[fic] lay me down, wash away the sorrow
Title: lay me down, wash away the sorrow
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Elena & Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~2400
Rating/Warnings: R
Spoilers: Everything through S3.
Summary: Relationship navigation, not so easy.
Author's notes: I blame upupa_epops. FOR EVERYTHING. This was supposed to finish out the universe of Universal and Piano Man, but it looks like there will be one more. Because Damon and Elena are life ruiners! Title lifted from Cher's "Heart of Stone."
Elena has always thought of Damon as good humored. Sure, he's a prick half the time, and there's a certain veneer over everything he says, like he's always playing a part (which, she realizes, he is, he's the star of his own movie, the one where he wrecks his own life), but all that aside, he's always made her laugh. Smile. Find a reason to cling to a glimmer of the goodness of reality. Not because he's not realistic about their circumstances, but because Damon would rather get stuff done and have a drink at the end of the day, judge it as good and end on an upswing.
It's just how he is.
So when she starts sleeping with him, it's remarkable how unhappy it makes him. It's noticeable. Don't get her wrong, he's eager, always delivers, often makes sure her world is rocked more than once before he gets his, and he never ever says no.
He never would.
But she's pretty sure he's not really enjoying it.
She, on the other hand, is enjoying it. Immensely. She has had to re-examine everything about herself now that she's a vampire, and sex with Damon had come into that examination. And she wasn't willing to stop it, so she'd been honest with Stefan. After he caught them, of course, but that didn't matter. He'd already known, he just hadn't wanted to know.
Just like she hadn't wanted to tell him. But in the end she couldn't tell him she would stop, and that had been the bigger issue, obviously.
She's lying in Damon's bed, pondering all of this as he turns towards her and snuggles his face into her shoulder. He breathes out a little sigh, and she thinks maybe he's content, for the moment. Now might be a good time to poke the bear. She has a rush of warmth in her chest, spreading under her ribcage, and she reaches a hand up to pet his hair.
"Do you like doing this?" she asks, her voice very soft.
He shifts against her a little, one of his hands spreading out over her stomach. "Do I like doing what?"
"This, Damon. Us. Me and you. Do you like this?"
"Um, yeah," he says, his voice just a little snarky. "'Course, I do." His lips brush over her collarbone. "What's not to like? Naked girl? Check. In my bed? Check. Nobody's trying to kill us? Check. It's all good."
She doesn't respond, she just stares up at the ceiling and then his head comes up. "Why? Don't you like this?" he asks.
Elena shifts her gaze to his face and cups his cheek in her hand. "I love this, and after the last few months, it's nice to love anything. But sometimes...I don't know. I don't think you're having as good a time as me."
He tips his head, looking at her like she's crazy. "Trust me, honey. I'm having a good time." He gives her a smirk and then leans down slightly to dust her nipple with his tongue. It responds immediately and he growls a little in his throat as he tugs her closer.
Later, he falls to sleep against her. They are both sated, but she's still not convinced.
Damon had been fucking Elena against the glass wall of his shower when Stefan walked into his bedroom without knocking.
He would have said, Serves you right, but he had literally been in mid-orgasm when he opened his eyes and saw his brother watching them.
All told, it was pretty horrific. Even for Damon.
Especially for Stefan. Elena had been completely unaware, so Damon had had to tell her. (Awkward.) She wrapped herself in his bathrobe and went to find his brother. And that had been that. She'd been sleeping exclusively with him ever since then, but Damon wouldn't call it a relationship.
He'd call it better than nothing, if he had to call it anything.
But, you know, he's not too choosy. The only thing he demands from Elena is her full attention in bed (or in the shower, or in his car, or at her house, or wherever the urge strikes) and she gives it enthusiastically.
Sometimes, if he didn't know any better, he'd think she'd never had it good before. But really, he knows. It's the vampire thing. Everything heightened, everything magnified. He'd been a vampire for fifty years before he had sex with anyone, and it had been pretty intense, even if he had grown used to the amplified feeling of everything else.
He can only imagine how addictive it could have been if he'd been engaged in it in those early weeks and months.
The idea had come to him sometime after Elena turned that it was better that she'd chosen Stefan right before her whole life had been turned upside down, thus negating her choice. It had put him back in the running, he was sure. On the other hand, being her first vampire sex was like being her first boyfriend.
And everyone knows what happened to Matt Donovan.
