Death opens || Vampire Diaries [S1]

Chapter 2: Apprehensions

A grey wall now, clawed and bloody. 
Is there no way out of the mind?

⁂

NADEZHDA

Tik, tak, tik, drones the ancient clock, tapping away the beats of each agonizing second as time drags our broken bodies through thickening molasses—an echoing scream across the shuddering veil. Like a hand gripping mine through opaque glass dissolving in acid, our connection surges in shared hatred. My hand drifts absently to the pendant over my heart, as haunting spirits (there's and mine) dance in the periphery of my far-reaching gaze. The line between the worlds is particularly thin today—numbers alone lending strength to their brush along the boundary—and the aging metronome conducts a symphony of whispers.

My eyes turned toward the sulking teenager in the weathered armchair, I study Stefan's gaze in the corner of my eye. Well, glare, more like. Ambivalent as his expression, his posture is both wary and inviting—like he's embraced the adage 'Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.' Or, perhaps, the age-old "Trust but verify." Though his eyes speak much less of trust than judgment.

I roll my eyes internally. He's not so very different from the first time we met as he thinks. Self-important prick still suffers from that dangerously life-threatening superiority complex, I see. Perhaps he needs to relearn his lesson.

A boot nudges my thigh as it twitches, seemingly absentmindedly, where it rests on the desk beside me, and my gaze is drawn to Damon's. It's been over a decade since our last reunion, but already, after a single blood-share, the link hums again between us—quiet, but undeniably present. He knows every whimsical, violent turn of my thoughts intimately.

Very occasionally, I find myself almost regretting my friendship with the much-preferred Salvatore. At least, if I had not first opened my heart so recklessly to the blue-eyed devil at my back, I could have satisfied my long unslaked thirst for vengeance on the green-eyed worm to my front. But then, if I'm being honest, I know this circumstance was unavoidable. I could no more have refrained that fateful day from indulging my morbid curiosity than I could turn my back on him now. Stefan Salvatore, it seems, earns yet another reprieve. He'll live another day to avoid the just penalty for his crimes. But how I do love to fantasize.

For instance, I'm currently halfway through a daydream involving his disemboweled torso and a bloodied violin string (because I've always had a particular taste for cruel irony) as he drones on and on in his infuriatingly didactic way about the truths of the universe. I humor myself with the image of the wire through his wagging liar's tongue. Personally, I think his screams for mercy would impart more wisdom to our bouncing baby vamp than this current monotony of deceptions. If nothing else, his blood would lend some color to them.

Voices whisper encouragement in the shadows, thickening the space between our clenched jaws. My ghosts are hungry.

After Stefan and Damon pulled our new friend off Jock-Douche #2, Stefan decided it would be best for all involved (by which he really meant "all the potential Vampire Happy Meals") if Vicki were kept in the boarding house under lock and key.

Propped against the polished edge of Stefan's desk, arms crossed at the elbows, and with my best friend reclining at my back in similar irreverence, I regard the Ripper of Monterey with a smile and a song in my heart. Assuming a smile may bear close resemblance to a fanged grimace, and a song a battle cry of bloody vengeance.

The four of us are presently cozied up in Stefan's attic room (still a mess, though the deliberate sort of mess that suggests this is his version of 'clean') while Stefan gives Vicki the newbie vampire speech by his authority as the only resident member of the "Vegetarian Vampires of America". You know, outside Forks, Washington. Cue the internal shudder.