Chapter 35

Flashback

Elijah walked into the parlor of the Mikaelson's newly acquired manor hoping to find his youngest brother but he was disappointed with the sight of only Finn.

"Have you seen Kol," Elijah asked.

"Not since sunrise when he woke me with the head of a shepherd lying next to my face." Finn continued staring down at the book in his hands.

Elijah wasn't surprised by Finn's news. In the ten years since they had become vampires, Kol had gotten more and more violent towards humans. He lacked empathy when it came to 'playing' with them, treating them like disposable paper dolls. It was only with the witches that his brother seemed to show any restraint but that wasn't good enough for Elijah. He needed all the members of his family to be in control, if not their own then his. That was the only way he could ensure the safety of his siblings from their hateful father.

"Then we need to go find him," Elijah demanded. "He could be out finding more trouble."

"I do not deign to keep up with that snake. I have more important things to do," Finn lifted the front of his book to show Elijah that he was reading from their mother's grimoire. "Like finding a way to reverse this curse that plagues us."

Elijah shook his head disappointedly but said nothing about Finn's desire. They all knew that Esther's curse was permanent but Finn lived in constant denial and Elijah had grown tired of arguing with him about it.

"He is our little brother, Finn. We are responsible for whatever he does and whoever he kills if we don't try to stop him."

"We cannot stop him. He doesn't listen to reason. This cursed blood in our veins has gone to his head and made him a madman. All we can do now is let him kill until I can figure out a way to get a witch to reverse this curse and free him, and all of us, from these bodies."

"If he continues to cause mayhem in this town, he will draw Mikael to us," Elijah firmly reminded his brother of the threat they were all hiding from.

"Then let Mikael come," Fine grunted. "Our foolish baby brother was always more receptive to Mikael's abuse than any of us. It has always proven a sure way to keep him in line in as children."

Frustrated with trying to reason with Finn, Elijah spun on his heels and ventured out to find Kol on his own.

End Flashback

Hope and Kol walked side by side through the streets of Algiers with no real destination in mind. Kol had planned to meet with Josh to talk about the predicament his sister put him in but he was with Hope now and he didn't think Klaus would be too happy about Hope being with one of the vampires he trusted the least. So they walked through the streets, talking to each other, with Kol reminiscing on all of the times Klaus had interfered with his siblings love-life in the past to prove to Hope that she wasn't the first Mikaelson broken hearted by Klaus's annoying need for control.

"Coast of Ireland, May 12th, 1414," Kol started. "I fell in love with a beautiful young witch without a coven. She was a loner and didn't like answering to anyone and so she was definitely not a fan of Klaus. She proposed we ran away together, just the two of us, and live on an island away from all civilization. It sounded so perfect the way she described it. I wanted to run away with her at that moment, leaving everything else behind but she insisted we wait until sunrise when Klaus would be just getting to bed after a long night. I didn't want to. I knew if we didn't leave then Klaus would find out and try to stop us but she said I was being paranoid. She said 'Sunrise is only six hours away. There's no way your brother will discover anything in six hours'. That sounded reasonable to me. I thought she was right, I was just being paranoid, so I said, 'Alright, see you in six hours'. Six hours later we were supposed to meet at the stables. I waited in there for hours and she never showed. I searched everywhere, all of Ireland, and I couldn't find her. I knew Klaus had something to do with it so I confronted him. When I did, he said that he was disappointed in me for falling under the enchantment of a necromancer. He thought she put some sort of love spell on me and she was just trying to lure me to do all her bidding." He scoffed as he said, "He actually thought he was helping me by getting rid of her."

"What did he do to her," Hope asked.

Kol looked down at his niece, her big saucer eyes staring back up at him, and he knew he couldn't tell her the truth. She wasn't ready to know the extent Klaus would go to to keep his siblings from falling in love.

"He found her right after I talked to her that night and he...compelled her to leave, to forget about me, and to never come back. I never found her."

Hope didn't want to believe that her dad would do something so mean, but she knew that Kol wouldn't lie to her about something like that either.

"He would never do that to anyone I liked, would he?"

Kol knew he would burn he didn't want to ruin Hope's Birthday anymore than it was already with the truth. "Probably not. Klaus would never do anything to make you hate him. You're his little girl."

Hope walked along in silence a little longer, hoping that her uncle was right.

