Just a little exercise. Newborn-ish Vampire Elena. Damon's trying to help her out.

"We make vampires for four reasons."

What?

Damon wasn't talking to me. He was focusing his gaze on Caroline, and she was just as confused as I was.

"We make vampires for four reasons," he said. "Obviously, love. Sometimes we need people to do our dirty work. Other times?" He shrugged, and leaned back against the couch. "We're bored."

We waited, but that was it. I sighed out all the air in my lungs and carefully took another breath. I –

"Can you not count to four?" Caroline snapped.

"Revenge."

"What?"

"Revenge." He was trying to be casual, but, for once in his life, failed. "If you weren't important to Elena, I wouldn't care about you. I didn't give you my blood to turn you; I gave it to heal you. Not for you, not for your mom, not for Bonnie, but for Elena. I don't love you, I don't need you to do my dirty work – I like doing my own, thank you very much – and I wasn't bored. Katherine killed you for revenge.

"I fed you my blood because you meant too much to Elena to lose. I tried to kill you after you turned because you could have hurt Elena. I rescued you from Klaus – for Elena. It sucks, that Stefan was there for you. Your only other bet would have been me. And, sorry, Blondie, but there's no way you'll ever live up to my standards."

Was Damon apologizing?

"What are you trying to say?"

"I hope you find it."

"Find what?"

I don't know what Damon was doing, but it was starting to not-work.

"Your light. Your reason to get up in the morning, to go to sleep at night. Your reason to live your… undead life. Your reason to try. To care. Your hope, Barbie. You may find it hard to believe, but my number of turns in shockingly low. No matter how much I like and accept who I am, I wouldn't wish this life on anybody. Not even the one I love."

Maybe that's what it was: a distraction.

Jeremy shifted in his bed upstairs, and I clenched my fist on the couch. On my other arm, Damon ghosted his fingers over my palm.

"Her brother is upstairs." Don't remind me. "Your brother is upstairs," he repeated, fingers still dancing across my skin. "Who do you know wants to eat their brother?"

I wanted to scowl, but schooled my features. I knew that if I scowled I would only hiss. And with my fangs down, ready to defend myself, the blood would be even more.

More powerful, more sensual, more… enveloping.

Fuck.

I clamped my teeth shut, squeezed my eyes until I saw spots, and turned my head away from Damon and Caroline.

Damon grabbed my hand and ran his fingers gently over my knuckles. Distraction.

"I wouldn't change Elena, I wouldn't change you, not for the world… but that doesn't mean I want you to go through this. Hey. Shh."

I tore my hand from his but only to bury my face in a pillow. "Shut up." Instead, he just pulled me onto his lap.

"What are you trying to say?" Caroline asked.

"I'm sorry you have to see Elena like this. Not for what she's becoming, I'll never be sorry for that, but I'm sorry that you have to see how a real sire acts."

"Damon. You're letting your humanity show. It suits you."

"Hey, no. Shh." He carefully took the pillow from my face and took my hands in his, stopping me from scratching under my eyes. "You're bleeding. Stop that."

"It itches."

"Shh."

"It itches and burns and hurts and make it stop."

"Shh."

"You hurt, too," Caroline said, and Damon shoved my face into the crook of his neck.

I dug my nails into my palms, but he only stopped that, too. "No, no, no, I don't want you to hurt yourself. Please, Elena."

"I don't want to hurt Jeremy." I panted, resting my forehead against his collarbone. "I don't want to hurt you." Could he feel my cheeks rippling against his chest?

"You're a baby. How could you hurt me?"

Do you have no idea how good you smell? Jeremy, Damon, Jeremy, Damon… Jeremy or Damon? Matt. Jeremy, Damon, Matt. "Keep distracting me."

"So you saw through this, too," Damon said, and I could sense the smirk.

"Were you not trying to apologize to Caroline?"

"No. I didn't try to. That's… how it happened to go."

"I never knew what you meant by 'your humanity'."

"Elena…"

"It's like." I froze. "What's wrong?"

Jeremy's heart picked up, and I didn't mean just a little bit. It went from slow, cathartic, forty two beats per minutes, to frantic at almost one and a half full beats in a second.

Jeremy smelled like dinner. He smelled like coal and paper and oil pants, like his favorite kind of chocolate, like a dry wine paired with a hint of rum. He shouldn't be drinking.

And books – like a library. Damon compared me with a library on several occasions. Maybe… maybe I could use it as a familiar connection –

His heart beat even stronger – nope. Dinner, not family. A human heart was beating just over two full beats a second – why wasn't it mine?

I was straining against Damon before I realized it; it was like I was struggling against a rock. He gave none and I wrestled and struggled and kicked and strained but –

"Why are you just sitting there!" He was sitting there, too calmly, while I did everything possible to try and eat my brother.

He laughed, but that only caused my anger to rise. "You're a baby. Your attempts at escape are almost pathetic."

I pulled back and hissed at him.

Through the pounding in my ears, Jeremy's heart slowed down to a normal pace. "Nightmare," Damon said. "I made it go away."

"That's a thing?" Caroline asked.

"Maybe if you're really nice, I'll teach you, too," Damon said.

Now that Jeremy's heartbeat was safely within his bedroom – and not in the living room, with me – I felt mortified.

Damon's hand cradled my face like it was glass. "Hey. You're beautiful."

I closed my eyes, and willed tears that never came. "I want to cry – so badly."

"Eat human food."

"What?"

"Hey, look at me, sweetie."

"My face…"

"It's beautiful," Damon said.

"It's my vampire face," I mourned.

"It is not your vampire face, Elena Gilbert! Eyes and fangs be damned!"

I tried to make my teeth go away, but that wasn't happening, not with Damon so close.

Jeremy smelled like dinner but Damon… Damon smelled like… more. Dinner, sure, but more.

Leather, even when his jacket was off, and two kinds of leather: his Italian leather and leather and me. He was wrapped in an ever-present air of bourbon, and a faint ghost of… cigars? A deep, spicy smoke, but only a hint. Maybe. And –

"What about human food?"

"Look at me."

It took me a few minutes, but I finally did, perching on Damon's knees. "What about human food?"

"The more human you act, the more human perks you get."

"Human perks?"

"Now that I'm drinking more than A negative, my nails are growing again, and so is my hair. I can cry now. I have to shave again. Ugh. I missed brushing my teeth one night and regretted it in the morning. My skin feels all soft again."

"My nails won't grow?"

"Not unless you need them to," she said. "We're vampires. Vampires don't really need nails."

"But I can cry?" I asked eagerly, smiling even through my fangs, giddy.

"You can cry," Damon said, chuckling, pulling me back, tucking my head under his chin. I snuggled backwards.

Mine.

Hungry to ashamed to embarrassed, embarrassed to turned on, to desperate, dangerous, devastated, embarrassed, again, turned on, again, curious, elated, content.

All of that… all of that in, like, five minutes.

I sighed, worn out.

"Why would you hurt me?"

Sedated, I entwined our fingers, breathing from his wrist to his elbow before dropping our hands. I felt like I had just ran a mile.

"So glad I can't blush," I admitted.

"I think Elena's "seven minutes in hell" has been a success," Damon teased.

"It gets easier," Caroline said.

"But it never goes away," I finished.

She smiled sadly. "But it gets better. Damon won't let anything happen to you, either."

"I know."

We walked to the door, and I hesitated at his car while Caroline walked – ran? – home.

"Hate to break it to you, Elena." I looked over at Damon, concern plagued by vampire features. "Vampires don't only like to bite – we like to be bitten, too."