[fic] the only voice she hears (is telling her she can't)
Title: the only voice she hears (is telling her she can't)
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Elena & Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~3500
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 / Possibly dubious consent? I'm sort of playing with the idea of consent here, in a lot of ways.
Spoilers: Everything through 4x17, and influenced by the preview for 4x18.
Summary: They shared a lot of traits, she and Damon.
Author's notes: Written for the Damon/Elena, Damon/Katherine, Ian/Nina fic-a-thon. Inspired by two prompts: 1) from bornonthursday: Damon/Elena: You did not think/when you sent me/to the brink, to the brink/You desired my attention/but denied my affections and 2) miss_blanche: Damon/Elena: Pride and lust is our disease. Title and opening verse from the song "Stupid Boy" by Keith Urban. There are a couple more A/N at the end of this piece, to be read after, if you so desire.
You stupid boy, oh, you always had to be right
But now you lost the only thing
That ever made you feel alive
It took a while for her to figure out
She could run but when she did
She was long gone, long gone
He used to look at her in such a way that she couldn't tell if it was his emotion leaking on to her, or her actual feelings; when she turned, it became obvious: they were her feelings, too.
They shared a lot of traits, she and Damon.
But once she's off, once all those bothersome feelings are gone, it's easier to concentrate on the way he makes her thighs tremble. How her chest gets tight and her belly drops out. But those aren't things she wants to deal with either, not now.
She knows what he'll do, because Damon is honest about not caring what she wants (or doesn't want) when it comes to the Cure, so she uses her last line of defense: she blows him off. She tries to make out with Stefan right in front of him.
(She remembers a time when Stefan was game for that, but this time, he won't open his mouth, and he sort of shrugs himself out of her embrace. It's all very frustrating.)
Still, when she turns and sees Damon's face across the crowded gym, she knows he's hurt. She's sure he's given himself the old 'Her Switch is Off' peptalk, but she just delivered the ultimate one-two punch. She might as well have repeated her It's always gonna be Stefan mantra. An I feel nothing for you, Damon combined with plastering herself all over his brother? She's sure there will be some skanky ho taking up residence in Damon's bed by the time the clock chimes midnight. She knows exactly how he deals with her rejection.
(And since he can't kill her brother, (ha!) there is only revenge sex at his disposal.)
She returns to the Boarding House sometime after two; believe it or not, she, Caroline, and Bonnie had gone for hot fudge sundaes after Prom (no boys allowed), and had a good time. It was the first dance they'd been to in ages that didn't end in death or worse. Elena might even say she had fun, though she had to quell the urge to snap Caroline's neck a few times.
She stands in the foyer, listening. There aren't any distinctive sounds coming from upstairs, so maybe Damon went home with a skanky ho instead. If that's the case, she's totally sleeping in his bed; it's the nicest one in the whole Boarding House, obviously.
She passes Stefan's room, listening intently, but he's definitely not there. She smiles to herself, imagining she's run them both out of their own house. That's probably never happened before. It's something to be a bit proud of.
Damon's door is ajar, and as she walks inside, she picks up the sound of whiskey being sloshed around the bottom of a glass. He's draped across a wing chair, spread out in front of the fireplace, his legs obscenely wide. His eyes watch the flames, but the light shimmers over his bare chest. His pants are on, though unfastened, as though he couldn't be bothered to finish undressing. "Oh," she says, when she sees him. She doesn't want to be caught off guard, but she is anyway. This is not what she expected. Damon is generally so predictable in this circumstance; she can't help the disappointment that wells up in her chest.
He doesn't even turn toward the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, or her gasp of surprise. She's shocked by this turn of events, but he seems completely unfazed by her arrival home, or her appearance in his room.
He lifts his glass in her direction, but says absolutely nothing.
Elena is nonplussed; she has no idea what to do. She walks over to his chair and spins around, presenting him with the back of her dress. "Can you unhook me?" she asks. The zipper will come down easy enough, once the small hook at the top is undone.
He makes a noise, something in the back of his throat that's part grunt, part protest, she thinks, but then his fingers skate across the middle of her back. She suppresses a shiver, reminding herself just why she wanted space between them. As soon as her dress is open, she'll go find one of the spare beds to sleep in.
