Title: So Much for Truth.
Author: Hiko Mokushi / plural_entity.
Rating: M.
Prompt: Elena finds a stash of papers in the Boarding house, which all show sketches of herself. At first she's impressed by how good they are, but then she realizes the ones at the back depict her in some rather racy (interpret as you will) poses. By the way, they're all signed by Damon. Requested by vintageheels.
Summary: She'd never seen such artwork, never seen something so beautifully decadent..
Author Notes: Written for the Damon/Elena Kink Meme on LiveJournal's damon_elena community. I just had to do this one. It turned out longer than I originally planned. I wrote fast and didn't really proofread—and i've yet to find myself a beta—so if there are problems, ignore them and let me live in blissful ignorance! :D Enjoy! :3
"How old are all these?" Elena lightly skimmed the bindings within reach, her touch soft, her eyes wide with childlike astonishment.
Despite their dating for nearly a year, she had never seen the Salvatore Library. Rows upon rows of books, of every shape, colour, subject and genre—all of them at her fingertips. She had no idea how they were arranged, how Stefan would ever be able to keep track of them all. He said the last time he counted, there were about seven-hundred-and-thirty-six. But that was just a guesstimate and she should not hold him to that number. He'd bought several (and by several she was sure he meant "several dozen") new books within the past decade (and by decade he really mean forty-some odd years.) According to her vampire boyfriend, the last time Stefan had actually attempted to count and catalog the entire library, World War II had been over for nearly a year. Elena wasn't very good with dates, but Stefan was—that had been 1946.
Smiling with the corner of his mouth, Stefan reached up and pulled a red, half leather-bound book out from the row just above Elena's head. "Some of them were my Great-Grandfather's," he said, opening the novel and flipping through the first few pages. "My father had them all brought over from Italy when he decided to build a home in the New World." He closed the book and held it up to her. "This is another classic, A Tale of Two Cities."
"Dickens, right?" asked Elena, glancing up with a smile.
He nodded, wrapping his arms around her in a hug and kissed her on the nose. "First edition. Probably worth a couple thousand dollars now."
Elena scoffed and glanced around. "So if I ever get in trouble with them debt collectors, I know who to rob."
Stefan chuckled. "I'm gonna go make dinner now, okay? I'll come rescue you from the book pile when it's finished." He handed her the Dickens and pointed to a shelf across the room, whispering conspiratorially, "There's a second edition of Alice in Wonderland over there, if you feel like getting lost."
Elena smiled and clutched the book to her chest, turning around to peer at the shelves before her. For a few minutes, she wandered, glancing at titles and author names and marveling at the collection she had stumbled into. It all seemed like a giant fairy tale. She was getting Beauty and the Beast flashbacks and wondering she should just start calling herself Belle. Stefan could never be the Beast though, he was far too much of a gentleman.
It wasn't until she'd approached the end of a row that she noticed one book out of place.
All the others were neatly stacked, arranged in some form of organization that she hadn't figured out yet. This book was larger than the rest and lay upon its side. A small statue of a cat rested on top of it. It almost looked to her as though someone were trying to make it clear they had not touched it, or that it wasn't very important. Most of the books in the library, she'd noticed, had some form of dust on them; as they should, many of them hadn't been moved in over a century. This book was perfectly clean.
With a surreptitious glance over her shoulder toward the open library door, she lifted the small statute with ease and slid the book from its spot on the shelf. The book was large, twice as big as most of the books, and bound with a black leather cover. Replacing the statue where the book had sat, Elena turned and walked towards the sofa-chair at the far end of the room, content to amuse herself while Stefan made their dinner. However, halfway to the chair, she opened the book. Thick sheets of paper spilled, unbound from between the two leather covers.
Elena dropped to her knees, cradling the book against her chest as she glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone saw.
The door was empty, and she sighed. How old is this book, if it fell apart like that? she wondered as she turned back to the fallen pages, to try and gather the pages together and replace them in the book.
"What?" she asked aloud, her voice echoing back at her in the silent room.
It wasn't a novel, it was a sketch book.
All of the fallen pages, they were filled with drawings, not words. Folding her legs underneath her Indian-style, Elena picked up the sheet closest to her and raised it to her eyes. There was no mistaking the face that stared back at her. It was a portrait, waist and up, of a young woman with dark hair, dark eyes, and a wicked smirk.
It was her own face that she peered at, though obviously it was not her. It shouldn't surprise her that there were pictures of Katherine littering the Salvatore home, both of the young sons had been obsessed with the woman in their younger years. That some of them had survived the years was not surprising either; neither of the men had attempted to erase her from their lives, Damon especially. What did surprise her was the carefully scripted letters "D" and "S," entwining themselves in the bottom right-hand corner. She'd never known that Damon had drawn.
Wordlessly, she shifted amongst the pages that littered the ground, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. As she scanned page after page, the breath caught in her throat. Her mouth went dry, and she struggled in the attempt to swallow down a gulp of air. Some of the pictures were Katherine posed—the woman was gorgeous, charismatic and poised. Most were of merely her face, but others were waist-high sketches, a few were full-body. Whoever drew these must have loved her. There was such a life behind them, even though all that made up the pictures were simply a face and body; especially a not-so-detailed body at that.
There was a light inside her dark, charcoaled eyes that seemed lifelike. It creeped her out and made her breathless all at once.
She took a deep breath as she shifted one page off another, flushing deeply.
