A/N: It's Christmas time, darnit, and I still feel festive, and so I decided BBB needed something a little more dialog-y and a little less dire. Well, it's still pretty dire because that's where the show is at the moment, and I intend to follow my own rules about staying in-canon. This takes place after "Oh Come All Ye Faithful." But I did my best to do a little work-around. Again, with me admitting to a gusher-of-a-story (I have no sense of moderation, none whatsoever) and no beta, and I'm really not entirely comfortable writing smuttiness. But I needed some. So... um... yeah. This is me, blushing and toeing the dirt. *awkwardly clears throat* Anywhoo, I hope you enjoy.

Careful What You Wish For

When I open my eyes, the sun is weakly shining through the many windows, mist still rising off the lake, and considering the embers are still glowing in the hearth and radiating heat, we haven't been asleep that long. I still sleep, but not like I used to. Like everything else, even being unconscious is different now that I'm a vampire.

I'm spooned against Damon's chest on the sofa, the way we slept all summer while Stefan was gone. Only then, we were both fully clothed, and Damon's legs weren't entwined with mine, and by the time I opened my eyes, he was always gone. He'd be in a chair with an open book, like he'd been sitting there all night, or I'd hear him in the kitchen making coffee. We never woke up together.

Last night, Jeremy and Bonnie and Professor Shane said they needed to retrieve some herbs and books from his office on campus. Even though he's already done so much for Jeremy, it was Bonnie who said it'd be safer if they all went and didn't leave Jeremy alone at the isolated lake house with two vampires he may or may not still want to kill.

For a second, as they pulled on jackets and found keys and asked if we needed anything when they were in town, I thought Damon was going to insist I go too. I know he's still not comfortable with all the implications of the sire-bond, what it means for us and how it's affecting me, most likely in ways I don't even realize. I saw it in his eyes, the moment when he gave in. I hate the pain I saw there, flashing across his face so quickly someone not paying attention might not have even seen it, before he made his face blank and nodded his goodbyes and, without a word, walked through the back door and out onto the pier.

"You going to be okay?" Bonnie asked me after Professor Shane and Jeremy went to start the car. She gently squeezed my hand. "Maybe this isn't a good idea."

"It's fine" I insisted. "I'm fine. We're both... fine."

She nodded, but I could tell she didn't believe me. "It always makes me nervous when you use that word," she murmured as she left.

I left him alone out there, staring at the water. I washed up the dishes from dinner. I refolded all the old quilts and afghans and returned them to the basket. I fluffed the pillows on the couch. I brushed and flossed my teeth even though I'm not even sure I have to do that anymore. I opened a bottle of wine and drank a glass. And then I cried just a little because I realized it was Jenna's favorite, and she and Ric must've left it the last time they were up here.

I got angry with myself for crying. Good grief. I didn't cry for so long, and now it feels like all I do is cry. I'm a super-fast, super-strong vampire, and I've turned into a weak, sniffling, cry-baby. After I splashed some cold water on my face, I drank a second glass of wine just to prove that I could without turning into a puddle of weepy girl on the kitchen floor.

I stalled for as long as I could, giving him the space and time I knew he needed, but in the end, I needed to be next to him more than I needed to let him be. I needed to breathe in his scent with every breath and have him close.

It was dark when I finally stepped outside, so dark I would've needed a flashlight if I were human. I walked at a slow pace to where he stood, still looking out over the water. He'd been standing, motionless, all this time.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey back," he said, echoing the first words we'd spoken to each other after he came back from New Orleans.

"It's late, Damon. Please come inside."

"I can't, Elena." He swallowed hard, loud enough for me to hear. And then he swallowed again. "I can't do this. You shouldn't be here. You don't belong with me."

"Damon," I protested. "We've been over this. I do!"

He shook his head. "No. You don't. Not like this." He shook his head again. "I deserve this. For all the women I've controlled, for all the times I've maneuvered and manipulated you, made choices for you. I deserve this."

"Damon," I said.

"No, it's true," he interrupted. "Cosmic justice. The fucking curse of actually getting what I wanted, which is you wanting nothing more than to make me happy, and it's a fucking nightmare."

I flinched at his harsh tone, the way his words spit out as sharp-edged and brutal as knives. Only I wasn't afraid for me because Damon, as always, hurts himself best.

