Closer than Most 5
“This sure feels like old times,” Caroline mused as she and Bonnie walked into the boarding house.
“It’s way too soon to relive those memories,” Bonnie groaned, and followed Caroline into the living room where Damon and Alaric were already sitting. They’d called an impromptu meeting earlier that day, claiming it was “Code Red”.
“Nice to see you’re back in town, Bonnie,” Damon said without looking up. He swirled the amber liquid in his glass before taking a swig.
“Can you just tell us why we’re here?” Bonnie snapped as Caroline sauntered into the room and poured herself a drink like she lived there.
“Hey, Barbie, hands off the good stuff,” Damon chided her before turning to Bonnie, “As I’m assuming, the blonde chatter box informed you on Elena’s mighty return?”
Caroline shot him a dirty look as she picked up her glass tumbler and flopped onto the couch next to Alaric.
“She did,” Bonnie nodded, getting impatient. Damon set his glass on the side table and leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees and looking right at her.
“Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why and how she is back when she was compelled to stay far, far away from Mystic Falls and anything with fangs?” Damon asked.
“She’s the one who chose to leave,” Bonnie bit out, crossing her arms over her chest. Caroline let out a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes.
“You really need to get over that, Bonnie,” she glared at her estranged friend. The moment they graduated Bonnie was out of Mystic Falls as fast as her car would take her. She wanted nothing to do with them after so much happened to her to keep Elena alive.
“You want me to get over the fact that after we all risked our lives to save her, the second the coast was clear she high-tailed it out of here?” Bonnie almost yelled.
“You seem to be forgetting all the stuff she went through. She lost every person she ever saw as a parent. I don’t blame her for wanting to forget,” Caroline defended. Caroline had a lot of annoying characteristics, but her loyalty was what Damon admired most about her and why he had put up with her when Elena wasn’t around.
“Well, some of us don’t have that luxury,” she said, resentment evident in her tone.
“Oh, give it a rest, Bonnie,” Caroline said dramatically before taking a long drink from her tumbler.
“Ladies, please, can we focus on the task at hand here?” Damon felt the need to step in before any witchy headaches could be dished out. He turned to Bonnie, “It’s not her fault your Grams died, it’s mine. I’m the one who wanted in that tomb, remember? So if you want to punish someone, punish me, not her.” He felt the need to defend Caroline, after the past three years they’d spent mostly together, she’d grown on him. Only he was allowed to pick on her.
“I don’t see what we can do about it,” Alaric finally spoke up after being a silent observer. “If she broke through the compulsion and came back, maybe we shouldn’t question it. Maybe Stefan still wasn’t strong enough to get the compulsion to stick.”
Everyone mulled that over for a few tense moments. The thought of Elena breaking through the compulsion was equally exciting and terrifying. It would mean she could potentially reject him even after she remembered all they went through together and who they were to each other.
“Shouldn’t we be worried about what could happen if she breaks through more of the compulsion and remembers the things she wanted to forget?” Damon voiced his concern.
“Maybe her subconscious wants to remember now,” Caroline shrugged.
“Maybe she never wanted to forget,” Alaric said quietly. Everyone’s gazes snapped to him.
“What are you saying? That Stefan forced his compulsion on her?” Caroline asked, her face wide with shock. “Why would he do that?”
“To punish me?” Damon shrugged, the thought wasn’t all that surprising to him. “If he couldn’t have Elena, I couldn’t either.”
Silence fell once more while everyone mulled that over.
“We don’t know that for sure though. I mean, she left that note,” Caroline offered.
“It is suspicious,” Alaric piped in, “That Stefan blows back into town right after Elena comes back.”
Damon grabbed his glass and easily downed the contents, enjoying the way it burned his throat and seemed to keep him grounded. “We know nothing for sure, but we need to make sure she’s getting a daily dose of vervain to be safe.”
Ric nodded and told Damon he would get on it. He and Bonnie left shortly after their conversation ended, but Caroline stayed around, obviously wanting to fish for something.
“Is there something you needed, Caroline?” Damon asked, slightly annoyed. He leant back into the couch and rested his head back on the edge with his eyes closed.
“Just wanted to see how you are doing with Elena back,” she said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.
His eyes snapped open and he lifted his head to study her. She was definitely waiting for something juicy. He just answered her with a sigh.
