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It all started because he forgot to turn off the camera's flash.
Klaus hated almost everything about Mystic Falls High School, one of the few exceptions being his independent study art credit. As a senior, he was expected to use that credit toward building a multimedia portfolio for applications to art schools. Painting came easy to him, sketching with charcoal almost second nature. Wanting to put off sculpture as long as possible - he hated the dissatisfaction that came from ruining hours of work with one mistake - he had borrowed a camera to work on a digital photography submission.
He carried it with him everywhere for weeks, snapping the odd picture in hopes of finding inspiration. His works had been built from the theme of "Inner Darkness," a title Kol and Bekah had mocked mercilessly as younger siblings were wont to do. Worse than that, nothing he shot with the camera was resonating with his chosen direction.
Mystic Falls should have been the perfect setting, the image of small town innocence marred by a severe class divide, alcohol-fueled violence, and cutthroat politics. Klaus had an intimate perspective given his parents' position on the artificially elite Council and the abuse he suffered at his father's hands. But his photos couldn't capture the darkness.
They were just bleak.
After a particularly disappointing shoot downtown, Klaus had allowed Bekah to pester him into driving her to that night's football game. Bitter as she was that her freshman status kept her off the varsity cheer squad, she did enjoy the small freedom of going out with only her big brother for supervision. He left her to a group of giggling girls to smoke under the bleachers with Stefan, who unfortunately had Katherine plastered to his side this week. Klaus didn't really like the curly-haired Gilbert twin, but she was easier to stand than her bore of a sister; that is, unless she had Damon hanging around her instead. He had no idea why Stefan put up with either of them.
Alas, Stefan and Katherine had started canoodling while he continued to puff away at a cigarette. Turning to the field, the bleacher gaps gave Klaus a clear view of the cheerleaders as a whip of blonde curls caught his eye. Immediately, he dropped his smoke to raise the camera that had become a fixture around his neck.
Caroline Forbes was another bright spot in his miserable high school experience, not that she knew he existed. She was the golden girl and pageant queen; he was just the art nerd who caught himself sketching her profile as they sat in history. He didn't know her outside of class participation and Bekah's complaints, but he took those with a grain of salt. It wasn't unrequited love or anything, he just liked to look at her.
She was cheering at the game, her smile literally awash in bright lights. Without thinking, Klaus pushed the button with the satisfying click of the shutter.
"Shit," he muttered as the flash went off, too bright in the dimness under the bleachers.
"Creep," Katherine snorted. Klaus ignored in her favor of checking the digital display, worried the flash had ruined the photo's composition.
In a minor miracle, the picture turned out better than he hoped. Framed by the shadowed slats of the bleachers, the flash created a flare effect to surround Caroline with light, mid-clap. She was bright, beautiful, and just out of reach.
Glancing up, he realized she was looking right at him, too.
"Shit."
Fidgety discomfort wasn't a good look for Klaus, and the beer he kept drinking wasn't helping. He hated these parties. Drunken high schoolers crowding everywhere, desperate to be noticed, to receive an ounce of affection. As he stood quietly at the edge of the pavilion, he hated the reminder he was just like them.
Bekah was the one to drag him to the falls after the game, though she had already disappeared with her gaggle of friends. Klaus could see Kol snogging his girlfriend against a tree. Taking another sip of his beer, he wondered how his little brother learned to be so shameless in his public displays. Unable to watch anymore, he turned away, only to find someone watching him.
His eyes widened as Caroline held their staring match. When he blinked, a playful corner of her mouth tilted upward. She raised an eyebrow in challenge before turning on her heel and striding toward the haphazard parking lot. With just enough curiosity and alcohol to temper his natural hesitance, Klaus quickly dropped his cup and made to follow her.
Wandering through the cars, he started to feel stupid when Caroline was nowhere to be found. Klaus rounded a Jeep, though, and a whisper snagged his attention.
"Boo."
Startled, Klaus jerked his head to see her leaning against the Jeep. Her ponytail shone in the moonlight, her pale skin contrasting with the dark maroon of the cheerleading uniform. His hands itched to bring his camera up, only to remember he had left it in his car.
Caroline looked at him expectantly, then annoyed when he remained silent. "You know, for someone so obsessed with me, you really don't know how to make a girl feel special," she snapped. At his confused expression, she rolled her eyes. "I have a personality, one you might even enjoy if you stopped staring for, like, a minute and actually spoke to me."
Pressing his lips together to stifle a surprised chuckle, he pointedly looked away from her. "You're funny."
"He speaks," she mocked, though the dry humor tingeing her voice betrayed amusement. "And no defense for being obsessed with me, interesting. Do you take creepy pictures of everyone from under the bleachers, or am I more special than I think?"
Klaus scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he had a cigarette. He didn't know what he expected when he followed her - hoped and dreamed, maybe - but it wasn't to detail his apparently obvious attraction. Worse, she definitely saw his camera flash during the football game. "It's not what you think," he defended weakly.
