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zalrb · 1 year ago

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Saint {elena/stefan/katherine pt. 7}

It's long and hopefully messy af. Hope you enjoy! The gif limit pisses me off, lololol.

Link to part 1: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/707929608286240768/toxic-elenastefankatherine-fic

Link to part 2: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/709460774203064320/valentines-day-elenastefankatherine-fic-pt-2

Link to part 3: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/709838031967879168/choices-elenastefankatherine-fic-pt-3

Link to part 4: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/710274615200628736/blood-elenastefankatherine-fic-pt-4

Link to part 5: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/710584105290579968/boundaries-elenastefankatherine-fic-pt-5

Link to part 6: https://zalrb.tumblr.com/post/733086688201654273/kill-elenastefankatherine-fic-part-6

Stefan Salvatore was walking. Haunting the night. Skulking the shadows. The way a vampire should, he supposed.

All of Mystic Falls seemed to be sleeping or at the very least, shut away in their homes, leaving him the freedom to brood in the open air. He had to have walked the entire town at least once by now. It felt that way, anyway. But he couldn't stop moving, walking, running. Couldn't stop trying to outstrip his own thoughts.

Really, he was ready to be bored. To evolve. He was ready to just be done. Over the years, when he’d come across other men who had fallen prey to Katherine Pierce – tomb vampires, Elijah, Mason — he had pitied them, having had been a victim to her once himself but no longer a fool to her sway. It was all in the past. Even when they’d slept together years after she'd returned to his life, he hadn’t been twisted up or lovesick. It had been a contained moment. He had evolved from her then. So, he didn’t know why he felt like this now. Why she had her claws in him now. Why he couldn’t seem to get enough now.

He didn’t love her. That much he knew. Not after everything she’d done to him, the lies and the deceit, the violence, the manipulation; she’d stolen his human life and had done her utmost to ruin his vampire one so that he only had her to rely on. But more than that, he couldn’t love her. That was the important part. He couldn’t love her after knowing what true love felt like, not after knowing what Elena felt like, her blood, her touch, her kiss, her voice. For all the lifetimes he lived and would live, he knew that nothing could or would ever eclipse that. Loving Katherine wasn’t the problem.

And yet. She had been gone for fourteen days and he felt those fourteen days in his skin. He wanted to forget her --- his mind, his heart, his conscience all wanted to forget her, but his body was in a tragic, despicable need. His lust, his anger, his resentment, his ego, they all fed off the poison in his interactions with her and they were, waiting, in frenzy, for another hit before he was swallowed with shame for the feelings that came out when he was with her.

He drew some dark, vicious satisfaction from the fact that Katherine had to be more of a mess than him. He may have been craving her but he knew that she was fiending for him. In an attempt to punish him, she was torturing herself and thinking of her, tormented in her self-appointed denial of him, only served to arouse him. He hated that. God, he hated her. Above all, he hated himself. His craving was tinged by disgust, his yearning accented by hate, he was in a repulsive, unsavoury state of being, that left him wired and strung out and even mired in all of this, missing Elena.

He’d been avoiding her. Avoiding hurting her. Avoiding scaring her. She had seen him at his lowest and he had told her about the worst parts of himself, she had seen his worst parts, his capacity for danger, for cruelty, the things about himself that brought him the most shame and remorse, and she’d never judged him. No, she’d understood, offered sympathy, gave him grace, gave him her love and that was why he couldn’t bear to see her when he was sick with another woman. The woman who had cursed him with her love. It was an insult.

Suddenly, Stefan stopped walking. He heard ... it sounded like ... those words ... that tone ... In the distance, he could see a cross perched above a steeple. It ... what he heard ... he couldn't block it out ... it was coming from that direction.

He heard it again.

His heartbeat quickened with dreadful anticipation. He wanted nothing less than to see who that voice belonged to and yet the promise of a reunion stoked in him a furious lust or lustful fury, he wasn't sure which. He should be smart. He should be strong. He should ---

But his feet took him to the church.

The sanctuary was only lit by candles so it was dark and quiet. The sound of his footsteps was the only thing he could hear until ---

A voice, breathy and whiny with need. "But the thing is, Father, I haven’t seen him in … weeks …” “And I’m just so … so hor --- tightly wound. For him. But I just …” Quickened breathing. “I just need some kind of relief. Please. Do you think you can help me? Do you think you can help a child in need? Please?”

It was an instinct he would do anything to curb, but Stefan sped over to the confessional and wrenched open the door. He didn't know what he expected to see. If there'd be a priest in a compromising position or dead or compelled or ... he didn’t know, he just knew he had to see. There was no one inside. Suddenly, Katherine was behind him in a black dress accented by a long rosary draped around her neck in layers, and a smirk on her face.

"Fancy seeing you here," she said.

Stefan grabbed her then turned and pushed Katherine hard against the carved, ornate wall of the confessional.

"Stop messing with me!"

"Were you angry that you thought I was corrupting a man of God or were you jealous because you thought I was with another man at all?"

Neither. Both. She was toying with him and he was in no mood. And yet he was. Stefan could feel his fangs itch. His blood boil.

"Who did you want to kill, me or him?"

His jaw clenched. She always asked that question. He never answered. He would not give her the satisfaction of admitting anything.

“God, you’re just revving to go, aren’t you?”

“That why you disappeared, huh?” he asked. “Again?”

His anger sounded desperate even to his own ears. God, he wanted to kill this feeling.

“Sometimes it’s good to remind you that you want this as much as I do,” said Katherine. “That you go feral when you don’t have access to me.”

"So then, how did you know I'd be out? How did you know I'd come here?"

Katherine looked at him with mock sympathy. "Stefan, Stefan, Stefan," she said. "I lured you here. All those late night walks you take."

