fic: just a little less conversation
title: just a little less conversation
rating: r
pairing: elena/damon/stefan
warnings: clueless reference. the decemberists reference. randomness
a/n: written for the salvatore comment ficathon [which, go write.]
disclaimer: disclaimed. image source.
upupa_epops's amazing prompt: I'm sorry it's such a lousy story.
When she thinks about it, she thinks it’s a lousy story.
(Girl meets boy. Falls in love. It starts like this.)
It has way too many ellipses to be anything more than fragments of clichés picked from all the love stories that were lost in translation. The kind that never became tragic because they were too common and nobody ever really died and people loved way too much, too desperately, for it to be aesthetically pleasing. She thinks she’d like to be tragic. She thinks she’d like to be tragic more than she’d like to be alive, because she’s pretty much a fucking tragedy for everyone else in her life.
(He kisses her hand. She doesn’t pull away. It starts like this.)
-
I will always choose you-
It’s you and me forever, Stefan.
Where were you, Damon?
You had me-
She’ll write a story someday. A girl. Two boys. Their names starting with a ‘D’ and an ‘S’, because she’s not original, really, never has been. Look at her face.
So anyway, two boys. And this girl. And everyone will hate the girl because seriously, why does everyone in-text seem to love her so much, it’s annoying. “I’d die for you,” someone will say every two pages in, and someone will die for her every four pages in, and another girl somewhere will drop the book. “There’s no reason for why anything happens,” she’ll tell her friend, “it’s a lousy story.”
-
There will be an epiphany somewhere. The kind that shatters over you and cuts into your skin and there’s a brightly lit fountain moment where you know you love Josh. She doesn’t love Josh. She doesn’t even know who Josh is. But there will be an epiphany. She’ll know then. Won’t be another girl who’ll crawl her way into their heart just to rip their ventricles apart (that’s from a song she once heard, she’s never been original).
It’s okay, you know, to love them both.
“What a bitch,” someone will say, the darkness of the theatre a distant memory, “they’re trying to make a strong heroine or whatever. But she’s totally leading them both on. Can’t make up her fucking mind. I’m glad I never bothered reading the book. Why would anyone make a movie of it anyway?”
-
So what will happen is this: everyone will be forgiven because, in the end, forgiveness will be all they’ll have left to give.
“I love you,” one of the boys will say. (She doesn’t know which one, because they escape her whenever she tries to put them in words too short to bear the weight of their glances, their lips, their eyes).
“I know.” She’ll say. And he won’t die. He’ll love her and he won’t die. Not like all those other people who also loved her. Please don’t let him die. She’ll end the story before that, force in the end before it happens.
(“The resolution didn’t feel…I don’t know, organic? Like, I could tell what she meant to do, but somehow I don’t think it should have ended that abruptly. He should have died. It would've had a much bigger impact that way.”)
-
Some pages she’ll add in things they’ve said, things they’ve done. Not the kind of things they say every day, with near-monotonous regularity. Not about forever or eternity or death or the end of the world or oh god please just- or I can't think straight when you- please stay with me please- not things like that. Not the desperation, not the anger, not the love.
Just little mundane details about how he likes his coffee and how his brother’s favorite color is green. Or the time when she was ill in bed and they both made her more ill because they couldn’t decide on the flavor of the soup and made her a mixture of both their favorites. Or the time when they walked ahead and left her behind because they were too busy fighting over her to notice her. Or all the times they’ve sat and said nothing, because they always talk too much, try to say too much.
(“Boring. If I wanted to read about stupid shit that happen every day, I’d just live out my real life.”)
-
It'll be a postmodern epic. Her life, her entire life in hundreds and hundreds and thousands of pages. Because she lived, because people died so she could live. Because that has to mean something. Goddammit.
("It tries too hard, and well, you know, academically speaking, the postmodern world has no real epics.")
-
There will be sex, she decides. Pages and pages of his hand at her breast and his brother’s fingers inside her and they’ll fuck and they’ll make love and they’ll fucking make love till none of them can move.
“I love you,” she’ll say, breathless, her hair falling over her, entangled in their fingers, “I love you. I love you. Iloveyou. Iloveyou. I love you so, so-”
One of her boys will laugh softly, because that’s what he does and she’ll feel it because he’s inside her and his brother will kiss her and kiss her and kiss her and it will be like it was always meant to be. Like it should have been from that first day. Like it should always be. Not forever. Not forever, because forever’s such a long time. But maybe till some days before that. Maybe till the week before forever. She can make love to them till the week before forever.
("Too gratuitous. More in the realm of some lonely girls' fantasy wish-fulfillment than anything else, actually.")
-
It will end like this:
There are two brothers and they fight, and they live forever, for each other.
(“It’s a love story,” she’ll say when someone asks.)