#poly.

even when they were nothing more than friends, the female currently located on his lap had always had max thoroughly wrapped around her finger. he’d have found it sickening if he didn’t benefit from it so greatly from it. now it was his life was pretty much perfect, he had a pretty girl perched on his lap, giving him all of the attention that he could ever want – and yet something was missing. or more so, someone. hearing the front door open let him know that that feeling wouldn’t last very long and the lazy little grin that formed on his lips was nothing short of award-winning when they came into sight over the edge of the girl’s shoulder. “look who finally showed up.”

“will you get your elbow out of my ribs?” carson was way to hungover to be uncomfortable as he tried to sleep off the headache that he’d woken up with. for a big guy, his alcohol tolerance was stupidly low and it didn’t take much for him to be debilitatingly ill the day after a night out. he wasn’t the most eloquent person first thing in the morning, or at any point of the day really, however he didn’t even attempt to be gentle with the person laying next to him in the bed as he shoved them away from him. he groaned and shifted around, flopping around onto his back to dislodge the joint from where it had been digging into him.

blair never had been able to say no to a night out, all eden had to do was flash her with some puppy dog eyes and she was grabbing her hair straighteners. what had started off as a few happy hour drinks had ended up with them completing a bit of a bar crawl and barely making it home in an uber. some point between the front door of the apartment building and their kitchen, they’d both started to undress and engaged in a heated kiss. she was just on the verge of slipping her hand down the front of eden’s shorts when she heard something that made her pause, eyes shooting towards the doorway. “oh... you’re home.” how had they forgotten they wouldn’t have the apartment to themselves forever? 

“ — oh, was this not a date? i was getting date vibes. what about you, carson?” oliver cocked his head as he glanced over towards the mentioned male, eyebrows shooting up slightly. the evening felt like it was coming to a close when he’d made his announcement, that it had been one of the ‘best dates he’d ever been on’. when he was met by some confusion by the third member of their little trio, he went down the route of being joking instead of actually giving them an answer.

ㅤㅤi've wondered about this myself, and haven't made it beyond a weak maybe. we all already know klaus is an exceptionally jealous and possessive person, so i think whether he could handle it or not would vary greatly depending on the dynamic. i see one of three necessary conditions needing to be met, or some combination of the three:

he would have to be equally obsessed with both of them and literally be like "i can't choose just one of you, i have to have you both." this option doesn't seem super likely to me, considering how fixated he gets on one person at a time. like ... he locks on to his chosen person, and if he can actually have and keep them, i don't see his eyes wandering enough to develop romantic interest in another. for example, he carried a flame for caroline for years after they parted, having only moved on when it was clear he wouldn't be able to be with her. but even after he had fallen for cami and lost her, he was still very clearly into caroline when they reunited. if he and caroline had gotten and stayed together, i highly doubt he ever would've developed romantic interest in cami. not saying it would've been impossible, just super unlikely.

the other two would need to have no romantic interest in each other whatsoever, only be into him. a very tenuous thing to put faith in to him, because what's to truly stop them from falling for each other? their word? that would be highly risky in his eyes, and he would probably always expect that to inevitably change, no matter how hard they tried to assure him otherwise.

if the second option isn't possible, they would have to be more into him than each other. he already has this near pathological fear of abandonment and being second best; having to watch two people he's in love with clearly prefer each other over him would be guaranteed to drive him mad. and again, no foolproof way to prevent that ⸻ he would be worried about it constantly.