[ he wants to be. he wants it to be him, fiercely, unapologetic. to be the first in her thoughts if not the only. he wants it with the force and single-mindedness he wants everything: nothing else will do. he cannot halt or evaluate these feelings, and moreover it does not even occur to him to try, to concede past the realistic possibility he is not the sole person she might desire, or choose to turn to in her efforts.
he wants to be more than an effort. he wants more than means to an end for her, wants more than finite choices in which she must pick and choose. (he wants to be the choice.) she deserves more, even while he might embrace the position it could conceivably leave him in, in her eyes.
his throat works slightly at her answer; his lashes lower in half a blink, over the longing and cautiousness in his eyes. her words make his still heart thrum in the silence, the long beats between them. his fingers, as if awoken, gently rub hers, brush veins in her wrist, and his free hand lifts to the slide his fingertips down the delicate, splayed bones of her hand.
his lips part and he exhales, looks down in a bow to her, full of hope he feels he must smother, of tension strung tight.
perhaps he is the coward his father and his family takes him for: he will not ask what she wants. she already knows what answer he would seek. ] What you want and what you'll regret often find each other in hand. [ it is quiet, the one piece of true, selfless advice he has. there is a cost to whatever it takes. ]
I don't regret what I want. [ her only regrets are in the things she has to do, the things that harm others. killing those witches, she regrets that. killing anyone, she'll always regret that. but--] I can't regret doing what I need to save the people I love. [ or else she'd lose her mind with the grief of it all. she'll protect her own as fiercely as he would his. although she may take a different tactic most times, find the road less bloody, less rabid.
she feels the brush of his fingers, feels the heat it brings and the feeling of confusion it builds within her. she can't want him in the way he wants her to. she can't love him in this moment, at least she convinces herself as much. but that doesn't mean she doesn't want the comfort of the familiar, of someone she trusts (ha, trusting klaus).]
And I don't regret what we did. [ she can't. she said as much to everyone she told about it. she regrets who it may have hurt, yes. but she'd wanted him in that moment, she wanted that moment. she wanted the scandalous sex (and maybe she still craves it even now).]
[ and what of her? he was damaged long before he became a monster, and everything he does in service to himself and his family are only the deepening of a wound long since healed hollow, heart hardened. that is not a fate, not a path she need walk, bending to the whims of this city, chasing down bonnie's life and her mother's to an end that may never come. she says she does not regret it, not yet, and he believes in her strength, her will, her dedication, for now. but it is a fine line, sharp and taut, and he has not lived so long to be so naive:
she has the darkness in her. it's what makes her light shine so brightly, so full.
his head lifts, and with it does his eyes, and in time for her confession. he holds her hand as something delicate, the weight a precious thing between his own, and it is only as she strikes him with her assurance that he realizes he craved it at all, that he wondered, that the distance between them and her words on the beach had tore at him. that no amount of memories could stop the way his thoughts have been oscillating: between the surety she wanted him then, could want him again, and knowing he would never be anything but a monster she would never choose.
but he is not the vicious, terrible visage that lurks inside now. his lips and eyes are soft, his brows smooth, his heart taken and affected. every bit the man he was born before he was shaped, and after; hurt and yearning, wanting even the barest scrap-
he tears his gaze away, drops it again because he is weak. ] I have regretted little. Very little. [ and even so, much he would have done anyway, regardless, even knowing. much he did. his eyes lift, and in them is composure and certainty. ] I would never regret you.
[ there may be a darkness within her but it is not so dark that she would allow herself to be seduced by the wickedest of creatures. klaus is not a monster entirely, he is not irredeemable, although she is well aware that she does not have the capacity to fix him, to mend his heart like she thought she might. but she has seen goodness in him, just as he has seen the darkness in her. neither of them are what so many others think they are on the surface.
they are so much more than the sum of their parts.
she watches his face as he tears his gaze from hers and speaks those words, words she knows to be true in her heart. it should strike some doubt in her heart, that he regrets so little of what he's done, monstrous and terrible. but so much of it he did in the pursuit of protecting his family (even if it meant hurting them), in the pursuit of love. brutalized from the start, he never had a chance, she knows that now even if she doesn't know just how true that is. love had been twisted and maimed right in front of him, he was broken, in a different way than she.
she feels the tension between them thicken as he speaks, her eyes never lifting from his face as she tries to speak lightly, in the way she always does in an attempt to lighten the mood, release the tension.] Well, I mean, duh. I was pretty incredible that day. [ she smiles at him, smirking even.] Top of my game even if half the time I had bark digging into my back.
