Darkship Prompt Meme
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Beta: idrilka. I owe her something huge and probably made of chocolate.
Spoilers: written after 2x09, explicit spoilers up to 2x08
Characters: Damon, Elena, Stefan, Alaric
Wordcount: ~3700 words (each text has more or less 300 words)
Warnings: nothing worse than the show itself I guess; there might be some implied incest, and it's not exactly hugs and kittens, but well... Darkship.
A/N: For a couple of weeks now I've been planning on writing a Delena futurefic in which Stefan is long gone and Damon comes back to Mystic Falls not knowing what exactly happened between his brother and Elena. I decided to do Darkship Prompt Meme in order to sort out the ideas in my head. All of these fics belong to the same verse, but they are not placed in chronological order, they are twelve separate stories that just go as the table goes. Writing in English feels like stepping on thin ice for me. I'm not comfortable with it, but I really liked the prompts and I suppose the table's authors wouldn't appreciate me writing in my mother tongue ;). All opinions are more than welcome.
you just burnyou're bleedingsick of you
what a mess you madewe're in this togethertie me up, take me down
too much / too roughwait your turnit's just skin
second choicedrink up, babytake everything you've got
1. you just burn
Elena's favorite soap smells like vervain. There's no dark secret behind it - she started to like it when she was fourteen (vervain smells a little like green tea with a hint of lemons, a fresh, sharp, playful scent) and gave it up at seventeen, it just didn't feel right back then.
Five months after Stefan left, she put it back on the shelf, because why the hell not?
Whenever Damon enters her bathroom, the green bottle makes him nauseatingly, gruesomely nervous.
"You know, you could just do me the courtesy of getting rid of this thing. It's really a bad pun."
Elena just shrugs and starts undressing. She is so blissfully not interested in anything it makes Damon uneasy. This is not the girl he remembers, but eight years is a long time for a human and it's not like he's able to give her up anyway.
He starts unbuttoning his shirt as she turns on the water, takes the damned green bottle and pours some soap into the bathtub.
"You really expect me to get into it, don't you? It's vervain," he says mockingly, putting too much stress on the last word almost without thinking. "It burns."
"It's synthetic. I could just as well try staking you with a rubber stake," she answers as she sits comfortably in the tub.
"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't."
He can't help making faces (Damon Salvatore, the ultimate comic relief) and she smiles vaguely, giving him a glimpse of the old, happy, straightforward Elena. He clings on to this impression and comes closer. While he's stepping out of his shoes, she unbuckles his belt. Her hair is already wet and her palms are covered with soap, so she splashes a few drops of water all over his stomach. He flexes his muscles, but it distinctively, painfully doesn't burn. The scent is almost unbearable and knowing that everything is safe doesn't really help. Fear is usually beyond sense. All of Damon's instincts connect vervain with danger and it takes all the self-control he can gather not to start running like hell.
Instead he smiles daringly, steps in and lets the water cover his head as he bends forward.
2. what a mess you made
"Don't you think that sooner or later they're gonna realize you haven't aged a day?"
"I sort of compelled half of the Council," says Damon, scratching the back of his head with pretend embarrassment. "Besides, humans are morons."
"Your affectionate approach towards human race is truly touching."
"I'm a charming guy."
The truth is that Elena and Alaric are the only two people in Mystic Falls who still speak to him. Well, he should probably call this collateral damage. Or - if he were Stefan with his More-European-Than-Thee mood from the 1910s - a bloody mess.
"If I were you, I'd be worried that one day they'd come with torches and pitchforks no matter if you're a vampire or not. Last time you made quite an exit," says Alaric, drying up his glass.
"You know, you're right. Maybe I should simply eat them all just in case?"
Alaric gives him his best "jokes-about-eating-people-are-not-funny" look and Damon grins. He's been in his good behavior for weeks now, so he's entitled to mess around a little.
This whole whisky-and-bonding meeting was originally arranged so that Damon could get some information about Elena's past, but it turns out things don't really work that way. You don't exactly invite your friend over and ask him: "So, how did my brother and his girlfriend break up?". Or even better: "What do you think, is she over him?". General questions ("What the hell is going on around here?") also sounded much better when he was rehearsing them in his head.
"How is your happily ever after?" asks Damon instead.
"Never better."
"It doesn't exactly mean 'good', does it?"
"No," laughs Alaric. "Not exactly. And how's Elena?"
"Never better."
3. too much / too rough
If Damon only wants, he is capable of playing a perfect gentleman.
It's the real deal, not some cheap flowers-and-kiss-on-the-hand act certain guys pull when they want to be charming. Damon knows the very idea of chivalry, not just the surface of it.
When Elena enters his living room and sees him smiling sincerely as he gets up to greet her, it is a sign that the game has started.
