A/N: Thank you so much for all the awesome reviews! :]:]:]
Please apply a drop of licentia poetica to my take on the instinct to kill thing ;) (I can provide a long-winded rationale if necessary, but I rather hope you just let me get away with it lol)
Beta: arabian – Thank you so much! :):):)
Disclaimer: TVD belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.
Chapter 15
It was an indescribable feeling, that sense of weightless freedom that fell over Elena when she flew across the sky. She was aware of the shape she was in, but somehow it didn't terrify her as much as she thought it would. It had seemed bizarre and impossible, but only until she felt the wind all around her, carrying her through the air, through the rain. Her mind was intact, and when she looked below and above only the space mattered. There was no mirror she could look into, and so everything that she felt came from the outside, from the cool darkness, misty clouds, heavy raindrops and the sable sky that seemed endless and deep like an ocean. It felt so peaceful, soaring above the world that suddenly became so small, that felt so far away, the distance causing the pain in her chest to ebb. Even the soundless, nagging voice in her head became less audible.
Yet it was only when she found herself back in her body and in Damon's arms that she felt not only free, but also safe. She briefly thought the latter was actually what allowed her to appreciate the former.
Elena stumbled, feeling dizzy after the flight. The ground seemed to move under her feet, and she would've tripped if it wasn't for Damon's hold on her. For a few seconds after they had landed in a store, having flown inside through a half-open window, she just tried to regain her sense of balance.
The store was dark, except for the nearby streetlamps illuminating the interiors. Glancing right and left Elena realized it was the store where two and a half years ago she had decided, with Bonnie and Caroline, to buy their prom dresses. Two and a half years ago felt like a century to her, and for a moment she got lost in her thoughts.
Turn it off…
"Elena?" Damon propped her chin with his hand and looked at her searchingly. "How are you feeling?"
"Weird," she admitted, drawing a deep breath, blinking back the raindrops and trying to focus her gaze on him. Water was dripping from their clothes onto the floor, and she could still hear the rain outside, pounding against the walls, against the windows and the empty road. "But OK."
His mouth twitched. "Is that your definition of OK?" "I'm so sorry, Elena," he said, his voice firm and faltering at the same time. He cradled her face in his hands, and looked at her with such sad intensity that this alone could bring tears to her eyes. "I should've-"
"It's not your fault," she interrupted him in a low voice. "I don't want you to think that even for a second," she said with a frown.
"But it is," he retorted grimly. "I shouldn't have left you alone."
"This has nothing to do with what happened, and besides, you didn't leave me," she said, widening her eyes at him. "It was just a moment… It was… I think I know what it was," she said, looking away, her eyes scanning the dark store interiors. "I felt so… so guilty," she winced. "I should've known that would be it," she said with a mirthless smile.
Damon looked at her with a pained expression on his face. "That is my fault that you feel guilty. You feel guilty because of me."
Elena's eyes darted to him. "No, no, it's not like that," she shook her head. "Damon-"
"I don't want to talk about me, Elena," he cut her off, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I want to talk about you. I want you to tell me everything. Everything that happened, everything that you felt."
Elena flinched, visibly shaken by the idea, and he sat her down on a small stool near the window, and knelt on one knee next to her.
"You can't keep it to yourself," he said, taking her hands in his. "It will eat you up from inside. It will…" he trailed off, looking away, diving into dark memories.
Leaning down, Elena kissed him softly on the lips. "I want you to tell me everything too."
He smiled, although the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "I don't remember most of it," he said dismissively. The remnants of tears shone in her eyes when she squinted to demonstrate that she didn't believe that. "Let's start with you," he said in a warm voice that for a moment made her forget the cold grip of guilt that still weighed heavily over her heart.
She suddenly felt like what she was going to say wasn't dreadful or horrifying because when he looked at her she knew she'd never see contempt in his eyes, or disgust or even plain disappointment that she was someone else than whom he thought she was.
"I couldn't breathe…" she started, and the words seemed to transport her back in time, her fingers intertwining with his as she was trying to remember all of her thoughts, all of her feelings. She scratched at the wounds of her memories with imaginary fingernails, fighting the fear ignited by them with tears, with the touch of his hands over hers, with his eyes boring into hers, unblinkingly, when she was whispering shredded sentences, her mouth inches from his.
"Look at me, Elena. Look at me."
