Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Michael Jackson is DEAD?”

A week after your initial encounter, you and Ben are sitting in your living room. You’re curled up in the armchair and Ben lounges on a beanbag chair that Klaus looted from a dumpster. Clear morning light streams through the broad bay windows and highlights the motes of dust dancing in the air.

The two of you have taken to spending the early hours talking together. Mostly Ben catches you up on thirty-six years of headlines and you try not to talk about them in the future tense. Today, apparently, is the day he ruins all your musical idols for you forever.

“Yeah, it was this whole thing,” he says. “Apparently he invited some kid to his home amusement park, which is a situation all on its own, but then- ”

“No, no no! No, that did not happen. Not Michael ,” you gasp.

“I mean, he was acquitted, but that’s probably because he paid the kid’s family like a million dollars to-”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you groan. You drag your fingers through your hair, nails scraping at your scalp.

Ben laughs at your horrorstruck expression. “You can think what you want about it. Everyone else does,” he says. “But you gotta admit, the whole thing is pretty suspicious.”

“What about David Bowie? He’s a rock legend . Don’t tell me something happened with him, too?”

The grimace on Ben’s face says all you need to know.

“Why? Why must you ruin everything that I once loved?” you moan.

“Hey, these are the facts. I’m just the messenger,” he says, holding his hands up in defense.

The past week has been a lot to take in. So much of what you had understood as present reality now comprises a couple chapters in a high school history textbook. Most of your favorite celebrities have died and/or turned out to be pedophiles, the economy is still garbage, the country is in arms after a terrorist attack that was used to justify a foreign invasion and vast government domestic surveillance even though almost every act of terror since then has been enacted by white natural-born American men, and skinny jeans went away only to make a sudden and vicious comeback in 2010. Your head is positively spinning.

There were a couple things that didn’t quite surprise you. Reagan turned out to be just as much of a trash heap as you’d predicted. He incarcerated millions of African Americans after introducing cocaine into their communities in order to quell revolutionary sentiment and sat on his rear while the most vulnerable and stigmatized members of the American population were ravaged by AIDS. Of course, now he’s dead, gay marriage is legal, and HIV is no longer an instant death sentence (since people finally started paying attention once they realized straights could die from it too). Ben solemnly relates to you that the rest of the damage is yet to be fully rectified, but things are looking better than they did even just ten years ago.

It’s not like he bombards you with doom and gloom, though. Plenty of cool things have happened too! The country had its first African-American president, clawed its way out of another recession, put a robot on Mars, reopened relations with Cuba; hip hop went mainstream, the internet was invented, diseases have been cured; societies around the world are making enormous strides in human rights, technology, and preserving the environment; and Earth is all around a wider, more accessible and deeply connected place.

Of course, the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation and the cost of living, college degrees are more necessary and yet more expensive to obtain than ever, and a tapioca-toupee’d millionaire who’s filed for bankruptcy six times shut down the government because they wouldn’t approve a senseless and racism-fueled motion whose effect on the level of undocumented immigrants in the country would be negligible, but you try to look on the brighter side of things.

Ben and Klaus also take over your pop culture education. They start slow, with the 80s cult classics that you just barely missed- Heathers, The Goonies, Gremlins, The Lost Boys - as well as an array of bands that you’d never heard of but are apparently very popular now with white boys who just discovered atheism, like The Smiths and Cocteau Twins. Klaus posits himself as the primary expert in this degree, which makes sense since he dresses like he just stepped off the set of a music video by The Cure.

Ben designates himself head tutor for all things nineties. He starts at Jurassic Park , guides you along Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You , takes a sharp left at Green Day and Blink-182, and finally deposits you gently on the doorstep of The Matrix . Your days are inundated with flannel and DVDs, Shrek and neon tank tops, AIM and Fall Out Boy.

And the most incredible part of it all- everything that they show you is accessible via a tiny glass rectangle that fits in Klaus’s palm. The mobile phones of your day were nearly as big as your head, could only make calls, and cost about a quarter of your parents’ yearly income. Now you can have the sum of all human knowledge in your back pocket.

The boys have tried asking you about your own life a few times- it’s not often that they get to meet a literal relic from 1983- but you find that you can’t really remember anything about your own life outside of the barest details. You know you were a senior getting your MA in Creative Writing, and that you liked to collect videos and cassettes even though you rarely opened them, but that’s it. You don’t remember what school you went to, where you were born, who your friends were, if you had a significant other, how you died, whether anybody mourned you- it’s just a blank nothing.

