"Damon? Are you home?"

Elena walked into the boarding house, glancing around. No one had answered when she knocked. But his car was outside.

"Damon?"

She peeked her head into the parlor to find it empty. Her eyes widened in fear when she saw the broken glass by the fireplace, and noticed the drained bottle of bourbon. Never a good sign. Never.

"Damon?" she called again, fear creeping into her voice. "Damon, I know you're here. Where are you?"

She stormed up the stairs and opened his bedroom door. It was dark; all the curtains had been drawn, plunging the room into startling darkness. "Damon?" she asked again.

She then heard the faintest sloshing of water coming from the bathroom, and walked over to the entrance to Damon's bathroom.

She gasped and turned quickly; Damon was lounging in his bathtub, filled with its usual bubbles, drinking wine, looking upset. Slowly, she turned back around.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" he asked, taking a drink, "I'm drowning my sorrows. In more than one way. Excuse me…"

He then dunked his head under the water, blowing out all of the air until water began to crawl down his throat.

Elena gasped in horror when she heard the gurgling sounds he was making, and she ran forward without thinking, grabbing him under the arms and pulling him back up; it was all too easy. He must really be drunk.

He coughed and sputtered for a few minutes, and then groaned. "What did you do that for?"

"You were trying to drown yourself!" Elena cried in horror.

"So? I'm already dead. What difference would it make?" he asked, taking another drink.

Feeling confused, and a bit hurt, Elena grabbed his drink from him and put it on the counter, frowning. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me?" he asked, sitting up in the water and frowning. "You aren't in love with anyone. You have more important things than love to worry about right now."

Her eyes widened. "You were listening?"

"Yes, I was listening! While sitting in a restaurant full of humans, and possessing the quality of super hearing, I was obviously going to choose to listen to someone and not just kill myself from all the noise. But I didn't like what I heard. Now, can I have my drink back, please?"

"No. You can't. Damon… I just didn't want Bonnie to know…"

"Or Alaric, or anyone else. Are you really that ashamed, Elena? Are you ashamed that you care about me?"

"Damon, please…" she whispered.

He felt his stomach plunge. "You are. I knew it! Why would you lead me on like that, Elena? Just to make me feel like your little bitch in public…"

"What?" she gasped, taking a wounded step backwards.

"Don't try to pretend that it isn't true. You don't want anyone to know how you feel about me, because you're afraid they'll judge you. Well, do you know what, Elena? When you care about someone, you have to make sacrifices to be with them. I have made countless sacrifices for you; now it's your turn. All I ask of you is something as simple as telling people how you feel. You can't even do that."

He glared and lied back in the water again.

Elena's eyes were watering. "Damon, that isn't fair…"

"What isn't fair is how you treat me, Elena! One second you're kissing me, and the next you don't want to be seen with me. It's two-faced and cruel. So, make up your mind. Either you want me or you don't. You don't get both privileges anymore."

"Everyone will hate me, Damon! You have no idea what it's like to be in love with your ex's brother…!" she trailed off, her eyes widening.

A grin tugged at Damon's lips. "In love?"

She blushed. "It slipped out…"

"Is it true?"

She stood quietly for a moment. Then, she whispered, "Yes."

He raised his eyebrows. "Then it looks like you have a choice to make, Miss Gilbert."

"Damon, please…"

He moved to stand up, but paused and pointed behind her. "Hand me that towel, would you?"

She turned and tossed the fleecy red towel to him and he stood up, wrapping it around his waist, getting out of the bathtub. "Why don't you go downstairs and… think it over? I need to get dressed."

He staggered a bit when he walked into his bedroom, and Elena frowned as she followed him. "You're drunk. This isn't fair…"

"How is the fact that I'm drunk make it any less or more fair for you? It's the truth! You need to decide…"

"It isn't fair, because you wouldn't be saying any of this to me if you were sober!" she was starting to cry now, and she looked away in humiliation.

"Oh, don't cry." Damon complained. "Now that; that isn't fair."

"Just forget it. Just forget I even came here…" she said, storming out of his room.

"Forget it? What am I supposed to do, compel myself?"

The next thing he knew, she was storming back in again and was in his face in an instant, jabbing her finger at his chest. "You are an ass. Do you know that? Only a true ass would make me decide how to act on my feelings for him when I haven't completely gotten over Stefan yet. That isn't fair, Damon. It's not fair and, drunk or not, you know it just as well as I do. The only different your alcohol consumption makes is whether or not you keep your big mouth shut about it."

"And there it is. One second you're yelling that you're in love with me, and the next you're calling me an ass and a big mouth. Make up your damn mind, Elena!"

She shook her head in disgust. "Go to hell, Damon."

He stuttered as she walked away, trying to think of something witty to throw back at her. Evidently, drunkenness limited his comeback supply.

"Well… why don't you just… why don't you just… oh, for the love of… Elena! Elena, come back!"

He rushed out after her, and his eyes widened when he noticed she was nearly out the door. "No. No, Elena, wait…!"

He ran, at a human pace; yet another effect of today's drunkenness. When he got to the top of the stairs, he called out for her again as he rushed down. "Elena, don't go…! Shit…!"

Due to the fact that he hadn't bothered to dry him off at all, his wet feet slipped on the smooth, polished hardwood floor and he flew forward, tumbling loudly as he rolled, smashed, and fell down the stairs. When he finally hit the floor at the bottom, he cried out; he had smashed into a table with flowers at the foot of the stairs, and it had shattered with his force, sending one of the legs piercing straight into his stomach. He curled in on himself in agony.

"Elena… Elena…!"

