[tvd] big bang fic: Watch You Bleed Me Dry
WATCH YOU BLEED ME DRY
one
Damon spends most of the night that should have been his last slip-sliding erratically between vague unconsciousness and raging, horrifying awareness. Wakes, trembling and disoriented and more than three quarters to convinced that Katherine's declaration of saving the day had been nothing more than the next dice roll in her never-ending game of betrayal. The bone numbing agony in his arm has him near tears and it's all he can do to stop himself from wrenching the ruined limb free.
Elena stays.
Katherine leaves.
It is becoming a most familiar routine.
She watches with breath held firmly in a chest she's sure is about to burst wide open as he writhes, tangled in bedsheets that will have to be destroyed come morning. Her knees tucked tight under her chin as she slowly goes numb from the waist down. A feeling to match the detached thud of her own heartbeat.
She itches between staying put and making off into the dead of the night at a flat run. No plan more intricately developed than find him looping through her misfiring synapses. Fists her fingers into her mouth to stop the screams instead, tight, white knuckles against her teeth, as she accepts the notion for what it is.
Nothing more than fanciful naiveté.
During rare moments of lucidity she forces more of the miracle blood between Damon's lips. Slicks spilled rivulets from his sweat-soaked throat like it's finger-paint. Resolutely shuts her eyes as he licks them clean once more.
Hears Katherine's words echo, mantra-like, through her own cavernous insides.
“It's okay to love them both - I did.”
Spends countless, pointless minutes analysing the phrasing.
A futile exercise. Unable as she is to separate out the truth from the intricately woven web of lies.
- - -
She wakes with a start. Wrapped in a throw she doesn't recognise, but curled into the corner of a room that she most definitely does. The bed at its centre is empty. The suffocating air filled to thick and cloying with the acrid tang of sweat and other unspeakable fluids.
“Morning.”
The voice comes from the doorway. Laced through with something she can't quite fathom. Tight and tense and heavy and a thousand other inflections she doesn't remember noticing in it previously.
“Damon.” Her own is breathless and confused in comparison. Her default setting it seems.
He holds a glass of juice in her direction. She notes; freshly squeezed. Accepts the offering without commenting on the tremble of his extended arm. His fingers, ice-cold against her wrist as he steps back into the doorway. Gives her space she hasn't yet requested.
She flicks her tongue out, moistens sleep-dry lips. Tastes the ghost of him still coated there.
Downs half the contents of the glass in a bid to forget.
- - -
Her fingers fumble clumsily against the too flat buttons of her cell phone. Tap out unsteady replies, one after the other, to the frantic texts that have arrived over-night. The sun has barely limped to present over the horizon but she figures they all deserve more than to worry needlessly about her.
There are other more worthy subjects after all.
Stefan...
She chokes back a sob that stings of betrayal. It is the least she deserves.
- - -
Damon watches her stilted movements through lashes barely dragged to half-mast. Silently tracks her agitated progress round the grand room like a motion detector from his position on the sofa.
She's refusing to let him do anything. Stand. Speak. Move.
He grants her the cloudy illusion of control. Carefully calculates the moment of least resistance.
“I'm going after him.”
She nods back a distracted “Mmm hmmm...” before catching herself.
“You're what?”
He shrugs because he knows she's heard him loud and clear. Drags his gaze to where his fingers sit loosely in his lap. Wonders if the fact that he can't quite feel them is at all problematic.
“No.” She spits the word like it means something. Like it might just have the power she needs to make him take back his declaration. “No, you can't.”
And he thinks the real truth might be about to arrive.
“You can't because I am.” A pause before; “Besides, you have to stay here to keep them all safe while I'm gone.”
And there it is.
He wonders at what point she came to think of him as someone she could trust to look after the people that mean the most to her.
And if she'll ever understand that it is not their safety he'd fight to the death to protect.
The fierce determination in her voice is nothing new to him. It is the vague threads of fear and apprehension that ring with somewhat less familiarity. He latches onto them, chooses to use her neon-bright shortcomings to his own desperate advantage.
“You do realise you're only human, right?”
She blinks back, lips pouted into a soundless o. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you'll die.” He shrugs his shoulders carelessly, as though the notion doesn't terrify him to his hollowed out core, “You go after Klaus, you're dead.”
“I have no intention of 'going after Klaus'. I'm going to get Stefan.”
He snorts harshly at the absurdity inherent in her statement. At the sobering notion that she may not understand those things are one and the same.
“I'm--” She stumbles over the words as she fights to continue, like she's making up her argument as she trips along. And perhaps she is, hands on her hips and dark eyes bright with tears she'll do her best to never shed in front of him. “This is not up for debate, Damon.”
Spits his name like he's the five year old he can never remember being.
He pushes up from the couch, stalks toward her at a speed he knows she'll never track. Has her up against the wall with his numb fingers wrapped loosely around her throat, one stretched up to split her lips in half, shhhhhh. She blinks and fat tears coat the back of his hand, salt-water slick. He lets her go without word. Knows his point has been more than made as he turns; pretends he doesn't hear her sink to seated on her heels, soft sobs shattering the otherwise empty silence.
- - -
In the end they both go. And perhaps the most absurd thing about the hours that preceded the final compromise of sorts is that Elena's almost certain both of them knew this outcome was inevitable from the very start.
She sighs into her palm, watches as her hot breath momentarily fogs the passenger window of her car. Blanks out the world for a split second or several before slowly receding to reveal more of the same.
She lost the paper/scissors/rock that determined the driver for the first leg of their rescue mission. Has resigned herself instead to swimming amid the what ifs and maybes that have truncated her every thought since Katherine's announcement that Stefan was gone.
She watches the faded grey of the highway disappear under the hood of the car as the miles tick by soundlessly.
One by one by one by one towards a hazy horizon that doesn't seem to creep any closer.
three
Elena wakes to the dull green-grey glow of the laptop screen as it illuminates the crappy motel room they're calling home for the night. The bed at her back is cool. She knows without needing to roll over that it remains empty. She brings her hands up to her face instead. Scrubs shaking fingers against her eyes, sandpaper-rough behind her lids, and feels the never-ending exhaustion seep just that little bit deeper into her marrow.
The curtains, thin and pulled slightly askew, tell her that it's still the middle of the night. Heavy cloud cover, the last remnants of the rainstorm they'd encountered that afternoon, blanks out any moonlight that might otherwise have lit the night sky.
