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The call that changed everything
- Midnight
- Oct 3
- 38 min read
Updated: Oct 3
Chapter One: The Cliff
The night was heavy with mist, the kind that clung to the skin and pressed the world into silence. Elijah’s shoes sank into the damp earth as he moved, every step driven by the gut-deep certainty that he was already too late.
The wind carried it to him before anything else — the smell of iron. Blood.
Kol reached the cliff’s edge first. He crouched low, his usual mocking energy absent, his fingers hovering over something glittering on the ground. Elijah joined him, gaze dropping to the objects left behind.
Klaus’s daylight ring, abandoned.
A jagged trail of crimson led to a pile of rocks weighted down with torn scraps of parchment. Elijah bent, fingers trembling despite himself as he lifted the top sheet. Klaus’s handwriting, fierce and looping, scrawled across the page.
I am tired. I am tired of claws and teeth, of a heart that beats for nothing but rage. I am tired of destroying everything I touch. I am tired of being hated, of being feared. I am tired of waking up. Do not look for me. Do not try to save me. Let me be gone.
Kol read over his shoulder, his voice quieter than Elijah had heard it in centuries. “Bloody hell. He really—” His throat worked as if the words themselves stuck like thorns. “He really meant it.”
Elijah lifted another note, heart cracking open as the words carved themselves into him.
Elijah — you tried. I know you did. You wanted me to be better, but I never could be. I only ever disappointed you. Perhaps now you will finally be free of me.
Kol — you pretended to laugh at me, but I saw the truth. You despised me, and I deserved it. I will not trouble you anymore.
The parchment slipped from Elijah’s hand, caught by the wet wind. His chest was tight, every line a blade pressed deeper into him.
Kol suddenly sucked in a breath and pointed. “Elijah—down there!”
Elijah moved to the cliff’s edge. Below, the water foamed and churned. In its dark depths, pale skin flickered, hair fanning like weeds in the current. Klaus.
He leapt without thought, the night air cutting cold against his face before the sea swallowed him whole. The shock of the icy water didn’t matter. Only Klaus mattered.
The weight of him was wrong when Elijah reached him — limp, yielding, colder than he should ever be. Kol was at his side in an instant, helping drag their brother’s body up through the waves, hauling him against the rocks.
Klaus lay sprawled across the stones, water spilling from his mouth, the hilt of a dagger buried deep in his chest. Elijah ripped it free, only to stagger back at the stench that rolled off the blade.
Wolfsbane. Vervain. Hemlock. Belladonna. Too many toxins to name, their combined reek choking. The silver gleamed blackened at the tip, as though soaked in something even fouler.
Kol swore viciously. “Every bloody poison he could get his hands on. He was trying to make sure, wasn’t he?”
Elijah pressed his palm to Klaus’s chest. His heart stuttered weakly beneath his hand, sluggish and uneven. His veins were already darkening, black crawling like ink beneath his skin. His body was fighting, but so slowly.
Elijah’s jaw set, his voice low and fierce. “He cannot die. He will not die. Not while I breathe.”
Together, he and Kol carried Klaus home.
The house was too quiet when they arrived, silence stretching into unease. Elijah pushed open the door to Klaus’s chambers and froze.
It wasn’t a bedroom. It was a den.
Furs and blankets lay heaped in a circle on the floor, layered with shirts that were not his own. Elijah recognized one of Kol’s crumpled jackets, even one of Damon’s well-worn leathers, tucked carefully into the pile as if guarding the heart of it.
And around the edges of the room — weapons. Not for protection, but for destruction. Daggers, knives, even splintered stakes, each of them dulled with failure, each of them marked with Klaus’s desperate attempts to end himself.
On the far wall, a painting stood unfinished. Elijah’s breath hitched at the sight. Damon’s face, half-rendered in oils, gaze soft, as though Klaus had painted him not as he was, but as he saw him.
Kol’s voice was hushed. “He’s been painting him. For how long?”
Elijah didn’t answer. His throat ached too much to speak.
They laid Klaus down in the nest, stripping him of his soaked and ruined clothes. His skin was clammy, veins crawling with black, the poison fighting to expel itself. When Elijah pressed a cloth to his chest, it came away streaked with dark ichor, the corruption seeping out but too slow, far too slow.
From the hall came raised voices — Rebecca, Hayley, Marcel, all demanding answers, shouting over one another.
“Why is he here?” Rebecca’s voice, sharp with disdain.
“He doesn’t belong!” Marcel added, venom dripping.
“He deserves this,” Hayley spat.
Kol’s head snapped toward the door, fury flashing across his face. “They dare—”
Elijah’s tone cut through them like steel. “This is his house. If you cannot show him respect, you may leave and never return.”
Kol flung the door shut with a slam, his magic sparking like a storm in his veins, standing guard outside with a predator’s snarl.
Elijah stayed at Klaus’s side, hands steady despite the storm in his chest. He brushed damp curls from his brother’s face, his voice low and firm.
“You will not leave us, Niklaus. Not like this. Not tonight. You are ours, and we will not let you go.”
Klaus’s lashes fluttered faintly, but he didn’t wake. His chest rose and fell, shallow and uneven, each breath fought for.
Elijah leaned closer, pressing his forehead to his brother’s temple, voice breaking just once. “I will not lose you. Not again. Not ever.”
And through the night, he kept his vigil, listening to the labored breaths of a brother who had tried so hard to vanish, and vowing he would never be allowed to try again.
Chapter Two: Letters in a Wolf’s Den
The house held its breath. Elijah had posted Kol in the corridor to keep out the vultures—Marcel with his entitlement, Hayley with her galled righteousness—and for once Kol did not argue. He lounged against the opposite wall like a dagger set to gleam, idly rolling Klaus’s daylight ring along his knuckles, eyes bright and mean as broken glass for anyone who came too close.
Inside, the room wasn’t a room at all. It was a den.
Elijah knelt beside the nest they had laid Klaus in: layered furs and blankets, the soft give of stolen shirts that smelled like family. Klaus had curled inward almost at once, as though muscle memory remembered what his mind could not—how to make himself small around warmth and scent. Black veining traced up his throat and along his collarbones, ink spreading beneath pale skin with the slow insistence of night. Every few breaths, his body shuddered—poisons grinding through a body too stubborn to die and too exhausted to rise.
Elijah wrung another cloth in cool water and wiped away the dark, resin-thick blood that kept welling at the dagger wound. It hissed when it hit air, a chemical sting of wolfsbane and vervain and things Elijah could name by smell alone—all the old enemies Klaus had court-martialed into a single treacherous parade against himself. The thought left a taste like metal in Elijah’s mouth.
“Brother,” he said quietly, voice a steady metronome against the rough cut of Klaus’s breathing, “you are not leaving me to speak to stones and water. Do you understand? You will wake.”
