Chapter Text
If someone had asked David twenty years ago where he saw himself at thirty, he’d have said in front of a camera, with a microphone in his hand, reporting the important news of the day straight from the source. A correspondent traveling the world, braving the parts others didn’t.
He would have said it quietly, to his G.I. Joe action figures, but he’d have said it.
“Katz, where's that tax scam report?”
And a very good morning to you too, sir, is what he thought. What he said sounded more like “Ewuhuh,” on account of the half a bagel he had shoved in his mouth a second before his boss stepped up to his desk. Small crumbs and sesame seeds covered his notebook, two opened newspapers, and the brick entitled “Federal Tax Law: A Beginner's Guide” he checked out from the library on the way to work this morning.
It wasn’t enough to cover the evidence.
“Are you working on that war propaganda bullshit again?”
“Uh,” he said, free hand searching for the thermos of coffee somewhere to his right. He had this thing where, if he looked someone in the eyes for too long, he was unable to break contact. Something about the way his grandmother always lectured him about the importance of good manners, probably. She tried her best, may her memory be a blessing. No one could have predicted what debilitating neurosis it would fester into. Just the other day, he caught the eye of a random passerby on the street, fascinated by the way the sun reflected in his irises, and walked straight into a huge gym bro type of guy who had stopped without warning in front of him. Now, David’s own six-foot-one was nothing to scoff at, and he was keeping in pretty good shape if he did say so himself – running and swimming, mostly. The embarrassment was yet another reaction born of his upbringing – this one thanks to his father, and for very different reasons than civility.
That was why, in early adulthood, he developed a habit of avoiding prolonged eye contact, which in turn made him appear shy and reserved, according to some. It was also the reason people like his boss thought he was unsuited for his job.
“You’re being paid to write copy, not feed your delusions you’ll uncover some big media conspiracy and become the next A.J. Liebling!” he raved, face turning red from lack of breath. “And maybe somewhere down the line you’ll be lucky enough and Mark A croaks, or the weather girl gets arrested for a DUI again!”
It was the reason his uncle Brian called him too soft.
“I’ve got the report right here.” David reached past his overflowing inbox tray to grab a folder from the outbox tray holding the script for the five o’clock news segment one of the field teams had been shooting court footage for first thing this morning.
For the last week, he’d been working the dayside shift from ten to seven, so whatever newsworthy events happened during the night had already been covered by morning, making his own start to the workday a bit more relaxed. On the downside, it meant missing the eight-thirty meetings during which the daily assignments were allocated, and being left with whatever no one else wanted. But the cushy hours were temporary – in this job, the motto "nothing is constant but change” applied to every aspect, and he’d be back to working the morning shift starting at four a.m. again the following week.
“Then go track it, it’s been moved up to two o’clock!”
The passive voice was figurative since David had the honor of working directly under the News Director himself – nothing happened without him signing off on it or ordering it himself. David’s enviable position came with the perk of babysitting various freelance crews who were out there doing the work David actually wanted, all while juggling his research assignments and writing copy for the presenters. He hadn’t gone through journalism school to end up as a glorified errand boy.
David waited until his boss found someone else to terrorize before sighing and taking another bite from his lunch.
Be grateful, he told himself, a year ago you weren’t allowed to leave your desk at all.
His climb up the ladder had been slow-going. After college, he interned and volunteered and part-time-jobbed for newspapers, radio stations, and a now-defunct news agency before finally getting a content writer position in the City Broadcasting newsroom. Over the last three years, he went from spending most of his time reading through walls of text in books and newspapers and microfiche while listening to the soothing sounds of his personal police radio, to going out and interviewing actual real-life people, like the correspondent he wanted to be.
Still, most of his time was spent producing other people’s stories and rounding out whatever programming his boss was working on. David made an effort to befriend the camera operators he worked with, to ask as many questions as he could until he finally got his own station-issued camera. Saved his boss personnel cost for the last-minute assignments he often sent David on, so he didn’t have to beg too much. Now it was a constant cat-and-mouse game between him, his boss, and the crew in the editing bay who supported his attempts to get his face on camera whenever he thought he’d get away with it and no one had time to check the package properly. His record was thirty seconds of mostly accidental screen time because his photog at the time got distracted during an interview, and once he’d positioned half of the back of his head in the frame throughout an entire three-minute segment. His boss tried to fire him for his chutzpah but María in legal was another one of David’s allies and assured him it was an empty threat. He took her out to dinner as thanks, dropped her off at her apartment at half past ten, and proceeded to stare at his bedroom ceiling for the rest of the night.
