✓ | Violet (Klaus Mikaelson)

Chapter Eight

Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen?
Time went on for everybody else, she won't know it
She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy
How it was supposed to be
Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?
Breakups happen every day, don't have to lose it
She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy
And you're sitting in front of me

❀

In this moment, I wanted to sever each tie, one by one, as neurosurgeons do when they split one neuron from another, one thought-tormented wish from the next. I was never going to stop admiring everything about him. I wasn't going to stop going to the compound to see him, wasn't going to stop going to the bar when I knew he'd be there waiting for me to show. I wished to study him a bit more each and every day, one hour, one minute, one slop-infested second after the other.

He wasn't going to let me stop. Not now, not today, when we had the compound to ourselves this evening and longed to make the very most of our time together, not tomorrow, not ever.

Now that I knew that vampires could, in fact, not read minds as I thought they could, I wasn't much worried about Klaus knowing my way of thinking. Actually, I wouldn't much care for it now— whether or not he'd secretly jump into my mind and steal my thoughts and wonders about him. I'd spilled the beans long ago, when I came to see him here for the first time. After that visit, I always felt like I'd surrendered to the police, confessing to yet one more police officer how I'd robbed the store. And if he wanted to see for himself, look around in my mind as if it were his favourite library, I would let him. I had nothing to hide, because what didn't he already know?

I sighed deeply, clearly frustrated. "Now I'm ruining it for you."

I spun the paintbrush between my fingers, as I'd seen him do a couple of times. I hated what I'd done to his painting, yet Klaus didn't seem to be bothered by it at all. "Doubtful." He said. I could feel his prying presence behind me. "Step back and look at it." He proposed.

Doing as he suggested, I once again exhaled in utter disappointment. He watched over my shoulder as only teachers would do. I bit down on my lip rather harshly. Shouldn't he be furious with me for ruining his painting despite it being his own idea? "It does look better from afar." I said and tilted my head to get a better look, yet I still couldn't quite see what he was seeing. I'd never understand the fun in painting, I thought.

He chuckled lightly, and I completely melted in my place, though, at the same time I couldn't see what was entertaining to him. "You don't like it, do you?" I asked in a discouraged way.

Giving into my displeasure, he stood beside me and conveyed the painting a look. My heart skipped a beat as he stood beside me. It seemed I was treading water, trying neither to drown nor to swim to safety, just staying in place to let him watch me graze what was with his— or ruin what was his. I couldn't see this painting find a happy ending.

"It's supposed to come together in the end." He said rather calmly. "Detail isn't the point of this painting, love."

"But I enjoy detail." I said.

I fundamentally caught him smirking over my shoulder, more than enjoying the way he placed this frustration upon me. I edged closer to him, and eventually placed my paint-stained hands on his cheeks to pull him closer. If he knew, if he only knew that I was giving him every single chance to put two and two together and figure out what I wanted as my lips hovered over his.

If he understood, he must've suspected, and if he suspected he must've wanted to see my scheming for himself. He watched my face with his glass-eyed, trenchant and all-knowing gaze.