Archive of Our Own ^beta

Blood. So much blood it almost makes Elijah woozy. It seems to surround him on every corner, its scent invading his nostrils, mixed with the smell of sweat and his own dread. And it takes every ounce of Elijah’s power to ignore a simple fact that can send him into panic: the blood is no one’s but his brother’s.

Elijah blinks, shakes off the idea and steps closer, trying not to let the paleness of Niklaus’s face cloud his already muddled mind. He’s aware of the medic fussing around the small space, exhaustion apparent on his features, muttering something about idiot soldiers getting themselves injured and the lack of nurses available to help. And if Elijah were more collected, perhaps he would have snapped at him to pay better attention to his bleeding brother. But the faint sound of his name grabs his attention once again, forcing Elijah to focus on Niklaus’s ashen face. This time, when he looks at Niklaus, the muffled sounds around him come rushing at him, and the spinning world suddenly stills, and he becomes painfully aware of Niklaus’s faint voice and the shuddering of Niklaus’s body and the redness of the blood around and of Niklaus’s pained eyes trained on him. Now the world seems to be screaming at him, and he wants to do nothing but throw himself at his brother and hide them both away.

“Brother…” Niklaus says.

“I’m right here,” Elijah finds himself saying, voice steady. When his bloodied hand reaches out to cup Niklaus’s cheek, he finds it steady even though everything in him is trembling. “I’m right here, my brother.”

“Elijah…” Niklaus pants out, trying to follow it up with something but seeming unable to.

“Preserve your energy, Niklaus. Don’t try to speak. Focus on breathing.”

Niklaus tries to speak again, but the medic approaches and shoves his fingers into his flesh. Niklaus screams in agony, and Elijah feels his heart lurch into his throat at the sight.

“Shhh, shhhh, it’ll be OK,” Elijah says.

Niklaus whimpers, his tear-filled eyes meeting Elijah’s. “My brother. It’s alright….”

Niklaus’s tone hits Elijah like a bolt of lightning. “No,” he says firmly. “Don’t you dare attempt some kind of goodbye. You’re not going to die. Not here, not now. You hear me, Niklaus? You will not die.”

Elijah looks up at the medic for confirmation who merely shrugs. “If he holds still he might survive.”

That’s enough for Elijah. He turns back to Niklaus, putting a hand at his brother’s face again, getting his attention. He tries not to think of the blood covering his fingers or what it means.

“Listen to me, Niklaus,” he says instead. “You need to lie still. You hear me? You cannot move, no matter how much it hurts.”

“I can’t,” Niklaus says weakly. “Hurts...”

With his other hand he holds Niklaus’s. “Squeeze my hand if you must, as hard as you need—Look at me, Niklaus,” he adds as Niklaus looks up in panic at the medic moving closer. “You will be fine, but I need you to trust me.”

The medic is doing something at Elijah’s side, but he refuses to break eye contact with his brother.

“I trust you,” Niklaus whispers.

“Good,” Elijah says, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Suddenly Niklaus flinches, and throws his head back in clear agony, his scream muffled by his clenched teeth. Elijah puts a hand at his shoulder to pin him to the field bed, wishing desperately there was something he could do. It’s breaking his heart to see his brother in pain like this.

The medic retreats, but Niklaus still looks pained, his eyes squeezed shut. His breathing is ragged, and his breath keeps catching in his throat. For a horrifying second Elijah thinks his brother might start crying.

A tap on his shoulder makes Elijah look up.

“Have him bite down on this before he breaks his teeth,” the medic says, holding out something in his hand, “or bites his own tongue.”

It’s a wooden stick with some fabric wrapped tight around it. Elijah swallows heavily for a moment as he looks at it, then focuses on his brother, trying to coax Niklaus into opening his mouth.

“Niklaus, I need you to bite on this instead,” he says, somehow keeping his voice steady, touching Niklaus’s cheek to get his attention.

His brother’s blue eyes fly open. He seems to be only half there, whether due to the pain or the bloodloss, Elijah cannot tell. Thankfully, Niklaus must have heard Elijah, because he relaxes his jaw and lets Elijah slide the stick between his teeth.

Immediately, his eyes squeeze shut and he bites down hard as the surgeon uses a cloth to press down on the wound.

“Is there nothing you can give him for the pain?” Elijah asks the man, unable to keep the desperation from his voice.

“We ran out this morning,” the medic says shortly. “And alcohol would just make him bleed out faster. Now shut up, I need to focus.”

