I am told that I have shattered your emotions. And that you want more.
Ask and you shall receive.
This particular flashback is a head canon I've had of Damon and Elena for a long time. I'd like to think this could've happened during their summer of love. I have a special weakness for their quiet moments. The ones that no one ever sees. And I'm certain those would be the memories Elena would cling to in his absence.
Proceed with caution my darlings.
Chapter Two: Slow Dancing In A Burning Room
"I have to admit that he touches something deep inside me that makes me shiver - a part of myself even I don't understand."
My dreams have become a terrifying sanctuary.
I fear falling asleep more than anything because of what I am forced to relive. Yet I revel in the pain the flashbacks give me.
They're the only proof I have that he was real. That WE were real.
That our love and our anguish and our passion was a tangible part of my life rather than something I fantasized to survive the original loss of my parents.
Despite how much I yearn for the numb oblivion to accompany the unyielding frost I carry within me, I haven't flipped the switch. I can't. Every part of my body, every instinct I have screams at me to give in to the sweet release of emptiness. I crave the emotionless reprieve like I do blood or oxygen.
But I fight it. I have too.
I won't turn it off.
Twisted as it is, I need the pain. It's a reminder that he was once here, torturous as his absence now is for me.
Above all, I can't bring myself to indulge an existence where I don't love him. And if I turn off my emotions, I won't any longer. Everything I've ever felt for him will fade into nothing as the all consuming vacuum of non humanity envelops me.
Perhaps it would be better if I felt nothing. Perhaps I would function better.
Perhaps I wouldn't be so cold and alone and afraid. Perhaps even the flashbacks would fall away so I could sleep through just one night.
Still I won't turn it off.
I won't forget the way I love him. I refuse to discard what I feel for him in favor of escaping the pain. I can't hide it somewhere I might never find it again. I'm not me if I don't love him and right now, I'm all I have left, even if what I am is a shell of a person frozen to the core by the agony of my despair.
I don't want to forget one second of our time together. Not one fight, not one touch, not one kiss or look or smirk. None of it. I will freeze to death from the inside out before I cave and lock away my love and memories and misery.
I don't know who I am without my love for Damon. I can't just put it away to spare myself pain.
My love for him is the only part of him that is still with me now that he's taken my essence with him to the grave. If his love can no longer lift me up and make me strong and protect me from all I could ever fear, then I must rely on my love for him, or he will fade into nothingness with my emotions.
And I won't allow him to be nothing.
He deserves better. He deserves everything.
Monuments erected in his honor.
Plaques scattered throughout every museum in the world.
Bottles of bourbon stacked to the moon in celebration of him and all that he was.
He deserved the world. I tried to give it to him as he did to me.
I failed. He's gone and I failed and now he'll never know.
He'll never know that he was my life, my everything, my reason for being and choosing to stay immortal and finally accepting myself as a vampire. He'll never know because he's gone. And I'm alone.
But I won't turn it off. I owe him that.
I owe him everything.
I rarely wake up in bed alone anymore. These days I find myself wrapped in a pair of strong arms, and when I open my eyes I am greeted with sweet touches and deep kisses and beautiful cerulean irises that feel like a caress all their own as they look upon me with love.
So I'm a little surprised when I stir in the middle of the night to find his side of the bed empty.
I sit up and run my fingers through my tousled hair once, fighting off the last vestiges of sleep as I puzzle through the mystery of his glaring absence. A glance at the clock tells me it's three thirty in the morning.
What could he possibly be doing up so late? We'd fallen asleep together two hours ago. He doesn't exactly have the most normal sleeping patterns so it's not out of character for him to be awake. But it is out of character for him to not be here with me even if he is.
Curiosity peaked I utilize my heightened vampire senses to hunt him down in this exceptionally large house. I stretch my hearing as far and wide as the house is long, careful to acknowledge even the softest of sounds for a hint of what I'm looking for. Just like he taught me.
I finally catch the strains of music playing quietly in the front living room. It's a gentle sort of song. Strangely melancholy and sweet with no words and only one instrument.
The piano.
He's playing the piano.
I freeze immediately, not daring to move or breathe for fear his own incredible hearing will discover that I'm awake and eavesdropping on him. I hold stock still with my legs tucked under me and the sheet just reaching to cover the top of my naked chest. And I listen.
I knew he played. He mentioned it to me once offhandedly when I asked if the piano was just for show or if anyone actually used it. At the time I just accepted it as another relevant detail of his complex history.
He played the piano, or knew how to at least. He never told me when he learned, or how, or why he only sat on that bench occasionally to pass the time when he was alone.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Typical Damon.
I listened harder, determined not to miss a note of the darkly romantic piece he was unknowingly gracing me with. The song sounded familiar, and yet altogether obscure and mysterious, like a beautiful sort of deja vu shrouded in a minor key that only exists in the dead of night.
