A/N- Hi Everyone, here's hoping this site hasn't screwed up again! Thanks for reading.
There was a huge difference between fighting with your friends in college and fighting with your friends as adults.
For one thing, aside from the incident in the closet, she and Klaus hadn't had a blow-up or any kind of shouting match, she'd just snapped at him and stormed out.
And now, they weren't talking.
Kind of.
He wasn't contacting her and she wasn't sure if it was because they were still fighting or because he'd lost his phone again.
Still, she decided on Wednesday afternoon when he hadn't contacted her that she'd throw herself into her work and not think about him until close of business on Friday.
Except that Marcel messaged her Friday morning when she was kicking Enzo out the door so she could get ready for work and try to combat the slight hangover that would make her afternoon unpleasant. He was inviting her to lunch and she accepted, part of her hoping it would be a group thing and part of her hoping that a certain Brit wouldn't be there.
As it turned out, he wasn't.
She and Marcel tried a new restaurant that wasn't anywhere close to their usual haunts and she's about to ask why when she sees Davina waiting out the front practically bouncing with excitement.
"She's never left the school for lunch before," he explains under his breath, "She's been talking about it for days now."
Caroline grins and pats him on the back before receiving an armful of happy teenager who air-kissed her cheeks.
The wait-staff mistook Caroline and Marcel for teachers and brought out the food quicker than they expected and Marcel cleared his throat as Davina dove into her pasta dish.
"You and Nik are fighting," he begins and Caroline rolls her eyes, even as she's somewhat glad that someone other than the two of them noticed.
"Not exactly, we're fine."
She's never really fought with anyone as an adult but she figures it's kind of like high-school or college where if other people know that two people are fighting, they'll shame or bully them into making up.
Not that Caroline thought she was in the wrong, but there was only so long she wanted to go without talking to Klaus and she figured it'd be easier to offer a fake apology or start talking to him again if they were in a group setting and it was for the sake of their friends.
"He's not." Davina mutters under her breath and Caroline has a moment of concern before Marcel rolls his eyes, "D, for the last time, he's not dating a serial killer."
"He's not dating anyone," Caroline comments automatically, "Right?" she asks when both of them seem surprised by her quick response.
"Just some brunette," Marcel clears his throat, "Uh…I think you know her, Hayley?"
"No…" Davina protested, "Not her, she's fine, she's actually kind of cool,"
"The other woman at the bar."
Caroline leans back in her seat and exchanges a look with Marcel,
"Ashley must have followed me." She decides with a sigh, "I can't really talk to her at work, but maybe…"
She trails off, not sure what to do. She'd always low-key worried that one of Klaus' flings would not be happy when the relationship ended, there had been a few who trash-talked him, one who'd turned up at the studio and one who'd turned up at her apartment to beg her to talk to him for her. She'd quickly talked Marcel and Stefan into helping her run interference, kindly but firmly letting them know that their behaviour wasn't okay and that they could move on or explain their behaviour to the police. Still, she'd always worried that one of these flings wouldn't take no for an answer and start stalking him.
"Leave it," Marcel tells her, waving his hand, "Nik knows the damn consequences to being a damn who…har…" he stumbles and looks to Davina, clearly struggling to find an appropriate word. Davina looks up from the bread she was buttering, her eyes large and innocent in her youthful face,
"Fuckboy?" she offers, and Caroline snorts into her wine, coughing as she tries to catch her breath while laughing.
"Yes," she gasps, after Marcel whacks her on the back, "That!"
"You should not know that word," Marcel lectures, pointing a finger at her and signalling the waitress for the bill, "Look, are you coming out with us tomorrow?"
Caroline's surprised there isn't anything happening tonight but she gets the details for some sort of party out in the Bayou and represses a shudder at the thought of all the bug spray she'll need.
Gross.
"Okay, this is gross," Hayley complained as she smacked her arm, killing a mosquito and wiping the mess on her denim shorts, "And hot as f…"
"Hey," she stammered as Caroline approached, "How are you?"
