Author's Note: Somewhat inspired by a line from TO 5x02, about "certain damages only a father can do" (which I detest, a lot). Set a few decades after TVD 4x23 where Klaus and Caroline are in a blissful established relationship.
When Caroline was young she was terrified of flying. Granted she didn't flew that much to start with – just a couple of times to visit her dad and that one single time when her mom took her to see her aunt in Florida.
Each and every one of those times she was scared out of her mind. Her imaginations ran the wildest when they were backed up by data, and she had always been a thorough researcher. She'd clamp her little hands so hard on the armrests to crush the images of falling and explosion in her head as the giant plane sped up, hard steel digging into her back like some unnameable dark force with an evil mind of its own.
And then she'd be hovering midair. Her heart floating in her already floating body, all trapped up in a floating still iron box.
Caroline thought she'd loathe that feeling all her life and avoid it at all cost.
Little did she know how drastically feelings changed over time, especially when you hold a few decades, or even centuries of it in your palm to squander about.
Then flying became soaring. Floating, freeing. Looking down on the ground from miles above felt like a metaphor for the immortality of which she was still just beginning to get a grasp.
And that was probably why Caroline found herself fantasizing about what she used to fear the most when Klaus' controlled warm breaths scorched her inner thighs. He was taking his sweet time tonight, lips hovering near her soaked core, the tip of his tongue ghosting her sensitive skin now and then, but never fully landing. A frustrated half-sigh-half-moan slipped out of her throat and he merely hummed, the sound buzzing through her suddenly arched spine like the engines of a plane, lulling, but exhilarating all the same.
"Easy, there." His thumb gently rubbed under her knee while a light kiss grazed her abdomen, "we haven't even started yet."
And how she yearned for that. Speeding. Gaining traction. Pulling up and up and up until she was blinded by the sun blasting over the hazy clouds.
His low chuckle traveled along her midsection to the valley between her breasts, and he licked her there as if tasting her wandering thoughts, "what lovely images are you conjuring up this time, sweetheart?"
She knew what he was asking about. After decades of roaming the earth it was no news to Caroline that people saw or heard the strangest things during sex. But surprisingly she had quite the artistic mind when it came to sex with Klaus (sometimes she suspected she was channeling him but she would never feed that to his egotistical ass). The first time he coaxed the imaginative painting of undulating hills swirling with colors out of her, he stared at her with such awe and fervor in his eyes like she'd just single-handedly invented the freaking impressionism. Ever since then he became quite obsessed with her little "sex visions", and it was not like Caroline didn't enjoy it.
But not now. He was wordy when he got artistic, and wordy meant slow.
So she dragged him up by his dangling necklaces, stealing a bruising kiss for her own before replying, "I'm not telling you if you keep this game up."
"What game?" He feigned innocence, like those fingers so skillfully fiddling with her nipples weren't even his.
She couldn't quite swallow her gasps, her eyes half-closed from the charges spreading from her chest, but not enough to shut out the smug grin on his face.
Well if this was the road he wanted to go down, then she might as well spice things up a bit more.
Silently she began to nibble at the side of his neck, Klaus' head immediately falling back exposing his throat where tiny sounds of satisfaction were rumbling. To this day it amazed Caroline a little when he acted this open around her, and she felt herself growing wetter at the thought.
Sucking on his pulse point, she reached over to the glass jar on their nightstand and sank her hand into the sea of notes inside.
The jar was Caroline's two-year anniversary gift to Klaus, filled with both of their fantasies and dirty thoughts. Klaus was, of course, most obliged to try it out as often as possible, but now over one year later they'd still not run out of ideas – not completely unbelievable considering they'd both been caught on more than one occasion sneaking new notes into the "kink jar", as dubbed by one very disturbed and disgusted Rebekah Mikaelson.
Caroline laughed inwardly at Rebekah's scrunched-up face as she fished around the little pieces of paper. But before she could draw one out, her hand was enclosed in his, the heat of his palm almost burning her.
She looked up into Klaus' teasing eyes, "I'm feeling adventurous tonight."
"When are you not?" He was idly rubbing circles on the back of her hand through the thin notes, and she almost moaned out at the feeling of the rough edges of paper scraping against her skin. When did the back of her hand become an erogenous zone anyway? Damn it, focus.
She raised an eyebrow challengingly, "can't keep up?"
