AN: Here's the deal: this chapter is going to be very different from all of the other ones so far. This time, we're going to get other POV's besides just Elena's. I'll tell you why after the chapter. Please make sure to read the AN at the bottom after this. I hope you like it!
Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to review. I love you all! Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Nine
Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries or anything else that I mention in this story.
Elena's (As usual) POV
I woke up the next morning, feeling something heavy draped across my waist. I gazed down groggily, rubbing my eyes while doing so, to find Damon's arm wrapped securely around me. I realized that this was the first time I had ever seen him sleep and immediately became transfixed, studying him intently.
His dark hair was artfully swept across his chiseled face like he'd been styling it for hours, lightly tousled and creating shadows on his flawless face. His way-too-long eyelashes rested peacefully on his cheeks, his lips puckering adorably as he breathed in and our deeply.
Even in his sleep, he looked completely and irrevocably diabolical.
Last night had been a big step for me, but there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right time to say something. The feelings that I had been harboring for weeks were fluttering around in my empty stomach as I quietly got up, trying not to disturb his sleep.
Just before I made it to the door, though, he just had to go and fuck it up.
"Going somewhere?"
I rolled my eyes, not at all surprised to find that he hadn't even been asleep this entire time.
"I take it vampires are light sleepers?"
"Very."
"Of course," I muttered under my breath as I opened the door. I could feel his presence right behind me as I made my way to the kitchen, still trying to wake up completely.
"Where are Bonnie and Damon?" I asked, momentarily forgetting their plans when I noticed how silent the house was besides my laborious breaths.
"School. The kiddies won't be home for hours, giving us lots of time to get to know each other better."
Oh, Damon. You and your innuendos. Don't worry; I don't mind.
I scowled at the cupboard I was rummaging through when I felt his eyes on my ass, purposely sticking it up in the air before whipping around to toast my piece of whole wheat bread.
"Whoa; can you do that again?"
I looked down and noticed for the first time what I was wearing. "I'm wearing my granny bra under a ratty old t-shirt and a pair of your too-big boxers that go down past my knees. That doesn't sound particularly sexy to me."
"Oh, but it is. And please, feel free to show me what a granny bra looks like."
I felt a sudden wave of confidence, figuring he thought I was sexy to at least some extent, and threw my old shirt to the other side of the kitchen, exposing my granny bra in all of its glory.
Jutting my chest out proudly, I smiled smugly while his mouth hung open in shock. Slowly, his perfect lips curved into a perverted grin, which turned me on way too much for my own good. Especially since we had the house to ourselves.
"I like granny bras," he finally decided out loud while I put my toast on a plate and sat down across from him. I sighed when I bit a piece off of my crunchy toast, the only way toast should be eaten.
He looked at me in disgust. "You like burnt toast?"
I rolled my eyes. "Duh. It's the only way to eat it."
"Oh, really? Because I've heard that people like it with a light, golden-brown around the edges. Not blackened."
"You heard incorrectly."
"Whatever, girlfriend."
"Whatever, boyfriend."
We sat in silence, but it wasn't awkward like it was with Stephanie. In fact, it was quite peaceful. He sat, making rude hand gestures, while I shook my head at him and crumbled my toast to bits before swallowing it, sending me into a coughing fit.
He stared at me, concerned, until I quieted down again.
"Are you okay?"
I nodded in response, getting a glass of orange juice and walking sluggishly slow.
"You're very toned."
I felt myself blush, unable to decide how to take that compliment. "Um… thanks?"
"You're welcome."
I felt like he was still waiting for me to say something so I started babbling like an idiot. "I used to work out every night, but then I discovered the secret world of vampires and I stopped."
He shrugged. "I work out."
"No."
He sneered at my sarcasm. "I was merely going to say that we could work out together, if you wanted."
I thought about it for a little while. As an advantage, I would be in even better shape. As a downer, it would be totally and completely humiliating for him to see me sweating like a pig and jiggling everywhere.
"Maybe." More like not.
"So, what are we going to do with ourselves today?"
His long fingers traveled up my thigh slowly, dancing across my skin and playing with it like it was an instrument. I squirmed in the chair, feeling immense lust, as he did his typical 'smile with the eyes and smirk tauntingly with the mouth' routine.
I let his hand stay there, every once and a while going just below where I needed it, masochistically enjoying the slow torture. Closing my eyes, I relaxed and let him take over me. It was strange, how much I had come to trust him over just a few short weeks; I was listening to my heart instead of my head for once, and so far it was working out pretty well for me.
