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: R
Warnings: Extremely dubious consent verging on non-con/ Miscarraiage / Hostage situation/explicit violence and torture/gratuitous angst/ potential character death
Somehow, between kisses and smiles and gales of astonished laughter, they make it back to their suite.
Late afternoon sunlight pours into Rebekah's bedroom through the French doors leading out to the terrace, so bright and so clear that for a moment, Elena feels suspended in unreality, like a dragonfly caught in amber.
But then Rebekah kisses her, the feeling of her soft lips a revelation, a prayer answered, and they fall onto the bed, their legs entangled, and Elena realizes with a jolt that yes, somehow, this is real. This is the life she's fought for for all of these years. This is the life she has earned, with every tear shed and every drop of blood spilled and every morning she wrapped her own arms around herself just so she could feel the touch of human contact— waiting until the time when Rebekah could be the one to wrap her arms around her, as she does now, and pull her close, into the heat of her body. She just hadn't known it yet.
(What is this feeling racing through her veins? What is this raw emotion blooming inside of her, making her so light and buoyant she feels like she could float up to the ceiling?
She doesn't know, can't remember feeling this way before, at least, not in a long, long time. All she knows is that she wants.)
She can't think for long, long minutes, mesmerized by the weight of Rebekah's body atop her own, by her languid exploration of her lips, her jaw, the sensitive place just under her ear and the other, at the base of her shoulder where she had bitten her years before. By the path of her hands as they trail over her shoulders and down her arms, fleetingly clasping over her wrists before releasing her, before moving up, to trace over her throat, to bury themselves in her hair.
Everywhere Rebekah touches comes alive, alert to her yearning for her hands, her mouth, her body, until her desire is not just something she feels in the aching twinge between her legs, but something that radiates out from her skin, from every hair on her head, from her eyes and her questing hands and her very bones. Rebekah never stops kissing her all the while.
It's been so long since anyone has touched her like this—knowing her, cherishing her, gathering her close, not just physically, but emotionally.
Rebekah pulls away, so that she is kneeling over Elena, her thighs pressing against Elena's waist. "Do you truly want…?" She trails off, biting her lip.
Elena leans up on her elbows and kisses her. "I want to be as close to you as I can be," she tells her softly, breaking away. "I want to be with you." She cannot hide the depth of her yearning for Rebekah, for the belonging and home she's found in her. She wants her so badly it's devouring her.
Something like wonder plays across Rebekah's face as she absorbs the truth of Elena's words. Gently, she reaches out and traces the shape of Elena's lips. "It caught me off-guard, last summer, when I realized I had fallen for you. I had never looked at you that way before, then suddenly, one morning, I could not look at you any other way."
"I've always thought you were beautiful," Elena admits. "Even when you were tormenting me, even when I was afraid of you— I could never look away from you."
"Then don't," Rebekah says. A moment later she strips out of her blouse and bra, leaving herself bare from the waist up.
Elena's mouth goes dry as she stares up at Rebekah. She's seen her naked body before, in stolen glimpses and half-buried memories, has dreamed of her with both fear and longing over the many years she has known her, but this is the first time that Rebekah has ever revealed herself to Elena with such utter vulnerability. With such want.
Desire pulls her toward Rebekah like a doll on a string. She finds herself scrambling up onto her knees, so that she and Rebekah are eye to eye. Merely inches apart. So close she can feel the gust of Rebekah's breaths against her own lips.
When Elena reaches a hand out to lay her palm against the curve of Rebekah's rib, the heat of such intimate skin to skin contact nearly shocks her. She almost pulls back, except that Rebekah grasps hold of her hand and holds it there, against her skin. Slowly, Rebekah moves Elena's hand higher, to cup her breast. Rebekah arches into the touch, a quiet groan falling from her lips as Elena grows more confident, thumb stroking slowly over her hardening nipple. Encouraged, she leans forward, to press a kiss to Rebekah's collarbone, her throat, the swell of her breasts.
It's as though the more she touches her, the more desperate she becomes to feel all of her.
Rebekah must sense her urgency. Her nimble fingers pluck at Elena's blouse, her bra, the buttons to her jeans.
"You're shaking," Rebekah notes a couple of minutes later, as Elena tries to unfasten Rebekah's trousers.
Elena glances up at her. She can feel the blush racing up her throat and into her face like wildfire. She swallows, hard, fighting for composure. "It's been a long time since I've been intimate with anyone." The fear that she could screw this up at any moment churns within her.
Rebekah gently catches her hands and shimmies out of her trousers without Elena's help, until they are both completely bare. "We've been intimate for a long time already," Rebekah says, pushing Elena onto her back. "This is just another way."
