Dense fog had seeped into every crevice of the woods, coating the night in an eerie and ethereal feeling, but dawn was quickly approaching: Damon could feel the impending sunrise on his skin.
The river beneath the bridge was whispering and beckoning with gentle waves. The same traitorous waters that had taken Elena continued to ask for trinkets and offerings, a distraction before they came for Elena again.
Damon was out of breath and the woods were darker than they had been in months.
He couldn't find Elena. It was too dark and there was too much fog.
He could sense her nearby, but he couldn't see her.
The fog was wrapping itself around his body, covering his limbs like a spider's web, pulling him towards the river.

The earth shifted beneath his feet, and the woods were gone.
He was suspended in endless darkness.
A ray of light broke through the darkness.

Damon was dreaming.

His eyes were still closed but he could feel the softness of early morning sunlight on his face as steady, gentle breathing pulled him from his uneasy slumber, anchoring him to the present.

He had been dreaming. It wasn't real. The hangover that was crashing around him, on the other hand, very real.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this hungover.
Maybe after Rose died.
Maybe when Stefan killed Andi.
Definitely when Elena died.

Damon cracked an eye open, it felt like his eyes were coated in sand.
This wasn't his bedroom. He wasn't at home.

He was in Elena's room, in her bed, half-dressed and smelling faintly of bourbon.
Elena's body was pressed against his in easy familiarity, one arm under her pillow.
He closed his eyes again and buried his head in her hair. He had no memory of how he got here and he didn't particularly care.

The last thing Damon remembered from the previous day was giving Matt his keys.
Or maybe Jeremy had taken them from him. He didn't know how long he had stayed at the Mystic Grill after Elena left.
Matt earned a hefty tip by ensuring Damon's bourbon glass was never empty.
Damon wanted his money back.

The bedroom window was open and the soft caress of a morning summer breeze fluttered through the thin curtains.
It smelled like the end of summer and felt like home.

The mourning doves cooed quietly outside the window.

The loud buzz of a cell on Elena's nightstand rudely crumbled through their sleepy walls, jolting them both awake.

"It's yours," Elena said groggily as she reached for the offensive item and put it on his bare chest.
Damon groaned in response, squinting at the screen: Stefan.
He ignored the call and gave the phone back to Elena.
She placed the phone back on the nightstand, his discarded pants and wallet on the floor.

Elena rubbed her eyes gently before rolling on to her back and stretching out her arms.
She made drowsy fists, feeling her body start to wake.
She moved to sit up but Damon reached out to pull her back to his chest.

"What happened last night?" He asked in a raspy voice and hiding his face in her hair again.
"You came in through the window," she explained. "Something about teaching me how to be a vampire the right way because only you know what I need. I haven't seen you that drunk in a long time."
"Fuck," he said. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Elena said quietly as she twisted in his arms to face him. "I like it when you sleep here. Just like old times."

It was quiet except for their synced breathing.
She reached up to push his hair away from his eyes.
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips gently.
Damon had started sneaking into Elena's bedroom the night that Stefan left with Klaus.
The same night that Elena had first kissed Damon because she thought he was going to die.

"I like you now, just the way you are."

It was the phrase that set them into motion.
The spark that ignited a fire neither of them was prepared to fight, burning with unspoken desires and truths and now Damon wanted nothing more than to fuck her in this bed they'd been sharing with blurred boundaries all summer.

A distant, soft beep came from the kitchen.

"Is Jeremy home?" Damon asked, looking towards the bedroom door and she shook her head.
"You set the coffee timer before you came to bed," Elena said, her gaze lingering on his lips before looking up at his eyes.
"Stop looking at me like that," Damon warned in a pained voice.
"How am I looking at you?"
"Like you're hoping that my hangover isn't bad enough to keep me from fucking you before we have coffee."

Elena replied by inching closer and reaching down between them to stroke his already hard dick.
"I don't think you'll need much convincing."

The room was starting to spin.
He wasn't sure if it was from the alcohol still in his system or if it was from the intoxicating way Elena was kissing along his jawline.
She was arching her back to press her breasts against him, her leg hooking over his hips as she moved to straddle him.

Fuck .