After finishing his voice-over and handing the tape off to editing, David shoved his little side-project into a messy pile and to the side, to work through some of the other research requests clogging up his in-tray instead. Afterward, he drew up a battle plan for the afternoon’s fieldwork and made certain his camera and replacement batteries were charged and he had enough tape in his bag.
The camera was a bit bigger than a commercial handheld camcorder, but not nearly as heavy as what the professionals were lugging around, making it more portable and perfect for his needs. Satisfied with the state of his equipment, he waved at Silvia in reception to let her know he was leaving. Apparently, she needed to know who was coming and going at any given time in case of a fire alarm so she, in her secondary function as chief fire marshal, wouldn’t be required to look under every desk and search any cubby hole big enough to hold him to make sure he wasn’t hiding from the fire instead of running outside at the sound of the alarm.
He wasn’t sure why she used him specifically as an example when she explained the importance of the instructions to his team ahead of the most recent fire drill.
“Are you coming back in?” she shouted across the hall because he had been too lazy to walk all the way to her desk. Too lazy and on the clock – Silvia was notorious for talking anyone’s ear off if given the chance. It was like she didn’t know she was working for a news station.
He gave her a thumbs-up.
“Have fun, David!” she called as he slipped through the revolving glass doors and out of the moderate highrise that was his office – its exterior indistinguishable from the brownstones surrounding it. The building was located south of the city center, in an area cluttered with other broadcasters and news buildings. It meant more time commuting but David didn’t mind, he was well acquainted with the public transport system.
When he first moved to the City he’d grappled with a bit of culture shock. Not necessarily because of the population – he grew up in the suburbs of east Milwaukee but moved to Dallas prior to starting university, where he lived with and worked for his uncle for a couple of years. It was being out of reach of his family and their conservative values that opened up the world to him. The values that landed him in Dallas in the first place, the ones he’d been fighting against subconsciously and, towards the end, consciously despite the rift it put between him and his father.
He wasn’t going far, just a few blocks down the road where his boss wanted him to get sound bites from the locals about the recent resurgence of the Peppermint Scarves gang in the area. Thanks to the time of year, it was getting close to golden hour now. The segments he recorded himself weren’t the world-shattering news he’d like to report on but that didn’t mean he didn’t have ambitions. The City library recently received a few new acquisitions on filmmaking and he’d been hogging the single tome on cinematography for two months now. Kate the librarian made an exception when he asked to return and borrow it again right away after he hit the renewal limit. He got her a coffee as thanks and avoided approaching the checkout desk whenever he saw her behind it since.
David slowed his steps when he rounded a corner and ran into a gaggle of pedestrians blocking half the street. A few policemen tried to keep them in check, their black and whites parked along the curb. The flashing lights of two ambulances illuminated the scene. Between gaps in the crowd, he could make out a car with its entire front wrecked – it looked like it had crashed into a lamp post and possibly a person who was being lifted into an ambulance when he joined the onlookers. The second set of EMTs was working on what he assumed to be the driver. Without thinking, he turned on the camera and external microphone. “If it bleeds, it leads” was the first sentence in the first college textbook he ever spent a day’s worth of tips on.
When he had enough b-roll and both ambulances had left the scene, he changed to the handheld microphone and turned to a young woman standing on her tip-toes to try and get a better look.
“CBC News, did you see what happened?” he asked, grabbing her arm when she almost lost her footing. The downside to doing his own filming was he never had enough hands free.
“Some asshole ran over that woman,” she said, smoothing down her bleached hair when she saw the camera in his hands. “You press or something?”
“I’m a reporter for the CBC.” David showed her the station’s logo printed on the microphone's wind muff. “Did they get the guy?”
“He's in the other ambulance.”
“It was crazy, bro!” a west coast surfer type in front of them said, grinning from ear to ear. “The dude went super mad and beat up that chick, and then some skinny twink whacked him over the head with one of those ghost boards! Totally sick, bro!”
David felt like he was missing something. “Who attacked whom with what now?”
An older white woman standing next to Surfer Dude turned around, dressed in a thick fur coat suited either for the Siberian climate or the middle of a blizzard.
