"If there is one thing that defines being a part of this family, it's that no matter how much we might hate each other at any given time, when given a reason we can set that all aside to step up when it counts." They had done that much repeatedly through the centuries. "But you're not wrong," he says, letting a beat skip before he tilts his head to look at her. "He's the worst." His lips twitch up into a smirk at the tiny jab at his brother.
That smirk turns into something more genuine when she says that. "You think so?" He catches her wrist between his fingers and pulls her hand down, gently brushing his thumb under her eye. "It'll be okay, I promise. She will be okay." It isn't much, but at the moment, assurances are all he has.
She cocked her head fixing him with a little 'come on now' smile. " Look at you, playing coy. You know she adores you." though the humor was lost some where between his hand on her face, and the way he was reassuring her.
Kol had such a reputation for being ruthless, blood thirsty and taking the party way way too far, but some how he could be so gentle. It was enough to make her heart skip a beat. " I know, she's a strong girl. we'll get her through this."
"Does she? Or is it the idea of me?" How well does Hope truly know him at this point, anyway? He hasn't exactly been here for her entire life or anything-- he was dead for part of it, in all honesty. Still, the fact that Hayley says as much means more than she probably realizes. She's not one to mince words or spare feelings in place of the truth, and if she truly thought otherwise, there's little doubt that she would say so.
Every monster has their moments, apparently. "You should rest... let someone else take shift with her for a bit, okay?"
Kol takes up that shift, sitting at his niece's bedside, pressing a cool rag to her forehead as she sleeps, still uncomfortably feverish. They'll find a way, he knows they will.
As he goes to re-wet the rag, there's a sudden scorching sensation at his wrist, as though he's being burned from the inside out. He hisses and the rag drops to the sink, which is still running as he jerks his hand up to inspect whatever is causing it, only to see what appears to be ink, slowly spreading across the inside of his wrist.
He doesn't know what to make of it, even if he knows what it means. Soul-bonded tattoos weren't exactly new, so he knows instantly that his match has been found. Who it could be, he isn't sure.
He shakes his head and goes back to tend to his niece again.
Well, she's seven. So, of course Hayley would keep a lot of the ugly truths from her for a little while at least. Eventually, she would need to know it was there, she was a tribreed after all.
Hayley was apprehensive about taking a break, but she knew he was right. She needed rest, and relented with a nod. " If anything changes...come get me." she said before turning down the hallway to her room.
She had gotten a little sleep before that burn woke her. " Ah!" came from her before she sat straight up grabbing her wrist. " what the hell?" asking to no one as the ink spread forming that mark on her inner wrist. Most things wolf she knew, but this? This wasn't something she was familiar with, and after all the bullshit she'd been through regarding the witches, a curse mark is the first thing that comes to her mind.
She is out of bed and coming down the hallway, if a curse was what it was... well shit, she couldn't be around the people she actually gives a crap about. Not until she found the witch and the why. Klaus would be too irrational to speak with, Rebekah was no where around... Elijah... well Elijah was Elijah and she would rather no one else was involved.
He hears her footsteps before she speaks and he's in the hallway when she calls for him. "What is it?" His eyes are wild, his voice concerned. He's hardly the one Hayley would come to for most matters, after all.
She moves toward him " I'm sorry to ask this, but .." she swallows turning her eyes to him. " I need you to watch over Hope." she said turning away. " I have to go..."
"What?" A frown crosses his features. "What are you talking about? Where are you going?" He can't imagine any reason she would want to leave Hope right now. She wouldn't. She'd never, especially not at a time like this.
"What hex? You didn't have one earlier, or did you just fail to mention it, at the time?" He can't fathom what could have happened in such a short time. Surely they would have caught wind of something like this before...
"Hayley, wait." He frowns and reaches to grab her shoulder and spin her around, inspect the mark left by the hex and at least get an idea of what what they're dealing with.
" I was asleep, it woke me up burning into my skin." she's pretty confused as to who she pissed off this time. Why they would pick *now* to enact their revenge.
He reached out to her shoulder and it was like electric, this warmth and when he spun her around she had this dumb founded look on her face. " I don't want to hurt anyone here, except Klaus sometimes but this is deeper than that." but she did pull up the sleeve of her shirt showing that mark on her wrist.
Unfortunately, revenge has no timecard, and people generally do pick the worst moments to lay it upon you.
He's about to say something, probably snarky or charming or that weird combination of both only Kol can manage, when she pushes her sleeve up and shows him.
