[fic] Literary License (2/3)
Title: Literary License (2/3)
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Damon POV; Damon/Elena, with appearances by Alaric & Stefan
Category: Smut, Angst, Romance
Word Count: ~3300
Summary: Elena realizes that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights has a few similarities to Damon Salvatore.
Spoilers: Set in the undetermined future, but includes references to anything up through 2x16, and speculation as to what might happen beyond that.
Warnings: none
Show/Bookverse: Show
Author's Notes: So, once again, crowandfog and I got to talking about some stuff. And this is what happened because of that. Special thanks to those who responded to my "What kind of music would Damon listen to?" research question. (And, sorry, yet again, I can't control how long these stories get!) Part one is HERE.
Additional Author's Notes: I just wanted to take a moment to say that I've haven't written like this in a long time--just the flow and the passion and the --gah, it's so good, and fun, and just--you know, if I have a spare five minutes, I'm in my head with Damon and Elena, and it's so much fun. It's so nice to have a creative outlet that just happens. I am so glad I have all of you to share it with. ♥
Literary License: to change the details of a story for purpose of theme,
clarity, or better storytelling.
At some point, Damon had grown to like manipulating people. It made him feel powerful, it drove out the helpless sensation caused by death, and then a vampire's life thrust upon him, and of course, his impotency at getting Katherine out of the tomb that she wasn't really even in anyway.
But when he told Stefan he was thinking of leaving Mystic Falls, he really hadn't had any ulterior motives. He assumed it would make his brother happy, though if Stefan's creased forehead was any indication, it really hadn't.
He did not expect Stefan to tell Elena, and he did not expect Elena to care.
Really. He didn't.
What he does find interesting, though, is that she doesn't just care. She has a whole thesis in her head for why he might go, why he should stay, and she quite obviously doesn't want him to.
He's never been so conflicted in his whole 168 years.
So he knocks on Alaric's door, and tells his friend the whole long thing. Ric is pensive, and he needs to shave. He's still working things out with Jenna (who isn't as forgiving as Damon supposed her to be), and so he has that whipped, depressed thing going on. (It's what human men go through because they can't pick up a bunch of sorority girls to feed off like a vampire would to drown his sorrows.)
"I don't know, Damon. Maybe leaving town is running away. Maybe you should stay and fight?"
Damon scoffs. "Fight for what? Fight a losing battle? Stand beside my saint of a brother and be found lacking? Why the fuck would I do that?"
"Because you love her."
Oh, yeah. That.
"She just feels guilty about Katherine, and what she thinks I feel about it."
"What do you feel about it?" Ric asks, sitting up from his slouched position on his sofa. "I mean, really? You did kill a woman you spent a century and a half pining for. It's got to do something to you. If I killed Isobel, I'd have, you know, feelings about it."
Damon gets up and walks over to Ric's fridge, which isn't far from the living room since his apartment is the size of a postage stamp. He pulls out a beer for himself and tosses one to Ric as well. "What do I feel?" He shrugs. "Relief. Vindication. Yippee, ki-yi-ay, mother fucker."
"Damon," Ric says, and he actually reminds Damon of Elena a little because of the disapproving expression on his face.
"I'm not sorry, Ric. That's the truth. Do I feel regret? Nope, not even a little bit. Elena's the one who deserves to live, not Katherine."
"You don't have to regret an action to be sad about it," Ric says. "I mean, I'm sorry I lied to Jenna, but I don't regret trying to protect her. They are two different things. Maybe Elena is just worried that you're hurting, and because she cares about you, she wants to stop your hurting. That's what it's like when you care for someone. Their pain is your pain, even if what caused the pain means nothing to them. Get it?"
Damon takes a long drink from his beer bottle, and contemplates a little. Of course he knows what Ric is talking about, because it seems like every little thing that caused Elena pain reverberates inside him. That had started when he found out Isobel was her birth mother, and essentially it hasn't stopped since then.
He just never expected her to reciprocate it. (Or admit that she reciprocated it, anyway.)
He finishes his beer without realizing how quickly he'd sucked it down, and then he stands up. "Thanks for the chat, Ric."