He asks about her day like he really wanted to know and leads her to the kitchen, where he makes her a huge mug of coffee and talks nonsense until she smiles (it wouldn't be kitchen in 1864, but it's not about a place, it's about how it makes her feel). After that they ignore the heaps of Council work piling on his desk, sit by the fireplace, and there is whisky, maybe even apples and chocolate, and gossip, and polite jokes, and casual touch. Before Elena knows it, she is laughing, barefoot and relaxed, the most interesting person in the world. This is usually when she sees through the game.
She stands up, puts her glass on the table, then leans towards Damon and kisses him, biting his lower lip far too rough (it doesn't hurt, he never hurts, but it sends a message). He gets it. He always gets it.
(There are days when she just smiles, stretches comfortably on the couch, puts her feet in his lap, eats an apple and asks the right questions.
After all, this game is not really for her sake.)
4. second choice
Elena likes to watch.
Damon would never expect this. Sometimes he still thinks of Elena as his brother's young and rather innocent girlfriend: imaginative enough to do something kinky, but far too shy and self-restrained to let anybody know.
"Don't," she says simply when he lifts her up and carries her into his bedroom with a vampire-like speed. "Don't. Do it the normal way."
This makes him a little angry, but curiosity takes over, so he obeys.
She doesn't move a muscle while he takes off his shirt and shoes. Damon doesn't try to be particularly slow - he's not in a mood to put up any kind of a show.
"You like to pretend that we're human, don't you? Both of us."
"I don't do pretend, Damon."
She looks him straight into the face and laughs silently as he grabs her wrist a bit too hard. He suddenly feels completely out of place with his childish urge to prove her what he really is. The feeling is both uncomfortable and strangely familiar.
Elena (This is Elena, he has to remind himself) takes over and pulls him on the bed. She kisses him and for a brief second he is surprised that her mouth is not covered with blood. Damon doesn't want to go there, but it's not as easy as it sounds. He would drive a stake through Katherine's heart without blinking, but he can't help noticing resemblances as well as differences. There's no such thing as an exact opposite.
Elena watches him as he undresses her, zip after zip, button after button. For the entire night she keeps her eyes wide open and it seems like she doesn't have to struggle to do so. She's not the one to fool herself: she might change her mind and make the second choice, but she would never lie about it.
"I don't do pretend, Damon. Do you?"
5. you're bleeding
"Bloodplay? Oh no, I don't think so."
"Help me out now, mock me later, ok?"
There are three wooden bullets in Damon's back, two wounds are closing on his chest, a shirt soaked with blood is lying abandoned on the floor and a bottle of whisky is standing right next to the huge mirror. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mystic Falls.
"I give up, Damon. Have you ever considered staying out of trouble for, I don't know, a month? What happened?” asks Elena, rolling up her sleeves and trying to get the first bullet with her bare fingers.
"I'm quite all right, thanks for asking. I ran into my whisky supplier from the 1920s. Remind me never to turn people who can shoot, will you?"
"How much trouble are we in?"
"You are not in any trouble, I staked the guy. I, on the other hand, have earned some bullets soaked with vervain. Made my day."
"You know, after all this time you really should get yourself some sort of device to pull them out."
"I'm old school. Besides, I'm dating doctor's daughter."
The second bullet is out and Damon hisses with pain. It takes a good moment for the wound to close.
"What did you do to piss this guy off?"
"I didn't pay him in 1928. And there was a girl."
"Of course there was a girl."
"Believe it or not, she seduced me."
Elena doesn't even favor this with an answer; instead she reaches for the last bullet,which is buried deeply between Damon's shoulder blades. This one is the worst - the ribs are cracked and it takes some practice to do the job without hurting oneself. Well, there are skills that come naturally after spending some time around the Salvatores.
Finally the third bullet comes out and Damon strechtes his back with relief. He is still weakened by the vervaine, but the wounds are healing quickly.
Elena disappears just for a second and when she comes back, she's holding a piece of wet cloth. Damon doesn't say a word, he just sits calmly and lets her wipe the blood off his back.
"Done. Come on, clean yourself up," says Elena, throwing him the cloth. "Is everything all right?"
"I think I can handle a shower. Thank you."
"Any time."
6. we're in this together
There are days when they just sit together by the lake and everything feels simple: Damon wriggles, trying to make himself comfortable, Elena wraps her arms around her knees and watches the water. She is so calm and well-rested at the moment that she almost looks innocent again; the girl who made Stefan feel as close to his humanity as anybody ever could, and then shook him up a bit and reminded him that humanity also means struggle, choices, wrongdoings and risks.
"You know, I kinda like it. All that nature, romance, bonding... Do you think we should get ourselves a nightingale?"
