#tvdimagine

Darkness hummed before dawn in Mystic Falls, where monsters and hunters bled in equal measure, and trust was rarer than mercy.

It begins with a scream.

You’d heard plenty of them before—they were part of your work. But this one was different. This one came from someone you thought untouchable.

The alley behind the Grill was slick with rain and blood when you found him. Elijah Mikaelson, the ever-composed Original, was slumped against the wall, his once-perfect suit torn and darkened with crimson. His eyes flicked up to you, even as he clutched his side where a white oak dagger had nearly found its mark.

“Y/N,” he rasped, voice steady despite the pain. “You shouldn’t be here.”

You knelt, pressing a hand to his wound before you could think better of it. “And let you bleed out? Tempting, but I still need answers.”

He gave a faint smirk. “How delightfully human of you.”

“And how typically arrogant of you to think I’m helping you out of kindness.”

You hated how close you were. How his breath ghosted against your cheek. How even now, bruised and bloodied, he carried that same damnable composure that made your heart tighten with something dangerously close to respect.

You tore a strip of fabric from your jacket and pressed it to his wound. He winced, and you whispered, almost mockingly, “Who did this to you, Mikaelson?”

His eyes darkened, something old and furious flashing there. “Someone who will regret it.”

Thunder cracked through the night, as if the heavens themselves answered his rage. For a brief moment, you both just stayed there—your hand against his chest, feeling the unnatural heartbeat of a man who had lived a thousand years. You should have walked away. But you didn’t.

The next few days blurred into a strange alliance—filled with sharp arguments and quieter moments where suspicion gave way to uneasy trust. One night, while patching a map together, you teased, “You’re not as insufferable when you’re quiet,” earning a rare smirk from him. The truce began to feel less like tolerance and more like reluctant respect.

You told yourself it was temporary—that you only worked with him to uncover whoever had dared attack an Original. But the more time you spent around him, the less you believed that. Elijah moved like poetry written in blood—controlled, deliberate, and impossible to ignore.

You watched him handle ancient texts in the dim light of his study, each gesture precise. His jaw tensed whenever you ran into danger; his voice softened when he spoke your name. And yet, he was infuriating—lecturing on morality and honor, even as he slaughtered without hesitation when provoked.

Another night, while studying the map together, your fingers brushed his. The contact was fleeting, accidental, yet the way his gaze locked with yours made the air electric.

“You should rest,” he said quietly.

“I’ll rest when the bastard who came after you is ash,” you replied.

“Your loyalty is… unexpected.” His tone carried a weight you couldn’t name.

“Don’t mistake it for loyalty. I just want this over with.”

He smiled faintly. “Of course you do.”

By the end of the week, you often caught yourself reflecting on how strange the partnership had become—two enemies moving in rhythm. Between clashes, there were lingering glances, words unspoken, and a dawning sense that something irreversible was happening.

You had saved each other’s lives twice. Once, when a witch ambushed you in the woods—Elijah took the hit meant for you, his hand closing around your wrist as he muttered, “Run.” The second time, you returned the favor, driving a stake into a vampire’s heart before it could pierce his.

He stared afterward, something unspoken burning in his eyes. “You could have let it hurt me.”

“I could have,” you said simply. “But I didn’t.”

A quiet tension grew between you after that—charged, dangerous. You’d catch him looking at you from across the room, expression unreadable. When you finally confronted him, he only said, “I’m trying to decide if you’re my salvation or my ruin.”

“You’re assuming I can’t be both,” you shot back.

The night you finally snapped, the tension between you had stretched thin as a blade. Every glance, every argument, every unspoken word crackled in the air like lightning before a storm. You could feel your pulse in your throat—anger tangled with something dangerously close to longing. The rain outside mirrored the chaos inside the Mikaelson mansion.

“You think you’re better than everyone else,” you hissed, stepping close enough that your breath brushed his collar. “That you’re untouchable. But you’re just a monster dressed in manners.”

He moved faster than you could blink, pinning you against the wall. His breath was warm against your ear. “And you,” he whispered, voice low and dangerous, “are a liar. Because if you truly hated me, you wouldn’t look at me the way you do.”

Your pulse betrayed you. You should have shoved him away. You didn’t.

“Elijah—”

He leaned in, lips almost brushing yours. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I will stop.”

But you couldn’t. The words died on your tongue. You closed the distance instead.

The kiss was fire meeting storm—violent, inevitable. His hand slid to the back of your neck, holding you there as though afraid you’d vanish. You tasted blood and rain and centuries of restrained hunger. When he pulled back, his eyes searched yours for regret. There was none.

