Housewarming | Nik & Elijah
Elijah nodded once. “New Orleans is as close to home as we’ve had in a very long time. He was happy there.” A smile lit his face. He loved to talk of traveling. “Perhaps one day you will take an extended trip with your young man. I’ve been a lot of places. More places recently, actually. Travel is so much easier now.”
“I love the thrill of finding new places. It never diminishes. New Orleans was a favorite. We spent a few centuries there.” He tapped his chair arm. “France was another favored place. Rebekah enjoyed it. I should take her for a small trip there again… Let her loose on the shops in Paris…”
His eyes met Nik’s. “That was a memorable meeting, yes. I’m not angry. He did what he felt was right.”
He
couldn’t even imagine what it was like going to places on horses. Or
maybe even walk for days to reach the next village. He liked the idea
of having woods all around you, it made him think of freedom, a life
that his wolf would embrace in a way that the human part never could.
“Never
been there – and I’m not sure I’ll be doing a lot of traveling. I
hate flying, I – when Ric and I went from Mystic Falls to New York
for a weekend – it was bad. He had to distract me the entire
flight. And now, when we visit his parents, he holds my hand and I
try not to die of shame.”
Actually,
it wasn’t as bad as the first time anymore, but he would never be a
fan of it. Never.
Nik
searched Elijah’s eyes for a moment, not really understanding what
had happened between him and Alaric – but he believed him. His
brother wouldn’t hurt Ric, that much he could tell. Maybe wouldn’t
have even before he showed up to talk to him. It made him breathe a
little easier, at least there was one Mikaelson Ric would be safe
around.
“Thanks…
I… I won’t pretend I know what’s happened between you, but…
thanks.”
How To Befriend A Werewolf | Gabi & Nik
“No, not a bit other than a few dirty words an exchange student taught me a very long time ago.” She laughed and shook her head. “Just hazarded a guess it was wolf-related. Wolf-moon sounds pretty cool. Very edgy.”
Gabi glanced to the menu and then to her companion. “I’m not picky and I’m food allergy free if you’ve got a favorite to recommend?” It was very obvious that Nik was in love with his guy and it made her smile. It always did her good to see the nice side of life when most of what she reported was so…. hateful. “He sounds wonderful. You sound lucky.”
She leaned in, feeling like she was being let in on some secret club. She snorted out a laugh. “I think I would too if I had an ounce of artistic talent. You put your soul into what you draw, yea? My mother always said no matter what you create, be it a meal or a child, she’s a dramatic Italian, you leave a little of yourself in it.”
Gabi sighed and said a silent prayer for the beast to be found and put down. “Waiting on that other shoe to drop is Hell.”
Nik
chuckled.
“Don’t
ask me about my favorite, I can’t decide. You can never go wrong with
the special of the day, Ric has this way of turning even the
most boring dishes into something you wish you could take home with
you. And I’m not saying that because it’s our restaurant. I keep
telling him to enter some of those cooking contest shows just to show
off, but he’s too busy creating new combinations.”
He
was lucky, there were days he couldn’t believe their lives had
turned out like this, it seemed like a fairy tale. And then he
remembered that he’d get to have his prince for the rest of his life.
“We
are, very lucky. And I think your mother is right, it really feels
like giving part of myself away, I’ve never been good at that.”
No,
he didn’t want to think about the attack, not tonight.
“So
if you’re not into art, what’s your thing? What are you interested
in?”
Big sister
“You’re both very, very protective…” She hid a smile about it. Obviously, it wasn’t always good protective, but when it was, she could laugh and smile about it. “Ah, well, you might be a bit nicer about it than him. The fights we’ve had…” She pointed at him, “I feel as if I should tell you to watch your language. Very odd.”
“Of course she won. I… won.” How confusing. Poor Nik. “I know the glare thing. I employ it often. The whine thing and pouting too. I’m terribly spoiled and like getting my way.”
Rebekah chewed her lip, thinking how best to answer him. “I get along as well as I can, I guess. Kol and I go back and forth between being thick as thieves and at each other’s throats. Nik and I, you call him Klaus, but he’s Nik to me, we have a very complicated relationship. It’s volatile, but still loving…” She let out a very undignified snort. “Boring. Elijah is stuffy and stoic and boring. No. Not always. And he has some very not stuffy moments, but he is the rock of the family, and I think looking after us all these years has taken a lot of the fun out of him.”
He
could tell that something between her and Klaus wasn’t as positive as
he would have liked it to be – he had just met her and already he
was feeling so incredibly protective of her just the idea that
someone might hurt her made his wolf growl threateningly. Maybe the
feeling was even more intense as it would have been if he and his
Rebekah didn’t have that strained relationship. It was like here was
finally the sister who didn’t hate him, didn’t want him gone and he
was going to make very sure they wouldn’t drift apart.
“I
have to get used to the fact that you’re older than me here. Not the
vampire thing – that’s pretty difficult to understand, but Bex –
she’s always been my little sister, you know? And you…
you’re anything but little. It’s so weird. But good-weird.”
