A/N Holy shit, you guys, how long has it been? But I'm back, to help all of us tide over this other freaking hiatus.
Elena locks herself in one of the nameless guest rooms of the boarding house, uneasy from the events in the alley. For some reason, drinking from Damon has unbalanced her, and now she teeters between aloofness and sentiment.
Alone and silent, she intellectualizes the situation, letting her mind take over the processing of what happened. Her head reigning supreme, she's left with the objectivity of an outsider, assessing everything with no emotions attached.
Still, her mental overdrive poses a problem. With no feelings clouding her thoughts, Elena's mind keeps going back to one truth. It's clear as day to her, and undeniable, even if she wants it to be otherwise. To her, there's no use pretending.
There's no use trying to deny that even in her no-humanity state, Damon still affects her.
The epiphany's enough for her to doubt whether the switch really exists.
It's already late into the night by the time Elena emerges from her hideout. Where there wasn't before, her steps now have a cautious quality to them, as if she's tiptoeing on eggshells. Despite this new nervousness, she has no doubt as to her direction.
Straight and true, her feet lead her right to Damon's bedroom.
Before she can knock, or even formulate a reason for being there, he's already opened his door. Tonight he's wearing a furtive but expectant expression on his face, his blue eyes alert and his arms perfectly crossed.
(His muscles are more distracting than she'd like them to be.)
Elena can't bring herself to mind his advanced sensing of her, because she knows she can do the same. Emotions off or not, her capacity to sense him hasn't diminished. If anything, she's only gotten better at ferreting out his place, or noting his approach before he's even in front of her. If she's honest with herself, she and Damon can't really surprise each other anymore.
"Let me in," she says, dispassionate about her own words.
Damon doesn't mutter a single response, letting her in as she's requested. To Elena's chagrin, Damon's look changes from furtiveness to confidence, as if he's always known she would come to him in the end. She has no idea where his new optimism's from, but she lets the matter go.
Letting go seems to be her modus these days, anyway.
Busying herself with preparations for sleep, she changes into one of his shirts, as if his Varvatos is entirely her own. When she strips down to her boy shorts, she hears his hissed intake of breath, and smiles at his muted unease. To his credit, he doesn't let any other bit of him break rank.
Even when Elena climbs into his bed, Damon still doesn't say a thing. As she sinks into the soft mattress, her face scrunching in pleasure, he takes a moment to breathe her in. Oblivious to his act, Elena stretches her body, working out invisible kinks out of habit.
The softness adds a lulling comfort, at least until Damon pulls her close.
There's no trace of request in what he's done, as if it's totally his right to imprison her with his body.
(But if she's totally honest, it's not such a bad way to get detained.)
Elena locks gazes with Damon. His sudden tug now has them facing each other, locked in a barely-hidden battle of will. Not wishing to endure the intensity of his blue orbs, Elena closes her eyes and pretends to drift off.
Fully awake (at least in her head), she starts counting sheep. When she gets bored, she imagines staking the sheep - a gesture appropriate to her predatory nature, even if it is a bit ironic. Upon reaching 52 dead herbivores, she hears Damon whisper in the silence.
"I hope you're resting well, sweetheart."
His words cause the sheep to disintegrate, and Elena envisions a chunk of her armor disappear completely. She knows, on an intellectual level, that he'll probably manage to hack the ice around her heart with just his words.
It's not a comforting realization.
Damon doesn't stop from then on. "You know, I underestimated how painful it would be to see you this way. Thought it would be easy since I've done it myself, but you have no idea how I miss you right now. I miss you even with your self-sacrificing tendencies, and that's saying something."
At that, he succeeds in thawing even more of her frozen heart. Her mind goes into self-preservation mode, and still his sentences don't pause. His hold doesn't loosen either, and Elena now feels his bare chest pressed against her nose.
Exactly as his scent drowns her, his anguished voice sounds out again.
"I know that one day you'll come back to me, Elena, and it won't matter what you do before then. You can fucking massacre the world around us if you want to, as long as you come back. That's all I care about."
Elena doesn't dare move.
Already he's broken through so much of her armor. She wants him to stop crushing the walls she's built around herself - wants him to refrain from trying to save her. By her own count, she doesn't need saving - what she needs is the peace of being emotionless, so she wishes that he'd just stop.
But of course, Damon doesn't honor her wishes. He just barrels on, the words still pouring.
"I don't know if you even give a shit about me right now, but I want you to know that's okay. I'll go through hell and back for you. I mean, I've been doing that for God knows how long already. What's another decade or so, right?"
Elena stops pretending to be asleep, unable to keep any composure anymore. Deep inside her, she knows that the switch can't take much more of the resolute adoration he's been expressing.
"Damon, you need to stop," she says, infusing her words with as much detachment as she can muster. (It's not much.)
True to form, he disregards her completely.
"I'll never be able to stop loving you, Elena, so I'm gonna beg right now - please don't ask me to."
Those final words thaw her heart completely. Only two seconds later, Elena disintegrates into wracking sobs.
Elena thrashes and cries through the night, destitute and lost in her grief.
Her entire chest feels completely broken - crushed beneath the realization of how she's acted in the past few days. Though her stint with the switch was a short one, her essentially good nature ends up preventing her vampire side from obscuring the bad bits.
"I'm here baby, I'm here," Damon whispers, holding her tight. He devolves into a mixed paroxysm of surprise, a little sadness, and a great deal of relief, knowing her switch is back on. Desiring to comfort her, he lays dozens of gentle kisses on her hair, forehead, and face.
"God, the...the things I did and...and said...to Caroline and Stefan and...oh God, to you... Damon, I'm sorry..."
His response is half another kiss, and half a whisper. "It's alright, Elena, don't worry. We'll be okay."
At this point, Elena doesn't even care about the possible effects of the stupid sire bond, now back in existence. All that matters is the comfort Damon's providing, and the forgiveness he's extended. It's all that's significant to her.
Any sort of concern about the sire bond to her seems only petty in comparison.
Sinking deep into his embrace, she sobs out, "Jeremy...and the house...God, I burned down the house with him inside it..."
"You weren't yourself," he says, using the same words he uttered when he saved her from near-suicide.
"I can't just...dismiss what I...what I did, Damon!"
"You have to, Elena. You'll remember what you did, but you have to forgive yourself for it."
"How can I forgive myself? I burned down Jeremy!" she says, convalescing into wails and shaking uncontrollably.
He tightens his hold on her, absorbing some of her grief, even if only physically. Unceasing and relentless, he keeps whispering his love into her ear, ever the devoted Pyramus to his distraught Thisbe.
Testifying to his own fortitude, not once does he let her go, patiently enduring the agonizing sound of her cries.
Even with Stefan's quick arrival, the elder Salvatore refuses the offered help. Braving the pain and sharing Elena's grief, Damon takes on the sole duty of comforting his beloved, even after the morning sun starts filtering into his bedroom window.
A/N Thoughts? I was a little concerned I rushed her getting her humanity back, but in the end, I'm ultimately happy with this chapter.