Fic: Ain't Misbehavin'
Title: Ain't Misbehavin'
Author: lit_chick08
Pairings: Stefan/Rebekah, Stefan/Klaus, Klaus/Rebekah/Stefan, hints of Rebekah/Klaus, Lexi/Klaus
Warnings: incestuous overtones, slash, voyeurism, threesome
Rating: MA
Spoilers: most definitely 3x03 “The End of the Affair” as well as some speculation for future episodes
Word Count: 3,624
Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, and Julie Plec
Summary: Rebekah had always wanted to be her brother's favorite sister; she just hadn't understood what exactly that meant
A/N: Title comes from the jazz standard of the same name. Also, this fic is dark. Consider this your warning.
She was the baby of the family, the seventh and final child; when she was very small and her siblings were being unkind, Elijah would cradle her in his lap and tell her she was the youngest because the Gods saved the best child for last.
She misses Elijah fiercely.
But Niklaus will kill her if she ever confesses that out loud, so Rebekah pretends she hates him too.
* * *
When they were children, people used to mistake Niklaus and Alexandra for twins. Only eleven months separated them, and, with their matching blond heads and ability to finish each other's sentences, it was an easy assumption to make. The three of them shared a nursery, and Rebekah would sit upon her bed and make herself sick with envy at Niklaus's blatant favoritism for their big sister.
Sometimes she imagines what would happen if Lex showed up and pledged her allegiance to Niklaus all over again, what would happen to her.
Knowing what she knows now, Rebekah wishes Niklaus preferred anyone else.
* * *
She remembers the precise moment she saw Charlotte Petrova for the first time. Rebekah had heard tales of the beautiful daughter of Dmitri Petrova and his English wife, the one who had a child outside of wedlock and was completely unrepentant. She wasn't sure what she expected Charlotte to be like, but she certainly hadn't expected Niklaus to fall in love with her, to elope with her.
Rebekah recalls with perfect clarity the sight of Charlotte climbing out of the carriage, carrying herself as if her mere existence wasn't bringing shame to their family name.
She thinks about Charlotte every time she fingers the pendant around her throat, her sister-in-law's parting gift before bleeding to death over the moonstone.
* * *
In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. They were all monsters, but they were together, and that was all that mattered to Rebekah. Because unlike her brothers and sisters, she had not been forced to leave behind a spouse or children; all she had been forced to abandon was a life which was already mapped out for her.
But then her father drew a line in the sand, eschewing Niklaus's plan of awaiting the doppelganger, and it was time to pick a side. Rebekah chose Niklaus because Elijah chose Niklaus, and Elijah always made the correct decisions. Alexandra chose them too, and then her mother was begging them all not to go, to not act rashly.
Rebekah physically longs for her mother some nights, pressing her fists into her mouth to keep quiet.
But Esther had known the cost of going against Niklaus, and, if she hadn't, she certainly learned.
* * *
When Trevor brought Katerina to them, Rebekah was uneasy. She had known Charlotte better than anyone - maybe even better than Niklaus - and Katerina Petrova was nothing like Charlotte. Sometimes Rebekah caught Elijah staring at Katerina, and it was the fire in her brother's eyes which made Rebekah start to worry the sacrifice of Katerina would devastate her beloved older brother.
She tried to talk to Lex about it, but she knew her sister didn't believe Elijah, of all people, would fall for Charlotte's doppelganger. Rebekah despised how she was still constantly dismissed as the baby of the family, as if she wasn't able to tell what was real and what was not, as if she had no insight at all.
When Katerina ran, breaking both her brothers' hearts, splitting the bond between Niklaus and Elijah cleanly in town, Rebekah swelled with rage; as Lex begged Elijah to stay, Rebekah helped Niklaus tear apart every Petrova left on the globe.
She thinks about that night often now, of the taste of Petrova blood on her tongue, of hugging Niklaus over their bodies and swearing to never leave him alone.
Rebekah wishes she had known then she was signing away her life.
* * *
The worst day of Rebekah's life was the night Alexandra left. It wasn't like what happened with Elijah; there was no brutal fist fight, no screaming, no swearing, no brandishing of daggers; no, it was not Lex's style. Unlike Elijah, Alexandra didn't hate Niklaus; she was simply tired and wanted a life Niklaus did not.
Rebekah stood stock still in the entryway of the plantation they were living in, her eyes wide as Niklaus faced Alexandra, who held a bag in her hand. She trembled as Niklaus raised the dagger in his hand, and Alexandra did not bother trying to protect herself. Instead she asked in a tremulous voice, “Are you going to kill me now, too, Nik? Am I to join our siblings in a coffin of my very own?”
