Fic: This Is The Story
title: this is the story
rating: r
pairing: damon/elena/stefan
prompt: some, they crawled their way into your heart, to rend your ventricles apart, this is the story of the boys who loved you.
a/n: written for the threesome comment ficathon for scorpiod1's lovely prompt!
disclaimer: disclaimed. graphic source. Also, The Decemberist's 'red right ankle' where the prompt is from.
This is the story of her right red ankle.
x
"I think," she says, and stops.
"too much?" Stefan smiles at her, playfully. He's impossibly beautiful in her bed. His hand on her breast, her heartbeat a metered rise and fall. She always feels close to poetry in his arms.
"yeah," she says, lies, always. Doesn't finish we could stay this way forever.
If there's anything she's learnt from wars and blood and things that will never be the same; forever is a long time.
He pulls her closer, hands sliding down her body, fingers entering her with practiced ease, and because she's foolish and she's seventeen, she thinks love- we could- I want- forever again.
x
This is the story of her gypsy uncle.
x
Sometimes he's there when she comes out of the bath. And sometimes she ties the towel a little lower because sometimes he's there when she comes out of the bath.
"You're trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson," he says, exaggerates, tries to make it sound like he doesn't care. Fails.
"Shut up, Damon," she says indifferently. Doesn't tell him it's true (but only sometimes), doesn't tell herself it's true (but only sometimes, that's important, only sometimes).
"Anything else you think my mouth should be occupied with?" he's crude, and he's in her face, and she's sorry she did this to him. She's sorry he's in love with her, but only a little.
"Anything you wanted, Damon?"
His eyes slide down, involuntarily answering her. She wonders if he sees Katherine sometimes, wonders if Katherine has that same mark on the inside of her thigh, wonders if Damon knows if she does. Wonders if Damon's worshiped it like Stefan does hers. Doesn't ask. She's seventeen and foolish, but she's still older than she used to be.
"Just your friendly neighborhood watch, remember" he shrugs, leaves before she can yell at him, or drop her towel; there's a fraction of a second each time when she isn't sure which one it'll be.
x
This is the story of the boys who loved her.
x
"You can--" he stops, he probably learnt it from her, her sweet, innocent Stefan. Not so innocent, not anymore, not after Klaus.
"Stefan means you can leave," he completes bluntly, this other boy, he's always blunt, breaking the air around her into fragments, she can't breathe sometimes, "live somewhere else. Be someone else. There's nothing left in this town."
There's nobody left in this town.
"I think that's my choice, Damon," she watches her harsh tone cut through the stone of his glance, the hardness of his eyes; they all learnt pretense from the same woman. She's more beautiful though, that woman with her face, it's strange.
They're both looking at her and it's a little ridiculous how loved she is, the girl who killed her parents. Karma probably got lost in the way to her house, mistook Jenna for her.
"How can you stay," he's tired, Stefan, he's been away so long, so very, very long, "how can you possibly stay, Elena, after---everything." I've done, he doesn't say, doesn't need to, she hears it anyway and oh god, please don't ask her this.
Because she's not who she used to be either, not anymore. They don't see that, these boys who love her.
"It's my decision," she says, again, like she has a choice, like maybe if the inflection is different they won't see how pathetic she is, how much she needs them, "you don't get to decide for me."
Tonight she'll go back to her room, and all the things she's lost, but tomorrow, the day after, someday, she'll come back. To his smile, to his brother's eyes. She'll always come back.
(It's okay, you know, to love them both.)
Strange how she can't get Katherine out of her mirror, her smile, her eyes.
x
This is the story of a girl she once knew.