He gets to the door before Ric's voice stops him. "For what it's worth, I don't want you to leave town either."
Damon hesitates with his hand on the doorknob. "I think it's time to move on," he says, and that's the truth, too. He's got to get all these crazy thoughts out of his head, because he knows it can only end one way.
He's read the book, after all.
Two days later, Stefan invites him to go on a road trip to New York. "We're gonna go catch a concert in the city, and-"
"Who's 'we'?" Damon interrupts.
"Me, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy, Elena, Jenna, Alaric."
Damon contemplates the couples ratio, and immediately knows he's not interested. "What concert?" he asks, trying to look like he's actually considering the trip.
"Justin Bieber."
Stefan tries to deadpan it, but he cracks before Damon can fully process that he can't be serious. "Just kidding. We're going to see Bon Jovi. They're touring with Daughtry again, so I thought everyone would enjoy the show."
Damon appreciates his brother's attempts at being completely normal. Really, he does. But he's never liked Bon Jovi (maybe their music was just a bit too optimistic for him, okay?) and he doesn't care for Daughtry either.
"Eh," he says, shrugging. "Maybe if it was someone from like now, I'd go. Bon Jovi's, you know, so 1987."
"You sure?" Stefan asks. "Everyone wants you to come."
"Everyone?" Damon smirks.
"Even Bonnie," Stefan says with a nod.
"Thanks, but no. I'm still wrapping a few things up here so I can decide where I'm going to jetset to. So, not this time."
Stefan slaps his shoulder. "Okay, but next time, we'll go see someone you'd want to see. Who would you want to see?"
"Nobody you've ever heard of," Damon says with slight condescension.
"Oh, come on," Stefan says. "Elena's gotten me to listen to a lot of 'current' people."
"Does Elena listen to Sleeperstar, or Mat Kearney? How about Mumford and Sons?"
Stefan's face lights up. "Yes, she totally has Mumford and Sons in her car! She made me listen to this song about a lionboy or something."
"Little Lion Man," Damon corrects automatically.
"Yeah, right, whatever. So yes, we'll go see them sometime, okay? Wherever you end up, we'll meet somewhere and do it, okay?"
Damon only nods because he knows it will make Stefan happy, and strangely, these days he wants to do that, at least in theory.
He doesn't expect to really ever see any of them ever again. When he leaves, it will be for good. It's better that way.
Better for everyone.
Stefan and his gang leave the next morning and Damon putters around the Boarding House, thinks about calling Andie, then decides against it. (They've pretty much cooled off, and really it's just one more loose end that's already tied up.)
He realizes he really hasn't been in the library since he was there with Elena, and it bugs him that he's avoiding the room. It's always been his favorite place in the house, but now he can't go in there without wondering what would have happened if he hadn't walked out three days before.
Somehow he became pretty good at making sure she doesn't have any choices to make, and he's sort of pissed at himself about it. So he just keeps to his room, because there aren't many memories of her here, except with Rose.
He hates how much time he's spent thinking about it. For her bringing it up to him, for him finding that they had more than one copy of Wuthering Heights in the house. (Apparently the one Stefan gave Elena was under the alias Emily Bronte used back in the day, but they'd also acquired one from some years later published with her real name.)
So, he re-read it. (He's got loads of time, you know.)
He's not an idiot, so he can see the parallels she drew from fairly easily, as well as the ones that occurred to him while they fought about it, but there is that little bit there that she wouldn't get, that she couldn't possibly understand.
Heathcliff's fear.
Damon's pretty sure he gets why the guy left, and why he came back too late. He did it all on purpose because he never felt worthy of Catherine. He'd always been told he wasn't good enough, and her preference for Edgar only reinforced that, and fuck Damon for being a literary genius, but hello. It's all painfully similar, even more so than Elena thinks.
As if thinking about her conjures her up, he does a double take when something catches in his peripheral vision. There she is, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, and he's positive he's fallen asleep standing up.
"Hi," she says.
