Ryan was all set to transform in a cell under the Compound. According to Hope, it was all, vampire, werewolf and witch proof, so he had nothing to worry about except for the painful night that awaited him. He settled down at a fattest corner of the cell, leaning his back against the wall as he hugged his legs to his chest in an effort to comfort the already minor breaking in his bones that had started to occur, his chin resting on the V shape that the space between his knees had formed. Hope was seated on a chair at a little distance from him, on the other side of the bars. She had decided to stick around till midnight when the moon will reach its zenith and she will help him drink the elixir that the Crescent Alpha had given them.
"So you're some kind of royalty here?" He asked, making her look up from her phone in the process. He was just trying to start small talk as the endless silence was getting to his nerves. And if anything, the only two things that he was scared of was darkness and loneliness. The feeling that no one was around, it made him panic and he was in no mood to experience another episode today, he already had a lot on his plate as it is. In his short two years of awareness, he had learnt enough about the supernatural to know that the Mikaelsons were a great deal amongst the supernatural community, not only in New Orleans, but throughout the world.
"For your knowledge, yes," Hope nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders at the same time, not knowing how exactly to answer that question. In a way, they were New Orleans royalty, or that's how her father and his monarchist view had placed it, but she was more of a democratic, and if anything, she wanted to change the system her father had created, not that she was against her father's views of the three supernatural species coexisting in the same city, but times had changed and so will the system, but it will be a gradual move. One step at a time. And most possibly without bloodshed. She wanted to give back the city to its people with representatives from the three species along with a human representative presiding over the supernatural parliament, and at times welcoming people from those forgotten species of Malivore. But that was a long time away. "I'll like to change that someday. When the supernatural community won't be afraid of the Mikaelsons but would be eager to come to the Mikaelsons for help." With that a smile appeared on her face.
"Oh, yes world peace and all, fool's dream." He answered back almost immediately with a voice that portrayed pure disgust. He put his head up from his knees and leaned his back against the wall, resting his head properly. It had been almost half an hour since any bone of his had broken, according to the clock that was hanging at a wall above Hope's head. So he decided to stretch his aching limbs a bit, but it was definitely a bad idea as when he did, he felt an enormous amount of pain embracing his back and he was forced to slouch face first on the floor with a gasp. "Counts for calling you a fool. Maybe the wolf's telling me not to make fun of you." He tried to chuckle and distract himself from the pain that was caused by each and every vertebra of his spine breaking.
Hope couldn't control herself and laughed at that. "If I were in your position, I'll be wishing the darkness to take me in."
"Not my best option, I'm not only sacred of the darkness but also claustrophobia adds to the list. So can't ask for that." As soon as he finished the sentence, he could feel both of his knees and elbows break with a bang and he screams out in instinct as he closed his eyes and banged his head against the wall, which made a little bit of blood escape from the cut and stain the wall.
"You okay? Can I get you some water?" Hope asked in horror as she was slowly seeing the scene unfold in front of her eyes. She immediately got up from her chair and unlocked the cell and got inside with a bottle of water in hand. She locked the door behind her and went and sat down in front of Ryan as she started to twist the cap of the bottle to open it.
"Get out. You should not be in here. You might get hurt." Ryan managed to say as he kept on struggling against the pain to keep himself pressed to the wall.
"Don't worry about me. I'll be alright." She said as she took some water in her palm and pressed her palm at the back of Ryan's head where the cut was. "This will help ease the pain. I'd prefer ice, but I would take sometime for me to go and bring it from upstairs."
Ryan leaned in to her touch and and slowly moved forward and rested his forehead on her shoulder in order to seek some comfort from the terrible amount of pain that was flooding his entire body.
Hope took the bottle and brought its opening near his lips and gestured him to drink from it. He obliged without a word and drank up almost half the bottle at a go.
"Can't get you dehydrated, can we?" Hope said in a soothing voice as she ran her other hand over the wolf spine which was now bulging across his back, almost tearing at his skin from where it was visible from the tear at the back of his shirt.
She could feel him relax a bit at the gesture as he let out what she took to be a sigh of relief and then closed his eyes as she kept on stroking his back with her tender hands. She managed to look at the clock and it was only ten thirty. There was still two whole hours left for the moon to reach its zenith. She sighed internally as she thought about the horrid scenes she had to witness for the past five hours of the evening. She couldn't bare to think about them without feeling nauseous, leave alone experiencing the amount of pain that the man who was right now in her arms, was experiencing. She remembered her first transition, it was really painful and she did not wish that even to her worst enemy. Even though her father was there to help her, and she had transformed within minutes, yet she could not forget the pain that she had to endure. Now, when she transformed at will, it only felt like a strike of lightning had hit her and the next thing she knows is that she is running around the forest as a fully transformed wolf.
