Sleeping Beauty by Elektra Pendragon Matt was asleep on the couch by the time Stefan came home. It was well past midnight and probably on towards the morning, but he didn't bother looking at the clock to make sure. He was home, which was all that mattered. Matt was curled up on his side, still fully dressed in jeans and an overlarge sweatshirt. At least his shoes were kicked off onto the floor. His glasses rested askew on the table by the couch, the thick curve of the lenses threatening to become scuffed from lying glass-to-glass with the tabletop. Stefan stepped over Matt's worn-out tennis shoes and rescued the spectacles, carefully folding the curved wire earpieces down and setting them face-up on the table. Stefan carefully sat on the edge of the couch by Matt's feet to watch him sleep. His socked toes hid under the couch cushions, and his legs were bent and folded beneath him to fit his long body into the small space afforded between the armrests. His hands were tucked tight around his chest, hugging his own body-warmth close in the absence of a blanket. Firmly cuddled into a thick pillow stolen from their bedroom, Matt's sleep-smooth face was mostly concealed within the warm, flannel-covered down. Scrunched up on the too-short couch, Matt looked almost too comfortable to wake, despite the sore muscles Stefan knew he'd have in the morning. The couch was no place to sleep, but Matt refused to sleep in their bed without Stefan, and even someone as stubborn as his lover couldn't stay up forever waiting for him. Matt wasn't a young man anymore. Stefan reached out, laying his hand lightly on Matt's calf, rubbing his fingers over the well-worn jeans. His skin was warm through the thick denim, and it was reassuring to feel his lover again, solid and safe. It felt like years that he'd been away. Matt slowly came to awareness, his eyes scrunching tight before opening. He turned his head and blinked up at Stefan for several moments before he seemed to fully recognize him. Then a slow smile spread across his face. Stefan found himself falling in love all over again with the way Matt's eyes crinkled in the corners, leaving deep lines of laughter that never went away. Somewhere in his mind, the memory of dandelion-fluff hair tumbling over Matt's sleepy eyes overlapped his vision of a military-style buzzcut and hazy, myopic gaze. It was a brief flash, a stab of bright pain in his heart as he felt with all the weight of morality just how much time had passed since they had first met, how long the days had been since he'd last been home. Time had never seemed to matter to Stefan until now. Once upon a time, centuries passed, generations were born and buried, and he barely felt them. Now, he would give anything for time to slow, just for a moment, so they could both linger here for centuries more. Matt rolled over on his back, careful not to dislodge Stefan's hand on his leg as he stretched out. He was still waking up, but he tilted his chin and gave Stefan the look that always meant he'd liked to be kissed now. Stefan slid his fingers up Matt's leg, skating his thigh before he lost his hands in the cushions. He held himself up over his lover, climbing his long body until he could bring his lips to Matt's mouth. Just a soft, lazy mesh of lips and tongue, enough to remember just how good it felt, to ground Stefan in being home again, to bring Matt out of his dreams. He could feel it when Matt was finally there with him, completely. His hands stroked up Stefan's ribcage, slid through his hair, gripped his shoulders and pulled. Stefan was so much more powerful, so much more solid than Matt, and for a brief second he feared hurting his mortal lover. He could hear a young Matt's voice in his mind, insisting he wasn't a flower, couldn't be crushed or hurt or killed simply from Stefan's touch. Stefan melted into Matt's insistence, letting his body find the right angle and come to rest across his chest. He shifted, sliding a leg between Matt's open thighs, letting him take on the full weight of his body. Matt made a noise in the back of his throat, a satisfied moan as he broke off the slowly escalating kisses to look Stefan in the face. "Was it him?" Stefan broke his gaze, burying his face into the soft, downy pillow beside Matt's head. For a moment he blocked out the past few days, the weeks before that, the decades before that. There was nothing but Matt--Matt's smell, Matt's body, Matt's gentle touches down his back. Stefan wriggled his arms under his lover's back to cup sharp shoulderblades in his palms. For a moment, the need to hold him, embrace him completely, overwhelmed Stefan with all his strength. Matt was not a flower, but he was still mortal. Stefan could kill him with an unguarded touch, an unguarded emotion. Stefan turned his head, rubbing his nose along the sharp stubble of Matt's jaw. "No. Some human, this time. Just a kid..." Matt's arms tightened around him, pitifully weak but still comforting. "You'll find him, Stefan. Damon can't hide from you forever." His lips whispered against Stefan's hair in a kiss. "He can't hate you forever." "Yes, he can." Stefan didn't want to talk about it, about his failure, about all the wasted time. Instead he turned his face into Matt's neck, inhaling his scent, feeling the tender weight of his body in his arms. "Stay with me," he said, filling the three words with as much of his longing as he could. Matt didn't answer. His hands, time-worn and aching, cupped Stefan's head, brought his face up until Matt could capture him with his lips. Fifty years can pass like a breath, and he was still in love with Matt more every day, begging with every touch for him stay forever. If Matt ever asked, he'd do it in a heartbeat. He'd stay, he'd give up the search for his brother, he would even turn Matt so they could have the eternity together that they deserved. He'd be damned for it, he knew, but he could never deny Matt anything when he asked. But Matt would never ask, and Stefan would never betray him. He'd killed his own brother once, damned him to this immortal life, and he'd spent the past half-century trying to find forgiveness. He could never, ever, turn Matt against his will. He couldn't live with another soul on his conscience, but at the same time he wasn't sure he could exist without Matt. As Stefan lost himself in the taste of his lover's mouth, he tried not to listen to the voice that told him it was not redemption he sought from his brother. He moaned into Matt's mouth, moved against him, tempted by that one forbidden thought. /Perhaps Damon can do what I cannot./ THE END