Denial ✘ Stamon ✘ Defan

Part 1

Stefan's eyes were drawn to the fireplace, watching the dancing flames with tears in his eyes. Elena had finally given up. The inevitable had happened and Elena had just given up. Given up on them, their future, their life. For what, anyway? So she could fall in love with her self-proclaimed boyfriend. Damon didn't even care, he never had. He was violent, obtrusive, sarcastic...no, that wasn't right. This was simply the anger. This was everything he had held dear being stripped from him.

That didn't strip Damon of the blame, he was in it for the game- his kind, loving brother was just in it for the game. He had masked himself in evil and now he was letting it seep through. He had let jealousy rule his unsteady mind, leaving Stefan as good as dead behind him.

Stefan lacked knowledge of Damon's thoughts, though. He couldn't pinpoint the reason he had chosen to pursue Elena, he couldn't think of any reason the was comprehensible apart from just that. Jealousy. But jealousy of what? Love? If he wanted love, he couldn't force it- even Damon wasn't naive enough to believe that.

Damon was in denial, that was it. Denial that he was in love with someone else. Yes, that made sense did it not? He was blind not to know his own feelings yet it happened so often that he couldn't even be put at fault for it.

Stefan was different, though. He was frighteningly different. Because, he knew his feelings yet, still, he pushed them away. Pushed them away because he knew it would only cause him pain. It was all too foreign to him, yet, he knew what it was. He had felt this before, he'd seen that glimmer of it with Elena.

Yet, so like Damon, he was in denial of one thing: the nature of these feelings. Brotherly love, he told himself, brotherly love that he had promised him all those years ago. That promise he held himself to was all that stopped him from pursuing the man that was right before him- the man he proclaimed his brother.

He knew, despite his mind's objections, that the yearn he felt contradiction his own thoughts in every way. The draw of his brother, if that was what he would even let himself call him, was so much more than the draw of a brother. As was the draw to his lips, and the draw to touch.

He knew it was wrong.

That was his most simplistic explanation for tucking these feelings away. Societies view on them would be all too harsh, harsher than it was for all they were- vampire, cruel ones at times. What Stefan felt, what Damon felt, was against the norm. He already felt so filthy for loving another man, he had been raised in the eighteenth century after all. And now this? This that was not so much better than that. But, what was to say that was wrong at all? Everything about him was wrong, his true nature was wrong. But his brother...now that was a new feat. A feat he was afraid to reach for.

None of it stopped Stefan as his legs forced him to stand and stumble up the angular stairs, towards the room that he knew would at least bring some calm. The tears cleared as quickly as they came as he blinked them away, finding it hard to see behind his blurred vision. He knew he shouldn't have cried in the first place, not for Elena. No matter how much he loved or hated her, there was no point in crying for her. She had moved on, even if it was such an idiotic transition, and there was no point dwelling. They had fallen out of love and carrying on their relationship would only be a lie.

When he found himself in his brother's room, he was not surprised. Somehow, through his delirium, he had known the place he would end up. It was the one place that was so forbidden that he was drawn to it- just like his love. It was ironic that such room's occupant was also the man he had fallen for.

He placed his hand gently on the door, pushing it open with ease, revealing a rather too luxurious bedroom. It wasn't as if he had not seen this before but it seemed foreign as he looked at the empty room. It must have gone unused for days. No doubt as Damon followed Elena around like a puppy being dragged along by its leash. He knew as soon as he entered the room that he had made the wrong decision but he still did not want to turn back, even if he would have to deal with the consequences. He could only hope that Damon would not return, just as he had done for the last few days.