This is a two-shot, maybe a three-shot. It's not featured on LIAW, because this is nothing like those drabbles.

It didn't want to be written any differently—and who am I to deny my works how they want to be written?

So here it is.

I present you:

she covers eyes, clouds cover paradise

—

It's like drowning, falling in love with him—

—the dark water of the sea rids her from all the walls she so carefully built up around her, to keep everyone out, to keep everyone away from the shattered soul that houses inside what once was Caroline Forbes. It mercilessly engulfs her in its darkness, never ceasing to make her crumble beneath it's rough touch, lungs filling themselves with water and she is afraid, and afraid she is. And then she fights herself up to the air again, taking in deep, ragged breaths and clearing her head, carefully but oh so quickly building up new walls, chaining herself to them as fast as she can and then—then she's down again and she fights, but she loses, and she can do nothing but to let the waves control her.

He is a sin, a haunted man with monstrousness and ruthlessness carved right into his bones. She hates him for it—for the things he's done and for the things he'll do. And even more so for the things he does—

(to her—)

—but he cannot take it off. He cannot promise that he will change and he cannot promise that he will be a good man or anything considered as such. Because this—this monster, this despicable creature of the night—is who he is.

He is also this man in front of her, with that pleading burn in his eyes that tells her she is the only one, as he raises his hand to her face, cups her cheek, thumbs caressing her trembling lips—

—he was right all along, they are the same. She's like him as much as he's like her. And maybe that's what makes her afraid, maybe that's what keeps her away. He has spend a thousand years with himself—with someone like her. She has had nothing but eighteen years—and so he knows her.

He knows her better than she knows herself and she is frightened.

—his hand on her face burns, and she revels in it, in the way this wrong feels so right, and she wants to kiss him, in that moment, just to feel how the lips of this Klaus would feel against hers. Soft, she thinks, searching, maybe a bit hesitant.

His eyes are dilated, black, big. She commits it to memory because it's beauty. It's uncommon, his hair is the color of sand and he seems so little, so vulnerable but he—

—he is powerful. It seeps through his eyes and through his appearance and that's the beauty of it all.

(It's the beauty of him)

And how can this man love her? He's a monster, a creature of the night that shouldn't be able to love but he does—he does love her. His fingers sprawled on her cheek and his thumb still resting on her lip and his nose so close to hers and his breath on her face and he loves her.

There's this rasp in his voice, this roughness that she somehow expected but at the same time really didn't as he speaks so softly, 'what are you so afraid of?'

She doesn't answer right away, letting the paralyzing question roam in her mind—

—what is she afraid of?

'Of you.' —and she is, afraid of him. Afraid of the way he makes her feel, of the way he looks at her like he's a lost man who finally found his home. Of the way he causes her not to care—she never forgets, she remembers, but it doesn't matter, not to her.

And all the things she added in her mind speak to him in her gaze and he leans forward and he—

—he kisses her.

And his lips are so sinfully wrong and it feels so right and in a haze she lifts her hands, one on his cheek, one in his hair and it burns, the sensation—it burns and she doesn't want it to stop because he fits, he fits against her body like he was custom made, like he had spend a millennia molding his features so they'd fit her perfectly and she—

—she kisses him back.

And it's not like the first time, when they were dulled with desire and lust and want, no—

—this is desperate, lips against mouth in a way neither of them know and slowly discovering. They are careful, as if too much will break them, as if too much will tear apart the fragile thing growing between them and Caroline must confess that maybe it was true.

She pulls back, because she's drowning all over again—he is mercilessly tearing down her walls with every movement of his lips and his hand resting on her hip to steady them and she can do nothing but submit to the waves, which in this scenario, are him.

'If you're going to run, run now,' he breathes through parted lips, and it takes a lot of him for those words to leave his mouth and she—

—she knows that she won't. Because she wouldn't be running from him, no, she would be running from herself. And those who run will be forgotten, those who run will disappear.

Caroline doesn't want to disappear.

Caroline doesn't want to be forgotten.

He is shrouded in shadows and now so is she and she leans in again, and his lips are hot yet cold and she shivers and he pulls her into his body as if he wants them to be one and she—she wants that too.

Her fangs extract, pierce through gums, veins crippling beneath eyes and he watched her in awe as he stepped back to eye her thoroughly. He traces lines under bloodred orbs and she shudders, tongue licking teeth, this—

—this is hunger. One she has never experienced before, one she doesn't want to stop. She does not crave blood anymore—she craves him.

'Do not run from me,' he murmurs in a pleading way, but his eyes are as dilated as possible and Caroline can't comprehend if he's compelling her or not—but neither does she care, because she wasn't planning on running.

'Don't break me,' she replies, voice nothing but a ghost of a whisper, 'don't mold me into something I'm not.'