My eyes flew open when his hand lightly brushed over the front of my—his—boxers, causing me to suck in a deep breath and clamp my fingers around the sides of the chair. He cocked his head to the side curiously and brushed back down, making me squeeze my eyelids shut and focus on breathing before I actually passed out.
"Is that a good reaction?" He genuinely sounded like he didn't know the answer to my question, surprising me.
What surprised me even more was that I had the ability to speak. "Of course it's a good reaction, you idiot!"
He smirked again and went back to brushing up and down, up and down… up and down. His fingers weren't even making any real contact, but the action alone was enough to get an intense reaction out of me. I wondered what it would be like without having the barriers of clothes between us.
I was still struggling with the thought of us having sex. I wanted to; I really did. There was just something holding me back from it.
I had decided that it was because I actually cared for him, unlike all the other guys I had screwed in the past. Damon wasn't a person that I just wanted to fuck and forget, like he'd never come into my life. He was different… he made things better when he was around.
Pardon the following cheesy analogies, but I need to get this out to someone. Like the sun, he lit up the day when he entered the room. He had an effect that always calmed me even when I knew that I should be panicking, and with one touch he could get me to do anything he wanted me to do. Best of all, he could always make me laugh.
See how fucking stupid that sounded? Still, it was true. Real relationships weren't like the ones that you saw on television… they were cheesy, but not that cheesy.
I looked down, somewhat disturbed to find that I hadn't noticed his hand was still there. What had caused a borderline heart attack before was now calming me down, like he was soothing me into a deep sleep.
"I don't want to lose you," I blurted out.
He squinted his eyes, confused. "I'm right here."
I sighed deeply. "They say that the number one key to a healthy relationship is communication, right?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. In all honesty I don't know much about healthy relationships."
I weaved my fingers through his and stood up, not really caring that the majority of my body was on full display.
"Let's communicate, then."
I dragged him (theoretically, of course) to the parlor and sat down next to him on the couch, curling into his side without even realizing I was doing it. His arm automatically went around me and I expected to feel uneasy or embarrassed… but instead, I just sat there, perfectly at ease despite the butterflies in my stomach that were there whenever Damon was.
"You said you don't want to lose me."
Maybe I'm not the only person that states the obvious around here.
"Yes."
I guess he was waiting for me to elaborate, because he didn't. We stared into each other's eyes for a minute, just searching, like we were looking for answers in each other.
"Could you elaborate on that, please?"
Did I have to do everything around here?
I closed my eyes in an attempt to compose myself. "I guess I just feel like… like, um… if we…"
"If we… what?"
Breathe, Elena. "If we have sex, then that's all we'll ever want to do. I'm afraid we'll lose everything that our relationship's all about if we don't communicate."
"Who says we have to stop communicating just because we start getting physical?"
"Well, no one. But it just seems like we're both the type of people that like to have sex."
"Obviously."
Thank you. "So what if we don't want to stop?"
"Stephanie will just have to walk in on us, then."
I snorted. "What if Stephanie isn't home?"
"Then Bonnie will walk in on us."
"But what if Bonnie isn't home?"
He paused for a minute, seeming to be deep in thought. "What's got you so worried that we'll get addicted to having sex?"
Oh, hell no. He doesn't need to know that I'm addicted to semi-hand jobs. I think I'll keep that bit of information to myself.
"Nothing in particular; I'm just worried, that's all."
He hugged me closer with his arm, being uncharacteristically nice. "Elena, Elena, Elena. You've got nothing to worry about. You know that, right?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I know. I just… never mind."
If there was one person who didn't let things go, it was Damon Salvatore. "You just what?"
"Nothing. It'll sound corny and stupid."
"I'll try my best to listen and to keep my ears from bleeding."
"I don't want you to be just another guy that comes and goes within a couple of days, alright? I want you to be along for a really long time, because I care about you and I don't want to lose you. But sometimes I'm not even sure that you're all that into me."
He stared at me for a long time with an unreadable expression in his eyes. "Trust me, Elena; I'm more than just slightly 'into you'. I'm sorry if I've given you any evidence to lead you otherwise. But there is one thing that I can't say."
"What?"
By answering me, he leaned over and kissed me, using his palm to support the back of my neck as his mouth glued to mine.
"That."
Stefan's POV
School. Monotonous, boring, dreadful, grueling, putrid and stupid high school, to be exact.
To the best of my knowledge, this is actually the only time you'll ever hear directly from my point of view (Elena likes to hog things), so I'll tell you everything she doesn't know or won't tell you.
