A/N:

Elijah Mikaelson is a privilege to write.

(I can't stop thinking about his first appearance in TVD. The introduction of the Originals literally saved the show. His character was the only reason that I continued to watch the series until the end of season 3.)

Elijah wakes to sunshine and the fragrant smell of cardamom and cinnamon.

These things don't phase him.

The unfamiliar bed and its pleasantly soft cotton sheets don't startle him, given that he's been nomadic for longer than most countries have been developed.

But, the rapid heartbeat and the soft shuffle of feet he can hear outside his door? Those give Elijah pause. The experience is disconcerting, as time has proven that no matter if he chooses to sleep or how long he decides to slumber, his mind has remained his sharpest weapon—one that's ever ready and willing to do battle.

Until, apparently, this moment. Until—

Stiles.

Elijah falls back into the bed, head burrowing into his pillow as he remembers exactly what he'd revealed the night before—the emotional turmoil he'd expressed was the most vulnerability that he'd entrusted in another living being in his entire living memory.

Because for all that Elijah loved his family, they had never made it easy.

So, it may explain why he was a bit out of his element. That, and the fact that Elijah hasn't lived with another person in almost a century, not since his brother—

Well, not since his brother.

And yet here he lays, the yoke of his self-imposed isolation shrugged from his shoulders because of a single night with a stranger in some Pennsylvanian backwater.

Five months ago, his life had looked eternally dreadful—the wheel of his hate and despair poised to continue spinning until his brother lay dead at his feet. He had never envisioned his own life beyond that point.

But now—

Stiles.

His mere presence soothes the beast he's kept tightly leashed in the back of his mind in a way Elijah has never felt before. Their serendipitous meetings always leave him comforted and calm, the thirst in the back of his throat forgotten but the constant itch in his fangs hungering for something Elijah is…hesitant to examine more closely.

He knows, though he's not ready to admit it, even to himself, exactly what that feeling is.

After all, Elijah has always followed his intuition—from the time they were but a fledgling human hunter's instincts to when they grew teeth and knew the world only through a haze of blunted animal ferocity—for better and for worse.

If Elijah were a betting man and not, well, Elijah, he would bet that Stiles is fated to be one of the better parts of his life. Elijah can feel it in the marrow of his bones. The animal underneath his skin has never felt so certain.

It's that certainty that drove Elijah to share that first meal with Stiles. It's that certainty that prompted every spare text and late-night conversation after. It's that certainty that allowed Elijah to offer up his past last night and be comfortable enough to later fall asleep.

And it's with that same certainty Elijah decides to get out of bed and discover just what is emitting that mouth-watering aroma.

Elijah was in New Orleans the last time he had seen his sister.

It was the day that his family had scattered after their father had found them in the city they had built as a haven.

It had never surprised Elijah that his father had taken one contemptuous look at the home they had built for themselves and immediately burned it to the ground.

For all that he had hated Niklaus for the circumstances of his birth, his father had always been the bigger bastard.

Their last day together had been spent preparing for a ball in honor of the city's second century of (relative) peace under Mikaelson governance.

"Those colors are truly awful, Elijah," Rebekah pouted at him, her hands waving disgustedly at the strips of tablecloth fabrics Niklaus had shoved into his hands in passing. "Honestly, I have no idea how Nik can be so good with color when it's slapped on a canvas and then somehow turn into a blind man when it comes to interior decorating."

Elijah had smiled knowingly. "I cannot be sure that he does not do it simply to irritate you, dear sister."

Rebekah growled and muttered about the depths of Niklaus's depravity.

While the rest of their day had been spent squabbling over the décor and the number of dessert options, their night had ended in tragedy.

Elijah escorted Rebekah to the theater to see the local troupe's newest production, an adaptation of a Broadway play, The Masquerader. Elijah was attending for the intrigue, and Rebekah had wanted to see it for the romance.

The first act had only just begun when the fires started.

Around them, madness had reigned, humans, vampires, werewolves, and witches had all clamored to escape the playhouse.

Through the smoke and flames, like some hellish ghoul, their father and his trodden-down acolytes had started slaughtering all of those in attendance.

