Fairytale Ending
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: Klaus takes his girl and his hybrid and gets out of that one pony town.
Spoilers: Through 3x05, The Reckoning
Rating: T for now, but will become R in later chapters
Warnings: I'll be adding more warnings as I update, but for now, hostage situation/explicit violence/gratuitous angst
The library becomes her spot. The door might always be closed, but Klaus has made it clear to her that the room is always open to her, at any time of day.
It's a generous offer. But then, if this is only one of his libraries, it can't be too great a hardship to forfeit his sole ownership of this room. For all she knows, he has another collection somewhere else in the house.
Unlike her bedroom, where Stefan comes in four or five times a day, and where Rebekah has proved she is not afraid to look for her, this room is a refuge. Perhaps because the library is Klaus's personal room, Elena is never disturbed while she is in there. In many ways, she feels safest there, physically… and emotionally.
And what a library it is. Many of the books on the shelves are bound in ornate leather, with real gold leafing spelling out the titles and authors. She reads original editions of Emily Dickinson, the pages as thin and fragile as the melancholic hope of the poems contained within them. She finds an original quarto edition of Shakespeare's Richard III, the binding gone rotten many centuries before, and a copy of William Blake's poems and illustrations. There's a handwritten note in the margins of the Blake book, detailing the poet-artist's acid-based printmaking techniques. She wonders if the writing is Klaus's.
For every book in English she finds six more in a foreign language.
She finds copies of Don Quixote and El Burlador de Sevilla that are half a millennium old. Voltaire and Rousseau's works look particularly well-worn, as though they have been read and re-read. Eighteenth and nineteenth century editions of Greek and Latin classics sit interspliced among Russian novels as thick as her hand.
An oaken trunk, carved with sea-serpents and inlaid with abalone, contains nothing but scrolls, neatly rolled, some tied off with silk ribbon, some housed inside ornate sheaths. They are stacked right up to the brim, like gold doubloons spilling from a treasure chest. She reaches an arm in and pulls one from the bottom. When she unrolls it, the black kanji is impossible for her to decipher, but beautiful nonetheless. The next scroll is a painting of a court-scene featuring elegant women playing stringed instruments and weaving silk, the one after that filled with red and blue demons.
There are other trunks, filled with papers and silks and scrolls, all from different places, different times. Everywhere Klaus has travelled, he has taken something of that place back with him.
She cannot read a word of any these, can scarcely even guess at the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, let alone the Kanji, but she feels as though she is learning something from them nonetheless. And maybe, one day—
She always cuts herself off here. It would be nice, to imagine herself learning Spanish or French or Greek or Russian or Japanese well enough to read it. But she learned, just last year, under the careful instruction of Katherine Pierce and Elijah and Klaus himself, that it would be the worst kind of foolish to imagine she has a future. No woman born with her face has ever had a future.
For a little while, last summer, she thought she might have broken free of the destiny fate spun out for her, but Klaus has shown her differently.
She must live in the eternal present.
She finds the task easier every day.
Klaus joins her sometimes.
Often, he's perfectly acceptable company—he'll come in, and instead of interrupting her, he'll simply pull himself a book from the shelves, or settle in with a glass of liquor in front of the fireplace.
And yet, she cannot help but feel overly tense whenever he comes into the room. The flight or fight response whenever she's around him is nearly impossible to suppress. It seems her body cannot forget that Klaus is the predator who caught her and killed her.
Just the awareness of him in the room makes her whole body thrum. And when he speaks, she can feel the thud of her heart against her ribs, the pulse of blood in her veins, the sweat that trickles at her hairline and between her thighs. She's an entire little ecosystem, rhythms and tides and quakes, and Klaus is the sun, the moon, the thing that sets it all in motion.
