Let's all pretend that I didn't disappear for almost four months and didn't change my hyperfixation during that time, and pretend that everything was the same, okay?
The silhouette is walking towards him, or maybe away from him, he can’t tell. All he knows is that he wants to get closer.
Klaus recognizes him, even after so long, he can still tell who it is. No matter how much has changed, he knows.
“Dave?”
Notes: Happy Apocalypse Day! I decided to write a thing where Klaus is unlucky enough to die and come back, but this time he wakes up in the Apocalypse. This isn’t a Klave fic or what you expect, I’ll answer any questions in the comments or asks. Enjoy!
Big thank you to @dyll-pickless for betaing and for the people that read it early!
[Read on AO3]
Klaus opens his eyes.
The sky’s bright, but grey. As he picks himself up from the ground, he notices the rest of the park—when did he go to a park?—is grey as well. The bushes, the trees, the leaves on the ground covering the path.
The bell of a bicycle grabs his attention and he quickly turns around to see a little girl approaching him. She’s wearing a summer hat and a cute white dress. Her skin is grey, just like everything else around here, just like him.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says with an irritated look on her face.
Klaus doesn’t understand what she means by that. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t really care if he’s being honest.
“He’s waiting for you.”
He doesn’t wait for an explanation. Or maybe she doesn’t let him wait because she’s already gone. He feels as if everything’s happening by itself like he’s not really controlling where he’s going. Like something’s pulling him in a certain direction.
He doesn’t question it, he just walks.
He should be getting tired by now, or at least breaking a sweat, but he doesn’t really feel anything. It’s like he’s dumb, or on drugs. But it feels like he’s in a dream more than anything.
He stops in his tracks once he sees a silhouette in the distance. He can’t tell if it’s grey just like everything else or if the way the sun is hitting on it makes it seem that way.
It looks strangely familiar. A man in rusty clothes, a hat—or was it a helmet?—on his head. A rifle hanging from his arm, almost like he’s dragging it with him.
The silhouette is walking towards him, or maybe away from him, he can’t tell. All he knows is that he wants to get closer.
Klaus recognizes him, even after so long, he can still tell who it is. No matter how much has changed, he knows.
“Dave?”
He tries to take another step, but he can’t.
He looks down and his feet are stuck to the ground. No— They’re getting sucked into the ground.
And then there’s a lump in his throat, and it doesn’t get better until he’s choking and coughing up dirt.
No no no no no. Dave’s right there, what are you doing?
His eyes snap back to where Dave is, but everything’s dark. He’s been completely sucked into the ground as if it was moving sand.
He’s trapped and he can’t move and the dirt is forcing its way down his throat and into his lungs. It’s getting in his eyes and up his nose and inside his ears and his heart is pounding out of his chest and he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe—
Klaus opens his eyes.
The sky’s bright, but grey. Not like before, there’s smoke covering the blue.
In less than a second he’s coughing again, sitting up and finally getting the dirt out of his system, throwing up on himself. He looks down at his lap and his hands that are covered in dirt.
As he picks himself up from the ground, he eyes his surroundings. It was strangely familiar, like in his dream or whatever that was, but it wasn’t the same.
There’s slowly dying fires, debris on the ground along with… everything else. There’s nothing standing anymore.
His eyes immediately snap to where he was buried. Three more graves, their numbers written with pebbles.
One, Two, Three… he was Four.
Oh.
__
They didn’t know.
If they did, maybe they could have stopped all of this. But now it was too late.
Klaus hadn’t seen anything like this before. He wasn’t even sure if it was real or just another one of those dreams.
The walls of the Academy shaking, the ceiling threatening to fall on them. Their sister standing across the other side of the room, her eyes shining white with… hatred?
This was their little sister. And she had powers and she was going to bring this place down to the ground.
And they were just letting her. Trapped in a corner, just holding each other’s hand waiting for it to happen. Because what else could they do?
They probably deserved it anyway.
Klaus didn’t want to die. He had embraced death his whole life but now that it was going to happen he wasn’t ready. He was scared. Scared that he’d turn into one of those ghosts and roam the Earth forever.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want them to die. But Vanya did.
__
It doesn’t take long for Klaus to find Vanya buried too, her violin sticking out of the ground with her.
God knows how long it’s been.
The moon never comes out anymore. Or maybe it does, but the everlasting smoke blocks Klaus’s vision from seeing it every night.
There’s nobody here. And there are no ghosts either, no matter how far Klaus goes. There’s only the road and ruins and sometimes plants sticking out of the pavement.
Klaus is the only one left because for some reason he woke up.
The sound of someone clearing their throat grabs his attention. He snaps his head around immediately, hoping for something, someone to be there. And there is. He’s wearing a leather jacket, and the hood of his sweater is over his head, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Ben says with an irritated look on his face.
That sentence alone sounds familiar, but it’s been years since he’s heard somebody’s voice other than his own.
Klaus doesn’t ask. He doesn’t react, he doesn’t care.
“He’s waiting for you.”
Two voices say, one belonging to his brother and the other he can’t quite recognize. Maybe both voices are in his head because Ben is gone in the blink of an eye.
He doesn’t question it, he just walks. No— he runs.
It’s the first time he’s had this much energy in him. But something is forcing his old self to run towards a path he doesn’t remember but somehow knows. He stops in his tracks.
There’s a silhouette in the distance.
It looks strangely familiar.
A man in rusty, roughed up clothes, a hat on his head.
A rifle in his hands, walking towards him.
Even after so long, Klaus knows.
He hasn’t seen anyone in years, the memory of him should be gone by now. But no matter how long it’s been, no matter how much both of them have changed, he knows. It’s—