He blinked at her. Her expression was smug and satisfied --- it was the face of triumph, of a winner, and yet she did nothing to move from his grip on her throat. As ever, he didn’t know if that meant he was in control or if it was her. Stefan let her go and backed away.

She walked toward him, slowly unravelling the rosary twirled around her neck. "You really think I would've left you alone for two weeks?" She pulled a face. "You think I wouldn't want to see my handiwork? All that tension, all that need?” She shivered at the anticipation of Stefan unleashing all of that on her. “I've been watching you this entire time."

He wanted to seize her and break her and kiss her and lay her bare.

Stefan looked at the rosary, now hanging loose around her neck. "Little theatrical don't you think?" he said, glancing around the church, at the confessional, the candles, the stained glass windows.

"I like making an impression. This is the perfect place for you. All that guilt?" She put a hand on his cheek and he tensed. "Want to add a little more?"

"What game are you playing?"

"Doesn't matter." She ran a finger across his lips. "I know you want to play with me. Maybe that can be your first confession. What's it going to be, saint or sinner?"

He caught her finger between his teeth, and Katherine nearly convulsed. It took all the control she had to keep from launching herself at him, to keep from begging him to relieve the frustration she'd been suffering from for fourteen days.

It had been a persistent ache that had driven her to the point of humiliating neediness, where she did everything she could, used everything she could think of to rid herself of the pulsing desire that could only be satiated by the man in front of her. And he was going to completely undo her with a simple act.

Stefan closed his eyes. What was he doing? How was this his life? Why couldn't he stop? He needed to stop. He --

"There's nothing I'd ever confess to you," he said.

Katherine draped the rosary around Stefan as well. "I'd expect nothing less than you wanting me on my knees, begging you for absolution." She pulled the rosary tight around his neck, choking him, using it to pull him forward, to pull him toward her, so they were a breath away from each other, so close her lips brushed against his when she spoke.

"Shall we begin?" She gestured to the confessional.

Stefan didn't answer. He didn't move. He just stayed where he was, letting the beads dig into his skin. The moment he thought he heard her voice on the wind, he knew that he would succumb to whatever was going to happen next. He would fight and battle, and he would hate himself for it, but ultimately he would succumb. He knew that. She knew that. He wondered, then, if it would give him peace, even momentarily, if he did more than succumb for the night but if he actually gave in. If he admitted what this did to him, that it excited him. Would that soothe something in him, would that give him the relief, the release, he needed to be set free? Could he move on, could he sleep, could he face himself, could he face Elena, could he tear away from the intoxication of toxicity if he just ... ... confessed?

“I’m not a saint.” He glared at her before freeing himself from her beaded prison and stepping into the side of the confessional for the and closing the curtain behind him.

Katherine flushed. “Oh, I do love a surprise,” she said, before stepping into the box herself and closing the door behind her.

Elena just made it onto campus and felt glad that Bonnie and Caroline had refrained from moving back because she didn’t know if she was going to scream or if she was going to cry when she got to her room, and she wanted to be alone to figure it out.

She was barely inside her dorm before she heard, "Do you want to know what's so perfect?”

Elena turned on the light and saw Damon sitting on her bed, a drink in hand. The books and grimoires she went to sleep reading and re-reading to find that one overlooked line or detail about how to permanently kill Katherine Pierce so that she was gone gone, not other-dimension gone, were on the floor. She threw her head back.

“I thought you outgrew this, Damon.”

“Uh…” Damon shook his head, trying to find words. “Let’s say alcohol makes me emotionally regress.”

Elena closed the door behind her. “Right.”

“I’m surprised you’re here actually. I thought you’d be out stalking your ex boyfriend.”

“I know exactly where he is,” said Elena quietly. “I know exactly who he’s with.”

The church. Doing God knows what with her. It was a bit of a sick joke. Elena had been keeping tabs on Katherine who had been keeping tabs on Stefan, which meant that Elena had been following him too, skulking after him the way Katherine did, the way she had always done. He’d told her about how she’d checked in on him over the years and even at the time he’d told her, when they’d been together, Elena understood how and why Katherine would do that, how and why she’d just need a glimpse of him to see how he was doing. It was Stefan after all. Not knowing where he was or how he was doing her summer before college had weighed on Elena like a pebble lodged in her mind. And now she was in a place where she couldn’t help but check in on him. For two weeks, Stefan had avoided her. Avoided everyone. And she had allowed him his privacy only because she’d known where he was.

Damon chuckled. “Perfect transition. So, again, do you know what’s so perfect?”

“What, Damon? What’s so perfect?”

"You and Stefan, the great love story, the great romance, and your love is never enough."

Elena closed her eyes and sighed. “I really don’t feel like playing this game tonight.”

"No, but just think about it.” He put his glass on the bedside table and then put his hands behind his head. “He loved you and yet he left you to save me. You loved him, you chose him, but ended up with me. Why do you think that is? You two just love each other too much to be together permanently? You always have to leave?”

“But I never really did leave him, did I?”

Damon did nothing but glare.

Elena leaned against a dresser. “I never left him,” she said again. “And he never really left me. Even when it hurt. Even when we tried.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Why else would we still be in each other’s lives? Don’t you think I know how desperate this looks, how pathetic I must look to everyone? After hearing them, after seeing them? Don’t you think I know anyone else would’ve walked away? But it’s still the same, I can’t give up. And neither could he.”

“He didn’t fight for you. Not when you chose me.”

“He respected my choice,” said Elena. “But he never left me,” she said, shaking her head. “So, why do you think that is?”

Damon scoffed. “Feels like he finally is giving up.”

“This is a phase. Some kind of revenge.”

Damon raised his eyebrows. "You think he's sleeping with her to hurt you back?"

"Stefan doesn't do that. He isn't---"

"What? Me?" Damon grinned. "That's the problem."

