Life's Promises
"So are you gonna drive us home or not?" Elena slurs as she lays her head on the cool wood of the bar, the surface is damp but she's much too drunk to care. Her head feels like lead and she needs somewhere to rest it.
"Come on Matt," Caroline nods in agreement. She's been manic all night, veering from euphoria to depression with every tequila shot. Tyler's name hasn't been spoken, but he hangs in the room like a fog. Even though Elena used to be Mystic Falls' keg stand champ Caroline can outdrink her now. It takes a dozen shots to even get the blonde slightly glassy eyed, and she sobers up quickly, though tonight not for lack of trying.
Matt, who's still working his shift, has been watching over them since mid afternoon. He's not judging thank god, but he also wasn't too excited when Elena tried to climb onto the bar after Pour Some Sugar On Me started playing on the jukebox. She'd stumbled on her chair and he caught her around the waist and dragged her down. She'd laughed and kissed him sloppy on the cheek while he talked about the two of them getting kicked out.
It's way past two now, Caroline's mom has been sending her angry texts for the last forty-five minutes and Elena's stomach has begun to growl nonstop. She needs to decide if she's going to throw up and pass out or eat and fall asleep, right now she coherent enough to be leaning towards the latter. She started whining about all of it a little while ago, but the Grill's kitchen shuts down as soon as the clock strikes midnight. She's been downing peanuts by the handful on Matt's orders but it's not helping any.
"Guys," Matt shakes his head, "It's last call, I have to close and you have to get out of here."
"But you stole my keys," Elena moans as she tucks the hair that's curtaining her face behind her ear. She'd given them up easily enough; in fact Matt had her whole bag behind the bar. He'd confiscated it as soon as she'd entered the realm of hazy heads and useless legs.
"You're damn right he did," says the voice behind her, and she groans but still can't manage to lift her head off the bar to look at him. Caroline's turned in her barstool to glower at Matt and down what she's sure will be her last shot of the night.
"You called him," she hisses at her ex boyfriend as she sets the tiny glass back where it belongs.
"I called Stefan," Matt corrects, as he starts wiping down counters and flipping chairs, "Damon answered his phone."
"As if we didn't have enough to be worried about," Damon comments as he crosses the room, "now I've got to play DD to the lushes at the local dive bar?"
"It's girls night," Caroline replies, "We're fine."
"You might be," he nods, and Elena feels herself being lifted out of her chair. She rests her head on his shoulder and he grabs her legs and slides them out, "but this one smells like a brewery."
"I can walk," she murmurs into his neck, starting to squirm.
"Don't be stubborn," he groans, but loosens his hold even as Caroline starts to protest.
"I can," she insists and he sets her on her feet. Caroline had dressed her tonight, which meant boots with heels as thin as pencil points. She's fine standing in place and waiting as Caroline grabs their coats and Matt hands Damon her purse, but it gets tricky when she's expected to move.
Caroline thanks Matt and flounces out of the bar like a swan, all long legs in her mini skirt and bare shoulders in her glittering blouse. She shrugs into her leather jacket, waiting at the door for the disheveled team of two to get their act together.
Elena makes it four steps before she wobbles. She wilts like a flower on the fifth. Her legs just stop working, her knees buckle and her hands fly out to catch her fall. But he catches her, around the waist just like Matt, and lifts her up again.
"Jesus, Matt," he hisses, "how many has she had?"
"Elena honey," Caroline observes, crossing her arms over her chest, "you're a mess. Just let him carry you."
"Fine," she whispers as she wraps her arms around his neck. Her whole head is fuzzy and her body keeps getting overheated. "I used to be better at this you know," she insists. She waves to Matt over his shoulder by way of a goodbye as she pushes the door to the Grill open with her feet for him.
"Remember the night after Matt won homecoming and you made him dance with you in front of everyone to that Britney Spears song on Dana's roof?" Caroline laughs as they walk to the car, "Or that week in summer when we made a vodka watermelon every day and ate them by Tiki's pool?"
"Yeah, yeah, The High Times at Mystic Falls High I get it," he interrupts with an eye roll, "Get the door blondie."
"I was an incredible drunk," she agrees, ignoring him completely. Caroline gets the passenger door and he slides her in none too gently. "Ouch," she whimpers as he pulls away, his cheek brushes against hers. She's hazy on the details, but she feels it in her stomach. The quick touch and then he's whispering in her ear, "Watch your head."
He slams the door and then helps Caroline into the car too, both of them hurling verbal spars back and forth until it all blurs together. He starts the car and pulls out of their space much too quickly, and somehow she falls against across the shifter and onto his arm. She doesn't know why both of them are taking this so seriously, she starts to laugh at the effect. "Put your seat belt on," he instructs.
"Yeah right," she retorts, managing to pull herself up using his shoulder as leverage, "Don't crash and we'll be just fine."
"Well you're not exactly making it easy," he smirks, before turning to her, "Am I gonna have to kill the busboy for serving you two?"
"It wasn't him," Elena grumbles, turning to look over the headrest at Caroline, "She compelled the bartender." The two girls smile at each other, in a lot of ways they have so much in common, too much now. Elena reaches for the blonde's wrist, stealing an elastic to pull her hair up in a lopsided ponytail.
He looks at Caroline in the rearview mirror, "Where am I taking you?"
Caroline sighs, "Take me home."
"No," Elena whines, "Girls night. We can last a few more hours. Sleep at my house."
"I can't," Caroline disagrees with Elena's first sentiment with a wince, "And my mom's waiting up for me anyway."
They drop Caroline off at her doorstep, and Elena shouts things out the window like tonight is just another senior year experience. Like they're just two carefree girls with no problems other then what to do on warm Friday nights. Caroline will go inside and talk to her boyfriend's voicemail before she falls asleep. She'll wake up with red eyes and a wet pillow, because nothing can ever be simple anymore and deep down they both know it.
