Nik and Bekah, always and forever

“Tell me again why are we always the ones mother sends for firewood? It’s not like we can get cold anymore, and we don’t need to cook anything either”, said Nik. He was complaining, as usual, and yet he was not serious. Bekah knew he liked leaving the hamlet for a couple hours with her, she knew it with absolute certainty because he had told her.

“Because mother told us to, and we may be immortal now, but we don’t get to disobey her”, said Bekah in her sweetest tone.

They both kept picking wooden slats from the ground, Bekah kept singing softly like she was alone, Nik did not know the song and he honestly believed she always made it up, it was never the same song. Listening her singing was some kind of priviledge, he thought, he did not exactly know in front of how many people she dared to sing- maybe she also sang when she was with Kol- but she sure did not do it in front of many. Nik thought he would ask her later, Bekah seemed so focussed in her beautiful little song it felt cruel to interrupt her and her happiness.

They moved almost simultaneously, working like they were one of the hamlet’s carpenter’s puppets, like they were being controled by the same hand. They bent down to grab the Wood strips in the same exact second and they did not even realice it. If you had been there, you would have thought it looked like a dance.

By the time they had finished their task, Bekah’s blonde braids were crooked and messy, and her maroon cotton dress was full of withered leaves. Nik smiled because he could totlly picture her moaning all the way back to the camp, but mother would fix them and Bekah would think she looked pretty again, as if two crooked braids could make her look bad.

“Nik, don’t move”, whispered Bekah somewhere near his ear. Perhaps she was not close to him. Vampire perks.

“What is it? It’s not funny, you know I don’t get these games you and Kol play to”, answered Nik a little annoyed, but he did as she said. He did not move a muscle.

“I think I just saw something over there”.

“Are you serious? Do you really get frightened that easily, little sister?, said Nik in his typical mocking voice. “I thought better of you!”

“I’m serious, I think it’s a werewolf, and stop this mocking thing of yours. Don’t move, please…”

“Fine, then let’s run right back home”.

“Seems like mother sent me picking firewookd with the most stupid of all my brothers. We can’t do that, it would follow us and we’d guide it to the hamlet”.

“Are you saying we should fight it?”, said Nik, ignoring she had just insulted him. “I mean, we’re two and now we’re immortal, that’s what mother said, it can’t hurt us”, he suggested.

The situation just kept becoming more and more ridiculous, both of them standing on their feet when anyone else would be running like the Devil himself was after them.

“And, again, with the most stupid”, said Bekah-no mocking-, “just because we’re inmortal it doesn’t mean we’re not vulnerable. Look at Kol, I don’t want to spend the next three weeks in bed and have mother taking care of me, Nik”, no sweet voice, no soft tone, no gentle or happy Bekah. “We’ve got to think of something else, it’s getting closer”.

Nik had been walking towards her while they talked, very slowly, so now he was close enough to hold her hand and whisper “Fine, we’ll run, together, Bekah, don’t you dare to let go of my hand, and we’ll distract it. We’ll run in that direction, are you ready? Don’t be afraid”.

Bekah nooded and they started to run and dodge trees and rocks. If they had not been being chased by a werewolf, Bekah would have felt free. And Nik would have felt… how he used to felt like. You do not run when you are a vampire, you do not fly either though. You sprint even when you do not intend to. And when Bekah sprinted, somehow her blonde wavy hair made the forest more alive. She had learnt how to enjoy her new skill: an insane speed it is.

But in the meanwhile, Nik… well, he just used to wonder how he could get that tree’s  over there leaves’ colour so he could make drawings down the cave. He was the one thinking about Bekah’s hair, honestly, about how pretty she or their mother would look if he could get them those flowers near that spruce. He was just Nik, usually too busy loving arts or music to actually realize how amazing being a vampire was. At least that was what Kol and Bekah said to him almost everyday.

They kept running- sprinting-, they were not even making any effort, it was just so natural for them that they could have runned-sprinted- for hours. Then, all the sudden, Nik said “I’d hate to ruin your party here but, uh, we could do this all day and so could it, it won’t get tired, you know that, don’t you? I say let’s hide”.

“Did you think of where? I can’t remember any cave near here, also I’m not sure we can do that, it’d find us”, answered Bekah.