Elena muttered beneath her breath. "Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve said? That's what you want the problem to be."

Damon put his hand to his chest. "Ouch."

Elena sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Damon, this really isn't---"

"You've said a lot of things over the years that have hurt me," he said, swirling the whisky in his glass.

Elena blinked temporarily wrong-footed. "I..." She took a breath. "I'm sorry."

"Stefan's never experienced that."

"You just asked me if I thought he was with Katherine," she could barely say her name, "to hurt me back. How can you also think I've never hurt him? Especially after everything between the three of us?"

"Doesn't count. Extraordinary circumstances."

Elena furrowed her eyebrows. "What other reason would there possibly be for me to hurt him?"

"What reasons were there for you to hurt me?" Damon took a sip of his drink. "You've been casually cruel, you've manipulated me. You couldn't stand to do that to Stefan," he said in a tone that was somewhere between smug and bitter. "You can't bear to see him in pain and that's the beauty in all of this."

Elena looked at him, incredulous. "Damon, I don't---"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you? You can't save Stefan from this. You can't keep him from Katherine."

"You're wrong," she said simply.

"You love him too much," Damon said. "He loves you too much. It's too pure."

She shook her head. "That's ridiculous."

Damon laughed humourlessly. "Stefan isn't a saint and you've never been able to accept that."

"No, no,” she said, walking up to him, her index finger pointed. “I've always known that Stefan has a dark side, OK? I've seen it. I've faced it," she insisted. "I just think that he's more than the worst thing he ever did! So does he!"

Damon gestured triumphantly. "And that's exactly why you're losing. You two always bettering each other, pushing each other, protecting each other." He took on a mocking tone. "Trying to find the rainbows and the puppies and the silver lining." He rolled his eyes. "He's revelling with Katherine in the parts of himself he hates, that he tries to ignore or tries to better. You two could never do that."

"And what makes you so sure?"

"Because you revelled with me. You tasted blood with me. You killed because of me."

"Because of the sire bond."

"Which part?"

Elena brushed her hair away from her face but said nothing. Damon nodded.

"Casually cruel even in your silence. You have no problem hurting me. You have no problem hating me. The truth is, you know how addictive it is, what Stefan is doing."

Elena narrowed her. "I was never addicted to you."

"The sex dreams you've had about me beg to differ."

She scoffed. "That was different than what's happening to Stefan now."

"Because it's Stefan. He doesn't half-ass anything, my brother, he goes full throttle. All or nothing. He's not just addicted to Katherine, he's obsessed with her."

Elena winced.

"And that fucking torments you, right?" said Damon. "But you still can't hate him for it. You still can't want to kill him for that. You can't give him what he---"

"That isn't what he needs," said Elena sharply

"But it's what he wants," said Damon. "He wants to be feral and savage. He wants to be a vampire. And you can't give him what he wants this time." He drained his glass. "Call it karma."

“I don’t believe that,” said Elena.

Damon looked at her, a vindictive grin on his face. “Then why did you leave the church?”

Elena furrowed her eyebrows. “How did you know that’s where they were?”

“The question is, do you want to go back?”

***

Katherine had never been more exhilarated. She heard Stefan on the other side, heard the unbuckling of his belt, heard his zipper, heard him shift; when she’d moaned and whimpered, he’d pressed himself against the wall, she was sure of it, and that made her flush with arousal. She could hear the faint whispers under his breath, his self-admonishments, his curses of pleasure, his need for release that sickened him and she encouraged his tortured desire with unadulterated excitement as she let him know she couldn’t help herself, that she never could. Through the grate she could see that deliciously anguished expression as he reacted to her words, her noises. She sighed loudly. He responded in kind.

“Confess. Do you like hearing me?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “Because you want me?” “Yes.”

“And that kills you?”

“Yes.”

“But you want me anyway?” He was leaning his forehead against the grate and gripping onto the wall, splintering the wood. “Yes. Yes.”

Katherine threw her head back. His words were drugging, enough to bring her to the brink. She’d yearned for his yeses for weeks, for decades, for a century and now he was giving them to her in a choked voice tortured with want.

“You crave me?”

“I’d give anything to stop.”

She made an urgent noise and caressed the grate in a feeble effort to feel his skin through the gaps.

“Tell me. Confess. Confess.”

“I haven’t had my fill of you.”

“Yes,’ said Katherine.

“I want -- fuck.”

She was undulating, racing to finish. This was … this was … but, she couldn’t ignore it. The twinge in her chest, the nagging feeling that always served to remind her that even with all of his lust and pain and conflict, that even with his acquiescence, even with his obsession, he didn’t love her. He didn’t have her in his heart. None of his confessions --- I hate it but I can’t stop and I hated you for showing up tonight but I hated you for leaving two weeks ago and yes, it’s taking everything in me not to break down this wall and come for you --- were about his undying passion or eternal love for her. He belonged to her even when, even if, she stopped claiming him, even when he refused her claim, he would never, could never pull away from her. Katherine felt a flare of rage amidst her desire that then turned to a resolve of sorts, as it always did. This was all familiar and yet never old, she, and they, could never get old.

Katherine got up and ripped open the curtain. Stefan was already leaving his side of the booth to get to her. She pushed him back inside, sitting him down so that she straddled him. She’d never get his love, fine, she would just have to do what she always did --- bring Stefan lower, deeper into her, entangle him in the messy web that was their relationship. Take it all from him. She took a kiss from him, ravishing him, dug her fingernails into his shoulders, whimpered into his mouth when he grabbed her by the neck.

He moved them out of the booth, back into the nave, and slammed against a pillar, making the building shake. The impact was near-hazardous and the idea of his lust for her being so great it’d bring down an entire church inflamed Katherine beyond reason.

“No,” she whispered in his ear. “I want you now. Now.”

