Chapter 77

Kol floated lazily in the water, basking in the glow of the sun while Marcel knelt on the nearby shore attempting to re-inflate his plastic chicken float. The googly-eyed monstrosity was completely flat when they made it back to the lake, floating in the middle of the water like a big yellow lilypad.

"Give it up, mate," Kol groaned. "It's a goner. The worst Mikaelson to ever live has once again ruined an evening swarming with potential fun."

Finn bit his lip, refusing to buy into Kol's jeering. Upon Klaus and Elijah's insisting, Finn stayed close to Kol and Marcel even though the two of them were persistent on talking as if he wasn't floating a few feet away.

Marcel eased down to his knees, out of breath after wasting almost ten minutes of their lake time trying to blow up the chicken, searching for an invisible leak, and failing miserably.

"You're right," he groaned. He cut his eyes over at Finn, looking at him for the first time since they came to the lake. "You make it very hard to be on your side."

Finn shot his gaze down to the lake, staring at his own reflection as he muttered, "I don't need you to be on my side."

"That's right," Kol suddenly stood up straight, eyeing Finn with a fierce scowl. "You don't need anyone, do you, brother?"

Finn brought his sight back up to Kol. The hidden anger in Kol's voice caused a chill to shoot down Finn's back.

"Why are you even still fighting to be a part of this family?" Kol continued. "I'm sure you can take care of yourself, even in this diminutive state. Stop playing the martyr and just go already."

"Alright, Kol," Marcel sighed as he rose to his feet. "That's enough. You know what'll happen if you start something with him. It's not worth it." He jumped into the lake with a big enough splash to engulf Finn.

"Whoops," he said drily as Finn wiped his eyes free of dripping hair and water. "Guess I didn't see you there."

Finn scowled in reply but stayed quiet.

Marcel was about to flip over on his back and float idly through the water when he looked up to see his father passing his sketch pad over to Elijah. The way Elijah studied the page, it was clear that he wasn't just sharing another of his drawings. As Elijah began scribbling something on the page, Marcel's curiosity grew.

Slapping his hand across Kol's chest, he brought his attention to the other two Originals sitting under the tree.

"They're passing notes," he whispered.

Kol turned to see Elijah hand the sketch pad back over to Niklaus. "What do you think it's about?"

"Gotta be something serious if they're afraid of talking about it out loud. They must think we're going to listen in."

"Think it's got something to do with us?"

"No. I don't think they would care if we listened to them make decisions about us. My bet is it's about Caroline."

"Whatever it is has them too busy to pay attention to you right now," Finn suddenly interrupted, surprising even himself.

Kol and Marcel looked back to him, their furrowed brows knotted more in confusion than anger.

"So," Kol bit.

Finn swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. He didn't mean to draw attention to himself but now that all eyes were on him, he decided to press on. "So...one of you could just...vamp over there and...peep around the tree. If you're quiet enough. They won't even know you're there."

Kol and Marcel looked at each other, reading each other's thoughts as only they could do.

"It was your idea," Marcel finally said. "Why do you do it."

Finn's eyes widened at the challenge.

"Yeah," Kol added with a smirk. "Go on, brother. Prove you're one of us for once in your miserable life and go be our scout."

As angry as Finn was at Kol's taunt, a part of him edge him on. It wasn't because he wanted to be 'one of them', he could live his whole life in satisfaction to never be compared to Kol. But he also knew they were only asking him to do it because they didn't' think his plan would work, that he was trying to set them up. But he had confidence in his own logic.

"Fine," he grumbled as he climbed slowly out of the lake, hoping to not make any unnecessary splashes that would draw Klaus and Elijah's attention to him.

"Think he'll make it?" Marcel muttered to Kol as Finn vanished from in front of them into the treeline.

"I don't think he's going to do it," Kol chuckled. "Finn has never been the brave one of the bunch. He'll probably intentionally make some noise before he even gets close enough and when they ask what he's doing out of the lake, he'll make up an excuse about being cold or something. Trust me. Without our dear ol' mother there to hold his hand, little Finn's as timid as Bambi."

