[OPEN] We'll Take A Cup of Kindness Yet

[nascensibility]

Who: EVERYONE, but especially you!
Where: Wonderland Ballroom
When: New Year's Eve
Rating: PG - PG13 (will change if applicable)
Summary: New Year's Eve Party
The Story:

[The morning of December 31st, all residents will receive a handwritten invitation slipped under their door.]



You are cordially invited to attend a party
celebrating the New Year

Wonderland Ballroom
8 pm - 1 am

Semi-Formal Attire
Buffet & Bar
No RSVP Required

All Ages Welcome

For inquiries, contact E. O'Connell

[Punctuality in planning is important: the ballroom itself will only be ready for guests at exactly 8 o'clock, bedecked in glittering golds and the red-green of Christmas' vestiges, still clinging to the old year. Dining tables surround a central dance floor, bars and buffets dot the edges of the room and both holly and mistletoe are expressed liberally through the interior.

Mingle, dance, eat and be merry! The New Year will come in at midnight - the band will play and the drinks will flow for long after.]

Comments

[therapize]

[That's the burden of being able to see so well as she can: standing there, watching the dance unfold, knowing with certainty what the look in his eyes means because so often, that has been the way Klaus has looked at her. For as hard and as long as Cami denied the truth of that gaze, now that she has accepted it she cannot go back to calling it anything else than it is.

Now, at a much closer distance, it's all the clearer as he struggles to answer her. Whatever he intended, or wanted with that dance? His hesitation only cements that painful twist in her gut.

(Another memory, from another dance. This is the part where I remember that I know better.)

Still. She waits for his answer, and at first? He offers something unacceptable. Though he may silently promise the truth of those words with his gaze, though Klaus may truly believe them in his heart, he has yet to convince Cami of that. To brush aside her cares with words more often associated with cheaters than lovers makes her tense; it threatens her trust.

(In that moment, it does not occur to her that his choice might be the reason why she need not worry. That very worry dulls her reason.)

She doesn't have to point out the blunder. Klaus seems aware that his first attempt isn't good enough, though his second won't bring a happier end. He is right; she does indeed know that name, and Cami closes her eyes to him.]

The famous Caroline from Mystic Falls. [Well. Nice to know Wonderland has brought someone else Klaus cares for to dwell within it's walls. Maybe they should expect Genevieve to show up next, decked out in lacy lingerie.]

So why don't I have to worry about her, exactly?

[poppycock]

[ he has spoken that name to her, fleetingly but with meaning that was not to be overlooked. another part; a chapter in his memoirs that was all but finished and done. a conquest that mattered a little too much to him, his eyes and actions giving him away.

of course she remembers and of course it scores her. his breath shakes as he exhales. he looks down, not quite ashamed but remorseful. he does not hesitate or blunder now when she asks for elucidation, only tilts his head back, a vulnerable light entering his eyes: it's certainty. ] Because I want to be with you. [ there is unequivocal strength in those words despite the tenderness that makes them tremble. his throat closes not from lies but from truth. ] Yes, I care about her, and yes, I— [ he stops; he stops himself. insensitive though he has been and true as it is, even he knows not to look in her eyes and confess love for another woman. not in frank words. neither is it important. what's important here is her. ] I have wanted her, but not like this. [ not as he has yearned for camille, here and now. he loves them both; he longs for them both, in his way. but caroline is a memory, a whisper in a possible future. only she has the power to hold or break his heart now.

his grip on her has slowly tightened to mask that fragility, to ease that shaking. ] Not like now. Not with you.

[therapize]

[His confession is breathtaking, both in earnestness and poetry; the raw vulnerability Cami can see within his eyes pulls at the heart that loves him, that would blindly abandon reason in favor of being swayed by his words and the plea within his gaze. She cannot deny the part of herself that wants to give in, that urges her to do so, driven both by love and grief and fear of what might happen should she wait any longer, should she suddenly seem unobtainable.

But fear is not what should bind them together, no more than anguish.]

I want to be with you too. [He has offered her truth, dangerous, even painful. Cami can at least do the same, her words following his much as her movements do, her steps steady in spite of his tightening grip. He hasn't hurt her with his touch this night, but the wound remains—the sting that feels so much like betrayal.] But that means committing to each other; no more dancing around.

[Literally and figuratively both. She manages a small grin; what comes next is both the problem, and the best part of him.] I know you, Klaus. When you care for someone, you care more deeply than anyone else I've ever met. And something that strong doesn't just go away.

[He chooses her, and that means more than Cami can say; but his heart remains torn—perhaps more than he knows.]

