fanfiction: The Secret Faces of Damon Salvatore

[gustavine]

Waking in the morning feels like swimming reluctantly through cool water and upwards towards an overly bright surface. The first thing she notices before she opens her eyes is the warm buzz that fills her whole body, as if she just came out after a long hot bath or hours of soaking in the summer sun. Then she becomes aware of a constant whoosh that is apparently the rain, still pouring down on
New Orleans. And her whole right side is warmed by something that is definitely neither her bed nor - something she can identify at the moment. Her lashes are a little sticky as she slowly opens her eyes now. Through her still opened balcony door the outside world looks blurry because of the dense grey rain curtain and there’s also much less traffic noise than she’s come to expect in the mornings. The tiles in front of the balcony doors are wet with run in rain water, pooling around a toppled over black boot.  Her room is also much shadier without the harsh sun rays and as she slowly turns her head she can see her sundress, stirred slightly by the cool breeze, hanging over the post at the foot of the bed. Right next to it is a naked foot, sticking out of the white sheet, and though her legs are long, they’re not that long: this foot can’t possibly belong to her.

And oh God, the realization of last night is suddenly bubbling up inside of her, sending her until then relaxed innards into turmoil.

The warmth suddenly explains itself as Damon’s leg, pressing against hers, Damon’s hand, resting on her belly and Damon’s breath stroking over her naked shoulder. Already she can feel the first signs of hyperventilation starting so she carefully attempts to slip out from under him, amazing herself when she succeeds and Damon only mutters a small, sleepy sound of displeasure. In the
hard, unapologetic reality of the bathroom, where she flees on her tiptoes, Elena focuses on the white, angular tiles and willfully forces herself to think about what they’ve done. Her memory of last night is crystal clear and strangely blurred at the same time. Pictures of it are flashing through her mind with blinding intensity, already burned on her retinas for the rest of her life, but the order is somehow messed up, as if she was there but looking through a small window of focus, somehow missing how these hours fit in with
the rest of her life, fit into the world she knows. There are snapshots of Damon’s tousled mass of black hair between her quivering thighs, of his hands, stroking greedily over every inch of her body, of seeing him truly naked for the first time, standing there almost vulnerable and letting her look her fill. The wondrous noises that kept spilling forth from his lips as layer after layer, his walls came tumbling down. She keeps remembering his eyes so very clearly, looking at her with unwavering awe and solemnity, his concentration sharpening every line of his face. His voice is still echoing in her ears, urging her to look at him, to not close her eyes, making sure that she didn’t let her consciousness slip away, maybe flee before her own actions. Instead he created a connection between their wide, astonished eyes that was somehow more intimate then everything else they’d  been doing this night. Her heart clenches at the memory and she slowly slides down to the floor, the tiles a cool pressure against her naked back

Slowly, very slowly, she wills the pictures in her head to come to a hesitant stand still until she can feel a dull, rhythmic throbbing at the back of her skull, somehow pulsing to the beat of a name that has been far too rare on her mind these past weeks.

Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan. Stefan.

It’s starting to make her feel a little sick, the guilt that is suddenly attached to that name slowly seeping down into her every fiber with a strange kind of palpable bitterness. A wild thought flies through her mind; that this is how she will feel from now on when she hears the name of the first boy she truly loved, loves still. A bitterness on her tongue, like biting unexpectedly on the seeds of grapes, like jumping down too forcefully, sending up a sharp pain through her bones. She’s sure that the extent of this guilt is only rivaled by the one she felt weighing down on her after Wickery Bridge. Although at that time it had been, as Jenna had kept telling her, the guilt of the survivor
(Elena preferred “the guilt of the causer”) the what ifs and should haves. This time she had invited the guilt with open, steady arms, knowing the outcome and doing it anyway. In some ways that makes it better, much worse in so many other ways. It’s worse still, and pretty low, admitting to herself, that given the chance to turn the time back to yesterday evening, she would probably make the same decision all over again. And how could she not when Damon’s hands seemed to know her body better than her own, finding pleasure points she didn’t even know existed. When having him move inside of her felt so much like coming home?

