Sorry about this late chapter. I'm definitely gonna try to have the next one up much sooner.
Chapter 19
Marcel dragged his feet into the dining room. He was exhausted. His nightmares plagued him all night, first with Elijah killing him and then with him killing his own family. When he woke the second time that night he was afraid to go back to sleep. If those were the dreams he was now doomed to have he was determined to never sleep again.
"Why the long face, Marcellus?" Niklaus asked as he shoveled a stack of buttermilk pancakes on the boy's plate.
Ashamed of the contents of his dreams and the fear they caused him, Marcel simply answered, "Nothing, poppa. Yesterday was just...very long."
"Perhaps you could use a few more hours of sleep," Freya suggested. "You don't need to put any additional strain on your body. You're being held together by a string as it is."
Marcel stiffened with fear at the thought of going back to sleep but before he could oppose Freya's suggestion, Hope spoke up.
"He's fine. All he needs is a little air. Coming to school with me and Sebastian should do the trick."
"Marcel isn't going to school with you, Hope," Hayley said bursting the girl's bubble. "He doesn't need to be too far away from Freya in his condition."
Hayley didn't want to tell Hope just yet because she didn't want to start the morning with an argument but last night, after Kol's emergency family meeting where he told them that one of his 'contacts' believed Travis and his wolves were going to make a move soon, the Mikaelsons decided that they would need to keep the children under their own supervision, seeing as how Hope could so easily lose Hayley's wolf bodyguards. Since Hope was grounded and would be coming straight home after school, Niklaus agreed there was no need in telling her of this new threat. As an extra precaution, Rebekah agreed to walk them to and from school every day. Hope didn't suspect a thing. She just assumed it was her Aunt wanting to spend more time with her as her family often did.
"Maybe you should take a nap, Marcellus." Elijah insisted. "You look exhausted."
"I'm fine!" Marcel snapped, to everyone's surprise, even his own. "S-sorry, it's just...I don't need to go back to sleep." Turning to his father with pleading eyes begging for Klaus to take his side, Marcel repeated, "I'm fine. Honest."
Niklaus put a calming hand on Marcel's shoulders as he took the seat beside him.
"You know your body better than we do," Niklaus said. "You don't have to go back to sleep if you don't want to. You can just spend the day with me."
Hope couldn't help but feel slightly jealous of her father showering Marcel with all the affection that, just weeks ago, he had reserved totally for her but she reminded herself that she was just being selfish and that not being the only child anymore meant she would have to share Klaus too.
-M-
In the course of three days, Marcel had gotten a total of four hours of sleep. Everyone could tell the boy was having a rough time getting to sleep but he refused to come to anyone for help, not even his father.
Kol entered the kitchen with his pants hanging low on his waist. Elijah had given the servants the morning off and was busy cooking the large family breakfast himself when he saw his brother come in. He noticed Kol's disheveled dress before he noticed the scowl on his face.
"Forgot your belt, brother?" He asked while kneading the dough for their breakfast pastries.
"More like someone stole it. Every belt from my closet is gone. Bet it was those mangy wolves."
"Nonsense, Hayley makes sure the wolves are well cared for. If your belts are missing it's because of your own incompetence."
"Are you accusing me of simply misplacing two dozen belts, Elijah? Have I ever been so irresponsible?"
Elijah sighed, "Perhaps you're right. I'll look into it."
-M-
On his way to retrieve Hayley for breakfast, Elijah glanced into Marcel's room and happened to notice a drawer in the boy's dresser slightly ajar. Fastidious as he was, Elijah went in to close it. It popped back open as soon as he pushed it closed. Confused, Elijah opened the drawer to see what was keeping it open and he was surprised at the sight of Kol's belts stuffed into the drawer. He was more confused by the sight than shocked. Marcel had never been one to steal and Elijah imagined if he were to take something that didn't belong to him it would be something he needed. A drawer crammed full of an assortment of belts was not a necessity.
"Uncle Elijah," Elijah turned to see Marcel standing at the doorway. "What are you d-"
When Marcel saw the open drawer exposing his theft his eyes widened in fear.
Elijah was slightly confused by the boy's unexpected fear. Sure he had been somewhat of a stern disciplinarian to the boy in the past but never had the boy looked at him so terrified. Little did he know that Marcel's nightmares had warped Marcel's view of the man into the monster who would kill him on a bridge and let his body get washed away in the river. Marcel didn't trust that monster and he wouldn't put it past the monster to use those belts in the same manner Kol did in his nightmares.
"Might I suggest the next time you require a belt you ask Kol before simply taking his things?" Elijah said calmly. "Or you could just come to me or your father and we'll get you a new belt."
Marel nodded bashfully. Elijah could feel something was wrong with the boy. He was simply off.
