( he's torn between a love and a longing so tested and stretched it has survived for decades of violence and anguish. he's torn between resentment and anger boiling so deep within him that he feels this human frame should not be able to contain it, this lifetime of hatreds and shames and fists.
his jaw tightens and his knuckles whiten around his phone. pensi che non ti abbia visto? the desire and freedom; the cage and fear of being seen. being known. being loved.
he puts his phone away and lets his feet take him. he considers burning the manor down, burning his father alive, and tearing apart the world to avoid this moment. he considers downing his weight in alcohol, ending the night somewhere foreign and impersonal, to prolong this eventuality. he is wretched and desperate in the knowledge he was always going to end up here, pushing open the door to stefano salvatore's bedchamber.
he often does not know his own strength in moments like these, fueled by impulse and passion. the door slams against the wall, vibrating on its hinges. his eyes find and lock on stefan's. )
You courted her. You married her, just as I was prepared— ( the trudging up of the old, the vile heartbreak that still rips him up with jealousies and regrets. not for aurora and the broken engagement, but for stefan. for those choices, for that time— ) The commitments between us have always been clear. ( was that not the line in the sand? is he drawing it now; deepening its boundaries? boxing himself in where it is known and safe? )
( he doesn't respond, and he half expects klaus to lose himself to what ails him. stefan knows something has been up from the minute klaus arrived late. the minute he stepped through the door. but like stefan does, he sucked all the oxygen out of the room. he sunk into him. he used him in a way. and he wishes klaus could know that he could do the same for stefan. he is klaus'. as much as they say it. as much as they dance around and fumble. and threaten. and unite.
he knows better than to message again, and instead goes about his next few minutes scrolling the news. there's something pointless on the network about someone pimping out their family member or friend.
he's not going to miss the nature of saltburnt's network.
the door slams.
and it could be any one of three to seven people in this manor. but he knows that vibration. he knows what he wrought somehow.
they always ride up to that line. but, they keep it just so. maybe he's just sick of the masks.
he sets his device aside, sitting up. he brings his knee up, wrist resting against it. he will meet this head-on, but not physically. these wounds haven't been drudged up in some time. )
They have. And they run deeper than even we've said out loud, I can't and won't deny it. Nor can I change the past. ( He pauses. ) You know what was expected of me, expected of both of us. ( Once upon a time, Klaus even liked Katherine. ) I don't know what's going on, but I do not need to rehash what I did to you. I am there at the drop of a hat. Have I ever not come when you've asked.
( the extent to which he wishes he was saying it in any other context is palpable. )
You can choose to keep things close to your chest, as have I. But, you are the one person, even then, that knows me heart and soul.
( Finally, he untangles himself from his sheets, sliding himself forward and off the bed, bare feet hitting the ground. )
Maybe I have never said it plainly just so, but I love you. And if I could take any of it back, I don't know if I would, because I have a son. And you have Hope. Whom I'd treat as my very own.
( Uncle, or what have you. )
Get this out of your system. However you need to. ( And maybe they're just broken, but he doesn't believe that. ) Is there another word deeper than team? Than confidante? Than trusted ally? Mio. Mondo.
( there is something heavy and bleak that settles in him, a contradiction to the roiling of unease in his stomach. the temperature of his anger evens to a persistent, scalding simmer.
he despises when stefan speaks like this, so easily and fully and factually, when he is naught but a riot inside. on the surface, his lover is the softer one, both amiable and sensitive, but it is klaus who cannot keep himself together, who so often cannot put words to his meaning, not when it is plain and vulnerable and obvious.
he hates and he loves and he pains, the wounding so deep that those three words, that confession, reverberates through him. it is not what he wants to hear and it is all he has ever wanted to hear.
has stefan never come when he's asked? when has he asked?
his gaze has hardened, wet still with tears. his voice, softened and slow. )
Out of my system? That would be convenient for you, wouldn't it? ( stefan did use him. klaus used him too, to forget. ) What a pillar I've been, while you wile away with your empire and all its little hiccups.
Shall I assume you'll solve all my issues like you solve your own? A band aid here, a talking-to there?
