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For Elena, being without humanity was very much like being in a house that had burned down around her.
All the comfort and warmth of a home replaced by blackened beams and scorched walls; with broken, half-destroyed photo frames encircling nothing but ash.
It was numbness. Darkness. Silence.
There was no emotion.
But there was... instinct; and hunger. The ever-present rage that kept her foot firmly on that switch. And a strange fascination with playing with fire.
This was why Elijah's sudden appearance and the kiss that had driven the breath from her lungs and sent a simmer of resentment to warm somewhere in the very depths of her chest, did not quite make Elena want to run.
It should have. Elijah was a threat.
"You listen very carefully to me, Stefan, if anything whatsoever happens to Katherine, I will descend upon Elena."
Elena rolled her eyes. Bored.
He was a threat but not because of the reasons she was sure Stefan and Damon were probably freaking out about right now. Not because he could "descent upon her" and tear her to pieces before she could so much as flinch back - she wasn't sure if she'd care if he did and it was moot anyway, he wasn't going to. She knew what it looked like when Elijah made a genuine threat and this here was as empty as it came.
Likewise, he wasn't a threat because he could compel her humanity back - no, Elena knew he wouldn't.
Elijah wasn't a threat because of who he was. He was a threat because of who he'd become to the Elena that was at the moment safely buried under the burned-down remains of her humanity.
That other, more foolish Elena might have done her very best to remain ignorant but the Elena she was right now did not bother with the guilty white lies she'd told herself then.
Elena had always been a little bit too aware of Elijah; had seen a little bit too much behind the curtain. Found herself just a little too defensive of their interactions.
Found it just a smidge too hard to look away.
It was the way her name on his lips felt like a caress; the way she'd felt his eyes like a touch even as she did look away; the way his letter had gotten tucked in a dark little corner beneath her mattress so that it was close at hand and yet safely out of view from accidental discovery.
Most of all Elijah had been the one person around whom everything within her had sharpened into bright, sharp focus. Their negotiations - a dance between two players, the threat of the consequences she'd face if she failed to see the hidden pitfalls in their deals making her mind run on all cylinders. But also the breath of fresh air that was his respect of her as an opponent, - or an ally, or a person, - making her feel like she actually had agency over her own choices for a change.
Even during the moments when everything had inevitably gone to hell again and their gazes slashed betrayal and regret into the other...
Elena knew where her heart had been slowly heading.
Where it might have landed if things had been different. If he hadn't left, if she hadn't gotten entrapped in a sire bond so all-encompassing that the only breath of freedom she'd felt in months was after she'd followed that last command and the voiceless scream Elena had not even noticed in the back of her head had faded into gray alongside her grief.
And all this meant that Elena should be trying to get as far away from Elijah as fast as possible.
But something spiteful and rattling made her want to poke the beehive more.
"You're both idiots," she informed him.
"Excuse me?"
She exhaled loudly to show her annoyance. "What happened to you, Elijah? I mean, I thought you were supposed to be a man of honor. And yet you've been hooking up with Katherine this entire time?"
It wasn't jealousy, with the switch turned off she was safe from that. She didn't - couldn't - care that he'd apparently been shacking up with her doppelganger since leaving Mystic Falls. But the idea that he was yet another man who couldn't tell the difference between her and Katherine grated against something sharp, leaving a metallic taste at the back of her throat.
Irritation? Yeah, that was it.
Being without emotions wasn't quite like being without feelings.
It's just that what feelings were there were surface-level and mercurial. And right now they were spite and irritation and the urge to scrape a bloody claw over some of the soft tissue Elijah had exposed to Elena when he'd run his fingers over the strand of hair encircling her face and told her he'd missed her while thinking her someone else.
She wondered how long it had taken him to lose all common sense.
Katherine did always seem to work fast; had a curious knack for inserting herself in the spans at just the right moment for maximum personal gain.
She could almost admire it were it not for how it also likewise always ended with Elena needing to deal with the consequences of Katherine's actions.
