Requested by galvanizedfriend (Yokan) on tumblr prompt: He was rage and hellfire unleashed. His voice dripped with sarcasm. He could talk like sugar or spit venom.

Post TVD finale. Everything is canon, but everyone lives. Fair warning, jealous angry angst ahead. I'm sorry, friend – this is probably the exact OPPOSITE of what you wanted! But huzzah, this is my first piece of writing that isn't a small drabble in FOREVER? I'm very rusty. Please be kind.

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see honey, i saw love

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A Klaus scorned is a Klaus unlike any other. An island on his own, violent waves all around. A lot of wet rocks.

Caroline tries to soothe, usually. She never really has to try. A hand rested on his jaw is enough to calm him. A press of her forehead to his. A lingering gaze, maybe. She never has to want for his tenderness; he comes to her willingly.

Other times he disappears.

Tonight is one of those times.

Caroline wakes to the sound of a banging door, pounding feet, and the green shiver of the woods surrounding their home.

She knows Klaus is claw deep in mud now, running in the wild.

She cannot stop him. She cannot find him.

She waits, on the porch, her earl grey getting cold. Morning comes.

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"I'm not in the mood, please—" How he manages courtesies confounds him, still, but she's just the soft curves of a woman right now, no sign of vampire, no smell of blood. The curl of her hair invades him, he closes his eyes, tries not to put any force when he shrugs her circling hands off his shoulders. "Love, please—"

"Klaus," she says, softly. "Let me."

He sighs. "Not now."

"Look, Klaus – no, open your eyes – it was nothing, alright? We had to meet—"

"With what cause do you even have to see him anymore? Your days of trying to kill me are over."

"You're misunderstanding."

"You. Are not seeing."

"Klaus."

"You still smell of him." His movements are brisk now. He turns away, he's on the other end of the room now, hand around the doorknob. "I know it from a mile away. It hasn't changed a bit all these centuries."

"Klaus, Stefan and I are not—"

At the mention of his name he swings the door open and steps out of the room. "My patience only runs so thin, sweetheart."

"Stefan was worried—"

"I worry!" he shouts. She stills. "Is that not enough?"

"He's my best friend," she says quietly. "Was."

Klaus regards her coldly. "He was mine, too."

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Stefan and Klaus had met in New Orleans, apparently.

And Klaus hadn't liked what he'd found in his old friend. Caroline doesn't know anything more than that.

"I did him a favour," Klaus allows this bit of information whenever she needles too much. "Just the one. He hasn't wasted it yet."

"How do you know?" she presses.

"He is still alive, no?"

And Caroline would have an unexplainable look on her face then. It boils his insides.

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Klaus had been the one who'd changed her mind about having the twins. Klaus helped her rediscover a love, a new kind of love, and he puts his hands to her stomach sometimes, imagining. And Klaus' voice had been the only one who managed to lull Lizzie to sleep. At first she keeps him on the phone by the twins' cribs, his voice talking softly into her child's ears. Some months later he shows up at her door, and kisses her. Oh, how he kisses her.

That night he holds Lizzie in his arms for the first time and she opens her eyes.

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He could even be tender when fucking her.

It shouldn't be called fucking, really, it was something more than that. Something that blooms languorous and slow. He puts his hand to her throat, she rests a palm on his chest. The world is quieter here.

She knows the betrayal. It wasn't just a betrayal of skin, it wasn't as if Klaus had just marked her his and left it at that. She had accepted him, chose him. He had come to her willingly.

And she had spoken to Stefan.

"I had to know," she whispers into the woods, flashlight shining uselessly. "I had to know what you did, Klaus."

It seems as if the forest is trembling around her.

"You told him to leave me. Why, Klaus? Why did you make me think he didn't love me anymore? The exit was so swift, Klaus! I was alone! And you – " her breath catches in her throat, "- you didn't come for me until months after that."

She hears the muted sound of a wolf's howl.

"I want to know why, damnit!" she screams into the darkness.

She senses something heavy and feral bounding towards her.

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His wolf tackles her to the ground, crushes the wind out of her. It growls in her face, it pulls a scream and a struggle from her. "Klaus, stop it!"

There's the sound of shifting bones and Klaus in his human form is on top of her now, breathing heavily, looking at her so darkly.He looks like a rage that had been undone. A hellfire in his eyes. When his lips parted, she didn't know if his voice would drip sarcasm or spill sugar into her. His breath warms her parted mouth and she tries not to taste the venom of his lingering wolf teeth.

"Klaus," she says raggedly. "You took my choice away from me."

"He left me no choice," he whispers back. "He did not love you as he should have."

"And you do?" Caroline tries to sit up, but his arms cage her. She pushes harder. He lets go.

"Are you not happy with where you are now?"

"Knowing it's all fabricated?"

"Do not insult me. You're upset over a different reason." He grabs her chin when she sees sign of a wavering gaze. "You're upset because you'd had a forbidden thought."

She clenches her teeth and gets to her feet now, clapping dirt off her arms. "You don't know anything."

Klaus matches her stance. They circle each other in the woods.

"But I know you. I know you in your marrow. You're afraid about those lingering feelings you still have of Stefan. Wondering if I hadn't intercepted, would you still be in domestic bliss with him?" He scoffs. "Sorry to break it to you, sweetheart, but you never knew bliss until me."

"I could have come to you willingly."

"I was taking a shortcut."

"It was unfair."

"It's also been sixteen years, love – get over it."

Caroline seethes. "Why are you the one angry here?"

"Because he still loves you, and you are weakened by him!"

"That's not true!" she shoves him. She shoves him, he allows himself to stumble back into a tree.

They are very close to losing each other now.

"I loved you," Klaus says accusingly.

"Do not say it like it's in past tense, you dramatic asshole." She shoves him again. This time, he wraps his hands around her wrists. "What you mean to say is you trusted me."

"Of course I did."

"I'm sorry I spoke to him without letting you know. I should have discussed it with you. We are one," Caroline says, and she stares into his eyes so hard that he loses track of a second.

"We are," Klaus says, and a deep breath enters his lungs.

Caroline's expression softens. "My heart changed a long time ago, Klaus. I didn't think it still affected you."

"Everything about you affects me," Klaus says with a small tilt of his mouth.

"I'm sorry it does," she says, and pauses before brushing him a kiss.

Klaus can't help but return it: Soon she is the one pushed against the tree. "Don't be," he murmurs. "Do you want to take this fight inside?"

Caroline pouts. "I don't want this to be a fight anymore."

"Yes, sweetheart," he obliges.

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A Klaus soothed is a different side of him. Not bad. Just different. He gifts him his submission. She pulls him to her breast, holds him there. And then they make love.

When he enters her, it is with a painful sort of relief and it pours out of her bones, turning her liquid. She turns them over and moves her hips so slowly he almost whimpers. "I feel like I've missed your warmth for years," he says breathlessly.

"Do not do that to me again," Caroline says. Her nails dig into his chest. "You shouldn't be so wild inside. I'm here. I am not going anywhere." She tries to reason with a joke, "It's too late."

Klaus frowns, but there's laughter in his eyes. "I thought we discussed that any time before the girls enter college is fair game?"

"Obviously I was lying," she replies. Her pace quickens. Klaus groans.

"Since we're being honest now," Klaus says, "So was I."

He takes one of her hands and presses a kiss to her palm. She leans down and replaces her palm with her own lips. If Caroline tells him anything now, he will believe it with his whole heart.

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fin

argh. i know. sorry.