Nightly Musings

Author: lois88

Disclaimer: Don't own TVD or any of the characters, just like to play with them.

Author's Note: First foray into Delena and TVD fanfic. Hope you like it. Feedback is always welcome.

Summary: Just the nightly musings of a certain self-deprecating vampire. Takes place between 407 and 408 (and ignores the sire bond – thank God that's over with).

In the aftermath, a profound quiet had fallen over the room – and within minutes had turned into an eerie silence that almost drove him up the wall. Of course, there were sounds disturbing his madness – the infuriating ticking of the clock on his bedside table, to name one. Then there was the blood rushing in his ears, the wild beating of his undead heart in his chest …

… and maybe the most irritating, the peaceful breathing sounds emanating from the sleeping young vampire sprawled right on top of him.

He himself of course didn't even dare to breathe – too high was the risk of disturbing her slumber, of having her wake up and realize just what had happened between them tonight.

Really, how could she possibly react? Chances were, she would look up at him in horror, scramble out of bed to gather her clothes from where they had ended up everywhere between the big fireplace in the parlor and the post at the end of his bed, only to come to her senses and disappear from his life forever.

And as next to impossible as not being around her would have been just a mere 24 hours ago, now the thought alone made his insides boil, indicating it would probably kill him after tonight. Yes, he had always loved her, would have laid down his immortal existence in a heartbeat to ensure hers … but now? Now that he knew the feeling of her warm, naked body lying snuggled on top of his own, the exact weight of her seemingly tiny frame against his skin?

He could have lived without ever knowing exactly how it would be between them. But now that he knew … how could he possibly turn his back on perfection?

The masochist that he was, he just had had to kiss her tonight, hadn't he? He couldn't have been happy just having her want to dance with him, just having her in his arms, more content than he had seen her in weeks? No, of course not. He was Damon freaking Salvatore, right? And he had waited for her to look at him the way she had today in front of the stairs at the Lockwood Mansion for longer than he cares to remember, so when she had done it again once they were finally alone in his house, something in him had simply snapped. One kiss couldn't hurt, right?

Only then Elena had him pinned against the wall so fast it took even him by surprise. That was what had happened, right? He might have kissed her first, but she had in fact initiated everything else – from ripping off his shirt that must now lie somewhere on the floor tattered to pieces to throwing him down on his bed without so much as a moment's hesitation. He hadn't imagined any of that, right?

The question was: Would she perceive it the same way? She was a new vampire, everything was heightened, feelings, desires … horniness. Could it be just that? He hated himself for it, but his mind inevitably wandered back to a certain phone conversation they had had a few short weeks – a lifetime – ago. "It's Stefan. It's always gonna be Stefan."

Granted, he had said the words at the time, but that hadn't made them any less true. And yes, things had changed that night, things neither one of them could have foreseen back then – dying will do that to a person. And also yes, his little brother's more than a little unhealthy self-hatred for their true nature might forever prevent him from accepting her for who she was now …

… but at the end of the day, how could Damon Salvatore possibly trust in a reality where Elena Gilbert ripped off his clothes and let him drown in her against the fireplace?

Part of him was still afraid that he was going to wake up any second now, alone in a cold and empty bed, her long brown hair tickling his skin with every breath she took notwithstanding.

God, he should be blissfully happy right now, shouldn't he? He had the girl of his dreams – and his brother's dreams – in his arms, in his bed, where he was beginning to think she was never gonna end up.

"Let's not pretend like this isn't the best day of your life."

Oh, right. Leave it to his baby brother to ruin what was in fact supposed to be the night of his life with a full-on guilt trip. Of course, he was sorry that his own happiness could only come with his brother's despair – but that's what they got for falling in love with the same woman over and over. They just hadn't learned anything from the past centuries, it seemed.

Was he afraid of Baby Bro coming back in the middle of the night only to snap at the state they must have left the living room in? He would never forgive himself if his actions tonight would let the Ripper resurface, not to mention that it would probably destroy Elena. But on the other hand, he was still just so mad at Stefan that sometimes he couldn't see straight when he was in the room.

After all, he was the one who didn't save her from sharing their fate when he had had the chance. It was all his fault to begin with. Had he been the one on Wickery Bridge that night, she'd be alive, for God's sake. She'd be hating his guts for letting the Quarterback die and she'd still be with Saint Stefan, but at least she would be alive. And he for one never had a problem with her hating him. But that had always been Stefan's fatal flaw, hadn't it? He'd rather let her die than have her look up at him with the same disgust she usually reserved for the elder Salvatore.

God, if she hadn't had vampire blood in her system that night, he might have ended up killing both Donovan and his own brother – he doubted either one of them would have put up much of a fight.

He had told her the truth when he had said that he had wanted that little slice of normal for her, even though it was really hard to remind himself of that with her naked breasts pressed against his chest. Stefan was the reason she didn't get to grow up and live the life she had so desperately wanted – and out of that guilt his brother was now making deals with the devil to find some myth-enshrouded cure for vampirism that most likely didn't even exist. Of course, Vampire Elena's apparent preference for the older brother might factor into that one, too.

Neither was what really bugged Damon, though. If Elena really wanted that cure, he himself would go to the ends of the earth to get it for her, no matter what it would mean for his newfound corner of happiness. He had once vowed to both her and himself to never be selfish with her, and he certainly wouldn't start now, no matter what it would do to him. However, he highly doubted his little brother would be willing to do the same if she decided to stay a vampire after all. She seemed to be doing okay with it now, more so than anyone, especially Stefan and his blonde little sidekick, gave her credit for.

