When You Least Expect It:
A Bet Worth Losing
Klaus is part of the reality show "Fools' Folly" with his brothers where they complete a series of tasks in order to best embarrass each other into not completing the task. While taking part of a challenge, Klaus suddenly encounters a young blonde that challenges him even more than the show; and Klaus loves a good challenge.
WARNING: The following drabble contains scenes of graphic stupidity among three brothers who compete to embarrass each other.
"I can't believe it! The wanker's going to do it!"
"Shut up, Kol," Klaus whispered under his breath, doing everything he could not to let his younger brother's incessant yammering break his concentration. He smoothly and delicately placed his last pencil down in the little girl's hooded raincoat along with its predecessors and turned and quickly pretended to be studying the box of crackers in front of him.
"Oh! He did it! I can't believe the old boy did it!"
"Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?" Klaus replied under his breath, glancing up at the hidden camera above him that none of the other shoppers in the grocery store knew about with a smirk. Suddenly another fraternal voice echoed in his head through his earpiece.
"I wouldn't act so smug yet, Niklaus. The little girl seems to have caught on to your little prank..." Elijah said calmly, and Klaus glanced over at the little girl, who was attempting to grab the handful of pencils from her hood in vain like a dog chasing it's tail.
"Uh oh! Oh the mom sees!" The youngest Mikaelson son squawked in his ear, no doubt jumping up and down with glee in the store room where their camera crew had set up monitors for the Mikaelson's to watch their half-brother attempt the same challenge given by their producers.
The Mikaelson trio, thanks to Kol's craftiness and their eldest brother Finn's insistence as a network producer, were the stars of "Fools' Folly," a comedy-reality show where the three brothers competed to embarrass each other out of completing random tasks or acts. It was an interesting show with a simple premise not only from Kol's lack of shame, but Klaus's manipulative prowess and Elijah's surprisingly compelling demeanor over the unknowing recipients of his pranks.
The task at hand that they were currently filming was a simple game of reverse pick-pocketing, or "put-pocketing" as Kol had coined the term, in a grocery store in Virginia. The goal was to put as many pencils on a person as possible without getting caught. If you "put-pocketed" the least pencils or got caught, you lost.
And it was the moment of truth: would Klaus get busted or would he best his brothers at "put-pocketing."
"She sees! She sees!" Kol squealed with glee in Klaus's ear and he snuck stealthy looks at the small girl and her mother that were close by. The mother had taken the handful of pencils out of her daughter's hood and was holding them out towards the girl questioningly, much to the young girl's dismay. "Hahaha! OH MY GOD, YOU GOT THE LITTLE GIRL IN TROUBLE!"
Klaus couldn't help but chuckle at the little girl's expression, both confused and defensive, as her mother placed them down on a random shelf and turned back to her shopping.
"She took the pencils out, Niklaus," Elijah commented.
"Game, set, match! You've gotta get the pencils on them and they've gotta stay!" Kol cackled, and the competitive fire in Klaus bubbled up within him and he huffed with a snarl.
"The game's not over yet, brother," he said, carefully stalking his prey, scooping up the abandoned pencils and swiftly placing them all back in the girl's hood.
"Oh OH!" Kol shouted in his ear piece and even though Klaus dove away from the pair and pretended to be looking at a can of peaches beside him, the young girl began her dog-tail chasing maneuver again before her big brown eyes landed on the curly haired Brit.
"The jig is up, Klaus! You're busted!"
"Technically the mother still hasn't put two and two together, brother," Elijah replied and Kol immediately protested.
"No! Klaus is getting them on the girl, not the mother! That counts as getting caught!"
"Yes, but the parameters were to 'get them on the shopper' and the child is not technically the shopper, the mother is..."
The two brothers continued debating as the little girl gave Klaus a confused look and without thinking, Klaus immediately brought a finger up to his lips, silently commanding the girl to keep quiet. The girl reached for her mother's sleeve and tugged it, begging her mother to turn around, but the woman only swatted away her daughter shooing her away. Not knowing what else to do, Klaus mimed dragging his finger across his throat at the girl, mouthing, "I will kill you." Some might call miming such threatening gesture at a small child uncouth, probably insensitive and no doubt scarring, but they wouldn't have expected the young girl's response: insatiable giggling.
"Shove it, Kol."