"Yeah, sure. Then you can kneel, confess your eternal love, and we will live happily ever after until death do us part."
(Damon doesn't have the general, abstract concept of humanity, he mostly just does everything that currently sounds like a good idea.)
"I did that once. Well, it didn't exactly involve kneeling or nightingales, but at least some jewellery was in place."
He probably shouldn't have brought that up. They already had this conversation, years ago, and it wasn't a pleasant experience - lots of quiet voices, disappointed looks, furious comments and 'never-ever-dare-to-compel-me-again's.
Elena sighs and lies down on the grass, not accepting the challenge. She's never been particularly easy to provoke - that's why it's so much fun to try.
Later that night they play normal. They have dinner together and spend at least two hours mocking each other without touching issues that most people prefer never to speak about, but Elena and Damon have had at least two awkward conversations about each and every one of them during the years.
(Sometimes it's strangely relieving to have all your cards out on the table.)
When they reach the bedroom around midnight, it's more about comfort than pleasure. If there are no more problems to solve, questions to answer or expectations to meet, you can either put up a fight and hope for something better, or flip the switch in your head, expose yourself and finally get some rest. This time they choose the latter.
They do it just this once.
7. wait your turn
If our planet has seen some eighty billion people, it is difficult to suppose that every individual has had his or her own repertory of gestures. Arithmetically, it is simply impossible. Without the slightest doubt, there are far fewer gestures in the world than there are individuals. That finding leads us to a shocking conclusion: a gesture is more individual than an individual.
Milan Kundera, Immortality
There are some things Elena does Damon is sure she's learned from being with Stefan.
First of all - she is very careful. Never exposing her neck or wrists, never coming too close if she has any bruises or tiny cuts. Every suggestion of blood used to make Stefan a little bit uncomfortable, so she tried to make it easier for him. It had more to do with being nice than being afraid. Damon doesn't think she was ever really concerned that his precious brother would bite her.
(Not until she let him, and then everything went wrong - although it's just a theory, isn't it?)
Damon laughs when one day Elena stands on her toes to kiss him and instinctively goes too high, getting his nose instead of mouth. She blushes and tries to explain - this is actually the only time when she realizes she's done something wrong - but he puts his finger on her lips and gives her an amused look.
(The elephant in his head lets out a mighty roar!)
In fact it's all about small gestures, the things she doesn't know she's doing, because they've grown so deeply into her that she recognizes them as genuinely hers. So Damon allows her to cup his cheek or grab his arm in a way he's certainly seen before; even if he talked to her, she wouldn't know what he meant. It seems right in some twisted way. The Salvatore brothers have been contradicting each other for so long that now it's hard to imagine that one could do something that has no relation to another.
(Damon didn't win Elena from Stefan. He just waited his turn.)
8. drink up, baby
Elena lives by the rules. Her world is pretty well sorted out, right is in here, wrong over there, herself - in between.
This is why she would never ever drink with Stefan.
Drinking belongs to Damon, even though it's not forbidden any more. But it was decided like that ages ago and Elena isn't the one who would change the rules.
A bottle appears out of nowhere and the first glass goes down as easily as if it were water. Damon shakes his head in pretend disbelief. If he's not particularly upset, he is usually a slow drinker - he has all the time in the world to get himself properly drunk, so he doesn't see any reason not to enjoy the flavor while doing so.
"What is it all about? Are you going to drink the whole bottle, then explore all of your darkest fantasies and in the morning deny it all and tell me you don't remember a thing? Is this your evil masterplan?"
Elena laughs and for just a second there's no bitterness in here, just sheer amusement. Damon sits up and puts the biggest pillow behind his back before he pours another round.
"Yeah, because I can definitely think of at least five things worse than what we've already done tonight. Just like that."
"You looked as if you were enjoying it," he points, not even trying to make it sound like a question.
"Immensely."
He leans forward to kiss her and try to take the glass out of her hands, but she shakes her head and doesn't let him do either. He bites his lip, but when she reaches to pour him the third round, he smiles and thanks her with a nod. Once they've started, they have until the bottle is finished.
Those are the rules.
9. sick of you
Elena starts writing and it takes Damon two weeks to figure out that these aren't journal entries this time.
She's messy with her work - loads of crossed paragraphs, overwritten sentences, words scribbled around the main text, scattered notes and question marks. Some pages are perfectly clear, maybe even neat, but other bear marks of endless corrections and disturbed thoughts, written again and again until she was sick of them.
Damon starts suspecting something when he looks over Elena's shoulder and sees some dialogues, but gets sure one rainy Thursday when she forgets to take her journal from his library. He opens the notebook without hesitation (a good thing about being evil is that you can do whatever you want and nobody is ever surprised) and starts reading.