"Do you think Aunty Freya was meeting those vampire scenes in secret that night because she's in love with one of them and thinks dad is going to try to break them up too?"

Kol was taken aback. He'd forgotten that Hope had been privy to Freya's secret meeting too.

"I wish that was what she was as up to," Kol muttered. "You haven't told anyone what we saw that night, have you?"

"No. I was too mad at mom and dad after what they did to me that night to tell them anything and then I just forgot about it until right now. What do you think she was meeting those vampires for?"

"Um...she was probably just...in the wrong place at the wrong time. She's lucky nothing bad happened. You remember to never go anywhere without telling someone where you are first."

"But that's not fair. I'm supposed to just check in every time my friends and I decide to go get some ice cream or take a walk in the park. No other teenager has to tell their family about their every move."

Kol chuckled lightly. He had the same reaction the first time Elijah tried to impose rules on him.

"Trust me, sweetheart," Kol chuckled. "Dropping a pin of your location is a lot easier than the alternative."

Flashback:

Kol screamed in pain and anger as Elijah dragged him by his ear into the common room where their other siblings patiently waited.

"Damn you, Elijah," Kol yelled as Elijah released him. He rubbed fervently at his burning ear hoping that the pain would lessen.

"Next time you'd fare better to listen when I give you a command, little brother," Elijah growled. He found Kol in the nearby village, making a game of compelling people to jump from different size buildings so his new witch girlfriend could practice stopping a falling body. Needless to say, some of their test subjects didn't make it.

"You can't 'command' me, Elijah," Kol bellowed. "I am just as immortal as you and just as powerful. We are equals now!"

"If you were truly my equal, little brother, you would realize how dumb you are for killing so many humans without regard. If an entire village of people were to all suddenly commit mass suicide, wouldn't that strike suspicion into the average man? And if the average man would be suspicious of it, just how do you think Mikael would react if the news traveled to him? He would go searching for that village until it led him back to us."

Klaus was sitting in an armchair watching a bit irately as Elijah scolded Kol for having fun until Elijah mentioned Mikael. He would have rather found a way to put Kol out of commission before he allowed their annoying little brother to lead Mikael to them.

"So what," Kol yelled. "Mikael is out there and he will always be out there, just like we'll always be here. Are we really to live the rest of our immortal lives running from our father like scared children?"

"Until we can find a way to kill him before he can get to Klaus, yes, that's exactly what we'll do," Elijah barked. "We will keep our heads down and act like thorough-born aristocrats lest we draw that monster out of hiding."

"You know what would make everything easier," Kol continued to yell. "If we all went our separate ways! Mikael is only after Niklaus. If he finds any of the rest of us, he'll let us be but not if we're running with the werewolf bastard-"

Rebekah sored from her spot on the couch beside Finn and sped over to Kol, slapping her brother across the face before he could let out any more foul remarks about Niklaus.

"How dare you," she spat. "Niklaus is our brother. We will lot leave him to fend off our father by himself."

Kol glared daggers at Rebekah. His first instinct was to hit her back but the last time he hit Rebekah he was twelve and Mikael beat him so thoroughly afterward that Kol would've sooner broken his own arm than hit the girl again. As he stood there then, however, the bright handprint painted across his face marked with searing pain brought by her vampire strength, a strength to match his own, he wondered if he could get away with hitting her just one last time.

Although Kol was in pain, the tears were in Rebekah's eyes. Tears of absolute anger towards her family. She looked towards Niklaus sitting quietly on the couch. After nearly a decade of running away from their abusive father, he was still fretfully conditioned to look away from direct eye contact, even from his loving little sister.

"I would never leave you, Niklaus," she swore. "Even if we have to run for eternity."

Kol looked back at Niklaus to find his big brother cautiously avoiding making eye contact. Kol wasn't stupid. He saw the abuse Mikael doled out to Niklaus his own life. He always knew it wasn't fair that Niklaus was punished so much more and so much harsher than any of the rest of them and he was ashamed of the relief he felt whenever he heard Mikael screaming obscenities at Klaus in his hut followed by the sound of Mikael striking him with some sort of stick or horsewhip or some other weapon he rarely used on the other children. With every heartwrenching scream Niklaus let out, Kol's stomach would knot with disgust and relief. Relief...that it was better it was happening to Niklaus than himself.

