our bodies get bigger (our hearts get torn up) - TVD - Jeremy/Elena
Title: our bodies get bigger (our hearts get torn up)
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Jeremy/Elena (references to past canon pairings)
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no money off this.
Word Count: ~5,100
Warnings: underage sex, drug use, mention of attempted suicide.
Spoilers: Spoilers for the whole series, up to 3x10.
Summary: Jeremy never claimed to be rational (or: Three times Jeremy kissed his sister).
Notes: Written for opheliahyde's prompt, where are you and I'm so sorry, I cannot sleep, I cannot dream tonight, I need somebody and always, this sick strange darkness, comes creeping on, so haunting every time, at the incest comment ficathon. Posted over here because this got waaaaay too long. Reasons why I shouldn't be allowed to do comment ficathons.
The first time it happened, he’s drunk and stoned and stupid; he stumbles in at some hour after midnight and before dawn, and mistakes her bed for his through the haze of alcohol and pot, the imprint of Vicki's touch still buzzing on his skin. He doesn’t notice he’s in the wrong room until he rolls over and collides with a body, warm and small.
Elena startles, turns around and freezes up when she sees him there, eyes wide open like he hadn't just woken her from sleep (or perhaps a nightmare).
(they'd gotten in a fight earlier and it started stupid but escalated until he was screaming-about Vicki, about the drugs, about their parents; he said horrible things and Elena couldn't say anything at all, even if he's sure she wanted to, even if he wanted her to)
He just blinks dumbly for a while, trying to make sense of her expression and why she was hiding under the covers, staring at him like he's some strange new creature and not her brother.
(he thinks he stopped being her brother a while ago, because it's not an unfamiliar look, like he's something to move cautiously about and walk on eggshells around, strange and a little bit scary; maybe it was after their parents died-maybe it was after he told her it was her fault)
He didn't mean that (but he does, just a little, he just forgets sometimes).
"What are you doing?" she says softly and then he remembers.
"I'm sorry," he says (he thinks he is; some days, he isn't, not at all, some days he just wants to scream and rage until something gives). His throat burns as he speaks; he tries to move closer, scoot in next to her, and his movements are clumsy, senses and reactions dulled by the drugs and alcohol (he's had a growth spurt recently and now his limbs are awkward and alien to him, not his own).
He winds up too close. "I'm sorry," he repeats, but the words feel meager on his lips, empty so he kisses her. He means to kiss her on the cheek, but he slips and everything’s out of focus; he gets her on the mouth instead. Her lips are soft and warm, and the breath goes out of him; he can't move, can't think at all, brain too fried and kissing his big sister.
She doesn’t pull away, not for a long time. When she does, she kisses him on the cheek like he should've in the first place, before she throws an arm around him and tucks herself in next to his chest, sleeping next to him like they did when they were children.
By next morning, it's a faded memory, frayed and tattered at the edges-it feels like a stupid, crazy dream (what would Freud say?) and maybe he just kissed Vicki instead and imagined Elena’s face. It doesn't even seem like anything worth getting worked up over.
The second time was after Jenna's death, and the words it's just you and me now and you have me were repeating in his head, over and over, until they're all he can hear and nothing can drown them out. Peace has never been easy in the first place, and it’s difficult when there are ghosts always lurking in the corners of his eyes (sometimes he wonders why it's just these two, Anna and Vicki, and not Jenna or John or his parents. Sometimes he can't tell if this is a punishment or a mercy).
Stability is difficult, especially now because he has to be functional, he has to be normal, he has to hold down a job and tell Bonnie everything's fine and smile at everyone until he's teeth splinter from the effort. Holding that composure makes it feel like his foundations are going to crack crack crack until pieces of him scattered everywhere, house tumbling down (center cannot hold).
He wishes Bonnie was here, so he'd have somewhere to go at least, stay in her house and get his head away from everything else. But everyone is dead or gone now, it's just him and this fucking house. Alaric drifts around from time to time, unsure of whether to stay or go, and winds up doing this half-hearted motion of neither instead, one foot in the door and the other out.
He's supposed to be better now, Jeremy thinks, he's not supposed to do this anymore (you never really get better; you just go in cycles. lather rinse repeat), but he goes into Alaric's whiskey stash and takes a whole bottle, doesn't give a shit if he'll catch hell for this later. He chugs near half the thing before he purposefully goes to Elena's room (not his room; his dead girlfriends are waiting for him and he doesn't mind, not usually, but his head is getting too crowded as it is right now), crawls under the covers and tries to sleep.
"Jeremy," Elena says and he's awake again, his brow sweating. He doesn't remember his dream. He doesn't feel like he slept at all, still tired and worn down and Elena's face is a blur in front of him for minutes before he can blink her into clarity.
"You smell like a bar," she says, but she's not angry, she's just-she's just tired, like him.
He shrugs and sits up on the bed, holding out the bottle to her. "Want some?"
She surprises him when she takes it from him instead of lecturing him, but he doesn't question it, and they drink for a while, making stupid jokes and watching crap reality tv. Elena even goes to get another one when the first bottle runs out, bringing out some scotch that's too expensive to be theirs from under her bed.
("I stole some of Damon's stash once," she says, grinning slyly, "you know, having that much alcohol is bad for him, I was doing him a favor." Jeremy grins, ignoring the weird pang in his gut at Elena spending so much time at Damon's house)
They don't talk about Jenna or Stefan or ghosts or Elena's birthday next week; landmine topics they step around, only speaking in stupid meaningless words. It's comfortable at first, but the space around those topics get bigger and bigger and he feels like he's not saying anything, not doing anything at all.
He feels-he feels fucked up and fucked out, head filled with ghosts and alcohol and dead women (his sister is one of them; death on her heels, on both of theirs. He sees all the people they’ve lost when he looks at her, all the pain, and wonders if she sees the same on him; wonders if she made him this or if whatever little blood ties they have mean they're both damned).
