[fic] Literary License (1/3)
Title: Literary License (1/3)
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Elena POV; Damon/Elena, with appearances by Katherine, Caroline, Bonnie, Stefan, & Jeremy
Category: Angst, Romance
Word Count: ~2900
Summary: Elena realizes that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights has a few similarities to Damon Salvatore.
Spoilers: Set in the undetermined future, but includes references to anything up through 2x16, and speculation as to what might happen beyond that.
Warnings: none
Show/Bookverse: Show
Author's Notes: So, once again, crowandfog and I got to talking about some stuff. And this is what happened because of that. (Are y'all sick of me yet???)
Literary License: to change the details of a story for purpose of theme,
clarity, or better storytelling.
"See, it was just about preserving you long enough to serve you up on a silver platter," Katherine smirks as she stands over Elena's prone body.
Elena is tempted to just let the fear run through her, but she has contemplated this too many times during the last six months to feel anything but resignation. Klaus's demise has been traded for Elijah's if need be, and one way or another, someone is bound to kill her.
She is prepared to die. What she's not prepared for is Katherine, who had worked hard to convince her, Stefan, and Damon that her intentions were honorable, to turn so suddenly. She knows Damon never believed it, but Stefan had become convinced, and if Elena's honest, so had she. (She realizes now that had been her futile alignment with Stefan over Damon, a concentrated effort to prove her allegiance to the brother she'd promised her heart to, and not the one who she seemed to agree with more and more often, even when his solutions included the words kill them.)
She's also not prepared for her last regretful thought process to be so clearly about Damon. She wishes she could apologize for not deferring to him, for making him angry with her Pollyanna ways, for breaking his heart all over again by not being there anymore-
It's that item that forces her eyes closed. She doesn't want to watch Katherine put a stake to her chest, or whatever way she'll choose to end Elena's life; instead she focuses her final thoughts on Damon's eyes-full of pain, anguish, and yes, love for her-and she hopes if nothing else, her death will bring him fully back to his humanity.
Maybe losing her will save him. Maybe the sacrifice that she has always been destined to make will not just break the Sun and the Moon Curse, but so many of the other impediments of being a vampire.
It would be the moral of the story, wouldn't it? She dies, and Damon finally lives. It's so poetic, like something out of a novel-a theme that could be discussed endlessly in English class, something to argue out and theorize and write term papers about.
Her eyes fly open when Katherine screams and then her vampire doppelganger falls to the ground beside her and Elena sees him, standing over her like the hero he never wanted to be.
Damon Salvatore just staked Katherine Pierce for Elena Gilbert.
His hands wrap around her shoulders and haul her to her feet, crushing her against his chest in what one might consider a hug, but it's not. There's some element to it that borders on caring, but there is also too much agitated breathing and a fevered whisper, "We've got to get the hell out of here," and his lips are against her forehead and then her cheek and briefly, even her mouth, but Elena doesn't have time to consider any of it.
He moves at the speed of light, and she goes with him because she has no choice.
Then she's suddenly in Stefan's arms, and the three of them climb in Damon's car, along with Caroline, and drive away. Elena doesn't know where they're going, and she wants to ask, but finds out Bonnie is fine, that the Witch Energy-Channeling Project had worked, and that Klaus is dead. It all spills quickly from Caroline's lips, and the relief of it swamps Elena in a maniacal wave, forcing sobs up her throat and tears from her eyes.
She hears Damon ask, "Is she hurt, and I didn't even fucking notice?"
Caroline answers. "She's just crashing, that's all. It's hard being the savior of Mystic Falls, you know."
Stefan croons in her ear and rocks her back and forth, and Elena accepts his comfort, but she wants something else. (Maybe someone else?)
She thinks maybe that's part of what causes her tears.
Days later, Bonnie and Caroline show up for a girls' night and Bonnie holds a DVD in front of Elena's face. "Look what I found! It's a new remake of Wuthering Heights with that guy from Inception! Your favorite! This is bound to cheer you up!"
Elena just gives her a look. "Have you never read Wuthering Heights?" she asks her best friend.
Bonnie and Caroline exchange looks. "No, why?"
