting the brick, and then falls to the ground in dark disks that shatter on impact. All around him he can hear the groaning of stone and steel in addition to the screeches of the dead. The earth is fracturing, cracks are appearing and filling in with ice that widens them further. Klaus looks up and the man is dead, his face petrified in his last expression of disbelief and horror, and his body falls to the ground. It fractures, brittle. Klaus feels nothing.

His hand drops down to his side, and the little girl takes hold of it. Klaus flinches and rips his hand away. Cold skin made real, touching his own, seeking something he can't give, something he doesn't want to give. The dead staring at him with hungry eyes and not edging any closer, just waiting, biding their time, able to touch him if they want to.

"So this is what you are truly capable of," the ghost of the ghost of Dad says, and Klaus nearly crumbles under the weight of it. "This is the part of yourself you have been denying." Ben is still gone.

The dead don't move. They stare at him like they're waiting for his next order. Pipes are bursting in buildings and underground, Klaus can hear them popping like distant bombs. He isn't shivering anymore, and he doesn't feel cold, and the girl's touch didn't physically hurt him. The concrete beneath him fissures. A trail of blood did follow him to this exact spot, and it's almost certainly real. There's all manner of fun stuff lodged in his feet.

Klaus raises his good hand again, palm down. Slowly he lowers it. The light of the dead fades. They are just Klaus's ghosts again, stuck here with him, unable to hurt and unable to be free. The cold doesn't dissipate. It clings to the air and wreaks its havoc in the ground and in the walls and it doesn't go away.

Will the man's body soften and melt when the air is warm again? Will his blood run freely, like he'd been freshly killed? Klaus doesn't think he's ever seen anyone die like that before, frozen all the way through. There isn't much about death he isn't familiar with, and the novelty makes him curious.

He bends over and is violently ill against the wall. The vomit freezes rapidly, and he laughs because it's gross and because his body hurts so bad and because he came out here to get fucked up but not like this.

All it takes to summon the dead is to lose control. All it takes to control them and to discorporate them again is to—what? Be dead inside? Feel nothing? Fear is gasoline on the fire and there's a leak in the hose and it's really very funny that Dad's training is what has crippled any chance of using his power effectively.

He won't go back home now, and he won't find someone else's place to hole up in. He won't put anyone in danger. Maybe he'll stay here on the streets, maybe he'll die before sunrise and none of this will be a problem anymore. Maybe Little Miss Bitchiness will understand and let him die properly this time.

Klaus peels his feet from the ice and continues walking. Would anyone believe him if he told them what he just did? If he showed them proof? If he demonstrated again? If he ripped them apart with the weapon he sharpened on himself?