She struggled to keep her eyes open, not to bury even a single moment somewhere deep inside, in some isolated corner of her mind where no one would ever be able to find it, where it would clandestinely cling to her like a dark veil, the invisible cause with roots as sharp as thorns. At some point she realized it wouldn't hurt less, now that he knew. It wouldn't take away the pain, but it was taking away the fear.
Slowly, the wish to disappear, to erase every memory, erase herself, began to fade away. She was getting back the belief in who she was despite the horrifying realizations that seemed to put that to doubt, that were rendering her silent every time they came back to her like a wave high enough to drown in. He would call her name then. Bring her hands to his lips and brush kisses across her knuckles. And with her heart hammering in her chest she would say through clenched teeth that for a few moments there, when her fangs had pierced through the skin and the blood had been flowing into her, more and more until she had known it was too much – it hadn't felt horrible. It had felt good.
"Of course it did. You're a vampire, Elena."
She stared at him, fleetingly bewildered by his calm, reasonable voice. She pondered the words, her eyes drifting to their interlaced hands, the diamond ring glimmering faintly in the dim interior, the other ring looking like a shadow over her finger.
She shook her head. "But I don't want to feel like that, Damon. I can't feel like that."
He wiped the tears off her cheeks with the backs of his fingers. "It won't happen again," he said, but then Caroline's words echoed in his head. "Maybe you shouldn't make promises you can't keep." He gritted his teeth. "Not like that. Now that you know what triggered it you can learn to control it. We'll work that out."
"That's why I could change into a crow," she suddenly said, struck by the thought. "Because I murdered someone," she said in a hollow voice, the words causing her eyes to sting with tears, a fever rising in her head, making her feel as if it was burning.
"You didn't murder anyone, Elena," Damon said, sliding his fingers into her hair and cradling her face in his hands. "You fed on a human and he died."
"That's the same thing," she whispered with a grimace, leaning into his touch, a part of her thinking that she didn't deserve comfort right now, another part greedily seeking it.
"No, it isn't. We don't have an instinct to kill, Elena. We have an instinct to feed. Until the last drop," he added in a lower voice. "That's why it's so hard to stop. Because it feels unnatural to stop. It leaves you… unsatisfied. Unhappy. Learning to control it means learning how to reconcile with a constant sense of unfulfillment. That's why I've always been so good at it," he added with a small smirk, hoping to make her smile.
She did a little, even though she didn't find this funny at all, but then her expression became grim again. "What if I won't be able to learn how to control it?" she asked in a sad, quiet voice.
"You can learn to control whatever you want to control, Elena."
She shook her head, and he frowned. "Once upon a time I wanted to control this," she said, and leaned down to kiss him. "Didn't work at all."
He smiled faintly against her lips. "But that's because you didn't really want to control it." His arms shot out to catch her when they tumbled to the floor, and she landed on top of him, her damp tickling his neck when she kissed him.
Without breaking the kiss, he rolled them over, keeping one of his hands underneath her, so her head and her back didn't hit the floor. Their hands roamed feverishly over each other until, after planting a series of open-mouthed kisses across her collarbones, Damon whispered.
"Not here."
"Why not?"
They both smiled briefly at the question.
"Because…" Damon started, his eyebrows furrowed, "it's not beautiful enough here," he said with a small pout, glancing around the store critically.
Elena suppressed a smile, but then looked at him very seriously and placed her open palms on either side of her face. "Yes, it is," she said softly. "Because you are here."
She felt a tremor run through him and he looked down at her with so much light in his eyes that she almost forgot how dark a place her mind had become. And even that she could no longer believe, because it wasn't what she saw in his eyes. What she saw was the person she thought she was, the person she wanted to be. The person she really was.
She slid her hands over his shoulders and through his hair, letting her eyelids flutter shut when he trailed feathery light kisses across her neck, and then lower, over the skin not covered by the white fabric of her nightgown. It made so little sense keeping her eyes closed, she thought, because the only image she could conjure up in her head anyway was his face, his eyes, his hands.
Through half-lidded eyes she saw his fangs protrude out of his mouth, and she shivered, turning her head to the side, leaving her neck exposed, but to her surprise the bite never came, because he merely used his fangs to rip off one of the straps holding her nightgown in place. With it gone, he outlined the contour of her shoulder with kisses.
