It all settles itself, like dust on the picture of her in his night stand, one he doesn't dare to look at any more.
(Her eyes are what scares him the most, in all of the known universe.)
They joke and fight and slam hypothetical doors in each other's faces and all in all do their best normalcy impression. He thinks it's the most they could ever be; files his declaration of love into the "resolve once later, possibly never" shelf.
(He will love from afar and yet all too close until then.)
(Mostly, he'll find her close.)
"Damon."
"Elena."
(Sometimes, it's as if all they know and need and feel are exactly two words. Sometimes.)
His voice is a traitor of the worst kind; he opts for sounding playful and carefree, almost succeeds; still he feels she can hear the (desperate, awful, impossible) need in his voice.
(He's gotten far too needy; needs to brush up on his not caring and not needing and not anything human at all.)
"I know of more efficient ways of waking up a vampire than whispering on his room's doorstep."
Her white top screams of innocence so he rolls his eyes.
Innocent's never been her style, not really.
"I've heard of that - a wooden thing, with a sharp end?"
(She says wood but he does not think of stakes.)
(Be good, Damon, he reminds himself. Do the eye thing, do the incessant smirking, make her squirm; make her regret. She'll hate you for it, and it'll get easier to pretend you hate her, and that's better than to love her.)
He's good. If he's mostly on auto pilot, he may just survive this, her.
She half smiles, he copies the act.
The familiarity of the mocking and the teasing almost serves to cover up the less familiar aspect of them; her, in his room; her, requesting his presence.
He wonders if she ran into Stefan on the way to his room.
"I think something's wrong with Ric."
(You need to stop doing that, Elena. Doing what? Assuming that I'll play the good guy because it's you who's asking.)
One of these days the heaviness of the sound of the words neither of them say will get too loud, so impossibly loud and they will suffocate from the emotions pedantically hidden behind those words.
("We need your help.
I need your help.
I need you.
I miss you.
Damon.")
("So what? Not like I care.
Fuck you.
Don't go.
I love you.
Elena.")
The veil between them, ever so carefully constructed out of sarcastic brush-offs, misplaced faux attempts at flirtation, her "It will always be Stefan," and his damsels of distraction - it will all come apart.
It will come apart as easily as his defenses come apart nowadays, to the point where all it takes is "Where were you Damon?" and that look in her eyes, of sadness and regret and need and everything that never was and never will be.
(Everything he wishes them to be.)
She clears her throat to remind him that she's here, in case he's forgotten.
(As if he's not tried to.)
Most of the time (like now) she can read him pretty well - any act other than him getting up to come to her aid she'll (correctly) interpret as pretending not to care.
(He's Damon and she's Elena and there's a fine line they both choose to walk in order to be able to coexist.)
He doesn't even try to pretend.
This way at least, being the hero and all, he gets to stick around, without it having to be (oh so obviously) about her.
He tries being selfless but thinks he's selfish most of the time and then he forgets how to tell the two apart.