A/N: Again, big thanks to everyone reviewing! And if you have alerted, it would be kind of cool if you reviewed too, but it's just a thought. Read on :)

82 hours

"I'll give you two hundred bucks," Damon said. He was sitting on Elena's bedroom floor, wearing the same shirt/sweats combo from the day before.

"No way, that's worth way more than two hundred," she said. Her serious-Elena face was getting hard to pull off when she hadn't been able to sleep for the past eighty-two hours. So, she tried for haughtily amused, resting on the edge of her bed, wearing short plaid pajama shorts and a long-sleeved thermal. "I'd reconsider for three hundred and fifty."

He looked appalled or disgusted, swigging down a stout glass of blood. "You should go to jail for that kind of extortion, you manipulative, little…little liar."

"Liar?" She shot up, balling her fist, trying not to hurl when he squirted some more of the blood bag in his cup. It was dinner time after all, so she really couldn't blame him, for the blood thing at least. "You have done nothing but lie for the past five hours!"

Damon banged his glass down on the hardwood floor just short of shattering it. "Well, maybe this isn't meant to take five god-awful hours!" He threw a handful of crumpled fives on her bed. "Wasn't it your idea to start this game?"

"You're not doing it right!" She kicked a few of the bills that didn't reach her comforter, missing horribly with her bare feet.

"Elena, I've done this a million times," he said, smirking.

"Well, I quit."

Stooping over her bed, she used her arm to wipe off a line of cardboard cards. She walked directly across the Monopoly board and into her bathroom, making the door thump behind her.

"You lose then, Monopoly loser!" Damon yelled.

Elena scoffed, locking the door. She thought of saying something back, but somewhere a tiny voice in her head said she may have been taking this board game a smidge too seriously. She squeezed her forehead, because her head was hurting again. Pulling up the sleeves of her shirt, she leaned into the sink to get some cold water on her face. She blinked a few times in the mirror, noticing dark marks under her eyes and a new paleness to her skin. She still had no intention of giving up. If Damon won, he would probably talk about it…forever, which was a long time considering he was a vampire and she was seventeen.

"Elena?" His voice sounded like he was close to the door.

She didn't want to talk to him. Instead, she put her hair up in a ponytail, used her head to swish it back and forth like a tail before taking out the elastic and letting her hair fall back on her shoulders. Strumming her fingers on the lip of the sink, she opened drawers at random, finding a plastic friendship bracelet from Carolina she'd gotten in middle school and an old bottle of sparkly, dark blue nail polish she'd forgotten about. She picked up the nail polish, holding it up against the light above the sink, staring at the disco-like glitter.

"Are you asleep?" Damon whispered.

"No!" She set the bottle of nail polish on the counter.

"How do I know you're not asleep?"

"Because I'm talking to you," she said. She wondered when these kinds of conversations became normal, and she guessed it was sometime around hour 76, during their thumb-wrestle for the last orange popsicle when Damon started arguing about whether a thumb was just a thumb or a finger too. He was answered with her middle finger after he used his vamp-strength to win that last thing of orange deliciousness.

"Hey, Elena."

"Yeah?"

"We should play hide-and-seek."

She waited a second for the oh so witty sarcastic end to that statement, but there wasn't any. "Are you serious?"

"Of course."

Elena felt like normal, mostly-rested Damon would have made that line sound cheeky, but he said it like he genuinely wanted to like hide in a closet, holding his breath, hoping his feet weren't showing. Considering her few options, Elena was kind of okay with the idea.

She opened the door to have his nose inches away from hers, his hand on the wall with his back hunched more like a yawning cat than the bad boy slouch he was probably attempting. He brought his free hand up slowly, reaching for Elena, barely touching her bottom lip with the appendage that they still hadn't decided was a finger or a thumb.

"In thirty seconds, come find me," he said. And before she could say no supernatural running, he was gone.

She rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand because he must have found that quivering, ticklish spot. It had nothing to do with chemistry or hormones or anything.

"Cavewoman-Elena, people in this century count aloud when they're the seeker." His voice was distant, echoing in several directions, which gave her no clue to where he was.

"One, two, three, four, five, six…." She continued, taking a step forward with each number.

"I'm not hearing any Mississippis!"

She yawned, biting her teeth down hard before counting the way he wanted her to. "One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…." Walking out of to the hall, she could see Damon had turned the light back on for her, and the thought of him playing fair made her pause between the ninth and tenth Mississippi. She started counting again, poking her head in Jeremy's room, a hall bathroom, and then she walked down stairs.

Once she checked the coat closet by the front door, she was done counting. She crept across the living room, edging by the game controls in front of the T.V. from their Super Smash Brothers tournament between hour 63 and 65. There was a plate with peanut butter cookie crumbs on the coffee table from the premade dough she put in the oven at hour 75. She wondered if she should have checked Jenna's room until she saw Damon standing behind the island in the kitchen with a new glass of blood.