The text doesn't actually make a lot of sense - there are just sketches, tons of beginnings and endings with nothing in between, paragraphs in wrong order, separate scenes with no connection. Elena probably writes down her ideas wherever she can, and then sorts them out at home, on her computer or in another notebook. It seems to be an adventure novel, full of twists, mysteries and witty banter, not exactly a comedy, rather bitter-sweet, well-balanced and inexplicably suffocating.
(People don't write about things that make them happy, they just take their time and enjoy. People write about things that make them uncomfortable.)
Even though it's not a finished story and not exactly the jolliest thing he's seen in his life, it reads surprisingly well. It gives Damon a disturbing impression of familiarity that he cannot explain; he doesn't recognize any of the characters or events, but at the same time he finds feelings and thoughts he knows quite well. It may be simply because Elena writes similar to how she speaks, but Damon strongly believes that simplicity is highly overrated.
"You've read it all, haven't you?” Elena sighs on Saturday when he gives her back her journal.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"How did you like it?"
"You have too many endings."
"It's dull to have just one."
10. tie me up, take me down
Turning Elena would be the easiest thing in the world.
She isn't very cautious around Damon - she takes the drinks he pours and lets him snoop around her plates and pots while she's cooking. Hell, she even allows herself to fall asleep in his house and it's not like he couldn't enter her place any time he wanted anyway. Slipping her some blood wouldn't be a challenge at all. He has an opportunity to do it at least every couple of days.
Elena seems blissfully unaware of the danger and it makes Damon angry enough to start dropping hints here and there. They even have a major fight over him being all reminiscent of his eventful yet infamous life and enjoying it far too much - although fair is fair and he has to admit that it took her over an hour to lose her temper.
The next time he messes around Elena's cooker, she pins him to the kitchen counter and he is surprised enough to allow her. It doesn't last for long - in a split second he turns them around and puts his hands on the table top so that she has nowhere to escape. No challenge at all.
"I could just snap your neck like a twig, you know?"
"Yes, you could. But for some reason you don't."
Elena lets Damon place his palms on the both sides of her head and looks at him for a while before she starts kissing his arm and collarbone. She is all relaxed, but it's easy to tell that she isn't sure if he is bluffing.
Well, neither is he.
11. it's just skin
Sometimes Damon believes that whatever Elena feels, they can all feel.
"Hush, stay as you are. Stay exactly as you are."
He touches her bare arm and they both shiver a little. Suddenly Damon is sure that there's more than just one skin under his fingers and understands with perfect clarity that there's only one thing he can do right now, even though he cannot exactly explain the logic hidden behind his idea.
He sits on the floor right in front of the couch, puts his hand on Elena's shoulder, fingers brushing the nape of her neck (warm, firm, reassuring grip - Stefan used to like it, it seemed to give him strength) and waits for her to nod. It feels like he's done it before.
(Thy mind is thy worst enemy.)
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and listens carefully, as he starts undressing Elena. Cotton sounds different from satin and lace from the past, but everything melts together and Damon feels his shirt slide off his shoulders as he hears soft fabric hit the seat of the couch a couple of inches away. He clutches his fingers on Elena's hips and moves his head down (when he did it for the very first time, there were skirts and petticoats all over his head, so he holds his breath for a while).
"That's right, stay still. Don't worry, I've got your back."
When Elena screams, there are four voices in Damon's ears.
12. take everything you've got
At some point Stefan shows up at the Salvatore Boarding House and Damon is not even surprised. Apparently their lives weren't complicated enough.
The very first evening they have the Big Cliché Talk and it's full of words that haven't been used by normal people for at least a century. Being a vampire is about adjusting to new worlds and circumstances, but they've been having this conversation for a hundred and fifty-something years and it's vivid enough for them without making it any more modern.
Stefan is concerned and Damon ends up telling him things he probably shouldn't have, which doesn't make his brother any less worried. The atmosphere gets stirred up to the point when Damon prompts they should go to the garden and start poetically shooting each other. He's sure that Stefan secretly appreciates the joke.
Mostly they talk about Elena (no questions about the past - Damon might have spent some time sniffing around, but he isn't sure if he wants to know the direct truth from a reliable source), even though there's no point. They've both adjusted just fine and now they're living in a world where you don't talk about a girl, you do your part and watch her do hers. Whatever happens, there will be no more protecting Elena; they've learned that much.
Stefan manages to clean up his room only because he's a vampire and doesn't choke on dust. They spend rest of the night in silence, each with a glass in his hand an eyes focused on the fireplace; a perfect picture of the Salvatore Brooding House* all over again.
When Elena knocks in the morning, they both jump up to their feet to open the door.
*This is thanks to idrilka's skill of creative reading.