Caroline has run a whole gamut of weird reactions to her from Klaus' flings, but Hayley has the usual hint of awkwardness and friendly eagerness that she's used to.
"Thought Australians could handle the heat." she teased, glad that while she was wearing only a romper with her hair in a fashionably messy knot, she seemed to be handling the heat better than the denim short and repurposed men's shirt outfit Hayley had on.
"Common misconception," Hayley drawled, using her watch to open a beer bottle, "Don't tell anyone, but we have air conditioning everywhere the second it hits thirty degrees Celsius."
Caroline doesn't know what that works out in Fahrenheit but she does know that the humidity reached new heights of unpleasantness the second the minibus hit the Bayou.
As it turned out, the thing Marcel had invited her to was a fundraiser for environment conservation in the Bayou, something Hayley had to attend because of work and Marcel was attending because it was a networking opportunity for him.
Caroline had no idea why she, Stefan and the rest of their rag-tag bunch were at this picnic which had nice tables, decent catering but little shade and too much free booze for good decisions to be made.
She already knew that tomorrow was going to be spent hungover and discovering which parts of her body had weird sunburns.
Hayley is suddenly flushing and rushing away so quickly Caroline wonders if she should offer a tampon when she sees her beaming cheek to cheek at some plaid shirt guy who had just arrived.
"Bloody hell," a voice behind her snaps and Caroline glances over her shoulder to see Klaus glaring up at the sun,
"Why my people thought fighting to keep this land was a good idea, I'll never know."
Caroline knows he's attempting to get them back to normal and she should make some quip about bitterness and Boston tea, but the pre-noon heat has her feeling bitchy.
"I'm surprised you and Hayley lasted long enough for you to score an invite." she mutters and he steps beside her, sipping on a long island ice tea and jerking his chin towards her.
"She has been using me and brought me here to incite jealousy in that…" Klaus pauses,
"I want to say human but those teeth and that hair have me thinking there's some moose in his ancestry."
Caroline laughs, "Oh like anyone from the UK can make jokes about teeth."
And just like that, they're back to where they were.
Getting tipsy, surrounded by people and wondering if they'll be fooling around with each other later.
There's one decent picnic blanket under shade and it had been commandeered by two middle aged ladies, but Caroline sends Klaus over to charm them both into joining him at the bar for more drinks at which point she finds two middle aged men to make conversation with them, leaving Klaus to score the blanket, laying claim with Stefan beside him.
Caroline notes that Stefan's hair is the only thing not wilting in the heat, and takes out her phone to subtly check if they could get an Uber this far from civilisation.
She can't even get it on because her battery is dodgy at the moment.
"Should I even ask?" she queries, turning to Klaus who shrugs,
"No idea what happened to my last one." He says, not the least bit concerned about his latest lost phone.
Stefan chuckles, "I feel as though we should get you a pager instead."
"No," she counters, "He'd lose that too."
"Ooh," Hayley said as she approached, "You could put a tracking tag in his ear."
Caroline notes that she's holding hands with moose-man, "There's an idea." she grins, giving the woman the unspoken invitation back into the group, something Klaus' flings were rarely given.
Jackson, as it turns out moose-man is called, works with Hayley in the Bayou and as such, carries an emergency pack on him at all times, which included the basic first aid kit and also, a portable phone charger.
In thirty minutes, Caroline had full battery and an appreciation for Jackson.
She sends Klaus and Stefan to start covertly gathering up the group and books two Uber pools with a twenty-minute wait time because of how far out they were and kills time by browsing her social media. She sees she has a friend request from someone she doesn't immediately recognize but sees that she volunteered at the same homeless shelter she often collected food and clothes for.
And one from Enzo which she accepts as well.
Trying to round up a group of nine people- Marcel, Vincent, Thierry, Monique, Stefan, Klaus, Hayley, Jackson and herself and get them into cars wasn't easy. It was made worse when they were disgruntled from the sunburn, tipsy from the alcohol and talking over each other.
