The Little Moments that Matter
Setting: I re-watched the episode Blood Brothers from Season 1 today and there are some lovely early Delena moments during the time when Stefan is in the dungeon while he gets the human blood out of his system and Elena is spending most of her nights at the Salvatore Boarding House. This is my own little add-on to that.
D/C: TVD is not mine, nor are these lovely people my characters.
Elena turned her head to the right side and then the left, cracking her neck before she continued reading her book. Her feet were stretched out on Stefan and Damon's sofa but the warmth of the crackling fire was making her sleepy and she kept losing her concentration. Elena knew she should go home before it got too late but the warm and peace of the boarding house encouraged her to linger, and even though she'd checked three times that Stefan was sleeping in the dungeon downstairs she felt guilty about going home to her comfortable bed and leaving him alone on the hard floor.
When Damon slide up behind her and gently massaged her neck for a moment it felt so good she didn't want him to stop but she knew she should. They had been spending so much time together and with Stefan mostly out of action the walls she has carefully constructed between them are starting to crumble.
"Damon," Elena warned, her tone said it all.
"It's a neck rub not a proposal, like it or not you're human Elena, you still need to eat and sleep and everything else, don't sit here in pain because St Stefan isn't around to look after you, have you even eaten anything since you've gotten here?" Elena turns towards him and Damon cocks a knowing eyebrow in her direction.
"I feel weird just helping myself."
"Well don't, you're practically family; after all Katherine is our Mummy vamp, and you are related to Katherine," Damon grinned knowing that this comparison would drive Elena crazy. "Hey does that make your relationship with Stefan incest?" he teased.
"By that logic you slept with your mother," Elena glowered.
"Ah, but that was before I became a vampire," Damon countered.
"Like you wouldn't have gone back to her in a second if she'd been in that tomb when you opened it," Elena pointed out.
"But, she wasn't because she ran off and left me like a discarded toy," Damon scooped Elena's feet up and sat down next to her, putting her feet back in his lap, and made an exaggerated sad puppy face.
Elena laughed. At times Damon's ability to joke about anything, no matter how serious, was irritating, and she knew that all too often it was his way of covering his deeper emotions but it also made it easier to cope, knowing that however bad things got Damon could make her smile, even if it was only on the inside while on the outside she was screaming at him for being insensitive. Somehow even arguing with him was a comfort, it kept her fighting.
Elena closed her book and Damon slipped her shoes off and started rubbing her feet. For a moment she was embarrassed, her feet must feel disgusting, but the massage was beautiful, and then it was too good and she felt that impulse to put up walls between them before lines were crossed, "Damon you shouldn't, you know I'm here because of Stefan-"
"It's okay Elena, I get it. But massaging your stinky feet is not going to make me anymore inclined to sleep with you than I already am, which I may point out is considerably, so unless you're feeling an irresistible urge to strip naked and have your way with me, just lighten up and relax."
Elena glared at Damon but she didn't stop him. He continued rubbing, focusing on different areas, her heels, her toes, her arches. Her whole body flooded with relief. Elena closed her eyes and lent her head against the side of the sofa. Damon smiled with satisfaction and continued. He had all the time in the world and watching her let go, just a little, of the tension that had been burdening her young shoulders for almost as long as he'd known her, was payment enough, relaxed something inside him. Oh her beauty still did things to him, provoked cravings inside him that were almost painful in their intensity, but watching Elena drift off into sleep soothed something within him. It was such a long time since he'd looked after anyone, been of comfort to someone he really cared about. With Katherine he'd always felt like he was trying to prove his worth, his usefulness, but oddly, despite all the rejections, he felt like with Elena he had a purpose. There were so many little moments between them, times when she'd turned to him or opened up to him, sometimes about things she hadn't yet told Stefan. It wasn't a relationship, not like what she had with Stefan, but it was something, and the small place inside Damon where his humanity still lurked clung to that something and slowly began to grow again.