AN: Written for hithelleth. (Rare Pair Fest 2014)
Spoilers: 3x22
Content notes: AU - canon divergence, emotional hurt/comfort, abduction, suicidal thoughts, depression, non-chronological writing.
Thanks to my wonderful and patient beta, Carmenita. :)
A LOVE STORY STARRING MONSTERS
It starts like any other story: Once upon a time -
Once upon a time there was a girl, who dreamed way too big and cared too much and somehow along the way she got lost in the dark forest where things with glinting eyes and hungry hearts followed her path. She was always warned against steering from the path, she knows the tales of wolves who eat up girls like her whole. (You don't see it yet, but she doesn't really care.)
Elena wakes up with her head leaned against cool glass and for a moment she doesn't know where she is and how she's gotten here, she can only focus the searing pain in every particle of her body, the suffocating feeling in her lungs and the salty taste in her mouth. She gasps for air frantically, and that's when she realizes with a sinking feeling that she's in a car and also her clothes are soaking wet, and her teeth starts clattering.
The latter brings up memories of a blonde figure standing on the bridge, of falling in a void and the horrible crashing that chased the almost buried memories of her parents dying to the surface. She feels everything all over again - the loss, the denial, the anger - in that minute, the old scars reopened and bleeding in her chest, and if she is honest with herself she feels a little cheated that she's alive yet again, because deep down she's just so damn tired of running and fighting. It weights down on her, filling her bones with lead.
The memory of Matt's struggling for air cuts through her dizziness and emotional mess, and as she turns to see Tyler driving the car, the questions freeze on her throat. Because Tyler is dead and it isn't possible.
"Klaus," she says softly. It's impossible, but it's true because it's obvious in the graceful movement of his, the mocking tilting of his mouth, the hungry thing lurking in his eyes. It's strangely familiar, it's the stuff of her nightmares, but in her case the monsters of daylight bleed over to her night times.
Klaus could pretend, she knows, he paraded as Alaric after all, but it seems he doesn't care.
"Mind yourself, and try not to soak the damned upholstery, love,"
"Where's Matt?" she asks and her voice is taut with anger. All of her confusion drains away in the presence of Klaus, everything is so simple, the whole world narrows down and she knows her purpose: to oppose him, to protect everyone from him. It's funny how he defines her, even before he waltzed into her life, because this whole doppelgänger line started with him, and it seems as if fate has knotted their life together, pulling their strings as some cruel puppeteer, acting out some long forgotten tragic story.
"Oh come on, love, you aren't a least happy to see me?" He raises one eyebrow. "No one in my bloodline dies which means your two boyfriends stay alive."
Elena doesn't take the bait, and honestly, she doesn't want to think about the muddy mess of her feelings, but relief washes over her because Klaus is right about one thing: another end of the world has been averted, another loved one stays alive.
"That's more like it," Klaus comments cheerfully, Elena only scowls in return.
"What do you want?' she asks after a long moment.
"You." It rolls off his tongue easily and just this one syllable makes her shiver, it's only one word and it feels intrusive, like with only this little he can claim at least a part of her. She knows only one thing: she'll never be his.
"If I remember correctly you wanted to drain all of my blood the other day. Why the sudden change?"
"Yes, that was before everyone thought I was dead. Of course Alaric might catch up, but until then we have all the time in the world."
She feels as if she's suffocating, like the night is closing in on her, but the panic doesn't last, because she finds her focus in the hardest situations. She's already hatching an escape plan, even if the others don't look for Klaus, they'll look for her, maybe she'll leave a trace a message, anything when they stop.
"You're going to run like a hunted animal? Like you run from your own father?" She wants to hurt him, to show him that taking her comes with consequences, that he's not invincible and not unfeeling behind the mask of indifference he wears. She wants to show him she's not afraid, (she isn't really, she wasn't afraid for herself in a very long time, and she refuses to think what this apathy means.) She was in so many life and death situations, fighting for survival, it became a routine for her, like it's just another Tuesday.
"Well, here's a deal for you - you can't tell I'm not a generous man, not many people would do this after someone repeatedly tries to kill them."
It's only because of her self-restraint that she doesn't say out loud, "You started it," like a pouting child.
"You give me your blood, don't try to run or send messages and I'm not going to kill anyone you care about. Isn't this your eternal fantasy? Some kind of heroism in the name of love. I think it'd be a fitting end to this tale."
