wholeworldoutthere | (no subject)

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caroline forbes

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It's all at once the shortest and the longest walk back to his room. Her head is on his shoulder and her hair tickles his cheek, her fingers are intertwined and he never wants them to get there. There's something perfect about just this moment, but no matter that they're walking slowly enough, eventually they get there.

The door slides open for them and she hasn't been here since that first day, her arrival, and she's here now for reasons so entirely different - or so he hopes, a voice at the back of his mind says - not because he's the only person he knows, but because she chose to come here, to be here.

"Would you like a drink?" he asks as the door slides close behind them, and his fingers gently brush her cheek.

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"And I will touch you more," he tells her, and it's a promise breathed against her lips, breathed with how much he wants to be touching her more right now. For a few moments, he thinks, maybe this morning, she would have sobered up by morning, and if she has a hangover, endorphin would help - rationalisation to justify the very vivid image of his head between her thighs, but he forces himself to dismiss it, because she's right there, in his shirt, and she wants him, so he has to dismiss it. He's glad they're whispering, or it would be all too obvious how husky his voice is. "There's nothing wrong with making out, but we won't want to stop."

"But I don't want to stop," she whispers back, and she pulls in a breath right before she kisses him, and it's brief, and she almost whines with the noise she makes, and then her cheeks are burning and she bites her lip, knowing that this is not- that she really needs to not push. It's not fair. He's being a good guy, and it's not fair, and she finally speaks quietly. "If you don't-" She licks her lips, and her eyes find his in the darkness. "We can just go to sleep, if that's what you want." She's giving him an out.

What he wants - what he wants is not to sleep, and sleep is very unattainable right now anyway, with her there and kissing him, half naked and asking for more. "I don't think I could sleep right now," he answers, and means it, and he wants to kiss her again, her lips so close to his, so tempting, and he almost does, but he wants to wait. Wait until she's no longer drunk, wait until she knows what she's doing. "But you said it yourself. The blue thing was really strong."

She's staring at his mouth, and her breath isn't calm and slow, it's quick and she's trying to not press closer, to not let her leg slip around his hips, and it's hard. It's difficult, and she takes a deep breath and forces herself to pull back all at once, to roll back on the bed and her breath catches as she stares up at the ceiling, and she's nodding once. "Okay. Okay, I can just- We're okay now, right?" She rolls over, so she's facing the wall, and she can take a deep breath without just throwing herself all over him. "Sorry, I- I know you don't- I want you," she blurts, and she's not facing him because she can't, and she forces herself to take another deep breath.

"So much," he finishes her sentence for her, his hands on her back, stroking it through the fabric of his shirt, because she's not in his arms anymore, and somehow it makes it harder. "I want you so much," he tells her, moving closer to lean his brow against the back of her head, his hips safely away from hers, they don't need that. He breathes in the scent of her hair, a hand still on her back, the other one on her arm, focusing on the points of contact and not moving, not doing anything, no matter what passes through his mind, and for once he's glad for whatever limits their abilities, or he might have unwillingly passed the visions on to Caroline.

It would be the easiest thing. It would be the easiest thing to take his hand, to move it, but she's not, she's not doing that, she's lying instead perfectly still, so still she's barely breathing, because it would be the easiest thing so she has to force herself not too. She breathes in and out slowly, because she's got to calm herself down and she knows it, and it's only fair.

"Goodnight," she says softly, to the air of his room instead of to him.

"Good night," he answers, a murmur against her hair, his eyes closed, and he's focusing on the sound of her breathing, and her smell, and again he's glad for the lessening of his abilities, that he can't actually pick up the scent of her arousal yet. And he doesn't move, and doesn't sleep, but just stays there, and wills himself to calm down.

It's hours later - it's hours later and she's been sleeping, and she's somehow slid back against him so the solid feeling of him is behind her back, his arm heavy over her waist. The sky would be green with false dawn if they were home, but they're not home and the sky just watches on as it always does.

It starts slow. A dream - Caroline is at school, and her ring is missing. She's trying to stay away from the sunlight, but it's not a nightmare yet. It's not, it's just a scary dream, and when she finds herself face to face with Damon - Damon who is looking at her and he's hungry, and all she can do is back away, her voice a low no, no, no.

Her back hits a doorknob and she tries it, and she screams as her skin burns, and it's full fledged nightmare now, it's a nightmare and it's disjointed, but she's running from Alaric, she's running from Bruce and he throws her into a wall and she's pinned, he's pinned her with pencils and all she can do is beg Elena not to hurt her, and she's so with the stake, and Damon's in her face and all she can ask him is Are you going to kill me now and she whimpers in his bed, trying to curl herself up, to keep herself safe.

It's not quite been a week since it happened - since the day she came here, when Alaric had hunted her down and tortured her, when he'd tried to force her best friend to kill her. She's had nightmares every night, and they're getting better, but she hadn't thought of them like she should - that she shouldn't have spent the night here, because he'd know. She's making these horrible tiny sounds in her throat, and it's because she's trapped in the dream and can't get out and she knows, somehow, in the dream, that she's going to die and it's terrifying.

Eventually, Klaus manages to go to sleep.

And eventually, he's woken up by Caroline fretting in her sleep, making some choked noises, and it pulls him out of his sleep and straight into the here and now. Caroline's having a nightmare, and now he isn't glad for the lessening of his abilities anymore. But she's young, and he's not sure she even knows how to do any of this, so her mind should be as open as it gets.

He puts a hand on the side of her head, gently, and leans his forehead against her hair again. His eyes close, and his focus sharpens, and he can't get in the way he should, but he's getting flashes of her dream. He can't even will himself in there, only watch these flashes as they come, and they all have one thing in common: Caroline is being tortured, oppressed, she's suffering. He could wake her up, but he wants to try first, because dreams help heal, and he wants to help her.

He knows he can't change the dream itself, and what happens in there, but he's at least trying to breathe a sense of security in, of control, of power instead of the helplessness she feels. He doesn't know if he'll be even remotely successful, and he can feel it pressing in on his brain, the price for what he's doing, but it doesn't matter. He wants to help her.

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