Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries

"Stooppp," Caroline whined in her sleep, flopping around in bed.

Klaus just grunted in response. He was pretty sure that he hadn't moved from the position he had assumed upon falling into bed and he could really care less what she was bitching about at the moment.

"Nik. You aren't funny. Stop it."

" 'M not 'oing anyfing."

"Seriously, stop it!" she nearly screamed, sitting up abruptly. Klaus could feel her eyes upon him and then…

"OH MY GOD!"

Sure, he had fallen into bed stark naked but that shouldn't have alarmed her as he was one million and fifty percent positive it was nothing that she hadn't seen before. A thousand different thoughts ran through Klaus' head and not one of them was a scenario that included something small and fluffy.

"What?" Klaus asked, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter (if possible), when Caroline attacked him. She rolled him onto his back and ecstatically peppered his face with kisses.

"You," kiss, "Are," kiss, "Amazing," kiss. "And I don't care what anyone else says!" She squealed, her high-pitched voice ringing loudly in Klaus' ears.

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?" he finally snapped, pushing Caroline off of him and sitting up.

She reached over and picked up a ball of fuzz and held it in his face, "A puppy?! You've got to be kidding me, Nik!"

He just stared at the dark eyes, little black nose and bright pink tongue that clouded his vision. The longer he studied it, the more Caroline's smile fell.

"What the bloody hell?" he snapped, his brow creasing.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Elijah!" Klaus yelled, once again pushing Caroline (very begrudgingly) out of the way so he could get out of bed. "Elijah!"

"I guess that means you didn't bring me a puppy?" she asked, watching his back walk towards the dresser but Klaus didn't stop to search for pants. "Yeah, sure that's great! Just ignore me and walk out of the bedroom stark naked!" Caroline yelled after him, jumping up with the puppy cradled in her arms to follow Klaus.

"Morning, broth- whoa, whoa, whoa! Put some bloody clothes on! Not all of us enjoy the same greeting you give Caroline," Kol said, covering his eyes childishly.

"Very funny, 'Lijah," Klaus said sarcastically, paying no heed to his younger brother.

Elijah's brow furrowed, "I beg your pardon?"

Klaus turned and pulled the dog from Caroline's arms by the scruff of it's neck and held it out in front of him as far as he could manage for his older brother to see despite Caroline's protests. Elijah actually had the audacity to laugh as Klaus waited for an explanation as to how and why he had found this scruffy looking puppy in his bed only minutes ago.

"I don't see the humor in this situation, brother. Care to explain?" Klaus snapped as Kol joined in the laughter. "Or perhaps you know why this mongrel was found in my bed this morning, Kol?"

"Nik! You're hurting him! He's just a baby," Caroline said when the puppy yelped pathetically. She hopped around, reaching across Klaus' chest to rescue the dog from his iron grip. He moved the dog out of her reach, still waiting for his answer.

"Uh-oh," Kol smirked. "She called it a 'him'," he sing-songed, with an amused look.

"And? It's obviously a boy," Caroline snapped still attempting to save the puppy.

"Meaning, it will soon have a name," Kol finished, talking more to Klaus as he took a sip of blood from the tumbler in his hand.

"No, it will not have a name because we are not keeping it."

Caroline stopped to stare at Klaus, "Yes, we are."

"No, we are not."

"He doesn't look very old," Elijah reasoned. "Perhaps he is a stray and followed you back here?"

"That's not possible. I would have sensed it following me and ripped it to shreds, Elijah. Either that or you would have seen it and we wouldn't be in this situation," Klaus scoffed.

"I only followed you until you headed back here. I can tell when you've ripped enough apart and have become bored, Niklaus. Think about it; a large, alpha male must look like a viable form of protection and safety to a young stray."

Silence reigned for several minutes as Klaus considered this. Just because Elijah's reasoning made sense didn't mean Klaus was thrilled with the fact that another dog had followed him home…and wound up in his bed…licking his girlfriend.

"What's all the commotion about?" Rebekah snapped, walking into the kitchen. Klaus turned slightly to look at his sister. "Bloody hell you prude!" she exclaimed, moving a hand to cover her eyes.

Klaus growled, startling the whimpering pup, and Caroline finally grabbed it out of his grasp.

"There, baby. I'll save you from the big, bad wolf," she cooed, holding it to her chest and scratching behind its large ears.

"What is that?" Rebekah asked, peaking through her fingers to eye the ball of black and brown fluff in Caroline's arms.

"A puppy! He followed Nik home last night," Caroline beamed.

"Oh. My. God," Rebekah squealed, dropping her hand completely and rushing over to Caroline to scratch the pup's ear. "It's adorable! Are we keeping him?!"

Klaus and Caroline answered at the same time.

