Damned if You Do; (Damon/Elena, M)
Title: Damned if You Do
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing: Damon/Elena (with echoes of Stefan/Elena)
Rating: M
Word Count: ~3.770
Spoilers: 3x01 “The Birthday”
Summary: “She turns her back (on him, on Stefan, on death) and walks to the car just as she said she would, waits for Damon to do what she’s come to realize he does best...”
Author’s Note: This is written for the lovely badboy_fangirl who purchased me at the last fandomaid auction. I decided to go with the Damon/Elena “sexy times” prompt (hehe), and though this ended up being far more angsty than I intended, I hope you end up enjoying it bb (and I’m so, so sorry for how long overdue this is *blushes*)! <33
~*~
”All my bones to dust,
(two people too damaged too much too late)
And my heart’s sealed with rust
(two people too damaged too much too late)
These hands will always be rough,
(two people too damaged too much too late)
I know this won’t count for much...”
Rough Hands- Alexisonfire
~*~
She comes to him the very next day, the words she uttered on her end of the line as loud in her ears now as they were in the silence of her room (in the silence at his end) last night.
She doesn’t knock despite whatever reservations she may have, walks right up to his room and pushes against the half-open door to reveal him on the other side. He’s dressed (much to her relief) in his trademark black, leaning against the window frame with his staple tumbler in hand.
“We’re going to find him, together,” she says without preamble, commands almost and knows despite her best efforts that she can.
He sighs, turns his head up to the ceiling as if it could rid him of what she’s sure he considers her irrational pestering. It doesn’t deter her though-hasn’t so much as once in the last three months and certainly won’t now.
“Damon, I’m serious. I’d going to do this with or without you.” But I’d rather with.
That last sentence garners the reaction she was hoping for-his head turns to her so quickly she nearly misses the transition, his eyes and his lips narrow in his displeasure.
“Could’ve sworn we had this conversation yesterday, and every other day before that.”
“And every other day after until I’m fed up enough to go about this on my own.”
She lets the threat hang between them, waits for him to sigh in frustration and ask her what she wants to know, to finally lay his closely held cards out on the table.
He doesn’t though, simply watches her with an expression she could easily call “livid,” confirms that, this time, she’s going to have to work out some of these harder bits all on her own.
“Where is he Damon?”
The corners of his lips turn up into an ironic, mirthless smile that almost (almost) causes her to flinch. She knows him well enough to know that his definition of irony is never a cause for humour.
“Georgia.”
The irony isn’t as lost to her as she’d like it to be.
~*~
For the next three days she’s an apparition he couldn’t shake even if he had wanted to.
She’s nearly living at the boarding house again, ignores the reproachful thoughts that tell her she has no business here. After all, her boyfriend is gone and it’s hardly appropriate for her to be moving in with his brother-whatever the reasoning, whatever the circumstances.
She ignores it though, has gotten to the point where she can stifle it before it manifests into a tangible thing and feels herself getting better at it with each passing day.
She stops the guilt in its tracks while she’s at it, tells herself that social propriety is the least of her worries right now.
Which is why when she finds him in Stefan’s room (the one she claimed as her own--for the time being) on the morning of the fourth day, looming over her sleeping form, she doesn’t start, doesn’t berate him as she should.
“What is it,” she simply asks, tone riddled with urgency while her heart hammers at all the half-formed potential answers that plague her mind.
“Start packing-unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind?” He shoots her that half smirk, borderline cruel and willing her to back down though he knows (perhaps better than anyone, all things considered) that the mere hope of her doing such a thing is futile.
She’s out of bed before she can string one more coherent thought to another, each of her limbs equipped with a defiant mind of its own.
“Can I have a minute?” She turns to him, voice sharper than she intended it to be because, urgency aside, she’s fairly certain she should be reprimanding him for his intrusion (despite it being one of his least cumbersome).
“Be my guest,” he mocks before he’s closing the door in his wake.
She waits until she’s certain he’s far enough before she’s nearly collapsing onto the edge of the bed.
Damon may think what he will of her “silly martyrdom,” but Elena almost always knows exactly what she’s getting herself into.
(She stifles the image of Jenna’s lifeless body and John’s lonely headstone).
~*~
She climbs downstairs to find that he’s prepared her breakfast, a simple omelette accompanied by a cup of orange juice, and she’s almost paralyzed by the consideration behind the gesture.
