gravity | damon/elena/stefan | t | p1/2
Gravity
Part One of Two
Damon/Elena/Stefan | T | ~12 000+
'But I am not a prize to be won, Damon, and I think you need to understand that.' She's not being cruel, she's being honest, and she believes that Damon needs to hear this. That Stefan should hear this, too.
Author's Notes: Oh wow, so this is what the internet looks like, I'd forgotten! My laptop broke a few months ago, and just last week I picked up my brand new Vaio. It is named Klaus. JUDGE ME. To celebrate my return to the net, I couldn't help but write what's been brewing in my head the last couple of weeks. TVD has been killing me lately, and the characters are just so messed up it's beautiful. However, my love for Elena knows no bounds, and I've been seeing a lot of hate directed toward her recently. I tried to put myself in her shoes while writing this, and it probably won't be what a lot of you want to read or will agree with. I know that. I'm warning you now. Some of you may love it and completely agree. We'll see, right?
This focuses on a central of Damon/Elena, but the OT3 makes its appearance. It's their complications and their triumphs, however small the latter might be. It's not about right and wrong, but about trying to decide what's right for you. Sometimes you do things that no one will like. But people are allowed to make mistakes, and I think a lot fans forget that when they watch TVD.
This story contains a lot of dialogue, a lot emotion, and some sad people. Rated T for language and mentions of sex.
To cut a long story short? This is the conversation I believe Damon, Elena and Stefan need to have.
Forgive the longest Author's note in the history of time, would you?
I've not been at this for a while, so there's probably some rust.
Elena sits quietly by herself in her room, her pen poised above the blank page of diary, her almost-but-not-quite-forgotten diary that has seen her through the rough and tender years of her young life, and she doesn't know what to write.
Her body thrums with the need to expel its feelings, the feelings caught up so tight inside of her she feels like she could explode at any minute. She drops her head and lets her hair hang, and wonders when writing in her diary became complicated, or at least hard work.
There are certain words and names that keep coming up. Words like Stefan and Damon and Caroline. Words like Bonnie and Jeremy, and my fault and I'm sorry. Words like Klaus and hate and wish. Words that mean everything she feels but will never be enough when said out loud. She doesn't want this. She doesn't want any of this. She never asked for this and she knows that life isn't fair and it doesn't work like that, but screw it. She wants it all to go away and leave her and her friends and what's left of her shattered family alone.
But how do you define 'this'? How do you define something that can't be defined? And what if she doesn't want all of it to go away? What if she wants to be selfish just this once and keep some of it? How messed up is that?
How do you keep everyone else happy and yourself at the same time? You can't. It's impossible. She's tried.
She picks up her phone and puts it down.
She looks out the window.
The evening sky has a promise of rain later, the way the grey hangs in the heavy clouds that clot the dark night sky.
She picks up her phone again.
She puts it down.
She shouldn't have to be the one to try and fix things all the time.
Yes, she's said it.
She's said and she means it, because she's sick of the double standard that tends to go on. The unspoken double standard. The one wherein it's almost like she's not allowed to be unsure of her feelings, like she has the audacity to contemplate who she cares about. She almost feels guilty for thinking that, but then she steels herself and thinks 'no, no I am allowed to feel this way.'
She shuts her diary and sighs loudly, placing it on the bedside table beside her along with her pen.
She picks up her phone one more time.
She hits 2 on speed dial.
'You've reached Damon Salvatore, leave a message.'
Elena's breath hitches in her throat and she lets out a croaked, ridiculous sound into the answering machine. She curses mentally.
'It's Elena.' Pause. 'I need to talk to you.' Pause. 'I'm not going to come over so...' Pause. 'Just. When you're free.' She lets her thumb hover over the 'disconnect' button. She brings it back to her ear. 'Please,' she adds quietly, sincerely.
She hangs up.
She is furious at him for killing Bonnie's mother, for turning her into a vampire and stripping away the right she had to be human. She is hurt that Bonnie is hurt, that after all they'd been through he'd still do that to someone Bonnie cared about, someone that meant something huge to her.
