brightestlight | I do what I waaaaant.

I do what I waaaaant.

Caroline didn't have much preamble when she walked into their suite, a bottle in her hand. "We need to talk, and you need a drink." She moved to pour him one without hesitation, looking back at him over her shoulder. She knew that the last thing he'd wanted to do was go to the party, and while she'd wanted to try and get out because even with his sort of not-super-overwhelming questions, she's been avoiding the answers, the times that she's actually not just straight up changed the subject.

Which, he's not exactly been super communicative, either. It'd been a lot of both of them totally ignoring the matters at hand. Now, though? Now things were different. Now, she was home, and she looked fantastic, if you asked her, and she was going to pour him a drink (in fact, she had, and was holding it out to him) and they were going to talk and then things could somehow maybe go back to normal a little.

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She sees the frown, and it makes her brows furrow, even as she scoots closer to him. "I know that you don't want to talk about all of these things," she says quietly, and the fingers of his free hand just slowly smooths through his hair. "I know you don't, but we need to. If we want- I know that sometimes you don't get what I'm talking about, and I get mad at you, and we fight, but I think- I think it's important."

"Fighting?" he asks, with a half smile, but he knows that the answer is yes. "Do you know," and it's the evening when he says all the words, clearly, even if he might never say the three expected words in succession, "I knew that I might love you before you ever argued with me. But it's when you did that I knew I would. That's when I knew I didn't want to live without you. That I could be patient, and take my time. But that I would never give up on you." He still can't believe how little he's had to fight to have her, how quickly it's gone. He'd expected a lot longer before he was blessed with having her.

She pulled back just enough that she could really, really look at him, to search his eyes. "I know how mad you got. Upset, I mean, when we talked about it. Because it's different, because the way I think is different than it is for you." She kept slowly smoothing his hair, just a reflex now. "And, I said I didn't care about how you felt for me, because I knew that I loved you, even if it was new and I didn't really know why or how, I just did."

She paused, sighing softly. "I lied. I care. But not enough that it really changed anything about how I feel, and I thought- I sort of- You sort of know, you know? Or you guess, anyway. I sort of thought I knew - that you... felt... things, but I was scared that I was wrong. That it was just me seeing what I wanted to see, and it makes-." That's when she hesitates, her fingers pausing before she continues. "It makes this hard," she says faintly. "It makes it harder, when I wasn't sure if I was going to die for real-"

She shakes her head, looking away before she can cry, pulling away from him so she can just rub at her eyes. "Sorry, I know eventually it won't scare me as much. Thinking about it."

"Love, you've got to start and use words to say what you mean, instead of circle all the way around it," Klaus tells her, a fond smile on his lips. He has a few ideas what she might mean, and isn't sure which is the right one.

She looks back at him, her brows furrowing as she sniffles, and she shakes her head. "I don't- I mean, I guess that I didn't... I sort of don't know how you felt about me, and I didn't know if it was my own wishful thinking, or like, me reading way too much into things or not - and it makes it way worse when I'm staring death in the face." And she laughs a sort of fake, breathy, forced sort of thing because she can't keep talking about her dying, because she's still so afraid when she shouldn't be, and she's trying to have a real conversation right now and not just her freaking out. 'And I know I said it wasn't important, and I mean, definitely, whatever it is, it's your business, I just- I was lying, because it's important, it's just not going to change how I feel about you. Which, who knows if you even actually believe me about that, right?"

She's talking quickly just to put the maximum space possible between her and the discussion about her dying that she can.

"Are you telling me," he asks, and he's frowning slightly, but also smiling slightly, "that you still don't know?"

Because he's just told her in so many words. He doesn't like these three ones that she likes to say so much. They just lead to heartache and betrayal. But he's been telling her, and showing her, and so far, no betrayal.

It's the problem with emotion, with feelings, and yes, with teenagers. Her reaction to his question is so immediate, the backpedaling so intense that she actually moves away from him as she shakes her head. "I didn't- I just meant- I was just trying to tell you why it was- I meant- Don't... don't worry." Not that he was worried, but she'd tensed up already, into this ball of nerves. "I just knew you didn't believe me for a long time, and- and that's-" She shook her head again, and then cleared her throat, looking away. "Don't. It's- I'm fine with this." Where things were, she meant. That cacophony of words that was supposed to mean I'm not trying to force you into anything, because the only thing worse than someone telling you they didn't love you was someone saying it only because you asked them to. Because she felt like them even bringing it up was somehow not right.

