Catching My Breath, Letting It Go

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Summary: Damon and Elena are trapped in the tomb together, but there's a catch (isn't there always?). She has werewolf venom in her system, and he's only been equipped with a stake. What follows is a tense three-part story featuring Delena angst aplenty as well an agonising choice Damon is forced to make for the girl he loves. Set during 4x03, just after Rebekah's party but ignores events after that. Rated M for future smut.

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Part 1

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He's acutely aware there's a raspy quality to his breath that tells him when he opens his eyes, it won't reveal his room. His head is resting against something solid, cold, and unforgiving – much like Katherine Pierce in that respect, and that little analogy has him smiling for half a second. Trust him to find humour in a (presumably) bleak situation.

When Damon finds the energy to awaken, his eyes reveal nothing but darkness. There's a cold draft as well that feels bitter to the touch, yet sings of freedom he cannot grasp between his fingers. His eyes adjust, scouting out the lightest shades of darkness that he can try and fathom a location from. But it doesn't take him too long to work out where he is, given the fact he's been in this general area twice; once on a desperate mission to rescue the woman he loved, and the other time to actually lock her up where she was supposed to have been all along. There's a cruel sort of irony that he's back here again, alone, consumed by the darkness.

A small cough brings his attention to the fact he's not alone, and he snaps his head to one side trying to figure out where it's coming from. There's a feminine quality to it – the extra height in pitch – that gives him a vague clue as to who else could be locked up inside with him, but even still that only narrows down the choice of suspects to two individuals, both wearing the same face but with two completely different personalities.

How cruel a joke would it be if it turns out Katherine is who he's (temporarily) stuck here with? For the woman he'd once dedicated near enough two centuries to finding and rescuing to be trapped inside the very place she should've been all this time, with him, luckless in love, bound by blood to the very woman who'd ruined his entire life?

He gives a dark chuckle at all the ways he could torture Katherine Pierce in the dark, and it would still not be enough retribution for the many years she's had him wrapped around her little finger, but the next sound out of his companion's mouth is enough to convince him it's – thankfully – not her.

"Damon?"

There's a distinct quality to the way Elena says it that differentiates from the way Katherine says it. While the latter tends to purr his name, Elena seems to speak his name like it's a question, like she always wants answers from him. That's how he can tell between them more than anything else.

"Elena?" He smirks. "How did you guess it was little old me?"

"I'd recognise that obnoxious laugh anywhere." Another cough passes her lips. "What's going on? Where are we?"

"Disneyland," he gives a sarcastic cheer, "isn't it obvious?"

"Be serious, Damon."

He exhales sharply.

"We're in the tomb," he confesses. "Deep in the heart of it, I think."

Her breath hitches; he can register it with absolute clarity. Maybe he's just attuned to her every movement now, able to tell just by the way she breathes what's going through her mind. It drives him crazy, amassing this knowledge he cannot ever use, at least not in the way he would like.

"Is Bonnie's spell still intact? Can we not try and leave?"

"Would be a good idea if I had any sense of how far in we are," he replies wryly.

He attempts to move, his legs unstable; his entire body under a spell of dizziness he can't quite control just yet. He clutches the wall for support, wondering why his vampire eyesight seems to be failing him right now. In darkness, shapes and outlines usually present themselves to a vampire's eyes, yet all he can see is the pitch black of the tomb's belly. At some point, his legs stop shaking like he's learning to walk, and he gets a better sense of where he's going.

Speed's useless here; there are not many places to actually go to within the tomb itself – just a large area perfect for entombing several starved vampires for several centuries or so. Oddly enough, the memory of being here haunts him a little. He remembers with perfect clarity who he'd been during that moment of time; a desperate, arrogant, reckless vampire with a purpose which had ended up being a complete waste of time. Even now, he gets a trickle of nostalgia for those days when being a complete bastard had a meaning to it, even if that meaning later on resurfaced only to rip his heart out and taunt him with the knowledge he would always be second best to his younger brother.

His younger brother...

Why does that particularly stick out like a sore thumb in the tragedy of a novel that is his life? What is it about the fact that it's his younger – and, granted, only – brother that makes him want to stab something recklessly and impulsively until the hurt goes away? Doesn't tradition hold favour to the eldest sibling of each family? So why has life served him nothing but course after course of disappointment?

