A/N- New story! I've been excited to post this for a while, and now that 'Holding On' is complete, I thought it was time. While I understand that the idea behind this may not be everyone's cup of tea, there were quite a few of you who messaged to say give it a go. So I have :) Really hope you enjoy this prologue. Drop a little review at the end x

Unscripted

Prologue

Back of the room looking at you

Counting the steps between us

A hundred and five little blades in a line

From your skin to mine

And I feel it

Mornings are Damon's favourite time of day. In the winter especially, when it's too dark and too cold and just too damn early for most people, he loves mornings because in that short space of time - before the alarm sounds and the outside world kicks into gear - there's this feeling of complete and utter peace that he feels at no other point during the day. This feeling is compounded by the woman who sleeps in his arms.

Right on cue, Elena does that half-mumble, half-content-sigh that he finds so comforting as she burrows further into his side, her dark hair spilling its way down her back in a waterfall of liquid silk. He trails his fingers lightly along her arm and her breathing evens out again. She has a leg pulled back slightly behind her so that it rests snugly between the both of his - something she's always done since that fateful evening of the cast costume party where they finally gave in to the undeniable chemistry between them that was threatening to start some kind of combustion. He has absolutely no idea why she sleeps like that but hey, it's a chance to have one of those gorgeous long legs touching his and he's never going to complain.

He glances at the clock and begins a silent countdown for the next minute until the alarm goes off and she begins her inevitable 'I'm not a morning person' grouch routine. Elena does not love mornings. In fact, Damon isn't sure he's ever met someone who finds waking up such an arduous task.

Sure enough, as the alarm sounds, reminding them that there's ten minute before they need to get up and face the longs hours of shooting on set, Elena groans in the way he finds utterly adorable (not that he's ever told her; she probably knows though, he figures) and attempts to burrow even further into him.

"Ten minutes baby," he murmurs into her hair, kissing the top of her head. This is the hardest part of the morning. It's at this point where he has to extract her body from his so that he can get up to make coffee. There's a period of time, Damon has discovered during the last three years he's openly loved Elena Gilbert, where if he doesn't leave their bed before she's fully aware of her surroundings, she'll drag him back under the sheets and they'll be very late for work.

As he pulls back the covers and makes his way towards the bathroom, Elena rolls onto her stomach, folding her arms around the white linen-clad pillow. Damon can't fight the smile that creeps across his lips and returns to the bed to press a kiss against her now-exposed temple because he's so in love with her that it actually hurts sometimes. Most of the time.

"Nine minutes."

"Urgh."

He smiles and goes back to the bathroom. That noise means she knows she has to get up.

By the time Damon has showered, dried and dressed, Elena is sitting up in bed, sleep-trussed hair tumbling around her shoulders, ready to greet him properly.

"Morning." She pulls him by the shirt, down towards her, letting her fingers rake through the hair on the back of his neck so that he's tingling all over when she pulls away.

"Good morning." His voice is hoarse but even after three years, that's what she does to him and he wouldn't have it any other way. "Shower. Dress. I'll make coffee."

"Come back to bed," she whisper-whines, patting the space next to her with one hand as she lowers one of the straps of her camisole with the other, and his resolve almost breaks. This kind of emotional blackmail occurs every few weeks. She always used to win, but one icy morning, when he was driving a little too fast to make up time, the car spun. In the moment just after it settled and he noticed her white knuckles as she gripped him like she does whenever she's terrified, he decided he would always be the one to win the morning struggle.

"Time's up gorgeous." He pulls back the cover to expose the purple silk of her tiny pajama shorts. "Go before neither of us show up to work and Wendy fires us."

Elena rolls her eyes with a grumble but the smirk she gives him as she sashays away shows she knows exactly what she's doing.

X

They're on the road twenty minutes after she emerged from the shower with a travel mug each and a toasted bagel with cream cheese that is emitting crisp crumbs all over the floor of the car for Elena.

"Who are your scenes with today?" Damon asks as they pull up at the intersection and she licks the last few crumbs off her fingers.

"Caroline mostly. I think it's the episode with quite a lot of Candice and Nina scenes because they're fighting. You?"

