Fic: Your words have haunted me
Author: agypsyw
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Katherine/Klaus, Katherine Von Swartzchild, Klaus, mentions of the Salvatore brothers and Elena Gilbert.
Disclaimer: I own neither these characters of the book series they come from, all rights go to the publishes of the books.
Warnings: Abuse (emotional more so than physical in this one) and some sexual content.
A/N: So this turned out a lot more abstract than I previously attended so just go with the flow alright? It's fair to say it's a little non-linear in structure but hopefully you'll be able to follow.
***
I can't escape the twisted way you think of me, I feel you in my dreams and I don't sleep - snow white queen ; evanescence
***
"Look at yourself."
"No."
"Katherine."
"Please, I can't."
"Look at yourself Katherine or I will make you look."
She screeches like a banshee when he grabs a handful of her hair and drags her to him. Katherine claws at his face and arms, creating deep red welts that heal as soon as she makes them as she struggles wildly to get free; he's stronger than she is though and holds her tight, lips pursed against her violence.
She struggles for what feels like an eternity before eventually calming down and becoming still in his arms.
"There, now take a look."
He's holding a large shard of the mirror she broke earlier in his hands in front of her and she doesn't want to look, desperately doesn't want to look but she knows she has to, knows she has no choice. She looks at her reflection in the mirror shard and a mad girl stares back.
"What do you see, my child?"
His voice sounds in her ear, mocking and cruel. She wants to hurt him again, to rip his flesh from his body and burn him. Now it is her turn to purse her lips, she won't break for him.
(She always breaks for him in the end.)
He digs his fingernails into her side right over the purple bruise that never seems to fade, and she gasps, startled though she shouldn't be.
"I asked you a question. Answer it." He hisses in her ear.
She glances at her reflection again and holds the girl in the mirror's eye. Dirt incrusted yellow hair, pale blue eyes and sickly looking skin reflect back at her.
"Ugly." She spits out.
"Sick." She bites her lip hard enough to draw blood.
"Mad." The last word comes out in a hushed whisper and her fists clench at her sides.
Nothing in the world scares her more than falling into madness, not even Klaus. She shivers against him and drops her gaze from her own reflection, disgust coiling in her stomach.
Klaus grabs hold of her chin and turns her head to lay a surprisingly gentle kiss on her lips, licking the blood that had seeped through away as he did so. She can't stop the tears that have steadily been building in her eyes from spilling over any longer. He pushes her away from him, sneering, when he sees them and she catches herself before she falls face first into the floor.
The shards from the mirror cut her palms open and stain the floor red.
"You are only ugly when you cry my dear; and you missed one word off that list. Weak."
Her cries turn to sobs and she doesn't hear him leave the room but suddenly she finds herself all alone again. She wants to scream after him that she is weak and it is all his fault.
She wants to believe that's true.
***
His kisses are burning hot on her neck; and she'd sworn to the god she no longer believes in that she hadn't missed him. But now, with his lips on her neck and his fingers buried deep inside of her -
Those long and clever fingers - she'll admit to missing them at least.
Her head falls back on the feather pillows as he brushes against a particularly sensitive spot, a low moan on her lips. As his lips continue their path downward and he nips the skin over her collarbone she frowns at the canopy of the bed above her.
She doesn't remember having a canopy on her bed -
'This isn't my room in Paris.'
Suddenly everything seemed wrong. She glanced down at her lover who was currently kissing his way up her inner thigh and almost choked.
Klaus.
She had known, she had known who was pleasuring her but now that she actually thought about it, she felt nothing but horror.
"What ever is the matter my dear?" He purred, those electric blue eyes glancing up at her through hooded lids. Like a cat, a wild and dangerous predator. She just stared at him wordlessly, mouth hanging open.
He tilted his head to the side like he used to whenever she did something that amused him before crawling back up her body to hover over her.
I killed Klaus, watched him die with my own eyes so how can he -
Klaus kissed her on the lips, dragging his tongue along the inside of her lower lip. For half a second she melted into the kiss - as her mind went blissfully blank - before jerking away in horror as the lips against hers started to decompose. The taste of him was vile on her tongue and she gags.
Her lover is a corpse.
She watches as he turns to a pile of bones before her; and screams -
Her eyes snapped open to the darkness of her room in Paris where she found herself, very much alone. Although there was a strange heaviness to the air which she couldn't explain.
It was just a foolish dream, nothing more.
Sighing, she turned over onto her side, ignoring the ache between her thighs and shut her eyes once more determined to fall into a hopefully dreamless sleep.
She dreams of the Stefan's kind smile and wakes up with wet tears staining her cheeks.
A stranger cloaked in darkness passes beneath her window and chuckles.
***
Her new white dress is covered in blood.
She frowns down at the stains and past them, the body of the girl she'd drained lying at her feet. Her lip curls in frustration and she kicks the corpse, before storming over to the window to glare out of it furiously.
She had not meant to feed again, on anything. She'd spent weeks carefully avoiding consumption of blood and truly, she was a fool to think Klaus had not noticed. She was caught off guard when he'd dragged the screaming peasant girl into her rooms as she was getting dressed.
