David Xanatos (![]() ![]() @ 2021-09-15 12:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | gargoyles: david xanatos, tvd: caroline forbes |
Who: Caroline and Xanatos
What: Caroline confesses her feelings to Xanatos, Xanatos gets arrested
When: The night before they come back from Virginia/The day they come back from Virgina
Where: Xanatos' hotel room -> His private jet
Ratings/Warnings: Rated high for discussions of parental death and smut
Status: Complete
It was Caroline’s last night in Lexington. It was time to get back to her life in Las Vegas. She had gone out with Elena for one last much needed girl’s night, Bonnie had already left town. The original plan was for her to spend her last night at her mom’s place too. Even if it was still difficult for her to be in her childhood home, she wanted to spend more time with her mom before she left. She had spent over a week in David’s hotel. As much as she needed it she could see him anytime. She needed to be strong for her mother.
Only that wasn’t how the night went. Caroline had gotten way too drunk with Elena and before she knew what she was doing the Uber was taking her to the hotel. Caroline gracelessly made her way up to the room, fumbling with the key a few times before she finally stumbled inside. “Heeeeeeey,” she said, announcing her presence even though she hadn’t spotted David yet.
Xanatos was glad that Caroline was spending time with her friends. He hadn’t especially liked Tyler - the man was territorial and clearly still had feelings for Caroline - but he hadn’t been threatened by him. It wasn’t hard for him - or anyone else, for that matter - to see that Caroline preferred Xanatos’ company. He’d still felt a little pleased when Caroline had told him it was going to be a girls’ night out; he doubted that Tyler was considered one of the girls.
It would be a little strange to spend the night alone after Caroline had spent most of the week with him, but the whole evening - Caroline out with Elena and then spending the night with her mom - would give Xanatos time to finish some much-needed work. Owen probably could have handled it, but Owen had enough on his plate running operations in New York. He didn’t need to be taking on Xanatos’ duties every other month too.
He tensed when he heard someone fumbling with the key, grabbed the gun - one of his own, of course, set to stun (getting a murder charge, even self-defense, in the middle of Virginia less than a week out from Caroline’s father’s funeral was not high on his priority list) - that he had hidden behind the hotel curtains, and took position so that he was out of the immediate line of sight from the door.
It wasn’t some assassin that stumbled through the door though, but a very inebriated Caroline, and Xanatos’ shoulders relaxed. Before Caroline could see him, he stashed the gun again behind the curtain and stepped into her line of sight.
“Caroline, I wasn’t expecting to see you again tonight,” he said. “Did you and Elena have fun?”
He assumed she hadn’t stopped by her mom’s place between then and now.
“Oh yeah!” Caroline said, bending down to remove her heels, her cleavage quite prominent. “I was supposed to go to my mom’s tonight. Ooooops.” She got her shoes off, stepping out of them and leaving them by the door as she walked closer to him.
“We’ll just have to stop by before we leave tomorrow,” she concluded her words slightly slurred.
Xanatos probably shouldn’t be so distracted by Caroline’s breasts while she was so obviously intoxicated, but there was no harm in simply looking, he thought. “I’ll send her a text to let her know you’re okay,” he said, moving toward his workstation for his phone. “I assume you haven’t had the chance yet,” or the ability, for that matter, “and we wouldn’t want her to worry.”
He glanced at the still glowing computer screens, frowning to himself a little. Once Caroline passed out, he’d have to shut down everything, begin reformatting the harddrives so that no one would be able to gain access to what he’d been working on once he left the computers behind.
“You’re so thoughtful,” Caroline replied as she made her way over to the couch and sunk down into it. “I’m so glad we’re friends, you know that?” Caroline asked while he did whatever it was he was doing with his phone. Apparently she had already forgotten he was texting her mom.
“Yes, so am I,” Xanatos said. Once the text was sent to Liz, he set the phone facedown, and went to join Caroline on the couch. “I don’t have many friends, especially outside of work,” Xanatos admitted. He didn’t feel any much regret for that; there were few people who were equal to Xanatos, and those that were most often became rivals or competitors, or had terrible personalities, like Sevarius. Owen was one of the few exceptions, and even he worked for Xanatos instead of being a true equal. Having Caroline at his side was… refreshing. “I’m glad we’ve gotten to know one another.”