"This feels premeditated," he accused as she unbuttoned the remaining buttons on the shirt he'd half removed at some point.

He knew he needed to reestablish control, that they had to talk about what had happened the previous day, but her lips had finally made contact with his.
Nothing outside this moment mattered. He wasn't going to win Brother of the Year anyway.

Damon let his hands roam freely across her body until his fingers hooked into a hole in the middle of the shirt she was wearing.
It was soft and familiar.
It was his.

"Where did you get this shirt?" He whispered into her ear with a hidden smile and then kissed her temple.
"I, uh, took it from your room," Elena gasped as Damon sat up, his hardness brushing against her heat.
"When?" He asked as he pulled the shirt over her head.
"Over the summer when you and Ric went to Tennessee," she moaned as Damon ran his hands over her breasts, pausing to squeeze her nipple.

"Why?"

"Because I missed you sleeping next to me," she said.
He moved his hand up her thigh and felt her shiver as he pushed her panties to the side.
He parted her gently and she gasped as he pushed a finger into her, teasing her.
He held her wrists tightly with one hand as she moved her hips against his hand, asking for more.

"Damon," she started.

"Yes?"

"Please?" Elena said quietly, closing her eyes.

He kissed her throat. "Please what?"

He slipped another finger inside of her, in and out while his hard cock ground against her. "Don't make me ask you again."

"Please fuck me," Elena gasped as Damon's fingers slipped from inside her.

He flipped them over, Elena on her back as he thrust into her without warning.
They both groaned as he filled her, her legs wrapping around his hips, pulling him closer.
He wanted to savor this moment, commit it to memory, inject the feeling into his veins. He'd wanted this for so long and knowing that Elena had also thought about this was almost too much.
He pulled out of her slowly, letting her feel every inch of him before pushing back in, eliciting soft whimpers from her.
He'd never heard her make that noise, he wanted to claim it as his own.
Again, and again.
This was different from yesterday.
Yesterday had been the explosion of two years of tension between them.

This was…the possibility of something more.

Damon felt Elena's grip on his shoulders as he continued to thrust into her, moving his hands to her hips, holding her in place, his pulse beating loudly in his ears.
She moved against him effortlessly, drawing him closer, asking to close the distance between their bodies.

Their lips met and he felt what little control he had left leave him.

"Fuck ," Elena moaned as Damon rolled them again so that she was on top again.

She let him set the pace, his hands at her hips guiding her as she ground into him.
She reached between them to touch herself, she was close.
He watched, entranced, as she rode him and touched herself at the same time.
He wanted this to last longer, but it was going to end soon if she kept making that gasping noise.
Damon sat up without warning, pulling her hips down closer and she came undone with the newly added friction.
He watched her with fascination as she closed her eyes, her hands finding his arms as she contracted around him hard.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, " she whisper-chanted slowly with her eyes still closed as she continued to pulsate around him.

"Elena, look at me," Damon said.
He wanted to make sure she was still with him.
That this connection was between the two of them.
That this moment was for them.

She opened her eyes and met his gaze with the same intensity he craved.
She was his.
Only his.
She leaned in to kiss him, gyrating her hips, feeling him swelling inside of her before a final, deep groan from him pushed her into a new wave of pleasure as he rode out his own.
The aftershocks of two orgasms still rolling over her body as she leaned into his embrace breathlessly.

"That's one way to cure a hangover," Damon observed. "You can fuck me awake whenever you want."

"Do you want some coffee?" Elena laughed weakly as she pulled back to meet his eyes.
"Only if you have the bagels from that place I like," Damon said, kissing her forehead.
"I do," Elena confirmed with a nod. "Your toothbrush is in the medicine cabinet and there's a change of clothes in the linen closet in case you want to avoid the walk of shame ."

"Fuck," he sighed as she pulled herself away from him to get dressed.
She reached for the same black shirt she had slept in.

He watched her pull the shirt on and thought of the last time he'd worn it.
Stefan had stabbed him with a letter opener the last time he'd worn it.
He wondered what Stefan would stab him with when he found out that Damon had fucked his girlfriend not once, but twice with absolutely no remorse.

But it didn't matter.

Stefan had lost her a long time ago.

Everyone knew it.
Now they just had to tell him.