“Let’s say we hide but we don’t really hide”, replied Nik. After a few seconds of no getting a response from his sister, he added “I guess I’m not that stupid now, am I? I mean we have to get ourselves in some place it can see us but don’t actually catch us, so it’d stop to haunt us down because it’d know where we are. We’d just wait until it gets sick of… well, waiting for us to come down and leave. Then we go home, sister”.

“Fair enough, sounds good to me. And, yeah, you’re not that stupid. Not always. Sometimes you really know how to prove yourself useful”, said Bekah.

Nik ignored her and when he saw a tall enough tree he looked at his sister and said “There”.

Nik helped Bekah climbing the trunk, although he thought his sister did not need his help at all and, if she did not, she did not say a word. She had climbed enough to reach out one of the stoutest limbs when Nik started to climb the tree himself. It was not until he saw his sister seated in the branch, with her legs crossed an her right hand hold to another -thicker- limb that he felt entirely safe. Bekah extended her left hand towards him and helped him out.

“So wh…”, started to say Nik.

“Look, it’s just arrived. No, turn your head to the right. See it now? God, I thought it’d try to climb too”, she said.

“I was going to ask what do we do now”, he finished.

“Why are you asking me? Hiding without hiding was your plan, which means you get to entertain me. So… what was that nonsense about not understanding me and Kol’s games? We don’t play”.

“Oh, you do, and nobody gets your games, don’t worry, sister. In fact, we meet secretly so we can help each other figure them out, it’s being so hard, I might tell you”, said Nik with a cracked smile in his face.

“That’s hilarious. No, seriously, we don’t. It’s just… we’re the little ones, aren’t we? You have Elijah, Finn has father, I have Kol… and mother. We just have these inside little jokes”, explained Bekah, “but they’re not games or anything like that”.

“I know, look, it was just a comment. We were being chased by a werewolf, do you really expect me… how did you call me? Oh, right, the most stupid of all your brothers. How rude of you, by the way. Anyway, you couldn’t expect me to think clearly, could you?”, answered Nik, his smile was not that brand, but it was still there, and that was how Bekah knew he was not really upset about her messing with him.

“Well, we still are being chased by a werewolf. Sort of. And shut up, Nik, you know you’re my favourite. Mother doesn’t get our jokes either- I bet she’s the one who calls all that meetings you have-“, she laughed, “and Kol can’t be serious even for a minute. You’re the one who understands me. But you already knew that, you just wanted me to say it a out loud so I make your ego grow. How very surprising”.

“I’ll tell them you said I’m your favourite the next time you call me stupid, how about that?”, Nik added.

Bekah guffawed like what her brother had just said was the funniest thing in the world.

“Sure, they’d believe you, Nik”.

“You’re my favourite too. At least until father kills me for being this goddamned late. He’s going to be so angry”, Nik’s smile has completely dissappeared now.

“It’s not your fault there’s a werewolf down here waiting for us to come down and play with us. Also, you’re not the only one who’s late”, she pointed out.

“But I’m the only one he’s getting angry at”.

And Bekah kept silence because she knew he was right. He usually was.

“I’ll explain it to him, everything’s going to be fine, Nik”, she said after a while. Nik had already turned his head away, he was staring at a ninky’s nest, studying, as usual.

He looked at her and said “Promise you’ll walk away, Bekah”. She loved him because he always knew how to be serious if he had to, and for a moment she wished he did not.  

“I won’t have to, you’ll see”, she ended.

Talking that out left them in silence for over an hour. Bekah tried to fix her braids as Nik had suppossed she would and he kept observing the little ninky.

And then another hour.

And another.

When the sun- they did not see much of it since the trees covered almost every lightning- came completely away Bekah looked to her too concentrated brother and waited for him to say anything. He did not.

“Nik? We can’t stay here the whole night”, she began, “Besides, it’s been half an hour since I last saw it”.

“Uhm?”, answered Nik.

“I think we can go home”

Getting down was eassier than climbing. Their feet touched the ground after two minutes and they started walking back to the hamlet. There was no point on running again, they were already late, Nik did not really want to arrive any soon and neither did Bekah. The possibility of getting bitten by a werewolf seemed truly appetizing to Nik if he compared it to facing their father. But he cared about Bekah’s safety and that meant bringing her home.

An hour passed until they saw the hamlet’s first hovels.

It seemed like every single one of their neighbours was already sleeping they could not see any lights inside their hovels, but Nik and Bekah had no doubt their father was waiting for them.

And he certainly was.

Nik was the first one to come into the hovel and his scared sister followed him, just two steps behind.

