After another successful feed, they returned, and at some point, Emily commented on their lack of a tv, and what they did when they were bored. "Oh, you new generation. Can't live without your technology," Damon mused from the living room. Emily grinned at him. "Back in my day, there was no tv."
"Ah. You're absolutely right, grandpa," she retorted teasingly, closing the fridge and coming out with a soda can, then residing to her room again.
XXX
The next day, day five at the Salvatore Boarding house.
Emily roams the house, bored. Damon decides to heed her comment, and gets her to tag along on his tv shopping.
With that in a cart, they move along the isles, looking for more items to buy.
"Ice-cream?" he offers.
"Um. If you want to, sure," she retorts.
"No. I'm asking you."
"Oh. Then, no thanks."
"No thanks? What are you, twelve?" he mocks. She scoffs.
"What do you want me to say?!"
"I want you to see something you like, and get it," he smiles sarcastically.
"Okay, fine," she rolls her eyes.
Several other suggestions later, and Emily is still closed and fidgety about picking pretty much anything.
"Look. I get it, miss independent. You're too proud to let me pay for all this by myself. Will you just pick a cereal?!" he exclaims tiredly.
"It's not about being proud, or…"
"Then what is it?!" he glares expectantly at her. She rolls her eyes again.
"Okay. Fine. I'm sorry! I'm just not comfortable with…shopping with people who won't let me pay!"
"But I'm not people, Emily! I'm a hundred and seventy-year-old vampire," he whisper-yells. "With a butt load of money!" he grins.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?!" she asks in shock. Damon sighs tiredly,
then looks to her.
Her morals were as incredibly annoying as they were admirable.
But they weren't strangers for her to act this way around him. He didn't like it. In a way, it was insulting. Instead of saying something along that line, he said: "Look. Either you pick stuff yourself, or I call your sister, ask her what you like, and get it myself," he warns playfully. She stares at him in disbelief. He stares back daringly, evidently serious.
She wanted to protest, but honestly also didn't want to. She liked how persistent he was being. In her eyes, he was being really sweet, and she couldn't help smiling, finally giving in.
Along the isles, and shopping together, people glanced at them as often as they glanced at each other. Everyone assumed they were a couple, including a few college students who were familiar with Emily.
The duo paid them no mind, and were more than content in each other's company when the awkwardness was finally set aside.
XXX
On the way back home, Damon stopped nearby to get Emily to feed again, something she disliked, but understood was necessary. Besides. She was hungry.
"Hey, who plays the piano?" she asked curiously as Damon unboxed the huge, flat-screen tv and she stood opposite him keeping hold of the other end of the box.
"Uhhh, I do," Damon answered absently as he looked for the edge of the tape. Her eyes widened in slight surprise.
"Really?" He glanced at the smile in her tone. "You'll have to play for me sometime," she grinned. Damon smirked, not getting a chance to reply when Stefan stepped into the living room.
"What…are you guys doing?" he asked, brows furrowed.
"Lo and behold, little brother. We got ourselves a tv. Come help us hook it up."
A complicated while after doing just that, they had to also hook up a receiver. Finally done with the long process of calibrating it, Emily noted a good movie on one of the channels. Convincing Stefan to join them, they end up watching it.
XXX
Day six.
Emily and Damon are sparring in the backyard.
At first, it was something to pass the time, as well as further explore her new capabilities, and test her limits.
But here's the thing. It was Damon.
It was Damon fighting her, pushing her, touching her. It was Damon looking up at her as she straddled him, it was his heartbeat beneath her palm.
It was driving her crazy.
She got up, and lend him her hand. Standing opposite one another, breathing heavily, Emily spoke up: "That was good," she nodded casually. Damon did not reply, too enraptured by her in the moment. Her glowing eyes, her lush, parted lips, her rising and declining chest, glistering from sweat, as she took her every breath. "I'm gonna go…take a shower," she pointed back with her thumb, then turned on her heel and walked away, refusing to indulge thoughts even he was considering. Damon watched her, watched her hips sway from side to side in those overly skinny tights, imagining himself joining in on said shower.
