we make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones. ᴋʟᴀᴜs + ᴅᴀᴍᴏɴ | entranceway
It was bound to happen. Klaus knew it was only a matter of time: at some point, at some moment, at some fortunate time and place, Damon Salvatore would leave the mansion—or be close enough to a deserted exit to be persuaded to do so. It's taken enough time over the course of a week to seize this moment; besides Klaus' own endeavors to prioritize (and he has considered this a priority) Damon's been reticent to leave Elena of late. (It's a little fact and tidbit Klaus might've noticed even if he had not been paying thorough but discreet attention to the elder Salvatore. It's certainly not unusual, considering the throes of new love and all.) When Damon's not at Elena's side or in their respective rooms or drinking at the bar while no doubt thinking about Elena, it seems he's trolling the network or partaking in some other inane and unproductive enterprise.
(His preoccupation with a certain sign outside the training center comes to mind.)
Tonight fortune is on Klaus' side. Damon is alone and close enough to the stairwell that Klaus does not hesitate: he grabs the scruff of Damon's jacket and whooshes away to the roof. The night is biting and dark. Klaus releases Damon and perhaps a bit haphazardly; he might drop the man a little. "Ah good," he says, as if they are two old friends merely bumping into each other while out for a stroll, "just the man I wanted to see."
Placid and smiling, he folds his hands behind his back.
Damon lets out a frustrated sound when he's suddenly on the roof. There are only a few individuals capable of taking him so wholly by surprise in Wonderland, and it's why he's already tense on top of the rooftop. Truth is he has very abruptly had to stop spending so much time with Elena, because Valentine's day went to hell. He has five years which he's keeping from her. He has one big secret that he has to keep from her, and she- she's obviously not okay with that.
He grimaces when he hears that familiar voice while he's on top of the roof all alone with him. Great. As far as he knows, he hasn't done anything to piss off Klaus lately so he has absolutely no idea why he's here. He stands up straighter, nearly positive that Klaus wanting to see him has absolutely never been the case in either of their lives.
"Y'know, normal people ask to meet someone when they want to see them. Send a post card, a text, a Facebook message, they're all the rage this day. Just a tip to aid in your social skills."
Damon would be right. Klaus has never wanted to see Damon in the entirety of his life and could personally do without it now, but desperate times often call for desperate measures. These times are very desperate indeed, though Klaus' demeanor hardly gives that away: his smile curls and his dimples deepen at Damon's ravaged displeasure; it could almost be affection if it weren't so sharp with egotism and amusement. (He may not like the inconvenience of Damon or his dislike of him, but he can appreciate what they are.
He certainly could tonight.)
This has never changed: they are alike. More perhaps than even Klaus would be wont (though not unwilling) to admit. While Damon frets about an uncertain and terrible future for the woman he loves, so does Klaus. So do they both, in more ways than one, care about what is important to them. What Klaus is more wont to acknowledge is the willingness they both have in doing what it takes: whatever it takes. Damon is a wildcard, but he's not without a fierceness and fervor to get things done.
Klaus moseys a step closer. "Usually, yes," he cedes. "So while that's no doubt useful advice, none of those options fulfilled my needs at present."
Damon lifts his eyebrows but stays where he is even as Klaus steps closer to him. He rocks back on the heels of his feet and then releases a breath. When he first got here, Elena immediately took him up to the roof, because she didn't want the mirrors to overhear what they were talking about. At the time, he didn't realize how serious it all was, and then one day- one day he walked up to a message left for him there on the mirror.
Then he'd exchange words with her over and over again until one day- one day, the mirrors could run right over to the other side, and she wrecked him as he rightfully deserved, pulled his heart from his chest.
He lets out a sigh. "So whose mirror are you trying to avoid? Because I doubt you pulled me up here with such intensity to just throw me off the side of the building or show me some neat constellation in the skies."
Look, it's usually how their conversations go. Violence gets mixed up in it somehow or another, but Damon has changed a lot. He is not so quick to react, and he only kills or lashes out when the people he loves are threatened.
Klaus waits for that spark of intelligence and Damon doesn't disappoint: he pinpoints the precise reason why they are both here, standing on the roof, away from all the others. Those they love, those they trust and distrust, those they know and hardly know at all, and those on the other side of their reflections.
