It Started That Summer
DG32173

Sarah: yes, I know something along this line has been done before. I don't care. I'm making this my own, so accept that it will become original as the story progresses or leave. While constructive criticism is accepted and even welcomed, outright flames and saying this is just like the fanfic such-and-such by so-and-so are not. If you can't make your displeasure known in the form of constructive criticism, just don't say anything. While I love getting reviews and reading them, I would rather not have to face flames and people claiming that what I write is just like someone else's.

CREDIT
My beloved beta is currently unavailable for proofreading my stories due to the fact he needs to replace his laptop. But he still helps out by bouncing ideas back and forth with me to form storylines. Here's hoping he can get a replacement laptop soon.

DISCLAIMER
If I am inspired by a reviewer or my beta to include a scene or concept in this story, I will put a section like the one above before the chapter the scene or concept first appears in to give credit to the one who inspired the use of it. If I know for a fact that a concept I use as I portray it belongs to me, I will claim it before the chapter it appears in and I expect a PM requesting permission to use it. If you do send a PM requesting to use a concept I claim as my own, please wait for me to grant permission before you begin posting things using my concept.

WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Takes place the summer between Seasons 2 and 3. Rated M for my sanity, not that I have any. Alternating viewpoints between Elena and Damon. Starts with Elena's perspective.

SUMMARY
You know those online questionnaires that say they determine if you and your crush are destined to be? Well, Damon sets one up on the internet one day to get his mind off the nasty realities he faces as he searches for his brother the summer between Seasons 2 and 3. He did not expect Elena Gilbert to fall for it! What will this lead to? And what about Stefan? Damon/Elena

Chapter 1
Busted

I frown at the popup that just covered the online news report I was reading.

Is your crush the makings of true love or merely infatuation?
Take this questionnaire to find out.

I move the mouse cursor over the X but hesitate. I've been trying like crazy to distract myself from the fact that I know Damon is hunting for Stefan behind my back. I know these questionnaires are bogus. But maybe if I answer the questions honestly, I can figure out for myself what it is I feel for Damon. I believed Damon when he told me that the Stefan I had known is going to take a long time to come back to us after this massive feeding frenzy Klaus is going to have him on. Damon flat out refuses to tell me what Stefan is like on a full Ripper bend, but that just tells me that the details are gruesome enough to leave me with nightmares,

I decide that I might as well take the questionnaire if for nothing else but to finally be completely honest in what I feel for Damon. I click the popup and am taken to the questionnaire page.

1. What is your name?
Elena Gilbert

2. What is the name of your crush?

At that one, I hesitate for a good minute because if this ever gets back to Damon, I will never live this down. But I realize that I need to let these emotions be expressed. So I type:

Damon Salvatore

3. How did you meet your crush?
He's the older brother of my ex. We met when he came back to the town we both call home.

It took a moment of hesitation before I could actually type in 'ex'. But I have to accept the facts as they are. Things between Stefan and I are never going to be the same when we get him back.

4. Are you in a romantic relationship with your crush now?
No.

5. If the answer to #4 was yes, skip this question. If it was no, explain why.
So much is going on right now that I don't have time to consider a new romantic relationship.

6. If the answer to #4 was yes, skip this question. If it was no, would you consider getting in a relationship with your crush if your answer to #5 was suddenly invalid?

I gnaw on my lower lip as I stare at that question. But I sigh, reminding myself that I had promised myself I would be honest.

Maybe.

7. Do you know, or think you know, how your crush feels for you? If so, explain.
I know for a fact that he's in love with me. He's done so much to prove it and he even told me himself.

8. Do you know when you first started falling for him/her?
I think the answer to that was on the very first road trip he took me on.

9. When did you realize that you had fallen for him/her?
That would have to be during this dance we shared. It was magical.

10. Does your crush know how you feel about him/her?
He's knows me well enough to know that I have very strong feelings for him. But I don't think he knows the actual depth.

11. Do you hide your feelings from your crush? If so, why?
I've been trying to keep the true depth of my feelings for him to myself for so long I can't remember a time I haven't. Most of my friends don't like him very much because of some mayhem he caused when he first got to town. That and I was dating his younger brother. I didn't want to be like the brothers' ex so I stayed with the brother who won my heart first and did my best to bury my feelings.

Those first questions were for basic information. Now for some questions that are a little more in-depth.

I grimace at that. But I've come this far, so I might as well finish.

12. Do you and your crush have a special 'thing' that you do together? If so, what?
Road trips. Ever since that first one he took me on, I've considered road trips to be our thing.