"Try me," she demanded, arms defiantly crossed.
His eyes tracked the irritated pop of her hip the longer he went without answering.
Huffing out her frustration, she actually stomped her foot. "Whatever, just stop taking your creeper pictures. I'm not your personal Playboy bunny."
"Wait," he said before she could leave. "They're not- I don't mean to be creepy. It's for an art project."
Caroline let out a disbelieving laugh, her hair whipping around as she faced him. "Less Playboy, more Maplethorpe?" she challenged. "You're hot, Klaus, but I'm too smart to be seduced by whatever artistic muse crap you believe."
Though he wanted to focus on the hot comment, Klaus knew he was losing this stand-off she had orchestrated. "Let me show you."
Intrigue shot through her expression until she again adopted a cool demeanor. "Fine, but I better be impressed."
Considering the way she had him pinned to his passenger seat not twenty minutes later as he laved her neck with kisses, Klaus thought she was indeed impressed with his artistic eye. Clothes were askew, but still on when she pulled his mouth back to hers for a distractingly deep kiss. "At the risk of rewarding your voyeurism," she whispered against his lips, "I'm kind of glad I had a good reason to accost you tonight."
"Because I'm hot?" he teased with a smirk.
"In that leather necklace, calloused and paint-speckled hands way that artists have," she confirmed. Her hand traced the necklaces as they laid on the back of his neck. "But you're also a dick to my friends, and your friends aren't exactly nice to me."
Letting his head fall back against the seat, Klaus sighed. "If this is about the Gilbert squabbles-"
"It's about reality," Caroline corrected. "I know Elena can be a sanctimonious bitch sometimes, but she's a better friend to me than Katherine or her Salvawhores have ever been. Surely, you get why I might not want to jump the bones of their slacker Brit, no matter how hot he is."
He gripped her waist, encouraging her to grind further down into his lap. "Then what are you doing now?" he asked in a low voice.
Smiling, she kissed her way to his ear. "I think I'm going to have my way with a guy who thinks I'm beautiful enough for a graded project." She nibbled on his earlobe. "If he's any good, then I think I'm going to keep doing it. Any objections?"
"None from me." Klaus might have died if she stopped the sinful rhythm of her hips. "What about your friends? Won't they judge you for mixing with the seedy crowd?"
With a mischievous grin, Caroline unzipped her cheerleading top so she could remove it altogether. "You can keep a secret, can't you?"
Months of sneaking around in cars, bathrooms, and Caroline's often unchaperoned home had done nothing to reduce Klaus's crush to purely physical satisfaction. Before, she was just a pretty girl with great legs and an engaging smile.
Now, he knew her favorite lip gloss as it stuck to his neck. She liked to whisper in the dark night they lay in her bed before he had to go home - anything louder earned him a shushing finger on his lips. But when the world was too quiet of her liking, she would hum to her heart's content.
Klaus hoarded these tidbits as he found them, sneaking them into his photo series whenever he could. His favorite had to be of her sitting at her vanity, bright lights swathing her skin as she searched for a pimple she swore was growing. Caroline had threatened to delete it, an intimate brush with her private life.
"And I like being allowed in," he had countered. "But there's something poetic about you trying to seek out your flaws with light."
Her smile was surprised, but pleased. "Artist types," she had sighed dramatically, only to push him back to her bed for another round.
The deeper Klaus fell, though, the more unsure he was of Caroline's feelings. They never went out, and she made no attempts at going public. Klaus was terrified to even suggest it for fear of losing her altogether.
So they kept sneaking around. His friends would have been caustic comedians and hers, complete snobs. They weren't dating; it wasn't worth the trouble of dealing with the reaction.
It sucked he had to quit smoking given the smell starting to stick to her clothes and bed as he grew more comfortable in the Forbes house. Sheriff Forbes would hardly appreciate her daughter's non-boyfriend and his bad habit, and he'd rather give up nicotine than Caroline.
He had always hated Mystic Falls, but Klaus finally felt some happiness as he found himself looking forward to near daily plans with Caroline. Of course, his asshole father had perfect timing to ruin everything.
The music was too loud for Caroline to notice her phone buzzing on the nightstand. She had gone prom dress shopping with Bonnie and Elena, only to invite them over for a long overdue girls' night. Maybe she had been spending too much time with Klaus, but she couldn't regret a minute of it. Two days without seeing him past loaded glances in the hallways at school had actually made her miss him.
But, that was why she had insisted that Bonnie and Elena hang out. It was too easy to get sucked into the non-relationship bubble she and Klaus enjoyed - and to want more from it.
Caroline hadn't planned on a boyfriend to distract from her senior year, and Klaus definitely wasn't supposed to be an exception to the rule. The joke was on her for catching feelings anyway, not that she was going to bring it up. Any change in their dynamic could ruin it altogether.
That scared Caroline more than anything.
It was why her eyes went wide as Bonnie carelessly picked up her ringing phone. "Who's 'Beyond Annoying' and why are they calling you?"