Of course the second David was next to her she needed some type of contact with him. Her hand rested on his leg, just above his knee. She turned her head sideways, looking over at him. God, he was so hot. Caroline had no idea how she had managed to stay friends with him all these months without sleeping with him. “I don’t want to just be friends anymore,” she admitted, the alcohol lowering her inhibitions.
Xanatos should have seen this coming. He wasn’t unaware of Caroline’s feelings, and he wasn’t unaware of the effects alcohol had on her inhibitions - he’d had that rather amusing phone call the last time she’d gotten drunk with her friends, after all, and then she hadn’t been nearly as emotionally compromised as she was now.
Even still, the confession took him by surprise. He frowned to himself, wondering the best way to go about this now. This wasn’t the kind of situation he often found himself in, and it was rare when Xanatos found himself out of his depth. He took her hand, the one on his thigh, and twined his fingers with it.
“This isn’t a conversation I wanted to have with you while you’re drunk,” he confessed after a moment.
“Oh,” Caroline replied, dropping his hand. It was hard not to take that personally. She had been wanting to tell him for awhile but was too scared to. Even if there were definite signs he felt the same he probably didn’t like date or whatever. He had too much else going on.
“But you wanted to have it?” She finally asked. She probably shouldn’t push the topic but she couldn’t help herself.
Xanatos’ frown deepened, and he reached for her hand again. “It is a conversation I want to have,” he said. “One I’ve wanted to have for some time now. I just don’t want you to say or do anything that you might not have done were you sober, and I don’t want to have to question whether or not it was the alcohol speaking or you.”
“It’s me,” Caroline replied without hesitation. The alcohol made it easier for her to open up. Gave her the courage to speak her mind. But it was all what she truly felt. What she had been feeling for a long time. “I love you, David,” she confessed. She used her free hand to tilt his face towards her for a kiss.
Why, oh why, did Caroline have to make this so difficult? He wanted to do this right. Even if there wasn’t something awful about kissing a woman while she was drunk, Xanatos didn’t want them to have to tell their future children that the first time he and Caroline kissed and said I love you, Caroline was drunk and in mourning. Xanatos took what he wanted, but not while what he wanted was intoxicated.
Her lips were red and plump and so very, very tempting, but he instead laid an index finger over them and kissed her forehead. “In the morning, Caroline,” he said.
Well, that hurt. She finally admitted her feelings and he pretty much rejected her. She was too drunk to understand his reasoning. So instead she just pulled away from him, giving a small nod. Words were not her friend right now.
“Morning,” she repeated. Suddenly her eyes were feeling very heavy. She settled back against the couch letting her eyes shut.
Xanatos sighed when Caroline passed out in the couch, though it really only reinforced the idea that he'd been correct in his assessment of the situation. He lifted her up and carried her to the bed and tucked her in, then made his way back to the computer. He finished his work and then put in the command to wipe all the drives before he turned in for bed himself.
He woke before her, though that wasn't a surprise. He took care of the rest of his business - including paying for the room and eating a light breakfast - before he came back to the room with a light breakfast for Caroline: lots of carbs, which he assumed would go down easily if she was hungover, and a big cup of coffee.
He let her sleep as much as he could, and then he woke her, telling her if she wanted to visit Liz again before they left it was time to get ready.
He wished she'd woken up earlier so they'd have a chance to clear the air, but instead he could sense an awkward kind of tension between them, but they wouldn't have time now to have a proper conversation until they were on the plane.
When Caroline woke up it took her a moment to realize where she was. How did she end up in the bed? Hadn’t she been on the couch last night?
Shit.
Last night.
Had she really confessed all that to David? And he rejected her. Or said he wanted to talk about it at a different time? Either way Caroline was mortified. She figured her best course of action was to act like she didn’t remember any of it.
She thanked him for the breakfast, loading up on the carbs even though she didn’t feel that hung over. Once she was done she quickly showered and changed into a casual floral print dress for the plane. She couldn’t shake the need to look good in front of David. Especially after last night. Not to mention sleeping in her dress from the night before and make-up was not a pretty look.
After saying their goodbyes to her mom they were off the the airport. Caroline remained pretty silent the whole time not sure what to say.
