After the Fire, But Before the Flood
Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: In a post-apocalyptic world, Elena and Klaus learn to symbiote. With sex.
Spoilers: Everything through season 2.
Rating: R
Warnings: Explicit sexual situations, character death
A/N: This story is told non-chronologically, so I understand that the timeline may seem confusing. For future reference: If the first sentence of a scene is in italics, that means that that's a flashback scene explaining how events have led Klaus and Elena to where they are. These are told non-chronologically. If the entire scene is in italics, then that's referring to a specific moment that I'll be revisiting a few times (it's important). If the scene starts in normal font, then that's the "present" time line.
Again, I'm sorry if this is confusing at all. I'm hoping it's fairly intuitive though without the note.
For a short while, Elijah's promise seems true.
After all the confusion about Elena's identity is cleared up, and Elijah's family is caught up on the year and recent events (and oh, that's fun), Elena and Caroline return to Mystic Falls.
At first, the Originals all agree Klaus must be hunted and destroyed. They vow to use every resource, every bloodline of witches pledged into their service centuries ago, to do it.
There is, of course, a small caveat to their assistance—it seems that a world where the Original Family remains irrelevant to almost all vampires is a world that the Original Family cannot endure.
Soon after that, the in-fighting starts.
Within the week, this family Elijah has risked everything to reunite is at each others' throats. None can agree on a course of action, and past blames still brew in their hearts.
And when all is said and done...
"Wait."
She launches herself forward, but trips on the arm that had been the focus of her impassioned study just a moment ago.
He does not respond to her words, other than to pause.
Elena herself couldn't begin to tell him what it is she wants from him. What could she want? Isn't all of this his fault, for taking Stefan in the first place? No, it's your fault, she reminds herself. You're the one who couldn't leave Elijah well enough alone.
Her eyes skitter to his ashy remains where Klaus had lingered so long.
Finally, she breathes, "I don't know where to go."
His shoulders tense, slightly before he answers, "Not my problem, sweetheart."
Elena bites her tongue when the ground beneath her feet splits in two, swallowing the corpses at her feet.
She expects this to be the end—except Klaus saves her.
He grabs her by the forearm and hauls her against him.
Sense memory of that night floods her.
She struggles.
"Put me down, put me down, put me down." For a brief moment, the earth jounces toward her before Klaus pulls her back.
Stefan and Damon have disappeared under that earth, and she should go to them—
"Elena, dear, I'm going to think twice about rescuing you next time if you scratch my face with all of this flailing."
Outside, Elena can hear the cathedral bells tolling the hour. She wonders how long until the computer activating the bells every hour fails, and the sound becomes another thing forgotten.
Klaus has been gone a few hours now.
According to him, they are somewhere in Northern Spain—Basque Country—but she wouldn't be able to tell if he were lying to her. The Atlantic has crept up and submerged the cities to the south—Seville, Barcelona, Toledo and Madrid—all those places she wanted to go and now would probably never see.
Unless.
The thought makes her frown a little, because it wasn't so long ago that she thought she'd never even see her eighteenth birthday.
Wherever they are, the house Klaus has chosen sits high against the mountains, providing Elena with a vista of the ocean lapping against rolling hills that Klaus tells her were fat with grazing sheep and cattle last time he was here. Further in the distance, she can see the tips of the medieval Cathedral peeking through the water, bells ropes not yet rotten from the damp and the sea salt.
The bell tolls nine more times before Klaus returns. He isn't scowling, precisely, but Elena can tell from the unstained white of his shirt that he didn't get what he wanted.
Perfunctorily, she sweeps her hair aside for him and bears her neck.
The witches, ultimately, are probably the ones at fault for breaking the world.
When the Originals turn on each other and war breaks out amongst the factions, they use the witches they had pledged would help destroy Klaus against each other.
Bonnie disappears, and Elena and Jeremy can only guess which Original has her in his army.
There are just too many witches, drawing on the stars and moon and sun and sapping all of the light and heat from the heavens.
The earth heaves and shudders, the sea rolls high over the coastline and drowns the great cities, and fires light the night sky like burnished jewels.
A brand-new fault line splits Mystic Falls down the middle. It's new, and inexplicable by science, and, like a shark swimming in the depths of the ocean, undetected until an earthquake rips the town apart while everyone is sleeping.
Elena is with Damon when it happens, taking sullen tequila shots and trying to come up with a plan to find Bonnie.
He shelters her, shielding her from the falling ceiling beams and the rain of crashing plaster with his own body.
Jeremy had left not ten minutes earlier.
They find his car on the side of the road, flipped and wrapped around a tree.
Elena stumbles forward, claws at the doors.
Damon has to rip them open for her, the warped metal coming away from the frame like tissue wrapping.
Inside, Jeremy's neck is twisted at a vicious angle, his eyes like black glass.
"He'll wake up, though," Elena says, voice shivering through the octaves. "The witches caused this earthquake," she mumbles as she searches for the ring on his finger. "That makes it supernatural. He'll wake up."
Slowly, Damon shakes his head. "I don't think you need to see this, Elena." He pulls her against him and threads his hands through her hair.
"He'll wake up." She repeats. "I know it. The witches…"
Damon buries Jeremy the next day.
At some point, one of Elijah's brothers gets it in his head that Elena, the doppelganger, is the key to his brother's submission.
Unfortunately, he is right.
Damon comes for her, of course.
Before he can break her free, Stefan arrives on scene.
He's nothing like she remembers, but still everything she wants. His time away has slashed hard lines into his face, added a cruel twist to his mouth. But when he spots her, underneath it all, she still sees love.
Around them, Originals and witches and subordinate vampires battle. Elijah's forces pull madly against those of his brother's in an unwinnable stale mate.
