This one was actually a lot of fun to write. Although, I am a little concerned about what that says about me as a person.
Ears and Eyes
She doesn't know what's wrong with her. Why her head and heart are pounding like they're attempting to rip free from her body. She tries to breath, but can't take in enough air. So she keeps moving. Walking and walking but never really getting lost. Mystic Falls is in her blood, she knows every back alley and street corner.
He doesn't know where she's going. Doesn't really think she does either. But he's following her until daybreak, and maybe after that too. She keeps making these horrible noises, like she's about to cry. But he'd be able to tell if she had. And so far her eyes have remained dry. He doesn't know whether to be relieved or worried. She's a bomb, ticking ticking ticking. Detonation might be best, but he's afraid of the fallout.
Finally she stops. Breathless and heavy eyed. And he wants to give her space but he can't help it. It's against his nature to be silent. With one perfect smirk he quips, "How depressingly appropriate." She doesn't turn around but he sees her stiffen. Her shoulder blades tense, and he wants to be sorry. But he's given up a lot of his pride to float in her orbit. And he can only apologize for being himself so often.
"If you're coming inside you have to be quiet," she murmurs as she pushes open the gate. Her silver flats glow in the moonlight as she steps over the threshold and into the cemetery. "No talking," she commands. Its overkill but he needs it.
Once again he hesitates, not sure he can hold out. But then the gate slams behind her ominously and he's quickly following. "Terms accepted," he hisses; although no one's really listening anymore except the dead bodies that now surround him.
She weaves her way through the headstones. Her hair fell out of its twist sometime during their trek, and now hangs loose around her shoulders. Her fingers keep brushing against the stones, tracing the chinks in their layouts. As if she can identify their origin and age by touch.
She's slow, but eventually she reaches her intended destination. Pausing in front of her parent's graves, eyes half lidded in rapture. "Stefan saved me from the car," she confides, eyes never looking away from the names etched into the stone, "pulled me out before I could drown. And it was probably the stupidest decision he's ever made."
"You're wrong," he returns quickly. Eyes on the steady pulse in her neck. She's calm now, and that's the worst part.
"No," she laughs, and it's a horrible, bitter thing, "Think of everyone that it would have been saved if I'd died that day."
"I think I've expressed my opinions on your attempts at self-sacrifice quite clearly," he replies, closing the distance until they're standing side by side.
"I ruined his life," she muses, at the same time reaching sideways to lace her finger with his, never looking anywhere but straight ahead. She is selfish, so selfish. And it's only allowed because he suffered his downfall centuries ago. At the hands of a much different woman. She'll admit to Stefan, but Damon's destruction is squarely on Katherine's shoulders.
"He didn't have a life before you," he remarks coolly. Although he wants to tell her he's speaking for both brothers. That there was nothing before her and that there will be nothing after. That some days he wishes it weren't true, but that it always will be.
She leans her head against his shoulder; face pressed half against his T shirt and the other against cold, bare skin. "I keep thinking I'm going to wake up. Keep wishing the last couple of months were a nightmare I'm going to get to do over." He feels the tears dripping down his elbow and closes his eyes in gratitude.
"I'm sorry," he promises against her hair. He's not sure how to properly express how much. And he's trying very hard not to be distracted by how close she is in proximity. Seeing her cry makes him feel utterly helpless. And that is not an emotion he's comfortable with.
"I know," she sobs, turning her whole body towards him in a silent plea. And he obliges after a moment of misunderstanding, wrapping his arms around her as her body quakes with a month of unshed tears.
When she stops, after what feels like a lifetime. His shirt is soaked and her eyes are raw and bright red. She is still the most beautiful thing he's seen; only now she no longer retains the weight of the world. She doesn't look up, but he feels her lips move against the skin of his stomach, "Why are you being so nice to me? Where's my I told you so?"
"Not even I'm that cruel," he promises, his fingers finding their way into her hair despite his best intentions. And he waits, but she doesn't complain.
She balances her chin on his chest and squints up at him, like she's having trouble making him out. Or like she's really seeing him for the first time. "I love you too you know," she whispers, voice hoarse and cracking, "And I never thought I would."
His smile is wide and amused, and if there wasn't still liquid leaking from the corners of her eyes he would laugh. It really is absurd. How utterly incompatible they are. Devil and angel holding onto each other in the middle of a cemetery. She is everything he's not. But as she appraises him with bittersweet brown eyes, they both know how much he wished he deserved her, how much he's tried and how much he's changed.
And she can't help but want to meet him halfway.
Their second first kiss is still flavored with salty tears and laced with anguish. But now there is hope too. And when he pulls away, dazed and confused, she stands on her tiptoes and drags him back. Hands and hair and elbows and fingers, she sees a blazing white light and the possibility of an end to the void.
Her first genuine emotion in months. Love for a Salvatore, the last one she'd ever expected. She knows it's horrible, that it will probably end horrible, and that it will hurt everyone. But she can't stop, couldn't even if she wanted to. She's a good girl, has been a good girl for far too long. Never understanding until this precise moment, how incredible being bad can feel.
"This is not a game you want to play," his eyes are wild and raging as he forces her backwards with a grip on her shoulders. Underneath it all he's still a caged animal clinging to humanity. But his grasp has always been stronger then he thinks, and she trusts him, however naive it may sound.
So she smiles, sad but no longer empty, and reaches out with a steady hand. Halfway. She'll keep trying. She refuses to relinquish her new discovery. Maybe together they can both be saved.
Her voice is perfectly even, and her chin juts out with a challenge, "You're gonna have to stop me then."
A dare he'll never answer. He's a game she will always win.
One more chapter.
Thanks to QueenBee10, Wantingpj, LVB, Sarrio, dazed-rose, Perfect Pirate Captain, erika x3, and emilio7.
