A/N This was written for Klarowinter Bingo using the prompt, "Jack Frost better not touch my anything." The event is being hosted on tumblr klarowinterbingo. I've had this idea for months, but writer's block and my social life have been kicking my ass. Bit by bit, it turned into a monster. I'm going to publish it in three chapters by the end of January. Please let me know what you think!
The Wasted World We Thought We Knew
"What is a monster? A being whose survival is incompatible with the existing order." ― Denis Diderot
For every day that Caroline was trapped in the Salvatore's basement, she added a tick to her 'reasons to dessicate' list. The golden haired vampire had been trapped in the cellar cell for weeks, and it was boring. She heard someone coming down the stairs and rolled her eyes. She couldn't decide who she wanted to see less - Elena or Stefan. Both were a complete drag and neither were going to let her out until she turned her humanity back on. Which wasn't going to happen. A few death threats and they'd locked her up and thrown away the key. The Ripper of Monterey had done far worse and had been granted more leniency. Only moderately interested in who it was - and if they had blood - she lifted her head from a worn out pillow to see who was at the door. To her surprise, it was the last person she expected to see in Mystic Falls.
"Didn't I bang you for a promise that I'd never have to see your face again?"
"Ouch." Klaus placed his hand over his heart and pretended to look hurt. "Is that any way to greet an old friend?"
"You're not a friend. You were a one time good time." With a huff, she rolled onto her back and tried to get comfortable. It was no easy feat considering she'd been living on an army cot with an old blanket that rubbed her desiccating skin like sandpaper. "What are you doing here?"
"I was invited. Stefan is very concerned about you," he replied, his tone filled with faux worry laced with condescension. "He asked for my help. Begged for it, actually." His apparent lack of concern was replaced with a wicked grin. "I do so love when he begs."
"Oh, for fuck's sake…" Caroline groaned, rolling her eyes as the itchy wool blanket scratched her skin. "Does that idiot seriously think you're going to get me to turn it back on? I think the hair gel's gone to his head."
"I believe that ship sailed when aerosols were invented." Klaus smiled in satisfaction when he saw the corner of her lip twitch. "He is sorely mistaken if he thinks I came here with any regard for his desires." He flicked his gaze up and down her pale form. Even halfway desiccated, she was gorgeous. But beautiful or not, he couldn't ignore that her skin was turning gray and the light had left her eyes. Once so brilliant and bold, they were now dull and devoid of the defiance that drew him to her. Her gaze was calculating without a hint of excitement or fear. He was acutely aware that she saw him as a pawn in whatever scheme she was planning. The only way to win back his Caroline was to play her game. But how does the king defeat his queen?
The blonde rolled her head back and looked at him upside down, golden curls dangling over the edge of the cot. "Then why are you here?" She flipped onto her stomach, hands beneath her chin. "Come for round two?"
The hybrid raised his eyebrows, amusement bringing out his dimples. "Well, I certainly wouldn't object. Are you offering?"
"Sure. Why not?" With an evil twinkle in her eye and beauty queen smile, she rolled off the cot and let the blanket fall to the ground, revealing that she wasn't wearing pants despite the winter chill in the air. His eyes fell to her creamy thighs as she strutted over to him and roved up to gawk at her breasts in a light pink camisole. Batting her eyelashes, she looked at him innocently through the iron bars. "All you have to do is let me out… I'll make it worth your while." Shrugging, he easily broke the handle off the steel door and let it swing open. "Seriously?" Another shrug. Narrowing her eyes, she crossed her arms over her chest. "What's the trick?"
"No tricks," Klaus assured her with a slick smile. "I think I'm supposed to be fixing you, but you seem fine to me." He let his gaze wander for a long moment before he frowned at how gray her skin had become. "As much as I'd love to take you up on your offer, I'm not sure if I want those chapped lips anywhere near me," he teased, running the tip of his finger across her lower lip. He grinned when she slapped his hand away with a growl. "You need to feed." Walking past her into the cell, he plucked her jeans from the corner and tossed them to her. "Come on, love. Let's go find you someone to eat."
