"You lied to me!"

Kol closed the chemistry text he was reading as his young niece stormed into his room, looking so much like Niklaus that Kol ached. She was standing in front of him with her her hands on her hips and her lips in an angry pout with her blue eyes narrowed.

"You are the only person I've never lied to," Kol said.

"Aunt Rebekah told me that Uncle Elijah spanked you a few weeks ago," Hope said.

"That was not a lie," Kol said with as much dignity as he could muster over tricking an eight-year-old. It wasn't much. "I was over five hundred years old when that happened."

"That's a lie by omission," Hope said.

"More of a misdirection," Kol corrected. Shit. He was turning into Elijah.

"It was still a lie," Hope said, "I'm telling on Uncle Elijah on you!"

Before she could storm out of the room, Kol grabbed her and pulled her into his lap. "You don't want to be a tattletale, do you?"

"Maybe I do," she said. But he could tell from the way her shoulder were relaxing that he was winning her over. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?"

"I've lived for over a thousand years, darling," Kol said, "and my older brother still think I'm young enough to put over his knee. It's in my best interest to have as few people as possible know about that."

Hope's blue eyes widened. "Does Aunt Davina know?"

It was adorable that she thought he could hide something like that from his wife. "I tried to hide it," he admitted, "but she caught on."

"How?"

"She, ah," there was no delicate way to explain this, "noticed I had some trouble sitting."

Hope turned around, sitting on her knees. She leaned forward and asked in a whisper, "Was she mad at you for being naughty?"

Kol took a moment to appreciate what his life had become. Despite being married, he was still living in a house with his siblings. Even after he'd developed hobbies outside of seducing and murdering witches and had even helped save the bloody world, he was still deemed wild enough to still need Elijah's firm hand. And now his eight-year-old niece assumed he'd done something to deserve a smacked bottom.

"I'll have you know," Kol was extremely dignified this time, "Davina was on my side." She'd also put together a spell so cruel and intricate to torture Elijah that talking her out of it likely counted as a crime against magic. What she'd been crafting had been a work of art.

"Did he punish you for something you didn't do?" Hope asked. Kol felt his heart well up. "I'm going to tell Aunt Freya!"

His little niece was on a Mission for Justice. Kol would have paid a large amount of stolen cash to see Freya scold Elijah for his heavy handed controlling nature. However. He grabbed her again. "Freya thinks Elijah handled it appropriately."

"What happened?" Hope asked.

"I recruited," blackmailed if you needed to be precise, "a witch to help me with a spell."

Hope narrowed eyes were filled with her father's paranoia. "What kind of spell?"

"I just needed some help contacting an old friend," Kol said.

"If that was true, you could have asked Aunt Freya or Aunt Davina," Hope said.

Kol would have been prouder of his clever little niece if she wasn't hounding him for information about an incident he liked to pretend was a horrible nightmare and nothing else. "I wanted to talk to your father," Kol admitted.

"Aunt Freya said that was impossible," Hope's lips were quivering.

"That's because she's not as creative as me," Kol said. Before she could ask, he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her his best impression of an Elijah Glare, "I had to, among other things, die briefly in order to talk to Nik."

"I can die briefly too!" Hope said.

Hope was a Mikaelson, through and through. Temporary death didn't even give her pause, if it could give her what she wanted. "I also had to hurt people." It hurt to be murdered, Kol knew from experience.

"Oh," Hope was so crushed.

Kol couldn't stand to see her so sad. He pulled her back into his lap. "I didn't even get to yell at Nik for getting himself killed because he was too busy yelling at me for being reckless."

"Do you think he'd be mad at me, too?" Hope asked.

She looked like she was considering paying the price to see her dad again. That was the opposite of what Kol was looking for. Because, no, Klaus would be unlikely to spend the precious few hours he'd get with her by yelling.

Thankfully, Elijah intervened. He was standing in the doorway of Kol and Davina's room. "I shall be very angry with you if you should even attempt to follow in Kol's footsteps." He strode over to Hope and gently cupped her face. "So would Davina." Because she had impeccable taste, Davina was Hope's favorite person. "You'll have plenty of time with your father after you live a very long life."

"I won't," Hope said, "I promise."

"Thank you," Elijah said. He smoothed down her hair and kissed her forehead. "Do you mind if I borrow your Uncle Kol for a chat?"

"Uncle Kol minds," Kol muttered, racking his brain to try and figure out why Elijah was planning to spank him. He hadn't done anything since Rebekah ratted him out a few weeks ago.