She'll leave Damon to his whiskey, and his empty room. "I figured you'd have a fuck buddy with you," she says conversationally, though there might be a bite in her tone. She's unnerved by his silence, but as his fingers fumble at the clasp of her dress she begins to regain the upper hand.
Then his hand curls into the back of her dress, and he yanks hard; the fabric rips loudly and falls in a heap around her feet. "Damon!" she shrieks.
He still says nothing, just looks up at her with hooded eyes as she turns towards him. She's just standing there in her underwear, a strapless bra with matching black panties and Katherine's stilettos, her souvenir from Willoughby. He doesn't look at her body, though, just her face, and the loathing in his gaze makes her breath catch in her throat.
It's not like she didn't know he would have to hate her before he could pass into indifference, but she didn't expect seeing it would make her feel anything.
But, really, she's more mad about him ruining her dress, so she slaps his face. It's not a hard hit, as he's sitting at a low angle on the chair. The next thing she knows she's flat on her back on his bed and he looms over her, the brunt of his whiskey-laced breath flowing into her nose when he hisses, "My fuck buddy's right here." Before she can make any protest (really, she wants to protest, she does), he flips her over on to her stomach and tears her panties out of his way.
She braces herself for violation, feels a sense of vindication, for both herself and him, knowing just how far she's pushed him, that he's responded as she expected, sort of. But then he surprises her again, his fingers delving between her buttocks, sliding over the lips of her sex, taking a delicate swipe at her clitoris.
That's all it takes for her body to start preparing itself. A heaviness invades her womb, and she bucks back into him, just enough that the hardness of his erection rubs against one of her butt cheeks. His pants are still on, the fabric is rubbing against her legs, but there isn't anything between the evidence of his desire nor the growing proof of hers. His other hand plants itself in the center of her lower back, holding her in place as the fingers sliding between her legs concentrate more determinedly on the opening to her body. A little wail escapes her lips and she grows slick right under his ministrations, so much, so quickly that she hears him grit out an expletive as one of his fingers dips inside her half an inch.
She wants to command him to replace his fingers with his cock, but she can't seem to formulate words. All that falls out of her mouth are panting gasps, and moans wrapped in whimpers.
By the time she gets "Damon," out, he's leaned down again, his mouth right against her ear. "Tell me you feel nothing for me now, Elena," he whispers, the words sharp and devastating.
She reaches back, maybe to shove him off her, but again, she has no leverage, being at the completely wrong angle. Somehow her fingers weave into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. It's almost impossible for their mouths to connect in a satisfactory way, but she manages to contort her body just right. Her fangs descend, and blood flows from his tongue into her mouth. She groans as he shoves three fingers inside her, but he snaps his head back, breaking the contact of their lips. He curls his fingers and pleasure twists through her body. She starts to spasm under him, and quits fighting the inevitable.
It's not emotion, and he's a fool if he thinks it is; it's sensation that overwhelms her, and she cries out, careful not to say his name again. He doesn't demand anything else from her, though, at least not in the form of words. Just as she relaxes under his hand, he drags his fingers out and shoves his penis inside her; it's a punishing thrust, one that makes her entire body vibrate. Because of her slick and swollen flesh, he feels bigger than she remembers and when she tries shifting under him, he won't let her open her legs very wide. His movements are so fast and hard she has barely bottomed out from the first orgasm when the second is building to an even higher crescendo.
She gives up then; it was futile resistance at best, and it's over now. By the time she comes again, she's screaming, her hands fisting in his sheets.
The only thing that makes it okay is the way he loses control, his thrusts going wildly irregular just before his fangs sink deeply into her neck. She feels the rush of his orgasm, the flow of it spreading within her in a way that resembles victory.
(She might have been caught, but Damon is always worse than she.)
He stays slumped on top of her for an age; if she didn't know better, she'd think he was dead, but finally, he moves off her. He lies on the bed next to her in much the same condition, almost lifelessly. She decides it's because he's supremely drunk on alcohol; she's the one who needs to wander downstairs to get a bloodbag to replenish herself. He'd sucked his fill from her throat as he fucked her into the mattress.
(So, maybe an alcohol-blood-sex combo has created an immobile vampire.)
