#imagine caroline mentioning that to tease him or to get under his skin

[tulipisnadaxx]

its kind of funny they never mentioned the fact that caroline and tyler were the vampire and the werewolf Klaus was supposed to sacrifice in the ritual back in tvds2, but they ended up his first hybird and his fisrt love interest in the show. the irony😭😭

[sillyrabbit81]

Hi rabbit I have an idea for a story! What if reader was married to Sy’s best friend and has a toddler but her husband was killed on duty when the baby was only a few weeks old? Sy has taken it upon himself to make sure reader and her little girl are looked after. But as months go on they both develop feelings and Sy pulls away out of guilt and reader is feeling shattered. I’m imagining an angsty fic with some smut at the end?

Summary: Sy made a promise to his best friend, your husband, to look after you and his son when he died. One night, Sy takes things too far making a drunken pass at you just before his last deployment and it threatens to derail your relationship. Sy sees you again for the first time since that night at a New Year’s Eve party.

Pairing: Captain Syverson x Single Mother Reader

Word Count: approx. 1.8k

Warnings: Sy POV, Angst with a happy ending, implied forced kissing/unwanted kissing, mention of death, implied smut.

Authors Note: Ok so, in a panic I remembered that I was supposed to do a New Year’s Kiss fic for @cavillsthighs Cavillmas. I’m so sorry I forgot all about it. Luckily, I had part of this story rolling around in my head for a while thanks to the anon ask. It’s not exactly what you asked for Anon, but it did inspire this fic.

Thanks to @henryobsessed for Beta reading and @amberangel112 for Beta reading and being the best title fairy ever!

Edited by me, there will be errors.

Please be gentle with me, I wrote this in a couple of hours in a mad panic 🙈

Masterlist

More Than Ever

“Uncle Sy!”

I turned round just in time to put my beer on the table and squat on tired knees to scoop little Ryan into a hug. I stood with the boy pressing him close to my chest. He was heavier than I expected, I guess that’s what nearly twelve months of not seeing a kid will do.

“Lemme look atchu, Ryan,” I said, pulling my head back to look at him. God damn that kid looked like his Daddy. Had your eyes though. “Jeez, you’re so big. You gonna be drivin’ a car soon I reckon.” I squinted my eyes at him. “You been workin’ out? Is that it? Been bulkin’ up?”

Ryan giggled and shook his head. I put him down, and got low again.

“Yeah ya have,” I teased. “Show me them guns.”

Ryan lifted his arms bending at the elbow, I copied him and he growled as he flexed, veins popping out in his neck. Trying to keep my laugh in I growled back at him, tightening my muscles. He lowered his arms and brought his fists close together in front of his belly.

“Whoa!” I said, reaching out to give his little skin and bones arms a squeeze. “Ya better put those away, Ryan. Ya scarin’ me.”

He laughed again and kept growling as a hand ruffled his hair.

“He’s been talking nonstop about seeing you since I told him we were coming,” you said.

I almost couldn’t look at you. I pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes and stood. I kept my gaze on Ryan. “I missed ya too li’l man.”

“Didja buy me a present?”

I laughed as you chastised him. I finally looked at you, and took an unsteady breath. God damn, you were so beautiful, to perfectly good. I felt like I had to go have a shower or something just be good enough to talk to you.

“He’s fine Darlin’, I did get ‘im somethin’,” I said.

“You did?” Ryan exclaimed.

“Yeah, it’s inside under the tree. Ask ya Aunt Caroline to get it for ya.”

He ran off with a squeal, you turned to watch him but my eyes couldn’t help but look you over. You looked amazing in your tight jeans and sweater, hugging you in all the right places. My body went into overdrive just as my mind went dumb.

You turned back to me but couldn’t meet my eyes. I clenched my jaw, you shouldn’t be the one who’s ashamed. I had hoped that after we had talked those few times you would have been ok to see me again. That night was all me, all my fault. I wanted to apologise again, I would if I thought it would do any good. I had to say something, I couldn’t let this awkwardness go on or we’d never get past it.

“You look well,” I said. My voice was a little more hoarse than I would have liked, but you didn’t seem to notice.

“You do too,” you said. You peeked shyly at me, fidgeting a little with the sleeves on your sweater. “It’s good to see you.”

With relief I let out a breath. Maybe it would be ok. “You too, Darlin’.”

You took half a step toward me, an awkward, hesitant step. I did the same and wrapped my arms around your shoulders as yours slid around my waist. As soon as I made contact with you my body ached. I wanted to hold you to me, press my nose into your neck and smell you, feel your skin warm against mine. But your body was stiff, like you didn’t want to actually hug me, and I felt cold.

Clearing my throat, I let you go. That was ok, I would just talk to you. We could still do that right? I hadn’t ruined that had I? Maybe I had. Maybe all I could hope for now was polite small talk and the superficial conversations you had given me since that night.

Alright, I’ll go back to basics, I’ll start again. Maybe one day you’ll trust me enough, to let me back into your life once more.

“So, uh, how’s Ryan goin’?”

You smiled like you always do. You’re so proud of your boy. “Good. Be prepared for him to ask you to take him camping again.”

“You want me to take him?” I asked, wondering if my being forced out of your life meant I was out of Ryan’s too.

“You don’t have to,” you said. “My brothers older now, he’s been spending time with him.”

I sucked my lip into my mouth as I considered your words. They stung, a lot.

“I want to take him, Darlin’. I like the damn kid.” You smiled at me and like a damn fool I couldn’t leave it at that. “I made a promise to his Daddy and I intend to keep it.”

Your face darkened and I knew I’d fucked up. “Christ, Sy,” you said.

“Darlin’…” I put my arm out to you, but you turned your back on me and walked away. “Fuck.” I looked around to see if anyone noticed the exchange, but no one seemed to be paying us any mind. I picked my beer up and shook my head. This was going to be a long night.

I kept my eyes on you all evening. Even when I had to take my sunglasses off, I didn’t stop looking at you. I gave you your space though. I didn’t try and talk to you again, though I wanted to. I wanted to explain, tell you that I was sorry. That I’d never try that again, but you seemed to have made your mind up and things couldn’t go back to how they were, how they had been before I was deployed, before that night.

It was getting close to midnight. I’d leave as soon as the clock ticked over, let you have some fun without having to look over your shoulder at me staring at you the whole time. I made sure not to drink too much so I could drive. And so there wasn’t a repeat of that night.

To say I was shocked when you came and sat next to me was an understatement. I would have been less surprised to see the Queen of England walk through the door, naked, and chugging a beer bong.

You didn’t say anything for the longest time, you just sat there looking straight ahead, and I could almost see the wheels turning in your head. It was making me nervous, I wanted to tell you just to either yell at me, hit me, or go away. But I sat there because I owed you, you deserved to be heard out.

“I wasn’t upset that you kissed me, Sy.”

I damn near fell out of my chair.

Then you actually laughed, not a laugh of happiness, but of bitterness and that was somehow much worse. “If I’m honest, I’d wanted you to kiss me for a couple of years.”

I wanted to jump out of my chair, I fucking knew it. I knew there was something between us. God fucking damn it. Even that night, drunk as I was, (and I remembered more of that night than I cared to,) I could have sworn for a few seconds you had kissed me back.

“It just really hurt that you came to me like you did.”

“I get that,” I said softly. “You’re right, you didn’t deserve that.” No woman deserved what I did. Showing up at your place unannounced, drunk as a fucking skunk, horny, and scared out of my mind about going on another deployment, I was a fucking mess. You should have kicked me out the minute I made the first pass at you.

“Did you mean what you said?” Your voice was so small, so hesitant, but also hopeful.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I meant every damn word.”

“Do you still want that?” Why were you so scared? Did you really not know? Did you really think I only said those things to cause I was drunk and trying to get into your pants?

“Yes.” I tried to look you in the eyes so there was no mistake, so you knew I was telling you the truth, but you barely looked at me. “More than ever.”

You were quiet again. The kids were starting to get excited, and sparklers were being handed out. I checked my watch, it was only a minute until midnight.

You stood, and I stood too. You closed the distance between us. “I know it’s been nearly five years since Ryan died, but I still miss him.”

“I know,” I said, trying to keep the hope out of my voice. “I ain’t tryin’ to replace him. I just want to be there for you, Darlin’. For both of you. I won’t try anythin’ like that again. Not unless you ask me to.” I was babbling. I should shut up.

“I missed you just as much.” You were looking at the kids, watching them laughing and squealing with anticipation. “This year was awful. I don’t want to go through that again.”

My fingers actually shook as I put my hand to your cheek and turned your face to mine. “What are you sayin’, Baby?”

The countdown started, kids and adults alike shouted the numbers at the top of their lungs, but as far as I was concerned there was nothing in the world except you. You lifted your eyes to mine, finally letting me see you. My heart cramped, it hurt seeing the pain in your eyes.

“Baby, what is it? Tell me,” I implored.

“Kiss me, Sy,” you whispered so softly I could have sworn I imagined it, until your hands rested on my chest.

I lifted my other hand to your neck and licked my lips. I watched you do the same, and you closed your eyes. My nose bumped into yours and for a moment I stayed there, waiting, sure you were going to push me away. But you didn’t and I pressed my lips against yours.

With my hand on your neck, I felt you whimper. God that was the hottest thing and I instantly felt my cock kick in my pants. Barely keeping control, my lips stroked yours as yours caressed mine.

I pulled away slightly, keeping my head close to yours. I didn’t want to, but I had to, I wouldn’t make the mistake of going too quickly. I was gonna take this slow, though it would damn near kill me, I was gonna treat you right.

The party was singing, couples were kissing, and the kids were writing words in the night air with their sparklers. Maybe it would be okay. We could start fresh, a clean slate, maybe this could be a new beginning.

“Happy New Year, Baby,” I whispered, not caring at all about how out of breath I was.

“Happy New Year, Sy.”

[leossmoonn]

Waiting for This [Damon Salvatore]

masterlist

pairing - damon salvatore x fem!vampire!reader 

type - fluff, smut

note - hey, guys! this was a request. i had a lot of fun writing this, enjoy! i decided to make you a vampire :) elena is a little more bratty in this lol. also you are pretty sober when you two start doing stuff, i felt uncomfortable writing two drunk people have sex, even if they’re adults lol

summary - you and damon are best friends and one night after drinking, you two hook up. 

warnings - smut (sex, oral receiving, choking kink, praise kink, you and damon domming each other lol. this is getting hot and heavy luvs), language, frisky language lol, alcohol, you being a funny and sensitive drunk

————

*gif isn’t mine* 

You strutted into The Grill, black ripped jeans on, a dark red, spaghetti-strapped blouse tucked into the jeans, and your hair blown out and voluminous. Your red painted lips were upturned into a smirk, eyes covered by your black sunglasses. 

Heads easily turned at the sight of you. Men and women’s mouths opened, catching flies. You looked around to see if you could spot your group of friends. You looked to see them playing pool. 

You had just moved here two weeks ago. You were getting tired of living in Chicago, since you had been living there for the past 10 years. Being a vampire, you usually stayed in a place for a decade or so before people noticed you weren't getting any older. You usually started at a place at 15 years old, using makeup and clothing to make yourself look younger since you were and have been 20 for a little over 2 centuries. 

You had decided to go to Mystic Falls, Virginia since there were rumours of other vampires here. You thought you might be able to see you friends, but you sadly didn’t. Instead, you found the infamous Salvatore brothers. The ones that one of your friends, Katherine Pierce, talked about. Katherine, sadly, was gone and was running from the Original hybrid, Klaus. You missed her, but you knew you would see her again soon. 

On your first day in Mystic Falls, you had gotten the attention of a petite, cute blonde named Caroline Forbes. You actually ran into her first at the high school she and her friends went to. You were playing the new girl and Caroline had kindly partnered up with you. You had actually planned on using her as a snack, but she quickly threw you against the wall and was about to snap your neck when you apologized for mistaking her as a human. You explained you have been a vampire since 1796, being turned from Katherine as a favor for giving her shelter and a place to hide. You loved being a vampire and you wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

Next you met Elena, who was a new vampire, and Bonnie Bennet who was a witch and descendent of one of your old friends, Emily Bennet. Bonnie and you quickly became friends, too. You showing her the good side of being a vampire and that you weren’t all looking for trouble. 

Then, you met Stefan Salvatore. He was cute, like Katherine had mentioned. He also was helplessly in love with Elena, but they sadly had broken up a few weeks before you came. Now, Elena was pining over someone else, which led you to Damon Salvatore. 

Sexy, funny, and basically the male version of you, so Bonnie and Caroline say. Damon and you had a fun. playful relationship. You two acted like you hated each other because you were so alike, but also teasing each other to the point where you two are horny and face’s are red like firetrucks.

You had a huge ass crush on Damon. You couldn’t help it. From the first time you saw him, you fell in love. Yet, the last two weeks have just consisted of friendship for you. You wanted him so bad, but you couldn’t work up the nerve to kiss him, which was funny since you always seemed so confident. 

Elena was also head over heels for him, too, which pissed you off. Elena and you kept it pretty civil, but the way she looked at Damon made you want to snap her neck and kill her, but to your dismay, she was already dead and Stefan would never let you close enough to stake her. Like right now while they were playing pool, she was making goo-goo eyes at him. 

You rolled your eyes and took off your sunglasses, putting them in your back pocket.

“Wow, you desperate for attention or something? Can’t compel guys to screw you?” Elena blurted as you walked towards them. 

You raised your brows in amusement, smiling with it. “Wow, someone so jealous that they have to insult another woman?” 

Elena pouted and moved back, embarrassed. 

“She’s a new vampire, her emotions are still amplified and she’s learning to control it,” Stefan stuck up for her. 

“Stefan, don’t stick up for her. She's been a vampire for like, a month, according to you all. She should be able to control her emotions by now,” you said and moved next too Damon, who was looking you up and down. 

I personally like Y/n’s outfit,” Damon smirked. 

You blushed but looked down to hide your face. 

“Damon, you like anything walking with skin showing,” Stefan scoffed. 

You frowned at him. 

“I happen to like Y/n’s outfit, too. Really cute and sexy,” Caroline smiled. 

You smiled back at her. “Thank you. I’ll let you borrow my top sometime. Whenever Tyler comes back, you can wear it.” Caroline jumped up and down in excitement. You chuckled and grabbed a pool cute.

You went next to Damon, purposely brushing your arm on his. Butterflies shot down from your stomach to your core. Your skin tingled at the contact. Your eyes met with Damon’s icy blue ones. You felt heat gather between your thighs, and you looked away before your legs could give out from under you. 

“Something wrong, L/n?” Damon asked in a low tone. 

“Nope,” you breathed in. 

You made eye contact with Caroline, who was smirking at you, noticing the heavy sexual tension between you two. You ignored their stares and racked the balls. You took a shot and smiled triumphantly as an orange solid ball went into one of the holes. 

“Good one, L/n!” Damon smiled and shoved you to the side gently. 

You scoffed playfully, poking him with a the pool cue. He took a shot and go no balls in.

“Looks like you’re going down, Salvatore,” you laughed.”

“Shut up, L/n.”

You smirked, taking your turn. You got 2 balls in again. You fist-pumped Stefan as you and him enjoyed watching Damon be defeated. Stefan liked it because he currently was fighting with Damon. You liked it because Damon teased you and the annoyed/angry look on his face was so hot. 

“God, I’m gonna slam you against the wall if you keep up your streak,” Damon muttered in annoyance. 

Your stomach did cartwheels again as you imagined in slamming you against the wall. His hand on your neck, choking you, making your eyes roll in the back of your head. His free hand roaming your body and-

“Y/n? You good there?” Caroline’s voice interrupted your daydreaming. 

Your head snapped to her and your face flushed. “I-I’m fine.”

You saw Damon smirk in the corner of your eye. You looked at him and glared. “Shove it, Damon.”

“Oh, I’ll shove it in you, all right,” Damon smiled. 

“Woah, that's a new one. Working on your one-liners? Hoping to get laid, Salvatore?” You teased back.

“Not by your ass,” Damon scoffed quickly. 

“Hm, I wouldn't do you either. Who knows how many girls you've been with in your 170 plus years,” you said, bumping your hip with his to get him out of the way. 

“We are gonna go to the bar, want anything?” Caroline asked, obviously wanting to get away from you and Damon’s inappropriate jokes. 

“A round of shots!” You ordered. 

“For you and Damon?” Caroline asked, surprised.  “Yep. Winner gets to plan out the next mission to kill Klaus. Alcohol makes playing pool a lot harder,” you said, looking back and smiling at Damon.

He smiled back at you. A friendly, sweet smile. He couldn’t help it, even though he was teasing you and being playfully rude to you a few minutes ago. 

You were beautiful. Your ability to not give a shit about anyone’s opinions about you, being able to handle a joke, being secure in yourself. Joking around with him, sharing the same humor with him. The fact that you were literally drop dead gorgeous. Your perfect smile, your body that looked flattering in anything you wore - even big t-shirts and sweatpants. The way your eyes lit up when you got all excitedly, like now. You were just so perfect, it was unbelievable. 

You saw the way Damon was looking at you. Your smile got even wider and a blush arose on your cheeks. His pupils were dilated and a longing look replaced the mocking expression he had before. You looked away, looking to Caroline who was walking over with a tray of a dozen shots. 

“Thanks, Care,” you smiled and took the tray from her. You walked over to Damon and put the tray on a table nearby. 

“Alright, ready to lose, Salvatore?” You smirked and turned to Damon, setting your hand on your hip suggestively. 

“I think you said win wrong,” Damon smiled at you. 

You grinned and gave him a shot. You two downed it easy and set the cups down. You walked back to the pool table, bending down and lining up your pool cue. You took your shot, the white ball hitting a purple solid, but not with enough force. You huffed, stepping back and letting Damon take the stand. 

“Looks like the alcohol has already affected your aim,” Damon smirked. 

“Shut up,” you rolled your eyes. 

Damon took position and took his shot. He managed to get 3 striped balls in. Your jaw fell in amazement. Damon turned back to you, chuckling at your expression. He looked you in the eyes and did his signature smirk. As he held eye contact with you, your knees buckles. You yelped as you fell, reaching out for the pool table ledge, but it was too far. Instead of falling, though, you were caught by Damon. 

You fell against his chest, your head ending up on his shoulder. You gasped as he caught you at the last second, quickly looking up into his eyes. His blue eyes were already staring down at you. He was looking at you with that loving look again. You returned the look, trying to let him know with your eyes that you were in love with him. His arms tightened around you, his hands resting on the small of your back. His touch felt warm and made you feel protected. 

He pulled you back up on your feet, which made your foreheads touch. You felt his breath on your lips, begging you to kiss them. Damon’s right hand moved from your back to the bare skin on your arm. He ran his fingertips up and down, making your body hot. Your stomach flipped at his touch and how close you both were. Never once in these two weeks have you ever gotten this close to him. 

It felt nice. Your bodies fit with each other perfectly. You knew that you could stay in his arms forever, if ever given the chance. 

You looked back up to his eyes, seeing him still staring at you. Your eyes flickered down to his lips and back up to his eyes again, working up the nerve to make a move. But as soon as you felt ready enough, he pulled away, leaving you cold and lonely. 

“Let’s get back to the game. I’m interested in planning to kill Klaus,” Damon said and took his pool cue in his hands. 

You coughed awkwardly and nodded. You went over to the shots, taking two and downing them. You went back to the pool table, taking your pool cue that fell on the floor. You took your turn, hitting a ball in. Damon took his turn next. 

You two drank shots and played pool in silence. The air between you two was heavy and awkward. You didn’t try to look him in the eye, afraid you might burst into tears or kiss him, and him rejecting you. You thought he liked you, but apparently, you were wrong.

An hour and a half later, you were absolutely wasted. You were playing pool, drinking more alcohol than your body could probably hold. 

“Okay, I think it’s time for you to go home, Y/n,” Damon said. 

“Nu-uh,” you shook your head and stumbled. Damon caught you once again. 

You looked into his eyes, admiring the blue. “You have pretty eyes.”

Damon blushed lightly, but rolled his eyes to cover that fact. “Okay, Missy, I’ll drive you home.”

“Fine,” you huffed. You held onto his bicep, stumbling as you walked to the door. Your grip on his bicep had butterflies swarming in his chest. Damon sighed and stopped walking. He put his arm under your legs and your back and scooped you up. 

Your heart fluttered and you giggled as a verbal response. Damon smiled softly at your laugh, it making his heart happy. He carried you to your car and had you hand your keys over. He set you on your passenger seat and buckled you in. He went over to the driver’s seat. He drove you back home. 

“Let’s go, sweetheart,” Damon said and scooped your up again. You put you around around his neck and cuddled into his chest. 

Damon held you close to him and unlocked your front door. He walked you to your bedroom, laying you down on your bed. 

“I’ll get you some water and coffee, okay?” Damon said. You nodded. groaning and turning around. 

Damon chuckled and went into your kitchen. While he was getting your beverages, you decided to get up and change into pjs. You slowly took off your shoes and shimmied out of your jeans. You sat back down on your bed and took your top off. While you were throwing your shirt in your laundry basket, Damon came in. 

“Woah!” Damon exclaimed and quickly turned around.  “Damon?” You asked and stood up. You walked into him, still in your underwear. 

“Are you dressed?” Damon asked while breathing in deeply. His jeans got tighter as he thought about you sitting in your lingerie. 

“No,” you stated. “Well, get dressed then,” Damon scoffed. 

You frowned, “You don’t like my body?”

Damon’s eyes widened, but he stayed turned around. “No! I... this is weird, Y/n. We are friends.”

Tears clouded in your eyes. “I.. I thought you would like my body. I workout and my ex boyfriends say I look hot. Why don’t you think I look hot?”

Damon sighed and turned around slowly. He eyed your body quickly before going back up to your eyes. 

“Y/n, you’re gorgeous. With and without clothes. You are hot, trust me. Let’s just get you sobered up, okay?” Damon said. 

Your tears disappeared and you smiled. You nodded and turned around. Damon checked your backside out, taking a deep, hard breath. He walked over to your nightstand and put the water bottles and cup of coffee on it. 

You quickly got into shorts and a big t-shirt. You sat down on the bed, taking one of the water bottles and downing the water because of the dehydration you felt from the alcohol. Damon sat down next to you. 

“How come you’re not drunk?” You asked. 

“Because I didn’t drink as much as you,” Damon said. 

“Oh,” you pouted and took a sip of coffee. “Ew, it’s so bitter.”

“Well, you need strong, black coffee to wake you up a little,” Damon smiled. 

You grumbled in agreement and drank more coffee. You two sat in a comfortable silence until you felt a little more awake and a lot less drunk. 

“Vampires sober up fast,” you laughed. 

“Mhm and you happen to be one,” Damon smiled and booped your nose. 

You smacked his hand away playfully. He took your hand and did something that you never thought he would. He intertwined his fingers with yours. Your face flushed and you looked into his eyes for an answer. 

“Damon?” You asked. 

He put his other hand on your cheek, moving his head closer to your lips. You started to breathe heavily and your dead heart felt alive again.

Your brain couldn’t process what was happening. “Damon? Do you know what you’re doing?”

Damon smiled at you. “I know.”

His lips got closer to you and you head got fuzzy. “Damon, are you sure?” You wanted nothing more than to kiss him and have the greatest, hottest sex with him, but you after tonight’s events, you weren’t sure if he was doing this because he liked you, or it was in the moment.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now, be quiet so I can kiss you,” Damon said softly.

You felt giddy inside as Damon finally pressed his lips against yours. 

The kiss started out slow, hesitant, but passionate. You wrapped your arms around his neck, tangling your fingers in his hair. Your eyes fluttered and closed in pure bliss. Damon scooted more on the bed and you followed. 

You laid down on your pillow, Damon crawling up on top of you. You two never broke the kiss while you moved. Damon did once he got settled, though. He looked in your eyes, smiling. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” you breathed out. “Me, too,” Damon said and kissed you cheek and went down to your neck.

He sucked on the sweet spot below your ear, making you moan and buck your hips at his. You felt his bulge and smirked. 

You took ahold of his shoulders, flipping you two with your vampire speed. You straddled his waist, putting your core right over his bulge. Damon groaned as you grinded against him, diving your head down to his neck. You licked around his ear, making him shiver underneath you. 

“Y/n,” Damon moaned and gripped your hips. You smirked against his skin, kissing and sucking down his neck. You set your hips back on his thighs, putting your hands on the hem of his shirt, but he was already one step ahead of you. 

He took his shirt off, throwing it haphazardly on the floor. You grinned and ran your hands down his chest, going down again to kiss his chest and go down to the top of his jeans. 

Damon let out a growl as you licked his hip bone. Damon took ahold of you neck and flipped you around against. You let out a surprised moan, loving the feeling of his hand around your throat. He bent down to your ear and whispered, “I’m in charge here, okay?”

You looked into his eyes, feeling wetness pool between in your legs. You nodded fast, “Yes, sir.”

Damon smirked and kept his grip on your neck and made eye contact with you as his other hand went down to your breasts. His fingertips grazed your hard nipples, leaving you whining and squirming. Damon smirked, putting his hand over one of your breasts, needing it. He rolled your nipple in between his thumb and middle finger. You choked on your breath, the ache in your pussy becoming  worse and worse with every move he made. 

“Hm, Damon,” you sighed, your voicing coming out choked because of his hand that had a hold on your neck. He switched breasts, his hand that was on your neck let go, trailing down past your breasts and to your dripping pussy. 

Damon glided his fingers over your slit, going in slightly, groaning at the feeling. “So wet, baby. I’ve barley done anything.”

You let out a yearning whine, your back arching off the bed. Damon chuckled and slid his middle finger in, your eyes closing in bliss. 

“Look at me, princess,” Damon said in a low tone. Your opened your eyes, seeing Damon’s mouth just above your clit, his hand entering your pussy painfully slow. 

You watched with wide, lustful eyes as he entered two fingers into your pussy, attaching his lips to your clit. You let out a loud cry, your back arching off the bed. Damon fingered you, curling his fingers inside of you, finding your spot. As he did his first lick over your clit, your hands flew to his hair, pulling hard. 

“Damon!” You shouted in pleasure, bucking your hips up to his face. He smirked, putting his lips over your clit, sucking on it. You whimpered at this, shutting your eyes in ecstasy. 

Damon's free hand went up to your stomach, pushing you down on the bed. You whined, looking at him. You got more wet as you saw his bright blue eyes staring at you. He had this predatory look in them that sent you throwing your head back again. Your thighs moved in on his head, holding him in place as he worked wonders on your pussy. 

“Tastes good,” you heard him mutter. The vibrations of his words made the knot in your stomach build more. As Damon’s fingers moved into you and his tongue swirling around your clit, spelling out the alphabet, you felt yourself coming close. 

“Damon I-I-I,” you cried out, getting stuck on your words. Damon chuckled quietly, enjoying seeing you writhe under him. Heaven knows he’s dreamt about this from the day you two met. 

“Damon!” You moaned, feeling your orgasm wash over you. Damon ran his tongue over your clit one last time, making sure to suck on the sensitive bud with pressure. 

As you rode out your high, your back collapsed on the bed, your chest heaving up and down. You looked at Damon, a thin cover of sweat lining your forehead. Damon took his fingers out of your pussy, sucking off the remaining juices. He made deep eye contact with you. You felt your body become aroused again, your pussy becoming wet again. 

He took his fingers out of his mouth, looking all over your face. He went over your body, setting his hand on your cheek. He smiled as he admired you’re beauty. “You’re gorgeous, you know.”

You blushed and smiled big at him. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

Damon chuckled, “Thank you. Round two?”

You smirked and took ahold of his shoulders, flipping you two over. You settled your naked body over his lower stomach. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Damon smiled and went to take off his pants. You helped him, your eyes becoming wide with lust again as he took off his underwear, revealing his member. You licked your lips, knowing you had been dreaming about this time since forever. 

“Ready, princess?” Damon asked. 

You looked up at him, nodding. Damon put his hands on your hips, guiding your entrance to his cock. You slowly slid down, savouring the feeling of his cock stretching your walls out. You both let out deep, relieved moans. 

Damon kept his hands on your hips, gripping them as you started moving up and down. The slow-paced movement quickly ended as you were soon bouncing on his dick, your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself. You both were panting loudly, moans coming out of you every second. 

“Hm, Damon,” you groaned, biting your lip. Damon looked up at you, admiring the way your face was scrunched up in satisfaction. 

You two felt your orgasms build up. You both rode out your highs, you collapsed on him, pulling yourself off his dick. Damon put is arm around you, his lips pressing a sweet, loving kiss to your forehead. 

“Wow,” you breathed out once you calmed down. 

“Yeah, I know. I've been waiting for this since forever,” Damon said.

You chuckled, “Yeah, me too.”

Damon sighed contently. You buried your head in his chest. 

“Is this it for us?” You asked. 

“You wanna be more?” Damon asked. 

You looked up at him with a small smile. “Yeah. I would like to.”

Damon smiled back at you, planting a kiss on your lips. “Me, too.”

————

this is my last damon imagine guys. hope you enjoyed reading!

[thetourguidebarbie]

For @itsnotacrimetoloveyou’s birthday/her starting med school/bribery reasons, etc! Hope you enjoy! Warnings: Smut, possessive!Klaus, mentions of bdsm but no actual bdsm, anal sex, soulmate-adjascent.

Klaus groaned softly as the girl’s blood hit his tongue, his hands easily holding her hips in place on his lap as she struggled for friction against him. Her heartbeat was slowing, her breathing ragged, and he pulled back once she began to go limp, just shy of passing out. She was rather pretty, her eyes dark brown and heavy-lidded, cheeks flushed with arousal and fear. He knew he should probably feel temptation, but whenever he thought of physical satisfaction all he could see was Caroline’s bright blue eyes and teasing grin.

She’d flitted in and out of his life for the last half-century, but never seemed to leave his fantasies. Generally she hung around a few months, less often for more than a year, but their accidental run-ins had been getting less accidental on both their parts for the better part of a decade.

