I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.
The winter sky outside the hut was darkening rapidly, and the Mikaelson siblings were wrapped in furs to try and keep the cold at bay while they waited for twelve year old Kol to return home.
The fire was blazing and Rebekah was sitting as close to it as possible, without of course igniting herself, although in this temperature the idea was tempting. "Where is he?" She asked, her tone laced with worry, she had not seen Kol since earlier that afternoon, when she was playing with her friends, and he had been walking with Fia, a pretty girl in the village he had taken an interest in. The eight year old wrinkled her nose, she did not like her, she was slow-witted and unkind, but Kol worshipped the ground she walked on, Rebekah would not admit that that was a large part of the reason she did not like the other girl.
"If we knew that, then we would not all be wondering." Niklaus replied, a little sharply.
Rebekah glared at him, "you are only being mean to me because you are worried about Kol."
"Shut up." He mumbled, pretending she was wrong, she smiled triumphantly and returned to staring longingly into the fire.
He sighed when he saw her shivering and sat down beside her, throwing his thick fur blanket over both of them, she shifted closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
"When was the last time anybody saw him?" Elijah posed the question to the room sensibly.
"I have not seen him since mother prepared breakfast this morning." Finn replied automatically, no one was surprised, none of them had been expecting to hear that he had made any contact with Kol other than what was necessary.
"I saw him down by the river earlier, he was with his friends, I shouted taunts to him and then left." Elijah almost rolled his eyes at Nik's admission. That was until Finn spoke.
"Do you think he might have fallen in?"
"No, well he might have done, but he would not have drowned, he is a strong swimmer and there were others nearby." Niklaus quickly assured them, seemingly irritated that Finn had made such a suggestion in front of an already concerned Rebekah.
"I saw him too. He was with Fia again, they were walking together in the forest." Rebekah supplied helpfully.
"We should go and search for him." Elijah finally decided, "Finn you come with me, Niklaus and Rebekah will stay here."
"I am not going to stay here." Klaus objected, he was fifteen years old, "I am not a child."
"I did not say that you were." Elijah pointed out, with raised eyebrows, clearly disagreeing. He and Niklaus usually got on well, but he did not want to deal with his wounded pride at the current time. "Somebody needs to remain with Rebekah and Henrich."
"I can come with you." She offered eagerly, she did not want to stay in the hut while Kol could be all alone and scared somewhere.
"No you cannot." Elijah responded firmly.
"Why can't Finn stay?" Klaus wondered.
Elijah glowered at him, "we do not have time for this, Niklaus."
"Alright." He accepted defeat, he did not want Kol to be left outside in the freezing weather any longer just because he wanted to make a point. He would have plenty of time to develop his point while Elijah and Finn were gone.
When the two eldest brothers left, Klaus turned to Rebekah who looked as though she were stubbornly holding back tears, and felt a sudden rush of affection for her, he pulled her slightly closer.
"They will find him, Rebekah, do not worry."
She nodded, "if mother were here, she would know what to do."
He could not disagree with her on that point. As the head of the family, Mikael may have been officially in charge, but Esther was more intelligent than her husband by far, and he often turned to her for help with problems he could not find any solution to.
But Esther was not there, she and Mikael had gone to a village several miles away to celebrate the wedding of an old friend's eldest daughter. They trusted Elijah enough to leave him in charge, even if he could not cook very well.
Elijah and Finn scoured the village for signs of Kol, their skin was being chapped by the strong wind, they were shuddering almost uncontrollably and Finn's dry hands had even begun to bleed, but they ignored it all in their attempt to find Kol.
Finn had visited Fia's hut, she was there safe, and had been for hours, she did not know, or would not admit to where Kol was.
Elijah spoke to the families of each of Kol's closest friends, none of whom had seen him.
Together they checked the forest, although they could not get far into it without risking getting lost themselves, from what they could see there was no recent set of footprints, or even signs that anyone had passed nearby for hours.
"What about the river?" Finn spoke to Elijah for the first time since leaving the hut.
He nodded and they practically ran though the village to get to the slow moving, freezing water, both from a desire to find Kol and to warm themselves up.