The girl follows the dark path, the evil in disguise, but you don't worry about her even a little bit as you watch her walk deeper into the woods, chasing a shadow that whispers about false promises of safety and fun, because you know lost girls always get found and grow up and live Happily Ever After.
Elena doesn't say anything, only wraps the blanket around her shoulders, but her silence is enough of an answer. So many people died for her and around her, it's as if the shadow of Death itself looms over her, that she spreads death and destruction in her wake. Is it because of this guilt, this unbearable weight on her chest that she's so ready to sacrifice her freedom for her family and loved ones. She thinks that if she's far enough from everyone, they'll be safe, though she doesn't know whether the danger follows her or Klaus.
She isn't running away from her problems, she's solving them, it's the best option for her, really. (It's the best lie she ever told.)
Turn the page and read the lines, it does ring familiar, doesn't it?
The girl is lost in a world of nightmares, where no one gets old and everything is so intense it makes you forget your past and she's so tired of her life that she thinks it's kind of a paradise, even when the smiles of monsters glint from behind the masks they're wearing. In this upside-down world, everything is shiny but deadly, but maybe that's why it's so enthralling. Danger vibrates beneath the surface, and it's thrilling, yet it's safe because you know it's inevitable that the girl realizes that all of this is a gilded cage, she will break through the locks and bars of her cell, and go home to her normal life.
"Just because I agreed to this," she gestures around her, indicating the high-end luxury of the manor they moved into, "it doesn't mean I'm going to be civil with you."
"Oh, come on, Elena, it's only a dinner… who could be hurt?"
Jenna, Isobel, Katherine, she wants to say, all the people you have killed. But the words are stuck in her throat because how could she berate him when she always forgives Damon - and here she is again, her heart starts to beat fast but she pushes back her emotional mess. She shouldn't have fallen for the wrong brother and clearly, she feels something about him. (Something that scared her, so she ran away.)
In the end, Elena spends dinnertime as usual: holed up in the library. Once upon a time when she was just an ordinary cheerleader, she loved to lose herself in a good book and the ten months she's been here she can't seem to do anything else.
She kept her words, she didn't try to get in touch with her friends and family though Klaus doesn't keep her in the house, doesn't lock her up, she mostly doesn't leave, she doesn't see the point in discovering the rural town they're residing.
On nights like this, when she huddles on the windowsill with a book in her lap and closes her eyes, it feels like she's separating herself from the world, she lets her thoughts drift into numbing nothingness, a kind of white noise. She feels oddly safe here, tucked away behind her own imaginary walls. Safe from heartbreak, grief, from everything the world has to offer.
She tries to reason that it's because no one came for her, it's easier to numb her pain, though she knows too well that Klaus covered their tracks very well. "It was way too easy," Klaus explained cheerfully with bloodied teeth from his talk with the manager on their very first night together, when they stopped at a shady motel for the night. "After I persuaded your witch friend to help me escape by jumping into this body," he screws up his face into a grimace, "it was just a mix of compulsion and witchy work to truly have them believe that they found your body floating in the river."
Elena, in her morbid mood sometimes vividly imagines herself there, washed pale, eyes staring into nothingness, her whole body limp, lifeless. She almost sees in front of herself the crying crowd at her own funeral, everyone solemn, praising her, even when they didn't know her, not really. And then slowly, but surely, everyone forgets about her: she won't be anything more than a ghost story whispered around campfire, a cold slab of marble, a polished wooden box and a few lines with a date. And somehow she finds it liberating, like she can be now free and do whatever she wants, be her own person, making her own decisions, shaping her own fate. She sees her ending and the shadow of a beginning, but doesn't try to connect the dots between the point, she's lost herself in the middle of a void, falling deeper and deeper. She isn't sure when she to lands, but she knows she'll crash and burn. (It doesn't seem like a bad thing.)
Elena is following this train of thoughts again, when Klaus enters the library with a tray in his hands, heavy with plates of food. The rich smell of the roasted meat wafts over to her, and even though her stomach feels empty, she doesn't feel the urge to eat. (She isn't hungry, not these days, though Klaus always watches over her menacingly after each blood taking until she eats something.)
She cocks her eyebrow at him, when he settles down at a reading table.