She is beyond mad that he slept with Rebekah, with the girl that tried to kill her just the other day. Of all the people in this sordid little town, he manages to find the one woman to sleep with that would have the biggest impact on her. Truthfully, Elena would have preferred it if he'd slept with Katherine. That's how mad she is. There's also that double standard again. Hell, if Elena says the wrong thing to one of the brothers - heaven forbid, I might just go sleep with your arch enemy or maybe run you off a bridge - but they say it to her, it's like she's almost expected to forgive and forget in seconds.
But she's losing friends and family by the minute, here, and she's not going to lose Damon, too.
She knows it's hard.
She knows it isn't easy
.
She knows that Stefan would have killed Abby tonight, had the opportune moment arrived.
So why Damon?
She can tick off impulsive and erratic and all those things when it comes Damon. She knows those traits in him. She knows that when there's killing to be done he's normally the first one to raise his hand as a volunteer.
But she also knows Damon. She knows him better than Caroline and Bonnie and Alaric do, she knows him in a different way to Stefan, but in a way that Stefan could never know him, also. She knows the trials Damon has had to face over the last few years, she's seen first hand the nonchalant killer that came to Mystic Falls, and she's seen the man he is now. Damon didn't just kill and turn Bonnie's mother in a desperate, last minute plan. Elena knows that, but no one will talk to Damon and no one will talk to her, so she can't say anything good or bad about it.
She looks at her phone and wonders if there has been a missed call in the last sixty seconds that she didn't hear.
There hasn't been.
Obviously.
She feels ridiculous, spouting off in her head about double standards and forgiveness and being wronged, and then calling Damon and waiting like an idiot for him to call her back.
Look up contradiction in the dictionary; they'll probably be a photo of her face.
Elena huffs in exasperation.
She'd called Alaric earlier, but his phone had gone straight to voicemail so she assumed he was spending the night at Meredith's. Elena had suspicions about the woman, but she wanted Alaric to be happy, so she'd let it go. Kind of. She'll drill him in the morning.
Her phone starts buzzing next to her.
She stares at it for a moment in case she's actually progressed to full-on hallucinations.
It keeps buzzing.
She snatches it up and answers the call.
'Hello?'
'I'm free for five minutes. Talk.'
Immediately Elena's temper flares and she sets her jaw.
'Well if you're going to be an ass -'
'You're the one wanting me to call, Elena. So I'm calling. What?'
'I don't want to do this over the phone.' She wraps her bed sheets around her hand and squeezes. The pressure feels good.
'Do what?' He sounds tired, finished.
'Look, if you're busy you shouldn't have called.' Elena shakes her head to herself, feeling stupid. Rebekah might be there. Any girl could be there. She doesn't even know where he is. He could be in Duke for all she knows. She doesn't want to care like this. 'I need to talk to you Damon, face to face, not like this.'
'I'm sure you've said everything you wanted to say, Elena.'
Her name comes in clipped tones from him, and she winces at the coolness of his words. He sounds detached. She hates it. But she's sick of being punished for saying things in the heat of the moment. She's sick of being treated like shit for a week while someone else 'gets over it.' She is eighteen and she is allowed to make mistakes. Why can't people just let her get on with it?
She glances at her clock beside her bed.
'It's almost eleven. I don't know what you're doing or who you're with, but if you could come around I'd appreciate it, Damon.' She hates how bitter she sounds and how formal his name comes from her lips. She was never good on the phone. That's an excuse for a bigger picture, but she'll let it go right now.
'Elena -'
'Only if you want to, Damon,' she says. 'I get it if you don't.' She swallows. 'I'm not stupid all of the time.'
There's a long silence from his end. She doesn't want to speak again.
'I'll see you shortly.'
The flat beep of the dial tone is the only noise in her silent room.
She gets dressed, in clean jeans and a tank top, and then changes back into her pajamas. She is indecisive. She feels flighty but yet she is weighed down with something heavy upon her shoulders. She puts her hair up and then lets it back down again. She doesn't know how to approach this current situation. She doesn't want to make it feel casual enough that it doesn't actually mean much to her, but not awkward enough that Damon will say two words and then flee from her sight.
