Disclaimer: I don't own anything blah blah blah. I hope the nice people at the CW don't sue me nor does the author of the series, LJ Smith pull an Anne Rice.
Having Elena under compulsion is like having saved a lost puppy and then not being able to get rid of the puppy. Damon doesn't know whether to be annoyed or flattered by his own power. He doesn't centuries under his belt in order to have Elena hanging onto his every word. Now that he can not only enter whenever he wishes, but is welcomed whenever he wishes, Damon is feeling more and more confident with his plan. Not that he ever doubted it.
"What are you going to do?" Elena asks him in a serene voice, her voice slightly puzzled. "With me?"
Damon sighs and looks up. "Don't you worry about that. Just leave it to me."
Elena pouts. "Well. It's Saturday and I'm bored. I'm going out. I want to see Stefan and Bonnie. And Bonnie," Elena adds.
Damon stops her just before she leaves. "No you don't," he says slowly.
"No. I don't." Elena repeats. She smiles when she sees Damon smiling in agreement. Elena flops back onto her bed and sighs. Being locked up on such a sunny day isn't very appealing. Elena can't help but notice her necklace is still missing. "I want my necklace back, you know."
"No, you really don't," Damon says, flipping through random books and magazines. He doesn't even bother compelling her; Elena is a completely different person under compulsion.
"Hey, where's my phone?" Elena asks. Elena is not to mention, a much more annoying person under compulsion. "I feel funny, too. Damon, what's going on. Why are you here?"
Damon looks up, slightly curious. "Why am I here? I thought we established I was welcome whenever." Searching the bookshelf for anything else to read, he comes across a diary. He can tell it's Elena's and quickly flips through it. Her handwriting is filled through the pages with elaborate and long diary entries.
"That's my diary!" Elena nearly shrieks.
"It is, isn't it?" Sarcasm drips heavily from every word. He tosses the diary on the chair he's been sitting on for the past few hours and walks over towards Elena. Elena doesn't have anywhere to back up into and closes her eyes, just waiting to be bitten or killed.
Instead, Elena feels his lips on her forehead. They're gentle and Elena lets out a shaky breath. She feels his lips curl into a smile as he says, "You've got to stop thinking I'm going to hurt you."
"I'm not scared," Elena says defiantly, feeling more like herself as each second ticks by. She half expects him to tell her she really should be scared and do something to momentarily stop her heart from beating. He doesn't move from the position their in and he keeps his body pressed against hers, his lips resting on her forehead. They remain like that for a few minutes, Elena breathing as quietly as possible. She doesn't want to disturb his thinking and wonders what he's thinking about.
At last, he slowly lets Elena "free" and the moments that follow are tense. Elena desperately wants to ask him what he's thinking about but as she opens her mouth, he answers the question for her.
"Katherine."
--
Elena feels her stomach grumbling at one point in the afternoon and after just sitting on her bed, watching Damon sit on the chair, flipping through books and more importantly, her journal, she wants to just leave her room.
"Hungry?" Elena asks dumbly and out of politeness. She sees him look up, an eyebrow raised.
"Are you offering?" He replies back.
Elena rolls her eyes and eyes her diary in his hands. She wants to yank it from his hands and lock it up. Elena stands up and heads towards her bedroom door. "I'm going to get something to eat. I'm hungry. Are you sure you don't want anything?"
"Like I said before, unless your offering, I've got myself covered," Damon says, adding a smile that makes Elena uneasy.
A nice big serving of Lucky Charms suit her mood and she sits down, shoveling one heaping spoon after another. Elena thinks about Damon upstairs, reading her deepest thoughts, mourning the loss of his beloved Katherine and Stefan, who is probably pacing in his room, wondering why she hasn't bothered to call or text. Her mind travels back to Katherine and suddenly, a large bowlful of sugary cereal with tiny marshmallows doesn't settle well in her stomach. She stares into the relatively empty bowl; tiny pieces of cereal and marshmallow floating in gray milk.
Elena contemplates sneaking out of the house but that idea is quickly vetoed as she realizes she's in her pajamas still and it wouldn't take long before Damon found her. Her thoughts are confused, her memory and mind cloudy. She grabs some aspirin and heads up back to her room, grumbling.
The room is empty when she gets back in there and spots her diary on the chair. She tiptoes her way towards it and grabs it, hugging it to her chest once it's back in her hands. She hopes that Damon didn't read too much of it or he might know about her depressing life.
