#two things?!

“Are you here to prove your worth to me, boy?”

Niklaus smiles, though he must know he is outmatched. “Why would I want to do that? No. I thought we could have some father-son time.” He runs his blade against Mikael’s, edge along edge. Not an attack. Hardly even a test—it is a tease.

Fury rears in Mikael’s chest at such arrogance. The boy has never known his place. “You ought to do as you’re told. Instead of spending all day off gallivanting with your brother.”

“Lijah? Why should I? He wouldn’t know what to do without me. He loves me.” He begins prowling in a slow circle, blade held level and at the ready. Mikael mimics his movements.

But Niklaus seems to have little interest in the fight itself. “You know what I mean, don’t you Father? He loves me. He loves every part of me. He loves the taste of me.” A wide smirk stretches across his lips.

Mikael’s steps falter. He nearly stumbles.

Niklaus knows just how to get under his skin. Knows just what to say, to inspire shock and revulsion.

“Such filth,” he hisses. “You ought to be ashamed.” No child of his should speak that way and not suffer for it. “I should cut that filthy tongue from your mouth.”

“See if you can manage it, Mikael.” Niklaus runs said tongue over his teeth, a lewd gesture. “I don’t imagine Elijah would be too pleased.”

“Elijah?” Mikael scoffs. In spite of Niklaus’s obsession with his brother, this faith seems misplaced. “What can he do?”

“For me?” Niklaus smiles widely. Wickedly. “He’d do anything. He tells me so every night.”

Mikael tries not to think about what his devil child is implying. “He is a good son.”

“Oh, Father. So naive. He would bleed for me. Kill for me. I think he would die for me.” He whips his blade out suddenly, clanging against Mikael’s with an unexpected ferocity. “Would he die for you? Does he tell you that at night, as he holds you?”

His pale eyes glitter with malice.

Mikael lunges at him. Sloppily, he knows. Niklaus sidesteps him easily. But his fury is so great—blood pounds through his head, clouding his vision and clubbing his limbs.

Niklaus has not stopped smirking, completely unrattled by Mikael’s anger. “He belongs to me, Mikael. If he had to choose between us, do you honestly think he would choose you?”

Mikael lunges again, and misses again. His sword glances off of Niklaus’s. Niklaus casually flicks a strand of hair off his forehead.

He should be cowering. Apologizing. Swearing to be better. Instead, Mikael’s anger only amuses him.

Niklaus tilts his head, mockingly thoughtful. “If both of us were lying here bleeding, who do you think he would choose to save? Admit it, Father.” His lips drip with sweet honeyed poison. “You don’t have him. You never did.”

Mikael tries to ignore the grain of icy dread growing inside him. If he cannot control his own children, then what is he worth?

His next words are so naked, so unguarded, so weak, it almost turns his stomach. “What do you want from him?”

“Just…him.” Niklaus has abandoned even the pretense of fighting. He stares past Mikael and speaks in a slow, measured voice. “I want him to see me, and only me. I want my touch to be the only thing he feels. I want him to feel sick when he’s not with me. I want his smiles to be because of me alone. I want him, every part of him, to belong to me.”

He looks Mikael in the eye, certainty scorching his gaze. “What do I want from him, Father? I want his everything. And I have it. If I asked him to leave with me, today, he would.”

“And if I asked,” Mikael replies icily, and not as sure and certain as he would like to be, “our entire family would follow me to hunt you down.”

“Are you sure about that, Father? Do you truly have the loyalty of our family, that they would follow your every command?”

“My wife,” Mikael says tightly, “has raised our children to be obedient. Aside from the single abomination before me, she has succeeded.”

“Oh, please.” Mockery laces his words. “Mother puts up with your temper tantrums, but even she has a limit. Whose blind loyalty do you have? Not Finn’s. He is Mother’s sycophant. Kol is her protégée in magic. Rebekah loves me through her fear. And Elijah…let’s just say if he had to choose between you and me…” He scoffs. “Father, all you have is little Henrik.”

He smiles blithely, as if he has not laid bare every fear Mikael harbors about his family. “So what do you have, Mikael. Other than some harsh words and your fists?”

Mikael makes good use of those fists, ramming one into Niklaus’s ribs while the other clips under his jaw, sending him reeling backward into a tree trunk. He grunts in satisfaction.

Niklaus leans casually against the tree, looking entirely unshaken. Unimpressed. “Honestly. All this talk of me being an abomination—a beast. Here you are, growling and lunging like a pathetic caged animal. Maybe it’s you who is the beast.”

“Stop.” Mikael’s teeth are clenched. He holds his blade toward Niklaus, ready to strike. Hoping his son won’t notice how white his knuckles are on the hilt.

“Tell me, Father. Do you hate yourself so much you’d bestow that title on your most hated child—because I’m everything you fear?”

With a yell, Mikael drives his sword through Niklaus’s shoulder, pinning him to the tree like an animal. Like an insect.

Blood wells and spills from the wound, staining his son’s clothes. Staining his blade.

He exhales in satisfaction. “Let that be a lesson to you.”

Niklaus looks coolly down at the hole in his shoulder. “What exactly have you taught me?” No hint of pain or fear or shame.

“To leave my son alone.” Please. Let him be. Leave this place. Or better yet, just die right here.

“With this wound? Unlikely.” He opens his mouth and screams—a sound of pure agony. It clangs in Mikael’s head like the tedious cries of a wounded, dying beast.

But Niklaus isn’t dying. He smiles gleefully at Mikael through a trickle of blood in his mouth. “He’ll be here soon. He’ll know my pain. He’ll know who caused it.”

He leans forward, heedless of how the bloodstain darkens on his shirt with the movement. “And he’ll make it go away.”

And then Elijah is there, all but shoving Father aside to reach Niklaus, who whines in pain for his brother.

Neither of them pay Mikael any notice as he demands they separate, that Elijah let Niklaus deal with the consequences of the duel alone.

His blade is lodged in Niklaus’s shoulder, now useless to him. Elijah is deaf to his orders.

Truly, all he has are harsh words and his fists.

Though the duel is over with an indisputable outcome, Mikael cannot convince himself he has won.

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