[ she is not broken. her heart is bruised, and she has suffered, grieved, and lost. she has changed, altered in body and mind. she holds a darkness, yes -- of humanity and of bloodlust, but it has not broken her, and nor will her mother's death.
he knows: she is not broken because she is strong, in her love and in her heart. in all the ways he is not.
klaus' smile breaks through his graveness, the curve of his lips just as sincere, just as genuine. she seeks to cut the tension, that he knows, and he lets her. he likes it.
it is just as warm, her teasing. klaus turns his head away under the lightness of his amusement, of the truth he would emphatically agree with, even spoken with such assumed bragging rights. (she was incredible. more than; she was visceral and real and present, to him, with him, in a way she hadn't been ever before, not aside from the electric catch of their lingering gazes. his hands shook just as often as they steadied to grab and caress her with a thousand years' experience, and none at all.)
he is bright, smiling as he looks at her, the expression reaching his eyes as it rarely does. ] My apologies for any enthusiasm.
You should be sorry. I'm pretty sure I still have splinters in my back. [ it's easier to make light of it. to tease and joke about the passion that overtook them both. easier than thinking on it, on letting herself dwell and remember until the passion arises again.
isn't it?
so she continues to look smug, pulling her hand from his gently without any other purpose or motive but to tuck her hair back and take another sip of her drink. she sits back against his couch with an easy grace that she's always possessed upon turning vampire. the time for comfort and sorrows has passed and now she chooses to linger in their easy banter, the familiar.
caroline forbes for all her exceptionalism relies on the familiar. she is somehow both bold and reluctant. it is why she didn't go off to some exotic college, it is why she's trying so hard to go home, both here and back home. she looks equally bright, her smile, her eyes as she looks at him. she has pushed herself into the i'm fine mode for the time being.]
Next time no trees. [ she says it without even realizing what she has said, implied. that there will be a next time, that there should be. but perhaps the fact that she has so carelessly spoken of a 'next time' means that she has not turned her heart from the possibility. and perhaps that is more true than ever as she sits across from him in a place that demands intimacy as she seeks his comfort and receives it.]
[ he might argue he believes he still has her nails lodged in his shoulders, but perhaps it'd be a bit too earnest, too much. instead he smirks to himself. he will let her make light of it, to tease and joke over their intimacy -- to make it intimate.
he knows it is easier for her. it is easy for him to watch her grace, to enjoy her smugness, and watch her comfortable in her skin and slip into what they know: what is just as familiar if not as thick as his murmured promises, and the heaviness of her grief.
he would be beaming if he were a man for it, taking her brightness in. (he knows there is just as much sadness underneath, dormant for now.) instead his smile is understated as he leans slightly back when she pulls from him. if he were a man for it, he'd show an outward sign to her offhand comment, to how it sends excitement straight through him, harsh and and piercing in the most pleasant of ways. what's better is she doesn't seem to realize what it foreshadows.
and for all he acquiesces, he simply cannot let this one pass. ] I'll keep that in mind. [ he says it simply, evenly, but low with promise. a tone meant to ruffle her, to make her realize her implication if not her intent. the look in his eyes is dark, wanting, remembering, and wicked in the following beat, trained on her.
klaus reaches for his drink beside him, pulls in a much-needed breath. ] Will you go to university? [ as they spoke of, before. ]
[ it is easier to hide behind teasing and banter than face up to the way she truly feels. she has always been better at masking her true feelings with such things, although with him it was usually with a touch of hostility. now she doesn't have that luxury anymore, not when he knows what she had truly wanted, how she truly felt. not when she had her curiosity and desire sated (mostly) in the woods.
it is an indication of her continued regard for him, the way she slips up, the way she doesn't quite realize it until it has already been said and answered with words of his own. she doesn't back track now, like she might before she knew the taste of his lips and press of his lean body against her own. now she has no ground to stand on, no deniability.
his promise makes her feel restless suddenly, it does ruffle her. but she hides her reaction as best she can even if she cannot hide the skip of her beating heart. he goes on to ask some inane question and she is quick to jump on it.] After dropping out? Yeah. I guess so.
