A/N: Apologies for the long gap between updates. This is a short drabble based on the photo of Elena and Stefan seen in Stefan's room in 3x01 "The Birthday". I am working on other stories that I hope to have up soon.
He dreams of her in circles; molten glossy chocolate pools of her eyes, the spherical soft glow of her olive-skinned cheeks, the graceful curves of her body a continuation of the wide smile on her soft lips.
He dreams of her on the football field with him, showing off her old cheerleading gymnastics, cartwheeling graceful loops through the air. She's silly and carefree and it's rare, this moment as she attempts to keep up with him by walking on her hands with her legs pointed to the sky.
"I used to be able to do this really fast!"
"Oh, yeah?" He smiles, amused as she nearly loses her balance, trying to look at him as she hand-walked. He strolls backwards, facing her to give her a chance. He's not looking where he's going and backs into the goalpost.
She giggles and loses her balance, toppling softly onto the grass but even the way she does that is beautiful, he thinks. She jumps up and runs to him, throwing her arms around his neck as she laughs.
"You're such a goofball!" She grins and kisses him.
"So are you."
"You're more of one."
He smiles because she's not wrong. She brings out all the parts of him that he's forgotten he even had, the parts that loved to dance to no music with her in an empty street under the stars, the part that sings along carelessly to Bon Jovi and the Rolling Stones, the living parts of him that had been imprisoned by his undead body for too long.
"I love you." He says.
She smiles even wider. "I know."
He wraps his arms around her and lifts her up, spinning her around as he walks them away from the post and she points her toes again, holding her arms out to the sides like she's flying.
They don't notice others on the pitch, the groundskeepers and the football coaches surveying the pitch in preparation for the game. It's just the two of them in their own world of perfect happiness where his own curves connect with hers; different circles to hers, loops of him only recently joined, those parts of him he never understood, those parts of him that were going nowhere which have come around to join up and pull all the bits of him together and it's her who's to thank for it, that finally, he's a complete ring that has overlapped with her own and fused together and that bit in the middle that they share is theirs and only theirs because he'd never achieve that perfect space with anyone else.
"Let's take a picture!"
He's not really into photos, he prefers his memories written down and he always feels kind of silly in his football jersey but in these moments he doesn't care as Elena extends her arm holding the camera at them and he tightens his own arm around her and grins a relaxed happy smile. As the shutter on the camera captures the moment, so does he. But he doesn't impress the moment in his memory with pixels of light. It's with the warmth of her body under his arm, the delicacy of her skin under his fingertips, the beat of her heart drumming so gently and rhythmically in his ears.
He dreams of her in circles, day and night. Keeping her in his world. She's the light guiding him in this darkness. She's the earth holding his planet together. Holding him.