an amalgamation of "whoops how did this become trope y when i'm hardly done with trope x yet, and - well fuck, is that trope z now?" for melissa and ravyn, who laughed at my pain this morning.
—
Stargirl Interlude
—
—
.
Klaus wished he were as young as her.
She has her neck out, Caroline, a pen twirled absently in her fingers. The tip of it scratches a pink line down her neck.
He doubts she'll notice until she gets home, just as she's about to shower. If she were his, his gut craved so fervently, he would point it out to her and then lick the ink off her skin.
She notices him staring. She always does.
She has eyes like new pegs on a clothing line, true blue in the brightest beam of mid-morning sun. She reminds him of fresh washing, a time so long ago, the clothes flapping in the cliff-side breeze. He was a boy then—
As he was saying. Her neck. Her eyes.
And those eyes of hers, they're looking into his now, just as they always inevitably do.
Although—her reactions always vary. Curious. He waits to see what it'll be today. He can already feel the gums covering his fangs prick with interest. Expectation.
Klaus leans forward in his seat.
—
Caroline's sitting at her desk. She still has a bunch of papers to mark, and by the time she gets to Andy Harding's she wonders why the hell she decided to spend this portion of eternity as an English teacher of all things.
It's all bullshit, of course. She knows why. Mom told her, once, her fingers in her hair smelling like the buttered noodles takeout they had earlier but she didn't care one inch. Mom told her that before all this, before she'd grown up, she'd wanted to be an English teacher and read poetry on a windowsill to besotted students.
Before she learned about vampires.
Before she learned the true weight of the Forbes' name.
Yeah, real dramatic, Caroline knows. That had been twenty-seven years ago, and now she scribbles furiously at the bottom of the page in her sternest script, For future reference it is advisable to not be a useless tool in Women Literature Studies.
Her neck itches. It must have been her quick shower this morning. She'd woken up late, Bonnie snoring over her. There was an overturned wine bottle on her nightstand. She'd cursed in despair; there'd be no time for primping today.
—
The only time Klaus had seen her in this state of disarray – or as much disarray as being Caroline Forbes allowed – was many a moon ago, in a forest, somewhere. He can't remember the name of the town, and feels, for a strange second, free.
Caroline had been panting, the back of her head rubbing into tree bark, little bits chip away and fall into her hair, where his fingers are grabbing. He wasn't fucking her – not yet, not when she was moaning that loudly just by his finger sliding in and out, in and out the begging heat of her cunt.
A Caroline in disarray was usually just a Caroline with a piece of hair curling the wrong direction in the middle of her forehead.
And that, damn it all, is enough to undo him.
He's fixated entirely too much on her hair. She hadn't bothered to do it up today, letting it fall down her shoulders. She had cut it recently, so it looked soft and much too perfect.
Klaus doesn't like perfect on her. He much preferred her forgetting how to spell his name when he demanded it, a rasp in her ear.
That was just too long ago. Now there's a shame.
"Mr. Mikaelson," she tells him sweetly like she's doing him a favour, "you're staring again. It's a legal offense."
Klaus puts his pen down on the stack of books in front of him and reclines in his chair, lips widening to make way for his grinning teeth. "How do you know it wasn't you who were offending me?"
Caroline scoffs. "With what?"
"This," Klaus says, placing the point of his finger on his wristwatch, "is the third time I've stayed back marking papers, that you happen to be here too. I'm not one to romanticize coincidences. I dare say you are stalking me."
"You're shitting me," Caroline says flatly. "You and I are both here because our subjects are, funny thing, the only two that happened to have their exam papers stolen—"
Klaus smiles innocently.
She continues, "We're rushing to meet deadline, and—" a bark of laughter, "you think I'm here for you."
Klaus shrugs, still smiling. "I'm not the one undressing you with my eyes."
That Caroline swells in irritation is an understatement, but before you call him a liar, he wasn't lying. In his fantasies he leaves her clothes alone. He fucks her fully dressed.
"You know what, I've decided I can't see your face in the mountain of crap you have messing up your desk. See ya, Klaus." And with that, she reshuffles her papers with an angry clatter and pointedly scrapes her chair away from his line of sight.
