Living with Klaus is...not pleasant.
I remember what it was like with Seth as a toddler. The tantrums, the mood swings - living with Klaus is much the same. He vacillates wildly from deranged smashing of anything he can get his hands on to serene sipping of a glass of blood at the fireplace. And he draws, paints, whatever, a lot. I've not figured out what tips him from one to the next yet - granted the Salvadors certainly have somewhat of a hand in his manic episodes.
Other than railing against the world and contemplating the arts staring into a dead fireplace, I'm not sure what he does. What i they/i do. Hayley is just as much a mystery as Klaus. She's always here, a shadow, leaving the house as far as I know only when Klaus does. Not that they grace me with their presence long enough for me to be sure what they are doing most of the time.
Life has grown incredibly boring.
As far back as I can remember every moment was one of purpose, even times of leisure never felt empty. There was always something to do, even if the doing wasn't of much significance. Now the minutes drag by, encumbered by uncertainty of my place and the weariness of my hosts.
If they have jobs they're well disguised and if they have any other tasks they're quiet enough that I do not know of it. Hayley was almost always there when I saw Klaus, a venomous shadow glaring at me, until I left. I've only seen them actually leaving the mansion a few times and once I tried to follow.
(We are barely at the road before Klaus turns and snarls. I ido not/i flinch from my hiding spot behind a decorative hedge. "What are you doing?"
I peek my head out with a grimace, "Following?"
His eyes bleed black for a second and it makes every muscle in my body seize. "Don't."
Then, before I can even blink, they're gone. No sound of gravel crunching, no leftover scent in the air. I crumple into the hedge with a moan Seth would call dramatic.
Fucking vampire supersonic hearing.)
One thing is for sure, Klaus didn't lie about Mystic Falls being dull, but then again I blame the boredom on him. The one day I'd tried to venture out to scope out the town, unconsciously at the same time as him, Klaus all but locked me inside to keep me from wandering after him. I'm not sure what he feared exactly, as he had said, my life didn't mean much to him after all.
I did my own exploring, mostly of Klaus' home, trying to memorise all the nooks and crannies, careful to leave closed doors as they were. I came across portraits and portraits of people long passed, and some breath-taking landscapes, a bust of a narrow nosed man, and a detailed vase depicting bright yellow roses. His study interested me most of all; books lined the walls, old and new, surrounding a hearth and in the middle of the room his desk and a chair. It was the warmest room in the house, despite the pyre never being lit when I entered, and Klaus' scent clung to everything in it.
Despite him never formally inviting me into the room I assumed that since I'd already been in it before, it was okay to go there again. Even so I was careful.
My feet rustle along the floor, my eyes searching the shelves until I find my prize. The book, its cover faded brown leather, the pages yellowed and stained, sits amongst a host of others, inconspicuous. The cover is soft and worn leather, buttery and made thin by many caressing fingers. I flip it open, to a page at random, the spine bends unhindered at the movement. Despite how I strain my eyes and tilt the sheet, I cannot understand the words written there. They are letters I'm familiar with, but the words were a messy jumble – a different language. But so beautifully slanting and concise in their script that it's hard to look away from.
Tracing fingers over the hurried scribbles, I soak in the smooth edges of each letter; the curve of 'c' and the stretched dot of 'i'. Unconsciously, I turn the page, again and again, until I reach a change. Instead of writing, the yellowing page is covered in a sketch, a very accurate one at that. My breath catches as it traces the fine features, lingering on the model's painfully human face. A young girl, with light hair and eyes, a face shining with joy; each feature lovingly sketched with ink, even without knowing her, I can see no inaccuracies. It's simple in its care and yet so well-drawn that it could be a photograph.
For the longest while I stare at her, even though her ink has bled somewhat and faded with time it's still some of the best free-hand sketches I've ever seen. So good in fact that I wonder how often Klaus must have stared at her and appreciated her laughter, been wholly enraptured by her to create such a visage. The hastily scrawled word iRebekah /iis my only clue. A sister? A friend? Either way I feel a prickle of envy at her every line.
With one last look at the book – Klaus' personal scribbling, it must be – I replace the book carefully and step away. The book seems to be the oldest or at least the most used considering its condition. Every fibre is interwoven with Klaus's scent, it could only be his. I think of his age (a time undefined in my head, but clearly much older than I could imagine) and the things he must have seen and felt throughout his long life. Could this be a journal? I shake my head, I doubt Klaus would leave anything quite so private lying around for anyone to pick up and indulge in, the past contains everyone's darkest secrets.
I glance around the room, my eyes snagging on a few new sheets of paper crumpled at the foot of Klaus' desk. It isn't right of me to snoop around his things, he'd been pretty harsh about this, but my curiosity wins over and my fingers reach for one page. To say I'm surprised at what I find is an understatement; I very nearly choke on the air in my lungs. The smoothed out page has my eyes making contact with no one other than Caroline. His depiction of her is perfect, a masterpiece in and of itself.
