Disclaimer: Not mine. Title is from Old Crow Medicine Show.
A/N: Kol sees her by change in Arizona. —or, Kol figures out the fascination to Katerina Petrova. One-shot.
like a southbound train
Kol sees her by chance in Arizona.
"Going to tell big brother on me?" she taunts, brown eyes sweeping over him before her lips curl into a smile. She's using all her tricks on him, he thinks, the big doe eyes and the flashing dimples as her voice drips with sugary sweetness.
"Well, Katerina," Kol says easily, leaning back against the settee and grinning up at her, "that depends."
The smile hardens and her eyes narrow. "Katherine," she corrects him airily, glancing around the saloon as though expecting his brother to be lying in wait for her. Kol wonders briefly which one she'd like to avoid more—Niklaus or Elijah.
He arches an eyebrow at her, his smirk never fading. "Katherine," he repeats, motioning to the seat next to him; she doesn't move. "How much fun are you willing to be?"
"How much do you require?" she tosses back to him and when his smile widens, her dimples flash again. He doesn't fail to notice how she looks up at him from beneath her eyelashes.
"I'll be sure to let you know," he says with a rogue grin and orders a bottle of whiskey.
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After watching in poorly concealed fascination as Katherine spins her magic web of seduction on victim after victim, Kol decides she is far too delightful to hand over to a vengeful Niklaus and far too enticing to return to a bitter Elijah.
(But he doesn't tell her that.)
She drops the body of a prostitute at his feet. "Had enough?" she goads with a kink to her eyebrow and a pop of her hip.
He grins back at her, all teeth and unabashed lust. "Never," he says, flirting shamelessly and the look she gives him sets a fire in his veins.
"I can see why my brother was so entranced by you," he drawls languidly, letting one of his fingers run down her arm. He's more impressed by her scoff than by the trail of bodies they've left littered around Vulture Mine.
"Which one?" Katherine asks coquettishly, twirling one wayward curl around her finger and looking up at him from under her lowered lashes.
Lightening coils in the bottom of his stomach and he leans forward, invading her space. She doesn't give an inch and if they weren't in the middle of a saloon, he'd have her pinned to a wall with her perfectly proper skirt bunched around her hips.
"I could take you to him right now," he muses, tilting his head and using his full height to tower over her. "Elijah, Nik—it doesn't really matter, does it now? Since you left them both."
She doesn't even blink. "Am I supposed to feel guilty?" she tosses back, light as air and without a hint of remorse. "I put my survival before their happiness and I will not apologize for it."
"No," Kol agrees, "you wouldn't." And he decides he no longer cares that they are in the middle of a saloon, surrounded by drunk, noisy humans.
He'll compel them all later.
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Her perfectly proper skirt has been long ripped to shreds, the tattered strips strewn across the floorboards, along with his shirt and breeches. They haven't left the room in hours, maybe days; but Kol can't really be bothered with meaningless things like the passage of time.
Katherine's nails dig into the hard planes of his back and the way she says his name in his ear, her voice wrapping around the syllables and her thighs tightening against his hips—it does things to him.
She shudders, going still, and he finds himself stopping his movements, his hands gripping her arms tightly enough to leave finger-shaped bruises. "And what," he murmurs as he buries his nose in her throat, "has you so silent, little doppelganger?"
There is no answer and a rush of sudden emotion—anger, jealousy, and wounded male pride—has his fangs brushing against the side of her neck. "Thinking of my brother?" Before she can answer, though she's made no move to speak, Kol muses mockingly as he starts to move inside her again, "But which one? Elijah—" his hips roll and she bites her lip, "or Niklaus—" his tongue sweeps along her sternum, "shag Finn and you'll have collected the set."
Big brown eyes blink up at him and he finds himself idly wondering if he crossed a line.
But he underestimates her.
With a laughing growl she flips them, his hands pinned above his head and he crows approvingly up at her, "Lovely girl."
"Oh Kol," she sighs and for a brief whisper of a second he thinks he could maybe listen to her say his name like that for a very long time. "You say that as though you think I care." Her mouth trails teasingly down his stomach before she sends a devilish glance up at him. Her hair streams down her shoulders, a curtain across his hips. "I don't."
When she lets his hands go, he wraps them in her hair and his first thought isn't to snap her neck.
It's to keep her there.
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Kol follows her to California—to keep an eye on her for his brother, he says. Can't have her getting herself killed by anyone other than Niklaus, he says. She laughs at him. "You don't fool me," she says as she takes his proffered hand to step gracefully off of the train. "You're a very poor liar for a Mikaelson, you know."
"No," he corrects her, letting his hand get lost in the folds of her skirt, "I'm an excellent liar." Before the scoff he can see rising in her throat escapes, he brings her hand to his lips and says over it, "We're just the same, you and I." One of her eyebrows arches, inviting him to continue. "Selfish, manipulative, greedy…"
"I'm flattered that you think so highly of me," she says dryly, pulling her hand back and turning to look away.
"Oh, believe me darling," he smirks at her when she finally looks back at him, "I do."
