[Fic] Masquerade
Venice 1856
The notes of the music sparkled like the jewels on the masks the dancers wore as they spun around and around on the parquet floor beneath him. Elijah rested against the balcony, pale fingers of one hand fiddling with the ring he wore on the other. His nail scratched and caught at his family crest, emblazoned in gold on the circlet-a constant reminder of his quest lest he be tempted to forget himself.
He was tempted, anyway.
She was hunting. So was he.
In and out through the crowd, she flitted, a dark shadow in the bright lights of the carnival masquerade. He had to smile-a tight, quick, flickering expression-that her gown and mask were both stark black, with only the jet and onyx beading to lighten them when the flames of the candles reflected in their polished surfaces. She was death come to dance, and the men who flocked to her thought her only an imitation and laughed as they tripped a measure to their own doom. The women who swarmed around him, seeking to lighten the shadow he cast, did the same. What light her darkness didn't absorb, he swallowed, black domino swirling around the other dancers, black mask concealing over half his face.
She saw him when one dance led into another. Her lips were red, the only color about her, but they drew his gaze as he was sure they were meant to. His gaze stayed trained upon them as he moved through the steps, ever toward her.
“You're meant to catch me.”
“But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
His fingers curled around hers in an iron grip, just as those blood-red lips-surely she'd fed on one of her partners to achieve so perfect a color-parted in startled recognition.
“Elijah...”
It was petty, that the tremor of both fear and defiance in her voice sent a thrill down his spine. He hadn't wanted her to fear him, but his anger demanded it now, and she gave, as she should.
“Don't try to run,” he murmured, soft enough that only she would hear. “Just dance.”
He met her gaze then, and though he could have willed her into any submission, he let his hand on hers convey his message well enough and trusted her good sense to keep her in the room as he decided what to do with her. The music parted them, but her gaze stayed with him, and there was a thrill in that, too, to finally have her attention so completely. Klaus was hundreds of miles away, in London. Here and now, it was only the two of them.
They came together again, then parted, then joined, over and around and through the humans as the music demanded. The heat of their audience seemed to shimmer in the February air, rising up from bodies and making the candles waver. They met again as the song ended, their partners hovering nervously at the edge of the circle that formed on the edges of their vision.
The boy who'd touched her, held her, led her into the dance cleared his throat.
“Go away.” One look, one command, and all protest died on the boy's lips. The girl had already melted back into the crowd in a huff. Elijah's hand extended halfway to the stiff form across from him-cool and composed in the writhing heat of the room. “Come, Katerina.”
“I'm not going back to Klaus,” she spat at him, quietly but defiantly.
“No.”
Fear flickered in her gaze. “You're just going to kill me...? I could scream...”
“And kill all of them?”
“I don't care about them.”
“Neither do I.”
“Elijah...” Her voice broke, just slightly, and he let his gaze soften. “We were friends, once...”
He'd wanted so much more than that. She seemed to know-he'd suspected she'd always known-and her hand hesitantly found his cheek, brushed over it. Curling his fingers around her wrist, he held on, meaning to pull her away, even as he closed his eyes.
“I'm not going to kill you,” he said, still not looking at her. “I will not be the one to do it.”
That wasn't something she could know. He felt the relief shudder through her skin as the knowledge trickled through her.
“Thank you...” Just a whisper, just for him, just a ghost of the girl she'd been, but it was enough to decide his course for the evening.
“Come with me.” He opened his eyes, met her gaze. She held it, watched him for a long moment, then nodded.
* * *
The streets were as packed with revelers as the ballroom had been. The leashed energy of the indoors, however, had been thrown off in the night air. People danced and drank, pressed themselves together and moved in various configurations and positions in shadows and by fires. Masks hid identity and took away responsibility, and while Elijah was fairly certain that wasn't what they were meant for, humankind had ever needed but a little excuse for such behavior.
What was his, he wondered, even as he felt the press of Katerina's hand in his, the way her fingers cleaved to his? A life time of repression - oppression, a little voice he never listened to whispered - subsuming his will to his brother's? A denial of love? A need unsated? Too long since he'd let himself have more than blood from a woman?
She wasn't a woman, though, or not just. She was Katerina-the name that had haunted him and his steps for the last three and a half centuries. And when they finally reached the rooms he had rented, the taste of her mouth on his was everything he had imagined and nothing like he dreamed, all at the same time.
