A/N- So I've changed the identity of the woman Tyler cheated with and chosen another Vampire Diaries character but they'll fit into the story I promise.
They're still two blocks away from Sage's restaurant when Nik's shoe kicks a stray half-smashed beer bottle out of the way and he realizes just how sketchy he must seem.
He- a complete stranger- had idiotically chosen to take the shortcut which he knew so well and had forgotten led past a burnt out warehouse and down an alleyway that might as well be called 'Body Dumping lane'.
There wasn't even anyone nearby to hear the poor girl scream.
He wonders if he can assure her twice in an hour that he's not a serial killer or a psychopath without pretty much confirming that he was both but when he turns to face her he sees that she's utterly unfazed by her surroundings.
So, three options, she thinks she could take him in a fair fight, lived around dodgy areas like this or had just had such a bad day that being murdered in an alleyway wouldn't be the least dignified thing that had happened to her.
Seeing the muscles in her arms, the speed with which she'd run and the hem of her wedding dress now stained grey and brown with dirt, he reckons it's a combination of options one and three.
Poor girl.
He used to think that the only people who were stupid enough to be cheated on were idiots with poor taste in lovers, ugly, or lacking in some characteristic that made them unattractive to their partner or undeserving of love.
Of course, that had been before he'd walked in on his brother and his girlfriend, who'd certainly seemed happy with him right up until that moment. He'd racked his brain trying to come up with a reason but he couldn't figure out what he'd done to warrant being cheated on.
And the woman beside him, Caroline, he'd only known her for a few minutes but he didn't think she was in anyway lacking.
She was beautiful, with proud but friendly eyes and perhaps she was a bit of a drama queen, having run away from her wedding and obviously she didn't have the best taste in wedding dresses, but he had no doubt that she hadn't deserved to be cheated on the very day of her nuptials.
Maybe cheaters were just assholes incapable of being satisfied?
"It's just a little further." he assures her, his heart melting in relief when the exit of the alleyway shows them to be in the midst of a hipster daydream. The warehouse blocks had been converted into trendy cafes, art-spaces, restaurants and offices.
She nods and follows him so calmly that he wonders if she's not in a state of shock.
Sage's restaurant, named Massolit after her favourite novel, was a warehouse that had been converted. The front wall had been replaced with glass, providing excellent light and view for the patrons. Inside, the brickwork was exposed on the left wall, where the kitchen, wine cellar and bar were and on the right, a vertical wall garden had been painstakingly set up, with grape vines that twisted up to the ceiling and a water feature that splashed underneath to add ambiance and provide for the plants.
Sage loved her restaurant and only ever left it for family events, so when he walks in the door and is recognized by one of the waitresses, he knows that he won't have to wait long for his sister-in-law to appear. Which is good because the many patrons are staring at Caroline and then to him, the man obviously not dressed for a wedding.
Sage has a smile on her face when she emerges from the kitchen which falters when she takes in the scene in front of her and the weary expression of acceptance that he knows all too well replaces it.
Poor Sage had issues with anxiety, and, in the worst judgement call since Helen ran away with Paris, had married into his high maintenance family.
Sometimes he wonders if she didn't go into restaurants instead of a café just so she would have a steady supply of drug dealers on hand to keep her stocked in pot.
"Um…" she falters and stares at Caroline, making Nik feel slightly protective of the poor girl before remembering that Sage was his family by marriage not by blood, "Okay…is there a backstory to this scenario?
He's about to answer when Caroline jumps in first, "He just found me on the street," she explains, "I'm not his wife."
Sage takes this and rolls with it because this isn't even the weirdest thing she's ever seen him do so he puts a hand on Caroline's back and begins guiding her to the metal table in the right corner where there was a support beam so he knew that there was a great view but also they would be slightly hidden away for privacy.
"Two Irish coffees, thanks Sage."
