Such Reckless Hate
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Summary: Set after 4x12, without Bonnie swooping to the rescue. "There's a split second's worth of hesitation before he starts to drag it out, because he wants this to hurt, and somehow tears are trailing down his own cheeks, and this isn't the way he'd imagined executing her at all." Warning – character deaths.
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He's almost casual when he lights the first match, flicking it inside with an eerily accurate aim.
It almost lands on Elena, but Jeremy pushes her out of the way, and they huddle together, two broken children forced into adulthood too early. He can relate, but doesn't want to.
Because these children are killers; maybe not by choice, but they still have blood on their hands, and they emit a desperation that should, in theory, have him calling this whole thing off, because he doesn't put desperate people out of their misery. He lets them suffer, because sometimes life is worth than death, a better punishment than simply reaching into someone's chest, tearing out their heart, and letting them fall into death.
But he's emotional; a wreck.
Hate pulses through his veins, born from a sense of family that he just cannot deny. He's never been able to deny. That's why he's shed tears when he's daggered his siblings, because he just wanted them all to be united again. But such words fall flat on Rebekah's ears, and Kol had, by the end, given up on him, and Elijah likes to disappear when it suits him, because his own family shames him; he's said as much before.
The finality of Kol's death, however, sends him spiralling.
He lights match after match, throwing them in one after the other, throwing one far enough that the Gilberts cannot run out the back door. They stand there, frightened; Elena's hand entwined with Jeremy's, a final show of family, of courage, that he simply has to admire.
But his smile is cold.
His eyes taunt them.
Come outside they whisper. Come out and face me, you little cowards.
And strangely enough, all he hears then is his father's voice, muttering the same words, and that should've been enough to stop him. Especially when Damon Salvatore's words fly around his head too – be bad with purpose – and the image of Caroline flutters in and out of his mind, like the most enchanting of illusions.
But, here's where he has to hand the trophy to Damon, because his impulse control seems to have shattered.
When the final match flickers inside, and the entire area where Elena and Jeremy stand is wreathed in flames, he watches, almost detachedly, as they – still holding hands, how cute – take deep breaths and leap forwards, united in their desperate plight to survive. Jeremy lands first, clutching Elena tightly, and the display of sibling love makes him sick to the core.
In a hundred years, a thousand years at a stretch, he and Kol could've resolved their differences. Sure, those years would been filled with feuds to rival any given war throughout history, and Kol would've been extremely resistant to a family reunion, not to mention dubious of its success rate – he always did have a wiser head on his shoulders than he was ever given credit for, this Klaus will admit – but they could've reconciled – in time.
All of them.
He lets Jeremy and Elena run, giving them the briefest of head starts. But they are no match for him.
They don't even split up, which would perhaps give one of them – theoretically – the better chance for survival as it would've divided his attention. Elena tries to use her fast speed to get her brother away, but he puts a stop to that little game at once.
He meets them everywhere they try to run; Jeremy is flushed, but determined. Elena just looks angry, because she knows, like him, anger is a powerful emotion that can propel you to great speeds.
Too bad hers will only lead her to an early grave.
Elena is a baby vampire, weaker than himself, and won't leave without her brother, so he works on Jeremy first. He grabs his arm, gives it a sharp twist, before locking him in a headlock. He checks his hands for signs of that blasted ring he's heard a lot about. The boy, remarkably, still wears it, even after knowing what kind of fates it's lead people to, so he slides it off his finger, throwing it sharply away, before giving his head a sharp wrench to the side, at the same time he plunges his hand into his chest, retrieving his heart.
The noise that greets him is deafening.
A thousand broken sounds combine into a sob that sounds angry and bewildered and devastated all at once. As he lets Jeremy's body fall to the ground, he sees Elena's eyes swim with tears – such beautiful eyes, he thinks, almost nostalgic – but her agony falls on a heart devoid of emotion. It's like she doesn't understand what she's done here, like she doesn't understand loss is a universal concept, not just reserved for her.
He strides towards her, but she backs away, attempting to run.
He doesn't chase her – not at first.
Because he sees where she's heading, and the irony of where she's heading has him clenching his teeth, a burning delight dancing in the corners of his eyes.
His revenge seems to write itself.
...
She races through the woods, her heart racing in her chest.
For now anyway.
Grief eats away at her. She wants to turn off her humanity, but right now, surviving is her priority.
But apparently, running for her life makes her stupid, because she doesn't reach for her phone, and she doesn't run to any of her friends' houses.
It appears to be her last act of martyrdom; because she doesn't want to take the chance that Klaus won't go after her friends if given the chance, so she's stalling. He could overtake her anytime, but the fact he's letting her flee startles her. Maybe he's just content with robbing her of a brother so they are even.