Katherine's lips quirk as though she's biting back a smile but before he can convince himself it was ever really there, her head has turned, her gaze resting elsewhere.
"What do you keep looking for?" he asks curiously, hand wandering aimlessly over her backside. She steps away from him seamlessly and Kol can't help but remind himself she's had a great deal of practice at it.
"A girl," she says mysteriously, giving nothing away.
He smirks at her. "I see many girls, darling. Any in particular I'm supposed to be looking for?"
"You aren't supposed to be looking at all," she chides him and his grin sharpens.
"Dare I hope that you're jealous, Miss Katherine?" Kol says, leaning towards her with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
"Hardly," she banters back, barely sparing him a glance. "She's for your brother, and I can't have you ruining all my plans."
Well then.
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Kol wakes up in the middle of the night to cold sheets and an empty bed and he very much resents the dread that settles in his stomach at the thought that she's taken off.
But her things are still strewn haphazardly around the room so unless Katherine likes leaving all of her personal belongings with her spurned lovers, he's fairly certain she'll be back—to collect her things, at the very least.
He only worries—and it's hardly a worry, he tells himself, more of an intrinsic fear of Nik if his older brother finds out he had Katerina Petrova in his grasp and promptly lost her—when hours pass and she doesn't return. Despite every instinct he has warning him to stay away, Kol goes out in search of her.
It doesn't take him long to find her—or maybe she wants to be found, Kol can't tell. She's leaning against the brick of a building, staring up at an apartment window with a blank expression on her face.
Kol stands next to her, turning to face the same window, making himself comfortable against the night-cooled brick. "Hunting, Katherine?"
Her eyes never leave the glass. "Of a sort."
Nothing in the window moves. "Ghosts?" he suggests blithely but she doesn't laugh and he glances over at her. Katherine's face is drawn and she doesn't answer.
"Well you're a lot less fun now," he mutters irritably, crossing his arms and she finally spares him a glance.
"Some things are bigger than you, Kol," she says sharply and he grins at her.
"Falsehood," he says with a leer. "There's very little that's bigger than me, darling." But she's not even paying attention anymore, her eyes fixed upon the window again.
He loses patience with her. "Who is up there, Katerina?" he demands, fingers wrapping around her upper arms and gripping tightly. Her eyes flicker up and meet his. "Tell me."
She tilts her head to one side and studies him from inside those dark brown depths. "Oh, Kol," Katherine says softly, one hand going up to cup the side of his face. "You know nothing."
Then—
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He wakes up back in the hotel room and all of her things are gone.
Instead of trying to find her again, Kol sends two telegrams to his each of his brothers. Found is all it says.
He makes a wager with himself—if he's right, he'll shag the pretty waitress who works in the bar below the hotel—that Elijah shows his face first, desperate to right an old wrong.
(He wins the wager.)
Elijah's nose wrinkles as soon as he sweeps into the small room. "Where is she," he demands lowly, turning in a slow circle. Kol leans back and spreads his arms wide.
"I found her," Kol says with a grin. "Doesn't mean I kept her." He winks at Elijah. "But I can see why you wanted to, brother. She's fantastic." Elijah's jaw sets. "Great fun, very spirited."
"Where is she," Elijah repeats, his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. Kol shrugs.
"No idea, brother," he says with a sigh. "But if you happen to find her, be a pal and give her all my love." He winks and half-expects Elijah to lunge for his throat.
He's almost disappointed when Elijah only glares down at him and says coldly, "Do not expect Niklaus to be so lenient."
Kol doesn't.
Three days later, Nik corners him in the city, eyes wild and angry. "Are you lying to me Kol?" he snarls and Kol shrugs.
"She was here," he says vaguely, tipping his beer bottle to Klaus. "She is no longer."
Nik growls in exasperation, gripping Kol by the collar. "Dammit Kol," he snaps, hauling him upwards and glaring into his face. "You had Katerina and what—you let her go?"
Kol gives him a biting grin. "Played with her first," he taunts and Nik's eyes narrow in much the same way as Elijah's had.
Without warning Nik reaches into his pocket and Kol feels something sharp and painful dig into his torso. He blinks and looks down, eyes widening in shock.
A dagger. Sticking out of his chest.
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Katherine hadn't expected it to be so difficult.
She had been preparing herself for it for centuries—finding her mirror image and turning her over to Klaus in exchange for her freedom. It shouldn't matter that the girl was technically her family—Katherine had long ago severed those ties—but after days of spying on the girl who shared her face, she had seen the girl's mother.
The older woman had been fussing over the doppelganger's hair, tucking stray pieces in and pinning flyaway curls back while the doppelganger chattered animatedly, hands gesturing wildly as she told her mother a story. Katherine barely even saw her doppelganger, so intent was she on watching the mother; the girl said something that caused her mother to smile widely and lean down to kiss her cheek and white-hot jealousy flared low in Katherine's stomach.
She doesn't tell Kol as she had planned.
She runs instead.
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end.
A/N: Forever bitter about Kol's untimely death.