Hola friends! Powered through this first half of the update I had planned the other day and then... life. So I figured I'd post this now and then have the freedom to make the next chapter bigger... and with what I have planned bigger may be better ;)
She's been quiet for almost half an hour and I'm toying with the idea of trying to get some sleep. Again.
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The ride home last night had been mostly silent. The light sound of the misting rain hitting the windshield, the swishing of the windshield wipers, the wet sound the tires made as they pulled water up from the wet pavement. And finally Elena's quiet voice as we I pulled into the guest parking for her apartment complex.
"Thank you Damon. I really appreciate this." She lifted her gaze from her shoes to just below my eyes, not quite making eye contact before looking away. "I just… I don't want to give you the wrong idea, I-"
"Elena. It's fine. I get it. It was a rough night. You don't want to be alone. Your couch is more comfortable than many places I've spent the night. But I call dibs on that cashmere blanket." She smiles on an exhale and a slight nod as we both get out of the car.
My hand finds it's way to her lower back without conscious direction from me as we step out of the elevator and walk down the hall to her apartment. I was starting to wonder if she'd forgotten her keys when she pulled them out of the front pocket of her jeans. She opened the door, set her keys on the hallway table and turned the light on as I locked the door behind us.
"Did you eat?" She asked, turning toward me and wrapping her arms around her waist.
"No. I'm guessing you didn't either?"
"Nah. Not since this morning."
"Take-out?" I ask at the same time she continues "Pho?"
I laugh. "What's your delivery restaurant of choice? I'll call while you change."
"Local Pho on 3rd. They have the best veggie and tofu pho -don't judge."
"No judgement here, veggie and tofu for you… Something else for me." I smirk.
She smiles as she walks down the hall to her bedroom and shuts the door. Ten minutes later My bahn-mi sandwich and her tofu/veggie soup are on the way and she comes back to the living room. Her face is scrubbed clean of the remnants of makeup and tear stains, her hair is in a ponytail on top of her head, her jeans were switched out for yoga pants and I'd bet good money there's at least three layers beneath that oversized hoodie.
She's got my requested blanket, a pillow, and two more heavy blankets with her. "Are we building a blanket fort? Making an igloo?"
She half smiles, "I don't want you to get cold out here." She makes a pile on one end of the couch. It's not exactly cold in here, but I know she feels cold unless it's 75, so I take it as a compliment that she wanted to make sure I was comfortable.
An hour later our takeout containers were empty and I wasn't the only one fighting to keep my eyes open. Elena stretched her arms out in front of her as she yawned and then shivered despite her layers.
"I'm gonna head to bed..." she hesitated before adding timidly, "Look Damon, I feel silly. You don't have to stay here, I'm a big girl. I can-"
"I know you can, superhero. Go to bed. I'll be right out here until the morning."
She looked like she wanted to argue some more, but in the end she nodded and stood. I gathered the empty containers and walked them to the kitchen.
"Goodnight Damon." She almost whispered, again not daring to meet my eyes.
"'Night."
I heard the door click down the hall and then open again, as if she was leaving it open a crack. I smiled as I settled into the couch and pulled the soft cashmere blanket that smelled like her around me and closed my eyes.
I startled awake a few hours later to screams of "NO, COME BACK! DON'T LEAVE ME," and then heartbreaking sobs. I made my way down the hall and peered through the crack in her doorway. Elena tossed and turned in a sea of pillows, sobbing so hard I worried she might choke.
"Hey, hey, hey. Ssshhhhh." I whispered kneeling next to her bed and trying to still her shoulders. "Elena, wake up, I'm right here. Ssshhh." Slowly she stilled and her eyes opened, wet with tears and wide with confusion and terror.
"Damon? What…" She sat up, and looked at me trying to make sense of what happened. It all seemed to click as she looked at me slack-jawed. "Oh no… was I yelling? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."
"Bad dream?" I feel my brow furrow in concern. I've never seen anyone that distraught.