She was close to staying now. He could feel it.

Currently Josh was tailing Caroline and her magically-immortal-witch friend on their third trip through the Andes (he’d been subjected to several group selfies that his hybrid and the Bennett girl were unceremoniously cropped out of before they were saved on his phone), and though he itched to meet her when she was done, his instincts were telling him to wait for some reason, and trusting his gut hardly ever failed him.

Trying to put her out of his mind for now—if only so that he could get some work done—he called for a hybrid to come give his afternoon snack some water and blood and watch her until it left her system to ensure she didn’t turn. He had business to attend to and Josephine got rather testy if he was late. It was best to stay on the powerful witch’s good side if he needed more favors.

The hybrid who came to collect the girl seemed troubled, and he spoke as soon as he entered.

“We picked up a vampire loitering at the edge of the property. She’s in the dungeon.”

Klaus hummed disinterestedly. It was a common occurrence, vampires turning up to either kill him or wriggle their way into his good graces. Neither succeeded of course, but it was occasionally amusing to watch them try. “And?”

“Judging by how weak she was when we brought her in she was probably only turned a few decades ago. She said you’d know her. That you’d want to see her.”

That made Klaus pause, frowning. Very few vampires he knew of fit that description. Though the youngest doppelganger was most likely stupid enough to think he’d be interested in anything she had to say (or anything about her at all), he had no doubt that both Salvatore brothers were invested on ensuring that they remained on separate continents.

His curiosity was piqued, and he pushed his still-swaying snack into the hybrid’s arms. “What did she look like? Do you have her name?”

“Blonde. Tall-ish? She said her name was Carrie. Carly, mayb—“

“Caroline,” Klaus interrupted, already pushing past the hybrid. “Call Josephine and tell her the meeting is cancelled.”

It didn’t take him long to reach the cell, and he winced when he saw Caroline glaring at him from her chains, which bound her wrists together and above her, her toes brushing the floor as she swayed.

“Did you seriously give them orders to cuff me on sight? You should tell your minions it’s rude to tie guests up.”

“I’ll have words with them,” Klaus said, taking a few steps towards her, his eyes dragging up and down her body, looking for injuries. “Though I must point out that you didn’t object to it last time.”

“Yeah, well, last time I wasn’t being dragged from the front gate to a dungeon by random minions. I was on a bed.”

He grinned, stopping to stand so that they were chest to chest, his hands reaching to cup her ass, squeezing lightly and grinning when her breath caught. “And you were a bit distracted by other things as I recall.”

She huffed, her cheeks pinking as she squirmed against his hand almost instinctively, perhaps not realizing she was doing it. “I mean, I’m okay with you doing the tying. Speaking of, how about you untie me. Well, uncuff me.”

“Mmm, I think I like you where you are,” he said, nosing her jaw and grinning when he heard her soft whimper as his blunt teeth dragged down her jaw before he nipped her ear. “Though if you insist I’m happy to oblige, of course.”

She swallowed, shifting slightly so that he caught the scent of the wetness gathering between her thighs, and just as he took his hands away and reached to pull the manacles out of the wall she spoke, the words breathless. “What did you have in mind?”

He smirked, his hands stilling against the chains as he held her gaze. “I've had a great deal of time to come up with an extensive list of all the things I want to do to you, Caroline. However shall I decide?”

“Klaus,” she whined, shifting as he popped the button off of her jeans and slipping his hand beneath the fabric, pressing his finger against her clit through the thin cotton covering her center.

“Best test them all, I think,” he murmured, watching her face for any sign of discomfort, needing to be sure that she wanted what he was offering. She was wet already, and he groaned as he slid his fingers under the fabric and against her folds. “Fuck, sweetheart.”

“I want,” she breathed, trailing off as she rolled her hips against his hand, and he immediately pulled his hand away, hungry for her to admit how much she craved his touch.

“What do you want, Caroline? Tell me.”

He’d spent countless hours exploring her body, mapping her skin to find the places that made her take shallow gasps of air and fall bonelessly into his arms. They’d experimented after the first few times, Caroline bright red as she asked him to talk to her, to tell her everything he fantasized about. Being tied up and teased to the edge was one of her favorites, watching him stroke himself a close second, and he never shied away from giving her what she wanted. He loved having her entirely at his mercy, the absolute trust she gave him heady and precious. He made her beg for his hands, for his mouth or cock, and the way the words passed her lips was immensely satisfying. Even when he was rough, when he broke skin with his fangs or nails or she let him tie her on her knees and fuck her hard and fast from behind, she wanted it, asked for it. There was nothing more satisfying for his wolf than seeing her in sheets covered in his scent, head bowed between her elbows with her wrists tied and her legs spread, all for him to take.

“I want you,” she said, staring at him with big blue eyes.

“And how do you want me, love?”

“I thought you wanted to be in charge.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

“I want you to claim me,” she whispered, her breath shallow, and he stilled.

They’d only talked about it once, the process of a werewolf claiming its mate. It was permanent and intimate, a mark of him invisibly inked by magic that she’d carry for the rest of her eternal life. It meant she was his.

He wanted to so badly, just the words coming out of her mouth making his cock throb as he imagined how her back would feel against his chest as he filled her, the break of her skin against his teeth as he marked her as his. He wanted his scent to cling to her skin, for his name to be the only one to fall from her lips.

“Caroline,” he said slowly, his voice rough. “That’s not a....a claiming isn’t something to take lightly.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a decade, Klaus. I think I know that I want it.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, trying to resist the urge to yank the chain from the wall, his breathing shallow, his cock aching at the image of her on her knees with her cheek against the stone, her clothes shredded, hands behind her back to part the cheeks of her arse for him.

She nodded, moving her head slightly so that she could catch his lips in a drugging kiss, her tongue lightly stroking his lower lip as she sighed in contentment before pulling back to rest her forehead against his. “I love you.”

He felt like his throat was clogged, his breath stalled in his lungs. He hadn’t expected that, for her to admit her feelings for him so easily, and it was slightly overwhelming to hear it when he wasn’t sure how to respond. ‘Love’ had never seemed like quite the right word for how he felt about Caroline, after all. It had always been passion and obsession, protectiveness and need. It was something so much more than such a small word could describe. She was everything and she was his.

It was close enough for now, though, especially when he saw the way her eyes lit up when he repeated it back to her, the brightness of her smile almost blinding.

“But Caroline,” he continued, needing to press, to be absolutely certain. “You do know that if you do this...if you agr—“

“I just told you I’m yours,” she interrupted, slightly breathless, eyes dark. “Klaus, there is literally not a single other person in the world who I’d trust enough for this. I wanted some time to really think it through and decide, and I did. I want to be with you. I want to be yours the way that you’ve always been mine.”

“Caroline—“

“Please,” she breathed, and he swore, his forehead falling against hers.

She squirmed against his fingers as he stroked her hip before moving to cup her ass, her back arching as his other hand gently tugged at her nipple, and he pulled back, watching hungrily as her eyes grew hazy, her lips parting with a soft moan.

“Bed, then,” he murmured, reaching for the manacles and yanking them from the stone with a cunch before snapping the steel that held them closed. “I want to see your nails rip our sheets.”

She seemed pleased at his use of ‘our’, shaking out her hands when the manacles fell with a crash to the floor. “I’m okay with that.”

“Perhaps you’ll let me shackle you again later, to rub your clit until you’re lingering on the edge while I trace the mark I’ve left on your skin with my tongue.”

“Perhaps,” she drawled, making him grin. She’d picked up some of his habits and word choices over their intermittent meetings (and admittedly he a few of hers, most notably the eye-rolling, though he thankfully had never started inserting unnecessary ‘likes’ between clauses), but her penchant for making fun of his ‘old person britishness’ nonetheless remained, including his choice of ‘boring’ teas and use of words like ‘perhaps’ and ‘perchance’.

He looked forward to seeing what else they’d share, what other little habits she’d show him.

He pulled her close to speed his private wing of the compound, not bothering to be subtle when he buried his nose in her hair, savoring the feel of her pressed against him.

She pulled back, pressing her lips against his, swiping the roof of his mouth with the heat of her tongue, hands curled around his biceps. He let her take what she wanted for now, to taste him and explore his skin with her hands the way she had a hundred times before.

When she finally pulled back with dark eyes and puffy lips he was achingly hard. Her breathing was slightly laboured, the scent of her want rolling off of her only tempting him to feel her wet and tight around his cock.

Perhaps later, when they were tangled in their sheets and she was pliant and sated in his arms, he’d slot himself between her thighs and watch her quiver underneath him, flushed and hazy-eyed. For now he just craved her on her knees, his wolf itching to claim now that his mate had freely offered.

“Do you have lube?” she asked, kicking off her jeans and beginning to pull off her blouse. She stilled at the low rumble in his throat as her creamy skin was revealed and grinned, her movements slowing down as the fabric creeped up her body. “I brought some in my purse just in case, but—“

“You planned this,” he interrupted, his lips twitching, and she nodded easily, unclipping her bra and shrugging it off. “Tell me sweetheart, do you think about it often?”

“All the time,” she admitted, sliding her thong down her legs and kicking it away. “Where do you want me?”

He swallowed, taking in the sight of her standing nude in front of him without a hint of self-consciousness.

“Bed,” he ordered, his voice hoarse. It took effort for him to tear his eyes away from her getting comfortable against his pillows, to ignore the breathy sigh when he turned away to pull the toys they used when she was in town from the top shelf of the closet and looking through it for the bottle. “Don’t touch yourself. I can hear you.”

He grinned at her huff of annoyance, turning to walk back and taking the opportunity to admire the view. She was spread for him, her thighs shining from the way the light hit the slickness of her arousal, her cheek pressed to the pillow so that she could look at him, the practiced innocent expression on her face undermined by the barest hint of a smirk on her lips. “I thought you liked watching me touch myself.”

“Not today. Be patient, love. Good girls get rewards, after all.”

She bit her lip at the tone of his voice, her eyes darkening when he stripped off his shirt and began to undo his belt. She’d never been shy about her enjoyment of his more possessive instincts when they were alone, had freely admitted to preferring a rougher touch and liking the way he took control. He saw her eyes follow his fingers as he unbuttoned his jeans, how her tongue darted over her lips when she saw him hard for her.

“Keep your wrists where they are, sweetheart,” he warned, brushing her spine with his fingertips when she murmured her agreement and climbing on the bed behind her.

The way her breath caught when he spread the slick liquid over her back entrance made him grin, and he was unable to resist stroking the skin of her arse as a light tease, her low whimper of complaint making his cock twitch. He stroked himself with one hand as he got her ready with the other, whispering praise about how well she was doing and how beautiful she looked that he’d learned would make her melt.

She was panting as he stretched her with his fingers, rolling her hips in an effort to find a rhythm with his fingers. He pulled back when she was finally ready, slickening his hard cock with lube and positioning himself at her entrance.

“Good, sweetheart?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. “Go ahead.”

He could see her eyes go hazy when he pressed inside of her, his hands squeezing her hips. “I love the way you look on your knees like this. Bent over in my bed, offering yourself to me for the taking.”

She moaned his name when he began to move, her breathing growing harsher when his thrusts sped up. He watched her face when he reached around to rub her clit in tight circles, committed the sight of her parted lips and flushed cheeks to memory. It had been years since he’d done this, his wolf side unlocking having made him reluctant to risk an accidental bond. Waiting for Caroline to choose him for good had been torture, the rush of pure, primal need in his veins whenever he laid eyes on her difficult to control. He wanted nothing more than to let his wolf’s magic unfurl from his skin and cloak her, to scrape his teeth against her neck as he came and leave the scar visible as a warning to any who might mean her harm.

“That feels so good,” she gasped out, arching her back to give him a better angle. “Talk to me.”

He grinned, bending forward. “Talk to you?”

“Mmhm.”

“What about, sweetheart?”

She huffed, the sound making him grin. “Have you thought about me when I was gone?”

“Of course,” he said, his voice almost embarrassingly hoarse with need, his breath hitching when she clenched around him. “Every day.”

“Tell me.”

“About how much I craved you tangled with me at night? The rhythm of your breathing? Your scent clinging to my sheets?” he asked, purposefully avoiding what she’d requested between the lines of her question, wanting her to ask.

“Did you think about me when you touched yourself!” she clarified, shooting him an exasperated look that changed to a gasp when he pinched her clit.

“Every day,” he repeated, moving faster, savoring her moans, his nails digging into her hips. “I have so many fantasies of the things I want to do to you, sweetheart. Things I want to try. I do love the way you look bound to my bed with a toy in your pussy, compelled not to come but trying to find friction, begging for me to indulge you. It’s a common fantasy I go back to, the memory of your pretty lips parted and your eyelids fluttering.”

She moaned his name, her fingers curling in the sheets, her breathing growing more labored. “More,” she demanded. “Please.”

“But sometimes that’s not quite enough,” he continued, his hands moving to her hips to steady her, “and when I need the extra push I think of the last time you were here, how you begged for your master to give you release. You were so eager to please, so perfect. I’ve thought extensively about what else I might convince you to beg for, what pretty sounds you’ll make as I stain your arse red with my palm or fasten clamps around your nipples. How you’ll get wet from nothing but the sting of painful pleasure and the knowledge that I’m getting off on it. Would you like that?”

She nodded hurriedly. “I liked it when we did it last time,” she breathed, her words tangling as she tried to get them out. “It was really hot.”

“Good girl,” he murmured, grinning at the way her breath hitched at the words. “Now tell me, sweetheart. Is my cock filling you enough to make you come?”

“No,” she gasped out, admitting what they both already knew from years of exploring each other’s bodies. “I need you to touch my clit.”

“Ask. Beg.”

She obeyed immediately, the pleas falling quickly from her lips. He could feel his muscles tightening as he obliged her, the pleasure of her tight and hot around his cock as he took her in, bent and submissive and begging for more, for him to fuck her harder, bringing him closer to the edge. He could feel his fangs break through his gums, the overwhelming desire to taste, to claim,

He bent forward to bite her shoulder when he came, running his tongue along the mark and grinning at her sharp breath from the sensation. He toyed with her clit until he felt her shake against him as she tipped over the edge.

He rolled off of her and pulled her close, offering her his neck for the cure. He had only a brief moment to admire the face of her monster before she let her fangs pierce his neck, drinking a few gulps with a soft hum before pulling back, running her tongue along the wound when it closed.

“How do you feel, sweetheart?”

“Good,” she said, arching her back to stretch before curling closer to him, tangling her legs with his, her face buried in his shoulder. “I’m tired.”

“You must have flown quite a ways.”

“Yeah. It was a huge pain because I had to convince your minion to let it be a surprise and then deal with flying a gazillion hours being worried that you’d say no and I’d just embarrass myself—“

“I would never,” he said immediately, tracing her spine with his fingers. “I’ve waited for you to be ready for ages. You can’t imagine I’d ever turn you away.”

“It’s nice to know for sure,” she said, wriggling even closer so that her body was fully pressed against his, cloaking herself in his warmth and scent. “I love you.”

There were those words again, so human and small, but he couldn’t deny that hearing them fall from her lips made his heart lighten.

“And I you.”

“Well you’d better. You’re stuck with me now,” she pointed out, squeaking when he pinched her side. “Klaus!”

“I’ve long known that I would never be able to let you go, Caroline. My mate.”

“Good,” she said, humming contentedly as his arms wrapped around her. “Me neither.”

[mydarlingklaus]

Black Roses, Chapter 4: With every update comes more love and support and I cannot express my gratitude enough.  As usual, the link to my ff account is at the end if you could so kindly leave a review. Much appreciated. I’m not posting the whole chapter on this platform because it’ll take forever to space it all out so click the link for the full chapter. Happy reading (:

Tyler admired Caroline from across the table, leaning back on his chair as she digested her grimoire and paying him no mind. After lunch they both had free period which is usually when they engaged in quality alone time together but found themselves in a study room instead.

He knew how busy she's been lately and his schedule was no better which prompted his plans to woo her into immense PDA for the next 40 minutes. But Caroline had other plans, stressing herself out to get things done and was too focused on her work to notice her boyfriend's prying eyes.

Almost.

"You're staring." She sang with a smile, making it clear she sensed him far before saying anything.

The werewolf smiled back. "What can I say, I like the view." He shrugged.

"Cheesy. Very cheesy." Caroline softly laughed under her breath shaking her head and continued reading.

She hadn't noticed Tyler sitting up from his chair and subtly moved to her side of the booth now right beside her. His immediate warmth was hard to hide so she wasn't too shaken up even when he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear with his finger.

Caroline didn't allow the close proximity to phase her, teasing him by not giving the attention she knows he's desperate for was reward enough.

"Would it be less cheesy if I had very dirty intentions?" He said suggestively against her skin.

Her slight shiver not enough reason to give in. She dismissed his seductive promises with a shrug and abruptly changed the subject. "Want to see this new spell I learned? Your girl can basically cause a wildfire using just her mind." Caroline proudly claimed with a widened smile.

Of course she was proud.

It was a spell she had been working on since last semester for her senior seminar class that she consistently messed up on; whether ingredient measurements or other distractions. Multiple trials later, she felt it was finally perfected and was eager to show it to the person she cared most about.

Tyler brushed off her comment with nonchalant nods with lips seeking out her skin again.

"Later, much later." He suggested with his lips brushing her cheek before dipping lower to caress her jaw and kissing repeatedly. His hand grabbing one side of her face to keep her head at an angle as his sensual actions continued.

Caroline momentarily lost herself in the feel of his affections, forgetting her hurt from his dismal of her excitement.

Tyler was a great boyfriend majority of the time, but he wasn't the best support system when it came to her witchery. When they were just friends, he always claimed how confusing witches were and how the witchcraft gave him the creeps, but then he fell for Caroline. She thought with him being with her it'd encourage him to learn more about what she is and but it never came and she didn't press him about it.

The book nearly dropped after her shallow moan of appreciation. His other hand venturing lower to her waist pulling her closer.

A part of her wanted to indulge and relax but she knew how irresponsible it would be if she succumbed. Her eyes closed for a second before opening wide soon after. She couldn't risk sparing any time or being distracted.

Lightly pushing him against his chest when he attempted to drifting lower onto her neck, Caroline groaned.

"Stop." She whined lightly pushing him away.

Tyler sighed frustratingly and annoyed. His fingers ran through his hair wildly as he sat up his chair with a scowl. "Really Care?"

Caroline threw her hands in the air. "What? I told you I have a lot of work to do."

"And I don't?" He raised his voice. "Yeah, I have tons of assignments and football but I still make time for you, for us. To steal these moments with each other while we can..." Leaning in for another kiss that Caroline immediately dodged.

The blonde scoffed turning her face. "Seriously? That's what this is about, you're pissed because I don't want to make out with you whenever you want?" She accused.

"Honestly? Yeah, kinda." He admitted. "Or maybe I'm just pissed that my girlfriend seems to be more into her stupid spell book than me."

Caroline's head shot up with an upset snarl. "It's not stupid." She defended.

Tyler pressed his lips into a line appearing apologetic. "Hey," Grabbing her hand into his affectionately. "I'm sorry babe, okay? I just miss you and feel like we haven't spent a lot of time together lately. We're the royal couple at this school but I don't feel very royal-like when I'm not with you." He joked making Caroline grin at the corniness.

It wasn't that Caroline was intentionally trying to blow Tyler off but she genuinely had a full plate of responsibilities, not to mention her mother informing her earlier in the day she'd be visiting some time this week. Whitmore's first football game was in just a few days, homecoming committee meetings were tomorrow; her class work and personal work were clashing. The pressure kept piling on and she longed for a break that would never come, and Tyler was a part of the break she needed.

She gave him a warm smile, leaning into him to capture his lips in a sweet but brief kiss. "I know, I'm sorry too. I know I'm a mess and probably the worst girlfriend ever."

Tyler looked up, pretending to ponder. "Not the worst..." He teased making Caroline laugh.

"I appreciate you wanting to make time for me, I do. But you know how important my lineage is and what it means to my family to remain the supreme witch by the time I graduate." She explained.

"I get it, you know I do." Tyler sighed. "I get how important this is for you but it's not everything, right? You're more than just spells and shrunken heads." He laughed.

Caroline's forehead slightly creased in irritation. Irritated that Tyler wasn't understanding what she was trying to say at all.

- He really doesn't get it.

Tyler's hands crept up on both sides of her face softly. "I want you, Care. I like being with you but lately it seems I've been in a relationship with you and the grimoire."

"Oh, you mean how I felt last semester with you and your football

Her response died when his mouth covered hers briefly with a promising kiss. The abrupt act of affection stunned the blonde witch who's air nearly knocked out her lungs from the aggression. He pulled away with an event brighter smile that she reciprocated, deciding not to start another argument.

"Let's go away this weekend just you, me and my parents' lake house. The next full moon isn't for a couple of weeks so I'll still be around. Perfect opportunity for us to, reconnect." He suggested.

She nearly forgot about the full moon that occurred once a month was quickly approaching.

Caroline dreaded this time of the month because Tyler would go home to, 'handle the situation'. He never wanted to be near, on the certainty that he would hurt someone on campus; most importantly Caroline despite her fascination. Instead, his parents arranged a deal with Headmistress Saltzman for approved leave once a month.

Money can get you anything.

He would run wild and free in the dark woods near his mansion, about 30 minutes from the school.

Without a doubt Caroline missed him during that time but a romantic getaway? As if they were a married couple trying to keep their love alive instead of just two teenagers who needed a breather.

The witch's mouth agape. "Tyler-"

"Imagine how beautiful and peaceful it'd be to have a little getaway before things get too wild around here. Before we both become caught up in other stuff and really won't have much time together till graduation. And, my parents said I can use it whenever I want." Tyler excitedly proposed.

Caroline nervously laughed. "You realize we have school, right?"

"Obviously," Rolling his eyes. "But it's just the weekend and all we need is the approval from Headmistress Saltzman then it's a done deal." He said nonchalantly.

Tyler turned Caroline's chair until she was completely facing him. She slightly flinched when he grabbed her hand again and leaving a kiss on her knuckles.

"We're stressed already, especially you, and being on campus all the time is probably making it worse." He accurately claimed. "A weekend away is exactly what the doctor ordered." He said with a convincing smile.

It was a very tempting offer that Caroline would usually jump at the opportunity for.

The Lockwood lake house was legendary, especially during Summer vacation. Tyler came from a wealthy family as well, his father was the Mayor of Whitmore though he had to keep his family tree a secret from the public. Nothing would hurt more in his campaign than everyone finding out their dear mayor and his son were half beast. Tyler's mom was human, marrying into the supernatural improved her knowledge on the nature of werewolves; it's what Caroline wished Tyler would do for her. Caroline only met his parents a few times and never feeling more cold and inferior than talking to Mrs. Lockwood.

They allowed Tyler to rent out the lake house that had been passed down by generations. All his parties were lively and extravagant. Nearly the entire class was invited, minus vampires of course. Not to mention it sat on the most beautiful lake in town with the perfect view of the dusk and dawn. Caroline loved it and being there would probably be the perfect stress relief.

She sighed defeated. "That sounds so nice, really, but I don't have much time to spare especially with this group assignment from Professor Sommers' class that determines if I graduate or not. Can you believe she really paired me with Klaus Mikaelson?"

The werewolf's eyebrows shot up curiously. "Mikaelson? Why do you two have a class together?"

"It's a general education class, everyone's allowed apparently." Caroline said disapprovingly.

"Huh..." Pressing his lips together.

"Yeah I know. Literally couldn't have received a better graduation gift, right?" She rolled her eyes with a laugh.

Caroline's joking expression faded when she noticed Tyler's face drop and feeling his body tense.

He took a deep breath and slightly relaxed noticing his girlfriend's concerned face.

When he placed a comforting hand on top of hers she felt more calm. "Sorry, sorry it's not you. I just really don't like that guy." He admitted.

"Join the club." She agreed with a wide smile and arms around his neck to bring him in for a deep kiss.

Their lips smooth against each other and in perfect rhythm. He pulled her closer, both arms around her waist tightly and moaning between kisses.

She knew Tyler was just trying to be a good boyfriend, it was more than appreciated and she wanted to be good to him as well; he's yet to give her a reason not to be. She was becoming her own enemy, her personal thoughts and revelations blocking her from reality.

- Fake it till you make it.

She told herself, figuring this was just another one of her phases that would blow over in a day or two.

The werewolf pulled away from the embrace to speak. "But if he ever gives you a hard time-"

"Don't worry. I can handle him." She smiled into another kiss. "Who do you think makes a sport out of giving him aneurysms?"

Tyler laughed in agreement, kissing her lips a final time.

Per usual, Caroline arrived to class before everyone else with three textbooks in her arms and a scowl on her face. Lately she hadn't been bubbly happy Caroline that everyone knows and loves.

She was already having a chaotic day, not to mention one of her cheerleaders sprained their ankle which meant Caroline has to change the squad's formation and she had to prep for another meeting tonight with her coven to discuss homecoming. She performed a minor soothing spell on herself before class to ease her through this last class, especially because today was the first day of working on class projects.

Literally the last thing Caroline wanted to do today was endure vampire company for 40 minutes.

Now sitting at her seat she pushed her hair out her face and began organizing her desk area before class began.

Organization kept her semi sane.

She spread out all her notebooks and pens, color coordinated and perfectly parallel of each other.

Caroline glanced up at the sound of an annoying female laughter coming from the entrance.

More and more students arrived and cleared her view at the nauseating sight of Klaus and the infamous short redhead vampire. Her back pressed against the threshold stupidly laughing at whatever Klaus was saying while he practically towered over her.

The girl was clearly whipped. He could've been telling her it's cold outside or he lost his car keys and she would think it was the funniest thing in the world.

- Gross. Imagine being that sprung over Klaus Mikaelson.

She cringed.

This was the second time Caroline's seen them together all cuddled up looking and acting like a couple; at least this time they were fully clothed. Still she was trying to burn that image out her head.

Caroline never noticed them together before this semester and now they popped up everywhere she turned in the most sickening fashion.

Klaus kept his hands in his pockets but the girl wouldn't stop touching him like she'd die if she didn't. Both her hands caressing his chest through his white Henley seductively, and thigh settled between his. Klaus didn't seem as enthused with her affections but he also wasn't dodging anything to stop it, smirking and egging her on. When he did show a hint of a smile it seemed genuine, and he didn't appear annoyed by her either.

- Maybe it is two-sided?

Caroline found it difficult to not analyze the scene in front of her. It was hard to look away, like watching a tragic car crash.

Caroline wanted to gag. They were so transfixed into each other neither bothered to move out the doorway for the student entering. If anything the redhead used it as an excuse to subtly push herself closer into his body.

- Amateur.

The blonde rolled her eyes.

- Shit!

Full chapter can be found here! Don’t forget to leave a review (:

[harryandmolly]

like the back of my hand - 2018 (part one)

Summary: a relationship within a collection of moments

Warnings: language, sexual references

Word count: 10.6k (ish)

July 4, 2018

The first time he sees her she looks like the drunken reality version of a fairy tale.

She’s wrangling a truly enormous golden dragon pool float with a wingspan of about 10 feet, reaching from the edge of the pool to try to drag it closer. He notices her hair first. A sweeping wave of reddish gold falls over her fair, heat-pinked skin. By the noises she’s making, he knows she’s frustrated. Her curtain of hair is too thick to see through. She’s short and strong – he can see the tone in her arm muscles as she reaches and holds her balance with dancer-like precision. Her legs are striking, too, thick and white and sculpted. Before she even turns around, he hears the words in his head.

Oh, fuck.

And then she does turn around and seats herself delicately on the back of the dragon, taking her bottle of Stella Artois Cidre with her for the ride. She kicks off the side with little pink toes and makes a jokingly strained face as she paddles out beside a petite blonde sitting nervously on a float shaped like a rosé bottle. His heart rattles when she laughs at something the rosé girl said. Her whole body convulses with it. She’s probably a little drunk, but she looks so alive. Her full lips drop open and a cackle rolls out. She clasps at her chest and holds her drink away to avoid disaster. When she calms down, she seems to feel his eyes. She looks over. He waits for a shock of recognition on her face. He feels his heart stumble yet again when she smiles politely, a ghost of curiosity in her gaze. She might recognize him vaguely but she doesn’t know who he is.

He isn’t the tortured “I just want to be normal” artist. He really doesn’t mind that every woman he meets these days knows him, his face, his music, parts of his story. He gets off on the rock star aspects sometimes. But this time, this girl, something makes him react differently. He’s enamored. Every new little thing he notices in that span of ten seconds he spends staring at her makes him want to giggle.

His friend has to grab at his arm to get his attention. With only a few pre-gamed beers in him, he’s able to refocus. He meets his friend’s friend Casey, a twenty-something lesbian feature film producer who lives in the host house with five roommates. Casey has big white teeth, short cropped hair and a thick southern accent. She’s friendly and tells him she likes his music, especially “Lost in Japan.” He thanks her graciously and compliments the house.

“It’s a little crazy, honestly. All of us can’t believe we get to live here. Where are my other roommates? Uh…. I think Emily’s inside with the weed. Caroline’s over there,” she points to an outdoor sectional next to a set of glass doors, “Sammi and Lilly are in the pool—”

He doesn’t hear anything else when he sees who she pointed to. Dragon girl and her smaller, frecklier rosé friend have locked arms to keep from floating away as they discuss something that looks important, if not just interesting. He doesn’t know which one is Sammi and which is Lilly but he needs to find out.

In the pool, she’s listening to Sammi tell a story about paying her brother and his friend in tequila and wine to move her into their current house. She looks up at the back of the tall curly-haired guy that walked in. She can feel celebrity on him. He didn’t roll up with an entourage or make any kind of entrance, though. He looks very normal, but too hot in that “he’s definitely famous” sort of way. She can’t place him, though. She scrolls through her mental rolodex of things she enjoys that were meant for a youth audience, given that he looks younger than her – Disney Channel shows from when she nannied? Old Teen Wolf guest star?

