This is my first fic for The Vampire Diaries, and I'm still experimenting with the characters and their unique relationships with each other. I'm fascinated by the chemistry between Damon and Elena, so it was inevitable that I'd play around with that spark between the two of them. This fic isn't set at any particular point in the show...just during the general Season 1 timeline.
I'd love to hear what you think...please leave a review, if you're so inclined. And most of all, enjoy. :)
(I will also point out that I don't own any portion whatsoever of The Vampire Diaries. Though I wouldn't mind Damon wrapped up with a pretty bow.)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
That line was always attributed to Henry Kissinger, though Damon privately thought that Kissinger had stolen the spirit if not the exact wording of that line from him. Power was the definition of his life, the one thing he craved above all else…or at least that's what he wanted the rest of the world to believe. Power could make him temporarily forget the long years of disappointment and loneliness and cold, soulless immortality. Power was a drug, salty and thick on the tongue, burning like a fire in the gut, pumping like pure adrenaline through the veins. Power could do anything. Power was life.
It came in many different forms, all of which he appreciated with unabashed sensuality. There was the power of the hunt, the rich thrill of ending some pathetic human's existence and feeling the tangy lifeblood spurting bright and arterial down his throat. There was the power of the chase, when he toyed with his prey, letting them believe that they had a chance to run, to hide, until at the end they realized that there was no escape from the Reaper that stood unmasked before them. There was the power of seduction, the dark heat of a woman beneath him in the night, her gasps and his groans mingling in a duet no less pleasurable for its inevitable end. And then there was the power of compulsion, the ability to play with humans like puppets on a string with no more than the sheer hypnosis of his ice-bright eyes. Yes, Damon loved power. And dear God, power seemed to absolutely adore him.
Which was precisely why the very existence of Elena Gilbert annoyed the hell out of him. The first human that had truly intrigued him in a long, long time was hedged round with the triple protection of vervain, a resemblance to the only woman he'd ever loved, and the ever-watchful eye of his younger brother, Saint Stefan. And no matter how Damon tried, he really hadn't been able to bring himself to breach any of her defenses…yet.
Tonight could change all of that. Tonight he was alive with power, incandescent with it, burning from the inside out with the white-hot intensity of pure flame. Tonight he had stopped caring about the restrictions of practicality or conscience or even safety. He wanted her in all her duality—goddess of the dark moon with the golden shimmer of sleeping Eve, virgin huntress with the generous warm eyes of Inanna, Persephone wrapped in the arms of Hades, one foot in the sunlight and the other caught in the musty silence of the grave. Angel and demon, the past and the present, lover and beloved, Heaven and Hell. Two women, one face.
Elena.
He swung one leg over the sill of her bedroom window, moonlight slivering over his figure, lean and coiled as a panther ready to strike. He was in black tonight, expensive material rippling over bunched muscles and porcelain skin. The absence of color suited him, and he knew it. Tonight he would blend into the darkness, become one with it, drag her with him into its depths. And if he knew one thing as he stepped into her bedroom, it was that this was going to be one hell of a ride.
She was asleep, lying on her side in the double bed with its cream duvet neatly folded at the foot and feather pillows strewn invitingly at the opposite end. Dark hair tumbled around her face, and one hand lay curled beneath her cheek. There was a faint line between her eyes, even in sleep, and as he watched she shifted restlessly beneath the tangled sheets. He'd become quite familiar with her collection of pajamas in the months he'd been slipping into her bedroom late at night. Tonight she wore a grey tank top that dipped low over smooth olive skin and clung to the subtle lines of her torso. Around her neck the locket with its deadly infusion of vervain glittered in the moonlight that slid through the half-opened window.
His feet seemed to move of their own volition, and within the space of a breath he stood at her side, one hand extended toward the curve of her cheek, fingers outstretched in anticipation of the feel of the soft, vulnerable skin. He didn't touch her, though, couldn't yet. Tonight he wanted all of her, warm and willing and awake. Tonight it would not be enough to take a moment of stolen pleasure, a thief's caress with trembling fingers and cotton-dry mouth. Tonight she was his, and he was determined that she would damn well know it by the time the sun streamed through that window the next morning.
He was about to brush the hair back from her face, lean down to wake her with an smoke-tinged kiss when suddenly she gasped, the sound sharp and bone-chilling in the absolute stillness of the darkened room. He almost jumped back in surprise; only one hundred and forty-five years of honed vampiric reflexes saved him from betraying himself, and he found his heart was pounding in time with hers as he flattened himself swiftly against her wall, blending into the shadows as only he could. She rolled over abruptly, her face twisted in pain or fear, and he watched with wary eyes as the hand on her pillow clenched a handful of the material in a desperate grip. She was dreaming, he realized. She hadn't seen him, had no idea that he was there. And as the first spike of adrenaline began to recede along with his fears of discovery, another took its place as he began to wonder what it could be that made her cry out even in the grasp of sleep.
She tossed again, her lips moving as she murmured something too low for even his abnormally sensitive ears to catch. Her hands opened and closed on thin air, grasping at something beyond the material world surrounding them, and she threw her head back in an inexplicable anguish, exposing the pulsing vein at the base of her throat. He was almost used to his bloodlust for her, and it was oddly easy to resist the urge to pin her down and feast on the rich warm lifeblood as it spurted helpless from her heart. It was harder now to stand motionless in the darkness and watch her struggle with a monster that neither of them could see.
But he could no longer force himself to stay still when the first sob ripped through the humid air and into his gut, raw and open and shocking in its depth of grief. Her slender body convulsed, instinctively curling into itself until she was a fetal ball under the blanket and sheets. And Damon Salvatore, the empty-souled bastard who had killed more people than he could count, seduced and broken more women than he could name, found himself again standing at the bedside of a lily-maid girl with a she-devil's face, hands outstretched to protect her from something he could hardly understand.
Before he could stop himself, he'd slipped into bed beside her, gathered her close against him with one hand while the other smoothed back her hair in a gesture that was more comforting than seductive. She was still crying, the sound muffled now against the smooth brushed cotton of his shirt, and he found himself stroking her back gently as her shoulders shook against his chest. Her hair smelled like green tea and some flower that he couldn't name, and his lips brushed the smooth plane of her forehead and the arrow-straight part that lined her scalp. And as he tilted her face back to note the silver teartracks trailing down her cheeks, something twisted inside him that he hadn't felt since he'd fallen in love with her doppelganger over a century before.
She curled into him in sleep, one arm around his torso to anchor him to her, the other wrapped around her stomach as if to hold in the pain lest it eat her alive. He held her silently through the long watches of the night, waiting for the first bright streaks of dawn across the horizon before he dared to let her go. She would not remember who had held her in the middle of the nightmare, would never know whose arms had sheltered her when she had nowhere else to turn. He preferred it that way. She'd go back to her knight in shining armor in the morning, delude herself into thinking that Stefan could take care of her every need, provide her every want. She would not even dare to wonder if perhaps the dark half of her imagination had given her consolation as well.
And as he silently pressed his lips to the crown of her head, as he rose carefully from her bed and ghosted lightly to the window, she never so much as stirred. He'd leave her in peace for this night, without asking any questions. He hadn't taken what he'd come for, and the knowledge burned like embers in his gut as he ran smoothly through the forest toward the Boarding House. But he and Elena were nowhere close to finished with each other yet. And she'd come to see that in the days and weeks ahead. He was sure of it.
There was always another night.