That is, before he tells her to “chop chop” with a sharp clap of his hands effectively evaporating any desire to express her gratitude, and so she rewards him with a petulant eye roll instead.
He’s as unfazed as he always likes to seem though, simply reaches for the mug he just finished microwaving (the contents of which she could easily guess), and turns to toast her before gulping his first mouthful and it’s a testament to just how much has changed that she isn’t immediately put off her breakfast.
“So where in Georgia is he exactly?”
“He was last seen in a little town you’ve probably never heard of,” he answers vaguely, and she feels a twinge of indignation at his assumption of her ignorance.
“Does this little town I’ve probably never hears of have a name?”
“Indeed it does.”
“Damon!”
“Elena.”
And she knows it then, what he’d been soliciting with his coy responses and she almost (almost) awards him with a smile for his efforts to lighten the impossibly dark mood she’s been in since that day on that bridge that could have been ages ago-another life belonging to another girl.
“Blairsville,” he finally relents, and all she can do is nod.
~*~
This drive’s not all that different from their first, his radio fills the silence with music she’s never heard before while his fingers strum to the beat against the steering wheel, eyes set on the road with the occasional sideways glance in her direction.
She has her own eyes set outside her window, facing way from him but no less aware of his presence. Not for the first time, she’s surprised that this awareness isn’t less comfortable, that it doesn’t weight on her more heavily given what she can no longer pretend not to know (that he loves her, that he will always choose her, that she still loves Stefan and that his heart yearns in vain-just as it did all those years ago when he was a different man for a girl with the same face).
“I can take you back, if you’re really not up for this,” he offers, his carefully orchestrated nonchalance giving him away perhaps more than anything else could have.
“I’m fine, Damon,” she sighs, tired of the phrase, tired of having to repeat it again and again, tired of its untruth.
“If you say so,” he shrugs as if it’s all of little consequence either way.
Something about the gesture makes her want to snap, to tell him that this is neither the time nor the place for smoke mirrors and pitifully transparent facades.
But she doesn’t, simply glares out at the landscape past her window with a resolute vigil instead.
“Got us a room not too close and not too far from the house where Stefan’s taken up residence. Single bed, of course,” he adds with a grin she doesn’t return.
“Damon...”
“Oh relax, got us a double, had no illusions that this trip would upgrade your fun factor.”
She smiles at that and playfully nudges his arm with her elbow. This time, she doesn’t feel the need to let him know that used to be more fun-partly because he already knows that, and partly because whatever she used to be is so far away from her she can’t imagine it would matter in the slightest anymore.
And so she doesn’t say anything as they drive on, the predominantly green scenery rolling past them only to be replaced by more of the same, and her desire to find Stefan-to set something straight-no less urgent.
~*~
Despite the separate beds he’d promised, the room is far too small for the two of them, far too intimate for her liking.
But still she says nothing, feels that to do so would be to upset the easy peace this summer has managed to harvest between them (she puts aside her mental reproach against smoke mirrors and pitiful facades). She consoles herself with the thought that a day or two of discomfort is a small price to pay for Stefan, no more no less.
“Now, you sit tight while I try to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with here,” he throws over his shoulder as he’s turning away towards the door.
“Damon wait!”
She reaches our for his arm and wraps her fingers around it, tight enough to make most people flinch, and she doesn’t miss the way his adam’s apple bobs at the contact (or the way he huffs in frustration, or the way something she could never put a name to stirs inside her).
“You said we were doing this together,” she reminds him, doesn’t bother to mask the accusation as anything otherwise.
“We are doing this together, you keep the room all warm and tidy until I get back,” his lips pull into that mockery of a smile as he sets to free his arm from her grasp.
“Nu-uh, where you go, I go. That was our deal and we’re sticking to it. Unless, of course, you want me going off to do my own thing too?”
It isn’t lost on her that not for the first time in less than a week, she’s threatened him with her safety, expected him to prize it above all else-used her knowledge against him. She swallows she guilt and holds his gaze with a defiance she can scarcely feel.
Even in the dimness of the cramped room where his features aren’t as clearly etched as they would usually be, there’s no mistaking who he is with the angles of his cheeks and the sharp cut of his jaw-even the blue of his eyes can’t be masked by the shadows. For a second, just a second, she can almost say she sees what all those women who watch him at The Grill with avid eyes and secret smiles see.
“Fine,” he relents, though the way he’s glaring at her and the clip of his words would suggest that she’s far from the winner. “But you stay in the car unless I say otherwise. I don’t want any independent shenanigans what could easily get us both killed this time-I mean it, Elena.”