Not wanting to keep him from his work, Elijah doesn’t speak up again. He watches his brother with helpless despair, curling his free hand into a fist. His fingernails bite into the palm of his hand but it’s nothing compared to the pain of being powerless while Niklaus suffers.

Pass out, he pleads silently, watching his brother’s face. Please just pass out.

But Niklaus doesn’t. His whole body goes tense. He holds Elijah’s fingers like he’s trying to grind them to dust. He screams with teeth clenched on the wooden stick and throws his head back in agony, but he doesn’t pass out, no matter how much the medic pokes at his wound.

Not for the first time, Elijah wishes his brother wasn’t so stubborn.

He sits closer, ignoring the pain in his fingers as Niklaus squeezes them. There are tear tracks on his brother’s face, and Elijah can’t bear to see him suffer like this any longer.

“Niklaus,” he says, leaning close to speak next to his brother’s ear. “You’re doing well. Just breathe, you’re going to get through this. We’re both going to get through this, brother. You hear me?”

Niklaus doesn’t respond, but Elijah likes to think his muffled screams are less loud, as if he’s trying to listen.

“This pain, this living hell, it’s just temporary, and soon we’ll go home. Do you remember home, Niklaus? Rebekah and Kol and Mother, even young Henrik, they’re all waiting for us. They’ll be so happy to see us again.”

Imagining his family makes him smile, and he keeps talking, ignoring the burning in his eyes as he continues sketching the picture for Niklaus. Anything to give his brother something to focus on besides the pain.

“You know how Henrik can be. The moment he sees us he will come running. He always did get excited, Kol as well. Like that one time Mother called them for dinner when they’d climbed the apple tree and they were in such a hurry to get down that Kol fell and broke his arm.”

Niklaus quiets down as Elijah talks, until he only lets out soft whines.

“Remember that tree, Niklaus?” Elijah asks. “Its branches were filled with big, red apples every year, and we used to gather them in baskets for Mother. Sometimes we would sit under that tree all afternoon and eat apples until we felt sick.”

He’s distantly aware of warm tears rolling silently down his cheeks, but he forces himself to keep talking, not knowing if Niklaus even hears him.

“The day before we left Rebekah baked us an apple pie. It was her first time baking it all by herself and she added too many raisins, but it was still good. You told her it was the best apple pie you’d ever had and she promised to bake another pie for when we returned.”

Elijah’s fingers throb painfully, and suddenly he realises Niklaus’s desperate hold on him is easing up. His brother’s jaw goes slack, no longer biting down on the stick.

After a moment of confusion, Elijah is filled with absolute horror. He looks at the medic, but the man is still doing something with a knife at Niklaus’s wound and there’s blood, everywhere, so he turns away again. Surely if the medic is still working that means Niklaus isn’t— That he can’t be—

Frantic now, Elijah feels at Niklaus’s wrist for a pulse, unable to hear anything over the rapid pounding of his own heart.

There! It’s fleeting and and not nearly as strong as Elijah would like, but he feels Niklaus’s heartbeat beneath his trembling fingers. Passed out. His brother is just passed out.

With slow movements, Elijah untangles his fingers from Niklaus’s, putting his brother’s hand to rest on the field bed. He leans forward, brushing some strands of Niklaus’s hair away from his forehead.

His brother’s face is a mess.

Sweat has mixed with the usual grime of the battlefield, to say nothing of the blood covering his cheek. Blood that Elijah’s own fingers had left there earlier. Through it all, Niklaus’s tears have left clear tracks on his cheeks.

Elijah wipes away his own tears with the back of his hand, then looks around.

The medic has a basin of water, which has already run light-red. Elijah takes the cloth hanging over the edge anyway, and starts to wipe the grime from his brother’s face. It’s soothing in a way, the simple act of swabbing away the blood and sweat and tears. To wash it all away, wring out the rag and do it again, until Niklaus’s face is as clean as it will ever be.

He’s so occupied with his task that he doesn’t realise the medic is done until the man nudges his shoulder.

“I’ll be needing that back,” he says, gesturing at the rag with bloodied hands.

Elijah swallows heavily at the sight of his brother’s blood, then hands over the rag.

“How is he?” he asks, his voice coming out hoarse.

The medic just shrugs. “Hard to say at this point,” he says, walking over to the water basin. “He’s lost a lot of blood and God knows these are hardly ideal conditions to be doing any kind of surgery.”

This does nothing to alleviate Elijah’s concern.

At the water basin, the man uses the rag to wash his hands, taking the time to clean his fingernails individually. Elijah tries not to be sick at the way the water turns even more red as his brother’s blood is washed off.