"Kol! Kol!" Elijah hollered as he ran along the river bed. He stared at the clear, deep water in horror, if his brother had fallen in….
As the door to the hut slowly creaked open, both Klaus and Rebekah's necks snapped towards it as Kol stumbled inside from the cold.
Both stood and ran to him, "Kol, what happened?" Rebekah demanded, taking in his appearance. His hair was rumpled and he was shaking almost violently.
Klaus watched him expectantly for ten seconds before asking, "Where were you then? With your little girlfriend?" He teased angrily.
"She's not my girlfriend." He replied.
Nik rolled his eyes at his brother completely missing the point, "I am not at all surprised considering you're apparently brain damaged."
"Shut up, Nik!"
"Enough." Elijah intervened before their bickering could develop into a real quarrel. "where were you, Kol? You know that you cannot simply disappear without telling anybody."
"Leave me alone!" He growled and shoved the furs away from him, as he stormed towards the bedroom they all shared. He wanted to be by himself, without all of their intrusive questions, it was none of their business what he had been doing all day.
He had planned to dramatically throw himself onto the bed, but that plan was ruined when he saw that Henrich was asleep in it. Plan B had been to simply crawl under the covers and go to sleep, but Henrich was also in the way of that plan, because the six year old had chosen to go to sleep in the centre of the bed. He sighed in exasperation and attempted to get into the bed without waking his little brother, it failed. As soon as he slid under the furs, Henrich's brown eyes flew open and snapped to him.
"Hello, Kol." He mumbled sleepily, wiping at his eyes with his tiny fists.
He grinned grudgingly at his brother, and laughed once as he latched onto him for warmth.
An hour or so later, Kol was still awake when his older brothers and his sister came to bed. On the one hand, he was glad to have them there for the extra warmth, but on the other Elijah still wanted answers, Nik was probably still annoyed with him and Finn was… well Finn seemed indifferent to the whole affair now that he had been found alive.
Elijah and Finn lay either end of the bed, as always, and the rest of them were in the middle. Rebekah lay next to Finn, although Klaus tried to convince her to sleep between he and Kol, Kol was unsure whether this was out of a desire to keep their sister warm, or to avoid being next to him.
Bekah fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, and Finn just minutes after that, leaving Kol with only Elijah and Klaus.
"What happened tonight, Kol?" Elijah inquired gently.
"I…I do not wish to speak about it." He hissed eventually.
"Fortunately, nobody cares what you want." Niklaus quipped, Kol rolled his eyes, it was so like Klaus to still be angry.
He sighed, he knew that he was being a little unfair, if one of the others had disappeared then he would have been furious with them. "I am sorry."
Nik did not say anything for so long that Kol began to think that he had either gone to sleep or was ignoring him.
"Apology accepted, but for good measure, you can assist me in cleaning the stables tomorrow."
He laughed quietly, at the clear amusement in his brother's voice. His laugh was cut off by a grunt of pain as Nik good naturedly smacked his chest.
"What is it, Kol?" Elijah's voice bled with a concern it probably would not posses had Kol not been missing for part of the night.
"Nothing." He replied unconvincingly, and he missed Elijah and Klaus sharing a look. As soon as he relaxed, seemingly having fooled his brothers, Klaus grabbed his tunic and pulled it up so that he and Elijah had a good view of his pale chest, and the ugly bruises marring it..
"What the hell happened?" Niklaus demanded in a whisper, only just remembering that the others were still sleeping.
"Nothing! I…I fell."
"On your chest?" Klaus was sceptical.
"It was not a fall exactly… more a …"
"Lie." Elijah supplied with raised eyebrows.
Kol sighed and glared from one brother to the other, they were literally surrounding him.
"We can hardly talk here." Elijah realised and climbed out of the bed, looking pointedly at both Klaus and Kol to follow his lead.
On account of the bitter weather, both were extremely reluctant to leave the comfort of the bed, but upon seeing Elijah's expression of you're-getting-out-if-I have-to-drag-you-out-myself, hastily clambered out from under the warm furs and into the cold air of the small bedroom.
In the main room of the hut, they found their abandoned furs wrapped them around themselves once again and sat by the still-burning fire.
"Tell us what happened, Kol, the truth this time." Elijah instructed firmly but gently.