"Yeah… I guess." She's whispering and looking at her hands again instead of at me. "I haven't had one in a while, I used to get them all the time when I was little. Sorry, I know this is more than what you signed up for. You can go home and get some actual rest if you'd like, I'll be ok."
Did she actually think I'd just leave her in the middle of the night now? "Nah. I'm invested now. Wanna tell me about it?" I doubt she'll go for it, but it's worth a shot.
"Not really. I'm sorry-" Told ya.
"Stop apologizing. You had a bad dream. It happens."
She looks at me quizzically, but lays back down. I bring the covers back up over her shoulders as she turns on her side to face me. She yawns and looks so small and vulnerable I can't help but smile. I let my thumb graze her cheek, "Goodnight pretty girl. Get some sleep." She turns her face to kiss my hand and shuts her eyes.
"Goodnight Damon. Thank you." She whispers as I walk back toward the couch.
The next time she woke up in a sweat screaming I decided to sit in the chair in the corner of her room for a bit. I had just nodded off when she woke up screaming for the third time. This time I crawled onto the bed next to her, pushing the pile of extra pillows to the floor, and held her as her tears dried. She clung to my chest in silence. Her breathing slowed and I sat up resting against the head board. And now here we are. Like I said, I'm still debating on trying to get some more sleep or just staying right here and awake. My decision is made when she gasps and flails her arms searching for something she doesn't want to tell me about. I lay back down and gather her in my arms. She nestles into my chest and stills back to sleep.
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The first thing that occurs to me as consciousness seeps back into my brain is how nice and warm I am. The second thing is that my cheek is definitely laying in a small puddle of drool. Which is why the third thing that occurs to me is mortification. I take in the warm arms around me, the solid chest underneath me, and the strange feeling of safety inside me.
But first things first. I lift my head enough to wipe the drool that had collected in the ridge where his pec meets his abs. He doesn't seem to stir. Phew-
"Good morning."
Shit! I wipe my hand on the sheet behind me and lay back down with a sigh. I hold really still hoping he'll go back to sleep, or at least that he was still asleep when I was drooling…
When my silence stretches on I feel the weight of his gaze as he shifts underneath me. I look up as he says, "Are you awake? You should go back to sleep, you barely slept at all. It was like sleeping with a tornado." He adds the last part with a kiss to the top of my head and a smirky smile that I can't be mad at.
Dear god. I thought the drool was all I had to be embarrassed about. Although… why is Damon in bed with me? Not that I'm complaining, but I remember going to bed on my own. Fuzzy memories come back of Damon trying to wake me and kneeling by my bed, but I must have gone to sleep after that...
"Sorry," I mutter as I lay my head back down on his chest. "Did I…"
"You kept having nightmares. You don't remember?"
"Oh god. I'm so sorry. You probably didn't get any sleep at all. How bad was I? I'm so sorry..."
"Nothing to be sorry about, you kept screaming to not leave so after a while I figured it was easier to just stay here. You slept a little better after that… at least for a couple hours. Do you have nightmares often?"
My hand errantly traces patterns on his upper stomach while I try to decide how to proceed. I have to do it before I chicken out again, I know I do, and I want to. It's honestly harder than I thought it would be.
Last night when I admitted that I didn't want to be alone and asked Damon to stay, it was… easy? It was just one thing. One request. And look what happened. Every insecurity I'd had since the first foster home I'd failed came flooding back, welling in the pit of my stomach and causing a tear to overflow and roll onto Damon's chest.
"Hey, what's-"
"My parents died," I blurt out. His hand stills midway through it's pass through my hair. "Not recently or anything, when I was little."
"I'm sorry," he whispers.
"No, I just… I wanted to explain. I was going to explain yesterday before my plan to call you to hang out got usurped. Then I went and scared you off I'm sure with all my screaming and-"
"You are so chatty when you're nervous."
"Wha-"
"You didn't scare me off, first of all. Second of all, I love when you talk 97 miles an hour and get all flustered. But I'm not going anywhere. You can take a breath and tell me whatever you want to when you're ready."
