The soggy battlefield of the A Shau valley plays in rapid succession on the backs of his eyelids, nothing but a shimmering dance of bodies, explosions, the cloying taste of gunpowder on the back of his tongue. The smoke burns his throat, dries it out to the point he feels like he might be dying, sandpaper lungs barely holding any air.
The bath cleaned the blood away, but it's there on the ivory basin, stippled into the grout on the tile foor, sloshed along the hallway in haphazard foot prints, some the slap of bare, wet feet, and a twin pair in the opposite direction, the thick tread of a boot.
His skin all but crawls and for a brief moment, when Klaus opens his eyes, he's sure it will have sloughed off entirely. He blinks but the Valley looms every time the world zips to dark. Dave is there, too, on the muddy bank with wide, lifeless eyes. He'd been so afraid.
Klaus comes to when he hears noise in the hallway, but he looks down at his hands as though they aren't his own, instead two floating anomalies out in front of him. A shirt. Yes. Getting dressed after the bath, even if he simultaneously shivers and sweats, his head full to bursting with white noise and pain. He's managed his pants, even if the ties at the navel are loose, but one hand rises to the dog tags on his chest, fingers barely touching them as though they weren't supposed to be there. As though he hoped they wouldn't be.
"Shit," he whispers to himself and rakes his hands back through his hair, dropping the loose tee onto the bed behind him. He closes his eyes again, tries counting to ten, tries thinking of good things (Claire, Allison, ice cream sundaes on Sundays, the way Patrick pulled him aside before they left to tell him to be careful). None of it works, however he might hope it would.
we can light a match and burn it down;
The bath cleaned the blood away, but it's there on the ivory basin, stippled into the grout on the tile foor, sloshed along the hallway in haphazard foot prints, some the slap of bare, wet feet, and a twin pair in the opposite direction, the thick tread of a boot.
His skin all but crawls and for a brief moment, when Klaus opens his eyes, he's sure it will have sloughed off entirely. He blinks but the Valley looms every time the world zips to dark. Dave is there, too, on the muddy bank with wide, lifeless eyes. He'd been so afraid.
Klaus comes to when he hears noise in the hallway, but he looks down at his hands as though they aren't his own, instead two floating anomalies out in front of him. A shirt. Yes. Getting dressed after the bath, even if he simultaneously shivers and sweats, his head full to bursting with white noise and pain. He's managed his pants, even if the ties at the navel are loose, but one hand rises to the dog tags on his chest, fingers barely touching them as though they weren't supposed to be there. As though he hoped they wouldn't be.
"Shit," he whispers to himself and rakes his hands back through his hair, dropping the loose tee onto the bed behind him. He closes his eyes again, tries counting to ten, tries thinking of good things (Claire, Allison, ice cream sundaes on Sundays, the way Patrick pulled him aside before they left to tell him to be careful). None of it works, however he might hope it would.