As Niklaus sat quietly in his chair, Kol realized that Niklaus wasn't going to ask him to stay. In the ten years they'd been on the run, not once had Klaus ever asked any of them to stay with him. Elijah told him that it was because Niklaus didn't think he deserved them or anyone's love. Mikael had beaten him so, he thought he'd be better alone and forgotten than with the people who loved him unconditionally. Kol believed Elijah. It was obvious in the way Klaus would do anything to make his siblings happy, as if he was afraid that if they were angry at him for even a moment they would leave him, but at the same time thinking that he didn't deserve the happiness his family brought him.

"I was only jesting," Kol scoffed, rolling his eyes. "What would I do? Spend eternity alone? Pssh. That's worse than spending a year locked in a room with father."

As Klaus relaxed the tight grip he had on the armrests of his chair, Elijah sighed. The cotton cushioning seeping through the holes dug into the leather by Klaus's fingers indicated clear enough how Klaus felt about losing any of his siblings even if their brother wouldn't say it himself.

"But," Kol sang. "Since I've already killed so many people in the village, the news has probably spread already and Mikael is probably going to figure out where we are any minute if he hasn't figured it out already."

"I certainly hope there's a point in there somewhere," Elijah growled.

"Maybe I could...finish off...the rest of them," Kol asked hopeful. "Or we could do it together. Make a game of it," he grew excited the more he talked. "C'mon, it's been years since the five of us played a game together."

"That's because we're not children and those people are not wooden toys," Elijah yelled. Forcefully calming himself down, he said, "We will pack our things tonight and we will leave at sunrise WITHOUT killing anyone else."

With a smug smirk, Kol moved to walk out of the room past Elijah, mumbling under his breath, "I could kill half a dozen humans before you could leave this room and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

Elijah didn't know why the thought that came to his mind did at that moment and he didn't care because what he had just heard Kol say made him want to follow through on that thought instantly.

Before Kol could step over the threshold of the room, Elijah had grabbed him by the arm and vamped over to the wooden chair sitting in the corner of the room. All of his siblings turned wide eyes at the sight of him slamming Kol forcefully over his lap and raining down swats to Kol's seat.

"What are you doing," Kol screamed as he wriggled fiercely over Elijah's knees. "Let me go! Stop it!"

Struggling to keep Kol in place, Elijah grabbed one of Kol's arms and locked it behind his back, keeping him securely in place. Having now gotten the upper hand, Elijah took advantage of Kol's current sedation to flip up the bottom of his tunic and pull down his tights, revealing Kol's bare behind to the entire room. Rebekah blushed and turned away from the sight but Klaus and Finn were too curious to turn away.

As Elijah started spanking away Rebekah turned back around, too amazed at seeing Elijah spanking Kol to register that she was seeing her brother's naked bottom. Elijah began alternating from cheek to cheek to ensure the entirety of Kol's behind felt his disappointment as he began to lecture, "I've had enough of your recklessness and heartlessness. Since we were turned into vampires you have shown less and less regard for human life but that ends now. Our mother may have turned us into bloodsucking beasts of the night, little brother, but that doesn't mean we have to be monsters. I will not let you turn into Mikael."

"You can't tell me what to do," Kol screamed. "I am a man! You can't do this!"

Elijah started hitting Kol harder, peppering every inch of his bottom with singing, painful smacks until his bottom changed from pink to a bright, glimmering red.

"Stop," Kol screamed, tears trickling down his eyes. His fighting had died down some but he still felt the need to kick his legs every once and a while to shift the center of his bottom so Elijah wasn't hitting the same spot too many times.

"Not until I feel like we have an understanding," Elijah growled. His hand was as heated as Kol's behind was at this point but he wasn't ready to end Kol's punishment until he was sure Kol would agree to stop killing people.

Glancing down at Kol's feet, Elijah noticed that his brother had kicked off his slippers while he was fighting to free himself from Elijah. Getting another idea, Elijah stood Kol to his feet and sped over to the discarded slipper, returning to his seat and throwing Kol back over his lap before Kol could even register that there was a pause in the spanking. When the sting of the slipper slapped his bottom, Kol screamed out. Then it came down a dozen more times, adding a deep glow of mauve to Kol's red bottom.

