Chapter Text
"Talks with the dead cost extra after midnight," Klaus taps the sign he keeps on the table that makes up his desk, chewing absently on the sticky piece of gum that's long since lost any semblance of taste. When he'd first started working at The Emporium, he'd never expected to become an integral part of the business but—
Well, Marie-Anne adored him, and Klaus was happy to work late if it meant he didn't have to wake up early.
"You know, you'd find it easier to wake up early if you went to sleep earlier," Marie-Anne had pointed out when he'd first suggested the idea of late-night seances.
"Don't talk logic at me, Mausebär; you know I'm allergic."
"Allergic to hard work more like."
"Just wait, one day, I'm gonna curse you and take over this whole shop."
"You can try, mon chou."
Marie had smiled at him, a flash of too many sharp teeth and Klaus had done little more than grin back, offering the tail end of his joint.
"People like late-night mystic shit, Marie, adds to the ambience."
Smoke had curled around them, dancing with life—there had been a lot of spirits that day, crowding like unruly children as they vyed for his attention.
"Mm, so you say Klaus, but don't come running to me when you get no customers."
Only Klaus had gotten customers. Few and far between at first, he had been a new face on the scene when Marie had taken him on, stumbling over his English and his own feet. It had taken time to build up a reputation as not only trustworthy but accurate too. Now he has people trickling in at a steady pace, more than enough to fill his own plate (and his own bong, much to Marie-Anne's neverending delight).
"Uh. You're Klaus?" The man in front of him is tall.
Klaus blinks once, twice, then looks up at the blond. Really, really, fucking tall.
Like, giant in his store tall.
"Holy shit," he breathes out, stubbing out the cigarette he really shouldn't be smoking inside. "What the fuck did they feed you?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing! Nothing! Don't worry, just wasn't expecting a customer at this time."
"You're available till four," the man points out. Klaus rolls his eyes as he shifts in his seat, unsure whether he should offer the rickety old stool that most of his customers use.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm available. Most people just tend to come before three am. Like, at ten, eleven. Ya know?"
"I guess?"
Klaus takes another look over the giant and decides to start again. "I'm Klaus, Klaus Schärer; who do I have the uh, pleasure of talking with?"
"Oh, you don't recognise—" he cuts himself off. "I'm Luther. Luther Hargreeves."
"Luther! Lovely name. What brings you here today?"
"I want to talk to someone?"
No shit Sherlock, Klaus thinks, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at this Luther fellow. First-timers are always so awkward, coming up to him with scepticism in their eyes and nerves curling their fingers together. Klaus glances around Luther and winces at a few of the gorier spectres surrounding him—law enforcement perhaps—and then leans back in his chair.
"Like I said, costs extra after midnight."
"That's uh, that's fine. Money isn't an issue."
Private security, maybe? Luther certainly has the build for it, even if he's doing his best to hide behind a coat that's definitely seen better days. Klaus is all for thrift store chic, but there's nothing flattering about the lumpy brown material cloaking Luther, a faint scent of mothballs and wilderness wafting off of him.
Klaus stands, rubs tattooed hands together as he watches Luther's face. "You ever been to a seance before?"
"A what?
"... this? This whole shebang? Talking to the dearly departed."
"I didn't realise it had a name."
"It's written on the flyers."
"I thought that was like, your stage name."
For such a big man, Luther certainly knows how to shrink back like a scolded puppy, the type you'd see littering city streets after being abandoned by their mothers to the wilds of nature. Klaus is almost sympathetic; he'd been one of those dogs once, shying away from any raised voice.
"Yeah, I mean—You know what, no big deal big guy, ja? Let's get this party started."
Klaus wanders around the back of the shop, picking up supplies that he doesn't really need—a bit of incense, quartz, candles, a pack of tarot cards as worn down as his own fingernails. Nothing is essential (Klaus's Sight has been with him since the day he was born, harder to turn off than turn on), but he finds it helps to set the scene of the session and calm his own nerves.
"What's all that for?" Luther asks, still standing over Klaus's desk, leaning like a windswept tree.
And there's the question. Klaus lets a Cheshire cat grin slip across his face, too many bright teeth that reflect under the store lights, almost as shiny as his own eyes. "Why, for magic."
"Magic...?"