Beta: idrilka. I owe her something huge and probably made of chocolate.
Spoilers: written after 2x09, explicit spoilers up to 2x08
Characters: Damon, Elena, Stefan, Alaric
Wordcount: ~3700 words (each text has more or less 300 words)
Warnings: nothing worse than the show itself I guess; there might be some implied incest, and it's not exactly hugs and kittens, but well... Darkship.
A/N: For a couple of weeks now I've been planning on writing a Delena futurefic in which Stefan is long gone and Damon comes back to Mystic Falls not knowing what exactly happened between his brother and Elena. I decided to do Darkship Prompt Meme in order to sort out the ideas in my head. All of these fics belong to the same verse, but they are not placed in chronological order, they are twelve separate stories that just go as the table goes. Writing in English feels like stepping on thin ice for me. I'm not comfortable with it, but I really liked the prompts and I suppose the table's authors wouldn't appreciate me writing in my mother tongue ;). All opinions are more than welcome.
you just burnyou're bleedingsick of you
what a mess you madewe're in this togethertie me up, take me down
too much / too roughwait your turnit's just skin
second choicedrink up, babytake everything you've got
1. you just burn
Elena's favorite soap smells like vervain. There's no dark secret behind it - she started to like it when she was fourteen (vervain smells a little like green tea with a hint of lemons, a fresh, sharp, playful scent) and gave it up at seventeen, it just didn't feel right back then.
Five months after Stefan left, she put it back on the shelf, because why the hell not?
Whenever Damon enters her bathroom, the green bottle makes him nauseatingly, gruesomely nervous.
"You know, you could just do me the courtesy of getting rid of this thing. It's really a bad pun."
Elena just shrugs and starts undressing. She is so blissfully not interested in anything it makes Damon uneasy. This is not the girl he remembers, but eight years is a long time for a human and it's not like he's able to give her up anyway.
He starts unbuttoning his shirt as she turns on the water, takes the damned green bottle and pours some soap into the bathtub.
"You really expect me to get into it, don't you? It's vervain," he says mockingly, putting too much stress on the last word almost without thinking. "It burns."
"It's synthetic. I could just as well try staking you with a rubber stake," she answers as she sits comfortably in the tub.
"I'd really appreciate it if you didn't."
He can't help making faces (Damon Salvatore, the ultimate comic relief) and she smiles vaguely, giving him a glimpse of the old, happy, straightforward Elena. He clings on to this impression and comes closer. While he's stepping out of his shoes, she unbuckles his belt. Her hair is already wet and her palms are covered with soap, so she splashes a few drops of water all over his stomach. He flexes his muscles, but it distinctively, painfully doesn't burn. The scent is almost unbearable and knowing that everything is safe doesn't really help. Fear is usually beyond sense. All of Damon's instincts connect vervain with danger and it takes all the self-control he can gather not to start running like hell.
Instead he smiles daringly, steps in and lets the water cover his head as he bends forward.
2. what a mess you made
"Don't you think that sooner or later they're gonna realize you haven't aged a day?"
"I sort of compelled half of the Council," says Damon, scratching the back of his head with pretend embarrassment. "Besides, humans are morons."
"Your affectionate approach towards human race is truly touching."
"I'm a charming guy."
The truth is that Elena and Alaric are the only two people in Mystic Falls who still speak to him. Well, he should probably call this collateral damage. Or - if he were Stefan with his More-European-Than-Thee mood from the 1910s - a bloody mess.
"If I were you, I'd be worried that one day they'd come with torches and pitchforks no matter if you're a vampire or not. Last time you made quite an exit," says Alaric, drying up his glass.
"You know, you're right. Maybe I should simply eat them all just in case?"
Alaric gives him his best "jokes-about-eating-people-are-not-funny" look and Damon grins. He's been in his good behavior for weeks now, so he's entitled to mess around a little.
This whole whisky-and-bonding meeting was originally arranged so that Damon could get some information about Elena's past, but it turns out things don't really work that way. You don't exactly invite your friend over and ask him: "So, how did my brother and his girlfriend break up?". Or even better: "What do you think, is she over him?". General questions ("What the hell is going on around here?") also sounded much better when he was rehearsing them in his head.
"How is your happily ever after?" asks Damon instead.
"Never better."
"It doesn't exactly mean 'good', does it?"
"No," laughs Alaric. "Not exactly. And how's Elena?"
"Never better."
3. too much / too rough
If Damon only wants, he is capable of playing a perfect gentleman.
It's the real deal, not some cheap flowers-and-kiss-on-the-hand act certain guys pull when they want to be charming. Damon knows the very idea of chivalry, not just the surface of it.
When Elena enters his living room and sees him smiling sincerely as he gets up to greet her, it is a sign that the game has started.
