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translations-by-aiimee · 3 years

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Dig a Grave to Dig Out a Ghost - Chapter 4

Original Title: 挖坟挖出鬼

Genres: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Supernatural, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Chapter 4 - Surprise

Lin Yan and Yin Zhou played games all night in the apartment. It was strange to say that the ghost didn't seem to want to do anything else. It only reminded Lin Yan of its existence with its cold breath and stayed peaceful the rest of the night. In the morning, Lin Yan and Yin Zhou had finally started yawning. Lin Yan waved goodbye and went to go home to sleep, rubbing his eyes and changing back into his clothes. When he turned around, Yin Zhou had already fallen asleep with his arms crossed. The scarlet red coat slid down the edge of the bed onto the ground, mixing with the trash on the floor. Illuminated by the morning sun, it wasn't much different from any other ancient costumes, and there was no cold atmosphere at all.

Maybe it was all just a coincidence.

The summer was bright and the sky was sunny, and the experience last night felt like a dream. Lin Yan stretched out his arms as he walked through the garden and took a deep breath of the fragrance of dew. As for the ghost, Lin Yan thought that it might really be related to his profession. He shook his head self-deprecatingly. It seems that New Year's was correct in saying no one will die, so his grandfather should have nothing to worry about.

When he got home, passing by JUSCO, Lin Yan bought some spare ribs, chicken legs, and carried a bundle of beer. The moth orchid at home had grown two more flower buds overnight, and the slits showed delicate white petals, like small open mouths.

Lin Yan plugged his computer in and pressed the power button. There was a soft click, and the familiar Windows 7 startup interface appeared on the screen. The startup music is "The Sun Also Rises" by Joe Hisaishi. He doesn't normally think to much of it, but he listened to it today, thinking how applicable it was to his situation.

It's business as usual like nothing had happened.

He threw his clothes in the washing machine, put the meat in the refrigerator, and tidied up his room. After finishing all those tasks, Lin Yan turned his phone to silent, and the beer went under the bed to start the night aftercare - self-hypnosis. This was the body adjustment method he came up with by staying up many times during his freshman year. He sleeps lightly during the day, uses alcohol to calm his mind, and sleeps silently until dawn. Not only does he save a day's food, but his biological clock also doesn't get messed up.

He had picked up some Budweiser dark beer, slightly sour, with a mellow grain aroma.

Lin Yan kept a few glasses. Not long after, the slight drowsiness hit the hearty drunk Lin Yan. His limbs were so limp that he didn't have enough strength to raise them. The sleepiness of staying up so late struck him. Lin Yan only put on a pair of underwear and lay on the bed, drinking a few more sips. After sleeping for a while, the can in his hand fell to the ground unconsciously, and he fell into a deep sleep.

It seemed that after sleeping for a long time, there was a layer of hot sweat all over the body. The cold white light on his eyelids turned into a soft warm yellow, orange and gold, and then went dark, and there was a deep silence in the room. Lin Yan had a very long dream. In his half-asleep state, all he felt was the surrounding area was getting colder and colder. It seemed that someone had turned on the air conditioner ahead of time. Lin Yan pulled the blanket over his waist and muttered: "Boss, turn off the air conditioner."

He wasn't used to living alone, even after moving out of school for more than a year. He always thought that he was in the dormitory. In the summer, he liked to press against the cold wall beside the bed. There was no iron railing of the dormitory bed. He often rolled off and fell on the ground, rubbing his head and looking around the room, annoyed that he was no longer in the dormitory.

In the dormitory, he liked sleeping against the wall. It felt cool and safe. He could only hold a pillow in his new apartment. He always felt that something was missing.

A person can feel lonely sometimes.

Someone was looking at him from beside the bed. His mind was fuzzy. Lin Yan thought: could his boss not find the AC remote?