Still, what she feels now is more intense than having her first cigarette, her first hangover, the first successful lie she told her parents, her first time driving a car alone, the loss of her virginity, and experiencing all of it on only one day. Now she is tarnished in a way, with her first taste of adult guilt, no longer the innocent, pure girl that was captivated by the mysterious brooding new boy.

Here she is, cowering naked on white tiles like a mentally ill character in a bad documentary, while she’s accepting the harsh truth. She’s no longer the same girl that Stefan fell in love with and she can never go back. Is not even sure that she’d want to.

Shattered by the weight of all these heavy thoughts, she slowly pushes herself up and pads exhaustedly back to her room which is still subdued by the lack of sun light. Damon is still sleeping, sprawled out on her bed, half on his side, half on his stomach, the white sheets more under than over him. She’s probably thought this a hundred times when it comes to him but as she creeps forward, she is sure that she’s never seen anything more beautiful than the long, naked, graceful line of his shoulder, back, hip, butt and leg, outlined by the bit of
light that there is on this rainy morning. Carefully, so as to not disturb him, she lays down on the mattress, facing his sleeping form. Amidst all her guilty feelings at the moment, the thought that she can touch him from now on if she wants to, that the long painful period of holding back is over, makes her feel lightheaded and almost happy. With minimal pressure she lets her fingertips graze over his skin and the sight of her olive skin on the light, creamy color of his arm is so perfect that it makes her heart grow wide in her chest, beating so forcefully that breathing becomes a tight, wonderful pain.

She must have made a sound because now his eyes are open, fixed on her with an expression that takes her a few seconds to recognize, since she’s never seen him wear it before. He is terrified, truly terrified of what she might do now, that she’ll pretend nothing happened, that she’ll allow her guilt to spoil what they had. Somehow she manages to give him a shaky half smile, slips her hand to his back, resting there on the tense muscles while she watches the fear slowly seep out of his eyes. Damon’s not smiling back at her, just giving her a look
that reminds her of last night and under the memory, tears start to leak out of her eyes. Not hysterical tears, these are silent, hot and bitter, spilled over something that can’t be changed anymore. He’s not crying with her either, but there’s a blazing fierceness in his eyes that she takes comfort in, as she gains strength from his hand that he slips around the back of her neck, repeating the gesture that calmed her so strangely three weeks ago. He doesn’t ask why she’s crying, doesn’t have to, as they’re lying there naked, facing each other in the dim light of their aftermath.

She betrayed her boyfriend. He betrayed his brother.

They share this guilt, they’re in this together.

When they finally gather enough energy to stand up, the heavy cover of clouds has somehow cleared a little and such things as food, or blood, start to matter again. Apparently you can experience a shattering loss of innocence, maybe grow up rather painfully
over the course of one night and your body will still claim its right to remain healthy and alive. While they go about getting dressed and cleaning up, the change in their behavior is gradually becoming obvious, unconscious as they are of it in the beginning. It’s as if now that they have allowed themselves to close the gap between them, they can’t stop touching each other. Almost as if they fear that this new familiarity will reveal itself as an illusion if they’re not constantly assuring each other with the touch of skin on skin. His hand resting on her hip as she brushes her teeth, her head burrowed between his shoulder blades while he shaves.

Elena can’t quite wrap her head around how she can feel so utterly blue and so completely happy at the same time.

She wonders for a fleeting second if they should talk about last night, you know, the usual what did it mean to you? and where are we standing now?. But to be honest, talking about serious stuff was never on the long list of things that came naturally to the both of them and so she lets it go. After all, Damon has always been more a man of action and Elena doesn’t really feel like poking around in the aching part of her heart right now either.

They find a nice café a few streets south from the hotel where they order a late breakfast of fruits and French, buttery pastries and Elena just barely refrains from taking a seat on his lap. Instead he circles her wrist with two fingers while their legs tangle under the small table. It’s almost funny how little they talk with each other on the most complicated, confusing morning of Elena’s young life. But what is there to say, really? This was the most wonderful night of my life? I can’t believe I had it in me to betray Stefan like that? I fear I might love you so much that it’s dangerous? She can’t really say any of these things but she suspects he knows them anyway, the way he never loses his hold on her wrist. Besides, the way his eyes are practically feasting on her, glowing with an inner happiness that she had yet to discover, is starting to do funny things to her insides.