"That's what drove you here, is it not? The chance to see beyond the veil, the promise of one last conversation?"
"I mean, I guess. But is that magic?"
"What else would it be?"
Luther shuffles on his feet, too small for such a big body, and doesn't answer. Once again, Klaus wonders what draws the non-believers to his door—sure, he has a reputation as uncanny and accurate, but he's still a witch. Magic isn't something most people accept blindly, but hope can be an awful thing sometimes. It can lead you off a thousand cliffs.
"Sitzen, sitzen," Klaus says as he sets up his candles, white and violet and electric blue. Luther can brave the stool if he's going to act so suspicious of Klaus's magic, and maybe Klaus will get a laugh if it cracks and crumbles beneath him.
Maybe not.
He's been a nicer person since he stopped the hard stuff, or at least less prone to letting whatever petty cruelty that pops into his head slip out of his mouth. He counts it as a win.
Across from him, Luther lowers himself to the stool, lightly at first and then all at once, as if he's not sure what to do with that massive bulk of his. Unlikely then, that he'd always been so big. Klaus has always had a knack for picking up on things that others don't—Sight has more uses than just seeing ghosts, after all. Sometimes he just knows things, or sees them in dreams. A boy at the end of the world, a girl and a violin and a moon.
Death. So much death.
He shakes the thoughts away, clicking his tongue against his teeth to a rhythm only he can hear. It doesn't take long for him to set himself up the way he likes, circling salt around the darkened cloth, the colour bleached where he's made rings a thousand times before. By the time he has the candles lit, even Luther is leaning forwards, entranced by the atmosphere.
Good. That's what Klaus likes, what he wants in his clients. The more open their minds, the easier it is for him to pluck out whatever questions they have, the easier it is for him to find a settled soul—or, in the bad cases, a lost one.
Hands shuffle across his well-worn cards as he looks at Luther, really looks at him this time with all eyes open, taking in the shadows until they form gruesome faces, torn open bodies. Definitely some sort of security, private military, police—this level of violence is unique and gory. If he were younger still, Klaus might have felt sick at the sight of them, but he has more control over himself nowadays; these dead won't bother him any longer than he allows them to.
"Tell me, Luther," he starts, "who are you looking for?"
When Klaus speaks, his voice is layered, echoing in his own ears and reverberating around the room, sending souls singing and scattering away from his form. Luther sits up straighter on his stool, staring at Klaus as all the lights flicker and dim.
Ten of Swords.
The Tower.
Five of Wands.
He doesn't have to lay the cards out to know them; they buzz beneath his fingers and call for his attention. Klaus draws them, places them face down across the table.
"My brother," Luther says. "His name was Ben."
"Is," Klaus corrects. "His name is Ben."
"But he's dead."
"Not here. Not tonight."
Luther frowns his shadowy entourage swell, calling out his name, his brother's name. Like a cave system, they echo for attention, but Luther can't hear them, can't see them, and Klaus has no desire to engage with their petty troubles.
"Tell me about Ben."
"We were seventeen when he..."
"Take your time." Klaus charges by the hour, after all.
"He died in an... an accident, I guess. Something went wrong. I should have protected him."
Luther's voice is stilted, the words almost foreign on his tongue. There's something about being a Medium, dangling between Life and Death, that has people opening up about old secrets (and newer ones too). For some, Klaus is less a gateway and more a very unqualified therapist, bombarded with the truth of all the problems that plague families and friends, lovers and enemies alike.
"Keep talking, Luther. Go earlier. Tell me what Ben is like."
"Quiet but sharp, he read a lot, wanted to go to college. Listened to awful music, cried whenever he had to fight, whenever Dad made him train, he was... like glue."
Klaus doesn't ask about fighting or training or Dad; God knows he's seen his fair share of awful families (lived with one for fifteen years too). Instead, he closes his eyes, hands trailing slowly across the cards he'd drawn and then, there—
A picture wavering beneath water, a face slowly coming into focus. "Ben," Klaus says, and a seventeen-year-old boy swaddled in a black hoodie comes to him, blood splattered across his face.
Lost souls always start the same: confused, scared, angry.
"Where am I? Who are you? What's going on?"
And then, when they see the person who's called them back (not Klaus, he's simply the Medium, the material used to create the meeting), a name.
