Archive of Our Own ^beta

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.

Chapter Text

If someone had asked David twenty years ago where he saw himself at thirty, he'd have been expected to say married to a nice girl, with a child and maybe a dog. Something practical, like a German Shepherd.

He’d always been more of a cat person.

The morning after his chance encounter with one of the City’s very own superheroes, David barely made it through the front doors before being accosted by Silvia from reception. She was a diminutive woman but made up for her lack of height with a loud voice.

“David, where have you been? Why haven’t you picked up your phone?”

His watch told him he was two minutes late, hardly a reason for the ambush. He held up the coffee cup and bag of waffles he got from yesterday's cafe in lieu of making breakfast at home.

“My landline was cut a couple days ago,” he answered the second question. “Because of some tree trimming.”

Silvia looked from the bag to his face.

“You should get that fixed, pronto.”

“Katz, in my office!”

David and the receptionist turned towards the stairs where his boss had descended just far enough to see them and was already turning to walk back up again. No time for dawdling in a job like this.

“I need the rest of the tape from last night,” he said as soon as David walked through his open office door. “Editing said you took it home.”

David reached for his camera bag and took out the tape he had indeed held onto after finishing the edit. Strictly for archival purposes, of course.

“How much footage you got on there?”

“Uh, about an hour’s worth of SOT and–”

“Of the guy, I mean.”

“Half of it’s him.”

“Good, give it to whoever’s free and tell them to use as much as they can.”

“Can I ask why–” Before he could finish, the phone started ringing. Using the distraction, he glanced through the office’s large glass windows into the open plan and his colleagues beyond. It was a beehive on the best of days but nothing compared to the utter carnage he'd walked into this morning. Every available phone was ringing – even the interns were fielding calls, and David’s desk was buried under a stack of faxes that lost a couple of pages every time someone rushed past. He could make out the flickering red light on his answering machine. This must be why Silvia had been in his face first thing.

“Tell them we’ll have it ready for eleven!” his boss bellowed before throwing the receiver down. “What are you still doing here?!”

“I was just wondering–”

“Your story about that washed-up Umbrella kid – how did my son put it, it ‘blew up’ overnight.”

“I don’t understand–”

“CNN, Times, Post, even those banshees from the goddamn View want a piece of this guy! Somehow they got hold of my home number, didn’t even get to enjoy my morning coffee!”

David expected the interview to stir up some interest but surely this was a bit excessive?

“Once you’re done with the tape, I need you to go for a follow-up interview.”

Well, this was awkward.

“Uh, I don’t have any contact information…”

David thought he was rather lucky they were standing in full view of an entire office full of reporters.

“Why the hell not?!”

A quick look out the windows showed that their little confrontation had drawn quite an audience – one that didn’t stop whatever it was working on because the phones hadn’t magically stopped ringing, but an audience nonetheless.

He straightened his back.

“Well, sir–”, a stupid habit he wasn’t able to break, “–by nature of, uh, being a free spirit of sorts, Klaus – Mr. Hargreeves doesn’t appear to have a permanent address–”

“Then make some calls and find him! His father’s the most famous man in this town, it can’t be that difficult!”

The phone went off again. “We don’t have him yet!” his boss yelled into the receiver.

David used the opportunity to make his exit.

After dropping off the tape, David returned to the office to wolf whistles, fist bumps, and high fives. It was no secret how much he'd wanted a big break, to work on something other than sound bites and b-roll – had been preparing for this opportunity since he received his master’s degree after four years of raking up student loan debt, in fact. His birthday cake a couple of weeks ago had had a microphone piped on it in frosting, the cake itself shaped like a heart because his perpetual single-dom often elicited comments about his apparent marriage to his job. So far, that narrative had served him just fine.

When David made it to his desk, he spent a moment staring at the paperwork in his overflowing in-tray and the faxes covering everything else, before he decided that he had other priorities and shoved it all into a messy pile to the side, unearthing his phone underneath. If he could get a lead on the guy he might be able to help him get the promotion he’d been angling for. No better way to prove to his boss that he was more than a copywriter. Whenever he tried to dial a number, though, someone would call him instead and he ended up fielding questions from acquaintances at other news stations, a former colleague from his previous job, and even some student from his old college newspaper for an exclusive. Not one to miss out on a golden opportunity, the morning show presenters milked his footage for all it was worth, exaggerating and sensationalizing the story in a way David would be embarrassed had he written the copy for it, instead of that hack Mark A. But such was daytime TV news – glitz and glamor crossed with the gossip and stories that got the audience talking. By lunch, he had finally managed to go through all of his police and city council contacts to no avail, left requests for comment with Sir Reginald Hargreeves’ posh assistant or butler or whoever, and still hadn’t taken a single bite from his breakfast.

Despite everything, the true extent of his little encounter with Klaus didn’t become clear to him until he got a call from Silvia downstairs around two p.m. He choked on his by now soggy waffle when he picked up the phone mid-swallow to the announcement that his father was waiting in line to speak to him. It had been several years by that point since their last conversation.

Katz Sr. kept it brief.

"I see you're moving up in your job."

Even his father, who had watched the same news program for longer than David was alive, switched channels to follow a story his wayward son was working on. It was almost too outlandish to comprehend.

"You always did befriend a certain type,” his dad continued, and whatever elation David had felt about the tiny morsel of recognition froze in a heartbeat. "Your uncle and I were hoping you'd overcome those inclinations by now."

"I was conducting an interview,” David retorted and would have very much liked to punch himself in the face right then and there. He waved off a concerned look from Tina in sports who sat across from him.

This wasn't the time and space to rehash old arguments.

"Then how come you still haven't brought home a wife–"

David disconnected the call.

He'd never asked for anything but his family's acceptance, but even that had been too much.

Right in the middle of a deep, calming breath, Silvia once again came to call – in person this time. It wasn’t thanks to his upbringing that he swallowed the anger still burning in the pit of his stomach to face her with a strained smile.

"I’ve been calling around all morning,” she said, leaning a hip against his desk. “I have a lead on your guy.”

David straightened, pushing away his father’s voice playing on loop in his head.

“My sister's best friend's cousin's yoga teacher saw him last night when she walked home from her studio."

David’s brain cut out there for a second but turned back on just in time for the important information. Silvia handed him a sticky note with an address scribbled across it.

“Apparently, he's got himself a new tattoo."

A reporter’s duties had a surprising amount of overlap with those of a private detective. The trail may appear cold hours after the last sighting but that was where the real work began, and it was a lot more than he’d had to go on five minutes ago.

“You’re the absolute best,” David said as he jumped up, throwing the last of his waffle soup into the trash and grabbing his go-bag all in the same movement. “I owe you one!”

Silvia smirked with a wink. “Anything for you, dear.”

He ran off before it became too awkward. His boss didn’t even shout at him for barging in without knocking once he learned of the lead.

"Call when you find him!" he barked; a rather optimistic declaration given the circumstances. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

David gave a mock salute and made for the bus stop.

The tattoo shop Silvia’s address led him to was wedged between a Portuguese cafe and a grocer, blinds blocking off the majority of the large front window. Various designs were sellotaped to the glass from the inside, along fading Polaroids of happy customers' tattoos and a price list. David stopped for a moment to see if anything caught his fancy.

Inking the body was still frowned upon even in more secular Jewish circles but when he was younger, he entertained the idea of getting a tattoo done as soon as he was legally allowed to make his own choices – out of spite more than anything. He was already a disgrace and failure in his father’s eyes, might as well give people a visible reason for it. A few weeks after his eighteenth birthday, he accompanied a friend to a tattoo shop like this one, only she’d had the blessing of her family to do so. She got a small one, on the ankle of her left foot. He’d stood off to the side and watched, listening to the sound of the needle moving in and out of her skin for twenty minutes, ignoring the queasy sensation in his stomach. When the tattooer moved on to explain the aftercare procedures, he’d grabbed one of the portfolios lying around to have a flip through.

Then, just like now, David didn’t think he would be able to commit to a design he’d want to adorn his body for the rest of his life. It seemed appropriate for the guy who had yet to tell a single soul the truth about himself – he didn’t count those people who had assumed and guessed and prodded.

His trip down memory lane was interrupted when the door opened and some hipster with a long beard and bald head exited. He waved over his shoulder and gave David a nod before trotting down the street in unlaced docs that dragged along the concrete.

David was greeted by a tan and heavily tattooed woman with plugs stretching her earlobes.

“You got an appointment?” she asked, stepping out behind a vintage reception desk. The shop’s interior was a mix of a barber shop and a 1950s diner. Various chairs that wouldn’t look out of place at a dentist’s stood angled around a corner sofa and side table with a few portfolios and magazines at the center of the shop. Privacy screens were shoved to the side, and one wall was plastered with dozens upon dozens of Polaroids. Someone was having their calf tattooed on the other end of the room.

David flashed his press ID out of habit more than anything. If he was going to play detective, he might as well act like one.

“I’m looking for one of your customers. He would have been a walk-in last night, possibly wearing a patchwork coat with dark fur–”

“Oh, Klaus? Yeah, you got the right person to talk to. I’m Cameron.” She plucked a photo off the wall and handed it to him. It showed Klaus with a couple of people he didn’t know, drinking soda and grinning into the camera while a fourth person was showing off their new ink.

“Almost had to throw them out when they tried to sneak alcohol in here,” she said and moved to one of the chairs, fiddling with a detachable armrest as she talked. “Is that guy famous or something?”

“Kind of,” David agreed. “He’s been in the news.”

“He’s not a wanted criminal, is he?”

David laughed. “No, rather the opposite. Do you mind if I keep this?”

Cameron waved which he took as confirmation.

“Do you know where they went afterwards?”

“Off to some club or other, most like. Your guy was all jittery, made inking him rather difficult. Pretty sure they went to get high somewhere, so you’d probably wanna ask around Perseus Street.”

David made a couple of notes, tucking the Polaroid into his notebook as a bookmark.

“Are you working for one of those tabloids? Should I have asked for an autograph?” Cameron shot him a side glance.

“CBC News,” David clarified. “Just looking for a follow-up interview.”

She hummed, spraying disinfectant on the chair to clean it.

“When you find him, tell him to rewrap those tattoos, and to start moisturizing them in a couple of days. And make sure he drinks something other than booze. He was a bit too preoccupied with his benefactor to listen when I explained all of this.”

David thanked her and was about to be on his merry way when a door behind the reception desk opened and a bear of a man with arms the size of tree trunks exited.

“Coffee machine’s busted,” he grunted, and going by the size of his hands, David wouldn’t be surprised if it broke upon one of those fingers pressing a button.

“Told you it’s on the fritz,” Cameron replied. She raised a hand to wave David off but snapped a finger instead. “Oh, wait! Reporter guy, can you show me that photo again?”

She held it out to King Kong looming over both of them. He had so many tattoos that even his face was more ink than skin.

“Isn’t this a friend of yours?”

“Mitchell? Friend’s a strong word. We used to run in the same circles back in the day.”

David wasn’t sure he wanted to know what those circles were. He looked at the guy in the photo Cameron had pointed at. Unassuming at first glance, but then most of him was covered by Klaus basically sitting in his lap.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find him?” he asked, putting on his most professional smile.

“Who wants to know?”

“David Katz, CBC News.” This time, he absolutely flashed the ID on purpose. Anything to make himself more legitimate.

Mr. Kong squinted at the badge, about as impressed as a toddler presented with a piece of broccoli, and gave another grunt. David took that as a good sign.

He knew the area he was going to – heading west, this time. It wasn’t as far as his first leg of the journey but required more logistical challenges. David tried to avoid the subway but today he didn’t mind breathing stale air and feeling like a living sardine if it got him to his destination faster.

In the middle of the day, he wasn’t concerned with running into any trouble or unsolicited approaches. The last time he’d come here was several years ago when he was getting started in his new job and still had a photog by his side. He did a report on some initiatives being rolled out that were supposed to improve living conditions but the number of unhoused people and police cars he saw during the ten-minute walk through the neighborhood was proof nothing at all had changed since then.

