A/N: Hello darlings! Okay, so this is part 1 of a 2 shot in which Damon and Elena go to NY. Part 2 will be posted asap, and this will all be a reality I would prefer to take place, because who knows what the show will actually give us in the end. I started writing this before 4x16 aired, so for the purpose of this story the sire bond is still intact even without her humanity.

Please check out the playlist that accompanies, some dubstep (techno) background for you guys to enjoy along with it. It's a little...different, kinda like me ;). It is a full album runthru from Celldweller, the album Wish Upon A Black Star. Enjoy!

/watch?v=Zm3wMB0KjQ4

Huge thanks to Trogdor19 for beta'ing with love and enthusiasm, and one hell of a sharp eye. *High five*

Explicit Warning: presence of (slight) physical violence and quick description of anal play.

DAMON POV

Braided Lies

Never in my life have I wanted to shave a woman's head like I do right now.

I don't even know why I'm still standing here, arms crossed in irritation while I lean up against the doorframe and watch her do her hair. It's not like she needs my help, or even wants my presence. But I'm still here, staring like the masochist I am.

I should go wait in the living room of the suite I rented for us. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, and I prefer the penthouse. Thought she might too. The view, the simple elegance, the sprawling space, all for the ridiculously high price of I-don't-give-a-fuck-if-maybe-she'll-smile.

She didn't. She didn't care. We could have stayed in some cockroach-infested dump like we did in Denver and I don't think she would have batted an eyelash. Little Miss "Whatever, Damon" strolled in, looked around, shrugged her shoulders as if she could deign to stay here, then stripped.

She keeps getting naked. It's like living with a fucking toddler.

Apparently Elena on "off" equals Elena undressed. Reason number I-lost-count for why I insisted on getting us out of Mystic Falls for the weekend. I get the nudity; the lack of inhibitions coupled with being uncomfortable because she's been wearing Caroline's clothes since she burned all of hers and they don't fit her quite right. Too tight in the hips and straining in the bust. Caroline doesn't have near the curves Elena does.

And a year ago I would have been ecstatic that I couldn't keep her dressed, but now, I don't want to see it. Just another neon sign shouting "Look how you fucked her up."

I needed to get her out of that house and away from my brother who wouldn't stop staring. It's nothing he hasn't seen before, and more often than I have, but I don't want him looking at her like that. Not when she wouldn't want him to if she could feel anything other than eat, sleep, fuck. Wash, rinse, repeat.

She's going to have to confront everything she's done and said and showed to the shocked world once I flip her back on, and I'm trying not to add more to the list of horrors that I made her run from. This is my mess, and I'm going to clean it up. He doesn't need to watch her use me like a vibrator with a credit card.

I absolutely can't handle him looking at me with those pitying green eyes that cry his understanding of how I knowingly silenced her misguided love for me, while at the same time not-so-secretly wishing it was him she wanted to use instead. Fuck him. He couldn't handle her like this anyways.

That, plus she kept trying to eat the locals, and I was starting to get a headache from all the damn compulsion I was having to do. It's been a bitch trying to keep her neighbors and friends and teachers from realizing that no, they didn't just get thrown up against a wall and get their throat chewed on by Little Orphan Gilbert. They really are just clumsy as all fuck and kept falling down and bumping into shit, which is why they're covered in bruises on their arms and chests and necks and faces. I healed them where she punctured them, but bruises show for a bit. Nothing I can do about that.

So I loaded her in my car and drove us the fuck away.

Now I'm standing in a masterpiece of a bathroom where all I should want to do is take a bath with my girl and forget that life irrevocably sucks, coat her skin with vanilla-flavored bubbles and lick them off. But I'm not.

And I'm not nailing her into the mattress in the next room like she wanted me to after we first got here. Baby vampires throw quite impressive hissy fits when refused, and I don't know if what I'm going to pay for that lamp was worth it, but that's what I'm telling myself.

I have every right to say no because I'm not her fucking toy.