So when he wakes to her lips on his chest or her fingers around his cock, he just reminds himself to enjoy it while he can, because it could end at any moment. It will eventually end. She will leave, she will move on, she will adjust to her new life, and he'll be like that footnote first lovers always are. The sentiment never quite dies, but the fire, it can't burn forever.
Most days, he's fine with this. Better to have Elena for a while than never at all.
Right? Right.
There are days Elena feels badly about the fact that she's with Damon now, right under Stefan's nose. But the truth is, it would have gone the other way, if, well, things had stayed the same. (She has told herself this many times even though the humanity that still exists within her sometimes protests its validity.)
It doesn't matter. That's what Elena's figured out the most as a vampire. When eternity stretches before you, all those details you used to worry about somehow become insignificant. She sees herself in this place midway between the Salvatore brothers, one who cares too much about things he can't change and one who would convince the world that he never thinks about things that matter at all. Elena knows the truth, of course, about Damon. This has been the issue between them from the beginning. She knows he cares more than he shows, knows he feels more than he conveys, knows he often is just as much in his own head as Stefan is, though over different things, and this is why she can't let it go.
It just keeps eating at her; the feeling that Damon is constantly on edge, waiting for something to happen, that he holds her too tightly sometimes because she's just going to disappear. Sometimes when they're making love, she feels he's alone in it, distant in a way that she can't breach, not with her hand against his face, or her eyes on his as they race for release.
It's just ironic that when she finally got to the place where she could just let it all hang out, everything she feels for him exposed to the light, he has retreated. He's there, but he's not there, and she's not sure how to make it happen.
The only person to talk to about it would be Stefan, but that's obviously not going to happen.
She ends up bottling it up inside, unable to say anything until one night it just bursts from her mouth.
Damon's being particularly assy, arguing with everything she says, just to be provoking, she realizes, but she's unable to resist rising to the bait. He makes some crack about Petrova doppelgangers being excellent in bed, and she's punching him before she even knows exactly what happened.
It's like the first time, the day she confronted him about his compulsion of her, and they'd ended up fucking against the wall in his bedroom. Their aggression quickly turns sexual and when Damon would roll and pin her beneath him on the rug, she knees him in the groin and flips him over. "What is wrong with you?" she rages, grabbing his shoulders and slamming him back into the floor so that he grunts in pain.
He manages a smirk anyway and says, "Truth hurts, babe-" but she mashes her mouth over his to shut him up.
Once he's kissing her back, and there's nothing but heat and thrusting tongues going on, Elena pulls back. She puts her hand on his face and looks into his eyes. "Stop treating me like I won't be here forever," she says.
She may not have known for sure what his problem was until this very moment, but his eyes suddenly show fear unlike anything she's ever seen. "You won't be," he says, his voice very soft, but very sure.
"Damon, I l-" but then she's on her back again and he's kissing her and he won't let her talk. He strips her clothes from her, his mouth everywhere at once, and the words she needs to say-the ones he longs to hear-lodge in her throat as his tongue plunges between her legs.
He slides inside her some time later, burying his face against her throat as he seeks his own release.
Elena wraps her arms around him and cries silently.
Damon is pouring himself a drink when Stefan comes into the great room with a suitcase in his hand. He pauses with the tumbler halfway to his mouth and looks at his brother. "Feeling dramatic today?" he snarks.
"I've got to go. It's driving me crazy," Stefan says, nothing but resignation in his voice.
"You just need to hold out a while longer, Stef," Damon says, bringing his glass to his lips and tossing it back. Smacking his lips smartly, he says, "She will undoubtedly get over this phase...soonish."
Stefan's incredulity almost makes Damon laugh, but he knows how his brother feels, so he stifles his irreverence. "You are a piece of work, Damon. Truly. The least you could do is see it for what it really is."
"Oh, yeah?" Damon spits. "And what's that, Stefan? As a human she couldn't be bothered with me, but as a vampire she can't keep her hands off me? It must be everlasting love, right?" He slaps his forehead mockingly. "I don't know why I didn't see it sooner!"
"You're an idiot," Stefan declares.
"So are you, if you leave town."
"It wouldn't matter if I stayed. This is how it is now, whether you believe it or not."
Damon watches his brother's retreating back, listens as the front door shuts behind him. He raises his glass to the empty room. Soon enough he'll be here all alone, and he'll make Stefan come back then.
Elena's in the basement getting a bloodbag when Damon appears at her side. She thinks he moves through the house at vampire speed just to see if he can startle her.