He lifted off her dress in a single motion and suddenly there was clattering on the floor. Something had fallen out of her pocket. A lot of somethings. Stefan moved away slightly to inspect, making Katherine groan with impatience and frustration at the absence of him against her, between her. She took a step forward to close the gap between them but Stefan pushed her back against the pillar, holding there, his quiet domination making her moan. Candied chestnuts had fallen from her dress. One landed in Katherine’s bra. Stefan’s eyes stayed on it for a few moments and then he quirked an eyebrow, looking at her to explain.

“Come on, Stefan, you know your history,” she said breathlessly. “I was alive at the time, after all.”

After a beat, he realized. “This is a poor substitute for the Vatican.”

“But it’ll do.”

“Mm.”

He closed the gap between them -- finally -- and buried his face in her chest, taking the chestnut out with his teeth before kissing and palming her breasts. Katherine sighed and gripped his hair, gripped his back, pushing him deeper into her so she could feel him once again between her legs.

Stefan teased her with a graze of his fangs and she shivered then left her again, to pick up her dress. He found a few more chestnuts, and backed farther away from her as he chewed the one in his mouth.

“If I remember that contested piece of history correctly…” His expression was becoming more devilish. “The courtesans were stripped bare, weren’t they?”

Katherine steadied her trembling body against the pillar, trying to exude control instead of melting into a begging mess. “They danced first.”

Stefan nodded.

“Is that what you want me to do?”

His gaze was focused. “I just want you naked.”

And God, that was what he’d get. Katherine left her spot on the pillar and followed Stefan into the aisle. She reached behind her back then stopped, and then looked at him. “That’s what you want?” She wanted him to say it twice. “Me, naked, on my hands and knees?”

“Yes.”

It was a command and with that voice and that look, she would do anything for him.

“You know it was here,” she said, unclasping her bra. “This exact spot.” She let it fall to the floor. She wanted him wild and inflamed and as drunk on her as she was on him. “Before I was dragged to hell.” She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear. “Where I vowed that only I could have you.” She was wearing nothing but the rosary and it switched something in Stefan’s brain.

“Only pick up what I drop,” he said.

And she did. Stefan took his time, walking backwards, step by step, toward the sanctuary, leisurely dropping chestnuts on the floor, keeping Katherine’s gaze as she crawled toward him, collecting what he scattered.

The way she moved, feline, almost serpentine, a seductive display just for him

inflated something in Stefan that made him want to twist the rosary around her neck around his hand and pull her to him.

He could do anything. He could have her like this, on her hands and knees, for hours. One word and she’d do what he told her to. She had centuries on him, more strength than he could fathom, and she’d let him stake her for his pleasure, torture her for his knowledge, she’d let him bind her and leave her for his own amusement. She never said no. And he never had to compel her to say yes. Never had to use the tricks on her that she’d used on him. The power he had over her, the control he held, he alone had that and did that, he could make her plead, make her pay, make her yield to him in a way he could never and would never yield to her and every time he remembered that, every time she reminded him of that, he wanted to test the limits, see how far she was willing to go, how far he could go.

She had chestnuts in her hands, in her mouth, she’d picked them up in ways he wouldn’t have been able to imagine. The more she prowled, the more her movements seemed to change, seemed to shift into something… dangerous, as if suddenly, Stefan was prey, as if he was something to be consumed. That same smug expression was on her face now but with sultry, seductive eyes, like she had him right where she wanted him, like she would devour him completely. And the closer she got to him, the faster his heart raced; he could hear its beat in his ears, feel a tremor throughout his body, and Stefan felt something like excited trepidation mixed with resentful frustration that she had seized back the power he’d been enjoying. But this was what she wanted, the struggle for the upper-hand. She wanted him battling himself, battling her, the fight, his better nature, is what tangled him in her with no thought of escape. He had to give in tonight. He had to. Remember?

Suddenly, they were against the altar and Katherine was feeding him chestnuts, transferring one into his mouth with a kiss that made him greedy, that made him want to steal her breath, steal her soul, that made him want to leave her a gasping husk. And then he was on his knees in front of her as she picked up a chalice half-full with wine and poured it down her throat so it spilled down her chest, her stomach. He drank the red rivulets off her skin, licking and lapping and sucking so that she giggled and moaned and clutched him to her

and then he was piercing her skin and drinking from her skin, her blood on his tongue, the wine on his lips, her nails digging into his shirt, raking his back, his grunt and her moans reverberating off the walls and echoing throughout the church. Stefan turned his attention lower so that her body arched and she fell back onto the altar, her back bowing off the surface, her arms spread out so she could grip the edges, her moans turning to sobs of pleasure and calls of Stefan’s name. He had her at his mercy.

Before he knew it, positions changed. The candlesticks and the chalice and the cross clattered to the floor and he was lying flat on the altar in their stead. Somehow, she had tied him to her with the rosary, bound his body to hers with complicated knots and layers, entangling him, snaring him. He was still fully clothed and she sat astride him, completely bare, her hand on his throat, as she teased him, using him to pleasure herself, daring him to grab her and take her, spurring him to grip her waist tighter and tighter and tighter because the harder he held her, the closer his grip came to grinding her bones, the more control he had to exert over his desire and Katherine wanted him to falter and crack and completely break apart beneath her so that he could utterly destroy her with his prowess.

She didn’t stop until he begged, until he admitted to wanting her so badly he couldn’t stand it, to wanting her to ride him to oblivion, until he confessed that he didn’t know how or when he would be able to liberate himself from their game, and Stefan hated each word he groaned while she laughed and basked and rewarded him with her hands, her mouth, her gyrating body. Lust so close to blood lust, desire so close a murderous rage toward Katherine and all she’d done to him, all she would do to him, could do to him, and toward himself for wanting to exact his revenge in this way. And then they were clawing at each other, biting each other, the candlelight illuminating how they writhed in delicious agony, tearing each other apart with their carnal appetites.