Rebekah saw Niklaus's hands shake as he cupped Alexandra's face; both had tears running down their cheeks, both clearly in pain, and Rebekah felt as if she was intruding upon a moment to which she should not be privy.
“You do not have to do this,” he swore, his voice achingly vulnerable. “I will be better. Do not go. I will not - “
“I have to,” Alexandra interrupted, petting Niklaus's face, wiping at his tears with her thumbs. “We are not the people we were, Nik, and I cannot be the person you need anymore. I do not want to be a ripper any longer, and if you love me at all, you will not force me.”
Niklaus rested his forehead against Alexandra's, both of them crying in earnest, and Rebekah had never felt more powerless, more unwanted. She had no doubt if it was her trying to leave, Niklaus would not have hesitated to plant that dagger as deeply into her heart as he had done to their own mother; but because it was Alexandra, his precious Lexi, Niklaus was actually begging.
“Lexi, please,” Niklaus sobbed, “just tell me what I need to do.”
“Let me go,” she plead. “That is all I want. Give me my freedom.”
Rebekah lost her breath as Niklaus caught Lex's mouth with his, his fingers tangling in her long hair even as he kept the dagger clutched in his palm. They were blasphemously beautiful, the very definition of sin, and this time Rebekah dropped her gaze, knowing what was transpiring between her siblings was not intended for her eyes.
“If I see you again, I will kill you,” he promised.
“Oh, Nik...I will never cross your path again.”
The last glimpse Rebekah had of her big sister was Lex's hand squeezing Niklaus's before disappearing into the Georgian morning.
When Rebekah awoke the next afternoon, it was to Niklaus sitting upon her chest, the white ash-dipped dagger pressing against her breastbone, the tip having already pierced her skin. She gasped before asking, “What are you doing? What have I done?”
“There will be no more mercy,” he informed her, his voice unflinching. “If you try to do what Alexandra did, I will put this dagger so deeply into your chest, you will never walk this earth again.”
Trying to keep her voice even, Rebekah countered, “I will always choose you, Nik. Do you not know that by now?”
Niklaus pulled the dagger back, blood blooming upon the front of her night dress. “I have tired of the South. Gather your things; we are going to London.”
Rebekah thinks of that morning so often now, thinks how Lex took the last human part of their brother with her, curses herself for thinking Niklaus would come to love her as much as he still loves Lex.
She wishes she had just let him kill her then.
* * *
During the First World War, they had spent their time in Europe, feasting on the plentiful bodies available for the taking. Once, when Rebekah was indulging herself in Germany, she looked up from her soldiers to see Katerina standing in the moonlight, her face smeared with blood, terror and panic on her familiar face. If she wanted to permanently seal her allegiance to Niklaus, all Rebekah would have to do was easily catch the first doppelganger, deliver her for her punishment; instead she wiped at the blood on her mouth and very deliberately turned her back to Katerina, allowing her time to flee.
They were staying in a little flat in Paris a few months after peace had been declared. It was nowhere near the opulence they usually lived in, but Rebekah liked it, thought it had character; Niklaus thought she was being sentimental for a life she had never lead, and she told him he was more than welcome to stay somewhere else.
He didn't, of course; she was never allowed too far out of his sight.
She was chin deep in the claw foot tub, a jazz record playing in the background, when Niklaus sauntered into the apartment, shedding his overcoat and boots. He sat on the rim of the tub, stirring the water with his fingers, before drawling, “You seem unhappy, love.”
“There is no fun to be had here,” she complained, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the tub, letting her eyes close. “Everything here is how it has been for the past thousand years, and I am bored.”
“Such a petulant child,” Niklaus chastised playfully, running an affectionate hand over her features. “How is it possible that you have lived for a millennium and still sound like the little girl who chased me through the gardens?”
Opening her eyes, she retorted, “Possibly because my brother still treats me as if I am a little girl chasing him through the gardens.”
“Everything I do is to protect you, Bex,” Niklaus swore. “With him constantly following us - “
“I know,” she interrupted, “but we have not seen him in thirty years. I want to have some fun, Nik. Remember fun?”
Resting his head on the porcelain, Niklaus snickered. “You are positively infuriating.”
“I learned from the best.”
After a moment, he sighed, dipping his fingers back into the water, tracing the circle of her knee lazily. “And what sounds fun, dear Rebekah?”