[ he is quick to give her the out, cognizant of her skipping heart, of the way his words find her. all he has in response to her restlessness in a knowing smile, small and directed towards the ground. she has already denied him, after all, and if they are to bed it will be by her volition, and her encouragement. he seeks simply to plant the seed, ever the strategist. to watch how it undoes her. how he might continue.
klaus takes a mouthful of his liquor now, downs half the glass. it will affect him little, and even littler given his previous impressive consumption today. ] I mean here. Word has it they have prolific programs. [ more inaneness, but truth be told he would like to know: what she plans to do here. ]
[ she hadn't even thought to plan what she would do here. but undoubtedly, this fulfillment would take time. she couldn't very well just sit around idle, caroline forbes is never idle. she'd spent the first few days here finding people, meeting them, making her apartment her own as best she could. he is right to question her and she looks at him for a moment before taking a sip of her drink to cover her indecisiveness, to hide the the fact that caroline forbes does not have a plan yet.] I don't know. Maybe.
[ so she hasn't any plans. he can identify the truth when he sees it. and truth be told he has none either. how many days has it been since his visit to miss edgewood, their local, friendly city administrator? how long has it been since he lifted a finger to this cage he finds he and his family in, or contributed to it? no, he has spent the days brooding, angry, and drinking. ] Ah, well. [ his response is the vocal equivalent to a shrug. ] I haven't given it much thought either.
What? You'd go to college? [ it's not a real question, more of a tease. she figures that he wouldn't go back to college, he's not like stefan who seems to like to go back to school. although--] I might get a job or something. [ the idea of settling here, it isn't one she relishes in. she meant what she said before. she means to get back to her mother, to get bonnie back. she doesn't want to stay here longer than she should, then she has to.]
[ she should tease away, because he wouldn't. all klaus has learned over the decades has been through his own curiosity, be the friendships of leaders in their fields, or through his own keenness. nothing is like learning history while it's being made, after all. ] I believe I'd have little use and patience for your textbooks and lecture halls. [ it's a smile that fades, just so, afterwards. settling is not a thought he relishes either, but he is aware of his own finances, stripped of the ability to simply compel what he wants.
he's been quite reckless with it, this month. ]
Something must pass the time. [ he takes another drink, this sip smaller. ] Perhaps I'll sell my paintings.
[ she has the ability to compel what she wants but caroline has never been content to do so. she remembers what it is like to be compelled, to be taken advantage of. she takes what she has to, nothing more. and caroline has always been more content with hard won battle, with doing the work instead of letting someone else do it for her. most times. although sometimes that means bossing people around.
she glances at his easels when he speaks of his paintings, giving him an assured smile. ] Maybe I'll buy one.
[ his smile curves, and he gestures to the few standing easels, and the stacks of canvases he's started, finished, or left to decide. ] You can have your pick. [ truly she can, and he'd never charge her. knowing something of his has pleased her would be payment enough. ] My first commission.
[ she can't help but look pleased and intrigued, her eyebrow perking some as she glances over the canvases already worked on before settling on a blank one.] Maybe I should make me something special.
Whatever you like. [ he does not follow her eyes, his own intent on appreciating her, drinking her in. and his answer is soft, promising: whatever she'd like, always. he is a king, powerful and vicious, and willing at her service as any man infatuated. ]
What would you paint me? If you were to choose? [ she plays the game much like a girl besotted but even more than that, a girl who likes to flirt and tease as much as she likes to be flirted with.]
[ her. he'd paint her, all sunlight and shadows, reds and yellows, the picture of something otherworldly, knowing his fingers had touched her skin. he would paint her as he sees her: beautiful; a creature deserving of want and sacrifice.
that is what he'd paint, how he'd paint it, and the dark, wanting look in his eyes only hints at his lusting thoughts.
he'd make her cities and castles, oceans and mountains, recount the familiarity of home and the yearning for the world. he'd draw her mother, the sun, the moon, and anything she might miss if only for a moment. ]
Everything. [ just as he's wanted to give her. ] And I'd start with you.
[ his answer takes her breath away for a moment, her eyes searching his before they can't anymore. she looks down, fighting a smile and failing, the edges of her mouth curving in the most bashful way. still, she teases, tries to lighten the way his earnest answer makes her feel, the way it heats her cheeks and makes her heart race a little more.
she takes a sip of her drink, her smile and expression coy.] That might be a bit much to put on one canvas.
