A/N: Haii guys. :B So, I'm being naughty and slotting you this chapter in between exams. (So I expect a whole chunk of reviews telling me how grateful you are. :/ :L) This chapter is a bittersweet little insight upon Damon and Elena mirroring and voicing their true feelings. If only the other knew… ay? Inspired by Wonderful life – Hurts. Thank you to our lovely reviews and please review for us after reading – peace out! :)
Chapter 14: Don't Let Go, Never Give Up.
The moment was somewhat sweet. There were no words shared between both vampire and human, nor were there lustful actions. It was just the two of them, Damon and Elena, embracing one another as if they had been in love since they had first met. The differential in perception was endearing to Damon, despite it not usually being something he was welcomed to. He had never really been labelled as the affectionate type; more or less the … alluring, licentious, dominating type. But he liked to be both. It was just that not many people knew that, simply because he hadn't let them know. It was how he preferred it, if he were to be honest. His true self … closed off from the majority of the world.
It surprised Damon when Elena nestled herself into Damon's chest. He responded with a faint frown and a stronger hold upon her slender form. He stroked her soft cheek with his index finger, watching her as she drifted into a peaceful slumber.
He knew that she was asleep now; her heart had slowed to a tranquil pattern of beats, thumping lightly against her chest rhythmically. He kissed her forehead, as if to wish her goodnight, and whispered amiable notions to her; things that he wouldn't say if she were awake.
"I love you, Elena," he sighed.
There wasn't a trace of happiness upon his serene features. Just of … concern and wonderment. He was truly curious as to what she would say to this statement if she were to be awake, especially after what she had said to him earlier on. To her, he was nothing more than a sex toy; a replacement for boredom. Just memorising those few hurtful seconds caused Damon's heart to ache. But he surpassed it by giving Elena a gentle squeeze.
"Whether you know that, I'm not sure," he continued to whisper "You might think that maybe my mind is still poisoned by Katherine, that I think of you as nothing more than her replacement or as Katherine herself, but I don't. With Katherine it was never love. It wasn't real. But with you, it is." He paused for a moment, staring off into the dark depths of his room, the occasional sigh escaping his lips "I know I'm a killer. I'm a murderer with very few morals to those who barely know me. But I think you're the redemption I need. You can redeem me of everything I've done, everything I still like doing. When I'm with you, I'm a completely different person. But I can't be with you all the time because you love Stefan … And we can't be anything if you love my brother. I wish I could just take you in my arms and whisk you away from him and from everything that wants to hurt you. But I can't. As much as I want to, I can't take you away from him. I know that, if I did that, I'd hurt you. And I don't want to hurt you. But no matter what, Elena, no matter who you choose to love, I'll still fight for you. I'll protect you with everything I've got."
Damon heaved a great sigh. "But that's the question. Who do you want?"
Elena's first thought upon realising Damon had entered the room was that of internal relief; this had reflected her body's reactions somewhat instantly; her heart rate had slowed down considerably and the feeling of undeniable comfort and of a homely nature overwhelmed the mortal seemingly immediately. However, as she felt the weight of his (healthy) body cause the mattress to dip a degree, mild alarm echoed through the realms of her mind, causing the Gilbert girl to become a little more alert than the moment he'd first arrived. But at the tingle of his tender touch and the careful placement of his lips upon her skin, as if she were a delicate flower not to be ruffled, caused a pang of shy guilt start to flow from the pit of her stomach. How could she have even considered the thought that Damon would take advantage of her whilst she was vulnerable? She knew him better than that.
Elena however could not deny how odd it felt for Damon's arms to be barricaded around her in an action of which was not in the slightest spun from a sexual nature; and, as unusual as she viewed the notion, the human found herself helplessly embracing it, thus showing the shuffling of her body closer to his. And as if by obeying some unwritten law, Elena had, just for now, for this short period of time, opened both her heart and her mind to the impeccable immortal; her mind of course roamed and frolicked within the fields of her imagination - portraying wonderful memories mixed with possible future precognitions; but her body however was trapped within the presence, and without her conscious' guidance it merely did as it pleased - feeble to any sense of direction from any source. His words to the brunette were regrettably wasted as she would never hold any knowledge of his sweet whisperings; nevertheless, he seemed to continue to speak into the empty air.