Immediately, Elijah kicked through the wall behind him and looked down at the busy street below. "Rebekah, you must go. Find Niklaus at the Abattoir and tell him that Father has found us."

"No!" Rebekah had argued, face wan and hands clenched tightly at the edges of her gown, but her spine was as strong as steel. "I will not leave you here alone, Elijah. You or Marcel."

"Marcellus is here?" Elijah growled. "I thought Niklaus sent him to the bayou for his continued dalliance with you."

Rebekah scoffed, the sound muffled in the rising ash and smoke. "Oh, don't you take that tone with me!"

"Niklaus is the boy's father," Elijah gritted through his teeth while intercepting one of his father's dogs who was attempting to climb the balcony, ripping his heart out and punting him across the room.

"But I am not his aunt," Rebekah responded, searching through the calamity for her beau. "A few fencing lessons when he was a teenager does not a familial connection make."

"Rebekah, this is—"

"REBEKAH!" was roared through the chaos.

Both vampires had turned and looked down from their spot on their family's private balcony in time to see their father grinning at them ferally from the stage, one of his hands wrapped around Marcel's throat and the other gripping a wooden stake.

"I hear that this is the beast's newest pet." They watched as their father slammed Marcel into a set piece and quickly staked him in his chest and shoulders until his body hung limply, and quite gruesomely, from the wall.

"Marcel!" Rebekah screamed in agony, tears falling from her eyes in despair. "Marcel!"

Elijah had seen enough. He picked up Rebekah and threw her out of the hole he had created. "Run, Rebekah. Survive."

Elijah took one last look at his sister, staring up at him, beautiful and heartbroken, and somehow so very alone, even as she stood in the middle of a street filled with people screaming and running around in terror. He took her in one more time before he turned back to the slaughter inside the theater.

Elijah had straightened his jacket and kicked at his chair, breaking off a large wooden chunk from the ruins. He looked his father in the eye. He only did so to avoid the wretchedness that threatened to cloud his mind at the sight of the annoying little gnat he'd help raise for over a century hanging like a broken marionette.

So he looked his odious father in the eye, reiterating to himself that he would stall him for as long as he could to give his siblings time to escape. He had done it before, and he would continue to for as long as it was necessary.

After all, he had promised them his love and loyalty always.

Always and forever.

"Human innovation never ceases to amaze me," Elijah admits, the sweet taste of the French toast made of the leftover babka still tingling pleasantly in his mouth. "I have had hundreds of years of cooking for myself and eating the meals of others, and I have never thought to create such a masterpiece."

"Yeah, that's me," Stiles snarks, mouth shiny and covered in maple syrup. "A genius."

"Well…" Elijah drawls, entirely too amused. "I wouldn't say that."

Stiles flicks a raspberry at him, only to pout when Elijah catches it easily and pops it into his mouth.

Adorable.

Elijah leans back in his chair as he watches Stiles continue eating. Stiles withstands three minutes of his attention before he breaks.

"Elijah, you're staring."

"I am."

Stiles huffs around a sip of orange juice.

"I've just decided, is all."

Stiles slows his movements, a bite of French toast hovering in front of his mouth. "Oh?"

"Yes."

Stiles sets his fork down. "About?"

Elijah smiles. "Are you busy this Saturday?"

Stiles blinks at the abrupt non-sequitur. "Busy? No, I don't think so. Why?"

"That old acquaintance that I mentioned, the one that reached out to me? I have a meeting scheduled with them on Saturday afternoon outside of Mystic Falls. I wondered if you wanted to accompany me. I'd like to show you the area. We could—"

Elijah stops in the middle of his sentence to find Stiles staring intently at him, the apples of Stiles's cheeks dusted a faint pink. "What?"

"Are you asking me out on a date, Elijah?"

"I am merely asking if you would come with me to—"

"Elijah," Stiles interrupts, waving a careless hand, a grin spreading across his impish face. "Are you or are you not asking me to come to your hometown with you?"

"…Yes," Elijah answers hesitantly.

Stiles nods. "And are you or are you not asking me to be your partner in your weird Godfather routine?"

"Well, I would not—" Stiles stares him down pointedly. Elijah sighs. "Only if you were amenable."