She sits then, pushes slowly to upright and gives her eyes a second or several to adjust to the muted light. Seeks out his silhouette where he appears uncomfortably hunched in a wooden chair. He's mumbling under his breath, erratic, panicked, and it takes her longer than it probably should to realise that he must be dreaming.
The revelation is a slap in the face.
She slings the covers back, weighs up her options for a beat before swinging her feet floor-ward and padding across the threadbare carpet towards him.
It's cold in the room. Chilly night air sneaking inside through the gap under the door, through the vent that threads the bare wall above it, through the badly cracked bathroom window. She shivers, longs to wrap the covers back around her shoulders and bury her head into the surprisingly fluffy pillow she's just abandoned.
Figures he must be freezing, asleep at the table. Vows to wake him gently and convince him to get into the bed. And it's a sound plan, she thinks.
Until it's not.
Her hands are headed in his direction even before her voice can catch up with a whispered version of his name.
Damon startles then, at the shift in air across his face, at the sharp sound of a car door slamming on the other side of the street, at whatever it was that had been happening deep inside his subconscious, he doesn't examine the content of his dreams too closely these days.
Does in fact learn from past mistakes, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
But he spins now, stumbles and has her pressed up against the creaking plasterboard wall before she can register that he's even awake. Before he, himself, can register that the dream has ended. This is real-life on repeat. A forearm across her throat and fangs, already descended.
“Damon.”
The word barely rumbles its way to vocalised as her vision begins to blur out at the edges. She brings her hands up. Works her fingers into place on either side of his face. He hasn't made a move to do anything beyond restrain her so far, but she's practised enough in the nuances of 'vampire' to know that that could change in a split second.
“Damon, you're hurting me.” She kicks out with feet that she's sure must be inches from the floor. Feels her bare toes connect with his shin bone. Doubts he even registers the contact even as she prays desperately for him to drop her.
Which he does.
“Elena.” Whisper soft. Laced with a degree of mortification that she's yet to have encountered with him.
She manages to get her feet back beneath her before she hits the ground. Remains upright but only just, as he seems to stagger backwards. Trips over nothing, over everything that has come between them, falls. Doesn't even make a sound as the back of his head collides solidly with the worn metal base at the bottom of the double bed they've not yet managed to share. If he feels the impact then he certainly doesn't react to it as the sound of skull on rusty metal fills the room to full, to overflowing.
She crouches down, her suddenly sweat-slick back still against the wall she'd just slid the length of, one hand kneading at the tissue surrounding her throat while the other wraps protectively around her middle.
His hands are balled into white-knuckled fists by his sides. And he's breathing like he's just run a marathon despite the lack of any real need to do so.
“It's okay,” she offers. Knows without needing to think that it is no such thing. Tries again nonetheless, “Damon, it's okay. It's my fault, I shouldn't have-”
“Did I hurt you?” Like the notion that he might have is more than he can ever hope to bear.
“No.” She's on her knees then, crawling across the rough carpet towards him. “No, I'm fine. See?” Wraps her fingers around his ankles tightly, the only contact she can bring herself to initiate, “I'm just fine.”
She swallows and the motion is more than uncomfortable. Makes a liar out of her almost immediately. There will be bruises. Of that she is certain. Figures she can deal with that revelation when the sun rises and brings with it a fresh perspective.
“Let's go to bed, yeah?” She nods at him, silent encouragement. “I'll be back in a second.” Slips into the bathroom and leans back against the door as she closes it behind her. Takes a deep breath or several in a desperate attempt to get her heart rate under some kind of tentative control. Mentally berates herself for entertaining the dim-witted notion that sneaking up on a sleeping vampire in the throes of a nightmare and attempting to wake him up could ever end well.
She counts to seventy three. Intends to make it all the way to one hundred but her teeth are chattering so severely by the time she reaches fifty that even her revised target of seventy five proves too much. Forces herself to give him a minute or two to regain his composure, sort his head-space out and hopefully get into bed.
Passes the time by staring at her own ragged reflection in the water-marked mirror above the sink. Runs a finger down the centre of her face and splits the distorted image into before and after.
Before then, after now. Considers the intervening time period as some kind of alternate reality filled with far too much un-holy horror to really process as something true.
- - -
Elena's departure, abrupt as it is, serves to push him into motion. Paces several lengths of the cramped motel room before settling on two options. Booze or bed.
Bed or booze.
Resists the pull of chemical oblivion, but only just.
When she braves re-entering the room, the laptop screen has been pushed to closed and it takes her a moment to detect where he's moved to, curled into himself as he is on the side of the bed that she'd been sleeping in earlier. His back is to her, deliberately no doubt, and dimly lit by the faded streetlight that leeches through curtains still askew. A glint of red stains the nape of his neck, blood leaked, still leaking, from where his head had hit the base of the bed. She brings her fingers up tentatively, runs them loosely through the black curls knotted there and tries not to be too disappointed when he flinches violently under her touch.
The cut, now mostly healed, disappears up into his hairline, and she uses its presence as an excuse to burrow closer to him. To lose her fingers in the silky black that surrounds his left ear and bring her knees up so that they fit into the right-angled gap created by his own. Waits until she's sure he's not about to protest before dropping her hand and wrapping her arm solidly around his ribs.
Whispers a silent mantra into his shoulder-blades that she'll do whatever it takes to get him through this. To rescue Stefan. To put everything back to the way it had been.
Refuses in that moment to admit that things have already been irrevocably altered.
eight
They're thirty seven miles south of the Canadian border, following information provided by a vague one-sided cell phone conversation with Alaric back in Mystic Falls, when it happens for the first time. Elena is driving, having snatched the keys from the bench they'd stopped at an hour or so back and refused to hand them over again. Creeping the vehicle just a few extra clicks over the limit and refusing to look sideways at his exaggerated exclamations of disbelief.
“Elena Gilbert. I believe that last sign we passed said fifty five miles per hour. Not sixty...” he reaches across her to get a clearer view, “... three. Lead-foot.”
He wraps his hands around the seat-belt that crosses his chest. Uses the angle to press his fingertips into the ribs just below his left arm. Barely manages to conceal a wince at the sudden pressure building up there.
It feels like someone is sitting on his chest. Or has wrapped some kind of vice around his ribcage and is methodically tightening the screws. He shifts in his seat, attempts to adjust his position in order to lessen the discomfort.
