the demons we hide

Klaus slams his fists into a nearby car, effectively denting the metal. Elena shudders, silently stepping back from him. "Where am I supposed to find a witch when you force me to kill every single one of them?"

"Hey!" Anger shoots down Elena's system. "I saved your life back there!"

"Duly noted," he growls, his face dangerously close to hers. "I wouldn't have been in that fight in the first place if I wasn't protecting your blood," he snarls at her.

"You're the one who needs me to get your brother back!" she shoots back hotly.

All of a sudden her breathing is cut off and she feels her feet being lifted in the air. She throws Klaus a look of utter defiance, knowing he can't kill her, watching the anger simmer in his eyes.

"Do not tempt me," he says brusquely, tightening his hold once and watching fear form in her eyes. He drops her and she's gasping, her hand flying to her throat, soothing the angry red marks. But she knows what he's doing now. All along, all of their banters and his seemingly civil matter at times was just an act. He's trying to keep himself from killing her when she disobeys him. Or when Klaus remembers that it was Elena who helped kill his brother who has lived as his brother for centuries, or that she bears the haunting face of the woman he once loved. Love. An emotion. When he sees her face every day he is reminded, every single time, of that one emotion he had been capable of. What he is no longer capable of.

He's playing her, and he's always been playing her, with his charms, their bantering, or the dancing, the look in his eyes when he knows she is out of control, trying to smooth out the anger from his eyes so that he restrains himself from killing her because he needs her blood to ensure anything he ever wanted and there is a thousand reasons why she must die and-

Elena can't take it anymore. Jumping to her feet, anger so loud it's pounding through her ears and she can feel it thrumming through her blood, lending her power, she screams at him, "Kill me then! Kill me, because that's what you've wanted to do all along! Just end everything now! I have nothing left! Nothing!"

Everything shatters and Klaus is a blur in the air as he flies at her, trapping her body against his against the brick wall, her head slamming violently. Dark red oozes out of the wound, trickling like a river. She manages to throw a bitter smile at him, although everything is blurry and she is out of breath and her heart is hammering inside her chest like a frenzied bird trapped inside a cage, ready to burst free any moment.

Their eyes lock onto each other and his free hand, the one that's not wrapped around her throat, reaches upwards to stroke her cheek with the backs of his fingers. His rough, calloused hand is tender when it makes contact with her skin. "I should have killed you from the start," he whispers, and she's not sure what emotion is in his voice, if there is any, or why he's touching her gently as if she is precious to him, or if he intends to kill her or not. She thinks he does.

And she doesn't even know it when their lips have touched, and she's kissing him. Something in his eyes makes her close her own eyes, and she can taste him, and she doesn't even know who has leaned forward first, she doesn't even know about their intentions. But something in eyes, the hidden sadness, the old pain and hatred carried on in him for centuries, almost begging for someone to see him and save him and rid him of this wickedness. She wishes to be rid of him, this wicked intent that has stolen her from her life.

He's absolutely the devil himself, but Elena stumbles on the realization that she wants to comfort him, in some unfamiliar way. She wants to tell him, not in words, that he is not alone. The most powerful of feelings, conveyed through human contact. Human. Something which Klaus has only administered when killing, his hands around his victim's throats, or their hearts. Brutal contact. But never, never, human contact.

Maybe, she thinks to herself, as she's kissing him, she wants to tell him that he's not alone, that he's with her in this cold, wintery hell. They are both sinners once innocent, monsters of their kind, vampires, taken from familiarity they once knew and cast into this grey world. The world where she is ice and he is fire and she is sunlight and he is darkness.

That's why the kiss means nothing to her in an intimate way. She does not love him, but dislikes him, even hates him, for who he is and what he has become. He doesn't love her either, but finds himself kissing her. Human contact; what he's both loathed and wanted throughout all of these years.

Elena will never love him, and Klaus can never love her.

That is what they believe, and what will remain rooted in their hearts until the day they die.

A/N: Really hoped you enjoyed this chapter, quite a...dark and dramatic one i should say :P don't worry, it'll lighten up in the next few, because kol will be brought back to life :D feedback is appreciated. ;)