Chapter Four: Not Nearly Drunk Enough
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He stumbles down the hallway. He's pretty sure his unsteadiness is more from tiredness and less from alcohol...the warm, pleasant feeling that earlier had been present in his veins has faded now. He hopes the room is empty. Suddenly he's tired of partying and women and god knows what else and all he feels like doing is sleeping for a month.
But that's when he sees her.
She's crying softly, her knees pulled up to her chest and her hair making a curtain around her face. Her shoulders are shaking up against the hallway wall.
He's suddenly filled with a vague sense of rage. Why does she have to be here right now? All he wants is some sleep, but curse his luck, he finds Stefan's girl crying in the hallway.
It can't be because of Stefan. No, Stefan is always good to his girls. Sweet and caring and all that crap. It's Damon who is destructive and dark and usually ends up breaking hearts. Not Stefan.
Then what?
For a moment, he hopes that he will be able to walk by her without being noticed. But then she looks up with those brown orbs of hers and stares at him through her tears.
"What's the matter?" he asks, unable to keep the slight snarl of sarcasm from his voice. "Stefan give you one rose short of a dozen?"
His gruffness sends her into another batch of sobbing. He fights down a slight sense of guilt. He wasn't nice, so what? She should get used to it.
"He didn't tell you yet, did he?" she asks brokenly when the wave of salt water has slowed down a bit.
Her words give him pause.
"Tell me what?" Her silence is deafening. "Here!" he exclaims suddenly, eyes wide with playful mocking. "I've got it...Stefan forgot to shave again, didn't he?" Damon shakes his head with faked sorrow. "He does know how those whiskers irritate you...how could he forget?"
She tips her head up, looking at him as if she's searching for something in his soul that probably isn't there.
"Maybe you won't care," she says bitterly, ripping her gaze away and returning it to the elegant pattern scrolling across the hotel's carpet.
His demeanor changes in an instant at her words. "About what?" he asks sharply. She ignores him. He feels a flutter of panic, but he swallows it as quickly as he can.
"Elena," he implores. "About what?"
He tries not to notice how her name tastes in his mouth. It's not the moment to be thinking of such things... It's not important. She's Stefan's girl, remember? Stefan's girl...
"He's leaving," she finally whispers. "Stationed overseas. He's not coming with us to Pearl Harbor...he's going right into the middle of it." She sounds hallow with her grief, sad until the point of emptiness.
"Wait...what?" His words sound strange falling into the air...he can recognize his own desperation in them now, hidden right underneath his urgent disbelief.
"In the RAF Eagle squadron," she continues sadly.
He slides down the wall until he's sitting next to her.
"No...they can't do that can they? Elena?"
The States aren't in the war yet, so he hasn't really worried about it, not till now anyway. He knew it would come sooner or later...but still...
He can literally taste it now, the fear. It's shining out of Elena's perfect eyes, all too apparent.
His fear is different than hers, and yet all too similar. Stefan might be the love of her life, but to him, Stefan is like...his brother. Closer than a friend, that's for sure. They had grown up together, experienced just about everything the world had to offer them together. And then the war...Damon knew the possibilities. They both did...it wouldn't be long before the U.S. got into the middle of it and they were fighting and maybe dying. And that didn't scare him, not really. But he had expected, if that day did indeed come, that they would fight together. And heck, if death was looming, at least they could protect each other...that or die together. The thought that this is no longer probable sits ill with him.
"I didn't want him to see me cry," she confides, finally pulling her sobs under control. "I didn't want to ruin the night..."
"Well you sure ruined mine," he manages after a beat, his voice dry and hollow.
"His chances aren't...good...over there are they?" The thought sends her shoulders shaking again. "I don't know what I'm going to do..." she moans, "I love him. I love him and he's leaving and..."
She sounds so desperately fragile and he can hardly bear to hear the grief in her words. He didn't want to think about it, about her and about the war and least of all about Stefan.
He stands up abruptly. "I'm not drunk enough for this," he says. But then the world tips to the side, as if to make fun of his words.
"Please don't tell me that you're going to get another drink," Elena comments, glancing up at him.
"Maybe," he retorts, the world righting itself. He might be a little off balance, but as long as he is feeling like this, he isn't drunk enough for his standards.
Elena pulls herself to her feet at his words. "It's late, Damon," she says carefully. "How about you just go to bed?"
"What are you, my mother?" he snaps. She's so...so...self-righteous, he thinks angrily. First she ruins what was left of my good humor and then she thinks she can decide wether I have another drink...
"Wasn't that what you were doing before?" she asks.
Right. He had forgotten about that, about the whole sleeping for a month thing. And to think...that had only been minutes ago...
"Fine," he counters bitterly. "Fine. I'll go to bed." He glances down the hallway, searching for his room number. He had been all too sure of it just moments ago...but now all the numbers of swimming.
He takes a step down to the left, squinting at the room number closest to him.
Behind him he hears a sigh.
"221," he hears Elena say. "You're in Stefan's room, right? 221."
Self-righteous indeed! he thinks. Stefan can have her! And to think that I was even remotely interested...
Room 221 is only the next one down. He wasn't too far off, after all. Right before he opens the door, he finds himself turning back. Elena's returned to her seat against the wall; her arms have returned to their earlier position, wrapped around her knees as if to shied herself from the world. For a moment, he considers saying something else to her, even though he's not quite sure what...if he would be angry or sad or apologetic, but she says something first.
"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I'm sorry, Damon."
He laughs shortly. "Nothing to be sorry for," he tells her. She only stares at him. He should go into the room, but he can't. Not with her eyes holding onto him like that.
"Goodnight," she whispers softly, finally.
"Goodnight, Elena," he finds himself saying in response, his words much more tender than they should be. Her eyes drop at his goodbye, and suddenly, he can move again.
When he shuts the door, leaving her out alone, he expects the uncomfortable sensation she had made him feel to drift away.
But it stays, right underneath his skin. He had told her absolutely nothing at all, and yet he feels as if she knows everything.
Absolutely everything.
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