Even without her vampiric ability to eavesdrop from miles away, Elena was sure she would’ve been able to hear the screams of pleasure coming from the church. As it were, she was with Damon a few yards away, asking herself over and over why she chose to come back, why she would torment herself this way. Out of everything she’d heard over the past few months -- and she’d heard more than she’d ever cared to -- this was the worst of it.

Elena glanced at Damon by her side. He was near-catatonic --- in so much pain that he looked to be in the process of disassociating.

“Oh my God,” she said. “We’re here because you’re jealous.”

He shook his head, snapping himself out of his horrified reverie, and looked at her as though he were seeing her for the first time.

Elena glared at him. “You wanted to hear them because of some sick need to punish yourself or measure yourself or something.”

“Yeah, well.” Damon shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice listening to Stefan screw your brains out in the house.”

“This is unbelievable.” Elena shook her head. “You hate the thought of him in there with her.”

“Yeah, I do. And you know what? I hate the thought of you hating the thought of them in there too.”

Elena threw up her hands. “What do you expect me to say to that? That I’m flattered?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”

“No!” said Elena.

She stalked off. Vaguely, she wanted to go back to campus but she didn’t even know if she was going in the right direction, she just knew she wanted to get as far away from Stefan and Katherine as possible.

Damon followed her. “Then why are you so mad that I’m jealous about what’s going on in there?”

“I’m mad that I let you talk me into coming here because you’re just playing into her hands! This is what she wants, this is what she likes!”

“So, no part of you likes that I can’t stand how much this hurts you? Because I still want you?”

Elena stopped short and opened and closed her hands in frustration. “No, I just feel bad. I don’t want you in pain, Damon, but your pain over our breakup isn’t a compliment and your jealousy over my feelings for Stefan isn’t a turn on!” Elena buried her head in her hands. “And I would probably feel worse about what this is doing to you if I had the room but I can’t get everything I just heard out of my head. I can’t---” Stefan’s confessions made her hold her stomach. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to go crazy.” She rubbed her eyes and felt the tears she couldn’t help wet her fingertips. “Why would you convince me to come back here?” “Why did you let me?

“Because I’m an idiot.”

“It’s because you want to fall out of love with him,” said Damon.

Elena sighed, suddenly exhausted. “No.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

“That’s not it.”

“You want me to convince you---”

“I love him, Damon.”

He stared at her.

“I’m not playing games. I’m not in denial. I just love him. And…” she bit her lip. “I came because I want to understand this as much as I can.” As she said the words, she realized it was true. Even now, even in this, she wanted to know Stefan, wanted to be close to him. “I want to be there for him when this finally ends, but…” But right now she wanted to scream. She started to walk again to keep herself from doing it.

Damon grabbed Elena by the arm, pulling her to him. She glared at him. “WHAT?”

“Don’t get sad,” he said. “Get even.”

“Let go of me.”

“You want to save him?” said Damon. “You want to understand him? You want him back? Sink to the level he’s at.”

Elena took a deep breath.

***

“So, Katherine was stalking Stefan. You were stalking Katherine. And Damon was stalking you?” said Bonnie, sipping from her coffee.

“We were all stalking Stefan,” said Elena.

“Why would you go back?” said Caroline, adjusting the knapsack with the candles and the books and the grimoire on her shoulder.

She, Elena and Bonnie were trekking through the woods, on their way to the witch burial site. Caroline had called for a coffee date/catch up and Bonnie suggested combining it with a field trip to search for answers about their “Katherine problem”, and for the entire morning, Elena barely heard what either of them said and mostly walked around with a loud ringing in her ears.

“I don’t know,” said Elena because she knew they wouldn’t understand if she’d admitted it was to be close to him.

“Yeah, this whole thing sounds so healthy,” said Caroline.

Bonnie shot her a look. “Was that really necessary?”

“Well, I’m sorry but this is insane! Our group has survived a lot of cross…” Caroline shook her head, trying to find the right words. “Couplings, I don’t know! But Katherine is breaking us. Bonnie and I are displaced from our home---”

“It’s bad but let’s not be dramatic,” said Bonnie, as they made their way into the dilapidated cottage.

“No, the dorm is our home for the next few years and we can’t even stay there for long periods of time. We are displaced!” said Caroline, as she and Elena helped Bonnie set up the candles around the cottage. “Stefan is off the deep end.” Elena closed her eyes at the pain of that. “Damon is getting there and who knows how many people that will put in danger, including us! Matt is,” Caroline gestured. “I don’t even know what’s going on with him, I just know ever since Katherine decided he was a key player in her weird psychosexual whatever, he hasn’t been the same.”

Bonnie laid out a blanket for the three of them to sit on. “I mean, she’s right. I had to use my magic on you. I hated that.”

“Exactly!” Caroline gestured. “It’s mayhem!”

Elena didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like she could disagree. Katherine’s preoccupation with Stefan had brought out a side of Elena she didn’t recognize, made her consider things, do things, think of things she would never otherwise.

“And we haven’t found anything about, you know, killing, really killing a vampire and it’s been months!”

“That’s why we’re here. I want to see if they,” said Bonnie, gesturing around the cottage, “have any insight. If they’ll even help us.”

“Even if they did, are we even sure that’s going to work?” Elena said it in a voice so quiet, Caroline and Bonnie barely heard her.

They stared at her with furrowed brows and Elena looked up at them, already wiping away tears. “He chose this. He’s choosing this. Before, with the blood, you know, I … I did that to him. I made him drink from me. And Klaus … that was for Damon. Everything that happened after that, the way he pushed me away … that was to protect me. But with her, I don't …” Elena’s voice cracked. “I'm starting to wonder if he just doesn't want to stop and that scares the hell out of me, the thought of letting him go, I can’t do that but even thinking about trying scares the hell out of me. But I …I just …”

The breakdown Elena had been delaying for weeks poured out of her and Bonnie held her just as she cracked so that she was crying into her shoulder. Caroline shifted over to hug her.

