TOUCH | F. Hargreeves

04

Beau thought a lot at night. When it was silent, dark, and where scary monsters waited in dark, or so he's heard. Sleep was a difficult thing for Beau, always awake into the early hours of the morning and even sometimes there to watch the sunrise over the horizon, a beautiful sight that would put tears in anyone's eyes. At night was where Beau felt safe, where things couldn't find him so easy and where people wouldn't yell so much, possibly hurt. It was quiet and Beau liked the quiet, though there was always that impending dread that filled his body and plagued his dreams. Maybe it was the trauma he faced or the abuse inflicted on him, he supposed it didn't really matter though, the past was the past and all you could do was move forward from it. Beau wanted to push past it, he just didn't know-how.

Beau understood completely why the others didn't like him because he felt the same way, he knew his behaviour was strange and off-putting with a hint of terrifying. He didn't know how to control it was all, the same going for most of his powers. Beau wondered if he'd ever gain control over anything about himself as he lay there in the darkness, wide awake and listening to the rain batter against the windowpane. 

It was possibly when the clock struck three that things really brought Beau into overdrive because as a scream ripped through the night, easily heard over the pounding rain, Beau couldn't help but slip out of his cold room to inspect the source of the noise. The floorboards creaked against his rushed footsteps, now following the sound of sobbing and whimpering as opposed to the shrill yell he had heard seconds before.

There he found himself standing outside a closed-door of one of the bedrooms - Klaus if he remembered correctly. Beau wondered if he should just turn back, jump into bed and forget anything had ever happened, he was never one for comfort. But when Beau heard another rather harsh choked sob falling from the person's lips, he opened the door slowly.

Peering around, Beau saw the state Klaus was in, tears running down his face, hair bedraggled and his appearance dishevelled. With his bottom lip trembling and wide glistening eyes, Klaus had never looked so broken. "Beau," Klaus croaked, the blanket over him curling in his fists.

Beau, not sure what to do, stepped into the room awkwardly, "Klaus... are you okay?" He had never needed or tried to comfort anyone in his life and it surely showed with the way he fumbled with his fingers behind his back, unnoticed by Klaus but clear as day to Beau himself.

Klaus quickly shook his head, "I keep seeing them, Beau, all of them reaching for me in the dark," He began sobbing again, "I don't wanna see them anymore, Beau, I don't wanna."

Under some kind of instinct, Beau rushed over to the distraught boy, bringing his shaking body into his arms, "Hey, it's okay, you're okay." Klaus' arms gripped onto Beau's waist, his head burying into his shoulder, "You're safe, nothing can hurt you anymore." Beau didn't know if those words were true but he didn't need to, it all just flowed out of him as if he had done it so many times before. Maybe this could be a redeeming quality of Beau's, a natural comforter.

"Can you stay? Just until I fall asleep." Klaus mumbled into Beau's shoulder, too upset to be the slightest bit embarrassed or insecure about his plea.

Beau frowned, not understanding how that would help, though decided on nodding, "I'll be here," He said as the pair lay back down on the bed, one getting comfortable while the other remained rigid. Klaus continued to grip Beau's shirt tightly, his knuckles turning white as leftover tears fell down his red cheeks. Beau saw this and uncurled the fingers of one of his hands, choosing to hold it in his instead. "Sleep now, I'll be here."

Klaus stared up at him slightly, "You'll keep me safe?"

Beau thought about telling the boy the truth, that he couldn't protect him from his nightmares or the ghosts he supposedly saw, how he could barely protect him from a living attacker if it came down to it. But staring down at those broken eyes, Beau knew then wasn't the time to take out his anger and call him names as he had so frequently done. Beau decided to tell Klaus a lie. "Yes, Klaus, I'll keep you safe."