I'm not. So I'm fully clothed in the leather that I'm pretending is shielding the heart she's ripping out with dead eyes while I watch her braid her hair, and all I can think is that I wish I had some fucking scissors.

I hate braids.

She's got her hair pulled to the side and draped over her shoulder, and her fingers are twisting the strands with an assured ease that's making my stomach roll. All three sections, all under her command.

It took me a long time as a boy to understand how that shit worked because it looks like it should be two pieces, not three. Two even sections of brown hair woven together seamlessly, folded into one another like they were meant to belong. But it's not that simple.

There are three in there, wrapped around each other so fucking twisted that they're completely lost and you don't know who started out as what.

She crosses two and pulls one to the side, separating them as far as she can so she can tighten the plaits as far as it will allow; maximizing the distance between the two mates and unwanted third wheel. Then she does the same, but exchanging one side for another and rewinding the master center around the one that was left out before.

Switch, twist, and isolate. Two against one, over and over and over again.

Fuck braids.

The only one I've ever liked was the one she wore the day of the second Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Fish-tail they call it or some bullshit name like that. Who the fuck names a hairstyle after a smelly piece of guts that lives floating in its own waste? Disgusting.

But those are different. They're not the same as the aesthetic lies that she's weaving before me.

It is only two individual portions that make up that mess, and it's messy as all hell. I've been with enough women to see it done. Grab a little bit from the back of one section like a secret, and bring it around front, crossing over and tucking it away behind the other.

You share these secrets a little bit at a time, each small one repaid and balanced with another until they don't belong to you anymore. And when you do start to give them back, they're always a little bit different because you held them for so long. Strands pull, some layer others by mistake because you took too much or didn't give enough, and the color always changes a bit the further it goes down.

It takes time and patience, and it always gets a little off balance, a little disheveled. It's not perfect, but it's still beautiful, and it's not fucking three.

"You're staring," she says in the detached voice that I put there and hate more than my father's name.

"I'm bored. And since when do you braid your hair? This shit is taking forever and I want to get the fuck out of this room." So I can stop thinking about what we're not doing and what I'm not going to do, no matter how much you beg me. Not doing it. "Thirty seconds and I'm out the damn door, Elena."

"So leave."

She cocks her head and her eyes are wide in the mirror, challenging me. She doesn't have a trace of belief that I'll actually do what I've threatened, and she's openly calling my bluff in the way she loves to do.

I'm fucked. She pulled this same shit after we found out about the sire bond and I tried to get her out of my bedroom the next morning. She didn't leave, at least not at my command. She's never done a fucking thing I tell her to, like lock her damn window or to stop trying to commit suicide all the time in the name of martyrdom that she doesn't understand and that doesn't work anyways.

I guess it's one hell of a bitch slap from fate that when she does finally respond to my wishes, it's the things I didn't mean to tell her and what I don't want to have to say.

It's not "don't hate yourself as a vampire because it's going to be fine and I'm going to make sure it is, or die trying."

It's "almost kill yourself from starvation because I'm too selfish to even consider how you may want to live your life" and "forget that you have a conscience and a soul, and that for a minute you thought you loved me."

I don't even want to talk to her anymore. Words are too dangerous.

But she won't let me stay silent and she didn't that morning either. She knew how I felt no matter what I tried and failed to make myself say.

When she eventually did leave my room, I followed, just like she asked.

Yep, I'm totally fucked.

"Just hurry up," I snap at her and storm from the bathroom, forfeiting any control I had over that non-conversation as I push off the doorframe.

I'm pacing like a whipped tool while I wait for her, and I swear to God and the Devil she's taking extra-long just to piss me off because she knows I'm itching out of my skin to get her away from bed sheets. I'm sure she thinks that if she pushes me enough I'll snap and either bite her or fuck her or both, and that's exactly what she wants. It wouldn't be the first time.

Well she can fuck off and hold the breath she doesn't need because I'm not doing it. I'm going to sit down like a man and not a pussy, lazily tapping my fingers on the French satin armrest. And when she does finally get her shit together, I'm going to make her wait while I don't do a damn thing but sit here because I fucking can and this is my damn life.