He shakes his head, smiling sadly, lips finding hers in a way that says nothing at all as it says so much at the same time and she knows—

—and he only confirms her thoughts as the sad smile fills his eyes with an emotion she can't place, something between awe and misery, and the look on his face suddenly reminds her that he is, in fact, still a heartless monster, still the beast that killed people and caused so much hurt and pain and blood to flow—

—but then he speaks and the vulnerable man is gone, the smile turning into a wicked smirk, the emotion in his eyes gone and replaced with cockiness, 'not yet.'

—

The straw of a strawberry milkshake—

(which he resents, since it's way too sugary and doesn't taste like strawberry at all, he told her after she offered him a taste)

—disappears between her full lips, and he can't help but stare, blue gaze glued to crimson mouth.

And she can't help but scowl, 'what are you looking at?'

They are in his car—god, when are they ever not in the car? They are always on the road, looking for this guy, running from that guy, checking up on this girl, chasing that girl. She hates it, she despises it, the time they have alone, the silence, the tension. He changes from a vulnerable man into a dick and back, and she is still drowning, fighting the water as much as she can but the truth is she can't.

She can't and she hates it.

And he, the big bad, the Original Hybrid, the bastard of the Mikaelsons, he who does not have the same blood as his assumed brothers and sister—he smirks, amused, and nods towards her, voice as if he's about to laugh even though he almost never does, in fact, laugh, 'lips.'

Perfect eyebrow raised in the Caroline Forbes' way, gulping down the remains of a pink, thick liquid, a sigh is drawn from her lips, 'what about them?'

His eyes light up in a way she doesn't like, because it indicates that he's about to say something that will either make her very angry or very ashamed and when he opens his mouth, she already knows it'll be the latter—

—'the way they wrap around that straw is oddly familiar with the way those lips were wrapped around my co—'

Hand covers mouth—

(his scruff feels good against her palm, and so do his lips and she hates herself for noticing)

—and she doesn't want him to finish because she can't stand it—she was vulnerable, she craved love, she craved him and he had given himself to her—

(as far as Klaus Mikaelson, bigger control-freak than Caroline Forbes, could ever give himself to anyone)

—and she had given in and then it had happened and she hates it—she hates herself for it.

For once, he doesn't end his sentence when she removes her hand, and his eyes—those blue orbs that remind her so much of the water she's fighting, of him she's fighting—

They just simply stare at the road and he mumbles words she doesn't understand, unable to sense where they're coming from or why he's saying them, and more particularly, why he's saying them to her, 'the irony of humans is that they are so caught up with the fact that light travels faster than anything else, they don't see that they're dead wrong.'

And the vulnerable man is back—

(she got used to it now, the ease with which he changes from a dick to a tease to broken)

—hands clenching the wheel, knuckles white and tight as if they might snap, 'because isn't the darkness always awaiting, sweet Caroline, isn't the darkness always faster?'—

—and his gaze pierces hers and his eyes are dark and now she's certain—he is the water, and she fights but he's crumbling her walls, shattering her defenses and she's left breathless, vulnerably awaiting his next attack as she lays bare in front of him.

And his attack is merciless, right hand away from the wheel to touch her face and she just breaks beneath his touch—Caroline shatters the moment she comes in contact with those fingertips and she burns, cries drawn from lips, eyes squeezed shut, and she moves back but he moves along and she can't escape because he doesn't let her and then he tells her—

—he is the wolf, the creature of the forest and she is nothing but his prey, and he makes sure she knows—he always makes sure she knows.

'Then how can I ever love you?'— a whimper, a desperate whisper as he rips her defenses to shreds with one look and he smiles—

—a wicked, wolfish smile that makes her shiver and she brings her hand to cover his just as he speaks,

'I'm certain we'll find a way.'

—

And silently she watches how she turns into something she isn't—something she doesn't want to be. Blood pours from the corners of her mouth, seeping through her layers of humanity straight through to the core of her very existence—a monster, an animalistic, monstrous creature hidden within the skin of Caroline Forbes, and the screams of her victim echo in her mind and she revels in it.

'You wouldn't break me', —accusing, angry, broken. 'Not yet.'

He wipes away the blood from her chin and offers his thumb to her, and she sucks, greedily, no hesitation, hands wrapping around his wrist to keep him there, eyes locked with his and he smiles at her before leaning in, lips pressed to forehead.

She shivers—he soothes her, hand caressing tangled hair, 'yet has long passed, love.'

Eyes squeeze shut, teeth sinking into bottom lip, tears escape—'I know.'

He kisses away the salty droplets and pulls her near, intimately, as if in a lover's embrace, 'then why are you crying? You'll be so beautiful, so powerful—you'll be it all, Caroline.'