Katherine lounged on her back on a sofa, completely and utterly naked, and her eyes stared straight out of the drawing and into Elena. It felt as though the woman were staring into her soul. The woman had her left leg hoisted up onto the back of the sofa, the other trailing the floor. Her hair flowed messily around her head on the pillow. Her left arm was tossed casually across her bare breasts and hung limp, while her right hand almost innocently covered the dark curls at the apex of her thighs. Elena swallowed thickly. These were incredibly detailed.
It was one thing to see her own image—it was still a shock to know that her and Katherine shared the very same face. But she'd always hoped that they shared a different body. They even shared the same birthmark, a tiny dark splotch high on the right hipbone. When she was younger, Elena had been embarrassed of it, as anyone could see it if she wore low-rise jeans and a belly shirt, but now she'd grown attached to her mark. It was something that made her unique. She was quite sad to see that not only did she have to share her face, but her unique mark as well.
But to see herself posed so provocatively was scary and thrilling all at once.
Elena's eyes darted from the page to the next one, but this one showed a naked Katherine leaning against a door jam, silent and smirking, with her hair cascading in front of her bosom. The one after that showed her perched on a chair in front of a vanity, drawn from behind, her face and breasts visible in the reflection of the mirror as she brushed her hair. Another showed her slipping off a corset, her eyes downcast and hair obscuring her face. The next page Elena dropped, startled, but too enraptured to tear her eyes away. Another naked Katherine was stretched languidly across a bed, but this time her eyes were closed and her head was tossed back, mouth opened in a plaintive cry. One hand lingered between her thighs again and the other caressed a breast. Her legs were splayed, her body taut, and she seemed...
Closing her eyes, Elena shifted the sketches into a neat pile, attempting to quell the feelings bubbling up in her gut. She'd never seen such artwork, never seen something so beautiful decadent. It seemed a sin and a glory all at once.
"I know, they kind of suck, don't they?"
Elena dropped the sheets for the second time and dropped the leather casing too, and glanced over her shoulder. Damon leaned casually against the doorframe. She started to her feet, determined to ignore the images that had burned her face red. "I'm so sorry," she stuttered, glancing away—anywhere but his face or the floor where the incriminating drawings lay. "I didn't mean..."
Damon chuckled. "I'm not embarrassed of my art, but please, show it a little respect." He ignored her obvious awkwardness and walked closer, bending to scoop the pages up. He shifted them into a pile and slid them back into the leather bound case. "I'd forgotten I'd even had them."
"They're amazing," said Elena eventually, after she found her voice to speak again.
Grinning wide, Damon slid the book high on a shelf out of her reach, before stalking back to her side. "Awwh, your approval is so cute. I'd have thought that you'd want them burned. Some of them aren't exactly meant for polite company."
Faintly, Elena understood the notion that there were still at least a dozen sheets she hadn't gotten the chance to look at, and she wasn't sure she wanted to look at them anymore. "You're still talented. I never knew you drew."
"I dabble," he said, seizing her gently by the elbow and steering her out of the room. "Let's not tell Stefan about these, hmm? Remember what Cale Hockley did after he found the picture of Miss Rose?" He gave her a pointed look, blue eyes fierce as he leaned close. Breathing deep, Elena inhaled his cologne and felt her head swim; she was much too distracted to catch the pop culture reference. When he smirked, he smirked with only a corner of his mouth, and Elena wasn't certain, but there was an elusive trace of an elongated canine there.
"Of course," she said eventually, in a soft voice, unable to tear her eyes away from his. He held her gently, one hand at the crook of an elbow and the other gingerly brushing her wrist. "Don't want to have Stefan make fun of you and your obsession."
He smirked blithely and twitched his head to the side. "Of course not!" he exclaimed in an understated whisper. "He'll mock me something fierce."
Elena sighed and finally glanced away, taking a final breath as she stepped out of his bubble. "I never knew we were like identical twins."
Damon frowned and peered sidelong at her. "What?"
"We have the same birthmark too," she explained, touching the mark on her hip through her shirt. "I never knew that."
"Ah, of course. Yes, you are exactly the same. In body, at least. But, love, I believe your dinner is ready."
Damon glanced up at the ceiling and waved his hand—and all at the same time, Elena heard Stefan call, "Hey, Elena!"
When she started towards the door, Damon was gone and the skin at her elbow tingled suspiciously.
She frowned, feeling as though she were walking through a dream. When she reached the dining room, Stefan smiled and hugged her again, pressing a kiss to her temple. She smiled weakly at him and allowed him to guide to her chair and push her in—all courteous and debonair. The food was wonderful and her boyfriend was sweet and gracious and altogether the best thing that had ever happened to her, at least in her opinion. However, something still nagged her.
"You never compare me to Katherine, do you, Stefan?" she asked, still chewing on her chicken; she covered her mouth with her hand daintily because it seemed appropriate, even though she'd been raised with boys who chewed with their mouths opened and cracked fart jokes at the dinner table. "Even though we have the same face, the same hair, the same body—even though we're the same down even to our birthmarks."
Stefan glanced up and frowned. "Katherine didn't have a birthmark. Where did you get that idea?" He smiled as though it were the best thing in the world. "That thing on your hip is uniquely yours."
Elena pursed her lips and nodded, glancing down at her plate as she remembered the way Katherine's eyes peered back at her, mischievous and sultry, as she lounged on the sofa. Hipbone and birthmark bared for all the world to see along with the rest of her gorgeous body. From somewhere within the Salvatore home, Elena thought she heard Damon chuckle softly, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose.
finis.