Elena stares at her, this beautiful, sweet, deadly girl she's somehow found herself entwined with. For a moment, the memory of the first time Rebekah had pushed her down like this flits through her memory—that midnight visit from so long ago, from what feels another lifetime ago, when Rebekah had pressed her into her bed and made herself heavy atop her, in so many ways just as she is doing now, yet so utterly different in import.
(She's not sure how she had turned her enemy into her lover. Into her closest friend… Into the one she trusts most. Cannot understand what it is within herself that could make Rebekah fall for her so.)
(And yet, her heart whispers, she had.)
"Then show me," Elena says, finding her courage.
Rebekah's hands trail up Elena's bare thighs, resting just at the crease of her thigh and hip.
The anticipation for Rebekah's touch manifests as a physical pressure, almost painful in its insistence. She shifts in her hold, restless hips rolling, nervous fingers clutching at the bedspread.
Rebekah locks eyes with her, holds her gaze as she slides her hand between Elena's thighs and brushes her fingers over the epicenter of Elena's need. She bucks on contact, unable to control herself. Rebekah smiles knowingly. Dips her fingers into Elena's dripping sex, just the barest of touches, not nearly enough to satisfy, merely to tease, and spreads the moisture out, over her clit. The glide of Rebekah's thumb against her clit is so frictionless like this that all it does is sweep her higher and higher into a need without relief. It's an exquisite torture that seems to go on endlessly. She tries to clamp her thighs around Rebekah's wrist, to urge her along, but Rebekah effortlessly keeps Elena's legs splayed open with no more than a light touch against her knee.
"You said it had been a while," Rebekah reminds her. "And I did promise to find you a suitable lover for your bed."
Elena huffs, amusement tickling through her at Rebekah's satisfied tone. "You haven't proven yourself yet," she teases.
Rebekah's eyes gleam. "Allow me to demonstrate my prowess then." As she speaks, the hand that had been holding her knee down slides between Elena's legs, so that she can ease a finger inside of her while her other hand strums her clit. A moment later, she adds a second finger, crooking them just so, coordinating the rhythm of her ministrations in a way that hurtles Elena up and over the first crest of her pleasure before she has time to adjust at all to Rebekah's parry.
Everything inside of her clamps down hard and fast when Rebekah ducks down to replace her circling thumb with her lips. The sight of her blonde head ducked over her, of those beautiful lips and those deadly teeth so close to her most intimate flesh, twists something loose inside of her, which she hadn't even been aware she was keeping close and guarded until the moment it tumbles free. She screams her way into a second careening orgasm, which hits her like a thunderclap, like freefall—as though the first one had been no more than a warning strike.
Rebekah gives her no time to recover. Elena's still trembling, her body slick with sweat and her heart pounding against her ribcage when Rebekah slinks up her body, straddling her waist and pinning her wrists above her head.
"I want to be your girl, and for you to be mine," Rebekah says, an endearingly imperious note of command in her voice.
There's barely room for a coherent thought in Elena's head, let alone a full sentence. It's all she can do to nod, to open her mouth for Rebekah to kiss her, to welcome in her warm tongue sliding against her own, to part her legs so that Rebekah's thigh can ride up hard and good against her throbbing clit. A moment later, Rebekah shifts against her, groaning softly as she rocks against Elena's thigh in turn.
That little groan captivates her. Warm slick smears against Elena's leg from the press of Rebekah's sex, More evidence of her desire for her. All of Elena's awareness constricts to the signs of Rebekah's pleasure—to the staccato of each sharp breath, the swelling insistence of her rocking hips, the little involuntary gasps and sighs that fall from her lips when Elena grinds just right against her.
They search out a rhythm together, Elena's hands tangled in Rebekah's short hair, Rebekah's face buried in the crook of her shoulder, their chests rubbing slowly, deliciously against each other, building a circuit of pleasure between them that receives through giving.
She shouldn't be surprised, maybe, when Rebekah bites her—she's dreamed of it, after all—but it's just unexpected enough to throw her—she comes again in slow, hot pulses that ripple into Rebekah's quivering thrusts, like overlapping waves on the beach, pulling Rebekah after her into shuddering climax.
After, they lie tangled together, limbs shaking, still a little breathless.
The still blue of twilight fills the room like a whisper.
The sun has disappeared at some point, somewhere between her second and third orgasm, Elena thinks. She's not sure. Everything other than Rebekah had completely slipped her mind.
"Did you mean it earlier?" Rebekah murmurs after a while.