"Luther?"
Klaus taps his fingers on the table, turns over the first card. Ten of Swords. Disaster, destruction, all hope lost; relationships ending catastrophically. Cruelty suffered through it all. He always knows what the cards are trying to tell him, whether they're being obvious about it or not; when he listens to them, they sing about the past, the present, the future drawing close. Lately, all his cards have signalled destruction; Klaus doesn't take it personally.
"Ben died horribly, didn't he?" Klaus's voice drops again, a whisper where there had been a roar. "It tore you apart. Your whole family. A disaster you couldn't recover from, everything was ruined."
"How do you know that?"
"Yes or no, Luther?"
"Yes."
"Luther, I'm here," Ben speaks again, his voice twisting like an offbeat melody; it's surprisingly pleasing to Klaus's ears, but he knows he's an odd one, falling in love with all the broken pieces of the universe.
"He can't hear you," Klaus says, and for the first time, Ben looks at him. Like all ghosts, he's not all there, eyes hollowed out and empty, skin tinged blue. Unlike most lost souls, he's surprisingly coherent, face narrowing in suspicion as he stares at Klaus.
"Why can't he hear me?"
"You're dead, and he doesn't have Sight."
Blood drips down Ben's front, thick and sticky as it leaks out from under his hoodie; said hoodie is black and dry and clean.
"But you do?"
"Obviously."
"Who are you?"
"Klaus, Klaus Schärer. And who exactly are you, Ben? Defying all the known laws of ghostdom."
"You can see him?" Luther pipes up. "He's really here?"
"Fresh as a daisy."
"That's not true, don't lie to him," Ben frowns and wraps his arms self consciously around his stomach. A leftover gesture from life, Klaus thinks—ghosts do funny things, still believing they're around.
"Who are you, Ben?" Klaus asks again, drawing all his power up into himself and spreading it like a blanket across the room, draping it over Ben's skinny seventeen-year-old shoulders. "Talk to me," he lets his gift drip into his voice, soothing whatever hurt that still simmers in Ben and Ben—
Ben just stares.
Klaus frowns; his power ripples again, making the lights flash on-off-on.
"I'm gonna sneeze," Ben says.
"No, you're fucking not."
"That's like itching powder right under my nose."
"No, that's not what it's like, Jesus Christ."
"It really is, actually, am I—"
Ben's face screws up like he's about to sneeze, nose scrunched and eyes squeezed shut.
"If you sneeze, I swear to god," Klaus hisses under his breath, wondering why exactly this ghost isn't working the way it—he—should.
"What's going on?" Luther asks, moving as if he's about to stand up.
"Just a little hiccup. Did Ben have a cold when he—"
Ben sneezes, loud enough that it makes Klaus's ears ring, decidedly inhuman.
"—died?"
"I don't think so."
"Great," Klaus mutters, louder than he intended, and Luther blinks and frowns at him.
"Maybe I should go," he says after a moment.
"No, no, sit," Klaus tries to soothe the flustered air around the room, but it's difficult when Ben is still staring at him, arms shifting to cross over his chest. His face is a picture of teenage boredom, mouth set in a wide frown. Now the hood he'd been wearing is down, and Klaus can see tufts of dark hair poking up at unnatural angles—another abnormality about Ben.
Ghost's don't usually change.
"Ben," Klaus starts, ignoring Luther for a moment. "Can you please tell me your full name, just to make sure?"
"Ben Hargreeves," Ben says. And then, after a long moment of silence, "Number Four."
"Ben Hargreeves, Number Four." Klaus rolls the words across his tongue; they taste bitter like iron (truth, all the little voices in his head ring, he's telling the truth). Luther jolts a little in his stool, making the flimsy legs of it creak; the right name then.
Klaus continues to ignore him.
"Ben, you're dead."
"You said."
Irritation flickers beneath Klaus's skin, and he buries the feeling deep, tries his best to let it slip away into the night.
"Your brother is here." Klaus sticks with the facts. Ben's eyes glance over Luther again, and something in his face falls as he finally takes in the bulk of his form, the tight furrow between his brow.
"What happened to him?" Ben asks and Klaus—
Klaus doesn't know.
(A fire, the moon, falling, death, death, death like cherry pie, overly sweet and red and burning inside and out, molten in the core. Klaus thinks of The Tower, destruction twice over, falling apart, the end of all things).
