wholeworldoutthere | (no subject)

She's been wrapping herself up into this ball of anxiety, around and around because hello, all she can really remember is that she was a moron and told him things she shouldn't have told him, and his reaction wasn't--

He literally hadn't said anything. Those words - What do you need, at the first ones he's said to her since she said she loved him, and it's days later and his body language was more than enough and the way he'd just sort of held onto her after seemed kind of like an apology to her and all of this, all of it makes her harden that wall, where she's standing there with her arms folded, her brows furrowed like it's some sort of puzzle.

"I can't stop thinking about eating people," she says, and it's not a hello, it's matter-of-fact. "I need you to compel me. Please." Her eyes flick up to his, and it's awkward and defiant and scared all at once.

Klaus is actually tempted to laugh in her face, but laughing's the last thing he feels like doing.

"You want me to compel you," he echoes, because a part of him hopes that if she hears him saying the words, she'll think better. She'll realise what she's thinking, why she's asking it, and how stupid it all is.

She stared at him, her voice quieter, but still steady as she spoke to him. "Yes. because I keep thinking about- I need to stop wanting to eat people. Bloodbags and whatever are fine, but I can't stop it, when my face goes all--" She frowned. "And it's not like either of us is exactly up for an angry mob, now are we?"

Even though they're not a we. "Or I, I guess. I'm not up to an angry mob." Not that she thinks that he'll let her be torn apart by one, but hell, what does she even know anymore? He's even weirder than he was before.

"This is even worse than Stefan," Klaus states, because what better moment to remind her everything he has done and every reason why she hates him, or is supposed to, or whatever grey area it is she puts him into when she isn't high on whatever the station gave them while the rest of them were in the temple.

But he also says it because it's a true, and, "What you're asking me for is a travesty." She's a vampire, of course she's going to think about it, and compulsion is no way for her to live. He can't even believe she's asking him for this, after what she told him about Damon.

"What? What do you mean this is worse than Stefan? I'm trying not to rip off people's heads and go all crazy unless that's what you really go for, because I know that you have no problem just eating people for snacks." She's glaring at him now. "I can't believe you! You who's totally okay with munching on the local populous, make sure not to eat people here, and you're not running around terrorizing people because hello, we're in a small space with a bunch of super paranoid ridiculous people!"

And she's so incredibly angry. "What's I'm asking you for is safety. For both of us. And I know you, you're all clever and whatever, and you can make it super specific that just says that I don't end up eating people here, on board." Because she doesn't ask for anything, because she doesn't ask for anything, she'd just like, okay with the way he wants to do things and he's the one calling the shots and it's happened a ton of times and it makes her want to kick him. He's old and whatever, but it doesn't make her any less valid.

"Fine," he snaps at her, and he's glaring, a crack in the façade of impassivity he's been maintaining, and it feels like he's signing their death sentence, of them as anything, because of how she feels about compulsion in the first place, but it's not as if there were anything still alive between them. She made that abundantly clear. "I'll try."

And he steps up close, and looks into her eyes, and tries to feel that pull of minds.

"Thank you," she says, and he's close and staring at her, and she buckles, looking away. "You could have told me," she says, and she doesn't even say what she's talking about. "You could have told me that it's not what you wanted." And then she looks back, and she can feel something, and she stares into his eyes but it's not quite... right. Like the knot between them's half-tied.

Klaus doesn't know what she's talking about, and he's not going to ask. He's just not in the mood for it, and he hasn't been since he found that note the morning after. He's not been in the mood for much, apart from killing people, which he won't do, here. And then he's focusing on compelling her and it isn't working, he's not quite there.

"It's not working. Same time here, tomorrow, I'll try again," he tells her, because he said that he would and he means it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, he'll try again.

And that's all he has to say to her, since it's all she has to say to him, since she only got in touch because she needed him, so he tells her, "Don't eat anybody in the meantime," and turns to go.

