A/N: Damon. Elena. One bed. 5,724 words. You're welcome :) Peri, this one is for you! I hope you all like!

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Mistaken Observations: You Must Have Missed It; You Always Do

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By some force that she was sure was not her own, Elena sat precisely stagnant, denying allowance of her labored breaths to exhale from her aching lungs. She was trying to persuade herself that if she proceeded to act like she was unnoticeable, then Damon would simply overlook her existence and fall back into his peaceful slumber. But, just like often times, she had not counted one two very possible things: Damon being a self-aware vampire (and of course this would entail that he was a very light sleeper,) and him also having his trusty super-sight that she found herself jealous of on more than one account. She left out the bit where she knew Damon could smell her out in a sea of two billion people; she didn't think it was very important information when her world felt in danger of imploding from within her.

But his eyes never wavered from hers and they burned brighter than anything she had ever seen before. They were promising her things. They were promising her illicit things, and things of the future, and the dark things…and the light things. And she found herself unconsciously wanting all of it. She wanted to know what the forbidden fruit tasted like, because she knew that something that tasted sinfully good was prohibited for just that reason. Because it was delicious.

"What are you doing, Elena?"

His voice carried over in the thick, heady air between them, ghosting around her eyelids and creeping towards her neck, down her chest, and to her frantically beating heat. Between the fogginess that was her brain, she hysterically thought that this was what compulsion felt like. But only this time, it was her body and mind telling her to do wanton things, telling her to do non-Elena-like things. This wasn't anything like compulsion- this was possession.

She didn't know that she was doing, because all she did know was that his lips suddenly looked fuller, and that her fingers were twitching by her side, eager to touch, or do, or both, and when he looked at her, it was like thousands of memories were just bustling around her, and they were just about ready to escape…and there was suddenly every part of her that was tense with implications.

"You're attracted to him in all his bad-brother glory…"

Her breath left in a whoosh, and it felt like the most final and panicky sound she had ever even heard before. His eyes and that damned body were planting painful seeds into her mind, and all she could get herself to think of was, just once. An unexpected rush came over her, and in front of her heated and boiling form, Damon was looking, waiting, wondering at her with half frenzied eyes, saying so much more than he would be able to with real words.

He wanted her. He always had. She just had never realized it for what it truly was.

This was hard for him, unbelievably so. He wanted to take her, because his heart ached. And his heart ached, because there was so much that he was being denied of. He wanted this life experience, but nothing was right.

(Nothing was ever right anymore.)

And all she did was just lie there, trying to find answers that would never come in the hard planes of his chest. It was still and un-moving and she thought he had never looked more beautiful.

But his exquisiteness was scarred and beaten until there was nothing left but a lonely version of his former self. Elena was never taught to love the broken man because that was what never happened in fairy tales, and those where the rules that every girl lived by. Was her life created with visions of white flowers and glowing, shining armor, and the capacity to love under colossal castles?

No, but she pretended that it was. In reality, her prince didn't even know she existed anymore, and his wicked brother could suddenly seduce her with his well-placed words and unwilling capacity to say the right things at the entirely wrong time.

And, in the end of it all, it never would have worked. She was cursed, after all. But maybe cursed was better than nothing at all. This way, she knew she had something to live for, and she always had been a fighter.

Elena tried with a feeble attempt to get the words unstuck from the back of her throat, but every time they seemed to be making their way out, more jumbled up thoughts clogged the way. They weren't even words- they were confessions trying to reshape themselves so they would be able to escape the ramblings of her mind.

She didn't know what she was trying to tell him or what exactly there was to tell, but it was burning furiously, so she knew that it had to have been significant than she was letting on.

"Elena," he repeated carefully, "what are you doing?"

From somewhere deep inside her, her conscience was yelling at him to just shut up. She needed time to think, to straighten her thoughts out before they got the best of her. Because the truth was that she didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know why or who she was living for, didn't want to know what horrible things were going on during this time of night, and she didn't know who she loved or who she was loved by.

