Name: elisabethjj
Story Title: Every me and every you
Character/Relationships: Elena/Damon, Elena/Stefan, Elena/OMC
Rating: T
Warnings: Non-explicit sexual scenes, character death like it's going out of fashion, yo.
Summary: Another century, but Mystic Falls has still got some familiar faces...
He's got his back to her when she first sees him; reaching down to grab a bottle of water from the chequered blanket on the ground. He's been playing football with the other young guys- most all the town's out here on the grass- and there's a sheen of sweat glistening over his unclothed back. It sparkles in the sunlight.
She knows the clean cut lines of his back, can trace perfectly the planes of muscle as they broaden into smooth, pale shoulders, not a freckle in sight.
It's been twelve years since she last came (home) to Mystic Falls, but now she smiles, because she knows she left it until just the right moment. She waits- patiently, because she's already waited 86 years and another few moments won't kill her. Joke.
Finally- finally- he turns.
Startling blue-grey eyes beneath dark lashes, and he looks at her, assessing, one eyebrow raised to acknowledge her rude stare. She grins broadly: he looks so young it's almost heartbreaking. Cocky, too, though. Just the right blend of arrogance and charm in his leer as he shrugs into a shirt and saunters over to where she's sitting with her family, on their own sprawl of deck chairs and picnic blankets.
His piercing gaze and that sure, sexy smile she knows by heart stay focused on her, until he's right there, close enough to touch. His gaze slides sideways and it's the girl sitting next to her that he speaks to.
'Rae,' he says, all deep husk and painfully familiar. 'Didn't know you had a friend staying with you.'
Raelyn smiles tightly.
'This is my cousin, Elena,' she tells him, fussing with the baby playing in front of her who's trying to wriggle his way onto Elena's lap, which… is not allowed. Not that Elena would mind, but Raelyn's a whole lot more wary of Elena than she was twelve years ago; she's got the kids to think about now.
The doppelganger's staring at Elena like he's some kinda hypnotized, and Elena knows her expression is just the wrong side of predatory as she reaches a hand delicately towards him, even as Raelyn continues the introductions.
'Elena, this is-'
'Damon,' Elena breathes, before she can catch herself; lips moving of their own accord as his hand closes over hers. He's the spitting image, and now she knows how Stefan and Damon must have felt, all those years ago, when they were confronted by the perfect replica of their long-lost lover.
'Aron,' he corrects her, but amused, like he's not bothered by her strangeness.
'Sorry,' she says, looking anything but. 'You remind me of someone I used to know.'
Aron blinks and Elena watches his lips curve a slow smile, fights to urge to drag him down and taste those lips, feel the scrape of his five o clock shadow against her cheek. She can still remember the exact sensation. Sometimes, it's all she can remember.
'A good association, I hope.'
Good, bad, wonderful, terrible… yes.
'You'd have liked him,' she says, finally, although it's probably a lie because, deep down, the person Damon really liked the least of all the world was himself. Thankfully, Aron nods politely and lets it go.
'So, are you visiting for the Founders Day picnic?' Aron smirks like it's a private joke between them. 'You don't seem like the picnic-ing type somehow.'
Raelyn and the rest of the family snort not so subtlety into their napkins, and Elena almost feels sorry for how much Aron doesn't get it.
'Maybe I just really like Founder's Day,' Elena says. 'After all, the Gilbert's are one of the founding families of Mystic Falls.'
'Yeah, know how that goes,' Aron says, without rancor. 'My family moved back here when I was a kid, but, a long time ago, they owned the house Rae lives in. It used to be the Salvatore boarding house. My ancestor Zachary Salvatore left it to his nephews, and they gave it to a friend… I guess, your great-great-something-grandfather?'
Elena doesn't need the history lesson. She remembers perfectly well when Jeremy inherited the boarding house. It was just after Elena died. When she and the Salvatore brothers had left Mystic Falls for good. She'd been twenty, stupid in love, with a blood lust that put even Katherine to shame. Until the day he'd died, Jeremy always welcomed Elena home with a boyish grin and shit-eating little brother attitude that reminded her who she was. If his descendents keep it up more out of respect for Jeremy's memory than true affection for their ethereally beautiful but deadly relative, well, Elena's still grateful to keep a connection to this town. Mystic Falls gave her Stefan and Damon; the true love of her life, the true heartbreak of her life.
'You're a Salvatore,' Elena says, and it doesn't sound like a question, because it isn't, but even Aron can tell there's something ebbing under the surface of her pretty laugh as the name rolls over her tongue like it belongs there.
Later, when she's letting Aron bruise her lips with his kisses, she has a moment where she could swear its Damon's hands pinning hers to the bed. Swears its Damon's lithe, hard frame rolling above her, crushing her perfectly under his weight, drawing tiny moans from her she thought she'd forgotten how to make.
'Mine forever,' she says, breathily. She's high on sheer joy filling every pore, open and wondrous, not like herself at all. Not like she's been for the longest while anyway. The rumbling moan Aron makes into the crook of her neck is a good enough response for her. She waits until he's exquisitely lost in that tiny death before she bites down hard on her wrist, forcing her flesh and her blood into Aron's mouth. His tongue is hot and greedy on her skin, before he comes down enough to register the taste and he pulls back, mouth red and horrified. Elena's face is black eyed and vein-ridden as she kisses him, then her teeth clamps into his throat with primal strength that will suddenly, uselessly, scare him as she feeds, and soothes him through the bigger (real) death.
While she's waiting for him to come back to her, she calls Stefan.
'I found him,' she says, and feels the wash of Stefan's emotion down the phone line. 'I'm coming home. We both are.'
She doesn't worry for a second that Aron might say no. He doesn't realise it yet, but he loves her, and he's going to love Stefan too.
'We're going to be a family again.'
Elena smiles, and twists Damon's ring on her finger.
END