Chapter Text
It was a bright day in New Orleans. But nothing could take the tension and despair away from a few members of the Mikaelson household.
It all started with Dahlia, because when did their family ever do anything the easy way?
After being daggered by Elijah and then freed by Dahlia to take his revenge, Niklaus Mikaelson daggered himself, when he got her to link herself to him, so she could be free from her slumber, and will be virtually indestructible.
And, Klaus being Klaus he had a plan.
See when that nasty business was going down in Mystic Falls, he knew that he would need all the advantages he could get, and so he stole some of his mother's blood when she was sleeping. Nobody even noticed.
But against Dahlia it was more than enough, and so with his siblings he killed her...as well as Elijah's current fascination, that newborn vampire.
What was her name again? Gaia? No, Gia. Yes that must be it, though Klaus couldn't really care less about some vamp his brother met a few weeks ago, and was asked to teach her to be a vampire.
Honestly why is his whole family so sensitive? It seems like a waste of time and effort to him.
Of course as the hybrid he is biased, but that didn't make his statement less true.
All you needed in life is your pack. End of story.
And that's why, despite the fact that he very much disliked the little harvest witch, he helped her.
After all their goals aligned for once, and he was never anything if it wasn't an opportunist.
He failed Kol more than any of his siblings, and to his greatest shame, Kol had been killed twice, and he couldn't save him. Always trapped by doors, rules, expectations. Well, he is a hybrid, nothing says more of a fuck you to nature, and the natural order than a vampire and a werewolf living in the same body.
And thus, he helped collect the last items needed to resurrect his brother.
And be resurrected Kol was, as a vampire this time, though he wished a witch's body would be available for his brother.
He knows how much Kol missed his magic, the same way he himself suffered without the wolf for a thousand years.
And so they lived at the compound together. Elijah despite threatening to leave again, for the who knows how many time it has been said.
Honestly Klaus is a bit tired of this. His siblings first deciding to stay, then leave, then stay again. They should honestly choose now, and then live with said choice.
Well...except for Kol, his little brother could dagger him right now and Klaus would still be clinging to him in the next moment, he had been feeling like a failure since Kol died the first time (it says even more about his faults and shortcomings as a big brother that his brother died more than once and he failed to stop it, oh how he hates himself).
But anyway, the fact is that there had been some...enlightening conversations since then, and Klaus is more set on what he wants, needs, and has than ever before.
Kol's second death, (Klaus' POV)
I feel like a failure, and the disappointment that my father always said I was. And now...
My little brother is gone, again! And I did nothing! NOTHING! I am so angry I could rip the whole world apart and still wouldn't be satisfied by the amount of lives I would take, for they could never replace the one I just lost.
When Kol came back I should have looked deeper, gone after him, and protected him. Kol is a powerful witch true, but he was still a witch! Killable much more than we are as original vampires.
I should have done what I wished I could have every day since I watched my little brother's body burn.
No matter what came between us, I was always supposed to protect him from death, torture, and anyone who hurt him should answer to me! Nobody messes with us but each other and that is the most important Mikaelson siblings rule to exist.
You don't sell your siblings out to strangers, only a Mikaelson could harm another Mikaelson, anyone else who even so much as tries would get immediately ripped apart...then why didn't I rip them apart?
How could I have just stood by and let nature take it's course, and not make those disgusting fiends pay?
I chuckled as I realized Kol was right. I was never strong enough to protect us and, for him I didn't even try.
Finn was one thing, though it still should have gotten anyone's neck snapped like a twig, but Finn was.. I have more memories of Finn as a human than as a vampire.
Kol was one of us, despite how he insists that we excluded him, and he wasn't part of Always and Forever, his death still brought us all to our knees.
At least it brought me to mine. I honestly can't speak for the others. For how determined Elijah was to kill me for "dumping our family in the ocean"(as though my possessiveness and protectiveness would ever allow that to happen), he also very easily left us to our own devices, and run off to get away from us.
Then I guess that's Elijah, my noble, and righteous brother, looking good in his words, but then his actions later disprove them.
But coming back to the reason why we're here now.
I'm standing in the middle of a forest, and not just any forest. But the one from my childhood home. The trees are the same, and there are plants around that no longer exist among today's wildlife.
It doesn't take me long to make the connection to where I am.
I am in my own mind, and for whatever reason, there was also my wolf standing about 20 yards in front of me.
We just stared at each other for a second.
I sighed, knowing that whatever the wolf wants, I won't be able to leave untill it says it's piece.
