Broken // 01: Elena
Title: Broken // 01: Elena
Author: that_treason
Rating: R (Language and Sexy Times)
Length: around 5,500 words (this chapter: around 2,000 words)
Spoilers: Spoilers through the end of 4x15, "Stand By Me" -- AU after that
Characters (this chapter): Damon, Elena, Katherine
Disclaimers: Everything belongs to the people who own them. I am just borrowing to get things out of my system.
Three little girls, all grown up. Three related stand-alone chapters written to follow "Stand By Me".
// 01: ELENA
The house burns. Elena leaves it behind without a glance.
They assume she'll move into the boardinghouse: Damon's room most likely, another empty one possibly, or even take the couch, if nothing else suits. Instead, as the Camaro speeds away from the sound of sirens, Elena asks to be dropped at Ric's loft, in a voice flat and empty.
In the weeks that follow, she rarely leaves except to hunt, mostly in the alleys behind the Grill. She never kills her prey, but she never heals them either -- just lets them stagger away with no memory.
Damon visits her at the loft at least once a day for hours at a time. Stefan stops by every few days, tries to talk to her a little. She gives each of them her full attention as long as they are in the room with her, but when they leave she seems to forget them. They disappear from her mind.
The first time she tries to fuck Stefan, he stays away for a week. When Damon brings it up to her (once and only once) she gives no explanation, and her face stays blank. She never mentions Stefan’s absence.
Damon accepts all of it -- heals her victims, stocks her fridge with hopeful (untouched) blood bags, and has endless empty sex with her. He swallows all his rage down to become a creature of absolute calm. There’s a craving in him for it, a need to be punished for what he thinks he’s done.
But even he has limits: there are cracks in him that bent too far will break.
###
Damon’s head is full of story when he opens the door to the loft -- so he’s concentrating on the words in his mouth rather than what’s right in front of him. That’s why it takes him more than a moment to properly take in the scene.
“Thought you’d like to know: looks like Blondie’s totally committed to Operation: Sexy Klaus Diversion this time ...”
The words trail off as his eyes take in the bed.
Two forms are there, each with tumbling chocolate brown curls, each a mirror of the other. One lies on her back, legs spread, without a stitch of clothing, eyes closed and expression soft. He can't see the other's face -- it's pushed down between her partner’s legs -- but he know what she looks like regardless. Knows both these bodies intimately. Realizes he's never really directly compared the two -- they’ve always been distinct creatures to him, for all that they look alike to the world. But now he can’t tell which is the face he hates and which the one he loves.
The girl lying down opens her eyes and looks at him. Pretty much instantly his unspoken question is answered, just by the look in her eyes.
“Look who’s come to join us,” Katherine purrs.
Damon’s brain flashes through four out of five stages of grief in quick succession (denial-anger-bargaining-depression) before skipping straight over acceptance in a mad dash to turn around and start again. He lands on anger as a good place to live for the moment, or possibly forever, depending on what happens in the next few minutes.
“The fuck is this?”
Elena’s head freezes in place between Katherine’s legs, but she makes no move to turn around.
Katherine answers: “I think I already explained this once before, say about 150 years ago. When two people love each other very much...”
“Or one person loves someone very much and the other person is a goddamn tramp. Elena, what’s going on?”
A muffled sigh rises up from the bed right before Elena twists to face him. Her face is blank and her eyes are empty, no difference from yesterday or the day before. But then she snickers to herself and a wide grin crosses her lips (although it never makes it to her eyes).
“I’d like my dollar now please.” She swings her hand out like a kid begging for candy money.
“You want money?” Now there’s a layer of puzzled on top of the angry already at home on his face.
“Don’t you remember?” She mimics Damon’s tone: “ ‘If I see something I haven’t seen before, I’ll throw a dollar at it.‘ I’m more than positive you’ve never seen this before and I’d like my dollar now, please.”
“Sorry, all out of cash. What’s with the show?”
All the amusement drains from Elena’s face. “Show?”
“I doubt you were attacked by a curling iron in the night, Elena. I also doubt that Katherine’s somehow forced you to slather on two tons of eye makeup.” He’s seething now, hands balled into fists at either side, spitting his words out one by one. “Which leads me to the frankly startling conclusion that you’re a willing participant, complete with hair and makeup, in whatever it is that means I now owe you a fucking dollar.”
Katherine checks her flawless nails. “I think it’s pretty obvious what we’re doing. As for why, honestly it was only a matter of time before--”
Elena and Damon shout in unison “Shut up Katherine” because there’s one thing left in the world on which they both agree. Elena hops off the bed and takes four wide strides to stand directly in front of him, hands on naked hips, no sign of embarrassment showing. Katherine just crosses her arms and sulks.
“When did you become such a prude, Damon? Sad news for all the ladies of the world: the bad-boy sex fiend thing is really just an act.”
