Cruel and Unusual Punishment
"Crimes of Passion Never Go Unpunished."
A dark tale of love, lust, pain and the unbreakable bond of blood.
A Vampire Diaries Fan Fiction by
VampTramp83
Please Note: No copyright infringement is intended. All characters and original plots, storylines, and all other wonderful credit belong to L.J. Smith and The CW Network.
A/N: I have written Vampire Diaries fan fiction for quite some time, but thought that I would try putting it out there to see how it is received and see what other fans of the show think of my writing and ideas. This fiction is meant to begin where the show originally started in Season 1, but start in a much different way. This fiction is much darker than the show, but will eventually come to light just as the characters themselves usually always seem to. Please note the following important points in this fiction: This time frame begins with Senior year, instead of Junior year. Damon is very Season 1. He is still fairly cold towards others, desperate, conniving, and has very little appreciation for human life. He is still however, Damon, and therefore he loves recklessly and completely with all of his heart. Stefan is more along the lines of Season 3. He is back on human blood, angry, and has for the most part flipped the switch on his humanity. Elena is of course very Season 1 in the beginning and is incredibly naive and innocent. Lastly, in this fiction the Salvatore's have found out that Katherine is still alive, but they do not know everything about her life or the full extent of her betrayal. Both brothers are still incredibly angry, bitter, and feel scorned by someone that they loved so much. This fiction is rated a VERY STRONG M. There will be a lot of smut, blood, adult language and content, and enough yumminess to hopefully keep everyone thoroughly engaged as well as interested in the plotline. This fiction is told from the POV of the three main characters, mostly Damon and Elena's, but occasionally from Stefan's as well. That should just about cover it for now, please read and review and let me know what you think. Thank you and I hope you like! :)
Prologue: Brothers In Arms
"He is my most beloved friend and my bitterest rival, my confidant and my betrayer, my sustainer and my dependent, and scariest of all, my equal."
~ Gregg Levoy
Damon's POV:
Humidity hung heavy in the early morning air around me as I found myself staring out of the thick dirt covered windshield of my midnight blue Camaro, and watching carefully as steam rose steadily off of the sidewalk in front of me in thick sheets of beautiful vapor, just before disappearing into the suffocating August heat as quickly as it had come. A gentle late-summer breeze blew softly through the tall red oak trees that were scattered over the lush landscape just a few feet away from where I sat studying them, and the heavy scent of freshly cut grass wafted in slowly through the small gap in my car's open window, quickly reminding me of the mundane simplicity of the sheltered little world that I had left behind so long before. After a few moments of losing myself in my casual day dreaming, I finally turned my attention from the simple workings of nature before me, and began to focus in on the few hundred teenagers that were filing in from the lot around me and making their way quickly toward the quaint one level brick high school building that the last time that I had been in that sleepy little town, hadn't even existed.
To the uneducated eye, life in the small town of Mystic Falls would have appeared to be much different today than it had been over one hundred years before when I had called this miserable excuse for a community my home, but I was far from an uneducated man. Although there now stood over twice as many businesses and homes than there had been in the past, even most of the new businesses that had sprung up over the years were still run by the same egotistical idiots that had owned the majority of the wealth back in my day. Teenagers now might have been dressing in a much different fashion than they used to, listening to far more vulgar (and much more to my liking) types of music, and preparing for college instead of marriage, but they still had the same blind obedience to their close minded parents that even I had succumbed to at their completely idiotic and innocent young age. The minutes passed by me like seconds as I watched the familiar characteristics of my old family and friends move past me on the faces of the newest stock of offspring that this small Virginia town had to offer, and I couldn't help but laugh quietly to myself as I watched them study my unknown car as if it were some sort of spaceship that had just landed suddenly in front of them. I smiled as I eventually caught the eye of a petite young blond girl who seemed enthralled by the mysterious man sitting in the vintage car that none of them had ever seen before, and I couldn't help but wink flirtatiously at her as I caught a glint of excitement flood through her innocent bright blue eyes. It would be best for you to run, Blondie. I would eat you for breakfast.