[ he knows the weight of his words, and he means them. he means them as much as he means for them to have an affect, to persuade her enchantment, the tightness of her lungs. his gaze is steady, wide open and adoring, and it stays such even as her eyes part from his, and a sweet smile takes her features.
he'd like to commit that one to memory, and to paper: the smiles that makes his heart full, his pride tall, his blood to rush.
klaus' eyes flit away after she speaks, needing that breath, that pause. ] I assume it'd be several, at least. [ there is a lilt to the murmur, playful, and his gaze lifts again to take her in, hungry for it. the air is thick, so thick he dare not move in its embrace, and he does not want to. ]
I only need one, [ she says with that same coy smile, her eyes lifting to meet with his after a moment, seeing the hunger it in, feeling a strange sense of her own. she fights it though, fights the way it might show on her face, taking in her own breath, almost shaky.
so instead, she lets out a soft laugh before down the rest of her drink.] I'm not sure how marketable a painting of me would be.
[ the beat of his heart is loud, quick; it is the only indication of his excitement besides the hint in his eyes. the organ is quicker still at her coyness, and that enchanting, promising shake in her breath, the notion of truly painting her. as she implies. klaus reaches for her empty glass without hesitation, casts his fingers over hers as if to take it.
he doesn't; he lingers. there is a sincerity in his eyes, a firmness. for as much as he knows she jests, well: ] If I were to paint you, there would be nothing, no promises or favors, no price that would persuade me to part with an image as wanted and intimate as you.
[ he touches her and it drives her a little crazy. she should go. she should leave. this is crazy. all of it. she's walking a dangerous line but she wants to walk it, like she had before. maybe it's some kind of self-punishment letting herself be charmed, be seduced by him. or maybe it's that she likes his attentions, likes the way he makes her feel, the way he desires her without reservation or without care.
why can't she want him the same way?
there's a voice in her head that reminds her that he is a monster. but so is she. she's killed, not nearly as many as he, but she has killed the innocent, not just carter who she couldn't help. she killed to protect as he has. his body count is higher because he has been alive for centuries. caroline isn't the sort to make excuses for people, at least that's what she tells herself until she remembers stefan and every excuse she's made for him.
his words only push her to say what has been racing through her mind since she got here, since before that, since she kissed him on the beach. his touch lingers and her gaze does too. in any other moment, she might laugh at his words, at how cheesy they are but right now, with the sorrow in her heart, the uncertainty of this place filling her thoughts, and the beginning of a buzz, she is enchanted.
she lets out a breath, looking up determinedly at him, feeling as sure about this as she feels uncertain.] Sleep with me. [ she speaks the words quickly but she says them with a confidence that is singularly hers.] If intimacy is the way to get back home... why shouldn't we? We've done it before. [ and it doesn't have to mean anything.]
[ he stills. it is demanding, the way her request sears through him, and the playful light in his eyes flickers before it mutes, leaving behind only a gleam, as searching and keyed as any of his prior hopes and yearnings -- but focused, hungry. he wants to: to do exactly as she requests, the words beckoning in him a rush that drowns his senses. there is heat in his cheeks thinking of taking her, undressing her, tasting and touching and claiming her for his pleasure, and enticing her own.
he wants to. it is caroline, not just beckoning his lust but the softness of his heart.
yes, is his answer, and everything about him says so.
it is primal, instinctual, the roaring of his base desires, and not the sharpness of his mind. she lays it at his feet, all he desires, and there is no doubt in him to take it. even as her justifications make him pause, cut him just so, in the way only she can. but fine, he thinks -- for it doesn't truly matter to his decision how she cuts him, or what she tells herself. still he meant it, what he thought, the desire behind what he asked of her wants before, and his pride demands nothing less than the sincerity of it. he wants her to want this. he needs her to, to have that seed, to nurture it.
she wants him. he can hear it in her heartbeat, see it plain in her eyes, smell it on her skin. his thumb runs over hers, spreads the dew of her cold drink to the soft apex of skin, coaxing as slowly as his words. ] And is that all it would mean to you? [ he knows the answer, but he wants to hear hers, his voice even, knowing, and non-expectant all the same. ]
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he wants to be more than an effort. he wants more than means to an end for her, wants more than finite choices in which she must pick and choose. (he wants to be the choice.) she deserves more, even while he might embrace the position it could conceivably leave him in, in her eyes.
his throat works slightly at her answer; his lashes lower in half a blink, over the longing and cautiousness in his eyes. her words make his still heart thrum in the silence, the long beats between them. his fingers, as if awoken, gently rub hers, brush veins in her wrist, and his free hand lifts to the slide his fingertips down the delicate, splayed bones of her hand.
his lips part and he exhales, looks down in a bow to her, full of hope he feels he must smother, of tension strung tight.
perhaps he is the coward his father and his family takes him for: he will not ask what she wants. she already knows what answer he would seek. ] What you want and what you'll regret often find each other in hand. [ it is quiet, the one piece of true, selfless advice he has. there is a cost to whatever it takes. ]
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she feels the brush of his fingers, feels the heat it brings and the feeling of confusion it builds within her. she can't want him in the way he wants her to. she can't love him in this moment, at least she convinces herself as much. but that doesn't mean she doesn't want the comfort of the familiar, of someone she trusts (ha, trusting klaus).]