"It's just you and me now, right?" he blurts out, interrupting a spiel about Caroline's party planning or some shit. He leans on her until his head resting in the groove between her throat and shoulder, soft bare skin against his chin.
Elena stiffens up-he doesn't know why, if it's the proximity or what he said, but she takes a deep breath and he feels it in his chest, like warmth pouring into him (it's just the alcohol, burning in his guts, that’s all). "Yeah, Jer, just us," she murmurs-there's a hesitancy in what she says, but she wraps an arm around his back and stays there against him.
He's not thinking, but he is. He thinks of Vicki breathing smoke into his mouth, teeth clinking against his as they drunkenly kissed. He remembers Anna lips on his palm as she licked and sucked at his blood, her mouth stinging and his heart racing. He remembers Elena's face after he took all of those pills and nearly died (pinched and desperate, eyes wild and throat clenching like she wanted to yell at him, instead she cried and he still didn't apologize).
"I mean, Jenna is gone, mom's gone, dad's gone, everyone's gone-" he stops himself, because his voice cracks, jagged on the word everyone and he thinks he might cry.
"Stop it, Jeremy," she says and he meant to say I’m sorry, but he kisses her instead. Her mouth is wet and half parted, and tastes like the burn of alcohol and minty something, toothpaste or lipgloss. She makes a sharp gasp and he licks into her mouth carelessly, no skill at all, too drunk for that, but he doesn't stop; she's alien and familiar all at once, and her hand tightens around his shoulder.
He doesn't feel real or even alive, composed of some intangible substance, like air or smoke; he feels like he's floating in some in between area, where things don't make any sense and they don't have to, they shouldn’t.
Then she shoves him, pushes him away and he doesn't have enough clarity of mind to stop himself from falling on the floor, and lands flat on his ass with his palms aching where he tried to stop his fall. Elena’s eyes are wide and she’s trembling (so he is, shaking like he’s going to fracture, like he’s going to throw up).
She doesn't have to tell him to get out; he leaves and doesn't look back.
He wonders if they saw, the ghosts, if they judge and mock him for this (it doesn’t even occur to him until Bonnie calls him that morning to say hi that he almost cheated on her, that he technically did cheat on her, and he should feel guilty, but all he feels is this emptiness inside, wonders if it even counts as infidelity if it’s your sister. His feelings are too gnarled and twisted inside for that, not anything he can give words to).
Or maybe they're too dead to do anything but observe. Maybe everything stops mattering once you're dead--except your loved ones, the ones left behind; there's a clarity in that makes sense to him.
He avoids Elena on her birthday; he gets high with Matt and draws her a picture instead (like when they were kids; she'd write some silly story and he’d illustrate, crude but honest, and then they’d show their parents), leaves it on her bed for her to find. He tries to put everything else out of his mind.
Things just always escalates, he thinks. He's going to blow one of these days. Or maybe he won't, maybe he'll slow down to a crawl until he shifts back to some semblance of normal.
The third time, he isn't drunk or stoned and Bonnie is gone. So are Anna and Vicki and he misses them, would prefer a ghost or two watching him over endless pounding silence, over sitting in his room and staring at the ceiling, waiting for the other shoe to drop (and it will, he’s not stupid; Elena thinks she can protect him, she doesn’t see it’s too late for that), just waiting.
The third time, he is done with smiles and pleasantries, and wants everyone to leave him the fuck alone, wants to pick a fight just to feel something break and snap that isn’t him.
He steals Alaric’s crossbow and skips school as much as he can, heading to the forest to practice shooting instead (violence makes more sense than high school now; he isn’t even sure he’d live to graduate and that’s not really a priority anymore). He hides in his room all day, and doesn’t bother doing his homework, lying to both Alaric and Elena’s faces about it. He almost looks forward to Elena yelling at him for it, when she storms in his room and gets in his face and that only happens after he pushes and pushes.
Sometimes, he really fucking hates her, the way you could only hate family, when you want to wring their neck and yet never ever let go, ever (or is that just him? he doesn't know what passes for normal anymore). There’s a visceral gnawing rage in his guts and he hates the way she looks at him, like he's a charity case she needs to fix, like he's the only screwed up one around here, the only one who needs fixing, just Elena Gilbert’s fucked up little brother.
(but you can't fix anything, Elena, he wants to say, not with anger, but gently-things fall apart, you just gotta let it fall apart; sometimes that's better)
He’s just so tired of being asked to be normal and functional when she’s chasing after murderous vampire boyfriends (it’s not like Elena’s any more functional than he is, really-just better at faking it; he thinks she even believes it sometimes).
The third time, she’s the one in his room and he thinks about telling her to leave, that childish urge to have his own space and shout leave me alone for everyone to laugh at, but he’s not a child-he’s sixteen years old and feels like he’s been on the earth too long already, seen so many people die around him that sometimes he forgets it’s not normal to know death so intimately-and he doesn’t want her to leave, not really. He’s just surprised, because Elena in his room feels like a breach of privacy, against the rules, like she stepped into the center of his gravity and threw it all off balance and now he’s stumbling in the dark.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says, blinking at her in the dark. The curtains are closed and lights are off, and he was just trying to get some sleep, iPod plugged into his ears and listening to the soothing dulcet tones of someone screaming into the microphone.
“You weren’t at school again today,” she says, arms folded, and Jeremy groans and rolls his eyes.
“If that’s all you have to say to me, don’t even bother.”
“Are you drunk?” she says. Her voice is stern, a imitation of what their mom used to sound like when she was mad, but mom never had to deal with this, with screwed up children and the blood on their hands, just Jeremy throwing tantrums and Elena sneaking out from time to time (little secret: he was the good one-the one who got his homework done all on time and always looked forward to family night like a giant dork. Elena was the one who chafed against it, snuck out when she could, came home happy and drunk from parties with Caroline and Bonnie-now it feels like that was someone else’s life).
“No,” he says. He doesn’t need to be drunk to be a dick.
“High?”
