A/N: Whoa, all of you who reviewed are amazing! Your reviews really made me smile :) Kind of a warning for this chapter, it's kind of crack fic-like, but I mean, they have been awake now for almost five days. Anyway, continue!

102 hours

Reaching the 100 hour mark was incredible really...or at least it was in the sense that Elena was still making moderate sense, like she could remember all twenty-six letters of the alphabet and that she had ten toes. The actual 100 hour mark wasn't too incredible in itself because Damon was watching some show about classic muscle cars, and eating a large bowl of Cap'n Crunch. She was waking herself up with a sliced lemon under her nose, because the citrus scent made her happy. If she'd had a normal eight hours or any hours of shuteye, the moment would have been absolutely absurd, that is with Damon slouched on the couch with a mouthful of cereal, looking like a hung-over college kid, and with her nostrils wet with lemon juice, and with the bright noon sunshine outside. There was also that slight feeling of disappointment that Damon had found something else besides her to entertain himself with. But she didn't mean for that to sound dirty or weird or hold weighty innuendos that almost had her inhaling the entire piece of fruit.

She did cough, choke a little, and it surprisingly had Damon at her side by the already tainted kitchen island. He looked worried, holding her back like he had during that surprise trip to Georgia, and she said she was fine. When he wasn't convinced, she somehow talked him into doing a puzzle on the kitchen table. There didn't seem to be any logical connection to blocked airways and puzzles, but he was sitting next to her and she liked it. He picked one of three golden retrievers playing with a soccer ball over the tabby cat curled in an armchair. They hadn't even gotten the edges sorted out before she started yawning. Once they were working on the paws, he yawned, a small one she hardly noticed because he turned his face away. But, by the fourth yawn, she felt a little triumphant.

"Plague-spreader," he said. He did it again, grumbling, which was hot…mildly hot.

Elena shook her head, placing a golden, fluffy-looking piece on the table to finish the ear of the chubby puppy on the left. The ridiculously green grass made her wish she could go outside and actually experience the perks of summer vacation. It also made her wrist itch, like she could actually feel the blades of AstroTurf. Because it definitely had to be AstroTurf, she decided, focusing on the puzzle.

She blinked, and blinked, and blinked again. It was still there. Right in front of her on the puzzle were the two of them on a picnic. She was wearing a blue bikini, lying stomach-first on a red and white striped tablecloth. Damon had a pair of sunglasses on, blue jeans, and nothing else. To their right were three giant puppies playing soccer…or maybe Damon and her were supposed to be in the background. Right, because dinosaur-sized dogs would just be crazy.

Although probably not as crazy as watching the images move. First the ball was gnawed, slobbered on, rolled back and forth between the freakishly clean, cute, and cuddly animals. Then she could see she was laughing in the background. The picture seamed to focus like the zoom of a camera and there was sweat on her shoulders and Damon's hands. Damon was…no. She concentrated more, and she still saw Damon rubbing her shoulders. His face was close to her ear, sunglasses brushing the base of her scalp in a way that had the real her shivering. He was working on a knot in her neck when cardboard-Elena changed positions, and calling it a position seemed appropriate when, no, no, no, nothing was appropriate about that…and in front of those innocent puppies.

This was too much, so she forced herself to look away. The curtains of the kitchen window were open and the sun blinded her back to reality. It was weirdly quiet. She checked to her right to see Damon still working on the puzzle. He seemed to have gotten bored, because he was stacking the remaining sky pieces on top of each other. Her wrists started burning again. Before she had another hallucination, she stood up.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

"Gross," he said with another yawn, not even looking up from his pile.

She could barely remember making it to her bathroom, only that she was a little dizzy when walking upstairs, and being dizzy at two in the afternoon had her thinking of a hangover again. Washing her face made it better. So did breathing slower, and not thinking of picnic back-massages with enormous four-legged soccer players in the background. Her elbow almost knocked over the bottle of nail polish on the counter. She moved it closer to the faucet, thinking if she wanted to paint her nails…or maybe Damon's.

This thought process may have lasted longer if the background noise didn't change. She wasn't sure what it was immediately, but with the door open she realized it was Damon…and he was singing. And by singing he was kind of yelling in a musical-like way. She eased out of the room to the hall to hear him better.

