Chapter Text
Life is a nightmare.
Not, necessarily, in the traditional way.
No spiders or surprise exams or centipedes in your skin or falling because your wings won’t open and remain nothing but useless lumps you can see from the corner of your eye as you plummet, world blurring around you and sure that they should work but just don’t.
(Still mad about that one, by the way. She could have flew—in a dream, but still flying—but, no, brain wanted an anxiety dream instead, like the bitch doesn’t produce enough anxiety while awake.)
Finn’s still wearing pants, too. A little—a lot—muddy, but present.
(The mud is bringing back childhood memories about puddles and building cities and using buckets to make a brackish river run beneath twig-reinforced bridges. It is… unclear, just whose memories they are. Whose sister sat on the other side, tracing letters in the dirt.)
Life is a nightmare in a more subtle way. More of a—places and time dropping away, the ever present knowledge that something is wrong, waking to find yourself in a cold sweat, heart pounding, skin and eyes prickling as fear finally catches up. It is missing a step on the stairs, heart lurching. It’s previously solid ground giving way, safety taken for granted crumbling like trust.
(Reality is nearly too real to be real. It is… uncanny is the only word that comes to mind. Like finding out you’ve walked off a stage set—oh the irony—without noticing, right into the real thing.)
The race through the woods had been a dream. Finding themself back—not home, but back to the location their family resides…. Stepping out of the woods is waking. The sight of the house is what gives dread permission to begin to trickle in.
Which. Is a lot. For just a house. Not even a haunted house—no cobwebs, no ghoul in the attic, no boarded-up windows. The paint is bright and new; sunlight tints everything rosy gold. Not that, they recall their own condition of mortality and, more to the point, its lack, that the gilded veneer means that the house isn’t haunted.
The property line is….
Ugly, Finn decides.
Perfect lawn right up until the edge of the woods. Like interlocking puzzle pieces, except they are from different puzzles.
(Oh, hey. Look. A simile that also applies to their brain!)
Leaving the tree line feels like leaving another world behind entirely. They make that step anyway, one long stride taking them from dream back into nightmare reality.
Passing through the garden, its budding trellises and the bench Finn had become acquainted with, they find that Kol waits by the back door, frowning down at the phone in his hand. He holds it—oddly. Uncomfortably. Like he’s not sure where to put his fingers. His bow tie had been lost somewhere in the race. Mud is crusted onto his suit. It’s a toss up between what dried it there, time or high speed winds.
“It’s almost not even worth being called a victory,” he says, shoving his phone away to instead begin picking at the dirt beneath otherwise neat nails.
Shut up, Finn does not suggest. They lost fair and square. Even if there was interference-by-tree. Not walking faster, because there is no point—other than the face Kol makes when he catches on that Finn is not moving faster than a leisurely amble very much on purpose—they join him by the back door, just in time to catch a snatch of distant—agitated—conversation.
Opening the door, Kol informs them, “Our visitors arrived scarcely a minute before you caught up—finally.”
Instead of listening in, and maybe slowly backing away, like Finn half plans to, he strides right through the back door. With a longing glance thrown back towards the forest’s edge, Finn follows. They follow him all the way back to that very same study they’d gathered the previous night.
(No, they don’t know why. They really should have just ghosted up the stairs and found a bed to hide under. Or, uh, maybe somewhere more open. Like the roof. Cloud watching sounds nice.)
The scene that greets them is one both unexpected and one Finn is disinclined to like.
(They could be somewhere else right now. Watching clouds.)
The people are, as follows: Their siblings, who are, each and every one, for some reason imitating caged lions at feeding time. The two Salvatore brothers. And the doppelgänger. Who, for some unfathomable reason, given out of all the people in the room she is not a vampire, or even half of one, has the barest trace of blood smeared around her mouth.
(It is concerning. They are concerned. They kind of want to ask if she is okay, except then that would require speaking. Plus, there are myriad of people with senses just as keen in this room—surely it’s been noticed and surely if it was dire someone would have done something about it.)
Kol enters the room like it owes him money and he is looking forward to collecting. That is to say, he is ruthlessly confident in his approach, even if it is looking like they are interrupting some kind of stand off. Elena and her faithful guardians on one side, their siblings occupying the other. With relish, he says, “Throwing a party without us?”
If this is a party, then there should be snacks. A very small part of them, one which is annoyed at this happening right now and maybe just slightly hangry, suggests that Elena is the snack. That part is ruthlessly squashed, then forgotten about entirely as soon as Klaus opens his mouth.