It's half eleven. She stays in her pajamas and ties her hair in a loose ponytail. She turns the light off in her room and goes down stairs. She doesn't want to have this conversation in her bedroom right now.
She turns the porch light on and feels a little silly, but leaves it on anyway. She makes herself a cup of tea, listening to the silence of the house as she stirs in milk. She sets the spoon down on the counter and turns, eyes on her mug.
When she lifts them she gasps and steps backward, tea flowing slightly over the rim of the cup in her haste. It scalds her fingers and makes her wince.
Damon doesn't smirk. There is no gloating expression, no smug smile. He looks dull and flat and lifeless, with his arms crossed over his chest and his lips in a straight line.
Elena sets down her mug and wipes her hands on a tea-towel.
'Do you want something to drink?' She asks tentatively. 'I've got Bourbon?'
He gives her a curt nod. It is Ric's bourbon, but she's sure he won't mind that Damon is having some. Maybe. She takes the bottle down from where Alaric put it last week and unscrews the top, pouring it into a glass. She feels her temper welling at Damon's sullen behavior, but contains it within her, not wanting to burst in the first few minutes. Rationality is the key. She doesn't think until afterwards to ask if he'd like ice, but he declines anyway.
She hands it to him, eyes downcast.
'Thanks,' he says shortly.
'I have a lot of things I want to say,' she says slowly, her eyes rising to meet his. They are almost unresponsive. 'Do you want to sit?' She motions to the table. Damon almost looks surprised. He doesn't say anything for a moment, but then he takes a seat.
Elena takes one opposite him.
'This better not take all night,' he tells her, and he sounds agitated.
She swallows, looking away to hold back the scathing retort. She exhales slowly.
'I'm really hoping it won't.'
They both share a similar, pained expression. Elena tries to find the beginning.
'I haven't spoken to Bonnie tonight. She won't talk to me,' says Elena. 'Which I understand, I suppose, but it still hurts. I haven't heard from Caroline, either, so I don't know if Abby's transitioning yet.' Elena raises her eyes to meet his across the table. 'I know it was you who killed Abby, but I don't know why it was you.'
Damon's eyes are unblinking. It unnerves her just a bit. He is not going to relent to speech right away.
'Stefan has proven that he's more than capable of killing,' she says shortly, 'so I don't see why he couldn't have done it. Why was it you?'
'Does it matter?' Damon asks tiredly. He looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. Elena knows the feeling.
'It matters to me,' she replies sharply. 'It matters to me, Damon.'
He swallows from his glass and stares at it for a moment, as if contemplating his answer.
'The truth, Damon. Please, just give me the truth.' She sounds tired, she knows. He looks at her with his piercing gaze and sighs.
'I don't have the strength to fight you tonight, Elena,' he murmurs.
'Then don't!' she exclaims, eyes wide. 'Just tell me the truth.'
He narrows his eyes at her.
'The only way to stop Esther was to stop the witches. But she was drawing her power from their whole bloodline, not just Abby and Bonnie, so they couldn't just call off the spell. One of the bloodline had to die for it to be broken.' He takes another heavy swallow of Bourbon. 'Stefan and I. We flipped a coin. He lost. He was supposed to kill her. Turn her.'
'But you did,' says Elena, the confusion welling, drowning out the incredulity that they flipped a coin to decide who would end someone's life. 'Why did you do it?'
Damon is silent for another moment.
'Because everyone expected me to.' He looks up and meets her gaze. 'It wouldn't matter to anyone if I did it, because I always do it. I always fuck up, Elena, and hurt people, so it was okay. Bonnie can hate me, her mother can hate me, and you can hate me, because that works. You'd have never forgiven Stefan, not for that, and you love him.'
He says the end bit so simply it almost breaks her in two. Her hands clench around her cup. She is filled with fury and love.
'Damon -'
'- and I wasn't going to tell you because you didn't need to know, and keeping you on a need-to-know basis has never worked well for anyone.'
'That's it?' she asks incredulously. 'That's your answer?'
Damon shrugs, leaning back in the chair he's in and swallowing what's left in his glass.
'You wanted honesty.'
