A/N: I apologize for my prolonged absence. I've had a writing dry spell lately for anything other than RPing so yeah. not to mention school and life are just blehs. but. here i am, drowning in feels after that on point TO episode. so, basically don't look at me because it's all Klayley and KLARCELLL and Klebekah and Klelijah and Davina/Marcel and the Harvest and werewolves and resurrected witches I CANNOT.

This is very dialogue heavy, minimal thoughts but these two internalized idiots are hard to get a read on. particularly when they're together. I hope you enjoy, nonetheless:)

Disclaimer: I don't own The Originals but it'd be a dream come true if my word vomit got on screen somehow.

And in a burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of tempered grace
Falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms

~ Iridescent | Linkin Park~
(Acoustic by Gavin Mikhail)

1x11: Après Moi, Le Déluge

It's late by the time she walks through the gates and back into the home she considers a prison.

He doesn't look up from where he's sitting at a table in the midst of the destruction littering the courtyard, from both the storm and Marcel's grief-induced wrath. In fact, he's more than content in letting her continue on her way, wander up the stairs and to her room to leave him to his drinking.

"You have no idea how badly I wish I could join you."

The hybrid sighs and looks up as Hayley sits down opposite of him, looking just as worse for the wear as he does, he's sure.

"I'll be sure to turn back a bottle for you then, little wolf," he slurs, reaching for the near-empty bottle, raising it in a toast before tipping it back.

Uneasy silence consumes the courtyard, falling between them as Klaus places the now-empty bottle back on the iron-wrought table and simply stares, unseeingly ahead into the glass. His thoughts and failures consume him, eat him from the inside out. It's a rare show, even rarer considering his audience but for reasons he can't explain, he feels comfortable wallowing in the aftermath in front of her. It's certainly a better alternative to sitting here by his lonesome, drowning in sorrows he doesn't want to feel, sorrows he shouldn't feel. And a far better outcome than retiring to his room only to be haunted by Marcel's grief, Rebekah's grief, Elijah's grief, his own grief behind heavily-closed eyelids.

"You okay?"

Once more, Hayley's voice pulls him from his thoughts and he lifts his weary gaze, resurfacing from the nothingness he wants to succumb to and meet her sad olive eyes. He only nods at first, stiff movements before he finally releases a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

(If only it'd alleviate some the weight that's settled on his shoulders and in his chest, strangling his cold heart.)

"Peachy," he says, the word falling like a dead wight from his lips as he reaches forward again to pull yet another unopened bottle of whiskey his way, not bothering with a glass. "Never better." He pauses, fingering the smooth glass clasped tightly in his hand. "Are you?"

She laughs, hollow and humorless and Klaus decides he doesn't like the dissonant sound tumbling from her lips. He's heard her laugh, her honest laugh and this isn't it but he doesn't comment. There's no need to. "I don't think I've ever been okay."

"I'll drink to that. On both of our behalves," he adds hastily before taking a long pull from the bottle, closing his eyes against the burn of the amber liquid as it slithers down his throat. "I take it from Elijah's lonely return not thirty minutes ago you didn't heed my advice?"

"No, I did."

"He'll come around, the stubborn git he is. Let him sleep it off and you two'll be chummy as ever in the morning."

"There are somethings I don't think even he can forgive."

Klaus quirks a brow in her direction. "Sweetheart, I've spent the better half of a thousand years trying to make my insufferable brother piss off and leave me be. If he can forgive even half the sins I've committed against him, then forgiving you shouldn't prove too difficult a task for him."

"You sure?"

He peers into the olive depths of her eyes and takes a moment to really look at the fetching little wolf-girl who's weaseled her way into his life and, unbeknownst to her, to anyone really, carved a secret place out for herself in his heart. He finds himself swimming in the bright pools, drowning in her sorrow and hope and anxiety. Reaching across the table, his calloused thumb soothes over smooth knuckles in the briefest of touches, the smallest of butterfly kisses. "I promise. Not that you seem to take much store by my word."

A small smile pulls at her lips and she removes her hand from underneath his own to swipe at a stray tear that's run down her cheek. "How's Marcel?"

Phantom touches of the embrace he shared with his protege, his son, tickle his shoulders; even now he can feel Marcel's fingers clench the fabric of his shirt, the tears staining his skin. He shakes his head, takes a shaky breath, and takes another drink from his bottle. "It's fortunate he has better coping mechanisms than I do."

Her brows crease as she looks over him. "What do you mean by that?"

