Rain

Side A: Cassie

I was sobbing. So, Imagine my surprise a knock came thudding.

Boom, Boom

It was enough to leave me confused. I was certain no one had followed me home, even through the haze of my tears. On the bus, I had tried to hide the fact that I was crying, keeping my head down and pretending to scroll through my phone. By the time I reached my apartment and locked the door behind me, a cold shiver ran through me.

“Miss Cassie.” A voice I didn't know called my name.

The voice was male, smooth but laced with a cool, smoky edge that made my pulse quicken.

“W-what?” I stammered, wiping at my eyes and willing my voice not to shake. Of course, it did anyway.

“Please allow me to come in,” he said, his tone calm and almost pleading.

Without fully understanding why, I began to undo the bolts I had secured only moments before. My fingers trembled, yet there was an odd eagerness in their movement. Curiosity outweighed fear, pulling me forward when logic told me to stop.

Truthfully, with how much my heart ached, I wasn’t sure I would have minded if death had come knocking.

However.

Standing in the hallway, he paused, preparing to step into my home. His eyes were a soft gray, calm yet unreadable, and his smile carried a quiet sweetness. His hair was dark as the night itself, the kind that seemed to swallow the light around it.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice uncertain. I cleared my throat, and chewed on my bottom lip. His smile widened just slightly, as though he had been waiting for that question.

"Klaus. Klaus Vine. Please, Cassie, let me in."

I hesitated, my thoughts caught between caution and the strange beauty of his face. Then I moved aside, allowing him to enter.

"Thank you," he said, his voice richer now, smooth and smoky, filling the space between us as he stepped past me.

I closed the door behind him. He looked at me closely, his gaze lingering on the traces of tears on my cheeks, yet he said nothing about them. Instead, he opened his arms in silent invitation.

It was effortless to fall into them. He drew me in, holding my small frame tightly against his chest. The embrace was warm, grounding, and exactly what I needed.

When he finally pulled back, his gray eyes held a kind of depth that made me forget to breathe. There was something ancient in them, something vast and knowing, like he had seen too many heartbreaks to count—and mourned every one of them.

“You have carried sorrow for too long,” he said softly. His voice was velvet and smoke, the kind that could slip through the cracks in a person’s defenses without force. “Let it rest for a while.” He smoothed my hair tucking a strand behind my ears.

"It's not yours to carry anymore." He spoke with a certainty that rang true with in me. My brain could still push it away, telling me I was stupid to trust this man.

I wanted to ask how he knew, but the words wouldn’t come. He reached up instead and brushed a strand of hair from my face. His touch left a warmth that spread through me, steady and comforting, as if sunlight had found its way beneath my skin.

The room seemed different now. The air hummed faintly, filled with the scent of grapes and honey. My heartbeat slowed, and in that quiet, I thought I heard faint music, something distant, full of joy and sorrow entwined.

He smiled then, a small, knowing smile that made my chest ache in a different way. “Your heart will learn to dance again, Cassie,” he whispered, and the certainty in his tone was impossible to doubt.

I didn’t understand who he was or why his presence felt both strange and familiar, like a memory I couldn’t quite recall. But as he held my gaze, the ache that had hollowed me out began to fade, replaced by the first fragile stirrings of something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Hope.

Side B: Klaus

She trembled in my arms, small and fragile, but beneath that fragility I could feel the steady rhythm of life pulsing through her—faint, wounded, yet still there. I held her as gently as I could, careful not to shatter what remained of her strength. Mortals often forgot how resilient they were, even when grief hollowed them out. Her heart, though fractured, still beat with an echo of music. I could hear it, even if she could not.

When she finally allowed herself to lean against me fully, I closed my eyes and let the silence between us fill with what she needed most.

Warmth.

Stillness.

The pulse of something eternal. My power did not roar through me; it whispered, subtle and patient. I could not take away her pain, not entirely, only guide it into something gentler, something that could one day bloom again.

The room shifted as I worked. The air thickened with a sweetness that mortals often forgot the name of, that faint trace of fruit and wine, of life’s joy even in sorrow. She would not recognize it, not yet, but her heart did. It reached toward that familiar note, aching to be whole again.

Cassie’s sorrow had drawn me here, a cry louder than she could ever speak aloud. Years of the same has taught her no one cared, so way bother?

She had been breaking quietly for too long, not just on that bus earlier. How she kept breaking, putting her heart together, getting up and trying again.

I admired this mortal.

I could not bear to let another heart dissolve into emptiness. So I came as Klaus, a name that would not frighten her, a mask soft enough to meet her where she stood.

I brushed my thumb along her cheek, wiping away the salt of her tears. “Your heart has not failed you,” I murmured. “It only forgot how to be brave.” She would not understand the weight of those words, not yet, but the truth of them settled in her chest like a seed waiting for spring.

I would guard her now, as I have guarded countless lost souls before her, not from the world, but from the quiet ruin that grows within a heart left untended. She was different, I was attracted to her, she was magnetic.

She did not know who I truly was, and she did not need to. It was enough that she let me in.

I talked to her soft and kindly for an hour before she giggled.

My own heart pulsed. I knew there would be enough time for that later. I would be protecting her from now on.

I watched her fall asleep and stayed til she got asleep deeply. The storm in her chest had eased. The threads of her heart were beginning to mend, fragile but glowing faintly with life again. I felt a stir of pleasure in me.

I had done what I could for now. Healing, after all, was not meant to be taken, it had to be tended, little by little, like a vine that learns once more to climb toward the light.

I stood, letting my fingers brush lightly through her hair. The air around us still hummed faintly with the warmth of my touch, carrying traces of red wine and wildflowers. She would not notice it at first, but in the morning she might wake and wonder why the room smelled like a vineyard kissed by summer. I wanted to leave that as the first gift of the thousands I wanted to give her.

On the small table beside her, I found a scrap of paper and a pen. I wrote carefully, the words simple but meant to linger:

Cassie,

Rest now. The heart heals best when it remembers softness. You are not as alone as you believe. The ache you carry will fade, and in its place, something brighter will bloom.

I will see you again—perhaps sooner than you expect. Until then, keep a little room in your heart for joy. It has been waiting patiently to return.

- Klaus

I placed the note where she would find it easily, beside the empty cup she had forgotten to wash. As I straightened, I let one last thread of warmth pass through the room. A promise that even when unseen, I would remain near.

Then I slipped out into the night, where the air was cool and fragrant with grapes and rain, and the world pulsed quietly with the rhythm of her mending heart.

For tonight, that was all the invitation I required. I would have time to tell her I love her even if I had to remain Klaus forever.