AU/AH. Klaus waits for Caroline to catch up.
She comes and goes.
Quite literally.
Klaus doesn't know how it happened, how she has assumed they would be casual after he spent the better part of a year trying to woo her, but it did. He has theories, of course, much as he's loathe to fully acknowledge them. He has a less than stellar reputation on campus, after all, a track-record of serious relationships amounting to a neat zero, and he has met her friends, unfortunately, is well-versed in the inner workings of insecurities, courtesy of his younger sister, Rebekah, and her obsession with love.
He had always believed the notion ridiculous, truth be told, before meeting Caroline Forbes.
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"You could stay."
Caroline looks at him over her shoulder, bare and pale and soft under his wandering fingers, the corners of her eyes crinkled in amusement. "And do what, exactly?"
The tone of the question is teasing, but Klaus can tell part of her is genuinely expectant, curious to hear what his answer will be.
He will eagerly take any and all opportunities to show her that they could be more, that they should be more. He also knows he cannot risk pushing her.
It's a very fine line, the one he has been walking for the past four and a half months.
"Anything you wish to do, love," he replies, tongue curling around each, individual syllable. "I am not against round... what would it be, now? Five, I believe."
Caroline scoffs but blushes, and Klaus is torn between the urge to commit the moment to paper and the desire to get reacquainted with just how far that blush can go.
He trails one hand, palm open, flat against her back, down the curve of her spine, in order to do neither.
There is a much more important point to make, in that moment.
"Or," he dips his head to the side, eyes boring into hers, blue on blue like the meeting of different currents within the ocean, "you could just sleep. It's almost morning, already, and I know for a fact you have an early class. Why waste a more than comfortable bed to drive all the way across town and miss on precious hours of rest?"
He tugs at the sheet pooled at her hips, willing her closer.
He foregoes trying to appear or sound nonchalant. Just because he needs time to fix their withstanding misunderstanding does not mean he will allow for more to take root.
Caroline hesitates, clearly reluctant to blur the rules of what's between them. Klaus plans to obliterate them.
He hooks an arm around her waist and pulls.
She goes easily, the movement as effortless as breathing.
Round five happens, and so does round six.
She blames spending the night on being too exhausted to get behind the wheel.
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She starts spending the night more often than not.
It's a rather easy decision, in the end, considering how she lives in the dorms with two roommates while he's a trust-fund-baby owning a damn penthouse. Might as well reap the benefits, since she does have to deal with the heaps of arrogance bestowed upon him as a consequence of being hot and loaded. And, perhaps, every once in a while, despite how much she loves Bonnie and Elena, she also takes advantage of his quiet spaces to study.
Because she has a key.
It's not, like, a serious kind of key-having, though. Klaus was the one who suggested it, when she inadvertently left a pen-drive choke-full of research papers for her dissertation behind, once, and he had to hurry home from the art gallery he was interning at to let her in. They just realized it was more convenient that way.
And convenience is the farthest thing from meaningful, is it not?
"You have been steadily sleeping only with one another for half a year. You're dating."
Caroline glares at Enzo, munches on a fry with much more violence than necessary. "Shut up."
Enzo just laughs. "Face it, gorgeous. You have achieved the impossible," he pauses, as if for suspense, "and have domesticated the infamous Klaus Mikaelson."
She lets out a huff that is an excuse not to grin. "Please. It's probably only lasting this long because it's the best way for him to get regular orgasms—"
"Didn't need to hear that."
"—without having to deal with any nagging."
A snort. "Caroline Forbes not nagging? I'll believe that when I see it."
"Fine! Minimal nagging."
"The fact that he's enduring any nagging at all should speak for itself, really."
"Well, I have to endure him waking up at random times throughout the night to paint and ridiculously anal tea-making techniques. Who's thinking about me, uh?"
Enzo shoots her a pointed look and she frowns, feeling as if she is missing a ginormous elephant in the room.
"See? Basically married, already."
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"Honestly, Nik, I don't understand why I can't crash at your place. I know the penthouse has at least two guest bedrooms," Kol whines petulantly.
"I simply value my privacy."
"Yeah," Lucien stage-whispers, "your privacy to shag darling Caroline in peace." Klaus' stare turns murderous. "I didn't mean that in a bad way! I understand. A-hundred-percent. But I do think it's time you two make it official," he shrugs, "if only so you don't come off as a right arse for kicking your siblings to a hotel whenever they visit."
"I'll... consider it."
"What's to consider?" Marcel chimes in with a snort. "You have no power in this decision, my man."
Klaus pulls a face but remains silent, the biggest indicator of just how accurate his friend's observation is. If it were up to him, Caroline would have already been his girlfriend for a year, probably longer.