“I just don’t understand how she’s able to do this,” said Elena.

“Elena,” said Bonnie. “If you don’t want to---”

“No,” she said, sniffling. “I’m not giving up. We still have to do this. We still have to try. It just … it hurts.”

***

For the first time in weeks, Stefan was still. Sitting in the library. Brooding. Stewing. Sitting with himself, with the wreckage he wrought, the decisions he made, the life he’d led, the one he didn’t get to, he was sombre and melancholic and felt the familiar sourness of shame. He was still for hours and then he heard her. She was hovering in the doorway. He knew she knew that he sensed that she was there.

“You can come in.”

Elena took a few steps into the library. "Katherine left,” she said.

"Yeah."

Elena continued to walk until she could see Stefan’s face. "Bonnie said you were the one that made her go."

Stefan didn't respond. He should’ve known Bonnie wouldn’t keep it to herself. He hadn’t told her so Elena could know, he’d told her in the hopes that Bonnie could work her magic and do something like spell the town to keep Katherine from ever coming back.

“Well, is it true?” Elena insisted.

Stefan simply nodded. He'd had the conversation with Katherine the night before. It hadn’t been planned. There wasn’t a big speech. He had walked into her apartment and without any preamble told her it was time to leave.

"Get on a bus,” he told her. “A train. Steal a car, take mine, I don't care, just leave. It's done. You're done here."

Katherine had looked at him. The grin on her face had slowly disappeared when she’d realized that this wasn’t a game, this wasn’t an empty request. It wasn’t a request at all.

"Something's changed,” she’d said.

"I've let it go,” said Stefan. “I'm..." he sighed. “This isn’t what I want.”

“Bullshit! You wanted this! You wanted me! Don’t deny it, you know that you did!”

“I did,” he said openly. “And now it’s over.”

Panic was all over Katherine's face. He was serious. She knew it. "She got to you," she said.

"Katherine..."

“No, no.” She started pacing. "How does she always ...? How could you do this?"

"Don't go after her.” Stefan’s tone was weary and Katherine’s eyes darkened with rage when she saw that his eyes were emotionless.

"I've already killed you twice,” he said. “I can do it again. Do not go near her. I will stake you."

“You've made that threat before," she said, uncertainty a tremor in her tone.

"I will behead you," he said matter-of-fact. "I will set you on fire. I will let the sun burn you, Katherine, if you touch her."

Still, a shred of hope flickered in her chest. She could still turn this into a game, make it into a power play.. She just had to get under his skin in the exact right way. "So much anger,” she said with a hint of a seductive grin. She trailed a finger down his chest. “I bet you’d love to bury your stake in me.”

"No," he said dispassionately. He didn't even bother to move her hand away. "No enjoyment, no rage, it will just be because you hurt her. It will just be for her."

Katherine’s eyes reddened. She gritted her teeth.

“I should rip you to fucking shreds.”

“How long did you think I could keep doing this?”

“STOP TALKING TO ME LIKE I’M A STRANGER. I AM NOT A STRANGER TO YOU.”

“Oh no, we are intimately acquainted,” Stefan agreed. “That’s why I know it needs to be done like this.”

“I never knew that loving Elena made you cruel,” said Katherine waspishly.

Stefan sighed. “What, you want me to hold your hand? Shed a tear for you? Go through all the darkness, all the trauma that got you to this point, that got me to this point? Tell you I understand, tell you it’s not your fault? That’s what you want?” He said, raising his eyebrows. “Because I think I did that already, Katherine---”

“OK---”

“--- and then you threw it back in my fucking face and jumped into Elena’s body.”

Katherine grinned. “There’s that anger.”

“It’s not what you think,” he said. “I’m just making a point.”

“And now let me make mine. I won't let you do this to me. You understand that, right? You understand that I will not let you go. I never have.”

"I’m not doing this with you. Leave, Katherine. Peacefully," said Stefan, heading toward the door. "Today."

She’d screamed after him. "I will fucking kill you before I let you leave me!”

Stefan stopped in the doorway and hung his head. He turned back around, his expression dejected.

"Do what you need to do," he said. "Just don't touch her. And don’t think you can kill me and then hurt her because, if you do, I will come back from whatever hell you send me to. Leave her out of this."

And then he’d left.

Stefan looked at Elena and cleared his throat. “It was time.”

Elena rubbed her eyes in disbelief. There had to be more, there had to be a reason. "You were in so deep. You---"

"Elena, do we really have to..."

"How did you...why did you..."

"I saw you ..." He closed his eyes. And he saw Elena in the cottage with Bonnie and Caroline, sobbing into their arms, devastated and heartbroken. He hadn’t meant to see it.

But he’d been out in the woods himself, running, hunting, doing anything he occupy his mind, and he’d heard her from a distance. He reacted before he could think and in a manner of seconds, he was outside the old cottage.

He would never forget that like he would never forget the way she looked at him, teary-eyed and completely undone, that night on Wickery Bridge; expressions that would haunt him for his eternity. It clarified him in a way that nothing else had.

"You were in hell," he said. "I couldn't just..." His voice choked and he sighed, bending his head. "You were in hell," he said again, more firmly, as he stood up.

Elena watched Stefan walk away and was oddly overcome with emotion. The gratitude she felt toward him, the love that she felt for him because he loved her enough to let Katherine go, because he loved her enough, because he had always loved her enough to do anything for her only served to underscore that he’d given up something he’d wanted, something he’d wanted terribly; something he shared with Katherine. The thought of her in his head, in his heart, the thought of her as a sacrifice dizzied Elena with a disorienting jealousy and an aching indignation that Katherine possibly gave him something their relationship never did.