“Chicago,” she answered immediately. Seeing Niklaus wrinkle his nose in distaste, she sat up, leaning in enticingly. “Think of it, Nik: flappers, jazz, Prohibition, people who can go missing without report for fear of the law. You and I both know nothing sweetens the blood like decadence and sin.”
“Chicago,” Niklaus echoed. “Is this what you really want?”
Rebekah instantly nodded.
“Then you shall have what you want.” He leaned forward, brushed a kiss against her lips, before rising and shedding his clothes. As he sank into the water, he declared, “We shall leave for America in the morning.”
Rebekah wonders now how differently everything would have ended up if she had selected some other city, some other place to find her fun.
She should have known better than anyone fun always came with a higher price than she liked to pay.
* * *
There had been a lot of men over the years. She went through phases, selecting particular types, varying up her choices; there had been a decade where she only dated men who spoke Portuguese and another when she only dated men who would deliberately piss off Niklaus. Rebekah had always known that her brother would never allow her to turn a human into a companion, so she never fell in love; love was a luxury, and Rebekah's life had no room for luxuries.
But Stefan was already a vampire, and there was something about him which awakened something in Rebekah she thought was gone forever, lost sometime between the dissolution of her family and her chain-less imprisonment to Niklaus.
She was in love with Stefan Salvatore, and Rebekah knew Niklaus wasn't going to stand for it.
“He's a child, Bex,” Niklaus sneered after their first meeting. “Barely eighty-years-old, hardly subtle or able to able to cover his tracks. What do you possibly see in him?”
“Why does it matter?” she snapped, wrenching off her headband, ripping the pins from her hair. “You have never given a damn who I fuck. Why start now?”
Eyes darkening, he retorted, “Because you usually fuck drug-addled poets and poor excuses for adventurers. When you start bringing home sloppy rippers, it affects me.”
“And that is what matters, isn't it?” she growled, throwing her heels at him, narrowly missing his shoulder. “Who cares about my happiness or what I want? It has always been and will always be about you!”
“Are you out of your mind?” Niklaus shouted as he caught the heavy, brass paperweight she chucked.
“No, I am finally in my right mind, and you are going to ruin everything!”
Later, as she lied in bed in her slip and stockings, Rebekah thought of her other brothers, of the four men who had always treated her kindly, who had never raised their voices or their hands to her; Lex might have been Niklaus's favorite sister, but Rebekah often thought Elijah preferred her, had thought her three other brothers like her easy way compared to Lex's single-minded devotion to Nik. Somewhere Elijah and Lex roamed unencumbered by Niklaus, without the threat of their father's rage coming in the form of wooden bullets and punishment for what had happened to their mother, and Rebekah wondered what it would be like to be truly free, to go somewhere with Stefan and be someone else entirely.
Sometimes she watched the schoolgirls who hung around Stefan's apartment. She had only been seventeen when the curse had been laid upon her, the same age Stefan was stopped at; maybe they could go to a new town, she could be a schoolgirl and Stefan could carry her books to class. Maybe she could teach Stefan how to cover his tracks better and they could feign a life together.
The click of her bedroom door opening made Rebekah reach for the lamp on her bedside table but Niklaus raised his hands in surrender. “I come in peace, Bex.”
“Leave me alone.”
Disregarding her request as he always did, Niklaus sauntered to the bed, climbing over the foot board to walk on his knees towards her. Rebekah flinched minutely as he slid his hand up her thigh, finding the clasp which held up her stockings and releasing it, rolling the material down her legs. “I do not wish to fight with you.”
“Then stop being such an asshole.”
Niklaus smirked with a peculiar softness in his eyes as he removed her other stocking. Pushing up the hem of her slip until it was over her hips, he whispered, “I hate it when we quarrel. Where is my sweet baby sister?”
“Is this how a brother touches his sister?” she could not help but spit as Niklaus's fingers bit sharply into the soft flesh of her hips.
“Those rules are for humans, and we are so much more than that.” Sliding his hands beneath her back, lifting her rigid torso off of the mattress, Niklaus nudged her face with his nose. “Will this ripper make you happy?”
Rebekah nodded.
“Then I suppose this boy - “
“Stefan,” she cut in emphatically.
“Stefan,” he repeated as he rolled his eyes, “is more than welcome to your company. If,” he quickly added, “you share.”
Rebekah blinked in surprise. “Share?”