His grin grew wider at that, "I'm not complaining."
Snatching a piece of note from between her fingers, Klaus withdrew his hand and lay back against the headboard, his other arm instinctively circling around Caroline as she snuggled close to take a peek. She was startled by Klaus' sudden growl of anger, and she hurried to grab the note before he crushed it in his iron grip.
Apprehension clouded her mind as she read the now slightly smudged words: Call Me Daddy.
That definitely hit a sore subject if there ever was one. And judging by Klaus' murderous expression she doubted he threw that one in just to test his own limits. So that left…
"Kol." Klaus bit through his clenched teeth, confirming her suspicion.
"But how…?"
Their bedroom was spelled so that only the two of them could enter, and anyone who dared to break the barrier would leave marks wherever they touched inside the room. Not to mention that with Klaus' hybrid senses, he could probably detect any past intruders from a mile away. To wipe all the traces Kol would have to have some assistance in the form of witchcraft, but Caroline still vividly remembered the disastrous fight Klaus had with him just days ago about Kol "childishly antagonizing all the covens in the city".
"Kol has always had a way with witches," Klaus huffed, "if he's not acting like a raging imbecile."
"So you're telling me that he somehow made up with the witches, which I believe was what you expected in the first place, and he got them to help him get inside our bedroom to mess with our sex life, just so he could get back at you because you yelled at him for making an enemy of the witches that ended up helping him?" Caroline rolled her eyes, "I know I've said this a million times but you all are a twisted bunch."
Klaus' lips lifted smugly, "he's my brother after all." In the blink of an eye the smirk turned into a scowl, "but if he thought he could get away with this he was sorely mistaken. I do not care if he's restored some sort of rapport with the witches. This crossed a line."
"It can't really be that bad." She sighed, sitting up straight, nudging Klaus' head to settle on her chest before he could protest. She could feel the little puff of air he let out warm on her skin, his long dark blonde eyelashes casting shadows on those high cheekbones that felt way too petulant for a thousand year old monster.
"I will be the judge of that."
The moonlight was shining favorably on all his good features, and from Caroline's vantage point he almost looked like one of those ancient statues she saw during their never ending world tours, the perfect human specimen perpetuated by hands that were long dead. But those masterpieces of marble were truly strong, ageless, fearless.
He wasn't.
He was a thousand years of weaknesses and struggles, sleepless nights and blood-soaked frenzies sedimented into one.
And he was resting so petulantly, yet so contently on her very chest.
Without lifting his eyes Klaus seemed to have sensed the little smile tugging at the corner of her lips, "what? No name-calling? Not a word of 'get over it?'" His arm idly went around her waist, bringing their bodies even closer, "that's a first."
She didn't answer him for a while, just silently playing with the soft curls on his nape. And for once Klaus didn't rush her, his artistic fingers drawing sketch after sketch on her side. Neither of them was particularly good at the patience thing, but somehow they found the rhythm as the years passed, finding each other more fascinating than the heavy stress of silence.
"I was just thinking…none of us seemed to have won the lottery in the father department. I mean, mine left when I was ten; Bonnie's father was practically absentee when we were growing up, and from what I heard the Salvatores nearly got killed by theirs. Elena's father was probably the only nice one, but it turned out he was a heartless psycho who tortured vampires for science." She couldn't help a small shudder when she mentioned that piece of information, and Klaus' arm instantly tightened around her.
"Among the lot of us, we could run an awards for the shittiest dad." She continued with a light shake of her head, "on a scale of one to ten your dad can get, like a nine or something."
This time Klaus looked up at her, his face more incredulous than angered, which Caroline took as a good sign.
"What? There must be something even worse than wanting your own kids dead."
"Caroline, are you seriously trying to rank this medley crew according to paternal 'shittiness'?" She could hear the air quote loud and clear in his words.
Shrugging, Caroline reached for his hand, now stilled on her ribcage because of her ever-so-whimsical idea, and guided it to resume its drawing patterns, "I'm tempted. This sounds like there could be a nice colored histogram involved. I'll even let you pick your own color – I call dibs on hot pink though."
Klaus snorted, clearly knowing her enthusiasm was only half-faked, "I promise I won't fight you over it, love."
"Good. Because you don't stand a chance anyway." She retorted smugly, bending down to press a kiss at the crown of his head.
