Fairytale Ending
by adlyb
Disclaimer: I own nothing except these words.
Summary: Klaus takes his girl and his hybrid and gets out of that one pony town.
Spoilers: Through 3x05, The Reckoning
Rating: M
Warnings: I'll be adding more warnings as I update, but for now, hostage situation/explicit violence/gratuitous angst
The door in front of Elena is cracked open. She's not supposed to open any closed door (she has already learned what comes from prying) but this door isn't really closed, now is it?
She watches her hand—paler than it used to be, a kind of vampiric whiteness to it—as it pushes the door open. There's a fire laid, white flames leaping high and crackling, but it gives no heat. The heavy silk drapes, glinting faintly in the firelight, are drawn closed, blocking out any sense of what time it is within the confines of this room.
"Lovely of you to join us."
Elena spins. There, sitting naked at the foot of the bed, is Klaus. Behind him, twined up by the headboard, she spots Rebekah and Stefan. Her long smooth legs are wrapped around his waist, their hand entangled, but they are both staring at her with dark, hungry eyes.
"I didn't mean—" She turns and looks for the door.
In a burst of inhuman speed Klaus moves to block her exit. He stands very close to her. If she reached out, just a couple of inches, she could press her hand to his heart.
"A bit too early to leave, love, don't you think?" he asks her quietly, head cocked to the side.
"I'm not supposed to be here." She can barely speak around the growing lump in her throat.
"Nonsense. This is exactly where you're supposed to be." He holds his hand out to her.
She hesitates only a moment before she takes it, and allows him to lead her over to the bed.
Klaus lays her out on the bed under him, and even though there's a small part of her screaming that this isn't right, she lets him. He covers her immediately, large hands pinning her by the wrists, hips sinking against hers, his bare body lining up against hers exquisitely. Even through her clothes, she can feel him half-hard, pressed against her center. He rocks against her, just a little bit, and the feeling sends a jolt of pure pleasure through her, stronger and swifter than she would have imagined.
But when she rolls her head back against the mattress, her eyes lock with Stefan and Rebekah. They've moved, without her noticing, and now stand pressed against the far wall, half-submerged in shadows. They look like wraiths in the flashing light.
Klaus feels her tense beneath him. He sucks a line of kisses that are almost really bites up the line of her exposed throat. "Don't mind them," he whispers darkly in her ear. "They won't interfere with us." He hitches her legs around his hips while he murmurs against her throat, each word punctuated by a thrusting grind against her. "I won't allow anyone to interfere with us."
Elena wakes up with her heart slamming against her breastbone.
She gathers her blankets around her into a crude cocoon and shuts her eyes tightly. Images of Klaus doing things to her dance against her eyelids.
No, she tells herself firmly. She will not persist in these bizarre fantasies.
She knows herself to have a few talents, and a few strengths. Like the women who came before her, she has an implacable will. With that comes the ability to steel herself, to do things that would make others tremble and fail. She knows she also has the capacity for both kindness and cruelty, and that she cannot always tell the two apart as easily as she should. She is also stubborn, sly, and capable. She has a nearly boundless capacity for self-deception. If she wants to, she could probably ignore this until it went away.
If only ignoring Klaus had ever, ever worked.
Three times, she sees Tyler hanging around downstairs that day. He's not doing anything particular or anything conspicuous, he's just there where he's sure she will see him waiting. He would never approach her where others could see, but it's a signal that she can go to him, and they can steal a few hours together. It's an attempt to reach out to her.
She ignores him.
Sometimes Stefan doesn't walk with her on her daily go-around the gardens, instead hanging back and watching while she wanders off by herself. Usually this happens on the days when Rebekah's overseeing gaze is especially sharp, and the air is thick with the charge of unshed violence. It's better, under those circumstances, for Stefan to keep as much distance as Klaus's compulsion will allow.
The garden is at the end of its bloom. A few bright stragglers remain, heads hanging heavy with November rain, but for every flower there is a muddy patch of bare stems and dead leaves. The temperature has dropped into the low forties, too warm to snow but cold enough for the drizzling rain to frost her breath and settle ice into her bones.
