Love Bites

by adlyb

Pairing: Klaus/Elena

Rating: R

Spoilers: Through season 4 of TVD

Warnings: Explicit sex, excessive bloodplay, angst, more angst, depression, canon-typical violence

Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.

A/N: Just a short little holiday project. Daily small updates until finished.

"This is absurd," Elena mutters. "How does Klaus have the authority to put someone under house arrest?"

Caroline readjusts the heaping basket of baked goods and sweets in her arms and fidgets with the blue satin bow. There's a huge GET WELL SOON! card, signed by what looks like the entirety of Mystic High, sticking out from the top.

Elena eyes the basket hard. Her stomach aches, but maybe if she could just find something to snack on, then she could distract herself. And Tyler will definitely have something on hand for her to drink. That always seems to work.

"Well, it's convenient anyway," her friend says, oblivious to the internal war of self-control Elena wages. "Ty can't come to school if he's supposedly recovering from being shot, but he'd never miss playoffs if he wasn't under marching orders."

Elena rings the doorbell. "You really think he'd blow our cover over basketball?"

"Yes! He already missed most of his senior football season, I'm sure this is killing him." She straightens the card, so it's standing straight up in the little plastic brace supporting it, and smooths the bow again. The fretting rakes against Elena's already frayed nerves. Still. She knows Caroline well enough to know there's something she's sublimating with perfectionism.

"What's up?" Elena asks. Through the door, she can hear three unfamiliar male voices, squabbling over an xbox control. Every now and then, some imminently bored girl drawls what she assumes is supposed to be a cutting remark.

Caroline turns. "Why would anything be up? Nothing's up."

"Care—"

Tyler swings the door open and offers them both an exasperated smile. "Welcome to the mandatory party. Hey, is that basket for me?"

They follow Tyler up the stairs and down the hall to Tyler's wing of the house. In the sitting room adjacent to his bedroom, set up as a teenage boy's den, a group of what Elena supposes must be Tyler's hybrid bodyguards huddle around a plasma screen.

The smell crashes into her as soon as she enters the room. Scattered on end tables and windowsills are glasses with the sticky residue of human blood. There are other things too—empty beer bottles and tumblers that had once held bourbon or rye, an open pizza box with nothing but a few crumbs and a thick grease stain left in it. But everywhere she looks, all she can focus on are those trace amounts of blood filming the glasses.

Immediately, her vision darkens and narrows. Her teeth ache against her gums, and she knows that if she looked in the mirror she would see the beginnings of those dreaded veins writhing under her eyes. More than anything in the world, she wants to run her fingers inside those glasses, gather up all the blood they have in them, and lick her fingers clean. Except, if she does that, she'll just retch up whatever pathetic amount she's able to collect.

"Caroline," she whispers as quietly as she can—and that is very quiet indeed, with a room full of supernatural hearing. A room full of vampires and hybrids whose senses are probably all better than hers, because they've all been able to keep a healthy diet of human blood down, she thinks bitterly. No, not bitterly. Not bitterly, because her misery means she has been successful in hurting no one at all. Only herself, and she would gladly hurt herself every day for the rest of eternity rather than hurt an innocent, living person.

She has to try twice more before she can break Caroline's attention away from whatever conversation Tyler is having with the dark haired sullen girl on the couch.

Caroline, still holding the basket, returns to her side. She takes stock of Elena's face, the subtle signs that she's about to slip.

"I need to get out of here," she murmurs. "But I can't—" She gestures longingly at all of the empty glasses.

Understanding breaks across Caroline's face. Pity. She nods, sets the basket down, and takes hold of her arm. "I'll help you. C'mon." She turns to call over her shoulder, "Ty, we have to go. I'll be back later." She says this last with a bit of a warning edge, but Elena doesn't have time to ponder that.

Everything seems to pulse, that too bright fizzing sensation she remembers from the transition.

The magic animating you is still settling.

Maybe she really will fall apart.

They never make it out of the room.

A shadow blocks their path.

"Elena."

She has no choice then but to look up, compelled by the force of her name, said like that.

Klaus fills the doorway. Compared to the rest of them, he has a different sort of presence entirely. He's not particularly tall, but he towers over them like they're children.

"We're on our way out, Klaus," Caroline informs him. She tries to slip past him but he shifts in the doorway, keeping them penned in the room.

"Oh, why so soon? You've only just arrived, haven't you?" He's saying this to Caroline, but it's Elena forced to hold his stare. Those blue eyes never waver from her face.

This is just so not the time for this. She's about five breaths away from doing something really stupid that will expose her to everyone as a weak, defective, easy target. And just when she barely, barely gets it together enough to rein herself in, Klaus has to muck it all up. She cannot believe him.

She blocks out any and all reasons her mind oh so helpfully supplies her for why he would be looking at her so intently.

Caroline pastes a tight smile on her face. Her grip tightens on Elena's wrist. "Elena and I wanted a breath of fresh air. Too many canines in the room."

This teases a smile out of Klaus, soft and amused and different than the smiles he gives her. The surge of jealousy catches her totally off-guard.

Elena breaks free from Caroline to push past Klaus, but he snakes an arm out and throws an arm around her shoulder, effectively pinning her against him. She wishes she could stake him right about now.

