taxonomites | 4 | [ location: the taxon zoo / visual ]

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4 | [ location: the taxon zoo / visual ]

While Taxon is a city of decent size, it is also rather sleepy and quiet outside of any glitches. When Katherine set out and about earlier, she hadn't specifically intended to visit the zoo. As it is, it's as good a place as any for the vampire to roam about (despite the distinctive smells the place is ripe with) in effort to ease the boredom creeping in again. Angelus had been a delightful change of pace, but that is over and done with. And now Rose has been sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, telling Stefan about being her sire. Katherine would definitely have to do something about that soon.

She passes the wolf paddock with distasteful sniff, heading towards the big cat enclosures instead. While Katherine has never really seen the appeal in gawking at trapped wild animals, she has to admit that there is something vaguely calming about watching the small pride of lions basking in the sun as if they hadn't a care in the world. It's almost enviable, really.

The trouble with calm is that it inevitably leads to idleness and boredom, at least it does with Katherine - and that's exactly what she's trying to avoid. Hence, she turns her attention towards her tablet.

"Going to the zoo just isn't much fun alone. Anyone want to join me?" she smiles winsomely at the screen. "Doesn't matter whether I know you or not. One can never have too many friends."

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She certainly wasn't expecting that. Katherine wrinkles her nose, not quite certain whether to be more amused or bemused.

"Why would you--" she cuts herself off, shaking her head and laughing a little. "You know what, never mind. I think I can do without knowing."

"It was the seventies," he says anyway, pulling at leaves of a bush whose branches wrap themselves around the bars of the barrier that's supposed to prevent them from entering the lion's habitat. "I may or may not have been on an acid trip at the time."

Sorry, Stefan. Katherine can't quite suppress a snicker at that.

"I hope there were no witnesses to this snack of yours," she smirks. "Or if there were, they were as tripped out as you."

Edited 2011-04-04 21:56 (UTC)

"No, no witnesses," he confirms, busying himself with stripping the leaves off the branch closest to him. It's an old, bad habit of his. When he feels the need to fidget, he usually finds something to do with his hands and focuses on what's in them instead of the urge to move around and tug at the edges of his clothing and pick at the chips of paint that were starting to crack and peel from the railing.

He drops the handful of leaves he's collected into the lion's pen, but they don't seem to care, if they even noticed. "You never drank animal blood?"

Katherine watches the leaves flutter noiselessly onto the ground, turning her head to look at Stefan's profile at his question. In her head, she's taken back to the time right after the transformation when she was so ravenous she'd eaten almost anything that crossed her path, wondering if the hunger would ever abate.

"I did occasionally. Sometimes you have to manage however you can. If that meant eating a horse here or a wolf there, then so be it," Katherine murmurs, "But I never made a habit out of it. I decided early on to prefer human blood. Not only for the superior taste, but because I needed to be as strong as I possibly could while on the run. To be able to use every ability I had to its fullest."

The deciding factor had been survival for Katherine, especially during the first few decades. When she'd had no money to pay for a train ticket or a ship voyage to whatever destination she needed to reach, she couldn't take the risk of her compulsion wearing off and revealing her fraud.

Stefan files that knowledge away for later use, more backing for his reasoning behind going back on the human blood diet. While he often didn't compel people back home for moral reasons more so than limited strength, when he did - and namely with the more complicated stuff - there had been the tendency for it to wear off in the past. Compelling a carnival worker to go on break or a school official to overlook missing records was one thing; getting a traumatized teenage girl to forget that Damon had chewed on her neck was another and Vicki had broken through his compulsion of her easily enough.

Moral reasons for abstaining from human blood were starting to become more and more overshadowed by the necessity to stay strong. He's not going to voice this mirroring of her words, though. Just sit here and pull more at the poor, nearly skeleton bare branch of that bush and toss more leaves in to the lion's cage.

"Must've been hard," he settles on instead. "Running all the time. Anytime you wanted to stay somewhere, you had to pack your bags and move on. That's how it was, wasn't it?"

Katherine is silent for a moment. It was hard and that's exactly how it was, but she doesn't really think about it too much. It's just something she does, something she has to do. She's done it for so long that it's become a way of life rather than a habit. Still, that didn't meant she doesn't feel the strain of it all sometimes, the constant moving around and looking over her shoulder, never being able to form any lasting bonds to anyone. Stefan's words serve to highlight the fact that truthfully she is lonely (whether or not she's actually aware of this herself) and weary, but admitting something so personal doesn't come easy to Katherine. The only admission she can muster is a quick nod of her head.