'I wanted you to be honest with me, Damon. I didn't want you to give me some nonchalant explanation with -with,' she jerks back incredulously, 'that bullshit you just said.'
Damon's eyes go cold.
'I think we're done talking.'
'I don't think we are,' says Elena, and stands up the same time he does. She skirts around the table and blocks off his exit towards the front door. She has to tip her head back slightly to stand and meet his eyes defiantly. She's had enough. No more passive-aggressive defense moves. They're going to have this out. Now.
'Move.' The word is cold, and Damon's face hardly moves.
'No,' she says firmly, stubbornly, and juts her chin out in the way she knows he hates.
'Move, or I'll move you,' he says in reply, giving her an option. Elena knows that he's not joking. But when has that ever stopped her?
'Try it,' she grits out.
She knows, obviously, that he could brush her aside with little effort, but still she stands her ground. She's not going to let this one go, not with Damon, not this time. So many times before she's let Damon deal with his own drama because she's too scared to get involved and find out something about their relationship she doesn't want to know - that she can't know just yet.
But everything is different now. She knows. She's kissed him and she's felt it and she's opened the box. She could deal with ducking her head and pretending she didn't feel anything towards him before now, when he'd not really touched her intimately. But not now. He'd brought down her fourth wall with their most recent kiss, stripped her of all her defensives and all her last excuses, left her bare with her feelings out in the open.
Except now he can't seem to see it.
Maybe if she looked up complicated in the dictionary, too, they'd be another picture of her face.
Suddenly Damon's hands are around her arms, and he's lifting her. Elena's expression is one of pure fury as she protests.
'Don't you dare-' she's starting, but Damon's face is void of any emotion. Elena goes from almost hitting him to clutching her hands around his neck in an almost vice like grip. Damon's hands loosen for a second and Elena takes the opportunity to further her grip on him.
'Elena,' sighs Damon slowly. 'Let go.'
'No!' She scowls, 'I'm not letting you leave until we resolve this! I'm not going to let you go home and self-destruct and drink yourself into a stupor! I am sick of this second hand punishment from you, Damon. I'm not going to take it anymore!'
'Fine!' he snarls, and Elena's feet hit the ground as he drops her. Her arms slip from his neck and she backs up a step, regaining her composure. 'You want to talk Elena, let's talk. What do you want to start with, huh? Do you want to dissect me, get inside my brain and figure me out? Do you want to play therapist, Elena? Tell me!'
Elena backs up a step, because she's seen this side of Damon only a few times, and even fewer directed at her. This is the cold, calculated fury which comes out in the form of piercing, hurtful words. Damon's got a cold talent for hurting people, but Elena knows that's only because he's been hurt so many times before.
You become a professional at the things you're a victim to.
'I want you to talk to me Damon! To me, not at me, not about me, to me.' She shakes her head. 'You came into my room not that long ago Damon, and we talked. We laid there and we talked to one another. Why can't we do that again?'
'Because you can't have everything you always want, Elena!' he bursts out, and his fist connects with the wall next to her head. The plaster cracks and she flinches, but she doesn't move. 'I don't think anyone has ever told you this, but you don't always get everything you ask for, no matter how much you might want it.'
'Of course I've been told that -'
'Well it doesn't seem like it, because from where I'm standing you ask a lot from people and expect it to happen, because it's you who's asking.'
A conversation from months ago appears in her mind. '-expect me to be the good guy, because it's you who's asking.'
Fury courses through her as Damon's words sink in further.
'I think of all people I'm rather up-there on the scale of not-getting-what-I-want, Damon,' she spits out. 'It's still me that's had my family killed. It's still me that's the Doppelganger and whose blood will create hybrids. It's still me who's used as the hostage in almost every situation. It's still me that got to see my boyfriend give his freedom and his free will to a psychopath. It's still me that that you punish when I don't tell you want you want to hear. It's always me, Damon,' and she's almost yelling now, almost crying from the effort. 'So considering all things, I don't actually ask for much.'