Klaus pays absolutely no mind to her bristling body language as he drops a stick of dynamite into the room. "Speaking of dogs, has your Mr. Lockwood found the time to confess to you his dalliances with the little she-wolf? No?" He takes in Caroline's thunderstruck expression. The way Tyler and that girl on the couch freeze. This time, his smile is anything but soft. "Oops."

Caroline turns to Tyler, and Tyler throws up his hands, and Klaus takes the opportunity of their confrontation to spirit her from the room. They cross the length of the house, to another wing entirely, and wind up in an empty study dominated by a large mahogany desk. Klaus shuts the door behind them and locks it.

"Alone at last," he says with a sigh.

Fury spikes through her. "Not for long. I'm leaving." She marches past him to the door. She desperately needs to escape this situation yesterday.

"Oh, come on, now. Don't be so melodramatic." He reaches out to touch her shoulder, and she spins around to face him.

"You're cruel just to be cruel, Klaus. It makes me sick." She tries to shove him away, but he's so very, very strong, even now. Tears gather in her eyes. Jealousy, anger... and yes, there. Desire. She's on absolute overload. She's going to explode.

He doesn't let her go, but neither does he drag her closer, the way part of her expects and craves. "Would you rather your friend continued blissfully unaware? I think I did her a service."

"I know you have some weird fetish for screwing with my life, but Caroline is off-limits."

This surprises him. He lets her go and circles over to the desk, his back to her. "Some weird fetish for screwing with your life?" he repeats.

Elena edges toward the door. Carefully, she turns the knob while his back is turned. The damned thing needs a key to be unlocked. A key, she realizes, which must be in Klaus's pocket. Maybe she can rip the door off its hinges. That seems like something she should be able to do now.

Klaus looks up at her, sees her by the door, and this slow, creeping smile twists his mouth. It's not really a smile at all. "Ah, turned rabbit, are we? It doesn't suit you in the least." He stalks toward her. "I thought it was time for us to have a little talk. A heart to heart, if you will."

"I don't know what we could possibly have to talk about." She yanks on the door. The hinges pop. It should be easier than this, if she had only ever had enough to really eat. Not once since she turned has she managed that.

Klaus pauses a mere foot away from her and cocks his head. He appraises her openly, his eyes trailing over every inch of her in a way that makes her stomach clench. "You should be thanking me for getting you out when I did," he drawls. "You're obviously about to faint—which takes some doing in our kind. Tell me, how is this Matt fellow faring?"

"He's fine. I'm fine."

"Wonderful. Then you'll do me the favor of staying put for a chat."

"No thank you."

"I do not think my request unreasonable," he tells her mildly. Casually, he raises his wrist to his mouth. Oh no. She's riveted—utterly captivated—as he bites down and the dark, wild tang of his blood explodes through the room. "It is," he continues as though he has not unleashed this most irresistible of bombshells on her, "may I remind you, you who were the one who first engaged me." He swoops in, then, and pins her against the door with his hard, lean body. One hand tangles in her hair. His chest brushes hers, so she can feel each ragged breath he takes. He is not nearly so composed as he wants her to believe. He brandishes his wrist right in front of her face. All she would have to do to taste him again would be to lean forward, just barely. That tantalizing scent grabs hold of her whole body and begs her to do it. He so very clearly wants her to do it.

She is so very, very hungry. For more than just blood.

It would be surpassing fancy to imagine her capable of resisting.

But there is that voice, in the back of her head—the voice of the girl who knows that this is wrong, that it's not just a betrayal of Stefan, her boyfriend whom she loves, really she does—it's a betrayal of everyone else she loves—and of herself. Because, today, she's not doing this to punish herself. She's doing this because she wants to feel. And, so far, this is the only thing she's found that works.

That voice is so very quiet, and the sound of Klaus's heart, hammering in his chest, is so much louder. It's drowned out so easily, so lost, and she is lost. Drowned.

Elena leans forward and laps at the blood at Klaus's wrist. Some light suction, and the partly healed bitemark bursts open again. Heat and longing and life, sharp and bright and full and ripe, burst over her tongue, wash over her bones. There's power here in this blood that she almost recognizes, but she can't quite put her finger on why, but she responds to it, differently than she had responded to Damon's blood. Klaus's grip on her hair grows merciless, but she revels in that scalp-tingling sear, because it's a full true feeling, and for so long she has been nothing but numb, numb, numb. Her heart lurches painfully in her chest, the muscles unused to working at their normal speed, and her blood—his blood?—feels like fire in her veins as it races to expel the death from her muscles and bones. She feels like a sparkler going off when her fangs slice into his arms.

"There's my girl," he breathes. He crowds her against the door, and she cannot help herself, just like she couldn't help herself in the bathroom last week—she rolls her hips and rises up, meeting the impatient thrust of his hips, reveling in the feel of this sleek, powerful body against her own. One leg hooks around his waist, and the world see-saws as the door groans and cracks, and she loses her footing altogether.

They collapse onto the floor and her fangs disengage with a clack as she lands on top of Klaus.

If there is a moment to run, this is it.

Except he leans up on his elbows and captures her face between his hands, and he kisses her like the stars are going out.

This all feels like a mess and a problem and maybe like the worst thing she's ever, ever done, but it also feels like something. Her body pulses, heart and lungs and blood and desire, hot and slick, a galloping throb that washes away everything frightening and wretched.

When he kisses her, she forgets she wants to die.

A/N: Hold tight, I might have a second update coming along later today. Because, you know, I had too much sangria last night and couldn't update on time.