“Are you okay?”
She doesn't look up from the road as she asks. Keeps her eyes front and centre as soft snow begins to blanket the hood of the car, to pepper the black stretch of road ahead. Dares him to give her a straight answer.
Dares him to tell her the truth.
He thinks this might just be the forty seven thousandth time she's muttered those words since they set off eight days ago. They're beginning to lose all sense of meaning as he nods his head mechanically, mutters back his standard, “I'm fine.” Contemplates adding a quick never better, but decides against the possibility of raising any red flags. Figures there's no point freaking her out over a little indigestion.
Right?
By the time they reach the customs check point he's almost beyond the point of hiding anything from her. The three minutes that it takes to compel the border guard into letting them past is almost more than he can stand.
“Damon?” She can see the obvious discomfort. That he still thinks he's capable of hiding it from her stirs something deep and primal. She shoves her foot against the accelerator with more disjointed force than is strictly necessary.
He can feel the forward momentum of the car start to pick up again as they head deeper into Canadian territory. Tilts his head back against the seat, does his level best not to scream.
“Damon? What's going on?”
He hears her jam the signal to on, swerve the car a little further to the right and up onto the gravel shoulder. Skid the heavy vehicle to a sliding stop before fisting her hands into the front of his shirt, dragging the sleeves up to his elbows in an effort to no doubt double check the location of the now healed wolf bite.
“Damon? Wake up. Are you okay? What's going on?” Doesn't give him a chance to answer one question before spilling the next one out onto his lap.
“Shhhh...”
“Damo--”
“Elena, I'm fine.” A lie, that much is more than obvious, even to him.
Especially to her.
He tugs his sleeves back into place by his wrists defiantly nonetheless, “Just drive the car.”
“No, Damon, what the hell?” Incredulous. She can see her eyes, saucer wide, reflected in the rear-view mirror as she checks the flow of traffic that passes them, oblivious. “You almost passed out.”
“I'm a vampire, Elena, I don't pass out.” He brings his hands up, eyes still closed, curls his fingers into air quotes to sling around his mimicry. “I just... I guess it's gonna take a little longer than I'd hoped to get back to normal. Compelling that guard was...” He shrugs, unsure how to finish the lie of omission. Settles on avoiding it altogether. “Just, keep heading north. Ric said something about a lake near Saint Gabriel so, that's where we're going.”
“I think-- ” She thinks a lot of things these days. Mostly, Stefan and Oh, God and Jenna and I can't... “I think we should turn--”
“Elena, seriously. If we turn around I'll just have to compel another guard. Are you trying to kill me?”
She huffs, he can imagine the indignation painted across her face and manages to prise his eyelids open just enough to see the evidence for himself.
“I'm fine,” he reiterates, wills it to be true with everything that he has, “I'm just gonna sleep for a while, okay?”
She nods enthusiastically, her hair spilling more completely from the messy pony tail she'd dragged it into that morning. She tucks a stray tendril behind her left ear, keeps nodding. Wonders if maybe she's forgotten how to stop.
“Okay, yes good. Sleep is good. You need to sleep more. Oh--” Stops again, remembers something vital. “Oh, no. We ran out of blood. What if--”
He reaches his hands up, captures her flailing limbs in his. “I'm fine, Elena. I'll get some later. Just drive, okay? Highway forty, straight up until we need to turn left on thirty one into Joliette. Can you do that?'
She's back to nodding again. Isn't entirely sure the last disjointed head bob she started has yet to slow to still, one mute agreement melting into the next.
And sometimes it's just easier that way. So she's beginning to realise.
“Good. Wake me up when we get there.”
Damon is convinced he doesn't sleep. At least, not really, not at first. Keeps his eyes resolutely closed in order to carry out the facade for Elena's benefit, but uses the endless hours that tick by to develop and subsequently discard theory after theory for what the fuck is going on.
Notes with some degree of relief that the agony subsides steadily from the crescendo it had managed to reach at the border.
He must have succumbed to exhaustion at some point, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady rhythm of the car beneath him and the muted echo of Elena butchering song lyrics but at least managing to do so with some degree of melody.
She startles him to awake with the slam of her car door in the parking lot of a road-side motel. He tries not to think too hard about the motivation behind the duck and run tactics she's taken to using when waking him up. Tries not to re-live the time she went for a gentler option and it almost got her killed.
Tries valiantly.
Fails in the end anyway.
The air temperature outside the car is shocking as Elena navigates a gauntlet of puddles and packed snow that separates the parking lot from the reception. Can't help the sudden sadness that descends when she laments that this is not how she'd planned to spend her first night in Canada. Naïve fantasies of Cirque du Soleil and impossibly enchanting locals serving her the finest coffee she's ever tasted. Red wine and ice skating under a thousand twinkling fairy lights.
Forces herself into a deep breath that almost freezes her lungs to frozen solid and pushes against the worn wooden door marked with a faded Welcome that is inexplicably missing the l.
We come.
Yes, we do.
Damon uses the cover of her turned back to scrub his hands across his face and pretend he's not watching the swing of her ass as she crosses the half empty lot and pushes her way into the brightly lit entrance. He cracks the window an inch or several so he can hear her book the room. Keeps one ear on the casual conversation about free WIFI and continental breakfast even as he's retrieving her phone from the console in the centre of the dash and searching her contacts list for Bonnie's number.
Hastily transfers the information into his own phone for later and tosses hers back into the space he'd dragged it from. Replaces the candy wrappers that had been covering it and vows to make the call once she's sleeping. Figures it's the only sensible conclusion he's managed to come to along the journey so far.
He pushes his door open then. Stretches to standing and rubs the heel of his hand absently against the phantom ache in his chest. Frowns at how completely back to normal he now feels and can't help but wonder whether he maybe imagined the whole thing. Thinks back to the side-splitting agony that had engulfed him not hours earlier and concludes that it was very real.
- - -
The room they fall into is everything and nothing like all the other rooms they've lived in these past few nights. The names may alter somewhat. The décor may shift from orange, to brown, to a faded mint green.
Very little else changes.
And the haunted look in her eyes only deepens.
He calculates one hundred and ninety seven hours have elapsed.
Elena gave up the count days ago.
