Damon could hear Elena as she came through the entrance of The Grill. Not in a sense that he could literally hear her over the music and the chattering people, but it was the beat of her heart. He would recognise it anywhere. The soft thumping of her heart seemed to have some sort of strange hold over him. It calmed him down, made him feel alive. A very humiliating thought for a vampire, odd even, in some circumstances.
He shouldn't be able to single out her heartbeat in all that noise, but somehow... Damon felt attuned to Elena's body in an eerie kind of way. He had done ever since saving her from the car wreck a while back. But he had always tried to tune out the closeness for fear that he would start feeling too much, not be able to hold it back. Not be able to keep his feelings from her.
But then Elijah had nearly killed them all and seeing Elena on the top of the stairs looking down at him with those doe eyes had made his dead heart flutter.
Hearing her heartbeat had been his saving grace. He had done a good deed. He had saved his brother, but most of all; he had saved Elena. Just like he had told Katherine he would. And he knew he always would.
Protect her. Save her. Be all for her.
Give her up just to be able to stay close to her.
He had to force himself not turn around to prove himself right, but he could hear her heartbeat getting closer to him, and it was picking up in speed. His brows furrowed. Why? It wasn't like Stefan was around...
He couldn't resist it; he had to turn around to find out why her heart was beating so fast. When he did, he found himself facing Elena as she was only inches from his face, looking at him very intently. He was taken aback a little. He wasn't used to Elena coming up that close to him at all. She usually kept her distance; he was the one trying to get close to her. Not exactly touching her, but sometimes brushing against her, just to feel her, just to make her feel unsure of him. To make her feel a bit frightened of him. But after the other night... he would have to leave her alone. He had to, for his own well being. And for her.
Right now, she was frightening him, and that was a very infrequent happening. It was just the way she was looking at him; eyeing him up and down. If he hadn't felt the warmth of her body so close to his, he would have bet it was Katherine standing in front of him staring him down. And after the prank Katherine had pulled on him outside on the porch of Elena's house, he'd always listen to Elena's heartbeat when one of those doppelgangers was around.
'Elena. What brings you here? And where's Wonderboy? Not with you tonight?'
He started to turn around to the bar again, when she lifted her hand and touched the sleeve of his jacket. Their eyes met and for a moment, something close to an electrical current passed between them, and Damon literally had to catch his breath. His eyes flickered down to her hand, before she slowly withdrew it from where it had been resting on his arm.
'Stefan is helping Caroline. Showing her...' Elena seemed to scan his face for something. '...well, something to do with being a vampire and freaking out. I didn't really pay any attention to what they were talking about.'
That sounded a bit off, Damon thought. Elena always listened to Stefan. And she always had an interest in her friends. Especially now, with Caroline being a vampire.
'Well', Damon said. 'What owes me the pleasure of Miss Elena's presence then?' This time she didn't stop him as he turned his back on her, and he emptied his drink in one go, then pointed to the empty glass for the bartender to fill him up.
He couldn't look at her. He'd kept away from the old boarding house in an attempt to steer clear of her, although he hadn't been able to avoid seeing her when that Rose-character had shown up telling them about Klaus and the threat to Elena's life.
(Like Damon would ever let some random vampire hurt Elena. Strong, ancient – whatever. That guy better stay the hell away from her.)
Just thinking of Klaus made his jaw tighten.
And weirdest thing was now, for the first time, in a very long time, she'd come looking for him.
Damon could hear her heartbeat increase just a little as she moved to stand next to him. As he raised his glass to take a sip he looked at her sideways leaning against the wooden bar top on his elbows. He decided to go for the cut-throat option.
'Spit it out, Elena. I don't have the time or energy to waste on trying to pry out of you what it is you want.'
She flinched at the harshness of his tone, but seemed determined not to let it bother her.
'I...', she started. She shook her head and took a deep breath. 'The other night I...' She stopped again, seeming to have lost her nerve.
Damon stood still with the glass half raised to his lips. He was frozen in place for just a sliver of a second by Elena's words. He quickly resumed his normal smirk.
'You want to thank me for saving your neck, and my dear brother's. Why, of course, Elena. It was my very own pleasure', he drawled, finishing this drink as swiftly as the last one; all at once. 'Fill me up', he told the bartender, who promptly did as he was told.
'No, I. Well, yes, of course.' Elena stuttered. 'Of course, Damon. I can't thank you enough. If you hadn't been there...'
There was a very flattering shade of pink staining her cheeks, and Damon had to clench his hands to fists to keep from touching her.
'Stefan would most certainly have been dead. And you too', Damon finished raptly.' I'd ask you to join me for a drink, but I'm not feeling in the mood for company tonight.' He kept his voice flat but wouldn't dare look at Elena for fear of seeing the hurt in her eyes. He wouldn't be able to take it, not right now. He hated feeling vulnerable, and the only one who could do that to him, was standing so close to him, he could feel the heat of her body right through his clothes, right through his skin, penetrating his bones as if there would have been nothing between them at all.