Perhaps he preferred it this way, confessing his feelings into the vacant, uninterested air? If only the vampire knew that if he were to admit this, all of this to the young Gilbert now then she would embrace him truly, and fully - rejecting the irrational need of which she felt to forsake the both of their hearts. As if confirming this, her right hand adjusted from its prior, unmoving position at the pillow beside her face and reached upward. It delicately gripped the collar of his shirt as her body merged closer toward his own. Her slender leg slipped through the slight gap in between his as she settled.
Silence followed Damon's rhetorical question; a lingering question he so badly wanted answered. But Elena hadn't heard what he had said; he had made sure of it. There was simply no way of ever finding out who she really was to choose, unless he asked her when sentient. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't find the audacity in him to do it. What if she said she wanted Stefan, right to his face?
Awkward … mused his mind. He couldn't help but agree with it.
In his arms, Elena shifted, burrowing herself even closer to his cloth-clad chest. She wedged a leg between his thighs and lightly gripped the collar of his shirt with her nimble fingers. Damon allowed her to make herself comfortable, before shifting his arms so that one snaked around her back and the other draped across her hip, embracing her in a cocoon-like hold. He took a few moments to just watch her and admire her peaceful expression. He had never seen Elena so serene before.
It was calming even to him. Damon reached up to brush a few strands of hair away from her face with his fingers, his lips vaguely parted as he peered adoringly into her unblemished, unflawed face. Why did everything about her have to be so perfect? It just made him want to love her more, and if the love wasn't returned, he would be left disheartened. In all aspects, her perfection was a disadvantage, even if not to him.
Damon placed one last kiss upon her delicate skin before averting his gaze from her face and settling it upon the pitch-black ceiling instead. There, his thoughts momentarily took over, swooping down on him like daunting, winged creatures. He didn't want to think or ponder on anything that may cause him pain. He was so very good at shutting it all out … Why was it proving particularly difficult to do so right now? Maybe it was because Elena, the one person with the capability to somewhat alter him, was beside him, and curled into him, perfectly comfortable …
He tried as best he could not to think about what polluted his mind then, and instead focused on the darkness that enveloped him and Elena. By now, the sun had set, drowning Mystic Falls in coal-black night time. Not even the moon was emitting silvery shimmers through the wide-spread curtains. There was no light, he didn't need any light. He had his sunshine, his moonlight, his artificial light right there in his arms, where it belonged.
Upon Damon's last, lingering sentence, something impossible, yet true occurred. The elder brother's question had obviously been meant as a rhetorical one, however, for as long as Damon plagued her dreams and her day-walking hours - Elena's mind would be forever linked to his own.
"Damon..." she breathed, almost inaudibly before snuggling her face into his chest, completely unaware of her single, significant murmur.
A whisper of his name rippled softly through the air, as nothing more than a fatigued breath. For a moment, Damon considered that he had imagined it, but he had glanced at Elena just as her lips moved. And straight after he'd spoken the one question he desired an answer for out loud. Was she … answering it? Damon's heart gave a jolt as he stole yet another look at the woman in his arms. If only … She was asleep and had no idea of his previous heartfelt speech. She just sensed his presence. That was all it could be, right?
Damon buried all other possibilities amongst everything else behind his barricades. There, it joined everything else he refused to know, feel or think about. Elena's skin felt cold, much alike Damon's insides currently. To ensure she was warm enough, Damon carefully stripped off his jacket and draped it over her. He then reached down to single-handedly unbutton the front of his shirt, granting Elena skin-on-skin access, before pulling her closer. Following this, he closed his eyes against all penetrating thoughts, against the overwhelming darkness his eyes had now grown used to and against the breath-taking beauty nestled against him. And within seconds, he was asleep, dreaming of nothing but a deep, dark abyss. It was peaceful, serene and undisturbed. For once.
