Gone with the Wind
Rorudesu-chan
When the doppelganger and the dark-haired Salvatore came and whisked Jeremy Gilbert away, Kol Mikaelson was left companionless. He could've fled quickly afterwards. After all, he did what his brother, Niklaus, had asked him to: keep a close eye on Jeremy in case he tried anything funny, and also kill that Original groupie, Mary Porter, so that none of his brother's enemies could find out who sired who. He did what a henchman of the hybrid king would do, in other words. Therefore he 'earned' his freedom. So why remain posing as a high school student of the 21st century then? Had he chosen to vanish the moment after he told Niklaus that he had accomplished his tasks, he would've been out of Denver right now, exploring places that the new world has to offer. He could have been basking on a beach in Guam, skiing in the Alps, or eating exotic street food in India. He could do it all – and why shouldn't he? He had just woken up from a hundred-year slumber. He missed out on a lot. Of course,he had all the rights and privileges that life and eternity could offer him – and so much more! But he remained behind. He chose to. Though he could not fathom exactly why.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Kol thought, his decision to linger around here a little bit more had something to do with what happened the other night. Even if it was not too many moons ago, he felt as if it was an encounter that had happened just yesterday. The smell of fresh blood spilled, blending in with the air filled with the fragrance of… sandalwood, was it? Lavender? Rose? What did it matter anyway? He found someone who made him act properly, instead of impulsively. Who made him desire to know things, instead of just being plain curious about them. Who made him think twice about the difference between a prey and a predator.
And yet, he never got to know her name. She left. Just like that.
It was championship night at Denver East Lake High. The football grounds were jam packed with spectators; students raising their banners, wailing for their favorite teams. Fits of encouragement were being tossed around by different sides led by the enthusiasm of their respective cheerleading squads. Male hollers in the air, filling the night with adrenaline and rush and panic as the time on the huge digital billboard clock ticked away chances of victory either for the Home or the Visitors. Everyone was stomping and jumping on the metal bleachers as the ball whizzed past the defense of either side, courtesy of the team's M.V.P.s. Everyone was having fun. Everyone was glad to be alive, enjoying life to its possible normal, humanely extent. Though none of them (at least not for the moment) could think of such philosophy. Such thinking was made by Kol, who was sitting at the top bleacher, at the farthest edge where, as the steps went higher, the less people there were. It surprised him that he could delve that deep into the well of his thoughts. Was this the result of 'hanging out' with Jeremy Gilbert? He took a liking to his company – at least, until he remembered that Jeremy was still a human, and that he had to pretend to behave like one too. Doing so held a bar against his spontaneity towards life, his recklessness. He couldn't do much. But nevertheless, he tried maximizing his resources. It got boring after awhile, however. He missed the fun. He missed being so in love with life that he devoured it from every flesh he met. No one was there to tell him off. Not even his family. So why was he in any kind of doubt?
The game was at its peak – just a minute and a half more on the clock – when Kol decided to leave the field. Maybe he should go back to his apartment, a little Irish cottage-style house just at the corner off campus, where he can fix himself a nice glass of champagne and contemplate more about life. Or maybe he shouldn't do that at all. Maybe he should stay a tad bit longer. Away from the field where there were a lot of people (too many to handle on his own), and hang around the school grounds where there should be at least one person lurking. Minding their own business. He'd come up to them and say that he was out for some fresh air, and that would they mind if they came along with him for a little midnight snack?
Just as luck would have it, Kol noticed a boy; around his height, blonde, wearing baggy pants and a loose shirt and jersey, talking on his phone near the track area. The boy's mom was coming for him. How dare he sneak out to watch the game without her permission? He was just told this morning that he was grounded. He's definitely going to get it once she shows up in a few minutes in her Chevy. Really. Sometimes Kol wished there was an off-on button for his super hearing. Well, nobody said that he had to like all the perks of being a vampire. But he had to admit liking at least one of them. And that's when a vampire was in his element. In the dead of night. A prey. Lone and vulnerable. Very vulnerable. It would be a mistake for him if he didn't grab the opportunity, and let the poor human boy off to be taken home by his momma. No one should be going home tonight. At least, no one hungry.