“But he’ll be alright, will he not?” he asks.

The medic sighs. “Look, mate, I took the bullet out and he’s still alive, which is more than can be said for some of the other poor suckers that get brought in here, but there’s always the risk of infection. You’ll just have to wait and see. Pray, if you believe it will help any.”

With that he walks off, leaving Elijah alone with his unconscious brother in a room filled with bloodied and dying soldiers.

Elijah sits rigid in his chair. Eyes trained on Niklaus’s hand resting by his side atop the rough blanket. Every few moments, he’d muster the courage to look up at Niklaus’s face, only to avert his eyes immediately. The paleness of his cheeks and the frown that declare his sleep anything but restful forcing him to look away. A minute later, Elijah places his hand tentatively next to Niklaus’s, lets his fingers fidget with the blanket. Lets the tips of his fingers brush against the tip of Niklaus’s fingers. Pull back. Do it again. Pull back. Do it again, only to leave his fingers gently resting against Niklaus’s this time. A suffocating silence surrounds him. Even as he hears the faint groaning of another soldier a few stretchers behind him. The occasional cough of another to his side. And the death of the soldier right behind him.

It’s been twelve hours since Elijah’s watched him drift off, falling prey to the blood-loss and pain that Elijah could not protect him from. Twelve hours and the only thing that indicates Niklaus’s continued struggle to live is the rise and fall of his chest.

“You know if you don’t make it back home, Rebekah will march into the afterlife to yell at your ghost for depriving her of the chance to bake you another apple pie, don’t you?” His voice cracks. But hearing something other than the sound of his own heartbeat, even if it’s merely the sound of his voice, comes as an unexpected comfort. “I’d make it out alive just to escape her wrath if I were you, brother.” Now his eyes are stubbornly fixated on a point on the wall ahead of him. “She would also nag me relentlessly about letting you—letting you go.” He hears a scratch in his own voice that he is quite certain he’s never heard before.

A moment later, his eyes betray him and he’s looking back at Niklaus’s face, a stab of pain shooting through him at his unchanged state. “But you’re fighting, my brother. You don’t need a lecture from me. Not when I’m helpless to offer you a hand.” He looks away again, letting his eyes fall on their hands again. His brother’s always kept his nails clipped even before being drafted, his fingers have always been somewhat roughened by his paintbrushes and his sculpting tools. And his imagination is suddenly gripped by the image of Niklaus sketching underneath the apple tree. Smiling and happy. He cannot place where the hazy image has come from. Cannot place it in time. But he snatches it and holds on to it nonetheless. Preserving it in the back of his mind, something beautiful to battle against the ugliness.

“My brother,” he says again, the words slipping without permission.

The silence engulfs him again. This time, the coughing soldier has ceased to make a sound.

“I don’t know if you’re up there,” he starts again, unable to take the silence. “I’ve never been much of a believer. You’d know that, of course, if you are truly up there. Or out there.”

He takes a deep shuddering breath. “But it seems I have no other choice but to rely on your possible existence. You see, I’ve never felt quite as helpless as I do right now. Never felt so incapable of doing anything to lessen my brother’s suffering. But if you do exist, then you’re the only one who can help him.” Elijah shifts uncomfortably. Notes idly that there are purple bruises blooming on his hand. Notes that he doesn’t feel the pain supposed to accompany them. “I’m not sure how to do this, how to ask you for something of so much importance. I’m afraid you’ll take him away to teach me a lesson. For not believing in you.”

Elijah clears his throat, realises just then that there are tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. He holds his breath, steeling himself against them. He will not weep. Not now. Not when Niklaus is still breathing. “But no. You wouldn’t do that, would you? They speak of you as merciful. And if you’re truly out there, if you’re truly worthy of worship, you would be kind to me now,” he pauses again. “This is the only version of you I’m willing to believe in right now. And I’m asking you, no, I’m begging you to save my brother. Please, please, please, don’t take him away from me.” Now his hand fully rests on Niklaus’s, gently squeezing, “I’m not ready to lose him. Not now. Not like this. I… I need him.”

He bows his head, closing his eyes to ward off tears.

“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

It’s a soft voice, barely more than a whisper, but Elijah immediately opens his eyes and there Niklaus is, his cheeks still pale and white, but the corner of his lips turned up weakly. Niklaus’s hand twitches underneath his.

“Niklaus,” he breathes, leaning forward, his other hand reaching out but not sure what to do with it.

Niklaus’s eyes are still half closed, and he doesn’t look entirely aware, but the sight of him awake makes Elijah happier than he’s been in years.

