manipulative | ( ENTRANCEWAY INBOX )

[If he had been sipping his wine, he would've spit it all out - he stares at her, almost incredulously, as he holds his wine glass.

Not only does she have his number (to try unpredictability, to eschew tradition in small, meaningful ways), but also she's called him out on the meaning of Thanksgiving. He doesn't know what he's truly grateful for.

Stefan's prepared a small speech, of what he should say at Caroline's dinner and of what would keep him from slamming Damon against the wall halfway through grace. That he's grateful for his brother, for the company he keeps, and for the delicious dinner Caroline spent so much time and effort on. While he is grateful, he also knows those don't spring to mind.]

First off - that's a freaking paradox. I can't be predictable in my unpredictability. [He scrunches up his whole face.] But if I had to say, hmm... I'm thankful for the people here. The ones who have no reason whatsoever to help, and yet they bend over backwards every time. I'm thankful for a friend from home, and I guess? Technically? I'm thankful I've got my brother here.

[The uncertainty rises with each syllable, as he raises up a glass in toast,] What about you? What're you thankful for?

[ it's true for her — stefan salvatore is predictable in his unpredictability, because where he takes others off-guard, she's never quite surprised. there have been a few instances where she hadn't been able to correctly guess his next move, but she's ultimately been right, even if the journey to it hasn't been as she expected. ]

[ his thanks is one of them, although she'd been half-expecting him to give her the practiced speech, the one that's meant to sound a lot like the stefan who hasn't gone through a mind spell that's wiped his entire slate crystal clean. the fact he hasn't given it to her is something in itself. perhaps it's not entirely true she can predict the exact action he'll take, but she more or less knows what motivates him. ]

[ she thinks what motivates him now is the lack of memory. ]

[ peering down at her glass, she does think to tell him nothing. there's nothing to be thankful for when the world just takes and takes, but katherine has never been a victim in her life and refuses to sound as one. ] I'm thankful for the alleged break Wonderland's given me. It's hard to run in heels, Stefan. [ she smiles, it short-lived. ] And you coming to me over Damon missing. [ but wait for the punchline. ]

Either you care to let me know, or you want an answer from me about where he is.

[Straight to the point, he sees.

Stefan grimaces. From what he understands, Katherine and Damon had never had the most positive of relationships. She was the cat reaching out for the canary, and Damon had been too vain to ignore her claws. If he mentions the truth, he might give her an advantage (even if Damon claims they had a truce). No, especially because they had a truce.

His brother acted first and thought later. That much, Stefan knew even with his amnesia.]

He told me he went home for five years. As to what happened, he wouldn't say - and it's not like him. [He takes a sip of his wine. It's stronger then he remembered.] If it had been something good, we would've never heard the end of it.

[All of Wonderland would've known too. Damon wasn't much for keeping the good things - the pieces of him that he showcased with excessive pride - a secret.]

Edited 2017-01-13 07:48 (UTC)

Damon likes to blab. [ she almost rolls her eyes. a damon who attempts to possess self-control is a damon who ultimately spirals downward. he's never had a good handle on himself; even when he'd been human, he was a victim to his own whims, his heart often leading him straight into the belly of the beast. it's never differed even as a vampire. if anything, those impulses have only ever been heightened, and katherine's often surmised it's because the situations have grown dire and dire as a vampire than it ever did as a human. ]

[ sighing, she relaxed slightly in her posture, removing some of the weight off her legs. ] Good news, bad news — five years is a long time to keep bottled inside of you. [ and a very long time to gather information and sort through it. katherine sometimes wishes she had that advantage, but a part of her has never been excited for what the future holds. five hundred years spent running from the same thing has put a damper on her optimism. ]

[ looking at him, she raises her brow, ] Did you ask?

[He almost spits out his second sip of wine. As much as Stefan loves his brother, Katherine speaks a truth he can't deny. Not because he wants to (he does), but because he can't.

He doesn't know enough about his brother to say if it's true, beyond what he remembers back home.]

I tried. Multiple times, actually - he brushed it all off and insisted that I was happy back home. Whatever that means.

Edited 2017-01-15 04:22 (UTC)

[ she smiles to herself. ] You, happy? Does that mean in five years you get over your brooding phase? You wear it so well.

[ but that's not entirely fair, though. katherine knows stefan's been happy before, many times throughout the last century. he'd been happy with lexi, with elena, with other faceless people she's since forgotten the names of. it'd what driven her jealousy in the first place. she wished to have that happiness wrap around her again, and so she had lashed out in her attempt to draw him back in. ]

[ while katherine still yearns for something that's unattainable now, it doesn't consume her as it once had two years ago. ]

[ she lifts her glass, examining it in the light. she purposefully keeps her gaze there. ] There's a chance Damon wants you to experience happiness yourself, as you are right now. Without the added pressure of needing to be whoever this happy you is in five years.

