Title: Forming Attachments
Author: fadingtales
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Ship: Klaus/Caroline
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He wasn't aware that Stockholm syndrome applied to the kidnapper. Set after 3x09. AU.
It's funny how fate works. He had never really paid attention to her before, this little blonde fledgling. He had always been focused on procuring the doppelganger, distracted by his hybrid problem, and then recently, the whole Stefan kidnapping his family debacle. He had little time to pay attention to the spunky blonde baby vampire. Until he decided that since Stefan stole something of his, he'd just have to steal something of Stefan's.
She was little more than a name on a list of people that the Salvatores cared about. People he could manipulate, hurt, destroy, all to prove his point that he simply could. So he took her, to see how her absence can make the doppelganger and her precious Salvatores crumble.
He didn't think much of the consequences it would cause for himself.
She doesn't cry, doesn't beg, doesn't scream, which surprises him. Usually cheerleaders were always the biggest screamers, and he heard that she was cheer captain.
"You know that I kidnapped you, right?" He says one time when she was sitting calmly on his couch, flipping through the channels on his television mutely.
"I might be younger than you, but I'm not a child. I'm well aware of the situation I am in," she drawled.
"Do you really? I could kill you if I wanted to and it would be easy. Like snuffing the light out of a candle."
She turns to him then and shrugs. "I've died once before."
"I'd torture you first."
She goes still for a moment and he thinks he's got her. But then, she sighs and plops herself down on his couch. "I suppose you could. But there's no way to stop you if you do, is there?"
"Are you really that brave, little vampire?"
She laughs this time, to his shock.
"No," she shakes her head. "I'm terrified,actually."
He notices then that she has her hands in her lap to keep them from trembling.
"But what am I supposed to do? Kick and scream? I reckon that would only turn you on. You're probably kinky like that."
He narrows his eyes at her, fighting the urge to smile in spite of himself.
Turning back to the TV, she says in a casual tone, "Do you get cable here?"
xxx
He thought she'd change, thought she'd be weak-willed. Fall apart at the seams after the shock of the abduction has worn off.
And he thinks, what better way to get back at Elena and the Salvatores than to corrupt one of their own? He sets himself to the task of tainting the pretty little cheerleader, thinking it would be easy. That she would be somebody he could bend and mold to his liking. But she's not.
Despite her prolonged exposure to him, she is still always distinctly Caroline. She sticks to her guns; refuses to murder, maim, or in any way hurt any innocent human being.
He'd bring home a girl or two, or perhaps a busboy or a bartender sometimes. He takes the first bite so that blood could fill the air with its intoxicating metallic scent, all the better to tempt her with. He soon realizes she's oddly beautiful in an "angel of wrath" kind of way when she's angry.
"Why are you doing this?"
"We are predators and they are prey. It's nature."
"That's an excuse. And you're too old to be making those," she says dispassionately.
She'd turn on her heels then, slam the door in his face, and not talk to him for days. That's fine. He can be angry, too. If he couldn't make her bend, then he would make her break. Let her starve if she refuses to eat what he has to offer.
She'd cry over the dead bodies she finds in his wake, blaming herself for their deaths. She'll be weak from the lack of blood in her system by then. Her sobs wracked her body with convulsions. Her skin grayed in complexion, dark veins surrounding her eyes. Even then, she'll refuse anyone else he brings to her.
"You have to eat," he'd growl.
"No."
"How many times do we have to go over this? They are cattle!"
She'd only shake her head. "Don't do this. You don't have to do this," she whispered.
"You can't change me," he'd say.
"Then why do you try to change me?" she'd retort.
He'd kill whoever it was he brought to her then. He'd snap their necks as easily as it would be to snap a toothpick between one's fingers.
She'd shut her eyes, cringing at the sound of bones breaking. But the tears will still leak down her face, each tear feeling like a physical blow to his chest. It shouldn't affect him so, but it does. He thinks it's her best form of retaliation yet. And sure enough, she'll find the fridge stocked up with blood bags the next day.
He doesn't know why he does it.
It's strange how quickly she had wormed her way under his skin. Even stranger that that's where he allows her to stay. Under his skin, in his veins, behind his eyelids. Thoughts of her consume him. He doesn't get anywhere with his revenge plan against Stefan.
xxx
She is about the only constant he has anymore, even if it's a forced one. He always comes back to the apartment expecting her to be gone. He expects her to be fed up with him and his erratic, violent behaviors and have concocted some sort of plan to escape and run away. She doesn't.
