[fic] Real
Title: Real
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~3400
Rating/Warnings: R
Spoilers: Everything through 4x09.
Summary: Real, from start to finish. That's all he's ever wanted.
Author's notes: More of the same from me. I'm sure you're all sick of it.
He tucks her into the front seat of his car and hurries back to the wrecked one in the middle of the road. Pushing it into the ditch, he wipes his hands on his jeans and hops into the Camaro.
Elena sleeps the whole way to Georgia.
At least, he thinks she's sleeping. If she were in a coma, her breathing would sound different, he's pretty sure.
When she wakes up, and starts bitching immediately, he almost wishes she'd been a coma.
(Almost.)
Then they start having fun, and he forgets for a little while. What he's here for, what he wants. He's been focused on Katherine for 145 years, and today is a day he's bent on getting answers.
But Elena distracts him. Just a little.
In the end, he's really glad he brought her with him. Not just because it makes Stefan pissy, not just because he starts imagining her legs spread willingly for him, not just because she saves his life.
For the first time, possibly ever, there is a human he wants to know, enjoys being with, has no desire to manipulate.
She's not a witch who might lead him to answers he needs, she's not a vampire who will be useful to him in some way. She's a human girl, and he likes her.
(Several days later, she holds him in her arms as his world dissolves around him, and he hates her for being nothing like the face she wears.)
He kisses her on the front porch, his heart pounding, his brain somewhere upstairs with Jeremy. He has completely lost his mind, but then her mouth opens and her tongue touches his, and that's it.
He's kissing Elena, but more importantly, Elena's kissing him. He didn't plan this; he didn't even anticipate that it could ever happen.
(Because he knows.)
She loves Stefan. If she feels anything for him, it's not love. She doesn't even like him much, he would guess, even if they are sort of friends now.
He forgets all of that rather quickly, which is the problem with Elena. She makes him forget all the things he tries so hard to be, to feel, to mean when he's talking.
He strokes his tongue over hers, and then the front door opens, and Jenna catches them. He can't look at Elena's aunt, he can hardly bring himself to look at Elena, because he can't believe what just happened.
She goes into the house and he feels as if he's gone back in time, as if he's that stupid soldier, home on leave, completely sucked in by Katherine's charms.
He walks to his car, determined to hash this all out with Elena at the first opportunity. He won't let this be that all over again.
(This is real, and it always has been, and he won't let her pretend it's not.)
Rose's werewolf bite heals right in front of their eyes and Damon can't believe he ever fell for it. There's nothing that can kill a vampire but a stake through the heart, or a sunrise with no protection. He has known this for 146 years, and yet he doubted it.
When Rose blabs on about how she doesn't love men who love other women, even though she just kissed him like he was her favorite flavor lollipop, he's happy to ignore that if she is.
(He does love Elena, and he will save her life, but it won't come to anything, and he knows that as much as he knows werewolves can't hurt vampires.)
Less than 36 hours later, he rams a stake through Rose's chest, and her hair soaks up his tears.
(He doesn't know jackshit, and he's only had to live 168 years to finally understand that completely.)
Elena's hands are remarkably soft as she soothes his fevered brow. He'd laugh at the romanticism, but any movement is agonizingly painful.
So, instead, he's more real with her than he's ever been before. He gets it all out. The apology(ies) he's owed her, the love he took away, the truth he's never admitted, even to himself: he wouldn't change a damn thing, not if it meant having never known Elena.
He would rather die a thousand deaths, no romanticism intended, than ever live one day without her. She changed everything, she made everything worthwhile, even his miserable life. Even Stefan's miserable life.
He can't even fault her for the lie she tells him (I like you now, just the way you are), because he knows her so well. Elena wouldn't whip him when he's down and dying, even though she should, even though there's no way she can really forgive him for everything he's done.
He doesn't even care. He just closes his eyes and intends to feel the press of her lips against his for eternity, or whatever few minutes he has left before his consciousness turns to nothing.
