Chapter Text
This is one fucked up dream—she? He? Maybe both, maybe neither. It’s not completely clear and not something they’re giving much thought to right now besides—they think, not bothering to move from where they’re sitting on the floor, dust around them.
Firstly, the coffin.
Definitely the worst part of this nightmare so far. Not only had they woken up in a coffin, which is creepy all on its own—coffins are for dead things and they are not dead …right?—they were surrounded by four people, two of which had climbed out of their own coffins.
The other two watched—one patient and the other less so—as they crawled out of their coffins, stiff and unsteady on their feet. Had they been the ones to lock them away?
But the thoughts had been swept away when one of the people had tossed something at them. They caught it, the motion unthinking, for all that the sudden stretch of muscles had been a shock all its own. Catching the second one is easier, for all that they almost miss it due to there being something surprising about the length of their outstretched limb.
The others had recovered quicker. Two of the men had passed out bags filled with a dark liquid and the others recently freed had drunk them down with relish, but they had only sunk to the floor, legs weak and lungs stuttering as if they were unused to air. With focus, they inhale, again and again, until it comes easy.
The others had ignored them, more focused on talking amongst themselves.
Second, they muse, is the pain. Their throat hurts and so does their head, an ache behind their eyes that is making thinking difficult. Like the mental equivalent of double vision, but each thought contradictory to the first, clashing with white hot blades in their skull.
The other ones had recovered faster after drinking, they think, wanting the pain and confusion to stop. Slowly, they raise the bag to their lips. It’s surprisingly easy for them to tear into the packaging with their teeth. Then the scent and taste hit them. Instinct takes over.
When sanity returns, their face and hands are sticky.
They had popped the first bag given to them, first with their hands, unused to having to control their strength, and then the second with their teeth. Half of them—old and tired and more than a little miserable—notes that they have no idea what the bags are made of, only that they are not woven or some kind of animal bladder. The other half—the one that knows what plastic is, and is confused as to why they’d think they didn’t—is more caught up in the fact that whatever had been in those bags had been the best thing they had ever tasted.
There’s no real way to describe it. It wasn’t just that it had been better than any drink or meal they’ve ever had in the past—although, for some reason, trying to think of the last thing they ate isn’t working quite right. Whatever had been in those bags had been delicious. Sweet and spicy and salty and everything, all at once. It tasted like life. Drinking it down had almost been a divine experience and they wanted more.
(Always more, some part of them despairs. Never satiated, never satisfied. Never mind the bloodlust—what bloodlust?—never mind the immortality—the what?—it was hunger that is the real curse.)
Ambrosia, maybe. Food of the gods in little plastic—what is plastic?—baggies. The two they had been given, after gasping awake, dust in their lungs and their throat burning, had sated only a portion of their hunger. They want more.
And maybe a straw, they think, idly licking at their lips. They’ve rather made a mess of themselves, face and hands stained. Empty plastic crinkles beneath their fingers as their fist clenches.
“Not one for table manners, is he?” A voice interrupts their thoughts.
They look up. And maybe the words don’t make much sense--it is taking them way too long to process, as if they’re in some foreign language that needs to be translated first--but that expression is pissing them off.
“Vil du slåss?” they ask the blue-eyed stranger staring at them in amused disgust. (Vil do what?) They have manners enough to attend royal courts—since when?—and not get called out on using the wrong utensil. (There are wrong utensils?)
The stranger raises both brows, uncomprehending—ha! Feeling’s mutual, buddy—but still sneers, pointedly eyeing the mess drying on their face.
You wanna go, asshole? This shit is delicious and she will throw down if he--she? Their thoughts are interrupted, grinding to a halt. They promptly stop glaring at Pretty and Judgmental to try and puzzle out why that thought had echoed wrong.
They’re not a she, they determine, standing from their sitting position. A quick glance down establishes that. At least, they’re not physically. Or even really mentally. But, they don’t quite feel much like a he either. The stranger’s eyes widen, just a bit, as they look down at him, almost a head taller. They smirk briefly. The stranger’s eyes narrow.