( he is cruel. this is the language he knows. ) I am not your world and you are not mine. ( the words are a burning poison in his throat. ) This is a school boy's love gone on too long.
( as klaus tends to, he twists every one of stefan's word inward, like a knife. but with every stab he swings down toward stefan, they carve into himself as well. he has never been the brunt of this klaus. the one that makes things all too personal with ease. he knows he is not father of the year. knows klaus also has a father of the century. one built on his own pillar's of his family's generational, silent wealth, but not the example either of them have ever set.
a school boy's love gone wrong.
he needs a drink. if he's going to do this. if he's going to let his lover burn it all down and light the match, then he might as well put fuel on his own fire. maybe for the two of them to go up in flames together.
he pours two glasses and takes one, planting himself in front of the entrance to the veranda and sips.
he slips into this skin like it's his second. but still, the ceo and "rightful heir" falters in tone. he bites into dust as he speaks, half resigned to leaving here alone. half ready to go to battle. )
Yours or mine?
( he turns back. )
I would argue the both of us were foolish at one time. perhaps not ever at the same time, or we wouldn't be here with you carving our poetic timing onto our ribs. You always were ever the wordsmith. You have that in common. ( Katherine. ) You know exactly what to deliver and how to deliver it. ( With every piercing blow. ) The difference is, you're already under my skin. So, your words and your petty contrivances and insults about my parenting, they don't cut like they should. They don't bleed. You know it's been a long time since I've cut and any blood has resulted.
( and yet he stands here, bleeding all over his luxury. klaus' blood spills into his.
it's a scene if anybody blinked and saw another universe. bloodshed. wars. epic. )
If you want help. Of any kind, no matter how banal or temporary, I'd give it. I cannot solve your problems. Maybe I don't solve my own. Maybe I take some things lightly. Or with a flourish. But you. You are serious. You are an open wound. You are a livewire and I am in love with every inch. Every pore. Every scar. Even if I get jolted. Or hurt. I don't know if something can be too little, too late, if it was never there in the first place.
( and he knows it was. but he's fighting. he decided. he just has to give as much as he gets in order to do it. in order to get through to him. )
I would burn the world for you. Every bandaid. And I would tear your enemies apart. I would lay waste to them. If you asked.
( and he could never get klaus out of his system. he would be his own open wound. festering. this might actually break him. but he can't put that knowledge on klaus. he doesn't deserve that. maybe this is a new start for him and his son. maybe he came to an agreement with katherine. )
I was going to ask you to do this. To move in with me. Say hell to everyone else.
( but he pried. and offered too much. and asked for too much in return.
klaus is like a wild steed when he's like this. he just needs to get him to break. he can turn this around. this can be real. this is real. )
If I had the perfect words, I'd say them. The perfect apology. Perfect kiss. Fuck. Anything I could say to you. At this very moment. I would lay myself bare. ( but is he? he finishes the glass. ) You can decide whatever we are or were, but I know what we are in my heart. I've just never said it. Maybe I just did.
( he wants to hurt him. there is no victory in the anguish or the blood. his words should have torn stefan in two, just as they rended through him; he wanted them to spear and slaughter whatever softness was between them. to damage the sanctuary and sanctity of their love beyond repair.
what useless heartbreak. his despair is a deafening rage. stefan finds it in himself to pour them drinks, to spout off such ridiculous, unending, undying vows. his vision blurs with tears that he attempts to hide away, to blink away, lowering his gaze to the floor when he cannot, and they fall.
he hates this, too. not being able to hold fast to the malice and the savagery that might save him from his weaknesses. he aches, thinking of the life he has never dared to dream, to want: slow mornings and warm nights. an artist's studio and a large library. a peaceful, dreamy life.
his voice is watery. klaus cannot meet stefan's eyes. ) Save your poetry and promises. There was never going to be a happy ending with me. Surely you know... I am not fit. ( worthless. spineless. dangerous. a curse.
stefan has not deserved him. he never has. ) In any regard.
