Too Much Ch 7

Damon's POV

Owls hooted, crickets chirped, and a thin layer of mist hovered over the damp forest floor of the moonlit clearing. My livid, vengeful brother stood thirty feet away, glowering at me as the gusting wind howled through the trees. Add in a tumble weed and a pair of pistols, because I just wandered into a creepy goth version of the OK Corral.

"Discuss away." I crossed my arms over my chest. This should be entertaining.

"How was it?" Stefan whispered.

"How was what?" I replied innocently, despite knowing exactly what he meant.

"Fucking Elena."

"So crude. And here we all thought you were a model gentleman. But since you asked, yeah I've been quite enjoying it. She's a screamer, isn't she?"

"No, she was always very quiet. She rarely makes noise."

I choked. Perhaps she was quiet for him! I had to lean over and grab my stomach, I was laughing so hard at my brother's very obvious lack of sexual prowess.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" If vampires could turn green, Stefan surely would have at that point.

I straightened up, but couldn't wipe the smile off my face. "Nothing, Ron Jeremy. Absolutely nothing. So tell me, was the witch stupid enough to let your dear Kat out of that shithole too, or does she have at least one conductor driving her brain train?"

"Katherine is still trapped in the tomb, where I intend to leave her indefinitely."

"Good news at last! I was beginning to think that this was becoming a sorta' shitty day."

Stefan stalked a few yards closer to me, shaking with emotion. "Wouldn't you say that it was completely shitty anyway?"

I adjusted my stance just in case dear bro tried anything really stupid, like trying to stake me with a mossy twig. "I got to fuck Elena, as you so callously put it, several times. So no, it's impossible to consider it a completely shitty day. In fact, it was quite enjoyable until you showed up. Totally rude to not knock, by the way."

Yep, there's the twig. Stefan growled and launched himself forward, aiming a fallen branch at my heart. I easily grabbed the termite-infested bit of crumbling timber, tossed it, and hoisted my snarling brother into the air by this throat.

"Really? All this sturdy wood around and you pick a mostly decomposed branch to stake me with? Honestly, Stefan, have some standards." I dropped baby bro on his ass in the foggy, soggy mulch.

Had I choked a human that hard, it would have been dead, but Stefan's crushed windpipe was healing and he scrambled back in the mist. Unfortunately, he could still talk.

"You think you've won, Damon? You think this was a game, and that's why you took her from me? You played your cards right to get what was mine, to hurt me. But it isn't a game! She's a person! Elena is a good, loving person, and I'm not going to let you destroy her because you want to beat me!" Stefan finally found his feet at the opposite edge of the clearing and stood.

If I felt comfortable enough to take my eyes off of him, I would have pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head. The fool! "I'm not playing a game. I derive no joy from 'beating' you... Ok, maybe a little joy, but that's beside the point." Stefan stared at me and I could see that he didn't believe my words a bit. I tried again. Speaking from my heart proved to be stilted and difficult.

"That girl… that wonderful human girl… I know that she is a person. At first, yes, I did want to take her from you just to spite you, but that changed. Elena is… too perfect to hurt, too precious to destroy or manipulate. She is beautiful and annoying, intelligent and stupid, loyal to a fault and conniving as a fox, and I love her, Stefan. Just as she is. I didn't take her from you to beat you at all. In fact, it was her that took me."

I grabbed the pathetic branch that he had threatened me with earlier and flashed over to my brother, stopping inches away.

"Her nose crinkles up a little when she really laughs. Her lips tighten a bit when she's lying. She only flips her hair over her shoulder when she wants you to look at her, and her fingers fidget when she doesn't. She licks her lips when she wants to be kissed, and she sings in the shower. Badly. She kicks in her sleep, and she snores if she's had too much to drink. And when she tells you that she loves you, she glances away and smiles nervously, as if she's afraid that you don't feel the same way."

I raised the pointy, lame bit of wood to my chest and offered the blunt end to Stefan. Stefan had the good grace to look a shade uncertain as he held the makeshift stake against my heart.

"I don't know why someone so wonderful loves me, but she does", I said quietly. "Quite honestly, I'm not going to press my luck enough to ask."

"Someday you will destroy her!" Stefan growled.

