AN: So this is going to be at least 2 parts, I couldn't get what I wanted in just 1 part without it being long. Some of the drama (Hayley/Cami/Aurora/Sophie) will have to wait until the next part. .
Henrik is 17/18ish and it's mostly about him and Klaus. I'm including it as KC fanfic because it will be. Klaus meets Caroline in this part and their time together will expand in the next part.
I also don't know what it is to be a content creator on YouTube or VidCon, so please excuse any and all errors. The cover is supposed to be an 8-bit image of an angry Carebear that I made..
"Henrik, slow down!" Klaus called out before he lost sight of his youngest brother in the crowd of people.
"No, you hurry up," Henrik called over his shoulder. Why, oh why did Nik decide to tag along to VidCon? He had almost been in the clear but, on a whim, Nik decided to join him about 5 minutes before Henrik had planned on leaving to catch the bus.
That had led to a 25 minute conversation about what VidCon was and why Henrik wanted to go. Henrik had done his best to skirt around the real reason but for whatever reason Nik decided to play the overprotective brother.
So now Henrik only had maybe 20 minutes to get to the right hall instead of the planned 45 minutes. Luckily a ticket had been able to be scrounged up for Klaus at the door.
"How can you move that fast?" Klaus asked after jogging to where Henrik was.
"The same way practically everyone can?" Henrik said pointedly, "Just because I've a prosthetic leg, doesn't mean I'm impaired."
Klaus flinched and Henrik sort of felt bad at the reminder.
"And you need to realize, actually all of you need to realize that the accident that took my leg, was just that. An accident," Henrik said, not breaking eye contact with his brother, "I've not suffered since I healed."
Klaus was about to say something when a t-shirt hit him in the face. Growling, he ripped the shirt off to find Henrik was gone. Looking down at the shirt, he saw a cartoonish version of Kol maniacally laughing as swirls of black and grey surrounded him.
"Hey, Nik! Over here!" Henrik waved to a black curtain that he was holding up.
"I don't think just anybody is allowed back there, Henrik," Klaus started to chastise.
"Good to know you're still a party-pooper," a voice Klaus thought he'd never hear again joked.
Henrik had to pull him behind the curtain because Klaus was staring at Caroline Forbes. He hadn't seen her since their tryst right after his high school graduation and the car crash that took Henrik's leg 5 years ago.
"Sweetheart, what are you doing here? Are you running the place?" Klaus asked hurriedly, trying to regain his balance.
"Please, if I was everything would go so much smoother," Caroline huffed.
"Then why are you here?"
"...seriously?!" Caroline almost squeaked as Henrik did his best to not laugh.
"Nik, Caroline is one of YouTube top gamers," Henrik snickered, "She has her own panel here and everything."
"Oh, so is she the reason why you wanted to come so bad?" Klaus asked.
"No, but she is the reason you were able to get in. VidCon is sold out," another voice Klaus never thought he'd hear again pointed out.
"Kol!" Henrik beamed as they hugged.
"Did you get him?" Kol asked Caroline, noticing one of his shirts in Klaus' hands.
"Of course! My aim's always good," Caroline affirmed.
"Unless it's Mini-Golf," Kol taunted.
With Rebekah being a year behind him in school and in the same year as Caroline, Klaus had seen the many faces of an angry Caroline. But he had never seen a Kol-induced angry Caroline.
"That does not count! My computer restarted because of someone configured the updates to force a restart that day!" Caroline fumed, poking him in his chest.
"Oh, God, not the Mini-Golf debacle again," a female voice groaned.
She looked familiar but Klaus couldn't place her, especially since she had her head on his chest.
"Yep," Henrik sighed as Caroline and Kol continued to argue.
"Your costume looks good! Did you figure out the shoulder part?"
Klaus tore his eyes from Caroline and Kol to Henrik and looked more closely at what Henrik was wearing. He hadn't realized that Henrik was wearing a costume, it wasn't like any of the other costumes he'd seen.