My lips twist as I stare into the eyes of Elena's friend, Klaus truly put everything he had into the image – the girl might have been more beautiful on paper than the real object. If the sketch of Rebekah woke my envy, this one… it lights my chest on fire. My breath whistles out between teeth and my eyes sting when I don't blink. I crumple the picture anew and reach for another page. I squeeze my eyes closed: more Caroline.
I haven't known the girl long enough to like or dislike her yet. She seemed alright, but a strong part of me is simmering in fury now. The Wolf brushes at the edges of my mind seeking to escape and put bestial jaws around Caroline's neck. It was a bad idea; one I'm sure would cost me my life if what I saw in these drawings is correct. Klaus, I conclude, is in love, there is no way to deny it with the way he filled her eyes with adoration and her lips with mirth.
(iLa Push is warming with the onset of spring, but the ocean breeze is frigid. The wind is coming from the north and if you squint just right you could maybe pretend to see the snowy peaks of Canada. It whips my hair from my pathetic attempt at holding it away from my face and slaps them at my cheeks consistently.
Across the beach Emily screeches as Sam throws her over his shoulder and charges into the churning water. The pack is splashing in the waves and laughing as Sam and Emily crash through the water sending up a spray of glittering droplets.
It's cold and the sunlight is tepid and my stomach is cramping around emptiness. I curl into my jacket, rubbing my fingers over the abrasive surface of an abalone shell./i)
It's not fair.
In my hands Caroline's face morphs into Emily's and my breath freezes in my throat. No… I crumple the page and let it fall to the floor, my skin tight and itchy as I hurry from the study. iNo/i. The world tilts just a smidge sideways, blurring, as I stumble for the steps. iNo! /iI breach two stairs at a time, not caring about the way the ground shifts unnaturally beneath my soles.
Breathing hard, I lurch into the room and shove the door closed a split second before the first scream parts my lips. I slump to the floor, trembling and shaking uncontrollably. The force of the screams grate my throat, my back arches and my neck strains banging against the door. iKnock knock knock-/i
Familiar in a way that is decidedly not welcome.
Tendons rear up and protest the cage of my skin, undulating against sinew and bone. I pull taunt, a curved bow, as cramps overtake and the ache of muscles reforming fire red hot pulses into my brain. Pressure behind my eyes warns of the oncoming of tears, streaking down my face and falling to the floor near silent under my cries.
They ring in my ears, under the sound of blood rushing and a galloping pulse, quieting the birds from the trees and the soft drone of cars outside.
I can feel my body rejecting itself, trying to snuff me out. A consistent tug at consciousness and being.
It's Jane all over again, and this time there's no one to save me.
I feel more than hear the first bone snap, the force reverberates through the rest of my body and makes my screaming falter for a moment. My mind swims and gaping lips seek air .
Then it starts anew, louder, a high pitched siren's cry. The next few breaks are preceded by screams. Everything, every neuron and cell of my being shifts off course.
It must be hours.
Days.
Months.
The pain dissipates eventually and I lie gasping desperately as the shudders subside. When my eyes finally crack open, the world is in a nauseatingly familiar muted grey-scale. My chest seizes as I try stumbling to my feet. As if somehow I could outrun the inside of my own head, the fractured light in my eyes.
Instead of facing it, I hide my head, eyes squeezed firmly shut.
Long moments pass and there is no pain. The panic starts to ebb away and awareness sets in increments. There are four paws on the ground beneath me, my body rests with the weight and itch of fur. Atop my head my ears flick at the sound of the outside world.
It is with both relief and trepidation that I uncurl and open my eyes.
The opulent room of reds is a peltry greyish brown, there are dust motes in the curtains, and stray fibres in the carpet. My arms are two giant paws coated in coarse silver.
Around me is the detritus of the change: clothing scraps, claw marks, and trace amounts of blood. I eye these markers wearily, eyes darting across the room as the reality of it settles in. There was no joy in the change, not this time (not the last time either) but laying here, body reformed, there's a curl of excitement thrumming under the anxious twist of my stomach.
The house is mostly quiet, the kind of quiet that would unsettle a human. But the house is loud, the bones of civilization aching with age and wear. There's a lamp downstairs buzzing faintly with electricity. And outside...outside the world is a cacophony of sound. The disparity makes me whine and wobble to my feet.
I venture across the room, the beam of sunlight from the window highlights my fur and sinks into me. The warmth curling across every nerve ending, making my spine curl, my tail bob side to side.
It's still day.
