"You're jealous of him."
"Get over yourself." He insisted with a glare. "I don't do jealousy."
Elena rolled her eyes at him. "Oh. Right. I forgot. Damon Salvatore doesn't do emotions. He would never risk anyone actually seeing the human part of him."
Damon leaned close. "One of the coolest things about being a vampire," he said smugly, "is not having to be a human."
"Don't you miss it at all?" Her question caught him off guard. He quickly averted her eyes and looked away, mentally calculating how he would be able to answer this and still maintain the upper hand. Whether the fight was with stakes or words, Damon Salvatore always had to have the upper hand.
Elena continued to stare at him, prodding for an answer. He scoffed. "Do I look like I'm missing out on anything, Elena?"
"That's not what I asked you."
Damn it. On to tactic number two. "Why are you so…invasive today? Stefan not keeping you engrossed enough?" He smirked.
"Enough with the jealousy thing, Damon. Green really isn't your best color." She quipped.
"Ouch." He tried to shrug it off. "Look, I know you've been the center of attention recently with this whole 'Elijah-is-out-to-kill-me' thing, and I think it's starting to mess with your head. Not everyone is completely intrigued by your every move, my dear."
"Drop it, Damon. We both know you care, so stop acting like you don't."
He sighed. Even he couldn't deny his way out of that accusation. "What do you want, Elena? For me to profess my love for you? Because that's not going to happen." At least, you'll never remember it happening.
"I want you to answer my question."
"Ah, the existential query: does he miss being a man? Does he regret becoming a monster?" He rolled his eyes. "Give me a break."
"Your persistent avoidance is only making me believe that you just don't want me to know the answer."
"And your persistent inquisition is making me believe that I want to smother you with this pillow."
"What have you got to lose?" She asked, her eyes fastened on his own intently. "It's just me." She added, as if it made a difference.
They both knew it did.
Damon took a deep breath. He turned away from her on the couch. "I miss the way I used to feel…when I was a human."
"What did you feel?"
"Everything. I felt passion, and excitement, and joy, and…love."
"For Katherine?" She guessed.
"For life. I just…I loved being young and good-looking and carefree. I loved fighting in a war that I didn't know I would survive because it made each day so much more important. Do you know what happens when you're promised eternity, Elena?"
She looked at him with wide, curious eyes.
"You get unbelievably bored with it; rather quickly, in fact. It's amazing to me that I've made it 145 years without wanting to drive a stake through my own heart out of sheer boredom. The monotony of it all—it's overwhelming sometimes. You walk around and you don't feel like you belong in this world, because you see everybody living their lives for the first time, and you've lived yours for so long and you're just…jealous."
Elena smiled. "I thought Damon Salvatore doesn't do jealousy."
"Maybe not out loud…or when other people can see." He said honestly.
"I guess I'm different." She teased.
"But you are." He said suddenly, catching them both a little off guard. "You have no idea how different you are. Elena, everything I just said…it's how I've spent the last 145 years. I've felt positively inhuman. The living dead is more than just a euphemism, you know."
Elena giggled. Damon's eyes sparkled. He smiled a saccharine smile, made only for her.
"What I'm trying to say is that I haven't felt human for nearly a century and a half…but you—somehow—you brought me to life again." He moved off the couch suddenly and knelt in front of her, looking up at her with pleading eyes. "Elena, I feel so alive when I'm around you. More importantly, I feel more like myself than I can ever remember being."
She couldn't breathe anymore. Damon Salvatore was kneeling in front of her bearing his heart and soul—finally—and she could not remember how to breathe. It seemed as if she had waited forever for this, for him to finally open up and let her behind those heavily-guarded walls of his.
He leaned forward and took her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes, searching for the feeling that he thought he'd lost long ago. "It doesn't matter if I'm human or not," he murmured softly, "because you make me feel more alive than a heartbeat and heated skin. You are my life, Elena."
"You don't know how long I've been waiting…" She trails off, unsure of herself, but Damon knows right where she's headed. Somehow, he always does.
"You don't know how long I've hated myself for making you wait."
