Hi.

So, if you read the synopsis, you'll see that this is AU. Yay. Without being too ~spoilery, this just means that you can discount anything and everything that's happened in the show, though this fic exists in the same universe, with the same characters and somewhat the same history. If things are / get confusing, please let me know and I'll do my best to clear it up. Also, this is kind of an ensemble fic in that there's five main characters, though their stories will obviously intertwine.

Couple of other quick things

- This will get dark.
- I won't tell you who C + B are running from, but it is someone you know sans shitty show mythology [that probably just gave it away.]

- This is set in New Orleans. Expect some "The Originals" characters to make appearances.

Lastly [and this is kind of important too] - when I say Klefaroline, I mean Klefan + Klaroline + Steroline. So if you're looking for a fic where it's more like two of them fight over the other, this probably isn't going to be your piece of cake. There will be plenty of fighting, trust me, but not because someone can't pick where their heart lies ugh.

PLUS KENNETT THE PERFECTION THAT IS KENNETT.

DISCLAIMER: I own this laptop and my cat, nothing else.

You know, there's this funny thing called cognitive dissonance that she once heard about. At the time, it hadn't really struck a chord. Sure, she got where Mr Aldersley was going with his whole psych tangent (although really, his musings on Freud and his failed marriage had no place in a geography lesson) but the second that lunch bell had gone, she'd been more concerned with Tiki and that ugly bob she was sporting than whatever conflict her beliefs might have had – she truly believed that no one, not even her favourite Kate Winslet, could pull off a haircut that wonky and short and just ugh. See? No dissonance. But now, now she totally gets it. But because karma is nothing if not a bitch, her understanding comes at the price of her sanity, and then there's that pesky surcharge of her humanity too – completely non-tax-refundable, by the way. You do one bad thing, and it haunts you for every single moment for the rest of your life. Death is inevitable right? And when she says death, she doesn't necessarily mean hers. Granny Tiller from around the corner, the pretty café waitress, Sammy from Calculus, the drunken truck driver who attempts alcohol fuelled passes at you, that's the death you're talking about. Someone should put that in the fine print of being a vampire.

She signs her name in blood, and the next thing she knows, her gums are screaming more while her heart cries no and her head shrieks monster, and that is cognitive dissonance 101, ladies and gentlemen. The concept of being pulled down two separate conflicting roads and not really knowing what turn to take, because unless you've got some third party GPS, you're pretty much stuck frozen at a crossroads –

And now she has a ridiculous amount of blood on her hands. It's everywhere, really. Slashed across the walls, all over her pretty floral skirt and blouse, and when her head inches slightly to the right – oh sweet Jesus, is that what a heart looks like when disconnected from the rest of the body? And the stench. Werewolves, dead or alive, they stink, okay? Mixed in is the scent of humans. She counts two of them. Red – so much red – she thinks she might throw up – but she's also aware of a growl resonating in her chest, and she's calculating the seconds wasted crouched on the floor and not drinking from those lacerations, because really, she tells herself, blood is not some kind of long-life milk, you know? The fresher, the better. These hands aren't going to magically clean themselves free of the red liquid.

It's on her tongue now – tangy, metallic, crisp, rich, it tastes like life, and no matter how much she tells herself she shouldn't want or need to kill for this kind of feeling, she can't deny it's just better. After all, there's something to be said about being a predator and satisfying that carnal craving for blood.

Still;

She's a natural labeller, and right now she's got savage tattooed on her forehead. So she slumps and summons every inch of willpower she has into not drinking / eating the corpses. She can't take back the destruction she's wreaked, but that doesn't mean she's going to partake in a post-havoc feast.

"Caroline?" The voice calls out. She swings around almost guiltily. The girl who spoke steps out from the shadows, dark circles under her emerald eyes. For a moment, they are both frozen, Caroline swallows, blinks, considers hiding the bodies, alas no, her friend has already spotted them, and while the flicker of surprise and horror is quickly masked, not quick enough to be not seen, even in the fading light of the cellars.

"Are you okay?" She asks, finally, taking another step closer.