"Oh my god," she says, and she's so freaking tempted to just throw something, and she doesn't have anything and it's not like she's going to throw a chair at his back because that's sort of overkill but she really wishes for a paperweight right now. "You are the most frustrating man alive. Do you know that? You could at least say something. Four days. It's been four days, and you haven't even said a peep. And I was all freaked out, because the last thing I want to be is that girl, but hey! That doesn't matter! Because you don't actually care, and you just stay in your own head and be all pissed off for no reason. Use your words, Klaus. What is worse than Stefan? How is this a travesty, because I'm sorry, I don't think it's a bad thing that I don't want to at the end of a pitchfork, especially with a vampire slayer walking around!" She hisses the last bit because she's not going to start yelling that in this big echoey room, because she's not that stupid, but oh my god she's seriously considering throwing her shoe at him, which is sad because she really really likes this pair of flats.

At first Klaus thinks that she genuinely wants him to talk about them, because no matter what, apparently he remains vulnerable, and pathetic, even though what she sounds like is that she's mad at him for letting her do as she wants, which makes him angry in his turn, but then it turns out that what really matters is this, her hunger and how she wants to deal with it, and it makes his anger deflate, although he is annoyed at himself.

"The way you deal with being what you are," he answers, evenly, and he's turned around to look at her, and he sounds almost as if he pities her. "That's what's worse than Stefan, and that's the travesty. I'll see you tomorrow, Caroline." There, she has had his words, and she can figure out what he means on her own, if it isn't clear enough already.

She's staring at him. "I'm doing the best I can," she says, and she doesn't react well to pity. It's not anger, anger she can manage. Anger she matches and it's a big fight and she gets super angry but that's okay. This? This she just stares at him. "Don't bother. I'll handle it." Even though she wakes up thinking about it, even though every time she sees someone she's thinking about it, thinking about how that guy tasted and how good it felt, and how good it was after.

"I wouldn't want to put you out," she says, and it's angry and hurt and she pauses, and she's not surprised that's what he's chosen to use his words about, even though that isn't what's important.

It's her last sentence that makes him chuckle with bitter incredulity, a barely huffed out sound, before he shakes his head, and turns back around to get going for good. "Whatever you'd like, Caroline." It's what he's always done, and now he just wants out of her sight and out of earshot. "Always," he adds, and she will probably pick it up, but he's not even certain, because he has his back to and he is walking away and it is a murmur, and their hearing isn't what it used to be.

"You can't do that!"

And she is seriously following him, because he's making his grand exit or whatever, but he doesn't get to do that, he doesn't, not after the shit he's put her through. "Stop. Okay, I'm sorry, you don't get to decide. You don't get to be a jerk. This is- I said stop."

He stops, and he's listening, and her heart's in her throat. "It's been four days. Is this what you want? I mean- I figured out that it's not- I got your message loud and clear, and I'm out of your hair, okay? I'm giving you what you want, you don't get to be mad and bitter and Whatever you'd like, Caroline. You don't. Because you need to think a little beyond yourself, and figure out what it does to a person, when they say something like that and all they get is nothing, okay? So get a little freaking perspective, and stop being such an jerk." And then that's it, and she's the one storming off, turning around and walking away because she's done. She's done.

There is a point, he is beginning to suspect, when this will be too ridiculous, this hot and cold she keeps blowing his way, this utterly insane way she has of taking anything and twisting it around into something that it's not, and he will walk away. But not just now. He's still far from this point, but what she says doesn't change anything to the fact that he is angry (because he has been hurt, but he doesn't like to think of it in such terms), it just throws a whole new light on the situation.

He's still angry, but for different reasons, even if they might sound like the same if he tried to sum them up into words, but he's also had just about enough of this. So he puts in a burst of speed to come stand in her path, and he grabs her, and he kisses her.

Of course she doesn't take it, though, because when has Caroline Forbes ever made things easy on him, on them. She grabs his wrists and holds him there and he glares at her and says, very clearly, even if his voice is low, "You left."

