#i love Elijah as a villain. like i love insane mad stubborn man AND even better if the man CANNOT be defended at all

[idiosinkratico]

back to hell (i been replaying fnv and have started Dead Money again)

[eternityunicorn]

Elijah’s Eternity: New Orleans - Part Nineteen

Author: eternityunicorn 

Genre: Romance/Drama/AU

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x OC

Warnings: Violance, Smut (*Smut chapters marked +18)

Summary: Sequel to the AU Elijah’s Eternity - Ten years have passed, a mournful Elijah has finally started to move on without his lady. In that time, he has gained a reunited family and has also found a new lady love. Yet, all is not well as danger comes for the smallest member of the Mikaelson family: Hope, and it prompts Niklaus to call upon the white goddess, drawing her back into Elijah’s life. As they reunite, can Elijah really say he’s truly moved on?

NOTE: OC and original elements are from my up and coming novel series! Masterlist link to all my fics is in my blog profile. Thanks and happy reading!

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Jor! 

This man was Eternity’s eldest child, the one whom sided with Loki. He recalled what Eternity had told him about the young immortal. He hated his mother and worshipped his father like the god he was not. 

From what Elijah understood there was a long line of contention between mother and son over this fact. Jor believed Loki to be the wronged party and believed Eternity had forsaken the Trickster with malicious intent. In other words, in the younger immortal’s mind, him mother was the villain and his father was the victim, when in truth, it was the other way around.

Physically speaking, Jor was a spitting image of his father. There was barely any distinction between the two. He was of the same height and slender build. He had the same aristocratic features, same twisted smile, same pointed nose and thin lips. He even had Loki’s bright red hair and wore the same silks and leathers his father did. In fact, the only thing that was from his mother were his sapphire blue eyes. 

“Jor? What are you doing here?” Eternity asked her son warily.

“I heard you were getting married,” he replied, with a lighter version of Loki’s voice. “Word has spread through the cosmos of the Universal Queen’s unusual husband-to-be. An Earth-based immortal, to be exact. I had to see if it were true and let me say, what a downgrade from Father! Really, Mother? Surely you could do better than...this.” He gestured at Elijah with disgust, “or better yet, you could have simply stayed with Father instead of murdering him.”

“Your father was lost, Jor, to his darkness,” Eternity replied calmly. “There was no coming back from it for him. He was a threat to the innocent and I had to do it. I had to kill him. He wasn’t going to stop and I, as a guardian, had to put him down as I would any enemy. Duty before the heart, my son.”

Jor’s face twisted into a horrible snarl as he shouted in a fury, “He was my father!”

“Yes he was and I can see his darkness in you,” she responded just as evenly, with a hint of sadness in her tone. “You are your father’s son. Be careful of the footsteps you follow. There is nothing but misery down that path. Now, what is it that you have come for? Besides to be angry with me, of course.”

Jor grinned sinisterly. 

It was so foreboding that it sent chills down Elijah’s spine, whom stood beside his lady during this exchange. He was immediately set on edge with worry for his lady. He bristled at the threat before them, wishing more than anything that he wasn’t so helpless against the higher classes of immortals. That and he didn’t care for the boy’s condescending regard of himself, as if he were less than. It was rather insulting and wounded his pride as an Original. If only they weee more evenly matched, then he’d teach Jor some manners.

Then the younger immortal turned his hateful gaze on Elijah. “So you are the husband-to-be. I could crush you so very easily,” he sneered at him. “I do hope you never expect me to call you my father, as you are not only unworthy of my mother, but you are also unworthy of my respect or to be part of this family. You are beneath us all.”

Elijah was infuriated by his cruel words. His jaw tightened and his hands balled into fists, as they itched to retaliate. However, before he could respond, his lady stepped between them protectively. 

“Enough, Jor,” Eternity growled warningly.

Loki’s mirror image turned his attentions back to his mother. “Or what? You’ll kill me?” He taunted and then snickered. 

She stepped closer to her son, “Do not tempt me, child.”

Jor only grinned wider, seeming to be unafraid of his mother’s threat. “If you do, Mommy, then you shall never see your beloved middle son again,” he murmured down to her cruelly, causing her to gasp and take a step back. 

“What have you done?” Eternity sounded horrified.

“Nothing much, I only tried to make dear Fenrir see the errors on his ways in supporting you one more time, after I learned of your horrid plans to replace our father,” the insane young immortal shrugged nonchalantly. “I wanted him to side with me, so that maybe we could talk sense into you for this terrible decision. Unfortunately, he’s as stubborn as you are, Mother, and still refuses to join the right side.”

Provoked, she lashed out in a rage. With psychic powers, she threw her own son across the room,  sending him through the wall and into the parking lot. Jor’s body left a considerable hole there. Eternity followed his path with the grace of a panther, ready to strike again.

Elijah and Kol both chased after her. One brother wanted to make sure his lady stayed safe, while the other simply wanted to enjoy the show. The younger Mikealson did get a thrill seeing chaos unfold; though usually he was the cause of said chaos.

