hi! this is the sequel to "all you need to grow inside my spine". or maybe less of a sequel and more of a companion piece, really if you want to read a more fleshed-out version of this universe, please read that first.
five days underwater
near your island off the coast
.
.
.
Klaus finds her in the room he'd kissed her in. No light came but from the lamp in the corner, the one she'd used to fend him off. She's sitting in the little pool of light, knees drawn to her chest.
At first, he stands in the doorway, watching her while a song starts playing in his head. It isn't a problem when it's just soft to begin with, but then gutters his chest with how loud it becomes, the haunting sounds of the caves he knew as a boy - all with how she turns her head to look at him.
She's been crying.
Her eyes are dewy, her kohl smudged. There is blood on her lips, she smells like stale sunshine, sweat on skin, and a distant melancholy. He wants to paint daffodils after her hair. He wants to roll with her in a meadow, the meadow by what is now known as Steven's Quarry, but before, back when there were forests instead of roads–he wants to take her there, to the site where he'd buried his dead hybrids for her, in the clearing where their spell had spectacularly failed. He wants to kiss her there, again.
"Did something happen, love?" Klaus asks. He isn't afraid of the answer: he is afraid for her, for how impulsive she is, but tries to reign control, still. She will want answers out of this, and then bury them deeper than he did his unsuccessful hybrids.
But then–but then, Caroline nods. For how shaky she was before, her nod is anything if not resolute. Her eyes are blue: he discovers just how.
He runs towards her.
What happened, of course, is that they had tried to break their soul into two, to not be bound to one another. They had tried to imbue hybrids with their stolen soulmate bond magic, and had nearly died because of it.
Kol had made the plan sound so easy.
Caroline moves to change. At least she can fix herself without any prying eyes, because Rebekah isn't at home. Neither is Kol. Elijah's absence is not surprising at all.
Her hands steady herself as best as they can against the cold marble of the sink. She feels it might break under her fingers. In the reflection she sees herself: haggard, white, bloodless. Her lips are so, so pale, despite having been kissed by Klaus so desperately just an hour ago.
She avoids her own eyes and her gaze falls instead on the remnants of her bath before, wilted flowers dotting rims of the tub. They seem to still carry a scent of power, of magic, even so wet and ruined. Caroline can't help her shudder. She quickly divests herself of her torn, bloodied robes and pulls on the comfiest, ugliest sweater she can find.
"Love," comes Klaus' voice from her door. She doesn't know if he's calling her or verbalising what he feels.
And she's struck, then – is that what it is? The deep ache in between her ribs? The unease of her breath, the heaviness of her lungs? She'd been in the electric throes of a spell earlier, she hadn't been in her right mind.
She looks at him, silently begging him not to confirm that she had whispered her heart's desires into his open mouth earlier.
The set in his jaw says, No, sweetheart—It happened all right.
Caroline doesn't answer his call. She stands in the doorway of the bathroom, her hands frozen in what looks to have been trying to pull down her sleeves over her fingers.
Klaus changes his language. "Caroline."
"Yes," she answers before he's even finished. "Yes, I heard you."
Klaus tenses. "Did you forget our agreement in the woods?"
"There was an agreement?" Caroline tilts her head as haughtily as she can. "I only recall you saying I was free to go."
"Only because I thought you'd feel strongly enough for me not to leave," Klaus fires back. All the softness of the forest was gone from his posture. He's just the dark green of the unknown now, a wild thrashing of leaves. So quickly his winds changed, she muses, mildly scared now.
"What we feel is not true," Caroline says shakily. "It is only magic. It just happened to us, a one in a billion chance. I did not grow those feelings for you."
"Something grew," Klaus seems to warn. He takes a step into her room. Caroline thinks it must be the first time he's ever been in the room since he'd had it set up for her. She doesn't know why she's blushing wildly at the thought.
Klaus draws nearer. Of course he would sense her heat. He senses everything about her, it's so damning, she can't believe she is fighting so much when the ache in her heart only seems to expand, squeezing the breath out of her. She tries hard not to look at his mouth as she pants. She's panicking, she convinces herself, because Klaus is so close now—
"What are you going to do?" she manages to whisper. "Kill my confession out of me?"
