as long as the wrong feels right (1/1)
TITLE: as long as the wrong feels right
RATING: PG-13
CHARACTERS: Damon, Katherine, Stefan, Elena
DISCLAIMER: Nothing is mine. TVD show-based.
SUMMARY: Post 2x01. I've never loved you and what comes after.
as long as the wrong feels right
“The bittersweet tears shed over graves,
are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
-Harriet Beecher Stowe
The truth is,
Pump.
I’ve never loved you.
Pump.
It was always Stefan.
Pump.
I’ve never loved you.
I’ve never loved you.
I’ve never loved you.
. . .
[It’s midnight, moonlight silver, lashes glinting-mascara coats them like some thick, night-like substance that he finds unnatural. The colour on her cheeks is painted, not pinched, and her lips are not reddened by fresh blood. She is different.
Too different.
As he dreams-nightmares-he sees them together, lovers whispering in the same moonlight, the same stars above, the same lashes, cheeks, lips . . . yet this time, what they have is real.
It was always Stefan.
His brother laughs in a way he hasn’t seen since 1864.]
In some ways, he can’t blame her. What good is he? The eldest: shameful, penniless, lost-oh, so, so lost. He chooses his own path now that he can, chooses to play without rules.
No rules, remember?
Sometimes, he tries to convince himself that everything’s he’s done-the murders, the betrayals, the years he’s spent making his brother’s life a misery-was all for her. She is the cause; she is at fault. He lived his life by her philosophy.
But who’s he kidding? He never had to.
Such is the beauty of Katherine.
[It’s spring. Stefan is but a boy but the woman with him, all eyes sparkling with a mischief he can’t possibly understand, is anything but a girl. He’s seen girls like this in brothels and the gardens behind their parents’ houses, skirts rustling and bruised lips. Oh yes,
this is a girl that wants to be chased.
(This is a girl that he could come home for, that he could marry-not that he’s for marrying-who would still be as fresh and exciting as she was a girl as a woman twice her age.
This is a girl that he could fall in love with.
Yet, this is a girl that couldn’t fall in love, and when she did, fell in love with someone who would never love her again.)
He makes the same mistakes that she makes; lets no one in, lets no one out.
Cries secretly behind the switch that doesn’t exist.]
Elena is a mystery. Too much like her to like, too much like her to hate. What they have-whatever strange, unromantic, innocent thing they share-is natural.
I care for you, you know that.
He wants to shout at her, wants to grab her by the arm and slam into a dresser, feel hungry lips on his like he used too, only he has the power now that they’re on level ground.
He feels the words on his tongue, tastes them, mouths them to empty air.
Katherine, is how it ends.
[Stefan asks him-once, much later-why he loved her. Why everything that he did was for her. Why the very air he breathed, the very blood he drank, the very passion that consumed him was all-in some way-connected to her.
Obsession, is the word.
If he was obsessed with Katherine, he decides, then Katherine was obsessed with him.]
You used to love fairytales, you remember?
She turns her head, half-surprised, champagne flute raised slightly to toast his. Here she is Elena-they have appearances to maintain so he keeps his voice level, no whispers no yells, only passive emotion.
Jenna eyes them from across the room, one eyebrow daring.
You kissed me, you remember?
He tips his head to one side.
Do you expect him to be your white knight, horse and carriage? He laughs. You’re anything but a princess.
She drinks, studying him, before the mask he knows too well comes up, perfectly fitting.
And what are you, Damon? she hisses. The foreign king from the foreign kingdom, ready to show me the ways of the darkness?
She clinks her glass at his.
Just remember who led who into the woods. We’re the wolves, Damon, and Little Red is our dinner.
She leaves and he watches, glass creaking as if about the break, knuckles white, when she turns.
Oh-and you were never the one who told me fairytales.
[I love you.
He whispers it when he thinks she’s still asleep, early on, uncompelled and still naïve, and misses it when he lies back down behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist.
The silence.]
Watching her battle with his brother, eyes flirty, tone daring, is like watching a scene from a film you’ve seen a hundred times. He can see the dress she wore, the pins that were in her hair-the pins he removed, callously, while his lips brushed hers-the way her eyes looked at his, full of amusement.
I came back for you.
It’s a shock, one that whirls his head around to see the two of them, standing, as if what she’s said hasn’t crushed everything inside of him. He watches, unmoving, as she stabs him, as he falls, as she turns and walks away casually, as if nothing that has happened is anything extraordinary.
As if Katherine Pierce has not, for the first time in history, spoken nothing but the truth.
