Title: Dating Advice from a Vampire
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters. I just play with them.
Rating: T
Summary: "You don't happen to have any boxer-briefs, do you? I hear they're in fashion for you girls. Or was that five years ago?"
AN: This was supposed to go a different way, but I received a comment that asked a question, and basically this is my answer. Hope it satisfies!
Lesson Number Two: Dressing For the Kill
Elena contemplated the shirt she held up with an air of curiosity. She and Joe had not made any plans just yet, so she was not sure where they would go. Or if he would even call her. Still, it did not hurt to look through her closet and consider the possibilities.
Possibilities were her life now. She had an eternity ahead of her when a few short (long and forever away) months ago she was not sure she would live to see the dawn. She was free from the obligations set on her by a random twist of fate, yet fettered by the infinite tomorrows.
She had to get a hold of her emotions yesterday. They roiled around inside her chest, churned her stomach, and tugged and pulled at every aspect of her psyche.
When she was a sophomore, before her parents died and she was blind to the world, Elena knew a girl. Sara had been unusual, more emotional than even a teenager had any right to be. One minute she would be happy and near manic in her glee, and then it was like a switch was flipped and she could cry for days. Anything could set her off, so the other students ignored her. She was sent to a psychiatrist, given pills for a common mental disorder, and for the first few weeks everything was normal again. Then one day, the girl snapped as she lashed out at everyone, screaming at the top of her lungs as she tore through decorations for a dance she had spent weeks on. Apparently, she had been misdiagnosed, and Adderall was definitely not for someone who was really bipolar.
Until recently, Elena had been unable to imagine those kinds of intense emotions. Now she swam in them until she was not sure what it was she felt any more.
It was one of the many reasons why she was doing this. Elena needed to sort through her jumbled emotions to find where she was, and not this hot mess of hormonal primordial ooze.
She could have easily gone to Caroline. In the privacy of her bedroom, she could admit this fact. Hell, she could have gone to Stefan, for she knew he had experience in dating humans. They had been together, after all, so he would know the tricks necessary to her surviving a date without transitioning into some blood thirsty monster.
The simple fact of it was, she needed Damon. The need clawed in her throat, kept her awake, tormented her with tantalizing images and sensory overloads. He had taken her aside, shown her how his life – their life – worked. He taught her, guided her, and because of him, there was not a path of bloodless bodies lying in her wake. So yes, she needed him, wanted him, and it would be so easy to make that change.
The problem was, did she want him because she needed him, or need him because she wanted him?
Elena refused to make a decision until she knew the answer. She owed him that. She refused to allow history to repeat itself, for while she knew how he felt – or had felt – about her, she could not string him along in a relationship that could end in her never have loved him at all.
Throwing the shirt on the bed, she entered her bathroom and rooted through the drawers until she found her curling iron. It had rained on the way home, warranting a shower, and now her hair frizzed in the crisp air.
She could feel the change in the atmosphere even before she exited her bathroom. Keeping her eyes forward, Elena focused on the task of plugging in her curling iron before she spoke.
"Breaking and entering is still illegal," she said. Casting her glance in the mirror, she eyed Damon as he made himself home on her comforter. He laid on her shirt, and she scowled at the thought of the wrinkles that would cause.
It was easier to be mad at him for ruining her clothing than it was to face him with her earlier realizations swirling around in her mind.
"You're not going to curl your hair, are you?" he asked.
It would normally be an unusual question to ask. From anyone else, it would be, but he knew why he asked it. "No, Damon. I'm not taking beauty tips from look-alikes. I'm just taming the beast."
He relaxed, and she wondered when he had been tense. The silence hung between them as she waited for the iron to heat up. Elena searched for something to say, but uncertainty held her tongue. She worked to avoid him instead, misting her hair down to protect it from damage, running a brush through to get rid of nonexistent tangles, anything to keep her distracted.
It was not until she was running the hot iron down her hair, emboldened by the scent of warm hair, that she found her voice. "Get your shoes off my blanket."
Instead of getting off the bed altogether, as she had hoped her comment would spur him to do, he shifted until his shoes dangled over the side as he propped his head on his hand. Damon watched as she worked her hair, and she tried to ignore him and concentrated instead on smoothing the flyaway strands.
Then she was done, and she had no other distraction to cling to. "What are you doing here?"
With a shake sharp of his head, he turned from her reflection to look at her. "I thought I would help you."
"I can dress myself," she said.
"Nope." With a smooth grace, he rolled off her bed and ventured to her dresser. "You asked for my help, and you're going to get it."
Before she could stop him, he slid her top drawer open and rifled through her underwear. "I recommend anything other than anything that has black, lace, frills, or any combination thereof."
"Damon!" She swatted his hands away before he could pull out a thong and slammed the drawer shut.
"You don't happen to have any boxer-briefs, do you? I hear they're in fashion for you girls. Or was that five years ago?"
"You're not going to pick out my underwear!"
He held up his hands as he stepped away. "You wanted my help. I figured that included all inclusive access."
"You figured wrong," she said, face scarlet.
He snapped his fingers in disappointment. "There goes my plans for a modeling session."
She withered him with a glare. "The odds of you getting a floor show are slim to none."