"I slept with Damon!” she blurted out.

Stefan stopped walking. He turned back around. When Elena came to the Boarding House, she didn’t know if she was going to tell him that, she didn’t know what she was going to say beyond questioning him about Katherine and her impulsivity made her look at him defiantly.

He cleared his throat. "You two are back together?"

She shook her head. "No. I just felt like it."

He nodded. "OK, well, that's not really---"

"We woke up my entire dorm,” she continued conversationally. “We were so loud we didn't even hear the pounding on the door."

Stefan was quiet. Still. He looked to be focused on something Elena couldn't see. She wondered if he was breathing. When he got like this, he reminded her of sculpted marble. She pushed further.

"I rode him so hard into the mattress, it broke the be---"

"Why are you doing this?"

He was looking directly at her now with no accusation in his eyes, just sheer pain. It made her want to go to him, put consoling hands on him. She folded her arms. She was hurting him back.

"Well, we're telling each other about our sex lives now---"

"No," said Stefan, shaking his head. "I never wanted to tell you what happened between me and---"

"I thought you should know about the headache I have because I kept knocking into the headboard. Well," she said. "Before we broke it."

Stefan nodded then continued to walk, which caused anger to swell in Elena's chest. Anger that made her walk after him.

Anger that pushed her over the emotional edge she'd been teetering on for weeks.

"You're just going to walk away?" She accused. "Is that all you do?"

He stopped short then turned around. "What does that mean?"

"After your summer with Klaus, when you came back, I told you I kissed Damon and you walked away. You found out we spent the night in a motel room and you didn't ask any questions."

Stefan took a deep breath and started to walk away again, faster this time. Elena shadowed him into the living room.

"I chose him---" She grabbed him by the arm and turned him around so he could look at her, so he could see her furious, determined face.

"I chose him after you gave me the cure and you just left town.” It was cruel of her to say that here, in front of the fireplace she’d made that choice. She didn’t care. “You just told me that you made Katherine go and I respond by telling you that I fucked Damon's brains out---" Stefan flinched, exhaled sharply, and broke free from Elena's grasp then continued to walk. "And you run away!" She screamed. "You're running away!"

Of course he was running away when he had --- "I have no right to feel anything, Elena."

Elena put her hands to her head and then picked up a lamp and threw it against the wall, making Stefan stop and turn to look at the damage.

"I don't give a fuck about what you have the right to feel, Stefan. How do you feel?"

No, she wasn’t hurting him back. She was pushing him. Testing him. Seeing if he loved her too much to show her what he showed Katherine, to feel with her what he felt with … … her. Her desperation to know was making Elena blunt and messy with her emotions. It had been making her messy with everything.

Stefan clenched his jaw, holding onto his composure. "You have every right---"

"Yes, of course. 'I have every right'. Always so patient!" She upturned a table, making his eyes widen. "God, you're so understanding, doesn't it ever get tiring? Don't you get tired?"

"What do you want from me? You want the fight?"

"Yes!"

"You want me to ask you if you did this just to hurt me?”

“Why not?”

“You want me to say that that isn't you? That you would never do that? Why?"

"Is that how you feel?"

"I feel like I don't get a say in what you do!"

"So you're not angry? You're just never angry with me?" Elena took a few steps forward. "The things that we've been through over the years, the things that you had to hear, that you had to see, it doesn’t affect you because you’re such a fucking saint?"

"Elena---"

"It has to. You have to be. Stefan, you must be so angry at me. How much anger do you have that you don't let me see?"

"That's not---"

"Hate me!" she yelled.

He blinked at her, a picture of confusion. "No," he said simply.

She was in front of him now, pushing him so that he staggered backwards. "You're a ripper, right?" She pushed him again. "Let in the rage." And again. Into a wall. Causing a dent. "Let it in."

"Stop it."

"Why? It wouldn't be anything I hadn't heard before!"

He put his hand over hers when she moved to push him again, as if she wanted to push him through wood and brick, and he was suddenly looming over her.

"I didn't mean any of that and you know that. You have to know that," he said, pained at the memory of every cruel lie he spat in her face when he'd been detoxing.

He wasn't angry. He was earnest and passionate and Elena loved him for it, she could never hate him for it, but in this moment, she could kill him for it.

"Why can't you get angry at me?" she yelled. "Katherine---"

"SHE'S GONE. None of this matters!"

"She enrages you."

Stefan gritted his teeth, thinking about the church, the blood, the lust, the shame, the regret. The sick hateful feeling in his stomach he had the morning after. All of the mornings after. The intoxication in that was corrosive.

"You're not Katherine." He said firmly. "I have never linked you to Katherine. You've never made me feel what she has! She's out of my life. She's out of our lives! We don't have to do this!"

Elena glared at him, a mixture of fury and pain. She felt something shift, tilting her off-balance, stripping away more and more of her composure.

“You still want her, don’t you?"

“What?”

“You didn’t send her away because you wanted to---”

“Elena---”

“I heard you in that church! Yeah, I was there! All of your confessions, all of your desires!”

“That’s not---”

“God, you still want her! More than you have ever wanted me.”

Stefan looked sharply at her. The sentiment was too incomprehensible for a simple denial, it didn’t deserve any kind of acknowledgement.

Elena was adamant. "I thought I was the one you didn't hide from but it's her. You don't hide that part of yourself from her."

Katherine had done everything in her power to destroy him, and Elena had done everything in hers to help him was never, could never, be that. She knew that. She had to know that.

"Don't do this."

"You relish that side of you with her."

Stefan was beside himself. "There's only that side of me with her!"

"Then give that to me!' She was inconsolable. "You owe that to me!"

