Notes: I've been doing tiny drabbles based on trope pairings people are sending me. They'll get posted here over the next few days! The first two are pretty short so I'm throwing them up together. This chapter and the next are new.
Two Sugars, Hold the Arsenic
(Prompt: Coffee Shop AU + Criminal AU. Rated T.)
Caroline can set the clocks by him.
He always stops by at 11:15, late enough to miss the morning coffee rush, too early to have to fight the lunch break crowd. Klaus Mikaelson isn't a slave to an alarm clock. Caroline, overly acquainted with the dark chill of 4 AM wake ups, is envious.
She'd always figured assassins were night owls. Just her luck that her first job's proving her wrong.
Klaus always looks a little rumpled in the mornings, and Caroline hates that she wonders what the growth of his stubble would feel like against her skin. That she finds herself eyeing his black jacket for extra wrinkles, wondering if it had spent the night on someone's bedroom floor.
This job hadn't come with a handbook but Caroline's not an idiot. She's positive that sleeping with a mark is so not cool.
Klaus' business is done in the evenings. He used to rule dark alleys and sketchy clubs but, having wrested control of the family business from his father, he's moved up in the world.
She has a scrap of a picture of Klaus clipped from the society pages. It's taped to her bedroom mirror. The shot is black and white but the perfect fit of his tux is obvious and the mountain of jewels the woman on his arm is draped in don't need to sparkle to be impressive.
He's never brought any of his dates into her shop.
Caroline's taken to sending one of the baristas on break at 11:00, leaving just her and whatever other part timer's on shift that day to man the counter when Klaus makes his appearances.
Fewer witnesses.
One of these days Caroline's going to have to actually do her job, use the little purple vial that sits heavy in her apron's pocket.
She's practiced her look of shock, the slight trembling of her hands she'll allow when the cops come to question her. "Why yes, officer, Mr. Mikaelson was here. Had his usual black coffee and treated himself to a chocolate chip muffin. We'd just pulled 'em out of the oven, you see. I can't believe he's…" Cue sniffling and crocodile tears. If the officer's a man she'll cling to his arm and wail a little.
They'll never suspect her.
The bell above the door jingles and Caroline pastes on a smile. Klaus' eyes land on her immediately. That's not all that common – most of the office drones who stream in treat her like a talking expresso machine.
She prefers that to the few who try to look down her top when she bends to retrieve the cups.
Maybe it's his line of work but Klaus has always seemed to notice her. He uses her name, flirts. Tries to tease out glimmers of her actual personality – her likes, dislikes, hobbies. She's even been honest about one or two. She doesn't always humor him and he tends to seem more amused than offended when she gets snippy in reply.
Today his eyes crinkle, his full lips curving at the corner in greeting. Like he's genuinely pleased to see her at the counter. He ambles into the shop, hands in his pockets. She gets why he's done more to bring the Mikaelson crime family mainstream than anyone else thought possible. She imagines he's easy to underestimate and that he uses that to his advantage.
He's unfairly pretty, doesn't move like he's got a gun at his back and a couple knives strapped to strategic places.
Not that Caroline's imagined stripping him of his weapons, letting him strip hers while she pants against his mouth, or anything.
"Slow morning?" he asks when he's close enough, leaning a hip on the counter.
"A little bit," Caroline replies. "How'd you know?"
His head dips, smile growing. "I can tell what kind of morning it's been based on how many wisps of hair have escaped your very precise ponytail."
Her hand lifts, smoothing her hair. He's right, it's fairly neat, even the most stubborn curls corralled. He's watching her, that look that always messes with her – intrigue and heat and the tiniest hint of impatience. "Point for you," Caroline says. "It's a long weekend. I assume a lot of people are taking the chance to make it extra long."
"Have you any plans?" he asks. A question that would be innocuous, if not for how invested he seems in her answer.
If he pushes, Caroline decides, today's the day.
"I sure do," she replies, injecting an extra note of perkiness. "It's a payday. Gonna treat myself to wine from an actual bottle and commune with my couch."
She's even given him an opening. She'd bet her paltry pay check that Klaus has a wine cellar, that it would be stocked with bottles costing more than most of her customer's monthly rent payments. None of the stockbroker dudebros who pass her their number would have been able to resist it.
Klaus takes a beat to answer, rocking back on his heels, "That sounds… relaxing. Something you definitely deserve, love."
She spins to grab a sharpie, covering the quick rush of her exhale.
The poison is staying in her pocket.
For now.