"Come on, love, I'm bored, entertain me. Show me the famous Petrova fire." he says in his usual nonchalant voice, like everything in the world just there to amuse him. Elena is a little bit jealous of his certainty, that he knows where his place is - on top of the world, mostly. "I even let you insult me." When Elena doesn't bite the bait, he adds, "You know, Katerina used to be more fun."
Elena snorts.
"Sure, when you were torturing her, or lying to her to get her blood," she snaps. "Doesn't it ever occur to you that people don't like you because you're trying to use them?"
"Well, your blonde vampire friend liked me well enough."
He uncorks a bottle, and starts to drink straight from it. The red is too rich to be wine, but there's no surprise there, Elena wonders if it's her own blood, if it's some kind of twisted way of Klaus showing his ownership over her life. In that moment rage fires up her veins and makes her bolt upright, muscle tensing, her whole body feels like a string pulled up to tight.
"Yeah, well, how well does your family like you? Last time I checked, your family hates your gut so much, that they tried to kill you or agreed to keep you in a coffin for a few decades."
It happens so fast, she doesn't even register any movement, and only realizes what happened when she feels her back thumping against the wall, and Klaus pinning her to the wall. He's a force of nature, she almost forgets it every time, she's so used to the supernatural, but his body is now rigid and she almost can feel the anger rolling off him. It makes him inhuman, a cold, hard façade, like a statue, only a mockery of life.
"Don't you dare…" And with his threat hanging in the air, he's gone just like that.
Elena doesn't feel relieved now that he's gone, oddly misses his presence. She doesn't move, doesn't know what to do, and slowly her gaze wanders off, and lands on a stack of white paper on the trays.
She walks over, picks them up, and her breath catches. They are printed pages of photos and short journal entries: They are showing her friends and family living their lives, happy, careless, and most importantly safe and alive. For a moment she fears that they're fake, that they're meant to crush her spirit (Could she be more broken? That's an interesting question.), but it just feel so genuine, so them, that Elena believes they're real.
There is Stefan, holding hands with Caroline, both smiling over a huge ice cream sundae, Jeremy, smiling with a girl at the decade dance, dressed in silly clothes, then there's Matt in front of the Eiffel tower, with a blonde girl who suspiciously looks like Rebekah. (Something akin to anger flares in Elena's chest, but then, she remembers Rebekah did what she did for family - and who could be more understanding of this reason than Elena. According to some written reports Damon went off the grid to search for Katherine - to look for Elena or just to replace her it's not clear - and Bonnie joined some shady cult, after trying to stop Klaus' heart with dark magic, it seems she got more interested in the art of witchcraft. And though Elena wants to shake some sense into Bonnie, she's not that afraid of her, she kind of understand her lost friend's impulse to just up and leave everything behind. When Elena sees Tyler - now with the right kind of glint in his eyes - tracking in some mountain wilderness, she sighs a sigh of relief.
It's not strange that Klaus went this far to track them (it might be paranoid, but that's not a surprise or a disadvantage when you're the evilest evil), but it's strange that he let her see. Elena doesn't know whether it makes Klaus a cruel monster or someone who's capable of compassion. (She doesn't know which option is the worse.)
When Elena walks in the scene, she has a choice to make, and she doesn't even think about it, not right then and there, it comes so naturally and easy to her.
Alaric found some witches, who were eager enough to 'restore the balance of nature' by capturing Klaus and delivering him to Alaric, and even though Klaus had put up a good fight with his army of hybrids, the witches found a way to disable them, they are lying in anguish or unconscious all around the living room. It registers oddly in Elena's mind that if the circumstances weren't so dire, this house could be on the front page of some kind of house décor magazine. But maybe it's the shock talking, because what she sees in the center of the room freezes the blood in her veins.
Klaus being helpless is a sight that doesn't make sense to her. Sure, they tried to incapacitate him and it seemed sometimes that they won, but he always came back, smirking and mocking. But now he's lying in a pool of his own blood in a circle of green flames, three witches chanting around him. As the unfamiliar and harsh-sounding words fall and rise in an uncomfortable rhythm that makes her skin bristle, she sees that all kinds of wounds open up all around Klaus' skin, painting red flowers on his shirt.