“If you want Stefan in your life, this is the compromise. Take it or leave it.”
Begrudgingly, she declared, “I'll take it.”
At that time, Rebekah had thought Niklaus would get as bored with Stefan as he had the few other men they had shared over the years.
Rebekah knows now just how wrong she was.
* * *
She was in bed with Stefan one night, moaning with pleasure, when Niklaus sauntered into her room as if it was his own. Stefan hesitated mid-thrust, uncertain if he should continue, and Niklaus clasped him on the shoulder encouragingly.
“It's alright, brother. I just want to watch.”
Rebekah saw the moment of indecision flicker over Stefan's face, and terror began to trickle through her veins at the possibilities of what Niklaus would do if Stefan disobeyed. She clenched tightly around Stefan, drawing a gasp from his chest. Niklaus smiled as Stefan resumed the steady rhythm of his hips, dropping suckling kisses against the curve of her neck.
Rebekah wanted to focus on Stefan, wanted to find the connection she craved so desperately when they were together, but all she could do was stare at Nik, smirking from the wing back chair in the corner, blowing her a kiss as Stefan climaxed, burying himself to the hilt inside of her, moaning her name like a prayer.
“Better finish our girl. She hates to be left wanting.”
Stefan dutifully slipped his hand between her bodies, his fingers brushing against her swollen clit; it took only a few strokes to send her body over the edge, but Rebekah drew no pleasure from it, not while Nik was crossing the room to the bed, twisted satisfaction on his features.
Niklaus lifted Stefan's hand to his mouth, licking her fluids from the pads of Stefan's fingers. Rebekah recoiled from the action, but Stefan's eyes widened in surprise and she could feel him throb inside of her, his erection returning. As Niklaus lowered his mouth to Stefan's, the two meeting ferociously above her, Rebekah closed her eyes, resisting the impulse to start to cry.
Niklaus had always ruined everything.
Rebekah still doesn't know why she forgot that little detail.
* * *
If she was honest, Rebekah had always known it would end that way. Once Niklaus started planting daggers in their siblings, in their mother, Rebekah knew there was no going back. And then, with the implosion of his relationship with Elijah and Lex's defection, she should have known eventually she would meet a similar fate.
Part of her had hoped that a thousand years of perfect loyalty, that one hundred years of absolute solitude playing every role Nik required her to play, would earn her some type of mercy, some type of relief.
Rebekah was an idiot for ever thinking Niklaus saw her as anything more than something to control.
It was her last thought before the dagger pierced her heart.
It is the first thought she has when she wakes up.
* * *
As she climbs out of the coffin, Rebekah sees the warehouse worker, who kindly offers up his carotid artery. She tears into him with more savagery than is her usual style, but she has never been so ravenous in her entire life. When she has dropped his corpse to the ground, she begins to look for a clue as to when she is.
The worker has a device in his pocket unlike anything Rebekah has ever seen. She bumps a button and it lights up, revealing the time and a date: September 29, 2011.
She has been dead for almost a century. The rage is so sharp, her teeth become fangs without her willing it to happen, the first time they have done so since the change.
When she sees the other coffins, Rebekah instantly knows it must have been Niklaus who woke her, Niklaus who needs something from her. Betrayal and fury war for top billing in her body, but revenge wins out; with a chuckle, Rebekah opens the first coffin, finding her mother, dead since William the Conqueror reigned; she jerks the dagger out of her body and lays it neatly on her mother's chest before closing the coffin. She does the same with the next three, freeing the brothers she lost so long ago, she barely remembers the sound of their voices.
When Rebekah reaches the last coffin, she pauses; there is no doubt in her mind that her father is not inside. There is no way Niklaus was ever able to best him, and that makes Rebekah grin. But it also means either Elijah or Alexandra is inside, and she isn't sure which dead sibling will bother her more. Bracing herself, she lifts the lid and whimpers at the sight of Elijah, withered and still. She cannot imagine the circumstances under which Niklaus could have bested Elijah, but it literally hurts her heart to see Elijah, always so strong and steadfast, in this box.
Rebekah is gentler in removing Elijah's dagger. Using the damned knife, she carves into the inside lid very basic instructions: Find Lexi. Save me. Kill Nik. Love, Bex
She hears footsteps approaching and Rebekah quickly closes Elijah's casket before slipping into the shadows with the dagger. It will not kill Niklaus, but it will hurt him like hell.
And if there is one thing Rebekah wants more than anything else in the world, it is to make Nik hurt.
She will burn the world to make it happen.