13. Think of the evolution of your relationship with your crush. What song comes to mind immediately? Why?
That would have to be "How Did I Fall In Love With You" by Backstreet Boys. My feelings for him seemed to come out of nowhere. After our first road trip, I decided I could possibly be his friend. Next thing I knew, I was realizing that I had fallen hard for him.

14. What is the song that best describes the way you feel around your crush? Why?
"Tearing Up My Heart" by *NSYNC. It is painful to be around him and keep my feelings for him bottled up. But being away from him is even worse because he's constantly on my mind and I'm always worried he'll do something reckless and get himself in trouble. He tends to do that

15. Do you and your crush seem to know almost precisely what the other one is going to do or say before they do or say it?
Almost constantly, to be honest. There have been a few occasions where the signals got crossed somewhere but those occasions are few and far between.

16. Describe how you view your crush's personality.
Damon's personality is complicated and that's putting it mildly. He's arrogant, proud, vain, and cocky. But that's just his 'public' side, as I call it. There's another, hidden side of him that I have been privileged with getting to know. He would literally sacrifice his life to protect someone who has been fortunate enough to earn his loyalty. He would go on an extended tour of each of the nine levels of hell for the people he cares about. He can be rude, obnoxious, and very much 'in your face' when he feels strongly about something. He likes to pretend that he doesn't have any emotions. But I know him well enough to know that things can get to him. Betraying his rarely given trust is never a good idea. When he's hurt emotionally, he immediately switches to anger and vengeance to cover up the fact that you wounded him with your actions or words. And when he does so, he can do things without thinking that he almost immediately regrets. When he's gone too far with his actions and it seems that he's lost his relationship with someone he cares about, he will do whatever it takes to make amends. Damon only rarely gives second chances to people who have wronged him. Only his brother and I have received further chances than that. He extends his form of 'acceptance' to the people I care about because he knows that hurting them hurts me. But it's not like he has a whole lot of patience when they start acting stupid in his presence. Actually, he doesn't really have patience for anyone who's acting stupid around him, including me. When problems come up, Damon steps back, sets aside his emotions, and assesses the situation to come up with what he determines is the best way to overcome it. He and I usually end up fighting over his decision even though I know deep down that his decision is the one most likely to succeed even if it is the one of the riskiest options. Damon never likes to admit when he's gotten in over his head and there were a number of occasions someone's had to come to HIS rescue. Sure, he'd be grateful that they saved him. But he'd also be a complete dick for a while to try to wipe away any memory of that moment of weakness. Despite his attempt to act like this complete badass, I know he's very sensitive to the actions of the few people he has opened his heart to. He would so deny having a heart of any sort. But I know he has a badass black one. Damon can be the perfect gentleman when he wants to be. The main problem is that he normally wants to play the role of the bad boy older brother. He just loves giving people nicknames, even when he knows the nicknames are mean or the recipients don't like them.

17. How does your crush seem to view you?
Damon seems to view me as some sort of earthbound angel that has been placed in his life to redeem him of the black stains on his soul. True, I've kinda made it my mission to do just that, but it's still unnerving. I know he's irrevocably in love with me. He's made that much crystal clear.

Let's discuss a couple scenarios.

18. You and your crush are disagreeing on something that is important to both of you. How do you feel?
I feel like there's this blazing inferno inside of me. He and I never seem to agree on how to solve a problem that crops up. I am filled with fury that he is always willing to risk the people I care about to keep me safe. I don't understand why he can't see why I don't want that. But for some reason, in spite of my rage, I'm also thoroughly enjoying myself because I feel so completely alive.

19. You and your crush are spending a lazy afternoon just hanging out. How do you feel?
Yet another blazing inferno burns inside of me. I am still enjoying myself. No matter the situation, being around Damon makes me feel full of life and passion. We've spent many days just hanging out. We could talk for hours on end and never run out of topics. We could spend those same hours in complete silence, enjoying each other's company.

A couple final questions.

20. What would happen if your crush were to find out your answers to these questions?
Damon would never ever let me live it down. He knows I have strong feelings for him. He suspects that those feelings are in fact love. I would probably die of mortification at him finding out about these answers.

21. Detail your feelings for your crush.

I freeze. I have never gotten around to even beginning to analyze my feelings for Damon. Now I have to detail them for this questionnaire. I take a deep breath to try to steady my nerves. It doesn't help. But I've already answered twenty questions and I promised myself I would answer all the questions honestly. I sigh and begin typing.