He can't get up, the spell holds him, it's clear, so Elena does the only think she can think of: pulls the knife out of her boot - a knife that's her only constant companion, she stole it from the kitchen one morning and lays it under her pillow every night - and stabs the nearest witch in the general area of the abdomen. She doesn't want to kill her, just distract her enough to break the spell, but as soon as the blood spurts from the stab wound, the witch spins on her and throws her at the wall with an invisible magic force, so it doesn't seem it was much use.
Elena lands with a sickening crunch, and her whole head ignites with pain as the world tilts around her. She tries to scramble up, or she thinks she tries to, everything is just a blur of colors and she swears she can hear screams, but the buzzing in her ears is much louder, so she can't be sure.
And then she feels someone grabbing her, she tries to fight them off, but soon something solid and warm is pushed to her mouth and a coppery taste blooms on her tongue. The pain slowly fades away and the world comes to focus again, and she can see that's Klaus is kneeling before her.
In some twisted way, he's like the knight in shining armor, kneeling before the princess, and in some alternate universe it could mean something, she thinks, because they fought together, they saved each other's life, and 'that's how it started with Damon,' a mean little voice whispers in her ear.
But she shakes her head to clear her thoughts and sees Klaus there - her ultimate opposite - the cruel, uncaring, selfish bastard, who takes what he wants, and realizes that this prince is covered in blood, enjoys killings and he's the big bad dragon that hoards treasures and kidnaps women. She almost laughs at this thought, but Klaus cuts in.
"Are you really this suicidal?" he almost shouts, his fury slaps her in the face, she even winces a bit.
"You know, a thank you would suffice." She crosses her arms defensively because her thoughts jump to her knife and its calming presence and the promise of a clear ending by sharpness.
Klaus only stands up and starts to direct his hybrids to clean up the place, and doesn't even look at Elena, and though she's only watching him from the corner of her eyes, she can feel his tension, his controlled, bottled-up rage, and she's wondering what causes it. That she had to save him? Would he feel obliged to let her go now? What would she do if she were free?
She doesn't know the answer to any of these questions, but she retrieves her knife - it's hers, she's sleeping with it for almost a year now - and she clutches it hard. It's hers, it's her decision, it's the only thing she can control.
"No, you can't do this." Elena's voice is so sharp it could cut someone in half, though it doesn't seem to affect Klaus.
"Sweetheart, I surely can and I will," he says, grabbing her arms in a strong vice-like grip.
She wants to close her eyes, wants everything to just stop already, she doesn't want to suffer through another loss - because she knows what comes next is surely a loss - because she's not sure she won't be blown apart by it. She lived through a lot, and she didn't really break, but after everything she's just constantly afraid, and this fear eats her alive bit by bit. If she has someone to love and care for, she could defeat it for another day, but otherwise…
"I'm bored by your antics," he drawls, "If I need your blood, I can always tap you, I'll know where you'll be, don't worry, but I can't stand your moral whining…"
Elena snorts, and the anger rises up in her, though it doesn't burn her, it gives her strength now.
"You're afraid." Now it's Klaus turn to snort. "Afraid to let people get close to you, because you're afraid they'll leave you, like your family, or you lost them, like Ta-"
He grips her harder, cutting her speech and she hisses in pain, as he starts to say:
"Enough." And his eyes turns mesmerizing, like some force you can't look at and at the same time you can't look away. "You will forget everything."
And slowly, but surely bit by bit, everything blurs and the edges and fades away, like old photographs curling on themselves. How funny, she thoughts, how easily you can lose your entire life.
Julia meets him in a bar, when she's out with her friends drinking. She always gets what she wants, everybody knows that, so she waltzes over all confidence and high heels and smiles. He's cute, English, interesting, intellectual and funny - in other words: exactly her type.
She assesses him as the one night stand type of guy, and what the hell, she lives only once, so why not, she enjoys everything in life to the extremes, she can't deny herself some indulgence. They're drinking shots, talking, flirting, everything going smoothly, but as she tries to indicate that they leave for a little alone time, he cuts her off.
"You will surely hate me," he says. "And I'm terribly selfish, but…" A long pause as he clearly contemplates something, and she almost makes her decision to not make a move because maybe something's off with this guy, but then she looks into his eyes, and she can't just look away, they're so magnetic. "You'll remember everything."