He found the apartment building he was looking for, and even a name on a dilapidated intercom. Someone had scribbled “Don’t bother ringing” underneath. The door didn’t close fully, its frame warped by careless use and abuse, so he let himself in, ignored the dodgy elevator, and walked up to the fifth floor. He knocked three times when he found the door with the number corresponding to the one on the intercom.

Under normal circumstances, he’d consider himself a pretty patient person but on this day, he’d be excused for being a little frazzled. With each passing second, his brain told him his luck had run out and no one was home. Going back and canvassing every bar and nightclub on Perseus Street, the hub of the City’s nightlife, on the off-chance he found someone who’d seen Klaus last night, didn’t sound super appealing.

He knocked again after less than a minute, smiling when a tenant from down the corridor walked past with a wary frown.

After a third round of knocks, he heard a groan from inside the apartment, followed by a thump and angry-sounding footsteps. The door revealed a shirtless white man somewhere between his late twenties and mid-thirties, sporting a random assortment of tattoos, dark stubble, and short cropped hair. His lean muscles made him appear small but David was sure they packed a punch. The man gave him a once-over, as if David was the one underdressed for the occasion.

“You a Mormon or something? Don’t you usually show up in pairs?”

He smelled of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol and sweat.

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” David began, once again flashing his press ID. It was starting to feel pretty good. “I’m looking for Klaus–”

Mitchell interrupted before he got to explain how he came to know about this address.

“What's he to you?”

It messed with the script he’d made up on the way over. “Uh,” David said eloquently. “We met yesterday, for an interview, and I wanted to check if–”

“He’s fine. Now fuck off.”

The door was shut in his face without further discussion. Fair enough, but David still had a couple more questions he’d like answered.

The footsteps retreated from the door and thanks to the terrible sound insulation in this building, he could hear muffled voices on the other side. One of them was the gruff baritone of Mitchell. More importantly though, the other was what he believed to be a sleepy-sounding Klaus. He’d had an inkling, but actually finding him here made his life a whole lot easier.

The conversation turned into an argument, emphasized by more footsteps. David was about to knock again when the door was ripped open and Klaus stood in front of him, with unkempt hair and wearing nothing but neon pink briefs. Not that David was looking. It was just the kind of color that was hard to not see.

“Dave!” A grin spread across his face, and when he raised a film-wrapped, shaky hand in greeting, David got a good view of that new tattoo – no need for verbal communication if your hand said "HELLO” for you. He couldn't decide if he should be amused or disturbed by it.

What was definitely disturbing were the dark marks all along his neck and on his wrists.

“How nice of you to check in. Busy night? I did, quite eventful. But that’s neither here nor there. I’d invite you in but this isn’t my house–”

“Tell him to go away!” Mitchell called, stepping up behind him to glare some more.

“I was wondering if you’d be up for a follow-up interview after yesterday–”

“He’s unavailable right now,” Mitchell said.

David looked at Klaus.

“I’m unavailable right now,” he parrotted.

“Are you sure you can’t spare–”

“He already said no – now get lost!”

David stopped Mitchell from closing the door on him again. It probably wasn’t the smartest move but he didn’t want to leave Klaus here under the circumstances.

The scowl turned murderous. “The fuck you think you’re doing?!”

“If I could have a private word with Klaus for one minute–”

Mitchell stepped forward, pushing David out of the doorway. “You can come get him when I say so!”

Klaus wormed his way between them, waving his hands in a pacifying manner. “Why don’t we all calm down, no need to raise our voices–”

“Klaus, get your clothes–”

“Not until he’s paid what he owes me!”

With surprising strength and initiative, Klaus wrangled Mitchell away from David and into the apartment. “Just a minute,” he said sweetly before pulling the door shut again.

The smile dropped when he turned on him.

“What are you doing with a guy like that?” David asked – there was no way he could ignore all those red flags hitting him in the face.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

David took a step back at the scathing tone, his insides growing cold. He hadn’t even considered how his behavior must come across to this man who in all likelihood hadn’t wasted another thought on him since the less-than-stellar conclusion to their first encounter. With a deep breath, David dialed down the anxiety bubbling up in his stomach, forcing a sense of professionalism back into his demeanor.

“There are a few things I need to speak to you about,” he said. “About yesterday.” He knew the studio would be exploiting their little viral moment for as long as they could, and Klaus was more than happy answering his questions during their interview – felt comfortable with it, really. But now that he stood in front of him and saw all the indications of a troubled individual he’d dismissed yesterday, David couldn’t help but wonder if he shouldn’t have kept his identity a secret after all.

“Guilty conscience?” Klaus asked as he invaded his personal space, with a sneer that was akin to a punch to the gut.

“You know?”

“Word spreads quickly when your face is in the news.”

Well, that saved him from a rather awkward confession.

“Can we talk about this? Somewhere else, if possible.”

The crease between Klaus’ eyebrows softened a bit as he backed off, crossing his arms instead – at least it wasn’t an outright ‘no’. His fingers pulled at the skin stretched across his elbows.

It was cold in the hallway, and he was still in a state of undress. David had half a mind to shrug off his jacket but decided against it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, feeling like it was safe to do so now.

“Peachy.”

David sighed, steeling himself for another explosive reaction. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you don’t look ‘peachy.’”

Klaus' smile was as sharp as a razor. He was vibrating with nervous energy, unable to stand still.

“Occupational hazard, Mr. Katz. ”

It took a full three seconds for David's brain to put what he’d learned about him so far and this statement together. His realization must have shown on his face because Klaus’ look turned into a challenge.

“I had needs, Kevin here took care of them. Seems only fair I compensate him.”

Before David could say anything else, Mitchell decided he’d given them enough time to sort out their business. Klaus turned at the sound of the opening door, pulling his arms a bit closer around his torso. There were finger-shaped bruises along his hip bones as well.

“How much does he owe you?” David asked. He was glad looks could not actually kill or Klaus would have committed second-degree murder on the spot.

“What?” he and Mitchell said in unison, even if their intonations were quite different.

David patted his coat pockets, searching for his wallet. He didn’t know what kind of drugs Klaus had taken or how much or what the street value was these days but it was a start.

Klaus grew more and more antsy, deciding he was done with the conversation.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to go powder my nose.”

He pushed past Mitchell who followed him with his eyes before shooting David a sly grin.

“He knows his place.”

David couldn’t have known Klaus had meant what he said literally. After two or three minutes of increasingly heated attempts to convince Mitchell to let him speak to Klaus again, the man in question returned, dressed in the leather pants and sheer top from yesterday, and pupils blown wide. He strutted past both of them, his coat over one arm and bag over the other shoulder.

“Always a pleasure,” he said with a little wave of his newly branded “GOODBYE” hand.

David didn’t linger to gauge Mitchell's reaction, taking the win and following in Klaus’ wake.

They seemed to have a similar train of thought, all but jogging down the stairs, stepping out onto the street as another patrol car rolled by, the officers watching them through the windshield. Without a word, Klaus led them toward the closest bus stop, speeding up when one came around the corner – evidently not concerned with where it was going. He sat down toward the back while David paid, patting the seat next to him when David moved from handrail to handrail as the driver sped off again. Only once they rounded another corner did he allow himself to relax.

Klaus’ nervous energy dissipated after a few more minutes, leaving him spaced out. Whatever he had taken at Mitchell's filed away the edges that had piqued David’s interest when they first met, and replaced them with detachment and an air of confusion, as if he couldn't remember how he’d gotten here. Ketamine, David guessed, based on previous encounters. Which was quite a step up from yesterday’s joint. Perhaps not the best drug to be washing down with the contents of the flask he took from his bag, either. But David didn’t make a habit of telling people what they should and shouldn’t do; he liked to lead with a good example. He could start by apologizing. Instead, he hid behind his job again.

“My boss would like to meet you,” David said.

Klaus snorted unattractively. “Gotta milk this for all it’s worth, huh?”

The self-awareness was shocking given his current state.

“There’ve been other news outlets asking about you, too,” David said. “Jimmy Kimmel wants you on his show. You could make some money with your story.”

Klaus considered it for a second before he rolled his eyes at the empty seat in front of him. "Not gonna lie, these fifteen minutes of fame were fun last night. But that’s probably not a good idea. Unless the money’s good–” He frowned at the seat again. “Nevermind. My manager says it’ll only get me into more trouble.”

“Trouble with your family?”

Klaus laughed, even if it was muted. “Trouble with my debtors. ”

The bus terminated a few stops later, spitting them out in a business hub. David tried to orient himself without success – most of the surrounding buildings were soulless offices, with a few small cafes and chain food restaurants here and there catering to the people working in them. He did spot a public telephone, though, remembering he’d promised to call with an update.

David deposited Klaus on a nearby staircase leading up to a large steel-and-glass building while he went to call his boss. He watched out of the corners of his eyes as Klaus went from leaning against a guardrail to trying and failing to pull himself into a seat on top of it, to just sort of hanging from it, a mess of mismatched fabrics and limbs and tousled hair. He somehow managed to light a cigarette in that position.

“Katz,” his boss greeted him once Silvia patched him through. “You've better found our guy!”

David looked back outside in time to see Klaus slip from his precarious position. Cat-like, he got his feet under him instead of face-planting, which was impressive given his level of intoxication. He sat on the bottom step.

“Some hot shot producer woman from Hollywood called,” his boss continued without waiting for his reply. “She wants a piece of him after we’re done.”

“That’s actually why I’m calling–”

“We need to try and secure an exclusivity contract with him. We do the interviews, I don’t care what other stuff he does on the side.”

Over by the stairs, Klaus seemed to be having an argument with himself, or whatever hallucinations he may or may not be seeing.

“I haven’t found him yet.” The lie was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He’d worked in this business long enough to know all the persuasion tactics people like his boss used on people like Klaus. David didn’t like the idea of exploiting him for whatever that producer lady had planned. Despite the cheerful persona it was not difficult to see the troubled character underneath – no one wakes up one day and decides to become an addict. Klaus may say he didn’t want any more publicity now but once someone handed him a check with a couple of zeroes, David didn’t doubt it would override whatever reservations he had.

“Then what the hell are you calling me for? Do your goddamn job, unless you'd rather I put Mark A on it!”

His boss hung up before David got another word in. He could have sworn the dial tone was mocking him.

Klaus smiled around his cigarette when David exited the phone booth. He wouldn’t mind a drag right about now.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

The stone was cold as he sat next to Klaus’s feet, who’d leaned his back against the banister, legs outstretched along the length of the step.

“No, I’m not taken. I know, scandalous, who could deny this face?” Both hands framed his jaw, a bit of ash falling on his sleeve without him noticing.

Cute, but not the question David had wanted to ask.

“Don’t you have any contact with your family?” It had been on his mind since he saw the tattoo on his arm. Why was the son of Sir Reginald Hargreeves hitchhiking? Why was he, for all intents and purposes, homeless? Why did he have to “exchange favors” for drugs when his sister lived an A-lister's life on the West Coast?

Where was his support system?

“What, are you looking for a new angle for your next story? Not satisfied with only one ex-Umbrella kid?” Klaus poked the camera bag with his toe.

“I told my boss I haven’t found you,” David admitted. “It was easier than telling him the truth.”

Klaus chortled. “No one in your line of work wants to know the truth, not really,” he said, resting his head on his hand as his eyes roamed the street, jumping from one passerby to the next. “You ask your leading questions, people tell you what you want to hear, and your watchers tune in for the entertainment of it all. It’s one big spectacle. No one cares about the little children hidden behind those masks.”

David had to admit he was a bit lost. Somewhere in this jumbled answer lay something that might help explain who Klaus truly was.

“I’m just surprised you said you didn’t have anywhere to stay. Are you not close with your siblings?”

Klaus’ eyes flicked to something further up the staircase and back again.

“You mean present, or in general?” His high-pitched laugh sounded fake to David’s ears. Klaus ground the cigarette on the concrete and flicked the butt into the street where it was picked up by the tires of a passing car.

“So, you got anything else planned? Daylight’s dwindling!”

David searched for the sun hidden behind clouds and highrises to determine the cardinal direction. One of his father’s many lessons in his childhood, meant to prepare him for a career he didn’t want.

“Find a way back downtown I guess,” he said with a shrug.

