lovewhentheyrun: (Brooding with my drink)
Klaus Mikaelson ([personal profile] lovewhentheyrun) wrote2012-10-27 04:13 pm

Even angels have their wicked schemes [For [livejournal.com profile] jackcaptainjack]

Klaus had been thinking. Admittedly, deep introspection was not his strong point, but that's what happened when you didn't have anything else to do. He could breathe in London, look back at how things had gone wrong in Virginia, try and figure out where he'd misstepped. Obviously, Esther had been something he hadn't counted on, and, really, he should have seen Stefan's betrayal coming, but he'd wanted to believe in him so badly.

Esther, though. That had been his real blindspot. In that way, at least, he knew his siblings were on his side. She'd wanted all of them dead, not just him, and Elijah was never going to let that happen.

That didn't mean Elijah wanted him back, or even that Rebekah did. What Jack had said, though, had given him hope. He was going back. He just...needed the right approach. The way in. Showing up on their doorstep, all, "honey, I'm home," actually had appeal, but it turned out he was a bit of a coward when it came down to it.

So, he was still in London. He didn't think Jack was, but he was hanging around the pub where they'd had dinner. That was getting boring, though, so he finally reached out, searching for him through the compulsion he'd already laid, and sent a call, strongly suggesting he bring himself back to Klaus's house for a visit.

Then all he had to do was wait.

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-05 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
Klaus shrugged a little. "I'd say we could walk, but given it's nearly four miles and across the river..." He didn't think Jack would like walking that far in the chill night air.

"The Tube works well enough for me."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-05 04:25 am (UTC)(link)
Jack pulled back his sleeve to check his watch, then looked at Nic and raised his eyebrows.

"Sweetheart, I may not have vampire speed or stamina, but I'm pretty sure we're talking about an hour, even by the most leisurely pace. If it gets me out of public transportation and heading underground, forget it: let's walk."

Yes, it was chill and damp. No, it wasn't his temperature preference, but he certainly didn't anticipate any real trouble. He had endured far, far worse than autumn in fall.

"You can tell me about the debatable points of people improving with age, while we walk."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-05 05:21 am (UTC)(link)
"We could take a cab," Klaus offered. It was just annoying, this time of day, trying to get through traffic, occasionally.

He'd drive, but where the hell would they park over there with a festival going on?

But if Jack wanted to walk, he shrugged and led the way back out to the street, giving him a sideways glance and another shrug.

"Grown up humans can be just as annoying as the little ones."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-05 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
Jack came damn close to adding to the list of possible ways of traversing three miles in London, but he refrained. He stuffed his hands in his pockets when he stepped outside, pivoting to swing his coat out of the way so Klaus could close it behind them, then starting to walk.

The sideways glance got one in return, along with a very faint smirk. "Some of us never really grow up, or get better," he said, with a just slightly dry tone. "But humans don't have the market on annoying cornered. There's just a whole lot more of them around. I somehow suspect being around your family will knock the edge off, Nic. No one likes to be alone. Being alone in a crowd of aliens is... a helluva lot worse."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-07 06:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Klaus gave him a look, considering if he'd feel the same if he really knew who he was, what he truly was. What he'd done.

"I've heard that before." Usually thrown at him--for not growing up. "And, yes. Hopefully, that will make it easier."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-07 06:09 pm (UTC)(link)
What Jack assumed he'd done to Elijah was likely to be a bigger problem than what he'd done to anyone else, but the question was still a good one. Answer likely not being very flattering to Jack, really.

Then again, he hadn't quite gotten the idea that Vampires tended to be dangerous, even with Elijah's warnings and association. His view was skewed toward the controlled and honorable.

"That some of us never gain any maturity?" he asked, not entirely sure he'd followed. "I'm sure just about everyone with any sense of fun has, at least a few times, and usually with exasperation. I still don't miss actually being a kid."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-07 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
"Mmhmm," Klaus answered the question. "Of course, I suppose that depends on people's definitions of maturity. I, for one, see nothing wrong or immature about a healthy sense of fun."

Granted, fine, his idea of fun was usually pretty destructive--or, at least some of his ideas of fun. Clearly, he had non-destructive ideas of fun, too. Like sketching and art and museums. Possibly hanging out with Jack met both "fun" impulses.

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-07 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Sweetheart, I actually got glitter into my vampire 'boyfriend''s hair gel, for fun. I'd love to claim maturity, but I don't have a leg to stand on, with that one. If I turn up bald? You know what happened."

Speaking of potentially destructive - though self-destructive in this case, and he had absolutely zero fear of being harmed. It had still been, dammit, fun.

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-09 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Klaus actually stumbled to a bit of a stop, staring at him. "....You actually did it?"

And still had his hair? Klaus would have been a bit worried about retaliation, himself, after that.