And suddenly the memories rush in, like a tide, filling every little crooks and cranny of her with oozing unpleasant things, dread and darkness creep in where up until then a happy, shining college girl's mostly careless life was. Grief tears into her, sadness shreds her to pieces, but Memories of smiles, touches, gestures, kindness and loyalty patches her up. She's battered and bruised, but she's Elena Gilbert and she wasn't this happy in a long time.
As she wrestles with her mixed feelings, with her indignation about him wiping her memory, and her relief and - yes, happiness - that he got around and sees her way, she decides that she tries to live her life the best she could, something that Julia thought her - or is really Old Elena?
So she grabs the lapel of his shirt and pulls him into her, and presses her mouth hard to his. He seems a bit surprised but doesn't protest, instead gives in. Elena tries to convey everything with this gesture: how much she's angry at him, and how much she cares about him and that despite all of their fucked up past, she wants him, and only him. It's a desperate, fierce kiss, she even cuts her tongue on his lengthening fangs, but doesn't care, it's even fitting because the blood bounds them together too.
When they pull apart, he seems amused, "I was expecting a slap and some shouting."
Elena nods, quirking up one side of her mouth.
"There will be, but I'm not that sober now, and I'm too fucking relieved to care."
They sit there in companionable silence, and Elena's surprised that it's Klaus who breaks it.
"So what do we do now?"
Elena thinks of the witches, that night seems a lifetime ago, and when she looks into Klaus' eyes, she can almost see her own memories there. That was the day when this something between them started - no, it started way before that - but it changed. He saved her, that's true, but she also saved him, and yes, it was a turning point, but also it was much more than that. They not just saved each other, but helped the other realize they can be mended, they are worth saving and give strength to the other, so that they could save themselves.
"Live, I guess. That's hard enough."
She could have escaped, she thinks, but she chose to hunt down Klaus when he told her, he's going to see the witches and teach them a lesson, even though she softly reminded him that this might not be the best idea.
She still clutches her knife, like it's her only lifeline and the moonshine shines the drying blood on it. She feels oddly detached, like she's walking in a dream, so she doesn't really know how she finds herself on a top of a building, but there she is standing on the edge.
And it's ironic, because finally she's where she needs to be, where something makes sense: she were on the edge since her parents died - her adoptive ones - but she could always put on a smile and dance off in the last moment. She never really thought about ending her life, not in these terms, plain and clear, but she had the sense that she's been left behind, that she shouldn't be here.
And it just got worse when everything started to fall apart, when vampires and werewolves and curses showed up. Death, death, death,everywhere she turned, and she courted it - or did she play it safe because vampires die harder? Did she really find the Salvatore brothers so appealing because they were practically immortal and she didn't want anyone ever to leave her again?
The main thing is: every death stole a piece of her, every one of them hit her with grief, and now she doesn't know if there's enough left of her to put herself back together. That's why she ran away, isn't it? Because she did run, she has to admit, though it was easier to blame it on Klaus.
She's literally on the edge, and she sways, she doesn't know if she will fall this time and if she does, how much it will hurt, but she feels the darkness and the void below her beckoning, tempting her. It's just one step and everything would be over. She lifts her foot up and -
Someone is holding her - holding her together, picking up the pieces she carelessly left scattered? - and it's solid and real and her head clears for a moment.
It's a very strange kind of déjà vu, she remembers the first time when his arms sneaked around her, holding her so close she could feel every inch of his body, his breath on her neck and his need, which almost burned her, hotter than the flames circling them. She dreamed a lot about that night, so every little detail is etched into her memory: the warmth of him, the beating of his heart, and how intimate and gentle was his touch, though he wanted to kill her. (He did kill her, he's her own death - so maybe that's why she's relaxing and arching back into his touch now. She abandons everything, it's her last and final decision.)
"Does this make us even?" he asks softly, the worlds are barely above whispers and the wind scatters them, as he lifts her off the ledge. And Elena has her answer after all, and she lets the knife hit the roof with a clatter.
And by now you know it isn't the story which was read to you as a child, it's full of dark corners and shadows and hidden monsters, and there are parts that they left out, fearing they would frighten you: that living isn't easy, the good doesn't always win, and really 'good' doesn't exist, because life sits on a murky line between black and white, that there are hard, impossible decisions, and that hearts can break over and over again into a million pieces even if you drew up stone hard walls around them.
And sometimes the girl leaves her window open to let the monster in, and it promises not to hurt her, because, you see, monsters long for Happily Ever After, too.
And they lived -