I may have gotten a little carried away.
References This, my version of how Mikael killed his sons
Finn didn’t remember the first time he died, he remembered returning home late with Kol and Elijah, missing Sage’s voice already thanks to the sound of his brother’s arguments he had endured there and was following into his hut.
Kol had stayed out late to collect something for a spell that required a later evening harvest and Elijah had of course been following Tatia around like a puppy desperate to be of some use to her as if the unannounced engagement could be taken away.
He had promised them a drink as they left the town but after hearing Kol’s teasing and the slight whine it had brought out in Elijah’s voice, he regretted it.
They were his brothers, family. His little brothers he was responsible for and had watched grow, but by the gods they annoyed him and pushed his patiences sometimes.
And they were also worse together, he could tolerate them easily one and one. Elijah was quiet and insightful and Kol inventive and knowledgeable, together they were a headache.
They had grown worse since that night, Elijah’s quiet had grown a heaviness to it that made it almost audible to Finn and he doubted Elijah even noticed and Kol inventiveness had changed to match the bloodlust, pure violence to drown out the loss of his magic.
He would never have thought he missed Kol’s barking laugh and Elijah’s groaning complaint, when he stepped into his own hut and was interrupted but a sharp pain in his back, but he did, Kol’s laugh always carry a hint of bitter malice now and Elijah’s words have been slowly growing more empty and inhuman as time moves on.
His last sight had been their matching looks of wide eyed horror, looking so young as they stared at him in shock- or rather his chest before he fell to meet his floor and he died.
He woke up sometime after to mother handed him a cup of red liquid he drank without thinking, it was mother, why wouldn’t he trust it? and then being directed toward the thrall, a young woman sitting oddly passively in the centre of the room, he tries not to think of the rest of the night after that.
Feeding from the girl, struggling against the bloodlust, Elijah’s questions, voice unnerved as he noticed her heart stop, Kol’s terror and rage when he discovered he couldn’t feel his magic, Finn needing to get away from them despite Mother’s promise and pleas to listen to her.
She hadn’t told him, not until after, all his life she told him he was the one she trusted, her partner and yet she had sided with father against him.
Taken his life and turned him into a monster. She hadn’t trusted him with her plan, her worries and instead turned to father.
Finn wonders if Elijah and Kol blame him, they knew mother trusted him with those things and out of all of them he was the only one who could beat father reliably. Could he have been prepared if he had seen Father coming, could he had stopped him, at least saved two of his brothers even if it had been too late for Klaus and Rebekah.
He tries to take comfort that this time he hadn’t had to watch, hadn’t been left with the sound of them dying to haunt him in his sleep, like Freya’s screams as she was taken still did.
That lingering question is why Finn had agreed with Elijah’s request to stay alert as they stayed with the ‘hunters’. His brother had been wary of them since they met and while Finn could appreciate Elijah’s concern he’d be more accepting of it his brother actually did anything to stop their siblings gaining the attention other than tired disapproval.
Finn knew his younger siblings weren’t going to listen to him, it had always been up to Elijah to manage them since they were children. Finn took the other tasks around the home, building, repairing and much of the hunting while Elijah watched, entertained and taught the little ones when mother was busy.
It was how they worked and while it left him distant from them, that sometimes hurt he had been relieved by that when Klaus was small and a reminder of Freya and even more when Rebekah started to grow.
So Elijah, who could always manage to stop most of Klaus’ art trips, sneaking away from chores to sketch and paint, and Kol’s pranks, should have been able to tame their brother’s sprees, forced them to be more careful and yet he didn’t.
Finn feared it was the growing apathy he noticed in Elijah, especially since his dalliance with Tristan de Martel ended, that man him care less for the lives lost, made him view those outside the family as less, nothing but food like they truly were the beast they once hunted, like he couldn’t feel any connection to the humans they once were.
Elijah shifted in his sleep pulling him from the spiralling thoughts as he glanced around at his sleeping brothers, for a moment not seeing the men they had grown into but the children he had once feared for.
He feared for them now, but not against common illnesses, or father’s growing anger but for them losing themselves to the curse mother placed on them all.
A shift of fabric and the faintest sound of metal outside the room brought him fully to the present and he moved his foot to kick Elijah and Kol as he stood, cursing himself for letting Klaus take the bed closest to the door and pushing Elijah to sleep.
