Music
A Soft Place To Land by Kathleen Edwards [Chicago Condo]
I've Been Alone Too Long by Soko [Hayley]
Faith In Love by CSS [ ;) ]
Hangman by Chris Pureka [Hayley]
Elijah couldn't just simply return to New Orleans just yet. Despite having done what he returned to Chicago for, his mission felt unfinished. Maybe it's because the optimist in him had expected to be leaving with Hayley. But she made it very clear that nothing of the sort would be occurring.
After all of his years in this world, Elijah had to admit that one of the hardest things to do was seeing some he loved happy, but for reasons that had nothing to do with him. He truthfully believed that Hayley could successfully reinvent her life, a life without him. But Elijah also believed that he couldn't bare the idea.
Without even realizing it, his car was turning into the underground and private parking lot below his condo's building. His muscles automatically steered him to his spot. He threw the car into park and remained inside.
Recent memories of the last time he was here surfaced. It was only a few days after Hayley's death. He'd just arrived back in America. There had been some sort of autopilot turned on during those first few weeks. Elijah didn't really understand how he even knew where he was half the time, or how his mind worked enough to even make his legs carry him anywhere.
But when he arrived in Chicago, he found himself here just like he was now. He had a moment of awareness. But it would have been better if he had never found it. When he had arrived to his condo once again, it still smelled of Hayley. Her presence lingered everywhere. It was what awoke him out of his zombie-like state. He glanced in her art studio that he had converted right after she had turned into a vampire. There were still brushes sitting dirtily in a mason jar, like Hayley would soon be back to finish the painting they sat next to. The sight of them detonated something inside of him. He threw the mason jar against the wall, covering the white walls with old and watered down paint. He stormed out of the studio without touching any other things, realizing his mistake.
But he stormed into every other room destroying everything he touched. Glass was shattered. Fabrics were ripped. Wood was splintered. In a few minutes, the entire apartment was destroyed. His chest heaved. What would people think seeing Elijah Mikaelson, a man of reason and composure, in this state? But other people were not on his mind, only one: his dead lover.
He waited for cops to arrive; knocking on his door from his distant neighbors that probably thought someone had been murdered. But somebody was murdered, Elijah thought internally.
Eventually, Elijah returned to the present and exited his car. He hesitated slightly before entering the condo. It remained as he left it: destroyed and broken. Even the granite counter tops had cracks in them. At least he had been thorough.
Without thinking on it, Elijah went to work, cleaning everything he could walk past. He could have made the process much easier, moving at vampire speed. He could have even called someone to do it all for him. That was what Klaus or Rebekah would do. But Elijah knew this was his last act before leaving town again.
He had been so preoccupied that he didn't hear someone approaching until there was a knock at the door. He paused, literal broom and brush in hand, listening to figure out who it could be. Very few people knew of this home of his. But before he always had a witch hiding his whereabouts. Now any magic could easily track him here. Elijah quietly made his way to the door; not scared, but cautious. There were few creatures that could trump him.
Without looking through the peephole, he hurled open the door. Hayley jumped very slightly on the other side, not expecting to have such an abrasive greeting.
"Hayley!" Elijah muttered almost stupidly. Even though she was the most likely to have been at the door, he never expected to see her standing there. He had only left her warehouse an hour or two ago. She blinked at him, looking just as confused about her presence now as he was. Elijah recovered his composure and pulled open the door wider and stepped to the side, inviting her inside.
Hayley glanced around at the condo that was now only slightly cleaner than when Elijah had arrived. Her reaction made it very clear that she had not come here since her resurrection; for the shock of seeing the destruction was clearly written in her eyes. She closed her eyes, pressing them tightly. The more time she spent in Elijah's presence, the more she realized how wrong she had been about the way he dealt with her death.
"What happened?'" Hayley whispered. Even though she could have easily guessed correctly.
"Evidently a slip of self-control." He only answered with. Then he caught her eyes looking from the broom and dustpan he had dropped and then to his hands that held enough dirtiness to prove that he had been cleaning. "I thought I would clean it up before I left. In case you decided-" But he stopped. In case you decided you wanted to come home, even though I will not be here. He finished in his mind.
But Hayley knew what he was going to say. She nodded numbly. Then he looked at her, waiting. She realized it was her turn to speak, and explain why she came here in the first place.