Caroline eyed the hybrid skeptically. She wasn't sure what game he was playing, but at least he would play. That was more than she could say for anyone else in Mystic Falls. If he was working some angle, he'd obviously forgotten how easily she could work him. He'd been wrapped around her little finger before he left town and if the hungry way he was staring at her was any indication, that hadn't changed. Knowing he was watching, she purposefully bent over to put on her jeans, shimmying her hips provocatively as she pulled them up and taking far longer than was necessary to tie the laces on her sneakers.
Fluffing her hair out, she strolled up to him. "Let's get out of here."
With a smirk, Klaus held up her bra and let it dangle from one finger. "Forgetting something?"
Without blinking, the vampire pulled off her camisole and handed it to him. "Hold this." If he was shocked, he hid it well. She slowly slid the fabric up her shoulders and clasped it behind her back. Taking her tank top, she tossed him a flirty wink. "Thanks."
"You should put on a jacket," the hybrid commented lightly, extending his elbow for her to take as they walked up the stairs. "It's winter. You don't want Jack Frost nipping at your nose."
"Jack Frost better not nip at my anything." Caroline rubbed against him as she trailed a fingernail down his bicep, enjoying the way his breathing hitched. "You on the other hand…"
Klaus flashed her his dimples, the promise of heaven and hell in his eyes. "I plan on getting the hell out of this town. To do that, we need to blend in. Get a jacket. It'll look suspicious to the humans if you don't."
Caroline shrugged carelessly. "I'll steal one from dinner. Let's get out of here before they catch us."
The Original snorted in amusement. "You say that as though they've ever been able to stop me."
"They stopped your heart, lit you on fire and killed two of your brothers," she reminded him callously, hoping to get a rise out of him.
"Temporary setbacks. Unfortunately, neither brother took the hint. Both have since returned and died again." She eyed him sideways, searching for a hint of emotion but was unable to find any. "Well, Finn is still alive. Sort of. His soul is trapped in my older sister's pendant."
"There's another one of you?"
With a groan, Klaus nodded his head as he opened the passenger's door to his SUV. "Also unfortunate. Her name is Freya and not as dead as we thought. Just what I needed, another sibling." He shook his head as he slid behind the wheel. "She and Elijah are currently warring for the role of biggest thorn in my side. They think they're keeping my daughter from me for my own good when in reality, I'm allowing their delusion to continue only as long as I'm out of town. Stefan's call was well timed. I'm not very popular in New Orleans at the moment."
"You managed to piss off an entire metropolis in less than two years. Impressive." His response was an evil smirk; clearly, he took her sarcasm as a compliment. "So, what'd you do?"
"Forced Elijah to watch as I burned his girlfriend alive, turned Hayley and her pack into wolves for all but the night of the full moon, used the family's pet human as a juice box, cost Kol his chance to come back from the dead, slaughtered several of Marcel's minions in cold blood, killed Mikael again as Freya begged for his life and then used his ashes to mix paints, resurrected Esther to use her as a pawn against my also apparently not dead Aunt Dahlia." He rattled everything off conversationally with no trace of remorse for his wicked actions. "And then I justified it all in the name of protecting Hope. But just between us monsters, half of it was for my own enjoyment. And the parts that were justifiably strategic, I enjoyed regardless. I've never been one to miss an opportunity to mix business with pleasure. It's the key to life's happiness. That, and knowing where to find the scissors."
"Wow." Caroline blinked a few times as she processed the horrors he'd shared so easily. She knew she should feel something for all the people he'd hurt, but she didn't. It all sounded fairly typical of the hybrid's endlessly evil escapades, with the exception of one aspect she found hard to believe. "Someone dated Elijah?"
"Briefly. She's ash now. Collateral damage. Couldn't be helped." Pulling into the parking lot of the Mystic Grill, he rested one arm over the steering wheel as he turned to face her. "What'd you do to earn the Salvatore's ire?"
The blonde bit down on her lower lip. After hearing the hybrid's list, she was almost embarrassed to share her own. Then again, that was an emotion and she didn't have those. "Compelled a pre-med student to operate on Stefan's secret great-great-something niece and tried to blackmail him into turning off his humanity." With a grumble, she added resentfully, "They got to her in time, though. Buzzkills."
