Title: A Kind of Twisted Fairytale 2/2
Title: A Kind of Twisted Fairytale 2/2
Rating: R
Summary: It was a twisted fairytale if there ever was one. Her own prince charming riding in to save the day, a facade of kindness and heroism hiding his own terrible monster.
Notes: Yay! Done! I'm so happy I got this done today. I haven't been feeling well so I was starting to question my previous promise. Also, thank you everyone for the reviews and the response on Tumblr! I was so thankful for the response from everyone, another reason I was hoping to finish today. See? Lots of reviews do help you write fast. :) I really hope this last chapter lives up to expectation. I fought with the end a little bit, but I finally decided on what is written and I think I am happy with it, hope everyone else is also! Don't forget to review!
Regardless of the fact that she was out of danger Caroline still couldn't find sleep that night. To much had happened and there was still the fact that Kol was there, the only other person or vampire in the hotel room with her. She didn't entirely trust him, even though he seemed to hold a measure of respect for his brother. It was much later that night when she heard a door open.
Part of her hoped Klaus would leave her be, another part wanted him to come to her. The entire situation felt unfinished and sleeping seemed impossible.
Eventually, the choice had been made and a knock interrupted her thoughts. "Come in." The door opened revealing Klaus' familiar silhouette. Blood, he reeked of it. Yet as he neared her, stopping at the side of her bed, she saw no sign of it on his body. He looked down on her, head cocked to the side slightly, face void of anything that would make her relate him to the murderer he was. Instead of saying anything he just stared down on her in much of the same way he had ten years ago, that fateful night he had saved her. It seemed poetic that they were once again in the same situation, her the scared vampire, curled in a bed, him the big bad Original, having just enough room left in his dead heart to offer her some kindness, save her life. "Is he dead?"
"Very," Klaus said softly, staring down at her. It was rare he saw this side of her, a young girl who could be hurt, who could be broken. Klaus had no doubt she would bounce back, Caroline was strong that way, but she wore her heart on her sleeve. Good people could be hurt so easily.
"You didn't have to kill the humans." Saying that seemed easier then 'thank you'. He smirked softly down at her and she frowned, human life wasn't something she took lightly.
"I couldn't help but think as I left that would have been a concern of yours. Does it help that if I had known they were there I would have told Kol to leave them unharmed?"
Caroline snorted and looked away from him, staring straight ahead. "I doubt that, you don't care for their lives."
"If I thought their death would cause you further pain I would have done so." The frown on her face eased away and she met his eyes again. Klaus opened his mouth to speak then shut it. Slowly, he took a seat on the side of the bed, his hip bumping her knee slightly. She didn't move, remaining there curled on her side. Leaning forward, Klaus settled a hand on either side of her body and looked down at her. "How long Caroline? How long are you going to keep up this foolishness?"
"It isn't foolishness," she whispered painfully and turned her head again to stare at the wall. "It's about making the right choice."
"And I'm not your right choice," he responded, completing the thought that he knew was in her head. When she didn't respond he sighed. "I was here, does that count for nothing?"
At his words she closed her eyes, wanting to shut out the feelings, shut out what her heart told her was the truthful response. Yet she couldn't deny the truth, only ignore it. "Thank you, I know you didn't have to help me."
For a moment Klaus just watched her, willing her eyes to open and look up at him, let him see what was held there, but he knew she wouldn't. Caroline wouldn't allow him to see what she really felt. In the morning she'd face him, that facade of indifference on her face again, but that night, she couldn't. "Go to sleep, your safe here, I swear."
Caroline only nodded, squeezing her eyes shut, fighting the tears. Luckily though, the bed shifted and he stood, his steps quite on the carpeted floor. Soon the door closed behind him and she was left staring into the darkness, silent tears wetting her pillow.
Yet sleep did not come, the darkness surrounded her and swallowed her hole, made her feel as if she was drowning and alone once again. The bed was unfamiliar, like the one she had just left. The room wasn't hers, just like the one that had been her prison. Caroline was a scared little girl in a big dark room, alone.
Without thinking and without out the reasoning she had earlier, she left the cold, unfamiliar bed, exited the room and slowly walked down the hallway. Her nose led her to her destination, never failing her. Slowly, without fear or guilt, she reached out and grabbed the knob and turned it. The door opened revealing another room, much like her own and just as dark.
Caroline padded across the carpet, her eyes watching where her feet led her, until she too was sitting on the side of a bed. It was only her movements that shifted the mattress. "I'll want to leave tomorrow."
"That seemed quite evident," Klaus responded, his voice raspy in the darkness. Sleep hadn't come easily to him, but at the first sign of her moving from her own bed he had been awake and ready.
"I-." Caroline started, but stopped, unable to to convey what it was she was looking for. "It seems weird to me that I'm still more scared of him now then you. What's the difference...between what he wanted from me and what you want?"