"Did I ever apologize?" Hayley blurted out. Elijah squinted in confusion. This made Hayley talk even quicker. "It's just-after you left…I realized that as much as I've expressed how terrible I was…admitting all the heartless things I did…I never actually apologized." Then she paused for a moment, taking a breath. "I'm so sorry, Elijah." There was a wave of relief that Elijah swore he could see drifting off of her.
He stood still, just staring at her.
Hayley misinterpreted this as her apology not being accepted.
"I just…the more I've talked to you since I got my humanity back…I've realized how wrong I was. In fact, I don't think I've ever been more wrong in my life." Her words were slow now, full of more meaning when they weren't rushed. "I've been such an idiot." She added in a whisper. Her bottom lip trembled as the words escaped.
Elijah still stared at her.
"Can you please say something?" Hayley exhaled so panicked that it sounded like she was about to break into pitiful laughter.
But instead of Elijah answering, he closed the large distance between them. His lips crashed onto hers. A part of him expected her to shove him away, scream at him for even getting this close to her. But to his surprise, she kissed just as forcefully back. Why did her lips feel the exact same way? How was it possible that he still made her heart pound so loud that he could practically hear it in his eardrum? All of it just made him realize how long it had been since he'd been close with her. From both of their reactions, it had been too long.
Hayley just barely pulled away. Elijah had to stop his lips from following. Her fingers grasped the collar of his suit.
She formed a mischievous smirk. "Did you destroy that bed as well?" Her voice was husky. Something that Elijah always found incredibly sexy, but mostly because she was so unaware of how she sounded to him.
"If my memory is correct, I strayed away from attacking it." Elijah finished with a chuckle. But he went back to kissing her, his body deciding that it needed more. His hands gently shrugged off Hayley's broken-in leather jacket. With it, he got a wave of gasoline from the motorcycle she continuously drove now. But once it disappeared with the jacket, her smell proved to remain the same.
Hayley's hands undid Elijah's tie without even peeping an eye open or slowing their kissing. She could do it faster than any woman. Then his navy suit jacket was forced off of his shoulders. Walking backwards, she guided him to the bedroom. Somehow she managed not to step on any of the debris that Elijah had created. And in that moment, everything felt like it was back to normal.
Just a few seconds later, she slammed the bedroom door behind them. Even though they were alone, she didn't want to be able to see the destruction down the hallway. It just reminded her of everything else, taking her away from right now.
But it was Elijah who stopped for a moment. He barely pulled away, catching her face softly between his hands. He instinctively brushed her side bangs behind her ear as they blocked her sea teal eyes.
"Hayley," He started softly.
"Now's not one of those times where I like you being a gentleman, Elijah." Hayley muttered jokingly. But her eyes were filled with warning.
"Hayley." He repeated, more firmly this time. It wasn't because he wanted to stop it. His yearning for her was one of the few things he could focus on at the moment. But he wondered if this would just make things more complicated. He was trying to be the responsible one.
"Don't." Hayley surprised him by snapping. She pulled away from the hold he had on her face. "Don't look at me like that! Like I'm something broken that's being taken advantage of." Despite her scolding, she backed up a little bit further and started taking off her baggy t-shirt. She didn't stop there, unzipping her dark jeans and kicking them to the side. She stood in her lace underwear and bra that almost perfectly matched the color of dark blood.
Hayley put her hands on her hips. Despite the confidence she displayed, she really didn't understand the affect her current appearance had on Elijah. "You knew what was happening as soon as I walked through that door." She challenged. They both knew she was right.
Hayley slowly stepped forward; every step felt like it took a minute. Even though Hayley's slim figure was only covered in her lace underwear and bra, Elijah stared into her eyes and they remained there when their faces were hardly an inch apart. Hayley's hand softly went behind his head, resting on his neck. The other traced the strong shape of his jawline.
"Is this simply a part of your apology?" Elijah whispered.
Hayley's eyes flickered up to him. "Maybe." She cooed. But he could tell by her expression that she really didn't know either. "Are you going to accept it or not?"
Instead of pouncing with his lips onto hers, he softly placed his hands on her hips and brought her even closer. His finger sketched her spine all the way up to her neck. It was a habit he had gotten into, loving the way it made her shiver. Then suddenly, he lifted her by the hips. She wrapped her legs around him immediately.
Hayley kissed his neck. They both realized how different this felt. It wasn't how they used to be. But they weren't the same people, her more than him. Could they even get back to their old regularity?
Then, as Hayley tossed Elijah's clothes to the floor, he was studying her eyes. Elijah caught something. There was sadness in them. That's when Elijah realized this wasn't really for him… it was for her. She was trying to find herself again, with something similar, something so intimate.
Elijah grabbed her wrists gently, stopping her as she was in the middle of undoing his belt. "Hayley," He soothed her. "It's going to be alright." He promised. He wasn't talking about this moment right now, but everything overall. "You are going to be alright." He urged even further.
Her breath caught in her throat at his words. How had he noticed her inner turmoil so easily? She thought she had been hiding it so well.
Then her lips crashed onto his as she decided that she wanted no more talking.
Hayley immediately pulled away, scooting to the very edge of the bed. It was quiet and very subtle, but Elijah would notice it with his eyes closed. Clearly she was trying to avoid any sort of pillow talk. What she really wanted to do was leave entirely. But she knew it would be a red flag. Elijah would take it as an invitation to acknowledge her issue.
Hayley let out a sigh. She was laying on her back, staring only at the ceiling above with one of her forearms resting on her forehead. "You asked me why I stayed in Chicago." She muttered quietly. Elijah was sitting up now, his back resting against the bedframe looking down at her. He waited for her to continue. "I don't want to let you go, Elijah. I couldn't come back here." She barely gestured to the bedroom, implying she was talking about the apartment. "I couldn't live here by myself, while I knew you were on the opposite side of the country. But I wanted to go back to the place where it started, before it all got ruined."
She shuffled the bed sheet higher around her naked body. Elijah gently touched the skin on her shoulder. Hayley closed her eyes as if his touch made her feel even worse, like it reminded her of all the bad things.
"Did you tell my sister?" Hayley quickly changed the subject.
It caught Elijah off guard. He realized how surprising it was that she had never asked before. "I came back to Chicago a few days after…after…" He couldn't say 'you died'. "Before I left, I went to tell her. She's having a baby." He gave Hayley a warm smile when her eyes glazed over with tears of joy. If she couldn't be happy, she wanted someone she loved to be. "Lisa insisted on having a funeral. I went with her to the burial spot she acquired." He could go on about the details, like how her sister cried in Elijah's arms for almost an hour. How she didn't know how she'd get through having a kid without her sister there. But he thought it best not to share it with Hayley.
"Elijah…Thank you." She said so sweetly. It was the most genuine thing she had said to him since before she died. "It's probably better that she doesn't think I'm alive." Hayley then muttered heartlessly. The tough façade was back.
Elijah cleared his throat, suddenly thinking of his own family. "Kol?" It was all he had to ask.
Hayley laughed in almost a whisper. But there was nothing funny about the question. "Do you realize that's the first time anyone's ever asked me about it?" Her question was intended to make him feel guilty. She was successful.
"I considered if he had come back with you, you would never have abandoned your humanity." Elijah offered honestly. But he couldn't speak for his siblings. "But I just wanted to hear your side."
Hayley tried to contain the tears that wanted to flee her eyes. Crying in front of Elijah wouldn't help her. "I woke up in the middle of the woods… alone." She whispered. "I cried out for him. I yelled at him for leaving me alone." Then Hayley turned her head to finally look at him. The gravity pulled a tear down her cheek with the movement. "Whatever he did, I think he meant to save me. I went to Avery, I told her what happened. But I envied her ignorance. I compelled her to forget everything. I just couldn't bare the thought of it destroying her life like it did mine."
Hayley turned and stared up at the ceiling again as the tears fully escaped now. No matter how long she'd known and loved Elijah, she hated crying in front of him. It made her weak even though he reminded her that it was the most human thing she could do. There were barely a handful of times that Elijah could even count of seeing her like this. It just made the times she allowed him to see it hurt him even more.
"Hayley," Elijah didn't move closer or invade the space she created. But he gently grabbed her closest hand. The way he said her name made her head snap in his direction. "You are not alone." He guaranteed.
Immediately, Hayley closed the space on the bed between them. She broke down then, her head resting in the crook of his neck. Her entire body melted into his and Elijah responded with wrapping his arm around her shaking form. He shushed her in an effort to comfort.
"You'll never be alone." Elijah reassured again in a whisper so soft, he couldn't even promise that she heard it.
Like I say in all my fics, I cannot write sex scenes. It'll just sound ridiculous lol. But I hope of doing a good job of implying without actually describing in full detail.
THIS AINT NO 50 SHADES OF GREY.
