Okay, I think I'm making up for not posting in a good long while. Two chapters in one day? I'm on a roll. At any rate...

Perhaps before you read I should explain that I am not trying to make Damon seem like the world's worst lush in this little fic. But you have to admit--on the show he always seems to have a drink (or two) close to hand. So I thought that I'd explore what Damon might be like when he's a little schmammered, as a German friend of mine used to say.

Anyway, read, tell me what you think, and have fun with one very hot and inebriated vampire. :)

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He's letting the liquor take the brunt of the heartbreak tonight.

Driving is no problem. He's driven these roads ever since cars were invented. And should any police officer be unfortunate enough to pull him over, he'll simply add a private dinner to public intoxication. There's no way to lose this little game he's playing. And as he zips around corners and flies through the darkly brooding trees, he can feel the demon inside of him rip and claw its way free, the reckless adrenaline pumping strong and heady through his veins. He doesn't care tonight, about losing Katherine, about hating his brother, about the growing attraction that's pulling him toward Elena, about the relentless agony of thwarted yearning that keeps pulling him away. He's all-powerful tonight, a god of wine and straight-shot whisky, and his Dionysian revels haven't even yet begun.

He pulls into the gravel drive of the Boarding House far too fast and is out the door and climbing the steps with uncanny, inhuman speed. He can smell something on the air, something warm and pulsing and alive, and he's so intoxicated that it takes him a good minute of serious thought to realize that there's a human somewhere around the place. His first reaction is annoyance that anyone has dared invade his private sanctum, but after a moment he changes his mind and lets the easy bloodlust take over what little remains of the rational half of his brain. He wants cruelty and heat and danger tonight, bitter and burning as it coats the back of his throat and slides easily over his tongue. This is perfect, he thinks lazily as he stumbles carelessly up the steps and throws open the front door. He'll slip off his jacket, because he hates getting blood on the expensive Italian leather, get a little chaser ready on the sideboard, and go make dinner off of whatever unlucky stiff has decided to wander past his front door.

It doesn't hit him until he's in the door and halfway out of one sleeve that the human scent is coming from inside the house, and it's much closer than he'd thought when was outside. He freezes, and as his senses clear a little and a tiny hint of reason begins to surface, he finally identifies exactly who it is that's broken in and is wandering around somewhere in his living room, heart pumping deliciously and blood flowing rich through fragile blue veins. When he turns around, he doesn't have to look over at her to know that it's Elena sitting on his couch and flipping through one of the books he left carelessly scattered over the coffee table. She's very deliberately not looking at him, and he knows it's not because she didn't hear him come in. But she seems to realize that he's not quite himself tonight, and she's either scared or angry that he's currently sozzled beyond all belief.

Moving slowly so as to avoid collapsing on the floor, he weaves his way over to her and flops down on the other end of the couch, appreciating the way that his bones seem to melt to fit the contours of the cushions. He tries to pull off his customary eyebrow raise, but some of his facial muscles seem to be down for maintenance at present time, and he decides to settle for a sloppy grin and something that looks vaguely like a wink.

"So..." he slurs theatrically, "what're you doing in my house at this hour of the night, Miss..." he pauses while his brain searches for the rest of her name "...Elena Gilbert?"

She gives him a single frosty look and returns to whatever it is she's reading.

"Waiting for Stefan," she says briefly. He nods gravely and lifts his feet to prop them on the varnished wood of the coffee table, carefully examining the tips of his shoes as he waits for her to continue. When he registers the fact that she's not saying anything, he figures it's probably his job to hold up the floundering remains of the conversation.

"He's not back yet," he observes wisely, and he senses rather than sees her lift her eyes to the ceiling in annoyance.

"Yes, I know, Damon," she says, frustration bleeding through every word, and the spine of her book comes up a little higher as she seeks to shut him out. He'll have none of it, though. This is his night, his sole escape, and she's not going to spoil it for him. And so, very carefully, he raises one foot and uses the toe of his shoe to nudge the book down until he can finally see her face.

"You are not being very friendly tonight, Elena," he says chidingly. "That's not good. Especially considering the fact that...this is not your house."

He delivers the last statement with the triumphant logic of the very drunk, and he's unexpectedly miffed when she refuses to consider the inherent rationality of his point.

"Go away, Damon," she says curtly, and pushes his foot away as she picks up her book again. "You're drunk, and you're not thinking straight, and I don't want to deal with you tonight. Go bother someone else."

He shakes his head at her lack of courtesy and nudges her book again with his toe.

"But I don't want to go bother anyone else," he says with an almost childlike honesty. "And you know something? No one else has bothered me...for a long, long time. Nobody...but you."

He can see her swallow and he knows she's not reading the words on the page anymore. She shuts her eyes for a moment as if to gather strength from someplace he can't understand, and when she opens them there's something unfamiliar shining in the chocolate-hazel depths.

"Go away, Damon," she half-whispers, only now it's a plea instead of a command. He's breaking down her defenses without really even trying, and it's a pity that he's too drunk right now to triumph in his unexpected victory.