But somehow he doesn't take into account he's taken much more from her than she has from him. He's left a scorching mark on some of the pages of her life that cannot ever be fixed, or rewritten, and the worst part is that it's her face which has brought him into the lives of everyone she cares about.
And he just won't ever leave – he's like a rash on her skin, never fading, and always burning - and she's pretty sure he won't stop at her death.
She'd always thought Damon was a loose cannon, but he has nothing on this guy, who can be charming one moment, the next, a serial killer with a mouth decorated with blood. He encouraged Stefan's ripper side, practically raised it from the dead, killed Jenna in front of her, and has spent most of this year tormenting her and her friends, only presenting himself as an ally for the acquisition of the cure because he wanted to cure her so he could surround himself with hybrids.
Now he's claiming his hybrids don't mean a damn to him.
Make up your mind she wants to scream, as she runs into the wind. Am I dispensable, or an asset?
What am I to you now?
...
He waits for the realisation to hit in as he makes his grand appearance.
He can hear her swallowing loudly as her eyes scan the area.
Then her eyes fall on him.
"I'm not sorry I killed Kol, same as you're not sorry for killing Jenna," she shouts, even though he knows she knows he can hear her.
It's the tone of a woman who knows she's running out of time, but at least she's being honest with him. He hasn't the patience for lies, or half-hearted apologies. This will make it easier to kill her.
"If you're going to beg for your life, I'd suggest you find another way that doesn't revolve around plucking my misdeeds from my past as a means of painting yourself the victim here." He takes a step forward. "Aren't you tired of it being all about you, Elena?"
"It's always been about me." The arrogance of the statement shocks him, until she adds defiantly, "You made sure of that when you started hunting me and Katherine down."
"And now look at you." He doesn't hide the contempt. "Katerina is in hiding, awaiting the day I see fit to find her and grant her the death that's been waiting for her for a long time. And you..." He looks her up and down. "You were briefly useful, but I see now you and your friends would've found a way to defy me, even if we found the cure and used it. They would've hidden you, tried to bury me in cement, and revenge is a tiresome activity after a while, so I figure, why always attack the substitute for my rage, when I could just end your life instead?"
He blurs in front of her, his hands on her shoulders as he steers her around.
"Remember this?" he whispers in her ears. "Seems a fitting place for your death, considering this was where we parted ways last time."
"I remember."
She doesn't even tremble under his fingertips.
He admires her courage; it's a quality he never saw in Katerina, although some might call what she possessed self-preservation, which is an equally admirable trait to have.
Two doppelgangers.
One a saint, one a sinner.
Funny question: which is which now?
How easily those two roles could blur into one another, like blended colours on a pallet.
"Goodbye, Elena," he murmurs, cupping her face with his hands, amused by the trickle of revulsion that pours down her face. "This is for my brother."
And though she makes a last stab at escaping, tears pouring down her face, he holds her steady, pushing his fist through her chest, feeling her heart tremble beneath his fingers. There's a split second's worth of hesitation before he starts to drag it out, because he wants this to hurt, and somehow tears are trailing down his own cheeks, and this isn't the way he'd imagined executing her at all.
And when he holds her heart in his hand, he watches her eyes roll back, mirroring that night perfectly, and he drops her.
She falls to the ground with a kind of grace he has to marvel at. She lies at his feet, unmoving, and still she radiates strength, and he has to wonder why he isn't feeling more exhilarated from exacting his revenge.
So he feels broken and alone.
Not exactly newsworthy, and he wonders if a part of him only killed Jeremy and Elena to prove to Kol he had absolutely nothing to do with their plot to kill him.
Not that it would've meant anything to his brother anyway.
Kol is an even more unforgiving individual than he is.
And now he'll never have the chance to change that controversial personality choice, for both of them.
...
In the Salvatore cellar, Damon leaps up with a bolt, surprised that the urge to kill Jeremy is just...gone.
He marvels at that, until he realises what it's been replaced with is something far worse; hollow, empty place where his heart used to be - where Elena should be right now. And it doesn't make any sense.
He buries his face into his hands, aware of a great loss that he cannot make any sense of.
He looks up at the sound of the cellar door opening – he hadn't even acknowledged it closing – and his brother stands there, and it's the first time he's looked at him without hatred or disgust in his eyes in a long time.
There's a shared loss there, and neither of them can figure it out.
"You felt it too?"
And somehow those four words manage to seal the cracks of their broken relationship.
Sure, neither of them has ever learned how to deal with losing a woman to another man, and being able to let that go.
But they've learned over the years to recognise that gut-wrenching sense of knowing when someone you love is gone forever. They learned to recognise that sense in each other's eyes; it began with the loss of their mother, blooming to every significant friend they've ever had and lost.
This time, it's different.
It feels like falling.
Sinking.
Drowning.
And despite Stefan's tough-as-nails facade, he's still as fragile as ever.
And now all they really have is each other.