- - -
They settle on a make-shift dinner of surprisingly good burgers and fries at a cafe across the street from their accommodation. Damon slings his arm casually along the curve of her shoulders as they dodge the spray kicked up by a passing SUV.
Convinces himself it means nothing when she doesn't immediately shake herself free.
The waitress scrubs resolutely at the Formica counter tops that surround them in the otherwise empty cafe and Elena even manages a stilted giggle when the radio is turned off pointedly the moment their last fry is devoured.
“You think she's trying to tell us something?”
He answers her with a deliberate slurp of his empty soda glass and vows to make her laugh at least once every night from now on.
When she grins and lifts her gaze to meet his, at once bright and unguarded, he thinks the degree to which she must hate him for securing Stefan's fate has faded an inch or several.
Feels his own ramp up a notch at the notion.
- - -
He waits until her breathing evens into a rhythm that threatens to drown him. An hypnotic pulse that works its way under his fingernails.
He slips soundlessly out into the frigid night air then, scrolls the length of his contacts list for Bonnie's number.
Paces out laps of the parking lot at human speed for something to do while he gathers together the patience that a conversation with the witch is going to require. Reminds himself, more than once, to tone down the jerk that she never fails to drag out of him.
He gets her voicemail after eight rings. Disconnects the call impatiently before hitting re-dial.
“Hello?” Sleep muffled. He'd feel guilty if it were anyone else.
Smirks wryly.
Concedes. No he wouldn't.
“It's Damon,” he explains, figures they're well and truly past the need for fake pleasantries. “I have a question.”
“Who?” Drags a pillow to her chest with the motion required to sit bolt up-right.
And frankly, he thinks her confusion is more than a little insulting.
“Damon Salvatore” he drawls with more than a trace of derision. “You know, the evil vampire lord currently trawling the countryside with your bff to find the perfect boyfriend vampire and the murderous original vampire that stole off into the night with him.”
If he loses her mid-sentence it's fine. He loses himself too.
“Where's Elena?” She fails to hide the breathless panic that has worked its way into her bones. Split second fast.
“Um, well, it's like...” Guesses, “Four am. She's sleeping...”
“Damon.” His name as a warning. She itches to hang up but has to admit to being suddenly, oddly, intrigued by the notion that he'd resort to contacting her. “What do you want?”
“Now, now. Who said I want any--” He trails off, remembers his opening line. “Oh, that's right. I did. Yes.”
“Seriously?” He can almost hear the irritation build in every syllable she vocalises.
“Seriously.” Can't seem to help himself nonetheless. “I need you to check into something for me.”
She's silent on the other end. He can hear her muted exhalations echo across the network of fibre optic cells that separates them. Drags in a solidifying breath of his own before leaning his shoulder blades back against a damp power pole.
Bonnie drags her grandmother's grimoire from its hiding spot under a biology text book and a freshly washed sweater that hasn't quite made it to her closet as he speaks. Leafs idly through the faded pages as Damon's hollowed out voice filters down the line.
In the end she scratches out a paragraph and a little bit of notes and promises more than just half-heartedly that she'll look into it. See what she can find out.
That she'll get back to him without alerting Elena to the change in circumstances.
She baulks at that at first. Needs to physically stop and think and remember before she can nod her head once and agree. The less Elena knows about this the better.
For now at least.
ten - seventeen
They make it back across the border some days later. Waste gas on vast stretches of the Canadian country-side that yield little more than flat plains and the heady stench of losing ground fast, before turning the car south and limping over the line into North Dakota. Elena, exhausted to the point of delirium, finds herself oddly transfixed by the methodical up and down of the oil rigs that dot the horizon.
Giggles at the absurdity of the landscape until soda fizzes out her nostrils and Damon slams the car to a stop in order to more fully fix his incredulous gaze in her direction.
“Are you serious?”
“What?” She's still giggling, blinking back tears and wiping at her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.
They're long past the pretence of manners and dignity after all.
“I mean, look at it!” She gestures expansively out the window behind his canted head, “It's ridiculous!”
He doesn't bother with the view outside the car. Knows borderline hysteria when he sees it and vows to hole them both up in a motel for the night.
Another one.
- - -
They find a place to stay in Fargo and Damon makes sliding references to the Coen brothers while Elena squints her eyes at him blankly and reminds him with a self-satisfied grin that she was barely two years old in nineteen ninety six.
He huffs back that it doesn't matter. That anything produced by Joel and Ethan, Joel and Ethan, like he knows them both personally, and hell, she concedes silently, he probably does, is compulsory viewing. She shrugs loosely, bites heavily into an apple as she slides the curtains closed with her free hand. Watches his reflection in the glass as he rolls his eyes at her back with a shake of his head.
She can see he's got the heel of his hand pressed to the centre of his chest, and the echo of pain that ghosts his face matches macabre images she already has stored of him from weeks gone by.
He registers that she's caught him out in the same fraction of time that she opens her mouth to speak. But he's quicker than she is. He'll always be quicker. Has his back turned to her and is pretending to pull a toothbrush from his backpack by the time she's spun the required one eighty degrees to face him.
The dull throb had reignited in his ribcage about an hour ago. And while it wasn't getting any worse just yet, it was more than enough to be an uncomfortable warning.
- - -
“You'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?”
They've had the lights off for the best part of an hour. The rush of traffic swooping past on the rain wet street outside their window melting into the sound of her breath whistling in and out, out and in. He'd known she was still awake by the speed of the shallow inhalations. Tosses up pretending to be asleep with creating some kind of half-baked response.
Figures, either way, he's going to end up lying to her.
“Damon?”
Her bed creaks as her weight shifts and he can picture her sitting up, peering through the not-quite-dark in an attempt to make out his silhouette. He keeps his eyes resolutely pressed to closed. Wills her to lay back down and sleep. It's the only reason they’ve stopped after all.
“Damon?”
A little more insistent this time as her feet hit the expanse of carpet that separates their beds. She's no-where near convinced that he's sleeping but she thinks she might be just the right amount of willing to go along with his ruse. Can't quite bite back the feeling that for once, knowing might just out-weigh not knowing.
Slips quickly between the sheets and into the space against his back. Presses her arm along the cold length of his spine, closes her eyes against the muted memory of her lips on his and sends a silent promise to Stefan that they're on their way.
Hang on, we're coming...
Almost manages to convince herself that she hasn't already betrayed him one hundred ways to Sunday.
