[tvd] big bang fic: Watch You Bleed Me Dry

[waltzmatildah]

WATCH YOU BLEED ME DRY



fifty one

They track what they're convinced is Klaus and his touring party, Klaus and Stefan, to a small town just seventy miles south west of Mystic Falls. And Damon can't help but roll his eyes at the outcome. They've searched for his brother left and right over the best part of two countries and in the end it's like they never even left home.

He wastes seven solid minutes attempting to convince Elena that her presence is not required for the next part of whatever the hell it is that they're doing. Had bargained on her refusing by minute three and so counts the fact that he gets to seven as something of a win.

Even if he still loses in the end.

He slows the car to a stop when they're still a few miles out. Hides his trepidation of what comes next carefully in the elongated shadows that fall across the vehicle's interior. The pulsating ache in his chest has become something of a comforting drum beat over the past few weeks. A constant reminder that his brother is still alive for the rescue.

That he himself is still alive enough to carry it out.

Even if only just at times.

“Elena--”

Her sharp intake of breath stills him to silence once more. The remainder of his final plea dissolving in the back of his throat.

“I'm coming with you.”

She answers him nonetheless. Knows exactly what it was that he'd been planning to say, has her rebuttal all lined up and ready to go. He knocks the back of his head lightly against the headrest, takes a second or several to gather his thoughts and wonders, if only for a fleeting instance, whether calling for backup might be a better idea.

Knows, heavy-hearted, that Alaric, the witch and the wardrobe will only attempt to delay them even more than they already have been.

And so it falls to him.

As it should.

- - -

He turns off the deserted highway on instinct. Has his own personal compass wedged tightly in the space his heart and lungs used to live. The road towards the outbuildings that are their final destination is gravel and so he eases the car to a stop just inside the decrepit metal gate. Figures they need all the advantage they can get for this one and knows that announcing their arrival with the thunderous roar of car tyre on gravel is a sure-fire way to get them both killed before they even lay eyes on his brother.

Elena hasn't moved in her seat. Belt still firmly buckled. And he thinks, just for a fragmented second, that she might be going to stay there. Scared stiff and frozen.

Almost hopes for it to be the truth, even as he knows he can't do this alone.

“Damon?” Whisper quiet.

“Elena?” Quieter still. There is resignation in his voice that he can't quite bring himself to hide.

“Can we really do this?” Naïve hope laces her words; he lies so as not to spoil the illusion.

“Of course we can. It's Stefan. He'll probably be waiting for us... won't even have to get our hands dirty.”

He tries for upbeat and is more than just a little disappointed in himself when it falls flat. Clouds the space between them with all the terror they're both too scared to acknowledge.

Elena smiles at him, soft and sure. She's grateful for his attempt at self-assured confidence. It is a dance he does well, she knows this.

Is relying on it.

She nods her head once. A quick up and down of her chin.

Hopes it reads a silent I trust you...

Thinks she might finally believe it with everything that she has.

- - -

Stepping out of the car feels like absolution. Decision staunchly made to do this, and to do it right. Damon opens the back of the SUV, hauls weapons he desperately hopes they won't need out onto the scuffed grass and gravel at his feet. Lines Elena up, his own eyes deliberately just south of her terrified gaze, slides a wooden stake into the back pocket of her denim jeans and holds out two vervain darts. Offers her a long-distance launcher for the vials and shrugs dismissively when she shakes her head violently, no.

And it all feels a little bit ridiculous. They both know that if Klaus decides he wants them dead, no amount of liquid vervain, no carefully whittled wooden spike, will be anywhere near enough to save them.

But he figures the least they can do is succumb trying. Arms himself to the hilt with more vervain darts and hopes for easily defeated minions he can take out along the way. Is almost itching for a fight, even as he knows he is no-where near strong enough to win one.

Stops, considers, wonders if maybe he's not been planning on a triumphant victory.

Going out in a blaze of glory was always more his style after all.

- - -

Damon shifts his shoulders in her direction, she catches him grimace almost imperceptibly. And she's terrified all of a sudden. Knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that there can be no turning back from this.

There's an expression on his face that she can't quite read.

She'd say it's resignation but she knows he doesn't do failure.