“Where is he?” Eternity demanded of her son, as he staggered to his feet. Her katana appeared in her hand, unsheathed and ready for use. “Speak quickly!”

Jor only laughed, “Denounce your ridiculous engagement to that inferior man and I’ll tell you, Mother!”

She wasn’t about to do as the young fool demanded. Instead, she attacked her son, forcing him to conjure his own sword - a broadsword to be exact - and defend himself against her relentless assault upon him. 

Jor was a good swordsman, but Eternity was of course better. She didn’t give him any room to counter her, only to block her blade strokes. They moved with equal speed, evenly matched in that regard. However, one single misstep had Eternity’s insane son flat on his back with his sword tossed away from him, out of reach. That one miscalculation had him defeated.

Elijah’s lady stood over the boy with the point of her katana directed at Jor’s throat. “You will tell me where your brother is or so help me, I will end you here and now,” she hissed threateningly. 

Elijah was impressed and turned on by Eternity in warrior mode. What made it truly sexy in this instance was the fact that she had fought her son in her short sweater dress and wedges. She was truly remarkable to be able to fight in any apparel and he found he could watch her fight all day long.

“The warehouse by the docks,” Jor groaned up at Eternity with a defiant gaze, despite having been defeated. “You’ll find your precious Fenrir there. This is far from over. Till we meet again, Mother.”

Then, as quickly as he had come, Loki’s lookalike vanished like a coward.

The ethereal beauty let her blade disappear from her hand and turned worriedly to Elijah, whom had been near by. “I have to go get my son,” she said urgently.

Elijah only nodded and proceeded to go to her side. He was of course going with her, not wanting her to make the journey alone. He wanted to support her in everything, especially if he was going to become her husband soon enough. That and he was rather curious to finally meet this other child of his lady’s. He wrapped his arm around Eternity’s waist and raced off at vampire’s speed to the warehouses by the docks.

Once there, his lady sensed out where exactly Jor had stashed Fenrir and together, they entered the warehouse cautiously. There was no telling what lay ahead, if her mad son had left traps for them. He did yield rather easy and Elijah wondered as to why.

“Because Jor wants to believe himself to be a ruthless villain like his father, but he doesn’t actually have the stomach to follow through,” Eternity whispered to him, answering his thoughts.  “The only reason why he kidnapped Fenrir in order to try and turn him against me is because, well because my younger son is vulnerable, an easy target as he is rather timid and not at all interested in fighting or leading or anything that has to do with conflict. Jor has always bullied his brother into yielding to him. Though, it would seem Fenrir finally learning to stand up for himself as my eldest wasn’t able to get him to give in this time.”

They moved quietly through the warehouse behind crates and stacks of pallets, sticking to the shadows until they knew it was safe to venture about without worry of ambush. They went around in stealth until Fenrir came into view. 

The boy was tied to a chair with his arms shackled with strange gold bracelets. He looked bruised and bloody - unconscious by the way that his head dangled downward. 

Elijah and his lady waited near by, until they knew that nobody else was there. Then as one, hand in hand, they still moved in with caution, just to be safe. There was no telling what could happen in enemy territory, even a defeated one’s.

“Damn,” Eternity muttered as she reached her son, her eyes automatically falling to the golden bracelets upon his wrists. “These are very special,” she told Elijah, “very rare trinkets that can render any magical being powerless, myself included. Jor no doubt put them on Fenrir and then proceeded to beat the hell out of him. My poor boy.”

“Can you removed them?” Elijah asked as he watched her stroke the boy’s curly white hair in that loving, motherly way. 

She gave a small grin as she answered, “Of course.”

Immediately the shackles were on the ground with a loud, echoing clank. Almost as quickly did the young man awaken, as if reviving from a sleeping spell. He blinked rapidly and groaned, before his eyes widened in relief at the sight of his mother before him.

“Mama!” Fenrir shouted, throwing his arms around her tightly. His wounds upon his pale skin were healing instantly, as he held her and she held him. “Oh, it was terrible, Mama! Jor, the bastard, cornered me on the way to meet Hel and clamped those horrid shackles on me, only it drag me here to beat me into submission - which I didn’t give him, much to ire.” He pulled back and looked proudly at Eternity. “I will never let Jor or anyone else turn me against you,” he cupped her face in his hands with an adoring gaze. “Hel and I will always be your greatest champions, no matter what.”

Eternity took his hands in hers and pulled them from her face gently, holding onto them tightly. “I know, my darling,” she said softly. “You are a brave boy, my brave boy.”

Fenrir grinned at his mother, before Elijah’s shifting behind her caught his attention and he looked up at the vampire with wide, mistrusting eyes. 

Elijah smiled gently in the most nonthreatening way he could manage. He found the boy fascinating, quite frankly. He really was a male version of Eternity. He had all the same ethereal paleness, though to a lesser degree like his sister. His hair was a curly mop top of white hair and he had the same big sapphire eyes she did, along with the exact plushly rose pink lips too. He was small like his mother too, but certainly broader. His voice was deeper, yet soft spoken just like Eternity’s as well.