“Oh,” a girl with golden hair says, blank faced and the tiniest glimmer of pity in her eyes. There is something familiar about her, around the edges, like they should know her. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Another man, this one as familiar to them as the girl, says, “I will admit that I hadn’t either.”
Yet another man, younger than the first and just as familiar--they should know these people, something in them says--shakes his head. “Du har mye å ta igjen, bror.”
And that makes sense, no lag in comprehension.
They blink. “Kol?” they mutter. They blink again. The word had been automatic, for all that there is no true memory attached to it. Kol? Is that the person’s name?
“Finn,” Kol greets.
Who the hell is Finn?
“Do you have to do your reunion now?” the annoying one asks, glancing at the staircase in the corner of the room, past the group of coffins. He seems agitated. Antsy. But it’s quickly masked under bravado when he notices them looking at him.
Yes. They want answers. First and foremost: where to get more of those bags. Second: What is with the coffins?
“Jeg forstår ikke,” they admit, confused, glancing between him and Kol, hoping for answers. Or at least another drink. Both would be nice.
“Han sa at du lukter vondt,” Kol assures them. They give Kol a look. Kol only shrugs, smirking.
“Hvorfor tror jeg ikke på deg?” they ask dryly. Something is telling them to not trust that faux-innocent expression Kol sports. Perhaps their scrambled memory. Maybe common sense.
“Kol,” the blonde chides, rolling her eyes. “Ignorer det,” she suggests to them.
“Finn,” the one in a suit says. They look at him and he’s staring straight at them.
Oh. Are they Finn?
Probably-Finn blinks and suddenly the suit-wearing man is in front of them, hand outstretched. They want to flinch back, but they remain still, unthinkingly trusting this stranger like they have been doing so all their unremembered life.
There’s a an odd brush against the outer edges of their self—against some invisible barrier that Most-Likely-Finn instinctively understands to be the edges of their own mind, as disoriented as it might currently be—and then—
Words. And sounds and associated sensations. A quick flashing glimpse of unfamiliar but becoming rapidly so script. It’s like having too pictures, side-by-side. One blurred and incomplete, the other too-bright with crisp edges that feel like broken glass sliding through their brain.
A sudden influx of memories floods their brain, mostly of language and grammar--all of it only making their headache worsen. It also stirs up every other memory they have, like the mental presence had given their head a metaphorical shake, everything bubbling up past the haze of pain to the surface of their mind.
The balance shifts.
Suddenly they are Finn Mikaelson. Any other presence suppressed. At least for now.
“What,” he rasps out in English. Modern English. Which he already knew now knows, thanks to Elijah’s mental tampering. It is a little clumsy, tongue unused to it, but he manages.
“Something to ease the way,” Elijah explains. “Language has changed over the years.”
Years? What did that mean?
“You have been asleep,” Elijah explains further. He nods at an empty coffin behind Finn.
Someone please tell Finn that he has not been sleeping in a casket. Like Dracula, some part of him insists. Like who?
“How long?” Finn asks quietly, as Rebekah and Kol begin to squabble over who gets to punch Niklaus first. It takes an uncomfortably long moment for him to recall who exactly Niklaus is. But when he does, he understands their argument better. He isn’t sure what Niklaus has done to anger them this time, but he’s sure it’s deserved.
Elijah says nothing, but his discomfort is plain in the twist of his mouth. Eventually, he says, “I tried to convince Nikalus to free you after--” Elijah trails off.
Why had Finn needed freeing in the first place? Why would Niklaus need to be convinced to free him, of all things? For all that they do not get on, they are brothers. Family. And why is Elijah not quite looking him in the eye?
“How long?” Finn repeats, unable to muster up much sympathy for his younger brother. His head hurts too much.
“What decade did you say it was?” Kol interrupts, apparently done arguing with their sister. He’s not looking at Finn, instead staring Elijah down. Elijah meets him stare for stare.
Decade? He’s been asleep an entire decade?
“Two thousand and ten,” Rebekah says softly, eyes on her eldest brother.
And Finn…. Doesn’t--doesn’t understand. That’s not right. Can’t be right. Twice over, he thinks, a little hysterical. It’s 1114 2021.
