Something I wrote awhile ago and thought I'd share here.
Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only, I own nothing.
Rating: M- For mature content, violence, blood, and sexual content.
-x-
Days turn into weeks, and weeks into months, and it's a blur of traveling from town to town, crashing at the homes of those unfortunate enough to cross their paths.
There is no rhyme or reason to the slaughter and trail of bodies they leave behind. They lay waste to the dens of vampires and packs of werewolves, clearing the way for what Klaus likes to call his 'new order.' And human suffering is a game to be savored and enjoyed; Klaus is as creative as he is cruel in his appetite for destruction.
Stefan stops asking why or to what end; it's long since ceased to matter. Whatever Klaus sets his mind to will play out in the end; he knows this and quickly comes to understand that he's an instrument in the matter.
He has one concern he is careful to keep to himself. The further they are from Mystic Falls, the better.
-x-
Klaus sometimes takes to his wolf form, rampaging through the forest for days at a time, leaving Stefan to clean up after. He doesn't blink at the torn, severed bodies he comes across, it reminds him of darker days he's forced himself not to think about for decades. Now he can't stop remembering the carnage he had inflicted in those early years.
On the third day Klaus transforms back, and Stefan tracks him with a fresh set of clothes.
"Did you see Stefan? That was magnificent."
"Yes, it was," he agrees. With Klaus, he's always quick to agree.
Klaus dresses in his usual detached manner, item by item, watching Stefan from the corner of his eye. "I want you to understand what it is in our nature to be. We are meant to yield our power without regret. That's what I want for you."
"The plans you have for me…" he answers, understanding it's a statement, not a question.
"Yes, in part. For now, let's just say I've taken an interest in the Salvatore family for many years."
Stefan blinks, his cold detachment slipping for a fraction of a second. "Does that include Damon?"
"Oh, I wouldn't worry Stefan; you've already ensured your brother's life, a deal's a deal," Klaus says. He draws Stefan to him with a hand on each shoulder. "As long as you follow through on the decade you promised to me."
He meets Klaus's eyes, and ignores the cold shiver he feels crawling up and down his spine. "I will."
-x-
They walk dark and silent streets late at night, hunting in the clubs and private rooms pounding with bass and rhythm.
Stefan doesn't let himself think about how easy it is to fall back into old patters, drifting in and out of the shadows and giving off just a hint of his presence until the inevitable end, savoring the fear as well as the blood. It all comes back in a rush, his lips and teeth at the nape of a stranger's neck, drinking until they fall to a heap on the ground, their lifeless eyes staring back.
Sometimes he finds himself drinking from a young brunette girl with dark brown eyes, or a young man with raven hair and pale eyes. For a moment he's able to pull back, and compels them to be afraid and run like hell. But in the end the predator in him wins out, and he gives himself over to the chase.
Afterward Klaus finds him, grasps him by the collar of his button up shirt stained dark red, and traces a fingertip along blooded lips. He makes Stefan recount, relive, every detail.
-x-
Damon once tried to explain to him what turning off the switch felt like to him, like a button he could press, on or off.
For Stefan it was never like that, an on or off switch he could access, there was never any choice in the matter. When he gives himself over to the blood, he does so completely. The hunt and pursuit and the taste of human blood, it's all consuming. Nothing else matters.
-x-
Morning's first light crests over the dark pillars of skyscrapers on the horizon as Stefan makes his way back to the Penthouse. His fingers are firmly clasped around the wrist of a young blonde as she trips over her feet trying to keep up, an occasional whimper escaping her lips. He can feel the fear radiating from her; hears the pounding of her heart in her chest, and Stefan knows she'll make for hours of entertaining distraction.
In the background there is music and laughter, Klaus loves an entourage around him, a mix of predators and their prey who don't know or don't care to know the difference.
Stefan makes his way through the crowd to find Klaus at a makeshift bar, a tumbler half full of red liquid in his hand. A slight smile ghosts his lips as he takes in the girl standing beside him, with an appreciative growl in the back of his throat.
"Well, what do we have here? She's fresh and young, and just shy of terrified, aren't you my dear," Klaus says. He takes her trembling hand in his and brushes the knuckles against his lips. "Well done, Stefan. And in return, a gift for you."
