The Good News: a) Ultimately D/Elena, b) the flowery writing/exposition at the beginning doesn't last long, c) doing my very best to keep it cannon - TeeVee cannon, that is.
The Bad News: a) D/Elena joy is a very long way off (just warning you - our girl is very much with Stefan), b) I wrote this without rewatching the finale - it is compliant with the show right up until Real Elena gets home and heads for the kitchen. Pretty self explanatory, though.
Just Awful News: It turns out I don't own The Vampire Diaries. That was a shock. A friend broke it to me, and I had to Wikipedia it to make sure. Ruined my weekend, let me tell you.
~Everything's Alright
Founders' Day was over – the night, nearly so. There was an hour yet til dawn, and after a sleepless night of tears and consolation Stefan and Elena lay in companionable silence. She felt truly safe, for the first time since her initiation to the supernatural world.
No, she corrected herself. Since my parents died. It was then that she became attuned to the glint of mortality in all living things, things which she had overlooked in the rapture of her triumphant teenage debut. Stefan and his brother were a cherished reprieve from that stasis of guilt and depression – they were beautiful things which gave a convincing impression of life, and cast only the shadow of death.
She was comforted by them as her mother had been comforted by religion. They were a touchstone in her life; there was safety in the knowledge that she would break before they would, should it ever come to that. They were constants in a life that could boast of so few.
Among the blessings they'd counted was the town's reprieve from vampires, at least for a while. Knowing that she need not worry about the people she loved for a night was fabulous. Shock-induced contentment fell over the two as they lay awake, a mild breeze stirring the bottoms of the huge old trees that thatched the sky outside the leaded glass windows of Stefan's room. Night insects and morning birds sang, as committed as a Disney chorus.
He obligingly kissed her cheek as she lay on his chest, his arms around her. "And what will you do next in a vampire-free Mystic Falls?"
"I'll probably get really clumsy. And careless. I'll have to make sure to wound myself a lot, in public places. Otherwise I just wouldn't be taking advantage of it."
He laughed.
"And then I'll have to go looking for my vampires, because my Mystic Falls should never be without them."
"You couldn't use a break from us?"
"What are you implying?" She asked, anticipating a roundabout confession. This day had been a ride on the rickety wooden rollercoaster at the emotional carnival of her adolescent life. She did not need this.
Lightly, he replied, "Maybe we'll pack up the three rings and pageant wagons of our ridiculous circus, Damon and I, and find somewhere far away to let the tigers run free."
"Either you and Damon have a strange, secret hobby or you're asking me to go on a roadtrip."
She was obstinate, angry that this had once again come up. She was rigid in his arms. "As unlikely as they are, I think those are much better interpretations of your stupid metaphor than 'I can't control my thirst'. You really date yourself when you refer to pageant wagons, by the way."
He shifted to look her in the eye, arms still tight around her waist. She hated feeling like a child, but waste and repitition brought out the petulance in her. The prospect of loss chafed at old wounds.
"Elena Gilbert, I love you. The way I feel about you makes me wonder if my entire life has been leading me to you. It makes me wonder if you aren't the reason I didn't die an old man."
She felt that bloom of love fill her insides. But it couldn't stop the teasing look that came into her face, the wit that had sparked in her lately like a frayed wire. Half-grinning, and looking up from beneath hooded eyes she said quietly, "Do I complete you?"
On cue he held her close against his body.
"You are my life now," he smiled.
She laughed outright, unconscious for a moment of the silent, sleepless house that held them deep inside itself. There was no repose to disturb; only heavy shadows to tease with an easy laugh.
They did not pursue the issue of his leaving.
Citrine dawn plumed into the sky. Elena's heart beat with that lonely fatigue that settles in when one shares wakefulness with the long night, and lives to see it slain by the advent of morning.
The sounds of early birds picked at her dry eyes.
It stung her, somewhere deep, that she wasn't the reason why Stefan walked alongside her now: to blame, or to thank, was Katherine. Everything was because of Katherine.
XXX
Of course the Lockwoods were werewolves. Hereditary werewolves were as easy to pick out in a crowd as new vampires. And it wasn't a hard genetic trail to follow – a dominant gene, inherited through the male line with few exceptions. If all the vampire-inquisition nonsense hadn't been going on back in the day someone probably would have figured it out then, too.
Damon could not resist an internal duh. Being pathologically self-absorbed was actually becoming a detriment.
However, there weren't many baddies, beasties, and heavies – besides himself – to worry about anymore. He could fit in his requisite Damon-time and still keep an eye on the young Lockwood. The surviving, genetically Lycan Lockwood.