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Sweetheart, we're vampires. We cannot keep a…a puppy," he reasoned, placing his hands on Caroline's shoulders whileshe glared at him.

"So? None of us eat wildlife."

It was Klaus' turn to glare, "I do."

"Only because I forbid you to bring other women home and eat them just like I'm forbidding you to eat our puppy."

"No."

"He needs someone to take care of him!" Klaus narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "He followed you home. Isn't that just a little bit cute?" Caroline asked, holding the puppy up to his face and using her own puppy eyes and pout.

"Fine!" Klaus growled, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes to shut out the girly squeals that were elicited from both his sister and Caroline. "But," he warned, "I absolutely refuse to be held accountable for my actions if anything happens to it."

"He's not an it, Nik. He's a puppy and he's ours. Now go put some clothes on," Caroline snapped, before turning her attention back to the puppy that she and Rebekah were, as Caroline would say, 'geeking out' about.

Klaus spent the whole day hiding in his art studio downing glass after glass of scotch, bourbon, rum, and blood to take the edge off of his annoyed state. But even drowning himself in alcohol did little to silence the high-pitched squeals that echoed loudly through the high ceilinged and thick walled mansion.

It wasn't until late that night, and God only knows how much alcohol later, he saw Caroline. He was laying on their bed, staring up at the ceiling in his misery, an open bottle of scotch in his hand, when she crept in. With an idiotic smile on her face, she looked at him and sat down just inside the door, clapping and patting the hardwood between her legs.

"Come here! Come on! There's my boy! Come get your grumpy daddy!"

"I absolutely refuse to be called that to a mutt, Caroline Forbes."

"Sneakers! Good boy! C'mon Sneaks," Caroline called, ignoring Klaus, in that obnoxious baby voice that had been the only thing he had heard all damn day. Actually, he was half convinced that if she uttered another sentence like that, her voice would get stuck and then he would really have a problem.

He covered his face with a hand and growled as he imagined sex with Caroline's voice stuck in 'baby talk mode'. Two words came to his mind: not acceptable and if the damned dog didn't appear in the doorway in the next five seconds, he was going to flash over there and snap her neck to silence the idiotic way she was speaking.

"Whadda good boy you are, Sneakers!" she exclaimed as the ball of fluff came tumbling through the door to a shower of kisses and pats as Caroline scooped it up in her arms.

"What the bloody hell is a 'Sneakers' and what is it doing in here?"

"That's his name, Nik," she said exasperatedly, crossing over to the bed with eyes only for 'Sneakers'. "Did you think I was going to call him 'baby' or 'dog' his entire life? Uh, no."

She placed 'Sneakers' on the bed before venturing into the bathroom. The thing had the audacity to bounce up to him, growl playfully and paw at him. Klaus scrunched up his nose and turned his face away from it. He really tried to ignore it…until the puppy climbed on top of him, wagging his tail infuriatingly, and barked in Klaus' face and Caroline actually praised it's adorableness.

A low growl resonated in his throat as he glared daggers at the dog and it whimpered, jumping off of Klaus' chest. Klaus smirked proudly while removing the unwanted guest from his bed with a small nudge of his knee. The pup hit the floor with a thud and yelped. And because Klaus apparently had the worst luck of anyone- human, witch, werewolf, vampire, hybrid, and, hey, why not throw the Loch Ness Monster on that list- that day, Caroline just had to reappear from the bathroom, mouth full of toothpaste, in time to see him nudge the thing off the bed.

"Hey! Play nicely! He's. Just. A. Puppy!"

"Me?" he scoffed. "My bed is being invaded. I'm the alpha and I most certainly will not play nicely."

"And he's your pup," Caroline said from the sink, pausing to rinse her mouth out. "So you have to play nicely. Isn't that right, Sneakers?" And, as if to add to his annoyance, Caroline picked the dog back up, kissed it, and placed it back on the bed.

"You're about five seconds from sleeping on the sofa tonight if you don't stop speaking in that…that voice," he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as the dog bounced around on the bed, biting the blankets and shaking its head.

"You've never, ever followed through on that threat so I highly doubt you'll start now."

"Try me," he huffed, raising his gaze to the ceiling.

Caroline smirked, taking his challenge, and came back to the bed, in her lacy lingerie and pulled Klaus into a sitting position. She straddled his waist and pulled his shirt over his head before pushing him back into the pillows and leaned down to kiss him. He lustfully deepened the kiss, his fingers venturing to the clasp of her bra while the other one played with the hem of her panties. He was painfully aware of mutt's presence as he deepened the kiss, ready to roll over and pin Caroline under him and flatten the damn thing because, dammit, Klaus hadn't gotten any attention from his bouncing blonde all day. Or he at least tried to deepen the kiss but Caroline pulled away, nipping his lower lip as she did so.