Caroline shrugs. "There's blood underneath my fingernails, but other than that, just peachy." She tries to crack a smile, conceal the pain brought on by the multiple bruises and cuts and broken bones she's sporting. She thinks she can afford to be a little arrogant and say that she's freaking boss when it comes to fighting, but going up against a wolf and a couple of human sidekicks is understandably draining. And life-threatening – has she forgotten to mention the countless times when she was inches away from being bitten? Luckily there'd only been one wolf, and she'd managed to get it incapacitated first.

Bonnie nods. "We need to – " She cuts herself off as she steps around Caroline, eyes raking around the room. She lets out a breath. Caroline stands up.

"Burn them." She murmurs quickly. "Not enough time to bury them, and it's not like we can just leave them here." Swinging her blonde curls over her shoulder, she effortlessly begins to drag one body towards another, and another, until eventually she has them all piled up in this mangled heap of bone and blood and flesh, not quite a sacrificial pyre but still pretty gruesome and hey – maybe the devil himself will be impressed by her handiwork and offer them some kind of sanctuary. Although Hell knows hell is not just a sauna, not just some goddamn holiday from the fucked-up-ness of life. Unless you're downright deluded, in which case, go right ahead to eternal damnation. Apparently that's what Caroline Forbes unwittingly agreed to in becoming a vampire, although if you ask her, she never really had much of a choice because – shock horror – the idea that mythical creatures walked amongst them was a choice nugget of information that she was not privy to. If we want to get biblical, there'd been a serpent, a promise, and liquid the same colour as a red apple, and voila, she's immortal and thirsty.

She stands back next to Bonnie now, who raises her hands, chants –

And watches as the corpses go up in flames. The heat licks up to the ceiling of the cellar and out. Neither of them moves though. For a single cathartic second, Caroline slips her hand into Bonnie's, squeezes – the last few months have been tough on the girl, more so than herself – lets go, and makes her way towards the exit of the underground room. Bonnie follows. The pair of them traipse up the stairs, out into the woods that only partially hide the glare of the full moon. There's no carnage out here, but take a few steps north and they'd return to the scene of the first fight.

"How long will the spell hold?" Caroline asks, nodding in the direction of it.

Bonnie sighs. "Long enough for us to get out of here, with any luck."

She folds her arms across her chest. "So we're really leaving then, like, this is not a drill?"

The other girl smiles sadly. "I know you think we'll never need your contingency plans, but we can't stay here now." Surreptitiously, she glances around her at the gloomy trees. "He'll send more wolves and humans."

Caroline slowly exhales. Funnily, she was always the one telling Bonnie not to get too attached to places. Odds are they'll spend more time running than they will staying, and yet here she is, getting emotional because she's going to miss their townhouse, the raspberry tarts from the coffee place around the corner, the cute guy across the street, the way the leaves always seemed to fall in clumps meant to be leapt through. All connections to be severed, effective immediately.

So she nods and smiles. "Miami?"

Bonnie pulls a face. "Too Jersey Shore." She tilts her head, looks upwards slightly. "Um, Nashville?"

Caroline chokes on her breath (a little too obviously if we're being honest) "You're kidding, right?"

"The music isn't that bad." She reasons.

Snorting, the blonde shakes her head. "Scratching my eardrums with a grater would be less painful than listening to whatever passes as 'music' there. Pass, Bon."

Bonnie huffs. "Charlotte, then? I mean, we'll have to detour around the Appalachians for obvious reasons, but he hopefully won't think to look for us there."

"Suits me fine." Caroline takes a final look over her shoulder at the cellars. From what little crackling she can hear, the fire is on its way out, which is as good a sign as any for them to hit the road. She turns back to her friend and –

Something twinges in her hip, almost like skin being pinched ready for an injection. Only when the prick against her flesh comes, it's not c0mforting, like oh at least I won't get tetanus now, no, it feels decidedly sinister, like something has crawled underneath leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. She winces, slightly, one hand coming to massage her hip. More than likely, she's broken a bone, and this is just her body's way of voicing its annoyance at being put through an extensive healing process, yet again.

Bonnie must notice her discomfort, because she's frowning and asking once more: "Are you alright?"

She nods in response, brow still furrowed. "That dick of a wolf practically body slammed me, so I think I'm still a little sore from it." Shrugging, she makes her way past her friend, hands gingerly touching her once-pretty, now-ruined skirt. "Remind me to invest in some blood-proof clothes."

