Stefan POV

Our Words Are All Remainders

He is nothing like him. When he smiles, there is none of that shark-like snide and humorless grimace that Damon calls a smile. Boone's smile reaches his eyes. They make you believe that there is something in the world that could make him happy enough. There is the stubbornness, the 'I don't need a savior even when I'm drowning' edge to Boone. It makes me think that if something horrible ever happened to him, he'll chalk it up to experience. He won't make his brother's life a living hell for years and years. He won't make it hurt forever.

I ask myself, what does it mean? What does it mean to have him beside me? To have his skin pressed against me. To have his mouth, open and wet against my chest.

It's funny because he doesn't mind. Not at all. He knows he looks like Damon but he doesn't care. The night I saw him, I strode up to him and told him in not so kind words to leave me the hell alone. I told him that I couldn't bring Katherine back. I told him that she was never coming back. He looked at me as if I had slapped him in the face. "Do I know you?," he said. For a full minute, I thought it was a game, I thought Damon was fucking with me again. After all, it's his favorite pastime.

I must have been desperate to take him home. I must have missed Damon on some level. I swore to myself that I was just going to talk to him. I did not intend to pull his shirt off, to fit my hands against a waist that is a bit thinner than the one who shares his image. I didn't mean to kiss him. I didn't mean to hold him close. But Boone doesn't pull away. He returns my kiss just as hotly. He puts his head on my shoulder as if it belonged there. And all through it, I couldn't stop touching his face. I couldn't stop running my hands all over his face. I wish he didn't have this face.

He's nothing like Damon. He has never done anything to me that I didn't want done. I wonder if he reminds me of Damon long ago, when we were real brothers. But even then, there was some unnamed emotion. There was this undercurrent of love that had nothing to do with family and everything to do with desire.

What does it mean? I should be repulsed. I should want to gouge my eyes out. I should want to die. Sometimes, I ask Boone to pretend: 'Hey, brother. How are you doing, brother? Where do we go from here, brother?' In this game, there is no Katherine. In my game, there never was.

When he figures out who Damon is, I want him to run, screaming. I want him to find this more horrifying then the look of my face when I am hungry. "I have one of these," is what he says. "Shannon is beautiful and lovely and brave and there were moments where I didn't want to stop touching her." Boone gets it. He understands so well. He's loved someone too.