"Now, if you want me in your bed or if you want to have sex anytime in the next month then you play nicely with our puppy," she whispered in his ear.

With another growl, Klaus pushed her off him. "Fine," he ground out. "But that thing will not be sleeping in my bed."

Caroline didn't respond…of course she didn't. She hadn't paid attention to him all freaking day and why should she start now when Sneakers was chasing his tail. Caroline burst into giggles and Klaus decided couldn't take it anymore and if he did, there would be a bloody massacre in about 30 seconds.

He decided the slaughter of her pup wouldn't be the best way to stay in Caroline's good graces no matter how appealing or normal it seemed to his wolf side. So, Klaus picked up the dog by the scruff of his neck and dropped it in the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"I said the thing would not be sleeping in my bed."

"Nik! He's whining!"

Klaus merely shrugged, smirking as Caroline went past him to the bathroom door. He caught her from behind, pulling her flush back against him, hands wandering over her body, lips teasing the skin in the nape of her neck.

"You know what I think, sweetheart?" he whispered, lips at the hollow below her ear. "I think that you won't care about your stupid dog in a few moments."

"And why would you- ohh."

Just as he predicted, her mewling drowned out the puppy's whines as one of his hands plunged into her lace panties, his other sneaking underneath her bra to message her breast.

Caroline's whimpers were a much more enticing sound to Klaus anyways as he began to make Caroline regret not paying more attention to him throughout the day.

He was the alpha after all.

He woke up the next morning when something jumped enthusiastically on the bed…and started licking him.

"Caroline," he said, letting a menacing, guttural snarl rise from his throat- okay, maybe it was more of a pitiful whine but it's the thought that counts. "For the love of God get it away from me," Klaus continued to whine, rolling over and shoving Sneaker's muzzle out of his face but it only riled the thing up more, causing it to bark.

He heard her footsteps treading lightly over to the bed. The mattress shifted under her slight weight and he moved closer to her as Caroline began to run her fingers through his tousled curls and Klaus smiled sleepily. "Have fun cleaning the bathroom, Alpha," she said, leaning down to kiss his temple, the dog still trying to get him to play, it's wet nose pushing against the hollow of his neck.

Klaus' eyes snapped open. "Pardon?"

"You heard me," she said, letting her fingers pull through his hair one more time before standing up. "Sneakers?" the thing barked near his ear again and it took all of Klaus' will power not to throw the mutt through a wall. "C'mon, boo-boo! Let's go," she said, clapping enthusiastically at the puppy and Klaus swore the entire bed was moving from the way the thing was wiggling.

Caroline was still clapping at the dog and as if it knew exactly how to annoy him further (and Klaus was completely convinced that it was a punishment sent by some deity he'd pissed off) it climbed over Klaus' back, hopped off the bed, and was met by praise from his equally as annoying blonde.

As they left the room, Klaus glanced into the master bath.

"But it's your dog!"

Two weeks later, Klaus was home alone. Well, not entirely alone. Yes, much to his dismay the infuriating puppy, which they had learned was a German Shepard upon it's 'first big puppy check up' as Caroline referred to it (yes, still in that damned baby voice, mind you), was still around, yet another eternal nuisance to Klaus.

He strutted (yes, he struts. And, dammit, Klaus struts quite proudly whenever he has to be in close proximity to the dog) into the kitchen to retrieve a glass for his drink only to have the now 8 week old puppy bark at him from where it sat in the oversized crate. The thing was large enough to hold not only the dog but several toys, a small bed, and a bowl of water.

"What?" Klaus snapped gloatingly, resisting the urge to stick his tongue out at the mutt. One thing he enjoyed about his current living predicament was the fact that Caroline didn't lock him up. The other bad thing was the annoying number of baby gates that Caroline and Rebekah had set up in various places to keep the puppy out of mischief…well maybe those were okay seeing as Kol hadn't noticed when they miraculously appeared one day and walked straight into one, flipping through the doorway into the next room. That had been funny.

The puppy whined, pawing at the cage before laying down, face between his legs, under Klaus' intense gaze. The dark eyes looked up at the hybrid as the things big ears flicked in different directions.

The hybrid sniggered and smirked, continuing to pour his drink when the puppy whined again. And again. And then it howled.

"Bloody hell," Klaus snapped. "Are you ever quiet?"

The dog just panted in response. And then barked when Klaus rolled his eyes.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Klaus watched the dog again, taking lengthy drinks from his glass. It sighed and turned his attention away from the hybrid. He growled as he realized the guilty feeling settling in his gut and he tried to push it away, tried oh so very hard. Then Klaus finally understood where the hell women got the whole 'puppy dog face' from and why it was so effective.

