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Steven was a complicated man. His poker face was like no other, words calculated and planned. When he spoke his mind, there was little emotional commitment. To an outside eye, he seemed invulnerable.
Klaus knew, deep down, the root of his behavior was distrust. Some days he worried even he didn’t have Steven’s full trust. Straightforward as Klaus was, the amount of complexities beneath his partner’s calm mask were beguiling.
Things seemed so simple when Klaus laid in bed with him. Steven was truly relaxed when he fell asleep beside him. The stresses of the day were shed, tensions released. A soft, tired grin appeared when Klaus bid him goodnight.
Compared to their days as fang hunters, Steven mellowed significantly. Yet, during the day, a stiff mask appeared, his tempered smile giving away nothing. It was different.
When they’d first met, Steven spoke as if he’d realized he’d swallowed poison and couldn’t spit it out fast enough. He guarded his thoughts, but gave into flares of impulsive rage.
Klaus understood Steven’s anger towards a world pushing him to a dangerous job he didn’t much care for at the time. What he didn’t understand, as Steven accepted his fate, growing with the fang hunters and later Libra, was the way he withdrew.
People changed with time. Klaus himself built his confidence as a leader, improving and progressing. The flashbacks never ceased, but he learned to tolerate them. Steven became silent. He smiled more, and sometimes it reached his eyes, but it was a closed off expression.
All Klaus could do was worry. He always fretted over his comrades, but Steven was different. Klaus’s major concerns were for safety, knowing well the dangers of Hellsalem’s Lot. Steven could handle himself. He and Klaus had been through more than enough to adjust to the harms of their new world. External attacks on his partner weren’t what scared Klaus, it was that something was eating him alive from the inside out, something Klaus couldn’t fight back at his side.
All fang hunters underwent traumas in their lifetime, being assaulted by a target, watching a friend die, the pervasive fear they wouldn’t live another day. It was a weary road of constant battle, and at the fork of it was becoming strong, or dying out. Klaus and Steven were no strangers to trauma.
What truly frightened Klaus was his dearest friend and ally, the man he’d grown to love immeasurably over the years, had become lost in his own mind. What if that was the only way he’d learned to shut out the damage?
“Klaus?” Steven’s eyes cracked open. “Something wrong?”
Klaus sighed, “Forgive me, you don’t care to be stared at, do you?”
Steven blinked in response, slowly waking up.
“I just thought you looked peaceful,” Klaus explained, gently running his fingers over Steven’s cheek. “It’s a pleasant sight.”
Steven smiled genuinely. Klaus could tell, when his eyes crinkled at the corners and his brow relaxed.
“I don’t mind when you look,” he replied, putting his hand on Klaus’s, then letting go. “Are you okay?”
The most poignant frustration in their relationship was Steven’s ability to see right through Klaus, all the while keeping his own intentions and thoughts secret. It wasn’t on purpose. Reading expressions was simply an ability Klaus lacked in, and Steven was an expert at hiding.
“I’m not,” Klaus brushed his fingers through Steven’s hair. “It’s you, Steven.”
Steven’s eyes widened, smile dropping. Klaus understood this. It was fear, surprise, and edging to instinctual guilt. He immediately retracted his words.
“I’m worried about you,” he corrected himself.
His partner’s face relaxed again. He really was too exhausted to put up a front by the time nightfall came.
“Don’t be,” Steven settled back into his pillow. “Or try not to. I know it’s hard.”
Klaus sighed again, falling silent. He continued stroking Steven’s hair, the texture calming against his fingers. Something about how it felt when it brushed between each finger put him at ease. Even in his youth, Klaus found certain ways of fidgeting his hands were soothing, most notably simply folding them together. Steven allowing him to touch his hair in times of distress was an honest godsend.
“Are you happy?” he asked, tone falling quiet.
Alarm pasted across Steven’s face, before slipping to what resembled relief.
“Of course I’m happy!” He grinned, “How could I not be?”
Klaus tilted his head, silent, waiting to hear more.
Steven paused, then went on, “Libra’s successful. It’s hard, but it’s working. The addition of Leo’s eyes was brilliant. Every day we’re apprehending new threats that used to be beyond our sight.” That soft smile again. “And it’s not just work. I have you. Of course I’m happy,” he repeated.
Klaus believed him. Steven looked happy, and his voice was warm as he spoke. He wasn’t lying, not this time.
“Do you mind...if I ask you to clear something up for me, then?” Klaus’s fingers trailed to the nape of Steven’s neck.
“Anything for you.”
Klaus turned red. Hearing Steven say something so meaningful so casually never ceased to fluster him. It’d been years, and he was still swooning in his own way.
