A/N: My first fic in the Vampire Diaries fandom, so be kind. Special thanks to Diverse Quality for reading over it for me.
He could have had her. He knows this. Even after his sly little brother had given her the perfumed trinket or warned her of his "wicked ways;" that pretty chain would have snapped so easily under nimble fingers and the protests would have died within just seconds of eye contact. He could have owned her, rolled her between cotton sheets, compelled words of love from her lips, and dangled her in front of his brother's seemingly permanent distressed face. Both literally and figuratively.
He could have started out nice in her eyes. Spun pretty lies that matched his pretty face; made her love him that way that she loved Stefan. He's so good at playing roles. I wouldn't have taken much; a couple choice words, tuck away the violent nature of his kind from her sight, maybe a few "woe is me" tales and she'd have come to him easily, willingly, like a fly to the spider in some twisted fairy tale he heard as a child. All whispered lies told in a sultry voice meant to drive her into his arms and his bed. A hundred and fifty years experience on how to twist and turn pretty little girls so that the demon can have his way.
She holds Katherine's face. That's the "why" in this. Not really, it's just another lie to add to the count, but what does it matter? He waited too long, showed her images of his chin dripping red and let her hear the laughter streaming from his lips as the body in his arms moans in pain. She watched him kill those she cared for, hurt those she loved and brushed it off with flippant remarks and devilish smirks. He's name holds true, he showed her this. He whispers death threats in her ear, splattering every nice thing he does in her presence with selfish desire and telling her of how all this is about him and getting what he wants.
She continues to speak to him, the occasional threat spit from lips as he crosses some line in her world, but the words still come. Even after her tries to murder her best friend in front of her very eyes, after he tells her time and time again that he wants nothing more than his brother's misery for all eternity. Her help is presented to retrieve Katherine for him and she comes to him and offers herself as a sacrifice when his trust in her is broken (the thing is, he never realized it was developed )and because of this he is unable, and unwilling, to break hers.
They have fun, which really shouldn't have surprised him. He had planned on seducing her, taking something else from his baby brother, and maybe fill the hole Katherine left behind, even if it's just temporarily; it's always nice to play pretend. But there's no sex here; this is all jokes and laughter, sprinkled with understanding and a pure basic enjoyment of each other. There's no mind games or mutual goals to work towards.
He's not sure when it happened, when everything switched and the game board turned on him so he's suddenly lost on the next move.
She's a delicate thing, human and so damn breakable. All brittle bone covered in thin flesh; easily broken, easily torn. He could crush her with a twist of his wrist. He could free that fluttering pulse from its fleshy prison and watch her familiar eyes cloud in a too soon end and not feel the guilt. It seems so easy, but it's not. He's screwed because he could have had her, could have controlled her ever thought and action, but she's wrapped him around one delicate little finger until he's panting for any table scrap she chooses to give him. And he doesn't even get to fuck her.