His new friend takes the seat by the wall and gathers up her skirts, lifting them up to sit down and he's reminded of a period drama, imagining her in some silver silk medieval dress with red sleeves and skirt. She raises her head to look around and he admires the stretch of her long neck,
"This place is beautiful," she murmurs and he nods, "Sage planned this place for years and worked herself into an early grave getting it set up."
And he and his family had helped. None of them had ever seen a business being built before, not from the ground up anyway and had found it fascinating, especially since they could throw money at the venture and consider any loss tax deductible.
To this day, Sage still informed them of every going on in the restaurant, menu changes, events, new business partners and stockholders, and they enjoyed seeing her passion.
Rebekah had even thought about getting a job waitressing until she'd realized just how unpleasant having a job in customer service and hospitality would be.
"And she's your friend?" she asked casually and he wonders if she's fishing for details,
"Sister-in-law," he smirked, "Which is why she took you in her stride, sadly, this is not the weirdest thing she's seen from my family."
Sage approaches with a tray in one hand, and catches the tail end of that conversation,
"His younger brother Kol once walked in here hand-in-hand with an orangutan named Bobby," she announces, catching the woman's eye with a wink,
"To this day we still don't know where that creature came from."
Caroline giggles and her smile is stunning, pink lips and white teeth, and Sage smiles back automatically,
"This is red velvet lamington," she tells her, placing a plate in front of her with a giant, blood red dessert with a hint of chocolate underneath and Nik's mouth waters.
"I'm guessing you could use some chocolate and sugar right now."
Bless her sweet heart, but he still catches her wrist as she goes to leave, "None for your favourite brother-in-law?" he teases with a hint of hope as Caroline lifts her fork,
Sage only quirks an eyebrow, "The last time I gave you chocolate and coffee, you grabbed a permanent marker from god-knows-where and did that to my restaurant" she points to the side of the bar where the stainless steel had been turned into the London skyline from their house in Holland Park. Personally, he thought it fitted in with the scheme perfectly and gave the restaurant a link to his family. Heck, he'd even thought of colouring it in as well.
Caroline calls it beautiful and he looks up at his sister-in-law with a triumphant grin but she only snorts and complains that she'd wanted him to contribute a painting, not graffiti.
He responds with the tried and true phrase that you can't always get what you want but when he turns back to Caroline, he sees that she's looking down at her dress and biting her lip.
Damn.
Were the water works about to appear?
Should he get her more dessert, ice-cream? Women liked ice-cream when they were upset right?
He has no idea, but looks to Sage for help.
And Caroline does too.
"Hey, would you have a pair of scissors I could borrow?" she asks and Nik is completely lost but Sage seems to understand where she's going,
"Yeah, but are you sure honey?"
"I walked in on my fiancé getting a blow job from a girl he's only known for three weeks twenty minutes before we were meant to get married" she explains and despite hearing that for the second time, Nik is still surprised.
He wonders if the blow job girl was really, really hot, even though Caroline had the blonde, tanned and pretty thing down pat.
She and Sage walk off hand-in-hand and Nik is left sipping on his coffee and checking his phone for the first time in weeks. He has several texts and missed calls from Elijah which he deletes without even reading and a few from his ex-girlfriend who he won't even think about and when Sage returns to the table, he hands her his phone,
"Can you delete any messages from her for me?" he requests and she doesn't ask a single question, just tapping on his screen,
"I'm going to delete all the photos as well, okay?" she offers and he grins, "Thanks."
She smirks and leans against the table with her hip, stealing a sip of his coffee,
"You know, I've seen you pick up girls in some strange places in my time, but a bride on her wedding day?! That is some next level shit."
He rolls his eyes, "Her fiancée cheated on her, I'm pretty sure I'm not stepping on any toes and besides, I'm not picking her up I was just in the right place at the right time to help her out."
Sage's humph of disbelief is a little insulting but when Caroline walks out of her office, he admits that maybe she's not entirely wrong.
She's cut off the skirt and sleeves of her ridiculous dress and is left with something unrecognizable as a wedding dress.
