Author's Note: This is a one-shot written for the damon & elena holiday (author2author) exchange 2016 (on LiveJournal) based on nerddamon's prompt. These days, I'm writing original fiction in the romance genre, but it's been fun dipping back into fanfiction for a bit. For this little story, I veered off the romance-path and tried something new (for me, that is). Hope you'll enjoy :-)
Disclaimer: This short story is based on characters created by L.J. Smith as portrayed in the TV show created by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec. All rights belong to their respective owners.
SOMETIMES
"Let old acquaintances be forgot," Damon Salvatore half-sang, half-slurred as he ambled through Central Park, a half-empty bottle of Scotch dangling from his hand. Or maybe it was half-full. For some people it might be – the kind of people that saw good in others, the kind that made lemonade out of lemons instead of just biting the damn things. The kind of people he couldn't stand to be around. Aw, hell, he couldn't stand to be around people, period. People sucked. They sat in their swanky hotels and fancy apartments and toasted the new year, pretending it was going to be better than the last. They were wrong. This year had sucked beyond belief, and next year would suck even harder. Humanity was doomed. Good thing he wasn't one of them. Mortals. Pathetic little creatures living off-
Damon stumbled on a glass bottle lying on the ground and swore. Humans. No respect for the earth whatsoever. He picked up the bottle and walked over to a trashcan, muttering aloud.
"Seriously, people. You can't walk three feet?"
The bottle shattered as he threw it into the trashcan, and something moved in the bushes. Huh. He wasn't a fan of the animal diet, but a hobo would do in a pinch. Maybe he'd get lucky with one that didn't smell like garbage.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he said in a sing-songy voice.
The rustling stopped. But he could hear a heart beating. Fast. A human. The scent wasn't too bad, either. Neither alcoholic or putrid. It smelled… young.
"Come out from there, or I'll come find you." Too bad compulsion didn't work without eye contact. That would have been much more efficient.
"I've got Scotch," he said, wiggling the bottle like a carrot in front of a rabbit. Whoever was hiding in the bushes clearly wasn't thirsty, because there was no movement. "To hell with it," he muttered and reached through the shrubbery, yanking the human out onto the path. It was a girl.
"Well, well, what do we have here?" Damon said, smirking.
A girl to drink would be a great way to toast in the new year. He studied her under the light of the lamppost. She had eyes like a deer; brown and soulful. Her hair was long and dirty, just like her clothes. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was a dead ringer for Katherine. Katherine Pierce – the love of his pathetic human life, and the obsession of his undead life until a year ago when he staked her himself. No, this urchin wasn't Katherine. She was just another meal. An unusually quiet meal…
"You know," he said, pushing the hair from her face, "most people would be screaming right about now. Or pleading. Often both. Still, she said nothing. Simply stared at him as if… as if she wasn't afraid. Why wouldn't she be afraid? Her heart beat was sure giving off that impression. Maybe it was a strategy – act tough and the bad man would go away. Typical human.
Her neck – now exposed – was dirty. Damon leaned in and sniffed it. She could do with a shower.
He made sure he had eye contact with her before he issued his order. "You're going to come with me and not make a scene."
Usually, people he compelled repeated his words back to him as confirmation, but the girl remained silent. Instead, he tested her by offering his arm. When she took it, he knew the compulsion had worked.
The receptionist at the swanky hotel happily handed over the key to their best suite, and the previous occupants happily vacated the room. As a cleaning crew thoroughly worked over the room, the senator was on his way home to his wife to introduce the two escorts he'd hired for the night. Compulsion was a thing of beauty.
When the girl emerged from the bathroom in a robe, smelling like roses instead of the dirt they grow in, Damon was on his second bottle of Scotch for the night.
"There's champagne for you if you want," he told the girl.
She shook her head and hugged her robe close to her body. He couldn't figure her out. She clearly had questions, but she hadn't said a word since he first saw her.
"Are you mute?" he asked, turning down the sound on the TV.
She shook her head.
"You know, I could order you to speak, just like I compelled you to come here with me. But I won't. Maybe you have your reasons. It doesn't matter to me either way."
She seemed relieved, her posture relaxing somewhat.
"Come. Sit with me," he said, patting the leather couch.
She walked over, her steps hesitant as she crossed the room, but she obeyed.
"I'm going to drink from you, and you're not going to feel any pain," he said, looking into her eyes. "Then we can watch some TV and you can stay in this room as long as you like. I won't touch you in any other way. I'm a gentleman," he added with a smirk.
As he leaned in to taste her neck, the smell hit him. It wasn't just roses. It was vervain, too. Probably an ingredient in the soap or shower cream.
"Damn it," he snarled, startling the girl. Frowning, he asked, "Hey, why did you come sit with me when my compulsion wasn't working?"
Again, no response. She just stared at him. This was getting annoying. Damon pushed to his feet with a snort of frustration, striding over to the room service cart that he'd had delivered while she was in the shower. He lifted one of the silver domes and found a plate of wagyu burgers with sweet potato fries and truffle sauce.
"Not bad," he mumbled and turned towards the girl. She hadn't moved an inch. "Are you hungry?"
The way her eyes widened told him everything he needed to know.
