Symbiosis
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Pairing: Klaus/Elena
Warnings: Unhealthy relationships/power dynamics, explicit violence, sexual content, bloodplay, basic vampire stuff
Rating: M
A/N: Unofficial sequel/companion to my behemoth, After the Fire, But Before the Flood. For Kimbuhlay, who requested fluff/domestic Klaus/Elena, set after the end of the fic. Perhaps this is more of an extension than a fluff piece, but this is what happens next (probably). I did try.
Klaus does not touch her like his possession, his hostage or his plaything. He touches her like a man who almost drowned, and found breath at the last minute. When he speaks, it is hername he says, over and over, a deluge she cannot tire of.
Elena, Elena, Elena.
He says her name, but she hears what he really means.
After, when they are lying tangled together, Klaus murmurs a secret into the skin of her neck.
"I almost gave you up."
Elena shifts against him. Her fingers twine with his, and her toes flex against his calf. She wishes she could look at his face, but he keeps it buried against her throat.
"You mean you meant to let me die in the sacrifice."
"No."
She waits for him to offer her more. She's used to waiting a long time with him, for the things that she wants (and the things that she doesn't).
"Your witch friend… Bonnie." He says the name with great emphasis—like he feels compelled to name her for who she was, not just what she was. "She explained to me what was happening to you, when you were… experiencing the others."
He does not elaborate on what was happening to her—she senses that the technical explanation is not the point of this, and besides, she can always ask him later (no explanation he can provide for her will ever compare to the actual experience of living inside the minds of women long, long dead).
Instead, he tells her something else, something worse, in its own way. "She told me that if I let it alone, if I refused to right the magic, then you—you, Elena—would be consumed. Overtaken. All signs indicated it very likely would have been Tatia who would have emerged as the dominant personality, and you would have been… gone. Smothered like a flame under a glass."
The implication hangs between them. He was ready to let it happen.
She feels it like a keen knife twisted between her breasts.
I almost gave you up.
I almost let you die.
I almost left you.
She should be angry—furious, really. She can sense the emotion under her skin, ready to burst to the surface. Her heart races, a painful, galloping hammer against her ribs that Klaus can surely hear. The veins under her eyes sizzle and spread, making her vision film over in black and red. She fights to control her reaction to his words, and desperately finds that she cannot—
—And it's more than Klaus's tacit admission that he'd almost thrown her away after years and years together, where the one thing she could count on was that he would protect her, in his own way, and that he would want her—
It's that she's loved him. Taken him into her bed, into her heart. Her love has never before been not enough.
But then, she's never had much luck competing with the women who shared her face.
Why are you doing all of this? Is it because I look like a Petrova?
Of course.
What chance had she ever had of beating Tatia in the wild of Klaus's heart?
Except, she is here, the living (sort of) testament that he has chosen a different path. That he has chosen her. Elena.
She lets that knowledge settle over her, like the slow rolling lap of the waves on the beach, like a bell in a distantly remembered Basque cathedral, hypnotically tolling for no one.
Klaus holds her close, like he will not let her go, and despite everything, she feels utterly safe in his arms. Slowly, the quiet retakes her body, and her vision clears to normal. Elena waits for him to continue.
Long minutes stretch by, wrapped up in each other's arms, pressed against each other along the lengths of their whole bodies from shoulder to toe.
For all that Klaus likes to talk, for all that he has easy access to his anger and his wrath, he has never been able to express himself otherwise with ease.
The moon trails silver light over their feet. It strikes Elena that they could stay like this, literally forever, and Klaus may never venture another word if she does not help him say what he so clearly yearns to tell her. It's so easy for him to be cruel, to fill up every space with barbs and broken glass and ripping and tearing and blood and fire, but the moment he has something important to say, the words fail him.
Elena presses him, as gently as she knows how (she is not a gentle girl, has not been for so very long, but for Klaus—oh, she'll try).
"You loved Tatia."
It's a statement, not a question.
"I did."
To her surprise, she feels no jealousy. Only a tenderness toward the man in her arms. Jealousy. They've always had to work around that emotion, she and Klaus. After all, it was no secret that she loved both Stefan and Damon, and that she always would. She understood only too well what it meant to love someone and have to go on with life anyway. She couldn't imagine what it would be like if moving forward meant also having to look into their faces every day. But then, she is not Klaus. Perhaps he is used to this.
"But you chose to save me," she murmurs, forging ahead. "You saved me."
"Yes, when I had the choice, I did choose you." He laughs a little bit, and it's not a mirthful sound at all, but instead rather rueful. She feels the vibrations all through her bones. "I thought to possess you, once, Elena, but it seems we've gone the other way around. You've tied a tether to me, and I would not have it broken for anything. I belong to you, now, my sweetheart. My dear one." This last endearment he murmurs so quietly into her hair that she might mistake the words for breath. His words send hot sparks shooting over her skin. Her stomach flips, and her eyes sting. Klaus runs a finger over her face. His touch is so gentle, she almost cannot feel it. His voice is stronger when he speaks. "Cruelty may be your nature, but I hope that you will not be cruel with me."
Elena catches his hand. "I won't be cruel with you, Klaus," she tells him firmly. She cannot deny what he has said. Cruelty is in her nature. He's taught her that (no, she has learned it all by herself). She kisses the palm of his hand. "I've chosen you, too."
He finally lifts his head, so that she can see his face. His eyes are very dark in the moonlight, but not as dark as once they would have appeared to her. She can see him quite distinctly. Every eyelash and freckle, the midnight blue glint of his irises, the faint red of his lips and the golden gleam of his curling hair. It's all there. He is realer to her than he has ever been.
It's not just because her newly vampiric senses can detect everything so much more clearly than before. No—it's something else.
She realizes that she's been living in a fog, these past few years. Ever since that awful morning, on the battlefield his family had made, where she had lost her old life and started her new one with him.
That fog is gone now, dissipated with the sunrise.
It's a new day.
They are so used to moving that, when everything is said and done, and nearly everyone they know is dead, they decide to keep going without ever exchanging one word on the matter.
That suits Elena just fine.
She takes a moment, before they leave, to pile some stones over Bonnie's grave. She wishes she could do more for the friend who loved her so, so much, but there are no flowers (yet), and there is no granite to engrave. She knew those things so intimately once: the prosaic details of a funeral, the physical act of mourning. All of those things are gone. Her love will have to be enough, until such time passes that she can do something better to mark Bonnie's final resting place.
She leaves a marker for Katherine, too.
Maybe a couple of years ago she would have worried that she would never be able to find Bonnie's grave again once she left—a reasonable fear, given the way the earth has been rocked and reshaped down to its core—but Elena doesn't feel any of that. Somewhere very deep inside of her, so deep she is only barely cognizant of it, she can still feel her tie to this place.
It's a place of beginnings. The place where her face was first begat, and the place where she, Elena, was finally freed from her legacy. She feels Klaus's hand in hers, his grip patient and comforting and sure, and thinks it is also the place where they began anew, the place where he chose her for herself rather than for whom she resembled.
This place has left its mark on her, more permanent and indelible than anything.
She knows she'll always be able to find her way home again.
A/N: This chapter may undergo some small changes in the coming week, before I post part two. I'll leave a note here if I make any changes.