The mirror across the room reflects back a hulking mass of fur, two twitching ears, a pointed snoot, and a long swaying tail. For a moment the tail pauses as I stare at myself.
i(I make sure Seth is well and truly gone before I shut the door and windows. I pull my clothes off and fold them meticulously to buy time. Yet soon that task is complete, too, and I'm standing bare in the center of my room. I try not to think of the last time I changed indoors, try not to think about dad's body in the hospital, his gasping breaths.
Breathing deep, I pull at the string of my wolf and she comes as fast and forceful as a crashing wave. Within a second I'm crouched on all fours in the middle of the room, blinking away the perspective change with practiced patience. I do an experimental stretch, luxuriating in the feeling of pleasure as the muscles pull.
After a while I approach the mirror which I'd set out with caution.
Staring back at me is a wolf - which, I knew it would be, but it's still jarring and for the first few seconds I bare my teeth and snarl at the creature before I can calm down enough to properly look.
I'm big, which considering the size of the other wolves makes sense, just slightly bigger than a natural wolf but not a mammoth like Jake or Sam. The fur along my body is long and thick, like the bear and wolf pelts in the museum, it shifts in the dreary sunlight from the window. A shimmering waterfall of silver and black, stripes of fur curling around my head with white highlighting the soft of my belly.
As I stare at myself, deep eyes roam and rounded ears twitch - if I had not known it was me, I'd think the wolf was beautiful, maybe cute. My head tilts and the mane along my chest moves. I yip at my own image and the wolf brinks back. The urge to play grabs me before I can think it through and I launch myself at the mirror for an attack.)/i
The wolf in the mirror is familiar in the way that she is no different than the last time I saw her - that is, through Renesmee's memories. There are no overt signs of the trauma Jane inflicted, every facet of the wolf in front of me is as it should be.
My ears are pinned back and my tail holds still, uncertain.
I pull myself from the mirror and pad my way to the stream of sunlight. The circle of warmth is welcome as I curl myself down into a ball, mind racing.
There should be a jubilant celebration, but instead I'm just relieved. At least if I cannot change back then my wolf is still whole and hale enough to survive in for the foreseeable future.
The agony of the phase is a buzzing reminder in the back of my primal mind. My body twitches in its ball at the reminder of those months past. The uncertainty of my condition, my livelihood, and the future has been constant for a long time now, this does not change that. This is, if anything, a reminder of the possibilities.
After a while the restlessness takes root and I stretch, pushing up to my paws to wander around the room. Nose pointed, I explore the corners and crooks, the torn edges of old corners.
Despite the noise of the world, it feels so incredibly quiet in my head.
There's no lingering conversations, no images, or the feeling of being connected to a wider group. And while I had wanted to rid myself of the voices and feelings of the Uley Pack, now the quiet of my mind is almost overwhelming. As a human the quiet is expected, however, as a wolf it's debilitating to be so very alone in my own head.
I whine at the birds outside the window, they ignore me and continue to collect sticks for their nests, chirping at each other in greeting.
Somewhere out there, my pack (my family) is running through the woods, together; a misshapen, odd pack. Their minds are full of laughter and the exhilaration of a hunt.
My family was out there.
I couldn't protect them from here.
Unable to contain the sudden wash of self-pity, I whine again and totter around in a circle, tail tucked. My land, everything I'd lived to protect for so long was lost to me. It was my own fault, I knew. My own selfish need to escape had brought me here, broken the ties with people I'd considered family for so long. Despite the pain I'd gone through with them, surely it was preferable to this loneliness.
Klaus is my reason for being here, in this foreign land with unfamiliar people. Had I already lost him though? Was my chance at creating a new life destroyed before I even started to seek it? I should have known, I had suspected already with Hayley, but I hadn't truly believed until now. He had someone, didn't he? Caroline clearly loved Tyler, but that did nothing to release Klaus from his love for her.
I knew as well as anyone that unrequited love doesn't die easily, in fact, I still love Sam. If I didn't love him it wouldn't hurt me as much as it still does. Even though Sam is taken, even though I've found my soulmate, the love remains. All those times we spent together had been real, all my emotions were real, it wouldn't vanish with a snap of my fingers. No matter how determined to burn these feelings I am, it isn't easy, especially when so many things remind me of them.
So, I understand, I get it. It makes sense why his foulest moods come when he is left alone in his study, left to himself to think of the woman he loves who is with another. It makes so much sense now that I've seen those drawings.
As someone with little myself, I'd known Klaus didn't have much, but now I knew for certain. What is money when there's no one to enjoy it with? What was an adoring hybrid if she was made for you? I cannot pretend to understand his past or claim to know exactly what he feels. But I understood being empty, being lonely and hurt. Finding something precious and world changing but having it taken from you, withheld by the universe and your own inadequacies, that I understand.
Caroline is not Klaus'. Just like Sam cannot be mine.
