Title: I'll Swallow You Whole
Rating: T
Summary: "She knows his love is one without conditions, without limits. That's why Elena clings to Damon as a vampire." Directly after We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes. DE.
A/N: Because who isn't just dying to know what happens next!? Thanksgiving, Shmanksgiving, I need my Delena fix.
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Couldn't be trusted with them if I did.
"You want a love that consumes you."
Damon Salvatore doesn't know when he became so selfless.
Selflessness was never his thing. He spent a hundred years cultivating an attitude of vicious nonchalance; killing and then strolling down the street with a tune on his breath. He was the yin to Stefan's self-righteous yang; the calm killer to Stefan's blood-thirsty monster. His brother was at once the most selfish and selfless being on the planet, and Damon was, by comparison, just Damon. Messy, at odds with his baser instincts (which pulled toward the good and the bad), but always somewhere in the middle, lingering.
But this morning, he held the hand of the girl he loved and told her, wait, no, your boyfriend isn't bad, Elena, he just loves you so much he wants to cure you. Ain't that sweet?
What he didn't tell her was that the cure is as much for Stefan as it is for Elena. Not so his brother can be human—Damon doubts Stefan even cares— but so Stefan can bring back the girl he loves. Damon knows, in the way brothers always know the hearts of their siblings, that Stefan saw every good thing about the world in Elena. Everything Stefan wasn't, Elena was, and that was why he clung to her. It's hard, maybe impossible, for Stefan to love her now that she's a mirror to him.
Damon, on the other hand, clings to her for no reason other than he loves her. His soul simply howls out for hers. His morality molded itself to hers; his motivations center on her well-being. This is what Damon does, after all—first with Katherine and then with her identical and so much better double. He morphs himself completely into the one he loves, which leads to passion so desperate he'll do anything. Everything.
He takes a swallow of scotch out of the tumbler in his hand. He thinks he might be morphing himself into his brother now, because for God's sake, when has he ever been one for this much reflection?
As he walks out into the living room, shirt unbuttoned, scotch in his hand, he can tell his brother is brooding. There's this mood that settles over everything when Stefan is upset.
Stefan looks up from the fireplace but doesn't nod a greeting. Damon catalogues their recent interactions to decide if any of them could have pissed Stefan off. Not even close—actually, he thinks he deserves the title of best fucking brother in the world.
"So, I think we should talk about the Jeremy situation," Damon says. Sometimes his brother's moods are like annoying drunk chicks at a bar; if you ignore them long enough, they might just flutter away. "He's going to need to start killing vampires, and preferably not us."
"I think we have some time to figure that out," Stefan says. Then he does something that lets Damon know it's really bad—he pours himself a drink.
"I thought you wanted Elena cured yesterday."
Stefan takes a deep swallow of his poison. "Elena's not really my concern anymore."
Damon doesn't answer. Elena could be six feet under for a hundred years and she'd still be the Salvatores' main concern.
"We broke up."
Damon feels his borrowed blood start to slide a little faster through his veins. "So you're broken up this week. Who cares?"
"We're broken up for every week in the foreseeable future," Stefan straightens, walks past Damon to the stairs. "And right now, the future's pretty long."
"Hold on," Damon says before his brother can make his sweeping, dramatic exit. "What the hell, Stefan?"
"If you're going to ask me how I could do this to her, don't bother." Stefan edges back around the couch toward Damon. "And don't bother pretending this isn't the happiest day of your life."
Stefan is rocking on the balls of his feet with his hands raised, his glass clenched tightly between his thumb and middle finger. Damon isn't sure why, but he has the distinct feeling he's about to get punched.
"You don't think I had something to do with it, do you?" He asks. Stefan doesn't answer, but his face stones over and he throws back the rest of his drink. "Are you kidding me? I told her you were trying to cure her—I handed her forgiveness to you on a fucking platter. Don't try to make this my fault."
"You really don't know, do you?"
"Oh, goodie, abstract questions," Damon answers, swallowing down his own drink.
Stefan takes a step forward. Damon raises his arm in defense, but Stefan doesn't move to strike. "You're saying you're not even a little bit happy about this?"
Damon stops and takes a moment to examine himself. He admits, he's a little happy he won't have to torture himself with thoughts of his brother sliding into the love of both their never-ending lives—or God forbid actually have to hear it. Other than that—
"No. It's not like she's going to throw herself into my arms because you two broke up. She never has before."
Stefan looks at him like Damon's a whole new person—a person he's never met before. "When did you stop trying to have her?"
Damon shrugs. Until now, he hadn't realized it either. "I always choose her. She always chooses you."
Stefan says nothing, just slides his hands into his pockets and shrugs. He opens his mouth, stops and closes it again.