Yes, a male version indeed.

“Are you the Earth-based immortal whom will be marrying my mother, I’ve heard so much about?” Fenrir asked him cautiously. 

“I am. My name is Elijah Mikaelson,” nodded Elijah. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Fenrir got up from the chair with his mother’s help and approached him slowly. “You are a product of dark magic, a violent creature with much blood upon your hands,” he said, in a slow, hypnotized sort of way, reading the vampire’s mind. “However, you detest the violence, reserving it for your enemies, including those whom would harm your loved ones. You are the devoted sort of monster. I can certainly see that you are completely devoted to my mother, a fact that truly matters to me, which is why I welcome you, sir, to our humble little family.” He grinned and held out his hand to Elijah.

He clasped hands with the young immortal readily, glad to see that this son was actually quite sane, as well as kind and accepting of him. “Thank you for your acceptance of me,” said Elijah. “I do hope that we get along splendidly.”

“Of that I have no doubt,” Fenrir nodded.

Eternity came to stand beside Elijah, taking his hand in hers with her fingers threading through his. She smiled adoringly up at his and then at her son. “Come along, son. Let’s get you out of here and somewhere safe.”

“Actually, I should go meet Hel,” her son replied. “I’m recovered enough from Jor’s tricks to get to her. She’s probably wondering where I am and with her, I shall be safe.”

The enteral woman nodded, “Aye, you’re right. You should. Your sister is a worrier. She’ll send a search party after you, if you don’t show up to greet her.”

With that said and one final farewell between parent and child, the younger immortal vanished from the warehouse, leaving Elijah and Eternity alone together. 

The ethereal woman turned to him and smiled, “Thank you for coming with me. I apologize for our evening being hijacked by my out of control son. I’m sure Jor left quite the impression into the family you will be entering, my darling.”

He smiled back and brushed her hair back from her face as he replied, “I’ll follow you anywhere, Sweetheart, and your family is no more crazy than my own, so I am not scared off at all. As to the evening, the night is still young. We should probably get back to the club. We did leave a Kol and Davina behind. They might be wondering what became of us.”

She kissed his lips briefly and agreed, “Aye, we did. Besides I wasn’t quite done dancing the night away with you, my love.” She gazed at him flirtatiously.

Elijah smirked, pulling Eternity to him bodily and plundering her mouth with his own until she was moaning and clinging to him. Then he pulled back, before he got too lost to his never ending passion, and rested his forehead against hers. 

From there, without a word, he whisked them away back to the club to find Kol and Davina back inside, being merry together with the rest of the patrons, as if the threat of Jor hadn’t ever happened. The club was in full swing as if nothing amiss had happened. Typical of the supernatural community, Elijah supposed. 

“Well, it seems we weren’t missed,” Eternity quipped good naturally, unpin their reentry. 

“No, but I’m not all that surprised,” he replied as he held up his hand for her to take. “Shall we, Sweetheart?”

She beamed, “We shall.”

Then upon her taking his hand, Elijah lead them back into the fray, where they joined his brother and Davina in their merriment on the dance floor, into the wee hours of morning.

To Be Continued....

[austennerdita2533]

Summary: Bad blood and violence seem to pop up for the Mikaelsons everywhere, but this time it shows up in the form of unhinged!amnesiac Elijah. Caroline tries to hold him off while Hayley disbands of Greta, and Klaus ushers Hope to safety. Madness ensues in the fight to keep the Nazi vampires from procuring who, and what, they desire.

Can Caroline keep a morally-corrupted Original at bay? Will Klaus be able to protect everyone he cares about? What will they gain; what may they lose? (TO 5x06 AU + Amnesiac!Villain Elijah vs. Klaroline + Angst)

**WARNING: Hayley still dies. Threats. Mild Violence**

A/N:  Tagging @arrenemris​ and @childoftimeandmagic​, because you lovelies were interested in a part 2. Here is the whole 5.2k word (edited) enchilada if you want to read it. (No pressure!)

Honestly, idk what I’ve created here...

Enjoy!

(A03) (FFnet)

xx Ashlee Bree

Everybody Bursts Into Mad Flames Sometimes

Before her stands a stranger—a stranger she once knew.

Dark hair, shaved chin. Aviator sunglasses tucked into a scooped white collar. Rugged blue jeans. Terse lips curled in impatient distaste. Two whittled fence posts peeking out from underneath too-long sleeves. A leather jacket - simple, black, no designer or brand name anything. It hangs loose from his shoulders to offset two cold, umber eyes which used to pierce the world with such sagacity, with such innate sophistication and reasonability, but now appraise everything around him with something worse than hate, or scorn, or disapproval too marked to miss: apathy.

It’s the last thing Caroline expects to see right now; he, the last person. (Especially in freaking jeans, are you kidding?) And she barely chokes down her surprise fast enough to block his path to the house which perches on a small hill behind them.