"Oh, my God…" she gasped, rushing to his side; blood was flowing down his abs from the puncture wound, and he moaned. "Get it out… please get it out… Elena…"

"Sh, sh, shh… don't move, alright? Just hold… still…!" she got a firm hold on the leg and yanked it sharply out, causing him to cry out again.

He wrapped his arms around himself, his eyes bulging.

"Here… drink my blood." She said, offering him her wrist.

"No… no, I can't…"

"Don't be an idiot! Drink it, Damon!"

"Elena, I am not drinking you bl-ahh! Ahhhhh….!" He rolled over in agony and Elena felt herself going pale in terror.

"Damon, please. Just drink my blood! Please…"

"Blood bags… get me blood bags…!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

Furious that he wouldn't accept her offer, she decided she was going to have to force him to drink from her. Rolling him onto his back, she grabbed the leg that had stabbed Damon and, looking away, put it to her wrist.

"No…! Don't you dare do that…! How stupid are you…?" he snapped at her.

She glared at him. "Oh, shut up."

With that, she swiftly tore it across the fine skin, gasping when she felt the blood begin to flow rapidly out.

"Elena, you idiot…!" he cried at her, horrified by the sight of the blood pooling on the floor.

She ignored the pain and shoved her wrist into his mouth.

At first, Damon refused to swallow, reaching for her arm in attempt to push it away. Angrily, she got on top of him and held his mouth open, letting her blood trickle into his mouth and down his throat.

He coughed his eyes wide with horror. But soon they began to change to the menacing red of a hunter closing in on the kill, and his fangs extended.

"Elena, don't do this… I don't want to hurt you…" Damon practically sobbed.

She shook her head. "I trust you."

When he still didn't reach for her wrist, she sighed. "Damon, I love you. Don't do this to me…"

"I'd rather die than feed on you…"

She started to cry. "Don't even say that…"

"It's… the truth…"

She could see his eyes growing dimmer, and terror took her over. "Well, I don't care."

She grabbed his face again, but this time she kissed him. More fiercely than ever before, and full of the emotion she was feeling. Damon responded with a moan, and Elena felt his fangs touch her lower lip. Pulling away, she moved her hair to the side. If the starving hunter saw the most delicious feeding spot, willingly exposed…

Just as she had moped, he moved his lips to her neck, starting simply by kissing her, and then she gasped when she felt his fangs sink into her skin. At first, all she could think about was the pain. The pain of his teeth cutting into her throat, and then the drawing out of her blood… but then it became… pleasant. Relaxing into his arms, which were slowly wrapping around her as his strength returned, she gave a shaky sigh of pleasure. Damon responded with a throaty growl, flipping over with startling speed so that she was beneath him. Part of her was thanking God that the towel had managed to stay intact through it all, but another part of her wanted to rip it from his waist and scream for him to take her.

But, at the moment, the most prominent part of her was screaming at her that she was dying. Dying of far too much blood loss. What with her wrist still bleeding profusely, and Damon drinking deeply from her neck, she was slowly bleeding out.

"Damon…" she whispered weakly, and he pulled his lips, smeared with her blood, away from her neck. When he saw her dim expression, his eyes widened and, surprisingly quickly, returned to their regular blue. "Oh, no…" he whispered through his fangs.

Without thinking he tore into his own wrist and fed her enough of his blood to bring her back to a healthy color. He then picked her up and carried her over to the couch, before he ran to the basement and tore into several blood bags, draining them. Not because he needed them himself, but because he needed to create more of his own blood to feed Elena. She was dying, and it was all because she had been stubborn and stupid enough to force him to drink her blood from two access points…

Tossing the empty blood bag to the floor, he punched an angry hole into the brick wall, watching the dust and rubble fall. He made an angry noise before racing back upstairs and pulling Elena into his lap, tearing open his wrist and forcing her to drink more.

It took a solid twenty minutes for her to return to her original state.

"You are such an idiot…" he breathed to her breathlessly as her brown eyes stared up at him.

She frowned in confusion. "You aren't drunk anymore."

"Yeah, well, blood loss tends to sober a person up a bit. Elena, why would you do that? I nearly killed you…"

She reached her hand up and stroked his black hair.

"I did it because I love you."

He buried his face in her hair. "You are so stupid…"

"I'm sorry…"

"Oh, don't apologize! It was my fault in the first place. I eavesdropped, and got crazy… and you had to save me. Again."

She smiled. "Technically, we saved each other."

He gave a small laugh from in her hair. "Sure, let's all join the Make Damon Feel Better About Being an Ass parade again…"

She giggled and kissed him. "I'll be a part of that parade any day."

He frowned when he looked up at her. "Are you saying I'm an ass, Miss Gilbert?"

She laughed. "Yes, you are possibly the biggest ass I know."

He looked a bit hurt. "Harsh."

She smiled. "But I love you anyway."

He smiled. "Duly noted."

"But, do you know what?"

"What?"

"I love you a lot more when you're wearing pants."

He rolled his eyes, grinning. "You would be the first…"

She raised an eyebrow when he stood up and started for the stairs. "Cocky much?"

He snorted. "Caroline much?"

She squinted and threw a pillow at him, which he let hit him in the face. "Guess I deserved that one."

"Yes, you did."

"Now, you're absolutely sure you want me to put pants on? You're not going to develop a bunch of sexual frustration while I'm upstairs and change your mind, right?"

She frowned. "Go."

"Alright, I'm going!"

He disappeared around the corner and Elena called, "Don't fall this time!"

She gasped when he was in front of her again, his face an inch away from hers. "Sweetheart, I fell three years ago. The trouble is, I can't get up."

She smiled softly. "Cheesy, Mr. Salvatore."

"Was it? I was hoping it would be sweet."

"It might have been sweet if you had pants on."

"If I get dressed and then come back, will it be sweet then?"

"We'll see."