“Sam,” she hisses, nodding in his direction, “Is he… somebody recognizable?”

Sammi looks over her shoulder and clocks him. She turns her head back, blue eyes wide under curly lashes, looking genuinely shocked. “That’s Shawn Mendes.”

“Oh! Right! He did that sad song from the new Fast and the Furious movie?”

“No,” Sammi laughs, “That’s Charlie Puth. Shawn Mendes did “Stitches” and “Mercy” and stuff like that.”

“Oh!” she cries again, slapping the water with a flat palm, “Yes! I love “Stitches.” Shit, I should be talking quieter. I guess Casey knows him.”

“I think Casey knows the guy with him, I think he was here at the Memorial Day party.”

“God, look at us with our A-listers at our house,” Lilly hums, looking impressed with them. Sammi matches her expression and wiggles her eyebrows.

“He’s young, though, right? Like 17?” Lilly continues, eyeing him cautiously.

“I think he’s older than that,” Sammi murmurs as their floats drift closer to where Shawn and Casey and company stand.

“I hope so,” Lilly whispers. Sammi snorts a laugh and kicks at her float. Lilly kicks back and Sammi squeals, clinging to the edge to keep from unseating her bottle. The noise catches Casey’s attention.

“Guys, these are two of my roommates, Sammi and Lilly. Ladies, my friend Greg and his friend Shawn.”

“Hi,” Sammi laughs, weakly reaching up a hand while she stays close to the edge for support. Lilly giggles as she watches them shake. Since she’s too far from them to make contact, she waves.

She wants to slide off the dragon and hide underwater when he smiles at her. His cheeks are a little flushed, perhaps from the heat or the alcohol. He has the slightest divot in his chin. His hair has just enough product in it to look really cool. He’s tall, too, over six feet, she guesses. Too bad he’s a teenager.

She floats closer to the edge of the pool and reaches a foot out to hold onto the stone, her legs separating a bit as she does. He has a question or a comment ready to engage them but loses it entirely.

“You wanna get in?” Greg prompts, angling his head at the pool.

“Yeah,” Shawn croaks, looking away from the legs he wants to be crushed and killed by, “Let’s get some beers.”

They stroll off to the coolers. Casey bends to reach Sammi when she sits up.

“You know Shawn Mendes?” Sammi hisses. Casey grins and bobs her head.

“I didn’t think he was coming. No, I mean, I know Greg through Kingsley. I’ve never met Shawn.”

“How old is he?” Lilly whispers. Casey shoots her a dangerous look.

“He’s 19, girl. Get in on it.”

She barks a laugh in response. “19. Please. God. The last thing I need.”

Casey, ever wise, raises an eyebrow and cocks her head. “I dunno, dude, I’m gay as they come and I can see the appeal there.”

“As can every teenage girl in this country between the ages of 13-18. I have to grow out of that sometime.”

Casey cedes, throwing up her hands and noticing another group of friends to chat with. Sammi turns the rosé bottle toward Lilly.

“I think you should, too,” she mentions, feigning casual. Lilly rolls her eyes.

“Can you imagine? God. Maybe he’d write a song about me,” Lilly teases.

Sammi opens her mouth to respond when Greg and Shawn return, beer bottles in hand, stripped down to bathing suits. Shawn, after quick consultation with Greg over the coolers, takes his shot and sits on the edge closest to Lilly.

“I like your dragon.”

She looks up at him and down at her floatation device. “Oh, thanks,” she chuckles dryly.

“The rosé floaté is cuter,” Sammi argues playfully, jumping in when she realizes Lilly is going to turn in on herself and not engage.

“I think the unicorn floating beer koozies are the cutest,” Lilly replies, using the excuse to hunt for one as a way not to look at him and feel her resolve turn to mush.

Shawn picks up the one bobbing against his leg and hands it to her with what he hopes is a smooth half-smirk. She takes it with a smile that barely resembles a smile, her eye contact with him shorter than with a passing stranger. He feels a little defeated, so he sucks down half the bottle of beer in a gulp.

Slowly, though, as he and Greg ease their way into the cool water to stand with Sammi and Lilly on their floats in the shallow end, occasionally reaching out to hold them as they threaten to drift, the dynamics shift. Lilly opens back up, much to Sammi’s delight and encouragement, and actually does crack jokes and ask questions and make prolonged eye contact, though still more with Greg than Shawn.

“So are you just in town for 4thof July or?”

Shawn doesn’t realize the question is directed only at him until he looks up and sees her big blue eyes looking straight at him.

“Oh! Uh, no. I’m here for a couple meetings. We’re planning stuff for 2019,” he says, bobbing his head casually.

“That’s intimidating. I don’t even have a plan beyond my next sip of cider. Do I get another? Do I stop? Do I lie back on this dragon and contemplate the meaning of my existence?”

He cracks up at her dry humor. “I don’t know about your existence, but I’m getting out to grab another beer. Want a refill?”

She smiles at him genuinely, her lips curling up as she tilts her head affectionately. “Yes please.”

She drops the last sip down her throat. He watches it as she swallows and feels himself do the same. His fingers brush hers as he takes the empty bottle. She pretends not to watch his back muscles pucker and flex as he lifts himself out of the pool. She also pretends not to google him while he fetches their drinks. He hopes she didn’t see the little jog-skip he does to return to her faster. She does and hopes he doesn’t see her blush in response.

They spend hours together like that in the pool, trading positions – Sammi on the dragon, Greg on the bottle, Lilly and Shawn sitting together on the edge. Shawn on the dragon, Sammi on the bottle, Greg and Lilly keeping them from floating away as they talk about anything. Sammi’s boyfriend Drew leads her away around sundown. Greg, upon realizing Sammi has a boyfriend, wanders off but encourages Shawn and Lilly to stay. His blessing doesn’t matter by that point. By hour five, Shawn had found his soul mate.

He’s enchanted to say the least. He doesn’t believe in love at first sight but damn if this wasn’t the closest to it he’s ever felt. Every shift of her body on the ledge of the pool makes his heart kick up a beat. Every time she swishes her feet in the water and comes within inches of brushing him feels electric. Every question she asks him seems like the most thoughtful, most important thing in the world. She teases him, she listens to him, she smiles at him, she confides in him. She is perfect.

She is trying so hard not to see it. He’s a 19 year old that looks 22 and she doesn’t think that is at all fair. She also hasn’t been kissed since 2014 which strikes her as more of the same. He watches her every move closely in a way that feels less predatory than boyishly fascinated. She feels beautiful and a little powerful. When he takes her hand to help her off the float and lead her out of the pool in search of burgers and hot dogs, she should’ve let go immediately. It isn’t fair to her or to him to linger, but he is becoming addictive.

She does retract her hand from his much larger one when they reach the stairs. She takes the railing instead and notices the contrast between the cool metal and his radiating masculine heat. She still feels it behind her, though, as they climb the stairs. He notices with a sigh that her hair smells like chlorine and strawberries. It’s drying into sticky chunks on her peachy back. He wants to gather it all in his hands and run his fingers through it while he sings to her.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

He shuts that thought down before it went anywhere sappier.

They eat together on the sectional outside her bedroom, wrapped up in the house’s beach towels. He has a burger, she has a hot dog. They share a bowl of chips and salsa. He asks about growing up as an only child, she asks about Toronto. After another two drinks each, he leans in closer and she lets him with the excuse that the fully set sun is reducing her visibility. He asks her about her unfinished screenplay. She asks him about what he’s writing.

He’s drunkenly convinced they are in love by the time they’re climbing the stairs with the rest of the party stragglers to reach the balcony for fireworks. He stands close behind her while they burst, watching her face more often than the actual light show. Emily dutifully shoos everyone back downstairs for the rest of the party. The palm tree twinkly lights come on now in the full darkness, giving the whole pool deck a romantic glow. He can’t help himself. He brushes his hand against hers as they walk down the stairs. He reaches out to open the gate and starts to say something about being really happy he tagged along with Greg when he feels the locking bar swing out and hit him right in the lip.

“Oh, shit,” Lilly groans as Shawn gasps and grabs his mouth. The other partygoers don’t seem to notice.

“Fuck, I did this literally twice this week alone. C’mon, I have an ice pack in my room.” She ushers him back up the stairs and down into the basement.

He’s embarrassed, but hell, he gets to see her room.

She seats him on the bed calmly and almost maternally. He looks around, poking the inside of the offending wound with his tongue and wincing. Her room is stylistically a little bare; he can tell she just moved in. She has white pillar candles in the fireplace as decoration which he thinks is cool. He likes that her bedspread is yellow.

He looks up at her sheepishly as she hands him the blue freezer pack wrapped in a paper towel.

“This thing’s been getting a workout,” she jokes, sitting beside him and watching as he brings the ice pack up to meet his reddened lip. She bites down on hers and scoots a little closer to him, her brain hazy but aware enough that she has a man in her room, sitting on her bed.

“Am I bleeding?” he murmurs, his eyebrows pulling together as he lowers the pack. She leans in to inspect, shaking her head.

“No, just a little swollen. Keep the ice on it.”

They’re silent for a few slightly uncomfortable minutes. She wonders if this means she really can’t kiss him now. What, is she crazy? Of course she can’t.

He pulls the ice pack away again and licks his lips. He looks at her. She smirks.

“Yup. Still pretty.”

He blushes and ducks his head.

“You have such pretty lips,” she confesses, letting out an aggravated sigh. He shivers and grins at her, opening his mouth to respond when he sees her face go blank.

“Oh my god, what the fuck is wrong with me?” she says to herself, deadpan, “You’re a 19 year old rock star.”

“Well… thank you for calling me a rock star,” he begins uncertainly. She snorts.

“This is so not a good idea for me,” she says again, mostly to herself. He doesn’t pick up on that.

“Why not?” His voice is a little pouty, and a little hurt underneath that.

“Because I’m not ���casual kiss at party’ girl. And I just moved here. I don’t even have friends yet. If I don’t have friends yet, I shouldn’t be kissing the ones I just made, that’s bad planning.”

“You don’t have to be ‘casual kiss at party’ girl.”

She shoots him a look that shuts down wherever that could be going. “You’re 19. The only girls in your life right now are ‘casual kiss at party’ girls. As it should be.”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s not true.”

“No, I guess you had to get into it a little to write the songs you do,” she concedes, folding her legs towards him. He does notice that.

“I get what you might be thinking. It makes sense. But I don’t do this a lot,” he says gently.

“What, run into iron gates with your perfect, pouty man lips?” she groans, falling back onto the bedspread and grabbing at her Olaf pillow pet.

He chuckles and looks at her fondly. “Casual kissing at parties. I don’t do it a lot. I’m not ‘cool music industry’ guy. I just… I saw you tonight on the dragon and talking to Sammi and I felt like my stomach fell out.”

She’s not used to being told anything like this. She’s trying to decide whether to believe him or decide he’s saying what he needs to. His eyes are earnest. She pulls herself back up to sit and sigh.

“You’re fucking adorable.”

“Thank you, so are you.”

“But I’m not mature enough for this. So I’m not kissing you, Mendes.”

He shrugs, resigned. “That’s ok. The universe seems to not like the idea of my kissing anyone tonight.”

She looks up him. His eyes are turned down to his lap and he looks a little bummed. She wants to suck that swollen bottom lip between her teeth and feel him moan. She shakes that idea off and instead brushes a hand through his hair.

“Stupid universe.”

She holds onto her resolve long enough to get him back upstairs with the rest of her roommates and the remaining guests. He was among the last to leave, her number as his parting gift.

He doesn’t wait 24 hours to text her. He waits 9 – just after he wakes up on the hot, dry morning of July 5th. He thanks her for a great party and tells her he’ll be back in town in a few weeks and he wants to see her.

I’d like that. And now I’ve listened to your music and definitely won’t mix you up with Charlie Puth again!

He lives for that text. Even as they continue their conversation, he scrolls back up just to look at it and laugh.

Ok I just listened to “Mercy.” First of all, I fucking love it. Second of all, who hurt you??? I’ll fuck ‘em up.

He responds to tell her it’s not about a girl, actually.

Bullshit. Don’t protect her.

He insists it’s about loving something that’s difficult, like his music career. She begs off.

An hour later, she texts him again.

I just watched your Carpool Karaoke. I think I’m in love with you now.

He responds, are you just watching every video of me on youtube???

Maybe, she replies.

He loves that idea.

++++++++

August 12th, 2018

“So you really thought I was Charlie Puth?” he sighs.

“Yes. I mean, no… I mean… listen—”

He interrupts her flustered babbling with a laugh so she knows he’s teasing her.

“I knew you both existed. It’s not like I had never heard of you. I knew there was a Charlie Puth and a Shawn Mendes but I didn’t know which one of you was which. If he had come strolling into my backyard, I would’ve wondered if he was you. But Sammi told me who you were before I could make a fool of myself.”

“Thank god for Sammi,” Shawn replies. It sounds like the end of the conversation. With a pang, she realizes she doesn’t really want him to hang up.

“I gotta go, it’s so late here and I have to try to knock out a few hours of sleep. I’m glad I accidentally called you though,” he laughs, standing with his phone and walking to the trash with his empty food containers.

“I really enjoyed it, call me on purpose sometime and we can continue our discussion about why people should’ve been listening to Zenon, girl of the 21st century the whole damn time.”

He barks a laugh and it shakes one out of her in response. She bites her lip as he settles and waves goodbye, signing off with a nod.

++++++++

August 17th, 2018

“So you have a song on the soundtrack but never saw the movie?! C’mon, Shawn,” she groaned, tipping her head back against the cushion. When he asked to Facetime her a few days later, she was in bed watching old Gilmore Girls episodes and feeling sorry for herself when an interview she booked with a film production company was abruptly canceled because they hired someone else.

Lilly decided stepping outside felt more neutral than sitting in bed, even though the sun was going down. And he was snuggled up on his hotel room couch in Tokyo in a hoodie looking like absolute boyfriend material.

“I know, I know, that’s bad,” he laughed, nodding and ducking his head shamefully.

“The movie’s so good! Actually, the second one’s even better. And the music is better in the second one.”

After a moment of quiet, she realized what she’d said. She fixed her gaze back on the screen and saw him look mock offended. She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.

“Oh my god! I didn’t mean that.”

“You definitely did though,” he chuckled.

“I mean… listen, your song wasn’t in the movie. Maybe that was what it needed, that would’ve put it over the top,” she babbled.

“Sure. Ok.”

+++++

August 20th, 2018

Shawn: God I haven’t been to the beach in so long

Lilly: Well, we should go when you come back. I’ve been meaning to go out and see Malibu. You down?

Shawn: Hell yeah, Malibu is dope.

She can’t believe how excited she is to see him again. Every time she feels her mind wander to how he looked in her pool with a beer in hand, cheeks flushed from the alcohol and the conversation with her, she chants the number 20 in her head.

She remembers being 20. During her 20th year, she changed her major to journalism for no good reason and fell madly in love with a very damaged boy named Bennett who treated her like garbage. She cringes when she thinks of herself at 20.

She knows it’s not fair to assume he’s as stupid as she was then, or even to suggest that she is a pillar of wisdom now at 24. But he’s also a pop star. When he left her room that night after returning her ice pack and planting a kiss on her cheek, she looked him up on Tumblr and found the multitudes of women lusting after him as she expected. That kind of attention makes her nervous. He has no reason to be interested in a serious relationship and she’s secure enough to admit that’s what she wants at this point in her life. But she can’t deny how much she already likes him. She’s sure if she spends more time with him and sees the speed at which his life moves, it will erase any idea of more from her mind.

But as she’s cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway with him in her passenger seat looking out the window and grinning hard, it’s difficult to imagine feeling differently.

He’s picking through her iTunes playlists, gently teasing some choices and praising others. They bounce between classic rock, country, top 40 of various eras, and, at her insistence, some of his music.

“I just bought your entire discography for the purpose of forcing you into my own personal Carpool Karaoke. So sing, monkey!” she cries, slapping her hands on the wheel as they get stuck dead in traffic again somewhere around Thousand Oaks.

He’s laughing. She has such a sharp wit, he can’t help but delight in it. He gives in, because he thinks she just really wants to hear him sing and he wants to make her smile, maybe show off a little.

“Ok, fine, which one do you want me to sing?” He feels himself going pink and turns his face to look out the window at the disgruntled travelers.

She debates internally, bobbing her head back and forth. “Well, I really like “Stitches” because I’ve actually had that song for a while but the last few days I’ve been really into “Nervous.””

He nods once and selects it from her playlist. “”Nervous” it is.”

She bounces in her seat, grinning from ear to ear, nodding as he starts getting into it, belting it out just for her. Soon they’re both blushing and enthralled by each other but pretending not to be. When he finishes the song, she’s biting hard on her lower lip to tamp down her smitten smile, shaking her head.

“Thank you for indulging me. You… are a very good singer.”

He snorts and sits back, satisfied, and thanks her quietly. He’s silent for a comfortable minute, then he gets an idea. “I wanna hear you sing.”

“No, you don’t,” she corrects him, widening her eyes at the road, not daring to look at him. Her reaction only makes him push harder.

“Now I really do! Come on, pick a song.”

“No.”

“Pick a song or I pick for you.”

“Pick any song you want, you can’t force me to sing.”

“No, but if I put something on you really like you’ll start singing anyway.” He grabs her phone and starts perusing her options. “Ok… oh shit, yeah, One Direction, perfect.”

“Oh my god,” she giggles nervously, knowing he’s right.

“What’s your favorite One Direction song?”

She sighs dramatically. “I mean… if you’re going to make me sing, I want it to be something I can actually sing well enough.”

He’s shifting in his seat with excitement, his black board shorts crinkling. “Ok, what are we picking, eh?”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes at his accent. “Maybe… Taylor Swift?”

“Ok,” he nods, tapping on her phone to pull up some options. She feels her heart throb harder. He scrolls, impressed by the amount of songs she has to choose from.

“Do “You Belong with Me.” I can… kind of sing that. I think. We’re gonna find out. I hate you, by the way.”

“Shut up and sing,” he snaps jokingly. When the song starts, she shakes her head.

“Wait, no, no, not this one.”

“Oh, come on…”

“No, do “Fearless.” I can do “Fearless.” I’ll do “Fearless.”” Her words stumble out fast and a little scrambled. He would feel bad about putting her on the spot, but she’s so cute when she’s nervous.

The instrumental part starts and she’s trying not to smile but the way he’s looking at her is making that hard. The first verse is well within her normal range. She croons along seriously, trying to show off whatever talent she honed in her short-lived vocal classes back when the only thing she wanted to be in life was Hayley Williams. She’s watching the road carefully as the verse opens up to the bouncier, louder chorus. She raises her voice along with Taylor’s and sees him smile wider in her periphery as she gets into it.

She turns sincere around the bridge and leans her head back, reaching up into falsetto. He tilts his head back too and watches her, fascinated. He wants to press repeat when the song ends and make her go again. Even better, he wants to make her sing every song on her phone. When it fades out, Lilly purses her lips and ducks her head.

“That was really good,” he insists, wondering if she doesn’t know. She sighs, knowing he really couldn’t say otherwise.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll keep my day job. Just kidding, don’t have one.”

He notes the way she deflects with humor. He shakes his head, hoping maybe if he keeps singing, she’ll join him. They flip through more songs in her summer playlist. It’s heavily populated by country artists he doesn’t know. She is pleased to educate him. When “Driving All Night” by Jake Owen comes on, they’re both quiet, bobbing their heads as the Pacific comes into view.

“You should cover this song,” she murmurs shyly, glancing at him.

“You think?”

“Yeah. I love this song. It’s so sexy and romantic. And you’d sound better than Jake Owen anyway.”

He pulls out his phone. She doesn’t think anything of it until he opens his notes app and looks at her earnestly. “What’s it called?”

“You’re writing it down?”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot. What’s it called?”

She’s baffled, giggling. “It’s “Driving All Night” by Jake Owen. You’re gonna cover it just because I told you to? That’s too much power for me.”

He smiles. “I won’t post it anywhere. I’ll just record it and send it to you.”

She takes a deep breath and exhales. It’s hanging there between them. He’s being so sweet to her, they both know what he means by it. He decides to try to tone it down a little.

They arrive at Zuma Beach, marveling at the lack of people despite the gorgeous summer day. It bodes well, though, for keeping them out of the tabloids. He insists on paying for parking since she drove. She winks at him when he hands her his platinum Amex to hand to the parking attendant. He rolls his eyes and snickers at her.

They set up to the left of one of the lifeguard stations with chairs and towels. They settle in next to each other facing the water and Lilly moans.

“This is amazing. I’ve been here five minutes but I think it’s my new happy place.”

“Agreed. This is awesome.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes, heads tipped back with small, sleepy smiles on their faces. Shawn doesn’t seem worried about being recognized. She tries not to look around to see if anyone has noticed him.

“Tell me something,” she whispers, turning her head to him.

“What kind of something?”

“Tell me… something you’re excited for coming up.”

“Uhm, well, I’m doing a bunch of festivals this summer. Going to Brazil and a couple other cool places I haven’t seen yet.”

“That sounds fantastic. I’d love to go to Brazil.”

“You like to travel?”

“Love it. I’ve always had the bug but it bit me harder when I went to London. Can’t stop thinking about it now.”

They talk about his favorite places and hers. That turns into college stories and early tour stories, which morphs into love lives and what they were like as kids and how they feel about their families. If he wasn’t half in love with her already, he is now. After two hours of flowing conversation, he stands and runs his hands through his hair. She admires his back and ass, tilting her head. He turns to look at her and she lets him catch her staring.

“Enjoying the view?” he teases.

“Gorgeous,” she admits, nodding and fanning her face, “And so is the beach.”

He sighs and reaches for her hand, tugging at it.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“The water.”

“But what about our stuff?”

“Not many people around. No one’s clocked me yet. We’ll watch it. C’mon.”

She lets him help her out of her seat but drops his hand as they head to the water under the guise of adjusting her suit. She marches ahead of him and now he gets to admire the expanse of pale skin she probably hasn’t been protecting with sunblock all that well today. She shakes her hair out from where it sticks to her sweaty back and chest. It’s salty and matted from the sea air, making her look like a mermaid on legs. His breath actually, physically catches in his chest looking at her.

“Oh, it’s cold,” she declares in confusion, her eyebrows pulled together.

“It’s not bad,” he insists, wading in up to his waist without hesitation.

“You’re too Canadian for your own good,” she replies, shuffling after him, not to be outdone. She flaps her arms and hisses when she walks in a little deeper. He resists the urge to drag her into his chest and cradle her against his bleeding warmth.

He kicks off over a wave and it catches her a little further back, pushing her backwards and swallowing her up to her shoulders. He laughs at her reaction. She splashes him, he splashes her back. She wants to grab him and lift herself onto his broad, defined back and let him take her wherever he wants. In fact, that thought haunts her throughout the day.

After a while, they head back to the chairs and dry off. He reminds her to reapply sunblock. She asks him about writing songs, about his celebrity friends, about home. He asks her about her own writing, about her best friend Lauren, about her dreams.

The sun begins to hang low and the beach empties out. She’s reminded of their long drive back inland and of his plans early the next morning.

“I don’t want to go,” she confesses, the sincerest he’s seen her all day.

“I know. This was a perfect day.”

She feels an odd connection to Malibu now and an even stronger one to Shawn. She thinks in the course of a few weeks he might’ve accidentally become one of her best friends. She doesn’t want to let go, doesn’t want him to leave and forget about her. She doesn’t want to go so far from the ocean again.

“Let’s come back here,” she insists.

Her hair glows redder in the sunset. He goes as far as to cup a hand around her cheek and place a quick kiss on her forehead. “We will. I promise.”

They sing “Malibu” by Miley Cyrus and “Hotel California” by the Eagles together on the way home. They order a large pizza for dinner and eat all of it. He leaves in an Uber after they had both fallen asleep watching Must Love Dogs. He wakes her up when his car arrives and tells her not to get up and that he’ll be back in a few weeks. She misses him as soon as he’s gone.

++++++

September 1st, 2018

“If you knew how many women on the internet want you to tie them up, you would be amazed.”

“Oh my god, don’t tell me that,” he whines, plucking at a thread in his jeans.

“Seriously! Spanking, breathplay, daddy kinks—”

He interrupts her, whirling his head around even though his phone was pressed to his ear and no one was paying attention to him. “Lilly, I’m in public.”

“Keep a straight face,” she teased.

“You just said ‘daddy kink’ to me, how am I supposed to keep a straight face?” he hissed, slumping into the lobby couch, willing himself to disappear.

“This is how millennials and gen Z’ers discover their sexuality and embrace it. They read, they write, they draw. It’s a beautiful thing and you get to be a part of it.”

“Is that how it happened for you?” he whispers curiously.

She’s quiet for a minute, debating what to tell him. “I mean, yeah. Nothing is the same as personal experience but when you’re reading it, you get a sense of what interests you.”

“Makes sense,” he agrees, his voice begging her to elaborate.

“I’m not going to start listing off my kinks, Shawn, so get that out of your head.”

He laughs. “Worth a shot.”

Their beach day was almost a distant memory now. They start talking on the phone and FaceTiming more. They’ve got the long-distance friendship thing down pretty well by this point. She’s impressed by how much time he’s able to make for her. She knows better than to expect this all the time. She knows she’s lucky to get what she can from him now when he’s just touring festivals and not flung into a new city every day for months on end like he will be next year on tour. She also knows he’s been writing heavily, which puzzles her because he just released his third album.

The next time he’s back in town, she has another adventure planned.

“I’ve decided to get my first tattoo.”

“Really? Awesome. What and where?” he asks, rubbing his chin and smiling goofily, glad she can’t see him. He gets a flash of a few locations he’d like to see one on her and blushes.

“The inside of my left foot. I’m getting a silhouette of Peter Pan, Wendy, John and Michael flying.”

“That’s perfect for you, that sounds great. When are you going?”

“That’s the thing. I want you to come.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You’re an old pro with the tattoo thing. And you have strong hands that I probably won’t break if I squeeze too hard.”

He laughs. “The hands are the moneymakers, you can’t break those.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll be gentle with you, Mendes.”

He shivers as the implication and smacks his palm against the wall to refocus. “I actually got one of my finger tattoos in LA. I can call him for you, he’s really good.”

“That would be great, I was going to ask you for a recommendation.”

They set the date according to when Shawn would be back in town the next week. He springs for an Uber, claiming her foot would hurt too much to drive after she gets inked. They sit and wait while the tattoo artist prepares, Lilly’s bare legs bouncing wildly as she stares off at nothing.

“You ok?” he questions, reaching out to her knee to still her. His big, hot hand does get her attention. Her skin jumps a little. She smiles wearily.

“I’m a tough chick, I can handle a little pain, but I’m a little worried.”

“I know, I get it. It’s really not all that bad though, I promise. If I really hated it I wouldn’t have gotten five.”

“But maybe you’re way tougher than me,” she argues.

He snorts. “Doubt it. You do Orangetheory. You’re way tougher than me.”

She bumps his shoulder with hers playfully. The tattoo artist leads them back and sits them down, readying her foot for the stencil.

“Worse comes to worse, you don’t finish it all today. If it’s too much, you can come back,” Shawn reminds her, leaning in to watch as the artist stencils it the way she wants.

She takes a deep breath as he turns the needle on. Without looking away from her foot, she reaches for one of Shawn’s hands and holds it between both of hers. He squeezes her fingers supportively when the needle makes contact. She gasps gently, her lips popping open as she lets out a ragged breath. He knows he shouldn’t be aroused by her face and her noises while she’s in pain but he bites his lower lip anyway, committing them to memory.

She sandwiches his hand between hers. He scoots closer to her in his chair, feeling more welcome. She shoots him a faltering smile.

“You ok?” he murmurs. She nods in response.

“You have tiny feet,” he points out, cocking his head as the tattoo artist smiles.

“My feet are average sized, thank you,” Lilly replies dryly.

“They look little. How tall are you again?”

“I’m 5-foot-2.”

“You’re so tiny,” he marvels, stroking the outside of her palm with his trapped fingers. She’s silent, holding herself together.

“You’re doing so good, I was crying by now when I got my first one.”

She glares at him. “You told me it doesn’t hurt that much.”

“I lied.”

She chuckles and he feels better, knowing she’s relaxing. She sits back in the chair while the artist works. Instead of staring intently at the needle, she distracts herself by staring at Shawn.

“Were you a nerdy looking kid or did you grow up good looking?”

The tattoo artist and Shawn both snort a surprised laugh in unison.

“What?” Shawn chuckles.

“Like, were you one of the kids in middle school or whatever it’s called in Canada that all the girls liked? Or did you grow into that?”

“I… no, no, I had braces for almost 5 years. I was terrified of girls. I was not a kid girls liked,” he explains.

She furrows her brow and purses her lips at him, flinching when the artist moves to another spot on her foot. She squeezes Shawn’s hand harder. He smiles.

“I want to believe you but I don’t think I do. I see you now and I can’t believe you weren’t cute growing up.”

“I’ll send you pictures,” he promises, nodding at her. After a few seconds, he asks, “Why are you asking this?”

She looks embarrassed. “I’m suspicious of boys that grew up knowing they’re hot. There were guys I went to school with that were horrible because every girl in class had a thing for them and they just never grew out of being cocky little shits.”

“And you’re worried that’s me?”

“That sounds bad. I don’t think you’re a cocky little shit. You just seem too good to be true sometimes.”

Shawn looked a little smug, covering her clasped hands with his free hand. “And then you remember I’m 20 and that’s why you won’t go out with me.”

The tattoo artists covers up a laugh with a cough. Lilly’s eyes blow wide open. This thing between them is not something they acknowledge. Shawn seems playful enough about it, so she decides to engage.

“I feel like I was a different human being at 20. I’m not saying I’ve reached enlightenment now at 24, that’s stupid. I just—”

“I know, I’m just teasing you.”

“It’s less about your age now than it was,” she admits quietly. He looks interested now. This is new information.