"At least I got to see the world," she says, more casually than she feels. "Living out of a suitcase is an infinitely better option than having your blood spilled over some silly rock to break that stupid curse."

Nice use of your grown-up words, Katherine.

"That's unhealthy, you know," Stefan points out, boldly. He turns around so that he can lean back against the railing. "Just skipping over it all, pretending what you feel isn't there. It's okay to deal with it. I may not agree with things you did to people for your own personal gain, but I do understand your plight and the reasoning behind it. I'd be upset - anyone would. Just because we have emotional switches doesn't mean we're meant to turn them off. Vampires wouldn't be gifted with the ability to feel so deeply if we weren't meant to feel."

You appreciated Stefan's empathic nature, right, Katherine?

Edited 2011-04-07 17:04 (UTC)

"It might be okay, but I don't want to," Katherine almost whines, a touch of her actual age showing through. "Feeling things has rarely worked out particularly well. It's so much easier not to."

The thing with Katherine is that she doesn't want to deal with the bad things, she just wants to enjoy the good ones. Turning to face Stefan so that she's leaning her side against the railing and giving him a look through her lashes, Katherine lowers her tone into a soft murmur. "But I don't pretend not to feel everything, you know."

You can probably guess what she means by that, Stefan.

Oh, he can guess and this works to his advantage. While part of his interest in spending time with Katherine is rooted in genuine curiosity and honestly feeling bad for what happened to her (initially, for that which followed was of her own doing and frankly she deserved what came of her selfish actions), the other is purely for personal gain in the hopes of holding her attention to keep it off others and possibly get more information out of her. It's why he lifts a hand to her cheek for a moment, then drops it back to his side.

"I know."

The lions and the zoo are forgotten, for Katherine's concentration is fully on Stefan. The fleeting touch to her cheek reminds Katherine of a similar action on the night of the Founder's party in 1864 and the words Stefan had spoken to her afterward, walking her to her room. Stefan has made his feelings on the things he'd told her back then perfectly clear, but Katherine simply can't resist the temptation.

"Does your entire body still ignite at the touch of my skin?" she asks softly, a teasing half-smile on her lips.

Her echoing of his words surprises him, and for a moment, he's unsure of what to say or do - should he reign it in and take a step back, or pursue course? While Stefan is unwilling to do something that would jeopardize his relationship with Elena (even more than him sneaking around her back to play this game of his, of course), he's invested in holding her attention. Her feelings for him are a good way to keep her interested, and he keeps that in mind as he makes his next move.

Stefan takes a step closer, then another and another until he's standing mere centimeters away from her. "Perhaps," he says decidedly, then steps around her and make a b-line at a normal, human pace for the tiger pen next to the lion's.

Katherine stands still as Stefan invades her personal space, holding his gaze for as long as she can until he steps around her. Inhaling deeply, she smiles a small grin at the deliciousness of it all. She'd meant to unsettle him a little with those words, prod him slightly - she didn't expect Stefan to up the stakes even though she probably should have. He was full of surprises, of late. It was hot.

A game, then; a dance. Katherine loves both. She had been right all those years ago. Stefan was the better dancer out of the brothers.

With an impish smile on her lips, she twirls gracefully around on her heel and clasps her hands loosely behind her back as she saunters leisurely after Stefan, her heels clicking against the pavement every few seconds. She doesn't hurry to catch up. Much as she was normally the one to set the pace and be the one others followed, it gives her something of a secret thrill now to slowly trail a few steps behind Stefan. It appeals to the predatory side of her, a little like stalking a prey. The knowledge that Stefan could hold his own only makes it more exciting.

"That wasn't the only thing you told me that night," she breaks the silence between them, still keeping a good few steps away, "Do you remember?"

In response to her question, Stefan stops walking and turns around. "I know we've only known each other for a short while," he says as he walks back towards her, allowing that old Virginian drawl to seep back into his voice, a remnant of the Old South that modern Virginians seemed to lack and Stefan himself had shed some time ago, "and I know I am in competition for your affections, but I've never met a woman quite like you."

