the monster in me

The apartment had been put to rights after Aurora had swatted at it with the axe she had used to break in. A new door – heavily reinforced, of course – the pale scars of the blade on the floorboards buffed out and refinished, a new coffee machine and island in the kitchen. So easy to erase the damage on things despite their short life span. The damage to those who could not be harmed so easily lingered longer. Festering until you were willing to lance the wounds and finally allow them to heal.

Elijah could still feel those that had festered in his mind in part. Tatia’s return had started a process of healing for them but not all wounds had yet been dug out of the flesh and not all those that had been had yet healed. His own family were still shattered in part, his nieces and nephews helping to build the bridges back between him and his siblings but when the ground had been unstable long before Esther had turned them there was no guarantee they would find that solidity beneath them now.

He lifted the cup from the coffee table, sipped at the espresso he had made a few minutes before and frowned down at the computer screen before him. Technology like this could not have been imagined a century ago, let alone when he had been born not far from this spot. Hopefully it meant that Dahlia would have little concept of it, remaining shrouded in the magic she had spent centuries draining from their sister instead. Perhaps it would be the trap that eventually snared her, perhaps it would be the one that would finally put a stop to Tristan de Martel too. Aurora had always been a disturbed creature but Tristan was more dangerous indeed – the man believed he would lead the Strix to some new height when the only place they could possibly end up was the ground. Pride would always cometh before a fall.

Humour, wry and bitter, bled out in a huff of breath before the cup was set aside again. Those most prideful always took their time in tripping but in the end fate would come to them all. Himself included. Elijah ran fingers over the cuff of the opposite sleeve, smoothing, plucking in contemplation. He was not free of pride or guilt but since Tatia’s return he had tried to set it aside – for her, for family.

The hammering at the door had him slowly rising to his feet, the thought that a united front would perhaps for once shield them from what was to come fracturing into glittering pieces like a shattered mirror as Niklaus’ voice rose at the door. His brother had left town for a time, returning, most troublingly, with a captive witch. He had tried to free her but whatever Niklaus had done to the mansion had kept Maeve Kelly shut up inside.

Taking his time about it, Elijah strolled to the door. His face settled into a cool expression, as purposefully blank as ever, as he opened it to his brother. Lips pursing, he nodded, half stepped back to let Niklaus in. ”I would say it’s about time, brother.” He headed back to the coffee table at that same languid place to pick up and drain the last of the coffee. Deft fingers held the empty cup up in offer. ”I’m sure your hybrid minions were kind enough to tell you that I spoke to your witch … your captive witch. Did you not learn your lesson with Davina?” No, he thought with a huff of amusement, none of them ever truly learned what they should.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 612

Bridges had been burned and rebuilt between himself and Niklaus more times than should have been possible. Every time the form changed, some attempts fragile enough that the first cross word afterwards had torn the whole thing down, leaving wreckage to attempt to pick their way back through. Other times it had been strong enough to stand for a century or two. No matter how it was rebuilt though, it would always come down in the end. Elijah wasn’t sure that his family were capable of finding the everlasting peace he as sure they all hoped for as a gift to their children. That may never be possible, especially for a Mikaelson.

Dark eyes caught the confusion on his brother’s face as Niklaus spun towards him, as though he had not been the one to seek him out. Elijah studied him over the rim of his cup as the last drops of the bitter brew rolled down his throat. His own brows furrowing, perhaps it had not been his encounter with the witch his brother had sought him out about.

The sound that rolled from Elijah as he made his way back to the island to set the cup down next to the coffee machine might’ve been amusement but it was too short, too low to be characterised as much of a response. ”When you do return you’ll perhaps hear how I forced my way past them to have a conversation with Ms. Kelly. She seems, unfortunately, unhappy about her circumstances. I cannot say I blame her for it, when she’s being held prisoner by the man who snatched her from the streets of Dublin and drained her of her power.” He had not missed the way his brother had hissed but the barbs slid over him like water over a duck’s back, not lingering long enough for them to snag the impeccable suit shirt he wore or work their way into his flesh beneath. Undoubtedly, if Niklaus were truly unhappy with him the dagger would be between his ribs again in a heartbeat.

