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Growing up in Mystic Falls with a vampire hunter as a father and a witch as a best friend, Caroline is no stranger to the supernatural. It’s why, when she sets up shop next to The Night Howler - a tattoo parlour in the heart of the French Quarter - she doesn’t bat an eye when she learns the guy who owns the place is a witch. She sees his parlour’s tattoos on people all over the city, the inked marks well known for coming alive at night, moving magically in the moonlight. They’re even enchanted to bless the wearer with whatever benefit they desire, ranging from common protection and fertility spells to the most random shit - like a tattoo that magically enables you to find all the odd socks you lost.
Caroline ends up getting one. She thought fuck it, might as well. She gets it free after Kol ends up owing her for saving his ass when he accidentally sets fire to the flower arrangements meant for his sister’s upcoming wedding. She’d had to pull an all nighter just to get all the replacement arrangements done in time for Kol to deliver them, his sister none the wiser. Caroline hates to think what would have happened if Rebekah had trusted him with something more important, like god forbid, the rings.
It’s a hummingbird, the tattoo she gets. She has it splayed right across her collarbone, the wings fluttering against her breast at night. She opted out of getting an enchantment with it, unable to think of anything useful, but she thinks Kol did something to the needle anyways, just to mess with her. The bird seems to come alive every time she bumps into Kol’s stupidly handsome brother, who's also conveniently the tattoo artist for the parlour - she had to sit a hair’s breadth away from him for five straight hours, his cologne up her nose and his body so very close to hers while he drew that bird on her chest, the magic seeping into her bones. She’d walked in nervous about the entire ordeal, but by the time she’d walked out, her face hurt from smiling, the laughter and chatter so very easy in his presence.
He asks her out the next morning by buying every single flower in her shop and delivering them to her apartment before she gets home. She never should have given Kol a goddamn key. At this point, she’s not sure if Kol’s his brother’s wingman or hers, considering how invested he is in getting her laid.
Odd though, how Klaus keeps blowing her off every month, for a few days at a time. And the mood swings - if the insufferable idiot wasn’t so smooth, she’d have slammed the door in his face weeks ago. It’s almost as annoying as Kol’s vehement denial that he keeps a dog at the parlour, even though she’s definitely heard it howling out back more than once. Not to mention the hundred other oddities she keeps finding out about her boyfriend. Like seriously, who eats their steak that rare?
…Wait a second-