The longer you spend in the apartment, the less it feels like yours . It’s like being inside of a museum: you’re a visitor, looking at all these relics of someone you maybe once knew very intimately but with whom you’ve long since lost contact. You may observe, you may even analyze, but you must not touch.

As far as your ability to physically interact with the world, you’ve learned the guidelines pretty quickly. It seems to be limited to things that haven’t much consequence if they are moved. For example, you are able to lie on the sofa or press your fingers to the grimy window glass, but you cannot pick up a book or open a cabinet. You can phase through certain objects, like walls and drawers, and see what’s beyond provided there’s enough light, which is actually pretty cool. It isn’t quite like being alive, though. It’s like, you can touch things, but you can’t actually feel them. Everything is just blank- neutral, empty, no texture, no sensation. Something, but nothing. Kind of like you.

The only thing that feels real, oddly enough, is Ben. You’ve taken to touching him at random moments, and he usually lets you. It’s comforting to feel the softness of his feathery hair, or the smooth creases of his black leather jacket. He doesn’t really say anything, but you usually catch him smiling when you touch him, just a little bit.

You still can’t touch Klaus at all- not that he doesn’t try anyway. He’ll reach out to brush some hair out of your eyes, or pat your shoulder in greeting, or give your arm a playful slug when you make a terrible joke. His body has passed right through yours every time, but he’s stopped acting like he notices. It’s become a normal thing for the two of you to treasure each other’s touch, as if it’s really there, as if you aren’t a ghost.

You find yourself fascinated by them. It’s not just how captivating their personalities are, each in their own way, but their lives are amazing - together they’ve seen more action in thirty years than most humans see in thirty lifetimes . Even after everything you’ve learned, you were still hesitant to believe them when they first told you, but they found enough internet articles and even a few microfiche scans to convince you. They tell you about the unusual circumstances of their births, their adoption by a mysterious billionaire, their childhoods spent training to stop some catastrophe that had never manifested, and the Umbrella Academy’s disbanding about a decade ago. Klaus has been on his own since then, traveling around with his brother trailing him like heaven’s most reluctant guardian angel, drowning the visions in every kind of intoxicant. 

They don’t mention how Ben died, and you don’t pry. Klaus tells you that out of all the spirits he’s encountered, you’re definitely one of the most lucid- and certainly the least frightening. You’re solid, stationary, and perfectly capable of navigating your surroundings, unlike the poor wayward souls he typically encounters.

The fact that he is almost always able to see you is remarkable given that he certainly hasn’t remained sober since he arrived. It’s not like he’s gotten back into the hard drugs (you think Ben cajoled him into taking it easy, or perhaps Klaus just feels bad about the idea of buying drugs with the money gained from pawning your things), but he’s usually got a pack of cigarettes and a joint somewhere on his person, nor is he afraid of a drink. Neither you nor Ben can see any other spirits that one might want to snuff out, so maybe Klaus is continuing his substance use out of pure habit. You don’t ask him about it. His self-medication is the one topic sure to put a damper on his otherwise cheeky demeanor.

As you and Ben continue to chat about all the celebrities that are now completely ruined for you, you can hear the kitchen door slamming open two rooms over. Instantly your conversation ceases and you and Ben sit up on alert. There’s a great rustling noise followed by rapid footsteps crossing the linoleum, headed right for the living room.

When Klaus’s curly mop pokes through the doorway, a wave of relief washes over you. He pauses at the cusp of whatever dramatic greeting he was about to deliver and cocks his head curiously. “What’s a matter with the two of you? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”

He gives a self-satisfied guffaw as you and Ben groan.

“Seriously, though. Come look!” Klaus shoots you a sneaky grin. “I think you’ll really like to see what I bought.”

You roll your eyes as you hop off the armchair and follow him into the hallway. “I’m just impressed that you’re out of bed before ten,” you tease. He snorts in response.

He leads you into the kitchen, where the counter is littered with bursting paper bags. You stretch up on your toes to peer into one of the bags, and are startled by the sight of a verdant array of vegetables and fruits.

“I take it you found that grocery store I told you about?” you say. You meant it jokingly, but there is a note of joy in your smile at the thought that he actually listened to your advice to take better care of himself and acted on it.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m not going full vegan on ya,” he drawls, hopping up onto the counter. “But, y’know, I figured it might be somewhat beneficial to not fill my body with artificial toxins. Or at least, temper those toxins with some good ol’ vitamin C.” He punctuates the point by grabbing a clementine out of one of the bags and taking an enthusiastic chomp. Immediately his face twists into an expression of sour malcontent and he spits out a mouthful of the bitter orange skin.