She didn’t really speak until they were all settled on the plane and finally had some privacy. “Soooo,” she began. “How drunk was I last night?”
Xanatos frowned at Caroline, tilting his head to the side as he tried to take her measure. He’d gotten drunk exactly once in his life, very shortly after his emancipation when he was fourteen, and he’d hated the loss of control so much that he’d never done it again. He’d certainly never been blackout drunk - he’d remembered every mortifying minute of it - but he knew that sometimes people did get blackout drunk.
He wasn’t sure if he believed Caroline had been blackout drunk.
“Quite,” he said after a moment. “We’d talked about having a conversation once you’d sobered up. Do you remember?”
Caroline debated how to answer him. Yes, she was slightly humiliated at his rejection. But she also wanted to know how he felt once and for all. No more wondering what every little thing he did meant, or if he treated other people in his life the same way. She needed to know exactly what she was to him. What their friendship was.
“Maybe,” Caroline finally replied. “Pretty sure it had something to do with our friendship.”
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom, letting them know that he’d gotten the all-clear and he was about to begin lift off. The plane began to move, driving toward the runway.
“You told me that you didn’t want to just be friends anymore,” Xanatos said. “Is that still true? I won’t hold you to anything you might have said in error while you were drunk.”
“David,” Caroline began. She wasn’t entirely sure how to go about this. She knew full well that what she said last night was true. But David hadn’t reciprocated. Like at all. Still it was out there now. She wasn’t going to take it back.
“Just because I was drunk doesn’t mean I suddenly became a liar.” She paused. Taking a deep breath. The plane was lifting off from the runway now and this had the possibility to be one awkward and miserable flight. Still, she stood her ground. Her eyes locked on to his. “Everything I said is true.” Including the love bit, but she wasn’t about to repeat that again.
Xanatos’ lips curled into a smile: the cat who’d swallowed the canary. “Caroline,” he started, “you’re like no other woman I’ve ever met. You’re beautiful, you’re intelligent, you’re ambitious, and most importantly, you never stop striving for perfection. You’ve made me see the world in a different way than I had before. You’ve forced me out of boxes I hadn’t even realized that I’d put myself into. And I’ll be frank, I haven’t seen anything that turned me on quite as much as watching you throw those kidnappers across the room during your heroic rescue mission.”
He laced his fingers together, and stared at her for a moment. He did need to tell her about how he’d planned that; he needed to tell her how he’d been sure that she was the woman he wanted to, potentially, spend the rest of his life with. But now wasn’t the time. She was still raw from her father’s death. Still, this couldn’t be put off any longer.
“Caroline, I haven’t wanted to be ‘just friends’ with you for some time.”
That was more than enough for Caroline. She couldn’t resist anymore. She wanted this, and David wanted this. She leaned over, colliding her lips to his. Finally getting the kiss she had wanted the night before, hell what she had wanted for months now. There was some definitie heat there, all the pent up sexual tension between the two of them, but it was more than that. There was a tenderness to it as well, all the real feeling poured into the kiss.
Xanatos returned the kiss, one hand reaching up to cup her cheek, the other working to unbuckle his seatbelt - the plane may not have been level yet, but at this moment, flight safety was the furthest thing from his mind.
Freed from his seatbelt, he rose from his seat and pinned Caroline to hers, one hand supporting him against her headrest, the other tangling into her hair.
David wasn’t the only one that wanted to be free from his seatbelt. But with him pressed against her that wasn’t exactly an easy task. Instead she let one hand find it’s way to his hair, though she couldn’t tangle her fingers through his as much with the pony tail. Her other hand found it’s way under his shirt, finally feeling all those muscles she had been eyeing for months.
Even with the seatbelt still on, her hips instinctively arched up towards him, pressing into him. She broke the kiss for a moment to get a breath of air, then her lips were right back on his, the passion taking over.
Xanatos grunted when he felt her hands on his abs, and he untangled his hand from her hair, reaching between them instead to unbuckle her seatbelt. His hand fell to her thigh, and slipped up under her dress.
Caroline moved both her hands to work David’s pants. They had wasted enough time getting to this moment. She didn’t want to wait anymore. “Fuck,” she breathed pulling away from his lips briefly. “I want you.” So bad. God she wanted this. She needed it.