Or with her brother cold, and dead, and gone forever.
"Well, I suppose this man of honor always shared a connection with Katherine. She contacted me when she learned about the Cure. We thought we could be of mutual use to one another." Elijah’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact, his turned back making it impossible for Elena to read whatever the true thoughts behind the words.
She wondered why it was that he seemed to be avoiding Elena's eyes now. Guilt for kissing the wrong woman? Shame for not having recognized that she wasn't Katherine? And damn if that alone wasn't encouragement enough to keep her own humanity well and truly dead.
Guilt was useless. Pathetic. And had been one of the bricks she'd laid in the path that led her straight down into the hell that was her sire bond to Damon.
"Of mutual use," she mocked him with sudden mirth. "Please. You fell for her trap just like every other one of those idiots."
"You underestimate me, Elena. I know who she is. I know what she's done." There was something about the way he was straightening his cuff-links, about the way he walked past her, forcing Elena to turn on her heel if she wanted to keep her eyes on him. Something about the way Elijah still kept his head turned, that made her think there were thoughts he was trying to keep concealed.
"And you think she's changed?" Was he really that blind? She looked into his eyes as he finally stopped in his circling and faced her. "She's playing you, she lied to you, Elijah."
"She didn't lie to me about your transformation," he contested, something sad flickering briefly over his face.
And then he seemed to truly look at Elena, with eyes that in any other circumstances would have pinned her in place and made nervous little butterflies flutter their wings in her stomach. In these circumstances however all Elena felt were faint echoes of hunger that reminded her that she hadn't ended up snacking on that redhead Katherine had compelled and Elena and Rebekah had used to find her.
"You're not just a vampire, though, are you?" he said and stepped closer, narrowing the distance between them until they were nearly as close to one another as they'd been when he'd slid his fingers over the back of her neck and pulled her face against his own. When he'd kissed her mid-word and she'd felt blood roar against her eardrums; felt his lips on hers and his fingers in her hair. Sensation running through her nerves, lighting them up like Christmas lights in December and--
...a flush of heat from within the heart that should be frozen over reminded Elena that playing with fire was only fun as long as she didn't let the bitter burn ignite into a fire.
Elijah stared at her like he could see straight through her into that wall protecting Elena from her pain and... Elena went blank, pushing even harder against the switch, smoothing annoyance into apathy - attraction into boredom - until all Elijah could possibly touch would be the frozen surface of a still lake. Cold and smooth, without cracks to be exploited.
"There's... something else. You're not yourself. You've abandoned your emotions, why?"
Because she'd died with Damon’s blood in her system. Because she'd become a walking, talking doll that did what she was bid. Because her sire told her to and the poor, sired fledge that she was, she'd had no choice but to obey.
She would never allow herself to become that again. She wouldn't let them win.
"My brother's dead," she said instead and finished vindictively in a monotone meant to cut. "Your girlfriend killed him."
Real shock crashed over his expression and Elena felt a vague twist in her stomach. Relief? No. She was free of relief, and why would it bring her that particular feeling anyway? "You didn't know?"
Katherine hadn't told him.
Then she snorted, surprised by her own surprise. "Of course you didn't."
Why would Katherine have said something that might make Elijah see exactly how little it was that she'd changed?
"She lied." There was anger in his eyes now. Disappointment. But strangely no hurt.
Something snagged against that last observation; something minor beginning to nag at the back of her brain.
'I missed you,' Elijah had whispered against Elena's lips.
But the Cure that was giving Elena such a headache recently had only shown up on the scene in the past few months. How long ago could Katherine have called him? How long could it have possibly been since the last time Elijah saw Katherine?
Mind whirring she kept herself still, staring back into Elijah’s eyes and not letting a hint of her thoughts through. Letting Elijah see only that absence of humanity as she answered with words that would give him nothing. "I hate to say I told you so but... duh."
Who exactly had Elijah thought he was kissing when he'd joined her under the roof of that gazebo?
Katherine? Or... Elena?