The Snow Queen, 2/6 (Vampire Diaries Fic Exchange)
Chapter 2 of my DE Snow Queen Fairytale AU for dutchess_sandra!
Word count: 4500+ (this part)
Spoilers/warnings: Completely AU, so if you know the characters' names, you're good to go.
Rating: T+ (for now)
Act 2: The Beginning Again.
The sidewalk was slippery as she stepped out of her car, and Elena carefully picked her way around the piles of driven snow as she made her way towards the school doors, her bag balanced precariously on the edge of her shoulder.
"You're late."
The voice came from behind her, and she squeaked in surprise, flailing her arms as her legs slipped out from under her. A pair of strong hands grabbed her around her waist, and she craned her head back to scowl at the boy behind her.
"Damon! What are you doing out here?"
Damon shrugged and leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose. "Waiting for you, of course."
Elena sighed. "But now you're late for school too."
"It's English," Damon snaked his hand around her waist and pulled her close as they made the treacherous way up to the school doors. "Mrs Engel hates me, I need you there to protect me."
Elena laughed. "She's not that bad, I kinda like her."
"That's because you're her star pupil, she'd never be horrible to you. To the rest of us?" Damon widened his eyes in mock horror, "The woman practically breathes fire. No way am I sitting in that class without you there to defend my honour."
"You're such an idiot," Elena giggled, pressing her cold lips to his cheek as they walked into school. "Do you have your books? Because we so do not have time to stop off at our lockers. We're going to be in enough trouble as it is."
"No morning locker make out?" Damon pouted. "I don't know how I'll get through the day."
"Well, I guess you'll just have to wait until our lunch time make out," Elena whispered, and opened the door to their English classroom. "Sorry we're late, Mrs Engel, my car wouldn't start in the cold this morning."
***
"Are you sure we can't sneak out for the afternoon? I'm already bored to death," Damon groaned as he sank into a chair next to Elena, sneaking a fry off her plate and rubbing his hands together. "God, it's like this place can't even afford heating, I'm freezing."
Elena closed her physics book and smacked his hand as it snaked out to grab more of her lunch. "Get your own. And no, we can't sneak out, I've got a history test next period." She kissed his pouting lips and offered him her can of soda. "How was your chem class?"
Damon sighed and laid his head on the table. "Boring as hell. We didn't even get to blow shit up."
Elena laughed. "Ah well, you can't do that every week." She pulled up her bag and searched inside. "Come on, help me study for this history test, Mr Saltzman's basing it on the Civil War." She frowned down at the textbook in her hand. "There're so many dates and numbers to memorise."
"Nah, it's easy to remember, here, I'll show you." Damon yanked the book closer to him and started rifling through the pages.
"Easy for you," Elena grumbled. "You're the one with the freaky memory for all things old and stuffy."
"Hey, you know English, I know history. Don't get crabby, or I won't help."
Elena stuck out her tongue and then yelped as he tried to grab it, his hand lightning fast. Damon smirked and leaned forwards in his chair, sliding his fingers through her long dark hair.
"Ugh, guys, get a room!" Caroline threw her bag down on the seat across from them and sat down. "It's actually disgusting how in love you too are."
"Just because you're jealous, Blondie," Damon replied, still not looking away from Elena's dark gaze.
"Well, lucky for you two, I have a date tonight."
"How is that lucky for us?"
"Because maybe I'll also fall disgustingly in love and then I won't constantly feel the need to puke on your shoes whenever we hang out!" Caroline smiled and spread her hands wide.
"As long as it doesn't involve us all double dating, I am all for anything that takes you away from us, Blondie."
Elena smacked Damon on the back of the head, kissing him gently to take away the sting of the reprimand. "Who are you going out with, Caroline?"
"New guy," Caroline replied immediately, and she was off, explaining all about how she and Bonnie had spotted him the day before in the office, followed by Caroline's usual brand of stalking to find out everything she could about him, before finally collaring him at the bonfire last night.
"I don't remember seeing a new guy last night," Elena admitted, casting her mind back over the now hazy events.
"Well no, you wouldn't, you were too wrapped up in tall, dark and annoying there to notice anything."
"Aww, Caroline, I didn't know you cared. Ouch!" Damon glared at Elena's friend, and reached down to rub where she'd kicked him. "Whoever he is, I feel nothing but pity for the poor man."
Caroline smiled acerbically and gathered up her stuff. "I'm planning a June wedding. See you in history, Elena. Bye loser."
"Love you too, Barbie!"
Elena groaned and leaned forward to rest her forehead against Damon's. "You know, you could at least pretend to play nice with my friends."
Damon tsked and huffed out a laugh. "Caroline would see right through it if I tried. Besides," he pressed their lips together gently, "you don't like it when I play nice."
Elena smiled and kissed him back, moaning quietly as his tongue teased her lower lip before he bit down gently. "Mmm, I refuse to answer on the basis that it might incriminate me."
Damon kissed her once, twice more, before snagging another fry and shoving it in his mouth, waggling his eyebrows at her. "You want to come back to mine after school? I need to do some stuff in the garden."
"Sure," Elena said, finishing up the rest of her soda and packing her books back into her bag. "What have you got to do?"