“Do you need anything?” he asks, finally reaching out to touch Niklaus’s cheek. Despite the pale skin, he doesn’t feel particularly cold, which is a relief.

“Mmh,” Niklaus says, his eyes falling closed again. It’s clear this is taking him energy. “I dreamt of you.”

“What sort of dream?” Elijah asks, wanting to keep his brother talking, if only to reassure himself that he is alright.

“You were telling a story.”

“I’ll tell you another,” Elijah says immediately. “Any story you want, brother.”

Niklaus gives a wan smile. “Any story is good. Your voice makes it hurt less.”

Elijah racks his brain for a story he can tell his brother, but unlike the other day, when the words had spilled from his lips with barely any thought, he’s drawing a blank now. Then it comes to him.

“Once upon a time,” he begins, and Niklaus cracks his eyes open again.

“A fairytale?” he asks weakly, sounding amused.

“Hush,” Elijah tells him, but inside he’s beyond relieved to have his brother teasing him. “You’ll like this one. You always did.”

Niklaus just hums, and lets his eyes fall closed again.

“Once upon a time,” Elijah starts over, and continues,” there lived a clever, young wolf.”

“Ah,” Niklaus breathes, and smiles. He clearly recognises the story, as he should. It’s one Elijah has told many times before, when they were both younger.

It’s a tale about a young wolf living in the forest, clever as they come, who ends up in trouble but always manages to get out of it again in the end.

Elijah had come up with the story to entertain his brother one rainy afternoon, years ago, and it had grown more complex and extensive with every retelling. Over the years other recurring characters had appeared. The wolf had befriended one of the noble stags also living in the forest, becoming close enough that they called each other ‘brother’ despite their obvious differences.

In every telling of the story, no matter what else might happen, the young wolf loves his family. And as for the stag...

“And so the noble stag decided to help the clever, young wolf in his escape,” Elijah relates, his eyes stinging as he watches Niklaus’s face. “For the stag loved his brother very much and did not wish to see him hurt.”

As he keeps talking, Niklaus’s breathing evens out, until it’s clear he’s fallen asleep again. Elijah trails off. He’s silent for a long minute, just watches his brother’s chest rise and fall.

Something in his chest seems to unwind. Niklaus is fine. His brother is going to live. Elijah’s breath catches in his throat. Now that Niklaus has woken up and it seems he will live, it suddenly hits him just how close his brother had come to dying. How close Elijah had come to losing him.

If that bullet had been a few inches to the side, if Elijah had been a little slower in getting his brother to the hospital, if Niklaus had lost a little bit more blood... But for a thousand of these small strokes of fortune, Niklaus would have been dead.

Still sitting at his brother’s side, Elijah puts his hands over his face and weeps.

Days pass, and Niklaus starts to recover. He still sleeps long hours, and struggles to even sit upright, but already he’s looking less wan, his eyes more focused.

Unlike Niklaus, Elijah hardly sleeps. He barely leaves his brother’s side. He only slips out twice a day to relieve himself and to get food from the kitchen that’s been set up around the corner from the field hospital. He takes the soup or stew—or whatever they see fit to serve that day—back with him, and eats on a stool by Niklaus’s bedside.

Several times a day, nurses come by with broth to feed to the patients. Elijah offers to feed Niklaus himself, and helps his brother sit up, feeding him with a spoon, or by helping him tilt the bowl to his mouth.

Even holding his own spoon is difficult. The fingers of his right hand are still bruised. They’re painful, and ache when he flexes them, and—although he is determined to never let Niklaus know how bad it is—the injury actually gives him a few days delay before he will have to return to the trenches.

A harried-looking nurse shows Elijah how to change Niklaus’s bandages the day after he wakes up, then moves on again. It’s clear they are running low on medical personnel this close to the front, because no one else comes to check up on Niklaus after that.

His brother is looking better every day, and it should please Elijah. It does please Elijah, but there is still something that bothers him. Something that haunts him every time exhaustion catches up to him and he falls asleep on the side of the bed.

It’s hard to see anything through the mist and gun-smoke. Kenner is to his left, Niklaus on his right, but even the few feet between them are clouded.

And suddenly everything is happening at once.

Shots ring out, from both sides. Elijah throws himself to the ground. Niklaus falls down in front of him. There’s blood on his hands. Kenner is down too. Blood everywhere, pooling around Niklaus, his whole front seeming to be covered with it—

His brother, heavy in his arms, and Elijah is dragging him back but he’s slow, so slow—

Niklaus, face pale, in the trench, meeting his eyes, Elijah, I—

The images come and go, until, with a sharp gasp, Elijah wakes up.

