title, rating: taste; r
fandom, pairing; wordcount: stefan/klaus, stefan/elena; 562
notes: for
tvd_rareships This is what they don't know:
Klaus only takes from him as much as Stefan gives.
That much is as true as his life is long.
-
When they get him back, when they bring him back, Elena grabs his face in her hands with a tenderness that he wants to rip away. She pulls him, drags him to the sink and though he's stronger than he's ever been, he follows, suddenly made weak by her presence. Silently, he hates her for it.
She keeps saying his name over and over again as she washes the blood off of his hands; pink water carrying away his sins.
Stefan closes his eyes.
It's all he can do not to lean over and catch the last of it with his lips before it circles down the drain.
-
Elena begs.
He sits in silence, staring at the wall, drinking amber colored liquid that will never compare to the taste of blood on his lips.
He's not recovering. He's not angry. He's not sad or guilty or traumatized.
The truth is? The pleasure of human company bores him now.
He's doing this because he can.
She begs and he just listens and all the while she doesn't know that this is just a game to him. He doesn't speak at all until one day he's had enough of her yammering and he pushes her against the wall.
"Would you please. Just. Shut. Up!?" He snarls and Elena looks like she's going to cry but it doesn't stop him from crushing his lips to hers.
Elena opens up to him. She wants it, much more than he imagined she might. She tears at his clothes until they're on the bed and Stefan's pushing into her with absolutely no gentleness or finesse. Soon she's calling his name, nails digging into his shoulder blades, and Stefan closes his eyes, sees Klaus's face behind his lids, remembers the feel of Klaus' rough hands on him, scars that never left their mark, phantom teeth against his neck, and then he comes, crashing into her, the vampire's name on his lips.
-
She will do anything for him.
Damon's smirk tells a story. One that Stefan knows doesn't make a difference. Not for him and not for Elena.
"Always the consolation prize," he whispers as he passes him, once again in the sunlight, his hand clasped tightly to Elena's, who's human ears don't pick up the sound.
He understands cruelty now. He even understands his brother now.
It feels good.
-
He thinks he'll never get back to what he used to be, never fully recover.
And for a long time, he's not sure he wants to. But Elena finally reminds him. And Caroline, and Bonnie, and Tyler, and Alaric. They show him what it's like to be human again. And finally he does want it. He does. He's just not sure how much.
But no matter how much he wants it, it never stops the dreams.
Every night, Klaus' red mouth pressed to his, the two of them covered in blood, howling with laughter, tearing at each other, kissing, killing, fucking.
Every night.
He always wakes in a cold sweat, Elena at his side.
She stirs and brushes her hand across his forehead, kisses his lips.
"Go back to sleep," she murmurs, half-lidded and groggy.
Stefan can almost taste her.
And he knows, that out there, somewhere?
Klaus waits.
-fin