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Do Not Resuscitate.
The tattoo that finds its place right below Klaus’ collarbones should’ve been the last thing for someone to read before letting him go. Somehow, it didn’t work. Maybe he should’ve picked bigger letters. Maybe he should’ve said it louder, but blood gathering in his mouth didn’t let him be eloquent. And the next moment, the marigold was spilled into the bullet hole in his chest, and it hurt again — the moments of blissful darkness were a true gift, for real — and he came back to life. He’d say, he came back wrong, but he was wrong from the very beginning.
Getting inked was the first thing he did after the universe reset while he had a slot between relapsing and his OCD phase. Do not resuscitate, an addition to the temple on his stomach. I want to meet Dave, because the Void has its own rules. Do not resuscitate, because even if there’s nothing after death in this timeline, he wouldn’t mind.
Because there’s no peace for him now.
“Oh, Dick,” the woman tosses a bunch of banknotes on the bed and blows a kiss to her dead husband. He’s standing right next to her, and tries to smack her ass. Klaus wants to throw up, to cover himself as he comes to — he was absent most of the time, mind blocked and reins handed to a ghost. He thought it’d help him avoid the pain; he thought it hurt so much with Ben in Dallas because he struggled.
Klaus was wrong.
That Ben is gone, that timeline is gone. But Klaus can’t unsubscribe from the Nightmare Show where he stars in the main role.
“I’ll come back, sweetie.”
She’s just a client, and Klaus indeed wishes she was haunted. Because her husband would follow her, and wouldn’t stare down at Klaus with the fire of lust burning in his eyes.
“Nothing to see there,” Klaus grunts, picking up his clothes. Damn that toy she brought, damn everything, damn Allison—
Klaus clamps his palm over his mouth to muffle his sobs. He feels dirty, and used, and violated, and there’s no way Quinn will let him take a bath today; the bed is all messy, and Klaus doesn’t even want to touch it anymore.
Dick’s eyes are locked on Klaus’ bare chest, reading the line again and again.
“Fuck you,” the dead man says.
Klaus shrugs.
“You just did.”
He hastily pulls on a gray t-shirt and some floral pants; he shudders at the memory about how hard it was to take them off. It was bound to happen, right? After the Possession Incident in the sixties, there were more dead and horny souls that wouldn’t mind using him. Klaus is weak, and sick, and fragile, and he wants to go to sleep, but he can’t when the old man keeps watching him, waiting for him to relax to wear his body like a sock again.
Well, at least it wasn’t his bruder this time.
HELLO, new timeline. GOODBYE, my old life.
He thought his siblings would love him better if he gets sober, if he stops being the Klaus that annoyed everyone with his babbling and his recklessness — he thought he just needed to grow up. To be useful, but turns out his only use is being someone’s slave—
Klaus can’t even finish the line in his head, falling to his knees next to the bed as his insides spill onto the carpet. Quinn will be mad about it, but Klaus is probably still concussed after having his brains blown out, and ghost possession always makes him feel ill. He can’t vomit up his memories, his pain, his regrets. He can only cling to the floor that’s about to become his grave.
And that’s when he finds it — a tiny glimpse of hope. A shiny brooch under the bed. It must’ve fallen off when they—
“Come on,” Klaus cracks his neck and taps himself on the cheeks. “You can do this.”
He just needs to step over himself and watery vomit soaking the carpet.
Klaus gets up on the table and begins to pick a tiny window’s lock. After a few attempts, it gives up, finally letting Klaus breathe in some air of freedom. Dick’s presence behind Klaus’ back makes his hair stand on end.
“Where are you going?”
Klaus hacks up,
“None of your business.”
“Hey, boy! You are pretty much my business now!”
Klaus doesn’t listen to him, he only has a minute before Quinn will come to collect the money. He’s on the second floor, but if he tries hard enough he will be able to reach for a fire escape ladder.
His whole body is trembling, and the wind doesn’t help at all. Klaus didn’t want his powers back.
Do not resuscitate, he asked. No one cared.
***
He doesn’t know where he’s going; the good thing, Dick doesn’t follow him anymore. The good thing, Klaus remembered where he left his last stash before leaving Quinn’s place months and months ago. The pills sit uncomfortably in his pocket, and he doesn’t know what stops him from taking all of them now.
He can’t die anyway.
His life’s been a shit show in this new timeline where he… stopped being sober while he was powerless, he was prepared to die. He put a note for his potential savior on his chest; then he met Allison and Claire, and Ray, and they told him he’s their family.
It was a horrible year. More than one, honestly.