"Stop," Kol wailed, his body lying limp as the hateful sole of the slipper landed sharply across his sore bottom. "Pleeeasssse, Elijah."

"Promise me," Elijah barked, not ceasing in his endeavor to cover Kol's bottom with sharp smacks as many times as it took to get him to agree. "Promise me you won't play games with human lives anymore! Promise me!"

Kol's face was covered in tears and snot that he couldn't wipe away because he was holding up his face from the ground with one hand and Elijah had the other hand pinned firmly across his back.

"I promise," he finally screamed. "I won't do it again, I promise, I promise. Please, PLEASE, STOP, 'Lijah! I'll be good, I swear!"

Elijah stopped immediately. He waited for Kol's crying to turn into soft sobs before they both stood back to their feet.

Elijah placed his hands on both sides of Kol's face and looked him in the eyes, saying, "I will not let you become Mikael. I will not let you become a monster. Do you understand me?"

Kol was too focused on rubbing the sting away from his stinging behind to listen to anything Elijah was saying until he got to a point that sounded like he was supposed to reply but he didn't know how exactly he was supposed to reply. Realizing that his brother was ignoring him, Elijah grabbed Kol's hand and pulled it away from his butt and landed three solid smacks to his brother's already aching bottom. Kol danced from foot to foot, screaming as more tears made their way down his cheeks.

"I see that you're not ready to talk yet," Elijah growled as he dragged Kol over to the nearest corner and stood him there facing the wall. "Stand here and do not move from this corner. Do not attempt to pull up your tights. Do not attempt to rub away the sting. Disobey me and I will drag you kicking and screaming back across my knee, do you understand me?"

Kol's reply was a heartfelt sob.

Elijah went back over to his other siblings and took his place in the armchair next to the fireplace as he picked up a book and proceeded reading it as if nothing had happened.

"Elijah," Finn muttered, still surprised by the turn of events. "Wh-what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm taking control of my siblings," Elijah answered straightforwardly. "Something you never bothered to do."

"Even if I did this is not how I would've chosen to go about it. You can't just spank him like he's some...some...rambunctious child. He would be thirty years old right now if he could age."

"I don't care if he's a hundred years old," Elijah stated plainly. "If my little brother is doing something that could endanger the safety of this family, I will stop him by any means necessary."

"And what makes you think we would start listening to you all of a sudden now after this?"

Elijah glanced over to Kol still sobbing with his face pressed against the corner. Nodding for Finn to look back at Kol, Elijah said, "He's doing a good job of it so far."

No one said anything else the following ten minutes Elijah had Kol standing in the corner. Kol thought the moment he heard Elijah walking over to him would never come. He wanted to run out of the corner and hide somewhere with every ticking of the clock but he was afraid Elijah would make good on his promise if he moved and considering that even after ten minutes his bottom still held a bit of sting to it, he knew he didnt' want to go through another spanking ever again.

"Turn around," came Elijah's voice behind him. Kol turned with a tight-lipped frown on his face and still sniffling back tears. "Have you learned anything?"

"No," Kol bit indignantly.

Elijah sighed. "Fine. Then I guess we will have to try again until you do."

As he reached out for Kol's hand, Kol pulled it back, crying, "No, no, I have learned, I swear."

"And what have you learned," Elijah insisted.

"...I've learned...that you will thrash me like a child if I don't start respecting human lives more."

Elijah chuckled. That wasn't quite the lesson he was trying to teach his brother but it was close enough.

When Elijah first pulled Kol into a hug, Kol was stiff, unsure of how to react to the unsolicited burst of comfort but then as Elijah began rubbing his hands gently up and down his brother's back, Kol began to relax, burying his face in Elijah's neck to hide the few straying tears from the sight of his onlooking siblings.

"I love you, little brother," Elijah mumbled softly against Kol's ear. "Do you know that?"

Kol didn't trust himself to speak without his voice cracking so he opted to just nod against Elijah's shoulder.

"And I punished you so harshly because I needed to get you under control before you did something to harm yourself or this family. Do you understand that?"

Again, Kol nodded.

Lifting his brother from his shoulder, Elijah stood Kol up straight and forced him to look him in the eyes. "I didn't do it because I wanted to hurt you. I didn't do it because I wanted to see you in pain. That's never what I want. I don't ever want you to be afraid of me. do you understand?"