[That’s the madness speaking, Damon.
His brother sighs, rolling his eyes, while the sun sets through a broken window. They’re further from Mystic Falls-from home-than he thought they’d be in a long time.
You were sucked in by her lies, we all were in. She never spoke a word of truth-
But what if she did?
He’s adamant, tugging on a dream that seems impossible because if she did it once, maybe, just maybe, she’d done it before. Maybe it wasn’t all fiction.
Maybe there was fact tangled in there somewhere as well.
She didn’t. You know her as well as I and she didn’t. Let’s just forget about it, okay?
But he knows-the same way he knows that his brother knows-that it was the truth. That what she said to him was true. The regret in his eyes is enough proof of that.
It takes everything in him not to shake his head.
Elena walks out of the bathroom and raises an eyebrow at the visible tension.
What are you two whispering about?]
It’s torture, self-inflicted. He doesn’t know why he even bothers, doesn’t know why he chooses kiss not kill, doesn’t know why he asks her a question they both know the answer to.
Answer it right and I’ll forget the last hundred-and-forty-five years I’ve spent missing you.
[There’s a man in a bar who feels more like a boy who was stupid and foolish and got his heart torn from his chest. He’s the typical hero in a Shakespearian tragedy-he had something good and let it get taken away.
He puts his glass on the table, too far gone to slam it, and stands.
Where you going, Romeo?
He allows the corner of lips to lift into a small smirk.
Back to my grave.
The bartender laughs for no particular reason and when he lifts his eyes from the glass he’s cleaning, there’s no sign he heard anything at all.]
I’ll forget how much I loved you and I’ll forget everything and we can start over.
[Nothing we felt for her was real!
It’s an age-old argument, and why he still engages in it is beyond him, but he knows that there is one fact that he and his brother will never agree on. Because he can hate her all he wants but-
Everything I felt for her was real.
Somewhere, in the depths of his mind, is the curiosity of whether she loved him back.]
This can be our defining moment, because we have the time-that’s the beauty of eternity.
[She lays there in her black corset, blood on the edge of her lips, and it makes him smile. How it would feel, he wonders, to wake up to her-to this-every day. How wonderful it would be.
He voices his thoughts to her after they’ve both had their morning feed, his head on her chest, covers pushed down to the foot of the bed.
What’s it like-forever?
She runs her fingers through his hair.
It’s a long time-sometimes it feels like it’s too long, like it should end one day-but when it’s spent with someone worth spending forever with,
he pretends not to notice how far away her eyes seem,
then it’s indescribable.
For a moment, he lets himself think of a forever spent with her.]
I just need the truth, just once.
He runs his fingers through her hair and lets himself imagine.
[One day, he knows, when he’s older and (hopefully) wiser, he’ll ask himself if it was worth making the long trip back to the home of a family he’s shamed. To a town who will never look at him in the same way.
His life will never be the life it once was because of the choices he made, and he has to find the strength within him to deal with the consequences. He tries to think of the house he grew up in, tries to think of his little brother who’ll be anxiously waiting-
He doesn’t think of the battle that he fought and the pain that he saw and decided that war-this war-wasn’t worth fighting if, at the end of the day, glory and honour came with such sacrifice.
And there’s a pulling, something drawing him home like a beacon, encased in the shining eyes of a girl he sees running, laughing, mahogany locks cascading down her dress . . .
Mr Salvatore, she says, full of mischief, you must call me Katherine.]
Just once.
Just once.
Just once.
How many times did you lie to me?
Was it worth anything to you?
Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy every moment you spent pretending? Did you enjoy just stringing me along?
I loved you. Did you enjoy breaking me?
Who am I kidding? Who am I talking to?
You’re Katherine.
Of course you did.
It’s only later, when the flames are spent, that he allows himself to drown his sorrows.
[Not too long after, when all he can do is stare into the unlit fireplace, he listens. Conversations he’d never noticed before took place, sub-plots revealed, loose ends tied up now that the story was coming to its resolution.
The climax was over, what more was there to come?
Stefan loves to fill the silence with his voice, trying to soothe but really only creating a pit of misery that he allows himself to be dragged into.
I thought, for a while afterwards, that we shouldn’t have stood there. That we should’ve done something. That there was still some trace-some essence-of the girl we once loved.
But there wasn’t. She died a long time ago-we knew a ghost, Damon, and that meant she wasn’t real. That meant what she felt-what we felt-wasn’t real.
Who can love a girl who doesn’t exist?]
