Midas by Panavatar 03/10/04: R Tonight, they hunt in the car, miles from home. "I want you to do it first," Damon says, and even though Stefan isn't yet strong enough to read his brother's mind, and even though Stefan will still ask for an explanation, they both already know what's being discussed. "What's that?" "Drink from her. I've seen you do it before, but you weren't aware of my presence. This time, I want you to know I'm watching." "Damon..." There it is again, that old wash of commingled need and guilt and regret. Stefan remembers how, in the past, everything he and his brother jointly touched--Mother, Katherine, Elena, each other--had died. The Ferrari stops and Stefan looks up from his sorrow. Damon places one hand on his shoulder, and Stefan, without even thinking, leans into the contact. It has been so, so long, since he could touch and be touched without fear. "It won't be like before, Stefan," Damon whispers. Stefan's heart aches when he hears his name from those lips, and maybe it's that feeling that makes the rest connect so deeply. Before... "But how can you know, Damon?" He hates the small pitiful tone of his own voice. "So what if she heals? We don't know how or why it works. We don't know anything at all." "We don't have to be sure in order to try. We know how much blood can be exchanged safely, under normal circumstances. You could just share a small amount, and see how she reacts." Stefan sighs, and puts his head in his hands. It seems he can never win an argument with this man, that, in fact, it gets more difficult to argue at all as time passes. Am I losing my will? Or is my will changing faster than I can know? "She won't want to," he whispers, but it's a last-ditch effort. Damon takes his hand briskly from Stefan and opens his door, so that the interior light comes on. Damon's eyes momentarily squint as black pupil shrinks in black iris, then he shakes his head. "You don't even look at her, do you? Or maybe you just can't see. She wants to be bitten. She wants to drink. All I had to do was skim her mind and I saw it. She's starving without it--it's why she's so disconnected, so quiet, like a runt that can't get enough milk. She shouldn't be this way. Don't you remember her before? She was full of fire. Now she's...something new, yes, but her core should still be the same, and it isn't." Stefan opens his door, climbs out, and Damon follows. They're standing next to each other on the curb. Stefan stares out into the dark street. He can hear, from nearby, the throbbing of electronic drumbeats. "What are you saying? That she's...some kind of symbiote?" "Perhaps." And then there's that lapse into silence. Stefan stuffs his hands into his pockets and thinks. There's a certain delightful symmetry to it all, really. It's a system of hunger and fulfillment that not only matches, but solidifies, personal inclination--and it's no more unlikely than the events of any of their three sordid stories... "We'd better get going," says Stefan. "You'll have to show me the way." Damon leads him around three blocks left, to what looks like a derelict factory, with a stylized sign emblazoned with the word LETHE. This is from where the heavy bass thumping originates. Inside, a man wearing a black mask that obscures even his eyes, sits at a black marble desk. Strobe lights flash around him. It's perfect for our purposes,, Damon says in Stefan's head as the hammered-steel doors boom shut behind them. Everyone has a private room. They know me. They'll let us through right away. So that's what happens. Damon nods at the host, who immediately stands and escorts them off in a seemingly random direction. Does he know why you come here? The staff don't enter the rooms. He's just following orders. Why... Stefan stops mid-thought, because they've reached a sheet-metal door, and their guide, after nodding his head, has left. Damon sends a wicked grin Stefan's way, then presses a red button on the wall. The door slides open with a low metallic hum. That's why, and Damon is tugging him inside by the arm, pushing another button to seal them inside. Stefan's eyes widen at the scene before him. Firstly, his mind registers that the sound is different inside than out. The breathy voice of a woman, accompanied by percussion and violins, floods the air. Across the room is something that resembles an artists' easel. It reaches a good ten feet in the air, and is almost that wide. A nude woman is shackled to it; there are, in fact, many shackles around the edges of the easel, apparently meant to hold someone in a variety of positions. This woman is fastened in a sort of "T" shape: arms straight out, feet slightly apart, facing the canvas, head turned to the right. Another woman is painting, painting the woman as well as the canvas, as if they were one unit. She wears a detailed cat costume, complete with fur the color of her hair, a tail, and pointed ears that seem to sprout right from her head. She does not turn immediately; the sound of the door did not reach her over the music. Painted on the woman and the canvas is an almost complete portrait of a crossdressed Greta Garbo, apparently depicted from memory. Stefan is waiting to see what his brother will do. "Who are you?" At Damon's voice, the painter faces them, and Stefan sees that even her eyes are catlike: an absinthe green, with oviate pupils. Contacts. "Who am I?" she whispers, and Stefan is struck by how composed she is. As if they were expected. The woman bound to the easel cannot move, and does not make a sound. Closer inspection reveals that she's wearing a ball gag. "Lethe," Stefan answers, and catches his brother's surprise. "It means forgetting." "Yes," the woman says, after a long pregnant pause--but Stefan realized she's not responding to what he has said. He focuses more intently onto her, and sees instantly that Damon is carrying on