“Can I help you?” she says in half-chirp. Tilting her head to the side, she side-steps in front of him, warning him back with a sharp smile. “You look a little lost and I’m a concerned citizen willing to turn you back around.”

“Move,” the man growls.

“Now, now,” she raises her hands half in defense, half in taunting, “I know your memory’s been swiped, Elijah, (along with your entire history of familial and platonic feeling), but I thought you of all people would still bother with civilities in any diseased incarnation of yourself? There aren’t any dangling on your lips now, though, huh? Shame. A true shame.”

“I said move!”

“Wow, really? No Miss Forbes? No ‘it’s nice to see you again,’ Caroline?” She wags her finger and tuts, still shuffling her feet; still refusing to let him pass. Determined to give them more time to escape to safety. “I know my face jars something in you, faint and faded though the recollection may be given the circumstances.”

“You talk too much.”

“Hey! That’s rude,” she says tartly and pouts. “I’ve always considered you to be the only Mikaelson with any manners, but man, oh man! What a disappointment you are today, I’ve got to say.”

“Stop. Tell me where he is, where he’s taken them,” Elijah says while his knuckles whiten and his jaw ticks. His fingers curl into fists around one of the stakes, itching to strike. Stab. Silence. And he’d do it, too - oh, he wants to do it - to know how her fire and sugared spice will bubble against his teeth after a fatal bite - but he resists because she holds the missing pieces. She’s the only one here who knows how to procure what he and Antoinette still need.

“Pfft, yeah, like I’d tell you anything in your state.” Caroline laughs like the idea is preposterous. Insane. Like it’s the funniest joke in the history of the world. “I mean, I deserve at least a please for that kind of information, don’t you think? For old time’s sake and everything.”

“I’ve had enough of these idle games, Little Miss Sunshine. Where is he?” Elijah snarls again. This time with patience fraying into vein-pulsed rage and fangs descending. “WHERE!?”

Caroline’s shoulders straighten here, and her eyes burn so hot they almost hiss at him when she digs her heels into the grass to offer him a pert quirk of her mouth in opposition; her voice swapping out joviality for severity in the smoothest of transitions.

“As I said already, Señor Impolite,” she says with a click of her tongue, “I won’t reveal a single damn thing to you about your brother’s next location. Not here, not when you’re like this. Nor will I won’t inconvenience the other people you still love somewhere in that thick, muddled skull of yours by making this mission easy for you. Whatever it is. So put that on a discarded daylight ring and smoke it!” she adds with a huff and a cock of the hip.  

“Fine.” A stake loosens from his sleeve. He brandishes it in his hand; twirls it like a baton on his palm. The movement is slow and practiced because whether or not he’s aware of his Original history, he’s wielded weapons like this one for centuries. “If that’s how you wish to play it.”

“Likewise.”

Elijah pauses to scratch a thumb across his jaw. Then he sniffs before he raises harsh lashes to her face,

“Take it from a man who’s wasted centuries: you will not triumph,” he says. “That man - my so-called brother - will bleed you of any goodness you possess; he’ll stifle any happiness you find, so do yourself a favor and free yourself from his tyranny now. He is not worth an ounce of your time or protection. And he never will be.”

“You’re wrong. You don’t truly believe that,” she shakes her head and sighs. “You’re so wrong I just—I don’t know how you’ll recover from all the regret and guilt that’s bound to follow once you regain your old attachments again.”

He remains impassive. Unmoved.

“Let me by, Caroline. He must pay for his crimes.”

“I said -” her teeth clench; her features darken, “- no!” A blur against the sky, she vamps across the yard to block each and every one of his advances. She shoves against his chest, swipes at his athletic kicks with her boot heels, and snaps out with her fangs like a guard dog to keep him back. Away.

“His worth is mine, and mine alone, to decide. You got that, E?” she says in an obnoxious way that mocks his new nickname pointedly, unapologetically; her veins rippling across her cheekbones for extra measure. “It’d be best for you not to forget it. You know - like, ever.”

“Well, then—” He takes a step back, his forehead pinched in mounting irritation. “I guess we have nothing further to discuss, do we?”

“Nope.”

After a shrug and a look of pity, “I’m afraid this pretty little blonde of yours has left me no choice here, Hybrid,” he announces in a loud, reverberating voice.

Elijah speaks to the air, to the clouds forming shapes over their heads, but his eyes sweep across the property. His ears prick as if they wait for his brother’s howled outcry to sound on the wind in the seething, murderous way he’d once been so accustomed to hearing, and also to preventing. There is no movement anywhere except where the sun crests over the hill, however. All the purples and oranges dancing with shadows to tint the land like a bruise. There’s no sound besides the screeching tires of a Camaro on the highway ten miles distant. There’s nothing else around besides a dirt road, a decrepit house, and a stubborn, sassy girl poised between them.

Thirty more seconds pass before Elijah’s gaze settles back over on Caroline. It’s another thirty-five seconds after that before he’s rife enough with detached predation, hunger, and resolve to act.

