i like to keep some things to myself

[blooded]

CHARACTERS: Damon Salvatore (blooded), Elena Gilbert (otrazhenie)
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Tents
WHEN: DAY :014 & END OF DAY :016
SUMMARY: Damon teaches Elena to pay attention to vital signs. & Damon has a nightmare. Elena asks some questions.
WARNINGS: Feeding, torture, despair, melodrama. Will add more if anything comes up!

❰ in a tent full of ten other people is not where damon would choose to have a nightmare, if he could avoid it. of course, he'd choose not to have any nightmares at all if that was an option, but if he has to have them, having them in at least a semblance of privacy would be ideal.

no such luck now. he's had a run of good luck since they got to hyrypia, no nightmares or reminders of augustine at all, but the night of his hunt... something must have set his subconscious off, but what, he has no idea.

it's not the worst nightmare he's ever had, at least. no one's hands in his guts, he still has both eyes. his whole body aches, but that was normal in those years, just something he got used to until he finally fully healed once he was free. it's not the ache that scares him, though, not the pervasive and constant pain that makes his stomach drop and his fingers twitch against his cot in his sleep.

enzo is screaming. he's been screaming for hours, and damon is stuck in his cell, unable to escape, or fight, or do anything at all but listen. he's sure enzo will scream himself hoarse and lose his voice at some point, whitmore will have to leave, something will have to make it stop, but it just keeps going, guttural and animal. there's nothing to do in the face of pain like that but scream. you can't escape it, can't fight back, can't do anything but take it, and that kind of thing... it makes you forget everything but the pain.

damon's never felt half so inhuman as he did when he was under whitmore's knife, guts stapled open, screaming himself hoarse while stomach acid burned through tissue that healed only to burn again in a vicious, agonising cycle.

the screaming suddenly stops, and for a moment, for just a second, damon is relieved. selfishly, terribly relieved, shoulders slumping and breath leaving him in one long sigh. but the screams don't start again, and whitmore doesn't bring enzo back to the cells, an hour passes and a terrible weight settles in damon's stomach as he realizes that enzo must be dead. he's left alone with whitmore now, the sole focus of all his terrible experiments, and maybe it's better that enzo is free of this but damon hates him for it, wishes he was dead too, why can't he die —

he wakes with a start, shaking violently as awareness trickles in slowly. he's on hyrypia, with the nest, with elena. enzo died in a fire in 1958, and damon had to turn off his humanity to let it happen. the shields that lapsed when damon fell asleep he builds back up slowly, hiding his thoughts in fog and under rivers of blood as he sits up and reaches gently for sam's mind, the path to his breathing excercise well-worn.

in to seven, out to eleven. ❱

Comments

[blooded]

❰ elena doesn't generally talk about the things that he missed over those four months she got while he was here. it's impossible for him not to be curious, to try to figure out what happened to her so he can figure out how to help her through it, so when memories start pouring off of her, he doesn't bother to strengthen his shields, watching everything as detached as he can possibly be —

except ric's dead, apparently, and how could he ever detach from that. ric was turned into some ubervamp hunter and died because of it and that's —

damon cuts off all thoughts that even tangentially involve ric, forcing himself onto a different mental path entirely. he's dealt with enough of his own bullshit tonight, and elena's dredging up her own is a good enough distraction as any. more than a distraction, though, it's... he has to get this through her head. it's a small thing, in amongst all her jumbled thoughts, but it's giant to him. ❱

You're an idiot, ❰ he says out loud, only loud enough for her to hear. his tone is both affectionate and harsh, angry but kind.

