Power Plays

by adlyb

Pairing: Klaus/Elena

Rating: R

Spoilers: Alls fair in love and war.

Warnings: Weird underage vibes, canon typical-violence, bloodplay, vampires, etc.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.

Prompt: I wish you would write a fic where Klaus discovers Elena before Stefan introduces himself.

She's on Spring Break in California, visiting her grandmother, when it happens.

Up until this point, it's been a pleasant morning, spent journaling at one of the gorgeous seaside bakeries that dot the coastal town her grandparents had retired to while her grandmother meets with her book club. It's so restful and beautiful here… the perfect break from the inevitable school drama back home… From trying to figure out what it means that whenever Matt tries to kiss her or hold her hand, she'd rather he didn't.

"Katerina."

Something about the name causes her to glance up. To respond.

Elena frowns at the man who takes the seat across from her as though she'd been saving it for him. She's certain she's never seen him before in her life. He's older than her, maybe by ten years, with softly curling blond hair that gleams golden in the sunlight, warm blue eyes, broad shoulders—He's very handsome. If he weren't staring at her so intently, obviously waiting for her to speak, she might even venture into calling him hot.

Except—Katerina. Something about being called by that name sends a tingle of déjà vu racing down her spine, like a rivulet of ice that inexplicably puts her in mind of an open grave, but she can't figure out why. The thought dissolves as soon as she puts her finger on it, and, distracted by the stranger now occupying her table, she forgets about it.

The stranger lounges in the iron café chair, throwing his arm over the back, and appraises her openly. The way his eyes drink her in, lingering overly long on her face, makes her flush with discomfort—and, maybe, alarmingly, a twinge of something else. He really is very attractive.

She realizes all at once that they've been staring at each other in ridiculously charged silence for way too long, and it's bound to be majorly awkward when she announces she's not actually the long lost girlfriend or classmate or whoever he thinks she is. Shit. She clears her throat, and prays she's not blushing when admits, "I think you've got me confused with someone else." She can't quite meet his eyes as she tells him this.

The stranger's brow furrows, for just a second, but then his eyes widen so dramatically that it would be almost comical if he weren't sending out such weirdly intense vibes. A hot, slow smile curls at the corner of his mouth. Her stomach flips at the sight of it.

"Not the line I was expecting you to take, sweetheart," he admits after a beat.

And, oh God, he has an accent—and what a one! Caroline would kill for this guy to come chat her up.

"But I must admit I've missed your games," he continues, oblivious to what the sound of his voice does to her.

This is bad. She should correct this right now. Tell him this is all some huge mix up, thanks, and she'd really like it if he'd leave her alone.

Except, there's just something about him that makes her want to keep him here a little bit longer.

No. Wait. Hit the brakes.

"I'm not your sweetheart."

"Sure you are."

As far as pick-up lines go, it's pretty terrible, but, to Elena's chagrin, she finds that it's working. If she wasn't blushing before, she definitely is now.

Surely this guy must've realized his mistake by now. Must know she's not actually this Katerina. He's probably embarrassed by the mistake, by the presumption of just sitting down at her table, and is just trying to play it cool. She flatters herself enough to think maybe he's sticking around because he's as intrigued by her as she is by him. That he just wants to try his hand at hitting on her a little bit.

Oh, what the hell.

It's not like there's any harm in a little flirtation. What Matt never finds out about can't hurt him anyway.

Elena leans forward and raises an eyebrow. She's just experienced enough to know that the way she holds herself, with her head tipped to the side and her back arched like a cat's, makes her eyes look huge and her neck look longer, makes her cleavage look fuller. "Say I were Katerina," she asks playfully. An illicit thrill shoots up her spine as she lets herself enjoy the role play. "What would you expect me to do?"

"Run." He takes her in. For some reason, the way he looks at her makes her feel like he's seen every inch of her before. Like she's a feast he's enjoyed many times before and savors sampling again. "I'm surprised you haven't already made a break for it."

That tendril of unease whispers through her again. "Why would I do that?" she asks slowly.

That wicked smile again. "Because, Katerina, I have sought you for five centuries, across six continents, through empires and wilderness and ruin. I intend your death to last at least twice so long as that."

Okay. He's not hot. He's deranged.

Elena grabs her purse and jumps up to leave.

Faster than she can track, the stranger lunges forward and grabs hold of her wrist.

"Leaving already?" he asks. There's something low and menacing in his voice, underlaced with a bizarrely suggestive note. Whatever casual air he had projected when he first joined her has been dropped. "Come now, I've missed you."

She yanks at her arm. "Let go."

The stranger pulls her back down, forcing her back into her seat. "Now, now, my dear, I was so enjoying our little chat. 'Twould be a pity to end it so early."

"I'm not this Katerina you're looking for."

He leans back and regards her out of hooded eyes. His gaze is magnetic. Impossible to break away from. "Don't try to escape me again."