"Quit eye-fucking the students, Damon. We are supposed to be keeping a low profile, remember?" The once completely silent second occupant of my car asked from my passenger seat as he pushed his fingers quickly through his overly gelled copper colored hair, and then rolled his eyes dramatically in my direction. I smiled sarcastically as I turned my attention from the appetizing blond that stood still just a few feet away from me, and then shrugged my shoulders innocently.
"I'm just being polite to the good folks of Mystic Falls, Stefan. You know how I love to be active with the youth, and all." I said as I licked my lips and then slowly turned my attention to the other delicious young bodies that were flooding in toward the school faster with every passing second, and causing my mouth to water in complete undeniable hunger. I should have stopped for a drink before I came this morning.
"Yeah, well you are here for a much greater purpose than just snacking on high schoolers. I need you to be focused on this, Damon. If we don't do this right, we could lose our one shot at finally ending this." Stefan said intensely as he straightened up slightly in his seat and cleared his throat anxiously. I rolled my eyes as I nodded mindlessly in his direction, but still could not completely force myself to pay full attention to his incessant rambling. After all of these years, I still could not quite understand how my brother and I had come from the same bloodline (both human and supernatural), and yet had turned out to be so completely different in almost every single way imaginable. Simply waking up in the morning seemed to make Stefan nervous for Christ Sakes, and now he was trying to facilitate something that seemed dangerous even to me, but yet had the unmitigated audacity to act as if I were the liability in this incredibly fucked up situation even though I was the only one in the car that was not in the middle of a mild panic attack.
"Relax, baby bro. I am completely focused and ready to hear more about this insane plan that you so rudely took me away from New Orleans in order to help you with. Now please, show me where this so called doppelganger is so that I can get out of here before the villagers come after me with pitch forks…again." I replied sarcastically with a smirk as I motioned over the muddled crowd of cookie cutter students in front of me, waiting for my brother to finally admit that he had been completely wrong in the assumption that he had made over a month before that had drug me back to this human wasteland that I had so carefully avoided ever since the turn of the last century.
"I am perfectly relaxed, Damon. And, you should know better than anyone that I wouldn't have called you out here if I had any doubt in my mind about who this girl was. I have happily avoided your presence for over the past fifty years, brother. I wouldn't have asked you to come here if I wasn't completely certain that she was the real thing." Stefan replied tightly as he narrowed his eyes toward the crowd before us and then began searching diligently for the girl in question. I nodded as I finally decided to bite my tongue, and then actually took into account my brother's very accurate words.
It had been nearly fifty years since the last time that I had seen my brother, and if we were everyday humans with ordinary lives, I would have agreed with anyone that was definitely a very long time. However, my brother and I were far from human and our lives were anything but ordinary. As humans, Stefan and I had been incredibly close. We had shared a deep bond ever since childhood, and once our mother had passed away when we were young and we were left to be cared for mainly by my father's household staff, that bond had become even more intensified. I was the older Salvatore son by quite a few years, and also just happened to have been the thorn in my father's side ever since I could remember. Stefan had been loved and doted on as the responsible and kind hearted child that was expected to achieve great things, and even though I had always been jealous of the love that it felt as if I had never received, I had too loved my younger sibling with all of my heart. However, life had changed drastically once I returned home from war as a young man, and ever since then things have never been the same between my brother and I. It was the same year that I had returned back to the Salvatore Plantation that Katherine Pierce had showed up and ruined the years of brotherhood that Stefan and I had built over our lifetime. It took nearly eighteen years for us to build the trust that we had for each other when she had first climbed out of that carriage so long ago, and nearly no time at all for her to destroy it all with a single touch of her soft but yet deadly cold hand.
"As I said, brother, show me your doppelganger. I have things to do, tick tock." I said sarcastically as I attempted to pull myself out of my own mind and back to the conversation that I was supposed to be having with my once beloved younger brother.
"What could you possibly have to do that is more important than this, Damon? I'm sure that the strippers in Louisiana will still be there in a few months." Stefan replied tensely as he turned his body slightly toward me, and then tilted his head to the side in sarcasm. I mirrored his expression as he stared at me, and then pressed my lips together into a hard line as I pretended to think.
"Well, I did meet a very hot little thing named Tanya that tasted like red wine, and she could do this thing with her tongue that…." I started as my lips twisted into a grin just before Stefan raised his hand signaling for me to stop. I nodded as I shrugged my shoulders and then licked my lips slowly.
