Loosen Your Grip Before It All Fades; (Damon/Katherine, M)
Title: Loosen Your Grip Before It All FadesFandom: The Vampire Diaries
Pairing: Damon/Katherine (with echoes of Damon/Elena)
Rating: M
Word Count: 2,250
Summary: “No one marks Katherine Pierce because only she does the marking, with whispered promises of eternity and fangs effortlessly slicing through flesh.”
Spoilers: anything up to and including “The Last Dance” (2x18)
Written for waltzmatildah (for fandomaid ): This is SO LONG OVERDUE I don’t even know how to begin apologizing but I am seriously so, so sorry bb!! *is seriously sad* I can only hope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed delving into all the angsty goodness these two crazy kids have to offer hehe <3
~*~
“Soothing brushstrokes, scraping paint;
Loosen your grip before it all fades;
Vibrant rays, eclipsed by the haze;
Make up your colorful mind,
Much less colorful…”
Colorful Mind - Broken Iris
~*~
The day her presence became a constant, a near expectation, is one he can scarcely recall (and one he would rather not). She’s there--morning, noon and night-playing her games and spinning her tales; naturally, not a single one of which he believes. If anything, the day he stopped believing said tales is one he can recall all too clearly.
“So when exactly did you become so cynical,” she teases; hides her displeasure far better than usual.
He takes a leaf out of Stefan’s book (is slightly alarmed by how often that’s been happening lately) and says nothing, simply carries on pouring his drink and hopes the bitch decides to make her presence known elsewhere.
“Still pouting?” He sees her shake her head, a sign of mock disbelief, and has half a mind to toss the glass in his hand right at it-savagely delights at the mental image.
“Katherine,” He sighs. “Do I need to remind you again just how many other rooms there are in this house?”
“But I like this one.”
“Hmm, pity.”
His smile, tight and sour, is returned with one of her own-as easy and impossible as ever.
“You can’t stay mad forever Damon.”
It amazes him that she would think that this single incident (the one where she more or less signed his death-permanent death-certificate) is what hangs between them so heavily when they’ve got a century and a half’s worth of lies whispered in and out of the throes of passion, empty tombs, and favored brothers littering the distance between them.
“Oh, I sincerely doubt that.”
But she’s closer now than she was moments before, stands right beside him with the tips of her fingers (warmer than he would have expected) ghosting across the skin of his check. She traces the sharp edges of his jaw, glides her fingers back and forth the way one would across the surface of an object-a prize to be measured.
It’s then that he takes the offending hand within his own, crushing her fingers and eliciting an indignant gasp from her that brings him nothing but pleasure. She doesn’t pull her hand out of his grasp, though they both know she could if she wanted to.
“Still playing rough?”
The quip comes out breathy and seductive, comes out in a way that is exclusive to her and only her. She’s close enough so that when she looks up at him, when she maneuvers herself in just the right way, their lips nearly brush.
“Who’s to say I’m playing?” He nearly growls.
He feels her breath, feels her other palm slide from his abdomen to his chest, inching higher and higher until she’s cupping his check, her thumb slowly brushing across the skin there. He can remember a time when a gesture like this defined bliss, when he foolishly assumed her softer touches were physical evidence of the “love” she bore for him-a love that he assumed could have at least mirrored a fraction of his own.
He drops her hand, steps away from her touch-the rush of nostalgia too vivid for his liking.
He hears her giggle as he walks away, knows she’s far too aware of just how close she had been to getting exactly what she wanted.
~*~
“Get out.”
She’s in his room, again--an unwelcome and gratingly uncaring intruder.
“Gone with the Wind,” she chimes, her dainty fingers gliding across the book’s ancient surface.
“Out,” he jerks his thumb towards the door as he makes his way towards the bathroom, doesn’t spare her a single glance-doesn’t care to.
None of it matters though because she materializes before him not a second later, book in hand and smirk intact.
“Let me guess, one of your favorites?” She drawls, taps her finger against her chin in mock thought.
He supplies her with nothing more than a wry, tight lipped smile and makes to move past her-a move she naturally hinders. Again.
“Maybe you haven’t changed all that much after all,” she whispers.
He catches her hand before it reaches his cheek this time, hears the bones cracking as he grinds her fingers together and revels in the sick satisfaction of it all.
“Oh, I have.”
She doesn’t retort her mouth agape and indignant and he can’t help but remember a time when he cherished the hand he’s now seeking to bruise, when he would press each and every one of these finger against his lips-feather light touches accompanied by the softest of words, the tributes of a foolish and callow boy.
He isn’t that same foolish, callow boy. Not anymore. Not even for the seventeen year old girl that wears this ancient woman’s face (or so he tells himself).
And so, he crushes and grinds, hard and unrelenting until her deceptively dainty fingers are encircling his wrist and returning the favor. This is what’s left between them, a broken and bloody game of cat and mouse, a constant series of one-ups and last words (or so he tells himself).
It’s not long before he has the last word here, before she’s huffily making her way out of his room and he’s wondering despite himself how long his lucky streak will last.
~*~
It doesn’t last. Not very long, anyway.
He doesn’t know how it happens, or why; only that it does and that he consciously refuses to delve into why he allowed it to happen in the first place-or why he allows it to continue in the second (whatever the hell it is).
All it takes is the drop of her towel, a woolen shield fallen at her feet. All it takes is the five or so steps between them, the distance she eradicates with the grace of a shameless feline. All it takes is his face in her hands, her lips pressed over his own-open-mouthed and incessant.
