...was blind but now I see
by Cúthalion
It is downright weird how my brain works. Here I sit on the floor of my bedroom, the body of Jer in my arms, his head a heavy, still weight against my shoulder. Pain turns in my stomach like a burning wheel, and I have difficulties to breathe. I register Stefan's disturbed face only in a very distant corner of my mind. All I can think of right now is something I remember from Sunday School, an image as strong and blinding bright as a flash of lightning.
I recall the row of wooden benches, stuffed with giggling kids. A new dress with ruffles and lace my mother's just bought for me, stiff with starch and terribly scratchy on my skin. Matt, sitting beside me, smelling of cocoa and the chewing gum he's secretly plastered under the bench only a few minutes ago, because Miss Steuben thinks that chewing gum is something directly from hell.
Miss Steuben. She gave us a good dose of Old Time Religion, including that colourful print about "The Narrow and the Wide Path". One path led to heaven, winding up a mountain over rocks and tree roots, the other one was crowded with happy people in fine clothes, walking on a direct, comfortable way straight ahead into their doom. Hell, Miss Steuben always proclaimed with her sharp, spinsterish voice, was the INEVITABLE DESTINATION if you chose the wide path.
Hell is where I am now. But how did I get here? I never wanted to hurt anyone, let alone betray those I care for. But betray them I did, shielding Stefan from the danger of being discovered, juggling with the fates of those I love, desperate and ruthless enough to use every help that came my way, even Damon's. And now I'm sitting here, and Jer lies still and heavy in my arms, and his blood is on my hands, though he didn't bleed at all when Damon snapped his neck.
I guess Miss Steuben wouldn't be very surprised. Serves you right, little Miss Elena Gilbert, her voice echoes in my mind, and I bite my lip as the burning wheel in my stomach speeds up, singeing my flesh and bone with guilt.
I know that Jer will come back. I hope so, at least. I would pray if I still knew how, if I'd still dare. Stefan wants to believe that Damon saw John's ring on his finger just in time to realize how he could deal me a cruel blow without doing the last step to murder. He has murdered before, I know it, I have seen it, more than once. And this was murder, too, even if the killer didn't succeed.
And why? Because I refused to give him what he was craving for. Because he hungered for love, and all I could offer was friendship... if what we have can be called friendship at all. It is based on a kind of uneasy attraction, a bond between us that I still don't understand. Right now I don't care. Right now all I want is to cut that bond. I want to exorcize Stefan's darker brother from my life, same as the startling, malevolent beauty of his face and his glacial eyes. I want to break his heart to pieces, just as he broke mine, only minutes ago.
"He doesn't want to feel, he wants to be hated," I choke out, "because he's decided that it's easier." I'm still cradling Jer's body like a mother would cradle her lost child, and rage rises in my throat like lava in the crater of a volcano, spilling out of my mouth before I can hinder it. Not that I want to. Not now.
"I hate him, Stefan!"
Stefan murmurs something I don't register, and I can feel the fleeting, tender touch of his hand and his lips, but the rage makes me numb, shattering the fundament of everything I used to put my trust in.
Damon's right, in a way. It's indeed easier to accept his darkness than to search for a glimpse of light within his heart. Right now all I can do is to abandon my own stubborn belief that this heart is more than an undead muscle in his undead body. I've fought for my creed, against my own doubts, against those of Stefan who knows him much longer, much more intimate and indefinitely better than I do. I've held Damon in my arms when he couldn't find Katherine in that blasted crypt and realized that she must have abandoned him without a second thought. I've told him that I cared for him. I've told him that I wasn't surprised that he wanted my kiss, the night he accidentally kissed my evil lookalike. I've told him the real surprise was the fact that he actually expected me to kiss him back.
I know my words hit the mark. I only wanted to be as blunt as possible, but I hurt him. I could clearly see it in his face... though only for a few, startling seconds before the usual smooth, attractive mask was back in place. That moment, I felt sorry for him, deeply sorry.
Now I don't. I can't. I don't want to. He wrung Jer's neck just to punish me, and as a result I've lost the right to claim any longer that love and protection is my only motivation, my only aim. With one gesture of pure rage Damon has destroyed my last and probably most dangerous illusion: that every human being, even the most sinister one, might be brought back from complete forsakenness. I once was lost, but now I'm found..., and I want to yell at Miss Steuben over the distance of the years, because she taught us that song, and it was a lie, it was a lie all along.
I hate him.
Suddenly Jer bucks up in my arms, gasping for air, his eyes wild and unfocused. I hold him, trying to give him comfort while Stefan examines him, anxiously searching for a sign of his own curse in my brother's face. There is none. Jer's seemingly unharmed - if something like that can be said about someone who witnessed his own homicide and came back.
"Damon killed me!" he whispers breathlessly.
I sit on the floor, holding him, rocking him. Stefan sits beside me, looking utterly defeated. Stefan... who learned to distrust Damon's dark heart and still tried to believe that I might be right and his brother was not beyond salvation... that Damon was lost, but on the way back to reason and responsibility, back to be finally found. But there's nothing good in him. Nothing. When Damon killed Jer, he killed Stefan's hope, together with mine. I've been wrong, terribly wrong. Was blind, but now I see.
I hate him.
FINIS