“Ready to go?”, he finally asks her after an hour, throwing some bills on the table when she quietly nods.

On the way to the hotel, she lets him pull her close to his side, her own finger hooked into his belt loop, trying to ignore how naturally this position comes to them, as if their bodies knew how best to fit against each other on their own. Her anticipation is gradually rising, the closer they get to their street, an almost unnoticeable uptake in the pace of their steps. In the elevator she can feel his fingertips tremble on her arm. Part of her knows that she shouldn’t do this, not again, because Stefan, Stefan, Stefan, but there is Damon, pressing her back against the closed door of their suite and suddenly she can’t stand the sight of his clothes anymore. Buttons jump under her aggressive fingers and she can feel her surroundings becoming blurred again until all she sees are his flickering eyes, his hands flying over her sides and their hard breaths drown out every other noise.  It’s possible that she’s never been this intoxicated.

Only later, when they both are dressed again, Damon notices the note on the chest of drawers. Someone from the hotel must have brought it up while they were out. Just a single page of cream colored, expensive looking paper, folded once in the middle and with their names written on it in bold, cursive, black ink. Damon & Elena, it almost looks like a wedding invitation she thinks disgustedly. Inside it are just two sentences in the same handwriting.

My Dears, your little vampire is starting to annoy me. You may pick him up this evening, 9 p.m. at the Lafayette Cemetery.

It is so ridiculous and anticlimactic that they both snort for a second before staring dumbly at the message for another ten.

“He can’t be serious, can he?”, Elena finally manages to ask. “This must be some kind of trap, right?” she turns the note around in the hope of finding an explanation while Damon fixes it as if he were trying to set it on fire with the pure venom of his stare.

“Actually, I don’t think it’s a trap”, he then offers in a voice pressed with rage. “He knew we were following him, he could have gotten to us a long time ago if he’d wanted to. No, my guess is that he’s really just a fucking asshole and what kind of dumb bullshit is that with the Lafayette graveyard?! Badass vampire can’t think of a better meeting point than a haunted cemetery?!” He’s quiet for two quivering seconds before he continues in a more controlled tone. “We probably should show up anyway, right?” Elena nods tentatively. “And just in case this is a trap, I should probably head out and look for a blood bank, just to be safe, ok?”

Elena nods again in agreement, not sure how she feels about the fact that he’s apparently restricting himself to blood bags again. “Be safe”, she mutters and for a moment it looks like Damon’s going to kiss her, but then he just swallows awkwardly and closes the door behind him. Elena is left staring blankly at the paper, her heart thrumming in her chest like a jackhammer.  Hope that they will have Stefan back by the end of the evening is incautiously bubbling up inside her but she does her best to suppress it in case Klaus is only trying to mislead them. A fair amount of fear is mingled in it as well, evoked by these police pictures that she simply can’t forget. Last year, during Stefan’s short relapse, something in his eyes had scared her at times and the memory of when they found him with Amber in the
woods, blood dripping all over his chin, still has the power to repulse her. It hadn’t taken much effort back then to suppress these feelings, busy as she was to nurse him back to his normal self. Now, however, she’s not sure that it will be as easy, he is so much deeper in this time around. In addition to this fear, she also feels anger and that certain pure hatred that she has reserved for Klaus alone, for the creature that broke into her life and started playing with the people she loves as if they were mere toys. And if there’s a tiny, venomous part of her that is disappointed because she has no chance now to figure out in her own time what exactly this thing with her and Damon is, then she’s not
going to think about it.