—
Caroline takes pride in her workplace. The first month had been fulfilling, like a warm ball right in the middle of her soul. In her old journal entries to Elena she calls it soul-enriching, with only a hint of a blush. Being happy seemed like too much to want, suddenly.
She should've known she'd jinx it.
Principal Barkley shows the new History teacher around the next day because Mona'd broken her leg the night before. Caroline finds the familiar scent lingering in the pantry and turns slowly, hardly daring to believe: and there, sitting in the glassed-off conference room is Klaus, waving at her.
Waving.
At her.
What an asshole.
Flustered, she makes her way back to her desk, grateful for Stu (of the Economics department) sitting in the table across hers blocking her from the sight of Klaus being settled into an empty desk from the end of the room.
The next day, Stu is afflicted with the mumps.
"I didn't even know you could get it twice!" he mass-texts.
From his desk just fifteen friggin feet away from hers, Klaus is looking right at her, not even bothering to hide it. Scowling, she scribbles on a piece of paper, WHAT'S YOUR DEAL?
She holds it up with a snap.
Klaus chooses a red marker and retrieves his sketchbook. He quickly writes back: I'm hoping you'll allow me to liberate you, sweetheart.
Thank God for vampire eyesight, because seriously, the man needs to write bigger.
AMBUSHING ME AFTER YEARS OF RADIO SILENCE IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT, KLAUS, she pens furiously.
You fit all of that in that one small page, he writes back. I'm impressed.
And he adds a smiley face.
:-)
She's half surprised he doesn't add fangs to it.
—
Klaus moons his eyes at her enough to ensure the entire seventh grade thinks they're … involved (because the actual word they used was just – no. Internet slangs these days). Acting in revenge, she charges to his table with a plan to destroy him in a way only she knows how.
The next day, Klaus waltzes in, keycard swinging, and stops in his tracks when he sees everything on his table – everything – organized within an inch of his life. His walk slows as he counts the post-its that have suddenly appeared on his previously-unused planner. He gapes at how his "pending" rack — that he has a pending rack! — is sorted by importance (how does she know his schedule?).
He has a class in ten minutes. "I can't find anything," he snarls. He would've upset a stack of books, but there are no more stacks on his desk.
Caroline should've been more vigilant – sure, she had a super quick lunch of unappetizing salad (the dressing was spiked with O Negative, at least) – she rushed back to her own desk, but Klaus' wrath had been brought to life.
Everything that had been on her desk were still untouched, but in the middle of it were the exam papers she'd painstakingly marked and sorted til late last night, organized by first name instead of middle, and then last.
"I can't find anything," she moans bleakly as she shuffles through them.
It was one for one.
—
And therein lay their beginning, a series of wicked, meticulously-planned tricks. One day he finds his classroom covered in Geography posters instead of History; even Geoffrey and Geography Gerbil had been snuck onto his table, and it sits there in its cage twitching its nose.
It takes two days to plan, but he manages to get subs in every single one of Carolines classes one Thursday, her busiest day of the week (he commandeers her schedule too). In the middle of a debate on Tudor living conditions, his students kept getting up to go to the bathroom, disrupting the flow. In her first period the next day, the room is filled with red apples from every single one of the first graders' parents.
In all honesty, they were harmless jokes, meant to be merely be an inconvenience, but not too much of a grievance. It was harmless, a bit juvenile too if he may, and he had had enough of it.
He wanted it to escalate.
Maybe that's why he strides into the gym the next Tuesday as Principal Barkley is addressing the entire school on the sudden absences of their teachers with a leaden stomach. He doesn't recognize his own walk, his feet land in foreign steps.
He all but kicks open the doors.
"Caroline Forbes," Klaus swears to the stunned crowd, "if it's attention you want I will grant you of it, if it is my company you crave I will sit by your desk as you organize lesson plans—if it is just me you need, then…" He fishes a little bespoke, carved wooden box out of his pocket, "I would suggest you agree to marrying me?" And he even throws in a please.