"But I don't want to," he says quietly, and he fixes her with a blurry ice-blue stare that's more vulnerable than he can know. "I don't want to be alone tonight, Elena."

She lets the book fall, and her eyes slip closed again as she fights the polar emotions warring inside of her. When she raises her head again the battle is won, and he knows without having to be told that, at least for this moment, she is his tonight.

"Damon," she murmurs on the tail end of a sigh, and she leans over to gently stroke one hand over his tumbled hair. "Come on," she orders, shoving at his shoulder to get him moving, "come with me." He's unexpectedly docile, and as she takes his hand and drags him into the kitchen, he doesn't even make a token protest. Perching on the edge of the counter, he watches absently as she moves easily around the kitchen, picking up this and filling that. Finally his curiosity overcomes him, and he slides down to come look over her shoulder at whatever is in her hands.

"What're you doing?" he asks almost cheerfully, and he's impressed by the fact that she doesn't even jump when his breath blows warm on the exposed skin of her neck.

"Making coffee," she replies briskly, and moves back over to the freezer to put away the grounds. "Go sit down before you fall down, Damon." She takes in his ambling shuffle with an all-too-practiced eye, and raises one eyebrow in astonishment as she does a mental calculation of how much he must have drunk tonight. "Good Lord, you're plastered. How on earth did you manage to get home in one piece?"

He flops obediently in one of the kitchen chairs and watches her hazily until he remembers that at some point she asked a question, and he's probably supposed to answer. After a moment of mind-rummaging he comes up with something that he thinks makes sense.

"Vampire, remember? We are...virtually indestructible," he points out, and then he gets distracted by the bottle of water that she shoves in his hands as she brushes past him.

"What's this for?" he wants to know. She shoots him an incredulous look and rolls her eyes as she watches him struggle fruitlessly with the little plastic cap.

"It helps you rehydrate," she tells him matter-of-factly. "Here, give me that."

She twists the cap off for him and hands back the bottle as she moves away again. He wants to grab the hem of her shirt and pull her back to him, tell her how pretty she looks in the cozy lamplight that fills the quiet room. But she's moving too quickly and his reflexes are too slow, so he nurses his water bottle and contents himself with watching her move around his kitchen with an ease that belies the fact that she doesn't live here...yet.

After a moment he can smell something rich and fat-inducing, and there's a sizzling sound coming from the direction of the stove as the aroma spreads through the air. He doesn't think he'd better risk getting up again, so he slumps back in the chair and frowns in puzzlement at the straight firm line of her busy back.

"What're you making now?" he wants to know as she stirs something in a glass bowl and pours it into a sputtering saucepan. She pokes at the other pan with her spatula and turns around to check on him, gauging how much water he's drunk so far.

"Eggs and fried potatoes," she says after a moment, and her lips curve up in a remarkably sad grimace-turned-smile. She turns to stir the eggs again, and when she turns back around to face him her eyes are suspiciously damp and her lips are trembling. "The first time I went on a bender in high school, I got home at four in the morning and there were my parents, sitting there waiting for me. They chewed me out for a while, and then my dad took me in the kitchen and cooked eggs and potatoes for me. He said his dad had done it for him the first time he'd gotten drunk, and now that it was his turn he was going to do it for me. He said..." she paused and smiled that sad smile again, "...he said that if I was going to be stupid, at least I wouldn't regret it so much in the morning. And you know something? He was actually right."

He watches her quietly, registering every quiver of her voice and every sliver of heartbreak in her eyes. He doesn't know when their roles changed, when she became his protector and he became the one needing comfort. He doesn't know how it happened, when she gave him some vital part of herself and he took it without so much as realizing what he held. But it's happened, and it's too late to turn back now. And as the scent of scrambled eggs and potato wedges weaves through his brain, he begins to let go of the edge he's been holding onto for so long and simply lets himself...fall.

They drink coffee together till the wee hours of the morning, neither of them realizing that Stefan's still not home and they really don't seem to care. They eat steaming eggs and salty potatoes and gradually he begins to feel more like himself, only without the usual edge that signals Damon Salvatore to the rest of the world. They find themselves laughing like loons as he feeds her eggs off his fork and she flicks sugar at him that spilled when she doctored her coffee. They talk about black-and-white movies, eighties rock and Billie Holliday's blues, the overwhelming importance of a good white wine in coq au vin and the fact that he hates Dostoevsky but for some reason loves The Brothers Karamazov. She tells him stories about her parents and Jeremy, and he promises to someday show her how to properly jitterbug if she'll let him practice the tango. And when they finally begin to fade into exhaustion, he somehow finds the strength to sweep her off her feet and carry her into the living room, where he lays her gently on the couch and throws an afghan over her to hold off the chill. As he settles down in the depths of the leather armchair, the last thing he remembers seeing is her shoulders rise and fall gently in time with the slow, steady rhythm of her heart.

But he can't let himself sink too deeply in love with her, he thinks on the verge of sleep... no matter how far he's fallen tonight.