For Now, For You
Synopsis: AU from 1x08. One broken neck leads to Marcel's victory and determines a whole new course for the city and the Original family. In his prison below the city, a chained-up Klaus and his traitorous sister start a new game.
Characters: Rebekah, Klaus, Marcel.
Chapter One: Prologue
In which Klaus becomes a prisoner.
oOo
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I am a liar, a betrayer.
I have conspired against my own blood and I doubt even your God could save me."
- Rebekah, The River in Reverse
oOo
.
.
.
Klaus is many things, but invincible is not one of them.
It comes as a shock to Rebekah, even though it really shouldn't. She's seen her brother fall before. She's mourned his death once, even.
And yet when she watches her brother's eyes grow dark and golden and hears a furious growl coming from somewhere deep inside his chest, she can't help but think that they had been fools to think they could ever defeat him.
Klaus always wins. Always. It's just the way of the world, really.
Except then it isn't.
.
.
.
In the end a broken neck does the trick. One quick snap, and her brother collapses like a marionette whose strings have been cut.
She watches in silence as Marcel orders his men to bind him with chains dripping in vervain. Her brother's skin burns and hisses when they pour a bucket full of liquid vervain over his wrists. Rebekah's hand clenches around the silver dagger she still holds, but she slowly forces herself to relax her death grip when it becomes clear Niklaus can't feel the pain at all in this state.
The vervain is all the insurance they have. It drains her brother's strength and makes it so he can't break from his binds. When they lock him up the chains will be connected to a running water supply laced with more vervain so they never run dry, because if they do...
It's frightening, the feats of strength her brother is capable of when well enraged. Neither she nor Marcel is willing to leave this up to chance.
.
.
.
It is with Marcel that she carries her brother's limp body down the stairs to the furthest and deepest basement of the city.
The walls are wet here, and the air cool. In the case of a flood this entire section would be submersed. This is where her brother will be held prisoner for as long as they can keep him captive. Rebekah has no real illusions of this being forever, but letting Niklaus go is not an option. A thousand years of life experience have taught her that much. Her brother would want vengeance and would not be satisfied until he made all of them suffer worse than he endured.
Nik's body is not heavy at all where she has his arm swung over her shoulder. He always seemed such a heavy weight to carry, a burden that would drag her to the bottom of the ocean and keep her there on the seafloor until she drowned. He smells of blood, which would be familiar if it weren't for the fact that it was his own.
Marcel is quiet on Klaus' other side, and she's not sure what her lover - more former than present, if she's honest - is thinking about. He has his city back now, she supposes. And they are free to be together.
Somehow she doesn't quite feel the sense of victory she expected.
It's rather anticlimactic when they connect the reinforced steel chains to the bolts in the wall. The vervain trickles down the thick bundle of chains - thicker than Nik's arm - and she can hear the soft hissing as it burns when it touches her brother's skin.
He looks small like this. Far from the fearsome monster that terrorised the world for centuries and more like a broken man. The wolf beaten down and defeated and chained for eternity.
"Let's go," Marcel finally says when he finishes ensuring that all the bolts and and chains are secure and the vervain will keep running.
She ignores him, still looking at Niklaus. Slowly, she steps closer until the front of her jacket brushes his hair where he hangs forward in his chains, the shackles holding him up on his knees.
"Rebekah," Marcel calls from the door. She can almost hear his frown.
"One moment," she says, and kneels before her beaten brother.
She'll have to inform Elijah of what happened, she suddenly realises. Her oldest brother knew nothing of their plot, though he may well have suspected it.
Casting aside any doubts about Elijah's response, she touches Nik's neck. It'll have healed soon and then he'll wake here, in the dark. She uses both hands to tilt his head back so she can look at his face. She needs to remember this, everything here. She won't let herself forget.
Nik's eyelids are only half-closed and behind that his pupils are dilated, making his eyes almost infinitely dark. They stare at her unseeing. Lifeless.
She's seen her share of corpses over the centuries, of course. After a thousand years of living as a vampire, she's hardly a stranger to death, but even so... She averts her eyes.
A warm hand comes to rest on her shoulder. "Rebekah," Marcel says. "It's time to go."
She glances up at him and finds an expression that seems to fall somewhere between pity and wariness. She feels a rush of anger at him for first and yet can't fault him for the second. Against her will, her eyes slide back to Nik's face.
She nods and then, before she can change her mind or think about it too much, she tilts her brother's head forward to rest his forehead against hers.
He's cold and dead against her skin when she kisses his cheek and whispers, "farewell, brother."
Niklaus still doesn't so much as breathe.
She rises and lets his head fall forward again. Marcel is already waiting by the door and holds it open for her. She steps through and keeps walking, not looking back.
They're two doors down the hallway and at the foot of the lowest set of stairs when she hears the first of her brother's screams.
.
.
.
A/N: In light of season four airing tomorrow night, I figured it was about time to publish something of this fic I've been working on for a while. For what it's worth, I did actually come up with the idea for this fic before the show decided to lock up Klaus, although they've certainly made things easier.
Please consider leaving a review, any feedback would be much appreciated!