“It was an Ouija board,” she clarified. “My medium has one just like it.”
David nodded slowly. Sure, he could work with that.
“The driver of that car attacked a poor woman after hitting her, shouting the most vile slurs, it was terrible,” the woman continued, literally clutching her pearls as she recounted the scene. “But a good samaritan jumped in and stopped him.”
“Goddamn hero, he is!” someone else called from David’s right, starting a spontaneous chorus of cheers from the crowd.
David couldn’t believe his luck. In his head, he was already editing the soundbites, but the person he really wanted to talk to was someone else.
“Can you describe him to me?” he asked Fur Lady.
“You can’t miss him, bro, he looks like a circus fortune teller,” Surfer Dude interjected.
Fur Lady nodded in agreement. “Dark patchwork coat, sheer crop top, and lace-up leather pants. ” She gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret.
David thanked them and pushed his way through the ever-growing throng of people toward the police cruisers to see if he knew any of the officers. So soon after the incident, he didn’t get more than a quick rundown of events and referral to the press office – just enough to corroborate and add a few crucial details to his eyewitness reports. Shortly after, he was squeezing through the crowd once more, searching for the nominal hero of the story. He spotted him on the other side of the street, away from the worst of the commotion, clad in leather pants so tight they’d struggle to fit a mannequin. All of a sudden, David knew exactly what Fur Lady’s look had meant. The long scarf hanging from his neck would have been elegant if not for the otherwise ruffled appearance of its owner.
Incredibly, Surfer Dude’s description of “skinny twink” and “fortune teller” was bang on the money.
David jogged across the street, cradling his camera to his chest. It was still heavy enough to be somewhat inconvenient when on the move despite being so compact.
“Hey!” he called as he got closer, greeted by a pungent cloud of smoke. The fact he was standing within sight of the police officers, if they happened to turn his way, did not seem to concern his subject. The guy watched the scene with mild interest as he smoked, shifting his gaze to David when he stopped in front of him.
“Are you the one who intervened in the attack?”
David made the mistake of looking straight into the man's eyes. Smudged eyeliner surrounded blown pupils, what was visible of his irises shimmering in the golden light. “Uh,” he continued, patting his jeans pockets for his press card. Most people didn’t care to see ID but it gave him an excuse to smack himself in the head, metaphorically speaking. If only he’d grabbed a nice shirt and not the crumpled one that fell into his hands when he opened the wardrobe this morning.
When he looked up again, he was met with a brilliant smile.
“How about you get us some waffles and I’ll tell you the story?”
The guy's voice was lower than expected but had a high-pitched ring to it, the promise of laughter bubbling right underneath the surface. Amusement, perhaps, at David’s flustered reaction. This was someone who was used to getting what they wanted, he surmised, and agreed before consulting his brain on the matter. Would his boss let him write this off as a business expense?
They sat outside a cafe, in between a couple of gas patio heaters. Still well in view of the goings-on but far enough away to get clean audio. The second ambulance left the scene as David flagged down a waitress – the waffles had not been a joke –, and his interviewee relaxed in his chair, one leg over the other, foot tapping to an inaudible beat. It was clear even without the lingering smell of weed that he was more than slightly inebriated so David ordered coffee as well.
Since he hadn’t brought a tripod, he balanced his camera on one of the flowerpots surrounding their little sitting area, positioning it so that it caught his subject in a flattering three-quarter view, although he wasn’t sure there were any bad angles on him to begin with. David huffed at his train of thought as he put the microphone in the middle of the table so it would pick up both of their voices. He put his headphones on.
“Can you introduce yourself while I’m checking the sound?”
The guy was watching with open curiosity, chin resting on his hands and elbows on the table. Despite the relaxed demeanor, he exuded a somewhat manic energy – his entire body was wiggling from the incessant tapping of his foot. His hair was wild, sticking up in all directions, and David had the sudden urge to tame it.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“I’m Klaus,” the other said, a smirk turning up the corners of his mouth when he caught his eyes again.
“Can I get a last name, too?”
“Just Klaus.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
Klaus hummed. “Would you believe it came to me during a spirit walk?”
David shook his head with a chuckle, and moved the microphone a bit as their coffees arrived. Klaus poured three sugars into his. David added a dash of milk.
“Where are you from?” he asked while he continued working on the sound.
“Around.”