Entertained as he is by both prospects Damon lays out, Klaus' tone is as light as ever to start. "As romantic as both those options are..." Particularly the first, he has to say. Klaus trails off. His smile fades and the line of his brow smooths. His voice sobers and he watches with fixated and underscored interest, chin tilted up and head slightly to the side. "We're avoiding mine."
They are the same, yes. Perhaps Damon's impulse is driven reckless by his passion, but Klaus appreciates that they both desire to get to the point. (With a few quips along the way.) He is in no rush, however, to divulge all. Not when he is still uncertain of what motive Damon might latch onto in this instance. Better he reach it of his own accord, with his own imperative. Better Klaus see it in his eyes before he can tether it to his own.
(Strategy is more oft than not taking calculated risks to ensure a victory.)
Damon immediately grimaces at the answer, which he'd been preparing himself for. Who else would effect Klaus enough that he'd fling Damon up here for a- whatever the hell this is. He has to want something.
"Exactly what I was dreading."
He'd been suspecting it when he'd asked the question. Elena told him Klaus' mirror had contacted Caroline. She wanted Damon to be prepared. Now that Damon has lived the future- Well, he knows how deep and complicated those feelings become between the two of them, but there's no trusting mirrors. If Klaus' mirror contacted Caroline, it means that he is a threat to her, and it's not something Damon would just let happen ever beyond her being Elena's friend. She's come to mean something to him too, and he wouldn't let her get hurt if he had the choice.
Hell, a mirror version of Klaus would potentially be a threat to Elena too. She's still human, and all kinds of beings could still want her for her blood (as if that's all she is, and it will never not infuriate him that so many have reduced her to exactly that, that she waits in a coffin which people have fought over and used her and-). She loves and cares about Caroline. If she's there when his mirror shows up, she would put herself in front of Caroline and Klaus in an instant. He can visualize it so perfectly in his head that it terrifies him. For all his joking, his expression grows dark.
Damon's intelligence perseveres. If he were in any mood or in any other circumstance, he might think or make a quip about how that mildly impresses or astounds him. There is no need for it here. Klaus knows Damon is no fool and not only because his reaction alludes to gears in fine working order behind that grim expression. If nothing else, he knows Klaus' reflection is a threat. That it could be a threat to Elena. (To Caroline and even Bonnie.)
"Well it's quite simple, really," he begins, his own expression bleak and foreboding. Damon needs little reminder what he alone is capable of, let alone a heartless and reprehensible image of himself. "If you are wise you know the people we protect are not mutually exclusive, and so neither are my mirror's targets."
And Klaus believes he is wise—if not wise, then wiser enough. It hasn't escaped Klaus' notice: Damon is different than the man he was, arrived here. Why else would he keep such a low profile? What else besides time and experience would drive Elena so completely into his arms?
Damon lets those words sink in. An indescribable expression passes over his face when Klaus says he needs him. He's almost be smug about it if he wasn't dreading what was coming next.
"You don't have to convince me that your crazy mirror needs to be taken out before he can follow through on his horror-movie style plans, which put people I care about in danger."
He can put two and two together. When he works at it, Damon can make damn good plans too. However, for all of Damon's growth, he doesn't even consider that Klaus might want to ask him to kill his mirror self. There are a whole lot of pieces to that puzzle. It would require Klaus to trust that Damon would know both how and when to use the weapons, and he wouldn't just hand those weapons over either unless he was truly worried and desperate. It's not like Damon would dare trying to kill Klaus or Rebekah or anyone Klaus cares about. In general, he doesn't kill unless there's a threat.
Damon, at the end of the day, is just a regular vampire in comparison to the ancient hybrid. He's never going to beat him in a fight. It's always been about having to take Originals by surprise before.
"My big question is why you'd need me. You're actually pretty damn impossible to kill." He shrugs, lifting his hands up as if in admittance. "I should know."
He doesn't trust Damon. That is precisely why he is here, because no one would ever accuse him of doing so or consider Klaus would entrust such a monumental and deciding task to a man he patently has abhorred. He watches the kaleidoscope of Damon's reaction, and perhaps he too would be smug at the warring of Damon's expressions if only he wasn't counting so heavily on each.