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-09 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Jack stopped just as Nic did and gave him a very, apparently legitimately, confused look. "I told him I was going to. Why would I not, after that?"

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-10 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't know...." Klaus shook his head. "I suppose I thought you were joking."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-10 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
"The whole thing's a joke. Hopefully one that turns into an outright prank war. They need some levity. All of them."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-10 10:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Why?" Yes, he'd asked him about it when Jack had figured out who he was, but...Jack had known who he was, then. He wanted to know what Jack would say to "Nic" about why Elijah needed some levity. "And how many of them are there?"

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-10 10:18 pm (UTC)(link)
"The same reason I'm dragging you out to an art festival, Nic. I get the impression being a vampire kind of sucks, a lot of the time. It's certainly too lonely and too serious for anyone. Also exhausting. Fun's good - and 3."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Being a vampire does not suck," Klaus corrected. "But I suppose it can get lonely sometimes." He watched him a moment. "Not that I'm adverse to fun. I happen to agree it's good."

He considered the number, then nodded a little. "Family?"

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Well, I'd hope there's some sucking. Otherwise, it seems like an awful boring eternity." Yes, that was deliberate, and deliberately sharp, and almost too bright, right along with his grin. The second Klaus said 'family', Jack remembered just what family meant to Elijah. He also remembered, though not the stake or anything connected to it, that losing one of the originals meant the loss of their entire blood line. And, frankly, he wasn't interested in putting them in that kind of danger.

"Family?" he echoed. "Seriously? Vampires do that? I figured they were all mostly solitary. Definitely sterile though, right? Because otherwise, I am scientifically enthralled. Death should pretty much mean dead sperm, right?"

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
Klaus was vaguely amused at the semi-ingenuity, the shifting from easy answers to slipping around them.

"If we were all solitary, would I be looking to get back to my family?" he asked mildly. "And, yes. We do it quite often. No one wants to spend eternity alone."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
"Good point on the solitary. Would make being lonely hard, too. But how common can a whole family full of vampires really be? Vampires with family, maybe. They'd have to have some relatives alive for a while, but unless they crash and burn early, they're eventually going to outlive them. Hence lonely and ... making new family, I'd assume, if they were lonely enough."


He was - also kind of slamming into something with 'how common can it be' a bit, but it sure as fuck wasn't showing.

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 07:32 am (UTC)(link)
"More common than you'd think," Klaus said with a wry smile. "Yes, we've a habit of making ourselves new families as we go, but...there's also a fairly strong imperative that pushes us to turn those we love. To not lose them."

He shrugged. "That leads to at least a lot of sibling groups, if not full families."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
"I've wondered about that," he admitted, tucking his hands a bit deeper into his pockets, for warmth. "That sounds like... something that has the potential for a lot of strong bonds being formed. Beauty, even. Or horror, I suppose. Not much room for anything between."

He sounded... wistful, disturbingly enough. (Disturbing to him, anyway.)

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Not much room for much between in any parts of our lives," Klaus said, voice a little quieter. "We're not really a species that does things by halves."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)
"I used to think I had the market cornered on intensity. Then I started hanging out with vampires." He smiled, quickly. "Feeling everything more. Six months ago, I would have said it just sounded exhausting. Now, I'm starting to think it's probably pretty fantastic - even when it's not."

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Klaus thought about it for a moment, then gave him a wry smile. "It's hard to think about being any other way, now. Some of the younger ones can flip a switch in their brains, turn their humanity, their emotions off. They get guilt-stricken and the like. But that ability goes away the older we get. And then..." He shrugged. "Sometimes it might be nice not to have to feel it all, but when you don't...it's like being dead."

[identity profile] 51stcenturyjack.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"I can see it being a good survival instinct, when you have to feed on people to live yourself and the control to be safe and careful aren't there. But yeah. That depth of apathy and loss of... color. Not good for humans, and we don't fall to quite the same depths as vampires - washed out gray, not absolute black. Maybe it's compensation for not rising quite as high. I don't know." He shrugged, without removing his hands from his pockets. "I do know I'd rather be screaming in pain than numb."

And he'd done both. The conversation was a good reminder of telling Gwen that thinking he might really did was when he'd felt the most alive. There was a lot of truth in that.

[identity profile] lovewhentheyrun.livejournal.com 2012-11-11 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Klaus gave him a searching look and frowned a bit as Jack spoke. Really, he understood too much, or just enough, or something...something that made him really see what Elijah might see in the man more than his blood. Granted, he'd liked spending time with him from the start, amusing enough, even when he was contemplating killing him.

"It is, in the start. Go long enough, when it eventually turns back on, you're either crippled or too far away from any real humanity for it to matter. It tends to make monsters, I suppose."

Though some of them were just born that way, or so people said.