Title: Staccato

Disclaimers: I don't own any supernatural powers or anything else to do with TVD. It would be a completely different show if I did.

Genre: hurt/comfort, big time.

Summary/Set: Forget that the last ten minutes of the finale happened so Elena's still human. Damon goes on a self destructive faze following her phone call.

Pairing: Canon, eventually Delena.

Elena knew it couldn't have been long since she fell asleep, but was alert immediately after glancing at her buzzing phone, "Jeremy? Everything all right?"

"With me? Yeah, I'm at work, it's closing time at the Grill, we're just cleaning up and kicking the last few customers out. I'm just not sure if it is a good idea letting Damon loose at the moment. I'm thinking maybe you should try taking him home, if he'd listen to anyone it'd be you."

"Is he very drunk?" Elena got nervous. Damon loosing control wasn't usually a good foretoken to any night.

"I don't know how much his vampire constitution can take, but when he came in here two hours ago he was slurring and I had to help him over to a booth. Since then, he had three bottles of bourbon and he's on his second bottle of brandy so I'm guessing yes. Not to mention the boys were having trouble disagreeing with him earlier and I don't fancy their chances when we want to close."

"It's okay, just let him sit there, I'm on my way," Elena promised, dressing promptly. When fifteen minutes later she arrived to the now dimly lit tavern, she found Jeremy counting the money in the till, "correction, third bottle of brandy," he whispered to her as she passed the bar towards the corner Jeremy nodded at, "I've put a little vervain in the last couple of his bottles, I thought it'd slow him down a little." Damon was resting with his head on his arms, his face out of view, not reacting to her approaching footsteps in the empty, quietened down Grill, but there was an overpowering smell of alcohol even so around him.

"Damon?" She tried to attract his attention and sat down opposite him at his table, anticipating that taking him home in his current condition will take quite a lot of time. "Damon!" He didn't seem to hear her, but up close she noticed, hoping she was mistaken, that his shoulders were shaking. She scooted nearer to him round the booth and put a hand on his upper arm, feeling his shaking body now for sure, affirming her suspicions. "Damon, are you all right?" She winced sympathetically. A low, nonthreatening sounding groan was the response, then one of his hands shot out to clutch the bottle and he quickly lifted it to his mouth, raising his head and downing several long gulps before Elena lowered her surprised eyebrows and took in his dishevelled, somewhat sickly appearance. "Did something happen? Talk to me Damon."

"Came to say good bye oh you immaculate, innocent maiden?" He mumbled with Elena barely able to guess the words, but there was one thing that certainly got her attention amongst them all, "nobody's saying good bye to anyone Damon, don't you remember, Bonnie's got everything under control."

Damon smirked at her, his eyes spinning with which he managed to make himself dizzy and had to steady himself by the side of the table, but eventually he managed to fumble in his pockets and produced some papers he tapped with his index fingertip, "my plane tickets to Italy."

Elena pulled the documents towards her to read, making the mistake of ignoring Damon enough for him to resort to the bottle again. "The flight isn't till tomorrow night. Why are you going?"

"You have to ask?"

The brunette shook her head, "if that's what you want.." She gulped hard, "you know I don't want to loose you, but I understand it's selfish of me to want both of you."

"It's not what I want!" Damon hit the table hard with his fist, making it crack a little to which Jeremy gave Elena an urging look. "It's what I promised my brother I'd do!"

Elena shook her head, frowning, "Stefan told you to go? And since when do you follow his advice?"

"Mutual," he hiccuped, "agreement."

The girl bit her bottom lip, "I still don't understand, but why don't you explain it all to me tomorrow? You need to sleep this off first."

"Can't," Damon stood, holding onto the table as his head acted like upwards was sideways, "plane to catch and all. Long driveto Fort Lauderdale International Airport," he splayed both palms on the surface, trying to get his head together for walking out.

"You shouldn't drive like this," Elena stated urgently.

"Vampire, babe, remember?"

"Maybe so, but you're endangering others, let me drive," she instinctively held out her arms to steady Damon.

He planted his feet purposefully firm and pushed her away, "I need to go, this touching, too much. How much can a man take you think?" He propelled himself forward holding on to the bar and the wall as he stumbled outwards, but still managed to snatch a new bottle, wine this time, whatever he could find, from the counter. "Add it to the Salvatore account, boy," he waved it towards Jeremy.

"Damon, you can't just leave like this, we haven't even had the chance to say good bye!" Elena trailed after him despairing.

"That's the idea, sweetheart," his intended smirk turned out like a grimace.

"Look at the state of you and it's the full moon! Anything could happen," the girl didn't back off, following him out into the parking lot.

"You and Stefan both. You only give a damn if I'm dying," he spat, literally, having to stop by the wall as a wave of nausea passed through him. He didn't remember the last time when he drank so much, but the feeling was still odd.

"You know that's not true," Elena used his momentary slowness to plant herself into the passenger seat of his car, "and to prove that, I'm coming with you."

"Elena," he slumped beside her, "I'm not driving drunk when you're in the car."

"That's the idea, sweetheart," she repeated his earlier mocking, "to get what I want. And by the way, you haven't even packed. Should we go back to the boarding house to get some clothes at least?"

Damon stared at her cocking his head towards her, "right. You win this time, but I would've been out of here a long time ago if your dear baby brother didn't spice my drink."

Elena sighed, "get out already and let me scoot over," she wasn't going to leave the car in case he would've sped off.

"Did you intentionally need to make me dizzy?" Damon complained after running round the convertible and held his head.

The young woman put the Chevy into gear, ignoring him. Driving deep in thought, she wondered if Damon was really going to leave Mystic Falls till he startled her by putting a hand on the steering wheel as they rolled down a hill in the middle of nowhere. "Stop," he grunted in a very grumbling way.

"Why now! We've been through this, we're going to the boarding house so you can sleep off this.."

"I'm gonna throw up," he held a fist to his mouth.

Elena glanced at him doubtfully, "vampires don't throw up..uhm..or they do," she corrected herself watching Damon lean forward and get rid of at least the contents of one previously ingested bottle, "Damon are you ok? You haven't got bitten have you?"

"Ugh, I need a drink," Damon wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket.

"You mean blood?" Elena chose to assume, not wanting to imagine the vampire any more drunk than he already was.

Damon didn't answer this time, just leant back on his seat closing his eyes and rubbing his stomach. Elena rolled down the window to get rid of the smell, not liking the situation one bit. She stepped on the gas, wanting to get to the boarding house as soon as possible, hoping Stefan would be able to help make light of the occurrence.

Tbc