Some Things Never Change
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Humor/Family
Summary: Prompt fill for tvd_hiatus: "Elijah, Klaus, Rebekah- They take overprotective to a completely new level." OMC/Rebekah, Damon/Rebekah.
Author's Note: HUMOR! YES! HUMOR! Got to love humor. The Originals need it in the worse kind of way.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Vampire Diaries. It belongs to L.J. Smith/The CW.
()()
They've always been this way.
Alexander was suave, the ladies-man of the village. Rebekah couldn't deny that he was easy on the eyes. He gave her looks, she gave him looks, and they flirted a bit when they spoke. The only problem came in when he tried to do this in front of her brothers.
"Were you looking at my sister?" Nik grabbed Alexander by the arm.
"Was he?"
"I think he was."
"So what if I was?"
Rebekah cringed openly. Wrong answer.
"'So what if you were?' Did you hear that, Elijah?"
"I believe I did."
"Elijah, Nik- Please don't." Rebekah felt her cheeks grow red as people began looking. "People are watching."
"Let them."
"Rebekah's a big girl. I don't think she needs you two guarding her like a couple of hounds." Rebekah covered her face and moaned.
"And that," Elijah was tall and broad, where Nik was a little smaller and wirier, and his sudden invasion of Alexander's personal space was a much more openly threatening motion. "Is exactly why I don't like you, Alexander: You don't know how to keep your mouth shut."
"Ah yes, I'm getting a lecture on watching my mouth when this one-" He jerked his head in Nik's direction. "-gets into fights on a weekly basis because of his words."
"Niklaus doesn't let his eyes wander over other peoples' little sisters."
"Elijah, you're embarrassing me!"
"Not when anyone's watching, maybe."
Nik jerked forward, likely with the intention of bashing Alexander's nose in, but Elijah strong-armed him and shoved him backwards. "Now, now, little brother: No need to sink to his level. Be the bigger man and walk away."
Rebekah sighed with relief, her entire body sagging. Nik very, very rarely ignored Elijah when he spoke.
"We'll be watching you, louse." Niklaus grumbled, finally, after a moment's hesitation. He and Elijah both turned around and went to walk back to the house.
Alexander chuckled.
"That's right. And I'll be watching your sister, boys."
Elijah and Niklaus froze in place with twin expressions of grim determination.
And then they turned back around.
()()
"I want an explanation."
Mikael was glaring, arms crossed, down at Elijah and Niklaus, both of whom looked properly meek. Esther stood slightly behind her husband; Rebekah behind her seated brothers. However intense Mikael's stare was, hers was twice as much so and far more promising of violence.
"What happened today with you and Alexander?"
"He was looking at Rebekah, father!" Nik defended swiftly. Mikael cocked an eyebrow at him, then at Rebekah, and she was almost livid with the fact that he seemed to lose some of his stern, fatherly anger at that.
"Looking." Mikael repeated.
"Looking." Elijah confirmed. "And then, when we asked him if he was, he was smart with us."
"Was he now?"
"Yes, father! Alexander's a little-!"
"Shh!" Esther hissed, pointing indicatively to her ears. Nik was talking loud enough that a passerby might have heard the disparaging comment he'd been about to make.
"I don't care what Alexander is, pinning him to the ground in front of the entire village and dumping a trough of pig slop onto him until he yelled 'mercy' was uncalled for!"
Niklaus unfortunately was unable to contain his snort, and Mikael's glare grew much darker.
Elijah quickly jumped in again. "Father, we may have overreacted, and for that we are truly sorry." Nik raised an eyebrow at that, Maybe you're sorry but I'm not, and his big brother elbowed him.
"Very sorry indeed, father."
"Like hell you are!" Rebekah squawked furiously.
"Rebekah!" Esther snapped. "Your language!"
"No one in the village is going to want to talk to me now because they probably think my insane older brothers will try to kill them!" She pressed on, regardless.
"Alexander's a prat." Elijah defended sharply.
"Alexander was perfectly nice until you two stuck your noses in! You do this every time a boy takes an interest in me. Father isn't half as mad over it!"
Mikael raised an eyebrow at that, but made no comment.
"He's been with other girls, Rebekah, and any of them will tell you that he drops them not ten minutes after committing their names to memory!" Elijah argued.
"In his defense, brother, it does take Alexander quite some time to wrap his mind around words." Nik muttered dryly. Elijah cough-laughed and fought valiantly to keep a straight face as Rebekah went beet-red with rage.
"All right, enough." Mikael looked particularly at Rebekah, who had opened her mouth to most likely start harping on her brothers again. "Your conduct was inappropriate, and until I figure out what manner of punishment would crush your souls most effectively, you're confined to the house."
Elijah and Nik opened their mouths to argue, but Mikael had his 'This Is My Final Word Contradict It and Die' expression on.
"We'll just… Head off to our room, then." Elijah said delicately as he started to stand up.
"Just a moment," Esther cut in. "I'm rather curious as to where you two were for the last three hours before coming home. There was the spectacle with Alexander, and then by all accounts you just disappeared."
Elijah and Niklaus suddenly looked a lot more nervous.
And then, as if the spirits were offering an answer to Esther's inquiry, a sound echoed through the night:
"AAAAAAGH!"
Mikael, Esther and their children's heads all turned, as one, towards the door. Mikael's head slowly rotated back to his sons.
"What did you do?"
Elijah and Nik exchanged darkly nervous looks and shrank in their seats a bit.
"What did you do, you idiots?" Rebekah squawked much more forcefully before running outside to find the source of the noise. To her dread, it sounded very much like Alexander, and it was definitely coming from the direction of his house. She arrived a few seconds before half the village did, and-
Rebekah, horrified, put both hands over her mouth and went bright red.