( that second skin shatters as he sees the pulsating emotion, tears. despair.
and there it is. some, anyway. not enough. it was never enough, but stefan is not heartless. the very opposite. his heart beats deep and raw and it aches in his chest as he crosses the divide between them and embraces his oldest friend. his one-time love, lets him bury his face in his shoulder if he needs it. he hopes he lets himself. he hopes he saves himself.
he is worth everything.
stefan has always always believed this. he pressed his face against the side of klaus' head, speaking into it, as if he could will those words to drill down. to be heard.
( for a moment, between the steadying force of stefan's arms and breathing in the familiar salt and scent of his skin, klaus wonders if he might shatter. wouldn't he, if stefan were not holding him together, as he's done countless times? for a moment, he believes he might sob like a child; like the boy he once was before his father hardened him. these past weeks and the entirety of his life's agony condensed to the unraveling of this very moment.
he shakes instead, his chest heaving with stunted, shallow breaths, the tears an unbidden stream.
he does not need to divulge the secret that he has trapped beneath his tongue with fear and shame to be seen; to be known. stefan has always seen him, known him, despite everything. his exhale is a shudder as his arms finally lift to accept the embrace with desperation, to sink into it; to hold to stefan tight and firm to him. to grasp and keep him is the sweetest and most terrible relief. tears smear against stefan's neck as klaus turns his nose into the hot pulse beneath his skin. they are cheek to cheek and heart to heart. ) I want to live with you. ( wanting, needful. ) I want to grow old, with you. But I am-
( he loses his words, his voice. ) I am lost. Stefan.
( stefano has shattered in his lover's arms more times than he can count and only then. not even when his father had died. but weeks later, when he learned of a tape that was distributed, and he reckoned the kind of father he himself had become. he is here for klaus and always we bad, schoolboy or full blown adult. he gives him the permission he needs, even if this is the very end.
his eyes close, letting his breath steady with his lover's. they have always been in lock-step even on different sides of the world. )
I'm right here with you.
( in a dark maze of his own making. but, in this case, in whatever hole klaus has sunk himself into. he doesn't pull away, doesn't extract himself. he would melt into this man if he could. his son is leaving early. his son has patched things and the fear that he'd done the exact opposite with his forever, it almost breaks him as well.
but it doesn't. )
We can find the light.
( they can be each other's light.
words topple between them, but klaus was right because they were only words. his arms wrapped around him. his unbending loyalty. this sweet embrace, he hopes, says it all.
he speaks against damp skin, eyes still shut. the world having fallen away. )
( for a moment, klaus' only answer is the clutching and clinging of his embrace, the pulling and holding of stefan close and closer, as if any moment he might slip away. he thinks of elijah, his wet lashes lifting, and the disappointed ruin in his brother's dark eyes before klaus turned and walked away. so much is slipping through his grasp; he is lost, unmoored and without anchor.
between the tears and stefan's skin so close, a light sheen of sweat cools his body. he forces his breathing to steady. he wants to believe him, that all will be all right, when it so rarely has. whatever hope he carries is bitter, and the confessions he offers are ones he cannot hold back. like sacrifices of truth, bleeding out on the altar of his fear. )
I am a bastard. ( his voices is barely above a whisper. ) You would think my father would be relieved.
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his jaw tightens and his knuckles whiten around his phone. pensi che non ti abbia visto? the desire and freedom; the cage and fear of being seen. being known. being loved.
he puts his phone away and lets his feet take him. he considers burning the manor down, burning his father alive, and tearing apart the world to avoid this moment. he considers downing his weight in alcohol, ending the night somewhere foreign and impersonal, to prolong this eventuality. he is wretched and desperate in the knowledge he was always going to end up here, pushing open the door to stefano salvatore's bedchamber.
he often does not know his own strength in moments like these, fueled by impulse and passion. the door slams against the wall, vibrating on its hinges. his eyes find and lock on stefan's. )
You courted her. You married her, just as I was prepared— ( the trudging up of the old, the vile heartbreak that still rips him up with jealousies and regrets. not for aurora and the broken engagement, but for stefan. for those choices, for that time— ) The commitments between us have always been clear. ( was that not the line in the sand? is he drawing it now; deepening its boundaries? boxing himself in where it is known and safe? )
no subject
he knows better than to message again, and instead goes about his next few minutes scrolling the news. there's something pointless on the network about someone pimping out their family member or friend.