He asks about her day like he really wanted to know and leads her to the kitchen, where he makes her a huge mug of coffee and talks nonsense until she smiles (it wouldn't be kitchen in 1864, but it's not about a place, it's about how it makes her feel). After that they ignore the heaps of Council work piling on his desk, sit by the fireplace, and there is whisky, maybe even apples and chocolate, and gossip, and polite jokes, and casual touch. Before Elena knows it, she is laughing, barefoot and relaxed, the most interesting person in the world. This is usually when she sees through the game.
She stands up, puts her glass on the table, then leans towards Damon and kisses him, biting his lower lip far too rough (it doesn't hurt, he never hurts, but it sends a message). He gets it. He always gets it.
(There are days when she just smiles, stretches comfortably on the couch, puts her feet in his lap, eats an apple and asks the right questions.
After all, this game is not really for her sake.)
4. second choice
Elena likes to watch.
Damon would never expect this. Sometimes he still thinks of Elena as his brother's young and rather innocent girlfriend: imaginative enough to do something kinky, but far too shy and self-restrained to let anybody know.
"Don't," she says simply when he lifts her up and carries her into his bedroom with a vampire-like speed. "Don't. Do it the normal way."
This makes him a little angry, but curiosity takes over, so he obeys.
She doesn't move a muscle while he takes off his shirt and shoes. Damon doesn't try to be particularly slow - he's not in a mood to put up any kind of a show.
"You like to pretend that we're human, don't you? Both of us."
"I don't do pretend, Damon."
She looks him straight into the face and laughs silently as he grabs her wrist a bit too hard. He suddenly feels completely out of place with his childish urge to prove her what he really is. The feeling is both uncomfortable and strangely familiar.
Elena (This is Elena, he has to remind himself) takes over and pulls him on the bed. She kisses him and for a brief second he is surprised that her mouth is not covered with blood. Damon doesn't want to go there, but it's not as easy as it sounds. He would drive a stake through Katherine's heart without blinking, but he can't help noticing resemblances as well as differences. There's no such thing as an exact opposite.
Elena watches him as he undresses her, zip after zip, button after button. For the entire night she keeps her eyes wide open and it seems like she doesn't have to struggle to do so. She's not the one to fool herself: she might change her mind and make the second choice, but she would never lie about it.
"I don't do pretend, Damon. Do you?"
5. you're bleeding
"Bloodplay? Oh no, I don't think so."
"Help me out now, mock me later, ok?"
There are three wooden bullets in Damon's back, two wounds are closing on his chest, a shirt soaked with blood is lying abandoned on the floor and a bottle of whisky is standing right next to the huge mirror. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mystic Falls.
"I give up, Damon. Have you ever considered staying out of trouble for, I don't know, a month? What happened?” asks Elena, rolling up her sleeves and trying to get the first bullet with her bare fingers.
"I'm quite all right, thanks for asking. I ran into my whisky supplier from the 1920s. Remind me never to turn people who can shoot, will you?"
"How much trouble are we in?"
"You are not in any trouble, I staked the guy. I, on the other hand, have earned some bullets soaked with vervain. Made my day."
"You know, after all this time you really should get yourself some sort of device to pull them out."
"I'm old school. Besides, I'm dating doctor's daughter."
The second bullet is out and Damon hisses with pain. It takes a good moment for the wound to close.
"What did you do to piss this guy off?"
"I didn't pay him in 1928. And there was a girl."
"Of course there was a girl."
"Believe it or not, she seduced me."
Elena doesn't even favor this with an answer; instead she reaches for the last bullet,which is buried deeply between Damon's shoulder blades. This one is the worst - the ribs are cracked and it takes some practice to do the job without hurting oneself. Well, there are skills that come naturally after spending some time around the Salvatores.
Finally the third bullet comes out and Damon strechtes his back with relief. He is still weakened by the vervaine, but the wounds are healing quickly.
Elena disappears just for a second and when she comes back, she's holding a piece of wet cloth. Damon doesn't say a word, he just sits calmly and lets her wipe the blood off his back.
"Done. Come on, clean yourself up," says Elena, throwing him the cloth. "Is everything all right?"
"I think I can handle a shower. Thank you."
"Any time."
6. we're in this together
There are days when they just sit together by the lake and everything feels simple: Damon wriggles, trying to make himself comfortable, Elena wraps her arms around her knees and watches the water. She is so calm and well-rested at the moment that she almost looks innocent again; the girl who made Stefan feel as close to his humanity as anybody ever could, and then shook him up a bit and reminded him that humanity also means struggle, choices, wrongdoings and risks.
"You know, I kinda like it. All that nature, romance, bonding... Do you think we should get ourselves a nightingale?"