“I thought at first there’s no way I could relate to a 20-year-old on any level other than very basic friendship. But you proved that wrong. So I guess if I’m being really honest with myself, which I am because I have an electric needle in my foot, the only thing left of concern is your job.”

Shawn ducks his head. The tattoo artist looks like he’s not paying attention at all, which makes him good at his job.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Shawn whispers, looking bashful and a little hurt. Lilly shuts down, worried that her honesty was too much. She keeps his hand in hers, rubbing it absent-mindedly as she continues to stare at the tattoo.

She and Shawn are quiet for the rest of the session. She can only imagine what the tattoo artist must think. When it’s finished, Shawn leans in to take a good look. She’s smiling at it fondly.

“It looks great,” he murmurs, sounding distracted. She releases his hand. He flexes it and marvels at the pinkness of his skin from having it grasped so tightly. He looks at her, “Are you happy with it?”

“I am. Blissfully happy. It’s perfect.”

Shawn helps her stand after they work to carefully bandage the spot and put her shoe back on. He holds his arm out to her for support as he walks her out to the Uber. She doesn’t really need it but she takes advantage.

“Do you want to get something to eat?” she tries once they’re on their way back to Burbank.

“I should get back to my hotel, actually, I have to catch a red-eye.”

She feels awkward around him for the first time since she refused to kiss him in her bedroom while he had an ice pack on his lip.

They arrive at her house. He asks the driver to wait as he steps out and meets her by the front steps. He pulls her in for a hug and it’s warmer than she expects. She presses her face into his neck and hopes he feels what she’s trying to say through the action. He pulls back and pecks her forehead.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he promises, opening the door to climb back into the car.

“When will you be back?” she almost whines.

“It’ll be a little longer. Probably six weeks.”

She looks hurt under a brave face. It makes his stomach turn. It also goes to prove her point about his job as an obstacle to their relationship. He dips his head in the car and doesn’t watch as she walks up the stone steps under a curtain of bougainvillea.

++++++++

October 14th, 2018

“Sometimes when I miss you the most I watch your music videos,” she admits, two glasses of red blend deep.

He raises his eyebrows at that idea. “Yeah? Which one’s your favorite?”

“Well, I hate “Stitches” because you get the shit beat out of you.”

He laughs heartily at her bluntness. He sips his beer and relaxes against his hotel bed headboard, gazing at the skyline. He can’t remember where he is anyway, so he closes his eyes and imagines sitting in her bed with her head in his lap, hair spilling in every direction.

“I didn’t ask which ones you hate,” he reminds her.

“I really like “Nervous.” It makes me smile,” she whispers, pulling Olaf to her chest and pecking his white, sparkly forehead.

“I like “Nervous,” too.”

They’re both quiet, ignoring the meaningful silence between them.

“You know what’s not fair?” he pipes up.

“Hmm?” she hums through a mouthful of wine.

“I don’t have videos of you I can watch when I miss you.”

She sighs. “I’m not an international superstar.”

“Send me some.”

“I don’t know that I have many of just me… hold on, let me put you on speaker.”

He waits as she scrolls through her phone.

“Wow, I really don’t have any videos of myself. I have some stupid drunk snapchats—”

“Oh, I definitely want those,” he laughs, straightening up at the idea.

“Like, my drunk lip sync game is strong.”

She’s going through videos and giggling to herself. He’s perfectly content to just sit there and listen.

“Oh my god, SEAN!” she cries suddenly, her voice a moan of longing and nostalgia.

“What?!” he asks, alarmed.

“Oh! Not you, sorry. My college friend Sean. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. He works for Apple now.”

“Oh, ok,” he chuckles, dragging back another gulp of beer.

“Oh my god, I’m such a fucking lush,” she laughs, alarmed at the number of drunk videos she has, “I’m sending you all of these because they’re all hilarious. And now I’ve gone too far back into 2008, not a good look.”

“No, send me those, too.”

“From when I was 13? Hell no.”

“That sounds like gold, honestly.”

A few more seconds of scrolling and she sighs once again, aggravated. “Sorry, bub, I have very little for you. Certainly not of the quality of your music videos.”

“That’s ok, send me what you have and then just do new ones.”

“Of what?”

“Of whatever. Of you at home, hanging out, cooking, singing—”

“I know better than to send you video of me singing.”

“You’re right,” he chuckles, “Don’t do that, I’ll be too tempted to post it.”

“So I need to document more of my life to share with you.”

“At least for a while until I get back to LA.”

“How much longer?”

“Two weeks.”

“I’ll see if I can hold myself together until then,” she teases, releasing her empty glass of wine on her coffee table, “But for now, it’s time for bed. I’m glad you had a good show. I miss you, pal.”

“I miss you, too. I’ll see you soon. Sweet dreams.”

And she does send him videos, usually when he’s least expecting it. He got the first one in the car on the way to the airport to return to Toronto. It was a two minute diatribe about the heat wave in Los Angeles and her despair at finding her car to be registering 118 degrees when she went to Ralph’s for groceries. She blew him a kiss thoughtlessly at the end of the video. When he was alone in his own bed that night, twitching and sleepless, he re-watches the last thirty seconds, thumbing over the status bar on the bottom of his phone a few extra times to watch and hear the loud kiss.

He gets another when he’s just waking up in Pickering while visiting his parents. She’s gone to Malibu without him and his heart aches at the idea. Though a little guilty, he’s also pleased to see she didn’t light up there the same way without him. She walks him around Zuma Beach for almost 10 minutes, rambling about nothing. He watches that video in full 3 times that day.

His favorite is one he gets while out in the city with his buddies, he can’t remember where exactly. She’s lying in bed on her side curled up so she looked like she was talking to him during one of their unplanned sleepovers. She’s telling him about the girls she met from Emily’s musical and this conversation they had about their place in the industry as women and their insecurities and their strengths. She tells him how she stayed quiet during the conversation, partly in an effort to let these wise, wonderful, talented women have their say and learn from their words, partly because she thought if she started talking, she’d explode. She looks right into the camera lens during this video and it’s startling to him the hole he feels in his chest at her pleading gaze.

“So, really what I realized is as much as I liked listening to these women talk, I realized I didn’t want to talk to them as much as I wanted to talk to you. So come back to LA, your second home, to your partner in crime and your beach buddy. I miss you like crazy. It actually hurts me. Ok I’ve had an emotional evening and if I start talking about how much you mean to me, I won’t stop. Not that you don’t deserve to hear it and be reminded of it regularly, but it’s almost 2 AM and I’m trying not to be that girl anymore. So, as always, I love ya and I’m proud of you every fucking day and you make me want to be great.”

++++++++

November 5th, 2018

“So like… with Harry, it’s like…” she trails off, grinning. He feels his stomach churn at the idea that she might talk about him this way when he’s not around, “It’s like he’s an old friend who I love but never get to see or talk to anymore. When he shows up anywhere on Tumblr or whatever, I’m like, ‘aw, I love Harry.’ But Niall…”

He sits up when he sees the devilish look on her face. “But Niall what?” he prompts, sounding uneasy.

“But Niall is my mans,” she says simply, blushing at him through the screen.

He rolls his eyes. “God. This is why I can’t take you to industry events, y’know, because I’m worried you’ll kidnap him.”

“I wouldn’t, I definitely wouldn’t, but I would shamelessly bat my eyelashes all night until he either gave in to my advances or asked me if I had some kind of condition.”

Shawn bursts out laughing at that, imagining the scene. “Yup, yup, I’m never going to take you to meet him.”

++++++++

November 28th, 2018

She’s focused on trying not to drop her phone, coffee mug or purse as she wrangles her way into her bedroom, the sun beating down on her exposed neck. She pushes inside and right away, there’s something wrong. There’s a large black suitcase resting against her dresser. Alarmed, she looks up and sees him at the far end of the room. He’s shedding a leather jacket on her chair, looking both delighted and guilty.

“What are you—”

He interrupts, “You ruined my surprise! I was going to hide and scare you.”

“Fuck, Shawn!” she cries, dropping her belongings on the dresser and racing for him, deciding to launch herself into him when he holds his arms out to her. He catches her easily and spins her as she locks her arms around his neck. He has her a foot off the ground and slows their twirl, eventually lowering her slowly until her feet touch the ground. He buries his face in her neck and keeps her there. When he can finally stomach it, he pulls away, stepping back with his hands on her shoulders.

“Why are you crying?” he laughs, brushing her arm playfully.

She wipes at her eyes, shaking her head. “Because I’m fucking surprised, goof, you weren’t supposed to be here for two days. I was going to pick you up from LAX like a dutiful best friend. I was going to order sushi so we’d have it ready when I brought you home.”

His heart flutters both at her idea and the mention of her home as ‘home.’ Like it was sort of his, too. “I’m sorry. That sounds like a great plan. If you want, I can call an Uber and go back to LAX and we can try again.”

“No, this is better,” she insists, planting her face back into his chest, make-up smearing on his white t-shirt.

“I missed you,” he admits, rubbing her back gently, rocking them.

“I missed you somethin’ awful,” she agrees, stepping away and pushing at his chest, “You were gonna scare me?”

“Yeah, I was going to hide in the wardrobe.”

“Wow, you had a scheme.”

“I had a whole plane ride to plan it out.”

“And how is it you’re here two days early?” She sits in the middle of her bed. He follows her to prop himself on the edge, not wanting to get too comfortable without her permission.

“Well, don’t get too excited, because my meetings got moved up. So you don’t have extra time with me, it’s just sooner than we planned.”

“I’ll take what I can get, Mendes, you’re a busy man.”

He shrugs. “I’ll always make time for you.”

She cocks her head and smiles, unsure of how to react when he says those sweet things to her. She doesn’t get the sense that he’s actively trying to wear her down. She thinks he’s just saying what he means. She wonders if he’s in love with her.

He leans forward, eyebrows raised as if to tell her a secret. She leans with him.

“I brought my guitar,” he whispers. She jolts back, clapping her hands.

“Yay! Now I can finally learn to play and then seduce Niall like I’ve always wanted,” she jokes, kicking her legs out and biting her lip.

“Funny, funny girl,” he mumbles, rolling his eyes as he gets up off the bed to get his guitar case.

She watches him as he bends down to unlock the case, her eyes wandering to the inch or two of his Armani boxers that peek at her from above the waistband of his jeans. She bites her lip again, her heart still pounding from the surprise of finding him in her room.

“God, I love that you’re here,” she whispers earnestly. He lifts the guitar and turns to her, smiling shyly.

“Good surprise?” he asks.

“Great surprise,” she confirms with a nod, scooting back on her bed until she hit the mass of pillows in front of her headboard. He wants to crawl on top of her and never leave. Instead, he picks up the guitar and starts plucking out something he learned for her.

In a flash, before he can even start singing it, her head snaps up from her gaze on his fingers and she widens her eyes. “Is this…?”

“Lights out, I still hear the rain…” he begins, singing at her through a satisfied smirk. She buries herself deeper into her pillows and covers her mouth and nose with her hands.

Up to that point, she couldn’t have imagined loving that song more than she had for the last ten years. But he learned it for her, he took the time out of writing and touring to learn her very favorite song by her very favorite band just to sing it for her. He sings the whole thing perfectly and emotionally, shutting his eyes and nodding his head and getting into it. When the last note fades out, he rests a hand on the guitar and smiles sheepishly.

“You are something else,” she laughs shakily, sitting up from the pillows. Her face is all red. He wants to cup it in his hands and stare. He holds onto the guitar a little harder.

“You wanna learn “Jasey Rae?”” he offers, gesturing at the guitar.

She blinks, tempted. “No, I want to learn one of your songs.”

His heart pounds as he shifts in his seat. “Ok. Which one?”

“Which one is easiest for a beginner?”

He laughs. “None of them.”

She rolls her eyes and reaches out to poke at the strings under his fingers. “C’mon, I know you want to hear me sing your music.”

He’s busted. He shakes his head, giggling bashfully. “I give. Let’s learn “Like To Be You.””

“Oh, hell yes, duet time. Let’s High School Musical this bitch.”

He rolls his eyes at her uncanny ability to twist his romantic gestures into humor. He still has another trick up his sleeve, though.

“C’mere,” he gestures, kicking off his shoes and spreading his legs. She raises her eyebrows. He pats the space between his thighs.

“Come there?” she chokes.

“Come sit between my legs otherwise I can’t show you where your fingers go.”

She looks suspicious but crawls over to him, stopping when she’s a breath away from his lips to turn and scoot back into his chest. He lifts the guitar over her lap and lays it down to show her different parts of it. He shows her the strings and names them and shows her how to use a guitar pick. He positions his head over her shoulder and guides her hands, singing quietly as he shows her the first few chord progressions. She picks it up quickly.

“Did I ever tell you I played the harp when I was little?” She’s looking down at the guitar when she says it, cheeks going red.

“Really?” he laughs in disbelief.

“Yeah. For two years. I wanted to play an instrument no one else I knew did so I picked the harp. My mom and I took lessons together.”

“That’s fucking adorable,” he coos, resting his head on her shoulder. She spares him a glance and shrugs gently, not enough to shove him off.

“So you’re gonna be a pro, then. Ok now put your fingers here and here,” he explains, demonstrating by moving her hands around for her.

“I get worried I might lose you a little,” she sings authentically, light and airy in her falsetto he’s grown to really love. He harmonizes with her. She falters slightly at the unexpected addition, grinning at him as she continues, pulling herself back on track. He nods along, impressed by how well she knows the words.

She struggles with where to put her fingers, but she’s motivated and it helps that she knows the song. Slowly but surely, she puts it together and within a couple hours can play it through at a slow tempo. When she runs it through solidly the first time, he wraps his arms around her and shakes her.

“You did it! You’re a fuckin’ rockstar!”

She squeals and burrows back into him, delighted at his enthusiasm. He wiggles behind her and manages to squeeze his phone out of his impossibly tight back pocket. “C’mon, let’s get one on video.”

“Nooooo, Shawn, no Instagram, not with me all snuggled up to you, Lauren will never let me hear the end of it.”

“Not for Instagram, just for me, ok?”

The look of sincerity on his face breaks through her resolve quickly. She nods and he goes to great lengths to set it up, perching it on the mantle above her fireplace and sitting behind her as she strums.

It sounds nice. Julia Michaels’ voice is heartbreakingly beautiful; the recorded version of the song aches with want and frustration and guilt and regret but with Lilly, it’s different. This is the closest they’ve come to discussing their relationship since the day of the tattoo snafu. She’s singing honestly and with the grace of someone with a nice voice who is paying more attention to the guitar parts she learned pretty quickly. He’s staring at her the whole time, bobbing his head and singing to her and with her quietly. When the song ends, she looks up at him with a grin and looks to the camera.

“We did it!” she squeaks, throwing her arms out. He laughs and stands up from behind her, walking to end the recording and put his phone back.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, patting her ankle.

“Are you kidding? Thank you! That was great. And hey, now you can take me on tour and we never have to be apart,” she teases. His demeanor shifts a little.

“I have to talk to you about that, actually.” Her eyebrows raise in anticipation.

“I wrote a new album,” he explains quietly, clearing his throat and looking down at his crossed legs.

“You released a new album in May,” she laughs, her voice on edge due to the look on his face.

“No, I know, and we won’t release it for a while, but I wrote it. And… the reason I’m telling you this is… because a lot of it is about you.”

She stares at him blankly. “A lot of it?”

He bobs his head back and forth noncommittally. “All of it.”

“All of it?” She’s trying not to panic, he can see it on her face.

“It just… came out,” he babbles, waving his hands frantically, “Like lyric vomit. I’ve never done this before. I’ve never written this many songs myself before, much less about one person. I didn’t know what to do. I was calling Ryan and Teddy and Ed trying to figure out if I was just fucking crazy or what and I sent them the stuff I had and they said it’s good, it’s like, really good, they say it’s my best stuff. And I didn’t know what to do because we have this… thing, this fucking elephant in the room at all times and I had to tell you because I’m so excited about this music but it’s… it’s all about you.”

She’s just staring at him, her heart beating faster with every word that spills from his panicked mouth. She looks down at the guitar which feels really heavy all of a sudden. She hugs it closer like a shield between them.

“Is it… I mean… what kind of songs are they?”

He hesitates. “Romantic ones…?”

She’s quiet for a while. It’s killing him, but he doesn’t dare speak. She wiggles uncomfortably.

“Well, I can’t wait to hear it,” she whispers, her smile shy and apologetic. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

“I’m excited to play it for you. When it’s… y’know, done.”

He leaves for a dinner with people from his label. She sits on the edge of her bed for a while, gnawing on her top lip and staring at the tile floor. It occurs to her now how badly, how irrevocably she may have screwed this up.

Taglist: @the-claire-bitch-project @crapri

[withyouandthemoon]

Daddy Issues

Author’s Note: This was, to my utter embarrassment, inspired by a line from what I believe was the second episode of TO S5. Something along the lines of “there are certain damages that only a father can do”, which I find completely nonsense. Many moons later that disdain along with @garglyswoof‘s kind prompting finally pushed me to write this down. Set sometime in the future where KC are in an established relationship; probably a few decades after TVD 4x23 and anything Canon after that is not acknowledged here. It started off like a ton of lemons (I love this obsolete term that I recently just learned) but is actually so filled with fluff it’s more like lemon meringue. My teeth hurt in the end.

When Caroline was young she was terrified of flying. Granted she didn’t flew that much to start with – just a couple of times to visit her dad and that one single time when her mom took her to see her aunt in Florida.

Each and every one of those times she was scared out of her mind. Her imaginations ran the wildest when they were backed up by data, and she had always been a thorough researcher. She’d clamp her little hands so hard on the armrests to crush the images of falling and explosion in her head as the giant plane sped up, hard steel digging into her back like some unnameable dark force with an evil mind of its own.

And then she’d be hovering midair. Her heart floating in her already floating body, all trapped up in a floating still iron box.

Caroline thought she’d loathe that feeling all her life and avoid it at all cost.

Little did she know how drastically feelings changed over time, especially when you hold a few decades, or even centuries of it in your palm to squander about.

Then flying became soaring. Floating, freeing. Looking down on the ground from miles above felt like a metaphor for the immortality of which she was still just beginning to get a grasp.

And that was probably why Caroline found herself fantasizing about what she used to fear the most when Klaus’ controlled warm breaths scorched her inner thighs. He was taking his sweet time tonight, lips hovering near her soaked core, the tip of his tongue ghosting her sensitive skin now and then, but never fully landing. A frustrated half-sigh-half-moan slipped out of her throat and he merely hummed, the sound buzzing through her suddenly arched spine like the engines of a plane, lulling, but exhilarating all the same.

“Easy, there.” His thumb gently rubbed under her knee while a light kiss grazed her abdomen, “we haven’t even started yet.”

And how she yearned for that. Speeding. Gaining traction. Pulling up and up and up until she was blinded by the sun blasting over the hazy clouds.

His low chuckle traveled along her midsection to the valley between her breasts, and he licked her there as if tasting her wandering thoughts, “what lovely images are you conjuring up this time, sweetheart?”

She knew what he was asking about. After decades of roaming the earth it was no news to Caroline that people saw or heard the strangest things during sex. But surprisingly she had quite the artistic mind when it came to sex with Klaus (sometimes she suspected she was channeling him but she would never feed that to his egotistical ass). The first time he coaxed the imaginative painting of undulating hills swirling with colors out of her, he stared at her with such awe and fervor in his eyes like she’d just single-handedly invented the freaking impressionism. Ever since then he became quite obsessed with her little “sex visions”, and it was not like Caroline didn’t enjoy it.

But not now. He was wordy when he got artistic, and wordy meant slow.

So she dragged him up by his dangling necklaces, stealing a bruising kiss for her own before replying, “I’m not telling you if you keep this game up.”

“What game?” He feigned innocence, like those fingers so skillfully fiddling with her nipples weren’t even his.

She couldn’t quite swallow her gasps, her eyes half-closed from the charges spreading from her chest, but not enough to shut out the smug grin on his face.

Well if this was the road he wanted to go down, then she might as well spice things up a bit more.

Silently she began to nibble at the side of his neck, Klaus’ head immediately falling back exposing his throat where tiny sounds of satisfaction were rumbling. To this day it amazed Caroline a little when he acted this open around her, and she felt herself growing wetter at the thought.

Sucking on his pulse point, she reached over to the glass jar on their nightstand and sank her hand into the sea of notes inside.

The jar was Caroline’s two-year anniversary gift to Klaus, filled with both of their fantasies and dirty thoughts. Klaus was, of course, most obliged to try it out as often as possible, but now over one year later they’d still not run out of ideas – not completely unbelievable considering they’d both been caught on more than one occasion sneaking new notes into the “kink jar”, as dubbed by one very disturbed and disgusted Rebekah Mikaelson.

Caroline laughed inwardly at Rebekah’s scrunched-up face as she fished around the little pieces of paper. But before she could draw one out, her hand was enclosed in his, the heat of his palm almost burning her.

She looked up into Klaus’ teasing eyes, “I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”

“When are you not?” He was idly rubbing circles on the back of her hand through the thin notes, and she almost moaned out at the feeling of the rough edges of paper scraping against her skin. When did the back of her hand become an erogenous zone anyway? Damn it, focus.

She raised an eyebrow challengingly, “can’t keep up?”

His grin grew wider at that, “I’m not complaining.”

Snatching a piece of note from between her fingers, Klaus withdrew his hand and lay back against the headboard, his other arm instinctively circling around Caroline as she snuggled close to take a peek. She was startled by Klaus’ sudden growl of anger, and she hurried to grab the note before he crushed it in his iron grip.

Apprehension clouded her mind as she read the now slightly smudged words: Call Me Daddy.

That definitely hit a sore subject if there ever was one. And judging by Klaus’ murderous expression she doubted he threw that one in just to test his own limits. So that left…

“Kol.” Klaus bit through his clenched teeth, confirming her suspicion.

“But how…?”

Their bedroom was spelled so that only the two of them could enter, and anyone who dared to break the barrier would leave marks wherever they touched inside the room. Not to mention that with Klaus’ hybrid senses, he could probably detect any past intruders from a mile away. To wipe all the traces Kol would have to have some assistance in the form of witchcraft, but Caroline still vividly remembered the disastrous fight Klaus had with him just days ago about Kol “childishly antagonizing all the covens in the city”.

“Kol has always had a way with witches,” Klaus huffed, “if he’s not acting like a raging imbecile.”

“So you’re telling me that he somehow made up with the witches, which I believe was what you expected in the first place, and he got them to help him get inside our bedroom to mess with our sex life, just so he could get back at you because you yelled at him for making an enemy of the witches that ended up helping him?” Caroline rolled her eyes, “I know I’ve said this a million times but you all are a twisted bunch.”

Klaus’ lips lifted smugly, “he’s my brother after all.” In the blink of an eye the smirk turned into a scowl, “but if he thought he could get away with this he was sorely mistaken. I do not care if he’s restored some sort of rapport with the witches. This crossed a line.”

“It can’t really be that bad.” She sighed, sitting up straight, nudging Klaus’ head to settle on her chest before he could protest. She could feel the little puff of air he let out warm on her skin, his long dark blonde eyelashes casting shadows on those high cheekbones that felt way too petulant for a thousand year old monster.

“I will be the judge of that.”

The moonlight was shining favorably on all his good features, and from Caroline’s vantage point he almost looked like one of those ancient statues she saw during their never ending world tours, the perfect human specimen perpetuated by hands that were long dead. But those masterpieces of marble were truly strong, ageless, fearless.

He wasn’t.

He was a thousand years of weaknesses and struggles, sleepless nights and blood-soaked frenzies sedimented into one.

And he was resting so petulantly, yet so contently on her very chest.

Without lifting his eyes Klaus seemed to have sensed the little smile tugging at the corner of her lips, “what? No name-calling? Not a word of ‘get over it?’” His arm idly went around her waist, bringing their bodies even closer, “that’s a first.”

She didn’t answer him for a while, just silently playing with the soft curls on his nape. And for once Klaus didn’t rush her, his artistic fingers drawing sketch after sketch on her side. Neither of them was particularly good at the patience thing, but somehow they found the rhythm as the years passed, finding each other more fascinating than the heavy stress of silence.

“I was just thinking…none of us seemed to have won the lottery in the father department. I mean, mine left when I was ten; Bonnie’s father was practically absentee when we were growing up, and from what I heard the Salvatores nearly got killed by theirs. Elena’s father was probably the only nice one, but it turned out he was a heartless psycho who tortured vampires for science.” She couldn’t help a small shudder when she mentioned that piece of information, and Klaus’ arm instantly tightened around her.

“Among the lot of us, we could run an awards for the shittiest dad.” She continued with a light shake of her head, “on a scale of one to ten your dad can get, like a nine or something.”

This time Klaus looked up at her, his face more incredulous than angered, which Caroline took as a good sign.

“What? There must be something even worse than wanting your own kids dead.”

“Caroline, are you seriously trying to rank this medley crew according to paternal ‘shittiness’?” She could hear the air quote loud and clear in his words.

Shrugging, Caroline reached for his hand, now stilled on her ribcage because of her ever-so-whimsical idea, and guided it to resume its drawing patterns, “I’m tempted. This sounds like there could be a nice colored histogram involved. I’ll even let you pick your own color – I call dibs on hot pink though.”

Klaus snorted, clearly knowing her enthusiasm was only half-faked, “I promise I won’t fight you over it, love.”

“Good. Because you don’t stand a chance anyway.” She retorted smugly, bending down to press a kiss at the crown of his head.

She knew very well that vampires didn’t have a heartbeat. It took her a long time to get used to not feeling it in herself, and even longer to stop looking for it in others. But after that, she started to notice the tells. More importantly, she started to notice his tells.

How his lips hung open, how his eyelashes shook infinitesimally, how that tiny pause in his even breaths segued so smoothly into the next as if nothing happened…all the little signs screaming in silence the skip of a nonexistent heartbeat.

So she snuggled her face into his hair further, curling around him to ease the tightening of her own dead heart, their bodies molding into each other like a gender-reversed version of that famous painting of Gustav Klimt’s.

Sometimes she couldn’t fathom if she was looking at the world through his eyes, or he hers.

“How come you speak so lightly about such things?” Klaus’ voice was barely above a whisper, contorted emotions hidden well in the creases of hushed breaths.

“And how can you give them so much power?” She pushed back the question softly, the knuckle of her finger grazing his jaw line, “I thought it was human nature to forget.”

And she’d experienced that nature more and more now that she was almost in her fifties in human years. They were, in the end, selfish and cowardly creatures who shed memories like they shed hair. Because hair ate at your body, and memories ate at your soul.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine clinging to the past for a century, let alone a millennium.

His quiet sigh weighed heavy on her heart, “maybe so. But may I remind you that we are no longer human, and common senses don’t necessarily apply to our cases.”

“Yet you’re the one who keeps letting him get to you.”

She knew she was treading on thin ice, but she never could hold her tongue in front of him. Feeling him tensing she leaned in to press another kiss on his temple, his body now almost completely wrapped in hers. They felt like one bizarre creature with tangled limbs and ragged breaths, his lashes shuttering against her chin its disproportionally-tiny, erratic heart.

“Caroline…”

He spoke her name in a way that nobody else would. Like a whole new language that consisted of only one word, and every part of speech was just her, her, her.

But somehow she always understood him perfectly.

“It was the summer when I was twelve that it really sank in – that I couldn’t count on my dad.” She started talking without prompt, her other arm reaching over to circle him in a full embrace, “sure he was gone before that, but we talked on the phone, he’d send me gifts and sometimes visit, so it didn’t feel that bad.”

She felt him settle further into her. There were subjects that Klaus would never go into details. But from time to time he’d listen quietly as Caroline talked about them, without a word of response. It’d become yet another one of their things – those feelings that he didn’t dare utter, that he hadn’t quite figured out even after a thousand tumultuous years flowing through her like a dark stream, brought into the freeing daylight by her soft voice. In those moments he’d just hold her tighter, as he did now.

“That summer I went to stay with him and Stephen. We had so much fun together. I’d never seen my father so happy and carefree, always laughing, joking, trying out new things. Stephen brought that out in him. He was not bad himself either. I almost forgave him. But then it was the end of the summer and of course, I didn’t want to leave.”

She’d used up all her tricks but her dad still wouldn’t budge, looking at her apologetically, his eyes full of things that she didn’t understand then.

“My dad said I had to. Period. I was upset, but more than that the whole thing just felt so unfair. My dad chose to leave, he chose to start a new life without me, and he chose to send me back. But why didn’t I get to choose?” She sighed into the side of his neck, “but it turns out life just doesn’t give you that many choices, no matter who you are.”

She trailed her fingers down his vertebrae, one bone at a time. She’d watched him turn several times over the years, her hand helplessly trying to soothe the pain bursting out from the seams. Yet now they rested so cluelessly under her finger tips, little fossils of suffering with invisible secrets and puzzles carved into them, but no answers.

“I was mad for a month or two. About my dad, of course; but also because Kimberly Fell told everyone I kissed her douchebag of a brother and got dumped, which was the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. Hello? Alex Fell was so not my type!” Klaus was chuckling softly into the crook of her shoulder. She slapped him on the back without much force, her own laugh bubbling in her chest, “anyway, I’m just saying that it was…ordinary, you know. He was not father of the year, but he was hardly the cause of everything gone wrong in my life.”

Klaus’ voice startled her a little, hoarse from the long silence on his part, “as I’ve told you a long time ago, the issue with my father was slightly more complicated than that.” But unlike the first time, instead of harsh he just sounded pensive, his hand still caressing her side in its own accord.

“Well I suppose so,” her voice took on a teasing tone, “but I doubt you are a special scattered spot outside the normal distribution curve.”

“I see that statics course of yours has proven useful.” Klaus huffed a laugh, fingers traveling to the dips of her lower waist, making her shiver involuntarily.

“I told you college education had its perks.”