(He doesn't realize she's attuned her special-feature ears to his movements, so she always knows where he is and what he's doing if he's there with her.)
"So," he says casually. "Stefan just left town."
Elena pulls a bag out of the freezer and lets the lid drop closed. Turning to face him she says, "Actually, he left this morning."
"He said goodbye to you?" Damon asks, his brow furrowed.
Elena rolls her eyes as she twists the tube open on her dinner. "Of course he said goodbye to me."
"Well, pardon me, I didn't realize you two were on such good terms, considering you're fucking his brother!"
He turns like he's going to leave and Elena reaches out and grabs his arm. "Damon! Good grief. This has been going on between you and I for months. We aren't just fucking. I suppose you have no idea what a real relationship feels like, but we are in a relationship. We are together. Most boys would have given me a necklace or something for our six month anniversary, but you keep acting like tomorrow is a new day and all of this-" She gestures between them. "-means nothing." She lets go of him when her words seem to freeze his exit, but she's not quite finished. "Maybe I need to ask you this again: do you like doing this? You could break up with me, you know. You don't have to stay out of some weird obligation. I'm a vampire now. I'm going to be okay, apparently. Your responsibility ended a long time ago."
"My responsibility?" he shouts. "How is this my responsibility? I didn't turn you into a vampire!"
It suddenly occurs to Elena that Damon wants her to be upset about Stefan leaving, or maybe he expects her to be upset about it, because he obviously is. Instead of dealing with that, though, she simply asks again, "Do. you. like. doing. this? Do you want to be with me?"
He takes a step back, and that fear she's seen in his eyes before floods the room. He shakes his head, as if confused. "Elena-"
"Do you want to be with me?" she demands.
After a moment's hesitation, the words seem wrenched from his chest. "Of course I do!"
Elena slaps her bloodbag against his abdomen and moves around him. "Yeah, I don't think so," she says. His hand comes up to hold on to the bag, and she just leaves him standing there.
She climbs the stairs to the ground floor slowly, but he doesn't call after or follow her. She thinks about going upstairs to grab some of her things, but she can feel the tears building in her throat, so for the first time in months, Elena goes home.
She falls asleep in her childhood bed, her pillow wet with tears.
(Damon might think they're for Stefan, but they're not.)
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Elena & Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~2400
Rating/Warnings: R
Spoilers: Everything through S3.
Summary: Relationship navigation, not so easy.
Author's notes: I blame upupa_epops. FOR EVERYTHING. This was supposed to finish out the universe of Universal and Piano Man, but it looks like there will be one more. Because Damon and Elena are life ruiners! Title lifted from Cher's "Heart of Stone."
Elena has always thought of Damon as good humored. Sure, he's a prick half the time, and there's a certain veneer over everything he says, like he's always playing a part (which, she realizes, he is, he's the star of his own movie, the one where he wrecks his own life), but all that aside, he's always made her laugh. Smile. Find a reason to cling to a glimmer of the goodness of reality. Not because he's not realistic about their circumstances, but because Damon would rather get stuff done and have a drink at the end of the day, judge it as good and end on an upswing.
It's just how he is.
So when she starts sleeping with him, it's remarkable how unhappy it makes him. It's noticeable. Don't get her wrong, he's eager, always delivers, often makes sure her world is rocked more than once before he gets his, and he never ever says no.
He never would.
But she's pretty sure he's not really enjoying it.
She, on the other hand, is enjoying it. Immensely. She has had to re-examine everything about herself now that she's a vampire, and sex with Damon had come into that examination. And she wasn't willing to stop it, so she'd been honest with Stefan. After he caught them, of course, but that didn't matter. He'd already known, he just hadn't wanted to know.
Just like she hadn't wanted to tell him. But in the end she couldn't tell him she would stop, and that had been the bigger issue, obviously.
She's lying in Damon's bed, pondering all of this as he turns towards her and snuggles his face into her shoulder. He breathes out a little sigh, and she thinks maybe he's content, for the moment. Now might be a good time to poke the bear. She has a rush of warmth in her chest, spreading under her ribcage, and she reaches a hand up to pet his hair.
"Do you like doing this?" she asks, her voice very soft.
He shifts against her a little, one of his hands spreading out over her stomach. "Do I like doing what?"
"This, Damon. Us. Me and you. Do you like this?"
"Um, yeah," he says, his voice just a little snarky. "'Course, I do." His lips brush over her collarbone. "What's not to like? Naked girl? Check. In my bed? Check. Nobody's trying to kill us? Check. It's all good."