She was the honey of whiskey and copper of blood mingling in a rush of some foreign feeling a long-ignored part of his brain recognized but had no word for. He fell back on the bed obediently when she pushed him, and watched, letting admiration and awe flicker over his face as the black dress fell away to reveal her white skin beneath. Stockings, underthings, hairpins-one by one she dropped them away in movements both achingly slow and far too quick until nothing remained on but her mask.
She kept the mask on.
His clothes came off as teasingly, though nothing would have persuaded him to say it was too fast. His divestment was something he considered a necessary evil, to be done as quickly as possible to have her against him, but she seemed determined to enjoy it, even when he gave an impatient growl and batted her hands away to work at his cravat himself.
Her laugh and reassertion of control did much to convince him that perhaps she wanted this as much as he, and was not just bargaining for the life he had already granted her. He wanted her to want him, not thank him.
She kept his mask on him, too.
When she kissed him, his worry about her motives disappeared, and when her skin finally pressed flush against his and her fingers found and curled around his length, he ceased to worry about anything.
The world dissolved into a sea of touches and kisses, bites and cruel twists of fingers in hair. Neither of them were gentle. Neither of them were fair. She didn't ask before she sank her fangs into his neck. He didn't ask before he slammed himself into her. When they finished once, they started again in a revolving dance of dominance that they both knew she was only playing at physically, but he, at least, knew she could more than win emotionally.
Dawn found them pressed together, draped with a sheet that the poor laundress would never get the bloodstains out of. Katerina's head rested on Elijah's chest, and his fingers ran gently through her hair as he studied the painting on the ceiling above them with no particular interest but to keep himself from thinking about what he had to do.
“We could run away.” Her voice broke in to his musing, punctuated by a swipe of her tongue playfully over his skin. Her tone was deadly serious, though.
“He would find us. There is nowhere you can hide from him, not forever.” He knew Klaus too well.
“I've done pretty well, all this time.” She looked up, affronted.
Elijah arched an eyebrow. “I've been the one tracking you, Katerina.”
She held his gaze, and finally, softly, echoed his thoughts from the night before, their conversation from so long ago. “You're meant to catch me...”
They both knew he'd paid for not doing so. Klaus was not pleased by his ineptitude. But he replied, as lightly as he had back then when life was sweeter and he had hope of a different future. “But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
She was silent a long while, watching him seriously, finally reaching to brush his curls out of his face. “Is the game over?”
He stretched the silence to new lengths, then sighed, closing his eyes. If he left, Klaus would see it as a double betrayal. He couldn't do that to him. “No.”
“That's ridiculous, Elijah. I'm not going to keep running from you...”
“Yes. You are.” He shifted, moving her off of him, quick as lightning and before his heart could stop him. His fingers caught her chin and made her look up at him.
She knew him too well, his Katerina. “Don't do this...please...”
“I have to.” He gave himself one last indulgence, bending his head to kiss her again, and he felt all her desperation to persuade him to...what he didn't know, but some other course, in the answering press of her lips. He pulled back anyway.
* * *
Mystic Falls 2011
Katherine wasn't sure exactly how she'd know when Damon had killed Elijah. The compulsion to stay in the tomb would be broken, yes, but would she just suddenly feel like she could leave? The exact mechanics of it remained unclear, and that was the one flaw in what she had to admit was an otherwise brilliant plan.
If it wasn't some crystal moment of clarity, she decided, she would just give it until morning-surely even Damon could get it done by then now that he was all set on his dinner party-and leave with sunrise.
For a moment it seemed like the world shifted around her until she realized it was just a reordering of her head, her mind, her memory. She could leave, she knew, but that seemed the least important thing suddenly across the gaping chasm that had welled up.
“You're meant to catch me.”
“But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
Laughing eyes, lips warmer than they should have been on such a cool body. Fingers hard on her skin in all the right places. Blood richer than any she'd ever tasted. Knowing. Being known. Being safe. Being loved.
Colors danced before her eyes, and she caught a glimpse across centuries into his, as he pressed his will against hers until it capitulated.
“Tonight never happened. I never found you in Venice.”
“You never found me.”
“You will run.” She could swear, even now, finally, she heard the break in his voice at the final instruction. “And you will never let me catch you again.”
She knew should go, should get out of the tomb, but instead she sat on the cold stone floor staring at nothing as night ticked its way slowly toward dawn.