She knows he does, wouldn’t dream of thinking anything otherwise with the way he’s looking at her.
“Fine,” she nods in seeming agreement, quells the guilt that grows louder with each passing day (with each passing).
~*~
Of course she doesn’t keep her word, of course she follows him into the grand, seemingly innocuous house with its trimmed lawn and the flower baskets that hang off of its white porch.
He’s a second too late when he finally realizes that she’s there, too late to shield her from the blonde head rolling at his feet, from the maimed bodies of what used to be two women, their hands clasped before them in a display of mock serenity.
She’s almost thankful when she can taste the bile at the back of her throat, silently prays that things never change enough for her to be okay with this.
“Is this-did...”
She can’t say it, won’t abide speaking his name aloud-attaching it to this nightmare where the walls are painted red and the smell of rotting flesh is a staple.
(Again, she puts aside her mental reproach against smoke mirrors and pitiful facades).
But even so, stupid wasn’t an adjective anyone ever associated with Elena Gilbert (except perhaps Damon when he’s being particularly blunt).
“Elena?”
He’s got her chin clasped between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes brushing every inch of her face, his own face so close his breath is mingling with hers and she hates how weak she is-how weak all of this is making her.
“I’m fine,” she hears herself say, her voice hollow and devoid of sincerity even to her own ears. “I’ll be in the car.”
And with that she steps away from him, the places where his fingers touched numb with something she’s too tired to define, the echo of Stefan’s presence heavier on her heart than she can ever remember it being.
She turns her back (on him, on Stefan, on death) and walks to the car just as she said she would, waits for Damon to do what she’s come to realize he does best.
~*~
The drive back is a silent once, words unnecessary, irrelevant in the wake of what they have just witnessed. He doesn’t try to console her, doesn’t try to justify it-blaming the blood, blaming the vampirism, blaming Klaus-and in a small way she’s thankful.
When she finally does break the silence spell, they’re back at the hotel where even the lamps are failing against the room’s general dimness.
“Was it Stefan?”
She doesn’t need to clarify, doesn’t even really need his answer when he hesitates, but waits for it anyway.
They’re close again (they always seem to be), the strange current that always seems to course through her at the proximity is as poignant as it’s ever been, and she knows she should hate that she doesn’t need to wonder whether or not he feels the same.
“Yes.”
It’s all she needs to hear before her hands are on the lapels of his leather jacket, before she’s on the tips of her toes seeking out his lips with her own.
There’s nothing tentative about the kiss--she’s insistent, certain, relieved almost that the inevitable has finally manifested.
The guilt has been such a constant companion, it can hardly drown this out (not when she has the blood of four parents, the blood of more people than she’s wilfully recall on her hands).
“Elena...”
He pushes her away, gently, though his hands are still wrapped around her arms.
“This isn’t what you want,” he tells her, and the conviction works against (or is it for?) him because she’s almost as tired of people’s assumptions as she is of supporting them.
“Damon, please.”
She feels her eyes watering and, as humiliating as it is, it serves its purpose. His face, once stony in his conviction, softens-leaves just enough room for her to try again.
And so she does. This time, he’s the one that deepens the kiss with his hands framing her head and his tongue seeking out her own, languorously moving against it when they finally meet.
It’s almost as if he’s savouring the moment, exploring what he’s certain he’ll never be able to taste and touch again, and something inside her breaks at that (breaks at the fact that she leaves nothing but the darkest prints in her wake, breaks at the fact that he may not be mistaken).
She kisses him harder, pushes herself up against him so that nearly every inch of the fronts of their bodies is touching, so that there’s nothing left for him to do but run the palms of his hands over the planes of her back, to bury them in her hair-to give in.
And that he does, with a groan against her mouth that seems to signify his complete loss of resolve-that mimics the complete loss of hers (long gone it would seem, all things considered).
Before she knows it, her back is flat against the wall, his tongue and his lips tracing the contours of her neck, her collarbone, even skimming what little of her breasts swell out of her fitted top.
The roughness of his tongue against her intimate flesh is enough to squeeze the knot at the pit of her stomach-the impossibility and the inevitability of it all both serving to further her arousal.
“Elena,” he says, chants even, as she’s literally pulling apart the buttons of his shirt, any desire to preserve clothing lost in the midst of this-this thing that’s ignited between them after months of simmering on the brim.