And I don't regret what we did. [ she can't. she said as much to everyone she told about it. she regrets who it may have hurt, yes. but she'd wanted him in that moment, she wanted that moment. she wanted the scandalous sex (and maybe she still craves it even now).]
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she has the darkness in her. it's what makes her light shine so brightly, so full.
his head lifts, and with it does his eyes, and in time for her confession. he holds her hand as something delicate, the weight a precious thing between his own, and it is only as she strikes him with her assurance that he realizes he craved it at all, that he wondered, that the distance between them and her words on the beach had tore at him. that no amount of memories could stop the way his thoughts have been oscillating: between the surety she wanted him then, could want him again, and knowing he would never be anything but a monster she would never choose.
but he is not the vicious, terrible visage that lurks inside now. his lips and eyes are soft, his brows smooth, his heart taken and affected. every bit the man he was born before he was shaped, and after; hurt and yearning, wanting even the barest scrap-
he tears his gaze away, drops it again because he is weak. ] I have regretted little. Very little. [ and even so, much he would have done anyway, regardless, even knowing. much he did. his eyes lift, and in them is composure and certainty. ] I would never regret you.
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they are so much more than the sum of their parts.
she watches his face as he tears his gaze from hers and speaks those words, words she knows to be true in her heart. it should strike some doubt in her heart, that he regrets so little of what he's done, monstrous and terrible. but so much of it he did in the pursuit of protecting his family (even if it meant hurting them), in the pursuit of love. brutalized from the start, he never had a chance, she knows that now even if she doesn't know just how true that is. love had been twisted and maimed right in front of him, he was broken, in a different way than she.
she feels the tension between them thicken as he speaks, her eyes never lifting from his face as she tries to speak lightly, in the way she always does in an attempt to lighten the mood, release the tension.] Well, I mean, duh. I was pretty incredible that day. [ she smiles at him, smirking even.] Top of my game even if half the time I had bark digging into my back.
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he knows: she is not broken because she is strong, in her love and in her heart. in all the ways he is not.
klaus' smile breaks through his graveness, the curve of his lips just as sincere, just as genuine. she seeks to cut the tension, that he knows, and he lets her. he likes it.
it is just as warm, her teasing. klaus turns his head away under the lightness of his amusement, of the truth he would emphatically agree with, even spoken with such assumed bragging rights. (she was incredible. more than; she was visceral and real and present, to him, with him, in a way she hadn't been ever before, not aside from the electric catch of their lingering gazes. his hands shook just as often as they steadied to grab and caress her with a thousand years' experience, and none at all.)
he is bright, smiling as he looks at her, the expression reaching his eyes as it rarely does. ] My apologies for any enthusiasm.
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isn't it?
so she continues to look smug, pulling her hand from his gently without any other purpose or motive but to tuck her hair back and take another sip of her drink. she sits back against his couch with an easy grace that she's always possessed upon turning vampire. the time for comfort and sorrows has passed and now she chooses to linger in their easy banter, the familiar.
caroline forbes for all her exceptionalism relies on the familiar. she is somehow both bold and reluctant. it is why she didn't go off to some exotic college, it is why she's trying so hard to go home, both here and back home. she looks equally bright, her smile, her eyes as she looks at him. she has pushed herself into the i'm fine mode for the time being.]
Next time no trees. [ she says it without even realizing what she has said, implied. that there will be a next time, that there should be. but perhaps the fact that she has so carelessly spoken of a 'next time' means that she has not turned her heart from the possibility. and perhaps that is more true than ever as she sits across from him in a place that demands intimacy as she seeks his comfort and receives it.]