"Isn't it like Pride and Prejudice?" Caroline asks. "They don't get together until the end of the story?"
"It's a tragedy, you guys! I mean, yeah it has a happy ending, but the main characters both die, and it's their children who find a better way!"
"Not a cheer-you-up kind of movie, then?" Caroline asks, taking the DVD from Bonnie's hand to read the back.
"I'm sorry, Elena," Bonnie says. "I didn't realize..."
"We can always watch The Notebook!" Caroline pipes up. "We'll just turn it off before the old people die!"
Elena groans and jerks the DVD from Caroline's fingers. "Absolutely not!"
She's not sure why she's sad. She knows she should be happy. She knows everyone expects her to be ecstatic. She's free. Nobody's hunting for her. She and Stefan can finally have a normal, happy, event-free relationship.
It's not that she craves danger, exactly, but the realization that she sort of misses the excitement of all of it is something she keeps to herself. She's glad everyone is safe, that nobody needs to die for any reason.
But deep inside herself, she knows.
It's been two weeks since Katherine died. Since Katherine was killed. Since Damon murdered Katherine.
Stefan comes by to see if she wants to go out with him and Caroline; they're going to shoot pool at The Grill. (He'd also told her that his brother had hinted that he would leave Mystic Falls soon. "He said there's no reason to stay," Stefan repeated like a parrot, his melancholy impersonation of Damon sort of haunting.)
She said no, she didn't feel like it. The weather is awful, it's been storming for a couple days, and she really didn't want to go out in it.
Not for Stefan, anyway.
Before she even thinks it through entirely, she's shrugging into her jacket and running down the stairs. She encounters Jeremy and Bonnie at the front door, they come in laughing and kissing, and she stops to watch them for a second. They are totally carefree, unashamed, enraptured with each other, and she remembers when she felt that way, or when she at least thought that's how it would be with her and Stefan if they could ever find a peaceful moment.
And yet, here she was, peaceful moments pelting her like rain, without the results she expected.
"Hey," her brother says, noticing her. "Where you off to?"
"I'm going to the Boarding House," she answers truthfully. They don't know that Caroline and Stefan are at The Grill.
"Drive safe," Bonnie says. "It's really coming down out there."
"I will, thanks," Elena says, going out into the deluge.
It's the perfect setting, really. The gloomy weather just adds to the mood. She drives to the Boarding House, thinking of Heathcliff and Cathy, comparing Damon and Katherine to them unapologetically.
She'd watched that movie, the one based on her favorite novel, and she'd felt as though someone were thumping her upside the head with literary allusions. For goodness' sake, her name was Katherine. Spelled differently, but so what? They had destroyed each other, Heathcliff and Cathy, and Elena had had to turn the movie off in the middle much to Caroline's protests and Bonnie's bewilderment.
"You guys," she said, looking at her two best friends. "Don't you see it? Heathcliff is the original Damon Salvatore. It's so obvious!"
They'd looked at her like they didn't recognize her, Caroline confused, and Bonnie suspicious. She'd ended up saying, "Nevermind," and shooing them into the kitchen for ice cream. (Then they'd watched The Notebook. You could take the vampire out of the girl, but you would never be able to take the girl out of the vampire.)
When she gets to the Boarding House, it's all lit up. She has no idea what to expect, and she wonders if Damon's girlfriend Andie will be there. She hadn't even considered that possibility in her mad dash, and now she feels very foolish.
She supposes she can always pretend she and Stefan got their wires crossed.
When she goes inside, she finds him alone, reading in the library. He glances up when she comes in the doorway. "Hello, Elena," he says.
She raises a hand and grips the doorjamb until her fingers turn white. What is she going to say? Don't leave town, Damon. Don't let Katherine destroy you. I'm sorry you had to kill the love of your life to save me, even if she was a heinous bitch who deserved to die.
Yeah, none of those really work.
So she settles for, "Hello, Damon."
She walks into the room and peruses some of the books on the shelf nearest her, but she notices he keeps his eyes on her. "Stefan's not here, but you know that already, don't you?" he asks, shutting the book he'd been reading and setting it on the table next to him.