"You're slow," he said, raising his cup. "And I got thirsty."

His bed-head, messy hair-thing was getting worse, which was weird since he hadn't been to bed at all, and Elena knew that because she'd been watching him for more than 82 hours straight. But there weren't any dark spots under his eyes, and it kind of frustrated her that he had a drink stronger than Red Bull and coffee.

She was even eyeing the red liquid. What could it really hurt? "Can I have some of that?" she asked, standing next to him.

He grinned, probably thinking she was kidding. But when her expression didn't change, he looked at her closer, staring at her with compulsion-like seriousness.

"What?" she said, reaching for her necklace on extinct, just to make sure it was still there. "I shared some of my coffee with you. It could help me stay awake."

"Elena, the only thing this would help you do is spend a good part of an hour vomiting. And while that would keep you awake, I'm not sure if that's the kind of help you want."

"Yeah, I guess I'll wait until day six for the vomiting," she said, smiling to herself.

"Elena Gilbert," he said with a look of mock surprise on his face. "You actually look like you're having a good time. Are you?"

He was playing up that I'm-standing-really-close-to-you-almost-like-I'm-going-to-kiss-you-but-definitely-trying-to-look-sexy-while-I-hover-over-you act, and out of the forty or so times he'd tried it, it was the first time she may have not been upset if the hovering became more than hovering. She extended her arm to flatten some of his hair sticking up, and she may have never seen him look so serious, because she realized the way her body was turned to him, it was like she was asking him to kiss her. And things seemed to be heading in that direction, with his face leaning in closer and all, until he was suddenly sitting on the kitchen floor behind the island with his cup at his feet.

"What are you…?" she asked, but he held his forefinger up to his mouth, pointing out of the kitchen. She would have been even more confused if the front door didn't open, and Jeremy was there with a book bag.

"Hey, Elena." He nodded to her, looking almost as tired as she was, which made her wonder how bad things in the outside world were getting. "I'm just here for some clothes. I'm staying at…Stefan's."

"Ok," Elena said. She was slightly entertained that Jeremy looked so unconformable when he said Stephan's name. Not to mention, Damon decided to look at her at that exact moment, and as Jeremy headed upstairs she stuck her tongue out at Damon, kind of stating there was no hidden angst or lingering thoughts. Smirking, he tickled her calf, making her squirm. When he reached the inside of her knee, she was giggling. She was so preoccupied trying to shoo Damon away, she didn't hear Jeremy until he was by the kitchen table.

"Uh, Elena, are you ok?" His eyes were narrowed.

Damon slid his hand down her leg, and it made her twitch even more than the tickling. "Yeah," she said. Damon appeared to agree, looking very proud of that body spasm. "Yeah, someone just texted me a really funny joke."

"Oh, well I'm glad you haven't gone crazy here all by yourself. I know people were supposed to come over more, but it's just gotten…a little out of hand," he said. He was carelessly readjusting his suitcase strap over his shoulder. "But it's nothing we can't get through."

Damon mouthed Jeremy's words, bobbing his head back and forth, and it took some self-control for Elena not to laugh. "That's good to hear."

"Yeah, um, Bonnie actually asked me if it would be okay if she could come by some time."

Elena chuckled uncomfortably. "Why doesn't she just ask me herself?"

"She thought you'd be still, still kind of pissed about her locking you up and throwing away the key," he said with a small smile.

"Well," she said, looking back to Damon. He shook his head. "Tell her I'm not mad, but I'm enjoying the peace and quiet. And we can catch up maybe next week or the next, and don't be afraid to text."

"Cool," he said.

He started walking closer to the island, which Elena didn't like at all, because she didn't want to have to explain why Damon was sitting on their kitchen floor or why he wasn't mentioned in her whole peace-and-quiet spiel or get into any of the implications of Damon being there with her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, barely containing her casual tone.

"Um, just getting a flashlight," he said.

"Oh." She turned around, opened the drawer behind her, and handed him the flashlight.

"Thanks?" he said. And the way his eyes shrank bank with his lips gathering let Elena know he was on to her.

"Sorry, I'm so used to being alone," she said. Damon was giving her a hurt look, and Elena blamed the sleep deprivation when she gave his chest a friendly nudge with her knee. It was also the criminal that kept her from hating it when his hand was back on her leg and he kissed her calf. She shuddered. "I guess I'm a little antsy."

"It's cool," Jeremy said. He took his vibrating phone out of his pocket. Just from the way he read the front, she could tell it was from Stephan or Bonnie. "I got to go."

"Bye, Jer," she said.

"See you, Elena." He was gone within a second, which made Elena really think it was Stephan or Bonnie.

"Damon," she said, in a bit of a warning tone. He was still caressing her leg with his fingertips skimming her thigh. "You can get off the floor now."

He grinned. "I am fine right here."

He kissed her knee, and she didn't shake him off for a few minutes or so.