Damon returns an hour later, looking like a commercial for healthy vegetable juice, his pockets stuffed to the rim with blood bags on which he begins to slurp as soon as he closes the door. Elena suggests that they should pack their things seeing as there are only two possible outcomes to this evening, bringing Stefan back to Mystic Falls or attempting a flight from whichever scenario Klaus has in store for them, and both will see them on the road, leaving New Orleans behind. She buries the red lingerie set at the bottom of her bag, piling the
clean underwear on top of it with nervous fingers and rapidly blinking eyes. When she starts to make the bed, because yes, she’d feel bad to leave a messy room behind even in a hotel, there is the insane idea in her head that she should strip her pillow of its case and stuff the keepsake of Damon’s presence in another far corner of her luggage. But she chastises herself just in time, even goes so far as to gather his discarded clothes and bring them over to his room. She even includes his crinkled black shirt. When she’s finished she takes a minute to lay down on the bed, sprawled out on the sheets, her nose buried in it while she allows herself to relive the night one last time before she determinedly closes her mind to the memories and gets over to Damon’s room to see if he’s ready. He is, looking as grim as she feels as he provides her with various vervain darts, puts one stake inside of his own jacket and then wordlessly points towards the door. She hasn’t completed her third step whenhis hand on her wrist stops her.

“Elena”, he pleads, confusion written all over his face. “Can you please tell me what we’re -“

But she just can’t do this now, cannot explain what happens to them if they really get Stefan back so she stops him with a short, apologetic Not now, Damon, please, I can’t do this right now.

The bitter disappointment on his face is hard to bear. “One last kiss?”, he asks, his half-sided smirk cutting something deep and painful inside of her. Instead of a response she simply slips her hand in the strands at the back of his head and tugs. It’s a harsh kiss, a little bitter, a little salty and after they break apart there is a measured space between them once again. The door to the fragrant, dark room of their misdoings closes softly behind them.

They park at the entrance on Prytania Street where Damon unceremoniously lifts her up and jumps quickly over the closed gate. It’s a quiet neighborhood, especially at this hour and they are greeted with an almost deadly stillness inside of the walls, interrupted only by the occasional bird cry and rushing car in the distance. The darkness between the tall graves is more enveloping due to the lack of street lights and Damon leads them forward very slowly, acknowledging Elena’s imperfect eyesight. It gets darker still as they’re heading further
into the graveyard, both of them straining their ears to catch some noise. Of course, Damon’s the first one to stop in his tracks, silently tilting his head to the smaller path on their right, on which she follows him with mounting anxiety, her sweaty palm gripping tightly onto the dart in her pocket.  After about 100 yards, Elena’s able to make out a crouching, slightly moving form on the path in front of them and another 50 yards later she’s able to hear silent, disturbing slurping noises. That’s when Damon wordlessly stops her by moving in front of her. Over his shoulder though, she’s still able to recognize the dark form as her boyfriend, practically chewing on a motionless, middle aged woman in his arms. Involuntarily, she takes a step forward even while her tongue is coiling backwards with nausea. But this is what she knows, what she always does, taking steps towards Stefan, never mind the consequences. Though her instincts seem to have weakened because she lets herself be stopped almost willingly by nothing more than Damon’s outstretched arm.

“Stefan”, Damon now mutters in a voice as if he were trying to soothe a nervous horse, all outstretched hands and slow movements. “It’s me, Damon. We’re here to take you home, ok?”

Unfortunately, all that this does is alert him to their presence and he slowly begins to stalk in their direction, his head lowered, blood dripping down his chin and tainting the front of his shirt pitch black in the low light. Elena’s not even sure that he really recognizes them, the way he now menacingly starts to growl, his lips pulled back over dripping canines. Just as she starts to be afraid that they’ll probably have to seriously injure Stefan to prevent him from hurting them, an arrogant, slightly amused voice barges in from somewhere behind the woman who is still lying where Stefan dropped her a moment ago.

“Now really, Stefan. Is that any way to greet your brother and your girlfriend, who came all the way down here just to save you from your sorry self?” The voice alone seems to be enough to shake Stefan out of his daze as he stops dead and his eyes flick back and forth in confusion. Klaus is leaning against a tall, blackened tomb behind him, arms crossed, one foot cocked, the perfectly detached bystander, complete with cruel dimples carved in his cheeks. She has never hated anyone more in her whole life, it feels like something sharp and acid is flowing through her veins and although they’re not touching she can feel Damon tensing up at her side.

“You see, Stefan”, Klaus continues, his upper body now leaned forward in cruel expectation. “These two just came here to save you. The two people that you love most in the world, am I correct? Though it seems as if they love each other even more now, don’t you, my dears?”