It had all been terribly unromantic, come to think of it. That's probably what Damon's problem is, since he tends to be overbearingly sentimental when it came to these types of things with her.
She's too tired to move, but her mind is whirring with a million thoughts. She can't seem to stop the words from leaving her mouth when she asks, "Why can't you just let me have what I want? Why can't I just stay a vampire? Isn't that what you wanted, less than two weeks ago?"
His body twitches next to hers, and the arm that still lies heavily across her back moves, almost as if he's retracting himself from her altogether. He flips over, rolling away to the edge of the bed, a big, gusty breath expelling from his lungs. "Yeah, well, remember how you begged me to take the Cure and be human with you? That also happened less than two weeks ago. You might not remember it, but I do. So I know what you really want, even if you don't."
Elena shoves herself up so she can turn her head to look at him. "That was what I wanted before I knew there was only enough Cure for one person."
"No," Damon snipes, his eyes shifting to her face. "That was what you wanted before you shut your emotions off."
"At your suggestion," she says dryly.
"Thanks for reminding me. Yes, Elena, I know, this is all my fault. Probably somehow, the whole damn thing is my fault, even going back to your getting turned at all because secretly, and not-so-secretly, I've always wanted this to happen. But you know what? Something actually happened to me, like physically changed when you asked me to be human with you. And I can't forget that, even if you're going to kill a million people to prove your point. You might remember who you're dealing with here. Stefan might care about body counts and collateral damage; but all I have ever cared about is you."
He spits out the words in a rapid-fire monologue, and then tries to roll off the bed entirely, though his slacks are bunched around his knees, so it makes his attempt less than graceful. Elena's arm shoots out to grab at his wrist and hold him in place.
"Damon, honestly. You have such tunnel-vision. Can you listen to me, for once? After I found out there wasn't enough Cure for everyone, I didn't want it anymore. Can you pause for just a moment, take a time-out from your life to think about why I wouldn't want it anymore? After I asked you to take it?"
She lets the silence fall between them, and he just stares at her face, a giant question mark all but appearing over his head. He blinks, and waits, remains quiet as she watches him thoughtfully.
When he says nothing, she has a sudden instant replay of his expression when they stood in the gym earlier in the evening and she told him he meant nothing to her. If only he could understand; and maybe deep down, he was the only one who could. If he waited 145 years for Katherine, flipped on, flipped off, whatever, how can he not get it? How can he look at her and not understand that even without her emotions, she is tied to him in a way that forgoes the Switch?
(Take the Cure, be human with me.)
"You would have taken it," she says with gravity. "If you thought I wanted you to, even if you thought it would have been miserable. You'd have done it. That's how much I know you love me, Damon. So can't you see? Don't you get it? I would only want it if we could both have it; and if we couldn't... Well, then, we'd be right back here, only maybe my brother wouldn't be dead, and I would care more about making you believe this."
Her fingers still grip his wrist, but she gives him a shove and he flies off the bed, hindered by his pants.
She sits up and scoots off the mattress while he scrambles to his feet. She unhooks her bra and heads for the shower while he stands there, his hands limply holding the belt and waistband of his pants.
Damon stands mutely while Elena saunters, naked, away from him. She drops her bra on the floor halfway between the bed and the door of the shower, and gives him a coquettish glance over her shoulder.
He is completely unsure about what is going on right now.
(As in, what the fuck?)
He knows he's pretty drunk, but he's pretty drunk a lot. And he knows he just shoved her down on his bed and took her without really caring if she wanted it, which is not something he would have ever done to Elena.
(Before.)
Before she purposely started flaying him alive.
After he killed Jeremy, he did everything he could to channel his frustrations in...better places. (Like Sexy Beks' pussy.) He knew on some level that Elena didn't mean to hurt him, even though she managed to do it on a regular basis, so this? This was a whole new, horrible reality. Elena trying to get at him was much worse somehow than her accidental castrations of yesteryear.
So he had swigged whiskey until losing control was the only option left. And the only victim available had been Elena.
He'd wanted to think they might be even, but she's off, and he knows what that means. He doesn't know why he thinks gentle prods or ravenous fucks will bring her back. He doesn't know how they could have the most productive conversation of their relationship in the midst of it, why he could hear the truth and know she's right, and still all he wants to do is wrap her up in cotton and put her somewhere so she can't add to her list of regrets.