She never finished her first undergrad, opting for traveling the world on her own instead. When she mentioned getting back to it one more time a few months ago, Klaus was more than supportive – at least about everything aside from her class schedule.

“It still doesn’t make up for those mornings when you leave me in bed alone.” He sucked at the sensitive spot between her clavicles, his full lips forming a perfect pout to prove his point.

Caroline shoved him away and flipped them over, straddling him with a triumphant smirk, “don’t be a baby.”

His hand instantly landed on her hips, squeezing her so deliciously she let out a gasp, “fine, then be a good student and tell me where I fall on your normal distribution curves.”

She ground her ass into him, eliciting a low moan, “normal is never the word to use when it comes to my curves, and you know it.”

“My apologies, love.” He looked up at her, all flashy dimples and shiny curls, “I hereby declare that from this day forward your curves will only be referred to as ‘sensational’ and ‘out of this world’.”

“You better.” She leaned over to kiss him, only to feel the discarded piece of paper under her palm. Frowning, she threw it aside, “and for this once I’m not against you straightening Kol up a little. He has no business in The Jar. And ‘daddy’? Seriously? You are at least a grandpa.”

Klaus rolled his eyes, “if we absolutely have to play this game I prefer the vampire term ‘sire’.”

“Huh.” Caroline inclined her head teasingly, “If you want to get into the technicalities, I believe you are my great-great-great-grand-sire. You are practically my ancestor in vamp terms.”

“You make me feel so old, sweetheart.”

“Hate to break it to you, but as a vampire you have to change your perception of time.” Caroline wiggled her brows as she repeated his words to him, “apparently saying you are old is like, the highest compliment.”

“Apparently.” Klaus hummed as he palmed her breasts leisurely, thumbs brushing over her hardening nipples and Caroline’s head fell back in the surge of pleasure.

Still she never was one to back down from a banter, even if her voice was husky from the lust and anticipation, “so suck it up, sweetheart.”

The next second he was shifting their position so he was sitting up with her still in his lap, his hot lips grazing her left breast while his hand kept kneading the other, “I promise to start sucking if you keep up the compliments.”

But before she could utter a word his mouth was on her, soft lips enveloping her nipple with his tongue skillfully brushing the tip. Caroline sighed loudly, her fingers once more sinking into his curls in abandon.

“Oh yes sire!” She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his head-reeling ministrations, her moans half from arousal and half her playful streak, “you are so old, I just love how old you are…” she ground her burning core into his already rock hard cock, “yes, ravish me, punish me, hit me with your long hard cane!”

Klaus suddenly let go of her nipple, pulling her down for a wet kiss, the sound of laughter shook from their chasing tongues all the way down to their joint hips.

He was still laughing when he pulled back, his hand brushing the fallen hair out of her face gently, “this reminds me of…never mind.”

“What?”

Caroline studied him suspiciously. He looked…embarrassed, with his eyes downcast and the annoyed little lines forming at the corners of his eyes. And then something clicked.

“You were thinking of When Harry Met Sally weren’t you? Admit it!”

She’d all but forced him to watch with her all the chick flicks that’d ever been made, some more than once, or try five times. It was not her fault that the hybrid had an impressive memory.

“I most certainly did not!” He narrowed his eyes, pulling her closer into his lock of iron-hard arms, “how dare you sully my name like this, young lady.”

“Whatever you say, great-great-great-grand-sire.”

Caroline batted her eyelashes at him, curling the last word around her tongue like he so often did. She gasped when his cock grew even larger underneath her, vibrating against her soaking slit with a mind of its own.

“Are you actually turned on by that?” She faked incredulity while furtively rubbing her core over him, earning a growl deep in his throat.

He looked at her long and hard, sweet and tender, his face still lit up by a playful smile yet his eyes burned into hers as if fusing them together, even if they were already so close she tasted him at the back of her tongue with each breath she took, “Caroline, you make me want to kiss you, spank you, fuck you senseless and have a good laugh with you, all at the same time.”

He slowly leaned into her, their cheeks touching inch by inch and he was whispering into her ear like the whole world had silenced to a halt, “there is no bigger turn-on than that.”

She laughed softly, her hands raising to cup his cheeks, murmuring an indiscernible “good” before she dove into him, and felt like flying.

[misssophiachase]

For Klaroween Bingo - Witch - A Practical Magic/Klaroline fusion with new twists. Also, thanks to @livingdeadblondequeen  @littlebirdofthenorth and @klarolinesbuttons for some mythology lessons along the way.

Sisters Caroline and Katherine Pierce have always been considered ‘different’ but when FBI Agent Klaus Mikaelson comes to town in order to solve a mysterious death in Washington DC things get complicated (opening quotes in italics from the film and title from the soundtrack).

If You Ever Did Believe

“Is he cute?”

“Yeah, he’s...nice...in a very penal code sort of way, yeah.”

Caroline felt herself blush. The question was pretty much typical of her older sister, even in a budding crisis, but it wasn’t it that had gotten under her skin. 

It was him. 

And, yes, he was cute. Scratch that he was gorgeous, and not just in a penal code kind of way. 

An irresistible mixture of dimples, curls and crimson lips housed in a navy henley and dark jeans. But his physical appearance wasn’t the only thing getting under her skin, she could sense something wasn’t right but couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

Time seemed to stop, for whatever reason, and she’d almost forgotten he was an FBI Agent until he flashed his badge in her direction and asked to speak with Katherine about the suspicious death of a Russian National.

Suddenly he wasn’t quite so attractive and she was going to kill Katherine for whatever mess she’d embroiled her in this time. She’d turned up on her doorstep a few nights ago and suddenly things were falling into place. Especially given she vowed never to return to San Juan because it was apparently too ‘small town’ for her liking.

They were polar opposites. Katherine was impulsive and unapologetic about her supernatural status and with that came an abundance of reckless behaviour. She’d been travelling for years but they always kept in touch through letters. The stories she told were always wild and she wouldn’t have believed them if she wasn’t Katherine Pierce.    

Caroline, on the other hand, always tried to keep her identity on the down low, even with the rumours swirling in town, there was only so many insults she could take about her supernatural status.  All she really craved in life was some semblance of normalcy. But trouble tended to follow her, especially when Katherine made an impromptu visit.

“Sounds like someone has a little crush,” Katherine teased, now limbering into cat-cow pose.

“Seriously, Kat,” she huffed. “Stop dodging my questions.”

“You should really try yoga, Care, it’s a good way to relax and unwind and we all know you could use some of that.”

“You’re the only person I know who doesn’t care that a federal agent is in our backyard brandishing a firearm as we speak.”

“Are you sure it was his gun and nothing else, Care?” She blushed again, damn it. “Hey, I’ve got an idea, how about you seduce the guy and he’ll forget all about his line of questioning? It would be a win-win. I mean you haven’t gotten any in a while so really I’d be helping you.” 

“Wow,’ Caroline growled. “You have not changed. And, by the way, this obsession with my sex life is unhealthy.” Maybe it was true, but given the fact she couldn’t fall in love due to the centuries-old family, death curse, there wasn’t any point.

“I’m only looking out for you...”

“What exactly have you done, Kat?” She interrupted, ignoring her comment. Caroline knew exactly what was going to follow. Katherine could separate her feelings from sex but it was something Caroline could never do which is why she stayed celibate for the most part.

“Nothing,” Caroline gave her a weary look. “Well, nothing much.”

“This murdered Russian is an attaché at the Embassy in Washington DC, it’s kind of a big deal.”

“Fine,” she admitted, albeit reluctantly. “I knew him, we spent some time together...well you know...”

“Those particular details are not necessary right now,” Caroline shot back. 

“But he wasn’t a gentleman, far from it,” she shuddered, lowering her sweater to reveal numerous bruises on her skin. “I was only trying to defend myself and then suddenly he was on the floor and I was fleeing the hotel.” 

Suddenly Caroline felt bad for her sister and would have been more sympathetic but the fact Klaus Mikaelson was still in their yard was weighing on her mind. 

“Was he dead?”

“I didn’t stick around to check, Detective,” she growled. “Anyway, all I did was put some belladonna in his whiskey, it’s a sedative.”

“Only in small doses,” she murmured, knowing its full potential if used in excess. “We need to get downstairs, he’ll suspect something is up if not.”

 xxxxxxx

Patience wasn’t a trait that Klaus Mikaelson possessed. But when he arrived in San Juan, it seemed to become a little easier to wait, to observe, to take everything in.  

To take her in.

He knew what she was, the town was rife with rumours after all, but he wasn’t expecting to feel so bewitched so soon.

Blonde waves, creamy skin and expressive, blue eyes that matched the colour of the nearby ocean. He’d faltered, albeit momentarily, and then regained his composure and asked for her sister. He noticed her once sunny expression darken and suddenly he wanted to take it all back just to see her smile again.

Standing in the garden after she’d gone to fetch her sister, Klaus tried to ignore just how good her toned backside and hips looked swinging from side to side in those dark, denim jeans.

She seemed familiar, almost like they’d met before but that would be impossible, right? That’s what he told himself anyway.

Katherine Pierce was everything he imagined. Poised, charming and flirtatious, she obviously had a way with men, Aleksey Romanoff included. She’d rattled off a story about their turbulent relationship, his violent tendencies and not seeing him for weeks. She even mentioned a weakness for men in suits, he all but stopped in recommending his older brother Elijah.

Klaus could tell she was lying. But he hadn’t pushed, mainly because her protective sister seemed to be sending him death stares from the kitchen sink. Was it wrong to feel so turned on? He left but with the promise of further questioning.

His restlessness grew at the nearby bed and breakfast he was staying at and Klaus found himself gravitating towards ‘Nourish’ the store owned by one Caroline Pierce. Klaus told himself it was for intelligence, nothing else.

“I didn’t take you for an organic moisturizer kind of guy?” She asked as he perused the shelves. If he thought she looked stunning yesterday, she looked beautiful in a flowing, white dress. And it didn’t help her floral perfume was messing with his senses.

“I moisturize,” he shot back, defensively. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to cup his chin and caress his stubble, her blue eyes regarding him seriously.

“Daily?” He was a bit taken aback by her intimate gesture to respond at first but eventually found his voice.

“When I have time,” he murmured.

“The life of a high flying FBI agent is never done I assume?” She guessed, finally letting go but all Klaus wanted was for her to keep touching him and never stop. His arousal was confirming that very fact.

“Something like that,” he rasped, knowing the real reason he couldn’t keep up his daily routine. “So, what do you recommend?”

“If this is your way of interrogating me then…”

“I’m on some rare downtime,” he said, even if it was a lie. Caroline Pierce was doing something to him and Klaus wasn’t quite sure he wanted it to end anytime soon. 

“Peppermint.”

“Excuse me?” She gestured behind him.

“Your skin is on the dry side so I’d suggest the peppermint facial cream.”

“Dry?” He suddenly felt self conscious. No one had ever done that, until right now. He wanted to hate her for voicing a physical weakness but for some reason Klaus just wanted to prove her wrong and hastily picked up the bottle to pay for it.

“It’s nothing to be worried about,” she teased, packing his purchase. “I’m sure this will clear things up straight away.” But would his feelings follow suit? He wasn’t so sure. 

“Promise?” He grinned.

“Or your money back.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Ms Pierce,” he joked, making his way from the store, every fiber of his being willing him to stay but he knew that wasn’t wise given his mission.

“He came into the store, like obviously he’s never heard of boundaries, Bon,” Caroline hissed, taking another tequila shot. She forgot how many that was but didn’t really care as she sucked on the lime wedge.

“And why exactly are you so bothered?” She asked, wiping down the bar as she peered at her best friend curiously.

“Well, obviously all the Kat drama,” she rolled her eyes.

“Maybe but you do realise I can see through you given we’ve been best friends since you put a spell on Jimmy Hall in the playground? I’ll never forget how he just happened to fall off those monkey bars and break his arm after teasing us all relentlessly.” 

“Says the girl who could have cast her own spell,” she joked, albeit quietly. Bonnie Bennett had arrived in San Juan at the age of four and she, Katherine and Caroline had become fast friends, mainly because they were all witches. And for that reason outcasts at their school.  

“I can also sense a mystical connection a mile away,” Bonnie offered. “He’s the guy, isn’t he? No one could get you this riled up.” 

Caroline was hoping she wouldn’t ask but Bonnie had a sixth sense that rivalled even the most powerful witches. She couldn’t explain the connection she felt towards him but that explanation seemed to make sense. “I don’t know, well not exactly, I mean I not sure…”

“He is!” She exclaimed, piercing the general bar din as she said it and earning curious glances in their direction.

“I did that spell so I would never fall in love,” she mumbled. “No one is that unique or perfect.”

“Who’s perfect?” His low growl was causing foreign sensations to take over her body. How did this man make a simple Henley look so damn delectable? And was he stalking her?

“Well, not you,” she shot back at the intrusion and took the opportunity to down another shot for courage.

“Nobody’s perfect, love,” he agreed. “I’ll have what she’s having.” Bonnie was momentarily speechless before pouring his shot.

“Stalking is illegal in all fifty states, including Washington,” Caroline coughed, trying to ignore the burning sensation in her throat from the last shot. “I would have thought as an FBI agent you’d be familiar with the law.” 

“I’m not stalking you,” he promised in that crisp accent that could lull her into a false sense of security. “It’s a small town. It’s kind of difficult to not run into anyone as I’m sure you’d know about.”

“Why are you still here then?” She bristled. “My sister said she hadn’t seen him in weeks.”

“And given yours and her body language that doesn’t seem true. The townsfolk seem to think you’re hiding things and I can’t say I disagree.”

“I never took you for the hanging committee,” she shot back, placing her lime wedge on the bar. “But it’s not like we’re not used to it.”

“I believe in innocent ‘till proven guilty,” he smiled, startling her by rubbing her lips softly. “Salt.” He offered by way of explanation, his gaze never leaving hers. She was rendered speechless, even Bonnie’s knowing look wasn’t enough to break her from the trance he’d created.

Beautiful bastard.

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, buddy,” she slurred, the effects of the tequila suddenly making her sight blur and the room start to spin.

“I know that,” he murmured, his hand finding its way around her waist to keep her upright. “I think we’ll take the cheque.” Caroline could barely register what was happening until she woke hours later disoriented in her bedroom fully clothed and extremely dehydrated. 

Then snippets of her memory came flashing back. 

Klaus Mikaelson guiding her towards the house, his arm supportively around her waist. Klaus Mikaelson removing her shoes, placing the blanket over her and putting her to bed. Klaus Mikaelson rubbing her forehead and placing a chaste kiss on her temple and murmuring, albeit quietly.

“I dreamed of you too, love.”

She sat up with a start, trying to ignore the pain ripping through her head and work out whether it was really a dream. What did she say to him to make him say that?

xxxxxx

He didn’t mean to reveal that fact, but given she was practically sleeping Klaus thought it was safe. He ran his hands through his curls distractedly, this mission was supposed to be easy. It was anything but given the feelings she’d conjured inside him and not just because she was a witch.

When he placed a kiss on her temple, it took all his willpower not to stay the night and pull her into his embrace under the covers. What was happening to him? Klaus Mikaelson didn’t do emotions, it was always easier that way.

He’d been lying to her but usually it didn’t matter who he deceived, until now. He’d barely awoken before he saw the door fly open and she was standing at the foot of his bed, blue eyes blazing. 

“Knocking wouldn’t go astray,” he smirked, stretching his arms. “Unless you purposely wanted to see me naked, Pierce?”

“You wish,” she hissed, but he couldn’t miss the blush spreading across her cheeks as she regarded his naked form.  “What do you want from me?”

“I told you…”

“Who are you, really?” He was taken aback by just how direct she was being and for some reason he felt like he couldn’t lie given her penetrating stare. 

“How about if I share with you, you share with me too?” He suggested, sitting up and allowing the sheet to pool around his waist revealing his bare chest.

“I’ll keep that under advisement,” she shot back, but he couldn’t miss the way her eyes were devouring his toned chest.  “You first.”

“I’m not really an FBI agent...”

“Wow, you don’t say?”

���I’m a werewolf,” he admitted gingerly, noting her surprised expression and he was sure she was mentally kicking herself for not making the supernatural connection. He did all he could to mask his identity, it wasn’t her fault.  

“He can howl at the moon,” she groaned loudly, flopping onto the nearest chair. Klaus wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. “I really should have known.”

“Aleksey Romanoff is the alpha of a rival Russian pack. He killed two of my siblings Finn and Freya. He’s dangerous, like with your sister. I think he’s still alive, that’s why I came here.”

“So, you used me for revenge? Pretended you were somebody else because this was all a ruse.” 

“I never intended on involving you or your sister,” he confessed. “If anything I felt drawn to you and being here has only amplified that fact.”

“Well, how about I leave and then everything between us will be severed for good,” she whimpered. He couldn’t miss the hurt in those blue eyes, before she fled. 

Suddenly revenge didn’t matter at all.

Caroline Forbes had managed to capture every brief emotion he’d felt and it wasn’t many given his thousand year existence.  

He needed to get her back. Now. 

On FF Here

[teamkaiforever]

JEALOUSY

 (requested by anon) Kai Parker x Reader word count : 3 211 summary : Kai tells Reader about the events happening at Mystic Falls and Reader gets jealous.  * gif by the-sereinus keep reading after the cut 😉 __________________

Y/N was sleeping soundly when as if from a distance she heard the sounds of the doorbell ringing over and over again. Slowly her eyes opened and she glanced at the digital clock on her night stand seeing it was 3.35AM. “This better be live or death.” she mummbled pulling the covers off her. Her feet quickly found their way into her fuzzy slippes and she headed towards the door , the sounds of the doorbell ringing repeating again. Y/N rubbed her eyes and yawned , nearly stumbling over the coffee table in the living room as she walked. “Coming … I’m - I’m coming.” she called out. A moment later her fingers wrapped around the door knob and she unlocked the apartment door , opening it. Her gaze was on the ground and the moment Y/N looked up , she felt suddenly wide awake. In front of her stood someone she never thought she’d see again. Not unless it was a dream or a hallucination. “Hi.” “M-Malachai ?!” she asked confused. “Not again.” Y/N stared at him. Kai was smiling widely at her as if it hadn’t been four years but four minutes since they had last seen each other. He had gotten even hotter and was wearing gray jeans , a blue-ish tshirt and a black jacket. His eyes sparkled just like every time he smiled. She felt her knees about to buckle from all the feelings rushing through her body and sat on the floor next to the door. “I was expecting a little warmer welcome.” he laughed nervously looking at his girl sitting on the floor with tears in her eyes. Kai was no expert but he knew tears was not the proper reaction for seeing your dead boyfriend after four years. “Whats wrong sweetheart?” “You.” she mumbled. “You are not real which means I am still asleep in my bed and … “ her voice broke and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. “I will wake up in a few minutes and you’ll be gone again.” Kai sighed. Part of him had been expecting this reaction from her. Sort of. Damon had mentioned to him Y/N had moved away because everything reminded her of him and she kept hallucinating and dreaming about him coming back. Didn’t seem like being away from Mystic Falls had helped much in that department if she thought he was a dream. “Let me in and I will prove to you its not a dream.” “Its a dream I know it …” said Y/N wiping away a few tears from her cheeks. She was afraid to let herself feel. Over the past few years this has been happening a lot. “…but either way I am so beyond happy to see you.” “Can I -” “Come in.” she said quietly. Usually that was the point when she woke up. Kai would step inside or attempt to step inside and then he’d get dragged away by an invisible force. Or he’d get to stay a while and then she’d wake up alone , feeling the pain of losing him crush her all over again. Even after all those years it was still only him. It would always be him and no one else. Kai stepped inside , knelt down next to her and pulled her into a hug a split second later. “I missed you Y/N. I never thought I could miss someone that much. It nearly drove me crazy.” Her hands wrapped around Kai , tears still streaking down her face. He pulled away and Y/N’s gaze dropped to the ground. It felt too good to be true , being back in Kai’s arms , feeling his breath on her skin , his smile taking her breath away. “I am real Y/N. I am really here.” said Kai , brushing his fingers through her hair. “And I am never going away. Not without you.” He took her hands , placing them on his face. Her fingers brushed against his cheeks and he could see things starting to come into focus in her mind. Kai’s lips smashed against hers for the first time in four years , drowning her in a deep passionate kiss. Y/N felt electricity coursing through her veins waking every fibre in her body. None of the dreams / hallucinations she had had before had ever felt that real. Either that was the most realistic dream ever or he was really there. “It’s me. It’s really me.” “Oh my God.” she said smiling , attacking him with kisses until she was sitting on his lap. “H-how ? When ? Why didn’t anyone call to tell me ?” With a snap of his fingers , Kai closed the door and pulled her even closer to him. “It’s a really long story sweetheart.” he smiled at her , stroking her cheek with her fingers. “I’ll tell you in the morning. Right now I just want to enjoy having you back in my arms.” Y/N’s fingertips traced every inch of his face still unable to believe it completely that he is really here. Kai’s eyes were glowing , studying her as if seeing her for the first time. He pulled her into such a tight hug , her breathing stopped for a few seconds before he let go off her. “No.” she protested. “Don’t let go off me ever again.” Kai laughed pulling her into a hug again.

Y/N woke up , her hand reaching for the place Kai had been laying next to her the night before. There was no one there. Her eyes stayed closed , avoiding the inevitable pain she’d feel when she opens them. It had all been a dream again. Four years and it still kept happening all the time. “Morning princess.” Her heart skipped a beat and she sat up in her bed so suddenly , her head felt dizzy. Her eyes opened widely and a smile spread across her face seeing Kai standing a few steps away from her , smiling widely at her , with a food tray in his hands. “I really missed saying this. What? Did you think I was another dream ?” teased Kai , placing the food tray at the far end of the bed before leaning in to kiss her good morning. “I mean , I am a dream .. your dream boyfriend who has been gone for -” “Stop talking.” she said pulling him onto the bed with her , her lips finding his before he has had time to protest. It may have been four years but somethings never change. Kai would always kiss her good morning and then she’d pull him towards her suffocating him with kisses until Y/N was the one who had to pull away to take a breath. “God , I missed this.” muttered Kai smiling. “Hell was no fun without you. Actually the real Hell was us being separated.” he sighed , pulling her closer to him. “H-hell ?” she said feeling the blood in her veins freeze. Hell is real ? If she had known that four years ago , she would’ve done whatever was necessary to get him out sooner. There had to have been a way to do that , right ? “Where did you think I’d find myself after I died sweetheart ?” “Not there.” Kai laughed under his breath , pulling her close and placing a soft kiss on her forehead. “Four years and you still see me as a good person. Glad to see that hasn’t changed.” “Its never going to change.” smiled Y/N. “So , tell me .. What has my blue eyed smoking hot boyfriend has been up to the past few years… or since you got out? And how come no one called me to tell me you were back? ” He took her hands pulling her up and reached for the food tray. Seeing her eyes light up when she saw her favourite blueberry pancakes there made him happier than he had expected. Kai carressed her hair smiling. “It’s a long story.” he sighed. “Your friends rang this giant bell and all of the sudden I could see Mystic Falls , so I went for it and escaped from Hell.” “Bell ? What bell ?” “When was the last time you spoke to your friends ?” “Three and a half years ago. No wait , Damon send me a goodbye letter like 3 years ago, I think …” Kai laughed. “Damn. Okay. Where do I start ? Your friends met the Devil. Apparently all the myths are true. The Devin is real , sirens are real and they were working for him. Shocker.” he laughed. “So the sirens tried to make a deal with the Devil to get their freedom using my sister’s twinsies only one of the sirens crossed the other and Stefan and Damon became their replacements instead of Candice’s twinsies.” Candice ? she thought. He must mean Caroline. “Huh .. suddenly I am even happier that I left.” she muttered. “Me too sweetheart.” smiled Kai. In all this insanity Y/N could’ve gotten hurt or worse - killed. Only Kai was sure she wouldn’t have ended up in Hell. She was pure , kind and still had that childhood innocence even tho she was not a child anymore. “Then one of those sexy sirens convinced Stefan to ring that giant bell 12 times and burn Mystic Falls with hell fire just to get back at her sister for screwing her over and cutting her out of the new deal.” Y/N dug in her pancakes feeling something stir inside her. Sexy sirens? What did that mean ?! How much time had they spent together ? She glanced at him , seeing him smile and laugh as he kept talking about what had happened. The more she tried to push away the thoughts , the more they kept swarming in her mind fueling that feeling. “That guy, Matt or whatever rang the bell 11 times before Damon stopped him and that’s how I got out. So did Katherine by the way. God , she is awesome !” he said amused. “Can you believe she had the Devil wrapped around her finger ? Who can do that ? I mean obviously she can but not even I am that devious… or maybe I am but just wasn’t Cade’s type.” he thought outloud. Y/N laughed. “So you met Katherine ? Bet she still holds a grudge doesn’t she ? Damn I miss her. ” “I keep forgetting you two were friends.” “Not really. I was just one of the people she liked to compell to do her dirty work , but she was fun to hang around the rest of the time.” Kai stopped for a moment trying to imagine Y/N and Katherine working together or hanging together. Nope. Can’t see it. he thought. “Anyways then things got messy. My nose started to bleed and I started coughing blood and I started to slip back in H-E-double-hockey-sticks. Honestly , that feeling was the worst. It was like I was being dragged back to Hell by my colon. Damon and I got talking in this diner while waiting for Bonnie to come up with a solution for me to stay here permanently and he told me what those sexy sirens did to get themselves a more permanent foothold in this world and -” Y/N angrily dug the fork into her pancakes , dropping it on the plate and starring at the wall in front of her. She ran her fingers through her hair , tangling them in it and nearly pulled out a strand of it off. Didn’t take her long to realise she was jealous , but she didn’t plan on letting him know. Her hand wrapped around the glass with orange juice , taking a sip and another and another until the glass was half empty. She wished it had been a mimosa instead of plain orange juice. “Are you okay ?” “Yeah. Fine.” Kai studied her face for a moment , noticing the change in her heart beat. Something was wrong and she had definitely just lied to him but he knew she’d tell him eventually and if she didn’t want to tell him , there were always ways to make her tell him. Kai was really good at persuading , more like seducing the truth out of her. So he decided to continue telling the story. “Where was I ? Oh right… and Damon said the sirens killed evil people for Cade so I thought maybe that was my way to stay. Of course Bonnie had other plans and no intentions of helping me come back permenantly as Damon had promised. They were just going to let Cade come and drag me back to Hell… but Kai Parker don’t fight fair as you know.” he laughed nervously. “So I stole Elena’s coffin to use to make a deal with Cade and get him to let me go permanently. Let me tell you , pulling one over on a psychic is a tough job and I hid this dagger from him. The only weapon that could kill him so he sent Stefan and Damon after me to retrieve it for him and I ended up in a cell at the Armoury. Stefan is a human now by the way.” Kai stopped talking seeing Y/N’s jaw had clenched and she was starring at nothing. He should’ve known she’d get mad at him after finding out what he had done. Even tho she had distanced herself from all her friends in Mystic Falls , they were still her friends and she had grown up with most of them. “It was the only way to get a permanent foothold back here so I can come and find you. Don’t … don’t be mad at me. Plus as far as I know Elena is perfectly fine.” She turned towards him and he saw flames burning in her eyes. “You are mad at me.” he sighed. “I did what I had to -” “No , I don’t ..care about that.” she said getting off the bed. “Then what is it ?” “Nothing.” Y/N started walking out of the room but Kai blocked her way. “It sure sounds like something…” he tried to touch her but she pulled away. “Jeez Y/N , why won’t you tell me ? Was it the pancakes ? I am a little out of practice but -” “Did you have fun … with those ‘sexy sirens’?” she snapped suddenly , putting air quotes around the words. “I mean you must’ve. Right ? Who could resist you..” “What?” She pushed her way past him and walked out of the room towards the kitchen , her angry steps echoing in the apartment. Out of everyting he had said , that had gotten to her the most. Her friends could handle Katherine just fine and she was sure Elena was perfectly fine because if she wasn’t Damon would’ve killed everyone in his path and already shown up on her doorstep to yell at her how it was all her boyfriend’s fault. Kai followed her closely behind slowly starting to figure things out. Y/N had never been the jealous kind , it had always been him snapping every time someone tried to get close to her but clearly his comment about the sirens had gotten to her. “Are you jealous ?” he asked a little amused. “No.” Kai tried to suppress a smile hearing the change in her heartbeat. Being a heretic had its perks. It wasn’t just her eyes that betrayed her , it was her tone , her posture … or maybe he knew her way too well. “You are jealous. Why ?” “I am not jealous.” “Care to try this again?” he wondered. “I can hear your heart beat. It changes when you are dishonest with me.” Y/N poured herself a glass with water standing with her back towards him. Of course she was jealous. How can she not be? Kai could easily have anyone he wanted and she was … absolutely ordinary. A human. A boring human who couldn’t do anything to stop Damon from killing Kai. “Y/N …? Are you going to tell me why ?” She gulped almost the entire glass with cold water at once , leaving the glass on the counter with a muffled thud , taking a deep breath. How was she going to tell him ? “Because … I’m not .. ” A deep sigh left her lips and she closed her eyes for a moment before turning towards him, roughly running her fingers through her hair. Her eyes looking everywhere around the room but at him. “Because you are not what ?” said Kai taking a step towards her with a smile on his face. He lifted her chin up , forcing her to meet his eyes. “Sexy ?” Y/N nodded. “Awwwh Y/N , how can’t you see it ?” he wondered , placing her hand on his chest. “Do you feel that ? It’s my heart racing because of you. Only you can get my heart racing like that. You are by far the sexiest young woman I have ever encountered in my life. Do you even realise how you make me feel every time I am around you ? I feel like my skin is on fire and just the thought of you standing this close to me is enough to drive me nuts with lust for you. You and only you.” A small smile showed on her face feeling relief wash over her. Kai’s heart was doing flips and with every word his body pressed closer and closer to hers. “And your smile is my sun.” said Kai softly , resting his forehead on hers , his hot breath hitting her face and making her head spin. His blue eyes were fixed on hers and Y/N noticed how they had started turning a little darker. “You are so beautiful when you smile. I just want to grab you, kiss you and touch you without ever stopping.” A split second later Kai grabbed her by the waist , lifting her to sit on the kitchen counter. He snaked his hands up her hips moving towards her lower back. Her legs wrapped around him and he pulled her closer to him. Y/N’s eyes darted between Kai’s lips and his eyes , so close. In a split second his lips smashed against hers , moving in perfect sync taking her breath away. Her hands tangled in his hair gripping at it and pulling him closer. Far too soon he pulled away. “I never even met them and even if I had … nothing will ever change that.” he said softly. “Cade burned them alive , sending them straight to Hell the night I got out.” Y/N smiled at him , one question tugging at her mind. “So , what happened after ? Why didn’t anyone call me if you had made your foothold here permanent ?” she wondered. “Because I may have tried to kill my sister’s twinsies and Bonnie created a whole new Prison World just for me.” “Wait … what ?” “Yeah but I got out… and came straight here to be with my girl.” he smiled. “Remember how much you hated it when I used to call you ‘my girl’ ? Once you even threw your phone at me.” Y/N burst out laughing at the memory. “If I haven’t apologised for that - I am sorry. Also I am glad I didn’t do any damage to your handsome face.” “You think I’m handsome ?” he teased. “No .. no. I just said that to annoy you.” Kai smiled hearing the change in her heart beat again. “You are such a bad liar.”