"Ooh," Elena joined in from the mirror where she was perfecting a cat-eye. "Is it the secret boyfriend you think we don't know about?"
"What? No!" Caroline made a grab for the phone, only for Bonnie to toss it to Elena. "Guys, give it back."
With a gleeful smile, Elena answered the call. "Caroline's phone."
Caroline swooped in before she could put it on speaker for them all to hear. "Hey, just a minute," she said, glaring at her friends before locking herself in the bathroom. "What's up? I told you I was with Bonnie and Elena tonight."
"And they're so much more important than me, I know."
Snide comments were nothing new for Klaus, especially when it came to her friends. The slurred voice laced with bitter anger, however, concerned Caroline greatly. "Are you drunk? Where are you?"
"Everyone's more important, to you, to my mother," he continued. "No one cares."
Fear began to build in her chest. "Tell me where you are, Klaus. I'll come pick you up."
"Why, so you can kick me out before your mum comes home?"
"No, please. Let me bring you home."
He was quiet for a long while, and she fought to stave off the panic. Caroline had never heard Klaus so despondent, and she hated that she helped to cause it. His quiet admission felt like a victory she didn't deserve. "The falls."
"Five minutes." She hung up, throwing on a hoodie crumpled on her floor. Idly, she noted Klaus's body spray still clinging to it from when she had shamelessly stolen it weeks earlier. Seeing Elena and Bonnie waiting for her outside the bathroom, though, she remembered why the hoodie had never left the confines of her bedroom. "Umm...raincheck on girls' night?"
Bonnie nodded knowingly, and she stepped forward to pluck at the clearly male-owned sweatshirt. "Yes, I'm sure your boy toy is just lost without his hoodie."
Running past them for her car keys, Caroline waved. "Yep, gotta go! Call you tomorrow!" She left her friends behind, praying that Klaus would wait patiently for her to pick him up.
By the time she made it to the falls, though, she realized that 'patient' was probably hoping for too much. 'Resigned' and 'drunk' were more accurate words to describe the state in which she found Klaus, made worse by the bourbon he managed to bring with him. He was drinking straight from the bottle as he sat on the edge of the pavilion where Caroline once decided she wanted to know more. Klaus was just the creep with a camera back then, and she wondered when he became important to her. Her heart clenched watching him, a feeling she associated with Bonnie crying or her mother looking so hurt after another blithe insult.
Klaus mattered to her, and he was upset; Caroline just wanted to make it better.
"Hey," she said quietly, not wanting to startle him. Creeping closer, she took in the hazy, bloodshot eyes. "Care to share the bottle?"
Sighing, Klaus handed it over, only for her to set it aside. He blindly reached for it again, but Caroline stepped into his grasp instead. Surprisingly quick, he pulled her into a tight hug.
"What's wrong?"
A dark laugh rumbled from Klaus's chest. "What isn't?"
Caroline leaned back to hold his face between her hands, watching him carefully. "Klaus, you're scaring me."
He blanched; he looked like he wanted to be sick. "Mikael," he finally sighed, lowering his forehead to her shoulder. "We fought, and he- It got bad."
Wincing, Caroline could read between the lines. Klaus had shared a bit about his home life, but not as much about Mikael and the way he seemed to have a least favorite child. She had found the occasional bruise or scrape, but Klaus never offered an explanation.
It wasn't her business; she wasn't his girlfriend.
Yet, she found herself stroking fingers through his hair, wanting to coax him out of the distant look of pain. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Why, so you can go back to your friends and pretend not to know anything about me or my life?" Klaus snorted derisively.
"Hey, you called me and I came." Caroline pulled back so she could walk toward the car. "Take out whatever angst trip you're on against me, sure, but I care about you and I'm bringing you home."
"You don't care about anyone but yourself."
Turning on her heel, Caroline stopped dead at the miserable anger burning in his eyes. She held out a hand expectantly. "I care about you," she repeated, her voice softer than before.
Staring for a moment too long, Klaus finally twined his fingers through hers to let her lead them to the car. He was quiet the whole drive; he barely even fussed when she ushered him up to her bedroom and into her bed. It wasn't until they both lay under the covers, facing each other in the dark, that he whispered, "Do you really?"
"Yeah," she whispered back. "Does it really bother you that we're not official?"
Klaus didn't answer. He just shifted closer to press an uncoordinated kiss to her cheek. "I love you," he murmured, already half asleep.
Biting her lip, Caroline waited until his eyes drifted all the way closed and his breath evened out. "I love you, too."
Before she could get too comfortable against him, though, she grabbed her phone from the nightstand. "Nothing more official than Facebook," she muttered as she changed her relationship status.
The phone started to buzz angrily, probably Bonnie or Elena reacting to the news.
Snuggling close to Klaus, Caroline had never cared less about what her friends thought. She just wanted a good night's sleep with her boyfriend before dealing with his hangover and any fallout the next day.