[ it's not her mission in life to defend damon, but katherine had once witnessed the brothers' dynamic at its most richest. she knows damon had encouraged stefan to chase after her (she isn't without her own little birds), just as he's since changed his tune and encouraged him to destroy her. ]

["Brooding phase?"

When she puts it like that, he wonders if she had known him when he were happy. When he couldn't feel this soul-crushing loneliness deep down in the recesses of his heart, and when he also couldn't feel the burdens of these preconceived notions in his mind. True, the Mystic Falls crew had given him space to rediscover himself. They'd also given him far more questions than answers, and he's not sure where he'd find them - except maybe with time.]

Now that's a laugh. [Stefan involuntarily rubs the back of his neck. If he thinks about it, he can still feel his entire world going numb.] I'm pretty sure he only wants me to find mine because he found his with Elena, [and her name is so, so bitter on his tongue.]

[He doesn't know if they were together here. He finds, weirdly enough, that he doesn't want to.]

But... if you think it's a phase? Does it mean I wasn't always like this?

[ katherine gives herself leniency in the stiffness she holds her guard up with and allows herself to pull a disgusted face. it's neither here nor there for her; whatever happens in mystic falls stays in mystic falls, just as she's found groundhog day truly does exist. even if it's not a complete redo of the day over and over and over, the past repeats itself; she's learned that lesson better than anybody. ]

[ what lesson no one knows she's learnt: she's stopped giving too many fucks. internet memes haven't quite changed her life, but she's found a power and a sense of freedom in letting some things go. one of those things is the fact she understands better than anyone to not know who she is. for five hundred years she has run from klaus mikaelson, but also herself. ]

Stefan. [ looking at him as though he is the annoyance, she rolls her eyes to show him that that is the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard. to herself, she mutters: ] I can't believe I'm telling you this. [ doesn't he know katherine's the destroyer? she turns herself into violent winds and knocks down towns, akin to the wolf who huffs and puffs and destroys the little pigs' homes. she's not the one who builds anyone up. no one attributes such a skill to her, and no one ever will. ]

You're the master of your own destiny, Stefan. If you want to be sad, be sad. If you want to be happy, be happy. It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves. [ she shakes her head. quoting literature isn't her style, as she often prefers war cries instead. but she's well-read, and doesn't find any use in hiding it anymore. ] Get over the victim complex you're holding onto just because you don't remember who you are. If you need someone to appear in the clouds and remind you, do it yourself.

[Wait.

Katherine shouldn't be the one to tell him this? Stefan blinks back genuine surprise, sitting up straighter as he regards her with new understanding. Their love story had been complicated. Their love story probably hadn't ended well. Yet she's the one insisting that he's the one who holds the strings of destiny in the palms of his hands.

He mulls over this for a couple of seconds as he sets his wine glass aside. He had loved Elena with all of his heart once. He knew, as he pieced together every memory she had tried to re-create, that they had had something special. As he looks at Katherine, something dawns on him.

Had he tried to re-create what he had once had with Katherine... with Elena? Were they the same players on a giant chess board, making the same mistakes century after century?

It's a ridiculous idea. He can pinpoint minute differences in their postures, their attitudes, and even now in their answers. They're nowhere near the same person. They'd never be the same. Yet that idea - of him getting over his victim complex - is one he wants to take to heart.]

In other words, [and forgive his skepticism,] you wouldn't care if I ended up being different from the Stefan in your memory?

[ how many times had katherine bit her tongue when elijah had called her katerina? how many times had she wished to snap at him and remind him katerina was no longer here, that the woman who stood before him was katherine? my katerina had crowded her into a tight spot, one that's been impossible to move from. he had placed expectations upon her she knew she would never succeed in reaching, as those soft spots of katerina had been forged into hardness. ]

[ if she asked elijah if he cared she was different to his memory, she knows his answer would be written over his face. he had invested too much in the girl she had been, untouched by his hands shaping her with callouses and an impenetrable and unmovable armour. she suspected he couldn't look her in the eye without seeing what he had done, destroying someone he had supposedly loved centuries ago. ]

[ elijah cannot face what she refuses to let go of. she's looked at stefan once when he had been naive and warm, and she's looked at him when he had been hard and closed off, and she had never thought to wish for the stefan who had once existed to come back to her. all she had wanted was for stefan to accept her. ]

[ he never had, just like elijah never would. but katherine has always risen above the men in her life, and she does what stefan salvatore and elijah mikaelson could never and will never be capable of doing. ]

[ glass in hand, she looks him over. there's an incredulous pull to her brows as she looks at his expression and wonders just how much her opinion matters to him, how many bricks he's already accumulated so he can quickly build himself according to the blueprints she gives him. it's too much power in her hands, and katherine would've relished in it once. but all houses tumble down against a huff and a puff, and katherine knows the building blocks he's acquired are soft. ] You're not asking the right questions, Stefan.