Something cold and smooth covered his lips, sucking and grinding, pushing its tongue through his teeth, agitated like a snake, going in and out while fitting against his upper jaw. The taste was gentle and beautiful, almost like it would be intimidated by the touch of a petal, Lin Yan loosened his grip on the blanket and opened his mouth to greet it. The soft thing slowly invaded his mouth as if it had received encouragement. The kiss grew deeper, and the coldness on his body seemed to gain weight, pressing up against him. Suddenly, the softness on his mouth pulled away. Lin Yan subconsciously stretched out his tongue to hold it there and paused for a while. The cold thing like a snake sucked the tip of his tongue again.

It's cold. Why is it so cold?

Boss, the AC remote is probably in the drawer. It would help to turn off the air conditioner before someone froze to death.

Someone seemed to let out a long sigh in his ear.

Forget it, wasn’t it just the air conditioner?

I can just use my blanket.

As if there was really a cold weight covering the blanket, the alcohol wasn't letting his body try and get up. Lin Yan was instead dragged and hugged by a force, and the silk covers were raised around his arms and placed down on his chest.

Who would be so kind. . .

No, Lin Yan suddenly realized. This wasn't the dormitory. There was no one else at all. What was going on?

After his struggle to get up, he was hit with sudden violent dizziness, and his whole body fell down onto the bed again. Sleeping after getting drunk makes a person bolder and carefree. Lin Yan couldn't help but laugh out loud. Then, there was something that grew between his legs, and it was being stroked and rubbed again and again. There was so much strength behind it that Lin Yan frowned, but he didn't really put much thought into it.

Was he imagining this? . . . His boss wasn't small like this person, and he didn't have a girlfriend. It was shameful to rely on this other person to solve this predicament.

Lin Yan turned his head contentedly and buried the side of his face in the pillow. It has been a long time since he last had a dream like this, he might as well take advantage of it.

Who was the gracious host this time?

Lin Yan opened his mouth in a daze, and the softness greeted him again. It wrapped around his tongue, sucking it into its mouth and slowly savouring it.

The force that was rubbing what was between his legs was strong, and he was beginning to feel really hot and bothered. Lin Yan wanted to curl in on himself, but his knees were pressed down by something. Something pushed down his shoulders, and Lin Yan obediently rolled onto his back. The palm of its hand stroked his hips through his underwear, then moved to the front. His restless member in his underwear was played with by something cool. It was numbingly cold, but also agonizingly slow. Lin Yan gasping grew heavier, swallowing impatiently.

Who is this person who was so good at providing such a service?

Lin Yan smacked his lips with satisfaction.

Its movements were getting faster and faster, stretching across more of the surface area. An unheated hand shifted up and down, rubbing the sensitive tip of it with its thumb. The mixture of dizziness and pleasure made Lin Yan tightly grasped the sheets in reflex. He stiffly thrust his hips back and forth to match the movement of the hand. They worked together in a familiar sense as if this had happened between the two many times before. Lin Yan bit his lower lip and couldn't help but shake his head slightly.

It was very pleasant, really comfortable.

He had never had a dream like this before where he could be so satisfied just by doing this with a hand. Lin Yan's body squirmed relentlessly. When he leaned on his side, the cold palms traced his tight waist muscles, inching up the front of his chest, feeling it up. Lin Yan's whole body was wrapped in frigidness and his body was involuntarily trembling from both the cold and his lust.

The moment he reached his climax, his mind turned into blank static. Lin Yan arched his body and tried to suppress the muffled sound that rushed out of his throat. However, the cold figure suddenly changed. One hand grabbed his jaw and squeezed harshly. The moment he opened his mouth, he let out a long breath with a "hah" groan escaping as well. However, the pain in his jaw was intense. The hand forced his jaw open and didn't hesitate to wrap its other hand around his throat.

Was this thing trying to kill him?!

Out of breath, his throat was closed off and his face flushed red. Lin Yan instantly sobered up. This wasn't right, this wasn't right at all!