“There’s a subway five minutes from here.” Klaus pointed to what David thought was East. “Not a fan, personally. I’m happy to lead you back to civilization if you buy me dinner later, though.”

David smiled with a chuckle. As far as his boss was concerned, he was still following non-existent leads, might as well get his steps in. And the fresh air should help sober Klaus up.

They were almost polar opposites but David saw a bit of himself in Klaus. The estranged family, the detachment, the search for something as he climbed into any car stopping long enough, until the driver dumped him wherever was convenient for them. Neither of them seemed to have any stable connections.

“Let’s take the scenic route!” Klaus declared as he jumped up. he only avoided falling straight on his face because David grabbed his arms as he slipped on the ledge of the step.

“My knight in shining armor,” Klaus swooned before he picked a direction and started walking. David didn’t know any better and followed.

When Klaus said he wanted to take the scenic route, he meant it – over the next two hours, he led David through neighborhoods he’d never been to, across small parks and along the riverside where it felt like they weren’t even in the City anymore. He stopped whenever something of interest caught his eye – graffiti art or a couple of old men playing chess or a street vendor hidden where only the locals would find them. Klaus demonstrated an uncanny talent to connect with anyone they met along the way. David was by no means unaccustomed to striking up a conversation with strangers – after all, it was his job to make strangers from all walks of life share their stories with him. He’d been working on it his whole life, during the occasional Shabbat meals with other families from the community, at Bar Mitzvahs and other social gatherings, and later working in his uncle’s hardware store. College had helped him loosen up around people from very different backgrounds than him.

But Klaus was a natural.

David watched him devouring homemade dolmas and having what looked like a highly philosophical conversation with the man selling them, in a language he didn’t understand. When they stopped at a corner shop for some bottled water, Klaus chatted up an old lady while he was waiting. She bought him a bag of Funyuns and wished them a good day after David was done paying. There was a beauty to him, and not just in the literal sense – but yes, that, too. David had eyes, after all.

Klaus didn’t care for the strange looks he got along the way. David would give a lot to feel equally as comfortable in his skin. How much of that confidence came from the little flask Klaus kept drinking from? When he emptied it not long after leaving the shop, he extracted a bottle of whiskey from his inner coat pocket, attempting to fill up his flask on the go. David didn’t even notice him stealing the bottle. With a sigh and a fondness he couldn’t explain, he watched his charge spill half of it on the ground, cursing up a storm all the while. He made a mental note to go back the next day to pay for it.

By the time they made it to the central bus station, David was once again parched, famished, and quite frankly ready for bed. Klaus agreed with two of his sentiments and reminded him of the dinner he’d been promised.

“We can’t have waffles again”, he said matter-of-factly as he made a beeline for the Mexican food truck parked outside the station. “Would this be considered our second date? Can we hold hands and feed each other now?”

It was a harmless joke – he couldn’t know what an absolute storm it raised. Unlike Klaus, David had very much noticed the looks from people they passed on the way – the hickeys hard to miss with Klaus’ choice of apparel and still somewhat disheveled appearance overall. And the phone call with his father this morning may have only lasted half a minute but the words had kept David in a strong grip since.

He clung with desperation to his professionalism now. Looking at Klaus was dangerous, so he laughed along and pretended it didn’t affect him at all.

Klaus was happy to fill the ensuing silence himself as they queued, babbling on and on about some of the interesting places he’d had food in; the weirdest one, in David’s opinion, being in a tree. Not a tree house, an actual tree. “Hiding from the bears,” apparently. Maybe he didn’t know bears could climb.

They got tamales and beers and sat down in a nearby park that was deserted now that it was dark. The temperatures had dropped considerably after sundown but Klaus seemed unperturbed, and David wasn’t going to let the guy dressed in a crop top one-up him.

“Mutually beneficial arrangements are my favorite,” Klaus said as he peeled open the husk to reveal its contents. “Food that someone else paid for tastes a thousand times better.” Despite the continued alcohol intake, Klaus was more sober than he had been most of the day. The tremor in his hands got so bad he almost dropped his dinner, though, speaking to the severity of his addiction.

“Is this what you do, then? Live from one day to the next, going along with whatever you fancy?”

“Much more interesting than a nine-to-five, don’t you think?” Klaus challenged. “Not that I’d know, I’ve never had one of those.”

“A nine-to-five?”

“A stable job.”

There was a hint of bitterness in his voice that was unexpected. He frowned at something David couldn’t see before brushing off whatever was on his mind and taking another bite.

“What about you? This your big dream, Dave?” Hearing the nickname was still strange, even if mumbled through a mouthful of pork, but he was warming up to it. “Your name in front of the big news? I didn’t peg you for the vain type.”

David shook his head. “It’s not about that.” He emptied his bottle, hoping for a bit of liquid courage. This wasn’t something he talked about, ever.

“I guess I want to prove to my father that I’m not the failure he makes me out to be.”

There, like ripping off a band-aid glued with the sticky bit to a leaking wound.

“What, did he want you to become a doctor or something?”

“Soldier,” David replied. “Like he and my uncle and my grandfather and his father, too.”

A snort was not the reaction he’d expected after his confession.

“We’re not so different, then,” Klaus said, aimed his empty bottle at a nearby bin, and missed spectacularly. He grumbled but didn’t move to pick it up.

“I don’t know,” David replied. “You don’t strike me as someone who cares about what others think of him.”

“I don’t,” he agreed. “Have you seen this face?” He cackled again. It was infectious. “But what does a strapping young man like you have to be concerned about?” he continued. “Tall, handsome, and full-time employed – what could your old man possibly want more?”

“A son who’s straight,” he blurted, gritting his teeth. “A son who isn’t gay, ” he specified. It seemed so insignificant in the grand scheme of things but to him, it was the single most debilitating aspect of his life.

The moment was missing a dramatic music cue, but other than the bark of a dog somewhere on the other side of the park, it was quiet.

He chanced a glance at a bewildered Klaus.

“That’s the problem?”

“It is when you grew up with my father,” David confirmed.

“And I thought my family is messed up. What does it matter anyway? Looks like you made a good living for yourself here.”

He had, hadn’t he?

“Do you not wish you’d have a better relationship with your folks?” David asked. He realized he’d not heard mention of a mother being involved in his life at all. Another thing they had in common.

Klaus scoffed. “My dad’s a capital-A Asshole, I'm happy if I never see him again.”

That’s what David had thought once, too.

“My dad sent me to live with my uncle when he caught me with a boy from temple.”

“Mine locked me in a mausoleum.”

Had David not just finished his beer, he would have done a spit-take straight out of the movies. “What? Why?!”

“Exposure therapy.”

A picture was starting to form in his head as some of the puzzle pieces that made up Klaus moved into the right order. Maybe his own family wasn’t so bad after all. At least no one had ever tried to torture him.

An hour or so of sharing fucked up family stories later, the long day started to catch up with David for good. He would love to stay on this bench until the sun rose again but he’d slept like shit and still had a long way ahead of him to get home. And the workload of doom waiting for him the next day, no doubt.

He was also freezing.

When he hinted at calling it a day, Klaus jumped to his feet and said that this was his “cue to skedaddle”. He shot him a look David could not quite interpret. Or maybe he could but did not want to deal with any of the complicated emotions it sparked in him.

He was just a reporter, and Klaus his interviewee, after all.

“You got somewhere to stay?” he asked before the moment became too awkward. Somewhere other than with Kevin Mitchell, he didn’t say.

“I know a guy,” Klaus replied, making alarm bells go off in David’s head.

Not if he could help it.

“Let me get you a hotel or something.”

A frown appeared on Klaus’ face, gone so fast he may have imagined it.

Klaus pondered his offer for a few seconds, making a show of debating the pros and cons before giving in with a dramatic sigh as if all of his plans had been ruined.

“Sure, why not. I know the perfect place, too, it’s not far.”

David had lived in the City for twelve years but never been inside the Hotel Obsidian, despite passing it often on his travels around town. It was even grander on the inside and suddenly, he was very aware of the little amount of cash in his wallet. He’d had something a bit more grounded in mind when making the offer but also did not want to be stingy and take it back now.

A few guests were lounging in the lobby, their outfits as out of time as he felt out of place, and yet befitting the ambiance of the place. The indirect light sources produced colorful patterns and deep shadows on the walls and floor.

“I know I know, very bouji, but they’re reasonable people.” Klaus made for the reception desk that was currently unoccupied except for a pug seated on a cushion next to a “Cash Upfront” sign. David scratched the dog’s head while Klaus rang the bell. When no one answered, he leaned over the counter as if to check if someone was hiding underneath it.

“Busy man, that Chet,” he commented.

David’s eyes fell on an ATM towards the back of the lobby, peeking out behind a barbershop sign. He’d never seen a hotel with its own barbershop.

“They have a tailor, too,” Klaus said, following his gaze.

David got out his wallet, finding twenty-five bucks and some change, which he thought might just be enough to pay for a night in the broom closet, no matter what Klaus said. He threw the notes on the counter.

“Let me go hit the ATM real quick,” he said.

It only took a couple of minutes but when he returned, Klaus and the money were gone. In their stead was an older chap right out of a Wes Anderson movie.

“Room for one?” the man asked, pointing at the sign.

David sighed and shook his head.

He didn’t know how to feel about this – betrayed because Klaus had used him, broken his trust, taken something from him for his own gain? A bit hypocritical, given the reason they ended up in this situation in the first place.

“Sorry, I just needed to use your ATM,” he said.

“Very well.”

It was disappointment, David thought as he stepped out into the night again. They’d understood each other, to a degree. Klaus was the type of person who was easy to open up to, who made David want to confront some things within only a day of meeting him.

It would have been nice to have a friend outside of work. But as per usual, David put a barrier between himself and anyone who could disturb his status quo.

He could have offered him his couch instead.

The cold seeped through his coat as he headed for the nearest bus stop that would take him home.

Chapter Text

If someone had asked David twenty years ago where he saw himself at thirty, he’d have hoped to be surrounded by people who understood and liked him for who he was. Someone who encouraged him to try new things and didn’t let him get complacent.

Someone who filled the hole where his family’s love and acceptance were supposed to be, instead of bigotry and rejection.

When David arrived at the office the next day, he was out of breath and ready for a nap. Sleep had once again eluded him most of the night, resulting in repeatedly hitting the snooze button until he shot up half an hour later than he should have, wide awake and bone-tired at the same time. He didn’t even have time to buy his morning coffee and paper.

Silvia bounced on him the second he pushed through the revolving door. 

“David, you need to fix that phone of yours!” she said in lieu of a good morning. His appearance stopped her in her tracks. “Is that the same shirt you wore yesterday?” 

He had never been overly concerned with his looks or fashion or any of the things people stereotypically associated with men like him. A couple years back, some local VIP’s assistant gave him a once-over that haunted him in his dreams until he invested in a few pairs of nice slacks and a tie. David tucked at the flannel underneath his coat. 

“It was a two-for-one deal,” he said. “I like the fabric. It's very soft.”

Silvia sighed. “And here I thought you were doing the walk of shame. Anyway, the boss is looking for you. Better prepare yourself, he’s already had two coffees.”

Did that man ever sleep? The answer was probably no, although, unlike the rest of them, he did reserve the privilege to take all weekends off.

“Katz!” his boss yelled from the doorway to his office, even though he was already headed in his direction anyway. “Did you find him yet or what?” 

“Uh, no, actually–”

“Then what the hell are you doing here? What’s the point of having an exclusivity agreement if we can’t make use of it?!”

“We don’t have one, actually–”

“Do I look like I care?!” 

He threw a copy of the City Times in David’s face – the one he hadn’t been able to read yet.

The front page showed a photo of six children in matching school uniforms and domino masks, and the City’s wealthiest patron, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, in front of a large bank building.

“CNN aired a segment during their prime time spot last night. Every goddamn news outlet in the country’s picked it up, and yet we are unable to get any new footage of the guy living in our own backyard! We’re looking like fucking amateurs!”

David tuned out his boss’ raging. The paper’s headline read: “The Truth About The ‘Planchette Wielding Hitchhiker’: Fall Of A Superhero”. Next to the article was a mugshot of Klaus after what must have been a three-week-bender ending in a bar fight. David opened the paper to find more childhood photos, and in an info box a “Best Of” his lengthy rap sheet.