Neither of us moved or spoke. It was long enough for me to acknowledge that it was cold, even though I don't feel the cold like I used to. I had so much I wanted to say. I wanted to comfort him and have him reassure me. I wanted to touch him, and feel his hands on me. But I didn't. I stayed perfectly silent and still. I didn't even breathe, which felt really strange and awesome, all at the same time. My lungs wanted to, maybe out of habit, and I missed not being able to smell him, but I don't need the air in my lungs. I could stand there and consciously not take a breath.

I waited while Damon fought some silent battle within himself.

I don't know whether he won or lost, but finally, after what felt like lifetimes, or maybe it was only minutes, his hand slowly reached for mine. He kissed my palm before holding it to his heart.

"Elena," he said, my name on his lips like a prayer.

We built a fire. He insisted, like before, that he be a gentleman. It's sweet and strange, Damon so worried about my virtue. But when I asked, embarrassed to look at him while I made my request, he reluctantly pulled his shirt over his head and handed it to me, the firelight leaving shadows on his chest.

"Change in the other room," he said, not looking at me.

When I came back, wearing only my panties and his shirt, he was stretched out on the couch wearing only his jeans. I heard him suck in a breath when he saw me, but he didn't say anything, just held open the blanket so I could crawl in next to him. I had one glorious moment when I rubbed my cheek against his bare chest and tasted one nipple with the tip of my tongue before he flipped me, so my back was to him.

"You kill me," he whispered into my hair, even as he wrapped one of his legs around mine. "You fucking kill me."

"Damon," I whispered back.

"No," he snapped. "No fucking talking. Go to sleep."

"Good morning," he whispers.

"How long have you been awake?"

"I didn't go to sleep."

I shift a little so I can see him, and I wish his face was the happy face I woke up to before, when we didn't know. This face, still too beautiful to be fair, is thoughtful and sad. "You didn't sleep at all?"

He shakes his head and smooths my hair back. "I held you. Watched you sleep."

"Sounds boring," I say with a smile.

He smiles, but it's sad too. "It was one of the best nights of my entire life."

"Damon."

"No, really," he interrupts. "It was. Go ahead and laugh."

I shake my head. "I don't want to laugh. It's really..."

"Pathetic? Weak? Retarded?"

"Sweet," I say. Something tells me that's not a word many people use to describe him.

"Maybe there's something to be said for finite amounts of time. Maybe knowing that something can't last does make it more precious."

"I remember being willing to die all the time," I say. "Wanting to die because I thought my death would mean something to the people I love. I couldn't see past the next minute, most of the time. Getting by. Pushing through. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. But now that I am, in fact, dead, I just can't remember why I felt that way. So I'm not sure I'd use the word 'precious.'"

"That's the thing," Damon whispers, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear. "Technically, yes, our bodies are dead. But in all the ways that matter, we're more alive than we ever were as human. We feel everything so much more."

I turn so I'm facing him, half hanging off the couch. He opens his mouth, probably to wave me off, but before he can protest or list all the reasons why not, I undo his pants and reach inside so I can ease him out. Even half-erect, he overflows my hands.

"Elena," he moans.

I can't help but study it, this piece of him that feels far too silky for something that's been around for so long. It's not like I've never seen a man before. It's not even that I've never seen Damon. We've been together, over and over, these past few days. It's been buried inside me. I've had it in my mouth. I've licked and touched it before. But not like this. Not with the sun shining in the windows and us with nowhere to be.

It was different with Matt. We were kids groping in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. He never made me come. We had what I suppose counts as sex a couple of times, but both times, I had to ask him to stop before he was finished because it just hurt too much. By the time he was ready to get serious and make it work for me, I already knew he was much better as my friend, not my boyfriend.

With Stefan, for all the intensity, he was afraid. Afraid of himself, I think, but he said he was afraid of hurting me. He was patient and gentle and generous, the perfect lover for a 17-year old girl, but it was very one-sided. Our intimacies weren't fair, and he was always too scared to let himself go, to really enjoy it.

Damon is different.

He gasps as I gently play with his foreskin, easing it back before letting it go, until it stays back on its own. "Stefan had this too," I say, rubbing the tender skin between my fingers and watching him shudder. "But Matt didn't."