Marcel lifted an eyebrow in confusion. Of all of the 20th-century movies he thought Kol would be eager to catch up on, he never expected Disney would be his first choice. "You know Bambi?"

Kol shrugged. "Davina and I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Y'know, when we're not too busy 'reading books'."

Marcel rolled his eyes and splashed Kol with a wave of water that covered his entire body.

Neither of them saw that Finn had actually made it across the outline of the forest to the tree Klaus and Elijah sat beneath passing their notes. The boy braced himself against the tree and crept slowly forward. Thanks to his enhanced supernatural vision, he didn't have to get too close to Niklaus to read the writing over his shoulder. He started at the top of the page, reading about Elijah's discovery of Tyler's message to Marcel's phone. The next few messages were them deciding whether or not they should just dispose of Tyler altogether and cut the rest of the Mystic Falls vamps as a loss but that correspondence ended with Klaus deciding he didn't want to lose Caroline's friendship.

Finn searched further down the page as Klaus began to write, wondering if his brother had found a solution to his problem when Niklaus wrote, in large capitalized letters, 'I KNOW YOU'RE BACK THERE'.

Finn was a bit confused by the unexpected break in consciousness until Klaus said aloud, "Come here, Finn."

The teenage boy froze in place.

"Now."

Kol laughed wholeheartedly as he watched Finn tiptoe around the tree to stand before Niklaus. "I didn't think he'd actually do it."

Marcel snickered along. "Guess he traded in that trademarked timidness for foolishness."

"I hope they thrash him since he was so eager to see me beaten."

Finn stared down at his bare toes wiggling between the blades of grass instead of looking at either of his brothers.

"What are you doing?" Niklaus asked calmly.

Finn shrugged in answer.

Elijah looked around Finn to Kol and Marcel watching them from the lake. He could see the mischief in Kol's eyes even from as far away as he was. "Did Kol put you up to this?"

"No," the boy muttered.

"Did Marcel?" Klaus asked.

Finn chewed at his lip and shook his head no.

Klaus could tell by the boy's growing nervousness that he was lying to them.

With a sigh, he sat back against the tree and crossed one leg over the other. "You know what happens when you lie to us, Finn?"

Finn brought his thumb up to his mouth and chewed desperately at the nail as he nodded his head yes.

"Then I will give you one more chance to tell me the truth and I will spare you from the switch."

"I'm not lying," Finn bit, his anger at not being believed overriding his sense of self-preservation. "I just..." He glanced over his shoulder at Kol. His brother's eyes had gone from jovial to tense, expecting Finn to rat him out without hesitation. Turning back to Klaus, Finn muttered, "I just...wondering if I could come sit with you two. Kol and Marcel are still refusing to talk to me so...if I'm going to sit in silence I'd rather do it here."

Niklaus was almost sure that Finn was still lying to him but, in case he wasn't, he didn't want to risk isolating him.

"You're supposed to be making efforts to fix your relationship with them," said Elijah.

"They don't want to fix their relationship with me. They...don't want me around."

Elijah understood his brother's irritation but he knew that hiding behind Freya for the past few months is the exact reason his relationship with Kol and Marcel has remained stagnant.

"You have to keep pushing," Elijah insisted. "Find common ground."

Finn pouted and kicked at a pebble between his feet, overestimating the strength it would take to kick the pebble out of the dirt. The rock flew from the ground with bullet-like precision. Neither Klaus nor Elijah flinched as the pebble struck the tree between them, embedding itself into the bark.

His brows furrowed, Klaus growled, "And keep a lid on that temper while you're at it, brother. Though the daggers may no longer be an applicable punishment, if you ever do anything to hurt Marcellus, accident or no, I will thrash you from here to Kingdom come."

