Let's head for the iceberg.
An. More Klaus. Some days later.
The English language was a funny, funny thing. It was horribly, horribly complicated on one hand with ancient rules against ending sentences with prepositions, and absurdly simple on the other with neat made-up words – 'bitch-slap' – for instance. It wasn't too good for poetry and arty literature. It wasn't the best for music – he'd dare someone to enjoy an English Opera… It was thoroughly inadequate when it came to prayers, lamentations, curses and occult prophecies, but it was very, very good at summing things up. Example – 'sad'. A simple three letter word. Basic, pedestrian, unpretentious and exquisitely, superbly descriptive.
'Sad'.
' I am sad.' He could sum it all up just like that.
I feel like Rose after Jack dies.
Or like a war orphan.
Or like a bird with two broken wings.
Or sad. Just say sad.
The moon was too bright for sadness, though. It was big and full and perfect and shining down on him alone. La Luna, she'd showed up for their date right on time, lovely as ever, and he was asking for a rain check.He didn't feel like it, painting the town red. Burgundy perhaps, or a moss green, but not red. He didn't feel like letting the animal out. In fact, the animal didn't want to come out. It wanted to huddle up in the back of a cave somewhere and cry itself to sleep. Not cry… The animal never cried. Whimper, perhaps. It was easy to keep that idiotic leering grin on his face, easy to pretend to be heartless, icy and dead. But he was flesh, still... His tear ducts had gone defunct sometime over the last millennia due to disuse, but he could cry on the inside still, maybe.
Sad. Was it just sadness, or something worse? Something like fear? It had been so long since he'd been afraid of anything, he couldn't recognise the feeling. Back then when he was young and human, with his head reaching up to his mother's waist, he fancied that he'd been afraid of things. He'd been afraid of fireflies because he thought they'd be hot for some reason and burn him. He'd been afraid of moths, garden lizards, and rats. He'd been afraid of the geese in the backyard and the one-eared dog… Centuries later, he had his doubts.
Maybe that time when old One Ear had bit him hadn't been so bad. The whole family had laughed about it around the campfire and the actual bite hadn't hurt too much.
Fear might be something worse than a scream, a bit of panic and a good laugh later. Fear might be more subtle.
A soft breeze was blowing, working cool icicles through his scalp, and massaging his limbs ever so gently. Normally, he was a big fan of autumn. He was all for orange leaves falling from on high and nippy afternoon strolls on slippery roads but this time, as the lazy heat of summer began to give way to the winter chill, Klaus imagined the coldness had found a way to breach his skin and flesh and crawl into heart. Something inside him was dying, painfully and agonisingly. Something momentous was shifting in him, rolling around like ascites loose in his belly. Some organ on the inside was going gangrene. Something vital was crumbling to dust and for all his alleged immortality, he might not survive it.
I am not okay.
Understatement.
Nine years?
What could he do with that?
Nine?
Only nine?
The breeze in his hair was replaced by fingers so slowly and imperceptibly that he startled when she laughed. A welcomed sound, disturbing the mournful peace. Welcomed, and yet unwelcomed at the same time. He wished she hadn't come out to him. He wished he'd never met her. He wished she'd never been born. He wished her parents had never been born. He wished witches didn't exist. "Hey…" Wasn't that pathetic? Hey?
"I figured you'd be running buck through the woods by now," she said behind him and pressed her lips into his hair. Her arms came around his neck in a weak, brief hug. She smelt like blood and… Blood and that something he'd never been able to name. Magic? Can I smell magic? What about death?
"I'm going," he sighed and stretched. "Just waiting on you."
"Me?" She swung around from the back of the chair and dropped herself on the armrest. "Tonight's the season finale of Doctor Who, and besides, howling at the moon's not my style."
"Not your style…" he echoed. She was wearing something hideous again. Jeans and some kind of top - not a dress, not a shirt, some thing plain and white and swallowing. Honestly, the only good thing about her clothes was that he got to take them off. Someday, he'd light up a bonfire and burn every scrap. Keep her naked forever. Or for the next nine years… He frowned.
