SO YOU WANT TO BE A MIND READER
Note: For joey-prue, as part of the Klaroline Valentine's Gift Exchange on AO3.
-kc-
As always, the plan had seemed simple enough. Cast a spell to strip Silas of his witchy-poo powers, channel said powers into some kind of ancient medallion, and then destroy the medallion on the next full moon so that no one could ever tap into that dark magic again.
Perhaps Stefan should have done a better job securing the perimeters before Bonnie started chanting? Perhaps Damon shouldn't have texted Caroline an unnecessarily cryptic message 15 minutes earlier? Perhaps someone could have warned Caroline about the plan, period, so she didn't wander into the room in the middle of it all? It wasn't like she didn't have better things to do — being finals weeks, after all.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
In the end, Caroline got a little zapped and lost 2 hours of study time, but no horns appeared and everything else seemed in the right place. No harm, no foul?
Overall, they chalked it up as a success.
Until three days later.
-kc-
Caroline was perched on a bar stool at the Grill, waiting as Matt prepared her drink. Finals week was thankfully over, and she was supremely confident that she'd aced all exams. Normally there was a little more anxiety, but strangely this time Caroline had a strong gut feeling of what all the teachers would consider A+ responses. She mused on this for a brief second before shrugging it off — clearly being attentive in class during the year paid off.
"I guess celebrations are in order?" Matt said, sliding a tall glass across the bar.
Caroline beamed before taking a sip. "Yep! I've still got my fingers crossed for valedictorian."
Matt laughed, then pointedly looked at the booth where Bonnie, Elena, Stefan and Damon were sitting. "Have a feeling they're celebrating something else."
Caroline waved a hand dismissively. "Oh yeah, the whole Silas thing is over too. Thank god. One ancient and evil megalomaniac at a time, please."
At this, Matt's eyes flitted over her shoulder, and Caroline rolled her eyes. "There's an ancient and evil megalomaniac behind me, isn't there? It wasn't meant to be a summons."
Matt nodded, then held up a tray of drinks. "Better deliver these. Yell if you need anything."
"You wound me, love," Klaus said, as he leaned against the bar space next to her. "Will you ever allow me to acquit myself?"
Caroline allowed herself a split-second to admire the dimpled smile, the twinkly eyes, the way the henley clung to his shoulders and arms — and how was it fair that he had dimples? — before smiling insincerely. "Not sure you can stop being old, evil or power-hungry."
Caroline watched as his full lips slowly curled in amusement. She had a brief image of those lips feathering kisses along her collarbone, before shaking the image away.
"I've always enjoyed your claws. They're one of the most lovely things about you." His low tone suggested that he knew was she was thinking, and that he was also imagining an activity involving her nails and perhaps his back, muscles flexing, with far less clothes.
Klaus hand brushed against hers, and her breath caught. All of a sudden, she felt a rush of warmth, and tingles, all the way from where their hands touched to her toes. It felt like she was… glowing. It felt like there was a magnet drawing her closer, until all she wanted to do was wind herself around him, until there was not an inch between every part of him and every part of her.
Caroline shook his hand away. "What was that?" She snapped, crossing her arms defensively.
"What do you mean?"
"I—" Caroline caught herself. Klaus was looking at her carefully, but his eyes gave nothing away.
"Nothing." Caroline stood, and pointed in the general direction where her friends were waiting. "Going now."
Rude, perhaps, but on second thought, warm, tingly and glowing actually sounded like an awful lot like raging hormones, and there was no way she was going to admit to that.
-kc-
Twenty minutes later, Bonnie admitted to having a sex dream about Jeremy, who turned into Kol, and then back into Jeremy. Bonnie sighed and called it the best dream ever.
"Bonnie Bennett!" Caroline exclaimed, a little surprised that Bonnie was admitting to this while Damon and Stefan were at the table. Normally it was more of a girls' night topic? "You dreamt about both of them? How scandalous."
"Dreamt about who?" Elena asked, leaning closer.
Caroline raised her eyebrows. "Uh, how could you miss that? I'm not going to be able to look at either of them the same way ever again. Thanks, by the way."
Bonnie reddened. "I didn't say anything."
"Yeah, you did. I heard you." Caroline looked around the table. Both Damon and Stefan also had blank looks, rather than the awkward and slightly disgusted (Stefan) or highly entertained and smarmy (Damon) expressions she had been expected.
"I didn't say it… but I was thinking it." Bonnie admitted. "Please don't say it out loud."
"I…" Caroline said, and for lack of better words, "huh?"
Then out of nowhere, Louise from the cheerleading squad walked past the table and called Caroline a tyrant, while pictured her toppling from the top of the pyramid. Then she smiled sweetly and waved, before moving on.
At the same time, Elena was comparing the first kisses she had with Stefan and Damon, in excruciating detail, and scoring them out of 10. (They both got 8.7 for technique and 9.2 for effort.)
Caroline heard and saw all those things and more — it felt like everyone was yelling their thoughts with no filter — but it became clear that no one else heard them like she did.
Caroline stood up abruptly, ignoring the drink which spilled across the table. "Boarding house. Now."
-kc-
Back at the Salvatore boarding house, which thankfully had much less people than the Grill, Caroline found herself pacing back and forth while Bonnie flipped through the grimoire in front of her. Elena, Stefan and Damon were scattered throughout the living room.
Caroline wished they would all think a little quieter.
"So, I'm guessing this is a side-effect of the spell we used on Silas, when you walked in," Bonnie frowned.
"I thought you said everything was ok!" Caroline shrieked. "I thought you said the spell didn't do anything to me!"
It helped to yell, so she could hear herself over the overwhelming roar of everyone else's thoughts.
"I didn't anything like this could happen, and I didn't want you to worry!" Bonnie said, equally loudly.