It was pitch black all around him. Lin Yan was confined and tried to shout out. This hand was skillful, however, and left him with just enough breath to stay alive. Blood was rushing to his head and it was getting harder to breathe. His underwear, which had already been slightly pulled down, was dragged off and thrown to the side. The figure's cold fingers entered in from behind. One finger, two, three, and it moved them back and forth, in and out without hesitation.

The pain and suffocation got Lin Yan soaked in a clammy sweat. His only conscious thought was telling him that he was being pressed into the bed by an invisible figure. He couldn't breathe, his eyes were bulging, and the blood vessels in his temples were protruding. Lin Yan wanted to break free from the hand that was holding his throat, but it was as powerful as pliers. The little air that was left in his throat let out a sharp whistle as he exhaled, his life hanging by a thread.

"I'm here to kill you."

A sullen male voice rang in his ears, and something slippery and cold was nibbling on his earlobes, sucking on his ears madly and abnormally. Lin Yan's expression was warped, his heart beating wildly. He couldn't hide, couldn't even see the fucking ghost!

Almost as quickly as it started, the brute force disappeared, leaving no traces that it was ever there.

Lin Yan clutched his neck and gasped in the fresh air. His chest was rising and falling, fear twisting in him like an invisible giant hand. This was crazy, he must be crazy! What on earth could he have offended so greatly?!

During his panic, he heard a small electrical 'pop' noise. The computer screen in the corner of the bedroom suddenly lit up, and a line of bright red characters appeared on the screen: "The first day of Wushan month; the death date is approaching."

Lin Yan's hands were shaking as he turned on his lamp. The scene before him almost made him vomit. The walls and windows were all covered with bright red paint, dripping with red crosses. Even the glass had paint rolling down it. It was almost like a curse, or even like a formation, trapping him in this small apartment.

Lin Yan lowered his head, the white, cloudy substance was still on his genitals and lower abdomen, and even his clothes were stained with the liquid. The red silk clothes were soaked, like dried bloodstains.

Wait, red clothes?

Trembling, Lin Yan raised his arms. His clothes were made out of red satin with black lining, heavy embroidery. It was burial clothes for the dead, the same clothes that were supposed to be lying on Yin Zhou's floor were instead being worn on his body!

It has been 29 hours since the beginning of this whole thing, and, for the first time, Lin Yan felt like everything was about to collapse.

"Ringringring. . ." The phone rang.

Lin Yan sat stunned, then rushed over in a moment of bravado, grabbing the receiver fiercely and cursing into the phone: "I don't care who you are or what you are, come at me! Show me who you are!"

There was silence on the other end of the receiver, and suddenly Yin Zhou's voice came: "Lin Yan? Are. . . are you okay? What's wrong?"

It was like he had heard the voice of the sun itself. After a moment of silence, Lin Yan cried out with joy, but he collected himself almost immediately. He tried his best to control his breathing and replied in the most normal tone he could muster: ". . . Everything's fine, that thing just showed up again."

Yin Zhou's voice also sounded a little off: "I slept until midnight, and when I woke up, I saw that the clothes were gone. I was afraid that something might have happened to you."

"My mother contacted someone who might know more about it. If you want, we could go there tomorrow?"

Lin Yan hesitated, holding the receiver for a while. He never would've thought this earlier, but now, he didn't even know if he could survive until morning.

"Don't tell my parents."

"Relax, I didn't say it involved you."

Lin Yan sighed. This was the only time that he'd be able to get these answers; "Okay, I'll pick you up at 8, if I even can still pick you up."

Throwing down the receiver, Lin Yan looked around his bedroom. He had lived in this room for more than a year. He discussed and revised the interior decorations with the designer several times. Now it looked so strange and terrifying. The mottled red paint, the computer seemingly connected to the underworld, the ghost who randomly shows up to kill him; the powerlessness he felt made it feel like he was floating aimless through water, unable to find something solid to grab onto.