Like Damon himself. A shadowy force of dark and twisted impulses mired in heartbreak and passion and vicious love. He was something like this song when we first met on that abandoned road. Familiar to deep, unthinkable corners of my soul, but still a stranger to my conscious mind. I remember wondering why I felt so comfortable opening up to that gorgeous enigma of a man with his leather jacket and far too suggestive smirk.
Perhaps that was why he was playing this song. Perhaps he felt the same things when we met.
Perhaps he was feeling nostalgic tonight.
My own nostalgia for the meeting I never knew of until six months ago propelled me from the bed none too quietly. I quickly scoured the floor of the room for the remnants of any clothes from earlier, but as usual barely anything was salvageable.
A month into our time as an official couple where no one's feelings were in doubt and nothing was trying to come between us and we still couldn't manage to make it into bed without tearing something off of each other. I suppose that was mostly my fault. I had an addictive predilection for ripping Damon's shirts in the heat of the moment.
I couldn't help it. Anytime we started to lose ourselves my brain shifted into sex autopilot, a setting I wasn't aware I possessed until my first night with Damon. When he kisses me my thoughts fade into oblivion, leaving nothing but sensation and instinct and this overwhelming love and lust and need that I have no control over.
So I rip his shirts. Because I need him closer as fast as possible. Because the feel of his hands and his lips is not enough. I need more. Always more with him.
I glanced down at myself as I headed for the door, realizing I was wearing much the same thing as I had been the morning after our first time. I'd waltzed out of Damon's bathroom clad in my bra and panties, covered only by his black button down from the previous night. Tonight the only difference was in color; rather than black, the makeshift ensemble was a deep navy blue.
And I know he loves me in blue.
I smile to myself as I hit the landing, pleased to hear that he hasn't stopped playing despite the fact that he knows I'm awake by now. I haven't been loud, but he hears everything no matter how silent I attempt to be. He's so in tune with his heightened vampire senses that trying to sneak up on him is futile.
So I don't bother being stealthy. I also don't rush. He's still playing that same slow, seductive song tinged in gloomy mystery. I find myself prancing down the stairs to its tempo, leisurely and gentle, with an unfathomable purpose that lingers at the edge of consciousness.
When I reach the doorway of the living room I wait, leaning against the wall and watching him as he plays. The room is dark apart from the light of the fire in the grate against the far wall. He's shirtless, in nothing but his dark jeans, his back muscles flexing ever so slightly, his hair in a casual disarray.
I note with amusement that he could probably use a haircut.
The song starts to wind down, growing softer and slower as he takes a sip of his bourbon and I realize he's playing this masterpiece one handed. If this is what it sounds like with half the notes I can't even imagine how beautiful the full piece must be.
Show off.
With that thought I push off the wall and walk to stand behind him, wrapping both arms around his neck and pressing my lips into his messy hair.
"What song is this?" I finally ask as I rest my chin on the crown of his head.
"One of Chopin's Nocturnes. It sounds even creepier in its entirety." I can hear the smirk in his voice. As the song comes to a close, he brings his glass to his lips and finishes off his bourbon before setting it on top of the piano.
"It's not creepy. It's beautiful."
"Are you talking about me or the song?" He cranes his neck back to look at me with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows. I fight my smile and lose miserably, leaning forward to press a kiss to his upside down lips.
"Definitely the song," I whisper before I pull away.
He just laughs and winks at me. The smug bastard.
I walk around the bench slowly, coming to stand between his jean clad legs. His hands immediately reach for my hips and pull me closer, his eyes roaming over the sight of me in his shirt. The smile that graces his lips is content, something so soft and sweet and peaceful you'd never dare suspect it would ever be seen on Damon Salvatore.
I know he's only smiling like that because it's me. Me standing between him and his antique piano. Me living in his house and sharing his bed. Me wearing his shirt, stroking the skin of his cheeks with my thumbs.
And that knowledge sends a thrill through my bones that I can't suppress. It makes me feel powerful, beautiful, wanted.
Most of all, it makes me feel loved.
I don't know how he manages that actually. Making me feel loved and desired and protected with his eyes and his smile and his touch. I've never experienced that before. With Matt or Stefan, words had been needed. Whispers of sweet nothings and gestures of epic love were par for the course. Especially with Stefan.
None of that is necessary with Damon. I feel every ounce of his love and passion for me with just a look into his gorgeous ocean eyes or a momentary brush of his hand over my hair or my cheek.
It's one of my favorite things about being his girlfriend.
My stomach flips in happiness with that thought. I never dreamed we'd be here, together, like this.
But here we are.
I glance up at his eyes to find him watching me thoughtfully. Suddenly assaulted with a need to be closer to him, I move to straddle his lap on the piano bench, wrapping my arms around his neck again.
"What has you awake playing hauntingly beautiful music at three in the morning?" I ask as my fingers start to play with the hair at the back of his neck.