"I really don't need those kinds of details, Damon." He said quickly as he shook his head in disbelief at my vulgar language. I smiled as I watched him fidget beside me. If he thought that was dirty, he really didn't want to know what her friend could do.
"Actually, getting out of there was probably a good thing considering the last conversation that I had with her." I said as I looked down at the clock in my car and noticed that the high school's first bell was due to ring in just about ten short minutes.
"Why? What was the conversation about?" Stefan asked as he looked at me with an over exaggerated amount of fake interest, and as always just a slight amount of contempt. I leaned my head back against my seat as I tried to suppress the smile that begged to break out over my lips at the thought of my last interaction with Tanya, and then cleared my throat formally.
"She accused me of getting her pregnant." I said slowly as I felt a devilish grin finally take over my lips just as I turned my head toward Stefan who was staring at me in complete and total shock. Finally, he narrowed his eyes and raised one of his thick brows at me as if I had gone completely insane.
"She…said you got her pregnant? Damon…" Stefan started, but of course he realized before he had even begun his lecture that he did not need to give me the birds and the bee's speech when it came to vampire human sex. Or any sex for that matter.
"Oh, don't worry Stefan. You won't be an uncle any time soon. Poor sweet little Tanya was anemic due to my insatiable hunger, and therefore she hadn't gotten her period in a while, so I simply told her to take iron and stop hanging out in the alley's downtown. I highly doubt that she will listen to me though, she was a sucker for a bad boy." I answered sarcastically with a smile as I fondly remembered my first lust filled night with Tanya, and then winked flirtatiously at my brother. Stefan rolled his eyes as he finally turned his head back in the direction of the school, and then quickly went back to his stalking of Katherine's supposed human twin.
"Alright, enough with the jokes and snide comments that I could honestly do without. I only brought you down here because I needed you to know who she was, and I want us to be on the same page about everything so that this doesn't drag out any longer than it has to." He said in an annoyed tone as he continued scanning the crowd around my car from the woman in question. I nodded as I attempted to look interested in my brother's incredibly poorly thought out plan, and then eventually shrugged my shoulders.
"If she is who you say she is, Stefan, it shouldn't be hard to find her. I just look for the girl that looks exactly like the cunt that destroyed our lives. Seems easy enough to me." I quipped back sarcastically as I waited for Stefan to finally point out the girl that had been the reason that he had called me nearly a month before in a panic over, and now had subsequently been obsessively plotting against ever since.
"Yes, while it might be easy to find her, you should also probably know a little bit about her as well, Damon. First of all, her name is Elena Gilbert. Her parents died last summer in a car accident on Wickery Bridge, and she now lives with her brother and her aunt. She is a senior honor roll student on the cheerleading squad, and has been at the top of her class ever since she was in kindergarten. For the past three years she has been dating the same overly optimistic football player that she has known ever since she was in diapers, but a few weeks ago they had a falling out and she just so happens to now be completely single." Stefan said in an overly proud tone which led me to believe that he had something to do with little Miss Teen Queen's breakup, but at that point in the conversation I honestly didn't care enough about the idiotic teenage drama to even ask. There was only one word circling around in my head completely controlling my thoughts as my brother finally ended his sentence; and that word was Gilbert.
Over one hundred and forty years before, when I had still lived in the incredibly small town that I now once again unfortunately sat in, Mystic Falls had been primarily run by not the usual local government that was supposed to be in charge of it, but instead by a handful of founding families that governed the town silently behind closed doors. Of those founding families, there were five in particular that held the majority of the power in town, and therefore were the only ones that ever truly interested me. First, there were the Lockwood's. They were a snobby horrible little clan that thought that their shit didn't stink, and that since they were the only physical face of the local government to be seen, that they could do no absolutely no wrong. Then, there were the Fell's. They were a very religious family that even though they did not practice exactly what they preached, believed that if you did not live in the exact way that they recommended, that you would burn in the fiery depths of hell…or possibly even in their very own church if matters became bad enough. Thirdly, there were the Forbes'. They were a small simple enough family that enforced the law around the town and therefore quickly became the bane of my existence as soon as they created a town wide curfew that they swore was to protect the young and impressionable, but instead just seemed to be an excuse for the town council to hunt vampires without the rest of the community knowing what they were doing. Next, there were the Salvatore's. We (yes, my murderous younger brother and I were part of one of the founding families) were extremely wealthy businessmen, and pretty damn reputable ones at that. Among the other businesses that my family owned, we were in control of the town's mill as well as having a heavy hand in the area's banking which I was still happily seeing a profit from after all of these years. We were strong, bull headed and of course incredibly savvy when it came to money. Too bad most of us lacked the common sense needed to keep one alive.
