pockets full of stones (1/1)
Title: Pockets Full of Stones
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairings: Elijah/Caroline/Klaus, mentions of Caroline/Tyler
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: I own nothing. Seriously, nothing. It's actually kind of sad.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 3x15 and then it veers off into its own canon. Kind of dark and definitely angsty. Minor character deaths. Morally dubious decisions that aren't directly addressed in the fic.
Words: 2,521
Summary: He knows why she is there, why she came to Niklaus of all people. Everything she had loved had been ripped from her, the last part of her old life ripped away by those she cared about, and now she just wants it all to end. She has a death wish and Klaus has always been happy to cater to all of her wishes.
Prompt: fly me to nowhere, it's better than somewhere; that's where I've been and nothing's changed (though really how this came from that, I don’t know)
Author’s Note: I don’t really know what this is, it started as one thing and then this just kind of came out. I was playing around with some different things, so things are out of chronological order and there is a ambiguity that is supposed to be there but I’m not sure how well it works. If it’s confusing, feel free to ask questions.
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.
.
Caroline shows up on Klaus’ doorstep, blood still on her hands and a broken look in her eyes that he never thought he would see.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
It’s not the way he wanted her, but he would keep her just the same.
.
.
.
When Elena arrives on their doorstep, full of false courage and determination, it is Elijah who speaks to her, Klaus in the background and Caroline nowhere to be seen.
“She does not wish to see you.”
“Can’t you just tell her I’m here? Ask her to let me talk to her?”
“She does not wish to hear your explanations.”
“But-”
“Elena, your friend is hurting right now; if you are truly her friend you will respect her wishes.”
“I can’t just leave her in there with Klaus.”
“She isn’t here alone.”
.
.
.
Klaus find her in his bedroom waiting for him, sitting on his bed like it was something to be expected and not something to be imagined.
“Lost, sweetheart?”
“No.” She says with a distinct shake of her head.
He cocks his head to the side, trying to read her, but this Caroline, the one that showed up at his doorstep covered in someone else’s blood, is difficult to get a read on.
She is standing in front of him suddenly, face to face, and it is the closest they’ve ever been when he wasn’t the one instigating it. And then her lips on his, her hands fisting his shirt, and her hips pushing against his. It only takes a moment for him to catch up.
.
.
.
She curls into Tyler, ignoring the way his body twitches at the littlest contact, ignoring the beads of sweat on his brow and the way his eyes keep going back and forth between the door and the window.
She shouldn’t ignore it. She should ask him what’s wrong. She should ask him why he was gone so long, ask him about what happened. But she doesn’t want to. She wants to be the comforted instead of the one offering the comforting. She wants someone to tell her that it’s all going to be alright. Wants someone to love her despite of everything she’s done.
She wants something to be about her. And Caroline thinks her mother’s death is a perfect opportunity for that.
.
.
.
“I want to leave.”
Elijah and Klaus both look up from their books, surprised to see her downstairs with no coaxing.
“I think that’s a splendid idea, love.” Klaus tells her, “You’ve spent far too much time cooped up in this house. I suppose the Grill is out all things considered, but-”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I want to leave Mystic Falls.”
“You want to leave town?”
“You said you’d take me wherever I want to go. Paris, Rome, Tokyo. Anywhere that isn’t here. Please, take me somewhere else.”
.
.
.
“Why are you doing this?” Elena asked.
“Because it is what is best for her. And contrary to what you and the Salvatores may believe, that is all my brother and I want.”
.
.
.
Caroline stood in front of the gravestone, tears still streaming down her face, Elijah and Klaus standing somewhere behind her. She thought that she should be done crying out by now, that there shouldn’t be any tears left, but they never seemed to stop. She remembers Stefan telling her once that grief is different for vampires, that they feel it with everything they have. She remembers him telling her that there is a switch to turn it all off, she wishes she could find it.
She scans the cemetery, recognizing far too many names from where she is standing. In the distance she can see Elena’s parents headstones, beside them Jenna and John’s final resting places. She thinks Jenna would hate the idea of being buried with him for eternity.
Behind her is the man responsible for their deaths, for the misery it brought everyone around her. But as her eyes scan to the left, she can see a much fresher grave and she is reminded that he is not the only one to bring pain to this town.
