"We Make a Toast to Hell"
She leaves the Boarding House feeling empty, which surprises her, she'll admit. Usually she gets satisfaction from strutting out that front door. Maybe that's because every time she did it, she had gotten the attention or affection—twisted or not—out of one of the brothers. Now Damon is in Elena's arms, and Stefan is gone.
That's twice now that Klaus has taken the life of someone she loved. She thinks this time should mean something; should mean that she shouldn't let him get away with it again.
Maybe she will.
She touches her fingers to her lips, looks up at the moon.
She remembers; just lets everything flood in, every touch, every sigh, every tear, every drop of blood shed; every loving or hateful or confused word.
She had told Damon once before that she didn't let love get in the way. Marching towards certain death, death she spent years running from, death she had sacrificed much for, certainly seemed like love getting in the way. And did she give a damn?
No.
Klaus walked away with it once. If she was going to die before letting him walk away with it again, then so be it.
"You're going to get yourself killed."
She's surprised Jeremy sounds genuinely upset, but she just raises her eyebrows, poised and confident as ever but maybe the most vulnerable she's been with someone who wasn't Stefan, and tells him, "Klaus doesn't get to get away with this again."
He looks at her like he must realize she is talking about getting away with scaring her into doing unthinkable things. The thought is absurd, because no one ever knows what she's thinking, but sometimes she liked to toy with the idea that someone could. "I just came here to pass on a message for you to pass onto Elena. Even if I free Stefan, he can't come back, not anytime soon."
"You're not coming back either?"
"Nope."
He nods. She thinks he already knew this.
"Pearl was my best friend. Anna's death was because of this. Klaus doesn't get to get away with that, either."
She leaves him with a pat on his head, a quick kiss to his temple; he is, after all, family in a distant and estranged kind of way, but the "be careful" he mutters on her way out makes the gap feel smaller.
Maybe she will bring Stefan back for a visit. Just maybe.
She tracks them halfway across the globe on the border of Russia days, weeks, months since she left Mystic Falls. Or rather, she had been tracking them, but then they came to her instead.
Klaus is a freaking vampire-werewolf hybrid and surrounds himself with witches and warlocks and vampires that are centuries older than her; of course the end result is her being dragged back in chains.
They bring her back to Bulgaria, to a place near her old home. It's a sick and cruel thing, really, but that's how Klaus works; look what he did to Stefan. She hardly recognized the vampire that drained innocent humans that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time to their deaths. He wasn't Stefan, not her Stefan or maybe even Elena's Stefan, anymore.
"Why were you foolish enough to come looking for us, Katerina?"
"I came for Stefan."
Klaus laughs and calls Stefan into his chamber. The shock of seeing her is a fraction of a second. "He doesn't want you, anymore. Live for me, instead."
"I'd rather die."
"Then you will die for nothing."
And maybe it's just wishful thinking, but she sees something in Stefan's eyes when she says, "I'll die for love."
Klaus laughs some more, tugs at one of your curls, pulls her close to him. "We are going to have so much fun with you, Katerina."
She used to think being trapped in Alaric's apartment when Klaus inhabited it was close to hell.
Being trapped with him, she soon realizes, is what the hell really was. Before she was allowed to get bored, to blast some music, drink and dance when no one was there, to just be if even for a little while. Now there was no choice at all.
His boredom is a lot more suffocating. It leaves bruises and marks on her once flawless complexion and is a twisted sense between pleasure and pain; pleasure, because he knows all of her and her body's quirks, but pain, because she's slept with a lot of men before but none of them had handled her less than a lover. He handles her like a makeshift mistress on good days, little more than a slave on worst.
"You've always fascinated me, Katerina." He traces a finger up her arm and she tugs it away. "I've always wanted this for us."
"Go to hell."
She's still stupidly resilient and she'll pay for it, but her throat is coarse and her voice is raspy, so punishment will wait for later. He enjoys her screams far too much.
The days get meshed together. It feels like she hasn't seen sunlight in weeks, being trapped in his room. Even when they jump from country to country, they always move at night, and he always tucks her right underneath her arm so she knows her position.
Stefan hasn't seen her since she got captured, but she knows he's there, listening.
Klaus sends ladies his way as a sort of twisted payment to keep him under the influence of his bloodlust and to keep him entertained. She hears the noises from the other room all the time. Whether moans of content or of agony, they're always clear. The only time she can't hear them is when her own screams block everything else.
All things considered, she prefers not to hear them.
The first time she is technically allowed out of one of his rooms is when they're in one of Klaus's properties in Venice. It's extravagant and completely his style.
This is also the first time she sees Stefan since.
She is sent to his room and compelled to be an audience of one to him and his latest mistress. The scene is dark and hot and beautiful, the monster he's become, the way he coaxes sighs and then screams from her and spills her blood on the sheets. It comes vaguely close to a fantasy she has had of them, years ago, when he was still bright and innocent.
She just leaves when the girl is dead, never allowed to look back even for a second, and returns to Klaus.
This is repeated a few more times. It shouldn't wear her down like it does.