He sped away in a jacked car – told the compelled owner where to find it later, for shame – towards a certain street, from the hospital where he'd visited his earstwhile playmate and dropped in on his new supernatural buddy, Tyler 'Lycan' Lockwood.
Damon liked the nickname, a lot. He couldn't decide if he sincerely liked it, though, with its fancy alliteration, or if it was more an ironic appreciation.
He dismissed it. He was way too cool for that shit, anyway.
He had kissed Elena Gilbert, after all.
Just a few hours ago, moonlight and lamplight creating a warm wash over the stage of her front porch, he had thanked her, and kissed her. At the risk of being uncharacteristically self-reflective, he decided that he had kissed her out of appreciation for what she'd done for him. She was the first friend he'd had in a long, long time, and with her strength, honesty, and perhaps naivete she had invited him into a close and valuable network of allies. He had more than just his wits to rely on now: he had a powerful Witch in Bonnie, and a wiley (and impervious, if not infallible) vampire hunter in Alaric, both of whom begrudgingly had his back at the request of a righteous brown-eyed girl.
He was sure she could command the stars, if she decided to be friends with them.
When he thanked her, she had looked at him in a way that told him it was unnecessary – that she understood what he meant – and why – better than he did.
She looked at me like she knew – she'd always known.
And she kissed him back like she'd done it a thousand times before; that there was never any question of her returning his affection. Love was mercurial, and he wasn't about to dip into that particular poison again. But what he felt between them was a connection not so far removed from love as untouchable and resilient in ways that love couldn't be.
It had felt like time would never break that bond.
She had given him physical assurance that he deserved her as much as his brother did. That he too was worthy of happiness and belonging.
It was just a matter of asserting that right, and of making sure that things didn't go wrong this time. This time there were no variables; as a human, Elena had no 'choose both' option. She could not compel them, she could not turn them: her persuasive abilities were potent but limited next to Katherine's.
It was their game, Stefan's and Damon's – and Elena, in sharing her love between them, had asked them to play it. This time, only one could have her.
Damon had a good feeling about his chances.
XXX
As he careened along the streets of Elena's neighbourhood, towards Elena's street, he thought about the moment he'd get to Elena's house and then climb into her window. He would get into Elena's bed and drink Elena's blood. And Elena would let him.
Elena. He couldn't say her name enough. It was never repitive; in three syllables it awakened the metre of a waltz.
But Damon didn't dance anymore.
He slowed down as he turned onto her street. Immediately, he was stopped by a roadblock of silent police cars, lights still spinning as officers interviewed neighbours. An ambulance was pulling through the small lane they'd left open. Its siren began to wail just as it hit the main thoroughfare.
Another waited at the end of a drive; at the end of the front drive of a house he didn't know he'd recognize so quickly. A gurney carrying an occupied black bodybag wheeled slowly through Elena's front door. Damon could smell the spilt blood from the end of the block. It was like standing in the middle of a seaside scrapyard. Or like licking a rusty nail.
His heart stopped as the possibilities began to run amok in his mind. It swiftly started again as he saw a lithe form, wrapped closely in a robe of deep blue, standing in that pool of light where he had kissed it hours before.
It was a pleasant change from pink flannel pajamas and bunny slippers. He wondered if she'd ever caught Stefan chewing on one in his sleep. He had asked her that once, earning a dirty look.
What an inappropriate memory. He really only made exceptions to his personal code of immorality when it came to her safety; seeing that it was assured, he mentally whistled his merry way back to the boarding house. While he would love to take advantage of her grief, he needed to get ready to fight whatever the hell it was that had (probably) decimated her entire family.
He felt another stab of guilt when he considered that Jeremy may well have used Anna's blood to turn himself. New vampires did not screen out family and loved ones when pursuing that first decisive meal.
He continued on. It made little sense to traipse through a crime scene crawling with police officers in order to find Elena's stash of vervain tea, which would be ever so helpful at a Mystic Falls garden party, but not so much in a fight.
Although he hoped she would remember to drink some. He texted her while driving in a way that humans should never, ever do:
To: [Elena]
Pretty girls don't forget to drink their vervain before bed...and you look lovely tonight.
XXX
Elena's phone vibrated on the marble countertop of Stefan's ensuite bathroom. Rinsing the last of the conditioner from her hair, she stepped from the hot shower into the warm air of the bathroom. The window was open, letting in a cool morning breeze. She looked out the window – the glass was clear, not frosted, because it was three stories up – and searched the canopies of the trees outside for any sign of a large glossy crow.