He was so exhausted that he didn't even have any energy to take off the suspicious clothing that he was wearing. Lin Yan laid back on his pillow and stared up at a fairly clean ceiling above, muttering to himself 'what did I do wrong, what did I do wrong?'

"Ringringring. . ." The phone rang again.

Lin Yan picked it up, leaned to his ear slowly, and said softly, "A-Zhou, why did you think something might have happened?"

There was no answer.

Lin Yan's body felt numb suddenly, the familiar coldness and silence returning. . .

"I. . . Want. . . You. . . To. . . Die. . ."

There was a sombre answer on the phone.

Lin Yan could only laugh and put down the receiver blankly.

He would deal with everything tomorrow.

#dig a grave to dig out a ghost #dig a grave to dig out a ghost translation #chinese bl #chinese novel #english translation #danmei novel #yaoi novel

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austennerdita2533 · 7 years

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A/N: Thanks for another fantastic fandom event ya’ll! I can’t wait to finish reading all the goodness over on A03. Anyway, here’s my contribution to the KC Vaycay Exchange for the lovely @honorableotp. (Post-canon AU. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. No Hayley or magical spawn.) I played this song on repeat for a while as I wrote in case anyone’s interested or wants to listen to it while/after reading. I hope you like it. :)

Links here if you prefer:

(A03) (FF.net)

Comments are always lovely

xx Ashlee Bree

Emptied of You

“You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love.”—Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka

“Go on and think of me as a she-wolf with a heart made of teeth if it makes you feel better,” she said, “I don’t care. But I’d do it again.”

Jaw taut, Klaus stood at the far end of his en suite balcony with his left hand tucked into his pocket and his right hand holding a drink made of something smooth and strong. He glared out at the rising moon, almost wishing his siblings weren't out of town so he could use them as bait. Or shields. Anything to save him from this bleeding hell!

Caroline approached from behind, her boots clicking against stone, conviction resounding louder with every step she took forward.

“Did you hear me? I said I’d do it again.”

“Yes,” he replied as he emptied his liquor in one swig. He let the glass slip from his fingers to crash down onto the street below. Ah, such sweet music destruction made. “Yes, love, I’m sure you would.”

“Don’t you understand why? Can’t you—” Her voice dropped to a whisper, almost trembling, and Klaus tensed as her touch ghosted hesitantly over his shoulders but never made contact. “Won’t you at least turn to look at me?” she asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It would be foolish. Reckless as hell.”

“Oh.” He heard the uncertain shuffle of her feet as he exhaled, the quiet sniff of her nose, and he swore the light she wore around her in aura dimmed for a moment before it shined something warmer but more clutching against his back. He felt that invisible tether between them, tugging, tormenting him like the lash of a whip.

Although it was difficult, he knew he needed to resist falling back toward her again. Klaus swallowed hard, then dropped his head with his fists clenching at his sides, “I’m always soft for you, Caroline, that’s the problem,” he sighed.

“You’re the sun beneath my bloody skin that I can’t stop chasing. You’re the light zipping through my veins that I can’t keep myself from reaching out to try and hold no matter how many times I’m left burning or singed through with holes…and yet you still have the audacity to ask me why. Truly?” His laugh was wounded, caustic. “We both know you’re smarter than that.”

“Tell me, love, why would I be daft enough to turn around,” he added, grumbling, “when I know one look at you would melt me directly where I stand?”

“Right,” she deflated. “Okay.”

He nodded, “I’m glad we understand one another.”

She took a step back.

“Of course.”

Frustrated, weary, conflicted, and more than tempted to drink away this surprise confrontation with alcohol, he massaged his forehead.Then, after he dragged a hand down his face and closed his eyes in anticipation of her imminent retreat, dreading and desiring it simultaneously, something strange happened: Caroline moved closer. Lunged, truth be told. Her arms snaking around his middle without warning.

