AR One-Shot

I do not own the Vampire Diaries

LONELY SOULS

Elena Gilbert peeked out from behind the curtains and looked quickly right and left. She saw nothing, the same as last night, but she felt as though she were being watched by something in the shadows. Her windows were open and the little doors on either side were blown against the wall by the wind.

She didn't want to reach into the cold morning air to draw them inwards, but she also would not welcome a freezing cold room. It might rain, a voice inside her whispered, 'don't want the wind to steel your things. But before she could think to move something like instinct froze like ice. She felt hands snake around her and cover her mouth.

"Good morning, sweetheart." he purred dangerously from behind her.

Now she could feel his lips on her neck, at the place beneath her ear, and a shiver crawled up her spine as he reached past her to close the window. He pressed her close against his body until she could feel ever contour of his strong body.

From her back, he waved lazily at the door, as if he could close by his will alone. He moved so his lips were just below her ear lobe. "You've been a bad girl, haven't you?"

She didn't pretend to not know what it was he referred to. She knew he knew that Stephen knew. He knew she had told her boyfriend everything, about his brother's threats and advances, and Damon being Damon had gotten what he needed somehow. He might have been listening just outside her window for all she knew...

"I'm getting pretty mad now, Elena," he accompanied the word mad with a squeeze that almost shattered her ribs, "When I'm mad I can't control myself."

She couldn't imagine what kinds of torture, because there was sure to be more than one, that Damon used to acquire this information. Where was Stephen now? Was he hurt?

"Damon!" she gasped, his arms making an intake of breath almost impossible, "You're hurting me!"

He let out an animal roar that almost shook the room. He dropped her and she fell to the floor in a lump of aching bones.

She closed her eyes and waited for the throbbing in her chest to stop. He hadn't left the room because the window was still closed. The seconds ticked past slowly, and with each moment she felt her body grow more and more still.

Damon stood a foot from her head and stared down at her, his brow furrowing. She looked like Katherine, she even smelt like her. That scent, of rose petals and lavender, reminded him of the first time they had met. But Katherine would never bow down before him like Elena was. She would never show him even the slightest hint of the fondness Elena sometimes had for him. He knew he loved Elena, that he hadn't really loved Katherine, not really.

She had made him feel like a fool, as insignificant as an ant under her shoe, but Elena saw him for what he was – a lonely soul. As he helped her to stand, he saw within her too a glimmer of that same loneliness too pass over her shadowed eyes. They were both lonely souls, shadows, and always alone.