"Out with it."
Stefan shakes his head. "I think you may be a better brother than I am."
"Why?"
"I—"
There's a firm knock on the door. One, two, three raps, hardening into a wall between Stefan and Damon. His brother doesn't move, so Damon heads for the door. He's not entirely surprised when Elena's on the other side. She's looking down when he opens it, staring at her hands, her hair brushing the edges of her fingertips.
"Hey, stranger," he says, and she looks up.
"Hey," she answers. He moves back, hand on the doorknob, but she doesn't follow him. "I—is Stefan here?"
"He's brooding in the living room," Damon answers, and waves her in. She steps inside, but slowly, like she's trying to enter a house where she hasn't received an invitation.
"Oh, I didn't—" she breaks off when Stefan walks into the entryway. "Hey," she says.
"I should go," Stefan announces. That seems like an understatement to Damon, because Stefan looks like he's going to strip out of his skin for how badly he doesn't want to be there.
"Stefan, don't," Elena says, but it's half-hearted, like an invitation for dinner to someone you don't really like. Damon's about to excuse himself, because teenage drama chokes the life out of him—but then she looks at him. She looks at him, and it pins him to spot. There's so much will behind her eyes, so much power, that he'd probably do anything she told him to do—murder or starve or dance or die.
As quickly as he finds her, he loses her again. His world starts to rock back onto its axis as Elena and Stefan stare at each other. Damon becomes the third wheel, but oddly; ignored yet wholly acknowledged at the same time, like a misbehaving child. Go sit in the corner while mommy and daddy decide what to do about your behavior.
"Okay," he says, dragging the syllables out. "It's 10:30 and I've already have my fill of weird. I'm going to go decide what to do about our real problems."
"Real problems?" Elena echoes, her voice quick and sharp.
"Jeremy's a hunter, Klaus is Klaus, Wolfboy's pissed off..." he makes a rolling gesture with his hand.
"Don't be rude, Damon," Stefan says. "Elena came here for a reason."
"You can't do this," she says, her voice abruptly shaky. Damon wonders if she's been hiding it or if her ramped-up vampire emotions sped her up like a tape-player. Zero to tears in .5 seconds. "You can't act like this."
"Forgive me if it's a little hard to take."
"I've really never wanted to be somewhere else more in my life," Damon interrupts. "Do me a favor?"
They both look at him, and again he feels a weird sense of indirect attention, like everyone knows something about him he doesn't know.
"What?" Elena says.
"Whatever it is," Damon answers. "Just deal with it."
When the door shuts behind Damon, the house is silent as the dead—even for the dead.
"You didn't tell him." Elena's voice chips through the ice in the room.
"It's not something I want to tell him," Stefan answers. "I can't stomach it."
"I meant what I said, Stefan," Elena answers, her words watery. "You can't act like this. You can't act like I've done something wrong."
"I know," he answers, hands curling to fists. "I just—I don't know how to take this. I don't know if I can."
"What do you think I'm going to do?" Elena asks. "We broke up because of how I feel. That doesn't dictate what I do now."
"So you weren't coming over here to talk to him?"
Elena falls quiet, her strength draining down the slope in her shoulders. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
Stefan doesn't answer, and they stand in thick, cold silence. In the endless competition with his brother, he generally considers himself the better man—more thoughtful, more willing to accept Elena's wishes, more caring of people other than her. But now he's faced with the possibility of watching her with him, watching him take care of her and love her, and he realizes what kind of man he is.
He wants to pin her down and claim her. He wants to take the choice away from her, because it must be a crime against nature to wedge between two brothers this way. He wants to stop her, only he can't. He can't control her, and he hates everyone for it. And he hates himself for wanting to.
"I need to leave," he says, and her gaze flies to his face. "I need to. For a little while."
"I told you I don't know what I'm going to do," she says.
"It doesn't matter," Stefan answers. "You're still going to trust him, and he's still going to get through to you when I can't. I just need some time away. I need perspective."
She nods slowly, but her face has gone still and blank. "I understand."
"I won't be idle," he says, like a plea. "I'll work on the cure. We'll cure you, Elena."
"But you can't love me until then," she says, and traps him with the intensity of her eyes.
"I love you. I will always love you," Stefan promises. He wants to move forward, to hold her, even just take her hand—but he can't. He won't. "But I'm not what you need."
He waits for her answer, prays for her blessing, until finally she nods. He thinks she might ask him where he's going, when he'll be back, but she doesn't. She just nods and swallows, and he can see the resolve building up around her. She's lived without him before, lived with the possibility of never seeing him again and experienced the horror of getting back shattered pieces of a monster instead of a man. There's comfort in the familiar, even if the familiar is awful. He can't surprise her anymore.