Lifting the cup, Elijah tipped it in Niklaus’ direction in offer. Wine would perhaps have seemed more civilised by the delicate glass would make all the more a dramatic gesture when his brother flung it against the wall. Elijah slipped it back into the machine, selecting another espresso, an easy gesture that belied none of the tension that had tightened beneath his skin with the reveal of his brother’s temper. ”When you keep repeating your mistakes, brother, it seems quite necessary,” he said lightly. His lips pursed as he looked back up though, humour truly pulling at his mouth now. ”I would say you’ve been believing too many of the cliches about us. It has been some time since I believed any of my own hype.” Or had his siblings toss his ‘role’ back at him with quite so much vehemence.

Elijah propped his hands on the edge of the island and leaned into it, his face settling back into those impassive lines. Perhaps it had once been his biggest fault but Tatia’s return had stripped him of any notions of nobility. He looked down at his hands. It had been years since he had believed them as clean as they had once seemed. ”And there is our starting point,” he said tightly. He had not been the only one Aurora had sought out. Receive no answers from one and it was a simple matter to find another and plant a seed of strife, as though war between them would shake her brother free of wherever they had hidden him. ”Which time, brother?” Elijah asked, his eyes narrowing to flinty slits as he looked up. ”When we damned them to a century of running in fear of their lives, or when she came to me to accuse us of having taken her brother? I have to say, her skill with an axe is truly something to see.” He was being flippant but there was already a knot forming in the pit of his stomach. The fact that it was for Niklaus’ own good each time would be cold comfort.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 693

The rage was never far beneath the surface in his brother. It was likely the one thing Niklaus had inherited from the man who hadn’t been his father. That constant simmer of heat that was ready to be turned on his own blood just as quickly as it was a stranger. Given that he had snatched a stranger from Ireland to hold in his mansion – a stranger he had been unable to free from her captivity when she had asked – it was no wonder that the volcanic eruption was aimed in his direction. For centuries Elijah had found himself playing the role of his brother’s conscience, his patience, a role he’d failed in just as often as he’d succeeded in staying Niklaus’ hand.

Hands curled around the edge of the counter, braced against the heat that could lash out of Niklaus the moment he hit boiling point. Elijah’s expression turned brittle, like the mask that held his own monster back could crack at any moment. ”Do you think I’ve set that aside, brother? Merely to have a taste of happiness?” There was a tension in his voice, one that threatened to crack. Elijah’s muscles tightened, his shoulders going stiff as he shifted his weight. ”Now, with all of the children…” he corrected. ”Arguing among ourselves again, making foolish moves that could bring an entire coven down upon us, it only gives those enemies more space to tear into us.” And wouldn’t Dahlia glory in it if she chose such a moment to emerge from those shadows. If she did there was little a single captive witch could do against her.

His concern had left him considering reaching out to Miss Kelly’s family. She had spoken of them as though they would already be making moves to attempt to track her. A word in the right ear could have them shattering the walls surrounding her, giving her back the magic he hadn’t been able to. It also would have put his niece squarely in the centre of the danger zone and for that reason alone Elijah had stopped himself.

They have enough problems on their hands, the most stubborn of which was the de Martels. A brother determined to shut his sister away, lest her madness spill out, a sister, it seemed, who would do anything to see her brother safe. Amusement had Elijah’s lips pursing for a moment. He set a fresh coffee cup beneath the machine needing to do something with his hands. ”Aurora would argue with her about what care her brother should receive. Just a few weeks ago she stood where you did, making those accusations.” Tristan’s absence had been a pit in his gut since Aurora had appeared. Wherever he had disappeared to, whatever he was planning, couldn’t be good.