"Sit down at the table, then," he said, gesturing for the linen-clad dining table by the window. Outside, snow was falling. "You would have been covered in snow if you'd still been out in the park," he remarked as he set the table. She looked up at him under her lashes and then snagged one of the burgers, biting into it like a savage.
"Easy there," he said and picked up a cloth napkin, bringing it to her mouth where she'd smeared sauce all around. Including her chin. She recoiled as he attempted to wipe it off, and he sighed. "Fine, do it yourself, then."
She snatched the napkin from his hand and wiped her face, sneaking him furtive glances as she continued to devour the burger.
Damon sat back in his seat across from the girl and watched her. She looked to be in her twenties, if he had to guess. What had brought her to a bush in Central Park on New Year's Eve? A pretty thing like her wouldn't have any trouble finding herself a sugar daddy if she wanted one. Though, her manners were somewhat…lacking. He could teach her a thing or two about that. But why would he? She wasn't his problem. She was supposed to be a quick meal – snatch, eat, erase. So why had he gone to the trouble of bringing her to a hotel and feeding her?
Damon shook his head and dug into his own meal. He'd ordered his burger extra rare. With pickles.
Damon watched the girl as she stared at the TV. It was like she hadn't seen moving pictures in forever. She sat curled up against the headrest of the king size bed, dwarfed by the hotel robe. He sniffed the air around her. It seemed the vervain had evaporated. If he was lucky, it hadn't penetrated the skin. He could eat her now.
But…
"Say, Mystery Girl," he said, getting her attention. "I wouldn't mind a name to go with the face. Think you could help me with that?"
She shook her head.
"All right, well, how 'bout this? You could let me inside your head for a few minutes and I'll figure it out on my own. Five minutes," he said, putting his hands up. "It won't hurt a bit."
She frowned, probably clueless as to how he would get inside her head without hurting her, but then she gave a small shrug. He took it as acceptance and sat back against the headboard next to her.
"Just close your eyes and relax," he instructed. Usually, he'd need the other person to be asleep or seriously weakened to get inside their head, but with her permission he just might be able to-
It was dark. He looked around and realized he was in the backseat of a car, the only light to be seen coming from the headlights shining on the falling snow that might as well have been tiny missiles the way it was hitting the windshield and making it impossible to see the road ahead. A boy and a girl were arguing in the back seat, and he recognized the girl as the urchin he'd found in the park. An older man was driving and a woman sat next to him. The parents, he assumed.
Then the girl turned to him.
"It was a stupid fight," she said, her brown eyes sad. "Jeremy had read my diary and made copies that he put on the bulletin board at school. I had a crush on a boy in my class, Matt, and I was humiliated when he could read all about it. We were yelling so loudly that Dad took his eyes off the road."
The car swerved and Damon watched as it went over the edge of the road. No, not a road. A bridge. The screams filled his ears as the car flew and dove into the dark water.
"Mom hit her head on something. She was so quiet after the impact. My dad tried to wake her, but it was of no use. Jeremy was crying. It was so loud. And Dad, he just looked at me and I knew. I knew we would die that night. All because we'd distracted him."
"It wasn't your fault," Damon said. "He was driving, it was his responsibility to keep you safe. Not keep you quiet."
"My voice killed our whole family."
"Is that why you don't speak?"
"Partly. After I was rescued – I have no idea how that happened, but I woke up in the hospital – everyone wanted me to talk. The doctors, the nurses, the psychologists. And I couldn't. Eventually, they gave up trying. I was put in foster care. It usually took up to a month before the people I was staying with grew impatient with me and I was sent back to the orphanage. I ran away when I was 16."
"How old are you now?"
"Twenty-one."
"You've been on your own for five years? Sleeping in parks?"
"Homeless shelters, mostly. Sometimes parks."
"Why were you out in the park tonight? It's cold."
"A couple of guys grabbed me when I was going to the shelter. I got away, but I was too scared to go back there."
"What's your name?"
"Elena."
"I'm Damon," Damon said as he broke the connection and brought them both back to the hotel room. "It's nice to meet you, Elena."
"How did you do that?"
Damon blinked. How was he still hearing her voice? He wasn't in her head anymore, was he?
"How are you doing that?" he said, staring at her in amazement.
She looked just as confused as he was. "Me? I'm not doing anything."
"How are you in my head? Why can I hear you when you're not speaking?"
"I don't know. That's never happened to me before. No one ever hears me. Who are you?"
"I'm a vampire, Elena. I have a unique set of skills – one of those being mind control. But no one ever gets in my head."
"I guess there's a first time for everything."
"Well, look at that. There's a bit of sass in the girl, after all. And is that a smile?"
Elena reached up to touch her face as if she didn't know whether she was smiling or not. "I haven't smiled since before my parents died."
"How come you're not afraid of me?" Damon asked, stroking her cheek.
"I have nothing to lose."
Damon nodded and dropped his hand. He could relate to that. "I know what that feels like. And you won't get the 'it gets better' speech from me. As far as I can tell, things only get one way – worse."
"Then why do you keep going?"
Damon looked out the window, with the snow falling in a steady rhythm and explosions lighting up the sky. Fireworks.
"It's a new year. New possibilities."
"I thought things only got worse."
He looked back at her and brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. "Sometimes, we can make them better."
As he leaned in to kiss her, he heard her voice in his head whisper softly.
"Sometimes."