“Your invitation must have been lost in the mail,” he tells them, very pointedly not staring at the dirt covering them. The rest of the room is not so kind.
Yes, Finn is covered in mud and pine straw and a more general kind of forest floor litter.
No, they will not be taking questions.
Especially not about them having lost a fight with a tree.
“Have you two been burying each other again?” Rebekah asks, somehow flippant and genuinely curious all out once, overlaid with some annoyed patina of exasperation. She is standing by the desk set up against the wall, changed out of her green gown and into a smart attire of jeans and fashionable top.
Finn will be taking one question. Finn will be asking questions. “No?”
Why is this a conclusion she’s come to. Why is Kol smirking? Did she say again?
“We will discuss this later.” If Rebekah seems at least superficially amused, Elijah is done. Except, when Finn looks at him, it is to find him staring at the doppelgänger, who—can’t quite seem to hold his stare. Elijah turns that look onto Finn and Kol.
“Kol. Finn. Have you had the pleasure—?”
“We’ve met,” Damon says.
Slightly less impatiently, Stefan says, “Look, all we need is—”
“Mother,” Niklaus says. “You’ve said. Though, you’ve yet to say why.” He tilts his head at them, grins slightly as all the attention in the room lands on it; an actor who has found, not only his spotlight, but an audience so frightened they can’t look away. (Drama king. Why does it look like he’s having fun, under all the barely-restrained rage? The look in his eye calls to mind a wolf bound by nothing more substantial than ribbon and knows it.) “In case that was too subtle: Why are you looking for our mother?”
“We need her help,” Elena tells them. “There’s something… wrong. With me.”
“You look perfectly fine,” Rebekah says, tracing a finger along the back of the leather-bound desk chair.
“She’s not,” Stefan cuts in. “And we can’t get a hold of Bonnie.”
“So it’s magical in nature?” Elijah interrogates. One could think him casual. If one also had the danger sense of an avocado.
(What is an avocado?)
More aware than the average avocado—what the fuck is an avocado?—but brave for being the most breakable thing in the room, Elena squarely meets his gaze for the first time. “Yes.”
“The injuries out of nowhere. It looked like an invisible car hit her. Not pretty,” Damon chimes in, cutting an exaggerated apologetic glance to Elena. Does he think himself subtle, with his step forward, like they cannot tell he is getting ready to get in front of her? No, Finn decides, taking in the way his jaw is too tense for his smile. He does not. He simply does not care. “But your mother was so gung-ho about us being friendly neighbors, I thought, hey, what if we consult our friendly neighborhood Original Witch.”
“And, as we’ve said,” Rebekah tells them, a smile on her face like she knows it’s a baring of teeth and she knows they know it's a baring of teeth, but is still content to play-act that they all agree what she’s doing with her face is something so benign as smiling. It is disconcerting. How threatening a best selfie ever expression looks. How is she doing that. “Mother is out.”
(There are lines being drawn, here and now, and Finn is beginning to suspect their side has been picked for them. Which. They aren’t sure how they feel about that. There is no real anger in them, at Elena. How can anyone begrudge a girl’s attempts to live? But they don’t particularly appreciate how, for her to do so, she is putting their family to the sword.)
“You are being dishonest,” Elijah says, stepping forward. He is better at hiding it than Rebekah, or maybe is just more accustomed to restraint, but he, too, is brooking no bullshit. “I can hear your heartbeat. It jumps when you lie to me. You did so at the ball; you are lying to me now. Tell me the truth.”
“She just wanted to—” She cuts herself off there, with a glance at Finn, then says, “It was a protection spell. It must’ve gone wrong.” Wow, she’s good. Finn would have believed her and everything—kind of does, despite. Knowing the whole of the plan, including that her blood needed to be willingly given. Something about magic and intentions and being bare in the face of nature. Finn will admit to zoning out through some of it. A lot of it. Most of it.
“As entertaining as this is,” Kol says, “Finn has already let that racoon out of the bag.” There is, perhaps, the briefest moment of confusion before horror dawns. “We know that Mother is trying to kill us. We know that you helped her.”
The room, after that, devolves into chaos.
Or, at the least, all the arguing and threats and demands are both unpleasant to hear and boring.
Tuning back into the show, commercial break over—somehow, they don’t begin giggling at this, though they are sorely tempted to—brings about an end to the peace they’d managed to scrape up by pretending they were a particularly deaf and frond-y house plant.