I find myself smiling as I take a deep breath. "My parents died when I was little. It was a car crash. I was in the back seat and I was the only one who survive. I didn't really have any other family so I was sent to live in a foster home. I had nightmares almost every night about the car crash. They were so vivid and I'd wake up in hysterical tears night after night. It was a lot for everyone to handle so I got shipped around a lot, from foster home to foster home."
Damon doesn't make a sound, but continues running his fingers through my hair, patiently waiting for me to continue. "I tried so hard for so long to be whatever they needed to be able to keep a family, but nothing stuck. Eventually I guess I just gave up. I was the only person that was constant in my life, so I tried to not get attached to other people. I just focused all my energy into becoming a trauma surgeon."
My fingers resume tracing absent patterns on Damon's chest. "And now- I guess –I just don't know how to open up to anyone. I haven't even wanted to for a long time -since I was a little girl. Gunther made it easy. He was like the parent or grandparent I always wanted but never had. I think loosing him stirred up old feelings from when my parents died and that's why my nightmares came back." I pause a bit before adding, "I really am sorry for that by the way. How many times did I wake you?" I'm genuinely curious.
"My parents disowned me when I was 18." That's not the answer I was expecting. I lift my head up as he sits up and rests against my headboard. I sit up next to him, pulling my long sleeves around my hands so they don't get cold. Damon smirks at me and leans down to grab the comforter, letting me pull it up to my chest as he continues.
"Even before that though there wasn't a lot of love floating around our house. My parents had all kinds of money and dedicated their lives to maintaining appearances. I honestly thing they had my brother and I because that's what was expected of them.
"I realized that the way we grew up wasn't normal in elementary school. The more I saw what authenticity and being truly genuine looked and felt like the more I craved it. I was addicted to pushing limits, to finding the edge, to make myself feel real things, and discovering what I wanted. But the real kicker was when I announced that I was going to NYU to major in English Lit instead of the family UW Business program. I spent that night at the bus station and I'd never been so happy to be honest. I'd had 18 years of pretenses, and I was finally free to live in the real world."
"Wow," I said quietly, looking at my hands. "That's-" I was going to say brave, admirable, but I was cut off when he grabbed my hand and linked our fingers.
"I know the way your eyes light up when you talk about work. I know the child-like pure joy that comes over your face with each cup of coffee you come across. I know that your favorite color is green. I hear you laugh when I close my eyes, I know how free you feel flying down the side of a mountain because I feel the same. I know how to make your toes curl when my tongue-"
"Damon-" I start.
"Ha! Well, I do. The point is, I know a lot of things about you but I feel like I don't really know you. And I'd like to. I'd like this to be real Elena. And I get that that's hard for you. But I can't pick up where we left off. I want more. I want you. All of you. I want to be the person you call because you had a bad dream and can't get back to sleep, so the fact that you woke me up a few times last night doesn't bother me at all. The fact that you calmed down when I held you means the world to me."
"Oh god, I woke you more than once?"
"How did I know you'd focus on that?" He laughs. "Come on, let's make breakfast."
An hour later we're finishing the best pancakes I've ever had. The conversation had been light and easy. I stand to clear our plates and put them in the sink. Damon has moved to the living room and is putting his coat back on getting ready to go.
"I want this too Damon," I almost whisper as I walk into the living room. "That's what scares me so much." There's more that I want to say but I honestly don't know how to get the words out. "Can we make this real, and still be patient with me? I want to try."
At this point I'm looking up at him feeling more vulnerable than I've ever felt. I've basically just offered every insecurity I've ever had to him on a fragile silver platter and said please don't drop this. He smiles an agreement and leans down to press his lips lightly to mine.
"I'll call you tonight superhero."
As I press the door shut behind him I realize I haven't been this excited for anything in a long time.
Ok, so Daydream Believer doesn't really have anything to do with this chapter... but it IS the song that I can't get out of my head at the moment... so let's make it work mmk :) More to come soon. Love you all and thanks for reading! xoxo