Elena bundles the coat around her and pretends she can't feel the eyes on the back of her head. She's looking at her own feet squishing over the wet grass and soggy pockets of earth, arms crossed under her breasts and hands stuck in her underarms to keep her fingers warm, when someone catches her by the elbow and spins her around.
She stares up into a pair of blue eyes, the last ones she wants to see. The well of emotions when she looks at him—envy, desire, despair—almost overwhelms her in that first instant. She fights to keep these warring emotions off of her face, to wear a mask that would protect her from this fevered onslaught. (An onslaught she realizes that Klaus must go through every day—to desire the object of your envy, to feel jealous of every shred of affection, physical or otherwise—)
"Thought I'd escort you this morning, seeing as dear Stefan is too fearful of my darling sister's wrath to venture nearer," he tells her cheerfully.
Elena can't help but read into his word choice, now that she knows how things really stand amongst the three of them. Dear darling sweetheart love mine mine mine. Everything she has ever wanted he has already taken from her. She thought, perhaps, she might still have someone to love, or at least a friend, but her lover had been his before she'd even been born, and he'd shown her how weak the bonds of loyalty really ran between Tyler and her. Envy. Desire. Despair.
She dares to glance over her shoulder, to where Stefan is watching them in the distance. She wonders what he is feeling right now, cannot read anything other than a certain wariness on his still face. (There will always be a part of her absolutely certain that he loves her, the knowledge irrevocably engraved into her bones. There will also always be a part of her that knows that love can—will—consume and destroy in the end, especially when it is spread among as many people as it is right now. It is dangerous to love so many, though her heart—and maybe everyone else's, too—always yearns for more. That knowledge, she has come to realize, is inherited, not learned.)
"It's been a while since we've really had a heart-to-heart," he continues, oblivious to her agitated inner monologue, as he draws her hand into the crook of his elbow and covers it with his own. They make a slow circuit of the grounds together. Each step she does not succumb to the tumult inside of her is a triumph.
Heart-to-heart. They'd been pressed just like that, heart-to-heart, flush against each other, in several of her recent dreams. The stray thought sticks and vibrates within her. She blushes and he notices.
"The last time we had a chat you killed my ex," she tells him to cover her reaction to him.
"And by the way, you're taking that better than I thought you would."
Elena stumbles and he has to pull her up lest she fall.
"Careful now," he murmurs, low voice so like it had been in her dreams.
It's a terribly distracting thing, to be dancing this fine line with Klaus and all the while to have images of him under her, over her, flitting through her mind. She cannot help but be aware of him in ways she had not been alert to before—the smell of him, the weight of his hand over hers, the heat of his skin and of his eyes.
"If you wouldn't make such a habit of murdering my loved ones, maybe you'd get a more satisfying reaction out of me when you do." She spits the words through clenched teeth.
"You're implying you've grown immune, sweetheart? You had a greater reaction when I killed that girl in front of you a while back than you did to your first lover's death the other day." He doesn't turn to her when he speaks, but watches her out of the corner of her eye. It's a familiar ploy from him—making it seem like he's not invested in her answer, but furtively watching her every reaction. He has always watched her.
Elena pulls her hand away from him and straightens her coat. He lets her. When she is satisfied that she looks properly put together, she tips her head back so she can look him dead in the eye and she tells him, certainty and finality ringing in her voice, "I was an expert in grief before I ever knew you even existed. I learned what it was to live with it like it was my closest friend, and to survive it. I feel grief—here—" She presses her hand to her chest, where the ache of death lingers, but she is so used to the fissuring pressure that she doesn't even notice it most days, simply lives with it. "I carry it with me always. But I can't live my life in perpetual mourning. I can't."
"Very eloquent." He shrugs her off, brushing her speech aside like a cobweb. "I suppose you hardly responded at all when you walked in on brunch the other day."
Brunch. The head, rolling and rolling and rolling until it hit the fireplace with a dull thud.