The amusement doesn't let up, although it's not obvious enough to be insulting. "So you haven't actually been listening to anything I've been saying, have you? You've been arguing with me for long enough, Caroline."

Because he does assume that she's been listening, actually, despite the light teasing. So he phrases it that way, because she is smart enough to connect the dots, more than.

"There's a difference," she says quietly when he says that, and it's not that backpedaling of moments ago, but she sounds sort of defeated. "Between thinking you know something, and not knowing if you're, you know, wrong. It's worse. It was worse. That's all I meant about this whole thing, that when you're leaning against a wall almost in two pieces, it's- you just worry that you might have been wrong-"

And that's when she moves and gets up, because she still can't talk about it, because she has to take a few steps, because her hands run back into her hair as she takes a deep breath, before she comes back. "I don't like to think about it." She says that, too. Being honest, now, like it's a new thing for a reason. "About what happened, I freak out. So." And she sits back down on the edge of the bed. "It's okay." Now, is what she meant. That she just needed a second, to not be thinking about it.

"But I know," she says then, in the hopes of cutting this off, changing the subject immediately after. "Even if we fight sometimes, or even if we have a giant fight and things aren't great, it's the patience thing. Right?"

"It's the love thing," he answers, as candid as he's been this evening, even if he's not going to say these three words. He stays where he is on the bed, because he oddly doesn't need the proximity to say it. "I don't know if you've noticed," he adds, and this time he's poking fun at himself, "but I'm not the most patient person alive. Especially for someone who's lived a thousand years old."

He wouldn't be patient if it weren't for the love.

She's even more confused by that, because she doesn't understand-- because she didn't mean it like that, she meant it in a different way. "I meant- I meant that if something happens between us and we have the world's biggest fight and this... isn't this, we'll both live a really long time and it'll work itself out."

She shakes her head, and looks away from him. "You told me you couldn't believe I loved you, and- Just tell me. Not- Not anything about you, but do you believe me? Not that I think I do, but that I do?" She looks back then, and she's so incredibly tired of the emotional cat and mouse, that she doesn't ever want to ask him, that she needs him to understand that it's those split second when you're the most vulnerable and all you can think is what if I was wrong. "That's all, and I'm not going to talk about it anymore."

That's the sticking point, isn't it, and finally, his amusement fades. "Most times, I do," he tells her, which is the best he can do. He's not going to lie to her.

Nobody he's ever expected to love him ever has, not really. Everybody he's loved has betrayed him. Starting with his parents, starting with his first love. He can't give her anything better, because he will always have moments of doubts. Not of her, but of him. Of deserving to be loved.

It hurts. It's so clear from her face that what he says hurts, but she nods, biting her lips together. She doesn't understand, for all that she's been trying to, that he's doubting himself. She thinks it's her, that it's always been her, because of the things that people don't really forget. She's been called shallow and neurotic and immature and idealistic and impractical so many times, and even though she thought she was past it... apparently not so much. She looks down at her fingers for a long second before she looks across the room. "It's late," she finally says, because she's good for her word, that she's not going to belabor the point.

"Are you tired?" She finally looks back at him, and she's managed to get most of that emotion off of her face, so that it's like any other day, especially since everything happened.

Another beat, just as he steels himself for saying the truth, again. "Not in a way that sleep will help. But yes, let's get to bed."

She could clearly use it, to sleep off the rest of the alcohol in her system, if nothing else.

She nods, and it just makes it worse, what he says. She knows he's saying he's tired of this conversation, and it's why she just nods again, taking a deep breath.

And there's something she needs to say, but she doesn't know how, how to make it not be about the things she can't discuss without falling to pieces, so as she's standing, putting her glass in the sink, her back to him, she tells him. "When I thought I was dying, all I could think of was you." And that's all, it's all she says, looking down as she washed the glass, before she could head back to bed. To join him, even if they didn't talk.

"Whether I'm dying or not," and he's behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing the place where neck meets shoulder, "you're always the first thing on my mind."

He means dying in the more temporary sense of the word, and he's really too tired of this past month, and they live in a suite where Star used to. That is what he means, and why he doesn't notice that she took it badly.