How would you feel, big bad wolf, if you were locked in that fucking crate?

No, no, no, no. Stop that. It's a dog. You're a wolf. Big difference.

Exactly, they don't lock wolves in crates. Try cages at zoos.

Dammit, he was the murderous villain who gave no fuck whatsoever about others…well, besides Caroline. And Rebekah. And Elijah. And Kol, the annoying little twat he was BUT he was drawing the line there. Those wide eyes and big twitchy ears and little nose and fuzzy face would not make him feel guilty. Nope. Not today and not ever.

….

…..

….

Okay, maybe today.

Growling, Klaus slammed his glass on the marble counter top and crossed over to the crate. He didn't miss the puppy's eyes light up as his hand grasped the clasp. He wanted to stake himself, drink wolfsbane and vervain, yank his hair out at the thought of what he was about to do.

"Now look here," he said. Great, now he was speaking to it. "If I do this, you better behave. Otherwise, I'll drop you back off in the woods that you found me in, got it, mate?"

The puppy sat up and wagged its tail, barking as if in affirmation.

One. Two. Three.

Klaus opened the crate and the door swung open as the little German Shepherd crept out of his confinement. It looked around cautiously and then sat at Klaus' feet, tongue hanging out of it's mouth and it's tail going a mile a minute.

It trotted along on Klaus' heels the entire time, nearly causing the almighty alpha male hybrid to trip several times, infuriatingly enough.

"Did you let Sneakers out?" Caroline asked upon her return home.

"No," he scoffed, eyes not leaving his sketchpad.

"Hhmm, are you sure?"

He rolled his eyes but didn't look up at her.

"'Cause the door to the crate's open but he's just laying in there and the gates in the kitchen aren't up."

The piece of charcoal stopped its motion across the page as Klaus' breath caught in his throat and his eyes grew wide. He chanced a look up at Caroline from where he was sitting. She was grinning slyly.

Busted.

"Why'd you name him?"

"I told you already. I wasn't going to call him 'dog' his entire life."

"No. Why'd you name him 'Sneakers'?"

"Because he sneakily followed you home and snuck into bed with us."

Klaus smirked fondly and glanced down at the puppy that was asleep under his easel.

The puppy slowly found it's way back into their room at night. At first he stayed in the crate in the bathroom.

Then, the crate moved into their room.

Then, Caroline would leave the door to the crate open, pretending to forget it was open in the first place.

Then, the crate was moved back into the kitchen and the dog slept at the foot of their bed, his little furry self curled up on it's own much too large bed.

And, as if none of that was enough, Sneakers eventually wound up in their bed. At first, he snoozed at their feet. Klaus accidently kicked it off the bed one night trying to maneuver Caroline out of his arms and back to her side of the bed by using the trick he had picked up from her making him watch 'Friends'. Needless to say, that one hadn't gone over very well.

After that incident (and Caroline yelling at him for being so careless about 'his pup's' whereabouts) Sneakers began to creep up and sleep in between the hybrid and the vampire. Caroline woke up one morning and stretched, her hand meeting her fuzzy friend and then Klaus' bare shoulder. She peered over slapped a hand over her mouth to keep her loud awww from escaping.

Klaus was sound asleep on his side facing Caroline, mouth hanging slightly open as he breathed heavily. Their puppy was passed out, on his side, curled up against Klaus' chest, his head resting on the 'deadly' hybrid's outstretched arm. It only got better when Klaus stretched his back in his sleep and slipped his arm around Sneakers.

Nope, Caroline thought as she slowly got out of bed to get a good picture on her phone, she was never goinglet him live this one down.

He denied it, even when she pulled the picture up.

He said it was photo-shopped, that he would never, ever be caught dead cuddling with a puppy.

Until it happened again. On the couch in the sitting room and everyone - Caroline, Kol, Rebekah, Elijah, Katherine, and, hey, since he kept having the worst luck of anyone imaginable, why not throw the Loch Ness Monster back on the list- saw it. Klaus had faced death numerous times, but he could safely say that day was the most humiliating experience of his long life.

So, naturally, he decided to keep the cuddling confined to the closed doors of his bedroom.

At least until Caroline had enough and kicked the huge, now full-grown Sneakers out of the bed and back onto the floor claiming that ever since Klaus had accepted the dog into his pack, he hadn't paid enough attention to her.

Honestly, could he ever win?

A/N: Just a fun and fluffy 'lil diddy I've had for awhile and finally decided to post. Hope you enjoyed...drop a review and let me know if you have a minute! I'd appreciate it, even if you say how terrible and weird I am for writing about Klaus cuddling with a dog:P

Thanks for reading and I'll see those of you who read 'In Shadow I Hide' later this week:)