"Uhhh!" she groaned and threw back her head. "What's wrong with you? Stop it!"
"Stop what?"
"Moping! It's like you dropped your lollipop and can't afford a new one."
"Dropped my scoop of ice cream, you mean. No one drops lollipops."
"Whatever. Point is, you're moping."
"I'm not moping," he lied. He was doing exactly that. He'd pulled the recliner all the way out all the way to the balcony just to mope. To mope and feel sorry for himself. To feel angry and bitter and hateful, and she was ruining the mood. "I'm just…"
"Moping," she finished. "About what?"
Guess. "I feel like the last dodo bird." Bad analogy, that. There was absolutely nothing similar between dodo birds and vampire-werewolf hybrids. He'd never become extinct. The world would turn to dust, and the sun would implode on itself before his end. He'd see mountains crumble and cities turn into rainforests. A dodo bird would never be able to relate.
"You're the first dodo."
"First, only and last. Synonyms."
"And the big bad wolf is starting to feel lonely?" she smirked. Mockingly. Perfectly. "It's not as if you bend over backwards to ingratiate yourself with real people. If you want friends, you have to learn to play nice when you go to the sandbox. Stop beating people up."
Maybe it was the wolf in him, but he got off on being brutish and violent. The honest damned truth. He liked being the major domo of the world. He liked being a living breathing mass of malevolence. He liked being untouchable.
Except… sometimes he didn't quite mind being touched...
"But I like beating people up," he said and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking it like any old playground bully would. "It's what I do."
She shrugged.
He shrugged. "That, and I love you."
She laughed, again, and while the sound made him think about doves and angels, harps and wind chimes, it wasn't quite the reaction he'd been going for. Huh. He snaked an arm around her waist and dragged her down from the armrest into his lap. "I love you. Now, say it back."
"Or else?"
He put his fingers around her throat, half in joke. "Or else, I kill you right here and now with my own hands and be done with it. Maybe this time you'd stay dead and I'd hit the market tomorrow for a rebound girl. Bonnie, probably."
"That's the very best you can do?" she huffed. "The very fact that you'd need a 'rebound' girl after me makes you seem a little… needy."
Was that derision? Had he fallen so low as to have his minions poke fun at him? The girl was a minion, why the attitude? "I've never denied the fact that I need you," a little defensively, "I'm only adding something new to our dynamic. I love you."
"You don't. You're accustomed to me."
"Is there a difference?"
She frowned exaggeratedly. "It's sad that you don't know."
Lots of things are sad. "Teach me then."
"It's closer to that bromance thing you have going on with Maddox and Stefan–"
"Come on, I'm a healthy, male vampire-werewolf hybrid. I have a right to at least three homoerotic friendships in my lifetime."
"Who's number three?"
"I don't know… The school-teacher, probably. I like his hair. I find myself wanting to buy clothes for him, or a new car. Leave money on his doorstep or something. I feel sorry for him; being a history teacher in Mystic Falls has got to bite ass, but he keeps hanging around willing to go toe to toe with the meanies… That's loyalty for you. And we killed his girlfriend last year, remember?"
"Loyalty?" she scoffed, "I got drugged, my neck broken, drained down to my bone marrow, blasted to smithereens literally, reassembled, and as a bonus, I get to die one more time in nine years when my magic runs out. I'm so lucky I get to put it on my calendar – by the way, the countdown stands at eight years ten months two weeks. Nine years and poof, I either turn into a lobotomized version of myself, a flesh eating zombie," she counted it off on her fingers, "or I go back to being dust in the wind clogging up your air vents."
Oh, she heard that. "I don't do pity parties, sweetheart. In the very beginning I warned you. With Maddox gone, somebody had to die for me."
"I've never not been willing to die for you."
He managed to smile at that. "You sound fanatical."
"I am. That's why I'm here. I'm the moth to your flame, all the other metaphorical, ephemeral creatures implied."
