A/N: There is no author's note. Enjoy!
Disclaimer; I do not own the Vampire Diaries, obviously, but a girl can always dream.
Sanctuary
Klaus has been on the run for centuries upon endless centuries. He travels with Rebekah who has never left him, and occasionally with Elijah as well, who believes looking after his younger siblings is his business. He has been almost everywhere, visited every city of this world, some of which he has watched being built and prosper, some others that he has seen crumble down and get lost in the sands of time.
People have been after him for almost a thousands years, and there is also an equal number of people- if not a bigger- that has been trying to hide from him from fear of some old grudge. However, no one really knows the hybrid. No one knows that there is only one person in the world to inspire fear to Klaus and make him wander from city to city and from place to place, hiding away from that one person and never being able to settle anywhere.
Klaus is afraid that one day Rebekah will get tired of running and hidding, that one day she will tell him that she has had enough and leave him. When that day comes, and Klaus is sure that it will come despite Rebekah's promises of 'always and forever', he won't blame her, but for now everytime his sister catches him thinking abou this, she adamantly insists that they have to stick together.
They never talk about the rest of their torn family; they just keep going together, living their lives as the monsters they all became that night their mother killed them and turned them into vampires. Sometimes wonders what Rebekah would do if she knew he was the one who killed their mother and not Mikael.
He doesn't know, but he watches Rebekah with tenderness as she always worries about him and tries to protect him even if she never tells him. It remind Klaus of the time they were human, when Mikael would always get mad at him even before he had learnt that Klaus' wasn't his real son. At that time, Rebekah would always shield Klaus with her small body and protect him from their father's wrath. He keeps an eye on Rebekah because this is what they always do; they look after each other.
In the 1920s Klaus and Rebekah are in Chicago after Mikael had almost managed to find them in the previous city where they were living. Klaus likes the hustle and bustle of the city and the bright lights in the streets at night, but most of all he likes their nights at the various bars and cabarets.
Prohibition is a tough thing in Chicago, and the speakeasies thrive on every dark alley of the city where acohol runs freely. People can indulge in every banned activity they wish, so it is so much easy for Klaus and Rebekah to fest upon humans without being bothered by anyone.
They find a speakeasy called Gloria's, a place owned by a witch who has next to no esteem for human lives, because she never stops them when they feed from them in some dark corner of the bar, or sometimes in plain sight, the sinking of fangs in exposed necks and the sweet taste of blood concealed by what looks like ministrations and acts of affection towards a lover to anyone who might pass past their table.
Soon Gloria's speakeasy becomes their regular haunt, but they are no longer alone in their table. Stefan starts to regularly join them, and though at first Klaus doesn't like him or the way he and Rebekah look at each other, soon he feels mesmerised by the ripper's presence.
Stefan is as inexperienced as the 17-year-old boy he was when he was turned, but when the ripper takes over, everything is different. He is full of surprises, like when he makes that man drink his wife's blood, or when they sometimes share meals and he is the one to first drain the women they compell.
Klaus doesn't know to who he is attracted the most: the young vampire who insists they have a photo taken together and keeps on calling him brother, making a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time spread inside him, or the ripper who one nights brings him to his house when they are both more drunk than they would admit and shows him the list of his victims written on the wall, the ripper that then grabs Klaus by his waistband, sqeezing his hips hard enough to bruise and causing waves of heat and lust erupt from his body when their lips meet in a rough, bloody kiss.
Klaus doesn't know, but he doesn't want to find out either. All he wants to do is freeze time and dwell forever on these moments they have at Gloria's speakeasy, when champagne and blood never stop flowing and Klaus dances every night with a different pretty girl while he and Stefan exchange stolen glances as he dances with Rebekah.
Klaus knows this will not last, his stay in this magical city, Rebekah's relationship with Stefan, his feelings- whatever these feelings are for Stefan. Mikael will find them again as he did last time, and all these others times before when Klaus and Rebekah only managed to flee in the nick of time.
It will be best if he doesn't allow himself to care, it will be easier when they have to go again, but Rebekah has already fallen for Stefan and Klaus is afraid that if he lets himself fall, he won't be able to piece himself together again when he reaches the bottom
And yet, Klaus wishes the time they spend at their little sanctuary never has to end. Stefan is the only one to make him feel like he is important, a king instead of a damn abomination, something that Rebekah has never achieved in doing. Klaus knows what it is like to have a brother again. A brother, a friend, a comrade in blood and drinking.
Klaus has found what later becomes an intimate and a lover. He has found a sanctuary, in Gloria's bar, in Stefan's bed at late nights and in his arms that are there for him whenever he needs them, a place to feel safe and just be himself.
Sometimes he even forgets the lurking fear that Mikael will trace them again, even hurt Stefan if he finds what the ripper means to both Klaus and Rebekah alike. He tells himself he doesn't care. That he will live every moment in their little sanctuary to its outmost, no matter how short these moments of solace and companionship may be.