"Um...hi?" he responds. He was about to sit down in the chaise-lounge with a new book, but he hesitates as he looks at her, waiting for Stefan to come in behind her. "You guys have a breakdown in the driveway, or something?"
Elena shakes her head and walks all the way into the room. "No. I didn't go with them. I don't really like Bon Jovi."
Damon snorts. "Me, either."
"So," she says, pulling her sweater off as she moves closer to him. "You still planning on leaving town?"
She throws the piece of clothing over the arm of the chair he's standing beside, and he's faced with her in a simple white t-shirt and a pair of old jeans that hugs her ass a little too sweetly. He jerks his eyes up to hers and she's smiling at him just a bit, the corners of her lips slightly raised. "Um, yeah. Yup, just, you know, mapping a course for the horizon." He lifts his arm up, indicating said horizon, pointing somewhere to the left of their bodies. (He feels like a total idiot.)
"Any particular place?" she asks and she moves so she's standing right in front of him. She pulls the book he's holding out of his hands and he literally thinks, Praise Jesus it's not Wuthering Heights.
"No, not really," he says, swallowing nervously. She's too close, and the look on her face is completely disconcerting. "Maybe the West Coast, or Alaska. I hear it's really beautiful, and believe it or not, I've never been there. Alaska, I mean. Of course I've been to the Wes-"
She tosses the book on the chair with one hand and puts a finger to his lips with the other. "Shhhh," she says, and for the first time in two weeks and three days, he wonders if maybe Katherine isn't dead.
Because this can't possibly be Elena.
She holds his gaze steadily, however, and he notices the faintest trace of pink highlighting her cheeks; he can hear her heart thump-thumping against her ribcage. She steps closer until there is no space between their bodies and puts her hands on his shoulders. She draws in a shaky breath, licks her lips, and lifts herself up on her toes so that her mouth is against his.
He's frozen under her touch, torn between the need for survival and the want, the intensity of every emotion she stirs inside him swelling up until it blocks all other thoughts, instincts, or possible escape routes.
It's just him and Elena, and his bed is fifteen feet behind them, and Stefan is gone, and she's here with him.
He doesn't even remember putting his hands on her ass, but she's suddenly plastered against the front of him, and he's kissing her so hard that they're both gasping for air, but they never separate entirely to get sufficient oxygen.
He feels like their clothes melt away in a beam of light, and then he has her naked, on his bed, under him, and around him. Her legs tangle with his so that the slide of her smooth flesh against his hair-roughened thighs and calves might be the most erotic thing he's ever experienced-that is, until she pushes him over on to his back and works her way down his chest. Her mouth visits various destinations across his torso, but when her tongue dips into his navel, he says her name, half-groaning, half-growling. He wants to tell her that she better not tease him, but he can't get the words out and then her hand wraps around his cock and her lips slide over the head and he knows he's going to lose his fucking mind.
Because this? This should not be happening.
One of his hands reaches for and grasps a good amount of her hair, but he doesn't allow the other one to touch her. (He wants her to set the pace, because he knows he'd have no class and would probably just shove himself down her throat.) Instead, he finds a place on the headboard and digs his fingers into the wood until it splinters under his grip.
She stays with him through the whole thing, though, her lips and tongue vastly talented, and her teeth make an appearance at just the right moment. He probably shouts something really offensive when he comes, but he can't remember anything except the heat streaking through his thighs and spine and she swallows everything, smiling up at him with an expression he knows he never saw on Katherine's face. Her pure joy at pleasing him isn't calculated and it makes his heart figuratively explode inside his chest in tandem with his orgasm.
He's still gasping for air as she climbs back up his body and their lips meet. He can taste himself on her tongue, and it makes him fairly certain he will never get over her. He thought he would love Katherine forever, but that was only because he hadn't met Elena yet.
She keeps smiling, he can feel it every time their lips come together or pull apart, and he's caressing every part of her he can reach, sinking his fingers into the wet warmth between her legs until she's squirming against him restlessly.
He gently turns her on to her back and then gets his hips between her legs. His recovery time as a vampire is pretty much instantaneous, but he can't help but think even if he were human, Elena would have this effect on him.