What Aurora had obviously planned by going to Niklaus with the ‘truth’ was no better. Elijah refused to stiffen, as his mind screamed for him to. He continued to brew the coffee, to watch it drip with the sort of focus it certainly didn’t require. ”I convinced her to let you go free, brother.” His voice was cool, no quaver of question or doubt to it. ”Your place was not with her, it was with the family and by allowing her to coil you up in her madness it would only have cut you deeper. Do you not see how she would have broken you?” In truth he had not managed to shield his brother from that, the shattering of their family had just been a long, slow, drawn out process instead.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 596

Maeve Kelly’s future had been mapped out clearly in front of him the moment Elijah had seen the woman trapped in the basement of his brother’s mansion. Niklaus would never pat her on the head and set her free when he was done with her. Their family took and took until there was nothing left, their actions justified by it all being for the sake of self-preservation. Always and forever, the rest of the world sealed outside of the circle they had drawn around themselves. For whatever reason he had conjured up in his mind, Niklaus had chosen to drag Maeve into that circle and would keep her there until only a husk was left.

Elijah’s amusement tightened his mouth into a thin line, but didn’t reach his eyes. They remained flat and dark as they regarded his brother. ”I neve believed you would. I also do not believe she’ll ever give you what you desire. They know there is a price to it all Niklaus, and she does not seem willing to pay it.” Not before some vital part of her had been cost. The laugh was weary, Elijah’s head dipping slightly as he leaned into the edge of the counter. Do not worry himself. As though he hadn’t spent the better part of a thousand years worrying himself over his siblings. It was his role as the eldest brother, his burden and he had fooled himself into closing off all memories of what he’d had to do to shield them. ”If your way of handling it is by draining the woman and sending her family back what little is left, then I would beg to differ over your definition of the words.” They did not need a coven on their backs, an angry mob with power that could drive them all to their knees at a time when they could least afford it.

In his infinite wisdom Niklaus chose to believe that every choice he made was the right one. No regrets, just that staunch belief that his was the only way – not unlike the father who had never been a father to him. Mikael’s bullishness lived on. Unsurprisingly the presence of the de Martels in town had been the red flag waved at him.

Aurora.

His fingers wrapped hard around the handle of the cup, his knuckles pressing white against his skin. Niklaus’ temper was an almost physical presence in the air, like it could slap against his skin with that heat. ”You would have been, we all we have been.” In the end Niklaus would have turned the girl out of a desperation not to be alone and the same monster would have been born. And there was the truth crux to the matter, Niklaus’ jealousy over Tatia, over Katherine. ”A guiding hand is the least of it. Her brother feeds her madness, uses it as an excuse. Do you think he ever would have allowed that love to exist?” There was a snap in Elijah’s own voice now.

The cup cracked down against the counter, the handle breaking off in his fingers. Elijah shook it off, his teeth bared as that sudden rise of anger. ”As you have taken chances at happiness from me again and again brother. Was that why you took Tatia’s offer for your ritual? Kill her and deprive me again of the woman who chose me. Tatia, Katerina, Celeste. How many more will your jealousy take?” Elijah’s chest heaved as he sucked in a breath. He shoved at the cup, tipping it on to its side for the coffee to spill across the counter-top.

”Yes, yes I did the right thing, even if you still cannot see it. If you would have remained it would have broken all of us. Do you truly not see the mistake it would have been to believe that love would have the chance to grow, to bloom as you wanted it to?” Perhaps a few shoots would have appeared before Mikael had found them. There would have been no running then, just a slaughter would they stood. Their entire existence destroyed for the sake of a woman never capable of truly loving Niklaus the way his brother desired, the way he deserved.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 707

The first blow had come when he had glimpsed Tatia on the side of the road. Despite knowing of the doppelgangers, in that instant Elijah had known he wasn’t looking at Katerina, or even Elena Mikaelson. The universe had thrown the first woman he had ever loved into his path. A punch to the very core of him that had stolen his breath as he had stumbled from his car towards her. The second had been a sucker punch, one that rocked his head back and left his entire world spinning wildly on its axis before he sprawled flat. He had been the one to kill her, to take the life of the woman who had been the core of almost everything for the thousand years he had gone without her.

Now Elijah had to work not to see the blood that stained his hands. There might’ve been clean cuffs rolled up around his forearms now, but all it would take was a single glance down to see the stain of his brother’s accusation spreading there. ”I won’t take on the holier than thou mantle just to make you feel better about what you have done to that woman,” Elijah said tightly. ”Do not bring Hope into this. You know I would be there at your shoulder in an instant to protect her, but it doesn’t need this. There were other ways to surround yourself with what was once ours.” Niklaus hadn’t looked to ask. He had seen what he’d needed, what he could use to seal off the pain that he could see coming, and that had been enough. The woman would give it to him one way or another, and if she died in the process, then there was always another to strong arm into her place.

