(The Stars Were Brightly Shining)
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: After a one night stand with Klaus, Elena discovers she's not going to be alone for Christmas after all.
Spoilers: Seasons 3 & 4
Rating: R
Warnings: canon typical violence/ teen pregnancy / angst angst angst and Christmas
Klaus is strangely awkward as he lingers in the front hall of her house. He trails after her like a ghost as she climbs the stairs to her bedroom and prepares for bed, silent and thoughtful as he watches her. Stares blankly at the photos stuck into her vanity mirror, the framed horse drawing over her bed, the books on her shelf.
Since he does not seem inclined to speak, and she doesn't know where to begin, exactly, she focuses instead on brushing her hair and changing into a clean set of clothes, on scrubbing the residue of grime and blood and magic from her face and her hands in the bathroom sink.
"What did you mean earlier when you said you'd made your choice?" he asks her at last from the threshold of her bathroom.
Elena pauses in the middle of rinsing her face and meets his eyes through the reflection in the bathroom mirror. Water trickles from her face down her neck, into the collar of her fresh tee-shirt.
There's something entirely unfair about the fact that a man with so much blood on his hands, so much misery to lay directly at his feet, can look so vulnerable.
That's the issue. At some point she's started to see him as a man, when really she would have been so much wiser never to forget that he's a monster. (And yes, she knows that too. Can never entirely forget it. And yet—that's not all he is. Just like he's not just a villain. Not to her, anyway. Not for a long time.)
She straightens and turns to face this man, then. Her man.
"If I tell you, you can't overreact."
"I never overreact."
She frowns at him. She can't tell whether he's serious or not. Decides it doesn't matter. Not right now.
She moves past him, into her bedroom. Puts a good ten feet of space between them. Twists at her fingers. "The thing is, I'm in love with you." She can't even look at him when she says it.
There's no need. He's before her in an instant, the physical distance she'd attempted as a last desperate attempt to shield herself from him—from herself—gone in the blink of an eye. And then his hands are on her face, his fingers cool and gentle as he coaxes her, finally, to look at him.
For a long moment, he doesn't say anything to her at all, merely gazes deeply into her eyes. Reading her, the way she has learned to read him. She cannot stop herself from leaning into his touch.
"We know each other," he says at last. "I know you, and you know me."
"Unfortunately."
"You don't mean that."
"No, I don't." She's helpless to the truth.
He leads her to the bed. Sets her down on the edge of it as though she is made of porcelain. "How did this revelation come about?"
He must sense her hesitation—must hear it in the pulse of her blood.
Again, he catches her eyes. "Tell me. Please."
It's the please that does it. That crumbles that last little resolve she has to hold out against him.
She reaches out and touches her hand over his chest. Feels the thunder of his heart against her palm. "When I realized you'd been taken. I couldn't stand the idea of it. Of losing you. In that moment, I had to face how I feel about you without any denials or excuses."
"Say it again." There's so much untamed longing in the demand. So much famine. He says it like an order, but in reality, he's begging her to affirm this one, crucial detail for him.
Elena pulls away from him. "I love you."
The words ignite that fire in him that is always, always burning just below the surface. In the blink of an eye he has her tipped onto her back, his body atop hers heavy and delicious and familiar and weirdly comforting as his mouth finds her own. His hands roam her body, and the promise of his touch in more intimate, satisfying places obliterates her sense of reason. And oh—those kisses—she could drown in the taste of his mouth, the feeling of his lips and his teeth and his tongue on her. Has drowned before. Will drown again.
"You'll marry me then," Klaus declares against her throat, nipping at the constellations of scars he's left her there.
The sentence clatters through her. She freezes beneath him, all of her eager pliancy from only a moment ago now totally absent. "Let me up," she says, pushing at his shoulder. "You're crushing me."
He rolls off of her immediately, and she takes pains to straighten her clothes while she waits for the hum of desire in her blood to cool to a manageable level.
"I don't think we should be doing this," she tells him when she can at last look at him without flushing all over. Without the danger that she'll climb right into his lap.
Klaus's brows rise. "Whyever not?"
"Because I think we're on different pages about what it means when I say I love you."
"I don't see how."
"Klaus, I'm not going to marry you."
His eyes narrow. "I heard you dismiss your other suitors—"
"This has nothing to do with them."
"This should be so simple, then, Elena. I love you, and you love me. I know that you desire me."
"I do…"
Klaus takes her hand. "We have a child on the way. Marry me and let me take care of you. Provide for you both. Protect you."
