My Aphrodisiac

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Poison

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Fire. It prowled its way through his body, licking, tasting, consuming. Red hot and so angry. Niklaus convulsed and twisted under its grip, fighting the pain, pushing it away. Somewhere in the smoky haze, one word flickered to the forefront of his mind. Vervain. The redness left in its wake a trail of smoke that smothered and choked his organs, wrapping them in a layer of poison. From far away, in the realm of consciousness, Klaus thought he heard something. Something loud and angry and desperate. He strained his ears to hear, but the fire caught up with him, cutting off everything else. It held in its claws his heart. The fire squeezed it once before opening its fiery mouth to speak. "Turn it off." Klaus froze. It would be so easy. Turn it off, and all the pain would be over. Turn it off, and the fire would extinguish. But then he thought of Caroline and knew that flicking the switch on his humanity was not an option. And so he succumbed to the flames. And with his submission came darkness.
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Hours passed, days passed. But for Klaus, time seized to exist. All he knew was emptiness. Every once in a while, agony would explode in his core. He soon grew too weak to fight it.

And so it became routine – far, darkness, fire, darkness, fire, darkness.

Until a pinprick of golden light appeared, nestled deep into the black. The speck grew bigger and bigger, swelling and swelling and growing arms and legs and a golden head. Caroline. "Klaus. Please, wake up. Please, Klaus." It spoke, voice garbled. "For me."

And so he did. It took a lot of effort, but he managed. He broke the surface of his submerged unconsciousness, taking huge gulps of oxygen and paddling in reality.

He was lying on the cold floor of a darkened chamber. Small, damp, dusty. The only source of light came from the millimetre cracks that lay between locked door and grey walls. A huddled figure crouched over his body, clutching him tightly around the waist. It shook with every drawn out sob. " . . . Caroline?" Klaus' voice was reduced to a painful scratch. He guessed the screams he had distinguished amongst the fire were his own.

Caroline started. She sat up, hand clasped to her mouth, eyes brimming with tears. "Klaus?" Her voice was uncertain, as if she feared this to be a hallucination. Apparently she decided he was real, as a second later she jumped on him, arms tight around his neck, face buried in his chest.

"Where are we?" He tried.

"Keep your voice down! They'll hear you." She whispered frantically. "Salvatore boarding house. We're in the cell."

"Wh-"

"Well, well, well. Looks like our prisoner has finally risen from his beauty sleep." Light flooded the room, interrupted by Damon's harsh shadow. He slammed the door behind him, darkening the space. Damon glanced at Caroline. "Blondie, I don't think you're going to want to see this. Why don't you step outside?"

Caroline stood up on shaky legs – she hadn't moved since waking up in the tiny cell alongside Klaus twenty four hours ago. "Please don't do this, Damon." She begged, voice cracking with thirst.

"Try and stop me." Damon shrugged.

Caroline bared her fangs. She leaped forward, aiming for Damon's throat. But thanks to severe exhaustion and terrible thirst on her part, she didn't even get halfway there before Damon overpowered her. He held her in his vice-like grip, arms gripping her shoulders, "Your husband's upstairs. He wants to talk." Damon hissed in her ear. He sighed, annoyed, and swung open the door, shoving her outside and locking it behind him before she had a chance to react to his words.

Klaus struggled to get up from his position on the floor. "You're going to regret that." He hissed, in some kind of attempt to be threatening.

Damon laughed. "Oh goodie!" He rubbed his hands together gleefully before crouching down beside his prisoner. "I really don't think I will. Y'see, for the past week, we've been repeatedly injecting a lethal mixture of vervain and wolfsbane into your system. Enough to seriously damage any ordinary supernatural creature." A loud thudding interrupted Damon's speech. Caroline throwing herself against the door. Damon smiled. "But you're no ordinary supernatural creature, are you?" He continued thoughtfully.

"Don't hurt her. . ."

"You're a Hybrid. Not just a Hybrid. An Original Hybrid. And how does one kill an Original Hybrid, you ask? Well, it's quite simple, really." Damon ignored Klaus' plea, springing to his feet with a surprising agility.

"Caroline. Let her be free."

Thud.

Damon snorted, glancing disdainfully down at the older vampire. "Do you really think Elena would let any harm come to Vampire Barbie? Your little girlfriend will be fine. You should be worried for yourself."

"Mark my words, my siblings will come. They will rip each and every one of your hearts ou-"

"Stefan suggested we slip you the Cure in your sleep. But I disagreed." Damon spoke conversationally, pacing backwards and forwards in the small space. "I want to have you begging for mercy. I want to force the Cure down your throat, to see the look in your eyes when you realise that it's all over. You're mortal again. And then I want to kill you."

Klaus' insides turned to ice.
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"I can't help thinking that this is a bad idea." Elena confessed, nibbling her lower lip.

"He's a bastard, Elena. He used his voodoo Original powers to take Caroline from me. He deserves all of this and more." Tyler spat, pacing back and forth. His fists were clenched and his jaw set.

"I know, but . . . " she trailed off, staring across the room at Stefan helplessly.

He shrugged back at her. "Just let Damon do his thing and then Tyler, Bonnie and I will help finish him off. You don't have to be involved, Elena."

Elena fiddled with the hem of her shirt. After a moment of silence, she rose and strode purposefully across the room.

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Caroline threw her body weight against the door of the cell desperately. Once, twice, three times, all to no affect. She was just too exhausted. The blonde slumped against the door. She slid down the wood, landing on the floor with a low thud. A slow tear made a path to her jaw.