"Just don't forget," she says, her last plea.
His smile is stiff from lack of use, but it's real. "I couldn't if I tried."
Damon nearly breaks down the Gilbert door. Not that anyone would notice if he did, since no adult parental figure of any kind lives there anymore. He just barely restrains himself, but he's up to Elena's room before she can react to the door slam.
"What happened?"
She's holding he hand over her heart, even though her heart doesn't beat anymore. "Damon."
"You were supposed to work it out. Then I get a note taped to the front door that says Stefan's taking an indefinite vacation."
"He's not taking a vacation," Elena interrupts. "He's looking for the cure."
"He's running the hell away, again," Damon answers, and every word shakes. "Tell me why."
"You know why!" She says, and suddenly she's shouting, her voice cracking like a cheap mirror. "You know he can't love me like this! The cure is the only hope we have!"
"No," Damon denies. His answer is low and even compared to her frenzy, but inside he feels like she sounds. "That's not all of it. If he wanted the cure so fucking bad, he'd stick next to Jeremy and Klaus. Tell me why, Elena."
"I—I can't."
He thinks he knows, but he wants her to say it. He needs her to say it. "Elena."
"He knew. He could see it," Elena says. The tears look just as natural on her cheeks as they did when she was human, even though she's a hundred times stronger and a hundred shades darker now. "He could see it when I couldn't."
"Please tell me." She doesn't look up, and he feels the desperation claw at him. "Elena, please."
"I'm—I'm in love with you."
It's almost too much. It's almost too frightening, the way everything just floods into him. He suddenly has more than he ever thought possible, and it's more than he can ever imagine losing. He can feel the ropes closing in around him and the ground dropping out beneath him—he expects the trap to close. He knows he won't survive when it does.
"Damon?"
"Please don't—" he can't finish, because he doesn't know what he's begging for. Please don't let this fall through. Please don't wake up tomorrow and mean something different. Please, please don't give me everything and yank it all away.
"Damon, you look..."
"You're confused," he says. She steps forward and he has to resist taking a step back. How ironic that when she finally wants to be close to him, he wants to be as far away as possible.
"I'm not," she denies. Anger starts licking at the edges of her face, like she thinks she's getting played. "I'm confused about everything else, but not about this."
"You told me," his voice is too hoarse, and he has to clear his throat and start again. "You told me you couldn't do this. Not ever."
"That was before. Everything is different now, don't you see?" She rushes up to him, reaches for his hands before he can think of shoving her off.
She's more unstable than he's ever seen her. Her moral compass is muddled, and there are two very distinct parts of her that want opposite things. She lingers in the middle, swaying from one to the other but never settling. For all her denial, she's exactly like him.
"And if Stefan gets your cure and brings it back—when everything goes back to the way it was before, what then?"
She looks down, but he knows the answer. Human Elena always chooses Stefan. It's easy to be with a judgmental person when you've done nothing to be judged for. It's harder when your very nature slips to the darkness, and that's why Elena clings to Damon as a vampire. She knows his love is one without conditions, without limits.
"I can't think about any of that," she whispers, and she's so close—so intoxicatingly close. "I can only think of right now."
She kisses him, and it steals everything else away. He can't think of the future either, of tomorrow or next week or next year when Stefan limps home with her cure in his bloodied hands. Here, in this moment, she's his, and he doesn't have the will to say no.
"You're going to destroy me," he whispers into her mouth.
"But I'm the one who saved you," she murmurs, and he can't argue. He was so small before he met her, so cruel and lost.
His arms are forceful around her, pulling her against him, molding them together like clay. Her grip is just as bruising and he loves that; loves that her strength can match his. He realizes this is exactly right—this is what they've been waiting for. She was meant to be with him like this, so glorious and strong. Transformed.
"Tell me you love me," he demands against her lips. He wraps his hands around her arms and shakes her. "Tell me."
"I love you," she says."God, I love you."
She pulls back, spins them around and tosses him back onto her bed. She stands over him like a queen. "Your turn."
He tries to sit up and suddenly she's straddling him, hands on his shoulders. "No. Say it."
He goes lax under her fingers. "You know I do. I'll never stop. I'll love you until it burns me to ash."
"Until it consumes you."
She leans down and kisses him again, and he's lost forever. He can never go back to when protecting her was enough, when keeping her whole and happy for Stefan was enough. He flips them, positions her beneath him and pulls her hands above her head. She arches in response, and he can only think Mine, mine, mine.
"Until it consumes us," he says against her open mouth and ragged breaths. I will swallow you whole.
And he thinks that's exactly what she wants. Finally.
"When I'm with him, it just consumes me."