You snort out a laugh at his mistake, to which he responds with a pinching glare. 

You blow him a kiss and hop up onto the counter beside him. “Not that I don’t want to support your choices,” you say, “but how are you going to keep these refrigerated without any actual electricity?”

He tosses the clementine back in the bag. “That’s the beauty of it, my dearest,” he crows. “I popped on my detective cap and did a little investigating, and I found the company that owns this property. They were so desperate to get it out of their greasy corporate hair, they were practically begging me to-”

“Klaus,” you gasp. Your mind is reeling so hard from hearing the pet name from his lips directed at you that it takes a moment to fully register the rest of what he’s saying. “Don’t tell me- did you-?”

“Slow down, Speedy Gonzales. I was getting to it.” He leans toward you with a conspiratorial smile. “We made a little arrangement. Strictly under the table, of course. If I agree to a bit of light maintenance, then they will deign to turn the power back on.” His smile turns into a cheeky smirk. “And of course, if there happens to be a stunningly handsome young man skulking around one of the apartments, who are they to ask questions?”

An excited shriek bursts from your lips and you start to wrap him in a thrilling embrace before you remember. Instead you settle for excited wiggling. He looks at you with a combination of amusement and affection, and you suddenly feel very conscious of how silly you must look.

“What’s going on? Who’s dying?”

You turn to see Ben leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, arms folded across his chest and fixing his brother with a suspicious glare.

“Nothing you won’t approve of, brother mine,” Klaus sing-songs. He slides off the counter and sweeps across the kitchen to clap a hand over Ben’s shoulder, but it passes right through. “Just that we’ve finally got a place to call our own for a little while.”

The suspicion immediately drops from Ben’s face as he stands up straighter. “You mean-?” He doesn’t need to finish his sentence before Klaus is nodding joyfully, and the smile that breaks out over Ben’s expression lights up the kitchen. He whoops in excitement and punches the air. He turns to you with the look of a man who has just found land after surviving a terrible storm.

“Can I hug you please?” he asks. He’s already crossing the kitchen before you’ve finished nodding your assent, and then he sweeps you off the counter with unexpected strength and squeezes you to him with a joyous laugh. Though his body is not warm, you can feel the power behind his lean frame, the pure happiness in the way he squeezes you to him as if you’re his savior in all this chaos. It feels like your face might split apart with how hard you’re smiling.

When he sets you down, you notice that he keeps an arm draped casually over your shoulders. You only try to mask your excitement a little as you turn back to Klaus.

“Is it even legal for them to do that?” you ask.

Klaus shrugs. “Who gives half a shit? Now you’re stuck with me forever.” You don’t miss the flash of heat behind his teasing wink.

You quickly cover your fluster with a joking smile. “And you are finally out of excuses for not taking care of yourself,” you admonish.

“Oh no, anything but that!” he moans, draping an arm over his eyes. He spins around in a dramatic fashion and collapses on his back on the kitchen table like it’s a fainting couch, scattering cigarette ashes and beer cans onto the floor.

“Don’t feed into his dramatics,” Ben sighs. His arm is still wrapped loosely around your shoulders, and he gives you a gentle squeeze. “Personally, I think you will be a positive influence on him.”

“I sure hope so.” You glance over Klaus’s lanky form splayed across the table, his coat flaps fallen open to reveal the delicious planes of his abdomen. “He’s much too skinny.”

Klaus peeks out from beneath his arm. “I take offense to that,” he says. He sits up and hops off the table, heading back into the hallway. You and Ben exchange an exasperated look before you follow the other man out of the kitchen.

“Now where are you going?” Ben asks.

“I’ve done far too much… responsibility .” He says the word the way most people would say cockroaches . “Need to set the old noggin down for a good snooze-aroo.”

Ben starts to reach out a hand to stop his brother, but you shake your head. “It’s not worth it,” you say.

“But-”

“Hey, he accomplished an adult thing before noon. Let’s let him have this,” you joke. Ben looks like he’s going to argue, but finally sighs and trudges back to the living room.

After that morning, things began to change quickly. Klaus keeps himself so busy- especially with his brother constantly on his tail- that he hardly has time to indulge in any of his more deviant pleasures. He sets to work clearing out all the garbage, which he’d barely touched during his first week of residence. All of your cleaning products are worthless after all this time, so he lets you dictate a list of everything he needs and heads back to the store to pick them up. 

