Hi again! New chapter up.

This one is from Elena's point of view and we get a flashback on my go on the triangle.

I really hope that you will like it!


Chapter 7 - The Brother

Elena looks around her in the garden. It's nice, green and trim. She has a dark blue dress with small, with flowers and her hair is straight and loose, as usual. She's waiting for Damon. They are going to one of his friends, the one Pricilla presented to them and do the recipe for the wedding. Priscilla is already there, and Elena and Damon are going to drive there in his car.

She doesn't expect the trip to be anything but mind-blowing, because if there was one thing Damon loved more the cooking it was his car. Stefan had warned her about putting her feet anywhere were they weren't supposed to be. He had thrown in a little lecturing about not sleeping with Damon too, and not in a subtle way.

"Hi there, girl. Ready to leave this place until tomorrow night?" Damon asks as he walks up beside her. Elena turns to him, smiling.

"Yes, I am" she says, looking him in the eyes. "But it's beautiful. Are your friends place as beautiful as this?" She doesn't think she imagens Damon's eyes stuck on her just a tad too long.

"Well, I would say so" he starts, looking out over the vineyard in front of them. "Even though this place is more beautiful now than I ever seen it. "But I think his place will get that little detail when we get there" he says, eyes stuck on her and that sexy little smirk stuck on his lips.

Elena's breath gets stuck in her throat, her comeback with it, and she stares after him with wide eyes when he turns to leave.

"Are you coming?" he asks and Elena quickly follows him to his car, carefully keeping her distance. She didn't like it but Stefan and Caroline were right. She was here for Stefan's, her ex and good friend, wedding and she couldn't go sleep with his brother. Regardless of how much she liked him or her forbidden feelings for him.

When he starts the car, with a roar because he can't have a normal quiet car like everybody else but has to have an old veteran, he hands her the phone.

"You can handle the music, right? I'm okay with everything without hard metal and girly pop songs" he says, as he slides out on the road.

"Hey! What's wrong with girl pop?" she asks jokingly but puts on a popular song that's on her playlist, and his too apparently.

"I think the word 'girly' answers that question" is his only comeback and Elena stares at him, playing mocked.

"You should know, Mr. 'I'm not girly', that there aren't such things as 'girly' and 'manly'. It's up for the taste of the person in question" she says, looking forward again. He smirks a little and glances quickly at her.

"And some of these things most women like and some of them most men like" he argues back with a big smile, showing off all of his dimples.

"Doesn't mean that they naturally fall under the category" she answers, her voice slightly pitched but with a big smile herself. Her words filled with laughter.

"No, but it does mean that if you look at the statics, these things are either more 'girly' or more 'manly'" he says, even his voice laced with a laugh now and that little teasing tone at the side.

She punches him in the arm for that. Just lightly, not wanting to hurt him, just trying to soothe the little bit inside her that shouts at her to kiss him, touch him. Just do anything so that she can feel him.

He plays hurt a few seconds before he laughs, his smile so big that the skin around his eyes adorably wrinkles. She wrinkles her nose in response, ignoring the longing look he gives her afterward.

He is Stefan's brother, he's Caroline's enemy and he clearly dislikes her twin sister. He is her ex's brother. Just that should be enough to make her stop looking at his sinewy hands and muscly arms that she can see because of the t-shirt. But it isn't. It wasn't years ago, it isn't now.

She doesn't know what it is, but she does know that she has been drawn to him since the first time and that she can't shake him from under her skin, where he always seems to be nagging. Even after more than two years apart, she can feel him there, close enough to her speeding heart to be real. Too far away from her shouting brain to be bothered.

She glances at him, and he gives her a teasing smirk immediately making her look back straight ahead. He is strong and funny, and he always had time for her. Not to name that he was a fighter. She knows that. Or at least she knew that when they were younger and close. Before she got attracted to him and before he kissed her out of the blue.

Maybe not that much out of the blue. Elena turns to look at him again, catching his breathtaking blue eyes one more time. It was clear that he wanted her. The longing looks, the small touches and always being close to her. Maybe the girl she was in the past didn't realize but she does. She notes everything about him and she knows that he is attracted to her. But she thinks, and hopes, that it's more than just that. He told her years ago that he was in love with her. Did all those feeling go away? She knows hers didn't.