He doesn't answer right away. His hands shift from my hips to rest on the outside of my bare thighs.
I look and find his eyes are on my legs, and my own follow suit as I wait for him to respond.
"I wasn't going to play. I don't really anymore. But I came down for a drink and I sat down at this bench and started fiddling with the keys, which somehow morphed into that song."
I couldn't place his mood. He was so pensive and quiet as he said it. It was unfamiliar to me.
"Why don't you play anymore?" I had no idea what he was feeling but I was determined to find out.
He huffed out a breath. Again I couldn't tell if he was upset or just unnaturally calm.
"I haven't made it a habit to stay in one place like this for years Elena. I haven't had a home in a long time. This is new to me. Building a life with someone. Being with someone I want to be with and having them feel the same."
He stated this all like pure fact. His voice was completely neutral, betraying no emotion.
I didn't buy it.
I curled my index finger under his chin and coaxed him to look at me. When his eyes met mine I tried to find the source of his bizarre and unplaceable mood.
After a minute I asked him again. "So why don't you play anymore?"
His left hand came up and tucked a stray hair behind my ear.
"I haven't had anyone to play for." He said this with a hint of a smile, a little of his trademark playfulness bleeding back into his voice and his eyes.
But for some reason those words made me want to cry. In the haze of our happy month as a couple I'd forgotten he'd never had this before. He'd waited over a century to have a life and a home with the woman he loved only to find out she'd never reciprocated his devotion.
And it gave me a savage sort of pleasure to know I'd taken something from her when I shoved the cure down her throat. Just as she'd taken something from him. Nothing should ever be taken from him. Especially not his capacity for love.
Although in the long run, it was better that she didn't want him as he did her. Because she didn't deserve to be looked at like Damon was looking at me now. She had no right to hear him play such sweet, sad songs in the middle of the night. She was unworthy of his consuming passion and dangerous desire.
I was almost grateful to her for her inability to see what I see in Damon. I'd much rather be the one to give him the love he'd always craved. I wasn't sure I could stomach seeing her relish in his attentions.
I wanted to revel in his love. In our love.
I leaned forward to brush our lips together before resting my forehead against his own.
"You can play for me whenever you like," I breathed into the space between us. "Maybe even with both hands next time."
He laughed under his breath and tugged me a bit closer on his lap. "I'll remember that," he whispered back.
We were quiet for a minute, my hands still twirling the ends of his hair, his stroking the backs of my thighs so softly I swear I felt tingles all the way to my toes.
He finally pulled back and gave me an appraising look before reaching behind his head and grabbing my right hand in his left. Drawing it between us, he dragged his thumb over my knuckles, stopping at my daylight ring briefly.
"Dance with me?" he asked with barely a twitch in his eyebrows and a kiss to the back of my hand.
I swooned. And smiled like a shy, lovestruck schoolgirl, nodding my acceptance.
It all felt strangely familiar. And yet entirely new.
He put his hands back on my hips, set me on my feet, stood up and grabbed my hand again to lead me to the fireplace.
Our fireplace.
The site of so many fights and pleasures and intimacies. The blazing backdrop for moments of honesty and passion between us.
Like our first night together. Or the beginnings of it, at least.
He took my hand in his sweet and cautious, just as he had that night. We'd slow danced to nothing but the crackle of the flames and the beating of our dead hearts before we finally erased our last physical boundary line, indulging in some fire of our own.
That night had been filled with emotion. Uncertainty and anxiety and even sadness, but also acceptance and love and truth, and so much desire I still tremble at the memory of it.
This night was emotional too. But not because we were jumping headfirst into the treacherous waters of our overzealous passion. This time we weren't traversing unexplored terrain.
This time we were savoring the more familiar nature of our mutual ardor.
He held me close to him, hand curled around mine like they were made for each other, temples resting together, eyes closed in comfort and bliss.
There was nothing like dancing with Damon. Although there was nothing like anything with Damon. Every experience, no matter how commonplace, seemed to pulse with intensity and power and excitement. Everything that happened with or around Damon was somehow unique to Damon. Always.
Dancing was no exception. He was so comfortable with himself physically. And it showed.
Only Damon could be arrogant and confident in movement.
It wasn't off-putting though. It was soothing in the strangest way. It made me feel so safe, knowing he had such control and awareness in every situation.
Peculiar, considering he's naturally impulsive.
I felt him shift his hand smoothly from my waist up my spine and into my wild hair, drawing my forehead from his own and bringing it to his lips for a moment before tucking it into the curve of his neck and shoulder. I smiled contently and pressed my lips there.
As we swayed to no rhythm but our own by the fire, I couldn't help but wonder if this was inevitable. If we were always going to end up here, like this, wrapped around each other physically, mentally and emotionally, not one without the other. If we'd been running towards this - towards each other - from the beginning.
I think we were. We were meant to be here, to be together, now.
Slow dancing in a burning room.