"I…I do not really know myself." He confessed, staring fixatedly down at the dirt floor as though something fascinating was occurring there.
"What do you mean, you do not know?" Nik asked sceptically, staring at Kol as though he were an idiot.
"I…" He stopped and thought for a few moments before continuing" Uwe asked me to help him carry a deer he had killed into his hut so that it could be prepared for eating."
Both of his brothers were still watching him expectantly, so far no part of his story was at all odd. Uwe was another man who lived in the village, a fairly quiet, middle aged man. All either of the older brothers really knew about him was that he was quite a good hunter and that he had been widowed when his wife died giving birth to a still born child.
"After I helped him he offered me a drink of mead."
"Are you going to tell us how you got the bruises or just tell us about unrelated, mundane incidents that happened to you today?" Klaus interrupted insensitively.
"Be quiet, Niklaus." Elijah ordered and turned to the twelve year old again, "go on, Kol."
"He… he was quite drunk and…he kissed me."
Nik leaned forward and kissed Kol's temple to emphasise his point, "So?" he was staring at Kol in confusion. It was very hypocritical of Kol to complain about others displaying affection, he was far more likely to hug and kiss others than any of his older brothers, or his father were.
"What has this got to do with anything, Kol?" Elijah wondered, speaking in a soft tone.
"It…It was not like when mother, or father, or any of you kiss me.. It was… it was …different." Kol was clearly very uncomfortable as he spoke, his lips trembled slightly and his eyes were glassy.
"Different how?" Elijah was growing more concerned now, it must have been something quite upsetting to cause Kol to behave this way.
"He kissed me." Kol repeated, the stress entering his voice, as he ran his hand through his already messy dark hair. "On the mouth."
Klaus stared at him in shock for a few moments, while Elijah's grip on his shoulder tightened. "Then what happened? Kol!" Elijah snapped.
"I pushed him away, or tried to, he is a very large man. He tried again, and I pushed him, he hit me a few times… on the chest." He added, needlessly indicating the bruises under his tunic.
"Are you alright?" Elijah inquired, his gaze almost uncomfortably intense when it met Kol's.
He nodded mutely.
"Niklaus, Kol, go back to bed." Elijah commanded evenly.
"No." Klaus argued instinctively.
"Go." Elijah repeated, throwing a stern glare in Klaus' direction.
Kol's eyes flickered from one brother to the other, hoping that a fight was not going to break out in the middle of the hut. He was not going to be the one explaining what happened to his parents if that were the case.
Klaus stood reluctantly and, glowering at Elijah, grabbed Kol by the arm and dragged him with him as he stormed silently from the room.
Once they had managed to get back into the shared bed without waking anybody, Kol observed Klaus' anger with a sense of dread building in his gut. He loved his brother, he was fun and even though he often made fun of Kol, he never let anything happen to him, but when he was angry he made a habit of avoiding him. Well that was half a lie. He often liked to provoke Niklaus' temper, but only when it was easy to escape from it. As much as Nik disliked their father, he was just like him in a lot of ways, the nasty temper was certainly one of them.
Kol decided to feign sleep as it would mean keeping out of Nik's way and that Nik could not take his rage out on him. He apparently was not a very good actor.
"Stop it, Kol." He mumbled, surprising Kol by not speaking sharply to him. "You really are a simpleton."
He grinned, "does that mean that your threat of mother and father selling me is an empty one? As I am a simpleton, surely nobody would wish to purchase me?" He teased- it worked, Nik beamed at him and stunned him by shuffling closer to him, close enough that he could be accused of cuddling him. Kol seriously considered mocking him, but grudgingly acknowledged that he appreciated the closeness.
Elijah sat at the shabby wooden table and silently seethed. He was usually quite a calm man, he contained his emotions behind a stoic mask, he very rarely lost his temper and he liked to think of himself as being reasonable. However, he could think of no reasonable excuse for Uwe's behaviour, no matter how much he had had to drink it did not excuse him trying to force himself on people. Elijah's rage grew as he considered his own, and others, interactions with the older man- he had never liked him. He had never been able to put his finger upon what it was about him, but there had always been something… off about him. He had looked past it as the man was a hunting companion of his father's and he trusted his judgement. Mikael was a harsh man, he was also proud and often unreasonable, however he could normally be relied upon to determine allies from enemies.