His boss was still going.

“If it wasn’t enough that the agencies and late-night shows and Hollywood are driving me nuts, I now also have the police on my ass! Did you know your guy was supposed to come in for a witness statement but never showed? Not to mention the asshole whose skull he bashed in is suing him for assault!”

“He’s what? ” His boss stopped mid-pace, arms up in the air, not expecting to be disrupted at this point in his rant. “Can he do that?”

“I don’t know! That’s why the police want a statement, so you better get that guy down here yesterday! If they find him first, we can kiss our follow-up good-bye!”

Cold dread spread from the top of David’s skull down to his toes. 

“Katz…” his boss positively growled. Whatever he read in David’s face spelt trouble. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He was a terrible liar, the situation not helped by the fact he was desperately trying not to catch his boss’ eyes. It was one thing to stretch the truth over the phone – if he’d ever be subjected to a polygraph test, he’d fail by default just from the sheer stress of it. Now would be the perfect time for someone to knock and interrupt.

There was a knock on the door followed by Silvia poking her head in.

“I have three reporters and a couple of police officers downstairs who want to speak to David.”

“Tell them to fuck off!”

“I can’t tell the police to fuck off. ”

David withered under the boss’ glare. “This is your mess, go deal with it. I want none of this to reflect badly on the station, you got that? I’ve already had upper management up my ass before I had my morning coffee – I won’t hesitate to give them a piece of you if it comes to it!”

David nodded and exited in a hurry. He asked Silvia to stall while he checked his messages, needing a moment to come up with a strategy before facing anyone. He hadn’t done anything wrong in the eyes of the law but he also didn’t want to incriminate Klaus. Missing a witness interview with the police wasn’t a big deal as far as he knew, but if he was being sued by the other guy? That complicated things. Especially once the police found out about his little drug problem. Didn’t he say they’d shared a joint before Roberts freaked out and hit that lady? Would that be a viable line of defense – blaming it all on the addict who supplied him with weed and then bashed his head in afterward?

His desk hadn’t magically cleaned itself since yesterday – rather the opposite. The inbox tray was a lost cause so he scooped up any new faxes and post-it notes people had left and added them to the growing stack threatening to topple over any second. Once freed from under the rubble, the answering machine blinked furiously at him, prompting him to pick up the receiver and go through the recorded messages. It at least gave the illusion he was doing something more productive than freaking out.

He half-listened to whatever the first few callers had to say, thoughts running in circles as he did so, until a familiar voice stalled his finger that was about to push the forward button. Mind still reeling, he didn’t comprehend what he was hearing so he went back to the beginning of the message. The automated voice told him it had been received at two-eighteen this morning.

“–was that a beep? Oh! Heyyy, Dave! David, Señor Katz sir, this is Klaus speaking…” The words were slurred but coherent. “I uh, I tried calling a few times but you didn’t pick up–” 

David rubbed his eyes behind which he could feel a headache starting to build. He remembered stoner logic from his uni days – did Klaus think he slept under his desk? 

“Ben says you’re mad because of the money I stole…” The voice trailed off, getting muffled as Klaus seemed to turn away from the receiver. David thought he heard him arguing with someone. “Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I’ll pay it back, or whatever. I just need a teeny weeny favor… Yes, yes, another one, shut up!” 

It was like listening to someone on a bad trip. Given who was leaving the message, that was still likely to be true but not the whole story.

“I’m in a bit of a pickle so if you get this I could use a chaperone, and my brother doesn’t answer my calls at the moment so I don’t – I mean, you’re kind of my only option… Oh, shit.”

Sounds of a commotion came through the receiver before the message cut off abruptly. His insides froze as his mind provided a stray comment from the previous day's outing, about Klaus keeping a low profile because of owing some people money.

David wasn’t angry about the cash Klaus stole. He was angry he had let him run off in the first place. Why hadn’t he taken him home? Who was he kidding, he knew why.

He forwarded through a message from one of the night crews leaving an update on whatever they were filming last night. The next one after that was from a nurse over at the Arthur Lee Free Clinic, a good six or seven miles from where he and Klaus had parted last night. She sounded young – the clinic was run by student volunteers if David wasn’t mistaken.

“I appreciate it’s the middle of the night but I have a gentleman here without papers, going by the name of Klaus. We found your number on a napkin he had in his pockets. He says he doesn’t have any emergency contacts but I thought I’d give it a try. Can you please call back at your first opportunity–”

David grabbed a pen to scribble down the number on the nearest surface. Then he stopped the tape, picked up the phone, and waited impatiently for someone to answer. When he got through, it was a different voice, a shift nurse who hadn’t been on duty when Klaus came in, but she dived into the records for him.

“Got him,” she said after a few minutes of shuffling. “Ah, yes – scrawny guy, interesting fashion choices? Not his first visit here.” David wasn’t sure he wanted to know about the other occasions. “Says here he was patched up and let go around five thirty this morning.”

“I don’t assume he left an address where to find him?” 

“Are you family?”

“No, I, uh, I work for the CBC–”

“Well then I’m afraid I can’t disclose any personal medical information, I’m sure you know the drill.”

He’d seen every episode of Grey’s Anatomy if that counted. 

“I know you can’t tell me anything but he’s in trouble, and I really need to find him. I’ve got the police here, they’re looking for him, too.” Which was sort of true so he didn’t feel too bad about lying to the nurse.

“The police are welcome to contact us through the usual channels,” she said.

David failed to suppress a groan. “This is all my fault…” he muttered. “I should have never outed him.” With a sigh, he straightened up again, conscious that he wasn’t alone in the office.

“Uh,” he said to the nurse still on the line, “can you at least tell me if he’s alright? I mean, I realize you can’t say what happened or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’m the one who caused it and I just need to know that he’s okay…”

For a moment, he thought the nurse had hung up on him after all. Then he heard a little exhale.

“Even if I could tell you, I don’t know anything.” There was another pause before she said: “Try the shelter near Summit Park, it’s where we get a lot of his sort from. If he got in trouble, he’ll want to lay low for a while.”

The dial tone signaled the end of the call.

He phoned Silvia, telling her he may have a lead on Klaus (again) and to hold off any visitors. He would deal with his boss later, and Silvia would be swayed with a box of her favorite chocolates to apologize for leaving her to deal with the police. 

David grabbed his things and made his way to the other side of the building to go out through the delivery entry, where he wouldn’t run into anyone waiting for him in the foyer.

Once the bus spit him out at the park entrance, David asked his way to a run-down structure close by that was a mix between a loft apartment building and a straight-up warehouse. One of the double doors was propped open with an empty water bottle wedged into the gap between the door and pavement. It let in enough light to make out a messy reception-type area, even if it was little more than a foldable picnic table. A smoker stood off to the side of the entrance, nodding at two women entering the building.

“Hey,” David called as he came within earshot. The smoker ignored him but one of the women – her vibrant red dreads stood in stark contrast to their drab surroundings – stopped and eyed his approach warily. 

“I’m looking for a friend.” David held up the Polaroid from the tattoo shop he’d fished out of his notebook. “His name’s Klaus.”

“Lots of people looking for him,” the woman said, crossing her arms in front of her sizable chest. “Most of them unwelcome here.” Her voice was almost as deep as his own, and she towered above him on five-inch heels with a matching glower demonstrating her displeasure. 

“He called me last night, asking for help. I didn’t get the message until this morning.”

That softened the pinched muscles around her mouth. The smoker went inside, eying him as she passed. 

“I also got a call from the hospital but they couldn’t tell me anything, and I don’t know where to find him–”

The woman turned back to the entrance, clearly done with him. She kicked the plastic bottle out of the gap, making it clear he wasn’t invited to follow, but caught the door before it fell shut.

“What’s your name?”

The fact she’d asked was a good sign, right? 

“Uh, tell him it’s, uh, Dave? If he’s there?”

She gave a quick nod. “I’ll see if he wants to speak to you.”

Ever the optimist, David pulled his collar closer around his neck, put his hands in his coat pockets, and stared at the door like a dog waiting for its owner to return from work. Or that’s what he imagined it to be like – he’d never owned a pet. After five minutes or so, he wondered how big this place was, and another five minutes after that, he accepted he might be in for the long haul. His feet were starting to hurt from standing still and the icy wind had numbed his entire face by now, so he looked around and went to lean against a tree opposite the house instead. 

Maybe it was the fact he was staring at a homeless shelter that made him appreciate how vital institutions like it were for people who’d otherwise be forced to spend their day out in the cold like he was right now, only they may not have the benefit of a thick coat and money to buy a hot drink to warm up again. It demonstrated how much David did not yet understand about Klaus’ situation. A day ago David had judged him for subjecting himself to a guy like Kevin Mitchell, but without anyone else to turn to, what other option did he have?

David’s heart rate shot up every time the door opened, pummeling with disappointment when someone distinctly not-Klaus left the building and shot him a look as they walked past. Others entered for a few minutes and came out with a scarf or hat or some other article of clothing someone must have donated to the shelter. There was a bag full of discarded clothes in his own wardrobe he’d been meaning to bring to his closest Goodwill but not gotten around to yet. Maybe it would find better use in a place like this one. 

After half an hour, he didn’t even react to the sound of the door anymore, frozen to the spot by now. Just when he decided to count his losses, a pair of tattered old Converse shuffled into view of his lowered gaze.

“What's up, doc?” Klaus asked with an expression that did not match the quip at all. His eyes were bloodshot – from drugs or lack of sleep or both–, skin paler than the day before. It made the spectacular bruising on his face and what could be seen of his ribcage, not to mention the remaining hickeys on his neck, stand out in stark contrast. He was still wearing the same scant clothing, but it was now ripped in places and crusted with dried blood. 

David was only about an inch taller than him but Klaus appeared much smaller, shoulders hunched and head lowered, contrary to his larger-than-life personality.

Words failed him. Relief occupied all of David's mental capacity that wasn’t spent on shivering from the cold, rendering him mute when he should be saying something.  

Klaus turned back around with a scoff. “Good talk,” he said. The spike of anxiety coursing through David dislodged his brain malfunction and his hand shot out to grab Klaus’ shoulder. He didn’t miss the pained flinch and let go immediately. A small patch of hair had been shaved from the base of Klaus' skull where David could make out a fresh cut. Whoever had stitched it back together had made an effort to even out the hair on the other side but not with any success.

“Where are you going?” he asked stupidly. 

Klaus seemed to think so, too, pointing at the large doors leading back inside. “You have any idea how difficult it is to get a bed in a shelter in this town? I’m not risking someone snatching it up so you can stare at me with your… stupid… puppy dog eyes…” He trailed off, something akin to embarrassment coloring his cheeks.

Funny, David thought Klaus was the one who had the kicked puppy look down to a tee.

“Wouldn't it be better to find somewhere more safe to stay under the circumstances?”

“You mean the ones you put me in?”

David cringed at the biting tone.

“I already have a babysitter, I don’t need another one.” 

“I’m sorry,” David said, raising his hands in surrender. The best thing he could do right now was to try and de-escalate the situation. “Your message really concerned me. The hospital called, too, but you’d already left by the time I called back.”

“If you were so worried, why didn’t you pick up in the first place?” Klaus challenged, pulling the crumpled napkin with David’s number from a pocket to wave it accusingly in his face, drawn up to his full height now.

David couldn’t help a little bit of annoyance shining through as he said: “I was at home, Klaus, asleep–”

Oh.

Klaus’ eyes widened, evidently coming to the same conclusion as him.

Oh.

“Did you think that was my personal number?”

“You gave it to me on a napkin! ” 

“Because I didn’t have a business card!”

In retrospect, this little misunderstanding might explain a few things.

“You know, that does explain a lot…” Klaus mumbled in agreement, looking off to his right. 

“My landline’s not working anyway,” David repeated the last couple days’ litany. “Tree damage.”

Klaus deflated, sinking back into himself. His eyes darted back to the doors, forcing David to make a drastic decision without time to consider it first.