Knowing something doesn't change anything. Not when you are what you are--not when you're Damon Salvatore.
(She knows it, even though she doesn't give a shit, now.)
Stefan had been all let's stop repeating the past and Elena had been all I feel nothing for you and so Damon did both: he didn't do what he's done in the past when Elena pushed him too far (when he let her push him too far), and he did something new.
He actually took it out directly on her.
And her response had been suck it up, asshole. Without judgment, just with truth that he needed to hear.
Because Elena without emotions is Elena with truth foaming from her lips. Sauteeing his heart and serving it to him for dinner.
(Actually, Elena hasn't changed all that much.)
He strips off his pants and follows her into the shower. She doesn't protest when he joins her, but turns around, presenting him with her back as she hands him the pouf on which she just poured liquid soap.
So he washes her, his fingers gentle, his hands expansive. Once the soap coats his hands, he tosses the pouf aside and just slides his palms all over her. Over her breasts, pulling her back into his chest so she rests against him, and then he lets one hand slip down her front, over her stomach, to gently wedge between her thighs. She sighs, throwing her head back against his shoulder, but he just runs his fingers over her ever so slightly. The springy curls that lead to the soft skin there makes him hard, but he tries very much not to touch her sexually, despite the fact that that's the only reason he's ever had his hand in that place before.
"You didn't hurt me," she says, his actions obviously tipping her off to his thoughts. "I wanted it. I wanted you. I've always wanted you, Damon. Isn't it funny how we deny ourselves, Switches On, Switches Off? We're all so royally fucked up. Me, worst of all, right? And look at you, trying to wash away your sins. We can never be forgiven, so what does it matter, right?"
Damon buries his face in the wet hair at the nape of her neck, and slides his finger up inside her so that she gasps in surprise; it works, though, because she stops talking, and one of her arms curls around his neck as her breath starts coming heavily.
He strokes her in a long and slow, relentless rhythm, not driving her to orgasm like he had earlier, but instead leading her there softly. Her nails dig into his skin, scoring across his shoulder and neck as the wetness of her arousal allows him to add a second, and then a third, finger. Her free hand plants itself against the glass wall of the shower and she moves up on her tiptoes to get better sensation. Her small whimpering cries are enough to drive him to the edge, so Damon pulls her back into him instinctively, but his cock finds little relief. He uses his unoccupied hand to gently raise her leg, and she follows his lead until both of her knees are pressed against the shower wall, too, giving her leverage, but leaving her wide open for the strength of his strokes to give her maximum sensation.
"Oh, God," she moans. He can feel the blood trickling down his shoulder from where her nails have sunk into his skin. They drag back and forth a little, in time with his movements.
He knows he can never be forgiven, for so many things, but that will never be the case for Elena.
She shouts, "YES!" as she comes again, and from the way her body tightens and gushes over his knuckles, he thinks it's a beautiful cascade of what she feels for him that neither of them can hide or miss in this moment. Damon wraps his other hand around his cock, pressing himself in between her buttcheeks. He groans her name as he slides against her twice, if that, and comes messily against the shower wall.
She's panting happily, her fingers now soothing the claw marks on his shoulder when she whispers, "This is how it will be, for eternity."
She sounds sure, and almost like herself, or at least as like herself as she ever has since she's been with Damon. (Sire bond, flipped Switch, vampire heightened whatever; never just Elena, never the girl who couldn't take her eyes off him in a shabby motel, who thrust her tongue between his lips and let him skip second base and head straight for third in the breezeway.)
He closes his eyes, his resolve to get the Cure only strengthened, somehow.
(Stupid boy.)
When I first started writing, even TVD, which was some 10+ years down the line from when I first started writing fanfic, I liked to explore the *truths* I found to be evident about my favorite characters or ships. However, the more I have written Damon and Elena specifically, the more important it has become to me to explore their subjective points of view. I don't think either Damon or Elena sees the entire truth of their situations--they certainly see truths in and about each other, though I leave it up to you to decide which things those are, because they also see misconceptions about each other and they project things on to one another. So, this was more an exploration of those ideas than perhaps any other piece I've written. We'll see if it worked, I guess. :D
Author: badboy_fangirl
Characters/Pairings: Elena & Damon POV; Damon/Elena
Word Count: ~3500
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 / Possibly dubious consent? I'm sort of playing with the idea of consent here, in a lot of ways.