It's that dread that cinches his certainty before Damon even speaks, but when he does Klaus' collected air still relents. It's in the hint of his smirk, lighting his eyes; it's a flint of exaltation. That smirk deepens, if only for a moment, at the flourish of Damon's reminder: he did try with all his power and cleverness to kill him, once or twice. "What I need is for you to kill me," he says, perfectly serene.
"...you need me to kill you, the mirror version of you, which still requires having the means to kill you."
It's going to take time for that to settle into his head. He absolutely never thought this day would arrive. Klaus needs him. More than that, he needs him to kill a version of him. Damon would be more on edge if he wasn't so confused.
"You don't like me. You don't trust me. I mean, I'm expendable enough that if I fail, it'd be no skin off of your back other than needing another way to kill the mirror version of yourself, but you hate me. It's a mutual feeling, but why would you ever ask me to kill any version of you?"
It'll probably occur to him in a moment or two if he can work through his shock first.
The means can come later. What's more important is the conclusion Damon has yet to arrive at, one Klaus is more than willing to provide. He steps forward and this time there is fierceness and resolution in his step. There is passion and furor. "Because you would do it." His amusement is gone. In its place is the certainty in his voice. "You would do it without hesitation; with gusto, even."
A pause, a breath, and he continues. "And no one, not even me, would expect it."
There it is. Understanding dawns on him. Damon hears the truth in Klaus' words. Of course, no one would expect Damon, because of all the reasons that he already listed out. His mirror probably hasn't given Damon a second thought. Why would he? It's dangerous what Klaus is asking on multiple levels. His attempts to kill Klaus before didn't work out well, but he knew that Damon and their whole group wanted him dead then. His voice grows low.
"The strongest possibility of a successful attack would be one he doesn't see coming."
Klaus is paranoid. He plans and has backup plans. He sees all the angles, and he's ready for any possibility except one that is impossible like Klaus asking Damon to kill his mirror.
"Good." They are in accord then. Klaus comes closer now, in order the hand what he needs to over, but not quite yet.
"As for the means..." Out of his pocket Klaus draws the wooden head of a horse: an incomplete relic of his past. A tether tying him to all that he was, all that he could be, and to his sister. His daughter. He feels the beginnings of hesitation rooted in sentimentality; despite what dangers this small object poses, he does not want to let it go and not only because of the danger.
(He is giving away what can not only kill him, but kill his sister, to a man that has tried to use it against them before. Therein lies the fear of revealing it.)
"No doubt you already know I have in place contingencies upon contingencies the likes of which would astound and frighten you." It's a threat and Klaus wants Damon to make no mistake. There will be no mistakes or misguided attempts outside the bounds of their agreement—but also to ensure their victory. "One fatal error on your part... Well, I need not detail the consequences, for at that moment I would be the least of your worries."
Damon squares his shoulders up. He tenses, because he hadn't expected this either, and he doesn't know what to do with it. His gaze widens at the sight of the item which he retrieves, and Damon doesn't miss all the layers and levels which are at play in this moment. He doesn't exactly like trusting Klaus either. They've both been on opposite sides for a long time, but it wasn't all that long ago that Stefan ended up in New Orleans.
They're not incapable of working together, all of them.
"I'm not stupid, Klaus. I don't want to kill you or your sister. I'm older than the last time we spoke," he says. He's a lot older, and they'd only come back, and then they'd all be fucked, because this weapon has a one time use. Nothing is ever simple, not in Wonderland, not in the world they're from. "And I sure as hell don't want to fail."
He knows what happens if he does. It's not Damon that he's ever afraid for, and the mirror would know his own weaknesses too.
He knows that Damon is older: even if his prior behavior didn't give him away, his willingness without ulterior motive does. Klaus wonders. He wonders at what moment Damon is from, what terrible things he knows and has experienced. He considers just how equal the footing between them is, not only in the measure of time, but in the change they have both found. His expression is sobered, opened, just a sliver, the blue of eyes dark like the coming of a storm but the furthest from violent. "Are you?" he asks, and searches Damon's eyes for the space of a moment.
