I DREAM OF CRACKING LOCKS,
THROWING MY LIFE TO THE WOLVES OR
THE OCEAN ROCKS. CRASHING INTO HIM
TONIGHT, HE'S A PARADOX.

"YOU DON'T HAVE to tell me anything."

Klaus doesn't seem to react to her words. Mara doesn't expect him to. In fact, most of her would prefer that he stays quiet. Despite the misery clear on his face and the solemnity that's sunken into those green eyes, his silence means he isn't performing like a court jester desperately trying to convince the palace that nothing is wrong when something very clearly is. The little time she has known him has been enough for her to assess that he'd rather die than pour himself out like a drink in the lap of people who offer what everyone offers at the end of the day: words. Words that mean nothing in the long run, nothing more than a sorry that has about as much use as a parka in the middle of summer.

She's getting off topic. The point is, there's no amount of idle conversation that can take away the easily recognizable loss in his eyes. Nothing will take that away, especially not when he's left alone to self destruct.

Her footsteps creak slowly across the floor as Mara makes her way into the room, pausing at the foot of his bed rather than settling into the empty chair. "You mind if I sit?"

Silence. It takes a moment for Klaus to pull his eyes away from his knitting, yarn settling on his bare chest as he seems to fully register her. "Yeah," he breathes, voice rough. "Yeah, go- go ahead."

Mara takes the seat as quietly as she can, nose crinkling as she tries to shift around making any noise. The weight of Klaus' eyes now rests upon her and out of the corner of her eye, if only for the briefest of moments, she swears she can see him mimic the expression to himself.

She swears. When she looks over again, he's picked his knitting back up.

Leaning back in the chair Mara cracks open her book, forcing herself to focus on the words. Charlotte Brontë may as well be burned into her brain with how many times she's read over Jane Eyre, scorched into her memory right beside Jane Austen or the mind numbingly dull Charles Dickens, but Reginald Hargreeves didn't have much to offer of the fictional value. She's had enough of the real world for this lifetime and the next. Even a duller fictional universe she can visit in dreams after a plethora of rereads is preferable to this.

Every word is familiar. This is why Mara can't focus. Getting lost on purpose is harder than wandering astray, and if the greenery of the forest she's choosing now is a little different in shade than normal, it's just a trick of the light.

"Are you really not going to ask?"

His voice breaks through the umpteenth scan of the same page she was on two minutes ago. Mara thinks God may actually begin meaning something to her now that she's finally been guided away from the paragraphs she knows by heart, glancing up to where Klaus is staring at her with that same puppy-eyed look.

Her heart breaks a little for him, seeing the exhaustion behind those normally bloodshot eyes. She knows it all too well.

"No," she says, ignoring the little protest her inner curiosity gives. "I don't want anythin' you're not ready to give away."

Klaus is abnormally quiet again, hands still moving around his knitting needles like he can at all focus without looking. "Okay," comes the barest whisper. "Okay. Thanks."

"Of course." Then, because she can't help it, her words keep coming. "I know that look. I've lost people, too. Those aren't stories you can share easily."

For a moment Mara wishes she could bite her tongue off. It feels too far, like salt water on wounds that Klaus is clearly still picking at, but the reminder feels needed in more ways than one. She's refusing to meet the gaze that sits in her peripheral, equal parts inquisitive and probably too tired to care. It's suddenly far easier to focus on the book in her hand, the inconsequential adventure she knows the end of. A guaranteed path that's both boring and hopeful. It's nothing, she tells herself. It's reassurance, a reminder that he's not alone. Not a flash of the deck in your hands.

The bed creaks.

Mara doesn't have to look up to see how Klaus has readjusted himself, the clothing (??) he's knitting now in his lap as he continues to slowly spin the fabric around the needles. He's closer, sharing the ray of light she's chosen her place in. The light only highlights his nearly apologetic expression, like he's the one who made the misstep.

"What's it like?" He asks, still soft in a way that both uneases her and settles her down. This is nothing like the Klaus she's grown to know recently, but the calmness is exactly what she wants for him. If only it weren't born of sorrow. "Being immortal. Can you go play in traffic without a care in the world?"