“I wish,” he mutters, and Elena huffs out a loud frustrated breath (really, he’s not-now he just gets fucked up just by existing), and then the lights are on and blinding him, bright and florescent. Jeremy shuts his eyes tight in response and doesn’t notice Elena walking over until she grabs his face, her fingers graceless and leaving indentations in his skin as they try to pry open his eyelids.
“I’m not high,” he protests, trying to get away but Elena doesn’t stop until she’s satisfied and even then she doesn’t let go of his face, fingers pressed against his cheekbones.
“I don’t have time to deal with this, Jeremy-”
“So don’t,” he says, because it really is that simple. Just don’t, Elena, just stop. Stop.
“-you need to stop skipping class, or we’re going to get a truant officer visit us and then you’re going to have to go to court and-”
“So just get Damon to compel him to go away or something, isn’t that what you do when you wind up skipping class because some vampire kidnapped you or whatever?”
It’s like he said some magic words, because she lets him go, almost recoiling away like he bit her instead, even if she doesn’t (refuses) to step out of his space.
(after their parents died, she used to look at him like, she didn’t recognize him anymore, which was only fair, because he felt the same for a while; she was unrecognizable and the whole world was, too)
“That isn’t funny,” she says.
“No, it kinda is,” he says and starts laughing, just a small choked sound in the back of his throat; it wasn’t, not until she said so and then it’s just hilarious. It’s hilarious until Elena grabs him by his arms, her hands closing in around his wrists, and drags him out of bed like a misbehaving child who won’t eat his vegetables (but he’s not a child; children are petty and he just feels tired and frustrated. He wants to break something-maybe himself, maybe something else-push and press down until the wires snap).
“Jeremy, you cannot fall apart, you can’t, not now,” and her voice falters, like she’s going to cry and it’s a stab of guilt in his stomach, but it fades away into a dull ache, just like everything else he’s feeling. He thinks he should apologize, but the words don’t make it out of his mouth (once he wanted to save Vicki from herself, that it would maybe save him from drowning as well; now he just wants to go down with this ship). “We have to keep going, we have to be strong and keep-”
“Oh, god, do you hear yourself?” he interrupts, his voice clipped and harsh. “Do you think if we keep faking it long enough, it’ll eventually be true? That if I go to school and you fake a smile every day, it’ll make Klaus stop trying to kills us, and make Stefan come back and be less of a psycho, and everything will just go back to normal? Because it won’t, it just makes us crazier than we already are.”
“I’m trying to protect you!” she shouts at him, her hands tightening around his wrists (he doesn’t think she realizes that).
“It’s a little late for that. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve died by now-” she flinches at that; his voice is shaking. He feels like he might be sick, guts twisting around; his eyes are wet and he wants to rub it away, but she’s still holding him by the wrists. “-and everyone we grew up with is dead, anyone who matters anyway, just what are you protecting me from?”
“Stop it,” she says, “just stop it, Jeremy,” and he kisses her then, because she’s there, because she’s angry, because he’s angry, because they’re both crazy; because she won’t let him go and she’s all that’s left, the only one still here. It’s sharp and sudden (but not out of nowhere; not if you’ve been paying attention), like an explosion in his chest, a timebomb going off. His lips crash against hers like a rolling wave, rough and just a little bit mean, but he whimpers when her mouth opens, when she sucks in a breath and he inhales her in like he would weed smoke, strong and heady until he thinks he might choke.
Her tongue collides with his, wet and reckless (he’s not thinking, not at all, just reacting and moving, sloppy kisses all over her mouth), and she pushes forward, pushing into him, her teeth digging into his lip. She is still holding on to him, nails digging into the tender flesh under his wrists, and suddenly he feels like he might die if she lets him go and this frenzied sort of madness overtakes him, sets his skin on fire until his insides are buzzing and swarming (he thinks he might as well be high; it couldn’t really get much worse).
Elena lets him go, then, and presses her palms against his chest, pushing him back until they break contact and he thinks he might scream, he might just finally lose it for good, he’d fall apart and never be able to put himself back together again. He makes a wild motion for her, he grabs her and cups her face (he just doesn’t want to let go, he can’t, not now, not like this) in his hands, his body shaking.
“Jer,” she whispers into his mouth when he goes to kiss her again, freezing him in his tracks, her voice unsteady; he thinks it might be a question, or maybe she’s just saying something to fill up the space (he can’t even tell anymore, speaking a different language), he doesn’t know. They’re quiet for a minute, doing nothing but listening to the sound of each other’s breathing, his heart beating loud in his ears. Jeremy wants to say something back, but his brain has forgotten words, so he just kisses her again because that’s easier; it’s easy to slot his mouth against hers, and not think about anything else except how they’re both fucked up, both falling to apart and he can’t be bothered to put his pieces back together.
She pushes against him and he doesn’t know if she’s pushing him away or just getting closer, but he pulls her back and they fall together to the bed, dragging Elena down with him. The motion displaces his mouth and hands away from her, but she winds up in his lap, legs on either side of him, and he arches into it unconsciously, eyes falling shut and sighing softly. He thinks he hears Elena say his name again, soft, like a prayer, like he’s not meant to hear. Her hands grip him by the shoulders, fingers clenching and unclenching like she can’t make up her mind what to do with them.
“Jeremy,” Elena gasps, her mouth opening and closing, but no other words come out. Her eyes are so, so wide when he opens his, and so close. He doesn’t want to think about it (he needs to stop, he knows; any further and it’d be too late, and maybe that’s what he wants-to go so far down he can’t come back) so he moves to kiss her again, his tongue darting out to lick her lips. She shudders, but turns her head to the side, and he mouths at her jaw instead, at the side of her throat and manages to draws a gasp out of her, her hands tightening hard until he thinks there’ll be bruises (his veins are wires and ropes and Elena’s nails are hooked in them, digging deep all the way down to his bones). Jeremy winds an arm around her waist and tugs her as close as he can, lays the other one on her hip until he can wrap himself around her.
