I do not own TVD or TO.
I've planned out the entire story now and it is a total of 9 chapters with the last consisting of a time jump and Elena's first journal entry since she learned about the sire bond.
Jeremy paced back and forth. His feet were quickly wearing a whole in the antique carpet that his mother had loved so much, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Elena was the one who always cared about the house and everything in it. Of course that was when she cared about anything.
She didn't care about much these days, and he couldn't blame her for wanting to avoid the grief that followed them around like puppies licking at their heels. No sooner would they push one away than another would jump up and demand their attention. He knew what it was like. He had felt it too. He knew the great rushing waves of anguish that crashed over them; each death made the water that much higher until they were all but drowning in it. There were times he would have liked to turn it off too.
He knew Elena never would have come to the decision if not for the sire bond. She hated the grief and the sadness that turned her blood to ice and made it impossible to get out of bed some days, but she also knew that life came with happy moments as well. It was only the complete absence of grief that had made her want to leave it off, but she wasn't herself anymore and she would hate herself if she went down a dark path while her emotions were off.
He paused by the mantle and lifted a metal picture frame. His fingertips gently traced the bright smile and sparkling eyes of his sister. The photograph had been one of the last times they were truly happy; it had been taken a few weeks before the accident that started them down the supernatural spiral.
They had lost everything but each other, and he would be damned if he lost her too. And the longer she remained without her emotions the further away she got from him.
He pressed his phone to his ear and drew in a deep breath. Each long ring of the dial tone caused his annoyance to flare. They had found Elena a week ago, and he hadn't seen her in three days. Everyone had tried to make her turn it back on by appealing to one emotion or another; when nothing had worked the Salvatores had told him to leave. They had a plan, but they didn't think it would work with him in the house.
He had agreed and left, but now something seemed off. They should have given him an update by now. Just when he was about to storm out of the house and drive over there the call connected.
"What's taking so long?" He was done wasting time with pleasantries.
"It's not a science, Pocahontas. She's proving to be more resistant than we thought."
"Resistant?" Jeremy's brows shot up. Something in Damon's tone set off an alarm in the back of his mind. He heard a rush of wind, and somewhere in the distance a bloodcurdling scream, a very familiar bloodcurdling scream.
"What the hell are you doing to my sister?"
"The kind, lovey-dovey approach wasn't working…"
"Damon!"
"We're trying to trigger a response: anger or fear."
Jeremy gritted his teeth. He couldn't hear the screaming anymore, but he just knew it was still happening.
"What are you doing?" Every muscle in his body was tense with angry energy.
"Starving and torturing her. Don't worry it'll work."
Before he could say anything the call disconnected and the rage bottled in his body broke.
There was a loud crash as his phone broke the picture window.
Her breath came in heavy pants as the grotesque tear in her thigh slowly knit back together. The process was obscenely slow. Since her brother had left the Boarding House her exes had only given her a few drops of tainted blood.
She was starving, and every wound inflicted only increased the ache in her gums and the gnawing hunger in her belly. She was so hungry that she could feel it in her bones, and if Stefan or Damon got close enough they just might have found themselves on the wrong end of her teeth.
She could see the last of the skin as it sealed and her thigh was whole again. The lack of a proper diet meant she was left with a nasty bruise, but at least the wound was closed. She wondered how much blood she would have to lose before her body just stopped healing all together.
If she endured much more of their torture she just might pass out from exhaustion.
Elena looked up from her leg in time to see the wicked glint of the blade. It moved in a blur before Stefan buried the weapon deep in her body. Liquid ran down the handle in dark rivulets.
She watched the macabre sight and licked her aching gums as her fangs descended; it seemed even the scent of her own blood was enough to cause the shift.
"Turn it on," Stefan gripped the hilt and twisted, "and I'll stop."
She gasped at the heat that spread through her veins. The pain throbbed through her body.
"Is that the best you've got?" She swallowed the blood that rose in her throat.
"Come on, Elena," his eyes flashed. "This has to be making you angry."
"Not in the slightest." She rolled her eyes.
Elena took one look at the tension in his body and tilted her head with a knowing smile.
"By all means continue," she saw the emotion flickering in his gaze, "I can see you're enjoying yourself…" She paused to cough and spat the blood that flooded her mouth onto the carpet. "Tell me," her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, "is it cathartic? Have you wanted to hurt me for a while now?"