Damon cut in. "I don't see what the big deal is. Blondie can now figure out the best way to get rid of Klaus. Now that Silas is gone, we should probably get back to that."
Caroline glared at him. "Please stop thinking so loud. And stop having fantasies about Elena. Especially the one on Alaric's desk at school, the images are making me sick."
Caroline turned back to Bonnie, while the other three navigated the new level of awkwardness. "So can you fix this?" A few seconds passed. "Bonnie, please tell me you can fix this."
Bonnie bit her lip. "Well, I'm not sure exactly what happened yet. But I'll figure it out, don't worry. In the meantime, you might want to stay indoors."
-kc-
Another week passed before Caroline found herself on Klaus's doorstep, sweating slightly and eyes darting around nervously for any other people who might be around the mansion. Luckily the mansion was in a rather secluded area of town.
At first it wasn't so bad. She picked up quite a lot of town gossip, although there was a lot of stuff she would never be able to unhear or unsee. Slowly though, it was like the antenna for her power grew stronger, and now she was picking up thoughts from streets away, without any ability to discern one from another.
Stefan and Bonnie stood behind her in an odd triangular formation. They had voiced (inwardly and out loud) their disagreement with her decision to turn to Klaus, but it had been a week with absolutely no leads and she was slowly going insane.
Klaus took one look at her, before sending a quick growl towards Stefan and Bonnie.
"Caroline, love, what happened?" He reached out to touch her arm, but she yelped and jerked away skittishly. He frowned at that, but held up his hands as if showing a frightened animal that he was no threat.
Bonnie stepped forward and said quickly. "I think we accidentally gave her some of Silas's powers when we stripped him of them. She can hear people's thoughts and see what they thinking, but she can't control it. It's worse when she directly touches someone."
Klaus gazed at her again, now a little suspicious, but still motioned her inside. As soon as she stepped past him, he blocked Bonnie and Stefan from entering. "I think you've done enough, don't you think?" he said before shutting the door firming in their faces.
-kc-
Caroline stood in the middle of the living room, where for the first time in over a week it felt quiet. Peaceful. She braced herself when Klaus entered the room, taking a few steps backwards before inwardly shaking herself, then standing spine straight.
"Are you also here to read my mind, sweetheart?" He said, not stopping until he was directly in front of her.
Caroline takes a deep breath, then three more to be sure. The sound of her own inhale and exhale, together with his scent, calming her.
"I don't hear you," she said slowly, looking up at him in surprise and also relief.
Klaus smiled. "I'm not surprised, love, I have better control of my mind than an average vampire. Silas only managed to get in my head once, after all."
Caroline mulled over his words for a few seconds, but he continued before she could respond. "I've already called a witch who owes me a favour. We should have an answer in the next couple of hours."
"Thanks," she said distractedly. "What you said before — I could read your mind if you let me, is that what you're saying?" She asked.
"Perhaps. That's what happened at the Grill, didn't it?" Klaus brushed a curl from her face, movements careful and curious. "You saw something which made you skittish. What was it?"
She shook her head, unwilling to answer, unsure of how to answer. She hadn't quite untangled that brief moment yet.
Somehow, this wasn't turning out the way Caroline expected. Sure, she had turned to Klaus because he was probably the one person in Mystic Falls who could find someone to help her. But Damon's words had stuck in her mind — theoretically, she could read Klaus's mind and find out where the white oak stake was, or discover another secret he'd been guarding. And yet, he didn't seem at all concerned about that possibility. Instead, his eyes seemed to gleam with the opportunity that had been presented to him.
"Did you get a taste of what I feel for you? I'm a patient man, love, but I'm not above using this to convince you that I fancy you, when you are so intent on dismissing it as false."
"I—" Caroline wasn't sure what her next words would have been, because he cupped her cheek in one hand and then she was suffused with warmth again. Tingles. Glowing. Then there was a stream of emotions rather than thoughts directed at her, like intrigue and admiration and affection and an overwhelming want, the intensity of it leaving her breathless.
Sure, Klaus had never made his pursuit of her a secret, but she had never quite believed it. Physical attraction, that she could believe, and could also admit to herself. Anything beyond that, on either side, she'd never really let herself consider. After all, how could he really want her, Caroline Forbes, without an ulterior motive?
"I'm only seeing and hearing what you let me see," she protested. "You said that yourself."
"Perhaps. I haven't shown you all my deepest and darkest secrets, that's true," Klaus conceded. "Does that make what I'm revealing any less real?"
She frowned. At that, Klaus stepped back, somehow sensing that she would need time to process her own thoughts (and his). "You're welcome to have your pick of any of the rooms to freshen up while we wait, sweetheart," he said.
Caroline didn't need a second escape offer.
-kc-
In the end, it came back down to the medallion. Caroline wasn't sure why, but as soon as she touched it, the mind reading powers went back to where they needed to be. And not a minute too soon, as she was now busy sorting through her own thoughts, and didn't need all everyone else's mixed up in there as well.
"Thank you," she said, after the witch left, and she and Klaus were alone again.
Caroline hesitated, before impulsively lifting to the tips of her toes and pressing a soft kiss against his cheek, stubble lightly scratching her skin. Her lips tingled from the brief contact, and heat rose to her cheeks as she quickly pulled back.
A smirk erupted on his face, but he didn't move. The message was clear — the next step was still all hers.
"You're welcome, sweetheart," he said softly. Caroline could still feel his eyes on her as she darted out the front door.
When Caroline was back in the safety of her own room, she flopped face first onto her bed and groaned. She could still feel her lips tingling.
That was such a bad idea.
END
Inspired by one of the early Buffy episodes.
It's been a while since I've written any fanfic, so would love to know what you think!