'I am allowed to sleep with whomever I want, Elena, and it shouldn't affect you,' he growls out, and Elena can see he's trying to structure his sentences to try and cover every base. 'You made that perfectly clear at the Ball. I understand that this is whole situation is hard for you but -'
Elena cuts him off, shaking her head and raising her voice.
'If you remember I asked one major thing from both you and Stefan - and it was to let me be sacrificed.' She raises her brows with a resolute expression. 'You hear that? I would rather have died than to have you two die for me, and anyone else who got involved.'
Damon shakes his head, his own anger coming off him in almost tangible waves.
'Elena-'
'So you know what Damon?' and suddenly Elena realizes her brain isn't up to speed with her mouth. 'If that doesn't scream 'I love you,' then what the hell does?'
There is a very, very heavy silence.
Elena is studying her hands in a very interested fashion, and Damon is looking at the ceiling as if it's the most fascinating thing in the world.
It occurs to Elena that they are as bad as each other sometimes.
She clears her throat.
'So,' she says, and her voice is a bit too high.
'Way to break it, Elena,' says Damon, and she can easily detect the mockery in his voice.
'Because you say the the right things at the most opportune moment,' she retorts scathingly. Quickly, though, her expression softens and she lowers her gaze. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that.' She looks up and meets his eyes. 'And I shouldn't have said what I said the other week, at the ball,' she clarifies. 'It was cruel and unnecessary and,' she swallows, 'it was untrue.'
Damon is very silent and very still. Elena feels her own body responding to his his as her joints lock and she steels her muscles. It's a cold kind of tension, and this isn't the first time she's felt it around Damon. It's like they're preparing for a fight, the two of them, a big one usually. She felt it the night Stefan was locked in the tomb and she beat Damon's chest until she saw stars from her efforts. It's like that, and it only happens between her and Damon, as far as she knows. She's never felt it with anyone else, and she's glad, because it's not a feeling she likes.
'I was trying to protect you Elena,' he says slowly, his eyes unblinking. 'I was trying to protect you because I care about you, and I wasn't listening to what you wanted.' His jaw sets as he looks up. 'Mostly because what you wanted was incredibly stupid but,' he stresses the 'but' at her furious look, 'but I should've worked with you.' He lowers his head. 'I'll concede to that.'
Elena feels the tension lifting slowly. They've both been honest, and they've both apologized. Maybe they can act older than twelve when they have to.
'I was doing what I thought was best to keep us all safe.' She exhales heavily. 'I was wrong.' The admittance weighs heavily on her tongue. 'I shouldn't have had Stefan do what he did, and I shouldn't have said what I didn't mean.' She tentatively meets his eyes once more. 'You loving me? It's not the problem at all.'
'Really?' asks Damon incredulously. 'From where I'm standing it seems to be one of the biggest.'
Elena isn't sure if she can detect a sliver of humor, but then Damon's lip quirks just slightly and she feels the corners of her own mouth lift just so.
'Do you want another drink?' she asks, indicating to his empty glass.
Damon half smiles.
'Thanks.'
She offers a small smile in return and takes his glass from him. She pours him another drink from Alaric's bottle and turns, handing it to him with her arm outstretched. There's that fleeting moment where their fingers brush and Elena wonders when she turned fifteen again and started getting hot and bothered from a mere brushing of fingers. It's not good, and that feeling of guilt niggles at her stomach.
'I'm sorry if I pulled you away from something tonight,' Elena says after a moment, and there's no mistaking the way her voice hitches at 'something.' She's sure he knows she was going to say 'someone,' but he doesn't say anything. She's infinitely grateful. Sometimes she hates being a girl.
'Only my path of self-destruction,' he says, and this time she knows he's making a joke. Kind of. Not really.
She breathes for a moment, unsure of where to go next.
'I - uhm - I was going to make another cup of tea,' she starts, 'but it's getting late and-'
'I'll go.'
'No!' the word comes out sharper than she intended. Damon looks momentarily surprised. 'No I meant,' she rectifies, 'would you mind continuing this conversation upstairs? In my bedroom,' she clarifies, trying not to put too much emphasis on the word 'bedroom.'
'Presumptuous, Elena.' Damon's smirk is almost full.
Elena almost laughs.