Her hem is now an inch above the knee, revealing long tanned legs for days that end in white satin heels and her dress was clearly tailored to her because it looks like she was sown into it, it's hugging her body so tightly.
Not that he's complaining.
She catches him checking out her legs and he feels like a creep but she smiles shyly and sits back down without protest, sipping her coffee and taking a bite of the lamington, her eyes closing as she gives a little moan and, he is definitely a creep undeserving of dessert.
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks carefully, hoping to help without having her burst into tears on him, but she only takes another bite of the lamington before glancing around to see if Sage is watching and offering him the fork. He takes it with surprise but helps himself to a piece, ignoring the stain of lipstick on the metal.
"I'm not sure," she answers, "I mean, you saved my life and got me off the road so I feel as though I owe you an explanation but I also feel that talking might lead me to hunting down my ex and stabbing him with this fork"
Her eyes flare playfully and he chuckles, amused at her humour, "That could be the caffeine and adrenaline talking"
He drains his coffee and one of the servers brings them a jug of water and two glasses,
"You're going to leave him then?" he prompts next and can only hope that Sage will intervene when he gets too damn obvious.
But she's a beautiful woman, clearly strong considering the day she'd endured and hell, he'd be one of her better boyfriends by default.
"Probably…" she confesses, "I'm not up to date on my Emily Post but when a guy cheats on you not even an hour before the wedding, I'm pretty sure it's over…though that might just be the anger and adrenaline talking but…it was our wedding day! Who cheats on the day of their wedding?!"
She'd raised her voice during the last part to emphasize her incredulity and been overheard by a nearby table, because apparently losing seventy percent of the wedding dress hadn't stopped them being watched.
"A fucking asshole!" one of the other customers answered and she nodded in their direction, her blonde hair flying as she turns back to him,
"Right, I mean if you're having doubts call off the wedding but I don't even know if this was the first time…I mean, he met this girl three freaking weeks ago, who manages to have an affair with someone they've known for three weeks?!" she takes a breath and drops her shoulders,
"Sorry, I shouldn't be ranting to you, I haven't even thanked you for taking care of me or…"
Nik hands her back the fork, "I know you were nearly hit by a taxi only an hour ago sweetheart but I think getting away from that wedding was probably a good move, besides" he continues cheekily, "I got to rescue a beautiful damsel-in-distress, my ego is through the roof right now"
She laughs and shakes her head, leaning back in her chair and glancing up through lowered lashes.
He tries to ignore how much this feels like a first date.
But perhaps it could be a prelude to one?
Or maybe they're moving too fast? Just two people who united over shared experience and are attracted to each other because they're both good looking and heartbroken?
She finishes her coffee and sighs, "Well, I'm glad I had a knight to rescue me, even if his armour does need a little shining"
She leans over and tugs at his grey Henley, making him laugh and inwardly gloat at how easily she moved into his personal space.
Okay, he's not the only one flirting.
But she's clearly still emotional because her face falls again.
"Although I'm beginning to wish you had a sword I could borrow to use on my fiancé, or that tramp Jules" she mutters darkly and suddenly Nik is choking on his water, struggling to breathe as he grabs a napkin and covers his mouth.
"Jules?" he gasps, barely managing to speak, "Not Jules Woods?"
Caroline's eyebrows shoot up in surprise, "You know her?"
"Yeah" he tells her when he can breathe again, "Remember when I mentioned my ex-girlfriend and the nasty break-up…"
"You dated Jules?" she asked, stunned and disbelieving,
"I did" he admitted, "Until she cheated on me…with my older brother"
They stared at each other speechless before he leaned over and grabbed her hand,
"Come on sweetheart" he said, leading her out of the restaurant, "I think this calls for some hard liquor and Sage will cut us off way before we're ready"
"Tequila" she suggested as they hurried across the road, "Wait…screw it, do you know any place that does Russian vodka?"