I don't bow to some 18 year old puppet master with braids.

I'll pull my own damn strings thank you, and I'm going to rest my ankle on my knee and look calm and collected and unfazed while I recite the Odyssey to myself. In Farsi.

My back is to the door of the bathroom I ran from, and I hear her before I see her.

"I'm ready," she sighs, sounding bored and waiting for me to leap at her words.

My eyes narrow as I start my internal "fuck you" via monotonous, silent recitation, but I don't get past the first stanza and I've forgotten why forty-five seconds ago I was ready to order room service just so I could kill the poor fuck they would send up here.

She's standing in front of me with her hands on her hips and wearing ill-fitting jeans, looking at me like she knows what I'm doing and wants to call me the childish prick I am. Her raised eyebrow, pursed lips and the sarcastically-slight shaking of her head are screaming the words, her ponytail waving out from behind her.

Fuck.

I didn't mean she had to change her hair or abandon the braid that I wanted to cut off, but apparently I can't even ask a passive-aggressive question without it being taken as an order thanks to that damn sire bond and her being able to read me like a book. I shouldn't have said anything. The singularity of her ponytail and all its alone-ness may be worse than three hopeless fucks wrapped around each other.

I shouldn't be getting so pissed off at her over shit this stupid. None of this is her fault and she doesn't know any better. She didn't want to be a vampire, she didn't want her brother involved in this life, and she didn't ask me to make her flip her switch.

She can't control the basic instincts that I reduced her to, she only knows and wants what feels good to her. And apparently that totals a lot of blood and the free use of my body. She doesn't deserve to have me be an ass to her just because I can't handle the guilt.

It's not that I don't love her, or even want her, because I do. It's just that she's not here. Elena left, and the girl standing in front of me is nothing more than a glorified house sitter, just keeping the place running and tidy until the real owner comes back. I know good and God damn well it's not fair to fuck the hollowed version of her just because she looks the same on the outside, but I'm having a hard time explaining that to my cock.

The worst part? She'll know when she wakes back up.

She'll know that I used her body as something to cling to for my own selfish reasons because I'm falling apart without her warmth. That I was actually capable of screwing her and that I can still touch her skin without the parts behind it that make her different from Katherine, just because I need to feel her heartbeat race as she clenches me inside her. She'll know, and I'm sure she'll think it was easy for me to do.

She may even think I did it on purpose, like some masterful Machiavellian plan. Turn her, then switch her off so I can once again have access to the body of the woman I used to love. Katherine's face and tits and ass but with hands that actually hold me to her, can't break my neck, and that will do whatever the fuck I say.

I want to throw up. That's not what I want. I want Elena.

I want the girl that blushed after we had sex for the first time, like she couldn't believe she just let me do all the things I did, all the things that she begged me for. My corrupted ex-cheerleader blushed more still when she saw that I already knew the truth she seemed surprised to find. She still wanted more.

She's just like me in some ways. Loves too hard and too long, stubborn as hell and a temper to match. And not that she could have ever disappointed me, but I heard her blasé relationship with Stefan and I've never been happier to learn that with me, she fucks like a demon.

She doesn't like to talk about that first night, or any of the things we've done since. Not the way she sucks my cock like it holds the only thing she needs to survive, or how loud she screams when I bite her clit and stretch her with my fingers. She doesn't acknowledge that she likes it when I fuck her from behind so she can pretend to be surprised when I rub against her ass. Or how much she enjoys it when I fuck her there at her demand, quickly followed by her pleading for me to come inside her.

It's all still secrets, dark and dirty things that happen behind closed doors and drawn curtains and away from prying eyes and ears where she doesn't let fear or shame or guilt touch her. She doesn't want to talk about it in the daylight, just repeatedly practice it in my bed after the saints go to sleep.

I just wish she would blush again.