Klaus did not answer. His lashes trembled. The corner of his mouth moved, not quite a wince, not quite a word. Elijah smoothed damp curls off his forehead and forced his own breath to relax, counting in the way that had brought armies to heel and negotiations back from the edge of war. One of them should be steady. He would not allow it to be anyone else.
On the far wall, the canvas watched him.
Elijah stood only when the cloth had cooled again, crossing to the painting like a supplicant to an altar. The first pass of seeing it had been a blow: Damon, half-worked in oil, turning toward a light source Klaus hadn’t yet painted in, the beginnings of a mouth that softened the way it only did when Damon wasn’t noticing himself. Klaus had carved him out of shadows with the care of a thief cutting a jewel free of its setting.
A thin strip of parchment stuck beneath the frame. Elijah eased it free. Klaus’s handwriting. The words were softer here, the ink not bitten into the page.
For when the noise stops. For when I remember I did not make you up.
Elijah let the note fold along the crease his fingers made. He looked back at the bed.
“You painted a light you haven’t given him yet,” he said to the sleeping figure. “That’s unlike you, Niklaus. You always finish the dangerous parts first.”
Kol rapped his knuckles lightly on the doorframe. “If you’re done having feelings at the furniture, brother, you might want these before I set them on fire out of sheer good taste.”
Elijah turned. Kol stood there with a fan of paper: the letters they’d gathered from the cliff, edges stiff with sea spray and blood. Elijah held out his hand. Kol gave them over without another flippant word.
He sorted them on the desk by instinct. Klaus had never learned to save his words carefully. When he broke open—rare as comets—he spilled everything and then ran. These, though, were planetary: letters with gravity. Letters that expected not to be answered.
He unfolded the first.
Elijah—
You will say this is cowardice. You will be right. I do not have your talent for clawing meaning out of horror and calling it redemption. I am a storm that never learned to be rain. I ruin. I am tired of keeping score with myself and losing.
You wanted a brother. I wanted… I do not know what I wanted. Something quieter. A home I could not break by breathing.
I am sorry to have been born. I am sorry to have been yours.
Elijah’s hand shook only once. He set the page down precisely, as though neatness could keep rage from spilling out over the edges.
Kol had drifted closer in the silence. He picked up a scrap that had half torn loose from under a paperweight stone, his expression the same as when he cracked some ancient curse open in his palm.
“This one,” Kol said, voice unexpectedly small. He cleared his throat, then read.
Kol—
You were always better at pretending you didn’t care. When I was young, I thought it meant you didn’t. Later, I understood you were shielding the softest thing you had. I am sorry for how many times I stabbed it just to make sure it was still there.
I have been cruel to make you prove you loved me. That is a vulgarity I cannot forgive myself.
Kol laughed, a short, ragged thing, and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “That little shit,” he said, almost fond, almost furious. “He has to go for the throat even when he’s apologizing.”
Elijah set the letters aside and reached for another. The handwriting slanted differently, rushed, as if Klaus had written it with his chest already against the wind.
To whoever finds me—
I am not a curse. I am tired of being told I am one. If death is an unkindness, then let it be one I chose.
If this is cruel to those who love me, remember I have loved you the only way I know how: loudly, with teeth. I wanted to be softer. I did not learn in time.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the room had stuttered out around the edges—Klaus’s jackets carefully folded in the nest, the paint rags crusting at the corners of the easel, the little things that said he had wanted a life to go on in even if he didn’t believe he could hold it.
On the bedside table sat a small wooden box Elijah hadn’t noticed. It was simple—handmade, unadorned, the latch a plain bit of brass. Elijah lifted it. Inside lay a pendant: a wolf carved into silver so old it had lost its shine, set with a blue diamond so deep it almost read as black. It lay on a leather cord that had been mended twice, the knots neat and careful.
Underneath, a folded square of paper. Elijah never stopped listening for the sound of Klaus’s breathing, even as he opened it.
Don’t hide from what is not a sin.
—D.
Elijah exhaled, something like relief and grief sharing a bed in the same sound. Of course. Damon had found him in some dim hallway of himself and left a light. Elijah set the pendant back and closed the box with careful fingers. He did not touch the signature any longer than he had to.
At the door, a shadow fumbled and then cleared its throat. Marcel’s voice, with that half-strangled certainty he wore like a new suit. “Is he… is he awake?”
Kol didn’t bother turning around. “He’s alive,” he said. “Which is more than I can say for your continued tenure in this house if you take one step across this threshold.”
“Marcel,” Elijah said without raising his voice, “leave.”
“And Hayley?” she called without showing her face. “You dragged him home to make us listen to him moan all night?”
Kol took a step into the corridor. The temperature changed. His magic ran through the air like a hairline crack spreading across glass. “Say his name again like that,” he invited, smiling with all his teeth, “and I’ll help you moan. Different reasons.”
There are some tones even fools recognize. The corridor emptied by inches.
Elijah stood with the letters in his hands until the sound of the house swallowed the last of the retreating footsteps. Then he set the pages down in a tidy stack and went back to the nest.
“Your ring,” he said quietly, holding it where Klaus might see it if his eyes opened, “is not a promise you are required to keep. It is a tool. I will return it to you when you are ready to choose morning again.”
He cleaned the wound once more. He changed the sheet when it grew too dark with the seep of poisons. He stroked Klaus’s hair like one might tame a storm.
Kol couldn’t keep still. He wandered the perimeter of the room and came back with things, as if proving to Elijah and himself that he could trade dread for inventory: a box of new canvases, three cheap brushes still in their paper sleeves, a tin of charcoal Klaus had snapped in half and then carefully tucked the halves back together. He found, behind a stack of old travel trunks, a shallow drawer that slid out from the wall. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, lay the curated ruin of Klaus’s private war against himself.
Kol stared a long time. “He kept them,” he said, and his voice was flat. “All the ways he thought he might manage it next time.”
Elijah looked up and found Kol watching him. Not for instruction. For permission.
“Burn them,” Elijah said.
Kol didn’t move. “He’ll be angry.”
“He may shout,” Elijah allowed. “He may rage. He may accuse us of playing his father.” Elijah’s mouth tightened. “We will outlast it. Burn them.”
Kol’s jaw ticked once. He gathered the oilcloth bundle and took it to the fireplace. He did not look away as the flames found the things Klaus had saved for himself. He did not look away when the room took on the sourness of old iron and oiled wood. His eyes were wet by the end. He did not wipe them.
When the last fragment had collapsed into ember, Kol came back and dropped into the chair like he had fought for hours. For a while, neither brother spoke.
Klaus’s breathing changed. Subtle, but there: the hitched catch fewer, the drag a fraction less weighted. Elijah reached for his throat, felt the tremor-wisp of a swallow. He had never loved any sound more and hated any night as much.
“Damon,” Kol said suddenly, staring at the ceiling like it might tell him the time. “You’re going to call him.”