Stefan weaves through the chaos, and, against the odds, wrests her from the vampires guarding her.
Elena flings herself against him, unheeding of the blood dried on his chin, uncaring of the veins that sizzle under his eyes when she draws too near.
After she is really certain he is there, but before she notices that she has begun to weep, she asks, "Stefan, how did you get here? I thought you were with Klaus—"
He tenses against her and she pulls away from the embrace to look behind her.
"Hello, brother," Damon murmurs as he ghosts in next to them. His voice echoes like a memory she never knew she had.
Stefan nods in his brother's direction. Something passes between them, wordlessly, because the brothers are on her then, pressing her between them as they run.
They are going too fast for Elena's human brain to process.
She imagines what tonight will be like—her mind turns to what they will say when they are tucked safe inside of the Boarding House, to all the questions she will have for Stefan and all of the guilt she'll simply have to push aside concerning what she has been up to with Damon. Maybe it will all work itself out. Deep inside of her, Elena has the sense that this is right. Damon's arms on one side, Stefan's on the other. It's okay to love them both. Now that she has them both, she turns the thought over carefully in her mind. Maybe—
Damon lets go of her arm, and Stefan nearly trips when he has to readjust.
Elena glances down and realizes.
Damon's skin has turned a familiar shade of gray and she knows, before she ever sees the dark wood protruding from his ribcage.
Stefan's mouth hangs open as he stares at his brother. He leaves her, then, and sinks to his knees beside his brother's corpse.
"Stefan," she calls, before realizing her voice has no strength. She tries again and latches onto his arm. "Stefan, we need to leave. Now."
He turns to look at her.
His expression unhinges her soul.
A stray vampire jams a stake through Stefan's heart, and he dies with that look frozen on his features.
It wasn't always like this.
The thought swims like a dizzy fish through Elena's mind as Klaus growls against her throat.
She hopes he'll finish soon. She's beginning to see black around the edges of her vision.
Just as she thinks she'll probably swoon, he pulls back and swings her up, bridal style, into his arms. His lips are already on hers as he puts her down and presses her against the nearest flat surface—the wall, this time.
She can taste herself on his lips. The taste reminds her of a dirty penny, and something else, something older and more primal lurking underneath the haze of flavor. She licks into his mouth, searching for more so she can figure out what she senses.
He chuckles as he pulls away and begins nosing her jawline. "Sometimes, I think you'd make a very interesting vampire." He breathes the words into her skin, where they sit until they sound like truth.
She stiffens a little beneath him, as she always does when he brings this up, and wills her muscles to relax. It's out of her hands. They both know he'll get his way, ultimately, whatever that turns out to be.
Deliberately, Elena wraps her legs around Klaus's waist and arches against him.
He adjusts easily, taking her weight and pulling at her clothes almost like she's a doll.
Except when he looks at her, she sees something that tells her otherwise. She hasn't pieced together what that otherwise entails yet, but give her time and she'll have an answer.
His hands distract her from the thought as he pushes past her panties and runs a thumb against her slit.
She bites back the whimper that wants to climb out of her throat, because she won't give him that satisfaction this early in the day.
"Now, now, Elena," he chides as he rubs the rough pad of his thumb against her clit. "Let's not be mulish." He nips at the ragged flesh edging his bite. When he speaks, his voice is a husky whisper. "What say you, my lovely? Will you scream for me? Or if not with a bang, then with a whimper?"
She bucks against him as he increases his tempo. She holds his gaze as she loops her arms behind his head and draws him closer.
He treats her to a vicious grin, all sharp teeth and predatory yellow eyes.
In her mind's eye, she sees a different Klaus. The vision blurs with the lover in her arms, overlays his features like a mirage. If she focuses, Elena can see this increasingly familiar vision of him as clear as any memory. There's something almost soft about the curve of his mouth, something tragic about the throb of life beneath his skin—
"Elena, love, let's hear some noise, hmm?"
His voice breaks the spell.
"Hmm, my dear? How does that sound?" He dips a finger inside of her as he speaks. Simultaneously, he begins navigating his way from her neck to her breast, his lips leaving a trail of red stains as he presses wet, open-mouth kisses against her skin.
Blood throbs between her legs, pooling her desire in a damp puddle that has Klaus giving her a nasty little smile.
Finally, she moans. It's a small thing, just a low hitch in her throat, but he hears it just the same.
He curls his fingers just there and that's it, this is all she needs, all she has, as she clings to his shoulders and rides out her pleasure.
Things get hazy from there—she pulls his shirt up and over his head and fumbles with his belt, and, as best as she can tell, he thinks it's all sort of a good joke, the way he admitted not too long ago that he thought dedicating Teen Angel to her at the 60s dance was funny.
Whatever. She doesn't care. Especially when his smile slips and hunger replaces the trace of humor in his eyes as he flips her dress up and twists her panties off.
It's in the moment that he finally slams inside of her, too fast and too hard and just right, that she remembers Elena Gilbert. That once upon a time, she loved a boy, and now she loves a monster.
The girl has nothing to offer him.
If anything, he should extinguish her for what she had unleashed on his yet unravished world—it was supposed to be he that drank the rivers dry of blood, he who tore the beating hearts from men and laughed— But it was all supposed to be in good time. There would be no fun in eternity as the single most powerful being in all the world if there were no world left to conquer.
This girl has ruined everything, he told himself as he pulled her from the wreckage of the battle field. After the sacrifice, she had nothing left to offer him. Nothing except the face of a Petrova.
In the burgeoning morning light, as the sun gilt her hair like honey and the blood trickled down her face, she could almost be…
Yes. Perhaps she had enough to offer him after all.
A/N: Anyone interested to see what happens when Klaus takes her home?
Also, if you have any questions/feedback, please send me a review!