He picks up a glass of something amber-colored, and Elena wishes she had a drink to amp up her courage, or her stupidity. At this point, either one would be welcome.
"Yes, I know," she answers, turning to face him. She leans against the book shelf, and suddenly the words flow. "Have you ever read Wuthering Heights?"
He thinks for moment, then nods. "Yes, years ago--probably when it first came out. I think we've got a first edition around here somewhere. Why? Do you want to borrow it?"
"Actually, I have your first edition. Stefan gave it to me, right after we first met, because I told him it's my favorite."
His lips twist slightly. "Oh, well, of course he did. Good, I'm glad someone who appreciates it so much has it."
"Call of the Wild isn't your favorite book is it?"
His eyebrows go up. "What?"
"Remember? You told Bonnie that was your favorite book. But it's not. Gone With the Wind is."
He finishes his drink and then sets the tumbler down on the table next to his book. "What makes you think that?" he asks.
"It was in your room, by your bed. I saw it when Rose...I saw it in there."
"What are you doing here, Elena? Do you want to start a book club with me? Classics for Dummies? Something of that sort?"
She takes a step forward, forgetting the railing that separates the rest of the room from the bookshelves. It stops her progress and she looks down at it. The dark wood is finely polished, just like everything in this house. It's old, but well kept, and she can't help but think so many things in life are just metaphors for everything that's important.
"I've been thinking, a lot. About Katherine. About everything that happened. And I just thought it would be appropriate for me to say thank you, properly. Thank you for killing her to protect me. And please, don't be sorry. Be glad that you rid the world of her horribleness. And don't let it drag you down. Don't let her choices control your fate."
By the time she finishes her monologue, Damon's on his feet, but he hasn't moved any closer to her. He looks at her for a long moment before turning away, picking up his empty glass, and just staring down into it. "I think maybe your critical thinking skills are causing you to confuse fact with fiction."
She finally gets brave enough to move around the railing and walks over to him, but she doesn't get too close. "No, Damon, I--"
He turns then, back towards her, and she can tell by the surprised expression on his face that he didn't know she'd moved closer. But he interrupts her anyway with, "I don't regret it. Not for a second."
Her breath catches because his face isn't hard, the way it normally is when he's protecting himself. He's almost...open. Almost. There's this sense of hesitation between them, and Elena wants to step closer to him yet again, but she's afraid. She doesn't want to be rejected; she knows if he does thwart her advances it will hurt in a way it never has before. It will be more personal to her, because of the way she feels about him. (Because she's acknowledged how she feels.)
Her lips tremble into a smile that never fully forms, and she says softly, "I'm glad."
"What, you're worried I'm going to off myself? I enjoy my scotch too much. Plus, I'd rather go out fighting, not just take my ring off and poof."
Elena shakes her head. Though that's how Heathcliff had severed his pain, it had never occurred to her that Damon would end his life. She only worries that he'll retreat back into the emotionless monster she first knew. She doesn't know how to say that to him, though, so she says, "Stefan said you were thinking of leaving Mystic Falls."
He shrugs and squints one eye at her. "What do you care?"
Offended, Elena stands up straighter. "I care, Damon. You know I care!"
He smirks a little, but she can tell his heart's not in it. "Face it, Elena. Your life will be complicated enough with one vampire boyfriend. You don't need two."
"You're my friend, Damon. I would miss you."
He flinches, and turns away from her, dropping his empty glass back on the table top. "Yes, because Cathy married Edgar Linton, not Heathcliff. It's important to get the details right."
"What?" she asks. She takes another step towards him, but when his eyes come back around to her, they freeze her progression completely.
"You were comparing me and Katherine to Heathcliff and Cathy, right? But don't you see, Elena, that it's really you, me, and Stefan? And Stefan is Edgar, the much better and obvious choice."
Her throat grows tight and she clutches at it with her fingers, as though she can keep the truth from lodging there. "Cathy makes Edgar miserable, too," she says, and then she lifts her chin. "Is that really how you see me? Intent on making you and Stefan unhappy?"
"Do you really see me as someone who would leave you, and then wait until you married my rival and show up just in time to torment you with it until you died?"