He muses on this fact as he continues to stride his way through the various tunnels the tomb has to offer, still unable to find the entrance until his outstretched hands reach for the seal which blocks the way out. Attempting to push it proves futile; something strong, like a spell, has obviously been cast to ensure nobody of superior strength can move it.

Frustrated, he kicks at it, which does nothing. He uses his brute strength and attempts to push it again, throwing his entire weight against it, but that too proves to be a fruitless endeavour.

Knowing Elena will hear him he calls back, "Looks like we're stuck here. Even if there's a spell on the door, we'll never know because this goddamn rock is in the way, and I can't budge it, so yeah, presume that we're trapped here until further notice."

She lets out a muffled sound he presumes is one of disappointment. He can personally think of worse people to be trapped in a dark tomb with – Klaus, Katherine, that obnoxious new vampire hunter, to name but a few – so really she's lucked out getting stuck with him. It's him that has the bad luck here, being entombed in the darkness with a girl he loves with his entire being, yet doomed to never have because even though they met first, he didn't win her heart first. Stefan beat him to the post there.

But it's not a competition, he knows. Sometimes it feels like one though, with every dodgy look Stefan throws his way, every subtle warning his brother gives him to stay away from Elena, and of course he thrives on winding him up.

Or at least he did.

It still baffles him that his brother could let the love of his life drown and still walk away with her, and an eternity of mushiness, like it had all been planned. Because if the circumstances had been very different, he would've let Matt drown and saved her, no matter how angry and upset it would've made her. She could be pissed at him for her entire human life, but at least she would've had one to come back to. She could've staked him in the heart, and he would've died happy with the knowledge that she would be okay, and that all her life choices would be ones made as a human not a vampire.

It seems when it comes to Elena he's both selfish and selfless, depending on which way you look at things.

"Where are you?" he calls, turning on his heel, speeding back through the darkness, relying on his senses to find him

"Here," she croaks, and there's something off about her voice that he can't quite figure out, a raw note he's not heard from her before.

He finds her slumped up against a wall, half sitting, half standing, his hands finding hers, and, with a gentle tug, he pulls her to her feet, instinctively gripping her tight to make sure she doesn't fall apart between his fingers.

Her skin feels as smooth as ever, even textured by this atmosphere. She's wearing a low cut, short sleeved top, which gives his hands plenty of opportunities to wander in the name of making sure she's okay. He caresses her skin lightly, tracing circles as he waits for her to come to life. As his hand makes a tracing motion down her arm, something causes him to freeze, a look of concern dawning on his face, not that she would be able to read it in the dark. Something doesn't feel right underneath his fingers; they trace an all too familiar wound that has his heart doing a complex somersault before dropping altogether.

"What is this?" he whispers, fear inserted into his voice.

Her fingers find his before exploring the area for herself.

"Oh... oh god." Her voice is lighter than air, yet heavy with emotion. "I think it's a – "

"Don't say it."

"You asked."

He inhales deeply.

"It can't be," he says firmly, although he knows full well there's only one kind of mark that a vampire's healing power can't eradicate. "It's not."

He's never been one for denial, but right now he's burying himself in it because there is absolutely no way he's in this situation right now: trapped in a tomb with the woman he loves, who bears a wound that can and will kill her if he doesn't get them both out of here in time.

Running a hand through his thick raven locks, Damon tries to think, tries to cultivate a possible explanation as to who could be behind such a cruel act. Klaus? He might get a kick out of this, watching his former blood bag die slowly under painful circumstances while trapped with the Salvatore she's not romantically entangled with. But it doesn't seem his style somehow; he would surely have a front row seat if this sort of spectacle was how he got his jollies. Could it be the new hunter in town? That seems more likely, although why he hasn't simply come and put them both out of their misery has him completely bewildered.

A hiss escapes Elena's lips as her fingers lightly press on the wound, and instantly he's back to reality, feeling her hand trace the wound, and he can feel it shaking slightly because his hand refuses to leave that spot on her body, as if somehow he's hoping his touch might be enough to cure her. He's forgotten how hard the wound actually feels; it's like a series of interconnecting scabs, some triggering pain by a light brush of contact. He can't really see it in the shadows of the tomb, but he knows it'll be a murky grey in colour tinged with patches of angry red.

"How bad is it?" she asks, doing well to hide her real emotions here, but he knows her well enough to be able to detect traces of fear in her otherwise dulcet tones.