The brunette snorts and follows. "I don't think they sell those in Forever 21."

Their laughter carries into the night.

Twenty three and a half minutes later, and they've left Clarksburg behind. Caroline would have liked a shower to rid herself of all the blood, but that would have undoubtedly taken up more time, so she settles for splashing water on her face a bit and changing her clothes. Oh, and copious amounts of hand sanitizer. It doesn't take long for either of them to pack up what little belongings they have, but ridding the rooms of any trace of them is a little more difficult. In the end, Caroline has to compel anyone they come across to forget they ever saw two flighty girls that night. And then they're back in her Fiesta, stocked up on blood and grimoires and junk food, the highway stretching in front of them, a black strip between two equally dark patches of forest. They never stop though, partly because there is nowhere regardless, but even if there had been, best to pass undetected through as many places as possible.

The hours drag onwards at the pace of days. Caroline taps her fingers anxiously against the wheel, while Bonnie gazes listlessly out the window, occasionally grabbing a book. Most of her magic is instinctual, she says, but it doesn't hurt to read up on other spells.

By 3:00am, she's tired and bored. Her hip is itching, her eyesight failing, and when she inhales and exhales, air strains in her lungs. If her heart could beat, she imagined it would be thumping in time with the Skrillex track currently playing. God, why is it taking so long for her body to heal? Has it gone on some kind of strike? We're not going to function properly until you agree to no more altercations with wolves? It's not like it was entirely her fault, on that point – they'd come at her, all bark and glare and stakes, and while she'd admittedly been caught off guard initially (mental note to pay more attention to guys who approach you in the woods and smell like dogs) it hadn't even taken her that long to find their hearts amongst the flesh and bones of their chest, so why the hell was her body acting like she'd put it through the vampire Hunger Games? She'd done what was necessary at the time.

And in payment for her survival skills –

Why the fuck is the moon so bright right now? Her gums are aching. She ate barely half an hour ago? Something flashes past the car in her peripheral, and even with her heightened sight she's finding it difficult to see who or what or where or how or why and just like that, she's coughing and groaning. She thinks she's maybe falling to the side, but when the expected collision between her head and the window never happens, she wonders if she's just having a bizarre momentary lapse in balance, vertigo they call it, right – that's never happened before – and she's still really, really hungry – there seems to be a lot of red in the car, like blood? Distinctly, she's aware of someone calling her name.

She lets her hands wander from the wheel (it seems like a brilliant idea right now, though she's not entirely sure why) to poke at the flesh of her hip –

Her finger goes straight through to bone.

She must scream, because her mouth falls open then, and oxygen is being completely unforthcoming, and there's a whole lot of blood on her hands yet again, and someone's hand is on hers, ringing, screaming, ringing, in her ears, things don't slow down unfortunately – that might've helped a bit – they speed up, like Tokyo's bullet trains heading straight into a tree, crashing, spinning –

Black.

He's got such a knack, you should know.

Blondie by the pool table, vodka shots.

MILF – look at him, all familiarised with contemporary jargon – she's a cosmo kind of girl.

Dark hair, red streaks – oh, she don't care what she got so long as it's strong.

His head flicks to the right. Curly brunette? Check. Gin and tonic – next time she'll tell the bartender to hold the tonic and he'll be right beside her, grinning and whispering something naughty in her ear – double check. Rebekah tells him that as far as talents go, picking strangers' alcohol proclivities is absolutely worthless; he tells her she sounds jealous, she should get back to sniffing her acetone nails and whinging about how Klaus stole her boy toy because as far as talents go, he's fucking awesome okay and she's just a baby, freshly undaggered and currently ruminating over whether she prefers Miley or Selena – definitely Selena, he says. Miley is what happens when southern cousins copulate and call it cute. Naturally, said choice has something to do with her stint at college. Still taking bets on how long it will last, in case you're interested. However now is not the time to be thinking of Beks, not when there's plenty of fine arteries and arses on display for him to peruse. He's not a pervert though. Perverts are, by his definition, decidedly unattractive – Kol Mikaelson is decidedly godly, really.

He saunters his way over to curly wurly, bouncy breasts, who smiles flirtatiously back when she sees him approach. Damn, she looks tasty.