Elijah did not pretend otherwise. He reached into his pocket and brought out his phone, its glass face suddenly too modern, too bright under these old lamps and older grief. The boarding house number sat where he had left it, under no name at all. The line rang.
On the third chime, a girl answered. “Hello?” Her voice had the thin quality of someone trying to make courtesy sound like power.
“Elena,” Elijah said, not bothering to shape it into warmth, “put Damon on the telephone.”
A pause. “He’s busy,” she said, and managed to make it sound petulant. “Who is this?”
Elijah looked back at the nest. The petulance in him died. “Elijah Mikaelson. Damon will want to hear me.”
From the open speaker came the muffled echo of stairs, of a door, of someone who knew something mattered moving through a house with purpose. A beat later, Damon’s voice—dry, edged, too sharp to be anything but afraid.
“What happened.”
Elijah did not waste the courtesy of the question. “He used a dagger,” he said. “Laced with things I do not need to list to you. We pulled him from the water. He’s… not waking.”
Silence. The sound of Damon swallowing. Then: “All right.” The flippancy was gone; in its place the competence Damon wore like a second jacket when he remembered he had it. “Listen to me. You need to bleed him. Not to death—don’t be poetic on me—just enough to draw out what won’t leave. Cycle his blood while you give him ours.”
“That will not be sufficient,” Elijah said, and heard the gravel in his own voice.
“It’s not about sufficient. It’s about time. Buy him some.” Damon’s tone turned into instruction, brisk and precise. “Family blood’s best—yours, Kol’s. Human donor blood run through you into him helps too; it’s cleaner, faster. You’ll have to force it. He’ll hate it.”
“He’s in no state to prefer or refuse,” Elijah said, and turned the phone so the camera faced Klaus’s chest, as if Damon could smell the toxins through a pixel.
“I’ll come,” Damon said, already moving. “Stefan and Elena can… I don’t care what they do. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Kol snorted. “Make it fast, Salvatore. If he wakes cranky I might let him bite you for sport.”
Damon’s laugh was a thin flash of relief. “He bites me, I’m telling him you cried.”
“Die,” Kol suggested mildly, and hung up for him.
Elijah set the phone down on the table where he could reach it, then stood to find the things Damon had asked for. Needles, tubing, the cooler in the back hall cupboard they used for emergencies that had never once felt like this. Kol went to fetch bags of blood from the basement fridge, vampire and human both, moving with a speed that made the air ripple around him.
Elijah came back to the nest to find Klaus had turned his face toward the sound of his voice, even in sleep. It cost Elijah something he would not name to breathe through the spike of hope.
“Listen to me,” he said to the unconscious man who had left letters on rocks like tide offerings. “You are going to hate this. You are going to curse me for hurting you. You may even try to kill me. You will forgive me later. I am not requesting permission.”
He laid the cool of his wrist against Klaus’s mouth. The reflex was slow but it was there: jaw parting, the blunt scrape of teeth, the pull beginning. Elijah let it, counting heartbeats, watching the black fade at the edges like night retreating from a hard horizon.
Kol slid back into the room with the clink of glass and a smear of ash along his cheek. “Tell him I cried,” he said, dropping the bags beside Elijah and kneeling on Klaus’s other side. “And I will make you cry for longer.”
“After,” Elijah said.
Kol rolled up his sleeve, held his wrist out, and when Klaus’s mouth found the vein, Kol hissed between his teeth, not quite a laugh. “There you are, little wolf. Take it. Take all of it. Then wake up and snarl at me so I can tell you how dramatic you are and how much I—” He broke off, swallowed. “Just wake.”
The room filled with the sound of it: their own blood moving into Klaus’s body, the hiss of poison meeting the thing it could not own, the slow, sighing give of a body that had been set to die choosing, inch by harrowing inch, not to.
The letters lay on the desk behind them, dried now, their edges curling prettily like nothing urgent lived inside them at all. On the wall, Damon’s half-born light waited to be painted.
Klaus’s hand twitched. Elijah didn’t dare call it progress. He dared it anyway.
“Stay,” he said, and for once, it wasn’t a command. “Stay.”
They watched the dark veins pale, watched the wound gather itself into something less obscene, watched the endless work of the night take shape: a brother refusing to let a brother go to the water. A dawn they would take by force, if that’s what it cost.
On the easel, a smear of yellow clung to the edge of a brush—sunlight Klaus had meant to add and hadn’t. Elijah crossed the room once, picked up the brush, and cleaned it. When he came back, he pressed his palm to Klaus’s sternum and kept it there, a steady weight.
“Damon is coming,” he promised. “We are coming for you, Niklaus, from every side. We are bringing you back.”
Klaus did not wake. The black under his skin thinned to gray.
Kol leaned his head back against the bedframe and shut his eyes. “If he lives,” he murmured, “I’m stealing that pendant. The one with the blue stone. I’ll make him chase me for it. Keep him busy.”
Elijah looked down at him, startled into a laugh that was nearer a sob. “You will not.”
Kol cracked one eye open. “I will if it keeps him from writing letters on rocks again.”
Elijah let his hand slide up from Klaus’s chest to his hair, smoothing it back. He kept the pressure light, the promise heavy.
“Sleep,” he told Kol without looking at him.
“You first,” Kol said, and didn’t.
The house held its breath with them. In the den, in the circle made of clothes and furs and the old, sharp reverence of family, they did not ask the night for mercy. They took it.
Outside, somewhere far down the road, a car engine turned over. It sounded like rescue. It sounded like trouble. It sounded like a man Elijah did not much trust and very much needed coming toward them with the knowledge that sometimes the only way out is through someone else’s veins.
Elijah did not turn his head. He only kept his hand where it was and counted — for Klaus, for the letters they would not have to write, for the light that waited on a canvas for a painter to lift his brush and try again.
And in the bed, their brother’s chest rose and fell, stubborn as tide.
Chapter Three: The Wolf Awakens
The house reeked of iron and ash. Blood was soaked into the floorboards, thick and cloying, refusing to be scrubbed away no matter how many times Elijah had wiped his hands clean.
Niklaus still hadn’t woken.
His chest rose and fell in uneven jerks, skin pale, veins black with the cocktail of wolfsbane and poison still crawling through him. They had pulled the dagger free hours ago, but his body fought the remnants viciously, every shudder a reminder that this was no ordinary wound.
Elijah hadn’t moved from his side. His shirt was ruined, his sleeves stiff with drying blood, but he didn’t care. Every so often he touched his brother’s throat, just to feel the faint pulse there. It was enough. For now.
The door banged open downstairs.
“Where is he?” Damon’s voice cracked across the house like a whip. Fast steps followed, and before Kol could offer a glib answer, Damon was there in the doorway, hair mussed from the run, eyes sharp with something that looked far too much like fear.
He froze when he saw Klaus on the bed, Elijah bent over him, Kol leaning against the wall with his arms folded tight.