She was soaring again, struggling to catch her breath, only what she had been feeling as a crow didn't even compare to what she was feeling right now. Every kiss made her shudder and fall apart; every kiss made her whole again. She felt everything at the same time-
Turn it off…
A flurry of colors behind her eyelids was replaced by sudden darkness and her eyes snapped open, meeting Damon's concerned gaze.
"Elena? Are you OK?" He asked, his chest heaving.
"Yes," Elena whispered quickly, but he heard a note of distress in her voice. Turn it off.
"Kiss me."
Something was clearly wrong, but turning down such a request was not an option. He leaned down and kissed her. It was a slow, thorough kiss, and when they broke apart she seemed calmer.
"What is it? What's wrong?" He looked at her searchingly, and she stared up at him, her face suddenly very pale.
"I don't know," she admitted uncertainly.
He gently pushed them to a sitting position and ran his hand across her face. "Elena?" He prompted, holding her chin in his hand.
"I hear that… voice in my head," she said at last.
Damon blinked. "What voice?" he demanded in that intimidating tone that she both liked and disliked, because it eventually always made her answer his question.
"I don't know," Elena said helplessly. "It's not even a voice… I mean… I hear some words. Over and over again," she trailed off, the sound of Klaus shouting the exact same words incrusted so painfully in her memory that even recalling that moment hurt.
"Elena." Her eyes drifted back to Damon. "What words?" he asked in a voice as steady as he could muster.
She drew a shaky breath. "Turn it off," she breathed. "It says turn it off." They stared at each other, and she knew they were thinking the same thing, half a fear that it could happen, half a vow that it never could. "Maybe it's just me?" Elena said after a pause. "Maybe it's just an instinct, not really a voice. I can deal with that," she added with a hint of determination in her voice, slightly thrusting up her chin.
"You can deal with whatever that is," Damon corrected, holding her gaze, and she bit her lip, feeling cold shivers running down her spine at how certain he had sounded. She remembered her own certainty that love was stronger than such demons, that giving in was unforgivable, but now when those words, mere words, were seeping through every fiber of her body and she felt so helpless against them she wasn't sure anymore.
"What if Klaus did something when he attacked us?" she asked, trying to get ahead of all the possibilities, wishing to hear even the flimsiest reassurance that would put her mind at rest, at least for some time.
Damon's eyes flickered away from Elena before returning to her face, and she realized that he had thought of that but probably hoped she wouldn't. "We'll figure out what it is, and then we'll get rid of it."
Somehow the shift of focus to "we" instead of just her made her more anxious, because it went to show that the situation was dire. "Do you think it's some kind of compulsion? For a second I did wish that the pain would stop, but it was just a thought. I don't want to turn anything off," she added in a low voice, blinking back the tears that began welling up in her eyes. "It can't happen. It can't."
"Elena." Damon took her face in his hands, and looked at her seriously. "It won't." He paused, scolding himself inwardly for his inability to stop making those definite claims. On the other hand, eternity was the most definite notion of all, so why shouldn't all other absolute concepts be possible and true as well? "It won't," he repeated, wondering if he should rather say something that began with 'and even if it will…'
But then she smiled and he thought he might've actually said the right thing, after all.
"It won't," she echoed, with a strangely enthralled expression on her face. All of a sudden she knew, she understood that it wouldn't. She was Elena. Not a vampire Elena or a human Elena. Nothing could make her turn her humanity off, because it wasn't her humanity that defined her. It was her who defined her humanity.
Damon gathered her into his arms and they remained in an embrace for a longer while. Elena closed her eyes, and almost waited for the voice to reverberate in her head again, but it didn't. She was about to comment on that when they were both caught off guard by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Scattering to their feet, they hid in one of the dressing rooms.
A girl walked into the store, talking loudly on her cell phone, saying something about bills and deadlines, searching the desk and apparently finding what she was looking for.
Elena couldn't really see anything through the small space between the dressing room's wall and the curtain, but it suddenly seemed like she could, the faceless image of a human sprung up to her mind, and she could see every vein, hear the heart pumping blood, smell the scent of it.
Damon felt Elena's hand twitch in his, but a fraction of a second wasn't quite enough for him to stop her from dashing, with a brief ominous swish of her nightgown, out of the dressing room.
He followed immediately, and so the scream that pierced the silence was cut short, turning into a wailing sob.
Damon pulled Elena away from the girl who stared at them with eyes wide from shock and fear, her hand stained by blood that was oozing from her neck. She must've caught the sight of herself in one of the mirrors, because she started screaming again, horrified by the sight of her injured neck even more than by the pain.
