She had a surprising grip for a human. Klaus winced as Caroline dug her nails a bit deeper into the meat of his arm as she dragged him toward her office. Kol whooped and cackled, making lewd suggestions until Caroline paused long enough to fix him with a searing glare reminiscent of the gorgons. His younger brother may be an incorrigible scoundrel, but he certainly was no fool and wisely tucked away any further comment.
"Easy, love, with my powers temporarily banished, I'm quite delicate," Klaus purred as he casually lounged on her couch.
Caroline whirled around, blue eyes spitting fire and for a moment, Klaus was certain she was deeply aroused and had brought him to her office to have her wicked, delicious little way with him. Since their enjoyable coupling the other day, he'd been gargling the entering net concerning humans' most favored positions — with quite intriguing results. In particular, he was curious whether Caroline would enjoy the multi-pronged phallic instrument he'd repeatedly seen. It was similar to pubescent incubi when they reached their first centennial, but prior to growing their penta-penises. Oh, the possibilities.
"Seriously?! You're making jokes? You've been lying to me about who you are and all of your siblings have tried to kill me in the last hour!"
Ah. From the hands on her hips and mildly terrifying snarl, it appeared that he may have misjudged her mood. "Not all of my siblings," Klaus helpfully pointed out.
She frowned at that and seemed to consider asking a question but then thought better of it. Instead, she held up her hands and took a deep breath. "So, you're a half-devil, half-demon, prince of hell, like, actual HELL, who got banished to earth and Kol and Rebekah sided with you while Elijah sided with your dad and then was sent here to kill me. But he's on your side now. Did I miss anything?"
He carelessly waved off the concern he saw decorating her brow. "No, those were the highlights. Well, also Rebekah and Kol have readied their armies and soon I'll seize control of the hellfire throne from Mikael. Oh, and I'll need to get back my powers of the hell dimensions."
"Oh, is that all," Caroline asked sarcastically, flopping next to him on the couch despite her obvious irritation. "You still lied to me," she added mulishly, kicking at one of the fuzzy pillows that had fallen on the floor.
A familiar flare of anger licked a heated trail along his spine and he sarcastically bit out, "I'm a cursed creature of hell; I command the pitiless monsters who torture damned souls for all eternity. I can't imagine why I might've hesitated to tell you the truth. After all, humans of this realm are known for being quite accepting of things they don't understand."
She seemed taken aback by his brutal words, and it was a rare thing to see his feisty little human struck speechless. She studied him in a quiet, careful way that always made him giddy like a fledgling devil growing his first set of horns. With a shy, tentative gesture that was most unlike her, she patted his hand, watching his face for some reaction he couldn't quite fathom.
"I guess...um...maybe you have a point. A small one," she conceded. "It's just all of this is crazy and you and your family have completely changed everything I thought I knew." Peering up at him, her smile was small, but carried a hint of hope that gave him that odd fluttering in his chest once more. "You're still you," she said at last. "The ridiculously hot weirdo who's a surprisingly sweet royal hell spawn and I have no idea how any of this is going to work, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to try."
"Oh, sweetheart — we'll be damned together," Klaus reassured her with a wink, pulling her in for a passionate kiss.
Just when he pulled her on top of him, eagerly running his hands over her delectable curves, she sat up with a startled squeak, blue eyes comically wide. "Oh my god — Mikael's the king of hell! Does that mean he's literally Satan? Like hooves and a goat head and OHMYGOD you're part devil and we had sex and is this going to be a Rosemary's Baby situation?!"
Caroline continued to straddle him, seemingly unaware of how arousing (and vexing) her continued diatribe was making him as she rambled, "I'm on the pill, but your hell sperm is probably supercharged or something and I can't just HAVE hell spawn babies at this point in my career and WHY are you laughing because it is NOT funny!"
Klaus shook his head, still chuckling as he explained, "My powers may be temporarily bound, but I'm still the furthest thing from human. We'd have to honor the old rites to conceive with a fertility ritual." Gray eyes twinkling, he teased, "And I suspect that you would've noticed if I'd performed the Sacred Dance of Lustful Horned Serpents while wearing the ceremonial Cloak of Fallen Hides."
"Yeah. That uh, sounds sexy," she muttered with another eye roll.
"It will be," he agreed with a smirk. "There's so many things I can't wait to show you in hell — the pits of orifice snakes, the Waterfall of Undying Torment, the Forbidden Canyons — of course, we'll need to ensure your safety at all times, at least until after I've claimed the hellfire throne and defeated Mikael, but after that —"
Caroline surprised him by leaping off as though she'd been burned, her tone formidable as she thundered, "What?! You call me your queen and think that means you can just drag me TO HELL with you? You're in the middle of a supernatural war with SATAN and you didn't even ASK if I wanted to go with you and GOING TO HELL is the kind of thing you should NEVER just ASSUME your girlfriend is ok with this!"
Ah, apparently she did catch the part about being his queen. With a sigh, Klaus slowly rose from the couch, approaching his queen as carefully as one would a leviathan after it bared its razor teeth. "You're new to these matters, sweetheart. You've lived but a day with the knowledge of other realms. Already you've seen how easily a minion of hell may slip through a portal to threaten your life. It's imperative for your safety that you come with us." There. Just appeal to a human's absurd sense of logic. It was impossibly easy to win such frivolous mortal arguments, and Klaus felt his lips twitch into a smug smile.
"No. I have a life here — not to mention a business I built by myself and you don't get to disrupt it and drag me to hell just because you're in the middle of a supernatural war!"