But he couldn't risk her saying out loud what he thought she would how could she. She had been vervain free when he had told her how he felt. It was impossible. Unless she had turned, and by the sound of her beating heart, he knew that wasn't the case.
'Damon', Elena's voice trembled slightly. 'I need to ask you something. It's very important. I just need to know, and then I'll leave you alone.'
He let out a deep sigh and turned to face her. She was nervously playing with the vervain necklace he had slipped back around her neck after telling her how he felt about her.
He had been stupid to tell her, but he had had to do it. The thought of something happening to him, or God forbid, her, without her knowing, without him having told her his true feelings. It would have broken him.
'Be quick', he snapped at her, as a contrast to his thoughts.
'I just need to know... Did you come into my room the other night, after the rescue?' Elena's eyes bore themselves into Damon's. Into his soul it felt like, and he forced himself to throw his head back and laugh. He looked down at her shaking his head lightly. He had to keep it together because Elena, with her deep brown soulful eyes, could see right through him. She always called him on the shit he pulled, and she always made it impossible for him to be untruthful to her.
'Now, why would I sneak into your bedroom, Elena? You have made it perfectly clear to me that you don't want me there.' The sarcasm in his voice was more than tangible. 'Please, leave me alone now. I'm tired and I'm drunk and I really, really don't want company tonight. Not even yours as sweet as you might be.' He once again turned towards the bar.
Damon could see Elena out of the corner of his eye. How she stared at him for just a moment, then looked around as if to find some sort of answer among the other punters in the bar. Eventually he heard her deep intake of breath before she slowly walked off in direction of the exit.
Damon put the glass against his forehead and closed his eyes. He couldn't believe it! She knew. Somehow she knew, but how. Vervain free she should never remember. The compulsion he used was so strong, it was just impossible. And now, his sweet little brother would find out about what he had done. And Damon could only guess that it wouldn't be the confession itself that would infuriate Stefan as much as the fact that he had used compulsion on Elena.
Elena could feel angry tears threatening to break through as she quickly walked across the parking lot to her car. Damon could just be such an ass sometimes. It was just the way he was, cold and rude. But he was hiding something. She could feel it.
When she'd been standing in the middle of her room that night, after being kidnapped, and she'd felt the necklace around her neck, like it had never been snatched from her at all, she knew something strange had happened. She'd asked Stefan the very next day, had he given it back to her somehow, but he said no. Stefan had then asked Damon who had also denied giving it back to her, saying he was too busy killing 500-year-old vampires to look for a necklace.
And now, she'd dreamed of Damon every night since. The dreams seemed so real that it felt like they truly happened. And that was why she'd picked up the courage to go looking for Damon to ask him, when Stefan wasn't around; asking questions of his own. The brothers' relationship was still strained, but they were trying really hard to build up a trust between each other. And Elena was not going to do anything to break that trust. But she had to know. It was in her nature.
The dreams were so vivid, even the thought of it frightened her. She could still feel Damon's lips against her forehead and his hand on her cheek. Still hear the sound of his heavy breathing and feel his toned body against hers. It made her face burn and she grimaced slightly at the thought.
Damon was... Damon. He was nothing but a bully; the epitome of a vampire with no deeper feelings than 'what's for dinner tonight? Young fresh student or a stay at home mom?'
But as Elena turned the ignition, another flash of her dream came to her. Damon's blue eyes forcing their way into her very soul. His voice telling her he loved her. The sweetness of his breath touching her skin. And the burning longing for him to pierce her skin and take her blood. Her face flushed and she shook her head to get her to think more clearly again.
She turned the key and headed home. Aunt Jenna was still bedbound since 'the knife accident' and needed help with everything. Well, almost, since Ric had a tendency to always be there...
It wasn't like Elena didn't know that Damon harboured feelings for her. She'd known for a while now. Bonnie had told her as much. Stefan too. Even her birth mother, Isobel. And though his actions often spoke against it, Elena could feel it sometimes when she caught him looking at her. They were real, his feelings for her.
Yet, this dream, it felt like so much more than just a dream. And why did it feel like the dream had happened before she even fell asleep? That was the weird part. It had felt like she had been asleep and all of a sudden woken up, standing in the middle of her bedroom, holding her necklace that Elijah, the vampire bound to make her some sort of sacrifice, had ripped from her neck and thrown down on the floor of the derelict house she had been held captive.
It really bummed her out that she couldn't find answers to her questions. And not that she had thought that seeking up Damon would have made things clearer, but she had been hoping. But what really freaked her out was the way she had felt when she'd seen him standing at the bar. Her heart had started beating faster at the bare sight of him, and not by fear as it usually did when she was around him. This time, her heart had reacted differently. It reacted the way it usually did when she would see Stefan. And that was what frightened her.