And Klaus seems to know it. He takes great pleasure in surprising her—she'll be reading, quite alone, when she'll feel a sudden gust of wind—the sure, true indication of a vampire entering the room—and hear Klaus's voice, directly in her ear, as he reads over her shoulder. "Excellent, choice, Elena," or "I didn't think you'd care for this one. Are you enjoying it?" There's always something in his tone, something that sends alarm bells ringing in her mind. He questions her about what she's reading, but he's never really interested in the books. No… just as it's always been, he's only ever interested in her, her, her.
Once, he catches her with The Monk. As soon as she feels him enter the room, she snaps the book shut and shoves it under the couch cushion, but it's too late.
He gives her a knowing look as he sprawls out in the armchair across from her. "Have you gotten to the part where the tame linnet flies between Antonia's breasts and "nibbles them in wanton play"?"
She had, actually. Elena buries her head in her hands. She can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. Had she ever been so mortified? "Jane Austen mentioned it in Northanger Abbey," she tells him, her voice somewhat strangled. "I thought I'd check it out."
Klaus waves her off, dismissing her excuse. "All the terribly bored house-wives read that one a few centuries ago, love. No need to be so embarrassed," he murmurs, voice low and warm, clearly enjoying himself. He leans forward, so close that their knees are nearly touching. "That was the vogue back then—gothic romances, voyeurs harboring impure devotions, virgins kidnapped and locked up in castles."
"Sounds familiar." The words just slip out, resentful and huffy.
"Touché." When she looks up, Klaus has moved—faster than her eye can track—and he's standing right in front of her, leaning down and into her personal space, looking at her in that unnerving way he has.
The vervain is long gone from her system, and she worries that he will try to compel her—except he doesn't.
(Why would he bother? What does she, Elena, have left inside her mind that he would want? The only thing anyone wants her for anymore is her body.)
"Elena," he calls, pulling her from her thoughts. "Is that how you picture yourself? The damsel in distress, spied upon whenever you think you are alone, desired and coveted by all?" He's mocking her, batting at her like a cat with a mouse.
Her face still feels overly hot from her blush, but she ignores it. "Of course not," she mutters, crossing her arms protectively over her chest.
(There's a voice in her head that is saying she is exactly how Klaus paints her. The voice sounds like Katherine.)
He laughs at her. "No need for false modesty, sweetheart." He touches a finger to her face, tracing the cheekbone. Her heart slams against her ribs, a painful beat like a drum. "Katerina ever was the vain little creature," Klaus continues, making it clear that it's not Elena he sees when he looks at her. "So easily flattered, so quick to throw herself into the rôle of the maiden fair— Though, she was hardly a maiden when she came to me." His lips curl into a something like a smile here, something that Elena recognizes as a baring of teeth. It's a dangerous expression. If this is the way Klaus smiles at Katherine, Elena understands why she is so afraid of him. "Katerina… so quick to make everything about herself. I imagine it runs just the same with you."
Elena shakes him off, and Klaus lets her. "What part of being fated for human sacrifice wasn't about Katherine… or about me, for that matter?"
"Now that's a selfish outlook."
Elena rolls her eyes at him. She wants to tell him, You can't be serious. Except he is. He's always at his most serious when he's being his most farfetched.
"Enlighten me then. If the sacrifice wasn't about Katherine, or me, then who was it about?"
"Me, of course."
"Of course. It's my life you've hijacked for the past year, but that's irrelevant." Her life is so little in his eyes, and it makes her furious, not least because there's nothing she can do to prove to him otherwise. "You're the only person I know more selfish and self-centered than Katherine." She stands and tries to shove past him, but Klaus catches her by the arms. His grip is tight enough to bruise. "Let go of me, Klaus."
"Do you judge me so easily, then, Elena?" His voice is calm, but there's that edge to it that Elena is starting to know too well. It's the same tone he used right before he decided to set a clock to it on Senior Prank Night.
If Elena has learned anything in the past year, it's to hold her head high and stand her ground. Especially if her adversary is an Original vampire.
"Only as easily as you judge me." She makes sure to speak slowly and clearly.