His cell phone bleats to ear piercing life in his pocket. She jumps and squeals and clamps her own hand over her mouth. Misses stabbing herself in the face with a vervain dart by inches and millimetres. He squints at the display before ending the call. Switches the phone off and tosses the useless device onto the front seat.

Even if they could come, they'd be too late...

- - -

“They're not picking up...”

“Can you please change the station?”

“How far do we have to go?”

“They're probably there already...”

“No, seriously. Will one of you please change the station...”

Questions and demands that remain unanswered. Nothing more than words to fill the emptied out spaces that surround their one unspoken thought.

What if we're too late?

- - -

“What are you doing here?”

The dark voice seems foreign for an instant, the deep timbre of a stranger, before a familiar face materialises in front of her. Elena feels her insides shift, south by south west.

“Stefan.” Breathless, caught in the elated relief that fills her lungs, all hot air and humidity, “Thank God, come--”

“Elena.” Her name as a warning. Damon, ahead of her, over Stefan's shoulder.

“I said, what are you doing here?” Barely more than a growl that shoots a shiver of ice along the length of her spine. Her feet shift against the dust, caught between forwards and backwards and a giant leap sideways.

“Stefan. No...” Damon to his brother this time, fierce and foreboding. As though he knows something Elena hasn't quite figured out just yet.

“We've been searching for you,” she explains, eager for him to understand. “You have to come back--”

He laughs then and her stomach turns once.

Twice.

“Come back? Why on Earth would I want to do that?”

“Stefan, don't. You don't mean--” She blinks, wide and wobbly as Damon moves in her periphery.

“Oh, I think he does, Elena. We should probably--” He throws the vervain dart without warning. Uses the momentary surprise it brings to follow up the trajectory and depress the plunger to all the way in. Feels the night sky fill with the sound of screaming as Stefan protests the toxin vehemently but doesn't actually falter.

And not for the first time Damon thinks he may just have underestimated his little brother's strength.

“Elena, go.” He'd offer more of an explanation but knows without needing to contemplate the situation that they're out of time.

And not to mention, shit out of luck.

“What? No, I'm not-- Stefan?” She steps towards him. Hands up in a symbolic surrender she's still not entirely convinced she needs. “You don't want to do this--”

Stefan laughs again, a shard of sound that borders on psychotic. Damon has been privy to the haunting echo on previous occasions, but not for almost a century now.

A final confirmation that tonight will not end well.

“Elena, go!”

- - -

She registers Damon's barked instruction as background noise. A bright white static that fights for position around the still reeling realisation that this is Stefan.

But it is most definitely not her Stefan.

And they are too late.

She feels the wind shift up a notch. The gusty breeze morphing into something a little more fierce. A little more determined to knock her off her feet.

It takes her longer than it should to understand that the movements of air buffeting her from every angle are being created by the fiercely duelling bodies of the boys, her boys, locked together in a fight that she can't possibly hope to keep up with. Sinks to her knees amid decaying leaf matter, amid the bugs and the dirt and the black.

Shoves her fingers into her mouth in an attempt to block out the screaming.

- - -

Damon feels his brother slump somewhat in his arms. Rag-doll loose against his own shattered ribcage as their backwards momentum is broken by his own spine against the base of a thick tree that reverberates vivid protest at the contact. He buries his forehead between shoulder-blades that twitch and stammer. Can hear his own voice chanting into the heat that radiates from sweat-slippery skin.

Little brother, little brother, little brother...

And, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

Lets his guard down for just long enough. Releases muscle tension that holds them trapped together, slides his eyelids to closed against the heady knowledge that he is all to blame for this.

Lets his guard down for just too long.

He's there and then he's not. Arms full and then empty as Stefan rears away at a speed that belies the vast quantities of vervain that have been pumped into him. Damon feels the rush of air that whistles through his teeth as he calls after him. Shifts to moving and ignites an agony that is unparalleled.

Core deep and hollowed out.

- - -

They're face to face for milliseconds.

They're face to face for eternity.

A hand pushes out, palm first. Comes to rest against the shredded rags of Damon's shirt. Stills against the stammer of his freight train heartbeat, as though Stefan might know more about what's going on in there than he'd care to admit. A thousand sentences begin and then die on his tongue. A shocking kind of muteness that fills his skull with cotton wool threatens to send him to his knees.