"Damon, I thought you wanted to leave," she scowls at me, crossing her arms impatiently.

God, I miss her.

Just a real smile, that's all I want. The one that transforms her whole face; when she can only stare at me for so long in floating giddiness before she has to look down, needlessly tucking her hair behind her ear because she's actually embarrassed that she's so fucking happy.

I'm not even stupid enough to ask for one of her laughs, I know I don't deserve it. But a smile, I'd do anything for.

"Let's go do some damage." I smile at her, but she doesn't return it.

I make myself stand and lead her from the room, guided by the light placement of my hand on the small of her back. I know it won't, it hasn't since she burned her house down, but I'm still crushed when her heart doesn't race when I touch her and we're not in bed.

I'll bring her back soon, I just have to hang on until then.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" I hiss, enraged beyond belief and trying to remember why I love her. It's not because of shit like this.

"Nope, just hungry," she shrugs and giggles. I wish Pearl would've gouged my fucking eyes out when she had the chance. I don't want to see her in a bra with a broken strap from where the girl must have clawed at her, the blood of an innocent at the corner of her mouth.

"You cannot act like this, Elena. You cannot kill people in fucking dressing rooms at stores in the middle of the damn day in-"

"I didn't kill her, master," she sneers.

"Shut up, and don't fucking call me that. The only reason she's alive is because I ripped your ass off her and you know it."

"Hmpf," she shrugs and rolls her eyes, conceding and reaching for a top she discarded on top of the pile of clothes she was trying on, blatantly ignoring the blood streaks that are on the wall behind her. "So, what do you think?" She bats her eyelashes at me, shimmying her shoulders as she holds it in front of her.

I snatch it away from her and it rips in her clawed grasp.

"Damon! I liked that shirt…"

"You know what I would like, Elena?"

"No, what?" she beams at me without letting it reach her eyes, looking at me like she'll give me whatever it is I want. But that's only as long as what I want is what she wants, and what she wants is to continue running a finger down the line of buttons on my shirt and trying to slip it under my belt.

Not her fault, I repeat to myself. Clean up your own damn mess.

I take a deep breath and steel myself. I know she's only going to respond to one thing right now and I need her to listen to me.

She moves with me as I back her into the wall behind her with my eyes alone, her nipples already hard when she brushes them against me. I place my hands on either side or her head and lean into her exposed neck, a sigh escaping her lips when I kiss the vein she's offering.

"Elena," I say in the voice that makes her eyes hazy, letting my breath wash over her skin. She's grabbing my ass with one hand to pull my hips towards her, the other one raking up my back under my shirt. Yeah, I know exactly what she wants, and it's not what I want.

"You know what I want, Elena?" I kiss under her jaw where it makes her shiver. The spots are all still the same, but it's only now, when it's this, does she ever respond to me like she should and used to and it makes my stomach lurch at all that I've lost.

"What?" she breathes back, hiking up one leg so it's hooked around my waist and fuck me, I catch it, gripping her behind the knee and massaging the back of her exposed thigh in a way that's only recently become familiar.

I bring my other hand down to caress her face, letting my fingertips ghost down from her hairline to her cheek where I can cup her jaw, sweeping my thumb over her lips. She wraps them around the end of my digit, kissing and teasing it with her tongue.

My cock leaps in response because it's stupid and immediately ceased all communication with my shouting brain as soon as it came near her, refusing to listen as it's being told in no uncertain terms not to get its hopes up because this is as far as I'm going.

I give her a single thrust and her eyes pop open to mine, exactly like I knew they would. Got her.

"What I want," I breathe into her mouth, kissing her once slow and deep and pulling a moan from the back of her throat before we separate and I re-catch her eyes. "Is for you to stop acting like you don't understand the difference between having a little fun…" I smile to goad her and she takes the bait, stealing another kiss from my lips.

I can tell she's surprised when she pulls back to find me glaring at her, face sharp with disappointment and fully showing my rage as I spit my words at her because I'm so over this shit. "And being completely stupid and reckless."