I learned that the hard way.
The wolf moves forwards his head and tail held high. As he should given that he is part of me, as I am part of him, and together we are the hybrid.
He has fur as black as the night with some silver highlights along his snout, chest, and above his paws, and maybe a bit under the belly though I can't be sure by this angle.
That's when I hear his voice echo around us "Hello, Niklaus. Do you know why I brought you here?" asked the wolf, though it didn't make a sound, but by will alone it could communicate, and well I will always be able to understand him.
Be as he lay chained inside me, or running free in the woods for the first time in a thousand years.
If I were in the real world I would have scoffed and made a sarcastic remark, and with anyone else I would have. But here such things are meaningless, and he is the other half of myself and thus there is nothing I could possibly hide from him.
And so I reply honestly "Yes, I do, you are here about my failure to protect our pack," I said, ashamed of myself, even though he already knew that.
The wolf rumbled, a deep sound from somewhere within his chest. I used to make the same sound when Rebekah couldn't fall asleep, and nothing else I did worked, though it was always risky. I could always wake my siblings up, or worse mother or father.
I shudder at the memory of the later, but I quickly shake it off. He is dead, he has control over my fears no longer.
Then my attention goes back to the wolf "Yes, that is correct, you failed so utterly that our brother did not expect anything different from us," hissed the wolf, and I lowered my head.
His tone was not cruel but brutally honest. "Be honest with us both, if it had been Rebekah or Elijah you would have ripped hearts and anything else out that could be ripped, knowing you even things that couldn't be, so why them and not Kol? Our youngest little brother since Henrik's death," the last part was said very gently, almost like a whisper.
I did not want to hear it. I stood and growled at the wolf, I didn't much care that I was essentially threatening myself. Well, I was always my own worst advasary.
"Nicklaus I am not saying that to make you hate yourself even more than you already do, but so you can stop making all the same mistakes. You must resurrect Kol, and make sure our packmate knows deep in his bones that come thick or thin he won't be abandoned. And there will be nothing that stands in our way from making that happen. Kol deserves that care and you deserve that closure."
I thought about that, and slowly nodded.
It's not that I didn't agree, I just knew it wasn't going to be that easy, but I never said I wasn't willing to put in the effort.
And Kol deserves at least that much, though I would give him the whole world if he asked. I knew deep down, that real family is the most important thing I could give him.
And so I swore on my dead brother's name, the one I failed to protect, and lived with it since then, that my failures in this regard end now.
And thus the plan to resurrect Kol Mikaelson began.
And so after Kol's resurrection happened, everyone was ecstatic.
Though none was as over the moon as Davina, and to Kol's absolute shock, Klaus.
Kol had watched his big brother do his absolute best to help Divine Claire resurrect him. And he was surprised, he didn't expect any of his so-called siblings to care about the death of little old him.
They didn't last time, and to be honesty he long since stopped expecting any different. It is just how things are.
So imagine his surprise when he saw from the other side, not just his little witch but the absolute last person he expected, trying to resurrect him...and actually doing it right.
His brother must have pulled a few favours, and fast at that because something of this magnitude doesn't get done this quickly unless you bargain, pay, and blackmail, everyone who knows even the slightest hint of what you are looking for.
And then there was that nasty business with the war of the two sirelines.
Appearantly his death confirmed that to kill an Original is to kill all the vampires that they sired, what a shock.
Mommy dearest might not be the mother of the year, but she was protective of her family, even though her expressing it was...of the most questionable sort.
But she knew what protections were needed for the immortality spell, and what many vampires don't realize.
That their vampirism doesn't come from blood and death, but by the sire bond itself.
To break that bond is to essentially slowly desacate and die a horrible and gruesome death.
And so when Lucien, after realizing that he couldn't break Klaus' sireline without dying himself, and before the siblings could finish him off, with his last strength from the serum, he bit Kol.
And then all hell broke loose.
And in the end it was Klaus who finished him off while Davina held him still.
And then Klaus tried to give him his blood.
It failed.
Everyone began to slightly panic, and they all rushed home.
Unbeknownst to anyone, Klaus had a plan.
He was ready this time.
He swore it on his dead brother's name that Kol would not die again, or any of his siblings really without whatever that hurt them, killing him first.
And Klaus intended to keep that promise. Even if it took him to his grave.
Especially then.
Means he did a good job.
Or at least gave it all he got, and that is always enough to at least take the enemy down with him.