Author's Note: Set some time in the future, villains nominally resolved, as our favorite (anti)heroes awkwardly settle into what's left of their relationships...

I like my lemons with hard liquor. I beg of thee, forgive the implausibility, forgive the lack of context... and try to enjoy the ride.

"It's okay, you know, to love them both. I did."

It feels like the old house is rotting in the summer sun. The shades are down, and the humid air is killing them slowly. Clothing sticks to backs and all the glasses in the world can't quench their thirst.

There is something impossibly illicit about the way Elena holds her tumbler. Her fingers twist around the glass, twirling the ice back and forth. In all the undead stillness, she is motion and heat, glistening. They try not to watch her, Stefan because he lost her and Damon because he has not won her and Katherine because she will not be outdone.

"You know what?" she inquires into the tight silence. "This is ridiculous." Blue and green and brown eyes all look perplexed at best, without enough of a drunken haze to dull her next words. "I'm sick of hurting this much and feeling this little. I'm sick of not knowing. I'm sick of waiting for one of you to make a move, any move at all." She downs her bourbon like a man, slamming the glass on the coffee table. "Let's just get it over with."

Damon knows, somehow he fucking knows. His jaw slackens, and he covers it with another swig. He looks through the ugly paintings, at the crack in the ceiling paint, anywhere but at her.

Stefan doesn't know, but he knows better than to ask. This is the voice that proposes suicide missions, the voice that demands road trips at 3am. This is the wild side of Elena, and he hates it and misses it too much to play along.

Katherine, ballsy Katherine, is the one to ask. "Get what over with?"

"Let's clear the air. Let's take what we want, get it out of our systems, and go on with our lives."

Katherine's eyes go wide. (Damon's squeeze shut.) She laughs, cackles, glares. "A foursome? You think that'll solve all your problems? Believe me, if group sex was all it took..."

Now Stefan is sputtering, and Damon is cracking, and Elena just sighs. "I've tried everything else."

"But he's my brother!"
"Both of you?"
"Not like this!"
"Why?"

It's Elena's voice that stills them, of course. "Why not?"