Her hands are immediately against my chest, veins and fangs bared as she hisses and shoves me with all her newbie strength, actually sending me back a few feet under the force of her fury.

I growl back towards her and her hand flies to strike, but I catch her wrist before she can touch me. I flex my hand, squeezing just enough to remind her that I'm still older and stronger and she really doesn't want to fuck with me today. I would never dream of hurting her, but she's testing some dangerous lines.

"Let go of me."

Her vampire aspect still hasn't receded, and her words are barely more than a snarl. Any human that heard her speak would be running and screaming in pure terror.

Fucking hell, if I wasn't so pissed off it would probably be turning me on, and that is a major problem between us. It doesn't bode well for a relationship when you totally get off on making the other one blindly livid.

"You gonna try that again?" I hiss, still holding her captive.

"Probably," she smirks and the fire that burns through my veins makes my hand flex a tiny bit more.

She hisses in pain as a bone snaps.

Fuck!

"Really, Damon?" she sneers, my anger fading instantly to guilt. "What's next? You gonna hit me when I don't behave like you want?"

I wince and drop her wrist. I shouldn't have let her get to me like this. I know better than to rise to her bullshit, and now I've really fucking done it.

Accidents happen when we train, continuing on with the Alaric's Guide to Self-Defense classes we started when she was human but with addition of Vampire 101. She's new and that's how she learns, and she knows how much it kills me when something happens because I'm always extremely cautious.

Sex is something else altogether, but that's still carefully controlled and never too much and always with her permission, fuck, her request. I gave her a safety word, something I've never done before and which she laughed at while promising me she knows she doesn't need it. She's right, she's never used it.

But I like knowing it's there to stop me just in case; it's too easy to get lost in the high of her blood and relish the screams of her orgasms. She knows exactly how to push me to the edge of control and how to reduce me to nothing more than driving carnal nature that aches for the fuck, the feed, and the kill.

But I've never put my hands on her when we're arguing. I'll defend myself from her attacks if necessary, and I've restrained her before, but not since she was human. I don't even do that anymore because I try to keep my distance, knowing she has every capability to rile me past the point of self-restraint and the awareness of how fragile she still is. She's immortal, but even with my blood running through her veins she's still no match for me and never will be.

I know all this, and still…

I hurt Elena.

But right now she's not feeling pain, she's not registering anything other than swelling domination at my retreat and it's just fueling her advance. She steps forward, challenging me, her wrist already healed and aching to strike again as she pokes me in the chest. Brave little girl.

"How convenient for you that I heal quickly. Tell me, how many chances do I get before you just stake me and finish it?"

"I would never hurt you, and you know that," I whisper forcefully, devastated that we've reached this point. Our arguments are usually violent, but broken tumblers and lamps and windows are one thing and I fucking know I went way too far, even though I didn't do it on purpose. It doesn't matter. She'll never forgive me for this, on or off.

Her resounding laugh is nothing short of mocking as she brandishes her wrist to me like its proof of my lies. Jesus Christ, it's still red and I know exactly where my fingers were crushing her because their outlines are still imprinted on her skin.

"Elena," I choke out, my stomach in my throat and my soul slaughtered. "I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," she snarls and I know she means it, which terrifies me more than anything because she knows exactly how to hurt me with nothing more than cruel words and apathy. And I don't know what she's planning as retaliation, but it must be something good because there's a fire of sick glee and determination in her eyes. Fine. Whatever it is, I'll endure it.

"Now get out so I can get dressed," she spits and I do, leaving her to plot and scheme all the ways she's going to damage me because now she hates me.

Doesn't matter. She can't hate me more than I hate myself.

I broke her God damn wrist, and I want to rip my own fucking heart out and just be done with it.

But I can't. I won't let her break me before I bring her back.

A/N: Thanks for reading guys, and make sure to follow because there will be another section to accompany this, including some good ol' smut and emotional upheaval. Please review, always love to hear your thoughts! Happy Reading!

-Goldnox