"Yeah, sure. Then you can kneel, confess your eternal love, and we will live happily ever after until death do us part."
(Damon doesn't have the general, abstract concept of humanity, he mostly just does everything that currently sounds like a good idea.)
"I did that once. Well, it didn't exactly involve kneeling or nightingales, but at least some jewellery was in place."
He probably shouldn't have brought that up. They already had this conversation, years ago, and it wasn't a pleasant experience - lots of quiet voices, disappointed looks, furious comments and 'never-ever-dare-to-compel-me-again's.
Elena sighs and lies down on the grass, not accepting the challenge. She's never been particularly easy to provoke - that's why it's so much fun to try.
Later that night they play normal. They have dinner together and spend at least two hours mocking each other without touching issues that most people prefer never to speak about, but Elena and Damon have had at least two awkward conversations about each and every one of them during the years.
(Sometimes it's strangely relieving to have all your cards out on the table.)
When they reach the bedroom around midnight, it's more about comfort than pleasure. If there are no more problems to solve, questions to answer or expectations to meet, you can either put up a fight and hope for something better, or flip the switch in your head, expose yourself and finally get some rest. This time they choose the latter.
They do it just this once.
7. wait your turn
If our planet has seen some eighty billion people, it is difficult to suppose that every individual has had his or her own repertory of gestures. Arithmetically, it is simply impossible. Without the slightest doubt, there are far fewer gestures in the world than there are individuals. That finding leads us to a shocking conclusion: a gesture is more individual than an individual.
Milan Kundera, Immortality
There are some things Elena does Damon is sure she's learned from being with Stefan.
First of all - she is very careful. Never exposing her neck or wrists, never coming too close if she has any bruises or tiny cuts. Every suggestion of blood used to make Stefan a little bit uncomfortable, so she tried to make it easier for him. It had more to do with being nice than being afraid. Damon doesn't think she was ever really concerned that his precious brother would bite her.
(Not until she let him, and then everything went wrong - although it's just a theory, isn't it?)
Damon laughs when one day Elena stands on her toes to kiss him and instinctively goes too high, getting his nose instead of mouth. She blushes and tries to explain - this is actually the only time when she realizes she's done something wrong - but he puts his finger on her lips and gives her an amused look.
(The elephant in his head lets out a mighty roar!)
In fact it's all about small gestures, the things she doesn't know she's doing, because they've grown so deeply into her that she recognizes them as genuinely hers. So Damon allows her to cup his cheek or grab his arm in a way he's certainly seen before; even if he talked to her, she wouldn't know what he meant. It seems right in some twisted way. The Salvatore brothers have been contradicting each other for so long that now it's hard to imagine that one could do something that has no relation to another.
(Damon didn't win Elena from Stefan. He just waited his turn.)
8. drink up, baby
Elena lives by the rules. Her world is pretty well sorted out, right is in here, wrong over there, herself - in between.
This is why she would never ever drink with Stefan.
Drinking belongs to Damon, even though it's not forbidden any more. But it was decided like that ages ago and Elena isn't the one who would change the rules.
A bottle appears out of nowhere and the first glass goes down as easily as if it were water. Damon shakes his head in pretend disbelief. If he's not particularly upset, he is usually a slow drinker - he has all the time in the world to get himself properly drunk, so he doesn't see any reason not to enjoy the flavor while doing so.
"What is it all about? Are you going to drink the whole bottle, then explore all of your darkest fantasies and in the morning deny it all and tell me you don't remember a thing? Is this your evil masterplan?"
Elena laughs and for just a second there's no bitterness in here, just sheer amusement. Damon sits up and puts the biggest pillow behind his back before he pours another round.
"Yeah, because I can definitely think of at least five things worse than what we've already done tonight. Just like that."
"You looked as if you were enjoying it," he points, not even trying to make it sound like a question.
"Immensely."
He leans forward to kiss her and try to take the glass out of her hands, but she shakes her head and doesn't let him do either. He bites his lip, but when she reaches to pour him the third round, he smiles and thanks her with a nod. Once they've started, they have until the bottle is finished.
Those are the rules.
9. sick of you
Elena starts writing and it takes Damon two weeks to figure out that these aren't journal entries this time.
She's messy with her work - loads of crossed paragraphs, overwritten sentences, words scribbled around the main text, scattered notes and question marks. Some pages are perfectly clear, maybe even neat, but other bear marks of endless corrections and disturbed thoughts, written again and again until she was sick of them.
Damon starts suspecting something when he looks over Elena's shoulder and sees some dialogues, but gets sure one rainy Thursday when she forgets to take her journal from his library. He opens the notebook without hesitation (a good thing about being evil is that you can do whatever you want and nobody is ever surprised) and starts reading.
