entitled; (i still want to drown) whenever you leave
summary; "Rachel loves you. Not just nice Damon, you, but all of you. Every bit of sociopathic asshole in you along with everything else."
rating; T, for swearing more than anything, really.
disclaimer; i own nothing.
notes; n/a.

(i still want to drown) whenever you leave

.

could i be? was i there?
it felt so crystal in the air
i still want to drown whenever you leave
please teach me gently how to breathe

- shelter birdy

Damon leaned against the tree right outside one of the the girls' restrooms at Mystic Falls High as he watched her stare at herself in the mirror. She was dripping grape slushie, tears welling in those big, brown eyes of hers. He hated seeing her cry. He always had, really, since the first time he saw her. It just didn't seem right for someone so beautiful to look so sad.

Of course, he couldn't stand her the first time they actually met, either. She was loud, obnoxious, opinionated and, plainly put, straight out annoying most of the time. But he couldn't bring himself to stay away from her. It was simply too easy to get under her skin, not to mention it was the exact opposite of what Quinn and Stefan told him to do.

It was all fun and games at first; he would make her angry, she would get mad at him and he'd eventually manage to loosen her up a bit, convince her to have a few drinks and they would talk. The first few times involved him feeding off her and compelling her to forget, but eventually that stopped altogether. The more they talked, the less of a pain she became. He knew more about her than he knew about anyone other than Stefan. He understood why she was the way she was and suddenly found himself enjoying every bit of her crazy personality.

It was her that he found himself looking for whenever he had a bad day, and vice versa. It was her that he turned to when he found out Katherine wasn't in the tomb, her who was there when Elena picked Stefan over him just as Katherine had. She was there when Rose died, and Stefan killed Andie, when he was looking for Stefan and still silently pining for Elena.

She had taken everything in stride, without a single ounce of hesitation and that surprised him more than anything; she didn't care that he was a vampire, didn't care that he'd killed people before, didn't care that he had been completely oblivious to just how much she cared about him. All she had ever wanted was to be there for him, and she was.

And that was why he walked away.

He had spent over a hundred years in love with Katherine, then he'd fallen in love with Elena, despite the fact that she was with Stefan at first, whilst being completely oblivious to the one person who had loved him from the very start.

The realization that she was in love with him hit him like a ton of bricks. Bricks that were thrown by a one Quinn Fabray. That was even more surprising, seeing as she'd been the one who told him to stay away from Rachel in the first place. But mostly it was the fact that Quinn had never really liked Rachel. Sure, the two had gotten closer since Rachel was told about vampires, but Quinn still objected to the girl often times. Still, she was the one who made him see the light.

.

.

.

"Be with her, or walk away. I'm only going to tell you this once, Damon."

Damon looked up from his magazine with an eyebrow slowly shifting upwards, "What the hell is your malfunction this time, Blondie?"

Quinn's anger flared and she was on him in a second, "Are you an idiot? Are you really that blind? You're walking around trying to get Elena's ass to fall in love with you, while you completely ignore the girl who already is!"

In an instant, Damon was on his feet, chucking the magazine to the side and glaring daggers at the blonde, "Who the hell are you talking about, exactly?"

Quinn's eyes narrowed as she spat out, "Rachel."

"You've got to be joking." Damon rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he asked, "What the hell gave you that idea?"

"Oh my god. You really are that much of an idiot!" Quinn shouted, "Damon, if you would take just 10 seconds away from your little Elena mission when you're around her, you'd have realized this by now. Rachel lovesyou. Not just nice Damon, you, but all of you. Every bit of sociopathic asshole in you, along with everything else."

Damon opened his mouth but before he could say anything, she had already started talking again.

"I see the way she looks at you, Damon. The way she brightens up when you're around, even when she's had a slushie chucked at her face earlier in the day. She looks at you the way Bonnie looks at Puck, the way I look at Stefan, the way you look at Elena." He was pretty sure Quinn was no longer even pretending to breathe at that point, "She's been there for you, Damon, since she first met you. She stood by your side the entire time and I'm telling you this now, if you have any feelings for her whatsoever, be with her. Stop this nonsense with Elena - who clearly doesn't give a fuck about you, and doesn't deserve you - and be with Rachel. Because she will make you a thousand times happier than Elena ever could. And if you don't have even an ounce of the feelings she has for you, and you're positive you never will, walk the fuck away, Damon. From both of them. For good. Or trust me I will make things hell for you here."