- - -
PART TWO
one
Damon spends most of the night that should have been his last slip-sliding erratically between vague unconsciousness and raging, horrifying awareness. Wakes, trembling and disoriented and more than three quarters to convinced that Katherine's declaration of saving the day had been nothing more than the next dice roll in her never-ending game of betrayal. The bone numbing agony in his arm has him near tears and it's all he can do to stop himself from wrenching the ruined limb free.
Elena stays.
Katherine leaves.
It is becoming a most familiar routine.
She watches with breath held firmly in a chest she's sure is about to burst wide open as he writhes, tangled in bedsheets that will have to be destroyed come morning. Her knees tucked tight under her chin as she slowly goes numb from the waist down. A feeling to match the detached thud of her own heartbeat.
She itches between staying put and making off into the dead of the night at a flat run. No plan more intricately developed than find him looping through her misfiring synapses. Fists her fingers into her mouth to stop the screams instead, tight, white knuckles against her teeth, as she accepts the notion for what it is.
Nothing more than fanciful naiveté.
During rare moments of lucidity she forces more of the miracle blood between Damon's lips. Slicks spilled rivulets from his sweat-soaked throat like it's finger-paint. Resolutely shuts her eyes as he licks them clean once more.
Hears Katherine's words echo, mantra-like, through her own cavernous insides.
“It's okay to love them both - I did.”
Spends countless, pointless minutes analysing the phrasing.
A futile exercise. Unable as she is to separate out the truth from the intricately woven web of lies.
- - -
She wakes with a start. Wrapped in a throw she doesn't recognise, but curled into the corner of a room that she most definitely does. The bed at its centre is empty. The suffocating air filled to thick and cloying with the acrid tang of sweat and other unspeakable fluids.
“Morning.”
The voice comes from the doorway. Laced through with something she can't quite fathom. Tight and tense and heavy and a thousand other inflections she doesn't remember noticing in it previously.
“Damon.” Her own is breathless and confused in comparison. Her default setting it seems.
He holds a glass of juice in her direction. She notes; freshly squeezed. Accepts the offering without commenting on the tremble of his extended arm. His fingers, ice-cold against her wrist as he steps back into the doorway. Gives her space she hasn't yet requested.
She flicks her tongue out, moistens sleep-dry lips. Tastes the ghost of him still coated there.
Downs half the contents of the glass in a bid to forget.
- - -
Her fingers fumble clumsily against the too flat buttons of her cell phone. Tap out unsteady replies, one after the other, to the frantic texts that have arrived over-night. The sun has barely limped to present over the horizon but she figures they all deserve more than to worry needlessly about her.
There are other more worthy subjects after all.
Stefan...
She chokes back a sob that stings of betrayal. It is the least she deserves.
- - -
Damon watches her stilted movements through lashes barely dragged to half-mast. Silently tracks her agitated progress round the grand room like a motion detector from his position on the sofa.
She's refusing to let him do anything. Stand. Speak. Move.
He grants her the cloudy illusion of control. Carefully calculates the moment of least resistance.
“I'm going after him.”
She nods back a distracted “Mmm hmmm...” before catching herself.
“You're what?”
He shrugs because he knows she's heard him loud and clear. Drags his gaze to where his fingers sit loosely in his lap. Wonders if the fact that he can't quite feel them is at all problematic.
“No.” She spits the word like it means something. Like it might just have the power she needs to make him take back his declaration. “No, you can't.”
And he thinks the real truth might be about to arrive.
“You can't because I am.” A pause before; “Besides, you have to stay here to keep them all safe while I'm gone.”
And there it is.
He wonders at what point she came to think of him as someone she could trust to look after the people that mean the most to her.
And if she'll ever understand that it is not their safety he'd fight to the death to protect.
The fierce determination in her voice is nothing new to him. It is the vague threads of fear and apprehension that ring with somewhat less familiarity. He latches onto them, chooses to use her neon-bright shortcomings to his own desperate advantage.
“You do realise you're only human, right?”
She blinks back, lips pouted into a soundless o. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you'll die.” He shrugs his shoulders carelessly, as though the notion doesn't terrify him to his hollowed out core, “You go after Klaus, you're dead.”
“I have no intention of 'going after Klaus'. I'm going to get Stefan.”
He snorts harshly at the absurdity inherent in her statement. At the sobering notion that she may not understand those things are one and the same.
“I'm--” She stumbles over the words as she fights to continue, like she's making up her argument as she trips along. And perhaps she is, hands on her hips and dark eyes bright with tears she'll do her best to never shed in front of him. “This is not up for debate, Damon.”
Spits his name like he's the five year old he can never remember being.
He pushes up from the couch, stalks toward her at a speed he knows she'll never track. Has her up against the wall with his numb fingers wrapped loosely around her throat, one stretched up to split her lips in half, shhhhhh. She blinks and fat tears coat the back of his hand, salt-water slick. He lets her go without word. Knows his point has been more than made as he turns; pretends he doesn't hear her sink to seated on her heels, soft sobs shattering the otherwise empty silence.
- - -
In the end they both go. And perhaps the most absurd thing about the hours that preceded the final compromise of sorts is that Elena's almost certain both of them knew this outcome was inevitable from the very start.
She sighs into her palm, watches as her hot breath momentarily fogs the passenger window of her car. Blanks out the world for a split second or several before slowly receding to reveal more of the same.
She lost the paper/scissors/rock that determined the driver for the first leg of their rescue mission. Has resigned herself instead to swimming amid the what ifs and maybes that have truncated her every thought since Katherine's announcement that Stefan was gone.
She watches the faded grey of the highway disappear under the hood of the car as the miles tick by soundlessly.
One by one by one by one towards a hazy horizon that doesn't seem to creep any closer.
three
Elena wakes to the dull green-grey glow of the laptop screen as it illuminates the crappy motel room they're calling home for the night. The bed at her back is cool. She knows without needing to roll over that it remains empty. She brings her hands up to her face instead. Scrubs shaking fingers against her eyes, sandpaper-rough behind her lids, and feels the never-ending exhaustion seep just that little bit deeper into her marrow.
The curtains, thin and pulled slightly askew, tell her that it's still the middle of the night. Heavy cloud cover, the last remnants of the rainstorm they'd encountered that afternoon, blanks out any moonlight that might otherwise have lit the night sky.