“I’m here to pick you up,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he’d accept no arguments. There was no way he’d let Klaus walk back into that house, let alone seek out another one of his friends, until he found out what had happened in the first place. Shelters may provide protection from the elements but not necessarily the violence found on the streets. 

Klaus sounded dejected. “Guess I could have saved myself the long walk here.”

“You walked? What happened to the money you took?”

Defiance crept back into his demeanor. It seemed to be an instinctive reaction whenever challenged on any of his decisions. “You used me for your big story, I used you for food and drug money. It’s your fault you didn’t see that coming.” 

“I didn’t use you–”

But Klaus waved him off, done with the argument. “I hope that office of yours has a shower. I gotta put my face back on for your interview or whatever.”

The smell of alcohol and weed surrounded him like armor.

“We’re not going to the office. As I promised, I’ll keep you out of the limelight if that’s what you want.” Provided he didn’t run off again and/or get discovered by another reporter, or the police.

Klaus wasn’t convinced.

David should offer to pay for another hotel room but he didn’t want a repeat of last night. He wasn’t proud of his distrust but like Klaus said – he should have seen it coming. 

“You can shower at my place,” he said, jaw set in anticipation of resistance. 

The expression flickering across Klaus’ face was as complicated as the emotion churning in David’s stomach. 

“And then you can do whatever you want,” he added quickly. "I’ll deal with my boss.”

Whatever Klaus was searching for in his face, he and the empty space next to his shoulder agreed his offer was acceptable.

It took over an hour and two changes to make it to the other side of the City to David’s neighborhood. His apartment was in a never renovated, pre-war era building that benefitted from a quiet street and neighbors old enough to have lived in it for almost as long as it had been standing. His landlady took pity on him when he first moved in – twenty-seven, almost broke, with student loan debt he’d still be paying off by the time he was her age, and starting at the bottom of his newest employer’s food chain. She sublet the apartment her daughter used to live in and charged him the same she did her, which was half what he’d usually pay for a space like this. In return, he made sure to pay his rent in advance, kept the place in good shape, the noise down after nine p.m., and helped attend to the little greenhouse garden on the rooftop that her late husband built half a century ago. 

Klaus wasn’t the first person he brought home. There’d been that time a colleague came by for a little get-together after his first week and the guy’s last day on the job. And that time he got really drunk at some politician’s fundraiser and woke up next to his table's waiter with very little memory of the night before. And that time he got slightly less drunk at a bar full of people celebrating Pride. 

Out of all of them, Klaus was without a doubt the most colorful one. All David asked was that he finish his cigarette before entering the building. Once inside the flat, he pointed out which door led to the bathroom and handed Klaus the only clean towel he had. 

“Do you need spare clothes or anything–” he asked but Klaus had already shut the door behind him. He had barely spoken a word the entire ride over, wincing and hugging his arms tighter around his ribs every time the bus hit a pothole.

With a sigh, David went to make coffee and clean up some of the mess he’d let pile up over the last few days. He didn’t own a lot of stuff, picking up a couple of sweater vests for the laundry and a few stray dishes, but it kept his mind off the man currently boiling himself in the shower if the steam wafting out from underneath the door was any indication. 

He poured his second cup when Klaus exited the shower, now wearing leather pants without lacing, and a gray sleeveless shirt. His hair was combed out, clinging neatly to his scalp as it dried, and David had the irrational urge to muss it up again.

“Oh, you read my mind!” Klaus proclaimed as he sauntered over, dropping his bag and coat on the floor next to the couch before throwing himself onto it, so close David could feel the residual warmth radiating off him. An overwhelming smell of almonds tickled David’s nose, the chemical kind courtesy of the shampoo he bought because it was fifty percent off. Klaus grabbed the second mug David had put out – it read “Good luck finding better co-workers than us!”, a parting gift from his old job. He drank it black, all in one go, sitting back with a sigh afterward. 

“Starting to feel alive again!” he said in a U-turn that made David’s head spin. His eyes were unfocused, indicating the reason for the sudden mood change.

The couch was old and soft and seemed to swallow him, riding up the fabric of his shirt to expose even more bruising – darker than the patches of brown and yellow along his jaw.

Not that David was looking, the color just happened to catch his attention.

Despite his job, it wasn’t in his nature to be nosy, but he couldn’t help asking: “What happened?”

The serene smile on Klaus' face turned into a sneer. “Well, some people I may or may not owe money to found out I happen to be related – not by blood of course, thank god – to one of the richest people in the country, and decided to come and cash in.”

David felt a flush on his chest and neck as his worst fears were proven true. 

Klaus ran a hand along a cut underneath his left cheekbone. “This better not ruin my ambitions of becoming a trophy wife.”

Despite the severity of the situation, David couldn’t help but smile. It turned quizzical when Klaus jumped up again, walking in a circle around the couch to inspect his living room slash kitchenette, stopping at his growing collection of LPs stacked next to the fifth-hand record player he’d bought with his first paycheck from his current job.

David felt Klaus’ eyes on him and realized he was staring.

“I peg you as more of a blues guy,” he said with a wave at the records, “but would you be willing to compromise on the Doors?”

“Sure,” David chuckled, not fazed either way. He’d been told his taste in music was quite old-fashioned – most of the records came from various flea markets.

With the volume turned up a notch or two more than David was used to, Klaus settled back on the couch, tapping his feet in time with the music and humming along if he didn’t know the words.

David allowed himself to relax for the first time since last night. He didn’t often find the right headspace to just sit and listen to music like this, especially not with someone else in the room. Especially especially not someone who’d been mad at him half an hour ago.

It may be poking the bear but he needed to know where they stood if he was to shut up his brain which was still replaying every decision he’d made these last couple of days.

“Benny bet me ten bucks years ago that someone would recognize me sooner or later,” Klaus said in response. “Of course his money isn’t worth a damn thing.”

David was thrown by the ease with which Klaus was able to move past everything. Whil it hadn’t been his intention, David felt indirectly responsible for putting him in his current state. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive and forget if the roles were reversed.

He also wasn’t sure who “Benny” was but that wasn’t important right now.

“You bet on it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I mean, Klaus? Like you said, not exactly common in these parts. Or this century. That and the whole Oujia board schtick, and this lovely mark of ownership...” He held up his arm with the umbrella tattoo. “No one in the Mothers of Agony ever made the connection before it was on the news. What does that say about them?” Klaus let out a breathy laugh, almost spilling his second cup of coffee cradled against his chest. “Maybe they didn’t care about superheroes since they’re technically bad guys.”

There were a ton of questions going through David’s mind, the majority of them concerning the fact Klaus was affiliated with the City’s most notorious biker gang. But the most pressing was: “Do you actually have superpowers?”

Klaus laughed again, slapping David’s thigh as if he’d made the best joke ever. Growing up the way he did, it must be inconceivable that there were people their age out there who weren’t raised on the Umbrella Academy comics.

“It began with a dead nanny and got worse from there,” he said. “I use my medicine to keep the specters at arm’s length. Well, present company excluded.” He glowered at something to his left and stuck his tongue out at it. 

Everything in David told him he was witnessing a man having a possibly drug-induced mental breakdown, one that had been lasting for several days now. The fact that the person tripping on his couch had once fought a moving Eiffel Tower still didn’t seem real.

“So you drug yourself to… what, control your powers?”

“They shut up the voices in my head.” Klaus wiggled his fingers next to his temple. “Anything’s better than dealing with them. ”

It wasn't like David knew nothing about drug use, he went to college after all. And had done his fair share of reporting on the drug epidemic since. He knew about the self-medicating purposes, had seen the impact they could have on a person. How sometimes, unhoused people turned to drugs because they were living on the street, not the other way around. 

He had an inkling Klaus may not be honest with himself and his reasons for using.

“Did I finally break you?” Klaus asked.

Coming out of his reverie, David shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that must be like,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral – most people didn’t appreciate pity. “Seeing dead people, I mean.”

Klaus guffawed. “Is that all you have to say?” he asked. “Because I know someone who never seems to run out of reasons to yell at me about all of this.” He gestured at himself and the room at large. David tried not to take it personally. 

“I thought you might feel safer here than in a public space,” he said and got a perplexed shake of the head in return.

“How are you real?” Klaus asked.

“What?”

“I just told you I drug myself because I hear voices and you don’t think that’s the craziest shit you’ve heard all day?”

“I try not to judge people for choices that don’t hurt anyone else.”

A strange expression flitted across Klaus’ face. It was like he had to take a minute to collect himself, averting his gaze in a way that made him look almost shy. Which is not a word David would have thought he’d ever associate with this particular person.

The silence that followed should have been uncomfortable, but it was serene more than anything. David went to put on the kettle. Thanks to his job he was no stranger to a high caffeine intake but he thought tea may be better suited for his guest right now. 

He checked on Klaus in time to see him take a swig from his flask.

With a sigh, he took two mugs from the drying rack – more gifts from past birthdays. One of them said “World's Okayest Journalist” which elicited a snort when he put it in front of Klaus.

“Not to sound corny but you’re not like all the other guys,” Klaus said as he chose between the chamomile and peppermint tea bags David offered him. “Or anyone, really.”

“I doubt that,” David countered. “I’d just like to think I’m a decent person.”

“Well, Dave,” Klaus leaned in, a conspiratorial grin on his face, “as you can probably imagine I don’t usually hang out with decent people. Birds of a feather, and all that.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person if that’s what you mean.”

Klaus huffed and leaned back against the couch cushions again. “You must have a pretty shit memory, then. Not that I’m complaining.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Oh, I don’t make mistakes,” Klaus insisted. “My entire life is one giant mistake. So I might as well make the most of it, you know?”

David was fascinated by the ball of contradiction and nervous energy sitting next to him – it was as simple as that. This had gone far beyond an appreciation for the freedom Klaus exuded, beyond whatever feelings of chivalry awoke in him when he found him at that guy Mitchell’s flat. He couldn’t in good conscience deceive himself about the true reason he hadn’t left when Klaus told him to. It wasn’t that he was some benevolent saint looking out for the disenfranchised poor soul. He was as selfish as Klaus was, only for different reasons.

“Why do you believe your life is a mistake?” David asked.

Klaus fiddled with the little tag on his tea bag. “Not so much believe as being told, you know.” The permanent smile was starting to unnerve David. “Didn’t live up to expectations and all that. So when I got the boot I took my tools of the trade and started scamming people out of their hard-earned money. Wanna hear a little secret?” Klaus leaned in again, dropping his voice to a murmur that sent a shiver down David’s spine. “I haven’t been able to speak to the dead since I was sixteen years old. Present company excluded.” Klaus cackled to himself. “And if that doesn’t bring in enough cash, I offer, let’s call it alternative services in exchange for someone to house me. Kind of like you.”

The look he gave him triggered another shiver.

“You don’t owe me anything,” David pressed, afraid any of this could be perceived as even remotely like the situation with Mitchell.

Klaus’s smile turned bitter but he accepted his insistence. It reminded David of a similar expression the day before, when he said he'd never had a stable job.

“Did you not try to find more… conventional employment?”

“Ah yes, I can picture that job interview.” Klaus lowered his voice, squaring his shoulders as he said: “‘What would you say is your greatest weakness?’” He switched back to his normal voice: “‘Oh, I don’t know, probably focusing on a task. Like right now it’s super hard to concentrate because there’s this ghost behind you with half its head missing and its guts spilling out all over the floor. And it's screaming at me.’”

David winced at the image this description conjured in his head.

“I mean, I’m not a fucking soul reaper,” Klaus continued, “if you want to move on you’ll just have to come to grips with your own mortality already.” He looked at David. “Ignore me, you wouldn’t understand.”

He did, in fact, not understand. But he’d like to be able to somewhere down the line.

Searching for something to change the topic, David tried to remember the contents of his fridge until the memory of buying a double-pack of frozen pan pizzas the previous week plopped into his head. It was too late for lunch and too early for dinner but he hadn’t had anything to eat all day thanks to his mad dash from one end of the town to the other and back again. 

“What are your thoughts on pizza for linner?”

Klaus snickered, eyes crinkled with amusement. “Depends. Does it have pineapple on it?”