he's not going to miss the nature of saltburnt's network.
the door slams.
and it could be any one of three to seven people in this manor. but he knows that vibration. he knows what he wrought somehow.
they always ride up to that line. but, they keep it just so. maybe he's just sick of the masks.
he sets his device aside, sitting up. he brings his knee up, wrist resting against it. he will meet this head-on, but not physically. these wounds haven't been drudged up in some time. )
They have. And they run deeper than even we've said out loud, I can't and won't deny it. Nor can I change the past. ( He pauses. ) You know what was expected of me, expected of both of us. ( Once upon a time, Klaus even liked Katherine. ) I don't know what's going on, but I do not need to rehash what I did to you. I am there at the drop of a hat. Have I ever not come when you've asked.
( the extent to which he wishes he was saying it in any other context is palpable. )
You can choose to keep things close to your chest, as have I. But, you are the one person, even then, that knows me heart and soul.
( Finally, he untangles himself from his sheets, sliding himself forward and off the bed, bare feet hitting the ground. )
Maybe I have never said it plainly just so, but I love you. And if I could take any of it back, I don't know if I would, because I have a son. And you have Hope. Whom I'd treat as my very own.
( Uncle, or what have you. )
Get this out of your system. However you need to. ( And maybe they're just broken, but he doesn't believe that. ) Is there another word deeper than team? Than confidante? Than trusted ally? Mio. Mondo.
no subject
he despises when stefan speaks like this, so easily and fully and factually, when he is naught but a riot inside. on the surface, his lover is the softer one, both amiable and sensitive, but it is klaus who cannot keep himself together, who so often cannot put words to his meaning, not when it is plain and vulnerable and obvious.
he hates and he loves and he pains, the wounding so deep that those three words, that confession, reverberates through him. it is not what he wants to hear and it is all he has ever wanted to hear.
has stefan never come when he's asked? when has he asked?
his gaze has hardened, wet still with tears. his voice, softened and slow. )
Out of my system? That would be convenient for you, wouldn't it? ( stefan did use him. klaus used him too, to forget. ) What a pillar I've been, while you wile away with your empire and all its little hiccups.
Shall I assume you'll solve all my issues like you solve your own? A band aid here, a talking-to there?
( he is cruel. this is the language he knows. ) I am not your world and you are not mine. ( the words are a burning poison in his throat. ) This is a school boy's love gone on too long.
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a school boy's love gone wrong.
he needs a drink. if he's going to do this. if he's going to let his lover burn it all down and light the match, then he might as well put fuel on his own fire. maybe for the two of them to go up in flames together.
he pours two glasses and takes one, planting himself in front of the entrance to the veranda and sips.
he slips into this skin like it's his second. but still, the ceo and "rightful heir" falters in tone. he bites into dust as he speaks, half resigned to leaving here alone. half ready to go to battle. )
Yours or mine?
( he turns back. )
I would argue the both of us were foolish at one time. perhaps not ever at the same time, or we wouldn't be here with you carving our poetic timing onto our ribs. You always were ever the wordsmith. You have that in common. ( Katherine. ) You know exactly what to deliver and how to deliver it. ( With every piercing blow. ) The difference is, you're already under my skin. So, your words and your petty contrivances and insults about my parenting, they don't cut like they should. They don't bleed. You know it's been a long time since I've cut and any blood has resulted.
( and yet he stands here, bleeding all over his luxury. klaus' blood spills into his.
it's a scene if anybody blinked and saw another universe. bloodshed. wars. epic. )
If you want help. Of any kind, no matter how banal or temporary, I'd give it. I cannot solve your problems. Maybe I don't solve my own. Maybe I take some things lightly. Or with a flourish. But you. You are serious. You are an open wound. You are a livewire and I am in love with every inch. Every pore. Every scar. Even if I get jolted. Or hurt. I don't know if something can be too little, too late, if it was never there in the first place.