Author: lit_chick08
Pairings: Stefan/Rebekah, Stefan/Klaus, Klaus/Rebekah/Stefan, hints of Rebekah/Klaus, Lexi/Klaus
Warnings: incestuous overtones, slash, voyeurism, threesome
Rating: MA
Spoilers: most definitely 3x03 “The End of the Affair” as well as some speculation for future episodes
Word Count: 3,624
Disclaimer: These characters belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, and Julie Plec
Summary: Rebekah had always wanted to be her brother's favorite sister; she just hadn't understood what exactly that meant
A/N: Title comes from the jazz standard of the same name. Also, this fic is dark. Consider this your warning.
She was the baby of the family, the seventh and final child; when she was very small and her siblings were being unkind, Elijah would cradle her in his lap and tell her she was the youngest because the Gods saved the best child for last.
She misses Elijah fiercely.
But Niklaus will kill her if she ever confesses that out loud, so Rebekah pretends she hates him too.
* * *
When they were children, people used to mistake Niklaus and Alexandra for twins. Only eleven months separated them, and, with their matching blond heads and ability to finish each other's sentences, it was an easy assumption to make. The three of them shared a nursery, and Rebekah would sit upon her bed and make herself sick with envy at Niklaus's blatant favoritism for their big sister.
Sometimes she imagines what would happen if Lex showed up and pledged her allegiance to Niklaus all over again, what would happen to her.
Knowing what she knows now, Rebekah wishes Niklaus preferred anyone else.
* * *
She remembers the precise moment she saw Charlotte Petrova for the first time. Rebekah had heard tales of the beautiful daughter of Dmitri Petrova and his English wife, the one who had a child outside of wedlock and was completely unrepentant. She wasn't sure what she expected Charlotte to be like, but she certainly hadn't expected Niklaus to fall in love with her, to elope with her.
Rebekah recalls with perfect clarity the sight of Charlotte climbing out of the carriage, carrying herself as if her mere existence wasn't bringing shame to their family name.
She thinks about Charlotte every time she fingers the pendant around her throat, her sister-in-law's parting gift before bleeding to death over the moonstone.
* * *
In the beginning, it wasn't so bad. They were all monsters, but they were together, and that was all that mattered to Rebekah. Because unlike her brothers and sisters, she had not been forced to leave behind a spouse or children; all she had been forced to abandon was a life which was already mapped out for her.
But then her father drew a line in the sand, eschewing Niklaus's plan of awaiting the doppelganger, and it was time to pick a side. Rebekah chose Niklaus because Elijah chose Niklaus, and Elijah always made the correct decisions. Alexandra chose them too, and then her mother was begging them all not to go, to not act rashly.
Rebekah physically longs for her mother some nights, pressing her fists into her mouth to keep quiet.
But Esther had known the cost of going against Niklaus, and, if she hadn't, she certainly learned.
* * *
When Trevor brought Katerina to them, Rebekah was uneasy. She had known Charlotte better than anyone - maybe even better than Niklaus - and Katerina Petrova was nothing like Charlotte. Sometimes Rebekah caught Elijah staring at Katerina, and it was the fire in her brother's eyes which made Rebekah start to worry the sacrifice of Katerina would devastate her beloved older brother.
She tried to talk to Lex about it, but she knew her sister didn't believe Elijah, of all people, would fall for Charlotte's doppelganger. Rebekah despised how she was still constantly dismissed as the baby of the family, as if she wasn't able to tell what was real and what was not, as if she had no insight at all.
When Katerina ran, breaking both her brothers' hearts, splitting the bond between Niklaus and Elijah cleanly in town, Rebekah swelled with rage; as Lex begged Elijah to stay, Rebekah helped Niklaus tear apart every Petrova left on the globe.
She thinks about that night often now, of the taste of Petrova blood on her tongue, of hugging Niklaus over their bodies and swearing to never leave him alone.
Rebekah wishes she had known then she was signing away her life.
* * *
The worst day of Rebekah's life was the night Alexandra left. It wasn't like what happened with Elijah; there was no brutal fist fight, no screaming, no swearing, no brandishing of daggers; no, it was not Lex's style. Unlike Elijah, Alexandra didn't hate Niklaus; she was simply tired and wanted a life Niklaus did not.
Rebekah stood stock still in the entryway of the plantation they were living in, her eyes wide as Niklaus faced Alexandra, who held a bag in her hand. She trembled as Niklaus raised the dagger in his hand, and Alexandra did not bother trying to protect herself. Instead she asked in a tremulous voice, “Are you going to kill me now, too, Nik? Am I to join our siblings in a coffin of my very own?”