"Ric. It's Ian and Matt bar scenes mostly, although they've started using a different colorant to tinge the water brown for the whisky and it's even more disgusting than what they used before."

They ride the rest of the journey in comfortable quiet, his hand resting lightly on her knee as she watches the lights ahead change in unison. With every sip of her coffee, he watches her stifle a yawn. She'll be glad when the summer comes, Damon knows, and it's time for a break in filming. As much as they're on set for pretty much the same length of time, Elena plays two characters: Nina and Katherine (sometimes three when you count Amara) and while she's filming for most of the time, He can hang out with Ric and Stefan at craft services and relax.

Elena is almost done with her coffee, Damon observes, but is still struggling against the string of yawns fighting their escape from her mouth.

"You okay?"

She looks surprised at his question but squeezes his hand and offers that sleepy smile he loves so much, "I'm fine."

He asked her the other week whether she was working too hard; there'd been the horrific hours on set, not to mention the numerous public appearances at award shows and tv networks to promote the current season of Vampires! She had insisted though, that she was fine - better than fine, great even - and this was exactly the kind of life she'd signed up for when she'd been cast as Nina on the show. Damon wasn't entirely convinced but she was still Elena and she was never too tired for sex at the end of each long, exhausting day. So yeah, he wasn't going to push it.

They arrive on set twenty minutes later and by this time, Damon notices that her energy levels have increased enough that she can bound out of the car towards Caroline who has brought her dog with her. He watches as she lets the Husky/German Shepherd mix jump up and paw at her quilt-like coat while she giggles. He swears his favourite hobby is just watching Elena do anything. There isn't time to indulge himself however, and he presses a soft kiss against her lips before making his way to hair and makeup.

X

He isn't surprised later in the day when he enters his trailer to find Elena spending a rare, free five minutes practising yoga. He's gotten better at controlling himself now when it comes to watching her bend in...those ways. Besides, she knows exactly what it does to him and she's never been afraid to exploit that fact in the past.

"I brought you something," he tells her, bending down so that his face is level with hers as he produces a vanilla chocolate chip cookie from behind his back.

"Oh my God!" she straightens up right away "The cookies are back?!"

"They're back." Damon hands it to her and she takes a very unlady-like large bite, spraying crumbs everywhere as she says,

"Soooo good."

He just watches, amused, as she crams the sugary treat in way faster than she should.

"I don't know what I love more," Elena says, swallowing the last mouthful. "You, or these cookies."

"How about me for bringing you the cookies that you love?"

"Hmm," she pretends to think before offering her lips to his. "Seems logical."

They end up spending the rest of their short downtime attached to each others' lips under the guise that they have a kissing scene coming up and they need to practise. Truth is, they don't really need to practise these types of scenes anymore; they've kissed in pretty much every way possible in real life and now when they kiss as Ian and Nina, there's no difference. It's another huge perk of the job for which Damon is infinitely grateful.

Their first kissing scene had been very different. Ian had thought he was kissing Nina on the front porch of her house, but it turned out it was Katherine. It was the kind of kiss the script had asked to 'convey love and emotion'. It had been awkward. They'd practised in her trailer, Elena keeping her head completely still until that moment when his lips whispered their presence across hers. His hands had been shaking as they'd brushed against her jawline to cup her face in order to tilt it for access at the right angle. He remembers hearing her breath catch at the same time he was fighting to keep his under control. They were both still containing their feelings for one another at this point, and after pulling away, neither had been able to look the other in the eye. Elena had once described it in an interview as "intense" when asked about the scene. He couldn't have agreed more.

"I'm going to be late finishing tonight," she tells him when they finally detach their lips from each others' and she leans against his shoulder. "You should go home without me."

"How late?"

"We have to reshoot some stuff. I'm guessing at least eleven. Maybe later."

"I'll see what time I get done." he presses a kiss to her crown. "I might go to Whole Foods. We're out of pretty much everything."

Her eyes are closed, Damon notices, as she lets her lips rest against the bare skin of his upper arm.

"Weekend breakfast."