“You think your brother, is, what? Linked to Elena?” Stefan’s question is disbelieving. Finn doesn’t really understand why he thinks anyone would make that up.
They picked the wrong time to tune back in, they decide. The room seems, somehow, even tenser than before.
Also. What?
“An easy way to tell,” says Rebekah sweetly. Which. Really should have tipped the room off. Or maybe it is just Finn who is surprised when she lifts the letter opener from the desk and then quickly and neatly drives it into their side.
“Oh,” they say, “ouch.” And the words are drowned out by a gasp of pain. And then by more words, ones they do not say, but instead spat out by the rest of the room, accusations and denials and sugary assertions of simple curiosity and didn’t you want to know if your theory was right? You’re welcome.
They are a bit too preoccupied to follow along, instead staring down at the length of sharpened metal currently sticking out of them—that is—that is in them. That sure is currently in them.
It hurts, they are somewhat shocked to notice, though maybe less than they thought it would. Hands numb and vision blurring around the edges—not from blood loss but from the—the—there is a knife sticking out of them, that had parted skin and muscle and flesh, their sister put it there, there is a god-fucking-damned letter opener—
They pull it out.
(Wait, no, you’re not supposed to do that, right? When you’ve been stabbed, you’re supposed to leave the knife in—for, for medical professionals or something—except no, that’s not right, because they are a fucking vam—)
As they do, blood quickly blooms up to stain their shirt and—and, within the next second, the wound is already healed. The pain is gone. All there is to show for it is the bloody letter opener, red on silver and oddly elegant for it. Their vision is zeroed in on it, but they still hear—
“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” a man croons to whoever is gasping.
When they look up, it is to find both Salvatore brothers hovering over Elena, who is clutching her side. One of them—one of them, he’s a name, presumably, though for the life of them Finn wouldn’t be able to speak it—has a bleeding wrist cradled to her mouth. Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah watch, now silent.
Kol is watching Finn.
Their eyes meet. Kol smirks, except there is something wrong with the expression. It looks like it should be amused, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. They are piercing, dropping down to where the knife had been—can it be called a knife if it is a letter opener, actually—?
Mind blank, Finn stares at him a moment longer, then looks again to where the trio are still huddled onto the floor. Elena has been coaxed into swallowing. She straightens, stops clutching at her side. Eventually, with—Stefan, his name is Stefan, the angry looking one—with Stefan’s help, she stands, then faces Rebekah head on.
It was the blood that healed her, some dull-toned part of them provides. (The blood? Healed—?) Blood. She had been healed with vampire blood.
Why does it all come back to blood? The thought is near hysterical. The letter opener is tossed back at the desk. It lands there, staining correspondence as it does. Oops.
Dragging themself back into focus—better to avoid being stabbed again; at least it wasn’t a magic-coma-letter-opener—it is to find the room in no better shape than before. Heated words, threatening body language, double-edged quips that aren’t even that funny. Except, their eyes stray to—
That, comes the creeping realization, eyes locked on the blood staining Elena’s jacket, is a teenage girl. Bled and pained for—pride? Amusement? Some petty kind of revenge?
Their own side twinges, even as the wound is long gone, wiped away like—dry erase markers, like chalk on slate, like it never happened and never mattered and it doesn’t even hurt but something in them cringes like it does. They edge away from Rebekah, unable to make it casual, watch her notice, watch her roll her eyes.
It is her, Elijah, and Klaus the Salvatore brothers are focused on, but the occasional wary glare is thrown their and Kol’s way. New players in this game of theirs, unknown and unpredictable.
Finn gives their best attempt to look non-threatening as possible—contemplates smiling, realizes that would make them look insane, doesn’t, then figures out that their face has fallen into some manner of scowl whilst contemplating this. Kol, who Finn has already figured out was the kind of child to kick wasp’s nests even without a solid memory of him doing so, has his hands in his pockets and is watching the show like it’s for his own personal entertainment and he’s about to break out the tomatoes.
“Boo-hoo," Damon sneers, seemingly needled into giving up on even the pretense of amiability, "your mother wants to kill you. As long as he’s” —Finn thinks that’s supposed to mean them; they blink, acknowledging and accepting that they’ve somehow been dragged into this—”fine, then I don’t care.”
“Yeah,” drawls Stefan, somehow nodding with sarcasm. It’s an admirable talent, really. “That does sound like a you problem.”
“She wants to kill us all?” Finn says aloud, puzzled by their attitude.