"Trying to figure things out," she whispered, but her voice was all wrong. She sounded lost and like she was desperately not in control of her own body. He tried not to notice how her eyes were hollowed out.

But the thing Damon couldn't seem to ignore was the fact that this was going on the third time they had shared a bed together. Whether it was because she was comforted by his presence or because she felt severely detached from Stefan and Damon himself was the closest thing she had to him (he brutally detested the latter,) it still had the same effect on him.

There were other, much more appealing, ways to part that bed, though. He didn't want to share it with her not knowing what she was thinking about. He wanted the words to pour from her pouty lips, and he wanted her hands to flicker over him like they belonged there, and he wanted know if she would make the same breathy moans she had when Stefan still hovered around her and watched her every move. It was parasitic the way he used her like that, he knew that without questioning, but he found himself needing to know if she sounded as good in the bedroom as she did just talking to him..

And, as it turned out, she sounded better.

Then, he was ashamed to say, there was no going back after that. He tried to stop himself listening to her when she was showering, but after a while, he simply just stopped deflecting. The sounds that emitted from Stefan's bedroom night after painful night were already hard to ignore, but when he added the fact that there was an actual purpose to it after a short amount of time, he let himself indulge completely to the noises he wished he could make Elena Gilbert cry.

It was narcissistic and it was depraved of all things decent, and all he could listen to at night anymore was the resonances of her crying.

And maybe that was the reason he let her stay in his bed when she found herself willing. If she wasn't as broken as he was, then he would have stopped it months ago. But it was in the way she rarely laughed anymore, and the way she had practically no family left besides Jeremy, that had him welcoming the contact like a horny teenager.

Because, not only did he want her, he also craved her. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it but wonder…

…And wait. If he wasn't such a fatalist, he would have stopped waiting a long time ago, ripping it off like a Band-Aid. He had waited for Katherine for most of his miserable life, and when she somehow managed to screw all that up, he looked towards Elena.

This reminded him of the myth of the Phoenix. The majestic bird would first die, and then he would rise from the ocean just to be reborn again. But, just as he would start to fly, his body would suddenly dissolve into ashes. And this process would go on until the end of time…maybe even longer. The Phoenix could not move forward; it was in an endless cycle of not getting anything done. It was sad, really.

And that was where Damon was now. He wasn't getting anything done; he was sitting back and watching things take form and further evolve into something too big for him to swallow. And he would have liked to have taken what he wanted from the beginning, but, according to Elena, he was a changed man. He wouldn't- couldn't- just ravage and shed blood anymore. And he almost found himself not even wanting to.

He would do anything to keep Elena happy, of course. Because now, his whole life revolved around the teenage girl without him even realizing it at first. She seemingly had the power to melt a vampire with one flash of those chocolate orbs, and he cursed himself for following along with whatever she wanted to do. She was like a spoiled child whose parents had gotten whatever she wanted, and the trait had followed suit when she had grown into a women.

"And what things would you be trying to figure out?" His voiced sounded chocked on the way out, like it was being forced out by something beyond him. He didn't think he could control his words anymore; he was simply tired of all this denying, when it didn't even get him anywhere in the first place. He noted that he was the first one to break the excruciating silence between the two of them.

Elena didn't know how to respond to this. There was a flurry of things that she was trying to figure out. Things like: why did Katherine not love you, and why do you find yourself having feelings for me, and are your eyes really as blue as they seem, and why do I have these mixed-up feelings for you when I should hate you? There were other things also; things she had been wondering ever since she had met him.

Do you really have the capacity to love again, or am I just delusional?

No, she didn't think she was being delusional, and she was not being blinded by love because she did not love Damon-

Elena suddenly halted, stopping her thoughts where they were. Everything was being put on a stand-still now, and the silence was so loud that it hurt not only her ears, but also the marrow in her bones.

There was something there in the corners of her mind, something that she had promised herself after she had come to find out that vampires and all other mythical creatures were very real and living in the world around her. She had promised herself that she would never- no matter how much she wanted to- lie to herself. And she had figured out soon after that it was easier said than done.

