SWEET CREATURE  / 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖚𝖊

✸

PROLOGUE: IN THE NAME OF ALL YOUNG LOVERS.

𝐼. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
𝐼𝐼. WHAT WILL YOU DO?

TRIGGER WARNING ✸ for character death & gore
(if you're surprised to see that so soon in the fic then hi! you must be new!)

please put your health and wellbeing in priority over your readership.
thank you !! x

2009, NEW YORK.

𝐼.

Call it a superstition, but he'd always theorised that a bad person had a distinctive taste.

He'd noticed it centuries ago and when he'd believed in some non-descript higher power, he'd thought it was the soul rotting from the inside out. It was the first man-made pollution, made as dutifully as the original sin, and he'd torn a blood vessel and watched it leach from the body. A lie they couldn't hide and a deceit that couldn't pass.

Sure, there were other indicators of a bad person that had led a bad life, but he'd always believed that the taste of them was the most telling. There was something about a life of treachery that made the blood taste richer, made the harm and the struggle more satisfying.

A human who had taken hundreds of lives tasted more far delectable to the palate than a saint. 

Or, even just a human that had terrorised one.

Maybe it was just delusion, he wasn't sure. He wouldn't exactly surprised himself with that. Over the past thousand years, people had believed far worse things.

Maybe, he supposed, it was just a noble man's desperate attempt to balance an invisible scale. But, either way, there really was more joy in bleeding the bad people dry.

This was one of those times.

He didn't blink until he heard a thud against the carpet.

It was a heavy thud. Definite and final, almost like the punctuation mark at the end of a very long sentence. There was a slickness there, a wetness too.

It was the same slick that made his shirt cling to his skin and his collar wet, stained his chin and darkened his eyes. The heavy thud made the silence sudden, scuffles and yelps of pain diminishing into one very final and very unceremonious quiet––

He let the rest of the body fall to the floor after unclenching his jaw from around what was left of his neck; and then, only then, did Elijah fix his cuffs.

He stared at the body and, not once, did he let himself pay attention to the voice at the back of his head that told him this had gone too far. 

He hadn't meant to kill the man. He hadn't meant to kill tonight at all.

But he'd had that feeling in him, a feeling that he'd felt in a thousand years only once or twice, and he'd been overcome by an indescribable rage. He hadn't thought and he'd just moved––

And it had felt good.

"Glad we could work that out," he said to the corpse, then he stepped over what was left of Adam Young.

So very, very good.

In his defence, he'd tried diplomacy. He'd tried the human stuff.

Friendly but poignant threats had been his first move.

The intent hold under his jaw, taking the man by surprise, forcing his eyes to his as he said the clearest and most concise words he could manage. That had been before he'd changed in front of Adam's very eyes.

He'd calmly told the man that he was to pack up and be out of this city by the morning. To just go and leave people out of their misery––

But Adam had scoffed, the sound choked as he'd burned through patience like a fire to a match.

"Go to hell," Adam had spat, and who had the mediator ever been one to refuse it––

"Oh," had been his reply, and he'd laughed too. It'd been the laugh of morality breaking down before their very eyes. His grasp had tightened and Adam's hands had grappled, eyes bulging, "You have no idea."

He'd grinned in a fashion that was genetic. No blood could have taught such an expression–– if there had been any point where Adam had known he was about to die, it would've been there.

A wicked, sinners smile.

"If I'm not mistaken," He'd said, as fear had festered in the room like the sear on a steak, "I think this is the part where you youngsters would say something along the lines of... see you there?"

He'd tilted his head and Adam's ego had flattened into something delicious.

Terror.

Beautiful, humiliating terror.

Now, Adam laid there in two parts, glassy eyes staring as he walked away. 

The head had fallen first and then had come the rest, sagging into the floor as a final convulsion staggered a dying heart.

Whatever movement he made would be forever trapped in the blown pupils of a carcass that would be feeding the fish in the Hudson River by sunrise. It'd be locked in between the vessels that had once gorged themselves on rage, blown from the smallest of disagreement and driven themselves bloody with the red liquid now staining the floor.

His footsteps were light, careful and soundless, although it wasn't like there was anyone to hear them, anyway. 

His calm demeanour, his frank disposition, the dark shift that had taken over his eyes and the way his face had twisted if possessed by an inhuman force–– Even the horror in Adam's eyes when he'd realised he was out of his depth.