His eyebrows furrowed as he watched the traffic snake its way slowly along. "It's dangerous work then, being a metaphorical, ephemeral creature. You moths should evolve."
"Why? Some fires wouldn't know what to do with themselves with a good moth… "
"So, what's your grouse?"
"We moths have been getting together–"
Klaus nodded fervently. "Good! You've a union, I suppose?"
"Working title: the KFSA – Klaus' Female Sidekicks Association. It's still in the teething stages, but yes… and we've decided that we moths deserve a little more in way of reparation. For instance, in light of my unflagging devotion and recent hardships… where's my new car? Where's my reward?"
"Tell me you love me, and I give myself to you. And a car. How's that for a reward?"
"You know I love you. I could only be here if I loved you."
"Do you?" he squirmed on the chair, the uncomfortableness of the conversation rubbing him entirely the wrong way. The L word… That forbidden word. "You had to think about it for too long., rambling about moths… Five things you love about me. Spot quiz."
"I'm never good at quizzes." She kissed his hair again, ran her fingers through just the way she knew he liked.
"Give it a go."
"I love… that you buy Kelloggs' Cereal Smart Start despite the fact that none of us qualify as human anymore. I love that you trust me with important things, like guarding your body. That pony you bought for Annie's birthday was nice, and you made me wish you were my father."
"Father? One of those fathers who believe in spanking?"
"Ew. Didn't mean it like that. I meant it more in the way that I love how fatherly you can be at times. And that's three… You've never killed anyone related to me – four – and when you look at me, you make me forget that other people exist. You make me forget that I exist. It's easier to live and die for you, than it was before – just breathing for the sake of being alive. Five."
He should write that last part down. People only say things like that in romance movies, never in real life and absolutely never to him. When you compel people they lose that sense of creativity. It's less sincere, by far. "I was expecting something more on the lines of my hair, or my strong masculine jaw, but I suppose that'll do. A bit mushy…" he shrugged.
"Five things about me, then," she cooed, almost bouncing. "Five reasons why you love me."
He grinned, trailing a finger up and down a collar bone. So breakable. Every now and then, he'd get this urge to just break her. Grind her down to dust and remould her with his own fingers and his own flesh and his own blood. "Mostly, your vagina. Especially how you get so puffy and sore the day after I fuck you. How wet you get when I touch you. how you taste. Really, you've a top notch cunt." The cumulative amount of hours he spent inside her was bound to leave him biased. "Your fantastic ass, I love that too. Your fingers, your collarbones and that disgustingly amazing mouth of yours, tongue and teeth included. There."
She shook her head. "Five nonsexual reasons."
"Five? Non-sexual? I can't put my finger on one…" Laugh, laugh.
The first time he'd seen her in the occult corner of a library, he'd tried to compel her to go away with him. When that had failed, he'd tried to talk her into it – spoke up all the benefits and glory involved in being his sidekick, leaving out the part about her increased risk of suffering a bloody and/or violent death. She'd resisted up to the point where he'd had to resort to a handkerchief and a bottle of liquid ether… Kidnapping in the first fucking degree.
Not his smoothest recruitment ever, but allowances had had to be made. He'd been desperate. It wasn't all that often he'd be able to get his hands on a witch, a moonstone, a doppelgänger and sacrifices. Granted, Maddox had already been on the payroll at that point, so he'd had no right to be that desperate. But he'd seen her, glimpsed her with her friends and thought – why not? Why not take her away from everything she knows and loves and make her love me instead? After a millennium or two walking the face of the earth, you stop needing reasons for most things. You stop analysing motivations.
'Why not?'
So young. So malleable. He could have shaped her into anything, she been veritably putty in his hands. Any and all resistance had been futile. He was Klaus. Master Manipulator. Blind devotion – easy. Unquestionable allegiance – please. Near religious zeal – check. Fanaticism – check. And the last tick-box on the sheet? Love?
Why not?
Utterly inadequate as a response to a girl sitting on your lap in the moonlight asking why you loved her, but sad fact was – reason number one: why not. Why not?