"Is that all?" the Original asked, idly wondering if she was holding back. Surely, that couldn't be all she'd done. Compared to his list of sins, she was an angel even without a soul.
"Well, I ate a couple of people," Caroline replied defensively, crossing her arms over her chest and suddenly feeling like a completely inadequate villain. She huffed in annoyance at his look of pity. "It's not my fault they locked me up. I could do way worse given the chance."
"Of course you can." With an amused grin, Klaus patted her thigh condescendingly. "Come on, love. I'll teach you how to be the bad guy."
"Hey, I know how to be bad." Slamming the car door, she narrowed her eyes at the challenge in his smirk. "Just wait." With a mischievous grin, she flashed around to his side and pressed him up against the SUV, her lips crashing down against his. Her hands slid up his shirt, nails dragging down his abs. He pulled her closer by the waist, one palm squeezing the flesh of her ass through her jeans. His mouth molded to hers, but her lips felt like sandpaper after days without blood. Just when her fingers dipped beneath his waistband, he pulled her back by the shoulders, both of them gasping for air.
"If kissing me is the worst you can do, we've got a long way to go." A wicked smirk curled Klaus' upper lip as he heard a low growl emit from the back of her throat. Slipping from between her and the SUV, he slapped her on the ass. "And I told you to stay away from me with those chapped lips. Come on. Let's eat."
A few minutes later, Caroline wiped a drop of blood from her lips as Klaus held up their victim's bright red woolen pea coat behind her. Slipping her arms through the holes, she adjusted the collar as she turned to face him. "Feeling better?" he asked with a quirked brow, noting the way her skin had returned to its usual peach and the gray had left her lips.
"Much." Stepping over the corpse of a woman she recognized as the secretary from her doctor's office, she casually walked back to his SUV. "So," she asked as he turned over the engine, "if Stefan didn't plan on you springing me, what was his plan?"
"Oh, that." Klaus waved his hand dismissively as he drove away from the tiny town. "He asked me to compel you to turn it back on."
"What?"
The hybrid almost laughed out loud at her indignation. "Relax, love. If I was going to compel your humanity back, I'd have done so already. Stefan overplayed his hand. He should have known better than to think I'd simply come to town, submit to his whims and leave quietly." Patting her thigh, he reassured her, "You're safe with me."
A mischievous smile curled Caroline's upper lip as she settled back into her seat, momentarily appeased. "Considering we both know our next stop is a hotel, how safe can I be?"
Klaus let his eyes rove over her slim form, eyes darkening with lust. "How safe would you like to be?"
The eternal teenager laughed out loud, but it was a hollow sound that gave him chills. "I absconded from my best friends and ran off with the big bad wolf. Give me the danger."
Pushing away thoughts of the emptiness inside his little blonde obsession, the Original blew past several cars on the way to Richmond. "Sweetheart, you're a vampire with a flipped switch. You are the danger."
Caroline smirked.
An hour later, Klaus pulled up outside a nightclub called Fallout. With a frown, the vampire unbuckled her seatbelt. "This doesn't look like a hotel."
"Disappointed?" he teased, beeping the car locked.
"That's an emotion. I don't have those," she corrected him with a dead smile. "Just surprised. I thought you wanted to get laid."
"That will come." Crowding her airspace and standing close enough for her to smell the blood lingering at the corner of his mouth, he whispered huskily, "As will you." He chuckled at the way her breath caught as he dragged a finger down her neck, over her collarbone and stopped just above her breast. "But the night is young, and clubs are fun. You are interested in having fun, aren't you?"
"Obviously." Caroline rolled her dull sapphire eyes and tossed her long, blonde curls over her shoulder. "I just didn't take you for the dancing type. You know, like, the kind we do in this century."
Klaus narrowed his eyes slightly at her barb but ignored it as he pointed at the warehouse-style building behind them. "A hundred happy meals with legs are bouncing around in there, hot blood pulsing through their veins just begging us to drink until we're more intoxicated than they are. It's the vampire equivalent of Disney World. The century is irrelevant; murder is timeless."