I have never actually sat down and analyzed my feelings for Damon because I wanted to stay true to the brother who won my heart first. I know I can't hide from this forever, so now's as good a time as any to start exploring what I feel. The simplest way I can put this is that being around Damon makes life seem easy and simple, no matter how twisted and convoluted the problem we are facing is. My parents died a little over a year ago. For the longest time after that, I felt numb. I had pretty much shut down emotionally. The first day of school last year, I met Stefan, Damon's younger brother. I started to wake up from emotional hibernation. But I didn't wake up fully. A couple days later, I met Damon. Bam! I felt more alive than ever. But we parted after just a few minutes of talking. I fell back in that half-awake state. Every time I've been in Damon's company, no matter what's going on, I feel like I've downed a hundred double-shot emotional espressos one after another. I'm filled with emotional energy, the primary of which being a passion for life I've never felt in such intensity. Every time I meet his eyes, it's a struggle to keep from diving into the gorgeous blue and forgetting the world around me. Every time he touches me, even through my clothes, I go up in flames, metaphorically. When we get close but aren't touching, it's like there's some kind of super-magnetism between us. I have experienced every emotion I can name and even some I couldn't put a name to in regards to Damon. Currently, circumstances has Stefan out of my life. I find that I can handle it with Damon's help. But trying to picture living without Damon in my life… it's impossible. Life without him just doesn't make sense. He occasionally takes trips out of town and I find myself at a loss while he's gone. He doesn't realize I notice his absences but I know instinctively when he's out of reach. Only the fact that I know for a fact that he would never leave me for good keeps me from panicking each time that sensation comes to me. I don't know what would happen if he ever did decide to leave for good or if something were to happen to him. He's an integral part of my existence now. Every emotion I experience around him seems heightened. Colors and details seem to become more pronounced, so long as I don't get lost in his eyes. Even when we first met, I trusted him on an instinctive level. I know this because his entry into the room I'm in or my entry into the room he's in instantly relaxes my body. It always has. Another sensation I get is like my body's a compass and he's my north pole. I always know precisely where he is in a room without having to see him. He's saved me in so many ways, and I'm not just talking about my life. Had he not appeared in my life when he had, I very well might have fallen back into a form of emotional hibernation in spite of Stefan being there. Stefan won my heart first. But I think it's safe to say that Damon won me heart and soul. As I can vouch for personally, love comes in varying degrees. I once told Damon that I loved Stefan and it would always be Stefan. In a very technical sense, that's true. Stefan was my first love, though he was my second boyfriend. I'll always love him. But the love I feel for him now is not the least bit romantic. He's more of a brother to me, like my first boyfriend and my own brother. I'm fluent in English and I'm proficient in French thanks to high school classes. Neither language has a word to sufficiently describe this all-empowering emotion I feel for Damon. Not even a litany of words can describe it. I think I'll just leave off with the fact that a life without Damon is not a life worth living, in my opinion.

I let out a relieved sigh. I didn't manage to pin down precisely what it is I feel for Damon, but that last sentence explains it the best I can. The next question is just asking for my email, so I type it in. I move my mouse cursor over the button that will submit my answers. Before I can lose my nerve, I click the button while sending a one-word prayer to the heavens: 'please.' I go to close out of the tab that held the questionnaire when something at the bottom of the Thank You screen catches my attention. When I read the fine print, all the blood in my face drains away. My answers to the questionnaire were sent to Damon's email.

"Shit!" I hiss, leaping from my chair. I ignore it as it falls backwards. I grab the keys to my car and my wallet. I tuck my wallet in my back pocket as I race downstairs and out the front door, completely ignoring Jeremy wanting to know 'what's the hurry?'. I barely pause long enough to shut the front door behind me before racing barefoot across the hot pavement of my driveway.

Fifteen minutes later, completely abolishing the speed limit while blowing stop signs and red lights, I pull to a stop in the boarding house driveway in my usual spot. My panic mounts when I see that Damon's at home. I leap from my car, leaving the door open and the engine running as I race to the open front door. Damon's taught me the art of moving quickly with almost no noise. I use the tricks he showed me to cross the entryway into the living room. Damon's asleep on the couch and his phone is lying on the coffee table. With no noise that I can hear, I scoop up Damon's phone and go to his email inbox. Relief floods through me when I see that the email containing my answers is unread. I delete it from the inbox then go to the trash folder and delete it from there.

I'm just congratulating myself when Damon chuckles. I turn to him as he opens his eyes with a cocky grin on his lips. "Busted," he says smugly.