This story is a third-person limited, in-character (no-fluff) AU starring our heroes Klaus, Elijah, Damon, and Enzo. Taking place in New Orleans, it immediately follows The Vampire Diaries Season 5 Episode 13 and The Originals Season 1 Episode 16. All episodes passed that may inspire but have no bearing on the plot of this story.
Bon appetite!
May the Best Man Win
Chapter One
ELIJAH
The man was anything but young. Yet even with the ancient age of that immortal coil, his youthfulness was not just well preserved in body, but in spirit also.
Elijah nodded to himself at the conclusion of this thought.
'In other words,' he thought, 'Brother, you are a child.'
With a slight turn of his thighs, Elijah crossed his legs a little tighter, ensconcing himself deeper into the plush red leather of his wingback chair. He always was partial to the library in every estate he found himself living in over the eons. Now, again, back in headquarters at the heart of New Orleans, he had locked himself in the book room. Lighting a fire in the large brick fireplace, he snuggled into his favorite reading chair and had passed half the evening doing little more than mulling over the events of the past weeks.
A fire danced before his eyes, and fain playing the part of the brooding mystery man, he let his thoughts dance with those flames.
It had been three weeks since Rebekah had left, for good this time, it seemed. Of course, every time she left was "for good this time," but Elijah had a tugging jerk in his gut when he said good-bye. He had watched her, driving away in her car with a wide-eyed smile on her face, and something told him in a muted whisper at the back of his heart that he would not see her again for another hundred years, if that.
Taking a sip at his scotch, Elijah closed his eyes. He could see the orange flash of the fireplace through his eyelids and the image of his memory flashed with it.
—
Only a day or two after Rebekah had left, Elijah walked through the courtyard at headquarters, where just the night before, he had left things on a harsh note with Marcel. The fool, who had managed to undermine the foundations of the Mikaelson family, had returned in some ceremonial gesture of defiance to shake off the dust of his fear and humiliation. Elijah had no patience for it and with one threatening flash in his eyes, he had shown every vampire his place.
Marcel was awestruck – not just by Elijah's uncharacteristic harshness but by Klaus's unheard-of silence, and it seemed that the awe was shared by all the vampires watching on as well. Without a word, Marcel realized today was not the day and slinked off into the shadows of New Orleans's sewage, vowing he would never run away.
'Does this mean then that Rebekah and Marcel have ended things?' Elijah found himself thinking as he passed through the courtyard.
He pulled out his phone, hoping beyond hope that perhaps, just perhaps this departure was as much "for good this time" as all the times before. He scrolled through his contacts and clicked on Rebekah's photo.
Putting the phone to his ear, he heard a click and his breath stopped a moment.
"We're sorry! The number you have reached has been disconnected…"
With a sigh, he turned off the phone. So it was for good this time – at least for now. His eyes flitted up to the balcony overlooking the courtyard, to the far left window, through which he saw the dim flicker of a lambent candle and nothing more.
—
Elijah took another sip at his scotch and took a peep over his shoulder. The library overlooked the courtyard as well, and as he peeked through the curtains he could see that far left window with the dull flame casting an eerie orange into the darkness of the room beyond. It was Klaus's room, and since the night Klaus crept off in silent indifference to Marcel's approach, the hybrid had entered that room with a heavy thud of the door and a metallic click of the lock.
It had been near on three weeks, and Elijah had yet to see his younger brother emerge from that ill-lit room.
"What a child, he is, pouting night and day," Elijah mumbled with a lazy roll of his eyes as he returned his attention to the fireplace. There was nothing quite as soothing as an evening fire on a brisk autumn night, but there was nothing quite as certain to ruin it as a lurking suspicion.
Three weeks, three weeks had come and gone without a single tantrum, without a single undeserved bout of violence, without a single moment where Elijah had to step in as the wiser older brother. Yet Elijah could not help but suspect that Klaus was in a dark place.
Three weeks had come and gone, yet still Elijah could not muster up the courage to knock on his brother's door. Something in his gut told him that Rebekah would not come back this time, and something in his gut told him, that Klaus wouldn't either.