lovewhentheyrun | Trying Something New [for jackcaptainjack]

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Trying Something New [for jackcaptainjack]

It was a strange sensation for Klaus, finding himself uncertain of things he didn't want to be uncertain about. He'd always known who he was. Instead of asking, he told people where he stood. Fine, a lot of it was bravado, but it was self-deluding bravado. Anything that entered his orbit that defied the story he told about himself, he got rid of, or neutralized, tucked away somewhere out of sight. He loved best from a distance, without the messy emotions of other people demanding different things from him than he wanted to give.

Some of that, at least, he'd begun to realize before they put him in that box. Some. Elena's words had lingered, and his need for her blood had mocked him, and now, maybe, he was just trying to prove someone wrong.

Except...he didn't really know how he fit. His siblings had grieved. They seemed glad to have him back, after a while of shouting at him. Elijah, of course, hadn't shouted. Elijah rarely shouted. And by the time Elijah was over the worst of the poisoning, Rebekah and Kol had stopped shouting, too.

Jack...made things messy, though. Made Klaus's place uncertain, almost. They liked Jack. Elijah probably did more than that, but while occasionally Elijah wore his heart on his sleeve, other times he was impossible to read. Now was such a time. Klaus wanted things to be like they'd always said they were (whether they were or not). Family above all.

He wasn't sure that was the case anymore, and if it wasn't--where did he fit?

Of course, it would be far easier if he, too, didn't like Jack. But he did, which was annoying in its own way. He didn't want to like him. He wanted to fuck him and get it over with, and leave him in no doubt of where he fell in the pecking order of Elijah's affections, but Klaus was in doubt (and had been for a century or two, so, really, that was nothing new), and while he suspected so, too, was Jack...he didn't see a way to resolve it.

Jack calling him out hadn't much helped.

Rebekah had petted and soothed to the best of her ability, but Klaus had mostly spent the time since painting in the attic room he'd converted to a studio years ago because of the fantastic light from the skylights and the glass doors that led out to a rooftop terrace. He was there, now, frowning at a canvas with paint on it that had, as of yet, failed to form itself into anything recognizable. The bottle of vodka sitting on the table with his paints, half empty, was its own sort of testament to his mood, but. One could only expect so much.

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Jack didn't doubt that Elijah's first priority was his family, though on some level he had challenged that by asking Elijah to think about his own wants and desires.

It didn't really mean he knew where he stood, though. It wouldn't have made him happier to be sure he was at the bottom of the list, but it might well have been easier for him, as well as Klaus. It certainly would have been easier if he hadn't legitimately liked them all back, but the load of problems that would have come from that wasn't something he was interested in substituting, either.

He still wasn't sure of much, when he made his way slowly up to the attic and found Klaus in the attic studio. Just that he wanted to do his best to make things better. He didn't walk into the room, though he knew Klaus could hear him. Door open or not didn't even matter. He knocked very, very lightly. "Can I come in?"

Klaus heard him there, yes, especially given the way he moved--human, but assured. He could hear his heartbeat, too, catch his scent. Still, he didn't look at him until he knocked, spoke. Even then, he waited a moment, studying the canvas, before glancing back at him.

"Of course."

Jack waited out that moment patiently, but not without some feeling of trepidation. Once he was acknowledged though, he stepped in, hands ins his pockets and obviously...unsure. Unsure, but trying.

"I can't remember the last time I made such an ass of myself. I'd like to try to make things better. If you're willing to listen."

Klaus watched him for a long moment. He wasn't about to apologize without more explanation, and probably not even then. I'm sorry weren't really words in his vocabulary.

He noted the uncertainty in Jack's posture and face, heard his words, then shifted his gaze back to studying the canvas. It was easier that way.

"Go on."

Jack's basic philosophy was that the words 'I'm sorry' were cheap, almost to the point of being insulting. He would apologize to someone for their sake, but he tried to be more specific than a simple apology.

He watched Klaus's back, but the lack of eye-contact was easier for him right now, too. Not that he knew the first thing about how to do this, or what was right. In fact, he was actually choking now that he was here, though, on the edge of reverting to a basic apology that said nothing that meant anything.

Which actually bode really badly for the effectiveness of this conversation, but he was going to try anyway. "I know it was arrogant as hell, but I didn't want you to feel like I didn't like you because I was backing down from the flirting and innuendo. Or even that I wasn't willing to follow through. I implied a lot of things about you both, that I wasn't smart enough to realize I was implying."

Klaus stilled a little, then picked up his paintbrush, not that he still had any idea what he was going to do with the disaster on the canvas.

"What do you think you implied?"

He really wanted to make certain they were on the same page.

"That you were playing games with Elijah and using me to do it. That you would play those games. That I understood you well enough to guess at what you wanted or why." He left out the bit about Elijah being willing to pass him around like a party favor, because that hadn't been an assumption on his part, that had been the unfortunate result of bad wording. "That you wanted to sleep with me in the first place was also an assumption."

He kept his voice down reasonably well, but not so far he totally lose inflection. Just - quiet and kind of subdued.

Edited 2013-02-02 06:44 (UTC)

None of them were particularly bad assumptions, on the whole. Some of them might even have the possibility of being right in some backward type of way he wasn't fully owning up to. None of them were the whole truth, though, and, really...he'd be damned if he knew what that truth was.