A noise somewhere between a whimper and a sigh escaped her when she pressed her cheek against the fabric of his shirt and breathed him in. Pulling him close—too close. Reeling him in on that god-awful tether like prey. She melded into him like a solid into a liquid, her heartbeat a frenetic song against the muscles of his back, her tears a tap dance along the exposed skin of his neck, the darkness of separation vanishing beneath the fire of her desperation since she seemed determined to hang from the ladder of his spine. To never let go of it again.

This new proximity to her created a vortex in his chest which cracked like icebones then stitched him up like needleheat. One of his hands slipped near hers of its own volition: hovering but not touching, wanting but not taking.

Klaus couldn’t bring himself to fight against her warmth. He couldn’t fucking breathe.

How did this happen, he wondered? To armor himself in iron only to be disassembled by a single touch. Why was her embrace a nirvana no mountain of pain could snuff out?

Anger and grief lingered, of course. It proliferated in the air around him, piercing his heart like a storm made of daggers every time he attempted to speak, but not enough of it remained to shrug her off. To break free. In the end, she stuck to him like a lost shadow while he choked on the pleasure of suffering.

“I need to tell you something even if you refuse to look at me,” Caroline said in a tone which was equal parts cautious, pleading, and wishful. “Will you let me?”

“I’m listening,” he replied.

Six months ago, Caroline had thrown his name at the dark like a spear and fled. She’d let the bold, broken letters of him bleed from red to black to gone against the fabric of her retreating back, her doubts muffled by the sound of her scurrying feet as she’d taken off with nothing— except a mouthful of forevers.

(Those, as consequence would have it, she’d left unsaid.)

With a lump of cowardice in her throat, plus a mixture of guilt and woe rawing her stomach, Caroline had freaking run. Run away from it all.

She’d hastened away from a southern city pulsing with magnetism; its streets crowded, forever bustling, as shouting friends reveled in culture or debauchery. It was a place she knew she’d thrived for the past five years. A place she’d grown to love for its sultry sunset moods, its whispered twilight lovers, and its jazzy saxophone blues which soothed lost or lonely souls beneath the moonlight. It was where cobblestone histories wrote tomes against stones and buildings and people who were too wrapped up in cuisine or celebration to lend an ear, the wind full of forgotten moments. It was where agelessness chimed from chapels, where flowered herbs grew atop graves but never disturbed the consecrated bones.

She’d first tasted the power of possibility there. Yes, Caroline had folded herself into New Orleans’ arms with her eyes wide open, her heart neither open nor closed but eclipsing as she’d strolled beneath the eye of her first hurricane to (finally) dance to the tune of dangerous beauty.

Throughout her stay, she’d helped witches set fire to the clouds, the sky purpling with magic that deserved to be returned to their capable hands. She’d schooled vampires on how to fight with control, patience, and fortitude by using their minds as well as their enhanced senses. She’d chewed through the bonds which had chained werewolves to the phases of the moon and had set them free to follow their own feet, all the while encouraging them to stay with smiles which promised mercy. Loyalty. Friendship. Family.

She’d also killed with kindness almost as often as she’d seethed with rage to become a weapon of her own making: gracious, grisly, and great. The city had taught her that true magic sometimes dwelled in shadows beyond the reach of the sun, its black sparks sleeping perhaps, but never dying. And although New Orleans had enchanted her with its ambiguity, Caroline had panicked when she’d realized how exquisitely darkness suited her and had decided to escape before it could claim her completely.

But there was also more to this getaway. Something worse, and, arguably more…problematic. (Borderline reproachful, honestly.) You see, it wasn’t just a what she’d fled from, but a whom. Plural.

The Mikaelsons.