"Drink." He'd said plainly, pushing the girl forward with such force that she fell to the floor in a weeping mess. Katherine had just stared at her maker wide eyed and he'd just stared right back.
When she made no move to do as he commanded her, he griped her arm tightly and dragged her to the weeping girl. She wanted to struggle but found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the blue veins lying beneath the girl's pale neck, transfixed.
She drunk and his grip on her arm never faltered for one moment until the life fluttered from the nameless girl's eyes and Katherine's hunger was sated at last.
"This dress was expensive." She pouts, staring despairingly at the embodied bodice of once white and gold which now displayed only glimmering jewels of red. Klaus comes up from behind her and swipes a thumb over the base of her neck, his digit coming away red and wet.
She is a messy eater, something she knows he detests. The faint disapproving tut sounds but he says nothing of it, this time.
She glances over her shoulder at him and gets caught in his stare.
"I will buy you a new one. In fact I will buy you two, if you swear to leave this foolish behavior behind you." He licks the blood from his thumb, never breaking eye contact with her and she knows she would be blushing if she were still that sick little human.
"I do not know what it is you speak of - " She breaks his gaze and stares back out of the window, masking her features of any emotion.
He pulls her body against hers and breathes hot and heavy into her ear.
"Have you ever felt starvation? When you were still human? You came from a wealthy family did you not? Never had to want for anything. So tell me, have you ever felt the effects of starvation?" His normally cold eyes are so alight with fire in the reflection of them in the window, that it takes her aback.
She shakes her head in answer, at a total loss for words.
"I have, and let me tell you, the pain is even more unimaginable when you are a vampire. The blood lust overtakes you completely, you think of nothing else, dream of nothing else. It drives you half mad. Do you want to go mad sweetling?" It feels as though her very blood has frozen at his words.
(Mad, mad, mad.)
"No."
She had only wanted to be free and madness would be more a cage than anything.
"Then stop being so weak and embrace all that I have offered you. I gave you a gift Katherine. I saved you." He kisses the side of her neck and leaves her alone to her thoughts.
(He saved her?
No, he condemned her.)
***
"Do you want to know a secret?"
She leans forward over the table and nods eagerly. Across from her sits her beautiful maker, his white blonde hair glimmering in the sunlight. Katherine had forgotten his beauty over the centuries.
She had forgotten so many things.
"You're dead." He says so bluntly that all she can do is blink.
She frowns and opens her mouth to protest, of course she isn't dead. She's sitting at this table with him, if she were dead such things could not be accomplished.
"Dust in the wind my dear, beaten by a girl who your precious Salvatores loved more than you." He continues in such an idle tone as he dips a silver spoon into a cup that she doesn't remember him having moments ago.
What girl? There is no other girl. Only me. They only loved me.
"No. That isn't right. You are the one that is dead -" And now she remembers.
Klaus sleeping beside her. The weight of the stake in her trembling hands, more like iron than wood. His wide eyes when she plunged it through his chest. Her tears that made her feel weaker than ever before. The stillness.
"How are you - " Her brow furrows in confusion and she doesn't finish her sentence, doesn't know how.
Klaus smiles like a hungry predator and pours her a cup of tea.
"Oh but my dear, I can't die. You never did understand that." He sighs, handing her the porcelain cup which she takes with trembling hands, as if she were holding the stake that was the key to her freedom all over again.
Then affectionately he coos, "Foolish little thing."
She goes to sip her tea and it spills over her chin and down her neck. Klaus flourishes a silken handkerchief at her and she takes it without thought, dabbing away the liquid, pausing as she wipes at the substance staining her neck.
Her necklace is missing.
The realisation is startling and she grasps at her neck only to find it utterly bare and exposed.
The sun.
The sun does not burn her, but then it already had done it's job effectively once.
The darkness of the tomb. The smell of blood in the air. The taste of it on her tongue. "Go to hell". Her Salvatores so beautiful and broken; so unrecognizable. The bitch with similar features; prettier and more innocent and completely perfect. Her own screams as the sun burnt her to dust. Stillness.
"Where am I?"
"I don't know." His eyes are filled with annoyance now, frustration and confusion that she is sure is mirrored in her own.
Then it clicks.
"You aren't supposed to be here." She stands and for the first time takes in their surroundings. They're in the fields just outside of her hometown in Germany surrounded by beauty and greenery that they taint by mere presence alone.
Her gaze travels back to Klaus and she notes how out of place he looks, towering frame seated on a dainty white chair, sharing tea with her in the afternoon sun. In other circumstances the thought of such would make her giggle.
"I was brought here."
"By whom?"
"The spooks of course."
"You are dead then."
"No! No I'm not. I can not die, it's impossible."
"I'm dead."
"Yes, you are."
"This is the land of the dead. You aren't supposed to be here."
He is silent then and for the first time she detects a hint of fear from him.
"Great power brought you here. They want to punish you."
"I'm not afraid of them. They can't touch me!"
"They can't." And now she smiles, terrible and sweet and oh, but this is going to be glorious. "But I can."
The fields and sunlight, the tea and the table and the chairs - they all disappear and the real and ugly truth is revealed with a loud crack that sounds through eternity. Now all his smiles are hers and the tables are turned.
He had taught her ever so well.