Spoilers: Everything through 4x17, and influenced by the preview for 4x18.
Summary: They shared a lot of traits, she and Damon.
Author's notes: Written for the Damon/Elena, Damon/Katherine, Ian/Nina fic-a-thon. Inspired by two prompts: 1) from bornonthursday: Damon/Elena: You did not think/when you sent me/to the brink, to the brink/You desired my attention/but denied my affections and 2) miss_blanche: Damon/Elena: Pride and lust is our disease. Title and opening verse from the song "Stupid Boy" by Keith Urban. There are a couple more A/N at the end of this piece, to be read after, if you so desire.
You stupid boy, oh, you always had to be right
But now you lost the only thing
That ever made you feel alive
It took a while for her to figure out
She could run but when she did
She was long gone, long gone
He used to look at her in such a way that she couldn't tell if it was his emotion leaking on to her, or her actual feelings; when she turned, it became obvious: they were her feelings, too.
They shared a lot of traits, she and Damon.
But once she's off, once all those bothersome feelings are gone, it's easier to concentrate on the way he makes her thighs tremble. How her chest gets tight and her belly drops out. But those aren't things she wants to deal with either, not now.
She knows what he'll do, because Damon is honest about not caring what she wants (or doesn't want) when it comes to the Cure, so she uses her last line of defense: she blows him off. She tries to make out with Stefan right in front of him.
(She remembers a time when Stefan was game for that, but this time, he won't open his mouth, and he sort of shrugs himself out of her embrace. It's all very frustrating.)
Still, when she turns and sees Damon's face across the crowded gym, she knows he's hurt. She's sure he's given himself the old 'Her Switch is Off' peptalk, but she just delivered the ultimate one-two punch. She might as well have repeated her It's always gonna be Stefan mantra. An I feel nothing for you, Damon combined with plastering herself all over his brother? She's sure there will be some skanky ho taking up residence in Damon's bed by the time the clock chimes midnight. She knows exactly how he deals with her rejection.
(And since he can't kill her brother, (ha!) there is only revenge sex at his disposal.)
She returns to the Boarding House sometime after two; believe it or not, she, Caroline, and Bonnie had gone for hot fudge sundaes after Prom (no boys allowed), and had a good time. It was the first dance they'd been to in ages that didn't end in death or worse. Elena might even say she had fun, though she had to quell the urge to snap Caroline's neck a few times.
She stands in the foyer, listening. There aren't any distinctive sounds coming from upstairs, so maybe Damon went home with a skanky ho instead. If that's the case, she's totally sleeping in his bed; it's the nicest one in the whole Boarding House, obviously.
She passes Stefan's room, listening intently, but he's definitely not there. She smiles to herself, imagining she's run them both out of their own house. That's probably never happened before. It's something to be a bit proud of.
Damon's door is ajar, and as she walks inside, she picks up the sound of whiskey being sloshed around the bottom of a glass. He's draped across a wing chair, spread out in front of the fireplace, his legs obscenely wide. His eyes watch the flames, but the light shimmers over his bare chest. His pants are on, though unfastened, as though he couldn't be bothered to finish undressing. "Oh," she says, when she sees him. She doesn't want to be caught off guard, but she is anyway. This is not what she expected. Damon is generally so predictable in this circumstance; she can't help the disappointment that wells up in her chest.
He doesn't even turn toward the sound of her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, or her gasp of surprise. She's shocked by this turn of events, but he seems completely unfazed by her arrival home, or her appearance in his room.
He lifts his glass in her direction, but says absolutely nothing.
Elena is nonplussed; she has no idea what to do. She walks over to his chair and spins around, presenting him with the back of her dress. "Can you unhook me?" she asks. The zipper will come down easy enough, once the small hook at the top is undone.
He makes a noise, something in the back of his throat that's part grunt, part protest, she thinks, but then his fingers skate across the middle of her back. She suppresses a shiver, reminding herself just why she wanted space between them. As soon as her dress is open, she'll go find one of the spare beds to sleep in.