Still, Caroline corralled them into the cars and then trusted the drivers to get them to the French Quarter so they could start finding their ways home.
Unfortunately, Klaus had managed to get into the front passenger seat and was soon sweet talking the driver of his car into driving them on to a beer garden he knew, so Caroline had to get the driver in her car to follow, apologizing and hoping that it wouldn't affect her rating.
A beer garden sounds like a terrible idea to her when they've already had enough to drink, but when she finds out it does lunch she relaxes.
The garden is a paved courtyard with a water feature trickling merrily against the brick wall and a canopy of grapevines overheard providing shade.
The tables are ten seaters and the group lays claim to one, Caroline taking her place and Klaus dropping down beside her, while the pretty blonde waitress stares at them.
She figures it's the pondering gaze of a hospitality worker who is trying to figure out if her day just became a nightmare with a group booking and Caroline does her best to give a friendly smile as she asks for menus.
It's a German themed beer garden and it turns out Klaus knows the owner from somewhere, the man wandering out to make conversation with him in the language, a few words of which Caroline likes to pretend she can recognize due to their similarity to English.
Pitchers of beer are ordered but pitchers of water somehow make it to the table first and Stefan nobly pours everyone a glass and tries to encourage them to rehydrate as the menus are laid down.
Klaus' arm is around the back of their seat and Caroline leans into him a little as they peruse the menu, she's not seeing much beyond meat with sides of cabbage and more meat, but when Marcel orders platters for the group, her mouth waters at the sight of the grilled vegetables that are placed before her.
The beer arrives in individual steins ten minutes after they've started eating and she is pretty certain that Stefan planned it that way, Klaus himself openly accusing their unrepentant friend. They're talking and laughing but they aren't being so loud that they chase away other customers, although a priest does come through at one point, look at them judgmentally and turn right around again.
Caroline wipes her hands on her napkin and wants to go to the bathroom to wash her fingers, which somehow managed to get greasy even though she had used cutlery but Klaus' arm has slipped down to her shoulder and she's enjoying the contact too much.
Until it feels a little too heavy and a there's a prickling sensation on the back of her neck.
"Hey," she turns to Klaus and sees his eyes are drooping, and his cheeks are too flushed.
"Stefan!" She cries just as he loses consciousness and jumps to her feet, knocking her knees on the wooden table and Marcel follows.
Stefan moves quickly but calmly, sitting Klaus back and pulling down his lids to look into his eyes,
"Pupils are responsive," he murmurs, "Okay, does anyone know what he's taken?"
What?
"Seriously?!" Caroline snaps, "It's barely four pm and we've been at a freaking picnic, he won't have taken anything!"
"This isn't just alcohol related though," Jackson points out, calm as well and Caroline figures he must have first-aid training for work.
"What does he usually take?"
Weed and cocaine were their favourites but Caroline knows he hadn't taken anything that day because he would have shared with her.
"Wait…" Hayley chimes in, "Antihistamines, we stopped at a pharmacy on the way to buy some because Caroline gets hay-fever."
That's true and somehow this was always the one thing she forgot to stock up on.
And she knew you couldn't mix them with alcohol.
"This is a pretty bad reaction for them, though." She murmurs, uncertain but Stefan shrugs,
"I've seen worse, from you, actually."
He stands, "Okay, you and I can get him home to sleep it off."
The waitress comes out and assesses the situation, "He's friends with the owner," she reminds them, "I'm sure he could lay in the office for a while."
The owner goes one step further and offers to take him back to his place but Caroline shakes her head, "We'll take care of him."
She hurries to the street and waves down a taxi, Stefan able to support Klaus who is leaning against him heavily, barely conscious and wrangle him into the backseat.
The driver takes a little convincing that Klaus hasn't taken heroin- the guy is concerned about him puking in the taxi- and perhaps that fear alone has him taking them directly to their apartment building instead of the roundabout way taxi drivers' usually did.