Him uttering her name in such way draws a cry from her lips and he instinctively tightens his arms around her, and she knows he loves her, she knows—

—she knows that in his wicked way he does, and she loves him in return, and she hates herself because she doesn't know how not to, and sometimes she finds herself going through all the things he's done and she finds herself not caring and then she'll cry, because she should care, but she doesn't.

'Will it be worth losing myself?' she whispers, falling apart in his arms—and she only cries harder as she realizes it feels good, to be there, in his arms—

—and he doesn't answer her question right away and she thinks he won't talk anymore, but talk he does, soft words uttered as if she would break, which maybe she will, 'if you'd only let me in, I could make you so powerful without ruining what makes you you, sweet one—, I would never let you lose yourself.'

She thinks back of the painting he once made—of her, in a world of only red and blood and corpses and it was on fire, the world, but she stood fiercely, smiling, watching as everything burned and she knew that that was what he wanted her to be, someone who doesn't care—and she can't be that, because she cares, she always cared and she always will—'How can you be so sure?'

He steps back, resting his forehead against his and kisses her—and she doesn't know if the words are being spoken or if she just feels them being moved against her lips, but she understands it and it frightens her more than it should have, 'because you're precious—too precious to waste.'

He pulls back and she immediately reaches to touch her lips, the feel of him still lingering there—

And he watches with a burning sensation in his eyes as her hand moves from her lips to his, touching his trembling, raspberry ones with the same fingers that just touched hers, and he takes her hand in his and puts the palm against his lips and he kisses it—

—the moment so intimate, the gesture so sweet Caroline this time approaches him, crimson crashing with raspberry, bruises forming as his fingers dig in her flesh and she lets out a moan and he groans in response.

She closes her eyes and for a moment, it's okay—she fell in love with a monster but it's okay, because it's that easy, he loves her and she loves him, and that's all that counts.

She shouldn't have closed her eyes, because it hurts to open them again—it's not that easy, it's not okay, Caroline, it's wrong, he can love you but you can't love him because that's wrong.

'I forgot,' he suddenly breathes through parted lips, and she cannot think about right and wrong any longer because his gaze, his presence is suddenly distracting her from everything but staring at his eyes, 'I have a surprise for you.'

Eyebrows raised, questioningly, but with a small smile anyway, she speaks, excited but withholding, happy but hesitant—as if she's afraid what a monster would consider a surprise, 'what is it?'

A smile spreads across his lips and somewhere in her mind the word angel seeps through and she resists to laugh—he was by far not an angel, he had never been one and never would be. But he smiles, and he seems almost happy to tell her—

—'I realized you haven't seen your so called friends'—

(he didn't hide the distaste when he called them friends, but you wouldn't hear her complain, because she could sense it coming…)

—'in a long time, so I have arranged a little meeting.'

She dares to laugh and he laughs with her because oh—she knows him so well as she raises her brows and smirks the way he does, 'you arranged a little meeting?'

So he shakes his head, admiring the smirk on her features, and chuckles, 'well, they might have contacted me,' he admits, playfully almost, 'but I agreed to it.'

And she forgets he is a monster, she forgets all the pain he caused in the past and she just wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him and whispers a silent thank you against the skin of his collarbone and he murmurs a silent you're welcome into her hair in return.

—

She knew—she had known it all along. Because fighting the waves she had seen her, that face, that smile, that encouraging look, and she had felt her presence so close it was almost impossible for her to be with her mother somewhere, and so Caroline had known and Caroline had mourned her, her best friend, her partner in crime.

So she doesn't cry, she doesn't fight the water anymore, this time, when Elena—

(and Jeremy, but Caroline refuses to acknowledge his presence because that very presence only reminds her who had given her life up for that to happen and she can't let that in, she can't just—)

—tells her that Bonnie is dead, that she had been, for awhile.

She invites the water in, then—she lets it engulf and envelop her as if she is okay with it, she lets her consciousness float away with the need of oxygen and she is gone, and like he had said, yet has long passed, because his skilled hands have molded Caroline Forbes in something she was not.

But now she is.

He holds her hand as they tell her, that same hand he had kissed and she turns to him, resting her head on his chest so he can wrap his arms around her and the Gilberts—

—they can only watch in horror as Elena's former best friend is soothed by the hands of he who drove a stake through their aunt's chest.

Damon is there, too, but he doesn't call her Blondie and he doesn't say a word, actually—

(Caroline suspects it's from that one time when Klaus compelled her to tell the truth about her past with Damon, only to disappear for a day after she told him)

—and neither does Stefan, but she doesn't mind because he hugs her and he smells like Stefan, like her best friend who doesn't judge and only smiles, saying things as "we've all done terrible things" and encourages her to date the big bad, so she is thankful.

But as quick as they've arrived, as fast must they go, and Elena embraces her carefully, arms trembling, voice low so no one can hear but them, she whispers, 'we will save you from him.'