Rebekah, Kol, Freya, Elijah, and Marcel, who, with their offerings of blood, censure, teasing, bickering, and protectiveness, had come to regard her as kin (with a ‘double-cross-me-and-I-will-stab-you’ kind of attachment, of course, but whatever), indulging her with things like a a room of her own, beignets, excellent booze, bitching, arguing, broken furniture, and headaches for days. They’d welcomed her as one of them with fangs and fists, with trust and reliance. Not only had they fought with her side-by-side to bring peace back to New Orleans, but they’d also managed to find time to initiate her into their (ridiculously) dysfunctional family tribe. That meant Caroline had participated in everything from Thursday night sing-offs with Kol and Marcel to screaming matches with Rebekah over ‘borrowed’ shoes, and from French Quarter ‘suit’ business with Elijah, to discreet matchmaking for Freya, to swanky parties with costumes, and to refereeing over presumed family betrayals.

It had been absolutely freaking exhausting at the time, and, yet, weirdly… enjoyable, too.

All that said, Caroline had left them all behind. Deserted them all without warning. She’d left no crumbs for them to follow, no allusions as to where or when she could be reached again. No explanations as to why. She’d done nothing but tuck this short, half-assed note between the pages of Elijah’s favorite Mozart symphony before strolling out the front door:

I’ll already be gone by the time you read this. Off somewhere on my own. I promise I’m safe so it’s no use coming after me, especially considering I learned how to disappear from Katherine. Stay put, do your thing. Know I don’t want to be found.

Don’t kill each other, okay? I’ll miss you.

—Caroline

P.S. Tell him I’m sorry, but my heart’s a wandering thing.

Yes, she’d run from, him, too. (Run from him most, probably.)

Klaus.

She’d abandoned the tortured, tender man who unapologetically bulldozed every damn wall she’d tried to erect between them since their worlds first collided back in Mystic Falls. A man who, when he wasn’t shoving her out of her comfort zone (and on her ass), or driving her mental with his arrogance, cynicism, jealousy, paranoia, temper tantrums, etc. would scrape the pits of heaven or hell to give her anything she desired. Everything. Oh, how he would kill to kiss his dynasty of night beneath her skin! How he would die to feel her soul finally sink into his with a wolf’s bite, clutching almost possessively! How brutally bad he wanted this “thing” between them to last!

Despite his patience and how he’d never prodded for more than she gave him, however, Caroline could feel that one unfulfilled hope of his growing hungrier and hungrier with need the longer she’d stayed. Intensity had rippled from Klaus like a soft, shimmering shadow. It’d stretched out like it wanted nothing more than to caress the monsters free from her head, and she’d watched as it clouded over his face with worry and disappointment each time she’d retracted, pulling away from him and into herself. Tucking her monsters into coffins he couldn’t penetrate.

“Please, why won’t you let me?” he’d seemed to ask without speaking, his eyes searching, his touch digging gingerly for skeletons he couldn’t find. “Why won’t you let me in to comfort you? We’re the same, you and I, we’re the same.”

His wishes thumped. They’d sparked beneath his chest with a fire that melted into honey each time their eyes met or their limbs had tangled beneath the sheets until morning. Like a hummingbird, he’d hovered. He’d waited, and waited endlessly, for her to invite him all the way in so he could entomb his lovelines somewhere precious and warm around her heart where they would keep. Wanting only to know he belonged to her in a way that tackled levity and uncertainty for good.

But all Caroline had for him at the time were little half-smiles. And lips that half-kissed. And forever dreams that half-existed. And fears which had compounded into restlessness so strong and so irresistible, they’d ushered her away from him with no farewell spoken between them.

It had been unbelievably cruel to do that, not say goodbye, selfish even, but that word always tasted like rubber in her mouth any time she’d tried to say it to him in the past—wrong somehow. So she’d kept silent. She’d let it crash and burn in the blackness behind her while she’d chased the sunrise alone.

In the end, the colors of dawn had streamed in through that still-misty window to grip Caroline by the soul. They’d stirred her to her feet as a message had ribboned through her bones, pleading for her to heed it:

Seek.

Find.

Learn.

Know.