The last of the Mystic Falls founding families, were of course, the Gilbert's. They were…well they were said to be completely and totally insane. Jonathon Gilbert, the only one that I cared to pay any attention to at the time, was a stark raving mad scientist that created a device to detect vampires and therefore helped to start what was by far the worst (and subsequently also the last) day of my human life. He, Thomas Fell, William Forbes, Benjamin Lockwood, and of course my dear old Papa Salvatore were five of the main men who were responsible for locking up over twenty vampires into the small confines of Fell's Church, and then burning it happily to the ground as they all sat back and cheered in victory. What the simple minds of the founding men did not know however, was that a sharp tongued little witch by the name of Emily Bennett just so happened to have sealed those vampires that they had locked up beneath the church into a tomb that would keep them safe from their final deaths, and what I didn't know was that one of those vampires just so happened to have escaped…and never ever fucking returned again.
"Damon?" My brother's voice echoed in my mind suddenly jolting me back to reality and out of my silent stroll down memory lane. I cleared my throat roughly as I finally turned my attention back toward Stefan and then faked an interested smile.
"Yes brother, I know. Stay focused and don't fuck or kill everything that moves. I've got this, Stefan." I said in a tense tone as I lifted my eyes back toward Stefan's and then attempted to shake the eerie feeling from my bones that being back in that God forsaken town had stirred in me. Stefan shook his head as he lifted his hand slowly and then pointed casually out of the windshield ahead of him.
"No, Damon. What I said was; there she is." He said as he motioned in front of him toward the back of the school just in front of the large double doors of the gymnasium, where a group of what appeared to be very popular teenagers stood conversing amongst themselves.
Slowly, my eyes focused in on the small gathering of students, only about one hundred feet away from where I sat, and in an instant it felt as if the air had been sucked completely out of the car around me. The wind that had been blowing through the trees only moments before seemed to suddenly still, and the sound of the hundreds of conversations going on around me quickly melted into complete and total nothingness. My grip tightened on the steering wheel that I found myself suddenly clutching desperately in my tensed hands as I stared out of the thick misty glass of my windshield at the girl who up until that moment, I had been sure had never even existed. I watched in a stunned silence as the tortuously beautiful figure before me laughed among a group of what I assumed to be her friends, and then carelessly tossed her long chocolate brown hair over one of her slim shoulders causing it to cascade down her back in a dark thick sheet of pure silk. Her long luscious legs were barely covered by her short crimson cheerleading skirt, and the olive-colored skin of her abdomen peaked out just slightly from under the tight cheerleading top that I was damned sure her father had to lose sleep over every night that she wore it. Her flesh appeared soft and mouthwatering even from as far away from her as I was and even though I knew that it should have been impossible, I could somehow feel her heartbeat radiating through me like a tribal drum that pushed my borrowed blood faster through my system with every hypnotic move that she made. I couldn't stop myself from imagining what it would feel like to sink my sharp teeth deep into her tender young flesh, and then taste her pulse pounding excitedly against my hungry lips as her sweet crimson blood ran down my practically starving throat. For a moment, it was as if I had already tasted her and claimed her as my own. I could almost see the imprint of my jagged animalistic vampire teeth on her pristine untouched skin, and feel the slight tug of her hand in my hair as she reluctantly begged me for more even though the pain that I caused her drew blood-curdling screams from her full sensuous rose colored lips. For a moment, the game was already over, and I had her, but in a second that moment was gone.
"Damon?" Stefan's voice broke into my fantasies and quickly pulled me back into the car that I still physically sat in. I turned toward my brother and watched as concern flooded through his nervous emerald colored eyes at the intensity of my reaction to the victim that he had so carefully selected and that he had been obsessing over for the past thirty days.