It's as if the crowd parts because his eyes find her immediately upon finishing his songless serenade. She looks speechless, she looks confused, but above all she looks angry.
Right on the clock.
"How lyrical," she finally scathes. Her voice doesn't wobble. Everyone is watching her, including him. "For a History teacher."
The gym holds its breath.
"We History teachers have long believed ourselves to be romantic. I don't know, maybe it's all the reflection involved in the study of it…" He raises his eyebrows. "Is that a yes then, my love?"
A collective, harsh intake of breath.
With the entire school staring at her she grits her teeth, forces a smile, and says, "Why yes, sweetheart."
—
Everyone asks her when the wedding is. Everyone wants to know what kind of flowers she'll have. Everyone asks her how Klaus proposed, despite having been there themselves.
"But what were you feeling?" begged the eleventh graders and art teachers alike.
"I don't know about you," Klaus appears in the middle of a lunchtime discussion with a circle of teachers, "but I feel like he luckiest man both alive and dead."
He plants a kiss on her neck because he can, his thirsty throat sings in relish, and Caroline doesn't even shy away. She plays the part of lawful fiancé to a fault, even fluttering her ring finger. "And I feel dead," she says cheerfully.
There is a lull in the conversation.
"From all the planning I have to do!" she finishes in a trill, and everyone laughs.
Humans. How simple.
And frustrating, she sighs inwardly, going through the motions of vaguely answering all the wedding questions all over again, fifth time that day.
From the corner of her eye she sees Klaus, back at his desk, grinning salaciously at her.
She won't let him win.
—
She finds a way to one up him. Under the guise of a football game, Klaus enters the field late (an entire class had forgotten to bring homework) to find … a wedding.
Specifically, his wedding.
A breathless man with a clipboard and earpiece sprints towards him. "Klaus! Great, you're here — Mel wants you in your trailer, some custom fits have arrived but we're not sure which ones make your ass pop – instructions from Miss Forbes herself—"
Klaus' jaw drops.
It's quite an unbecoming look on him, he'll admit later as he reviews the video recording of that sacred day.
It's he who stumbles down the aisle later, having been all but shoved out the trailer by a wickedly-amused Kol, Stefan snickering just behind him. Caroline is waiting for him at the end of the field, everyone else has their necks craned to look at him.
He sees her- truly does.
This aisle has become very, very long.
Caroline is in a dress. It is a wedding dress. It's soft ivory, trailing around her ankles in layers upon layers of sheer material. Her neckline is a straight cut under her collarbones – she looks like a new summer's day, he can smell clean water—
Her hair is swept away from her face. Petals fall ever so gently in swirls overhead; the cheerleading team sigh as they toss the handfuls of flowers. She is looking at him. She's smirking, ever so slightly, underneath the sweet loom of her smile, thinking she's had him, but he can't help but think of it not as a punishment—
Not with his ring, the one he'd sat on his bed staring down at just as soon as he'd finished forging it himself; his ring on her finger. He hurries his steps just a bit, it feels as if he is chasing after her, but she's not even moving. Caroline's standing in front of the priest, who looks serenely upon the immaculately-decorated scene.
At long last he arrives before her. She's a step, two steps above him. He rises to meet her.
"You're already wearing your ring," the priest says, "so shall we proceed as planned?"
"Let's skip to the I-do's, doc," Caroline says. "We don't do rings around here."
Dazed, Klaus can only look on.
"As long as you both shall live?" the priest prompts, the only thing Klaus hears.
"With him by my side? His indestructible blood? Of course I do," Caroline sighs, placing a mocking hand on his cheek.
He turns his head in to kiss her wrist, surprising the both of them.
—
"I do," he says, in a way that could only be called feverish. He's breathing far too calmly, and Klaus never gives hint as to whether he usually breathes at all.
—
Caroline, in her mother's wedding dress that she'd had altered with prickling eyes, studies the expression on his face. He's schooled it into an expression of … a wolf, waiting, she thinks. He's watching everything so closely, as if wondering when the other shoe will drop.
Suddenly, and quite suddenly at that, she feels a pang of – sympathy.
That he's looking like he's hardly daring to hope.