He couldn't understand what had suddenly come over him, but he wanted her badly, wanted to feel her against him, wanted to hear her utter his name as he pleased her in every which way.
It took several minutes to shake away such thoughts, but not completely…
XXX
A few hours later, and they head out to feed again. Damon jokingly tells Stefan to join them, which the latter of course declines.
This time, Damon had them head out without a car. He decided to teach Emily a new technique.
In the middle of the forest road, she lied, waiting anxiously for a car to drive by…
One finally did.
As she fed from her new victim, Damon decided to join in. She watched him grab the woman's wrist, eye her intently as he dug in and shared her drink.
When he pulled away, she simultaneously did too, being the first time she'd done so without him having to pry her off.
He approached her.
They stopped a foot apart. He locked intently onto her gaze.
She couldn't look away.
She glanced at his blood-tainted lips, and wanted oh-so-badly to lick them, and kiss him,
but the presence of someone else caused her to hold back, in spite of Damon's hopes.
She proceeded to heal her victim, compel her to forget, and await for her to depart as she then cleaned her mouth with her black scarf, the one she now used as a blood napkin.
"Race you back to the house," Damon called, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Emily smirked, and disappeared before his eyes. "Hey!" he called irritably.
XXX
"It was not cheating! You said 'let's race', so I did. And I won!" she exclaimed, grinning as she unlocked the front door with the spare key Damon had made her a while back.
"Have you ever actually been in a race before?" he retorted. They both quieted upon noticing Elena and Stefan in the living room.
After small greets, the four shortly convers. Elena refrained from asking how 'it' went, it being that Stefan had told her what they were out doing.
She didn't want to think of it, didn't want to picture it, and certainly didn't want to talk about it.
The idea that her sister was out there, feeding on people, felt too surreal for her to process.
Her 'thinking' is cut short at Emily's suggestion to watch a movie together.
Half-time into it, Stefan and Elena are cuddling on the couch they'd moved to the side of the room to be put opposite the tv that was next to the fireplace. To the right side, were two other arm chairs, one occupied by Emily, and the other by Damon, her chair adjacent to the couch.
Damon was suddenly feeling low.
Elena was disturbingly the spitting image of Katherine.
Seeing her with Stefan brought back memories he wished to forget, of both her, and her affiliation with his brother.
He honestly wanted to get up and leave, maybe call it a night, as much as he didn't want to be affected by the scene and to ignore it.
Emily notices his sour gaze, notices where it's directed at.
It was not the first time she'd come to realize that he did not like Elena and Stefan together, but why? She at first assumed it was related to the bitterness he held towards Stefan, but she hadn't seen that in a long time and practically forgot it ever existed since the day Stefan was kidnapped.
Ironically for the first time, she too noted the fact that…surely Elena was reminding him of Katherine.
The fact that he was still hung up on Katherine made her bitter herself for a moment, but upon recalling what Katherine had done to him, Emily semi-concluded the reason behind his sour mood.
Bad memories.
She gets the urge to pull him out of it, and without second-thoughts, reaches out and places her hand on his. He turns to her, the movie becoming background noise.
She was smiling at him warmly, causing him to inhale in a sense of relief. He looked at her hand, and turned his over, their fingers intertwining. He caressed her knuckles with his thumb, sending goosebumps all over her skin and causing her heart to jump. But when he brought it up to his lips, and kissed the back of her hand lightly in a form of gratitude and admiration, she felt she'd lose it, her eyes going wide, cheeks growing hot-red, and butterflies scattering in her stomach. She couldn't help grinning as she blushed and looked to her lap, biting her lower lip in an attempt to cool down. Damon smirked contently at her reaction, and, noting Stefan's impending gaze, looked away, but kept her hand in his.
Stefan didn't know what to make of what he saw. A part of him thought that Damon was abusing Emily's care for him to get over Katherine. The other part thought, and partially hoped, for Damon to truly have reciprocated feelings for her.
It was greatly unclear which it was to him…
XXXXX
