A/N- Hello my lovelies.
So some history for new readers out there. I mentioned in New Paths that Klaus converted to monotheistic religion, so that should hopefully avoid confusion. Also he's not mentioned in this chapter but as I wrote my last saga before we discovered the gender of baby Klayley, I chose for them to have a boy- baby Erik. He may feature in passing in this story.
Thank-you to all my favouriters and followers.
Routine.
A set of customary and often mechanically performed procedures or activities.
Elijah hadn't developed anything beyond the most basic of routines for his thousand years of living, the family had moved about too often in too many different locations for many habits to have taken hold.
Now however, he was in New Orleans with his family and the woman he loved. His father was dead and his enemies were either weak or destroyed.
He was safe and could finally indulge in what he wanted.
Or almost.
The longer a vampire lived, the less sleep they required. Even young vampires generally went to bed at night only out of habit, still stuck in the human belief that the dark was a time for rest not for play.
An Original rarely slept seven nights a week, if their enemies were moving against them they could go days without rest and use the night as easily as the day to win the battle.
After one thousand years they simply did not need sleep when a little downtime, some quiet moments would suffice instead.
Katerina on the other hand, now that she was human, liked to go to be in bed by midnight on a regular day and refused to even consider getting up before eight unless it was for a hair appointment.
So when the sun rose in the morning and Elijah wanted to rise with it and enjoy every hour of the second day with the woman he loved, he tried waking her with butterfly kisses and found himself being rejected with a half-asleep frown.
"Are the Ottomans coming?" she asked as her hand rubbed his chest.
He blinked in understandable confusion,
"No my darling" he assured her, "Even if they were I would never let them take you"
She huffed and rolled over, adjusting her pillow and settling back down to sleep,
"I only get out of bed at this hour if I'm being attacked by Ottomans or Klaus- and only if Klaus is really planning to kill me"
He sat back bemused and checked his watch, in fairness, perhaps five past six in the morning was a little early.
So to pass the time he snuck into his brother's room, woke Niklaus by covering his face with a pillow and 'borrowed' a novel on the way out.
He supposes he can adjust his routine of rising early to suit Katerina.
Indoor plumbing is the most marvellous invention mankind has ever created.
When Elijah was human, bathing was an act that meant going for a swim in the quarry and in the winter it was reduced to a bucket of water that had to be left by the fire for an hour to be warm enough to wash with.
As a vampire, less prone to suffering from the cold he could bathe weekly if he wished, but for many centuries those around him considered such an idea absurd.
There is nothing worse for a vampire than being surrounded by people who haven't washed properly for the better part of a year and consider perfume an appropriate substitute.
The stench was positively painful sometimes.
But with the advance of indoor plumbing…oh the wonders of indoor plumbing.
Hot water makes the process heavenly but he could shower with icy blast if need be.
He would probably have to if Katerina used the shower.
Instead she prefers to bathe.
When she does finally wake in the morning, she is always first into the bathroom, he rises before her but somehow she lays claim to it before him and runs herself a bath.
Katerina washes herself with rose otto oil that she orders direct from Bulgaria, it is obscenely expensive and Elijah wonders that there is any damask roses left in Kazanlak considering all the bottles of oil that is being shipped directly to his doorstep but when the wondrous scent reaches his nose and the image of his lover splashing in the water as she rubs the washcloth over her fair skin…
He really doesn't mind waiting until she is finished with the bathroom, not when he gets to wrap his arms around her as he moves past, his lips pressed against hers for a lingering kiss as her skin tastes divine...
It might be worth contemplating adding cold showers to his routine.
When he climbs out of the shower, wraps a towel around his waist and pads back into the bedroom it is to find Katerina contemplating his wardrobe, casually picking out his clothes for the day.
They never discussed this but somehow every morning, without him having any say, his lover will lay a suit on the bed for him as he draws on his pants and styles his hair and then dress him.
She buttons his shirt, knots his tie, she simply can't be trusted with the fly of his pants because despite her attempt to feign innocence her fingers always brushed his crotch numerous times in direct threat to his dignity.
Finally, she will clasp his cufflinks and he'll be ready for the day.
At the end of the day, when she is tired and ready for bed, he'll sit her down and unlace, unzip, unbuckle or unstrap whatever monstrosity of high heeled shoe she has chosen to wear that day.
Grinning at her sigh of relief when she can place bare feet on their carpet, next he will take her jewellery off her wrists or neck, placing it back in the correct boxes, laying a kiss there before ushering her to her feet so he can zip her dress or slip her top off, if she is wearing pants he'll have his revenge for the morning by undoing the button or zip whilst stroking the flesh above the fabric but he doesn't try to ease her pants off her legs.
The pants she wears are skin tight and whilst he is a true admirer of how wonderfully the material presents her gorgeous body, it baffles him how she gets them on or off.
This routine they practise is more one of devotion than of seduction, a time when not many words are spoken but the gestures communicate endlessly.
Her choice of suit in the morning is her way of saying 'I care about you'
When he slips her shoes off her feet and squeezes the sole tenderly he is saying, 'You can rest now'
Katerina brushing her fingers over his pants as she pretends to struggle with the zipper,
'I desire you'
When his hands- innocently of course- stroke her bare flesh after her dress or top comes off, 'Now, my darling'
He realises that a great portion of their day is emotional foreplay.
Consumption of food is another routine that is quickly developed upon Katerina settling into the French Quarter.
