What If ⚜️ {Klaroline}

CHAPTER 12: PILLOWTALK

"Caroline, you can ask me anything," he reassured, his husky voice weirdly calming her insides.

"Have you ever turned it off?" she finally asked with a deep breath, avoiding his eyes. "Your emotions. Have you flipped the switch?"

She could feel his eyes burning the skin of her face with their intensity. It was a struggle not to look. She was almost afraid to see his expression, afraid that she had perhaps ruined their progress.

Klaus sighted after a little while looking back at the ceiling.

"You are not ready to hear the answer to that one love!" he said after a while.

"Why not?" her eyes snapped back to his face.

He remained silent for a few more moments.

"There is no switch, Caroline," he said at last.

The blonde vampire abruptly sat up on the bed, confusion written all over her gorgeous face.

"But, but," she struggled, earning a smirk from Klaus who had himself sat up on the sofa to stare up to her. "But I feel it! The switch, it's right there. One little flip and it's... off!"

Klaus smiled again.

"You are still so young, Caroline," he said with a smirk. "Still so innocent, even though I can tell you've been through a lot, there are still things, painful things, you haven't experienced."

She was still at a loss and he could tell.

"So, if you experience painful things, then the switch goes away? Or does it expire as you grow older?" she inquired genuinely curious. The gears in her grain turning ten times faster.

He loved that about her, her eagerness to learn, to explore and enjoy everything life had to offer. As if an infinite amount of pure energy was oozing from her very being. That aura, that golden feeling of life itself floated outside her, unable to be contained in her small form, wrapping itself around anyone that was lucky enough to be in her company.

"That wasn't what I meant, love," he considered for a moment how to best put it into words. "It's an illusion of sorts. Let's say, for example, that you lost your favorite shirt and you're sad about it. You go to the mall and buy ten shirts to distract yourself from the emotion. But at the end of the day, it only takes someone asking what happened to that shirt to make you feel sad again."

Caroline nodded understanding.

"That's what the switch is doing," he concluded. "As all of your feelings and abilities are magnified when you turn, so is the ability you have to push your thoughts and emotions to the back of your head, distracting yourself from anything and everything. But it always has an expiration date. At any point, anything and anyone can flip it back on, if they play their cards right!"

"Okay," she said hesitantly. "But what does age have to do with anything?"

"As you grow older in vampire years," he started "You learn to let go of some emotions completely while holding on to other ones. Controlling them is tricky, but preventing them to consume you is trickier. Takes years to learn, centuries, even! But when you learn how to do that, there is no more need for any switches."

"Have you?" she asked again. "Learn to control your emotions?"

Klaus chuckled.

"I thought I had, but then I broke the curse and met you," his eyes sliced into hers, the intensity leaving fleeting goosebumps on her skin. "In any case, I will never turn my emotions off!"

Caroline scoffed at his certainty.

"Is it because you don't have any left?" She bit immediately regretting her words.