Chapter 25: Your lips, my lips, apocalypse…
When her dad calls her for taking her delivery, she bounds down stairs, taking two at a time.
She wants to know what colored roses he has sent today.
Are they white? Red? Orange?
It's a guessing game she plays and she's more often than not right in guessing the hues of flowers of her bouquet.
But this time around, he has out thought her.
It's a huge arrangement with every known color thrown in. There are reds, whites, oranges, pinks, yellows, blues, blacks and greens. It's a veritable rose garden.
There are two wrapped boxes along with it. She knows there are chocolates in them.
She is absolutely certain because she was bemoaning about her period pains just days ago "wishing" she could stuff herself with chocolates.
What?
It's not that she can't buy her own chocolates. He sends her the ultra fancy ones and frankly, Elena's penny pinching habits are too ingrained to waste a hundred bucks on chocolates.
Her dad gives her the eye and she knows that she needs to talk to him if she wants a relationship with Damon.
She knows her dad. He's probably bidding his time to deliver the maximum pain he can inflict on Damon.
She puts the flowers and chocolates on the dining table and tiptoes in the kitchen. Her dad is busy mixing eggs with flour and Elena wonders how to broach the subject.
Daddy, I love the asshole who used me and I would appreciate it if you didn't kill him?
Daddy, I don't want get togethers to be a bloody affair, so I would appreciate if you would give Damon a chance to prove he's not as idiotic as he used to be?
Daddy, I love Damon and I want you to not make me a widow before I marry him?
Daddy, I know he used to be a dick, but he's changed and second chances are such a beautiful thing, right?
"Is it the same boy you were crying over all those years ago?" Her dad asks casually as he turns and Elena loses her train of thought.
"Wh-What?"
He smiles that all knowing smile and moves to take a seat at the table, gesturing for her to follow.
"The boy you want to talk to me about? Is it Damon?"
"You still remember his name?" She looks at him in amazement, aware that only once did she tell him the name of the boy and it was years ago.
"He hurt my daughter," He says, and that's explanation enough.
She knows her dad. He's fiercely protective and liberal at the same time. He's the kind of parent who gives permission for overnight parties and then hires a ton of bodyguards to shadow their kid secretly.
Losing her must have hurt, she thinks as she stares at her father.
"He's not that bad a dude," She says.
"I know," Her father agrees and it throws her off for a moment. "He started out an asshole, but he isn't one these days, or so I have heard."
"So, you're okay if I start seeing him?"
"Well, you need to bring him around for a visit first. I will withhold my judgement until then."
Before she can say anything, Jeremy comes sliding down the bannister and dad does this eyebrow raising thing that has Jeremy in splits.
"Yo, Pops." He proceeds to raid the fridge for pineapple juice and Elena actually makes a face when he guzzles it down.
"How many times have I told you to pour it in a glass and then drink it, Jeremy?"
"I believe this is the ten thousand two hundred and thirty fifth time, Dad," Jeremy replies, the smartass, and takes the chair on the other side of their father.
"So, Lena and XYZ, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
Elena shrieks and tries swatting him, but he twists his body. So, she has to get out of her chair and chase him around the house to deliver that whooping.
~UV~
She keeps popping the chocolates and looking at her phone screen. He still hasn't seen her text. This hasn't happened before, she thinks as she tries not to bite her fingers off in nervousness.
The most it has been twenty minutes before she have had a reply in return of her text. It's already been three hours and she's worried.
Did something happen to him?
Jeremy and bitchface broke up. She insisted on coming inside when he needed to grab something. I am relieved. Where are you?
She hits send and presses play, and starts watching King Sukjong romance Dong Yi.
She can't concentrate on the episode and she keeps pausing it to check her phone.
He is ruining her drama.
Where is he? She calls his number. It rings and rings, but he doesn't pick up.
She tries again.
No response,
Answer me, Damon! Your non-existent reply is ruining my drama!
An hour passes after that.
Another follows suit.
She has abandoned her laptop and taken to pacing her room.
Is he deliberately ignoring her?
No. No, he won't do that. He isn't like that.
Isn't he? Pipes that cynical, smug part of her brain that delights in her misery. Remember how he ghosted you before he used you like a tissue and discarded you like the waste of space you are?
He isn't like that.
Her Damon isn't like that, she thinks as she takes her phone and dials his executive assistant Vicky Donovan.
~UV~
When he opens his eyes, his gaze rests on the ceiling of his bedroom. For a moment he is confused about what he's doing in bed, but slowly the awareness starts to return, memories begin to bleed through.
He was returning from grocery shopping when Esther came barreling from the other side, wielding a shiny ass knife.
It doesn't hurt, but he feels strange. All fuzzed and relaxed.
"Hey you!" Someone comes inside his room and he tries to turn his head to look at the newcomer, because her voice sounds like Elena.
It's Elena.
No, he's dreaming again.
She's back to haunt him again.
He tries moving his hand to search for his phone. She might have called or texted and he might have missed it.
"Damon, are you ignoring me on purpose?" The apparition asks, arching an eyebrow, and frankly, it hurts to look.
Because the Elena of his memories looks like her photos of today. The hair that used to be super long reaches just below her shoulders and she isn't clad in her customary jeans and a hoodie like all those years ago.
She's wearing a dress.
He thought he was doing better, he thinks miserably as he turns his head.
It has been two years since he saw this Elena who loves cutting him open one small nick at a time.
"Seriously? I came running because I heard your psycho bitch stepmother carved out your guts and you won't even let me look at you?" She sounds miffed.
She is standing just beside his head and he thinks he has never heard her sound grumpy. She is usually gloating and smug over his misery.
"Damon! If you don't turn your bloody head to look at me at the count of three, I am walking out of here and never picking up your call, okay?" She says bossily and he… feels uneasy.
Apparition Elena didn't used to do that.
"One… two… th-"
It's instinct that moves his muscles. She looks beautiful and he wants nothing else but for her to be real.
"There you are, my darling," She says with a smile as her knees bend and she's at his eye level. "There you are… "
He feels his hand being enclosed in her small ones and the tears, they come out of nowhere to fall from his eyes.
She is… real, he thinks.
Somehow, she's here.
"Did you miss me?" She asks with shining eyes and smiling mouth and he can't nod quick enough and fervently.
He wants her to know how much he missed her, but his words don't seem to be in the mood of cooperating. So he settles for nodding.
She gently shrugs the hold of his hand on hers to stand.
Is she going away?
He's about to protest when she rounds and gets into his bed, mindful of his injuries. She shifts the covers and makes a space for herself on the other side of him and he… has probably gone into shock.
She's in his bed.
Beside him.
Beneath the covers.
"Your executive assistant was boasting of the gut carving. It seems like a shallow flesh wound," She says as she settles herself, lying on her side facing him, folding her hands and resting her head on her arm.
"And… you would know, wouldn't you, Dr. Gilbert? Are you a siren too? " He whispers as he turns his head in her direction.
Her unpainted mouth still makes him want to bite it and he's glad that the years between them that have passed, passed without them coming face to face.
"You will be my first victim," She says sweetly, a little shyly, implying something that has always been there at the back of his mind.
"Could you teach me how to seduce him, Damon?"
The memory plays in his head when he reaches for her and she readily puts her strawberry flavoured mouth on his…
~UV~
So, they finally meet…
And Gingers Unite, those bots are so pesky.
Summers, my love, were for sweet kisses of mine,
Winters for regret,
It was raining like crazy,
The day we met…
On that note, see you with the next chapter, folks!