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"Sour," Stefan says around a mouthful of blood. He's swirling it around in his mouth, his tongue seeking out the fruit of it, and after a while he gives up and spits it out.
"Come on, mate." Klaus throws a handkerchief in his direction; it floats in the space between them as though suspended in time before Stefan reaches a hand up to grasp it, raising his eyebrows lazily.
"Forgive me, brother—where are my manners?"
They're certainly not in his teeth, the way they glint like silver bullets in the night. Klaus steps closer to thumb away some of the blood that's collected in the corner of his lips, but then he's pushed back against the crumbling bricks, the walls of the alley closing in on them, his trousers all-too-constricting with the way their hips are crushing together.
Klaus can barely hear Gloria's muffled croons over the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.
"Your subtlety," Stefan breathes right into his slightly-parted lips. "It pisses me off."
Klaus manages a smirk. "Put up or shut up. Right, Stefan?"
There is a moment where Klaus thinks Stefan really might do it – brush his lips against his, bury his teeth in his tongue, but then he steps back and adjusts his collar. “At least you’re learning.”
Rebekah is a shimmying golden swirl in the center of the gyrating dance floor and Stefan makes his way towards her, bumping shoulders, swinging left, glides right up behind her and runs his hands down her sides, never once missing a beat.
She swings her hips to meet his and for a while they stay that way, his nose to her cheek and the small of her back pressed against the smart cut of his suit. She turns her head; her lips graze his jaw. “You smell like my brother. Did you two have fun?”
Stefan just smiles at her, his eyes giving nothing away as his fingers trace up the metallic jacquard of her drop-waist dress. “Why don’t you and I have fun now?”
“Oh, Stefan,” she sighs, a taunt. She faces him full on now, her eyes half-closed, her face so close to his, a kiss only a whisper away. But she won’t kiss him, he knows, and it infuriates him as much as it turns him on. “You know Nik’s not one to share.”
He flicks one of her curls and presses his forehead to hers; theirs is a dance that doesn’t quite run with the tempo of the song playing but it works (it has always worked). “We could teach him.”
“You mean you could teach him,” she smirks. She places a gloved hand on his chest and he coves it with his own, keeping her there. “Stefan, doll, you’ve always been ambitious. I think I liked that the most about you.”
“Liked?” It sounds like an accusation, which it is. Rebekah just laughs, nothing ruffles her feathers, absolutely nothing—and she twirls away, but only as far as he will allow.
When she draws back to his chest she has the oddest smile on her face. “You’re not the first boy to come along, thinking they can ruin me.”
“Rebekah—”
She leans in close, suckles on his earlobe. “You couldn’t ruin me if you tried.”
And he does so try, from the way his tongue slips into her, the way his fingers keep her legs so far apart he might just rip her in half, but he couldn’t, she’s invincible, and now she’s shuddering out an orgasm, his head still between her thighs.
She lays back against his pillows, panting hard, her slick lips craving the burn of a cigarette. She hates that sick, smug look that he’s donned. They always start at her door and end in his bed—she couldn’t say goodnight to him even if she wanted to; he never lets her.
“This is some bizarre revenge, even for you,” she says as he slides her dress down over her thighs, tantalizingly slow. He hums like he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but nine hundred years on this earth still hasn’t taught her brother how to smile without dimpling. “I know you were listening.”
He presses a chaste kiss on her knee before covering it with the frills of her dress, and suddenly he has her pinned against his Egyptian cotton sheets, his weight heavy but not uncomfortable, not unfamiliar, on her.
Rebekah blows her bubblegum breath into his ear. “You hate that he wants me, don’t you?”
Klaus frowns down at her. “He doesn’t know what he wants.”
“Is that why you so insist on taking him out every so often, show him what the night has to offer?” She smooths his hair away from his forehead, knowing that he’s smart enough to not take it as something tender. “Darling Nik, he’s a baby compared to us, yet you drink him in like he’s wine from the Last Supper.”
Her brother narrows his eyes at her and lowers is nose to her neck, grazes his teeth against her collarbone. She toys with the little hairs at the nape of his neck, a playful invitation: you can bite me if you want.
He doesn’t. He moves like a bullet train in the daylight, thoughts never catching up to his actions, but in bed he moves so languidly that she half-suspects it’s all just a dream to him. She cups his jaw and pulls him up for a kiss, and when they break away he says, “He couldn’t ruin you, sister. Not because he’s incapable, but because I already have.”
Her anger comes to her in a flash and she wants to push him off of her, but he’s already rolled onto his side, his lips curled into a cruel little laugh. “And he knows it, Bekah. He wants to feel you on his skin the way I’m feeling you right now—“ She slaps his wandering hands away from her breasts, but he continues, undeterred, “wants to taste you in his teeth, the fire and the whisky of your tongue—”
“Stop it, Nik,” she hisses, swings her legs off the bed, leaves her panties on the floor. “You’re just jealous—”
“Maybe I am,” he fires, and she looks at him, lounged against his pillows, top buttons undone, looking so smart, so cool. “As you said, I’m not one to share.”
She tries so hard not to, but she shivers anyway. “Are you talking about me or Stefan?”
Her brother just smiles instead of answering.
The world, Stefan, is not as big as it seems.
It’s all organized chaos and blood, banks and banks of it, the turn of the earth guided by the lazy flick of his finger. He could make the sun set in the East if he wanted to, but he doesn’t want to—he’s petty and grumpy and bored, and maybe Rebekah’s right about that. About him. “All this power, and nothing to do with it.”
Stefan barely glances at him as he throws his card onto the table, facedown. “In a pensive mood tonight, Klaus?”
Klaus twirls his card in his finger. “I could slice this right through your neck and you wouldn’t even realize it until you’re slumped in your seat, your head in your hands.”
“Not tired of me already, are you?” Stefan grins. “Hurry up and deal.”
Klaus scowls. “I’m entirely serious.”
Stefan nudges his Scotch towards him. “You appreciate my presence too much to do that. Drink. You’re all tense.”
“Getting cocky now, Stefan.” He swigs it anyway.
“I speak only the truth. And you give yourself way too much credit,” Stefan says good-naturedly, but there’s something stirring just beneath the surface of his smile. Always. “What would a big, lonely Original like yourself do without me then?”
Conquer cities and burn them alike, he tells Stefan matter-of-factly.
“And what would Rebekah do?”
Lie peacefully in slumber. He doesn’t tell Stefan this, of course. “I suppose she would go wherever I’ll have her.”
“So what’s stopping you now?”
There’s a certain darkness in Stefan’s eyes, like he already knows the answer, and he’s mean, right down to his bones. Klaus wants to lick his way down the stretch of his teeth, to have this silly boy be reduced to putty under his hands, his panting claimed by his own lips, wants to make him shudder and scream. What would it take, what would it take. Certainly not ending him.
He answers honestly, for once. “I’ve plans for you.”
He doesn’t know how it’s possible, but Stefan’s grin stretches wider. “So do I.”
Stefan lays down his cards, and it’s a perfect twenty-one.