AU/AH. Each day, expect a good thing to happen.
Klaus couldn't imagine anything more painful.
He had found out he was the product of his mother's infidelity.
He had been verbally abused by his non-father for close to a decade.
He had been on the receiving end of manicured nails straight down his jaw just a couple of weeks ago, when Aurora hadn't taken too well to his decision to break things off.
Yet, at last, true hell came in the form of a comic book convention.
Why had he even agreed to chaperone Henrik?
Right. To get out of the house.
A magnificent mansion on the outside.
A wretched void of affection on the inside.
It was a fitting analogy to his whole existence, in a sense.
A pretty package unable to care about anyone other than himself.
That's how Hayley had described him, at least, once, after her umpteenth disregarded attempt at steering their time together past the 'friends with benefits' circle of acquaintanceship.
She was right, most likely, if only for the fact that he hadn't even cared about the insult, hadn't much considered it an insult at all.
Being surrounded by screaming kids dressed up as superheroes was infinitely worse, anyway.
"Nik, Nik, look!" Henrik pulled at the hem of his henley, excitedly pointing at an unspecific stand in the distance with his other hand.
"I'm looking, Henrik."
"Can we go?" the seven-year-old brought his hands together, balled just under his chin. "Can we, pleeeeease?"
Klaus rolled his eyes.
Henrik was the baby of the family, Klaus being ten years older and the rest of their siblings also well in their teenage years or even adulthood, and everyone thought him an angel, but Klaus knew his little brother consciously exploited his adorableness more often than not to get what he wanted.
"Yes," he conceded, smiling, despite himself, at the way Henrik's eyes immediately lit up, "we can go."
Henrik started bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Yes! I'm finally gonna meet Miss Hybrid!"
Klaus frowned, hurrying to follow as Henrik broke into a sprint towards the coveted stand. "Who?"
"Miss Hybrid!" Henrik repeated in a shout, as if Klaus were deaf instead of confused, shooting his older brother an annoyed look that said a lot about his opinion of him for not knowing who he was talking about. "From 'The Original Diaries'. She's crazy powerful and sooo pretty even if she's a villain!"
"Why, villains aren't supposed to be pretty?"
"Not that pretty!" Henrik blurted out.
Klaus arched an amused eyebrow and Henrik blushed redder than Superman's cape after laundry day.
A teasing remark was on the tip of his tongue, some comment worthy of Kol about being too young to be crushing on the bad girl, but any and all words left him as soon as Klaus laid his eyes on the girl in question.
Lean legs going on for miles. A sliver of porcelain skin bare where the hem of her tank top had ridden up. A smile so bright it seemed to make the world a better place. A waterfall of blond curls like a halo.
All of a sudden, he could very well empathize with his brother's crush.
While Henrik skipped along the remaining stretch of distance, however, Klaus found himself frozen on the spot.
He had seen his fair share of beautiful girls, of course, enjoyed their company aplenty, but there was just something so pure and genuine about the one only feet away from him in that very moment, willing to impersonate a comic book character for random kids' happiness, that tugged at the deepest crevices of a soul he had long believed lost.
Henrik had rambled on and on and on about the convention throughout the weeks leading up to it so Klaus knew that everyone involved was a volunteer. That girl had nothing to gain... not in the material sense, at least.
Used as he was to contrive acts born out of selfishness, it was a puzzling concept for him to wrap his head around.
There was a long queue in order to take a picture with her, longer than at any of the other dozens of stands in the whole auditorium, but Klaus found himself thinking that the wait would be worth it if it meant getting the chance to bask in her presence even for the briefest of moments.
Unfortunately, Henrik fussed the whole time, claiming Klaus's attention by issuing stern photographing instructions before becoming engrossed in some debate over who was the best Avenger with a group of kids behind them.
Klaus released a sigh of relief.
"First time?"
He whipped his head around. Miss Hybrid was standing right in front of him.
"Uh?" he choked out.
Her laughter tinkled joyfully at the dumbfounded expression on his face. "This is your first convention, isn't it?"
"That obvious?" Klaus managed a chuckle, cursing his uncharacteristic lack of finesse.
"Just a little. Conventions are screaming galore and you flinch at every loud noise."
A smirk spread across his lips. "Someone has been taking notice."
She blushed but didn't deny it, answered him in kind, instead.
"You're stalling my line," she pointed out with the quirk of an eyebrow and one hand on her hip, making him mentally cringe over the fact that he hadn't, indeed, even realized it had come their turn. "I was trying to figure out why. Answer?" A shrug. "You're out of your element."
"Well, only because I had no idea what a..." he paused, shamelessly let his eyes roam her figure as his mind searched for the right adjective to describe what the tight, black get-up she was donning was doing to him, "rousing element to be in conventions could be. Love the costume, sweetheart."
There.
Confident flirtation. Laid on thick. That was his element.
He smirked.
She scoffed.
"Do the pet names ever work on anyone at all?"
Most kids and a few of the parents around them snickered.
"Miss Hybrid!" Henrik all but shrieked, reappearing by Klaus' side like a moth drawn to the flame as soon as he saw who he was talking to.
"That's my name, yes," the girl replied, tilting her head just slightly with a smile, having to somewhat keep up her role as villain. "Yours?"
Henrik gazed up at her in awe, mouth gaping, eyes blinking slowly. "H-Henrik."
"Pleasure to meet you, Henrik," she extended one hand for him to shake.
Henrik gasped, hastened to wipe both his hands down his jeans despite the fact that they were already squeaky-clean, then took hers.
Her smile widened, if possible, at the cuteness of the action and Klaus couldn't help but roll his eyes.
No.
He most definitely was not jealous of his baby brother.
Henrik proceeded to take a couple of pictures with her using the green screen set up on the other side of the stand, chatting her ear off until the kid next in line started to whine that they were taking too long. Admittedly, they seemed to have gotten a bit of a special treatment. Henrik pouted but moved along to the next stand with a friend from school and her mum.
But Klaus found himself lingering past her goodbye.
The prospect of never seeing her again upset him, for some reason.
"I'll have an uproar on my hands if you don't scoot over," she only half joked.
"Right," he acknowledged but still hesitated. She regarded him expectantly. "How come I have never seen you around before?" he asked on a whim. "Mystic Falls has a very limited supply of teenagers."
"I've moved here during the summer."
"You... did?"
"Yep. And I'm enrolled at Mystic Falls High for when classes start."
A beat. A wisp of hope coiled itself through his chest.
"So I will be seeing you around from now on?"
"Probably," she tried to rein in her grin by biting down on her bottom lip, "but in much different clothes."
"And with a different name, I presume?"
She nodded. "Caroline. No," she wiggled a threatening finger at him, "pet names."
Klaus brought a hand up to cover his heart. "I solemnly swear it."
"Good."
"I'm Klaus, by the way."
"Oh, I know." Klaus frowned and Caroline laughed. "I've lived here for less than two months and been warned about you at least five times already. You have quite the reputation."
He knew. He usually reveled in that knowledge. All of a sudden, he despised it.
"You shouldn't trust everything you hear," he suggested with a click of his tongue.
Caroline was still laughing. "I guess you'll just have to prove me not to."