Stefan may be very good at dancing - in more ways than one - but he wasn't necessarily fond of it. Not anymore. Yet, he'd started this game, and stubbornly, he wasn't about to throw in the towel just yet. He wasn't willing to give up that advantage and this reeled her in and helped keep her focus on him and off everyone else.

"I look at you and I see an angel."

Oh, yes. Katherine hasn't forgotten the reality, everything that had happened that had made access to this Stefan she remembers away from her and most importantly, ugh, Elena. But she has no interest to think about all that right now. She'd much rather take every opportunity to enjoy every second of these stolen moments in this curious little game they're playing.

"Mm, you do remember," she delights softly, taking a step forward herself until she's closer to him than is necessary. Tilting her face up to look at Stefan in the eyes, she adds on a whisper, "And what else?"

She wants to hear that very thing that caught her so off guard that night. If Stefan was willing to play the game, he had to be prepared to finish it; those were the rules. It was funny, how Katherine only cared about following the rules when they suited her purposes somehow.

Edited 2011-04-09 19:47 (UTC)

The logical part of Stefan's brain is screaming at him to take a step back, to stop this trip down memory lane, but he continues on, despite better judgment. Oh, Stefan. What are you doing?

"You stole my line a moment ago, but I suppose for continuity's sake, I shall repeat it," he remarks slipping out of the drawl for a moment, then laying it on thick again. He mimics his earlier actions in lifting his hand to her cheek, fingers grazing her skin while his touch linger. "To touch your skin...my entire body ignites. I kiss you and I know that I am falling in love."

Stefan, this would be where you should end the game and stop. And yet he just stands there.

Despite her best effort to keep mindful of the situation and let the game be just that, a game, Katherine's feelings for Stefan are playing interference. Her original intents and purposes are slipping away, replaced with baser instincts and desires.

Her eyelids flutter at Stefan's touch and her gaze strays involuntarily to his mouth where it lingers for a moment before she meets his again. Inching yet a tiny bit closer, Katherine boldly lifts her own hand and settles it against his chest, over his heart.

"And then what happened...?" she hushes, nearly breathless with anticipation.

Stefan swallows roughly, forcing himself not to shy away from her touch. He silently weighs his options in his head, knowing fully if he moves the next piece on this game board, there's not a person who won't be cross with him for it and hurt by it, nor anyone who will understand what he's doing. They're too behind to get it. If he doesn't move, that could potentially piss Katherine off to the point where she'd shun him and look for entertainment and attention elsewhere. He's going to hate himself for this later, but he can't risk losing the trust he's gained (or thinks he's gained), that connection to information that may prove vital in saving Elena's life should the hamsters ever bring one of the Originals or, God forbid, Klaus himself here.

"Then," he says, craning his head down towards hers. "And then, I--"

And then he does it. He kisses her.

Damon is going to kill him if Elena doesn't get to him first. Stefan tells himself that protecting them from Katherine is worth how upset they're going to be with him.

Katherine had half-expected Stefan to pull back, to shake her off and remind her that this wasn't 1864. She had not expected Stefan to kiss her, but she's too delighted to be surprised. While they may have started out reenacting the scene from 1864, Katherine's response to the kiss is not the soft, demure one she gave him that night. This is hungry and carnal, possessive, even; the hand on his chest slides up to the back of his neck as if to keep him from changing his mind as she kisses him thoroughly, plastering her front against his.

She moans a little from the back of her throat as she pulls back from the kiss and opens her eyes that had slipped shut. She doesn't move other than to bring her hand from his neck to brush her fingers against his jawline. "Oh, Stefan. I've missed you so much."

About the time her fingers touch the back of his neck, Stefan realizes he's made a grave mistake. All instincts are screaming for him to pull away, shove her off of him and run, but he's convinced that doing so now would only make things worse. What started out as a way of catching her attention and keeping it centered on him is quickly spiraling out of control, and all Stefan can do is stand there and let her kiss him; kissing her back takes a bit more effort, but he manages it. It's like acting the part of one of the many covers he's donned over the past century and a half.

When she pulls back, Stefan has to stop himself from caving to the urge to snap the wrist attached to the hand at face, instead lifting his hands to settle his palms against her cheeks. He doesn't trust himself to say anything in response to that, instead murmuring her name - "Katherine." - and kissing her again, mimicking - or reciprocating, as he hopes it seems - her own intensity.