So, yes, maybe there was that tiny part of her that loved Damon, she at least had the decency to admit that, but it wasn't the same way she would have feelings for a lover. But it wasn't sisterly feeling either. Sisterly feelings would entail that you could accidently see each other naked without feeling in danger of exploding and then blushing furiously, and after her own little experience with a half-naked Damon, it was safe to say that there was nothing 'sisterly' about her feelings.

Elena looked over to Damon, carefully avoiding those piercing eyes. "I was hoping you could tell me. There are a lot of things I'm trying to figure out." There are a lot of things I need to figure out.

"Is that why I find you sleeping in my bed half the time?" Damon quipped, trying to find a way to hide his obvious arousal. Sometimes he thought that this was all too much.

If Elena hadn't already been in such a compromising situation, she would have found herself flushing from the tips of her toes all the way to her ears. In the direction this was going, Damon was going to think she was truly pathetic by the end of the night.

So, she did what anybody would do in this predicament. She didn't say anything. Nothing at all. And Damon just let her, turning his body to face hers.

And she tried not to feel like it meant anything to her, but the way he was leaning in, and the way his raven hair shown in the moons path of light, and the way his lips were pursed just so- like he was desperately wanting to say something to her- was soon going to be her un-doing. She was riding a tidal wave of emotions just by looking at him, and having him this close was making her heart beat in short and pert, spastic stutters. It felt dimly like a monster was trying to claw its way out of her chest, harsh and stinging, like a cut from a steal knife.

It felt dimly like she was seeing Damon Salvatore in a new light.

He had always been a sadistic killer in a leather jacket, and a striking face with features that one could ever forget. And it was the dark mask of no emotion on his face as he torn your organs out of your stomach, or the way his lips twisted in a power hungry smirk as the blood left your entire body until you were as good as a corn husk. Or it could have been the way he used your body for multiple things including wicked sex and terror and the fear in the realization that the lines between lust and fear was such a fine line. That Damon still lingered there, she knew. Just because he had not torn her pretty, little throat out yet didn't mean that he had actually changed. Because to say that one had changed meant that they liked it. But she liked to comfort herself with the thought that he had very much enjoyed it.

And seeing Damon like this, all bare chested and half asleep, made her want to do crazy things. She wanted to tell him her whole life story, what her old life used to be like, and the first time she had tried her first- and last- cigarette. She wanted to tell him how Caroline and Bonnie had become her best friends, and why she ended up with six stiches in her knee one summer. And she wanted to tell him why she kissed him the night she thought she had lost him forever. And she did have a reason this time, but the conversation was still a tender one, and she didn't want to ruin this perfect silence.

And she knew, better than anyone, that perfect things could never last forever, because they were never even perfect to begin with. In time, Klaus would come back for her, maybe even in a few days, and she would end up dead with a pool of blood surrounding her frame. It was depressing and an ugly thing to realize, but that didn't make it any less true. And the thought that someday Damon was going to lose her, had her gripping the downy comforter she was currently perched upon. She grasped the fact that one of these nights could be her last, and maybe that is why she said what she did.

"Damon," she called out into the dark, watching as her breath floated in the air above them. "I think I should tell you something; I think you deserve to know it."

Damon wanted nothing more than to just disappear in thin air along with her words, because he didn't want to hear it. Whatever she wanted to say, anything that she was determined to get out, was just going to make things worse. In the morning, she would feel guilty about all of her confessions. He knew this because they had been in situations like this before, as he was always reminded of. And she always ran away from him and denied everything she had said the night before, and it was going to kill him if she managed to do it again.

He perfumed skin wafted into nose as he inhaled, mentally preparing himself for round one-thousand. Hopefully, he thought, they would just be done with this soon. Elena was driving him wildly insane with all her vague non- answers. "Alright, go on."