Catching the girl's gaze, Damon compelled her to forget what was happening, make up some mundane explanation. Elena was thrashing in his grip, and he wasn't sure if getting out of the store was the best idea right now. He tried to talk to her, but she didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes were wild, almost as red as the blood around her mouth, her fangs extended, her breathing jagged.
"Elena." He seemed to be barely stronger than her. That alone was strange and alarming enough. She was writhing furiously, and when he tried to hug her she tossed her head to the side, and raked her teeth across his arm.
He hissed, but didn't let go of her, wrapping his arm tighter around her back, pressing her to him. She growled, and bit him again, her fangs sinking into his neck with such ferocity that he staggered backwards.
"Elena," he chanted her name, trying to make her focus her attention on him, on his voice, but she seemed oblivious to everything around her, intent only on snatching herself free. He noticed that his hold on her was so strong bruises began showing up, and even knowing they would be gone didn't make him feel better about hurting her. She winced, and he feared that he was squeezing her arms hard enough to break her bones. "Elena." He succeeded in pressing his lips to her ear and whispering her name, and she stilled her movements for a second. He let go of a breath he'd been holding, but what he took for a good sign was only a conscious or unconscious trick, because she immediately took advantage of the lapse of his attention, and pushing him violently against the row of hangers, broke free from his embrace and blurred out of the store.
Damon jumped back to his feet, and followed her in a flash, but when he got out into the street Elena was nowhere in sight.
He felt icy-cold shivers run up his spine, and he looked around frantically, refusing to believe she could disappear just like that. The rain was lighter now, almost a drizzle, with solitary raindrops swinging into different directions at the touch of weak gusts of wind.
Clenching his jaw, Damon turned into a crow and shot up into the sky, scanning the dark, mostly empty streets below.
He found Elena soon enough. She was running along the streets, passing the crossroad on the outskirts and then flowing across the road like a ghost, her white nightgown fluttering around her.
He caught up with her when she entered the forest. She took a hasty step back, bewildered by his sudden appearance in front of her. There was a glimmer in her blood-shot eyes, something like tears, and he looked at her with all intensity he could muster, hoping that he could get through to her, to those tears.
"Elena." There was nothing else to say but her name. He didn't know what was happening, why she lashed out in such a way moments after they had talked everything through. She certainly hadn't turned anything off either, because her face was contorted in pain.
Grabbing her hand, Damon tried to pull her toward him, but she resisted, twisting his hand so hard that it bent on an unnatural angle, allowing her to regain her freedom of movement, which resulted in her running away once again.
Damon readjusted his twisted forearm, and rushed after her, chasing the ethereal white shape that kept running further and further away, passing the dark trees with vampire speed.
He was so engrossed in thinking about what was happening that the sound of voices that was gradually becoming louder reached him only when he saw flickers of flashlights and colorful silhouettes between the trees. Under a makeshift roof a group of people were having a picnic.
Gathering all of his energy, Damon threw himself forward, reaching the clearing only a second later than Elena. She was standing motionlessly in front of the campers, all eyes fixed on her in confusion. There was a moment of silence, interrupted by a laugh and a comment about throwing Halloween parties in the summer. A few people seemed to pick up on the apparition being a joke, but when Elena's face became dark with thickening veins, and one person screamed, everyone else jumped to their feet in panic.
Damon wanted to pull Elena to him before she pounced, but he was left with nothing but a shred of white fabric in his hand, while Elena attacked one of the campers, and chewed a hole in his neck. Not really seeing another way to tear Elena away from the man, Damon resorted to catching her off guard by biting her shoulder, albeit not very hard, from behind. When because of that she released the hold on her victim, he sneaked his arms around her, and pulled her to him. There was no point in trying to compel the camper, for the others had already ran away screaming. The man stared up aghast with fear, and only after a second collected his wits, scrambled to his feet, and ran away as well.
Elena hit Damon's chest with her elbow, gaining enough space to move, but then she tripped on the slippery, damp ground and fell down into the mud.
Damon fell to his knees next to her, and grabbed her shoulders to prevent her from running away once again. Locking his arms around her, he clenched his jaw when she started thrashing in his arms, punching him everywhere she could reach, piercing through his skin with her fangs.
It started raining hard again, and he had to dig his nails into her skin, so his hands wouldn't slid off her while she kept writhing in his embrace.