"I need to put some plastic around your roses, protect them from the frost." Damon stood up and slung her bag over his shoulder, holding out a hand to help her up. "A few are still in bloom."
"Walk me to history?" Elena asked, batting her eyelids.
"I'd be flattered if I didn't know you just wanted me for my brain full of dates."
***
The gravel crunched under her tires as Elena followed Damon back to his sprawling mansion set deep in the woods. Her breath came out in puffs of white as she stepped out of the car, the sky a steely grey above her. Damon parked his car haphazardly in the garage before running back out to join her, pulling his scarf from around his neck and winding it around her own.
"It's freezing," she whispered, her teeth chattering slightly.
"It's winter."
Elena rolled her eyes. "Still, it doesn't usually get this cold so fast."
"True, which is why I need to get this plastic wrapped around the rose bushes quickly, before the frost kills them." Damon grabbed her gloved hand in his and began pulling her across the lawn.
"We're not going inside?"
Damon shook his head. "Dad's working from home today."
Elena nodded in understanding. Damon and Guiseppe did not get along.
She let him drag her around to the garden shed and helped him gather the things he needed for her roses, following him down the path to the edge of the property, to the garden Damon had staked out for his own use. His mother had loved growing things, had spent almost all of her time out in the grounds, planting flowers and sowing seeds. After she'd died, Damon had marked out a small plot, growing rhododendrons and chrysanthemums in memory of his beautiful mother. The day after he'd kissed Elena for the first time, he'd planted a rose bush for her, because they were her favourite. The deep red of the flower still stood out sharply against the frosted green of the cold bushes, despite how late in the year it was. Damon had smiled and called it fate when she'd asked how that was possible.
Damon draped a picnic blanket over the small stone bench that guarded their little garden and told Elena to sit while he worked. She watched him as he laid out his tools; plastic wrapping, a pair of shears, a trowel and fork. She loved to watch him work here, could sit for hours and just drift to the sounds of the earth moving under his fingers, get lost in the droplets of sweat that formed on his brow as he concentrated and trailed down to his neck. It was so peaceful here, away from the road into town and far enough away from the house that Guiseppe couldn't easily bother them. They'd carved out a little slice of Heaven, just for the two of them, where Damon could remember his mother without pain, and Elena could dream up story and poem ideas without embarrassment.
"I wrote a poem last night," Elena says, the words forming puffs of white clouds as her warm breath hit the frigid air around them.
Damon doesn't turn around, but she can tell he's smiling as he continues to work. "Is it one of those Chinese ones Mrs Engel was spouting on about? The ones that sound like a sneeze?"
Elena huffed a laugh. "Haiku. And they're Japanese, not Chinese."
"Whatever, the name still sounds weird."
"You just think everything to do with poetry sounds weird."
"What can I say? I don't see the point in writing something if there's no journey in it. Poems are too short to do that."
"Paradise Lost," Elena states promptly, going over the lines of the same argument they've been having since their English class started its poetry module.
"Different genre, epic poems have different constraints." Damon tilted his head back to smile at her. "So, is it a Haiku?"
"No. Not an epic either. Do you want to hear it?" Elena's tone was stroppy but her eyes were teasing; arguing with Damon about literature was one of her favourite things to do.
Damon finished wrapping the rose bushes in plastic and sat back on his heels, letting his shoulders rest against he knees. "You know I do."
Elena pulled off one of her gloves so that she could bury her cold fingers in Damon's dark silky hair. He moved his head into the touch, his bright blue eyes staring up at her as he waited patiently.
She cleared her throat and closed her eyes.
"A simple rose I have found
It's not the flower that grows from the ground,
Its beauty is one of such delight ...
This rose is soft to the touch in all its perfection.
The envy for all the flowers in this garden
Its fragrance will consume your every obsession.
This rose must be a gift, a gift from above
A gift from Heaven to show us love.
Every morning I wake to see its petals glisten
Its easy to see how one could be so smitten
If love was a rose it would shine so bright
Because all I need is this rose in my life." *
Damon is quiet for a long moment as he lets the words sink in. Then he turned to sit on the bench, pulling Elena onto his lap. He stroked her hair back behind her ear and pressed kisses on her cheeks, her temples, eyelids and cold nose, before finally catching her lips with his.
"I love you, too."
***
The driveway was slippery with ice as they pulled up outside Elena's house, and she was glad Damon had persuaded her to let him drive her car home. They jumped out and ascended the steps as quick as they were able, blowing on their hands as Elena struggled to unlock the door. It was well worth the wait though; the smells of garlic and roasted potatoes wafted over them as the door swung open, and their stomachs growled in anticipation.
"Elena? Is that you?"
Miranda's voice called to them from the kitchen, and Elena giggled against Damon's lips as she tried to unwrap her scarf without breaking their kiss. "Hey, Mom! Damon's here too, he can stay for dinner, right?"
"Of course, hi Damon, how was school today?" Miranda threw a smile over her shoulder at them as they entered the kitchen, turning back to look at the pot she was stirring on the stove.
"It was good, thank you Mrs Gilbert," Damon pulled out one of the dining chairs for Elena to sit down and moved closer to the oven. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Actually, if you two could talk to Jeremy about his homework while I finish this up, that would be a great help."
"Jeremy!" Elena shouted over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. "Get in here!"