He feels his way around the wound, determining the size of it. It engulfs a good quarter of her arm, from the top of it to just above her elbow. That tells him one thing: she's not got quite as much time as he would've hoped. The bigger the wound, the more venom has reached her vital organs – this is just common knowledge. How long then, he wonders, until he loses her mentally? What happens when she clings to a past moment he's not privy to and he has to watch her fall apart?

His breathing comes out in shaky bursts, and he leaves her side for just one moment to reach the entrance, yelling out any coherent word he can think of to get any attention from above. If it's a random stranger, he can compel them to go find Bonnie and Stefan. If it's someone he knows, all the better for him. But he yells and yells and yells, until he must be blue in the face, and all that greets him is a cold silence.

He stands there, stubbornly waiting for a response, his heart in his mouth, and as he moves to try and turn, his foot hits something that rattles and rolls. He hopes it's a phial of Klaus' blood, but when have they ever been that lucky? He stoops to pick it up, already aware of what it is the moment his hands clasp it.

A stake.

Designed for two purposes: to rid yourself of unwanted vampire enemies, or to deliver a mercy killing for a vampire suffering from werewolf venom.

He delves into his pockets to search for his phone, but again they aren't that lucky. Sighing with frustration, he lets his fists drum against the wall, his anger and torment rising to steep levels he's almost unable to cope with. He smashes his fists again and again until they start to bleed. A sickening sense of helplessness settles in his stomach, because the way he sees it they're both likely to suffer down here, but his will be due to slow, painful desiccation, with no definite end in sight.

Her hand slips on his shoulder, steadying him as she's always done when he's been an emotional wreck. He grasps her hand in a desperate gesture both of them are surprised by. Her fingers, almost reacting to his touch, entwine around his, and the moment created from such a gesture is almost...dare he say it...intimate. But it's born from such dire circumstances, he can't find it within himself to enjoy the moment.

"How long do I have?"

Her tone seems to suggest she's already resigned to her fate, which instantly infuriates him.

"Forever if I have it my way," he spits, turning around, his eyes attuned to the darkness enough that he can make out her face. "You're not dying down here, Elena. Not now, not ever."

He can almost feel her watching him as he turns on his heel and paces back and forth, attempting to work off the worst of his anger. They should be figuring out ways to get out of this, but as it stands only one of them seems to be refusing point blank to accept this situation.

"I don't see how we can get out of here if there's a spell blocking us from getting out, Damon, and even if we could get the seal out of the way, there's no way of knowing if the spell Bonnie put up there has been lifted or not? It was Elijah's witches that de-spelled it to let Stefan out. They could've put it back up without us even knowing."

"It shouldn't still be up, not when there's no one left to entomb here anymore," he fumes, ignoring her for the moment. "The tomb vampires got out, thanks to my stupid need to find a woman who didn't want to be found as it turned out, and Katherine managed to manipulate her way out of here, so it's pointless it even being up if what you say is true."

There's a pause where he thinks about all the trouble witches have brought him so far in his life. None of them have ever been helpful without a price, or a judgemental word thrown his way, that's why he's never trusted them. Bree had been one exception, and even she had turned out to be utterly useless in the end.

"I'm gonna wring Bonnie's skinny neck when we get out of here," he impulsively growls.

"No you won't!" Elena snaps, recoiling from his violent outburst. "Damon, don't you dare – "

"Why?" His sarcasm does well to stifle the worst of his fear. "If it turns out I'm too late in saving you, and if by some miracle the spell drops after you're gone, I won't have anyone left to stop me doing what the hell I want to do anymore. And, let's face it, she's gonna want to torch my ass for not being able to save you anyway, so it's just a case of getting her before she gets me."

"So if I die, you're just going to go out in a blaze of glory?" Why can't she possess this fire in regards to preserving her own life? "Your be-all-end-all attitude is just ridiculous, Damon. In fact, you're ridiculous right now!"

"Your martyr act is hardly tolerable either you know," he retorts.

They glare at each other, and the tension is almost unbearable. He knows it could very quickly turn into sexual tension if he inserted the right innuendo into the conversation, or touched her the right way, but god knows this isn't the right moment for that.

"I can't lose you," he whispers, hoping the darkness would swallow that confession, but no such luck.

He waits for the assuring, "You won't" to fall from her lips, but the silence that follows says too much. He's a 100 and something year old vampire – he lost track of his age around the hundred mark if he's being brutally honest - and he's never been more terrified than he is right now.