The bathroom is finally usable again; you don’t know where he’s been doing his business up to this point, and you don’t want to ask, but you do know he’s gone at least eight days without a shower. Though you can’t smell him, you can detect the visible difference in his appearance and demeanor once he’s gotten a good wash in.

Some of the furniture is in decent enough shape, but much of it has deteriorated from the elements and misuse. The bed is still functional once the mattress is replaced, and though your couch has seen better days it is still perfectly usable. Everything else that isn’t nailed to the floor, Klaus sells. The apartment looks strangely scarce without any furniture, but he promises that once he finds a way to get some more money, he’ll decorate it good as new.

You’re afraid that he’ll try to pawn your knick knacks, but he’s surprisingly respectful about it. He scrounges up some empty cardboard boxes and packs all your things in foam peanuts (you’re slightly aghast to see that that particular invention has stuck around). He stacks them in what used to be your linen closet and sells the bookshelves for scrap wood. It’s a bit sad to see your things being tucked away like antiques from some dead relative’s attic, but you understand why it would be kind of creepy to keep them on display.

The one thing you try to fight them on is your TV. You know it’s boxy and obsolete and doesn’t even work properly, but dammit, that was the first thing you remember buying with your own money once you moved out and got a job, and it’s really special to you. Finally, however, the boys manage to convince you to part with it, along with most of your tapes and cassettes (it’s horrifying to hear that the possessions you previously saw as cutting-edge are now considered vintage , but they assure you that that’s a good thing and they’ll fetch a sweet price at some store called “eBay”). They allow you to keep one piece of film and music each, so you decide on your original edition of Carrie and your most treasured Joy Division cassette.

After much nudging and admonishments on the parts of you and Ben, Klaus finally gets around to unpacking the groceries and refrigerating the perishables. It takes a few days before he summons the energy to cook an actual meal instead of devouring sleeves of Thin Mints straight out of the packaging. With your assistance, he locates your old rolodex stuffed with family recipes. An ache comes constricts your throat at the sight of the tight, neat handwriting on the yellowed index cards. Was it you who wrote these down? Some of them appear older and more well-used than the others, the ink a different color and the handwriting more slanted; perhaps those ones were borrowed from a parent or grandparent. You swallow down the lump squeezing your throat and guide Klaus to select an easy enough recipe.

The index card is entitled “Nana’s Famous Baked Ziti”. The ingredients are simple enough. You guide Klaus to locate the cooking pot, fill it with water, and set it to boil on the old gas range stove. He wrinkles his nose when he turns it on- though you can’t smell it yourself, you’re struck with the memory of the rotten-egg scent emitted by the gas. While the water gets to a boil, he preheats the oven and pulls the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge.

You fall into a comfortable silence as he spreads out the ingredients and sets the colander in the sink. With the major prep out of the way, there isn’t really anything else to do except wait for the water to boil.

Somewhere on the other side of the apartment, Ben groans in frustration. Recently, he’s been spending much of his free time practicing interacting with the physical world. His ability to physically harass Klaus seems to be the current extent of his powers, but he’s determined to figure out how to extend them to engaging with small, inanimate items.

“Sounds like Dr. Frankenstein has hit a bit of a road bump,” Klaus muses.

You hop up on the counter and kick your legs back and forth; of course, they phase right through the cabinets. “Why Frankenstein?” you ask. “I think ghost-type experiments would fall more in the Aleister Crowley zone.”

He snorts. “He wishes. I’m pretty certain Ben died a virgin.”

You give him an admonishing kick that goes right through him. “Don’t be mean. There’s nothing wrong with never having sex.”

Klaus relaxes against the counter’s edge and leans toward you with a conspiratorially raised eyebrow. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”

You let out a startled cough to cover the sudden rush of embarrassment. Jesus, how does this boy manage to press all your buttons so succinctly ? “That’s between me and whatever awaits me in the after-afterlife,” you say with more control than you have.

Thankfully, the sound of the water almost boiling over the pot saves you from further interrogation. Klaus moves quickly to turn down the heat and fumbles the box of pasta open. His fingers are trembling just the slightest bit- one of the many adverse side effects of his usual lifestyle. He pours the ziti into the water all at once, so it hits the surface in a rush and sprays droplets of boiling water out of the pot. Klaus jerks back with a cry, cradling his right arm to his chest.

“Aw, did you burn yourself?” you tease.