(he wants to dig his fingers into her hipbones; if he had sharper nails, he’d draw blood, he thinks, but he just wants to sink into her, to tie his hands to her and never let go, crawl inside her skin until he disappeared)
Elena lets out a deep, shaky breath and grabs him by the hair, fingers holding on to the back of his head as she pulls his mouth away-he thinks this is it, that she’s going to shove him away and she’d get up, maybe lecture him (or worse, blame herself) and leave and that would be that, and Jeremy will just be Elena’s fucked up little brother who needs therapy, but she kisses him instead, her mouth is hot and a little bit desperate on him, frantic (or maybe that's just him) and wet.
(stop, he wants to say, stop but he wouldn’t even know who he’s talking to; he never claimed to rational)
He knocks his teeth against hers when he gets a hand up under her shirt, the movement clumsy but he still gets his palm and fingers splayed out against the small of her back, skin hot against his. She jerks above him (it makes him moan softly into her mouth and shudder under her hands and she sucks on his bottom lip in response) and Elena pulls back, taking off her shirt entirely in a move too quick for him follow. For a minute, he has no idea what to do-his mind goes blank when faced with his shirtless sister and he just stares at her, taking deep breaths; she drags his hand to her breast, nipple hard underneath her bra and his mind (what’s left of it) snaps back to attention. He tugs her bra down (doesn’t unfastened it, too impatient for that, but Elena twists her hand back and does it herself), cups and squeezes her warm and heavy breast in his hand and lowers his head down to take her nipple into her mouth, savors her groan and the way she shakes. They’re already rocking together when she starts to tug at his belt and pants.
(he isn’t thinking, not really, not at all or else he’d stop; if he were thinking and he didn’t stop, that would be so much worse)
The third time, he is not drunk or high or stoned (but he might be a little insane, and certainly a lot stupid; he doesn’t think either of them are stable, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing). The third time is just like finally letting go of the ledge he’d been holding on to with his fingertips and letting himself fall down.
She lays next to him after, but doesn't say anything. Once she gets her bra and shirt back on, she just stares at the ceiling like there's someone there, expression blank and almost calm. He has the stupid urge to apologize for some reason.
He thinks he should feel better. Or worse. Something. At least guilty-you’re supposed to feel guilty after this sort of thing, right? He thinks Elena’s staring contest with the ceiling is her version of guilt. But instead his limbs are sore and his body feels languid. There's an empty space inside him where Anna and Vicki used to live (dead girls, all of them; he has a type, but not Bonnie--Bonnie was the opposite of this, vibrant pulsing life, but he’s always been closer to death at the end of the day-that’s why she left him) and Elena has taken up residence there now. He doesn’t think he could ever dislodge her (it’s too late-she can’t protect him and he can’t save anyone) and that’s almost a comforting thought. Thinks he could wrap himself with that at night and keep himself warm.
He has the crazy impulse to go tell someone, anyone, just to see the look on their faces. Wants to know if Alaric would react in horror or disappointment, or if Damon would be angry or jealous. Wishes Elena had left the door open so someone could just walk by. He tries to picture Bonnie’s reaction, but that makes his chest hurt and he turns his thought to mom and dad instead.
Hey, what do you think our parents would say, Jeremy thinks and he has to bite his lip to stop the giddy laughter in his throat from spilling over.
Elena is his guardian, technically; does this mean CPS could be called on her? He does laugh at that, a low chuckle that escapes his throat and Elena doesn't acknowledge. Everything is funny once you fucked your sister, apparently.
"We didn't use a condom," she says out of the blue. She is perfectly still and doesn't move, barely changes her tone. She could be talking about the weather. Compartmentalizing, she does that a lot now; he wonders if she's noticed. Maybe. He wonders if she's noticed he's noticed. Probably not.
He’s not really sure how to reply. He should have remembered, he has them in his room, not ten feet away in a drawer, he just forgot, but his mind flashes to the come that must be drying in between her thighs and his heart skips a beat. He doesn’t know if he’s excited or sickened, or some lurid combination of both.
"Well," he says at last, his voice dry and lips cracked, "I'm really only just your cousin, so if you have a baby it's probably not going to come out all deformed and shit."
It was a joke, it was just a stupid joke, but suddenly there are tears in her eyes and "I'm sorry," he says and he doesn't know what he did wrong or what he's apologizing for. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."
She shushes him, and just as quickly, she rolls over and wraps her arm across his chest, hides her face in the hollow of his throat, and just holds on until it hurts. She is quiet, too quiet, but he feel the dampness of her tears on his skin. Jeremy reaches around to stroke her hair, but he feels stupid doing that, doesn’t know what he’s doing at all, so he just rests his hand on the back of her head, for the lack of anything better to do.
He hates her a little and loves her-needs her-too much. He doesn’t want to let go.
Later, he thinks this is why she sent him away (he doesn't always knows it happened-sometimes he thinks he’s happy and smiles freely, but there’s an artificiality about it that eats at him at night, when he can’t remember why or how, when misery has always been more comfortable if not easier), to keep him away from her, or perhaps keep herself away from him, as if either of them could just take it back.
The compulsion makes it hard for him to think-like all his thoughts exist in a fog and trying to hold on to one is like trying to catch smoke-and he doesn’t (can’t) put the pieces together until later, when he’s already gone too far away to do anything about it.
Damon may have been the one speaking to him (and Jeremy can’t forgot what he said, feels it in his head like a mantra he can’t shake out), but he knows this was Elena’s idea-he could tell by the look in her eyes, teary and wet, by the hopeful smile on her face that looked like it was about to crack; still trying to fix him anyway she can, even after they crossed the line into something unfixable, irreparably damaged (he’s comfortable with that, with the sense of finality it comes with-if only because he can’t be fucked to give a shit-but he should have known Elena would never stop trying).
There’s a block in his mind when he tries to think of Mystic Fall or vampires or ghosts, like his brain refuses to go further, a better life echoing in his ears, but he still thinks of Elena. It’s hard not to, not when everyone else is gone and she’s all he has to hang on to. No one compelled to forget about the slickness between Elena’s thighs or her hand on his cock; that’s still there, embedded deep, tucked next to his heart.