She’s almost relieved that it’s her name at the edge of his tongue, almost expects someone else’s (almost expects him to be as plagued as she is).
He’s no better than her with the way he’s roughly pulling her top over her head with little regard for the flimsy fabric. It’s an entirely different sensation when they’re pressed together skin to skin, his hardness against the softness of her curves and she can scarcely stop the moan that escapes her if she tried.
She could swear it’s all a dream when her back hits the soft surface of the mattress, could swear this isn’t Damon planting open mouthed kisses down the length of her throat, her chest, her stomach...
He whirls his tongue against her skin in a way she’s never been privy to before-in a way that screams of him and no one but him, makes it hard to pretend he’s anyone else (and something inside her scolds her for not really wanting him to be anything but exactly what he is).
It isn’t long before he’s undoing her shorts, pulling them down the length of her legs while the heat pools at her center. He looks at her then, his eyes brushing over every inch of her and she can’t help the blush that colors her cheeks and the skin over her neck-not when he’s looking at her like he’s never seen anything like her, mouth slightly agape and eyes more concentrated than she’s ever seen them. Except he has seen something exactly like her and for a startling second she wonders if he’s even seeing her at all.
He quells the thought when he replaces her shorts with his lips, suckling at the skin and kissing along every inch except where it matters most.
“Damon,” she groans in frustration, pulls at his dark hair in a way that would have made any other man (any human man) flinch.
Had they been doing anything else, he could have flashed that half smirk at her and relished in her agitation. But they aren’t and he doesn’t, simply presses his tongue against the dampness of her panties and elicits a gasp. When he pushes the fabric aside and laves at the bare, sensitized skin of her folds she nearly keens, dissolves into a gasping mess as he expertly rubs wet circles into her clit.
Somewhere in her mind she thinks she should be doing something, returning the favour in some way. Somewhere, she knows that those who came before her would have known exactly what to do, and she loathes the knowledge that another woman could wield her body better than she probably ever could.
He doesn’t let it trouble her for long though, not when he slips two fingers into her, rubbing against that spot that only one other had managed to find before him and she nearly sobs at the memory and the pleasure and the absurdity of it all.
He doesn’t go on teasing her for long and the vainer part of her (that one that knows despite her best efforts that she and the ground beneath her feet are cherished by this man and his brother who she won’t think of) wants to assume that it is because he can’t bear it any longer-that he’s as desperate as she is.
He watches her face as he finally pushes into her, slow and deliberate as she moans and turns away with her eyes shut tight, unnerved by the determination in his.
He stills then, forces her eyes to fly open, and a sinking feeling spreads across the pit of her stomach.
“Elena, look at me.”
It isn’t a plea, isn’t even a request. She knows, without him having to say, that if she doesn’t go into this with her eyes open, knowing exactly who he is and exactly what is transpiring (has transpired, she reminds herself) between them, he’ll put an end to it, will pull right out of her and speak of it no more.
And so she does as she knows she must, as determined to finish what she started here as she was to hit the road all those hours ago and she almost laughs at the irony of traveling all this way with the hopes of relinquishing one brother only to fuck the other.
He thrusts into her again when her eyes finally meet his own and she whimpers at the feel of it (of him inside her). He does it again and again and again, all the while his eyes watching her, ensuring that she feels each and every stroke-ensuring that this is the most intimate she can ever remember being with another (or she ever wants to remember being, for the time being).
She can’t help it when her lids droop, when that burning coil at her center is more desperate for release than ever, and she’s thankful when he doesn’t prompt her to open her eyes again. He arches her hips slightly, a move that pushes him even deeper inside her-that ensures they are inseparable at this point (as if they-any of them-were ever truly separable to begin with, as if history didn’t act as a precedent for their lives).
She comes with his name a whisper on her lips, surprises him nearly as much as she does herself, and with a few more thrust he’s following her to the brink.
He doesn’t slip out of her as he brushes her hair, damp with sweat, aside-as he waits for her to open her eyes again.
When she finally does she sees that rare softness in his face, the reverence in his eyes and she gulps back at her inability to do anything more than lie there like an invalid.
It’s okay to love them both, I did.
But then Elena remembers the twitch in his jaw, the mad glint in those very same eyes--the snap of Jeremy’s neck. She remembers heads severed from bodies, walls painted red with blood-the smell of burning flesh.
The memories drive her will, make certain that her and Katherine Pierce will never see eye to eye on anything (except a part of her knows that perhaps they already have).
