no affliation to tvd/the originals

Chapter 7:

The First Touch

"Humanity is a crazy contradiction. I accept us for who we are. We're not that great. Every time we take a step forward we go back to the same primitive behaviour. We're meant to be this way. It's not our faults, it's just who we are."

- Colin Quinn

She had been sitting on her bedroom floor, slaving over these texts and tomes and for what? To be met with the same, repetitive information again and again. It was introduced to her again and again in multiple books by different authors and presented to her as exclusive information on the mythological figure, Silas. Scarlett was growing, quite frankly, sick of reading about how Silas became immortal by betraying somebody who had loved him dearly.

It reminded her too greatly of her own past and it took everything for her to remind herself that she was not Silas. She hadn't faked any loved for her own benefit. She hadn't pretended anything. Everything had been ripped away from her and it had not been her own doing. It had not been her fault and she knew it in her heart.

Her brain, on the other hand, was still unsure about that after so many years. It still ignited the worst of her panic attacks which she had never been able control. No breathing technique or memory exercise had been able to help her once one of her panic attacks began.

She had lost track of how many stories she had read that day, but this was the third time in the last three hours that tears had begun to fall down her face. Yet she trekked through the story until it was finished and then stood and paced her room, trying to calm her nerves.

She needed a cup of tea. Yes, that's what she needed.

She stepped outside of her room only to jump when her door opened without warning.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, wiping the tears off of her face and continuing her walk to her tiny kitchen. "Come to stake me again?"

Kol squinted his eyes and took a seat at her table. He didn't even bother with acknowledging the broken chair in the corner of the room.

"If you keep at it with that attitude, I will."

She had been crying when he walked in. She had tried to pretend by cleaning her face, but her demeanor was shaky and it lack the typical fire. Usually she almost seemed as if she were truly a living being, but right now she was very obviously a shell of herself. She hadn't even demanded to know why he had appeared all of the sudden. She had posed it as a question when any other day she would have demanded the answer.

Wait, why did he care? Why was he analyzing her? Because if she was emotional, she was unstable and that wasn't a good sign for him. Yes, that was a good reason. That explained why he was taking a measured precaution in how he spoke to her. It was for his benefit and not because he cared for her wellbeing.

Yet there was a small fraction of his heart that almost longed to console her and ask her what was wrong. There was a strike of genuine care and concern that frightened him. His heart – his hardened heart felt for her like an old habit that you couldn't quite curb, but his head reminded him to bury it deep below the surface.

"Do you want tea?" she asked, plugging in her kettle. "I substitute sugar with blood."

"Quite the change from yesterday, I see," he remarked bitterly. "Which reminds me of why I'm here."

"So you do plan on killing me."

Why was she so nonchalant about everything? It was bothering him and poking at his nerves. He'd be a liar if he didn't say that he enjoyed the fight in her. Half of the fun was getting her riled up, but there was nothing right now. Was this her when no one was around? Because if it was, her acting skills were superb.

Kol came here expecting a fight and maybe a stake through someone's body, but it apparently was just him.

"Wish I could, but I want to know what that witch told you yesterday."

"Ah," Scarlett said, pouring the hot water into her cup. She then reached over and pulled a fresh bag of blood from her fridge. She went on speaking as she poured some of it into her tea. "I guess you were listening. Which parts did you hear?"

"Aside from your insistent moaning, not much considering little Gilbert made us leave before I could."

"Now why should I tell you then?"

"You're the one who asked me for help, love. I'm simply accepting your request."

"Fair enough."

That caught Kol off-guard. He stared at her curiously. There was nothing in her. Her eyes were dead though they tried to convey emotion that wasn't there. The only semblance to the person she usually came off as was the dry responses, but even that was only a fraction of the responses he could elicit from her. She wasn't angry. She was just… sad, bordering on pathetic and Kol almost pitied her.

"There's a cult on the outskirts of town," she explained, sipping her tea. "They worship Silas. I thought they might be able to provide with information I might need, but I haven't been able to stake out the place they meet at yet and I don't feel like going in blind."