Stefan's eyes narrowed in a glare. She appeared almost bored with the proceedings.
"You have, haven't you?" She sighed. "Some of it might be projecting. Maybe you're seeing me as Katherine, but a part of you has wanted to hurt me since I slept with Damon."
She knew she had him when his eyes fell to the blade in her stomach.
"You know he's bigger, right?" She leaned forward with a pained grunt. "He is, and he felt amazing buried in my…"
Her mouth opened in a silent scream as Stefan dragged the blade up to her collarbone with a grunt. He smirked when he pulled the blade free and all that rose from her cracked lips was a strained gurgle. He had severed her vocal cords.
"I don't want to hear about your exploits with my brother," he dropped the short sword onto a table. Stefan cursed himself internally for allowing her to get a rise out of him.
It took her a few minutes to heal enough, but when her throat closed she rolled her neck around and fixed Stefan with a curious expression.
"Are we keeping score?" She exhaled slowly. "If we are I'm pretty sure that's a point for me."
"Shut up," Stefan spat over his shoulder.
"You're the one who wanted to play games," Elena drawled. "I told you, Stefan: you'd break first."
He spun around and flashed in front of her. He saw her eyes narrow in confusion when he slipped her ring from her finger.
"Whatcha doing, Stefan?" Elena cocked an eyebrow. She watched him vanish into the kitchen and heard a drawer opening. There was a moment of silence before a loud clang.
Damon froze on the step leading down into the living room and tilted his head. When he had left to talk to Jeremy they had been working with cuts and slashes that healed slowly not full blown attacks on her person. She had been in one piece when he left the house, but now he could see the shadow of her heart beating slowly in her chest through a ragged cut that was healing at a snail's pace.
Stefan walked back into the living room with a knife in hand. He flashed across the floor and pushed it into his brother.
"Ouch," Damon grunted and pulled the gleaming blade free. "What was that for?"
"Anger wasn't working."
"It seems to have worked wonders for you," Damon felt his wound heal quickly.
"I know, right," Elena scoffed.
"Shut up," Stefan glanced back over his shoulder. He reached into his pocket and extracted the remains of her ring. The stone had been broken into three pieces.
"What's the plan Stefan?" Elena eyed the amulet with disinterest.
"We're moving on to fear," he dropped the ruined trinket in front of her on the carpet and strode to the window.
"You're bluffing," Elena sighed. She glanced down to her chest as the wound sealed, but she could tell it was still bleeding internally.
"Am I?" Stefan gripped the edge of the curtain. "Turn it on Elena."
She tossed her hair back over her shoulder and met his angry gaze. Her eyes darted to Damon who joined his brother at the window. It seemed a little light stabbing wasn't enough to drive a wedge between the siblings.
"No."
Elena closed her eyes and screamed when the sun hit her skin. It burned like nothing else. Her skin grew tight and bubbled up, but the blisters barely had time to break open. In an instant her once smooth skin caught fire and it was like she had been dosed in Bourbon.
The thought that she was going to die tied to that chair crossed her mind, but before she could think over the conundrum the spinning sensation in her head stopped and she lost consciousness.
Damon and Stefan moved to close the curtain when the flames began but a flash of colour gave them pause. One moment Elena was burning a few feet away and the next she was gone. They had just located her outline in a dark corner when pain penetrated their bodies.
Damon looked down in time to see the wooden dart buried in his stomach before he fell with a groan. He looked up with Stefan when someone stepped out of the dark.
"Let's get something very clear." The crossbow was lowered slowly. "You are not going to torture my sister."
"There was no other way," Damon gritted his teeth and wrapped his long fingers around the shaft of the dart.
"There's always another way."
Stefan turned his head to the shadows. The blur he had initially taken to be Caroline, because who else would Jeremy call, quickly took on the shape of a man, a very tall young man with the light of eternity in his eyes. He decided to never tell Caroline about the first assumption; the blonde would not take it well.
"What's he doing here?" Stefan watched as Kol extinguished the last of the embers burning on Elena's clothes.