"Mean what?"
She lifts her head from Elena's shoulder to regard her, something serious and guarded in the way she holds herself back. "That you would be my girl."
Elena considers her. Searches within herself. "There's room inside of myself to belong to myself, and to be yours at the same time," she says at last. She twines her fingers through Rebekah's. "I trust you to give me the space for that."
"I meant what I said too, you know."
"Which part? That you're a fantastic lover? You are, you know."
A smug little smile pulls at the corners of Rebekah's mouth. "No, the other part—that I want it to go both ways. That I want to be yours as well."
"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" Elena asks, that same elusive, bubbling feeling from earlier surging through her as she says it.
"No—I'm saying I think we could be so much more than that."
Such a typical Rebekah response.
Rebekah, the romantic, the girl who falls in love, over and over again. Who somehow never loses faith in the heart's sway.
Even though her heart has been broken each and every time she's entrusted it to another.
Overcome with a rush of tenderness for her, Elena kisses her, first her mouth, then her chin, her throat, her collarbone. Spends languorous minutes exploring Rebekah's body—mouthing at her sensitive breasts, her belly, the hollow of her hips. Everything is new. Exciting. When Rebekah moans, shifting fully onto her back and spreading her thighs for her, she feels it like a shot between the legs. Elena kisses her thighs, one and then the other, slowly working her way toward her center.
Rebekah absolutely thrashes when Elena kisses her between her legs. Whispers her name, over and over, a fervent chant, when she sucks on her clit with just the right pressure.
It never occurs to her to feel anxious about doing this for the first time with another girl, about whether she will do this right or be able to give Rebekah the kind of swarming pleasure she herself had experienced under her experienced mouth. All she feels is that raging excitement, that need to soak Rebekah up through all of her senses.
Sex is her element, and she's fully in it again.
Rebekah has her on the cusp of coming again when their phones, abandoned side by side on the dresser, begin rattling against the glass.
Before Elena can lose her concentration, Rebekah does something tricky with her fingers that completely undoes her—just obliterates every single thought from her head for the next ten minutes.
It's only when the phones buzz again that Rebekah sighs, in a very put upon way, and rises from their bed.
Elena watches her flounce across the room, her mussed hair the only sign at all of what she's been up to. Meanwhile, Elena's own skin is mottled with love bites and the faint bruising on her thighs and hips that always seems to result from going to bed with vampires.
"Are we being summoned?" Elena asks.
Rebekah grins at her. "Don your finest, my darling. We're going to the Salon."
An hour later they stroll up to an imposing town house, the front steps shod in marble and an impressive trim of carved granite surrounding the front door.
Rebekah brushes past the doorman with an air of self-assurance so complete that he does not even query for their names.
Elena trails after her, admiring how gracefully she floats through the crowd in her red chiffon dress.
It's only when Rebekah turns and calls her name that she realizes that she's frozen in the entrance foyer, watching her through the wide archway leading into a spacious double parlor filled with little more than a dozen people.
The sounds of more guests congregating in other rooms, deeper in the house, filters in, mingling with the chatter of those in the parlor, with the tinkling melody from the harp in the corner of the room.
Elena takes a moment to adjust the high collar of her dress, strategically selected to hide the bite mark on her shoulder, just to make sure all is in place, before plunging into the room.
"Everything alright?" Rebekah asks her, glancing about the room all the while.
"Just nerves, I guess."
"About what?"
Elena opens her mouth to respond, but at that moment, Klaus materializes out of thin air. Immediately, he snags the attention of a circulating waiter, who hurries over with a tray of champagne flutes.
"There you two are. Any later and you would have missed the bidding."
"What bidding?" Elena asks.
Klaus hands Rebekah a champagne flute. "On the artwork. There's to be a private auction in a few minutes." He pauses in the middle of handing her her own flute. "You're flushed. Are you quite well?"
"Better than ever."
Rebekah pauses mid-sip. Shoots her an undeniably sultry look.
Elena hurries to accept her drink from Klaus and offers him a probably flustered smile.
Luckily, Klaus no longer cares to dissect her particular moods and expressions these days. He's content to accept surface pleasantries without pursuing her behavior any further. "As you say." Klaus hands her her drink.
They are both very careful not to allow their fingers to brush in the transfer.
"Where's Stefan?" Rebekah asks as Klaus leads them into a wide room accented with Corinthian columns. A dining room, maybe, cleared out of all of the normal furnishings. A semi-circle of chairs lines the circumference of the room, and a green velvet curtain has been theatrically installed on the far side of the room to hide whatever items rest behind it. The rest of the guests eddy into the room alongside them.