He levels his chin once he decides. And as he charges forward with a stake positioned for the spot where two rings dangle against her chest, above her heart, the next words to leave his throat burst forth in grave monotone,

“Time to die,” he says.

Bad blood and violence follow Klaus everywhere.

It’s a foul shadow chomping at the base of his achilles heel hoping to munch its way through to destroy all he cherishes because he’s a man forged from sin, dark magic, and bones of adaptability. A combination which shouldn’t be allowed to exist in this world unless it’s broken - purged - from the outside in with all the dominion he possesses slit from his tendons by his foes in fury. Greed. Fear. Hate. Or envy. It’s a javelined spear which spills his loved ones’ blood onto cobblestone paths or fried country grasses in red river rain because he somehow arrives too late to keep the bolt from striking, the lightning.

His worst fears flood the land as a result. Thunder rumbles overhead to plunge everyone’s lives into peril at once, pellets of hail dropping like canons. Erupting the earth to widen the crossable distance between them. The sky is a jaw full of teeth which drools something about abominations, or about purity that must crunch all twisty tornados dead in their tracks.

A storm of hell descends while he’s distracted and struggling against his enemies’ vengeance, limbs extended in four different directions; his arms flying while eyes hybridize with focus, anger, so that someone who matters is always left exposed. Vulnerable. Like a flapping thread which spools from the corner of a whirlpool.

It’s simple math for him, truth be told. It’s even simpler science. There are too many holes, and Klaus cannot defend them all on his own. It doesn’t matter how hard he tries because somebody always slips over a ledge and falls flat into physics’ grasp. Gravity claiming what he’s dropped, who he’s lost. And it’s all his fault.

His fault, his fault, his fault.

The rising tide of everyone’s screams and taken or deflected blows creates a wave of horror Klaus cannot climb over with blood-drenched hands, with slippery soles, and it makes it impossible for him to catch every person he cares for before they sink, before they drown to the bottom of a gorge he’ll never be able to breach with one arm extended. He needs more time, more time, more time. He needs more bloody time! Please.

But what happens if there isn’t any? What comes after the world fissures open with the intent to swallow up the good in everything? What then, what does one do next?

Klaus clamors, he claws his way over to them.

He packs his unconscious daughter into a car seat next to Roman and Marcel then watches the SUV disappear down the lane, its wheels screeching as it ushers two people he loves toward home and security. He turns back to the house afterwards to collect the two women he’s left idling on the estate five miles away, who each scan for more threats in his absence as they wait, only for the back door to splinter wider the closer he roams. It chips next. Before, finally, it busts open with a loud crack to shoot wood and body parts loose.

Debris launches forward with such force that his arms shield his head in reflex while he rolls to the left to avoid a collision with an airborne Hayley. A fate Klaus escapes, but barely.

He pushes up onto his elbows. When he does, the heat from her near-miss manages to singe some hairs on the back of his neck, chafing them down to stubs of red. A hammer thuds loud in his ears as he blinks in the nightmare which unfolds before him: the mother of his child sailing through the backyard tangled in rods of fire. And Greta. And a self-sacrifice too awful to believe.

It’s bloody horrifying to behold, truly.

The sunlight pours over Hayley’s skin like gasoline, and she’s suddenly a molting phoenix: red fades to orange, and orange dwindles to gray which then darkens to black. All of her life’s color draining in seconds until she’s gone. Dust. Dead.

And there Klaus is left to witness it all.

There, on a frayed patch of yard, beneath the stark midday sun, Klaus lies agape in the filth of his own making yet again. A Father of Cinders. An Usher of Ruin. The smell of Hayley's charred flesh quickly becoming another orange stink he must learn how to breathe in and out of his nostrils like flame, like ash—the crispest of all things he’s failed to save for his family’s sake.

Sure, why not add another disaster to the ever-multiplying list, he thinks? Why not shoulder all the responsibility for a tragedy from which Hope will never recover? Elijah, either, if he returns to himself someday. How can he not assume the blame for this?

His fault, his fault, his fault.

The temptation to remain crumpled on his knees right now is as potent as the bourbon Klaus needs to slick his throat, to numb the ache in his head, but a faint voice gusts into the clearing at that moment which is equal parts sonorous and soft when it chokes out defiance, strength, and fortitude into the air; and the sound causes him to scrabble to his feet with the speed of a cheetah to pursue the last hope here he knows he can’t bear to lose. Let alone whom.

Fifty paces hence takes mere seconds, but they feel like decades.

Her still-ticking pulse becomes the drumbeat each of his strides produces as he dashes to the front of the house in a blur of alarm. It’s what keeps him breathing. She’s what keeps him moving when his panic thumps so strong he grinds the enamel on his molars off clean.

The world collapses and narrows until her loudening voice is all Klaus hears, until her golden head snaps in his direction again because she’s the only thing he wants to see. She’s the balm to all his monstrosity, to his debilities, and he needs her. He needs her alive more than anything.

