Disclaimer and Warning: I do not own Vampire Diaries, however consider this story mine. Any dialogues not canon from the show as well as any descriptive sentences are the end result of over twenty years of writing. I have poured my heart and soul into every beautiful paragraph, every perfect sentence, every hot and/or romantic scene, and every funny one-liner. To copy this work or any other and claim as one's own, in whole or in part is a criminal offence punishable by ostracism, harassment by my loyal readers, and possibly even dismissal by the MODs. Repeat offenders will be reported IMMEDIATELY to Stop_Plagiarism on LiveJournal and your name will be placed on the watch list under all known aliases. It's not worth it; don't be a thief !

Chapter 9: Take a Break From Your Life For Five Minutes

Dear Diary,

Today is Caroline's party at the Mystic Grill. She's been planning it for months now, and Stefan promised he would come with me…well, he cancelled. Again. Story of my life, right? He called me less than an hour ago with another lame apology about how he's sorry he can't make it, but the hospital really needs him. Yeah, whatever. Honestly I'm getting a little fed up with this disappearing act of his, and all his excuses. Is it really so much to ask that my boyfriend spend more time with me? I don't want to be one of those clingy girlfriends, but I don't want to feel so alone all the time. I mean, DAMON is more of a boyfriend to me right now than Stefan is…if my boyfriend was the type to hang around constantly, make suggestive comments, and parade around the house half-naked every chance he got. Honestly, he might as well be my boyfriend since either way I'm not really getting any payoffs here. Stefan and I haven't made love in over a month and a half; I did the math. I was counting on ending that dry spell tonight, but Stefan ruined those plans by deciding to bail on the party, even after he promised me last night he would be home. So now I'm dateless, depressed, and not exactly in the mood to celebrate anything (sorry, Caroline).

Elena was curled up in her favorite chair by the fireplace, dressed in yet another pair of blue PJ bottoms and a matching camisole as she scribbled yet another entry in her diary. It seemed she was doing that a lot lately. Once again, Stefan had broken a date with her in favor of working late at the hospital, leaving her alone in the boarding house. The only problem was that he had promised to take her to Caroline's birthday party at The Mystic Grill, and now she was dateless and no longer in the mood to celebrate. Plus she wouldn't be able to drink unless she took a cab, and since Isobel had effectively cut her off from her trust fund earlier yesterday after their argument, she really didn't have the money to pay for one. Just then, she heard footsteps approaching from behind and knew it could only be one person; she pretended to be deep in thought, hoping he'd go away.

"You're still here?" he asked, as if he was surprised to find her sitting in the living room.

"Where else would I be?" she responded without looking up from her journal.

"I assumed you'd be at the Mystic Grill by now. Unless you wanted to ride with me…" he wiggled his brows suggestively, grinning at her. She chose to ignore his comments; she wasn't really in any mood to deal with him.

"I'm not going," she replied. "I've got a headache."

Damon rolled his eyes. "Like I buy that excuse for a second," he muttered.

"Believe what you want," she said. "I don't feel like arguing with you tonight, and I'm just not up to dealing with a crowd and loud music."

"You're not seriously going to bail on your best friend's party!" Damon scoffed.

Elena shrugged. "Why not?" She asked. "My date cancelled."

"So what?" Damon moved to sit on the sofa next to her, casually placing her legs across his lap. "I'd think by now you'd be used to it." He had a smug expression on his face, as if he was saying "I told you so." She hated that look; almost as much as she hated the fact that he was right. Not that she'd ever admit it, of course.

"Is there a point to this conversation, or do you just enjoy pointing out everything that's wrong with my relationship?" She asked, arching her brow at him in annoyance.

Damon smirked, knowing he'd struck a nerve. "I thought you told me you were 'perfectly happy' with my little brother," he air-quoted the 'perfectly happy', causing her to toss a throw pillow at him.

"I am," she insisted.

"Liar," he taunted. "We both know that you're hardly satisfied these days, if you ever were to begin with!"

Elena sighed in exasperation. "Look, things are just complicated right now because he's working so much."

"You're sure that's all it is?" He asked, arching his brow.

Elena frowned slightly. "What are you implying? That he's hiding something from me?"

"Well you have to admit, he spends a suspicious amount of time at the hospital. Nobody is that devoted to their work." Damon stretched out and casually threw his arm over the back of the couch, just behind her head. For a second she thought he would try to put his arm around her, but thankfully he didn't move any closer to her.