Stubborn, insolent woman. "Love, you don't seem to understand what's transpired —"
"Don't you DARE try to mansplain how you're kidnapping me for my own good," she shrilly interrupted, marching over to her office door and throwing it open. "Out. NOW," she demanded, stomping her foot so hard it made the ceramic vase on her small table teeter precariously close to the edge.
Rubbing his jaw with an aggravated sigh, he moved past her, barely crossing the threshold before she slammed the door with such force that even the doorknob rattled. Swallowing back the furious diatribe on the tip of his tongue, Klaus rapped on the door, gritting his teeth to say, "Your life is in danger, Caroline. I'm trying to protect you!"
The thundering crash from inside the office signaled that her vase had gotten more acquainted with the wall. "Seriously?! Scary things are trying to kill me and you want me to go to the place where they all live? Nope, not today, Satan!" With a resounding thud that sounded like she'd overturned a chair, Caroline added, "Literally!"
"I see the lovely Caroline enjoys a spot of violence," Kol cheekily told him, mouth liberally smeared with marinara sauce as he munched on a fennel-sage breadstick. "Perhaps once this war gets sorted, she should take over dominion of the Seventh Circle."
"I'm not sure she'd fancy the endless blood splatters on her clothing. The boiling rivers of blood can be quite unwieldy. Even the first five centuries or so, Finn had difficulty minding his step," Klaus replied.
"Plus, hurling fireballs at the unrepentant is a bit tricky without claws, I'd imagine," Rebekah helpfully added, pushing both of her brothers out of the way so she could bang on the office door. "Caroline, stop this madness at once! Do you honestly think Elijah will be the last treacherous thing our heinous father will send after you?"
"And trust us, Elijah is a trifling gnat whose tentative nibbles are nothing compared to the bloodthirsty, diabolical creatures Mikael has within his thrall," Klaus called out.
Elijah huffed, "I trained with the finest devil and demonic legions in all the hell dimensions, my skills at brutally flaying our enemies praised as a youngling. I am the personification of fear and creep into the nightmares of every damned soul unfortunate enough to cross my path." Trying and failing to properly capture the floppy end of a large pizza slice in his mouth, he added irritably, "And need I remind you all I was—"
"The five-time winner of the Rusted Spikes Tournament of Liver Shredding," Klaus and his siblings all monotonously intoned, having exhaustive experience with Elijah's boasts.
Elijah continued making affronted noises as Kol and Rebekah wound him up, and Klaus found the tight control over his temper beginning to wane. Banging upon the locked office door, he finally gave voice to the beast within. Despite it being caged, he still was imbued with fire and brimstone as he snarled, "You WILL stop this nonsense NOW! You're coming with us and that's final!"
He expected to hear her familiar screeches of displeasure, jagged words that sank into his flesh to tear out bits in retribution. His human could be quite colorful when articulating her displeasure. However, as the silence dragged on, he and his siblings exchanged worried glances, each clearly bracing for the onslaught of her rage.
Instead, in a very small voice, Caroline said, "I'm scared."
Bollocks. Well, now he felt like the foulest gremlin in the lowest of hell dimensions. The hellfire fled as quickly as it arrived, and Klaus nearly buckled under the weight of...what was this wretched feeling? It was reminiscent of that unfortunate time he'd drank the vinegar beer only to learn it wasn't a new flavor, but instead was caused by bacteria in the dispenser lines. "Oh, sweetheart, I didn't think...I didn't, uh, mean to scare you. And I'm...uh..." he glanced at his siblings for suggestions, but they all seemed as perplexed as he.
Elijah went back to eating his pizza with a peculiar look of awe and Rebekah kept mouthing useless suggestions such as 'itchy' and 'hungry'. Kol took a more direct approach by gesturing wildly (something to do with claws, horns and various flapping motions), but seemed supremely unhelpful.
"Maybe that you're sorry," Caroline suggested, sniffling a bit.
Sorry. Ah. That did sound like an appropriate response. His siblings stared back at him blankly, shrugging their shoulders and somehow managing to both nod 'yes' and shake their heads 'no'. Bloody useless gits.
"Yes," Klaus replied, wincing as he realized it sounded more like a tentative question. Clearing his throat, he said more firmly, "Yes, of course I'm sorry and didn't pause to consider how overwhelming this is for you." Placing his palm on the door, he fancied he almost could feel her sweet, sunshine energy. And he would die before he saw it snuffed out. "Upon my honor, I will protect you. You will be safe by my side," he swore, no longer caring that his siblings could detect the stark weakness he exposed in this moment.
As though moved by his shameless display of these overwrought emotions, his siblings haltingly chimed in their own clumsy vows.
"I've already pledged my sword and my life as yours, and I'll never go back on my word."
"I vow to protect you from those horrid harpies who will try to plait your intestines. And they'd do a rubbish job; trust me — I've seen their work."
"Rest easy knowing I'll protect your delectable body from those bloody gargoyles that tend to stalk the fresh meat. Nasty little toe munchers."
Klaus grimaced, not entirely sure they provided the most convincing of arguments to Caroline. Human feelings were needlessly complex. He may prefer the vinegar beer. "I promise, love, your safety is my greatest concern and I will keep the violence to a necessary minimum in your presence."
They all breathed a collective sigh of relief as the door finally opened, and Caroline crossed the threshold with a tentative smile. Humans truly were the most confounding of creatures. Giving Klaus an unexpected hug, her voice was muffled against his shirt as she asked, "So, how do we get back your freaky hell powers?"
Shifting a bit awkwardly, Klaus tried to keep his tone light as he said, "There's just a small ritual to complete."
Kol gleefully chimed in, "Yeah, we should get a wiggle on — I finished draining Finn's blood right before we went through the portal and it's not like that moldy corpse is producing more."
Klaus understood now why every hell dimension featured a siblings torture dungeon.