Elena breaks away from him. "It's not that simple." She gets up and begins to pace. "You have a list of enemies going back a thousand years. If we're in danger, it's from our connection to you."
Klaus watches her from her bed, his eyes tracking her the way a cat tracks a mouse.
The way he watches her used to unnerve her. Used to—
"Is that why you won't say yes?" he asks, very quietly. As though he's giving the idea some serious weight.
She pauses mid-pace. Huffs out a breath. "No." Hates that she's so honest to him, when she used to be so good at lying.
Klaus holds up his hands. "Then please: enlighten me as to why you continue to refuse my suit."
She sinks down onto the window seat. "I still mean what I said earlier. This is all moving too fast between us. I need time."
"Time is a resource I can never exhaust."
"Then lend me some. Please."
He considers her in contemplative silence for what feels a very long time. He must see something in her that sways him, though, because eventually he softens, and asks her, "What do you want then, Elena? Truly."
"I want us to start over."
He laughs. "A bit late for that."
"Fine, then I want us to reverse course a minute. I'm not looking for a husband or a soulmate right now. I just want… a boyfriend."
"A boyfriend." He says the word like he doesn't understand it.
"Someone to have fun with. To get to know."
"We've just been over this. We already know each other."
"You're not listening— our whole relationship has just been one huge cataclysmic event after the other, and I need to know that we can work when it's quiet. When there's nothing forcing our hands. I want to know what it's like for you to take me out dancing, or to go to the movies together, or just spend the whole night talking—"
Understanding lights his eyes. "You want me to court you."
"Well, yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it—"
A smile curls over Klaus's lips as he slinks from her bed over to where she perches at the window seat. He sinks to his knees in front of her and takes her hand. He kisses each finger. Very distractingly. "How shall I begin?" he murmurs. "Shall I take you to prom?"
She swallows. "That's not until May."
Klaus hums against her wrist. "New Year's then. That's next week. How about New York?"
"Or you could start smaller. Take me out to dinner tomorrow."
"I could do that." His hand skims over her waist. Her thighs. "Tell me. What is the etiquette these days for intimacy between boyfriends and girlfriends?"
Her heart pounds so hard she feels it in her whole body. "You have to wait until at least the third date."
He pulls back, a knowingly. "Ah. My apologies." He must be able to smell her desire. Sense how feverishly she wants him.
She resists the urge to throw herself at him. Tells herself that if things go well—which, she thinks—she hopes—they will—then there will be time for that. A lot of time.
No need to confuse things when they're just getting clear.
"So, we're agreed then?" she asks, her voice strangely hoarse. "We'll slow it down, try dating for a while before we get more serious?"
The wicked, playful cast to Klaus's expression sobers. "How do you envision our shared interest in the child?"
"What do you mean?"
"Whether or not our relationship progresses slowly or quickly, we're going to have a child together in a matter of months."
"I don't see why we can't agree to co-parent no matter what the status of our romantic relationship is."
"Co-parent," he repeats, as though he is tasting the word for the first time. "What does that entail?"
"She's your baby too. Having her father in her life is what's going to be best for her." Probably. Hopefully.
"You're proposing to separate our romantic relationship from our parental relationship."
"Yes. For now, anyway."
Klaus cocks his head, mulling that over.
"Well?" Elena prompts him when the silence stretches on long enough to stir her nerves. "What are you thinking?"
"That you'll never be merely a girlfriend to me," Klaus informs her. "You're the only woman I've loved in ten centuries, and through some miracle you're also the mother of my child. Yet if boyfriend is the role I must inhabit to have you, then I shall endeavor to inhabit it well." He pauses. "Will you go steady with me?"
That feeling from earlier—hope—bubbles in her chest. Her mouth twitches as she attempts to suppress a smile. "That's not a thing."
"Isn't it though?"
"Come to bed with me," she offers him instead.
Somehow, taking his hand and leading him to her bed just to sleep feels a thousand times more intimate than any of the times she's actually gone to bed with him for more carnal reasons.
"What do you want?" he asks her again as they settle into the bed.
"Right now, I want to go to sleep. And—if you want to, that is—I was hoping you'd spend the night here with me. That maybe you'd hold me, and I'd know that you were here, and that all three of us were together."
"I think that could be arranged." There's an odd note in his voice when he agrees, but she doesn't have much time to mull it over. Right away, Klaus pulls her close against his body, until she is warm, and safe, and comforted by the rise and fall of his chest as he takes deep, calming breaths.
She falls asleep listening to those breaths, and the last thing she sees is the brightest star hanging low in the night sky.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Just a few more bits left!