Title: In his keeping
Author:
ninja_toesCharacters/Pairing: Rebekah, Klaus, mentions of past Rebekah/Kol, hints of Klaus/Elijah
Rating: PG-13(ish)
Warnings: hints of incest
Summary: On nights like this she would simply lie still and listen to him breathing..
Author's Note: A special thanks to the amazingly talented
ellensmithee who beta'ed this for me <3
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On nights like this she would simply lie still and listen to him breathing. His fingers curled tightly around her waist.
They were in France now. She could hear the sounds from the street below them.
A group of men staggering over themselves, arms slung over each other’s shoulders no doubt, singing loudly and painfully off key.
A tawdry drunk patron bellowing profanities at a shrill- voiced street walker.
And the sound of Nik’s soft breathing filling the empty spaces of another nameless room in another nameless city.
They could never stay anywhere for too long. She could never allow herself to be comfortable; she could never allow herself to be complacent.
Never.
She was in her brothers keeping, she always had been. And as long as the man who called himself their father continued to pursue Niklaus, she would continue to run with him.
Always and forever.
Centuries had passed since they’d become vampires, but it could as easily been decades.
Years.
Moments.
Nik would tell her that they could be anything. Go anywhere they wanted and take whatever they wanted. But Rebekah never truly had anything.
She was in her brother's keeping.
There was no home, only dwellings in which they slept. She was allowed no companions save Niklaus.
Her brother loved with a ferocity that could suffocate you. Twist and compress your very bones until you broke apart and shattered to dust.
She’d seen it happen to Elijah. Watched Niklaus tear him apart until there was hardly anything left of the brother she’d once known.
But it was moments like this when the whirlwind that spun around them slowed enough for her to catch her footing that she’d think of Kol. Memories of the nights they lay together as children, legs intertwined under rough woolen blankets.
She and Kol had slept together from the day they were born until they came of age. Her father informed them it was no longer proper for them to do so.
But that hadn’t stopped Kol from waiting patiently until their parents drifted off and sneaking silently into their once shared sleeping quarters.
If it was their Father’s insistence that the act in itself was forbidden or if he truly missed her presence, as she had missed his, she was not sure.
He would creep quietly to her bedside and crawl beneath the covers, grasping her close to his chest and intertwining his fingers with hers.
And just talk to her.
Talking about everything and nothing. Re-telling stories that Elijah had told them, stories she’d already heard a thousand times over. Until the reassuring sound of Kol’s soft voice would tapper and fade off as he fell asleep, the quiet inhale-exhale of his soft breathing following her into her dreams.
So long ago.
A different life. A different time.
A time when Rebekah would watch the elders of their village and imagine how she would look with gray in her hair.
Those times were gone now.
Now the heightened sounds from the streets below were all that lulled her to sleep.
She and Nik would leave tomorrow. They had already stayed in this place for far too long. It was time to move on.
Whether Rebekah wished to stay or not matter very little to her Niklaus, if at all. He did what he pleased in the knowledge that regardless of her standings, Rebekah would follow. She was in her brother's keeping.
But on nights like this when her world stilled if only for an instant. She could imagine the sounds of Niklaus’ breathing belonged to another. And feel the phantom scratch of woolen blankets on her skin.