Kol sped towards the boy who dropped his phone on the ground at the vampire's tight grasp. His face turned pale, his whole body shook, and his eyes watered at the sight of the fanged creature whose facial veins rose from underneath the flesh of his bloodlust-filled eyes. Kol found pleasure in this. He enjoyed seeing his victims between his hands shrink in absolute terror while he, the monster, the bloody Grim Reaper, showed not an ounce of mercy. Without restraint, he buried his head into the boy's neck. He craved to drink the blood pumping profusely against his lips. He was eager to dive into another euphoric feeding state.
But when his sharp teeth tried to bite into the soft flesh, he found himself biting into the cold air instead. He opened his eyes and saw that his hands were empty. He looked around and saw the boy wailing and being dragged off very swiftly into the nearby woods. A trail of something smelling sweet and enticing was left behind. Kol was perplexed. It was an embarrassment for him to have his prey taken away from his bare hands just like that! Wrenched out of his hold as easy as it was picking daisies off the ground. What kind of abomination? He had to see for himself so he rushed to where he thought he had seen the culprit flee.
Quietly placing himself behind the bushes, Kol saw the boy being held up against the bark of a large Pine tree. He seemed fine, for now, that is. There was no sight or smell of blood trickling down his neck; no bone jutting out of his skin. Had the thief been a vampire or a werewolf, Kol would've figured out by the telltale signs of either creature's feeding methods. But any wound was too far to be really seen from his position – and he didn't want to give that away. He had to be cautious with every step he took, literally. From the crunching of the leaves and stones under his boots to every single breath that came out of his nostrils and mouth. The one who stole his victim away from him had not really made any moves or transformations or even spells (in case the thief was a witch) which would make him decide whether to fight or take flight. But he looked on still. Peeking into the leaves and small branches in order to get a good look of his competitor. See if he does a better job of taking lives for pleasure than him. If he doesn't, then he'd jump right out of the bushes and cut him in line just like what he had done to him earlier. Kol wasn't expecting that he would be having more fun this evening.
The moon drifted a few seconds later into the center of the sky and shone through the foliage of trees, shedding light to where the boy was being held against the tree by an unknown creature. Kol was getting impatient. He squinted his eyes in an attempt to get a clearer and more focused vision of the view. He could hear something too. Voices. But they were just… talking. That boy and that girl. So it's a girl, the thief. She had shoulder-length hair as dark as a crow, and she was wearing what seemed to be a high school cheerleader's outfit. That much he knew right now. But it still didn't explain the fact how she got his back up against that tree, or how she nabbed him from his grip as quick as a vampire or as stealthy as a werewolf can. Definitely not a witch either. Kol couldn't sense that the girl had any tricks or spells or any form of magic up her sleeves. She was human, somehow. He thought and felt in a way that he could not quite comprehend. What was going on? He leaned forward, very carefully, for an answer.
"When were you going to confess, Van? Or were you planning to confess at all?"
"I told you I needed time."
"I gave you time."
"It wasn't enough! N-now please. J-just put me down, alright? We—we'll talk!"
"It's over. Goodbye, Van."
The girl tightened her grip around his neck, and pressed her face towards the boy's. Cries for pity and help were heard but were muffled by the girl's lips grazing against the victim. Kol could do nothing but just stay put behind the bushes and watch with his mouth hanging slightly open as she drained the life out of the boy. His arms that tried to push her off and his legs that kicked aggressively in the air, all went limp as the girl continued to kiss him ravenously. Slowly, she was devouring him. Literally sucking him bone dry. His limbs, now devoid of anything but skin hung onto his skeletal frame which made him look like a store mannequin with clothes on. When the girl released him, the boy dropped on the ground. Kol had just witnessed someone else take the life of somebody else. But more than that, it had been done in another way, not in his. And it was beautiful. She was beautiful. Not his brother nor any other vampire or werewolf or witch in his lifetime could've done something like that. Not even himself.