She steps back, placing a rose before each marker. She thinks her mother and father would have hated the idea of being buried together almost as much as Jenna and John.
.
.
.
He knows why she is there, why she came to Niklaus of all people. Everything she had loved had been ripped from her, the last part of her old life ripped away by those she cared about, and now she just wants it all to end.
She has a death wish and Klaus has always been happy to cater to all of her wishes.
No he won’t kill her, she belongs to him now and is not to be harmed, even by Klaus himself. But the downward spiral, the downfall she craves so badly, he is more than happy to supply her with that.
.
.
.
Klaus brings her to all the places he promised her. Art galleries and grand parties, introducing her to things she would never experience without an Original at her side. And she wants to enjoy it, wants for it to make it as happy as he once promised her it would, wants to still be the girl he had saved in her bedroom all that time ago.
But she doesn’t.
Sometimes she thinks she succeeded in flipping off the switch, that it finally worked. But the pain is still there, the hatred, the anger and all of the bad. And she knows that she’s wrong.
.
.
.
“Make me forget” she begs him.
And he kisses her harshly, pretending that is all she wants, an escape.
.
.
.
She finds out who was killing the council members, shortly after her mother is added to their list of victims. She plunges her hand into their chest, her mother’s blood still on her hands, and pulls out their heart.
They were human, and when the others find her they never look at her the same.
She hears her own voice echoing in her head, I’m a monster, a murder.
But this time Stefan offers her no comfort in his arms and she knows she wouldn’t deserve it even if he did.
.
.
.
She kisses Elijah for the first time with alcohol on her breath. She kisses him for all the wrong reasons. She kisses him for the consequences that will come after, for Klaus reaction and possibly his own.
She had heard stories about the last girl who tried to come between them, from Elena’s lips, from their own. She had ended up dead, her blood transforming them into what they are now. Caroline’s blood won’t give them anything, no power, no substance, nothing. But she thinks she might end up dead just the same.
Elijah pulls away and looks her directly in the eye, his expression neutral and unreadable for someone like her.
“That will not get you what you want.”
What he means is that he will not be the one to give it to her.
.
.
.
Caroline sinks her teeth into the woman’s flesh, reveling in the feeling, in the rush of power.
She wants to drain her dry, to make someone else feel the pain of losing someone they love. Wants for someone out there to know the pain of losing a mother, a sister, a lover. Wants to be responsible for someone else’s pain and just forget about her own.
But then Elijah is there, she can feel his presence, and she stops because he knows what he will think of her. She pulls away and she wishes she was doing it for herself, that she was a better stronger person, the person Klaus promised her she was, wishes that she wanted to do it for herself, that she wasn’t longing to finish her off.
She has spent a lot of time wishing but so far none of her wishes have come true.
.
.
.
“You’ll get bored of me eventually. You both will.” She tells him.
He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know what has made her think that.
“Why would you say something like that?” Elijah asks.
“Because that’s what always happens.”
.
.
.
Klaus squeezed, smiling at the noises Damon made as he wrapped his hand tighter around his throat.
“I could just put you out of your misery now, end it all. I’m sure it would make Caroline smile, and it has been far too long since she has.”
“I had to do it.” Damon choked out. “He was going to kill Stefan. Kill Elena.”
The words came out strangled, harsh.
“That doesn’t seem to matter to her.” Klaus said cocking his head to the left, “You took the last thing she had left. But not to worry, Elijah and I are more than willing to pick up the pieces.”
.
.
.
When Klaus first loses his temper with her, Caroline does not react as Elijah expects. He remembers Caroline from before, watching her after what the werewolves had done. Strong as she might be, she was irrevocably changed and it was some time before she was faced with any show of anger without tensing up in fear.
But as Klaus yells, breaks a vase next to her head, manhandling her across the room, she does not flinch, barely reacts at all. No screams, no denials, not tears or apologies. Nothing at all.
Elijah knows that this is not because she feels safe with his brother.
He knows it is the opposite.
.
.
.
He kisses her, touches her, like he’s trying to fix her, trying to remind her of the good in the world. But it’s not what she wants, she can feel her emotions getting the better of her, her eyes tearing up and she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want any of it.