Her arms wrap around his neck and her legs curl around his waist, directing him inside her, as though that hadn't been his own intention. He's never been held so tightly, or at least not by someone he's wanted to hold on to in return. He kisses her now and again, but mostly he keeps his eyes open because he wants to see her face when she loses it. He slings an arm down to hook her knee over the crook of his elbow, and pulls her leg up so that their position changes just slightly.
Elena groans his name and her hips start to rise more quickly against his. Her eyes look black with passion, and Damon times his thrusts so that as they approach the peak of her pleasure, she gets the right amount of pressure in just the right spot. She flushes a deep pink and her panting breath goes into this high-pitched keening that shows how desperate she is-how desperate he's making her-so when he finally gives it to her good, her fingernails dig into the skin of his neck so deeply that it almost hurts.
He can feel every little ripple of her orgasm around him, and his own release hits him unexpectedly, hurling him with her into the abyss. Their mouths come together and they ride it out, kissing madly, and the sweaty mess of it is somehow the purest thing Damon's ever participated in.
He collapses next to her, carefully removing his weight from her, but she turns up on her side, and her leg slides over his to keep them close together. He loses time somewhere in there, and when he becomes aware again, she's just lying against him, her fingers tracing his shoulder and biceps lovingly.
She whispers, "Stay with me," and he thinks she means more than just here, in this bed, for tonight, but he doesn't say anything. He just pulls her closer, his palm settling over one perfect buttcheek.
He closes his eyes, not in sleep this time, but in pure terror. This was never supposed to happen; not ever, and he has a million questions as to why she, Elena, who would not even admit that she wanted to kiss him six months ago, would come here and literally seduce him right out of all his good intentions.
(The only good intentions he's probably ever had.)
More time passes, and just when he's certain she's fallen to sleep, her voice penetrates the quiet of the room. "Tell me why Gone With the Wind is your favorite book." It's not a request, he can tell from her tone. She thinks she's entitled to something now, and that's as scary as it is true.
He rebuffs her, anyway. (That's what he does best, right?) "Who says it's my favorite?"
She pinches the skin over his belly, and though it doesn't hurt, he allows it to serve its purpose. This will be the gift he gives her, the one thing that she'll get to understand about everything that's happened in her life since she met him and his brother. "Alright, fine," he says, pressing his lips to the top of her head, which is tucked under his chin. "Three reasons," he says. "One, it's set during the time I lived-my human years. Think what you will of that, I'm not going to explain it. Two, Scarlett's scrappy. Spunky. A real bitch." He hesitates just a moment, and then he finishes, "And three. He leaves at the end. He grows a set and he walks out."
Elena's quiet for a moment, and then she says in a soft, unassuming voice, "And he doesn't give a damn."
It freaks him out how well she knows him, how he can really never hide anything from her.
Which is why, of course, he'd made her forget in the first place.
He can do it now, if he wants. He can pull the necklace from her throat, roll her on to her back again and fuck her until she can't walk, and then he can make her forget any of it ever happened.
The problem is, he doesn't want her to forget. He wants her to remember, because it's all she's going to have of him.
He runs his hand up her side, brushing her hair out of the way as he goes, and then he cups her cheek in his palm. She falls back slightly, and he follows her, letting his body be cradled by the natural fit of hers beneath him. He kisses her chastely, until her tongue initiates something deeper, and then her hands are clutching at his lower back, guiding him back inside her so that they're connected again.
She says once more, "Stay with me."
And so he lies. "I'll be with you forever."
Her hands move up his body and find his, bringing their arms together on either side of her head, linking their fingers tightly as he moves inside her. There are tears in her eyes, so Damon closes his and puts his face against her throat.
Who is he kidding? He knows she knows he's lying. She wouldn't be Elena if she didn't.
*
He leaves Mystic Falls early the next morning, while she's still sleeping in his bed. He throws away his cell phone, and makes sure no one, not Ric, not Stefan, not Elena, has any way of contacting him.
He's no Rhett Butler though. He leaves because he cares too much, not because he doesn't care at all.
He hopes that's the one truth Elena knows without him saying it.