Once upon a time there had been another that brought out that instinct in his brother. One that had been thought lost to the flames set by their own father. Marcel Gerard had turned his survival into something so much more than any of them could ever have predicted. Even knowing that Elijah doubted that Niklaus would want to risk Mikael, or Dahlia, or any one of the hundred threats that boiled threateningly in the skies around this town, laying one finger on Hope.

In her deranged state, Aurora was right there with them. Tristan was his own personal white whale, one that came with its own weapon, ready to bury it in his heart. Her mind might have fractured in a thousand ways since he had turned her, but somewhere in its depths might have lingered the love that had once burned fervently there for his brother. The love that would have consumed all of them in time.

Elijah’s laughter cracked as sharply as the cup he’d broken. ”Now,” he said coldly. ”Our own brother had to bring her back. A gift, to make things right for us? Do you think Henrik would agree with this? That he would want to see you like this?” He had seen the grief in his younger brother’s eyes, the weight that all their crimes laid upon him as much as it did them.

Rounding the counter, Elijah made his way towards his brother. His head tilted back slightly, his face falling into those marble like lines. Cain and Able squaring off against one another, jealousy a spiked ball between them, growing until its spines would pierce them both, releasing that explosive force. ”The love of your daughter is not enough? You have a child, Niklaus. Something more precious than any of us ever expected to have. Will you throw that away on a foolish whim?” He would, as he had always done. Always and forever didn’t negate all of the other feelings that seethed and boiled between them. Elijah lifted his hand, spreading his fingers lightly against his brother’s chest without pulling his eyes from his. ”You would see me as I do them? Esther? Mikael? Just another hand to send you tumbling from the parapet of that ivory tower you exist in?” Oh, he would have given the world to his siblings, had time and time again. He had chosen them over everything, but it was never enough. Never would be enough.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 710

It had always felt as though family was never quite enough unless Niklaus needed one of them. He had been ready to leave them when Aurora had fallen for him, seeing only the love she could give him, and not the cracks that had already shot through her heart and mind. The promise of a happy future that had not materialised – thanks to him. It didn’t matter that they had spent years trying to shield their brother from the blows that would come, or that they had made a vow to one another, only that Niklaus had been denied all that he had wanted. Now he saw only the gaping hole Aurora’s abandonment of him had left, the one that their aunt would turn into the Grand Canyon if she were able to get close enough to lay her hands on the children. Standing on the edge of it Elijah would have done anything for them, laying down his life if that was what it took, holding the line the way he had done when Mikael had descended upon New Orleans.

Niklaus knew what he would do, what he had done, but still he questioned, as though he could expose their weaknesses with the right combination of words. Dark brows rose as he eyed Niklaus steadily. He gestured at his brother, almost inviting him to explain. ”Then, brother, what would you have us do? Love and devotion is all that we can offer. It has been enough for keep the wolves from our door for a thousand years. We can abide for a thousand more if we don’t allow them t0 divide us.” But every single one of them tried that tactic. Turn brother against brother and you had your room to slip between them, to stab each in the back.

The blade in his brother’s hand had been there the night he had completed the ritual that had been denied to him centuries before. Twisting until he had been driven to his knees, clutching the body of the woman he had lost once before to his own ravenous hunger. ”I use him to make you see sense, to realise.” Hypocritical perhaps, but there wasn’t an ounce of guilt in Elijah’s belly as he dragged the brother Niklaus had failed to protect into the spotlight. Him, Rebekah, Kol – Niklaus would ignore them all – Henrik had been special, the youngest of them, the heart they had lost in the days before Esther had turned them all. It all twisted back to that point, like an anchor they would never be freed from.