"Marcellus, are you feeling alright?"
Again the boy nodded. Elijah expected as much.
"Alright," Elijah sighed. As he was leaving he said, "You return those to where you found them before you come down for breakfast."
"Yes sir," Once Elijah was gone, Marcel let out a sigh of relief.
-M-
"Marcel is not sleeping well," Elijah said to Freya and Niklaus in Freya's workshop. He pulled them away after breakfast so he could have a private conversation with them about Marcel. "His lack of sleep is causing him to behave very uncharacteristically."
"Not to mention the strain it's putting on his spell," Freya added. "The Dupeauxs won't be back until Saturday. That's two nights away. I fear the spell I have in place won't make it that long if he doesn't get some rest soon. Best case scenario: I have to redo the spell and subject him to that torture again."
Niklaus's jaw tightened in fear of the answer to his next question. "Worst case?"
Somberly, Freya replied, "The spell breaks and Old Marcel's spirit returns too quickly for me to stop it and Marcel's brain will become...what's the saying? Soup?"
Niklaus cringed. "Fine, do whatever you have to do to get him to sleep."
"I actually think I might have something." Freya walked over to an old trunk in the corner full of her collection of cursed objects. She found an old, tattered teddy bear and brought it back to them.
"A dirty old bear?" Niklaus said sardonically. "Why didn't I think of that? A good dose of toxic mold always puts me right to sleep."
"Okay, so maybe he needs a little wash but this will work, trust me. It was created by an au pair living with a family of twelve children in 1914. It's how she put them all to sleep at the same time every night. You just put this by his bedside and the next time he's in bed he'll sleep like a rock."
Niklaus didn't like how deceitful it seemed but since Marcel wasn't making an effort to help himself Klaus felt it was his duty to make sure the boy got a good night's sleep.
-M-
Hope lounged back on her bed in relief of having just finished the last problem of her Algebra homework. Sebastian sat at her desk rocking back in the desk chair staring up at the ceiling.
Seeing Hope finally relax thirty minutes after he'd finished with the Civics homework, he said, "Finally. God, I thought you'd never finish."
Hope waded up a sheet of paper and threw it at the back of his head. "Shut up, you got the easy stuff. And you could've helped when you finished yours, slacker."
The two had made an agreement the night Sebastian moved in. Since they had most of the same classes, every night they would split the workload of homework and share their answers with each other so they could get through it all quicker. The problem was neither of them ever wanted to do the Algebra so whoever lost the coin flip that day always took the longest to finish. Unfortunately for Hope, she'd lost two days in a row.
As Hope stood to pass Sebastian the Algebra answers, Marcel walked by.
"Hey, Marcy," She called.
Marcel smiled at hearing the affectionate name his sister called him and came to her door.
"Come in," Hope hurried over to the door and pulled Marcel inside. She took a quick glance around the hallway to make sure no one was coming before closing the door. "Party in the Tremé tonight. Wanna go?"
"Um...I thought you were grounded."
"Yeah but it's a witch party and those go on until sunrise. I figure we'll wait until around one in the morning to make sure everyone's totally asleep and then we'll sneak out and be back before anyone realizes we're gone."
Marcel agreed immediately. Going to a party with Hope and Sebastian had to be better than staying up alone at night and staring at a dark room.
Suddenly the door opened and there stood Klaus with a fearsome scowl on his face. All three children stiffened, afraid he'd overheard their plan.
"I like to keep an open-door policy on bedroom doors around here," Klaus said while glaring dangerously at Sebastian.
Hope let out a sigh of relief. It was just Klaus being overprotective again. "Sorry, daddy," She said sweetly, calming her father's nerves.
"Perfectly alright, sweetheart, just...don't let it happen again. Now, I was just about to go work on a new landscape portrait. Care to lend a hand?"
"Actually, dad, me and Sebastian are working on a new spell."
"Does your Aunt Freya know about this new spell?" Klaus grunted.
Hope blushed as she remembered the last time she was caught doing a spell without Freya's supervision. "Yes, dad," she groaned. "She's going to be there with us."
"Good. That's good. Then I guess it'll just be me and Marcellus."
Marcel nodded with a smile. He liked that he was an automatic addition to his father's plans. It reassured him that his dreams were false. He thought since Klaus wanted him around so much he obviously wouldn't banish him like the Klaus in his nightmares had.
"That reminds me," Klaus revealed the hand he had hidden behind the door, and in it was a very clean, old teddy bear. "I have something for you."
Hope's mouth dropped as she watched Klaus hand the bear over to Marcel. Her father lavished her with gifts but that bear looked very old and sentimental and she envious of not being the one bestowed such a present.
Marcel stared down at the soft bear with a wide smile on his face.
"I know you might be a little too old for this sort of thing but I've noticed that you've had a rough couple of nights. I think this may be able to help you get to sleep."