Elena tried not to frown at his words; she would have liked him being a touch more enthusiastic about all of this, but she was going to have to use what she was offered. So, instead of telling him what she desperately needed to say, she asked him a thoughtful question, "Have you ever thought about your future?" It wasn't ideally what she wanted to start out with, but at least she had gotten something out there for him to hear.

Damon almost scoffed at her words, but he didn't think it very appropriate given the tense mood dangling in the room. His response, just like his thoughts, were sharp and to the point without a moment of hesitation in between breaths. "No. Not once."

Had this meant that he never thought about a future with her? No, he had never just simply thought about a future with her; he had dreamed about a future with her.

And Elena tried her best not to feel personally offended by his retort, but she still felt it slip past her heavy defenses. It made her wonder what he really thought about in all his spare time if it wasn't all about the time he had ahead of him.

"But, why?" She found herself asking. "Don't you want to know what your life's going to turn out like?"

And once again, he said, "No," and then he added, "I have a feeling I'm not going to like how my life turns out, so I try not to think too hard about it." He didn't add the part about how his future was never going to contain her in it, and he felt like that fact hurt more than her words ever would.

Elena knew that Damon didn't want to be pitied over, so she tried her hardest not to let it show through her face. But Damon thought he was bad, and that unsettled her because she knew otherwise. She knew what was behind that cold exterior of a vampire and it was nothing even remotely sinister. Elena would not let him think that his actions defined him as a person.

"You know what?" She said, giving him a full-on look into his tired eyes, "I don't think I believe you, Damon. I think you wonder a lot about your future."

To be honest, Damon didn't expect her to believe him at all. Elena was quick to judge and she seemed to always know when he was lying, even if he had mastered the art of deception over a hundred years ago. She said she could see the truth in his eyes. This unnerved him because Katherine could never do that. But Katherine had never loved him at all, so maybe that was the reason.

Making sure Elena was looking away from him, Damon quietly shook his head. He wasn't going to pretend that Elena loved him just because she seemed to know when he was lying. He had stopped indulging himself with those thoughts months ago. He had been doing quite a good job with it until Elena had recently ripped the top off a new set of emotions.

"Your right," Damon admitted after a couple moments of equally shared silence, "I do think a lot about the future. But I don't think you want to hear it because it's not a good one. There's never a good ending for my kind."

Elena was going to protest against that, but her reply died before it could even leave her throat. He was right; he was always right. There was never going to be a happy ending for him, for them, or for anybody who had found themselves involved.

"What," he chided softly, "you have no comment to that?"

She really didn't, but she also didn't want to give Damon the satisfaction of hearing it leave her mouth. She would have sounded like she was giving up, and that was the one thing she hoped never happened. Maybe that was what her own forthcoming entailed- a whole burden to bare that involved giving up and not getting anything done. Maybe Stefan would still be out there, still looking seventeen, and still torturing pretty girls with his trusty master to call the shots. Maybe Damon would still be out there, frozen forever at twenty-three, and still being as lost as he was before. There was no possible way to tell. Maybe they would all just turn up dead.

"Do you ever think about your future?" She heard Damon ask, and she smiled once again, leaving her gripping fears back in the darkest parts of her mind.

"All the time," she replied, and she really did mean it this time, more than anything did she mean it. "In my future, Klaus is dead-"

Damon interrupted her. "And you're back with Stefan." It wasn't a question; he knew what the answer would be. He always knew.

But Elena couldn't help but hesitate in her response. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see Stefan in her picture perfect future. And maybe that was because no vampires existed in her picture perfect future. That almost depressed her- she was used to them by now- but it also made a tidal wave of relief wash throughout her. A world without vampires would be a much safer world- maybe a little less exciting, but still much safer.

"I don't know," she found herself saying, "I mean…I think so. I'm really just not sure."

If Damon was surprised at what she said, he didn't show it at all. His face remained impassive and as stony like as a boulder. But above all, he looked tired. Maybe she was just wearing him down physically and literally.

"Do you want me to leave you alone? Do you want to sleep?" But there were so many unsaid things behind those questions. Do you want me to stay by you always? Do you want me to never leave this bed? Do you just want me to get on with my life even if it is doomed?