Pulling out a piece of cloth from the pocket of her skirt, the girl wiped her face and her hands. "Just show yourself, why don't you?" she said aloud, her back facing the direction of Kol's hiding place. "You've been spying on me while I was doing my business. That's rude."
"You stole my meal. That's rude." Kol wasn't even going to try and be a gentleman about that. But he stepped out fearlessly, not knowing what might come next or what might come at him.
She tucked her handkerchief back in her pocket, and fixed the strands of her dark hair that gleamed in the moonlight. With her back still onto him, she squatted and touched the left wrist of the boy named, Van. There was no more pulse. "It wasn't yours to begin with," she replied.
"How lovely. A succubus, aren't you? Didn't think that I'd actually find one in this era. Let alone in a lifetime." He stepped forward. "I'm Kol."
"I'm not interested," she said.
"You might as well be, love. Given that we do go to the same school. I suggest we start hanging out. I'm all by my lonesome self out here."
The girl didn't bother with a response. She kept looking around, the canopy of the trees above, and the trees and plants surrounding them.
"But before we start telling each other our secrets, why don't you turn around and let me have a good look at you first?" Kol approached her slowly. His curiosity had been driving him mad, pushing him over the edge since the moment she snatched his prey from his cold, serial killer hands. She had only left him a scent which he tracked down. He didn't know who she was then. But he was already mentally beating himself up while hiding in the bushes for not having been able to solve this mystery as quickly as he normally should have. He was hiding behind a bush, for goodness' sake! Was he predator or not? Either way, he must have unconsciously relinquished the title for his moves were telling himself otherwise. He was about to touch her shoulder when she turned around for him to see what he had been longing to.
She was not the most beautiful face that he had ever seen on this planet, or at least what he had been expecting to. But something was strangely drawing him to her. Her hazelnut-colored doe eyes were looking back at him with such pity, and yet with such warmth at the same time. For a moment, he felt a pang of guilt and jealousy strike inside him like a thunder bolt. How could anyone look at him like that? Moreover, how could anyone who was like him – a monster who killed for his own survival – have the capacity to even feel compassion? As if there was room for change. As if there was ever hope. Kol reached out and touched the face before him with such gentleness he never thought he had. He prayed for it to be real. For her to be real.
"How pathetic... that you have to hide the true monster that is the real you." His fingers trailed her cheeks and her jaw line. "She would have been more beautiful."
"And I suppose you're speaking for yourself?"
He pulled away the hand that was on her face and simply returned a chuckle.
"What are you, really?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. "A fortune telling, ugly old hag dressed like a pretty boy?"
"Have a guess at it, love."
Her head tilted to one side. She was studying him, he could feel her eyes running up and down his frame. She was analyzing the facts that she could only gather in such short amount of time. "You're… a vampire, aren't you?"
"I wonder what gave me away," Kol smirked widely, the corners of his mouth stretching far enough to hang his fangs out for display. She should consider herself lucky to have seen his gorgeous set of pearly whites which was a vampire's pride and vanity. No one saw his teeth and was able to live to tell the tale about it, after all.
He was expecting her to cringe now and asked to be left alone for good. It was the safest way of saying, 'Have mercy on my soul,' or 'Please, don't kill me, please,' that could be achieved by having the calmest state of mind even before the beautiful, mocking face of danger. And that was what she had – grace under pressure – as what Kol figured out for the past fifteen minutes that they've spent bantering at each other's monstrosity and eventually at their killing records for the past seven months. He could let her off if she pleaded him to – and he would, only to reel her back in again sooner or later for his entertainment. He found that she was so different from him. A complete polar opposite. She contradicted him, fought him, verbally, every chance she got –which, in the case of their conversation, seemed like every minute of it. Her beliefs. Her morals. Her philosophies. He could've killed her off for trying to turn him into something that he wasn't and he knew wouldn't want to be. But he didn't grab her by the throat. He didn't push her against a tree, have his way with her by sinking his fangs into her neck (and possibly, more) and suck the life out of her the way she did with Van. Instead, Kol let her go on and on about how she saw human life as a fragile treasure that she came to protect, not destroy. The strangest thing about all of this was that he was actually listening. In spite of it all, he was.