It was compulsive – she searched for that damned crow like she had searched for the boogie man in her closet as a child every night before bed. It was a superstition reaffirmed by the dangerous new life she led, and it tapped into her fear of the latent violence inherent in dark and evil things. However, it also allowed her to relax – as a child, enough to sleep; as an adult, enough to ease the adrenaline that shot into her blood much too readily these days.
Once she was satisfied that she was alone, she checked her phone.
Pretty girls don't forget to drink their vervain before bed...and you look lovely tonight.
From: [Damon]
That feeling returned. The boogie man didn't have to sit outside her window to disturb her cultivated serenity.
With all the conveniences of the modern age, he could make her feel hunted from wherever he happened to be when the urge struck him.
She wrapped herself in a towel and ran a wide-toothed comb through her hair. It had taken three washes to get out the matted, gluey hairspray. Unlike her doppelganger, her Other – Elena would not ruin her morning by mentionning her name, even to herself – she could not hold a curl. Stylists pushed hot tools and product to their limits to do for Elena what they easily did for others.
She left the bathroom, safe in the privacy of Stefan's empty bedroom.
On a folded piece of stationary he had written a note. Hunting, in Stefan's mature calligraphy, was all it said.
It was clipped with one of her fallen bobby pins to the ear of her bunny slippers, waiting for her on the bed with her pajamas. It was funnier from Stefan, but it was a second-hand joke – it could only make her think of Damon.
Stefan was so thoughtful, leaving her things out before taking care of himself. He knew quite well that she would sleep away the rest of the long summer day and only emerge for dinner.
Dinner. Dinner was a long time ago, and she planned on missing lunch. The only option was Breakfast. Elena slipped on her bunny slippers – minus the note – and wrapped the towel more firmly around herself. She would try to let her hair dry for as long as possible before she put on her pajamas. She left the room, and began the long climb down the stairs to the kitchen.
She felt, but did not hear, the door slam, and vibrations of feet moving with unnatural speed through various corridors of the house. Feeling well-concealed in the big white towel, she continued down.
I have to face him eventually, and it might as well be now. He isn't such a bad guy, after all.
Elena felt the lie – she couldn't even rationalize its conditional truth.
I rather like him. As long as I remember that his baggage doesn't have to be mine, and that he wounds because he's wounded, our relationship might not be doomed from the start.
True, and important, but not very concise.
He's erratic, but predictably straightforward.
It was spot-on, but she couldn't work out why it wasn't oxymoronic. Maybe if she was well-slept and fed, but not now.
He treats me like any other human, because he knows I'm not Her.
He knew it, and it kept him perpetually at arm's length. He would never feel for her what he had for Katherine, so their interactions remained wonderfully unambiguous. Disrespectful, manipulative, laden with motives whose obviousness negated their ulteriority, and divinely simple. She could appreciate that.
Stefan, she thought, gave her a taste of what it might have been like to have been loved like her Other was loved. Passionate, doting; every time he touched her it felt like she died, and it was bliss.
His love was a force of nature; an inevitability. It was fate finally sliding into consequence. It was Destiny. It was Meant To Be.
It has to be. Nothing in the world is like this.
Elena thought this as she descended the last flight of stairs, wet hair like a rope over one shoulder, a shy smile as she thought about being the centre of another person's universe. It felt like something she couldn't name, and it was wonderful.
Damon looked up from the case he was packing with vervain ampules. He was motionless, expressionless. He felt numb. This was one hundred and fifty years coming, and he wasn't prepared.
Anger welled up – how dare she smile at him that way? It was too late to shut down, to act cool, like this wasn't killing him. Whatever he thought he felt about her, he loved her and she had broken his heart. He hated her for that.
Elena smiled a small, puzzled smile. He looked like he had seen a ghost. "Long time, no see," she joked, trying to match his banter. She was still working on that.
His eyes filled with blood and the veins below his eyes dilated, filling black. He lept on her, and faster than she could follow she found herself looking up at him as he pressed her down into the red-carpeted stairway, crushing her organs beneath a knee.
She was winded, her smile and breath gone in the same instant. Her mind was blank, except for a small echo in the bright, snowy static of her shock: a simple, fluttering question.
He pressed a hand to her windpipe, closing it completely. She began to black out.
She batted her eyes like the coquette she was. Her cheeks filled with blood. The pain of his betrayal was too much, and he saw nothing but Katherine and her artfulness.
He stabbed the vervain syringe into her side. He leaned in close.
"You never called," he hissed through enormous, glistening teeth.
XXX
Thanks for reading! Lots lots (lots) more is planned and in the works. Just in case you were worried.