"It's not-no, Damon. It's not like all the details are exact. There are just some similarities there-the way you loved Katherine, the devotion. Her betrayal. The pain you must feel from killing her, even if it was the right thing."
"Cathy and Heathcliff's love for each other is what destroys them-but don't worry, Katherine never loved me, and by the time I killed her, I didn't love her anymore. And you know that. You know it, even though I didn't let you remember it."
"Remember what?"
"Exactly."
"Damon," she says agitatedly. "Don't speak to me in riddles. What are you talking about?"
He laughs, circling around her like he's going to walk out of the room in the middle of their discussion. "You're the one with your literary license, Elena. Trying to make me fit into some archetype so you can feel better about the way things have gone."
"I'm not trying to make myself feel better!" she shouts. "I'm trying to make you feel better. I'm trying to make you admit that you feel anything at all!" She grabs his arm because he is trying to walk away from something she wants to finish.
Once and for all.
"Don't," is all he says, and he tugs against her hold. He could easily break the contact, but he doesn't, and she wraps her hand more tightly around his wrist.
"What would have happened if Cathy had waited for Heathcliff? Do you think they would have been happy?"
He doesn't say anything for a long moment, but his eyes soften, and something comes over his face that she's never seen before. "They would have been with the person they should have been with. If that didn't make them happy, I suppose it's their own fault."
Elena drops his arm then, and takes a step back. The predator she met that first day she ever saw Damon Salvatore flashes before her eyes, but then something else, like a forgotten memory tickles at the back of her mind, and she realizes what it is. It's passion, it's devotion, it's all the things she knows are on the pages of her favorite book, and it was in the movie too, between the actors.
And it's right here, between her and Damon, on both sides, in equal parts.
His hands surround her face. He puts his mouth to hers, not kissing her anymore than he had the night he killed Katherine on her behalf. It's more of a touchstone, a slight bit of contact that conveys more than a night of wild lovemaking.
"Be happy, Elena. That's what Heathcliff should have wanted for Cathy; above his own pleasure and satisfaction, hers should have been what mattered most to him."
He presses his lips to her forehead then and walks away.
...part two...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Elena POV; Damon/Elena, with appearances by Katherine, Caroline, Bonnie, Stefan, & Jeremy
Category: Angst, Romance
Word Count: ~2900
Summary: Elena realizes that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights has a few similarities to Damon Salvatore.
Spoilers: Set in the undetermined future, but includes references to anything up through 2x16, and speculation as to what might happen beyond that.
Warnings: none
Show/Bookverse: Show
Author's Notes: So, once again, crowandfog and I got to talking about some stuff. And this is what happened because of that. (Are y'all sick of me yet???)
Literary License: to change the details of a story for purpose of theme,
clarity, or better storytelling.
"See, it was just about preserving you long enough to serve you up on a silver platter," Katherine smirks as she stands over Elena's prone body.
Elena is tempted to just let the fear run through her, but she has contemplated this too many times during the last six months to feel anything but resignation. Klaus's demise has been traded for Elijah's if need be, and one way or another, someone is bound to kill her.
She is prepared to die. What she's not prepared for is Katherine, who had worked hard to convince her, Stefan, and Damon that her intentions were honorable, to turn so suddenly. She knows Damon never believed it, but Stefan had become convinced, and if Elena's honest, so had she. (She realizes now that had been her futile alignment with Stefan over Damon, a concentrated effort to prove her allegiance to the brother she'd promised her heart to, and not the one who she seemed to agree with more and more often, even when his solutions included the words kill them.)
She's also not prepared for her last regretful thought process to be so clearly about Damon. She wishes she could apologize for not deferring to him, for making him angry with her Pollyanna ways, for breaking his heart all over again by not being there anymore-
It's that item that forces her eyes closed. She doesn't want to watch Katherine put a stake to her chest, or whatever way she'll choose to end Elena's life; instead she focuses her final thoughts on Damon's eyes-full of pain, anguish, and yes, love for her-and she hopes if nothing else, her death will bring him fully back to his humanity.
Maybe losing her will save him. Maybe the sacrifice that she has always been destined to make will not just break the Sun and the Moon Curse, but so many of the other impediments of being a vampire.
