I.
Sometimes Klaus doesn't know the bounds of Caroline's beauty.
He looks at her and sees warmth and light of a deeply complex woman, but he doesn't know if he's looking upon the glow of something divine or gazing into the fires of hell. She speaks to him like he disgusts her, but he knows that game. Where the lips say never, her eyes whisper not yet, and so he wraps his attention around her like how the leather tendril of a whip might coil around a limb. He's not letting her off so easy.
II.
"Does it bother you," Klaus prods, already knowing the answer, "that I didn't wait a hundred years for you before shagging someone?"
"No," she bites back, a little too quickly. It makes the satisfaction creep into the corners of his mouth and gently pull upwards. "It's no surprise that it doesn't take more than a day for you to break any promises you've made."
He pretends her verbal swing at him hurts with an exaggerated wince. "Should we start signing contracts, then?" He leans closer to Caroline, being discreet about taking in her scent and going over the shape of her lovely features again; lashes darkened with mascara, her slender nose, the fullness of her lips.
"The only thing I'll ever sign with you is your death warrant." One of his favourite things about her is that she always looks him in the eye even when they're bantering, always challenging, never wanting to show a chink in her golden resolve.
"Well then," Klaus shrugs at her with his hands in his pockets. "I suppose you won't mind if I told you that I'll be seeing her again later."
Caroline doesn't answer for a breath. "You do what you want." She treats him to her most dishonest smile and turns on her heel to take her leave, but he wants the last word.
"You think that just because we shared a few tender moments means that I'm to pander to your every need, but it only works when the relationship's mutually beneficial, love." He raises his brows and opens his arms to emphasize his invitation. Though she can't see him because her back is still turned, she's listening. "The heart wants what the heart wants, Caroline. Just say the word and I'll cut the she-wolf loose."
She pauses, as if to digest, but instead of supplying him with her usual wit, she wordlessly takes her leave. If he were not so distracted by how perfect she looked walking away from him, Klaus might have allowed himself to feel just a little bit worried about him, and her, and them. Maybe just a little.
III.
On a different occasion, Klaus wants to check on the wellbeing of his favourite neurotic blonde. Interestingly, he's caught her giggling and chortling away with his former bed mate at the Grill over a beer (for Hayley) and a mimosa disguised as OJ (for his lovely). Strange. He didn't realise that they were on speaking terms, but it's been a long time since he's stepped into this dump.
By the time he strains his ear for a proper eavesdropping, Caroline's risen from the barstool and looks determined on making a quick exit. She's lifting the flute to her lips for a strong finish as she brisk walks towards the doors, but halts completely when she catches sight of his stretched shadow on the ground – that she recognizes him by his shadow makes him more than a little pleased.
"Don't stop on my account," he eyes her drink, effervescent, orange and feminine, all of which are painfully appropriate for the Caroline she wants people to see. The legacy of Miss Mystic Falls must be upheld, he supposes, but he knows. He knows that for every display of charm and compassion there's equal parts venom and cruelty she buries deep inside of her and saves just for him. What he doesn't know is if she's completely blind to the amount of hurt she can cause a man.
It's always the beautiful ones who are the most devastating.
Caroline tilts her head, eyes glittering with curiosity. It seems like she's trying to read his intention of being here in the Grill. The gears in her mind are grinding, even as she downs her drink swiftly and almost cracks the delicate stem of her glass when she sets it on a nearby table.
"Wanna know why I'm being frenemies with her?" Klaus doesn't answer. He just lets her have her teasing way with him, allowing her to close the distance between them and call the shots.
A pang of yearning hits him right in the chest as her hand slides down the zip of his jacket. Her finger grazes the burnished metal of his buckle and Klaus starts to crave her the same way a young vampire craves to sink their teeth into the buttery flesh of a healthy young neck.
Don't touch her, don't lean in yet, and never show that you need her in your life. Show a spot of vulnerability and Caroline will crush him. He's certain of it.
"I'm gonna get under her skin," she says softly, using the ambient noise to bury her words so Hayley can't hear. Klaus is fixed on her mouth for lip reading purposes, but ends up barely registering the message.
Instead, he's busy wondering what the taste of her is like, if she'll kiss back, and where her hands will be. Her voice is thick with vengeance and Klaus thinks it's appropriate to file this moment away for a much later time when he's all alone and feeling nostalgic... or frisky.