She'll leave Damon to his whiskey, and his empty room. "I figured you'd have a fuck buddy with you," she says conversationally, though there might be a bite in her tone. She's unnerved by his silence, but as his fingers fumble at the clasp of her dress she begins to regain the upper hand.
Then his hand curls into the back of her dress, and he yanks hard; the fabric rips loudly and falls in a heap around her feet. "Damon!" she shrieks.
He still says nothing, just looks up at her with hooded eyes as she turns towards him. She's just standing there in her underwear, a strapless bra with matching black panties and Katherine's stilettos, her souvenir from Willoughby. He doesn't look at her body, though, just her face, and the loathing in his gaze makes her breath catch in her throat.
It's not like she didn't know he would have to hate her before he could pass into indifference, but she didn't expect seeing it would make her feel anything.
But, really, she's more mad about him ruining her dress, so she slaps his face. It's not a hard hit, as he's sitting at a low angle on the chair. The next thing she knows she's flat on her back on his bed and he looms over her, the brunt of his whiskey-laced breath flowing into her nose when he hisses, "My fuck buddy's right here." Before she can make any protest (really, she wants to protest, she does), he flips her over on to her stomach and tears her panties out of his way.
She braces herself for violation, feels a sense of vindication, for both herself and him, knowing just how far she's pushed him, that he's responded as she expected, sort of. But then he surprises her again, his fingers delving between her buttocks, sliding over the lips of her sex, taking a delicate swipe at her clitoris.
That's all it takes for her body to start preparing itself. A heaviness invades her womb, and she bucks back into him, just enough that the hardness of his erection rubs against one of her butt cheeks. His pants are still on, the fabric is rubbing against her legs, but there isn't anything between the evidence of his desire nor the growing proof of hers. His other hand plants itself in the center of her lower back, holding her in place as the fingers sliding between her legs concentrate more determinedly on the opening to her body. A little wail escapes her lips and she grows slick right under his ministrations, so much, so quickly that she hears him grit out an expletive as one of his fingers dips inside her half an inch.
She wants to command him to replace his fingers with his cock, but she can't seem to formulate words. All that falls out of her mouth are panting gasps, and moans wrapped in whimpers.
By the time she gets "Damon," out, he's leaned down again, his mouth right against her ear. "Tell me you feel nothing for me now, Elena," he whispers, the words sharp and devastating.
She reaches back, maybe to shove him off her, but again, she has no leverage, being at the completely wrong angle. Somehow her fingers weave into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. It's almost impossible for their mouths to connect in a satisfactory way, but she manages to contort her body just right. Her fangs descend, and blood flows from his tongue into her mouth. She groans as he shoves three fingers inside her, but he snaps his head back, breaking the contact of their lips. He curls his fingers and pleasure twists through her body. She starts to spasm under him, and quits fighting the inevitable.
It's not emotion, and he's a fool if he thinks it is; it's sensation that overwhelms her, and she cries out, careful not to say his name again. He doesn't demand anything else from her, though, at least not in the form of words. Just as she relaxes under his hand, he drags his fingers out and shoves his penis inside her; it's a punishing thrust, one that makes her entire body vibrate. Because of her slick and swollen flesh, he feels bigger than she remembers and when she tries shifting under him, he won't let her open her legs very wide. His movements are so fast and hard she has barely bottomed out from the first orgasm when the second is building to an even higher crescendo.
She gives up then; it was futile resistance at best, and it's over now. By the time she comes again, she's screaming, her hands fisting in his sheets.
The only thing that makes it okay is the way he loses control, his thrusts going wildly irregular just before his fangs sink deeply into her neck. She feels the rush of his orgasm, the flow of it spreading within her in a way that resembles victory.
(She might have been caught, but Damon is always worse than she.)
He stays slumped on top of her for an age; if she didn't know better, she'd think he was dead, but finally, he moves off her. He lies on the bed next to her in much the same condition, almost lifelessly. She decides it's because he's supremely drunk on alcohol; she's the one who needs to wander downstairs to get a bloodbag to replenish herself. He'd sucked his fill from her throat as he fucked her into the mattress.
(So, maybe an alcohol-blood-sex combo has created an immobile vampire.)
