EDITED. Thanks a million to rainbowroom for all the help. :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A hundred percent heart-wrenching-salt-to-the-wound angst. You've been warned.

A deep dent scars the wall from where he hurled the table earlier and flutters of plaster are falling like hail from the ceiling. Pieces of furniture lay splintered, carpeting the wooden floor, and the smashed windows creak violently as a gust of cold wind rushes in.

The living room is in a dire state of ruin that it's wrong to even call it a living room.

And in the middle of it all, Stefan stands still as unwrinkled water. The only ripple comes from the cellphone vibrating relentlessly in his hand and after a moment, he clenches his fist tighter around it until it breaks, his own blood beginning to seep through his fingers.

He lets himself bleed. He will heal after all. Yet, it's sad, almost a cruel thing, that vampire healing can only do so much.

He knows nothing else will ease away the pain from that invisible stake in his chest, that phantom vervain soaking his heart. Everything aches underneath unmarred skin. Just because it's not bleeding, does not mean it doesn't hurt.

"Stefan."

A voice speaks and for a moment he wishes it were hers. Her sweet voice calling him, choosing him. Damon let her go and now she's torn between blaming him and wanting him back. He wishes she chose to want him back.

"Stefan."

The voice becomes clearer and his knees give way, slumping down the hard wood.

"How..." He chokes, his eyes beseeching her blue ones. "How many more ways can she rip my heart out?"

Elena. Katherine. His doe-eyed downfall. His damned heart beguiled and shattered over and over again. Why does he have fall in love with her? Always her?

And this time he lets his tears fall freely as Caroline takes his shaking body into her arms, holding him as if he were the most fragile thing in the world. He doesn't have to pretend he's not breaking, with this fair angel tirelessly trying to pick him up and put him back.

His best friend.

His Caroline.

His.

"I wish it was you."

"I wish it was you." Stefan repeats, cradling her confused face in his hands.

And then he kisses her. Fiercely. Like she's the air that he breathes and he would suffocate if he stops.

"Stefan."

"Please." He pleads when her small hands push him back.

Oh how he will hurt her so.

But let him be selfish. Just this once.

An infinitesimal glint of surrender flashes in her eyes and with a thundering kiss, he melts away her remaining resolve.

Kissing Elena is a bow to the earth but kissing Caroline is an embrace to the sea.

And as he pins her down to the floor and rips her dress to shreds, he will drown himself to her touches. He will drink all she has to give and he will sink to the deepest of depths until everything is washed away by the tide of her kisses.

Caroline trails a hand on his bare back, committing every contour to memory. The plane of his shoulders. The dip of his waist. The curve of his spine.

From beside her, Stefan lies sleeping, unperturbed.

It's funny because she's had dreams of this. Waking up next to him.

She has loved Stefan for such a long time, she cannot even remember a time when she hadn't. It's a given. He's a mentor, a best friend, a brother... He's all she's ever wanted, all she's ever needed. Stefan is good. Stefan is safe. And in her desperate need to be complete, to rid of her fears and insecurities, it is Stefan—good ol' perfect Stefan Salvatore—that will fill that persistent void in her dead heart.

And for once, he needed her too. Just this once.

But then the illusion shatters.

From around her, the chaos of last night slowly materializes. She feels vulnerable in her nakedness and the tiny debris on the floor begins digging against her back. It hurts.

And from beside her, Stefan lies sleeping, unperturbed.

She sits bolt upright and gathers what remains of her dress; her dignity. And as she sees herself out quietly, picking a bottle of bourbon on the way, she cannot help but to think of the countless of ways he's going to reject her.

With his signature shrug, he will tell her he's sorry.

With the creasing of his forehead, he will tell her that it was a mistake.

With the forest of his eyes speaking volumes, he will tell her it's Elena. It will always be Elena.

And she knows for sure she will always answer him with a bubbly-vampire-barbie-eternal-best friend stock phrase, "It's okay" or "I understand", even though it's not okay and she can never understand, and it hurts. It hurts like hell.

Yet from inside the house, Stefan lies sleeping, unperturbed.

At her own house, Klaus is perching on her windowsill, that perpetual smirk on his face. She had done a good job bypassing her mother but there's really no winning with this hybrid.

"You reek of alcohol." is how he greets her, his voice neutral.

"And Stefan." He adds under his breath.

She doesn't miss it.

"Go away." She retorts, peeling away her shirt without a mind about him. She wants nothing more than a hot shower and, well... His wandering eyes don't faze her anymore.

He then creeps up from behind her, his calloused palm sweeping away the waterfall of her hair, and with a flick of a wrist and her bra falls out from her arms, landing on the wood with a deafening thud. He reaches over her for the dresser, grabbing a band, and with the gentlest of hands, proceeds to tie her curls.