She laughs, humorlessly. The sharp, glassy sound, so like Katherine's laugh, startles her, and she cuts herself off abruptly. "I'd go mad if I let myself, Klaus."
He nods and purses his lips. "Ever a cruel little creature, aren't you? It's that cruel streak, that selfish streak, that allows you to adapt to this. I've seen other girls crumble over less."
"It's not cruelty—" Oh but it is it is it is
"Come now, don't be modest. It's what I like about you best. I think I'd have just compelled you like a doll long ago if you didn't have it." He takes her hand back in his and pauses. "I think we'd best find you some gloves for the winter. Your hands are ice cold."
How fast he could turn from the most serious topics to the least.
He could turn on her, or Stefan, just as quickly.
The next time she ventures out for a walk, she slips in a puddle of blood by the front door and lands painfully on the pavers outside before anyone thinks to catch her.
It's a bright, gray day outside, and Klaus and Rebekah are drinking mimosas on the iron lawn-chairs by the Japanese Maple. There's a discarded game of croquet, mallets abandoned on the lawn, and two dead boys sitting propped by the door. They hadn't been properly drained, just bitten and left to bleed out in the walk way. There are two more boys sitting over by Klaus and Rebekah—about her age, maybe, dressed like they may have been on their way to church when they were snatched up-
Carefully, Elena picks herself up and wipes uselessly at the cloying blood that has soaked into her sweater and jeans. Her palms slide against the fabric, too slick and wet to be much use in cleaning the blood off of her hands.
Stefan snatches at her hand, suddenly, nearly knocking her off balance again, except he snakes an arm around her waist and reels her in close to him, before sucking her fingers into his mouth. His tongue swirls over her as he cleans the blood from her. He moves to the palm of her hand, and then her wrist, moving on as soon as he laps the last of the blood from each part of her. He's going into a frenzy, she thinks faintly.
"Stefan," she whispers, trying to pull free. He has her in an iron grip. She's not even sure he can hear her over the din of his rising blood lust. "Stefan."
He kneels in front of her and peels back her sweater, to lap at the blood that's soaked through the material and paints her belly. She can feel his fangs graze her skin.
"That's enough, now, Stefan," Klaus calls. He's there and pushing Stefan off of her in the blink of an eye, a restraining hand on Stefan's shoulder as he looks her up and down. "Aren't we a picture?" he murmurs before guiding Stefan over to where the two boys are patiently waiting.
Elena trails after them, perversely interested.
Klaus gestures over to them. "Go on, now, Ripper, have a drink straight from the tap."
Rebekah finishes her mimosa and pushes one of the boys into Stefan's arms. Stefan doesn't even hesitate to bury his fangs in the boy's neck. Rebekah tips back her head and laughs, her teeth sparkling white in the sun, her voice like a chime.
Klaus stands at Stefan's shoulder, body pressed close to his as he speaks directly into his ear. Rebekah is there too, leaning forward to lick at the corner of Stefan's mouth, to catch the stray rivulets of blood that stream down his chin.
It's so similar to the scene just a few days ago, and yet, knowing what she does, she reads it so very differently. Where before, she saw Klaus as the tormentor, the one forcing Stefan into the despised role of monster, all to amuse and entertain and satisfy some bizarre need to control, she sees now that that isn't it at all. No—here Klaus is encouraging, cajoling, playing the lover as he gifts Stefan with these meals, these tastes and caresses, what Klaus said Stefan needed but would deprive himself—no, that was a dream—Whatever he's whispering in Stefan's ear, it's not a threat, no, it's a seduction—
It's so clear, as Stefan finishes the first boy, and Elena is too frozen, too wrapped up, to do anything when they lift the second boy between them and Rebekah and Stefan each bite into him, one from each side of the boy's neck, and Klaus encourages them both all the while, one hand at Stefan's shoulder, the other tangled in Rebekah's blonde hair. The three of them are totally wrapped up in each other, and she is the one standing outside of it.