"What are you holding?" she asks, changing the subject, reaching around to grab the stake. He can almost hear the penny drop with a loud clang inside her mind. "Oh... "

"Don't you dare ask this of me," he warns, because he knows the way her mind works; he wouldn't put it past her to beg him for a mercy killing using her doe eyes, just because she knows he'll do anything for her because he's that fucking whipped. "Don't you fucking put me through that, Elena Gilbert."

He's using her entire name because he wants to drive home how much he hates this situation right now. It's sick, it's twisted, it's the classic situation he always seems to find himself in – caught between shades of morality; the wrong action versus the right action.

"I'm not asking anything of you," she makes sure to tell him. "But we don't know how long we're gonna be down here – "

"Don't."

"– And it might come to the moment where you'll need to – "

"NO!" he bellows, slamming his hand right next to where she stands so that her entire body flinches at his burst of violence.

She lays a hand on his shoulder, but it's not enough. He shrugs her off, stalking back into the darkness, growling the entire way. Maybe if he lies down and closes his eyes, he'll wake up back in his own bed, tucked between Egyptian cotton sheets, dreaming of a love he'll never have. That's the torture he lives with on a daily basis, and that hurts him like a stake to the chest as it goes, so this – this situation – is bottom of the very long list of scenarios he never thought he would ever have to live out.

Her breathing already has a raspy quality to it; unsurprising really, given the dosage of werewolf venom she must've been given. The size of the wound roughly correlates with the dosage given; since Tyler only nipped him, his wound hadn't been that large, so it had been easy to hide, that is until the motherfucker spread like wildfire.

"It doesn't hurt yet," she says, sounding faintly surprised.

"It won't. It'll itch like a bitch at first, but the pain will come later," he throws at her darkly.

Damon doesn't brood on memories past – not anymore. He's shelved his own experiences with werewolves into a Do Not Discuss file, because frankly he's done with the whole lot of them. But even still, as he finds a quiet spot to lie down and brood – taking a few pages from his brother's handbook – he reflects on the way he'd spiralled out of control. Rose's bite had been the result of a vicious attack, a vindictive strike intended for him and him only, and she'd gotten in the way, yet it hadn't diminished the attack itself in any way. Her mark had been fairly substantial, so she'd spiralled quickly; his had been a mere nip, so he'd managed to stay lucid longer, but not by a great stretch.

How long would Elena last? Twenty four hours? Forty eight?

A familiar shape rests itself beside him, moulding her body around his, and without thinking he reaches out, pulling her closer towards him. He can feel her react with a degree of some surprise at the tender gesture, but it doesn't stop him. He lets her head fall across his chest, her breathing pattern his own personal lullaby. His fingers entwine with hers, and for one moment he lets himself believe this is what life could be like if they were together. It's one moment of serenity he commits to memory.

"I'm sure they'll miss us and come looking for us," Elena suddenly murmurs, but her tone suggests she's not quite convinced of that.

"Maybe." He's not convinced at all because he's not lucky like that. "But if my brother and those idiots you call your friends do realise we're missing, their first thoughts aren't going to lead them here. Plus Bonnie seems to be AWOL as of late, so even if our absence is noted, what are the chances anybody's gonna get through to her to help?"

"She has been through a lot, Damon, cut her some slack."

"Why should I? She's a pain and she knows it."

A sharp dig to the ribs is what he earns for his comment.

"She saved your life on multiple occasions, you ass – show a little more gratitude."

He smiles wanly at her attempt at insulting him.

"If she could just keep her judgemental comments to herself, I might actually like her."

"Oh please, that's exactly why you do like her. She doesn't put up with the abuse you give her. She puts you in your place, and you respect that about her – deep down."

"So do you, you know. I am so whipped around you ladies. No wonder nobody can take me seriously anymore."

She laughs, and the motion shakes his entire body, sending coils of pleasure rippling through his body.

"You gotta stop that, you know," he murmurs, before he can stop himself.

"Stop what?"

"Driving me crazy."

It's a cheesy line, but it's true. His sanity levels haven't been the same since he'd been forced to concede the depth of his feelings for her. Her martyr tendencies frustrate the hell out of him, but it's also the biggest difference between her and Katherine; her heart conceals a darkness he's been on the verge of coaxing out, because she is so much more than the good girl everyone knows and loves, yet his brother remains blind to it, whether it's woeful or wilful ignorance, however, he's yet to determine.