"You will not provoke me into laying even a finger on you," Klaus says. It sounds like a threat now, and sure enough, she realises belatedly how stiff he's standing, he's close, but not too close. There's still breathing room between them. "I swear it."
His eyes search hers, but his hands stay at his side. So he does intend not to touch her at all. Not until she tells him to, loudly and clearly with no chance of miscommunication. Everything written. So he intends to kill her.
She hates him. She wants to scream. "I dare you," she says through gritted teeth, "to break your vows."
Klaus laughs, surprising them both. "I won't."
"Then I'll leave."
"I won't let you."
"Try stopping me without touching me, asshole." She darts as fast as her vampire can past him, but he has her just as she makes it out her bedroom and down the hall. She slithers out of his grip before he can quite wrap his arms around her, and tumbles with her down the stairs.
She kicks at him – she kicks at him! – oh, why the fuck does he look so turned on—
She fights him all the way to the library. Against a heavy bookshelf he finally pins her wrist, looking only slightly disappointed when she breathes onto his lips, "Ha."
"Are you calling me a liar, sweetheart?" Klaus tightens his hold around her wrists.
"Who's laying hands on who?" she asks sweetly.
"You don't have to point out the obvious," he chastises her, right before he kisses her.
As soon as their lips touch she feels the ache drain out of her chest, and the relief it brings has her lapping at his mouth, urging muffled sounds of delight from him. She swallows them all, doesn't want to hear them. She would swear she's not teasing, but doesn't, because there should only be one liar in a room at any given time.
It's Klaus who breaks the kiss.
"Hold on to me," he commands.
"Wha-?"
He grabs her thighs, they wrap around his waist almost instinctively as if knowing he was about to whisk her away, back up the stairs and into his room. The scent of him is all too strong around her suddenly, she chokes on it. Her back is laid down onto his bed with none of the recklessness in which he had kissed her.
She tries to grab at something – a lamp? – but he swats her hands away easily. She can't even lift herself from the voluminous pillows because Klaus rests a hand on her chest, pushing her back gently. His voice, however, is anything but gentle. "Confess."
She tilts her neck so she doesn't have to see his face, is struck suddenly by the skylight above them that offered a perfect view of the shivering moon.
Klaus must spend his nights staring, waiting for its arrival.
Now the moon's here, and so is she, and Klaus is all out of patience.
"You lay me out raw like this and expect submission?" she hisses.
"Con-fess," Klaus says again, looking absolutely determined.
"I will not."
"Confess."
"You do it first."
"Caroline."
"I know, confess, I heard you—"
"Why are you denying me? You felt what I felt in the woods, you felt our connection," he insists—
"But it doesn't make you any less of who you are!" she lets out accidentally. Her eyes widen as his narrow. She doesn't clap her hands to her mouth. She means every word. "Love is irrelevant."
Klaus' expression dims. "Careful now, Caroline – you're beginning to sound like me."
"It's probably the Stockholm Syndrome."
"Probably," Klaus says amusedly. Pleased that he can entrap her so easily. But then, she realises – but then, he's no longer holding her down. He's lying on his side propped on one elbow, gazing down at her equal parts adoring and frightening. She wonders if he's ever trained himself to look at anything softly.
"You'll move into my room first thing tomorrow morning," Klaus orders quietly. "I'll leave you for now. Rest well, Caroline."
Before she knew it, Klaus was gone, the door shutting soundly behind him.
"What. The. Fuck," she says aloud.
.
.
.
The stupid thing is, as soon as he leaves, she feels herself doubling in on herself, curling her arms around her knees. The ache blooms again, an insisting throbbing she can't tune out. She needs blood, or she needs his skin. She tries her best to at least appease her body's first demand, but her legs give out as soon as they hit the floor. Her soul is in agony, it seems, over being so physically and spiritually far from Klaus.
And she can't help it. She cries. She cries her lungs out, cries until she can't breathe. Of all the creatures of all the towns in the whole world, Klaus walks into her forest clearing.
Oh, what a life, to never be able to outwalk your shadow.
There's a sound of the door opening again. Klaus stands there, looking quietly confounded. His hand is on his chest, like he'd been trying to soothe it.
"Love?" he questions.
It is, it is, or at least there's something there, because he feels the thundering in her chest quietens once again when Klaus holds her.