(But, yeah, Katherine? She manages to ruin his death a second time.)
He tells her, It's right, it's just not right now because she said, I can't. Not, I don't want to or even I don't want you to. Elena is good at doing the right thing, or what she thinks is the right thing. He appreciates this about her even if he finds it ridiculous most of the time.
He gets where it comes from, and why Elena identifies so much with being that girl who does the right thing. But some day, she was going to do what she wanted, and he was going to be there when she did.
He was going to be the "bad" choice she made.
(He can wait, he really, really can.)
He can hardly see as he's loading Ric's body into the back of his car. Tears are blinding him, and he can hear Elena's voice, the wobbly words that had come through his cell phone, that had let him know she was bawling as she said goodbye to him.
That was how it should have ended, with him dead under Ric's hand, not her, however it happened. Never her. Not Elena, not the girl who should get to grow up and have the life she wanted, the life she deserved.
She hadn't loved him enough, but he had always loved her too much. He had been willing to take them all out before she would fall.
But now? Now there's no choice.
He drives back to Mystic Falls with no plan, with no way to make this right.
And when he gets there and sees what choice was made, he nearly stakes Stefan. He even thinks about staking Elena since she can't seem to ever die right.
(Because she won't ever fight to live.)
He kisses her first, it's true. He'll go over it and over it in his mind in the weeks that follow that night. But he'll also remember how she looked at him, how she said, You, how she said she wanted to dance with him. How, once he kissed her, she kissed him as if he were air, milk, honey, blood, every delicious, nutritious thing she could ever want.
He will remember when she was still human and she kissed him first, kissed him long, kissed him hard, while she rubbed herself against his erection until Jeremy interrupted them.
He will tell himself she did it because she wanted to, not because he wanted her to.
(But, God, he had wanted her to. Until the world stopped spinning, he had wanted her to.)
"So, what's the deal exactly with you and my sister?" Jeremy asks three days after Bonnie and Elena go home. Damon looks at him, believes he silences the brat with a glare, but only a moment later, Jeremy says, "For reals, man. What's going on?"
"Nothing's going on," he says, because explaining it would be ridiculous.
"She's like in love with you now, or something, right?"
"Or something," he answers. Then he tells the kid everything. Why he does that, he has no explanation for, except that Ric is dead, and he's alone, and Stefan won't speak to him because he fucked Elena even though what the hell did Stefan expect would happen when he broke up with her and then left her alone with Damon? Seriously, it's like his brother will never know him, not even if they spend millennia together.
Jeremy's quiet, thoughtful even, as he listens. He shakes his head. "I wish I could tell you something different. But I feel like I wanna kill my sister even when I don't want to kill her, so what the hell do I know?"
Damon pulls out the whiskey bottle after that, because at least if he's up shit creek, he's got a buddy with him.
His dreams are filled with disjointed memories. Charlotte...Sage...Katherine...Rose. Elena, on top of him, taking his cock into her mouth; beneath him, writhing, as he parts her labia with his tongue; her gasps and moans sometimes peppered with words of love that she never actually said.
He wakes up sweating and gasping, hard as a rock, grief-stricken. He rolls on to his side and jacks off because he's sharing a house with a 16-year-old boy, he might as well act like one.
He falls asleep again, his dick limp, his cheeks wet. Elena is waiting for him when he gets there and she touches his face, smiles and promises him that they will have just one selfish day. He loves her so much, and he tells her. She presses a finger against her lips, shushing him.
(He wakes up exhausted.)
By the time he goes back to Mystic Falls, Stefan has resumed talking to him, but he's still as big a tool as ever, and Damon can't even bring himself to care. He would point out that this whole cure thing had only ever been for his brother's benefit, and it still is, but Damon knows, secretly, in his heart of hearts that he wants to cure Elena so he'll know for sure.