Marcel doubted it. His lack of sleep had been completely voluntary and he doubted a stuffed bear would stop his nightmares so there was no chance of him getting a good night's sleep with it either.
That night Marcel prepared for bed just as he always did but when Klaus said 'goodnight' to him, instead of lying in bed for hours forcing his eyes open, Marcel drifted off to sleep.
His nightmares were torrential that night. In six hours he was forced to endure all the pain and fear he felt since the Mikaelsons return. He woke to a dark room just at the end of the six hours. Standing in the light of the window stood a figure that he didn't immediately recognize.
"Did you see it?" The strange man asked. "What they did to you?"
"Wh-who are you? How did you get in my room?" Marcel stammered. He threw the covers from over him, ready to run if the need came.
"You don't recognize your own face?"
It was then that Marcel realized the strange man was him - adult him, the him that Hope said his father hated. What he didn't know, however, was that the figure wasn't really the adult Marcel but a manifestation of the adult Marcel's fears - his own fears; a hallucination conjured by his lack of sleep and deep-seated insecurities.
"H-how...?" Little Marcel begged for answers but the older figure wasn't willing to answer.
"Those dreams weren't just dreams. They were memories. When the barrier between you and me almost broke, it severed the wall between my memories and yours and now you can't stop seeing them."
"No...no. Those are just bad dreams. None of it happened. It-it couldn't have. Poppa would never-"
"But he did and deep down you know he did. You've always known what he was, what his family was, but you thought he could never do anything like that to you. You thought he would love you forever but what he and his family did to us...what we did to them. We are not a family. They are not your family. You don't have a family. You're all alone. You're broken. Nobody wants a broken boy."
Marcel pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face between them, chanting 'he wouldn't do it' to himself over and over until he felt a hand on his arm. His eyes shot up, afraid the phantom in the corner had come closer when he saw Hope standing in front of him.
"Are you okay," she asked concerned by Marcel's frightened state.
Marcel looked around the room to see it empty save for himself, Hope, and Sebastian.
"Y-yeah," he stammered. "Just...a bad dream."
"Well hurry up and get dressed. We have to go. I checked, everyone's asleep."
-M-
When the three teens got to the Tremé party they had a blast. They danced, they were amazed by the magical entertainment, they even had a little to drink. When Hope's 4am alarm went off signaling their time to leave they almost didn't want to go but they knew they had to or risk being found out.
The walk home seemed longer on the way back because the teens rapturous dispositions made everything an ordeal.
"Bet I can climb this pole," Sebastian said as the three walked down the quiet back street trying to avoid Hayley's wolf sentries and before anyone could retort he started climbing it.
"Watch this," Hope whispered to Marcel. She quickly sped up the pole past Sebastian and to the top.
"Show off," Sebastian mocked.
Marcel laughed as Sebastian struggled back down the pole but then he heard some fast approaching footsteps. Before he could warn the other two they were circled by three of Hayley's rebel wolves.
"Marcel Gerard and Hope Mikaelson," One of the wolves said as he cracked his knuckles preparing to fight. They knew the teens weren't going to go down easy, that's why they sent their toughest foot soldiers to acquire them.
"We only need Klaus's two," Another of them said. "Get rid of the third one."
As the third kidnapper moved to attack Sebastian, Hope cast a spell to break his legs. The first man sped over to Hope and wrapped her in his giant arms around her and pinning her hands and arms down so she couldn't cast another spell. Marcel flew through the air unto the man's back and sank his teeth into the kidnapper's neck. The man released Hope to try to get Marcel off his back and when the second kidnapper came to help, Sebastian used his magic to send him flying off into a brick wall. The third man managed to grab Marcel and get him off his partner but then Hope used her spell to break his arms.
"That's it!" The second man said as he stood back up. "We really only need one of you." Suddenly all three rogue wolves bared their venomous teeth.
The first kidnapper grabbed Sebastian by the throat. Hope raised her hand to do her bone-breaking spell again when the second man sped over and grabbed her hand, crushing her bones in his grip. She let out a head-splitting scream. Marcel tackled him away from Hope and wrestled with him on the ground. Summoning all of his vampire strength to get on top of the man, Marcel prepared to take another bite into his neck when he was suddenly lifted off by the other wolf. The man sunk his toxic teeth into Marcel's neck and the effects were immediate.
The wolf tossed Marcel aside on the ground and for a second it looked to Hope to be all over but then suddenly all three wolves dropped to the ground with their neck snapped.
Vincent came running across the street from his sanctuary. "Are you kids alright?" He panicked. He saw the commotion through a window in the attic and knew he had to come help. Even if he hated the Mikaelsons, he wasn't the kind of monster to let children get hurt without doing something to stop it.