"Alright alright. We'll settle this battle tomorrow with a 'Sudden Death' round between you two. Agreed?" Elijah said, commandeering the conversation.
"Agreed," both brothers replied in unison.
"Alright, brothers, today for our 'Sudden Death' challenge to determine who is this week's loser and 'Full on Fool' you will be taking turns enjoying a lovely day at the park with your remote control toy car. The catch? Yours is a dummy remote and I will be controlling your car. Also, you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to say, 'I'm sorry' or issue any kind of apology."
"Interesting challenge," Klaus surmised, arms folded as he stood side by side with his brothers in front of the cameras. "Kol feels no sense of guilt, so it would seem this is his challenge to take."
"No, it is your challenge to take from him, Niklaus. We all know that while our brother is a brazen hoodlum, he is arrogant to think he's undefeatable."
"Arrogant, confident, potato, potahto," Kol replied, weighing imaginary scales with his hands.
"Enough chatter, brothers. Let the idiocy commence!" Elijah proclaimed ceremoniously.
"Alright, Niklaus, Kol's set the bar and it's not a difficult bar to best. The champion muscle builder's threats wore down Kol's sense of invincibility and our producers have agreed that 'My bad, mate,' is an apology. Therefore, you must survive a round of devil cart to send Kol to the loser's box," Elijah's voice reverberated in Klaus's ear.
"Challenge accepted," Klaus replied with a smirk, tucking the dummy remote under his arm to crack his knuckles for show.
"Kol, you best start praying to whatever hedonistic deities you might pray to for a miracle, as one would say," Elijah said to his youngest brother with a sideways glance. Kol pursed his lips, grinding his teeth at the thought of having to film some sort of humiliation as retribution for his competitive losses. His grimace slipped away, however, as he gazed out onto the tiled park steps and fountain, and was replaced with the most mischievous and devious grin the eldest Mikaelson had ever seen.
"Or..." he started, taking the remote from his brother's hands and gesturing with his head, "Maybe all I need is a little blonde distraction."
"I just can't believe after all the promises and swearing and her backstabbing me, he STILL denies they started sleeping together before we broke up," Caroline said, clutching her Starbucks cup of tea, wishing it had a little more vodka than tea in it, as she vented to her two best friends.
"Yeah, you deserved the truth from him after all you went through together, Care," Bonnie agreed empathetically, rubbing her friend's shoulder.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm Team Caroline I'm not siding with Tyler, but I get how hard it is to break it off with someone if you start to have feelings for someone else..." Elena said.
"How can you say-OWW!" Caroline began to argue but was cut off as something hit the back of her heel and Achilles tendon, exposed in her flip flops. She turned around, not knowing what she'd find, and she found a remote control car driving into her heels and backing up to hit her again to repeat the gesture. She eventually placed a flip flopped foot on the car to halt it's movement and she gazed out into the crowd to find the owner of the rogue RV. It didn't take her long to find the only pair of hands in the park holding an antennaed remote control, and she fixed her scowl on the man gazing at her with sheepish dimpled grin.
"Hey. How's it going?" Caroline said pointedly, her casual greeting dripping with agitation and fury.
"Not bad. It's a beautiful day," the stranger replied, his accent rolling over his words as he squinted in the sunlight, not in embarrassment as she would've liked. Caroline huffed at him, not wanting him to think he could get away with doing whatever he wanted because he had an accent and a sexy smirk.
"It is a beautiful day," Caroline echoed, balancing her cup in her one hand while she kept her foot planted on the toy car. "I'd like to enjoy it without you ramming your toy on my heels."
"Of course, love," the man murmured, and Caroline rolled her eyes with a scoff before lifting her foot and giving the toy a slight kick, propelling it back towards the man.
"Asshole..." she muttered, turning back to her friends.
"That was weird," Bonnie chuckled confusedly.
"Yeah, as if my day couldn't get any WORSE... DAMMIT!" Caroline exclaimed, as she felt the familiar jab at her ankles. She turned and swiftly scooped up the car with her free hand, her cardigan nearly sliding off her shoulder as she stooped down, and turned to the car's owner, her hip unconsciously jutting out as she put on her serious, party-organizer voice and called to him.
"Okay, bucko, I'm having a pretty shitty day and I don't need you making it any shittier. One more time and it's going in the fountain!"