“You jest,” he says slowly, even as the denial turns to ashes in his mouth. Rebekah meets his lost look with a pitying sympathy in her eyes. Guilt too. Elijah looks away.
“A century for me then,” Kol says, face blank. “And, what? Nine for Finn? Was it a nice nap, brother?”
Finn turns to him, helpless.
Kol smirks, the edges of it sharp enough to cut. “Right, you don’t know. You see, our dearest half-brother had us daggered. He’s been carting your corpse around for almost a millennia.”
“Nine hundred years?” the stranger mutters to himself, eyebrows raised.
“Daggered?” Finn echoes. There are two daggers lying on an empty coffin, but Finn has been stabbed before and none of those had resulted in a centuries-spanning coma.
Spelled, he thinks. They must be.
(Klaus and his coffins, the shadowed corner of his not blank with shock muses, a little bemused. This dream is odd.)
Elijah steps forwards. “I will explain later,” he offers.
“Yes. You will,” Finn agrees, numb. There is ice in his veins, for all that the fire in his chest is threatening to turn his tenuous control over his emotions to ash.
He is not stupid. It is only him that needed a new language inserted into his skull. Only him who had not already known of the daggers. Niklaus might have been the one to cart him around like so much luggage, but obviously his other siblings had only given the scantest of protests.
“Later.” Elijah vows. “But now? We deal with our brother.”
“Finally,” the stranger mutters.
Inspecting the dagger he’d picked up off the floor, its twin shoved through his belt, he checks the edge and quietly tsks. It’s dull. Does Niklaus not sharpen these? He must know how.
Wasn’t I supposed to stab him? Finn thinks, leaning against a wall and watching as his siblings take out their ire on their brother. Then the thought registers. None of the rest notice as Finn stiffens, a hand going to his head as pain flares.
Rebekah says something that has Niklaus cringing before he snaps back at her. Rebekah gasps in offense, even as Elijah tries to maintain order and Kol does his best to egg them on.
(It’s a familiar picture, for all that a part of him is screaming that he’s never seen these people before today. That it’s not real. That nothing is real.)
What? he thinks, pain spiking in tandem to Rebekah’s outraged shriek.
There’s a muffled thump, but Finn doesn’t look. Niklaus groans. Kol laughs. Elijah is a silent and disapproving presence.
A memory plays through his mind, a silent movie--what is a movie?--that shows him stabbing a dagger through the palm of his brother’s hand, bleak insanity in his own eyes. It plays from a point of view not his own, like a silent floating spectator had calmly watched as Finn stabbed Niklaus, Rebekah doing the same not a heartbeat later.
That’s not what happened.
Rebekah had stabbed Niklaus, yes, using one of the silver daggers, yes. But Finn hadn’t. Finn had hung back, still disorientated and mentally reeling.
“Well?”
Finn looks up, broken from his thoughts. “Well?” he echoes, perhaps a little wearily.
They are alone now, Niklaus and him. The rest of their family seem to have abandoned the room while Finn had been preoccupied with wondering when exactly he had gone insane.
Probably around when his own family had left him to the dark and the silence for years unending.
“You don’t want to say your piece, brother-dear?” Niklaus challenges, blood staining the front of his shirt and a strained grin on his face. “You've never hesitated to call me a monster before. Or has your slumber addled your brains?”
Finn only looks at him. Then hefts the dagger still in his hands. Between one second and the next, he’s across the room, standing almost nose to nose with his little brother. He taps the dagger to Niklaus' chest, no pressure to it, but Niklaus flinches like he had been stabbed instead. Finn watches him, meeting his eyes for a long moment.
“The next time,” Finn says, empty of emotion, “you use one of these on me, you had better pray no one takes it out.”
Then he walks away, leaving his brother behind.
Finn—not Finn? Their siblings think they’re Finn and they would know, right? So they’re probably Finn—wanders the too big mansion, half in a daze.
Daggered.
For centuries.
Not for days or months or even years. Not for a decade or two.
Centuries.