"You'd better get inside Stefan; you wouldn't want to miss homeroom." I said quickly as I licked my dry lips, and desperately attempted to keep my eyes on my brother and not on the girl who seemed to be pulling my eyes back to her almost unwillingly. I had to get the fuck out of there, now.
"Don't deflect brother, get it together. You need to be in this all the way for this plan to work." Stefan said defiantly as he continued to nervously study my expression, and silently judge my possible risk of treachery. I nodded slowly, and then eventually tilted my head slightly to the side as I finally did actually give my attention to my younger (and incredibly naïve) brother.
"And, what is your plan exactly, Stefan? I remember hearing on the phone all about settling the score and what not, but I never once heard an actual plan of attack. I understand wanting to close old wounds, but you are going to need more than just bitterness to actually get this done." I said inquisitively as I narrowed my eyes at my brother knowing full well that of the two of us, he definitely was not the man to be heading up something as serious as this.
"I have much more than just bitterness, Damon. My plan is simple, and it is exactly what we agreed on all those years ago when we originally found out that Katherine had never even been in that tomb in the first place, and that the possibility of a doppelganger was actually real. We are going to go after this Elena Gilbert, and we are going to destroy her. Once word gets back to Katherine that her precious little human clone is in danger, she will be back in this town before we can even blink an eye. That little Gilbert bitch over there has been one of the only distractions that Katherine has had going for her when it comes to Klaus or any of the other Originals for that matter. If she thinks that she is in danger, she will come back to protect her, and then we will kill both her and Elena before either one of them even realizes what is happening. The Petrova bloodline will be dead by the end of the year, Damon. This whole fucking mess will finally be over, and we will never have to see that bitch's face ever again." Stefan said desperately as he stared at me with intense eyes. I studied his expression as I processed what he had said in my mind, and then licked my lips slowly before I spoke.
"How is there even a human Petrova blood line to speak of, Stefan? Katherine did not have any children. Where the hell did this Elena even come from?" I asked trying to talk myself out of the lust driven and completely murderous plans that were already forming inside of my deranged mind when it came to both Katherine and her beautiful counterpart that still stood just slightly out of my reach. Stefan licked his lips as he shook his head and then finally smiled.
"Katherine wasn't exactly the epitome of virtue, Damon. She must have had a child out of wedlock before she was turned. It isn't that hard to put the pieces together." He explained as if I was the idiot in this situation. I nodded as I finally let out a breath and then cocked my head toward the human version of Katherine standing still just a few quick vampire steps away from my hungry lips.
"And so according to your plan, we are going to torture and eventually kill this innocent girl in order to get to Katherine. Once we get to Katherine, then we are going to politely say hello after all of these years, and then we are going to kill her as well?" I asked in both sarcasm and confusion as I mulled over my brother's completely psychotic plan in my head. Stefan leaned back against his seat and sighed quietly to himself.
"You really think that she is that innocent, Damon? She is a decedent of Katherine, and a fucking Gilbert for Christ Sakes. This is our chance to kill two birds with one stone." He said coldly with the hint of desperation still flooding his voice. I narrowed my eyes at my brother as I finally smiled at him in utter amazement.
"This doesn't sound like you, Stef. Killing the innocent, settling scores, and generally going against that incredibly large moral compass that you have judged me with for over the past hundred and forty-five years. How long have you been back on the good stuff?" I asked sarcastically as I recognized the classic traits of my brother being on another blood bender, and obviously off of his Bambi diet that made me want to gag even at the thought of. Stefan shrugged his shoulders as he looked back out of his window and quickly avoided my eyes.
"What I am feeding on has absolutely nothing to do with this, Damon. This is about revenge and about finally ending what Katherine started when she fucked us over a hundred and forty years ago. That bitch destroyed us. Elena might look sweet and innocent, but so did Katherine when we first met her. We have the chance to finally end that horrific abomination of a bloodline, and get on with our lives. We can do this, Damon. We can do this as brothers." He pleaded desperately and as much as I hated to admit it, that was all it took. The look in my brother's eyes, the tone of his voice, and the flood of painful memories that rushed through my brain at the sight of Katherine's beautiful face in the form of that pathetic human standing laughing with her friends as if she didn't have a care in the world. Stefan was right; it was time to end this.