"Caroline!" her friends exclaimed, one in horror and one in amusement.
"Won't that mean my day will become 'shitty' then, in your words?" the stranger replied cheekily, his dimples showing.
"Yes. And then maybe my day will become a little less shitty if yours is more shitty. Capiche?"
"Understood, sweetheart."
Caroline stared at him warily before setting the car down again and kicking it more forcefully than she had the last time before turning back to her friends and fixing her cardigan and smoothing out her sundress.
"Caroline, what do you think you're doing, cursing out a complete stranger in the middle of park in broad daylight? There are kids around!" Elena hissed embarrassedly.
"Those kids are lucky that car's not harassing them!" Bonnie pointed out.
"He's lucky I don't take his car and shove it up his-" Caroline started, turning and allowing herself and Bonnie to be hustled away by Elena until she saw the familiar black toy car headed in her direction. She stopped mid-sentence as abruptly as the car did with Caroline's foot crushing the top of it before she scooped it up without a second thought and stalked back towards the fountain they'd left.
"Caroline!" Bonnie called.
"Caroline, don't!" Elena added but it was just about then that Caroline wound up and sent the car whizzing over the heads of a clueless couple making out and watched the toy fall into the fountain with a resounding plop.
Onlookers and people in the park that had witnessed the altercation began applauding and catcalling her, and she turned to face the dimpled man-child gazing at her with a triumphant smile.
"And with that, my day just got better!" she called, turning and marching proudly back to her friends, linking arms with Bonnie and walking in stride with Elena, whose face was to the ground and her hand covering her face as they walked.
"Alright alright, you won that one fair and square, brother," Kol said, admitting defeat. "Besides it was worth embarrassing you in front of that vivacious blonde. She was a tasty little thing, wasn't she?"
"Say another word and I'll tear out your liver..." Klaus half-muttered, half-growled as he yanked out his earpiece and followed the aforementioned 'vivacious blonde.'
He ran to catch up to the trio of young women and nearly got pegged by a car in the crosswalk as he crossed the street haphazardly to keep up with the women. He finally took a chance and called out to her.
"Caroline!"
The blonde froze and her friends turned back to him with surprised looks and glanced back at their friend, murmuring under their breath.
"Caroline, don't be upset, love. It was a prank! We had a little spat, but I'm over it!"
"Oh, well I'm not!" Caroline replied, not bothering to turn to face him, reinforcing that her pleasant tone was entirely sarcastic.
"Well how can I acquit myself?" He added. He watched her come to a stop, and he watched her turn, her floral printed sundress swaying lightly around her and her cardigan clothed arms crossing as she faced him.
"You and your psycho car and your British endearments can leave me alone!" she replied haughtily.
"Oh, come on, love," Klaus replied, seeing the genuine tiredness in her eyes and the very real fed up look in the beautiful blonde's face. "I'm on a television program with my brothers. We do silly competitions to embarrass the other and it's quite popular actually."
"Oh wait, is it 'Fool's Folly'? I thought you looked familiar! You're the middle brother!" Bonnie chimed in. "You've got that uptight older brother and cute younger brother."
"I'm sure Kol will be glad to hear he's caught your fancy," Klaus chuckled as he rolled his eyes.
"So wait, are we, like going to be on TV?! All of us?!" Elena added. "I don't want to be associated with this. I want my face blurred out. Can you blur my face out?"
"Of course," Klaus nodded. "If the three of you wouldn't mind accompanying me to sit down with our producers to review the footage and terms of usage? Coffee's on me." He thought he'd won them over until Caroline scoffed and glanced away from him.
"Oh, come on. Take a chance, Caroline. Talk to me. Meet my brothers. Get to know me. I dare you."
Caroline glanced back at the dimpled man and noticed for the first time, unclouded by annoyance and ire, just how handsome he was. Rugged five o'clock shadow, bright sea green eyes, curly dirty blonde hair. She did her best to hide her smirk, which was a direct result of Klaus's confident and infectious smirk.
"Fine," she sighed, half smiling as Klaus stretched his hand out in front of himself, beckoning her to lead the way back to the fountain where it all started.
Shout out to my partner-in-crime Alex and my graphically gifted Sister Wife Leah for beta'ing this for me and being my sounding boards.
I will post links to the pranks that inspired this drabble (clearly inspired by the show Impractical Jokers) on my tumblr!