Still, a roar from the wolf deep in his chest is not enough to convey all the emotion he feels. There’s no lid to quiet the pain. There’s no coffin to smother it…all of that rage.

Caroline will not be torn from him, too. No, no, no. Never. Not today she won’t, not in a hundred million more lifetimes if he can prevent it. And he bloody will—

Even if it’s the last thing in this life he’s meant to do.

Dust and blood coat her slacks after some minutes of vampire vs. vampire tousling. Prone on her back with gravel stuck in her hair, Caroline fends off her attacker with another boot kick to the groin followed by a swift clonk to the jaw.

“You know, I should be pissed about how many of you asshole Mikaelsons have tried to kill me over the years, but do you know what? I’m no damsel,” she says, tumbling into a squat. “I’m not too dainty to fight back. So go on—” Her words are clipped, her breath heavy with exertion. “Go on and hit me with your best shot, you Wrangler-wearing amnesiac!”

“Interesting choice of last words.”

A stake gripped firmly in each of his fists, Elijah swings down with the right one. It rips off a small patch of her skin with her black sleeve. Since she evaded the more direct hit by wheeling to the right, however, the wound heals quickly.

Caroline laughs. It’s a taunting, corrosive sound.

“You wish those were my last words, buddy.”

“Chatter all you want, girl. But know this,” he says in a tone as equally dispassionate as it is menacing,“I’ll still kill you to help my family dispose of the Mikaelsons’ mixed blood. We will rid the world of their plague one way or another.”

“God, will you listen to yourself right now!?”

Using her shoulders as leverage, Caroline pushes up to slug him across the face for a second time. Elijah spits blood from the corner of his mouth after the blow knocks him backwards. Still standing, however, his jaw taut, he looms forward again in seconds.

“Those people are not your family,” she says. “You’re freaking brainwashed!”

“No. What I am is free.”

“Great. So you’re deluded, too, apparently. That’s freaking fantastic,” Caroline grumbles. Scooting upwards onto her elbows, she strikes out at his ankle with her heel but misses it by inches.

“Luckily for me, your family’s long range psychosis (your real family, I mean) is well-worn and likely to flare every now and again, so I’m used to this kind of thing. I’m stronger because of it. Smarter, too,” she adds as her fingers coil beneath her. Looking up, her lips twitch before she hurls a handful of gravel into Elijah’s face without warning.

Even though he blocks most of it with his forearms, some of the rubble stings his eyes long enough for her to lurch for one of his weapons, which she promptly deposits into his gut. The action drops him to his knees in momentary agony, cursing.

“That may be so,” he grunts, his tongue licking over his mouth roughly, “but I’m afraid even with all that expertise, and despite all of your self-proclaimed Mikaelson experience—”

Elijah’s quicker to recover than Caroline anticipates. He grabs her by the hair before she can flash away, throwing her against the porch railing with a loud smash.

“You’ll never be able to beat me.” It’s whispered almost like a caress. “You can’t win this fight,” he says.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to die trying, won’t I?” Caroline fires back.

“Die?” Elijah snickers. Blood - his blood - drips from the spike he’s dislodged from his ribs. He angles it at her chest again. “Oh, die you will.”

With him towering above her once more, his fangs out, sharpened with fatal purpose, he sneers as Caroline crab walks backward to the first step, which she then uses as a ledge to erect herself back onto her feet with fluid grace.

“Pardon the intrusion,” a voice cuts in at that moment with a low growl, not sorry at all, “but I wouldn’t underestimate that one if I were you. She’s made of the sweetest flames."

“And I’ll roast you for one false move, pal,” Caroline pipes in with a huff.

Squinting, Elijah regards her like she’s a cockroach.

“Death would suit you rather nicely, I think. Yes,” he hisses, “imagine the silence I’ll achieve with it soon.”

She raises her chin to fix him with a look of incredulity at this. It’s a look that, for all its azure ferocity and resistance, would impale his eyeballs to the nearest fence post if it could; but also would like to bludgeon open his head with the plume of a feather to reinstate all his emotional memories first.

“Enough!” the intruder exclaims. He grabs the Original by the shoulder at the same time Caroline rips a spoke free of the railing. “Threatening her life would be ill-advised for anyone under normal circumstances, but this…why - this is—are you bloody insane?"

“Come, come, why not watch while I suck the last visage of light from her veins? A few slurps is all it’d take to silence her forever,” Elijah says in the voice of a stranger, in the voice of an adversary. His lips curl in sinister delight. “What a lovely thought that is.”

“I said enough!” the trespasser growls again. Louder this time. Zooming closer, he’s a ball of temper and anxiety as he clutches the other man by the leather lapels.

“There are limits to the wrath I am able to contain even for you…” he draws out the last bit for emphasis, the vein in his forehead throbbing as Caroline tucks the weapon into her jacket, “brother.”

“Does this girl mean so much to you, Hybrid?” Elijah says.

In answer, Klaus hurls him like a dart at the barn doors across the yard, “Do. Not. Test. Me,” he howls.