Hope turned around, looking at Kol with wide eyes. She turned around again to look at Elijah. "Is Uncle Kol in trouble?"

"We just need to talk," Elijah's eyes were on his. They promised that talk would be between Elijah's palm and Kol's arse.

Hope could read between the lines. She wrapped her arms around Kol and squeezed tightly. "Remember not to rub until Uncle Elijah says it's okay."

Kol hugged her back before sighing deeply. Now that the cat was out of the bag, there wasn't much point in hiding it anymore. "Don't worry, darling. I'm very familiar with Elijah's rules."

"And yet you seem determined not to learn your lessons," Elijah scolded as Hope jumped off his lap and rushed out the room.

"Maybe the method's the problem," Kol said.

"I'm happy to ground you instead," Elijah said as he led Kol out of his room and down the hall to Elijah's study.

"I would rather feed on animal blood for all of eternity," Kol muttered.

"That's an idea," Elijah said, although his tone suggested he was teasing. Kol would normally tease right back, but he tended to lose his quips when Elijah was shutting the door to his study behind him and slipping off his jacket.

Kol couldn't help but take a few steps back as Elijah rolled up his right sleeve. "I didn't do anything!"

Elijah pulled his straight back desk chair into the center of the room. "I promised Hayley that our family would set a better example for Hope."

"I didn't," Kol muttered.

Elijah paused. "Would you care to repeat that?"

"No," Kol said, unable to prevent himself from backing away from his brother.

Elijah sat down. "Before I jumped to any conclusions, I checked your bank accounts. Not only were they still accruing interest in your favor, your personal wealth is still amounts to over ten figures." He smoothed away non existent wrinkles on his slacks. "Do you mind telling me why you chose to steal from me?"

"Using your money to buy illicit drugs is more fun," Kol said. Elijah crooked his finger. Kol back hit the wall. "You never minded that I stole from you before. It's not fair to punish me without telling me things changed."

"Did you or did you not just demand that I start treating you like an adult?" Elijah asked.

Kol narrowed his eyes and folded his arms. "I'm too old for my big brother to keep spanking me."

"Would you prefer I press charges?" Elijah asked, mildly.

"You wouldn't," Kol wasn't stupid enough to think Elijah didn't have human law enforcement of New Orleans in his pocket. He could torture Kol by dragging him through the courts, but he was pretty sure Elijah would think that would be beneath them.

"I would," Elijah said, "Hayley's last request of me was to do right by Hope. Our family needs to work within as opposed to above everyone else."

"You advocate for restorative justice, you hypocrite," Kol said, pointing, "and wasting precious human resources on the one percent is hardly setting a good example for Hope." He was going to move away from the wall any second now.

"That's a fair point," Elijah allowed. Kol narrowed his eyes and pressed his back more firmly against the wall. "What kind of consequences do you think would be sufficient?"

"None," Kol said.

"Very well," Elijah said.

Kol blinked. "Have you been possessed?"

Elijah was returning the chair back to his desk. He rolled down his sleeves. "I trust you can see yourself out."

"What's the catch?" Kol asked as he took a tentative step away from the wall.

"There's no catch, Kol," Elijah said, "I'm not going to use force on you."

"You're not going to let me be a bad influence on Hope," Kol said as he watched Elijah put his jacket back on with trepidation he tended to reserve for Nik and his daggers.

"Should Hope find out about your more unsavory indiscretions and, in the unlikely scenario decide to follow in your footsteps and I'm unable to convince her the error of her ways, I'll speak with Freya about the best way to supervise your interactions with her."

"Fine," Kol snapped as he stalked across the room, "I guess I just don't matter to this family."

Elijah caught his elbow before he could leave. "You know that's not what I'm mean."

"Isn't it?" Kol asked. He wanted to glare at Elijah, but he couldn't seem to lift his head. "You wouldn't treat Rebekah or Freya like this."

"My relationships with both of them are vastly different than the one I have with you," Elijah said. He sighed. "What do you want, Kol?"

Kol wanted things to go back to the way things were before Nik and Hayley died. Before Elijah and Freya killed Davina. Before the first time Elijah held him down while Klaus shoved a dagger into his chest. "You figure it out," Kol jerked his arm away, "you always do whatever you want without regard for the rest of us, anyway."

The pain that flickered over Elijah's face felt like a punch to the gut. "Leave me," Elijah actually rose his voice a few notches, "before I do something we'll both regret."

"Gladly," Kol stomped out of his stupid study.