(no subject)

[wholeworldoutthere]

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.

Comments

[brightestlight]

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.

[wholeworldoutthere]

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.