It takes him a moment to realise where he is, but as awareness filters back slowly, he feels warm fingers running through his hair. The gentle touch is soothing, and helps calm his racing heart after reliving the memories that haunt his dreams.

The fingers go still when he opens his eyes. He lifts his head slowly to look at his brother, who is looking at him in concern.

“Are you all right?” Niklaus asks softly.

Elijah stares at him for a moment, still feeling the lingering horror from his dream.

It’s almost too ironic for Niklaus to be asking him if he’s alright, as if he isn’t the one lying in a hospital field after almost dying days ago. As if Elijah can’t still feel the sickening warmth of his brother’s blood on his hands.

“I’m fine,” Elijah says.

He barely has time to catch the frown forming on Niklaus’s face when a nurse, the first one he’s seen in a while, walks towards them, a bowl and a glass of water in her hands.

“I see you’re finally fully awake,” she says, cheerful in spite of the obvious exhaustion on her face. “It must be a relief for your brother not to have to take care of you anymore. We’re short on help and he picked up the slack with you.”

“I’ve always managed to find inventive ways to annoy Elijah,” Niklaus says, a teasing glint in his eyes. Whatever he sees on Elijah’s face, however, makes the playfulness disappear.

The nurse says something about Niklaus sitting up further, then proceeds to take his left arm. Without thinking about it, Elijah finds himself standing by Niklaus’s right side, grabbing onto his forearm and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Lean your weight on me, brother.”

When Niklaus has finally managed to sit up, it is obvious that the process has exhausted him, pain contorting his face, his teeth biting the inside of his lower lip, but he doesn’t mention it.

“Thank you,” is all he says, tone gentler than Elijah’s expected.

The nurse tells Niklaus that he’s finally due for a real meal, the real meal being what would pass for a hearty stew in such circumstance, then scrambles off when another nurse fetches her for a new round of injured soldiers.

The two brothers sit in silence once left to their own devices. Niklaus focused on finding enough of an appetite to eat, and Elijah, sitting by his side, focused on slowing his heart rate. Now that Niklaus is alive and well and fully awake, Elijah cannot help his rising anger. It’s a slow build-up within him. Starting with a sharp burn at the pit of his stomach, climbing up to spread through his chest, rising further to clog up his throat, wanting to escape his tongue. But he won’t allow it. Not just yet. He would not want to be the reason Niklaus loses his appetite. So he merely stares ahead, eyes fixated on nothing in particular ahead of him, and tempers the sharp fire into a steady slow burn.

Elijah finally looks up at Niklaus when he hears the latter placing the empty bowl by his side.

“Do you need anything else, Niklaus?” Elijah’s tone comes out surprisingly steady.

“No,” Niklaus says. “Thank you,” he adds again after a moment’s hesitation.

Elijah rises to his feet, unable to take the stagnation of his own movement. He ends up pausing a few paces away from Niklaus’s dingy bed, back turned away from him, eyes looking up at the ceiling.

“Are you alright, Elijah?” Niklaus starts. “It looked like you were having a nightmare earlier—“

“You fool.” Elijah’s voice is calm and steady. He turns around to look at Niklaus with a blank expression, his eyes the only thing in him hinting at his anger.

“I beg your pardon?” Sarcasm rears its head in Niklaus’s tone, as he tilts his head to the side and appraises Elijah. Elijah recognises this look. This is how Niklaus usually receives his lectures.

“You reckless, impulsive, goddamned fool.” Elijah accentuates each word by taking a step closer towards Niklaus until he’s by his side again. This time, his eyes are merciless as they bore into Niklaus’s. And Niklaus’s guarded eyes flare with anger. “What were you thinking?”

“Not much considering the gunshot wound…” Niklaus quips, looking away. He attempts to cross his arms over his chest, but winces, the movement hurting him. Something in Elijah itches, urging him to help, to make it better. He ignores it.

“In what world would you taking a bullet for me could possibly be a good idea?” Elijah says.

“Elijah—“ Niklaus’s eyes soften a little as they look back at him.

“Are you so reckless with your life that you would jump in front of a bullet that could have killed you?” This time, Elijah’s voice rises at first, dropping down to disbelief by the end of the sentence.

“I was thinking more along the lines of ‘I valued your life too much to let you take the bullet’, that sort of thing. Though I’m starting to regret that decision already,” Niklaus scoffs. “Just what exactly are you lecturing me about?”