"Okay." The word just slips out of her, and her whole body goes loose and limp, just like that. Confusion, and not a little panic, starts to seep in.

He catches up one of her hands, turns it over. Studies the shapes of her fingers, her nails, the way they bend in his grasp. He lifts her fingers to his mouth and softly brushes a kiss over them. Her heart gallops in her chest. She thinks she might throw up. With his other hand, he passes her one of the knives from the table service. "For trying to so rudely take your leave, I want you to stab yourself in the leg with this, and I want you to keep going until I tell you to stop." He considers. "And don't scream. That would upset the other diners." He turns around, then, and casually beckons for the waitress to bring him a cup of coffee.

The knife is sunwarm and light in her fist. She'll have to throw some weight into it if it's going to break the skin.

Horror wells in her gut.

She watches her arm lift the knife as though it is someone else moving, as though she is a puppet, praying her strings will be cut.

The knife swings down and rips through her leg, burying itself deep inside her thigh. Blood spurts from the wound, and a scream claws at her throat, unable to escape. Helplessly, she pulls the blade free, feeling each serrated tooth as it tears at her flesh, and stabs herself again. Again. After the first few times, she shakes so badly that she misjudges where to aim the knife. The blade saws wildly into her thigh, and the wound grows wider, deeper, angrier. Shock drives out the pain, until it is a distant thing. Even her fear turns small, subsumed under the dark necessity to keep going.

A river of blood drips down her leg to puddle at her feet. Her hands grow so slick she drops the knife. It clatters to the ground, drawing the stranger's attention away from stirring cream and sugar into his coffee.

With trembling hands, she leans forward to pick up the knife. The motion stretches the wound in her leg, but what had been a lancing pain has settled into a dull throb. She tries to wrap her fingers around the slim handle of the blade, but it slips from her fingers. Frustrated tears stream down her face. She has to keep going.

The stranger picks the knife up for her, but he doesn't hand it over.

All at once Elena realizes that he's staring at her leg.

"You're not healing," he says with blank disbelief.

"I've been stabbing myself," she points out, because apparently he's both psychotic and an idiot.

His jaw literally goes slack. He stares at her like a deer in the headlights.

Elena frowns at him, and, realizing that she's been freed from her awful directive, she fumbles to clamp down on the wound. Her stomach churns violently when her fingers slide clumsily against the injury. She thinks she might faint.

The stranger visibly gathers himself in, before darting forward and knocking her hands out of the way to examine her leg. Elena tries to swat him off of her, but all he does is grab hold of her wrist and lick at the blood coating her fingers.

He swears viciously. Paces, turns back to her. "You're human!" He flings this at her like an accusation. Around them, the other customers are starting to look their way.

"What else would I be?" she mutters under her breath.

"But that's impossible!"

What she wants more than anything in the world is to get up and leave right now, but every time she tells herself to move, it's like all of her muscles lock in place and she's just frozen.

She takes deep, calming breaths. Surely, she'll wake up any moment now.

Resolve settles over the stranger. And then—something strange happens to his face, but it's hard to tell because she's bleeding so much and it's hard to focus on anything but trying to stop it. Then the stranger lifts his wrist to his mouth, and he must bite himself, because before she knows it he's waving a bloody wound in front of her face. "Drink up, now, sweetheart. You'll feel much better for it."

Elena turns her head away and tries to duck under his arm, but he tangles his fingers in her hair and forces her lips onto him, and she can't breathe, not unless she opens her mouth— Which of course she does, eventually, and she has to force down the well of panic that bursts inside of her at the first taste of his blood, which somehow doesn't track with her experience of sucking blood from her own cuts over the years at all, because she just knows there are about a million blood-borne diseases she's going to have to be tested for if she ever manages to give this horrible guy the slip. He makes creepy eye contact the entire time he forces her to drink his blood. What the fuck what the fuck what the actual fuck.

Why is no one coming to help her? Can't they see what's unfolding before their very eyes?

After an actual eternity, he lifts his hand away and wipes a smudge of what can only be his blood off of her mouth. "You're not Katerina," he says, with terrible import.

"I keep telling you I'm not."

"What, pray, is your name?"

She scoffs. "I'm not telling you."

He smiles, and it chills her to her core. "After I've gone through the trouble of healing your leg!"

Elena glances down at her leg and has to do a double take. She wipes at what had been a gaping wound oozing blood only moments ago and finds only clean, whole skin beneath the blood. Her thigh isn't even tender. An impossible understanding begins to coalesce in the back of her mind.

"Rot in hell," she spits, to cover up her severe unease. Her voice only wobbles a little bit.

The stranger actually laughs at her. "Ah! I do enjoy your spirt." He catches her eyes again in that uncomfortable web he'd caught her in earlier. "Now. Let us try this once more. Tell me your name."

"Elena."

"Elena! Lovely name. You may call me Klaus." He takes her hand in his and helps her stand. Draws her intimately against his side. Absolutely beams at her. "We're going to accomplish so very much together."