The sound of a hastily bitten off curse was heard, followed by the TV switching off and a controller clattering onto the table, before Jeremy slouched his way into the kitchen, looking grumpy.
"Hey kiddo," Damon grinned at the younger Gilbert, reaching out to ruffle his hair because he knew it annoyed him. "Your Mom says you need help with your homework?"
Jeremy shot him a glare and pulled a hand through his messed up hair, before slumping down into a seat at the table. "I've got this English project due tomorrow." His voice was muffled as he buried his head in his arms.
"Ah, not really something I can help with," Damon winced and sat down, placing his hand on Elena's thigh and squeezing gently. "Your sister's the one you need for that."
"It's not like you've never been a sophomore, Damon," Elena rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you remember the classes well enough." She turned to Jeremy. "What's the project?"
"Fairytales," Jeremy moaned into his arms. "It's so girly!"
Damon burst out laughing at that. "You've been reading the wrong ones then, Jer!"
"What?" Jeremy raised his head a stared at Damon with wide eyes, wondering if he was being teased.
"Fairytales are dark, man, creepy and horrible."
Jeremy turned to Elena. "Is he joking?"
Elena shook her head. "Think about them really, Jeremy. Hansel and Gretel - two children left in the woods by their own parents, then lured into a trap by a cannibal? Not exactly stuff dreams are made of."
"Tell us what you need to do for your project, and we'll help."
"Do not ask your sister to write it for you," Miranda interjected. "And help me lay the table, dinner's ready."
Damon laid the table as Elena helped her mother serve dinner, calling for her Dad to come out of his office and join them.
"So," Jeremy says, once they're all sitting down around the table with full plates in front of them. "Our project is to write our own fairytale, about winter. And I have an idea what to do, it's just writing it that's the problem."
"What's your idea?" Elena asked, interested. She wished she'd had such a project when she had been a sophomore; she would have loved writing fairytales.
"I drew a picture," Jeremy turned in his seat and pulled out the pad and pencil he always kept close by him. "Here." He flipped to the page and handed Elena the pad.
She looked down at the drawing, Damon leaning over her shoulder. The sketch depicted a young girl wrapped in a fur coat, a small smile on her face as she stood in the middle of a deserted snow covered town. The faint outline of ice statues stood in the distance behind her, and she held her hands tightly inside a large fur muffler. She was beautiful.
"Wow, Jer," Damon said as he turned back to his dinner. "Where'd you dream up that?"
"I don't know," Jeremy replied, a look of confusion flitting across his face before he shrugged and grabbed his pad back out of Elena's hands.
Elena thought for a minute, letting the image of the cold girl spark ideas in her head. "Okay, Jer, if I come up with an idea for your drawing, you write it, sound good?"
Jeremy sighed as Miranda said, "that sounds great, thank you Elena."
Elena grinned. "It's cool. Just be ready for when I come asking for help on quadratic equations."
***
"Are you sure you don't need a ride home, Damon? It's starting to snow again."
Damon smiled. "No, thank you Mr Gilbert, I'll be fine." He grabbed Elena's hand. "Walk me out?"
Elena shoved her feet into her boots as Damon thanked her mother for dinner and shook her father's hand goodbye. She handed him his coat and stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind them.
"Wow, it's freezing out here."
Damon smirked. "Then I'd better try to keep you warm."
He stepped close to her and placed his palms against her cheeks, his fingers stroking down her neck and into her hair. She moaned as she slipped her arms around his waist under his coat, melting into his kiss. Their warm wet mouths seemed to make the cold air around them disappear as they got lost in each other, before a discreet tap on the other side of the door brought them back to themselves.
"Goodnight, Mr Gilbert," Damon called through the wood, then smirked and pressed his lips against Elena's one last time. "Try to be on time tomorrow? Morning make out sessions are the only thing that stop me from wanting to rip out people's throats."
Elena rolled her eyes. "I'll do my best."
Damon stepped backwards off the porch steps, watching as Elena walked back into the house and closed the door. He set off through the quickly falling snow, his gloved hands shoved deep in his pockets. The streets were heavy with the kind of silence that only a blanket of snow can create, the only sound the crunch of his boots as he left his footprints in the snow. As he made his way through the winding wooded road that led to his house, a sudden noise from above him made him look up. A branch above him shook in a non existing wind, and as Damon gazed up, the snow covering the bough suddenly slipped off, landing on his head.
"Ouch, Jesus!"
Damon cursed as he swiped at his head and face, wincing as a sharp pain pierced through his right eye. He looked up, his vision blurring for a moment before righting itself. A prickling up his neck made him turn around, and he started. A white convertible had parked itself on the opposite side of the road, the hood pulled down to reveal fur covered seats. A woman stood leaning against the driver's door, draped in white furs, her hands tucked deep inside a white fur muffler. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, her once pale blonde hair glittering with icicles. She stared at him with eyes like chips of ice, and after a moment, a small smile curved her bloodless lips. Damon blinked rapidly, and when he looked back again, she was gone.
***
Elena was starting to get worried. She'd waited at her locker for as long as she'd dared, but Damon hadn't shown up. She'd spent her entire physics class looking out the window at the parking lot, waiting for his car to come careening into the school lot, but he hadn't appeared. She hadn't been able to eat all through lunch, choosing instead to look at her phone and wonder why he hadn't replied to any of her texts or voicemail messages. It just wasn't like him; Damon never ignored her.