True, Klaus might have his moments where he takes an interest in her. Stefan may still love her and Rebekah may even be homicidally envious of her at times, but all of that is separate and apart from what she sees in front of her, this far-reaching entwinement.
Best not to interrupt them when they're involved like this. They get terribly wrapped up.
She would only be torn to pieces if she tried to step between them now.
She leaves without waiting to find out how this unfolds and takes a long, hot shower. She takes her time flat ironing her hair, afterward, til it is shiny and straight. It's easier, when she looks in the mirror and sees just herself, not to dwell on how she didn't even bother to save either of those boys, how she has stopped even negotiating or trying.
She's the only human in the house. She has to do a better job of remembering that. She has to do a better job of acting like it.
Her first blood-letting happens three months after her arrival.
Klaus knocks on her door, but doesn't wait for a response before entering. "And how is my lovely doppelganger this fine morning?"
He's cheerful—he's always cheerful these days. Ever since Stefan was so quick to kill Matt for him, it's like he's recalibrated, feeling steady now in his favorite's devotion and loyalty to him (in how small and powerless she, Elena, had turned out to be, just a small wave lapping against a huge boat).
It puts her on edge, but she hides that well. Elena sits up a little straighter in bed, smooths her hair behind her ear, lifts her chin. She glances at the door, where his hand still lingers on the wood. "You're supposed to wait for me to say 'come in'." It's a petty point—Lord knows he's already invaded her space plenty of times before—but she's upset and out-of-sorts and Klaus is at the center of it all.
"No need when I already own the house, love."
She purses her lips and debates whether it would be better to stay in bed and have to look up at him or whether she should stand tall, but reveal herself ample bare flesh not covered by her pajamas. She shivers as the sense memory of his hand on her thigh rolls through her.
From the way Klaus's eyes rove her face and the exposed skin of her neck and shoulder, she decides less skin is better. She pulls the blanket up around her.
He meanders over and sits on the edge of her bed, a satisfied smile on his face.
He stares at her and she stares back.
The early morning sun pours through her window, and gives the room a kind of warm glow. The light catches the gold in Klaus's hair, makes his eyes seem bluer and his lips redder. He doesn't look like a monster like this, perched casually beside her, looking perfectly conversational and normal in a gray long sleeved t-shirt and jeans. Damon had that trick too, of coming off like a friendly, regular guy instead of the predator she knew him to be. The fact that Klaus apparently has the same ability and is pulling it out now only sets her more on edge.
Today isn't like all of their other visits, an instinct inside of her warns. Today, he wants something in particular.
"Where's Stefan?" she asks, her heart beginning to slam against her ribs even though her voice comes out perfectly steady.
Klaus cocks his head and smiles. He can hear her heart of course, but for now he's polite enough not to mention it to her.
"I gave Stefan the morning off, thought I'd come in and check up on you myself." He casts her a knowing look. "Rebekah was happy about it, of course. Can't say she's too pleased about how I've arranged things between Stefan and you."
Elena shrugs. "A bit late for second-thoughts, isn't it? I think the damage is already done." She tosses her hair behind her shoulders. "Besides, Rebekah's just being a brat."
Klaus's smile widens at her retort, and she catches a glint of sharp white teeth. "Very true at that." The smile fades quickly though, and is replaced with a carefully blank face and a neutral tone. "Do be careful though, my dear. Bex is a viper at heart; she'll bite without a moment's notice, and I'd be exceptionally displeased were anything to happen to you."
Displeased. Not upset, not aggrieved. Really closer to inconvenienced than anything else.
Elena had lived her whole life surrounded by people who loved and cared for her. In the past year, she'd known what it meant for people to literally die for her. Now she has no one in her life like that (Except—she hoped—no, she was sure—Stefan. And— maybe—no, not Tyler).
She swallows, and his eyes follow the pulse of her throat. She tries to speak, but finds her throat quite dry. Her voice is like sandpaper when she speaks. It reminds her unpleasantly of Katherine the night she told her her story. That was the first time she'd ever heard of Klaus.