"Yeah, thanks Bon," Henrik said, cheeks reddening, "Turns out it wasn't as hard as I thought. The embroidery around the collar and cuffs were harder."
The new girl, who Klaus realized was Bonnie Bennett and one of Caroline's childhood friends, beamed at Henrik.
"Your ears are pointed..," Klaus pointed out as everyone grew quiet.
"They kinda have to be when you're cosplaying Link," Kol responded as Henrik face palmed.
"5 minutes until go time," a stagehand announced before disappearing.
"So, you made what you're wearing?" Klaus said into the silence, hoping to change the subject.
"Just the green tunic. Everything else I repurposed from existing things," Henrik said after a moment.
"You two can wait here if you want but the panel will be close to an hour long and there's going to be a meet-n-greet after," Bonnie said mainly to Henrik before leaving the room with Kol's arm around her shoulders.
Klaus didn't miss Caroline's perusal of him before she hurriedly left.
"Uh, did you want to wait here?" Henrik asked a little awkwardly.
"What do you want to do?" Klaus said, shifting his feet. He was just now realizing that he'd intruded on Henrik's outing.
"I'd like to walk the floor, see some of the other YouTubers I watch," Henrik shrugged before following his brother out.
Klaus followed Henrik once they were back out on the main floor. He also took Henrik's picture with some other cosplayers. During that time, Klaus actually studied his brother's face.
Henrik was having the time of his life.
"So, uh, how did you find out about Kol and Caroline?" Klaus asked during a lull.
"It was actually through Bonnie and her YouTube channel. I'd been looking for a tutorial on how to modify a sewing pattern and recognized Bonnie from Mystic Falls. During the video, Bonnie had mentioned that she also was streaming some of work on cosplays. During one of those streams, Kol and Caroline popped in because Caroline was chasing Kol for a trolly thing he'd done. Apparently it was a common occurrence," Henrik laughed.
Klaus smiled, Henrik seemed to be so light, so carefree. It was like the accident hadn't even happened.
"So you contacted Kol then? Reconnected?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell any of us?" Klaus asked, trying to not sound hurt. He'd have liked to know where his wayward little brother had disappeared to after high school 3 years ago.
"I tried but no one listened. I even played his videos around you guys," Henrik shrugged, "I showed you guys his wedding invitation and still nothing. You all sort of brushed me off, saying I was imaging things because of the accident."
Klaus' heart sank as he remembered each of those conversations. He and his family had tried their best to come together after the car accident but not even Henrik, it seemed, could draw them together.
When Henrik was only 13, he and Klaus had gone for a celebratory ice cream after Klaus had graduated from high school. A known day drunk, Damon Salvatore, had t-boned his car. Klaus had walked away without a scratch (at least until Mikael had gotten his hands on Klaus) while Henrik had had to have his right leg amputated just below the knee.
Klaus had stayed to help Henrik but after not quite a year of almost constant abuse from Mikael, he left. Klaus had gone out West, he wanted to get the maximum distance away and ended up in Seattle. It'd be another year before Klaus came back to Mystic Falls and that was only for Mikael's viewing. He'd wanted proof that Mikael had died.
He'd surreptitiously looked for Caroline but had found that her, Bonnie, Kol, and Jeremy had all left town. Some said it was because of a cult but others had said Los Angeles.
"Wait, Kol's married?!" Klaus almost sputtered.
"Yeah, to Bonnie. It's been about 10 months or so. I was his Best Man," Henrik said getting out his phone to show Klaus pictures.
"You attended his wedding? Where did he have it? It wasn't in Mystic Falls," Klaus said, growing utterly confused.
Mystic Falls was a small town, so any gossip would travel like wildfire. Kol's marriage to anyone would had been common knowledge by the end of the day. Add in that the bride was Bonnie Bennett, a Founding Families member, and it would have been known within an hour. Klaus bet that they would have openly broadcasted it on the town's only TV station.
"No, it was at the LA Botanical Garden."
"How did you attend?!" Klaus demanded.