MASTERLIST March / April 2017 MASTERLIST MAY 2017 MASTERLIST JUNE 2017

[hummingbirds-and-champagne]

The Magic that Binds Us

A Klaroline Gives Back gift for @thetourguidebarbie who I only hope doesn’t hate me for taking as long as I did. A sequel to this oneshot, this is a Harry Potter Soulmate AU that took on a life of its own. Angie, you’re literally one of the best people I know, thank you for putting up with my chronic procrastination problem. 

Read on FF.net

Read on Ao3

Fancy a lunch date? - K

Caroline smiled to herself despite the purple paper airplane that had floated to her desk and unceremoniously poked her in the head until she paid attention. Trust Klaus’s charm on the thing to be annoyingly persistent, just like him.

She couldn’t say she minded though.

The clock on the wall ticked down to her lunch hour with agonizing slowness, and Caroline swore there was a spell on the thing, making every second feel like an hour whenever someone looked at it.

(And it would be her fault for taking an office-warming gift from Kol. Little jerk would hang around the confiscated objects department and nick something just to drive her up the wall.)

The seconds did tick down though, and as soon as noon came she was up and out of her desk, heading towards the elevator before anybody could capture her attention. It was difficult keeping still in the back of the lift while bored wizards waited numbly for their floor, ambling much too slowly for Caroline’s liking, until the lift’s disembodied voice finally called her stop.

Level Nine, Department of Mysteries

She practically flew out of the doors onto Level Nine, heading down the dark corridor fearlessly, a stark contrast to the first time she’d taken the trip down here. Once through the first door there were twelve in front of her, ever changing, meant to protect the secrets of the ministry’s most enigmatic department. Only Unspeakables knew how to find their way through this level.

Well, Unspeakables and the people dating them.

As if by invitation, a door to her far left swung open and Caroline practically skipped through and into the waiting arms of Klaus on the other side.

“Miss me, love?” he asked, after kissing her soundly.

“I’d say yes, but your ego doesn’t need it.” Caroline pulled away slightly, enough that he could wind his arm around her waist and lead her over to his office.

“You wouldn’t be so deprived if you’d simply accepted my offer,” Klaus reminded her, leading them inside and making quite sure to lock the door behind him. Not that anybody came down here — the department was still avoided by most in the Ministry, and for good reason. But Caroline would never forgive him if anyone ever caught them in a compromising situation, and Klaus adored her too much to refuse her.

“We’ve been over this,” Caroline said, rolling her eyes. “I like being in the Minister’s office.”

“The Minister’s a puppet and you know it sweetheart, Elijah’s pulling all the strings. He’ll probably be making a run for it when the time comes.”

“And when he does, I’ll be the perfect candidate for adviser,” Caroline said smugly, and Klaus pouted, unable to refute her logic.

“Relax,” she cooed, smiling fondly and wrapping her arms around his neck. “If I ever get bored, I’ll be right down here with you.”

Klaus hid his smile against the soft skin of her neck, nipping kisses along her pulse point, and smirking at the hitch in her breath. “Consider the benefits,” he whispered in her ear, backing her into the large oak desk. “We’d see so much more of each other.”

Caroline moaned quietly at the feel of his hands gripping the fabric of her robes, pulling them up so that she could slip out of them easily. She wished she had the luxury he did of staying in Muggle clothes, the benefit of his position keeping him out of sight from the rest of the Ministry as well as his ties to Elijah.

Honestly, she couldn’t imagine anyone telling Klaus what to do.

Her thoughts were slammed back to the present as Klaus set his hands on her waist and hoisted her easily so that she was sitting on the edge of his desk. He gave her a dirty smirk, keeping his wide lust-blown gaze on her as he sank to his knees, pushing up her pencil skirt.

“One day, we could try actually eating a meal on our lunch breaks,” Caroline said breathlessly as she bunched her skirt around her waist.

Klaus simply raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid my mouth is about to be otherwise occupied.”

Caroline gulped, spreading her legs so that he could curl his long fingers around her calf and trail them upwards, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Once he reached the apex of her thighs, he leant forward, pressing a kiss to her hipbone before letting his teeth scrape against her skin and drag the lace of her thong down her legs until it fell to dangle off one heel.

She kicked the material off, letting out a low moan as Klaus made good on his promise and went to work on her pussy, his tongue working more magic than any spell could manage. Caroline had a white-knuckle grip on the desk edge with one hand, the other went to Klaus’s curls, running her fingers through them as he teased her to the edge, lips closing over her clit and causing her to see stars.

By the time she came down from her orgasm, Klaus was on his feet and undoing his jeans, and Caroline had never been happier for his disregard of Ministry dress codes.

“Seriously, lunch,” she said teasingly as she reached out for him, tugging him closer by his belt loops and wrapping her hand around his cock. “I could try cooking.”

“You’re not half as talented behind a stove as you are doing this,” Klaus growled, too impatient for her teasing. A flick of his hand and his desk cleared, and he wasted no time pushing Caroline down and burying himself in her, delighting in the keen little cry she gave.

Maybe one day they’d manage to remain decent on a lunch break. But today, he had at least one more round to go.

Caroline righted her robes, patting her hair down one more time. “You could at least get a mirror in here,” she teased, turning to face Klaus.

He was leaning against his desk, shamelessly letting his eyes wander over her, and uncrossed his arms to tug her closer, kissing her fondly. “Not a bad idea sweetheart,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ll put it on the back of the door and then you could watch whenever I bend you over my desk and take you from behind.”

It was all too easy to conjure up that image in her mind’s eye and Caroline barely held back a moan as Klaus pressed one last warm kiss against the curve of her neck. If he kept this up then she’d definitely be staying for round three, and she had actual work to get back to.

One last kiss — maybe two — and Caroline managed to pry herself away, shutting the door to Klaus’s office behind her with a giddy smile playing on her lips. She stepped through the door to the Department’s antechamber when movement caught her eye.

For a second Caroline stilled. The door that should always be locked, the one that led to the Department of Mysteries biggest enigma was now ajar — there was someone coming out.

It made sense really, the department didn’t just run on Klaus overseeing the Hall of Prophecies, even he had co-workers (who apparently knew to make themselves scarce around this time most days.) But she’d never come across any of the other Unspeakables from the other sections in the short time she’d been working at the Ministry and making her visits down to Klaus.

She should’ve known that could never last. A young woman with dark skin and curls gently shut the door behind her, affording Caroline only a glimpse of warm bright light, same as the day she’d accidentally stumbled in there. Her mouth ran dry for a second and she wondered if this witch knew anything about that incident. Making a run for it occurred to her, but the Unspeakable looked up and walked forward, an neutral smile on her face.

“I heard rumors that there was someone sneaking visits down here for the past few weeks but I couldn’t guess why.”

Caroline laughed nervously, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Oh — it’s nothing really, just…checking in?” It was barely an excuse and the witch clearly didn’t buy it for a second, but she just smiled wider.

“It’s fine you know. Love is something I’m acquainted with.” She nodded her head back towards the closed door behind her and Caroline nodded with a wan smile, her mind running wild with memories with what she knew was behind that door.

If the witch noticed her uneasiness, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she offered her hand. “Tessa.”

“Caroline.” They shook hands, and Caroline was a little more at ease, satisfied that she wasn’t going to be accused of breaking fifty Ministry rules. She was never totally sure how allowed it was for other employees to just waltz into Level Nine, no matter how glib Klaus was about it.

“Nice to meet you, Caroline,” Tessa said with that same odd smile. The longer they stood there, the more Caroline noticed that it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Shall I walk you out?”

There was nothing the blonde could do but agree and so they made their way down the dark corridor that led to the elevator, standing side by side in a heavy silence as the lift’s voice counted up.

When the atrium was called, Tessa finally moved to get out. “It was nice to meet you, Caroline,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s always a pleasure to meet someone who’s found their One.”

Their One? Tessa was gone and more wizards filled the lift before Caroline could call out for her and ask for an explanation. She was left to puzzle out the odd comment all the way back up to Level One, but by the time the Minister’s office came she made up her mind that anyone who worked in the Department of Mysteries had to be a little off and a strange comment was probably nothing in the grand scheme of things.

That was it. Tessa was weird, all Unspeakables were.

At least the one she was dating was also hot.

Saturday dawned cold and grey, not that either Klaus or Caroline minded. Wrapped up in each other and under the heavy duvet, neither were set on doing anything that day that involved moving out of Klaus’s bed.

“I’m starting to think that getting my own flat was a waste of money,” Caroline thought out loud, squirming slightly as Klaus skimmed his fingers up and down her sides.

“Well love, I did tell you as much.”

“Kol made a really good case for being flatmates.”

“He also asked me to keep you here as much as possible so that he could have girls over — don’t look so shocked sweetheart, you’re hardly getting a rough deal here.” To emphasize his point, Klaus let his hand travel lower until he reached her core, toying with her clit.

Caroline hummed in contentment, not willing to argue her point. Kol would collude with his brother, and Klaus would be more than willing to help if it meant she spent more nights here than in her new flat. The thought of moving in was tempting, practical even — but this was still technically a new relationship and Caroline was nothing if not traditional.

The thought of their relationship took her back to the room in the Ministry and the woman she’d met the other day. It had slipped her mind until now, but since they were both here and not moving anytime soon, it couldn’t hurt to ask…

“Have you ever met Tessa?”

Klaus stilled the motions of his hand at her out-of-the-blue question. “Come again?”

“Tessa? I met her the other day. She was coming out of…out of that room.”

Klaus had gone completely still, watching her with something between worry and fear. “Did she say—?”

“No!” Caroline assured him quickly. “But she was weird. Said something about how I’d found my ‘One’? Do you know what that means?”

Klaus wrapped his arm back around Caroline’s waist, pulling her even closer as if he needed the reassurance she was there. “I don’t know much about the other sections of the Department outside of the Hall of Prophecies,” he said hesitantly. “The Ministry doesn’t encourage Unspeakables talking too much, even to each other.”

His tone implied there was something he was leaving out. “What is it?” Caroline asked, brow furrowed.

“Tessa studies Love. That’s her department.”

“Makes sense,” Caroline said slowly, thinking back to last year. The fountain in the room was Amortentia, but I couldn’t figure out the strings…”

It was the first time either of them had ever mentioned it, the red string that had tied them together, one out of the the millions that crisscrossed the room’s cavernous ceiling. They didn’t know how it had fallen, why it had wrapped itself around them and, most importantly, why it had disappeared the second they stepped outside. Caroline swore that every now and then, when it was just her and Klaus, she would see the flash of red in the corner of her eye, but nothing was ever there. Just in her imagination. Still, ignoring potentially powerful magic didn’t bode well for anyone.

“It’s best not to think about it too much,” Klaus said, but he sounded more like he was trying to convince himself over her. “No one suspects a thing, it’s not worth the hell that it would bring down, not when you’ve just started on Level One.”

He was completely right, Caroline knew, and it’s not like she was bursting to tell anyone herself. Still, something about Tessa nagged at her, an unease that she couldn’t shake no matter how warm Klaus’s arm felt around her. “So Tessa…what’s her deal?”

“There are rumours about her —”

“Sounds promising—”

“—but honestly no one knows much of anything. I don’t think you could pry it out of Elijah if you tried, even he doesn’t have full access to the Department of Mysteries. Unspeakables are under oath to fulfill their duties to their sections and they say that the curses for breaking those oaths are…severe.”

Caroline shuddered, burrowing closer into Klaus. It had become significantly less menacing, the Department of Mysteries, mostly because she associated it with the man next to her, but moments like this she was reminded of why it held such a dark reputation, why people avoided it like the plague. Some things are never meant to be known. Not that it stopped people from trying.

“What are the rumours?” Caroline asked hesitantly.

Klaus was quiet a beat too long, and when he finally answered, it was with careful reserve. “A few years back, before I even started in the Ministry, there was apparently some business between her and one of the other Unspeakables.��

“What happened?”

“Well that’s just it, love.” Klaus gently pulled away so that he could look her properly in the eyes, and Caroline could see he was worried. “No one actually knows what happened to the witch who used to have my job.”

Caroline released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. “That was how you ended up on Level Nine?”

“There was a vacancy, Elijah pulled some strings, no one asked any questions. They never do.”

Silence descended over them, punctuated only by the steady staccato of rain against the window. Caroline regretted ever bringing up the odd witch, worried now that whatever she might’ve done in the past could somehow hurt Klaus too. As if he sensed her thoughts, Klaus pulled her close and kissed her soundly, pressing her into the sheets.

“Ignore her if you see her again,” he said, nipping kisses down her jaw. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

Caroline disagreed, but it was hard to put up a fight when he was back to trailing his fingers over her heated skin. One more thing nagged at her though.

“Have you ever heard of wizards finding their ‘One’?”

Klaus paused, glanced up. “One what?”

“Just…their ‘One’?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know what the bloody hell you mean.” His tone was light but impatient — he’d much rather put his mouth to better uses. And so without further ado he pulled at the covers until she was completely exposed to him and he could trail his lips over her abdomen, down towards her aching core and all thoughts of the Department and those who work there flew from her mind because right now, it was the two of them and nothing else mattered at all.

For all the time that Caroline spent in Klaus’s bed, it was nice to have a place of her own. Her’s and Kol’s technically, but it was still where she had her grandma’s quilt on her bed and she and Kol bickered over which Muggle show they were going to watch in the evening.

Kol came from a thoroughly pureblood wizarding family, and regardless of how modern the younger generation of Mikaelsons were, it just couldn’t match Caroline’s knowledge from spending her entire childhood and summers raised by her Muggle mom back in the States. So enchantments existed next to wifi (even if the connection went haywire on a regular basis), Caroline spent hours trying to explain the concept of reality TV (”No Kol, she can’t just confound the judges into giving her a perfect score!”) and they both took turns learning how to cook with varying degrees of success. Overall, it was home.

“So how’s Level Seven?” Caroline asked one evening over a dinner of slightly undercooked pasta. It had taken a bit of cajoling on everyone’s part to get Kol to take an interest in an actual job after graduation, but Esther Mikaelson just could not bear one of her sons tarnishing the family name by not entering the Ministry like his brothers before him. The Mikaelson matriarch been hoping for Magical Law, but settled for Kol in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, even if she did try to get Elijah to ‘talk sense’ into him at every interval.

“It’s alright,” Kol replied around a mouth full of pasta. “Boring as fuck, but I’ve met at least a dozen recruiters, and they all remember how good I was in Hogwarts.”

“You want to play professionally?”

“I do miss beating things around,” Kol said wistfully, while Caroline just snorted into her plate.

“I remember the time you nearly took Tristan de Martel’s head off.”

“To be fair, it was a rather large target.”

Caroline laughed some more as she and Kol bantered back and forth. It was only when their plates were cleared and the conversation lulled for a second that Caroline remembered what had been on her mind the past few days.

“Kol…how much do you know about the Department of Mysteries?”

Kol cocked an eyebrow at her, leaning back into his chair. “Any reason you’re asking me and not Nik?”

“I did, but I want to know more. Have you heard any gossip about the Unspeakables that work there?”

Kol pretended to ponder the question for a second. “Wellll….there is a rumour that one of blokes in the Hall of Prophecies is shagging this hot blonde on Level One.”

Caroline chucked a cushion at his head, not impressed. If Hogwarts was bad for gossip, the Ministry was even worse. Thankfully she and Klaus hadn’t gotten any flack for their relationship (which wasn’t even technically against any rules), but she was hoping that something else had gotten through the grapevine.

“No you dick, besides Klaus. There’s this girl named…Tessa? Anything about her?”

Kol chucked the cushion back. “Sorry Sweets, never heard the name.”

Caroline sighed, resigned on never learning more about the other Unspeakables. But just as she got up to take her empty plate to the sink, Kol’s voice pulled her back.

“I did hear something about an…Amara? The witch used used to work in the Hall of Prophecies?”

Caroline froze, sinking back slowly into her seat. “The one who used to have Klaus’s old job?”  

Kol nodded, lost in memory. “I was back for the summer before fifth year, Mother was throwing a snit because she’d finally convinced Klaus to work in the Ministry but he refused Level One. Not that I blame him, working with Elijah would be a nightmare, I don’t know how you put up with his constant prattling about—”

“Kol! Focus!”

“Christ, don’t get your knickers in a twist. Look, Nik was never going to work with the Minister, but there was a vacancy in the Hall of Prophecies that he wanted. And it was his to take really, Elijah and Finn were talking about some business that had gone down with the witch who worked there, apparently she ended up in St. Mungo’s, but no one knew why.”

Caroline felt a sharp chill on the back of her neck, like someone had walked right over her grave. “No one knew? Was she hurt?”

Kol looked at her oddly. “Well that’s the thing, darling. From what I gathered, there was nothing seriously wrong with her…one day she was fine, the next, completely off her rocker.”

A beat passed before Caroline managed to speak again. “But you don’t know if Tessa did something to her?”

“Told you, I never heard of a ‘Tessa’. Granted, that was about the part in the conversation when Rebekah decided to be a bitch and tell Mother about the Extendable Ears I’d gotten from Weasley’s earlier that summer—and she confiscated the lot of them too…”

Kol went on to describe how he got back at Rebekah by charming her makeup to give her scales, but Caroline couldn’t focus on a word he said. Instead, her mind raced with more questions than answers, wondering about this girl who ended up in St. Mungo’s and what had happened to her, what ‘Tessa’ could possibly have to do with it, why Klaus hadn’t thought to tell her any of this when she asked, and  most importantly, why she could shake the feeling of dread that had settled over her the more she thought about this story.

There was one thing that hadn’t come up though.

“Hey Kol?” she said suddenly, interrupting his story about burning all of his sister’s dress robes. “Have you ever heard of wizards finding their ‘One’?”

“One what?” he asked, a perfect replica of his older brother.

Caroline sighed and waved him off. It was a stupid thing said by some weird witch who probably just wanted to use the natural mystery of Level Nine and some suspicious rumours to freak Caroline out, that was all. The Department of Mysteries was dangerous, maybe  Amara did something she shouldn’t have, maybe she tried to view a prophecy that wasn’t hers. But that didn’t shake the unease Caroline felt over the whole thing, like there was something sinister right under the surface, if only she took the time to look.

Klaus had said that the consequences for breaking the rules there were severe. But Klaus had also clearly lied to her about how much he knew.

One way or another, Caroline was getting her answers.

Caroline’s hands gripped the small flowerpot she was holding on to, muttering a little pep talk to herself under her breath. She didn’t know what she was walking into, for the first time in her life she barely had half a plan — very un-Caroline. But these were desperate times, and they called for desperate measures.

If this didn’t work, she didn’t know what would.

The reception area of St. Mungo’s was busy that day, various maladies distracting her as she waited in what felt like an interminably long queue. The welcome-witch at the desk waved each person off to the appropriate ward, clearly bored of her job. Finally, the wizard in front of Caroline with a bad case of uncontrollable giggling was sent to the Third Floor and Caroline stepped up, trying not to squirm under the stare of Dily Derwent’s painting above the desk.

“Hi!” Caroline chirped, slightly too-cheerful. “I’m looking for a patient, her name’s Amara.”

The witch looked up, part bored, part irritated. “Amara who?”

Caroline faltered, trying to keep the smile on her face. “Um, the thing is, I don’t actually know her last name. She’s…the friend of a friend from the States, and my friend asked me to check up on her since I’m here and they didn’t give me a lot of information but I thought I’d come down anyway—”

How much longer Caroline would’ve gone on for was debatable, but the welcome-witch clearly wasn’t buying it and she was spared from further humiliation by a voice from behind her.

“It’s Petrova. We’re here to see Amara Petrova.”

Caroline’s breath faltered and she turned slowly to see who had spoken. The man in front of her was tall, with a sharp jawline and deep set eyes that watched her carefully.

“Level Four. Janus Thickey ward,” the welcome-witch said from behind her and the stranger smiled over Caroline’s shoulder, then nodded his head towards the double doors that led to the staircase. Caroline hesitated for a moment, wondering just what she was getting into, but the burning need for answers drove her to follow the wizard and hope for the best.

“Thanks for that,” Caroline said as the double doors closed behind them and they started up the curving staircase, portraits of healers given them unwanted advice as they climbed. “Amara’s an — old friend—I just forgot—”

The wizard paused, looking down at her, his lips curving into what would’ve been a kind smile, except for some reason, Caroline didn’t really believe it.

“It’s fine, I suppose you knew Amara from when she used to visit her cousins in the States?”

“Yes!” Caroline seized on the opportunity, the lie coming together in her head. “She used to visit in the summers, her cousins are friends of mine — I’m actually visiting for them while I’m here.”

The wizard apparently bought it, nodding sagely. “I’m Silas.”

Caroline shook the hand he extended. “Caroline Forbes.”

They continued up the stairs, studiously ignoring the painting frantically trying to warn Caroline about her impending death from dragon pox before they came to the Fourth Floor. Silas held the door open as they stepped through, then headed towards the Janus Thickey Ward.

“We’re here to see Amara Petrova,” Silas informed the Healer on duty, and the witch dutifully let them inside. Beds lined the walls and Silas led Caroline to the one at the very end of the row where a young woman sat up, hands folded neatly on her lap. She was pretty, heavy dark curls framing wide doe eyes and a kind smile as she looked over at the rest of the ward with detached interest.

“Hi Amara,” Caroline said, placing the small flowerpot on the bedside table. “I’m here because of your…cousins. They send their love.”

By some miracle of magic, Amara smiled up at Caroline serenely and didn’t question a word she said. Instead, her attention shifted almost immediately to Silas and by the way the man looked down at her, Caroline needed no explanation for why he was here.

“Hello my love,” he whispered quietly as he sat down next to her. Caroline felt suddenly that she was intruding on something intensely private and she wanted desperately to flee, only the need for some answers still nagged at her.

“Silas, Amara’s cousins didn’t say—they just said she was in St. Mungo’s, but they didn’t tell me that she was in the long term ward. What—what happened to her?”

Caroline prayed she hadn’t stuck her foot in her mouth like she usually tended to, but Silas was too enamored with Amara to really pay attention. “There was an accident where she worked,” he replied vaguely. “No one really knows what happened.”

Amara picked that moment to look up at Caroline, eyes wide but vacant. “Follow the strings,” she muttered quietly. “So many strings…”

The blood in Caroline’s veins turned to ice as she flashed back to the room in the Department where thousands of red strings criss-crossed a cavernous ceiling. “I don’t…I don’t know what she means…” Caroline stammered out.

Silas wasn’t fazed, just smiled at Amara indulgently. “She doesn’t make a lot of sense anymore,” he explained. “She just says things. You can ignore it.”

“When will they come down?” Amara asked Silas, that wide-dazed look never leaving her eyes. “All the strings, when will they come down?”

Silas didn’t answer her, just squeezed her hands on top of the blanket. Caroline fidgeted where she stood, not sure how this was helping. She couldn’t interrogate the poor girl, not in the state she was in and definitely not with Silas there. Whatever had happened to her was apparently severe enough to warrant a permanent residence in St. Mungo’s and she didn’t look like she could string a coherent sentence together, let alone tell Caroline what had happened to her.

“So I’m just going to go,” Caroline said finally, ready to put this waste of a visit behind her. “It was nice seeing you Amara. I’ll tell your — cousins — that you’re okay.”

Amara was clearly far from okay but that didn’t matter anymore, Caroline had turned on her heel and was ready to get the hell out.

“Follow your string.”

Caroline froze, then turned slowly, watching Amara carefully. “Wh-what did you say?”

“Follow your string. It’s so pretty,” Amara said, serene smile still on her face. “Find your One.”

“What does that mean?” Caroline asked her intently, probably a little harsher than she had to. Amara’s eyes widened and she cocked her head to the side, gaze sliding to the space on the ground just beside Caroline, but when Caroline turned to see what she was staring at, she saw nothing but the gleaming tile floor.

“I told you. She just says things. They don’t mean anything.” Silas looked up at Caroline with that same smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and that was enough to get the blonde to nod quickly and turn on her heel, striding out of the ward without a single backwards glance.

The double doors to the staircase were in view and Caroline was just about to wrench them open when the job was done for her. And she did not expect the person on other side.

“Klaus?!”

They stared each other down in shock before Klaus finally snapped out of it and looked behind her, towards the closed ward, and then back to Caroline putting two and two together. Caroline saw followed his movements and braced herself for the way his lips pressed together and his brow furrowed, a clear tell of his irritation. Without any preamble he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and tugged her into a nearby broom closet, watching the hallway for healers who were preoccupied with another batch of visitor.s

The door was barely shut behind them when Klaus pulled out his wand, a whispered “Lumos” giving them light. It allowed Caroline to see just how angry he really was.

“Caroline, what the bloody hell are you doing here?!” he hissed.

For a moment, she considered making something up, but he definitely wouldn’t believe it and Caroline was getting pretty pissed herself. “You tell me!” she whispered harshly. “But apparently you’re lying to me now!”

Klaus jaw ticked as he stared down at her for a long, torturous moment, before finally speaking. “I didn’t lie to you,” he ground out.

He was met with a scoff. “You didn’t tell me everything you knew,” Caroline pointed out. “As far as I’m concerned, that’s lying.”

Klaus turned away from her, scrubbing a hand over his face and when Caroline got a good look at him again, she was slightly taken aback by how tired he looked. As pissed as she was, some of her irritation was quickly being replaced with worry.

“Look, just tell me what the hell is going on,” she pleaded, trying to keep her voice even. “I don’t know what happened to Amara, but…she had your job, right? Is something wrong? Are you in danger?!”

Her worst fears flew through her mind, of something happening to Klaus in the Department of Mysteries, doomed to become another whispered rumour that she would never learn the truth about. Klaus easily saw the worry on her face, softening and reaching out to pull her closer. The wand he held cast ominous shadows across the small space and Caroline buried her face in Klaus’s chest, as if she could hide herself away from them.

“Kol told me you’d asked him about Amara,” Klaus whispered against her hair. “I figured you wouldn’t stop until you had answers, but I thought if I could figure it out first, then I could at least be the one to explain it to you.”

Caroline pulled back to look him in the eye. “Wait…you don’t know what happened to her?”

Klaus shook his head grimly. “No one does — and that’s the truth, love. Four years ago, Amara was admitted to St. Mungo’s after an incident on Level Nine. There were no witnesses except two other Unspeakables. Tessa was one of them.”

Something unpleasant twisted in Caroline’s gut. “Was the other one named…Silas?”

Klaus stiffened immediately. “How do you know that?”

“He’s here, Klaus. Visiting Amara. And I’m pretty sure he’s in love with her.”

“He’s dangerous, Caroline,” Klaus said, gripping her tighter and looking towards the door as if Silas was about to fling it open any second. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing much, just said that Amara mutters stuff that doesn’t make sense.”

“So I take it she’s in no fit state to tell us anything of worth?”

“Just some stuff about red strings—”

Klaus visibly started. “Red strings like…the ones in the Department of Love?” he asked disbelievingly. “She didn’t even work there.”

“Neither did I,” Caroline reminded him dryly. “Why do you think Silas is dangerous?”

“There ‘s something off about him,” Klaus answered, lips pressed into a firm line. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t trust him.”

“So…what do we do now?” Caroline asked quietly.

Klaus said nothing for a long moment. “We move on, we forget these people, we focus on ourselves.” He gathered her closer, his voice begging her to listen to him. “This has nothing do with us, Caroline.”

He was right, honestly. And so Caroline nodded, let him put out the light on his wand and lead them back into the brightly lit hallway. She tried as hard as she could to tell herself that there was no point in pursuing any of this.

It would’ve been easy too, if it weren’t for the fact that just before the doors to the staircase closed behind them, she noticed two things:

First, a tall figure was standing in the corner of the hallway, almost completely out of  notice. Silas watched them leave, his stare intense and unwavering.

Second, just before the doors closed, Caroline saw the flash of a bright red string between her and Klaus, connecting them.

Screw all of this. She wanted answers and she was damn well getting them.

Honestly, if there was one thing Caroline wished the Wizarding World had, it was the internet. If the Wizarding World had the Internet, then everything anybody knew about the Department of Mysteries could be in a Wikipedia article, and Caroline wouldn’t be sitting in Three Broomsticks, hiding from Rebekah Mikaelson and her posse and hoping no Hogwarts students saw her sitting there.

She didn’t know what she was doing, but she was officially in too deep to back out now. There was only one place Caroline could think could possibly hold answers for her: The Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library. But since she was no longer a student, she had to enlist a current seventh-year to do the dirty work.