He never claimed to be rational.
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Jeremy/Elena (references to past canon pairings)
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no money off this.
Word Count: ~5,100
Warnings: underage sex, drug use, mention of attempted suicide.
Spoilers: Spoilers for the whole series, up to 3x10.
Summary: Jeremy never claimed to be rational (or: Three times Jeremy kissed his sister).
Notes: Written for opheliahyde's prompt, where are you and I'm so sorry, I cannot sleep, I cannot dream tonight, I need somebody and always, this sick strange darkness, comes creeping on, so haunting every time, at the incest comment ficathon. Posted over here because this got waaaaay too long. Reasons why I shouldn't be allowed to do comment ficathons.
The first time it happened, he’s drunk and stoned and stupid; he stumbles in at some hour after midnight and before dawn, and mistakes her bed for his through the haze of alcohol and pot, the imprint of Vicki's touch still buzzing on his skin. He doesn’t notice he’s in the wrong room until he rolls over and collides with a body, warm and small.
Elena startles, turns around and freezes up when she sees him there, eyes wide open like he hadn't just woken her from sleep (or perhaps a nightmare).
(they'd gotten in a fight earlier and it started stupid but escalated until he was screaming-about Vicki, about the drugs, about their parents; he said horrible things and Elena couldn't say anything at all, even if he's sure she wanted to, even if he wanted her to)
He just blinks dumbly for a while, trying to make sense of her expression and why she was hiding under the covers, staring at him like he's some strange new creature and not her brother.
(he thinks he stopped being her brother a while ago, because it's not an unfamiliar look, like he's something to move cautiously about and walk on eggshells around, strange and a little bit scary; maybe it was after their parents died-maybe it was after he told her it was her fault)
He didn't mean that (but he does, just a little, he just forgets sometimes).
"What are you doing?" she says softly and then he remembers.
"I'm sorry," he says (he thinks he is; some days, he isn't, not at all, some days he just wants to scream and rage until something gives). His throat burns as he speaks; he tries to move closer, scoot in next to her, and his movements are clumsy, senses and reactions dulled by the drugs and alcohol (he's had a growth spurt recently and now his limbs are awkward and alien to him, not his own).
He winds up too close. "I'm sorry," he repeats, but the words feel meager on his lips, empty so he kisses her. He means to kiss her on the cheek, but he slips and everything’s out of focus; he gets her on the mouth instead. Her lips are soft and warm, and the breath goes out of him; he can't move, can't think at all, brain too fried and kissing his big sister.
She doesn’t pull away, not for a long time. When she does, she kisses him on the cheek like he should've in the first place, before she throws an arm around him and tucks herself in next to his chest, sleeping next to him like they did when they were children.
By next morning, it's a faded memory, frayed and tattered at the edges-it feels like a stupid, crazy dream (what would Freud say?) and maybe he just kissed Vicki instead and imagined Elena’s face. It doesn't even seem like anything worth getting worked up over.
The second time was after Jenna's death, and the words it's just you and me now and you have me were repeating in his head, over and over, until they're all he can hear and nothing can drown them out. Peace has never been easy in the first place, and it’s difficult when there are ghosts always lurking in the corners of his eyes (sometimes he wonders why it's just these two, Anna and Vicki, and not Jenna or John or his parents. Sometimes he can't tell if this is a punishment or a mercy).
Stability is difficult, especially now because he has to be functional, he has to be normal, he has to hold down a job and tell Bonnie everything's fine and smile at everyone until he's teeth splinter from the effort. Holding that composure makes it feel like his foundations are going to crack crack crack until pieces of him scattered everywhere, house tumbling down (center cannot hold).
He wishes Bonnie was here, so he'd have somewhere to go at least, stay in her house and get his head away from everything else. But everyone is dead or gone now, it's just him and this fucking house. Alaric drifts around from time to time, unsure of whether to stay or go, and winds up doing this half-hearted motion of neither instead, one foot in the door and the other out.
He's supposed to be better now, Jeremy thinks, he's not supposed to do this anymore (you never really get better; you just go in cycles. lather rinse repeat), but he goes into Alaric's whiskey stash and takes a whole bottle, doesn't give a shit if he'll catch hell for this later. He chugs near half the thing before he purposefully goes to Elena's room (not his room; his dead girlfriends are waiting for him and he doesn't mind, not usually, but his head is getting too crowded as it is right now), crawls under the covers and tries to sleep.
"Jeremy," Elena says and he's awake again, his brow sweating. He doesn't remember his dream. He doesn't feel like he slept at all, still tired and worn down and Elena's face is a blur in front of him for minutes before he can blink her into clarity.
"You smell like a bar," she says, but she's not angry, she's just-she's just tired, like him.
He shrugs and sits up on the bed, holding out the bottle to her. "Want some?"
She surprises him when she takes it from him instead of lecturing him, but he doesn't question it, and they drink for a while, making stupid jokes and watching crap reality tv. Elena even goes to get another one when the first bottle runs out, bringing out some scotch that's too expensive to be theirs from under her bed.
("I stole some of Damon's stash once," she says, grinning slyly, "you know, having that much alcohol is bad for him, I was doing him a favor." Jeremy grins, ignoring the weird pang in his gut at Elena spending so much time at Damon's house)
They don't talk about Jenna or Stefan or ghosts or Elena's birthday next week; landmine topics they step around, only speaking in stupid meaningless words. It's comfortable at first, but the space around those topics get bigger and bigger and he feels like he's not saying anything, not doing anything at all.
He feels-he feels fucked up and fucked out, head filled with ghosts and alcohol and dead women (his sister is one of them; death on her heels, on both of theirs. He sees all the people they’ve lost when he looks at her, all the pain, and wonders if she sees the same on him; wonders if she made him this or if whatever little blood ties they have mean they're both damned).
"It's just you and me now, right?" he blurts out, interrupting a spiel about Caroline's party planning or some shit. He leans on her until his head resting in the groove between her throat and shoulder, soft bare skin against his chin.