From behind a petite brunette is beckoned, and the pleading look in her dark brown eyes is too familiar. It sets his teeth on edge. "I thought you might appreciate the resemblance. "
"I do," he lies, concentrating on the smell of salt in her tears and the blood pumping beneath her skin, rather than any memory she may bring to mind. The pungent taste of copper is already sharp in his mouth from his night's excursions, it only serves to drive his hunger. The rush of blood sliding down his throat is never enough.
"Good man," Klaus says, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "Now then, the night is fading, and these lovely ladies need attending to."
Later that morning in Klaus's bedroom, Stefan wakes to blood stained sheets and the brunette's nude corpse lying beside him, riddled with welts and bite marks, the taste of her still strong on his lips. And for the briefest moments before his sleep clogged brain can block it, the memory of herrips through him like a current.
He's quick to push it down, because somewhere nearby Klaus is still appreciating the bloody scene, he can still hear the young blonde's weakened cries. And when the cries fade and the room falls silent, Stefan's mind goes determinedly blank.
-x-
"Think of the message we'll send," Klaus says, his eyes darkening as he takes in the scene. Stefan stands over the broken bodies, surrounded by rivulets of blood that stain every surface of the room. "We're just getting started."
It becomes a nightly ritual, another game Klaus likes to play. And Stefan starts to remember how he once excelled at these games.
They find Katherine outside of Chicago, in a bare bones foreclosure she's been hiding in. Behind Klaus's back she gives him the briefest look, and Stefan isn't entirely convinced this all wasn't by some design on her part. She has centuries of running under her belt, and as long as he's known her she has never been one to be caught off guard.
"Whose face do you see when you look at her, our lovely Katerina, or the fair Elena," Klaus asks. He gathers Katherine to him with her back to his front, her body ridged with tension. "Answer truthfully; remember I always know when you're lying."
Stefan does as he's told, looks and takes in her long strands of curls, the defiant arch of her eyebrow. There's something about the restrained look in her eyes, and the slight pout of her lips, and he doesn't hesitate to answer. He already knows what weakness Klaus is drawing out of him. "Both. I see them both when I look at her."
"That must be very confusing for you, I can sympathize. Does it make you want to save her from her current predicament, protect her from my punishment?"
"No."
Klaus continues to kiss the curve of her neck, his teeth lightly grazing the skin there, and Katherine's eyes never leaves Stefan's. "No, and why not? It wasn't that long ago you were willing to sacrifice yourself to me for the life of another… twice."
Stefan can't tear his eyes away, the scene being re-enacted is too haunting to his memories; and all he can see is Elena in Klaus's arms, drinking and draining the life from her. "I've learned my lesson," he answers mechanically, his voice sounding strangely hollow in his own ears.
Klaus smiles again, a wide, knowing smile. "We'll see."
-x-
The first few weeks Katherine is kept secluded in Klaus's room, and Stefan tries not to think about what she's suffering in there. Though from her screams and the smell of blood, it's plain enough. And a tiny part of him is relieved at Klaus's new distraction.
When he does see Katherine again, when Klaus allows her to leave his room, she's pale and ashen, and her clothes are tattered and blood stained. Though the bitter glances she tosses in Klaus's direction say she's still unaffected.
"Katerina and I needed to take some time for ourselves. We have centuries to make up for, isn't that right my dear."
Stefan remains silent, and takes in the vacant look in her eyes that tells him she's long since flipped the switch inside. "Yes," she answers, her voice thick and rusty.
"Look at her Stefan; she's rather the worse for wear. But now I think she begins to understand me… Do I have that right, Katerina, do we finally have an understanding?"
"Of course, Klaus," Katherine replies on cue with words no doubt planted in her mind. "No more running."
"Good," Klaus says, and brings his hands together in a gesture of finality. "Now that that's settled, I have some fun in mind for the three of us."
-x-
With Katherine back at his side, Klaus talks about Europe again, and the old days. They make their from country to country, hop scotching from one ancient capital city to another. It's here Klaus is in his element.
Tonight it's Venice, and they crash a Masquerade ball. They make a game of it, dressed in fine fabrics and hidden behind jeweled masks. They lure one patron after another from their dance partners, leaving their bodies scattered amongst the multitude of rooms.
In one secluded room Klaus compels a young well-dressed couple, reassuring them they will die together. He allows Katherine the man, and Stefan the woman, and from over the woman's trembling shoulder Stefan watches as Klaus holds Katherine while she drains the life from her victim.
"Katerina, tell me, when was it you first decided to turn our Stefan here," Klaus asks, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear. "Was it when you first laid eyes on him? When you first got to touch him, taste him?"