She sits then, pushes slowly to upright and gives her eyes a second or several to adjust to the muted light. Seeks out his silhouette where he appears uncomfortably hunched in a wooden chair. He's mumbling under his breath, erratic, panicked, and it takes her longer than it probably should to realise that he must be dreaming.
The revelation is a slap in the face.
She slings the covers back, weighs up her options for a beat before swinging her feet floor-ward and padding across the threadbare carpet towards him.
It's cold in the room. Chilly night air sneaking inside through the gap under the door, through the vent that threads the bare wall above it, through the badly cracked bathroom window. She shivers, longs to wrap the covers back around her shoulders and bury her head into the surprisingly fluffy pillow she's just abandoned.
Figures he must be freezing, asleep at the table. Vows to wake him gently and convince him to get into the bed. And it's a sound plan, she thinks.
Until it's not.
Her hands are headed in his direction even before her voice can catch up with a whispered version of his name.
Damon startles then, at the shift in air across his face, at the sharp sound of a car door slamming on the other side of the street, at whatever it was that had been happening deep inside his subconscious, he doesn't examine the content of his dreams too closely these days.
Does in fact learn from past mistakes, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
But he spins now, stumbles and has her pressed up against the creaking plasterboard wall before she can register that he's even awake. Before he, himself, can register that the dream has ended. This is real-life on repeat. A forearm across her throat and fangs, already descended.
“Damon.”
The word barely rumbles its way to vocalised as her vision begins to blur out at the edges. She brings her hands up. Works her fingers into place on either side of his face. He hasn't made a move to do anything beyond restrain her so far, but she's practised enough in the nuances of 'vampire' to know that that could change in a split second.
“Damon, you're hurting me.” She kicks out with feet that she's sure must be inches from the floor. Feels her bare toes connect with his shin bone. Doubts he even registers the contact even as she prays desperately for him to drop her.
Which he does.
“Elena.” Whisper soft. Laced with a degree of mortification that she's yet to have encountered with him.
She manages to get her feet back beneath her before she hits the ground. Remains upright but only just, as he seems to stagger backwards. Trips over nothing, over everything that has come between them, falls. Doesn't even make a sound as the back of his head collides solidly with the worn metal base at the bottom of the double bed they've not yet managed to share. If he feels the impact then he certainly doesn't react to it as the sound of skull on rusty metal fills the room to full, to overflowing.
She crouches down, her suddenly sweat-slick back still against the wall she'd just slid the length of, one hand kneading at the tissue surrounding her throat while the other wraps protectively around her middle.
His hands are balled into white-knuckled fists by his sides. And he's breathing like he's just run a marathon despite the lack of any real need to do so.
“It's okay,” she offers. Knows without needing to think that it is no such thing. Tries again nonetheless, “Damon, it's okay. It's my fault, I shouldn't have-”
“Did I hurt you?” Like the notion that he might have is more than he can ever hope to bear.
“No.” She's on her knees then, crawling across the rough carpet towards him. “No, I'm fine. See?” Wraps her fingers around his ankles tightly, the only contact she can bring herself to initiate, “I'm just fine.”
She swallows and the motion is more than uncomfortable. Makes a liar out of her almost immediately. There will be bruises. Of that she is certain. Figures she can deal with that revelation when the sun rises and brings with it a fresh perspective.
“Let's go to bed, yeah?” She nods at him, silent encouragement. “I'll be back in a second.” Slips into the bathroom and leans back against the door as she closes it behind her. Takes a deep breath or several in a desperate attempt to get her heart rate under some kind of tentative control. Mentally berates herself for entertaining the dim-witted notion that sneaking up on a sleeping vampire in the throes of a nightmare and attempting to wake him up could ever end well.
She counts to seventy three. Intends to make it all the way to one hundred but her teeth are chattering so severely by the time she reaches fifty that even her revised target of seventy five proves too much. Forces herself to give him a minute or two to regain his composure, sort his head-space out and hopefully get into bed.
Passes the time by staring at her own ragged reflection in the water-marked mirror above the sink. Runs a finger down the centre of her face and splits the distorted image into before and after.
Before then, after now. Considers the intervening time period as some kind of alternate reality filled with far too much un-holy horror to really process as something true.
- - -
Elena's departure, abrupt as it is, serves to push him into motion. Paces several lengths of the cramped motel room before settling on two options. Booze or bed.
Bed or booze.
Resists the pull of chemical oblivion, but only just.
When she braves re-entering the room, the laptop screen has been pushed to closed and it takes her a moment to detect where he's moved to, curled into himself as he is on the side of the bed that she'd been sleeping in earlier. His back is to her, deliberately no doubt, and dimly lit by the faded streetlight that leeches through curtains still askew. A glint of red stains the nape of his neck, blood leaked, still leaking, from where his head had hit the base of the bed. She brings her fingers up tentatively, runs them loosely through the black curls knotted there and tries not to be too disappointed when he flinches violently under her touch.
The cut, now mostly healed, disappears up into his hairline, and she uses its presence as an excuse to burrow closer to him. To lose her fingers in the silky black that surrounds his left ear and bring her knees up so that they fit into the right-angled gap created by his own. Waits until she's sure he's not about to protest before dropping her hand and wrapping her arm solidly around his ribs.
Whispers a silent mantra into his shoulder-blades that she'll do whatever it takes to get him through this. To rescue Stefan. To put everything back to the way it had been.
Refuses in that moment to admit that things have already been irrevocably altered.
eight
They're thirty seven miles south of the Canadian border, following information provided by a vague one-sided cell phone conversation with Alaric back in Mystic Falls, when it happens for the first time. Elena is driving, having snatched the keys from the bench they'd stopped at an hour or so back and refused to hand them over again. Creeping the vehicle just a few extra clicks over the limit and refusing to look sideways at his exaggerated exclamations of disbelief.
“Elena Gilbert. I believe that last sign we passed said fifty five miles per hour. Not sixty...” he reaches across her to get a clearer view, “... three. Lead-foot.”
He wraps his hands around the seat-belt that crosses his chest. Uses the angle to press his fingertips into the ribs just below his left arm. Barely manages to conceal a wince at the sudden pressure building up there.
It feels like someone is sitting on his chest. Or has wrapped some kind of vice around his ribcage and is methodically tightening the screws. He shifts in his seat, attempts to adjust his position in order to lessen the discomfort.