With tears on her face, Hope focused her magic in her broken hand and fixed every broken bone in a matter of seconds.
"Marcel," she uttered. She ran over to her brother. Marcel was on his hands and knees on the ground, sweating profusely, and hallucinating the Old Marcel standing above him, taunting him.
"You will never be one of them." He ridiculed. "You're not his blood. They have no reason to love you. You're broken."
"You're wrong," Marcel muttered aloud to himself. "They love me. I know they do. They're my family."
Marcel felt a hand on his shoulder. He again assumed it to be the Marcel of his hallucinations and without a second thought, he spun around and shoved his hand through the man's chest. But it wasn't him. Hope's telltale glass-shattering scream echoed in Marcel's ears and brought him back to reality. He was horrified to find his hand splitting through Hope's rib cage.
With a snap of his finger, Vincent sent the boy flying away from Hope. Marcel looked on in abject dismay at the scene of the girl kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily as she struggled to heal the hole in her chest.
"Now look what you've done," The older Marcel hallucination stood beside Hope. "Now they're definitely going to kill you. There's no coming back from this. You should run, now. Before they catch you."
Marcel believed the illusion. If Klaus didn't kill him, according to his resurfacing memories Elijah certainly had no qualms about ripping out his heart. Terrified of the thought, Marcel sped away.
"Marcel," Hope stammered through ragged breath. She rose to her feet, ready to chase after him when Vincent grabbed her arm.
"I'll go after him. You get home and get your Aunt Freya to do something about that wound."
Hope had healed the wound just enough to keep herself alive but she was still missing a few layers of epidermis clearly visible through her ripped blouse.
"It'll heal!" Hope pulled her arm out of the man's grip and looked back in the direction Marcel ran off to. "I'm going after him too! He got bit! He needs my blood!"
"Hope, look!" Sebastian pointed at a ring shining under the light of the lamp post.
"Marcel's daylight ring," Hope muttered as she picked it up. "It must've gotten snatched off during the fight." She saw the peak of the sun over the horizon. She took a deep breath and resigned. "We're not going to be able to find him on our own in time. We have to tell my family."
Sebastian sighed, thankful that Hope came to that conclusion on her own without any coaxing from him.
-M-
The Mikaelsons barely had time to throw on clothes before Niklaus had them out in the streets searching for Marcel. He had every available wolf scouring every abandoned warehouse, every old junkyard, every possible hiding spot a narrow-shouldered teenage boy could squeeze himself in. They were to leave no rock unturned until Freya could finish the locator spell and give them an exact location as to where the boy was.
When Klaus finally got the text from Freya of Marcel's coordinates, he still couldn't breathe easily. Not until he saw Marcel with his own eyes and knew he was okay.
Marcel paced back in forth on the roof of a radio station.
"You should run away." Old Marcel said. "They're just gonna banish you anyway. Or worse. You hurt his daughter. His real child. You saw what they did to me when they just thought I hurt her. You don't stand a chance."
"Shut up and go away!" Marcel screamed with tears flooding his eyes. The hallucination was beginning to break him. The venom was coursing quickly through his tired, panicked body and the closer to death he became the more real Old Marcel seemed. "Please...go away,"
"Marcel,"
Marcel heard the man's voice behind him but he thought it was just another illusion conjured by his tired mind.
Then Klaus touched him. He wrapped his arms around Marcel and held him. Marcel struggled at first but Klaus kept a tight hold on the boy, squeezing him tightly against his body until Marcel's struggles became halfhearted at best.
"It's okay," Klaus repeated softly into the boy's ear. "It's okay. Poppa's here."
Once the boy was calm enough, Klaus slipped the daylight ring back on his finger and just in time too as the sun was beginning to rise high enough to burn.
"He's going to kill you."
"Don't kill me," Marcel sobbed. "P-Please. I didn't...I didn't mean to."
Niklaus ignored the boy's pleas. He knew one of the side effects of a wolf bite was terrifying hallucinations and he assumed the boy was talking to some horrible figure from his past at that moment.
"Shh, Marcellus, it's alright," Klaus bit into his wrist and held it against Marcel's mouth. "Drink, son. That's it,"
Marcel drank until the hallucinations were no more. Then the warm sensation of his father's blood lulled his exhausted body to sleep.
Klaus lifted the limp boy in his arms and carried him the long walk back home.
So I'm thinking of doing some one-shots about the days Marcel spent as a child with Hope and Sebastian and all the mischief they could get into. If you like that idea let me know and if you have any ideas about what you want to see in those one-shots let me know. Hyridaoriginal suggested it and I thought it was a splendid idea.
Update: Let me be clear that I'm not going to stop writing this story for the one shots. The one-shots are gonna be sporadically updated (more so than this story has been lol).