Reason number two – maybe he'd realised that he needed to love somebody, something, anything. Use it or lose it, the saying went. Maybe if he'd gone another century without loving something, he'd have forgotten the sensation completely. Forgotten emotions and passions… Maybe she'd just been in the right place at the right time. Maybe he'd been bound to love any arbitrary roadside witch that had come along…
He kissed her some random place on her neck instead, and sent his hands up under all the cloth she was wearing and ripped it off of her. "Skip the logical reasoning and conclude that I love you. I love… having somebody to record Letterman for me when I miss it. I love… that you take the time to watch me try clothes on at the mall." He kissed her again, as soft as he could manage. As gently as he could manage. "I love that you love me. I love that you don't aren't secretly infatuated with my brother… Suffice it to say that I really, really love you and I'd miss you like fucking hell if you died again and I'm very, very sorry about what I said while you were... recovering. Or being recovered…"
She bit his ear. It stung for a moment before her mouth was on it sucking. "Fine, then." She pressed herself into him, twisting her frame to press her breasts to him. Twisting to get her hands where she wanted in his hair, in his pants… Her wrist cracked loudly. "This is awkward," she mumbled.
"Not for me."
"Weird position. And the wrong kind of chair."
"...Yeah. It seemed more feasible in my mind. You're not as limber as I'd calculated," he tisked.
She smirked at the challenge, turned herself around in his lap, wriggling and writhing better than a paid Las Vegas performer could have. She brought her knees down on either side of him and settled herself down on his denim covered erection. "Kiss me," she whispered against his lips.
"You do it. You kiss me."
Love me. Somebody. Anybody. You, in particular.
Own me.
Pull me out of this abyss and twirl me around on your finger.
Either her lips were on fire, or she was channelling electricity through his spine. Just the teeniest bit painful, and 99.9% perfect. He'd miss kisses like these…
God, Klaus. How'd you get yourself into this?
She's dead. She's dead. She's dead.
Just another carcass in the way.
Why cling to this one?
That pesky, bothersome heart of hers, or her brother's more precisely, was beating. He used to like it before. He used to be fond of the moments when he'd set her heart racing with a glance or a touch. Feeling the pulse under her skin used to turn him on. Now, he hated it. It was a clock counting down the time he had. Someday it would stop, and he'd be left with jack squat. He was doomed. He was the Titanic and nine years into the future he was going to crash into the fucking iceberg. The big, fucking, magnetic iceberg that he'd seen coming since the dawn of time.
Stop thinking about icebergs.
Concentrate, you sad fuck.
Memorise this!
But he couldn't think clearly with his mouth on hers. He'd lost his focus and in that time she'd got his jersey off over his head somehow and he was already halfway out of his jeans. Her fingers were around his cock, working up and down, and just as for a flickering moment, her mouth. It was all he could do not to ram himself down her throat. He eased his head back with a hiss, letting her tease him. The stars were looking on, blushing. "God…"
She dragged her mouth back up to his. "Greta."
"Mm-hmm." His thumbs hitched into the band of her panties and slid them down. Everything in the world was right and perfect as long as he could warm his fingers on the fever of her skin. The pacing was off between them. She was moving too fast and all he wanted was for her to slow it down and stretch it out… His teeth bit in to the soft flesh of her arms and her breasts. Quick, sharp bites. Puncture and taste, puncture and taste. He shuddered, halfway because she was sending erotic little shockwaves through his body, and halfway because of the damn annoying mini anxiety attack he was having.
Breath.
Damn, but isn't she beautiful?
He should have asked someone, just to confirm it. Just to confirm that his attraction to her wasn't as insane as it felt.
You'd never think I've had thousands of women before…
"Slow," he whispered, half croaked, as he tried to fit himself inside her. He used the fingers of one hand to spread her heat open and the other to hold her steady and guide her down. "Slow…" Her warmth welcomed him. Her body welcomed him. He rolled his hips ever so slightly and slid into her another inch. Her arms tightened around him and he was very, very faintly aware of claws on his back.