The night was long, and her dreams were vivid; they were a considerable comparison to that of the previous time the young Gilbert had fallen asleep within the flawless immortal's arms. And despite the fact the location of which she had done so had been that of a dingy, dismal tomb and the situation regarding why the two of them had been entrapped within there was far from appealing... The dreams of which plagued her mind that night had been all but negative. The presence of Damon Salvatore was also dominate, his face flashing over her bambi-coloured irises and his voice lingering about her being. She found herself once again in a field, a field of which held every smell of a heavenly grove; blooming flowers, freshly mowed grass amongst numerous wondrous stenches she couldn't decipher. However, as the brunette began roaming throughout the impossible jade garden, she felt him...
If Elena had've been awake and this had not been a cruel, yet coveted trick of her subconscious then Elena's reaction to a smooth hand grasping at the skin of her upper arm would've been considerably different. Although, since Elena's conscious mind was not currently alert, the mortal's orbs flashed upward, catching the blazing blue seas of the holographic image of the man beside her. No hesitation was necessary in order to perform her next action, her hand had a mind of its own; it cupped Damon's perfectly sculptured cheek and she leant toward his face. No words were needed, nor did they matter; Elena was here where she belonged - mortal and immortal kissing, exchanging the undeniably affection of which one another held so deep, so dearly.
Their amiable osculate lasted for hours, but as her dream faded into a hazy mist of colours and then evaporated into nothingness - Elena couldn't suppress the feeling of loss. Of sudden melancholy, at the thought of returning to the dreaded state of reality that she knew in her head was all too inevitable. As her eyelashes fluttered, she felt herself stir and mentally prepared her mind for the day ahead, and the doubtless agony pretending her feelings for Damon were non-existent would cause both herself and the seemingly nonchalant vampire. But of course Elena knew different; Damon was vulnerable, broken and fragile. She would fix him, she secretly vowed that knowledge to herself, determined to make it a reality. He was her Damon; and forever that's what he would stay.
Elena's mahogany fires bored into his flawless face, the sleeping fallen angel was so at peace, every line of pain had left his features and all of which remained was his clearly impeccable complexion. She trailed her forefinger across his lips, her tip tingling with the sheer intensity of which their skin-on-skin contact caused her to feel. Still gazing, her mouth opened and a flood of words, each accompanied with a gentle caress of her mouth to his jawline, neck and cheeks escaped her usually fiery exterior.
"I wish you could just take me in your arms and whisk me away from him, and from everything that wants to hurt me, us," she paused, inhaling a sharp breath feeling her rims brim with moisture - but forced herself onward; the facade of lies deteriorated "But I can't. As much as I want to, I can't hurt him."
Upon her closing sentence, Elena's hand smoothed its way across his revealed chest until finally, both of her hands came to rest at his neck; her fingers sprawled across the nape of it as she unthreaded her lodged leg from in between his two.
"I love you, Damon," she said, with as much voice of which was possible before flinching at a sudden vibration from her pocket; reluctantly, she peeled her hands from Damon's neck and flipped it open.
The text was from Stefan; her boyfriend Stefan. That confirmation seemed to bring forth something in Elena as she climbed from Damon's bed in shame; removing his jacket from her body and replacing it with her own. Elena slipped from underneath his grip and motioned toward the door. Unable to resist, she glanced backward at her slumbering Salvatore love and whispered a single sentence before hurrying away.
"Whether you know that or not, I'm not sure."
It was a shame Damon hadn't been alert to witness the sweet inflictions Elena presented so adoringly upon him. Amidst his slumber, he was unaware of the gentle kisses and supple whispers that Elena's lips bestowed upon his pale skin. Each tender exploit would've been enough to convey pleasured shudders through his nervous system, generating unstable and discordant beats from his heart. Had he been awake, he would've experienced a moment very different to what he was used to with Elena. There was little to no lust or seduction. There was only the simplest of affections, yet somehow they were the most effectual. Damon was somewhat oblivious to the various ways love could be presented; it came with having a cold heart.