I'm not the idiot that everyone pegs me to be; I'm not even sure why people get the impression that I'm stupid. Back when I was a teenager I was well educated and would have gone to college, had the opportunity come up. Of course, that all went down the drain when I became a vampire of all things.
Damon never understood why I adopted the vegetarian diet. From his point of view, being a monster was the coolest thing ever. From my point of view… well, let's just say I'm not quite as enthusiastic about being a member of the undead society.
Why did I go back to high school? Sometimes, I even have to ask myself that question when dealing with the imbecile adolescents and grumpy middle aged teachers. I think we all know that I did it for Elena, the girl who has hated me ever since she laid eyes on me.
My initial reaction came from the fact that she was obviously a doppelganger of Katherine, the girl you haven't heard about yet. Here's the basic story: we met back when I was a teenager. We fell in love and everyone was great, and then entered Damon. As always, he did his best to make my life a living hell and we tried to make her choose between us. Seeing as how she couldn't, she decided the easiest solution would be to go out into the sun without her ring and die.
The end.
I suppose you can now see why I would be keen on keeping Elena around for as long as possible; it was like staring at Katherine all day long.
But I digress, because God knows what she and Damon were up to back at the house. I, in the meantime, get the enormous pleasure of being a Mystic Falls High citizen.
I growled under my breath, annoyed when I felt someone soft bump against me. I could barely feel it but I knew that whoever was unlucky enough to run into me was going to have bruises the next day. I huffed when I saw that it was Tyler Lockwood, the most arrogant and egotistical boy in school.
Actually, he reminded me of a less evil version of my dear brother.
"Hey, Salvatore! Watch where you're going."
I glared at him until he stopped staring at me, making it clear that I would have no problem getting into a fight with him. He moved on with his little group of friends and I continued on my (not) merry way until I reached Bonnie.
Oh, Bonnie. In all honesty, I was dating her more out of pity than anything. She was nice enough but clearly paled in comparison to Elena and was rude and scrappy, always ordering me around like she was my mother. The best part was that she could not even be five feet tall and thought she was Shaquille O'Neill.
"Stefan!" She squealed, throwing her stick arms around me. I refrained from rolling my eyes and loosely returned her embrace.
"Hello, Bonnie." My mundane response did nothing to discourage her.
"I'm, like, so excited for English today. I heard that we're getting a new book to read!"
Oh, joy.
"Is there such thing as a book that you haven't read?"
If she calls me old, I swear…
"I mean; you're from the nineteenth century."
She said it. I sighed and pretended to laugh, causing her to laugh along.
"Of course I haven't read every book in the world; I've just read a lot of them."
As we walked, I ignored my gag reflex and walked as far away from her without being rude as possible.
"OMG, I read an article about Robert Pattinson and he says that vampires really do sparkle in the sun!"
I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed my head not to explode into a million little pieces.
"I can assure you that vampires do not sparkle in the sun. Robert Pattinson is an actor… and a human being. He'll say anything to get you to stay infatuated with him."
She stood there, silent and shocked for about ten seconds, before giving me the look of death. "I. Will. Kill. You."
I chuckled humorlessly. "Sorry; too late."
She ignored me for the rest of the walk there and took her seat in the back after dodging the unwelcoming greeting from Mrs. Sasquatch. I gave the teacher a curt nod and sat next to Bonnie, preparing myself for the most boring lesson in history (or in English…).
Mrs. Sasquatch waited for everyone to take his or her seats and yelled at some unlucky child for being late, circling around the room like an animal coming in for the kill.
I knew the feeling.
"Salvatore!" She barked as she took attendance.
"Here," I quietly called out as I winced at the ringing in my ears.
"Of course you are."
What a pleasant lady.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXVZ
I somehow managed to survive the school day until lunch came around, when things started to turn sour. Bonnie sat next to me and flipped through her magazine while I stared at the sandwich I had bought in disgust, unable to identify the thing that the school referred to as, 'meat'.
Because of this ever-so-appetizing monstrosity that was sitting in front of me, I had nowhere to look but the wall. And the wall was not attractive; it consisted of bricks, only they made them even prettier by going over them with some kind of camel-tan shaded paint. Forced to look at it, I began to count bricks until I felt something tiny and clammy clamp down around about half of my arm.
I whipped my head around to see Bonnie almost hyperventilating over a page in her magazine.
"Look, Stefan! It's Justin Timberlake without a shirt!"
Why was he still famous?
I didn't dare look at the page, despite her efforts to get me to. Believe it or not, I was not the type of man that enjoyed spending their free time gazing at pictures of borderline-porn…especially not if it was another man in the article.