They spend most of their time together and share parts of themselves with each other that no one else gets to see.
He can't imagine ever having such a connection with another person, does not want to. She's been it for him since the very first time he has laid his eyes on her.
He's just waiting for her to catch up.
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She pushes her hips down and he bucks up against her, bodies lost in a dance they both know by heart.
That heart she never meant to get involved.
His hands are at her waist, easing her onto him in slow, deliberate circles. He wonders when she will finally realize they have stopped fucking ages go, that it's love they have been making, instead.
Caroline sighs, back arching as one of her hands closes into a fist around the necklaces that are clinking haphazardly across Klaus' chest. It's her tell. Be it his shoulders or his sheets or anything else, whenever she goes searching desperately for something to hold on to it means she is close. Klaus sits up, grunting as the angle of his cock shifts and her walls flutter in reaction, and wraps his arms around her, secures her to him with not one inch to spare.
"Klaus."
His name on her lips is a breath, a prayer, a plea. She's not sure what she's asking, anymore, but they both know there is nothing he wouldn't give her.
The sound of skin meeting skin grows louder.
They swallow each other's moans with a kiss.
She comes easily and beautifully and he follows soon after, soaring until there is no higher place for him to go, no better place than sheathed inside of her in the ultimate act of intimacy.
Hours later, head tucked under his chin and one hand above his heart as Klaus sleeps, Caroline suddenly freezes.
She always detangles herself from him before either of them has the chance to even catch their breath. Not that time. She waits for panic to set in and send her running, seconds trickling into minutes, but a peaceful warmth encompasses her in its stead.
It's not like Klaus is complaining, anyway. And she would hate to wake him up by moving.
She's being a good guest, is all.
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She's already there, when he comes home from the art gallery.
She's not working on her dissertation. She isn't re-organizing his ridiculously vast yet not time-period and then author arranged book collection, either.
She is just... there.
Klaus can hear her quietly humming to herself from the open-style kitchen on the side of the living room as he steps through the threshold, putting his briefcase down onto the hard-wood floor and letting a warmth that has nothing to do with the fact that Caroline likes to parade around the penthouse in nothing but one of his henleys and cotton shorts even in the middle of winter, therefore needing to turn the thermostat on to tropical temperatures, encompass him.
It's become quite common, finding her waiting for him.
Every time, closing the door behind him, he smiles so wide he fears his dimples might become permanent dents on his cheeks.
He toes off his shoes and pads towards the kitchen. Caroline goes on cooking and humming but Klaus knows she knows he's there. They have a way of always sensing each other's presence.
His arms sneak around her waist.
"Trying to burn down the apartment, love?"
"Ah-ah." A playful elbow to the ribs. A dramatic yelp. "You're so funny."
"I like to think so."
He can see her rolling her eyes without actually seeing it. "For your information, what I'm trying to do is baking."
"Baking?" Klaus repeats, amusement morphing into confusion.
"Yes," Caroline confirms, on the brink of exasperation, "like, you know, a cake?"
"I'm familiar with the concept of 'baking', love, but... why? I would have picked something up from that quaint French café you like, had you let me know you needed your sweet tooth satiated."
She tenses in his arms.
It's an odd reaction to such a mundane conversation, but Klaus has learned that not a thing is ever random when it comes to Caroline.
A beat passes and she relaxes, exhaling a long breath, scattering grains of flour across the marble counter in the process.
"You know you can't just always buy everything, don't you?" she comments, tilting her head and craning her neck to meet his gaze with teasing, twinkling eyes. "Plus, I wanted to make it myself. Today is special."
"Oh?"
Caroline turns around in his embrace, presses herself closer. "Yep. We've been together for a year." One finger then another jam into his chest. The action is more soothing than accusing. Hesitant, almost. "Don't tell me you forgot, mister."
She looks up at him through thick eyelashes, her eyes a bright light behind a curtain of blackness, the sun during an eclipse.
He did forget.
Because their beginning dates back to a whole lot earlier for him than the day they first slept together. Later, when they will be falling asleep or weeks or years down the road or as the perfect anecdote for a certain proposal, he will make sure to point that out, perhaps, to make a fool of himself and of his pining. Not in that moment, though. Not when she's waiting for him to say something as if she has just asked him a question not knowing she has been the answer all along.
His lips do not need to curve into a smile. He never ceased smiling from before.
With his heartbeat drumming all the way up into his ears, Klaus brings Caroline closer, leans over until their foreheads are touching and he might get cross-eyed for not looking away.
"Every day is special with you."
She wants to laugh and mock and smack him for the the utter cheesiness, but ends up giggling against his mouth as he kisses her, instead.
She could get used to this.
She stays.