They have something special and she thinks Damon can feel it too. If he weren't Stefan's brother they would have been together years ago. She knows that and maybe, just maybe, it isn't actually too late. He looks at her again, that special look in his eyes and Elena smiles as she changes the song to something different. He starts moving his head to the beat and it isn't long until they sing in false voices to the song, laughing together.

The car ride goes on like that for two hours. They mock each other, they laugh and they talked a little bit. The quiet moments when Elena has to stop and think that he is STEFAN's brother. Then he laughs and gets wrinkles around his eyes and Elena just wants to kiss him until she can't think straight.

Then there is the chemistry. Elena can promise that it's so thick that you can take on it and spending hours so close to him makes her legs feel like jello when she finally gets to step out in front of an old building. This place is clearly not renovated just a couple of years ago, like Salvatore's Maison are, as Stefan told them on their tour the day before. She gets to say hi to Priscilla, a long lady with gray, braided hair and a genuine smile.

"Oi, mate! Nice to see you again" a guy with black hair and stubble and light brown eyes.

"Enzo, mate" Damon answers and walks straight into the man's arms, hugging him hard. They both draw back to look at Elena after a couple of seconds.

"This is Elena, she will be helping us out" Damon says, throwing a hand in her direction.

"So this is Stefan's ex" Enzo says, letting his eyes rank over her. "He has a good taste of woman" Elena doesn't think she imagens Damon's shyness when he mumbles a

"Yes" while refusing to actually look at her.

"So will you be helping in the kitchen or are you, like me, untrusted to touch the food and are going to serve as a waitress?" Enzo asks her with sparkling eyes. Elena is not sure if he likes him or not.

"She is going to help in the beginning and then she gets to help you" Damon answers before her. Enzo looks at her with laughing eyes.

"So your not trusted either?" he asks and Elena can't help but laugh.

"Doesn't seem like it" she answers, wrinkling her nose to Damon. He laughs, too.

"How do you expect me to have you in the kitchen after what happened yesterday?" he asks her mockingly, poking her in the ribs. Elena blushes. She had gotten too distracted with Damon whipping a cream, his biceps flexing, and forgotten the cookies in the oven two minutes too long. It was a disaster. Mostly because Damon keeps acting smug about it as if he knows why she lost her ability to concentrate.

She answers his attack by half-heartedly pushing away his hand, giggling. Which she hasn't done in years and now does because he's touching her. It's insane really, he's still Stefan's BROTHER. Enzo gives them an amused look and she can swear Damon is blushing for a couple of seconds. Except that's impossible. Damon doesn't blush.

Hours later they're in the kitchen, trying foods. Enzo left for a date, with a big smile, a wink at Elena and a slap on the butt for Damon, saying something about trying to get home in time to say goodbye to them tomorrow. Damon laughed at that, Elena's not sure she founds it funny.

"Here, try this" Damon lifts a spoon with a little soup on it against her mouth. His other hand finds one of her arms, holding her still as Elena slowly, her brown eyes stuck in is blue ones, opens her mouth and closes it around it. She moans directly after, wonderful tastes playing with her taste buds. Damon puts away the spoon but keeps his hand on her arm.

She's not sure if the burning sensation that creeps up on her cheeks are from his steady hand or burning eyes. Or just his close proximity. But she does know that she can't breathe and that she has to get away from him, quick. Before she does something stupid. Like gripping his other hand, wanting to feel if it's as warm as the one on her arm. Or run her fingers through his unruly, pitch black hair, finding out if it's as soft as it looks. Or just kisses him, because she has wanted to for so long.

"It's good. Yes, it's good" she stammers as she pulls back, her face suddenly very close to his. She thinks that he looks disappointed afterward but she can't figure it out before his smirk is back on his face, crossing his strong arms over his chest.

"Of course it is, I did it" he says calmly before he starts with another sats in another pan. She looks at him as he walks around, putting things together for the second soup. Her minds start wandering, her racing heart bringing her to places she has avoided for so long. Places she really shouldn't go.