So, she was worried. She grabbed her bag after her history class and kept walking, past her math classroom and straight through the front doors to her car. She turned up the heat and pulled slowly out of the parking lot, worry for Damon pulling her muscles taught. Visions of him slowly freezing to death in a snowdrift kept washing over her, the possibility of a fight between him and his father that had finally tipped over the edge into physical violence leaving him a broken bloody mess. She sighed with relief as she pulled up outside his home and saw his car in the garage, track marks indicating that Guiseppe had left in the early hours and not yet returned. Pulling her gloves and scarf on, Elena stepped out of her car and walked across the lawn down towards their garden. The sound of bitten off curse words reached her ears, and the knot of tension in her stomach eased at the sound.
"Where have you been?" She asked him as she finally reached him, bent over the rose bushes in only a thin sweater. "I thought we were going to meet up at school this morning. I waited for you."
A huff sounded, followed by a mumbled comment she couldn't make out.
"What was that?"
Damon sighed and stood up straight, rolling his shoulders and keeping his back turned to her. "I said," he replied, his words clear and emphasised, "'not nearly as long as I waited for you.'"
His tone was bitter and cold, and Elena stumbled back a step in surprise. "Damon, what?"
"What are you doing here, Elena?" The words were clipped and aggressive, and they made Elena shiver.
"I was worried about you. Damon, are you okay?" Elena stepped forwards, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. If she could just get him to look at her, then the sick feeling in her stomach would disappear, she was certain.
He turned before she could make contact, and he stared down at her hand extended awkwardly in the cold air between them.
"I'm fine," he said, monotone, and still not looking at her. "You should just go."
Elena shook her head, not understanding. Damon could be cruel, she knew that, had seen other kids at school blanch and run in the opposite direction when he got it into his head that they'd upset him. But he'd never used that tone of voice with her before, not even when they were just friends.
"Damon, what's wrong? Did I, did I do something wrong?"
He looked up at her then, and Elena felt fear slide through her veins like ice, settling into her gut like cold concrete. His lips were pulled up into his trademark smirk, but it looked wrong, distorted, turning it into a sneer. His pale blue eyes, usually so warm whenever he turned their gaze upon her, were cold and unresponsive.
"Nope. How could you do anything wrong, Elena? You never do anything at all."
Elena pulled her gaze from Damon's, feeling the sharp sting of tears as she tried to hold them back. Looking around them, she let out a gasp.
"Damon! What did you do to the roses?"
They were scattered across the floor behind him, hacked away from the bush and thrown down haphazardly, the petals bleeding red onto the snow beneath them.
Damon shrugged. "I just decided to do a bit of pruning. Here, you can have them, since they seem to be important to you." He crouched down and swept them into his arms, before raising and throwing the thorny bedraggled bundle at her.
Elena jumped back a step, and as she looked down at the flowers falling to the ground at her feet, she heard a bark of sharp, cruel laughter. Without looking up, Elena turned on the spot and ran back across the frozen grass, sobs building in her chest as the laughter echoed around her.
***
Damon paced up and down in his parlour, one hand rubbing incessantly at his right eye. He needed to go out, needed to see Elena. He needed to apologise... didn't he?
The fire in the grate was stifling, and Damon pulled at the collar of his sweater as though it was trying to suffocate him. He needed to get out, needed some air. He pulled on his boots and yanked open the front door, leaving his coat on the rack behind him. He stomped out across his courtyard, the cold air a welcome relief on his flushed cheeks. He carried on walking, down the frozen driveway and along the road into town. He was halfway to Elena's house before the cold set in and he started shivering, cursing leaving the warmth of the fire behind.
"I can help, if you want."
The voice was quiet, devoid of inflection, and it slid over Damon like an ice cold shower on a hot summer's day. He turned, and saw the girl from the night before leaning against her car behind him. He hadn't even heard her pull up.
"With the cold," she explained. "I can help, if you want."
She tilted her head to the side and stepped forward, the muffler held in front of her brushing his chest. She slowly removed her hand from the folds of fur and reached up to touch him. Her icy fingers burned as she brushed them across his cheek, and he was lost in her gaze of ice as she leaned forwards and pressed her pale lips to his.
A warmth spread through him at their touch, and as she pulled away he gasped out loud.
"Elena..."
The girl smiled, a simple pull of the corner of her mouth with no emotion behind it. She pressed her lips against his again, then leaned back, staring deep into his eyes.
"Who?"
Damon felt a pull in his chest, but couldn't put a name to it. He wanted to struggle, to rip his cheek away from her palm and stumble back, but he didn't seem to have the energy. He felt her hand slide over his shoulder and down to his hand, settling there and tugging gently but insistently.
"Come away with me," she whispered into his ear, her breath cold against his neck.
Damon nodded; he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd rather be than wherever this girl was going, despite the insistent pull buried deep inside his chest. He settled against the fur lined seats of the open convertible, unable and unwilling to remove his gaze from her. She smiled that vacant smile again, and the car moved beneath them, snow coming down so thick and fast that it was impossible to see the road before them.