“Jesus,” Damon muttered. He stepped in before anyone could stop him, ripping off his jacket. “Move.”
Elijah’s eyes narrowed, defensive, but Damon was already kneeling, wrist to his mouth. “You’ve tried everything. Family blood isn’t enough, not with what he shoved in himself. He needs a transfusion to flush it, and he needs it now.”
Kol’s smirk was brittle. “And here I thought you only liked him for his company.”
“Shut up, Kol,” Damon snapped, baring his arm. “This is how we keep him breathing.”
Elijah hesitated for only a heartbeat before nodding. They couldn’t afford pride. Not now.
The moment Klaus tasted fresh blood, his body revolted.
His back arched, every muscle locked tight, his fangs snapping down deep into Damon’s wrist. His eyes flew open, glowing not blue, not amber, but both—flashing back and forth, flickering like two beasts fighting for the same cage.
A sound tore out of him. Not human. Not vampire. A wolf’s howl strangled into a scream.
Elijah clamped a hand down on his shoulders to hold him, but Klaus fought with a strength born of panic, snarling, thrashing. His claws dug bloody furrows into the bedding.
“I didn’t want this!” Klaus choked, his voice breaking raw as glass. His body convulsed, gold and blue clashing in his eyes, his teeth locked cruel around Damon’s wrist. “Do you hear me? I didn’t want to be saved!”
The words shattered something in Elijah’s chest. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
Kol’s smirk was gone. His face had drained pale. “Nik—” His voice cracked. “Don’t say that.”
But Klaus wasn’t listening. His breaths came too fast, too sharp, tears burning unshed at the corners of his eyes as he thrashed against them. “I never asked you—I wanted it over—I wanted—” His voice broke into a raw sob. “Why couldn’t you let me go?”
Elijah bent low, pressing his forehead to Klaus’s, holding him still with sheer will. His voice was steady, velvet over steel. “Because you are ours. And we do not want you dead, Niklaus. Not now. Not ever.”
But Klaus only trembled harder, his eyes flickering gold again, a wolf caught mid-shift. He growled low, a deep, wounded sound that had nothing to do with fury and everything to do with grief.
Damon was the one who moved. He wrenched his wrist free, pressed bloody fingers to Klaus’s jaw, forcing him to look up.
“Hey,” Damon said, voice firm. Not mocking. Not cruel. “Breathe. That’s not your vampire talking. That’s your wolf.”
Klaus froze at the word.
“Yeah, I see you,” Damon murmured, lowering his tone to a growl-soft cadence only a wolf would hear as steady. “You think you’re alone? You’re not. Pack’s here. Your brothers. Me. You’ve got bonds, Nik. You’re safe.”
Klaus whimpered—a sound he never would have allowed himself awake—and his body shuddered as his fangs slid from Damon’s wrist. His breaths came fast and broken, his face pressed against Elijah’s shoulder, his eyes still burning gold through the tears.
Elijah held him tighter, murmuring soft reassurances into his hair. Kol crouched close now, hand hesitating before settling gently on Klaus’s arm.
“Stupid mutt,” Kol whispered hoarsely. “Always thought you had to carry everything yourself. Look at you now. You’ve had us the whole time.”
Klaus gave no answer, only sagged forward, all fight bleeding out of him. His head fell against Elijah’s chest, eyes closing at last, breath still shaky but slowing.
Elijah kept stroking his hair, steady, grounding. “Rest, Niklaus. You needn’t battle us as well as yourself. Not anymore.”
Damon sat back finally, cradling his wrist. He looked older, wearier, but his tone stayed even. “He wasn’t just fighting the poison. He was fighting himself. That wolf’s been starving for bonds since your father, and he never let himself find them again. That’s why he’s been trying to tear himself apart.”
Elijah didn’t look up, his eyes still fixed on Klaus. “And you think this… will pass?”
“Eventually,” Damon said. “The more he bonds, the calmer he’ll get. Right now, he’s two halves ripping at each other. But you keep giving him this—” He gestured to the nest of shirts Klaus had pulled around himself, to the way Elijah was still holding him. “—and eventually, wolf and vampire will learn they’re the same.”
Klaus made a soft, broken noise, curling instinctively tighter into Elijah’s arms, as if his body heard what his mind refused to believe.
Elijah bent his head, pressed a kiss to his brother’s hair, and whispered fiercely, “Then we shall remind him, every single day, until he knows.”
The room went quiet except for Klaus’s uneven breaths. For the first time in too long, he slept in their arms—not safe yet, but held.
Chapter Four: The Fractured Soul
The silence of the room broke with a violent cough.
Klaus’s body convulsed, his hand clamping over his mouth just as black-streaked blood forced its way past his lips. Elijah was at his side instantly, steadying him as his brother doubled over, heaving. The poison that had lingered in his veins surged out, thick and tar-dark, staining the sheets beneath him.
Kol flinched, eyes wide. Damon only muttered, “Better out than in,” though his face was grim.
Klaus choked, one last shuddering cough tearing through him before he slumped sideways into Elijah’s arms. His lips were stained crimson-black, his eyes dazed.
Then he whispered it, so quiet Elijah almost wished he hadn’t heard.
“I didn’t want… to be saved.”
The words weren’t angry this time. They were hollow. Bare. The truth stripped of all rage.
Elijah froze, the sound cutting straight through him. For a heartbeat, he could not breathe. Then he pulled Klaus closer, gripping the back of his neck. “Niklaus, look at me.”
Klaus tried to turn away, but Elijah’s hand guided him until his face pressed into the line of Elijah’s throat. Klaus’s breath shuddered against his skin, uneven and hot. He tried to resist for a moment, trembling—but his wolf instincts betrayed him. He inhaled Elijah’s scent, sharp and grounding, and a low, broken sound caught in his chest.
Kol crouched low, offering his wrist, brushing it near Klaus’s hair. Klaus twitched, a half-snarl rising before it broke into a whine, muffled in Elijah’s shoulder. He pressed his face deeper into Elijah’s neck, scenting hard, as if clinging to the one thing that kept him tethered.
Elijah curled an arm around him, murmuring low. “You are safe. Do you hear me? You are safe. No father. No daggers. Only us.”
Klaus’s fingers fisted in Elijah’s shirt. His eyes, when they flickered open for a moment, glowed gold, then blue, then gold again. They brimmed with something he couldn’t shape into words.
Damon shifted closer, voice steady but softer than usual. “Let him do it. Let the wolf take what he needs.”
And so Elijah did. He tilted his head just enough, letting Klaus bury his nose deeper, letting the wolf have the contact it craved. Kol laid a hand on Klaus’s back and didn’t flinch when his brother growled low in his throat before finally, finally relaxing into the touch.
The room smelled of iron and blood and the faint salt of tears, but under it all was the grounding warmth of pack, of safety, of something Klaus had been denied for centuries.