"Does it hurt, love?" he murmurs, not really expecting an answer. His chin rubs reassuringly against her crown, but rest assured he's just as frazzled by the quick turn of events, like lightning their hearts could change for one another. An overwhelming quiet or a hoarse scream – there was no in between.
It shouldn't be so hard on a man, much less an immortal. I was only falling in love, he laments helplessly to no one.
"I want answers, Klaus," Caroline mumbles sleepily.
"Tomorrow," Klaus swears her, this time not intending to break his word.
.
.
.
He wakes up in a tangle of her. She's a violent sleeper he discovers, arm always in his face or knee nudging its way between his to better hold them together. She fights him even in her sleep, batting away his advances and yet at the same time pulling him closer.
The dawn is only just creeping in. It washes her in a shade of blue he has never seen before, that he's never seen mixed on a canvas. He wonders if the soulmate bond effects eyesight. Before he can get too caught up in it, he gingerly pries Caroline off of him and leaves her in the bed alone.
He's heard someone walk in through the front door.
This someone's footsteps was not one he is accustomed to, and his ears immediately prick in excitement. He's itching for a fight.
His rush to the foyer proves disappointing. "Oh," he says.
"Good morning to you, Niklaus," Finn says, hanging up his coat and hat.
"Did you find anything of interest in your travels?" Klaus quips, irritated now that he's been caught off guard in casual sweats and a loose Henley to rival Finn's sharp, black suit.
"I was not traveling," Finn corrects Klaus. "I was with my soulmate."
"Ah, Sage, was it?" Klaus pretends not to recall. "How is the old darling?"
Finn barely bristles at his insult. Instead he just walks past him, not even deigning him a shove of his shoulder as he definitely would've done had their roles been reversed. But then again Finn's always been too boring to have a round with, making Elijah look like a scoundrel next to his tight grasp over his dignity.
"You smell of forest muck, brother," Finn says without turning around. He's heading for the kitchen. Incensed, Klaus follows.
"I've been trying to break a certain curse," he spits, even as his chest aches.
"A stubborn fool you still are, I see," Finn says with a tilt of his lips. "Are you still alone and starving, Niklaus?" He pauses, his eyes gazing at the ceiling above him, where Klaus' room was, where a Caroline lay sleeping, heart beating so wilfully. "Have I been wrong about you?"
"Yes," Klaus says, failing to hide the smugness in his voice. "I've found my mate."
"And yet to try to sever the connection," Finn observes dryly.
"What's Kol been telling you?"
"Rebekah, actually," Finn corrects him yet again. He gives Klaus a once-over, and Klaus feels strange about it, to be scrutinised by a brother who'd barely cared enough to stay. "She says you are in great pain. She says it's making you stupid."
Klaus bites back his retort. That sounds like their Rebekah, all right. Good ole sister.
"And you came back for that?" Klaus asks. He can't help but be surprised. Or insulted. Maybe he's more insulted by Rebekah's implication that he was so hopeless, he needed Finn's help of all people.
"Has your relationship been consummated?" Finn asks.
"Whatdidyousay?" Klaus snarls in a single breath, shock punching its way out of his throat. No, he will not turn red, he is no boy—
"Has your relationship been consummated?" Finn asks again without a single change of his tone.
"Mate, if what I'm hearing is right—"
"Has your relationship been consumm—"
"I heard you the first time," Klaus snaps.
Finn isn't at all annoyed. "Well, you did ask. Has your relationsh—"
"No. Now shut up."
The smile that breaks on Finn's face is maddeningly calm. Klaus bunches his fists together. It's extremely humiliating to find that his oldest most boring brother was having more sex than him.
"Did you know it was the full moon last night?" Finn asks. He's retrieved a bloodbag from the fridge and passes one to his brother. "Drink. You look a fright."
Klaus makes a face at the typical Mikaelson bite, but takes a bite out of the bloodbag instead. He eats messily as if to prove a point. "Yes, I noticed. So?"
Finn infuriatingly sucks on his like a juice box, like a child. He speaks only when he's drained the bag. "The soulmate bond may feel like a trapping to you, but only because you know the curse of the moon all too well. You feel the burn to run with your wolf, do you not? A soulmate bond harnesses its energy from the same moon. Of course you would feel its effects." Finn smiles wryly. "And your mate is anchored by the same pain, because you are one."