“It doesn’t matter, Stefan got into her head by telling her about Katherine. Now she won’t talk to me,” he said sadly.
Caroline stood awkwardly for a few moments before sitting on the couch next to him.
“What will you do if she remembers?” She whispered.
“I have no idea,” he breathed as he dropped his head in his hands.
---BREAK---
She was miserable. She thought she did the right thing by pushing Damon away. She didn’t want to be in the middle of whatever war he and his brother were having. She told herself that was the only reason she pushed him away. Not because she was scared of how she felt around him, not because he was replacing the man in her dreams, not because her heart leapt out of her chest at the sight of him, no, definitely not because of that.
She carried on as if he didn’t affect her. She got a job at a bookstore in the town square. It wasn’t ideal, but she couldn’t complain. The store was quiet most of the day and she was free to read or write to her heart’s content. She spent most of her shifts writing about her strange dream in her journal. Like the dream she had with the man, this dream was slowly becoming more and more detailed. She knew for sure the dying man she was holding was Damon. She knew that the woman called Katherine looked just like her and even sounded like her. The scene that unfolded was always the same, but became more real as the nights went on. They were intriguing and confusing.
Her head snapped up from her journaling when she heard the bell ring signaling that someone came into the store. She almost groaned out loud when she saw who it was.
“Hey,” Stefan said sheepishly, shoving his hands in his pockets. His eyes were avoiding hers and he looked like someone kicked his puppy.
“Can I help you?” She said with a little more irritation than she intended.
“Just wanted to see how you are doing,” his eyes finally met hers and stayed for a brief second before he looked away shyly.
“Look, Stefan,” she sighed. She was feeling guilty for the way she had treated him and for judging him so harshly. “You seem nice and all, but I have no interest in being in the middle of this feud you have going on with your brother.”
“I actually came to apologize about that. I should’ve let him tell you about her. I hope I didn’t ruin things for you two,” he said meekly. She wondered if maybe he wasn’t so bad. Her mind didn’t think so, but her heart was still panicking in his presence.
“There was nothing to ruin it was one date,” she muttered as she absentmindedly fiddled with some books that were out of place. She could feel Stefan following her, but she tried her hardest to pretend he wasn’t there.
“How about I take you out to apologize. Maybe over dinner?” Stefan asked after a few quiet moments. She swiveled around to face him, not bothering to mask her shock. It took her a few moments to get herself under control.
“Look Stefan, I’m really not interested,” she said softly, trying not to set him off. Something changed in his eyes that frightened her and she moved to walk past him, but his hand shot out and grabbed her arm. She had a flashback to the other day in the Grille.
“I think you are,” he said in a monotone voice once her eyes locked with his. She felt frozen under his gaze and the notion felt familiar. She couldn’t place it, but her mind was fighting it with everything it had.
Did she want to go out with him?
No. She surely didn’t.
Yet she had this nagging voice telling her that it would be ok, that’s what she wanted.
She didn’t want that. She knew she didn’t. So she pushed that pressing feeling away for good and turned her death glare on Stefan.
“And I think you need to get the hell away from me,” she said as she ripped her arm from his grasp. His face was shocked to say the least. He looked like a spoiled child who was just told “no” for the first time in his life.
Without another word his stormed out of the store in a huff and she couldn’t silence the giggle that bubbled in her throat. What a pansy, she thought.
When she finished her shift at the store, she trudged up the stairs of the porch. Her senses were assaulted when she pushed the front door open and the smell of delicious food overwhelmed her. The stress of her day faded when the scent hit her nose. Her steps got lighter as she moved closer to the kitchen. It was like someone knew she had a horrible day and that good food was just what the doctor ordered.
However, the doctor did not order said food to be made by Damon Salvatore. She froze in the doorway of the kitchen and watched him move around it like he lived there. And he was humming. Humming! In her kitchen, in her house!
“Hey, Elena,” she turned to see Meredith striding past her and into the kitchen. She smiled at Damon before she picked up a glass of wine and walking into the sitting room to flop on the couch. Did she not care that Damon was there? He was there cooking.
She knew the second his eyes were on her. She could feel them looking her up and down appreciatively. She wanted to pretend she didn’t see him. She wanted to turn and run to her room, but he seemed like the type to come up and get her himself. And Damon inside her room was a very, very bad thing. The thought alone sent blood rushing to her cheeks.