She will be human again, and she will not want him. Or at least, she won't want him enough, and all will be as it was that dark, lonely night when Alaric died in his arms, and so did all his hope. Only, there will be no one to put him out of his misery. He can probably piss Klaus off enough to finally do the deed. It's not like Stefan's making deals to preserve his existence anymore. Why would he? Dead Damon means no competition, sire bond or no sire bond.
He isn't expecting to run into her at the gas station on the far side of town (of all places), but he needs to fuel up the Camaro, and she's leaning against Jenna's SUV as he pulls in. They see each other at about the same moment, because she straightens up and pushes herself off the car as he rolls to a stop behind her.
He just stares at her for a moment, in her snug jeans and her long sleeved t-shirt, and he literally hates her for being beautiful and perfect and unattainable, no matter fucking what. Then he forces a smile to his lips and slides out of the car, giving her a jaunty wave as he pulls his wallet out to grab his debit card.
"Hi," she says softly, though it carries just fine to his ears under the canopy. The gas pump thuds to a stop, and she tugs it free, quickly screwing the cap closed and making her way closer to him as he pushes in his PIN number.
Such fucking ordinary every day tasks, but his fingers feel like they don't work quite right.
"I didn't know you were home," she says, her voice still very quiet, with absolutely no accusation in it.
"Just got back, actually," he replies.
Her mouth opens but she doesn't say anything, and he wonders what springs to her mind first: I miss you. I need you. Fuck them all, I'm having you anyway. Can she read his thoughts? Does she know what he wants her to say?
"You look good," is what comes out of her mouth, and his lips quirk because he wasn't expecting that at all.
"So do you," he says, because it's true. She's always looked good. Looking good has never been a problem for Elena. In fact, he might feel better if she just looked a little sad, or something.
He swings around to shove the nozzle into his tank, turning his back on her. Then she moves, wrapping her arms around him, hugging him from behind. Her head presses between his shoulder blades and her hands fist together just above his belt buckle. She doesn't say a word.
(Which fucking kills him. Words he could fight against. This? He's never known what to do with this.)
Seconds tick by and finally, he just lifts a hand and places it over hers, squeezing her knuckles together. Moments gather and pass, and the pump stops pumping, but Elena still holds on, and he wonders if he's going to have shake her loose.
Before he can decide, she lets go, and before he can turn around, she vamp-speeds back to her car. His hand rests on the nozzle as her tail lights disappear into the night.
(He thinks, I love you, too.)
"I thought you said you invoked the sire bond," Stefan says accusingly one night while Damon's nursing a bottle of his best bourbon. No glass, just straight bottle.
(It's been one of those days.)
"I did," he mutters, looking up at his brother, who stands in the doorway of the library looking as superior as ever.
"Then why is she still pining for you?"
Damon smirks. "Maybe I'm just not that easy to get over," he snarks. "She's not pining for me, she's just not jumping back into bed with you. Maybe she's seeing how it feels to be single?" He adds that with just the right inflection, as though he's trying to help Stefan figure it out.
(The truth is, if someone doesn't find the cure or just fucking stake Damon out of his misery like ASAP, he's just going to take his ring off and be gone with the wind. There is only so much hurt a man can take.)
"She is pining for you," Stefan reiterates, his voice sharp. "She's miserable, and she's staying away because she thinks that's what you want." Stefan's brows draw down over his eyes even more deeply. "That's what you told her? That you don't want to be with her? That's not what you were supposed to say!"
Damon gets to his feet and throws the mostly empty whiskey bottle across the room. It shatters against the wall, just to the left of Stefan's head. "What, praytell, was I supposed to say, St. Stefan? I had to tell her that us not being together would make me happy, and she was supposed to believe it. I set her free. What else do you want from me? If you're expecting me to get over her like it's no big deal, once again, brother, you have no fucking clue about me. I won't ever get over her. She's the best person I've ever known, and for five fucking seconds she loved me! Excuse me all to hell for not saying it the way you, in your magnanimity, would have. Because we all know, you always choose the right where Elena's concerned!"