Klaus remembers Caroline's words. Her uncomfortable shift, her sheepish admission. Sometimes – on the two full moons we've had, actually – I get this weird… yearning inside me. Nothing she can control, nothing to be ashamed of. Like I need to be with you.
"Who died and made you the expert on soulmates?" is all Klaus can say. Rather juvenile, he admits, but this is getting too unbelievable now.
"I was the first to find his soulmate, no?" Finn answers easily. He continues, as if Klaus hadn't snidely cut in, "As the moon grows fuller, the need for completion becomes stronger."
Completion? Klaus splutters. His brother had better not be talking about—
"To peak with one's soulmate is the most carnal desire," Finn finishes sombrely.
Klaus feels his eyes rolling to the back of his head in the shuddering thought of Finn having carnal desires and actually acting out on them. Horror. And that he's even crass enough, crass as Klaus in fact, to speak on it! So Klaus tries wrestle back his upper hand, tries at derision. "How you can make even fucking sound like a banal chore."
"If fucking is all it is to you," and Klaus tries to hide his face at his older brother's use of such language, "then you will be starving all your life, Niklaus."
.
.
.
Having delivered his sermon, Finn leaves. His stupid-looking hat makes him a strange figure as he descends into the dawn of the surrounding forest, gone to the mist. The sun is far from breaking. He can still see the moon wavering in the distance.
As if following an invisible trail of blood, Klaus returns to his bedroom. Caroline is awake now.
"I felt you leave me." It's like she's echoing his words from the woods back to him.
"I've …" Klaus clears his throat. "I've found you some answers." He doesn't bother asking if she's too tired. He knows she won't be able to go back to sleep now.
"I heard," Caroline says. Her voice is thick from sleep. "So we need to make love. Do you know how?"
"Do I know how to make—" Klaus splutters. He hates this, he's infuriated, been made to look a virginal fool by both his brother and his alleged soulmate—
"Do – you – know – how – to make love to a woman?" Caroline asks again. Each word is inflected with purpose. There's a dare in her eyes that reminds him of swooning candle light, and the hushed silence that came after he'd touch her soulmark.
Klaus meets her there. He is on top of her, her hair flies at the wind of his intrusion, he reaches for the little fluttering bird on her wrist.
"Shall I show you?" Klaus asks nastily. His finger touches her soulmark.
A long moan escapes Caroline.
Klaus smiles.
.
.
.
If every single time they meet by their soulmarks is going to be more heightened than the last, Klaus swears for the third time that night, he has already lost.
This time it isn't drowning. Or the opposite of drowning.
It's a burning.
The darkness is familiar, yes, but he finds himself walking towards a centre that begins to pulse. It's Caroline. Her eyes are closed, there is sweat on her skin. He touches her, meets her where she needs him to be. Sweat immediately breaks across his own skin, chilling him to the bone. He needs to be closer, he's almost suffocated by it.
"Caroline," he swears. The fourth time now.
Caroline doesn't answer with words. Her dress seems to become part of her skin, she is unclothed but he can't see her, there is suddenly too much light. He feels like he's being stretched apart by it, being sucked by unfathomable gravity.
He needs her so much closer.
In the blinding light he feels her out, yanks her to him, but before their skins can make their delicious contact, the vision ends.
.
.
.
"As far as visions go, that was certainly naughty," Klaus tries.
"Don't joke," Caroline says.
He clamps his mouth shut.
"So you do know how to make love," Caroline says slowly, mocking him. "But I'm not any woman. I'm your soulmate, Klaus. Do you know how to love me?"
"You've said the word a remarkable number of times tonight," Klaus remarks like it's nothing unremarkable. "I'm very certain."
Caroline truly isn't humouring him tonight. Her eyes search his. "I don't think you do."
Klaus sucks in a breath – this – this slip of a woman, barely a vampire, telling him, Niklaus the Wolf, that he was not ready to touch her body? Oh, she was wicked, he felt then, and it was a realisation that was both damning and animal. Did Caroline want to tame him, beat him into submission? She could try.
"You're awfully presumptuous," Klaus says. If his voice gets any lower Caroline wouldn't be able to hear him. He speaks to her in the purr of the woods. A soft rustle. Dangerous.