It isn’t long before one of his own hands is tangled in the in the curls at the back of head and the other is digging into the skin of her bare hip, hard enough to draw blood and make her hiss (whether in pain or pleasure or a sick combination of both he can scarcely tell).
It isn’t long before they are exactly where she wants them to be, tangled in each other’s tongues and limbs; tearing skin with teeth and nails and bony fingers digging deep enough to wound.
The sounds they make are feral-he growls, she hisses. He doesn’t let her stay on top, won’t allow her this modicum of control and he’s both unbearably aroused and slightly disappointed at her willingness to let him take the lead.
“I like this Damon.”
Those words, a lingering ghost, only serve to further fuel of a century and a half’s worth of rage and pointless, painful longing.
“Mmm, you have changed,” she moans as the tips of his fingers are dig into the flesh of her breasts leaving behind half-moon crescents only to have them disappear moments later as if they had never been.
No one marks Katherine Pierce because only she does the marking, with whispered promises of an eternity and fangs effortlessly slicing through flesh. He learned that one the hard way.
He’s as far from gentle as it gets when he’s finally pushing inside her, knows better than to think she’s made of spun glass. Her nails rake across the skin of his back drawing blood as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He supposes it probably is--to her.
The feel of her around him is such a disconcerting combination of the foreign and the familiar it nearly throws him off his stride. He’s no fool (hasn’t been for a while now). He knows he’s making the same mistakes, knows he’s making entirely new ones-but none of that matters when they’re both this close, when the pitch of her moans is this desperate and his breath is abandoning him at this rate.
He can’t help the sliver of pride he feels at having bought her to her climax first (though it doesn’t take long for him to follow).
It isn’t until he’s sliding out of her that he listens for any sign of Stefan or Elena, wonders if he missed one (or even both) of their entries in the midst of what they were doing. For some reason (one he knows all too well) the thought of his brother possibly being the inadvertent voyeur doesn’t seem all that bad when placed next to the alternative.
No words are exchanged between the two of them in their post-coital state, only a half smirk from her before she rises from the bed-gloriously naked and as brazen as ever-crosses the room to pick up her discarded towel, and takes her leave.
He’s left with nothing but her lingering scent and the thoughts he refuses to touch. He’d be foolish to have expected anything otherwise.
~*~
Their little “arrangement” comes with a number of unspoken rules, all of which (for the most part) she seems rather suspiciously willing to follow.
The first and most important (perhaps even the only is he thinks hard enough) is discretion. It doesn’t happen when anyone else is around, isn’t even so much as mentioned. She treads this line dangerously though, shoots him the most impish smirks over Stefan’s shoulders and before Elena’s wide eyes. He isn’t surprised, isn’t even bothered by it really-“safe” wasn’t a word he ever associated with her in the first place.
A part of him wants to join in her dangerous game, to abandon it altogether even-to walk right up to Elena and let her know that he’s fucking her identical ancestor, to walk right up to Stefan and make some quip about the Salvatores and their doomed marriage to historical repetition.
But he doesn’t for reasons he can’t (won’t) articulate. Instead he pins her against the nearest wall the second Stefan and Elena have left for school (a charade he’ll never understand his brother’s desire to carry on), rips at every bit of her he can get his hands on while she does the very same.
Somewhere in the haze of it all, he can’t help but savagely wonder how Elena's face would look at the sight of them-bare, sweaty, and slightly bloodied. A part of him-the foolish, callow one-refuses to believe that she wouldn’t care.
~*~
She’s on top this time, grinding slowly against him and doing them both in one languid thrust after the next.
“Tell me how much you still love me,” she groans, her nails digging into the flesh of his chest-a fickle circle around his heart.
He knows she’s just as likely to tear his heart right out of his chest as she is to continue simply making her shallow marks if he doesn’t oblige her. But, then again, wasn’t the beauty of Katherine after all?
And so he simply snorts in response, a wry smile tugging at the edge of his lips, and whispers a malicious “you wish.”
She laughs at that-a cruel, throaty sound-as her fingers curl just a little more deeply into his skin, creating their own niche he supposes.
“You shouldn’t project yourself onto others,” she whispers right against the shell of his ear before biting down on the lobe, hard enough to draw blood (always goes for the blood).
He doesn’t bother to respond, simply flips them over so that he’s the one on top with his hand wrapped around her delusively delicate throat. He squeezes his fingers just so, watches as she purrs at the rougher treatment; wonders if it’s even possible to truly best her.
Sometimes, if he doesn’t look hard enough, if she tilts her head at just the right angle, it isn’t her he sees. But now, with her lip curled the way it is and the mischievous twinkle of her eyes, he sees no one but her and it isn’t long before he’s desperately pressing his lips onto her own-isn’t long until he’ll do just about anything to erase the image of her face and all its impossible nuances.
By now he knows better than to think he’ll succeed, she’s already fooled him more than once after all.
~*~
It isn’t long before she fools him (all of them really) again.
He saw it coming this time, woke up each and every day anticipating her final blow. It’s only natural that a part of him feels nothing but relief.
While he isn’t privy to all the juicy details, he’s certain it all boiled down to her favoring her own life over their alliance. Ironic--and more than a little bit satisfying--how that little arrangement turned out for her.
He hesitates before asking Stefan whether or not he thinks Klaus finally put an end to her, doesn’t want to seem too concerned with the whole ordeal (after all, why blow the lid now when he managed to keep the secret safe this long). His brother’s hushed “probably” tells him more than he cares to know.
“Well, she had it coming.”
And so did he.
~*~