And when the magnetic pull between their bodies gets to be too much and their lips finally meet in a bruising embrace, all else is relinquished. Hurt. Confusion. Anger. Control (though, to be honest, neither of them ever had too much of that). They are lost and they are searching, hoping to find the answers to burning questions wound in each other's tongues.
It is if both love and lust have culminated in this one moment—to be shared by both parties equally, and nothing else in the whole world mattered. It is as if these two broken people with such pretty surfaces have finally found a home in each other. It is almost as if love would be enough to save them. Almost.
But love was never the problem in their story. It was always circumstance. And so Elena's not too surprised when Damon stops her from removing his shirt, though she is a bit let down. He takes her hands in his and rubs his thumbs soothingly over her outstretched palms. His lips leave hers, and his forehead comes to rest on her own. It is a lover's embrace if ever there was one. It's too bad his eyes are saying goodbye.
"Don't." She warns, attempting to sound like she has a lot more control then she actually does. "I know what you're going to say, but please…don't say it, Damon."
"Elena…" He whispers, unable to fill in the rest. Because if he says it, it becomes real. He just had the love of his life on his lips, and now he's about to ruin it all.
She shuts her eyes momentarily in an attempt to stop the tear that has welled up from falling. It does anyway. They watch in tandem as it falls to the ground and splatters on her shoe. Funny, Damon thinks, though it isn't really funny at all, that's kind of what my heart feels like.
"Why are you saying goodbye?" She croaks, all efforts to sound anything less than utterly brokenhearted gone, because who was she trying to fool?
Damon hates pointing out the obvious, especially when the obvious makes no sense to him whatsoever. "You love Stefan."
She doesn't try to deny it. "I love you, too." As if it's any consolation.
"I know." He says. "But it will always be him, won't it?"
Elena opens her mouth to speak, but Damon beats her to the punch, seeing it in her despairing eyes and not wanting to hear her affirmation. "I know when I'm the runner up." His attempt at lighthearted go unnoticed, Damon surmises, if her quivering lip is any indication.
He decides to tell her the real reason he has to let her go. "I won't let you be Katherine." He says, letting the determination momentarily mask the heartache in his eyes. "It stops here. I won't let you turn into her, even if it…even if it means I have to lose you."
And all at once it dawns on Elena just how much Damon Salvatore loves his brother. Here they stood, embraced in a valediction that felt a lot like forever, and it was tearing him apart. Elena could see it in every shallow breath, in every broken glance into her eyes. Yet here he stood, holding her hands and letting go of her heart, a necessary task because, well, part of it has been his all along. The problem was that she possessed all of his heart, and that was a situation without a remedy.
Elena can almost predict what's going to happen next. She's seen enough old movies to know which part of the farewell they're in. This is the pinnacle, the last kiss, the whispered words of never-ceasing affection and, finally, the disappearance of one of the parties…forever.
And just like it was scripted, Damon pulls her in one last time for a heart-wrenching kiss. Elena fists her hands into his hair and holds him to her face as if she could somehow tether him to her eternally, just so he wouldn't have to leave her. Because she wanted to be just like Katherine, if for no other reason than she was so utterly selfish that she would never be able to decide.
Damon knew that, though, and so he broke both of their hearts for her, just so she wouldn't have to face it. Just so she could pretend to hate him. Just so she could blame this whole situation on someone, anyone, other than herself. He knew Stefan would always be the first choice, but he also knew she'd never want to choose. And so he was taking himself out of the equation.
"I will love you forever." She swears when he pulls away at last. "I promise you, Damon. You will always be the one who made me feel alive, too. You're the person who brought me to life after my parents died."
Damon finally lets a single tear slip from his porcelain features. Once again, for lack of other words to say, they both watch it fall and splatter on the floor.
Funny, Elena thinks, though it isn't really funny at all, that's exactly what my heart feels like.
And so with one last whispered I love you, Elena closes her eyes. When she opens them again, he is gone.
"Goodbye, Damon." She whispers. "Thank you for teaching me how to live."
She never saw Damon Salvatore again.