Kol sat back on his knees and gritted his teeth. Each deep breath he took was in an effort to temper the anger that seared through his body. He had thought only Klaus possessed the ability to make him feel the way he was in that moment, but he had been wrong. Looking down at the ruined skin of Elena Gilbert he realized he had never been so angry in his unnaturally long life. These were two men she had once called friend and lover and they had nearly killed her. He didn't dare move until he heard her undead heart beating for fear of slaughtering those she, under normal circumstances, cared for; cared enough that a sire bond had formed.
"Since I was the one who pointed out she was sired," Kol stood to his full height, "I thought I'd use a little compulsion to help her."
"Now there's an option we hadn't thought of," Damon grunted. He glared when the Original towered over him. There was something dark in the man's expression; something dangerous and spine-tingling, like he was holding back from reaching down to rip out his heart.
Kol's brows knit together over his dark eyes. There was something profoundly stupid about this vampire, and it was his arrogance. Kol knew his anger was flashing in his gaze; anyone else would have feared for their lives, but then… the Salvatores had never had the best sense of self-preservation. They actually thought themselves capable of standing against Original vampires, and even after learning about the bloodlines they had wanted to slaughter the rest of them.
"She's on vervain," Stefan sat up, "although it might have burned out by now." He couldn't reach the dart that had embedded in his shoulder. The angle was off.
Arrogant and stupid, Kol rolled his eyes.
"I'm not here to compel her."
"You're the whole reason she shut it off," Damon ground out. If he hadn't told Elena about the possibility of the bond being in place she would have never known.
"No, Damon," rage flashed through his veins, "you're the reason she shut it off. You knew that you could break the bond by telling her to move on and forget you, and she knew it too."
Damon moved to interrupt when a second dart pierced his throat.
"Save it," Jeremy loaded another dart, "Bonnie told her after you told Bonnie."
Damon yanked the wood from his throat and dropped it. He sat up and breathed heavily while the wounds healed.
"I love her," he panted. "I wasn't going to tell her to move on."
"That's not love you selfish prick."
"What the hell do you know about, love?" Damon spat.
"Apparently more than you," Kol scoffed. "You can't say you love someone and force them to stay. That's not how this works."
"The bond is gone," Damon swallowed. "We'll be perfectly fine once you make her turn it on."
"Have you not been listening, mate?" He knelt in front of the brothers. His hand darted out to twist the dart in Stefan's shoulder. "I will not force her to embrace her emotions. The impediment of her free will is what got all of you into this mess in the first place."
"You said you were here to use compulsion," Stefan gritted his teeth.
"He is," Jeremy looked up from where he was checking on Elena. "He's here to compel you."
Kol smirked and gripped Damon's chin tightly enough to bruise the younger vampire.
"You're going to stay far away from Elena Gilbert. You will do nothing to coax out her emotions and will only speak to her if and when she approaches you first. Understood?"
Kol hummed when Damon nodded and broke his neck before repeating the process with Stefan.
He stood over the bodies for a moment and then stepped over them to kneel beside Elena's prone body.
"I can carry her," Jeremy reached down to pick her up.
"She's starving, mate," Kol shook his head. "The last thing we want is her waking up in your arms and attacking."
Jeremy nodded and stood back while Kol moved to lift her.
"What about her ring?" Kol stopped and eyed her bare fingers. The Salvatores had done something with it.
Jeremy looked around for a moment before his eyes lit on the glittering blue on the bloodstained carpet.
"I think I found it," he picked up the pieces. "This isn't going to work is it?"
"Afraid not," Kol shook his head. He didn't think before pulling the ring from his own hand and sliding it on her thumb. He hoisted Elena into his arms and answered her brother's unasked question. "When you've lived as long as I have the sun becomes more of a nuisance than anything."
"It helps that you're an Original," Jeremy muttered.
"That it does."
Elena's eyes slowly fluttered open. For a moment she saw nothing and then the room came into focus. The moonlight cast a pale glow on the dark wood.
She didn't recognize the room, but she knew when the sun rose it would be full of light. It was the kind of space you'd have seen in a magazine; tastefully decorated in pale blues and glistening silver.
Her arms trembled as she pushed herself up to sit against the headboard. The glint of blue on her right hand made her roll her eyes. She knew they had been bluffing. They were idiots who still thought the sweet little human they fell in love with was still inside; they'd never kill her.