"A bus ride to Richmond and then a plane here. Kol picked me up. I spent the weekend before returning Monday morning," Henrik said unashamedly.
"Wait, was that the weekend Bekah was acting weird? Wasn't she supposed to be watching you?"
"First of all, when hasn't Bekah acted weird. Second, Bekah was more than happy to be let off the hook. She didn't want to 'waste a weekend babysitting her almost legal brother' and I agreed," Henrik stated.
"Bekah knew you went off on your own, across the country?!" Klaus seethed.
"No, I just told her I would be fine on my own and I was. Mother never even called to check on me," Henrik pointed out, "If memory serves me, neither did you."
Klaus huffed out a breath, Rebekah would be hearing from him once-
"Caroline was a little disappointed that you hadn't also come," Henrik said, hiding a smile at the abrupt change in Klaus' face, "Pretty sure Kol was too."
"Was she, now?" Klaus smirked.
Henrik rolled his eyes, getting those two together, or back together as it may be, might be fairly easy.
"We should probably be getting back to the waiting area," Henrik advised as he steered them to the general direction of the room.
"That Gilbert girl, Elaine, isn't here also is she?" Klaus asked abruptly. He was hoping to any deity listening that that dull girl wasn't also in LA.
"You mean Elena? Not that I'm aware. Think the last thing I hear about her was that she'd bounced back into Stefan's bed from Damon's. Jeremy or Katherine don't talk much about her," Henrik offered.
He'd long forgiven Damon about the accident. It was that accident that had prompted Giuseppe to get Damon into rehab. Since then Damon had stayed mostly out of the bottle, unless there was drama with Elena.
"Katerina's here in LA?" Klaus asked, although he wasn't surprised Katerina had popped up here. This town did seem to fit with her personality.
"She's a fairly successful beauty guru and part time gamer."
"Katerina's a gamer?" Klaus asked, skeptical. Klaus could not picture Katherine as a gamer.
"She does mainly strategy-based games but yeah," Henrik laughed.
Learning Katherine also did some games, mainly on Caroline's channel, CareBear Gaming, had been a little hard to believe. Until you saw the videos, Henrik had vowed to never get on her bad side because it'd been scary how good she was at strategy-based games.
"So, uh, what was the plan if I hadn't crashed your party?" Klaus asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
"We were going to hang out at Kol's house for a bit," Henrik said walking through the curtains, "Maybe play a couple games."
"Oh, Link! There you are!" a high-pitched voice said dramatically.
Klaus' head snapped to where he'd seen Caroline and Kol disappear and gaped. A tall guy was wearing a blonde wig and a dress with his hands over his heart. He looked so familiar...
"I'm sorry, dear Princess, I was on a side quest," Henrik proclaimed, his fist over his heart.
"...Jeremy?" Klaus sputtered, finally placing the face.
"No, it's Princess Zelda of the Kingdom of Hyrule," Jeremy sniffed as Caroline and Kol giggled.
"Jeremy's been wanting to cosplay Zelda for a while but has wanted someone to go as Link. Henrik wanted to cosplay at a Con but didn't want to do something too difficult. I suggested Link for Henrik and helped Jeremy with getting Zelda done," Bonnie explained to a thoroughly confused Klaus.
Klaus watched Caroline take pictures of Henrik and Jeremy in various poses as everyone giggled.
"There's going to be a get-together tomorrow, it'll be mostly be some advertisers and content creators," Kol said to Klaus as he smiled watching Henrik ham it up with Jeremy, "You and Henrik can come."
"Are you sure?" Klaus asked quietly.
"Yeah, pretty sure Elijah will be there as one of the advertisers anyways. Plus Katherine will be there and I definitely want to see that interaction," Kol said nonchalantly but had a ghost of a smile.
Klaus couldn't help but smile, he had missed teaming up wit Kol to annoy Elijah. Maybe this was what Klaus needed to reconnect with Kol and connect with Henrik. If that happened, maybe getting their family to actually be a family wasn't so farfetched.