The words fly out of his mouth, and suddenly a weight he hadn't even known he'd been carrying seems to lift from his shoulders. He steps back, as if the release of venom had the same kickback as a fired gun.
Stefan looks like he's been staked in the stomach, and Damon doesn't care. If he could make his brother understand how hard this has been on him, even a little bit, maybe there is hope for their relationship yet.
Stefan mutters, "I'm sorry, Damon," and leaves the house.
Damon contemplates finding another bottle, but instead he goes up to bed and sleeps a dreamless sleep.
Elena stands next to Klaus and Professor Shadypants as they hover over the magic elixir. Finally Klaus dips a cup into the well and hands it to her.
Stefan stands tensely beside him, and Damon doesn't think he's drawn a breath for five straight minutes.
And yet, he's still conscious, he's still standing there, waiting like the prick he is. He didn't have to come.
(He couldn't not come, no matter what.)
Elena's eyes meet his as her fingers clasp around the cup. She looks at him for a long time, and he nods his head, just slightly.
That's when she drops the cup and it splashes across the ground. Shane gasps, and leaps towards it, as if he must save the wasted liquid and Elena takes a step towards Damon and Stefan.
"I don't want to take it," she says. "Not if it means I'm going to lose the way I feel about you."
Damon feels frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Real, from start to finish. That's all he's ever wanted. With Elena, that's all he's ever wanted. From life. From fate.
"Elena..."
He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do.
It's Stefan who says, "If it's real, Elena, you won't lose it."
Her eyes jerk to his brother's face, and Damon knows despair in a way he never has before. Not when Katherine "died," not when he lived, not when she wasn't in the tomb. This is all-consuming, and it ends with Elena gulping down some old witch's brew.
She narrows her eyes at Stefan and says, "It is real; it's always been real. The only person who doesn't believe it is you, and you forced him not to believe it either."
"Now, now," Klaus says placatingly, his hands out, patting the non-existent air.
Elena turns on him, almost rabidly. "Shut up," she snaps. Klaus just smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Damon doesn't know what he might do if Elena doesn't do what he wants her to, though he supposes killing her is not in the cards, considering the nature of their journey here.
"It won't change anything, Elena," Shane says, stepping forward. He presses the cup back into her hand. "You loved Damon before you turned, and you'll love him when you're human again. The choice has always been what you would do with that love."
Stefan clears his throat and Damon looks away when Elena's head turns towards him again. He can't. He can't be the one who says yes or no. He's not strong enough to do it.
(He was never strong enough to walk away, so he's just been agonizingly at arms' length all these months.)
Elena's voice is tear-choked when she asks, "Do you promise me that if I do this, I'll still want to be with him?"
"I promise you," Shane says, the sincerity in his voice almost convincing enough, even for Damon, though he quickly ignores that thought.
He knows Elena, and her trusting ways. He knows what she will do.
(It's what he wants, really it is. For her. So she can choose. So they will both always know.)
(So Stefan will finally know.)
He hears the sound of the cup being dipped in again. He hears the swish of her hair as she tosses it back over her shoulder.
He hears her swallow.
Minutes linger. He realizes he's holding his breath again. Still? Nobody knows how long it will take, no one's ever done this before.
She comes and stands in front of him, and he's forced to look her full in the face. The cup remains in her hand. "Do you want to take it?" she asks.
She looks just the same, if suddenly more fragile. Is that all it is? Her human form takes that outer strength and melts it away? No, it's not even that. It's just Elena, like he remembers her. The smell, the sight, the longing. He wanted her just as much, human or vampire. Nothing changes it.
Nothing ever could, for him. But for her? There are no guarantees, Shane's promise notwithstanding. "Do you want me to?" he asks.
She smiles, free, fresh, and human again. (Happy vampire Elena, as a human.) "No," she says with a laugh. "I love you now, just the way you are."
This time, she's not lying.