It would be the moral of the story, wouldn't it? She dies, and Damon finally lives. It's so poetic, like something out of a novel-a theme that could be discussed endlessly in English class, something to argue out and theorize and write term papers about.
Her eyes fly open when Katherine screams and then her vampire doppelganger falls to the ground beside her and Elena sees him, standing over her like the hero he never wanted to be.
Damon Salvatore just staked Katherine Pierce for Elena Gilbert.
His hands wrap around her shoulders and haul her to her feet, crushing her against his chest in what one might consider a hug, but it's not. There's some element to it that borders on caring, but there is also too much agitated breathing and a fevered whisper, "We've got to get the hell out of here," and his lips are against her forehead and then her cheek and briefly, even her mouth, but Elena doesn't have time to consider any of it.
He moves at the speed of light, and she goes with him because she has no choice.
Then she's suddenly in Stefan's arms, and the three of them climb in Damon's car, along with Caroline, and drive away. Elena doesn't know where they're going, and she wants to ask, but finds out Bonnie is fine, that the Witch Energy-Channeling Project had worked, and that Klaus is dead. It all spills quickly from Caroline's lips, and the relief of it swamps Elena in a maniacal wave, forcing sobs up her throat and tears from her eyes.
She hears Damon ask, "Is she hurt, and I didn't even fucking notice?"
Caroline answers. "She's just crashing, that's all. It's hard being the savior of Mystic Falls, you know."
Stefan croons in her ear and rocks her back and forth, and Elena accepts his comfort, but she wants something else. (Maybe someone else?)
She thinks maybe that's part of what causes her tears.
Days later, Bonnie and Caroline show up for a girls' night and Bonnie holds a DVD in front of Elena's face. "Look what I found! It's a new remake of Wuthering Heights with that guy from Inception! Your favorite! This is bound to cheer you up!"
Elena just gives her a look. "Have you never read Wuthering Heights?" she asks her best friend.
Bonnie and Caroline exchange looks. "No, why?"
"Isn't it like Pride and Prejudice?" Caroline asks. "They don't get together until the end of the story?"
"It's a tragedy, you guys! I mean, yeah it has a happy ending, but the main characters both die, and it's their children who find a better way!"
"Not a cheer-you-up kind of movie, then?" Caroline asks, taking the DVD from Bonnie's hand to read the back.
"I'm sorry, Elena," Bonnie says. "I didn't realize..."
"We can always watch The Notebook!" Caroline pipes up. "We'll just turn it off before the old people die!"
Elena groans and jerks the DVD from Caroline's fingers. "Absolutely not!"
She's not sure why she's sad. She knows she should be happy. She knows everyone expects her to be ecstatic. She's free. Nobody's hunting for her. She and Stefan can finally have a normal, happy, event-free relationship.
It's not that she craves danger, exactly, but the realization that she sort of misses the excitement of all of it is something she keeps to herself. She's glad everyone is safe, that nobody needs to die for any reason.
But deep inside herself, she knows.
It's been two weeks since Katherine died. Since Katherine was killed. Since Damon murdered Katherine.
Stefan comes by to see if she wants to go out with him and Caroline; they're going to shoot pool at The Grill. (He'd also told her that his brother had hinted that he would leave Mystic Falls soon. "He said there's no reason to stay," Stefan repeated like a parrot, his melancholy impersonation of Damon sort of haunting.)
She said no, she didn't feel like it. The weather is awful, it's been storming for a couple days, and she really didn't want to go out in it.
Not for Stefan, anyway.
Before she even thinks it through entirely, she's shrugging into her jacket and running down the stairs. She encounters Jeremy and Bonnie at the front door, they come in laughing and kissing, and she stops to watch them for a second. They are totally carefree, unashamed, enraptured with each other, and she remembers when she felt that way, or when she at least thought that's how it would be with her and Stefan if they could ever find a peaceful moment.
And yet, here she was, peaceful moments pelting her like rain, without the results she expected.
"Hey," her brother says, noticing her. "Where you off to?"
"I'm going to the Boarding House," she answers truthfully. They don't know that Caroline and Stefan are at The Grill.
