Chapter Text
“Are you coming?”
Klaus was looking at him, his head cocked and his eyes hopeful as he lingered in the doorway. For a moment, Dave found himself stuck for words, glancing over at Diego who just shrugged at him.
“You don’t need my permission, man.”
“Right,” Dave chuckled. “I’m an adult.”
With that, he followed Klaus through the doorway. Klaus sauntered back across the shop floor and Dave watched him curiously. He walked like there were pins in his shoes, barely grazing the ground with each foot and practically floating across the floor.
“I feel very light on my feet today,” Klaus said, and Dave worried for a moment that he’d been thinking out loud. “I’m not sure if it’s the sobriety or the fact that I haven’t eaten all day.”
“You should probably eat something,” Dave told him as he followed him outside and Klaus hummed in response.
He sat himself down on the curb and Dave sat beside him, pulling his lighter out of his pocket and flicking it a few times while Klaus fumbled with shaky hands to open the cigarette pack. When Klaus finally got one out, he held it between his lips, not taking his eyes off Dave while he lit it. He watched him intently, looking up at him from under long, dark lashes with a curious, almost confused look in his eyes. As if Dave doing something as simple as lighting a cigarette for him was unexpected. He leant back on one hand and looked up at the sky while Dave lit his own cigarette, and for a moment the two of them were quiet.
“Are you okay?” Dave asked when he saw Klaus’ hand was still shaking.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m peachy!” Klaus grinned, waving him off. “Just… bad dream. It’s nothing. Where are you from, Dave?”
The abrupt change of topic caught him off guard, and for a moment he found himself fumbling to remember his own home.
“Uh, Alberta,” He said. “I only moved here last week.”
“That’s a long way to move,” Klaus said quietly, and then he smirked, nudging Dave’s arm with his elbow. “If you ever want a tour of the place, I know all the best spots in town.”
He got the impression that Klaus’ idea of the best spots in town were probably quite a bit different than most people’s. But then, Dave had never really been interested in what most people thought, so he nodded, and this time the smile that spread across Klaus’ face looked genuine.
“I’ve thought about doing that a lot. Moving to a completely new place and starting over, I mean.” Klaus took a drag of his cigarette, gazing wistfully out across the street.
“What’s stopping you?”
“Oh, lots of things,” He sighed. “Money. Need a little more of that. And I can’t drive, which is… limiting.”
“You can learn to drive,” Dave pointed out and Klaus shook his head.
“I know how to drive, it’s just hard to tell whether the people on the road are… you know… alive or not. And apparently it’s ‘irresponsible’ and ‘illegal’ to drive under the influence.”
Dave nodded thoughtfully. For all the movies he’d watched, it had never really occurred to him how inconvenient it would be to be surrounded by ghosts all the time.
“Besides,” Klaus continued. “Even if I did have money, and I could drive, I don’t think I could bring myself to leave Diego like that. He already lost everyone else, I don’t think he could…” He trailed off, taking another drag of his cigarette and letting out a deep sigh. “Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s never gonna happen.”
“Where would you go?” Dave asked, trying to put a positive spin back on the conversation. “If you could leave?”
For once Klaus didn’t have an immediate response to that, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth and furrowing his brow as he mulled the question over.
“I don’t know,” He finally said, looking over at him. “There’s lots of places I wanna visit. I’d like to go to Munich, but my German still needs some work. Right now I only know the important stuff. You know, ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, ‘wo ist das nächste bordell?’”
He stared at Klaus blankly. “What’s that mean?”
“Where’s the nearest brothel?”
Dave burst out laughing at that and Klaus’ face lit up. He laughed in short bursts, like he was trying to stop himself from doing it, and Dave couldn’t stop himself from constantly sneaking glances at Klaus, watching the way his eyes crinkled in the corners and his whole face creased up while he smiled. The next time he looked at him, Klaus looked back, his eyes flicking across his face curiously before darting away again. In his whole life, Dave had never met anyone that seemed as confident and sure of themselves as Klaus did, but now he looked a little self-conscious, tucking his knees up and turning his face away from him for a moment.
“If it’s any consolation,” Dave said, not ready for their conversation to come to an end yet. “You already know more German than me.”
Klaus huffed out a laugh at that and turned back towards him, looking him up and down like he was studying an exotic animal.
“You’re very sweet, Dave,” He said matter-of-factly, cocking his head at him. “I see why Diego likes you.”
He chuckled, feeling a little self-conscious with Klaus’ eyes still fixed on him. “I uh… I don’t know if he likes me. I don’t think he got much of a say in me being here.”
“Trust me, if he didn’t like you he would have found a way to ditch you by now,” Klaus said with a smirk. “But you’re still here, which means he’s willing to tolerate you. And that’s probably about the highest compliment you’re ever gonna get from him.”
While Dave tried to process the fact that Diego Hargreeves, the actual Diego Hargreeves, was tolerating him, Klaus stubbed his cigarette out on the sidewalk and drummed his hands on his knees restlessly.
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad he does like you,” He said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s nice having someone different to talk to. Usually I’m limited to stoners or my siblings.” Klaus’s face changed for a moment when he said that, but then he smiled again and hopped to his feet, holding his hand out to help him up. “Shall we?”
Klaus’ hand was cold when he took it, and Dave found himself squeezing it instinctively to try and warm him up. That seemed to catch Klaus off guard and he snatched his hand away again, shoving it in his pocket and smiling timidly at him before turning and heading back inside.
Dave smiled back, even though Klaus’ back was already turned, and watched him for a moment before following. Suddenly, being in a new city full of strangers felt a little less overwhelming, and his hand still felt a little cold where Klaus had held it.