There was no point for them both to stay up, he had said, still trying to brush it off as Elijah’s paranoia, beside Elijah was one of ones the hunters spoke to most, it was better he sleep and be rested to deal with them during breakfast.
It seemed they wouldn’t be making it to breakfast he thought as the door handle started to turn just as his two of his brothers started to rise.
Elijah shook Klaus wake him just as the door opened as four of the five filed in each holding a dagger. Finn couldn’t help the affront he felt at the idea they thought they could be so easily felled, to be stabbed in his sleep but that feeling didn’t last when he realised who the missing one- likely heading to his little sister if not already there.
“Seems they caught onto us.” one of the hunters joked before he moved and the room erupted into chaos.
One fell on the awake but still flat Klaus with a struggle and Finn focused on the others, one for each of them, human it should be easy and he wanted to get to Rebekah.
He quickly learned it wasn’t as the human proved to be stronger than he thought.
It wasn’t until he heard Elijah choke and he looked up to see him fall to the floor, dagger in his chest, skin greying the way the other vampires had in death, that he realised why they had come in armed with tiny daggers.
They were cursed, designed to stop them and while Finn refused to allow himself to panic he couldn’t stop the flare of worry grow when he noticed Klaus laying still on the bed and the now unengaged hunters turning towards them with smirks on their faces.
As they moved towards him, and Kol, behind him struggling with the remaining Hunter, Finn ducked, getting his shoulder under his opponent’s guard into his stomach and throwing him into the wall hoping to wind him long enough for Finn to even the fight.
He was going to be having words with his brothers after this, it was a bad show when their youngest defended himself better than them.
It fell back into a pattern after that; catching the wrist of the first to reach for his sword and snapping it while bringing his elbow up to land a hit in the other’s throat sending him stumbling back choking as Finn lunged with open fangs to the one still screaming from his broken wrist.
Iron filled his mouth and he forced himself not to latch on and drink instead he readjusted his teeth and tore, ripping the hunter's throat open.
The man convulsed, single good hand reaching up to uselessly stop the blood as he dropped.
He glanced down at his opponent, blood spilling from his neck, one down three to go and started toward the who had managed to stop choking and was now standing over Elijah’ still body.
“LOOK OUT!” Kol shouted in alarm confusing Finn for a moment and then-
There was a sharp pain in his chest, his original opponent, it seemed, had recovered.
He managed to look down to see the dagger embedded in his chest and suddenly he realised why neither of his brothers had gotten up yet as he felt the numbness spread.
He looked back up to see Kol’s expression, same wide eyed look of horror as the first and cursed himself as he saw a matching dagger to the one in his chest slip past Kol’s guard aiming for his heart.
A hundred years and the powers mother cursed them with in exchange for the humanity they had taken from them and it hadn’t changed a thing as once again Finn failed and could only watch.
Kol was getting really tired of watching his brothers die.
Maybe he hadn’t seen Henrik die but he had watched his small wrapped body burn on the pyre and that felt like losing him all over again, he was only a kid, Kol should never have lived longer than him.
Then days later coming home from the first day the absence wasn’t a fresh wound, gathering ingredients he was never going to get the chance to use he had seen father’s sword punch thought Finn’s chest seen his confusion before he fell and then while frozen with Elijah standing in front of him telling him to run Kol had seen that sword erupt from Elijah’s back.
Followed of course by the same bloody sword entering his chest, his attempt to use magic useless against father, his own terror wrecking his concentration.
Then again mother had likely placed a protection spell on father so really, he didn’t have a chance.
He had thought the whole point of them taking his magic from him would at least keep him from repeating that but of course not.
“And that’s the last.” One of the hunters called, without the lightness he had when he entered the room Kol noted as he slipped, body growing numb.
Go Finn, at least one of them managed to repay them.
“And all before Alexander finished with his.”
Panic flared for Rebekah but he couldn’t fight whatever was wrong with him.
“It wasn’t meant to cost us.” another snapped and Kol noticed the room growing dim.
But before black took him he saw Klaus lurch up and grab the hunter standing over him.
Klaus had this Kol thought as blood filled the air, but he was gone before the scream followed it.