Damon didn't care.
* Poem written by Kevan Mends.
Word count: 4500+ (this part)
Spoilers/warnings: Completely AU, so if you know the characters' names, you're good to go.
Rating: T+ (for now)
Act 2: The Beginning Again.
The sidewalk was slippery as she stepped out of her car, and Elena carefully picked her way around the piles of driven snow as she made her way towards the school doors, her bag balanced precariously on the edge of her shoulder.
"You're late."
The voice came from behind her, and she squeaked in surprise, flailing her arms as her legs slipped out from under her. A pair of strong hands grabbed her around her waist, and she craned her head back to scowl at the boy behind her.
"Damon! What are you doing out here?"
Damon shrugged and leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose. "Waiting for you, of course."
Elena sighed. "But now you're late for school too."
"It's English," Damon snaked his hand around her waist and pulled her close as they made the treacherous way up to the school doors. "Mrs Engel hates me, I need you there to protect me."
Elena laughed. "She's not that bad, I kinda like her."
"That's because you're her star pupil, she'd never be horrible to you. To the rest of us?" Damon widened his eyes in mock horror, "The woman practically breathes fire. No way am I sitting in that class without you there to defend my honour."
"You're such an idiot," Elena giggled, pressing her cold lips to his cheek as they walked into school. "Do you have your books? Because we so do not have time to stop off at our lockers. We're going to be in enough trouble as it is."
"No morning locker make out?" Damon pouted. "I don't know how I'll get through the day."
"Well, I guess you'll just have to wait until our lunch time make out," Elena whispered, and opened the door to their English classroom. "Sorry we're late, Mrs Engel, my car wouldn't start in the cold this morning."
***
"Are you sure we can't sneak out for the afternoon? I'm already bored to death," Damon groaned as he sank into a chair next to Elena, sneaking a fry off her plate and rubbing his hands together. "God, it's like this place can't even afford heating, I'm freezing."
Elena closed her physics book and smacked his hand as it snaked out to grab more of her lunch. "Get your own. And no, we can't sneak out, I've got a history test next period." She kissed his pouting lips and offered him her can of soda. "How was your chem class?"
Damon sighed and laid his head on the table. "Boring as hell. We didn't even get to blow shit up."
Elena laughed. "Ah well, you can't do that every week." She pulled up her bag and searched inside. "Come on, help me study for this history test, Mr Saltzman's basing it on the Civil War." She frowned down at the textbook in her hand. "There're so many dates and numbers to memorise."
"Nah, it's easy to remember, here, I'll show you." Damon yanked the book closer to him and started rifling through the pages.
"Easy for you," Elena grumbled. "You're the one with the freaky memory for all things old and stuffy."
"Hey, you know English, I know history. Don't get crabby, or I won't help."
Elena stuck out her tongue and then yelped as he tried to grab it, his hand lightning fast. Damon smirked and leaned forwards in his chair, sliding his fingers through her long dark hair.
"Ugh, guys, get a room!" Caroline threw her bag down on the seat across from them and sat down. "It's actually disgusting how in love you too are."
"Just because you're jealous, Blondie," Damon replied, still not looking away from Elena's dark gaze.
"Well, lucky for you two, I have a date tonight."
"How is that lucky for us?"
"Because maybe I'll also fall disgustingly in love and then I won't constantly feel the need to puke on your shoes whenever we hang out!" Caroline smiled and spread her hands wide.
"As long as it doesn't involve us all double dating, I am all for anything that takes you away from us, Blondie."
Elena smacked Damon on the back of the head, kissing him gently to take away the sting of the reprimand. "Who are you going out with, Caroline?"
"New guy," Caroline replied immediately, and she was off, explaining all about how she and Bonnie had spotted him the day before in the office, followed by Caroline's usual brand of stalking to find out everything she could about him, before finally collaring him at the bonfire last night.
"I don't remember seeing a new guy last night," Elena admitted, casting her mind back over the now hazy events.
"Well no, you wouldn't, you were too wrapped up in tall, dark and annoying there to notice anything."
"Aww, Caroline, I didn't know you cared. Ouch!" Damon glared at Elena's friend, and reached down to rub where she'd kicked him. "Whoever he is, I feel nothing but pity for the poor man."
Caroline smiled acerbically and gathered up her stuff. "I'm planning a June wedding. See you in history, Elena. Bye loser."
"Love you too, Barbie!"
Elena groaned and leaned forward to rest her forehead against Damon's. "You know, you could at least pretend to play nice with my friends."
Damon tsked and huffed out a laugh. "Caroline would see right through it if I tried. Besides," he pressed their lips together gently, "you don't like it when I play nice."
Elena smiled and kissed him back, moaning quietly as his tongue teased her lower lip before he bit down gently. "Mmm, I refuse to answer on the basis that it might incriminate me."
Damon kissed her once, twice more, before snagging another fry and shoving it in his mouth, waggling his eyebrows at her. "You want to come back to mine after school? I need to do some stuff in the garden."
"Sure," Elena said, finishing up the rest of her soda and packing her books back into her bag. "What have you got to do?"
"I need to put some plastic around your roses, protect them from the frost." Damon stood up and slung her bag over his shoulder, holding out a hand to help her up. "A few are still in bloom."