Rebekah saw Niklaus's hands shake as he cupped Alexandra's face; both had tears running down their cheeks, both clearly in pain, and Rebekah felt as if she was intruding upon a moment to which she should not be privy.
“You do not have to do this,” he swore, his voice achingly vulnerable. “I will be better. Do not go. I will not - “
“I have to,” Alexandra interrupted, petting Niklaus's face, wiping at his tears with her thumbs. “We are not the people we were, Nik, and I cannot be the person you need anymore. I do not want to be a ripper any longer, and if you love me at all, you will not force me.”
Niklaus rested his forehead against Alexandra's, both of them crying in earnest, and Rebekah had never felt more powerless, more unwanted. She had no doubt if it was her trying to leave, Niklaus would not have hesitated to plant that dagger as deeply into her heart as he had done to their own mother; but because it was Alexandra, his precious Lexi, Niklaus was actually begging.
“Lexi, please,” Niklaus sobbed, “just tell me what I need to do.”
“Let me go,” she plead. “That is all I want. Give me my freedom.”
Rebekah lost her breath as Niklaus caught Lex's mouth with his, his fingers tangling in her long hair even as he kept the dagger clutched in his palm. They were blasphemously beautiful, the very definition of sin, and this time Rebekah dropped her gaze, knowing what was transpiring between her siblings was not intended for her eyes.
“If I see you again, I will kill you,” he promised.
“Oh, Nik...I will never cross your path again.”
The last glimpse Rebekah had of her big sister was Lex's hand squeezing Niklaus's before disappearing into the Georgian morning.
When Rebekah awoke the next afternoon, it was to Niklaus sitting upon her chest, the white ash-dipped dagger pressing against her breastbone, the tip having already pierced her skin. She gasped before asking, “What are you doing? What have I done?”
“There will be no more mercy,” he informed her, his voice unflinching. “If you try to do what Alexandra did, I will put this dagger so deeply into your chest, you will never walk this earth again.”
Trying to keep her voice even, Rebekah countered, “I will always choose you, Nik. Do you not know that by now?”
Niklaus pulled the dagger back, blood blooming upon the front of her night dress. “I have tired of the South. Gather your things; we are going to London.”
Rebekah thinks of that morning so often now, thinks how Lex took the last human part of their brother with her, curses herself for thinking Niklaus would come to love her as much as he still loves Lex.
She wishes she had just let him kill her then.
* * *
During the First World War, they had spent their time in Europe, feasting on the plentiful bodies available for the taking. Once, when Rebekah was indulging herself in Germany, she looked up from her soldiers to see Katerina standing in the moonlight, her face smeared with blood, terror and panic on her familiar face. If she wanted to permanently seal her allegiance to Niklaus, all Rebekah would have to do was easily catch the first doppelganger, deliver her for her punishment; instead she wiped at the blood on her mouth and very deliberately turned her back to Katerina, allowing her time to flee.
They were staying in a little flat in Paris a few months after peace had been declared. It was nowhere near the opulence they usually lived in, but Rebekah liked it, thought it had character; Niklaus thought she was being sentimental for a life she had never lead, and she told him he was more than welcome to stay somewhere else.
He didn't, of course; she was never allowed too far out of his sight.
She was chin deep in the claw foot tub, a jazz record playing in the background, when Niklaus sauntered into the apartment, shedding his overcoat and boots. He sat on the rim of the tub, stirring the water with his fingers, before drawling, “You seem unhappy, love.”
“There is no fun to be had here,” she complained, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the tub, letting her eyes close. “Everything here is how it has been for the past thousand years, and I am bored.”
“Such a petulant child,” Niklaus chastised playfully, running an affectionate hand over her features. “How is it possible that you have lived for a millennium and still sound like the little girl who chased me through the gardens?”
Opening her eyes, she retorted, “Possibly because my brother still treats me as if I am a little girl chasing him through the gardens.”
“Everything I do is to protect you, Bex,” Niklaus swore. “With him constantly following us - “
“I know,” she interrupted, “but we have not seen him in thirty years. I want to have some fun, Nik. Remember fun?”
Resting his head on the porcelain, Niklaus snickered. “You are positively infuriating.”
“I learned from the best.”
After a moment, he sighed, dipping his fingers back into the water, tracing the circle of her knee lazily. “And what sounds fun, dear Rebekah?”