"As you know, when Elijah, Rebekah and I fled this city we believed Marcel to be dead. We each mourned him but...I," he pauses to take a deep breath, "I was reckless in my grief. I've told you Marcel was like a son to me and though I've been privy enough to witness the murders of two of my younger brothers, the loss I felt over Marcellus' supposed death...was nearly unparalleled to any grief I'd known."

"So you took it out on innocents?"

Klaus looks up, ready to glare but her voice is soft, her eyes only seek to understand, not hate or ridicule and he swallows thickly. "I killed and killed in an utterly fruitless attempt to feel anything other than such crippling loss and left a trail of bodies in my wake, significant enough to endanger both myself and Rebekah. Though Elijah thought it wise to split from Rebekah and myself in an attempt to draw Mikael off, he stayed close enough behind to clean up the mess without raising suspicion. It took me years to even consider coming to terms with the fact I'd lost someone so important to me and it's fortunate Marcellus has a support system surrounding him. To see him go through...," he trails off, once more looking away from the she-wolf and he rapidly searches for something else to focus on lest he give in to his own grief here, out in the open for everyone to see.

With Hayley sitting so close, it doesn't take long for the thrumming heartbeat to infiltrate his senses, lull his breathing and raging emotions plaguing his head and heart.

"I couldn't stop thinking of her today," he says quietly after he's taken another lengthy pull from the bottle and regained his composure. He nods towards her belly when Hayley pulls her brows together in confusion. "During that whole Harvest ordeal, while I was trying to comfort Marcel...I could only think how it would feel...," he pauses to take a deep breath before continuing, "Marcel wasn't Davina's father anymore than I was his own but that loss...I wouldn't want to know what it would feel like to lose-"

"Stop."

Yet another heavy sigh bleeds into the space between them. "Forgive me...I just can't help but- You know I will do everything in my power to ensure we never know that pain."

"I do."

Another pause. The heaviness surrounding them is dissipates like a fog that's settled over water. It's still thick and present but it's clearer now, as clear as his alcohol-deluded vision will get, anyways.

"I think you've had enough for the night," Hayley says, reaching across the table and pulling the bottle from his hand. "I don't know how to deal with you being sappy and sentimental and everything that's...not Klaus. Kinda makes me uncomfortable."

The corners of Klaus' lips twitch upwards for a fraction of a second as she stands and he expects her to bid him goodnight and walk away as he continues to stare into nothingness, concentrating on the turned-over chair mere feet away as a reminder of the pain and the grief, the loss still sitting freshly on his mind.

He flinches slightly when Hayley's hand comes to rest on his shoulder, the other curled around his bicep.

"I may be a werewolf but if you seriously think I'm about to haul your drunk ass to bed without some cooperation you've got another thing coming."

"Alright, alright." He pushes himself up from the uncomfortable chair he'd been occupying for god only knows how long and sways on his feet slightly.

"You would think a thousand year old hybrid could hold his liquor better," she says.

"I'd like to see the last time you'd finished si-seven...seven bottles of liquor in one sitting, little wolf."

He falls into step beside her, not questioning the unnecessary arm she has draped about his narrow waist. Instead he leans into her touch slightly, happy to have someone at his side.

Before he realizes it, they're standing toe to toe in front of his bedroom door with only the swell of her belly between them. "It'll be okay, Klaus," she murmurs quietly.

The hybrid nods. "Eventually, I have no doubt."

She smiles softly up at him and pulls him in for a hug, yet another moment he'd never expected. And even more surprising, he wraps an arm around the small of her back, holding her tightly as he buries his nose into the crook of her neck, her face pressed into his shoulder.

It's a brief gesture but he finds comfort in it nonetheless.

"Good night, little wolf," he tells her before disappearing into the confines of his bedroom, listening to her tread wearily down the hall until he hears the soft click of a door.

A/N: meep. it's weird not writing them being all hateful lol. I'm sure we're not quite past that in canon and I'd honestly be sad if we lost their heated arguments and bitchy attitudes about each other. but it's very, very nice to have a scene between them that's nice and gives us room for future develops with the werewolves omg. and I guess the baby too but I've resigned myself to the fact Princess Mikaelson-Marshall probs ain't gonna make it. so werewolvesssss.

anyways, I hope you enjoyed! sorry they both probably seem OOC but Klaus is drunk and Hayley's had a pretty rough go of it herself, bless their hearts.

so it's 3 am and I need to go to bed since I have no self-control when it comes to writing these things. thanks for reading and please review if you have a second, lovelies:)