Klaus opened his mouth, caught off guard by her direct question. It seemed her short disappearance had done something to the girl he once knew. "We wanted something entirely different. One thing that can be obtained through force and fear. Another which cannot not be obtained, only given."
It was a stupid question, because as usual his answers were beautiful, made of the same things that made fairy tales and happy endings. In that room with him, the door and blinds closed, the darkness swallowing them whole, Caroline could ignore the outside world. Ignore his past sins and her own, even though the list was much shorter. She could ignore the fact that they were monsters themselves. Caroline could sit there and pretend that the only thing that happened was that some cruel monster carried her away and her knight and shinning armor saved her. It was a twisted fairytale if there ever was one. Her own prince charming riding in to save the day, a facade of kindness and heroism hiding his own terrible monster.
Klaus, in his own way, was just as terrible as her monster. Yet Klaus wasn't her monster, she didn't fear him. In fact, when it had come to making that phone call three weeks ago for help it had been Klaus she had turned to, knowing he would be there to drag her out of trouble. Caroline needed that again, if only for one night.
Too broken for one night, she didn't question herself and she crawled onto the bed. The comforter moved, not by her own doing, and she slid underneath it. Without hesitation she moved towards the center of the bed. It shifted beneath her, and as she touched his warm body an arm wrapped around her, pulling her flush against him without hesitation. Caroline shuddered at the sudden physical sensation of his body against her own. The skin of his torso was bare beneath her fingers, yet she left her hands there. Scooting closer, Caroline curled her legs up into him and buried her face into his neck, breathing in his scent and taking comfort in it for reasons even she could not understand. Finally, she relaxed, releasing a soft exhale and closing her eyes. "I see him," she whispered, "when I close my eyes."
"A shame then that you couldn't have seen him when I was done." Caroline laughed and he could feel her warm breath brush against his chest. Soon enough she was silent again though. It was there, within her, a part of her that already belonged to him, even if she didn't realize it. Caroline couldn't hide that, not now. The days of telling him to get lost, that she felt nothing were over. It was there, beneath layers of pride, ethics, caring and empathy that wouldn't allow her to give in to feelings for him. Yet they were layers that he couldn't peel away. Klaus was all to aware that it was those things that made her the woman he sought. It was for that reason that he never sought to change her.
"If you wouldn't have come tonight-." His hand tensed on her back, fingers digging into her skin and she looked up to see the golden yellow of his eyes glow and then it was extinguished.
"Nothing happened," he responded firmly, forcing himself to relax and ignore the anxiety her words had given him. Klaus was careful in the way he approached Caroline, in the way he conducted himself in front of her. The other vampire had been right in a way, Caroline may not have been his, but Klaus couldn't help but thinking of her in that way and he didn't like those infringing on what was his, especially when it was to cause pain.
At that point Caroline said nothing, realizing her error, even if it was one that she hadn't predicted would result in that type of reaction. She had always been well aware of Klaus' affections for her. In a way, she had come to accept that it was more then just an infatuation, an obsession of a psychopath. Klaus didn't invade her space, stalk her, make her feel as if she was in danger from him. He kept his distance, knowing her feelings, yet always remained just close enough, popping up in her life just often enough that she couldn't forget him. Doing things for her that reminded her time and time again what he felt her and the lengths he would go until she would feel the same.
A part of her had assumed he had an investment in her safety. That although he had feelings for her and was waiting patiently for her to change her mind, he wasn't just going to be kind enough to realize that the right thing to do would be to leave her alone. Caroline had assumed he would save her because one day he expected she would change her mind. That she she was some unattainable object that Klaus wanted, one he would protect until it was rightfully his.
It had been the sudden tension in him at her words, his sharp reaction to her fear that her monster had been minutes from taking something from her that she wouldn't have been strong enough to recover from that Caroline realized Klaus felt more then she had anticipated. It was all to evident in that moment that if it had happened it would have hurt him too.
Yet Caroline couldn't allow herself to dwell on that fact. If she did consider that, realize that her pain would cause him pain too, realize the true depth of his feelings, realize that when he referred to the thing that could only be given, her love, then she very well might allow herself to fall for him, and that wasn't acceptable.
"Don't make me compel you to sleep love. I'm well aware that you aren't on vervain at the moment," Klaus said finally, aware by her silence that her thoughts were running away within her. Nothing good would come of it, not on that night.
That fact had never occurred to her, and for a moment she felt a flicker of fear, because without vervain she was at Klaus' mercy. Immediately she extinguished it though, because if he was going to compel her he would have done so already. Besides, Klaus had already made it quite clear that he wanted her affections willingly. He didn't want it through the same cruel means her monster used. So she closed her eyes, concentrating on the feel of him against her, his breathing, which made him seem all to human, and in minutes she was asleep.
When Caroline woke, the arms around her were gone. Her senses told her it was daylight though, and that was without her eyes even being open. It was like second nature to a vampire to be aware of the daylight hours. Caroline always assumed it was due to the deadly effects the sun could have on her kind.