...part three...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Damon POV; Damon/Elena, with appearances by Alaric & Stefan
Category: Smut, Angst, Romance
Word Count: ~3300
Summary: Elena realizes that Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights has a few similarities to Damon Salvatore.
Spoilers: Set in the undetermined future, but includes references to anything up through 2x16, and speculation as to what might happen beyond that.
Warnings: none
Show/Bookverse: Show
Author's Notes: So, once again, crowandfog and I got to talking about some stuff. And this is what happened because of that. Special thanks to those who responded to my "What kind of music would Damon listen to?" research question. (And, sorry, yet again, I can't control how long these stories get!) Part one is HERE.
Additional Author's Notes: I just wanted to take a moment to say that I've haven't written like this in a long time--just the flow and the passion and the --gah, it's so good, and fun, and just--you know, if I have a spare five minutes, I'm in my head with Damon and Elena, and it's so much fun. It's so nice to have a creative outlet that just happens. I am so glad I have all of you to share it with. ♥
Literary License: to change the details of a story for purpose of theme,
clarity, or better storytelling.
At some point, Damon had grown to like manipulating people. It made him feel powerful, it drove out the helpless sensation caused by death, and then a vampire's life thrust upon him, and of course, his impotency at getting Katherine out of the tomb that she wasn't really even in anyway.
But when he told Stefan he was thinking of leaving Mystic Falls, he really hadn't had any ulterior motives. He assumed it would make his brother happy, though if Stefan's creased forehead was any indication, it really hadn't.
He did not expect Stefan to tell Elena, and he did not expect Elena to care.
Really. He didn't.
What he does find interesting, though, is that she doesn't just care. She has a whole thesis in her head for why he might go, why he should stay, and she quite obviously doesn't want him to.
He's never been so conflicted in his whole 168 years.
So he knocks on Alaric's door, and tells his friend the whole long thing. Ric is pensive, and he needs to shave. He's still working things out with Jenna (who isn't as forgiving as Damon supposed her to be), and so he has that whipped, depressed thing going on. (It's what human men go through because they can't pick up a bunch of sorority girls to feed off like a vampire would to drown his sorrows.)
"I don't know, Damon. Maybe leaving town is running away. Maybe you should stay and fight?"
Damon scoffs. "Fight for what? Fight a losing battle? Stand beside my saint of a brother and be found lacking? Why the fuck would I do that?"
"Because you love her."
Oh, yeah. That.
"She just feels guilty about Katherine, and what she thinks I feel about it."
"What do you feel about it?" Ric asks, sitting up from his slouched position on his sofa. "I mean, really? You did kill a woman you spent a century and a half pining for. It's got to do something to you. If I killed Isobel, I'd have, you know, feelings about it."
Damon gets up and walks over to Ric's fridge, which isn't far from the living room since his apartment is the size of a postage stamp. He pulls out a beer for himself and tosses one to Ric as well. "What do I feel?" He shrugs. "Relief. Vindication. Yippee, ki-yi-ay, mother fucker."
"Damon," Ric says, and he actually reminds Damon of Elena a little because of the disapproving expression on his face.
"I'm not sorry, Ric. That's the truth. Do I feel regret? Nope, not even a little bit. Elena's the one who deserves to live, not Katherine."
"You don't have to regret an action to be sad about it," Ric says. "I mean, I'm sorry I lied to Jenna, but I don't regret trying to protect her. They are two different things. Maybe Elena is just worried that you're hurting, and because she cares about you, she wants to stop your hurting. That's what it's like when you care for someone. Their pain is your pain, even if what caused the pain means nothing to them. Get it?"
Damon takes a long drink from his beer bottle, and contemplates a little. Of course he knows what Ric is talking about, because it seems like every little thing that caused Elena pain reverberates inside him. That had started when he found out Isobel was her birth mother, and essentially it hasn't stopped since then.
He just never expected her to reciprocate it. (Or admit that she reciprocated it, anyway.)
He finishes his beer without realizing how quickly he'd sucked it down, and then he stands up. "Thanks for the chat, Ric."
