Shoving Elena's pretty little cell phone back into the pocket of his designer jeans, Damon swaggers back across the sun-baked gas station parking lot towards his car. The self-satisfied expression from his conversation with Stefan melts off his face like a snowman in July. Despite all his bravado and suggestive comments in front of his brother, Damon understands himself well. He knows that he couldn't take advantage of Elena. Ever. That worries him.
Back in the car, he re-adjusts his seat to his liking, turns the volume on the radio louder, just a hair. Glancing over at the passenger seat makes his stomach worryingly fluttery and warm. Damon Salvatore does not get all soft and gooey-eyed over a sleeping girl.
But she is pretty damn cute.
Hesitant, he reaches out with the tips of his fingers, brushing a few stray strands of golden hair from Elena's forehead. Her cheeks are warm and flushed under his fingers as he traces the contours of her face - she'd been crying all day, until about two hours ago, when she'd finally cried herself and fallen asleep.
Asleep. Elena. Alone with him - a vampire, no less - in an inescapable sports car. Silly Elena, sleeping in front of him, making herself vulnerable in a way that tempts his canine teeth and, though he would never admit it, tugs at his heart. Either she is incredibly stupid, or she actually…trusts him.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Damon focuses on the present - and on Elena.
He skims his fingers lightly down her cheek, across her swan-like neck, lower, onto the cotton fabric of the t-shirt where it covers her shoulder. His fingers curve to the contour of her upper arm, squeeze.
"Elena," he mutters, feeling stupid, having never tried to wake anyone up before. He usually likes his girls better unconscious. Making things difficult for him, even subconsciously, Elena only shifts, letting out a little half-whimper that - god help him - makes his heart beat a little bit faster.
"Wake up, smell the bacon - or is it coffee?" Damon shakes his head at the stupid human sayings that have him tongue-tied.
Elena groans, batting at his hand lazily, like a sleeping kitten roused from its nap. Rolling his eyes, Damon tugs playfully - playfully? Since when is Damon playful? - on her gorgeous blonde tresses. "Get up, 'Lena, its like three in the afternoon, and I do believe you didn't eat breakfast, since your blood sugar is practically nothing, so wake your ass up and we can get some food for -"
"What did you just call me?" Elena asks groggily, sitting up straight in the passenger seat, practically running into him - he'd been leaning unconsciously into her. At the movement, Damon leaps back to his side of the car, hands studiously at eleven and five o'clock on the steering wheel. It takes him about five seconds to process what it is she's said, and by that point, she is blinking at him in a more alert fashion, apparently waiting for a response.
"Oh, right," he says, thinking fast, because he is pretty sure he just impulsively called Elena some lame-ass nickname like some pubescent boy with his first girlfriend. But because, for once, he doesn't know what to say, the silence extends past his words into one heaping ball of awkwardness between them. To fill it, he revs up the car and pulls back onto the road.
"Also," Elena adds, eyes on him, "can you really tell what my blood sugar level is? Just by the scent?" He chances a glance on him, and she looks fascinated, if a little queasy. When he doesn't answer, her fingers fly to her neck, fear crossing her beautiful features like lightening. "Unless, you tell by taste -"
"Relax," Damon says sharply, a tad pissed off that she would jump to such conclusions. "I wouldn't - I mean, you were asleep, for Christ's sake. What do you take me for, anyways?" His voice is steadily rising, an edge of anger seeping into his tone for the first time all day. "Some sort of undignified, monstrous -"
"Well, considering your actions of late, you haven't given me many reason to think anything less," Elena murmurs, her quiet tone a disproval of Damon's almost-shouting by comparison.
"I'd never hurt you," Damon says, even softer, almost out of the range of Elena's hearing.
"Why should I believe that? You killed five girls last night, you kidnapped me, stole my cell phone. We are in the middle of nowhere -" she gestures to the North Carolinian wetlands around the highway "- why should I trust you?"
"You already do trust me."