The text doesn't actually make a lot of sense - there are just sketches, tons of beginnings and endings with nothing in between, paragraphs in wrong order, separate scenes with no connection. Elena probably writes down her ideas wherever she can, and then sorts them out at home, on her computer or in another notebook. It seems to be an adventure novel, full of twists, mysteries and witty banter, not exactly a comedy, rather bitter-sweet, well-balanced and inexplicably suffocating.
(People don't write about things that make them happy, they just take their time and enjoy. People write about things that make them uncomfortable.)
Even though it's not a finished story and not exactly the jolliest thing he's seen in his life, it reads surprisingly well. It gives Damon a disturbing impression of familiarity that he cannot explain; he doesn't recognize any of the characters or events, but at the same time he finds feelings and thoughts he knows quite well. It may be simply because Elena writes similar to how she speaks, but Damon strongly believes that simplicity is highly overrated.
"You've read it all, haven't you?” Elena sighs on Saturday when he gives her back her journal.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"How did you like it?"
"You have too many endings."
"It's dull to have just one."
10. tie me up, take me down
Turning Elena would be the easiest thing in the world.
She isn't very cautious around Damon - she takes the drinks he pours and lets him snoop around her plates and pots while she's cooking. Hell, she even allows herself to fall asleep in his house and it's not like he couldn't enter her place any time he wanted anyway. Slipping her some blood wouldn't be a challenge at all. He has an opportunity to do it at least every couple of days.
Elena seems blissfully unaware of the danger and it makes Damon angry enough to start dropping hints here and there. They even have a major fight over him being all reminiscent of his eventful yet infamous life and enjoying it far too much - although fair is fair and he has to admit that it took her over an hour to lose her temper.
The next time he messes around Elena's cooker, she pins him to the kitchen counter and he is surprised enough to allow her. It doesn't last for long - in a split second he turns them around and puts his hands on the table top so that she has nowhere to escape. No challenge at all.
"I could just snap your neck like a twig, you know?"
"Yes, you could. But for some reason you don't."
Elena lets Damon place his palms on the both sides of her head and looks at him for a while before she starts kissing his arm and collarbone. She is all relaxed, but it's easy to tell that she isn't sure if he is bluffing.
Well, neither is he.
11. it's just skin
Sometimes Damon believes that whatever Elena feels, they can all feel.
"Hush, stay as you are. Stay exactly as you are."
He touches her bare arm and they both shiver a little. Suddenly Damon is sure that there's more than just one skin under his fingers and understands with perfect clarity that there's only one thing he can do right now, even though he cannot exactly explain the logic hidden behind his idea.
He sits on the floor right in front of the couch, puts his hand on Elena's shoulder, fingers brushing the nape of her neck (warm, firm, reassuring grip - Stefan used to like it, it seemed to give him strength) and waits for her to nod. It feels like he's done it before.
(Thy mind is thy worst enemy.)
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and listens carefully, as he starts undressing Elena. Cotton sounds different from satin and lace from the past, but everything melts together and Damon feels his shirt slide off his shoulders as he hears soft fabric hit the seat of the couch a couple of inches away. He clutches his fingers on Elena's hips and moves his head down (when he did it for the very first time, there were skirts and petticoats all over his head, so he holds his breath for a while).
"That's right, stay still. Don't worry, I've got your back."
When Elena screams, there are four voices in Damon's ears.
12. take everything you've got
At some point Stefan shows up at the Salvatore Boarding House and Damon is not even surprised. Apparently their lives weren't complicated enough.
The very first evening they have the Big Cliché Talk and it's full of words that haven't been used by normal people for at least a century. Being a vampire is about adjusting to new worlds and circumstances, but they've been having this conversation for a hundred and fifty-something years and it's vivid enough for them without making it any more modern.
Stefan is concerned and Damon ends up telling him things he probably shouldn't have, which doesn't make his brother any less worried. The atmosphere gets stirred up to the point when Damon prompts they should go to the garden and start poetically shooting each other. He's sure that Stefan secretly appreciates the joke.
Mostly they talk about Elena (no questions about the past - Damon might have spent some time sniffing around, but he isn't sure if he wants to know the direct truth from a reliable source), even though there's no point. They've both adjusted just fine and now they're living in a world where you don't talk about a girl, you do your part and watch her do hers. Whatever happens, there will be no more protecting Elena; they've learned that much.
Stefan manages to clean up his room only because he's a vampire and doesn't choke on dust. They spend rest of the night in silence, each with a glass in his hand an eyes focused on the fireplace; a perfect picture of the Salvatore Brooding House* all over again.
When Elena knocks in the morning, they both jump up to their feet to open the door.
*This is thanks to idrilka's skill of creative reading.