Suddenly it gets very quiet on the path, Elena and Damon staring at the Original in disbelief while Stefan’s eyes now focus on them with complete bewilderment. Finally he opens his mouth for the first time this evening and his voice sounds thick and unused.

“I don’t understand - what does he mean you love each other more?”, his sad, puzzled puppy eyes a stark contrast to his blood drenched body.

Klaus takes a step forward, chuckling to himself. “Well, to her defense, Elena put up quite a fight, I was actually starting to get impatient. But in the end, who can resist the older, wicked brother with the sinful dancing skills, am I right, Sweetheart?” His smile is making her sick, literally, she can feel her stomach churn up and her face grow cold. The thought that he was watching them the whole time, anticipating her reaction when she was so desperately trying to keep her unwanted feelings locked up - it’s enough to make her fully lose sight of her self-preservation instinct.

“You swine”, she hisses, finally fighting against Damon’s arm who is still holding her back while he’s openly snarling at Klaus now. “You make me sick! Just because you care about nobody besidse yourself you can’t stand other people’s happiness!? I bet even your own mother must want you to rot in hell!”

Suddenly there’s an angry glint in Klaus’ eyes “Careful now, little girl, you wouldn’t want me to get mad at you again, would you? What is it with you modern, mediation trained people?! Did you really expect me to just let you kill my witch, disturb the whole sacrifice, free Katerina and then actually be so kind as to save the exact vampire who caused me all this trouble for the pathetic price of his brother’s commitment to me? For having such a depressing example of a vampire at my tail? By God girl, you must be insane! You can call yourself lucky that you got off as easy as that.”

“Got off easy?!”, she’s positively screeching now, spit flying from her tongue as she madly fights against Damon’s hold on her. He is yelling something as well but she’s too distracted to pay attention to his words. “You destroyed him! You destroyed everything!”

“Which was most certainly my intention”, Klaus modestly lowers his head as if accepting his due praise. ”But at least you get to live, Elena, isn’t that just wonderful?”

It’s probably only because he’s pointing at Stefan now that she and Damon don’t lunge for him in their boiling rage. But there is her boyfriend, if she can still call him that, looking about him horror stricken and with disbelief, his bloodied hands twitching nervously at his sides.

“You’d better calm that stray lambkin, I’m here by retiring from my role as babysitter.” He’s buttoning his jacket now, already taking jovial steps backwards. “What a pity that I won’t be around to see how he takes his girlfriends adultery - and with his brother even!” He takes a minute to mock consider their unspeakable evilness. “That is, when, or if, he recovers from this pitiful state of his” He throws one last disgusted glance at Stefan’s shaking form before he abruptly turns on his heels and disappears in the dark alleyway between two tombs. The three of them are left standing there in the darkness between New Orleans’ haunted graves, their own ghosts so much more destructive than anything the tombs could offer.

In the end, they still have to sedate him with all the vervain they brought with them, after he starts attacking them under the seeming influence of such a complete confusion that Elena begins to cry. Damon bonds him full bodily with chains and lays him down in the trunk, arguing that it would be too risky to have him on the backseat. After two hours of driving through night-time Louisiana, Stefan starts to grunt painfully, sometimes yelling, from the back of the car. Elena feels as if her skin has become paper thin since last night, his distressed noises seem to echo directly through her over sensitive nerve cells. It shames her a little how she immediately starts to cry again but even Damon’s hand is a little unsteady when it resumes his soothing pressure at the back of her neck.

“What on earth are we going to do, Damon?” she whispers, trying to keep their conversation a secret from Stefan while the salty liquid seeps onto her tongue through the corners of her mouth.

His voice would seem detached to everyone else, but she knows the desperate angle of his jaw, plus she can still feel his trembling hand on her skin. “If we get lucky he won’t remember anything of this evening too clearly. We might be able to convince him that he just misunderstood Klaus.”

“Oh please, we have to try that! Please Damon, he can’t know about us, at least not until he’s much better!”

His eyes fix on her for a second, the hurt in them abashing her for her low expectations of him on this matter.

“What the hell, Elena, he’s my brother! I don’t want to put him through that any more than you do!”

His eyes return to the dark road, bitterness now pulling his brows together.

“I know that he can’t know about us, don’t worry. I know, really. Nobody can.”