David was starting to think this wasn’t going to be a very straightforward interview but he didn’t mind. He adjusted the microphone's settings, making sure it didn’t pick up too much of the traffic noise. Almost there.
“And how old are you?”
Klaus gasped theatrically. “Don’t you know it is rude to ask a woman her age?” A hand covered his heart.
It was difficult to keep a straight face, and maybe it was okay if an SOT with a character like Klaus wasn’t such a serious affair. To be polite, David put the headphones down, happy that both of their voices came through crisp and clear and ready to begin.
“So, Klaus, can you tell me what happened back there?”
Klaus seemed to have as much trouble holding eye contact as he did, although for different reasons – his attention shifted with every movement and sound around them.
“You were in the car with the person who hit that woman?” David prompted. One of the first things he learned in school was that people’s memories were fractured and unreliable and if he wanted to get a narrative that made sense, he’d have to do some of the heavy lifting.
“Yeah, yeah,” Klaus agreed, perking up. “Greg was giving me a lift.”
“You mean George Roberts, the suspect?"
“Yeah, him.”
“And you were hitchhiking?”
“Sure, something like that. Looking for a change of scenery, you know how it is. It’s about the journey, not the destination.”
An armchair philosopher too, then. David smiled without meaning to.
“I guess the old PSAs about serial killers picking you up from the side of the road were true.” Klaus’ laugh was loud, unapologetic. “We may have shared a smoke or two, and out of nowhere, he starts freaking out. Shouting about ridding the world of all sinners or some shit. And he sees this woman on the sidewalk and aims straight for her!”
David had clogged him as an animated speaker but was amused by how he used his full body to reenact the scene.
“And I think fuck me – can I swear on this thing? I guess it’s too late now, you’ll bleep any naughty language, yeah? So I try to grab the wheel, but I don’t drive, you know, and next thing we crash into a lamp post.” He raised his arms in front of his face, leaning so far back he nearly fell out of his chair. “And while I’m sitting there all stunned, the asshole jumps out of the car and goes after the lady. We clipped her, she’s on the ground, and he starts pummeling her. Called himself the warrior of decency, I don’t know. My stuff is all over the place so I grab the first thing I find which is my planchette and I throw it at his head, but it's a piece of plastic so he’s not phased at all. And there’s all these people standing around but no one’s doing anything. So I grab the Ouija board next, and I go, 'En garde, monsieur soleil!’” He held a hand out in front of him as if he were holding a fencing saber. "When he didn't stop I whacked him right in the back of the head.” The saber turned into a baseball bat.
“Greg went down like a stone,” Klaus finished off, not without some pride. “Still got it.” He pulled up his coat sleeve to flex his not-very-impressive biceps. If he was being honest, David was surprised he’d had enough strength in those arms to knock down the beefy driver. He only got a quick glimpse of the man through the crowd but that neck had been about as wide as Klaus’ entire midriff.
Not that David had paid particular attention to said midriff or anything.
“Once he was down, a couple guys came running to sit on him, and some others helped the lady.”
“According to eyewitnesses, you probably saved that woman’s life,” David said.
“Eh, psh. Just doing my civic duty.”
“Not everyone would have done the same.”
Klaus opened his arms wide. “I guess I’m just selfless like that.” He looked off to the side and waved his hand with a “Shush!”, but when David turned around, there was no one there.
“So,” he said, checking that the camera was still recording. “Are you in the business of helping people?” It wasn’t unusual for bystanders to do just that – stand by and do nothing. The fact Klaus had jumped into the fray despite being half the size of the other guy, and not very physically imposing to boot, was impressive.
Klaus shrugged. “Depends who you ask. Some would say I’m an opportunist.”
David left it uncommented. “Tell me about this Ouija board of yours,” he changed the topic. “What’s the story there?”
“Oh, you see, I use it for séances, ” Klaus replied with a snort. “Gotta make an honest living somehow, right?”
“That makes you – what do you call it? A ‘psychic’?”
David didn’t believe in the supernatural. Growing up in a Jewish community he was well-acquainted with the more common superstitions – his grandma would have spit on the floor upon hearing about Klaus’ supposed gift, and insisted he put salt in his pockets before talking to him. David, though, would not describe himself as a traditionalist. He’d gone to temple as a child and even as an adult he still lit the menorah for Hanukkah, and then forgot to put it away again for the next six months. But beyond that? His last seder had been two decades ago, and he’d never made the effort to visit a synagogue since coming to the City. He didn’t know what came after. Didn’t know if there was such a thing as the evil eye, or a psychic connected to some higher power, reading futures or the stars, or whatever these people claimed to do.