"Damon – "

"I know, I know – I need to back off since you're with Captain Hero Hair, a man who I'm pretty sure spends more on gel than I do on alcohol."

"Don't you guys just compel yourselves everything you want? I can't picture you guys buying, well, anything."

"Normally, yes, but with basic stuff like shopping, we try and attract as little attention as possible. Security guards might start getting suspicious if their pesky cameras continued to show hot ass guys like myself staring into the eyes of beautiful cashiers – and, I'll admit, some not so beautiful cashiers – and then walking away without paying a dime."

"Huh. Never thought of it like that."

Why are they even talking about such trivial matters? Of course she must be curious about the perks of compulsion, as well as the occasions where such a perk proves to be a hassle not an asset. Secretly, he knows he's dying to teach her everything about being a vampire, because god knows Stefan will skip over the parts she absolutely needs to know in favour of a more docile approach. His brother has always been idiotic like that, fixing his own fears and insecurities onto others he's taken under the wing, although granted Caroline seemed to do okay, and that's about the closest to a compliment he's ever going to mentally award her.

"How does it feel?"

She doesn't even need to work out what he means by that.

"It itches, but isn't too bad yet," she replies softly.

"You're not dying today you know that right?" he asks fiercely.

"I don't want to die, but if we can't get out – "

"Don't even think like that. Stop being all the glass-is-half-empty - you're becoming like Stefan."

He's used to her intake of breath whenever he talks about Stefan in a negative way, but it irritates him that Stefan's made this whole vampire situation sound like the worst fate to ever befall someone. Very few people choose this lifestyle, and with good reason. It brings the best and worst traits of a person to the surface, and though turning it off is an option, it gets harder and harder to do so as the years go by. But all the same, he feels the perks outnumber the disadvantages, by a landslide – at least, that's what he tells himself – and his logic is that if you drill it into someone's head often enough that this lifestyle is all doom and gloom, then that's what their mind is going to focus on when they turn. Stefan's spouted so much crap about losing control in Elena's direction that of course her first concern as a new vampire was how to feed without hurting anyone. Stefan has always been paranoid of other people losing control, applying his own shortcomings to everyone else, and that's the main thing he's always found irritating about his brother.

But none of that matters now, because the woman he loves is dying, and his heart is slowly turning cold at the idea of life without her.

"I'm cold," she says, and he can feel the fluctuating temperatures of her body because the flesh on her hands next the flesh on his indicates that she's already undergoing the first steps of the venom sinking in.

He doesn't even think about it; he shrugs off his leather jacket and drapes it over her like a blanket. It won't make a tangible bit of difference in the long run, but at least he's doing something. It's a small gesture, a miniscule effort in the bid to keep her alive, not that vampires can die from the cold or anything...

"I keep thinking about Rose," she confesses, her gloomy tone infectious. "About how she kept thinking I was Katherine, and then when I turned my back for one second, she was gone." She contemplates for a second, remembering a minor detail he'd only confessed to her weeks afterwards. "I guess the one good thing about being locked up here is I can't go on a killing spree, right? I won't be so out of it that I just lose all control and start attacking people like she did, right?"

He falls silent at that.

That's the positive aspect of this twisted scenario she's focusing on? Elena's compassionate nature baffles him, but it's an endearing part of her he wouldn't change for the world. She would trap herself in here voluntarily if it meant preventing needless deaths at her hand.

"My brother will find us, Elena, and then we'll get you out of here, I promise."

"But then there's the small matter of getting Klaus to feed me his blood to save my life," she reminds him. "I'm not important to him anymore, Damon. My blood is useless now I'm a vampire."

He closes his eyes at the reminder.

"Then we'll force him to give it you. Beg, bargain, get Caroline to bat her eyes at him until the end of time... I don't care. I would go down on my knees and offer him an eternity's worth of service if I could get even one drop of his precious blood out of his narcissistic body to give you."

She chuckles, but it's a broken sound.

"For someone who doesn't do the whole romantic, sappy speech thing, you sure are good at 'em."

Damn straight, he thinks with wry amusement. I've conjured up about a million of 'em in my spare time to say to you if you'd made the choice to be with me and not my decidedly less attractive brother.

"You know it's true though."

She moves closer to him, tucking her head under his neck. He tries to pretend like that simple movement doesn't mean the world to him, at the same time she tries to pretend it was done out of necessity not out of sheer need to be closer to him.

"I know."