Elijah was not sure when he fell asleep, but the next thing he was aware of was waking up, almost frozen, at the table still. He groaned and rubbed his eyes tiredly, he was in a fairly good mood, tiredness aside, but then he remembered why he was at the table and the hatred and fury came flooding back almost immediately. He was not as overcome by rage now as he had been the night before. He had been confused then, conflicted over what to do for the best, but not now. Now he knew what he had to do, and he had no problem with doing it.
He crept into the bedroom as quietly as he could manage and held back a groan of annoyance- of course Finn was on the far side of the bed, right next to the wall where it would be impossible for Elijah to wake him without waking the others.
He sighed inaudibly and shook Niklaus, who was nearest him and started to wake each of his siblings.
Rebekah sat up and let out a long yawn, before wiping her eyes and smiling sleepily at her brother. He forced his mouth to turn up, and tried to look happy for her sake. It failed, she frowned and watched him suspiciously. "What is wrong, Elijah?" She questioned, a crease forming between her brows.
"I am tired." He answered, being careful not to deceive her.
She still did not seem convinced, so he spoke quickly, "go with the others to Ayanna's hut and see if she will feed you, I need to speak with Finn."
She was ready to argue, until her stomach growled almost angrily and she considered the delicious breakfast that Ayanna would prepare.
Nik pushed Kol, Rebekah and Henrich out of the door ahead of him, and shot Elijah an extremely distrustful glower as he slipped out after them.
Finn got straight to the point. "What is this about, Elijah?"
"I need your help with something."
Finn raised an eyebrow, indicating that he should continue.
"Kol told Niklaus and I what happened last night. Uwe invited Kol into his hut and he… he attempted to force himself upon him."
Finn's eyebrows nearly detached themselves from his head in surprise. He recovered swiftly and asked, "what are we going to do?"
Elijah and Finn spent the rest of the day finalising the details of their plan, whatever the others were doing, it was keeping them away from the hut, which both the oldest siblings were grateful for.
It was early in the afternoon when the front door swung open and an exhausted Mikael and Esther walked inside.
Esther grinned widely upon seeing her sons and Finn stood to hug his mother. Once se had released Finn from her tight grip, Elijah stood and wrapped his arms around her.
"How was the celebration?" He inquired politely.
"There was a lot of drink and dancing." Mikael replied and he and Esther shared a private glance that caused their oldest son to look away and cringe slightly.
"Where are your brothers and sister?" Esther fretted, since she had not seen them on her way back into the village she had presumed that they would be in the hut.
"I sent them to Ayanna's hut to have breakfast." Elijah replied, endeavouring to behave as naturally as possible. It worked better on his mother than it had on Rebekah but she still seemed slightly suspicious.
"Has anything of interest happened in our absence?" His father wondered, if one of his children had been in trouble, he wanted to hear about it.
"No, it has been fairly uneventful." Finn lied smoothly.
For the rest of the afternoon, and all of the evening, both Elijah and Finn were restless, although as both brothers were fairly stoic, nobody noticed.
When it was finally an appropriate time to retire for the evening both did so, making their other siblings follow suit as their parents had already gone to bed for the night.
They had to wait for an hour or so, Henrich fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, Kol and Rebekah spoke in whispers for fifteen minutes before both fell asleep. The main problem was Klaus, it seemed as though he would never fall asleep, he showed no signs of tiring, and Elijah began to consider holding off he and Finn's plan until the next night. Fortunately, his blonde brother finally succumbed to sleep, and he and Finn slipped out of the bed without disrupting anybody.
They were just sharing a triumphant grin in the hut's main room when a voice spoke up behind them, "where are you going?"
They whirled around to face Kol, and by his side Klaus.
"Go back to bed- both of you." Elijah ordered in a whisper.
"No, tell us what you are doing." Kol argued.
"They are going to find Uwe." Nik announced knowingly and Elijah contemplated killing him. He should have known better than to assume that he had fooled Niklaus, as impulsive and foolish as he could be, he was clever.