"I was wondering when you would come over." She says, flicking hair off her face.

He smirks, though he wonders which Hollywood B-movie she picked that from. "You want, I come. I'm easy like that." Sliding into the chair, he taps a finger against his chin. "Probably a wise idea to have me around as well; too many nefarious types frequent bars like this, and you darling, are nothing short of scintillating."

She scoffs. "Oh, so you're saying I attract the creeps? That's flattering."

"Well stalkers have expectations notoriously disproportionate to their skills." He grins, inching a little closer. "Not that you need to worry about that with me."

"With which part – the creeping, or the disproportion?" She tilts her head.

"Answer B." He retorts quickly, gesturing for the bartender to bring him a drink. "Can't promise I won't turn up outside your window and serenade you into all hours of the morning."

She giggles. "Sounds more charming than creepy."

"That's the idea." Oh, oops, too much sinister in his sin and grin – her eyes have widened slightly, laugh frozen on her lips. Still, he knows how to pick them; he can almost smell the desperation coming off of her (probably the Britney Spears perfume thing) and he's easily the best she's going to do in this town, if only for one night, and she must know this as well. Biting her lip, she flicks her hair over her shoulder. He grins as his drink arrives.

"So at the risk of sounding forward …" She trails off.

"I love forward." He adds.

"Take me home?" She finishes with a cheeky grin. Shame, she's kind of cute, and yet he's willing to bet she'd look just as good naked and covered in blood as she does right now in her bright orange dress. "I'll even let you use the front door."

He looks to consider her proposal as he downs the last of his drink. "It's a little too conventional for my liking."

She opens her mouth, closes, frowns. Briefly, he wonders if she's capable of little else; aside from the incessant giggling that is. Is prey still prey if they're too dumb to recognise you as a hunter? Maybe, maybe not, maybe existential questions are best left for when he's properly satiated.

"What did you have in mind?" She asks at last.

Rather than answering, he takes her hand in his and pulls her from the bar. She laughs and murmurs some rather predictable question about where he's taking her – out of this fucking degenerate bar, where does she think? – and he keeps pulling until they're out the door and into the chilly Fall air. His scarf whips around him as he pulls her away from the neon lighting, down the street. She's clutching his arm, still giggling. Sometimes he wonders just how many more girls he'll go through before one will see him, this modern day Narcissus, and rather than running to him, she'll scream or something, push him into his watery reflection if you will, try to drown him perhaps – or maybe she'll take the same route as his siblings and pretend he's nothing more than a nuisance. The push will turn into a sly trick and trip, all magic and mirrors. He'll fall, her green eyes will laugh.

And then other times, he thinks he's too fucking smart. He thinks he thinks too much, really.

People who trip Kol Mikaelson end up wound up by their intestines, swinging in the breeze as their mother howls on their front porch. On a side note, it's always interesting to see whether people die from the gaping wound near their stomach or the appendage newly knotted around their neck, and by interesting he means decidedly perverse in his own particular way.

He's brought back from his reverie by the girl – never did catch her name, never did get her that gin – speaking again. Wordlessly, he slings an arm around her shoulder, fingers raises to silence her by the lips. "Now darling, we're going to go into this alley." He gestures, smiling pleasantly as he spins her to face him. "And I'm going to fuck and suck you, not necessarily in that order." He adds.

The smile drops as confusion takes the stage, front and centre. He claps the hand slung over her shoulder over her mouth to stop her from saying anymore – surely her low fat salad wouldn't speak back to her? – and marches the pair of them onwards into the encroaching dark. She squirms sort of piteously, and once or twice he feels her teeth scrape against his hand. His only response is to smile some more and settle them behind some large garbage disposal units. Discovery has never really been a huge issue for him, but a man needs his privacy every now and then.

He spins her around once more so that her back lands against the brick wall. One hand free, his presses a finger to his semi-curling lips. By now, her perfume is overrun by the stench of fear; yes, such a thing does exist. It's not bad, per say, it's just boring. Boring like her widened eyes and rapidly increasing tears. He considers the non-compulsion route. Sometimes, it's more fun. Other times it results in the victim attempting their opera debut, and unless we're talking screams of pleasure it's not really his thing. She looks like the frightened-screaming type to him. With that in mind, he leans forward, meeting her eyes and letting out a long breath.