.

.

.

A small smirk graced his lips as he remembered the fire he'd seen in Quinn's eyes; it had been the first time she'd shown any semblance of true emotion since Stefan had taken off with Klaus. He had honestly considered ignoring her outburst, but the next time he was with Rachel, he felt it. The way she loved him and he slowly started to hate himself for never noticing it before.

He didn't know what he felt for Rachel; whether he loved her or not, he wasn't sure. He'd spent all that time thinking he'd been in love with Elena, and the realization of Rachel's feelings for him had turned his entire world upside down.

Eventually he realized that he couldn't be around her like that; it wasn't fair to her. He needed to figure out what he truly wanted and that wasn't going to be possible with Elena around to influence his decision.

So he left.

He had decided that his time would be better spent trying to get Stefan back, to clear his head, and Quinn and Caroline went with him, leaving Rachel pretty much alone. He hated that, he honestly did, but he knew that the only way he'd be able to clear his head was by leaving, and the only way he'd be able to get Stefan back was with the help of those two.

It took them 8 months. 8 months for Stefan to realize that Quinn wasn't going to be without him. 8 months for Stefan to realize that Damon wanted his little brother back. 8 months for Damon to realize how easy it was to forget about Elena, and that he was dying every second that he was away from Rachel. Now look at him, back in Mystic Falls, waiting for her to walk out of that school so he could finally do for her what she'd been doing for him for so long.

Damon saw Rachel jump as the last bell of the day sounded, and she rushed to clean herself of whatever bits of grape slushie she could, her hand repeatedly moving to dab at the tears that kept trying to spill from her eyes with a light blue hanker chief.

The sight of it made his stomach clench; how often did she go through this while he was gone? She experienced it fairly often while he'd been around, was it possible that it had actually gotten worse? The thought alone made his blood boil and before he knew it, he was walking around to the school's parking lot where he quickly found her tiny excuse of a car, a navy blue Prius. With a small chuckle and a shake of his head, Damon leaned against it, watching the ground in front of him as the entire student body started filing out. He knew she had Glee club Wednesdays after school, but that didn't matter; he would wait. It meant standing in the cold December weather, but he would wait. It wasn't as if he was bothered by it anyway.

"Damon?"

At the sound of Elena's voice, Damon felt a small smirk creep onto his lips before he looked up to actually meet her gaze, "Hello Elena."

He saw her eyes narrow as her anger spiked and she stalked over to smack his arm hard, which he really saw no point to, since it wouldn't hurt anyway, "Where have you been? You, Caroline and Quinn just fell off the face of the Earth."

Damon rolled his eyes, "That's our business, and our business alone, Elena."

"Damon." Elena crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, and he found it funny that he really didn't give a damn; she suddenly seemed more annoying than anything.

"Elena." Damon mimicked her tone of voice before rolling his eyes once more, "Go home. You stopped caring about what we did the minute Stefan dumped you on your sorry ass because he was in love with Vampire Barbie number one. So, you have no right trying to ask questions now."

Elena stared up at him with shock written all over her face, but it quickly melted into a look of hurt. However, Damon felt no remorse. So, as she started trying to form words with her mouth he simply turned to glance over at the school's entrance and said, "Look, I'm waiting for someone, can you go? I don't want her to get the wrong idea if she's sees me here with you. She's always been the type to assume shit first and ask questions never."

For a good while there, he thought she was going to yell at him, or just stay there and completely ignore what he said, but when he turned to look at her, she was already storming off.

There was a part of him that had wanted to avoid Elena at all costs, for fear of any lingering emotions resurfacing, but as he watched her walk away, Damon could honestly say that he felt nothing for Elena Gilbert anymore.

After that, the hour went by at an agonizingly slow pace; he'd eventually started to doze off, leaning against her car when he heard her voice in the distance. His reaction was instant; his eyes flew open and his head turned towards the school's front entrance, where he saw her walking out with Kurt Hummel, someone he'd never really paid much attention to, but was currently thanking God for because he knew he'd been all Rachel had left when he, Caroline and Quinn had disappeared.

It was all he could do not to hightail it over to her; his hands were slowly clenching and unclenching as he turned his attention back to the floor. He listened to her footsteps, to the small laughs she let out, completely lacking any emotion whatsoever, to the soft words that left her lips, as if she was having troubling letting out the words and finally, Kurt's hushed, "Oh my God"as they stopped a good 10 feet away from where he was standing.