"I trust him," she said simply, hoping that would be the end of this discussion. Unfortunately Damon wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"Do you?" He turned to face her, eyeing her seriously; it was as if he was trying to compel her to tell the truth with those sinfully sexy eyes of his. She hadn't noticed before, but they had flecks of green and silver, blended in perfectly with the icy blue. For a moment her breath caught in her throat, and she really had the urge to tell him the truth; that she wasn't happy at all. But then she thought of Stefan, and how sweet he had been to her. God, she was just being selfish, and it was all because Damon was getting to her. She had to remind herself that he was deliberately undermining her relationship with his brother, and that it was all a game for him. Probably some stupid way to get back at Stefan for that thing with Katherine; whatever that had been. She had her suspicions that Damon wasn't really as innocent as he claimed to be. For all she knew, he could have stolen Katherine away from Stefan using the same tactics he was trying to use on her.

Elena rolled her eyes. Why was it so difficult for him to just leave her relationship with his brother alone? "Yes," she replied, glaring at him in annoyance. "He's given me no reason not to."

"You're right!" He said mockingly. "Cancelling plans at the last minute, working late every night for the past month and a half and hardly ever coming home to sleep are all perfectly trustworthy behaviors!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," she snapped, crossing her arms across her chest defensively. She jumped as he softly brushed his fingertips over the back of her neck; his hand moved to cup the side of her face in a comforting gesture.

"I know this much," he told her, barely above a whisper. "If I had a girlfriend like you waiting at home for me every night, I wouldn't be spending every waking moment working. My brother is a fool to leave you alone so much, but that's no reason for you to spend all your time sulking." If she hadn't noticed the almost caring look in his eyes as he said it, she would have thought he was trying to seduce her again; but even as she continued to stare at him, waiting for any signs that he was about to move in and try to kiss her, his hand did not move from her cheek. He didn't even brush a fingertip over her neck or trace her jawbone as he slowly pulled his hand back to rest on the back of the couch again.

"You should get out," he suggested with a playful smile. "Have some fun."

Elena frowned slightly, unsure of how to respond to him. Damon always seemed to have this way of doing the exact opposite of what she expected, and now was a perfect example of it. She'd assumed his allusion to Stefan not deserving her had been yet another tactic in his game of seduction; she hadn't at all expected him to treat her like a friend. She hadn't really thought him capable of actually caring about her feelings without taking advantage of the situation, and the fact that he wasn't made her even more nervous around him. She could handle Cocky Damon, and Womanizer Damon, but Caring Damon was another problem entirely; she could easily see herself falling for him if she wasn't careful.

"I don't know…" she replied hesitantly. While part of her was screaming to let loose and become Fun Elena for one night, there was still the whole issue of Damon being the one she'd be having that fun with; it was a recipe for disaster the more she considered it. Unfortunately Damon wasn't about to take "no" for an answer.

"Sure you do!" he said cajolingly. "Come on, Pouty, live a little! Just take a break from your life for five minutes."

God, she was tempted. The playful smile and the way he kept batting his eyes at her (in what she had now secretly referred to as the "eye thing") were disarming; it was all the more reason why it would be a bad idea.

Am I going to be safe with you?" she asked pointedly.

"Yes," Damon assured her.

"And you promise to stop doing that eye thing with me?"

"What eye thing?" he asked, deliberately giving her one of his smoldering looks complete with the playfully sexy smile.

"Don't make me regret being your friend," she warned him.

"Yes, Elena," he sighed dramatically, placing his hand on his chest. "I solemnly swear not to take advantage of you in your vulnerable state. Happy?"

When she failed to respond right away, Damon rolled his eye. "I'm not leaving without you," he said firmly. "So you march your sexy little ass upstairs and get dressed before I call Caroline and tell her you're planning to skip out on her birthday party!"

Elena crossed her arms, stubbornly refusing to move. "Go ahead," she challenged him. She knew Caroline would eventually get over it, even if it took a few weeks of the silent treatment.

"Or…" Damon added as an afterthought. "I could just hang around here all night and keep you company. At least if we're at the party I won't be bored out of my mind, and YOU might actually get a few hours to yourself. I can't exactly promise that will happen if we stay home though, since I get bored easily and I can be quite annoying when I want to be."

The implied threat wasn't lost on Elena; she knew for a fact that Damon would do everything in his power to irritate her, just to prove a point.

With an exaggerated sigh, she stood up and stomped her way toward the stairs.