Elena stiffens up-he doesn't know why, if it's the proximity or what he said, but she takes a deep breath and he feels it in his chest, like warmth pouring into him (it's just the alcohol, burning in his guts, that’s all). "Yeah, Jer, just us," she murmurs-there's a hesitancy in what she says, but she wraps an arm around his back and stays there against him.
He's not thinking, but he is. He thinks of Vicki breathing smoke into his mouth, teeth clinking against his as they drunkenly kissed. He remembers Anna lips on his palm as she licked and sucked at his blood, her mouth stinging and his heart racing. He remembers Elena's face after he took all of those pills and nearly died (pinched and desperate, eyes wild and throat clenching like she wanted to yell at him, instead she cried and he still didn't apologize).
"I mean, Jenna is gone, mom's gone, dad's gone, everyone's gone-" he stops himself, because his voice cracks, jagged on the word everyone and he thinks he might cry.
"Stop it, Jeremy," she says and he meant to say I’m sorry, but he kisses her instead. Her mouth is wet and half parted, and tastes like the burn of alcohol and minty something, toothpaste or lipgloss. She makes a sharp gasp and he licks into her mouth carelessly, no skill at all, too drunk for that, but he doesn't stop; she's alien and familiar all at once, and her hand tightens around his shoulder.
He doesn't feel real or even alive, composed of some intangible substance, like air or smoke; he feels like he's floating in some in between area, where things don't make any sense and they don't have to, they shouldn’t.
Then she shoves him, pushes him away and he doesn't have enough clarity of mind to stop himself from falling on the floor, and lands flat on his ass with his palms aching where he tried to stop his fall. Elena’s eyes are wide and she’s trembling (so he is, shaking like he’s going to fracture, like he’s going to throw up).
She doesn't have to tell him to get out; he leaves and doesn't look back.
He wonders if they saw, the ghosts, if they judge and mock him for this (it doesn’t even occur to him until Bonnie calls him that morning to say hi that he almost cheated on her, that he technically did cheat on her, and he should feel guilty, but all he feels is this emptiness inside, wonders if it even counts as infidelity if it’s your sister. His feelings are too gnarled and twisted inside for that, not anything he can give words to).
Or maybe they're too dead to do anything but observe. Maybe everything stops mattering once you're dead--except your loved ones, the ones left behind; there's a clarity in that makes sense to him.
He avoids Elena on her birthday; he gets high with Matt and draws her a picture instead (like when they were kids; she'd write some silly story and he’d illustrate, crude but honest, and then they’d show their parents), leaves it on her bed for her to find. He tries to put everything else out of his mind.
Things just always escalates, he thinks. He's going to blow one of these days. Or maybe he won't, maybe he'll slow down to a crawl until he shifts back to some semblance of normal.
The third time, he isn't drunk or stoned and Bonnie is gone. So are Anna and Vicki and he misses them, would prefer a ghost or two watching him over endless pounding silence, over sitting in his room and staring at the ceiling, waiting for the other shoe to drop (and it will, he’s not stupid; Elena thinks she can protect him, she doesn’t see it’s too late for that), just waiting.
The third time, he is done with smiles and pleasantries, and wants everyone to leave him the fuck alone, wants to pick a fight just to feel something break and snap that isn’t him.
He steals Alaric’s crossbow and skips school as much as he can, heading to the forest to practice shooting instead (violence makes more sense than high school now; he isn’t even sure he’d live to graduate and that’s not really a priority anymore). He hides in his room all day, and doesn’t bother doing his homework, lying to both Alaric and Elena’s faces about it. He almost looks forward to Elena yelling at him for it, when she storms in his room and gets in his face and that only happens after he pushes and pushes.
Sometimes, he really fucking hates her, the way you could only hate family, when you want to wring their neck and yet never ever let go, ever (or is that just him? he doesn't know what passes for normal anymore). There’s a visceral gnawing rage in his guts and he hates the way she looks at him, like he's a charity case she needs to fix, like he's the only screwed up one around here, the only one who needs fixing, just Elena Gilbert’s fucked up little brother.
(but you can't fix anything, Elena, he wants to say, not with anger, but gently-things fall apart, you just gotta let it fall apart; sometimes that's better)
He’s just so tired of being asked to be normal and functional when she’s chasing after murderous vampire boyfriends (it’s not like Elena’s any more functional than he is, really-just better at faking it; he thinks she even believes it sometimes).
The third time, she’s the one in his room and he thinks about telling her to leave, that childish urge to have his own space and shout leave me alone for everyone to laugh at, but he’s not a child-he’s sixteen years old and feels like he’s been on the earth too long already, seen so many people die around him that sometimes he forgets it’s not normal to know death so intimately-and he doesn’t want her to leave, not really. He’s just surprised, because Elena in his room feels like a breach of privacy, against the rules, like she stepped into the center of his gravity and threw it all off balance and now he’s stumbling in the dark.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says, blinking at her in the dark. The curtains are closed and lights are off, and he was just trying to get some sleep, iPod plugged into his ears and listening to the soothing dulcet tones of someone screaming into the microphone.
“You weren’t at school again today,” she says, arms folded, and Jeremy groans and rolls his eyes.
“If that’s all you have to say to me, don’t even bother.”
“Are you drunk?” she says. Her voice is stern, a imitation of what their mom used to sound like when she was mad, but mom never had to deal with this, with screwed up children and the blood on their hands, just Jeremy throwing tantrums and Elena sneaking out from time to time (little secret: he was the good one-the one who got his homework done all on time and always looked forward to family night like a giant dork. Elena was the one who chafed against it, snuck out when she could, came home happy and drunk from parties with Caroline and Bonnie-now it feels like that was someone else’s life).
“No,” he says. He doesn’t need to be drunk to be a dick.
“High?”
“I wish,” he mutters, and Elena huffs out a loud frustrated breath (really, he’s not-now he just gets fucked up just by existing), and then the lights are on and blinding him, bright and florescent. Jeremy shuts his eyes tight in response and doesn’t notice Elena walking over until she grabs his face, her fingers graceless and leaving indentations in his skin as they try to pry open his eyelids.