“Right, yeah, a psychic .” Klaus let out a breathy, high-pitched laugh. "Contacting the dearly departed beyond the veil."
David remembered a school trip to the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in ninth grade, with an overnight stay in the middle of the forest. One of his classmates had brought an Ouija board, rounding up all the other girls in one of the cabins. Some of the boys were butthurt at being left out, so they amused themselves by throwing sheets and blankets over themselves and sneaking in to cause some havoc. He’d heard the screams all the way on the other side of the clearing where he’d been hiding from that one boy from his parallel class.
“I thought those boards were for teenage girls,” he said, chuckling at the memory.
“Ah, pish-posh.” Klaus waved his comment away. “The toys are just for show, anyway.” He leaned closer, a conspiratorial smile on his face. “But I’m afraid I can’t reveal my secrets.”
”So your… business won't be affected? I assume the police took your Ouija board as evidence?”
Klaus huffed with a wave of his hand. “Yeah. Whatever, it broke on impact, anyway.”
David wasn’t super familiar with those toys but if the board was sturdy enough to knock someone out, breaking it in half meant there must have been quite a bit of strength behind it. As a good TV reporter, David needed three things: charm, immaculate elocution, and people skills. He prided himself on being good at reading strangers even if he only had a short amount of time to get to know them. His current subject was difficult to gauge, the challenge increased by the fact he was putting on a bit of a show for the camera. But David could usually trust his gut instinct, and it was telling him the person across from him was not prone to such violent acts.
“You said you were doing your civic duty,” he said. Most of the interviews he conducted were surface-level, information-seeking affairs – it was rare he got to dig a little deeper than that. “How does it make you feel that you had to hurt someone else in the process?”
He liked how expressive Klaus’ face was. Despite the theatricality of his conduct so far, he allowed something like regret to shine through. His tone was light regardless.
“You know the old saying – I’m a lover, not a fighter. People fuck up all the time, there’s no getting around it, so why make a big fuss, right?” Some of the manic energy he’d exuded while telling the story dissipated. "Live and let live, just don’t be a dick, is my motto,” he said as the waitress brought out the waffles. “But this guy – he was being a dick. Sometimes you have to take them down a peg or two, you know what I mean? That woman was minding her own business, she didn’t ask to be attacked by a crazy person.”
Klaus thanked the waitress profusely and dug into his food as if he hadn’t eaten in days – and maybe he hadn’t. Hitchhiker, no clear destination, no apparent attachment to the place… He looked and sounded like the type of free spirit who traveled the world to find himself and his purpose – and possibly someone to foot the bill. David would be lying if he said he didn’t envy him for parts of the lifestyle at least.
“You want some?” Klaus asked around a mouthful of cream and blueberries and when David declined, amused by the antics, he turned to the empty chair to his right to offer it a piece of his waffles as well. David blinked and took the situation in stride. It wasn’t the oddest thing he’d ever witnessed during an interview.
He wondered what other types of drugs Klaus was on right now.
While his interviewee was eating, David double-checked his footage and sound, making sure he got everything he needed. Once the last crumb was gone, Klaus rummaged through the large pockets on his coat and extracted a flask whose contents he added liberally to his coffee. His hand had a slight tremor.
“So, what do I call you? ”
“Uh, it’s David… Katz.” He couldn’t believe he forgot to introduce himself beyond flashing his press ID for a second. A hand slipped into the front pocket of his camera bag where he kept his business cards but came up empty. He scribbled his name and number on a napkin instead and shoved it across the table.
“Sorry, I didn’t bring a card.”
Klaus hummed with a smirk, and stuffed the napkin down the front of his pants, never breaking eye contact. Then he draped himself across the table – David moved the bowl of maple syrup out of the way before he could dip his elbow in it – and grabbed his right hand.
“Want me to read your future?”
Klaus’ own hands were clammy and shaky, the fake fur trimming brushing against David’s skin. But most of his attention was drawn to the impossibly green eyes squinting at his palm. One finger traced the lines etched into it, a tickle spreading from the point of contact down his spine. He was grateful to have stopped filming so that none of this would ever be made public. His father's voice echoed in his head, a memory from a long time ago.