Kol understood. Elijah was trying to reassure him that he didn't want to ever be equated with Mikael by his siblings. What he did was out of love to protect his family, not because he was a hateful man who couldn't control his temper like their father.

"I-I understand," Kol stuttered, forcefully wiping away tears from his eyes with his hands. "B-but you say that l-like y-you plan to do this again."

Elijah walked over to the side table beside his chair and grabbed the handkerchief sitting on it. He walked back over to Kol and pulled his brother's hands away from his face as he began wiping away Kol's tears with the handkerchief.

"Unfortunately, this will probably not be the last time you find yourself in this predicament, little brother," said Elijah woefully. "But it took us ten years to get here. Perhaps the next one is twice as long away."

End Flashback

-M-

Finn waited at the end of the alley, a shiver of disgust going through his body with every gulp Mikael took. Mikael had dragged the body of his vampire victim to the back of the alley so he could take his time feeding on him, draining the young vampire of every drop of his blood, savoring the taboo indulgence. He ordered Finn to keep a look ut so he could take his time and not have to worry about nosey interruptions. Fearing that he would be next on his father's grocery list if he didn't comply, Finn obeyed.

He was trying to ignore the sound of the young vampire's struggling when he spotted Kol walking hand-in-hand with a teenage girl. From her soft blond hair to her intense blue eyes, she was the spitting image of their little sister Rebekah and he knew who she was immediately.

He heard Mikael drop the limp body of the dead vampire on the cement behind them.

"Well, well, well," Mikael growled deeply. He closed his eyes, focusing on the presence of the two vampires across the street from them. "Is that Kol," he asked.

Realizing Mikael had sensed Kol and Hope nearby, Finn reluctantly answered, "Yes."

"And who is that with him? She seems...familiar. I can't quite place this feeling..."

"It's Niklaus's daughter," said Finn.

"Ah yes. The bastard's offspring. She's still alive after all this time. Bully for her. Let's go introduce ourselves," Mikael reached down and grabbed the sleeve of the vampire he'd just drained and wiped the blood from his mouth. "Shall we."

Finn couldn't understand why every fiber of his body urged him to stop Mikael from going near Kol or Hope. He didn't care about the girl, she was just Klaus's kid - no more important to him than Marcel was - and he had cursed Kol to death before so he was sure that he didn't care about him either. Yet, still something tugging at his heart made him stand in front of Mikael, blocking his exit from the alley.

"What are you doing?" Mikael growled.

Scrambling for an excuse, Finn said, "Freya told us to stay away from them."

"Freya asked us to stay out of the Quarter. They're in my territory now."

As Mikael pushed his way past Finn, Finn barked, "Was our entire human lives not enough? Haven't you had enough of torturing us? Do you exist solely to make this family miserable?" The words escaped his lips before he could stop them.

Mikael pivoted as if the ground didn't exist beneath him and faced Finn with a fierce scowl.

Finn feigned bravery although every part of him wanted to run and hide. He wished at that moment that he was still a witch. He felt so much more powerful as a witch. As if it was what he was always meant to be.

Remembering his promise to Freya, Mikael calmed himself down and was amazed by his own willpower to keep him from attacking Finn just then.

"I'm just going to say hello to my granddaughter," Mikael smirked. "No need to worry."

Before Finn could try to stop him again, Mikael sped across the busy street to the other sidewalk, stopping just in front of Kol and Hope.

"M-Mikael," Kol stammered in surprise. He wasn't expecting to find Mikael only a block away from Josh's apartment. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

"Funny," Mikael smirked. "You don't seem surprised to see me back."

"Uncle Kol," said Hope as she glared suspiciously at Mikael. She could tell he was a vampire, and she could tell that he was very stronger, but there was something else about him that seemed strange to her. "Who is this?"

Before Kol could think of an answer for her that wasn't 'this is your psychopath grandpa', Mikael stated, "The child doesn't know it's rude to interrupt when adults are speaking? What are you people teaching her."

Frightened of the sinister look in Mikael's eyes, Kol gracefully moved between Hope and Mikael before his father could think to use some of his old teaching methods on his granddaughter.

"Well," Mikael smiled. "It's a good thing her grandpa has come back to life to teach her all the things that bastard failed to."


Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter! Y'all are awesome (kissy emoji) And it looks like we're back to the regular lengthed chapters again for a while lol