Chapter Text

If someone had asked David twenty years ago where he saw himself at thirty, he’d have feared being stuck in a dead-end job like his father, stuck in the past like his uncle, and stuck with the belief that he should only ever look out for himself, and that no one else mattered or cared.

David woke up to the sun shining on his face and a knock on the door. He also had Klaus draped all over him.

Familiar panic pushed its claws into his brain and sped up his heartbeat. The couch had a tight hold on him as he tried to sit up, his flailing waking up his guest who promptly fell to the floor with a dull thud and hiss of pain.

“Oh shit,” David said, hands hovering uselessly over the man rubbing his bruised ribs.

Through it all came another round of knocks, more insistent and accompanied by the shout: “Police, open up!” 

Now it was Klaus’ turn to panic. He scrambled for his coat and extracted something from a pocket before rushing to the kitchen to flush it down the drain. It took about as long as it did David to straighten his crinkled shirt and crooked spine and open the door to two plain-clothes officers, a man and woman shoving their badges in his face. Both seemed to be undecided who was to be good cop and who bad cop by their twin disgruntled expressions. 

"We're looking for Klaus Hargreeves,” the woman said and David nearly lied out of instinct. Now that he was on the receiving end of the ID flash, he had to admit it was pretty annoying.

But the man in question came up behind him, smiled at them all nice and compliant, and crooned: “Diego, mon frère! Long time, long time…”

David’s stomach dropped. Diego, as in the brother? The brother who was apparently a police detective? And just found Klaus at his home, dark and plentiful bruises on his face and bare arms and peaking out from beneath skimpy clothing?

The lady cop – identified as Detective Patch – moved right past the familiar greeting to tell Klaus they were bringing him in for questioning in conjunction with the incident a few days ago. David had forgotten about the missed interview amidst all the drama.

Only when Klaus looked about ready to bail did his brother soften his gaze a bit.

“You’re not in trouble,” he said, even though his gruff tone said otherwise. “But you are the key witness. Unfortunately.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Klaus cried. David would have liked to point out that being a key witness really shouldn’t be something he’d want to be given his recreational habits.

Diego had the same thought.

“It took three days to track you down,” he said, poking Klaus in the chest. “Why did you take me off your emergency contact list?”

Klaus slapped his hand away. 

“I remember you specifically telling me not to bother calling you again last time we saw each other.”

“That’s because you kept using me as your personal chauffeur! I want to know if you get your ass beat up! Again! ”

Klaus pouted in response and then hissed at something neither of them could see. Only the lady cop seemed put off by this.

David was just happy to know the scary police detective brother wearing more leather than he thought cops were legally allowed to was enough up to speed on things to hopefully not accuse him of any wrongdoing.

That didn’t mean he didn’t flinch a bit when he became the recipient of the man's scowl. 

“You’re the reporter?”

“Yes.” He barely prevented the “sir” from slipping out. He was pretty sure he was older than the Umbrella kids.

“You’ve been looking after the idiot here?”

“I can look after myself you asshole–”

“Yes.” 

Klaus’ scowl was as good as his brother’s.

Diego grabbed Klaus by the back of the neck, pulling him closer. David thought he was going to witness a heartwarming hug but after a split-second pupil inspection, Klaus was pushed away again. 

“When’s the last time you took anything?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Cut the bullshit, Klaus!”

Detective Patch was unperturbed by the exchange.

“He’s been with me for most of yesterday,” David said. He couldn’t vouch that Klaus hadn’t taken anything else in that time – evidently, he’d had more stuff on him – but felt like he should make an effort to appease the officers.

His sacrifice was rewarded with a withering glare. 

“And why exactly is he here in the first place?” 

“Uh–” David said, hoping to god the guy with a gun and an assortment of knives attached to his belt for some reason didn’t get any wrong ideas. Klaus had not been shy when talking about some of his more extreme preferences after the whole Mitchell debacle, and those hickeys were still visible underneath all the bruising. 

All they’d done was talk late into the night, Klaus telling increasingly ridiculous stories, most of them involving tripping on some drug cocktail or other. It was impressive the amount of detail he could recall despite it all. At some point, they nodded off sitting a respectful distance away from each other, and slept straight through David’s alarm going by the location of the sun. He couldn’t have known Klaus was a clinger; but neither did Diego, so no need to mention it.

Klaus pushed against his brother’s chest to get him out of David’s face.

“Calm your tits, Diego. Dave’s a good Jewish boy, he’s been nothing but a gentleman.”

Diego squinted at him but then lowered his voice again. God forbid what the neighbors must think. The majority was elderly, they had nothing better to do than stand by the door to spy on everyone else all day.

Hopefully, his landlady didn’t throw him out for disturbing the peace or suspecting him of harboring a criminal. That article in the Times had mentioned Klaus had a rap sheet, after all.

“You’ll need to sober up for the trial,” Diego said, dialing back the hostility. Before Klaus could protest, he grabbed his neck again, causing him to still and focus on his brother with a huff. David made a mental note. 

“You can help put the guy behind bars,” Diego continued. “You used to care about those kinda things, once upon a time. But this will only work if you present as a reliable witness.” He hesitated for a moment before adding: “Roberts has filed charges against you.”

David may have forgotten to mention that little fact.

“Who?” Klaus asked, managing to sound both bored and annoyed. 

“The guy you brained with your Ouija board, you idiot!” Diego smacked Klaus upside the head, eliciting a hiss in response.

Detective Patch did an admirable job ignoring the brothers’ spat. “Roberts filed for battery, on account of being attacked from behind by an unrelated party. He suffered a concussion and needed eight stitches. Got released into police custody yesterday.”

David was stunned; all of this was news to him since the police had kept information under wraps while the investigation was still ongoing. Neither he nor she missed Diego’s approving tap against Klaus’ cheek.

“You said I’m not in trouble!” 

“Because otherwise, you’d’ve run off before hearing us out!” 

Klaus’ pout was confirmation enough.

“I need you to come in, talk to some people. We’ll get you a lawyer. I’ll pay for rehab.”

“Diego–”

“Klaus, for once in your life, do not fight me on this. What you do after the trial is your problem but this would be a repeat offense, you won’t get away with a misdemeanor and a few months in a cushy FPC this time. If you show up high off your ass and sprout your usual bullshit, any jury will put you away without a second thought!”

Klaus did a spot-on impression of a moody teenager who’d been told to do the dishes.

“And if that happens I’ll make sure the guards conduct regular drug tests,” Diego continued his threat, turning the moody teenager into a pissed-off one.

“That’s a gross violation of your authority–”

“Just promise me you’ll do this! A few weeks is all I’m asking for, trial date’s already set. It’s an open-and-shut case if you can keep your shit together for five minutes.”

After a few more seconds of an intense staring match, Klaus huffed and rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I promise.”

Diego didn’t seem convinced yet, but he got out of his face to cross his arms in front of his puffed-up chest instead.

“Go get your stuff, you’re coming with me.”

“What, now?”

“Yes, now. Did you miss the part about the interview and the lawyer? Plus your friend here probably has places to be.”

David checked his watch, cringing. He had to leave right about now to make it to work on time.

Klaus shot him a look as if David was personally responsible for his dilemma. 

“Give me half an hour–”

“You’ve got ten minutes.”

With a groan, Klaus slouched back inside, almost shutting the door to his own flat in David’s face. He slipped through just in time and proceeded to follow Klaus the few steps to the couch.

“You got a fire escape or something?” Klaus asked as he shrugged into his coat.

“What are you doing?”

“Obviously, I gotta scram.”

Once again, David was thrown by the hundred-and-eighty-degree turn – a common occurrence when it came to this particular individual.

“Why?”

Klaus side-eyed him as if he thought David was the one displaying irrational behavior.

“I’m not going back to prison, Dave. Been there, done that, not interested. Now if you’ll excuse me–”

He made for the nearest window but David grabbed an elbow, holding on when Klaus tried to wriggle out of it.

“Klaus, just think about this for one second–”

“I already did, thank you.”

“What’s your plan, then?”

“Find a piece of cardboard and a sharpie and make my way to Oaxaca, I hear they have lovely beaches there.”

“Klaus.”

With a sigh, the wiggling stopped. Everything stopped. Klaus leaned against the couch, running both hands through his already tousled hair. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and another, until he looked a little more calm. A hand fished the flask from his coat pocket, but when he shook it, they could both hear it was empty.

“You got some pot by any chance?” Klaus asked. He’d already drunk any alcohol David had in the flat last night.

Maybe for the first time, David really, truly looked beyond the pretty exterior of this person he’d met by chance and invited into his home despite everything about him being one giant red flag. He wasn’t unlike one of the many washed-up child actors who got a taste of fame too early in life and went off the deep end when it all became too much. But David knew that wasn’t what was happening here. Klaus put on a brave face, sure – it was questionable who he was trying to convince more, himself or those around him. Maybe whoever it was he was talking to when the high faded and his hands started to shake. 

“Your brother only wants what’s best for you,” he said.

Klaus’ laugh was acrid. “I’m sure he does. No one knows what’s best for me better than my beloved brother.” David had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the one waiting outside. 

Klaus accepted the lack of contraband in this apartment and turned to the window facing out back. It had a third-floor view, too high to jump out without breaking at least a few bones, if not his neck. This did not perturb him.

“Can I ask you one thing?” David said. “With the drugs and the lifestyle and your ‘freedom’…” Klaus pulled himself up onto the windowsill. “Are you happy?”

What he expected was a flippant quip, a flash of too many teeth, and a wave of the goodbye hand as Klaus vanished from his life forever.

What he got was utter confusion. “What?”

“Are you happy?” David repeated with a shrug. It was a simple enough question but going by the furrowed eyebrows, it was uncharted territory for Klaus.

“Are you happy?” he asked in return, and maybe David did understand the reaction somewhat after all.

“Things could be better, I guess,” he said truthfully. 

“Well, sucks to be you, because I’m ecstatic.”

“About what, exactly?”

This finally stopped Klaus' escape attempt. 

“What is your goal here?” David continued. “Shirk your responsibility, run from your brother who already spent the last few days trying to track you down?”

“No court, no jail time.”

“It will make you look guilty by default.”

“I’m good at staying out of the eye of the law.” Klaus thought about that for a second. “Or I was, I guess you’ve changed all that.”

David sighed. “I was just interviewing the guy who saved a woman in distress.”

“You’re right, that’s on me, I shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

“You don’t mean that…”

Klaus threw up his hands with a frustrated groan. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing! But what I’m seeing here is someone who’s living his life doing the opposite of what’s expected of him!”

“And what’s wrong with that?” 

Their voices had gotten incrementally louder, to the point where David feared the two police officers outside might get the idea their help was needed, and break down the door. His insurance probably wouldn’t cover that.

He raised his hands hoping to calm down the charged atmosphere, and forced himself to take a deep breath as well. It was clear he was out of his depth here – if anything, David had dealt with the opposite problem in the past, trying to be everything that was expected of him. It may seem presumptuous to give unsolicited advice in this situation. He just couldn't shake the feeling this might be the last chance anyone would ever get of talking Klaus down from the proverbial and also quite literal ledge. 

“I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times but maybe this is a good opportunity for you. A reason to make some changes. To stop running from whatever it is you’re running from.”

“That’s like asking someone who’s depressed to stop being depressed.”

“None of this can have been your idea of what life should be.”

“And what if it is?” Klaus snapped, a flash of embarrassment coloring his cheekbones at the crack in his voice. David said nothing, giving him the space and time to formulate a response.

Klaus averted his gaze, shoulders hunched. When he spoke next, his voice was low and guarded.

“What if there's nothing else out there for me?” 

And wasn’t that a loaded question? One that had crept up at night, or in the shower, or when David sat on the bus and saw a happy couple walking down the street, hand-in-hand as if they couldn’t see the judgment and hatred and disgust.

“There is something out there for everybody.” He had to say it out loud so he could believe it himself.

“Well, according to some people, I get what I deserve.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of kindness.”

“You sound like a fortune cookie.”

David stepped closer, within arm’s reach, careful not to spook Klaus who looked lost, eyes big and incredulous.

Sometimes, people lash out not to hurt others, but to hurt themselves.

“I can't imagine how scary the thought of rehab must be–”

“I need the drugs, Dave.”

