He's gone. He's been gone. Stephan is gone and Damon is here. I'm here too, but it's not the same me. I've changed so completely. Both physically and emotionally.
Stephan left. I realized that only one person had ever successfully pieced me back together, brick by boring, self-destructive, angry, and bitter. That person was not Stephan and I had an epiphany that it never would be. Granted this epiphany came after a late night of very strong liquor and an early morning "intimate" meeting with the toilet bowl, which is uncommonly clean for a house inhabited by (previously) two cleaning impaired vampires.
Damon. The one matching me drink for drink when I felt that I needed to drink my feelings into oblivion. The one holding my hair after I decided that the liquor had to be strong and consumed in large quantities. The one that held me as I cried, not saying anything, so that we could pretend that it never happened the next day. The one that allowed me to pretend that I was strong, that I was unaffected, that I was ice, and then sought me out when I was alone to make sure that I wasn't doing anything that would be regretted later. The one that gets stupidly drunk with me and then yells at me, in a fit of rage after I poke all the right buttons to provoke a reaction (I.e. telling him that I loved him, well slurring the three words really), that I was just like Katherine. That I was definitely her doppelganger, falling for both brothers. What he didn't understand and what I didn't bother to tell him was that I loved Stephan like I loved Jeremy. He was like a brother, a confidant, someone to run to when I have a bad day, but definitely not the face I wish to see the most after I've well past soaked my pillow with tears.
More changes had appeared after Stephan left as well. We managed to, finally, defeat Klaus, though not without casualties. I lost Jeremy, which I thought would kill me, and it nearly did, well I nearly did, but Damon was there before I was anywhere near the brink of meeting with my family again, forcing me to move into the boarding house with him, relieving Alaric of his "watch dog" duties and allowing him to grieve for the death of his girlfriend properly. After losing my brother, much drinking with Damon, and a few slurred fights as well Bonnie, in a one-witch quest for vengeance, found a way to kill Klaus after well over four days straight of pouring over grimiore after grimiore. This way entailed someone to get Klaus to turn him and then kill him. Originals could only be killed by their own blood, was what all the books had read, we had just taken them the wrong way.
Bonnie is a witch, that fact alone making her ineligible for the job of killing Klaus, much to her dismay, Alaric refusing vehemently to become anything like Damon, even if it did mean killing Klaus, Damon already being a vampire, therefore unable to be sired, Stephan as Klaus's little lap dog, as well as already being sired to Katherine, and Katherine both missing as well as a vampire. That left one person. I would have gladly done it, even if I wasn't the only logical, or possible for that matter, choice. Klaus had taken everything from me, and I wanted to take my life, right, why not use it for a better purpose. Put it to use, if I didn't want it. I convinced Klaus, and don't ask me how I did this, because I'm even oblivious, to give me his blood and then kill me. I wish that I could say that I took my own sweet time killing him, but alas the blood lust was a killer… literally. I drained him dry. As an after effect of both being changed by an original and draining him as dry as the Sahara, I was stronger, faster than just about all vampires. Only originals could even hope to hold a flame to me, but I played it off. Pretending to everyone, even Damon, that I was no more powerful than the everyday newbie vamp.
I was a vampire, with blonde hair and blue eyes, a side affect of the original's transformation, I was in love with Damon, Stephan was gone, as was Katherine, and Klaus was dead, as was my brother. I was living at the boarding house, feeding off of bagged human blood (don't start with morals, you try killing these cravings with deer, Stephan was either incredibly strong, or highly insane) and trying to develop a relationship with Damon Salvatore. The problems with creating a relationship were more on my part than his.
After joining the "night" (so cliché, by the way) I broke down in private less and less often, never even so much as cracking in public. Which gave Damon fewer and fewer chances to come to my rescue. I was closing off my emotions, but I wasn't losing my humanity. No, what I was doing was something very different. I was closing off all emotions, feeling nothing, not even anger, or self-pity. I felt nothing, and I liked it that way. The only thing that I even thought of letting myself continue feeling was my love for the oldest Salvatore brother, way past leaving behind my concern for the youngest, he was alive and he wasn't going around leaving massacres in his wake. In my hazy mind, that was all that mattered.
These days everything was hazy, though. As far as anyone was concerned, I left town the second after Jeremy's body was in the ground, but that wasn't true, preferring to lock myself inside the boarding house all day, with Damon as my companion, most of the time, sometimes Caroline, Tyler, or Bonnie would drop by, and I would pretend that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, I was the old Elena and that was all there was to it, I had to be. With Damon around all the time, I eventually stopped caring if he saw me shut down, lock away my emotions or even break down, if it really came to that.
He didn't like the new Elena, though he said nothing about it. I sat in his house, diligently tending to the vervain crop in the basement when no one was looking because I was the only one knowledgeable of the crop that could actually stand being anywhere near it. When I got bored enough, I eventually turned to the Salvatore's huge collection of books. The ones in the study weren't even half of them. Exploring the house one day, for lack of anything better to do, I had found the library, long forgotten and covered in dust, that room became my haven. Still is. I usually just slept on the small reading couch perched in front of the seemingly endless books, but eventually Damon felt guilty for my sleeping on a couch and moved one of the beds in there. He would sometimes sit and chat with me, or just read by my side on the small couch, trying to touch me as little as possible, still feeling guilt ridden for my new "permanent" state.