It had all been terribly unromantic, come to think of it. That's probably what Damon's problem is, since he tends to be overbearingly sentimental when it came to these types of things with her.
She's too tired to move, but her mind is whirring with a million thoughts. She can't seem to stop the words from leaving her mouth when she asks, "Why can't you just let me have what I want? Why can't I just stay a vampire? Isn't that what you wanted, less than two weeks ago?"
His body twitches next to hers, and the arm that still lies heavily across her back moves, almost as if he's retracting himself from her altogether. He flips over, rolling away to the edge of the bed, a big, gusty breath expelling from his lungs. "Yeah, well, remember how you begged me to take the Cure and be human with you? That also happened less than two weeks ago. You might not remember it, but I do. So I know what you really want, even if you don't."
Elena shoves herself up so she can turn her head to look at him. "That was what I wanted before I knew there was only enough Cure for one person."
"No," Damon snipes, his eyes shifting to her face. "That was what you wanted before you shut your emotions off."
"At your suggestion," she says dryly.
"Thanks for reminding me. Yes, Elena, I know, this is all my fault. Probably somehow, the whole damn thing is my fault, even going back to your getting turned at all because secretly, and not-so-secretly, I've always wanted this to happen. But you know what? Something actually happened to me, like physically changed when you asked me to be human with you. And I can't forget that, even if you're going to kill a million people to prove your point. You might remember who you're dealing with here. Stefan might care about body counts and collateral damage; but all I have ever cared about is you."
He spits out the words in a rapid-fire monologue, and then tries to roll off the bed entirely, though his slacks are bunched around his knees, so it makes his attempt less than graceful. Elena's arm shoots out to grab at his wrist and hold him in place.
"Damon, honestly. You have such tunnel-vision. Can you listen to me, for once? After I found out there wasn't enough Cure for everyone, I didn't want it anymore. Can you pause for just a moment, take a time-out from your life to think about why I wouldn't want it anymore? After I asked you to take it?"
She lets the silence fall between them, and he just stares at her face, a giant question mark all but appearing over his head. He blinks, and waits, remains quiet as she watches him thoughtfully.
When he says nothing, she has a sudden instant replay of his expression when they stood in the gym earlier in the evening and she told him he meant nothing to her. If only he could understand; and maybe deep down, he was the only one who could. If he waited 145 years for Katherine, flipped on, flipped off, whatever, how can he not get it? How can he look at her and not understand that even without her emotions, she is tied to him in a way that forgoes the Switch?
(Take the Cure, be human with me.)
"You would have taken it," she says with gravity. "If you thought I wanted you to, even if you thought it would have been miserable. You'd have done it. That's how much I know you love me, Damon. So can't you see? Don't you get it? I would only want it if we could both have it; and if we couldn't... Well, then, we'd be right back here, only maybe my brother wouldn't be dead, and I would care more about making you believe this."
Her fingers still grip his wrist, but she gives him a shove and he flies off the bed, hindered by his pants.
She sits up and scoots off the mattress while he scrambles to his feet. She unhooks her bra and heads for the shower while he stands there, his hands limply holding the belt and waistband of his pants.
Damon stands mutely while Elena saunters, naked, away from him. She drops her bra on the floor halfway between the bed and the door of the shower, and gives him a coquettish glance over her shoulder.
He is completely unsure about what is going on right now.
(As in, what the fuck?)
He knows he's pretty drunk, but he's pretty drunk a lot. And he knows he just shoved her down on his bed and took her without really caring if she wanted it, which is not something he would have ever done to Elena.
(Before.)
Before she purposely started flaying him alive.
After he killed Jeremy, he did everything he could to channel his frustrations in...better places. (Like Sexy Beks' pussy.) He knew on some level that Elena didn't mean to hurt him, even though she managed to do it on a regular basis, so this? This was a whole new, horrible reality. Elena trying to get at him was much worse somehow than her accidental castrations of yesteryear.
So he had swigged whiskey until losing control was the only option left. And the only victim available had been Elena.
He'd wanted to think they might be even, but she's off, and he knows what that means. He doesn't know why he thinks gentle prods or ravenous fucks will bring her back. He doesn't know how they could have the most productive conversation of their relationship in the midst of it, why he could hear the truth and know she's right, and still all he wants to do is wrap her up in cotton and put her somewhere so she can't add to her list of regrets.
