He was oddly breathtaking. His smile was childish, but she couldn’t look away. If there was one thing she didn’t want though, it was to look away. He paced the library, angrily, a glass of bourbon and something else in his hand. He swirled the liquid before draining the cup, and chucking it into the fire. She winced as the flames protested and the glass sizzled under its heat.
It was as if he had just noticed her. Just realized she was there, sitting on the sofa rigid and unimposing. She couldn’t remember how she had gotten there, nor could she remember why she had no intention to leave, but he seemed shocked to see her.
“Emma?” His voice was as she remembered it. Soothing and beautiful. He walked over to her, kneeling before as he stared in wonder at the woman before her. It was as if he hadn’t seen her in decades, maybe even centuries when in reality it had only been a few years.
“Hello, Klaus.” He laughed then, abruptly, causing her to start in surprise. She had loved him for as long as she had known him but he terrified her. It’s why she ran away, and it was why she had planned to never see him again. Yet, here she was, sitting in his living room unable to escape.
Klaus seemed at a loss for words then, because he left the room suddenly, and then there was shouting. In another moment he returned in the library with another man, one who was poised and wore a neatly pressed suit. His hair was in a slight disarray, and he looked down at Emma without fondness.
“I thought you might like to see her again,” the man spoke. He shrugged before wrenching his arm from Klaus’ grip. “I know she wanted to see you.”
It was a moment before Klaus spoke again, he seemed to be having an internal struggle with what to say. “Thank you, Elijah. That will be all for now.”
Elijah laughed then, taking a threatening step forward. “I am your brother, Niklaus, not your servant. You should address me as such.” Then Elijah was gone, before flashing another glance in Emma’s direction.
Klaus, looking just as unhappy, spared a look in Emma’s direction as well. While his mouth was in a tight crease, his eyes were vulnerable and if she could’ve moved she would’ve gone to him. Embraced him, comforted him even. But she could not, and she was forced to merely stare at him.
“I wish he hadn’t brought you here,” he whispered, unable to keep his voice steady. “I sent you away for a reason.”
Emma was confused then. She remembered being the one to leave him, she remembered being fearful of him and wanting to escape. She tried to think, tried to remember why she had been so afraid but she could not. She could only remember fear, and love. Love that was so strong now that she was in the same room as him that it almost seemed to overshadow her fear.
She ignored his words, and merely spoke to him, begging him. “Klaus, please, come here.” He obeyed, sitting cautiously beside her, his eyes probing her face for any indication of what was on her mind. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered before wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.
Klaus’ hands hesitantly twisted themselves in the fabric of her shirt. His head rested on her shoulder, and she could almost imagine the expression he wore. One of uncertainty, and pain. She pulled away from him then, placing a hand on the side of his face, the scruff stabbing into her palm.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words would come out. So instead she kissed him, like she had wanted to do for the last year. His lips wrapped around hers familiarly, and she couldn’t help but sigh into the embrace. Her fingers cupping his jaw and the back of his neck while his entwined into her blonde curls.
The embrace was one so natural to them, which it felt as if they had never stopped. Though, the moment their lips touched, memories flashed before her eyes and she remembered what she had been so afraid of. She remembered why she had run from Klaus.
He was a monster.
—
Emma pulled away from Klaus, gasping. Her hands still cradling his head. He merely stared at her quizzically, his expression unreadable and dark. Almost immediately, she pulled her hands away from him, placing them in her lap. Her heart sped and memories stampeded around in her brain as they flooded in with blurred clarity.
“Oh,” she breathed feeling as if she had just been hit several times with a hammer. Her stomach heaved and she had to lean forward to make sure she didn’t faint. Klaus’ hand brushed her hair away from her neck and for a reason she couldn’t explain she cringed away.
“What is it, love?” Klaus spoke as if she hadn’t just flinched away from him, and traced her spine with a grazing fingertip.
She couldn’t bring herself to answer right away, but she knew she had to get up. “I need to get up, Klaus but I can’t move.” Her voice sounded hoarse even to her own ears, and she could hear the pleading tone hidden beneath. Her panic heightened as she finally forced herself to look at him. “Klaus, why I can’t I get up?”
Emma didn’t miss the hesitation there as he debated on whether telling her the truth was the best option. He swallowed, as if something had been caught in his throat and smiled tightly. “You’ve been compelled to stay where you are, by my brother…Elijah.”
“Compelled?” She remembered what his face had looked like when she had left him a year ago. Lined with blood red veins beneath his eyes, and the sharp teeth…it haunted her dreams but she thought it had only been that, a nightmare.