"I see," he muttered. He thought on it for a moment before speaking again. "I'll offer my assistance."

"On what conditions?"

"Little Gilbert," he said with a bemused smirk on his face. "I'll help you, but in exchange, you have to keep your pretty little mouth shut."

Scarlett considered it carefully. Was she willing to give up her leverage against him? Was her desperation that great that she would give up all power she had going for her?

"Let's sweeten the deal," she said, straightening her posture. "The way I'm seeing this is that you're getting all the benefits here and that's not fair, is it? We both benefit from taking care of this Silas business, but only I have a restriction. We put aside our differences to figure out this mess and I won't tell Jeremy anything about his dear friend Kol. In exchange, you have to give up on your petty revenge against me. Not forever. Just until this is all over."

He sized her up, leaning back in his chair. She could see that he was taking the offer with a grain of salt, but he was still taking it.

"Fine," he eventually said, and she could almost see the pain it caused him to agree to not causing her pain.

Scarlett put her cup of tea on the counter and walked toward him. He stared at her oddly, ready to fight back if need be.

When she raised her hand to shake his as a sign of truce, he didn't know how to take it. He was just watching her with a suspicious curiosity.

"I'm not Elijah," he said, pushing her hand away.

"I'm not saying you are, but it's a comforting thought knowing I have your word on this."

Again she extended her hand toward him and, though it took a minute, she watched with a small amount of joy and accomplishment as he took her hand in his. And it struck her then that this was the first time in centuries that they had touched in a way that wasn't meant to inflict harm against the other. It felt forced and strained, but it was better than breaking each other's fingers for pleasure.

She could see the moment where Kol recognized that as well and not only a half a second later did he withdraw his hand and get up to leave.

"We leave tomorrow morning," he announced. "I want to get this fucking done with."

They had circled the building three times and walked around the inside for hours on in. It felt like they had inspected every crevice.

Kol and Scarlett might have agreed to a temporary truce, but tension had begun to run high as they climbed a metal staircase to the second level of the warehouse. They could only take each other for so long before they were both ready to rip the other's throat out at any given moment.

"I'm beginning to doubt that your source wasn't reliable."

"Again with the underestimation of my abilities, Kol. Don't you remember how good I was at getting what I wanted when I was human?"

"Darling, I'm very much aware of how whiny you were and still are."

"Funny. You never complained about how whiny I could be when I was begging for more."

"I'm sure Elijah didn't either."

Scarlett turned on her heel, facing Kol. She was ready to push him down the stairs. She was sick of his voice as he was hers. Even when they were on the same side they were arguing as if they were enemies. She took a deep breath, continuing on with their search.

"We're wasting our time," Kol sighed, annoyed.

Scarlett looked towards the window. The sun was going down and they would soon be cast into complete darkness. It had been their only source of light the entire day. That was when it clicked in her head. Their advantage now was knowing the exact layout of this building. They wouldn't need light.

"Wait," Scarlett said, tuning her ears to what was going on outside. "They worship Silas and that includes his culture and method of work. Look at the historical figure of Silas. Silas was a traveler in biblical times. Why would they worship him in a warehouse with broken machines? Caleb wasn't off by a lot though. They're in the area. I can hear them arriving."

"It's time to say hello then."

Kol tried to push past Scarlett, but she grabbed his sleeve.

"No, Kol. It's my call, not yours."

"You don't tell me what to do, love."

"I'm not trying to control you, Kol. I never was."

He pulled his arm away from her and went on as if he hadn't heard a word. He was all impulse and no control and Scarlett was thankful that she wasn't stupid.

She called after him when she drew closer to him. He stopped and turned to her, expecting another half-assed attempt at getting him to follow whatever plan she had and was instead met with a wooden stake through the heart. He gasped, glaring at Scarlett as she pushed the stake further into his heart. She had had the stake concealed under her shirt the entire day and there hadn't been a moment where she hadn't been worried that he would notice it.