“Don’t make me regret this,” you breathed.

“Then don’t give me a reason to,” he murmured.

The battle erupted without warning, chaos tearing through the night like shattering glass. Heat, smoke, and the metallic scent of blood filled the air, every sound sharp and disorienting. The coven responsible for the attacks had surfaced, and the fight was brutal. Spells cracked, fire licked through the trees, and exhaustion clawed at your bones.

When one of them got the jump on you, Elijah tore through the chaos, ripping the witch away before she could finish her curse.

He caught you as you fell, blood staining his hands again. “Stay with me,” Elijah commanded, voice breaking as he pressed a hand over your wound. “You do not get to die on me, do you hear?”

You smiled weakly. “And here I thought you didn’t care.”

His eyes burned red for a moment before softening into something heartbreakingly human. “I have never cared for anyone more.”

You reached up, brushing his cheek with trembling fingers. “You’re supposed to be the noble one, remember?”

He gave a strangled laugh that wasn’t quite humor. “Then let me be selfish this once.”

Your vision blurred, but you reached for him anyway. The same man you swore you’d never trust. The same monster who had somehow become your home.

“Then don’t let go,” you whispered.

He didn’t.

Later, when the dust settled, he stood at your bedside, his hands still trembling though he’d deny it. “You risked your life for me again,” he said softly.

“I guess I’m a slow learner.”

He smiled, faint and fleeting. “Or perhaps you’ve learned faster than you think.”

“Meaning?”

“That hatred, when tested long enough, becomes something far more binding.”

You looked up at him, exhaustion fading under the weight of what lingered between you. “Then what are we now, Elijah?”

Kai had been sent to his own personal hell, and you were aggravated to uncover that, almost as you had been when you had been tricked into thinking that your brother had killed him. It was impossible not to mope around the house, ignoring any word that your siblings had to say to you; they knew that you and the sociopath had been close, but just not as close as they had expected. And this, the world now without him was your personal hell. If you could go back and reverse the cruelty that had been done you would, however Kai had already dug his own grace when he killed his sister. The wedding had been a massacre, in his rage he had even snapped your own neck, and when you had came to all you saw was his head flying off from his shoulders.

But it had all been a hoax, a trick to calm the people and deceive them into believing that he was no longer alive. You weren’t going to give up, and thus you continued looking through the grimoire that you had taken from the Parker residence in Portland, searching for any way to extract someone from a prison world. As you looked upon the aged pages, your lids felt heavy and your stomach began to rumble, strange. Perhaps it was lack of hope since there was nothing that you could find that devised a ploy of rescuing someone from such sentenced lengths; you felt helpless, depressed from losing the one thing that you had learned to love through the almost two centuries of which you had been alive. Or perhaps it was something else, you thought as you felt a stab from within your stomach drive you insane.

Against your better judgement, you rose to your feet, being a little wobbly as you began to walk through the house until you came to the locked away refrigerators that housed the blood that had been passed from hospital to immortal hand. It was the only source of food that your body craved, and it appeared as though it were starving for a developed taste of the substance; for it to moisten your tongue, to slink down your throat and overall exonerate any hunger that pardoned it’s interior. And thus you grabbed a bag and sunk your fangs messily into the plastic, drawing out the liquid gold within, but one was simply not enough, not in the slightest. You became lost with how many you had drained, slumping yourself upon the concrete floor and your back against the container as you held your stomach that finally appealed some kind of satisfaction.

One thing you had not anticipated was for anyone to see you in this carnivorous state, but frankly you had no choice in the matter as the door was peeled open and one of your brothers glanced down at you with wide eyes. They all knew that you were in mourning, and anyone else would assume that this devised appetite was a symptom, but Stefan could tell there was something else burdening you. He walked closer and ducked his head over so that he could peer into the cold basin; it was empty, void of any more supplies that him or Damon may possibly need to control their own urges. “What is taking you so long brother, I thought you wanted to grab a snack for the road and go?” Damon spoke before the latter could, he was slowly getting better with people, all things considered what with Elena in a long term sleep that would not be broken until Bonnie deadly hit the hay.

“There’s none left.” He stated, almost scared of what force had conjured you into doing so and leaving them scarce for resources, but Damon tutted, walking in but instantaneously halting his steps when he was met with the sight of you. “Y/n… why did you eat it all?” It was the question that all in the room were wondering, including yourself but you could amount to no conclusion and simply shrugged your shoulders, wiping your blood stained lips with the back of your hand. His blue orbs squinted at you, aware that this was very out of character for you, and as he thought long and hard, he sighed, coming to what he thought the problematic answer to be. “Is this about Kai? If it is you should know that we had to-“ Within an instant, you had used your enhanced speed to your advantage, and despite the oncoming dizzy spell that was clouding your senses, you pinned your eldest brother against the wall, hand reaped onto the chest of his heart, it looking as though you were threatening to rip his heart out as he had metaphorically and poetically done to you.