His breathing slowed, his trembling eased. And for the first time in days, his body loosened enough to lean fully against Elijah, no longer fighting, no longer pushing them away.
Elijah felt the weight of him and tightened his embrace, voice a vow spoken into Klaus’s curls. “You may not have wanted to be saved, Niklaus. But we wanted you. We always will.”
Kol leaned close, his own voice cracked but firm. “You’re stuck with us, brother. No bloody choice in it.”
Damon smirked faintly, though his eyes were dark. “And if you think I’m walking away now, you’re dumber than Stefan.”
A huff of sound—half sob, half laugh—escaped Klaus before he sagged, limp with exhaustion. His eyes closed, his body curling instinctively into Elijah’s hold.
Elijah lowered him back to the nest, and Kol tucked the blankets around him while Damon checked that no more poison lingered. Klaus’s hand twitched, reaching blindly, and Elijah slid his fingers into his until his brother stilled again.
As Klaus drifted, he mouthed one last, almost-inaudible word against Elijah’s wrist.
“…home.”
The brothers said nothing, but their silence was full of promises.
Chapter Five: Ashes of the Past
The house was still. The kind of quiet that comes only after storm and fire, when exhaustion forces even the most restless soul into uneasy rest.
Elijah and Kol had not slept. Neither could bring themselves to. Instead, they moved through the halls with hushed footsteps, drawn again to the strange den Klaus had made of his room. The air smelled of wolf and cedar, of paint and damp earth.
Elijah brushed a hand across the newest canvas propped against the wall—unfinished but achingly detailed. The strokes were bold, layered in raw color. He had no doubt it had been painted for someone. Damon’s name lingered at the edge of Elijah’s thoughts.
“Brother,” Kol murmured, crouching low. “What in God’s name…”
Elijah turned. Kol’s hand hovered over a chest half-hidden beneath Klaus’s blankets, tucked deep in the corner of the nest. The wood was dark, the lock simple but heavy.
Something in Elijah’s stomach sank.
Kol flipped it open before Elijah could speak.
Daggers.
Dozens of them. Silver, steel, and strange alloys, some blackened at the tip, others coated with dried flecks of old blood. Elijah knew that blood. He knew it too well.
His breath hitched before he forced it steady. “Niklaus…”
The sound of movement behind them froze them both.
Klaus sat on the edge of his nest, hair tousled, shirt hanging loose at his shoulders. His eyes were wide, caught between blue and gold, horror and shame bleeding through every line of him.
He had not been sleeping after all.
Kol looked from the box to Klaus, stricken. “All these years… you kept them?”
Klaus’s throat worked, but no words came. Only silence, brittle as glass.
Elijah stood slowly, stepping between Kol and his youngest brother, his gaze never leaving Klaus. “You saved them. Even after every attempt failed. Even after every moment we believed you had burned them.”
Klaus’s lips parted, his voice breaking on the edges of a growl. “I… needed the reminder. Needed to know I could still…” His breath shook. “That there was an escape. Even if I never found it.”
Kol swore under his breath, turning away, his hand clenched white-knuckled. He could not bear the sight.
Elijah, though, did not move. His chest ached, his carefully-stitched composure unraveling as he crouched in front of Klaus. “Niklaus. Listen to me.” His hand pressed lightly against his brother’s knee. “You do not need these daggers. You do not need the memory of them. Every blade in that box is a lie whispered into your soul by a father who despised you.”
Klaus’s eyes flickered, wet and glowing. “I… I don’t want to use them again. But I cannot—Elijah, I cannot forget.”
“You should not forget,” Elijah said firmly, voice low but edged. “But you will not keep these. They do not remind you of survival. They remind you of despair. They are relics of a man who has no hold over you now.”
Klaus shook his head faintly, panic and shame warping his face. “If I let them go, what will keep me from—”
“Us.” Elijah’s voice cut through, hard as steel. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead briefly against Klaus’s. “You have us. Kol, myself, Damon. We are your shield. You do not need a coffin of blades to tell you what you’ve endured.”
Kol, his voice ragged, stepped closer. “He’s right, Nik. We’re here. Not them. Not him. Us.”
Klaus’s hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the blanket. For a moment, Elijah feared he would lash out, snarl, cling to the box like a starving wolf to bone. Instead, Klaus let out a low, pained sound—half-growl, half-sob—and bowed his head.
Elijah rose. He lifted the box with careful hands, the weight heavier than steel. Every dagger clinked like an accusation. Klaus’s eyes followed, torn and pleading, but Elijah met them firmly.
“No more.”
He carried the box to the fireplace. With deliberate calm, he pried it open and tipped the contents into the flames. The fire hissed as old poisons burned, steel glowing red before sinking into ash. The smell of blood and silver filled the room, acrid and bitter.
Klaus flinched, curling in on himself, his wolf restless beneath his skin. His fingers twitched as if reaching for what he’d lost—but Elijah was there again, taking his hand, grounding him.
“Let it burn,” Elijah whispered. “Let it all burn. You are not those daggers. You are not his monster. You are ours. You are family.”
Klaus’s breath shuddered, a tear slipping down his cheek, unbidden and unwanted. He didn’t fight when Elijah drew him close, nor when Kol leaned awkwardly against his other side, muttering curses too choked to land properly.
The fire crackled. The daggers screamed as they broke down, one by one, until nothing remained but ash.
Klaus sat between them, silent but breathing, eyes fixed on the flames. His body trembled—but for the first time, he did not look at the fire with fear.
Only with the fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, he could rise from the ashes too.
Chapter Six: The Language of Wolves
The fire was little more than embers now, smoke faint against the rafters. Klaus lay curled in his nest of blankets and stolen clothes, silent but taut, the faint rise and fall of his chest betraying his wakefulness. He had pulled Elijah’s shirt close, nose buried in the fabric, rumbling a low growl whenever Kol shifted too near.
Kol leaned against the wall, arms crossed, glaring. “He’s bloody insufferable. Growls when I talk, growls when I move, growls when I so much as breathe. You’d think he was trying to start a fight.”
Elijah’s eyes lingered on Klaus, catching the flicker of gold beneath his lashes. “Perhaps it is not what you think,” he murmured.
Damon chose that moment to saunter in, all lazy confidence, dropping into a chair with his usual smirk. “You two really don’t get it, do you?”
Kol narrowed his eyes. “Get what?”
“Wolf habits,” Damon said, gesturing loosely at Klaus, who growled again for good measure. “That’s not anger. That’s language. He’s not snarling at you like a rabid dog. He’s talking. Problem is, you don’t speak wolf.”
Kol blinked. “You’re telling me he growls when he wants to… chat?”
“Exactly.” Damon leaned back, smug as ever. “Tone, not volume. Low and steady like that?” He nodded toward Klaus’s rumble. “That’s more like irritation. If he wanted to actually threaten you, you’d feel it in your spine.”
