Katherine lie outstretched under the soft downy white pillow the current hotel they were staying at had provided. She'd been in a deep slumber but was suddenly awoken by something, as to what exactly had stirred her from her state of sleep, she had yet to ascertain. Her hazel irises adjusted to the new settings, her long, plump, lashes fluttering slightly as she ran a hand through her unkempt yet still lush curls. Rolling onto her back, she cast a glance at the handsome male that was equally tousled beside her. Kol didn't move at all, his sleep had yet to be interrupted it seemed. Brow furrowed, she solidified herself by justifying that she must have simply awoke, she inched closer to the outline of the Original, running a slender hand down his soft cheek, admiring the smooth aperture of his features. Leaving no more than a few inches between them, the only intimacy she could glean from their relationship, for both of their sakes, she quieted herself and closed her eyes once more, hoping to resume the previous state. However, no more than a few minutes after her lids had shut, she was jolted once more, but this time by an obvious lashing out by Kol. Sitting up quickly, she observed him, he was whimpering, frail, he seemed suddenly vulnerable and as if he could be no older than a teenager.
Bright, blinding light, the screeching and wailing of blonde hair, once flaxen and irreverent, now slowly stained with the deep rouge of her own blood, the stake pulled from her stomach only to be forced into her heart, a bullet wound in her forehead, her eyes vacant and void as the last ounce of vivacity left her, Kol's name lingering on her lips. "Rebekah!" His voice hoarse and painful with the burning anguish of losing his sister. He broke out in a violent throe of fury.
His nightmare broke the boundary between dream and reality, devoid of continum, he lost sense of self and became deranged, "I couldn't save her...I couldn't save her...I lost her..." He was torn between weeping, and torridly screaming, Katherine didn't realize that she was aching until she was physically burdened by his own agony.
"Kol...Kol.." She whispered reaching out to touch him though he instantly recoiled and tried to shake her off, she knew the procedure, this wasn't the first night his nightmares had taken him hostage in the night. Katherine blanketed him, holding his wrists and keeping him close with all the strength she could muster despite the numerous age difference. "Kol...please...come back to me..." She whispered, printing a kiss to his hairline and keeping his body immeasurably close to her own.
His strength of course was incredible in comparison to her own and he ripped from her instantly, as he vividly re-lived, not only his sister's, but his brother Niklaus's death. He was shrieking, his veins on fire, his cells smoldering with the vivacious and explicit harm and exquisite pain. The knife buried so deep in his gut from having his family taken from him, in such a brutal manner that he could barely breath, could barely move, could barely keep himself above the vast sea that was his mind. He was drowning, cultivating such an insane semblance of addiction to his own madness. As if burdening himself with so much white-hot and pure self-loathing was his only way to heal.
Katherine didn't give up on him, she never would and never could. It was implausible, such was their relationship, both symbiotic and parasitic A derisive love that couldn't be tamed. They would never admit their desire and affection for one another but there it stood, just beneath the surface. "Kol. Please, I'm here..." She gripped him even tighter, pressing his writhing body to hers, "Be still..." Nuzzling deep into his neck, pressing a cacophony of kisses to the swell of his neck and jawline, she needed to stem the pain with vulnerability, with the aching physical love she had for him. He came to slightly, unburdened from his sleep, but not fully in the land of the wake yet. "I lost them all...I have nothing left...I am n-nothing..." His brittle agony punctured Katherine's own heart as she clung to him, visibly shaken, "You have me. You'll always have me..." He said nothing for a long time, they both lay equally still, unable to move, enraptured in the space of one another, and one single ounce of broken silence would make it all come crashing down.
Finally they both relaxed into an even tempo, Kol re-surfacing in the slightest. His tongue licking his dry lips, as he repeated her words back to her, as if attempting to make them tangible. "I have you..." It was the truth, he knew that deep down, and it was alway the one thought that calmed him, Katherine's presence in his life, she was his savior and all that he had, and the same was true for her. "I have you..." Again he said it, blanketed it in thick encroachment and deception, his lips skimmed the back of his hand as they were completely entangled in one another. Katherine said nothing, her warm silence the blanket of security that he needed for both of them to fade off to sleep once more.
The following morning, separated apart from Katherine's right leg, snug behind Kol's left, and neither would approach the events of the night, neither would voice it aloud.
They let it stay stagnant in the air between them, an untouchable truth.