“I know. I know they help you control your powers–”

“It’s not the fucking ghosts!” Klaus pulled his arms around himself. His voice was almost inaudible now. “Not all of them, anyway. It’s the memories. If I don’t shut off my brain I don’t know how to get through the day.”

“Memories of what?”

A tear rolled down Klaus’ cheek. He wiped it away with gritted teeth. 

“I’m a very fucked up human being, Dave. You should have stayed away from me. I’ve already thought about stealing that candle holder thing on your dresser there.”

“It’s not worth anything,” David said.

He’d never felt so judged by a single look.

“That’s not the point, David.”

“No, it’s not. The point is you didn’t rob me blind and left while I was asleep last night.”

“Well done me,” Klaus huffed.

“It’s a step up from stealing the cash at the hotel,” David pointed out with a shrug. 

Klaus gaped at him. “Why are you saying all these things? What, are you recording this? Is there another promotion you’re angling for?” The confrontational attitude was the complete opposite of the carefree persona he’d put on before – one to appease people, to draw them in, and the other to push them away when everything became too much.

“That’s not fair,” David said, not rising to the bait.

Klaus held onto his resentment for a moment longer and then deflated. “I know. I’m sorry.”

David let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Anything must be better than the way Klaus was living right now – he just needed a reason to believe it. Something – or someone – to help him through this.

“I can’t be your sponsor but I can be… there. For you.”

“What, you think you can ‘fix me’?” 

David shook his head. “I don’t think you need fixing. I don’t want to change you, I want you to get better. Maybe you need a little help to deal with the stuff you’ve been through. What I can do is learn to understand you.”

Klaus quickly averted his gaze, focused on something off to the side, like he so often was.

Finally, he gave a single nod. 

“Okay,” David said, overcome by a strange lightheadedness. “Okay. Let’s go get ready, before your brother breaks down the door or something.”

After the morning and night and previous day(s) he’d had, David thought he could be forgiven for being late to work. To change things up, it wasn’t Silvia ambushing him upon entering the building but the boss himself, yelling at him for going M.I.A. and not answering his “goddamn phone”.

“It’s broken!” he called over his shoulder, making a beeline for his desk and not bothering with any of the new faxes cluttering his desk. He shoved them all into the bin unseen.

His boss rounded on him before he’d even taken a seat.

“Where the hell is he?”

“With his brother,” David answered truthfully and left it at that. 

“Police is looking for him–”

“That’s been sorted.”

“–and I now have three big shot producers up my ass trying to get an interview–”

“That’s not happening.”

“What?”

David sighed, swiveling in his chair so he could face his boss.

“He’s not interested.”

“Who the hell made you his spokesperson?”

“You did when you sent me out to follow up with him!”

This shut the man up for about three seconds. “Well, I’d like to hear that out of his mouth. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

David came prepared. “He’s not allowed to talk to anyone while the investigation is ongoing due to being the key witness in an upcoming trial. As you probably heard.”

He hoped Silvia was on hand somewhere with the blood pressure medication.

“Katz, if you want that promotion you better find a way to let us talk to him–”

“I've done everything you asked, it's not my job to coerce anyone to waive their right to privacy,” David pointed out.

“Maybe you should start looking for a different job, then!”

He’d heard colleagues say way worse with fewer consequences, so David doubted his boss would go through with the threat. He also happened to be really good at his job, and if his insubordination meant he wouldn't get his promotion after all, he’d keep going until he did. Better to be a reporter with good morals than one who exploited someone's story for his own gain. 

His refusal would not stop other reporters from tracking down Klaus but the least he could do was not encourage or even aid them. In the meantime, Diego’s business card was safely tucked away in his wallet. David could always give him a heads-up if he thought someone might go and harass his brother.

The following weeks saw him slapped with the dreaded night shift and inundated with assignments no one else wanted. Punishment no doubt, not that his boss would ever call it that out loud – for legal reasons. But it was worth it for it meant David was free during visitation hours at the rehab center.

Seeing Klaus in withdrawal was painful. He visited every couple of days – a recommendation by the clinician to help keep Klaus on track, but mostly to make good on his promise. “The opposite of addiction is connection,” he read in a self-help book during one of his commutes. Other than his brother, Klaus didn’t seem to have any stable relationships in his life beyond casual acquaintances who “wouldn’t bother visiting”, and his various dealers of course. No wonder he’d failed rehab so many times in the past – if there was no incentive and no one waiting for him on the other side, what reason did he have to go through the hell that was detox? David didn’t need personal experience to figure that one out. 

It was an additional strain on top of his often long working hours but he powered through and took the abuse thrown his way whenever Klaus was in a particularly bad headspace in stride. The book from the library had prepared him for Klaus lashing out. And the blame and accusations weren’t truly aimed at him anyway – rather at someone sitting in the empty chair Klaus kept asking him to pull up during each visit. In a way, David was a conduit, an excuse for Klaus to speak to the person he was actually mad at without risk of being thrown into an asylum. It was a topic David had yet to broach with him, one of the many on his list.

After the second week, Diego called his work phone out of the blue to ask for an update and awkwardly thank him for continuing to go see Klaus despite everything. It was just after three in the morning, both of them on the last hour of their shift and in similar stages of deliriousness. Under different circumstances, Diego assured him, Klaus would have broken out within the first two days, pockets stuffed with methadone and whatever other prescription drugs he could get his hands on before his escape. David never knew rehab centers could ban people for life.

The fact Klaus stayed, went through withdrawal rather than faking it, and continued to see David was, according to Diego, "a fucking miracle".

Not that it was all sunshine and roses. Only a day after Diego’s call, an orderly caught Klaus with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. While a setback was to be expected for someone with a long history of drug abuse like Klaus, it came close to destroying what little resolve he’d had to get sober in the first place. He raged for the entirety of David’s visit, angry in a way he had not seen him before. David had to remind himself several times it wasn’t him Klaus was angry at. 

Still, everyone had their limit, and on this day, it hit David like a brick wall. He cut his visit short, hoping Klaus’ assigned therapist would be able to speak sense into him where David couldn’t. It was the last thing Klaus said, low and pitiful, that steeled his resolve to do better next time.

“Please don’t give up on me.”

That night, in an uncharitable moment, David wondered if Klaus couldn’t have been helped sooner if Diego had put in the same effort in the past that David did now. He pushed it into those darkest recesses of his mind which he rarely ever examined, ashamed of his own presumption. There was a lot of hidden backstory to this family and the trauma they went through together, and he had not even scratched the surface of it. 

Maybe David just wished someone cared enough to show up like this for him. 

***

Klaus was released on the second day of spring, Dave’s favorite time of year. It brought the promise of new beginnings, birdsong waking him in the morning instead of his god-awful alarm, and the world felt full of life. He’d taken the day off after the case worker cornered him during his last visit to ask if he was going to pick Klaus up. 

In the back of his mind, Dave couldn’t help but compare the scene to a convict getting released from prison, and if he asked Klaus, he would certainly agree with him. When Klaus stepped out into the sun, he looked both miserable and excited, his hair curlier than Dave had ever seen it. He was even more gaunt than before going in, sporting shadows under his eyes which could be either smudged eyeliner or lack of sleep, and twitchier than during the worst of his withdrawals. 

Funny, how time worked. Some days, Dave thought he’d known Klaus forever. On others, he remembered it had only been a bit more than a month. But what mattered most was that the smile aimed his way was genuine. 

One hand waved “HELLO”, the other held onto the strap of his backpack for dear life. Klaus didn’t own anything of value as far as Dave knew, but maybe that wasn’t the point. Maybe the point was that here was Klaus, addict, fresh out of rehab for the umpteenth time – neither he nor his brother had kept track –, sober for the first time since childhood. And wasn’t that a depressing thought, that all this started before either of them even graduated seventh grade. He’d be sleeping on Diego’s couch for the time being but preferred spending his first day out in Dave’s company because Diego was “boring and judgmental”. 

“Plus he’s been a sourpuss ever since Patch dumped him a million years ago.”

“She dumped him?”

“Good looks aren’t everything, Dave,” Klaus said. 

That wasn’t what he’d been getting at, but it also wasn't important right now.

Determined to get some color back into those cheekbones, Dave treated Klaus to his favorite foods – for a skinny guy, he sure could eat an awful lot. It was a distraction more than anything, rewarding Klaus’ frazzled brain with dopamine of a different kind every time he didn’t run off into some dark alleyway to find an old acquaintance. 

They got a few stares here and there but Dave dismissed them all. Those people didn't know Klaus liked to cling to something tangible to ground himself. In return, Klaus had developed a knack for recognizing and disrupting Dave’s spiraling thoughts with irreverence and whimsy. His flirty nature was a habit more than anything and despite looking like hell, he still managed to charm every waiter and street vendor – and Dave himself – along the way. 

His fifteen minutes of renewed fame had passed as quickly as they’d started. Dave stayed away from most of it, avoiding the often disparaging segments on the CBC and other networks, and skipping articles in any of the newspapers crossing his desk. Being out of the public eye for a month helped Klaus' case, as well as the news outlets’ general short attention span these days. A new scandal, another washed-up celebrity, a bigger story was always right around the corner. Klaus’ own sister took over the tabloids when her divorce and impending child custody battle became public knowledge during his third week in rehab.

“This family has always been a contest about who could get the most attention,” was all he'd had to say about it.

By complete coincidence and not at all perfectly timed, they ended up at Dave's apartment in time to watch the sun dip below the City’s skyline from his landlady’s rooftop greenhouse. She usually sat on a little bench with a post-dinner glass of red wine at this time of day, covered in three patchwork blankets she’d made herself, but she’d let him have it for the evening in return for his help fixing the washing machine in the laundry room. 

Klaus had opted to spread out the blankets in the narrow space between pots with ornamental grasses and the vegetable patch. This early in the year it was more sowing than growing but a few herbs and lettuces were doing well, and the daffodils he’d planted in fall were going strong.

Dave sat next to Klaus, arms resting on his knees as he watched the last rays of sunlight vanish behind the surrounding buildings. It was oddly reminiscent of the first time they met. And what a change those five weeks had made.

“You know, you should be proud of yourself,” he said, breaking the silence hanging over them.

Klaus scoffed. “Proud?”

He’d been going through mood swings all day but Dave had gotten accustomed to them in rehab – expected them now, in fact. Klaus was excited when he first told him about the little rooftop garden. With the waning of the light, though, a gloom settled over him.

Dave didn’t let it faze him. “With your history, what you accomplished in the last thirty days is pretty amazing.”

Now Klaus outright laughed, but not in a good way. “This was the worst decision of my life, Dave. Being sober is a fucking nightmare.”

He’d hoped for a different reaction to the day’s exploits. Baby steps, he reminded himself. This would require time, and most of all patience.

“Well… I am proud of you,” Dave insisted.

Klaus’ eyes widened as he turned towards him. “I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me.”

“Not even Ben?”

“Nah, he’s been bitching at me all day.”

Well, that explained a thing or two. “Why?”

Klaus squirmed a little, examining the glass roof with sudden interest. Maybe he was reading the future in the bird poo.

After a few seconds of intense inner debate he put a hand into his coat pocket, extracting a silver tin containing a couple of joints.

“It’s just weed,” he defended his possession. How the hell, and most importantly when, had Klaus managed to get his hands on these? 

“They're for medicinal purposes. Being off the pills makes me want to rip my brains out.”

Dave picked up one of the joints, smelling it to confirm it was, indeed, just weed. 

Klaus continued: “Going clean is one thing; I’m well aware I’ve got an addictive personality, I don’t need a shrink to diagnose me to know that. But the drugs do have a very specific function, mainly shutting up the voices in my head, which the doc said are likely PTSD-related flashbacks actually, and they're only getting worse with the return of my old friends so it’s not like going through rehab is a one-size-fits-all sort of situation for me, but try to explain that to a shrink and you’ll end up with a permanent residency in Shiny View, which, honestly, doesn’t sound like such a bad deal–”

“You got a lighter?” Dave cut off the stream of words to Klaus’ obvious shock. “I was a student once,” he said with a shrug.

A grin as wide as his ears split Klaus’ face. “Well, slap my ass and call me private! David Katz, you naughty boy, you!”