Weekend breakfast is a tradition of theirs which started with Elena attempting to make him eggs florentine and freshly-squeezed orange juice on the morning of his birthday nearly two years ago. He'd woken to find her space in the bed cold - meaning she'd been up a while - and then his ears had been assaulted by all manner of clattering. He'd found her in the kitchen, face red with a mixture of stress, confusion and over-heating, with orange quarters covering the counter and scrambled eggs burning in the pan. She didn't cook. She doesn't cook. She'd been disappointed she hadn't been able to make him the birthday breakfast she wanted to - and she'd used all the supplies in the process - but he'd just been half-amused, half-touched at what she'd been trying to achieve. He'd reached behind her, turned off the pans and accidentally brushed her ass, finding it bare under his shirt. So yeah, he didn't get breakfast but she'd jumped him against the counter, so really, it was a win-win.

He now makes the breakfast. Elena tidies up around him, intermittently pressing kisses against his neck, shoulders, lips and anywhere else she can reach. Just another reason Damon loves mornings.

"Weekend breakfast," he confirms and feels her lips curve into a smile.

He sees her later in the afternoon - a passing meeting as they're walking between the various locations around the set - and unusually, there's a small child clutching her hand, his little fingers pointing to various set 'landmarks'.

"Aidan, slow down on the questions!" he hears Lisa, one of the camera crew, shout. "I'm going to hire Elena as a babysitter the next time his daycare shuts without warning," she tells him as they pass. Damon only realises when Stefan shouts him a questioning, "Buddy?" that he's stopped walking and is just staring at his girlfriend as she talks animatedly with Lisa's son. This could be his life. Their life. Only, not with someone else's child, but theirs. He shakes himself out of his reverie and catches up to Stefan with a jog. That ring box in the pocket of his ski jacket he never wears hidden deep at the back of his closet feels like it's burning in his hands. During tomorrow's weekend breakfast, he thinks.

X

"There's a bath waiting for you," Damon tells Elena after she's kissed him hello and dropped her purse onto the console by the door. "Dinner will be ready in a half hour."

"Smells great," she yawns, pulling off the boots she's been wearing pretty much permanently since the cold Atlanta weather began.

"Chicken cacciatore," he replies, kissing her forehead.

"Something Ian would make."

"True, but I'm not Italian."

"No," she says softly, making her way towards the bathroom. "You're better."

It's nearly 1am when they eat. She's in pajamas and a horrific red dressing gown she insists on wearing 'when it's cold', even though their apartment is a perfectly acceptable temperature to just wear a t-shirt in. Damon silently reminds himself to crank up the thermostat if he wants to see more of her skin. She's apologised countless times for how late it is, even though she didn't insist on reshooting, and for the fact he had to do the shopping and cooking on his own.

"You wouldn't know what to buy anyway." He genuinely doesn't mind. He just loves the fact that he's the one she comes home to.

"I saw you with Lisa's son earlier," he says when they've finished eating and she's apologised again.

"His daycare cancelled on her at the last minute so she had to bring him on set. Asked lots of questions."

"He seemed to really like you. Lisa's ready to hire you as a sitter."

"No chance," she scoffs and takes a swig of wine. "I think a half hour is my limit."

Damon is momentarily unsure of what to say. After a while, he questions, "You don't like kids?"

"I'm not sure I'd say I don't like them," she waves her hand as though this isn't a conversational topic that is making is stomach lurch. "But I definitely don't want one."

He waits for the "yet" to follow. But it doesn't. And there it is. His stomach feels as though it's about to fall through his ass. Three perfect, perfect years with the woman of his dreams has led to this devastating moment. Elena finally looks at him, questioning the silence. And then he watches her read the expression on his face and she realises. Realises what it means.

"You...you want kids?" Her eyes are wide. She looks like she's about to have a panic attack. He's pretty sure he is having one.

"Always have."

"With me?"

"Of course."

Damon thinks he might be sweating. There's a strange sort of ringing in his ears. "I just always assumed…"

"Damon…" her voice is breaking into a crack of a whisper, "I'm sorry."

They don't say anything for the next few minutes. He thinks his mouth or his brain might be broken because there are so many things he wants to say but they're not coming out, until,

"Maybe you'll change your mind," escapes his lips. "In a year or so, you might feel differently."

"Will you?"

No, but she's younger. Just not ready. Yet.