Stop.
[He hears the slamming of the door, the sigh of relief, and allows himself to ignore the laughter of his brother who waits inside. It breeds a hatred that he’s never felt before. Why is it that she loves him in ways that she cannot love him?
I will make it an eternity of misery.
However much he loves her, Damon Salvatore will not play second-best to anyone, not even for Katherine Pierce.]
He knows it’s over by the time he sees the flames. They’re the same orange he watched back 1864, the same kind of setting, the same sun setting behind a cloudy horizon. For a moment, he finds it hard to distinguish between the sky and the fire.
Behind him, the others stand, and he can almost feel Stefan’s hand reaching to grab the back of his shirt. Elena stands in the centre, Bonnie in front, Caroline behind, all eyes flicking toward her every few seconds. The blood that stood out starkly on the pressed linen collar still stands out freshly in their minds.
Stefan’s eyes, furious and glinting, glare at him the same way they glared at her when he rewinds time.
[You went too far.
He knocks back a glass of scotch, enjoys the feeling of her knees pressed against his, stares back into the flames of the fireplace.
No rules, Damon-do you not listen to me?
He shakes his head. It won’t work this time, and they both know it.
You went too far, he repeats. He won’t forgive you this time.
There’s a flash of fear in her eyes and then there’s nothing. It goes unspoken between them.
(You would forgive him anything.)
Unrequited love’s a bitch.
Just because you love him doesn’t mean he has to love you.]
Elena lies down on the bed, kicking him off, and he can’t help but admire how comfortable she is around him despite everything that’s happened. He kissed a girl he thought was her-and she doesn’t act any differently around him because of it.
She must love him, he admits, if she can trust herself enough, and vows to leave the girl he turned into Katherine alone.
In his mind, Elena was the Katherine he was allowed to keep, but the differences between the two of them are too obvious to ignore any longer.
So, she begins, Stefan said that you and Katherine had been hanging out.
He chuckles. His brother’s concern was unnecessary but he’d be lying if he said it was unwanted, so he lies anyway.
Mmm . . .
She raises her eyebrow at him and smirks a little, so similar to Katherine that he jumps.
She broke your heart, remember? I just don’t want her to do that again.
He’s such a liar that he lies again.
She hasn’t had my heart in a long time. Besides, she’s made her feelings pretty clear.
She doesn’t say a word but he can feel the pity from across the room.
[You know, that girl over there’s got her eye on your boyfriend.
Elena’s casual indifference is so different to her jealousy that he allows himself a few seconds of staring.
She brings up memories of saying the same things about her-and how Elena wasn’t so casual when it was her doing the chasing.]
I already know your question.
And its answer.
[Decades later, far too many to count, he thinks he sees her again, locks shining, eyes glinting, lips inviting. There are some features that are similar but it’s not her-it never will be.
Even an identical copy doesn’t beat the real thing.
She’s gone for good this time, they all made sure of that, and he can’t help but think that it’s that single action that he can’t take his brother’s guilt from.
It’s hard when you feel the same.]
If you knew the answer, then why did you ask?
Her question is innocent, but he notices-as he pours her another glass of scotch-that it’s more probing than morbid curiosity.
She’s cruel-he loved her in spite of it.
Confirmation. I’m sure you’ve asked him the same thing.
Her curls shake in the corner of his eye as he pours his drink.
If I’m going to risk a question that I truly want the answer to, then I won’t waste time with the ones I know the answers to.
That builds up something within him. Maybe it’s the casual reference to his pain, maybe it’s the anger at how little she considers his feelings, he doesn’t know. But the question bursts out him before he has time to phrase it.
Then why choose him? Why choose him over me? If there’s a question I don’t know the answer to, that’s it.
She shakes her head once again and he thinks he sees a sliver of sadness in her eyes.
There’s a reason you don’t know-some questions are never supposed to be answered.
[He feels like a boy again when he asks her, do you love me?
If there was ever a question not to be answered, it would be this one.
She lies. Of course.
It’s this, he decides, that is there defining moment. A boy who asks questions not to be asked and a girl who answers them with lies.]
When he kisses her-hungry and painful-he isn’t surprised when she pulls away, lips dancing but eyes cold.
I know I’m irresistible but I thought we talked about this. The sex is good until it begins to mean something-and it always does with you.
(Translation: I don’t love you and I care too much about you to let you get hurt by me again.)
There, he thinks, is a girl he could spend eternity with.