The car is quiet for all of five seconds after he pulls away, "So this is what we're doing now, huh?"
"Oh come on, this is what I'm doing now," she sighs and presses her whole cheeks against the car's window, "You've been doing this for decades."
"Centuries," he corrects, "And you're better then me."
She starts to fiddle with her seat, going horizontal and then tilting herself nearly vertical, smiling the whole time. "I'm really not," she snorts, "And anyway this isn't me trying to drown my inner pain. Daddy and mommy are dead. Boyfriend's an absolute mess. This is me blowing off steam and having fun, you might not be able to but I can still remember when I used to do that." They're closing in on her house and she's starting to unzip her shoes, which is more then a little ridiculous looking and also a lot hot too. Long legs in tight pants, muscles working and stretching along her bare neck, she is his favorite thing to look after all.
"Well you're gonna have a lot of fun tomorrow morning," he taunts and she rolls her eyes.
"Just be nice to me," she murmurs as she gets out of breath pulling off her second boot, tossing it into the back seat without another thought. "You've been really mean to me lately," she points out gloomily.
He's quiet for a few seconds after that, turning onto her block and coming to a stop in front on her dark house. "It gets old Elena," he answers, he's not looking at her even though she's completely turned in her seat to look at him, "I can't leave, I won't, but it's not exactly easy." He blinks in her direction and finally makes eye contact, "You don't exactly make it easy."
"I can't do this with you too okay?" she exhales, "Not tonight. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how I'm feeling. We love each other, we don't, and it's all a big mess." Her head is full of white oak stakes and her brother who may or may not be going crazy. She's in crisis now and she's sure she will be the same way months from now. The dominos are flipping and falling and the problems are never ending. She opens the door and then falls out of it.
She's barefoot and stumbling up the path when she realizes she needs her key, turning back to the car she runs right into him. "We love each other?" he wonders down at her.
She snatches the keys out of his hands and continues towards the house, "No we hate each other now. Your choice, remember? Being a dick is easier then feeling anything. You and Stefan should start a club."
She opens the door and lets it slam against the wall like an explosion. Doesn't matter, no one's home tonight anyway. There's been no one else home for almost a week. She used to sleep at Stefan's when she got lonely, now she just plays her music up blaringly loud so she doesn't have to deal with her own thoughts.
She drops the keys on the floor and heads for the second floor, leaving her top somewhere on the stairs. Her camisole and jeans get pulled off in her bedroom and then she's in her flannel shorts and some ratty T-shirt of her mom's she's had for years. Her hair comes down and it smells like tequila and strawberries as it pools over her shoulders.
Then it's back down the stairs in search of food. He's standing in her doorway with a blank expression as she passes in favor of the kitchen. There are tons of half eaten bags of potato chips in the pantry, remnants of the boys that used to populate this house with her. She grabs the ones that are ridged and pulls herself up onto the kitchen counter. The marble is freezing against her skin and it feels phenomenal. She gulps down a deep breath and then a mouthful of chips.
She hears him pull out a kitchen chair and take a seat, "You know I hope it's nice for you and Stefan, turning it off and on whenever you want. I hope it makes everything so nice and simple for the two of you. Because getting whiplash everyday from your drastically shifting personalities is great for me."
"You're an angry drunk," he whispers.
She lifts up her head to look up at him, "Actually, right now, I'm just angry. It's too much. I'm not a doormat, so it'd be nice if both of you would stop walking all over me."
"I love you," he replies, he's leaning his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand as he watches her. She's pretty and sad and he wonders how he hasn't noticed how bad it's become. He's been so concerned with how he fits into the puzzle he hasn't seen how chipped her piece has become. What they've done to her and her perfect heart, which now sits in this house as vulnerable as an open wound.
She looks at him for a beat too long and then lays her head back on the counter, "Great. Because your love, my love, and his love have given us all so much. We're all so much better for falling in love." The words are so bitter she can barely get them out, but once she has it feels like a deep breath released.
He just smirks, "You don't mean it, any of it. I know you don't. You love everyone Elena, too much and too hard. And fortunately for the rest of us you can't just turn it off."
"I wish I could," she murmurs back.
"No you don't," he returns quickly.
"I love him," she squints in the darkness of the kitchen, looking up at the ceiling. It's a fact. She can't change it, even if she wanted to. She closes her eyes, "But I love you too. After everything we've been through how could I not? It doesn't mean I want either of you, it doesn't mean anything except I would die for you, for him, and that both of you would do the same for me."
"It's more then that. You know it is," he argues, and she can't see him but she knows the exact look he's giving her.
She drops the bag of chips on the floor behind her, "I'm going to bed."
She makes it up the stairs; the food has seriously helped her muddled brain. She doesn't realize until she sees his reflection in her mirror that he's followed her. She groans as she falls onto her bed, "It wasn't an invitation Damon."
"You kissed me back," he points out, it's so quiet she almost can't hear it, "I kissed you and you kissed me back."
"Please stop," she's sitting in the dark, watching him watch her, "It's enough soul searching for one night. I kissed you back, I love you, but I also don't have anything else for you right now. I'm going to sleep."
He blurs and suddenly he's stretching out on the bench below her window, "Goodnight Elena."
"So you're just gonna hang out here and watch me?" she's crawling to the pillow and when her head finally falls against it she's never felt anything so good before. She doesn't need a blanket, just this bed for the rest of her life.
"You're going to sleep," he replies, "You're going to sleep and in the morning you're going to tell me what the hell you're talking about. Goodnight Elena."
"Goodnight Damon."