"To be clear, I'm not forbidding you to touch me," Caroline says, and Klaus knows he's isn't so arrogant that he doesn't feel a bit of surprise at that. "I'll teach you."
But he does huff at that. "You'll teach—"
"Learn me, Klaus." Caroline's gaze does not waver. The blue of them seeks him out, curls an inviting finger towards her.
His is only now remembering where they are.
His whole weight is on her, forgetting how delicate she is.
Caroline looks like it's getting more difficult to breathe, and there is a dark pink colouring her cheeks as her chest heaves – they get closer – her cheeks get pinker – Klaus feels a fist in his gut.
"Come on, then," he whispers back. His eyes travel along her lips. He's learned her smiles, they always float about him like evening fireflies, blinking in and out of focus. He almost never catches any.
Her freckles he's learned, too. The night of their first drowning, he had shoved Kol to the wall, hard, when he'd tried to hold him down against the gurgling water. He'd just woken up with a thrash, water pouring out of his mouth, his nose. Blood pours out of him, too, he sees it whirl down the drain.
Kol goes flying. Klaus is out of the room, uncaring of his state, uncaring of Kol's snarl of Not yet, Nik!, and finds himself outside of Caroline's room. The door is ajar. She can see her with her eyes closed, exhausted and only just starting to live again, leaning against his sister for support. She'd always concealed her freckles, but his hybrid vision had collected and memorised them. Idly he wonders if they too are a mark of their soul bond, how he felt a pull towards them.
"The moon is still full," Caroline says. It's true, he feels it too. She bares her neck.
Desire has made Klaus into a very foolish man. The immortal monster was gone, replaced by the man on his knees in the forest. It's so strange, how she feels taller than she actually is whenever his skin meets hers.
Klaus is moving slowly, playing a wicked trail down her neck with his lips. His lips scratch against her skin, always dry, because he's always in some passion or other. Screaming. Yelling. Licking his lips. His lips are dry, and yet the pleasure-pain of it lulls her into a kind of comfort that seemed too dangerous for a vampire.
"Is this okay, love?" he asks wetly against her neck. He's using his tongue now. It presses against the pulse in her neck and she is afraid to swallow.
"Yes," is all she can manage.
His hands move like they're underwater. He sloshes against her in a gentle whirl, and she thinks of the sea out there somewhere. She hasn't seen the sea in such a long time.
"Are you waiting for me, love?" Klaus asks again. His hands skim her sides, slowly, stroking. Caroline is in the sea now…
"You know I am," she whispers. "Has my neck satisfied you?"
"I'm committed every hitch of your breath to memory," Klaus says smugly. Caroline doesn't even realise he breathing had spiked. It must have been so deep inside her throat it barely made a sound, but of course Klaus would still catch it.
She spreads her thighs ever so slightly and Klaus leans against her heavily. His groan is a delight to her. She can feel how hot he is even through two layers of cotton on them. His length hardens just that little bit more when they fit perfectly together.
"Did you really mean what you said earlier?" he rasps against her lips. He won't kiss her yet, no.
"About what?" Is he being vulnerable with her?
"That love is irrelevant."
"No," Caroline says. "Far from it. But its origins—"
"Who the fuck," Klaus grits, "cares where it came from as long as it's there? You haven't lived as I have: you do not know the lengths I've had to go through to ensure that single word is eradicated from this earth. You do not know how much my siblings despise me for my callous views on soulmates.
It's the oldest magic in this world, Caroline. And yet I was denied. For so long. But now here it is. For some inexplicable reason, since I've me you—" his breath hitches, "—I have been accepted. I'm selfish enough to not let it go."
"You're a rogue," Caroline says, but she doesn't mean it.
"A scoundrel," Klaus agrees, meaning it most definitely.
And they kiss.
A tremor passes through her spine. She shivers against Klaus so violently that he might have mistaken her as being cold, if not for the fact that vampires don't feel the cold. It must be the kiss, then. And what a kiss it is: a liberating desperation, a lick of his tongue so hot and so furtive against hers that she manages to sink even deeper into his mattress.
His hands push down the thin straps of her nightgown, slowly, not wanting to tear the delicate fabric. Inch by inch he pushes her dress down, until her breasts are bare for him. And when he touches them, she burns. She writhes. Oh how obnoxious she had been earlier, assuming he didn't know how to make love to her. He was proving her wrong.