Now it's Kol's turn to have a dumbfounded look on his face as he blinks and stares at it in confusion. "I don't...understand." Except, that he does. He does rather instantly, and he doesn't know what to feel about it. He shows her the inside of his own wrist, bearing the same mark. "It's-" He sighs and shakes his head, "It's not a hex, Hayley... it's the mark of a soul bond."
" I don't either." she said quickly " That is why I have to..." her eyes move to his wrist and in a rare moment the wolf with a mouth is gob smacked. Lips parting as if they really want to say something, but nothing comes.
Her eyes pull from the ink on his arm that matches hers and look to him. " Kol..." finally comes out. Almost breathless, part of her was screaming that is was nothing like that, that magic didn't exist. Yet, she knew it did. Hell, she'd been bonded to Sofie. Her eyes shifting awkwardly " So, So what does that even mean?"
"You don't know?" His eyes slide up to her face again as he realizes she has no clue the meaning of it. Well, this is awkward.
"It's leftover from a ritual done centuries ago. It's a soul bond, Hayley, as in soulmates." He drops that and leaves it and lets it sink in before anything else is said at all.
Awkward indeed to have to be told about magic's equivalent of the birds and bees like this. She'd heard somethings like this about Stephan and Elena but even then thought it was just a lot of crap, that was before everything though.
" I won't pretend like I don't have an attraction to you..." she began " But we don't have to fall in love and all the other stuff, nor are you obligated to me in any way. No, not just because some witch had a bag of bones and some herbs and said so."
The supernatural world is made up of a lot of fucking bullshit, Hayley.
"No, it's not... necessarily the start of a love story," he admits. It's easy enough to avoid that aspect, but there are other things, as well. "But it might draw us together in other ways. I've heard before that there's a possibility of a sort of... emotional tether in the whole thing? I don't know much about that, it was half-rumors and centuries ago... whatever we do with it, we're linked, in a way."
She looked thoughtful for a moment. " so, not much will change. " I am Hope's mother and she is a Mikaelson, we're all in this crap show together." she said.
" Emotional tether? Don't we already sort of have something like that?" she didn't understand that it went deeper than just the bond they all share as family esc unit that they were.
"No," he shakes his head slightly. "it's more literal than that. I don't know how to explain it, but if it's true, then you feel it soon enough." He doesn't know if that comes with time or it's more instant, he's never seen a soul bond happen in all his years. It's been little more than something of a rumor for centuries. Not that he ever really doubted it, but he didn't think anyone would spark it appearing in him.
"I can't imagine feeling the emotions of two people at once is pleasant." He says, unhelpfully, his tone a bit flat. That's hardly the least of their problems right now.
" I've..." the brunette started before shifting her head up to look at him. " I've felt an attraction, like a pull towards you in the last few weeks." there is a soft smile. " I thought it was just the way you are with Hope, and how you've made time to call her and talk with her."
Hayley is quiet for a moment mulling over what he's said. " It sounds like an advanced type of linking spell." a small step towards him. " The bigger question is what are we going to do about it?"
"She's my niece, of course I'd make time for her." He says it like it's obvious, a given and not something that ever had any other possible outcome.
"More or less, yeah." He nods a bit at her summation. That point earns a small, half-hearted smile that falls just a little flat. "I don't know... What do you want to do about it?" He tips his head a little. "I don't like the idea of being someone's obligation." A necessity. A prophecy. Only chosen for the soulmark.
" Yeah? You'd have thought her dad would have too , but..." she shrugged it didn't matter the reason he stayed away. She was getting tired of making excuses for him.
" Good. Cuz you're not my obligation, and I sure as hell aint yours either." she said looking down to the tattoo on her arm. " I guess the answer is.." looking to him " what ever the hell we want to?"
"It's not like it's for nothing," he reminds her softly. Nik never did anything for nothing, least of all things for Hope, no matter how hard they were to stick out and hold to.
"Exactly." Mikaelsons were never, and would not start being now, anyone's charity case. "Yeah, I guess so." He smirks softly. Hayley has a sort of spunk about her that's always been a bit entertaining to him. Determination stampedes through her like no other. He likes that.
" I know that, but it's hard to explain that to a little girl who just wants to know her Dad." Hayley said her head lowered a bit. She worried about Hope, she worried about Klaus, she worried about everyone in the Mikaelson clan. Then there was the case of her wolves which was a whole other can of worms.
She tilted her head a soft smirk playing along her lips. " Ya know, we never really got a real chance to get to know one another really well. If we're going to be more or less linked for the rest of our lives we should probably change that."
"I know." He gives her a sympathetic smile. He worries, too, he thinks they all do, in their own ways.