The way she exhales is in a sort of choked, soft exasperation, even as she leans back against him. It feels like he's trying to one-up her, or he doesn't understand, or he's making it trivial, but she can't expect anything else from him right now, not with the way that all of this happened and that he was tired of discussing it.

She sets the glass aside - carefully, since he's already broken one, and she turns in his arms, her eyes searching his. He knows her well enough that he knows that this is when she would normally say I love you, but she can't. Not right this moment, not when she's still hurting, she's still thinking that his denial of her love was because of a failing from her and he couldn't even have the grace to lie to her. She's hurting from it, and that's why she doesn't say I love you, but instead says, "Kiss me." And it's the faintest word that she breathes even as she leans up to make it happen herself.

He does, but it's not as long or as deep as it might have been if he hadn't finally clocked on to the fact that something was wrong. When he breaks the kiss, he touches two fingertips to her cheek, thoughtfully. "Talk to me, Caroline."

She shakes her head. "It's- It's just-" And she huffs out a sort of laugh. "I hadn't expected you to be so... harsh. Right now." She swallows thickly, and shakes her head again, in a dismissive gesture. "I can't- I mean, right now's not exactly the time when I can talk about how I'm not put together enough that you can't believe me all the time, so-" And she's trying to be adult about this, to not act like it hurt her as much as it did. "We can talk about it later, I know I said we weren't now, and it's okay. Later's okay."

The love seems to bleed out of him until his face is devoid of emotions, and he pulls away from her, and he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know if he can say it, what she clearly needs not to make this about her, when it's really about him. He takes a few steps away, and it turns out he's too much of a coward. "Yes," he agrees, bordering on viciously, "later."

He pulls away, and she just sort of stares at him, and it's his tone and his face that makes her just stand there. "I know- I know I avoid things a lot," she tries to explain to him, and she's already such a mess tonight, she's already trying to avoid a minefield of things that are hurtful to both of them and that he doesn't understand or she doesn't understand, "I just meant- I- It's- I need to not- I can't-"

It takes her that long to put together a sentence, and it sort of crawls out of her throat, all raw and mangled. "I know you're honest with me, that you won't lie to make me feel better, and I get that I'm- I'm not the best at things. But I'm trying, so- so maybe- I can't talk right now about the things I did wrong because it's too much tonight, but that's all I meant, I'm not trying to avoid it forever. Just right now- I can't, Klaus." She doesn't understand that it's all about him - that he's not mad at her, that she's not the reason the he can't believe she cares for him as she says she does. For her, it makes no sense for Klaus to be the problem in those situations, and everything makes sense for her to be-- just as it's the same for him.

"I won't lie to make you feel better," Klaus echoes, confirms, and there's something almost vengeful in his voice. He can never hold on to emotionlessness for very long. It's not in him, never has been. Mikael used to point it out with awful regularity, how much of a liability that made him.

He turns back to her. "You didn't do anything wrong, Caroline. I'm wrong," he adds, and his voice almost breaks, but he soldiers on. "I'm wrong, and if you still haven't figured that out..."

She doesn't understand, at first, why it seems like he's going out of his way to be cruel. To affirm that he was telling the truth even though he knew it would hurt her, that he would talk, now, when she just said she couldn't handle it, about her shortcomings-- but then when he says what he does, all she can think is that she missed something.

"But you're not," she says, her brows furrowing. "You're not wrong. I know I didn't do anything, that I'm just- it's who I am, but why would you be wrong? I don't understand what it has to do with any of this."

"Of course you wouldn't," he confirms, and he sounds downright nasty, now. He can't say this, he can't explain it, so part of him would rather she hated him and left, right here, right now. Of course, it's all fueled by the fact that he can't let her believe that she's at fault, here.

Her face twists, and she shakes her head. "I- what did I do?" She's trying not to cry, because this isn't him, this isn't how he talks to her, this isn't ever how he talks to her, not since they'd figured this out, not since this became real.

"Did I- I didn't mean- I'm sorry I brought it up, okay?" Her vision's blurry, but she doesn't want to cry in front of him, because of what he's said. "I'll just- I'll work on it. You're not wrong, and I'll- I'll work on it." It's then that she thinks that him saying he's wrong, is some sort of weird sarcasm, and she's grasping at straws because she's still a little drunk, because she's got no explanation and she's just trying to understand.

I do what I waaaaant.

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