Elijah made a small sound in his throat, not confirmation, although he glanced down at his hand, flexing it carefully. Low blows were all that they were capable of, each other’s soft spots marked out centuries before until they could bring each other to their knees in a way no other could ever manage. ”By swinging your own low blow. Do you think I would purposefully deny you what I’ve had with her?” The huff of breath that escaped might have bene a laugh, but it tailed off immediately. Happiness for one another had always been fleeting, rapidly eclipsed by jealousy and bitterness in a cycle that they could not escape.

The palm he had pressed to his brother’s chest remained, eyes locked as though it would be enough to keep them both at the table to sort through this. It would not stop Niklaus from snapping, but there was a hope that there was some solution to be found here that didn’t result in the witch dying, or what they had managed to piece back together shattering once more at the word of a woman who could so easily become his brother’s downfall. ”I took the risk from you. As you have done from me a dozen times since. We always believe we know what is best, it is our family’s curse.” One that he had spent centuries trying to escape. Now he could see the blood on his hands though, his eyes ticking down to it as Niklaus went back on his accusation. ”I can admit my wrongs, brother. I saw your pain after and every time since. I sacrificed to try and save you all from it. Do you understand that?” They weren’t linked, but it didn’t not stop him from feeling the twist of the knife every time it was plunged deep into any of them.

Tagged: NIKLAUS MIKAELSON * Word Count: 741

Even as children their paths had looked to diverge – although then it had been easy to lay the blame for it at Mikael’s feet. He was aiming to turn his sons into warriors, pushing the cuckoo in the nest away instead of towards that fate. Niklaus had been set on a path then that they had not been able to drag him from in centuries. Perhaps Hope was the only thing that could now, although Niklaus’ love and devolution to his daughter had remained the foolish, bloody sort.

Elijah’s expression hardened as his brother admitted to questioning his choices now. He had guided Niklaus’ life with just as much certainty that he was doing the right thing, leaving him little different to Mikael – although, unlike their father (as much as that was a stretch as a title for Niklaus), he was willing to apologise for what he’d known to be wrong. ”For all of our sakes, it needs to take a different form,” Elijah said tightly. They had enough enemies on the horizon as it was, dividing themselves at a time like this to fight over methods or long past wrongs would only give people like the de Martels room to destroy them. After his brother had freed the werewolf side that had been bound for centuries and their siblings woken from their forced slumber there should’ve been nothing that would wedge them apart, but that peace had not lasted.

What others had never understood about Niklaus was that he wasn’t incapable of listening. He chose what he heard, but when he did listen and the family came together they were unstoppable. Unfortunately now they were not together. The old hurts had been reignited by the axe wielding lunatic who had again escaped the cage her brother continually placed her in – little different to the ones Niklaus had placed them in time and time again. ”No matter how many possibilities there were, there is no way to go back to see if they would have been worth it now,” Elijah said, almost by way of apology as he looked up at his brother. ”If it had been her, none of this would ever have happened. Would you wish Hope away for her?” That was the one point he knew his brother would be unshakable upon.

If Tristan hadn’t dragged his family here, freeing Aurora from whatever cell he had placed her in this time, Niklaus would never have heard what had been done to him. Their united front could have remained. Elijah let out a long breath as he paused there, like he was holding back his brother’s temper. ”What good would it have done either of us to speak of it again? If there was a mistake, it was already made. The one reason she spoke of it now was to achieve her brother’s goals of seeing us divided, destroyed. Do not let either of them have their way.” That was easier said than done, though. Tristan’s mind had always been much like his own, sharp, calculating, always looking for something greater, and therein lay the problem. They were now the barrier to Tristan’s something greater.

As the steam seemed to go out of his brother, Elijah stepped back, dragging a hand tiredly down his face as he headed back to the kitchen island. He needed something other than coffee now, both of them did. Alcohol had no effect now, they were impervious to everything but each other really, but it was still a crutch the way it had been for thousands of years for those who could still feel its effects. Dark eyes looked up from the glasses, the decanter with its amber contents. ”Even if it would destroy you?” Elijah asked hoarsely. ”I do not know if I could stand aside and allow them to happen.” Especially not now that there was a child in the picture, one that he would do anything for. Letting out a long breath that seemed to strain him, Elijah poured too glasses of the whiskey and offered one to his brother. ”You have my word that I will try.” That was about as good as Niklaus would get if their vow were to stand.

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