“It’s Joseph.”

“Huh?”

“That sounded like it was missing my middle name, there.”

“Two biblical names, oh my… No wonder you’re so repressed.”

“I’m not repressed!”

Klaus produced a lighter with a laugh, letting Dave do the honors. He smoked in high school, like most of his friends back then, so even though it had been years, he still instinctively avoided drawing in the smoke too quickly. Little was as embarrassing as coughing one's lungs out on the first drag. The hit went straight to his brain, softening the world around the edges. He passed the joint. Klaus inhaled deeply, a look of peace overcoming his entire body momentarily. It was a mesmerizing view.

“You’re something else,” Klaus said into a cloud of smoke. The pungent smell penetrated everything, strong and familiar. It had clung to him from the first time Dave spoke to him.

“I don’t know what you mean.” A chuckle bubbled to the surface after a second drag.

Klaus leaned back onto his forearms, rolling his head a few times. “No accusations of cheating? Or calling this a gateway drug? Or pointing out how I'm heading down the same old path again?”

“I trust you to know what’s best for you,” Dave said with a shrug. “And I'd rather you find a way to move forward that isn't as destructive as the hard stuff.” He had a feeling no one had ever said this to him, either. Klaus’ expression was unreadable, eyes searching for something in his face. Maybe he was trying to spot the lie. Dave took another drag instead.

“Ugh, your goodness is rubbing off on me. This is like the opposite of corrupting someone.” 

“You got a lot of experience with that?” 

Klaus’ smile was devious but faded as fast as it came. Reaching back into his coat pocket, he extracted something else and beckoned with his hand when Dave didn’t immediately move to take it. Dave held out his palm, confused by the three ten-dollar bills Klaus put in it.

“Sorry for stealing from you,” he said in a strained voice. “And for running off. And snapping at you a million times. And probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten about, too.”

Dave shook his head. “It’s okay, you don’t need to apologize–”

“Actually it’s part of my twelve-step program, making amends and all that.”

“Oh.” 

“But I am sorry, too. Kinda. It was pretty stupid to leave cash out in the open like that, anyone could have come by and napped it.”

“You could have kept an eye on it.”

“Yeah, I could have. Bought a couple bars of Xanax instead, though.”

Dave chortled.

George Roberts’ trial was about to start a week from now, plenty of time for Klaus to relapse. The attorney had been sending correspondence to Dave’s address because Klaus refused to speak to Diego for the first half of rehab. 

Dave regarded the cash in his hand, took another drag from the joint, and passed both back.

“You should buy something to wear to court,” he said. "You like thrift shops, right? There's a big one a couple stops from here."

Klaus bristled. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” Before Dave could reply, he pushed the bills back at him. “Diego already said I can borrow his suit, anyway. From when he graduated the police academy. He wasn't jacked up on a diet of raw eggs yet back then.”

Accepting defeat, Dave pocketed the money. 

"We could still check out that shop tomorrow after work, though. You keep complaining about my wardrobe."

"I'm not complaining, I'm saying you're wasting your potential."

"That's worse I think."

Building a new routine would be the most important task in Klaus' immediate future, along with finding a way to support himself. Or run off again, whichever came first.

The whole situation was more than unorthodox, Dave was well aware. It wasn't his responsibility to make sure Klaus didn’t relapse, or starve, or forget he didn't need to sleep outside tonight. But he really didn’t mind the prospect of looking out for him for a while longer. Of continuing their regular conversations about anything and everything under the sun. To have someone he could meet for breakfast waffles or lunch burritos or frozen pizza for dinner.

“Are you nervous, about the trial?”

They’d almost finished the joint – Klaus had his eyes closed, savoring the last exhale of smoke. Dave watched it hover for a bit as it mingled with the crisp air. Glasshouse or not – it was only forty-five degrees outside of their sanctuary, and the air pregnant with the promise of rain. Klaus was unperturbed by all of it, satisfied with the third quilt Dave had thrown over their legs.

“Nah,” Klaus said after a long pause. His hand bumped into Dave’s elbow as he stretched before sitting up fully to face him. “Wanna hear something funny though?”

Everything’s funny when you’re high, but Dave nodded anyway.

Klaus giggled, eyes flicking to the side and back at him. “My old man croaked.”

The thought of the ghost of Sir Reginald Hargreeves standing next to him sobered him faster than the fresh spring air. 

“Don’t worry, he’s not here,” Klaus said with a full belly laugh at his reaction. “Ben was watching the news in your landlady's kitchen.”

Sure, because what else would the ghost of his dead brother be doing while Klaus got high mere hours after leaving rehab? It was a concept he still hadn't been able to entirely wrap his mind around. Diego was unaware of Ben's continued existence as far as he knew, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered if Ben wasn't a creation Klaus had summoned for comfort after his death. On the other hand, Klaus was the single most likely person in the entire world to be haunted by his own family member.

From an outsider’s perspective, it was difficult to tell sometimes where his flashbacks ended and the real ghosts began.

“How does that make you feel?” Dave asked.

“Oh my god, you sound like my shrink.”

“I read his book,” Dave admitted. “Quite insightful.”

Klaus plopped back onto his side, propping his head on his hand with an expression a lot more serious than the weed should allow. Dave had the impulse to sit up straighter under the scrutiny, as if his grandmother was admonishing him from beyond the grave. Who knew, maybe she was. Klaus hadn’t been very forthcoming – or coherent – regarding the scope of his abilities so far.

“So, what’s your deal, then?” Klaus asked, in a voice that was unlike him. Almost business-like; party was over, no more quips for the rest of the day. It was an accusation and Dave didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“People don’t hang out with me this long without wanting something in return. And you’ve been doing this for weeks now. So, what’s your deal?” 

Dave chuckled, relief expelling his trepidation.

“Can’t I just enjoy your company?”

“Seems unlikely,” Klaus said, squinting at him. Maybe he had some psychic ex-ray vision straight into his thoughts, too? Dave hoped not, he’d never get over the humiliation. Not because of the subject most of his non-work-related thoughts circled around these days – he was in all likelihood aware of that, with or without powers. What he didn't want him to see was all the self-doubt and self-flagellation Dave's upbringing had beaten into him, that he was fighting a daily war against until he met Klaus and realized he may have found someone worth fighting the intrusive thoughts for. That here was someone he cared about, beyond the looks that admittedly had drawn him in at first. 

He’d been agonizing over a very specific decision for these past few weeks. 

Klaus wasn’t the first man to ever occupy his mind like this, but the first one in a while – and so profoundly, too. Dave had to come to terms with all facets of Klaus, even the unsavory ones, and determine if he was okay spending so much time and effort on someone who was unstable at the best of times and may never reciprocate his efforts. 

Maybe it was the weed talking but it was here and now, sitting on the uncomfortable floor of a greenhouse in early Spring, that he came to the conclusion he was more than fine fine with it. Klaus wasn’t a one-dimensional, perfect human being; he came with baggage, and so did Dave. But this wasn't a one-way street.

"Would you believe me if I said I just want you to be happy?"

"I wouldn't,” Klaus replied, a confrontational edge to his voice. Protecting himself – and hell if that didn't give Dave hope that somewhere down the line, he'd be okay.

"I didn't,” he corrected himself, his voice losing some of its bite. "I thought you were stringing me along. It’s what I’d've done."

"And now?"

Klaus shrugged. "You're nicer than most people, I guess that counts for something."

That wasn't exactly the glowing review Dave had envisioned. 

Klaus peered over his shoulder and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, it's more than I deserve, thank you, Ben–"

"It's not more than you deserve,” Dave disagreed, righteous fire kindling in his chest. 

Klaus smiled – a rare genuine one. Dave tried to smother the dumb grin growing on his own face threatening to ruin the moment. He had an image to uphold.

"According to some people I have terrible judgment but even Ben says he likes you,” Klaus continued. "Well, except for the whole letting me smoke weed thing but that's beside the point. The point is Ben doesn't like anyone. Oh come on, you know it's true! No, I'm not exaggerating.” He huffed, waving a hand at the aloe plant. "Don't mind him, he never grew out of puberty. Yes, I will suit myself, thank you very much.” 

Klaus followed something only he could see with narrowed eyes and sighed dramatically. 

"He's gone back to his date with your landlady,” he informed him. Dave took a deep breath. This was fine, just another thing he'd – mostly – gotten used to in rehab.

"He's only looking out for you,” he said, feeling bad he’d put the invisible dead brother in a position where he had to be the bad guy again to keep Klaus in check. Dave simply had a different approach, one neither of Klaus' brothers seemed to have considered so far: radical acceptance. Radical because he didn't think Klaus had ever experienced any acceptance in his life.

On the flip side, Dave hoped to find the freedom he'd been searching for since his father deposited him at his uncle’s doorstep when he was sixteen.

Klaus hummed. "We do have one thing in common, Ben and I."

“Dating my landlady?” 

“Would you be jealous if I were?” Klaus pushed himself back into a cross-legged seat, close enough that their knees almost touched. Suddenly, Dave didn’t feel the mid-March temperature anymore.

He’d been plunged into a cheesy romcom – worse yet, a teen romcom, all awkward smiles and embarrassing confessions. The timing couldn't be worse; Hargreeves may have been a grade-A asshole from what Dave had learned about the man, but he was still an important part of Klaus’ life, and his death could have unfathomable consequences.

But Dave wanted to be happy, too.

“Does that mean you trust me, then?”

“Dave, this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had,” Klaus said. Dave laughed but sobered quickly when he realized he was serious. “I've told you more about me than I've told my stupid shrink.”

Klaus’ hand hovered between them but there was an unexpected restraint in him, as if he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to come any closer than they already were. Which was hilarious given he had basically slept on top of Dave a few weeks ago.

The familiar chorus of Dave's father and uncle and various other people who’d had a problem with his inclinations in the past filled his head. Usually, he drowned them out with cheap vodka but today, the soothing effect of the weed helped to mute it. He didn’t want to be the one waiting for someone else to make a move anymore. Just this once, he wanted to be the one to take the initiative.

Dave placed a hand on the back of Klaus’ neck, demanding his attention before it could drift off again. He knew those eyes meant trouble ever since they first cast their spell on him.

When he pulled him into a kiss, whatever background noise was still rumbling in his head quieted. 

Panic gripped him again when Klaus didn’t reciprocate his advance. 

“Oh god, I’m so sorry–” Dave said before he even got a good look at him, and the naked wonder in his expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Klaus said, sounding far away. His gaze had not moved from where it was laser focused on Dave's lips. A hand caressed Dave’s jaw so gently it gave him goosebumps – the good kind. 

“Are you sure? I don’t know how to interpret this reaction–”

His words were cut off by another kiss, this one initiated by Klaus. It was shorter than their first one. Dave chased his mouth as he pulled away.

“I’m waiting for the catch,” Klaus said, hand moving from Dave’s jaw to entangle with the fingers still wrapped around his neck. “There’s always a catch.”

Those words did nothing to alleviate Dave’s apprehension. 

“There’s not– I mean, we don’t have to– You don’t–”

Klaus shut him up in the best way possible as he pushed him onto his back. This, if nothing else, should have settled any doubt that still lingered but instead, an image of Kevin Mitchell appeared in front of Dave's mind’s eye, standing between him and Klaus and demanding he be paid what he was owed. Dave thought of the nonchalance with which Klaus had told him he sometimes slept with people because he didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Was he doing the right thing? Should they talk about this? What if Klaus thought this wasn’t what it actually was? What if he was only going along because he had just finished rehab and was homeless once again? Dave didn’t want to be another one-night stand – another means to an end.

Klaus stopped nibbling at his jaw long enough to remind him "I'm staying with Diego,” as if he had read his mind. His eyes had turned dark but this time, it was because of a different kind of high. 

"Oh,” Dave said. They should go back inside. And maybe give Diego a heads-up now the phone was working again. 

"Now shut up and let me do my thing.” 

With those few words, all his spiraling thoughts went away. 

If someone had asked Dave twenty years ago where he saw himself at thirty, he’d not have envisioned any of this. But that was the beauty of life.

He had nothing more to say. His mind was blissfully blank.