"Care?" A slim feminine silhouette stepped out of the darkness.

Caroline's head snapped up. "You." She hissed. "This is your fault." She lifted one shaking finger and pointed it at her former friend.

Elena bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I just did what was best for you."

"Best for me?" Caroline croaked, disbelief clouding her features. "I trusted you."

"You'll thank me one day."

"Well that day is not today." Caroline scowled.

Elena held out her hand. "Come with me. There's a blood bag upstairs with your name on it."

Caroline's throat burnt with desire at the thought. "No." She hissed.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Why do you even care about Klaus? I thought you hated him."

Caroline opened her mouth, a sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue. And then she closed it again. Why did she care? Just a month ago she would have paid good money to see him suffer. What had changed? "How long have I been in there for?" She asked instead.

"One week." Came her reply.

"Why?" Caroline whispered.

"Tyler is upstairs, Caroline. Your husband. Who you supposedly love. Or did you forget?" Elena ignored the question, cocking her head to one side in a very Katherine Pierce fashion.

Caroline shook her head. "I just . . . I don't know what I want anymore." She muttered. "I love Tyler, of course I do. But, Klaus is . . . " Caroline paused, searching for a word to describe her feelings toward Klaus.

". . . Evil." Elena finished for her. "Disgusting. A murderer."

Caroline sighed. She couldn't exactly argue there. But she'd seen a different side of Klaus, a loving side. One that she knew for sure not many had seen.

"Caroline." Elena snapped her fingers in front of her face. "Tyler loves you. He's upstairs. Come with me." Elena turned and walked up the stairs.

Tyler . . . To deny that Caroline didn't love him would be stupid. Of course she still loved him. But she'd been unfaithful. And not just a little kiss or a love bite. No, this had been full blown, passionate sex. Tender and sweet and the best she'd ever had. Would Tyler ever forgive her? Caroline found the disconcerting truth was that she didn't want his forgiveness. She'd made her decision. She wanted Klaus. However messed up and evil he was. She wanted to put him back together, help him stop the kill, make him feel loved. But in order to do that, she needed to break him out of that cell. A plan formed itself in Caroline's mind as she followed Elena up the stairs, despite every instinct screaming at her to stay by that door. Klaus could handle Damon for now. She needed to stay calm, to pretend that she wasn't going insane on the inside.

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Damon grinned down at Klaus, feeling an extreme sense of power. He ran his hands over the bulge in his pocket, checking to make sure that the bottle containing the Cure for vampirism was still there. It was. "Now, we're going to play a little guessing game. If you guess correctly, you get an extra minute of being immortal. If you lose, I take away a minute." He cocked his head to one side. "How does that sound?"

Klaus glowered up at Damon. "How dare you." He spat, shakily pulling himself to his feet.

"I don't think you're in the right way to fight this, Hybrid. If I were you I'd take it lying down. The more you fight, the worse it'll hurt."

Klaus stood up, leaning against the wall for support. "Well it's a good thing you're not me." He spat, launching himself at Damon. The latter fell to the ground with a painful thud. Klaus pulled him upright, pinning him against the wall by his throat. "I have tens of hundreds of years on you, Salvatore. Do you really think some stupid herbs and a lack of blood will render me useless?" Crazed laughter cracked through his dried out throat, spilling from his lips. He squeezed Damon's throat once, before dropping him to the floor, unbolting the door and fleeing up the stairs.

Damon cocked an eyebrow at his retreating figure, amused.

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Caroline desperately sucked on a blood bag, eyes closed, head tilted backwards. With every swallow, a small part of her strength came back. Within a minute, she had drained the bag. She tossed it on the floor and stared around hungrily, insatiable. "I need another." She told Elena.

Elena nodded. "Sure, through here." She gestured for Caroline to follow.

Caroline followed her through the hall and into the living room. Stefan, Tyler and Bonnie were seated around a table in deep discussion.

"Are you sure the spell will work?" Stefan muttered, having not noticed the two girls.

"I'm sure." Nodded Bonnie, relaxed.

"What spell?" Caroline spoke, head cocked to one side. "Bonnie?"

The three spun around, noticing Caroline for the first time. Bonnie opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, a dark blur rushed into the room, headed towards the door. Klaus.

"This one." Tyler grinned, eyes sparkling with malicious intent.

And then it clicked in Caroline's mind. "Klaus, stop!" She pleaded, eyeing her friends expressions. They ranged from uneasy apprehension to pure excitement.

The dark blur stopped and turned to face Caroline. "You . . . you were in on this all along?" His voice was a whisper.

"No, Klaus. Please believe me."

Klaus glared at Caroline for a moment, before wrenching the door open. He took one step outside, only to be flung back again. He landed on the carpet, knocked unconscious. As Caroline watched, red sores grew all over his body. They blistered and swelled, spreading over his skin.

"What have you done?" Caroline shrieked, falling onto her knees next to him. She turned to face Bonnie. "Undo this! Now!"

Bonnie shook her head. "I'm sorry, Care. But I won't. He deserves this."

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a/n: I am sure there are spelling or grammar mistakes in here somewhere... But no matter how many times I look, I can't find them -.- ! If anyone happens to find any mistakes while reading, please let me know and I will go back and change them.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you guys for sticking with the story. Every review and alert makes me want to sing! Next instalment will be up as soon as possible!