But he didn't bring himself to look up at her, not until he heard the strangled "D-damon?" fall from her lips. The first thing he let himself look at were her hands, clutching tightly at the textbook she was holding to her chest. It covered the dark purple slushie stain on her white dress. The next thing was her hair; it'd gotten a few inches longer since he'd last seen it and the bangs on her forehead were still slightly damp, and dark from when she'd washed out the slushie earlier. His gaze then dropped to her lips, shining just a bit from whatever lip gloss she had decided to put on that morning as her lower lip trembled slightly. Finally he let himself look into her chocolate brown eyes, wide and watering as she stood there, speechless with Kurt mumbling that he'd leave the two of them alone before walking away.

The moment he looked into her eyes, he felt a pang in his chest; he could see every bit of emotion she'd experienced in those eyes of hers. The sadness, the pain, the anger, the heartbreak and hopelessness - everything that him leaving had instilled in her. Then the shock, the fear, the sliver of hope she was feeling as she stared at him. Every bit of it pained him. She'd been there for him through every painful moment he'd experienced since he'd been back in Mystic Falls looking for Katherine and he'd abandoned her through each of hers.

Slowly, he pushed himself off of the back of her car and turned to face her completely, and just as he opened his mouth to speak, she let her textbook and book bag fall to the floor, and she ran towards him, wrapping her arms around his middle as she buried her face in his chest. Silent sobs shook her tiny frame, but just as he was about to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer, she pulled back and started beating on his chest with her fists, screaming at the top of her lungs.

"What the hell is wrong with you? How could you just leave like that? Why would you do that to me, Damon? Do you have any idea how miserable I've been? How much I've missed you? Did I do something to upset you? Did you really hate me that much? Because I would have left you alone if it meant that you would have stayed!" He did nothing to stop her as she continued to pound on his chest; he deserved that, he knew, "And then you show up like this! Are you expecting me to just forgive you after all that you've put me through?"

"I'm not." he finally said, looking down at her with a blank expression as she stopped, her sobs slowly dying away until she was just sniffling and clutching tightly at the front of his black button down shirt.

"Why did you leave me?" she whispered, looking up at him with those eyes.

"I… Needed to figure something out, Rachel." he mumbled softly, finally moving to pull her hands away from his shirt and thread his fingers through hers, "I couldn't do that here, so I went to go get Stefan back, and that kind of pulled Vampire Barbies one and two to tag along. Never once did I ever hate you, Rachel. Don't ever think that."

"And you couldn't have told me that? Was it really that hard to just have explained that much to me?" she sniffed, shaking her head and clutching his hands tightly in hers.

Damon shook his head, "Do you honestly think I would have been able to leave if I told you that I was going to leave?" he sighed and leaned forward to press his forehead against hers, "I also never would have realized that you've been the only constant in my life recently and being without you for that long? Sucks. Like you have no idea, Rachel."

He smirked a little as she bit down on her lower lip, her cheeks flushing slightly, "What are you trying to say, Damon?"

Damon swallowed thickly and pulled back, meeting her gaze as he squeezed her hands gently, "I love you, Rachel... You've always been the one person that was there for me no matter what, and I'm… Sorry that it took me that long to figure out that I want to be the same for you. I want to be able to be there for you through anything, to be your shelter whenever you feel like you have no one to look after you." It was funny that the only thing that kept him calm was the sudden pounding of her heart; it was what he chose to focus on so he wouldn't wuss out on doing this, and he found it kind of ironic.

With a small step forward, he leaned down and slanted his lips over hers, moving them against hers softly as if he was afraid she would shove him away at any given moment. But she didn't. She untangled her fingers from his, and slid her arms around his neck to pull him closer as she deepened their kiss, moving her lips roughly against his. A soft growl was then pulled from his lips and he rested his hands on her hips. He then gripped her sides tightly and moved closer to her. It was as if they were trying to make up for lost time in a matter of seconds before they both pulled back, remembering that Rachel still had to breathe. He lightly nuzzled his nose against hers when she mumbled, "You do realize that this does not mean that you're forgiven, right?"

Damon laughed, nipping lightly at her bottom lip, "We'll see if you haven't changed your tune before the end of the day."

[end.]