“You left before I could explain everything to you, Emma. I don’t know how…I don’t know why Elijah brought you here, but I thought you would’ve cringed at the sight of me. Did…did someone tell you to forget me?” Even as he spoke it, he knew it was a stupid question.
Of course she wouldn’t remember had someone compelled her. The very definition of compulsion was memory loss. You did what you were told, no questions asked and you didn’t know why, you just knew that in your gut, you had to do it. But Emma was shaking her head, staring into the distance as if things were becoming even more clear to her now.
“I…no, I remember now. I just…I repressed it. I didn’t want to remember you that way so I didn’t.” She turned to look at him, desperation in her eyes as he forced himself to stay where he was. “Klaus, I’m so sorry I left you. I’ve regretted it for so long…I should’ve listened to you before but I didn’t know how to find you.”
Almost as if she had no control of her body she was scooting impossibly close to him, her hands bunching in the fabric of his shirt. She clung to him as if he was her anchor to sanity and Klaus could only look at her.
She was still the girl he loved, deep down she knew he knew that. But she feared he would never forgive her. Somehow, she had found a way to accept the beast that she saw. Klaus…he was before her now, staring down at her with his dark eyes and boyish expression.
He couldn’t find words to say, and he didn’t know what to even begin to say so instead he simply kissed her. He kissed her like he had never stopped and his fingers curled around the base of her throat, wrapping up to tug at her hair.
Everything over the year dissipated as she melted into his embrace. In her mind, she had never parted from him. They were still curled in a ball on his loveseat, a black and white film playing on the television and popcorn strewn over the coffee table. Their legs entwined and her arms wrapped around his neck.
The room they were in now felt very similar to that night. Though, instead of a television there was a fireplace. The heat emanated against her skin, comfortably warming her. Nothing really mattered now except for him and her and that heat.
His fingers crept up the skirt of her dress, his touch cold against her bare thighs. She shivered at the familiar sensation of his touch. Her restraint was miniscule compared to his and he chuckled as she clawed at the hem of his shirt desperate to be rid of it. He allowed her to pull it over his head, and it landed in a heap beside the sofa.
He playfully tugged a button at the top of her dress and it immediately opened up allowing him to catch sight of her bare chest beneath the thin fabric of the dress. He lifted an eyebrow at her, questioning her lack of clothing. “I wasn’t planning on having company or anything,” she said defensively and Klaus merely laughed before pressing his lips to her jaw.
She curled her fingers in his wavy bronze hair and found herself tensing as his teeth grazed her shoulder. Klaus went rigid under her touch and she feared she had ruined everything with that one unprecedented movement. But only a moment later his lips were back on hers and he was fiercely tearing her dress from her body.
She cried out as the fabric tore in two and she was left in nothing but a pair of black lace panties. It was not uncommon for her, she was used to being naked in front of Klaus but something about the situation they were in caused her to feel strangely shy.
Wanting to cover herself, and seeing nothing but Klaus’ bare chest to do so, she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him down on top of her. There was nothing separating the two now, their skin meshing together, and the thick muscles in his chest smashing her breasts down.
Suddenly he blurred, moving at an incredible speed. His pants flew across the room and landed somewhere she couldn’t see. She glanced down, noticing that he too was without undergarments. She gave him the same accusatory glance he had given her, and he merely laughed at her before slipping his fingers under her panties.
She gasped as he traced the smooth skin there and then he let out an animalistic growl as he was suddenly doing things with his fingers that made her cry out in shock and ecstasy. When they had been together he moved at a pace that was normal to her, something that seemed human. But now he moved inhumanly fast and she found herself wishing he had done this all along.
Then he was inside her and the sounds coming from her mouth were almost as inhuman as the speed he could move. Her fingers clawed down his back and she watched in astonishment between cries of pleasure as the red lines faded almost instantly back to his normally pale, freckled skin.
His lips had moved back to the top of her shoulder, his teeth grazing the skin there and she couldn’t even bring herself to flinch. It was as if all the bones in her body had turned to jelly, and his fingers were the only things keeping her steady.
Soon after they both lay on the sofa in a heap, her chest lifting in exertion as he watched her curiously. He had taken a quilt off the back of the sofa and draped it across their naked figures.
“I have really missed you,” he murmured, his lips pressed against her ear. “Don’t leave me again, okay?”
She grinned at him then, her cheeks flushed with blood. “Well, given that I still can’t leave this couch, I don’t think that’ll be happening anytime soon.”
Klaus merely smiled that childish smile of his and kissed her. “Good.”