Knowing something doesn't change anything. Not when you are what you are--not when you're Damon Salvatore.
(She knows it, even though she doesn't give a shit, now.)
Stefan had been all let's stop repeating the past and Elena had been all I feel nothing for you and so Damon did both: he didn't do what he's done in the past when Elena pushed him too far (when he let her push him too far), and he did something new.
He actually took it out directly on her.
And her response had been suck it up, asshole. Without judgment, just with truth that he needed to hear.
Because Elena without emotions is Elena with truth foaming from her lips. Sauteeing his heart and serving it to him for dinner.
(Actually, Elena hasn't changed all that much.)
He strips off his pants and follows her into the shower. She doesn't protest when he joins her, but turns around, presenting him with her back as she hands him the pouf on which she just poured liquid soap.
So he washes her, his fingers gentle, his hands expansive. Once the soap coats his hands, he tosses the pouf aside and just slides his palms all over her. Over her breasts, pulling her back into his chest so she rests against him, and then he lets one hand slip down her front, over her stomach, to gently wedge between her thighs. She sighs, throwing her head back against his shoulder, but he just runs his fingers over her ever so slightly. The springy curls that lead to the soft skin there makes him hard, but he tries very much not to touch her sexually, despite the fact that that's the only reason he's ever had his hand in that place before.
"You didn't hurt me," she says, his actions obviously tipping her off to his thoughts. "I wanted it. I wanted you. I've always wanted you, Damon. Isn't it funny how we deny ourselves, Switches On, Switches Off? We're all so royally fucked up. Me, worst of all, right? And look at you, trying to wash away your sins. We can never be forgiven, so what does it matter, right?"
Damon buries his face in the wet hair at the nape of her neck, and slides his finger up inside her so that she gasps in surprise; it works, though, because she stops talking, and one of her arms curls around his neck as her breath starts coming heavily.
He strokes her in a long and slow, relentless rhythm, not driving her to orgasm like he had earlier, but instead leading her there softly. Her nails dig into his skin, scoring across his shoulder and neck as the wetness of her arousal allows him to add a second, and then a third, finger. Her free hand plants itself against the glass wall of the shower and she moves up on her tiptoes to get better sensation. Her small whimpering cries are enough to drive him to the edge, so Damon pulls her back into him instinctively, but his cock finds little relief. He uses his unoccupied hand to gently raise her leg, and she follows his lead until both of her knees are pressed against the shower wall, too, giving her leverage, but leaving her wide open for the strength of his strokes to give her maximum sensation.
"Oh, God," she moans. He can feel the blood trickling down his shoulder from where her nails have sunk into his skin. They drag back and forth a little, in time with his movements.
He knows he can never be forgiven, for so many things, but that will never be the case for Elena.
She shouts, "YES!" as she comes again, and from the way her body tightens and gushes over his knuckles, he thinks it's a beautiful cascade of what she feels for him that neither of them can hide or miss in this moment. Damon wraps his other hand around his cock, pressing himself in between her buttcheeks. He groans her name as he slides against her twice, if that, and comes messily against the shower wall.
She's panting happily, her fingers now soothing the claw marks on his shoulder when she whispers, "This is how it will be, for eternity."
She sounds sure, and almost like herself, or at least as like herself as she ever has since she's been with Damon. (Sire bond, flipped Switch, vampire heightened whatever; never just Elena, never the girl who couldn't take her eyes off him in a shabby motel, who thrust her tongue between his lips and let him skip second base and head straight for third in the breezeway.)
He closes his eyes, his resolve to get the Cure only strengthened, somehow.
(Stupid boy.)
When I first started writing, even TVD, which was some 10+ years down the line from when I first started writing fanfic, I liked to explore the *truths* I found to be evident about my favorite characters or ships. However, the more I have written Damon and Elena specifically, the more important it has become to me to explore their subjective points of view. I don't think either Damon or Elena sees the entire truth of their situations--they certainly see truths in and about each other, though I leave it up to you to decide which things those are, because they also see misconceptions about each other and they project things on to one another. So, this was more an exploration of those ideas than perhaps any other piece I've written. We'll see if it worked, I guess. :D