"Not a sound." He whispers.

Her mouth slackens. He grins, slinking in closer to her neck. Fangs rear, poised to nip the skin –

And his phone starts ringing.

He groans loudly, drawing away from her neck. Is it really too much to ask for the universe to let him enjoy a quick feed and shag without interruption? He's not asking for the world, is he? Scowling, he slides a hand inside his pocket and pulls the phone out, fully intent on hanging up on them, that is, until he sees the name.

And he freezes.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he starts scrambling. Another part, the part that is trained to react without thinking, just open his mouth and let the wit flow, makes him press the little green button and bring the phone to his ear in rapid succession. "Well if it isn't my favourite witch." He says, holding a hand over the girl's mouth to stop her from ruining his little interlude. "Don't tell me you're only now in desperate need of my company."

"Your help, actually." The voice on the other line bites back, slightly tinged with annoyance. "And I don't have time to play games. Can you meet me?"

He laughs at her timing. "No can do, darling. I'm engaged at the present time."

"Whatever girl you're currently screwing over can wait." She responds promptly. It's not a stretch to imagine her scowling and running a hand through those wonderful dark locks. "It's an emergency."

"Firstly, I'm highly offended at the suggestion," Though the accuracy makes him grin like a Cheshire cat, "And secondly –"

"You owe me Kol!" She practically yells, cutting him off. For a moment, he's actually too stunned by the fact that she's semi-screaming his ear off to realise that – oh right, she's right. Bonnie Bennett has never yelled at him before, and yet here she is, reminding him of their last encounter (a painful encounter, he might add) and simultaneously making him almost ashamed for talking. Since when does that occur? Subconsciously, he purges himself off the shock that comes from hearing her voice – it's not like he was expecting this call to come –

Ever.

Silence still, aside from her ragged breathing through the phone.

The girl on this end is staring at him, eyes still wide open. He's tempted to say fuck it, just hang up and get back to the feast at hand, but she stops him again.

"Please."

One word, that's all it is, one word, and he's sighing and asking her location and compelling the girl to forget the events that just transpired. For the record, he attests he goes unwillingly.

He can remember another time, another king; one consumed with wives and heirs, stuffed into his gilded jackets and strained buttons, hardly the kind of enigma they paint in Hollywood with woven strands of gold and muted red – not the odd carrot colour of his hair – and modern words and modern clothes and really, someone should tell them it was not nearly as simple as lifting up a woman's skirts and fucking her right then and there on your banquet table between the pig and the ale. They never consider the effort – minimal when skin and silk are equally pliable, but effort nonetheless – in the removal of clothes to get to that tasty artery on the neck, three inches from heaving breasts. He can also quite distinctly recall the balls – anatomically and not anatomically speaking – food strewn across the floors, laughter ringing in his ears, the scent of a woman in the heat of climax, wrapped around Lord Hartford as her husband sits twenty feet away, and eventually it all mutes into this never-ending blur of months and years spent courting disaster. A King has whims. A smile sent in the wrong direction equates to a severed head, and yet that doesn't stop him from grinning and wooing Anne.

Oh, Anne. Perhaps, in the end, the only thing they get right is her.

Still, he grew bored of London court life, and perhaps he had been too conspicuous, too volatile with his feeding, perhaps the bodies he leaves behind are crumbs of a particular kind that lend him no favours where concerning his father – father, how ironic. The King he taunts is virtually the same, you know, casting aside his bastard sons. Still, it is a veritable frenzy when the Almighty Father comes, hitting with no warning, no mercy, not quite a shower of wooden bullets as he's come to expect in later years. Perhaps someone somewhere someday weeps for the humans caught in the crossfire.

He does wonder whether it is the fate of all Kings to be deposed.

His eyes meet Stefan's across the room. The younger vampire stands rigid, eyes trained on a pale blonde in a pale blue dress, who glares in response to his smile and pointedly turns to a dashing dark-skinned vampire. Klaus snorts as he makes his way across the floor, glancing every now and then at the multitude of humans who throng the anxious-in-wait predators. Their incessant need for scraps will have to hold, however.

"Taking the 'woman scorned' to heart, I see." Klaus smirks as he leans against the bar, eyes flickering over to the aforementioned lady, whose scowl only deepens.