I trace his head with one finger, noting how beautiful it is. Leave it to Damon to have a beautiful penis, thick, with that graceful curve, the head plump and almost friendly looking. I circle once, twice, before catching the shining drop of precum that bubbles out with my finger. I bring my fingertip to my mouth and lick it off, surprised to find it doesn't taste like much of anything, my action making Damon moan.

"Surely you're not seeing anything you haven't seen before," he says with a gasp.

"I haven't seen you. I haven't really looked. I was... preoccupied... last time." He groans when I cup his balls, squeezing them and rolling them in my hand, feeling the weight of them. "You know you're beautiful, but I'm going to say it anyway: good golly you're beautiful."

"Most people use manlier descriptions," he teases while I throw back the blanket and struggle to pull off his jeans.

"But you're really not very manly," I say down by his feet. He's always wearing boots, but his bare toes are vulnerable looking and delicate, long and nicely shaped. I glance up and see him making a face, and I immediately back-pedal. "I didn't mean that. You are super-manly. I just mean, you're smaller than I used to think. Before I touched you, felt you with my own hands. You seem so much bigger than you actually are. You're not that tall, you have delicate hands. You have surprisingly lovely toes." I lick one of them to make my point.

"Way to make a guy feel good," he grumbles. "I have nice toes?"

"Oh yes," I say with a smile, my hand once again moving up to stroke him. "But you have many other... nice bits... too." Damon closes his eyes and breathes through his mouth as my hand continues and I lean over and gently suck just the tip into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it. "This?" I say, pleased that my actions make him bite into his lower lip and push his head back against the pillow. "This is disproportionally large. This is much bigger than it should be."

"Are you teasing me?" he incredulously asks.

"What? Me?" I stare up at him through my eyelashes, my mouth hovering just above his glossy head, wet with my spit. "Dare to tease a big, bad, scary vampire who could devour me in a second and never think twice about it?" I lower my mouth and continue licking and sucking him.

"I'm not that guy anymore," he pants. "And you're not so helpless anymore either."

It's like being doused with cold water.

He's right. I'm not. I'm not that girl. I'm not a girl at all.

I stop what I'm doing and sit up.

"I'm a monster now, aren't I?" I quietly ask. "Jeremy's right to hate me, to want to kill me. He doesn't need a Hunter's Mark for that. Vampires have given him plenty of reasons. I've given him reasons..."

Damon covers his hips with the blanket and pulls me back into his chest.

"I'm sorry," he says, kissing my hair. "But this is good. Not that you're upset. That's never good. But things were..." he sighs. "Getting out of hand. I'm supposed to be gentleman with you."

I bury my face in his chest, enjoying the feel of his skin against my cheeks, blinking so the tears don't spill over. "I hate this," I finally say. "I hate feeling so out of control all the time. I hate going from one extreme to another. I'm all happy and sexed-up, and the next second I hate myself and I'm crying. I hate that the only time it doesn't completely suck is when..." A laugh bursts out of me, the sound choked and awkward and too loud because this is the opposite of funny. "Sucking. That's the only times it doesn't completely suck: when I'm sucking you or sucking the life out of someone."

Damon strokes my hair and rubs soothing circles on my back. "Death is who we are," he finally says. "It's what we do. It's how we were made. But we don't have to be monsters. You're the one who showed me that, Elena. You. We accept that we're vicious, magically-created killing machines, and then we choose not to be."

"You make it sound so simple."

"Simple? Yes. Easy? No." He quietly laughs, a sound that's more sad than anything. "You would know better than anyone how not easy it is. You've seen me. You've always seen me, all of me, and you've seen me struggle and fail. I'm failing now. Holding you, being with you, is a comfort I shouldn't have because it feels so fucking good. I could take comfort in your arms and forget, at least for a while, that it's wrong." He shakes his head. "It's only easy when I'm losing myself in the blood." He sighs. "And living like that, with your humanity turned off? That's its own kind of hard."

"Deep thoughts, by Damon Salvatore," I say.

"Don't tell anyone," he says. "I have my reputation as a shallow, selfish prick to uphold. I'd hate to disappoint the kiddies."

"Why do you do that?" I ask. "Why do you let people assume the worst about you?"

"Didn't we already have this conversation once before?" he asks, and then he's quiet for so long that I don't think he's going to answer me. "Because it's just as true as anything else," he finally says. "I'm both the best and the worst parts of me, and everything in between, simultaneously. We're all good and bad, at the same time, every second of every day."

