DEVOUR
"AND I'LL LOVE YOU, IF YOU LET ME.
AND I'LL LOVE YOU, IF YOU WON'T MAKE ME STARVE."
A/N: This is my first Damon x Elena fiction in quite a while. These two really bring out my drive to write, but I have a habit of getting a thousand ideas for one shots, instead of actual stories. So, here goes nothing! Read and review, please.
Elena sighed and raised a hand to clear a circle in the shower's curtain of steam on the mirror, giving herself the same numb once over she had more than once, as of late.
She couldn't quite pinpoint the moment when she'd begun to feel unrecognizable, even to herself. Day by day, she supposed, it had happened, until it finally reached a point when she realized that it was hard to remember how she'd looked as a child, as a teenager, as anyone or anything that was not a simple parody of beauty centuries older than she could ever claim. Her dark eyes, the smooth olive skin of her face, the curve of her lips — every facet belonged to someone else, another slight at the hands of the creeping erasure that had taken over her life, turning everything that was once normal, sensible, and human to the dark and unknown of the supernatural. It was a gradual process, but in every moment, she could feel the progress it had made; those who remained close to Elena as well as unharmed, untainted, or unknowing of the truth about what went bump in the night were very few people, and even those elite few had begun to feel the effects of the world she'd fallen into. It was everywhere, touching upon everything.
She envisioned, for a guilty second or two, Katherine's cold sneer on her own face in the mirror. The vision faded quickly as Damon's words from three nights prior echoed in her ears – 'You and Katherine have a lot more in common than just your looks' – and Elena found herself perfectly incapable of meeting her own gaze.
He had only been saying the sorts of things she should have been expecting from him, she rationalized, his commentary well placed and expertly worded to wound. It was what Damon was good at, making everyone around him hurt. She knew that. She knew that, and yet, she couldn't seem to shake the nagging insecurity that more than anything wanted to believe that he had simply been speaking from a place of anger, that he didn't truly mean what he had said to her. The more and more she thought the idea over, the more her emotions fluctuated; she was furious with him for saying something so callous and cold. She was hurt that he would compare her to someone who brought so much pain to so many people. She was angry with herself for allowing him to slip under her skin so effortlessly, once again.
But most of all, and most devastatingly, she was scared that he was right.
That last emotion reigned supreme, canceling out the others even as a stray thought in the back of her mind. The very idea that she and Katherine could check off manipulation and selfishness on the list of shared qualities, right next to beauty and taste in men, was rotting her sanity from the inside out, even three long nights after Damon gave the notion life by speaking it out loud. It had kept her up for the better portion of those nights, kept her eyes carefully diverted from themselves in the mirror, and left an emptiness where the triumph of beating Damon at his own game of exploitation had been, and yet, she could do nothing to rid herself of it. She couldn't bring herself to speak the idea to Stefan, or even to pen it in her journal, unable to do anything that might give the notion more tangibility or validity.
It took three nights of working up her courage, but by day four, when dark circles signaling sleeplessness had begun cropping up under her eyes, she knew she had a problem that merited solving. Even if the only solution was to speak to him, to put herself at something of a huge disadvantage as far as who had the control, she knew she had no other options. The only way to rid herself of constant and mind plaguing worry was to verify that what he had said had not come from a place of honesty, wherever one of those might be hiding, inside him.
And so, she went.
The drive was short and familiar, the timing corresponding excellently with when she knew Stefan would be out hunting. There would be plenty of time for the very brief conversation she and Damon needed to have, just enough time, she theorized, for him to admit that he hadn't meant what he said, and for her to leave. There were no additional frills needed for Elena's sanity, that evening. Just confirmation.
Raising her small fist and tightening her jacket around her small form, she knocked on the wooden door. She could go right in, as she had hundreds of times, or even use her key, but somehow, the situation felt more formal than that. In her mind, it needed to be conducted like a deposition, a short and clear version of what was said, and the intents behind it, before anything else came into play. And somehow, it always did; emotions, egos, interruptions. They routinely found a way into every conversation between Elena and Damon, and they were something she was too fragile to entertain, that evening. She knew that much when the sight of his face caused a swell of anger, and simultaneously pain, within her.
"He isn't here, Elena," he told her immediately, his tone coloring the words more cold and despondent than she remembered her name ever being, on his lips. It was difficult to form a reply to that, but she managed.
"I need to talk… to you," she stated plainly, summoning all of her strength to look like something other than a ragdoll version of herself. It occurred to her that in her current state, no one would confuse her with Katherine; her eyes were too lifeless, punctuated by dark circles, her voice too quiet. It didn't draw any pity out of Damon, though she hadn't anticipated any other reaction from him.
"So now we've got things worth discussing?" he asked, eyes widening in sarcastic realization. "Apologies all around, but I don't think I have any interesting information you can use me for, this time."
She visibly winced at the accusation, unaccustomed to the clinical feel to the conversation transpiring between them. She hated him, passionately even, for what he had done to her brother, but even afterwards, he had not given up atoning for himself. It was preferable to the living stone that stood before her now, eyes dark and unreadable, without the slightest hint of remorse or affection towards her.
"Damon, please," she prompted him, pinching the bridge of her nose as she collected herself. "Five minutes, one question, and I'll be perfectly content to resume our lives, separate of each other."
He mulled the suggestion over for a moment, leaving her on edge as she knew he would have no issues slamming the door in her face were he anything but up for conversation. After that long pause, however, he stepped aside and opened the door for her.
"Five minutes," he echoed her, sounding bored and somewhat suspicious, as she slipped inside the warmth of the boardinghouse.
A/N: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end. For now. Updates soon!