“Chicago,” she answered immediately. Seeing Niklaus wrinkle his nose in distaste, she sat up, leaning in enticingly. “Think of it, Nik: flappers, jazz, Prohibition, people who can go missing without report for fear of the law. You and I both know nothing sweetens the blood like decadence and sin.”
“Chicago,” Niklaus echoed. “Is this what you really want?”
Rebekah instantly nodded.
“Then you shall have what you want.” He leaned forward, brushed a kiss against her lips, before rising and shedding his clothes. As he sank into the water, he declared, “We shall leave for America in the morning.”
Rebekah wonders now how differently everything would have ended up if she had selected some other city, some other place to find her fun.
She should have known better than anyone fun always came with a higher price than she liked to pay.
* * *
There had been a lot of men over the years. She went through phases, selecting particular types, varying up her choices; there had been a decade where she only dated men who spoke Portuguese and another when she only dated men who would deliberately piss off Niklaus. Rebekah had always known that her brother would never allow her to turn a human into a companion, so she never fell in love; love was a luxury, and Rebekah's life had no room for luxuries.
But Stefan was already a vampire, and there was something about him which awakened something in Rebekah she thought was gone forever, lost sometime between the dissolution of her family and her chain-less imprisonment to Niklaus.
She was in love with Stefan Salvatore, and Rebekah knew Niklaus wasn't going to stand for it.
“He's a child, Bex,” Niklaus sneered after their first meeting. “Barely eighty-years-old, hardly subtle or able to able to cover his tracks. What do you possibly see in him?”
“Why does it matter?” she snapped, wrenching off her headband, ripping the pins from her hair. “You have never given a damn who I fuck. Why start now?”
Eyes darkening, he retorted, “Because you usually fuck drug-addled poets and poor excuses for adventurers. When you start bringing home sloppy rippers, it affects me.”
“And that is what matters, isn't it?” she growled, throwing her heels at him, narrowly missing his shoulder. “Who cares about my happiness or what I want? It has always been and will always be about you!”
“Are you out of your mind?” Niklaus shouted as he caught the heavy, brass paperweight she chucked.
“No, I am finally in my right mind, and you are going to ruin everything!”
Later, as she lied in bed in her slip and stockings, Rebekah thought of her other brothers, of the four men who had always treated her kindly, who had never raised their voices or their hands to her; Lex might have been Niklaus's favorite sister, but Rebekah often thought Elijah preferred her, had thought her three other brothers like her easy way compared to Lex's single-minded devotion to Nik. Somewhere Elijah and Lex roamed unencumbered by Niklaus, without the threat of their father's rage coming in the form of wooden bullets and punishment for what had happened to their mother, and Rebekah wondered what it would be like to be truly free, to go somewhere with Stefan and be someone else entirely.
Sometimes she watched the schoolgirls who hung around Stefan's apartment. She had only been seventeen when the curse had been laid upon her, the same age Stefan was stopped at; maybe they could go to a new town, she could be a schoolgirl and Stefan could carry her books to class. Maybe she could teach Stefan how to cover his tracks better and they could feign a life together.
The click of her bedroom door opening made Rebekah reach for the lamp on her bedside table but Niklaus raised his hands in surrender. “I come in peace, Bex.”
“Leave me alone.”
Disregarding her request as he always did, Niklaus sauntered to the bed, climbing over the foot board to walk on his knees towards her. Rebekah flinched minutely as he slid his hand up her thigh, finding the clasp which held up her stockings and releasing it, rolling the material down her legs. “I do not wish to fight with you.”
“Then stop being such an asshole.”
Niklaus smirked with a peculiar softness in his eyes as he removed her other stocking. Pushing up the hem of her slip until it was over her hips, he whispered, “I hate it when we quarrel. Where is my sweet baby sister?”
“Is this how a brother touches his sister?” she could not help but spit as Niklaus's fingers bit sharply into the soft flesh of her hips.
“Those rules are for humans, and we are so much more than that.” Sliding his hands beneath her back, lifting her rigid torso off of the mattress, Niklaus nudged her face with his nose. “Will this ripper make you happy?”
Rebekah nodded.
“Then I suppose this boy - “
“Stefan,” she cut in emphatically.
“Stefan,” he repeated as he rolled his eyes, “is more than welcome to your company. If,” he quickly added, “you share.”
Rebekah blinked in surprise. “Share?”
“If you want Stefan in your life, this is the compromise. Take it or leave it.”