"I'm going to curl my hands around her throat and pop her head off her shoulders." She can be so casual about her violent metaphors, but so frigid when he's being suggestive. It's perplexing.
"Will you call me?" he asks, feigning puppy dog eyes. "I'd love to see you in a tussle."
Caroline shoots him an annoyed look. "Say your goodbyes to her, Klaus." She's bitter and biting and absolutely stunning when she's being all secretive about her plotting.
"Are you planning her exile," he pauses, suddenly interested, "Or her demise?"
"Nothing bigger than the party I'd throw for you," she replies, "You know how disgustingly evil those dimples of yours are."
It may be faux flirting, but Klaus is perfectly content with letting her say whatever makes her feel empowered, just so long as it keeps him close to her. She'll come around eventually.
IV.
Someone must be dead, Klaus deduces, when he receives a knock on the door and sees Caroline standing there, underneath a black umbrella looking sullen and slightly soaked. The storm is blowing the rain into his house and he quickly pulls her inside, dripping water all over the tiles.
He wants to ask her what's happened, but figures that it may be better for him to go straight to the fireplace to stoke the flames so she can warm up. It's only polite to.
When he's kept the poker away, Caroline plops down in front of the hearth and stares into the glowing embers, looking completely lost in introspection. Her hair is half damp, part glossy and part thinned with rain, but her eyes are watery, like the eternal dark blue pools of the ocean. Klaus reminds himself not to stare for too long.
He sits down next to her, and seeing that perhaps he has no place to interrupt with a smart mouth, curves a hand around her arm and gently pulls her closer towards him.
She doesn't recoil, but simply allows herself to place her head on Klaus' shoulder and feel the quiet comfort he has to offer.
It's just one of those instances in time when no one can explain what happened or why it did. Klaus only knows that it happened, and he'll be mulling over this for a time long after the wings of his mansion has crumbled from age and returned to the soil.
This one is sad, but it's become one of his favourite moments to remember in a long while.
V.
Klaus has seen people flip switches in themselves before. Stefan, one time in his brother Elijah. But when Caroline comes to him, there is no switch. There's only a bloodthirsty beast, having been lying dormant for some time, slowly awakening and emerging from its cave. It could've been the night of the storm that roused it, it could've been something entirely different. All he sees is that Caroline has that vengeful glint in her eye that first started out as her being innocently overprotective.
The worst things that can happen to someone are often born from good intentions.
"I took care of it myself." She sends two tiny chips skittering across his desk and his hand slams down on them, feeling their little points – quite sharp, he concludes – stuck to the ridges of his palm. Caroline's eyes are as clear as ever as she looks at him expectantly, lips pursed, hand on her hip.
Although it takes him awhile to realise what she's referring to, he's certain that she wants him to recognize that she's a big girl now. He's never had a doubt about it, but it always delights him to see her try so hard to prove him wrong on the perceptions that she thinks he has of her.
When Klaus lifts his hand, he identifies them immediately - the unmistakeable bone white curve of fangs. Werewolf fangs, he notes, picking one up and studying the unusual sheen of its pale enamel.
"It took a while for me to get the tissue off," she says. "They're harder to extract than I thought." He hears the slight discomfort in her voice at her own anatomic description, but... There's something false about it. A dark secret hiding under her skin.
"You liked it." He tries not to sound too happy about the revelation, but he's fairly certain that she did enjoy playing dentist. Very much. He can tell by her posture, the way she describes how she's gone and polished the damned things. And you don't talk about revolting things in detail unless you're particularly proud of the hard work that's gone into it.
Caroline sounds unsure. "It doesn't matter. It's done." Mission complete. The end.
"So what shall we do now that you've shown how cruel you can be?" he questions, glancing at the shape of her lips. "I don't suppose this was a mercy kill."
"That would've been too kind." Klaus arches a brow to that.
"What would you like me to do with these?" Preserve them in blown glass? Should he ask a taxidermist for tips?
Her body sways in thought for a few seconds. "Keep them around for me. I think I wanna remember what it took to get me here."
Whether she means it in the immediate sense or is denoting something broader, the very fact that Caroline would make a trophy out of her first remorseless kill and choose to trust it with him warms his dead heart.
Klaus nods and agrees. "Okay, love." He offers his most affable smile. "I'll do the safekeeping."