He is going to go home and stake himself after this. Dear God, what is he doing?

That's right, Katherine, not Elena. Although in the back of her mind Katherine senses there's something slightly off in Stefan's response, as intense as it is - a certain lack of similar passion that there had been with the glitched mistletoe during Christmas when Stefan had mumbled out Elena's name while kissing her - it's overshadowed by the sheer sense of victory and empowerment Katherine feels over the fact that finally, it's her name on Stefan's lips and not her dull doppelgänger's. This was the way it should be.

In her enthusiasm, she pushes Stefan against the railing by the tiger enclosure. "I knew you'd come around eventually," she mutters against his lips amidst the kisses, "I knew you still had feelings for me."

The fallout for this can only be horrifically bad.

Stefan had feelings alright, but they weren't exactly positive ones, but all that's overpowered by the revulsion he feels for himself and his own actions. Yet, he doesn't stop. He knows he should, but he doesn't. Not just yet, he tells himself. Not just yet.

He turns them around, flipping their positions far quicker than he should in public, even if there's no-one but the animals to bear witness to this. Stefan lifts Katherine up and sets her on the railing, drawing her legs around his waist as he grabs hold of the bar with one hand to steady them, and puts the other on the small of her back to keep her from falling backwards. Not that the fall would kill her and the urge to toss her into the pit with tigers is there and strong, but that would only end in dead tigers and one pissed off vampire who could easily rip him limb from limb without breaking a sweat.

"You make every part of me feel as if I were aflame," he breathes against her mouth.

The hamsters could strike him down right then and there and he would not argue with it. Katherine is going to kill him when she finds out he's just acting.

Katherine laughs a breathless little chuckle against Stefan's mouth at his action, thrilled at his display of impulsiveness. She winds her legs tighter about his middle, drawing him impossibly closer while she continues kissing him, her hands roaming his chest and shoulders.

"Yes, yes," is the only thing she can gasp out, his words intensifying her need like tossing fuel to the fire. Katherine nips at his mouth in a demanding manner with her teeth, hips rolling suggestively against him as one hand fists in his hair. The pesky little thing called self-control is fast slipping away; she'd much rather have gratification than control right now. She's this close to dragging Stefan by the collar of his shirt into whatever private corner that is the closest so they can properly get down to business.

Oh, Stefan, she won't kill you. Just hurt you. As for anyone else, well, that's a different story.

That nip triggers something primal in Stefan that's coiled up around the anger and disappoint he feels for himself, and his face turns mid-kiss, his teeth lengthening and sharpening against her mouth. He groans when her hips move against his, desperately searching for some way to end this before it goes too far, despite his continued reciprocation of her touches, the continued kissing of her lips. If he pulls away without reason, she may catch on, may--

Never has Stefan been more grateful for the interruption of an Extra. A janitor working here at the zoo, judging from the sound of the rough bristles of a broom brushing against the pebbled pavement.

He grabs hold of the opportunity and lurches away from Katherine, face still turned, and grabs the offending man, slamming him up against an empty snack vendors cart by the throat. His fangs are being brandished and he's snarling at the poor janitor, but what seems like anger at being interrupted is anger at himself being directed at the unfortunate native.

Katherine groans in pleasure as she feels the sharpness of his fangs against her lips and tongue, the sensation tugging at a corresponding string in her just right; the hedonist in her indulges it freely, allowing her own face to turn in response.

The disrupting noises and Stefan's sudden absence serve to cool her ardor like a bucket of cold water, instantly eliciting a wave of annoyance. Clasping both hands around the rail on either side of her body to steady herself, she drops her feet back to the ground and leans the small of her back against the railing while watching Stefan, breathless from their kisses and enraptured by the magnificence of his ferocity.

Katherine's ire at being interrupted, her desire and Stefan's primal responses are all blending together into an all-consuming red haze. The predator is coming out to play, and it's never particularly pretty.

"Do it, Stefan," she almost growls between panting breaths, running the tip of her tongue over her teeth. Her tone turns dark and sultry as she adds, "Get rid of him so we can get back to what we were doing."

Katherine wouldn't care even if it was an actual human at this point, so killing one useless Extra means nothing to her. She just wants him gone and Stefan back in her arms, nothing else matters.

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;

the predator in me is put to shame by the predator in her;