It would all sink with the bloated body, like a secret, or some piece of information no one had been supposed to know in the first place.

And, on this rare occasion, he would enjoy it.

Humming to himself lightly, he turned his back on Adam's body.

He stood before the sink in the kitchen and ran the faucet. He washed the blood from his palms and from his face, and wondered whether the blood in his shirt would come out in the wash.

For a moment, he turned back to look over his shoulder at the murder scene, drying his fingers on a hand towel––

He paused.

Ah. 

Honestly, it hadn't occurred to him until Adam was dead that he could've just compelled him to go.

He paused and lamented on that as he slipped a cell phone from his pocket. 

Oh well.

His thumb slid against the speed dial as he crossed back into a crime scene. The person on the other end picked up on the first ring, probably knowing better than to ignore his call. A chipper voice answered, unaware of the turn their evening was about to take.

   "Tomas," He greeted, and he turned his back again, "I need you out in Brooklyn..." 

On the other side of the line, a male voice sighed in exasperation.

   "It appears I've made quite a mess that I don't think the NYPD would appreciate..."

A strained silence settled over the apartment as he walked around it, again soundless like the immediate quiet after the discharge of a weapon. He listened to a rambled reply, not particularly interested in any detail–– and, in doing so, he found himself studying every part of this room.

He looked over a few years worth of living and felt a new sensation pick at the back of his mind.

"No, forget the witch... this is more important," He drawled, stooping to look over a cabinet in the far left. His eyes flickered over the contents and he caught his impassive, guarded reflection, "I need everything clean. No suspicion, no hesitation..."

And he trailed off.

He'd found himself face-to-face with a photo in a cracked frame. Three seconds until the feeling had settled within him. Two eyes frozen behind glass. A smile, a dimple, a whole world of warm and sorrow–– One silence and the zero anticipation for the immense pit that swallowed his train of thought whole.

For that moment, all he could do was think of her. 

Violently and catastrophically her.

"Boss?"

A faded voice crackled out against his ear.

He'd faltered, visibly and audibly, air hitching at the back of his throat, leaving the call recipient to frown. He blinked, straightening his posture and averting his eyes, feeling oddly translucent as he turned away.

"12 Elmwood Street," He replied, audibly strained, "Above the CVS. Apartment 8b on the top floor ––"

And then it was the other person's turn to falter too.

Tomas, who had barely flickered at the concept of murder, seemed to freeze as he recognised the address. What a moment it was to stand there in that particular quiet. 

Somehow, it was harsher than the thud or the footsteps or the mortuary feel of a dead man's home–– it was the moment two men could felt the elicit fantasy of sweet carnage fade into the real.

"Oh," Tomas said.

(After a strangled breath, in Manhattan, Tomas imagined the blood and understood the magnitude of this carnage.)

Back in the apartment, he knew, somewhere out there,  Tomas was shaking his head.

The next words were strangled and slightly horrified, even for a man who had heard and seen so much worse at his elders hands:

"You didn't..."

The perpetrator of the murder squeezed his eyes closed. Tight.

He didn't like the way Tomas said it. Light and with a disbelief and dread that he couldn't digest. Neither said it allowed and he didn't confirm it–– he just let the static play out between them. 

(You didn't.)

(Oh, but he did.)

Tomas didn't speak on it again.

His grasp on the cell phone clenched like it had around Adam's throat.

"Quickly," He chipped out.

He hung up before the static could crawl any further under his skin–– he didn't want to think about this. He couldn't afford to think about this. He just needed this all clean and neat and tidy and then he'd move on just like he always did.

(You didn't...)

He just needed this all to go away, for Adam to become the piece of garbage in a cesspit that he'd always been destined to be. He needed it gone. Pronto. Laundered out of his clothes and the dirt wiped from his brow. 

This fever dream would be something he'd sweat out and never think of again. He would never once come back to the apartment on Elmwood Street and be tortured by the thought that there was always something he could have done. This would all be solved and this would all be smart and he wouldn't be stuck thinking about a waitress in a diner with an unassuming bruise.

It would end here and the story would not go anything further.

(You didn't...)

A clean, calculated cut––

But,

Amongst the phone call and the foundation of a long lasting guilt, he'd been blind to everything.

How ironic it was that this man, who had been sensitive to the very existence of her from the moment they'd met, had missed all of it.

He'd missed the soft footfalls, the click of the security lock on the first floor and the pleasantries she'd exchanged with a neighbour. 

