"In Every Lifetime, It Was You”
Title: "In Every Lifetime, It Was You” : The Vampire Diaries fanfiction
Pairing: Stefan Salvatore x Reader Male ( Klaus's twin brother )
Genre: Angst | Romance | Tragedy with Happy Ending
Warnings: emotional anguish, memory loss/compulsion, heartbreak, internalized guilt, implied violence.
Summary: Stefan Salvatore meets a mysterious stranger in 1862 and falls into a forbidden, all-consuming love—only to have it stolen from him. Years later, something long buried begins to resurface… and it refuses to stay forgotten.
Stefan had always believed that if something mattered enough, he would remember it.
That love—real love—didn’t just disappear.
It lingered in the bones. In the soul. In the quiet spaces between heartbeats.
But standing in the woods just outside Mystic Falls, staring at a stranger who looked at him like he was everything—
Stefan realized he had been wrong.
Because he felt it.
That pull. That ache. That unbearable, suffocating familiarity.
And he didn’t know why.
“Have we met?” Stefan asked, voice quieter than he intended.
The man in front of him stilled.
For a moment—just a moment—something broke across his face. Not surprise.
Grief.
Raw. Immediate. Like Stefan had just torn open something that had never healed.
“…No,” he said.
The lie came too quickly.
Stefan frowned. “You hesitated.”
A hollow breath left him. “You don’t remember me.”
It wasn’t a question.
Something twisted sharply in Stefan’s chest.
“I think I would remember,” he said.
The man’s lips parted, like he wanted to say something—anything—but whatever it was died before it could exist.
“That’s the tragedy of it,” he whispered.
----
The first time Stefan met him—really met him—was in 1860.
Two years before Katherine.
Two years before everything went wrong.
Back then, Stefan was softer. Hopeful in a way that felt almost naive now. He still believed in simple things—family, honor, love that didn’t destroy you.
And then he walked into it.
Into him.
----
“You’re staring.”
Stefan blinked, startled out of his thoughts.
The man leaning against the oak tree didn’t move, didn’t shift—just watched him with unsettling calm.
“I apologize,” Stefan said quickly, straightening. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Most people don’t mean to stare at things they don’t understand.”
Stefan frowned slightly. “And what is it I don’t understand?”
A pause.
Then, slowly—
“Me.”
Stefan should have laughed it off.
He didn’t.
Because something about him—about the way he spoke, the way he held himself like the world was beneath him but still somehow exhausting—
It pulled at Stefan in a way he couldn’t explain.
“Then explain,” Stefan said.
A flicker of something—interest, maybe—crossed his face.
“…You’re bold.”
“Curious.”
“Dangerous trait.”
Stefan smiled faintly. “So I’ve been told.”
Silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.
It felt… charged.
Like something had already begun.
“…(Y/N),” he said finally.
Stefan nodded. “Stefan Salvatore.”
(Y/N)’s gaze lingered.
“Salvatore,” he repeated softly, like he was committing it to memory.
Like it mattered.
----
Stefan didn’t fall in love all at once.
He unraveled into it.
Slowly. Quietly. Inevitably.
It was in the way (Y/N) would appear without warning and disappear just as easily. In the way he spoke like he had seen centuries pass and found none of them worth mentioning.
In the way he looked at Stefan—
Not like he was fragile.
But like he was rare.
“You shouldn’t be here,” (Y/N) told him one evening, voice low as they stood at the edge of the forest.
“And yet I am,” Stefan replied.
“You don’t understand what I am.”
“Then tell me.”
“I would rather you hate me than fear me.”
Stefan stepped closer.
“I don’t think I could do either.”
That was the moment it shifted.
(Y/N)’s control cracked—just slightly—but Stefan saw it.
And he reached for him anyway.
----
When Stefan learned the truth, it didn’t come gently.
It came with blood.
With fangs.
With a body that hit the ground too fast and too hard to be human.
“You’re a vampire,” Stefan said, breath unsteady.
(Y/N) didn’t deny it.
“I’m worse.”
Stefan should have run.
Instead, he stepped closer.
(Y/N)’s voice dropped, warning. “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because if you stay,” he said, something breaking beneath his composure, “I won’t let you go.”
Stefan’s heart pounded.
“Then don’t.”
----
Love, for them, was never safe.
It was desperate. Stolen. Quiet in ways that felt almost sacred.
Because it wasn’t allowed.
Not in that time.
Not in that world.
Two men. One not even human.
It wasn’t just forbidden—it was dangerous.
But Stefan didn’t care.
And (Y/N)… cared too much.
----
“I have a brother,” (Y/N) admitted one night, voice tight.
Stefan traced idle patterns against his hand. “You’ve mentioned him.”
“You wouldn’t like him.”
Stefan smiled faintly. “I doubt he’d like me either.”
(Y/N) didn’t smile back.