She doesn't respond, she just stares up at the ceiling and then his head comes up. "Why? Don't you like this?" he asks.
Elena shifts her gaze to his face and cups his cheek in her hand. "I love this, and after the last few months, it's nice to love anything. But sometimes...I don't know. I don't think you're having as good a time as me."
He tips his head, looking at her like she's crazy. "Trust me, honey. I'm having a good time." He gives her a smirk and then leans down slightly to dust her nipple with his tongue. It responds immediately and he growls a little in his throat as he tugs her closer.
Later, he falls to sleep against her. They are both sated, but she's still not convinced.
Damon had been fucking Elena against the glass wall of his shower when Stefan walked into his bedroom without knocking.
He would have said, Serves you right, but he had literally been in mid-orgasm when he opened his eyes and saw his brother watching them.
All told, it was pretty horrific. Even for Damon.
Especially for Stefan. Elena had been completely unaware, so Damon had had to tell her. (Awkward.) She wrapped herself in his bathrobe and went to find his brother. And that had been that. She'd been sleeping exclusively with him ever since then, but Damon wouldn't call it a relationship.
He'd call it better than nothing, if he had to call it anything.
But, you know, he's not too choosy. The only thing he demands from Elena is her full attention in bed (or in the shower, or in his car, or at her house, or wherever the urge strikes) and she gives it enthusiastically.
Sometimes, if he didn't know any better, he'd think she'd never had it good before. But really, he knows. It's the vampire thing. Everything heightened, everything magnified. He'd been a vampire for fifty years before he had sex with anyone, and it had been pretty intense, even if he had grown used to the amplified feeling of everything else.
He can only imagine how addictive it could have been if he'd been engaged in it in those early weeks and months.
The idea had come to him sometime after Elena turned that it was better that she'd chosen Stefan right before her whole life had been turned upside down, thus negating her choice. It had put him back in the running, he was sure. On the other hand, being her first vampire sex was like being her first boyfriend.
And everyone knows what happened to Matt Donovan.
So when he wakes to her lips on his chest or her fingers around his cock, he just reminds himself to enjoy it while he can, because it could end at any moment. It will eventually end. She will leave, she will move on, she will adjust to her new life, and he'll be like that footnote first lovers always are. The sentiment never quite dies, but the fire, it can't burn forever.
Most days, he's fine with this. Better to have Elena for a while than never at all.
Right? Right.
There are days Elena feels badly about the fact that she's with Damon now, right under Stefan's nose. But the truth is, it would have gone the other way, if, well, things had stayed the same. (She has told herself this many times even though the humanity that still exists within her sometimes protests its validity.)
It doesn't matter. That's what Elena's figured out the most as a vampire. When eternity stretches before you, all those details you used to worry about somehow become insignificant. She sees herself in this place midway between the Salvatore brothers, one who cares too much about things he can't change and one who would convince the world that he never thinks about things that matter at all. Elena knows the truth, of course, about Damon. This has been the issue between them from the beginning. She knows he cares more than he shows, knows he feels more than he conveys, knows he often is just as much in his own head as Stefan is, though over different things, and this is why she can't let it go.
It just keeps eating at her; the feeling that Damon is constantly on edge, waiting for something to happen, that he holds her too tightly sometimes because she's just going to disappear. Sometimes when they're making love, she feels he's alone in it, distant in a way that she can't breach, not with her hand against his face, or her eyes on his as they race for release.
It's just ironic that when she finally got to the place where she could just let it all hang out, everything she feels for him exposed to the light, he has retreated. He's there, but he's not there, and she's not sure how to make it happen.
The only person to talk to about it would be Stefan, but that's obviously not going to happen.
She ends up bottling it up inside, unable to say anything until one night it just bursts from her mouth.
Damon's being particularly assy, arguing with everything she says, just to be provoking, she realizes, but she's unable to resist rising to the bait. He makes some crack about Petrova doppelgangers being excellent in bed, and she's punching him before she even knows exactly what happened.
It's like the first time, the day she confronted him about his compulsion of her, and they'd ended up fucking against the wall in his bedroom. Their aggression quickly turns sexual and when Damon would roll and pin her beneath him on the rug, she knees him in the groin and flips him over. "What is wrong with you?" she rages, grabbing his shoulders and slamming him back into the floor so that he grunts in pain.