She doesn't particularly want to pursue this conversation. There's no point in reflecting on how Rebekah could squash her like a bug, just like how Klaus nearly squashed Katherine flat all of those centuries ago.
"Why are you here?" she finally asks him.
"You're not enjoying our little chat?" he asks in mock surprise. "I thought it time for another donation. The original batch is running a bit thin, and I thought I'd shore things up before gathering new recruits."
Elena scoots as far away from him as possible and pulls the covers up to her neck. "No, no, no. I've given blood before, and I know it's not supposed to be this often."
Klaus shrugs. He holds up his fingers, pinched half an inch apart. "It's just a small amount. Nothing to worry over. And really, the suggestion is every two months, and it's already been three. Really, I gave you plenty of time to adjust to your new surroundings before I asked anything of you."
God, the arrogance of this man.
"That's it then, isn't it? You'll be coming in here, asking-but-really-telling-me that it's time for another donation, and I'll have no choice but to say yes."
"No need to sound so glum about it. You're hardly being kept in destitution."
No, she's really not, at least not in a literal sense, although, the feather pillows and green lawns cannot make up for the loneliness that has crept into her bones, for the horrors she is learning to accept without batting an eyelash. For the humanity and compassion she feels slipping through her fingers with every defeat, and the sacrifices tallying up with every pyrrhic victory until she can no longer determine if it was worth it.
She supposes she expected this—she's the bloodbank, and what are banks for if not for withdrawing?
In so many ways, it's what she's been reduced to. Or at least, it's certainly what Rebekah would like her to be.
No friends, no family, only a journal to keep her company, her own thoughts endlessly reflected back at her.
She has no future, only the interminable present.
This is a battle she is going to lose no matter what. The calculative part of herself knows this, does the math, and decides it will be better to cooperate now, and strike back later.
Slowly, she pulls the quilt from her shoulders and holds her arm out for Klaus to take. She does not shake, even a little bit.
"Fine. You win."
"There's my good girl," Klaus murmurs as his fingers close around her wrist. He turns her hand, so the palm faces up, and strokes a finger down the veins, up her arm, all the way to the crook of her forearm. "Was it so hard to surrender?"
She doesn't answer him, every bit of her focused instead on ignoring the way his fingers trail over her skin.
True to his word, Klaus does not take very much blood. Just a few vials. He's very careful as he cleans her arm, ties the tourniquet, and inserts the needle into the soft flesh of her arm not to hurt her. It's just the barest prick of the needle, nothing at all like the last time she gave blood, when Klaus had ordered Stefan to tear her throat out first.
Dully, Elena wonders if it was Klaus who tore Stefan off of her in the end, when he discovered that he needed her after all to build his army.
When Klaus finishes, he runs his thumb over the tiny little hole he's left in her flesh. A dot of blood wells up and beads against her too pale skin. He swipes his thumb over it and smears blood along the seam of her elbow. For a moment, Elena thinks he's going to put that thumb in his mouth and lick it clean—he's done it before—except he doesn't.
At the door, he pockets the blood vials and produces a box of orange juice. He tosses it to her, and she catches it without thinking. "Drink up, sweetheart. I want you fighting fit when I return."
Caught off guard, Elena fumbles the juice. "You're leaving then?"
"Just for a little while. Don't worry. You'll hardly have time to miss me." He winks at her before turning on the spot and shutting the door behind him.
She finds Tyler waiting for her again outside of her room, but she won't have any of it this time.
"Go away, Tyler," she tells him without looking at him.
"Elena, wait."
"No, Tyler, I'm serious, go away."
"Elena, I have to make this right before I leave—"
She finally looks up at him. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm going, with Klaus. To find new werewolf packs to turn."
The news hits her hard. The possibilities of what could happen race through her mind—they could run into trouble. Tyler could upset Klaus, or lose a fight with a werewolf, or run into a vampire hunter, or any number of things. He might die. Klaus might set him loose. She may never see him again.
Elena stares at him for a moment before realizing her mouth is hanging open. She must look like a deer in the headlights. Frustrated with herself for forgetting what Tyler did for even a moment, she snaps her mouth shut and crosses her arms under her breasts. "So? Go on then."