"Damon, acting is my life. I've worked so hard to get here, to get this role, and now there's a chance of working on that horror film - it could be the start of something really big. That's what I'm working towards."

He feels like he's been punched.

"Not a family."

And now run over.

If there's a God, he thinks, then he's been well and truly screwed over. In this exact moment, he wishes they'd never had these three years. Wishes that he'd discovered this about her at the very start and he wouldn't have to feel like his world is ending. But his world is ending.

"Damon?" He hadn't realised she'd still been speaking. "I'm sorry…"

All he can think about is that ring in the bottom of his ski jacket pocket and the fact he'll never put it on her finger because weekend breakfast isn't going to be a thing any more is it?

"What?" He doesn't mean to snap. Just, how the fuck is he supposed to respond?

"I wish I felt differently, but…"

"You don't."

There are tears in her eyes. "Right."

"So what now?" It's probably a stupid question to ask at 1:15am but he's just discovered the love of his life doesn't want the same future he does.

"I love you Damon." A tear falls down her cheek. He wants to brush it away but he can't bring himself to because, reasonable or not, he thinks he might hate her a little bit right now. "I'm in love with you. That hasn't changed."

"So what are the options?" he practically spits. He's being an asshole and he knows it. But he can't help it. "Either we end things, or just keep going, all the time knowing we want the exact opposite out of life and neither of us is going to concede?" Do we just prolong the agony? Or have the worst weekend of our lives and break up now?"

Elena is silent. They both are. Damon thinks he wants to vomit but his brain is doing that unable-to-connect thing again. All he can process is that she's holding her wine glass so tightly it looks like it's about to shatter. And then it does. And yet, instead of cleaning it up, Elena attacks his mouth with hers. He was wrong earlier, when he thought they'd kissed in every possible way. Because they haven't ever kissed like this.

He's torn that dressing gown and her pajamas off before they've reached the bedroom. Her fingers are shaking as she unbuckles his belt but she finally navigates the metal out of the hole and flings it off. It bounces off the wall. Good, he thinks in some tiny portion of his brain. It'll leave a mark.

He pushes her down onto the bed hard enough that she bounces upwards and collides against his chest, scraping it with her teeth and fingernails. He growls. Actually growls. She bites him after that. On his shoulder, neck, ear, chest.

He makes her come after a punishing regime of licking and sucking - and biting, because he'll damned if she brands him without him returning the act - until she's teetering on the brink of exploding over and over and over, and her orgasm is like no other. They're going to have to flip the mattress, never mind changing the sheets.

Elena returns the favour - or punishment, depending on the viewpoint - exhausting him with her tongue and her teeth and the back of her throat until he's literally screaming for breath. When Damon finally enters her, he grips the headboard for leverage and slams as hard as he can against her. She can't even say his name because the only noise that seems to fall from her lips is a moan that makes him want to record the whole thing on his phone so that he can play it over and over and over so that it's the only sound left in his world.

They're drenched in sweat by the time they're done. Her chest is heaving, those perfect breasts pressing into him with each inhalation. Unexpectedly, she turns towards him and begins trailing feather-light kisses from under one ear, across his mouth to the other. She rolls so that she's straddling him, brushing strands of his hair back off his face in such a gentle way that Damon's not entirely sure she's the same girl. With each kiss that comes from her lips, she rocks forward against his centre, soft moans humming within her throat that make him want to barricade them in that bedroom and never acknowledge the outside world again. It's at least an hour of slow, sweet exploration during which she pauses every few minutes to simply kiss what feels like every inch of his body, before they finally climax, limbs too heavy to do anything other than just lay there for a good ten minutes.

He finally pulls her to him when his arms have recovered and instead of leaving her leg between his, she rests practically on top of him, both legs wrapped around his, her lips pressed against his neck as her fingers dust across his arms and chest. Each time her eyelids draw downwards, she pulls them back up in an act of defiance against her clearly exhausted body. And then he realises why: she's prolonging the inevitable. This is a goodbye.

'Cause love is a cage

These words on a page carry the pain

They don't free it

In another life I wouldn't need to console myself

As I resign to release you

Lyrics are taken from 1000 Times by Sara Bareilles