This was written for jazzrose343 , the winner of my help_haiti auction, who generously donated for Haitian relief &hearts
Damon had once thought that his tortured existence was centered around getting Katherine back. He still thinks it, although somewhere deep inside tells him otherwise. All the outer edges of his brain, his body, they keep humming for Katherine to be back in his arms, in his bed, in his heart.
Damon had never really felt alive, even when he technically had been alive. The closest he ever came were the hours he spent with Stefan but, even then, the camaraderie of brotherhood only lasted so long, only took him so far. It had been Katherine that had really set something alight in him.
The Confederate Army had taken Damon away from his brother, from his first lifeline. He spent his days marching with eyes wide shut and his mind wandering elsewhere. He had been a good soldier, reveling in the violence of it maybe too much. He was focused, centered in the eye of the storm, taking orders, issuing small commands. It was during the lulls of the war, the ceasefires and the marches, when his eyes became hazy and his mind vacant. He was just a shell, a body that obeyed the shouts of his general and lieutenant like a reflex.
When he came home, when he tussled around in his brother's arms playing something that passed for football, was just the beginning of something more and Damon could feel it. He just didn't know it was because Katherine was coming that day.
Now, now that that little bitch had told him that Katherine had never been in that tomb, that she had iseen/i her in Chicago... Damon wanted to believe that she was lying, that she was just trying to throw something else in his face because she had won this one, she'd gotten her mother back, and she wanted Damon to know it. That was the pretty lie Damon told himself over and over, trying to drill the concept into that deep core that told him that Katherine didn't love him...and never had.
He shook himself away from those thoughts. He still felt that distant pull, like somewhere far away, Katherine's blood was singing to him. If he was more of a girl like Stefan, he'd ask his brother if he ever felt that same pull. If that was true, then Stefan just must have been better able to ignore it.
At least, that was what he thought before he meet Elena. Elena, who wasn't a Gilbert by birth. It was like Katherine had returned to him in the smallest way. He could look at her face again, even if he did it through slanted eyes. He could never really tell if Elena just fueled his need to get Katherine back or if she made the time he had to wait for his plans to come to fruition easier to bear. Maybe her Pierce blood drew him in like Katherine's, maybe she held a similar power. Damon couldn't tell and, really, he didn't want to.
Elena had spent the night again. She'd spent several nights with Bonnie and apparently, now it was Stefan's turn for a little cuddle comfort. "Don't you have a home?" Damon said as he loped into the kitchen, the cuffs of his pajama pants pooling and dragging around his shuffling feet.
"I just happen to like yours better," Elena came back, wrapped in one of Stefan's obnoxiously preppy button ups. She was pouring herself a cup of coffee in the weak, early morning sun. Damon chuckled internally at the irony of calling the sunlight weak; without his ring, even these white, soft rays would burn him. Elena's hands are wrapped around the mug as she takes a cautious sip. Damon realized that if she was Katherine, this would be when he would smile and kiss her lips. This would be when he wrap his hands around her hips and let his pinkies trail below the hem to the skin on her thighs, the skin he would have already felt every inch of the night before. Instead, Damon just advanced, cocking an eyebrow as he stole the cup right from her hands and taking an overexaggerated gulp just to see the indignance on her face. He put the cup back in her hands and smirked, jumping up to sit on the countertop beside her. He watched curiously as she took another sip from the cup, like he hadn't just drank from it. Any other time, she would have made a great dramatic showing of pouring the coffee out, making sure he knew she was going back to Stefan, like she thought that would wound him. He had to wonder if this was Elena still trying to apologize to him for Katherine not being in the tomb. He grabbed the mug again, just trying to push her buttons. "So, you leave him sated and happy?" he said crassly.
"Hn," she snorted, an obscene little smile on her face as she stole the coffee back. "You mean you didn't hear?"
"I don't stick around for the big show," he replied dryly.
She too another drink before he stole the cup again. "Jealous?"
"I think I liked you better when you hated me," Damon huffed over the lip of the cup. Elena turned and leaned her back against the counter, elbows jutting back to support her. He could feel the warmth of her arm next to his leg. She flips her hair over her shoulder, her neck and shoulder exposed to the sunlight. She's looking up at the ceiling and he can see the pulse thrumming in her neck. "I never hated you, Damon," she sighed.
"Could've fooled me."
She smiled, her eyes closed. "Yeah, okay, I didn't hate you but doesn't mean you were my favorite person either."
"Oh, everyone always picks a favorite Salvatore brother," he teased. She took the cup back and drained the last of the coffee from it. "Strangely, it seldom seems to be me." He saw her roll her eyes and he took the joke further. "Who would think? I'm dashing." She answered by pushing herself away from the counter. "Going back to Sleeping Beauty?"
"Yes," she smiled, tugging on the cuff of Stefan's shirt.
"Save some room for me," Damon yelled over his shoulder, filling the mug up again.
"Ugh," she half-laughed and half-groaned, "just make sure you jump on Stefan, not me." He couldn't help but snort into the hot coffee, feeling tiny drops burn his nose. "Damon," she said, her voice dropping to a more serious note.
"Uh oh," he intoned. "Are you going to scold me now?"
She smiled, shaking her head. "No, I just..."
"Ah, ah," he waved a dismissing hand at her as he tried to mainstream more coffee into his system. "No declarations of love with Stefan within earshot," he said, tapping his ear and making a face like this was all a big secret affair.
She nodded, leaning against the molding around the doorway."Good morning, Damon," she smiled. She turned around, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she made her way back upstairs. Damon couldn't help but feel his blood rush a little faster, feel like the center of his gravity had shifted from wherever Katherine was to the woman walking up the stairs, smelling so strongly of his brother. He shakes it off again, that feeling of change. That deep center part of Damon that already knew about Katherine's soulless way, that part was trying to tell Damon to stop chasing her, to stop fighting it, to let his focus shift and grow. Instead, he fills the mug a third time because he can still taste her on the rim.
"Good morning."