Go on now. Go, go…

And she had. She did.

“I left to hunt the light,” Caroline announced after clearing her throat.

“The light?”

She nodded against his shoulder. “I followed it in order to see where it led…to explore places I never knew I needed to see.”

“Without me.” Klaus meant it as a question but it came out blunt and flat. Like the period at the end of a lazy sentence.

“Yes,” Caroline said, exhaling slowly, “without you.”

“With no forewarning, no parting line?”

“Yes.”

Klaus frowned. Repressed the urge to mutter something about her ‘tiresome bloody explanations’ by scraping his knuckles across his lips. “Why? Why couldn’t you have at least tried talking to me about it first?”

“Because I…because I couldn’t.”

“Why?” he repeated.

“There was so much blood between us, Klaus! It was everywhere, it was in everything,” Caroline said, each syllable fraying his confusion into disillusionment, “rushing so hard and clumping so deep that most of the time I couldn’t tell where the hell you ended and where I began. We were bound by blood in too many ways, you and me, and I didn’t want to see it, okay? I didn’t want to know it. I was so—”

“Ah, I see,” he interjected. He stiffened when he perceived her intended meaning: so soft but puncturing, so honest but injurious. It caused him to razor his reply with more sharpness than wryness, “And I suppose you’re saying it’s too messy for your liking, right? That my past atrocities have stained too much of your life for you to have been able to stay or truly care for me?”

“What?”

“Really, sweetheart,” he continued in that brusque, callous way of his that made a laugh sound diseased, “I thought you’d shoulder guilt better than this by now. You should’ve saved yourself the expense of a trip back here because—”

“Stop.”

“It’s fine. Go.” He waved her away. “I understand.”

Using her fingernails like a vise, Caroline clamped down hard on his elbows before he could break free to sulk. Or worse, to tear into an innocent throat. Tension plucked between them like pliant tendons refusing to snap. It stretched his thoughts in so many different directions he couldn’t weave them together in a manner which made sense or didn’t ache from the strain.

“My God, why are you so freaking infuriating!?” she asked, probably rolling her eyes. “You can’t survive without hearing the sound of your own voice for five seconds so you jump to conclusions before you give me a chance to finish speaking! I can’t take it!!!”

“Perhaps you should’ve stayed away then.” He hated how bitter and waxy the retort tasted on his tongue, how hollow it sounded as it left his mouth, but he said it anyway.

“I have tried, Klaus! Believe me,” Caroline snorted weakly, her voice resigned to some emotion he couldn’t decipher, “I have tried long and hard to stay away from you. Do you have any damn idea how much time and energy I’ve wasted trying to keep myself from crashing into the truth?”

A jolt of something old and familiar fired across his chest at this. He inclined his head to the side ever so slightly, ears burning. What was it? What was she saying?

“I mean, not only did I baulk at princess bracelets and shred horse drawings, but I spent months in Mystic Falls being bitchy and hostile and mean. I hurled insult after insult at your face! I told myself one romp in the woods would be enough to get you out of my system. I helped my friends devise ways to kill you, remained with Stefan despite knowing he’d always put his brother and Elena before me, swallowed all of my cares for your family, for New Orleans, and cursed when the universe saw straight through my charade.”

“Writing off our connection as ‘no biggie’ for years,” she paced behind him, “I tried to deny. Ignore. Forget. And push it all away. I’ve wanted to believe that we, us, were casual and not meant to be more so I snipped the dark from my heart. I sprinted after the light because I thought it’s where I belonged.”

Klaus gulped, his throat dry and rough all of a sudden. “And is it?”

“I know I’ve been awful, hurtful beyond words,” Caroline continued, “and I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry, Klaus…” She paused for a moment. Collected another breath before reaching out to touch him again with tender trailing fingertips, “But I can’t do it anymore, okay? I can’t.”

“Do what?” he said.

She sighed heavily. “Pretend.”

