Career Change
Sep. 9th, 2021 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyhigh_seanceThe suitcase did not contain money. Or jewels.
It contained a whole different life.
Months of war pass in fractured fragments of time. Some bits seem to stretch on unto forever, moments dripping like treacle, slowed like they too are slogging through the thick jungle mud, boots in perpetual danger of being permanently sucked into the mire.
There's the endless afternoon spent hunkered down behind a transport that won't be running now or ever again, black cloying smoke spewing from what's left of the engine compartment. They're slowly being eaten alive by mosquitos, and the joke that they're the advance forces for the V-C has already made the rounds twice and was old before he first round was done. There are enemy soldiers out there in the surrounding greenery... somewhere. Poor Andrews found that out hours ago, while he was trying to figure out why the engine had gone up in flames. Just a quick bark of a rifle, and he'd collapsed like a rag doll. Klaus is still waiting for Andrews to show up, confused and angry and, you know, dead. Klaus wasn't sure how that would go, if this whole time-travel thing would mess with the whole ghost-seeing thing, but nope. Now he's treated to the rage of Viet-Cong soldiers and the confusion of allies and it's just great guys, absolutely fantastic. So he sits, waiting for a new ghost, waiting for the V-C to finally get tired of taking pot-shots and either go away again or fully engage, time dragging slow enough that he has time to count each bead of sweat on Dave's brow.
There's a week he's not sure he will ever remember fully, when a sudden shock of rain turned the hill near their camp that they'd set the snipers up on into so much muddy soup, the whole hillside sloshing down into the camp with an abruptness that felt unnatural. The entire week is a mess of yelling and mud and hunger and exhaustion. The V-C were evidently sleeping on the job that week - they would have had a ridiculously easy time picking them off, but they never showed. Klaus isn't sure he's thankful.
Not everything is bad. He gets some R&R (an is once again both horrified and amused at how easily the 'missing paperwork' story worked, it shouldn't have worked) while within spitting range of Saigon, and spends a glorious day updating his wardrobe in the best his pocketbook can manage - it's not as much as he'd hope, but considering he currently has more money at his disposal than he's ever had (somewhat) legally in his adult life, it's impressive, for him. He keeps enough back for a good night at the bar, and runs into Dave there.
He has a wonderful night, that night. And for a few nights afterward too. Dave is everything he shouldn't be allowed to have - he's a sweet kid, an all-American hunk of beef, and, shocker for the time, into Klaus Hargreeves. He has a momentary regret for Zenigata, but... well. He's tried every door he could find, for weeks, and has come to the grim realization that the Bar isn't coming for him, seemingly just as happy to leave him out here in the jungle. Besides. Zenigata already has a someone - he doesn't have to share Dave at all. Here Klaus isn't a stand-in for someone else - he's just himself, and that's enough. It's so weird, but Klaus isn't complaining.
Weeks turn into a month, then two, and somewhere around the three month mark Klaus stops thinking about going back. He also hasn't been outrageously high since the night he was abducted. Not from lack of opportunity, mind, no one would blink an eye if he was, and the drugs are both plentiful and cheap. And of course he's had some of the milder stuff, now and then - some nights you just want the world to be a little more quiet, right? Get some privacy. Not stare at dead VCs when you're trying to make out with the boyfriend, you know?
(He has a boyfriend, it's great)
But whatever these guys are being taught before being shipped out here, it's nothing on what old Daddy Hargreeves put them through as kids, which makes him the resident expert at guerrilla tactics. He also needs to be somewhat sober to cheat like hell. Once he's out here long enough, he starts to know some of his fellow soldiers (hey dad, he's a soldier now, a real one, though the armor hasn't exactly improved). Since he doesn't get completely smashed anymore (how can he, Dave is a baby at this shit, Dave might die if he medicates too hard, he can't bear to see Dave as a ghost), his collection of friendly-ish ghosts is growing by the day.