“Are you okay?”
She doesn't look up from the road as she asks. Keeps her eyes front and centre as soft snow begins to blanket the hood of the car, to pepper the black stretch of road ahead. Dares him to give her a straight answer.
Dares him to tell her the truth.
He thinks this might just be the forty seven thousandth time she's muttered those words since they set off eight days ago. They're beginning to lose all sense of meaning as he nods his head mechanically, mutters back his standard, “I'm fine.” Contemplates adding a quick never better, but decides against the possibility of raising any red flags. Figures there's no point freaking her out over a little indigestion.
Right?
By the time they reach the customs check point he's almost beyond the point of hiding anything from her. The three minutes that it takes to compel the border guard into letting them past is almost more than he can stand.
“Damon?” She can see the obvious discomfort. That he still thinks he's capable of hiding it from her stirs something deep and primal. She shoves her foot against the accelerator with more disjointed force than is strictly necessary.
He can feel the forward momentum of the car start to pick up again as they head deeper into Canadian territory. Tilts his head back against the seat, does his level best not to scream.
“Damon? What's going on?”
He hears her jam the signal to on, swerve the car a little further to the right and up onto the gravel shoulder. Skid the heavy vehicle to a sliding stop before fisting her hands into the front of his shirt, dragging the sleeves up to his elbows in an effort to no doubt double check the location of the now healed wolf bite.
“Damon? Wake up. Are you okay? What's going on?” Doesn't give him a chance to answer one question before spilling the next one out onto his lap.
“Shhhh...”
“Damo--”
“Elena, I'm fine.” A lie, that much is more than obvious, even to him.
Especially to her.
He tugs his sleeves back into place by his wrists defiantly nonetheless, “Just drive the car.”
“No, Damon, what the hell?” Incredulous. She can see her eyes, saucer wide, reflected in the rear-view mirror as she checks the flow of traffic that passes them, oblivious. “You almost passed out.”
“I'm a vampire, Elena, I don't pass out.” He brings his hands up, eyes still closed, curls his fingers into air quotes to sling around his mimicry. “I just... I guess it's gonna take a little longer than I'd hoped to get back to normal. Compelling that guard was...” He shrugs, unsure how to finish the lie of omission. Settles on avoiding it altogether. “Just, keep heading north. Ric said something about a lake near Saint Gabriel so, that's where we're going.”
“I think-- ” She thinks a lot of things these days. Mostly, Stefan and Oh, God and Jenna and I can't... “I think we should turn--”
“Elena, seriously. If we turn around I'll just have to compel another guard. Are you trying to kill me?”
She huffs, he can imagine the indignation painted across her face and manages to prise his eyelids open just enough to see the evidence for himself.
“I'm fine,” he reiterates, wills it to be true with everything that he has, “I'm just gonna sleep for a while, okay?”
She nods enthusiastically, her hair spilling more completely from the messy pony tail she'd dragged it into that morning. She tucks a stray tendril behind her left ear, keeps nodding. Wonders if maybe she's forgotten how to stop.
“Okay, yes good. Sleep is good. You need to sleep more. Oh--” Stops again, remembers something vital. “Oh, no. We ran out of blood. What if--”
He reaches his hands up, captures her flailing limbs in his. “I'm fine, Elena. I'll get some later. Just drive, okay? Highway forty, straight up until we need to turn left on thirty one into Joliette. Can you do that?'
She's back to nodding again. Isn't entirely sure the last disjointed head bob she started has yet to slow to still, one mute agreement melting into the next.
And sometimes it's just easier that way. So she's beginning to realise.
“Good. Wake me up when we get there.”
Damon is convinced he doesn't sleep. At least, not really, not at first. Keeps his eyes resolutely closed in order to carry out the facade for Elena's benefit, but uses the endless hours that tick by to develop and subsequently discard theory after theory for what the fuck is going on.
Notes with some degree of relief that the agony subsides steadily from the crescendo it had managed to reach at the border.
He must have succumbed to exhaustion at some point, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady rhythm of the car beneath him and the muted echo of Elena butchering song lyrics but at least managing to do so with some degree of melody.
She startles him to awake with the slam of her car door in the parking lot of a road-side motel. He tries not to think too hard about the motivation behind the duck and run tactics she's taken to using when waking him up. Tries not to re-live the time she went for a gentler option and it almost got her killed.
Tries valiantly.
Fails in the end anyway.
The air temperature outside the car is shocking as Elena navigates a gauntlet of puddles and packed snow that separates the parking lot from the reception. Can't help the sudden sadness that descends when she laments that this is not how she'd planned to spend her first night in Canada. Naïve fantasies of Cirque du Soleil and impossibly enchanting locals serving her the finest coffee she's ever tasted. Red wine and ice skating under a thousand twinkling fairy lights.
Forces herself into a deep breath that almost freezes her lungs to frozen solid and pushes against the worn wooden door marked with a faded Welcome that is inexplicably missing the l.
We come.
Yes, we do.
Damon uses the cover of her turned back to scrub his hands across his face and pretend he's not watching the swing of her ass as she crosses the half empty lot and pushes her way into the brightly lit entrance. He cracks the window an inch or several so he can hear her book the room. Keeps one ear on the casual conversation about free WIFI and continental breakfast even as he's retrieving her phone from the console in the centre of the dash and searching her contacts list for Bonnie's number.
Hastily transfers the information into his own phone for later and tosses hers back into the space he'd dragged it from. Replaces the candy wrappers that had been covering it and vows to make the call once she's sleeping. Figures it's the only sensible conclusion he's managed to come to along the journey so far.
He pushes his door open then. Stretches to standing and rubs the heel of his hand absently against the phantom ache in his chest. Frowns at how completely back to normal he now feels and can't help but wonder whether he maybe imagined the whole thing. Thinks back to the side-splitting agony that had engulfed him not hours earlier and concludes that it was very real.
- - -
The room they fall into is everything and nothing like all the other rooms they've lived in these past few nights. The names may alter somewhat. The décor may shift from orange, to brown, to a faded mint green.
Very little else changes.
And the haunted look in her eyes only deepens.
He calculates one hundred and ninety seven hours have elapsed.
Elena gave up the count days ago.
- - -
They settle on a make-shift dinner of surprisingly good burgers and fries at a cafe across the street from their accommodation. Damon slings his arm casually along the curve of her shoulders as they dodge the spray kicked up by a passing SUV.