We're more similar than I'd realised and it weighs on me. I didn't want this. Klaus is my soulmate, your soulmate can be a best friend, a lover, a family member; it doesn't really matter. But I didn't want this, this constant loss, the knowledge that I'd never have anything, because he didn't have anything. We were just two empty people seeking someone to fill the holes in our hearts. He has the ability to mend the damage in me, I have no doubt, but I know it would cost him dearly. He would never love me; never truly care for me, not like the imprint was urging me to do every time I think of him.
He might be my soulmate…ibut I'm not his. /i
I would be fine with being his friend, but Klaus doesn't have friends; that's the conclusion I've come to. Even if Klaus wants friends and even if that friend happens to be me, Klaus has nothing left to give, he's desolate and the little he does have left is focused on something he can never have.
Just as I will never share my mind and thoughts again. Not unless I go back to Forks and subject myself to the same pain as before with the added knowledge that I've left Klaus behind.
I pity us both, our hopelessness.
This is perfect, because it will never work. It's somewhat amusing, even though it wounds me more than it should. Maybe that's why it is amusing.
I curl in on myself, wrapping my tail around my paws and laying my head next to it, staring at nothing. My thoughts are haunted by the ghosts of wolves and the pitfalls of wanting to belong.
A while passes before I move, my body groaning when I open my eyes to see the world awash in colour once more. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, my mind slogging through the hours passed. I fell asleep and woke up again, human. I can almost believe the phase was a dream, yet the cry of my muscles and my bare body tell a different story.
I'm mostly grateful that the change happened in my sleep. The change to wolf had been hard enough. I try not to think about it too much, not to drag myself back into despair.
I push myself onto my feet, unsteady but better than it had been as a wolf. My gaze lingers on my shredded clothing and ruined sneakers, leaving me wondering how much of the clothes Alice had packed for me is as appropriate and comfortable as the pair I have just ruined.
The bag lies mostly still packed at the foot of the bed and I have to shove half its contents out to find something to wear. In the end, I conclude that I will have to go buy my own clothing, which means I need money. Ultimately, it is time I get a job.
"Leah!"
My head snaps up and I drop some stray garment. Klaus is back… my first thought is to hide, the second to bound down the stairs to welcome him - puppy-style. The uncertainty of the situation is what stays me. Can I tell him? About...everything? Could I tell him now that I've changed? Would that make a lick of difference?
"Leah!"
The call and tone of it snaps me into movement. Almost blindly, I shut the door to my wrecked room and fly down the stairs. The tight bite of Klaus' voice has my hackles raised. (i Sam's face is more wolf than human as he snarls across the clearing, I'm already on the ground but I try to make myself smaller to avoid his fury. Seth, looking equally terrified, whines and tries to inch his way behind Jake./i)
What happened to make him sound so livid? I reach the landing, cringing slightly at the sudden burst of activity, and come to a stop literally nose-to-nose with Klaus. He looks about ready to rip out my throat. I yelp and stumble: two steps back up the staircase.
"Who did you let in my house?" He growls, following me up the steps and getting in my face, bloodlust tinting his face dark and wild.
I want to run.
"No one," I try, but squeak instead.
His hand flashes forward and his fingers lock around my upper arm in a painful, iron grip, I whimper and want to slap myself for sounding so pathetic. "Who. Came. Into. My house?" He looks like the creature he professes to be, a rabid wolf.
My mouth is dry and I place one hand over the wrist of the hand he's gripping me with. "I've been here alone, the whole day." I try to reassure. Images of Emily's mangled face (the blood and bruising and screams as the ambulance tips her up into the van) flashes through my head. "I promise, no one came in here," I pause, recalling my nap, how long had that been? "None that I know of," I correct and force myself to look him in the eye, although it feels strangely like how Sam would dominate us in the pack.
His lips curl and he yanks his hand out from under mine, his eyes ferocious and not seeming to notice my careful gaze, "Who was it? Don't lie to me, you reek,"
I recoil, my eyes widening and my mouth falling open.
It's…
It was me. How do I tell him that it was me now that I've seen his anger? Instead I do the only thing I can, something I'd learned to do, been forced to do, since my first change. I submit. My knees buckle slightly, I'm not used to doing this as a human, it's easier as a wolf, but I bend them as far as I can, shrinking into myself and lowering my head.
I'm agonizingly aware of the way Klaus' breathing stalls for a moment, how silence falls between us. He knows what I'm doing and I don't think he's used to this show of obedience and surrender. The kind of action you only give your alpha.
Then he turns and walks away, his back stiff. A sigh passes through my lips and I straighten slowly, watching him retreat to his study.
The emptiness remains.
Edit 12/8: Sorry for the wait! I'm uploading this at the airport as I wait for check-in. I hope you enjoy the changes. I'm trying to change the tone consistency and it's proving much harder than it should be.