Klaus shifted, growl deepening for a moment as if to prove the point.
“See?” Damon grinned. “He’s agreeing with me.”
Elijah tilted his head, his careful eyes never leaving his brother. “And when he curls into our clothes? Hoards them?”
“That’s easy.” Damon’s smirk softened, just a touch. “Wolves build dens. Safe spaces. They line them with pack scent—their family, their bonds. Makes them feel protected. Right now, that’s what he’s doing with your shirts. Nesting. It’s instinct.”
Kol scoffed, though his voice had lost its bite. “So what—you’re saying he steals my coat because it smells like me?”
Klaus gave another short growl, muffled by the fabric clutched in his fists.
Damon pointed. “Case in point. That wasn’t a threat. That was basically him saying ‘obviously.’”
Kol blinked, thrown. “Bloody hell.”
Elijah’s chest tightened as the truth sank in. How many years had they mistaken these sounds for anger? How much pain had been twisted by misunderstanding? He crouched beside Klaus’s nest, lowering himself until he was level with his brother’s eyes. “Niklaus,” he said softly, “if we have failed to hear you, I beg your forgiveness. We are listening now.”
For a moment, Klaus hesitated. Then, with deliberate slowness, he pressed his nose into Elijah’s wrist, inhaling deeply. A low rumble vibrated against Elijah’s skin—not a threat, but something softer, rawer.
Damon let the silence linger before speaking again, his tone uncharacteristically gentle. “And that? That’s what it looks like when he trusts you. With stronger bonds, he’ll do more—nudge your arm, nip your sleeve, maybe even brush against your neck. That’s wolf talk for affection. He hasn’t done it yet because…” Damon shrugged. “He hasn’t had anyone to bond with in a long time. But he’s trying now. You just gotta meet him halfway.”
Kol’s voice was quieter than usual, almost awed. “We thought he was just… feral.”
“Nope.” Damon shook his head. “He’s been speaking wolf this whole time. You just never listened.”
Elijah bowed his head, voice heavy with quiet resolve. “Then we will learn his language. For as long as it takes.”
Klaus tucked himself deeper into Elijah’s shirt, his shoulders finally loosening. The low rumble in his chest continued, not anger, not fear—something closer to contentment.
For the first time in centuries, Elijah realized he wasn’t just watching his brother. He was hearing him.
Chapter Seven: Rules, Teeth, & New Walls
The morning bled slowly into the house, sunlight spilling like honey across the table. Elijah, as always, sat with perfect posture, his napkin folded precisely, his plate a neat arrangement of food. Kol slouched half-asleep, spinning a fork between his fingers, while Damon lounged like a cat who owned the room.
Across from them sat Klaus. His plate was stacked with steak, seared rare. He tore into it with sharp, deliberate bites, jaw tight, eyes darting up whenever anyone moved too quickly. His shoulders were hunched, defensive, like he expected the world to take his food from him.
Kol, ever the instigator, flicked a grape across the table. It smacked Klaus’s plate.
Klaus’s head snapped up, a growl tearing from his throat, eyes blazing gold-blue. His lips curled back over his teeth like a wolf guarding a kill.
Kol raised both hands. “Bloody hell, Nik. I was bored.”
“That,” Damon drawled, spearing one of Klaus’s steak strips off his plate without shame, “is what I was telling you both about. Not actual rage. Wolf-talk. Half the time you think he’s snarling because he wants to rip your throat out. Truth is, that sound? It’s him saying, ‘Back off, mine.’”
Klaus slammed his fork down. “Do not dissect me like some animal.”
“You’re not an animal,” Damon said, chewing. “You’re a hybrid. Wolf and vampire. Two sides currently arguing about who gets the driver’s seat. Those eye flashes? That’s the proof. Blue for vampire, gold for wolf. Right now, they’re brawling in your head. Eventually, they’ll merge into something stable.”
Klaus sneered, “And you think you know the outcome?”
Damon smirked, leaning back. “Yeah. Seen it before. The eyes will settle—blue fractured with gold, like cracked glass. Balance. But until then, you’re going to sound aggressive when you don’t mean it.”
Kol tilted his head. “So when he growls at me—”
“Could mean ‘stop talking,’ or it could mean ‘you’re annoying but tolerable.’ Gotta learn the dialect.” Damon grinned. “It’s all about context.”
Elijah, silent until now, set down his cutlery. “Regardless of translation, Niklaus, we can no longer stumble about without structure. I will be imposing rules. There will be routines: meals, hunts, training. Order is what binds family.”
The words snapped something in Klaus. He shoved back from the table, chair legs screeching, his growl low and guttural. “Rules? Again? You seek to chain me, Elijah. Just like him.”
Elijah’s composure did not waver, though pain flickered in his eyes. “Niklaus, I do not wish to chain you. I wish to protect you.”
“By dictating my every move?” Klaus spat. His hands curled into fists, veins black with lingering poison, his breath ragged. His wolf snarled behind his eyes, flashing gold like molten fire.
Kol stiffened, ready to intervene. Damon, however, lifted a hand casually. “Relax. That’s not fury. That’s panic dressed up as aggression. Wolves don’t do well when they think they’re losing freedom. He’s not attacking you, Elijah—he’s telling you he’s scared.”
Klaus froze at Damon’s words, his chest heaving. Scared. The word echoed through him like a confession. His wolf bristled, humiliated, but his vampire side sagged under the truth of it.
Elijah rose slowly, not approaching, but softening his voice. “I will not chain you, Niklaus. Rules do not mean prison. They mean safety. You have been denied that since childhood. It is time you had it again.”
Klaus’s throat worked. For a moment he looked ready to snarl again, but instead he sank back into his chair, shoulders trembling. He made a low rumble in his chest—half-growl, half-purr. His wolf’s language for I hear you, though I hate it.
Damon smirked. “See? Translation: ‘Fine, I’ll put up with you.’”
Klaus shot him a glare sharp enough to cut stone, but his eyes steadied—no more frantic flashing, just a simmering blue fractured with gold.
That afternoon, Elijah drove them to the property he had purchased. A sprawling estate on the edge of the city, its walls framed by forest and a long stretch of river. The house rose like a fortress but carried warmth within its architecture—vaulted ceilings, wide windows, rooms that breathed rather than closed in.
Klaus lingered on the threshold at first, suspicious. His wolf prowled beneath his skin, restless. But then he stepped inside, nose twitching. The space smelled clean. Open. His.
Elijah gave him the tour, but Klaus broke away halfway through, disappearing up the staircase. They found him minutes later in one of the larger bedrooms, already dragging blankets into a pile on the floor, layering them with shirts he had “borrowed” from his brothers. His wolf instincts shaped a den in minutes, his movements sharp but intent.
Kol leaned on the doorway, grinning. “Look at that. Big bad hybrid, making himself a nest.”