She clutches her flowers in her sweaty palms.
Oh God, what has she done?
She didn't have to say yes. She could've just ended it, then and there. Compel the school to forget her, disappear, start a new life.
She didn't have to dig out her mother's old wedding dress, call Vera's daughters up for a favour and argue for three hours about textures and prints. She didn't have to personally arrange her bouquet of tulips, larkspurs and baby's breath, twined ribbon and trimmed stalks. She didn't have to stare at her reflection for so long until she hardly recognized herself anymore. Klaus didn't have to look at her like she hung the moon. Klaus didn't have to look at her at all, she could've just gone—
"Have you missed me?" she asks suddenly. She asks so quietly, for only his ears. Her lips barely move. The priest continues his rumble.
"I have," he mouths. He never looks away from her. He looks like he's memorizing her, his hands flexing as if itching to touch her.
Caroline swallows. "Do you miss me now?"
"I do," he swears her so.
—
Klaus supposes it was his fault everything goes to shit afterwards. At the very least it would please his smirking Caroline greatly if he just says it was his fault.
Perhaps it was.
Caroline had looked at him that way only a fleeting number of seconds before. That flash of understanding – acceptance, and that wholehearted yearn. She looks at him that way again, now, and he tips into madness.
His fangs sink into his wrist before he remembers to be in control of his limbs, and he's already offering his wrist to her, he would've gone down on his knees, filled with self-effacing determination, the sharing of blood not under the circumstances of death, the sharing of blood simply because one wants to.
And he so did want to, right here, right now.
Perhaps it was his fault that the entire field starts screaming.
But Caroline didn't have to drink from his wrist.
—
Klaus gets the last of them and all but tosses them to Stefan, who compels them away. The ones who had chosen to act in adrenaline and fear, to hack at chairs to form pointy stakes, had charged at them. He hadn't been so merciful with them.
The priest had been the first to run, so they were in the clear to kill.
Of course, they hadn't counted on there being at least eight vampires and a very exasperated witch sitting amongst them.
"Figures they'd want to top our wedding," Damon mutters to Bonnie.
Elena closes her daughter's blue, blue eyes away from the impending massacre and Matt rolls his matching blue ones, cooing softly to her.
Stefan lights a cigarette where he sits, and Rebekah bums it off of him.
Kol's managed to fall asleep.
Enzo, choosing to remain bitter, starts rallying the humans to safety.
—
"So are you two actually married or what?" Damon points his fry between the two of them.
("That's subtle," Bonnie rolls her eyes.
"We massacred a wedding, sweet. We've passed subtlety six exits ago," Kol says, stealing the pickle from her burger.
Damon snaps his fry in half. "Call her sweet one more time, dead zone.")
Klaus sinks his teeth into his medium rare blue cheese-coated burger, so Caroline has to answer.
"Well, I went through all that trouble…" Caroline sighs, sucking down on her milkshake. "But no. I only did it because I knew I'd win."
Klaus snorts, but the burger's good, so he keeps chewing.
"Petty," Stefan notes.
"He is a creature of habit," Rebekah points out spitefully. "I want my wedding gift back."
"Keep mine," Elena says, and she and Matt share a smile as she cradles little baby J, "Everyone really went all for our wedding gifts. They were so generous."
Matt chimes in, "Yeah, we've been actually looking for ways to get rid all of ours—"
"We get it, your wedding was dreamy," Caroline interrupts. "I'm wearing the wedding dress now. And I say I still get bragging rights for coolest ending ceremony ever."
Enzo's eyebrows bobbed in exasperation. "Gorgeous. You ordered us to burn down the field to eradicate any evidence that you and Klaus ever married."
They all smell of gasoline and blood, with the exception of Bonnie. She'd just used her powers to bulldoze herself a path to safety. Kol still has a smudge of blood on his nose, and he's already tweeted how it was the best wedding ever, which was liked by everyone except Elena and Elena.
"Have another fry, Enzo," Caroline says, tucking a Cajun-spiced potato into his palm.
—
It seems like a waste of a perfectly good hotel suite, so Caroline invites him up to her room. To gloat.