The walk to her room is silent and awkward, and Elena feels this is very much like the time she and Matt tried to 'plan' the first time they'd have sex, and they walked in a line to her room where she proceeded to explain to him how the night should probably turn out.
That was a disaster they were quick to put behind them.
Now, Elena switches on the lights and moves over to her bed automatically, the blankets and pillows looking so inviting it takes every ounce of her self-restraint to not fall onto the bed and go to sleep. She sits precariously on the edge as if the bed as if it is not hers, and looks at Damon with something akin to curiosity.
He stands in the center of her room, looking around at everything in it, taking it all in as if he's never been in there. (She harbors secret suspicions that he's been in her room more times than he's let on. Probably snuck around while she was out, too.) Elena is quiet, letting him do his fair share of looking. His eyes flick to her almost too quickly, and Elena's breath hitches. He moves to sit on the edge of her bed, looking just as stiff as she does. Elena realizes he's following her lead, for once, and she quickly changes course.
She pushes herself up further into her bed and crosses her legs, trying to look comfortable. Damon edges back further, slowly beginning to get comfortable himself, his eyes still on her.
Elena knows that moving this to her bedroom creates a whole new level of intimacy. She can't quite find the words to explain it, but it feels right to be up here now, to continue this conversation where they've had all their life-altering conversations before. Elena would definitely prefer for this to end on a positive note, though she does know it has plenty of time to turn sour.
'I'm just going to talk for a moment,' says Elena, almost as a warning, 'and you can argue whatever I say after I've said it. Okay?'
Damon's brow rises but he nods. She knows he's probably thinking 'here we go again.' In truth she doesn't think she's talked so much in one night. Her throat and her lips feel dry.
'I never wanted to be Katherine.' My name is Elena Gilbert, and here are my confessions. 'I was devastated when I found that photo in Stefan's room. I harbored fears for a long time that the only reason Stefan was interested in me was because of how I looked. I felt like you only gave me the time of day for the same reason. Obviously I don't believe that now, but you can understand why I felt that way.'
She takes a sip of her tea and tries to look him in the eye. This is more than she has ever divulged with Damon, this is one of the few times she's really been willing to let him in, to let him see her.
'I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't do what Katherine did. I wouldn't tear you apart and make you resent each other.' Elena tries not to cry. It's getting to her. She can't help it. 'I've kept that promise for so long but now - now I feel like I'm bound by my own words and I can't fix it.'
Elena looks at him, leaning forward over her knees, blinking back moisture from her eyes.
'I love you, Damon,' she says angrily, 'and that's my secret. I love you and I hate it because that's what will tear you and Stefan apart.' She looks away. 'Stefan will hate both of us for it, and he needs you, Damon. He needs you more than anything, more than he'll ever need me.'
Damon is chuckling darkly in his throat.
'What?' asks Elena throatily.
'How ironic your words are,' he says, and Elena doesn't understand, but Damon is looking at something off in the distance as if remembering a different time and place. Elena doesn't know what she's said to trigger a reaction like that, and she can't remember saying anything like that to him before.
'So you're telling me you love me,' says Damon slowly, 'but that you hate loving me, and you ultimately can't love me because Stefan needs me.' He furrows his brow. 'Am I right?'
Elena frowns. 'Kind of.'
Damon sighs and tips his head back. 'I feel like we're running in circles here, Elena.'
'I feel the same way.' She runs her hand over her forehead. 'I can't be with two people at the same time, Damon, and I shouldn't be made to choose. As it is, I'm not actually with Stefan right now, but I am doing everything I can to help him remember who he was. How compassionate he was. How much he cared. I love Stefan,' she tells Damon, 'but I'm not in love with him like I used to be.'
Damon throws his head back. 'This is too much information for one night, I swear.'
'Please,' she says, 'just let me get this out.' She gulps at her tea, feeling the liquid rush hot down her throat and warm her insides. 'I can't help but you, Damon.' She meets his eyes and keeps the hold. 'I've tried, trust me, to not feel anything. It doesn't work. I want you, but I'm terrified that if I let it happen we'll both lose Stefan, and I'm worried that if we do we'll never get him back. No matter what.'