Face blushed red with shame, Finn nodded and stammered, "Y-yes, sir." His entire body turned scarlet when he realized he'd called his 'little' brother 'sir'. He was glad that, if Klaus or Elijah realized it, they didn't acknowledge it.

"Go on," Klaus motioned for Finn to go back to the lake. "And the next time you need our attention, come to us directly. No more snooping around, understand?"

Finn didn't trust himself not to let 'sir' slip out again this time so he simply nodded and scurried back off towards the lake. He decided to walk the boundary of the lake rather than swim back to Kol and Marcel, hoping the extra time would give his face to return to its natural paleness.

As soon as he made it back to them, he slipped into the water with his head held down, ashamed since he was sure they'd heard Klaus and Elijah scold him and his submissive reply.

"So..."

Finn finally looked up to Kol to see a look of pure mischief in his eyes.

"How'd it go?"

Finn stayed silent, his sight darting back over to Klaus and Elijah who were still in the midst of their secret correspondence but he was sure that his brothers could do two things at once. They could still be listening in on them after Finn's failed attempt at playing spy and Finn was sure Kol knew this too.

"They...they didn't want me to sit with them." He said, hoping Kol would follow his lead but the roguish smirk that grew on his younger brother's face told him that Kol knew exactly what he was doing. He'd heard Finn's conversation with their brothers just as he was sure his brothers were listening in on them now.

"No, not that," Kol continued. "I mean did you figure out what they're writing about? Go on. Spill. That was the entire point of you going over there afterall, right?"

Finn turned wide eyes to Klaus and Elijah again but still, the two of them didn't seem interested in their conversation.

"Shut up," he bit. "You know what'll happen if they find out I lied to them."

Kol leaned down close to Finn's face and said, in his best Finn impression, "I hope they beat you until you're a wretched, sobbing mess."

Finn's nose flared with rage. He wondered if this was Kol's plan all along, to set him up for failure in the hopes of getting him in trouble.

Kol shrugged as he stood straight. "Either you can tell them you lied, or I'll get Marcel to do it. He can't lie to Klaus now so all it'll take is a little bit of prodding our big brother into asking Marcel the right questions and *poof*, Finn's over someone's lap."

Finn looked over to Marcel and the young vampire stood with the same victorious smile on his face that Kol so proudly sported, both of them knowing that they'd 'won' this battle over their shared foe.

The boy didn't know what came over him, whether it was the rage of being tricked by his little brother or the fact that he was actually dumb enough to fall for it, but he was filled with anger.

And the next thing he knew, he was rolling around the muddy, shallow end of the lake with Kol's neck clutched tightly between his hands.

Kol tried to fight against Finn's hold but, though clumsy as he was, Finn was still an Original and had an Original's strength. Even with Marcel pulling at Finn's body, he couldn't get the angry boy off of him. He tried to fight against his brother's strange-hold but the darkness was closing in on him too quickly. His eyes rolled back in his head and just when he thought he would die, he took a deep breath in.

Kol opened his eyes to see Finn still fighting to get at him as Klaus carried him away.

Clutching his sore throat, Kol screeched, "That little shit tried to kill me!"

He stilled as Elijah wrenched him up from the mud by his arm, expecting a spank for his swearing but none came as Elijah stood silently in front of him examining the reddening handprints around his throat.

"Are you alright?" Elijah asked, running his thumb gently down the length of Kol's throat.

Kol swallowed his fear and said, "Y-yeah. He's lucky Klaus pulled him off of me or I would've-"

Elijah's burning gaze shut Kol up before he could finish his idle threat.

"We're going back to the cabin," Elijah stated firmly, pushing Kol towards the bank, his voice deadly sharp. He pointed for Marcel to follow, the young vampire soaked and breathing heavily after fighting to prevent Kol's death. "The three of you are going to clean this disgusting mud off of you and then someone is going to explain what happened here."


This is probably the shortest chapter I've done in a while but the end of the week sort of snuck up on me lol, sorry.