She slams him against the wall, the molder cracking in a way that will lead the maids to ask questions, and stares him down. His eyes are dark and intense, and he’s looking at her like he knows what she’s feeling, like he sees something familiar in her.
She closes her eyes, kisses him again, and tries to forget the look in his eyes.
.
.
.
“You’re smoking again.”
“What does it matter? It’s not like it’ll kill me.”
“It tastes horrible.” Klaus told her.
She smiles up at him, pressing her lips against his.
“It tastes like death.”
.
.
.
She asks them what it was like to watch everything change so drastically from when they were human, to have everything stripped away from them one by one.
“It really isn’t that bad, it usually means improvement, innovation. You’ll get used to it eventually too.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant…all those things that reminded you of what it was like before you were a vampire. Your home, your friends, your family, everything that made you human…what was it like when it all disappeared?”
“I…I don’t know. I suppose it never really did disappear.”
“Because you had your family with you.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
.
.
.
She kisses Elijah with blood on her lips in hopes to entice him to kiss her back.
He pulls away and she meets his eyes straight on.
“I cannot give you what you want.”
“And what is it that I want?”
“For it to end. And I will not give you that.”
.
.
.
They find her in the hotel room, curled into a ball resting her head against the wall. Across the room there lied a body, a young girl, maybe sixteen, with long blonde hair and blue eyes vacantly staring back at her.
“Caroline?”
“It won’t turn off.” She whispered. “I keep trying to make it, I’ve tried so hard, but it just won’t turn off. I don’t want to feel it anymore; I don’t want to feel like this. I just want to turn it off.”
.
.
.
“Did we break her?” Klaus asked.
He could remember the girl she once was, remember her laughter, the way she smiled so brightly. The way she confidently told him off, despite her fear, the way she promised never to fall for his tricks.
Now she was lying in his bed, his and his brother’s companion, his Caroline and all he could think about was the broken look in her eyes that he saw every day.
“The world broke her, Niklaus,” Elijah said, “But we certainly did not help.”
.
.
.
She gets a call from Elena and its panicked and she can’t make much out beyond the words Tyler, hurry, and help. That had been all she needed to hear.
She arrives just in time to hear Elena scream and Tyler’s body hit the floor, his heart still in Damon’s hand.
Her own cries soon drown out everything else.
.
.
.
“You can’t turn it off,” He tells her, his hands wrapping around her arms as he shook her harshly, as though that would somehow help her understand. “There is no switch. It’s just a lie.”
Sometimes he wonders if that is when she broke completely, the moment she had no more lies to cling too.
.
.
.
“She won’t remember what happened with Tyler, the death of he and her parents both will just be a faded memory, she will no longer blame any of you or herself.”
“And you and Klaus?”
“She will know who we are, but she won’t remember her time spent with us.”
“Won’t she have questions? Gaps in her memory? I mean even Barbie will realize that something’s wrong.”
Klaus stepped forward, anger evident on his face, and Elijah raised a hand to stop him.
“Mindful how you talk or else you might find yourself wishing that I had put you out of your misery the last time I offered.”
“Caroline’s memory will be foggy,” Elijah explained, “but she will know that she spent that time with you, that there’s no reason to worry.”
“And you’ll just leave her alone? You won’t show up again?” Stefan asked.
“We never promised that.” Klaus said with a frown.
Elijah remained silent, looking away.
.
.
.
He sweeps her out of the arms of her dance partner and into his own before she fully realizes what has happened and he smiles at the look on her face.
“You know after a thousand years I would have thought someone in your family would have learned some manners.” She told him with a pointed look, like that person was supposed to be him.
“I didn’t think you would say yes if I asked you.” Elijah told her.
She didn’t disagree, just looked away haughtily and he took that to mean no, she wouldn’t have, not willingly. And he smiles at her cheek.
“I was surprised to see you here with my brother.”
“I am not here with him.”
“And I suppose that is not his bracelet on your wrist?”
Her cheeks flush and she let out a frustrated groan. “You’re family is going to be the death of me.”
“I certainly hope not, Miss Forbes.”
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.