~*~
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing: Damon/Elena (with echoes of Stefan/Elena)
Rating: M
Word Count: ~3.770
Spoilers: 3x01 “The Birthday”
Summary: “She turns her back (on him, on Stefan, on death) and walks to the car just as she said she would, waits for Damon to do what she’s come to realize he does best...”
Author’s Note: This is written for the lovely badboy_fangirl who purchased me at the last fandomaid auction. I decided to go with the Damon/Elena “sexy times” prompt (hehe), and though this ended up being far more angsty than I intended, I hope you end up enjoying it bb (and I’m so, so sorry for how long overdue this is *blushes*)! <33
~*~
”All my bones to dust,
(two people too damaged too much too late)
And my heart’s sealed with rust
(two people too damaged too much too late)
These hands will always be rough,
(two people too damaged too much too late)
I know this won’t count for much...”
Rough Hands- Alexisonfire
~*~
She comes to him the very next day, the words she uttered on her end of the line as loud in her ears now as they were in the silence of her room (in the silence at his end) last night.
She doesn’t knock despite whatever reservations she may have, walks right up to his room and pushes against the half-open door to reveal him on the other side. He’s dressed (much to her relief) in his trademark black, leaning against the window frame with his staple tumbler in hand.
“We’re going to find him, together,” she says without preamble, commands almost and knows despite her best efforts that she can.
He sighs, turns his head up to the ceiling as if it could rid him of what she’s sure he considers her irrational pestering. It doesn’t deter her though-hasn’t so much as once in the last three months and certainly won’t now.
“Damon, I’m serious. I’d going to do this with or without you.” But I’d rather with.
That last sentence garners the reaction she was hoping for-his head turns to her so quickly she nearly misses the transition, his eyes and his lips narrow in his displeasure.
“Could’ve sworn we had this conversation yesterday, and every other day before that.”
“And every other day after until I’m fed up enough to go about this on my own.”
She lets the threat hang between them, waits for him to sigh in frustration and ask her what she wants to know, to finally lay his closely held cards out on the table.
He doesn’t though, simply watches her with an expression she could easily call “livid,” confirms that, this time, she’s going to have to work out some of these harder bits all on her own.
“Where is he Damon?”
The corners of his lips turn up into an ironic, mirthless smile that almost (almost) causes her to flinch. She knows him well enough to know that his definition of irony is never a cause for humour.
“Georgia.”
The irony isn’t as lost to her as she’d like it to be.
~*~
For the next three days she’s an apparition he couldn’t shake even if he had wanted to.
She’s nearly living at the boarding house again, ignores the reproachful thoughts that tell her she has no business here. After all, her boyfriend is gone and it’s hardly appropriate for her to be moving in with his brother-whatever the reasoning, whatever the circumstances.
She ignores it though, has gotten to the point where she can stifle it before it manifests into a tangible thing and feels herself getting better at it with each passing day.
She stops the guilt in its tracks while she’s at it, tells herself that social propriety is the least of her worries right now.
Which is why when she finds him in Stefan’s room (the one she claimed as her own--for the time being) on the morning of the fourth day, looming over her sleeping form, she doesn’t start, doesn’t berate him as she should.
“What is it,” she simply asks, tone riddled with urgency while her heart hammers at all the half-formed potential answers that plague her mind.
“Start packing-unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind?” He shoots her that half smirk, borderline cruel and willing her to back down though he knows (perhaps better than anyone, all things considered) that the mere hope of her doing such a thing is futile.
She’s out of bed before she can string one more coherent thought to another, each of her limbs equipped with a defiant mind of its own.
“Can I have a minute?” She turns to him, voice sharper than she intended it to be because, urgency aside, she’s fairly certain she should be reprimanding him for his intrusion (despite it being one of his least cumbersome).
“Be my guest,” he mocks before he’s closing the door in his wake.
She waits until she’s certain he’s far enough before she’s nearly collapsing onto the edge of the bed.
Damon may think what he will of her “silly martyrdom,” but Elena almost always knows exactly what she’s getting herself into.
(She stifles the image of Jenna’s lifeless body and John’s lonely headstone).
~*~
She climbs downstairs to find that he’s prepared her breakfast, a simple omelette accompanied by a cup of orange juice, and she’s almost paralyzed by the consideration behind the gesture.
That is, before he tells her to “chop chop” with a sharp clap of his hands effectively evaporating any desire to express her gratitude, and so she rewards him with a petulant eye roll instead.