When she walked away from him – the first time she did since she stepped up to him, bravely – he felt that he had tired her out. He was hoping that the score was tied between them so she wouldn't have any reason to leave him behind. But soon, he realized that she was really backing out from another cycle of tease, and perhaps, flirtation as well. He believed there was a little of that in there when he tried pinning her against the bark of a tree a couple of times, only to have himself pushed away or thrown on the ground.
The girl looked up before stooping down to reach for one of the dead boy's legs before starting to drag Van's body across the damp ground. A different kind of light was slowly shining through the trees, creating irregular spots of gold on the grass and the dead leaves that were under their feet. He was suddenly reminded that he had never left the woods since he first ventured into it.
"Why don't let me carry your boyfriend for you?" He felt like doing her a favor, in return for her company. "I'm sure he'll be happy on the other side knowing that you didn't let his corpse rot in a place like this."
"It's none of his business anymore if I let his corpse rot or not." She pushed away the hands that were reaching out to relieve her of the dead boy's weight from her hold. "And he wasn't my boyfriend. I don't date men who commit illegal activities such as murder and drugs."
He laughed. "I see, I see. The way I understand things now is that you're basically a monster like me, only, you're taking the humans' side. There's nothing wrong with that at all!"
"I don't expect you to understand. After all, there's so much blood in your hands that I bet you couldn't even tell that you'd already killed off one of your own kind."
He couldn't contain himself anymore. Whatever was stopping him from nabbing her off her feet earlier was no longer there. He gave in to that feeling. He flashed towards her, and she dropped the dead boy's leg as her hands were locked together behind her back. She tried to struggle herself free, but it was no use. His hold was too strong.
Kol wrapped an arm around her chest, pulling her body close to his. He breathed in the scent of her hair, her neck, and whispered against her right ear. "You should stop pretending. It's very unbecoming of the real you." He watched as the erratic rising of her chest slowly returned to its normal rhythm. He could sense the blood pulsating through every vein of her body, and yet he craved for something else.
"I was like you, Kol," she said softly. "Once. Taking lives for fun. But it got boring. And meaningless. I don't have another world to live in. That's why I decided I might as well live among them. And for them."
"You'll never be one of them," he said. This woman's philosophy. Her existence. He felt so much hatred and disgust for both. He opened his mouth wide like a serpent's, and buried her face into her neck.
"No. I won't," she replied, her lips trembling. "But I'll be living a life without fear or hatred. Or guilt. That's half a human-like life I'll be living than the monster life that I should have been fulfilling."
Kol pushed her aside. She touched the sides of her neck, and felt two tiny pockmarks. But there was no wound. No blood. She took one last look at him, and said, "Goodbye, Kol."
Kol watched as the creature escaped out of the woods, the dead boy's body vanishing along with her. She saw right through him. She knew him. He was unraveled completely. Stripped down to his core as though he was human once more. Vulnerable. And afraid. Afraid that somewhere, something out there could kill him, and he could do nothing to stop it from happening.
He waited for her. He looked for her everywhere, for days, only to figure out that she had fled from school. She must've burned her school records secretly for no one in Denver East Lake High knew a cheerleader with hair as dark as a crow's and hazelnut, doe eyes. But there were some around town – a very lucky few – who had been friends with her, and had said nice things about her. They told him her name was Eve. She disappears every now and then, but he should wait up. Because she might be coming home anytime soon.
a/n: hi! thanks for reading this KolxOC fic! this is my first Vampire Diaries fanfic, so i hope you enjoyed it. do me a favor and hit that review button for me, will you? i'd love to hear what you think! constructive criticism is appreciated! thanks! x