She opens Klaus' front door and direct Stefan to the bedroom, where Klaus is dropped onto the bed and rolls over onto his side, groaning slightly and Caroline's heart breaks.
"Should we maybe take him to a hospital?" she asks concerned but Stefan shakes his head,
"It might only be Saturday afternoon but I guarantee the local ED's are already at bursting point with patients from last night, besides, he can sleep it off."
He squeezes her arm comfortingly, "It's no worse than the time you forgot you'd taken Zyrtec and had two martinis remember?"
No.
That night was really blurry.
"That's me though," she argues as the two of them make their way to Klaus' kitchen,
"I've seen him throw back sixteen beers, smoke enough weed to sedate San Francisco and be perfectly fine afterwards."
She says this while she moves around the kitchen, trying to act casual even as she feels a burst of pride by how at home she must look there, knowing where everything was and getting Stefan a can of the Scottish soda that wasn't sold in the U.S and Klaus had to buy online.
Stefan only shrugs, "And I used to be able to snort enough cocaine to keep six Columbian drug lords in business but I'm still getting shaky if I have more than three coffees a day."
She accepts this with a sigh and tells him that she's going to stay and keep an eye on Klaus anyway and he gives her a friendly hug as he leaves.
"He's lucky to have you." he whispers in her ear and she grins, "He's lucky to have you too."
Stefan hums in a manner that seems a little weird but she lets it go. Heading to the couch and slumping onto it with a sigh.
How to kill the next few hours?
Klaus had a small shelf which had been overstuffed with books. A few classics and the prerequisite collection of Orwell, Salinger, Nietzsche, that Caroline had noticed on every reading list of white male college graduates that she'd dated. She thumbs one curiously and looks at the easels Klaus had scattered around his apartment. She would never go near his sketchbook without invitation because she figured it was his version of a locked diary, but she admires his paintings as much as she's able to without a trained eye.
A beautiful sunset, one of a woman standing on a porch, New Orleans at night…
She wonders if she can ask for a painting for her next birthday.
She's curled up on his couch, catching up on her Netflix watch list when he staggers out of the bedroom, "Food and water." He mumbles and she pushes herself up,
"Back to bed," she orders, going to the kitchen to pour him a glass of water, "You need rest."
He complies and she grabs her phone, taking it into the bedroom with her and settling with her back against the pillows while she browses online for delivery. He has a king-sized bed which he'd bought by accident because he'd always thought queen-sized where the biggest ones, so they have plenty of room to move but she still ends up closer to him than strictly necessary.
"What do you feel like eating?" she asks, as he lies beside her, rubbing his eyes,
"What happened?" he queries, "I can't remember anything past the picnic."
"You had a bad reaction to the antihistamine you took," she told him quietly, "It was a little scary but Stefan and I got you home."
He rolls onto his back and tilts his head to look at her, "What antihistamine?"
She raised her eyebrows, "The one you bought this morning with Hayley?"
He sighs, "Bloody hell, was it cut with ice?"
She scoffed, "Seriously?! Okay, we need to get some food into you."
She orders Chinese food for them both and lies back, Klaus shuffling over to rest his head on her leg and sighs. With a shaking hand, she plays gently with his hair in what she hopes is a platonic manner, "We had lunch at a beer garden, you had a conversation with the owner in pretty fluent German. He offered to take you back to his place."
Klaus opens his eyes and frowns in confusion, "Okay, either we were at Ansel's beer garden or I need to be mildly concerned."
She bumps him with her knee and he slips his hand under her calf, squeezing it gently before they lapse into easy silence. Klaus' bedroom was peaceful, especially because it was facing south so they didn't catch the afternoon sun, only a bit of light and shadows. He's restless beside her but clearly trying to relax and she contemplates how they can pass the time when his hand starts creeping up her thigh…
Just as there is a knock on the door.
She laughs over his groan, going to collect their food and planning on how to spend the rest of the afternoon teasing and cockblocking him.
She was glad they were back to normal.
A/N- Thanks for reading!