Begrudgingly, she declared, “I'll take it.”
At that time, Rebekah had thought Niklaus would get as bored with Stefan as he had the few other men they had shared over the years.
Rebekah knows now just how wrong she was.
* * *
She was in bed with Stefan one night, moaning with pleasure, when Niklaus sauntered into her room as if it was his own. Stefan hesitated mid-thrust, uncertain if he should continue, and Niklaus clasped him on the shoulder encouragingly.
“It's alright, brother. I just want to watch.”
Rebekah saw the moment of indecision flicker over Stefan's face, and terror began to trickle through her veins at the possibilities of what Niklaus would do if Stefan disobeyed. She clenched tightly around Stefan, drawing a gasp from his chest. Niklaus smiled as Stefan resumed the steady rhythm of his hips, dropping suckling kisses against the curve of her neck.
Rebekah wanted to focus on Stefan, wanted to find the connection she craved so desperately when they were together, but all she could do was stare at Nik, smirking from the wing back chair in the corner, blowing her a kiss as Stefan climaxed, burying himself to the hilt inside of her, moaning her name like a prayer.
“Better finish our girl. She hates to be left wanting.”
Stefan dutifully slipped his hand between her bodies, his fingers brushing against her swollen clit; it took only a few strokes to send her body over the edge, but Rebekah drew no pleasure from it, not while Nik was crossing the room to the bed, twisted satisfaction on his features.
Niklaus lifted Stefan's hand to his mouth, licking her fluids from the pads of Stefan's fingers. Rebekah recoiled from the action, but Stefan's eyes widened in surprise and she could feel him throb inside of her, his erection returning. As Niklaus lowered his mouth to Stefan's, the two meeting ferociously above her, Rebekah closed her eyes, resisting the impulse to start to cry.
Niklaus had always ruined everything.
Rebekah still doesn't know why she forgot that little detail.
* * *
If she was honest, Rebekah had always known it would end that way. Once Niklaus started planting daggers in their siblings, in their mother, Rebekah knew there was no going back. And then, with the implosion of his relationship with Elijah and Lex's defection, she should have known eventually she would meet a similar fate.
Part of her had hoped that a thousand years of perfect loyalty, that one hundred years of absolute solitude playing every role Nik required her to play, would earn her some type of mercy, some type of relief.
Rebekah was an idiot for ever thinking Niklaus saw her as anything more than something to control.
It was her last thought before the dagger pierced her heart.
It is the first thought she has when she wakes up.
* * *
As she climbs out of the coffin, Rebekah sees the warehouse worker, who kindly offers up his carotid artery. She tears into him with more savagery than is her usual style, but she has never been so ravenous in her entire life. When she has dropped his corpse to the ground, she begins to look for a clue as to when she is.
The worker has a device in his pocket unlike anything Rebekah has ever seen. She bumps a button and it lights up, revealing the time and a date: September 29, 2011.
She has been dead for almost a century. The rage is so sharp, her teeth become fangs without her willing it to happen, the first time they have done so since the change.
When she sees the other coffins, Rebekah instantly knows it must have been Niklaus who woke her, Niklaus who needs something from her. Betrayal and fury war for top billing in her body, but revenge wins out; with a chuckle, Rebekah opens the first coffin, finding her mother, dead since William the Conqueror reigned; she jerks the dagger out of her body and lays it neatly on her mother's chest before closing the coffin. She does the same with the next three, freeing the brothers she lost so long ago, she barely remembers the sound of their voices.
When Rebekah reaches the last coffin, she pauses; there is no doubt in her mind that her father is not inside. There is no way Niklaus was ever able to best him, and that makes Rebekah grin. But it also means either Elijah or Alexandra is inside, and she isn't sure which dead sibling will bother her more. Bracing herself, she lifts the lid and whimpers at the sight of Elijah, withered and still. She cannot imagine the circumstances under which Niklaus could have bested Elijah, but it literally hurts her heart to see Elijah, always so strong and steadfast, in this box.
Rebekah is gentler in removing Elijah's dagger. Using the damned knife, she carves into the inside lid very basic instructions: Find Lexi. Save me. Kill Nik. Love, Bex
She hears footsteps approaching and Rebekah quickly closes Elijah's casket before slipping into the shadows with the dagger. It will not kill Niklaus, but it will hurt him like hell.
And if there is one thing Rebekah wants more than anything else in the world, it is to make Nik hurt.
She will burn the world to make it happen.