He sticks out his lower lip in a comical pout and nods pathetically. You roll your eyes and climb down from the counter.

“Let me see it,” you say.

He holds his arm closer to his chest and shakes his head like a toddler being scolded. You cross your arms and fix him with your most exasperated glare, the one that lets him know you won’t let this go until he allows you to step in and help him, goddammit. His face scrunches up dramatically, but he finally extends his wrist so you can examine it.

You almost laugh when you see what he’d been fussing about. There’s not even a mark, just the slightest red spot near his wrist.

“You’ll be fine, you big baby.” You point him toward the cabinet next to the refrigerator. “I used to keep a first aid kit in there if you want a bandage.”

“I want you to kiss it better,” he pouts. Even though he’s got a good foot on you, he’s looking at you from beneath lowered lids, and the glint in his steely green eyes screams pure debauchery.

Half-formed protests die on your tongue when he takes a step closer to you. There’s barely an inch of space between your face and his neck and oh god does the thrumming pulse beneath his skin look tempting. Today he’s deigned to cover at least part of his torso with a mesh crop top, but somehow it’s even more alluring than his usual half-nudity. Christ’s sake, you can see everything through that sheer black material, and damn him, he knows what it’s doing to you.

You force yourself to meet his gaze with steeled jaw, refusing to show him that his display has had any effect. One thing you’ve learned about Klaus- the second you show that he has any power over you, he will jump on it and ride it for all he can. Even though there is nothing you want more in this moment than to shove him down onto the kitchen table and absolutely ravish him- even if it was physically possible- you can’t give him that power.

The ding! of the oven timer shatters the moment. Klaus rolls his eyes and straightens up. “How rude ,” he mutters.

He has to reach behind you to get the oven mitt, and without making a conscious choice to do so, you stay where you are, forcing him to get far closer to you than necessary. He could just reach through you, of course, but you know he wouldn’t. You hope you aren’t imagining the tiny, knowing smile that plays across his lips as he crowds your personal space.

And as he leans past you, something happens, something that you haven’t experienced since the moment your first manifested in this realm. When he turns his head and exposes his newly scruff-free neck, you catch the barest hint of- something almost minty, clean.

“Klaus,” you whisper, “are you wearing… aftershave?”

“How kind of you to notice!” he chirps as he straightens back up. “Yes, I thought I’d do a bit of-” His voice falters as his brain catches up. “Wait- can you… can you smell me?”

A bubble of excited laughter bursts through your lips. “I can! Oh my god, I can smell you,” you exclaim.

“What did I just walk in on?”

You whirl around to see Ben enter the kitchen, eyes jumping between you and Klaus with a suspicious glare. You leap across the room and sweep him into a hug that lifts him a couple inches off the floor.

“I can smell things now!” you shout.

“Good for you?” He carefully peels himself from your embrace and takes a few steps back, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“No, you don’t get it. Since I woke up, I haven’t been able to smell anything at all,” you say. “But I just smelled it! Klaus’s aftershave!”

Klaus gives an excited wiggle and claps his hands together. “Let’s see what else you can smell!” he chirps. He prances to the fridge and pulls out a raw onion. “Give ‘er a whirl!” he says, holding it out to you.

You take a deep breath of the pungent vegetable. It feels like there’s something tugging on your brain- the memory of a scent, deep and sharp and burrowing into your senses, but it’s not quite… tangible. You frown, taking another great sniff, but there’s nothing.

“I mean… I thought I could smell it,” you say. Your shoulders slump with disappointment.

Ben puts a comforting arm around your shoulders. “Hey, don’t sweat it. These things come and go. Maybe this is your first step toward being able to touch things in the physical world, too,” he says.

You shrug solemnly. He gives your back a brisk double pat before turning and heading back out of the kitchen. As soon as he’s gone, you slump back against the counter and give Klaus a forlorn pout.

“I thought I really had something for a sec,” you grumble.

He shifts to lean against the counter beside you. You try not to let him see how your breathing picks up at his nearness. Even though you know it’s impossible, you swear you can feel the heat rolling off his body.

“You know what this means, right?” he says in a conspiratorial murmur.

You’re sure he’ll hear the quake of nerves in your voice if you speak, so you just raise an eyebrow quizzically.

His gaze swivels to fix upon yours. “It means you’ll just have to keep trying harder to touch me .”

Then he shoves off the counter to put the pasta in the oven, leaving you flustered and empty for words- and in his wake, the slightest breath of mint aftershave.