Turns out they're great spies.
Turns out Klaus can be a great soldier.
It contained a whole different life.
Months of war pass in fractured fragments of time. Some bits seem to stretch on unto forever, moments dripping like treacle, slowed like they too are slogging through the thick jungle mud, boots in perpetual danger of being permanently sucked into the mire.
There's the endless afternoon spent hunkered down behind a transport that won't be running now or ever again, black cloying smoke spewing from what's left of the engine compartment. They're slowly being eaten alive by mosquitos, and the joke that they're the advance forces for the V-C has already made the rounds twice and was old before he first round was done. There are enemy soldiers out there in the surrounding greenery... somewhere. Poor Andrews found that out hours ago, while he was trying to figure out why the engine had gone up in flames. Just a quick bark of a rifle, and he'd collapsed like a rag doll. Klaus is still waiting for Andrews to show up, confused and angry and, you know, dead. Klaus wasn't sure how that would go, if this whole time-travel thing would mess with the whole ghost-seeing thing, but nope. Now he's treated to the rage of Viet-Cong soldiers and the confusion of allies and it's just great guys, absolutely fantastic. So he sits, waiting for a new ghost, waiting for the V-C to finally get tired of taking pot-shots and either go away again or fully engage, time dragging slow enough that he has time to count each bead of sweat on Dave's brow.
There's a week he's not sure he will ever remember fully, when a sudden shock of rain turned the hill near their camp that they'd set the snipers up on into so much muddy soup, the whole hillside sloshing down into the camp with an abruptness that felt unnatural. The entire week is a mess of yelling and mud and hunger and exhaustion. The V-C were evidently sleeping on the job that week - they would have had a ridiculously easy time picking them off, but they never showed. Klaus isn't sure he's thankful.
Not everything is bad. He gets some R&R (an is once again both horrified and amused at how easily the 'missing paperwork' story worked, it shouldn't have worked) while within spitting range of Saigon, and spends a glorious day updating his wardrobe in the best his pocketbook can manage - it's not as much as he'd hope, but considering he currently has more money at his disposal than he's ever had (somewhat) legally in his adult life, it's impressive, for him. He keeps enough back for a good night at the bar, and runs into Dave there.
He has a wonderful night, that night. And for a few nights afterward too. Dave is everything he shouldn't be allowed to have - he's a sweet kid, an all-American hunk of beef, and, shocker for the time, into Klaus Hargreeves. He has a momentary regret for Zenigata, but... well. He's tried every door he could find, for weeks, and has come to the grim realization that the Bar isn't coming for him, seemingly just as happy to leave him out here in the jungle. Besides. Zenigata already has a someone - he doesn't have to share Dave at all. Here Klaus isn't a stand-in for someone else - he's just himself, and that's enough. It's so weird, but Klaus isn't complaining.
Weeks turn into a month, then two, and somewhere around the three month mark Klaus stops thinking about going back. He also hasn't been outrageously high since the night he was abducted. Not from lack of opportunity, mind, no one would blink an eye if he was, and the drugs are both plentiful and cheap. And of course he's had some of the milder stuff, now and then - some nights you just want the world to be a little more quiet, right? Get some privacy. Not stare at dead VCs when you're trying to make out with the boyfriend, you know?
(He has a boyfriend, it's great)
But whatever these guys are being taught before being shipped out here, it's nothing on what old Daddy Hargreeves put them through as kids, which makes him the resident expert at guerrilla tactics. He also needs to be somewhat sober to cheat like hell. Once he's out here long enough, he starts to know some of his fellow soldiers (hey dad, he's a soldier now, a real one, though the armor hasn't exactly improved). Since he doesn't get completely smashed anymore (how can he, Dave is a baby at this shit, Dave might die if he medicates too hard, he can't bear to see Dave as a ghost), his collection of friendly-ish ghosts is growing by the day.
Turns out they're great spies.
Turns out Klaus can be a great soldier.