Me, that's the one word missing from that sentence, but it still means the same. She left, and she doesn't get to blame any of those four days on him.

"You didn't say anything. I told you I love you, and you didn't say anything." And she stares up at him, and it's not angry, it's confusion and vulnerability and a little bit of indigence. "I get it if you don't- like, if that's not what you had in mind, or what you want, but you could at least tell me."

"If you don't want it," she says, like it's a thing, like she offered him a drink or a present or something, "You can just tell me, I'll-" And then she stops, because she knows what she'll do, she'll do what she did and she's already done it. "I'll just give us... space," she says, like it's the only thing she knows to say. "So yeah, I left." Because if he didn't want it, staying with him is not the way to stop and get over it. That much, she knows, even if he's ancient and she's eighteen and it's ridiculous.

"Caroline," he says, and he's got his wrists back from her, but he's still glaring. "When have I ever done anything to give you the impression that I didn't want it? Save that one time when you were as good as drunk on something the station must have given to you, and you said something so impossible that I would have challenged it if you had been in your normal state?"

His words are even, and measured, because he's trying very hard not to raise his voice, not to let his anger twist them.

"You left." With a bloody note that said that she didn't want to talk to him, or see him. "Don't put this on me."

And that's when she's confused, when she's legitimately confused, and she's not trying to pick at him, but she's just staring up at him. "Why do you think it's impossible?" Her brows furrowed, and she swallowed. "It's not. And- I... I don't know what was... It was weird. There wasn't- there wasn't that voice that said stop, you know? The thing that like- it wasn't there."

But it's here now, and it's eating at her, telling her that she's got an out, that she can say it was the weird stuff, that it was something else and not her, and she considers it, but the fact that he thinks it's impossible is what's killing her and changing her mind, that's making it a hard choice.

"It's not impossible," she says quietly, and she's not knowing if he'll believe her, and she's doing that thing she does, when she like, shrugs and it's so clear she doesn't know what to do, and she can't manage to pull together the facade even though she's trying really hard. "And I don't know, when you said you didn't want to be my friend, or- you didn't even say that. That I didn't mean it, and I felt- You totally freaked out, you just didn't say anything." She said it quietly, and she's first rubbing at her hands then putting them in her pockets then rubbing them on her jeans because she doesn't know what else to do.

"I didn't 'freak out'," Klaus says, with something close to an eye roll, because only Caroline could make it sound so... teenagery. "I debated whether to say anything, but in your state? There was no point, Caroline. Have you ever tried arguing with a drunk person?"

He doesn't expect an answer, and that's not what matters most right then. "But you don't love me." Neither of them has said the word since, but he has no problem saying it now. "You couldn't love me. Fancy me, sure. But love me? You hardly know me." They are barely scratching the surface of each other.

Her brows furrow, and she tenses even as he's standing there, even as he says she can't feel the way she does, and she feels vulnerable and stupid and sort of mad and scared but she looks away, and she's talking quietly because she's waiting to look up and- and she doesn't know. For him to be gone or- or who knows, because it's not who Caroline is, to be careful with her heart. She gives it, whole and complete, and it means she hurts and has to carry that with her.

But still, she feels, and she's not going to say she doesn't because it's a lie, and because she's eighteen and even if he wants her to be like him, it's not who she is.

"I do," she says, and then she just keeps talking, even though she's looking at the chair next to him instead of him, which is sort of a total cop out. "I know how much you care about people. You don't want to, but you do. Your family, most of all, but me, some, and other people here. I know about your sense of humor, which is ridiculous," she says glancing at him and shaking her head. "But it's sort of...funny, actually. Sort of. Well, more than sort of. It's very British. And I know about the quiet part of you, that's okay to sit and draw, or just sit and not do anything. And your temper's super short, but you can roll with the punches and usually if you're pissed off and it's for a stupid reason you'll back off, even though sometimes it can get worse than that. I know how much you value the important stuff, the unique stuff." She paused. "And I know that there's a lot more to know, but if I have to know somebody a hundred percent to love them, I won't ever love anybody."