"He blames himself." Is what he says instead. Truth spills across his tongue like blood.
Ben shakes his head. "It wasn't his fault."
Something else is tugging at Klaus, the memory of a memory. Hargreeves rings like a bell between his ears, rain battering against an umbrella, incessantly demanding attention. Klaus doesn't have time to unravel the thread; he has to focus.
"It wasn't your fault," he tells Luther. "Ben says it wasn't your fault."
"You don't know that."
Here comes the rejection of truth, the blundering building of barriers. Luther will think Klaus is swindling him, will assume he's taking the information already offered and twisting it back. This is why he ignores the clients, would ignore the ghosts too. Both are as bad as each other.
"Ben, tell me what happened." This time there's no power behind the words, but Ben speaks anyway.
"We were seventeen; Dad had sent us out on a mission, just me and Luther because all the others had left."
(Hargreeves, mission, his mind is screaming).
"There were five of us when we started, but it was just us two by the end. I wanted to stay at least until I was eighteen. Then I could start college. I thought—I didn't want to abandon Luther."
Klaus parrots back the story; he knows better than to embellish by this point, just repeats word for word. Beneath his finger, The Tower burns. Destruction, the universe imploding, Klaus aches, and he doesn't know why.
"It was this warehouse. We thought it would be easy, routine, there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, so I suggested we split up. It was winter, cold... I wanted to go home."
He nods, thinks of ice, falling, wonders what flashes of nightmares he'll get tonight. If he's lucky, he'll only die once.
"We never should have gone out," Luther says from across the table, his thick arms crossed over his chest.
"There was a trap," Ben says at the same time.
"A trap?"
"For me."
Ben's face falls, every inch of him slumping inwards. Klaus turns over The Tower, stares at the image of it falling to pieces and nods.
"What happened?"
"I walked into it. I was stupid, cold, tired. I didn't want to be there."
So many I statements, Klaus repeats them back and tastes ash and iron on his tongue, truth and lies and blood spilling out like oil over water, shiny and slick.
"It was... like a bomb going off. The Horror, it kept flailing. So much shrapnel."
"That's enough."
Luther is pale, drawn, his huge hands curled into thicker fists, his eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Today, Klaus has no power over Ben, but he whispers the command to stop anyway, lets it wash away the tense air of the room. And then silence reigns.
For Luther, at least. Ben is quiet, the named ghost usually is once they're done, but behind him, Luther's crowd of ghouls are yelling, screaming for attention; they all want a turn in the spotlight. Too bad they haven't paid their dues.
"I'm sorry," Luther says eventually. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you. I was Number One, I should have seen it, the trap, Ben..."
Something splits across Klaus's temple, the skin parting to reveal the itching ache of his skull.
"It's alright, Luther."
"It wasn't your fault."
"Please don't blame yourself."
The end of the session is the hardest; it draws out with platitudes and teary eyes half the time. The other half of the time, his nights end in screaming, usually over inheritances, money, and who was left what in grandmas will. Surprisingly, Klaus prefers those because they're at least good fun to tell Marie-Anne when his shift is over, smoking weed behind the shop.
"You really see him?" Luther asks, as they finish talking, the night outside lightening as the sun rises.
"Yup."
"Have you always been able to?"
"See your brother? No, I called him tonight." Behind Luther, Ben is loitering, yet to be dismissed. Some of them leave immediately before Klaus even has a chance to wave GOODBYE, but Ben lingers like a bad smell.
All seventeen-year-olds smell bad, so it's probably an apt comparison.
"Not Ben. Like, ghosts in general?"
"Oh, yeah, I mean, as long as I can remember."
"Really?" Something changes on Luther's face, his tight lips pursing. Klaus rests his hand over the third, unanswered card and frowns back at him—he hadn't expected conflict now of all times.
"Yes, really. You go through this whole session, and you're doubting me now?"
"No, no, not doubting. I just... it's interesting. I thought it would be like, something you have to learn?"
"Some of us are blessed with Sight, Liebe and some of us aren't. It's fate."
"I guess so."
