Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: She needs him to be ready for what comes next.
transition redux
She finds him again three weeks after she left him, holed up in a quaint suburban house whose cozy décor clashes humorously with the coffins that litter the living room. She compels her way into the house and saunters past the dazed spinster in the flowered apron, settling herself on the couch and resting her stilettoed heels on the nearest coffin. This is the sight Stefan comes home to: Katherine, coquettish, superior, irreverent.
Stefan takes one look at her and bites out, "Where the hell have you been?"
His crossness amuses her. She tilts her head and purrs, "Did you miss me, lover?"
He doesn't react. He just turns and makes his way to the kitchen. She smirks at his retreating back. Progress.
xxx
Stefan goes out into the night, and Katherine sits awake listening for the telltale stumble of guilt-ridden feet dragging his sins across the threshold with him. She never comments on the constantly running washing machine or the red-stained Tide pens lying around the laundry room. It's so domestic, his atonement. In another time, she might have enjoyed his raging war on himself. But she doesn't have time for it now.
She starts bringing home girls (blonde girls, always, just in case). She feeds first, putting on a show of it, taking very little but spreading crimson rivulets down pale skin onto the gleaming hardwood floor. Then she passes her girl over to Stefan, casually, like an afterthought.
She always allows herself one moment of pleasure, drinking in the sight of Stefan Salvatore burying his fangs into the girl's neck, tearing at her flesh, already slick with blood. She watches his hands curving into her waist, his eyes shut tight in ecstasy. But then the girl's form goes limp, and her indulgence is over.
She delves her fingers into his hair and tosses him harshly across the room. It is a kindness.
xxx
They spend almost all of their time alone together. Katherine had compelled the middle-aged woman who owns the house to take a spontaneous and indefinite vacation to Australia, and she and Stefan find themselves in a sham of a life, living in the suburbs and doing the Sunday crossword puzzles together (diabolical plotting takes time, and everyone needs a distraction once in a while). It occurs to her that this is the most time they've spent together since 1864. But nothing is the same, and it has naught to do with fashion or technology or propriety. It has everything to do with the man sitting across from her, his foot twitching from hunger and impatience, his eyes straying to her exposed thighs every few seconds.
The first night she slips into his bed, he doesn't bother to turn over. He growls, "Get out, Katherine," and when she doesn't, he sighs and goes back to sleep.
The next night, he doesn't say a word.
Four nights later, he rolls over and crushes his lips to hers, tearing his fingers through her hair as if willing the curls to straighten under his touch. But later, when he bucks violently against her as she sinks her fangs into his abdomen, she thinks he doesn't mind the curls so much anymore.
xxx
Klaus calls Stefan one night, the phone buzzing innocuously against the lid of Elijah's coffin. Before she can grab it, Stefan snatches the phone away, answering with a brusque and entirely unnecessary "Hello?"
She watches, frozen, as he stands silently, a small quirk of his eyebrows the only indication that he's listening. She tries to look casual despite her thudding heart and crawling skin, but Klaus is on the other end of the line, and all she can think of is, he should be dead. But.
Then Stefan is speaking, his tone calm, even friendly, and Katherine would sigh with relief if she weren't so damn terrified of making a sound. She doesn't hear the words, but she doesn't have to – they've rehearsed this enough times for her to know the lines by heart. Stefan has the barest hint of a smile on his lips, and with that Katherine knows it's working. She feels a flutter in her chest, a strange jolt of warmth. She wonders fleetingly if it's pride.
Stefan hangs up. He looks up at her, and for once, he grins first.
xxx
Klaus will find them soon. She'll let him. But she trusts Stefan now. She wonders if that makes her weak. She knows it makes him strong. And for now? She thinks maybe it's better.