"Drive safe," Bonnie says. "It's really coming down out there."
"I will, thanks," Elena says, going out into the deluge.
It's the perfect setting, really. The gloomy weather just adds to the mood. She drives to the Boarding House, thinking of Heathcliff and Cathy, comparing Damon and Katherine to them unapologetically.
She'd watched that movie, the one based on her favorite novel, and she'd felt as though someone were thumping her upside the head with literary allusions. For goodness' sake, her name was Katherine. Spelled differently, but so what? They had destroyed each other, Heathcliff and Cathy, and Elena had had to turn the movie off in the middle much to Caroline's protests and Bonnie's bewilderment.
"You guys," she said, looking at her two best friends. "Don't you see it? Heathcliff is the original Damon Salvatore. It's so obvious!"
They'd looked at her like they didn't recognize her, Caroline confused, and Bonnie suspicious. She'd ended up saying, "Nevermind," and shooing them into the kitchen for ice cream. (Then they'd watched The Notebook. You could take the vampire out of the girl, but you would never be able to take the girl out of the vampire.)
When she gets to the Boarding House, it's all lit up. She has no idea what to expect, and she wonders if Damon's girlfriend Andie will be there. She hadn't even considered that possibility in her mad dash, and now she feels very foolish.
She supposes she can always pretend she and Stefan got their wires crossed.
When she goes inside, she finds him alone, reading in the library. He glances up when she comes in the doorway. "Hello, Elena," he says.
She raises a hand and grips the doorjamb until her fingers turn white. What is she going to say? Don't leave town, Damon. Don't let Katherine destroy you. I'm sorry you had to kill the love of your life to save me, even if she was a heinous bitch who deserved to die.
Yeah, none of those really work.
So she settles for, "Hello, Damon."
She walks into the room and peruses some of the books on the shelf nearest her, but she notices he keeps his eyes on her. "Stefan's not here, but you know that already, don't you?" he asks, shutting the book he'd been reading and setting it on the table next to him.
He picks up a glass of something amber-colored, and Elena wishes she had a drink to amp up her courage, or her stupidity. At this point, either one would be welcome.
"Yes, I know," she answers, turning to face him. She leans against the book shelf, and suddenly the words flow. "Have you ever read Wuthering Heights?"
He thinks for moment, then nods. "Yes, years ago--probably when it first came out. I think we've got a first edition around here somewhere. Why? Do you want to borrow it?"
"Actually, I have your first edition. Stefan gave it to me, right after we first met, because I told him it's my favorite."
His lips twist slightly. "Oh, well, of course he did. Good, I'm glad someone who appreciates it so much has it."
"Call of the Wild isn't your favorite book is it?"
His eyebrows go up. "What?"
"Remember? You told Bonnie that was your favorite book. But it's not. Gone With the Wind is."
He finishes his drink and then sets the tumbler down on the table next to his book. "What makes you think that?" he asks.
"It was in your room, by your bed. I saw it when Rose...I saw it in there."
"What are you doing here, Elena? Do you want to start a book club with me? Classics for Dummies? Something of that sort?"
She takes a step forward, forgetting the railing that separates the rest of the room from the bookshelves. It stops her progress and she looks down at it. The dark wood is finely polished, just like everything in this house. It's old, but well kept, and she can't help but think so many things in life are just metaphors for everything that's important.
"I've been thinking, a lot. About Katherine. About everything that happened. And I just thought it would be appropriate for me to say thank you, properly. Thank you for killing her to protect me. And please, don't be sorry. Be glad that you rid the world of her horribleness. And don't let it drag you down. Don't let her choices control your fate."
By the time she finishes her monologue, Damon's on his feet, but he hasn't moved any closer to her. He looks at her for a long moment before turning away, picking up his empty glass, and just staring down into it. "I think maybe your critical thinking skills are causing you to confuse fact with fiction."
She finally gets brave enough to move around the railing and walks over to him, but she doesn't get too close. "No, Damon, I--"
He turns then, back towards her, and she can tell by the surprised expression on his face that he didn't know she'd moved closer. But he interrupts her anyway with, "I don't regret it. Not for a second."