He’s as unfazed as he always likes to seem though, simply reaches for the mug he just finished microwaving (the contents of which she could easily guess), and turns to toast her before gulping his first mouthful and it’s a testament to just how much has changed that she isn’t immediately put off her breakfast.
“So where in Georgia is he exactly?”
“He was last seen in a little town you’ve probably never heard of,” he answers vaguely, and she feels a twinge of indignation at his assumption of her ignorance.
“Does this little town I’ve probably never hears of have a name?”
“Indeed it does.”
“Damon!”
“Elena.”
And she knows it then, what he’d been soliciting with his coy responses and she almost (almost) awards him with a smile for his efforts to lighten the impossibly dark mood she’s been in since that day on that bridge that could have been ages ago-another life belonging to another girl.
“Blairsville,” he finally relents, and all she can do is nod.
~*~
This drive’s not all that different from their first, his radio fills the silence with music she’s never heard before while his fingers strum to the beat against the steering wheel, eyes set on the road with the occasional sideways glance in her direction.
She has her own eyes set outside her window, facing way from him but no less aware of his presence. Not for the first time, she’s surprised that this awareness isn’t less comfortable, that it doesn’t weight on her more heavily given what she can no longer pretend not to know (that he loves her, that he will always choose her, that she still loves Stefan and that his heart yearns in vain-just as it did all those years ago when he was a different man for a girl with the same face).
“I can take you back, if you’re really not up for this,” he offers, his carefully orchestrated nonchalance giving him away perhaps more than anything else could have.
“I’m fine, Damon,” she sighs, tired of the phrase, tired of having to repeat it again and again, tired of its untruth.
“If you say so,” he shrugs as if it’s all of little consequence either way.
Something about the gesture makes her want to snap, to tell him that this is neither the time nor the place for smoke mirrors and pitifully transparent facades.
But she doesn’t, simply glares out at the landscape past her window with a resolute vigil instead.
“Got us a room not too close and not too far from the house where Stefan’s taken up residence. Single bed, of course,” he adds with a grin she doesn’t return.
“Damon...”
“Oh relax, got us a double, had no illusions that this trip would upgrade your fun factor.”
She smiles at that and playfully nudges his arm with her elbow. This time, she doesn’t feel the need to let him know that used to be more fun-partly because he already knows that, and partly because whatever she used to be is so far away from her she can’t imagine it would matter in the slightest anymore.
And so she doesn’t say anything as they drive on, the predominantly green scenery rolling past them only to be replaced by more of the same, and her desire to find Stefan-to set something straight-no less urgent.
~*~
Despite the separate beds he’d promised, the room is far too small for the two of them, far too intimate for her liking.
But still she says nothing, feels that to do so would be to upset the easy peace this summer has managed to harvest between them (she puts aside her mental reproach against smoke mirrors and pitiful facades). She consoles herself with the thought that a day or two of discomfort is a small price to pay for Stefan, no more no less.
“Now, you sit tight while I try to figure out exactly what we’re dealing with here,” he throws over his shoulder as he’s turning away towards the door.
“Damon wait!”
She reaches our for his arm and wraps her fingers around it, tight enough to make most people flinch, and she doesn’t miss the way his adam’s apple bobs at the contact (or the way he huffs in frustration, or the way something she could never put a name to stirs inside her).
“You said we were doing this together,” she reminds him, doesn’t bother to mask the accusation as anything otherwise.
“We are doing this together, you keep the room all warm and tidy until I get back,” his lips pull into that mockery of a smile as he sets to free his arm from her grasp.
“Nu-uh, where you go, I go. That was our deal and we’re sticking to it. Unless, of course, you want me going off to do my own thing too?”
It isn’t lost on her that not for the first time in less than a week, she’s threatened him with her safety, expected him to prize it above all else-used her knowledge against him. She swallows she guilt and holds his gaze with a defiance she can scarcely feel.
Even in the dimness of the cramped room where his features aren’t as clearly etched as they would usually be, there’s no mistaking who he is with the angles of his cheeks and the sharp cut of his jaw-even the blue of his eyes can’t be masked by the shadows. For a second, just a second, she can almost say she sees what all those women who watch him at The Grill with avid eyes and secret smiles see.
“Fine,” he relents, though the way he’s glaring at her and the clip of his words would suggest that she’s far from the winner. “But you stay in the car unless I say otherwise. I don’t want any independent shenanigans what could easily get us both killed this time-I mean it, Elena.”