Thank god April Young still hero-worshiped her.

“Hi Caroline!” Speak of the devil, April Young slid into the booth opposite Caroline, unwrapping the thick yellow and black scarf around her neck. “Oh my god, it is so cool to see you back in Hogsmeade! Do you get a lot of time to visit? Is the Ministry busy? I mean I want to work in the Ministry too, but I hope I get to come back here because I love this place and I’m going to miss it so much when—”

“April!” Caroline interjected quickly, swiveling her head frantically to make sure no one was paying attention to them. “It’s, uh, great. Work is great, here’s great. Do you have the book I asked you for?”

April nodded eagerly, reaching into her bag and pulling out a thick black book with the title The Long History of the Ministry of Magic: Second Edition. The dusty cover looked like it hadn’t seen sunlight in at least a century. “I have it here. Professor Binns didn’t even ask why I wanted to take it out, can you believe that?”

Caroline could believe that actually, nobody would ever suspect sweet, sweet April of doing anything remotely dangerous. She almost felt bad for taking advantage of April’s willingness to please people, but this was necessary.

“So, is Kol here too? Is he visiting Rebekah?” April was a second away from calling out to the blonde Mikaelson but Caroline stopped her in the nick of time.

“He’s not here! And Rebekah can’t know I’m here because I’m…planning a surprise! For Kol. And it has to do with that book.”

There was literally no part of that excuse that made sense, and even April’s naivete looked like it was being stretched to its limits. But Caroline didn’t care, the second Rebekah saw her there, Kol and Klaus would know, and Caroline was so close to getting the answers she needed.

April began babbling about what S.P.E.W was doing for their next fundraiser, and Caroline forced herself to sit still and nod politely, pretending to be interested in whatever April was saying. Normally she’d want to know if things were falling to pieces without Caroline to head the committee meetings, but the book in the corner of her eye was calling to her and Caroline could barely contain herself.

Finally, April rose to head out so that she could get back to the school on time. Caroline promised to have the book back to her by next week, and as soon as every Hogwarts student had cleared out, Caroline grabbed her things and ran outside, nearly splinching herself when she apparated home.

Kol — bless his philandering heart — was spending the night with his latest fling, so she had the place to herself. With near reverence, she pulled out the heavy tome and put it on the coffee table, watching it warily. Before, she’d been so eager to just get the answers she wanted, but now, she wasn’t sure what she would find and if she wanted to find it.

It didn’t even make sense that a book about the Ministry of Magic was in the Restricted Section, but Caroline suspected she was about to figure out why. Gingerly, she opened the book.

Nothing jumped out, screamed, hexed her, or tried to steal her soul. Always a plus.

Emboldened, Caroline flipped through the pages until she reached chapter nine. Unlike the rest of the book, several passages were crossed out angrily, or when Caroline tried to focus on a sentence, the letters jumped around the page, making it nearly impossible to understand what was right in front of her. The letters were minuscule and it gave her a headache the more she concentrated.

It took a full ten minutes before Caroline could make out the words “Department” and “Love” and she determined she had the right page. Her heart nearly leapt out of her throat when she managed to read ‘strings’. One hour later, she finally managed one sentence.

Current research holds that the strings tie witches and wizards to their individual, unique soulmate.

Caroline swore her heart stopped.

Soulmate

Was…was that a thing? Was that a Wizarding World thing? Soulmates were the stuff of Muggle fairytales, she’d never once heard anybody at Hogwarts talk about it like it was a normal, everyday occurence.

The strings tie witches and wizards to their individual, unique, soulmate.

Did that make her and Klaus…soulmates?

Caroline sat paralyzed on the couch, thinking back on everything that had ever happened between them, all the way back to the day in the Department behind the door that should’ve been locked, the strings that stretched high above them, all the love in the world…

Did the string that had attached to her and Klaus force them into being soulmates? Or did it find them because there was a magic in love that nobody could explain?

“Find your one”

A pleasant sort of ache formed in her heart the more she thought about it, the entirety of their relationship. The moments when it was just the two of them, when they lounged in bed, sweat slicked bodies entwined in expensive sheets, nothing in the world to worry about except each other and how much they loved each other.  

Tentatively, Caroline held onto her memories of Klaus, letting them take over as she raised her left hand and stared at her pinky finger.

Every moment, every word, every feeling, she played it again and again, the ache in her chest growing until it threatened to overwhelm her and Caroline would gladly let it.

And finally there it was, the bright red string around her finger, stark and unbreakable. It trailed on the ground, through the apartment, and under the front door. Caroline didn’t need to ask where it ended up.

Soulmates. She and Klaus were soulmates. ‘Ones’, Tessa and Amara had called it. She  was no closer to figuring out what happened to Amara, but nothing mattered at the moment because Klaus was her soulmate and the only thing she wanted to do was tell him.

It was just too bad someone else would stop her before she got the chance.

Wherever Caroline was waking up, there was a pleasant warmth on her face. It prolonged her panic, making her feel safe despite the edges of her mind screaming danger. Her head ached, and her eyes opened slowly only to be assaulted by light —but it was still so warm, so safe, that she couldn’t really be that bothered by it.

Until she really took in her circumstances, then she was very bothered.

She was sitting in a chair, her limbs unnervingly still and with mounting panic, she realized that she couldn’t move them, couldn’t crane her neck around frantically. Marbled tile stretched out underneath, covering the large room with a fountain to her right, steam spiraling from mother-of-pearl liquid that gushed liberally. Caroline didn’t have to look up to know what she would find — no source to the warm light that bathed the room but instead a mass of red strings crisscrossing a cavernous ceiling.

This was the room dedicated to Love in the Department of Mysteries, but she had no clue how she’d gotten here.

Her mind raced as she tried to recall her last memories. She’d been reading the book about the Ministry, she’d read about soulmates, she’d come to tell Klaus…

Klaus was supposed to be working late, she knew that, she’d come straight to the Ministry, gone down to Level Nine, nearly sprinted to the door—and that was when everything went black. She’d never even made it into the Hall of Prophecies, she had no idea where Klaus was or what was happening and her breaths started coming out rapidly, the spell constricting her only ratcheting up her horror. Her wand was nowhere in sight.

Soft footsteps sounded somewhere from her left until a person crossed into her line of vision.

“You can relax,” Tessa said, smiling coldly. “There’s no getting out.”

Caroline wanted to speak but the body-bind curse kept her still and terrified. Tessa bent down until she was at eye level, reaching out to play with one of Caroline’s curls. “I didn’t think I’d get a chance like this.”

Caroline could only stare back, trying to mask her terror with bravado.

Tessa regarded her in silence for moment before glancing down, where her hands rested on the arms of the chair. She looked at Caroline’s pinky finger, pursing her lips together tightly before snapping her gaze back up to the blonde’s. “I never paid attention to Mikaelson but I knew he was sleeping with some slut from Level One. Then I saw you…and I knew. I’ve worked here for so long, I knew immediately.”

Tessa stepped back, rocking back and forth on her heels with a slightly manic glint in her eyes. Caroline tried to follow her movements the best she could.

“It’s rare, you know. But now that you’re here, I have what I’ve been waiting for.” Tessa wandered over to the center of the room, staring up at the mass of red strings thoughtfully. “Witches and wizards have spent years in here trying to understand soulmates,” she said, more to herself than anything. “And I thought if I could understand the magic, then I could control it.”

Caroline didn’t know why Tessa was taking her time to gloat, but the way the other woman seemed to savour the moment probably meant that this was the first time she’d been able to share whatever the hell went on in this room. The other witch turned, looking at Caroline for a moment, before waving her wand and suddenly Caroline found she could move her head again.

“What the hell is going on?!” she demanded but Tessa just relished the chance to have someone to talk to.

“I told you — you’re going to help me understand soulmate magic.”

“Why do this, why not just find someone to help?”

Tessa smirked, “Because there’s a good chance this isn’t going to end well for you…or Mikaelson.”

Caroline’s blood turned to  ice, any thought of Klaus being in danger sent her into pure, unadulterated terror. Whatever fear she felt was herself was dwarfed in comparison, and her singular focus was somehow keeping Klaus safe. Whatever Tessa wanted, it would have to be with her only.

“What happened to Amara?” Caroline asked desperately, “What did you do to her?”

Tessa’s demeanor changed then, her face twisting into something ugly and hateful. “That damn bitch. Everything would’ve been fine if it wasn’t for her!”

“What happened?” Caroline asked, trying to keep her voice even and Tessa’s attention focused on her.

“She did the same thing you did,” Tessa snarled. “Wandered in where she had no business being. And she ruined everything.”

Caroline gulped, “What did she do?”

Tessa stalked forward, leaning down until she was crouched in front of Caroline again. Screwing up her face in concentration, she muttered a spell under her breath and flicked her wand over Caroline’s hand. The string around her finger glowed a bright red and Tessa eyed it hungrily.

“It doesn’t matter what Amara did,” Tessa said quietly, reaching down and picking up the string. “It matters what I’m going to do to you.”

And then she pulled.

Klaus paced around his flat’s living room, mulling over the events of the last few days. To think, he had Caroline naked and wanting in his bed not a week earlier — and now, he didn’t know where they stood.

That was probably over-dramatic, it wasn’t as if she’d demanded he stay away and never speak to her again. But she’d felt at least a little betrayed by his reluctance to tell the truth, even if he didn’t know the full story himself.

Honestly, he hadn’t cared about Amara Petrova past the fact that her loss was his gain. He’d wanted to be in the Hall of Prophecies and that was that. Amara’s sudden turn for the worse had been too convenient for him to question, and Elijah had been too happy that his brother was willing to take a spot in the Ministry without fuss. Esther’s approval of the whole affair was the final nail in the coffin — for a fleeting moment, Klaus had wondered if the Mikaelson matriarch hadn’t somehow orchestrated the whole thing herself.

But Esther’s hands were clean(of this) and no one knew what had happened to Amara, as much as Klaus now wished he had asked more questions at the time. Caroline had avoided him for the past few days, and whatever she was doing, Klaus didn’t doubt for a second that it involved getting the answers she was looking for, with or without his help. And if trying to move past it meant that they were on different sides of this, then Klaus couldn’t take it anymore.

Caroline wanted answers and he was going to help her get them, that was that.

He was set on his plan, halfway to the door when a sudden sharp, flaring pain sent him to his knees, his vision nearly whiting out. He didn’t know if someone had cursed him, there was absolutely no one in his flat, and this felt like nothing he’d ever been prepared for in his old Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. The pain is sharp and intrusive and wrong, it feels perverse—

‘Don’thurtKlausdon’thurtKlausdon’thurtKlaus’

Klaus gasped, bracing himself from collapsing completely. The mantra beat in his head, steady as a drum, and it came with a voice he knew well.

“Caroline…” he whispered desperately, his fear turning to steely resolve. As suddenly as it came, the pain receded, leaving him clear headed on the floor. Caroline was in danger and he was damn well going to find her.

If Caroline’s limbs could move, she was sure she’d be convulsing. The sharp, strange, alien pain of Tessa pulling on her red string had been fierce and unbearable, but no matter how much it hurt, Caroline hadn’t been scared for herself.

She’d been terrified for Klaus.

She knew, on the same instinct that had once told her she was different from all the other children in her neighbourhood growing up, that whatever Tessa had done to her by pulling on her string would affect Klaus too. And whatever the hell was going on here, she didn’t want him in danger.

Caroline’s limbs burned under the weight of immobility, Tessa smirking over her. “What are you going to do to me?” she whispered hoarsely.

In response, Tessa reached inside her robes, pulling out what looked like antique shears, gleaming silver in the light. She inspected them carefully, running her thumb along one of the blades, glancing between them and Caroline. “I’ve had these for a long time,” she said finally. “No one knows where they’ve come from. No one knows what they could do. These should be locked in a vault, but then, so few people understand what we study here. No one understands the implications.”

The witch made no sense at all and Caroline wanted to snap at her to stop speaking in riddles, but the more Tessa gloated, the more time Caroline had to come up with a way out.

Unfortunately, it looked like time had run out.

Tessa bent down, shears in one hand, picking up Caroline’s red string with the other. “I just need to understand,” she muttered, more to herself than anyone. “If I could understand…”

She held the string delicately between two fingers. Caroline waited for the pain to come, but Tessa didn’t bother, instead holding the string aloft and positioning the shears to cut.

Caroline wanted to scream, but the dread stopped her cold.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Tessa stilled. The question had come from behind her.

“Help!” Caroline screamed, and immediately saw stars as Tessa viciously backhanded her, but Caroline could taste freedom and that didn’t stop her from snapping her head back as soon as she could, trying to see who her would-be saviour was. She hoped, desperately, fervently, that somehow, some way, it was the person on the other end of her string.

It wasn’t — the man who strolled into the room had a square jaw and disturbingly empty eyes — but even Silas was welcome right now.

“Please help me,” Caroline begged, “she’s crazy, she’s trying to…”

She trailed off. Not because she couldn’t manage it, but because she realized that Silas didn’t looked shocked or appalled or even a little surprised to walk into a room with a door that should always be locked to find an Unspeakable keeping a woman cursed to a chair.

Whatever hope Caroline had died a quick death.

“You started without me,” Silas said, almost sounding bored. He stalked forward until he stood right next to Tessa, looming over Caroline. His stance remained nonchalant, but as soon as he caught sight of the red string around Caroline’s finger, there was no hiding the hungry gleam in his eye and his lips curved into a dark smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“I had a chance, I took it,” Tessa snapped back.

Silas shrugged, his eyes still not leaving the string. “I’m not complaining.”

Caroline’s curiosity won over her horror, “Why are you helping her?!”

Silas’s gaze slid over to Caroline’s and the blonde barely suppressed a shudder at the coldness of it.

“I’m not helping her — she’s helping me.” Silas said. “Or rather, she’s fixing the mess she made.” He looked over at Tessa with a sneer on his face and Caroline watched the other Unspeakable stand tall under his stare, but her hands shook, ever so slightly.

“I’m cutting her string,” Tessa said through gritted teeth.

“Wait!” Caroline demanded, looking between Silas and Tessa. “Tell me what happened to Amara, what did you do to her?!”

Silas’ calm facade dropped then, anger and pain twisting his features. “Go ahead!” he said mockingly, turning to Tessa. “Tell her what you did!”

Tessa’s stance faltered for the first time and she couldn’t meet Silas’s stare anymore, leaving the man to scoff disdainfully.

“I work in one of the other Rooms,” Silas explained, quiet and deadly. “Amara was in the hall of prophecies. One day, the door to this room was open…and we walked in.”

“She had no business being here!” Tessa spat, but Silas barely paid attention to her, lost in the past.

“The string came down from the rest,” he whispered, staring up at the huge nest, “tied itself around our fingers. We didn’t know what it meant. We didn’t care.”

Caroline was reminded of the way Silas had sat by a hospital bed, nothing but naked adoration in his eyes. She didn’t doubt for a second that Silas and Amara could have been soulmates.

A new fear washed over her. “Was it the string that did…whatever happened to her?”

Silas laughed, it held no humour. “No, it wasn’t the string.” He cut his furious stare over to Tessa again, who had turned her back on the both of them. “Tessa fancied me.”

Tessa spun on her feel, “Do not pretend that you didn’t lead me on!” she snarled. “But the minute that stupid string tied itself around you and that bitch—”

“Don’t you dare!” Silas growled, pulling out his wand. He stopped himself at the last second, turning back to Caroline and realizing there was a bigger picture. “Amara and I didn’t know what the string meant, but she did. And she decided she didn’t want it linking us anymore.”

The story was coming together in Caroline’s mind, hazy and terrifying. “What did you do?” she asked Tessa, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

“I fed him a love potion. Gave him the shears and told him to cut his own string, then destroy it.”

Stifling silence descended over them. The only sound was the light bubbling of the fountain of Amortentia near them, and Caroline didn’t have to guess twice where the supply Tessa had slipped Silas had come from. This was nothing like what sixth-year girls would whip together in their Hogwarts dormitories, this would have been so much worse. But cutting the string…

“Why was only Amara affected?” she asked quietly.

Silas shrugged, and the mask of bored disdain was back. “Because I was the one who made the cut? As soon as I did…the pain was enough to bring me back.”

Caroline stared at the shears in Amara’s hand and the truth dawned on her, slowly, horribly. “You made Silas destroy his string…so you want mine and Klaus’s.”

Silas’s smile was feral. “And when we take yours, I’ll be able to tie myself and Amara back together and we’ll be happy.”

There was no reasoning with someone that deep into his guilt and Caroline didn’t even bother staring at him. Instead she stared at Tessa, whose face was perfectly blank, not guilty, not angry, not jealous….just blank.

“You’re not going to let him do that, are you?” Caroline asked insistently. “You want to tie the string to yourself!”

Tessa slapped her across the face again, and this time, Caroline tasted blood. “I’m right, aren’t I?!” She turned to Silas, “Don’t you get it? She’s not going to help you!”

Silas watched Tessa carefully, but he was clearly too far gone to care. They both were. “Get it over with.”

Tessa picked up the string again, positioned her shears and Caroline sucked in a breath, hoping desperately that Klaus would survive this, that he wouldn’t end up in St. Mungos next to Amara, that he would survive this and find happiness.

God, she wanted him to be happy.

The shears closed.

The pain was blinding.

“CAROLINE!”

Klaus stood at the entrance to the chamber with his wand at the ready, staring at Caroline’s prone form in the chair. Silas was on his feet, but Klaus was the quicker dueler, disarming him easily.

“Get away from her,” he growled, marching forward. Tessa let something silver clatter to the floor and pulled out her own wand but Klaus saw her coming.

“Stupefy!” Tessa went down, and Caroline suddenly slumped forward, the spell keeping her stuck to the chair finally broken. Klaus rushed for her, skidding to the ground and pulling her into him, checking her over for injuries, a heavy wave of relief crashing over him when he found none.

“Caroline— love, are you alright?” he asked. She was dazed, eyes unfocused, and stared up at him like she couldn’t believe she was seeing him. But as soon as clarity returned to her eyes, she gasped, and lifted her left hand to her face.

Klaus didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it as soon as he stepped inside the room, but there it was, a bright red string around her finger, now pooled on the floor between them, the other end connecting to Klaus’s own hand.

“We’re soulmates,” Caroline said, first in whisper and then again, louder and with a growing smile. “Klaus, the strings, they connect soulmates.”

Her smile was dazzling even though she made no sense but that didn’t matter to him, because in the next second she had thrown her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss, equal parts love and relief. He returned the gesture in kind, the solid weight of her in his arms a reassurance that he had found her in time, that she was fine, and if he had anything to say about it, she would always be safe.

“How did you find me?” she whispered against his lips.

Klaus pulled back so that he could look her in the eyes, one hand holding her cheek, stroking it. “I felt some sort of pain, I knew it was you,” he explained hurriedly, “I followed — I don’t know what I followed. Some instinct led me here.”

“You followed the string,” Caroline said, eyes wide as she looked down at it again. “It connects us because we’re soulmates.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve never heard—”

“It’s true,” Caroline said firmly.

“She’s right, you know.”

Klaus snapped to attention, cursing his stupidity. He’d been so focused on getting to Caroline that he neglected to realized Silas had retrieved his wand and was ready to put up a fight. Klaus rose to his feet, dragging Caroline up with him and placing himself firmly in front of her. “What do you want?” he growled.

“I want my soulmate back. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get it.”

Klaus raised his wand, but before either of them could do anything, a sharp voice rang out, “Locomotor Mortis!”

Tessa picked herself up from the ground, wand pointed out at Klaus and Caroline. The leg-locker curse took hold immediately, dropping them back to the ground, and Klaus felt his wand being wrenched from his hand and thrown to the other side of the chamber. A flick of Silas’s wand and Klaus was pulled away from Caroline, a sudden chasm of space between them.

They were wandless, defenseless. Klaus didn’t dare take his eyes off Caroline.

“I told you I’m willing to do whatever it takes,” Silas snarled. “Cut the string!” he ordered Amara.

But Amara made no move to pick up the shears instead staring down at Caroline with an unreadable expression. “It has to be one of them,” she said to herself before looking up at Silas. “It has to be one of them! You were the one who cut your string, it doesn’t work if anyone else does it!”

Silas nodded, absorbing the information quickly. “Go on then,” he barked at Caroline, nodding towards the shears near her hand. “Cut it!”

Caroline shook her head immediately, not even wincing when Amara aimed her wand at her.

“Do it!”

Caroline remained steadfast. “You’ll have to kill me,” she spat.

Silas smirked coldly. “Why would we do anything to you?”

Klaus realized his meaning seconds before Silas raised his wand.

“Crucio.”

Klaus tried to keep his composure, but every nerve was on fire, every inch of his body felt like a knife was sliding through his skin, piercing his insides and twisting them until there was nothing left of him. As soon as it ended he slumped forward, legs still locked and arms braced against the floor as he panted heavily, sweat beading on his forehead. His heartbeat roared in his ears but through the noise he heard Caroline screaming for them to stop, begging them to turn on her.

No. Whatever they did to him, he couldn’t let them touch her.

“Don’t hurt him,” she begged, “whatever happens, you swear that nothing happens to him!”

“He’ll be fine,” Silas said curtly.

“Caroline…” Klaus croaked, the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse still exhausting him. “Don’t, please.”

“It’s going to be fine,” Caroline soothed, picking up the shears with trembling hands. “Just…don’t look, okay?”She managed a watery smile, trying to suck up her fear, but Klaus could see right through her. He always could.

“Don’t do this,” he begged.

“Shh,” Caroline said, blinking away her tears. “I love you.”

She’d never said that before. He knew, somehow, but they’d never actually said the words.

“I love you too.”

Caroline choked out a sob, and Klaus felt the press of Silas’s wand against the back of his neck.

“Cut the fucking string.”

Caroline kept her stare on Klaus, and with a shuddering breath, she raised her left hand and held the shears straight in front of her, closing the blades around the string.

For a moment, Klaus swore everything stopped.

Then everything went white.

Something warm and blinding swept rippled out throughout the chamber, knocking Silas and Tessa to the ground, and Klaus felt his legs come free. He wasted no time with spells, simply grabbing Silas and punching the bastard across the face. His wand was on the other side of the chamber and he ran for it, not willing to be taken down again, but when he had it firmly in his grasp, he saw that Silas was out cold and Tessa had followed suit.

And Caroline…

Caroline was staring at her left hand where the red string between them glowed brightly, whole and unbroken.

“Do I even want to know how this started?”

Elijah received no answer to his question, but Caroline doubted he actually expected one. She watch the Aurors float Tessa and Silas’s unconscious bodies away, taking them somewhere they could be held for questioning. And there would be questions. And eventually Caroline herself would have to answer them, but for now, Klaus had done an admirable job of using his family connections to keep everything as low-key as possible.

Few wizards or witches were allowed down here anyway, so the pair were only faced with scrutiny from Elijah and Kol, the former who would be doing everything in his (considerable) power to cover up all that had happened, and the latter who just wanted to sneak a peek at the carnage, but was currently eyeing the red string between Klaus and Caroline.

“You’ll have to sit through a formal inquiry,” Elijah explained, running a hand over his face tiredly. “But if Silas used an Unforgivable Curse…”

“He did,” Caroline finally spoke up, her voice hard.

Elijah nodded gravely, rare concern showing as he looked over his younger brother, noting the way him and Caroline leaned on each other. “Well, the Veritaserum will confirm that, and then he won’t be a problem. Tessa will likely face similar consequences, once the full story comes out.”

Klaus nodded and Elijah could see the exhaustion on both their faces, so he let them go for now. “We’ll sort through the details tomorrow, get some rest.” He clasped his hand on Klaus’s shoulder and with a nod, turned on his heel. Kol lingered, and stared up at the nest of red strings criss-crossing the ceiling.

“Can I assume I have the flat to myself tonight?” he asked Caroline with a wink and she rolled her eyes half-heartedly. “Well, I’ll be off to take advantage. Try not to get into too much trouble.”

He copied Elijah and clasped Klaus on the arm in a rare display of brotherly affection, then darted forward and pressed a quick kiss to Caroline’s cheek. The most he’d ever do to show that he was concerned about either of them. “Have fun in bed!”

Kol was gone before either of them could yell after him and then it was just Klaus and Caroline and the room filled with the mystery of Love. Even despite what had happened, it was warm and comforting in a way Caroline only really understood when it was just her and Klaus, with nothing else in the world to care about.

“What now?” Klaus asked, question after question running through his head.

There was so much to talk about, but this conversation she could have. “Now we go home.”

It was raining again, to no one’s surprise. Klaus locked the door of his apartment behind them and as an afterthought pulled out his wand and tapped it against the handle. “Extra measures,” he said with a shrug, “I doubt we’ll want to be interrupted by Muggle or magic.”

Well, Caroline couldn’t argue with him there.

They stood in silence for a long torturous moment, neither knowing what to say. Caroline knew what she wanted, she wanted to feel him fully and completely, with the knowledge that they were it for each other, that there was a magic between them that was so deep and powerful that no one could take it away from them. But it was almost overwhelming— almost.

“The string.” Klaus finally broke the silence, glancing down at his hand, but of course he couldn’t see it anymore, it had disappeared the moment they’d both stepped out of the Department.

“Watch this,” Caroline whispered, a small smile on her face. She closed her eyes and concentrated on Klaus, on how much she felt for him, enough that her chest ached but she wanted more, and when she opened her eyes, she saw the bright red colour of the string connecting the two of them, Klaus’s mouth hanging open. It disappeared slowly after a few moments but there was no denying that it was  there, that it would always be there.

“And it means you’re my…One?” he asked,coming closer, fingers itching to pull her closer.

Caroline met him in the middle, raising up a hand to cup his cheek and run her thumb over the stubble on his chin. “Soulmates,” she confirmed quietly. “We’re soulmates.”

Klaus couldn’t wait any longer, he leaned down and closed the space between them, meeting her lips with his. His hands found their way to her waist, grasping her close as if someone was going to try and tear them apart again. Let them, Caroline thought.

She parted her lips and poured every ounce of love for him she could into it, the worry when she thought he’d be affected, the pain of seeing him under the Cruciatus Curse, the relief of having him safe and whole in front of her now. All of that and more, string or no string, he was everything for her and she ached for more of him.

“How did you find me?” she asked breathlessly when he finally pulled away.

“Followed instinct,” he explained against her neck, pressing hot kisses against her skin, as if he were mapping her out for the first time. “Realized that I was following the string.”

It made very little sense, but magic rarely did. Instead, Caroline let the word soulmate play over and over in her mind on a loop while Klaus continued his ministrations, tugging the thin strap of her dress of her shoulder.

Caroline moaned at the feel of his stubble against her skin and backed away slowly, towards the direction of his bedroom. But the space was too much for him at the moment and he immediately grabbed her back, ignoring her small squeal as he picked her up and walked them down the hall to his bed himself.

Soft sheets met Caroline’s back as Klaus dropped her down on his bed and she stared up at him with wide, lust-blown eyes, the two of them falling into another moment of silence before Caroline finally broke it.

“I love you.”

Klaus was on her in the next second, pushing her dress up her thighs, kissing every inch of skin revealed to him. “Again,”  he growled against the lace of her panties, and Caroline lost her breath at the feel of warm mouth so close to where she needed him, seperated by a maddeningly thin barrier.

“I love you,” she moaned, “I love you.”

Her underwear was dragged down her legs a moment later by his teeth and then he was back, one arm solidly draped over her waist to hold her down as she arched against his mouth, tongue expertly parting her folds and working on her clit until she saw stars.. He drove her to the edge expertly, tongue drawing figures against her pussy, spelling out the indecent things he wanted to do to her, drawing out her release the way he’d perfected.

Caroline’s hand flew to his hair, threading her fingers through his curls and she felt the tension in her grow and grow until Klaus had her tumbling over the edge, sobbing his name like a prayer.

“You’re so bloody beautiful,” Klaus whispered as he divested himself of his clothes and climbed over her pliant body, kissing her hard and Caroline tasted herself on his lips. “And you’re mine,” he whispered, picking up her hand where they knew the string was, invisible now, though Caroline swore she saw red in the corner of her eye.

“My soulmate,” Klaus whispered against her skin, tearing her dress over her head so that there was nothing between them and he took full advantage, long artist’s fingers reaching and caressing every possible inch of her. “There’s on one else for us sweetheart, you’re mine,” Klaus said, never breaking eye contact before he bent his head down to lave his tongue around her nipple, his fingers tweaking the other one into a peak, taking great pleasure in watching her come undone.

“Please, Klaus,” Caroline whined, as talented as his fingers and tongue were, she needed so much more from him.

“I love you like this you know,” he commented idly, as if he wasn’t just as gone for her as she was for him. “Naked and needy, wet and wanting. And now I know I get to have like this forever,” he growled, blatant possessiveness running through him as she ran his hands over him, trying to pull him down for another kiss. He let her, but pulled away and grabbed her hands, pinning them above her head as he positioned himself between her thighs.

“Please, Klaus, I need you,” Caroline panted, not even caring how desperate for him she sounded.

“Need what?” Klaus asked with a filthy smirk, fully intending on drawing out every inch of desire she had in her. One hand kept her hands pinned, the other went to stroke his cock as she watched him with naked want. “Use your words, love.”

“I need your cock,” Caroline said, meeting his heady stare. “I need you inside me.”

“Good girl,” Klaus replied, bending down to peck her lips. He swiped a hand through her folds, finding her soaking wet and nearly came over her. “Tell me more?”

“I need you to fuck me,” Caroline whispered against him, “Ineedyouineedyouinneedyou—”

His own desperation couldn’t hold out any longer and he slid into her easily with one thrust, settling for a moment as he let her adjust, and then moved against her, rocking his body against hers with what little finesse he could manage considering how achingly perfect she felt around him, wet and warm and tight as if she alone were made just for him. And maybe she was, all things considered.