He chuckles softly once and nods, "Yeah, I guess you're right. Perhaps we should change that, yeah?" It's the most logical thing, isn't it? And they were a sort of family, even if they never do anything about this bond, they should probably know each other a bit better than they do either way.
She would try and make an effort to get to know him better. It had been weeks since that night, and for a while Hope seemed to improve. She had been sitting on the porch more, painting and starting to get back to the things Hope usually had done. Hayley had started to relax a little more day by day. Then all of the sudden Hope wouldn't wake up, the fever was back and this time the girl didn't even whimper. Just laying in her bed still, quiet and unmoving.
That was the reason there were letters written, one to Klaus, one to Hope and one for Kol. Saying that she couldn't stand by any more and watch her daughter die. She was going to fix this once and for all. That she was sorry it had to be like this. All of the letters left on the dresser in Hope's room and Hayley headed out into the stormy night. She had a plan about this, and she wasn't going to let any of them talk her out of this one.
Things genuinely seemed to be taking a turn for the better, for once. Hope was up and painting and doing child-things that Kol can't say he quite understood, but he definitely feigned 'cool uncle' interest in, while she explained, at length, why it was so important.
That couldn't last, though, could it? That isn't how the Mikaelson life worked, and things took a sudden, sharp dip for the worse. And to boot? Hayley had disappeared without a word, aside from letters she left Nik, Hope, and Kol himself. He isn't sure what in the hell she thought going off alone was going to accomplish other than sending all of them in their own brand of spirals, however.
He crumples the paper in his hand and pulls out his phone, dialing her immediately-- and if she doesn't answer? He'll just keep calling.
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Date: 2020-06-09 11:18 pm (UTC)That smirk turns into something more genuine when she says that. "You think so?" He catches her wrist between his fingers and pulls her hand down, gently brushing his thumb under her eye. "It'll be okay, I promise. She will be okay." It isn't much, but at the moment, assurances are all he has.
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Date: 2020-06-10 01:58 am (UTC)Kol had such a reputation for being ruthless, blood thirsty and taking the party way way too far, but some how he could be so gentle. It was enough to make her heart skip a beat. " I know, she's a strong girl. we'll get her through this."
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Date: 2020-06-10 03:42 am (UTC)Every monster has their moments, apparently. "You should rest... let someone else take shift with her for a bit, okay?"
Kol takes up that shift, sitting at his niece's bedside, pressing a cool rag to her forehead as she sleeps, still uncomfortably feverish. They'll find a way, he knows they will.
As he goes to re-wet the rag, there's a sudden scorching sensation at his wrist, as though he's being burned from the inside out. He hisses and the rag drops to the sink, which is still running as he jerks his hand up to inspect whatever is causing it, only to see what appears to be ink, slowly spreading across the inside of his wrist.
He doesn't know what to make of it, even if he knows what it means. Soul-bonded tattoos weren't exactly new, so he knows instantly that his match has been found. Who it could be, he isn't sure.
He shakes his head and goes back to tend to his niece again.
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Date: 2020-06-10 11:07 pm (UTC)Hayley was apprehensive about taking a break, but she knew he was right. She needed rest, and relented with a nod. " If anything changes...come get me." she said before turning down the hallway to her room.
She had gotten a little sleep before that burn woke her. " Ah!" came from her before she sat straight up grabbing her wrist. " what the hell?" asking to no one as the ink spread forming that mark on her inner wrist. Most things wolf she knew, but this? This wasn't something she was familiar with, and after all the bullshit she'd been through regarding the witches, a curse mark is the first thing that comes to her mind.
She is out of bed and coming down the hallway, if a curse was what it was... well shit, she couldn't be around the people she actually gives a crap about. Not until she found the witch and the why. Klaus would be too irrational to speak with, Rebekah was no where around... Elijah... well Elijah was Elijah and she would rather no one else was involved.
" Kol?" she called from the hallway.
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Date: 2020-06-11 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-11 01:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-11 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-06-11 09:00 pm (UTC)She took a breath, " It's okay, I'll find the witch." she nodded more to her self. " Might be able to find something to help Hope too."
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Date: 2020-06-12 11:10 pm (UTC)"Hayley, wait." He frowns and reaches to grab her shoulder and spin her around, inspect the mark left by the hex and at least get an idea of what what they're dealing with.
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Date: 2020-06-12 11:36 pm (UTC)He reached out to her shoulder and it was like electric, this warmth and when he spun her around she had this dumb founded look on her face. " I don't want to hurt anyone here, except Klaus sometimes but this is deeper than that." but she did pull up the sleeve of her shirt showing that mark on her wrist.