Outside, a pigeon coos loud enough to be heard through the thin panes of glass and Klaus can't help but yawn, slowly extracting himself from his chair. With practised ease, he breaks the circle and lets the rest of the magic fall away, a banishment and a cleansing all at once. Luther's pests drip into the floor until they're nothing but shadows across the wood, and then only one remains.
One shouldn't remain, but there Ben is, looking green around the gills. "I feel sick now."
Klaus frowns.
"Would you like to pay by card or cash?"
"Cash, please." Luther pulls a thick wad of bills out of the pocket of his tatty coat, and Klaus fights to keep his eyes from bulging out of his head. On the streets, a bundle like that would get you killed if you didn't waste it all on snow and Special K first. That familiar need sparks through him, a hunger he still feels every time he thinks of a needle, a pretty line of powder; Klaus smiles as calmly as he can.
"Good, good. Let me ring you up."
He has no set prices on the door; the most his flyers say is that he charges more after midnight. Luther pays him nearly six hundred dollars and doesn't blink at the cash exchanging hands. Made of money then, possibly born into it. Rich people don't know how much a dollar is worth.
"You swindled my brother," Ben says.
"Thank you for your patronage," Klaus tells Luther.
"Thanks for, uh, everything."
"Anytime," Klaus says the way most people say 'fuck off'.
"You swindled my brother," Ben repeats as the door closes behind Luther, the bell above it ringing sweetly throughout the shop, a scowl painted across his youthful features. Klaus sighs, locking the door behind Luther.
"Why are you still here?"
"What?"
"You should have gone, poof, Auf Wiedersehen! So, why are you still here?" As he speaks, Klaus wriggles his fingers, eyebrow raised as he stares at Ben. Ghosts are fragments, pieces of the people they used to be until they get close to him—Klaus doesn't know what makes this one so different.
It makes his stomach turn.
"I don't know?"
"You... you don't know?"
"You're the ghost boy!"
"First of all, not a ghost. Second of all, I'm not a boy unless it's being used for sexy and/or comedic purposes."
Ben huffs and rolls his eyes. "It's your power; you tell me why I'm still here."
"It's not a power."
"What else would it be?"
"It's... a gift. The Sight. Magic."
"Magic isn't real," Ben says as if he's not a ghost dangling between realms. Klaus has never had a spirit deny him before—they're usually too busy screaming for attention.
"Of course, it's real. How else would you be here?"
Something sour flits over Ben's face, the boy sinking into himself again, arms protectively wrapped around his stomach, shoved through the pockets of his hoodie. Klaus walks back to the cards still spread across the table, taps them one, two, three. Flips the final one, already knowing what's beneath it.
Conflict.
"Look, I'm sorry, but you can't stay here."
"I told you, I don't know how to leave!"
"Walk out the door. Through it, if you want. You can do that."
"No."
"No?"
"I don't—I'm not leaving."
"Verfickt noch mal! Na schön!."
Morning has dawned outside the shop, bright and white with fog, so empty it makes his eyes hurt as he looks up. It doesn't take long to tidy the shop, though longer than usual, with Ben following him around, commenting on the cards and crystals and rune inscribed wands. He seems particularly enamoured by those.
"You know, for someone who says magic isn't real, you seem rather interested, ghosty."
"Just because something isn't real doesn't mean it can't be cool."
"Ja, ja, sure." Klaus snorts, grinding weed as he waits for six am and Marie-Anne to appear like clockwork out of the misty morning air.
"Your boss lets you do drugs?"
"Mein lieber Geist, my boss buys me drugs. And she'll have my ass if I haven't rolled one for her too."
"That's bad for you." Ben is all teenage innocence—a type of teenage innocence, at least. The stay at home, twenty-first-century virgin boy who's never touched a drink in his life.
"Better than crack."
That shuts Ben up right quick, and Klaus enjoys the silence for as long as it lasts, right up till Marie-Anne appears. He hopes that the weed will be enough to make Ben fade entirely, but he stays in the corner of Klaus's vision until he's making the short walk home.
"I'm going to bed, don't talk," he says when he stumbles inside, kicking the door closed behind him. Distracted by his unwelcome spirit, Klaus doesn't notice the eyes of another visitor watching him from the corner of his living room until it's too late.
The boy is on him in a flash—a literal, blue flash of light, so bright and fast that Klaus's eyes ache, throbbing alongside his head in confusion.
And then everything fades.