She knows he does, wouldn’t dream of thinking anything otherwise with the way he’s looking at her.
“Fine,” she nods in seeming agreement, quells the guilt that grows louder with each passing day (with each passing).
~*~
Of course she doesn’t keep her word, of course she follows him into the grand, seemingly innocuous house with its trimmed lawn and the flower baskets that hang off of its white porch.
He’s a second too late when he finally realizes that she’s there, too late to shield her from the blonde head rolling at his feet, from the maimed bodies of what used to be two women, their hands clasped before them in a display of mock serenity.
She’s almost thankful when she can taste the bile at the back of her throat, silently prays that things never change enough for her to be okay with this.
“Is this-did...”
She can’t say it, won’t abide speaking his name aloud-attaching it to this nightmare where the walls are painted red and the smell of rotting flesh is a staple.
(Again, she puts aside her mental reproach against smoke mirrors and pitiful facades).
But even so, stupid wasn’t an adjective anyone ever associated with Elena Gilbert (except perhaps Damon when he’s being particularly blunt).
“Elena?”
He’s got her chin clasped between his thumb and forefinger, his eyes brushing every inch of her face, his own face so close his breath is mingling with hers and she hates how weak she is-how weak all of this is making her.
“I’m fine,” she hears herself say, her voice hollow and devoid of sincerity even to her own ears. “I’ll be in the car.”
And with that she steps away from him, the places where his fingers touched numb with something she’s too tired to define, the echo of Stefan’s presence heavier on her heart than she can ever remember it being.
She turns her back (on him, on Stefan, on death) and walks to the car just as she said she would, waits for Damon to do what she’s come to realize he does best.
~*~
The drive back is a silent once, words unnecessary, irrelevant in the wake of what they have just witnessed. He doesn’t try to console her, doesn’t try to justify it-blaming the blood, blaming the vampirism, blaming Klaus-and in a small way she’s thankful.
When she finally does break the silence spell, they’re back at the hotel where even the lamps are failing against the room’s general dimness.
“Was it Stefan?”
She doesn’t need to clarify, doesn’t even really need his answer when he hesitates, but waits for it anyway.
They’re close again (they always seem to be), the strange current that always seems to course through her at the proximity is as poignant as it’s ever been, and she knows she should hate that she doesn’t need to wonder whether or not he feels the same.
“Yes.”
It’s all she needs to hear before her hands are on the lapels of his leather jacket, before she’s on the tips of her toes seeking out his lips with her own.
There’s nothing tentative about the kiss--she’s insistent, certain, relieved almost that the inevitable has finally manifested.
The guilt has been such a constant companion, it can hardly drown this out (not when she has the blood of four parents, the blood of more people than she’s wilfully recall on her hands).
“Elena...”
He pushes her away, gently, though his hands are still wrapped around her arms.
“This isn’t what you want,” he tells her, and the conviction works against (or is it for?) him because she’s almost as tired of people’s assumptions as she is of supporting them.
“Damon, please.”
She feels her eyes watering and, as humiliating as it is, it serves its purpose. His face, once stony in his conviction, softens-leaves just enough room for her to try again.
And so she does. This time, he’s the one that deepens the kiss with his hands framing her head and his tongue seeking out her own, languorously moving against it when they finally meet.
It’s almost as if he’s savouring the moment, exploring what he’s certain he’ll never be able to taste and touch again, and something inside her breaks at that (breaks at the fact that she leaves nothing but the darkest prints in her wake, breaks at the fact that he may not be mistaken).
She kisses him harder, pushes herself up against him so that nearly every inch of the fronts of their bodies is touching, so that there’s nothing left for him to do but run the palms of his hands over the planes of her back, to bury them in her hair-to give in.
And that he does, with a groan against her mouth that seems to signify his complete loss of resolve-that mimics the complete loss of hers (long gone it would seem, all things considered).
Before she knows it, her back is flat against the wall, his tongue and his lips tracing the contours of her neck, her collarbone, even skimming what little of her breasts swell out of her fitted top.
The roughness of his tongue against her intimate flesh is enough to squeeze the knot at the pit of her stomach-the impossibility and the inevitability of it all both serving to further her arousal.
“Elena,” he says, chants even, as she’s literally pulling apart the buttons of his shirt, any desire to preserve clothing lost in the midst of this-this thing that’s ignited between them after months of simmering on the brim.