“That has been established, Finn, yes,” Niklaus informs him glibly. “Even the favorite son.”
Wow. Someone’s not bitter. Finn eyes him. “She wants. To kill. Us all.”
Damon’s not even pretending to be anything but condescending. “Look, as long as you, and therefore Elena, are safe—”
“Vampires. All vampires.”
“What?” The question comes from Elijah. The rest of the room is seemingly struck dumb. All the eyes make their skin itch.
“Like dominoes,” Finn says, in their opinion, very helpfully.
It is Elena who catches on first, or is maybe the first to voice it. “Killing the Originals kills every vampire?”
(Smart girl. Have a cookie. Or, uh, perhaps some distance between her and all the angry Mikaelsons in the room would do her better. But, god, Finn wants cookies right now. Or anything, really, they’re getting kind of—... hungry. Fine. They are fine. They just need a roof and some clouds and maybe a new brain, that’s all.)
“The ones they turned. And the ones they turned. And the—”
“Ones they turned, yes, yes,” Klaus interrupts. The news seems to make no real difference to him, except—there is a gleam in his eye as he watches the way the younger vampires and the human are taking in the news. Ah, yes. He’s discovered a new pressure point. The expression suits his face. Gives him more than a passing resemblance to Kol’s weaselness.
“Was it not obvious?” Finn wonders. They may not know what’s going on half the time, but Esther considers the creation of vampires as a species a decision on par with jumping into a vat of dog shit, and everyone else in this room has a brain that lets them do things like sleep and remember things like their childhood pet’s name and doesn’t glitch out on them like that time she dropped her Nintendo and—
(See? Finn doesn’t even know what a nintendo is or why they feel guilty about abandoning their dogs.)
Half the room turns a series of blistering stares their way. Okay, maybe it wasn’t obvious. They hold up their hands—gets briefly distracted by how unnecessarily long their fingers are—in surrender. Then drops them, before they get caught staring at their hands. Speaking of hands, what do they do with theirs? Pockets? Leave them by their side?
Whilst Finn debates the best way to stand silently without looking odd, some decisions are apparently made.
From the other side of the room, comes a finger pointed Finn’s way. “You’re coming with us.”
“Me?” The word drops like a particularly ungraceful stone into an uncaring river.
“You,” Damon says grimly. He does not look pleased by this turn of events.
What a coincidence. Neither is Finn. There is a perfectly good, quiet, personless, presumedly-fine-for-cloud-viewing forest just beyond the yard. They can go and stay there, perfectly safe and fine and passing no injury along the link. So long as Mother doesn’t find them, freshly betrayed, or a rabid raccoon—can disease be passed along the link?—or another tree, which, wasn’t their finest moment and, okay maybe the forest isn’t all that safe, but—!
“You’re linked to Elena,” says his brother, who looks equally displeased by this turn of events, though seems willing enough to deal with it in the name of pragmatism. Which is. Good for him. But have they considered that Finn does not want to go with them? “We keep you safe, we keep her safe.”
“I’m enjoying the implication that they think they can keep Finn safe,” Kol announces. “Especially better than we can.”
“It is a touch galling,” Elijah agrees placidly. He turns away from them, and, without a glance back, leaves the room. Where is he—? But no one else seems concerned or nervous from Elijah’s wooden words.
Well. There is one person concerned.
Elena watches him go, face twisted into regret. She’s very expressive, actually. Finn hadn’t thought themselves particularly discerning, when it came to reading someone’s face, but she is the picture-perfect image of regret. If there was an oil-painted canvas out there in the world somewhere tilted the same, it would have Elena’s face on it.
(Elena’s face? Or another doppelgänger’s? Obviously Elena’s face is her own, but it is a shared visage, so perhaps some other version of her had sat for a sad-faced portrait, once upon a time. What a thought.)
“Should we wish them luck?” Niklaus asks the room at large.
“Who needs luck, brother?” Kol says cheerfully as a viper. “When they will have me? If nothing else, I’ll be entertained.”
Finn relaxes at that. A little. Probably shouldn’t, but…. No one’s ever accused them of making good choices. That they recall. It might have happened, but, given everything they know, most likely not.
“Oh no, this isn’t a two for one deal,” Damon protests. He is summarily ignored. When he realizes this newest twist of reality isn’t changing, he glares at his brother, like it’s his fault. Stefan, equally displeased, shrugs and shakes his head.
Klaus, turning to Kol, says lightly, “Then they will doubly need luck.”