The reason Nik did not let Bekah get in first was that he had the feeling that their father would be waiting, and furious, just in front of the door and he did not want to risk his sister’s well-being. He knew their father would show himself mercyless, as usual.

But instead, he did not recieve the one who got in in the first place with violence.

“Guess he thought Bekah’d come after me, it’s only a matter of time”, Nik thought.

Then Bekah closed the door behind her back.

“Thank God Rebekah’s fine, if anything bad had happened to her you can be sure as hell I would’ve killed you”, Mikael said.

A couple of canddles were still lit up and they allowed Nik to see the way Mikael held his whip. And, after a second, Bekah saw it too.

“But I’m alright, father. Nik took good care of me, I promise! It’s not his fault, there was a werew…”, she did not even know why she was trying to explain it, she was aware it would be useless.

“This is not of your business, go now!”, Mikael shouted back.

“You’ll beat him if I leave!”, said Bekah. A single tear crossed her right cheek. Nik was more afraid than her- his greatest fear was seeing Bekah suffering their father’s cruelty-, he hardly care about himself the way he cared about his sister.

So Nik was as terrified as resigned, it did not really surprised him nor Bekah- both of them knew he was a beast that knew no limits- when he replied his daughter.

“And I’ll beat you too if you stay”. It made Nik sick- and, again, terrified- how he could threaten his own child and not blink once. Like it had to be that way, like he could not help being a monster.

“Go to sleep, sister”, Nik whispered. The thought of Bekah laying in her white little bed full of blood made him shake of pain.

Bekah kissed her brother’s forehead before she left.

oooooooooo

She used to sleep alone, in a small room between her parents’s and her brothers’s. They all had slept in the same room when they were younger, but it had been some years since Esther had decided to give Bekah a little space. Nobody cared much, the boys were old enough to understand their sister needed some privacy. At first, Bekah recieved her mother’s idea with joy, but after some weeks she started to miss sleeping by Nik and Kol’s side. She even missed Finn’s snores. And Elijah’s sleeping stories.

They say you cannot actually hear silence, not in its perfect and absolute completeness, but Bekah loved how quite the hovel was when Mikael stopped hitting Nik.

She heard him leave and open his room’s door, she wondered if her mother was awake behind that door and crying like she herself was.

It tortured Bekah the way her mother did never say a word. Sometimes she thought she would be scared –they all were- of her husband, sometimes she just thought she did not care about Nik at all. “How can a mother allow his children being threaten every day? How can she allow him to touch a single hair of Nik’s?”, she thought. It made her almost as monstruos as Mikael. “What kind of mother stays in bed why her son’s being beaten like that?”. That was why they needed to leave home.

Bekah wiped away her teary eyes and got ouf of her bed.

Nik was lying on the hovel’s floor and turned his head towards Bekah the second he heard her coming out of her room.

“I’ll help you up”, she said, “Come on, that’s it, great”. She held her brother and helped him to reach her door.

Nik’s blood covered Bekah’s dress’ sleeve when she made him lie down in her bed.

“It’s okay, really”. It was not. His voice was too weak, too dead. Except he was not. “I don’t even know why I’m still afraid of him, I heal the next second he touches me, it’s ridiculous”.

“You stay with me tonight”, Bekah said. There was no chance she would let go of him.

Nik did not speak back.

“I want to leave and so do you. We’re not happy, here, around him… You know I feel your pain the same way you do. It’s crazy but it’s true…”, started Bekah.

And, again, Nik did not say a word. Bekah waited.

“I… I just… I know you do, Bekah. I’m your brother, I’m always going to be here for you, you know that, don’t you?”, he finally said.

“We cant keep pretending, Elijah should know we’re planning on leaving. He would leave too. He wants a life, he wants to find love as bad as I do, he will understand. We have to tell him”, and then she kept silence as if she had just said everything that has to be said. And it really was it, there was nothing else left to say.

“We’ll tell him tomorrow, first thing in the morning. I promise, right?”, Nik replied.

“Right”, she agreed.

“Now get some sleep, little sister”, he whispered back.

“Nik?”. It usually amused Nik the way his sister was not able to keep quite for more than ten minutes, but he was just too tired to laugh- even smile.

“Uhm?”.

“I will always be here for you too”, she said, and for a second it seemed to her brother that she had recuperated that evening’s sweet tone.

Nik held her hand, squeezed it and Bekah felt asleep thinking they were safe.