They’ve been asleep longer than they’ve ever been awake. The world they knew is more than just gone, it’s dust and hearsay. Their siblings are strangers. Even without the fractured memories—something they’re hoping will mend in time, their healing ability must be useful somehow—the rest of their family have obviously changed underneath their forever-same appearances.
They are—
(Wait, that’s wrong.
It doesn’t feel wrong, but Finn is a man. Male vampire. Whatever. Has been for all his life.
He is—
But that is…. No. Just no.
She is—?
No.
Finn is their name. It feels right. Kind of. More right than wrong, at least.
Calling themselves he, even in their own mind, is making their skin crawl. She is not any better.
For fuck’s sake—)
They are swinging back and forth between rage and numbness. Both bitter and burning cold in every heartbeat, like the organ is pumping poison instead of blood.
(Blood, it had been blood they had drunk, down in that cellar, surrounded by dust and the dead.)
Rage, because they have been betrayed. Because they trusted their siblings for all that has long since been proved folly. Monsters they all may be, but family has always been their line in the sand.
(But apparently Finn. Doesn’t. Count.)
Numbness, because they have been betrayed. Betrayed and then forgotten. Some dusty antique to be hauled around but never thought more of than an important piece of furniture.
And maybe the dagger through their heart had been through no fault of their siblings, but they have the right to blame them for never taking it out.
Because they hadn’t wanted to deal with him. Because they didn’t like how he disapproved of them murdering innocents.
When Kol and Klaus slaughtered villages. When Rebekah killed for no reason other than jealousy. When Elijah played clean up after their wilder siblings, no move other than to shake his head and sigh to show his displeasure. Misplaced guilt had accounted for some of it—for his part in cursing Niklaus, for holding him down for Mother’s Esther’s spell. But some of it had simply been because Elijah is too forgiving, had accepted excuse after excuse of bloodlust and emotional slips.
(Like being beaten in a game had been reason enough to eat the miller’s son and his family too.)
Finn had protested, had called them out on the monsters they were—that they are. That they all are. And they had only shaken their heads at him, like him not wanting to live out the rest of their unending atrocity of an existence as an instinct-driven beast was cause for pity.
And it kept. Happening.
Bodies in the streets, throats torn open, hearts torn out. Men and women and children dead and rotting for no reason other than boredom. Images of unseeing eyes, fly covered and accusing, stared at them from the murky depths of memory.
They can’t remember Rebekah’s favorite color, don’t quite recall the exact shade of their mother’s hair, but they know what a massacre looks like. Knows the colors that corpses turn after days of having no one left to bury them. Finn had tried at first. But as the bodies kept dropping, they had become used to it, almost. Desensitized. The dead had stopped bothering them, just another reason to shake their head and sigh.
“Brother.”
Elijah’s voice breaks them from their thoughts.
Finn looks away from where they had blindly staring at the wall. “Brother,” they say, the word odd on their tongue.
(They don’t have a brother. They have three. Very conflicting thought leaves pain behind in its wake. Finn is quickly becoming numb to it.)
“Do you like it?”
Finn blinks and focuses their eyes.
Oh. They had been standing, staring at a painting for the last several—minutes? Hours? Who knows? Who cares?
Elijah sighs when they don’t respond. “You haven’t given us your vote,” he says.
Finn doesn’t look at him. “Why bother?” they ask.
The decision had been reached without them anyways. Finn’s input hadn’t been needed. Elijah and Rebekah and Kol have already decided to leave, leaving Niklaus behind.
Finn knows it won’t work.
How, they’re not sure, only that they stay.
And Finn knows that at least some of them will die for it.
Later, they are proven right. They end up staying.
She is going to kill us.
It’s something Finn knows, as much as they know anything. The knowledge is hazy, blurred and almost out of reach, but as they and the rest of their family stare in silence as Esther Mikaelson, what the fuck Mother, in the dress she had died in, promises them family, Finn can’t bring themself to believe her.
For all that they want too.
A part of them aches to, to believe this familiar stranger’s promise of family, as lost and confused as they are. But there’s a part of them, quiet but growing louder every time Mother Esther glances their way, that rings danger.
Here be monsters, Finn idly thinks. And then leaves, slipping unnoticed out the door to nurse their headache in peace.