I read my way through the library pretty quickly. Moving onto Stephan's personal collection that was left behind, I finished that in no time, going to Giuseppe's study. After I was finished reading every book I could find, Damon offered to let me read his own personal collection, I had been extremely surprised, but took the offer feverishly, desperate for something to do. We would have left town by now, but with things that still needed to be handled in town and some loose ends that needed tying, Damon was staying in Mystic Falls for a while and I had previously made it clear that I would not leave without him, him agreeing that it would be for the best.
All these events leading to me curled up on Damon's bed, to lazy to leave his room, reading a book, taking in the scents of the room. The scents of him. It was a boring book, really. Some old horror story. Scary, but at the moment I just wasn't in the mood, which was perfect, because the door to his bedroom opened. Damon stood there, staring at me. Dressed in only one of his black button downs that barely covered my butt and my underwear, picked out by him because I couldn't leave the house, which were unnecessarily sensual. He shook his head and walked over to the end of his bed, dropping his coat. I closed the book, not bothering to mark the page, and crawled on the bed until my face was directly in front of his, from his leaning over to drop his jacket and remove his shoes. I stared into his clear blue eyes with a playful smirk playing in my own dark blue ones.
He sighed, knowing that something bad was bound to come out of this. "Let's play a game." I suggested, well more like demanded, but still. His answer came a mock tired look and then a playful twitch of his lip. I had him. "And what would you like to play, my dear, little Elena?" My smile grew in both intensity and size. "How about hide and seek?" He smiled back, revealing all of his teeth. He jumped across the bed and pinned my wrists among the pillows, nuzzling his nose into my neck. "I win," he mumbled against my skin. I shivered at the feeling of his breath. "No fair," I smacked his back, not at all meaning the chastising gesture. I could feel his lips pull into a smile. "Doesn't have to be," came his reply. As he chuckled from his little joke, his lips pulled back from his teeth, allowing me to feel the sharp canines. He never was patient.
I tilted my head allowing him better access. I felt the aching sting of his teeth, but it didn't hurt, I was far too used to it by now for it to hurt. If I was being honest with myself, both the vampire and human inside me loved it. I loved any close contact I got with him. He didn't take nearly enough to affect me. I wasn't even dizzy, but then again that might have to do with being a vampire, but I also knew that if I got dizzy, or even a little pale, he would feel so terrible about it that the next time he drank, he would take barely any. The only reason why he drank from me instead of the bags, was of my insisting. I had told him that he should and once he did, I was hooked, I couldn't let him stop, and he didn't.
Later that night, after Damon had fallen asleep, tired from a long day of duking it out (metaphorically) with sheriff Forbes had left him drained of all energy, my blood only helping to make him more drowsy, leaving him with a feeling of satisfaction. I slipped out of the bed, not going far, just to the window in the drawing room, my usual late-night perch. I sat in the small seat that jutted out of the window frame, curling up against the wall, staring up at the stars. "Without darkness, you fail to see the stars." She remembered her mother speaking the old proverb to Jeremy and herself before tucking them both in for the night. Yeah, she snorted, wouldn't that be nice, too bad the clouds are blocking the stars. That was a saying she had come up with herself, using it as a metaphor for her life. Forget stars, she thought as she stared up at the glorious moon, only the weak rely on stars, as long as I have my moon, I'll always be alright. Using the moon as a metaphor for Damon, her rock. She felt that it suited him well. She hadn't realized that silent tears were falling down her cheeks until a cool hand wiped them away. She looked up in surprise. Catching the clear blue eyes of a familiar vampire. Quickly she turned back to the window, wiping furiously at the traitorous liquid leaking from her eyes. She usually didn't mind that Damon see her break downs, but that was when she still broke down, when she didn't have an excuse not to feel.
She felt strong, lithe arms tuck under her curled legs and lift her up with ease. Placing her on his lap as he stole her spot. She curled into his shirt, feeling that he was happy, but sad at the same time. She could sense it in his body, his conflicting emotions. He was happy that she was finally showing some emotion that was even somewhat fake, but he was sad that that emotion had to be longing, loneliness. This is what he did. She thought that he held her, simply to offer silent comfort, but he held her to anchor her to earth. To remind her that she still had something here worth staying for.
She let her tears run free but refusing to lift her head when she was asked to do so by a pleading and gentle voice. When the voice became sterner, she finally decided to obey. Lifting her drenched face to his probing eyes. He gave her a small smile and she lifted her lips slightly in response, then leaned in, with a pleading look on her face. He moved towards her without hesitation, not even pondering the request. She whimpered as he gently pressed his lips to hers. She opened her mouth, grabbing a bit of his bottom lip between her teeth, biting in with her already elongated fangs.
She tasted his blood as she kissed him. Drank it in as the kiss deepened and sucked the blood from his lip as he gasped for breath after getting her release his mouth even the little bit that she did. She pulled away, her lips stained with his blood and swollen from the force of the kiss. He kissed her forehead and pulled her tighter into his body, trying to shield this fragile little being inside his very being. Sure, her body was about as sturdy as a tank, but her emotions were a mess. She didn't even want to try to untangle and face them all, so she just threw them back and waited until she would be forced to face them all.
He knew that in time she would come to truly love him, even if she said she did now, he wasn't so sure, but he knew that she would eventually. After she faced everything. After he finally pieced her back together. He knew that her heart would always have cracks in it, but he swore that he would always be there to make sure that those cracks didn't shatter her. He would put her together again. Piece by piece, minute by minute, and brick by boring, self-destructive, angry and bitter brick.