"No -"
"You fell asleep in front of me, Elena. That takes a lot of trust, even if I were just a human. But I'm a vampire. I could have killed you, and you wouldn't have had time to wake up." Elena is quiet, now, stunned into submission. "You trust me. Face it. Now where would you like to go to eat?"
"Doesn't matter," she almost whispers, looking out the window with a strange sort of expression marring her delicate features.
"Yes, it does. What's your favorite thing to eat?" It's strange to think, but besides every nuance of her personality, Damon doesn't know many of the statistics or superlatives of Elena Gilbert. Hell, he's not even quite sure when her birthday is. Or her favorite color. Does she listen to music?
It shouldn't matter to him, but it does. Elena is far more than a one-night-stand or a warm, blood-filled body to push around. What he wants from her is deeper than the veins just under her skin. He feels like, if he could be closer to her, if she would let him have her the way Stefan's had her, if he could just tap a single vein in that delicate neck, he could make her want him, could trace each vein back to her heart and worm his way under his skin, make her belong to him, make her…
But he doesn't want to make her do anything, does he? Force would spoil the idea, the sweetness of having her.
"I like Chinese food," Elena allows. "Egg rolls."
"Egg rolls it is." He turns the steering wheel generously to the right, towards the Chinese restaurant he'd noticed on the way to the gas station earlier. He smiles to himself at the convenience of having Elena's favorite so close on hand. Maybe the universe wants them together, after all.
The restaurant is full of dark corners, dragon-shaped objects, and those privacy-giving screens that separate rooms into different sections. Damon slips a ten to the waiter, and he and Elena end up seated at an intimate table for two in the far-left corner of the room, with a rather prestigious view of the restaurant's Koi pond. One of the bamboo screens separates he and Elena from the rest of the world, and he feels like they are apart from everything else, in some sort of magical bubble where nothing else matters.
They make small talk as Elena peruses the menu, and taking the fact that she is currently a victim of Damon's rather hospitable brand of kidnapping into consideration, the conversation isn't all that awkward. He finds out the answers to his earlier questions - blue is her favorite color, by the way - and determines that he likes this, likes spending time with Elena in a non-life-threatening situation. Her laugh is infectious. Her smile is brilliant. When she listens to him, the world narrows down to just her Lapis Lazuli eyes, making him feel like the most important thing in her universe.
Elena orders sesame chicken and fried rice, with a vegetable egg roll on the side. She raises her eyebrows when he orders the same.
"I can eat, you know," Damon says under his breath once the waiter has scampered off to the kitchen. "Didn't Saint Stefan tell you that?"
Nose wrinkling at the nickname, Elena nods. "Yeah, but I just never thought of you as one to act human. At all. Ever."
Shrugging it off, he chuckles lowly, taking a sip of his wine, noting the way Elena's eyes cling to his lips like chapstick. "Well, I have to try this Elena-approved delicacy known as egg rolls, don't I?"
Blood rushes to Elena's cheeks in a faint, pleased blush. For once, the extra blood doesn't make him want to bite. In fact, he'd like nothing better to kiss her, right now, in this dark corner of some anonymous restaurant, with her still blushing over his words and getting dizzy off the wine he'd tricked the bartender into giving her. Damon leans in, ever so slowly, and Elena's eyes focus softly on his. He can see that she is slightly fuzzy around the edges, even after just a glass and a half of alcohol. He can see how easy it would be to pull closer to her. She wouldn't put up a fight, not even as his lips claimed hers and his fingers sunk into that long blonde hair -
Their waiter bustles along with a serving tray and an air of reality, and the spell is broken. Elena blinks and leans back into her seat, looking surprised at herself. Damon's fingers clench into fists under the table, angry at himself. He wanted to kiss Elena? Vampires. Do not. Kiss. Not for pleasure, at least.
But the idea of kissing Elena makes his head spin.