I know your first loyalty will always be to your daughter, and your family—and I understand that. [Nothing she would ever ask him to change because that is the light within Klaus, surely. Cami is not naïve enough to think that would ever be her role, even had she lived.] But I can't compete with someone else too. I can't stand by and watch you look at someone else the way I want you to look at me.

[poppycock]

[ it's not as if he had no faith in knowing what she wants; that it could be him. he had fear to the contrary, yes. that knowing and faith warred with the knowing and faith in her better wisdoms: he is not a happy ending.

(there is nothing that is ending about him at all. he is timeless, deathless, endless. he lives to be made twisted by bloodstains on an unchanging canvas, so many centuries ago white.

he wishes—

a part of him wishes, despite all his yearnings and longings and love, that she would walk away. that she would save herself. he is so joyously, remorsefully, selfishly grateful when she speaks such words that mean she doesn't.

he loves her and she loves him. she loves him enough; he is worth it in her eyes in ways he has never been—)

she loves him, in knowing him; despite and because of knowing him. it rends at him with caresses that score with how foreign they are: that exquisite warmth and agony of true intimacy. she sees to his core, but her last words tighten around his insides. the light in his eyes fades; he looks down, his head bowed, his breath shaky. he thinks it is not a competition. he thinks, like a blow to his chest, that he doesn't want to hurt her. he thinks he cannot lie to her and has not; he does love strongly, and he does not ignore it when he does.

his head lifts. ] You want me not to speak to her?

[therapize]

[He is not a happy ending, no, but Cami has stopped looking for those. She knows her own tragedy has been written, the unfolding of her life as sure as the words no doubt carved on her gravestone. Her ending is horrible and tragic, and utterly unfair.

She cannot live for her ending. All Cami has, all she can embrace, is the present. What she might be able to savor in the fleeting moments Wonderland provides, before one of them, or maybe both of them, is snatched away to the unforgiving streets of New Orleans once more. Wisdom would tell her to remember that happiness is not so simple, that love, as powerful a force as it is, cannot erase the truth of a person in full.

Yet love has changed him regardless; his light shines brighter, and she wants to bask in what that glow might offer.

She cannot ignore her wisdom, however; Cami cannot give up who she is for love, because then she would not be the person Klaus has chosen--and more importantly, the woman she has chosen to be. She watches the pain play over his features, knowing her words are harsh and necessary both.

She remains human. Because she is human, part of her selfishly wants to say yes when Klaus asks if she would prefer he turn away from Caroline.

Because she is Camille O'Connell, she will not.]

No. I'm not going to ask you to cut out anyone from your life. [She raises her hand from his shoulder, and if he lets her, places her palm against his cheek.] But if--if you and I are going to be together, you're going to have to resolve your feelings for her.

[Such simple words to string together. She draws in a breath, huffs it out in a quiet laugh.]

It almost feels selfish--and if it is, then I just have to be selfish. But I don't want you to be in love with someone else.

[poppycock]

[ of course she doesn't; she shouldn't, and nor would he. whatever a selfish thing it is, it is a request he would gladly fulfill in a perfect world, without hesitation and with only love. it bruises his heart, thinking of letting caroline go; thinking of cherishing her as a memory and not someone he could dearly love one day, as he promised himself. it bruises his heart, thinking of how such a thing could, would, is rending the woman of his dreams in front of him, and more than anything else, it bruises him to know he doesn't want to do either.

there is not one love of his life that has ended in resolution, only blood. only bitter pain and sweet, longing release. he does not want to let go of caroline, nor had he aurora for centuries. nor will he camille. his eyes drop between them, their feet suddenly still. he leans back as his head bows again. it wracks him, this uncertain and voluble anguish; it shakes his shoulders and the tears entering his eyes. his fingers reach for and enclose hers in his grip, hard and clinging and reassuring, pressing their clasped hands against his chest.

as if to stay her, to keep her here with him as his mind and heart turns. his voice is gruff as he lifts his eyes back to her. ] I've never been any other way. [ not a refusal, but the truth: lost, uncertain, and on unknown ground, but true. ]

[therapize]

[He does not stand alone in his tears; Cami knows all too well the agony she inflicts on him with her request. They no longer dance, their movements no longer as one as he breathes in one ragged breath, as she releases another. She can no longer smile through her pain, or his; she cannot stop herself from weeping for what might be an end rather than a beginning.

It isn’t fair, to either of them. Nothing stemming from her death is.]

I know. I know you’re not. [And likewise, Cami isn’t built in a way where she can share her place in her lover’s heart an infinite number of times. She would be a fool to believe that one person stood incapable of loving many, or to not be glad that Klaus has such capacity, such humanity even after so many years spent acting as a monster.

She curls her fingers around his, so tightly her hands shake. She doesn’t want to let go any more than he does. She never has.]