And it seemed that Damon almost grasped those unspoken interrogations. And he replied with a simple, "No. I like talking to you."

And Elena didn't know why this meant to so much to her, but it did; it really did. And she really couldn't explain why, but water was starting to flood her tear ducts, hot and watery and steady. All she could think about was how they were in this together. She had lost her love and he had lost his brother, but the war was raging forward and they were missing out on it.

Damon didn't do anything to stop her tears because she would have away swatted him away even if he had. They worked that way a lot because it wasn't supposed to be him taking care of her. And she wished more than anything that she would just let him.

So, Elena was going to make it up to him with words. "I think I like talking to you, too." And then she said even more quietly, "I think I just like being with you."

Damon went back to the time he was dying on this same bed, where Elena was saying similar things of how much she liked him just the way her was. He had gained something that night: a new respect and love towards Elena. But he had also lost something that night, and he would possibly never let that go; he didn't think Elena could either.

"Never thought you would be saying that to me, now did you?" Damon asked, and then watched as Elena's face broke into a small grin of relief.

He wasn't pushing her away, and she needed that that most. She was usually the one pushing him away.

"I've been meaning to say a lot of things to you lately, so this doesn't come as a big surprise to me."

"And what have you been meaning to tell me?" Damon cringed as his voice wavered slightly at the end; she was making it so damn easy to become hopeful again.

That was, even if Damon didn't know it, the question that Elena had been waiting to be asked. After all of their sexual tension, and caring for each other, they had never stopped to ask what it meant.

And Elena was going to be completely honest now because he had asked, and he deserved a final answer.

She took a deep breath. "I've just wanted to tell you how much I care; I care so much about you that it almost hurts, Damon. And there's nothing I can do about it." She gave a small smile there, "And believe me when I say that I have tried everything."

Almost unconsciously, Elena moved closer to his warm and pliable body, shifting to make her curves fit where he was straight, and resting her right hand lazily on his hip. Her form was chilled against his naked skin and he flinched as she pressed further into him.

"And I can't help but feel that you're the only one I have left. So please, if you can, just try to bear with me. I know how much of a pain I can be sometimes, but I only do the things I do because I know what I want. I'm sure you feel the same." Elena's voice ghosted over his chest, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep with her in his arms, and her sweet breath filling his lungs.

And the part of his mind that could still function even when it was under her trance agreed with her. He knew what it felt like to be judged because of actions. He had never really meant to hurt anyone when he was off trying to save everyone; he was just doing what he thought was right.

Elena's hand absently glided down his abdomen when she repositioned herself to fit her head in the crook of his neck, and he waited for the hot bouts of lust to burn his nerve endings. It was, of course, one thing to even be in the same bed as Elena, but when she was this close- and this was the most physical contact that they had shared in weeks- he couldn't stop the glimpses of the more racy images to flood his mind: Elena in her bikini, flashing her delicate collarbone and heaving breasts as she filled her body with the air she needed in order to laugh. Those shining eyes that had taken a liking to staring into his cerulean ones, and the way he couldn't help but notice how her curves flowed wonderfully down her body, creating tan legs that ran for miles. It was a mouth-watering sight, but it was one he had to resist in order to stay sane. She wasn't his to be drooled over anyway.

"Did it really take you that long to realize that everything I've ever said or done was only because of a good reason?" Damon asked, and Elena frowned; she didn't think that the actions he had completed to get Katherine back was a good reason at all.

"No," she said quietly, "I've noticed it; I noticed it a long time ago. I just never said anything because everyone would start to think that I was being too soft on you."

From the mock look of horror on Damon's face, Elena almost had to laugh. "Oh, come on, Damon. You know that you're not exactly everyone's number one fan." Her smile faded slowly, pressing her lips into a tight line. "That makes me sound like a narcissist bitch, doesn't it?"