Then one night, when Klaus is feeling creative and bored, he orders Stefan into his room as he is having his way with her, makes him watch this time. The pain seems worse this time.
Or maybe that's shame she's feeling; she wouldn't know. She hasn't felt that one in a while, now. When Klaus leaves them to take care of his cravings, she lays her head on a pillow, closes her eyes, and waits for Stefan to leave. A long enough time passes where she thinks she's finally alone and lets a few tears roll down her cheek. She feels pathetic and weak, and she only ever does it when she's alone.
Except she feels a weight shift the bed beside her and something is pulling the thin sheet over her.
Damn it.
She looks over her shoulder, through strands of hair sticking to her cheek, and meets Stefan's eyes. She's caught between feeling relieved it's not Klaus and feeling… actually, she's not sure at the moment.
They don't cuddle or anything. They're not even touching, but he's close enough that it's like he's lying next to her and that gives enough comfort to make her fall asleep within seconds. It's the easiest she's slept in a long, long time.
She doesn't know what snaps inside of her, but she refuses to eat or drink anything, including blood.
She's gone without blood in her system before and it is not pleasant, but something inside her just won't let her drink anymore. "Such a pity," Klaus muses when she ignores the blood bag he tosses her. "I quite liked the idea of you becoming my second ripper. I was almost ready for you to join us on the outside, give Stefan some company when he's out wreaking havoc."
Her hand squeezes the bag until it pops, and even if every fiber of her being is thirsting to lick it off of her fingers, to give into the taste, she refuses and lets the smell burn her throat.
"Pity," Klaus says again before he leaves.
It's agonizing, the feeling of her dry veins rubbing together, the flames in her throat, the pounding of her head; it's all just too much.
Considering how long she's been on the run and how much she's done to save her own skin, the fact that she wants nothing more than to stand in front of the window and let the sunlight take her says a lot about how much things have changed. But of course Klaus won't let her do that, and she won't let herself drink anything, so that's why she just suffers through it.
She feels a hand grasp her just above her elbow and pull her against the wall.
"Why?"
It's the most Stefan's said to her since they were both in Mystic Falls and she doesn't have an answer.
She just shakes her head and groans in pain. He pulls her to the floor, into her lap, and holds her in the middle of the hallway as she burns. Her blurred vision takes in the fact Klaus is there, watching them.
Klaus lets her wander around the house now. Of course she's not allowed to leave, but she's not trapped in his room anymore, so that's a start.
She knows it's because he has a twisted kink for her and Stefan being together and he knows if you give her enough time, she'll start to give in; or maybe he's counting on Stefan convincing her to drink blood again and become a ripper because he's the one asking. She'll fight, of course, but she's not sure if she wants to anymore.
It's late, almost midnight, one night and Klaus is out again, sucking bodies dry or possibly compelling more women for Stefan.
She walks into his room and Stefan is on his bed, reading some really thick book. It could be the dictionary by the size of it, but she's just mildly surprised that he's reading at all. It just never occurred to her what else he might be doing in his room when he's not feeding or entertaining himself with his little lady puppets.
He looks up at her and closes the book without saving his page, putting it aside.
"I figured out why," she tells him from the doorway.
He nods.
"I wanted to be in control of something again."
"So, it wasn't a cry for help, or a death wish. It was a show of pride," he says, and his tone sounds a little amused. "That sounds like you."
It shouldn't comfort her that he still knows her even a little bit, especially since she looks at him and thinks she barely knows him at all now. Not the new him.
He reaches into his drawer and holds up a blood bag. She sucks in a breath through her mouth and takes a step back to leave, but he shakes his head, rips just an inch of it open, and looks her in the eyes. And then he's muttering, "Come here," in this sort of gruff voice and she finds herself across the room and straddling his waist a second later, ripping it further and drinking every single drop.
Relief washes through her and she devours the second bag he hands her with equal fervor. Then he pulls her to him and kisses her lips hungrily, though for her taste or the taste of blood, she's unsure.
A clapping comes from the doorway seconds later and they pull apart to find Klaus there, smirking in satisfaction.
He just won this game.
She stays with Stefan now, because she wants to, but also because Klaus compels her to. He's getting a kick out of putting his dolls together.
He still sends mistresses for Stefan, but two at a time now, and she has more than a feeling that he's aware that they just suck their bodies dry and then focus on each other. It's probably what he wants.
Her bruises and cuts are mostly gone by now, and Stefan never makes new ones even if she has a habit of digging her nails into him in throws of pleasure.
It's so much wilder, he's so much wilder, but there are still little things he does that remind her it's Stefan. He kisses her like he means it, treats her like he wants it, refuses to hurt her; the fear she associated when Klaus had been the one handling her has all but vanished, for better or worse.
She thinks it's for better.
She lies in his arms when they're done, as if they were lovers. Once upon a time they had been. Later down the road, maybe they still could be.
Her mind considers how much things have changed. It's nostalgic and terribly cliché and completely unlike her, but she finds that when she is no longer the one calling the shots, she spends a lot more time poking through her own head. Over a century and a half ago, she had been the one compelling Stefan to not be afraid because she had been the monster and he the angel.