"Changed your mind already?" he smirked at her.

"Ass," she muttered under her breath.

"I've been told I have a very nice one!" he called back to her.

Elena rolled her eyes, choosing to just ignore his comments and head upstairs to take a shower. But as soon as the hot water sprayed over her, her thoughts once again drifted to the man downstairs. It was crazy how often she'd thought about him since he'd walked into the boarding house that first day. She knew he was partly to blame, with all those suggestive comments and that annoyingly sexy eye thing, but at the same time it was her fault for allowing him to get to her in the first place; because he shouldn't be able to have such power over her, she reasoned with herself. She already had a boyfriend; it should have been easy to ignore Damon. But then there was that part of her that wanted him; that part of her she'd tried to bury a long time ago. She couldn't deny that the old Elena would not have chosen Stefan over Damon. Caroline would probably have gone so far as to remind her that the old Elena would have been perfect for Damon, and probably would have come up with some scheme to get them together. But the old Elena had been wild and reckless, and she'd been the reason that Grayson and Miranda Gilbert had died. If the old Elena hadn't insisted on going to that college party and needed a ride home, they would still be alive. And it was because of that fact that the old Elena didn't exist anymore. No, it would be far too dangerous for her to give in to Damon and regress back to that person.

She realized she'd been in the shower far too long when the water suddenly switched from hot to cold. She yelped in surprise as it flipped back to hot, and rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"Damon!" She shouted loud enough for him to hear her downstairs. She knew that Stefan's bathroom and the downstairs guest room below were connected by the same pipeline, and knew instantly that Damon had been behind the temperature change. She wasn't sure how she knew that; she just knew.

Sure enough, only a few minutes passed before Damon's voice could be heard through the bathroom door. "Just making sure you didn't slip and fall in there," he said, feigning concern.

"Well clearly I didn't!" she snapped back at him.

"Like I said, just making sure," Damon called out to her. "Unless you'd prefer me to just see for myself; because I could very easily have picked the lock on this door…"

"And I could just as easily kill you for trying," she replied sweetly.

"You wound me, Elena." Damon sighed dramatically, and she could almost picture his fake pout and the hand across his heart.

"You'll get over it." She rolled her eyes, when the doorknob began to jiggle. "What the hell do you want?" she cried in exasperation.

"Well there's a loaded question," Damon purred just loud enough that she could still hear him clearly over the running water.

"Can't you just let me shower in peace?" she cried in frustration.

"Your shower should have been finished ten minutes ago," he informed her. "Now you're just stalling."

"I am not!" she denied.

"Then you're enjoying some quality time with the detachable shower head. And while that would be a huge turn on for me to know I get you that flustered, we are still in a bit of a hurry tonight."

For a split second Elena almost wished Damon had picked the lock; that way she could have thrown the shampoo bottle at him. After a few moments of stony silence, Damon tapped on the door again.

"So are you getting out, or getting off?" he asked her in a casual tone.

Elena sighed and quickly shut off the water. When she swung the bathroom door open, wrapped in her fluffy blue bathrobe and her hair still dripping wet down her back, she didn't even bother to conceal her anger.

"Why are you still here?" she demanded. Her dresser and side of the closet were both wide open, and various articles of clothing (mainly her skimpiest party outfits and some lingerie) had been strewn across her bed. She couldn't help but notice that everything was either black or red.

"Since you decided to take your sweet time in the shower, I figured I'd help you pick out an outfit. That way, you can't stall further by claiming you have nothing to wear, and we won't be later than we already are." Damon looked completely unapologetic as he held up a black lace bustier; the one Caroline had talked her into getting the last time they'd gone shopping at Victoria's Secret.

"How about this?" he asked, turning it so that if she'd been standing directly in front of him it would have been a perfect fit. "Yeah, I can definitely see you in this."

She quickly snatched it out of his hands in annoyance. "That's not an outfit; it's underwear."

"With the tag still on it, too," Damon observed casually. "Makes me wonder what other goodies you've stashed away that my little brother could never truly appreciate."

She didn't want to admit it, but his words stung. The truth was that she had tried several times to entice Stefan with her lingerie purchases, and his reaction to them had always been anti-climactic; in more ways than one, too.

"Stefan just prefers real women to pinup Playboy models. I don't need to dress up for him."

"Men are visual," Damon said seriously. "So unless Stefan is actually hiding in the closet…"

"He's not!" Elena snapped. "He just doesn't need me to dress like a whore to be attracted to me."