In fact, that probably was what ticked Baby Bro off the most – he had fully expected sweet little innocent Elena to fall off the wagon at the first taste of human blood, much like he had back in the day. God beware she could be perfectly fine with being a vampire.

But she was. They just didn't let her see it, making her question herself in a time when she should be enjoying her new life more than anything.

Like she had tonight, for example, he couldn't help but think when the female vampire on his chest let out a content sigh in her sleep, snuggling even closer, making his heart ache in the process. Did she know where she was right now? Was she aware of just who it was she was snuggling up to?

He really hadn't intended for this to happen tonight. She had broken up with Stefan barely two days ago, after all. They had all the time in the world now, no need to rush into anything, right?

She'd had a bad day – with her brother trying to kill her thanks to Saint Stefan and everything – and when she had expressed the simple desire to dance, with him and only him, of course he extended his hand to her – to dance. At that moment that was really everything that he had wanted, a slow dance with Elena Gilbert in his arms. His lips were on hers before he knew it, though and the mere idea of stopping what they had started became an impossibility with Elena shoving him against the wall with a predatory glint in her eyes – easily one of his top ten memories of all time, right up there with her falling asleep halfway draped across his chest. Come to think of it, the night in its entirety probably made up his highlight reel.

She on the other hand, had been in a vulnerable place earlier tonight – had she truly known what they had been doing? Did she know how many lines they had crossed? Worried about her brother's homicidal urges, Stefan's irrational need to somehow fix what didn't appear to be broken, Caroline's snippy judgments …

Not that he had seen any of that when they had proceeded to rip each other's clothes off – and he had looked for it. That look in her eyes that had always been there before, when they used to lock eyes over Stefan's shoulders, when he had kissed her on her front porch, his brother away on a bender, even when she had flung herself at him full force back in Denver. He had always known what that look had meant – doubt. She had always doubted her feelings for him, out of guilt towards Stefan, out of fear that it would make her look like a certain doppelgänger – he didn't know. What he did know was that for the first time since he had started recognizing it in her huge brown Bambi eyes, he hadn't found it today – not when she had sought him out on the stairs of the Lockwood Manor, not ever since she had entered the Boarding House earlier.

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen that look in a while, probably not since getting drunk on frat boy blood at that party – and even then it had come up only after the witch had gotten all judgy, as usual.

What he feared now was that the look would come back in the harsh light of a new day, that it would hit him full force the second she woke up and realized that she regretted what was arguably the highlight of his entire miserable existence. It might just about kill him, seeing that look again after tonight.

And as if on cue, Elena's comfortably warm body started to stir on top of him, indicating that his happy little bubble was most likely about to burst.

It took a couple of seconds before her eyes blinked open, trying to adjust to the darkness in the room. When they did, she flashed him an unrecognizable look he couldn't quite place, before her eyes darted around with something akin to puzzlement – and Damon's heart sank. Here we go …

When the next thing she did was pushing herself off of him, causing him to lose any of the warmth he may have felt before, it downright stopped, the borrowed blood pumping through his veins standing still. He went from not daring to breathe to not being able to at all. Moments later she was out of his sight and he – paralyzed by fear – wasn't able to follow her retreating figure through the room, let alone try to stop her. He couldn't even feel his limbs. But then again, his brain wouldn't let him feel anything at the moment. And that was a blessing, for however long it would last.

Was she getting dressed? Perusing his room, the hallway, the living room for bits and pieces of her clothing? Or was she already gone, hating herself for what she had done, about to beg Stefan for his forgiveness, because really, it would always be him?

After what felt like half an eternity of drowning in the sound of a stranger's blood rushing through his ears – but in fact only a mere couple of seconds later – his tangled mind noticed how the mattress underneath him dipped again under added weight. He didn't comprehend it for a moment, couldn't fathom what was happening when Elena entered his line of sight again, lazy fingers in the process of slowly buttoning up the one button left on the black shirt she had thrown over her otherwise naked body – his black shirt, that she must have plucked from the floor – only meeting his gaze once to flash him another look, this one accompanied with the kind of wicked grin that didn't leave any room for misinterpretation, before she resumed her position right on top of him, pressing a quick kiss onto his lips and then lying back down with his chest as her pillow …

… another one for the highlight reel.

He lay completely still for a second, not sure what was happening in his world right now. She couldn't be in her sinful haze from hours before anymore – he had made sure to meet all her needs after all, twice – so she knew perfectly well what was happening. And she was still here …

Wriggling a little on top of him, his goddess scrunched up her nose in the most adorable way possible, giving him another heart-attack, before grabbing one of his arms and placing it securely around her back. Somehow woken from his stupor, he found enough feeling in his other arm to make it join the first, fusing their bodies together – just like she wanted him to.

Elena Gilbert wanted him. She chose him …

And as the girl in his arms slowly drifted off to sleep again, Damon finally took a deep breath, probably the first one in well over a century and a half. That's when he noticed that he could honestly breathe freely now, for the first time in forever. All of a sudden, the feelings he had tried to suppress all night in fear of rejection came rushing back to him full force, his heart starting to flatter about in his chest as the realization hit him that he was in fact … happy.

The end