2 and ½ years ago

"Hi" Elena says as she walks out to the waiting room in the hospital. "He, he's okay. You should know that" Damon looks up at her, trying to act strong but Elena can clearly see that he has been crying. She hasn't, surprisingly. She got the call about Stefan being in a car accident two hours ago, reminding her so much about the call she got when her parents died so it actually took her twenty minutes to realize that she had to go to the hospital, Damon picking her up just a couple minutes after, without her even asking. But she hasn't cried yet. She hasn't actually felt anything since then. Just empty.

"But he doesn't wanna talk to me?" Damon sounds really depressed, his eyes shining with a hurt that Elena just have caught a glimpse of before. She sits down beside him, grabbing his hand in hers, hard. Exactly like she did to his brother just minutes ago.

"It's gonna be okay, he's gonna be okay" she says, out loud not sure if she says it to him or to herself as she sits down beside Damon. Damon turns his sad, desperate eyes with her and the blueness in them makes her heart hurt, even though she's pretty sure it's because of Stefan and not of him.

"How are you feeling?" he asks after a long while. When they've been sitting in the waiting room holding each other's hands with a death grip, refusing to let go, over an hour. "I know your parents died in a car accident" he continues when she doesn't answer. These are the words making it boil over. Her body, that has stayed calm for hours, suddenly panics. Her choked brain finally getting all the information together, understanding that she was close to losing her boyfriend, the love of her life, to the same thing that took her parents away all these years ago.

There's an eternity and at the same time just a few seconds, when she sits there and understands. Her panic breaking through her mask and the tears that weren't even there seconds ago stream down her cheeks, her throat hurting and her chest aching because she almost just lost STEFAN. Damon takes her in his arms just seconds after that and time stops altogether. All she can feel is the security of him, alive, warm, breathing, against her, whispering soothing things in her ear. Her heart hurts, it's breaking. Because Stefan was almost gone. She almost lost him. She can't stand losing him. She can't.

She stands, ready to run to him, throw herself in his loving arms, tell him that she loves him. Because she does. and she always will and she just wants to see him, feel him. Know that he actually is alive.

"Stop" Damon says and grabs her arm, she punches him, hard, in the chest. "You can't go see him, you know what the doctor said" he keeps going, ignoring her fist. She hits him again, and again, and again, harder and harder. She is pretty sure that she's screaming too. Because he is preventing her to get to Stefan. She NEEDS to get to Stefan! She keeps hitting him until she can't anymore, then sinking against his chest, crying again.

She pulls back, slowly, Damon's blue eyes burning into hers. She has never felt so guilty for having a crush on her boyfriend's brother as she does right now.

"I'm sorry" she mumbles, blushing hard. He keeps looking at her.

"I'm not" he says, and then his lips are on hers. They are burning, and magical. And wrong. She melts onto it for a second, tasting the forbidden fruit. To her surprise it's sweet. Not actually sweet, but good, nice. Warm. Alive. She pulls back. What is she doing? Stefan was dying a couple of hours ago and here she stands, kissing another guy. She takes a step back.

"What's wrong?" he asks her. She wants to shout at him that HE is wrong and ask him what he is thinking. But all that comes out are

"I… It's just… It's Stefan. I love Stefan! It's always going to be Stefan!" she says it and then she walks away. For the first time, and since then the last, she walks out on a man. She doesn't even look back, she just leaves.

"ELENA! Have you heard anything I been saying to you?" Damon's voice is what brings her back.

"No" she stumbles, walking backward, stumbling in her own feet. He is just too close right now. She has to get out. "I'm sorry, I just… I can't do this" she stammers and then she turns on her heel and walks away. For the second time, she walks away from a man, for the second time she doesn't turn back. And it's driving her crazy that it's the same man. He is the only one how can makes her lose her balance. Yet, at the same time, it feels like she needs him. Actually needs him to keep breathing.

But she can't be in love with him. Not Stefan's brother. Not after all these years. Or?


So that's it. Hope you liked it.

Thank you for reading!