No, this was enough. Stefan put his hands on either side of her face and she inhaled sharply the feel of it.

"Elena? Elena! Look at me. Look at me." His tone was frenzied and anguished. "I could never hate you."

And her doing her best to make him try was painful in a way he would never be able to truly articulate. "I could never feel---"

Elena was trembling. She couldn't feel his touch. She moved away. "I'm telling you to."

"No," he said flatly.

"I want you to."

"No."

He started to walk out of the living room, but Elena grabbed his arm, keeping him in place and it caused a tormented sob in his chest. He was overwhelmed by her refusal to give up, let go.

"What did you do with her that you couldn't do with me?"

Something turned in her expression. Why was she goading him? Why was she so insistent on this? "Not this." His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

"You want me on my knees like her?"

"Stop it." He closed his eyes.

"You want me to beg like her?"

"Elena, stop."

"It wasn't enough for you. We weren't enough for you." She was more than angry, she was near-crazed. It scared him. "You want to be savage with me like you were with her?"

"Please."

"Own me like her?"

"Please stop."

Without warning, she took his hand and put it on her neck. "If you were to put a hand around my throat the way you did with her ---"

Stefan erupted with horror and desperation. "STOP IT." He held her by the arms. "JUST STOP! STOP."

"If this is because you actually do love her---"

His mouth was on hers before she could finish her sentence and she whimpered from the shock of it.

Stefan pinned her against the wall, kissing her with a furious, desperate passion. He was clutching her, gripping her. His hands found the dips and shallows of her body, massaging her, feeling her. He was kissing her cheek, her neck, her eye, her forehead, so that she gasped and quaked and each of his touches asked again and again, Does it feel like I love her? Elena, tell me. Does it feel like I love her?

And when she moaned in response to his wordless question, when she bowed to him, sank into him, making helpless, needy noises, he moved to leave, confident that he’d made the depth of his point, of his feelings clear, but Elena kept him to her, refusing his departure and desperate for more.

She could get lost, oh God, she would've gotten lost in him if it weren't for this feral urgency and impatience clawing at her.

She didn't know if it was the vampirism, if it was the weeks of torment, but she had this need that was territorial and possessive and primal and raw. She bit his lower lip then sucked and Stefan put his hand on the small of her back, bringing her forward, pressing her into him and she felt the evidence of his desire. Had he done this with Katherine? Bring her to him so he could feel her body against his, so his arousal, his lust for her could drive her crazy? Had that driven him wild? The thought of that ---

Veins darkened Elena's face. Suddenly, she bit him, sinking her fangs into his neck, making him call out and convulse. He pressed her even tighter to him then pressed her back against the wall, leaving no room for escape, He grinded into her as she drank, as she clutched the back of his head, gripping his hair. She fumbled with his shirt, scrambling to rid him of it. She wanted it off. Off. And then her hands were all over him rough and greedy and jealous. Katherine had touched him here, kissed him everywhere, and if it were the last thing she did, she was going to rewrite the history of his body with touches and kisses of her own. She skated her lips across his chest, nipping him, biting him, marking him so he pleaded with strangled sounds, but she wanted him to regret everything, everything that had happened in the past couple of months.

Stefan was torn between the pleasure of Elena’s lips claiming his body and the impatience to once more feel them against his, and he brought her back up to him with reverent, rough hands so that he could kiss her again, moaning into her mouth, as they made their way, clumsy and drunk, to the couch. Suddenly, he wrenched away from her, his expression aroused and raw and pained.

“It’s too soon.” He was shaking his head frantically. “This is too soon.”

“What are you talking about?” said Elena, breathlessly. She crossed her hands at the hem of her shirt and peeled it off in haste, and what little resolve there was in Stefan’s expression crumpled at the sight of her. “It’s been a lifetime.”

He didn’t move when she walked up to him. She slipped her hand beneath his waistband so that he squeezed his eyes shut and stuttered when he spoke.

“It’s -- It’s too much,” he said.

And Elena understood. He hadn’t forgiven himself for the arguments they had, the things she’d pushed him to say.

“Stefan,” she said, as she continued to feel him and please him, her touch an indication of her forgiveness, of the fact that there was nothing to forgive. “Come home.”

He exhaled sharply and then he was kissing her everywhere, feeling her everywhere, embracing her so tightly, pressing her into him so firmly, as though he wanted them to physically meld. He lifted her onto him and sat on the couch so that they were entwined. His face was buried in her and he whispered against her skin, “I’ve missed you.”

Elena shivered and sighed dreamily. “I---”

Fire. Sudden fire. Spreading everywhere. Fast. Impossibly fast. From nowhere, from everywhere. Quickly, Stefan and Elena disentangled, terrified and confused. Flames engulfing the carpet, the tables, the walls.

“Run! RUN!”

Stefan took Elena by the hand and they sped out of the room.

Katherine heard the yelling from within the Salvatore Boarding House and she smiled grimly at the panic, the fear. Stefan could not be surprised. She’d warned him. Repeatedly. And yet, she knew he thought she was making empty threats. Time and time again, he and Elena, and Damon, and everyone, they’d underestimated her. Time and time again, they’d forgotten her reach, the friends she’d made, the people she’d had in her debt. They’d forgotten that she’d been alive for centuries. If she wanted a witch, she’d find one. If she wanted vengeance, she’d get it. If she wanted Stefan, she’d have him.

It took him a day to get to Mystic Falls but the witch she’d once spent the night with, the witch who had pledged to be there for her always, no matter what, had come when she’d called in a favour. And now he was here. Next to her. He spelled all the exits shut. He brought the fire to life. He helped her with her vengeance.

“It’s like I said, Stefan,” she spoke, knowing that even with all of the commotion, he’d be able to hear her. “If I can’t have you, no one will.”