Convinces himself it means nothing when she doesn't immediately shake herself free.
The waitress scrubs resolutely at the Formica counter tops that surround them in the otherwise empty cafe and Elena even manages a stilted giggle when the radio is turned off pointedly the moment their last fry is devoured.
“You think she's trying to tell us something?”
He answers her with a deliberate slurp of his empty soda glass and vows to make her laugh at least once every night from now on.
When she grins and lifts her gaze to meet his, at once bright and unguarded, he thinks the degree to which she must hate him for securing Stefan's fate has faded an inch or several.
Feels his own ramp up a notch at the notion.
- - -
He waits until her breathing evens into a rhythm that threatens to drown him. An hypnotic pulse that works its way under his fingernails.
He slips soundlessly out into the frigid night air then, scrolls the length of his contacts list for Bonnie's number.
Paces out laps of the parking lot at human speed for something to do while he gathers together the patience that a conversation with the witch is going to require. Reminds himself, more than once, to tone down the jerk that she never fails to drag out of him.
He gets her voicemail after eight rings. Disconnects the call impatiently before hitting re-dial.
“Hello?” Sleep muffled. He'd feel guilty if it were anyone else.
Smirks wryly.
Concedes. No he wouldn't.
“It's Damon,” he explains, figures they're well and truly past the need for fake pleasantries. “I have a question.”
“Who?” Drags a pillow to her chest with the motion required to sit bolt up-right.
And frankly, he thinks her confusion is more than a little insulting.
“Damon Salvatore” he drawls with more than a trace of derision. “You know, the evil vampire lord currently trawling the countryside with your bff to find the perfect boyfriend vampire and the murderous original vampire that stole off into the night with him.”
If he loses her mid-sentence it's fine. He loses himself too.
“Where's Elena?” She fails to hide the breathless panic that has worked its way into her bones. Split second fast.
“Um, well, it's like...” Guesses, “Four am. She's sleeping...”
“Damon.” His name as a warning. She itches to hang up but has to admit to being suddenly, oddly, intrigued by the notion that he'd resort to contacting her. “What do you want?”
“Now, now. Who said I want any--” He trails off, remembers his opening line. “Oh, that's right. I did. Yes.”
“Seriously?” He can almost hear the irritation build in every syllable she vocalises.
“Seriously.” Can't seem to help himself nonetheless. “I need you to check into something for me.”
She's silent on the other end. He can hear her muted exhalations echo across the network of fibre optic cells that separates them. Drags in a solidifying breath of his own before leaning his shoulder blades back against a damp power pole.
Bonnie drags her grandmother's grimoire from its hiding spot under a biology text book and a freshly washed sweater that hasn't quite made it to her closet as he speaks. Leafs idly through the faded pages as Damon's hollowed out voice filters down the line.
In the end she scratches out a paragraph and a little bit of notes and promises more than just half-heartedly that she'll look into it. See what she can find out.
That she'll get back to him without alerting Elena to the change in circumstances.
She baulks at that at first. Needs to physically stop and think and remember before she can nod her head once and agree. The less Elena knows about this the better.
For now at least.
ten - seventeen
They make it back across the border some days later. Waste gas on vast stretches of the Canadian country-side that yield little more than flat plains and the heady stench of losing ground fast, before turning the car south and limping over the line into North Dakota. Elena, exhausted to the point of delirium, finds herself oddly transfixed by the methodical up and down of the oil rigs that dot the horizon.
Giggles at the absurdity of the landscape until soda fizzes out her nostrils and Damon slams the car to a stop in order to more fully fix his incredulous gaze in her direction.
“Are you serious?”
“What?” She's still giggling, blinking back tears and wiping at her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.
They're long past the pretence of manners and dignity after all.
“I mean, look at it!” She gestures expansively out the window behind his canted head, “It's ridiculous!”
He doesn't bother with the view outside the car. Knows borderline hysteria when he sees it and vows to hole them both up in a motel for the night.
Another one.
- - -
They find a place to stay in Fargo and Damon makes sliding references to the Coen brothers while Elena squints her eyes at him blankly and reminds him with a self-satisfied grin that she was barely two years old in nineteen ninety six.
He huffs back that it doesn't matter. That anything produced by Joel and Ethan, Joel and Ethan, like he knows them both personally, and hell, she concedes silently, he probably does, is compulsory viewing. She shrugs loosely, bites heavily into an apple as she slides the curtains closed with her free hand. Watches his reflection in the glass as he rolls his eyes at her back with a shake of his head.
She can see he's got the heel of his hand pressed to the centre of his chest, and the echo of pain that ghosts his face matches macabre images she already has stored of him from weeks gone by.
He registers that she's caught him out in the same fraction of time that she opens her mouth to speak. But he's quicker than she is. He'll always be quicker. Has his back turned to her and is pretending to pull a toothbrush from his backpack by the time she's spun the required one eighty degrees to face him.
The dull throb had reignited in his ribcage about an hour ago. And while it wasn't getting any worse just yet, it was more than enough to be an uncomfortable warning.
- - -
“You'd tell me if something was wrong, wouldn't you?”
They've had the lights off for the best part of an hour. The rush of traffic swooping past on the rain wet street outside their window melting into the sound of her breath whistling in and out, out and in. He'd known she was still awake by the speed of the shallow inhalations. Tosses up pretending to be asleep with creating some kind of half-baked response.
Figures, either way, he's going to end up lying to her.
“Damon?”
Her bed creaks as her weight shifts and he can picture her sitting up, peering through the not-quite-dark in an attempt to make out his silhouette. He keeps his eyes resolutely pressed to closed. Wills her to lay back down and sleep. It's the only reason they’ve stopped after all.
“Damon?”
A little more insistent this time as her feet hit the expanse of carpet that separates their beds. She's no-where near convinced that he's sleeping but she thinks she might be just the right amount of willing to go along with his ruse. Can't quite bite back the feeling that for once, knowing might just out-weigh not knowing.
Slips quickly between the sheets and into the space against his back. Presses her arm along the cold length of his spine, closes her eyes against the muted memory of her lips on his and sends a silent promise to Stefan that they're on their way.
Hang on, we're coming...
Almost manages to convince herself that she hasn't already betrayed him one hundred ways to Sunday.
- - -
PART TWO