Klaus growled from the pile, golden eyes flashing. “It smells like pack. Leave it.”
Elijah exhaled softly, a rare smile touching his lips. Relief bled through him at the sight—his brother wasn’t rejecting this home, he was claiming it. “You may keep it, Niklaus.”
Klaus settled with a low rumble, his chest rising and falling. He curled onto the pile like a wolf would, eyes half-lidded. For the first time in longer than Elijah could remember, his brother looked… almost at peace.
Damon smirked at Elijah’s side. “Rules, nests, growls that don’t mean what you think. You’re gonna learn, old man. He’s not broken. He’s just speaking a different language. And for the first time in centuries… someone’s listening.”
Chapter Eight: The Wolf Within
The house smelled of new wood, fresh paint, and endless space. It was silent, except for the faint hum of life that had not yet settled into its walls. Elijah was still pacing through the rooms, mentally cataloguing where order and structure might root itself; Kol was already opening cabinets, looking for mischief.
Klaus sat in his nest of blankets and stolen shirts in the corner of his chosen room, his golden eyes glowing faintly in the low light. His wolf prowled beneath his skin like a storm pressing against a fragile dam. He could feel it—his body urging him to shed the false restraint of humanity.
Elijah lingered at the doorway, cautious. “Niklaus,” he said softly. “Are you well?”
Klaus’s chest heaved once, twice. He pressed a hand over his heart, then shook his head sharply. “No,” he rasped. His voice broke, rough like gravel, and then his body did too.
The shift tore through him. Bones cracked, muscles reshaped, his entire form contorting under the strain of wolf and vampire colliding. Kol swore and staggered back. Elijah did not move, though his eyes widened as the transformation completed before him.
Where his brother had sat moments before, now stood something far larger than any wolf should be. His coat was ink-black, so dark it seemed to swallow the light. His eyes were unnatural: bright, burning blue threaded through with molten gold, fractured like shattered glass. They glowed with both fury and sorrow.
Klaus was massive. Larger than any alpha wolf in existence. His paws were the size of plates, his fur bristling like storm clouds, his fangs gleaming. He stood there, every inch of him screaming predator.
Kol whispered hoarsely, “Bloody hell. He’s enormous.”
Elijah’s breath caught. In centuries, he had never seen his brother’s wolf. Not once. To see it now—this titan, this impossible shadow—struck him with awe and grief in equal measure.
Klaus growled low, the sound shaking the floorboards. His eyes darted to his brothers, then back to the floor, torn between shame and instinct. He curled down into himself, lowering his head, his whole body trembling.
Damon stepped forward without hesitation. “Easy, Nik,” he murmured. “You’re not broken. You’re not dangerous—to us, anyway. This is you. Both halves, finally breathing the same air.”
Elijah looked sharply at Damon. “How do you know this?”
Damon’s smirk was gentler than usual, though no less sure. “Because I’ve always known things I shouldn’t. My mother was a seer. Visions, prophecies, all that mystic mumbo jumbo. Didn’t get the gift myself, not the way she did. But I got something else. A knowing. A gut that’s never wrong when I pay attention. And it’s telling me this—” He gestured at Klaus, who growled again, his tail curling close to his body. “—isn’t something to fear. It’s something to learn.”
Kol’s eyebrows shot up. “So you’re saying your gut knows better than our eyes?”
“Yes.” Damon didn’t flinch. “Your eyes see a beast. My gut sees a bond animal. Wolves need tethering. They need bonds, structure, touch. And Klaus has been denied all of it for centuries. That’s why he’s half-mad, why he lashes out. He isn’t angry. He’s starving for connection.”
Klaus let out a long, guttural noise, halfway between a growl and a broken whimper. His massive frame lowered further, curling inward. His ears pressed back, his gaze flickering up only briefly—like a child caught misbehaving, expecting punishment.
Elijah moved at last. Slowly, carefully, he crossed the room and crouched in front of the wolf. The sheer size difference was staggering—Klaus’s head nearly at his shoulder even when crouched. Elijah reached out, steady hand brushing against the thick, black fur at his neck.
Klaus froze.
Then, with a soft, shuddering exhale, he leaned forward and pressed his nose into Elijah’s throat. He inhaled, scenting, his body trembling but grounding. His wolf’s version of “you are mine, and I am yours.”
Elijah closed his eyes, his composure cracking for the barest second. “Always, Niklaus,” he whispered. “Always.”
Kol, struck silent for once, swallowed hard. His gaze flicked to Damon, who was watching with quiet triumph.
“Told you,” Damon said softly. “He doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want thrones. He just wants a pack.”
Klaus shifted slightly, his massive head nudging into Elijah’s chest, then brushing against Kol’s hand as if testing the connection. Kol startled, then cautiously rested his palm against the thick fur. A low rumble—almost a purr—vibrated through Klaus’s chest.
Elijah looked between them both, his voice firm with new certainty. “Then that is what we will be. His pack. His family. And nothing—not betrayal, not lies, not centuries of pain—will sever that again.”
Chapter Nine: Hidden Instincts
Klaus dozed in his wolf form near the hearth, chest rising and falling with steady rhythm. His fur gleamed almost blue in the morning light, eyes flickering beneath closed lids as though even his dreams were restless. Elijah lingered close, refusing to move from his chair, as if leaving would shatter the fragile peace.
Damon broke the silence, dropping lazily onto the sofa with a steaming mug of coffee. “You know what the funny part is? You’ve been living with a wolf for a thousand years, and you still don’t know how they work.”
Kol raised an eyebrow. “Do enlighten us, oh great hound-whisperer.”
Damon smirked, unfazed. “You know why he steals your shirts? It’s not just comfort. It’s survival. Wolves keep the scent of their pack near when they’re afraid or anxious. Helps them regulate. He’s not hoarding fabric — he’s making sure he doesn’t forget you’re here.”
Elijah’s eyes softened, drifting to the heap of his own jackets Klaus had tucked into his nest. “Then he fears we will vanish.”
“Bingo,” Damon said, swirling his mug. “You’ve all been unpredictable his entire life — daggering him, abandoning him, coming back only when it suited you. His wolf doesn’t trust stability. So he builds it himself, out of scraps of you he can’t lose.”
Kol’s grin faltered. “Bloody hell.”
But Damon wasn’t finished. He set his mug down, leaning forward. “Here’s another one: wolves don’t sleep deep unless they’re safe. You notice how he curls tight? That’s guarding himself. If he sprawls out—full belly, exposed throat—that’s when you’ll know he finally believes you won’t hurt him. Don’t expect it soon.”
Elijah glanced again at Klaus’s tight coil of limbs and tail, and something twisted painfully in his chest.
“And the noises?” Damon continued. “You thought the growls were bad. Wait until he starts… talking.”
Kol laughed. “Talking?”