Klaus mumbled under his breath. “Okay, this is the life line, health line – shut up, I know what I’m doing,” he hissed even though David wasn’t sure he had so much as breathed. “Now, there are different schools of thought here. Which hand to read, dominant versus non-dominant, male versus female, whatever.” He picked up David’s other hand without looking at it. His eyes were locked with David’s instead, who was positively paralyzed. In a perhaps subconscious motion, Klaus’ thumbs made little circles as he talked.
“The left hand shows a person’s personality and creativity. The right hand shows the present and future, a person’s potential.” Klaus lowered his head again, tilting David’s hands a bit in the waning light. He examined the little scars scattered across his palms – a recent papercut, a little white dot where he accidentally stabbed himself with a screwdriver as a kid, that time he broke a glass while cleaning it.
“Soft and kind,” Klaus commented on his left hand. “Strong and hardworking,” he said upon his right, following the half circle around his thumb. “I do see wonderful things for you in your love life.”
Now David was as sure as he could be that this guy was full of shit.
“And a long life, too. You should watch your cholesterol though.”
“My cholesterol?” A chuckle made it past the mask of professionalism he was desperately clinging to.
“Bad for the heart.”
David shot a pointed look at the remnants of his pancakes between them.
“Oh, no need to worry about little old me, I’m resistant.”
“Is that part of the psychic skillset?”
“I’ve got good genes.”
Whatever spell Klaus had put on David was broken when he leaned back in his chair, inviting the noise of the city and the cool breeze back into their midst.
“You got any plans for the rest of the day, Dave?” he asked after he took a dainty sip from his cup, pinky finger extended and all. As the sun set the shadows got deeper, and the smudged eyeliner stood in stark contrast against winter-pale skin.
No one had called him Dave since he became a man at his Bar Mitzvah.
“Dropping off the tape with editing,” he answered, pointing at his camera. He had all the information he needed. “And finishing up some work. I took the bus, though, if it’s a ride you’re after.”
"Oh, no, it’s just that my sleeping arrangements kind of fell through.”
Did he just wink at him?
“Sleeping arrangements?”
“Yeah. Smashing the guy’s head in’s probably a bit of a mood killer. And he’s in police custody, mind you.”
Something churned in his stomach. It was an icy, almost nauseating feeling – a familiar acquaintant accompanied by his father’s voice once more shouting insults in his head. It effectively shut down his brain-to-mouth filter.
"I didn't think he'd be your type,” he blurted.
Klaus snickered, oblivious to the panic that gripped David. “If it were a question of whether or not I’m into it, I’d spend a lot more nights without a bed to sleep in.”
Something akin to shame replaced the panic. David thought he was a backpacker, finding freedom in going wherever the wind carried him. He was mistaken. Whenever David interviewed unhoused people in the past, he’d always made sure to give them whatever cash he had in his wallet, and a few years ago, he even volunteered at a soup kitchen on Christmas Eve. He knew there were many different types of homelessness but despite believing himself to be relatively open-minded, he was not immune to generalizations and misconceptions. What little he knew about this person formed a picture in his mind that he wasn’t proud of. It was stained by his father’s upbringing. And it came with a slew of questions – about David’s safety, if he should double-check he hadn’t lost any of his cash, if he should put the camera away before he gave Klaus any ideas. Questions about that little interaction he’d seen and attributed to drug use rather than possible mental health issues. The fact Klaus had unmistakably been flirting with him.
David hated himself for these thoughts and the childhood which had put them into his head.
“I should go and get this footage processed.” The camera slipped effortlessly into its bag. “If I hurry I can still make it for the six o’clock news.”
Klaus must have caught on to what was going through David’s mind. He smiled even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s easy to judge someone whose story you don’t know,” he said in a sing-song voice, having seen right through his excuse.
David didn’t want to presume. He didn’t want to judge. He didn’t want to hear his father’s voice in his head the second he caught sight of Klaus. Twelve years and he still couldn’t escape the intruding thoughts. This was about him as much as it was about Klaus, and it wasn’t fair to either of them.
In the end, it was Klaus who got up first. He drained the rest of his spiked coffee, thanked him for the waffles, and vanished as the last rays of light were swallowed by the roofs of the surrounding buildings, leaving behind a chill that was not entirely temperature-related.