So instead of being a coward she forced herself to look right at him and speak up. “Need any help?”
Damon’s features flashed a look of shock before he quickly covered with a smug grin. It was the first time they’d spoken in weeks. Sure, he was at her house all the time helping with wedding things, but she firmly ignored him. He tried to taunt her, but after a while of not responding to him, he stopped trying.
“Food’s almost ready, but you can set the table if you’d like,” he instructed before he turned back to the stove.
She said nothing as she went to the cabinets and pulled plates and walked over to the table to lay them out. She went to get silverware and watched Damon take his pot of whatever he was cooking and placed it on a hot pad on the table. She counted the amount of knives and forks she grabbed and started moving toward the table and ran right into Damon’s body.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said dramatically, holding his hands in the air. She rolled her eyes and moved past him.
“Don’t do that,” she shook her head as she set the plates on the table.
“Do what?” Damon asked innocently from his place by the stove.
“You know what. That move was deliberate,” she said with narrow eyes.
“Well yeah, I was deliberately trying to get to the... sink,” he tried to cover, then settled for a satisfied smirk.
She froze when she heard his words. She had a flash of her and Damon in the same situation, but it was like it was from another lifetime. She tried desperately to hold onto the memory, but as quickly as it came, it disappeared. Her mind was reeling.
“Elena?” Damon’s voice broke her out of her trance. She shook her head a few times to clear her mind. “Are you ok?”
“Yes, sorry,” she said quickly as she distanced herself from him and poured herself a glass of wine to calm her frayed nerves. “I just zoned out, I guess,” she said before taking a healthy gulp of the dark liquid.
Ric chose that moment to walk in the front door, breaking the tension in the room in an instant. He greeted the two of them and Meredith and Damon announced that dinner was ready. The conversation over dinner flowed easily. Elena forgot how well her and Damon got along. He always responded to the things she said and she found his stories intriguing. It was becoming harder and harder to remember why she should stay away from him. His proximity was intoxicating. Everything about him drew her in, the way he smelled, his smirk, his black combat boots, his messy hair, and especially, his bluer than blue eyes.
Every fiber of her being screamed to stay away from him, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. The how and why seemed irrelevant in his presence. She couldn’t fathom how he’d so easily gotten under her skin. She was always considered the “Ice Queen” to the guys at NYU. She’d date them and dump them, always comparing them to the man in her dreams. None of them could make her feel the way she felt in those dreams. Until Damon came along of course. He challenged everything without even realizing he did it.
If she was being honest with herself, the main reason she reacted so strongly to the information about Katherine was because it hurt. It hurt her to feel second best. She didn’t want to be a replacement. She was jealous. Jealous! She never got jealous. Ever.
After dinner, Meredith and Alaric offered to do the dishes and Elena walked with Damon to the door.
“Thanks for dinner, it was amazing,” she said as they reached the door. He said nothing but took a step closer to her, effectively trapping her against the wall next to the door. Her heart started beating in her ears and his scent flooded her senses.
“You’re welcome,” he said in a low voice that made blood rush to her cheeks and other places further south. How could he make a simple sentence sound so sensual? She took a deep breath and she almost slapped herself at how shaky it sounded. By the smirk on his face, he heard it too.
The air around them was crackling and he wasn’t even touching her. She didn’t know what she wanted from him, but she needed some sort of relief. He was driving her mad with need and it was sad how much she wanted him.
His face hovered closer to her as their eyes locked. She wanted to resist him, so badly, but she couldn’t. Her internal struggle waged on, yet she found herself leaning into him. Just as she felt his breath on her face he pulled away with a satisfied smirk firmly embedded on his lips.
“Goodnight, Elena,” he said in a husky voice before he looked her over once more and disappeared out the door. She was frozen against the wall, trying to wrap her mind around what exactly had transpired. She couldn’t understand what was going on with her body, everything was buzzing and it felt like her nerve endings were on fire with no sign of relief.
Then she realized he did that on purpose. He knew exactly what he was doing tonight. He wound her up and then left her high and dry. Her pulse was pounding all over her body. She knew he was pretty damn proud of himself for that one. If he thought he could affect her so strongly, he had another thing coming.
Two could play that game. And oh, how she could play that game.