"You really have a high opinion of me." Damon's tone was unmistakably sarcastic.

"Well, you're the womanizing stripper who will sleep with anything in a skirt, so can you really blame me?"

Damon pretended to look scandalized at her words. "When you say it like that it just sounds so dirty."

"Because it is," she insisted. "I mean, if there was an actual reason for it, like you desperately needed the money to survive, I could understand it. But you're loaded, by your own admission. Why would you do that if you really didn't have to?"

"Because I like being the center of attention and it's an easy way to meet women," he replied, as if the answer was obvious to everyone in the world but her. "What's the big deal?"

Elena wasn't completely naïve when it came to the darker aspects of the world; she knew that very few people actually grew up wanting to sell their bodies or work in strip clubs. She understood desperation, and she understood the need to survive. Plenty of young mothers did it just to keep food on the table for their children, and she could never fault them for it; because sometimes the choices people had to make weren't easy or desirable ones. What she couldn't understand, was why anyone would willingly exploit themselves when they didn't even need to make those choices. She assumed it had to do with Damon's complete disregard for convention, and possibly his need to keep women at a distance emotionally. In fact, she was almost certain that the reason Damon acted the way he did was because he just didn't want to deal with his feelings at all, and this was his way of turning them off. She could relate, since she'd done the same thing as a teenager; the only difference was that she had grown up.

"So it doesn't bother you at all, getting completely naked in front of a bunch of women you barely know?"

Damon smirked in amusement at her question. "I get naked with women I barely know on a regular basis in much more private settings," he reminded her. "Besides, what I do is more burlesque than full-frontal nudity. It's no different than me walking around the house in my underwear…except maybe the part where I take off my clothes in front of you. But if you like, I can fix that." He moved his hands to the front of his jeans, teasingly circling the button with his thumb as he winked at her.

Elena closed her eyes and put up her hand in protest, even though that nagging part of her kept taunting that she really wanted to see what he had to offer. "Don't even try it," she said a little too quickly. She couldn't resist squinting out of the corner of her eye, and was relieved to see that Damon hadn't even unbuttoned his jeans.

"Maybe some other time then," Damon suggested, smirking knowingly at her.

Elena crossed her arms over her chest and cocked her head to the side, eyeing him curiously. "So it really doesn't bother you?"

"Which part? Me taking my clothes off for money, or watching you ogle me all the time without even tossing me a dollar?"

Elena rolled her eyes at his comment and he gave her another cheeky grin before answering her question. "Well, put it this way," he said. "Have you ever gone skinny dipping with a group of your friends? Or done a sexy little strip tease during a game of Truth or Dare?"

"Why do you ask?"

Elena was a little surprised that he would ask her that. She silently prayed that it was mere speculation on his part; though Caroline did have a tendency to accidentally let things slip during a conversation. Before she'd known just who Isobel was, she'd told her way more information than Elena had ever wanted her birth mother to know; like her relationship with Stefan. Truthfully, it hadn't really been her fault. Isobel had simply introduced herself as Elena's mother, and Caroline being the way she was had simply assumed that Elena would have already told Isobel about Stefan. She couldn't have known that the woman was a cold and calculating bitch who liked to meddle in her affairs; it wasn't like Elena often discussed every little detail of her life, since that was what her diary was for.

Damon arched his brow at her. "Why are you avoiding the question?"

"I'm not," she said defensively.

"Then tell me." Damon tilted his head to the side, as if waiting for her answer.

"I was a different person back then," Elena sighed, knowing that it would probably have been pointless to lie to him.

"So Caroline tells me."

"And just what has she been telling you?" Elena asked, feeling more than a little annoyed that her best friend had been telling Damon all her secrets. It was none of his business, after all.

Damon shrugged. "Just that you used to be a lot wilder than you are now," he said. "And that sometimes even she couldn't keep up with you." He turned his attention back to the clothes on the bed; searching through various garments as if the conversation they were currently having had about as little impact as if they'd been discussing the weather. "You should wear this mini skirt," he suggested, changing the subject back to her wardrobe.

"That's a tube top," she corrected him. "And it barely fits anymore."

"Even better!" Damon grinned lasciviously at her.

"Can't you think of anything better to do, other than annoy me?" she sighed.

"I can think of several things," Damon purred. "Do you want to hear about them?"

"Forget I asked," she muttered under her breath.

Damon sat down on the edge of the bed, contemplating her for a second. "You know, Elena, I really don't understand what your problem is. Most women enjoy my company."

