Disclaimer: I own nothing.
The title belongs to Hozier, whose brilliant song lyrics will hopefully feature at some point.
Hi -waves gingerly- This is my first proper multi-chapter fic eeeep. I hope it's gets finished. The muse is strong so there is a chance. It will be AU no doubt after episode 18 airs. All mistakes and bad writing are my own. It's unbeta'd, I'm just trying to post some of my writing, I have a hard drive full of stuff, half written, and I decided that I'd actually like some of it to see the light of day. It's trash, but it's my trash. I hope it works on some level.
"It was a mistake bringing you into my life."
"Then why did you?"
"Call it deep and obvious loneliness. The truth is, you've been a pawn in a game that I've not lost interest in playing. You're no ordinary girl, Sarah Salvatore. You deserve better."
He fobs her off with some excuse about once knowing a Sarah Salvatore, but her suspicions are raised and all the while she's fighting a crushing indifference to feel suspicious. It's a strange and powerful thing, as if her emotions are the strings of a puppet that someone else has the control of. It begins to give her a headache and she's got Matt's number dialed in and is almost about to press ring to ask him about it, before she surrenders.
The top and the bottom of it is that she feels different now. Enzo talked about her being a pawn in a game that he got bored of, the problem is she still feels that she playing. Again this crushing need to be apathetic overwhelms her but it does not stop the nightmares. The cloying tendrils of fear and the excruciating cut of metal through her flesh, but she cannot piece the fragments together to make a coherent narrative.
Each morning she wakes shivering the breathlessness of panic solidifying in her stomach.
Duke is the same as ever, life creaking and revolving on, it is only Sarah that feels as if she has stopped suspended in this confusing paradox.
OOO
"Hey Sarah"
She flinches lost in the set of images in front of her that she had been working on, on her laptop.
"Matt, hey, this is a surprise."
He shrugs, slightly awkward and she knows immediately he was sent to check up on her.
"I was in the area."
"I'm sure," she replies with a raise of her eyebrows. They buy coffees and chat for a while, and it seems to soothe something in her, he is connected to the "game" to the confusing annex to her life that appeared out of nowhere.
"You been busy with school?"
"Yeah, I guess, there's always lots to do."
His fingers falter on the handle of his mug.
"Are you sleeping okay?"
She stares at him, wondering why he's asking, if it's even him who is really asking. She considers shutting him down, but she does like Matt, he's kind and open and his eyes are warm.
"I've had a few nightmares" she admits tentatively.
He sighs "I had a feeling you'd say that."
He leaves soon after and she tries not to conclude that he only came to ask her about that.
OOO
She's chained to a metallic table which is unforgiving to her back and head. The overhead lights are blindingly bright, pain radiates from her torso but she cannot look down to see the source. She screams for him to stop and her pleas are echoed but not to her, to someone else, hidden away. She struggles but the chains do not budge. She screams but it dies in her throat. The lights overwhelm and she sees no longer.
It's quiet here, there's no pain and she's not afraid. There's the faint scent of lavender and basil, so she has the impression of being outside, she wants to know more but there's a heavier pull dragging her deeper down into unconsciousness. She knows there's someone there but she cannot fight to determine more.
The next morning when she awakes, her window is open, and there's a tang of herbs in the air.
OOO
A week after she returned to Duke, a man appears at her door. He's tall, with golden brown hair black eyes and a dangerous smile that has the impression of not always being so. He always looks vaguely familiar like a photo she once saw in passing.
"You need to come with me."
She laughs
"And why would I do that?"
He whistles and two more people appear, a blonde woman, she recognizes and a hunched figure that she is dragging along
"Enzo?"
He looks up and splutters up some liquid that appears to be burning him he also has a stake protruding from his stomach
"Don't panic petal, just do as he says."
"You should listen to him" the man says in a velvet soft voice "otherwise that stake comes out of his stomach and straight through his heart."
She doesn't care about vampires, she's not even vaguely curious, but this threat clutches at her heart in an alarming way that she follows him without question.