“Brother...”

The word curls out around lips that are snaked into melancholy and regret. Damon uses the momentary reprieve to memorise the sound.

Brother.

Brother, brother, brother.

“You know, Klaus said he doubted it would come to this.”

This? Damon blinks. Can't quite fathom what the this is that he's referring to.

“Me?” Head cants to the right once more, mocking even as he continues. “I was a little more confident. After all, Katherine held your attention for a century and a half. I hoped I'd be worth at least that to you.”

“Stefan--” Screws up his face against a wave of agony as he shuffles his feet forward by degrees.

“You feel it? Neat trick, huh?”

Damon snaps his eyes open at that. Watches as all the ducks fall into a row. One by one by one...

“You did this?”

“You sound surprised, big brother.” He's laughing. Like maybe he's already been declared the victor in this particular war. “You forget that I know you better than you know yourself.”

Damon fists his right hand into the scraps of shirt material that still cling desperately to his chest.

“The bigger the obstacle, the more likely you are to fight. And fight. And fight...”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“No.” Shakes his head wildly, forgets to stop again. “No, I don't believe you...”

Stefan shrugs again, all brazen nonchalance and unnatural calm.

“Klaus said--” A monotone. Like he's been programmed to repeat a specific string of sentences.

And maybe he has.

Elena is watching the exchange through fingers splayed desperately across eyes that refuse to blink Can't quite hear their words as they dissolve into the static that surrounds them. Damon's face is twisted into a mask of agony that she almost doesn't recognise and she longs to go back, so far back.

Yesterday, last week, last year.

Nothing is going to plan.

She's standing now, despite the fact that she can't seem to remember pushing to her feet. Catches Damon's glazed stare over the poised rise and fall of Stefan's left shoulder.

The faded denim jacket Stefan is wearing, an item of clothing that she doesn't recognise, is torn in some places, ripped to rags in others. Smudged with a black red that she knows must be blood but can't quite figure out whose...

Could even be hers for all she knows.

The vervain dart Damon plunged into his shoulder right back at the start of this unholy unravelling is still in place. A macabre image to match the identical dart in his left thigh and the whittled wooden stake he hasn't yet bothered to remove from his right.

Damon opens his mouth to tell her to run. Fights for the words around the marching band that has set up camp in his chest and the sledgehammer that has seriously shifted his centre of gravity backwards and to the side.

He can't for the life of him figure out why she's still there. Gaping at him soundlessly and with her fingers shifting from over her eyes to fisted between her teeth. Like maybe she's trying to chew her own arm off.

Or something...

He blinks dumbly, thinks he'll need to have words with her once this is all over. Remind her that when he screams, and it's not something he does all that often, then she really, really needs to listen. But the shifting of his gaze gives the game away too soon.

Too late. Too everything in between.

Stefan's shoulders lift once, a shrug of sorts, before he grins. Bright eyed and bloodied.

“Lemme guess... Elena?”

But it's not really a question.

And they both know what happens now.

“Klaus said she'd be here...”

- - -

His teeth are tickling at her neck before she can register that he's even moved. And by the time that realisation happens upon her, slap-in-the-face shocking, it's too late to do anything more than fist her fingers into his hair and pray.

- - -

Damon's still got a stake stashed in the back pocket of his jeans. Twisting to wrench it free is an equilibrium-shifting experience as the whole world tilts down below the horizon.

He's pretty sure he's dying. And he's pretty sure Elena is already dead.

And he'd laugh if it wasn't all so ridiculously pathetic.

His right arm is above his head now and how it got there he can't quite fathom. Brings his elbow down with all the force he can muster. Buries the shaft of the stake between shoulder-blades that barely flinch.

It is only the immediate and complete dissolution of the marching band in his chest that tells him his aim was true...

The realisation is shocking. Steals what little breath he's managed to hold on to.

And every last scrap of his resolve.

- - -

“Ow. Would you please just sit still. If you accidentally stake me with that thing before we get there, I swear--”

“If you don't shut up, I'll stake you myself. Seriously, what are you all? Five?” Katherine is edgy. Edgier than usual. Can quite put her finger on a reason for why.

At least, not one beyond Stefan and maybe Damon, and she's never been that level of pathetic. Is hardly going to start now.