He gets to the door before Ric's voice stops him. "For what it's worth, I don't want you to leave town either."
Damon hesitates with his hand on the doorknob. "I think it's time to move on," he says, and that's the truth, too. He's got to get all these crazy thoughts out of his head, because he knows it can only end one way.
He's read the book, after all.
Two days later, Stefan invites him to go on a road trip to New York. "We're gonna go catch a concert in the city, and-"
"Who's 'we'?" Damon interrupts.
"Me, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy, Elena, Jenna, Alaric."
Damon contemplates the couples ratio, and immediately knows he's not interested. "What concert?" he asks, trying to look like he's actually considering the trip.
"Justin Bieber."
Stefan tries to deadpan it, but he cracks before Damon can fully process that he can't be serious. "Just kidding. We're going to see Bon Jovi. They're touring with Daughtry again, so I thought everyone would enjoy the show."
Damon appreciates his brother's attempts at being completely normal. Really, he does. But he's never liked Bon Jovi (maybe their music was just a bit too optimistic for him, okay?) and he doesn't care for Daughtry either.
"Eh," he says, shrugging. "Maybe if it was someone from like now, I'd go. Bon Jovi's, you know, so 1987."
"You sure?" Stefan asks. "Everyone wants you to come."
"Everyone?" Damon smirks.
"Even Bonnie," Stefan says with a nod.
"Thanks, but no. I'm still wrapping a few things up here so I can decide where I'm going to jetset to. So, not this time."
Stefan slaps his shoulder. "Okay, but next time, we'll go see someone you'd want to see. Who would you want to see?"
"Nobody you've ever heard of," Damon says with slight condescension.
"Oh, come on," Stefan says. "Elena's gotten me to listen to a lot of 'current' people."
"Does Elena listen to Sleeperstar, or Mat Kearney? How about Mumford and Sons?"
Stefan's face lights up. "Yes, she totally has Mumford and Sons in her car! She made me listen to this song about a lionboy or something."
"Little Lion Man," Damon corrects automatically.
"Yeah, right, whatever. So yes, we'll go see them sometime, okay? Wherever you end up, we'll meet somewhere and do it, okay?"
Damon only nods because he knows it will make Stefan happy, and strangely, these days he wants to do that, at least in theory.
He doesn't expect to really ever see any of them ever again. When he leaves, it will be for good. It's better that way.
Better for everyone.
Stefan and his gang leave the next morning and Damon putters around the Boarding House, thinks about calling Andie, then decides against it. (They've pretty much cooled off, and really it's just one more loose end that's already tied up.)
He realizes he really hasn't been in the library since he was there with Elena, and it bugs him that he's avoiding the room. It's always been his favorite place in the house, but now he can't go in there without wondering what would have happened if he hadn't walked out three days before.
Somehow he became pretty good at making sure she doesn't have any choices to make, and he's sort of pissed at himself about it. So he just keeps to his room, because there aren't many memories of her here, except with Rose.
He hates how much time he's spent thinking about it. For her bringing it up to him, for him finding that they had more than one copy of Wuthering Heights in the house. (Apparently the one Stefan gave Elena was under the alias Emily Bronte used back in the day, but they'd also acquired one from some years later published with her real name.)
So, he re-read it. (He's got loads of time, you know.)
He's not an idiot, so he can see the parallels she drew from fairly easily, as well as the ones that occurred to him while they fought about it, but there is that little bit there that she wouldn't get, that she couldn't possibly understand.
Heathcliff's fear.
Damon's pretty sure he gets why the guy left, and why he came back too late. He did it all on purpose because he never felt worthy of Catherine. He'd always been told he wasn't good enough, and her preference for Edgar only reinforced that, and fuck Damon for being a literary genius, but hello. It's all painfully similar, even more so than Elena thinks.
As if thinking about her conjures her up, he does a double take when something catches in his peripheral vision. There she is, standing in the doorway of his bedroom, and he's positive he's fallen asleep standing up.
"Hi," she says.
"Um...hi?" he responds. He was about to sit down in the chaise-lounge with a new book, but he hesitates as he looks at her, waiting for Stefan to come in behind her. "You guys have a breakdown in the driveway, or something?"