He wanted to ask something snarky, maybe demand to know just where Jack stood, if he wanted him or not, but that was far too dangerous a question for him to manage, and, anyway, what came out was not what he meant to say at all.

"Do you love him?"

It wasn't at all what Jack had expected, and he was caught completely off guard. Being pressed on the point of wanting Klaus or not would have been far less of a surprise.

He didn't think about his answer, didn't try to frame it, didn't choose his words or elaborate, he just blinked a couple of times and said, "Yes."

Klaus studied him for a long moment after he answered. It was what he expected in an answer, but now that he had it, he didn't know what to do with it.

"And so you're worried about hurting him."

It's an easy enough conclusion, wrapped up directly in all the things Jack has already said, anyway. But if they're getting all their cards on the table...

It was Jack's turn to pause, but though he was looking at Klaus he was far more introspective than studying someone else.

"I don't want to hurt him," he agreed. Sort of. "It was never permission I was looking for. I don't think he'd think twice if we fucked. I want him to think twice. I want him to either really be okay with it, or to figure out that he's not. Then I want him to express that, and to get it."

Klaus looked at him for a very long time, then actually laughed.

"Good luck with that."

Jack gave Klaus a sheepish grin and shrug. "I've got time. I've got a reasonable amount of faith in him. I think he'll figure it out, eventually. It just might take another thousand years."

"Perhaps," Klaus said, doubtfully. "Whether he'll express it, once he does is another matter entirely." He paused, considering. "He's my older brother. There is not a time in my life in which he has not existed. And in all that time...I do not think he has ever truly told anyone what he wants."

Jack silently eyed Klaus for a few moments, not quite having an internal debate but certainly hesitating. Hesitating because he didn't want to betray Elijah's trust, hesitating because he didn't want to fuck up with Klaus, again.

"I can't change who he is, and I wouldn't want to if I could. He can reach out, Klaus. For himself, for what he wants. I think he's scared to death of losing you all if he does, but he can do it. As long as he knows it isn't going to cost him you."

Klaus gave him a level look for a long moment, weighing the comment. He was about to protest that he'd never do anything like that, but then all he could think about was Katerina, and his gaze fell away.

"He's never seemed unhappy before," he muttered, turning back to the painting.

"Has he ever seemed happy?" That was not, in any way, shape or form a challenge to Klaus or his perception, or an implication that he knew Elijah better. It was nothing more than a question, and a legitimate request for information from the person who knew Elijah best.

How Klaus took it, of course, was - up to Klaus.

Klaus fiddled with the paintbrush and was quiet long enough it became questionable that he might not answer. In truth, he was searching back through the centuries.

When he finally answered, his voice was quiet. "When we were human."

Jack was patient. If Klaus asked him to go, he would. Otherwise, Jack was willing to wait as long as it took. For an answer, to be told to leave, even just to be acknowledged.

He was a bit surprised when the answer came. "What was he like, then?" Jack asked. Paused and then a bit more gently, "What were you like?"

Klaus cast him a look over his shoulder, then shook his head. "Younger."

It was an answer, if not a full one, but...sometimes he feels so old, and he saw it in Elijah's eyes all the time. "Finn was always the one in charge--he was the heir, the one meant to follow Father, but we were all trained to be warriors. Elijah...he was good. Very good. You couldn't beat him without cheating, but he wasn't arrogant about it." He smiled a little. "I mean, he'd -- what is it they say today? Talk smack. But then he'd explain just where you went wrong, show you how not to do it again last night. Finn...he wanted to be a leader. Elijah was. We'd all have done just about anything for him, but I don't think he knew. When you become a vampire, all that you were is...heightened. The good and the bad. Elijah was always inclined a bit more to seriousness, but when we were human, it was more in balance. Fun. Laughter. He was quieter than the rest of us, content to watch us play, but sometimes he joined in and he...was almost always smiling. He laughed a lot." Klaus looked down at his paintbrush. "We were trained as warriors, but no one ever attacked us. None of us but Father had ever killed before we were turned. The first time Elijah did..." He shrugged again. "He hasn't laughed much since, and even just getting him to really smile..." Winning one of those smiles, real, unguarded, had been something he'd lived for, once, they were that rare.

Younger was an answer, and it was a good one. Jack couldn't fully grasp the enormity of living all that time, one day at a time, and he didn't really want to. He'd spent the vast majority of his life dead or drying in a grave. Horrible, yes, but nowhere near the same sort of wearing that being truly alive and in the world was.

He listened quietly as Klaus spoke, not interrupting or making comment though some of what Klaus said fully slotted some things about Elijah into place in a way very little else could have. That's what kept him silent, in his place against the wall, for a bit after Klaus had finished speaking.

"You sound like you miss him."

Klaus considers the comment, frowning a little, then shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe I just miss...how certain things were, then. How clear."

"I don't want to say I understand, because I'm pretty sure I can't fully, but I get some pieces of the sentiment, at least. See enough shit, and nothing makes sense anymore. And that's after a couple of hundred years, not a thousand."

Klaus nodded, just a little. "We were all...so very innocent. Maybe that's what I miss."

"I remember being, I don't know, fourteen or fifteen, and thinking running off to war sounded like a great time. I can't decide if I was innocent, or a fucking moron. Probably some of both." He stopped and shook his head, then refocused. "Was when you were human the last time you were happy?"

Trying Something New [for jackcaptainjack]

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