“Oh yeah,” Damon said with relish. “Whines, chuffs, barks, even little howls. Once his wolf side feels safe enough, he’s gonna get vocal. And no, it doesn’t always mean danger. A whine can be asking for comfort. A short bark could be play. Hell, he might even try to herd you if you don’t keep up with him outside.”
Elijah blinked, incredulous. “You are suggesting Niklaus may… herd us?”
Damon’s smirk widened. “Wouldn’t put it past him. Alpha instincts don’t vanish just because he’s hybrid. They just… got buried. Now they’re waking up.”
Kol tilted his head, curiosity sparking. “What else?”
Damon’s tone shifted, serious now. “Touch isn’t optional. Wolves need it, especially alphas. The stronger the bond, the calmer the wolf. That’s why he brushes against you or shoves his head under your hand. Deny it too often, and it’s like starving him. He won’t say it, but he’ll feel it.”
For a long moment, Elijah said nothing. Then, quietly, “We failed him even more deeply than I thought.”
Klaus stirred then, lifting his head, golden shards blazing through his blue eyes. He padded toward them, silent, until he pressed his massive head firmly against Elijah’s side. Elijah froze, then raised a hand, resting it on the thick fur between Klaus’s ears. The wolf exhaled, a low rumble vibrating his chest.
Damon’s grin softened. “There you go. That sound? That’s not anger. That’s trust.”
Klaus shifted slightly, brushing his flank along Kol’s legs before retreating back to his nest. Kol’s eyes widened. “He—he just…”
“Scent-marked you,” Damon supplied casually. “Congratulations. You’re officially claimed.”
Kol looked half-appalled, half-touched. “Well… bloody marvelous.”
Damon leaned back, stretching out. “Get used to it. This is your life now. He’s not just your brother anymore. He’s your alpha wolf, and he’s going to act like it. You either learn the language or keep breaking him by accident.”
Elijah’s gaze lingered on Klaus, who had resettled, eyes half-closed, body pressed firmly against the pile of their stolen clothes. For the first time, Elijah didn’t see a beast—or even just his brother—but something in between. Something that had always been there, misunderstood.
And he silently vowed he would learn to listen.
Chapter Ten: A House with Rules
The house was vast and new, but it still smelled empty. Klaus sat at the dining table in his human form, damp curls brushing his forehead, dressed in one of Elijah’s button-down shirts that hung too loose across his frame. His expression was sharp, eyes flicking between blue and gold, restless, his fingers tapping against the table as though testing his patience.
Kol leaned against the wall, smirking. “He’s going to snap the second you start lecturing, brother.”
Elijah ignored him. He poured wine into his glass, set it aside untouched, and fixed his gaze on Klaus. “Niklaus. Tonight we begin as we mean to continue. This house is not only a sanctuary. It is a beginning. And beginnings require order.”
Klaus’s eyes narrowed. “Order. Structure. Always your obsession.”
Elijah folded his hands neatly in front of him. “Not obsession. Protection. You need more than freedom. You need boundaries. The wolf in you craves them, even if the vampire resents them.”
Klaus gave a low, sarcastic laugh. “You presume to know what I crave?”
Elijah didn’t rise to it. His voice stayed calm, unyielding. “Yes. Because I am your brother, and I’ve watched you suffer too long.”
Kol rolled his eyes. “Here we go again—”
“Enough,” Elijah snapped, a rare bite in his tone. He turned back to Klaus. “The rules are simple. But they are not negotiable.”
He raised a hand, ticking them off with deliberate precision.
“First: you will not disappear without telling us. Not into the woods, not into the city. If you need to run, you will say so. A pack does not leave without word.
Second: you will not starve yourself. You will eat when food is set before you, and if you feel hunger, you will speak it. No more silence until you collapse.
Third: weapons. No stashes. No daggers hidden away. You will hand over what you have, and if you find more, you will give them to me or Kol. We will not let you keep them to hurt yourself again.
Fourth: your wolf form is not a shameful thing. You may change when you wish, here in this house or in the forest, without fear of reproach. But you will not run from us when you do. You will remain with your family.
Fifth: you will respect this home. It is not to be treated as a battleground for your despair. If you must rage, then rage with us present—so we may withstand it with you.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
Klaus sat rigid, his jaw working as though biting back fire. “You mean to cage me with rules.”
Elijah shook his head once. “No. I mean to hold you in place when your despair would see you fall. There is a difference, Niklaus. You will see it in time.”
For a moment Klaus said nothing. His hands curled into fists on the table, then slowly loosened. His eyes flickered—blue, then gold, then back again. “And if I refuse?”
Kol arched a brow, waiting for the explosion.
But Elijah leaned forward, his voice quiet, unflinching. “Then I will still stay. Still remind you. Still protect you. You cannot refuse what you already have, Niklaus. You have us.”
Klaus flinched as though struck. His throat bobbed, but he didn’t speak. Instead, he shoved back his chair and stood, muttering, “You’ll tire of me soon enough.”
“No,” Elijah said softly. “I will not.”
The tension broke not with more arguments but with Damon swaggering in through the side door, a wide grin plastered on his face.
“Alright, family meeting over? Because I brought a surprise.”
Klaus frowned, suspicious. “What nonsense have you dragged in this time?”
Damon held up a massive bundle, unfurling it with a dramatic flourish. A custom-made pillow—thick, soft, big enough to hold Klaus’s wolf form without him needing to curl up on cold hardwood. Deep blue fabric, sturdy stitching, plush but not fragile.
Kol blinked. “What in God’s name is that?”
“A proper bed,” Damon said smugly, tossing it onto the living room floor. “Because someone here likes to sprawl in his wolf form, and I, unlike the rest of you, refuse to let my little brother sleep like a mutt on the ground.”
Klaus froze. His lips parted, words failing him. He looked from Damon to the pillow, then back again. “You… brought me a bed?”
“Technically a wolf pillow,” Damon said with a grin. “Special order. Don’t get excited, I’m not knitting you blankets.”
Kol snorted. “You’re spoiling him rotten.”
But Elijah caught the flicker in Klaus’s eyes—the crack in his armor, the stunned vulnerability. Klaus moved slowly toward the pillow, crouched down, pressed his hand against it, then—without another word—lay down on it in his human form.
For the first time in weeks, his body actually relaxed.
He turned his head slightly, blue-gold eyes catching Elijah’s. His voice was quiet. “I… like it.”
Elijah’s throat tightened, but he inclined his head. “Then you may keep it.”
Klaus exhaled, the faintest rumble in his chest like a wolf’s contented growl. Damon smirked and flopped onto the couch beside him. “Told you. Sometimes he just needs the right kind of care.”
Kol muttered under his breath, “More like a spoiled pup.” But the words held no bite.
For that night, in that new house, Klaus slept not on the floor, not in despair, but on something made for him. Not a throne. Not a coffin. A place of comfort. A place of pack.
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