He missed Ray when he left.
Allison never said that it was Klaus’ fault. Until yesterday.
But if he ruins everything he touches, why did she bring him back? Did she know he was going to get back to his old habits and get raped—
Klaus stops dead in his tracks. This is the first time he admits it. He was sober, he was careful, he didn’t mind all those jokes. He knew he was broken. Now his body doesn’t belong to him. It never did, actually, he’s been jumping from one bender to another but what happened between him, Dick, and Dick’s wife brought up a whole new level of humiliation.
Quinn is probably looking for him already, and Klaus still owes him a shit ton of money — Klaus sees a black car on the periphery and runs. Quinn prefers the bikes, but he has friends all around the city, all looking for Klaus, and he must run as fast as he can —
“Klaus!”
This is definitely not Quinn’s voice.
“Klaus!”
The car stops, Klaus stops too. It’s hard to breathe, and he leans against the wall and scrapes his throat as if the holes in it can make the air come through. Tears blur his vision like cheap contacts, like a ghostly mist that surrounds him when he’s possessed. He was still there.
Then he falls into Allison’s embrace, and there’s blood in her hair, and Klaus swallows his question along with bile.
“That man,” Allison says, her chin resting on Klaus’ shoulder. “He won’t bother you anymore.”
It doesn’t matter anymore. Something already happened. But Klaus has to be a good sibling, so he tries to stay in character.
“He hurt you too,” his voice is as unsteady as his vision. “Did you at least blow up his balls for that?”
Allison hums in response, and Klaus realizes he was somehow right.
“Ouch.”
He even smiles at her. It doesn’t last long.
“I was in that room, I know what happened, Klaus,” she places her palms on the sides of his face and makes him look in her eyes. “You don’t have to pretend with me. There’s therapy groups for rape victims, there’s… people who can help you.”
She knows he’ll cover his ears and curl into himself if she speaks a bit louder.
“I don’t want to go through this again,” he whispers, not to startle himself too. “Why didn’t you just let me die?”
“Because you’re my brother,” Allison says. The wall behind Klaus’ shoulder blades turns to ice.
Years ago, the drugs in Klaus’ system would make him believe everything that happened was his fault.
He can’t trick his mind and his body anymore.
Allison helps him into the car, and he doesn’t refuse. She can still rumor him. He can still die of pneumonia, just temporarily, but temporarily doesn’t make it hurt less.
He doesn’t even ask where she’s taking him.
***
“You know what ghosts can do, right?”
“What do you mean?” Allison is a busy driver, actually caring about the road signs she’s passing.
“Oh, they can have orgasms, baby,” Klaus tries to mask everything into a joke before someone else starts joking. He wishes it didn’t make him want to cry. “I used to work with… the living folks though. Do you think ghosts can have STDs? Should we call the exorcist?”
Apparently his tone tells more than his words. Allison hits the brakes, hits her fist on the steering wheel and swears.
“I should fucking go back and make that perv eat his balls,” she spits, eyes glowing yellow with anger. Klaus shivers in his seat. “I’m so sorry, Klaus.”
“For not making him eat them when you first met?”
“For ruining your life.”
“Oh, I can do it myself now.”
Allison rubs the bridge of her nose. Klaus shouldn’t be scared of her.
“When you died, I just couldn’t take it. Not because I wanted the “old Klaus” back, I just,” she pauses. “Couldn’t imagine my house without you anymore.”
And Klaus can’t imagine his life without Claire anymore.
There are bruises blooming on his wrists. He doesn’t want to look at them.
“Well, we can remove the bubble wrap now.”
He wonders if there’s something he can tattoo on his body to prevent the ghosts from entering it. CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS, you’re not gonna like the interior. No matter what he says now he’ll sound pathetic.
And with the new Apocalypse on their tail, it would be inappropriate.
It’s not fair, Klaus wants to yell. I did not ask for it. I don’t see the beauty of life anymore. I can’t spend even a day with the man I love, with the man who didn’t think I was dirty.
The red lines on Klaus’ forearms begin to bleed. He should stop biting his nails. He quit smoking years ago, but he’s so close to asking Allison for a vape.
The miles land under the tires, and Klaus’ brain feels like a piece of gum sticking to the Bicycle Girl’s shoe.
And, when it’s already too late to fix anything, Allison asks,
“Can we… remove your marigold?”
“I have eternity to figure it out,” Klaus shrugs. “We’ll see.”
His shaking hand rubs his collarbones, fingers tracing along black letters. Do Not Resuscitate.
You’ll be shocked when I come back.