“Pretend…what?” Confusion, so many conflicting thoughts, galloped in his head.

“That I can endure a life emptied of you,” Caroline offered simply, “because I can’t. I won’t.” In an effort to somehow illustrate this point further, she shook her head, letting her forehead roll back-and-forth along his shoulder. “Am I making myself clear yet?”

“And your wandering heart?” Klaus asked as he scratched his teeth along his bottom lip and remembered the pain that line from her letter had wrought. Recalling the overwhelming sense of loss that’d slammed into his chest like a skyscraper full of bricks, his knees nearly shuddered as the memory hit him afresh.

He’d sensed her hesitancy toward commitment throughout their five years together, of course, but he thought it’d give way with a little more time as a couple. Months, years, decades, centuries—who cared precisely when? He’d been in no rush. He’d believed her nomadic feelings were bound to settle eventually. Or perhaps it would’ve been more accurate to say he’d ‘naively hoped’ they would. That is, until she took off with her fucking wanderlust and had left his heart to rot without her. “What of that? Hm?”

“It wandered away so it could drift back. Back to where it’s belonged all along,” Caroline answered.

“I suppose you mean here?”

“I do. Only I was too stubborn to see it. Terrified, really.”

“How illuminating. So after all this, after everything,” Klaus started, his tone harsh, “you expect me to forget the torment of losing you? Forget how you left me feeling both drowned and deprived at the same time?”

“No,” she replied, “I don’t. All I’m asking is for you all to try and forgive me enough so I can care for you like I couldn’t before.”

“Oh?” he clenched, his back still turned to her, his heart pumping loud and red with a yearning just at the edge of a bruise.“And how’s that exactly?”

“Recklessly. Completely.”

Klaus bit back a scornful sound. All of his undead fears pricking, poking, prodding at the shreds of hope which still survived in a small area behind his ribs. “Why should I believe you?”

“Maybe because I’ve never lied to you before, so why would I start now? Or maybe because I needed to leave,” she sucked in a breath, “for my heart to know home was more than a place for me, and that I’d want to find my way back to it for good someday soon.”

Stepping closer, Caroline folded her hand into his then twined their fingers together with a squeeze so ripe with feeling, that it was as if she’d crossed the world just to hold it again.

“I’m done making wrong turns, Klaus. No more running, no more careless mistakes. Home is forever now, okay?”

“Home for me is…” She paused, but there was no shame in what came next, no irony. “Well, you,” she said frankly.

One. Two. Three seconds of hybrid defibrillation. Then—

A growl which disintegrated into a moan almost immediately. His head spinning, spiraling, his stomach lurching up into his throat only to plummet down through the ground past his toes to feast on disbelief. Fists of fury unraveled like rope, his posture softening the moment he pulled her in front of him and caged her between his arms against the railing with no way out. She would listen now.

“Damn you,” he blurted out.

Silence.

“How in hell do you always manage to say things that have me dying to kiss you when I should want nothing more than to tear you apart with fangs?”

Caroline shrugged then. Reached up a hand to cup his face.

“Sorry, but it’s not like I can help that I’m in love with you, you know? Besides,” she added with a twitch of her lips, thumb scratching along stubble, “it all comes out in moron supposedly, anyway. Or so they say.”

Trounced, conquered, and not to mention a tad stunned, Klaus raked over her face with a combination of anger and attention in his gaze at this. He drank her in like the starved beast he was while the knife of her words—which she’d never spoken before but were ones he’d longed to hear for many years past—twisted and turned inside of him, slicing deeper this time, making him pant because he still hungered for the blade of her mouth. Still coveted the spikes of her heart. He always had. And in that moment when he pulled her against him to let their mouths and bodies collide, shutting her up hard and fast, her love’s blood seeping in to fill up all the places she’d emptied inside of him six months ago, magicking the two of them back together like a dawn-kissed midnight which could bloody well last forever, the poor bastard knew he always would.

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