Elena shakes her head and walks all the way into the room. "No. I didn't go with them. I don't really like Bon Jovi."
Damon snorts. "Me, either."
"So," she says, pulling her sweater off as she moves closer to him. "You still planning on leaving town?"
She throws the piece of clothing over the arm of the chair he's standing beside, and he's faced with her in a simple white t-shirt and a pair of old jeans that hugs her ass a little too sweetly. He jerks his eyes up to hers and she's smiling at him just a bit, the corners of her lips slightly raised. "Um, yeah. Yup, just, you know, mapping a course for the horizon." He lifts his arm up, indicating said horizon, pointing somewhere to the left of their bodies. (He feels like a total idiot.)
"Any particular place?" she asks and she moves so she's standing right in front of him. She pulls the book he's holding out of his hands and he literally thinks, Praise Jesus it's not Wuthering Heights.
"No, not really," he says, swallowing nervously. She's too close, and the look on her face is completely disconcerting. "Maybe the West Coast, or Alaska. I hear it's really beautiful, and believe it or not, I've never been there. Alaska, I mean. Of course I've been to the Wes-"
She tosses the book on the chair with one hand and puts a finger to his lips with the other. "Shhhh," she says, and for the first time in two weeks and three days, he wonders if maybe Katherine isn't dead.
Because this can't possibly be Elena.
She holds his gaze steadily, however, and he notices the faintest trace of pink highlighting her cheeks; he can hear her heart thump-thumping against her ribcage. She steps closer until there is no space between their bodies and puts her hands on his shoulders. She draws in a shaky breath, licks her lips, and lifts herself up on her toes so that her mouth is against his.
He's frozen under her touch, torn between the need for survival and the want, the intensity of every emotion she stirs inside him swelling up until it blocks all other thoughts, instincts, or possible escape routes.
It's just him and Elena, and his bed is fifteen feet behind them, and Stefan is gone, and she's here with him.
He doesn't even remember putting his hands on her ass, but she's suddenly plastered against the front of him, and he's kissing her so hard that they're both gasping for air, but they never separate entirely to get sufficient oxygen.
He feels like their clothes melt away in a beam of light, and then he has her naked, on his bed, under him, and around him. Her legs tangle with his so that the slide of her smooth flesh against his hair-roughened thighs and calves might be the most erotic thing he's ever experienced-that is, until she pushes him over on to his back and works her way down his chest. Her mouth visits various destinations across his torso, but when her tongue dips into his navel, he says her name, half-groaning, half-growling. He wants to tell her that she better not tease him, but he can't get the words out and then her hand wraps around his cock and her lips slide over the head and he knows he's going to lose his fucking mind.
Because this? This should not be happening.
One of his hands reaches for and grasps a good amount of her hair, but he doesn't allow the other one to touch her. (He wants her to set the pace, because he knows he'd have no class and would probably just shove himself down her throat.) Instead, he finds a place on the headboard and digs his fingers into the wood until it splinters under his grip.
She stays with him through the whole thing, though, her lips and tongue vastly talented, and her teeth make an appearance at just the right moment. He probably shouts something really offensive when he comes, but he can't remember anything except the heat streaking through his thighs and spine and she swallows everything, smiling up at him with an expression he knows he never saw on Katherine's face. Her pure joy at pleasing him isn't calculated and it makes his heart figuratively explode inside his chest in tandem with his orgasm.
He's still gasping for air as she climbs back up his body and their lips meet. He can taste himself on her tongue, and it makes him fairly certain he will never get over her. He thought he would love Katherine forever, but that was only because he hadn't met Elena yet.
She keeps smiling, he can feel it every time their lips come together or pull apart, and he's caressing every part of her he can reach, sinking his fingers into the wet warmth between her legs until she's squirming against him restlessly.
He gently turns her on to her back and then gets his hips between her legs. His recovery time as a vampire is pretty much instantaneous, but he can't help but think even if he were human, Elena would have this effect on him.