Elijah pauses, blinks at him. “You could have died, brother,” he says, as if the topic of their conversation is the most evident thing in the world.

“Yes, brother,” Niklaus spits out. “I’m aware, but you would have lived. Get to live. That was the point.”

“And at what cost would that have been? Losing you?”  

“Now who’s reckless with their life?”

Elijah narrows his eyes, holding Niklaus’s mocking gaze with his angry one, until the latter relents, averting his eyes with a sigh.

“What do you want me to say, Elijah? Hmm? You want me to apologise? To ask your pardon for having the audacity to save your life?”

Elijah rubs a frustrated hand down his face, looking equal parts angry, exhausted and panicked when he looks back at Niklaus again. “Do not save my life. Not if it means I might lose you,” he pauses, capturing Niklaus’s eyes for emphasis. “Don’t you understand, Niklaus? My life means nothing to if it comes at the expense of yours. Nothing.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake.” It is Niklaus’s turn to be frustrated as he rolls his eyes at the ceiling. “You’re a hypocrite, Elijah. You’d die for me without so much as a thought to your life and you deny me the privilege of saving the person I love most in the world?”

Niklaus’s words seem to physically hit Elijah as he reels back slightly, losing his balance. He blinks at Niklaus, opening his mouth to say something then closing it again. “You love Rebekah more,” he says eventually, his tone a little unsteady.

“So do you,” Niklaus deadpans.

“Well, I’m the big brother. I promised to protect you.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, Elijah is aware of the fact that he’s being petulant. But he’s too far gone to care at this point.  

“Are you seriously going to argue that a promise you made to me when we were kids binds you for life? That it binds you to waste your life protecting me?” Niklaus’s voice rises, straining to not turn into full blown yelling. He winces again at the pain this exertion seems to cause him, but doesn’t let his anger slip.

“But it does. Don’t you understand, my brother? I will always protect you. There will not come a time when I will not take a bullet to the heart for you. There will not come a time when I will not do anything, absolutely anything to ease your pain and carry your burden. Ever.”

A pause.

“Then you will have to deal with my unrelenting desire to protect you, too, brother.”

Elijah never gets a chance to respond.

“So you’re still alive then,” a bland voice says behind him. “Good for you.”

They both startle, so caught up have they been in their argument. Niklaus flinches, the sudden movement clearly aggravating his wound.

Turning around, Elijah sees the medic who’d performed Niklaus’s surgery the other day. The man looks terrible, dark bags under bloodshot eyes. He’s holding a brown clipboard, which he glances at while rubbing his eyes.

“Sorry for interrupting what I’m sure is a fascinating conversation,” he says in a voice that suggested he is anything but. “But since you’re still alive and don’t look like you’re about to die, we’re gonna need that bed.”

Niklaus glances at Elijah, who frowns and looks at the medic, asking, “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It mean that your brother—Mikaelson was it?—will be put on the list of those well enough to be transported to another hospital further from the front.”

The medic says it almost casually, like it’s nothing to him, but Elijah feels his stomach sink. He doubts he’ll be able to come with Niklaus when he’s transferred away from the front.

Niklaus looks uneasy at the news as well, his face pale. He glances back to meet Elijah’s eyes.

They could have known it was coming, Elijah supposes, but somehow he thought they would have more time. Niklaus still struggles to sit up, still flinches from pain any time he moves too swiftly.

“Isn’t it rather soon?” Elijah asks.

“It’s been over half a week,” the medic tells him. “And your brother has recovered enough to eat a full meal. We need the beds.”

Elijah looks at his brother, noting the fists clenched tight in the bedsheets. Niklaus seems so small, sitting there on the bed, upright only because Elijah helped him. There is red showing through his bandages.

He turns back to the medic. “Are you certain he’s ready to be moved? My brother’s wound is still bothering him, and it’s started bleeding again.”

“He was certainly well enough for you two to give me a headache with your arguing,” the medic replies, sending Elijah an unimpressed look.

Elijah returns the look, refusing to budge where it concerns his brother’s health. “Shouldn’t you at least check up on him first?”

The medic glares for a moment longer, then sighs loudly. “Whatever. Let’s have a look then.”

Elijah steps back, to give the medic space to attend to his brother.

He unwraps the bandages, revealing Niklaus’s wound. Blood trickles down slowly from where the scab had been torn open, but it already seems to be congealing. Niklaus looks down as well, and seems to suppress a flinch at the sight of the blood.

The medic ignores him and prods at the skin around the wound with surprising gentleness.