[The next time he kisses Elena she’s no longer a Gilbert, no longer a teenager, no longer looking like a girl he once loved. It’s in a kitchen and she wears an apron and there are wrinkles on her face that he could never imagine being there.
The footfalls of toddlers shatter the silence and he pulls away.
What was that for?
He smirks but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
I don’t need a reason, but you do.
He notices the photographs behind magnets on the fridge-wedding, New Years, births . . . she had the life was meant to live. They promised her that.
I was never willing to spend forever with you, Damon, but I can handle a minute.
There’s a second of shared honesty between them before his lips are on hers.]
The flames have never risen so high and he thinks he hears her scream, hears the angry breathing of his brother, but both their feet stay planted on the floor.
I came back for you, the wind whispers.
It’s not enough, he whispers back.
(It’s just a lie.)
[You were always the stronger one, she says, years later. I know you never felt like it, but . . . I thought you should know.
It’s just the two of them now, both too wracked with grief and heartache to be anything more than partners in crime.
He wouldn’t have wanted this, she tries, again, but her voice fades. Neither of them know what he would’ve wanted-he’s not there to tell them.
He hears the silent tears run down her cheeks. I wish he’d been stronger, she says instead.]
It always comes back to a girl.
Isn’t that the general superstition? The universally accepted rule? That all terms of conflict come down to the love of a woman and what happens after?
Staring into the ashes of what was once that girl, he disagrees. It doesn’t come back to a girl.
It comes back to love.
[You gonna be okay?
Caroline no longer raises her eyebrows when he checks in on her-it’s something that he would have done, so it’s still done even though he’s not there to do it.
I’m not the one still suffering.
She puts a hand on his face and he closes his eyes.
Turn the switch, Damon. It’s better that way.]
The truth is, I’ve never loved you.
He could hear the pumping of his heart as clearly then as he could as he watched them drag in another rogue vampire into their second recreation of the 1864 fires, only this time, one of the ones inside was one that was meant to be dead a long time ago.
[I’ve never loved you.
It echoes in his ears-in his nightmares-and somewhere he can hear her screaming as the fire envelops her.]
It happens on a Tuesday afternoon. Elena’s back from the store, facial masks and nail polish ready for a well-deserved girly sleepover, when she’s attacked.
An animal, explains Jenna, though god knows how it got in.
She dies for a full minute before they get her heart pumping once again, and blood does the rest. Jeremy meets his eyes across the waiting room.
Something, he knows, staring at the cold, rigid form of his brother, needs to be done.
[You pushed him too far-I told you, I warned you.
She smiles, but it’s a smile he’s never seen on her before. Neither cold nor calculating, it’s . . . tired.
Did you know I’ve been running for five-hundred years, Damon? I feel almost worn out.
She makes a try at lightening the subject but the temperature has dropped.
You asked me once what forever was like, and I told you that sometimes it feels like it should end one day.
She stares at him with dead eyes before she recovers.
If I’m going to go out, she says, with a hint of sparkle, I want to go out with a bang.]
He remembers searching her eyes for the truth, remembers watching her walk away.
It was always Stefan.
[He’s the one who notices first. The hunting’s been too long, it’s almost dawn, and then he sees it. The ring-the one they both swore never to take off-sits on the table.
It’s been light for long enough now.
For a brief moment, before Elena wakes and notices and realises and screams in hysteria, he allows himself to feel a spark that two lovers-torn apart in life-may be reunited in death.
And then gives himself the satisfaction of knowing that Stefan’s goodness-his golden nature-was, in fact, the death of him.
After that, he remembers the dark, cold, icy feeling he associates with death.]
The last thing he said to her, before they carried her into the flames, was unworthy.
You sure you want to do this?
But her answer was the closing line of theatrical masterpiece he promised himself that one day, when he grew bored of loneliness and hunting and everything, he would write.
I wanted to love you. I tried, so hard, to make myself feel what I could see you feeling-but I couldn’t. The heart gives itself to who it wants to, Damon, even if the hole it leaves is never filled and you’re left drowning. It’s a risk we all have to take and we have to face the consequences.
[I just need the truth, just once.
In his dreams he runs into the flames and finds her and his brother together and doesn’t care that the flames consume him.]
One day, when vampires are the ones hunted by those they used to compel, he allows himself to wonder about those centuries beforehand, about 1864. About the girl he met and the brother he betrayed and the choices he made and the strength he had to find to deal with the consequences.
He leaves the story written on the parchment he grew up on with a pen that was on him when he was turned, and signs it with a flourish, name glinting in the sunlight.
And then he takes off his ring.