setting: s2 au

warning: slightly nsfw

summary: His tongue traces the words down her spine/ or the one where klaus and hayley runaway together.―-KlausHayley (au after s1)

I think we're like the wind and sea

"and the story's all over
in the morning, i'll call you
can't you find a clue
when your eyes are all
painted sinatra blue."

―Bon Iver, The Wolves (Act I And II)

His tongue traces the words down her spine.

He hovers over her, and as always, he feels massive behind her. Klaus's large frame is closing in around her shoulders, making her feel delicate and little. It puzzles her, since she's never felt little before. At least, not before she met him. Every other man prior to Klaus, they've all been tamed, controlled, wrapped around her little finger.

But Klaus—

"You are infinitely," he looks lost, broken and…caring. She's not used to it, his kind side, so right away, Hayley rejects his advances.

"Don't," she desperately tells him, "please, just don't say it."

Instead, he traces the words down her spine.

Beautiful, he writes it in to her skin as she turns away from him, breaking their gaze.

; ;

Before her, Klaus doesn't think that he's ever been a true coward. His father called him out for his fears, long ago, although his siblings assured him that he was brave for choosing to escape. However, knowing Hayley, his bond with her, it makes him weak. Her presence has forced him to run, to seek a place which would make him feel less frightened and damaged. He wanted to feel whole. And yet, she chose to follow him in to the blackness.

They were both blind to each other's destructive nature.

Even so, they made quite the pretty pair.

; ;

"You've never asked me to leave," she tells him, one night while lying next to him in bed. "Tell me why." Hayley orders.

He, subconsciously, looks towards her neck. Looks for the scar which ran along her throat, the old mark the witch left on her skin, back when she was still a wolf. Back when he took her dead body in to his arms, cried in to her chest and dragged her towards the candlelight.

He'd thought that he'd lost her for good.

All the same, here she is, before him, hand resting on his calf and rushing up to his knee.

Tell me, please Klaus, Hayley pleads, I need to know why. If he keeps her for the same reasons that she keeps him. If he's ever wondered what his life would be like without her. If that thought alone ever managed to frighten him beyond words.

Klaus watches the moon rise behind her; the window allows the light to seep in, casting a glow over her olive skin.

I need you, he doesn't tell her, as he grabs her by the hand and winds up on top of her. Once he kisses her, Hayley manages to forget her questions all together.

; ;

Afterwards, her long, lithe fingers dance upon his spine and he finally manages to ask her his pressing question.

"Do you think about it, ever?" Klaus asks, fingers tracing a line across her throat. "About how you died, I mean." He adds on while she gives him a blank stare.

He's never told her this, but he felt endlessly lost the moment the knife was swept across her neck. Hayley doesn't see it; he's got this pokerface which no one can crack. The wolf girl, on the other hand, is so very transparent. Her body is different, he decides. She has no more scars, her skin mends wounds without leaving any traces, but sometimes, he looks at her as though he can see them anyway.

Sometimes, she thinks he must.

"Do I ever think about my death?" She repeats, as he nods his head. Hayley rests a hand on his chest, just above his heart. "I think about it all the time." She bitterly tells him, and Klaus realizes that some scars never heal (or at least, never on their own).

; ;

When they're out of words, her hands find themselves crawling closer towards him. Her index finger begins to poke at the hollow of his throat, running a line over his chest, tickling the patch of blond hairs trailing down from his navel, to the strings of his shorts and pulls them free.

Klaus thrusts his hips forward at her careful touch and finally, Hayley licks her lips. Her smirk, it causes an odd sensation inside of him. Suddenly he no longer feels so numb. Instead, Klaus feels fire, running inside his veins as his blood begins to boil.

Too easy, she whispers, in a breathy voice.

Strangely, Hayley gets his dead heart to start racing inside his chest as her fingers dig in to his shorts, running along his length, swirling around the tip and making him groan in impatience.

Klaus releases a shuddering breath once she pulls his shorts down and presses her lips against his cock.

God, it hasn't felt like this in so long.

; ;

The inevitable comes knocking at his door one day, metaphorically speaking, of course.

"I can't stay here anymore," she announces, as her bags are already packed and she's headed out the door. The cabin they'd been staying at was abandoned, Klaus had assured her this. They were lucky that the others had yet to find them.

Without thought, Klaus grabs her hand and pulls her back. "Why?" He angrily asks, voice harsher and louder than ever before.

"You know why," Hayley calmly says.

Klaus shakes his head. "No," he tells her, "you don't need to leave, Elijah said he would take care of everything, of the town, of the quarrels, of the—"

"Elijah can't do this alone!"

Her scream, it surprises him, so much so that Klaus ends up silent and wide-eyed.

Hayley grabs the rest of her things and heads out. "This is our mess too, Klaus." She says, as a tear escapes her eye.

I'm sorry, he hears her say, while he releases her hand. Hayley turns to see the broken look on his face. She hopes, she prays, that he'll chase after her.

(Deep inside, Hayley knows that he won't).

; ;

And every full moon, he suffers, he grieves, and he screams for her return.

His howls are unheard of, at this point, as Hayley sits by Elijah's side, gazing at the sky, lost in her thoughts.

As it turns out, this isn't the ending that any of them had wished for. Still, it is an ending at best.

Hayley doesn't know how much longer she can pretend.

notes: sorry for the repost, had to revamp this fic, the title just didn't seem right. Anyway, I'd love to hear what you think about this fic? Let me know in a review!