They've made up ground surprisingly efficiently, though she doesn't think she'll bother to pass on that piece of information to their chauffeur for the evening. Alaric more than relishing his role as resident Nascar racer in an attempt to get them across the seventy miles in time.

As she finally swings the car door open, steps out into the still night air, she knows immediately that they are too late. Sees Caroline stop and start off to the left. Knows instinctively the she feels it too. Thinks there might be hope for her as a decent vampire yet.

Their eyes meet. Caroline's mouth drops to open, eyes a sudden, brilliant bright blue. Katherine shakes her head soundlessly. A warning.

Not yet.



The rest of the rag-tag rescue crew are waiting for her command. She contemplates telling them to stay put, to wait in the car with the windows rolled to up and the doors locked, but she has come to know them well enough over the last few weeks, few months, to understand what a fruitless request it would be. Motions instead for them to stay behind her and Caroline as they make their way through the trees.

They've almost rounded the barn-like structure obscuring her view when she hears the screaming. So much like her own muted echo in the back of her head that it stalls her for a moment and she switches up to a blur only split seconds before she registers Caroline do the same.

Arrives just in time to watch Damon, hands and knees and eyes clenched to closed, plunge a stake between his little brother's shoulder-blades.

Barely recognises the next howl as it rips a path past her own raw vocal chords.

It's not until she has roughly pulled Damon free from his brother that she finds Elena.

And her answer.

The significance of Damon's choice, a resounding slap against her face that rattles all the way through her hollowed-out insides.

She thinks minutes disappear then, and suddenly Caroline has Elena pulled into her lap, is force-feeding her blood from her own torn wrist as Alaric settles down beside an unresponsive Damon. Her own fingers are ghosting over a face that she barely recognises. Fangs still descended. Skin shrivelled.

Dead.

Properly this time.

“Well, well, well. What an intriguing turn of events.”

Klaus.

- - -

Katherine panics. Pulls Stefan's decaying corpse up and against her chest with an instinct she barely recognises. Her last attempt at something resembling protection.

Klaus nudges his toe against Damon's shoulder. Alaric's fingers are fisted into the front of Damon’s shredded shirt but he doesn't so much as flinch at Klaus’ proximity.

She can't decide in that moment if the human is brave or simply stupid. Figures probably a healthy combination of both to be the truth.

She slides her gaze back to Klaus. Watches him surreptitiously through lashes that she doesn't quite drag to all the way open. Notices him flinch, perhaps in annoyance, before his own lips twist into a self-satisfied grin.

“Ah, Miss Bennett. You don't seriously think--”

“Touch them and you'll be--”

“I'll be what? Dead? I don't think so. Besides... what could I possibly want with either of those two?”

Katherine notices that Elena is starting to rouse. Motions instinctively to Caroline to keep her quiet. To keep her still. Watches as Caroline gets the message, loud and crystal clear. Flips her shredded wrist over and presses her palm against Elena's blood-smudged lips instead. Brings her other hand up to her own and indicates for her to stay silent.

Elena bucks violently once. A seething sort of panic building under her skin as Caroline's mouth works its way around whispered platitudes and reassurances that she'll never bring herself to believe. The metallic tang of blood that isn't hers fills the back of her throat. So much and not enough like Damon's that her stomach lurches from the fleeting memory of his wrist against her saliva-slick lips.

Her vision is filled with a tumultuous mess of blonde hair and blood. The only sound she can register, the ragged sawing of her own breath, hot and humid as it fights for escape between the fingers pressed tightly, too tightly, against her nose and mouth.

She can't breathe...

- - -

Klaus kicks at Damon's shoulder once more and this time Alaric reacts. Repositions his own body so that he's between the Original and his best-friend.

Klaus laughs. Joyful and incredulous. “Relax. I have no interest in hurting him. In fact, this whole performance has been remarkably entertaining, if perhaps a tad too melodramatic for my tastes...”

He is the only one to offer up a grin.

“You know, I wasn't convinced he had it in him.” Jerks his chin down in Damon's direction before he continues, “Choosing the girl over his own brother. I'll have to get him to give Elijah some lessons on the futility of family loyalty.”

He laughs again, takes a step back, shrugs. “Oops. Too late for that.”