"Who are you?" She ventures when they're all bundled in the car, Enzo is leaned across the back and middle seat groaning softly to himself. The blonde woman looms over him, watching him closely as though expecting a sneak attack. She is sat in the front.
He glances across at her
"Stefan Salvatore, nice to meet you."
Salvatore? She twists round to look at Enzo accusingly who does not lift his head to face her.
"Only the tip of the iceberg" he chokes and the blonde woman stuff some herbs into his mouth which sizzle and hiss and Sarah shrieks
"Stop it, I won't make him talk again I promise"
Stefan just smiles and pushes the accelator harder.
OOO
Their destination is a big old boarding house that looms ominous as they screech into the driveway. She barely has time to register anything before her door is swung open and she is hauled from the car. Enzo is being half carried by the blonde, Caroline she suddenly remembers. They make a strange party, she thinks distantly, feeling strangely disconnected from her hammering heart.
"Don't forget to breathe Sarah" Enzo chokes and he is answered in kind by a kick to the stake which makes him gasp and fall to the floor in the entryway of the house. Her breath stalls in her throat and she wonders how he can think of that when he is almost on his knees in agony. Stefan strides on, as if he owns the place so she guesses that he probably does. She follows him not wanting to endanger herself, or Enzo further. The wooden passageway opens out into a lofty wooden room with a roaring fire on the back wall. Another man appears from the side wall where a drinks cabinet resides. His eyes widen when he sees them
"What are you playing at Stefan?"
"Call it payback, you and Elena and everyone else is so damn determined to switch my humanity back on by guilt tripping me that I thought it was about time I did the same."
The man, shorter than Stefan with raven hair like Enzo's, curses.
"Look, I've got an irate witch and a ripper of a mother on my case, don't talk in riddles."
Stefan smiles and pulls Sarah into the foreground
"Well then, I'll keep it brief. Damon meet Sarah. Your great niece."
Damon visibly pales his eyes fixed wide, unstaring. Sarah for her own part can hardly digest the news, this means that she has blood family, but how can that be since they are vampires? The questions swirl incessantly like the nausea in her gut.
"But Gail, she…"
"You killed her, you mean." Stefan deals the blow uncaringly and Sarah feels its force. She felt fleeting pity for Damon but now she just feels numb. "Well" Stefan continues "I saved her unborn child and made sure she had a family who loved her and so she grew into the lovely young woman you see today. Until your best friend Enzo" he gestures with his head back to the hallway which is silent Sarah notes with a shiver "decided to take revenge against me by plotting to destroy Sarah."
The world blurs and she feels woozy. Strong arms steady her as her body gives.
"Yes, don't be fooled great niece, that charming dashing English accent is all a front. He doesn't care about you, he was more interested in getting back at me and your death would do just that."
There's a muffled cry from the hallway which makes Stefan chuckle.
"He's even got the cheek to try and defend himself, he said that he never planned to kill you."
She pulls away from Stefan, she doesn't know what to make of the Enzo revelation but this man in front of her is worlds apart from the man who saved her as a baby and she wants far away from him as possible.
Damon who was silent thoughout the exchange speaks up
"What do you want Stefan, what's the evil plan? It's easier if you just spell it out clearly rather than waste my time with the elaborate sadist act."
"Caroline"
There's movement and groaning and eventually Enzo and Caroline appear.
"Caroline, really? Are you still buying into Stefan's ridiculous ways."
She throws him a glare that would wither the daffodils in the window sill but says nothing.
"So plan, your best friend who you betrayed and left for dead at Whitmore, or your great niece who you made an orphan before she'd even left the womb. Who is it to be?"
Damon didn't get a chance to decide or even question further as at that point all hell broke loose. Both Caroline and Stefan fell to the floor writhing in pain as a small determined looking woman appeared from the hallway chanting words that meant nothing to Sarah.
Stefan laughed
"Bonnie, really? I capture Enzo and Sarah and your idea of the cavalry is Bonnie?"
A whistling sound and stakes hits the two vampires on the ground straight in the stomach and arms.
"Don't forget me" that voice belongs to an older man
"And me" Matt appears from apparently nowhere and his eyes widen when he sees her, she attempts a smile but she's not sure her mouth got the message.