The question prompts a snort from her. She's nowhere near prepared for this phrasing despite how she's sat with the actual answer since 1921. His curiosity is a welcomed thing for once, despite how little she typically wants anything to do with these conversations. Her immortality has become a laughable sore spot over the years, but Klaus looks less wounded now than he has since he got back from wherever he went.

If the new tattoos he dons are any indication at all, Mara would say that where was a war. She knows enough about those to know when to stop pressing.

"Lonely."

She doesn't realize she's speaking until she is. The truth comes out without much care for her pride or whatever reputation she may have accumulated in her short time here, settling between them in a timidly curious silence. She didn't intend to say it, hasn't ever wanted to sit down and spill the secrets of everything she's held onto for several decades now, but her mouth is moving without an operative and her brain apparently believes Klaus is as trustworthy as a journal.

The one person no one tells anything to is the first one to hear yet another ghost upfront. Ironic.

He's back to not saying anything, that kicked puppy expression almost melting her at her core. She would love to stop now, tell him that it's got better traits as well, but opening her mouth again proves that lying is much harder when the first person to search for you is watching.

"Lonely," she repeats, speaking slowly while her mind makes the attempt to gather the best examples. Pity is something Mara has never wanted, but that doesn't seem to be what Klaus is looking at her with now. "Really, really lonely. You lose everyone you've ever loved in due time, and when the last person goes, you're back at nothin'. That's the cycle of it."

She expects Klaus to retire back into the silence they'd been sitting in when she concludes her answer, averting her eyes back to the book like Jane can sweep her away from what she's revisiting by her own accord. She expects Klaus to take this and sit back or even dismiss it as being information he doesn't need.

She doesn't expect him to lean over and discard his knitting entirely, quietly clearing his throat when she doesn't look away from her book once again.

"If it makes you feel any better," he starts, selecting his words in a way she hasn't seen from him since they met. "The afterlife isn't so great, either. God's a judgmental teenage girl who seems to be incredibly bitter."

She raises her eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Incredibly," Klaus emphasizes. "She said she doesn't like me. Which goes against the whole Christianity schtick she started to begin with, but whatever."

Mara can't help but smile at the remark that's delivered with an astounding amount of nonchalance, finally closing her book over her fingers to hold the place. He seems to light up once he realizes she's fully attentive, looking less defeated than he has since he arrived back from the hell he was taken to.

That's more than enough encouragement for her.

"I wouldn't take it too personally. Based on the current state of things, I don't think she likes most people. She certainly doesn't like me too much."

This earns a chuckle Mara can't recall hearing in the last several hours, lost somewhere between mental exhaustion and overexertion only to come out for a self-degrading comment. She's forgotten how easy it is for people to connect over shared humor, no matter the level of irony driven behind it.

"That just makes her full of shit," Klaus muses, leaning his head back against his window pane. A lazy smile is on his lips, full and pleased with either his conclusion or this conversation, and she can't help how it cements her own in return. "I like you. I, for one, am glad she hated you enough to make you immortal. You're better company than any of those assholes downstairs."

The compliment is one of the strangest ones she's ever received. She can't even be entirely sure it's a compliment, scoffing a little in disbelief before processing that Klaus isn't doing the same. What is it that's so shocking? Is it the form in which it was given or the fact that he's so upfront about enjoying her company? Maybe it's both, or maybe it's the way he's now looking at her with so much sincerity that it makes her brain race to catch up.

Without intending to her features soften, shaking her head with a quiet cough. "Sorry. I- I'm glad God hated you enough to send you back here, Klaus. You and Kris are the only people I'd bother saving the world for."

Whatever emotion flashes across Klaus' face is too quick to decipher, replaced quickly with a giddy delight as he clasps his hands together. "Oh, that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Maybe that mean little God girl likes me after all!"

Against herself a laugh bubbles past her lips, a once rare sound becoming more and more common the longer she finds herself in Klaus' company. He is, without a doubt, the most fascinating person she's ever met.

Mara never wants to look away.