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~3400
Rating/Warnings: R
Spoilers: Everything through 4x09.
Summary: Real, from start to finish. That's all he's ever wanted.
Author's notes: More of the same from me. I'm sure you're all sick of it.
He tucks her into the front seat of his car and hurries back to the wrecked one in the middle of the road. Pushing it into the ditch, he wipes his hands on his jeans and hops into the Camaro.
Elena sleeps the whole way to Georgia.
At least, he thinks she's sleeping. If she were in a coma, her breathing would sound different, he's pretty sure.
When she wakes up, and starts bitching immediately, he almost wishes she'd been a coma.
(Almost.)
Then they start having fun, and he forgets for a little while. What he's here for, what he wants. He's been focused on Katherine for 145 years, and today is a day he's bent on getting answers.
But Elena distracts him. Just a little.
In the end, he's really glad he brought her with him. Not just because it makes Stefan pissy, not just because he starts imagining her legs spread willingly for him, not just because she saves his life.
For the first time, possibly ever, there is a human he wants to know, enjoys being with, has no desire to manipulate.
She's not a witch who might lead him to answers he needs, she's not a vampire who will be useful to him in some way. She's a human girl, and he likes her.
(Several days later, she holds him in her arms as his world dissolves around him, and he hates her for being nothing like the face she wears.)
He kisses her on the front porch, his heart pounding, his brain somewhere upstairs with Jeremy. He has completely lost his mind, but then her mouth opens and her tongue touches his, and that's it.
He's kissing Elena, but more importantly, Elena's kissing him. He didn't plan this; he didn't even anticipate that it could ever happen.
(Because he knows.)
She loves Stefan. If she feels anything for him, it's not love. She doesn't even like him much, he would guess, even if they are sort of friends now.
He forgets all of that rather quickly, which is the problem with Elena. She makes him forget all the things he tries so hard to be, to feel, to mean when he's talking.
He strokes his tongue over hers, and then the front door opens, and Jenna catches them. He can't look at Elena's aunt, he can hardly bring himself to look at Elena, because he can't believe what just happened.
She goes into the house and he feels as if he's gone back in time, as if he's that stupid soldier, home on leave, completely sucked in by Katherine's charms.
He walks to his car, determined to hash this all out with Elena at the first opportunity. He won't let this be that all over again.
(This is real, and it always has been, and he won't let her pretend it's not.)
Rose's werewolf bite heals right in front of their eyes and Damon can't believe he ever fell for it. There's nothing that can kill a vampire but a stake through the heart, or a sunrise with no protection. He has known this for 146 years, and yet he doubted it.
When Rose blabs on about how she doesn't love men who love other women, even though she just kissed him like he was her favorite flavor lollipop, he's happy to ignore that if she is.
(He does love Elena, and he will save her life, but it won't come to anything, and he knows that as much as he knows werewolves can't hurt vampires.)
Less than 36 hours later, he rams a stake through Rose's chest, and her hair soaks up his tears.
(He doesn't know jackshit, and he's only had to live 168 years to finally understand that completely.)
Elena's hands are remarkably soft as she soothes his fevered brow. He'd laugh at the romanticism, but any movement is agonizingly painful.
So, instead, he's more real with her than he's ever been before. He gets it all out. The apology(ies) he's owed her, the love he took away, the truth he's never admitted, even to himself: he wouldn't change a damn thing, not if it meant having never known Elena.
He would rather die a thousand deaths, no romanticism intended, than ever live one day without her. She changed everything, she made everything worthwhile, even his miserable life. Even Stefan's miserable life.
He can't even fault her for the lie she tells him (I like you now, just the way you are), because he knows her so well. Elena wouldn't whip him when he's down and dying, even though she should, even though there's no way she can really forgive him for everything he's done.
He doesn't even care. He just closes his eyes and intends to feel the press of her lips against his for eternity, or whatever few minutes he has left before his consciousness turns to nothing.