Of course for him eating is something that is done for the pleasure of the experience or to be polite, sometimes it is used for ceremony, never does he require it for nourishment.
Katerina requires three square meals a day- or insists she does lest her hunger cause her to become 'a totally homicidal bitch'.
Elijah is happy to heed that warning.
Yet food was a strange commodity in the Mikaelson household. They did not need it for sustenance and preferred to consume it in small quantities.
As such, they had gone weeks, sometimes months without ever seeing so much as a stick of butter in their larder.
Now, however, every morning Elijah sees to it that fresh fruit and a range of pastries is delivered to their door so he can make breakfast for Katerina, slicing the fruit and preparing a pot of coffee and carafe of juice whilst she finds the newspapers Klaus has already read but always leaves in a different place, sometimes hiding them on top of bookshelves or under couch pillows just to vex them.
They settle down at the table and he reads the paper whilst she eats and then figure out what they wish to do that day.
Elijah doesn't really have a job, not one that goes from nine-to-five and which rewards him every two weeks with a pay cheque.
Those who have to sit at a desk for eight hours a day would not consider what he does to be work at all.
For everyday he does something different.
Recently he has been overlooking the restoration of the manor on Bourbon Street, having been absolutely horrified to see the level of decrepitude it had been allowed to fall into.
So every morning he and Katerina will walk the short distance from Conti Street to the manor and she'll leave him with the contractors while she goes off on her own to 'run errands' or 'do business'.
It sounds to him an awful lot like she's building a criminal empire or conspiring in such a manner as to make a Medici sit up and take notice but she claims she's just doing feminine things so he doesn't worry and she'll be back around just after midday so that they can get lunch together.
This is a routine he enjoys thoroughly, every day they try a new restaurant, venturing all over the city and trying every cuisine on offer.
Holding hands, chatting inanely, playing tourists in their own town, it isn't until he overhears a few of the builders talking about his 'hot girlfriend' that he realises that this routine could be construed as a date.
He's never been on a date before.
He enjoys them.
He especially enjoys afterwards when they walk or catch a streetcar back to the manor on Bourbon St, Katerina will take his hand, lead him to the study on the second floor or his old bedroom, push him onto a flat surface, straddle him and proceed to kiss him senseless.
Sometimes this goes on for hours, sometimes five minutes before Elijah hears one of the contractors about to damage two hundred year old wood panelling and has to get back to work but it always happens without fail.
Dinner is a routine they haven't been able to cement yet.
Sometimes it takes place in their home, other times Katerina will eat alone because he won't be back in time, occasionally Klaus will even join her for dinner and make brisk conversation designed for unnerving rather than socialisation.
He is always annoyed with business, be it human or supernatural, causes him to miss dinner with the woman he loves but he absolutely refuses to not be home by midnight to join Katerina in bed.
Once he did not make it back in time, through no fault of his own- he had been staked and daggered by amateur vampire hunters- but when he did finally climb the stairs and slip into their bedroom it was to find the lights still on and Katerina dozing on the windowsill, waiting for him.
They never go to bed without one another.
Even on Saturday nights when the French Quarter comes alive for the third night in a row, with the locals bar hopping up and down the streets surrounding Bourbon but rarely walking down that main tourist trap.
The supernatural factions will come together for the night, either at an expensive charity function designed to show off their power and prestige or at a bar where they can fill capacity and socialise without worry of being overseen or overheard by outsiders.
Around midnight he and Katerina will usually be separated when she goes dancing with the sycophants who are so ready to befriend his lover, he will remain at the tables or the bar with his acquaintances, in discussion but with one eye on the beautiful minx who so easily attracts the male and female gaze on the dance floor.
By six am the bar will typically be out of top shelf liquor and Katerina will have settled herself on his lap and begun whispering seductively in his ear, which leads to the routine of him getting them home as quickly as possible- usually with vampiric speed- and they will take a long, hot shower together in which they never seem to release each other long enough to worry about getting clean.
Unfortunately they don't get to spend Sunday in bed, in fact once they're out of the shower they have to get dressed and ready for church.
Katerina was bewildered when he first explained that the Originals were regular attendees at St Anne's Church for Sunday Mass and asked her to accompany them, after all Elijah had been born and raised in the Norse religion, Klaus had converted to Catholicism at the behest of Cesare Borgia but was for all intents and purposes lapsed and she was Bulgarian Orthodox but had abandoned her religion back in 1498.
However, he elucidates that attendance is less for religious purposes as it is a requirement for the leaders of the community to show their support for this centrepiece in the Quarter. A chance to see, to be seen and to maintain good relations with the other factions.
So with a relenting sigh, his lover drapes a white lace mantilla over her beautiful curls, presenting the image of a pious beauty as opposed to a woman who just an hour or so earlier was indulging in ever hedonistic pleasure that took her fancy and will sit in the front row between Niklaus and himself, pretending to listen as Father Kieran is reading from the Holy Scripture whilst more likely she daydreaming about her next pair of shoes.
These are simple, everyday activities that people all over New Orleans performed with apathy or reluctance, unaware or failing to consider those routines as anything particularly special or worthy of notice.
But Elijah treasures every last one of them.
A/N- Also I am taking suggestions for this story, if there is anything you would like me to cover, PM me or stick it in the reviews.
Next chapter- The Originals decide that their current home is too small and Katherine and Elijah go house hunting.