"Sittin' by the roadside on a summer's day, Chattin' with my messmates, passing time away, Lying in the shadow, underneath the trees, Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!" Damon…well, he was doing something with his voice. "Peas! Peas! Peas! Peas! Eating goober peas! Goodness, how delicious."

She considered she was hearing things until she actually saw his mouth moving, muttering the last line as he finished the puzzle. It wasn't until she was back at the kitchen table that she could think of anything to say. "What are you singing?"

His head jerked up from the puzzle, expression looking as if he wasn't able to hear her walk in the room, which didn't seem possible, unless his vamp-ears were being affected. "It was…just something we used to sing during the war."

She was smiling; delighted he was unraveling a bit. "Which one?"

"Civil War," he said. As if fixing their equilibrium, he frowned. "What's so funny?"

She leaned against the chair across from him. "You're getting tired."

"Am not," he said, standing.

"Fine." She didn't want to start one of those stupid am not, are too arguments, and being the belittling one of the two of them was nice, refreshing. "Whatever you say."

She decided to get another lemon, and she could actually hear his footsteps when he walked up behind her. He was getting sleepy. She turned around before she reached the refrigerator, and the action of flipping her body to him reminded her of chest muscles and dark shades. He kept gliding towards her until her back met the handle of the refrigerator.

"I could stay awake for another week," he said, practically breathing on her.

This time she ignored his disheveled hair and went for his shoulder, setting her hand down halfway on his wife-beater with the other half on his collarbone. There was no Jeremy there to distract them, and even in her state of mind, which was hazy and full of him, she thought it was funny that so much had happened in the kitchen. She tilted her face to his ear like she'd seen him do on their puzzle. "A whole week?"

"Yeah," he said. He was holding her waist.

"Then I want you to do something for me," she whispered. She caressed the length of his shirt, slowly moving back up. Then she pushed him, catching him off guard enough to move him a few inches. "Race you to the stairs."

He took the bait, turning around, and her suspicions were correct. He wasn't using his vamp-speed anymore, but running regularly. She jogged behind him, losing only by a fraction of a second.

He was even somewhat out of breath. "You cheated," he said.

"Did not," she said, grinning. But the spiny, dizzy sensation was coming back, and whether she liked it or not she was sitting on the bottom step. She put her head between her knees, hoping the stairs would stop dancing around like they were auditioning for Fantasia.

"Faker," he said.

Elena could hear him bend down even before his hand was on the back of her neck. And he was sort of rubbing/patting in a way that was probably supposed to make her feel better. She thought of her hallucination, and slowly sat up straight. "Damon, do you like picnics?"

"They're…alright, I guess," he said. He was looking at her like she was coming up with some secret diabolical plan. "Why?"

She moved her hair from her neck, scratching at a spot she hoped wasn't a trigger into psycho-land. Psycho would have been her chosen word to describe herself if she'd known how she was going to feel at the beginning of all of this, when she was just bored and slightly insulted, and the whole Damon-flirting thing was just a minor tick in her day. She tried to decide if being sleepy was the only reason she was thinking about kissing him, and for some reason she thought it wasn't.

"When I can finally leave the house, would it be weird if I asked you to go…on a picnic-lunch with me?" She chuckled.

His face was dead serious. "Yes, it would be."

"Right," Elena said. Her stoic expression was back. She held onto the railing so she could stand. Trying to walk past him, she was stopped when he held onto her forearm.

"I was kidding," he said, staring in her eyes to make sure she knew he was telling the truth.

"I know."

He smirked. "Oh really? Because you looked like I'd just told you I killed your puppy or something."

Killed her puppy? Why was everything reminding her of that stupid puzzle? And why was she so hyper-aware of the shape of his mouth?

"Elena?"

She wasn't moving at first, and then when she was it was only her head, and closer to him. Closing her eyes, she placed a small peck on his lips. Opening her eyes, she leaned back with a smug smile. "You know what we should do?" she whispered.

He didn't say anything.

"Laundry," she said. She turned and walked up the stairs, happy to feel a touch more awake. When she got her laundry hamper, she found him still waiting.

"You play dirty," he said. He took the heavy bag of clothes from her. "It's annoying."

A/N: By the way, Damon's song is real, and is a song from the Confederates in the Civil War. Please review :)