She knew very well that vampires didn't have a heartbeat. It took her a long time to get used to not feeling it in herself, and even longer to stop looking for it in others. But after that, she started to notice the tells. More importantly, she started to notice his tells.
How his lips hung open, how his eyelashes shook infinitesimally, how that tiny pause in his even breaths segued so smoothly into the next as if nothing happened…all the little signs screaming in silence the skip of a nonexistent heartbeat.
So she snuggled her face into his hair further, curling around him to ease the tightening of her own dead heart, their bodies molding into each other like a gender-reversed version of that famous painting of Gustav Klimt's.
Sometimes she couldn't fathom if she was looking at the world through his eyes, or he hers.
"How come you speak so lightly about such things?" Klaus' voice was barely above a whisper, contorted emotions hidden well in the creases of hushed breaths.
"And how can you give them so much power?" She pushed back the question softly, the knuckle of her finger grazing his jaw line, "I thought it was human nature to forget."
And she'd experienced that nature more and more now that she was almost in her fifties in human years. They were, in the end, selfish and cowardly creatures who shed memories like they shed hair. Because hair ate at your body, and memories ate at your soul.
She couldn't even begin to imagine clinging to the past for a century, let alone a millennium.
His quiet sigh weighed heavy on her heart, "maybe so. But may I remind you that we are no longer human, and common senses don't necessarily apply to our cases."
"Yet you're the one who keeps letting him get to you."
She knew she was treading on thin ice, but she never could hold her tongue in front of him. Feeling him tensing she leaned in to press another kiss on his temple, his body now almost completely wrapped in hers. They felt like one bizarre creature with tangled limbs and ragged breaths, his lashes shuttering against her chin its disproportionally-tiny, erratic heart.
"Caroline…"
He spoke her name in a way that nobody else would. Like a whole new language that consisted of only one word, and every part of speech was just her, her, her.
But somehow she always understood him perfectly.
"It was the summer when I was twelve that it really sank in – that I couldn't count on my dad." She started talking without prompt, her other arm reaching over to circle him in a full embrace, "sure he was gone before that, but we talked on the phone, he'd send me gifts and sometimes visit, so it didn't feel that bad."
She felt him settle further into her. There were subjects that Klaus would never go into details. But from time to time he'd listen quietly as Caroline talked about them, without a word of response. It'd become yet another one of their things – those feelings that he didn't dare utter, that he hadn't quite figured out even after a thousand tumultuous years flowing through her like a dark stream, brought into the freeing daylight by her soft voice. In those moments he'd just hold her tighter, as he did now.
"That summer I went to stay with him and Stephen. We had so much fun together. I'd never seen my father so happy and carefree, always laughing, joking, trying out new things. Stephen brought that out in him. He was not bad himself either. I almost forgave him. But then it was the end of the summer and of course, I didn't want to leave."
She'd used up all her tricks but her dad still wouldn't budge, looking at her apologetically, his eyes full of things that she didn't understand then.
"My dad said I had to. Period. I was upset, but more than that the whole thing just felt so unfair. My dad chose to leave, he chose to start a new life without me, and he chose to send me back. But why didn't I get to choose?" She sighed into the side of his neck, "but it turns out life just doesn't give you that many choices, no matter who you are."
She trailed her fingers down his vertebrae, one bone at a time. She'd watched him turn several times over the years, her hand helplessly trying to soothe the pain bursting out from the seams. Yet now they rested so cluelessly under her finger tips, little fossils of suffering with invisible secrets and puzzles carved into them, but no answers.
"I was mad for a month or two. About my dad, of course; but also because Kimberly Fell told everyone I kissed her douchebag of a brother and got dumped, which was the biggest lie I've ever heard. Hello? Alex Fell was so not my type!" Klaus was chuckling softly into the crook of her shoulder. She slapped him on the back without much force, her own laugh bubbling in her chest, "anyway, I'm just saying that it was…ordinary, you know. He was not father of the year, but he was hardly the cause of everything gone wrong in my life."
Klaus' voice startled her a little, hoarse from the long silence on his part, "as I've told you a long time ago, the issue with my father was slightly more complicated than that." But unlike the first time, instead of harsh he just sounded pensive, his hand still caressing her side in its own accord.
"Well I suppose so," her voice took on a teasing tone, "but I doubt you are a special scattered spot outside the normal distribution curve."