"Elena—"
"I don't care to hear it, Tyler. Go have fun on your killer hybrid road trip. Goodbye, Tyler."
She steps into her room and slams the door shut. For a little while, she can hear Tyler lingering outside her doorway, shifting from foot to foot like he would like to knock, but eventually he leaves, like she knew that he would, and she is left alone.
Klaus makes ready to leave by mid-morning the next day. He has a troop of hybrids assembled, all looking anxious and excited to leave, all except for Tyler, who keeps casting her sad dark-eyed looks.
Just like an old-fashioned lord of the castle, he has the whole household standing outside to see him off, Elena included. He claps Stefan on the shoulder and chucks Rebekah on the chin, speaking to lowly to each for Elena to overhear from where she huddles out of the wind as far away from the pair as she can. She was absolutely revolted, though maybe not surprised, to discover that Rebekah would be staying behind to help Stefan oversee her well-being, or perhaps, more accurately, to make certain that she, Elena, did nothing to steal his affections away from her or her brother.
After he finishes with Stefan and Rebekah, Klaus strides over to her for a final goodbye.
"I've warned Rebekah against harming you, and reiterated to Stefan my command to care for you, but my orders won't hold so much sway while I am gone as they do when I am in residence. I trust that you'll do nothing to tempt my sister's wrath, or to make Stefan's job too vexing."
She nods, slowly, to show that she has heard him, but makes no other response. He clearly does not expect her to. At any rate, her answer satisfies him, and he turns to leave with only a single glance back.
Stefan heads back inside, but Rebekah prowls over to her, a glint of sharp curiosity in her eyes.
"What did you do to Lockwood?" she asks. "He kept looking at you like a kicked puppy."
Elena glares at her. "That's none of your business."
"Oh, but darling, everything is my business now that Nick is gone. Especially if it makes you the least little bit unhappy." She grabs Elena by the chin and stares deeply into her eyes. When she speaks, Elena cannot help but fall into those pale blue eyes. "What's going on between you and Lockwood, hm?"
She can't resist answering, for all of her desire to. "He told Klaus about Matt, and he didn't even try to save Matt that night." She thanks God that Rebekah did not ask her anything that would cause her to reveal anything incriminating.
"And? Why is he upset?"
"He tried to apologize, but I wouldn't let him."
Rebekah bursts out laughing, releasing her from the compulsion. "Oh, you stupid bint. This is too rich."
"Yeah yeah, I know, toying with me is so funny."
"Oh, you don't understand. Tyler Lockwood had no choice but to answer Nick's questions, no choice but to leave when Nick told him to leave, and stay away when Nick told him to stay away."
At Elena's blank look, Rebekah elaborates, "Lockwood is sired to Nick. All of the hybrids are."
"Sired? What does that mean?"
"Sometimes, when a vampire is made, he forms a kind of bond to his maker. An unbreakable bond. What it amounts to is that whatever Nick tells Tyler to do, Tyler has to do. He has no choice. He's probably not even aware of what he's doing."
The horror of what Rebekah tells her washes over her as a million implications and odd statements that she hadn't given a second thought to start to add up.
He's made it clear the hybrids aren't supposed to approach you.
While your display of selflessness for your friend here is touching, Tyler, it's a bit hollow seeing as you already do anything and everything I ask you to.
I don't understand. Why would you tell him that? You have to have known he was planning something awful.
He asked me, okay? I had to tell him.
"I didn't know," Elena says. "How could I have known?"
Rebekah laughs at her. "Doesn't change a thing, now does it? Rather cold of you to turn him out over something he couldn't help."
Guilt heavy on her shoulders, Elena races to the end of the drive to where Tyler had disappeared with Klaus, to try to catch one last glimpse of him, but he has already disappeared around the bend.
A/N: Yes, for all of you upset at Tyler, he really was sired this entire time and unable to say no to Klaus.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter, the fact that you all are continuing to read means everything to me 3
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the latest installment. For my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving!