Author's Notes: Written for the TVD Smutathon on LJ. The prompt was Damon Katherine - "Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine." And this just sort of sprang up from there.
Night Nursing a Broken Man
She comes to him first. That's what he'll say when he reminds himself later. She did. She's chosen him first... this round, at least. (He's glad he's learned not to get used to it.)
She doesn't even glance at Stefan lying prone on the floor, knocked unconscious and trussed up with vervain soaked ropes. (The same face but wrong girl he tells himself not to think.)
Instead she comes to him and undoes the hunters' claws clamped on his wrists, lifting him up as she does so that his skin won't tear more, sending precious, vervain-tolerant blood washing down his body. She brings him down to the floor gently, cradling his head with utmost care. (It makes him think it's all a hallucination; can she even be kind?)
She wipes the blood from his face (licks her fingers while doing so) and kisses him deeply. He has no other thought than to kiss her back.
He hates her, hates her for making him love her so deeply, for clawing such deep trenches in his psyche, for imprinting herself all over him so completely that he sought her for 145 years. He hates her for the fact that he loves her, will always love her, no matter how much he wishes not to. He hates her because she came to him first (and he hates himself for so desperately clinging to that fact, if only for the moment).
She kisses him, steals every trace of blood on his body and in his mouth, purges him clean in her darkness and he never wants it to end (even when he's screaming inside for it stop). She never says a word, just brings his body to hers (like he's always wanted, he's always loved, has tried to drown away with whiskey and bourbon and scotch) and takes care of him first.
He's never wanted to feel this with her again (this is one of the biggest lies he's ever told himself), has wanted the other girl with the same face and same body who never admits she wants him back (she'll never want him back the way he wants her - and he wishes this were a lie, but it's not).
He wishes he has the strength to say no, no he doesn't want her (a lie), get away from him (stop leaving me), he hates her (he'll always love her), but he's so damn tired of fighting. If he can't have one he'll have the other for as little as she gives him. (He doesn't delude himself into thinking this is anything permanent.)
It's just like he remembers, even through the pain-induced haze. She fits him so perfectly (he fits her so perfectly, in truth) and this body was made for him (except for the one that isn't). He hates that he remembers, hates that in another hundred years it'll still feel as sublime as the first time.
When they've finished (I love you I hate you I hate that I love you) she cuts her breast with a long fingernail and brings his mouth to the blood starting to trickle down. He drinks her in eagerly; needing the strength it'll give him (prays will give him a tolerance against her). Then she coaxes him to sleep and he falls willingly, pretending that she'll be there when he wakes up. (There's no harm in pretending, he tells himself.)
When he wakes up she's gone. There's a blood bag by his slowly healing hand. Stefan is up and leaning against the wall, unbound. He wants to laugh, wants to crow that Katherine came to him first, that he won.
It's an empty victory. Stefan won't look at him and she's gone, like always.
Questions and comments welcome!