Elijah Mikaelson Stories

Sleeping With The Light On

A hand that crashed on your hip out of nowhere woke you up. You slowly sat up and tried to figure out what had happened. It was dark in the bedroom and you could feel someone move right next to you. Blindly you searched for the bedside lamp. As soon as there was some light in the room, you could see Elijah turning around on his side of the bed. He was still asleep but obviously having bad dreams. He was anxious, you could see that.

"Elijah", you quietly said and touched his shoulder. But he didn't react to your touch. "Come on, Elijah wake up", you started another try, now shaking his shoulder harder. It wasn't the first time your boyfriend was having nightmares. To be honest, he has had nightmares everyday since his mother Esther had kidnapped him and tried to break him. She hadn't broken him, obviously. He was still a vampire and hadn't taken her offer to put his soul into another human body. But she had tortured him with memories from the past. Memories, Elijah had locked away behind an imaginary red door in his head.

With a loud gasp Elijah's eyes flew open and his torso shoot up. "Shhh, it's okay Elijah. It was just a dream", you immediately tried to calm him down. He took some deep breaths and then slowly turned to face you. Sweat had formed on his forehead and the white shirt he was wearing stuck on his well-formed body.

"Y/N...", he quietly said as he let himself sink into the pillows again. "Are you okay?", you asked and scooted closer to him. "This wasn't just a dream, Y/N", he murmured without looking at you. His brown eyes were staring at the ceiling while he was talking.

"It was my past. I've done horrible things. I've...killed people. Innocent people. Almost a thousand years ago I even killed the woman I loved." He slightly shook his head. "I had locked that all up somewhere in my head and didn't think about those terrible things for more than a century. And now...I can't even sleep because of those memories." Elijah let out a frustrated sigh.

"Elijah", you said and gently put a hand on his cheek, "look at me, please." When your eyes met, you gave him a smile. "I can't even imagine what your nightmares are about. You've told me some things but I assume that the things you're dreaming of now are much worse. But please don't think you're a monster. You're not. Yes, you're a vampire, yes, you've done horrible things. But you're not like this anymore, Elijah. You're noble. You're kind. You're the one I love."

Finally, a smile appeared on his lips when he heard your voice. "I don't know what I'd do without you", he said and you chuckled. "I guess you'd be still trapped in that nightmare you have had and if you'd wake up, you'd question yourself and your whole existence. Am I right?"

Now it was Elijah who laughed. "Right." He stroked your cheek and then pressed a kiss on your lips. "Let me just put another shirt on. This one's disgusting." You nodded and watched him leave the bed to get a new shirt.

When he crawled back into bed, Elijah wrapped his arms around you and kissed your forehead. You closed your eyes for a moment and just enjoyed being close to him. "Let's try to get back to sleep again", you sighed. Your body told you that it was in the middle of the night and you just had like two hours of sleep yet.

Elijah nodded, but when you reached out a hand to turn off the bedside lamp, he held you back. "Let it on. Just for a while. Please." He smiled at you and you nodded. That man right next to you, that was holding you in his strong arms, had his weak moments sometimes. And now it was one of them. But to you he was still strong. The strongest man you had ever known. So, it didn't matter if you were sleeping with the light on. You snuggled back into Elijah's arms and closed your eyes. Soon you were drifting off into dreamland once again. Meanwhile, Elijah was just lying next to you watching you sleep. That was what gave him peace in moments like this.