Alexander was hopping around the yard in front of his house.
And he was covered in squirrels.
To explain: There were times when the village ran low on animals to hunt. Once a month the werewolves attacked and ate whatever they found, and so deer and other typical game were sometimes in dangerously short numbers. During these times, they had to rely on smaller animals for sustenance.
Esther and Ayanna had developed a concoction that attracted such animals; in particular they had had the most success with squirrels. They put a bit of said concoction out once, and they got maybe ten squirrels to gather together before Mikael caught them.
Judging from Alexander's current predicament, a lot more than was necessary had been used. And from the way he was jumping, it seemed that the highest concentration had gone into his pants.
"They won't- STOP! They're ch-EW-ing!"
"Oh my goodness." Rebekah heard her mother's muffled exclamation. Esther was also covering her mouth with her hands in shock.
"Oh my-" Mikael turned to give Elijah and Nik another wrathful look before stepping forward and helping Alexander's father and brothers to yank the squirrels off of him. Rebekah managed to break away from the scene long enough to furiously beat on her older brothers with her fists.
"You idiots! What in the hell is wrong with you?"
"Rebekah, mind your language! And you two-" Esther rounded on the boys. "I cannot believe that you would misuse the bait in such a way. Do you have any idea how long it takes to make that? Or the energy?"
"No, mother."
"Well that's fine, Niklaus, because you soon will. If I have my way, when winter comes around you two will be the ones making the bait, and then we'll see how eager you are to see it wasted on childish pranks!" While Elijah and Nik were both appropriately abashed by their mother's anger, Rebekah could tell that Esther did not inspire the same fear in them that Mikael did.
So she decided to pick up the slack.
"I'll be the one using it. I'll put it in your clothing, your hair, everything you use and I will laugh when it's the two of you writhing on the ground with a pack of squirrels gnawing at your-"
Esther quickly reached over and put a hand over Rebekah's mouth, sensing exactly what part of the body her daughter had been about to name.
By this time, most of the squirrels had either been stunned or reluctantly scared off. Alexander was shaking like a leaf, twitching sharply and jumping whenever he felt like something was crawling on him. However, once he caught sight of Elijah and Klaus, his twitchy terror turned to rage.
"You did this!" He bellowed, stumbling to his feet with the help of his father. Felix turned to Mikael.
"Mikael? Is that true?"
At that, Niklaus made a soft clicking noise with his tongue that sounded a lot like a squirrel's chatter, and Alexander jumped a mile before falling to the ground again and looking around wildly.
Mikael made an odd noise, almost like a cough, and he turned his head to the side for a moment- But judging from the brief flash of his face that she'd seen, Rebekah dared to venture that he'd been- smiling? But then her father picked his head back up and his face was straight, though to her continued shock she could see the smile in his eyes.
"I apologize for my sons, Felix. They were merely demonstrating concern for their younger sister's honor."
"You think that my son would offend her honor?"
"Of course I don't. But my sons are idiots." He shot both Elijah and Nik a flat look, which they promptly quelled under.
"This is the second time today your sons have humiliated my boy," Felix snapped. "Learn to control your brood, Mikael!"
Mikael's eyes narrowed, and most of the others that had gathered to watch the spectacle began to drift away at a calculated pace. There wasn't a single, living soul in the village who didn't know the dangers of tangling with Mikael.
"I'll control my brood," Mikael responded flatly, "When your son learns to control his mouth. To the best of my understanding, if he hadn't goaded Elijah and Niklaus then neither of these incidents would have happened."
Rebekah, Elijah, Nik and even Esther's eyes widened. Had Mikael actually defended his children's actions? That was relatively unusual, especially when Niklaus was involved. He was typically content with letting them learn the consequences of their actions.
Felix looked highly discontented with being criticized and seemed to be close to firing something back, when Mikael leaned forward, his 'I'm Very Intimidating, Aren't I' face on and said, "And if I catch your boy looking at my daughter in the ways my sons described to me, I'll be the one causing him physical harm and intense humiliation next time. Do we understand each other?"
Felix was one of the warriors of the village, but again, Mikael was in fact very intimidating. Ergo, he was not interested in picking a fight over this- Especially when it involved Mikael's children, ground you always did well to tread lightly upon. In the end, he huffed something Esther and the children couldn't hear and stomped off. Esther tapped on Elijah and Niklaus's shoulders.
"Home. Now." She was still obviously cross, and motioned for them to start walking. They did so, mother and still intensely irritable sister trailing behind.
"Quite the dancer, wasn't he?" Niklaus remarked lightly with a wicked grin.
"Oh, indeed. But I think we should have put more in his-"
Mikael abruptly came up behind them and slapped his sons on the backs of their heads simultaneously. But given that that was the only punishment he ended up dealing out to them (Esther on the other hand worked them to the bone for the next month and a half), everyone went under the general assumption that he had been privately amused at Alexander's predicament and that it was his sons that had brought it about.
Rebekah raged silently as she stomped back to the house.
Men!
()()
Roundabout a thousand years later, Damon Salvatore plopped down on the couch in his living room and slung an arm around Rebekah before pulling her in for a kiss on the cheek.
"So, boys- We're all cool now?"
She cringed.
Elijah and Klaus stared at Damon for a long moment from where they stood together, expressions unreadable, and then turned to look at each other.
Rebekah was not comforted when they started to smile.
"Certainly, Damon."
"By the way- You wouldn't happen to have any peanut butter lying around, would you?"
"Will that be strong enough?"
"Probably not, but we can try."
-End