(But, yeah, Katherine? She manages to ruin his death a second time.)
He tells her, It's right, it's just not right now because she said, I can't. Not, I don't want to or even I don't want you to. Elena is good at doing the right thing, or what she thinks is the right thing. He appreciates this about her even if he finds it ridiculous most of the time.
He gets where it comes from, and why Elena identifies so much with being that girl who does the right thing. But some day, she was going to do what she wanted, and he was going to be there when she did.
He was going to be the "bad" choice she made.
(He can wait, he really, really can.)
He can hardly see as he's loading Ric's body into the back of his car. Tears are blinding him, and he can hear Elena's voice, the wobbly words that had come through his cell phone, that had let him know she was bawling as she said goodbye to him.
That was how it should have ended, with him dead under Ric's hand, not her, however it happened. Never her. Not Elena, not the girl who should get to grow up and have the life she wanted, the life she deserved.
She hadn't loved him enough, but he had always loved her too much. He had been willing to take them all out before she would fall.
But now? Now there's no choice.
He drives back to Mystic Falls with no plan, with no way to make this right.
And when he gets there and sees what choice was made, he nearly stakes Stefan. He even thinks about staking Elena since she can't seem to ever die right.
(Because she won't ever fight to live.)
He kisses her first, it's true. He'll go over it and over it in his mind in the weeks that follow that night. But he'll also remember how she looked at him, how she said, You, how she said she wanted to dance with him. How, once he kissed her, she kissed him as if he were air, milk, honey, blood, every delicious, nutritious thing she could ever want.
He will remember when she was still human and she kissed him first, kissed him long, kissed him hard, while she rubbed herself against his erection until Jeremy interrupted them.
He will tell himself she did it because she wanted to, not because he wanted her to.
(But, God, he had wanted her to. Until the world stopped spinning, he had wanted her to.)
"So, what's the deal exactly with you and my sister?" Jeremy asks three days after Bonnie and Elena go home. Damon looks at him, believes he silences the brat with a glare, but only a moment later, Jeremy says, "For reals, man. What's going on?"
"Nothing's going on," he says, because explaining it would be ridiculous.
"She's like in love with you now, or something, right?"
"Or something," he answers. Then he tells the kid everything. Why he does that, he has no explanation for, except that Ric is dead, and he's alone, and Stefan won't speak to him because he fucked Elena even though what the hell did Stefan expect would happen when he broke up with her and then left her alone with Damon? Seriously, it's like his brother will never know him, not even if they spend millennia together.
Jeremy's quiet, thoughtful even, as he listens. He shakes his head. "I wish I could tell you something different. But I feel like I wanna kill my sister even when I don't want to kill her, so what the hell do I know?"
Damon pulls out the whiskey bottle after that, because at least if he's up shit creek, he's got a buddy with him.
His dreams are filled with disjointed memories. Charlotte...Sage...Katherine...Rose. Elena, on top of him, taking his cock into her mouth; beneath him, writhing, as he parts her labia with his tongue; her gasps and moans sometimes peppered with words of love that she never actually said.
He wakes up sweating and gasping, hard as a rock, grief-stricken. He rolls on to his side and jacks off because he's sharing a house with a 16-year-old boy, he might as well act like one.
He falls asleep again, his dick limp, his cheeks wet. Elena is waiting for him when he gets there and she touches his face, smiles and promises him that they will have just one selfish day. He loves her so much, and he tells her. She presses a finger against her lips, shushing him.
(He wakes up exhausted.)
By the time he goes back to Mystic Falls, Stefan has resumed talking to him, but he's still as big a tool as ever, and Damon can't even bring himself to care. He would point out that this whole cure thing had only ever been for his brother's benefit, and it still is, but Damon knows, secretly, in his heart of hearts that he wants to cure Elena so he'll know for sure.