some silent conversation. "They say yes," Damon tells him. "The other is yours. They ask that you don't muss the paint too badly." "What?" Damon is already petting the fur on the woman's shoulder. "We may drink from them," he says slowly, as if speaking to a child. Stefan feels his heart turn over in his chest, and the hunger give a demanding throb. "Did you ask both of them?" Damon is kissing the woman-cat, her tail combed through the fingers of one hand. The one was the other / And they both were no one. Almost against his will, Stefan is drawn to the bound woman. He comes up close to her, so that she can see him, and a growling, hungry sound catches in her throat. Just like that? Stefan asks, because if it were this easy, why haven't they been doing this all along? How can it-- --I'll explain more later, when we've gone. Enjoy her. The painting ends at the top of her shoulders, leaving the neck exposed. He doesn't even think about marring the work--he comes from an age of art and magic, and here the two seem to intersect. It's like Stefan doesn't really think any more, like he feels and needs and wants and acts, bypassing ethics and honor entirely. He keeps wondering when he'll snap out of this, shudder in horror, fly home to Italy. But he stays; and it's as if all those parts of him he'd missed, thought lost forever, are blossoming forth, even as he participates--initiates--acts of which he would not have dared spoken before. The painting is rendered in hues of gold, silver, and emerald. The woman's skin, where it is left bare, is like rich dark earth. Stefan places his hands so, so carefully on her upper arms. She twitches reflexively. He molds his hands to her muscles, soothing her like he would a skittish horse. Impulsively, he kisses the corner of her mouth, where it begins to open on the gag. The skin is moist with saliva; he licks it, and then ducks to her throat. From across the room comes a low moan, but Stefan doesn't turn. He finds the vein with his mouth and bites, hunched at a careful angle that would be painful to a normal man. The blood is thick and rich, salty with life. He can taste her willingness, complicity in every mouthful. It's a pacifying balm on his hyperaware senses. He drinks deeply, stopping only when the pulse that throbs through his mind slows down a half-second. His mouth, teeth withdraw, but he lingers, sucks gently on the healing wounds. Stefan's world shudders when a hand lands firmly on his shoulder. He turns, and it's Damon; the touch alters into a caress. "We have to go," Damon says in near-whisper. "Our Lucifer is awake. There's--something--wrong. I think." "But--" Say goodbye, brother. His mind clears in degrees, a milk-filled glass under water, and then the word becomes sharp like a knife in his mind: wrong. Stefan pulls away unsteadily, gasps when his suddenly uncoordinated hands slide down too far on the woman's smooth skin, smearing two palmprints over the top line of wet paint. "Wrong?" "In the car, little brother." The next few minutes are lost to him; he comes to awareness looking into the bottomless black of his brother's eyes, as Damon holds open the door of the sleek little Ferrari for him. \He sits. Damon folds himself into the driver's seat, but he doesn't turn the key in the ignition. "I told you I'd tell you, and now I will." "About the women, or Elena?" "Both. Now, everyone inside LETHE has no idea who they are. In exchange for their money, a psychic temporarily blocked all the memories of their lives and selves; then they were put into rooms with random objects and random people, and left alone to see what they would make of themselves. After it wears off, they are required to remember all of what they did during that time." Stefan blocks his reaction, focusing solely on knowing. "Where do we fit in?" Damon shrugs. "It's all part of the experience for them. The owner allows a select number of unusual people, including myself, to drop in now and then and participate. You aren't technically on the list, but, well." He pauses dramatically and smiles. "As long as I keep it in the family, I doubt anyone will mind." Stefan can't do any more than shake his head, in a daze. Who would ever want to leave such an ever-new world as this? And then he remembers the other question, and takes and holds a deep breath. "Elena?" Frowning, Damon starts the engine. "It's strange. I can't seem to read her thoughts properly. She's in physical pain, but it's inconsistant. From what I can discern, she isn't otherwise upset. But I do know she wants us there." "I don't understand." "The world isn't here to be understood, brother. It's here to be loved." ********* By the time they find a place to park the car, Stefan has nearly bitten his lower lip completely through. The Power-laden blood, though his own, still calms his ragged nerves. He would have suggested that he go ahead while Damon took care of the parking, but--he can now admit to himself--he was afraid of going in alone. Telling himself Elena is all he has in the world is easier, safer, than focusing too much attention on his older brother. Stefan had long viewed him as much more immature; but now Damon seems impossibly older to him. Damon, with his knowledge of how to best navigate the world, with the way he effortlessly gets through almost anything thrown in his path, is rapidly becoming something akin to a god in Stefan's eyes. It was like that once before, long, long ago: they were human and motherless and discovering the world every day. Damon was the one who told Stefan all about his first kiss, and showed him the secret passage through the estate wall. In Stefan's boy-mind, Damon knew everything worth knowing on the whole wide Earth. Now, Damon is the one who tells Stefan all about the magic of the night and the hunt and another's touch, and shows him the secret places through this city and