"I see that statics course of yours has proven useful." Klaus huffed a laugh, fingers traveling to the dips of her lower waist, making her shiver involuntarily.
"I told you college education had its perks."
She never finished her first undergrad, opting for traveling the world on her own instead. When she mentioned getting back to it one more time a few months ago, Klaus was more than supportive – at least about everything aside from her class schedule.
"It still doesn't make up for those mornings when you leave me in bed alone." He sucked at the sensitive spot between her clavicles, his full lips forming a perfect pout to prove his point.
Caroline shoved him away and flipped them over, straddling him with a triumphant smirk, "don't be a baby."
His hand instantly landed on her hips, squeezing her so deliciously she let out a gasp, "fine, then be a good student and tell me where I fall on your normal distribution curves."
She ground her ass into him, eliciting a low moan, "normal is never the word to use when it comes to my curves, and you know it."
"My apologies, love." He looked up at her, all flashy dimples and shiny curls, "I hereby declare that from this day forward your curves will only be referred to as 'sensational' and 'out of this world'."
"You better." She leaned over to kiss him, only to feel the discarded piece of paper under her palm. Frowning, she threw it aside, "and for this once I'm not against you straightening Kol up a little. He has no business in The Jar. And 'daddy'? Seriously? You are at least a grandpa."
Klaus rolled his eyes, "if we absolutely have to play this game I prefer the vampire term 'sire'."
"Huh." Caroline inclined her head teasingly, "If you want to get into the technicalities, I believe you are my great-great-great-grand-sire. You are practically my ancestor in vamp terms."
"You make me feel so old, sweetheart."
"Hate to break it to you, but as a vampire you have to change your perception of time." Caroline wiggled her brows as she repeated his words to him, "apparently saying you are old is like, the highest compliment."
"Apparently." Klaus hummed as he palmed her breasts leisurely, thumbs brushing over her hardening nipples and Caroline's head fell back in the surge of pleasure.
Still she never was one to back down from a banter, even if her voice was husky from the lust and anticipation, "so suck it up, sweetheart."
The next second he was shifting their position so he was sitting up with her still in his lap, his hot lips grazing her left breast while his hand kept kneading the other, "I promise to start sucking if you keep up the compliments."
But before she could utter a word his mouth was on her, soft lips enveloping her nipple with his tongue skillfully brushing the tip. Caroline sighed loudly, her fingers once more sinking into his curls in abandon.
"Oh yes sire!" She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his head-reeling ministrations, her moans half from arousal and half her playful streak, "you are so old, I just love how old you are…" she ground her burning core into his already rock hard cock, "yes, ravish me, punish me, hit me with your long hard cane!"
Klaus suddenly let go of her nipple, pulling her down for a wet kiss, the sound of laughter shook from their chasing tongues all the way down to their joint hips.
He was still laughing when he pulled back, his hand brushing the fallen hair out of her face gently, "this reminds me of…never mind."
"What?"
Caroline studied him suspiciously. He looked…embarrassed, with his eyes downcast and the annoyed little lines forming at the corners of his eyes. And then something clicked.
"You were thinking of When Harry Met Sally weren't you? Admit it!"
She'd all but forced him to watch with her all the chick flicks that'd ever been made, some more than once, or try five times. It was not her fault that the hybrid had an impressive memory.
"I most certainly did not!" He narrowed his eyes, pulling her closer into his lock of iron-hard arms, "how dare you sully my name like this, young lady."
"Whatever you say, great-great-great-grand-sire."
Caroline batted her eyelashes at him, curling the last word around her tongue like he so often did. She gasped when his cock grew even larger underneath her, vibrating against her soaking slit with a mind of its own.
"Are you actually turned on by that?" She faked incredulity while furtively rubbing her core over him, earning a growl deep in his throat.
He looked at her long and hard, sweet and tender, his face still lit up by a playful smile yet his eyes burned into hers as if fusing them together, even if they were already so close she tasted him at the back of her tongue with each breath she took, "Caroline, you make me want to kiss you, spank you, fuck you senseless and have a good laugh with you, all at the same time."
He slowly leaned into her, their cheeks touching inch by inch and he was whispering into her ear like the whole world had silenced to a halt, "there is no bigger turn-on than that."
She laughed softly, her hands raising to cup his cheeks, murmuring an indiscernible "good" before she dove into him, and felt like flying.