"Hey, I don't need convincing. I just said I was surprised you'd pick blood over banging." Shaking her hips provocatively, she fluttered her eyelashes at the immortal. "I thought you wanted me."
In the blink of an eye, Klaus had her pressed up to the cement wall, tongue invading her mouth. He effortlessly pinned her arms above her head with one hand as the other gripped her hip tightly. She fell easily into his kiss, her mind spinning and chest heaving until she was dizzy. The moment was full of such intense passion that she could have sworn she blacked out for a few seconds, but then he was pulling back and she was blinking her eyes back into focus. "I've already had you," he whispered against her puffy lips. "I know exactly what you look like writhing beneath me, begging me to take you harder as you scream my name. I want to watch you make someone else scream. I want you to show me your monster."
Leaning up, Caroline licked his bottom lip seductively. "Be careful what you wish for." With a devious grin, she slipped from between his firm muscles and the wall and was back in a flash with a girl in a tight silver leather strapless mini-dress beneath a long white wool winter coat. Her eyes bled black as she sank her fangs into the girl's neck, cries echoing into the night. Klaus watched with interest as the baby vampire drank her fill and stole the dress off the limp body and dropped her to the ground. "She's about my size." Quickly shucking her jeans and tank top and covering her victim haphazardly with the red coat she'd stolen earlier, the blonde shimmied into the lightweight fabric and pulled the white wool over her shoulders. "And she won't miss it," she added with a wink as she also stole the girl's silver stiletto platform sandals.
Casting a quick glance at the body, Klaus smiled with his dimples and held out his arm. "I've always preferred you in dresses. Shall we?" Her smile was absolutely feral as she took his arm, hips swaying as they walked into the club like they owned it. The entire place was twinkling in gaudy fairy lights and covered in tacky winter decorations, the clientele and staff dressed in ridiculous Goth and fetish wear. There was a giant Christmas tree against one wall littered with ornaments, a few menorahs and Kwanzaa candles here and there for good measure. Against the far wall was a small platform with a stripper pole painted like a candy cane, a young woman spinning around with glassy eyes and a vacant smile. Caroline's eyes shone mischievously at the way the hybrid cast his gaze first at the pole and then at her, his topaz orbs full of dark promises.
"Definitely not the kind of place I imagined you going to willingly," she teased playfully, eying the girls in corsets over mini-skirts and far too much makeup.
"But you have imagined me places," he quipped, smirk hovering between satisfaction and arrogance. He ignored it when she rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Goth clubs make excellent hunting grounds. Drugs flow freely, inhibitions run low, and the makeup is so ridiculous that most would perceive a flesh wound as a fashion statement."
Right on cue, an enthusiastic young man in leather pants, a tight black mesh t-shirt and bright blue spiked hair carrying a serving tray with a dozen green and red shots came up to them, waving brightly with his free hand. Her immediate thought was that the guyliner alone justified what she was going to do to him. "Hey, guys! Happy Christmahanakwanzika!" He gestured around at the tacky tinsel and blinking bulbs proudly. "Welcome to our winter wonderland." Klaus eyed him up and down hungrily, sending a thrill of anticipation down the baby vampire's spine. The waiter held out his tray and offered it to them. "Care for a drink? They're on the house."
The corner of Caroline's lip quirked up in amusement as she let black bleed down from her bloodshot eyes. "Don't mind if I do."
The waiter's eyes widened in terror, the smell of his fear exciting the immortals beyond reason. "Woah, what the-" The shots fell to the floor when she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and sunk her fangs into his neck. His beautiful screams blending in with the beat were music.
Klaus watched with interest as she dragged him outside, thick crimson dribbling down from the wound as she sucked the life out of him. A minute later, she swayed her hips across the dance floor as she danced her way back to him, leather hugging her skin. "Did you take care of him?" he asked seductively, leaning down to lick a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth. Humming, she nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck, grinding her pelvis into his. Smiling in amusement, his words vibrated against her lips as he murmured, "That's a good girl." He pressed his mouth to hers, bodies melting together as they danced provocatively, dozens of clueless couples surrounding them in similar positions. Pulling back, he grinned at her pout, pupils blown out with lust. "Now, go do it again."
She did.