And Caroline's words are hard and cold as she steps back and entwines her fingers with Klaus's, smiling a little too brightly for someone who's being imprisoned by a monster, and there's a wickedness in her voice none of them ever heard before, 'I do not need to be saved.'

She smiles it out and away; the loss of people she loved and loves coursing through her lungs and it hurts—she might not love them like she once did anymore but it still hurts—because this is her family, this is her childhood, her life, and it feels like there's a hand around her heart and it squeezes it, it's about to pull it out, but she still smiles.

For now—

And they leave and she breaks.

He holds her, 'It'll be okay.'

'No, it wo—'

But her voice is too rough, too raspy from the tears she shed, too pained with the loss she had to deal with—so he cuts her off with a voice that radiates finality. 'It will, Caroline.'

'It won't,' she murmurs, her voice so soft that the roughness is gone, 'it won't be okay anymore.'

And maybe—

—maybe he just fell in love with her a little more.

—

He takes her to Paris, then. A broken girl watching the silver moon from her place on the Eiffel Tower. Amsterdam is next, her empty eyes sticking to the waves. Rome follows, Tokyo, wherever she wants to go—he follows.

She comes to life beneath the stars—

(he is relieved, because finally)

—and she smiles, a truthful one which reaches her eyes and makes her radiate happiness, and he smiles back because she is back.

'Thank you.' —and thankful she is, because he has not left her, he has not abandoned her. She was broken and he cared, and that is something the little vampire could not say about her friends back in Mystic Falls, the not-so-peaceful town that hasn't been home for her in a long time.

Home is here, where he is, where they are.

He answers with the same answer he always provides her, when she thanks him, 'Anytime, sweetheart.'—

—and he means it, truly. He wouldn't have given up on her. He will never give up on her.

If only she had known then, what he would do to her. If only she had known that the water she had been fighting, the water she had so reluctantly let in after that encounter with Elena, with Stefan—with her past, she wouldn't have thanked him.

She would've ran.

—

Pain courses through her veins like liquid flames and she wants it to stop. She is paralyzed—

—everything is dulled, everything but the pain, and she is sure, she is so sure—

This is the end.

Chanting of witches pushed to the back of her head, she begs—

(and she begs him to save her, but where is he? Why isn't he helping? Why is he letting them—)

—but there's no answer, no relief, no subsiding of pain. There's only this, this torture.

It's nothing like the water, not anymore. This is worse—

—this is fire.

And she cries for mercy, the vampire who houses in the monster's heart; she cries for someone to save her, to help her but there is no-one. She begs, and this is worse than everything—

—this is worse than Tyler's bite, her father's torture, Jules, Brady, this is worse than everything and anything, all the torture and the pain and the rejection altogether.

She pleads, voice small as if she's a child, 'Klaus, please, no more, no more, make it stop'—

—and his hands are on her face and she sighs, leaning into his touch and he kisses her, 'I'm right here', but the pain does not stop, it does not subside nor does it lighten.

She asks him why.

He only wipes her tears away.

He hopes he can paint her like that, one day. Her hair golden and face sweaty, lips plump and the color of a strawberry, eyes clenched shut—

—is it any wonder that a man would try to pin this down, to imprison, to capture this beauty of pain and rawness with dark, thoughtful strokes on canvas?

To hold on, to remember.

He tells her the story of him, of a man unworthy of love but that was what he found, but the story gets lost in her screams and she begs him, but he knows—

—this is for the greater good. As she will no longer be a weakness, and he will no longer be alone. They will no longer be alone.

It stops as sudden as it has begun and she is broken once again. The fire is gone, except for her abdomen. She's tired, exhausted, even.

He unties her and she walks, carefully.

And she vomits. Blood and breakfast on the floor. She walks further, not even bothering to look at it again, not even bothering to look at him again.

She is afraid, then—

(but who wouldn't be?)

—afraid of him, of the pain, of what he had made her endure.

Her voice is monotone, a ghost of air ridden of all the emotions he knew it could carry, azure eyes empty. 'What did you do to me?'

'Love beyond family is a weakness,' he says, and he likes to speak in riddles—

('They aren't riddles,' he once said, 'they are truths, not yet revealed.')

—so he continues with a smile, 'and now you aren't a weakness anymore.'

Her first thought was that he made her his sister—how else can you become family.

It hit her, hard, ruthlessly—

(the truth hurt more than the fire)

Pain in her abdomen, nausea, the exhausted feeling.

'No,' she breathes, 'No, please. That's impossible. That can't be.'

He kisses away her tears and shakes his head, a smile evident as if it is the most wonderful thing in the world and he tells her so softly, so lovingly that it, in fact, can be.

(she wants to vomit again)

—

.tbc