He'd missed the polite conversation she'd had with him as she ascended the stairs, the light laugh that had covered her tired, the same laugh that had snuck under his skin months ago and echoed through his ears. 

He'd missed the goodbye, the see you later, the innocence of a woman coming home.

And then, eventually, he'd missed the bewildered breath and the lowering of her keys.

The confused dent in between her eyebrows as she realised her apartment door and been left ajar––

The hand that had reached gingerly push it open––

But what he didn't miss, and would probably never forget, was the expression on her face when she walked into a murder scene.

𝐼𝐼.

"Adam? "

When he turned at the sound of a sharp intake of air, he saw her standing in the doorway.

She'd said the name so softly, with such concern and such wariness, and then she'd frozen to the spot. For a heartbeat, they were two people staring at each other, trying to make sense of what moment this was–– and then the bloody organs between them pumped through into the next second––

And that's where the terror began.

Three seconds until he found himself able to process what had just happened. Two lungs that seemed to hold that gasp and let it shatter her from the inside out. One bloodstained killer and zero life in the eyes of Adam Young.

And yet, again, all he could do was think of her.

Her. Tenderly and tragically her.

Her eyes, her face, her hair, her form–– frozen, jaw slack, hair still up, fingers slackening on her bag. 

He dreaded that thud. He wanted to hold those fingers back together, provoke that fist–– he wanted to hold everything back together–– put all of the pieces into their place with his immeasurable strength––

And he couldn't say a word.

The woman in the doorway stared and stared and stared, holding her breath and he stared back. He watched her mouth carve its way into a silent cry, a nondescript kind of obscene horror bunch its way in between her muscles and concave at her waist. 

He couldn't be sure what she was looking at: Was it his head? Or was it his body? Adam was no longer whole and, with his current mind, his killer couldn't quite figure what was worse––

He ripped eyes away and the resistance of it was harder than dislocating the skull from the neck.

You didn't...

What had caused more harm? What would cause more harm?

Was it the face or the fingers?

Or maybe Adam's fist?

But... He did. He had.

"Oh, god..."

And if he had had to, he would've done it all over again.

She whispered it out, the innocent cry of someone who had never seen so much blood. The shock had rendered her almost mute, eyebrows raised, mouth agape and body trembling as she registered what was before her.

The impassive expression on his face slipped––

"Oh, god."

And again.

"Oh–– God--"

And again.

"G-God, I don't–– t-that's––"

And––

"Jeanette."

He hadn't meant to say her name. In fact, he hadn't meant to make a sound at all. She'd broken into a sob and caught in her hand and her name had escaped him like a death rattle. 

As her hand had flown up to her mouth, trembling wildly, he'd felt something in his chest twist.

That was the inevitable thing. Right there.

Just like a man's dying breath, he would say her name before everything came to an end.

It was the way he said it too; as her world crumbled to pieces around them and Adam's blood sank deep into his veins, he said her name like he was giving her a gift. Maybe he would've even smiled if his teeth weren't capped with blood. 

For a split second, he felt like a dog with a bird between his teeth, scratching at her door.

Look.

He said it with everything but words.

Look what I killed for you.

It felt like a lifetime before she saw him–– actually looked at him–– and by then, the devastation had sunk in. She opened her mouth and then closed it, tumbling syllables on her tongue.

By the time she'd digested the dead body on the floor, there were tears in her eyes and he was right in front of her. It had been the same suddenness in him that killed Adam, but now it was gentle and trying desperately to reciprocate the soft in her. His face contorted as he watched her up close, at the shock that paralysed her and the thoughts that struggled to form. 

He was right in front of her, desperate to explain that she hadn't meant to see this part–– that this wasn't the ending he'd wanted. He'd wanted to protect her. This was all for her–– he needed to explain–– to fix this–– to fix it for her––

She said his name.

Jeanie Gilbert said his name and, at first, he wasn't able to recognise it, nor the rest of him. 

"E-Elijah?" She said in a long, horrifically human breath, "Oh god, Elijah–– What have you done?"

　　AUTHOR'S NOTE ! . . .
if i had a nickel for every time elijah mikaelson murdered someone in the prologue of one of my tvd fics i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

welcome to sweet creature i think we're going to have a lot of fun together!

WORD COUNT ! . . . 2730
WRITTEN ON THE 29TH OF AUGUST 2023