- - -

“You know, it really was all too easy.”

Klaus is still speaking. Like maybe he thinks they're waiting for an explanation.

A detailed reason that makes some modicum of sense.

“I think I liked the poetry of it the most.” A nod. As though confirming the notion for himself. “Yes, the whole thing does positively ring of Shakespearean tragedy after all...”

The wind has died down, faded to a murmur that gently shifts the trees that surround them. Like maybe even the woods know they can't compete with this turn of events.

“I mean, he relinquished everything for his brother. Did so without second thought. Which is funny when you think about it. When you look at where we are now...”

He grins. Gestures with a theatrical flourish. Continues his soliloquy.

“... And what an interesting little game it all turned out to be. Though I must admit, not the end result I'd been expecting...”

- - -

Klaus leaves then. Claps his hands thrice, like he might be applauding the show, before disappearing back in the direction he came from. There's a split second interval where their world falls to white noise and empty air before Elena shatters the night sky. Drags in a lungful of life and shoves Caroline aside easily. Shrieks a string of consonants and vowels that might be Stefan and might be Damon and might be none of the above.

Might well be both.

She's a tableau between them. Left and right. Up and down.

Dead and gone.

Finds her own frozen face mirrored in Katherine's.

Screams. Feels her knees hit dirt and debris. Fingers fisted into the molten earth beneath her.

Stops breathing and can't imagine ever starting again.

- - -

They make their way back to Mystic Falls, funeral procession-like. Katherine stows Stefan in the trunk of Elena's car. Pushes Damon's boneless body across the backseat and drives with her gaze fixed firmly on the rear-view mirror.

A futile exercise.

Caroline and Bonnie collect Elena, trap flailing limbs between their own and allow themselves to be led back to Alaric's car.

The only proof they'd ever been there: blood spilled.

fifty two

Katherine is coiled in the armchair she's moved into his bedroom when he regains consciousness, had easily shifted the piece of furniture into position when it became clear that the night was going to be a long one. His bookshelf has proved a constant source of distraction from the steady rise and fall of his bruised chest.

She watches.

She pretends that she doesn't.

His eyes do a silent sweep of the room, settle on her eventually. And she wonders when his default became Elena and not her as the moment he figures it all out flashes, neon bright, across his face.

“She's not here.”

Katherine stays.

Elena leaves.

A paradox of sorts.

He shifts, as though to move. She's on him before he has the chance, her fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“I wouldn't do that if I were you.”

He blinks lazily. The fresh blood in the IV line she's eventually managed to hook up has yet to make much of an impact on the significant damage he's incurred during the hours that made up last night.

“Do what?”

The sound is like glass under her nails.

“Move.”

“Why? What did you do to me?”

Another default assumption. She'd have been pleased...

Once upon a time.

“Me? Nothing. Everybody else? Well, that's a different story...”

He ignores her then. Attempts a move to seated.

“Would now be the time to say I told you so?” she quips, risks a sideways glance at the IV and wonders if he's alert enough to attempt drinking directly from the bag yet.

“Your pelvis was wrapped around a tree, Damon. You've basically been unconscious since it happened. If you had plans for a busy Friday night, I'd consider cancelling them if I were you...”

“Elena?”

“Like I said, not here. Her brother and the witch took her home a while ago. She's mostly fine, that is, if you discount the shock value of watching the brother you're hooking up with on the side kill the brother that's supposed to be your boyfriend of course--”

“Get out.”

And suddenly Elena is poised in the doorway, one hand against the frame, the other on her hip, defiant, and Katherine berates herself for not being more aware of her changing surroundings.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, get out.”

She laughs derisively but edges back a step or several in retreat nonetheless. Raises her hands, palms out, some kind of symbolic surrender. And she knows she's giving up so much more than just her current nursemaid role.

The air shifts as Elena makes her way further into the room, tentative by degrees. And she finds it interesting that they've yet to even acknowledge one another. Wonders if what it is that they've been through together suddenly means words and syllables are almost unnecessary.

A redundant kind of imposition when shaded half glances have the power to say so much more.

She spins then. Admits resounding defeat and figures there's no point hanging around to have her face rubbed in it. Sets her shoulders and swings her hips. Doubts either of them notice.

“Katherine?”

Her name as a question full of uncertainty.

