Title: 'Always' Isn't Always True
Rating: M for language
Summary: Stefan doesn't even think they know. It's a draw between the most beautiful or most tragic thing he had ever seen.
Pairing: Stefan on Damon/Elena
AN: This is why they're endgame; the opposition can go fuck itself.
This time Damon has her backed into a corner. She claws against his chest seemingly enraged by his proximity. Maybe she is, but not for the reasons she should be. Stefan can smell her arousal, faint as it may be. His brother slams her back against the wall not caring about the delicate nature of her human body, her whimper causes him to growl like the predator; clearly disgusted by her weakness. She pushes her body against his to proud to ever back down; a sound escaping from her that Stefan immediately relates to a banshee before it attacks. The tension has become unbearable, causing their fights to escalade from rare to occasional to daily. They dance around each other like rapid bitches in heat, as likely to rip each other apart as fuck each other senseless.
He can't recall when it started, having always been a little wary of Damon's interaction with Elena. Though when had wary turned into envy he doesn't know. Her eyes glow, there's a fire behind them, a Petrova fire he recognizes from 1864. She is so passionate, so beautiful in these moments, these moments with his brother. He may have her in his bed at night, where she moans and whimpers and loves him. But there's no fire.
She is more alive in the darkened corners of the study than she is in the candlelit expanse of his bedroom. Maybe it's his own fault, because he's gentle with her. Stefan cares for her and her delicate nature but she needs an outlet for all the rest. Defying all logical Damon's heated words move her more than Stefan's touch has ever been able to. Maybe he's the outlet, her delicacy a small fraction of her nature, and Damon gets all the rest.
If it were one sided he could at least offer himself some piece of mind. The knowledge that this would not last, Damon would get bored and move on. A pipe dream. He hasn't seen his brother care this much about a person in over a century. And it was care; he fought Elena because she was precious to him. So precious. He wonders when it will all come to a head. Which fight will have them tearing fabric and fusing skin? What will it be about, will they finally call bullshit, succumb to their undeniable attraction? Will either of them consider him? Certainly not.
Damon would go behind Elena's back to protect her. She'll be furious that he can never just let her make her own decisions. Damon will tell her that her decisions are shit. That's how the dance will go. He doesn't know who will move first, but Elena will be backed against a wall in the dead of night. They won't be able to stop, to think, to reconsider. Stefan will cease to exist the second their lips meet. That's how it will happen, he knows it.
But when will it happen? Because he can see how hard they fight against it. Damon so unused to love, too stubborn to fall again. Sweet Elena too young to recognize when she's fighting a losing battle.
If only he were a good person, if only he were selfless and kind. He would leave, take himself out of the equation because he knows the outcome. Except he can't. He won't go, not until she makes him. He loves her, the part of her she lets him have. They may be blind but he knows the truth. Stefan is loving Elena on borrowed time, and he will take what he can get.