"Walk me to history?" Elena asked, batting her eyelids.
"I'd be flattered if I didn't know you just wanted me for my brain full of dates."
***
The gravel crunched under her tires as Elena followed Damon back to his sprawling mansion set deep in the woods. Her breath came out in puffs of white as she stepped out of the car, the sky a steely grey above her. Damon parked his car haphazardly in the garage before running back out to join her, pulling his scarf from around his neck and winding it around her own.
"It's freezing," she whispered, her teeth chattering slightly.
"It's winter."
Elena rolled her eyes. "Still, it doesn't usually get this cold so fast."
"True, which is why I need to get this plastic wrapped around the rose bushes quickly, before the frost kills them." Damon grabbed her gloved hand in his and began pulling her across the lawn.
"We're not going inside?"
Damon shook his head. "Dad's working from home today."
Elena nodded in understanding. Damon and Guiseppe did not get along.
She let him drag her around to the garden shed and helped him gather the things he needed for her roses, following him down the path to the edge of the property, to the garden Damon had staked out for his own use. His mother had loved growing things, had spent almost all of her time out in the grounds, planting flowers and sowing seeds. After she'd died, Damon had marked out a small plot, growing rhododendrons and chrysanthemums in memory of his beautiful mother. The day after he'd kissed Elena for the first time, he'd planted a rose bush for her, because they were her favourite. The deep red of the flower still stood out sharply against the frosted green of the cold bushes, despite how late in the year it was. Damon had smiled and called it fate when she'd asked how that was possible.
Damon draped a picnic blanket over the small stone bench that guarded their little garden and told Elena to sit while he worked. She watched him as he laid out his tools; plastic wrapping, a pair of shears, a trowel and fork. She loved to watch him work here, could sit for hours and just drift to the sounds of the earth moving under his fingers, get lost in the droplets of sweat that formed on his brow as he concentrated and trailed down to his neck. It was so peaceful here, away from the road into town and far enough away from the house that Guiseppe couldn't easily bother them. They'd carved out a little slice of Heaven, just for the two of them, where Damon could remember his mother without pain, and Elena could dream up story and poem ideas without embarrassment.
"I wrote a poem last night," Elena says, the words forming puffs of white clouds as her warm breath hit the frigid air around them.
Damon doesn't turn around, but she can tell he's smiling as he continues to work. "Is it one of those Chinese ones Mrs Engel was spouting on about? The ones that sound like a sneeze?"
Elena huffed a laugh. "Haiku. And they're Japanese, not Chinese."
"Whatever, the name still sounds weird."
"You just think everything to do with poetry sounds weird."
"What can I say? I don't see the point in writing something if there's no journey in it. Poems are too short to do that."
"Paradise Lost," Elena states promptly, going over the lines of the same argument they've been having since their English class started its poetry module.
"Different genre, epic poems have different constraints." Damon tilted his head back to smile at her. "So, is it a Haiku?"
"No. Not an epic either. Do you want to hear it?" Elena's tone was stroppy but her eyes were teasing; arguing with Damon about literature was one of her favourite things to do.
Damon finished wrapping the rose bushes in plastic and sat back on his heels, letting his shoulders rest against he knees. "You know I do."
Elena pulled off one of her gloves so that she could bury her cold fingers in Damon's dark silky hair. He moved his head into the touch, his bright blue eyes staring up at her as he waited patiently.
She cleared her throat and closed her eyes.
"A simple rose I have found
It's not the flower that grows from the ground,
Its beauty is one of such delight ...
This rose is soft to the touch in all its perfection.
The envy for all the flowers in this garden
Its fragrance will consume your every obsession.
This rose must be a gift, a gift from above
A gift from Heaven to show us love.
Every morning I wake to see its petals glisten
Its easy to see how one could be so smitten
If love was a rose it would shine so bright
Because all I need is this rose in my life." *
Damon is quiet for a long moment as he lets the words sink in. Then he turned to sit on the bench, pulling Elena onto his lap. He stroked her hair back behind her ear and pressed kisses on her cheeks, her temples, eyelids and cold nose, before finally catching her lips with his.
"I love you, too."
***
The driveway was slippery with ice as they pulled up outside Elena's house, and she was glad Damon had persuaded her to let him drive her car home. They jumped out and ascended the steps as quick as they were able, blowing on their hands as Elena struggled to unlock the door. It was well worth the wait though; the smells of garlic and roasted potatoes wafted over them as the door swung open, and their stomachs growled in anticipation.
"Elena? Is that you?"
Miranda's voice called to them from the kitchen, and Elena giggled against Damon's lips as she tried to unwrap her scarf without breaking their kiss. "Hey, Mom! Damon's here too, he can stay for dinner, right?"
"Of course, hi Damon, how was school today?" Miranda threw a smile over her shoulder at them as they entered the kitchen, turning back to look at the pot she was stirring on the stove.
"It was good, thank you Mrs Gilbert," Damon pulled out one of the dining chairs for Elena to sit down and moved closer to the oven. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Actually, if you two could talk to Jeremy about his homework while I finish this up, that would be a great help."
"Jeremy!" Elena shouted over her shoulder in the direction of the living room. "Get in here!"