When she opened her eyes he was there, sitting in a plush chair near the side of the bed, dressed for the day, relaxed and watching her. "What time is it?"
"Almost noon," Klaus answered and lifted the bag of blood which sat on his thigh and leaned forward to hand it to her.
Caroline looked at it speculatively at first, but it became quite evident that it was taken from one of the local blood banks.
"I had Kol obtain a stash for you. It should hold you over for a few of days." She only nodded in response as she sat up and brought the bag to her mouth. He watched her in silence as she drained it, the blood already doing wonders to help her. It had been evident to him when he'd seen her that first night that she hadn't been getting enough blood to sustain her. Another fact that he tried to ignore. If he dwelled on her apparent deterioration that it would only infuriate him further.
Caroline settled the bag on the bed stand and turned her attention back to him. Silence hung between them and Caroline could only assume it was the previous nights events that made them pause "Thanks. And for my clothes," Caroline said, referring to the familiar suitcase she found in the other room the previous night filled with a few of her belongings. "You really planned ahead."
Klaus raised his eyebrows in amusement. "I'm old sweetheart, planning is my forte. And then usually I have a back up plan and another back up plan on top of that." She only rolled her eyes and just like that they seemed to be slipping back into that old familiarity. The silence overcame them again though and she didn't seem inclined to break it this time. "What are you going to do?"
"Go home," she said with a sigh, relieved almost to be looking towards the future instead of the hell she had just been put through. "I might move again though," Caroline said almost as the thought suddenly came to her. She'd been settled for almost two years, but the most recent events tainted her home and a new city seemed like a cure all at the moment.
"The hotel is paid for up to two weeks." She opened her mouth to respond, eyes going wide, but he quickly cut her off. "Either you can take it or leave it because it's done, but I was under the assumption you wouldn't want to be returning to your quaint little apartment." At that she frowned, but he only smirked and stood. "The refrigerator is stocked with enough blood for a few days, although from the looks of you I don't think it will last you that long." Nearing the bed he stopped at the side and looked down at her, cocking his head slightly, his previous amusement gone. "I've taken care of the dead bodies at your apartment. Three male vampires. You must have put up quite a fight, I'm impressed."
Caroline smiled softly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Then he was sitting again, this time on the bed, much to close to her. "Why are you doing this?"
At her question, Klaus sighed, because after all this time it should have been apparent.
"I know why. I mean why after I continue to turn you way do you do this? You saved me, killed for me, are leaving me in this expensive hotel room for two weeks with blood and even packed my own suitcase. And all I do is turn you away, over and over again."
"Way to make me feel used," he joked and she glared at him, so he decided his answer deserved the utmost attention. "As I told our dead friend last night, I have eternity to wait, I'm not going anywhere." She stared at him, waiting. "For vampires, there are no definites, there are no limitations. You say no, but I'm well aware of what effect years can have on a person. Ten years ago would you have thought we would have been here?"
Klaus' question shook her, because he was right. Ten years ago Caroline would have said there would no way in hell she would have been calling Klaus to save her life and she definitely would not have been crawling into his bed for comfort from an entirely different monster. "You may not be able to be killed, but the same can't be said for me," Caroline pointed out, "what good will patience do you when I'm dead?" Instead of thinking it a valid point, he only smiled.
"In all honesty, I didn't realize you would be so much trouble to keep safe. Try to stay out of trouble love. Now I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on you." She sighed in exasperation and he smirked slightly. "Don't pout." With that he stood and leaned forward, touching a hand to her cheek and pressing his lips to her forehead. She titled her head up, looking into his eyes, and for the first time his control was shaken. For the first time since he'd found her he questioned his decision a long time ago to allow her to come to her own decisions. For the first time, seeing her face upturned, fresh from sleep, wide eyed and innocent, Klaus wanted to lower his head and take his kiss.
Caroline watched his tongue flick out slightly, wetting his lips, and suddenly all the breath left her body, the air around her seemed to thicken and she tensed. Yet nothing ever came of what was building in the air.
"Goodbye Caroline," Klaus said gently and released her.
Caroline watched him turn and leave, glancing behind himself once before closing the door.
For a time she just sat there, listening as his quite steps continued through the hotel room and then finally another door shut and she was surrounded by silence. It overwhelmed almost immediately and for a moment she felt close to panic. Caroline stood, not sure where to go or what to do, and looked around frantically, for something, anything. Then something caught her attention, settled on the chair Klaus had just vacated. With slow, hesitant steps she neared it, bent down, and carefully lifted the sheet of paper. It was a picture of herself curled on her side in the bed she had just vacated, eyes closed and sleeping peacefully. She stared at it for a moment, mouth parted slightly, then slowly a corner of her mouth lifted into a small smile and the panic that had been building just moments ago ceased. With a slight shake of her head her smiled widened slightly. "Damn him."
Previous