Caroline curses the blonde man muttering about loyalty.
Stefan laughs again, yanking the stake out of his arms
"So you do some witchy nonsense and throw a couple of stakes" he yells as his head is thrown back and Bonnie tilts her head in reply "do you really have the guts to tie us up and dry us out?"
Sarah panics as the two seems to be recovering fast and she sense that what the people have done is rather like angering a wasp. In all the commotion she'd forgotten Enzo who suddenly, in a blur too quick for her eyes stuck to syringes into both Caroline and Stefan who slumped on the floor unconscious.
"Tsk tsk Blondie, first rule, I'm the Augustine vampire, it'll take a little more than a stake and some vervain stuffed in my mouth to keep me down for long. Plus" he winks at Sarah "I'm not a bad actor."
The other have sprung into action shifting the two vampires from the room, in a flurry of movement and yelled instructions.
Damon glances at her guardedly and she holds her hands up,
"Just, I don't know what to say. I'm still stuck on great uncle."
Damon nods
"Yeah me too," he replies sadly and then is gone. Enzo is still stood there also eyeing her cautiously and she begins to feel like a caged animal no one knows how to handle.
"Most people prefer snakes and ladders or monopoly when it comes to games" she proffers and he laughs but it sounds hoarse and pained. He's covered in blood and despite his statement to the contrary doesn't look well.
There's a yell and she flinches and Enzo catches her arm
"Come on, I'll take you home."
They stumble together from the boarding house, and it's cleansing just to breathe in the late afternoon air. She notices his sluggish reactions and has her arm held out before she can really question her actions.
He looks to her and then to her arm.
"I'm not interested in vampires but I know how this works."
"Then you'll know it's not an incredibly smart idea to offer yourself as a snack to a hungry vampire."
His eyes shut but it doesn't stop the veins rippling around them. She's not scared of his vampirism, she wasn't scared of Stefan because of that it was more the mania raging in his eyes, his threats on her person, (and Enzo) but she doesn't dwell on the latter. Too much has happened in such a short space of time for her to question this too.
When she doesn't relent he sighs, and takes hold of her wrist, his thumb absent mindedly rubbing soothing circles over the vein.
"I do need to feed, but they have blood bags inside."
"just do it" she whispers, so he does. He doesn't appear to be questioning either.
It doesn't hurt as such, maybe because he's being mindful or because she'd not being violated. It's a freely given thing. It's a tickling soft pressure that despite being removed from her body by being in her wrist she can still feel his lips on her skin and it makes her shiver in a very different way to the cold malice of Stefan's menace earlier.
"It's more than I deserve Sarah Salvatore."
He heals the wound with a drop of blood elicited by the prick of his finger of a fang. She examines her wrist in the car dazedly, there is not sign that he was ever there. She gets lost in the action and before she knows it she's been shook awake by Enzo who is kneeling by the open door.
"Wait this is Stefan's car."
He frowns slightly at her non sequiter but shrugs
"Well he won't be needing it for a while."
"He's going to be held captive until he switches his humanity back on, Caroline too" he clarifies at her puzzled look which she cannot mould into a question.
He hesitates on her doorstep but she invites him in tiredly.
She's not really sure what he's going to do, as she's planning on taking some tynelol and sleeping for a long time after she's changed into her pajamas.
He's there when she's searching the kitchen cupboard for the medication and he takes her wrist making her face him.
"Are you hurt?"
"No I just want to sleep."
"Okay."
"Are you leaving?"
"Do you want me to?"
She should scream yes, she should run away as fast as she can, she should haul him from her home, but she doesn't, she can't. She also catches the cloying bittersweet smell and tang of basil and lavender, and something clicks in her memory.
"No, I sleep better when you're around."
His eyes are questioning but do not push and she leaves him for the comfort of her bed.
He's taken residence in the old wooden chair beside her dresser and he's fairly certain she's unconscious when a sleeply slurred voice floats over to him.
"You're not that great of an actor you know."
A velvety chuckle accompanies her into the blackness.