Xanatos sprang free of his pants. He didn’t need to be told twice. With a grunt of effort, he lifted her up, high enough that she could wrap her legs around his waist.
Caroline wasted no time wrapping her legs around him, her hands moved to his hair. Caroline had enough of that damn ponytail, she freed his hair from its binding and finally let her fingers tangle in it, which she had been dying to do ever since the first time she had seen it down.
Xanatos lowered her onto him, sighing into her mouth as he did so. He’d been waiting for this moment for what seemed like a very long time.
One time was definitely not enough. They ended up having sex a few times throughout the plane ride, some of those times Caroline’s strength came through but David didn’t seem to mind. As long as she didn’t hurt him.
Ideally she would have preferred the first time they slept together not be on his airplane, after her father’s funeral, with both of them still half clothed. But that didn’t matter to her right now. She just wanted him.
Eventually the pilot announced the plane would be landing. Caroline did her best to tidy herself back up and look presentable, not like she had just had sex on a plane. “We definitely need to go back to your place and continue what we started,” Caroline said with a small smirk. She would have offered her place but she didn’t feel like being there right now. Not only had her dad visited her there, but there were also pictures of him around her apartment. Caroline didn’t want to be reminded of her loss right now. She just wanted to keep on enjoying David.
Xanatos felt like jelly. He kept in shape, he liked to work out and spar when he could, but it had been a long time since he’d exerted himself quite so much, and he was, currently, sprawled out against his seat in a happy, post-coital daze.
Xanatos didn’t move for a few minutes after the pilot announced that they were going to begin landing, but then he buttoned up the top few buttons of his shirt and pulled his hair, damp with sweat, into messy ponytail.
“Absolutely,” Xanatos agreed. “I can call ahead and make sure the staff clears out,” he told her. He glanced out the window, just a glance, and then paused, the smile slipping from his face, the lightness in his chest settling into something heavier. He couldn’t say for sure why there were squad cars out on the runway, their red-and-blues flashing, but he could make some guesses.
Of course she noticed the second the smile left David’s face. It was surprising, especially given she couldn’t stop smiling. Which was saying a lot considering where they had just come from. But she was happy. She had wanted David for so long and now things were finally happening with them. Not to mention how amazing the sex had been. And yet David wasn’t smiling anymore.
“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked, brow furrowed. The smile disappeared from her face as well.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It could be nothing.” He turned away from the window and glanced at Caroline. “There’s a few squad cars down there. It could have nothing to do with us, but it looks like they could be waiting for us to touch down. You should wait on the plane when we touch down though.”
Caroline was confused. Why would police be waiting for them? Her heart sped up, suddenly scared she was in some sort of trouble. Even though she was pretty sure she had done nothing wrong. “O-okay,” Caroline managed to get out, unable to find actual words.
Xanatos reached for her hand. “If they are here for me, I’m sure it’s over some misunderstanding that I’ll be able to sort out without much trouble,” he assured her. He suspected it was Stark. It meant that Caleb hadn’t been able to get rid of all the evidence, but he’d prepared for that eventuality. With technology the way it was these days, Caleb actually destroying all the evidence would have exceeded his expectations. “But there’s no sense in getting your photograph in the newspaper if there’s reporters out there.”
David was a very powerful man. It seemed odd that the police would be there over a misunderstanding. But then she also didn’t think that David could have possibly done anything wrong. So she supposed it had to be a misunderstanding.
“No, my mom wouldn’t like that,” and she’d been through enough the past two weeks. It wouldn’t be great for her reputation either. “I’ll stay here.” So much for more rounds back at his place.
Xanatos shot Caroline what he hoped was a reassuring smile as the plane touched down on the runway. He leaned over, tucking a lock of hair behind her ears and brushing his lips against hers.
“Tom is waiting in the airport; if I’m not able to come back then he’ll drive you home,” he said. “I am sorry for all this.” It really was the worst possible timing, and if Xanatos was annoyed by anything, it was by that.
Then, he stood and made his way outside. If Caroline was looking out the window, she would have seen him in a brief conversation with a pair of officers, and then, after a quick back and forth, held his hands out in front of himself so that he could be cuffed. Before he was led away, he shot a brief, unreadable look at the window, and then turned away.