She smiles back, small and slight but still genuine about it. A sign that she, perhaps, has allowed him a sliver of an opportunity for him to slip under her skin a little more.
Give him time. He'll get there.
VI.
He's made an intricate box for her, painstakingly sanded, etched, varnished, and decorated. It's been a long time since he's worked on craft, evident from the significant pile of cracked, broken and misshapen blocks of wood sitting on top of his workbench. The days of pressed sawdust and glue-tipped brushes are now over.
Carefully lifting the finished piece to eye level, Klaus studies his own work with a critical eye.
Too pedestrian. It'll be laughed off.
Setting it down at the corner of his table he clenches his jaw, revising his ideas and seeing more schematics come together in his head. How hard is it to construct a receptacle for a pair of werewolf teeth?
Two bottles, a table flip and some scribbling later, Klaus retreats to his basement. Another couple of days and he emerges, absolutely starving, but with his best effort in tow - a teardrop locket of gold, made from the trinkets fished off the necks and ears of Indian maharajas of centuries past, strung up with a delicate chain.
This would be it. He commends himself for his skill with a solder and finally goes out in search of a meal.
VII.
Exciting times happen in crests and waves. Sometimes Klaus is the troublemaker. Otherwise, he only steps in when it's serious, just to be sure that the earth isn't going to be incinerated in a cosmic cataclysm.
What he likes about trouble is that it sends Caroline his way. Her bumbling crew makes a habit out of it because he's never made an attempt to hide his affections for her. So when she comes running to him with a request for a nugget or two of ancient knowledge, Klaus can strike a deal out of it. Like a date, or a dance.
Nowadays he doesn't ask for anything. He just waits for her to make an appearance and she'll do the rest herself.
Under all that deflecting and resisting, she's still receptive towards his thinly veiled advances. Klaus knows because when she turns up, he sees the gleam of a gold teardrop just above the neckline of her dress, and a warmth strikes him right in the sternum; that would be gratification, he deduces. Caroline wears it like it's already a part of her.
He reaches for her hand. She doesn't flinch when his fingers circle her wrist, and even if she pretends to be repulsed by the contact, in her eyes is a curiosity that can't be quelled.
"Why don't you just tell me the real reason you're always here?" says Klaus, pressing hard on a point where her pulse would patter if she were still alive.
Caroline's irises, blue pools of iridescence are slowly darkening from the widening of her pupils. A giveaway sign of nerves. "You're usually the one who has all the answers."
It's sometimes true, but he doesn't buy the entire explanation. He looks pointedly at the locket. "It looks good on you."
Immediately her hand rises to touch it, pulling herself from his grasp. She wears it proudly, he notes, and experiences again the light twist in his chest.
"Tell me what I need to know and I'll be out of your hair," says Caroline, realising he's catching her off guard too easily. Watching her try to hide her doe-eyed, lost in headlights look is too delicious.
"And if I want to keep you by my side? "
Caroline stares.
"An extraordinarily beautiful woman who has the wit to match her beauty is always appearing to me for favours," says Klaus, tilting his head, "How could I not ask her once to join me for an afternoon?"
"I'm flattered, " she responds, "but you should really stop thinking that buttering me up with compliments will win me over."
"You like hearing it nonetheless, " says Klaus. "I only speak of what I see. If there's one verity about the world as we know it, it's that we're all ugly inside." This makes her purse her lips; who knows if in agreement or not. "And there must be a part of you that you look upon with the same vile contempt you so freely serve to me. I'm the only one who will be the salve to your wounds." He shrugs. "I have been, a number of times."
Caroline is very still when she delivers her response, except for when she unconsciously rubs the locket between her thumb and forefinger as if it would summon a djinn of some sort. "You're right," she says, stripped of all the usual snide remarks their ritual would include. "I'll remember that."
Then he catches a hint of a smile, like a secret fondness she may really have for him, touch the side of her lips. It's just a quick snap in time, but he's already kept it away in memory. One for the ages. Something to add to the feelings.
"I'm sorry," he says to her, "I don't have anything on what you're looking for."
"What I'm looking for," Caroline ponders, then starts backing away slowly to move on to the next task. "...Maybe."
Maybe, she says. Where the lips say maybe, the eyes are saying yes.
Klaus could work with that.