She’s almost relieved that it’s her name at the edge of his tongue, almost expects someone else’s (almost expects him to be as plagued as she is).
He’s no better than her with the way he’s roughly pulling her top over her head with little regard for the flimsy fabric. It’s an entirely different sensation when they’re pressed together skin to skin, his hardness against the softness of her curves and she can scarcely stop the moan that escapes her if she tried.
She could swear it’s all a dream when her back hits the soft surface of the mattress, could swear this isn’t Damon planting open mouthed kisses down the length of her throat, her chest, her stomach...
He whirls his tongue against her skin in a way she’s never been privy to before-in a way that screams of him and no one but him, makes it hard to pretend he’s anyone else (and something inside her scolds her for not really wanting him to be anything but exactly what he is).
It isn’t long before he’s undoing her shorts, pulling them down the length of her legs while the heat pools at her center. He looks at her then, his eyes brushing over every inch of her and she can’t help the blush that colors her cheeks and the skin over her neck-not when he’s looking at her like he’s never seen anything like her, mouth slightly agape and eyes more concentrated than she’s ever seen them. Except he has seen something exactly like her and for a startling second she wonders if he’s even seeing her at all.
He quells the thought when he replaces her shorts with his lips, suckling at the skin and kissing along every inch except where it matters most.
“Damon,” she groans in frustration, pulls at his dark hair in a way that would have made any other man (any human man) flinch.
Had they been doing anything else, he could have flashed that half smirk at her and relished in her agitation. But they aren’t and he doesn’t, simply presses his tongue against the dampness of her panties and elicits a gasp. When he pushes the fabric aside and laves at the bare, sensitized skin of her folds she nearly keens, dissolves into a gasping mess as he expertly rubs wet circles into her clit.
Somewhere in her mind she thinks she should be doing something, returning the favour in some way. Somewhere, she knows that those who came before her would have known exactly what to do, and she loathes the knowledge that another woman could wield her body better than she probably ever could.
He doesn’t let it trouble her for long though, not when he slips two fingers into her, rubbing against that spot that only one other had managed to find before him and she nearly sobs at the memory and the pleasure and the absurdity of it all.
He doesn’t go on teasing her for long and the vainer part of her (that one that knows despite her best efforts that she and the ground beneath her feet are cherished by this man and his brother who she won’t think of) wants to assume that it is because he can’t bear it any longer-that he’s as desperate as she is.
He watches her face as he finally pushes into her, slow and deliberate as she moans and turns away with her eyes shut tight, unnerved by the determination in his.
He stills then, forces her eyes to fly open, and a sinking feeling spreads across the pit of her stomach.
“Elena, look at me.”
It isn’t a plea, isn’t even a request. She knows, without him having to say, that if she doesn’t go into this with her eyes open, knowing exactly who he is and exactly what is transpiring (has transpired, she reminds herself) between them, he’ll put an end to it, will pull right out of her and speak of it no more.
And so she does as she knows she must, as determined to finish what she started here as she was to hit the road all those hours ago and she almost laughs at the irony of traveling all this way with the hopes of relinquishing one brother only to fuck the other.
He thrusts into her again when her eyes finally meet his own and she whimpers at the feel of it (of him inside her). He does it again and again and again, all the while his eyes watching her, ensuring that she feels each and every stroke-ensuring that this is the most intimate she can ever remember being with another (or she ever wants to remember being, for the time being).
She can’t help it when her lids droop, when that burning coil at her center is more desperate for release than ever, and she’s thankful when he doesn’t prompt her to open her eyes again. He arches her hips slightly, a move that pushes him even deeper inside her-that ensures they are inseparable at this point (as if they-any of them-were ever truly separable to begin with, as if history didn’t act as a precedent for their lives).
She comes with his name a whisper on her lips, surprises him nearly as much as she does herself, and with a few more thrust he’s following her to the brink.
He doesn’t slip out of her as he brushes her hair, damp with sweat, aside-as he waits for her to open her eyes again.
When she finally does she sees that rare softness in his face, the reverence in his eyes and she gulps back at her inability to do anything more than lie there like an invalid.
It’s okay to love them both, I did.
But then Elena remembers the twitch in his jaw, the mad glint in those very same eyes--the snap of Jeremy’s neck. She remembers heads severed from bodies, walls painted red with blood-the smell of burning flesh.
The memories drive her will, make certain that her and Katherine Pierce will never see eye to eye on anything (except a part of her knows that perhaps they already have).
~*~