“It’s not about Kai, and don’t you dare say his name, not after what you did!” You seethed, your brother no doubt thinking of how he flawlessly removed the heretic’s head from his eloped shoulders rather than his future imprisonment. “It’s about this rousing feeling that is tugging at my gut, I feel immobile to speed around, it’s taking all of my energy to hold you here, and with no surprise I am still hungry. So go and bring me back a nice human steak for me to chomp on, or I’ll choose to go out hunting on my own, ripper style. Stefan knows what I’m talking about.” Your words were practically growled out from the tight seal of your lips, Stefan's eyes were widened from the venom that left them, amazed that you so much as dared speak to your brother in such a way. After all the years of his various wrong doings, you had never exploded in a rage like you were in the moment, you kept your emotions contained as you saw it as Damon being misguided and lost, and he realised that was probably how you must have been feeling right now.

"I'm calling Bonnie." Damon stated, a line invading the centre of your face as you stiffly frowned towards him, crossing your arms and banging the back of your head against one of the brick walls. "Don't give me the look that you used to when you wanted to throw a ball around with us and father wouldn't let you; this, you right now, need tending to. Something is wrong and I am not going to leave you, you'll be miserable either way as I see it so suck it up little sis. Now I have a witch to bother, and it may take some convincing because she is already pissed off at me. So you are very welcome for my help." He walked out of the room, retrieving his phone out of pocket as he headed out of the house to the garden, calling Bonnie's number. It was amazing that she even picked up, considering her current mood with him. "Hey Bon Bon. How are you? Good I hope. Anyways I was wondering that you could do me a favour, and before you say no, it's not in regards to you." A huff fell through the line, before the rant from the Bennet witch began.

"Is this about how you brought Kai back? Because if so, I am out. I want nothing to do with that psychopath, and you need to let your siblings know of your stunt, otherwise if he appears I fear that y/n will have a mental breakdown and that Stefan will kill you. If you'd like I could help with that, see to it that you don't have the opportunity to pull some stupid act again." He could already imagine how Bonnie was expressing her irritancy, Enzo would no doubt be worried; her hand would be exposing a white grip around her phone and she would be profusely pacing, no doubt wearing a dent in the ground.

"Y/n's already kind of having a mental breakdown without knowing about Kai's return. So I need you to do your witchy woo crap and find out what the hell is wrong with her, and before you say it's because she's a Salvatore, vampires aren't supposed to walk all zig zaggy and struggle to stand, not to mention she drained our entire freezer of blood and we only had it restocked at 5am this morning. And then she threatened me a bit when I so much as mentioned her heretic fanboy. So could you please get here ASAP and make sure she isn't going to suddenly die on me?" Damon gave Bonnie a minute to answer, and when she said nothing he took her silence as compliance to the favour that he was asking for. "Thankyou."

“She’s pregnant…” Bonnie’s face was filled with shock as was your own, the mouths of your brothers hung open as they acknowledged the fact that had been dismissed into the air. It hardly appeared as though that was possible, a vampire being impregnated, you were supposed to be dead and unable to obtain any sense of procreation unless that meant turning somebody into a vampire, but that wasn’t the same. The witch’s expression distorted into a frown as many things ran through her mind, her focus searching for any answer that could explain this unnatural miracle. You licked your lips as you worried for what she was next to ask, it was obvious what it was to be, and it seemed that she was the only one that could question it as every one else in the room had lost any sense of speech. “Wait… who is the father?” Gulping, you swallowed down the truth that only you knew, aware of how they would all react to the exposure of who the father was.

For the first time, it made you relieved that Kai was in some prison world, but simultaneously that made him a sitting duck to any advances that your family may have tried to pull on him. "Tell me how to get Kai out of the prison world and I'll tell you." It was an offer that all were displeased with, Bonnie more than the others considering that she thought that you deserved to know. "Oh come on, don't give me those looks, of course I knew. My hearing has gotten so much better, maybe because of this child inside of me, or because I simply miss him. It's a fair trade, so come on, fess up and I'll let you in on my little secret." You raised your brow at the three musketeers that were watching you, however Stefan's gaze shifted behind you as an applause from said location began to emit. It made you nervous as to who that would be, and so you turned in where you sat, seeing no other than Kai Parker taking up residency in threshold to the room. "Malachai." Damon's next disgruntled and unimpressed sound drew the attention of Stefan, who was more than cautious about his involvement.