She will be human again, and she will not want him. Or at least, she won't want him enough, and all will be as it was that dark, lonely night when Alaric died in his arms, and so did all his hope. Only, there will be no one to put him out of his misery. He can probably piss Klaus off enough to finally do the deed. It's not like Stefan's making deals to preserve his existence anymore. Why would he? Dead Damon means no competition, sire bond or no sire bond.
He isn't expecting to run into her at the gas station on the far side of town (of all places), but he needs to fuel up the Camaro, and she's leaning against Jenna's SUV as he pulls in. They see each other at about the same moment, because she straightens up and pushes herself off the car as he rolls to a stop behind her.
He just stares at her for a moment, in her snug jeans and her long sleeved t-shirt, and he literally hates her for being beautiful and perfect and unattainable, no matter fucking what. Then he forces a smile to his lips and slides out of the car, giving her a jaunty wave as he pulls his wallet out to grab his debit card.
"Hi," she says softly, though it carries just fine to his ears under the canopy. The gas pump thuds to a stop, and she tugs it free, quickly screwing the cap closed and making her way closer to him as he pushes in his PIN number.
Such fucking ordinary every day tasks, but his fingers feel like they don't work quite right.
"I didn't know you were home," she says, her voice still very quiet, with absolutely no accusation in it.
"Just got back, actually," he replies.
Her mouth opens but she doesn't say anything, and he wonders what springs to her mind first: I miss you. I need you. Fuck them all, I'm having you anyway. Can she read his thoughts? Does she know what he wants her to say?
"You look good," is what comes out of her mouth, and his lips quirk because he wasn't expecting that at all.
"So do you," he says, because it's true. She's always looked good. Looking good has never been a problem for Elena. In fact, he might feel better if she just looked a little sad, or something.
He swings around to shove the nozzle into his tank, turning his back on her. Then she moves, wrapping her arms around him, hugging him from behind. Her head presses between his shoulder blades and her hands fist together just above his belt buckle. She doesn't say a word.
(Which fucking kills him. Words he could fight against. This? He's never known what to do with this.)
Seconds tick by and finally, he just lifts a hand and places it over hers, squeezing her knuckles together. Moments gather and pass, and the pump stops pumping, but Elena still holds on, and he wonders if he's going to have shake her loose.
Before he can decide, she lets go, and before he can turn around, she vamp-speeds back to her car. His hand rests on the nozzle as her tail lights disappear into the night.
(He thinks, I love you, too.)
"I thought you said you invoked the sire bond," Stefan says accusingly one night while Damon's nursing a bottle of his best bourbon. No glass, just straight bottle.
(It's been one of those days.)
"I did," he mutters, looking up at his brother, who stands in the doorway of the library looking as superior as ever.
"Then why is she still pining for you?"
Damon smirks. "Maybe I'm just not that easy to get over," he snarks. "She's not pining for me, she's just not jumping back into bed with you. Maybe she's seeing how it feels to be single?" He adds that with just the right inflection, as though he's trying to help Stefan figure it out.
(The truth is, if someone doesn't find the cure or just fucking stake Damon out of his misery like ASAP, he's just going to take his ring off and be gone with the wind. There is only so much hurt a man can take.)
"She is pining for you," Stefan reiterates, his voice sharp. "She's miserable, and she's staying away because she thinks that's what you want." Stefan's brows draw down over his eyes even more deeply. "That's what you told her? That you don't want to be with her? That's not what you were supposed to say!"
Damon gets to his feet and throws the mostly empty whiskey bottle across the room. It shatters against the wall, just to the left of Stefan's head. "What, praytell, was I supposed to say, St. Stefan? I had to tell her that us not being together would make me happy, and she was supposed to believe it. I set her free. What else do you want from me? If you're expecting me to get over her like it's no big deal, once again, brother, you have no fucking clue about me. I won't ever get over her. She's the best person I've ever known, and for five fucking seconds she loved me! Excuse me all to hell for not saying it the way you, in your magnanimity, would have. Because we all know, you always choose the right where Elena's concerned!"