She bit the inside of her lip. "I trust you," she says quietly. "And when I think about you, when I think about you not being here, it- I don't want to think about it, and that's not all trust, and it's not just that I have a crush on you. I want you to be happy, I want- I like the person I am around you." She ducked her head with a soft laugh. "And this is super sad and hello, emotional unloading, I just- Maybe it's not the sort of love you feel for your family, because that's the sort of stuff that's like, forever in the making, and this is new and special, but I do. So that's it, I guess. Speech over, you can go back to your regularly scheduled being pissed at me or whatever."

It's a lot to take in, and he's not that surprised, because it is who she is and much as she likes to hide who she is, when it comes pouring out she doesn't hold back, so he's not that surprised but he's a little shaken all the same, even if it doesn't show because he can't afford to show it. He's cautious in a way she isn't, less in what he says and more in what he feels, and this is shaking him slightly.

"Answer me this," he requests, and holds her gaze, and again he feels as if he is signing their death sentence. "What if you friends were here."

"I hope Elena would understand," she said quietly. "And she really doesn't have any room to talk. But you can't hurt her. Okay? Her or Bonnie, no matter what. But-" She's thought about it.

"There's nothing you've done that Damon hasn't," she said quietly. "He killed Bonnie's mom. And he's killed a bunch of people, and so has Stefan. I won't let them hurt you." Her brows furrowed. "I mean, they're totally going to think that you like, brainwashed me or something, which you obviously haven't, and I don't know if they'll ever understand, but I'm not going to pick them over you. It may be The Thing We Don't Talk About, but- I mean." She paused, and her voice lowered. "Elena loves Damon, and he-" And she knows Klaus knows, and she doesn't say it again. "And I'm still her best friend, you know? So I hope they'd understand. But you can't do anything to them, okay?" And it's back to her making herself an island, isolating herself with crossed arms and looking anywhere but at his face besides the sparest of glances because she doesn't know if what she said is good enough, or if it's done.

It's everything but the answer to his actual question, but it's enough of an answer that he'll roll with it.

"Fine," he accepts it, not her request but her many statements, and he doesn't sound impressed at all by the way she's been talking, or the way she's holding herself now and keeps avoiding his gaze. He reaches for her hand, and takes it, forcing her body language to open up some. "But you don't walk out on me again."

Fine. She guesses that's what she gets, is that she says all this stuff and she gets a one-word answer, and he still sounds pissed, and she looks up at the ceiling as he takes her hand, and then she finally looks at his face. "Okay," she says, and she sounds tired. "Sometimes I have to just get away because I'm way too angry or something, and I need to be alone, but- but I can tell you that I need to be by myself," she says, and it's the same sort of compromise she'd made with her mom after she'd stayed at the Gilbert's for three days and it took Liz that long to realise she was missing, but when she'd realised she'd been frantic. "Okay?"

"You don't have to tell me everywhere you go," Klaus answers, with a genuine frown of confused disbelief. "And if we fight, feel free to walk out. But don't... do what you did again. Don't sneak out. Don't leave a note."

A break-up note. The very thought of breaking up still doesn't sit well with him, because it's not something that ever really happens to him. But if it's going to happen, it's going to happen to his face.

That does get an eye roll, the first part. "I mean if I'm going to be gone for a while. Sometimes I need... a couple of days, or something." She then pauses. "But I promise. I'll tell you." She's shrugging, and she's tugging her hand from his, because he's still- he's still just brushing over it, and it drives her crazy, sure, and just--

"So that's that, I guess. All out there. So. Yeah." She forces that smile. "Hey, I guess you know now, at least, so that's good, right?" She takes a deep breath, and then-- "I know you're still mad. So. I mean. That's okay. It's okay. You know?" Even though it wasn't really, she was just... done pushing.