Dropping over top of him in a flurry of color, and darkness, and fury that’s hardened his eyes into an inferno of hybrid gold, he kicks through the wreckage until he reaches Elijah’s prone  form beneath a heap of crumpled lumber. He lifts him up by the throat. Then he slams his head hard against a lone standing beam, thrusting a finger into his face.

“There has been enough blood spilt here today, Elijah. Too much.”

“Tell me,” he answers with a strangled cough and a blink, “am I supposed to care?”  

“Klaus, stop, you can’t talk to him. He’s wily and unhinged like this. A morally skewed prick. Just look at his dragging hems, for crying out loud!” Caroline says as she approaches from behind. “That’s proof enough he’s been mentally and magically corrupted by them.”

“Our family has been fractured beyond repair,” Klaus continues without hearing her. He looks a little crazed as he shakes his brother in place like it’ll somehow refasten those loose screws in his brain. “Hayley’s gone - the mother of my child, the woman you loved…is dead. Dead! You let her fall straight into our enemy’s lap!”

“But so help me, I will wring your wretched neck—“ His voice grows thick; heavy, and it hurts to swallow, “I will chain you inside a box (which is something I swore I’d never do to someone in this family again) before I allow you to take Caroline away, too.”

It’s in that moment, just as the sun eclipses behind a cloud to dim the atmosphere like an omen, the wind punting flower petals through the air like knives which sting when they kiss a piece of exposed skin, that Elijah’s features contort into something worse than inscrutable. They refashion, instead, into something aggressive and deranged.

“Her shrieks will sound so much more delicious to me when you fail to save her now, Hybrid,” he says. “I admit I can hardly wait for the symphony.”

“Screw you!” Caroline shouts back.

That’s when he lurches forward to grab Klaus by the elbow. With unimaginable force, he yanks. Fracturing it with a violent twist.

The action frees his two legs, which had been dangling in the air where he was tacked only seconds ago, so that he’s able to kick out at his foe’s knees. Unbalancing him enough to bite his shoulder and push backwards against his chest. Elijah nearly shirks the arm which is swinging back at him in retaliation, but not quite.

Hybrid claws catch his face even though he ducks. Like hooks, they dig and pry into his skin because he’s still within range and Klaus is livid, monstrous beyond legend; leaving cursive track marks from Elijah’s eyebrow all the way down through the white of his collarbone.

Still, the other man’s wide-arced punches leave Elijah with an advantage in the end. One carries too far to the left and exposes his side. Before Klaus can stop him, therefore, and before he can recover in time to parry the attack, he upends him with a knee that breaks his nose and reduces his vision to black dots and sprouting stars. It gives him ample time and opportunity to pin him to the ground with the loose barn beam at his feet. Piercing it through his kidney.

That’s how Elijah leaves him, too: sprawled, writhing, raging, helpless.

It’s why he turns his attentions back to Caroline with keener insight. There’s a patient but exacting grin on his lips as he lays chase again because it’s her vs. him for a moment, and there’s a fierceness blooming across her face that says ‘you’ll pay for that dearly, jerk face.’ It feeds his muscles with adrenaline; it plies his mind with rigor. He craves the rush like heroin.

For it’s here, after everything, that he truly understands Caroline won’t leave Klaus under any circumstances. For, no matter how damning the danger grows, and no matter how stacked-against the odds are in her favor, he sees she’ll leap straight into hell itself if it’ll offer her the slightest chance to reach him again.

How could he have missed this? How could he not have noticed the jewel she’s concealed behind her incessant prattle?

His worth is mine to decide, she’d said to him earlier. Mine.

Her words reverberate with too strong a connotation to demarcate their connection into anything less significant than lovers. Lovers. It makes Elijah feel like an imperceptive fool.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how her death happens now, he’s decided.

He’s realized it’s not important whether he skewers her pink flesh into shoelace peels with his teeth, or detaches her bouncing blonde head from her shoulders with the branch of a tree. It matters not if he cuts through her innards, roasts her in the sun, sucks out her sweet flames through her carotid artery, or wraps her wagging tongue around a heart that no longer beats. All that’s necessary is for her life to end here. Today. All that’s required is for Klaus to be parked in a front row seat, powerless and wretched because he’s piked through the torso, watching—

Watching as Elijah wrenches this girl away from him irrevocably.

The thought makes the elder Original smile.

What is better retribution, after all? What could be better justice for the man who’s already tried to snuff out the love which exists between he and Antoinette? The selfish, sabotaging man. How much easier will it be to extract what they need from him afterwards? Once she’s dead.

Ah, the glory of it! The honor! Punishment for both the Hybrid’s meddling and his impurity will be much more satisfactory to achieve now that he knows the best way to inflict it—personally.

“Listen for the crescendo, will you? I believe it’s my favorite cadence of killing,” he says, glancing at Klaus over his shoulder to add drolly, “brother.”

“No more of this! No more of this, damn you!” he replies as his fingernails bruise the land where he’s still impaled.