"Damon, what did you do?" There was a mixture of underlying anger and fear in his voice; he wouldn't have freed him from his imprisonment for no reason, and it was his intention to uncover why he had done so. Laughter peaked from Kai which had a smile breaking out upon the heretic's face as he walked into the room, Bonnie was sneering at him, more so as he began to walk closer to you, and you did not mind his proceed to do so at all. Damon gulped down his shame, lowering his head. "We have to kill the sirens somehow." It was another selfish thing that he had commended, they had made him suffer and so he planned to do the same with an experienced sociopath by his side. "Though you're timing was rather interesting," Damon spoke, his words spilling through his bared teeth, "stay away from my sister, she doesn't need your congratulations."

"Oh don't be so sour Demon, and I think as the father I should get some credit. I mean, she wasn't able to procreate by herself. Must have been before I turned now I think about it, I think I probably siphoned out the magic of her vampirism, and well from there you can picture it though I recommend you don't do that, it'd be weird, you're her brothers...and Bonnie. Does this mean you'll be our midwife Bon Bon, I mean as long as you don't try and kill them behind my back like you did to me then we should be all good. And come on Steven don't give me that look, with how much time we spent together you couldn't have thought we were just friends." Your eyes widened, unsurprised by the confidence that Kai emitted but more surprised by the excitement that he poised on the matter.

"You seriously fucked him y/n?!" Damon half yelled, to which you nodded feeling not shamed in the slightest from having done so. "You seriously let this little weasel put his hands on you? And you let him put it in you? Jesus, I need a drink, more than the amount of which you drained earlier. Ugh, this is disgusting, never thought you'd be this psycho's fuck buddy, that is just- thinking about it makes me want to throw up. Bonnie do you have anything that will make me deaf because I don't want to hear anymore?" However this is what Damon got when he exploited the ability of Bonnie Bennet; things always went to shit but nothing before had ever gone this wrong.

"May I just say my 'little weasel' didn't go inside of her because of some arrangement, we were dating, I'd like to think we still are despite my absence which is not my fault, also I am a sociopath, and if you want me to help with that I can slap your head right from your neck if you'd like, it's a say so like you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." Damon picked up a glass and threw it at the heretic, though he managed to catch it and drop it carelessly to the ground. "Now that wasn't very nice."

"Neither are you." Bonnie stated, causing you to sigh. You rested your hand on Kai's thigh as you rolled your eyes at the erupting drama around you; it was as though Elena was still awake. "Can you all shut up for one second? Everything is out in the open now, so just piss off or something so I can speak to the father of my child in private and if not we'll go elsewhere." Damon stood strong, but Stefan subtly nodded towards you, grabbing your fuming brother, Bonnie following after one last look of disgust towards your partner. "So... this was kind of unexpected, though you had rather great timing, otherwise I'd be getting grilled all night and day until I let it slip that it was you." You puckered your lips together to fill the silence, Kai ran his thumb over your bottom lip, moving closer so that he could tug on it with his teeth.

"Does this mean that you'll call me daddy more often?" A whack to his arm caused the heretic to snicker, however he pulled you into his body, pressing a warm kiss to the top of your head. "Joking, well not really. But know that I'll be here for you and our little Gemini babies, that's why I came here, I could feel them, it was as though they were calling out to me. It's quite crazy, I could feel them when I was a world apart too, they actually made me stronger, and I had a plan to escape up until your brother released me and ruined my elaborate scheme." A smile fell onto your face, Kai's arm was snug around you as the heat of the fire warmed your bodies, you pressed a kiss to the underside of your jaw. You were content to stay like this until you filtered through his previous words. Gemini babies, them. Shit this was going to be a long ride.

Tags ~ @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce

________________________________________________________________________________

*Chicago, Illinois; 1922*

After three drinks, one late-night snack, and much singing from Gloria echoing through the bar in Chicago, I was officially high off the pleasantness of the 1920s. It was so carefree compared to other decades before it. Too carefree. If it weren't for my restless boyfriend, then I would be running this crazy city.

"Hello, gorgeous. May I buy you a drink?" The voice of a gentle and unrecognizable voice said beside me. I looked to the right and scoffed, seeing the presence of another Vampire. I was rather gifted at seeking out which was a human and which was my own species. Something that impressed Klaus, which is rather hard to accomplish.

"No, thank you. I have a boyfriend, and I don't accept drinks from Salvatores. Let alone, Stefan Salvatore. Now, Damon Salvatore is a hesitant deny. But not Giuseppe's favorite," I barked back with a smirk tugging at my lips.