"Well, why isn't he wearing a shirt?"
She rolled her eyes like I was the dumbest doorknob to ever walk the planet. "Because he's in the desert. Duh."
I didn't bother informing her that
a) he wasn't in a desert; he was on some set
or
b) the fact that you would only get severe sunburn if you walked around in the desert without a shirt.
"That's great. Enjoy your magazine, Bonnie."
She beamed at me and I sat in (semi) peace for two minutes and thirty-six seconds before I felt a small and sweaty palm rubbing up and down against my stomach, somehow having wormed its way up my stomach without my noticing.
"Um, Bonnie? Now's probably not the best time."
To be honest, sex with her had been repulsive. Witches were weird smelling and tasted even worse, and she kept wriggling around the entire time. Now, Elena, on the other hand…
I groaned as I caught myself thinking about her again. In my old-fashioned mind, it was creepy and perverted to think about a woman in such a way. I don't even want to know what goes through Damon's mind when they sleep together every night.
"Do you like that?"
"No," I blurted out, immediately slapping a hand over my mouth once I'd heard the forbidden word come out.
"What. Did. You. Just. Say?"
She's angry now.
"I wasn't talking about you… I was talking about the poster up on the wall.
"Oh, shut your stupid trap, Stefan! There is no poster up on the wall."
I really didn't have anything to respond to that so I just sat there, waiting to hear that I was going to be single for the rest of eternity all over again. Now I'd only have to wait another two hundred years for a girl that I was even remotely interested in to come along…
Unless Elena changed her mind, of course. But she wouldn't. I knew it.
I saw the way she looked at my brother when she thought no one was looking. She was different around him; her eyes were more awake and her laughter was somehow even more contagious.
There was something different about Damon, too. I couldn't quite pinpoint it, but I think he may very well have been (dare I say it)… happy. At least, to a certain extent.
At the end of the day, all that really mattered was that the two people I cared about the most were happier. Shouldn't that make me happy, too? Perhaps it was possible that I could grow to love Bonnie, after all.
Glancing over at her, I decided that she wasn't so bad. Her red hair was very fiery, much like her personality. Her skin was only a couple of shades darker than mine was and her lips were full and pouty, glaring at the wall.
Hoping that I wasn't going to regret it, I grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around, planting her lips on mine.
Bonnie's POV
Oh. My. God.
Happy, happy day! This was the first time I had kissed Stefan sense the sex from a few weeks ago, so to do it again was literally like heaven for me.
All of my anger forgotten, I threw my arms around his neck and hopped onto his lap, and I just knew that all of our classmates were watching.
But in that minute, I had an Elena moment. I said to myself, who cares what they think? They're losers if they don't like me!
My newfound enthusiasm was enough to get me through the rest of the day. Stefan was in a better mood than usual; he actually attempted to socialize with me and didn't pull away when I held his hand in the hallway.
My teachers weren't intolerable jerks to me; I didn't run into Caroline all day; and… did I mention that I got to kiss Stefan?
It was my dream day, in a nutshell.
And then it all went downhill.
As we stood outside, I noted that it was beginning to get chilly, Mystic Falls showing signs that the summer was long gone. Soon, it would be time for the annual Halloween party.
Last year, Elena and I had gone but refused to dress up, mostly there to make fun of all of the idiot girls that still wore witch (how ironic is that?) costumes like they were in the third grade.
Stefan and sat outside of the school for a little while, just talking about stuff. Apparently, he didn't want to run any risk of walking in on 'unsightly things' (his words, not mine). We sat for about fifteen minutes before he went to go get the car while I got up and stretched my legs.
I stood there for a minute, noting that it was getting colder by the second. Soon I was shivering and wrapping my arms around myself, wondering where this weather could have come from so abruptly.
There was an icy breath on my neck and a body behind mine.
"Do you have the book?"
I screamed loudly, but no one seemed to pay any attention as I slowly turned around. I came face to face with the same vampire Elena had pointed out at the carnival, saying that she was Jeremy's girlfriend.
"What book?"
"Emily's spell book, you idiot!"
I stared at her, trying to think of anything that would ring a bell and magically save my life.
"Do you have it or not?"
"No."
She sighed, exasperated.
"Alright. You're coming with me."
"What? NO!"
I started to scream before she cut me off with her hand, knocking me out with a flick of her finger and taking me God knows where.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
It was cold, damp and dreary.
Those were the three words I would use to describe my surroundings as I came-to in some random room in the middle of nowhere.