Klaus finally abandoned the hold on her wrists, letting her wrap her arms around him as he pulled her up with him so that he was on his knees, leaning back on his haunches and she was rocking in his lap, gasping at the angle this position afforded them. His lips ravaged her skin, leaving marks that he would happily admire the next morning, reminders of the magic that bound them.

Caroline felt his control slip, and he fucked her harder, gripping her tighter. Her fingers tugged on his curls, hard, and she moaned against his lips at the slap he delivered against her outer thigh in response. Her pussy gripped him tighter and he buried his face against her neck as he came, stilling against her. He played with her clit until she came apart for a second time a moment later and together they collapsed backwards onto the bed, skin slicked with sweat, limbs tangled and Klaus still buried inside her.

“Mine,” he whispered again, gentler this time.

“Yours,” Caroline agreed wholeheartedly. She groaned at the pleasant ache she felt as he pulled out of her, moving away only so far as to pull the heavy duvet over the two of them, and Caroline felt him tangle his legs in between hers as he pulled her closer, nose skimming the back of her shoulder.

“Rest up,” he said fondly, dropping a kiss to the back of the neck. “I intend to keep you busy all night.”

“You should rest,” Caroline protested weakly. “It’s been a long day.”

“On one condition — we take tomorrow off.”

“I’m pretty sure Elijah expects us to answer questions about what happened today.”

“He can fuck off until I’ve had my fill of you.” Klaus said with finality, and Caroline had no doubt he’d duel his brother if it meant keeping her in bed.

“Fine,” Caroline said without much of a fight. “But we might be here a while.”

“Forever, love, if I have anything to say about it.”

“Ready to head out, sweetheart?”

Caroline looked up from her desk at her boyfriend poking his head into her office, grinning widely. “How did you get in here?” she asked, already waving her wand to clear the paperwork off her desk.

“Would you believe that the door doesn’t lock for me anymore?” Klaus asked, coming inside and meeting her halfway, greeting her with a kiss. “The room just lets me in.”

“Wonder why?” Caroline asked aloud, but felt like she already knew the answer.

The Department of Mysteries had no shortage of enigmas for the people who worked there, and Caroline privately thought that every room had enough magic that no witch or wizard would ever be able to figure out, no matter how many years of research they put into it. Not that she was about to stop trying. Tessa was looking at a long stay in Azkaban along with Silas, and the Room which housed the mysteries of Love needed a new Head Researcher.

After the rumours had spread, there hadn’t been a lot of people jumping to take the position. Except one.

Elijah was sorry to lose her and had implied not so subtlely that he’d be happy to give her a position in his hypothetical cabinet one day. But for the first time, Caroline was ready to deviate from her life plan if it meant taking the position here, in the Department of Mysteries, trying to understand the power behind the red string that was now always visible within the chamber outside her office. There was so much raw power in love, she wanted to understand all of it.

Klaus had wholeheartedly supported her career change.

“How goes the search for a remedy?” Klaus asked as Caroline pulled her coat over her robes.

“No luck,” she replied a little sadly. “Amara may be permanently damaged. I’m visiting her this weekend.” Even if it was just to leave flowers and make her smile, Caroline couldn’t help but feel sorry for the witch who had been a victim of love and jealousy, and now had no one coming to visit her. “Silas was a lunatic…but he loved her. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to realize he’d cut his string.”

“Love is powerful,” Klaus said with a shrug, “and dangerous.”

“Very,” Caroline agreed. “But at least I still like you.”

Klaus smirked at her cheek, tugging her close as soon as she’d gathered the last of her things. “Only until we both get fired for workplace indecency.”

Caroline hid her smile against him as he tucked her under his arm and pulled her out of the office that was hidden in the back and across the marble floor of the chamber, warm light making her feel safe and loved as it always did. Before they left, Caroline glanced up, at the nest of red strings, each one for soulmates who were out there, already in love or just waiting to find each other.

All that love, with the capacity to become dangerous on the turn of a knife. But then she glanced up at Klaus, who stared back with nothing but adoration.

Love was dangerous. Love was powerful. But she had it, and she wouldn’t trade it for all the magic in the world.

[lalainajanes]

rival competitive chorus conductor au + "last year i made a bet with you that my students would beat yours in the rankings this year i didn't think you'd actually REMEMBER fuck you won" 😇

Okay, so sadly there is minimal smut here. I WAS TRYING TO KEEP IN MINI. I will do better with the others!

Good Old Fashioned Rivalry

Her phone buzzes on her coffee table and Caroline glares atit resentfully. She’s got a pretty good idea who’s texting her. She’d turneddown Kat’s offer to go out and drown her post-loss sorrows and Bon’s out oftown. Few of her other acquaintances would reach out this time on a Fridayevening.

Ugh, couldn’t he have at least waited a day?Let her lick her wounds in peace? She’d been so sure her programme was awinner, had drilled the kids mercilessly for weeks. It had paid off and they’re performance had been nearly flawless, andso pleased with themselves. To lose by a measly tenth of a point had beenheartbreaking and Caroline was already planning to bring ‘Cheer up, you’reawesome’ cupcakes on Monday and let them go wild at rehearsal, high on sugarand songs from Disney scores.

They deserved a break though apparently she didn’t merit one.

Why had shemade that stupid bet? And why couldn’t the drinks they’d shared afterwards haveworked their magic and made him forget it? If only they’d had a few more.Caroline certainly wished she could forget those minutes she’d spent on his lapin the back of that cab they’d shared. Remembering had proven to be a curseover the last few months.

She’d replayed it in her mind way too often.She told herself she wasn’t disappointed that things had ended prematurely thatnight, before things could get all that interesting or irrevocable. Klaus’ handshad lingered on her thighs, just brushing her panties instead of slippingunderneath, a frustrating tease that had had her panting into his mouth. Thedriver had interrupted them, screeching to a stop and barking out a demand forpayment. It was for the best, Caroline had told herself, as she’d straightenedher skirt and scurried inside with a hasty goodnight tossed over her shoulder. She’dfound herself watching his hands at competitions, instead of doing her job and payingattention to his choir, too often as it was. If they’d gone further? She’dnever be able to keep her composure in his presence and it would be a disaster.

God, he’d be so smug if he knew.

Another text comes through and she groans,letting her head thump back into the couch. She’s not surprised, Klaus isnothing if not persistent. That’s what had gotten her into this mess in thefirst place. She digs her spoon into her pint of ice cream, unearths afortifying chunk of peanut butter cup and reaches for her phone.

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:47 PM]: Does tomorrownight work for you? What time shall I pick you up?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:51 PM]: Don’ttell me you’re welching, Ms. Forbes. Whatever would the little ones say?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:52 PM]: Aren’tyou supposed to set an example? Embody the spirit of sportsmanship or some suchnonsense?

Ugh, she was going to need more than ice cream. She totallyshould have stopped and gotten wine. Maybe even gin.

Caroline [8:53 PM]: I’m notgoing to be mentioning any bets to my students. You probably shouldn’t either.It won’t look so good to your fancy helicopter parents that you’re gettingdates through nefarious means, will it?

Pure Dimpled Evil [8:54]:Nefarious? Hardly. You agreed quite readily. So certain you’d be victorious. Idid enjoy the confidence, sweetheart, but you’ve no one to blame for yourpredicament but yourself. Besides, I’ve noted a certain inclination to win atall costs amongst my choir’s parents. I dare say they’d approve of my methods.

That last point, Caroline could grudgingly concede, wasprobably correct. The prep school Klaus taught at charged astronomical tuitionfees and she’d glimpsed more sternness and scrutiny than enjoyment orencouragement from the few parents who bothered to come to competitions. Andokay, fine, she had made the bet willingly. Klaus had goaded but that was noexcuse. He was just an aggravating person in general, delighted in pushing herbuttons. She really should just stop letting him.

Even if it was kinda fun.

Caroline [8:59 PM]: Sunday.Brunch.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:00 PM]: Now, nowI specified a proper date. Brunch does not qualify.

Caroline [9:00 PM]: Brunchdates are a thing!

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:01 PM]: I’m surethey’re not. Brunch is for old married couples. Dinner. Somewhere with lowlighting and good drinks.

Caroline [9:02 PM]: Planningon getting me drunk enough to find you charming? Better bring your credit card.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:03 PM]: Ouch, love.I’d be offended if you weren’t lying.

Her jaw drops, and she sets her ice cream aside. A quickglance tells her it’s becoming a melty mess, her conversation with Klaus havingdistracted her from eating.

Caroline [9:05 PM]: Excuseyou, I am not.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:05 PM]: You’venever have made the bet if you weren’t willing to go out with me, Caroline. Youtried your hardest to win because you loathe losing but I’d wager you’re notall that disappointed in the outcome, are you?

Caroline [9:06 PM]: Nope,sorry. I actually just really wanted to win.

Pure Dimpled Evil [9:07 PM]: Alright,then I suppose I misconstrued things. Best of luck next time. Until we meetagain, Caroline.

Wait, what? She stares at her phone for several long seconds,baffled by his abrupt shift to formality. She expects more, for those threelittle dots that mean Klaus us tapping out some longer reply to pop up on herscreen. But there’s nothing and Caroline finds herself making a call.

He picks up on the third ring, sounding guarded, “Hello?”

“’Until we meet again?’” she spits out incredulously. “Couldyou be any more dramatic?”

“Likely, if I put the effort in. Would you perhaps like tooffer some tips?”

Caroline ignores the mild dig, “What does that even mean?”

Klaus reply is measured, maddeningly patient, “It means thatI imagine we’ll not see each other until our paths cross again at the nextmeet. I believe it’s next month though the precise date escapes me.”

“What about…”

“I’ve no need to coercea woman into dating me, love.”

She makes a noise, one that doesn’t even come close to being aword at all, pulls her phone away from her ear to stare at it. Was he callingher bluff here?

So annoying.

“Come over,” she finds herself blurting out.

“Caroline…”

She hadn’t exactly meant to say it but now that it’s outthere she has no desire to take it back. “Do you remember where my apartmentis?”

“Yes, but…”

Caroline cuts him off, “You’re right, okay? And I’m probablyliterally never going to say that again so enjoy it this one time.”

His tone warms up considerably and Caroline’s reasonably surehe’s smiling, “Is that a yes to dinner?”

“Tomorrow. At 7,” Caroline agrees.

“Perhaps I’ll not need to pick you up, hmm? I’ll see you intwenty minutes.”

He hangs up before she can say anything else and Carolinefinds herself blinking down at her phone, smiling in a way that would be super embarrassingif there were any witnesses present. She lets it drop to the cushion and that’swhen she realizes that she is so not dressed appropriately.

Her leggings and faded Whitmore sweatshirt left her decently coveredbut that was kind of the problem. A late evening visit from a guy you’d beenhaving serious dirty thoughts about called for clothes of the inappropriate variety.

Crap. She’s got to hurry.

Klaus buzzes eighteen minutes later – and while generallyCaroline is a big believer in punctuality this one time she could have used acouple extra minutes to prepare. Her apartment is only tidy-ish (she’d plannedto rectify that tomorrow) with a pile of grading strewn over the coffee table,a small buildup of dishes in the kitchen, and a mountain of laundry that’swaited to be folded on the loveseat. 

Naturally, she shoves Klaus against the door as soon as he’sinside, running her palms up over the thin fabric that covers his torso and tuggingoff his jacket.

What? It’s the perfect distraction.

He seems to have no complaints, burying his hands in her hairas soon as his hands are free from his sleeves and slanting his mouth overhers. There’s nothing tentative in his kiss and Caroline’s lips part on a sigh,meeting his eagerness with her own.

He tastes minty, like he’d stopped to brush his teeth beforecoming over and Caroline finds herself smiling. Klaus pulls back slightly,resting his forehead against hers. “What?”

She bites down on her lower lip in an attempt to stifleherself. “Nothing. Hi. Thanks for coming over.”

His laugh is soft and his lips brush hers again. “Thanks forinviting me over.” He pulls back when she tries to deepen the contact, suckingin a harsh breath when her hands slip under his shirt. He goes very still andshe takes the opportunity to explore the tense muscle under her palms thoroughly. He swallows harshly, soundsa little strained, “We don’t have to…”

She stills, stepping back slightly. A quick glance down showsthat, according to the bulge in his jeans, Klaus’ body is very much on board. Still,that didn’t necessarily meananything. “Do you not want to?”

He moves quickly, flipping their positions, hitching her legaround his hip. She’d changed into a dress, a floaty little summer thing, andhis eyes widen slightly as his hand slides up her thigh, curling around herhip. Her bare hip. “I definitely wantto,” he rasps.

“Good,” Caroline breathes, tightening her leg and tilting herhips so he grinds against her. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

Klaus needs no further encouragement, his head dipping so hislips slide over her shoulder, nudging the strap of her dress aside. His hand onher hip encourages her to keep moving and she obliges, resting more of herweight against the door. His stubble scrapes over her skin, following the pathof her falling dress, and Caroline fights a shiver. His free hand tugs when thefabric catches on the peak of her nipple and then his mouth is there, hot andwet and greedy.

She works her other arm out herself so her dress pools at herwaist, sliding her hand into his hair when he moves to switch to the neglectedbreast. She doesn’t let him though her body’s screaming for more, yanking hismouth back to his and pushing away from the door. They kiss frantically, handsroaming over heated skin and Klaus lets her walk him backwards, helps her tosshis shirt aside and takes the opportunity to shove her dress off her hips. “Bedroom,”Caroline manages, ripping her mouth from his to suck in a lungful of air. “Andtake off your pants.”

Their hands tangle around his belt buckle, clumsy andshaking. She finds herself muffling a laugh in his shoulder even as she getshis zipper down and her hand inside. He shudders when she wraps her fingersaround him and the accompanying strangled grunt of her name is intenselysatisfying. She pulls back to watch his face, to enjoy his darkening eyes andslack lips as she learns how he likes to be touched.

They stumble into her bed and go down in an ungraceful heap.Klaus manages to pin her hands, presses them into the mattress next to herhead. He attempts to look stern though it’s less than successful, flushed as heis, his hair ruffled from her hands. “I have been thinking about this for fartoo long to come on your hands the first time.”

She attempts a matching seriousness, “So what you’re sayingis that handjobs are cool the second time?”

He pushes off from her, standing so he can strip out of therest of her clothes. “Sorry, but no. I’ve plans for the second time as well.”

She props herself up on her elbows, doesn’t even attempt tomake it look like she’s doing anything but ogling him. It’s only fair, shethinks, with the way his eyes are glued to her. “And when exactly do I get myturn?”

Klaus grins, his hands hooking under her knees and pullingher closer to the edge of the bed. “Perhaps another bet’s in order, hmm? Sincethe last one worked out so well.”

She’s not exactly going to argue, not when he’s dropping tohis knees, pressing his lips to her inner thigh. She’s about to question himabout terms of said bet (and mock him mercilessly if it was anything aboutgetting her to scream his name) but Klaus’ thumb slips over her folds gently, partingher and pressing deeper until it’s slickened with her arousal. She’d be embarrassedby how wet she was if she hadn’t just had her hand around his cock. She moanswhen he finds her clit, drawing slow circles that have her thighs twitching.

Clearly Klaus was adept at distraction techniques. She’d haveto remember that.

[misssophiachase]

The Kissing Booth 

So, this is a continuation of a Kissing Booth movie/Klaroline fusion sneak peek I posted for a nonnie that requested it.  I think Erika @eriberry89 has an awesome KC edit of the movie poster which you should all check out : ) Hope you like my take. Words in italics (only in the first part) are lines from the move, the rest is mine. 

I’m Kissing You

Wednesday:

“Want a ride?’

“Sure, if it’s not as dirty as it sounds.” The impatient growl he emitted told her she was playing with his last nerve. Exactly how she’d intended it to be interpreted. “So, where’s your car then?”

Caroline managed to look past his chiseled jaw and blonde curls only to see him gesturing towards a motorcycle in the parking lot.

“What?” She growled, realising just what a cliché her best friend’s brother really was and how she wasn’t going to have any part in it, even if he was built like an Adonis with dimples. “I’m not going to get on that thing like one of your make-out girls.”

“They don’t all make out with me,” he promised. Caroline was unimpressed, arms crossed over her chest by way of reply. “Okay, maybe 95 percent.”

No matter how many times Caroline had drooled over Klaus Mikaelson and his flawless abs and sexy stubble, she still couldn’t believe just how predictable he was. Soccer captain, Student Body President and, according to reliable sources, he’d slept with most of the girls in school. 

“I’m going to run instead,” she shot back, placing the earphone buds in place. 

“That’s over five miles, Forbes.”

“Well, maybe you earn your calories with the latest flavour of the month but I’ll do mine purely.”

“Jealous?” He teased. 

“Of catching every STD known to man? Not really,” she ran away before he could argue. The last thing she needed was this idiot flashing his baby blues in her direction and convincing her he wasn’t a man whore given the overwhelming evidence that he, in fact, was.

As she made her way out of the car park, Caroline knew rule 9, amongst others, between her and best friend Kol was still completely valid. It was one of many but for some reason it was the most important especially given recent events. His older brother Klaus was totally off limits. 

“Don’t wind up grinding coochies with my brother or I’ll literally never talk to you again.”

His words were equal parts weird, cringe worthy (given he was English she wasn’t comfortable with him uttering the word coochies in the first place but with that accent it was unforgivable) and also telling given their precarious sibling relationship. It was no secret Kol had grown up in the shadow of his brother and Caroline wanted nothing more than to protect him.

She repeatedly told herself it would be easy enough to ignore him for one more year before he left for college, she hoped so anyway.

“Caroline?” She was broken out of her trance by her math teacher, Mr James. attempting to flag her down. He was hard to miss what with those high-waisted brown pants and suspenders. She hated to stereotype but he was the epitome of a nerdy, math teacher.

“Mr James,” she greeted, him coming to a complete stop and removing her earbuds. “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to tutor somebody, it’s their senior year and important we bring up his grades before graduation. I figured you’d be the best person for the job, Caroline.” 

While only a Junior, Caroline was in his advance math class and one of his best students. To say she was an over-achiever in every way was an understatement. She mentally ran through her myriad of commitments; debate captain, tennis captain, drama club, mathlete.  There was no way she’d have time but she also didn’t want to let her teacher down.

“I’m kind of busy Mr James….”

“Glad you agreed because I’ve already set it up,” he interrupted, she fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he had. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do with her time than tutor some undeserving jock who needed to lift his marks in order to nab a last minute, athletic scholarship. “He’ll meet you in the library tomorrow after school.”

He was gone before Caroline could mention she already had plans. She’d promised to meet Kol at the mall. He was trying to impress Bonnie Bennett and as far as Caroline was concerned he needed all the help he could get.  The last time they met things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. As she set off home, her mind re-winded three months.

The Kissing Booth was to blame.

For everything.

3 months earlier….

“This idea is genius!” Kol exclaimed, admiring the booth they’d erected for the charity fundraiser. School was almost over for the year and Caroline was chair of the committee and had roped Kol into helping. What she wasn’t expecting was him to be so enthusiastic, and then she heard his idea.  

“Of course you’d say that,” she grumbled, wrestling with a stool. “You get to make-out with half the school under the guise of raising money for charity. And you know a little help wouldn’t go astray,” she huffed, dropping the stool and watching it skid across the floor.

“I thought you moved past these tantrums after fifth grade, darling?”

“And I thought you grew a brain but obviously not,” she growled, lifting up the stool and placing it in position. “How is it that I get stuck with all the work meanwhile you swan around the school doing ‘publicity’,” she used air quotes for extra effect.

“Because it’s what we do bestie,” he smiled cheekily. “I do all the public relations and you work behind the scenes...”

“Don’t you mean do all the heavy lifting?”

“You know I can’t do that, what if I were to break a nail?”

“Or get punched in the face,” she threatened, raising her eyebrows.

“I know you have your reservations but this kissing booth is going to raise more money than the committee has ever made. You really should be thanking me for this idea, Forbes.”

“Says the guy who insisted I provide my services for his ill thought out plan?” She scoffed. “Unlike others, I don’t go around kissing randoms.”

“I told you, I asked Klaus but he turned me down,” Kol shot back. “And we need all the help we can get.”

“Wow, the only time he hasn’t been a complete whore, who would have thought?” She muttered sarcastically.

They’d practically grown up together and as annoying as Klaus was, Caroline was beginning to realise the most frustrating part was just how gorgeous he’d turned out to be. Like nobody should look that good in a henley. She sometimes let her mind wander as to what he’d look like naked and in her imagination it was just as good, if not better.

She felt her cheeks flush, hoping Kol hadn’t noticed, but given his lack of attention span Caroline was sure she was safe. What she wasn’t safe from was the events that played out three hours later.

The kiss.

The mind blowing kiss that almost knocked her off her feet.

It was just that good.

She was blindfolded of course, madly trying to pretend the last fifteen minutes of sloppy excuses for kissing hadn’t happened and then he swooped in and suddenly her overactive brain was completely still. Rather than the usual unnecessary thoughts that infiltrated her mind, there was absolutely nothing except the tingling sensation taking over her skin that his lips were causing.

She could hear loud, wolf whistles around her causing her to break out of her kiss induced haze whoever this person was had caused. She pushed on his chest, noticing just how toned it felt beneath her palms. Pulling off the blindfolded hastily, Caroline was met with a mixture of disbelief and lust.

“You!”

“Well, good evening to you too,” he smirked, tracing his finger along his crimson, lower lip teasingly. “Is this why guys don’t want to kiss you?”

“Excuse me?” Caroline bristled.

“Well, everyone likes a little hard to get sometimes but being outright rude after a kiss usually ruins the mood, if you know what I mean?”

“When can I kiss him?” She’d know that whiny voice anywhere, it was no secret that Hayley Marshall was trying to get her hooks into Klaus.

“Get in line, sweetheart,” Caroline shot back, her mouth moving much faster than her brain. His smirk only grew wider and one of those ridiculous dimples decided to make an impromptu appearance.

She took the opportunity to pull him behind the curtain and away from the prying eyes of half the school. She was at least relieved that Kol had taken a break after kissing his crush Bonnie Bennett. She’d been surprised but happy they’d finally connected, or so she thought.

“If you wanted me alone all you needed to do was ask, love,” he grinned.

“You ass.”

“Stop with all the compliments, you know how they make me blush.”

“Urgh,” she growled, madly trying to maintain her anger and composure after that kiss. 

Bastard. 

“Why do you have to be such a…”

“An ass?” She glowered in his direction. “You know, just a guess. Anyway, I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Kol practically begged me to be on this stupid kissing booth. Do it for charity, I seem to recall him saying. If I’d known how precious you were going to get I wouldn’t have bothered.”

“And you said no and then turn up anyway, what’s that about, Mikaelson?”

“I was doing it for charity,” he mused.

“Suddenly the man whore decides to get a conscience.”

“What can I say, your arguments were very convincing,” he murmured, moving closer and cupping her left cheek unexpectedly. She jumped back, determined not to fall into a Klaus Mikaelson rabbit hole. He was her best friend’s brother and totally off limits and, as she liked to reiterate, a complete man whore.  

“Hands off, buddy,” she muttered.

“I’ll pay for another kiss, I promise.” She knew Klaus Mikaelson; after all they’d practically grown up together, but this look was something she’d never seen before. Those dark, blue eyes were filled with something else. Was Klaus Mikaelson showing some vulnerability amongst all his usual arrogance?

“You realise the line is huge and no one’s out there to collect any money…” Kol accused, coming to a halt at the sight of his brother and best friend staring each other down. “What’s going on here?”

“Uh, nothing,” Caroline lied, tearing her eyes from his and plastering on a fake smile. “Klaus was just leaving.”

“I didn’t realise he was even coming in the first place,” Kol offered. “But if you’d like to stay I know Hayley Marshall would pay double for a kiss, big brother.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” Klaus murmured, “I don’t kiss just anyone.” 

Caroline felt her breath hitch in her throat, surely it was just another line? It had to be, he was Klaus Mikaelson after all. It was at that moment she decided to put it behind her and pretend it never happened.

Thursday:

The last thing Caroline felt like doing was tutoring some jock who had no interest in learning and only wanted to get to college to attend frat parties and have jello shots off the stomach of some cheerleader. Okay, maybe she’d had a little too much time to think about it. 

She made her way to the library from the parking lot remembering Klaus and his mid-life crisis motorcycle on full display. Okay, he was only eighteen but it was never too early.  

She hadn’t even seen him today but he had this annoying habit of getting under her skin. She rationalised it by blaming it on his surprise attack by kiss in June. 

It had been a tightly kept secret, Caroline glad it hadn’t made it around the gossip circles and to her unsuspecting best friend. She put it down to the fact people thought it was some kind of staged stunt for publicity and that Kol had been too busy licking his wounds after Bonnie had rejected him. Apparently what she’d considered charity he didn’t. 

“Afternoon,” he smiled upon her arrival. She stopped dead in her tracks, unsure of what to do. 

“I didn’t think you knew where the library was, Mikaelson, don’t want to ruin your reputation or anything.”

“You’re hilarious,” he drawled, gesturing to the math book on the table. “Ready to study?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Mr James said you were going to be tutoring me.” She sat down with a thud across from him, too surprised to make a lady like landing. What the hell was going on? From what Caroline knew, Klaus Mikaelson, despite his womanising ways, had a 4.0 GPA. He was the last person who needed tutoring. 

“Is this some kind of joke, is there a hidden camera?” She asked, looking around the room ominously.  

“I need help with math,” he implored. His usual cocky expression replaced by something decidedly more desperate. 

“You’re tenth in the class, I’d hardly call that a problem.”

“And you’re first,” he reiterated. “It wouldn’t hurt to get some pointers to improve my marks this year.”

“Oh I know what this is,” she sighed, finally realising his game. “You’re doing this to mess with Kol and before I know it you’ll produce a cracker jack bracelet and say ‘don’t say i never gave you anything’ I know your game, Mikaelson.”

“Why do i feel like you went to another planet just then?”

“It’s classic One Tree Hill, you know Nathan and Hayley? She's tutor girl and he’s the star basketball player.”

“Basketball, really? You and I both know football is the only sport that matters, Forbes.”

“Oh god, are we back here again?” She groaned, hitting her head on the wooden table. “It’s called soccer.”

“Says the American,” he shot back. “Now, are we here for tutoring or not?”

Caroline was torn, he looked so cute pleading with her but every fibre of her being was screaming that he had ulterior motives. “One session, that’s all.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned, flashing another dimple. She shook her head not sure what she’d gotten herself into.  

Saturday:

“I’m pretty sure we’ve bought more than enough polo shirts, Kol,” Caroline groaned, desperate for a seat after all the shopping he’d put her through. “Bonnie will like you no matter what.”

“She kissed me at the fundraiser then pretended it never happened.”

“She thought it was for charity, not your chance to get in her pants.” She growled, finally finding a bench and making it her own. 

“Nice to see my best friend is on my side,” he murmured, taking a seat beside her. “I swear ever since the fundraiser you’ve been walking around like a zombie.”

“Did you ever think that this incessant, stalkerish behaviour towards Bonnie is maybe killing my resolve?”

“I thought we already had the discussion about you not being able to fall in love with me, darling?” She didn’t hesitate, just hit him in the stomach for extra measure. “Ouch, Forbes.”

“You wish.”

“Maybe I do given you have a ridiculously unhealthy crush on my brother.” She couldn’t speak mainly because he was correct but given rule 9 it was totally out of the question. “And don’t get me started on this whole bogus tutoring arrangement.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I know about everything, including your kissing booth indiscretion,” he chirped. “I just wish you’d told me about it yourself.”

“Rule 9...”

“Oh please, we were like seven,” he reassured her. “If you like my unsavoury brother, although I’ll never understand why, then who am I to get in the way?”

“Am I interrupting something?” They both looked up into the brown eyes of Bonnie Bennett. 

“Nothing at all,” Caroline bluffed, “In fact, I was actually about to leave, you know there’s only so many polo shirts I can be around at once.” She made her retreat mouthing ‘you owe me’ in his direction. What she couldn’t resolve was just how she felt about Klaus Mikaelson.

Monday:

“Looks like I was right,” she drawled, throwing the graded paper at his feet. 

Kol had used the term bogus and it wasn’t until she’d read the evidence that Caroline was so angry she’d infiltrated soccer practice to throw his test on the pitch. 

“Don’t ever bother me again.” 

She stomped off, ignoring the curious glances and comments levelled in her direction from his teammates. She was almost to the parking lot when he caught up, his hand grazing hers in a desperate attempt to slow her fast pace. 

“Woah, woah, woah,” he said, placing himself in front of her path. “Care to explain, love?”

“You scored a 65 on the practice test and I have better things to do with my time than tutor people that don’t need it,” she growled. 

“Last time I checked 65 isn’t that great,” Klaus offered. 

“All of the work was right but funnily enough the answers didn’t reflect it. You know I take tutoring seriously and there are people that genuinely need my help. This is just another example of Klaus Mikaelson trying to throw his weight around because he’s the king of the school.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“So, what was it like then?” She asked, hands on hips, not realising just how close he was. 

“I love you, I think I always have.” His gaze was now downcast. “And I just wanted to be near you again even if it was the wrong thing to do. After the charity fundraiser you wouldn’t even look in my direction.”

“Says the guy who swooped in out of nowhere and kissed me in front of the whole school.”

“I was impulsive, yes, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I was sixteen. You’d basically grown up in our house and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“Me and every other girl,” Caroline murmured. 

“You’re still going to believe the rumours?” He asked pointedly. “As much as you want to believe I’m some man whore, I’m not, Caroline.” 

“But...”

“But nothing,” he murmured, moving closer and lacing his arms around her neck. “It’s only ever been you, Forbes.”

“Is this the part where we kiss?” She whispered, her nose grazing his. 

“I wouldn’t want it to be a movie cliche or anything,” he grinned, pulling her closer into his embrace. 

“I would,” she insisted, placing her lips on his and relishing in the moment. It was like all the stress from the last few months was melting away and Caroline could finally be happy and not care who was watching. 

And to think it all happened because of a kissing booth.