Klaroline Fic Rec Event 2020 - Day 3: Angst
Title: The Devil's Backbone
Author: willowaus / @willowaus
Summary: With the race on for the cure, some will fall, some will rise, and some will go insane. Friendships end and new ones spark as secrets are revealed and what some believe to be the truth will turn out to be nothing but lies. While others may discover that they're not as different as they had believed. But will it matter if there is no world left? Set after 4x09. [Klaus/Caroline]
Warnings: couple people get rather tortured, an entire dinner party gets eaten, Kol just basically Exists, kidnapping, murder, mayhem, one (1) den of iniquity, a werewolf transformation sequence or three, Elena BSOD, Damon's usual finesse with sire bonds, dead children mention, Klaus burns down at least one town, smut, gratuitous use of compulsion, someone stakes themself, some discussion of Damon being The Worst and Why, a few side character deaths
Why you should read it: Okay so this is a whole redo of the Silas arc from right after Klaus slaughters the hybrids. Basically works from the premise of "What if these characters actually were ruthless immortal monsters instead of like, kind of evil foils to the Salvatore plot armor?" Like right off the bat Klaus is like "I need some information. I know! I will torture it out of Stefan!" and then he fuckin does bc Nutjob McMikaelson rules in this planetary house, yo.
Kol ends up getting wind of the cult of Silas being back to party and he goes fuckin apeshit. Kidnaps Caroline to force Klaus to murder some people ("Did you try and ask him?" AGSJDKAAH CAROLINE) and starts off the first of several fun road trips in this fic. Klaus comes in clutch and then hunts a motherfucker down to get his girl. Caroline and him spend the rest of the fic in a hilarious dynamic of "Maybe we could not murder literally everyone that looks at me?" while he's like "Nah," and then eats them.
The whole Silas plot mystery is great and them doing research to Defeat The Evil while the evil laughs from the shadows is fun. The character dynamics are even more fun tho, even tho there is angst here that does not sleep. Caroline has to come to terms with her vampire existence in a big way while still being true to her core. Klaus has to chill out abt the fact that his heart now exists outside his body in Caroline's tiny hands, and by that i mean he does not chill out, not even a little bit, rest in pieces dude.
Basically if you want intense creeper murder Klaus, this is ur fuckin stop and it is so good. Also contains homicidal siblings sharing one (1) collective brain cell, bad ass Bennett witch fu, actual Forbes parenting, Katherine scheming, Tyler being just literally so dumb, staring into the distance and muttering "Why?" while Damon and Stefan just keep doing the most, and Rebekah making even more bad decisions. I'm making this sound really fun maybe (and it is) but i was stressing the fuck out the whole time bc im not an angst slut and actively avoid it most of the time but like, please read this fic it is good and will restore ur crops.
Thanks @klaroline-events for putting up with my 5am the next day entries for this shindig every day, ur stellar!