After a moment, with a twinge of relief he realized she was losing strength, her movements becoming more erratic and weaker. He buried his face into her hair tainted with blood and mud and rain, and whispered her name over and over again, told her that he loved her, that he was here, everything that came to his mind, everything he could think of, everything that could make her feel, know, remember that he was here, that he wouldn't leave her alone.
He didn't know how long it was until she uttered a stifled cry and shuddered in his arms, and when he looked at her he saw, thanks to the rays of lights provided by the abandoned flashlights scattered all around, that she was crying, her eyes wide and terrified, still blood-shot, but there was clear recognition in her eyes now, and when she spoke his name in a raspy whisper he knew that she heard him.
"What's happening to me?" Elena asked in a cracking voice, looking at Damon in dismay, her eyes wandering around his face, taking in his torn shoulder, her own disheveled, nightmarish appearance. "Oh my God," she moaned. "What have I done?" she asked, everything she had felt during what had happened at the gas station coming back to her with double force.
"Nothing, Elena," Damon reassured her ardently, cradling her face in his hands. "You bit two people, but they will be fine."
"Did I do these to you?" she asked in a louder voice that sounded hollow and strained with tears. She stared in horror at the rain that when it was dripping off his shirt had the color of blood. There was a hole in his shoulder, and deep bite marks on his neck and the side of his face, too many to count.
"These will heal," Damon said dismissively, grimacing at her even wasting the time to ask about that. "Elena-"
"It's happening again," she gasped, horrified, and then her eyes reddened in a flash and she pounced over him.
Turning around at light-speed, Damon caught Elena's foot, and pulled her back toward him.
All kinds of thoughts were spinning wildly in his head as he was trying to decide what to do. There was no doubt she wasn't just out of control right now. It was either some kind of compulsion or a spell. A spell. Maybe Bonnie could figure that one out.
But there was no way to get to Bonnie with Elena behaving like that. It was hard enough to merely hold her in place. She seemed to regain her former strength and was precariously close to quite literally tearing him apart before he would be able to carry her anywhere.
His frantic train of thought came to a momentary halt when he realized there was only one thing he could do. He gritted his teeth, his heart sinking at the idea, even if it wouldn't really hurt her. It wasn't anything irreversible. Most importantly, it was necessary, it was the only way to get her out of this forest, out of the streets, take her to safety, and buy himself some time to find a cure, to figure out what was going on. Still, there was something he couldn't stand about this, something that almost made him doubt if he'd be able to do this at all. It just seemed like an act against everything he felt for her, even if it was only temporary, even if she wouldn't really die.
Elena was squirming and writhing like a wild animal trying to break free at all costs, and Damon desperately tried to make eye contact with her for a moment long enough to make her understand what was going to happen.
"Elena." He pushed her to the ground, and she gasped in surprise, a strange gurgling noise coming out of her throat. Her bloodied fangs were inches away from his face when he leaned over her. "Elena," he repeated in the quietest tone while pinning her to the ground with steely strength. Her red eyes were boring into his, and she struggled in his grip. Determined to wait until he could be sure she heard him, he buried his face into her neck in such a way that no matter how she was tossing her head she couldn't really bite him anywhere.
It felt like an entire night, a hundred of nights, or a thousand. And thousands of words he whispered into her ear, thousands of kisses he pressed to the skin of her neck. It took thousands of heartbeats for her breathing to calm down, but when it did, he slowly lifted his head, and saw in her eyes a faint glimmer of consciousness, followed be tears.
Quickly propping himself on his elbows, he gently brushed the hair off her face, the veins from around her eyes disappearing, but only a second passed before they started appearing again, and then even more tears sprung to her eyes, and he knew everything was going to start all over again.
"Do you trust me?" he asked earnestly, his eyebrows furrowed in a desperate but determined grimace, his eyes boring into hers with utmost tenderness and intensity. "Elena."
She nodded erratically, and held his gaze when he pulled them to a sitting position. He slid his fingers into her hair. His hands reached the back of her head and stopped there.
She could hear his heartbeat loud in her ears, her tears reflected in the mirrors of his eyes.
The movement was so quick she didn't feel it and it was only the dull, snapping sound of her neck breaking that registered in her mind along with him wincing, and closing his eyes, and she remembered thinking abstractly, the thought as quick as a lightning, that it must've been one of her own tears that escaped from under his closed eyelids.
Damon cradled Elena's limp form in his arms, stood up, and carried her out of the forest.