She stops in response but doesn't bother to turn around. Waits.

“Thank you.”

And it's not what she's expecting. Almost has her flinching under the weight of gratitude and sincerity.

“Thank you for organising... for looking after--” Elena stumbles over the words. Can't quite seem to get them out from where they appear stuck at the back of her throat. Tongue-tied with tears that Katherine is sure she'll never shed in her presence.

She'd spent thirty seven fruitless minutes attempting to force-feed a slowly desiccating Damon in the aftermath. Eventually deduced that Stefan's tree trunk stunt resulted in a ruptured femoral artery or two and that he was nowhere near strong enough to heal himself before he completely bled out.

She'd never set up an IV before but it seemed like the logical step. Figured if she couldn't get him to drink the blood she'd collected then she might as well pump it directly into him. It was a slow process and she fumbled with the needle more than once. A thrumming kind of panic that was wholly unfamiliar to her filling every square inch of her insides.

He'd been completely unresponsive. Unconscious. And Stefan is dead and Damon was this close to joining him and for as long as she can remember it's always been about the three of them. And it's not even close to being about that anymore but in the moment that it's all about to be torn to shreds forever she thinks it's quite possibly the only thing she's ever really wanted.

Katherine and her boys.

Gone. Figures dwelling on the disconcerting disappointment is ridiculously beneath her.

She raises her hand over her shoulder, still has her back turned to both of them. Tosses a casual whatever into the space behind her and makes for the stairs.

Vows to descend them and to never look back.

- - -

“Elena.”

“Shhh.” Presses a finger softly against his lips. Blinks. She's crying but it seems almost unimportant. Like maybe she's not even aware that she is.

Like suddenly sadness and despair have become her default setting and the presence of tears is inconsequential.

He lets his eyelids slide to closed. Allows himself to block out her image for split seconds and remember her from before. Hands on her hips and defiance in her eyes. A confident smirk and the uncanny ability to see straight through him.

No matter how hard he tried to hide.

- - -

But he's got no energy left for hiding now and she's no longer looking that closely anyway.

- - -

He doesn't think he believed Katherine when she told him Elena was okay. Had finally gathered up the wits to doubt her, the one time she was telling him the truth.

He feels wrung out.

Infinitely older than his one hundred and seventy odd years.

She picks up the hand that has the tubing snaking into it. Examines the mechanism closely, swings her gaze up his arm to where the bag of blood hangs on a make-shift stand. Katherine has done well, she thinks.

“Are you going to be okay?”

He shrugs as he nods. Cancels one wordless answer out with the other.

“Yeah.” She breathes her agreement, sad and unsure. Drops his hand back to the sheet as she steps away. “Me too.”

There's a gulf between them. And she can cling to him all she wants but the space seems suddenly insurmountable.

Caroline's blood has been as much curse as cure. She feels refreshed. Strong.

Stronger than she's been in months.

She longs to fall to pieces. To fit slivered shards of herself into the gaps where it looks like Damon has vital bits missing.

But those gaps are many. And she fears there is not nearly enough left of her to go around.

fifty four

He dreams Stefan is eight years old. All floppy hair and bright, bright eyes that question endlessly. Radiating a tangible kind of innocence that tingles at his fingertips.

Wakes trembling and disoriented. Makes it to the bathroom to vomit.

But only just.

Can't quite sweep together the shattered pieces of himself that lay discarded on the tile by his knees. Wonders how long he'd have to sit there before he disappeared into them completely.

Figures he has eternity.

And that it should be more than enough.

“Damon?”

Knocks his forehead against the wall, refuses to acknowledge the voice.

Midnight shift on the impromptu suicide watch.

“Damon, you okay?”

And he thinks he might finally understand Elena's middle of the road hysteria from all those days ago. Might finally appreciate the complete mindlessness that preceded it. Feels his own snapping synapses emptying out with a roaring tidal rush of sand and seaweed.

“Oh, Ric, you do ask the most redundant questions...”

There's scotch on his lips.

And the acrid tang of regret on his tongue.

There're worms digging trenches through his decaying insides.

And black-red blood on his hands.

“Of course I'm okay.” Grins as Alaric's expression slips to somewhere south of Mexico. “Aren't I always?”

- - -

EPILOGUE