“I, um,” Klaus struggled for words. “It’s only -- sometimes it feels as though you’re a different person. That other person, I can’t read them, and I’m afraid...” He trailed off, “He -- you-- you’re so withdrawn. I’ve seen you shut down before and, admittedly, it’s not the same, but it feels close.” Heaving a heavy breath, he finished, “I can’t quite explain it, it’s a gut feeling, and I’m merely concerned for your wellbeing.” As always.
A very slow, playful smirk spread on Steven’s face, “You really do overthink everything, huh?”
“You aren’t so innocent of it,” Klaus ruffled his hair.
Steven’s laugh tapered back into a smile. It was adoring and full of unconditional love, Klaus could feel his anxieties settling to peace. This was the soothing presence he’d fallen in love with.
“I won’t tell you what it means,” Steven announced. “We’ll walk through it together, okay?” He shifted, leaning his elbow on the bed, his face on his fist. “How long have we known each other?”
Klaus counted in his head, “Ten years.”
“How many of those years have we been together, like this?”
“Four, and then two,” Klaus recalled.
“Okay, now, over these past 10 years, six of which were very intimate, what do I hate?”
“Zapp.”
Steven snorted, “No. I mean. Not wrong, but not right either. Try again.”
Folding his hands under his chin, Klaus thought. The answer wouldn’t be superficial, but personal. He ruled out any foods, habits, coworkers, and cops. It was nothing recent, Steven was fairly at peace in their later years. During the fang hunter era, it was either an outright spoken hatred, or demonstrated through behavior.
Steven hated being tied down. His relationship with himself had been poor enough, he refused commitment to others. While that was true, he’d always stayed close to Klaus. Klaus considered it a natural action; he’d been instrumental in persuading Steven to stay. He’d even been instructed to keep an eye out for him.
If the answer was commitment, that’d logically mean Steven was purposefully putting distance between the two of them, once more. It’d happened during their last break, and it had gone on for a year. Steven admitted himself that he avoided contact when he felt those self-destructive urges from his youth bubbling up.
No, Steven felt guilty about that year. He wouldn’t do it again, Klaus was sure.
“Do you remember our first game of chess?” Steven hinted.
It was an integral part of building their friendship, of course Klaus remembered. Steven had been in a dissociative trance. They played their first match to ground him. As they played, they spoke. Klaus had never heard Steven talk so much. There was a complicated look in his dark eyes, a combination of fear and relief. They were the eyes of a prey animal calmed.
Steven sighed, giving in, “It’s vulnerability, Klaus. I don’t like it when people see me being emotional.” With a rueful smile, he added, “I’m not two people. I’m protecting myself.” He inched in, nose almost brushing against Klaus’s, voice lowering, “And I don’t have to protect myself from you.”
“But, you have to protect yourself from the rest of Libra...?”
“Every now and then, yeah,” Steven admitted. “Friends can be just as much a danger as enemies, sometimes.” Eyes averted, he added, “It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s just how I cope.”
“It makes sense,” Klaus insisted. “Not one of us hasn’t gone through hell and back, as fang hunters or members of Libra. We undergo what normal humans can’t even begin to understand, things that turn men into monsters. I,” he paused, “don’t need to tell you what you already know.”
“It’s okay,” Steven reassured. “It’s comforting to hear it again.” Sitting back up, he stretched, “KK actually told me something similar, recently.” He paraphrased, “We’ve all got our baggage, but nothing’s impossible. I worry sometimes, maybe we won’t get better, maybe we’re on the losing side of the fight.” Then he shrugged, “But we don’t stop. It gives me, I don’t know, a hopeful feeling, I guess.”
“Healing is a process,” Klaus added. “You have to tear muscle before it can build back stronger. We’re still alive, and so we’ll still push on.”
“That’s the philosophy,” Steven grinned wryly.
Being alive was incredible. When Klaus was given a second chance at life, he made himself a promise. No matter the hurdle, or the pain, or anything life could throw at him, he’d fight through it. There was a reason he survived, and he was damn well going to find it.
Maybe the reason was for the man beside him.
“You read me like a book, Klaus,” Steven spoke up. “It’s not,” he turned red, “you know, what I’m thinking but, uh,” his voice got quiet, “it’s like you always know what I need?” He averted his eyes again, “So! Just -- keep up whatever it is you’re doing. It’s fine.”
Klaus smiled, pulling his lover in for a kiss. Steven was trying, just as hard as Klaus was. That’s all that mattered. They’d get where they needed to be, in time. That was always the plan.