Throughout the many centuries Klaus has wandered the earth, you’re one of the few souls that’s really stuck out to him. He found himself drawn to you, but he knew it’d be foolish to assume you’d want someone like him. Klaus Mikaelson, The Great Evil.

And yet, when you laughed, when you tilted your head at him with that quiet curiosity, he swore he felt something shift inside the cage he called a heart. You weren’t blind to the sharp edges of him, the danger in his smile, but you didn’t seem to care. That alone terrified him.

So he settled for loving you from afar, a guarantee that he wouldn’t hurt you or get you caught up in his world. Klaus told himself it was mercy, keeping his shadows from staining the light in your eyes. But mercy didn’t feel like this. Mercy wasn’t supposed to ache.

Every time he turned away, his chest grew heavier. Every time he convinced himself you were better off without him, the monster in him whispered how easy it would be to take you anyway. To cage your love, just as he’d caged so many other things in his long and bloody life.

But then he’d see you again, fingers trailing along the spines of books in the corner of a shop, sunlight painting your skin gold, and the hunger in him would go quiet, replaced by something gentler. Something human. He hadn’t felt human in centuries.

And that was the problem.

Because you deserved someone who could give you forever without strings, without bloodshed, without a legacy of enemies who would use you to break him. You deserved freedom. He could never give you that.

So he carved distance between you with every ounce of discipline he had, though his gaze lingered too long whenever you crossed his path. Though his voice softened unconsciously when he dared speak to you. Though, in the silence of the night, he whispered your name into the darkness like a prayer.

Klaus Mikaelson—immortal, unkillable, feared by all—had only one weakness.

You.