Klaus stares at her, searching her eyes. The moment lengthens and distends, like honey dipped from the jar.
Finally, he lets her go.
He plucks The Monk from between the couch cushions where she had hastily shoved it and places the book into her hands. "I believe you dropped this."
Elena's eyes flit down to the book that started this entire unfortunate conversation.
When she glances back up, Klaus is gone.
She stays curled up on the couch for some time after that, until the shadows on the wall lengthen and she knows that the afternoon sun is getting low.
Carefully, she rolls up her sleeves and examines the bruises blooming like blue flowers on her arms.
She thinks about the dark shadow she sometimes senses lingering at the foot of her bed when she wakes in the middle of the night. The weight of Rebekah's jealousy and those odd moments when every nerve in her body lights like a spark to Stefan's touch and she knows he feels it too.
Is that how you picture yourself? The damsel in distress, spied upon whenever you think you are alone, desired and coveted by all?
Klaus can deceive himself as much as he wants, but Elena knows the truth of the world.
Everyone wants a piece of her.
Even Klaus.
Elena stumbles into Tyler for the first time since that odd conversation they'd had when she first arrived nearly two months into her internment.
She'd had a tense morning with Stefan, who had barely said two words to her both during breakfast and during their midday walk together. Rebekah had been conspicuously sunning herself on an iron lawn chair, pulled up under the Japanese Maple in the corner of the garden. No doubt, Stefan had been even more aloof than usual because of her. He'd never been like that before he left. It's just one more thing she adds to the list of reasons why she's starting to fear that she's lost him.
She's so caught up in her own thoughts about it all that she's already several steps into the library before she realizes there's someone else already in the room.
"Tyler." She breathes his name, as though saying it any louder will make him evaporate like smoke.
Tyler freezes when he sees her. His black eyes are almost comically wide, and his red mouth hangs open, like he's forgotten how to speak. One of Klaus's books is open in his hands.
Elena steps closer, and peers at the book he has open before him. It's an oversize edition, filled with richly colored reproductions of Renaissance paintings.
A rush of tenderness overtakes her. Here the two of them are, so far from home in so many ways, so far from the people they were even a year ago, and Tyler still looks at art.
It's one of the things about Tyler that hasn't changed since they were little children. She remembers him in kindergarten, hoarding markers for his drawings. He'd grown more secretive about it as they grew older, but Jeremy had told her about the incident last year when he'd discovered Tyler's artwork at the job fair.
(And oh, just the thought of Jeremy sends an ache all through her body.)
"Who's the artist?" she asks him softly.
He looks down at the paintings, recreated in exquisite detail on the pages. "Titian. I saw the book on the shelf and I kinda pulled it without thinking. I couldn't help myself, you know?"
Elena nods. She does know. It's such a relief, to be in the room with someone of whom she is so certain.
She feels the strength of her connection with Tyler. That connection—going back more than a decade— is unique amongst her relationships here.
The idea opens up in her mind like a lily opening to the sun. Tyler could be her solace. A friend. If she can find a way to see Tyler again, then she might ease the loneliness that has been eating at her heart since she arrived. Perhaps, just maybe, that would be enough.
Carefully, he closes the book and puts it back on the shelf. He begins peering at the titles on the shelf, avoiding eye contact. "I'm supposed to find a book for Klaus. He sent me, I'm not just in here by myself." He says this all very quickly, and it occurs to Elena that he's nervous. Why, she cannot say. It could be because of where they are, in Klaus's private space, or it could be because of her presence.
"Tyler." She speaks firmly, so that he cannot ignore her. "I'm so glad to see you."
He fixes those sharp black eyes on her. He looks like he wants to say something, but cannot find the words. At length, he tells her, "I'm looking for Wolves of the American Southwest."
Elena wrinkles her nose. "Klaus wants that? Sounds like a national geographic title."
Tyler shakes his head. "It's not what you think. It's an ethnographic study."