But it seemed that young Elena was the remedy for his ill-treating and rebellious ways. When around her, as established many times before, he wasn't the Damon Salvatore most people knew to date. He was the handsome, charming soldier he used to be, before transitioning into a monster - of course, not forgetting miniscule rebellious additions. He wouldn't be Damon without those.
Damon stirred amidst his placid siesta, but by then, Elena had departed. His heavy lids struggled for a moment before his pale-blue eyes greeted the feeble rays of light that streamed through a gap in the curtains. He rapidly blinked away the sudden shock the early daylight gave him and rolled onto his side, expecting his eyes to fall upon a dozing young woman. But they didn't. He saw nothing but rumpled sheets and his jacket, strewn casually across the satin. There was no slender figure, no flowing, brown hair. Just … an empty space.
With a frown, Damon hoisted himself up off the bed and grabbed the clock that sat on his bed-side table. 8:00am. It wasn't even late enough to have been late for school. So what had made Elena want to rush off so hastily? Well, that's what he supposed she had done.
He glanced to his right, where she had been laying just moments ago. He could still smell her fresh aroma there, fluttering about his scent receptors teasingly. He flicked his tongue over his lips, finding that not only were they dry, but that an unusual taste loitered there. Familiar but … atypical.
Elena's lips, he concluded. He recognised the cherry-like flavour, most likely issued by lip balm. She must've kissed him, before retiring.
Damon traced a finger across his now moisturized bottom lip, gazing intently at the foot of the bed, until realising what he was doing. Mourning over the disappearance of his younger brother's girlfriend (regrettably) was no way to start the day. He got to his feet, stripping his torso of his grey shirt and swapping it for a new and clean one, in a particularly dark shade of khaki-green. He slipped it on, grabbed his jacket, and sauntered from the room, slinging the leather casually over his shoulder as he did so.
It was then that he remembered that auditions for parts in a play were being held today at the high school, in provision for an annual literature event. The idea of a 'literature event' lost Damon's interest straight away, but acting out an infamous Shakespeare play could be quite amusing.
So Damon wasted no time in departing the deserted boarding house and heading straight for the Mystic Falls High School.
Coward. Again that word echoed so profusely within Elena's mind and she'd no better success this time than the previous in regards to ordering it away. How could she be a coward if she simply didn't want to hurt Stefan? Stefan... The name and images of which now flooded the Gilbert girl's mind only caused her level of guilt to increase rapidly, as her head became a target for inward jibes and constant precognitions regarding Stefan's knowledge of her sordid affair with his elder brother. Elena chided herself at that - despite her heart's yearning, and defined disagreement... she couldn't ignore the facts. Elena and Damon's love was tainted, as blemished as the darkest desire one could even hope to possess. The fact was there, but her stubborn mind refused to acknowledge it as that. After all, her unnatural attraction to the said Salvatore was all but logical.
Elena had grown up and as she matured, came to believe many things - but something of which Damon had taught her was perhaps one of the most valuable lessons one could possibly teach another living being; logic was flawed, but what the heart wants - the heart usually gets. However, neglecting each of their souls, at least for the time being seemed like the most sensible option. At least, until the inevitable option was brought fourth; the unavoidable option of course being that of choosing between the two Salvatore brothers. Thrusting the dreaded thought far away from conscious babble, as well as her front door open, Elena casually exchanged pleasantries (and not-so pleasantries also) with her mildly irritated aunt before the brunette made her way slowly up the staircase.
Without halting once, and determined to refrain from thinking of either Salvatore brother, Elena grabbed a towel from the airing cupboard before slipping into the bathroom. Locking the door swiftly, Elena stripped herself of all clothing, pausing only for a split second as she inhaled, her senses once against registering and further relishing in Damon's mesmerising scent; a scent of which, regrettably, was moments away from being removed from her now-naked form. With an un-suppressible sigh, Elena stepped into the shower and simply allowed the water to wash over her body and with chaste luck, cleanse her mind.