“I’m not high,” he protests, trying to get away but Elena doesn’t stop until she’s satisfied and even then she doesn’t let go of his face, fingers pressed against his cheekbones.
“I don’t have time to deal with this, Jeremy-”
“So don’t,” he says, because it really is that simple. Just don’t, Elena, just stop. Stop.
“-you need to stop skipping class, or we’re going to get a truant officer visit us and then you’re going to have to go to court and-”
“So just get Damon to compel him to go away or something, isn’t that what you do when you wind up skipping class because some vampire kidnapped you or whatever?”
It’s like he said some magic words, because she lets him go, almost recoiling away like he bit her instead, even if she doesn’t (refuses) to step out of his space.
(after their parents died, she used to look at him like, she didn’t recognize him anymore, which was only fair, because he felt the same for a while; she was unrecognizable and the whole world was, too)
“That isn’t funny,” she says.
“No, it kinda is,” he says and starts laughing, just a small choked sound in the back of his throat; it wasn’t, not until she said so and then it’s just hilarious. It’s hilarious until Elena grabs him by his arms, her hands closing in around his wrists, and drags him out of bed like a misbehaving child who won’t eat his vegetables (but he’s not a child; children are petty and he just feels tired and frustrated. He wants to break something-maybe himself, maybe something else-push and press down until the wires snap).
“Jeremy, you cannot fall apart, you can’t, not now,” and her voice falters, like she’s going to cry and it’s a stab of guilt in his stomach, but it fades away into a dull ache, just like everything else he’s feeling. He thinks he should apologize, but the words don’t make it out of his mouth (once he wanted to save Vicki from herself, that it would maybe save him from drowning as well; now he just wants to go down with this ship). “We have to keep going, we have to be strong and keep-”
“Oh, god, do you hear yourself?” he interrupts, his voice clipped and harsh. “Do you think if we keep faking it long enough, it’ll eventually be true? That if I go to school and you fake a smile every day, it’ll make Klaus stop trying to kills us, and make Stefan come back and be less of a psycho, and everything will just go back to normal? Because it won’t, it just makes us crazier than we already are.”
“I’m trying to protect you!” she shouts at him, her hands tightening around his wrists (he doesn’t think she realizes that).
“It’s a little late for that. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve died by now-” she flinches at that; his voice is shaking. He feels like he might be sick, guts twisting around; his eyes are wet and he wants to rub it away, but she’s still holding him by the wrists. “-and everyone we grew up with is dead, anyone who matters anyway, just what are you protecting me from?”
“Stop it,” she says, “just stop it, Jeremy,” and he kisses her then, because she’s there, because she’s angry, because he’s angry, because they’re both crazy; because she won’t let him go and she’s all that’s left, the only one still here. It’s sharp and sudden (but not out of nowhere; not if you’ve been paying attention), like an explosion in his chest, a timebomb going off. His lips crash against hers like a rolling wave, rough and just a little bit mean, but he whimpers when her mouth opens, when she sucks in a breath and he inhales her in like he would weed smoke, strong and heady until he thinks he might choke.
Her tongue collides with his, wet and reckless (he’s not thinking, not at all, just reacting and moving, sloppy kisses all over her mouth), and she pushes forward, pushing into him, her teeth digging into his lip. She is still holding on to him, nails digging into the tender flesh under his wrists, and suddenly he feels like he might die if she lets him go and this frenzied sort of madness overtakes him, sets his skin on fire until his insides are buzzing and swarming (he thinks he might as well be high; it couldn’t really get much worse).
Elena lets him go, then, and presses her palms against his chest, pushing him back until they break contact and he thinks he might scream, he might just finally lose it for good, he’d fall apart and never be able to put himself back together again. He makes a wild motion for her, he grabs her and cups her face (he just doesn’t want to let go, he can’t, not now, not like this) in his hands, his body shaking.
“Jer,” she whispers into his mouth when he goes to kiss her again, freezing him in his tracks, her voice unsteady; he thinks it might be a question, or maybe she’s just saying something to fill up the space (he can’t even tell anymore, speaking a different language), he doesn’t know. They’re quiet for a minute, doing nothing but listening to the sound of each other’s breathing, his heart beating loud in his ears. Jeremy wants to say something back, but his brain has forgotten words, so he just kisses her again because that’s easier; it’s easy to slot his mouth against hers, and not think about anything else except how they’re both fucked up, both falling to apart and he can’t be bothered to put his pieces back together.
She pushes against him and he doesn’t know if she’s pushing him away or just getting closer, but he pulls her back and they fall together to the bed, dragging Elena down with him. The motion displaces his mouth and hands away from her, but she winds up in his lap, legs on either side of him, and he arches into it unconsciously, eyes falling shut and sighing softly. He thinks he hears Elena say his name again, soft, like a prayer, like he’s not meant to hear. Her hands grip him by the shoulders, fingers clenching and unclenching like she can’t make up her mind what to do with them.
“Jeremy,” Elena gasps, her mouth opening and closing, but no other words come out. Her eyes are so, so wide when he opens his, and so close. He doesn’t want to think about it (he needs to stop, he knows; any further and it’d be too late, and maybe that’s what he wants-to go so far down he can’t come back) so he moves to kiss her again, his tongue darting out to lick her lips. She shudders, but turns her head to the side, and he mouths at her jaw instead, at the side of her throat and manages to draws a gasp out of her, her hands tightening hard until he thinks there’ll be bruises (his veins are wires and ropes and Elena’s nails are hooked in them, digging deep all the way down to his bones). Jeremy winds an arm around her waist and tugs her as close as he can, lays the other one on her hip until he can wrap himself around her.