through his own heart. He knows everything Stefan doesn't know and never before wanted to learn. "Elena," Stefan calls softly, the minute Damon opens the door. "Elena!" "She's in the garden," Damon supplies helpfully. "You could tell that for yourself, you know." Stefan nods as they walk swiftly through the dark house; through the living room, sitting room, to where the curtains are still drawn over French doors. "I do know. I'm just used to relying on you to tell me." Together, they slip behind the smooth thick fabric that obstructs their view. Waiting for Damon to undo the lock, Stefan looks out into the moonlit, high-walled garden; sees Elena seated at a bench, still, her back to them. She is nude despite the chilly air, and she's smeared with mud. Elena starts and turns around to the sound of the great doors opening. How did she get out here? This is the only door. She looks like she thinks she's been caught in the act of some capital transgression, but also...grateful. Stefan watches as Damon approaches her, slowly. "Elena," Damon says, in that soothing tone of voice he takes on from time to time. "Are you all right?" In answer, she points with one long index finger, straight up toward the sky. "I fell." Damon seems to know where she's pointing right away, so Stefan follows his gaze; is led to the iron-railed catwalk one the second storey above, which encircles the gardens below. One metal bar is broken in half, split out jaggedly from weight it could not hold. He thinks back to the last time this happened, Elena's horrific awakening to unfathomable secrets, the fall that would have killed her save for his own tainted hands. No one was here to catch her this time. Something breaks inside Stefan, something frightening he did not know was there, and he moves quickly to kneel in front of her, snatching her hands. "Elena," he says urgently, huskily. She is splattered with her own blood, he sees now, some splashed along the side of her head, plastering her long hair. He skull must have cracked against the raw marble that makes up the paths between greenery. "I'm mended; it's okay," and she smiles at him. It's like nothing has happened. The smell of her blood and sweat is tantalizingly distinct from that of the woman he had embraced not long ago. Damon sits next to Elena on the bench, placing one hand on her shoulder. Stefan stays where he is. "I'm all right, really," she says, "I'm sorry if I frightened you. I just--it scared me when it happened, because I was alone. And it hurts when I heal. It hurt bad." Stefan nods. "It does for us, too, the healing." "It's not exactly pain," Damon adds thoughtfully, "It's more like a terrible itch you can't scratch. Or when you get too aroused--when it feels too good." "Yes!" Elena says. She's smiling and composed, but--shaking. The shock hasn't yet worn off. Stefan can identify with that well enough. "Yes, it's like that." And once again, Stefan can't help but envy his brother, who always knows just what to say and how to say it. While Stefan has always concentrated on finding something better than his world, Damon has found all the grace and beauty Stefan has been seeking--within his own life and environment. "Come inside," Stefan says dumbly. Still holding her hands, he stands and pulls Elena with him. She trembles against him. "You must be cold." "I'm not cold," but she doesn't protest as he ushers her toward the house. Without looking, Stefan knows Damon has risen and follows. Inside, in the dark sitting room directly within, Stefan remembers the blood. He is sated, and yet his mouth waters, jaw suddenly swollen and aching. He is thinking of his brother's words, of a red sea pulling him in its tide, of a place where everything is understood. "Elena." He says her name seductively, his instincts reaching out for her before he can resist. Then he turns his back on her and breathes, breathes, breathes. When the thirst is under reasonable control, he faces her once more. Now, Damon stands near to him, his white face unreadable, watching with those eyes like wells of ink. "Elena, let's go into the kitchen," Stefan says calmly, trying to pretend everything is normal, that that's what he meant to say, that his teeth aren't like knives, he doesn't want to sink into the comfort of his brother's body, the woman he loves isn't a naked boy soaked in blood. "Are you hungry?" "For what, brother?" That's Damon, Damon touching his arm, holding him there by sheer will. Elena ignores the comment. "No, I'm not hungry," she says softly. She's still shivering, fine tremors running all through her. "Are you?" And she shakes out her hair, exposing more of her throat. She steps forward. The world feels slow, so slow, like glaciers. She steps again, her hands rising. Elena flattens her palms on his chest, and meets his eyes squarely. "Are you?" "I..." Helplessly, he reaches up and puts his hands on her face, framing it. He has an impulse to weep uncontrollably--but no tears come. He longs for her like nothing else, wants to lose himself inside her. Damon is now pressed close behind Elena. He gently cups the back of her head in one hand and pulls it back. Stefan's hands slide and slide until they are splayed over her collarbone. "It won't be like before, brother. The rules of this world are different than where we were before." And it doesn't make sense, but somehow Stefan understands, understands it all. He dips his head and kisses Elena's soft open mouth, a kiss that lasts forever. Reluctantly separating, he sees what eluded him before: Elena's hands, her cheeks and chin, neck and throat, have turned to gold. She has become golden under his paint-stained touch. "I know," he whispers, his voice raw, breaking, aching like his mouth and his cock and his chest, and his mouth is on her throat and her vein just beneath his teeth brushing her skin... And he is home. End.