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he knows it is easier for her. it is easy for him to watch her grace, to enjoy her smugness, and watch her comfortable in her skin and slip into what they know: what is just as familiar if not as thick as his murmured promises, and the heaviness of her grief.
he would be beaming if he were a man for it, taking her brightness in. (he knows there is just as much sadness underneath, dormant for now.) instead his smile is understated as he leans slightly back when she pulls from him. if he were a man for it, he'd show an outward sign to her offhand comment, to how it sends excitement straight through him, harsh and and piercing in the most pleasant of ways. what's better is she doesn't seem to realize what it foreshadows.
and for all he acquiesces, he simply cannot let this one pass. ] I'll keep that in mind. [ he says it simply, evenly, but low with promise. a tone meant to ruffle her, to make her realize her implication if not her intent. the look in his eyes is dark, wanting, remembering, and wicked in the following beat, trained on her.
klaus reaches for his drink beside him, pulls in a much-needed breath. ] Will you go to university? [ as they spoke of, before. ]
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it is an indication of her continued regard for him, the way she slips up, the way she doesn't quite realize it until it has already been said and answered with words of his own. she doesn't back track now, like she might before she knew the taste of his lips and press of his lean body against her own. now she has no ground to stand on, no deniability.
his promise makes her feel restless suddenly, it does ruffle her. but she hides her reaction as best she can even if she cannot hide the skip of her beating heart. he goes on to ask some inane question and she is quick to jump on it.] After dropping out? Yeah. I guess so.
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klaus takes a mouthful of his liquor now, downs half the glass. it will affect him little, and even littler given his previous impressive consumption today. ] I mean here. Word has it they have prolific programs. [ more inaneness, but truth be told he would like to know: what she plans to do here. ]
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he's been quite reckless with it, this month. ]
Something must pass the time. [ he takes another drink, this sip smaller. ] Perhaps I'll sell my paintings.
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she glances at his easels when he speaks of his paintings, giving him an assured smile. ] Maybe I'll buy one.
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that is what he'd paint, how he'd paint it, and the dark, wanting look in his eyes only hints at his lusting thoughts.
he'd make her cities and castles, oceans and mountains, recount the familiarity of home and the yearning for the world. he'd draw her mother, the sun, the moon, and anything she might miss if only for a moment. ]
Everything. [ just as he's wanted to give her. ] And I'd start with you.
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she takes a sip of her drink, her smile and expression coy.] That might be a bit much to put on one canvas.
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he'd like to commit that one to memory, and to paper: the smiles that makes his heart full, his pride tall, his blood to rush.
klaus' eyes flit away after she speaks, needing that breath, that pause. ] I assume it'd be several, at least. [ there is a lilt to the murmur, playful, and his gaze lifts again to take her in, hungry for it. the air is thick, so thick he dare not move in its embrace, and he does not want to. ]
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so instead, she lets out a soft laugh before down the rest of her drink.] I'm not sure how marketable a painting of me would be.
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he doesn't; he lingers. there is a sincerity in his eyes, a firmness. for as much as he knows she jests, well: ] If I were to paint you, there would be nothing, no promises or favors, no price that would persuade me to part with an image as wanted and intimate as you.
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why can't she want him the same way?
there's a voice in her head that reminds her that he is a monster. but so is she. she's killed, not nearly as many as he, but she has killed the innocent, not just carter who she couldn't help. she killed to protect as he has. his body count is higher because he has been alive for centuries. caroline isn't the sort to make excuses for people, at least that's what she tells herself until she remembers stefan and every excuse she's made for him.
his words only push her to say what has been racing through her mind since she got here, since before that, since she kissed him on the beach. his touch lingers and her gaze does too. in any other moment, she might laugh at his words, at how cheesy they are but right now, with the sorrow in her heart, the uncertainty of this place filling her thoughts, and the beginning of a buzz, she is enchanted.
she lets out a breath, looking up determinedly at him, feeling as sure about this as she feels uncertain.] Sleep with me. [ she speaks the words quickly but she says them with a confidence that is singularly hers.] If intimacy is the way to get back home... why shouldn't we? We've done it before. [ and it doesn't have to mean anything.]
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he wants to. it is caroline, not just beckoning his lust but the softness of his heart.
yes, is his answer, and everything about him says so.
it is primal, instinctual, the roaring of his base desires, and not the sharpness of his mind. she lays it at his feet, all he desires, and there is no doubt in him to take it. even as her justifications make him pause, cut him just so, in the way only she can. but fine, he thinks -- for it doesn't truly matter to his decision how she cuts him, or what she tells herself. still he meant it, what he thought, the desire behind what he asked of her wants before, and his pride demands nothing less than the sincerity of it. he wants her to want this. he needs her to, to have that seed, to nurture it.
she wants him. he can hear it in her heartbeat, see it plain in her eyes, smell it on her skin. his thumb runs over hers, spreads the dew of her cold drink to the soft apex of skin, coaxing as slowly as his words. ] And is that all it would mean to you? [ he knows the answer, but he wants to hear hers, his voice even, knowing, and non-expectant all the same. ]
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