David stayed seated for a few minutes longer. He finished his own coffee and handed the waitress a bigger tip than warranted. She grinned, lingering just long enough for David to become uncomfortable, before taking the hint and dishes.
Maybe his boss had a point when he said he didn't have what it takes to be a field reporter.
Reception had changed over to the night shift by the time he returned to the office, without the footage he’d gone out to capture, but a different story he hoped would make his boss happy instead. His path led straight to the editing bay where he sat next to their senior editor Kamal to point out the sections he wanted to use. The framing was straightforward – some b-roll of the scene, and a voice-over introduction would take care of it. Then the sound bites teasing the hero of the story, which would lead them into his interview with Klaus. Choosing the passages he wanted to use from there was a bit more tricky. Despite talking non-stop, Klaus revealed next to nothing personal about himself, which made telling his story the way David wanted to more difficult. In the moment, he’d been too preoccupied with his own inhibitions – if he had a chance for a do-over, he’d absolutely try to weasel more background information out of the mystery hidden underneath the flamboyant exterior. He made notes as they sped through the footage.
“I’ve been doing this job for over a decade,” Kamal commented halfway through, “but I’ve never seen an SOT conducted in a cafe. Do you have a food fetish or something, Katz?”
Rather than risking a splutter, David said nothing and crossed out something in his notes instead. His little freakout was still fresh on his mind and thinking about his father – and uncle, for that matter – was the last thing he wanted to be doing right now.
“What’s it like hanging out with a lunatic?” Kamal asked as he copied the relevant sections so he could start on the rough cut.
David chuckled, the earlier panic slowly subsiding. “He’s a bit eccentric, sure–”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
"You haven’t even met him.”
“Eh, don’t need to. I know plenty of people like him – slackers, the whole lot of ’em.”
There wasn’t anyone quite like Klaus, but he kept that to himself. David focused on the footage instead to make sure the cuts were all in the right place, and did a double-take when they reached the part where Klaus rolled up the sleeve of his coat. He'd been too distracted by the skinny arms to notice at first, but now it was impossible to miss – a tattoo inked just below his wrist. He'd seen it countless times, in a poster of one Allison Hargreeves hanging over his college rommate's bed.
“Holy shit,” Kamal said, head right next to his as they both squinted at the video still. “Our stoned samaritan is an actual superhero.”
David's irreverent, half-hour interview just so happened to have unearthed one of the City’s elusive child celebrities by sheer happenstance. He'd only been twelve years old at the time of their debut, and his father had no interest in an “unsanctioned group of underaged mercenaries encroaching on the US law enforcement’s jurisdiction”, forbidding him from participating in the short-lived craze among kids his age. But he still remembered the day the world was introduced to the now all but forgotten Umbrella Academy.
This changed everything.
“Alright, let’s scratch what we have so far and start again,” Kamal said, already moving on, but David stopped him.
“I’m not sure about this…”
The editor shot him a scandalized look. “Katz, this is huge. I’ve been listening to you complain about your ‘boring, inconsequential’ assignments since you started working here.”
“He’s made a point of not giving a last name, though.”
“So what? He basically told you he's the Séance. Isn’t saving people his whole schtick?" When David still wasn't convinced, Kamal shook his shoulder. "His sister can’t get enough of the press. And didn’t that brother no one knew about publish a book or something?”
David shrugged. Working in the news business didn’t mean he was following every celebrity gossip.
Kamal went in for the kill. “Believe me, a story like this is what gets people promoted around here.”
And that was the thing, wasn’t it? The prospect dangling right in front of him. Break this story, make his boss happy, and get the position he’d been working towards for the last three years.
Twenty minutes later, the rough cut and tracking were done and David dismissed from the editing bay so Kamal could have his “Peace And Quiet At All Times”, as it said on a sign on the door. The chyron read “Klaus Hargreeves: The Planchette Wielding Hitchhiker” when David watched the story later that night during the prime-time news segment, sitting cross-legged on his couch with a cold beer and take-out from his favorite Vietnamese place. It was accompanied with archive footage and the presenters' off-the-cuff commentary as they rehashed the Umbrella Academy's exploits for the young people in the audience, and those who had just woken up from a coma.
He barely paid it any attention. The interview may have ended rather abruptly and not necessarily on the best of terms, but meeting Klaus brought some things into focus that David had been putting off thinking about for a long time. Like how he still let his family dictate his life despite not having been part of it for over a decade.
David had some soul-searching to do.