I don't own anything but my words

Lines Drawn In Blood

Damon heard his brother approaching long before Elena would have any idea. He pulled back from where he had been bent over her and placed a cool finger over her sore lips. He heard Stefan's lightening footfalls as if in slow motion, but his mind was racing too quickly to form a coherent thought. They wouldn't have time to untangle themselves for each other's embraces before...

The door to the apartment Damon had rented for precisely this purpose flung open and crashed against the wall. Before she could think to do anything, Elena found herself standing in a far corner of the room holding the blanket they had been using to cover herself. She watched as Stefan tried to smack Damon on the jaw with his rigid hands, but Damon was too fast.

Stefan lashed out again, but this time his brother was not ready for him. His thoughts were wrapped around the idea that Damon had had his hands on Elena. He ought not to have confessed, Stefan thought wryly, because now nothing stood in his way –not him, not Elena, nor anyone else. If fate could be so cruel, he cared not for his own future. His giant hands had never been his favourite tool for killing, but for this they would have to do.

He threw him across the room as if he were a child sick with playing with the same old toy. He heard the crack of a spine fracturing, but he would not worry. Within moments his brother would be healed and would be capable again of feeling pain. This was all he wanted from him: for him to pay for his most recent crime.

"Once more, brother, once more and I will stop pretending." Damon snarled, wiping his lip with the back of his hand. That last blow hadn't taken him by surprise like the first had, but he had under-estimated Stefan's fury. His brother was enraged at him for tending to Elena's needs, but the girl had had a itch dear Stefan was unable to scratch – was it his fault she came to him to relieve her? He shook his head, mystified at the idea he was being the reasonable one.

Another punch to the side of the head.

Now he roared, his lips peeling back to reveal his razor-sharp fangs, his eyes darkening to pools of onyx. He was much faster than Stefan, naturally, so when he lunged forwards, Damon had him around the neck before he could blink. Those teeth that had seemed so pointed tucked safely behind Damon's lips now cut the thinner skin at Stefan's neck, drawing gushes of blood that he drank greedily.

Stefan felt it first, and he stopped fighting so abruptly that the vampire he had been tackling moments before stopped also. His eyes began to water with regret the moment he raised his crimson face to see what she thought. He felt her disgust emanating from her even across the room, and it sickened him to imagine what repercussions would proceed this. He could feel the gore which coated his lips and chin, but there must be much more on his shirt front.

Elena stood just inside the door, her breathing coming quickly, and her eyes wide in horror. The mouth she had kissed, always wanted to kiss, had never before filled her with disgust. When they were in a class together at school, or even alone in the boarding house, she could almost forget that Stefan was not human – and that he hadn't been for quite some time. Now, however, she saw the blood, she noticed the differences, and she saw the monster.

"Oh, God... Oh, God... Oh..." she panted in heaving sighs of breath.

Stefan started towards her, his crimson coated face creased in despair, but Elena knew he frightened her; she had thought, hoped, that he would have forgotten or forgiven her before they saw each other again. He staggered towards her like an animated corpse, half dragging himself and half moving faster than she could back away.

Damon heard his jaw slot back into whatever slot it normally slid into, his dark eyes unable to focus on anything much outside his range of fuzzy vision. He could hear much better, and what he heard caused his stomach to tighten. All the time he was fighting Stefan he should have been protecting Elena. He heard Elena's heavy breathing and the footsteps that got closer and closer.

"Please Stefan, let me explain... it really wasn't that big a..." he heard her begin.

The crunching of glass beneath heavy feet. "I gave you my trust, Elena, I told you that I loved you."

A little squeak and the sounds of shuffling. "I love you too, Stefan," she said, but it sounds a bit forced, "I mean it. Please, just let me explain..."

"There's nothing to explain."

A strangling sound comes from her throat. "Stefan...Stop..."

Damon opens his eyes and focuses. He is sitting slumped against a wall, his head is throbbing, and his joints crack with every movement. His muscles burn as he straightens into a standing position against the wall, a sensation he hasn't felt since he was human centuries ago. To tell the truth, he sort of liked the burning and the way it made him feel; he felt his strength returning as his body repaired.

"I know I crossed a line, but really Stefan, what did you expect?" At least he can still wield his bravado against his brother – that was something at least. It hurt apologizing, even for the sake of another, someone he loved. He would apologize to every vampire he had wronged, anything, for her. He allowed a tight smile to grace his lips.

Stefan released Elena but did not move away. He let his own bitter smile come forth as he deliberated what to do next. Damon couldn't move fast enough once he had made his choice. He spun and kicked his knee with enough ferociousness to make them buckle beneath Damon's weight.

When Stefan turned to Elena she drew back. It took a few moments for his feverish brain to register what the simple movement really was. She was cowering from him like a dog does it's mean owner.

"Why, Elena? Why with him?"

Because it would be okay with anyone else, Damon surmised, anyone but the brother.

"Maybe she wanted to have fun, maybe even someone who is fun?"

Elena was as pale as a snow queen, her ice-blonde hair framing her drawn features. She was sure she looked as ill as she felt. She had no answers, and so just shrugged. She had never meant, or wanted to take sides in this endless battle between the brothers, but increasingly the crimson coated line between twilight and full, pitch black darkness that was Stefan and Damon had become a palpable reminder that life wasn't perfect.

There would never be dark without light, Damon without Stefan, love without hate, or happiness without regret. It was not that she wouldn't choose between loving either of them, it was that she, like Katherine before her, couldn't make a choice.