"Don't worry. I only read Pre-Crisis when you were a mindless cheerleader, hopelessly in love with Matt Donovan," a voice says behind her and Elena wonders if he can read her mind.
"My diary is private and you have no right to just look through it however you please!" Elena opens one of the drawers in her dresser and haphazardly shoves it under a bunch of t-shirts.
"Alright," Damon says putting his hands up in surrender. "No need to be so grouchy."
Elena slams the drawer shut. "I have every right to be grouchy. I'm locked up in my own house forced to spend my time with you."
Damon lifts Elena's chin up and stares into her eyes. "I made it very clear that I'm welcome here and you should really start acting like it." Elena nods her head like a lost puppy, staring into his eyes in agreement.
For a second, Elena can swear that Damon's smelling her which in her mind, sets off a whole bunch of alarms all wailing creepy! creepy! really creepy! She feels his hand running through her perfectly straight hair, thanks to spending ages in front of the mirror with a flat iron and looks up, her heart racing. Her heart races but in a bad way, still paranoid that any moment now, she's going to face death... or some fate worse.
"You should really curl your hair." Is all Damon says.
--
Elena gets a call from Stefan via her home phone, something she is quickly able to grab before Damon but still lies to him. She says she is feeling sick and doesn't say anything about his brother in her room. Damon sighs with genuine relief after she hangs up, no longer having to worry about Stefan arriving at the Gilbert house and staking him. Elena tells Stefan that she just needs rest without any visitors and tells him she'll see him Monday.
Jenna appears too with a tray full of food. Damon is gone when Elena turns her head to check and Jenna gives her a weird stare. "Sorry, I was need at work but you weren't awake when I left. I tried to call but you didn't answer."
Elena uses the same lie she used on Stefan. "Yeah, I slept in late. I'm feeling kinda sick," Elena mumbles and Jenna is quick to rest a hand on her forehead to see if she has a fever. "I'm fine, Jenna, really. It's probably just a cold or something. All I really need is some rest. Thanks for the food," Elena says as Jenna bids goodnight.
Staring at the carefully prepared food from Jenna, Elena finds herself not in the mood for food. Damon's quick to reappear, of course, and it seems he is in the mood for conversation. There is suddenly new life in him.
The way he's talking though confuses her. He's rambling on about war, the Confederacy and his disapproving father. He seems almost nervous, too. Elena wants to ask Damon what's wrong with him but she can't because she feels his lips on her's once again. Elena tries to push him away, but her human strength doesn't seem to even cause his steely vampire strength to notice. Their making out on her bed and all the while she keeps thinking of Stefan. She doesn't want to do this, now with Damon. She doesn't understand anything anymore and her vision is soon blurred by tears of frustration and anger.
Damon finally pulls back, his face confused when he sees the tears streaming down her face. "What's wrong? I thought this was what you wanted?"
Elena is even more confused by his statement and the tears don't stop flowing. "What's wrong? What's wrong with you!" Elena hisses through her teeth.
As if seriously puzzled, Damon asks again, clarifying his question. "I thought this is what you'd wanted. For you and me to be together." Damon strokes her face, brushing away some of the tears. "You said that we could be together and Stefan didn't have to know," Damon says again, his pale eyes piercing hers.
"What are we doing? What are we doing? I love Stefan!" Elena sighs with exasperation.
"What's wrong with you, Katherine?" Damon asks with more force and Elena's eyes grow big. "This is what you want. For us to be together without Stefan having to know." Damon says slowly.
Elena nods, unable to control her thoughts or actions. "This is what I want," Elena echoes and can't remember why there are tears are on her face. She wipes them away with her hands, shaking slightly but keeps mumbling to herself, "this is what I want."
Damon gives a small smile, hugging Elena. His lips find their way back onto Elena's and this time, Elena finds herself responding back. And still shaking slightly, Elena lets herself be seduced by her boyfriend's brother, willingly, her reasoning because it's what she wants. However, all the while, she simply can't place her mind on a logical reason why Damon kept calling her "Katherine" throughout the night.
A/N: I don't know about you but that last hunk there is like my most fave thing I've ever written for FF in general. It's really hard to write what being under compulsion is like because the only time it was really explored was with Caroline and Caroline being well, a shallow character (still love her) it was hard to really make a baseline of how Elena should act. I read in a A/N: reviews keep my fingers typing. So I'm using that for mine. Ha, not really. I have the whole story set out and it won't go away so reviews are just like the icing on top of the cake. And everyone loves icing.
REVIEW PLEASE, I'D LOVE TO HEAR WHAT YOU THINK!