"Payback's a bitch, isn't she?"

Scarlett managed to follow a member of the cult and watched them closer. She was only vaguely aware of the passage of time and watched the cult from the trees.

While these people didn't come off as a dangerous and reckless, Scarlett knew better. She knew the lengths they would go to secure the resurrection of the one they worshipped. They were blinded by their devotion and that was what made them dangerous. They were zombies. They didn't know their own limitations and breaking bones to get what they wanted wasn't something they had ruled off of their list. They would put up a fight if they knew somebody was closing in on them. It would be twelve against one and she needed at least one alive.

Kol would be waking up soon so she had to act fast. He was going to wake up angry and if he didn't snap her neck, he would surely have no problem executing everyone here. Scarlett could understand that executing them would be easier, but it wasn't how she had wanted to go about this and she had known that Kol would never agree to letting the ones they didn't need go free. He would have gotten rid of them without hesitation.

Scarlett approached the edge of the clearing and stood there, waiting for one of the members to notice her. And as quickly as she had made herself seen, she disappeared. She heard the one she had deduced as the leader tell one of the lower member to find the woman. They were under the impression Scarlett was a potential looking to join them in their mission.

The man stepped through the trees and Scarlett watched with curiosity as he called for her. A few more steps and it would be safe for her to grab him. That was all she needed. This was just a waiting game. She would drink from him until he was weak and then take him to her home for questioning. Nobody had to die this way.

The man took another cautious step forward and Scarlett went for it. She was within arm's reach when she was thrown and her body hit a tree.

"Payback's a bitch, isn't she?" Kol said, echoing back her words from earlier. He held the man roughly, pulling his head to the side. Scarlett watched as Kol sank his teeth into the man's neck and very literally drained the very life from him.

Scarlett got up despite the pain coursing through her body. The idiot was going to ruin everything. He had already massacred half of the group by the time she managed to grab a woman in her attempts to run away from the growing blood bath. The woman kicked and screamed, but it was no use. All it took was one hard blow to the head to knock her out and she couldn't put up a fight anymore.

"Is this what you were trying to prevent, darling?!" Kol said as he drained another member and moved onto the next. There were only four members left alive including the one Scarlett was holding. "This didn't have to get so messy."

"You would have killed them all anyways!"

With a distinct snap, the man Kol caught was dead. Three left and he was already onto the next one with his hand in the man's chest.

"We are vampires, love. We were meant to kill. Do you not remember your first kill? The thrill of knowing you were the one solely in control of whether they lived or died? That thrill never does die down."

They were down to two left as Kol dropped a bloody heart on the ground and began to approach a man frozen in terror. Kol's eyes were red and his veins were protruding on his face. He was covered in blood that wasn't his own. This was Kol. This was who he was and nobody could push those parts of him away for long.

When Scarlett was human, she was terrified of that part of him. She had loved the Kol who argued with her and told her about history at a first-hand account. She had loved the Kol that felt pain and wanted to be noticed by his family. The vampire part of him had never bothered her, but it was the violence and gruesomeness that accompanied her that had scared her and she had loved that she helped him push it away.

Now, seeing him as the unstable and violent person he was, she wasn't scared or disgusted. She understood it. She understood the anger. It was terrifying to crave the blood of others, even after 500 years, but she had already been through that hateful stage. She had gotten passed it and Kol never had.

"Kol, if you kill them all, they can't be of use to us," Scarlett said as he got ready to rip out the next man's throat. "You said you wanted to get this truce over with."

"And yet you were ready to stake me at any given moment."

"You staked me first. Now we're even."

He considered that carefully, but Scarlett was certain he would do as he pleased. She had prepared herself to run with the last survivor on her back when Kol simply knocked the man out and hoisted his body over his shoulders.

"We're not even," He said as he passed her. "But I'm not stupid."

ask and u shall receive

i had this done for about a week, but uni is a pain in the ass

thank you to everyone reviewing!

it's honestly what keeps me writing these chapters (motivation is gr8 that way)

- Stitch