She'd be sitting on the couch, sipping from her mug (filled with O positive, most likely, as it was her favorite) and flipping through a magazine, looking ever the picture of a normal seventeen year old girl.
"Why are you still here?" He asks her.
She'd look at him with a puzzled expression, her eyebrows knitted together in that particular way of hers that he's oddly grown fond of.
"What do you mean? You kidnapped me," she says, a smile curving her lips in amusement.
"But I've never compelled you to stay. And surely you've noticed that neither the doors nor the windows are locked. There are no hybrid bodyguards standing outside waiting to ambush you. No reason to stay. So why are you still here?"
She blinks at him for a moment and then glances back down at the mug of blood in her hands, suddenly finding it vastly more fascinating than looking him in the face.
Finally, after a long silence, she says, "What about you? Why do you let me stay?"
He hates that she's turned the tables on him. Mostly because he doesn't have an answer himself.
"It's been nearly two months. They're not coming for me. They've moved on. There's no point in you holding me hostage anymore. So why didn't you just kick me out? Or kill me? Why am I still here?"
He gets up then, turning his back on her. She answered his question with even more questions and it irritates him.
"I'm going out," he says abruptly.
He'll find her asleep in her room when he comes back. He wasn't aware that Stockholm syndrome applied to the kidnapper.
xxx
She's wrong. Her friends have not moved on and they have not forgotten her. Elena and her band of supernatural do-gooders had been biding their time. Waiting for the right moment to strike when he least expected it, when he had his guard down. He wonders if that was her purpose all along. Something to divert his attention until the appropriate moment.
"Come on, Caroline! Let's go!"
Elena extends her hand to her. He sees her eyes waver from the brunette to his from his vantage point on the ground. The Bennett witch has him held to the floor like a butterfly pinned to a board. He had managed to defend himself against the Salvatores, but they are relentless and he didn't see the witch coming.
She turns to him, their eyes locking. If looks could kill, she'd be prone on the floor, gray and decaying with lesions to mark where his bare hands had ripped her apart.
His attentions are soon diverted, however, when Stefan comes into view, standing poised above him with a stake in his hands. He's quite sure it's made of white oak.
"Caroline!" He hears young Gilbert scream desperately.
From the corner of his eyes, he sees one of his hybrids tackling her to the floor. He watches her go down, her blonde hair in a flurry as her head hits the floor with a sickening crack. His momentary loss of focus was opportunity enough for Stefan to gain the upper-hand, driving the stake into his chest.
A guttural scream rips out from his throat. Unlike his brother, Stefan has excellent aim. He can feel the tip of the white oak dragging along the surface of his heart.
Stefan grunts and attempts to push the stake in deeper, but Klaus was stronger. His hand grips the other vampire's, preventing the stake from moving any closer to his vital organ.
Klaus wonders how long he could keep the pointed tip from making its mark and plunging through his heart. Together, he and Stefan wrestle on the floor. The brain aneurysm the witch was giving him was not helping matters. His strength was waning.
"This is the end," Stefan growls, his hand pressing down harder.
He shuts his eyes, knowing that Stefan spoke the truth. Even in those moments, it's her face he sees in the darkness. The stake was inching closer and closer to the mark.
And then suddenly, it was gone.
He opens his eyes to see her standing above him, teeth bared, eyes feral. A nasty werewolf bite marred the otherwise smooth skin on her right shoulder. He was still pinned to the floor, the witch still maintaining her hold over him. Without the stake, however, she could do little more than immobilize him. So he relaxed and watched critically as the drama between his little cheerleader and her friends unfolded before his eyes.
"If you kill him then I'm dead, too. His blood is the cure."
"You let it bite you," Elena says accusingly.
She'd seen the whole thing, saw the eye contact between Klaus's hybrid bodyguard and Caroline before it knocked her over.
"What?" Bonnie averts her attention from him and to her friend.
Caroline avoids Elena and Bonnie's eyes and looks instead to Stefan and Damon.
"Blondie, what are you up to?" Damon demands.
"You can't kill him," Caroline repeats. "Or you can. But I'm going to die. That'll be on your hands."
Damon takes a menacing step forward, but Elena stops him, shaking her head.
"He must have compelled her," Bonnie tries justifying her friend's decision.
"She was on vervain!" Damon argues.
