Title: Made to Be Broken
Author: zartashia
Characters: Elena Gilbert, Damon Salvatore
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Rating: M
Summary: After he nearly kills her on Wickery Bridge, Stefan is compelled by Klaus to attack Elena. Damon picks up the pieces. Delena, mid-season 3.
Author's Notes: Warning for depiction and discussion of rape. Also warning for Stefan-bashing and Elena/Damon romance. I know there are lots of stories like this already, but I'm extremely new to the fandom and wanted to try my hand. Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter One
Stefan is the sun.
Pure, white-hot, certain in his righteousness. They - all of them - orbit around him like minor planets, and he is their center, the arbiter of what is right, meting out grace and judgment and guilt in careful measure. They bask in his warmth until Klaus steals him away, and they believe that without him they drift, rudderless.
His light blinds. Elena, still shaking from the near-drive off Wickery Bridge, tries to slam the door closed on him, but she feels the burn of it as he pushes his way into the house, his eyes full of the death of compulsion and something else, something terrible and bitter. He slams the door behind him and she backs away, grabbing her phone, but he throws that across the room and her body after it. She begs him to stop as he holds her down and forces his way inside, fights him as hard as she can, her humanity no match for the blood-soaked strength fueling the Ripper.
When it's over, she wishes she could be grateful that Klaus needs more hybrids. It means Stefan lets her keep her head and feet and hands.
Damon is the moon.
She thinks she can turn away but the gravitational pull always brings her back. He is the sliver of cold light illuminating the darkness and revealing the truth in the shadows. He maintains the shaky balance. They blame him for embracing his flaws but repress their own until they are consumed.
She cleans up the mess in muted shock, disheveled. Retreats up to her room before Alaric or Jeremy return home and locks the doors and windows. Since Stefan left, Damon's been staying over, watching her sleep every night, lying exactly one foot away from her at all times, on top of the covers. Like the moon calls the tide, they call to each other, suspended in their loneliness. She can't let him in, not tonight, not like this. He can't see.
Stefan is the sun and Damon is the moon and she thought once that she was a celestial body caught between them, pulled into their orbit. But the change in Stefan, the pain and the shock and the fear and the fighting, has rendered her just another ball of dust and gas set adrift into the void of space.