"Well those women are probably desperate."

"You're telling me you wouldn't jump my bones if you were single?" he asked pointedly.

"No," she lied.

Damon's brow arched in a challenge at her words. Before she could stop him, he stood up and closed the distance between them so that his lips were hovering temptingly over hers. Elena's breath caught in her throat as she felt the heat radiating off his skin, and unconsciously her eyes darted to his soft mouth; her own lips parted slightly and her tongue flicked out to lick them before she could even realize just what she was doing. Damon tilted his head to the side, a small smile playing at his lips. And then, just as quickly as he'd invaded her space and sent her pulse skyrocketing, he drew away again. "Liar," he purred softly in her ear before finally giving her the space she needed to regain her composure.

"Can you please just wait downstairs so I can get dressed?" She really wasn't sure she'd be able to resist him if he stayed in her room a second longer, and that thought terrified her; this entire situation had become far too intimate. He needed to leave.

"We're well past being fashionably late," he reminded her.

"I'll be quick," she promised.

Damon nodded in agreement, turning toward the door again. He paused just outside the hallway, unable to resist getting the last word in. "I'll go," he told her. "But if you're not ready in ten minutes, I'll dress you myself."

Between his warning tone and teasing expression, Elena couldn't tell if he was joking or not; she decided she wasn't willing to take the chance that he wasn't, however. As soon as he left the room and she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she quickly changed into the first outfit she saw; it just happened to be a little black dress that had once been her go-to dress for anything party-related. She'd once worn it at a masquerade ball years ago at the Lockwood's annual Halloween party, and for a moment she almost felt like the girl she'd once been; wild, carefree, and uninhibited. As she began to apply her makeup and style her hair in record time, she began to feel slightly better about tonight. Loathe as she was to admit it, Damon had been right to drag her out of the house; it would be just the thing she needed to get her mind off the fact that her boyfriend didn't seem to want her anymore. When she made her way down the stairs exactly ten minutes later, Damon was already waiting for her dressed in his leather jacket. He let out a low whistle.

"Nice!" he complimented. "I like you in black."

"You would, wouldn't you?" she muttered under her breath; but she couldn't help blushing at his compliment. It had been a while since she'd truly felt attractive, and Stefan had hardly ever taken notice whenever she'd dressed up for him in the past; it was nice to have someone pay her that sort of attention, even if it was Damon.

He held out his arm to her, nodding toward the front door. "Shall we?"

Elena was almost surprised when she took his arm without any hesitation at all. She had to admit he could be sweet when he wanted to be, and the truth was that she really did like him as a friend, even as obnoxious and annoying as he was; she just wished she didn't have to remind herself so often that was all they were.

Author's Note: So I know I took forever with this chapter, but hopefully the next one won't take as long to write now since I've got pretty much all the dialogue I need. But then again, knowing me, I'll probably come up with some brilliant scene in between and have to re-work everything around it, so I can't really promise anything. But, since I've given you such a fun chapter full of pretty much nothing but hilarious banter, I hope you can all forgive me. I'm also working on All I Need, but contrary to popular belief, writing smut is not easy! It's so much easier to write a good dialogue piece than it is to throw in tons of description without making every scene sound exactly the same, and with all the smut I've written over the past six months, that's not an easy task. So please, I beg you all to be patient with me! I'm also cooking up a new story, suggested to me by Lovexandxfate, but I don't even have a title for it yet so it might not be up for a while. I'm sure you'll all love it though!

Now, I do have one tiny little request (other than for you to review, since that's a given. Lol). The Livejournal community tvdrecs is hosting the annual Fanfiction awards and they are currently taking nominations for favorite authors in various categories. It would mean SO much to me if all my readers helped me get a nomination, and hopefully even helped me win an award. As a fanfiction writer, I don't get paid to write this stuff. I do it purely b/c I love to write, and I adore my readers. Each time you send me a review or a kind message telling me how much you love my work, that's my payoff. To me, that's worth a lot more than just getting paid to write something, b/c getting paid and knowing how many people actually appreciate the effort I put into my writing are two entirely different things. So if you truly want to support my work, please head over there and nominate your favorite authors and stories. I'm not just asking for myself; I'm asking for ALL my friends here who have written such amazing stories and deserve recognition for their accomplishments. Details are on my LJ (Drkprncss17) if you're not sure where to go from here. Deadline is May 7th!

Thank you for all your continued support!

XOXO

Carly