Caroline swallows and doesn't deny it. She can't. Klaus knows this is the truth. He's tasted the acrid taste of the plant in her stash of blood. She never missed a dose. Not once since he took her from her bed in the dark of the night.
"She's thrown her lot with his! They can both go down together. It'll be romantic," Damon sneers.
"I'm not letting you kill her, Damon," Bonnie snarls. Even so, there's hurt in the witch's eyes. She won't be forgiving this betrayal.
"Caroline... you know what he's done," Stefan tries reasoning. "He's a monster. Do not protect him."
"You can kill him. But I'd die with him," she says adamantly.
Damon looks livid, Stefan oddly silent, the Bennett witch seething, and the devastation and disillusionment in young Gilbert's eyes was apparent. He realizes ironically that he had been successful in watching Mystic Falls' team of misfit heroes crumble.
"This isn't over," Stefan says with eerie calm.
In the end, Elena would never let her friend die and the Justice League leaves with one less member to their team.
"They've ruined my favorite shirt," he says casually as he picks himself up off the floor.
"You have a million of the exact same stupid henleys in your closet," she scoffs as she goes over to the fallen body of the hybrid that had attacked her. Checking his pulse, she finds none.
"Yes, but this one brings out my eyes."
She whirls on him, the feral look back in her eyes.
"How dare you stand there and joke! Your hybrids are dead. They gave up their livesfor you! Don't you care about anything? You don't, do you?"
"They died because you betrayed us!"
Suddenly, all the fury and rage in him had come back full force. Like a dam that has blown wide open.
"I saved your life!"
"You led them here!" he roared.
"You kidnapped me!" she screams back.
They spend a full minute just glowering at one another, the tension between them heavy and loaded.
He should just let her die. She said so herself, he doesn't care about anything. His hybrids were all dead. Without Elena, creating more was impossible. And the chances of getting back his family is all about zip. How easily the foundation of his plans came to nothing. Like pillars of salt being washed away by the tide. A momentary weakness and an irrational fascination with one insignificant, infant vampire and it cost him everything. She had cost him everything. He has nothing left.
Somehow, his wrist brings itself to his lips of its own accord. He felt his fangs puncture the skin and the taste of his own blood fills his mouth.
He had nothing left but her.
"Do you want my blood or not?" he growls, thrusting his bloody wrist towards her.
She grits her teeth and continues to stare daggers at him. For a moment, he almost thinks she wouldn't take it. After all, she had lost everything as well. Her display of allegiance to him has made her an outcast to her friends and family. Mystic Falls will no longer be welcoming her as her home. He wouldn't be surprised if she'd rather end it all than face what is next to come. He's not much of a consolation prize.
Of course, she never does do what he thinks she would. Finally, she inclines her head ever so slightly to bring her lips to his wrist.
She drinks roughly, sucking hard on his skin, her teeth digging into his flesh. He winces from the pain she causes, but doesn't say a word. When she finishes, she wipes her mouth carelessly with the back of her hand, leaving a streak across her cheek.
Once again, his hand moves out of its own volition and he finds himself rubbing away at the stain on her face.
She struggles to maintain her hard stare at him, but he sees her features softening ever so slightly.
"Why did you save me?"
"Why did you save me?" she shoots back, her eyes flickering to the blood already drying on his arm.
As always, they answer questions with more questions.
He sees a storm brewing in her eyes.
"We accept the love we think we deserve*," she says softly, her voice scarcely above a whisper.
They were both broken creatures, lonely souls without a home to go to. Maybe that's what drew them together in the first place. Broken things belong with other broken things.
"Do not quote novels at me. I'm not one of the characters in your books and soaps. I'm not an anti-hero. I'm not a bad boy with a golden heart," he says coldly before turning his back on her.
She watches him as his figure gets obscured by the door slamming into the door frame.
"No need to get so defensive," she mutters to the empty room. "The quote wasn't about you anyways."
He wasn't the only one who had grown an attachment.
* This is a quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. And I am actually guilty of not having read the novel before, but I saw the quote somewhere and thought it was just lovely and seemed oh so very klaroline in nature so I decided to incorporate it into this fic.
A/N: As always thank you to the talented Paige (skerdypants) for helping me beta this. I just couldn't resist considering all the speculation/spoilers for the new TVD episodes that Klaus was going to get a love interest and my little klaroline shipper heart just went crazy. I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think!