"And are you planning on taking me out to dinner after?"

"Yes," Elijah admits.

Stiles leans forward across the table. "So…a date then?"

Elijah can't help the smile that breaks past his neutral façade. "A date," he agrees. "If you want."

"Oh, I want," Stiles replies, cheeks going from pink to red. "Excuse me for a second." He pushes in his chair and goes out the front door.

Elijah can hear the shouts of victory through the door. They match the pace of his own rapidly beating heart.

The last time that Elijah had seen Katerina Petrova was the night before he had taken off to Wales on a mission to retrieve the potion he had commissioned to revive her after the sacrifice.

He had arrived back at his family's estate late, a jar of murky magical potion in hand, two nights before the full moon.

The entire castle was in disarray.

The bodies of their servants were strewn throughout the halls, ripped apart in ways that Elijah knew to be the result of one of Niklaus's rages. Blood soaked into the Persian rugs. It splattered the Lu Guang painting that Elijah had hung in the library.

He could hear both shouting and hysterical laughter echoing from the dining hall.

Elijah felt no dread for the situation he found himself in, only the tired exasperation known to every older brother.

In the dining room, he found his siblings arguing. Well, he found Rebekah sipping wine at the table, a look of sheer boredom on her face; he found Kol rolling around on the floor, his long hair flying as he continued to laugh uproariously; and he found Niklaus, throwing knives at their stableboy, who was tied to a chair at the head of the table.

"What," Elijah enunciated. "Is going on here?"

Kol's head popped up from his spot on the floor with a particularly demented grin plastered on his face. "Brother! You have returned to the most glorious of circumstances." Another cackle escaped him. "The doppelganger trollop has gone and killed herself. She found out about the sacrifice, seduced some poor tosser into letting her loose, and turned herself into a vampire so that Nik could never break his curse!"

Niklaus growled and threw the next knife at Kol, who dodged easily and used it to stab Niklaus roughly in the gut.

"And I have not gotten to the best part," Kol continued, twisting the knife, both figuratively and literally. "She also ran off with the moonstone! Stole it right from under Nik's big nose, she did!"

"And where exactly were you, Kol?" Niklaus hissed, yanking the knife from his stomach and tossing it aside. "I distinctly remember putting all of the spell ingredients under your care, did I not?"

Kol's laughter turned strained. "You cannot blame me for the actions of the deceitful wench that you brought into our home. You lost it!" Kol flinched at Niklaus's dark look and raised his hands in supplication. "Alright, alright—well, we lost it. Happy?"

"Never," Niklaus muttered. He had turned back to torturing the stableboy, who Elijah had intuited had been at least partially responsible for Katerina's escape. The absence of Trevor—the stable master and the boy's uncle—either strewn about as one of Niklaus's gruesome finger-paintings or tied up alongside his lack-witted nephew, was even more illuminating as to how she had escaped so easily.

Elijah stared down at the now useless potion and rolled the jar idly in his palms.

"I will never let her have peace."

Elijah looked up at met Niklaus's feral gaze.

"I know," Elijah said calmly.

"Eventually, she will die by my hand."

"I know."

"No matter the feelings you have for her. They will not protect her a second time."

Elijah had not loved her—not yet. Even still, his heart ached.

He hardened it.

"I know."

Later, after a long day of talking about anything and everything, Stiles and Elijah settle in front of the fire together and simply exist.

Elijah can hear the soft ticking of the clock in the kitchen.

He can smell the cherry notes in the wood burning in the grate.

There's still a damp patch on the collar of his shirt from when he and Stiles had engaged in a water war while washing the dishes.

Stiles's hair is soft under his fingertips, Elijah's gentle scratches having lulled him to sleep with his head resting on Elijah's chest.

Individually, these sensations mean nothing.

Together, they form a blurry picture of potential.

Of hope.

Hope for a home—not in a place, but a person.

That certainty of self that had bloomed to life all those months ago—the same one that had gotten him out of bed this very morning—has grown. He feels its roots wrapping tighter around his chest day by day, hour by hour.

But Elijah still feels no fear, no regret.

He's an animal of instinct, after all.

Fictober, Entry 11. Prompt: "You lost it. Well, we lost it."