Now she was the one being compelled to Stefan and he was the dark one, the haunted one.
Life's funny that way, she supposes.
Contrary to popular belief, they do more than just have sex in his room and drink from blood bags or from his women. They do talk; sit around in his room with some alcohol, just drinking and talking. It's never about their past—his or hers or theirs together—unless they're telling each other relatively harmless recollections of some wilder times during their travels. Or, unless they just can't help it.
"Why did you come back?"
She empties her glass and fixes him with a look. "I told you, didn't I?"
"You told Klaus you came back for me," he remembers, "That you would die for love." She nods. "Forgive me for being skeptical."
"Still think I'm lying?" she asks somewhat challengingly, somewhat curiously. She pours herself some more, and then tops him off just for the hell of it. He shrugs. "Believe what you want."
"It doesn't sound like you," he tells her.
"I'm beginning to forget what I'm supposed to sound like."
He nods slowly, like someone who knows the feeling too well, and takes a long gulp from his glass.
Klaus is pleased with their progress, so much so that he allows her to join them on an outing when they're in Brazil.
Carnival is happening, and he dresses them up in glamorous clothes and has them drag tourists into the shadows and ravage them. She doesn't realize that this is really the first time she's seen Stefan on a hunt since his diet's changed. Her bloodcurdling screams may have been far enough to not be detected, but the helpless girl is right there in front of her with Stefan on her neck and it makes her look away.
"Stefan, that's enough, she's already dying. Stefan. Stefan!" She grasps his shoulder and he growls at her, shoves her away. She wipes the blood he got on her cheek and he drops the body and stares. At least the screaming stopped. "She's had enough," she says needlessly.
"I scare you."
She rolls her eyes but doesn't deny it. She's being soft and she knows it, but watching the soul of the only man you've ever loved crumble from the inside out will do that to a person.
He runs a hand through his hair, kicks the ground, curses, mutters to himself. She just watches.
"What happened to me?"
"You're letting it control you. You have to control it, Stefan." He is suddenly in front of her, staring down into her eyes, grasping her arms and holding her close. "Stop fighting it."
He showers kisses on her shoulder, her collarbone, her neck, her jaw. Her hands graze the muscles in his arms, the contours of his abs.
He's gotten better. Not at the sex thing, he's always been good at that; he's gotten better with his control. It took months of work, but she thinks he finally understand how to control himself.
It's a dangerous game they're playing, trying to tame the very beast within Stefan that Klaus had bargained for in the first place. She's not even sure what she's ultimately aiming for, because he'll never be that vegetarian vampire again, but anything is better than his addict self. He pretends, whenever Klaus is with them, that nothing's changed him, but she's not at all assured Klaus buys it.
"We're already in hell," she points out when he asks her. "And he finds us far too entertaining to separate now."
"You sound confident."
She shrugs her shoulders, hooks a leg around his waist. "Believe what you want."
He kisses her, deeper, longer. "You love me."
She murmurs I always have into his ear, except it's in Bulgarian. He holds her closer and brings their lips back together. "You love me, again," she teases.
"Part of me never stopped," he admits. She'd like to say she always knew this, but she honestly doubted. It's terribly cliché and the most like her Stefan she's seen in a long while, so she doesn't call him out on it, just straddles his waist and kisses him like she did in 1864.
When they're free, finally free, years and years later, he surprises her by not leaving. They don't go back to Mystic Falls right away. It takes months to get there again, mostly because she keeps taking detours and can't keep her hands off of him. He calls her out on not wanting Elena to be added to the picture again, and she slaps him for saying that but never denies it. This time, he doesn't call her out on it.
They run into Caroline and Tyler in Paris, and she cries and hugs him tight enough to snap his spine.
Both of them have literally not changed a bit. Caroline explains Bonnie found this spell that required this ritual somewhere, and now Tyler is bound to her for eternity.
"Sounds familiar," she smirks.
Caroline laughs and Tyler shakes his head. She's not sure if it's because they've been gone for so long, or because of their newfound forever, but neither seem as tense around her as they would've been.
They learn that Alaric still hunted supernatural creatures, and when he went back to Duke University to ask Isobel's old assistant, Vanessa, for help, she ended up coming back with him. Matt left right after graduating, and met a pretty Latina at his college. Elena turned and left with Damon not too long before she and Tyler had left themselves, a few years ago, and Bonnie hit the road as well to find more witches and warlocks to learn from. Jeremy is the only one of them left, other than Alaric and Vanessa, in Mystic Falls.
"Still want to go back?" she asks him once Caroline and Tyler have left with promises to stay in contact and rendezvous at least once a year, or every few months.
He shakes his head. "Visits can wait until later. We have a lot of time, and we'll probably end up running into them eventually." He looks down at her. "So, where to next?"
"Ever been to the Caribbean?"
A/n: Sorry for the random and abrupt happy ending; I was hesitating to put that in there, but I'm a sucker for fluff and romance and all that good stuff so that's that.
So you read it. Love it? Hate it? Please review it!