Her arms wrap around his neck and her legs curl around his waist, directing him inside her, as though that hadn't been his own intention. He's never been held so tightly, or at least not by someone he's wanted to hold on to in return. He kisses her now and again, but mostly he keeps his eyes open because he wants to see her face when she loses it. He slings an arm down to hook her knee over the crook of his elbow, and pulls her leg up so that their position changes just slightly.
Elena groans his name and her hips start to rise more quickly against his. Her eyes look black with passion, and Damon times his thrusts so that as they approach the peak of her pleasure, she gets the right amount of pressure in just the right spot. She flushes a deep pink and her panting breath goes into this high-pitched keening that shows how desperate she is-how desperate he's making her-so when he finally gives it to her good, her fingernails dig into the skin of his neck so deeply that it almost hurts.
He can feel every little ripple of her orgasm around him, and his own release hits him unexpectedly, hurling him with her into the abyss. Their mouths come together and they ride it out, kissing madly, and the sweaty mess of it is somehow the purest thing Damon's ever participated in.
He collapses next to her, carefully removing his weight from her, but she turns up on her side, and her leg slides over his to keep them close together. He loses time somewhere in there, and when he becomes aware again, she's just lying against him, her fingers tracing his shoulder and biceps lovingly.
She whispers, "Stay with me," and he thinks she means more than just here, in this bed, for tonight, but he doesn't say anything. He just pulls her closer, his palm settling over one perfect buttcheek.
He closes his eyes, not in sleep this time, but in pure terror. This was never supposed to happen; not ever, and he has a million questions as to why she, Elena, who would not even admit that she wanted to kiss him six months ago, would come here and literally seduce him right out of all his good intentions.
(The only good intentions he's probably ever had.)
More time passes, and just when he's certain she's fallen to sleep, her voice penetrates the quiet of the room. "Tell me why Gone With the Wind is your favorite book." It's not a request, he can tell from her tone. She thinks she's entitled to something now, and that's as scary as it is true.
He rebuffs her, anyway. (That's what he does best, right?) "Who says it's my favorite?"
She pinches the skin over his belly, and though it doesn't hurt, he allows it to serve its purpose. This will be the gift he gives her, the one thing that she'll get to understand about everything that's happened in her life since she met him and his brother. "Alright, fine," he says, pressing his lips to the top of her head, which is tucked under his chin. "Three reasons," he says. "One, it's set during the time I lived-my human years. Think what you will of that, I'm not going to explain it. Two, Scarlett's scrappy. Spunky. A real bitch." He hesitates just a moment, and then he finishes, "And three. He leaves at the end. He grows a set and he walks out."
Elena's quiet for a moment, and then she says in a soft, unassuming voice, "And he doesn't give a damn."
It freaks him out how well she knows him, how he can really never hide anything from her.
Which is why, of course, he'd made her forget in the first place.
He can do it now, if he wants. He can pull the necklace from her throat, roll her on to her back again and fuck her until she can't walk, and then he can make her forget any of it ever happened.
The problem is, he doesn't want her to forget. He wants her to remember, because it's all she's going to have of him.
He runs his hand up her side, brushing her hair out of the way as he goes, and then he cups her cheek in his palm. She falls back slightly, and he follows her, letting his body be cradled by the natural fit of hers beneath him. He kisses her chastely, until her tongue initiates something deeper, and then her hands are clutching at his lower back, guiding him back inside her so that they're connected again.
She says once more, "Stay with me."
And so he lies. "I'll be with you forever."
Her hands move up his body and find his, bringing their arms together on either side of her head, linking their fingers tightly as he moves inside her. There are tears in her eyes, so Damon closes his and puts his face against her throat.
Who is he kidding? He knows she knows he's lying. She wouldn't be Elena if she didn't.
*
He leaves Mystic Falls early the next morning, while she's still sleeping in his bed. He throws away his cell phone, and makes sure no one, not Ric, not Stefan, not Elena, has any way of contacting him.
He's no Rhett Butler though. He leaves because he cares too much, not because he doesn't care at all.
He hopes that's the one truth Elena knows without him saying it.
...part three...