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Date: 2020-06-12 11:44 pm (UTC)He's about to say something, probably snarky or charming or that weird combination of both only Kol can manage, when she pushes her sleeve up and shows him.
Now it's Kol's turn to have a dumbfounded look on his face as he blinks and stares at it in confusion. "I don't...understand." Except, that he does. He does rather instantly, and he doesn't know what to feel about it. He shows her the inside of his own wrist, bearing the same mark. "It's-" He sighs and shakes his head, "It's not a hex, Hayley... it's the mark of a soul bond."
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Date: 2020-06-13 12:07 am (UTC)Her eyes pull from the ink on his arm that matches hers and look to him. " Kol..." finally comes out. Almost breathless, part of her was screaming that is was nothing like that, that magic didn't exist. Yet, she knew it did. Hell, she'd been bonded to Sofie. Her eyes shifting awkwardly " So, So what does that even mean?"
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Date: 2020-06-13 11:58 pm (UTC)"It's leftover from a ritual done centuries ago. It's a soul bond, Hayley, as in soulmates." He drops that and leaves it and lets it sink in before anything else is said at all.
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Date: 2020-06-14 02:17 pm (UTC)" I won't pretend like I don't have an attraction to you..." she began " But we don't have to fall in love and all the other stuff, nor are you obligated to me in any way. No, not just because some witch had a bag of bones and some herbs and said so."
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Date: 2020-06-16 10:38 pm (UTC)"No, it's not... necessarily the start of a love story," he admits. It's easy enough to avoid that aspect, but there are other things, as well. "But it might draw us together in other ways. I've heard before that there's a possibility of a sort of... emotional tether in the whole thing? I don't know much about that, it was half-rumors and centuries ago... whatever we do with it, we're linked, in a way."
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Date: 2020-06-18 01:52 am (UTC)" Emotional tether? Don't we already sort of have something like that?" she didn't understand that it went deeper than just the bond they all share as family esc unit that they were.
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Date: 2020-06-23 05:01 am (UTC)"I can't imagine feeling the emotions of two people at once is pleasant." He says, unhelpfully, his tone a bit flat. That's hardly the least of their problems right now.
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Date: 2020-06-23 05:21 am (UTC)Hayley is quiet for a moment mulling over what he's said. " It sounds like an advanced type of linking spell." a small step towards him. " The bigger question is what are we going to do about it?"
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Date: 2020-06-26 03:08 pm (UTC)"More or less, yeah." He nods a bit at her summation. That point earns a small, half-hearted smile that falls just a little flat. "I don't know... What do you want to do about it?" He tips his head a little. "I don't like the idea of being someone's obligation." A necessity. A prophecy. Only chosen for the soulmark.
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Date: 2020-06-28 12:32 am (UTC)" Good. Cuz you're not my obligation, and I sure as hell aint yours either." she said looking down to the tattoo on her arm. " I guess the answer is.." looking to him " what ever the hell we want to?"
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Date: 2020-06-29 04:47 am (UTC)"Exactly." Mikaelsons were never, and would not start being now, anyone's charity case. "Yeah, I guess so." He smirks softly. Hayley has a sort of spunk about her that's always been a bit entertaining to him. Determination stampedes through her like no other. He likes that.
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Date: 2020-06-29 02:57 pm (UTC)She tilted her head a soft smirk playing along her lips. " Ya know, we never really got a real chance to get to know one another really well. If we're going to be more or less linked for the rest of our lives we should probably change that."
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Date: 2020-06-29 03:04 pm (UTC)He chuckles softly once and nods, "Yeah, I guess you're right. Perhaps we should change that, yeah?" It's the most logical thing, isn't it? And they were a sort of family, even if they never do anything about this bond, they should probably know each other a bit better than they do either way.
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Date: 2020-07-05 12:57 am (UTC)That was the reason there were letters written, one to Klaus, one to Hope and one for Kol. Saying that she couldn't stand by any more and watch her daughter die. She was going to fix this once and for all. That she was sorry it had to be like this. All of the letters left on the dresser in Hope's room and Hayley headed out into the stormy night. She had a plan about this, and she wasn't going to let any of them talk her out of this one.
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Date: 2020-07-05 02:22 am (UTC)That couldn't last, though, could it? That isn't how the Mikaelson life worked, and things took a sudden, sharp dip for the worse. And to boot? Hayley had disappeared without a word, aside from letters she left Nik, Hope, and Kol himself. He isn't sure what in the hell she thought going off alone was going to accomplish other than sending all of them in their own brand of spirals, however.
He crumples the paper in his hand and pulls out his phone, dialing her immediately-- and if she doesn't answer? He'll just keep calling.
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