Her breath catches because his face isn't hard, the way it normally is when he's protecting himself. He's almost...open. Almost. There's this sense of hesitation between them, and Elena wants to step closer to him yet again, but she's afraid. She doesn't want to be rejected; she knows if he does thwart her advances it will hurt in a way it never has before. It will be more personal to her, because of the way she feels about him. (Because she's acknowledged how she feels.)
Her lips tremble into a smile that never fully forms, and she says softly, "I'm glad."
"What, you're worried I'm going to off myself? I enjoy my scotch too much. Plus, I'd rather go out fighting, not just take my ring off and poof."
Elena shakes her head. Though that's how Heathcliff had severed his pain, it had never occurred to her that Damon would end his life. She only worries that he'll retreat back into the emotionless monster she first knew. She doesn't know how to say that to him, though, so she says, "Stefan said you were thinking of leaving Mystic Falls."
He shrugs and squints one eye at her. "What do you care?"
Offended, Elena stands up straighter. "I care, Damon. You know I care!"
He smirks a little, but she can tell his heart's not in it. "Face it, Elena. Your life will be complicated enough with one vampire boyfriend. You don't need two."
"You're my friend, Damon. I would miss you."
He flinches, and turns away from her, dropping his empty glass back on the table top. "Yes, because Cathy married Edgar Linton, not Heathcliff. It's important to get the details right."
"What?" she asks. She takes another step towards him, but when his eyes come back around to her, they freeze her progression completely.
"You were comparing me and Katherine to Heathcliff and Cathy, right? But don't you see, Elena, that it's really you, me, and Stefan? And Stefan is Edgar, the much better and obvious choice."
Her throat grows tight and she clutches at it with her fingers, as though she can keep the truth from lodging there. "Cathy makes Edgar miserable, too," she says, and then she lifts her chin. "Is that really how you see me? Intent on making you and Stefan unhappy?"
"Do you really see me as someone who would leave you, and then wait until you married my rival and show up just in time to torment you with it until you died?"
"It's not-no, Damon. It's not like all the details are exact. There are just some similarities there-the way you loved Katherine, the devotion. Her betrayal. The pain you must feel from killing her, even if it was the right thing."
"Cathy and Heathcliff's love for each other is what destroys them-but don't worry, Katherine never loved me, and by the time I killed her, I didn't love her anymore. And you know that. You know it, even though I didn't let you remember it."
"Remember what?"
"Exactly."
"Damon," she says agitatedly. "Don't speak to me in riddles. What are you talking about?"
He laughs, circling around her like he's going to walk out of the room in the middle of their discussion. "You're the one with your literary license, Elena. Trying to make me fit into some archetype so you can feel better about the way things have gone."
"I'm not trying to make myself feel better!" she shouts. "I'm trying to make you feel better. I'm trying to make you admit that you feel anything at all!" She grabs his arm because he is trying to walk away from something she wants to finish.
Once and for all.
"Don't," is all he says, and he tugs against her hold. He could easily break the contact, but he doesn't, and she wraps her hand more tightly around his wrist.
"What would have happened if Cathy had waited for Heathcliff? Do you think they would have been happy?"
He doesn't say anything for a long moment, but his eyes soften, and something comes over his face that she's never seen before. "They would have been with the person they should have been with. If that didn't make them happy, I suppose it's their own fault."
Elena drops his arm then, and takes a step back. The predator she met that first day she ever saw Damon Salvatore flashes before her eyes, but then something else, like a forgotten memory tickles at the back of her mind, and she realizes what it is. It's passion, it's devotion, it's all the things she knows are on the pages of her favorite book, and it was in the movie too, between the actors.
And it's right here, between her and Damon, on both sides, in equal parts.
His hands surround her face. He puts his mouth to hers, not kissing her anymore than he had the night he killed Katherine on her behalf. It's more of a touchstone, a slight bit of contact that conveys more than a night of wild lovemaking.
"Be happy, Elena. That's what Heathcliff should have wanted for Cathy; above his own pleasure and satisfaction, hers should have been what mattered most to him."
He presses his lips to her forehead then and walks away.
...part two...