[FIC] Landslide (Damon/Elena) R

[shipperjunkie]

Title: Landslide
Recipient: upupa_epops
Prompt: Damon and Elena - I don't love you, but I always will. A future!fic in which they are on-and-off for decades. They have an understanding.
Author: shipperjunkie
Characters/Pairings: Elena POV, Damon/Elena
Word Count: 10,200
Rating/Warnings: R
Spoilers: AU after early Season Four
Summary: Elena chooses herself. Clean breaks are a myth

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Part Two

[fallinangelz21]

"Hi," he says softly, warmly, his voice full of affection, and she drags her gaze back up to his.

She means to return it, to let him know how much she's missed him, ask him about his life and how he's been. What comes out is: "If we leave right now do you think anyone will notice?"

All things considered, I’d call that a success for Elena. I mean, come on. We all know what Damon looks like in a suit.

“Go be a dirty skank with Damon on your own damn time, right now we need the Maid of Honor."

The ironic thing about this line is that it’s something Caroline would say right now…and mean the dirty skank part. :/

But it’s not what she wants. Not right now. There’s so many things she still wants to do, see, know, learn--and while she knows she could do all that with Damon by her side, it wouldn’t be the same. She wants to stay single and carefree and do exactly what she wants to do exactly when she wants to do it, without regard to anyone else’s wants or needs.

THIS is real wisdom. And I totally believe that at the age of 28-30 that Elena would totally have it.

She knows she's being selfish, she knows how much it costs him to stay away and let her have all the time she needs to figure out what she wants from life. But if he’s still always two steps ahead of her, then he already knows what she’s just figured out: they’ll be together someday. Like he said once - it’s right.

It’s just not right now.

Selfish is vastly underrated. Selfishness can keep people from doing things that would not only hurt them, but hurt others even more.

There’s another word for selfish and it’s called honesty. I applaud Elena’s.

She’d been getting undressed and had happened to glance at herself in the bathroom mirror, at the body of a teenage girl eternally on the cusp of true adulthood. Of course she’d been thinking of her age all day, but it hadn’t truly hit her until just then. Inside, she’s a woman fully grown, and she’ll never really look the part. As she’d studied her reflection she’d wondered, would I have had grey in my hair by now? Crows feet, laugh lines?

Stretch marks?

Her brain had skittered away from the thought.

Kudos for making me feel for Elena in this part - this whole section, really - because as a person who has never imagined having children or even being married beyond the pretty, pretty dress, I can’t relate to Elena's sense of loss at all.

"So what? Fuck it," he’d said. "Whatever this is already looks like more fun than hanging out with any of those people. What are we doing, crying in an empty bathtub about how we're old and life's unfair? I'm in."

I can’t remember if I helped you with this line or not, but I don’t care if I’m applauding myself. I love this line. It’s another specific part that I always think of when I think about this fic. Damon is the most amazing thing ever.

Who knows? Maybe she’d have still wound up spending her birthday bawling in a bathtub while Damon washed her hair.

Ha. Probably.

She’d hit the snooze button two times too many that morning, reluctant to leave the warmth of her bed and face the world. Instead she’d wanted to lie there and drift and listen to the rain pelting the windows of her apartment.

This is me for the past month. -_-