Title: Wallowing, Wading, Whispering, Wanting.
Part Two of Four: Wading
Author: Roguie/ SunSpecOps
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters: Damon Salvatore, Elena Gilbert, Damon/ Elena
Rating: M – violence, torture, A- class coarse language, and if you're very good, a little dash of smut to wrap it all up.
Spoilers: Everything up to 4x18 – AU at 4x19.
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries doesn't belong to me. I just like to borrow the characters and mutate their inner voices. What can I say, it's fun. Please don't sue, my house is small, my car is useless and my dogs are pains in the arse, but they're all I have.
Summary: Sight and sound are a powerful trigger to a mind already laden with layers of guilt he can never express. Twenty four hours can change two lives, fix two hearts, and set them to burn like they've never burned before.
A/N: Today we have Drunk!Miserable!Damon. Poor boy. Many thanks for the reviews and follows, does lovely things to a girl's heart. Our poor boy is about to get quite the kick in the head, so I figured I'd allow him one last night of wading through all the emotional crap he's facing. Hopefully he's on his game before the sun rises too high in the sky… but we'll have to see. :)
A/N2: Reviews are gold, and I'm just a poor girl. Don't forget to donate. :)
~~~E~~~
As luck would have it, distraction came to Damon in the form of soft blonde hair, big blue eyes, and a smile that he didn't doubt had melted a lot of hearts in her life.
Her car was stalled at the side of the deserted road, her phone was dead in her hands, and tears were clouding her baby blues as Damon made his approach. His face was schooled into an innocent smile, blue eyes sparkling, head cocked to the side, curiously.
"Now that looks like you're having a very unfortunate night," he drawled softly, careful not to startle her.
The girl smiled amiably in his direction, giving her car a rueful glare, the ease of his approach relaxing her immediately. As expected, she droned on for ten minutes about her boyfriend, her car, her phone, and her life while he maintained his polite smile, trying desperately not to roll his eyes skyward. Finally, she paused, glancing at him with sudden suspicion.
"Um, why are you out here anyway? It's like, three in the morning."
Damon nodded in the direction of the graveyard, shrugging softly. "Visiting an old friend." He lowered his lashes, blue eyes radiating sadness and fragility, just enough to force the girl to lower her gaze in shame.
"So, do you think you could call someone to give me a tow, or something?"
Damon's eyes darkened as he stepped into her space, his gaze catching hers, holding it in a grip she had no chance to understand.
"Listen, Casey," her name dripped from his lips with hypnotic ease. "I've had a really rough few days and I'm a little out of character, tonight. Normally, I'd help myself to a good portion of your blood and leave you here for some good Samaritan to come along and you wouldn't remember a thing, but the thing is, I'm really not feeling that right now. I just practically handed my girl to my brother and my best friend isn't around to point out the moral high road in this situation." He shrugged softly and lifted a finger to the girl's throat, dragging soft skin down her most vulnerable flesh, smiling with satisfaction as a powerful shiver coursed down her spine. "As such, I'd really like it if you'd come home with me. I'm hungry, hard and miserable, but that kind of turns you on, doesn't it?"
"Turns me on," she repeated obediently, already slipping her hand into his free one.
"Good girl," he murmured appreciatively, turning in the direction of the boarding house and beginning the short walk home.
~~~E~~~
Godddamn fucking Elena fucking Gilbert!
The curse was more a prayer on his soft lips as he lay on his bed, a hand over his eyes, his shirt on the floor, the now naked blonde on her knees, blood trickling down between her generous breasts, wearing the most confused look he'd assumed her pretty little lips had known outside of school.
He cracked open one eye, sighed deeply and caught her gaze. "Get dressed and go back to your car. A tow truck will be there for you soon. None of this happened. All you'll remember is waiting in your car for hours until a passing motorist called for help." He frowned as she didn't move, opening the other eye and raising an eyebrow with expectation. "Hello? That means now."
He couldn't be bothered watching as she retrieved her clothing from various corners of his bedroom. If he were human it would mortify him, his desperate inability to claim the blonde in any way beyond a slow meal. There was a time in his life that he'd have had her screaming for him within minutes of passing over his threshold, before feeding, after feeding, while feeding. Whatever. Stamina had never been an issue. Wasn't an issue.
It's just the strands of hair that filtered through his fingers weren't the colour of the softest walnut bark. The hooded eyes that met his gaze weren't a liquid chocolate abyss. The skin beneath his fingers was too pale, too warm. Everything about Casey was too not Elena. His heart didn't want her. His mind didn't want her. His body wanted her less even than the other two combined. The only one he wanted between his sheets was probably between his brother's right now, and that thought just angered him further.
Note to self: Next time get a brunette.
After a few bottles, it'd be easier to pretend.
He was out of bed and whipping the top off an antique decanter, letting the aged glass shatter against one dark wall as he drank deeply from the stem. He tortured himself, turning his sensitive hearing to the house, listening for the tell-tale gasps and cries that he now knew better than the sound of his own voice. He took no pleasure in the silence that met his intentional eavesdropping; absolute silence meant not even Stefan had returned from the dance, they could be off in a tryst with the original sister for all Damon could tell. The silence spoke volumes for itself, and his imagination was left to run wild.
Damon found himself steeling his runaway emotions against the rise of the sun, expecting much the same conversation with the mediocrely happy couple that he had avoided having only a few weeks prior. Stefan would tell him immediately, pretending he didn't enjoy eviscerating his brother, but that all knowing smirk would scream I told you so behind his painfully gentle words.
They could have each other, he decided suddenly. Fucked if he was going to stick around this time, watch their perfect little world form and shatter, waiting in the shadows for the crumbs Stefan would leave in his wake.
Damon finished the nearly full decanter, swallowing the liquid fire with grace before allowing the glass to join its counterpart in shards on the floor. Rage he could run from; once he was fangs deep in exotic flesh the hot rage would melt into a slow burn with which he could live. The betrayal? Hell, that'd pass too. In a century or so, he and Stefan would be able to converse once more. There wasn't anything the passing of an era couldn't heal. His heart, though? The loss? That would take more time than even he had on Earth. Before she'd come to him, he knew he loved her deeper than anything he'd ever felt in his very long existence, but that one night in her arms? To hear her say she loved him? That destroyed him completely. He was undeniably her slave, taking his place at her feet without a fight. If he didn't leave now, he knew he never would. He'd spend the next five hundred years watching from the sidelines, aching for what he could never have again.
When the alcohol finally hit his brain, just as the sun began to rise on the horizon, Damon found himself staring out into the growing light with impaired vision. The room began to swim violently and he turned away, flopping back onto his bed, one hand over his eyes, the other covering his ears from the sudden invasion of Elena's voice in his mind.
It was an echo of time gone, he supposed, her voice crying to him in the dawn of the day, screaming his name over and over until he clasped his hands over his ears, hiding from the sound.
It tortured him to know that the voice screaming for him wasn't one of ecstasy, but Elena's cry of agony and sheer terror, a sound he could never forgive himself for knowing intimately. As the sun rose to burn hot in the sky, not even the echo of his own voice crying out in misery could silence the horror his mind had conjured.
~~~TBC~~~