He grinned, "Follow me"
From Sage: 'Nik's back but he's busy and not checking any messages from you so I'd wait til tomorrow to speak to him'
Elijah rereads the message on his phone in the hope that he was mistaken and it was actually suggesting that he call his little brother immediately.
Unfortunately, it was definitely his sister-in-law advising him to leave Niklaus alone until lunch tomorrow.
When they would be in their family home in full earshot of their mother and have their every action monitored.
He found himself wondering whether he could skip out on work and head over to Nik's apartment, yes he'd probably have to come right back in to get a broken nose seen to, or at the very least a black eye but perhaps punching him in the face would make his brother feel better?
Certainly, it'd make Elijah feel a little less guilty.
But just as he's about to check with Charlie whether he could offload his patients to him, Zach's catches them on his way from the cafeteria, "Just got a call," he tells them as they follow him like ducklings after their mother, "Wedding day gone wrong according to the paramedics."
When they step into the A&E it's chaotic.
A man in a tux is being wheeled in shouting up a storm in his pain with two other men, bleeding from the nose and mouth respectively walking alongside him.
Charlie and Maggie go to treat tux man number one while he and Zach head out to the bay to find a young woman being wheeled in by Luke,
"Katherine Pierce, twenty-five, suffered a blow to her head, possible concussion and also dislocated shoulder," he reports dutifully, and the pretty brunette in the pastel pink dress is glowering furiously and Elijah is wondering what happened when she is put in the bed next to tux man one and tries to lunge towards him,
"Tyler Lockwood," she shrieks as Zach restrains her, "I am going to fucking kill…"
"Katherine!"
A middle aged woman with short blonde hair appears at the bed,
"I am going to have eighteen alibis the night you go missing!" the woman, Katherine, amends her statement and the middle aged woman nods,
"Thank-you."
"Elizabeth Forbes?!" another woman- wearing a white dress but who couldn't possibly be the bride, walks across the A&E, but the first woman doesn't even flinch,
"Carol, your son cheated on my daughter twenty minutes before their wedding, and I didn't see Katherine attack Tyler, no-one did."
"Ooh." Maggie says as she and Charlie try to examine Tyler's injuries, and Zach smirks,
"Would not have been my choice," he comments and Elijah smirks as he begins assessing Katherine's injuries.
"You hit your head?" he asks and she pouts,
"When I went looking for the bride, I found Tyler still pulling up his pants, I called him some names and he decided he didn't like that, so he slapped me and I caught the corner of the drawers as I went down."
"You hit a girl!" Tux man two, blonde guy with broken nose shouts, "What the hell, Ty?!"
Tyler, who's still groaning, still tries to defend himself,
"It's not a girl," he argues, "It's Katherine, and she broke my pelvis!"
"Now, now," Charlie says, as the ultrasound is wheeled over, "We'll have to check before confirming that the pelvis is…"
"Oh it's broken," Katherine announces, "It'll be a superior and inferior pubic ramus fracture if I did it right."
"Katherine," Elizabeth sighs and Elijah pages Shahir, because he's worried about her head injury,
"Right," she clears her throat, "I mean, I have no idea what happened after Tyler hit me, it's all a blur!"
Zach smirks at her tone of faux-innocence and Carol stomps her foot,
"Matt and Stefan saw something!" she shrieks, pointing at tux man two and three, "Look what Katherine did to them when they were pulling her off my baby boy!"
Stefan who seems to have bitten his tongue, is perched on a bed now and spitting into a bed pan,
"Nope," he manages, lisping heavily, "Didn't happen."
Matt smirks, coming to stand beside Katherine and squeezes her hand, "Stef and I slipped on a bar of soap." He tells Elizabeth who only rolls her eyes,
"Right well, half the local precinct is at the reception but I'm sure one of them would be happy to take your statement once it's…plausible."