( and he knows it was. but he's fighting. he decided. he just has to give as much as he gets in order to do it. in order to get through to him. )
I would burn the world for you. Every bandaid. And I would tear your enemies apart. I would lay waste to them. If you asked.
( and he could never get klaus out of his system. he would be his own open wound. festering. this might actually break him. but he can't put that knowledge on klaus. he doesn't deserve that. maybe this is a new start for him and his son. maybe he came to an agreement with katherine. )
I was going to ask you to do this. To move in with me. Say hell to everyone else.
( but he pried. and offered too much. and asked for too much in return.
klaus is like a wild steed when he's like this. he just needs to get him to break. he can turn this around. this can be real. this is real. )
If I had the perfect words, I'd say them. The perfect apology. Perfect kiss. Fuck. Anything I could say to you. At this very moment. I would lay myself bare. ( but is he? he finishes the glass. ) You can decide whatever we are or were, but I know what we are in my heart. I've just never said it. Maybe I just did.
no subject
what useless heartbreak. his despair is a deafening rage. stefan finds it in himself to pour them drinks, to spout off such ridiculous, unending, undying vows. his vision blurs with tears that he attempts to hide away, to blink away, lowering his gaze to the floor when he cannot, and they fall.
he hates this, too. not being able to hold fast to the malice and the savagery that might save him from his weaknesses. he aches, thinking of the life he has never dared to dream, to want: slow mornings and warm nights. an artist's studio and a large library. a peaceful, dreamy life.
his voice is watery. klaus cannot meet stefan's eyes. ) Save your poetry and promises. There was never going to be a happy ending with me. Surely you know... I am not fit. ( worthless. spineless. dangerous. a curse.
stefan has not deserved him. he never has. ) In any regard.
no subject
and there it is. some, anyway. not enough. it was never enough, but stefan is not heartless. the very opposite. his heart beats deep and raw and it aches in his chest as he crosses the divide between them and embraces his oldest friend. his one-time love, lets him bury his face in his shoulder if he needs it. he hopes he lets himself. he hopes he saves himself.
he is worth everything.
stefan has always always believed this. he pressed his face against the side of klaus' head, speaking into it, as if he could will those words to drill down. to be heard.
poetry and platitudes aside. )
Do not listen to his voice in your head.
no subject
he shakes instead, his chest heaving with stunted, shallow breaths, the tears an unbidden stream.
he does not need to divulge the secret that he has trapped beneath his tongue with fear and shame to be seen; to be known. stefan has always seen him, known him, despite everything. his exhale is a shudder as his arms finally lift to accept the embrace with desperation, to sink into it; to hold to stefan tight and firm to him. to grasp and keep him is the sweetest and most terrible relief. tears smear against stefan's neck as klaus turns his nose into the hot pulse beneath his skin. they are cheek to cheek and heart to heart. ) I want to live with you. ( wanting, needful. ) I want to grow old, with you. But I am-
( he loses his words, his voice. ) I am lost. Stefan.
no subject
his eyes close, letting his breath steady with his lover's. they have always been in lock-step even on different sides of the world. )
I'm right here with you.
( in a dark maze of his own making. but, in this case, in whatever hole klaus has sunk himself into. he doesn't pull away, doesn't extract himself. he would melt into this man if he could. his son is leaving early. his son has patched things and the fear that he'd done the exact opposite with his forever, it almost breaks him as well.
but it doesn't. )
We can find the light.
( they can be each other's light.
words topple between them, but klaus was right because they were only words. his arms wrapped around him. his unbending loyalty. this sweet embrace, he hopes, says it all.
he speaks against damp skin, eyes still shut. the world having fallen away. )
Did something happen before meeting me here?
no subject
between the tears and stefan's skin so close, a light sheen of sweat cools his body. he forces his breathing to steady. he wants to believe him, that all will be all right, when it so rarely has. whatever hope he carries is bitter, and the confessions he offers are ones he cannot hold back. like sacrifices of truth, bleeding out on the altar of his fear. )
I am a bastard. ( his voices is barely above a whisper. ) You would think my father would be relieved.