"Hello?"
Little did I know that I didn't want to be found.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?"
"Oh, I can hear you."
I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the girl appear right in front of me, just inches from the corner I was huddled in, noticing that her boots looked awfully sharp around the heel.
"What's your name?" It was annoying me.
I guess the question annoyed her, too. "It's Anna."
I studied her for a minute with nothing better to do. She had dark hair and dark eyes, wearing almost all black besides her shirt and was very small. I would guess she was a couple of inches taller than me.
"Why am I here?"
"You are here because I know that you have Emily's spell book; I just don't know why you won't give it to me."
"I won't give it to you because you don't have it."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I really don't."
Oddly enough, I wasn't scared… I was more of annoyed. Why did I have to be stuck here? She didn't have any sort of power over me.
"Look, I don't have your stupid spell book. I just want to go home!"
Oh, great. Now I really do sound like a whiny brat.
"I don't think so."
"Well, how long are you going to keep me here?"
"Until I find out where the book is?"
Fine. You want to play hardball? I'll just take my anger out on someone else.
"Damon has it."
She looked at me cautiously. "Who?"
"Damon Salvatore has Emily's spell book."
"Oh, really? Because I just talked to him and your little friend, Elena, a couple of nights ago. They don't have it, so try again."
"No, he really does! He's lying to you. Don't you know him at all?"
She shrugged. "Sure. He's a manipulative little bastard. That doesn't mean he has the book."
"I think you just answered your own question."
Yes! I must be getting smarter, because she stopped to think for a minute, which was all I needed. Summoning up everything I'd learned so far, I closed my eyes and concentrated on shoving all my anger out to her.
I opened them to find her clutching her head in agony, slowly slipping down to the floor in front of me.
"That's right," I said, careful not to lose focus. "Leave us alone or I can do this to you all day long!"
She ignored me, burying her fingers into her hair.
I took that as an okay and headed for the front door, still channeling my anger through her. Her low groans from the other room were confirming that I had done my job as I quickly opened the door and ran out into the night, realizing that I'd been out here for hours.
Who knows how long I'd been knocked out?
I wandered around the forest for a while, feeling paranoid and looking behind my back every ten seconds. The full, silver moon was shining from the midnight sky, casting a soft shadow on my walking area and making things slightly easier on me.
"Thank you, moonlight."
I stumbled around for hours, finally making my way out to civilization alive at the crack of dawn, believe it or not. I hitchhiked with some random dude back to my old house and exhaled in relief as I gave my grandmother a big hug,
There were still lots of things that I needed to do. I called Elena and left a message, knowing that they were all out looking for me. I would have to introduce Stefan to Gram soon. The crazy vampire chick would be after me soon enough. I was going to have to help plan some school events. I needed to destroy Caroline Forbes. And, of course, I needed to master my witch powers.
For now, though, I just want some damned sleep.
AN: This is going to be a long AN, guys. Beware.
First off, the reason why I wrote this chapter so differently: I did it because I want to see how you guys react to hearing from a different person's perspective. You'll also notice that I didn't write anything from our favorite vamp… that's because I'm considering writing this entire story from his perspective, after this one's complete (fear not; that won't be for a long time). Are you guys interested?
I think Damon deserves his own story, because Elena may not know all of the reasons he went after her in the first place by the end of the story. Was it to spite Stefan or was it for different reasons in entirety? With such a strong personality, it's pretty hard to give him just a section of a chapter, just like it would be for Elena to just have one chapter. You can't do it. ALSO: title suggestions, should the story come to be?
Also, I know you guys are going to be bitching about the fact that there are no lemons in this chapter. ;( The news is kind of good and kind of bad: there won't be a real one for a couple of more chapters. Of course, the more feedback I get, the more likely I'll be motivated to write one. Sorry, guys, but both D&E and I need to work up to writing a lemon. I've never written a full one before and it makes me somewhat nervous, but I would be expecting one soon enough if I were you.
Should I start doing teasers for chapters? I don't know, leave me your thoughts on it, because the story gets updated every Monday anyway… let me know.
And finally, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who takes the time to review/put me on story alert/favorite me. It means the world to me and every single one of you is awesome! I fucking love you guys.
Wow, this was long. Sorry about that. I need to go before someone chases me down the street with a pitchfork for either not writing a lemon or wasting their valuable time by writing this long-ass AN.
Love,
Evie
PS: I cannot stand Elena being such a bitch to Damon on TVD. What is wrong with that girl? If she doesn't dump Stefan soon… no, I'll still watch it anway. ;)