The words fly out of his mouth, and suddenly a weight he hadn't even known he'd been carrying seems to lift from his shoulders. He steps back, as if the release of venom had the same kickback as a fired gun.
Stefan looks like he's been staked in the stomach, and Damon doesn't care. If he could make his brother understand how hard this has been on him, even a little bit, maybe there is hope for their relationship yet.
Stefan mutters, "I'm sorry, Damon," and leaves the house.
Damon contemplates finding another bottle, but instead he goes up to bed and sleeps a dreamless sleep.
Elena stands next to Klaus and Professor Shadypants as they hover over the magic elixir. Finally Klaus dips a cup into the well and hands it to her.
Stefan stands tensely beside him, and Damon doesn't think he's drawn a breath for five straight minutes.
And yet, he's still conscious, he's still standing there, waiting like the prick he is. He didn't have to come.
(He couldn't not come, no matter what.)
Elena's eyes meet his as her fingers clasp around the cup. She looks at him for a long time, and he nods his head, just slightly.
That's when she drops the cup and it splashes across the ground. Shane gasps, and leaps towards it, as if he must save the wasted liquid and Elena takes a step towards Damon and Stefan.
"I don't want to take it," she says. "Not if it means I'm going to lose the way I feel about you."
Damon feels frozen, like a deer in the headlights. Real, from start to finish. That's all he's ever wanted. With Elena, that's all he's ever wanted. From life. From fate.
"Elena..."
He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do.
It's Stefan who says, "If it's real, Elena, you won't lose it."
Her eyes jerk to his brother's face, and Damon knows despair in a way he never has before. Not when Katherine "died," not when he lived, not when she wasn't in the tomb. This is all-consuming, and it ends with Elena gulping down some old witch's brew.
She narrows her eyes at Stefan and says, "It is real; it's always been real. The only person who doesn't believe it is you, and you forced him not to believe it either."
"Now, now," Klaus says placatingly, his hands out, patting the non-existent air.
Elena turns on him, almost rabidly. "Shut up," she snaps. Klaus just smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Damon doesn't know what he might do if Elena doesn't do what he wants her to, though he supposes killing her is not in the cards, considering the nature of their journey here.
"It won't change anything, Elena," Shane says, stepping forward. He presses the cup back into her hand. "You loved Damon before you turned, and you'll love him when you're human again. The choice has always been what you would do with that love."
Stefan clears his throat and Damon looks away when Elena's head turns towards him again. He can't. He can't be the one who says yes or no. He's not strong enough to do it.
(He was never strong enough to walk away, so he's just been agonizingly at arms' length all these months.)
Elena's voice is tear-choked when she asks, "Do you promise me that if I do this, I'll still want to be with him?"
"I promise you," Shane says, the sincerity in his voice almost convincing enough, even for Damon, though he quickly ignores that thought.
He knows Elena, and her trusting ways. He knows what she will do.
(It's what he wants, really it is. For her. So she can choose. So they will both always know.)
(So Stefan will finally know.)
He hears the sound of the cup being dipped in again. He hears the swish of her hair as she tosses it back over her shoulder.
He hears her swallow.
Minutes linger. He realizes he's holding his breath again. Still? Nobody knows how long it will take, no one's ever done this before.
She comes and stands in front of him, and he's forced to look her full in the face. The cup remains in her hand. "Do you want to take it?" she asks.
She looks just the same, if suddenly more fragile. Is that all it is? Her human form takes that outer strength and melts it away? No, it's not even that. It's just Elena, like he remembers her. The smell, the sight, the longing. He wanted her just as much, human or vampire. Nothing changes it.
Nothing ever could, for him. But for her? There are no guarantees, Shane's promise notwithstanding. "Do you want me to?" he asks.
She smiles, free, fresh, and human again. (Happy vampire Elena, as a human.) "No," she says with a laugh. "I love you now, just the way you are."
This time, she's not lying.