“He would see you as a weakness.”
The words hung heavy.
Stefan looked up. “Are you saying I am?”
(Y/N)’s expression softened—painfully so.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m saying you’re the only thing that’s ever made me want to be better than what I am.”
----
It ended the way all doomed things do.
Not with peace.
But with inevitability.
----
“I have to leave.”
Stefan felt the words before he processed them.
“No.”
(Y/N) closed his eyes briefly, like he expected that answer.
“You don’t understand what’s coming.”
“Then tell me!”
“I can’t!”
The sharpness in his voice made Stefan flinch.
Immediately, regret followed.
(Y/N) stepped closer, hands hovering like he wanted to reach out but didn’t deserve to.
“There are forces moving,” he said, quieter now. “Things older than you, crueler than anything you’ve known. My brother is one of them.”
Stefan swallowed. “Then we face it together.”
A broken laugh.
“You wouldn’t survive it.”
“I don’t care!”
“I do!”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
“I love you,” (Y/N) said suddenly.
Stefan’s breath hitched.
“Then stay.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
Because I will choose you over everything else.
Because I will destroy myself to keep you.
Because loving you is the one thing that makes me weak.
But he didn’t say any of that.
Instead—
“I will ruin you.”
Stefan stepped closer anyway.
“Then ruin me.”
That was the moment (Y/N) broke.
—
“You have to forget me.”
The words didn’t make sense.
Stefan shook his head, already backing away. “No.”
“I won’t survive losing you,” (Y/N) whispered.
“Then don’t let me go!”
“I already am!”
His voice cracked—fully, finally—and Stefan had never seen him like that before.
Not controlled.
Not untouchable.
Just… shattered.
“You will live a human life,” (Y/N) said, stepping closer. “You will love someone safe. Someone real. You will not be dragged into my darkness.”
“I choose you!”
“And I refuse to let you make that mistake!”
Their eyes locked.
And for the first time—
Stefan saw fear.
Not for himself.
For him.
“…I’m sorry,” (Y/N) whispered.
Stefan realized too late.
“Don’t—”
“Look at me.”
And he did.
Because it was him.
Because it was always him.
“You never met me,” (Y/N) said, voice breaking with every word. “You never loved me. And you will never remember what it felt like to be loved by me.”
Tears streamed down Stefan’s face.
(Y/N) cupped his face like something sacred.
“And I will carry it for both of us.”
----
Stefan collapsed to his knees when it was over.
Not because he remembered.
But because something inside him had just been ripped out—
And he didn’t know what it was.
----
Back in the present—
Stefan staggered back slightly, heart racing.
“Why do I feel like I’m losing something just by looking at you?” he demanded.
(Y/N) didn’t answer.
Because he knew.
He had watched Stefan live an entire life without him.
Watched him fall in love with Elena Gilbert.
Watched him smile.
Laugh.
Move on.
Everything he had forced him to do.
“You built a life,” (Y/N) said quietly. “You’re supposed to be happy.”
“Then why am I not?” Stefan snapped.
Silence.
Then, softer—
“Because I stole something from you.”
Stefan’s breath hitched.
“…What?”
(Y/N)’s eyes met his.
“Me.”
----
The memories didn’t return gently.
They tore through him.
Every moment. Every touch. Every whispered I love you.
The goodbye.
The compulsion.
The emptiness that followed.
Stefan choked on a breath, doubling over as it all came crashing back.
“You—” His voice broke. “You took everything.”
“I gave you a chance at a life!”
“I didn’t want it!”
Their voices echoed through the trees.
“I didn’t want a life without you!” Stefan shouted.
(Y/N) flinched like he’d been struck.
“That was the only life you were going to survive.”
Stefan grabbed him, hands shaking.
“You don’t get to decide that for me!”
“I already did!”
Silence.
Heavy. Crushing.
“I lived decades feeling like something was missing,” Stefan whispered. “Like I had lost something I couldn’t even name.”
(Y/N)’s composure shattered completely.
“I know.”
“I felt it every day.”
“I know.”
“I would have chosen you.”
A tear slid down (Y/N)’s face.
“I know.”
----
The space between them felt smaller now.
Fragile.
Uncertain.
But real.
“Do you still want to break the curse?” Stefan asked quietly.
(Y/N) hesitated.
Then—
“…I don’t know anymore.”
Stefan nodded slowly.
“Good.”
(Y/N) frowned slightly. “Why?”
Stefan stepped closer, resting his forehead against his.
“Because this time,” he whispered, “you’re not doing it alone.”
A shaky breath.
“That’s not a promise you can keep.”
Stefan’s grip tightened.
“Watch me.”
And this time—
When they kissed—
It didn’t feel like a goodbye waiting to happen.
It felt like something reclaimed.
Something that had fought through time, compulsion, and grief—
And survived anyway.
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