"Before the unofficial end of our tenure this morning, I managed to send out all five-hundred and seventy-two folios back to the students." Caroline stands before him in her wedding dress and champagne flute, chin raised In self-importance.
Klaus pops a piece of ice from the champagne bucket into his mouth and lets it melt on his tongue. "Sit down, sweetheart."
"And. I planned the perfect – nay, the perfect wedding at the same time," she says, hardly noticing Klaus lowering her onto the impressively-sized couch. She does, however, notice him reaching up into the folds of her dress, palms rough against her stockings, to find her garters. He rips them off. She tries not to feel disappointed; she had hopes he would remove them with his teeth.
She gets something even better:
Klaus, mouth cold from the ice, blows on the flimsy piece of silk separating her cunt from his lips.
His breath is icy cold, and it riddles shivers down her spine.
He licks her clit through her panties. Her back arches like a cat.
Klaus crawls between her legs, biting whatever's left of the piece of ice between his teeth. He has a grin on, like he's already planned all the things he wants to do to her. She wouldn't be surprised, she's held witness to his ability to improvise at the last second all these months.
He doesn't deviate from the impulse even now, when he presses the piece of ice to the center of her with the flat of his tongue—she practically mewls, heels wrapping of their own accord around his tuxedo-clad back. She wonders if he still has on his bowtie or if it had been ripped off in the fight earlier. She'd love to wrench it off with her own hands.
He nudges aside her panties and slicks his tongue into her cunt. She groans, long and wretched, wanting more. Klaus kisses her cunt the way she hopes he will her mouth, with intent and vehement need, his tongue lapping at her making her knees weak.
Caroline locks her knees around his neck and flips them to the floor: on his back she is able to crawl over his body and sit down properly on his face. If he's surprised he doesn't show it, just gives a satisfied little grunt and proceeds to eat her out while she rides his face the way she wants. Her dress is pulled up around her hips, but there's still much of the train that makes him feel almost claustrophobic, his vision reduced to nothing but lace and Caroline's sweet, wet cunt.
It's not long until she grows tired of being just in the cusp of an orgasm, misses the feeling of his thick cock inside her, and makes quick work of his pants. Her dress billows around him, lays across his front up to his chin, a perfect circle. He shoves the layers aside so he can grab hold of her waist, lower her down over his waiting cock himself, but Caroline's the one to press down.
Both of them gasp.
Caroline rides him furiously, he pushes when she does, pulling out all the way before he slides all the way back in, and she lets out a hiss through her teeth, and he feels her tremors, feels her knees digging into his sides. He wants to lick her breasts very badly.
He reaches up to her forehead, brushes that one single curl away from her forehead, wants to feel her eyelashes flutter wetly against his palm when she comes.
"Come on, love," he whispers raggedly. He wants to sit up to be able to hold her closer, so she helps him up, and now they are chest to chest. She has somehow managed to get every single one of his buttons, so her nipples – hard even through the satin – press into hypersensitive skin not protected by his shirt.
"I got one over you," she breathes in delight. There's a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. He wonders if it's because her wedding dress is suffocating her, and he rather likes it.
"You do every day," he admits. "Now just bloody come all over my cock, will you?"
"Such romance," she manages to say sarcastically before she cries once, sharply, and starts rocking her hips in an erratic rhythym that tips him over the edge as well. Their foreheads collide together, his fingers seek the skin of her thighs as the ends of her hair bounce against the small of her back.
She damn near bites down on his tongue, and when he grunts she suckles it into her mouth as if in apology, but he can hear her laughing.
Caroline falls heavily against him, and they lie together in a nest of jacket, dress train, and couch pillows. She's still chuckling softly to herself, running her fingers absentmindedly down his chest. They're still much too clothed, he notes with a frown, but it did serve his fantasies justice. He got to fuck her fully clothed.
Of course his moment of glory is ruined by her persistent snickering, as if the little kisses she's scattering on his neck will soothe the sting. Maybe he should tell her he's not planning on annulling their marriage – he wants a turn for a laugh.
But for now, they help each other undress and start all over again.