Stolen, unadulterated moments like this makes everything feel oddly domestic and sentimental but of course they are anything but domestic and sentimental so she won't say that out loud.

"Love is a weakness." He whispers so quietly she almost misses it. She throws a tentative glance at him through the mirror and as always, he has that look all over his face. Like she is the only thing in the world that matters to him.

No.

Like she is the world to him.

With a sudden rush of brazenness, she turns her head to meet his ardent gaze. "Then, I'd rather be weak."

And then he's kissing her.

His kisses are always violent and dominating and if it were any other day, she would yank his sandy curls at once and admonish him with her eyes. She hates handing him the reins of their...fucking although he knows that she knows he loves it as well when she takes charge.

But that's all there is to this.

A power play.

A scratching of an itch.

Nothing more.

Nothing more. She repeats in her head for good measure.

Today, she lets him have his way. She is boneless against his bruising kiss and it almost feels good. Almost as if he is licking her raw wounds and scraping away all her mistakes. All her guilt.

Almost.

By some glitch in her brain, it is still Stefan whom she sees beneath her eyelids. It's Stefan's lips she feels ghosting against her skin when Klaus noses the underside of her jaw. Stefan and his bushy eyebrows and his green green eyes.

And then she is crying. She doesn't know why but somehow that made her want to cry.

Maybe it's something about how the prison of his arms instantly loosens around her and how he cradles her almost protectively against his chest. Klaus can be the roughest man she's ever been with yet he knows pretty damn well when to be soft when she needs him to be soft and gentle and caring and everything else he's not supposed to be.

And it puzzles her but she hates being puzzled because it provokes questions. Questions she'd rather ignore and tuck away. Questions that should be better off unanswered.

Like, why hasn't she fallen in love with him?

After all, she has come to build her niche in his arms, christen the constellation of moles on his neck and memorize the dips of his dimples, just as he has made his claim on every inch of her but her heart.

All but her heart.

It's truly a curious thing how this girl can fall asleep in the arms of the most dangerous creature on the planet.

Of course, the bath had been helpful to the equation. Her eyelids had been inching to drop from when he plunged them both into the tub full of soap to when she nestled on the expanse of his chest, her wet curves slithering sinfully against him. The next thing he knew she was snoring faintly on the crook of his neck and it took him impossible amount of restraint to suppress his less decent intentions and to carry them both to bed.

Hands clawing everything they touch and blonde hair fanning wildly about, she is a raging wildfire in between the sheets. But in her sleep, she is a work of art. And Klaus could only admire her parted lips, her chest undulating with every breath, her long lashes running for endless of miles...

It's like when one sees his first Da Vinci. That sudden overloading of the senses that makes you feel your heart is going to burst right out of your chest.

Oh, bittersweet Stendhal syndrome.

She is the most beautiful thing he has ever beheld that he wants to destroy something. He could kill Stefan. No. He could kill Elena. Or Damon. He could kill anyone in this pathetic little town for causing just a ripple of sadness in the pool of her eyes.

He loves her too much it's selfish.

He wants to tie her hands to his. Hide her in his arms and shut her off from the world just to save her incandescent light.

He knew he was doomed the first time he laid eyes on her. Like a moth entranced to the flame. He had met countless of other women, even fancied himself in love with some of them, yet not a single one has made him feel like his whole life, his thousand years of existence, was nothing but an insignificant prelude to meeting her eyes. She's impossible to resist, he's been living in the darkness far too long.

He loves her so selfishly, he is at his most selfless.

He wants all of her if he can, but now he's satisfied with just picking up the chips that fall in his hand. This is his Caroline: Fragmented. Broken.

He'll lick the trail of her blood.

He'll caress the cracks and kiss the splinters.

He'll love her in pieces.

Just as she did that night when, as he stood red against the snow, she wiped the blood off of his hands and looked at him as if he would never be infinitely and utterly alone again.

He knows then in that moment he will readily give up everything—everything—just to have this girl.

But of course he will not say that out loud.

"Why have I fallen in love at all?" Klaus murmurs, placing the lightest kiss on her forehead. And before he closes his eyes, he wonders such a curious thing it is how the most dangerous creature on the planet can fall asleep in this girl's arms.

.

.

.

.

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A/N:

I imagined this happened some time after 4x09. Klaus didn't kill Carol in my head canon and instead went to Caroline and, well... Things happened. Then came Stefan, weaving a much more complicated web.

This was supposed to be part of my drabble series, I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, but alas, it does not belong there. This is Klefaroline territory and it deserves its own place.

Thank you for your time, you guys. :)