A/N: Just one word. Reviews?

"Thou sweetly canst convert the same
From a consuming fire
Into a gentle licking flame,
And make it thus expire."

Chapter 3

Blacking out is the strangest feeling. One minute you're alert, your mind fully intact and operational. Breathing is a reflex, and senses don't seem out of place.

But then it's a long slide down a dark tunnel, and you keep tunneling. If you're lucky, you dream.

I dreamt.

There was my brother, standing taller and prouder than I had ever before witnessed, his mouth stained crimson with blood. I looked down and realized my wrist was one giant wound, and both Damon and Stefan were enjoying my life, transmogrified conveniently into liquid form. Stefan's lips pulled gently at the gaping rift, but with a certain repetition that left me bored. Damon's teeth grazed my flesh, and he winked at my discomfort. Eventually, the pain faded and I could only feel pleasure- pleasure from Damon, and his demanding lips and contrastingly soft caresses.

We were seated sensually before a smudged mirror, blemished by soot. I loosened the collective Salvatore grasp and peered into the glass.

It was I, but altered, a sharp, devilish grin correcting the usual childish dimples on my smile, and glowing skin that put to shame the inordinate stars in the Milky Way.

Was this mirror a reflection of my inner nature, penned in behind thorns and ivy, prickling everyone and thwarting attempts made to reveal it?

I followed the twists of the tunnel until I reached a glowing green exit sign, realized it was actually one of Stefan's gleaming eyes, and stepped out into the disconcerting light.

"Elena," he murmured, brushing back my hair. "Elena, everything's going to be alright. Wake up, sweetheart."

There was that exit sign again, placed deliberately beneath strong brows and above shapely lips.

I shook myself.

It was Stefan.

'Of course it's Stefan,' I thought happily. He warmed the scratched surface of my heart, and I pulled him closer to me.

"I had the most terrible dream," I confided. "It didn't make any sense."

"You were muttering names," he told me.

I glanced swiftly into his face, searching for telltale signs of realization- realization of my disloyalty, or even my recent malevolent perceptions.

But it was devoid of any important knowledge- familiar, then.

"Where's Damon?" I asked instinctively. "And Jeremy?"

Stefan frowned. "Damon is-"

"Present and accounted for, princessa," came the velvet voice from my doorway.

I looked at him. My heart nearly broke from the strength of his beauty. I remembered old words: "I'm sorry you're so beautiful. It's a waste." I pondered the sense of distance they

carried; after all, it had only been yesterday I'd uttered them. But worlds and universes had collapsed and reformed since then, misting the tinted window of rationale and sagacity.

"And Jeremy," Stefan said, growling slightly and throwing a tempered glance toward his brother, "is downstairs with Jenna. Damon apologizes for his tactlessness-"

"Speak for yourself, Prince Charming," Damon interrupted. "She had to know; it's not like I could just haul out and say it. But," he added pensively, "the vampire's out of the bag now."

I couldn't restrain laughter. "You've been trying to inject that into casual conversation for years now, haven't you?"

He grinned, clearly acknowledging that each of us was in tune with the other. "It's true. Since my Americanization," he worded gingerly, "your phrases have never ceased to thrill me. What about you, Stefan? Does the apple fall far from the tree?"

"That's a religious reference, Damon. Maybe you should rethink your choice of expressions…considering you're damned."

I gasped. "Stefan!"

"No, Elena. It's fine by me- pretty boy can't admit his own evil, so he pokes fun at mine. Carry on, by all means," Damon jeered tauntingly, "but when you realize it's not Katherine beside you, feel free to take a ring-less stroll in the sunshine."

Damon left both Stefan and myself shocked into awkward silence.

Which was, of course, his mission exactly.

"We have to whisper," Stefan told me later, when the discomfort had dissipated slightly. "Jeremy is entirely capable of hearing us now."

I winced at the harsh reminder. "I still can't believe it. Is that why he's been gone for days? Hunting, killing? Why didn't you realize something was wrong when humans started dropping like flies?"

Stefan smoothed a hand over my dewdrop forehead, reassuring me. "Damon and I haven't encountered anything indicative to a new vampire. I'm not sure how he's kept himself hidden…and inconspicuous. He had to have help…obviously it was Anna's blood in him. That's what preempted the change."

He was conveniently forgetting a key component of his own creation. "That's all well and good, Moriarty, but how did he die?"

He flinched at the daggers laced in my tone. I didn't care; this was not a time for catering to Stefan's delicate sensibilities.

"I can't be sure. When was the last time you saw him alive?"

"At the Founder's Day Celebration," I answered with certainty.

Stefan nodded. "Then it's possible he was killed in the melee."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Have you noticed you revert back to old-timey language when you're feeling contemplative?"

He smiled. "I thought it might be endearing. You know, one of those added bonuses: a worldly vampire boyfriend, not just a good-looking one."

I shook my head exasperatedly, but leaned forward and kissed him all the same.

Still, as our lips met in a tried but true fashion, I heard the resounding echo of Damon's voice.

"When you realize it's not Katherine beside you…"

I stopped, righted us.

"What did Damon mean when he said you thought I was Katherine?"

He stiffened in my arms, and I felt my limbs droop from their habitual position atop his shoulders.

Stefan opened his mouth, but suddenly I was tired. Not physically- I'd had enough sleep. I was drained, no supernatural pun intended, and depleted emotionally. I felt irrevocably empty.

I couldn't put those particulars into words though, was distinctly unable to form sentences borne of such strong negativity.

So I just placed a hand over his mouth and said, "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

I allowed him to kiss me soundlessly for many minutes, and enjoyed it with a detracted, sort of unconnected fervor. There was passion available, and spinning just out of my reach. He was trying so hard. I drew on the reserves of leftover arousal created by the other Salvatore, and hoped Stefan wouldn't detect the lies with which I kissed him.

In the middle of the night, after Stefan had departed, carrying both his and my virtue with him, I rolled over in my bed to see Damon's shining quicksilver grin.

I didn't speak. Neither did he.

I was still tender, exhausted, but his touch sparked each raw nerve ending in my body. I yanked him to my mouth, showed him precisely where to put his hands: here, and here, and Oh, God, there. He knew exactly where his lips were needed most, and I felt myself dissolve in his fleeting embrace. His expeditiousness melted my reaction time into fresh gelatin; one moment he was whispering sweet nothings in my ear, and the next gripping my arms and teasing me mercilessly with his power.

Because only Damon could give me what I required most. He, exclusively, could set me finally free.

"Damon," I breathed, dragging him toward my throat. "Please," I pleaded. "Please, Damon…"

The rest of my speech twisted itself into indistinguishable moans as his teeth sank into my flesh, piercing me, branding me. He was drinking deeply from the wound of my regret. There was no pain, only a soft suspect sense of losing myself, and I was okay with that. I wanted to submerge so far within him that I'd never be found, hibernate in the cavernous chasms of his unmoving heart.

He pulled apart the seams of his wrist with those knife-like canines, and offered his blood to me. I did not hesitate.

Lost in lust, both for body and blood, I sacrificed awareness and, offhandedly, hoped Damon could exercise the restraint he claimed he did not possess, restraint I could not employ in these moonlight-filled moments.

He lifted me high, high, higher.

Damon may be the half of me from hell, but he was also an ever-increasing portion of my heaven.

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