Do you care?

[ her answer is no. ]

[A bitter, better laugh escapes Stefan's lips -] No.

[It's a truth he has longed to acknowledge for two whole weeks now. Stefan Salvatore had drowned in that underwater safe, and Qetsiyah's mindwipe had granted him a new leash on life. He was free from the roles and stories he had written for himself (he knows, he read the journals Damon had granted him). Just as he was free from the preconceived notions that everyone had in their head.

Stefan's supposed to be nice, compassionate, caring, almost a saint - but he sure doesn't feel like one. There's confidence in his eyes too, because even when Katherine insults him? She holds power and truth in those words.

(She wields them as well as Elena, he'd note later. They share more in common than he initially realized.)

He doesn't want to be the person they expect at Friendsgiving, but he had resigned himself to the inevitable and assumed that they would be expecting the old Stefan. The one who would carve the turkey and give a long, eloquent speech about the things he cherished within Mystic Falls. Those would all be lies.

It's now, he realizes, that he has a speech to rewrite and some tiramisu to whip up. He's not bringing alcohol to dinner anymore.]

I'm not who I used to be, and I've made peace with that. It's the rest of the world who hasn't caught up yet.

[ two years ago, katherine had hoped to sway stefan as she can see herself doing now. she had wanted to pull him back to her, somehow have them fit together as they had over a century ago. but she's since realised she's not that person anymore, so carefree yet strategic, so stupid to let love in once again and almost get her killed. (of course, katherine is that person, and will be in the future. it's hard to let go of one's true self.) ]

[ they can't fit back together as they had previously. he's shed that skin, and so has she. she's come to realise stefan's refused to acknowledge he's changed at all. perhaps this bout of amnesia's the wake up call he needs to break out of his boring stagnation. ]

And yet you care the world hasn't quite caught up with you yet. [ she tips her glass back to take a sip, fully knowing "the world" is only a select group of people from mystic falls. she doesn't need to acknowledge it verbally; she finds that isn't her angle here. ]

[ the point to being chased is to be caught. the point to running is to be free. katherine has always suspected stefan's been running from something, only to be caught up with it literally as he misconstrues it for chase. (isn't it why he came back to mystic falls after being gone for so long?) ]

[ she tilts her head toward him and regards him with a pointed look. ] Why, Stefan? [ her brows lift as her expression opens. ] Do you like being chased? I can tell you it's not fun with the wrong partner, and you're wearing awful shoes for it.

[Of course he cares.

Stefan can't find the so-called humanity switch, the one that's supposed to make him not care about the world and what they really think of him. Until he can flip it and suck the energy out, he's stuck with these lingering feelings. He wants to be liked. He wants to be reassured that it's okay to be whoever it is he wants to be, and he will still be loved.

(Truthfully, Damon had said that. Without actually saying so. It's hard for Stefan to wrap his head around, because his brother had never struck him as the type.)

In the end, he supposes, it still boils down to one person, and he may never know where he stands with her. If he'll even have a shot with her again.]

Of course I don't. I'm not chasing anything.

[But he glances down at his shoes, as if they would uncover a hidden truth.]

Also, if they're that bad? Maybe you should help me find the right ones.

[ that's a lie, but katherine keeps that tucked away for herself. ]

[ he's chasing a ghost. his amnesia's robbed him of the cross he often nails himself to, and without it, he can't flog himself without any reason. stefan's all about repenting over the past, but he gets so caught up in it he forgets to live in the present. she thinks he'd taught him how to do that, unfurl his wings and learn to balance himself as he flew. her "death" and betrayal had destroyed that, and so he's been caught in trying to fix a tear in his life. ]

[ he's so good at the game of chase. he'd once chased her around the gardens, past the statues, right to the steps of his childhood home. he's also good at chasing the need to ensure the house of cards everyone else builds for themselves is protected from the wind while his scatter from a gentle shove of its hand. as he's taken on that responsibility, he's forgotten what it's like to be chased. (and that's why she thinks his hackles had risen with her: being chased by the past he'd been so intent to outrun and replace couldn't be pretty.) ]

[ but she doesn't tell him any of this. stefan to her is something beautiful and ugly and annoying all at once, but even she knows that's not the true stefan. ]

[ she easily takes the cue to look down at his shoes, pursing her lips as she pretends to reconsider her stance on them. she tips back that glass to take a drink, her eyes never slipping away from what he wears on his feet. ]

You trust me to put your feet in the right shoes?