"You can choose to kill me now, brother, or you can choose to believe that I cannot possibly hurt this woman." I would mock the tortured play of emotions flickering across his features if this wasn't such a serious situation. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It was like watching the stages of grief work themselves out in an instant. Unfortunately for me, the half-second of the anger phase made Stefan push a few splinters of wood into my chest, and I fell to my knees in the misty clearing.

"Ow! Come on dude, I get my junk bit AND have to bleed all over another Varvatos in one night? Uncool!"

Doubly unfortunate, a new character in this macabre play dashed into the clearing at that exact moment. With a branch shallowly lodged in my chest and blood pouring out of me like fucking Niagara Falls, Elena appeared around a bush, gasping and horrified.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Stefan, don't! DON'T KILL HIM!" Elena was frantic and running, which wasn't a good combination. Incapacitated as I was, I couldn't stop my kitten from tripping on the misty forest floor. A large root caught her foot and she tumbled to the ground.

"Elena!" I ripped the splinters from my nearly sealed wound and ran to her, with Stefan hot on my heels. She had the good sense to put clothes on before sprinting through the night at least, but my love had fallen on top of a nasty, jagged rock. I could smell the blood long before I reached her inert body.

"Kitten? Kitten! Come on, tell me that you're all right!" She didn't move or make a sound, which is something that would never happen if she could help it. "Stefan! Help me lift her. I don't want to worsen any injuries by not supporting all of her limbs properly."

Brother was already helping me to shift her gently on her back, and we both reeled at the ugly, ragged wound that marred her stomach. Damn it, kitten! Why did you have to do that!

"Shit, Damon! I'm calling 911. That gash is severe." Stefan poked at his cell phone and made the call just as Elena opened her eyes.

"Love? Kitten? How do you feel?" I cradled her carefully in my arms.

She coughed, and an extra surge of blood spurted out of her open wound. "Not that great. I hate rocks."

I laughed feebly and smiled at her for lack of anything better to do. "Help is on the way, kitten. Why did you come here?"

"Phone."

"Yes, Stefan phoned an ambulance."

"No. My phone… you called me… heard you arguing with Stefan in the woods and followed… I couldn't let him hurt you."

What? I quickly checked the cell in my back pocket, and sure enough the bastard device displayed an ongoing call to Elena Gilbert… for twenty five minutes and counting.

"Damn it! I hate this thing! I am so getting a droid tomorrow!" I threw my iPhone angrily into the mulch and kissed Elena's sweating forehead. To my surprise, she giggled.

"I'm happy that I heard what you said. Did you really mean it?"

Elena looked so pale and fragile, bleeding in my arms, so I couldn't be snarky. "Yes, I meant every word kitten."

Even in pain, her smile could light up the world. "Thought so, but I would have come after you anyway."

Oh, this wonderful woman! "I know."

"Ask me to marry you."

"Uh, pardon?"

"Do it quick. The paramedics are almost here and I want you to be there with me."

The ambulance had indeed parked on the nearest fire road, and pair of EMTs were clamoring through the woods toward the clearing with tote bags of supplies and a stretcher.

"I'll give you blood once they stitch you up. You will be out of the hospital in no time." I petted her hair.

"Awesome. Thanks. Now ask me before they get here!"

This wasn't the exact situation I had planned to propose to my future wife, but what the hell.

"Elena, you are my reason to continue being. Will you marry me?"

She smiled the secret smile that she had always worn for me since the first time I made her laugh, since the night she met me and hated my guts. Even bleeding and tired she gave that to me, while I offered myself to her.

"Yes." I had never heard a more wonderful word in my existence.

The EMTs reached the clearing, and quickly strapped Elena to the stretcher while binding her wound. They carried her carefully through the woods to the ambulance, and I climbed in behind her.

"Sir, I'm afraid that you can't ride in there unless you're immediate family." Technicians were attaching tubes and beeping machines to my Elena, and I wasn't about to leave her.

"I'm her fiancé."

The EMT nodded and closed the swinging doors with a metallic clank, but not before I saw Stefan's face, staring silently from the woods.

Yo: This is absolutely the most poorly edited chapter so far, but it's 5am and I'm tired! *snores*