The notes of the music sparkled like the jewels on the masks the dancers wore as they spun around and around on the parquet floor beneath him. Elijah rested against the balcony, pale fingers of one hand fiddling with the ring he wore on the other. His nail scratched and caught at his family crest, emblazoned in gold on the circlet-a constant reminder of his quest lest he be tempted to forget himself.
He was tempted, anyway.
She was hunting. So was he.
In and out through the crowd, she flitted, a dark shadow in the bright lights of the carnival masquerade. He had to smile-a tight, quick, flickering expression-that her gown and mask were both stark black, with only the jet and onyx beading to lighten them when the flames of the candles reflected in their polished surfaces. She was death come to dance, and the men who flocked to her thought her only an imitation and laughed as they tripped a measure to their own doom. The women who swarmed around him, seeking to lighten the shadow he cast, did the same. What light her darkness didn't absorb, he swallowed, black domino swirling around the other dancers, black mask concealing over half his face.
She saw him when one dance led into another. Her lips were red, the only color about her, but they drew his gaze as he was sure they were meant to. His gaze stayed trained upon them as he moved through the steps, ever toward her.
“You're meant to catch me.”
“But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
His fingers curled around hers in an iron grip, just as those blood-red lips-surely she'd fed on one of her partners to achieve so perfect a color-parted in startled recognition.
“Elijah...”
It was petty, that the tremor of both fear and defiance in her voice sent a thrill down his spine. He hadn't wanted her to fear him, but his anger demanded it now, and she gave, as she should.
“Don't try to run,” he murmured, soft enough that only she would hear. “Just dance.”
He met her gaze then, and though he could have willed her into any submission, he let his hand on hers convey his message well enough and trusted her good sense to keep her in the room as he decided what to do with her. The music parted them, but her gaze stayed with him, and there was a thrill in that, too, to finally have her attention so completely. Klaus was hundreds of miles away, in London. Here and now, it was only the two of them.
They came together again, then parted, then joined, over and around and through the humans as the music demanded. The heat of their audience seemed to shimmer in the February air, rising up from bodies and making the candles waver. They met again as the song ended, their partners hovering nervously at the edge of the circle that formed on the edges of their vision.
The boy who'd touched her, held her, led her into the dance cleared his throat.
“Go away.” One look, one command, and all protest died on the boy's lips. The girl had already melted back into the crowd in a huff. Elijah's hand extended halfway to the stiff form across from him-cool and composed in the writhing heat of the room. “Come, Katerina.”
“I'm not going back to Klaus,” she spat at him, quietly but defiantly.
“No.”
Fear flickered in her gaze. “You're just going to kill me...? I could scream...”
“And kill all of them?”
“I don't care about them.”
“Neither do I.”
“Elijah...” Her voice broke, just slightly, and he let his gaze soften. “We were friends, once...”
He'd wanted so much more than that. She seemed to know-he'd suspected she'd always known-and her hand hesitantly found his cheek, brushed over it. Curling his fingers around her wrist, he held on, meaning to pull her away, even as he closed his eyes.
“I'm not going to kill you,” he said, still not looking at her. “I will not be the one to do it.”
That wasn't something she could know. He felt the relief shudder through her skin as the knowledge trickled through her.
“Thank you...” Just a whisper, just for him, just a ghost of the girl she'd been, but it was enough to decide his course for the evening.
“Come with me.” He opened his eyes, met her gaze. She held it, watched him for a long moment, then nodded.
* * *
The streets were as packed with revelers as the ballroom had been. The leashed energy of the indoors, however, had been thrown off in the night air. People danced and drank, pressed themselves together and moved in various configurations and positions in shadows and by fires. Masks hid identity and took away responsibility, and while Elijah was fairly certain that wasn't what they were meant for, humankind had ever needed but a little excuse for such behavior.
What was his, he wondered, even as he felt the press of Katerina's hand in his, the way her fingers cleaved to his? A life time of repression - oppression, a little voice he never listened to whispered - subsuming his will to his brother's? A denial of love? A need unsated? Too long since he'd let himself have more than blood from a woman?
She wasn't a woman, though, or not just. She was Katerina-the name that had haunted him and his steps for the last three and a half centuries. And when they finally reached the rooms he had rented, the taste of her mouth on his was everything he had imagined and nothing like he dreamed, all at the same time.