“Klaus! Listen to me, please!”

Like a whip, Caroline’s voice cracks at the same moment gray rain begins to spit on top of them from stratus mouths. The wind gusts so hard it vibrates with staffs of yellow and blue and shatters all the remaining windows in the house. The space around them transforms into a whistling hellmouth of tension and grief, of anger and estrangement, and of terror too palpable to bear, in seconds.

And what’s worse, is that the worst of it all feels tragically possible now because Elijah’s all coup de force with shards of wood flying everywhere as his skewed morality and loyalty to the wrong family helps to move his feet like a rabid beast’s. Meanwhile, Caroline’s zooming forward through a fang-bared maze and cycloning storm with eyes that scream out, then pour into the beam stuck in Klaus’ back almost in elegy.

The inflamed blue of her eyes drenches his soul in any number of ways, because what if he can’t shatter this obstacle soon? What if he doesn’t…what if she…how can he not save her? How?

Leaping over Klaus’ arms at that moment, she flashes away with Elijah on her haunches. Then, without breaking stride, she reaches into her jacket pocket before she glances back at the prone Original long enough to demand for him to understand. Pleading for him to place faith and trust in what her words mean, “The jeans, Klaus! The freaking jeans!” she yells as she jets in front of him one last time.

“So wasteful,” Elijah says as he nearly hooks an arm around her neck in victory, “since those truly will be your last words this—”

Trip

Stab

Snap

He’s unconscious and face-first on the ground in seconds. A railing spoke from the porch jabbed between his two shoulder blades.

“I think not as much as you’ll regret being brought down by your own poor fashion choices. Compel yourself a tailor next time. I mean, really,” Caroline says over his body with a triumphant hum, cuffing up his baggy pant legs. She pops up from a crouch to take Klaus’ offered hand with a weak smile afterwards.

“That was inspired thinking on your part,” he says.

“Nah, not really. Legally Blonde obsession simply served me well today is all.”

“Elle Woods has nothing on you, love. Believe me.”

“Yeah, well, no way was your brother getting away with saying I talk too much. No man would. Besides,” she continues with a snort, “you did warn him not to underestimate me.”

“That I did.”

After they tie Elijah to a tree out of sight with the vervain chains in her trunk, intent on keeping him subdued until their non-Hollow’d reinforcements arrived to take him away, they amble back toward the house.

“Thanks for the tripping assist, by the way,” Caroline says.

Shrugging, Klaus slinks an arm around her waist like it belongs there, “It was the least I could do.”

“Come on, teamwork suits us. Don’t deny it,” she says with a bump of her hip.

“I’m not.”

“What’s wrong?” she asks suspiciously, her heightened senses on red alert again because of his abstract demeanor. “Is there another—”

“No,” he cuts in, his thumb hooking more firmly into her belt loop, “it’s nothing.”

Caroline rolls her eyes at his flat, disgruntled tone, at the way he sighs before disappearing into the enigmatic labyrinth of his mind where she can’t follow, so she stops them on a seared patch of sidewalk. Then crosses her arms.

“Look, I know me being the one to stab him wasn’t ideal,” she says, feeling his growing intensity, “but with the beam already starting to splinter in your back like that, I knew if I ran him close enough you’d be able to topple him so I could—”

Klaus shuts her up with a kiss.

The timing of it is bad. (Couldn’t be worse, really.) It’s totally inappropriate considering how fraught the past twenty minutes have been with the threat of magic and wolf-binding, with a rescue of innocents that’s succeeded but still reeks of flesh and bloodshed, of muck, and of family wreckage that will never be able to be repaired because it’s been ripped off the hinges. It’s burnt to shreds with a house and a barn that’s no longer standing upright.

There’s so much to discuss, too. There are so many decisions to be made about what to do next…

Hayley? Hope? Elijah? New Orleans?

Do they collect the girl’s ashes before they leave; and if so, in what? How will Hope react once she awakes? What all did Roman know about this? Can they find a witch/Marcel team to fix Elijah’s mind, or is it hopeless to try now that so much of him has been magically reconditioned? Should she call Bonnie, or would that cross some kind of line? And, like, could the sky stop weeping blood already because - Mikaelson curse or not - who the hell needs all this staining and stickiness on their designer clothes?

…And on and on and on the questions flow!

The biggest problem now, though, is that Klaus’ kiss is so hot and crushing with feeling that it’s halted the million-and-a-half thoughts buzzing through Caroline’s head which still need solving. She’s too distracted, too lost to the sweet but scraping taste of his tongue in her mouth.

He makes love to her lips in a way no one but an artist knows how. There’s an array of color, meticulousness, delicacy, and swooping claim to be laid down on her wherever she allows him to paint with his kisses. And before she knows it, before she can locate her sense of rationality long enough to steady her pulse again and stop this, her fingers are burying themselves into the curls at the nape of his neck to draw him closer, and closer; the giant butterfly flip in her stomach telling her only one thing:

Screw it. Let the questions wait for awhile.

So she does.

They do.