Bloom || HOPE MIKAELSON x RYAN CLARKE

9] HONOR YOUR ELDERS

Ryan woke up to the soft caress of the early morning sun kissing his face.
Despite the copious amount of years he'd spent on this earth, he hadn't spared the liberty of feeling it often.

It'd taken him years to learn the ability to doze off in the first place.

Before he'd mastered slumber, all he'd known was a constant state of restlessness.
Being wide awake, unable to dream or stop the endless stream of thoughts broadcasted directly into his brain.
He'd gotten to know the earth this way.
Wandering for months on end, sometimes years, all round and round, never stopping, never staying, never breathing. Just loneliness wherever he went.

Acquiring the ability to sleep after years of lying awake hadn't been easy.
Aside from the obvious struggle that finding a safe bed provided, at first, he'd simply shut his eyes and tried to stop the relentless schemes floating around in his mind.
He'd taken up the habit of locking them inside a chest, night after night, all fastened up with the fiercest brass knuckles he'd ever imagined, and let them lay there until morning came to sweep him back to reality.

As the nights had gone by, it had become easier to trap those thoughts away and welcome the embrace of sleep -if only for a few hours.

By the time he ran a flourishing empire at the head of Triad Industries, he could go whole nights without the thoughts.
Those thoughts, he'd later come to learn -and recognize them for what they were- were called nightmares.
The permanent imprint of his trauma. A result of years of mistreatment by Malivore.

He'd always known that what had been done to him by his father was wrong, at least to some extent, but he'd never thought twice about the way things could have gone before.

Before her.

He'd never thought that one day he would wake up to the most lethal being on earth trusting him enough to see her like this.

And what a sight she was.

Vulnerable, kind of gullible, Hope slept with an arm draped around him, her auburn locks sprawled out against his chest, but although the combination of all this was thrilling, her light snores managed to tear a smile from his lips.

Releasing a sigh, he carded his fingers through her hair and bent an ear to listen to the commotion happening in the other room.

This early in the morning, or the most content he'd ever felt, none of it mattered to Klaus Mikaelson, who was already throwing a fit.

Hope groaned and stirred, pressing her face deeper into his chest.

''Dad's mad.'' she said with a small voice, prompting a sudden memory to flash through his mind. It was all so very fuzzy he could barely make out the details.

A game of Jacks.

An angry father.

A little girl.

Hope!

''I thought that was just the usual around here.''

Her chuckle was muffled by his shirt as he sighed again.

It was unnerving and kind of annoying, but also thrilling, how he felt the need to care for this girl, to protect her from the world that had broken him to pieces.

She was the most badass out of this whole compound, town, Hell, even universe, but he couldn't help it.
His basic instincts, those who had only fought for his own survival so far, were screaming at him to do something, anything, that would rid her of the magic running through her veins.

Could he really do that? Did he really want to? To save her, would he really tear her away from the magic she adored?

He shook his head and chased the thoughts away, took the hand that was resting over his heart and kissed it tenderly.