Perhaps it shouldn’t really surprise him, Elijah reflects. The man may be lacking in bedside manners, but he’s still a medical professional.

“No infection,” the medic states after a moment. He starts bandaging the wound again, more efficiently than Elijah ever managed. “The bleeding is minor, so stop trying to shout and you’ll be fine.”

Niklaus meets Elijah’s eyes at that, then turns back to the medic and nods.

The medic just steps back and picks up his chart again. “Anything else or can I clear you for transport now?” he asks in a tone that makes clear that this better be all.

“What happens when I get to the other hospital?” Niklaus asks.

“They’ll keep an eye on you while you recover.” The man shrugs. “This injury will fuck you up for another seven weeks for sure, possibly months, so they’ll probably just send you back after that.”

Elijah frowns. “Back?”

“To England,” the medic says, then turns to Niklaus. “Congrats, Mikaelson, looks like you’re going home.”

Home. Niklaus meets his look with wide eyes. Elijah’s heart swells for his brother, relief flowing through him. Niklaus is going home. No more war, no more trenches for his brother. Niklaus will be going home to Rebekah and Kol and Henrik, safe across the channel.

While Elijah remains here in France.

The medic makes a note on his chart, then seems about to leave, before stopping.

“Oh and before I forget,” he says, turning back to Elijah. “You, Mikaelson major. I don’t care what you did or said to still be here instead of back in the trenches but I’ve seen a lot of idiots come in here so let me warn you.”

“Warn me?” Elijah asks, taken aback by the man’s almost aggressive tone.

“I get that this guy is your brother, but I swear to God, if I find you in here later today with a self-inflicted gunshot wound I am going to watch you bleed out slowly.”

Elijah stares at him in surprise, as in truth the idea hadn’t even occurred to him. True, he’d been concerned about being separated from his brother once Niklaus was transferred, but—

“No,” the medic says sharply, glaring at him. “Don’t you fucking dare. I don’t have time for idiots like you. We’re already running low on supplies and I have had to cut bullets and shrapnel out of people without anaesthesia for the past week. I don’t have time for this.”

“I wasn’t planning to—” Elijah protests.

“Right,” the man says, clearly not believing him. Elijah frowns.

“Oh why do I even bother,” the medic says, not quite under his breath. “Whatever. Do what you will. I tried.”

He walks away, rubbing his face.

“What a lovely man,” Niklaus says, watching the medic leave.

Elijah lets out an amused huff. “Bedside manners don’t appear to be his strong suit,” he admits.

Niklaus chuckles.

“Still,” Elijah says, looking back at his brother. “He managed to remove the bullet from you and saved your life, so I suppose that should count for something.”

Silence swallows up the space between them, the hint of smile on Niklaus’s lips slowly dissipating. Elijah sighs, looks down at the floor, walks a little closer to Niklaus’s bed once again, looks back at Niklaus, takes a breath, opens his mouth to say something. Nothing comes out. Niklaus seems just as lost as to what to say as Elijah is.

“Brother, I—” Elijah finally says, feeling a lump forming in his throat.

“I know,” Niklaus interrupts.

“You could’ve—”

“But I didn’t.”

“And I—”

“I know.”

Elijah shakes his head. “I don’t think you do,” his voice cracks. He sits down on the edge of Niklaus’s bed, choosing to stare ahead instead of at the unreadable expression on his brother’s face. “If you had—if something—” pauses, swallows, “I wouldn’t have been able to forgive you, Niklaus.”

“Wouldn’t have been able to forgive me or yourself, Elijah?”

Elijah’s head snaps towards Niklaus’s knowing eyes. And Elijah becomes acutely aware of the tears stinging his eyes as he draws in a shuddering breath. Niklaus breaks eye-contact, licking his lips. And Elijah freezes for a split second when Niklaus unexpectedly takes his uninjured hand, his thumb caressing his palm for a moment. Niklaus rarely ever initiates physical contact. And Elijah wonders what he sees on his face that makes him reach out.

“I know you think it’s your job to always protect me from everything, brother,” Niklaus says. “And I will always be grateful for your love and loyalty. But you must know that I did not think before I took that bullet for you, brother, not even for a split second. I acted on pure instinct.”

“Sounds familiar,” Elijah says, tone barely above a whisper.

“Elijah, I—” Niklaus stops, looks down at his hand still holding Elijah’s, looks back up. “You mean so much to me. And I would do this all over again in a heartbeat.”

Elijah leans in, closing the gap between them and letting his forehead touch Niklaus’s.

“Why do you have to be so damn stubborn?” Elijah breathes.