[Again with the trust.

Stefan knows now that their love story had ended on a sour note. They hadn't been on good terms back home. Maybe they still wouldn't be, were every single memory locked into place. Her question now, and her surprise back then, had almost confirmed it. The old Stefan wouldn't have tried to place his fate in her hands.

Quietly, as he reaches for his wine glass:] I trust you more than the world.

[It's not a yes, nor is it a no - he can't trust her so much as her honesty. She didn't hesitate to tell him that he shaped his own destiny, nor did she hesitate to imply that she didn't care about the old Stefan. Her opinion certainly wouldn't have changed. Right now, he values her honesty more than he values what could've been and what should've been.

The old Stefan definitely wouldn't have trusted her, let alone prepared a whole Thanksgiving meal. The new Stefan, the one sitting beside her, certainly knows that whatever lies ahead is a path of his own making. After all, he had chosen to have a one-on-one lunch with her in addition to the dinner with friends he could barely remember. He should've trusted in them, rather than her, and yet - he doesn't regret this choice. Not yet, anyway.]

[ katherine hides her growing smile behind her wine glass and a turn of her head, acting as though she's heard a snap of a twig from beneath the weight of a white hare in the distance. in her hands is now a weight that had never been there before, one that he's placed there of his own accord. and that's where she suspects her own power lies; this doesn't require so much untangling as understanding the mind-link to silas does. ]

[ there's the desire to reach out and grab what she wants. it's a dull ache that resides within her, and as tempting as it is to slip back into that warm and comfortable skin, she has another plan in mind. the silhouette she wears now is a little worse for wear, having collected dust over the years, but it still fits almost like it's a silk glove that requires her to fidget around until it sits just right. ]

[ placing her glass down on an even surface beneath the blanket, she rests her hand on the fabric and leans her weight onto it. regarding him over her shoulder, her expression isn't smug; it's kind, interested, as she would be when speaking to a friend like pearl. ] The world is very big, Stefan. [ just a reminder; it's big and brilliant and bright and still so unpredictable and angry in itself. ]

[ she tilts her gaze down and nods her head toward the food. ] If you don't eat that, I'm sure the white rabbit that's been hopping around here will.

I don't know. From where we're sitting, sometimes? It feels pretty small.

[If he's going to continue that metaphor, he might well as be honest - he feels like a fish out of water, floundering around until he takes that last desperate gasp for air. He has a bare-bones rundown and fragmented memories from home. He wants more: he wants context for the relationships he has with everyone, he wants to know how he earned an invite to Friendsgiving despite his brother's betrayal, and he especially wants to know the tiny, little details about himself that he wouldn't think to ask.

Katherine offers answers. So far, they've felt honest - and he'll have to trust his instincts from here on out.

(His instincts aren't screaming to go. That's good, right?)

At the mention of food, he grabs utensils and plates and starts to serve them. Turkey, stuffing, even the salad gets perfectly portioned out.]

I will, I will - but you'll have to help me. Between you and me, I hear the rabbit hates turkey.

Edited (changed up dialogue ;;) 2017-01-22 08:00 (UTC)

[ being a vampire means her dietary requirements are simple, but she's never quite forgotten what it's like to feast upon a great banquet and enjoy herself in such celebrations. she just hasn't been invited to too many over the last few centuries, what with faking her death and remaining in the shadows of what should've been her proper life. ]

[ the last time she'd ever eaten, she thinks of mason lockwood, of jolene and those little friends of hers in pennsylvania. those moments had been kind to her when they shouldn't have been, much like the present one she's found herself in. ]

[ she watches him for a moment, finding that this is all too strange to her. it brings back a sense of deja vu, but katherine knows it doesn't quite fit in the past where she'd otherwise find it. stefan salvatore being kind to her has always been as unpredictable as her own actions to those who never bother to get to know her. ]

Aren't you very lucky, then? [ the rabbit disliking turkey, or for katherine being with him right now to fend it off if it chooses to like turkey suddenly. ] The world is only as small as you let it be, Stefan. [ she glances around. she's always liked the grounds of wonderland, preferring it for how freeing it feels. ] It looks pretty big to me.