Carol gives a scream of frustration that has Elijah's ears ringing and thankfully follows her son as Charlie wheels him upstairs for a CT. Elijah puts a cloth over Katherine's shoulder, and takes it firmly,
"So…" he began, looking for a way to distract her from the imminent pain, "Are you a med student?"
"Hmmm?" she turns to look up at him, "Oh, because of the injury, no…" she smirks,
"It's my go-to signature move for dirt bags undeserving of life."
Matt is sitting beside Stefan as he has his nose tended to,
"At Mystic Falls hospital they call that the Pierce Pelvic injury."
"Speaking of," Elizabeth sighs, "Katherine, are you still on probation?"
Katherine gives a little cry of pain as Elijah fixes her dislocated shoulder, but she's smiling again in seconds, "Nope," she announces, "Got off yesterday."
"Wonderful," she sighs, "Then I'm going to join Bonnie and try to locate my daughter, oh…and hand it over."
Katherine pouts but reaches down, lifting up the skirt of her long dress and Elijah admires the view he gets of her cleavage and then his eyes dart down to her thigh where a black garter sits, holding a rolled up zip-locked bag of joints.
That would explain why she was so unconcerned about her injuries.
She's admitted overnight and in the chaos of the day, Elijah doesn't see her again even as the hospital staff spreads the news of the wedding day disaster like wildfire and has many of them debating over whether a pelvic fracture was justifiable considering the crime.
His shift finishes at eight and he's heading out when he decides to check on her, knocking on the door to the private room and stepping inside.
Katherine Pierce is lying in the bed, her eyes glaring at the television and the phone in front of her in rapid succession, she's redone her make-up and fixed her hair and he notes for the second time since meeting her that she is beautiful.
"I'm just checking in on you," he explains, hurriedly, as he approaches the bed and rests a hand on the rails, "How're you feeling?"
She has a sulky pout on her glistening lips and he reminds himself of how many rules he'd be breaking to kiss them,
"Like my best friend's wedding day was ruined, her ex-boyfriend hit me and I injured my two ex-boyfriends when they tried to drag me off him. On top of that, Caroline was missing for like the entire day and I'm having trouble finding her because I've got fucking unionized oompa-loompas striking in my skull."
Her rather colourful description for her headache has him chuckling as he checks her chart,
"The nurse will bring you painkillers and I can prescribe you something for tomorrow?" he offers but she shakes her head, "I'll be on best friend duty tomorrow and I can't do that and be high off my skull…well, not on prescription meds anyway."
Recreational drug user then.
"Perhaps you could tell me what happened today?" he suggests, looking for a reason to keep talking to her, "The rumours I'm hearing from the nurse range from hopefully inaccurate to urban legend."
She rolls her eyes, "Caroline went to talk to her fiancé, and I followed after her because our suite was out of champagne. I got there just after she left and found Tyler in a comprising position with a skank who bailed pretty damn fast when I started telling them both exactly what I thought of them."
She leans back and closes her eyes momentarily, "The rest you heard when we were brought in. How's he doing by the way?"
He shrugs, "Last I heard, he'd been discharged with a lot of pain meds, a walking frame and unlikely to be having sex with anyone in the immediate future."
She chuckles with pride and stretches her arms above her head, the hospital gown lifting up and Elijah's sharp eyes trace the faint outline of her breasts.
"Serves him right," she sighs as she rolls her shoulders, "Him and that slut Jules."
Elijah's hand tightens on the metal rail of the bed and he can feel the blood leaving his face,
"Jules?" he echoes her, "Not Jules Woods?"
Katherine blinks in surprise, "You know her?"
He clears his throat and looks away, to the hall outside where a nurse is walking past,
"She dated my brother recently."
She snorts, "I'm guessing they broke up?"
"Oh," she adds, when she sees his discomfort and puts the rest of the story together in her mind.
"Well…aren't you a filthy manwhore!"
She crosses her arms, turns away in a clear dismissal and Elijah leaves the room with a strange sinking sensation in his stomach.
A/N- Thanks for reading!