“Fuck, Elena, what is it you think you’re doing, with all of this screwing around? Trying to prove some kind of point? Beat my high score?”
“Human Me was all bound up with ‘doing the right thing’ -- whatever that’s supposed to mean. Old Vampire Me was all conflicted and angsty, always fighting against her true nature. But we took care of that together, right Damon? New Vampire Me isn’t trapped by any of that and I’ve decided to make up for lost time. I plan to really get the true Mystic Falls experience. You know, collect the whole fucking set:”
She starts to count out on her fingers.
“You’ll fuck me quick as breathing. Check.”
“Stefan ran away, but I’ve got literally all the time in the world to try again. Pathetic emo sex is just a matter of patience.” She puts a hand next to her face and lowers her voice into a stage whisper, as if they’re conspiring together: “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been there before, so really: check.”
He opens his mouth to interrupt, but never stands a chance. She just raises her voice to continue the litany.
“Caroline’s gotten all busy with a fuck buddy of her own, so she’s a no-go for the moment. Probably takes Klaus out of the picture as well, at least until the honeymoon period is over.” She smirks up at him. “I bet I could work out a threesome when things settle down. Klaus has a thing for dopplegangers, right?”
“Ooooh, and that gives me an angle I hadn’t considered: doppleganger fetish probably gives me an in with Elijah, too -- I’ll have to think about that one. Maybe Katherine can be convinced to help.”
There’s a snort from the bed, but Katherine doesn’t try to get involved.
“I heard somewhere that Rebekah gives great hate sex -- so I’ll get to work on that as soon as I hear she’s back from that fucked-up island.”
“Bonnie’s psycho, which you’d think would be fun, but really is just irritating, trust me -- I tried, more than once. Couldn’t get over her mumbling long enough to cop a feel.”
“Matt’s fairly breakable, so I’m saving him for one big bang on some rainy day.”
“Alaric’s a ghosty -- which seems not very easy to overcome. Unless I start sexting him through a Ouija Board or something ridiculous like that. Not my priority at the moment, but I’m sure if we put our heads together we can figure something out.”
She pauses to put her hands on his chest, and then slide them up onto his shoulders and around his neck.
“And then I thought,” she says as she smiles that sweet smile up at him, “why not try the obvious two-for-one? Curl my hair up, slather on way too much slutty eye makeup, and fuck Katherine and myself at the same time. Doppleganger hijinks to the rescue for once.”
“So here we are.”
He’s got his crazy eyes on now and he’s gripping her arms too tight high up, near her chest. The pressure from his fingers whitens her skin, but she shows no signs of discomfort.
“Have you gone completely insane?”
“Nope. Particularly not when compared to some of the people we know.”
“What about the Cure, Elena? Last time we saw Slutty Spice over there, she’d just stolen it right out from under us.”
Elena shrugs. “She gave it Klaus for her freedom and he smashed it or something. You don’t want it. I don’t want it. What difference does it make?”
“What about Jeremy, Elena?”
“Jeremy’s dead.”
“He used to matter to you, Elena, and someday he’ll matter to you again and you’ll regret this, all of this, whatever this is. Could you just listen to me for one miserable second?”
“Jeremy’s dead and burned and therefore completely unfuckable. We don’t even know if he’s a ghost on the Other Side, so even that Ouija Board thing I’m gonna try with Alaric probably won’t work. Hence he’s not on the entertainment menu. Hence he’s not related to anything we’re talking about.”
He moves right up into her face, nose to nose with her, nothing human in his eyes.
“This was a mistake. All of this, from the beginning.”
"There are no mistakes, Damon. You don't seem to get this, Damon. The reality of things, now. I turned my heart off and now I'm heart-less. Less, lesser, less-than, less now than I was” She spits every word into his too close face. “-- and the world is so much more. And I want it, I want more. I thought you would understand that, Damon."
"Elena, I--"
She covers his mouth with her hand to cut him off; he’s so beaten he doesn’t even fight it. Her head turns at an angle, like she's studying him, deciding what to do with him -- like he’s an insect ready for a pin and label. The look in her eyes (or maybe the lack of a look) makes him lean back and drop his hands from her arms.
When she speaks again, her voice has an edge, and she’s dropped any pretense of amusement.
"You seem to think you broke me, Damon, but it's just the opposite. You asked me to do it and I did: I fixed myself. Isn't that what you wanted? What you both wanted, you and Stefan? A fix for broken-heart Elena? Well, here I am, I fixed myself. And now it's my turn to want."
She pauses and her eyes drop to his lips. Her face hardens even more.
"You can stay there and watch, you can wait your turn, you can join us, you can leave. It's all fine. Everything is fine, with or without you."
Elena turns away from him and walks back to the bed. Katherine says nothing, just quirks an eyebrow at him, before she snuggles herself back down onto the bed. His head shoots to the side and looks away from them both, at the floor.
###
// 01: Elena // 02: Caroline // 03: Bonnie