"And we will do this as brothers. Elena won't make it to Homecoming, and Katherine will be soon to follow." I said tightly as repressed anger and pain surged rapidly through my veins. Stefan nodded in a silent victory as I could tell that the look on my face solidified my allegiance to his still obviously psychotic cause, and clearly drew the battle lines deeply into the ground beneath us. Slowly after holding my stare for a few seconds longer, he finally reached into the back seat and retrieved his messenger bag from the floor. He nodded toward me in silence, and then opened the passenger side door just before swiftly stepping out onto the pavement and within seconds was walking into the school. I let out the breath that I had been holding for the past few minutes, and then quickly threw my car into reverse without even looking behind me. I kept my eyes focused on the main road beside me, and then floored it out of the parking lot and far away from Katherine's ghost back toward what used to be my home.
About an hour later, I finally found myself sitting in one of my favorite overstuffed leather lounge chairs in the center of the Salvatore Boarding House parlor with a glass of bourbon in my hand, and my head reclined back against the cool leather upholstery beneath me. Sure, nine o'clock in the morning might have been considered a little early to drink by some, but considering how long I had been around for, I figured that this was a drink that was long overdue. I slowly sipped the smooth brown liquid into my hungry mouth, and then reveled in the slow burn that it left as it slid down my aching throat. Bourbon had been my drink of choice ever since I had been turned, and I had always loved the strong taste that it had left in my mouth even after my glass was empty. It reminded me of blood with its warmth and thickness, but unlike blood, it simply ignited my thirst, never quite quenched it.
Once I had finished my drink, I finally stood and made my way into the library just down the hall from my home's formal parlor. I moved around the room for a few minutes as if I didn't know what it was that I was looking for, but then after a few useless minutes of wandering, I finally found myself standing in front of one of the tall oak bookcases with my fingers between two books that I hadn't touched in almost fifty years. Slowly, I slid my index finger between the dusty leather bindings in front of me, and then gently pulled a worn watermarked picture into my slightly shaking right hand. After a momentary hesitation, I eventually looked down at the picture that I held, and took it in completely as if I had never seen it before. It was a picture of Katherine taken just a few days before the night that she had been taken in chains into Fell's Church at the hands of not only Elena's family, but also my very own as well. Katherine looked beautiful and alluring in the picture, just as she always had. I remembered the many nights that I had spent in my bed with her moving on top of me, pulling moans from my lips that no other woman had ever been able to inspire, and more in love with her than I had ever been with anyone in my entire existence still to date. She had been powerful, seductive and entrancing. Her kiss could cause a man to do whatever she desired no matter how demanding, and her body could inflict wounds that no medicine could ever heal and even after all this time my wounds still seemed fresh to the touch.
While memories of loving Katherine plagued my mind, I couldn't help but also let the memories of her betrayal have a chance at my ravaged brain as well. I had, idiotically confessed my love for her shortly after she had first climbed into my bed, and yet she had never ever repeated the confession back to me even once. Instead of confessing her love to me, she had opened her legs to my brother and then spent the last few months before her supposed death, moving between us like a shared toy; a toy that neither one of us truly owned.
Finally, I swallowed the painful lump that had formed inside of my throat from the memories that had flooded quickly through me, and then slowly crumpled the picture tightly into my hand. I then dropped the picture that I had once cherished onto the plush burgundy rug beneath my feet and eventually slowly closed my eyes.
"This ends here. That bitch is finally getting what she deserves." I whispered to myself as I felt the empty crystal tumbler in my hand crack and then eventually shatter into pieces just before scattering down onto the floor beneath me. Elena Gilbert better have enjoyed her picture perfect life while she had it, because her world was about to change drastically from the fairy tale that she had once lived. A world of pain and suffering had been waiting for her ever since she had been born with that beautiful face, and the time of her reckoning was quickly approaching. By the end of the year, not a Petrova would be left standing, and soon after that, I would never have to step foot in this town ever again.
What did everyone think? Please read and review, hope you liked the idea! –VampTramp