Stefan's brows furrow, and for a moment he is silent, still caught in Hell knows what kind of fantasies. "Can't say I blame her. God only knows how you would've reacted had the positions been reversed."

He laughs. "I keep a dagger on hand for precisely that reason."

The younger vampire rolls his eyes and swallows the last of his drink. "And what would you have done to me?" He turns back to Klaus. "What would you have done if I picked Rebekah over you? Chained me up in one of your dungeons?" There's a teasing lilt in his voice, and his eyes flash.

Klaus pauses, eyes raking up and down the fine form in front of him. "Don't go giving me ideas, mate."

Stefan lips purse together, holding in a smile. "Who said that wasn't my intention?"

The Hybrid smirks, noting the way Stefan shifts in his seat. Oh, he'll be most definitely taking this conversation into account later. For now, though, he settles for another glass of scotch. Languidly, he raises a glass in salute before beckoning the nearest human over to him. Benefits of being a King, you see. He gets first pick, first drop, first fuck, and once the first has fallen, then, and only then, can the proper hedonism begin. Elijah will comment insufferably on hubris or any other number of sins, but even he is not as above the slaughter as he would have others believe.

The human – barely matured, brunette, beaming – saunters closer. The irony does not escape him that here, of all places, here is where those of her type congregate. Blood groupies is what Marcel whispers deprecatingly in his ear; praying for immortality in the house of the devil. Empty hopes, in the end. It has been a while since he's made a vampire, more for the simple fact that his hybrids are more than infantile fangs with no concept of loyalty.

The girl bares her neck to him, caught between caution and a crazed sense of delirium.

She's waiting – they're all waiting, bated breath as he slides a finger down the crevice of her collar. Klaus can feel Stefan's gaze on him, and without raising his eyes further he knows the man is taking his cue to leave, though not without a meaningful look at Klaus; you know how I feel about these orgies, he would say, I won't partake in needless slaughter, he might add. At times, Klaus almost feels rather appreciative of his resoluteness – certainly it's one of the things he enjoys in abundance when the man is on his knees – but even so, Stefan Salvatore is a ripper at heart, and it does seem a shame to indulge in the feast without him by his side.

Still, the tell-tale signs of hunger overcome his face. Fangs elongate. He hears Stefan leaving the room. The girl swallows, sweat drips between her breasts, and there's a pleasant, familiar reverberation of a pulse clinging to life as it hurtles towards the unknown. It's funny how life seems to rush towards its peak, and yet the descent is only ever a fraction of that time. Things fall quicker than they rise.

And fall she does, into his (moderately) patient clutches.

He can't say it's painless, but he will say it's quick. Blood sputters from two gaping wounds, and he pauses only to catch the last fragments of life slip from her eyes, and then fangs meet flesh once more. Liquid fills his mouth, warm and tantalising and practically thrumming with vitality. He doesn't stop until her head is essentially severed clean off, and she's claimed by gravity and a visiting hooded man with a scythe –

Or so the stories go. Personally, he's inclined to think Death has taken up permanent residence in this little castle of horrors, you know, save himself the trouble of a constant commute.

He drops the body. Elijah catches his eye, disapproval loud and clear in the only slightly concealed looks of disgust he bestows upon his brutal baby brother, who's got blood on the carpet and blood on his shirt. Snorting, Klaus moves amongst the throng of beaming vampires. The frivolities begin, just like that, sanguine fluid and spirits flowing alike from all corners of the room.

His next victim is a boy, sixteen, perhaps older, and the next a little older still. Then a blonde, mature and dripping and wondering whether her life took a turn for better or worse the day she left behind her husband and the two point three kids and suburbia for a shot at the New Orleans air, because there's something here alright, something magical that attracts all walks and all types – blood types, that is. She's delectable but ephemeral, as is every other one he sucks dry.

It's only when he reads the hands at three and eleven that he realises it has been hours since he's had a fuck and drink with his friends, not the neophytes currently surrounding him.

From his raised throne, he waves a hand, and the crowds disperse.