But no, it's still early, it's still—
Klaus bends his head and lays a flat tongue in between her breasts. She swears she doesn't mean to gasp so loudly. She wonders if he means to lick her so tenderly.
He stops just shy of her stomach. "Is this okay, love?"
"Fuck," she replies so vulgarly, so uninhibitedly, "yes."
His delighted snickering vibrates against her belly button and she feels her toes curl of their own volition.
His fingers join his tongue in their descent, and when his fingertips find what they're looking for – a hot wet slick that has him shoving his tongue against her clit. Without realising she is the one that's grabbed his hair and pushed his head down.
She stares at the moon defiantly, doesn't have the reverence that Klaus and his siblings have for it. She stares at the moon as Klaus eats her out, feels triumphant when her eyes don't close even when Klaus pushes two fingers inside her.
She's never seen anything is bad as the sight of Klaus absolutely lapping at her. She feels filthy suddenly, like she hasn't earned the years yet to deserve the pleasure she's drowning in now. Klaus is there, Klaus has trawled pass the years maiming and murdering and learning and – fucking, too, apparently, if the thrusts of his tongue are anything to go by.
"Is this o—"
"Shut the fuck up," she snarls, bucking her hips. Klaus' teeth grow sharper whenever he smirks, and she knows he's smirking now, and it makes her so hot. She hopes he bites her.
.
.
His teeth pierce right where her soulmark is on her wrist. He drinks like he hasn't had blood in a long time, eyes staring into hers, pupils blown, black veins curling down his cheeks. His hair is matted to his forehead. He is inside her, moving slowly. She imagines she must be just as stateless as he is.
Klaus has made her stroke her own clit as he fucks into her, as he drinks from her wrist, his tongue following the track of her fingers on her broken, bloodied skin. Memorising for later. Caroline's given in; she's had her eyes closed for a while now.
Finally had his fill, Klaus licks at the punctures in her wrist until they heal, then licks all her blood off. He hadn't spilled one bit: he'd been greedy for everything.
It's Caroline who's wondering if she'll be able to have such control.
Klaus' cock is working a slow, good build of rapture deep in her gut. Usually Caroline would be begging for it by now, his slow torture, but each slide of him against hers wipes the thought from her brain, over and over again.
"Are you planning on coming anytime soon?" she moans.
"I'm all right, sweetheart," Klaus winks.
It drives her insane. She grabs his shoulders and sinks her fangs down onto his chest, onto his soulmark and hears loud wild thrashing in her ears. A million birds screeching, bot not unpleasantly, no, they carried the tune of the forest, calling to the moon. She was one of them, her wings outstretched, looping in the air in huge graceful arcs. She was free—
Her walls clench down on him. Klaus grunts. He hadn't been expecting that, and his thrusts become more forceful now. Caroline keeps drinking. Klaus falls against her heavily, she's trapped against his pillows, blood colours the pristine white of them.
She comes, hard, choking on his blood. She tastes a spark of seasalt in the back of her throat. Klaus takes everything, gives her everything – oh, his thumb had pressed down on her clit when she'd grabbed him by the neck, he had learned the way she likes to be touched—
A second wave of orgasm comes as Klaus continues to slide into her, hard, fast, sweaty and good. More than good. More than anything, really. Strangely enough she felt like singing, like when she was younger and her parents, still very much in love, had bought her to see, and she'd screamed out to the waves all her little girl delights about the world.
"Alright, you've proven yourself," she rasps, clawing at his back, "Come, Klaus. Now. Without a word of gloating, please."
"Who, me?" Klaus bats his lashes against hers, and with a last deviant grin, loses herself in her.
.
.
"I think the order of nature or whatever you call it is good and balanced again," Caroline says in a groggy, heavy haze into his neck.
"You think so, love?" Klaus asks.
The moon's hidden behind a cloud now, and the room is dark blue once again.
"Yeah."
"Even if it remained unbalanced, I'd love you all the same," Klaus says. There's such meaning in his voice that she holds him closer.
"Good," she says. "I'd like that."
.
.
.
fin
please let me know what you think! so far all the originals but elijah have appeared... maybe in the third part? wink wink?