She was the honey of whiskey and copper of blood mingling in a rush of some foreign feeling a long-ignored part of his brain recognized but had no word for. He fell back on the bed obediently when she pushed him, and watched, letting admiration and awe flicker over his face as the black dress fell away to reveal her white skin beneath. Stockings, underthings, hairpins-one by one she dropped them away in movements both achingly slow and far too quick until nothing remained on but her mask.
She kept the mask on.
His clothes came off as teasingly, though nothing would have persuaded him to say it was too fast. His divestment was something he considered a necessary evil, to be done as quickly as possible to have her against him, but she seemed determined to enjoy it, even when he gave an impatient growl and batted her hands away to work at his cravat himself.
Her laugh and reassertion of control did much to convince him that perhaps she wanted this as much as he, and was not just bargaining for the life he had already granted her. He wanted her to want him, not thank him.
She kept his mask on him, too.
When she kissed him, his worry about her motives disappeared, and when her skin finally pressed flush against his and her fingers found and curled around his length, he ceased to worry about anything.
The world dissolved into a sea of touches and kisses, bites and cruel twists of fingers in hair. Neither of them were gentle. Neither of them were fair. She didn't ask before she sank her fangs into his neck. He didn't ask before he slammed himself into her. When they finished once, they started again in a revolving dance of dominance that they both knew she was only playing at physically, but he, at least, knew she could more than win emotionally.
Dawn found them pressed together, draped with a sheet that the poor laundress would never get the bloodstains out of. Katerina's head rested on Elijah's chest, and his fingers ran gently through her hair as he studied the painting on the ceiling above them with no particular interest but to keep himself from thinking about what he had to do.
“We could run away.” Her voice broke in to his musing, punctuated by a swipe of her tongue playfully over his skin. Her tone was deadly serious, though.
“He would find us. There is nowhere you can hide from him, not forever.” He knew Klaus too well.
“I've done pretty well, all this time.” She looked up, affronted.
Elijah arched an eyebrow. “I've been the one tracking you, Katerina.”
She held his gaze, and finally, softly, echoed his thoughts from the night before, their conversation from so long ago. “You're meant to catch me...”
They both knew he'd paid for not doing so. Klaus was not pleased by his ineptitude. But he replied, as lightly as he had back then when life was sweeter and he had hope of a different future. “But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
She was silent a long while, watching him seriously, finally reaching to brush his curls out of his face. “Is the game over?”
He stretched the silence to new lengths, then sighed, closing his eyes. If he left, Klaus would see it as a double betrayal. He couldn't do that to him. “No.”
“That's ridiculous, Elijah. I'm not going to keep running from you...”
“Yes. You are.” He shifted, moving her off of him, quick as lightning and before his heart could stop him. His fingers caught her chin and made her look up at him.
She knew him too well, his Katerina. “Don't do this...please...”
“I have to.” He gave himself one last indulgence, bending his head to kiss her again, and he felt all her desperation to persuade him to...what he didn't know, but some other course, in the answering press of her lips. He pulled back anyway.
* * *
Mystic Falls 2011
Katherine wasn't sure exactly how she'd know when Damon had killed Elijah. The compulsion to stay in the tomb would be broken, yes, but would she just suddenly feel like she could leave? The exact mechanics of it remained unclear, and that was the one flaw in what she had to admit was an otherwise brilliant plan.
If it wasn't some crystal moment of clarity, she decided, she would just give it until morning-surely even Damon could get it done by then now that he was all set on his dinner party-and leave with sunrise.
For a moment it seemed like the world shifted around her until she realized it was just a reordering of her head, her mind, her memory. She could leave, she knew, but that seemed the least important thing suddenly across the gaping chasm that had welled up.
“You're meant to catch me.”
“But if I catch you, the game will be over.”
Laughing eyes, lips warmer than they should have been on such a cool body. Fingers hard on her skin in all the right places. Blood richer than any she'd ever tasted. Knowing. Being known. Being safe. Being loved.
Colors danced before her eyes, and she caught a glimpse across centuries into his, as he pressed his will against hers until it capitulated.
“Tonight never happened. I never found you in Venice.”
“You never found me.”
“You will run.” She could swear, even now, finally, she heard the break in his voice at the final instruction. “And you will never let me catch you again.”
She knew should go, should get out of the tomb, but instead she sat on the cold stone floor staring at nothing as night ticked its way slowly toward dawn.