Her dry eyes narrowed when she took a second look at the ring. It wasn't hers. Her ring had been oval, but the stone on her almost grey finger was pear shaped. The dark blue rested in a nest of tiny diamonds on a delicate braided silver band.
Objectively speaking it was gorgeous, but it wasn't hers.
Her head turned around towards the opening door. She frowned when it was neither Stefan nor Damon leaning in the opening.
"You look terrible," his dark eyes raked over her drawn features, "is that why you've been avoiding me?"
Elena draped her arms over her stomach and held her elbows to combat her shivers. Her raspy voice grated on her own nerves.
"I was avoiding you because I thought I might try to kill you, and then I just didn't care to look you up." She shrugged.
"Oh darling," Kol sighed dramatically, "now that hurts. And after I brought you a snack too." He reached into the hall and pulled a slim young woman into the room.
"For me?" Elena smiled sweetly. "You shouldn't have."
Kol rolled his eyes and directed the compelled girl over to the bed.
Elena's muscles protested the movement as she sat up. She regarded her suspiciously and listened carefully but there didn't appear to be anyone else in the entire house. She licked her dry lips and ran her tongue over her canines as they extended.
She knew the girl had to have been compelled because she showed no signs of fear. The only reaction was a choking gasp as her fangs pierced the smooth column of her throat.
Elena inhaled deeply and drew long mouthfuls of the glorious liquid that she had been denied for so long. Each swallow restored more and more of her strength. Her skin returned to a more normal colour as the girl's heart began to slow.
"That's enough," Kol's firm grip pulled her off the girl. He quickly healed her and compelled her to leave and forget what had just happened. If it had been anyone else feeding on a human he wouldn't have stopped them, but Elena Gilbert was not a killer and he wouldn't turn her into one. The lower her body count was the easier switching it on would be.
Elena tilted her head and watched him perch on the side of the bed. Her eyes darted from him to the dark stains on the sheets.
"Let me guess," she crossed her arms and sat up to cross her legs. "Baby brother found out about the torture and couldn't stomach it."
"Something like that," Kol chuckled.
"So what's his plan now," Elena tilted her head. "Compulsion?" She met his eyes as she scooted closer. She still needed more blood, the lack of it made her cold and he was radiating heat.
"I'm not going to compel you, darling," he turned to face her and braced his hand on the bed, "unless I have to, but I will make you a deal."
A jolt passed through her skin when his arm brushed her knee.
"I thought Elijah was the Original who made deals," Elena blinked. She brought her hands down on either side of her thighs; the tips of her fingers grazed his pinky.
The shock that raced up his arm surprised him.
"I've been known to strike a bargain or two in my time, Elena," his lips lifted in a smirk. His eyes darted to her mouth.
"What is it?" Elena's tongue poked out to sweep the velvety bloody from her lower lip.
"I won't force you to turn it on, but you can't kill anyone," Kol met her eyes again. He prayed nobody had taught her how to use the heart as a lie detector because he knew he would never compel her anyway.
"If I agree?" She tilted her head.
He breathed an internal sigh of relief.
"You're free to go," he tilted his head, "or stay. The choice is yours."
"Here?" Elena's brows shot up. "Stay here in the house with two people who've killed me."
"This is my house, darling, not Nik's, and you're welcome to stay as long as you like."
Elena's fingers tapped out a slow beat on the mattress. Each downward motion brushed against Kol's hand and sent a new jolt of energy up his arm to his chest.
She got the strange sense that if she left it wouldn't be long until he caught up with her. And too much time around Jeremy would threaten to break the floodgates wide open.
"Okay," she murmured.
"Okay?" Kol was surprised by the light feeling that flooded his chest.
"Okay," she nodded and drew in a deep breath. "If I leave it's only a matter of time before someone else hunts me down and tries to force me to turn it on. Baby brother will just keep trying."
Kol was about to stand up when she wrapped her hand around his wrist.
"Let's just get one thing clear first," she ignored the heat running up her arm, "I was always free to go. Wasn't I?"
He met her mahogany eyes and nodded slowly.
"You were," he murmured, "but you would have found me not far behind. I've no intention of finding you on top of a pile of bodies."
"Careful, Kol," she let go and stood up, "someone might start to think you care."
What do you think? I'll tell you writing it out is alot easier when it's all planned from beginning to end. The only variations now will come if a review inspires a twist at some point.