Her
description of Elijah made him laugh out loud. He loved his brother –
both versions, even when the one in this world was still hard to
grasp – but she was right, he seemed so much older. From all his
new siblings he was definitely acting his age.
“My
Elijah, he’s… I mean, he’s always been calm, you know? But not like
him, we’ve done so many things together and yours seems like… I
don’t know, like he spends all his time inside, reading. Like he
doesn’t know what fun is anymore.”
Walk-Ins Welcome (Sometimes) || Open
Well, that explained the nerves.
Alice remembered what it was like, the first time. She’d been sweating bullets when the wolf had walked into the old shop, giving her a side long glance as he made his way to Todd’s station. It was stupid, because she knew she couldn’t possibly be the only wolf to exist, but that hadn’t settled the weird buzz of nerves in her whole body.
“—Ah, I understand. Just, uh, breathe. Maybe sit down. I can get you some water, if you want. I remember that helping.”
She stood and circled the table, slowly, so that Nik wouldn’t feel threated and leaned against the front edge. ”It changes from client to client, really. With vamps and wolves, I need to slow the healing process enough to keep the skin from rejecting the ink.”
“I use Eternal Ink, mostly. I mean, witches sometimes request something more natural, but that’s my preferred brand.” Alice bit her lip, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the desk. “For us, I mix a few drops of wolfsbane into the bottle…”
He
relaxed somewhat. She seemed friendly enough and she was obviously
trying to make him feel better – not that his wolf seemed
impressed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, his body tense as if he
was waiting for some sort of attack.
“It’s
weird… I didn’t think it would be like that. I always thought I
would run into some alpha and they would chase me off. Or, you know,
attack me because I have no clue what to do…”
Maybe
this was the moment where he could ask some of the questions he had
always wanted answers for. The problem was, he could barely
concentrate on what he wanted to know, it seemed easier to just focus
on what she was talking about.
“I’ve
smelled wolfsbane once, I think I almost passed out, couldn’t stop
coughing. How can people tolerate it on their skin? Isn’t it like
you’re burning your arm off?”
He
wanted that tattoo, if she could make it work, if she could really
get something on his skin permanently, then he would sit through the
pain and do it, but he needed to know what would happen.
There it was —- the beginnings of the admission he didn’t seem to want to make.
Meredith decided against playing the ‘I told you so’ card. It seemed a bit heavy handed and she just wanted to encourage him to continue on the path that he was already on. He deserved happiness —- he did. She loved him too much to think of him spending his life in shades of grey.
“You’re doing things that are out of your comfort zone and it sounds like you are happy to do it,” Meredith pointed out. There, still kind of heavy handed but hardly the wallop that ‘I told you so’ would be.
“And Tim…Tim was like in the early days of my relationship and I was blissfully happy and wanting you to be. I’ve apologized for Tim. I am glad that this guy is the anti-Tim.”
She grinned at his question. ”Come on now, I can stop by, Nik. It’s not like I am going to tell him everything I know. It’s not like I am even going to mention that we are BFFs. I just…I want to get a look at him.”
She
knew him too well, she knew exactly how to get him to say what she
wanted to hear. She didn’t say it, but he knew she was silently
congratulating herself, her expression said it all. And he couldn’t
be mad at her for it.
“I
could have just walked away, you know? And he would never have
known… I’m glad I didn’t. I don’t know what… or if something
comes out of this, but – I know what I’ve always said, okay? I know
I wasn’t really supportive of the whole idea, but now that it’s
happened… it’s not that bad. At all.”
He
smirked at her.
“Go
on, you can gloat now, I know you want to.”
Maybe
it wasn’t such a bad idea to give her the address, he was teasing her
about it, but she would never do anything to get between him and what
she probably already saw as his soon-to-be-husband.
“One
look. And you don’t know me. And whatever you say to him – just be
yourself.”
face to face | nik & ally
“I did that?” She frowned for a moment. She must have really wanted Nik to try to like this vampire. Ally though was wondering why she liked the vampire. Vampires were.. well, they weren’t the worst things in the world but still, a vampire.
“It sounds weird, I never thought that I would even like a vampire.” But then again, she was taught not to like anything that wasn’t a tiger. Tigers were the only ones to trust, and everything he told her was basically that she threw those rules out and did anything she’d wanted. She kinda envied her.
“She sounds happy. That she got to do what she wanted, live how she wanted.” Love how she wanted – even though she wasn’t sure how loving a vampire was possible. “Not that I’m not happy. I am. It’s just.. it’s a different kind of happy.”
“I don’t think you saw the vampire in him, you know? He was just a guy and the whole pointy teeth thing… you just didn’t care about it. I don’t think she could have done it if she was with her clan, though, you know? I think it worked because she was with us and she could do whatever she wanted.”
And maybe he sounded a bit proud about it because he was. He’d always been proud of her finding her own way and getting away from her family. It was something they had in common.
“How do you live? I mean, from what she always told me, leading a clan is like – you don’t have much time for yourself left. Is that true? Do you have a life outside of the clan?”
Dreams?
He didn’t ask it, she probably wouldn’t like talking about something like that.
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