"Not joining us tonight," Klaus responds without elaboration.
The three of them take their seats, Elena between Klaus and Rebekah.
An older woman in a sparkling black dress walks out to the front of the room to welcome them all, and says something or other about the collection of artists represented tonight—Elena doesn't catch it, can hardly pay attention at all, with Rebekah so close. The smell of her perfume lingers in the air. At some point, there's an applause line, and Rebekah shifts, so that her thigh presses against Elena's knee. The heat of her bleeds through their dresses. All Elena can think of then is the feel of Rebekah's skin. The way she had gasped her name.
She presses her thighs tightly together and prays for this evening to end quickly so that she can be alone with Rebekah again.
Both of her companions glance her way, every now and then—they must be able to scent where her thoughts are. God, it's so embarrassing living with vampires sometimes. She keeps her eyes pointed straight ahead, and does her best to ignore both their looks and the way her face floods with fire.
Rebekah's little finger hooks around her own. The contact sparks through her like an electric jolt.
Tentatively, she takes Rebekah's hand. The feel of her palm sliding against her own does nothing for her concentration.
Seven or eight paintings sell without her paying a bit of attention before Klaus leans over to murmur in her ear. "I thought this painting might appeal to you."
Elena blinks up at him slowly, her thoughts churning sluggishly as she wades out of her reverie.
Klaus's eyes slide from her flushed, doubtlessly dreamy expression to where her hand is clasped in Rebekah's. He frowns.
The moment he realizes the shift in her relationship with Rebekah is as clear as the night sky back at the manor.
Rebekah sees it too. Her hand tightens around Elena's as she leans forward so she can stare Klaus down, her expression challenging and defiant.
Klaus doesn't meet his sister's eyes, instead continuing to stare down at their joined hands.
"Your ring's gone," Klaus observes without inflection.
She can't tell what he means by the observation. Is he upset with her for stealing Rebekah's attention away from him? Surprised by the direction their relationship had gone? Possessive of her, even still?
"I took it off," she tells him at last, weakly, for lack of anything better to say.
She glances away from him, then, eager to avoid this awkward conversation.
Her eyes land on the painting at the front of the room, currently up for option. The one Klaus thought would appeal to her.
He is so utterly right that for a moment she forgets everything else.
There is something about the painting—a colorful abstract expressionist painting that she gathers had been painted by an artist named Joan Mitchell, sized to hang in a home rather than a museum—which powerfully reminds her of her garden back at the manor. Something about the dappling of the light, the movement of the brush strokes, speaks to the haziness of the garden in the early fall, when the asters were still in bloom.
It's the closest to looking at her home she has come in a long, long time.
Beside her, Klaus and Rebekah have begun to argue in hushed tones.
"What happened to I wish you the joy of her?" Rebekah hisses.
"Have I offered you a word of censure?"
"Do you think I can't tell by now when it is you wish you had a dagger on hand?"
"I have to have that painting," she announces over them.
The woman leading the auction calls out a number. Elena doesn't even hear it before she throws her arm up, heedless of any pretense at decorum.
There's a pause in the argument between the two siblings.
"No need to appear over-eager," Klaus advises her shortly.
"You brought us here for this painting, didn't you?"
He pauses. His eyes flick up to her face for just a moment before scanning the crowd in apparent apathy. "Yes."
A sleek couple across the room raise their hands to answer Elena's bid.
Immediately, Elena counters again. "I'm not leaving without it," she insists.
"It may be easier to let that other couple win and then intercept them on the way out," Rebekah suggests after a few rounds. At this point, they've topped two million.
"We can afford to buy this fair and square, can't we?"
"I wasn't aware you were overly fond of fair and square," Klaus remarks.
Elena glances at him. "I only resort to feints when I'm outmatched." She raises her hand again, to up her bid by a couple of hundred thousand.
Abruptly, Klaus stands. "Twelve million," he calls out, clearly impatient with this entire process.
There's a pause. The couple with whom she'd been competing glare at her, ignoring Klaus altogether.
"Satisfied?" he asks her.
She stares up into his face. Meets his shuttered eyes. Thinks, wildly, that there is a hurricane howling behind his cool expression.
"Thank you," she murmurs. It's all she can think to respond with.
He nods, swiftly, then turns on his heel and leaves.
There's a prolonged bubble of silence around his departure, as though the guests can all feel the pressure differential in the room now that Klaus has vacated. As though everyone is holding their breath.
Finally, the woman at the front of the room shakes her head and clears her throat to introduce the next item.