But what she witnessed today, made her stomach crumble in fear. Clarke's bones were breaking every hour as it would happen while any normal transition, but when he was ready to grow his fur and develop his snout, they would heal back to his human form, re-breaking to take the shape of a human skeleton and the process would repeat every hour. She couldn't start to believe how he had survived through such pain for the past twenty four months. Just like the crescent alpha said that if he wasn't able to transform, he would die a slow and painful death. Thinking about such a death made her want to vomit, but the sleeping form in her arms made her control her gag reflex. She hadn't noticed when Ryan had fallen asleep in those short minutes, she could understand that he was so tired from his five attempts that the first chance at peace, he had fallen asleep. But she also knew that he wouldn't be able to get any rest for more than five minutes as his bones would start to break again to shift back to the human system of arrangement. Till now, this was his sixth attempt at transition, but she was sure that it would have the same result as the past five and that he had two more attempts to endure before she could feed him the elixir. She hoped that this would stop this for good and finally he would be able to transform during the upcoming crescent moon which was in 14 days.
As she had guessed, Ryan let out a gasp in his sleep as he shifted to place his right hand under his left elbow. But then that lasted not more than two seconds before he jerked back from her embrace and crumpled towards the wall and curled up into a ball at fetus position on the floor. She tried to reach out with her hand, but he shifted away from her touch and curled up more into himself.
"Ryan, you okay?" She asked as she made another attempt to touch him. He followed his previous actions and said in return in a whisper, which she wouldn't be able to make out if she didn't have supernatural hearing.
"Get out from the cell. I'm not safe. I might react." She didn't get the chance to answer before which Ryan suddenly got up on his fours and arched his back like a wolf would as his eyes glowed a bright yellow. As fast as that happened, he fell on the floor, flat on his stomach as she could hear the sound of bones breaking.
He let out a loud shout as his bones started to break at a faster pace. And then she saw it happen. Everything started to shake around her, she hadn't noticed it before as she was sitting outside the cell bars, but now as she was within, she felt it. She felt the surge of magic that he was letting out and it was a dangerous amount of it. Totally untamed and powerful as no other she had felt before. It ran in waves around them as it hit the walls with a thud and made them vibrate throughout the cell. Even the ground beneath her feet started to shake and she lost her balance and fell flat on her stomach.
"Ryan, stop!" She shouted, but she knew that it was of no use. He wasn't in control of himself. He was in pain and the magic in him was trying to get rid of the pain, but without the guidance of proper spells, it was going wild and was coming out in volumes at a time. It wasn't under his conscious control. She had heard stories of her doing magic as a baby, even before she could walk. Magic had a strange mechanism of its own and if left untamed, it could turn out to be dangerous, but the thing that scared her was that, if the magic was acting as a blocking system for the pain, then the waves would go on for hours and in the process break down the entire house as the cell could hold on this amount of magic for only so long.
But as her thoughts were running wild with all kinds of possible outcomes of this situation, she could finally feel the waves of magic reduce a bit as she managed to look up at Ryan's face, which was only inches apart from her. He was looking at her as well, his cheek pressed to the ground. His eyes were running wild in confusion, he was seconds away from losing it, but then the magical waves came to a stop abruptly as she saw his eyes roll into his head as his body went still.
The next two cycles, went the same way, he woke up about half an hour later and as soon as he did, the seventh cycle hit him and then after an hour, the eighth. Hope remained with him in the cell for both the cycles as she refused to leave after what she saw him endure first hand.
There was only a few minutes left for the moon to reach its zenith, and she was still conflicted on the thought of whether to make him drink the elixir or not. There were three things that could happen. First, and the best thing that could happen was that the elixir would work as expected and he would be freed from this cycle of intransition. Second, the elixir would not work at all and everything will remain as it was before he drank it and thirst and the very last and also the most dangerous thing that could happen was the elixir would go the wrong way and anything could happen, anything that was bad and she didn't want to start the list of what could go wrong.
Ryan was lying at a farthest corner of the cell, curled up in the fetus position, most of his cycle complete, only a few minor bones left to break and his skeleton would complete its shift back to the human position.
"So world peace huh?" He almost whispered. "Maybe I would like some of it as well." He tried to laugh at his own words, but ended up groaning as he clutched his ribs in pain. Hope couldn't blame his ribs for aching after eight cycles of bone breaking.
She gave him a small smile as she said, "Talking about world peace, when your body's at war within itself? Suits you." She laughed at her own words as she stroked away the sweaty unruly curl that had got free from the rest of the bunch and was now falling above his eyes. She decided to help him as she could clearly see that he was way too tired to give any attention to such a minor occurring. But it was as if an unscratchable itch in her head as she saw an opportunity to touch his curls which have tempted her so many times to run her fingers through them. She couldn't lose this opportunity, not after she thought that this temptation of her's would forever remain one that cannot be fulfilled.
"Talking about me, while your mind is at conflict about whether to give me that elixir or not?" Ryan managed to chuckle this time.
This caught Hope by surprise, as if a deer caught in headlights. She didn't expect him to be able to read her this easily, as if she was a book kept open to be able to be read by anybody. She had always managed to keep her covers up, and not anyone, not even her family, or even Landon were able to guess what was going through her mind. But him being able to read her thoughts this easily made her feel something deep in the pit of her stomach, something good, something safe, but she couldn't describe what that feeling was. She remained silent for a long time.
"Wondering how I know it? It's written all over your face. You really do care about me. I must've been someone really important to you." He said as he gained enough energy to sit up, leaning his back against the wall.
"Well, we were enemies before you... well lost your memories and became a tribrid." She said with a shrug, trying to get her high walls up again.
Ryan didn't answer, but he inched closer towards her, till their faces were inches apart. "Enemies do not welcome them into their homes, when they reunite after two whole years." He held up her chin with his index finger.
"Enemies do not stroke their backs when they are suffering." He cupped her face with his palm and stroked her cheek with his thumb and she leaned in.
"Enemies do not lean on their enemy's touch when they cup their cheek." He looked deep into her eyes as if asking for permission to go further.
"May I kiss you?" He asked, looking deep in her eyes and Hope could no longer control herself. She held the back of his head and dug her fingers into his thick curls, pulling his face even closer, avoiding where he had hit his head earlier and smashed her lips on his. She took her lower lip in between her lips and sucked as if her life depended on it. Ryan's tongue poked her lips, asking for her to open up her mouth to him, she obliged immediately as his tongue got its entrance into her mouth. He savoured every inch of her mouth with passion, taking his time. They parted for air and then dove in again and again, till the clock struck twelve and all their fantasies came to an end at midnight.
They parted slowly and Hope looked up at him with pleading eyes.
"Hope, it's better to try it than not trying anything at all." He looked down at the floor and answered.
"But what if something gets wrong and..." She couldn't complete her sentence as she looked up at his eyes which were now looking at her with strict determination.
"Hope, I'll die anyway. And I wish to experience a quick, painless death than what I have to endure every month and die slowly and not to mention extremely painfully. And after what you saw today, I wish you want the same for me as well." This times his eyes were pleading.
Hope blinked a few times and looked at him with the same pleading look, before taking out the vial from her jean pocket holding it in her hand. She looked at it once and then fisted her palm around it. She placed her other palm at the back of Ryan's head and pulled him in for another deep, but quick kiss, before she handed the vial to him.
Ryan looked at it once and then at Hope and then pulled the cork out from the mouth of the vial and drained it in one go while making a face as if the elixir tasted really bitter. As soon as the elixir was down his throat, he hovered forward as if going to vomit, but nothing came out.
"Was it that bad?" Hope asked as she stroked his back.
"Bitter as hell." Ryan managed to choke out. "Could you get me some honey or something. I'm gonna need it badly."
"Yeah, wait." Hope got up and ran out the cell, not bothering to lock it behind her.
She ran up the stairs to the ground floor, and then brisk walked towards the kitchen. She found Freya sitting in the parlour, waiting for her to come up. As soon as she was her, she asked, "Did he drink the elixir?"
"Yes he did." Hope answered in a hurry to go to the kitchen, fetch the jar of honey and rush back to the cells.
"What happened?" Freya asked again.
"It was really bitter and Ryan wanted some honey, so I came up to fetch it. Now if you will please..." Before she could complete her sentence, Freya got up from her seat and paced towards her.
"You made him drink a thousand year old elixir and you left him down at the cells alone? Hope what has got into you?" Freya spat out.
Realisation dawned upon Hope and she started to panic.
"Don't worry, I'm going down, you fetch the honey and come asap." Freya said as she exited the room and went towards the stairs that went down to the cells.
Hope went to the kitchen, thinking about the kiss that she shared with Ryan. It was intense yet sweet, she felt butterflies in her stomach while thinking about it. It was nothing like she ever felt before. She was excited about what turns it will take next. What did this mean? She was waiting to discover.
She got into the kitchen and fetched the jar of honey from a top shelf and then fetched a spoon and then started to walk back towards the cells. As she reached the cell, that Ryan was in, her blood ran cold. She dropped the jar of honey and the spoon and rushed inside.
Freya was bent over an unconscious Ryan on the floor who had mud dribbling down his chin. A puddle of mud had formed at a little bit of distance from his face.
"Freya, what happened?" Hope almost choked out as she fell to her knees beside Ryan. She was trying her to keep her tears at bay.
"When I came, he was throwing up mud, but then he just collapsed." Freya reached out to check if there was a pulse. But to her dismay, she found none. She shook her head in a negative gesture to an eager Hope. This finally made all the tears surface that she was trying to keep at bay so hard.
'No, no, no, he didn't come back into her life after all these years and reignite the fire just to die on her.'
"No!" Was all that she could whisper.