The sound of a hastily bitten off curse was heard, followed by the TV switching off and a controller clattering onto the table, before Jeremy slouched his way into the kitchen, looking grumpy.
"Hey kiddo," Damon grinned at the younger Gilbert, reaching out to ruffle his hair because he knew it annoyed him. "Your Mom says you need help with your homework?"
Jeremy shot him a glare and pulled a hand through his messed up hair, before slumping down into a seat at the table. "I've got this English project due tomorrow." His voice was muffled as he buried his head in his arms.
"Ah, not really something I can help with," Damon winced and sat down, placing his hand on Elena's thigh and squeezing gently. "Your sister's the one you need for that."
"It's not like you've never been a sophomore, Damon," Elena rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you remember the classes well enough." She turned to Jeremy. "What's the project?"
"Fairytales," Jeremy moaned into his arms. "It's so girly!"
Damon burst out laughing at that. "You've been reading the wrong ones then, Jer!"
"What?" Jeremy raised his head a stared at Damon with wide eyes, wondering if he was being teased.
"Fairytales are dark, man, creepy and horrible."
Jeremy turned to Elena. "Is he joking?"
Elena shook her head. "Think about them really, Jeremy. Hansel and Gretel - two children left in the woods by their own parents, then lured into a trap by a cannibal? Not exactly stuff dreams are made of."
"Tell us what you need to do for your project, and we'll help."
"Do not ask your sister to write it for you," Miranda interjected. "And help me lay the table, dinner's ready."
Damon laid the table as Elena helped her mother serve dinner, calling for her Dad to come out of his office and join them.
"So," Jeremy says, once they're all sitting down around the table with full plates in front of them. "Our project is to write our own fairytale, about winter. And I have an idea what to do, it's just writing it that's the problem."
"What's your idea?" Elena asked, interested. She wished she'd had such a project when she had been a sophomore; she would have loved writing fairytales.
"I drew a picture," Jeremy turned in his seat and pulled out the pad and pencil he always kept close by him. "Here." He flipped to the page and handed Elena the pad.
She looked down at the drawing, Damon leaning over her shoulder. The sketch depicted a young girl wrapped in a fur coat, a small smile on her face as she stood in the middle of a deserted snow covered town. The faint outline of ice statues stood in the distance behind her, and she held her hands tightly inside a large fur muffler. She was beautiful.
"Wow, Jer," Damon said as he turned back to his dinner. "Where'd you dream up that?"
"I don't know," Jeremy replied, a look of confusion flitting across his face before he shrugged and grabbed his pad back out of Elena's hands.
Elena thought for a minute, letting the image of the cold girl spark ideas in her head. "Okay, Jer, if I come up with an idea for your drawing, you write it, sound good?"
Jeremy sighed as Miranda said, "that sounds great, thank you Elena."
Elena grinned. "It's cool. Just be ready for when I come asking for help on quadratic equations."
***
"Are you sure you don't need a ride home, Damon? It's starting to snow again."
Damon smiled. "No, thank you Mr Gilbert, I'll be fine." He grabbed Elena's hand. "Walk me out?"
Elena shoved her feet into her boots as Damon thanked her mother for dinner and shook her father's hand goodbye. She handed him his coat and stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door closed behind them.
"Wow, it's freezing out here."
Damon smirked. "Then I'd better try to keep you warm."
He stepped close to her and placed his palms against her cheeks, his fingers stroking down her neck and into her hair. She moaned as she slipped her arms around his waist under his coat, melting into his kiss. Their warm wet mouths seemed to make the cold air around them disappear as they got lost in each other, before a discreet tap on the other side of the door brought them back to themselves.
"Goodnight, Mr Gilbert," Damon called through the wood, then smirked and pressed his lips against Elena's one last time. "Try to be on time tomorrow? Morning make out sessions are the only thing that stop me from wanting to rip out people's throats."
Elena rolled her eyes. "I'll do my best."
Damon stepped backwards off the porch steps, watching as Elena walked back into the house and closed the door. He set off through the quickly falling snow, his gloved hands shoved deep in his pockets. The streets were heavy with the kind of silence that only a blanket of snow can create, the only sound the crunch of his boots as he left his footprints in the snow. As he made his way through the winding wooded road that led to his house, a sudden noise from above him made him look up. A branch above him shook in a non existing wind, and as Damon gazed up, the snow covering the bough suddenly slipped off, landing on his head.
"Ouch, Jesus!"
Damon cursed as he swiped at his head and face, wincing as a sharp pain pierced through his right eye. He looked up, his vision blurring for a moment before righting itself. A prickling up his neck made him turn around, and he started. A white convertible had parked itself on the opposite side of the road, the hood pulled down to reveal fur covered seats. A woman stood leaning against the driver's door, draped in white furs, her hands tucked deep inside a white fur muffler. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, her once pale blonde hair glittering with icicles. She stared at him with eyes like chips of ice, and after a moment, a small smile curved her bloodless lips. Damon blinked rapidly, and when he looked back again, she was gone.
***
Elena was starting to get worried. She'd waited at her locker for as long as she'd dared, but Damon hadn't shown up. She'd spent her entire physics class looking out the window at the parking lot, waiting for his car to come careening into the school lot, but he hadn't appeared. She hadn't been able to eat all through lunch, choosing instead to look at her phone and wonder why he hadn't replied to any of her texts or voicemail messages. It just wasn't like him; Damon never ignored her.
