Title: Young Love
Author: OpheliacAngel
Characters: Damon/Enzo, Damon/Elena
Genres: Friendship/Romance
Rating: Teen
Summary: Enzo gave him stories of his own life to think about just so he could keep surviving. Elena gives him a bone-shattering hug, a kiss that moistens his cracked lips and a promise of forgiveness, but Damon doesn't want her forgiveness.
A/N: Written for h/c_bingo for the prompt 'hunger/starvation.' Spoilers for Season 5 up to and including the episode 'Fifty Shades of Grayson.'
"Don't think about the hunger, Damon. Think about something else, anything else."
Damon stares at his new best friend through the bars separating their two cells. He feels sick to his stomach, like he always does. The waiting is the worst, even worse than the torture. Feeling the cold walls of the cell dig into his back, Damon closes his eyes and relives the steel cutting into his skin, slicing him open for all to see. He's so thirsty, so hungry, but there's not a damn thing he can do about that. With the little bit of strength left in him after the last torture session several hours prior, he turns his head towards Enzo, who is huddled up against the bars, watching Damon warily as if he's all too set to break apart the bars and attack Enzo.
"Easy for you to say. You've had way more experience at this than I have."
"Well," Enzo smirks at him, hands flung over his knees, watching Damon a little too closely for comfort. Damon gets the feeling that Enzo likes him, but maybe it's just a forced like, maybe it's just out of necessity. Damon honestly hopes it's not, because Enzo's a great guy and seems to genuinely care about what happens to his new cellmate. And not to mention, Damon likes Enzo a whole helluva lot too. "Guess I'm the lucky one then. Come closer and I'll help you get your mind off it."
Damon coughs weakly, tasting fresh blood in the back of his mouth. He swallows, temped to lie down but too tired to move an inch. "That an invitation or a joke, friend?"
"It's the best invitation you're likely to get these days," Enzo answers. The other vampire's fingers curl around one of the bars and squeeze the metal, as if he can dissolve it and breach the space between them. Damon really wishes he could too. He lays his throbbing hands on the ground and pulls himself closer, and with each motion he feels himself breaking down, too quickly for Enzo to put him back together again. When he looks up he can see Enzo's eyes, desperate and worried. Concerned for him. "Take your time, Damon. It's not a race."
"Don't you think I know that?" Damon growls at him, the blisters on his hands slowing his movement. It seems a long way to Enzo, but hopefully he'll make it before one of them comes back. He nearly collapses against the bars when he reaches them, and one of Enzo's hands reaches through the bars and takes Damon's own, fingers carefully uncurling his fist and then squeezing Damon's bloody fingers. Damon winces, but Enzo's hands are warm and gentle and he wouldn't trade the other vampire for the world.
Enzo inquires in a whisper. "This okay, mate?"
Damon doesn't answer, merely leans his head back against the piercing metal and prays that Enzo will start telling him a story, anything to get his mind off the memory of pain and the uncontrollable need to feed. Enzo seems to know what he wants because he starts talking, rambling on and on about his kills and it's the sweetest thing Damon's ever heard, and when they come back for Damon and Enzo clasps his hand through the cage for what seems like the last time, screaming at them to take him instead, telling Damon that he loves him like a brother and loves him more than that as if he'll never see Damon again, when Damon is strapped to the table and being cut open he remembers those stories and they're the only thing that keeps him alive. He's more sure of that than of anything else.
If he dies then Enzo will be alone. Truly alone.
The second round is too much for Damon and he curls up in a ball in his cell, a ringing in his ears and a voice in his head that just won't stop. He has the good sense to curl up near Enzo, who still hasn't left his place clutching the bars, and the other vampire's hand immediately reaches for his own again, rubbing life and warmth back into it between both his hands. Damon doesn't respond, doesn't even move for fear of blacking out.
"Damon?" Enzo's voice is shaking, and Damon realizes he must pretty much look dead to his cellmate.
"Fine," he mumbles, because that's all he can get out of his mouth. He focuses on Enzo's hands, thinks about Enzo's lips brushing against his own, his thick accent saying his name again as if it's the only word he knows. He whimpers, curls up into himself tighter, tries to let the world drown away into nothing.
Enzo's hands curl tighter around his own. "Let me tell you about the time I..."
Damon smiles and finally sleeps. It doesn't look like Enzo's gonna be running out of stories anytime soon.
Elena finds out sooner rather than later. It doesn't help, the concerned look in her eyes or that he wants so badly to have her arms wrapped around him and that she seems more than willing to do just that. If he allows her to get too close then he'll back down from this, from all of it, but he can't. Somehow though, Elena always manages to get what she wants. She gives him a bone-shattering hug, a kiss that moistens his cracked lips and a promise of forgiveness, but Damon doesn't want her forgiveness.
He breaks right in front of her. "I'm hungry, Elena. Every time I think about that damn place I get so hungry I could devour a whole freaking town."
"It's okay, Damon. Really," Elena insists, her eyes big and wide and worried and so beautiful that Damon can feel his heart crushed underneath her gaze alone, let alone how genuinely sorry her voice sounds. "I'm not gonna judge you for something that happened decades ago. They hurt you, Damon. I know what it's like to lash out, to need release." Elena's voice starts to crack and Damon's resolve almost cracks along with it. "If that had happened to me and I did the same thing then you would forgive me too."
"But you wouldn't have done the same thing, Elena." He wants to shake her, wants to knock some sense into her, yet Elena looks more fragile than he feels right now. Maybe because she knows what she's about to lose. And dammit, Damon doesn't want to lose her, it's the last thing he wants. But it's his choice to make and he's making it. "That's the point! You're not a killer, and you don't hold grudges like I do. Don't you get that?"
He can practically hear Elena's heart breaking from across the room. He can't keep doing this, keep letting her down. "What am I supposed to get, Damon? Do you want me to hate you? Do you want me to push you away and tell you that you're a terrible person and that we shouldn't be together because of it?"
Damon finally grabs her arms and shakes her, but Elena doesn't look the least bit scared. Instead, she looks like she's exactly where she wants to be. "Yes! That's exactly what I want you to say!" He looks in her eyes but sees no disgust or hatred, so he steps away from her, infuriated, and paces the room. "I want you to tell me that I'm a bad person and that I don't deserve you."
"You do deserve me, Damon, but that's not the point. The point is that I love you. I chose you over Stefan and the sire bond had nothing to do with that. I love you, Damon. If I'm willing to lay down my life for you, then I should be more than willing to forget about your past. You may have done bad things, Damon, but you are not a bad person. You have done so much good since I've known you, and you will do more good. I know it. I love you, Damon."
He finally looks at her again, sees all the potential between them, all the great things they could achieve, all that Elena would let him get away with. And he just can't do it. "I can't, Elena. I can't do this anymore, can't let you ruin your life for me."
I'm a bad person. Vampire. Whatever. Doesn't matter.
And I don't deserve her.
FIN