"Of werewolves."
"Yeah. It was written by one of the wolves in the area back in the thirties. Klaus wants to take a look at some of the last names mentioned, do some follow up with some of their descendants… Aaand forget I just said that." He ruffles the hair on the back of his head. "He's gonna be pissed if he finds out I mentioned it." He turns back to browsing the book shelves, bouncing on his toes while he searches.
Whatever Klaus wants with that, she knows it can't be good. She brushes the thought off. It doesn't really matter. It's not like she can do anything about it.
She reaches out and touches his arm. He feels like a live wire under her hand, energy just building and building until that moment when it sparks and bursts. He stills when she touches him.
"Hey, your secrets are safe with me, Tyler. I won't say a word."
He offers her a bit of a smile. "Thank you, Elena."
Her answering smile is the first real smile she's had since Klaus abruptly re-entered her life. "Let's find your book, Tyler."
They search together for a few minutes before Elena finds it on the shelf nearest the fireplace. Before she turns the book over to Tyler, she asks him, "When will I see you again?"
"I can't say."
"Because I have a lot of downtime on my hands. I can come find you when you're free."
"I'm not sure Klaus would like that. He's made it clear the hybrids aren't supposed to approach you."
Elena shrugs. "I think you're a special case. Besides, I think that's more of a precaution against newly turned hybrids with poor self-control. You're hardly going to snap and tear my throat out."
"No, I won't do that."
"And really, Klaus doesn't seem to care how I spend my time, so I doubt he'll care who I spend it with. So long as I'm ready to give blood for his little army, nothing else matters, right?"
Tyler shifts his weight from foot to foot. He's clearly uncomfortable with what she's saying.
"Look, I'm not asking to spend every day together. I know Klaus has you doing… something. Just promise me I'll see you again soon, alright?"
"I'll try, Elena."
"That's all I'm asking for." She can't keep the smile from her face as she hands Tyler the book. "I'll see you soon, Ty."
After, her face aches from the unfamiliar stretch of muscles. She practices smiling in the mirror, watching the way the expression transforms her face.
The library, in general, is filled with the debris left over from centuries of travel, and is reflective of an individual with all the time in the world to learn about and be interested in everything.
That is not to say that Elena does not notice idiosyncrasies.
The first and most noticeable of these peculiarities is the vast collection of oversize folio books filled with images of master artworks, tissue paper carefully interlaid between the pages to keep the images pristine. Not just the odd book on the Renaissance masters, like the Titian book Tyler pulled, but books comprising every time and place and type of art she can imagine. The first time Elena pulls a book filled with black and white prints, it takes her a while to realize that these images are hand-etched reproductions, dating centuries back. After that, she notices more books of the like, mixed in with the newer full-color prints and, tucked into drawers and fastidiously stored in archival boxes, sheaves and sheaves of drawings.
Somewhat less obvious to the inobservant eye are the books pertaining to New Orleans—Elena finds an anthology of Tennessee Williams plays, Kate Chopin's The Awakening, John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, several volumes of Yusef Komunyakaa's poetry, and on and on. Something about this section seems different than the rest. They're not housed together, instead wedged in between others at random, as though Klaus had been reading them only recently and never bothered to restore them to their proper places. While many of the books themselves are far more recent than others in this library, they're more careworn, the spines bent, the pages grayish at the corners from years of fingers flipping through them, like they've been read and re-read, over and over and over again. She eyes these books for the longest, biting her lip and shifting from foot to foot.
Elena thinks that if she were to read one of these books, she might finally lay Klaus open. She'd see him clearly, then, instead of through the haze of fear and anger and bewilderment through which she normally experiences him.
The only thing that stops her is the thought that he might find her reading one of them.
If he were to do that, he might discover just how curious about him this room has made her.
A/N: It's finaly here! Hope you all enjoy. I always love to hear your thoughts, or just to chat about TVD/meta, so please review.