.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairings: Elijah/Caroline/Klaus, mentions of Caroline/Tyler
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimers: I own nothing. Seriously, nothing. It's actually kind of sad.
Warnings: Spoilers up to 3x15 and then it veers off into its own canon. Kind of dark and definitely angsty. Minor character deaths. Morally dubious decisions that aren't directly addressed in the fic.
Words: 2,521
Summary: He knows why she is there, why she came to Niklaus of all people. Everything she had loved had been ripped from her, the last part of her old life ripped away by those she cared about, and now she just wants it all to end. She has a death wish and Klaus has always been happy to cater to all of her wishes.
Prompt: fly me to nowhere, it's better than somewhere; that's where I've been and nothing's changed (though really how this came from that, I don’t know)
Author’s Note: I don’t really know what this is, it started as one thing and then this just kind of came out. I was playing around with some different things, so things are out of chronological order and there is a ambiguity that is supposed to be there but I’m not sure how well it works. If it’s confusing, feel free to ask questions.
.
.
.
Caroline shows up on Klaus’ doorstep, blood still on her hands and a broken look in her eyes that he never thought he would see.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
It’s not the way he wanted her, but he would keep her just the same.
.
.
.
When Elena arrives on their doorstep, full of false courage and determination, it is Elijah who speaks to her, Klaus in the background and Caroline nowhere to be seen.
“She does not wish to see you.”
“Can’t you just tell her I’m here? Ask her to let me talk to her?”
“She does not wish to hear your explanations.”
“But-”
“Elena, your friend is hurting right now; if you are truly her friend you will respect her wishes.”
“I can’t just leave her in there with Klaus.”
“She isn’t here alone.”
.
.
.
Klaus find her in his bedroom waiting for him, sitting on his bed like it was something to be expected and not something to be imagined.
“Lost, sweetheart?”
“No.” She says with a distinct shake of her head.
He cocks his head to the side, trying to read her, but this Caroline, the one that showed up at his doorstep covered in someone else’s blood, is difficult to get a read on.
She is standing in front of him suddenly, face to face, and it is the closest they’ve ever been when he wasn’t the one instigating it. And then her lips on his, her hands fisting his shirt, and her hips pushing against his. It only takes a moment for him to catch up.
.
.
.
She curls into Tyler, ignoring the way his body twitches at the littlest contact, ignoring the beads of sweat on his brow and the way his eyes keep going back and forth between the door and the window.
She shouldn’t ignore it. She should ask him what’s wrong. She should ask him why he was gone so long, ask him about what happened. But she doesn’t want to. She wants to be the comforted instead of the one offering the comforting. She wants someone to tell her that it’s all going to be alright. Wants someone to love her despite of everything she’s done.
She wants something to be about her. And Caroline thinks her mother’s death is a perfect opportunity for that.
.
.
.
“I want to leave.”
Elijah and Klaus both look up from their books, surprised to see her downstairs with no coaxing.
“I think that’s a splendid idea, love.” Klaus tells her, “You’ve spent far too much time cooped up in this house. I suppose the Grill is out all things considered, but-”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I want to leave Mystic Falls.”
“You want to leave town?”
“You said you’d take me wherever I want to go. Paris, Rome, Tokyo. Anywhere that isn’t here. Please, take me somewhere else.”
.
.
.
“Why are you doing this?” Elena asked.
“Because it is what is best for her. And contrary to what you and the Salvatores may believe, that is all my brother and I want.”
.
.
.
Caroline stood in front of the gravestone, tears still streaming down her face, Elijah and Klaus standing somewhere behind her. She thought that she should be done crying out by now, that there shouldn’t be any tears left, but they never seemed to stop. She remembers Stefan telling her once that grief is different for vampires, that they feel it with everything they have. She remembers him telling her that there is a switch to turn it all off, she wishes she could find it.
She scans the cemetery, recognizing far too many names from where she is standing. In the distance she can see Elena’s parents headstones, beside them Jenna and John’s final resting places. She thinks Jenna would hate the idea of being buried with him for eternity.
Behind her is the man responsible for their deaths, for the misery it brought everyone around her. But as her eyes scan to the left, she can see a much fresher grave and she is reminded that he is not the only one to bring pain to this town.