"Never say never, Elena," he warned. He shifted until he was behind her, both looking at their reflection in the vanity. He sifted his hands through her hair, pulling it back and away from her neck. The soft brush of his fingers against the nape of her neck sent shivers down her spine and his proximity was not helping her thinking process at all. "What do you think, up or down?"
Elena's throat worked in convulsive swallows. "Down."
"A shame," he commented with a trace of his fingers against her throat. "But perhaps for the best. Don't want Joe to get the wrong idea."
He let her hair fall as he took a step back, and she could feel the acute loss of his touch.
She turned to him, looked up into his unfathomable eyes. There was so much she wanted to say. This was not about Joe, this was about them. She wanted to know her own mind, for the both of them, before she did anything they both would later regret.
The trill of her phone broke through her thoughts. Glancing at the screen, she saw a number flashing that she vaguely remembered. Answering it, she discovered it was Joe.
Apparently, she had done something right during what she considered to be a travesty of flirting. They talked a little, and she hoped she laughed in the right places, and when she hung up, she had a date.
She beamed at Damon, ignoring the look on his face. "The carnival is in his town next weekend. He wants to take me."
"Yippy," he said, his sarcasm as palpable as the tension between them.
Her shoulders slumped as she studied the cracks in the ceiling. "Come on, Damon, I need to do this."
"Why?" he demanded. His eyes were intense as once again he invaded her personal space. She refused to step away. "This is an exercise in futility, Elena, and you know it."
He was searching for something in her own eyes, but apparently she was better than she thought. He kept looking but could find nothing.
"Because if I can't do this, what am I good for?" she demanded. "If I can't go on one simple date with someone without wanting to tear into their throat and devour them whole," she closed her eyes as she bit her lip, the image more tantalizing than she cared to admit. "Then what is the point of this?"
"There's only so much I can show you," he admitted as he brushed her hair behind an ear. His eyes stayed on her, flickering back and forth as though trying to capture each of hers at once. "Maybe you should have asked Stefan."
Elena wanted to rip his hair out, to tear him to shreds for even suggesting it. She wanted to pull him close and never let him leave, and shove him away before she could hurt him more. Finally, she swallowed her pride as she admitted to him something she never normally would. "I need this. I need you."
He looked away, exhaling as he took in her bedroom. She watched as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and she wanted to graze her teeth over it. "Some days I don't think you even know what you want."
She choked out a laugh as she shook her head in a frantic motion. "I don't. Trust me, I don't, and I'm so sorry, and I can't-"
He pulled her close, and her words were lost in the muffle of his shoulder. She clutched at the material of his shirt, not wanting him to disappear on her. "When you figure it out, I want to be the first to know."
His admission stilled her hysterics. It was different than the last time, when he left her on her own to figure out what she wanted. He wanted to know, one way or the other, how it was she felt. And he was not giving her demands or ultimatums. He was giving her time.
Elena choked, pulling him close so that he could not see her. He always could, though, even when she thought herself lost. It would be so easy, too easy, to just cave and take and take and take. But she had seen, first hand, what it could and would do to him. He would love her whole heartedly one minute, and the next hate her with everything he was worth. She did not want to be that person who nearly drove him to an unspeakable edge. "I don't want to be like that."
"You won't," he promised. She wondered if he even knew what it was she was talking about, because she was not even sure she knew herself.
"Now," he said as he pulled her back from him. Gone was the seriousness as he smirked at her once again."If you really want to lure in your human prey, may I suggest something that is totally you?"
xo
Stefan contemplated his existence the best way he knew how; through the never ending volumes chronicling his life. He missed Elena, could still hear her in his periphery. Still, he knew why she had done what she had done, even as he hated it.
"Going to categorize your life in one paragraph or less?" he heard from his door.
"What do you want," he demanded without looking up.
"Oh, some brotherly advice wouldn't hurt," Damon countered, the smirk evident in his voice. "That's what we're here for, right?"
Stefan sighed. He had no time for this. Still, though, what could his brother possibly ask him for that he already did not know? "What is it?"
There was a slight shift, a palpable tension that emanated from the door, and Stefan was helpless to look up. His brother looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "I need some advice."
Stefan nodded before turning back to his journal. "All your teen books not helping?"
"Why does everyone assume I read teen novels?" Damon demanded as he sauntered into the room. "The one time I'm caught reading City of Glass and everyone goes and makes their assumptions."
"It is a teen novel, Damon," Stefan pointed out.
"It was like reading a train wreck, Stefan," Damon pointed out.
Stefan sighed, hoping that if he ignored his older brother he would go away. Finally, his curiosity got the best of him. "Fine. What do you want?"
"Well, hypothetically speaking, say I want to date a human."
Stefan snorted.
"And hypothetically speaking, how would I go about it without wanting to snack on them like those delicious cucumber sandwiches?"
Stefan rolled his eyes. "Same way you deal with anything else, Damon. Alternate between breathing in through your nose and mouth."
"That's it?" Damon sounded disappointed.
Stefan shrugged. "Worked for me."
Eventually, the silence got to him. Glancing up, he saw his brother was no longer leaning against his doorway.
Where had that come from?
Well I have the last chapter all written out. There will be this and two more chapters. The last chapter is really short in comparison, though. Oh well!
Also, I know I've been updating this frequently. I don't like sitting on fic once its finished. I'm far too impatient.
Let me know what you thought, please! :D