So, she was worried. She grabbed her bag after her history class and kept walking, past her math classroom and straight through the front doors to her car. She turned up the heat and pulled slowly out of the parking lot, worry for Damon pulling her muscles taught. Visions of him slowly freezing to death in a snowdrift kept washing over her, the possibility of a fight between him and his father that had finally tipped over the edge into physical violence leaving him a broken bloody mess. She sighed with relief as she pulled up outside his home and saw his car in the garage, track marks indicating that Guiseppe had left in the early hours and not yet returned. Pulling her gloves and scarf on, Elena stepped out of her car and walked across the lawn down towards their garden. The sound of bitten off curse words reached her ears, and the knot of tension in her stomach eased at the sound.
"Where have you been?" She asked him as she finally reached him, bent over the rose bushes in only a thin sweater. "I thought we were going to meet up at school this morning. I waited for you."
A huff sounded, followed by a mumbled comment she couldn't make out.
"What was that?"
Damon sighed and stood up straight, rolling his shoulders and keeping his back turned to her. "I said," he replied, his words clear and emphasised, "'not nearly as long as I waited for you.'"
His tone was bitter and cold, and Elena stumbled back a step in surprise. "Damon, what?"
"What are you doing here, Elena?" The words were clipped and aggressive, and they made Elena shiver.
"I was worried about you. Damon, are you okay?" Elena stepped forwards, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. If she could just get him to look at her, then the sick feeling in her stomach would disappear, she was certain.
He turned before she could make contact, and he stared down at her hand extended awkwardly in the cold air between them.
"I'm fine," he said, monotone, and still not looking at her. "You should just go."
Elena shook her head, not understanding. Damon could be cruel, she knew that, had seen other kids at school blanch and run in the opposite direction when he got it into his head that they'd upset him. But he'd never used that tone of voice with her before, not even when they were just friends.
"Damon, what's wrong? Did I, did I do something wrong?"
He looked up at her then, and Elena felt fear slide through her veins like ice, settling into her gut like cold concrete. His lips were pulled up into his trademark smirk, but it looked wrong, distorted, turning it into a sneer. His pale blue eyes, usually so warm whenever he turned their gaze upon her, were cold and unresponsive.
"Nope. How could you do anything wrong, Elena? You never do anything at all."
Elena pulled her gaze from Damon's, feeling the sharp sting of tears as she tried to hold them back. Looking around them, she let out a gasp.
"Damon! What did you do to the roses?"
They were scattered across the floor behind him, hacked away from the bush and thrown down haphazardly, the petals bleeding red onto the snow beneath them.
Damon shrugged. "I just decided to do a bit of pruning. Here, you can have them, since they seem to be important to you." He crouched down and swept them into his arms, before raising and throwing the thorny bedraggled bundle at her.
Elena jumped back a step, and as she looked down at the flowers falling to the ground at her feet, she heard a bark of sharp, cruel laughter. Without looking up, Elena turned on the spot and ran back across the frozen grass, sobs building in her chest as the laughter echoed around her.
***
Damon paced up and down in his parlour, one hand rubbing incessantly at his right eye. He needed to go out, needed to see Elena. He needed to apologise... didn't he?
The fire in the grate was stifling, and Damon pulled at the collar of his sweater as though it was trying to suffocate him. He needed to get out, needed some air. He pulled on his boots and yanked open the front door, leaving his coat on the rack behind him. He stomped out across his courtyard, the cold air a welcome relief on his flushed cheeks. He carried on walking, down the frozen driveway and along the road into town. He was halfway to Elena's house before the cold set in and he started shivering, cursing leaving the warmth of the fire behind.
"I can help, if you want."
The voice was quiet, devoid of inflection, and it slid over Damon like an ice cold shower on a hot summer's day. He turned, and saw the girl from the night before leaning against her car behind him. He hadn't even heard her pull up.
"With the cold," she explained. "I can help, if you want."
She tilted her head to the side and stepped forward, the muffler held in front of her brushing his chest. She slowly removed her hand from the folds of fur and reached up to touch him. Her icy fingers burned as she brushed them across his cheek, and he was lost in her gaze of ice as she leaned forwards and pressed her pale lips to his.
A warmth spread through him at their touch, and as she pulled away he gasped out loud.
"Elena..."
The girl smiled, a simple pull of the corner of her mouth with no emotion behind it. She pressed her lips against his again, then leaned back, staring deep into his eyes.
"Who?"
Damon felt a pull in his chest, but couldn't put a name to it. He wanted to struggle, to rip his cheek away from her palm and stumble back, but he didn't seem to have the energy. He felt her hand slide over his shoulder and down to his hand, settling there and tugging gently but insistently.
"Come away with me," she whispered into his ear, her breath cold against his neck.
Damon nodded; he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd rather be than wherever this girl was going, despite the insistent pull buried deep inside his chest. He settled against the fur lined seats of the open convertible, unable and unwilling to remove his gaze from her. She smiled that vacant smile again, and the car moved beneath them, snow coming down so thick and fast that it was impossible to see the road before them.
Damon didn't care.
* Poem written by Kevan Mends.