But—we both know that if you had the chance to leave Wonderland--[To leave her]--right now, you would take it. For your daughter. [He has told her as much himself, perhaps not spelled out, but on that first morning they woke up beside each other? He had made his heart plain to her.] Being with you means I have to carry that. It means—it means knowing you would choose to forget this. Us.

[And that is already so hard of a burden to carry. Cami truly isn’t sure if she can, and that makes her all the more certain of what she has to ask of him.

Even if it feels so much like cutting the hearts out of them both.]

We don’t have a future together. I don’t--[She swallows, struggling now to find words between the slowly falling tears.] I just have now. This life, this—this one chance. And I want to share that with you. I love you, and whatever happens, that won’t change.

But I don’t think I can be with you while you’re in love with someone else—someone you really might have a future with.

[poppycock]

[ he can weather that unfairness. it is all he has ever done, surviving the blows that life and death has dealt. timeless and undefeated he may be, but he is not unbeaten; like rocks along a surf, constantly hit with the inevitable violences and terrors of life. (he has learned from that water; he learned how to be violent, how to terror, how to inflict.)

what he cannot weather is her pain. he can hardly see her tears. his head drops yet again, shaking against what she has known and faced in their silences. his tears roll down his cheeks, down the slope of his nose, and he attempts to heed them. he can hardly listen to the words that leave her lips, true as they are. (he would leave her. he would leave her and his family without a moment's notice or hesitation. he would leave them all for his daughter.)

there's a fierceness in him that stirs and fights against all of it in a roar and a whimper. he does not find clarity in this but in what she says next: in knowing this is their one chance and knowing she wants to share it with him. his gaze is unhesitating now; it is clear as he raises his head to see her now. he reaches with the hand not entangled with hers, arrested in strength against his heart, to grasp her shoulder. what she says is true, yes, but he cannot let her believe that is all there is. ]

I will never forget you, [ he says, his voice thick with tears and unflagging conviction. no matter where this ends, that is true. ] No matter what we've lost or what is left here, you are in my heart. [ tears well; it is as he said to her, as she does not know: ] I will carry you with me wherever I go. Don't think for a moment you are gone. [ not at home. and not here; she is not alone. ] You are not alone.

[ neither does he want her to be and neither would he want to be without her. a flicker of grief, of anguish, of longing and need too great to deny trembles within him; within his gaze. they had a chance once. he will not be so foolish to let it slip by as they did before. he may not know how to do as she asks; he may not know if it is possible, but he will find a way, for her, for them, for this. ] If this is the only chance we will have, [ —it is; it is, unequivocally, undeniably— ] then I will let her go.

[therapize]

[I will never forget you.

His promise exists beyond the matter of whom Klaus’ heart years for; it offers an eternity Cami has never believed in, and the legacy she has believed she failed. She has never been good as defined by religious doctrine or rigid societal rules. Her formative years had been spent resisting the attempts to conform her to a certain mold, and instead creating her own shape and artistry. She had devoted her path to helping others see the light within themselves, and in doing so, hoped to find the light within herself.

At Christmas, Klaus had promised her that brilliance did indeed exist; now, he vows to carry its flame, so that it would never burn out.

She can hardly speak through her tears, yet that manages to earn a soft laugh as she comes to her quiet conclusion.]

I guess that makes me immortal.

[Her head tilts down; she stands fearful that if she continues to stare into those earnest eyes she won’t be able to stop herself from shattering then and there. They stand among a crowd, still despite the current of people slowly dancing around them. She doesn’t want some well-meaning observer coming over, questioning their tears, the anguish that they cannot hide from each other. She’s started debating the merits of pulling away; her question hadn’t been innocent, but certainly Cami also never intended for them both to be so raw and exposed in the middle of a celebration.

She’s almost convinced herself to, when Klaus makes his choice—when he once again chooses her.}

Klaus… [Her eyes raise when Cami speaks his name, rounded and stunned. By his own admission, Klaus has confirmed he is not the sort to let go, and Cami understands well there is no switch to flick, no button to press that would put a quick and easy end to his romantic yearning. Even with all her training, the experience granted by Wonderland’s endless time, she could not tell him how.

And it does not stop him. For their only chance, he agrees.

To be with her, he agrees.

Now she does move once more, not away, not to dance, but rather to be nearer to him still. Their own interlocked hands would be the only thing between them, her eyes fluttering shut as she rests her forehead against his. She lacks words, even breath to express the world he has offered to her—and the one she in turn has allowed herself to inhabit with her confession. It is not perfect, and one day it would shatter, broken like so much glass.

But in this moment it is theirs, in spite of death and all other things that would tear them apart.]