Chapter Text
Hamburg didn't sleep so much as it entered a state of suspended listening.
The city lay open beneath the fog, brick buildings and neon lights breathed together, the streets slick with old rain and newer sins. Sound rose constantly, whether it was music leaking from cellar clubs, boots striking pavement, or laughter tearing itself open and healing again. Even when the noise thinned, it never truly vanished. Hamburg seemed to remember itself too well for silence.
The room Klaus occupied sat above it all like a thought that refused to finish forming. It was narrow, tall, and faintly crooked, the ceiling angling just enough to make the space feel uncertain of itself. The walls were stained by years of smoke and hands pressed flat for balance. A single bulb hung naked from a wire, its light yellowed and weak, casting shadows that leaned rather than fell.
Klaus was seated on the floor.
His back was rested against the bedframe, knees drawn up, and his sketchbook balanced carefully against his thigh. Charcoal dust coated his fingers, blackening the half-moons beneath his nails. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his shirt clinging faintly with sweat. He had been awake longer than was wise.
He was drawing George, yet the boy wasn't there.
The absence of his presence felt deliberate, almost like a door left open to prove that someone had walked through it.
Klaus didn't need George physically present to draw him, not anymore. He knew the architecture of him by heart, his inward angles, the quiet weight of his gaze, and the way that stillness arranged itself around him as if invited. George lived easily in Klaus's hands now, summoned in lines and shadows.
The face on the page was already mostly formed.
His eyes were lowered, the mouth closed with a softness at the edges that belied how sharp he could be when he spoke.
A saint, someone once said. Or a monk. Klaus had laughed then, but the words had stuck in his mind.
Across the room, Ringo occupied the room like a tide that had forgotten to recede.
One boot lay discarded near the door whilst the other hung half-on his foot, unlaced. His jacket had slipped down one shoulder, his shirt rumpled and unbuttoned just enough to show the pale rise of his chest. His hair was mussed, his fringe falling into his eyes.
In simpler terms, Ringo was extremely drunk.
He wasn't the riotous kind – he didn't shout nor have a staggering collapse, but he was more of the affectionate kind. His body seemed to lean instinctively towards warmth and human presence, his eyes glassy but bright, tracking movement with slow devotion.
Ringo watched Klaus draw.
At first, he did so quietly, his chin propped up on his hand, his elbow digging into the mattress hard enough to hurt. His gaze moved back and forth between Klaus's hands and the page, following the charcoal's path as if it were a living thing.
Minutes passed, but maybe it was more. Time always seemed elastic in rooms like this.
" 'E looks lonely," Ringo said at last.
His voice was low and rounded by intoxication, each word of his cushioned.
Klaus didn't bother to look up.
"He often does," he replied.
Ringo frowned, studying the face on the page with intense concentration.
"He's not, though," he said. "Not really."
Klaus shaded beneath the eye, deepening the hollow.
"Loneliness and solitude are not the same," he said. "They seem to resemble each other in art, however."
Ringo considered this, then nodded gravely, as if this were something he'd remember forever.
The bulb flickered. Shadows swayed.
Ringo leaned forward, his knee bumping Klaus's arm hard enough to jolt him. Klaus steadied the sketchbook instinctively, his charcoal pausing mid-stroke.
"Sorry," RIngo murmured, not moving away. "Didn't mean to."
"It's alright," Klaus said, although his heart had leapt unpleasantly. "Just… careful. Oke?"
Ringo's hand hovered uncertainly, then withdrew to his own chest, his fingers curling into the fabric of his uncomfortable shirt.
"I won't touch," he promised. "I swear!"
Klaus finally glanced up.
RIngo met his gaze immediately, his blue eyes wide and unguarded. There was something almost reverent in the way he looked, almost like a man witnessing a ritual he didn't fully understand but respect instinctively.
Klaus couldn't bring himself to continue to look.
He looked away.
He returned to the drawing, but his focus wavered.
"You draw 'im like a ghost," Ringo commented softly.
Klaus paused.
"Ghosts.. are only people who have been remembered incorrectly, I think," he replied.
Ringo smiled, slow and pleased.
"That's a nice thing t' say."
Outside, laughter burst and dissolved. Somewhere, a woman shouted curses. A door slammed.
The city seemed to breathe.
Ringo shifted on the bed, his movement unsteady. He leaned in again, closer this time, not towards the drawing but towards Klaus himself. His shoulder pressed gently against Klaus's arm.
Klaus stiffened, then didn't bother to pull away.
Ringo sighed contently, as if this were exactly where he was meant to be.
"You smell like smoke," Ringo murmured.
"So do you," Klaus said.
"Yeah," Ringo agreed happily. "But yours is nicer."
Klaus swallowed.
The drawing laid momentarily forgotten, George's face gazing upward, unfinished and patient.
Ringo's head tipped, resting briefly against Klaus's shoulder. Klaus froze, his breath caught in between moments.
Ringo adjusted, his cheek brushing the fabric of Klaus's clothing, settling in firmly.
"There," he said softly. "That's better."
Klaus closed his eyes.
The room felt almost unreal, suspended between devotion and decay, like a chapel abandoned to cigarettes and youth. The face on the page watched them, solemn and silent.
"You ever get lonely?" Ringo asked suddenly.
Klaus opened his eyes.
"Ja," he said honestly. "Always."
Ringo nodded, satisfied by the truth.
"I thought so," he murmured. "You draw like it."
His hand lifted slowly and uncoordinately, and came to rest over Klaus's wrist. The warmth of it startled him. Ringo's thumb traced an idle circle against Klaus's skin, absent-minded and gentle.
The touch wasn't suggestive nor deliberate, but affectionate.
"Stay," Ringo said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Klaus didn't know if it was a request, order, or a prayer.
"I am here," he replied.
Ringo smiled, those beautiful blue eyes of his drifting shut.
George remained only in charcoal and memory that night.