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What if Damon took Elena in the one way that Stefan never can?

Damon POV

It is a slow torture that Stefan endures. Slow because that is the only way to approximate my own pain, and slow because this game balances on a high wire. It can only end when one of the three of us ends up dead. Like Katherine. Staked in the heart by Stefan five months ago.

I watch from the shadows as Stefan meets her, his smile not quite reaching his eyes to begin with. She pretends that nothing has happened. But he smells her blood. Whether or not she can sense his reaction I don't know. But to a vampire it is unmistakable. The slight intake of breath, the dilated pupil, the quickening of the heartbeat. And for Stefan, the shock and the pain of knowing where I have been and what I have done.

In her human naiveté, she believes she can distract him with caresses and gentle, reassuring words. She kisses him lightly and runs her hand along his upper arms, his muscles taut with tension. Her brown eyes belie the normalcy of her tone. They plead with him for understanding. They shine at him with love and concern. Her hand lingers on his jaw.

I embrace the wave of jealousy just as I have learned to do. The intensity of it reminds me that I am still alive. In a manner of speaking.

Unconsciously she touches a hand to the bandage on her inner thigh, drawing Stefan's attention to it. He can no longer resist, can no longer pretend that all is fine. Stefan draws up her skirt, fingers the bandage, and peels it back to reveal two perfect punctures.

He can smell me on her. My scent is mixed with the small trickle of blood oozing from the wound.

Stefan curses loudly. Struggles for control. He smashes a lamp against the wall at lightning speed. His fangs are bared and he pants for breath. She doesn't take a single step backward. She only absorbs his emotion, just as she absorbed mine. It occurs to me that she is most likely to be the first to die from this feud. She is a human caught in the middle of forces she can't even understand.

A tinge of guilt is suppressed ruthlessly.

Stefan's back is turned toward her, his hands supporting him against the wall, placed on either side of his bowed head as he breathes raggedly. Struggling to get it together. She gives him only a few moments before quietly wrapping her arms around his waist from behind. Her head lies down and rests against his back.

Stefan shuts his eyes. Maybe he is praying to a deity that only he could still believe in.

What she could never understand is that to Stefan, I have taken her in the most intimate, most forbidden way. To her, it is just a blood donation. The price of preventing me from staking Stefan in cold retaliation for what he did.

Yes, she submits her body to him only. She is ever faithful to her lover. But his veins and his whole being are on fire with the scent of her blood and the knowledge that I have taken it. She could never understand that the line I have crossed is his last and most secretly desired frontier. And that there is a part of him that feels betrayed.

Of course he cannot tell her that. And he cannot take her himself. That is the boundary he has set. The price he pays for her.

She tells him that it didn't hurt. A lie. That I don't force her often. True. I do it only as often as I can without provoking Stefan to murder me in my sleep.

Small things trigger my insatiable desire to torture Stefan. Seeing him happy, truly happy, for even a moment. The two of them lost in one another, forgetting me completely. Forgetting that Stefan stole Katherine from me once more and this time for eternity. That he has left me with nothing, and he with everything that matters to him. Elena. And his own goddamn humanity.

Sometimes the trigger is seeing her so loyal and so tender to him. Everything I ever wanted from Katherine and never got. Never deserved. She's so fucking naïve. I want to slap some sense into her. He is a vampire for god's sake. She is going to end up either dead or undead. In those moments I want to teach her what a vampire really is. I want her to learn.

Then there are the times that I just want her.

All of this Stefan knows. And there is nothing he can do to stop me. Not without getting someone killed. He doesn't want the guilt on his conscience. Which is not to say that he wouldn't kill me if I pushed him ever so slightly further. But, I push and I push, stopping just short of his breaking point every time. This is my price. My price for letting them play house. Letting them have each other.

Stefan turns her around and presses her into the wall, kissing her desperately. He handles her gently but urgently as if tonight was the last, undressing her and laying her soft naked body under his own.

I watch as long as I can bear it then listen to the sounds of their lovemaking until they are finished.

I don't hear her tears afterward but I know they are there. She cries every time they are together after I have bled her.