She steps back, placing a rose before each marker. She thinks her mother and father would have hated the idea of being buried together almost as much as Jenna and John.
.
.
.
He knows why she is there, why she came to Niklaus of all people. Everything she had loved had been ripped from her, the last part of her old life ripped away by those she cared about, and now she just wants it all to end.
She has a death wish and Klaus has always been happy to cater to all of her wishes.
No he won’t kill her, she belongs to him now and is not to be harmed, even by Klaus himself. But the downward spiral, the downfall she craves so badly, he is more than happy to supply her with that.
.
.
.
Klaus brings her to all the places he promised her. Art galleries and grand parties, introducing her to things she would never experience without an Original at her side. And she wants to enjoy it, wants for it to make it as happy as he once promised her it would, wants to still be the girl he had saved in her bedroom all that time ago.
But she doesn’t.
Sometimes she thinks she succeeded in flipping off the switch, that it finally worked. But the pain is still there, the hatred, the anger and all of the bad. And she knows that she’s wrong.
.
.
.
“Make me forget” she begs him.
And he kisses her harshly, pretending that is all she wants, an escape.
.
.
.
She finds out who was killing the council members, shortly after her mother is added to their list of victims. She plunges her hand into their chest, her mother’s blood still on her hands, and pulls out their heart.
They were human, and when the others find her they never look at her the same.
She hears her own voice echoing in her head, I’m a monster, a murder.
But this time Stefan offers her no comfort in his arms and she knows she wouldn’t deserve it even if he did.
.
.
.
She kisses Elijah for the first time with alcohol on her breath. She kisses him for all the wrong reasons. She kisses him for the consequences that will come after, for Klaus reaction and possibly his own.
She had heard stories about the last girl who tried to come between them, from Elena’s lips, from their own. She had ended up dead, her blood transforming them into what they are now. Caroline’s blood won’t give them anything, no power, no substance, nothing. But she thinks she might end up dead just the same.
Elijah pulls away and looks her directly in the eye, his expression neutral and unreadable for someone like her.
“That will not get you what you want.”
What he means is that he will not be the one to give it to her.
.
.
.
Caroline sinks her teeth into the woman’s flesh, reveling in the feeling, in the rush of power.
She wants to drain her dry, to make someone else feel the pain of losing someone they love. Wants for someone out there to know the pain of losing a mother, a sister, a lover. Wants to be responsible for someone else’s pain and just forget about her own.
But then Elijah is there, she can feel his presence, and she stops because he knows what he will think of her. She pulls away and she wishes she was doing it for herself, that she was a better stronger person, the person Klaus promised her she was, wishes that she wanted to do it for herself, that she wasn’t longing to finish her off.
She has spent a lot of time wishing but so far none of her wishes have come true.
.
.
.
“You’ll get bored of me eventually. You both will.” She tells him.
He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know what has made her think that.
“Why would you say something like that?” Elijah asks.
“Because that’s what always happens.”
.
.
.
Klaus squeezed, smiling at the noises Damon made as he wrapped his hand tighter around his throat.
“I could just put you out of your misery now, end it all. I’m sure it would make Caroline smile, and it has been far too long since she has.”
“I had to do it.” Damon choked out. “He was going to kill Stefan. Kill Elena.”
The words came out strangled, harsh.
“That doesn’t seem to matter to her.” Klaus said cocking his head to the left, “You took the last thing she had left. But not to worry, Elijah and I are more than willing to pick up the pieces.”
.
.
.
When Klaus first loses his temper with her, Caroline does not react as Elijah expects. He remembers Caroline from before, watching her after what the werewolves had done. Strong as she might be, she was irrevocably changed and it was some time before she was faced with any show of anger without tensing up in fear.
But as Klaus yells, breaks a vase next to her head, manhandling her across the room, she does not flinch, barely reacts at all. No screams, no denials, not tears or apologies. Nothing at all.
Elijah knows that this is not because she feels safe with his brother.
He knows it is the opposite.
.
.
.
He kisses her, touches her, like he’s trying to fix her, trying to remind her of the good in the world. But it’s not what she wants, she can feel her emotions getting the better of her, her eyes tearing up and she doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want any of it.
