You Don't Know What I'd Do For You (Love you like oxygen)

twenty-eight

*A/N* Hello, everyone! We are back with another chapter after a little break and I am so excited, so, let's get started! For this chapter, after much debate, I've decided to go with an Elijah and Finn bit because they are both really complex characters and the show could have done SO much more with them both. Eventually, I will get to all of the Mikaelsons, including Hayley and Marcel, so if you were hoping for someone else, just hang in there, it will happen. Now, let's hurry up and get on with it because I woke up at 4 AM today and chose violence.

Finn POV

I had been the first one to file out of the room, suddenly unable to bear it a moment longer. It wasn't even about the rest of the family, not really, it was just about Elijah, how it felt like he couldn't bring himself to even look at me, much less meet my eyes, how I talked to him like he was a stranger, how I just knew deep down that I didn't belong there to comfort him. Part of me felt shame, guilt, another part was just hopeless, but mostly it was sickening, terrifying, to see Elijah like that. It felt like I was running away from it, like I was abandoning him as I walked away.

I was immediately reminded that I had abandoned him a long time ago.

Unfortunately, leaving Elijah's rooms didn't solve anything, I was still paralyzed with the overwhelming need to simultaneously be close with my brother and, in the same breath, put as much distance between us as possible. The result of this was me anxiously pacing the guest chambers that I had claimed for myself, unable to tolerate the feeling of sitting down and doing nothing. I was only interrupted by a quiet, shy knock at my door, and even then, I had half the mind to simply ignore it and continue wearing a track into the wooden floorboards. But, I wasn't one known for denying my curiosity.

Out of all the people in the compound who would be knocking at my door in the middle of the night and in the current circumstances, I suppose Freya did make the most sense. Still, I couldn't quite help deflating slightly when I found it wasn't Elijah. "Hey," I offered, not quite being able to meet her stormy eyes, but also suddenly not wanting to be alone.

"We need to talk, Finn," she said, giving me a deep, meaningful look that was gentle in equal parts as it was piercing. Her eyes saw right through me, and I could tell that she wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

Nodding, I moved aside and she stepped into the tastefully decorated, but also relatively dull room. I followed her lead as she took a seat around a small coffee table, sitting opposite her tensely. Freya wasn't usually one to get angry, and even when she did it was almost never loud and violent and rash like Klaus, she was much more the quiet type, but her hushed words didn't hurt less than the daggers.

"So, how long have you been here?" I asked, trying to fill the silence as my sister glared down at her clasped hands on the table.

"Just a couple of months," she replied, turning her gaze back up towards me, giving me a stern look, "but I didn't come here to talk about me, Finn."

"Well, what did you want to talk about then?" I responded, harshly, bristling as my own frustration mounted.

"You know," she replied, quietly, her eyes softening as she looked deep into mine.

I sighed, letting my shoulders slump as I dropped my gaze, because she was right, I did know. I knew exactly  what she wanted to talk about, how could I not? It was the same thing that all of those glares from Rebekah and Kol had been for, it was the same thing that had taken up my every thought for the past four days, it was the same thing that was eating away at me as I sat there trying to pretend I could ignore it. This was about Elijah.

"You said you would protect him, Finn, you promised me," she continued on in a whisper, looking like if she raised her voice any further, she would break down and cry.