“You’re one to talk.” There is a hint of a smile in Niklaus’s tone.

They linger there for a moment, Elijah allowing the relief of his brother’s survival to truly wash over him, allowing himself to feel the strength of Niklaus’s presence.

After a while Niklaus pulls back. “So what are you going to do?” he asks Elijah.

It’s a good question, and it pulls Elijah back to the situation at hand, and Niklaus’s imminent departure. He absently smooths down the cheap off-white linen of the field bed with his other hand as he considers his options.

Even without the medic’s threats, Elijah would have been reluctant to resort to faking an injury or inflicting one on himself simply to escape the front. But the fact of the matter is that Niklaus will be going home and Elijah will still be here, in France, without his brother.

Elijah is determined to ensure he will make it back home as well.

“I’ll put in a request to be transferred further south, near where Finn is stationed,” he decides.

“What if they don’t approve the request?”

“I imagine they will,” Elijah says. “I overheard some of the nurses talking about how the last push left them short on men.”

Niklaus frowns at him. “It’ll be dangerous.”

“No more dangerous than staying here,” Elijah counters. He smiles at his brother. “And besides, I will have Finn with me. He may be a drag, but he’s also family. We’ll look out for each other.”

His brother seems to consider it for a moment longer, watching Elijah carefully, then nods.

Silence falls again. They both look down, at where Niklaus still holds Elijah’s hand in his.

There is a small cut on Elijah’s knuckles, from when Elijah had cut himself on a misplaced bayonet. It’s over a week old and already mostly healed, completely scabbed over. Niklaus traces the red line with a soft finger. Elijah lets him.

“So then this is goodbye, I suppose,” Niklaus murmurs, not meeting his eyes.

“For now,” Elijah says firmly. “But I’ll see you again.”

Niklaus nods vaguely.

“You’ll have to give my regards to our sister,” Elijah says lightly. “And to Kol. Make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish.”

The corner of Niklaus’s lips curves up into a smile.

Elijah extracts his hand from Niklaus’s and puts it on his brother’s shoulder, finally making him look up.

“This war won’t last forever,” he tells Niklaus. He tries to smile. “I’ll make it home soon enough.”

Niklaus doesn’t smile back. “Don’t die,” he says seriously.

Elijah meets his eyes for a long moment, his own smile fading too. He nods.

Acting on instinct, he puts a hand at the back of Niklaus’s neck and leans forward to press a kiss to his forehead.

As he starts to pull back again, Niklaus stops him, pulling him close and wrapping him in his arms. It has to hurt—his brother still can’t lift his hands very high—but Niklaus doesn’t seem to care as he holds on tightly. Elijah hugs him back, careful not to hurt him.

“I’ll write to you, when I can,” Elijah promises softly. Niklaus just holds him closer.

Closing his eyes, Elijah lets his head rest on his brother’s shoulder. He breathes in slowly, trying to memorise the feeling of Niklaus’s arms around him, the warmth of his body against his. He’s reluctant to let go, despite knowing it’s not forever.

One day this war will end and Elijah will go home. He’ll just have to survive until then.

One Year Later

A soft breeze rustles the leaves of the apple tree above Niklaus, tickling Niklaus’s hair. He sighs as the wind disturbs the edge of his sketchbook. He forces the paper to flatten again by pressing it down with his left hand. A single dried leaf falls exactly in the middle of his sketchbook, blocking his view of his work. Muttering under his breath, he pushes the leaf away, only to be faced once again with the imperfection of his work. Before him is a picture of the last time he saw Elijah when they were forced to separate. He’s standing by the door, body slightly turned away from Niklaus, but his eyes still fully facing him. Except he cannot seem to capture his exact expression in that moment. In spite of his desperate attempts to memorise every detail of that moment, a thousand times of running the image through his head had blurred the exact details of the image. And Niklaus slumps back against the tree trunk.

He closes his eyes for a brief moment. And then—

Another breeze. This time it makes the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. He snaps his head towards the gate without understanding why. There, he finds Elijah standing, eyes trained on him, a serene expression on his face. Niklaus holds his breath, blinks, waits for something to clear his vision, afraid of believing his own eyes.

The spell is broken when Rebekah seems to materialise out of nowhere to hurl herself at their brother, tackling him into an embrace amidst squeals of happiness and relieved sobs. Niklaus hears Elijah laughing as Rebekah’s hair covers his face for a moment, watches as he holds her closer with a wide grin on his face.

When Elijah’s eyes finally meet Niklaus’s again, there is a soft smile on his face. And Niklaus can do nothing but smile back.