She slams him against the wall, the molder cracking in a way that will lead the maids to ask questions, and stares him down. His eyes are dark and intense, and he’s looking at her like he knows what she’s feeling, like he sees something familiar in her.
She closes her eyes, kisses him again, and tries to forget the look in his eyes.
.
.
.
“You’re smoking again.”
“What does it matter? It’s not like it’ll kill me.”
“It tastes horrible.” Klaus told her.
She smiles up at him, pressing her lips against his.
“It tastes like death.”
.
.
.
She asks them what it was like to watch everything change so drastically from when they were human, to have everything stripped away from them one by one.
“It really isn’t that bad, it usually means improvement, innovation. You’ll get used to it eventually too.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant…all those things that reminded you of what it was like before you were a vampire. Your home, your friends, your family, everything that made you human…what was it like when it all disappeared?”
“I…I don’t know. I suppose it never really did disappear.”
“Because you had your family with you.”
“Yes, I suppose I did.”
.
.
.
She kisses Elijah with blood on her lips in hopes to entice him to kiss her back.
He pulls away and she meets his eyes straight on.
“I cannot give you what you want.”
“And what is it that I want?”
“For it to end. And I will not give you that.”
.
.
.
They find her in the hotel room, curled into a ball resting her head against the wall. Across the room there lied a body, a young girl, maybe sixteen, with long blonde hair and blue eyes vacantly staring back at her.
“Caroline?”
“It won’t turn off.” She whispered. “I keep trying to make it, I’ve tried so hard, but it just won’t turn off. I don’t want to feel it anymore; I don’t want to feel like this. I just want to turn it off.”
.
.
.
“Did we break her?” Klaus asked.
He could remember the girl she once was, remember her laughter, the way she smiled so brightly. The way she confidently told him off, despite her fear, the way she promised never to fall for his tricks.
Now she was lying in his bed, his and his brother’s companion, his Caroline and all he could think about was the broken look in her eyes that he saw every day.
“The world broke her, Niklaus,” Elijah said, “But we certainly did not help.”
.
.
.
She gets a call from Elena and its panicked and she can’t make much out beyond the words Tyler, hurry, and help. That had been all she needed to hear.
She arrives just in time to hear Elena scream and Tyler’s body hit the floor, his heart still in Damon’s hand.
Her own cries soon drown out everything else.
.
.
.
“You can’t turn it off,” He tells her, his hands wrapping around her arms as he shook her harshly, as though that would somehow help her understand. “There is no switch. It’s just a lie.”
Sometimes he wonders if that is when she broke completely, the moment she had no more lies to cling too.
.
.
.
“She won’t remember what happened with Tyler, the death of he and her parents both will just be a faded memory, she will no longer blame any of you or herself.”
“And you and Klaus?”
“She will know who we are, but she won’t remember her time spent with us.”
“Won’t she have questions? Gaps in her memory? I mean even Barbie will realize that something’s wrong.”
Klaus stepped forward, anger evident on his face, and Elijah raised a hand to stop him.
“Mindful how you talk or else you might find yourself wishing that I had put you out of your misery the last time I offered.”
“Caroline’s memory will be foggy,” Elijah explained, “but she will know that she spent that time with you, that there’s no reason to worry.”
“And you’ll just leave her alone? You won’t show up again?” Stefan asked.
“We never promised that.” Klaus said with a frown.
Elijah remained silent, looking away.
.
.
.
He sweeps her out of the arms of her dance partner and into his own before she fully realizes what has happened and he smiles at the look on her face.
“You know after a thousand years I would have thought someone in your family would have learned some manners.” She told him with a pointed look, like that person was supposed to be him.
“I didn’t think you would say yes if I asked you.” Elijah told her.
She didn’t disagree, just looked away haughtily and he took that to mean no, she wouldn’t have, not willingly. And he smiles at her cheek.
“I was surprised to see you here with my brother.”
“I am not here with him.”
“And I suppose that is not his bracelet on your wrist?”
Her cheeks flush and she let out a frustrated groan. “You’re family is going to be the death of me.”
“I certainly hope not, Miss Forbes.”
.
.
.