Wrap yourself around me.
He'd read that in a poem somewhere, or heard it in a song, and thought it was utter nonsense at the time. Now, not so much. He took the weight of her, the near negligible weight of her, in his arms and on his chest, adjusting her hips and her ass to suit him. It was more the feel of her skin against his, than the sensation of his cock in her. More the spider-web of her hair in the wind. More that she was holding on to him as if there was no tomorrow. More like love-making, perhaps, than a fuck on the balcony.
Nine years is plenty. If he spent every day of the next nine years inside of her, then it would be as if time was standing still, almost. Wouldn't it? If he didn't waste time with sleeping and hunting and the rest of the whole fucking world, he could get nine decades worth of life with her, couldn't he?
He shifted a thigh, pulled himself up straighter in the chair, put a hand to the small of her back and pulled her down the rest of the way. God… His teeth bit into her throat and he growled. "Mine," whatever that was supposed to mean. She'd always been his. Since… Since whenever. He was the one giving himself over, now. He nuzzled his way down her chest and fastened his lips around a hard nipple and sucked. A couple of strands tore from his scalp as her hands fisted in his hair. "Klaus…," barely a whisper.
His lips found hers again. So soft. Almost edible. He bit down on her bottom lip and passed his tongue over the trickle of blood. His hips buck and he hit her womb. God… Her body shuddered in his hands, her walls squeezing his cock to death.
The moon was bringing out the very best of her, or the very worst. She moaned deep and threw her head back. Her face, serene and perfect. Her eyes, wet and flashing some unholy colour.
Concentrate, you sad fuck. Remember this.
"Klaus…"
"I love you."
Nine years will pass like nine minutes in the face of eternity. Don't try to fool yourself.
"Klaus…"
He held her, still and unmoving as she sobbed against him, the passion dying instantly and replaced by that same gnawing, burning throb in the left side of his chest. "I'll fix it," he whispered, running a hand through her hair. "Okay? I'm the rock of ages, so hold on to me. I'll fix it. Whatever I have to do. Whoever I have to kill. Wherever I have to go. I'll realign planets if I have to. I'll fix it. And we still have Operation Hellgate. Your dad's not going to do it, but I got in contact with Edith and she's a go. If you have nine years, all we have to do is pick up the pace. Female werewolves with mismatched eyes can't be that rare." So what if he'd never seen one in a thousand years? What doesn't happen in a lifetime can happen in a day.
"I don't want to die."
"And you won't. Hey," he raised her head by the chin. "You're not dying. That's the one benefit of having a crazy, demonic, totally evil, ancient, bona fide hybrid boyfriend; I'm a pro at breaking the so-called 'laws of nature.'" Massive finger-quotes there. "Last time you died I had to kidnap Stefan to keep me company and he was boring as hell – 'no, I don't want to eat babies;' 'no, I don't want to eat the poodles;' 'I'm a vegetarian…'
She laughed a little.
"See? When next am I going to come across a woman willing to split a baby with me? I had a thousand years of training in being a heartless bastard. You? You've got natural talent. Remember the time when we ate those boy scouts? The part where you baited the troop leader and stabbed him through the eye with his marshmallow stick thing? That was priceless. You had my blood crawling. Add that to the fact that you're really liberal with blowjobs? You're irreplaceable." Laugh, laugh. He wasn't good at crying women. Usually, he just killed them.
She scoffed, pulled away a bit. It was hard thinking about how young she really was. Devoted, and loyal, and perfect, but she really was young. Just at the beginning of life, when he'd plucked her out of her world and made her a mantelpiece in his.
"Come on, cheer up now, love. You're not pretty enough to cry. What do you want, I'm offering anything. Ask it."
"If I die, bury me with my family."
As if I know where they're buried. "Sure thing, but I was thinking more in terms of something upbeat… Blood bath?"
"We've gone dry."
"Those fuckers?"