You think my life would be better if you'd died? Stefan's, Jeremy's? You think you dying would solve anyone's problems but yours?

he remembers seeing her collapsed on that altar of fire and blood, unmoving, the way his heart had stopped and his whole body had gone cold. like hers, his memories rush through the link, but he doesn't even try to shield them from her. she sees it all, his carrying her back to the witch house with numb limbs, trying to tell himself she'd come back human, terrified that she wouldn't come back at all, not even as a vampire. it'd have been a mercy, then, that he was already dying, that he could leave a world without her in it and it wouldn't even have to be his choice. she was, is, will always be everything, and the thought of eternity without her was too horrifying to even consider.

he carried the girl he loved in his arms, dead, and she wants to think his problems would be over if she had stayed that way. for someone so selfless, elena is so incredibly selfish. ❱

[otrazhenie]

[ She'd thought he would focus on what happened to Alaric, react in some way to the devastating news of the loss of someone he'd called a friend, who he'd worked beside and genuinely cared about. But really, she should have known that he would turn his attention to her memories of her deaths, to the times she'd hoped to stay dead, the time she truly regretted that she hadn't. It's almost strange to hear him speak aloud when so much of their conversation has been in their minds, but then--

The words are harsh, calling out the people who mean the most to her in all the world, and she has to wonder if he's right. If Jeremy had lost her that night, he would have still had Alaric, and John, and she knows that Stefan would have looked out for him, and Damon too. The brothers would have carried on as they always have, but things would have been different. Would it be better though?

And then she sees it all from his point of view, the memories like dropping into a lake so icy cold that it shocks the breath right out of her. She'd never known what it was like for the others to see her like that, dead, to wait and hope that the plan would work and she would come back. She'd never felt Damon's emotions in this way, known just how strong and everlasting his love was. Love for her. That's what she latches onto, what she wraps around herself to drown out the terror and the heartache, and it tugs at her own feelings, things she's been trying not think about, choices she'd made that night on the road that seemed right at the time but now...

Elena follows an instinct without thought, listening to her heart without thinking the action through first, and leans in the few inches needed to press her lips to Damon's, nothing in her mind except a memory of how right this felt before and a need to feel that again. ]

[blooded]

❰ he'd expected more of a fight. elena is very attached to her martyrdom, after all, has literally died for it, and the idea that she can't solve every problem by throwing her own body at it like she's jumping on a goddamn grenade is downright antithetical to everything she thinks she believes. she's eighteen goddamn years old, and she was really and truly ready to die before she became a vampire. that thought both terrifies and enrages damon, and he'd far rather be angry than scared —

but elena leans forward and touches her lips to his, and for a moment damon doesn't move at all. his brain just kind of... shorts out, unable to deal with what's happening at the moment. the last time elena kissed him — the only time, because the time before that was katherine — he was dying, and she wanted him to go out with a gift, something to hold onto as he shuffled off this immortal coil. this is... not that. he doesn't know what this is.

it takes a second, but he parts his lips for the kiss, just slightly, just enough to fit their mouths together, and he closes his eyes, and it's —

there aren't words. home comes closest, maybe, but even that is insufficient. everything in damon's head goes quiet, all the anger and the fear and the memories, and he can just... live, in this one beautiful moment.

but it is just one moment, and after it he pulls away, drawing his legs up onto the cot and leaning back so they're not touching anymore.

brother's girl. he won't forget. ❱

Elena, you should go back to sleep.

❰ his voice is rough and low, but insistent. he doesn't want to talk anymore, please don't make him. ❱

[otrazhenie]

[ When he allows the kiss and changes it in that tiny way, it's perfect. Everything she wants and needs in one some action, a single instance in time that buoys her soul and gives her hope for the future that lies stretched out endlessly in front of her. And when he pulls back so firmly, she understands why he does it, of course she does, but it still hurts far more than she ever could have expected. It's like being rejected by someone she lov--

Elena shuts away that pain in her heart, the longing to just stay beside him and feel safe and at peace, and covers everything in her with that deep water. She drowns her emotions so he won't see how torn she is, how completely conflicted, and how much his pulling away makes her want to cry.

She doesn't say anything, just nods after a long moment and stands, looking... lost. Out of place, like a cut flower left lying in the middle of the sidewalk, vibrance fading and wilting away with every passing second. ]