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-ˏˋ𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙒𝙊 ˎˊ˗ ════ ⋆͛♡⋆͛ ════
When Rory Gilbert sleeps, she doesn't look like she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. Klaus thinks she looks younger, like the teenage girl she's supposed to be. It's easy for him to imagine her as a carefree young adult, pursuing her dreams of being a filmmaker and being happy. When Rory sleeps, it's easy for Klaus to forget that she is a vampire with her humanity switch flipped off and when she wakes up, she returns to another morbid day of feeling nothing and everything all at once. He sometimes thinks about how her life would be if he didn't see her in the corner of his eye in the dreary little café in Chicago—if he didn't choose to get coffee down the street from where he usually does. Rory Gilbert caught his eye within a split second for two reasons: one was that she was a spitting image of Tatia, and another, was because she was human.
Not just human in the sense that she was, obviously, mortal. But human in the sense that he had never seen someone so alive. She laughed like she didn't have a care in the world, like everything else seemed unimportant and inconsequential. She talked to her friends about how she thought coffee was one of the main reasons the world didn't turn on its axis, and how the Avant Garde movie she was forced to study for her cinematography class was three more orgy scenes away from tossing her head into a blender. Klaus overheard that she had plans to let loose and go to a club for the first time in three weeks, and he was hooked.
For once, he finds that he regrets dragging someone else into his world. When Rory looks at him like he hung the moon and stars, he sinks into her gaze like a fish in water. Now, when she peels open her warm baby browns, all he sees is vacancy. She's missing something, Rory. Klaus knows what it is, and she herself knows what it is, but she would never agree. She's missing something pivotal to her own sense of self: she's missing her humanity. Like it or not, Rory's humanity is what makes her who she is. It's what makes her so comforting and admirable and gorgeous and Rory. She's still admirable and gorgeous and Rory but she's not comforting and she's not warm and she's not her. Klaus wants to save her. Rory doesn't want to be saved.
"I know that Stephanie Meyer brainwashed most girls to think that staring at someone while they sleep is charming, but just so you know: I never bought into it and Edward Cullen was a freak," Rory mutters, her eyes still closed. Klaus simply shifts in the seat next to her bed, placing his elbow against the arm of the chair. Rory opens her eyes, turning to face him. Klaus sees it—the hollowness. Empty. "It's been two weeks. Still hoping that I change my mind and turn it back on?"
"No point in lying. Yes, I was hoping that you'd forget this nonsense by now," Klaus responds, tapping his finger against the cushion irritably. "You're staying in my home, littering corpses in my living room and not paying a single cent for the dry-cleaning bill. I understand that you don't feel, but would it be too much for me to ask you to take your escapades outside?"