"I believe for once, we are on the same page." Slowly, he brings the white oak, lifted near his shoulder down; he offers it to the other man. He offers it with the respect of regard, without disdain or distaste in his voice: "Damon."
Damon keeps Klaus' gaze without looking away as Klaus searches for whatever it is he wants to find, but he nods in confirmation. He is older by about five years which feel like over a hundred years. They span out like cliffs in his chest, and he doubts he is the only one who has grown. Having a child, it changes a person. Wanting to have children as Damon now does, wanting to be human, it changes someone too. He takes the offered white oak and immediately hides it so no one will see it.
"Klaus." It's said quietly but with the weight of both what has been said and what hasn't been said before he leaves.
It's a guarantee. This white oak will find its way in Klaus' mirror's chest. One way or another.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
entranceway
no subject
He grimaces when he hears that familiar voice while he's on top of the roof all alone with him. Great. As far as he knows, he hasn't done anything to piss off Klaus lately so he has absolutely no idea why he's here. He stands up straighter, nearly positive that Klaus wanting to see him has absolutely never been the case in either of their lives.
"Y'know, normal people ask to meet someone when they want to see them. Send a post card, a text, a Facebook message, they're all the rage this day. Just a tip to aid in your social skills."
no subject
He certainly could tonight.)
This has never changed: they are alike. More perhaps than even Klaus would be wont (though not unwilling) to admit. While Damon frets about an uncertain and terrible future for the woman he loves, so does Klaus. So do they both, in more ways than one, care about what is important to them. What Klaus is more wont to acknowledge is the willingness they both have in doing what it takes: whatever it takes. Damon is a wildcard, but he's not without a fierceness and fervor to get things done.
Klaus moseys a step closer. "Usually, yes," he cedes. "So while that's no doubt useful advice, none of those options fulfilled my needs at present."
no subject
Then he'd exchange words with her over and over again until one day- one day, the mirrors could run right over to the other side, and she wrecked him as he rightfully deserved, pulled his heart from his chest.
He lets out a sigh. "So whose mirror are you trying to avoid? Because I doubt you pulled me up here with such intensity to just throw me off the side of the building or show me some neat constellation in the skies."
Look, it's usually how their conversations go. Violence gets mixed up in it somehow or another, but Damon has changed a lot. He is not so quick to react, and he only kills or lashes out when the people he loves are threatened.
no subject
Entertained as he is by both prospects Damon lays out, Klaus' tone is as light as ever to start. "As romantic as both those options are..." Particularly the first, he has to say. Klaus trails off. His smile fades and the line of his brow smooths. His voice sobers and he watches with fixated and underscored interest, chin tilted up and head slightly to the side. "We're avoiding mine."
They are the same, yes. Perhaps Damon's impulse is driven reckless by his passion, but Klaus appreciates that they both desire to get to the point. (With a few quips along the way.) He is in no rush, however, to divulge all. Not when he is still uncertain of what motive Damon might latch onto in this instance. Better he reach it of his own accord, with his own imperative. Better Klaus see it in his eyes before he can tether it to his own.
(Strategy is more oft than not taking calculated risks to ensure a victory.)
no subject
"Exactly what I was dreading."
He'd been suspecting it when he'd asked the question. Elena told him Klaus' mirror had contacted Caroline. She wanted Damon to be prepared. Now that Damon has lived the future- Well, he knows how deep and complicated those feelings become between the two of them, but there's no trusting mirrors. If Klaus' mirror contacted Caroline, it means that he is a threat to her, and it's not something Damon would just let happen ever beyond her being Elena's friend. She's come to mean something to him too, and he wouldn't let her get hurt if he had the choice.
Hell, a mirror version of Klaus would potentially be a threat to Elena too. She's still human, and all kinds of beings could still want her for her blood (as if that's all she is, and it will never not infuriate him that so many have reduced her to exactly that, that she waits in a coffin which people have fought over and used her and-). She loves and cares about Caroline. If she's there when his mirror shows up, she would put herself in front of Caroline and Klaus in an instant. He can visualize it so perfectly in his head that it terrifies him. For all his joking, his expression grows dark.
"What do you want from me?"
no subject
"Well it's quite simple, really," he begins, his own expression bleak and foreboding. Damon needs little reminder what he alone is capable of, let alone a heartless and reprehensible image of himself. "If you are wise you know the people we protect are not mutually exclusive, and so neither are my mirror's targets."