Hm. Then maybe I've been looking at it from the wrong angle.

[While Stefan would be the first to blame himself, and dive down into that impossible abyss of self-loathing, he's also the first to try and change himself for the better. If the world - if Wonderland - has been this kind to Katherine, then maybe it can treat him with that same compassion and generosity.

He sure hopes so, anyway, as he finishes portioning a plate and hands one over to her. Stefan can't guess at what she likes (or dislikes), given that neither of them need food to survive, so he's made an educated - and probably instinctive - guess.]

Leave the old world, and uh - see what the new has to offer? So to speak?

[ you've always been looking at it from the angle. ]

[ she thinks to say it, but doesn't. because so has she — five hundred years she's spent running, believing herself to be a survivor, when she's begun to look at the world from a different viewpoint and realised that she has only survived by behaving like a victim. ]

[ if katherine is thankful for anything, it's not only her tenacity and ability to frustrate even the oldest and most stubborn of people, but it's her ability to continue to reinvent herself. it's also what she's not thankful for, as she sits here now, feeling like she's a little lost, unsure of who katherine pierce is, and doesn't have the stefan she knows to remind her. ]

[ of course, if this was her stefan, she'd be cast as the big, bad, evil bitch who ruins everyone's lives. but at least it's a label she can wear and knows how to, even if it's not true nor fair to her. ]

[ she takes the proffered plate, placing it down on the blanket beside her. she looks at him and asks, ] Do you want some unsolicited advice, Stefan?

[Is it unsolicited if she asks first? Stefan shrugs, as if it's no big deal - ]

Sure. Tell me whatever's on your mind.

[He doesn't know that he would've normally said such a thing with dripping sarcasm, or that he wouldn't normally listen to her every word as it mattered. As if she were more than the big bad vampire who ruined his entire world with one little action.

For better or worse, she's essentially a blank slate, and he's seeing every nuance in bright, vivid color.]

[ advice from katherine is always unwanted, even when they ask. she can't say she's ever wanted to give advice in the first place.]

[ she weighs her words for only a moment, and then decides to dive right in. ]

The old world and new world you speak of is the exact same world, Stefan. You're just looking at it from a different perspective.

[ it's a lesson she had learned on her own, back in the 1400s. when she had lost her baby, she had believed the world to be so cruel. once she had come to england, she thought it to be new, when it was only an extension of the one she'd been disowned from. it'd spun on its axis and had continued to give her a cruel hand, before she'd decided to take it within her own palms and become the very thing that spins it. ]

[ she leans back, palm pressed against the blanket. easily, she remarks, ] Only idiots believe there's a new and old world, and that they have to wait for it to offer them it on a platter. Take what you want, Stefan. You're not getting any younger.

[ A broken perspective, perhaps. Deep down, Stefan knows that he can't really separate the old from the new. He had burned his journals out of anger, and frustration, and even a little despair. He wasn't the man that either Damon or Elena wanted him to be, and with all the emotional distance between them, he wanted to deny them.

(He still does. Kind of.)

The worst part is, Katherine's right. Every single time he denies the gulf between old-Stefan and new-Stefan, he denies himself. He denies the world. He also denies those who share said world with him.

"Yeah, but I'm not getting older," he might've once said in return. Yet, he helps himself to his meal, using it to stall for words.]

I suppose that makes me the biggest idiot, then. [He laughs, not unkindly.] Guess it wouldn't hurt to be a little more selfish.

[ he is the biggest idiot, but katherine doesn't think to remind him of it. sitting out here with her, being kind to her — the stefan she knows would think himself to be an idiot if he so much as entertained the idea of being around her of his own accord. he'd perhaps even laugh if it was brought up to him, and say something cruel in return. but katherine knows she's also an idiot for enjoying this — and not in the way many think katherine enjoys much in life. she's truly enjoying herself, as she once had in his company in 1864, as she had with pearl. ]

[ she looks up at him, lips curved up in amusement. playfully, she chides, ] Watch yourself, Stefan. You wouldn't want to be too selfish. Some would say I've become a bad influence on you if you do.

[In return, he sets down his food and holds a single finger to his lips, in that universal shushing motion. Stefan's shoulders are shaking too much, though, for him to ever pull off that stern librarian look.]

What they don't know won't hurt them.

[He means it, too. Stefan would rather hold this close to his chest than broadcast it to the whole world, because if he doesn't? It could be ripped from his hands too.

(Like everything else he had once had.)

A good Stefan might've decided not to play with fire, but that Stefan isn't here, and he's enjoying himself too much to care.] As long as I'm still me, that's ultimately all that matters.

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