"Yeah…"
"That was a full tank. Who drinks a tank of blood? Sex-fest then? Three day sex-fest? You can't say no to that."
"Not really in the mood…"
Really? What was that just two seconds ago? "We can do the electrocution thing… I know you like that. Come on," he bit at her ear lightly. "I've gone one whole month without you. Give me something."
She shrugged.
"I'll go down on you." Final offer.
"Teeth?"
"Most definitely."
"Okay… But–"
"But what?"
"At some point in time… can we kill Damon? I want to resurrect him just to kill him again. It just irks me that this royal asswipe got the jump on me twice."
"I know, right? He's just so… supremely nauseating. But I've already killed him." He'd made something of a truce with the guy. "I got the rage out of my system. Even if somehow the witches manage to cast him out, I don't think he'll be a problem for us."
"How 'bout Elijah then?"
"Yeah… He's always fun to hunt down and kill."
"Good."
"See?"
"You, Lucy, Annie, Maddox, and that's four. Kidnap Bonnie, five. Five witches for the pentagram… Edith on the other side keeping the gates clear, and we have our spell up and running, right?"
"We still need the doppelgänger, though."
Klaus threw his head back, groaning. "Elena? For the love of Christ, why does every fucking thing in the world evolve around this girl?"
"Good thing you left her alive."
"I'm killing her this time around. I don't know what I'll do for the hybrids but this girl I dead once and for all. I'm going to put my back into it."
"What if we need her again?"
"Too bad, then. I'm killing her. Probably Bonnie too, after she does what we need her to. I cannot stand that girl, she and Damon, always with the plotting and the scheming and the incessant meddling."
"Bonnie's not too bad. If we can fully convert Lucy, we can get Bonnie on our side easy. Five witches strong, you'll rule the world."
"Fine. Keep Bonnie alive. She gets you killed for the third time, I'll laugh. Honestly."
"Admit you like the idea. You'll be unstoppable."
"Fine," he sighed reluctantly. "We'll start on that when we know for sure Bonnie's back in her body." He slapped her on the ass, "Now go. This is my meditation time and you're distracting me… Go do something. I'm dismissing you."
"You jackass," she made a grab for her underwear.
"Leave that, it's part of my meditation process."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. And a bag of blood would be nice. B-neg."
"No more B."
"O?"
"Done. Maddox."
"What's left?"
"The A neg."
"Jesus Christ." He got up. "I have to go catch my food now? Is that how far we've fallen?"
She shifted, naked shoulders making a heartless effort at a shrug that became more of a slump. Really nice collarbones… "If you're going out for food, bring somebody back for me."
"Mexican or Chinese?" Laugh, laugh.
"I don't know, Chinese? Middle-aged, female."
"Chinese it is, then. I'm going to go eat some random people in Mystic Falls and string their bodies up on Elena's lawn. See you in about an hour."
AN. People probably wondering why so much Klaus, but I just basically wanted to try my hand at some character development. I wanted to contrast Klaus' approach to love with Damon's. At a 1000+ years, I imagine you wouldn't really love a person for their personality. I tried to get it across that even though it's a mutual affection, he and Greta were really at way different places.
Honestly, back in season 2 when they introduced Luka n Pops who were hunting her down. I got invested in the drama of why exactly Klaus would kidnap a witch when they weren't all that had to come by. Then we actually see them when they do the body transfer thing with Alaric and I was like aw, that's cute.
Then the entire martin family died. A la mode.
So I should probably dedicate this to their memory.
I actually have no hope for TVD again. Klaroline is ghastly and doesn't make a whiff of sense and Bonnie is either going to get killed off or get tied down with another human even lamer than Jeremy – looking at Matt or even worse, that random kid her mom picked up, which would be like her step brother? Foster brother?
Elena is getting more and more retarded, Damon and Stefan are embarrassing themselves in a way that can't ever be forgiven… Thursday for me is basically Secret Circle, Office and Archer. What happened to Community, people? I'd trade one season of TVD for an episode of community.