And Klaus believes he is wise—if not wise, then wiser enough. It hasn't escaped Klaus' notice: Damon is different than the man he was, arrived here. Why else would he keep such a low profile? What else besides time and experience would drive Elena so completely into his arms?
"You need my help, and I need you."
no subject
"You don't have to convince me that your crazy mirror needs to be taken out before he can follow through on his horror-movie style plans, which put people I care about in danger."
He can put two and two together. When he works at it, Damon can make damn good plans too. However, for all of Damon's growth, he doesn't even consider that Klaus might want to ask him to kill his mirror self. There are a whole lot of pieces to that puzzle. It would require Klaus to trust that Damon would know both how and when to use the weapons, and he wouldn't just hand those weapons over either unless he was truly worried and desperate. It's not like Damon would dare trying to kill Klaus or Rebekah or anyone Klaus cares about. In general, he doesn't kill unless there's a threat.
Damon, at the end of the day, is just a regular vampire in comparison to the ancient hybrid. He's never going to beat him in a fight. It's always been about having to take Originals by surprise before.
"My big question is why you'd need me. You're actually pretty damn impossible to kill." He shrugs, lifting his hands up as if in admittance. "I should know."
no subject
It's that dread that cinches his certainty before Damon even speaks, but when he does Klaus' collected air still relents. It's in the hint of his smirk, lighting his eyes; it's a flint of exaltation. That smirk deepens, if only for a moment, at the flourish of Damon's reminder: he did try with all his power and cleverness to kill him, once or twice. "What I need is for you to kill me," he says, perfectly serene.
He glances down. "Well, one of me."
no subject
It's going to take time for that to settle into his head. He absolutely never thought this day would arrive. Klaus needs him. More than that, he needs him to kill a version of him. Damon would be more on edge if he wasn't so confused.
"You don't like me. You don't trust me. I mean, I'm expendable enough that if I fail, it'd be no skin off of your back other than needing another way to kill the mirror version of yourself, but you hate me. It's a mutual feeling, but why would you ever ask me to kill any version of you?"
It'll probably occur to him in a moment or two if he can work through his shock first.
no subject
A pause, a breath, and he continues. "And no one, not even me, would expect it."
no subject
"The strongest possibility of a successful attack would be one he doesn't see coming."
Klaus is paranoid. He plans and has backup plans. He sees all the angles, and he's ready for any possibility except one that is impossible like Klaus asking Damon to kill his mirror.
"I get it."
no subject
"As for the means..." Out of his pocket Klaus draws the wooden head of a horse: an incomplete relic of his past. A tether tying him to all that he was, all that he could be, and to his sister. His daughter. He feels the beginnings of hesitation rooted in sentimentality; despite what dangers this small object poses, he does not want to let it go and not only because of the danger.
(He is giving away what can not only kill him, but kill his sister, to a man that has tried to use it against them before. Therein lies the fear of revealing it.)
"No doubt you already know I have in place contingencies upon contingencies the likes of which would astound and frighten you." It's a threat and Klaus wants Damon to make no mistake. There will be no mistakes or misguided attempts outside the bounds of their agreement—but also to ensure their victory. "One fatal error on your part... Well, I need not detail the consequences, for at that moment I would be the least of your worries."
no subject
They're not incapable of working together, all of them.
"I'm not stupid, Klaus. I don't want to kill you or your sister. I'm older than the last time we spoke," he says. He's a lot older, and they'd only come back, and then they'd all be fucked, because this weapon has a one time use. Nothing is ever simple, not in Wonderland, not in the world they're from. "And I sure as hell don't want to fail."
He knows what happens if he does. It's not Damon that he's ever afraid for, and the mirror would know his own weaknesses too.
no subject
"I believe for once, we are on the same page." Slowly, he brings the white oak, lifted near his shoulder down; he offers it to the other man. He offers it with the respect of regard, without disdain or distaste in his voice: "Damon."
no subject
"Klaus." It's said quietly but with the weight of both what has been said and what hasn't been said before he leaves.
It's a guarantee. This white oak will find its way in Klaus' mirror's chest. One way or another.