He puts it out of his mind as the waiter sets the human food in front of him. It is a pile of steaming, spicy-smelling chicken doused generously in a sauce that makes his teeth feel sticky just by looking at it. The rice is brown, and doesn't appear to have been fried, so the confusing name still does not make any sense to him. He picks up his fork, doubtfully poking at the pieces of chicken carcass and vegetable matter.
When he looks up, Elena is laughing at him.
"What?" he asks tiredly, not sure if he wants to know what it is he has done to be ridiculed.
"You look so confused," Elena giggles - giggles, like the innocent school girl that he knows she still is. Damon bites his lip to hold back a smile - he's glad that they seem to have left behind the crying/distrust from that morning.
"I am confused."
"When was the last time that you -" she drops her voice conspiratorially, glancing around them before continuing, "That you, well, you know…ate?"
"The sixteen hundreds," he admits in a whisper. "Onion soup." He shudders. "Turns out I don't like onions."
Elena laughs again, picking up his fork and stabbing a piece of chicken off his plate. "You'll like this, I promise," she smiles, her eyes wide and inviting, lifting the fork almost lazily. "No onions."
Damon raises one dark eyebrow, glancing at Elena, then the chicken, then back again. This isn't happening, a little voice in his head insists, that being the only logical explanation for Elena forking his chicken and looking as though she wants to feed him his first solid food in four centuries.
Somehow, though, her hand and his mouth work in tandem, his lips close over the pungent chicken, and Elena is pulling the fork back again, her eyes still locked with his. He hardly tastes the food as he chews and swallows, he is so distracted by her.
Part of his brain processes how ridiculous this is. Not eight hours ago, he and Elena and Stefan were hunting him through the Old Wood, planning God only knew what. And now…now he and Elena have somehow tricked themselves into believing that only they exist, and she is feeding him spicy-sweet chicken and getting just a little bit tipsy on wine he bought for her.
He knows that Fell's Church will have to start existing again at some point in the future, and he will have to deal with five dead girls, the disgust of Elena's friends, and Stefan. But for now, nothing matters.
Only Elena and her jewel-bright eyes, and the fact that she gave him half of her egg roll when he finished his and still wanted more. They are together, however tenuous the moment is. Even if she'll run back to Stefan when this is all over.
After dinner comes dessert - vanilla and green tea Mochi ice cream, which ends up being golf ball sized, frozen finger-food, and something he likes very much. He buys an extra carton to go, and on the way out of the restaurant, he lets Elena take his arm while he uses the other hand to wolf down the ice cream, feeling very human and vulnerable as the cold gives him something Elena calls 'brain freeze' when he describes it to her.
"Where to next?" Elena asks, smiling gently up at him, like this is a honeymoon or vacation, like he didn't steal her away against her will just that morning.
"Mmm," Damon hums, licking his fingers. "Hotel, I suppose. There's a respectable Hilton half an hour down the road. I'm a preferred customer." He flashes her an incandescent smile. "Penthouse, of course."
"Sounds good."
The walk to the car is made in silence, as is the drive to the hotel, broken only by Damon's phone call to inquire as to availability of rooms. As they draw closer to their destination, a heavy sort of anticipation settles over the car, stealing the breath from his lungs. Every tiny movement Elena makes is electric, sending shockwaves through their joined hands.
He has never felt like this before. Never. He wonders fleetingly if this is what it's like for Stefan - if every moment with her is this intense, this sparkling-new with excitement and fireworks.
Bitter at the reminder that Elena isn't his, not really, Damon turns the thinking part of his brain off, excepting the section he uses for Elena-processing activities.
Because Stefan doesn't matter. Damon is with Elena now, sitting in this car with her, holding her hand, headed to a plush hotel room after a romantic dinner for two.
Damon smiles brilliantly to himself, squeezing Elena's fingers with one hand and turning up the radio with the other.
"You know, for being kidnapped and all, I'm having a great time," Elena finally breaks the heavy silence, tapping her toes to the beat of the music, running the pad of her thumb across the back of his knuckles.
"Me too, Elena," he says, honestly. "Me too."