"Well, it's true, but you didn't have to call me out for it." Elena didn't have to look into his eyes to know that he was just joking. He knew, better than most people did, that he just wasn't liked as a person- or maybe just as a vampire.

This didn't shock Elena, but the sadness of it all did. She wished that people could see him the way she personally saw him- as a good- and maybe a little bit vindictive- person who had every right to be treated in respect.

Damon continued, unbeknownst to her internal rant. "And Elena?"

"Yes?" She answered, looking in the direction of his window and wondering how cold it currently was outside; she guessed that it must have been freezing.

"You were right about that one thing at the end though."

Elena yawned, resembling the mew of a cat, and then arched languidly into his body, and all wanted to do was sleep until all her problems melted away. "And what would that be?"

There was a pause, and before she could raise her eyes to see why Damon was stalling, she heard his voice whispering into her ear. "You really are a bitch," he chuckled, and Elena froze in his arms, bewildered.

Did he really mean that? Had she been that ungrateful towards him? She felt tears suddenly rushing towards the surface again, clouding her vision.

"And I didn't mean that in a bad way. A bitchy Elena is a strong Elena; she knows what she wants," he paused to secretly smile. "She's powerful; she's sexy."

"You don't really mean that," she said in a truly pathetic voice, but her tears were already drying up, "You think I'm weak; you think I'll break if things get too hard, or something else gets worse."

Damon shook his head with melancholy vigor. Did she not even notice how strong she really was? "I'm going to have to disagree on that one," he lowered his head until his nose was brushing the top of her perfumed, silky hair, and he skimmed across it with faint pressure. "You want to know what I think?"

She desperately wanted to know what he thought; she wanted to know everything he thought, but all she could manage was a small, pert nod of the head.

"I think," his nose skimmed her ear and she found her hand to be clawed into his hipbone as a reaction, "that you are the strongest women I have ever met in my life."

"I still don't believe you," she repeated as she felt a faint pressure on the crown of her head.

"Just because you don't think so doesn't mean it's not true."

Elena sighed. "I don't think I'm any more powerful than the next teenage girl."

Damon didn't mean to, but his hand traced one of the heated veins in her neck, feeling the pulse jump has he applied weight from his probing fingers there. "Then you must have missed it; you always do."

Elena signed, having no response to this.

Neither of them said anything thing for a vast amount of time, and the silence that followed was comforting. Elena felt safe, and with Damon stroking her hair with a barely-there touch, she knew that he would do anything to protect her. He wouldn't think twice about him life if it meant keeping her safe. The whole conspiracy of it all was quite ironic. He was, after all, trying to act like a hero when he was the exact opposite. Or that was at least what he thought.

"Damon?" She asked when her eyes started to droop.

"Mmm?"

"Do you think that Stefan misses us?" She had a feeling she already knew the answer, and she didn't know if she could take it at this point.

"Yes. I think he misses you."

Elena sleepily pouted out her lower lip. "S'not what I asked, Damon," she mumbled incoherently. "You know that Stefan loves you. It's just the part of him that Klaus has a hold of that doesn't love you."

"Just sleep, Elena. We can talk in the morning." Damon closed his eyes, focusing on Elena's steady breathing, and desperately trying not to notice how her limber fingers rested so nicely on his pale skin. And, suddenly, he just had to say it again. He had to let all of his emotions pour out into the small body of this one crazy and beautiful girl.

"I love you, Elena."

But she never heard it. She was fast asleep.

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A/N: Well, that was exhausting.

Okay, so yes, I do know that both Elena and Damon are acting a bit OOC, but you have to realize that Elena isn't sure what's even going on in her life anymore. She is very confused, and in a moment of just giving in, she opened up part of her heart to Damon. I hope I didn't disappoint you with this chapter :) I worked my tailbone off just trying to advance and complicate the relationship between them. *fingers crossed* I hope it worked.

And speaking of advancing and complicating relationships, how sweet was the pillow talk between the 'real' Damon and Elena last night? And when he fake bit her, I just about died.

Leave your love in the form of reviews and I'll see you all next chapter :)