"You are," I begin, not sure of the right word to use. Damon doesn't accept compliments well, and I don't want to make him uncomfortable or drive him away from me and make him want to kill someone. "You astonish me," I finally say.

While he's distracted with that, I slip my hand under the blanket and stroke him once more, gently this time, and catch another drop on my finger that I lick away before reaching for him again. "And I never did this sort of thing before. Not savoring it like this, not in the sunshine. I mean, obviously, I've..."

"Let's not go into details," he interrupts. "I think we'll both be much happier if I don't share mine and you don't share yours."

"Please, talk about unfair bargain," I say. "I've been with three people, and you've probably been with three people at the same time."

"None of the others have mattered," he whispers, gathering me closer to him. He gently eases my hand away from his penis and brings it to his mouth. First he kisses the back of my hand, then the palm. "I passed the time," he explains, kissing my thumb, then my index finger. "I was waiting. I didn't love any of those people. I did what I did because it felt good in the moment." He sucks my middle finger into his mouth and gently bites it. I immediately feel the flood of wet heat and tension in my lower belly, as if he were kissing and licking and touching me there, not on my hand. "Nothing. No one." He licks along my ring finger, swirling his tongue around the tip. "Is anywhere even close to what I feel when I'm with you." He kisses my pinkie finger and holds my hand over his heart. "You are the only Elena."

He shifts so I'm laying down, his hard erection pressed against my hip. His fingers tease the hem of his shirt that I slept in. I know, logically, that he's seen me and felt me and tasted me. There isn't a single secret place he's not already explored. But it feels different somehow, now, on the sofa in the lake house, rather than in his big bed. I squirm and try to look away, and if I could still blush, I know my face would be flaming. But he won't let me.

"No," he whispers. "Be here. Be with me."

He pulls his shirt over my head and tosses it aside, looking at me as if he's never seen me before. He leans over so he can kiss me, his mouth lingering on my nipples, my neck, my lips.

"Damon," I beg, my breath coming out in gasps.

"You are so beautiful," he says before his tongue does something wicked and wonderful to first one breast, and then the other. "Don't be afraid."

He slips one finger into me, and then a second, spreading the wetness around my swollen lips, my clit. It's my turn to gasp with open-mouth breaths and lean back into the pillow.

"I love you, Elena," he says as he hooks my legs over my arms, leaving me wide open and exposed to him. I'm panting and writhing against his fingers and I know I should worry because he's seeing everything, all of me, all at once, and the sun is shining through the window. But I can't think about that. Not when Damon's lips are teasing my clit before he nibbles it delicately.

"Damon," I beg again, only this time I'm asking for something completely different. And he knows. He knows just want I need.

He thrusts into me with moan. We both take a moment to just feel him, there, inside me, holding each other, before he starts to move. He keeps his pubic bone tight against my clit. He feels huge inside me this way, stretching and filling me, and the friction is so good that I can't help but squirm against him, hearing myself moan. He dips his head so he can kiss me, and I taste myself on his lips until he bites into his tongue and then I can only taste him.

It's too much and not enough, Damon filling me every way he possibly can, possessing me. All of me. His blood is tingling my tongue when I feel it, the slow-building explosion, and I cry out into him as I come, gasping and holding him as closely as I can.

I am awoken by my own scream. It's his name on my lips, lingering in the still air, but I am alone in my bed, my fingers embarrassingly buried in my sodden pussy. My body is still rippling with the intensity of my orgasm as I listen carefully, the way he taught me, and identify all the sounds the house is making. I am, in fact, alone.

I straighten my pajama bottoms and wipe my wet hand against the sheets. I'm wearing his shirt. I steal a fresh one from the Boarding House everyday, so it smells like him, but he's rapidly running out of shirts to steal.

Damon sent me away. He didn't want me.

The tears, when they start, aren't unexpected. I keep waking up like this, alone and horny and crying out for him. And every time, when I realize it was all just a dream, a terrible, horrible dream because it didn't happen and he won't let it, maybe not ever, that's when I cry. I don't even bother wiping them away anymore. I let them come, streaming silently down my face as I reach for the bourbon bottle that's waiting for me next to the bed. I swallow it down like it's water.