He manages a smirk anyway and says, "Truth hurts, babe-" but she mashes her mouth over his to shut him up.
Once he's kissing her back, and there's nothing but heat and thrusting tongues going on, Elena pulls back. She puts her hand on his face and looks into his eyes. "Stop treating me like I won't be here forever," she says.
She may not have known for sure what his problem was until this very moment, but his eyes suddenly show fear unlike anything she's ever seen. "You won't be," he says, his voice very soft, but very sure.
"Damon, I l-" but then she's on her back again and he's kissing her and he won't let her talk. He strips her clothes from her, his mouth everywhere at once, and the words she needs to say-the ones he longs to hear-lodge in her throat as his tongue plunges between her legs.
He slides inside her some time later, burying his face against her throat as he seeks his own release.
Elena wraps her arms around him and cries silently.
Damon is pouring himself a drink when Stefan comes into the great room with a suitcase in his hand. He pauses with the tumbler halfway to his mouth and looks at his brother. "Feeling dramatic today?" he snarks.
"I've got to go. It's driving me crazy," Stefan says, nothing but resignation in his voice.
"You just need to hold out a while longer, Stef," Damon says, bringing his glass to his lips and tossing it back. Smacking his lips smartly, he says, "She will undoubtedly get over this phase...soonish."
Stefan's incredulity almost makes Damon laugh, but he knows how his brother feels, so he stifles his irreverence. "You are a piece of work, Damon. Truly. The least you could do is see it for what it really is."
"Oh, yeah?" Damon spits. "And what's that, Stefan? As a human she couldn't be bothered with me, but as a vampire she can't keep her hands off me? It must be everlasting love, right?" He slaps his forehead mockingly. "I don't know why I didn't see it sooner!"
"You're an idiot," Stefan declares.
"So are you, if you leave town."
"It wouldn't matter if I stayed. This is how it is now, whether you believe it or not."
Damon watches his brother's retreating back, listens as the front door shuts behind him. He raises his glass to the empty room. Soon enough he'll be here all alone, and he'll make Stefan come back then.
Elena's in the basement getting a bloodbag when Damon appears at her side. She thinks he moves through the house at vampire speed just to see if he can startle her.
(He doesn't realize she's attuned her special-feature ears to his movements, so she always knows where he is and what he's doing if he's there with her.)
"So," he says casually. "Stefan just left town."
Elena pulls a bag out of the freezer and lets the lid drop closed. Turning to face him she says, "Actually, he left this morning."
"He said goodbye to you?" Damon asks, his brow furrowed.
Elena rolls her eyes as she twists the tube open on her dinner. "Of course he said goodbye to me."
"Well, pardon me, I didn't realize you two were on such good terms, considering you're fucking his brother!"
He turns like he's going to leave and Elena reaches out and grabs his arm. "Damon! Good grief. This has been going on between you and I for months. We aren't just fucking. I suppose you have no idea what a real relationship feels like, but we are in a relationship. We are together. Most boys would have given me a necklace or something for our six month anniversary, but you keep acting like tomorrow is a new day and all of this-" She gestures between them. "-means nothing." She lets go of him when her words seem to freeze his exit, but she's not quite finished. "Maybe I need to ask you this again: do you like doing this? You could break up with me, you know. You don't have to stay out of some weird obligation. I'm a vampire now. I'm going to be okay, apparently. Your responsibility ended a long time ago."
"My responsibility?" he shouts. "How is this my responsibility? I didn't turn you into a vampire!"
It suddenly occurs to Elena that Damon wants her to be upset about Stefan leaving, or maybe he expects her to be upset about it, because he obviously is. Instead of dealing with that, though, she simply asks again, "Do. you. like. doing. this? Do you want to be with me?"
He takes a step back, and that fear she's seen in his eyes before floods the room. He shakes his head, as if confused. "Elena-"
"Do you want to be with me?" she demands.
After a moment's hesitation, the words seem wrenched from his chest. "Of course I do!"
Elena slaps her bloodbag against his abdomen and moves around him. "Yeah, I don't think so," she says. His hand comes up to hold on to the bag, and she just leaves him standing there.
She climbs the stairs to the ground floor slowly, but he doesn't call after or follow her. She thinks about going upstairs to grab some of her things, but she can feel the tears building in her throat, so for the first time in months, Elena goes home.
She falls asleep in her childhood bed, her pillow wet with tears.
(Damon might think they're for Stefan, but they're not.)