"You know who I am?" Stefan muttered and sat down at the barstool next to me.

"Of course I do. After about 700 years, you pick up on stuff pretty quickly. And how could I forget Katerina's boy toy," I said and took a sip of my martini.

"You knew Katherine?" Stefan questioned with an intense, emotionless stare. I could tell his switch was off, and by the looks of it, it had been for a while.

"I know everyone. I am dating an original after all," I traced the outline of my martini glass before popping the olive at the bottom into my mouth.

"That makes two of us," Stefan replied with a certain seductive edge.

"I know you're dating Bekah. Klaus hates you, and by the way, I do too. So scurry along before he catches you flirting with me, will you?" I snapped aggressively and downed the rest of my martini, seeing Klaus and Rebekah enter the bar.

"Well, I'm not scared of some British son of a bitch," Stefan declared.

"What'd you call me, mate?" Niklaus said from behind the Salvatore brother. Stefan tensed up just a bit to signal the feeling of being caught. The brunette turned around slowly to face my impulsive boyfriend, where Rebekah stood beside him with a hurt expression spread across her face. That's what she gets for dating a player, let alone a ripper as well.

"Stefan, what are you doing?" Bekah asked, trying to sound hopeful that her boyfriend wasn't trying to cheat.

"Oh, don't be thick, Rebekah. He was obviously trying to get my girlfriend into bed. Isn't that right, Stefan?" Klaus's thick British accent hissed at the young vampire. Stefan stayed silent. Klaus grabbed Stefan by his throat and held him up in the air, so his feet left the ground. The bar went silent, and everyone looked our way.

"Come, Niklaus. We don't want to cause a scene," I whispered in my own soft Russian tone I was slowly growing out of in exchange for an English one. Klaus looked at me through a harsh glare, but I only perked up my eyebrows and straightened my back to tell him to knock it off.

He dropped Stefan and didn't spare him another glance before grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the bar, leaving Rebekah to fend for herself. My boyfriend tugged me out into the street and let go of me abruptly, making me stumble under my heels. I turned around with a scowl on my face. "Niklaus," I scolded him.

"Why didn't you let me rip his throat out like I wanted to?! He was cheating on Rebekah and flirting with you!" He yelled in disgust, making me purse my lips together.

"Calm down, Niklaus. I put that boy in his place," I snarled with irritation.

"Did you? From as far as I could see, you just stood there and stated facts that women don't even need to know," he shouted, getting in my face.

"Are you saying only men can be smart while women shouldn't bother?" I inquired furiously. He knew how I stood on justices like this, and yet he still showed no reason to change the opinion his father ingrained in him since he was a boy.

"Yes!" He snapped, and I glared at him. "I mean -- uh -- n-no," he added quickly, and I bit on my tongue so I wouldn't snap his neck right outside the bar. But my immense anger got the best of me, and I slapped him across the face with my gloved hand.

His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened in fury. I hadn't hit him since 1237 when we first met in Kievan Rus' (otherwise known today as the Soviet Union), and he was insanely rude to my mother. He shot his head to look at me, and with no hesitation, he hit me back. It was almost like we were replaying the event in 1237.

"You don't get to hit me, love," he hummed. I knew what was about to happen. He was about to break and start lecturing me like he does when we fight. "Don't you get it? I created you! I turned you! Don't you see! I gave you this amazing life, and if it wasn't for me, you would be dead! You would have died with your disgrace of a family during the Mongolian invasion! You are here right now because of me! No one else! It was all me! Me! Not Rebekah! Not Finn! Not Kol! Not even my traitor of a brother Elijah! Me! I saved you! Not them! I loved you enough to protect you! Not them! It was always me!" he ranted with tears rimming his eyes. Over the years of vampirism, you learn how certain people will react and why they're reacting that way, and that's what I've done with Klaus. He wasn't yelling at me even if he was raising his voice. He just wanted to be loved unconditionally, something he had never gotten from his family once he killed Esther. Unless you count Rebekah, but she was craving affection just as much as Klaus was.

My boyfriend started shaking lightly. His lip trembled. After a minute of silence, I brought him into my arms. The second his head hit my shoulder, I felt tears trickle down his face and onto my dress. "I just --" he began again just I shushed him softly, running my hand through his curly brown hair. He hugged my waist tightly and let out a sob.

"I know, my love. And I'm grateful to have someone like you by my side for the past 700 years. I love you, Niklaus. And I always will, okay?" I mumbled into his ear, and he nodded.