i see a storm bubbling up from the sea

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of The Vampire Diaries.

Note: For those of you looking for that dark!Klaroline, this has been swirling around my head for over a week, and I hope it sort of fits the bill. You know, Klaus's evil side and all that. Rated T for frank mention of pretty non-con sexual activity.

He's little preoccupied with red to be bothered to care when the front door opens.

Red hair.

Red mouth.

Red slip, sliding down her collar.

"Get off her!"

Klaus is jerked away from lunch before he can bring the voice's owner to mind. But he's fast, millennia faster than whoever this is—he catches the smell of lavender and blonde curls he'd know anywhere—but even Klaus is a little surprised to find Caroline Forbes' slim throat beneath his hand not three seconds later.

"Well that was rude."

She does not squirm. She glares, her dainty hand wrapped fast around the wrist holding her against the wall. He is acutely aware of every pad of her fingertips.

He licks his lips and smiles.

"If you wanted to join in, darling, all you'd have to do is ask."

"You make me sick," Caroline spits, even the bob of her throat angry against Klaus' palm as she says the words. "What, are you compelling her to want you?"

He feigns hurt. "Are you doubting my charm?"

"Completely."

"It is easier, sometimes," the Original concedes, enjoying the renewed flush of Caroline's cheeks as she gapes. "Makes everything smoother."

"And I suppose when you don't kill them, you just let them walk away with no memory, no explanation for the bruises?"

Klaus narrows his eyes. "Would you prefer that I let them remember the monster who drank blood from their throats?"

"Better than no memory at all," she bites back. "Better than not knowing why you're covered in teeth marks all the time, only that you have to cover them up, don't tell anyone, never tell anyone. Just want more."

Something in her tone piques his interest. Klaus tilts his head, the unasked question caught in her eyes as she turns her head away from his.

"I could to you, you know. If you prefer. If you value trivial human memory so much." He presses closer, sliding his free hand up her thigh and pleased at the way their bodies shift together, at the slight hitch of her breath. "I could make you want me."

When Caroline looks up again, Klaus surprised. There is no fear there. There is fury.

"You'd be better off staking me."

His head snaps to the side from the force of her hand, and she pushes, hard, so hard that Klaus lets her go. Caroline breaks away from him and makes immediately for the girl, sitting up now on the couch and looking a cross between blissfully vacant and blankly horrified.

He saw her in the town square, her with her long legs, bright red hair and bottle green eyes. If Elijah were here he'd be waxing poetic about the art of forgetting.

If Elijah were here Klaus would have probably have thrown him into the garden.

"Hey, here drink this, you'll feel better." He hears, rather than sees Caroline tear into the skin of her wrist. "I know it's freaky. Just trust me, okay?" Klaus watches her back as she offers her blood.

The sight of anyone drinking from Caroline fills him with this strange, irrational anger. He is never sure what his brain is doing around her, only now sure that it is dangerous.

"Give me your shirt. Can't have you going home like that, can we?"

Caroline is sliding her own shirt over her head and for the longest moment nothing exists but the curve of her spine and the paleness of her skin. Klaus recalls very vividly the incident with Meredith Fell and the smooth indent of her pelvic bone.

Something lurches in his gut.

"Go home, lay low for a few days, kay? You might be coming down with something, just nip it in the bud to be safe."

The girl gets up to leave, and just as she turns the corner Klaus has a thought.

"I could just kill her now."

Caroline's spine goes rigid as she rises in bloodstained clothing. "You could," she says, the words clipped. She goes to leave and he thinks about stopping her. He thinks about pinning her to the floor and baring his fangs and reminding both of them who he is, because it seems like Klaus has forgotten.

"You're capable of a lot of things, Klaus."

Caroline watches him watch her hand as it runs over her ribcage. It is difficult to fathom the Klaus that saved her life (again), the scars that aren't there, against the Klaus that takes a girl on a couch, and her blood that stains Caroline's fingertips. She does not know, as he does not know, which version is real.

Or if either is at all.

"I had a dream that you took me to Paris," Caroline says softly, and that something from before lurches again. "It was nice." Her expression darkens. "But then you started killing tourists and just...piled the bodies beneath the Eiffel Tower. And you know what the worse part was?"

The pair of them lock eyes. Hers are cold. Klaus isn't sure why it bothers him so much.

"We both know you're capable of that."

And then she disappears, leaving him with the distinctly insufferable feeling of having disappointed someone.

Author's Note: So? Thoughts on my attempt at dark!Klaroline?

Annie