"Shall we take that as our cue to leave as well?" Rebekah asks her.
"What about the painting?"
"Oh, Nick will take care of the details." Without further explanation, she takes Elena's hand and pulls her from her seat.
"What was with him tonight?" Elena asks as they walk home hand in hand.
"Who? My brother?"
"Who else?"
Rebekah shrugs. "He almost never approves of anything that makes me happy. He can't very well do away with you, though, so he must simply grow used to it."
"There's no way he's… upset about me moving on, is there?"
"How could he be? He explicitly gave me his blessing." Rebekah shakes her head. "No, if anything, he's upset that I've taken one of his toys away, even if he no longer deigns to play with it. Not that I think you're a toy," she hastens to assure her.
Rebekah's explanation makes sense. Klaus is greedy and possessive; and he doesn't handle change to his family dynamics well unless he is the one to implement them. He would totally be weird about her and Rebekah becoming a couple, if for no other reason than that it would upset the social web of their little group wherein he is at the center.
Elena tucks her worries away.
But when she wakes that night, she remembers the low, intimate sound of his voice in her ear.
I thought this painting might appeal to you.
As though the whole evening had been planned for her.
She is wise enough to crush that thought as soon as she has it.
Next to her, Rebekah shifts in her sleep. Elena curls against her, seeking her warmth.
The painting is hanging in her bedroom the next day when she gets home.
For a long time, Elena sits on the end of her bed, silently contemplating.
"I'm going for a walk," Elena tells Rebekah, who lounges back in the suite great big soaking tub overflowing with bubbles. The ends of her hair trail in the fragrant bath water.
"If you want, you could always join me," Rebekah offers.
Elena blushes. She had said something similar to her a few hours ago in a secluded corner of a musty stationary shop and Elena had joined her. Biblically.
"Next time."
Rebekah sinks down deeper into the tub. "I'll keep the water warm for you."
Once she's in the hall, she shuts her eyes and concentrates. Digs down deep, into the dormant seed of her power, where, echoing like a second heartbeat inside of herself, she can always feel Klaus.
She follows that feeling now, trailing it down hallways and around turns, up and then down a flight of stairs, until she comes to a door on the other side of the building. It's not the penthouse suite she was expecting.
Hesitantly, she knocks on the door.
Every moment she waits, she wrestles with her doubts. Whether to turn around and go.
The thing is: she knows he's in there. She can feel him.
And she knows he must realize it's her waiting outside this door.
If he doesn't answer, it's because he's chosen not to.
And—it's not like she cares—it's just—She'd drudged up the courage to come. She'd like to at least have the chance to say what she wants to say.
At last, the door swings open.
Klaus stands in the doorway, one arm braced against the jamb, peering down at her. His hair is tousled in a way that either means he's just been sleeping or hasn't slept at all since she saw him the night before. Faintly, she realizes that he's not wearing a shirt.
He doesn't say anything at all as he looks at her.
Fine. She can start. "I wanted to thank you again. For the painting. I love it."
Something sharp and hungry kindles in his eyes. Smothers just as quickly. "You expressed some regret in incinerating your previous collection," Klaus explains.
Elena swallows. Gets to the real point of why she's here. "Are we okay?"
"Why ever would we be anything else?"
"Because I'm with Rebekah now."
"Am I supposed to be jealous?"
"Of course not."
"Protective, then, lest you break my sister's heart?"
"I won't do that."
"Then what emotion are you fishing for, precisely? I'd like to find out sooner rather than later, so we can conclude this interview."
"You know what? I thought we could clear the air, but obviously this was a mistake. Thanks again for the painting." She turns to leave.
"You're welcome," Klaus calls after her.
She can feel him watching her as she retreats down the hall.
Rebekah's toweling her hair dry when Elena returns to the suite. "Nice walk?"
Elena tugs the towel out of Rebekah's hands and sinks her fingers into the wet strands. "Kiss me," she demands.
"Did you miss me so very much?" Rebekah asks between slick, needy kisses.
"An irrational amount." Elena kicks off her shoes, shrugs out of her blouse and her skirt. Lies back on the bed in just her lace bra and underwear "Let's never leave this room again."
"You're the one who left," Rebekah points out, lying down beside her. She trails a finger over her ribs, tracing the silvery knife scars that crisscross her side.
"That was stupid of me." Elena captures her hand. Moves it to cup her sex. "Convince me not to do it ever again."
A/N: Another divided chapter, y'all. Better to get you an update rather than make you wait too much longer, yes? The good news is that I will most likely have the next update ready for y'all next weekend :)
Please review!