A shudder runs through her body at Klaus words, as Katherine's victim falls into a heap on the ground before her. Her eyes fall closed as she breathes a deep sigh. "It was after our first night together," she answers, opening her eyes to meet Stefan's. "The way he looked at me after, so pure and innocent…"
"And you just couldn't resist corrupting that innocence," Klaus says, and beckons Stefan closer when he's drained the woman of her last drop of blood. "I understand. His sin is beautiful, isn't it Katerina."
"Yes…"
Klaus draws Stefan in with a hand at the back of his neck, while his other hand guides Katherine by small of her back. "I want you to show me, show me how you seduced him back then."
There's the briefest hesitation before Katherine moves to steps into his space, a torrent of conflict in her eyes. When she presses her lips against his, Stefan forces his mind blank, something he's learned to perfect these last months. He vacates any memory of tender emotion that once existed between them in the last days of his human life, or his more recent loving memories of her look alike.
Instead he automatically returns the kiss, concentrating on the familiar taste of blood on her lips. It's like ash in his mouth.
Klaus's amused laughter echoes in the background, and Stefan knows this is just another phase in the designs Klaus has in mind for them, distorting and twisting the both of them to him to suit his whims.
Stefan knows because he's been here before.
-x-
Klaus takes to bringing them together. At first encouraging Katherine to him, and Stefan imagines Klaus pursues this because Katherine is in and of herself another kind of torture for him. The mirror image of both of the woman he once deeply loved, (loved, he reminds himself it is important to remember, love is a luxury he can no long afford.)
Katherine's touches are rough, her teeth and fingertips leaving marks of pent up frustration. She's cracking little by little. It's a distorted reflection of their times before over a century and a half ago, when it was her and him and Damon, wrapped in white linins and bathed in morning's warm sunlight.
Now the sheets are stained with blood, black stains distinct in the cold pale moonlight. And when Klaus joins them, with lips and fingers as unrelenting as his demands, Stefan closes his eyes and almost welcomes the remoteness he feels. Almost.
It's dark, and punishing, and always without regret. The way it needs to be, and the way Klaus would have it.
-x-
They pave a path of scorched earth. The three of them together, they take their destruction to new heights, leaving a wreckage of oblivion behind them.
-x-
One night Klaus is out rampaging again. He leaves them in a vacant foreclosed suite, the city's florescent lights casting shadows in the dark rooms.
They wander the empty space like two lost children, idle and desperate for distraction. Katherine dances to the sound of soft piano music rising from the street below, a bottle of bourbon dangling from her fingertips. She turns and sways, and wraps an arm around his neck, and Stefan allows himself to drift in her floating waltz.
"You'll never be free of him, you know," she finally says. It's the first words to leave her lips all evening. "He'll twist and bend you until you break. Trust me, I know how his mind works. Why do you think I've spent centuries running?"
"It doesn't matter Katherine, not anymore" he answers, resting each of his hands at her waist. There's the decade he's promised to Klaus, and the carnage he's already unleashed, a string of bloody images he'll never be able block out. He doesn't need Katherine to tell him, he already knows from his own long history of falling down and picking himself up again. There's no way back for him. "What I've done I'd do again. It was the only way."
"I know, I was there," she says, with the briefest, pained look crossing her face. Her rhythm falters as she takes a long swallow directly from the bottle. "It's not so bad, is it? I mean, if we have to be bound to Klaus, at least we're here together. It's something, isn't it?"
Stefan reaches for the bottle and rests his hand over hers on the cool surface, his gaze meeting her familiar dark eyes. The emotions he's felt for her over a century run the spectrum, and for one brief moment he lets this one settle between them, "Yes, it is."
-x-
Every night Stefan dreams, nightmares he can almost remember when he's on the verge of consciousness. In the worst Elena is there, her dark eyes pleading and wide with fear. He embraces her and shushes her cries with gentle whispers of comfort, before his teeth sink in and pierce her pulsing carotid with a trained precision he's perfected with countless others.
In other dreams he's with Damon again, reliving the many arguments, sacrifices, and promises of an eternity of misery they've shared over the decades. He relives one night in particular, Damon's bitter words, "My actions, what I do, it's not your fault. I own them. They belong to me. You are not allowed to feel my guilt."
Now when he replays the words in his mind, they take on an entirely new meaning for him.
He does still feel it, despite everything.
END