"It's just the fact you didn't return my text; that's all. Call me an over-protective boyfriend, but I was worried," Stefan said, his brown brows dipping as a frown fell over his features, pulling his hip, red convertible into the car park.
Elena's eyes drifted over to her boyfriend, her boyfriend of who for once, his eyes weren't focused upon his girlfriend of many months; but upon the building in front of them. The school. As Stefan had helpfully reminded her this morning, the committee were holding auditions for 'Romeo & Juliet' in honour of the upcoming literature day. Usually the said Salvatore would not at all been moved by this idea, but it had been Elena of who had convinced her vampire boyfriend to tag along with her. A heavy sigh passed her lips as she climbed out of the car and linked her fingers with a still-troubled Stefan.
"Stefan.." she started as they neared the school "I'm sorry that I worried you, I didn't mean to. I just didn't think," she admitted, sliding agilely through the threshold of the door Stefan had held open for them both; she looked toward him.
After several minutes of mental debate, Damon decided to take the car up to the school, rather than waste energy on a supernatural sprint. He started up the black Ferrari with a fluid twist of the keys and backed out of the driveway with apparent flair, before speeding off up the street.
It didn't take particularly long to approach the school's vast campus. Within ten minutes, he reached his destination and swung into parking spot with ease. But he waited a while until he clambered out of the gleaming vehicle. Something was stopping him; a pressing thought. It had been trying to worm its way through his barriers and into his alert mind ever since he left the boarding house. Damon supposed that, now, it had been successful, because he simply could not hold it back much longer.
Elena; sweet, beautiful, innocent, daring yet somewhat enigmatic Elena, why was it so difficult to not think about her?
Would he ever get by one day without her face invading his mind, polluting it with such an addictive substance? It wouldn't be such a bad thing had she been his to think about, but she wasn't.
As ascertained countless times in the past, Elena Gilbert was not his to touch, kiss or even think about. She belonged to Stefan, his less worthy, less dashing younger brother. As much as he hated it so, he could not alter fact.
Suddenly aware that the engine was still running, Damon turned the keys in the ignition, and the car simmered to a still. He adjusted the rear-view mirror to an applicable angle and made to get out of the settle vehicle. That was until he spotted a familiar couple making their way towards the main building. It was Stefan and Elena, both of which looked mildly troubled. Damon neither cared nor had the patience to listen in on what they were discussing, so instead glanced darkly at them through the mirror before he pushed open the door and climbed out of the car.
The door swung shut with a distinct snap and Damon's keys jangled as he casually swung them side-to-side from his index finger. He tried not to look at Stefan and Elena as he made his own way towards the main building, so averted his gaze from the now tenderly intertwined pair and settled it instead upon his boots.
The crunching of gravel led Stefan to believe that somebody was heading their way, and as he reluctantly pulled away from the kiss he shared with Elena and looked out towards the car park, his suspicions were verified. Damon was striding their way, clearly avoiding his eye, keys swinging from his finger. Stefan marked this as an opportunity, and immediately pulled Elena closer, catching her lips in a more passionate kiss than before, his fingers aimlessly trailing over the majority of her body. The way he kissed her demonstrated a sense of ownership and the way he touched her slender figure suggested authority and territory.
To Damon it would; at least, he hoped. But to Elena he wished she would see this as merely an exploit of love and affection – nothing differential to previous happenings between the dating couple.
Damon's footsteps were nearing closer, Stefan's ears informed him. Sight could not confirm this, however, as his eyes were shut against the intimate gesture he inflicted upon Elena.
But a voice confirmed Damon's presence; a low, displeased murmur that very nearly resembled a growl.
"Get a room, will you?" he muttered darkly.
He did not stop to generate conversation as Stefan slowly and reluctantly pulled away from Elena. Instead, he strode straight past, commencing with a low and melodic whistle until he disappeared into the school building, not once glancing over his shoulder at his younger brother and secret lover. It was then that he felt his heart drop; at least, it fell a few metres further than where it already was.
Steph+Jackie x3