You barely remembered anything. Only fragments. Pain. Screams. Then cold. Terrible cold from the hard concrete beneath your back and the weight of your own body refusing to cooperate. The wound in your stomach throbbed deeply, violently, but the worst part was that it refused to heal. Vervain. You could feel it everywhere. One dart buried deep in your thigh, another somewhere near your neck poisoning your system and preventing regeneration. Your gums were swollen from pain and hunger, your throat burned, and every breath ended with blood spilling from your mouth.

You were choking on it.

You lay there half conscious trying to breathe when you felt someone’s hand slide beneath your head, lifting it slightly off the floor. Cold. Steady. Strong.

Elijah Mikaelson.

Even without looking, you knew it was him. The calm surrounding him felt almost unnatural. As if the chaos, blood, and suffering around him simply did not affect him at all.

Only after a moment did you feel his wrist pressed against your mouth.

Blood.

Warm. Fresh. Powerful.

Your fangs sank into his skin almost instinctively before you could even think. You drank desperately, greedily, trying to force the vervain out of your system, trying to calm the burning pain inside your veins and stop your body from completely falling apart. Every swallow burned your throat while bringing relief at the same time.

And he didn’t even flinch.

Elijah continued supporting your head with one hand, letting you feed with the same unnatural patience he seemed to do everything with. Blood ran over your lips and across his hand, yet he never tried to pull away.

And somehow that was the worst part.

Because you couldn’t remember why he was helping you.

You couldn’t remember if you had agreed to something in exchange. If you had made some kind of deal. Or if you had just made the biggest mistake of your life.

"Don't think about it" He said it directly. He looked you in the eye without any unnecessary emotion. Did he read your mind..? After all, he's an original.