(he wants to dig his fingers into her hipbones; if he had sharper nails, he’d draw blood, he thinks, but he just wants to sink into her, to tie his hands to her and never let go, crawl inside her skin until he disappeared)
Elena lets out a deep, shaky breath and grabs him by the hair, fingers holding on to the back of his head as she pulls his mouth away-he thinks this is it, that she’s going to shove him away and she’d get up, maybe lecture him (or worse, blame herself) and leave and that would be that, and Jeremy will just be Elena’s fucked up little brother who needs therapy, but she kisses him instead, her mouth is hot and a little bit desperate on him, frantic (or maybe that's just him) and wet.
(stop, he wants to say, stop but he wouldn’t even know who he’s talking to; he never claimed to rational)
He knocks his teeth against hers when he gets a hand up under her shirt, the movement clumsy but he still gets his palm and fingers splayed out against the small of her back, skin hot against his. She jerks above him (it makes him moan softly into her mouth and shudder under her hands and she sucks on his bottom lip in response) and Elena pulls back, taking off her shirt entirely in a move too quick for him follow. For a minute, he has no idea what to do-his mind goes blank when faced with his shirtless sister and he just stares at her, taking deep breaths; she drags his hand to her breast, nipple hard underneath her bra and his mind (what’s left of it) snaps back to attention. He tugs her bra down (doesn’t unfastened it, too impatient for that, but Elena twists her hand back and does it herself), cups and squeezes her warm and heavy breast in his hand and lowers his head down to take her nipple into her mouth, savors her groan and the way she shakes. They’re already rocking together when she starts to tug at his belt and pants.
(he isn’t thinking, not really, not at all or else he’d stop; if he were thinking and he didn’t stop, that would be so much worse)
The third time, he is not drunk or high or stoned (but he might be a little insane, and certainly a lot stupid; he doesn’t think either of them are stable, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing). The third time is just like finally letting go of the ledge he’d been holding on to with his fingertips and letting himself fall down.
She lays next to him after, but doesn't say anything. Once she gets her bra and shirt back on, she just stares at the ceiling like there's someone there, expression blank and almost calm. He has the stupid urge to apologize for some reason.
He thinks he should feel better. Or worse. Something. At least guilty-you’re supposed to feel guilty after this sort of thing, right? He thinks Elena’s staring contest with the ceiling is her version of guilt. But instead his limbs are sore and his body feels languid. There's an empty space inside him where Anna and Vicki used to live (dead girls, all of them; he has a type, but not Bonnie--Bonnie was the opposite of this, vibrant pulsing life, but he’s always been closer to death at the end of the day-that’s why she left him) and Elena has taken up residence there now. He doesn’t think he could ever dislodge her (it’s too late-she can’t protect him and he can’t save anyone) and that’s almost a comforting thought. Thinks he could wrap himself with that at night and keep himself warm.
He has the crazy impulse to go tell someone, anyone, just to see the look on their faces. Wants to know if Alaric would react in horror or disappointment, or if Damon would be angry or jealous. Wishes Elena had left the door open so someone could just walk by. He tries to picture Bonnie’s reaction, but that makes his chest hurt and he turns his thought to mom and dad instead.
Hey, what do you think our parents would say, Jeremy thinks and he has to bite his lip to stop the giddy laughter in his throat from spilling over.
Elena is his guardian, technically; does this mean CPS could be called on her? He does laugh at that, a low chuckle that escapes his throat and Elena doesn't acknowledge. Everything is funny once you fucked your sister, apparently.
"We didn't use a condom," she says out of the blue. She is perfectly still and doesn't move, barely changes her tone. She could be talking about the weather. Compartmentalizing, she does that a lot now; he wonders if she's noticed. Maybe. He wonders if she's noticed he's noticed. Probably not.
He’s not really sure how to reply. He should have remembered, he has them in his room, not ten feet away in a drawer, he just forgot, but his mind flashes to the come that must be drying in between her thighs and his heart skips a beat. He doesn’t know if he’s excited or sickened, or some lurid combination of both.
"Well," he says at last, his voice dry and lips cracked, "I'm really only just your cousin, so if you have a baby it's probably not going to come out all deformed and shit."
It was a joke, it was just a stupid joke, but suddenly there are tears in her eyes and "I'm sorry," he says and he doesn't know what he did wrong or what he's apologizing for. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."
She shushes him, and just as quickly, she rolls over and wraps her arm across his chest, hides her face in the hollow of his throat, and just holds on until it hurts. She is quiet, too quiet, but he feel the dampness of her tears on his skin. Jeremy reaches around to stroke her hair, but he feels stupid doing that, doesn’t know what he’s doing at all, so he just rests his hand on the back of her head, for the lack of anything better to do.
He hates her a little and loves her-needs her-too much. He doesn’t want to let go.
Later, he thinks this is why she sent him away (he doesn't always knows it happened-sometimes he thinks he’s happy and smiles freely, but there’s an artificiality about it that eats at him at night, when he can’t remember why or how, when misery has always been more comfortable if not easier), to keep him away from her, or perhaps keep herself away from him, as if either of them could just take it back.
The compulsion makes it hard for him to think-like all his thoughts exist in a fog and trying to hold on to one is like trying to catch smoke-and he doesn’t (can’t) put the pieces together until later, when he’s already gone too far away to do anything about it.
Damon may have been the one speaking to him (and Jeremy can’t forgot what he said, feels it in his head like a mantra he can’t shake out), but he knows this was Elena’s idea-he could tell by the look in her eyes, teary and wet, by the hopeful smile on her face that looked like it was about to crack; still trying to fix him anyway she can, even after they crossed the line into something unfixable, irreparably damaged (he’s comfortable with that, with the sense of finality it comes with-if only because he can’t be fucked to give a shit-but he should have known Elena would never stop trying).
There’s a block in his mind when he tries to think of Mystic Fall or vampires or ghosts, like his brain refuses to go further, a better life echoing in his ears, but he still thinks of Elena. It’s hard not to, not when everyone else is gone and she’s all he has to hang on to. No one compelled to forget about the slickness between Elena’s thighs or her hand on his cock; that’s still there, embedded deep, tucked next to his heart.
He never claimed to be rational.