And then he's standing out on the balcony, considering the dip to the street below. The mortals flock, laughing and drinking, arms and eyes raised towards the sky as if to acknowledge just how insignificant they are against the expanse of stars above them. Or maybe they're just dumbly and blindly admiring the fireworks some mile away. Yes, that seems more likely. He can't even remember the last time he genuinely enjoyed the company of someone outside his family (which has come to somewhat include Stefan), much less brainless humans. So when the intrusion comes – Elijah, naturally – he's not contemplating bloody murder.

Seconds, minutes, possibly even hours pass before either speaks.

"I do wonder if you'll tire of it eventually." Elijah murmurs candidly.

Klaus snorts. "Ah, my brother, ever the optimist."

"I said if, not when." He responds swiftly. "My opinion of you is not so high as for mindless faith, Niklaus. I'll save that for the dearly departed." He waves a hand in the direction of the bodies piled just inside the door with something of a huff.

"There's no shortage of such sycophants in this town." Klaus smirks to himself. "I quite like it." He adds, turning to his brother. "Now, is your mood because of the slaughter or the damage done to your precious carpet?"

Elijah rolls his eyes, face still trained on the view. "Take an informed guess."

They lapse into another silence, only broken by the raucous noises from below.

"Did you come out here to lecture me?" Klaus asks, on the whole rather unconcerned by the answer.

"As a matter of fact, no." He replies, turning to his brother, hands clasped. "Kol's back. He's asked for you."

Klaus laughs mirthlessly. "He should know better than to think I can be summoned on whim."

Out the corner of his eye, Elijah watches him. "Yes, we're all well aware of how much you detest any dog analogies." He takes a step closer, pausing for a moment. "But humour him, if nothing more than to prevent a tantrum."

"Is this you begging Elijah?" Klaus turns, smirking.

His brother raises his eyebrows, silent.

Klaus exhales.

Kol is the perpetual wanderer out of them; no roots, no friends, no shits to be given. Ironically enough though, he's maybe the most sentimental, the one who rages at their separation and confesses in rare moments of (albeit inebriated) honesty that he only ever wants them to be together, to not have Elijah roll his eyes in that older-superior-brother manner, for Bekah to pick them over her toys, for Klaus to fucking stop already with the daggers – direct quote, as it were. And then he wakes up, gets up, disappears to another city, creates another serial killer persona, and in between the sporadic jests and calls for reconciliation, Kol amuses himself with whatever it is he finds in his corners of the world.

Briefly, Klaus considers his brother's sudden reappearance as having the makings of a trap.

But then –

No. Regardless of how primitive Kol can be (eat, fuck, joke, that's it), he's not lacking in the self-preservation department, not like the sole surviving female member of their family. If anything, she would be the one waiting to greet his back with a poisoned blade.

Elijah clears his throat, and Klaus –

Klaus huffs one final time.

He hears the words.

Something about a witch, and a favour, and blood, and the promise of salvation – it's always salvation or redemption or something equally stupid that gets them in the end – and maybe he should react accordingly, dismiss Kol as easily as he's done so in the past, but he just sort of ends up standing there, smirking, eyes caught on the Gauguin in the corner – intriguing man, him, though even Klaus admits he found it difficult to share the same proclivities – and for a moment the landscape seems a little too bright for his liking –

But then the moment is gone, and he's caught staring. Time is a more fickle mistress than he gives her credit for. Perhaps she's jilted one too. Or perhaps she's the one who lies in wait to tempt a veritable Faustus into sin, because if there's one thing as equally inevitable as the ticking past twelve on the clock face, it's the degeneration of the human state.

And then there's him, the different kind of monster, the personification of invincibility if ever a thing was to exist.

His feet carry him beyond before he recognises the path – through the foyer, up the stairs, past countless empty rooms and passages until he's stopping at a door. Unfamiliar, red wood. He wonders if this is what Death is like when it comes calling; bored, to put it mildly. Detached and greying and always laughing at the mortality of men, or women, or even common vampires in this case, who grow so used to the idea of regeneration that they never stop to think about stakes and bites and flames and any number of death traps until they too are cold, eyes wide, not quite disintegrating like Dorian but decaying all the same. And he's just there.

Bored.

The door swings open, and he sees a pale angel on her deathbed.

GUESS WHICH FAMOUS KC SCENE IS COMING NEXT.

Review? Also, if people are interested in becoming a beta for this, let me know via here or tumblr klefarolas 8)