Elena raises her head and looks at him defiantly.
'But I am not a prize to be won, Damon, and I think you need to understand that.' She's not being cruel, she's being honest, and she believes that Damon needs to hear this. That Stefan should hear this, too.
Damon is beginning to look uncomfortable again, and Elena can see he's working his way into saying something, so she beats him to it.
'I don't know what to do any more, Damon.' She looks up at him tiredly. 'It hurt me more than anything when I walked in and found you with Rebekah.' She looks away. 'I know that was your intention. It worked.' She looks at him with raised brows. 'But it feels like you only did it to punish me for saying what I did. You could have slept with anyone in this town, but you chose her.'
Damon's hands are fists and his jaw is locked, and Elena can see he's trying extremely hard not to say anything. She's grateful. His self-restraint tonight has been almost extraordinary.
'I'm not stupid, Damon, and I don't appreciate what you did.' She swallows. 'You've said things to me many times before that have hurt, but I've never retaliated and tried to hurt you like that. That was unfair.'
'Elena, please,' he implores, sounding stressed to no end. 'Stop talking.' She closes her mouth, looking more than a little put out. Though she supposes letting him speak would be fair now. 'I have every right to sleep with who I want, when I want, where I want. Because up until now, you've been making it perfectly clear that you had no feelings for me. You can't blame me for that.' He exhales through his nose. 'Nor does it help that you've told almost the whole town and made a big deal over it.' He shoots a quick look back at her, trying to placate her furious expression. 'But yes,' he concedes slowly. 'Apart from the fact Rebekah was in the right place at the right time, I knew she'd be the one you detested most.'
Damon leans forward slowly. Elena feels like he's going to have a very long speech.
'Elena,' he says quietly, and she leans forward too. 'I have no idea what to do either.'
Elena finally laughs. After all that, that's his answer. Damon stares at her for a moment before breaking into a sad grin. Elena looks around her room as her laughter subsides and the seriousness of their conversation settles back in.
'When did we make things so complicated?'
'We've always been complicated,' he tells her evenly, 'it's what makes us so special.'
Elena leans back against her headboard and tilts her head to look at the time.
'It's almost one in the morning.'
She feels herself putting walls back up, and stops herself just in time, she's not going to do that tonight. She looks up to see Damon standing by the door. She hadn't even noticed him move.
'I'll see you later,' he says softly, a sad smile on his face.
'Damon,' she calls out. He turns to look at her fully, hand on the doorknob, expression guarded and cautious. She uncrosses her legs and stands up, pulling the sheets back on her bed tentatively.
This is going to be a monumental decision, and will change everything. Elena wasn't ready for it before. She believes she is now.
'Would you like to stay here tonight?' She shrugs awkwardly. 'With me.'
Damon looks down and smiles before looking back up.
'I don't think I should.'
Elena can't help but ask.
'Why?'
He shrugs.
'I don't deserve to. Like you said, I hurt you, and I shouldn't be allowed to get off that easy.'
They both pause. Damon frowns.
'Poor, poor choice of words. Sorry.'
'A little.' She laughs humorlessly. 'Damon, I'm not asking you to stay as a pity gesture, or an apology. I'm asking you to stay because I care about you, and I want you to know that, and not feel as if you have to win me and my feelings all the time.'
She swallows.
'You need to let me make my own decisions.' She gestures to the bed. 'This is one of them.'
Damon exhales heavily. 'This isn't the end of this conversation, Elena. It's going to come up again sooner or later and we're going to be back in the same place with the same argument and no answers. All we're doing is giving ourselves a taste of something we should both stay away from.'
'Well then maybe we should finish it tonight,' she says, a little boldly. 'In bed.'
Damon's eyebrows shoot up, and he looks torn between leaving as quickly as possible and throwing himself onto the bed.
'Now it's also your decision,' she says with a deep breath. 'I'm just going to use the bathroom.' She nods as if to reassure herself. She can feel Damon's eyes on the back of her head until she shuts the door.
Now it's in his hands. Now he's got to decide what the right decision is for right now.
Part Two