"We are going Niklaus, you cannot stop us." Finn spoke for the first time.
Nik turned to him in surprise, "I do not want to stop you, I want to go with you."
"So do I." Kol spoke up.
"No." Elijah replied calmly and automatically, he would not be argued with on this point, neither Klaus nor Kol would be accompanying them.
"I have as much right to come as both of you." Kol snapped, "it was me he hurt, not either of you."
"Kol, go back to the room. Finn and I will take care of this."
"Take care of what?" A stony voice asked from behind them.
The group turned almost simultaneously and saw their father standing imposingly in the doorway from his bedroom.
"Nothing of importance, father. We were simply having a debate." Nik lied with ease, giving Mikael his most charming and trustworthy smile, the one that accented his dimples best.
Mikael knew not to trust it straight away. His gaze moved from Niklaus and Kol and settled on Elijah. "What is going on? You have all been acting oddly all day."
They were all stunned that he had noticed, Mikael was normally unaware of his children's feelings, or he just chose to ignore them.
"Elijah and I decided to go and see Uwe." Finn admitted after a lengthy pause.
Nik glared at him accusingly, but Elijah seemed to accept defeat and confessed the truth to Mikael. He told him about Kol not coming home, finding the bruises and what Kol had confided to himself and Nik.
Once he had finished talking, they all waited for Mikael's possibly explosive reaction.
He was silent for a long time, the silence began to grow uncomfortable and Kol began to wonder if his father was about to drop dead, he seemed to be reddening at an unhealthy rate and the vein in his neck was far more prominent than usual.
"Uwe attempted to force himself upon Kol?" They each nodded, their respective gazes never leaving Mikael. "I have never heard anything so ridiculous." The older man spat contemptuously. "I am going to assume that this is some story one of you concocted earlier this evening to avoid punishment if either your mother or myself found you trying to sneak out for whatever purpose."
"No, father-" Nik began but was silenced.
"Be quiet, Niklaus!" He glared at each of them poisonously, "if I ever hear such a foul lie pass from any of your mouths ever again, so help me, I will confine you to this hut for the rest of your lives." He snarled furiously, he looked to be on the verge of violence.
They all stood frozen in shock, none of them had ever seen their father so enraged, he was an angry man by nature, but this was different, he was dangerous.
Elijah saw Niklaus open his mouth out of the corner of his eye and grabbed his shoulder warningly. He numbly turned away from Mikael and led his brothers back into the bedroom, where they managed to get back into the bed without waking Rebekah or Henrich.
"I cannot believe we actually thought he might help us." Nik hissed angrily.
Kol was mute, he lay down between Elijah and Nik and buried his face in his hands, but everybody could still hear his violent, muffled sobs.
The following morning, everyone's spirits were low, even Henrich had picked up on the tension surrounding his siblings and was quieter than normally.
As they sat at the table eating breakfast, Kol noticed with some confusion that Esther had thrown a bundle of blue fabric into the fire. He contemplated this for a second before deciding that if it kept them warmer, he did not care.
He looked at each face around the table, Elijah's face was like stone, but his eyes seemed sad, Finn was as unreadable as usual, Nik was clearly furious and was not trying to hide it, Rebekah was subdued and Henrich was cautious. He finally turned to his parents, both looked even more tired than when they had arrived home the previous day.
Kol's gaze flickered away as soon as it caught Mikael's, but not before he saw what seemed to be a tiny smile on his father. Kol was slightly confused about his father's behaviour, he did not seem to be angry with him, or any of the others, if anything he was being more affectionate than usual.
It all became clear that afternoon when three of the men in the village carried a bloody, slightly blue body to the centre of the village. Uwe had been drunk the night before and, as he was wandering home drunk, slipped on the ice by the river bed and fallen, cracking his skull open on the rocks below.
Kol felt a surge of relief as he saw that the man was definitely dead and was not going to come back for him, to try and hurt him again.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up, Mikael was standing beside him and gave him a miniscule smile before ushering him and the others back inside the warmth of the hut.
The end.
Poor Kol, I don't know why, but I always end up putting him in awful situations, at least he has his family.
I like to think that even though Mikael was basically a terrible, terrible father, that he did actually love his children, and would protect them.
Please review.