[ even such a small sip a blood feels warm in his belly, despite the bottle having not been heated. it's the first time he's ingested human blood since damon and elena had to lock him up in the cellar to detox after he got too wrapped up in how good it felt to be at full strength again and let himself spiral out of control. he instantly regrets doing that, chastising himself for being so impulsively idiotic, even if his little lie seemed to do the trick he intended it to. stefan tells himself he can handle it this time, that this is one sip and nothing more. elena's a vampire right now, she's not a temptation. the only person he's around regularly who would be is river and-- no, he wouldn't do that to the girl. he can keep himself under control. one sip is just one sip. he's fine. stupid, but fine. ]

She's not a fan of yours, for obvious reasons. Can't say I blame her.

[ stefan surrenders the bottle, shrugging at the tail end of his own comment, eyes fixated upon the bottle as she shakes it at him. maybe just one more-- no. one sip it will remain. just a single sip. he pulls gaze up, staring at her face instead. part of him wants to hoard their cover and not share, but he knows not sharing will lead to slip ups and even though katherine is katherine, that there's still the issue with being vampires and people not taking kindly to them. even here, where the are vampires who are out in the open with what they are. (foolish of them, stefan thinks, but he keeps that opinion to himself.) ]

Damon and I are what we are: brothers. Parents died in a car accident, Damon's his little brother's sole guardian. Lexi is our cousin and Elena is what she is, too: [ "i came back for you" rings in his ears as he delivers, a little more edged than the rest of his speech-- ] my girlfriend. Just a normal group of people from a small town in Virginia without any knowledge of the supernatural.